Subject: Re: Rahm Emanuel Cuts Public Pensions, Diverts Money to Benefit
Campaign Donors
Talk about trusting the fox in the hen house!
Where did we come up with this Fairy Tale that our kindly old Uncle Sam will
take care of us? We've just been going about with our head stuck in our
iPhone or other entertainment gizmos, without a care in the world while
guys like foxy old Rahm Emanuel start carving up our pensions, and jacking
up our taxes. Suddenly we're getting all upset. Well just where the Hell
have we been? Back in grade school we were being taught how our brave
Pioneers took the land away from the Injuns, and old Uncle Sam, the Great
White Father, made lasting promises and wrote eternal treaties protecting
the Injuns right to exist on the barren reservations...until we needed the
oil or minerals. Didn't we learn nothin' back then?
Maybe the Chicago retired fire and police will open their eyes and realize
that they are going to need to fight for what they thought was theirs all
along.
Greed never knows when to quit.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 11:26 AM
Subject: Rahm Emanuel Cuts Public Pensions, Diverts Money to Benefit
Campaign Donors
Sirota writes: "This same story, portraying public employees as the primary
cause of budget crises, is being told across the country. Yet, in many
cases, we're only being told half the tale."
Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel. (photo: NBC Chicago)
Rahm Emanuel Cuts Public Pensions, Diverts Money to Benefit Campaign Donors
By David Sirota, Pando Daily
06 April 14
If you've read the financial news out of Chicago the last few weeks, you've
probably heard that the city faces a major pension shortfall, supposedly
because police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public workers are
selfishly bleeding the city dry.
You've also probably heard that the only way investment banker-turned-mayor
Rahm Emanuel can deal with the seemingly dire situation is to slash his
public workers' retirement benefits and to jack up property taxes on those
who aren't politically connected enough to have secured themselves special
exemptions.
This same story, portraying public employees as the primary cause of budget
crises, is being told across the country. Yet, in many cases, we're only
being told half the tale. We aren't told that the pension shortfalls in many
US states and cities were created because those same states and cities did
not make their required pension contributions over many years. And perhaps
even more shockingly, we aren't being told that, while states and cities
pretend they have no money to deal with public sector pensions, many are
paying giant taxpayer subsidies to corporations - often far larger than the
pension shortfalls.
Chicago is the iconic example of all of these trends. A new report being
released this morning shows that the supposedly budget-strapped Windy City -
which for years has not made its full pension payments - actually has
mountains of cash sitting in a slush fund controlled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Indeed, as the report documents, the slush fund now receives more money each
year than it would cost to adequately finance Chicago's pension funds. Yet,
Emanuel is refusing to use the cash from that slush fund to shore up the
pensions. Instead, his new pension "reform" proposal cuts pension benefits,
requires higher contributions from public employees and raises property
taxes in the name of fiscal responsibility. Yet, the same "reform" proposal
will actually quietly increase his already bloated slush fund.
But it gets worse: an investigation by Pando has discovered that Emanuel has
been using that same slush fund to enrich some of his biggest campaign
contributors.
How a "shadow budget" is bankrupting Chicago
The new report, from the taxpayer watchdog group Good Jobs First, shows how
Chicago's roughly 150 "tax increment financing" (TIF) districts divert
property taxes out of schools and public services and into what is now known
as Chicago's "shadow budget." That's a slightly nicer term for what is, in
practice, Emanuel's very own sovereign wealth fund.
Living up to his billing as "Mayor 1%," Emanuel has used the fund to (among
other things) offer up $7 million of taxpayer cash for a new grocery store,
$7.5 million for a proposed data center, $29 million for an office high rise
and $55 million for a huge new hotel (and that latter project is on top of
$75 million more in tax money Emanuel has offered up to build a private
university a new basketball stadium). And these are just a few of the
corporate subsidy proposals in a $300 million spending spree Emanuel has
championed at the very moment he has pled poverty to justify pension cuts,
property tax increases and the largest school closure in his city's history.
Contrary to the story of public employees bleeding taxpayers dry, the Good
Jobs First report proves that the slush fund is the root of the city's true
fiscal problem. As the municipal budget figures show, over the last 14 years
Chicago refused to make its necessary pension contributions. Yet, at the
same time, the city's TIF-based "shadow budget" skyrocketed. In effect, more
and more public revenue that was contractually obligated to pensioners was
being diverted by politicians to fund TIF subsidies, many of which go to
subsidize wealthy corporations.
The scheme has gotten so out of control that, according to Good Jobs First,
annual TIF revenues now far exceed the annual cost of funding the city's
pension systems. The report shows that in 2013 Chicago's pension costs were
$385 million whereas Emanuel's slush fund that year received $457 million.
For his part, Emanuel has insisted that roughly a third of TIF funding goes
into schools (at his sole discretion, of course). Yet, his slush fund is so
opaque there's little way to verify this claim. Indeed, Chicago's local
public radio station WBEZ recently noted that it "has repeatedly requested a
breakdown of all current TIF-funded projects, but [the Emanuel
administration] has not yet provided it."
Enlarging the slush fund under the guise of "reform"
What is certain is that while Emanuel has been shuttering schools and
proposing big pension cuts, he has also refused to release more than $800
million in surplus taxpayer monies sitting in his slush fund. He has also
killed legislation that would force him to put at least some of those
resources into plugging school funding gaps and pension shortfalls. Instead,
as of this week, he has put forward a proposal that uses the guise of
pension "reform" to further balloon his corporate-subsidy slush fund.
Of course, that's not how it is being billed. Emanuel's administration
insists the proposal "strikes the right balance of reform and revenue and
serves as an honest framework in which everybody gives something." Not
surprisingly, the notion that the mayor's proposal is about "sharing the
pain" has been loyally echoed by much of the Chicago press. Yet, there's one
group that is being exempted from sacrifice and that will likely be further
enriched by Emanuel's proposal: Chicago's corporate class.
As the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky reports, Emanuel's proposal will
actually "cut payments to municipal retirees, jack up property taxes, and
give the mayor more slush funds to play with." Here's how this latest
wealth-transfer scheme works:
If the mayor raises the overall tax rate to fund his pension bailout, he is
of course raising the rate in TIF districts thereby. That means more
property tax dollars will flow into the TIF bank accounts. Think of it as
more slush for the fund.
Remember, the mayor says he's cutting benefits for geezers cause Chicago's
dead broke and he wants to limit the burden on beleaguered taxpayers.But, as
I like to point out, there's "broke" as in "We gotta make some retired Water
Department clerk live on less" and broke as in "Ah, what the hell-might as
well add a little more slush to the pile.".
So in short.Mayor Emanuel cuts benefits to retirees, jacks up your property
taxes, and brings in more cash for things like the River Point office
building in the West Loop, the Hyatt hotel in Hyde Park, the aforementioned
South Loop basketball arena for DePaul, and that South Loop hotel for
Marriott.
The question, then, is why? With his reelection poll numbers plummeting, why
would Emanuel refuse to give up some of his slush fund? Why would he instead
propose a plan that increases the slush fund and threatens to anger
property-tax-averse voters and enrage pensioners? Why, in short, is he so
protective of the slush fund?
Still an "insider's game"
As usual, one answer can be found by following the money. When you do that,
you discover that despite Emanuel's declaration that "government can no
longer be an insider's game, serving primarily the lobbyists and
well-connected," the TIF scheme is often exactly that - an insider's game.
And, as Pando's investigation into the TIF program proves for the first
time, the corporate beneficiaries of that insider's game just so happen to
be Emanuel's major campaign donors.
For example, just after Emanuel took office, his apparatchiks on Chicago's
City Council passed that $7 million TIF subsidy that will benefit grocery
chain Mariano's Fresh Market. Mariano's is owned through a parent company by
Willis Stein & Partners, whose CEO gave Emanuel $25,000 just months before
the TIF was approved.
Similarly, in the above mentioned data center proposal (which fell through),
Emanuel offered to use his TIF authority to let private equity firm Madison
Dearborn Partners and real estate company JDI Realty get away with not
paying back $7.5 million in TIF money that is still owed to taxpayers.
Madison Dearborn Partners is one of Emanuel's biggest sources of campaign
cash.
Then there is Emanuel's $29 million office-tower TIF. That boondoggle will
underwrite the new Chicago headquarters of DLA Piper - the same law firm
whose employees have given Emanuel more than $125,000. The law firm will
benefit not only from having its leased office space effectively subsidized
by taxpayers, but also from the preservation of TIFs in general, as the
firm's Chicago office has a long history of TIF legal work. As just one
example of that, DLA Piper is the law firm involved in the $4.5 million TIF
Emanuel's allies engineered for Vienna Beef.
Not to be forgotten is Emanuel's $55 million TIF for a massive new hotel
near Chicago's convention center. According to the Chicago Tribune, Emanuel
appointees on the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority awarded
commercial real estate company Jones Lang Lasalle the big construction
management contract that will benefit from that huge TIF. One of the largest
shareholders of Jones Lang Lasalle is Ariel Investments, whose president
gave Emanuel's campaign $31,500.
There are likely more such examples, and we'll keep digging to uncover them.
What we know now is that the real estate and financial industries are among
the big beneficiaries of Emanuel's shadow budget. The former often benefits
from TIF subsidies of development deals, while the latter often either has
ownership stakes in TIF projects or sells off the debt at a profit in the
financial markets. And - surprise, surprise! - campaign finance data show
that those two particular industries bankroll Emanuel's campaigns.
So again, why is Emanuel aggressively trying to preserve his slush fund,
even if it means inflicting unnecessary budget pain on retirees and
rank-and-file taxpayers? Because preserving his slush fund defends the
people he really represents - the financiers who sponsor his political
career.
Pando contacted Mayor Emanuel's office for comment on this story (~2hrs ago)
but they had not responded by publication time. We will update this story if
we hear back.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel. (photo: NBC Chicago)
http://pando.com/2014/04/04/revealed-rahm-emanuel-cuts-public-pensions-diver
ts-money-to-benefit-campaign-donors/http://pando.com/2014/04/04/revealed-rah
m-emanuel-cuts-public-pensions-diverts-money-to-benefit-campaign-donors/
Rahm Emanuel Cuts Public Pensions, Diverts Money to Benefit Campaign Donors
By David Sirota, Pando Daily
06 April 14
f you've read the financial news out of Chicago the last few weeks, you've
probably heard that the city faces a major pension shortfall, supposedly
because police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public workers are
selfishly bleeding the city dry.
You've also probably heard that the only way investment banker-turned-mayor
Rahm Emanuel can deal with the seemingly dire situation is to slash his
public workers' retirement benefits and to jack up property taxes on those
who aren't politically connected enough to have secured themselves special
exemptions.
This same story, portraying public employees as the primary cause of budget
crises, is being told across the country. Yet, in many cases, we're only
being told half the tale. We aren't told that the pension shortfalls in many
US states and cities were created because those same states and cities did
not make their required pension contributions over many years. And perhaps
even more shockingly, we aren't being told that, while states and cities
pretend they have no money to deal with public sector pensions, many are
paying giant taxpayer subsidies to corporations - often far larger than the
pension shortfalls.
Chicago is the iconic example of all of these trends. A new report being
released this morning shows that the supposedly budget-strapped Windy City -
which for years has not made its full pension payments - actually has
mountains of cash sitting in a slush fund controlled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Indeed, as the report documents, the slush fund now receives more money each
year than it would cost to adequately finance Chicago's pension funds. Yet,
Emanuel is refusing to use the cash from that slush fund to shore up the
pensions. Instead, his new pension "reform" proposal cuts pension benefits,
requires higher contributions from public employees and raises property
taxes in the name of fiscal responsibility. Yet, the same "reform" proposal
will actually quietly increase his already bloated slush fund.
But it gets worse: an investigation by Pando has discovered that Emanuel has
been using that same slush fund to enrich some of his biggest campaign
contributors.
How a "shadow budget" is bankrupting Chicago
The new report, from the taxpayer watchdog group Good Jobs First, shows how
Chicago's roughly 150 "tax increment financing" (TIF) districts divert
property taxes out of schools and public services and into what is now known
as Chicago's "shadow budget." That's a slightly nicer term for what is, in
practice, Emanuel's very own sovereign wealth fund.
