Authored by Seumas Milne, The Guardian UK on Tue, 11/17/2009

Noam Chomsky is the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar. A philosopher of language and political campaigner of towering academic reputation, who as good as invented modern linguistics, he is entertained by presidents, addresses the UN general assembly and commands a mass international audience. When he spoke in London last week, thousands of young people battled for tickets to attend his lectures, followed live on the internet across the globe, as the 80-year-old American linguist fielded questions from as far away as besieged Gaza.

But the bulk of the mainstream western media doesn’t seem to have noticed. His books sell in their hundreds of thousands, he is mobbed by students as a celebrity, but he is rarely reported or interviewed in the US outside radical journals and websites. The explanation, of course, isn’t hard to find. Chomsky is America’s most prominent critic of the US imperial role in the world, which he has used his erudition and standing to expose and excoriate since Vietnam.

Like the English philosopher Bertrand Russell, who spoke out against western-backed wars until his death at the age of 97, Chomsky has lent his academic prestige to a relentless campaign against his own country’s barbarities abroad – though in contrast to the aristocratic Russell, Chomsky is the child of working class Jewish refugees from Tsarist pogroms. Not surprisingly, he has been repaid with either denunciation or, far more typically, silence. Whereas a much slighter figure such as the Atlanticist French philosopher Bernard Henri-Lévy is lionised at home and abroad, Chomsky and his genuine popularity are ignored.

Indeed, his books have been banned from the US prison library in Guantánamo. You’d hardly need a clearer example of his model of how dissenting views are filtered out of the western media, set out in his 1990’s book Manufacturing Consent, than his own case. But as Chomsky is the first to point out, the marginalisation of opponents of western state policy is as nothing compared to the brutalities suffered by those who challenge states backed by the US and its allies in the Middle East.

Read the rest here:

http://www.plumblinemag.com/en/content/noam-chomsky-us-foreign-policy-straight-out-mafia-seumas-milne

World-famous anarchist philosopher Noam Chomsky will speak on the December 2008-January 2009 Israeli assault on Gaza and the siege it has imposed on Gaza’s inhabitants next week in Boston, Massachusetts.  The event will take place at 7pm on Sunday, December 7, at the Eliot Church in Newton, and will also feature the remarks of Nancy Murray, President of the Gaza Mental Health Foundation.  The event will serve as a fundraiser for the Gaza Freedom March.

Chomsky is well-known for his longstanding opposition to much of U.S. and Israeli policy.  His original remarks on the attack on Gaza, entitled “Exterminate all the Brutes,” can be read here (or viewed, in slightly different form, here), while his most recent public appearance, which he calls “Palestine and the Region in the Obama Era,” can be seen here.

For Long Island info (ie: taking a train or bus, meeting others) see: here.

Bernard Lafayette to lead the World March for Peace and Nonviolence across Brooklyn Bridge

What: The World March for Peace and Nonviolence starts a three-day tour of the USA with a March over the Brooklyn Bridge led by Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Civil Rights activist and adviser to Martin Luther King.

When: Mon. Nov 30, starts 1 pm, finish 3pm

Where: Starting at Brooklyn Boro Hall to City Hall, via the Brooklyn Bridge.

Who: The international base team of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence with their international Spokesperson, Rafael de la Rubia, Dr. Bernard Lafayette, hundreds of nonviolence activists from around the State, all the students and teachers at Brooklyn International High School and others, religious leaders, Consuls and New York City Council Members.

Why: The World March for Peace and Nonviolence is travelling through 100 countries on 6 continents calling for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and the withdrawal of troops from foreign territories among others.  Starting on 2^nd October in Wellington, New Zealand, the March is due to arrive in Punta de Vacas, Argentina on the 2^nd of January at the end of a 93 day tour.

