jueves, 30 de junio de 2016

Everything You Learned About The Cause of Polio Is Wrong

You think you know the history of polio? You're probably wrong.

Is Monsanto's Herbicide Harming Male Fertility? | GreenMedInfo

Further proof that the abundant use of pesticides is an epidemic that must be stopped.

‘Black Friday’ For GMO in Russia | New Eastern Outlook

The destructive global project known as GMO or Genetically Manipulated
Organisms is incurring major defeats. The once-formidable muscle of
Monsanto,...

Erdoğan, « l'homme qui se prend pour un sultan », par Selahattin Demirtaş (Le Monde diplomatique, juillet 2016)

Dans sa soif croissante de pouvoir, le président turc Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan a lancé une chasse aux sorcières contre ses opposants. Alors que
de nouveaux attentats ont frappé l'aéroport d'Istanbul le 28 juin (41
morts, aucune revendication pour l'heure), l’un des principaux
responsables de la gauche, Selahattin Demirtaş, témoigne de sa dérive
autocratique.

JPEG - 296.3 ko — Jan Schmidt-Whitley. – « Retour à Cizre », 2016
www.jswhitley.com

« Loi travail », les médias mentent, par Serge Halimi

Avant que l’indignation générale ne le contraigne à reculer, le
gouvernement de M. Manuel Valls a tenté d’interdire une manifestation
syndicale en France — du jamais-vu depuis des décennies. Cette dérive
autoritaire doit beaucoup au climat de guerre sociale qu’entretiennent
les principaux médias du pays. Subissant la férule de ses propriétaires,
la presse renonce au rôle de défenseur des libertés politiques.

JPEG - 84.6 ko — Roland Devolder. – « La Confrontation », 2012
Galerie GNG - www.galeriegng.com

miércoles, 29 de junio de 2016

Ni pause ni doutes pour les partisans d’une Europe fédérale, par Antoine Schwartz (Le Monde diplomatique, septembre 2014)

« Le grand problème n’est pas les europhobes, explique Mme Emma Bonino,
ancienne commissaire européenne et ancienne ministre des affaires
étrangères italienne. Ce sont les indifférents, les euroapathiques, qui
forment la grande majorité. Ce sont eux qu’il faut ramener à l’Europe.
Ce qui me préoccupe, c’est la timidité des réponses des proeuropéens. Il
faut défendre l’Union, et même assumer la nécessité d’aller plus loin
dans l’intégration. » Mme Bonino propose ainsi une « fédération légère »
autour de quelques secteurs-clés (affaires étrangères, défense,
recherche), mais pas de « super-Etat ». Le cheminement de cette « union
sans cesse plus étroite » promise par les traités est décidément
sinueux.

Una forma ‘legalizada’ de delincuencia. El surgimiento de la "corporatocracia" | bilaterals.org

A 'legalized' form of crime. The emergence of the "corporatocracy"

Transnational corporations are wreaking havoc on the social and ecological financial, economic systems through a parsimonious colonization of public life in which only 147 organizations now control 40 percent of world trade.

A 'legalized' form of crime. The emergence of the "corporatocracy"

By Graham Vanbergen - Clearinghouse, 16/06/28

Transnational corporations are wreaking havoc on the social and ecological financial, economic systems through a parsimonious colonization of public life in which only 147 organizations now control 40 percent of world trade.

The feeling that something is not quite right has been widespread. We know that there is a slow colonization of public life by corporations because we are aware that it is producing a coup d'etat in slow motion by some transnational organizations, an operation that has been facilitated by our political leaders. The irrefutable proof of this hits us in the face every day with wave after wave of financial, economic, social and ecological crisis.

A clear and disturbing picture of corporate power has become visible in recent years that growing inequality is simply what distinguishes today's expanding corporate activity of those who are left behind.

A study in 2000 by Corporate Watch, Global Policy Forum and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) revealed some startling facts about the growth of the corporatocracy, which should have been brought into line for years by Western governments. Instead, corporations have literally taken the helm.

Coinciding with the millennium, this study confirmed that while the world had about 40,000 corporations, who really had global reach and influence were just 200. These colossal organizations -some of them larger than many national economies perfectly controlled over a quarter of the planet's economic activity while four out of five of the world were completely excluded and marginalized or were net losers as a direct result of the activities of these corporations.

Reading IPS study is very uncomfortable. In the long list of charges, which more alarm is that while corporate profits soared, continued concentration of wealth and this occurred in an environment of stagnating wages of workers.

For the sake of perspective, the report noted that of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 corresponded to corporations; only 49 were from countries. For example, Wal-Mart was bigger than 161 countries. The economic dimension of Mitsubishi was higher than that of Indonesia, the fourth most populous country on the planet. General Motors was larger than Denmark. Ford was higher than South Africa.

The 200 largest corporations were larger than the combined economies of 182 countries and had twice the economic clout that 80 percent of humanity.

The reader may be surprised to learn that those same 200 corporations globally employ less than 0.33 percent of the world population: just 18.8 million people.

Commerce, manufacturing, automotive, banking, retail and electronics are the sectors in which the corporations are concentrated; even in these sectors, one third of trade consists of transactions between various units of the same corporation.