Living up to his billing as "Mayor 1%," Emanuel has used the fund to (among
other things) offer up $7 million of taxpayer cash for a new grocery store,
$7.5 million for a proposed data center, $29 million for an office high rise
and $55 million for a huge new hotel (and that latter project is on top of
$75 million more in tax money Emanuel has offered up to build a private
university a new basketball stadium). And these are just a few of the
corporate subsidy proposals in a $300 million spending spree Emanuel has
championed at the very moment he has pled poverty to justify pension cuts,
property tax increases and the largest school closure in his city's history.
Contrary to the story of public employees bleeding taxpayers dry, the Good
Jobs First report proves that the slush fund is the root of the city's true
fiscal problem. As the municipal budget figures show, over the last 14 years
Chicago refused to make its necessary pension contributions. Yet, at the
same time, the city's TIF-based "shadow budget" skyrocketed. In effect, more
and more public revenue that was contractually obligated to pensioners was
being diverted by politicians to fund TIF subsidies, many of which go to
subsidize wealthy corporations.
The scheme has gotten so out of control that, according to Good Jobs First,
annual TIF revenues now far exceed the annual cost of funding the city's
pension systems. The report shows that in 2013 Chicago's pension costs were
$385 million whereas Emanuel's slush fund that year received $457 million.
For his part, Emanuel has insisted that roughly a third of TIF funding goes
into schools (at his sole discretion, of course). Yet, his slush fund is so
opaque there's little way to verify this claim. Indeed, Chicago's local
public radio station WBEZ recently noted that it "has repeatedly requested a
breakdown of all current TIF-funded projects, but [the Emanuel
administration] has not yet provided it."
Enlarging the slush fund under the guise of "reform"
What is certain is that while Emanuel has been shuttering schools and
proposing big pension cuts, he has also refused to release more than $800
million in surplus taxpayer monies sitting in his slush fund. He has also
killed legislation that would force him to put at least some of those
resources into plugging school funding gaps and pension shortfalls. Instead,
as of this week, he has put forward a proposal that uses the guise of
pension "reform" to further balloon his corporate-subsidy slush fund.
Of course, that's not how it is being billed. Emanuel's administration
insists the proposal "strikes the right balance of reform and revenue and
serves as an honest framework in which everybody gives something." Not
surprisingly, the notion that the mayor's proposal is about "sharing the
pain" has been loyally echoed by much of the Chicago press. Yet, there's one
group that is being exempted from sacrifice and that will likely be further
enriched by Emanuel's proposal: Chicago's corporate class.
As the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky reports, Emanuel's proposal will
actually "cut payments to municipal retirees, jack up property taxes, and
give the mayor more slush funds to play with." Here's how this latest
wealth-transfer scheme works:
If the mayor raises the overall tax rate to fund his pension bailout, he is
of course raising the rate in TIF districts thereby. That means more
property tax dollars will flow into the TIF bank accounts. Think of it as
more slush for the fund.
Remember, the mayor says he's cutting benefits for geezers cause Chicago's
dead broke and he wants to limit the burden on beleaguered taxpayers.But, as
I like to point out, there's "broke" as in "We gotta make some retired Water
Department clerk live on less" and broke as in "Ah, what the hell-might as
well add a little more slush to the pile.".
So in short.Mayor Emanuel cuts benefits to retirees, jacks up your property
taxes, and brings in more cash for things like the River Point office
building in the West Loop, the Hyatt hotel in Hyde Park, the aforementioned
South Loop basketball arena for DePaul, and that South Loop hotel for
Marriott.
The question, then, is why? With his reelection poll numbers plummeting, why
would Emanuel refuse to give up some of his slush fund? Why would he instead
propose a plan that increases the slush fund and threatens to anger
property-tax-averse voters and enrage pensioners? Why, in short, is he so
protective of the slush fund?
Still an "insider's game"
As usual, one answer can be found by following the money. When you do that,
you discover that despite Emanuel's declaration that "government can no
longer be an insider's game, serving primarily the lobbyists and
well-connected," the TIF scheme is often exactly that - an insider's game.
And, as Pando's investigation into the TIF program proves for the first
time, the corporate beneficiaries of that insider's game just so happen to
be Emanuel's major campaign donors.
For example, just after Emanuel took office, his apparatchiks on Chicago's
City Council passed that $7 million TIF subsidy that will benefit grocery
chain Mariano's Fresh Market. Mariano's is owned through a parent company by
Willis Stein & Partners, whose CEO gave Emanuel $25,000 just months before
the TIF was approved.
Similarly, in the above mentioned data center proposal (which fell through),
Emanuel offered to use his TIF authority to let private equity firm Madison
Dearborn Partners and real estate company JDI Realty get away with not
paying back $7.5 million in TIF money that is still owed to taxpayers.
Madison Dearborn Partners is one of Emanuel's biggest sources of campaign
cash.
Then there is Emanuel's $29 million office-tower TIF. That boondoggle will
underwrite the new Chicago headquarters of DLA Piper - the same law firm
whose employees have given Emanuel more than $125,000. The law firm will
benefit not only from having its leased office space effectively subsidized
by taxpayers, but also from the preservation of TIFs in general, as the
firm's Chicago office has a long history of TIF legal work. As just one
example of that, DLA Piper is the law firm involved in the $4.5 million TIF
Emanuel's allies engineered for Vienna Beef.
Not to be forgotten is Emanuel's $55 million TIF for a massive new hotel
near Chicago's convention center. According to the Chicago Tribune, Emanuel
appointees on the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority awarded
commercial real estate company Jones Lang Lasalle the big construction
management contract that will benefit from that huge TIF. One of the largest
shareholders of Jones Lang Lasalle is Ariel Investments, whose president
gave Emanuel's campaign $31,500.
There are likely more such examples, and we'll keep digging to uncover them.
What we know now is that the real estate and financial industries are among
the big beneficiaries of Emanuel's shadow budget. The former often benefits
from TIF subsidies of development deals, while the latter often either has
ownership stakes in TIF projects or sells off the debt at a profit in the
financial markets. And - surprise, surprise! - campaign finance data show
that those two particular industries bankroll Emanuel's campaigns.
So again, why is Emanuel aggressively trying to preserve his slush fund,
even if it means inflicting unnecessary budget pain on retirees and
rank-and-file taxpayers? Because preserving his slush fund defends the
people he really represents - the financiers who sponsor his political
career.
Pando contacted Mayor Emanuel's office for comment on this story (~2hrs ago)
but they had not responded by publication time. We will update this story if
we hear back.
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
New York Police Arrest Veterans Protesting at Vietnam War Memorial
Subject: Re: New York Police Arrest Veterans Protesting at Vietnam War
Memorial
I'd hate to be a cop. Every day I'd be called upon to protect the Empire's
property and people, but every night I'd have to go home to my Working Class
home. There I'd be, living among the same people whose heads I'd been
ordered to knock in.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 11:15 AM
Subject: New York Police Arrest Veterans Protesting at Vietnam War Memorial
Apparently, the new mayor hasn't made much difference in how the police
handle Occupy.
Lewis writes: "Three military veterans were arrested at New York City's
Vietnam Memorial after taking part in a protest that activists said was part
of an attempted revival of the Occupy movement, a push that began Friday
with events planned worldwide."
A Vietnam Veteran being arrested by NYPD after protest at Vietnam War
Memorial. (photo: AnonymouSkY/Twitter)
New York Police Arrest Veterans Protesting at Vietnam War Memorial
By Renee Lewis, Al Jazeera America
06 April 14
Activists say protest was part of an attempt to revive Occupy movement, with
events planned worldwide.
Three military veterans were arrested at New York City's Vietnam Memorial
after taking part in a protest that activists said was part of an attempted
revival of the Occupy movement, a push that began Friday with events planned
worldwide.
About 100 protesters at the New York memorial shouted "shame" and "no
justice, no peace" as police loaded the three veterans and two other
protesters into the back of a van.
Activists said they had planned to read the names of fallen U.S. soldiers at
the memorial in lower Manhattan, but police said the park had closed at 10
p.m. so the public was not allowed to be there. The rally was organized by
Veterans for Peace (VFP), a nonprofit organization that says it is dedicated
to educating the public about the costs of war.
As the crowd gathered, police gave three warnings over a loudspeaker that
anyone remaining at the memorial would be subject to arrest.
"There's no reason for this park to be closed," John Spitzberg, a veteran
and member of VFP, told Al Jazeera. Spitzberg was one of the veterans
arrested Friday.
"The right to protest doesn't end at 10 p.m.," he said.
A New York Police Dept. Detective who gave only his surname, Sessa, said at
the time of publication late Friday that police did not yet have information
about the arrests.
The Occupy movement began in Zuccotti Park in New York City's financial
district in September 2011, launching debate over wealth concentration in
the hands of the "1 percent" into mainstream politics and media.
On May 1, 2012, hundreds of protesters marched from Zuccotti Park to the
Vietnam memorial for a "general assembly." Police later arrived and told
those gathered that they would have to leave because the park closed at 10
p.m. Activists say the memorial is usually open to the public 24 hours a
day.
In at attempt to defuse the tension that day, veterans formed a line between
police and protesters, said Ellen Davidson, a member of VFP but not a
veteran herself. But they were soon arrested themselves, she told Al Jazeera
on Friday.
"That's what made us say what the hell," Davidson said, adding that the
group returned in October 2012 and October 2013 to protest the treatment of
the veterans. Dozens more veterans and their supporters were arrested at
subsequent protests.
On Friday, protesters had again planned to read the names at the memorial at
10 p.m. in protest, but dozens of police - including some from the Technical
Assistance Response Unit (TARU) - were waiting with dozens of zip-ties, or
plastic handcuffs.
Spitzberg, a past president of his Ashville, N.C. VFP chapter, said he was
at the protest to bring attention to the billions of dollars the U.S. spends
on war.
"That money could be used for the poor. Meanwhile, the number of homeless
veterans is multiplying - the number of veterans committing suicide is
multiplying," Spitzberg said. "This country is so militaristic, so totally
devoted to the wealthy 1 percent that Occupy spoke about."
Protesters said that they had returned to the Vietnam Memorial on Friday as
part of a planned Occupy revival - called "Worldwide Wave of Action" - and
that events were planned for Friday in cities around the world.
Activists said about 100 protesters had gathered at Zuccotti Park earlier
Friday. No arrests were reported.
Lewis Chiu, a protester who was arrested Friday, told Al Jazeera that he was
at the event because he believed the memorial should be open to the public.
"The only way I'll leave is if they arrest me," he said, shortly before
police zip-tied him and loaded him into a van.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
A Vietnam Veteran being arrested by NYPD after protest at Vietnam War
Memorial. (photo: AnonymouSkY/Twitter)
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/4/occupy-manhattanveteran.htmlh
ttp://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/4/occupy-manhattanveteran.html
New York Police Arrest Veterans Protesting at Vietnam War Memorial
By Renee Lewis, Al Jazeera America
06 April 14
Activists say protest was part of an attempt to revive Occupy movement, with
events planned worldwide.
hree military veterans were arrested at New York City's Vietnam Memorial
after taking part in a protest that activists said was part of an attempted
revival of the Occupy movement, a push that began Friday with events planned
worldwide.
About 100 protesters at the New York memorial shouted "shame" and "no
justice, no peace" as police loaded the three veterans and two other
protesters into the back of a van.
Activists said they had planned to read the names of fallen U.S. soldiers at
the memorial in lower Manhattan, but police said the park had closed at 10
p.m. so the public was not allowed to be there. The rally was organized by
Veterans for Peace (VFP), a nonprofit organization that says it is dedicated
to educating the public about the costs of war.
As the crowd gathered, police gave three warnings over a loudspeaker that
anyone remaining at the memorial would be subject to arrest.
"There's no reason for this park to be closed," John Spitzberg, a veteran
and member of VFP, told Al Jazeera. Spitzberg was one of the veterans
arrested Friday.
"The right to protest doesn't end at 10 p.m.," he said.
A New York Police Dept. Detective who gave only his surname, Sessa, said at
the time of publication late Friday that police did not yet have information
about the arrests.
The Occupy movement began in Zuccotti Park in New York City's financial
district in September 2011, launching debate over wealth concentration in
the hands of the "1 percent" into mainstream politics and media.