Endorsements: Presidents of 11 countries; Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Cate Blanchett, Martin Sheen, Yoko Ono, Art Garfunkel, Philip Glass, Ed Asner and hundreds more.  For a complete list, go to www.theworldmarch.org

This fantastic dress has wiped away the memory of the Inaugural “prom girl” Gown. The girl may have looked lovely, but Michelle has a pouchy tummy that needs the strict training of Spanx. It’s not her fault; she has had two children. But wearing white makes even the thinnest woman look a size or two larger, and even her feet if she is wearing white shoes. She’s not a young girl anymore, regardless of how thin and strong she is.

This gown, though, has turned The First Lady of the land into a queen. Queen Michelle.

Girl, if you dressed something like this all the time–got rid of some of those awful sweaters and those fat belts–you’ll have every man and woman in the country seeing visions and dreaming dreams about how to get some of that.

Both Michelle and Barack fairly towered over the diminutive Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Madame Gursharan Kaur, which made them look overwhelming–and more than just human. I mean, super-human. Like gods, or how Hollywood stars are supposed to dress in black tie and evening gown. Take note, people.

The ravings about The Dress, or The Stunner or whatever you’d like to call it, have stretched from here to the Indian subcontinent, where the Indian media are busily patting the Indian fashion industry or Naeem Khan, the Indian American dress designer, or both, on the back, and as a side issue, congratulating each other on Michelle Obama’s great taste. That dress, however, would have been nothing had it not filled and fitted Michelle’s impressive body to a tee. Remember, her arms were called Thunder and Lightning. She didn’t need diamonds dripping from her neck either. That would have been overkill. Her hair and her earrings were just what was needed. Sometimes, less is definitely more.

Over here, the responses from the wingnuts have been brow-raising. They are impressed and are saying so on the pages of blogs and of online newspapers alike. Of course, they are prefacing their remarks by identifying themselves as Republicans and that they don’t like Obama’s policies, but damn, even they have to admit the Obamas certainly are representing. Particularly, Michelle Obama is a First Lady that is setting a standard for all future First Ladies to emulate. No more the dowdy-looking outfits by American designers who were out of favor even by the time the Reagans came to power, or those who have merely recycled or varied older fashions. Michelle is sweating the major American houses by continuing to choose what she likes from little known designers or designers of color.

(By the way, the work that Indians rendered on the First Lady’s gown was not sweatshop labor. That’s that first thing people scream after years of Nancy Reagan’s trespasses. This kind of sewing is highly valued in Indian culture, and is not done by machine or by children. It takes someone who has been well trained by family members or family friends–not strangers. It is like wearing art. It was manufactured in Naeem Khan’s family workshop, and it took forty people to complete. Yeah, that is real silver. When Indian women are wearing saris, some of them are indeed wearing their valuables (and signaling their individual value or ranking) in their clothing.)

The First Couple posing for the cameras during the first State Dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Madame Gursharan Kaur; oooh yeah, girl! Work it! (Courtesy: Voted Off the Island)

From all the plaudits Michelle and Barack are receiving overall about how well the state dinner went with Dr. and Mrs. Singh, one would think that somehow, this dinner would have blown up in their faces. How did these observers and critics suppose the Obamas were going to act as the representatives of this country to the world? They’ve already been–individually and singly–to nearly all of the continents. Why is this such a surprise (or in some cases, a relief), that they are not an embarrassment and are the best our country has to offer. The social staff is not going to try to make the Obamas look bad, because whenever there is a boob up, it reflects not only on the First Couple, but on them.

Some of these expectations of disaster has to do with the demonization of the Obamas in certain quarters. There’s pure invective, both political and personal, and then there are the altered posters and signs and caricatures and cartoons making Barack Obama out as Heath Ledger’s version of The Joker from Batman or with a target on his face or as an al Qaeda terrorist or Marxist–you know the drill. Michelle Obama isn’t exempt from this kind of disrespect either. I’ve seen that Photoshopped picture of her as a chimp in a purple dress and pearls, and its been copied from Stormfront to a soft porn site in Britain. In fact, this is allegedly how the soft porn site, hosted by Blogger, with the ‘monkey’ photo of Michelle Obama became the number one image of all of those taken of the First Lady on Google. It was the first image seen by someone using Google or Google Photo. Naturally, a ruckus developed. Apologies were written in broken English and in Chinese for the offensive photo, and it was finally taken down. (Makes me wonder how the Chinese really feel about the Obamas and the United States. But there are also neo-Nazi types in Britain, too.) Google, initially, refused to censor the source. The photo still exists, though.

