AND YET MORE ON THE OLYMPICS.

      Below is a statement by singer Morrissey on the Olympics. I can just hear the roar of approval from our “free press”!! I also feel sick in my stomach at what seems to be mass hysteria whipped up by the media, much the same way that Hitler's Nazi regime, for its own imperial dreams, whipped up the illusion of “The Fatherland”. I have a vision of all those flag waving individuals going home and this winter trying to make the decision as to whether to eat or heat. Perhaps they can all wrap themselves in the flag to keep warm.

----And, yet! I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The "dazzling royals" have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press. It is lethal to witness. As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters. Meanwhile the British media present 24-hour coverage of the "dazzling royals", laughing as they lavishly spend, as if such coverage is certain to make British society feel fully whole. In 2012, the British public is evidently assumed to be undersized pigmies, scarcely able to formulate thought.
As I recently drove through Greece I noticed repeated graffiti seemingly everywhere on every available wall. In large blue letters it said WAKE UP WAKE UP. It could almost have been written with the British public in mind, because although the spirit of 1939 Germany now pervades throughout media-brand Britain, the 2013 grotesque inevitability of Lord and Lady Beckham (with Sir Jamie Horrible close at heel) is, believe me, a fate worse than life. WAKE UP WAKE UP.

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THE MARCH OF THE DOLLAR EMPIRE.

       

          As the dollar empire gets into a frenzy to attack Iran, we can look around the Middle East and see that there are only two countries, with any resources, left, that are not under the heel of the dollar empire. One is Iran and the other Syria, there used to be Libya and Iraq, but they have been sorted out. If you are not in the dollar club, your are labelled evil, corrupt, repressive. Of course you can get away with these qualities if you happen to be in the dollar club, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for example. America may be waning, but it is not giving up on its attempt to control the entire world. Any country that doesn't allow the dollar to dominate there economy is deemed to be evil and has to be converted to the faith of the mighty dollar. Once it has the whole of the resource rich part of the Middle East under its dollar dominance, Africa is the next battle ground. It is a continent rich in a multitude of valuable resources and America will do its damnedest to see that the other empires, China and Russia don't get the biggest bit of the pie.

         We in the West will rush in and FREE the African people from their evil, corrupt and repressive regimes and replace them with nice friendly dollar worshipping leaders. Of course to do this it will employ thousands of our young people to shed their blood as the dollar marches forward slaughtering those we are freeing. Call it what you will, imperialism, corporatism, corporate capitalism, corporate fascism, all of them would fit. What you can't call it, is democracy at work.

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THE MARCH OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM.

This video is perhaps a little out of date, but the opinion is most certainly not. I don't think it can be said too often that NATO is not a humanitatian organisation. Nor should anyone hold any illusions that the West will put itself out for the benfit of any Middle Eastern people. The Libyan episode cost those involved billions of pounds, at a time of a financial crisis in those countries,why? Why the Libyans, why not the Syrians, Bahrainians, and how about the Saudi regime, probably one of the most repressive regimes in the area. Can't we step in to protect Palestinian civilians from the Israeli onslaught? It is all about resources and oil is a mighty big resource in today's world.

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LIBYAN RESITANCE TO NATO ONSLAUGHT.

           In every war there are two sides, and in the Libyan conflict it is no different. Unfortunately we in the West get a picture of us, the great white peace and democracy bringers against the evil empires of the world. Though it does seem a bit of a coincidence that all the evil regimes we try to save the people from, happen to be sitting on oil, and they happen to be regimes that don't always co-operate with the great Western corporate world. The article below is from The International Action Centre, and because it differs from the Western imperialist backing media, it will clash with the view you have been fed since this illegal bombing began.

LIBYA - Resistance to US/NATO Conquest Continues

          Under the most incredibly difficult conditions – including NATO bombing, mercenary landings, Special Forces operations and the destruction of civilian infrastructure – the heroic resistance to imperialist conquest in Libya has continued.

         All the corporate media lies claiming mass surrender, the fleeing of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the arrest of his sons and more have turned out to be nothing but lies and psychological warfare. After 159 days of bombing, incredibly, the residence continues.

        The continued resistance also exposes the lie of the so-called democratic “rebel” forces – forces that have been set up by Britain, France and the U.S. to facilitate the imperialist invasion of the oil-rich country. Meanwhile, arms have been distributed by the Libyan government to the whole population – something a hated dictator would never do.

       As in Iraq and Afghanistan, an arrogant declaration of U.S. victory and “mission accomplished” does not mean an end to local people's resistance, which takes many forms. The Libyan people have heroically withstood not only half a year of bombing, but also a hail of racist corporate media propaganda seeking to portray the U.S.-NATO military machine, both preposterously and once again, as great white liberators.

         While resistance continues in Libya, we in the center of U.S. imperialism must continue our resistance to the criminal war there – even as the prolonged economic war against poor and oppressed people continues within the U.S.