In 2012, the 25 largest corporations in the world were making $ 177,000 per second; annual income of one of them, Wal-Mart, reached 470,000 million dollars.

At present, the picture is even worse. Three mathematicians Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, published a remarkable and profound report on transnational corporations (TNC, for its acronym in English) as its links with other TNC. They began studying a database which has now grown to encompass 43,000 corporations-, analyzing connections property, up and down, highlighting what were the most interconnected companies. Finally, they reached the 'core', made up of 147 companies that now control a staggering 40 percent of the economic volume of the sample; therefore global trade.

In less than a decade, the participation of TNCs in the world market has increased dramatically while competition between companies fell almost in the same proportion.

Still, knowing so damning and conclusive information, the situation continues to deteriorate as policy makers dispose of any remaining morality to further their lucrative careers based on the use of revolving doors, leaving whole nations with little more than the remains what they were once prosperous industrial and the corpse of democracy economies.

In the past seventy, in Europe, the share of the economy that would stop workers as wages was about 70 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Over the years there has been a shift by other nefarious. Capital achieved an increase of 10 percent in profits while workers saw them fall by 10 percent. With an economy about 13 billion (yes, 13 followed by 12 zeros) euros, the loss experienced by workers and the middle class by herself was -magra of 1.3 billion euros a year. Shareholders used to rejoice with dividends of say 3 or 4 percent, but today seek double-digit earnings; otherwise, CEOs of companies can be dismissed. The consequence is that corporations want to win at any cost.

In the book of Susan George State of Corporations it states that "Since the mid-sixties, the largest banks and insurance companies in the US and some transnational corporations joined forces accounting; they employed 3,000 people and spent 5,000 million dollars to get rid of all the New Deal laws passed during the Roosevelt administration in the thirties of last century-the same laws that protected the US economy for over 60 years. Through this work done jointly lobby, got absolute freedom to remove the balances any seat that could mean a loss of money and move that money to banks 'in the shadows' so that would not be documented anywhere. They got freedom to create and trade toxic derivative products such as mortgage packages 'sub-prime' worth billions of dollars, without any regulation. "

The highlight of this collective action was the global collapse of the financial industry in 2008; It has been eight years and the continuing deterioration threatens to unseat the Great Depression of 1929 from his position as the longest recession in history, which hitherto was the slowest recovery in memory.

In the US alone, more than 10 million families were evicted by banks and, according to Bloomberg, 14.5 billion dollars -that say, 33 per cent of the value of companies in the world and about 14 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States vanished in the crisis. This estimate can forget the consequences produced in the development and economy of the Third World countries, where 3.3 billion (yes, again, 3.3 followed by 12 zeros) of aid promised stayed in that, promises never fulfilled.

In the era of "too big to fail and go to prison," virtually no one was prosecuted or sent to jail for these devastating crimes. At present, the banking industry is totally out of control. The derivatives business is a thing of every day and 33 percent larger than at its peak, when the economic crisis of 2008. The scam, fraud, insider trading and money laundering reach a new record of illegality every day, among the 20 largest corporations in the world there are five banks.

Meanwhile, having learned from previous experiences, corporate lobbyists now -called 'expertos'- committees meet daily with officials from the European Commission to negotiate trade agreements that consumers or organizations are not represented environmental. Civil society is excluded, as are their representatives, MEPs dresses and giving the illusion of a democracy that is quickly extinguished.

Now, corporations put their profits in jurisdictions where taxes are very low or non-existent and losses in others where taxes are high; it is estimated that there are some 32 billion dollars exempted from making any contribution to the societies of which derive their wealth and less, if at all scrutiny of their respective governments.

What we have now is the 'anarchy' of the very rich and most powerful corporations. The list is endless shame: automakers, banks, pharmaceutical laboratories, food industries, energy companies ... to name a few.

Colossal economic, financial, tax evasions monumental ecological damage on an industrial scale and incessant crimes illegal wars to ensure an uninterrupted supply of resources are the shameful system based on corporate greed. In its wake now we recognize the style of growing inequality in the twenties of the last century and increasing poverty that characterized the era described by Dickens. Somehow, all this forms the new normal.

you steal a loaf of bread and go to jail, ransack an entire country and is knighted. For example, the British foot believe that as a result of a long and malicious style politics of class struggle the alleged scam campaign conducted with social benefits is a huge social problem. A recent survey by the central workers TUC showed that people believe that 27 percent of the budget for social assistance fraudulently requested. In fact, the real figure is 0.7 percent Actually, the payments are not made by the government far outweigh fraud in the use of social benefits.

Contrast this with one of the biggest crooks in Britain: HSBC. In a few years it has obtained billions thanks to money laundering ill-gotten gains to the benefit of dictators and tyrants and international criminals, drug dealers, drug lords, murderers and all kinds of criminals a particularly odious food chain. Even someone was caught red-handed in the scandal of huge tax evasion in Switzerland that benefited a few corporations even before we heard talk of Panama Papers. In 2011, the head of the plot, Stephen Green, was graced with an attractive use of ministerial rank by conservatives: Minister of Commerce. And it has a seat in the House of Lords as a Tory more; Ironically it diluted amongst other and in the media.