On May 1, 2012, hundreds of protesters marched from Zuccotti Park to the
Vietnam memorial for a "general assembly." Police later arrived and told
those gathered that they would have to leave because the park closed at 10
p.m. Activists say the memorial is usually open to the public 24 hours a
day.
In at attempt to defuse the tension that day, veterans formed a line between
police and protesters, said Ellen Davidson, a member of VFP but not a
veteran herself. But they were soon arrested themselves, she told Al Jazeera
on Friday.
"That's what made us say what the hell," Davidson said, adding that the
group returned in October 2012 and October 2013 to protest the treatment of
the veterans. Dozens more veterans and their supporters were arrested at
subsequent protests.
On Friday, protesters had again planned to read the names at the memorial at
10 p.m. in protest, but dozens of police - including some from the Technical
Assistance Response Unit (TARU) - were waiting with dozens of zip-ties, or
plastic handcuffs.
Spitzberg, a past president of his Ashville, N.C. VFP chapter, said he was
at the protest to bring attention to the billions of dollars the U.S. spends
on war.
"That money could be used for the poor. Meanwhile, the number of homeless
veterans is multiplying - the number of veterans committing suicide is
multiplying," Spitzberg said. "This country is so militaristic, so totally
devoted to the wealthy 1 percent that Occupy spoke about."
Protesters said that they had returned to the Vietnam Memorial on Friday as
part of a planned Occupy revival - called "Worldwide Wave of Action" - and
that events were planned for Friday in cities around the world.
Activists said about 100 protesters had gathered at Zuccotti Park earlier
Friday. No arrests were reported.
Lewis Chiu, a protester who was arrested Friday, told Al Jazeera that he was
at the event because he believed the memorial should be open to the public.
"The only way I'll leave is if they arrest me," he said, shortly before
police zip-tied him and loaded him into a van.
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
Memorial
I'd hate to be a cop. Every day I'd be called upon to protect the Empire's
property and people, but every night I'd have to go home to my Working Class
home. There I'd be, living among the same people whose heads I'd been
ordered to knock in.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 11:15 AM
Subject: New York Police Arrest Veterans Protesting at Vietnam War Memorial
Apparently, the new mayor hasn't made much difference in how the police
handle Occupy.
Lewis writes: "Three military veterans were arrested at New York City's
Vietnam Memorial after taking part in a protest that activists said was part
of an attempted revival of the Occupy movement, a push that began Friday
with events planned worldwide."
A Vietnam Veteran being arrested by NYPD after protest at Vietnam War
Memorial. (photo: AnonymouSkY/Twitter)
New York Police Arrest Veterans Protesting at Vietnam War Memorial
By Renee Lewis, Al Jazeera America
06 April 14
Activists say protest was part of an attempt to revive Occupy movement, with
events planned worldwide.
Three military veterans were arrested at New York City's Vietnam Memorial
after taking part in a protest that activists said was part of an attempted
revival of the Occupy movement, a push that began Friday with events planned
worldwide.
About 100 protesters at the New York memorial shouted "shame" and "no
justice, no peace" as police loaded the three veterans and two other
protesters into the back of a van.
Activists said they had planned to read the names of fallen U.S. soldiers at
the memorial in lower Manhattan, but police said the park had closed at 10
p.m. so the public was not allowed to be there. The rally was organized by
Veterans for Peace (VFP), a nonprofit organization that says it is dedicated
to educating the public about the costs of war.
As the crowd gathered, police gave three warnings over a loudspeaker that
anyone remaining at the memorial would be subject to arrest.
"There's no reason for this park to be closed," John Spitzberg, a veteran
and member of VFP, told Al Jazeera. Spitzberg was one of the veterans
arrested Friday.
"The right to protest doesn't end at 10 p.m.," he said.
A New York Police Dept. Detective who gave only his surname, Sessa, said at
the time of publication late Friday that police did not yet have information
about the arrests.
The Occupy movement began in Zuccotti Park in New York City's financial
district in September 2011, launching debate over wealth concentration in
the hands of the "1 percent" into mainstream politics and media.
On May 1, 2012, hundreds of protesters marched from Zuccotti Park to the
Vietnam memorial for a "general assembly." Police later arrived and told
those gathered that they would have to leave because the park closed at 10
p.m. Activists say the memorial is usually open to the public 24 hours a
day.
In at attempt to defuse the tension that day, veterans formed a line between
police and protesters, said Ellen Davidson, a member of VFP but not a
veteran herself. But they were soon arrested themselves, she told Al Jazeera
on Friday.
"That's what made us say what the hell," Davidson said, adding that the
group returned in October 2012 and October 2013 to protest the treatment of
the veterans. Dozens more veterans and their supporters were arrested at
subsequent protests.
On Friday, protesters had again planned to read the names at the memorial at
10 p.m. in protest, but dozens of police - including some from the Technical
Assistance Response Unit (TARU) - were waiting with dozens of zip-ties, or
plastic handcuffs.
Spitzberg, a past president of his Ashville, N.C. VFP chapter, said he was
at the protest to bring attention to the billions of dollars the U.S. spends
on war.
"That money could be used for the poor. Meanwhile, the number of homeless
veterans is multiplying - the number of veterans committing suicide is
multiplying," Spitzberg said. "This country is so militaristic, so totally
devoted to the wealthy 1 percent that Occupy spoke about."
Protesters said that they had returned to the Vietnam Memorial on Friday as
part of a planned Occupy revival - called "Worldwide Wave of Action" - and
that events were planned for Friday in cities around the world.
Activists said about 100 protesters had gathered at Zuccotti Park earlier
Friday. No arrests were reported.
Lewis Chiu, a protester who was arrested Friday, told Al Jazeera that he was
at the event because he believed the memorial should be open to the public.
"The only way I'll leave is if they arrest me," he said, shortly before
police zip-tied him and loaded him into a van.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
A Vietnam Veteran being arrested by NYPD after protest at Vietnam War
Memorial. (photo: AnonymouSkY/Twitter)
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/4/occupy-manhattanveteran.htmlh
ttp://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/4/occupy-manhattanveteran.html
New York Police Arrest Veterans Protesting at Vietnam War Memorial
By Renee Lewis, Al Jazeera America
06 April 14
Activists say protest was part of an attempt to revive Occupy movement, with
events planned worldwide.
hree military veterans were arrested at New York City's Vietnam Memorial
after taking part in a protest that activists said was part of an attempted
revival of the Occupy movement, a push that began Friday with events planned
worldwide.
About 100 protesters at the New York memorial shouted "shame" and "no
justice, no peace" as police loaded the three veterans and two other
protesters into the back of a van.
Activists said they had planned to read the names of fallen U.S. soldiers at
the memorial in lower Manhattan, but police said the park had closed at 10
p.m. so the public was not allowed to be there. The rally was organized by
Veterans for Peace (VFP), a nonprofit organization that says it is dedicated
to educating the public about the costs of war.
As the crowd gathered, police gave three warnings over a loudspeaker that
anyone remaining at the memorial would be subject to arrest.
"There's no reason for this park to be closed," John Spitzberg, a veteran
and member of VFP, told Al Jazeera. Spitzberg was one of the veterans
arrested Friday.
"The right to protest doesn't end at 10 p.m.," he said.
A New York Police Dept. Detective who gave only his surname, Sessa, said at
the time of publication late Friday that police did not yet have information
about the arrests.
The Occupy movement began in Zuccotti Park in New York City's financial
district in September 2011, launching debate over wealth concentration in
the hands of the "1 percent" into mainstream politics and media.
On May 1, 2012, hundreds of protesters marched from Zuccotti Park to the
Vietnam memorial for a "general assembly." Police later arrived and told
those gathered that they would have to leave because the park closed at 10
p.m. Activists say the memorial is usually open to the public 24 hours a
day.
In at attempt to defuse the tension that day, veterans formed a line between
police and protesters, said Ellen Davidson, a member of VFP but not a
veteran herself. But they were soon arrested themselves, she told Al Jazeera
on Friday.
"That's what made us say what the hell," Davidson said, adding that the
group returned in October 2012 and October 2013 to protest the treatment of
the veterans. Dozens more veterans and their supporters were arrested at
subsequent protests.
On Friday, protesters had again planned to read the names at the memorial at
10 p.m. in protest, but dozens of police - including some from the Technical
Assistance Response Unit (TARU) - were waiting with dozens of zip-ties, or
plastic handcuffs.
Spitzberg, a past president of his Ashville, N.C. VFP chapter, said he was
at the protest to bring attention to the billions of dollars the U.S. spends
on war.
"That money could be used for the poor. Meanwhile, the number of homeless
veterans is multiplying - the number of veterans committing suicide is
multiplying," Spitzberg said. "This country is so militaristic, so totally
devoted to the wealthy 1 percent that Occupy spoke about."
Protesters said that they had returned to the Vietnam Memorial on Friday as
part of a planned Occupy revival - called "Worldwide Wave of Action" - and
that events were planned for Friday in cities around the world.
Activists said about 100 protesters had gathered at Zuccotti Park earlier
Friday. No arrests were reported.
Lewis Chiu, a protester who was arrested Friday, told Al Jazeera that he was
at the event because he believed the memorial should be open to the public.
"The only way I'll leave is if they arrest me," he said, shortly before
police zip-tied him and loaded him into a van.
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
the UN treaty on disability
Subject: Re: the UN treaty on disability
"Good heavenly days!: as Molly McGee used to say when she caught old Fibber
in one of his tall tales.
To attempt to reply to this article is more time and energy than I have. It
is so full of Half Truths and bare faced lies that I don't even know where
I'd begin.
What I do know from spending most of my adult life in the field of work with
the blind, is that these pompous Asses should spend a year or two of their
lives as a disabled person. In fact, I'd help find them housing in the
"affordable" rentals in the areas of town where most disabled folks live.
The Ghettos...the crumbling slums.
These morally bankrupt congress members give the Human Race a bad name.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alice Dampman Humel" <alicedh@verizon.net>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 3:05 PM
Subject: the UN treaty on disability
Now here are two stellar examples of the idiots that do seem to populate the
fundamentalist, bible thumping, wacko fanatic branch of Christianity…and
that point I'll readily concede in our discussion…
If I had the content of this message by that odious creature Santorum to
spread on my garden bed, I'd be growing tomatoes as big as your head.
From Townhall.com
What the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Conceals
Rick Santorum Apr 07, 2014
The mainstream media are in full cry for the U.S. Senate to ratify the U.N.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPAID). Watch out.
When the United Nations starts talking about rights, the truth about what
it's really up to is often carefully concealed. There are always plenty of
people in Washington happy to go along with these charades, but the
supporters of the CRPAID are taking willful blindness to new heights.
Last December, Senator Bob Corker, the Republican leader on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, announced that he was unable to support CRPAID
because it threatens U.S. sovereignty and federalism. "Ultimately, I'm
unable to vote for a treaty that could undermine our Constitution and the
legitimacy of our democratic process as the appropriate means for making
decisions about the treatment of our citizens," Senator Corker wrote. This
treaty, he warned, doesn't govern relations between countries but orders
countries to change their domestic laws.
Senator Corker's fears are right on point, but CRPAID threatens more than
our sovereignty, liberty, and democratic system. It will also hurt the
American economy, small businesses, and families, which is the last thing we
need right now.
I have been warning for some time that the CRPAID borrows language from
other dangerous treaties, like the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the
Child, that will prevent parents from determining the care of their
special-needs children, and it endangers their right to home school any of
their children. CRPAID hits close to home for my wife, Karen, and me
because it could impact the care we give our own special-needs daughter,
Bella. Embracing the United Nations' "it takes a village" mentality, CRPAID
would empower the federal government to run roughshod over existing laws
that protect parents' and children's rights.
The treaty's supporters tell us that CRPAID simply mirrors the Americans
with Disabilities Act. Don't buy that. The ADA is very specific and
limited in its scope. Anyone who actually reads the CRPAID will see that it
is a blunt instrument. It has few specifics but a lot of question marks.
Consider the following:
- CRPAID states that its provisions "shall extend to all parts of federal
states without any limitations or exceptions." So much for American
federalism.
- The ADA carefully defines "disability," making the scope of the law clear.
