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Funding Sweatshops Globally
by Stephen Lendman
In July 2008, SweatFree Communities (SFC) released a report titled, "Subsidizing Sweatshops: How Our Tax Dollars Fund the Race to the Bottom, and What Cities and States Can Do" in which it studied 12 factories in nine countries that produce employee uniforms for nine major companies.
Widespread human and labor rights violations were revealed, including child labor; illegal below-poverty wages; few or no benefits; forced or unpaid overtime; hazardous working conditions; verbal, physical, and sexual abuses; forced pregnancy testing to be hired and while employed; excessive long working hours causing physical ailments, stress, and harm; denial of free expression, association, and collective bargaining rights; and elaborate schemes to commit fraud and deceive corporate auditors.
In April 2009, Subsidizing Sweatshops II followed to provide more evidence of a global problem. It tracked developments in four factories from the first report and four new ones in five countries on three continents producing uniforms for nine major firms in China, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and America.
A salute to Turkey, a salute to Erdogan
By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
The recent Turkish decision to exclude Israel from an aerial military exercise over Turkish territory is another indication that Turkey will not allow itself to be blackmailed by criminal international Zionism.
Following the decision, Zionist officials and media sought to mitigate its impact on the increasingly troubled relations with Turkey by claiming that it had little to do with the genocidal blitz which the Israeli army carried out in winter against the Gaza Strip.
However, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, and other Turkish officials have made it amply clear that the cancellation of the military drill is consistent with the feelings of the vast bulk of the Turkish masses vis-à-vis the Nazi-like atrocities in the Gaza Strip.
Deception, Spin and Lies
by Gilad Atzmon
“By way of deception thou shalt do war” - The Mossad motto
Less than a week after Ankara cancelled an air exercise with Israel, Turkey’s state-sponsored channel TRT1 broadcast "Ayrilik" ("Farewell"), a new prime-time TV show that depicts the true image of Israel’s genocidal military operation in Gaza last January.
The Israelis are not happy. "Broadcasting this series is a serious case of state-sponsored incitement. …,” said Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman this morning. “Such a series, which doesn’t even have a weak connection to reality presents the IDF's soldiers as murderers of innocent children….” I wonder whether one should remind hardliner Lieberman, who happens to be an enthusiastic ethnic cleanser and a proud Judeo supremacist racist, that the reality on the ground last January was ‘connected enough’ to establish a genocidal war crime inquiry and a crime against humanity. It left over 1400 fatal casualties. It also left thousands more injured, most of them children, women and elders. However, for once Lieberman happens to read the map. The Turkish TV-show indeed depicts the IDF’s soldiers as murderers of children women and elders for this is what Israeli soldiers are and this is exactly what Israel stands for politically, symbolically, ideologically and practically.
PEACE IMPLIES ACTION / NOT RHETORIC
Allen L Roland
Here are eight questions regarding President Obama ~ all of which were promised and have yet to be delivered. Peace implies action and Peace, without action, is a limp sail devoid of wind: President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize will get heavier and heavier until he changes rhetoric into action. There is no effective change without action. Action changes knowledge into wisdom and action always involves risk!
Gary Ruskin, Green Change, summarized eight Obama Peace promises which still remain empty rhetoric until action is taken.
Nobel: "Put Up or Shut Up"
I have thought very carefully before adding my voice to the discussion about the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace. What I've discovered is that few, if any, have written or talked about the irony of the award, concentrating on whether Obama "deserved" the prize.
It is obvious that Obama has not "earned" it. But that's not the point. As many have noted, the Peace Prize has indeed been awarded in the past on an "aspirational" note in the hope that certain efforts had sown the most fertile seeds in the soil of hope. But y'all know how I feel about "hope": hope don't feed the bulldog.
I think what the Nobel Committee is saying to Obama is nothing less than "Put Up or Shut Up". It is a recognition that Obama talks a good game most of time, even considering the contradictions between what he speaks about on the stump and the policies he's continued or created. The actions don't match the words - it's as simple as that. The Committee is saying, "Look, man. Talking peace and making peace just ain't the same breed of cat".
