Stephen Lendman

On February 18, as expected, Washington vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal under international law. The vote: 14 yes, America the sole no, isolating the US and Israel on this long festering issue. The measure had nearly 120 co-sponsors.

In a post-vote briefing, ambassador Susan Rice outrageously lied, saying:

"....as the United States has said on many, many occasions for many years, we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued settlement activity."

Unsaid was that America, for many decades, funded Israel generously to build them, a process continuing grievously under Obama, besides outlandish amounts of military aid, support for Israel's occupation, and partnering in all its aggressive wars.

In a February 18 press release, Americans for Peace Now (APN) expressed "disappointment," APN's President and CEO Debra DeLee, saying:

"President Barack Obama missed a key opportunity today to demonstrate US leadership on peace. America's failure to hold both sides accountable for their actions is a contributing factor to the state of" today's moribund peace process because Washington and Israel won't tolerate it.

Nor do they support Palestinian sovereignty, ending occupation, the right of return, and long denied democratic freedoms. Instead they enforce imperial harshness against millions of oppressed Palestinians, exploited and brutalized for decades. February 18 offered more evidence how.

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Francis Shor
t r u t h o u t

(Photo: Neon Hallway/Jared Rodriguez)

The US political class [...] may [now] be preparing to expand the definition of treason to include [all] those who are dedicated to freedom of information, especially when it reveals the duplicities of empire.

While empires try to maintain their hegemony through economic and military prowess, they must also rely on a form of ideological legitimacy to guarantee their rule. Such legitimacy is often embedded in the geopolitical reputation of the empire among its allies and reluctant admirers. Once that reputation begins to unravel, the empire appears illegitimate.

The establishment of the US empire in the aftermath of World War II built upon its economic and military supremacy. That empire created an architecture of financial and geopolitical institutions that served not only its own interests, but also those of global capital and international legal and democratic structures. There were, of course, myriad contradictions that materialized throughout the earliest cold war period, but much of the West accepted the general framework and ideological legitimacy of the empire. While a crisis of legitimacy emerged around the Vietnam War and the undermining of the Bretton Woods agreement by the Nixon administration, it was not until the end of the cold war and the development of reckless unipolar geopolitics over the last decade that a real decline in US hegemony became apparent.

Given the battered economic and military standing of the United States over the past several years, the hysterical reaction of the American political class over the recent release of State Department cables by WikiLeaks is not surprising. However, it is instructive to note the response of those in the West to such "displays (of) imperial arrogance and hypocrisy" as reported by Steven Erlanger in The New York Times. Erlanger cites an important editorial from the Berliner Zeitung that underscores the question of ideological legitimacy: "The U.S. is betraying one of its founding myths: freedom of information. And they are doing so now, because for the first time since the end of the cold war, they are threatened with losing worldwide control of information."

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Stephen Lendman

For decades, organized labor has been hammered after painful years of organizing, taking to the streets, going on strike, holding boycotts, battling police and National Guard forces, and paying with their blood and lives before real gains were won.

Important ones included an eight hour day, a living wage, essential benefits including healthcare and pensions, and the pinnacle of labor's triumph with passage of the landmark 1935 Wagner Act, establishing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It guaranteed labor the right to bargain collectively with management on equal terms for the first time, what's now sadly lost.

After signing it on July 5, 1935, Franklin Roosevelt said:

"This Act defines....the right of self-organization of employees in industry for the purpose of collective bargaining, and provides methods by which the Government can safeguard that legal right....A better relationship between labor and management is the high purpose of this Act....it seeks for every worker within its scope, that freedom of choice and action which is justly his....it should serve as an important step toward the achievement of just and peaceful labor relations in industry."

Grassroots activism won important gains. Management gave nothing until forced nor did government, siding always with business, yielding only to stop sustained disruptive work stoppages, street violence or possible insurrection.

In 1935, a worried Congress and administration acted. After WW II, however, organized labor declined. Passage of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Labor-Management Relations Act was the first major blow. Harry Truman vetoed it, calling it a "slave labor bill," then hypocritically used it 10 times, the most ever by a president to this day.

Under Reagan, labor rights declined precipitously, beginning in August 1981 by firing 11,000 striking PATCO air traffic controllers, jailing its leaders, fining the union millions of dollars, effectively busting and declaring war on organized labor by a president openly contemptuous of worker rights. From then to now, so are Democrats and Republicans, exacting a devastating toll thereafter.

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Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon's Blog

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon:

Three months ago, I briefly participated in a Palestinian solidarity conference in Stuttgart. The event was dedicated to the 'One State Solution'. As it happened, I was touring in Germany at the time, and thus accepted an invitation by the organiser to say a few words.