       An IAC-organized truth tour featuring former Congressperson Cynthia McKinney – who traveled to Libya to be an eyewitness to the U.S.-NATO attack – has built major opposition meetings in 21 cities across the country. At each meeting, which was undertaken by a local coalition of forces, hundreds of anti-war and anti-imperialist and community activists attended.

       These meetings against U.S. war in Libya have been the largest series of anti-war meetings held in years. At the same time, the IAC has been in the streets, organizing protests across the country.

         The U.S. war in Libya is a first aggressive step in the expansion of wars of colonial conquest in Africa. It means new U.S. threats against Sudan and Somalia. It means more belligerent targeting of other countries in Middle East, especially Syria and Iran.

Help us continue resistance to U.S./NATO war on Libya.

Contact us at www.iacenter.org/comments 212-633-6646 www.iacenter.org

Donate to help us continue resistance to U.S./NATO War on Libya and support the expenses of the Cynthia McKinney Truth Tour at www.iacenter.org/africa/donatemckinneylibyatour/

See full LIBYA TRUTH TOUR with Cynthia McKinney schedule at www.iacenter.org/africa/mckinneylibya080511/

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SYRIA - TAKING SIDES vs IMPERIALIST INTERVENTION.

         An extract from an interesting article from The International Centre, it is well worth reading the whole article as it does throw some light on the very complex situation in the Middle East and the even more complex and seemingly contradictory attitude of the West.

         U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ declared on March 25, 2011 – that there are 3 repressive regimes in the Middle East that must be condemned – Syria, Libya and Iran. Why is the U.S. targeting these particular countries? The progressive political movement must avoid being just an echo and a justification of Pentagon war policy, especially whenever any developing country is in the cross hairs of a U.S. attack.

        Consider: isn't Israel a criminally repressive regime against the Palestinian population? Aren't Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan repressive regimes, military dictatorships and/or corrupt monarchies? All of these brutally repressive regimes have killed of thousands of their own population and could not survive one day with out decades of U.S. military, economic, diplomatic and political support. Is the U.S., with the largest prison population in the world and more weapons than the rest of the world put together, a repressive regime? It is the source of repression, destabilization, dictatorships and wars.

 

         It is within this context that progressives must view the demonstrations that have been taking place for two months against the Bashir Assad government in Syria. The regime has both acknowledged that reforms are essential and responded with force. The actual character and the social forces involved in these demonstrations remains unclear, as does the political direction of the Syrian opposition.

          The events in Syria are connected to the social explosion shaking the Arab world. Washington and all the old regimes tied to it in the region are trying desperately to manage and contain this still unfolding mass upheaval into channels that do not threaten their domination of the region.

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EMPATHY

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us    Robert Burns.

A wonderful line of thought so very well put in this video, well worth the time to sit, look, listen and think.






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POWER IS NOT A MEANS, IT IS AN END.

     

      History:  Dec. 2, 1823:

       United States announces Monroe Doctrine: essentially, that the US is entitled to do whatever it wants in Western Hemisphere.

       Quote: 

      "No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." -- George Orwell - 1984

       With Iraq still burning and Afghanistan still a murder zone it is difficult to visualise a world without war and more difficult to contain your anger when you look at the part played in this world carnage by an American lead West. The shear brutal force unleashed on the innocent Iraqi people and the continuing slaughter of the Afghan people is just a follow on from other brutal American acts of imperialism. We should not forget the Vietnam slaughter, what the Vietnamese went through was the longest war in recent history.

        The following extract from John Pilger's excellent article on this war and its aftermath, found on "informationclearinghousereminds" reminds us of the part played by our own Margaret Thatcher in adding to the misery of the Vietnamese people after the war.

         “ ---- I walked down into the rain and followed the children through a labyrinth to the Young Flower School, an orphanage. A teacher hurriedly assembled a small choir and I was greeted with a burst of singing. "What are the words of the song?" I asked Tran, whose father was a GI. He looked gravely at the floor, as nine year olds do, before reciting words that left my interpreter shaking her head. "Planes come no more," she repeated, "do not weep for those just born … the human being is evergreen."

       The year was 1978. Vietnam was then being punished for seeing off the last American helicopter gunship, the war’s creation, the last B52 with its ladders of bombs silhouetted against the flash of their carnage, the last C-130s that had dumped, the US Senate was told, "a quantity of toxic chemical amounting to six pounds per head of population, destroying much of the ecosystem and causing a fatal catastrophe," the last of a psychosis that made village after village a murder scene.

        And when it was all over on May Day, 1975, Hollywood began its long celebration of the invaders as victims, the standard purgative, while revenge was policy. Vietnam was classified as "Category Z" in Washington, which imposed the draconian Trading with the Enemy Act from the first world war. This ensured that even Oxfam America was barred from sending humanitarian aid. Allies pitched in. One of Margaret Thatcher’s first acts on coming to power in 1979 was to persuade the European Community to halt its regular shipments of food and milk to Vietnamese children. According to the World Health Organization, a third of all infants under five so deteriorated following the milk ban that the majority of them were stunted or likely to be. Almost none of this was news in the west.---”

 

 

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