SIRATYST

Monday, February 28, 2011

EXCERPT:
In our globalised world, the question of who is at the centre of empire is much less clear than it once was. The US government is today less the heart of empire than its enabler. What were until recently the arms of empire, especially the financial and military industries, have become a transnational imperial elite whose interests are not bound by borders and whose powers largely evade legislative and moral controls.

Israel’s leadership, we should note, as well its elite supporters around the world — including the Zionist lobbies, the arms manufacturers and Western militaries, and to a degree even the crumbling Arab tyrannies of the Middle East — are an integral element in that transnational elite.

The imperial elites’ success depends to a large extent on a shared belief among the western public both that “we” need them to secure our livelihoods and security and that at the same time we are really their masters. Some of the necessary illusions perpetuated by the transnational elites include:

That we elect governments whose job is to restrain the corporations;
That we, in particular, and the global workforce in general are the chief beneficiaries of the corporations’ wealth creation;
That the corporations and the ideology that underpins them, global capitalism, are the only hope for freedom;
That consumption is not only an expression of our freedom but also a major source of our happiness;
That economic growth can be maintained indefinitely and at no long-term cost to the health of the planet;
And that there are groups, called terrorists, who want to destroy this benevolent system of wealth creation and personal improvement.

These assumptions, however fanciful they may appear when subjected to scrutiny, are the ideological bedrock on which the narratives of our societies in the West are constructed and from which ultimately our sense of identity derives. This ideological system appears to us — and I am using “we” and “us” to refer to western publics only — to describe the natural order.

The job of sanctifying these assumptions — and ensuring they are not scrutinised — falls to our mainstream media. Western corporations own the media, and their advertising makes the industry profitable. In this sense, the media cannot fulfil the function of watchdog of power, because in fact it is power. It is the power of the globalised elite to control and limit the ideological and imaginative horizons of the media’s readers and viewers. It does so to ensure that imperial interests, which are synonymous with those of the corporations, are not threatened.

The Curveball story neatly illustrates the media’s role.

"Oil Spike to Spoil US Economy Bubble" -- RT News

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Beethoven to Israeli Symphony: "Quit Using My Music to Whitewash Your Crimes"

Seattle requests audiences to reject Israeli Symphony role in the whitewashing of Israel's near to genocidal treatment of the Palestinians. Leaflet with explaining why. http://tinyurl.com/4ucdzsb

Friday, February 25, 2011

"US Defends Arms Flow to Yemen" -- Press TV

http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/us-defends-arms-flow-to-yemen/

US State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley has defended Washington’s military aid to Yemen despite the use of the American weaponry by Sana’a regime in brutal crushing of pro-democracy uprisings.

In response to a question by a Press TV reporter at a Thursday news briefing for the foreign press, Crowley defended continued lethal US military aid to Yemen’s autocratic government as a necessary measure to combat ‘terrorism.’

“That itself justifies the ongoing cooperation that we have,” he said.

Crowley said the US has no plans to sever its military ties to Yemen even though US military aid is being used to suppress the pro-democracy uprising there.

The majority of Yemenis are unhappy with the expanding US military ties with their despotic government, especially in view of its harsh crackdown on protesters in recent days.

This has led to an uneasy alliance between the two governments, facing an uncertain future.

In recent days, thousands of Yemeni protesters have taken to the streets across the country, calling for the ouster of President Abdullah Saleh.

The Yemeni president has described the pro-democracy protesters as “elements of a coup.”

Saleh, in power for 33 years, said that he would leave power after his term expires in 2013. He has also promised not to hand power to his son.

The Yemeni incumbent president has also pledged to raise wages of government employees and to provide 60,000 job opportunities for university graduates.

The Yemeni government crackdown on protesters, inspired by revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, has so far left at least 24 people dead.

The US also occasionally carries out drone attacks in Yemen. Despite such extraordinary measures, the country has grown increasingly unstable.

PROTEST THE ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA SATURDAY

Reminder ~ come join the Anti-Fascist Marching Band to give the IPO an appropriate welcome!

