Stephen Lendman

On June 28, New York Times writer Liz Alderman headlined, "France's Lagarde Named New Head of IMF," saying:

She'll assume "one of the most powerful positions in global finance as a worsening crisis in Greece threatens the euro currency union and rattles financial markets worldwide."

Washington's choice all along, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner endorsed her over Mexico's central bank governor Agustin Carsten, her only competitor after IMF board of directors excluded Israeli central bank governor Stanley Fischer. Allegedly because of age, he, in fact, lacked support outside Israel, and US officials stuck with traditional IMF policy of a European in charge.

An American always heads the World Bank, yet Washington dominates all international lending agencies, assuring it anoints officials heading them, public discourse notwithstanding.

On June 28, a brief IMF statement announced Lagarde's appointment, saying:

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund today selected Christine Lagarde to serve as IMF managing director and madame chairman of the executive board for a five-year term starting July 2011." China, Russia and Brazil also supported her besides America and most European nations.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne called it "good news for the global economy and for Britain." French President Nicolas Sarkozy said about his departing finance minister, it's a "victory for France." Indeed so, as French banks are heavily exposed to Greek (and other troubled nations') debt Lagarde is mandated to protect.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Iraq slowly disappears down the plughole while Iraqi politicians argue about who should sit on which chair, squabbling like children under the shadow of the US imperial occupation. Fourteen months after the last Iraqi election in March-2010, the ministries of defence and interior are being run by the Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. What a superman he is! Not only is he the Prime Minister, but he can also run these two most difficult of ministries. But wait a minute, examine the achievement of governments since the occupation in 2003, and you discover there are none. The realisation then dawns that these ministers actually do practically nothing in any capacity. It is a mathematical fact that no matter how many zeros you add together you still end up with zero.

The psychological barriers that afflict the rulers and the ruled in a country under occupation are particularly severe in Iraq. They have somehow sucked the initiative from its rulers and have destroyed the pride the people had in their country. People are demoralised and bewildered by the man-made catastrophe that has severely degraded their lives.

It is a measure of the abject failure of successive governments following the illegal war on Iraq in 2003, that a great number of people look back with fondness and nostalgia at an Iraq prior to that war, run by a brutal dictator and suffering under a US-British sponsored blockade that caused the deaths of up to half a million Iraqi children. The incompetence and corruption of governments that have run Iraq since the invasion is breathtaking.

The democracy that supposedly exists in Iraq is no more than a grab of its resources, the spoils of war, to be shared by voracious American and western corporations, arms manufacturers, private security firms and the corrupt elite of the sects and ethnicities that make up the mosaic of Iraqi society.

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Vincent Di Stefano

Thomas Berry wanted to shift the focus of religion to-
wards care of the Earth.

Industrial civilisation has changed everything. At the dawn of the petrochemical age in 1750, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide were estimated to be 280 parts per million (ppm). In 1960, they were around 360 ppm. Last month (May 2011) levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide were over 394 ppm.

The oceans of the earth are presently becoming more acidic at ten times the rate that preceded the last mass extinction event at the end of the Cenozoic era tens of millions of years ago.

And while Arctic sea ice cover has been steadily declining in recent years, NASA scientists have confirmed that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at a rapidly accelerating rate.

There are many who have read the warning signs. Half a century ago, Rachel Carson alerted us to the damaging consequences of industrial methods of agriculture on ecosystems everywhere. Soon after, Fritz Schumacher urged us to rethink economics in view of the rapacious influence of corporate globalisation. And both Rosalie Bertell and Helen Caldicott have long warned of the silent, slow and spectrous death emanating from the nuclear industry.

The UN Climate Conferences at Copenhagen in 2009 and Mexico City in 2010 were effectively neutered by the influence of mining and energy companies acting through Western governments, notably the US and Canada. Closer to home, both Liberal and Labour parties are desperately outreaching each other in promised tax cuts while arguing about how best to lower carbon emissions by a sad 5% by 2020.