The drafters of CRPAID, however, specifically rejected a clear definition of
"disability," asserting that "disability is an evolving concept." Really?
What will the U.N. consider to be a disability in the future, after we have
ratified the treaty? Drug addiction? Online gambling? Bad breath? And how
much will this endless re-definition of the concept of disability cost
employers and families?
- Repeatedly invoking "international cooperation," CRPAID includes a
provision that seems to require member countries to help each other with
funding and resources, including the "transfer of technologies." Will the
United Nations at some point decide to impose CRPAID dues on Western
countries to fund the treaty's implementation? Will it tell treaty
signatories that their patent laws discriminate against the disabled in poor
countries and therefore must be ignored?
And there are more question marks. Many, many more.
Those who appreciate the success of the ADA need to understand that CRPAID
would give the federal government the tools to undo important safety
features that Congress painstakingly built into that landmark disability
law. The ADA had three specific objects: improve the disabled community's
access to society at large, prevent discrimination against the disabled
community, and meet these goals in a reasonable, cost-effective way. Most
people remember the first two goals of the ADA and forget the third, but the
third is important. The ADA exempted small businesses and homeowners from
onerous building upgrade requirements and took a forward-looking approach to
improving disability access. CRPAID would remove these reasonable
accommodations. And an administration that has already demonstrated its
contempt for reasonable accommodations does not need another tool for
imposing costly burdens on small businesses and families.
Ratification of the CRPAID would be a severe blow to our already weakened
separation of powers. The Obama Administration would use its rulemaking
authority under the ADA to impose CRPAID on states, businesses, and
families. Secretary of State John Kerry admitted as much in testimony last
November, when he made it clear that the administration views the ADA as the
implementing legislation for CRPAID. Does anyone believe that President
Obama needs one more excuse to impose laws without Congress?
Supporters of CRPAID praise the ADA as the "gold standard" of disability
laws and then cite it as a reason to adopt the CRPAID. This is a non
sequitur; CRPAID has nothing to do with the ADA. If President Obama,
Secretary Kerry, and the rest of the American left want to see our gold
standard become the global standard, they can engage foreign governments
directly, right now, to help them improve their laws and modernize their
infrastructure. The United States is already the international leader on
the protection of disability rights. We don't need to ratify a flawed U.N.
treaty to prove it.
_______________________________________________
acb-l mailing list
acb-l@acb.org
http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
"Good heavenly days!: as Molly McGee used to say when she caught old Fibber
in one of his tall tales.
To attempt to reply to this article is more time and energy than I have. It
is so full of Half Truths and bare faced lies that I don't even know where
I'd begin.
What I do know from spending most of my adult life in the field of work with
the blind, is that these pompous Asses should spend a year or two of their
lives as a disabled person. In fact, I'd help find them housing in the
"affordable" rentals in the areas of town where most disabled folks live.
The Ghettos...the crumbling slums.
These morally bankrupt congress members give the Human Race a bad name.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alice Dampman Humel" <alicedh@verizon.net>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 3:05 PM
Subject: the UN treaty on disability
Now here are two stellar examples of the idiots that do seem to populate the
fundamentalist, bible thumping, wacko fanatic branch of Christianity…and
that point I'll readily concede in our discussion…
If I had the content of this message by that odious creature Santorum to
spread on my garden bed, I'd be growing tomatoes as big as your head.
From Townhall.com
What the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Conceals
Rick Santorum Apr 07, 2014
The mainstream media are in full cry for the U.S. Senate to ratify the U.N.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPAID). Watch out.
When the United Nations starts talking about rights, the truth about what
it's really up to is often carefully concealed. There are always plenty of
people in Washington happy to go along with these charades, but the
supporters of the CRPAID are taking willful blindness to new heights.
Last December, Senator Bob Corker, the Republican leader on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, announced that he was unable to support CRPAID
because it threatens U.S. sovereignty and federalism. "Ultimately, I'm
unable to vote for a treaty that could undermine our Constitution and the
legitimacy of our democratic process as the appropriate means for making
decisions about the treatment of our citizens," Senator Corker wrote. This
treaty, he warned, doesn't govern relations between countries but orders
countries to change their domestic laws.
Senator Corker's fears are right on point, but CRPAID threatens more than
our sovereignty, liberty, and democratic system. It will also hurt the
American economy, small businesses, and families, which is the last thing we
need right now.
I have been warning for some time that the CRPAID borrows language from
other dangerous treaties, like the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the
Child, that will prevent parents from determining the care of their
special-needs children, and it endangers their right to home school any of
their children. CRPAID hits close to home for my wife, Karen, and me
because it could impact the care we give our own special-needs daughter,
Bella. Embracing the United Nations' "it takes a village" mentality, CRPAID
would empower the federal government to run roughshod over existing laws
that protect parents' and children's rights.
The treaty's supporters tell us that CRPAID simply mirrors the Americans
with Disabilities Act. Don't buy that. The ADA is very specific and
limited in its scope. Anyone who actually reads the CRPAID will see that it
is a blunt instrument. It has few specifics but a lot of question marks.
Consider the following:
- CRPAID states that its provisions "shall extend to all parts of federal
states without any limitations or exceptions." So much for American
federalism.
- The ADA carefully defines "disability," making the scope of the law clear.
The drafters of CRPAID, however, specifically rejected a clear definition of
"disability," asserting that "disability is an evolving concept." Really?
What will the U.N. consider to be a disability in the future, after we have
ratified the treaty? Drug addiction? Online gambling? Bad breath? And how
much will this endless re-definition of the concept of disability cost
employers and families?
- Repeatedly invoking "international cooperation," CRPAID includes a
provision that seems to require member countries to help each other with
funding and resources, including the "transfer of technologies." Will the
United Nations at some point decide to impose CRPAID dues on Western
countries to fund the treaty's implementation? Will it tell treaty
signatories that their patent laws discriminate against the disabled in poor
countries and therefore must be ignored?
And there are more question marks. Many, many more.
Those who appreciate the success of the ADA need to understand that CRPAID
would give the federal government the tools to undo important safety
features that Congress painstakingly built into that landmark disability
law. The ADA had three specific objects: improve the disabled community's
access to society at large, prevent discrimination against the disabled
community, and meet these goals in a reasonable, cost-effective way. Most
people remember the first two goals of the ADA and forget the third, but the
third is important. The ADA exempted small businesses and homeowners from
onerous building upgrade requirements and took a forward-looking approach to
improving disability access. CRPAID would remove these reasonable
accommodations. And an administration that has already demonstrated its
contempt for reasonable accommodations does not need another tool for
imposing costly burdens on small businesses and families.
Ratification of the CRPAID would be a severe blow to our already weakened
separation of powers. The Obama Administration would use its rulemaking
authority under the ADA to impose CRPAID on states, businesses, and
families. Secretary of State John Kerry admitted as much in testimony last
November, when he made it clear that the administration views the ADA as the
implementing legislation for CRPAID. Does anyone believe that President
Obama needs one more excuse to impose laws without Congress?
Supporters of CRPAID praise the ADA as the "gold standard" of disability
laws and then cite it as a reason to adopt the CRPAID. This is a non
sequitur; CRPAID has nothing to do with the ADA. If President Obama,
Secretary Kerry, and the rest of the American left want to see our gold
standard become the global standard, they can engage foreign governments
directly, right now, to help them improve their laws and modernize their
infrastructure. The United States is already the international leader on
the protection of disability rights. We don't need to ratify a flawed U.N.
treaty to prove it.
_______________________________________________
acb-l mailing list
acb-l@acb.org
http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
Fw: The Anti-Empire Report #127
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: The Anti-Empire Report #127
My Dad said it once if he said it a thousand times,"The victor writes the
history books."
And as long as the American Empire continues dominating the world, the
Empire's scribes will be hard at work twisting and shading events to better
glorify the Empire.
It's dull work, being an Empire's scribe, but it's much safer than being the
one who pillages and plunders. Although there is that other part. Where
you get to ravish the fair maidens.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 1:02 PM
Subject: The Anti-Empire Report #127
William Blum
Official website of the author, historian, and U.S. foreign policy critic.
The Anti-Empire Report #127
By William Blum - Published April 7th, 2014
Indoctrinating a new generation
Is there anyone out there who still believes that Barack Obama, when he's
speaking about American foreign policy, is capable of being anything like an
honest man? In a March 26 talk in Belgium to "European youth", the president
fed his audience one falsehood, half-truth, blatant omission, or hypocrisy
after another. If George W. Bush had made some of these statements, Obama
supporters would not hesitate to shake their head, roll their eyes, or
smirk. Here's a sample:
- "In defending its actions, Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as
a precedent - an example they say of the West interfering in the affairs of
a smaller country, just as they're doing now. But NATO only intervened after
the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years."
Most people who follow such things are convinced that the 1999 US/NATO
bombing of the Serbian province of Kosovo took place only after the
Serbian-forced deportation of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo was well
underway; which is to say that the bombing was launched to stop this "ethnic
cleansing". In actuality, the systematic deportations of large numbers of
people did not begin until a few days after the bombing began, and was
clearly a reaction to it, born of Serbia's extreme anger and powerlessness
over the bombing. This is easily verified by looking at a daily newspaper
for the few days before the bombing began the night of March 23/24, 1999,
and the few days following. Or simply look at the New York Times of March
26, page 1, which reads:
. with the NATO bombing already begun, a deepening sense of fear took hold
in Pristina [the main city of Kosovo] that the Serbs would now vent their
rage against ethnic Albanian civilians in retaliation. [emphasis added]
On March 27, we find the first reference to a "forced march" or anything of
that nature.
But the propaganda version is already set in marble.
- "And Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized, not outside
the boundaries of international law, but in careful cooperation with the
United Nations and with Kosovo's neighbors. None of that even came close to
happening in Crimea."
None of that even came close to happening in Kosovo either. The story is
false. The referendum the president speaks of never happened. Did the
mainstream media pick up on this or on the previous example? If any reader
comes across such I'd appreciate being informed.
Crimea, by the way, did have a referendum. A real one.
- "Workers and engineers gave life to the Marshall Plan . As the Iron
Curtain fell here in Europe, the iron fist of apartheid was unclenched, and
Nelson Mandela emerged upright, proud, from prison to lead a multiracial
democracy. Latin American nations rejected dictatorship and built new
democracies . "
The president might have mentioned that the main beneficiary of the Marshall
Plan was US corporations , that the United States played an indispensable
role in Mandela being caught and imprisoned, and that virtually all the
Latin American dictatorships owed their very existence to Washington.
Instead, the European youth were fed the same party line that their parents
were fed, as were all Americans.
- "Yes, we believe in democracy - with elections that are free and fair."
In this talk, the main purpose of which was to lambaste the Russians for
their actions concerning Ukraine, there was no mention that the government
overthrown in that country with the clear support of the United States had
been democratically elected.
- "Moreover, Russia has pointed to America's decision to go into Iraq as an
example of Western hypocrisy. . But even in Iraq, America sought to work
within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq's territory.
We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war
and left Iraq to its people and a fully sovereign Iraqi state that could
make decisions about its own future."
The US did not get UN Security Council approval for its invasion, the only
approval that could legitimize the action. It occupied Iraq from one end of
the country to the other for 8 years, forcing the government to privatize
the oil industry and accept multinational - largely U.S.-based, oil
companies' - ownership. This endeavor was less than successful because of
the violence unleashed by the invasion. The US military finally was forced
to leave because the Iraqi government refused to give immunity to American
soldiers for their many crimes.
Here is a brief summary of what Barack Obama is attempting to present as
America's moral superiority to the Russians:
The modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed
state . the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one
dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the
government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly . the people of
that unhappy land lost everything - their homes, their schools, their
electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods,
their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their
professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their
mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights,
their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children,
their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives . More
than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison,
internally displaced, or in foreign exile . The air, soil, water, blood, and
genes drenched with depleted uranium . the most awful birth defects .
unexploded cluster bombs lying in wait for children to pick them up . a
river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris . through a
country that may never be put back together again. . "It is a common refrain
among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion
in 2003," reported the Washington Post. (May 5, 2007)
How can all these mistakes, such arrogance, hypocrisy and absurdity find
their way into a single international speech by the president of the United
States? Is the White House budget not sufficient to hire a decent fact
checker? Someone with an intellect and a social conscience? Or does the
desire to score propaganda points trump everything else? Is this another
symptom of the Banana-Republicization of America?