Some people think that they are being funny when they publish this sh*t. They aren’t. They know they aren’t. There is a method to their madness. The amount of rage and hatred directed at the Obamas is unprecedented and very palpable, and it’s washed over everyone and everything. At the same time, people inside as well as outside the Beltway are more than just jittery. They are fearful of everything and everybody. Obama has been president less than a year, and so far the change hasn’t occurred overnight, as he said that it wouldn’t, but they have forgotten. Impressions have become the sine qua non of communication. Any small omission tends to put to high boil already simmering pots on the burner. Because what they are really worried about is, can these Negroes do anything right by us? Can black people really run the country well, or will they run it into the ground like the wingers and racists say?

The First Lady managed to complete the unease by not tipping her hand to reveal everything about the preparations. It was a perfectly rational move. She gave the media and other observers a preview of the importance of the custom of formal state dinners, the menu (vegetarian, for the devout Hindu Singhs), the chargers and place settings to be used (Eisenhower, Clinton and Bush II), and the wine to be poured (2008 Sauvignon Blanc from Modus Operandi, among others). That some of the fresh vegetables came from the Obamas’ now-famous garden outside, and that Jennifer Hudson, Kurt Elling, A. R. Rahman and Marvin Hamlisch with the National Symphony Orchestra, would be providing entertainment for the 220 guests. However, she refused to say anything else, like any speeches that would be made, and especially about The Dress, so speculation ran rampant.

The more that these people wish them to fail, the higher the Obamas’ star seems to rise. Remember when Chicago lost to Rio for the site of a 2016 Olympics? Self-congratulation among wingnuts fairly overflowed. My mouth flew open. Didn’t they realize that a win would mean jobs, even in cities and towns like Mount Horeb and Madison in neighboring Wisconsin? Of course, it would not have made much of a dent in Recession-strapped Dane County, but some people definitely would have benefited, including the very same wingnuts who have Faux Noise on at their houses 24/7 and listen to Beck as if mainlining gospel.

And then the next week, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize–the big enchilada, the one even George W. Bush coveted for his “work” in Iraq. The chortling and backslapping ebbed and ceased. These people can’t win for losing.

If anything, the Secret Service is absorbing the massive fail that everyone was waiting for from the Obamas. It’s overtaken the sweetness of the First Lady’s and her staff’s achievement–their plans and their work. Not just because of the antics of those two trespassers–the Virginia gate crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi. It was because letting these clowns in seriously undercut security for the first black president of the United States, for whom death threats have gone up some 400%. It let would-be domestic or international terrorists know exactly how it could be done–how to wipe out President Obama, the First Lady, and the entire Democratic line of succession to the presidency (with the exception of the increasingly infirm Senator Byrd) from Vice President Biden on down. Just fake your way in and look rich without a gilt-edged invitation.

If the Salahis were invited, even by verbal invitation by someone in the White House, then whoever it was needs firing. And who wants to risk not going through channels, holdover or not? The Salahis aren’t naming names as to who gave them the okey doke within the White House. And why would the Obamas–especially the strictly no-nonsense, “don’t rain on my parade” Michelle Obama–even consider such an idea on the First Couple’s special night when they wanted to shine and to reassure?

All because an agent didn’t see their names on the list. Instead of stopping them, s/he was awed by their trappings instead of doing his/her job, and waved the Salahis in anyway. The story went that the agent was thinking that if the Salahis weren’t kosher they would be caught in the second and third layers of security. That didn’t happen. (The unnamed agent must be packing his/her bags or is already gone, along with their retirement.) The couple went on to pose and profile all night long with the bigwigs of the country, including the President and his wife, and then splashed all this grinning suck-up onto their Facebook page so as to gain even more brownie points towards Michaele starring on a projected reality show, The Real Housewives of D.C.