Benaroya Hall, 2nd Ave between Union & University
Saturday February 26th at 7:00

This Saturday, February 26th, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is coming to perform at Benaroya Hall. Be there with us to the musical accompaniment of the Anti-Fascist Marching Band to give the IPO an appropriate welcome.
The IPO is described by the American Friends of the IPO as "Israel's finest cultural emissary." American Friends of the IPO further notes that "the goodwill created by [the IPO's] tours...is of enormous value to the State of Israel. As a result, the IPO maintains its position at the forefront of cultural diplomacy and the international music scene."
By serving as cultural ambassadors for Israel, the IPO is participating in the whitewashing of Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people and the continued stealing of their lands and lives.
We cannot allow this orchestra to play without challenging the image of Israel it is attempting to portray.
Meet in front of Benaroya Hall at 2nd Ave between Union and University at 7:00. There will be fliers to hand out, signs, and a banner.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

"You Are Invited to Hear: Mohammed Omer from Gaza, Recipient of the Martha Gelhorn Prize for Journalism"

Structural Violence in Gaza plus a report on his recent time between Egypt and Gaza

Friday, February 25 at 7 PM

Friends Meeting House, University District

4001 – 9^th Avenue N.E., Seattle

Mohammed Omer is a citizen of Rafah refugee camp in Gaza.
In 2008, he received the Martha Gelhorn prize for journalism – the “Voice of the Voiceless” Returning home after receiving the award, he was severely beaten. While recovering, Mohammed pursued his studies and recently received an MA in International Political Economy and Development. Please join us to hear this inspiring man.
Sponsored by: American Friends Service Committee, Arab American Community Coalition, The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice, Voices of Palestine, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility

##########

Amin Odeh

Voices of Palestine

Wisconsin's Billionaires Make Sacrifice? -- Real News

A Father Speaks for his Son" - By Ahmet Dogan

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=189560381084458

My son, Furkan, was killed in May [2010] by the Israeli military while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid by sea to the Gaza Strip. As he was just 19, he asked his mother and me for our permission to participate. Our decision will be with us for the rest of our lives.
Furkan Doğan (20 October 1991 – 31 May 2010) A Turkish American who was the youngest person killed in the Gaza flotilla raid
We could not crush his humanitarian impulse and say no to him. Parents the world over wrestle with questions of when to let their children pursue their dreams, and most reluctantly let go as their children enter early adulthood. We did the same and took parental satisfaction in his concern for others. But never did I imagine that the Israeli military would storm his ship, killing Furkan and eight others, and then blame our son and his co-passengers for their own deaths.
It is my responsibility to speak for my son and voice his concern for Palestinians in Gaza. It is my responsibility to stand up to an Israeli propaganda effort that has attempted to paint our beautiful child as a fanatic and not the caring young man we knew him to be.
Every major American TV network looped cherry-picked Israeli Defense Forces video of the events on the Mavi Marmara. Now it is my turn to travel to the United States, speak on my son's behalf and attempt to achieve a measure of justice for him.
I will forever be proud of my son. He was a humanistic and conscientious child and a fine young man. I remember Furkan as unfailingly polite, helpful and generous. He disliked violence his entire life.
Deeply concerned by the plight of Palestinians suffering under the Israeli siege, he was determined to take humanitarian aid there with his own hands and give it to the children of Gaza. Furkan was well aware that the Israeli siege had made approximately 80 percent of Palestinians in Gaza dependent on aid and that educational opportunities for children were being foreclosed for lack of schools and textbooks.
He wanted to breathe the same air as these children, commiserate and make life a bit more bearable for them.
In recent years, he became alert to the injustices to which Israel subjects Palestinians -- the siege of Gaza, the two-tiered legal system that discriminates against Palestinians and the colonization of the West Bank that strips Palestinians of their land and the potential for a Palestinian state.
But Furkan's particular sensitivity was always for the children, especially those killed and injured despite their obvious innocence. The killing of more than 300 Palestinian children during the 2008-2009 Israeli assault on Gaza profoundly influenced him and motivated him to participate in the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza. He was determined to find a solution to their need -- to do something -- to not look away as too much of the world was doing.
He never got the chance. While filming the Israeli takeover of his ship, he was shot five times and died on board.
Though Furkan was an American citizen born in Troy, American officials jumped to take Israel's side, notwithstanding clear evidence that Israel selectively released footage to exonerate its soldiers for the deadly mayhem they unleashed while storming the humanitarian ship in the dead of night.
The Obama administration's failure to support my son and my family's humanitarian concern for Palestinians comes from the same misguided policy that has led to decades of support for Middle East autocrats and Israeli governments that have long oppressed Palestinians.
And the American position seems oblivious to the findings of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The mission determined that the "circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution." My son's name was included among the six.
Faced with such facts, what family would not push Furkan's government to take up his case? I am in Washington and New York City this week, not only to champion justice for my son, but also to remind Washington that the U.N. mission concluded that "a humanitarian crisis existed" in May 2010 in Gaza and that "for this reason alone the blockade is unlawful."
Furkan, though young, also saw the bigger picture. He sought not simply humanitarian relief for Palestinians, but also freedom from Israeli subjugation. With freedom advancing in Tunisia, Egypt, and around the Gulf, Palestinians' long efforts to free themselves from Israeli domination are also worthy of recognition and support.
Ahmet Dogan studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is an assistant professor of accounting at Erciyes University in Kayseri, Turkey.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