Truth be told, some pretty nasty folks have been in the mix in the past. Hitler was nominated. Stalin made off with one. Run your finger down the list of 208 winners and you get the impression that the criteria are sometimes pretty questionable. Even more questionable when you factor in the resouces of the Nobel Institute, the organization of scholars, researchers, and impressive resources which advises the Committee on its selections. George Will's recent on-the-air comment about "seriousness" is well taken. So awarding the prize to a man who has done little besides make speeches about peace is really not so odious. At least they didn't choose Ahmadinejad.
Limbaugh's Bigoted Bid for an NFL Franchise
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
Rush Limbaugh wants to buy an NFL football team after having made bigoted comments about black players. Frankly, I haven't watched much NFL since Warren Moon, one of the great NFL quarterbacks of all time, set records for the Houston oilers in the late 80s and early 90s. Rush probably would not like the fact that Moon is black and few but Rush and other bigots care!
"Professional sports has always served to unite Americans across class, creed and race. Now Rush Limbaugh, whose career is driven by dividing Americans precisely along those lines, wants to buy an NFL football team.
Limbaugh is a racist and a chauvinist. His values are diametrically opposed to the traditions the NFL stands for. Limbaugh will poison professional football as he has poisoned the culture of American political discourse.
We stand with former and current NFL players in urging the league to reject Limbaugh's ownership bid. Sports fans deserve better."
The solution to our environmental woes is to end prohibition: Planting the seeds of their destruction
by chycho
The best solution to our environmental problems is to end prohibition. There is no other viable option short of the immediate end to military conflict that will have the same positive impact on the ecosystem. Our first step towards a sustainable existence should begin with cannabis. Its assimilation into our civilization is the safest, simplest, most efficient immediate solution that we can implement in time to prevent an ecological catastrophe.
Cannabis is a plant, and its use is as old as civilization itself. It has thousands of immediate and potential applications. Its cultivation rejuvenates the soil, it can replace wood products, it’s medicinal, and it can be used as building material, textiles, paint, plastic, fuel, paper, food and body care. It is one of the most important bounties of nature. It’s a plant that we were meant to use.
So what’s the hold up? The short answer is America’s “War on Drugs”. The United States started a legislative war on this plant genus almost a century ago and they do not want to give up the fight.
AfPak: War on two fronts
The only thing Obama’s got right so far about his warzone-of-choice is the name, worries Eric Walberg
As more NATO trucks were being torched in Peshawar last week, a Karachi student managed to fling his shoe at warmongering US journalist Clifford May during his address to the Department of International Relations on “Pakistan ’s Role in Countering the Challenge of Terrorism”. In Washington, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced bitterly the US probably knows Osama Bin Laden’s where-abouts. He neglected to draw the appropriate conclusion about what the US is really up to in AfPak. Also in Washington, within hours of the decision of the Nobel Peace committee, US President Barack Obama met with his War Council.
Government Deficit Spending is America's Last Best Hope for Recovery
Richard Backus
It was most amusing for me to see Alan Greenspan explaining on the BBC to an otherwise trusting viewing audience that the world economies would experience severe economic crises every few years as a matter of course, and this was quite 'normal' and inevitable. Although the economies of the world will experience many ups and downs over the years, they are not at all 'normal' but usually the consequence of central bank and government screw-ups. If the government would try to support their average middle- and working-class individuals and not just their rich 'sponsors', future economic crises could be avoided. The government simply must accept the basic realities and paradoxes of capitalism and abstain from following those 'voodoo' economic theories proven time-and-time-again not to have worked as advertised ( but profitable to the rich). If they would simply regulate the economy in accordance with sound economic principles the consequence and extent of future crises would be significantly reduced and workers worldwide could experience the high standard of living that they deserve.
Reviewing Danny Schechter's The Crime of Our Time
by Stephen Lendman
Danny Schechter is a media activist, critic, independent filmmaker, and TV producer as well as an author of 10 books and lecturer on media issues. Some call him "The News Dissector," and that's the name of his popular blog on media issues. He's also the co-founder of Media Channel.org that covers the "political, cultural and social impacts of the media," and provides information unavailable in the mainstream.
Schechter's books include The More You Watch The Less You Know, Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, and his newest and subject of this review, The Crime of Our Time: Was the Economic Collapse "Indeed, Criminal?"
As a form of economic terrorism, indeed so says Schechter and many others. Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, writes: Schechter "establishes the crime's elements, identifies the players, and exposes the weapons that have turned free markets into vehicles for mass manipulation and control."
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