I’m more than just sick of reality shows at this point. I truly am. Murders, hoaxes, and now this. I am so sick of these low-class attention junkies who want their fifteen minutes at any price, even to endangering the life of the president. And then people were saying that they probably wouldn’t be prosecuted. What? Excuse me? You must be joking? Throw the book at them!

Everyone is whispering under their breaths how lucky it was that the worst did not happen. But what if the Salahis were really mercenaries? What if this was a run-through? What if they put something onto a wall, or in a lamp, or under a sofa to go off later? What if they found out where the Obama daughters were sleeping?

After being so public about their achievement, the Salahis have disappeared–gone into hiding as the full implications of their little caper has unfolded. It was just as well, because of the discovery that their pockets aren’t that deep and have holes in them. The Salahis have a myriad of legal and financial woes. Desperate times mean that people take desperate measures, and the less than rich and connected Salahis are no exception. But when you are dealing with the Feds, they don’t take half-measures once they are roused.

Larry King canceled his interview with the Salahis, and CNN said that it was because the Salahis had decided to postpone their Monday appearance. (Perhaps the Salahis are hoping for bigger gain doing the daytime talk shows.) Over the weekend, representatives of the couple have been buttonholing the media to “get their bids in” for interviews, says an unidentified television executive. The executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that “the Virginia couple was looking for a payment in the mid-six figures range.” Number one, I hope that they don’t get it. News divisions don’t normally pay for interviews–it’s called checkbook journalism. It means that the person(s) could say just about anything, and it wouldn’t necessarily be factual. If the couple does manage to land one or two interviews somewhere, I hope the clowns incriminate themselves. The Secret Service is still considering charges against them, even if it means to save face.

So you think the Obamas are having it easy? Not really. Like I said before, I have nothing personal against them, it’s the neo-Clintonesque political, economic, and military morass that Obama is presiding over that I have problems with. Afghanistan is a cesspool that we are being drawn into, like the Russians and the British before us. Geithner and Summers’s policies have been calamitous; it’s business as usual. People are still losing their homes and losing jobs. I’m still wondering what it is going to take for Obama to clean house and really get going to helping people.

But these tiny, cultural incidents loom large because they say a lot about how Americans view their new president and his family. They have an impact just as much as a presidential press conference, a pardon, or a summit because it influences how we support or withdraw that support from him. The news media has long ago given up reporting real news for commentary and cultural skirmishes, yet it still manufactures consent, as Chomsky famously put it, about the big issues. The undermining of the State Dinner with Prime Minister Singh made big news, because of its Reality TV basis, but what does it do for the efforts of the First Lady and the President to make things grand for our nation’s important guests as during previous administrations? It relegates them to the side. It makes them nonentities, when they actually represent us. And when they are made small, they are made to be as nothing. We become nothing.

That is not what President and Mrs. Obama are. And that is not who we are either.

DF vil forbyde minareter i Danmark
Alt peger på forbud mod minareter i Schweiz

Med jævne mellemrum fristes man til at stille spørgsmålstegn ved demokratiets hensigtsmæssighed.

Fx. da det schweiziske parlament i 1958 med overvældende flertal havde besluttet at give kvinderne valgret.
Og folkeafstemningen i februar 1959 forkastede beslutningen, så de schweiziske kvinder først fik valgret ved en fornyet folkeafstemning i 1971.

Eller da NSDAP blev stemt ind i det tyske parlament.

Eller da DF blev stemt ind i Folketinget.

Den slags vækker associationer om Niels Hausgårds ‘Hvem bestemmer’:

Hvad er det for noget? Hvad ender det med?
Hu’dan æ wi kommet så tosset afste’?
De fleste har jo magten, så det er så nemt
Det er jo præcist som de fleste har bestemt
Men der er nu en ting, det var skjønt å ha’ wist
Om de fleste er de bedste eller bare de fleste.

