John Pilger
johnpilger.com

Forty years ago, a book entitled The Greening of America caused a sensation. On the cover were these words:

"There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual."

I was a correspondent in the United States at the time and recall the overnight elevation to guru status of the author, a young Yale academic, Charles Reich. His message was that political action had failed and only "culture" and introspection could change the world. This merged with an insidious corporate public relations campaign aimed at reclaiming western capitalism from the sense of freedom inspired by the civil rights and anti-war movements. The new propaganda's euphemisms were postmodernism, consumerism and "me-ism".

The self was now the zeitgeist. Driven by the forces of profit and the media, the search for individual consciousness all but overwhelmed the spirit of social justice and internationalism. A new deity was proclaimed; the personal was the political.

In 1995, Reich published Opposing the System, in which he recanted almost everything in The Greening of America.

"There will be no relief from either economic insecurity or human breakdown," he now wrote, "until we recognise that uncontrolled economic forces create conflict, not well-being . . ."

There were no queues in the bookstores this time. In the age of economic neoliberalism, Reich was out of step with the rampant individualism of the west's new political and cultural elite.

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Ann Talbot
WSWS

L'unique raffinerie de pétrole de la Côte d'Ivoire, la Société Ivoiri-
enne de Raffinage SA (SIR) (Photo: Les Afriques)

"La perspective que la Côte d’Ivoire a des réserves pétrolières viables la rend plus importante stratégiquement pour l’Occident. La France et les Etats-Unis veulent une figure politique loyale pour contrôler ce pays qui possède de longue date une importance régionale ; il est le premier producteur de cacao du monde, dispose de nombreuses et précieuses ressources naturelles et dispose maintenant peut-être de l’importance supplémentaire due au pétrole."

La situation dans ce pays d’Afrique occidentale continue à se détériorer après les élections présidentielles contestées de novembre où le président sortant Laurent Gbagbo et son rival, Alassane Ouattara, ont tous deux revendiqué la victoire.

Le ministère américain des Affaires étrangères a imposé une interdiction de voyage à Gbagbo. Le sous-secrétaire d’Etat adjoint pour les Affaires africaines, William Fitzgerald, a dit que les Etats-Unis imposeraient une interdiction de ce type à Gbagbo, à tous les membres de sa famille et à son entourage, tout en envisageant également l’imposition de sanctions financières.

« Il est tout à fait possible qu’il essaie de nous ignorer en espérant que nous oublierons l’affaire et que nous disparaîtrons ou que nous nous concentrerons sur une autre question », a dit Fitzgerald. « Je ne peux que lui rappeler qu’il s’agit ici d’une communauté internationale unanime. Nous ne disparaîtrons pas et nous n’oublierons pas. »

Une déclaration identique est venue de l’Union européenne (UE). Elle a gelé les avoirs de Gbagbo et lui a imposé une interdiction de visa ainsi qu’à ses partisans.

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Stephen Lendman

Haiti's November 28 elections were irremediably fraudulent, farcical and outrageous. The entire process was rigged.

New elections, including all excluded parties, are essential, but not planned. Instead, so-called independent OAS experts began recounting verification to legitimize fraud. According to Albert Ramdin, Assistant OAS Secretary General:

Recounting will be secretive behind closed doors. No public statement will be made until final results are announced, likely early in January. Team members will "look at all systems and then....agree on how (to) proceed" instead of trashing junk tally sheets and starting over.

Originally scheduled for January 16, second electoral round voting will be delayed until initial totals are recounted and verified, no matter how fraudulent, ludicrous, and worthless.

The New York Times Endorses Fraud

An earlier article discussed a November 30 New York Times editorial endorsing Haiti's coup d'état sham, accessed through this link.

Brazenly ignoring illegitimacy, it said "Re-running elections this large (for president and legislative members) would lead to months more confusion and government inaction. Unless compelling evidence of fraud is found, it is not necessary and clearly not in Haiti's interests."

On December 30, a new Times editorial titled "Haiti's Vote" endorsed OAS recounting, not to determine fraud, but to "clear up the uncertainty over who won second place and will go on to a January runoff." Once again the Times said:

"The answer is not a full, new election. That would be hugely complicated and costly. Haiti and the OAS have the right approach with their agreement to let the outside specialists into the national tabulation center to examine everything: tally sheets, voter rolls, written reports about irregularities and incidents on Election Day....so Haitians see that their democracy is lawful, transparent and trustworthy."

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Democrats Ramshield
AlterNet

As an American expat living in the European Union, I’ve started to see America from a different perspective.

The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less -- right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical -- the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.

The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.

Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called "A Superpower in Decline," which attempts to explain to a German audience such odd phenomena as the rise of the Tea Party, without the hedging or attempts at "balance" found in mainstream U.S. media. On the Tea Parties:

Full of Hatred: "The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, is angry. Beck doesn't quite know what he wants to be -- maybe a politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher -- and he doesn't know what he wants to do, either, or least he hasn't come up with any specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred."

The piece continues with the sobering assessment that America’s actual unemployment rate isn’t really 10 percent, but close to 20 percent when we factor in the number of people who have stopped looking for work.

Some social scientists think that making sure large-scale crime or fascism never takes root in Europe again requires a taxpayer investment in a strong social safety net. Can we learn from Europe? Isn't it better to invest in a social safety net than in a large criminal justice system? (In America over 2 million people are incarcerated.)

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Stephen Lendman

Concerned Citizens of Florida.com (CCF) believe efforts must be made now "to address what may very well be the greatest environmental catastrophe of North America in modern history....government (and media) cannot be relied on" for truthful information. As a result, its site is a platform for truth and accuracy on a disaster of such magnitude.

On December 1, CCF published a special Dr. Tom Termotto Gulf disaster report, titled "The Gulf of Mexico is Dying." He's National Coordinator for the Tallahassee, FL-based Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference (International Citizens' Initiative). Its disturbing findings are discussed below. He published them so "the world community will come together to further contemplate this dire and demanding predicament." Future generations depend on it.

Termotto's entire report can be accessed through this link.

In an early July statement, he called the Gulf disaster "a tragic violation of the public trust," adding:

"The BP Gulf Oil Spill was created by man; it was not an act of God....It was an utterly manmade event; not an accident....where fate would have everything accidently go wrong that could go possibly so wrong....We wonder out loud about whether it is now time to establish a Regional Citizens' Initiative....to step in where government and industry have completely failed and betrayed the people."

His current assessment is based on seven months Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference work, "disseminate(d) with the authority and confidence of those who have thoroughly investigated a crime scene." A compelling body of evidence, including photo-documentaries, portrays the Gulf's true state - what BP, Washington, and major media reports suppressed.

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