Bulletin N° 834
"Titanic"
“Hal's Watching”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFSE4dUJYM8
(6 min.)
&
“Disactivating Artificial Intelligence”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgkyrW2NiwM
(7 min.)
Subject
: ENDS & MEANS;
STRATEGIES & TACTICS – REPLACING THE CAPITALIST POLITICAL ECONOMY WITH
SOMEHTING BETTER.
12 February 2019
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
Karl
Marx once opined that the conditions for social change occur
independent of human will. In the last analysis, we are obliged to make the most
with what we have.
“Men make their own history, but they do not
make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances,
but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of
the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing
themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely
in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of
the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and
costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored
disguise and borrowed language.”
― Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
As
the ruling class weakens, all questions of formal legitimacy are set aside, and popular
will becomes more emboldened.
“The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us
the rope.”
― Anonymous
Today, we are forced to admit that
capitalist hegemony is a tough nut to crack. The owners of capital - adding
insult to injury - might very well take us all down with them. There is the
difference between a slave revolt and a revolution: the first is reactive, the refusal to live voluntarily
under certain conditions; the second is proactive,
the intention to realize a vision, to create a
egalitarian society without relationships of domination-and-submission.
The capitalist crisis has pushed us
beyond identity politics. We are now faced with the threat of ecological
catastrophe and thermo-nuclear annihilation of life on earth. A concerted
struggle against capitalist-class interests appears increasingly to be the only hope
for survival.
The
14 + items below offer readers the opportunity of peruse critical essays
and articles which should be evaluated and discussed in public to enhance our
political culture and enable us to envision social changes that would be to the
benefit of all. Such an effort would require a rejection of the suffocating
forces of propaganda that dominate the key institutions that continue to govern
our thinking. Sensitivity group formations, beyond more of the same
“identity politics,” might signal an important way out of this conundrum.
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.
Significant Research Reports on the
Capitalist Financial Industry.
https://archive.org/details/pdfy-Yc5BED-gpTNRjLh6
by
Eustace Mullins
[Plus
Eustace Mullins – “Monopoly Men” @ 1/5= https://youtu.be/yjwm8SKnFjQ
; 2/5= https://youtu.be/nTwLFLHZ-Cc
; 3/5= https://youtu.be/YyebtfbYS5E
; 4/5= https://youtu.be/LBDiRMf34pw
; 5/5= https://youtu.be/OqbfFeQt9bA
.]
https://archive.org/details/pdfy--Pori1NL6fKm2SnY
by G. Edward
Griffin
[Plus
The Creature From Jekyll Island –
video with G. Edward Griffin @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k&feature=youtu.be,
published on January 28, 2010.]
https://issuu.com/providier57108/docs/0992736536
by Stephen Goodson
[Plus
Fredrick Töben’s Review of Stephen Goodson’s book @ http://www.toben.biz/2014/10/a-history-of-central-banking-and-the-enslavement-of-mankind/
]
[Plus
Mathew Johnson’s book review @ https://www.sott.net/article/291745-Book-review-A-History-of-Central-Banking-and-the-Enslavement-of-Mankind
]
==========
b.
Deutsche Bank Crash- Germany Will Set Stage For Global Financial Collapse Feb 2019
with Richard Wolff
(audio, 35 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOm9egKrqqs
+
Goodbye to the Dollar
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/goodbye-to-the-dollar/
by Chris Hedges
The inept and corrupt presidency of Donald Trump has
unwittingly triggered the fatal blow to the American empire—the abandonment of
the dollar as the world’s principal reserve currency. Nations around the
globe, especially in Europe, have lost confidence in the United States to act
rationally, much less lead, in issues of international finance, trade,
diplomacy and war. These nations are quietly dismantling the seven-decade-old
alliance with the United States and building alternative systems of bilateral
trade. This reconfiguring of the world’s financial system will be fatal to the
American empire, as the historian Alfred McCoy
and the economist Michael Hudson have long pointed out. It will trigger an
economic death spiral, including high inflation, which will necessitate a
massive military contraction overseas and plunge the United States into a
prolonged depression. Trump, rather than make America great again, has turned
out, unwittingly, to be the empire’s most aggressive gravedigger.
+
WARNING TO MILLIONS OF AMERICANS! The Great American Purge Coming in February
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2NNxyxc2Ao
audio, 30 min.
with Richard Wolff
+
"2019 The American Collapse and Bankruptcy Begins"
CENSORED ???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhQfu8hoyeA
audio, 60 min.
(Feb. 22)
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHYCPSVGtv0
audio, 37 min.
(Feb. 24)
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdbASOwjUmE
audio, 31 min.
(Feb. 18)
with Paul Craig Roberts
==========
c.
Chris Hedges interviews Noam Chomsky:
“Workplace Democracy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9eRrSfNzng
Edward Snowden Explains
Who Really Rules The United
States of America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loLSdh26V5I
with Howskii deMaverick
“I
don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not
want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not
something I am willing to support or live under” | ''I'm willing to sacrifice
[my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government
to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the
world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building,"
Edward Snowden (June 21, 1983 age 34) is a former National Security Agency
subcontractor who made headlines in 2013 when he leaked top secret information
about NSA surveillance activities | Born in North Carolina in 1983, Edward Snowden
later worked for the National Security Agency through subcontractor Booz Allen
in the organization's Oahu office. During his time there, Snowden collected
top-secret documents regarding NSA domestic surveillance practices that he
found disturbing. After Snowden fled to Hong Kong, China and met with
journalists from The Guardian and filmmaker Laura Poitras,
newspapers began printing the documents that he had leaked, many of them
detailing the monitoring of American citizens. The U.S. has charged Snowden with
violations of the Espionage Act while many groups call him a hero. Snowden has
found asylum in Russia and continues to speak about his work. Citzenfour, a documentary by Poitras
about his story, won an Oscar in 2015. He is also the subject of Snowden, a
2016 biopic directed by Oliver Stone and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Edward
Snowden was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, on June 21, 1983. His
mother works for the federal court in Baltimore (the family moved to Maryland
during Snowden's youth) as chief deputy clerk for administration and
information technology. Snowden's father, a former Coast Guard officer, later
relocated to Pennsylvania and remarried. Snowden eventually landed a job as a
security guard at the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Study of
Language. The institution had ties to the National Security Agency, and, by
2006, Snowden had taken an information-technology job at the Central
Intelligence Agency. In 2009, after being suspected of trying to break into
classified files, he left to work for private contractors, among them Dell and
Booz Allen Hamilton, a tech consulting firm. While at Dell, he worked as a
subcontractor in an NSA office in Japan before being transferred to an office
in Hawaii. After a short time, he moved from Dell to Booz Allen, another NSA
subcontractor, and remained with the company for only three months During his years of IT work, Snowden had noticed the far
reach of the NSA's everyday surveillance. While working for Booz Allen, Snowden
began copying top-secret NSA documents, building a dossier on practices that he
found invasive and disturbing. The documents contained vast information on the
NSA's domestic surveillance practices. After he had compiled a large store of
documents, Snowden told his NSA supervisor that he needed a leave of absence
for medical reasons, stating he had been diagnosed with epilepsy. On May 20,
2013, Snowden took a flight to Hong Kong, China, where he remained as he
orchestrated a clandestine meeting with journalists from the U.K. publication
The Guardian as well as filmmaker Laura Poitras. On
June 5, The Guardian released secret documents obtained from Snowden. In these
documents, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court implemented an order
that required Verizon to release information to the NSA on an "ongoing,
daily basis" culled from its American customers' phone activities. The
following day, The Guardian and The Washington Post
released Snowden's leaked information on PRISM, an NSA program that allows
real-time information collection electronically. A flood of information
followed, and both domestic and international debate ensued. "I'm willing
to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S.
government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people
around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly
building," Snowden said in interviews given from his Hong Kong hotel room.