Heldigvis er DK stolt af sin høje himmel: Der Himmel über der Schweiz ist weit genug.

Pak dig, Pia!

Tag på kulturkampskursus hos stormuftien sammen med din ven Geert Wilders!

RitzKLaus Tro Fobi sammenfatter Ritzaus, klaustrofobi og ‘tro fobi’,
hvor Ritzaus står for ensrettet envejskommunikation og magtmonopoliseret ytringsfrihed
klaustrofobi for den indeklemte stemning, DKs monokulturelle medielandskab skaber
og ‘tro fobi’ for en del danskeres religiøse analfabetisme og animositeter.

Bloggen kommenterer mere eller mindre satirisk aktuelle nyheder fra Politiken, Berlingske Tidende etc.
-> kig og klik på menuen under “nye indlæg”, “nye kommentarer” m.v.

Websitet (klik på de øverste menupunkter — under sider) handler især om Danmarks Radio & Co.

Og om hvordan statsradiofoniens arvtagere specielt ved deres valg og vinkling af nyheder
(Børn&Bananas, Danske Danskere, JanteFjante, Myter&Traditioner, TumpeTV, Varmvind&Lunluft)
er med til at gøde jorden for Fogh, Pia den fromme K. og andre mere eller mindre fordækte nationalister
samt Sand&Salighedsmonopolister med en mission om at Danmark skal frelse verden
– og så også lige (med den anden hånd) knække The Axis of Evil.

DR&Co.s udanske dansktone sigter efter at producere konsensus om Danmarks og danske danskeres overlegenhed.
Sammen med det der trives i et sådant klima kan den meget vel være en medårsag til den senere tids voldsomme sammenstød (ReligionsRabalder, KulturKamp). Ikke kun på religiøse og etniske fronter, men også mellem kreative unge og etablerede magtstrukturer samt magthavere, som tror, de kan gå på vandet.

English abstract
This blog/site is about the connection between Danish media and nationalism, xenophobia and especially islamophobia in Denmark. As the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) said in its Third Report on Denmark:
…
Climate of opinion
…
104. ECRI notes with deep concern that, as indicated above, the climate in Denmark has worsened since its second report and that there is a pervasive atmosphere of intolerance and xenophobia against refugees, asylum seekers, as well as minority groups in general and Muslims in particular. The media, together with politicians play a major role in creating this atmosphere.

We are all Africans — thanks to Mama Africa!

Capitalism is not the fairest face of the human race
As long as it works, we might forget this and live with that.
When it doesn’t, any thing is better than capitalism.

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior
is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
everywhere is war – me say war.

Bob Marley citing Haile Selassie’s Address to the United Nations

Blåtand, ej blåøjet

Last week, we did anti-capitalist students in Nikes and keffiyahs. This week, anti-capitalist warriors with stocks in the military-industrial complex. Warning: sources are right-wing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Michael Moore:

According to Fortune Magazine, Moore’s films have grossed over $300 million worldwide. His highest grossing film was “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which critiques the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and earned over $200 million worldwide.

Moore reportedly was paid $21 million by Disney for producing, directing and creating the film.

Moore also earned 50 percent of the profits of his 2007 film “Sicko,” totaling $25 million plus DVD sales, according to Vanity Fair.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Moore would receive all of the profits made from DVD sales of “Sicko,” sales of which have been estimated at over $17 million. [source]

Over the past five years, Moore’s holdings have “included such evil pharmaceutical and medical companies as Pfizer, Merck, Genzyme, Elan PLC, Eli Lilly, Becton Dickinson and Boston Scientific,” writes Schweizer, whose earlier works include “The Bushes” and “Reagan’s War.”

“Moore’s supposedly nonexistent portfolio also includes big bad energy giants like Sunoco, Noble Energy, Schlumberger, Williams Companies, Transocean Sedco Forex and Anadarko, all firms that ‘deplete irreplaceable fossil fuels in the name of profit’ as he put it in ‘Dude, Where’s My Country?’