Globalization has not only aggravated the problem of corporate power and strengthen corporate influence in global governance. Again, trade agreements such as the TPP and TTIP, in which entire continents are subject to corporate domination, are evidence of that; however, the scope of corporations have an even more sinister result. The corporate lobbyists which currently enjoy unprecedented some privileges granted by the world's politicians to circumvent the sovereign regulations designed to protect the rights of citizens and the environment, have infiltrated United Nations.

The UN has a special section for corporations called "global agreement" which was created about 15 years ago by Kofi Annan and the then president of Nestle. To participate in this 'agreement', a corporation only needs to endorse a list of 15 principles concerning human and labor rights and the environment.

Global corporations Agreement also integrate the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and other bodies such as the Chamber of Commerce. When, in 2012, the United Nations held its 'environmental' congress in Rio for the first time business completely they dominated the discussions. At this time, corporate interests have a disproportionately high level of political influence in an area that really should be global.

A good example of this might be Cecilia Malmstron, Commissioner main trading partners of the EU in TTIP negotiations between Europe and the United States. A few months ago, a journalist from The Independent Malstrom asked why he insisted on promoting the treaty against the widespread rejection of the public; his answer was: "My mandate I would not have given the Europeans."

A few weeks ago we discovered that the European Parliament voted in favor of the "Directive on the Protection of Secrets in the Treaties," a law that gives the new corporations and alarming super powers to prosecute and criminalize whistleblowers, journalists and agencies information to publish internal documents that have been leaked.

As Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for economic policy of the United States and editor of the Wall Street Journal, "Some powerful corporations recently said they have seized power in the 'democracies' Westerners to sacrifice the welfare of the population to corporate greed and profits without regard to peoples, countries and society. The 'democratic capitalism' is complete and irremediable. The TTIP gives corporations an inexplicable power over governments and peoples ".

Today, democracy is about to move from farce to tragedy as a direct result of the irrepressible rise of corporate power.

We live in a time when existing obscene inequality between rich and poor is as clear as the rapid growth of inequality in the distribution of wealth. In the United States, 1976, the richest 1 percent of society got 9 percent of national wealth; 30 years later, its share of the national wealth has almost tripled and reached 24 percent.

Currently, all that is against this background are a people under siege manifested in European and US cities and presenting petitions to their governments, governments that represent millions of citizens. Those people are the same you must pay the consequences of this crime (legalized): lost services, lost jobs and savings hazy; still it remains unheard.

* New Deal (New Deal), name given to the economic and social policy in the United States by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1933. (N. of T.)

Graham Vanbergen assists in truepublica.org.uk, has a blog of commercial information and regular contributor to several news portals.

Monsanto, America’s Monster | MEDIA ROOTS – Reporting From Outside Party Lines

ICYMI We uncover ‪#‎Monsanto‬'s shady roots, criminal legacy & collusion with US Empire to grow into the monster it is today on The Empire Files: http://bit.ly/28MhTks

ALTER-EU is recruiting! | ALTER-EU

Angry at the lack of EU lobby transparency? Want to stop corporate
capture of EU decision making? Apply today to join our team, and help us
to coordinate our campaigns and strengthen our Europe wide network

http://alter-eu.org/documents/2016/06/intern

Help CEO expose the EU capital’s corporate lobby paradise | Corporate Europe Observatory

Let's take the next step in exposing corporate power in the EU capital together!

With a little help from you, we can launch our updated "Lobby Planet"
as soon as possible: Your donation will support the latest edition of
this multilingual guide on corporate lobbying in Brussels and how to
fight it. The guide will be offered free of charge at our lobby tours,
as a digital download and as hard copies that can be ordered from our
office.

http://corporateeurope.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=14

European commission warned of car emissions test cheating, five years before VW scandal | Environment | The Guardian

Already five years ahead of ‪#‎dieselgate‬, the European Commission was "warned by its own experts that a car maker was suspected of cheating emissions tests".

Speaking with the Guardian, Kathleen van Brempt, who chairs the
committee leading the inquiry into the affair, referred to an
"astonishing collective blindness to the defeat device issue in the
European commission".

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/european-commission-warned-car-maker-suspected-cheating-five-years-vw-scandal

VW was caught by US authorities last year using defeat device software –
but the EU may have known of its existence as early as 2010.
Photograph: Julian Stratenschulte/EPA

EU energy chiefs favouring fossil fuel lobbyists, says report | Climate Home - climate change news

Big energy gets the most facetime with commissioners Miguel Arias Canete
and Maros Sefcovic, finds Corporate Europe Observatory:http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/09/eu-energy-chiefs-favouring-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-says-report/

Maros Sefcovic and Miguel Arias Canete meet big energy more than renewables advocates
(Pic: Flickr/epp group;Partido Popular de Cantabria)

Endocrine disruptors: Commission in breach of EU law, says Parliament | The Parliament Magazine

MEPs have handed a stinging rebuke to the Commission for failing to
propose scientific criteria to address the problem of hormone-disrupting
chemical substances that interfere with the endocrine system:https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/news/endocrine-disruptors-commission-breach-eu-law-says-parliament

Endocrine disruptors: EU Commission accused of defending agro-chemical industry over human health

16 June 2016

The European Commission has presented
long-delayed proposals setting out scientific criteria to address the
problem of chemical substances that interfere with the endocrine system.