As U.S. Rebuilt Ties With Libya, Human Rights Concerns Took a Back Seat

http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/as-u.s.-rebuilt-ties-with-libya-human-rights-concerns-took-a-backseat

Pro-Publica Report

"Priceless"

http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2011/02/priceless.html

Monday, February 21, 2011

Emergency Protest to support the Libyan people TODAY at Westlake @ 3pm

Downtown Seattle at 4th & Pine

3 PM

Workers Invade Olympia to Stop Lawmakers from Blaming Them For Wall Sreet's Budget Breaking

Following the peoples' example!

WA Workers in Solidarity with Workers in Wisconsin today in Olympia!

SEIU and Co. Outside Rotunda

Wisconsin Solidarity in Olympia

Sunday, February 20, 2011

"What If the Egyptian Protesters Were Democrats?" -- Steven Salaita

http://pulsemedia.org/2011/02/21/what-if-the-egyptian-protesters-were-democrats/

EXCERPT:

If the Egyptian protesters were Democrats, they would have accepted Mubarak’s proposed reforms—not because those reforms were good, but because Democrats are accustomed to settling for empty rhetoric. They would have accepted Mubarak’s handpicked successor, the infamous torturer Omar Suleiman—not because they like him, but because he would presumably be less evil than his predecessor. They would have accepted the inevitability of defeat—not because they wanted to lose, but because losing would be both pragmatic and realistic. The actual Egyptian protesters, however, would only accept freedom.

For those who might respond to this hypothetical exercise by pointing out that the United States is not Egypt, I would agree. Egypt under Mubarak was more equitable than the United States under Barack Obama. Egypt has far less income inequality than the United States, and all of Mubarak’s brutality was at least indirectly underwritten by the American government.

The people of the Middle East and North Africa have never listened to American liberals, who through the years have loved to bestow unsolicited advice on Arabs. Had the Arabs accepted this unsolicited advice, they would have become Democrats instead of revolutionaries.

The only acceptable liberal American response to the revolutions in the Arab World is the silence that enlivens a sincere attempt to listen. Clearly it is time for American liberals to stop lecturing Arabs and start following their example, instead.

Omar Batiste, Presenté

All,

Our beloved Omar Batiste has passed away this morning Sunday 2/20/2011.
Good bye Omar; you will live on in the hearts of everyone who knew you.

Ziyad

This is what vigils will be like -- no Omar. We will miss you. One of the Voices of Palestine

On Wisconsin! Inspiring Video.