“And in perhaps the ultimate irony, he also has owned shares in Halliburton. According to IRS filings, Moore sold Halliburton for a 15 percent profit and bought shares in Noble, Ford, General Electric (another defense contractor), AOL Time Warner (evil corporate media) and McDonald’s.

“Also on Moore’s investment menu: defense contractors Honeywell, Boeing and Loral.”

Does Moore share the stock proceeds of his “foundation” with charitable causes, you might ask?

Schweizer found that “for a man who by 2002 had a net worth in eight figures, he gave away a modest $36,000 through the foundation, much of it to his friends in the film business or tony cultural organizations that later provided him with venues to promote his books and film.” [source]

Noam Chomsky:

[...] But trusts can’t be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of $2,000,000, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston’s venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and, with the help of a tax attorney specializing in “income-tax planning,” set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions.[...]

Chomsky’s business works something like this. He gives speeches on college campuses around the country at $12,000 a pop, often dozens of times a year.

Can’t go and hear him in person? No problem: you can go online and download clips from earlier speeches—for a fee. You can hear Chomsky talk for one minute about “Property Rights”; it will cost you 79 cents. You can also buy a CD with clips from previous speeches for $12.99.

But books are Chomsky’s mainstay, and on the international market he has become a publishing phenomenon. The Chomsky brand means instant sales. As publicist Dana O’Hare of Pluto Press explains: “All we have to do is put Chomsky’s name on a book and it sells out immediately!”[...]

Chomsky’s marketing efforts shortly after September 11 give new meaning to the term war profiteer. In the days after the tragedy, he raised his speaking fee from $9,000 to $12,000 because he was suddenly in greater demand. [source]

See also: Michael Moore’s antisemitism?; What’s wrong with Noam Chomsky?

Dansk støttet anti-narkoprojekt i Helmandprovinsen i Afghanistan ramt af korruption. … Bønder i Helmand, der modtager såsæd og kunstgødning, skal skrive under på, at de ikke vil dyrke opium. … Skriver politiken.dk.

Hvede og kunstgødning er i denne sammenhæng lige så kunstige elementer som hele krigen.

Giv bønderne lov til at dyrke opium og brug afgrøderne til produktion af medicinsk opium, som der er så stor mangel på, at bl.a. fattige udviklingslande ikke har råd til det.

Apropos ‘Krigen mod Taleban’: Amerikanske efterretningstjenester vurderer nu, at hovedfjenden ikke længere er Taleban og al-Qaeda. De udgør kun 10 procent af de krigere, som den internationale styrke kæmper mod.

Kald det bare krigen mod Afghanistan — og den er som bekendt og proklameret slået fejl.

Eller sig det som det er og få de bagvedliggende bevæggrunde med: Clash of Civilizations til sikring af USAs verdensherredømme og olieforsyning.

RitzKLaus Tro Fobi sammenfatter Ritzaus, klaustrofobi og ‘tro fobi’,
hvor Ritzaus står for ensrettet envejskommunikation og magtmonopoliseret ytringsfrihed
klaustrofobi for den indeklemte stemning, DKs monokulturelle medielandskab skaber
og ‘tro fobi’ for en del danskeres religiøse analfabetisme og animositeter.

Bloggen kommenterer mere eller mindre satirisk aktuelle nyheder fra Politiken, Berlingske Tidende etc.
-> kig og klik på menuen under “nye indlæg”, “nye kommentarer” m.v.

Websitet (klik på de øverste menupunkter — under sider) handler især om Danmarks Radio & Co.

Og om hvordan statsradiofoniens arvtagere specielt ved deres valg og vinkling af nyheder
(Børn&Bananas, Danske Danskere, JanteFjante, Myter&Traditioner, TumpeTV, Varmvind&Lunluft)
er med til at gøde jorden for Fogh, Pia den fromme K. og andre mere eller mindre fordækte nationalister
samt Sand&Salighedsmonopolister med en mission om at Danmark skal frelse verden
– og så også lige (med den anden hånd) knække The Axis of Evil.