European Parliament carbon market report keeps emissions trading off target | Corporate Europe Observatory

A new report on carbon market reform has kicked off debate on the issue
in the European Parliament. It promises new loopholes for the oil
industry and other polluters and does little to address the fundamental
flaws in the EU's emissions trading system (ETS). The latest entry in
our "ETS Files" blog series is up:http://corporateeurope.org/blog/european-parliament-carbon-market-report-keeps-emissions-trading-target

Commission and Big Energy keep cooking the climate, despite Paris Agreement | Corporate Europe Observatory

Fossil fuels companies are still pulling the strings in Brussels six months after the "historic" ‪#‎COP21‬
agreement in Paris. Our new research shows Big Energy lobbyists still
enjoy insider access to the European Commission despite the global
agreement to tackle climate change. We took a look at all lobby meetings
involving Climate & Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete and
Vice President for Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič or their cabinets since
December and we found that it's been business as usual since the Paris
deal was signed. Out of the 163 meetings with lobbyists, 71% were with
industry. Read more here:http://corporateeurope.org/climate-and-energy/2016/06/commission-and-big-energy-keep-cooking-climate-despite-paris-agreement

UK bankers spend over €34 million a year to influence EU | Corporate Europe Observatory

We need people power to put pressure on politicians to disarm the lobby
firepower of the financial sector! Today we're publishing a study that
shows that UK bankers spend at least €34 million per year on lobbying in
Brussels and employ more than 140 lobbyists to influence EU
policy-making. “Lobbying for the City of London” shows that British
banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and their lobby groups command
massive resources and enjoy easy access to decision-makers in EU
institutions. Read the full report here:http://corporateeurope.org/pressreleases/2016/06/uk-bankers-spend-over-34-million-year-influence-eu

EU threatens France on labour laws with sanctions and demands wages slashed - TruePublica

EU threatens France on labour laws with sanctions and demands wages slashed

28th June 2016 / United Kingdom

By Corporate Europe Observatory – How the EU pushed France to reforms of labour law

The current struggle in France over
labour law reforms is not just between the Government and trade unions –
a European battle is waged. The attacks on social rights stem in no
small part from the web of EU-rules dubbed ‘economic governance’,
invented to impose austerity policies on member states.

Strikes and actions across France against reforms of the country’s
labour protections, known as the El Khomri Law, demonstrate the immense
unpopularity of the measures proposed by the French Government. Chiefly
among them, to give preference to local agreements on wages and working
conditions, when the conditions in those agreements are less favourable
than the national norm inscribed in national law. This is an open
attempt to undermine collective bargaining and roll back the influence
of trade unions.

Ultimately, the French Government has formal responsibility for the
weakening of labour protection. But there is no denying that the
European Union is playing an important and perhaps decisive role in the
attacks on labour rights. What we see is the EU throwing its rulebook in
the French workers’ faces. Practically all the new rules on so-called
‘economic governance’ adopted following the eurocrisis have been
applied, and make France look like a EU test-case. The European
Commission, with the backing of the Council, has used the rules on
member states’ deficits to exert pressure, threatening with sanctions,
should the French Government not give in and seriously reform its labour
laws. Simply put, France has been required flat out to ensure higher
profitability for businesses by driving down wages. How does all of this
work?

Sanctions more likely today

First and foremost, the reforms in France are related to the
country’s deficit. Like most other EU member states, the state’s
finances looked pretty bad in the aftermath of the 2008 financial
crisis. In 2009, a case was opened against France for breaching EU rules
which stipulate that its deficit must be no higher than 3 per cent of
GDP. If taken to the extreme, this ‘excessive deficit procedure’ can
result in a fine of billions of euro, and – not least in the case of
France – a severe loss of face to its EU partners.

The ‘excessive deficit procedure’ was given more teeth with the
so-called ‘Six-Pack’ set of EU rules in 2011 – a key part of the
austerity-focused economic governance package – which introduced a
reverse majority vote in the Council: if the Commission does decide to
fine a member state, like it has threatened to do to France, there will
have to be a qualified majority against the measure from other member
states to block it. Good reasons for the French Government to be
slightly scared – and a weapon to be used in its attempt to convince
parliamentarians. The likelihood of sanctions for not meeting the budget
deficit targets is much bigger than in the past, when both Germany and
France escaped humiliation. But how to meet the Commission’s strict
targets, and how to behave to the satisfaction of the Commission, is
what clearly links the El Khomri law in France to the austerity regime
being rolled out from Brussels.

Trading Places: Neocons and Cockroaches | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

When we're gone, what will the cockroaches say about us?

by

Robert Parry

The cockroaches will tell the most terrible tales of humanity's demise. And they'll be right. (Photo: Dan Markeye/flickr/cc)

Turkey’s “Apology” to Russia to be Tested on Syria’s Border | New Eastern Outlook

The Washington Post summarizes the recent apology offered to Russia by
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in its article, "Turkish...

The Honduran Shipwreck: Hillary Clinton’s Coup Turns 7 | Opinion | teleSUR English

Seven years after Hillary Clinton's coup in Honduras, homicides soar
& US backed forces are assassinating activists via teleSUR English: http://bit.ly/29bvM8H - ‪#‎BertaCaceres‬

U.S.
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton removed a key passage from the
paperback edition of her autobiography "Hard Choices" about her role in
the 2009 military coup in Honduras. | Photo: Reuters

Brexit – where now Britain? | The European Financial Review | Empowering communications globally

Brexit – where now Britain?