One of the people he left behind was his girlfriend Lindsay Mills. The pair had
been living together in Hawaii, and she reportedly had no idea that he was
about to disclose classified information to the public.
+
Blackwater Mercenary Prince Has a New $1 Trillion Chnese Bosslackwater
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-10/blackwater-mercenary-prince-has-a-new-1-trillion-chinese-boss
by Blake Schmidt
Erik Prince, the former Navy Seal who founded Blackwater, hardly seems like the type who dwells on corporate niceties. He was, after all, America’s foremost mercenary executive.
But there he was in Beijing, bearing an unlikely gift for a man who might open China to a freelancer known for his band of private contractors. It was a copy of his Blackwater memoir, “Civilian Warriors.’’
With that 2013 introduction to Chang Zhenming, chairman of China’s powerful CITIC investment conglomerate, Prince gained entry to a lucrative new market -- and, now, new controversy.
Prince, brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has made no secret about his ambitions in China. But since he became chairman of Frontier Services Group in Hong Kong five years ago, CITIC, his mainland benefactor, has slowly cemented its grip on the firm. Prince stepped down as FSG Chairman in December to make way for a new boss from the conglomerate, which has amassed a bigger stake than Prince’s 9 percent.
==========
d.
Climate Change in 2019: What Have We Learned From
2018?
Activists
from around the world walk on the streets of Katowice during the March for
Climate on December 8, 2018, in Katowice, Poland.
https://truthout.org/articles/climate-change-in-2019-what-have-we-learned-from-2018/
by Bruce Melton
+
Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
by Shannon Hall
A
new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became
a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation
+
Big oil and the environmentThe
truth about big oil and climate change
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/02/09/the-truth-about-big-oil-and-climate-change
Even
as concerns about global warming grow, energy firms are planning to increase
fossil-fuel production. None more than ExxonMobil
==========
e.
February
8, 2019
Watch the 16th Julian Assange
Vigil
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/02/08/join-the-16th-assange-vigil-webcast-here-at-4pm-est/
Unity4J
presented the 16th online vigil for WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange on Friday. You can watch the replay
here. Guests: Mike Gravel, Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, Brian Becker, Teodrose Fikre and more.
Among
the topics discussed were the Geneva city parliament
voting to ask the Swiss government to grant asylum to Assange,
a 2008 WikiLeaks release that is relevant again
because of Venezuela and Ambassador Tony Kevin’s plan to free Assange from the Ecuador embassy in London.
+
Acclaimed
musician Roger Waters calls on people to demonstrate in Australia to defend
Julian Assange
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/11/rwed-f11.html
==========
f.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Sunday, 3 February, 2019
Subject: [MCM] "Our free press" continues to black out the Matamoros
auto strike, although it's spread to many other
industries. Why is that?
Just as with the Yellow Vests, whose
protests are reported by "our free press" only now and then;
and just as with the massive post-election protests in
Honduras, which started in December of 2017
and raged throughout last year, until their violent suppression
by the state—a story that "our free
press" never mentioned, even though that crackdown
fed "the caravan" that did get quite a lot of
sentimental coverage here.
Thus "our free press"
consistently blacks out stories of mass solidarity, while daily,
hourly, highlighting
(and
sometimes fabricating) stories of division, always told divisively: of
women/blacks/ Hispanics/
Asian-Americans/Native Americans/trans-gender folk or (non-white) immigrants attacked, or
treated
as invisible, or somehow grossly disrespected by (it always
seems to come down to) bad white men
(like
Trump), or bad white people (e.g., "Hollywood").
It's very easy to imagine (as we are
encouraged to imagine) that the purpose of this endless
"social
justice" melodrama is, somehow, to make A Better World for all of us—but
that is
definitely not the case, since "our free press,"
while highlighting the grievances of disparate
"victim"
groups, is also as ferociously pro-war, and anti-anti-war, as it was back in
1917,
when it was demonizing Germany as fiercely, loudly and
dishonestly as it now demonizes
"Putin" and/or Russia, and
Maduro, and as it targeted Assad and Kim Jong-Un not
long ago,
and, earlier, Qaddafi.
And even as "our free
press" seems to side with "the oppressed," primarily in
certain privileged
sectors of American society—in corporate offices, in Hollywood, in
academia, in stand-up
comedy—it never takes our side against the powers that are oppressing
all of us. Whether it's
the mega-banks (and their enablers in the SEC and Federal
Reserve), or Big Pharma (and its
partners in the CDC), or the wireless juggernaut (and its partners
in the FCC), or the "criminal
justice" system, with its network of for-profit prisons,
or—especially—the CIA/FBI/NSA: a/k/a
the "national security" establishment, and its
affiliated SWAT teams nationwide, or any of the
other state-and-corporate combinations forged to keep us in
subjection overall, "our free press"
either blacks out that oppression, or ridicules the
few who dare speak out against it.
There is much more to say about the
"social justice" fakery of "our free press"—about its
blind eye to the suffering of the Palestinians, about its hostile
lack of interest in the scandal
of elite child trafficking (a lack of interest rather hard to
square with its #MeToo obsession),
or about its over half-a-century of whopping lies about the
murders of JFK, Malcolm X, Martin
Luther King and Bobby Kennedy (even
as it ritually "reveres" all four of them).
While I'll say more about those
oddities (if oddities they are) in weeks to come, the crucial
point today is that the aim of "our free press" is not to
serve democracy, but to prevent it at
all costs, because it is essentially a weapon of imperial
division.
MCM
From Joe Surkiewicz:
The Matamoros strike is spreading. Still no MSM coverage.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/02/mata-f02.html
Matamoros strike grows as Mexican ruling class warns of national
strike wave
By Eric London and
Andrea Lobo
2 February 2019
The strike of tens of thousands of Matamoros
workers spread beyond the maquiladoras this week to
new industries as workers in water purification, milk production, and Coca-Cola
bottling walked out of their Matamoros workplaces Thursday and Friday.
Several additional auto parts maquiladoras also joined the strike at the end of the week,
including at Spellman, Toyoda Gosei Rubber and Tapex. Although over a dozen plants have returned to work
after the companies granted the 20 percent wage increase and $1,700 bonus, more
than 25 remain on strike, costing the mostly US-based companies a whopping $37
million per day.
At the same time, a strike of 30,000 teachers
in the state of Michoacan neared the end of its third
week with thousands of teachers blocking train tracks linking industrial hubs
with the critical Pacific ports at Lázaro Cárdenas in
Michoacan and Manzanillo in
Colima. Last Monday, thousands of teachers in Oaxaca joined the strike.