Meanwhile, 250 million tons of coal - over 10 tons for every man, woman and child living in this country - and 10,000 tons of yellow cake - uranium oxide - continue to be shipped out of Australia each year as part of a non-negotiable assault on the earth, felicitously described as a "mining boom", that has replaced the sheep's back on which the Australian economy was once carried.

Those who have understood the magnitude of the environmental situation that presently confronts us are faced with a two-fold task. The first is to clearly identify the nature of those forces that have brought us to where we are. The second is to envision the changes needed - both in our thinking and in our actions - that might reverse the dangerous situation within which we find ourselves, or at the least, prepare future generations for living on the earth in a very different manner.

One of the most articulate and visionary allies in this task is the late Thomas Berry, theologian, mystic and cultural historian. Berry combines prophetic clarity with a penetrative erudition grounded in the intellectual and spiritual traditions of both West and East.

His vision was slowly formed through many decades of studying the wisdom traditions and through observing the effects of industrial civilisation on the earth's ecosystems during the twentieth century. Thomas Berry offers a truly heroic vision to counter the pathologies of distraction and trivialisation borne of the post-modern enthralment with transience and distaste for grand narratives.[1][2]

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Stephen Lendman

On June 27, a Freedom Flotilla press release headlined, "GAZA, WE ARE COMING. Despite pressure and threats of violence, flotilla will sail."

On June 27, A US Boat to Gaza Audacity of Hope press conference reiterated a determination to sail despite threats, pressure and other measures used to stop it.

Participants on board all 10 ships haven't come this far to turn back or let imperial viciousness deter them, especially when their mission is vital and just.

In response to spurious claims that passengers may have chemicals to attack Israeli commandos, perhaps the same ones responsible for the May 2010 Mavi Marmara massacre, Flotilla participants signed a declaration of nonviolence. Spokesman Dror Feiler told Army Radio that if Israel has other information, it should inform Flotilla organizers.

He responded to IDF spokesperson Major Avital Leibovich, citing intelligence reports that dangerous chemicals may be used as weapons, and that extremist passengers were heard threatening "to spill the blood" of Israeli soldiers.

According to an unnamed defense official, "The picture emerging here is that some of the flotilla participants clearly intend a violent clash," when, in fact, he knows this is a bald faced lie, an Israeli specialty, regurgitated by major media flacks, while suppressing Israel's intention either to block or confiscate vessels it interdicts and all passenger possessions as it did against Flotilla I.

According to Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, Israel may establish a special naval court to do it, Barak saying:

"There's no doubt that impounding vessels is a deterrent measure that could prevent the need to use force against future (flotilla) violations."

Destroying them works better, what Dror Feiler disclosed, saying a scuba diver examining one of the boats discovered its propeller shaft cut off. It was deliberate sabotage that can be fixed but may take time.

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Uploaded by ourjourneytosmile June 26, 2011

'From river to the sea, everyone should be free.'
~ Nabeel Raee, teacher of Jenin Freedom Theatre, traveling on the West Bank hills

We in Afghanistan sense
your loneliness.
It is hard to be born human,
and not be regarded as one.
It is hard to be a mother
who can't cook enough for meals
and laugh enough with her children.
It is hard to be a youth,
and not feel young at all.
It's hard to lose
the human capacity for happiness.
We share your anger too.

But let's not be angry for too long. Hasn't war taught us that love is needed to guide anger, the same way we've seen mothers shaking with grief but standing with grace? Don't be angry with your family and loved ones because they had snapped at you after the usual hard day. We should forgive, and try to stay as human as life allows.

Please stay together, and [do] not submit to human laws which pull humans apart. We can't expect people in the rest of the world to worry about us in Gaza or Afghanistan. It hurts more than we're willing to utter, but we'll find sufficient strength to accept that people are normally too busy to wonder if we're really such "terrible" human beings [like the Israeli government says].