London is still reeling from the shock
of the vote to leave the EU. For those living and working in London,
remaining in Europe was a no brainer. But for the rest of the United
Kingdom, leaving was the only option. The referendum registered the
difference between the economy of the lives of real people and those of
the London city folks: those who felt left out by globalisation and the
new economy of financial pages, voted to leave. These people feel that
the system is not working for them.

The new analysis following the leave
vote is to some extent blaming the distance between the people and the
politicians and the latter’s failure to acknowledge and roll out viable
policies to deal with the people’s concerns about immigration.

Immigration, like it or not, was the rallying cry for the Leave vote, and Farage’s UKIP party did not shy away from that.

Official figures in the UK showed that
millions of people were worse off over the past 10 years, more people
in employment are receiving in-work benefits. Present day Britain is one
that is divided along class lines, education, and prosperity. Great
swathes of communities outside the commercial centres in London,
Manchester, and other larger cities have not seen the so called
prosperity trickling down to their communities. Jobs lost, social
services cut, the future is dismal. It is the era of scapegoating, and
lazy politics. But when the dust has settled, depressed communities will
find Brexit will not give them jobs, a library, local parks or
playgrounds for their youngsters, or even more money in their pocket. It
will not give them a more rosy future and neither will it end
immigration automatically. They will find that this was just a hollow
victory.
This may well be the turning point in UK
politics. The politicians will no longer have Europe to blame and will
have to come up with answers.

Exiting Europe may well mean the beginning of accountability!

Blair, not Corbyn was dangerous experiment

By God, how Tony Blair and his ilk have degraded the public discourse. He warns that a Jeremy Corbyn government would be “a very dangerous experiment”.

In fact, it would not be an experiment at all. Ideologically, it
would look a lot like the government of, say, Clement Attlee in 1945,
which brought us such “dangerous” experiments as the National Health
Service. And that, of course, was exactly how the welfare state was
portrayed by the Conservatives of the time.

The real experiment was the series of Thatcherite governments the UK
has endured since Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979, including the 10
years under Blair and his “New Labour” party.

This dangerous experiment in neoliberalism dug us deep into an
economic hole, and made us incapable of showing the solidarity necessary
to begin the fight to reverse climate change. In fact, that experiment
is looking increasingly likely to prove lethal for the human species.

A Corbyn government wouldn’t be experimental. It would be a return to
the kind of compassion-based politics that once made sense to large
swathes of the public – before neoliberalism worked so hard to persuade
us that we live in a jungle in which only the fittest should survive.

It is a mark of the growing disgust with neoliberalism and its
outcomes – massive inequality, socialism for the rich, political
croneyism, compulsive consumption and accelerated climate change – that
people, especially young people, are turning their backs on
their corrupt elites and looking for those like Corbyn and Bernie
Sanders old enough to remember a time and politics before the Thatcher
and Reagan era.

In truth, the biggest danger with Corbyn is that he may not be radical or experimental enough.

Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net

Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism [ MORE ]

French TV channel abandons investigative journalism | RSF

#‎FRANCE‬:
The channel’s only remaining slot for investigative reporting, it had
clearly been in billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré’s sights ever since a
report on French bank Crédit Mutuel was censored in September 2015. ‪#‎PressFreedom‬

The chief target of Israel’s media war is the Western press corps,
and especially the US media, which could threaten Israel’s improbable
narratives and its power in Washington.

http://www.jonathan-cook.net/media-criticism/

Brexit and the diseased liberal mind

Brexit and the diseased liberal mind:

Brexit and the diseased liberal mind

The enraged liberal reaction to the Brexit vote is in full flood. The
anger is pathological – and helps to shed light on why a majority of
Britons voted for leaving the European Union, just as earlier a majority
of Labour party members voted for Jeremy Corbyn as leader.

A few years ago the American writer Chris Hedges wrote a book he
titled the Death of the Liberal Class. His argument was not so much that
liberals had disappeared, but that they had become so coopted by the
right wing and its goals – from the subversion of progressive economic
and social ideals by neoliberalism, to the enthusiastic embrace of
neoconservative doctrine in prosecuting aggressive and expansionist wars
overseas in the guise of “humanitarian intervention” – that liberalism
had been hollowed out of all substance.

Liberal pundits sensitively agonise over, but invariably end up
backing, policies designed to benefit the bankers and arms
manufacturers, and ones that wreak havoc domestically and abroad. They
are the “useful idiots” of modern western societies.

Reading this piece
on the fallout from Brexit by Zoe Williams, a columnist who ranks as
leftwing by the current standards of the deeply diminished Guardian, one
can isolate this liberal pathology in all its sordid glory.

martes, 28 de junio de 2016

EPC Publications | Europe: a question of survival by Giovanni Grevi

European integration risks becoming the collateral damage of acute
tensions within societies that deepen frictions between countries and
which the EU is perceived as unwilling or unable to address.