Long live the Cold War
In 1933 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union after
some 15 years of severed relations following the Bolshevik Revolution. On a
day in December of that year, a train was passing through Poland carrying
the first American diplomats dispatched to Moscow. Amongst their number was
a 29 year-old Foreign Service Officer, later to become famous as a diplomat
and scholar, George Kennan. Though he was already deemed a government expert
on Russia, the train provided Kennan's first actual exposure to the Soviet
Union. As he listened to his group's escort, Russian Foreign Minister Maxim
Litvinov, reminisce about growing up in a village the train was passing
close by, and his dreams of becoming a librarian, the Princeton-educated
Kennan was astonished: "We suddenly realized, or at least I did, that these
people we were dealing with were human beings like ourselves, that they had
been born somewhere, that they had their childhood ambitions as we had. It
seemed for a brief moment we could break through and embrace these people."
It hasn't happened yet.
One would think that the absence in Russia of communism, of socialism, of
the basic threat or challenge to the capitalist system, would be sufficient
to write finis to the 70-year Cold War mentality. But the United States is
virtually as hostile to 21st-century Russia as it was to 20th-century Soviet
Union, surrounding Moscow with military bases, missile sites, and NATO
members. Why should that be? Ideology is no longer a factor. But power
remains one, specifically America's perpetual lust for world hegemony.
Russia is the only nation that (a) is a military powerhouse, and (b) doesn't
believe that the United States has a god-given-American-exceptionalism right
to rule the world, and says so. By these criteria, China might qualify as a
poor second. But there are no others.
Washington pretends that it doesn't understand why Moscow should be upset by
Western military encroachment, but it has no such problem when roles are
reversed. Secretary of State John Kerry recently stated that Russian troops
poised near eastern Ukraine are "creating a climate of fear and intimidation
in Ukraine" and raising questions about Russia's next moves and its
commitment to diplomacy.
NATO - ever in need of finding a raison d'être - has now issued a
declaration of [cold] war, which reads in part:
"NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday [April 1, 2014] reaffirmed their
commitment to enhance the Alliance's collective defence, agreed to further
support Ukraine and to suspend NATO's practical cooperation with Russia.
'NATO's greatest responsibility is to protect and defend our territory and
our people. And make no mistake, this is what we will do,' NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. . Ministers directed Allied military
authorities to develop additional measures to strengthen collective defence
and deterrence against any threat of aggression against the Alliance, Mr.
Fogh Rasmussen said. 'We will make sure we have updated military plans,
enhanced exercises and appropriate deployments,' he said. NATO has already
reinforced its presence on the eastern border of the Alliance, including
surveillance patrols over Poland and Romania and increased numbers of
fighter aircraft allocated to the NATO air policing mission in the Baltic
States. . NATO Foreign Ministers also agreed to suspend all of NATO's
practical cooperation with Russia."
Does anyone recall what NATO said in 2003 when the United States bombed and
invaded Iraq with "shock and awe", compared to the Russians now not firing a
single known shot at anyone? And neither Russia nor Ukraine is even a member
of NATO. Does NATO have a word to say about the right-wing coup in Ukraine,
openly supported by the United States, overthrowing the elected government?
Did the hypocrisy get any worse during the Cold War? Imagine that NATO had
not been created in 1949. Imagine that it has never existed. What reason
could one give today for its creation? Other than to provide a
multi-national cover for Washington's interventions.
One of the main differences between now and the Cold War period is that
Americans at home are (not yet) persecuted or prosecuted for supporting
Russia or things Russian.
But don't worry, folks, there won't be a big US-Russian war. For the same
reason there wasn't one during the Cold War. The United States doesn't pick
on any country which can defend itself.
Cuba . Again . Still . Forever
Is there actually a limit? Will the United States ever stop trying to
overthrow the Cuban government? Entire books have been written documenting
the unrelenting ways Washington has tried to get rid of tiny Cuba's horrid
socialism - from military invasion to repeated assassination attempts to an
embargo that President Clinton's National Security Advisor called "the most
pervasive sanctions ever imposed on a nation in the history of mankind". But
nothing has ever come even close to succeeding. The horrid socialism keeps
on inspiring people all over the world. It's the darnedest thing. Can
providing people free or remarkably affordable health care, education,
housing, food and culture be all that important?
And now it's "Cuban Twitter" - an elaborately complex system set up by the
US Agency for International Development (USAID) to disguise its American
origins and financing, aiming to bring about a "Cuban Spring" uprising.
USAID sought to first "build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then the
plan was to push them toward dissent", hoping the messaging network "would
reach critical mass so that dissidents could organize 'smart mobs' - mass
gatherings called at a moment's notice - that might trigger political
demonstrations or 'renegotiate the balance of power between the state and
society'." It's too bad it's now been exposed, because we all know how
wonderful the Egyptian, Syrian, Libyan, and other "Arab Springs" have turned
out.
Here's USAID speaking after their scheme was revealed on April 3: "Cubans
were able to talk among themselves, and we are proud of that." We are thus
asked to believe that normally the poor downtrodden Cubans have no good or
safe way to communicate with each other. Is the US National Security Agency
working for the Cuban government now?
The Associated Press, which broke the story, asks us further to believe that
the "truth" about most things important in the world is being kept from the
Cuban people by the Castro regime, and that the "Cuban Twitter" would have
opened people's eyes. But what information might a Cuban citizen discover
online that the government would not want him to know about? I can't
imagine. Cubans are in constant touch with relatives in the US, by mail and
in person. They get US television programs from Miami and other southern
cities; both CNN and Telesur (Venezuela, covering Latin America) are seen
regularly on Cuban television"; international conferences on all manner of
political, economic and social issues are held regularly in Cuba. I've
spoken at more than one myself. What - it must be asked - does USAID, as
well as the American media, think are the great dark secrets being kept from
the Cuban people by the nasty commie government?
Those who push this line sometimes point to the serious difficulty of using
the Internet in Cuba. The problem is that it's extremely slow, making
certain desired usages often impractical. From an American friend living in
Havana: "It's not a question of getting or not getting internet. I get
internet here. The problem is downloading something or connecting to a link
takes too long on the very slow connection that exists here, so usually I/we
get 'timed out'." But the USAID's "Cuban Twitter", after all, could not have
functioned at all without the Internet.
Places like universities, upscale hotels, and Internet cafés get better
connections, at least some of the time; however, it's rather expensive to
use at the hotels and cafés.
In any event, this isn't a government plot to hide dangerous information.
It's a matter of technical availability and prohibitive cost, both things at
least partly in the hands of the United States and American corporations.
Microsoft, for example, at one point, if not at present, barred Cuba from
using its Messenger instant messaging service.
Cuba and Venezuela have jointly built a fiber optic underwater cable
connection that they hope will make them less reliant on the gringos; the
outcome of this has not yet been reported in much detail.
The grandly named Agency for International Development does not have an
honorable history; this can perhaps be captured by a couple of examples: In
1981, the agency's director, John Gilligan, stated: "At one time, many AID
field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea
was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas,
government, volunteer, religious, every kind."
On June 21, 2012, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA) issued a resolution calling for the immediate expulsion of USAID from
their nine member countries, "due to the fact that we consider their
presence and actions to constitute an interference which threatens the
sovereignty and stability of our nations."
USAID, the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (and the latter's
subsidiaries), together or singly, continue to be present at regime changes,
or attempts at same, favorable to Washington, from "color revolutions" to
"spring" uprisings, producing a large measure of chaos and suffering for our
tired old world.
William Blum
Official website of the author, historian, and U.S. foreign policy critic.
The Anti-Empire Report #127
By William Blum - Published April 7th, 2014
&&&&&&&&&&& Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
Indoctrinating a new generation
Is there anyone out there who still believes that Barack Obama, when he's
speaking about American foreign policy, is capable of being anything like an
honest man? In a March 26 talk in Belgium to "European youth", the president
fed his audience one falsehood, half-truth, blatant omission, or hypocrisy
after another. If George W. Bush had made some of these statements, Obama
supporters would not hesitate to shake their head, roll their eyes, or
smirk. Here's a sample:
- "In defending its actions, Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as
a precedent - an example they say of the West interfering in the affairs of
a smaller country, just as they're doing now. But NATO only intervened after
the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years."
Most people who follow such things are convinced that the 1999 US/NATO
bombing of the Serbian province of Kosovo took place only after the
Serbian-forced deportation of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo was well
underway; which is to say that the bombing was launched to stop this "ethnic
cleansing". In actuality, the systematic deportations of large numbers of
people did not begin until a few days after the bombing began, and was
clearly a reaction to it, born of Serbia's extreme anger and powerlessness
over the bombing. This is easily verified by looking at a daily newspaper
for the few days before the bombing began the night of March 23/24, 1999,
and the few days following. Or simply look at the New York Times of March
26, page 1, which reads:
. with the NATO bombing already begun, a deepening sense of fear took hold
in Pristina [the main city of Kosovo] that the Serbs would now vent their
rage against ethnic Albanian civilians in retaliation. [emphasis added]
On March 27, we find the first reference to a "forced march" or anything of
that nature.
But the propaganda version is already set in marble.
- "And Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized, not outside
the boundaries of international law, but in careful cooperation with the
United Nations and with Kosovo's neighbors. None of that even came close to
happening in Crimea."
None of that even came close to happening in Kosovo either. The story is
false. The referendum the president speaks of never happened. Did the
mainstream media pick up on this or on the previous example? If any reader
comes across such I'd appreciate being informed.
Crimea, by the way, did have a referendum. A real one.
- "Workers and engineers gave life to the Marshall Plan . As the Iron
Curtain fell here in Europe, the iron fist of apartheid was unclenched, and
Nelson Mandela emerged upright, proud, from prison to lead a multiracial
democracy. Latin American nations rejected dictatorship and built new
democracies . "
The president might have mentioned that the main beneficiary of the Marshall
Plan was US corporations Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. , that the
United States played an indispensable role in Mandela being caught and
imprisoned, and that virtually all the Latin American dictatorships owed
their very existence to Washington. Instead, the European youth were fed the
same party line that their parents were fed, as were all Americans.
- "Yes, we believe in democracy - with elections that are free and fair."
In this talk, the main purpose of which was to lambaste the Russians for
their actions concerning Ukraine, there was no mention that the government
overthrown in that country with the clear support of the United States had
been democratically elected.
- "Moreover, Russia has pointed to America's decision to go into Iraq as an
example of Western hypocrisy. . But even in Iraq, America sought to work
within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq's territory.
We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war
and left Iraq to its people and a fully sovereign Iraqi state that could
make decisions about its own future."
The US did not get UN Security Council approval for its invasion, the only
approval that could legitimize the action. It occupied Iraq from one end of
the country to the other for 8 years, forcing the government to privatize
the oil industry and accept multinational - largely U.S.-based, oil
companies' - ownership. This endeavor was less than successful because of
the violence unleashed by the invasion. The US military finally was forced
to leave because the Iraqi government refused to give immunity to American
soldiers for their many crimes.
Here is a brief summary of what Barack Obama is attempting to present as
America's moral superiority to the Russians:
The modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed
state . the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one
dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the
government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly . the people of
that unhappy land lost everything - their homes, their schools, their
electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods,
their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their
professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their
mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights,
their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children,
their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives . More
than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison,
internally displaced, or in foreign exile . The air, soil, water, blood, and
genes drenched with depleted uranium . the most awful birth defects .
unexploded cluster bombs lying in wait for children to pick them up . a
river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris . through a
country that may never be put back together again. . "It is a common refrain
among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion
in 2003," reported the Washington Post. (May 5, 2007)
How can all these mistakes, such arrogance, hypocrisy and absurdity find
their way into a single international speech by the president of the United
States? Is the White House budget not sufficient to hire a decent fact
checker? Someone with an intellect and a social conscience? Or does the
desire to score propaganda points trump everything else? Is this another
symptom of the Banana-Republicization of America?