Noticieros Televisa wrote Thursday that the teachers’
blockades “impact not only national industries but also their principle trading
partners in Asia. In Guanajuato, the auto industry already reports an impact to
supply lines.”
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) attacked the
teachers in a press conference Monday, ordering them to get back to work and
absurdly calling them right-wing: “This has nothing to with left-wing
politics,” he said. “This radicalism has everything to do with conservatism.”
The Mexican ruling class is terrified of the
growing strike movement.
In an article titled “The end of labor
stability,” Mexico’s main business paper, El Financiero,
warned on Thursday that “not in decades has Mexico been presented with 44
strikes in only one blow.” In comparison to recent weeks, the six-year
presidential terms of Vicente, Felipe Calderón and
Enrique Peña Nieto saw only 49, 40 and 23 strikes
respectively.
“As easy as one two three, the labor stability
which we have maintained for decades, with hundreds of thousands of successful
contract negotiations, is broken. And it won’t stop there,” El Financiero wrote, warning that the future will
bring “polarization” and “a growth of the contradictions between capital and
labor. It is the end of labor peace.”
An Associated Press report published Friday exposes
AMLO’s anti-working class role in seeking to break strikes and suppress wages.
According to business representatives cited in the AP article, AMLO and leaders
of his Movement for National Regeneration (Morena)
“actively discouraged the Matamoros union from seeking the pay increase.”
It wasn’t the union which demanded the wage
increase, but the workers themselves who organized independently and against
the explicit threats of the union. Now, the ruling class is leaning desperately
on the trade unions and their backers to block the development of a nationwide
strike movement.
Milenio newspaper warned that “there is a fear
of a contagion in the border region, where millions hope for an increase to
their incomes.” The paper quotes an anonymous business leader who said, “This
is without precedent. We are all involved in what here will mark what will be
the future of manufacturing in this country.”
The industry website Manufactura.mx reported
that a corporate representative said industry workers were “contaminated” by
the demands for a 20 percent wage increase and that companies anticipate the strikes
will spread. The business representative said, “We have an excellent
relationship with the union” and hoped the union would help the company avoid a
strike.
According to Noticieros
Televisa, in “the maquiladora
industry in Baja California [where the largest maquiladora
city, Tijuana, is located] there is a fear that workers will launch a strike
for wage increases.” Noticieros Televisa reports that maquiladoras
are “maintaining dialogue with the unions of the industry with the goal of
avoiding a labor stoppage.”
Workers are both excited by the growth of the
strike and concerned that the companies plan to betray whatever agreement they
reach.
One Matamoros striker said, “We all have to go
out together. The union is afraid that we are uniting. The majority of us are
already out. The problem is that the union hasn’t helped us and hasn’t
represented us. Now we have to go out and organize guards. We are not asking
for gifts, only what we deserve.” The worker said a union official told her
“you are nobodies for being out here.”
A striking Kearfott
worker told the WSWS, “I’m glad for the new strikers. This is for all workers
across the border that have that clause in their contracts” requiring wages
increase in parity with the minimum wage. “The same companies put it there and
now they have to pay. We are the most exploited and least rewarded class. I
think that it’s time for them to give back to us what they have taken.”
A worker at Autoliv
explained to the WSWS that after the company agreed to workers’ demands, “as
soon as we went back to work, they began to fire people.”
A worker at Tyco, which also agreed to the
wage increase and bonus, also told the WSWS there is a growing mood to strike
again to protect their coworkers from retribution:
“At Autoliv, they are
firing a bunch of people without severance or bonus. The manager fires workers
and mocks them, telling them that they are not going to pay their bonus or
severance. They are being sent to the conciliation and arbitration board and
are told that they’ll have to wait half a year or a year to resolve things.
Obviously this board is on the side of Autoliv.
“I think that the majority that are now
working, many who didn’t even participate in the wildcat strikes, should all
strike again to support their fired co-workers. They are already getting their
bonus and raise. We are a new generation that didn’t
know how to strike. We have won respect whether people like it or not. Maybe
it’s not all the respect we need, but this is our first strike and if things
don’t get better, our second strike will be more organized.”
Though the US business press is beginning to
report on the impact of the strikes in Mexico from an economic standpoint, the
websites of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and Socialist Alternative
as well as the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Jacobin magazine
have all ignored the strike entirely. None of these
anti-working class, anti-socialist organizations has published a single
article on the rebellion of Mexican maquiladora workers.
+
What Labor Activists Can Learn From the Seattle
General Strike
Seattle
shipyard workers in 1919 as they walk off the job.
==========
g.
Who Owns the Media?
Massive corporations dominate the U.S. media landscape. Through a
history of mergers and acquisitions, these companies have concentrated their
control over what we see, hear and read.
“I Oppose Interventionism, But-” But Nothing. Stop Being A Pro Bono CIA Propagandist.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51033.htm
by Caitlin Johnstone
+
Blood for Oil in Venezuela?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuUxcTZNigw&feature=youtu.be
+
Abby
Martin on Twitter: "How many western news outlets showed the massive
marches in Venezuela protesting the US-backed coup today? #HandsOffVenezuela
https://t.co/YBQpqbdEfl" /
Twitter
https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin/status/1091836605847851008
+
Venezuela Gets 'Ukrained'
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51022.htm
by Finian Cunningham US
national security advisor John Bolton tweeted cynically this week that he
“wishes” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to
take “retirement on a nice beach somewhere far away”. |
What is
astounding though is that despite the Venezuelan manoeuvre
being so blatantly obvious, the Western so-called news media have the audacity
to give the orchestrated development a veneer of credibility. The
abject servility of supposed Western journalism is pathetic.
+
People
Who Care About Democracy Don’t Plot Coups Abroad
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51034.htm
by Peter Certo
==========
h.
Saker Interview with Michael Hudson on
Venezuela
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51074.htm
by The Saker
and Michael Hudson
Introduction:
There
is a great deal of controversy about the true shape of the Venezuelan economy
and whether Hugo Chavez’ and Nicholas Maduro’s reform
and policies were crucial for the people of Venezuela or whether they were
completely misguided and precipitated the current crises. Anybody and
everybody seems to have very strong held views about
this. But I don’t simply because I lack the expertise to have any such
opinions. So I decided to ask one of the most respected independent
economists out there, Michael Hudson, for whom I have immense respect and whose
analyses (including those he co-authored with Paul Craig Roberts) seem to be the most
credible and honest ones you can find. In fact, Paul Craig Roberts
considers Hudson the “best economist in the world“!
+
Venezuela
Is An Opportunity For Russia And China To Change The
World
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51077.htm
by Paul Craig Roberts
Nothing
better illustrates Washington’s opposition to democracy and self-determination
than the blatantly public coup Washington has organized against the properly
elected president of Venezuela.
Washington
has been trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government for years. Washington
wants the state owned oil company to be privatized so
that it can fall into the hands of US oil companies. That would ensure
Washington’s control over Venezuela. Transferring the wealth out of the country
would prevent any economic development from inside the country. Every aspect of
the economy would end up in the hands of US corporations. The exploitation
would be ruthless and brutal.