It's irritating that politicians are universally well-dressed while making our world so socially distant and emotionally intolerable. We know that peace, equality and freedom will come when the politicians step aside and let the people converse. But they aren't going to step aside unless we persuade them with our dignity, like many people across the world are doing now.

In adversity, we share with you the occasional burden of being 'no-bodies', But surely, we must cling on to some meaning, cling on to the hope that God doesn't intend for us to be discarded ( like trash ), that there are such qualities as compassion, that human company exists.

To the people of Gaza and Israel, we are reaching out to you, as President Obama and world leaders keep extending their violence on their own people, and on us whom they don't see. They believe in force.

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Stephen Lendman

Nations that live by the sword, die by it. America is no exception, nor any other.

Noted trends analyst Gerald Celente said it, and it's true. In fact, America's business is war, more war, multiple wars, permanent wars, pillaging one nation after another for wealth, power, and dominance, while homeland needs go begging.

America never was and isn't now the "land of the free and home of the brave." In fact, it's become a "Let 'em eat cake" society.

Whether or not Marie Antoinette actually said it, France's 1789-99 revolution was very real, delivering guillotine justice, not promised "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité," a status now destroying what's left of American freedom, heading for the trash bin of history if not already there.

Earlier articles discussed Washington's wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen, as well as numerous proxy ones in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and at home against Muslims, Latino immigrants, and working households.

Combined, they represent a shocking contempt for rule of law justice, democratic values and humanity, notions now mere artifacts long ago abandoned to advance America's imperium.

As previous articles explained, out-of-control imperialism is heading America for tyranny and ruin. In her 1951 book, "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Hannah Arendt said it is

"never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within."

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Kathy Kelly
Antiwar

Stay Human: Convoy headed for Gaza (Vittorio Arrigoni)

Last week, newly arrived in Athens as part of the U.S. Boat to Gaza project, our team of activists gathered for nonviolence training. We are here to sail to Gaza, in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, in our ship, The Audacity of Hope. Our team and nine other ships’ crews from countries around the world want Israel to end its lethal blockade of Gaza by letting our crews through to shore to meet with Gazans. The U.S. ship will bring over 3,000 letters of support to a population suffering its fifth continuous decade of de facto occupation, now in the form of a military blockade controlling Gaza’s sea and sky, punctuated by frequent deadly military incursions, that has starved Gaza’s economy and people to the exact level of cruelty considered acceptable to the domestic population of our own United States, Israel’s staunchest ally.

The international flotilla last year was brutally attacked and the Turkish ship fired on from the air, with a cherry-picked video clip of the resulting panic presented to the world to justify nine deaths, one of a United States citizen, most of them execution-style killings. So it’s essential, albeit a bit bizarre, to plan for how we will respond to military assaults. Israeli news reports say that their naval commandos are preparing to use attack dogs and snipers to board the boats. In the past, they have used water cannons, Taser guns, stink bombs, sound bombs, stun guns, tear gas, and pepper spray against flotilla passengers. I’ve tried to make a mental list of plausible responses: remove glasses, don life jacket, affix clip line (which might prevent sliding off the deck), carry a half onion to offset effect of tear gas, remember to breathe.

Israel Defense Forces are reportedly training for a fierce assault intended to “secure” each boat in the Freedom Flotilla 2. As passengers specifically on the U.S. boat, we may be spared the most violent responses, although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not ruled out such violent responses and has preemptively certified that any response we may “provoke” (in sailing from international waters to a coastline that is not part of Israel) is an expression of Israel’s “right to defend themselves.” Israel says it is prepared for a number of scenarios, ranging “from no violence” (which it knows full well to expect) to “extreme violence.” We are preparing ourselves not to panic and to practice disciplined nonviolence whatever scenario Israel decides to enact.

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Morten Lodberg
Dagbladet Arbejderen

Der er trangt og mørkt i de smalle gyder i Shatila-flygtningelejren
i Beirut. (Foto: Morten Lodberg)

På en rejse gennem Libanons flygtningelejre der er hjem for den største procentdel af Palæstinensiske flygtninge udenfor deres hjemland, stødte jeg på mange unge, der stod og hang I gaderne.