DR&Co.s udanske dansktone sigter efter at producere konsensus om Danmarks og danske danskeres overlegenhed.
Sammen med det der trives i et sådant klima kan den meget vel være en medårsag til den senere tids voldsomme sammenstød (ReligionsRabalder, KulturKamp). Ikke kun på religiøse og etniske fronter, men også mellem kreative unge og etablerede magtstrukturer samt magthavere, som tror, de kan gå på vandet.

English abstract
This blog/site is about the connection between Danish media and nationalism, xenophobia and especially islamophobia in Denmark. As the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) said in its Third Report on Denmark:
…
Climate of opinion
…
104. ECRI notes with deep concern that, as indicated above, the climate in Denmark has worsened since its second report and that there is a pervasive atmosphere of intolerance and xenophobia against refugees, asylum seekers, as well as minority groups in general and Muslims in particular. The media, together with politicians play a major role in creating this atmosphere.

We are all Africans — thanks to Mama Africa!

Capitalism is not the fairest face of the human race
As long as it works, we might forget this and live with that.
When it doesn’t, any thing is better than capitalism.

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior
is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
everywhere is war – me say war.

Bob Marley citing Haile Selassie’s Address to the United Nations

Blåtand, ej blåøjet

Rapporter: Krigen er slået fejl
Hovedfjenden i Afghanistan er ikke længere Taleban og al-Qaeda, mener efterretningskilder.
politiken.dk

Krigen har — som alle krige — fra starten været en fejl.

Afghanernes reaktioner på krigen er naturlige.
Var Danmark besat af fx. en muslimsk hær, ville reaktionerne være af samme karakter, som det vi ser i Afghanistan.

Man skal hverken være synsk eller efterretningstosse for at kunne forudse dette reaktionsmønster.

Krig gavner kun våbenindustrien.

Havde man brugt bare en brøkdel af krigsudgifterne i Afghanistan, Irak osv. konstruktivt og produktivt, var meget nået.

Hvorfor etablerer man fx. ikke en legal opiumproduktion efter tyrkisk forbillede i Afghanistan?
Hvorfor blokerer amerikanerne for den slags forslag, som virkelig kunne stabilisere landet?

RitzKLaus Tro Fobi sammenfatter Ritzaus, klaustrofobi og ‘tro fobi’,
hvor Ritzaus står for ensrettet envejskommunikation og magtmonopoliseret ytringsfrihed
klaustrofobi for den indeklemte stemning, DKs monokulturelle medielandskab skaber
og ‘tro fobi’ for en del danskeres religiøse analfabetisme og animositeter.

Bloggen kommenterer mere eller mindre satirisk aktuelle nyheder fra Politiken, Berlingske Tidende etc.
-> kig og klik på menuen under “nye indlæg”, “nye kommentarer” m.v.

Websitet (klik på de øverste menupunkter — under sider) handler især om Danmarks Radio & Co.

Og om hvordan statsradiofoniens arvtagere specielt ved deres valg og vinkling af nyheder
(Børn&Bananas, Danske Danskere, JanteFjante, Myter&Traditioner, TumpeTV, Varmvind&Lunluft)
er med til at gøde jorden for Fogh, Pia den fromme K. og andre mere eller mindre fordækte nationalister
samt Sand&Salighedsmonopolister med en mission om at Danmark skal frelse verden
– og så også lige (med den anden hånd) knække The Axis of Evil.

DR&Co.s udanske dansktone sigter efter at producere konsensus om Danmarks og danske danskeres overlegenhed.
Sammen med det der trives i et sådant klima kan den meget vel være en medårsag til den senere tids voldsomme sammenstød (ReligionsRabalder, KulturKamp). Ikke kun på religiøse og etniske fronter, men også mellem kreative unge og etablerede magtstrukturer samt magthavere, som tror, de kan gå på vandet.