Wisconsin "Budget Repair Bill" Protest Pt 2 from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/20168864

"PHOTOS: Rally and ‘carve-in’ for John T. Williams" -- Seattle PI

"Teri Hanlon, bottom center, raises her drum with others during a rally and "carve-in" against the decision not to charge former officer Ian Birk for the shooting death of John T. Williams by former Seattle Police Officer Ian Birk. The gathering took place after a rowdy night of protest where a police car window was smashed and pepper spray was used on protesters. (Photos by Joshua Trujillo, Seattlepi.com)"

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/2011/02/19/photos-rally-and-carve-in-for-john-t-williams/

There are legalistic questions involved in cases such as the one brought by Padilla -- i.e., whether courts should allow monetary damages to be sought against government officials for Constitutional violations in the absence of a Congressional statute (a "Bivens" claim) and whether such officials should enjoy "qualified immunity" for their illegal acts where the illegality is unclear (as Rumsfeld absurdly alleged the torture of Padilla was) -- but one key fact is not complex. Not a single War on Terror detainee has been accorded any redress in American courts for the severe abuses to which they were subjected (including innocent people being detained for years, rendered and even tortured), and worse, no detainee has been allowed by courts even to have their claims heard. After the U.S. Government implemented a worldwide regime of torture, lawless detention, and other abuses, the doors of the American justice system have been slammed shut in the face of any and all victims seeking to have their rights vindicated or even their claims heard. If an American citizen can't even sue political officials who lawlessly imprison and torture him in his own country -- if political leaders are vested with immunity from a claim of this type -- what rational person can argue that the rule of law or the Constitution binds our government officials?

In one sense, this is hardly surprising. As I've written about before -- and as my forthcoming (September) book documents -- we now have a multi-tiered justice system in the United States where citizens have their legal rights, obligations and punishments determined exclusively by their status and class. Thus, someone like Jose Padilla, in the lowest class of literal non-person (accused Terrorist), has virtually no chance regardless of the merits of his claims against someone like Donald Rumsfeld, who resides in the highest and most privileged class (high-level political official). As Padilla's counsel, Ben Wizner, said, the court yesterday ruled "that Donald Rumsfeld is above the law and Jose Padilla is beneath it." That's just what the American justice system is.

But compare the posture of the American justice system to those in other countries with regard to how victims of illegal War on Terror policies have been treated. Maher Arar -- a Canadian citizen who was abducted by the U.S. in 2002 at JFK Airport and sent to Syria to be tortured for ten months despite being innocent -- had his case dismissed by American courts before it was even heard on the ground (raised by both the Bush and Obama DOJ) that vital state secrets would be jeopardized by allowing him his day in court; by stark contrast, the Canadian government published a comprehensive public report detailing its own culpable role (and that of the U.S.) in his wrongful abduction, while the Canadian Prime Minister publicly apologized to Arar and announced that he would be paid $8.9 million in compensation for Canada's role in what happened to him.

Binyam Mohamed -- the British resident who was rendered to Morocco and then brutally tortured at Guantanamo -- suffered the same treatment in American courts as Arar thanks to the Obama DOJ's insistence that what was done to him was a "state secret": his case was dismissed at the initial stage; by contrast, British courts repeatedly ruled in favor of his right to be heard in court, and in November, 2010, it was announced that the British government would pay him, along with 15 other Guantanamo detainees, several million dollars in damages. In January, 2011, an Egyptian-born Australian citizen, Mamdouh Habib, reached a monetary settlement with the Australian government after winning the right to sue Australian officials in that nation's court system for their collusion in his torture at Guantanamo and other locations. Similarly, numerous countries in both Eastern and Western Europe and elsewhere have probed and publicly accounted for their governments' role in colluding with the U.S. in abusing human rights over the last decade.

The U.S. Government stands virtually alone in steadfastly blocking all such investigations even though it was the U.S. in the lead in creating this torture and detention system. Indeed, the American political class barely bothers any longer with even the pretense of legal accountability. Each political party shields the other from any accountability in a ritual of lawlessness, while the courts concoct ever-new doctrines for shielding our political class from any legal scrutiny

Covid