Skønt stort set alle yngre palæstinensere har gået i en folkeskole og gymnasiet, er de fleste af dem arbejdsløse eller tjener kun lige til dagen og vejen gennem sort arbejde eller gennem tilskud fra udenlandske slægtninge. 

Alle smiler og er venlige, men under overfladen fornemmer man en fortvivlelse, der simpelthen bunder i magtesløshed.. Smilene blegner og skuldrene synker. når samtalen falder på deres situation og fremtid, samtalen skifter næsten altid spor eller bliver høfligt afsluttet.

I et kaffehus i det centrale Beirut mødte jeg dog en ung fyr, som jeg kort havde snakket med på mit besøg i en af lejrene. Han indvilligede modvilligt i at fortælle om sin og sin families problemer som tredjegenerationsflygtninge i Libanon.

Som et fængsel

Natten er faldet på, og jeg sidder sammen med Raed og hans venner på et fladt tag med udsigt til alle sider, taget er svagt oplyst af flakkende neonlamper, der dingler i den svage brise fra havet, som ligger gemt bag beton og osen fra tusinder af udstødninger fra trafikken.

Udsigten består af halvfærdige betonbygninger med små lys af neon eller brændende stearinlys hist og her i de sorte silhuetter, der står klart aftegnede mod den lyse nattehimmels stjernekort.

Omgivelserne virker på engang beroligende med deres ubevægelige ro, men for dem, som er født her og har boet her hele deres liv, virker det som et fængsel, der dog er hjem og alt de kender til.

Shatila-flygtningelejren, der er berygtet for de massakrer, som kristne falangister udløste mod den civile befolkning med hjælp fra israelske styrker i 1982, er hjem for en stor gruppe af unge palæstinensere.

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Bill Van Auken
WSWS

It is indisputable that similar indictments could be leveled against [the US,] US-backed regimes and allies in the region. That no such indictments or arrest orders have been issued only underscores that the International Criminal Court is a pliant tool of the US and the other major imperialist powers in pursuit of “regime change.”

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi Monday as NATO’s bombardment of Libya continued into its 100th day.

In addition, the ICC handed down arrest warrants for the Libyan leader’s son Seif al-Islam Gaddafi and the Libyan regime’s intelligence chief, Abjullah al-Sanoussi.

The orders were issued in response to a 74-page indictment handed to the court in May by ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who based the charges of crimes against humanity largely on testimony of the so-called rebels aligned with NATO and claims made by Western security agencies.

While maintaining the pretense that Gaddafi and the other two charged are innocent until proven guilty, the ICC presiding judge Sanji Monageng of Botswana said on Monday that there existed “reasonable grounds to believe” that Gaddafi and his son are “criminally responsible as indirect perpetrators” of the killing and repression of civilians. She maintained that similar grounds existed to believe that Sanoussi bore responsibility for directing alleged crimes, in particular in the suppression of anti-government resistance in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi last February.

The arrest order alleges that “following the events in Tunisia and Egypt which led to the departure of their respective presidents in the early months of 2011, a State policy was designed at the highest level of the Libyan State machinery and aimed at deterring and quelling, by any means, including by the use of lethal force, the demonstrations of civilians against Gaddafi's regime which started in February 2011.”

Concretely, it charges that, “within a period of less than two weeks in February 2011, the Security Forces killed and injured as well as arrested and imprisoned hundreds of civilians.”

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Stephen Lendman

Sting operations not only entrap bogus terrorist suspects, but
worse, they wreck vital community trust.

Instead of pursuing criminals, Homeland Security, the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors embrace racist radicalization notions to entrap innocent victims despite no plot or crime except ones they invent.

By now, the familiar storyline sounds more like a film plot than criminal indictment, especially when Muslims are involved, and the most recent case repeats the same scenario used last December.