Silencing America as it prepares for war

Returning to the United States in an election year, I am struck by the silence. I have covered four presidential campaigns, starting with 1968; I was with Robert Kennedy when he was shot and I saw his assassin, preparing to kill him. It was a baptism in the American way, along with the salivating violence of the Chicago police at the Democratic Party's rigged convention. The great counter revolution had begun.

The first to be assassinated that year, Martin Luther King, had dared link the suffering of African-Americans and the people of Vietnam. When Janis Joplin sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose", she spoke perhaps unconsciously for millions of America's victims in faraway places.

"We lost 58,000 young soldiers in Vietnam, and they died defending your freedom. Now don't you forget it." So said a National Parks Service guide as I filmed last week at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. He was addressing a school party of young teenagers in bright orange T-shirts. As if by rote, he inverted the truth about Vietnam into an unchallenged lie.

The millions of Vietnamese who died and were maimed and poisoned and dispossessed by the American invasion have no historical place in young minds, not to mention the estimated 60,000 veterans who took their own lives. A friend of mine, a marine who became a paraplegic in Vietnam, was often asked, "Which side did you fight on?"

A few years ago, I attended a popular exhibition called "The Price of Freedom" at the venerable Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The lines of ordinary people, mostly children shuffling through a Santa's grotto of revisionism, were dispensed a variety of lies: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved "a million lives"; Iraq was "liberated [by] air strikes of unprecedented precision". The theme was unerringly heroic: only Americans pay the price of freedom.

The 2016 election campaign is remarkable not only for the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders but also for the resilience of an enduring silence about a murderous self-bestowed divinity. A third of the members of the United Nations have felt Washington's boot, overturning governments, subverting democracy, imposing blockades and boycotts. Most of the presidents responsible have been liberal - Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama.

Why the British said no to Europe

The majority vote by Britons to leave the European Union was an act of raw democracy. Millions of ordinary people refused to be bullied, intimidated and dismissed with open contempt by their presumed betters in the major parties, the leaders of the business and banking oligarchy and the media.

This was, in great part, a vote by those angered and demoralised by the sheer arrogance of the apologists for the "remain" campaign and the dismemberment of a socially just civil life in Britain. The last bastion of the historic reforms of 1945, the National Health Service, has been so subverted by Tory and Labour-supported privateers it is fighting for its life.

A forewarning came when the Treasurer, George Osborne, the embodiment of both Britain's ancient regime and the banking mafia in Europe, threatened to cut £30 billion from public services if people voted the wrong way; it was blackmail on a shocking scale.

Immigration was exploited in the campaign with consummate cynicism, not only by populist politicians from the lunar right, but by Labour politicians drawing on their own venerable tradition of promoting and nurturing racism, a symptom of corruption not at the bottom but at the top. The reason millions of refugees have fled the Middle East - irst Iraq, now Syria - are the invasions and imperial mayhem of Britain, the United States, France, the European Union and Nato. Before that, there was the wilful destruction of Yugoslavia. Before that, there was the theft of Palestine and the imposition of Israel.

The pith helmets may have long gone, but the blood has never dried. A nineteenth century contempt for countries and peoples, depending on their degree of colonial usefulness, remains a centrepiece of modern "globalisation", with its perverse socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor: its freedom for capital and denial of freedom to labour; its perfidious politicians and politicised civil servants.

All this has now come home to Europe, enriching the likes of Tony Blair and impoverishing and disempowering millions. On 23 June, the British said no more.

The most effective propagandists of the "European ideal" have not been the far right, but an insufferably patrician class for whom metropolitan London is the United Kingdom. Its leading members see themselves as liberal, enlightened, cultivated tribunes of the 21st century zeitgeist, even "cool". What they really are is a bourgeoisie with insatiable consumerist tastes and ancient instincts of their own superiority. In their house paper, the Guardian, they have gloated, day after day, at those who would even consider the EU profoundly undemocratic, a source of social injustice and a virulent extremism known as "neoliberalism".

The Brexit Rejection of Neoliberal Tyranny – Consortiumnews

With the Brexit repudiation of the E.U. — in defiance of Establishment
scare tactics — British voters stood up for common people who face
marginalization in the neoliberal scheme of global economics, explains
John Pilger.

Former
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the face of neoliberalism, an
economic orthodoxy that has enriched the few and marginalized the many.

Brexit and Trump: Populism or Manipulation? – Consortiumnews

The Brexit vote, like Donald Trump’s campaign, is less a populist
uprising against the elites than a contest of one elite over another in
manipulating popular sentiments, argues ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

U.S.
President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron trade
bottles of beer to settle a bet they made on the U.S. vs. England World
Cup Soccer game (which ended in a tie), during a bilateral meeting at
the G20 Summit in Toronto, Canada, June 26, 2010. (

Europeans Contest US Anti-Russian Hype – Consortiumnews

Besides the Brexit rejection of U.S.-style neoliberal economics, some
European voices are protesting, finally, the U.S.-led, anti-Russian
propaganda campaign that has justified an expensive new Cold War, notes
Joe Lauria.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Brexit Vote Sends Shockwaves across European Establishment | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

The result reveals the existence of a seething mood of discontent in
society. It also shows to what extent the political class is out of
touch with the feelings of ordinary people. This is an international
phenomenon. It was shown by the Scottish referendum on independence in
2014, the Spanish general election in December 2015, the rise of Syriza
in Greece and Podemos in Spain, the huge support for Sanders in the
Democratic Party primaries and, in a distorted way, even the rise of
Donald Trump in the USA.