Venezuelans
understand this, which is why Washington, despite wrecking the Venezuelan
economy and offering enormous bribes to the Venezuelan military, has not yet
been able to turn the people and the troops against Maduro.
Moon
of Alabama’s explanation of Washington’s attack on Venezuela gives you a truer
picture that differs completely from the lies voiced by the American and
European politicians and presstitute media, a
collection of whores who are devoid of all integrity and all morality and lie
for their living.
I
am not as confident as Moon of Alabama that Venezuela’s effort dating back to
Chavez to be a sovereign country independent of Washington’s control can
survive. Washington is determined to teach all of Latin America that it is
pointless to dream of self-determination. Washington simply will not permit it.
+
Geo-Political Realignments Over
Venezuela
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCxUdkUNusw
+
Italy vetoes EU recognition of Guaido
as Venezuela’s interim leader - M5S source
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0yg9mKLWPg&feature=youtu.be
==========
i.
IF AMERICANS KNEW
It
is the goal of If Americans Knew to provide full and
accurate information on this critical issue, and on our power – and duty – to
bring a resolution.
+
How
the Murders of Journalists in the Middle East
Are
Brushed Aside
by
Robert
Fisk
It’s
encouraging to hear that Agnes Callamard, the UN’s
execution expert, is at last in Istanbul to lead the “independent
international inquiry” into the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
Better late than never, perhaps, but the old UN donkey
clip-clops upon the world stage according to the politics and courage of the
panjandrums beside the East River in New York.
Thus
Callamard arrived all of four months after Khashoggi was butchered inside the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul. And she is now politely asking the Saudis themselves –
“respectfully”, she tells us – to give her access to the murder scene “at some stage”.
As
we all know, Khashoggi wrote the truth about Saudi Arabia, was lured to his country’s
consulate in Istanbul, got strangled, chopped up and secretly buried. And if
we’re going to come down hard on those who kill members of our journalistic profession
– alas, we’ll have to put aside for the moment all those Turkish journos banged up in their own country – Callamard has made a start. As opposed to all those like
the boss of the Morgan Stanley investment bank, James Gorman, and the president
of Switzerland, Ueli Maurer, who are keen to get back
to business with Saudi Arabia.
+
Israel
lobby fakes campus anti-Semitism say US journalists
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51078.htm
by MEMO
Details of how pro-Israeli lobby groups have
fabricated accusations of anti-Semitism on US college campuses in order to
incite official crackdowns against Palestine solidarity activism were revealed
earlier in the week during a political talk show hosted by prominent American
journalist Chris Hedges. The author and a visiting Princeton university
lecturer discussed the Israeli lobby with co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah and journalist Max Blumenthal, on his talk show “On Contact”.
Discussing the Al Jazeera documentary on the workings
of the Israeli lobby, the journalists described what they said was a “false
crises” created by a network of pro-Israeli lobby groups working with Israel’s
Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Israeli embassies “to lay a factual basis to
make federal civil rights complaints or lawsuits that can then be used to force
university administrations to muzzle students and teachers.”
A number of cases were cited to highlight the
Israeli embassies’ efforts to aggressively target American pro-Palestinian
student activists including the infamous case of Julia Reifkind.
The Israeli embassy officer spied on student supporters of Palestinian rights
while engaging in deception by suggesting that pro-Palestinian student
activists were behind an anti-Semitic incident on campus.
==========
j.
From: "ana hona" <anahona366@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, 10 February, 2019
Subject: They kill our children. Stop with us, anything we need
The policy of the Israeli occupation
forces now is killing children, killing innocents, killing nurses, doctors and
journalists
So as not to reach the truth to the
world that is ruthless and knows nothing about the truth
We are crying here for the child
Hassan Shalabi who was killed by the Israeli
occupation forces in cold blood
We need to deliver the truth and
need to help the injured
We try everything we can to do
something for good, not evil
All of us have been crying since
yesterday for this child
I can not
translate the video of the child and his family
If you hear him you will cry a lot.
Gaza is crying over him because of the bloody way in which this child was
killed
Help us communicate the truth and
deliver treatment and medical services to all wounded
Donate through this link
https://fundrazr.com/71RNh0?ref=ab_27HuG0_ab_b7RWR6
+
Gaza buries teens as Israel arrests suspect in settler
killing
Thousands
of Palestinians attended the funerals of teenagers Hasan
Shalabi and Hamza Shteiwi in the Gaza Strip.
==========
k.
From: Richard Greeman
Sent: Sunday, 10 February, 2019
Subject: France: Yellow Vests and Red Unions Strike Together
As Macron Prepares New Repressive
Measures
Yellow Vests and Red Unions Strike
Together
by Richard Greeman
On Tues, Feb. 5, as the Macron
government pushed harsh repressive laws against demonstrators through the
National Assembly, the Yellow Vests joined with France’s unions for the first
time in a day-long, nation-wide “General Strike.”
At the very moment when in Paris the
lower house was voting to implement Macron’s proposed laws designed to suppress
public demonstrations (a legal right protected in both the French Constitution
and the U.N. Human Rights Declaration) tens of thousands of their constituents
were out in the streets all over the country demonstrating and striking against
Macron’s authoritarian, neo-liberal government. The demonstrators’ demands
ranged from better salaries and retirement benefits, restoration of public
services, equitable tax codes, an end to police
brutality, and banning the use of “flash-balls” on demonstrators, to Macron’s
resignation and the instauration of participatory democracy.
Deaf to the angry people’s
legitimate grievances, unwilling to deal with them, Macron has given himself no
other choice than to legislate new repressive legal restrictions to suppress
their continued free expression. This resort to open repression can only serve
to discredit the government’s handling of a crisis largely of his own making, treating a spontaneous social movement among
the 99% as if it were a terrorist or fascist conspiracy. The unpopular
President’s repressive tactics will inevitably backfire on him. The French are
extremely jealous of their liberties, and Macron’s monarchical arrogance can
only remind them of how their ancestors dealt with Louis XVI.
Moreover, the Yellow Vests, who have
been a painful thorn in Macron’s side since last November, were now
demonstrating together with the French labor unions, whom
he thought he had tamed last Spring. This convergences came in response to a
call for a one-day “General Strike” issued by the CGT and Solidaires,
who for the first time invited “any Yellow Vests who felt like it” to join. In
the event, quite a few did feel like it, despite the CGT’s previous hostility
to the Yellow Vests and despite their own fundamental suspicion of all
“representative” structures, like established parties and unions (whom the
Yellow Vests justifiably fear would attempt to coopt
them, speak in their name, and sell them out).
A Day of Action and Convergence
For a “first date” the one-day
Strike came off very well, somewhat to the surprise of both parties. And if
this tentative Red-Yellow alliance continues to solidify (and there is every
indication that it will) France will likely become ungovernable and the ruling
classes will be up against the wall. What might happen next rich in
possibility, for the French, with their long history of popular revolutions,
have been singularly inventive in coming up with new political arrangements.
For now, let us look more closely at what may in retrospect be an historic day.
The Strike began at exactly midnight
when a rowdy crowd of 200-300 demonstrators near Paris blocked the giant Rungis produce market (which replaced Les Halles, the legendary “Belly of Paris), cutting off
food to the capital with trucks lining up outside. You can see the Yellow Vests
among the Red flags of the CGT in this video from Le Parisien.[1] They even set up a barricade. In the
early hours there were also blockages at the airport of Nantes and at the
University there, at a key toll-gate near Toulouse, while in Grenoble transport
was perturbed all morning.