Being primarily an artist, rather than a politician or an activist, I am committed to truth and beauty rather than a party-line or any given ideological doctrine. Yet, without my intending to do so, and in just a few sentences – I managed to cross every possible ‘red line’, and I bought myself a few more enemies.

In my speech, I said that as much as ‘universalism’ is a beautiful idea, it is incompatible with Jewish culture, since Jewish culture is tribally oriented. I also told the German Palestinian supporters that as much as ‘peace’ is a beautiful concept, associated as it is with harmony and reconciliation, Shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, is actually interpreted by Israelis as ‘security for the Jews’.

I thought that the supporters of the ‘One State Solution’ should be aware of the complexities that lie ahead.

I also managed to infuriate some, by suggesting that I was against the comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany. Indeed, I believe that from certain ideological perspective, Israel is actually far worse than Nazi Germany, for unlike Nazi Germany, Israel is a democracy and that implies that Israeli citizens are complicit in Israeli atrocities.

Needless to say, a few of the attendants of the conference were angry with me. Such ideas are hardly expressed on German soil. Some of the Jewish activists, and at least one Marxist, demanded that I should be removed from the protocol.

I was obviously sad about it -- I believed that those who advocated the ‘One State solution’ should be able to support intellectual pluralism -- But it turns out that a few of those who promote democracy in Palestine would be better advised to first confront their own Stalinist tendencies.

Later, I learned that one legendary German Jewish activist and speaker at the conference stood by me. Evelyn Hecht-Galinski firmly announced that if I was to be removed from the protocol, then she also wanted to be removed. She argued in my defense that I was telling the truth about both Jewish and Israeli culture.

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Lawrence Davidson

Lawrence Davidson assesses the value of Universal Jurisdiction. He argues that it is “the best hope the world has to … hem in the criminal leaders of great power states who everyone had assumed were untouchable”, and urges citizens to protect it against attempts by Western leaders to undermine it in order to gain impunity for themselves and their allies.

One of the really progressive acts that followed the end of World War II was the establishment of the principle of Universal Jurisdiction (UJ).

Inception

UJ is a legal process that allows states that are signatories to various international treaties and conventions (such as the Geneva Conventions to prosecute alleged violators of these treaties, even when these violations are committed outside the country’s usual jurisdiction. This is particularly so if it can be demonstrated that the home government of the accused has no intention of bringing them to trial for the alleged offence. The assumption behind this principle is that the crime committed is so egregious as to be seen as a crime against humanity at large.

In the wake of the Nazi Holocaust and other such crimes against humanity, UJ was accepted as a necessary and positive legal step by almost all Western nations. So, with the images of concentration camps freshly impressed upon their minds, one can only imagine that the leaders who agreed to UJ in the mid to late 1940s never imagined the possibility that their own successors might someday be subject to its consequences. Yet, fast fowarding to our own time, that is exactly what is happening (albeit rather imperfectly).

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Stephen Lendman

It landed, but it's too soon to know where it's going or how committed workers are to stay the course and spread it to other US states.

On February 16, however, former Senator Russ Feingold launched Progressives United.org (PU), an initiative he hopes will inspire "a new progressive movement" to hold elected officials accountable by challenging corporate influence in politics.

It also opposes the Supreme Court's January 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, sanctioning unlimited corporate spending in elections (the one dollar = one vote ruling by America's supremely pro-business court). Feingold called it:

"one of the most lawless decisions in the history of our country. The idea of allowing corporations to have unlimited influence on our democracy is very dangerous, obviously. That's exactly what it does. Things were like this 100 years ago....with the huge corporate and business power of the oil companies and others. But this time, it's like the Gilded Age on steroids."

According to Feingold, PU won't take soft money or unlimited contributions, saying:

"We're going to be reporting every dime that we get, whether required by law or not....It will be 100 percent accountable, and that is an important principle that I believe in that we'll follow to the T....as a way of contrasting it to what's going on with the corporate money" that buys politicians like toothpaste.

It remains to be seen whether Feingold will prove true to his word, if his agenda also challenges other major issues, including imperial lawlessness and growing homeland repression. Crucially also is whether it spreads, inspiring similar efforts across America.

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Nahida Izzat
Exiled Palestinian

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Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights
Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights

[.pdf] In view of the upcoming EU-Israel Association Council scheduled for 21 February 2011 we, the undersigned Palestinian human rights organisations committed to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), would like to express our grave concerns about the continuous deterioration of the human rights situation. In particular, we are alarmed by Israel’s protracted policies aimed at entrenching the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem.