Obama Pushed to Pardon Snowden Before Leaving Office | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

Obama Pushed to Pardon Snowden Before Leaving Office

'This is one of those rare cases for which the pardon power exists'

by

Nika Knight, staff writer

"They
want to throw somebody in prison for the rest of his life for what even
people around the White House now are recognizing our country needed to
talk about," Snowden said. (Photo: Reuters/Andrew Kelly)

From the Sykes-Picot Agreement to the Arab Spring | New Eastern Outlook

In recent weeks, the media and academic circles in the Middle East have been particularly often mentioning two names -...

My Thoughts on the Plight of Labour

It's interesting to see how quickly the corporate media made Labour the
post-referendum focus. There is a perception that Jeremy Corbyn did not
take a stand or show strong enough leadership during the campaign, yet
time and again the media failed to report what he said and have been
attacking him ever since the majority of Labour members elected him.
Owen Jones looks at the current political and social landscape in
Britain and suggests a broad-based campaign to deal with the huge
threats we now all face.

First Brexit, next stop United States of Europe and a Norse League? – EurActiv.com

#‎Brexit‬
happened, what else that was previously unthinkable could come to pass?
Europe 2021 could yet turn out to be a strange new world.

Europe 2021: not as unlikely as previously thought?

[Peter Arkle/WSJ]

Les citoyens majoritairement hostiles aux accords transatlantiques TAFTA et CETA | bilaterals.org

Les Français à 62% contre le ‪#‎TTIP‬ et le ‪#‎CETA‬, selon un sondage

The French 62% against the # # TTIP and CETA, according to a survey

Vers la fin de la plus vieille guérilla du monde, par Maurice Lemoine (Le Monde diplomatique, décembre 2015)

Le gouvernement colombien et les Forces armées révolutionnaires de Colombie (FARC) ont franchi un pas supplémentaire vers un cessez-le-feu définitif et le désarmement de la guérilla, le 23 juin à La Havane. Une fois l’accord de paix signé puis ratifié, la juridiction spéciale pour la paix voulue par les deux parties jugera tous ceux qui ont directement ou indirectement participé au conflit armé et sont impliqués dans des « crimes graves ». En décembre 2015, Maurice Lemoine disséquait les enjeux de cette justice de transition « qui promet une descente dans les tréfonds des égouts et des caniveaux… »

JPEG - 220.1 ko — Membres des FARC dans l’Etat de Caquetá, 2000
Photographies de Maurice Lemoine

Geschäfte mit Streubomben und weshalb sie nicht verhindert werden

"A new report by the Netherlands-based peace organization PAX throws 150 financial institutions, including the US banking giant JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, before, several billion dollars to invest in companies that produce internationally banned cluster bombs."

"Cluster munitions are large shell casings, which scatter hundreds or thousands of smaller explosives sleeves over large areas, often several football fields. Some of the" bomblets "do not explode on impact, leaving a mine-like area that kills civilians and farmland for decades destroyed. Cluster bombs are by an international prohibited agreement. This agreement was signed by 119 countries, but not from the United States. the United States pursue instead a policy that prohibits the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas concentrated.

Republican Hank Johnson says that Saudi Arabia civilians attacks targeted with cluster bombs. "Earlier this year, the Saudi-led coalition cluster bombs thrown at Yemen's capital Sanaa," said Johnson. "One of the buildings hit was the al Noor Centre for Care and Rehabilitation for the Blind, which also includes a school for blind children. The destruction of the school and caused injuries to the children were unbearable ".

Geschäfte mit Streubomben und weshalb sie nicht verhindert werden

"Ein neuer Bericht der in den Niederlanden ansässigen
Friedensorganisation PAX wirft 150 Finanzinstituten, darunter die
US-Bankenriesen JPMorgan Chase und Bank of America, vor, mehrere
Milliarden Dollar in Unternehmen zu investieren, die international
verbotene Streubomben produzieren."

"Streumunition sind große
Patronenhülsen, die Hunderte oder Tausende kleinerer Sprengstoffhülsen
über große Flächen, oft mehrere Fußballfelder, streuen. Einige der
„Bomblets“ explodieren beim Aufprall
nicht und hinterlassen ein minenartiges Gelände, das Zivilisten tötet
und Ackerland jahrzehntelang zerstört. Streubomben sind durch einen
internationalen Vertrag verboten. Dieser Vertrag wurde von 119 Ländern
unterzeichnet, jedoch nicht von den Vereinigten Staaten. Die Vereinigten
Staaten verfolgen stattdessen eine Politik, die den Einsatz von
Streubomben in konzentriert zivilen Gebieten untersagt.

Republikaner Hank Johnson sagt, dass Saudi-Arabien Zivilisten gezielt
mit Streubomben angreift. „Anfang dieses Jahres, hat die Saudi geführte
Koalition Streubomben auf Jemens Hauptstadt Sanaa geworfen,“ so Johnson.
„Eines der getroffenen Gebäude war das al Noor Zentrum für Pflege und
Rehabilitation für Blinde, welches auch eine Schule für blinde Kinder
beinhaltet. Die Zerstörung der Schule und die verursachten Verletzungen
der Kinder waren unerträglich“.