All told there were demonstrations
in at least 160 different localities, all different in size and conduct, mostly
improvised by people on the spot at the last minute. There were big ones in the
Channel ports Le Harvre, Rouen and Caen. In Strassbourg about 1500, in Lyon 5000 including 500 Yellow
vests. In Marseille the Yellow Vest march converged with the CGT at the Stock
Exchange, a shift of targets for the Yellow Vests from government to finance
capital.
In Paris, instead of the usual union
march through the popular quarters from the Bastille to Nation,
the CGT-led strikers invaded the fancy Right Bank territory, violently
contested for twelve weeks by the Yellow Vests, marching boldly up the Rue de Rivoli with its luxurious shop-windows (and construction
sites with bricks lying around). They then held an impromptu rally at a major
intersection, tying up traffic and baffling the police.[2]
Here in Montpellier, as elsewhere in
France, the crowd was big, but no bigger than some of the previous Saturday
Yellow Vest demos – as was the case all over France. But this Tuesday it was
largely a union crowd. On the other hand, after weeks of gassing peaceful
protestors, the police presence was extremely discrete, and one Gendarme was
filmed explaining to the Yellow Vests protestors that the Gendarmes had
“nothing against them,” that his family supported the movement, explaining that
they were soldiers and sworn to obey orders (the Gendarmerie is under the
military). They Yellow Vests answered that they “had nothing against the
Gendarmes either.” See amazing video.[3]
When I arrived at the gathering
point, the loudspeakers of the CGT sound-truck were blaring out a long boring
speech – complicated stuff concerning the Euro. No possibility of conversation
much less convergence. Next up the line came a contingent of CGT people, quite
a number of whom were wearing yellow vests with bright red CGT emblems on them.
This “dual” identity underscores the naturalness of the convergence of the two
movements of working class people who have nearly identical economic goals and
all the same enemies. Like the Red-Yellow CGT activists, nearly every Yellow
Vest has by now personalized her/his attire, inscribing slogans on them like:
“End of Month/End of World: Same Combat,” “Macron Resign!” “Down with
Capitalism” and the very popular “Government of the People, By the People and
for the People” (The French haven’t a clue they’re quoting Lincoln, an American!)
At the front of the column, after
the CGT banner, were the Yellow Vests, perhaps 200 strong behind our banner and
singing aloud. I was a little disappointed by the low turnout of Yellow Vests.
Also that they didn’t go back and fraternize and mingle with the union folk, as
one woman proposed and I attempted, in spite of the loud recorded CGT music. At
the end of the march, our Montpellier Yellow Vest had planned to hold an
open-mike speakout, but that didn’t come off either.
But as comrades kept reminding me, it was an important first step, and we’ll be
back. We make our road by walking.
Who Are these Yellow Vests?
Since Nov. 17, 2018, the popular,
nation-wide, self-organized Yellow Vests movement has been keeping up the
pressure on the neo-liberal Macron regime with daily protests at traffic
circles and weekly demonstrations in dozens of cities. It is made up of
average, lower middle-class French people, mostly provincials, whose lives have
gotten worse under neo-liberal policies. They are mostly “little people” who
are struggling to make ends meet and are tired of being ignored and humiliated
by France’s elites.
Last November, they began to turn
off their TVs, come out of their houses, join together at traffic circles and
toll booths, get to know each other, grill sausages
and feel empowered, rather than isolated and helpless. They thus humanized
these “noplaces” or non-places created by the
automobile civilization that had stripped their villages of post-offices,
bakeries and cafés forcing them to spend two hours every workday in their cars.
The Yellow vests represent a
demographic cross section of France– naturally minus the top 2% or 3%. And, unfortunately, for the moment, minus the 10% (?) of France’s
doubly oppressed, discriminated immigrant communities. The Arabs,
Berbers, Black Africans and other immigrants who do most of the dirty jobs, who
are rarely seen in civil service jobs, and whose youth riots in the Banlieues (Projects) seriously challenged President Sarkozy in 2005. (Partly due to my suggestion, the
Montpellier Yellow Vests are starting to reach out to the immigrant
communities.)
Coming from many different
backgrounds, the Yellow Vests wisely chose to put aside their political differences
and party preferences, avoid pointless arguments, and focus on the struggle
that unites them, each speaking for her or himself (alternating genders to
maintain parity). As the weekly protests continued, the Yellow Vests were
slowly refining their goals and tactics and discovering how to organize
themselves while retaining their autonomy. After more than two months, on Jan.
25-27, delegates from 75 local Yellow Vest Assemblies came together in the town
of Commercy (Lorraine) for their first “Assembly of
Assemblies” and wrote a democratic, egalitarian, anti-racist Declaration
(discussed below) which soon achieved a consensus around the country. So a
functioning federation with common goals is now emerging.
Remarkably, the Yellow Vests’
rebellion has persisted week after week despite a government campaign of brutal
police repression – including thousands of injuries (some serious), several
deaths, a thousand arrests, and routine tear-gassing of peaceful groups. The
Yellow Vests have persisted despite being constantly vilified by the government
and media as fascists, violent terrorists, “a hate-filled mob” (Macron) etc.
Yet, amazingly, according to the latest polls, 77% of French people at large
think their mobilization is “justified” (up from 74% in January.)
Most remarkable of all, they have
wrung some actual concessions from Macron, who, after disdainfully declaring he
would “never” give in to an unruly mob, was forced to rescind the tax on Diesel
fuel that the movement had originally crystalized
around, and promised a raise in the minimum wage and a cut in taxes on
retirement income (both of which turned out to be shams on close examination).
These practical victories, won by an
autonomous group that refuses to anoint leaders or to negotiate, have deeply
embarrassed the French labor movement and particularly the “militant” CGT
(General Confederation of Labor, historically affiliated with the French
Communist Party) which, after months of stop-and-go strikes last Spring, failed
to block the implementation of Macron’s neo-liberal “reforms,” which took away
many benefits won by French labor during the great struggles of the past.[4]
The defeated strikers returned to
work last Sept. with their tails between their legs, simmering mad; and it was
out this void of active opposition to Macron’s ongoing neo-liberal offensive
that the Yellow Vests spontaneously emerged and spread across the country, with
their spectacular direct action tactics. Many union members, more or less
disgusted with their leaders, joined the Yellow Vests from the start. The
Yellow Vests organized themselves via Facebook pages,
socialized in traffic circles and parking lots and grew into an autonomous
social movement. They stood up for themselves and for the rest of France’s
working poor, unemployed, single mothers, and retired people. They
spontaneously organized mass civil disobedience, successfully opposing Macron’s
economic program of taking from the poor and giving to the rich (from whose
soft white hands the wealth will theoretically “trickle down.”)
The CGT
The immediate response to the rise
of the Yellow Vests on the part of the CGT and its leader, the unsmiling,
mustachioed Martinez (picked by Central Casting for the “tough-guy” part) was
suspicion (‘petty-bourgeois fascists?’) and hostility. Martinez and the other union bureaucrats could not help seeing the Yellow Vests
as competitors, and thus as a threat to their own hegemonic status as
official representatives of the workers – especially after Macron’s
“concessions.”
