The turbulent 2011 at a glance
Kourosh Ziabari
2011 was a turbulent year for the world. With chained revolutions in the Arab world, mounting financial crisis in Europe and the unprecedented wave of protests and mass demonstrations in the U.S. against the corporate system of the government which has long swallowed the rights of the defenseless majority of the people voraciously, one can call 2011 the year of global unrest and tumult.
For Iran, 2011 was also a challenging year. Benefiting from the all-out backing of the Western mainstream media, the apartheid regime of Israel for several times renewed its hawkish war threats against the Islamic Republic and repeatedly used an aggressive rhetoric against the people of Iran, threatening them with various military options which the United States and certain European governments embraced willingly and enthusiastically.
PermalinkThis Beat Down is for Your Health - the Money Party Must Stop Occupy Movements
By Michael Collins
"The problems we are facing were not created by us, but we deign to shed light on them and so we are blamed for them. The truth is, every person at our protest is there because the system is broken." Samuel Rutledge, Open Newswire, Portland Indymedia
The fascist financiers of the Money Party are growing restless. Occupy Wall Street began with a call to action from the activist online group Anonymous in August. It was barely featured in the mainstream or alternate media. Instead of a small crowd that could easily be ignored then disbursed, fifty thousand citizens showed up at the headquarters for the world financial system, Wall Street. Despite the best efforts of Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD, the Occupy Wall Street continues. The message went out to the country and the world. Now, there are over 100 occupy events in Oakland, Kansas City, Washington, DC, and elsewhere. (Image: K. Kendall)
Occupy Portland began on October 6, 2011. It has maintained a steady presence in downtown Portland, a major West Coast center of commerce. The participants refuse to leave until the government addresses their grievances. Police scare tactics, planted provocateurs, and the elements are no barrier.
‘Global Economic Crisis’ exposes plans for a global military dictatorship
By Rady Ananda
Review of: The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century
Editors, Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall
Publisher: Global Research, 2010 (391 pp)
There’s a certain irony to my reading this book while waiting at the Food Stamp office. I’m part of an increasing number suffering under the New World Order’s systematic destruction of the planet’s middle classes so as to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer families. While global uprisings now threaten global governance under a single currency, scheming rulers have long anticipated this reaction. In The Global Economic Crisis, we learn exactly how a planet-wide military dictatorship plans to enforce its feudal vision.
Neatly organized into five sections comprising 20 essays by fifteen different authors, Global Economic Crisis carefully ties militarization with the planned economic meltdown. Client states and the U.S. itself have openly and sometimes secretly developed the legal framework for martial law. Testifying before a US Senate committee on Intelligence in early 2009, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned that civil unrest owing to the economic collapse posed a greater threat than Arab terrorism. One of the book’s essayists, Bill Van Auken, points out that this is the first time in several years that Al Qaeda did not top the list of threats to national security.
Iran is Not Egypt (Yet)
By Brian M Downing
Demonstrations and uprisings against authoritarian rulers are moving across the Middle East. Tunisia and Egypt have driven longtime strong men from office, Libya and Bahrain are in tumult, and Iran is experiencing a return of the demonstrations that took place after the elections of 2009. As much as one might wish to see regime change in Tehran, it might not come nearly as easily and relatively bloodlessly as it did in the Maghreb.
Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was an artless figure who over his many years of power managed to alienate a large majority of his subjects. Urban middle classes, rural dwellers, secular intellectuals, and religious scholars could agree on few things in public life, but on the matter of Mubarak's corruption and brutality they could find a great deal of common ground. Further, all could agree that the future did not bode well for young people.
Egypt and the False Dilemma
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Image: Cairo, January 2011
The people of Egypt have had enough of a failed dictatorship masquerading as a democracy. As events unfold, we're seeing a cautionary message entering the corporate media coverage of this event. Having never exposed the dire conditions that prompted the massive protests and demands for change, we're now told that this could negatively impact oil supplies, the stock market, and anti-terror efforts. No foundation for the claims was provided but they're repeated regularly on CNN, the NBC's, Fox, and the print media.
Thus a false dilemma is created for the public: support the right of people to determine their own fate or protect your safety and the current standard of living, as it were.
Whom Does the State Represent?
By Numerian
“Where are Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan when you need them?” So lamented CNBC business commentator Larry Kudlow yesterday in response to riots in Greece over proposed financial cutbacks. Greek protesters, numbering over 10,000, shut down commerce, took over the Acropolis – Athens’ ancient birthplace of democracy - and firebombed office buildings and police stations. Three employees died of smoke inhalation in a fire at a bank – the first deaths in a Greek protest since 1991.
Kudlow asserted that these riots were the work of the unions, and what Greece needed was a tough guy in the mold of Thatcher or Reagan who would stand up to the unions. Public sector unions are certainly at the forefront in organizing these protests, but Greek authorities say that the violence is being perpetrated by “anarchists” – youth in their 20s who show up at a protest scene dressed all in black, with black hoods or masks, and who then begin to throw stones at the police and Molotov cocktails at bank buildings.
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