Then it involved Antonio Martinez, aka Muhammad Hussain, accused of plotting to attack an armed forces recruiting center. An undercover FBI agent lawlessly entrapped him, supplying an inert bomb, then stopping him after he allegedly tried to detonate it by remote control. A previous article discussed him, accessed through this link.

In fact, like dozens of others, he was maliciously ensnared by an FBI orchestrated sting operation, entrapping him to declare another war on terror victory. Innocence or guilt doesn't matter, just the illusion that America is now safer when, in fact, each conviction assures greater insecurity, leaving many to wonder who's next.

Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif (aka Joseph Anthony Davis) and Walli Mujahidh (aka Frederick Dominque) are the latest victims, a June 23 Justice Department press release headlining, "Two Men Charged in Plot to Attack Seattle Military Processing Center - Defendants Sought Firearms and Grenades to Attack Complex where Enlistees Report," saying:

Arrested on June 22, both men were "charged by criminal complaint with terrorism and firearms related charges....Unbeknownst to the defendants, the weapons were rendered inoperable and posed no risk to the public. (They) initially planned an attack on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, but later changed targets. (They) intended to carry out their attack with both grenades and machine guns."

Other bogus plots involved surface-to-air and stinger missiles, automatic weapons, bombs and other explosive devices, as well as other heavy firepower beyond the ability of ordinary people to obtain even with help. Yet indictments suggest it's simple for anyone to get them over the counter or by other means.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Leaving: “hordes” of bankers are reported to be quitting state-
owned banks because of curbs on bonuses.

Vince Cable, the British Business Secretary, is trying to shame executives of major companies in Britain to moderate their pay and bonuses. The British Guardian is reporting (23-June-2011) on a speech he made to an audience of leading city investors in which he said: “It is actually outrageous that last year median earning for FTSE 100 chief executives rose 32%, whereas the share index rose only 7% - and average employee pay rose by less than 2%, barely half the rate of inflation”. Cable added “Average pay for the bosses of the top 100 companies has leaped to 120 times that received by an average UK employee from 45 times in 1998”.

These figures are enough to enrage anyone with an ounce of humanity in their soul. So what does he proposes to do about this nasty form of capitalism? His answer: new rules to compel companies to make public the pay packets of top bankers and top executives as a multiple of an average UK employee wage. Get real Mr. Cable. They will not be shamed or deterred by exposing the obscenity of their wealth.

The dictionary defines empathy as “the capacity for imaginatively sharing in another’s feelings or ideas”. The “moneymen” have zero empathy with those struggling simply to survive the extreme hardship ordinary people are experiencing. Lest we forget, these “moneymen” are the ones who had the effrontery to demand huge bonuses to add to their massive salaries, after their institutions were rescued to the tune of billions of dollars by the taxpayer following the financial meltdown caused by their greed, incompetence, and casino-type banking.

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Stephen Lendman

Israel keeps exerting pressure to block humanitarian efforts to deliver vital to life and other essential aid to besieged Gazans.

Endorsing Israeli lawlessness, the State Department issued a June 22 "Travel Warning - Israel, the West Bank and Gaza," saying in part:

"The Department of State warns US citizens of the risks of traveling to Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and about threats to themselves and to US interests in those locations," adding "avoid all travel to the Gaza Strip."

Access the full statement through this link.

On June 23, Secretary of State Clinton added:

"We do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza. And we think that it's not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves."

Defend against whom she didn't explain or that Gazan waters belong to Palestine, not Israel. Moreover, delivering humanitarian aid is essential until Gaza's blockade is ended, a crime against humanity Washington funds and supports.

This week, "Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human" sails to Gaza. Neither Israel nor Clinton will stop it, but they're trying by blocking its departure or planned interdiction surprises if it comes.

The US Boat to Gaza (The Audacity of Hope) is one of 10 participating ships, now blocked by Greek officials, saying the vessel is unseaworthy, a spurious claim with no validity.