Long live the Cold War
In 1933 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union after
some 15 years of severed relations following the Bolshevik Revolution. On a
day in December of that year, a train was passing through Poland carrying
the first American diplomats dispatched to Moscow. Amongst their number was
a 29 year-old Foreign Service Officer, later to become famous as a diplomat
and scholar, George Kennan. Though he was already deemed a government expert
on Russia, the train provided Kennan's first actual exposure to the Soviet
Union. As he listened to his group's escort, Russian Foreign Minister Maxim
Litvinov, reminisce about growing up in a village the train was passing
close by, and his dreams of becoming a librarian, the Princeton-educated
Kennan was astonished: "We suddenly realized, or at least I did, that these
people we were dealing with were human beings like ourselves, that they had
been born somewhere, that they had their childhood ambitions as we had. It
seemed for a brief moment we could break through and embrace these people."
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
It hasn't happened yet.
One would think that the absence in Russia of communism, of socialism, of
the basic threat or challenge to the capitalist system, would be sufficient
to write finis to the 70-year Cold War mentality. But the United States is
virtually as hostile to 21st-century Russia as it was to 20th-century Soviet
Union, surrounding Moscow with military bases, missile sites, and NATO
members. Why should that be? Ideology is no longer a factor. But power
remains one, specifically America's perpetual lust for world hegemony.
Russia is the only nation that (a) is a military powerhouse, and (b) doesn't
believe that the United States has a god-given-American-exceptionalism right
to rule the world, and says so. By these criteria, China might qualify as a
poor second. But there are no others.
Washington pretends that it doesn't understand why Moscow should be upset by
Western military encroachment, but it has no such problem when roles are
reversed. Secretary of State John Kerry recently stated that Russian troops
poised near eastern Ukraine are "creating a climate of fear and intimidation
in Ukraine" and raising questions about Russia's next moves and its
commitment to diplomacy. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
NATO - ever in need of finding a raison d'être - has now issued a
declaration of [cold] war, which reads in part:
"NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday [April 1, 2014] reaffirmed their
commitment to enhance the Alliance's collective defence, agreed to further
support Ukraine and to suspend NATO's practical cooperation with Russia.
'NATO's greatest responsibility is to protect and defend our territory and
our people. And make no mistake, this is what we will do,' NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. . Ministers directed Allied military
authorities to develop additional measures to strengthen collective defence
and deterrence against any threat of aggression against the Alliance, Mr.
Fogh Rasmussen said. 'We will make sure we have updated military plans,
enhanced exercises and appropriate deployments,' he said. NATO has already
reinforced its presence on the eastern border of the Alliance, including
surveillance patrols over Poland and Romania and increased numbers of
fighter aircraft allocated to the NATO air policing mission in the Baltic
States. . NATO Foreign Ministers also agreed to suspend all of NATO's
practical cooperation with Russia." Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Does anyone recall what NATO said in 2003 when the United States bombed and
invaded Iraq with "shock and awe", compared to the Russians now not firing a
single known shot at anyone? And neither Russia nor Ukraine is even a member
of NATO. Does NATO have a word to say about the right-wing coup in Ukraine,
openly supported by the United States, overthrowing the elected government?
Did the hypocrisy get any worse during the Cold War? Imagine that NATO had
not been created in 1949. Imagine that it has never existed. What reason
could one give today for its creation? Other than to provide a
multi-national cover for Washington's interventions.
One of the main differences between now and the Cold War period is that
Americans at home are (not yet) persecuted or prosecuted for supporting
Russia or things Russian.
But don't worry, folks, there won't be a big US-Russian war. For the same
reason there wasn't one during the Cold War. The United States doesn't pick
on any country which can defend itself.
Cuba . Again . Still . Forever
Is there actually a limit? Will the United States ever stop trying to
overthrow the Cuban government? Entire books have been written documenting
the unrelenting ways Washington has tried to get rid of tiny Cuba's horrid
socialism - from military invasion to repeated assassination attempts to an
embargo that President Clinton's National Security Advisor called "the most
pervasive sanctions ever imposed on a nation in the history of mankind".
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. But nothing has ever come even close
to succeeding. The horrid socialism keeps on inspiring people all over the
world. It's the darnedest thing. Can providing people free or remarkably
affordable health care, education, housing, food and culture be all that
important?
And now it's "Cuban Twitter" - an elaborately complex system set up by the
US Agency for International Development (USAID) to disguise its American
origins and financing, aiming to bring about a "Cuban Spring" uprising.
USAID sought to first "build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then the
plan was to push them toward dissent", hoping the messaging network "would
reach critical mass so that dissidents could organize 'smart mobs' - mass
gatherings called at a moment's notice - that might trigger political
demonstrations or 'renegotiate the balance of power between the state and
society'." Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. It's too bad it's now been
exposed, because we all know how wonderful the Egyptian, Syrian, Libyan, and
other "Arab Springs" have turned out.
Here's USAID speaking after their scheme was revealed on April 3: "Cubans
were able to talk among themselves, and we are proud of that." Error!
Hyperlink reference not valid. We are thus asked to believe that normally
the poor downtrodden Cubans have no good or safe way to communicate with
each other. Is the US National Security Agency working for the Cuban
government now?
The Associated Press, which broke the story, asks us further to believe that
the "truth" about most things important in the world is being kept from the
Cuban people by the Castro regime, and that the "Cuban Twitter" would have
opened people's eyes. But what information might a Cuban citizen discover
online that the government would not want him to know about? I can't
imagine. Cubans are in constant touch with relatives in the US, by mail and
in person. They get US television programs from Miami and other southern
cities; both CNN and Telesur (Venezuela, covering Latin America) are seen
regularly on Cuban television"; international conferences on all manner of
political, economic and social issues are held regularly in Cuba. I've
spoken at more than one myself. What - it must be asked - does USAID, as
well as the American media, think are the great dark secrets being kept from
the Cuban people by the nasty commie government?
Those who push this line sometimes point to the serious difficulty of using
the Internet in Cuba. The problem is that it's extremely slow, making
certain desired usages often impractical. From an American friend living in
Havana: "It's not a question of getting or not getting internet. I get
internet here. The problem is downloading something or connecting to a link
takes too long on the very slow connection that exists here, so usually I/we
get 'timed out'." But the USAID's "Cuban Twitter", after all, could not have
functioned at all without the Internet.
Places like universities, upscale hotels, and Internet cafés get better
connections, at least some of the time; however, it's rather expensive to
use at the hotels and cafés.
In any event, this isn't a government plot to hide dangerous information.
It's a matter of technical availability and prohibitive cost, both things at
least partly in the hands of the United States and American corporations.
Microsoft, for example, at one point, if not at present, barred Cuba from
using its Messenger instant messaging service. Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
Cuba and Venezuela have jointly built a fiber optic underwater cable
connection that they hope will make them less reliant on the gringos; the
outcome of this has not yet been reported in much detail.
The grandly named Agency for International Development does not have an
honorable history; this can perhaps be captured by a couple of examples: In
1981, the agency's director, John Gilligan, stated: "At one time, many AID
field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea
was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas,
government, volunteer, religious, every kind." Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
On June 21, 2012, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA) issued a resolution calling for the immediate expulsion of USAID from
their nine member countries, "due to the fact that we consider their
presence and actions to constitute an interference which threatens the
sovereignty and stability of our nations."
USAID, the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (and the latter's
subsidiaries), together or singly, continue to be present at regime changes,
or attempts at same, favorable to Washington, from "color revolutions" to
"spring" uprisings, producing a large measure of chaos and suffering for our
tired old world.
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: The Anti-Empire Report #127
My Dad said it once if he said it a thousand times,"The victor writes the
history books."
And as long as the American Empire continues dominating the world, the
Empire's scribes will be hard at work twisting and shading events to better
glorify the Empire.
It's dull work, being an Empire's scribe, but it's much safer than being the
one who pillages and plunders. Although there is that other part. Where
you get to ravish the fair maidens.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 1:02 PM
Subject: The Anti-Empire Report #127
William Blum
Official website of the author, historian, and U.S. foreign policy critic.
The Anti-Empire Report #127
By William Blum - Published April 7th, 2014
Indoctrinating a new generation
Is there anyone out there who still believes that Barack Obama, when he's
speaking about American foreign policy, is capable of being anything like an
honest man? In a March 26 talk in Belgium to "European youth", the president
fed his audience one falsehood, half-truth, blatant omission, or hypocrisy
after another. If George W. Bush had made some of these statements, Obama
supporters would not hesitate to shake their head, roll their eyes, or
smirk. Here's a sample:
- "In defending its actions, Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as
a precedent - an example they say of the West interfering in the affairs of
a smaller country, just as they're doing now. But NATO only intervened after
the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years."
Most people who follow such things are convinced that the 1999 US/NATO
bombing of the Serbian province of Kosovo took place only after the
Serbian-forced deportation of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo was well
underway; which is to say that the bombing was launched to stop this "ethnic
cleansing". In actuality, the systematic deportations of large numbers of
people did not begin until a few days after the bombing began, and was
clearly a reaction to it, born of Serbia's extreme anger and powerlessness
over the bombing. This is easily verified by looking at a daily newspaper
for the few days before the bombing began the night of March 23/24, 1999,
and the few days following. Or simply look at the New York Times of March
26, page 1, which reads:
. with the NATO bombing already begun, a deepening sense of fear took hold
in Pristina [the main city of Kosovo] that the Serbs would now vent their
rage against ethnic Albanian civilians in retaliation. [emphasis added]
On March 27, we find the first reference to a "forced march" or anything of
that nature.
But the propaganda version is already set in marble.
- "And Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized, not outside
the boundaries of international law, but in careful cooperation with the
United Nations and with Kosovo's neighbors. None of that even came close to
happening in Crimea."
None of that even came close to happening in Kosovo either. The story is
false. The referendum the president speaks of never happened. Did the
mainstream media pick up on this or on the previous example? If any reader
comes across such I'd appreciate being informed.
Crimea, by the way, did have a referendum. A real one.
- "Workers and engineers gave life to the Marshall Plan . As the Iron
Curtain fell here in Europe, the iron fist of apartheid was unclenched, and
Nelson Mandela emerged upright, proud, from prison to lead a multiracial
democracy. Latin American nations rejected dictatorship and built new
democracies . "
The president might have mentioned that the main beneficiary of the Marshall
Plan was US corporations , that the United States played an indispensable
role in Mandela being caught and imprisoned, and that virtually all the
Latin American dictatorships owed their very existence to Washington.
Instead, the European youth were fed the same party line that their parents
were fed, as were all Americans.
- "Yes, we believe in democracy - with elections that are free and fair."
In this talk, the main purpose of which was to lambaste the Russians for
their actions concerning Ukraine, there was no mention that the government
overthrown in that country with the clear support of the United States had
been democratically elected.
- "Moreover, Russia has pointed to America's decision to go into Iraq as an
example of Western hypocrisy. . But even in Iraq, America sought to work
within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq's territory.
We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war
and left Iraq to its people and a fully sovereign Iraqi state that could
make decisions about its own future."
The US did not get UN Security Council approval for its invasion, the only
approval that could legitimize the action. It occupied Iraq from one end of
the country to the other for 8 years, forcing the government to privatize
the oil industry and accept multinational - largely U.S.-based, oil
companies' - ownership. This endeavor was less than successful because of
the violence unleashed by the invasion. The US military finally was forced
to leave because the Iraqi government refused to give immunity to American
soldiers for their many crimes.
Here is a brief summary of what Barack Obama is attempting to present as
America's moral superiority to the Russians:
The modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed
state . the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one
dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the
government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly . the people of
that unhappy land lost everything - their homes, their schools, their
electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods,
their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their
professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their
mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights,
their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children,
their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives . More
than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison,
internally displaced, or in foreign exile . The air, soil, water, blood, and
genes drenched with depleted uranium . the most awful birth defects .
unexploded cluster bombs lying in wait for children to pick them up . a
river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris . through a
country that may never be put back together again. . "It is a common refrain
among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion
in 2003," reported the Washington Post. (May 5, 2007)
How can all these mistakes, such arrogance, hypocrisy and absurdity find
their way into a single international speech by the president of the United
States? Is the White House budget not sufficient to hire a decent fact
checker? Someone with an intellect and a social conscience? Or does the
desire to score propaganda points trump everything else? Is this another
symptom of the Banana-Republicization of America?