After shocking reports
of police violence unleashed by Macron’s government against the Yellow Vests’
third Saturday demonstration, and in direct
response to an appeal for calm from Macron, on Dec.
6, the leaders of the CGT and all the other labor federations except for
Solidaires, signed a Déclaration of solidarity – not of solidarity
with the injured and arrested demonstrators, but with the Macron government,
the alleged representative of the “peaceful republican order!”[5] In return for what many described as a
“betrayal,” the labor movement’s clique of professional negotiators accepted
Macron’s invitation to “resume the social dialogue” – that is to allow them to
sit at the table with him and negotiate more give-backs of workers’ rights.
The union leadership’s
pledge of allegiance to the neo-liberal flag did not go down well in the union
ranks. And so the very next day, Martinez
and the other union leaders spun in the wind like weathercocks, started acting
militant, and called for a national labor demonstration (legal) on Fri. Dec 14.
The union leaders’ strike demands covered the same basic economic demands as
the Yellow Vests. The event was to be a demonstration of power, a
public-relations leadership challenge, and it was pointedly planned for Friday,
not Saturday – the Yellow Vests’ demonstration day (the only free day for many
of them, for example single parents, workers in offices and small businesses
who don’t have strike pay or legal rights to strike). The Friday Dec. 14 union
demonstrations were hardly imposing compared to Saturday’s Yellow Vest evens,
so the ploy fizzled.
Two months later, the CGT’s issued
another call for a one-day “General Strike” on Feb. 5 (a Tuesday). It seemed
like a replay of the same ploy, but in a gesture toward the more and more
obvious need for “convergence,” Martinez opened a crack for Yellow Vests “to
join if they wished” (as he said the day before the Strike). However the next
day, blowing with a different wind, he changed his tune and actually made some
sensible remarks about convergence:
“People have been saying for more than two months that we
must talk and find common demands. We have them. There is no reason we
shouldn’t march side by side, the ones behind the others. What is important is
to have a successful first day of action together, because I find that the
bosses have been let off easy [by the Yellow Vests – Ed.] and it is time to
bring to account the big bosses of this country.”
Martinez remark about needing to
attack the big bosses was both pointed and to the point. The Yellow Vests,
given their broad and varied social composition, have naturally focused on the
consumer issues they have in common as working folk struggling to make ends
meet: high prices, unfair taxes and declining social services, directing their
anger at the government, the media and the political elite. Their signs often
denounce “capitalism,” but as a group they have no direct relationship with big
industry and finance in whose interest Macron rules. Yet clearly, only with the
active participation of France’s organized workers can this broad popular
movement succeed – for example through an unlimited general strike with
occupations of workplaces and public spaces as in 1968.
The Opening of Chapter Two in the Movement?
More encouraging, Martinez’
co-organizer of the Feb. 5 strike, Cécile Gondar-Lalanne,
whose union Sud-Solidaires has been supportive of the
Yellow Vests from the start, declared: “if today works out, we must look
forward doing it again, to constructing a common movement.” To this observer,
such a convergence of the Reds with the Yellows, if it develops, might release
a revolutionary power greater than anything we have seen in modern history.
The Yellows, composed of a
cross-section of the common people in the provinces already have the support of
the vast majority of French people. They have held off the government for
thirteen weeks and show no sign of relenting. The Reds, meaning the organized
workers, have the power to strike and bring a halt to France’s major
industries, transportation, energy and all public services, as they did in 1936
and 1968.
United, the Reds and the Yellows
have the potential to change the system, and many of the Yellows clearly have
system-change on their agenda.
System-change is definitely not on
the agenda of Martinez and the other union bureaucrats, whose social status,
like that of the members of the National Assembly, depends on their role as the
official “representatives” of their constituents within the existing system.
Given the pressure from below, Martinez has no choice but to play at
“convergence” with the Yellow Vests today, but it is only to outmaneuver them
and secure his official status as labor’s representatives. This is precisely
what the Yellow Vests feared from the start when they founded their movement on
autonomy – perhaps remembering the dismal role played by the CGT in ending the
general strike and popular uprising that shook up the De Gaulle regime in 1968
(and whose 50th anniversary was being celebrated all over the media
all last year).
So Red-Yellow convergence is taking
place in a conflictual context pitting the
traditionally hierarchical, vertical discipline of the CGT and other French
labor organizations against the innovative, horizontal self-organization of the
proudly autonomous Yellow Vests. The presence, observed in Montpellier and on
the videos of the Feb. 5 event, of demonstrators with big red CGT badges on
their Yellow Vests, is already significant. The fact that these Red-Yellow (Orange?)
activists dare to openly display their independence within the tightly
organized culture of the CGT is a sign of cracks opening in that bureaucratic
structure through which imaginative wildcat initiatives may emerge.
Convergence is also developing from
below, through mutual understanding. According to the investigative journalism
site Médiapart (whose coverage of this
event was superb) “a not very militant” CGT member who has been out with his
Yellow Vest on the roundabouts and demonstrated every Saturday remarked that
“there are lots of employees who can’t strike, who work in small shops and
whose relations with their bosses are too direct. But they understand that the
problem is big capital.”
In Paris, a young man up from Lognes with his wife (who had never before demonstrated)
and his Yellow Vest group held out a CGT flyer showing a red arm and a yellow
arm holding each others hand. He concluded: “Today
may be the beginning of Chapter Two of our movement. We must all converge!”.
Two
railroad workers on the Paris-East line share his hopes. “The CGT has always
been a fighting union, we’re on the side of labor, not capital. Before taking a
definite position on the Yellow Vests, we needed to wait to see how this
movement was going to clarify its outlook. Now, their discussions and demands
are interesting, indeed attractive, rather leftist,” they judged. “This
movement has evolved on the ideological plane, the
Yellow Vests have become conscious through their struggle. It’s time to
converge, to join together.”
Yellow Vests’ Self-Education in Action
Over time, the Yellow Vests’
objectives have indeed deepened, as evidenced by the evolution of the home-made
signs at demonstrations, by lists of progressive demands from various local
groups, and finally, at the end of Jan. 2018, by a Declaration (reproduced
below) voted by a “General Assembly of General Assemblies” attended by Yellow
Vests mandated by some 75 different local groups. A second Assembly, bringing
together many more groups, is being prepared as the Yellow Vests structure
themselves in a loose federation and learn to represent themselves through
delegates selected (always one woman and one man) with limited mandates and
subject to recall (the system of the Paris Commune of 1871).
The Commercy
Declaration defines their goals as “dignity,” an “end to inequality,” “free
public services,” “higher” salaries, retirements, etc., taxing the super-rich
to pay for them and the restructuring of France as a participatory democracy
through referendums. At the same time, in response to charges by Macron, the
media, and any number of groups on the far Left, The Yellow Vests Declaration
declares: “we are neither racist, nor sexist, nor homophobic, we are proud to
come together with our differences to build a society of solidarity.” Although
this radical Declaration is not a binding program, it expresses a consensus and
has been quickly adopted by many Yellow Vest groups, who are looking forward to
a larger nationwide Assembly of Assemblies in two months.