1. The Human Rights Situation in East Jerusalem

Since its de facto annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has implemented various measures and policies in order to consolidate its territorial, demographic and political control over the city. This includes the systematic attempt to secure a Jewish majority while reducing any Palestinian presence in the city through a process of acquiring more land and the introduction of the centre-of-life requirement.

The centre-of-life policy requires Palestinian residents of East-Jerusalem (whom Israel considers as “permanent residents” rather than citizens) to consistently prove that their “centre of life” is in East Jerusalem or else they risk losing their residency rights.[1] Since this policy was adopted, in 1995, Israel has revoked the status of over 10,000 Palestinian residents of the city.[2]

Moreover, Israel prevents Palestinians who are registered - in the Israeli-controlled population registry - as residents of the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) or the Gaza Strip from residing in Jerusalem. If Palestinian permanent residents wish to live in East Jerusalem with their non-resident spouses and children, they need to apply for family unification, a process that Israel de facto suspended as of 2000. Moreover, in 2003, Israel adopted the “Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law,” which makes it illegal for mixed residency couples to live in East Jerusalem.[3]

The restrictive planning and zoning regime of the Jerusalem municipality is another tool used by Israel in order to induce the transfer of the Palestinian population out of the city.[4]

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Mike Head
WSWS

Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi

Egypt’s military has been presented by the Obama administration, as well as by the leaders of Egypt’s official “opposition,” such as Mohamed ElBaradei, as the guarantor of an “orderly transition” to a new democratic order. This is false to the core. The generals have a long record of repression against the working class, starting with the court-martial and execution of two textile workers’ strike leaders just a month after the 1952 military coup that inaugurated the Nasser regime (see: “The Egyptian working class moves to the forefront”).

Contrary to the myth of the armed forces’ neutrality, every acute crisis of the military-backed dictatorship has seen troops mobilised to suppress working class discontent. These occasions included the 1977 food riots triggered by the implementation of World Bank and International Monetary Fund-ordered price rises, and an uprising of police conscripts in Cairo and other cities in 1986.

Last August, eight employees of Military Factory 99 were placed on trial—in a military court—for calling a strike. The workers had demanded safer working conditions, as they are formally entitled to do under Egyptian law, after a boiler exploded, killing one civilian worker and injuring six. The strikers were charged with “disclosing military secrets” and “illegally stopping production”. In the end, after a quick trial, three were acquitted and the five others received suspended sentences. The outcome was regarded as lenient, but the military had sent an unmistakeable message. “There are no labor strikes in military society,” a retired army general, Hosam Sowilam, told the New York Times.

In addition to its unabiding commitment to maintain the capitalist order as a whole, Egypt’s officer caste commands its own huge business empire, which has mushroomed since the 1952 coup. Military Factory 99, at Helwan, in Cairo’s south, is a prime example. The plant produces a wide variety of consumer goods—stainless steel pots and pans, fire extinguishers, scales, cutlery—in addition to its primary function of forging metal components for heavy ammunition.

Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, a life-long henchman of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, remains both Defence Minister and Minister of Military Production, posts he has held since 1991. That makes him not only the commander-in-chief of the military junta but, in effect, the chief executive officer of a giant military-run commercial enterprise.

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Ellen Brown
The Web of Debt

Ellen Hodgson Brown

"It is time to declare economic sovereignty from the multinational banks that are responsible for much of our current economic crisis. Every year we ship over a billion dollars in Oregon taxpayer dollars to out-of-state and multinational banks in the form of deposits, only to see that money invested elsewhere. It's time to put our money to work for Oregonians." ~ Bill Bradbury, former Oregon Senate President and Secretary of State, quoted in The Nation

Responding to an unfilled need for credit for local government, local businesses and consumers, three states in the last month have introduced bills for state-owned banks -- Oregon, Washington and Maryland – joining Illinois, Virginia, Massachusetts and Hawaii to bring the total number to seven.

While Wall Street is reporting record profits, local banks are floundering, credit for small businesses and consumers remains tight, and local governments are teetering on bankruptcy. There is even talk of allowing state governments to file for bankruptcy, something current legislation forbids. The federal government and Federal Reserve have managed to find trillions of dollars to prop up the Wall Street banks that precipitated the credit crisis, but they have not extended this largesse to the taxpayers and local governments that have been forced to pick up the tab.

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Rodrigue Tremblay
The New American Empire

The 1920′s German Inflation. Their money
became worthless. - The dollar's next?

"If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions." ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US President

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US President

[Corruption in high places would follow as] “all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” ~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), American 16th US President (1861-65)

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." ~ Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), French economist

“Inflation made here in the United States is very, very low.” ~ Ben Bernanke, Fed Chairman, Thursday, February 10, 2011

Let us begin with some macroeconomic indicators of reference.