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David Galland
The Casey Report

The following interview with Dr. Vieira was conducted in early June of 2011 for the subscribers of The Casey Report – but after careful consideration, we decided that the content is so important; it needs to be shared with a wider audience. Feel free to pass it along.

Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).

For more than thirty years, he has practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional issues. In the Supreme Court of the United States, he successfully argued or briefed the cases leading to the landmark decisions Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America v. Beck, which established constitutional and statutory limitations on the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors, may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their employment.

He has written numerous monographs and articles in scholarly journals, and lectured throughout the county. His most recent work on money and banking is the two-volume Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution (2002), the most comprehensive study in existence of American monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional perspective.

He is also the co-author (under a nom de plume) of the political novel CRA$HMAKER: A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an engineered crash of the Federal Reserve System, and the political upheaval it causes.

His latest books are: How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary, Constitutional "Homeland Security," and The Nation in Arms.

We first met Dr. Vieira at our Casey Research Boca Raton Summit and were sufficiently impressed to want to hear more, and to share more, of his work with readers of The Casey Report.

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Nahida Izzat, Exiled Palestinian

Why are the zionists and their NWO allies fervently waging war against Muslims and Islam?

Why are they spending so much time, money and energy to disfigure this belief system and to dehumanize its followers? Why do they loath the Qur’an and spread abhorrent lies about it?

Is it simply because the Muslim world has some rich resources which they deem theirs and they are hell bent to control and exploit?

Or is it because the Muslims constitute a large section of humanity (almost ¼) which they want to reduce and cut down in their mad genocidal plans for the future?

Though the above reasons contain some truth and carry some weight in them, but that they are not the only reasons.

The “elitists” ambition is to deface and vandalize the ideology contained within Islam, because they know that this system could potentially threaten their objectives and jeopardize their plans of total control of world economy, politics and power.

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Alex Andreou
naked capitalism

A closed Commercial Bank branch in Greece. The
graffiti reads, "Your time has come."

I have never been more desperate to explain and more hopeful for your understanding of any single fact than this: The protests in Greece concern all of you directly.

What is going on in Athens at the moment is resistance against an invasion; an invasion as brutal as that against Poland in 1939. The invading army wears suits instead of uniforms and holds laptops instead of guns, but make no mistake – the attack on our sovereignty is as violent and thorough. Private wealth interests are dictating policy to a sovereign nation, which is expressly and directly against its national interest. Ignore it at your peril. Say to yourselves, if you wish, that perhaps it will stop there. That perhaps the bailiffs will not go after the Portugal and Ireland next. And then Spain and the UK. But it is already beginning to happen. This is why you cannot afford to ignore these events.

The powers that be have suggested that there is plenty to sell. Josef Schlarmann, a senior member of Angela Merkel’s party, recently made the helpful suggestionthat we should sell some of our islands to private buyers in order to pay the interest on these loans, which have been forced on us to stabilise financial institutions and a failed currency experiment. (Of course, it is not a coincidence that recent studies have shown immense reserves of natural gas under the Aegean sea).

China has waded in, because it holds vast currency reserves and more than a third are in Euros. Sites of historical interest like the Acropolis could be made private. If we do not as we are told, the explicit threat is that foreign and more responsible politicians will do it by force. Let’s make the Parthenon and the ancient Agora a Disney park, where badly paid locals dress like Plato or Socrates and play out the fantasies of the rich.

It is vital to understand that I do not wish to excuse my compatriots of all blame. We did plenty wrong. I left Greece in 1991 and did not return until 2006. For the first few months I looked around and saw an entirely different country to the one I had left behind. Every billboard, every bus shelter, every magazine page advertised low interest loans. It was a free money give-away. Do you have a loan that you cannot manage? Come and get an even bigger loan from us and we will give you a free lap-dance as a bonus. And the names underwriting those advertisements were not unfamiliar: HSBC, Citibank, Credit Agricole, Eurobank, etc. Regretfully, it must be admitted that we took this bait “hook, line and sinker”.