The investigative site Médiapart sent two reporters up to Commercy after the Assembly of Assemblies and filmed their
conversations with a couple of dozen local Yellow Vests, giving us an intimate
view of how this diverse group interacts and makes decisions – a long process
of patience, respect, tolerance, and conscious self-education. They explain how
each individual brings pieces of the truth from her/his knowledge and
experience, from which a consensus is achieved. (Or not achieved, on subjects
where they are not ready to decide and sweep under the rug until they are).
The atmosphere is one of trust and
comradeship and active listening. Interventions are short and to the point.
Viewing the video, I was struck by the contrast between the locals’ discourse
and that of the two academic sociologists, both charming and well intentioned, who tended to go on and on and talk over each other, adding
very little. The local Yellow Vests, whatever their education levels, have all
learned to express themselves in public succinctly, and some have become quite
eloquent. Linked by common struggle, pooling their knowledge, they are tapping
into “the Wisdom of Crowds” long known to socialists and recently studied by
psychologists.
They also have fun and laugh a lot.
For example, here in Montpellier, the first report on the Agenda of last
Sunday’s General Assembly was on the question of how to curse and insult the
“forces or order” (cops). The rapporteur went
through a whole list of insults which, like “cocksucker” are offensive to gays,
or women, or sex itself. It was both hilarious and
instructive. He the proposed a number of really nasty, but politically correct
insults, and his report was approved by the group. This Saturday we are going
to demonstrate wearing masks, to mock the government’s vicious liberticidal
anti-demonstration laws which criminalize covering your face.
Macron’s Throne Is Shaky
As for Macron, his popularity
hovering around 22% thanks to his regal pretentions, inflexible neo-liberal
orthodoxy, methodical use of violence to suppress the expression of legitimate
citizen grievances and criticism, and his contemptuous way of talking down to
his angry subjects. This figure is slightly above the 18% of the 2017
Presidential vote he got on the first round, before being elected as the only
alternative to “the fascist LePen.” Compare this with
approval of the Yellow Vests, which stands at 77%. The French hate nothing
worse than being talked down to and taken for jerks, and Macron is his own
worst enemy, for example when he declared that the presumably lazy French had
“lost the taste for effort” – when more than half of them are breaking their
backs just to survive.
Macron’s latest ploy is the “Great
Debate,” a public-relations charade designed to counter the Notebooks of
Grievances being circulated by the Yellow Vests in imitation of the Cahiers
de Doléances of the 1789 Revolution. The “Great
Debate” consists of a serious of programmed meetings between Macron or one of
his Ministers and the elected Mayors of a region. Hardly democratic considering
how many mayors are the tools of local real estate interests and political
mafias. Nonetheless, some mayors are actually honest and sincere, and at the
very first televised “Debate,” the first mayor to take the floor made a searing
critique of Macron and his handling of the crisis. Now questions are filtered
in advance. Whom does Macron think he’s fooling?
Curiously, the French public
intellectuals and philosophers, who occupy a much larger space in the media
than their American counterparts, have mostly turned a cold shoulder to the
Yellow Vests. If I’m not mistaken, only two have seriously take
up their defense: the popular libertarian philosopher Michel Onfray (author of 100 books) and the historian-anthopologist-essayist Emmanuel Todd. They alone carry on
the contrarian tradition of Voltaire, Zola and Sartre into the 21st
Century, our epoch in which the mediatized intellectuals, like the media personalities, the media
owners, the politicians and the labor leaders have all become integral parts of
what the French call “the political class.”
Meanwhile, Macron is traveling
outside of France and playing a role in international affairs to deflect from
the intractable crisis at home, while the media keep up a business as usual
façade, respectfully reporting the Great Debate and reducing the Yellow Vest
insurrection to a weekly tally of the number of demonstrators (aren’t they
declining yet?), the number of arrests and of cars burnt. I suppose that like
frightened little kids, the French elites think that if they hide their eyes
all these angry little people will go away, but they won’t. What will Act XIII
(or Chapter Two) reveal?
APPENDIX:
Call
from the First Assembly of Assemblies of the Yellow Vests
We,
the Yellow Vests of the roundabouts, of the parking lots, of the squares, of
the assemblies, rallies and demonstrations, have gathered on January 26 and 27,
2019, as an "Assembly of Assemblies," bringing together a hundred
delegations, in response to a call by the Yellow Vests of Commercy.
Since
November 17, from the smallest village, from the rural world to the largest
city, we have risen up against this deeply violent, unjust and unbearable
society. We will no longer let ourselves be pushed around! We are rebelling
against the high cost of living, precariousness and poverty. For our loved
ones, our families and our children, we want only to live in dignity. It's
unacceptable that 26 billionaires own as much as half of humanity. Let's share
the wealth and not the poverty! Let's put an end to social inequality! We
demand an immediate increase in wages, social minima, allowances and pensions;
the unconditional right to housing and health, to education; and free public
services for all.
It
is for all these rights that we are occupying roundabouts on a daily basis,
that we organize actions and demonstrations, that we discuss everywhere. With
our yellow vests we retake the floor, we who have never had it.
And
how has the government responded? With repression,
contempt, denigration. Many dead and thousands wounded, massive use of
firearms that mutilate, blind, injure and traumatize. More than 1,000
individuals have been arbitrarily detained and sentenced. And now the new
"anti-wrecker" law is applied to stop us from demonstrating. We
condemn all such violence against protesters, whether from the police or
violent gangs. None of this will stop us! To demonstrate is a fundamental
right. End impunity for the police! Amnesty for all the victims of repression!
And
what a dirty trick is the so-called great national debate - in fact it's just a
government propaganda campaign that manipulates our desire to debate and
decide! True democracy, as we practice it in our assemblies, in our
roundabouts, is neither on television nor in the fake roundtables organized by
Macron.
After
having insulted us and treated us as less than nothing, now he points to us as
a hateful fascistic and xenophobic mob. But we are quite the opposite: neither
racist, nor sexist, nor homophobic, we are proud to come together with our
differences to build a society of solidarity.
We
are strengthened by the diversity of our discussions. At this very moment hundreds of assemblies are developing and proposing
their own demands. These concern real democracy, social and tax justice,
working conditions, ecological and climatic justice, and the end of
discrimination. Among the claims and strategic proposals that are the most
debated, we find: the eradication of poverty in all its forms, the
transformation of institutions (citizen's initiative referenda, constituent
assembly, abolition of the privileges of elected officials ...), the ecological
transition (energy injustice, industrial pollution ...), the equality and the
taking into account of all regardless of their nationality (people with
disabilities, male/female equality, an end to the neglect of popular
neighborhoods, the rural world and the DOM-TOM [overseas territories] ...).
We,
the Yellow Vests, invite everyone to join us with their own means and
abilities. We call for continuation of the acts of protest (act 12, against
police violence at the police stations; acts 13, 14 ...), to continue the
occupations of the roundabouts and the economic blockades, to build a massive
strike starting on February 5th. We call for committees to be formed at
workplaces, at schools and everywhere else so that this strike can be built from
the bottom up by the strikers themselves. Let's take things into our own! Do
not remain alone - join us!
