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FOREIGN-MADE, COMPOUNDED DISASTER - Haiti
Editorial by Carolyn Bennett
Instead of vacuous mourning, fix fundamental wrongs against Haiti
Yesterday's 7.2 earthquake in Haiti sadly compounds people's problems, deepens their poverty and disarray - thousands are said to have died in the impact and aftershocks; however, this occurrence in nature is not the fundamental cause, indeed the criminal cause of decades of poverty and crisis on this Caribbean island of 10 million Americans.
Israeli Prohibitions Against Free Expression and "Enemy Alien" Contacts
by Stephen Lendman
Adalah is the legal center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel advocating on their behalf in a nation affording rights only to Jews. In September 2009, its report titled "Prohibited Protest" exposed how Israel's law enforcement authorities restricted free expression protests against Operation Cast Lead.
It shows how police, the State Prosecutor's Office, General Security Services (GSS or Shabak), the courts, and even academic institutions used or supported arrests and imprisonments to stop Israeli Arabs and supportive Jews from protesting against the war.
Researchers collected data from the police spokesman, political and social activist testimonies, Adalah legal complaints during and after the war, an analysis of court decisions on detainee arrests, and general information reported by the media and various other Israeli human rights organizations.
Israel's law enforcement apparatus acted repressively, "far beyond any reasonable criterion." For example, on December 30, 2008, after 200 Arab demonstrator arrests, the commanding officer of the Northern District of the Police, Maj. Gen. Shimon Koren, declared that while protests could take place, police would show zero tolerance for law breakers.
Yemen On, Lather, Rinse, Repeat Cycle
By Ahsan at the Five Rupees Blog
The security-policymaking community in the U.S. works in very predictable ways. Any time a country no one in the U.S. is really familiar with comes up in the news due to some plausible connection to organized terrorism, the following things happen:
1. There is indignation and disgust directed at the government du jour. Government du jour, you see, has been concentrating on Country X With Lots Of Brown People for the longest time, but what it has missed is that Country Y -- which, incidentally, also has Lots Of Brown People -- is also crucial to the war on terrorism.
2. People who have no idea about Country Y With Lots Of Brown People suddenly feel the need to opine on it. This, by the way, is the most entertaining step -- as long as you're not from Country Y With Lots Of Brown People. Nothing is funnier than watching an entire industry of pundits, writers, op-edders, think tankers, cable news invitees, foreign policy "experts" and bloggers pretend to know what the fuck they're talking about.
Of course, if you happen to be from Country Y With Lots Of Brown People, you begin to get worried, because any time the American punditocracy starts talking about you, only bad things happen. This is why I cried myself hoarse during the Pakistan hysteria in the middle of last year, and why I am thoroughly enjoying the Yemen hysteria now.
WELCOME TO PRISON-PRONE AMERICA
Re-reported, edited by Carolyn Bennett
"American primary and secondary schools fail to educate because that is not their function, Dmitry Orlov writes. "Their function is to institutionalize children at an early age." In due course inmates of the U.S. education enterprise "will go on to other institutions - jails, psychiatric hospitals, the military."
"… There is a reason why jails, hospitals and schools are often architecturally indistinguishable: they are but different parts of the same system, representing different phases of the institutionalization life cycle."
What next, Viva Palestina?
Stuart Littlewood
Mere words cannot express my admiration for Viva Palestina and those who devote their efforts to it. I love the way they shamed – and not for the first time – the great powers and their gutless leaders.
And for his pains the British MP George Galloway has been declared 'persona non grata' in Egypt. How heartbreaking for him.
Given past disagreements, and the stubborn refusal of this latest convoy to be derailed, it was never going to end in hugs and kisses from President Mubarak's henchmen, or fond messages of "Come ye back soon, George."
Prepare Now to Escape Obama’s Retirement Trap
by Ron Holland
Retiree Annuities May be Promoted by Obama Aids - In Other Words, There's No One Left To Buy Treasuries and Fund Our Deficit Except You - Stephanie Jasky http://fedupusa.org/2010/01/08/retiree-annuities-may-be-promoted-by-obama-aides-in-other-words-theres-no-one-left-to-buy-treasuries-and-fund-our-deficit-except-you /
Rick Santelli alluded to this on on CNBC on 1/8, there is coverage on Bloomberg and Business Week and the links are at the end of the essay. What will you do if your retirement funds are forced to become the buyer of last resort for US treasury obligations? Join Ron Holland and hundreds of Americans in our “Say No To Washington Plans To Control & Steal Our Retirement Funds” on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=174721797357&ref=ts
The Recession is Over, the Depression Just Beginning
Stephen Lendman
In late 2009, former Merrill Lynch economist, now with the Canadian firm, Gluskin Sheff, said the following:
"The credit collapse and the accompanying deflation and overcapacity are going to drive the economy and financial markets in 2010. We have said this repeatedly that this recession is really a depression because the (post-WW II) recessions were merely small backward steps in an inventory cycle but in the context of expanding credit. Whereas now, we are in a prolonged period of credit contraction, especially as it relates to households and small businesses."
Congolese Women and Girls Suffering the Insufferable
By Emily Spence and Brian McAfee
While in the eastern Congo last summer, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, "With respect to companies that are responsible for what are now being called conflict minerals, I think the international community must start looking at steps we can take to try to prevent the mineral wealth from the DRC ending up in the hands of those who fund the violence here."
In relation, the Democratic Republic of Congo's UN supported armed assault against rebels in the eastern Congo has promoted widespread death, rape and other forms of brutality. Indeed, the decade long war has claimed at least 5.4 million lives -- the most in any conflict since WWII. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of women and girls, including babies, have suffered rapes and sexual mutilation, often with weapons and tools used in the process. Further, it is thought that, in eastern portions of the Congo, up to seventy percent of Congolese women, along with children of all ages, have been sexually attacked, according to the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, a research center at Harvard University.
Marriage vs. civil unions: Separate is never equal
Mary Shaw
The New Jersey State Senate recently rejected a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage in the Garden State.
Some people try to justify this state-sponsored discrimination by saying that same-sex marriage isn't necessary in New Jersey because that state offers civil unions for gay couples who want to enjoy similar benefits.
But they don't want to call it marriage. They want to maintain a heterosexual monopoly on the word "marriage". It's "separate but equal", they might say. But I contend that separate is never equal.
The Coming Fury of an Angry America
Aetius Romulous
A tiny part of a tiny part of the population of the earth will set the terms for the future of all humans. A tiny part that is broken, spent out, and increasingly disillusioned. That sliver of humanity is the broken, spent out, and increasingly disillusioned American middle class, burdened with the task of spending all America out of catastrophe. When they break under the weight of desperate impossibility, how will the heartlands good citizens react, and what will they do?
According to the World Bank, there are 6,692,030,277 human beings on the earth. 308,108,741 of them live in the United States, about 4.6% of the total. Of these fortunate Americans, about 231,000,000 are of voting age. In general elections in history's greatest democracy, about half those eligible to vote actually do...115 million people. History's greatest democracy has only two options every election, a choice between two almost similar positions, and the winning option typically enjoys the support of only half of those who choose, approximately 60 million individuals.
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