Seizing on Brexit, Corbyn Opponents Attempt to Oust Leftist Leader | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

Targeted by status quo opportunists from within his own party, Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn vows to continue fight for progressive agenda.

Opponents accused Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn of failing to convince voters to remain in the European Union. (Photo: Garry Knight/flickr/cc)

Can Dündar (Cumhuriyet) speaks with high level German officials with regard to Erol Önderoglu’s case | RSF

" Can Dündar, editor-in-chief of the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet Gazetesi,
met with leading German politicians this week to discuss the reality of
the restrictions on press freedom and oppression of journalists in ‪#‎Turkey‬ ‪#‎PressFreedom‬ "

Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Can Dündar.

lunes, 27 de junio de 2016

Do We Really Want War with Russia? | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Do We Really Want War with Russia?

By Eric S. Margolis

Coverup Of Fukushima Meltdown by Japanese Government in Concert with TEPCO | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Coverup Of Fukushima Meltdown by Japanese Government in Concert with TEPCO

Proves "Conspiracy Theorists" Right

By Claire Bernish

Brexit Domino Effect? Greece, Spain, Italy Could Follow: Russian Analyst | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Brexit Domino Effect? Greece, Spain, Italy Could Follow: Russian Analyst

By Sputnik

Second UK Referendum Petition Rife with Fraud. Gush of Fake Names… | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Second UK Referendum Petition Rife with Fraud. Gush of Fake Names…

By Stephen Lendman

The Inconvenient Truth: Bashar al Assad’s Popularity Confounds NATO Propagandists | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

The Inconvenient Truth: Bashar al Assad’s Popularity Confounds NATO Propagandists

By Barbara McKenzie

Post-Brexit: Imagine a New European Community | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Post-Brexit: Imagine a New European Community

By Martin Winiecki

Brazil’s Interim President Michel Temer Received $300,000 Bribe: Whistleblower | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Brazil’s Interim President Michel Temer Received $300,000 Bribe: Whistleblower

By Telesur

The EU to Become a “U.S. Colony”? The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would Abolish Europe’s Sovereignty. | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

The EU to Become a “U.S. Colony”? The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would Abolish Europe’s Sovereignty.

Is Madame Merkel Betraying the EU – Endangering the Lives of Future European Generations with her Push for the Nefarious TTIP?

By Peter Koenig

UK to Leave EU: Uncertainty for Years to Come

#‎BREXIT‬: The ‪#‎UK‬ has always had a special status inside the ‪#‎EU‬. Many EU members viewed Britain as a black sheep in the family. The road ahead is still unclear, except some ramifications.

A New Intervention in Libya

Something very unusual happened last spring at the White House: the
president of the United States admitted that America's 2011 incursion
into ‪#‎Libya‬, which led to the overthrow of Muammar ‪#‎Gaddafi‬, had been a mistake. And yet the US decision to intervene in Libya had certainly not been a spontaneous or hasty move.

jueves, 30 de junio de 2016

You think you know the history of polio? You're probably wrong.

Further proof that the abundant use of pesticides is an epidemic that must be stopped.

The destructive global project known as GMO or Genetically Manipulated Organisms is incurring major defeats. The once-formidable muscle of Monsanto,...

miércoles, 29 de junio de 2016

A 'legalized' form of crime. The emergence of the "corporatocracy"Transnational corporations are wreaking havoc on the social and ecological financial, economic systems through a parsimonious colonization of public life in which only 147 organizations now control 40 percent of world trade.

A 'legalized' form of crime. The emergence of the "corporatocracy"

ICYMI We uncover ‪#‎Monsanto‬'s shady roots, criminal legacy & collusion with US Empire to grow into the monster it is today on The Empire Files: http://bit.ly/28MhTks

Angry at the lack of EU lobby transparency? Want to stop corporate capture of EU decision making? Apply today to join our team, and help us to coordinate our campaigns and strengthen our Europe wide network

Let's take the next step in exposing corporate power in the EU capital together!

VW was caught by US authorities last year using defeat device software – but the EU may have known of its existence as early as 2010. Photograph: Julian Stratenschulte/EPA

Big energy gets the most facetime with commissioners Miguel Arias Canete and Maros Sefcovic, finds Corporate Europe Observatory:http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/09/eu-energy-chiefs-favouring-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-says-report/

EU threatens France on labour laws with sanctions and demands wages slashed

Sanctions more likely today

When we're gone, what will the cockroaches say about us?

by

The Washington Post summarizes the recent apology offered to Russia by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in its article, "Turkish...

Seven years after Hillary Clinton's coup in Honduras, homicides soar & US backed forces are assassinating activists via teleSUR English: http://bit.ly/29bvM8H - ‪#‎BertaCaceres‬

U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton removed a key passage from the paperback edition of her autobiography "Hard Choices" about her role in the 2009 military coup in Honduras. | Photo: Reuters

The new analysis following the leave vote is to some extent blaming the distance between the people and the politicians and the latter’s failure to acknowledge and roll out viable policies to deal with the people’s concerns about immigration.