Long live the Cold War
In 1933 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union after
some 15 years of severed relations following the Bolshevik Revolution. On a
day in December of that year, a train was passing through Poland carrying
the first American diplomats dispatched to Moscow. Amongst their number was
a 29 year-old Foreign Service Officer, later to become famous as a diplomat
and scholar, George Kennan. Though he was already deemed a government expert
on Russia, the train provided Kennan's first actual exposure to the Soviet
Union. As he listened to his group's escort, Russian Foreign Minister Maxim
Litvinov, reminisce about growing up in a village the train was passing
close by, and his dreams of becoming a librarian, the Princeton-educated
Kennan was astonished: "We suddenly realized, or at least I did, that these
people we were dealing with were human beings like ourselves, that they had
been born somewhere, that they had their childhood ambitions as we had. It
seemed for a brief moment we could break through and embrace these people."
It hasn't happened yet.
One would think that the absence in Russia of communism, of socialism, of
the basic threat or challenge to the capitalist system, would be sufficient
to write finis to the 70-year Cold War mentality. But the United States is
virtually as hostile to 21st-century Russia as it was to 20th-century Soviet
Union, surrounding Moscow with military bases, missile sites, and NATO
members. Why should that be? Ideology is no longer a factor. But power
remains one, specifically America's perpetual lust for world hegemony.
Russia is the only nation that (a) is a military powerhouse, and (b) doesn't
believe that the United States has a god-given-American-exceptionalism right
to rule the world, and says so. By these criteria, China might qualify as a
poor second. But there are no others.
Washington pretends that it doesn't understand why Moscow should be upset by
Western military encroachment, but it has no such problem when roles are
reversed. Secretary of State John Kerry recently stated that Russian troops
poised near eastern Ukraine are "creating a climate of fear and intimidation
in Ukraine" and raising questions about Russia's next moves and its
commitment to diplomacy.
NATO - ever in need of finding a raison d'être - has now issued a
declaration of [cold] war, which reads in part:
"NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday [April 1, 2014] reaffirmed their
commitment to enhance the Alliance's collective defence, agreed to further
support Ukraine and to suspend NATO's practical cooperation with Russia.
'NATO's greatest responsibility is to protect and defend our territory and
our people. And make no mistake, this is what we will do,' NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. . Ministers directed Allied military
authorities to develop additional measures to strengthen collective defence
and deterrence against any threat of aggression against the Alliance, Mr.
Fogh Rasmussen said. 'We will make sure we have updated military plans,
enhanced exercises and appropriate deployments,' he said. NATO has already
reinforced its presence on the eastern border of the Alliance, including
surveillance patrols over Poland and Romania and increased numbers of
fighter aircraft allocated to the NATO air policing mission in the Baltic
States. . NATO Foreign Ministers also agreed to suspend all of NATO's
practical cooperation with Russia."
Does anyone recall what NATO said in 2003 when the United States bombed and
invaded Iraq with "shock and awe", compared to the Russians now not firing a
single known shot at anyone? And neither Russia nor Ukraine is even a member
of NATO. Does NATO have a word to say about the right-wing coup in Ukraine,
openly supported by the United States, overthrowing the elected government?
Did the hypocrisy get any worse during the Cold War? Imagine that NATO had
not been created in 1949. Imagine that it has never existed. What reason
could one give today for its creation? Other than to provide a
multi-national cover for Washington's interventions.
One of the main differences between now and the Cold War period is that
Americans at home are (not yet) persecuted or prosecuted for supporting
Russia or things Russian.
But don't worry, folks, there won't be a big US-Russian war. For the same
reason there wasn't one during the Cold War. The United States doesn't pick
on any country which can defend itself.
Cuba . Again . Still . Forever
Is there actually a limit? Will the United States ever stop trying to
overthrow the Cuban government? Entire books have been written documenting
the unrelenting ways Washington has tried to get rid of tiny Cuba's horrid
socialism - from military invasion to repeated assassination attempts to an
embargo that President Clinton's National Security Advisor called "the most
pervasive sanctions ever imposed on a nation in the history of mankind". But
nothing has ever come even close to succeeding. The horrid socialism keeps
on inspiring people all over the world. It's the darnedest thing. Can
providing people free or remarkably affordable health care, education,
housing, food and culture be all that important?
And now it's "Cuban Twitter" - an elaborately complex system set up by the
US Agency for International Development (USAID) to disguise its American
origins and financing, aiming to bring about a "Cuban Spring" uprising.
USAID sought to first "build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then the
plan was to push them toward dissent", hoping the messaging network "would
reach critical mass so that dissidents could organize 'smart mobs' - mass
gatherings called at a moment's notice - that might trigger political
demonstrations or 'renegotiate the balance of power between the state and
society'." It's too bad it's now been exposed, because we all know how
wonderful the Egyptian, Syrian, Libyan, and other "Arab Springs" have turned
out.
Here's USAID speaking after their scheme was revealed on April 3: "Cubans
were able to talk among themselves, and we are proud of that." We are thus
asked to believe that normally the poor downtrodden Cubans have no good or
safe way to communicate with each other. Is the US National Security Agency
working for the Cuban government now?
The Associated Press, which broke the story, asks us further to believe that
the "truth" about most things important in the world is being kept from the
Cuban people by the Castro regime, and that the "Cuban Twitter" would have
opened people's eyes. But what information might a Cuban citizen discover
online that the government would not want him to know about? I can't
imagine. Cubans are in constant touch with relatives in the US, by mail and
in person. They get US television programs from Miami and other southern
cities; both CNN and Telesur (Venezuela, covering Latin America) are seen
regularly on Cuban television"; international conferences on all manner of
political, economic and social issues are held regularly in Cuba. I've
spoken at more than one myself. What - it must be asked - does USAID, as
well as the American media, think are the great dark secrets being kept from
the Cuban people by the nasty commie government?
Those who push this line sometimes point to the serious difficulty of using
the Internet in Cuba. The problem is that it's extremely slow, making
certain desired usages often impractical. From an American friend living in
Havana: "It's not a question of getting or not getting internet. I get
internet here. The problem is downloading something or connecting to a link
takes too long on the very slow connection that exists here, so usually I/we
get 'timed out'." But the USAID's "Cuban Twitter", after all, could not have
functioned at all without the Internet.
Places like universities, upscale hotels, and Internet cafés get better
connections, at least some of the time; however, it's rather expensive to
use at the hotels and cafés.
In any event, this isn't a government plot to hide dangerous information.
It's a matter of technical availability and prohibitive cost, both things at
least partly in the hands of the United States and American corporations.
Microsoft, for example, at one point, if not at present, barred Cuba from
using its Messenger instant messaging service.
Cuba and Venezuela have jointly built a fiber optic underwater cable
connection that they hope will make them less reliant on the gringos; the
outcome of this has not yet been reported in much detail.
The grandly named Agency for International Development does not have an
honorable history; this can perhaps be captured by a couple of examples: In
1981, the agency's director, John Gilligan, stated: "At one time, many AID
field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea
was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas,
government, volunteer, religious, every kind."
On June 21, 2012, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA) issued a resolution calling for the immediate expulsion of USAID from
their nine member countries, "due to the fact that we consider their
presence and actions to constitute an interference which threatens the
sovereignty and stability of our nations."
USAID, the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (and the latter's
subsidiaries), together or singly, continue to be present at regime changes,
or attempts at same, favorable to Washington, from "color revolutions" to
"spring" uprisings, producing a large measure of chaos and suffering for our
tired old world.
William Blum
Official website of the author, historian, and U.S. foreign policy critic.
The Anti-Empire Report #127
By William Blum - Published April 7th, 2014
&&&&&&&&&&& Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
Indoctrinating a new generation
Is there anyone out there who still believes that Barack Obama, when he's
speaking about American foreign policy, is capable of being anything like an
honest man? In a March 26 talk in Belgium to "European youth", the president
fed his audience one falsehood, half-truth, blatant omission, or hypocrisy
after another. If George W. Bush had made some of these statements, Obama
supporters would not hesitate to shake their head, roll their eyes, or
smirk. Here's a sample:
- "In defending its actions, Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as
a precedent - an example they say of the West interfering in the affairs of
a smaller country, just as they're doing now. But NATO only intervened after
the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years."
Most people who follow such things are convinced that the 1999 US/NATO
bombing of the Serbian province of Kosovo took place only after the
Serbian-forced deportation of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo was well
underway; which is to say that the bombing was launched to stop this "ethnic
cleansing". In actuality, the systematic deportations of large numbers of
people did not begin until a few days after the bombing began, and was
clearly a reaction to it, born of Serbia's extreme anger and powerlessness
over the bombing. This is easily verified by looking at a daily newspaper
for the few days before the bombing began the night of March 23/24, 1999,
and the few days following. Or simply look at the New York Times of March
26, page 1, which reads:
. with the NATO bombing already begun, a deepening sense of fear took hold
in Pristina [the main city of Kosovo] that the Serbs would now vent their
rage against ethnic Albanian civilians in retaliation. [emphasis added]
On March 27, we find the first reference to a "forced march" or anything of
that nature.
But the propaganda version is already set in marble.
- "And Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized, not outside
the boundaries of international law, but in careful cooperation with the
United Nations and with Kosovo's neighbors. None of that even came close to
happening in Crimea."
None of that even came close to happening in Kosovo either. The story is
false. The referendum the president speaks of never happened. Did the
mainstream media pick up on this or on the previous example? If any reader
comes across such I'd appreciate being informed.
Crimea, by the way, did have a referendum. A real one.
- "Workers and engineers gave life to the Marshall Plan . As the Iron
Curtain fell here in Europe, the iron fist of apartheid was unclenched, and
Nelson Mandela emerged upright, proud, from prison to lead a multiracial
democracy. Latin American nations rejected dictatorship and built new
democracies . "
The president might have mentioned that the main beneficiary of the Marshall
Plan was US corporations Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. , that the
United States played an indispensable role in Mandela being caught and
imprisoned, and that virtually all the Latin American dictatorships owed
their very existence to Washington. Instead, the European youth were fed the
same party line that their parents were fed, as were all Americans.
- "Yes, we believe in democracy - with elections that are free and fair."
In this talk, the main purpose of which was to lambaste the Russians for
their actions concerning Ukraine, there was no mention that the government
overthrown in that country with the clear support of the United States had
been democratically elected.
- "Moreover, Russia has pointed to America's decision to go into Iraq as an
example of Western hypocrisy. . But even in Iraq, America sought to work
within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq's territory.
We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war
and left Iraq to its people and a fully sovereign Iraqi state that could
make decisions about its own future."
The US did not get UN Security Council approval for its invasion, the only
approval that could legitimize the action. It occupied Iraq from one end of
the country to the other for 8 years, forcing the government to privatize
the oil industry and accept multinational - largely U.S.-based, oil
companies' - ownership. This endeavor was less than successful because of
the violence unleashed by the invasion. The US military finally was forced
to leave because the Iraqi government refused to give immunity to American
soldiers for their many crimes.
Here is a brief summary of what Barack Obama is attempting to present as
America's moral superiority to the Russians:
The modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed
state . the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one
dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the
government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly . the people of
that unhappy land lost everything - their homes, their schools, their
electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods,
their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their
professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their
mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights,
their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children,
their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives . More
than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison,
internally displaced, or in foreign exile . The air, soil, water, blood, and
genes drenched with depleted uranium . the most awful birth defects .
unexploded cluster bombs lying in wait for children to pick them up . a
river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris . through a
country that may never be put back together again. . "It is a common refrain
among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion
in 2003," reported the Washington Post. (May 5, 2007)
How can all these mistakes, such arrogance, hypocrisy and absurdity find
their way into a single international speech by the president of the United
States? Is the White House budget not sufficient to hire a decent fact
checker? Someone with an intellect and a social conscience? Or does the
desire to score propaganda points trump everything else? Is this another
symptom of the Banana-Republicization of America?