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Stephen Lendman

On June 24, Haaretz writers Barak Ravid and Revital Hoval headlined, "Netanyahu: Israel to toughen conditions for Palestinian prisoners," saying:

On June 23, Netanyahu announced plans "to toughen the conditions of Palestinian security prisoners," meaning all of them wanting Palestine to be free, yet few committed crimes warranting imprisonment.

During his Jerusalem Israeli Presidential Conference, he said:

We will give them all that they deserve according to international law, but nothing beyond that," despite systematically brutalizing detainees ruthlessly.

More on that below. He added that:

"We will stop, among other things, the absurd practice in which terrorists who murdered innocent people enroll in academic studies. There will be no more 'doctors of terror' - the celebration is over."

Netanyahu spoke after the International Red Cross' request for proof that IDF soldier Gilat Shalit is alive went unanswered. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters:

The Red Cross should not get involved in Israeli security games aimed at reaching Shalit. It should take a stand that results in ending the suffering of (thousands) of Palestinian prisoners" held under brutalizing conditions.

At the same time, Shalit's father, Noam, criticized Red Cross officials for not doing more, saying:

"We demand that the Red Cross' approach be more active and decisive. I would like to believe that they would give us a sign of life from Gilad. We are conducting ongoing dialogue with the Red Cross but it has not been much help. I did not hear them condemn Hamas on its crime against Gilad. The Red Cross has been a complete failure in this affair."

Shalit's been held captive since June 25, 2006 after Hamas responded to repeated IDF attacks, including a widely reported beach shelling, killing eight Palestinians and injuring 32 others, 13 children among them. Israel denied responsibility, falsely blaming a Hamas mine despite forensic evidence proving otherwise.

In retaliation, Hamas struck an Israeli military post near Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of Rafah, killing two soldiers, injuring several others and capturing Shalit. He's been held ever since because Israel refuses to negotiate responsibly to free him, preferring to use his captivity to vilify Hamas, what his father doesn't understand or won't admit.

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Stephen Lendman

Economist Michael Hudson calls it "Replacing Economic Democracy with Financial Oligarchy" in a June 5 article by that title, saying:

After being debt entrapped, or perhaps acquiescing to entrapment, the Papandreou government needs bailout help to pay bankers that entrapped them. Doing so, however, requires "initiat(ing) a class war by raising its taxes (harming working households most), lowering its standard of living - and even private-sector pensions - and sell off public land, tourist sites, islands, ports, water and sewer facilities" - in fact, all the country's crown jewels, lock, stock and barrel, strip-mining it of everything of worth at fire sale prices.

Why? Because the US-dominated IMF, EU and European Central Bank (ECB), the so-called "Troika," demand it as the price for bailout help that wouldn't be needed if Greece wasn't trapped in the euro straightjacket. Membership means foregoing the right to devalue its currency to make exports more competitive, maintain sovereignty over its money to monetize its debt freely, and be able to legislate fiscal policies to stimulate growth.

Instead they're entrapped by foreign banker diktats demanding tribute. They call it a "rescue." In May 2010, the Papandreou government agreed to earlier austerity in return for loans. Now they're at it again, demanding more or they'll collapse the entire economy, or so they say. And the same scheme is replicated in Ireland and Portugal. Moreover, it's heading for Spain, and potentially most of Europe and America as representative governments head closer to "financial oligarchy."

In other words, it amounts to financial coup d'état authority over sovereign governments unless popular anger prevents it, involving more than street protests or short-term strikes accomplishing nothing.

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Stephen Lendman

In America's Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson endorsed citizen action against destructive government policies. Flotilla participants are acting in the best tradition of his message, challenging Israeli repression for justice.

Suffocating besieged Gazans, Israel is committing slow-motion genocide. Global activists are determined to stop it and hold Israeli officials accountable for decades of crimes of war and against humanity - unspeakable atrocities financed by criminal co-conspirators in Washington.

