"Indignez-vous !" de Stéphane Hessel, plus de 500 000 exemplaires vendus

Priscille LAFITTE
France24

En novembre 2010, France 24 publiait un article sur un petit opus faisant un tabac en librairies: "Indignez-vous !", de Stéphane Hessel. Retrouvez l'interview réalisée à l'époque où ce livre venait de dépasser les 100 000 exemplaires vendus.

Le dernier succès de librairie? Un petit livre sorti le 20 octobre dernier, intitulé "Indignez-vous !, d’une trentaine de pages, vendu trois euros, et rédigé par Stéphane Hessel. Cet homme, aujourd’hui âgé de 93 ans, a un prestigieux passé de résistant, de rédacteur de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’Homme, de diplomate, mais aussi d’engagement en faveur des sans-papiers en France et de la création d’un Etat palestinien au Proche-Orient.

L’initiative du livre revient à une petite maison baptisée "Indigène éditions", créée à Montpellier en 1996 et "dédiée aux arts et aux savoirs des cultures non industrielles du monde". La parole est donnée aux aborigènes d'Australie, aux Indiens d'Amérique, aux Inuits du Canada, aux Maori et aux Papous du Pacifique… Mais aussi à "nos propres ‘indigènes’, tous ceux qui, chez nous, se sentent les otages de systèmes culturels, politiques et économiques dans lesquels ils ne se reconnaissent pas." Stéphane Hessel en fait donc partie.

Commentaires de ce gros succès de librairie, par les deux fondateurs de la maison "Indigène", Jean-Pierre Barou et Sylvie Crossman.


Hillary Clinton trashes Russian judicial system, but ignores U.S. failures

Yvonne Ridley
Kabul Press


Sergey Lavrov (Серге́й Лавро́в), Foreign Minister of Russia and Hillary
Clinton
, Secretary of State of the United States

I wonder if Hillary Clinton really believes in the pompous invective that shoots from her lips with the rapidity of machine gun fire.

We had a classic example of it just the other day when she let rip in her grating, robotic monotones over a Moscow court’s decision to jail an oil tycoon.

To be fair to Clinton, she was not alone. There was a whole gaggle of disapproving foreign ministers who poured forth their ridiculous brand of Western arrogance which has poisoned the international atmosphere for far too long.

The US Secretary of State said Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s conviction raised "serious questions about selective prosecution and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations". Although Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, 54, were found guilty of theft and money laundering by a Moscow court, critics like Clinton say the trial constitutes revenge for the tycoon’s questioning of a state monopoly on oil pipelines and propping up political parties that oppose the Kremlin.

Clinton’s censure was echoed by politicians in Britain and Germany, and Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, urged Moscow to "respect its international commitments in the field of human rights and the rule of law".

Now while it may appear to be quite touching to see all these Western leaders express their outrage over a trial involving the one-time richest and most powerful man in Russia’s oil and gas industry, you have to ask where were these moral guardians when other unjust legal decisions were being made in US courts, for example?


Waging War on American Workers

Stephen Lendman


Nine to five...Americans work the longest hours
and are the most productive, according to a UN
report / AP

Target one is America's middle class, endangered after decades of wealth shifts to super-rich elites besides most high-pay, good benefit jobs, offshored to cheap labor markets - a policy Washington's duopoly endorses. It's the most serious threat to middle America since attacks began in the 1970s.

On December 23, 1957, The Dan Smoot Report published novelist Taylor Caldwell's (1900 - 1985) article, titled "Honoria," the true story of a former great nation and lessons to be learned from its demise.

She explained how men seeking freedom became Pilgrims, endured terrible hardships, yet survived, prospered, and gained power. They established colonies, believed in God, hard work, public education, and transformed villages into towns and cities.

Others joined them, establishing new colonies, then uniting them. A civil war intervened. The republic was divided. A leader was assassinated, but prosperity followed conflict resolution. However, arrogance, corruption, and foreign entanglements followed. At issue - insatiable greed, not defending civilized world freedoms.

Wars resulted. Repressive laws passed, but Honoria had "a strong, industrious middle class, composed of farmers, artisans, (and) shopkeepers." However, they posed a threat to wealth and power so had to go to let elites rule unchallenged. Targeted by oppression, they "were reduced to despair," and began "dwindl(ing) away....Morality was dead."