Let's
organize ourselves in a democratic, autonomous and independent way! This
assembly of assemblies is an important step that enables us to discuss our
demands and our means of action. Let us federate to transform society!
We
urge all Yellow Vests to circulate this call. If as a group of Yellow Vests you
agree, add your signature and send it to Commercy (assembledesassemblees@gmail.com). Do not hesitate to
discuss and formulate proposals for the next "Assemblies of the
Assemblies," which we are preparing for right now. Down with Macron -
power to the people, for the people and by the people!
[1] http://www.leparisien.fr/economie/val-de-marne-des-manifestants-bloquent-les-entrees-du-marche-international-de-rungis-05-02-2019-8004348.php#xtor=AD-1481423553
[2] Information from the investigative journalism website
subscriber-supported website, Médiapart, at
whose studio Macron’s justice department recent attempted to conduct a warantless search, scandalizing civil libertarians. https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/050219/gilets-jaunes-et-rouges-cela-peut-etre-le-debut-du-chapitre-deux-de-notre-mouvement
[3] https://francais.rt.com/france/58841-gendarme-gilets-jaunes-montpellier-toutes-nos-familles-elles-sont-avec-vous?fbclid=IwAR2PooRLq2Oj_j0jRPQt2wuNaVA4GKBunkIhdVo5Gnk3VbQUPZhjOx1HiqA
[4] Please see: Richard Greeman
« Spontaneous
Teachers’ Strikes Sweep Conservative U.S. States. French Strikes Remain
Stalled” http://divergences.be/spip.php?article3348
[5] https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/Les-directions-syndicales-repondent-a-l-appel-de-Macron-pour-maintenir-l-ordre-contre-les-gilets?fbclid=IwAR3yhFKIVT0XadWlW36bZM_ME7XnoKGicuazV0OwIWeTJPphVIxFzsgQ-ps
+
Yellow Vest violence erupts on streets
of Paris
for THIRTEENTH weekend in a row
+
Macron Tactics Against
Yellow Vests Have Nothing to Do with Public Safety, Everything to Do with
Global Politics
==========
l.
US Bare Bum Brexit? Twitter Bursts as Prof Strips
to Protest UK's EU Divorce
https://sputniknews.com/viral/201902111072308143-brexit-naked-protest/
The UK's imminent departure from the European Union next month has accentuated divisions in British society, with remainers coming up with some desperate and, ahem, 'eye-catching' methods to bring attention to their cause.
University of Cambridge professor Dr. Victoria Bateman startled a BBC Radio 4 host when she appeared completely nude to protest Brexit, saying her three-pronged message to Brits was that "Brexit leaves Britain naked."
'I invite Jacob Rees-Mogg to a naked debate about Brexit!'
Cambridge lecturer Dr Victoria Bateman, who campaigns against Brexit while naked, challenges the Brexiteer MP #r4today pic.twitter.com/wTwyEY66NQ
==========
m.
US accuses China of preparing for WWIII: What you’re
not being told
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/450970-china-preparing-ww3-us/
A
Republican senator has accused China of preparing for World War III. Like most
of Washington’s statements concerning China, the lawmaker has completely
ignored the US’ role in creating such a scenario in the first place.
Just
last week, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma made the allegation that
China’s military was preparing for World War III.
“It’s like you’re preparing for World War
III,” he said during a Senate hearing focused on the so-called challenges
presented by Russia and China. “You’re
talking to our allies over there and you wonder whose side they’re going to be
on.”
According
to Inhofe, the US has sat back and watched as China has built its military
presence in the South China Sea, turning artificial islands into potential
launch pads for its military.
The
idea that the US has sat back and watched anything, ever, in the history of the
world, is somewhat laughable. Even under the Obama administration, the
president had an explicit containment strategy
which was supposed to enclose and encircle China from all angles. The so-called
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) was also designed for this
purpose (yet for some reason Donald Trump, who is overtly anti-Chinese, thought
the agreement was a bad idea).
Inhofe
also said he was “concerned”
that “our message” was “not getting across.”
+
Get over it: Asia rules
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51073.htm
by Pepe
Escobar
New book helps explain why the 21st Century will be the Asian
Century
The greatest merit of Parag Khanna’s new book, The Future is Asian, is to accessibly tell the story of
a historical inevitability – with the extra bonus of an Asian point of view.
This is not only a very good public service, it also
blows out of the water countless tomes by Western “experts” pontificating about
Asia from an air-con cubicle in Washington.
Asia hands from the West tend to be extremely protective of
their extra-territoriality. In my case, I moved to Asia in 1994, and Singapore
was my first base. In time I found out – along with some of my colleagues at
Asia Times – nothing would ever compare to following the ever-developing,
larger than life Asian miracle on the spot.
Khanna has always been in the thick of the action. Born in India,
he then moved to the UAE, the West, and is now a resident in Singapore. Years
ago we spent a jolly good time in New York swapping Asia on-the-road stories;
he’s a cool conversationalist. His Connectography is
a must read.
Khanna found a very special niche to “sell” Asia to the Western
establishment as a strategic adviser – and is very careful not to ruffle
feathers. Barack Obama, for instance, is only guilty of “half-heartedness”.
When you get praise from Graham Allison, who passes for a Thucydides authority
in the US but would have major trouble understanding Italian master Luciano Canfora’s Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L’Esilio, you know
that Khanna has done his homework.
Of course, there are a few problems. It’s a bit problematic
to coin Singapore “the unofficial capital of Asia”. There’s no better place to strategically
follow China than Hong Kong. And as a melting pot, Bangkok, now truly
cosmopolitan, is way more dynamic, creative and, let’s face it, funkier.
==========
n.
US
arms exports over last 6 decades
(TIMELAPSE)
http://www.toben.biz/2018/07/us-arms-exports-over-last-6-decades-timelapse/
by Fredrick Töben
+
Placing
the USA on a collapse continuum with Dmitry Orlov
https://thesaker.is/placing-the-usa-on-a-collapse-continuum-with-dmitry-orlov/
by The Saker
The
word ‘catastrophe‘ has several meanings, but in its original
meaning in Greek the word means a “sudden downturn” (in Greek katastrophē ‘overturning, sudden turn,’ from kata- ‘down’ + strophē ‘turning’). As
for the word “superpower” it also has several possible definitions, but my
preferred one is this one
“Superpower is a term used to describe
a state with a dominant position, which is characterized by its extensive
ability to exert influence or project
power on a global scale. This is done through the combined-means of economic,
military, technological and cultural strength, as well as diplomatic and soft
power influence. Traditionally, superpowers are preeminent among the great
powers” this one,
“an extremely powerful nation,
especially one capable of influencing international events and the acts and policies of less powerful
nations” or this one “an
international governing body able to enforce its will upon the most
powerful states“.
+
Paul Craig Roberts Breaks Down What To
Expect in 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9rRYyA8eaI&feature=youtu.be
with Derrick Broze
and Micah Jackson
Dr.
Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant Treasury Secretary during the Reagan
Administration, author, and political commentator, discusses what he sees coming
in 2019. Topics include: the 9/11 Lawyers Inquiry, the American Matrix, the
U.S. Economy, the Yellow Vest Protests, War with China, and Trump's role in all
of this.