In May 2010, Israeli commandos illegally interdicted six Freedom Flotilla ships in international waters, massacring nine activists aboard the Mavi Marmara mother ship.

Nonetheless, global activists are determined to break Gaza's siege, the first step to ending it altogether and freeing nearly 1.7 million people, isolated in the world's largest open-air prison.

They're coming, Freedom Flotilla II, heading to Gaza with vitally needed humanitarian aid. Planning more high seas barbarism and piracy, Israel will again interdict. In preparation, mobilized reserve combatants held drills, focusing on riot-control measures, including brute force and "surprises" if needed.

On June 19, Israeli Admiral Eliezer Marom said:

"The Navy has prevented and will continue to prevent the arrival of the 'hate flotilla' whose only goals are to clash with (Israeli) soldiers, create a media provocation, and delegitimize the State of Israel."

Besides interdiction, imprisonment awaits participants, Israeli authorities saying blockade violators will be arrested and jailed, treated harshly, then deported. All of it, of course, is lawless, including seizure of humanitarian supplies and personal belongings like Flotilla I was pillaged, the way pirates have done it for centuries.

Israel is a rogue terror state. Activists know the risks. They're coming anyway and will keep coming, no matter what Israel plans.

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Stephen Lendman

Nothing reveals Washington's imperial agenda better than its global empire of bases. Sixty-six years post-WW II, America maintains dozens in Germany, Japan, Italy, and South Korea alone.

In total, known Pentagon bases way exceed 1,000, as well as perhaps hundreds of other shared and secret ones in about 150 countries on every continent despite no enemies anywhere justifying them.

In his 2006 book, "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic," Chalmers Johnson discussed the known numbers at the time by size and branch of service. He also highlighted the fallout, including oppressive noise, pollution, environmental destruction, expropriation of valuable public and private land, and drunken, disorderly, abusive soldiers committing rape, murder, and other crimes, often unpunished under provisions of US-imposed Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs).

Currently, Pentagon bases infest Middle East/North African/Central Asian countries. In fact, at least 88 dot Iraq alone, including:

■ permanent, city-sized Main Operating Bases (MOBs); for example, Balad Air Base in northern Iraq covers 16 square miles plus another 12-mile security perimeter; these are large and permanent, have extensive infrastructure, command and control headquarters, accommodations for families in combat-free areas, hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, and nearly everything found in US cities; similar MOBs include Camp Adder in southern Iraq, Al-Asad Air Base in the west, and Victory Base Complex, compromising nine bases, including Camp Victory around Baghdad's International Airport;
■ Forward Operating Sites (FOSs), also major but smaller than MOBs; and
■ Cooperative Security Locations (CLSs) - smaller facilities to preposition weapons, munitions, and modest troop numbers.

These type bases span Afghanistan, besides ongoing expansion and construction of major facilities for permanent occupation.

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John Pilger
New Statesman

In Britain as in America, the object of training professionals in everything from banking to the media is to produce a class of “managers” who instinctively muffle dissent — even if no one tells them to do so.

One of the most original and provocative books of the past decade is Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt (Rowman & Littlefield). "A critical look at salaried professionals," says the cover, "and the soul-battering system that shapes their lives." Its theme is postmodern America but also applies to Britain, where the corporate state has bred a new class of Americanised manager to run the private and public sectors: the banks, the main parties, corporations, the BBC.

Professionals are said to be meritorious and non-ideological. Yet, in spite of their education, writes Schmidt, they think less independently than non-professionals. They use corporate jargon - "model", "performance", "targets", "strategic oversight". In Disciplined Minds, Schmidt argues that what makes the modern professional is not technical knowledge but "ideological discipline". Those in higher education and the media do "political work" but in a way that is not seen as political. Listen to a senior BBC person sincerely describe the nirvana of neutrality to which he or she has risen. "Taking sides" is anathema; and yet the modern professional knows never to challenge the "built-in ideology of the status quo".

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