The monstrous, bureaucratic state "was happy." People wanted entertainment, not freedom. Leaders waged more wars. Honoria became more corrupt and extremist. Its middle class eroded, died, and barbarians moved in.

Who was to blame? "Honoria, of course," at the expense of its own citizens. They sacrificed for the common good but were betrayed. Over hundreds of years, Honoria rose and fell. Its real name? "Ancient Rome," America its modern equivalent.


The media and the man with the “golden voice”

Andrea Peters
WSWS

Over the past week the US media, and in particular the cable news networks, have exploited the story of Ted Williams for the most reactionary and self-serving purposes.

Now known as the man with the “golden voice,” until just a few days ago, Williams had been living on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, panhandling to survive. In an appeal to passing motorists for donations, Williams carried a sign explaining to people that he was a talented, one-time radio announcer down on his luck. A local reporter from the Columbus Dispatch asked Williams for a demonstration, which he then posted on the Internet.

This YouTube video of Williams’ uniquely rich baritone immediately went “viral,” garnering some 2 million hits. At that point, the story was picked up by the major media outlets, which have turned Williams into an overnight celebrity.

Their aim is to boost ratings and make as much money as possible out of this media-manufactured “American Dream” story, while attempting to paint themselves as somehow sympathetic to the plight of ordinary people. They have been joined by other sections of big business, which see significant financial opportunities in Williams’ “rags to riches” transformation.

Since Thursday, Williams has appeared on at least four major television programs, including morning news shows and late-night TV, recorded commercials for Kraft Foods, and been offered multiple jobs as a professional announcer. The Cleveland Cavaliers, a professional basketball team in Ohio, have offered him a permanent position. They have created a web site devoted to recruiting “the golden voice.”


Lanny Davis: Lobbyist for Despots

Stephen Lendman

On October 2, 2009, Legal Times writer Jeff Jeffrey headlined, "Lanny Davis Leaves Orrick for McDermott Will & Emery," saying:

Former Clinton White House special counsel "left Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to join McDermott Will & Emery's regulatory and government strategies practice." At Orrick, he "led a rather unusual practice that included litigation....related media strategies, (and) advis(ing) clients on crisis management."

In fact, he then and now he lobbies for despots and predatory corporate clients.

"More recently, (he lobbied) on behalf of Honduran business leaders to convince members of Congress to support the removal of" democratically elected former President Manuel Zelaya.

In June 2009, a Washington orchestrated coup replaced him with the current fascist regime, responsible for reigning terror against human rights activists, pro-democracy groups, campesinos, independent journalists, and others challenging state/oligarch/drug lord power.

Post-coup, The Hill.com reported that the far-right Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) hired Davis to lobby Congress and conduct supportive PR for the interim Micheletti government. It involved a media blitz, arranged meetings for coup plotters with congressional members, and drafting an Accord to form a National Unity and Reconciliation Government as cover to solidify fascist rule. Davis, of course, was well paid to assure it. His credentials don't include honor, morality, ethics and support for the rule of law.


Did the U.S. government misuse science to justify torture?

David Biello
Scientific American

In 2001, Pakistani soldiers captured Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi as he fled Afghanistan. The Pakistani government turned the Libyan paramilitary trainer affiliated with al Qaeda over to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency requested permission to take al-Libi instead and send him to another country—Egypt—for interrogation, permission the Bush administration granted. While undergoing interrogation—potentially of the "enhanced" variety that includes prolonged sleep or sensory deprivation or painful body positions, among other treatments—al-Libi revealed that Iraq had been providing al Qaeda with training in making weapons of mass destruction.

What al-Libi revealed was false, and a trio of physicians now points to this case as an example of how torture provides information of "questionable reliability," in the January 6 issue of Science.

In fact, the doctors, from Physicians for Human Rights and the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, argue that science has proven that torture is an unreliable method for obtaining accurate information. In support of their claim, they cite a review paper published in Trends in Cognitive Science in September 2009 by neuroscientist Shane O'Mara of Trinity College in Dublin. Dr. Vincent Iacopino and his colleagues also argue in the latest essay that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" employed by the CIA and explicitly authorized by the Bush administration constitute torture.


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