by Ron Holland

The American Time magazine article headline asks, "Will Switzerland Vote to Ban Minarets on Mosques?"

Swiss citizens are becoming concerned about the threat that Islam presents to their traditional culture, economy and religious institutions. As an American, I know how I would vote were I Swiss but the decision will be made by the Swiss electorate as they have this referendum right on all issues.

In Switzerland, the people still rule and have the ultimate right to decide decisions above the government or parliament. Through the right of referendum they can cancel legislation and with the initiative they can pass or create legislative action on issues parliament refuses to act upon.

The bias and closed statist views shown in the article is business as usual for the US media elites out to protect the American political establishment and are so evident in this headline and article. It isn’t the question they asked but rather the question they didn’t dare ask is the "700-lb gorilla in the room."

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by Stephen Lendman

Reports like the Cape Town, South Africa-based Human Sciences Research Council's (HSRC) May 2009 one titled, "Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid" highlight what many others understand, including former UN Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, John Dugard, stating in January 2007:

"Israel is clearly in military occupation of the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). At the same time, elements of the occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law."

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Ellen Brown

In addition to mandatory private health insurance premiums, we may soon be hit with a “mandatory savings” tax and other belt-tightening measures urged by the President’s new budget task force. These radical austerity measures are not only unnecessary but will actually make matters worse. The push for “fiscal responsibility” is based on bad economics.

When billionaires pledge a billion dollars to educate people to the evils of something, it is always good to peer closely at what they are up to. Hedge fund magnate Peter G. Peterson was formerly Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and head of the New York Federal Reserve. He is now senior chairman of Blackstone Group, which is in charge of disbursing government funds in the controversial AIG bailout, widely criticized as a government giveaway to banks. Peterson is also founder of the Peter Peterson Foundation, which has adopted the cause of imposing “fiscal responsibility” on Congress. He hired David M. Walker, former head of the Government Accounting Office, to spearhead a massive campaign to reduce the runaway federal debt, which the Peterson/Walker team blames on reckless government and consumer spending. The Foundation funded the movie “I.O.U.S.A.” to amass popular support for their cause, which largely revolves around dismantling Social Security and Medicare benefits as a way to cut costs and return to “fiscal responsibility.”

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BY GILAD ATZMON

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced plans today to stop the issue of arrest warrants for foreign officials such as Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and other Israeli war criminals who were forced to cancel planned trips to London after arrest warrants were issued against them. Under Brown’s proposals, the Crown Prosecution Service will take over responsibility for prosecuting war crimes and other violations of international law. Currently magistrates have to consider the case for an arrest warrant to be issued.

A warrant for the arrest of Ms Livni was issued by a UK court in December last year following Israel's massacre in Gaza over a year ago. She consequently cancelled a planned visit.

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President Obama spoke Wednesday to press for passage of his health care proposals. His remarks at the White House came less than a week after he hosted a bipartisan health care summit, which ended with no agreement from Republicans to back his plan.

Media commentary leading up to Obama’s remarks Wednesday focused on whether or not he would speak the word “reconciliation,” which refers to a procedure whereby congressional Democrats could approve the health care legislation with a simple majority vote. With the loss of a Senate seat to the Republicans in the recent special election in Massachusetts, the Democrats no longer have the 60 votes to end a Republican filibuster.

Although Obama did not refer to reconciliation by name, his remarks made clear that he will push for passage of the health care legislation through this process, hoping for a bill to sign before the Congress recesses for the Easter break beginning March 29.

What was truly remarkable about the speech, however, was the reactionary scope of the proposals Obama is seeking to implement. Nearly a year after beginning the push for an overhaul of the health care system, his administration has crafted—with input from congressional Democrats—a plan that unabashedly defends the profits of the insurance and drug companies while reducing and rationing health care for ordinary Americans.

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Eric Walberg

Will there be another war in the Caucasus? This is a smoldering issue on more than one front, finds Eric Walberg, in the first of a two-part analysis of the spectre of conflict in this crucial crossroads

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world expected a new era of peace and disarmament. But what happened? Instead of diminishing, US and NATO presence throughout Europe, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Central Asia rapidly increased, and the world experienced one war after another -- in the Caucasus, Yugoslavia , Iraq and Afghanistan , each one hotter and more horrible than the last. And we are far from seeing the end to the savagery now unleashed by the anti-communist jinni.

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Silvia Cattori inteviews Mazin Qumsiyeh

The Israeli army invaded Mazin Qumsiyeh’s neighborhood in Beit Sahour, a suburb of Bethlehem, on 2 March in the night, waking up his mother, wife and sister. Heavily-armed soldiers blocked roads during "the operation". When his family opened the door, they demanded to see Mazin Qumsiyeh (*). They were told that Mazin already left to the US. He replies here to the questions of Silvia Cattori.

Silvia Cattori: We heard that Israel is pressing hard on nonviolent protests. Can you give the background of this situation?

Mazin Qumsiyeh: Civil nonviolent resistance in Palestine, against the Zionist colonial project, has been going on for over 120 years. It escalated under British occupation between 1917-1947. But it became far more critical under the Zionist direct occupation from 1948 until today. The most visible events were publicized for example during the uprising of 1987 to 1991 when peaceful demonstrators were met with policies of breaking bones, shooting, home demolitions etc. With the effective ending of armed resistance in 2006 when Hamas entered the political process joining the other major factions, the only form of resistance that remained in a way threatening to the status quo of endless occupation was civil or popular resistance. Israeli authorities thus tightened the pressure on all forms of civil resistance. They arrested dozens of leading activists, harassed and beat others, and in several cases injured or killed peaceful demonstrators.

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James Petras

The principle propaganda mouthpiece of the Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO), the Daily Alert (DA), has come out in full support for Israel’s practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial assassination.

In the face of world-wide governmental condemnation (except from the Zionist-occupied White House and US Congress), the PMAJO slavishly backs any brutal murder committed by the Israeli secret police anywhere in the world and at anytime. The recent assassination of Hamas leader, Mahmoud Mabhouh, in Dubai is a case in point. The PMAJO has defended all of Mossad’s criminal actions leading up to the murder, including extensive identity theft and the stealing or falsification of passports and official documents from several European countries, presumably allied to the Zionist state. Among the Mossad agents who entered Dubai to kill Mabhouh, twelve agents used stolen or forged British passports, three Australian, three French, one German and six Irish. These agents assumed the identity of European citizens in order to commit murder in a sovereign nation.

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By Robert Singer

The year is 2010 and to anyone not in denial, the industrialized nations have entered the greatest calamity the world has ever known:

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by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

When Galileo was compelled to recant, it is said that he muttered inaudibly under his breath: "...but it does move". Earth, of course. The Catholic Church had maintained its doctrine of an unmoving Earth in unmoving space, a noumenal 'God's eye view' of absolute space. I may recant if someone holds a gun on me, but I will always be in danger of muttering too loudly and blowing my cover.

If I should ever be compelled to 'recant' my liberal, progressive views of both politics and metaphysics, it will be the because the American right wing will have created and enforced a dictatorship of both the very stupid and those who choose to be ignorant, a 'faith based dictatorship' , a 'faith based tyranny'.

Those who know better but rationalize their accommodation with such a dictatorship epitomize what the Existentialists call 'bad faith'! Any school curriculum, any dictatorship derived from either deliberate ignorance or 'bad faith' must be opposed, nipped in the bud, eventually overthrown, crushed and replaced upon true democratic and egalitarian principles subject to reality checks, pragmatic expectations, good sense, good faith.

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