Long live the Cold War
In 1933 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union after
some 15 years of severed relations following the Bolshevik Revolution. On a
day in December of that year, a train was passing through Poland carrying
the first American diplomats dispatched to Moscow. Amongst their number was
a 29 year-old Foreign Service Officer, later to become famous as a diplomat
and scholar, George Kennan. Though he was already deemed a government expert
on Russia, the train provided Kennan's first actual exposure to the Soviet
Union. As he listened to his group's escort, Russian Foreign Minister Maxim
Litvinov, reminisce about growing up in a village the train was passing
close by, and his dreams of becoming a librarian, the Princeton-educated
Kennan was astonished: "We suddenly realized, or at least I did, that these
people we were dealing with were human beings like ourselves, that they had
been born somewhere, that they had their childhood ambitions as we had. It
seemed for a brief moment we could break through and embrace these people."
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
It hasn't happened yet.
One would think that the absence in Russia of communism, of socialism, of
the basic threat or challenge to the capitalist system, would be sufficient
to write finis to the 70-year Cold War mentality. But the United States is
virtually as hostile to 21st-century Russia as it was to 20th-century Soviet
Union, surrounding Moscow with military bases, missile sites, and NATO
members. Why should that be? Ideology is no longer a factor. But power
remains one, specifically America's perpetual lust for world hegemony.
Russia is the only nation that (a) is a military powerhouse, and (b) doesn't
believe that the United States has a god-given-American-exceptionalism right
to rule the world, and says so. By these criteria, China might qualify as a
poor second. But there are no others.
Washington pretends that it doesn't understand why Moscow should be upset by
Western military encroachment, but it has no such problem when roles are
reversed. Secretary of State John Kerry recently stated that Russian troops
poised near eastern Ukraine are "creating a climate of fear and intimidation
in Ukraine" and raising questions about Russia's next moves and its
commitment to diplomacy. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
NATO - ever in need of finding a raison d'être - has now issued a
declaration of [cold] war, which reads in part:
"NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday [April 1, 2014] reaffirmed their
commitment to enhance the Alliance's collective defence, agreed to further
support Ukraine and to suspend NATO's practical cooperation with Russia.
'NATO's greatest responsibility is to protect and defend our territory and
our people. And make no mistake, this is what we will do,' NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. . Ministers directed Allied military
authorities to develop additional measures to strengthen collective defence
and deterrence against any threat of aggression against the Alliance, Mr.
Fogh Rasmussen said. 'We will make sure we have updated military plans,
enhanced exercises and appropriate deployments,' he said. NATO has already
reinforced its presence on the eastern border of the Alliance, including
surveillance patrols over Poland and Romania and increased numbers of
fighter aircraft allocated to the NATO air policing mission in the Baltic
States. . NATO Foreign Ministers also agreed to suspend all of NATO's
practical cooperation with Russia." Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Does anyone recall what NATO said in 2003 when the United States bombed and
invaded Iraq with "shock and awe", compared to the Russians now not firing a
single known shot at anyone? And neither Russia nor Ukraine is even a member
of NATO. Does NATO have a word to say about the right-wing coup in Ukraine,
openly supported by the United States, overthrowing the elected government?
Did the hypocrisy get any worse during the Cold War? Imagine that NATO had
not been created in 1949. Imagine that it has never existed. What reason
could one give today for its creation? Other than to provide a
multi-national cover for Washington's interventions.
One of the main differences between now and the Cold War period is that
Americans at home are (not yet) persecuted or prosecuted for supporting
Russia or things Russian.
But don't worry, folks, there won't be a big US-Russian war. For the same
reason there wasn't one during the Cold War. The United States doesn't pick
on any country which can defend itself.
Cuba . Again . Still . Forever
Is there actually a limit? Will the United States ever stop trying to
overthrow the Cuban government? Entire books have been written documenting
the unrelenting ways Washington has tried to get rid of tiny Cuba's horrid
socialism - from military invasion to repeated assassination attempts to an
embargo that President Clinton's National Security Advisor called "the most
pervasive sanctions ever imposed on a nation in the history of mankind".
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. But nothing has ever come even close
to succeeding. The horrid socialism keeps on inspiring people all over the
world. It's the darnedest thing. Can providing people free or remarkably
affordable health care, education, housing, food and culture be all that
important?
And now it's "Cuban Twitter" - an elaborately complex system set up by the
US Agency for International Development (USAID) to disguise its American
origins and financing, aiming to bring about a "Cuban Spring" uprising.
USAID sought to first "build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then the
plan was to push them toward dissent", hoping the messaging network "would
reach critical mass so that dissidents could organize 'smart mobs' - mass
gatherings called at a moment's notice - that might trigger political
demonstrations or 'renegotiate the balance of power between the state and
society'." Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. It's too bad it's now been
exposed, because we all know how wonderful the Egyptian, Syrian, Libyan, and
other "Arab Springs" have turned out.
Here's USAID speaking after their scheme was revealed on April 3: "Cubans
were able to talk among themselves, and we are proud of that." Error!
Hyperlink reference not valid. We are thus asked to believe that normally
the poor downtrodden Cubans have no good or safe way to communicate with
each other. Is the US National Security Agency working for the Cuban
government now?
The Associated Press, which broke the story, asks us further to believe that
the "truth" about most things important in the world is being kept from the
Cuban people by the Castro regime, and that the "Cuban Twitter" would have
opened people's eyes. But what information might a Cuban citizen discover
online that the government would not want him to know about? I can't
imagine. Cubans are in constant touch with relatives in the US, by mail and
in person. They get US television programs from Miami and other southern
cities; both CNN and Telesur (Venezuela, covering Latin America) are seen
regularly on Cuban television"; international conferences on all manner of
political, economic and social issues are held regularly in Cuba. I've
spoken at more than one myself. What - it must be asked - does USAID, as
well as the American media, think are the great dark secrets being kept from
the Cuban people by the nasty commie government?
Those who push this line sometimes point to the serious difficulty of using
the Internet in Cuba. The problem is that it's extremely slow, making
certain desired usages often impractical. From an American friend living in
Havana: "It's not a question of getting or not getting internet. I get
internet here. The problem is downloading something or connecting to a link
takes too long on the very slow connection that exists here, so usually I/we
get 'timed out'." But the USAID's "Cuban Twitter", after all, could not have
functioned at all without the Internet.
Places like universities, upscale hotels, and Internet cafés get better
connections, at least some of the time; however, it's rather expensive to
use at the hotels and cafés.
In any event, this isn't a government plot to hide dangerous information.
It's a matter of technical availability and prohibitive cost, both things at
least partly in the hands of the United States and American corporations.
Microsoft, for example, at one point, if not at present, barred Cuba from
using its Messenger instant messaging service. Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
Cuba and Venezuela have jointly built a fiber optic underwater cable
connection that they hope will make them less reliant on the gringos; the
outcome of this has not yet been reported in much detail.
The grandly named Agency for International Development does not have an
honorable history; this can perhaps be captured by a couple of examples: In
1981, the agency's director, John Gilligan, stated: "At one time, many AID
field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea
was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas,
government, volunteer, religious, every kind." Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
On June 21, 2012, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA) issued a resolution calling for the immediate expulsion of USAID from
their nine member countries, "due to the fact that we consider their
presence and actions to constitute an interference which threatens the
sovereignty and stability of our nations."
USAID, the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (and the latter's
subsidiaries), together or singly, continue to be present at regime changes,
or attempts at same, favorable to Washington, from "color revolutions" to
"spring" uprisings, producing a large measure of chaos and suffering for our
tired old world.
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
Fw: to heck with Saul Alinsky, I got troubles of my own
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2014 9:03 AM
Subject: I got troubles of my own
Typing with only three fingers on my right hand is getting to be a drag.
But my index finger is still some days away from being able to resume its
duties. The fingernail is toast, for sure. The swelling has gone down to a
point that I can almost bend the finger. Of course this is my best Braille
reading finger, and the one I always hurt.
My great uncle Walter was a carpenter. He helped to build many houses
across the midwest. Whenever Walter hit a finger with his trusty hammer, he
would shout out, "Peanut butter!" That is not what I shouted out when I
rapped the sledge hammer against my pinky. Not at all!
But this finger bashing got me to thinking. When my computer gets into a
jam, through no fault of mine, of course, I can reset it to an earlier date
and sometimes it reverts to good health.
"Well," I said to myself, "if my computer can do that, I'm certainly as
smart and even more deserving".
So I poured myself a tall glass of red wine and grabbed a bag of peanuts,
and stretched out in my recliner to turn my mind to the task of "resetting"
my finger.
Munching peanuts and sipping wine, I went inside my head and found the
Healing Control. I carefully travelled along the nerves, down through the
neck, along the shoulder, down the arm and into the hand, winding up in the
tip of my damaged finger.
"Heal!" I shouted.
"What did you say?" Cathy inquired, coming in from the kitchen. "Nothing.
I was just resetting my brain", I told her.
"Thank God for that", she quipped, and went back to the task of preparing my
evening feast.
Noticing that nothing had changed in my damaged finger, I decided to try the
other direction. Focusing on the painful digit, I pushed the damage out and
replaced it with a new, completely healed finger. In my mind I "saw" a
perfekct finger. Then, holding that image, I carefully moved my left hand
down and took hold of that finger, expecting it to be healed. Nothing.
"So," I said, sipping more wine and tossing back another handful of salted
nuts, "I guess I need outside help".
I brought my attention back to the center of my brain and then moved out
through the back of my head. Travelling at the speed of Light, I began
searching the Universe for that Healing Power that we all know exists, if
only we can connect with it. I began tingling all over, but could not seem
to make contact. But I stayed out there, soaring among the stars and stuff,
avoiding the Black Holes and Solar Winds.
"Dinners ready", came a distant voice. At first I thought I'd finally
connected with "The Power", but realized that it was Cathy's angelic voice
announcing that I'd fallen asleep.
Later I realized that the tingling I felt had more to do with the effects of
the wine, rather than some outer force.
So here I am, still pecking away with three fingers, waiting for Mother
Nature to take her course.
Reality can be such a drag!
Carl Jarvis
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2014 9:03 AM
Subject: I got troubles of my own
Typing with only three fingers on my right hand is getting to be a drag.
But my index finger is still some days away from being able to resume its
duties. The fingernail is toast, for sure. The swelling has gone down to a
point that I can almost bend the finger. Of course this is my best Braille
reading finger, and the one I always hurt.
My great uncle Walter was a carpenter. He helped to build many houses
across the midwest. Whenever Walter hit a finger with his trusty hammer, he
would shout out, "Peanut butter!" That is not what I shouted out when I
rapped the sledge hammer against my pinky. Not at all!
But this finger bashing got me to thinking. When my computer gets into a
jam, through no fault of mine, of course, I can reset it to an earlier date
and sometimes it reverts to good health.
"Well," I said to myself, "if my computer can do that, I'm certainly as
smart and even more deserving".
So I poured myself a tall glass of red wine and grabbed a bag of peanuts,
and stretched out in my recliner to turn my mind to the task of "resetting"
my finger.
Munching peanuts and sipping wine, I went inside my head and found the
Healing Control. I carefully travelled along the nerves, down through the
neck, along the shoulder, down the arm and into the hand, winding up in the
tip of my damaged finger.
"Heal!" I shouted.
"What did you say?" Cathy inquired, coming in from the kitchen. "Nothing.
I was just resetting my brain", I told her.
"Thank God for that", she quipped, and went back to the task of preparing my
evening feast.
Noticing that nothing had changed in my damaged finger, I decided to try the
other direction. Focusing on the painful digit, I pushed the damage out and
replaced it with a new, completely healed finger. In my mind I "saw" a
perfekct finger. Then, holding that image, I carefully moved my left hand
down and took hold of that finger, expecting it to be healed. Nothing.
"So," I said, sipping more wine and tossing back another handful of salted
nuts, "I guess I need outside help".
I brought my attention back to the center of my brain and then moved out
through the back of my head. Travelling at the speed of Light, I began
searching the Universe for that Healing Power that we all know exists, if
only we can connect with it. I began tingling all over, but could not seem
to make contact. But I stayed out there, soaring among the stars and stuff,
avoiding the Black Holes and Solar Winds.
"Dinners ready", came a distant voice. At first I thought I'd finally
connected with "The Power", but realized that it was Cathy's angelic voice
announcing that I'd fallen asleep.
Later I realized that the tingling I felt had more to do with the effects of
the wine, rather than some outer force.
So here I am, still pecking away with three fingers, waiting for Mother
Nature to take her course.
Reality can be such a drag!
Carl Jarvis
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