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Stephen Lendman

"She's "no more a terrorist than Nelson Mandela" or hundreds of others Washington bogusly charged, imprisoned and abused."

Numerous previous articles discussed how Washington/Pakistani collusion victimized her. A brief recap explains.

In March 2003, after visiting her family in Karachi, Pakistan, government Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents, in collaboration with Washington, abducted her and her three children en route to the airport for a flight to Rawalpindi. Handed to US authorities, she was secretly incarcerated at one or more prisons, including Afghanistan's Bagram for more than five years of brutal torture and unspeakable abuse.

Bogusly charged and convicted, she was guilty only of being Muslim in America at the wrong time. A Pakistani national, she was deeply religious, very small, thoughtful, studious, quiet, polite, shy, soft-spoken, barely noticeable in a gathering, not extremist or fundamentalist, and, of course, no terrorist.

She attended MIT and Brandeis University where she earned a doctorate in neurocognitive science. She did volunteer charity work, taught Muslim children on Sundays, distributed Korans to area prison inmates, dedicated herself to helping oppressed Muslims worldwide, yet lived a quiet, unassuming nonviolent life.

Nonetheless, she was accused of being a "high security risk" for alleged Al-Qaeda connections linked to planned terrorist attacks against New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building, accusations so preposterous they never appeared in her indictment.

The DOJ's more likely interest was her connection through marriage to a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the bogusly charged 9/11 mastermind who confessed after years of horrific torture. US authorities tried using them both - to coerce KSM to link Siddiqui to Al Qaeda, and she to acknowledge his responsibility for 9/11 - something she knew nothing about or anything about her distant relative.

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Stephen Lendman

Bahraini youths demonstrate in front of the police in Manama.

They continue in Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Tunisia, and most recently in Iran and Bahrain, Al Jazeera saying:

"At least one person has been killed and several others injured after [Bahrain] riot police opened fire at protesters holding a funeral service for a man killed [a] day earlier."

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at thousands in Manama, Bahrain's capital, demanding the regime's removal. Majority Shias want redress, saying Sunni rulers unfairly discriminate. However, more than sectarian issues are involved. Others include political freedoms, ending media and Internet state controls, prohibiting police use of excessive force, and addressing the extreme wealth gap between Bahrain elites and majority citizens.

On February 15, Al Jazeera's unnamed correspondent for his safety said:

"Police fired on the protesters this morning, but they showed very strong resistance. It seems like [a] funeral procession was allowed to continue, but police are playing a cat-and-mouse game with protesters."

Angered by deaths from their ranks, al-Wefaq Shia opposition members suspended their parliamentary participation, calling it a first step toward continuing or resigning, depending on future developments. In a rare gesture, Bahrain's king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, offered condolences on state television. Words, of course, don't suffice.

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Stephen Lendman

"Whether now, later or in between, Obama's budget hammers working Americans, especially those poor, forgotten, vulnerable, and ignored since Reagan succeeded Carter. Democrats have been as cruel as Republicans, serving wealth and power interests alone while pretending to care."

Despite its flaws and failures during America's Great Depression, FDR's New Deal was remarkable for what it accomplished. It helped people, put millions back to work, reinvigorated the national spirit, built or renovated 700,000 miles of roads, 7,800 bridges, 45,000 schools, 2,500 hospitals, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 1,000 airfields, and various other infrastructure, including much of Chicago's lakefront where this writer lives. It cut unemployment from 25% in May 1933 to 11% in 1937, before declaring victory too early and letting it spike before early war production revived economic growth and headed it lower.

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Gilad Atzmon
Vera Macht
Gilad Atzmon's Blog

Gilad Atzmon: In the last month I circulated some invaluable reports by Vera Macht, an ISM (International Solidarity Movement) activist operating in Gaza.

My friend Gabi Weber decided to launch an urgent appeal for Vera Macht and ISM in Gaza.

Gabi writes, “These young activists who work with the ISM in Gaza, do it on a voluntary basis. They do not earn a single penny. In fact most of their activity is financed by themselves. At the moment there is no money left for urgent medical treatment.

The work of these young ISM activists is admirable and should be supported by every humanist. Day by day they witness horrific crimes committed by the Israeli army. The least we can do, is help them financially.

In the following you’ll find data from Vera´s bank account in Germany. We decided to collect all the money on this account and then transfer it to Gaza. This will be less expensive.

Jazza production also lends its PayPal account for the cause. In the next month (until March 15th 2011) money that will be channeled to Jazza Production’s PayPal will be sent to Vera Macht and the ISM in Gaza.

Please spread this appeal widely, so we’ll have the chance to help Vera and the ISM.

THANK YOU ALL.

SALAM

Gabi Weber, Freiburg, South Germany

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