English abstract
This blog/site is about the connection between Danish media and nationalism, xenophobia and especially islamophobia in Denmark. As the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) said in its Third Report on Denmark:
…
Climate of opinion
…
104. ECRI notes with deep concern that, as indicated above, the climate in Denmark has worsened since its second report and that there is a pervasive atmosphere of intolerance and xenophobia against refugees, asylum seekers, as well as minority groups in general and Muslims in particular. The media, together with politicians play a major role in creating this atmosphere.

We are all Africans — thanks to Mama Africa!

Capitalism is not the fairest face of the human race
As long as it works, we might forget this and live with that.
When it doesn’t, any thing is better than capitalism.

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior
is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
everywhere is war – me say war.

Bob Marley citing Haile Selassie’s Address to the United Nations

Blåtand, ej blåøjet

I remember when I first realized that the notions I had regarding politics and social affairs could most closely be called Anarchy.  I was in one of my Spanish literature class (to my delight my second major, Spanish, was filled with all the exciting peripheral fight-the-power ideas that I had been so disappointed to learn that my original major, English, lacked), taught by my favorite professor, an Argentine.  He lectured about three recent political structures:

1st – The Nation/The People - The Nation is ruled by a government that represents the will of The People.  Top-down.

2nd – The Leader/The Masses - Coming from Argentina my professor was especially familiar with Peronism and this form of organization.  The Leader is one who sweeps to power through the overwhelming support of The Masses .  Not empowered by the national sovereignty such as Rousseau talked about…but instead representing a more coarse group outside the structure of government, one that fills government with its exploding will.  Also top-down.

3rd – The Multitudes/Sporadic Potential – He said this was what truly excited him.  The Multitudes combine to create Sporadic Potential which in turn affects the direction of decisions and policies.  Bottom-up. 

Many in my class, especially one young woman, were furious about his teachings.  She called him a communist.  But what I realized was that his political leanings were something even more taboo, which he was understandably loathe to openly admit – an anarchist.  And for the first time I understood Anarchy and it slotted completely into my misgivings about power, government, corruption and subjection.  It all made so much sense then…although this realization made me distressed and uncomfortable at first. 

 As I read further I came to realize that Anarchy had been developed over centuries, and was not as scary as I had once thought.  It seemed that above all other political theorists, the Anarchists had the most beautiful vision of human potential, the most heartrending devotion to what so many others scoff at.

The following conversation stems from an excellent post on one of my favorite blogs on WordPress, Speak Now Peace Works.  It was specifically in response to the post Positively Deviant, which talks about the success observed when ideas come from within groups instead of from outsiders providing guidance, however well-intentioned. 

It was a good opportunity to try and elaborate further on what, for me at least, Anarchy is.  It also raises some very difficult questions that an ideal conception of the world with sporadic, independently-functioning beings would have to address.  But those are the topics for further posts…

• That is why I am mostly an Anarchist!

People can solve their own problems, if we give them a chance. The human brain is more amazing than any machine could ever be…

I believe in bottom-up solutions always and hope that these ideas catch fire throughout the world!

Great to see you have been writing a lot lately, this is one of my favorite stops while my brain is fried from staring at reports and contracts, ugh…

Perhaps it was easier for Herman and Peterson’s article Vulliamy’s Smears at Counter Punch, Monthly Review, and Media Lens to link to a blog that receives little attention from its creator because they just might pass under the radar in that manner or perhaps it was due to the post’s Google rank, but either way it has come to the point where I cannot ignore the attempt to dismiss the valid issues that Ed Vulliamy raises in his open letter.  Also, I am perplexed that Herman and Peterson would go so far as to have everyone believe that through my blog Vulliamy’s Open Letter to Amnesty International was started and further circulated.  I doubt that my semi-moribund blog, which receives occasional spurts of informational CPR, has that much influence. 

More importantly though, the real issues within the letter are being circumvented with ad hominem attacks and fallacies as well as being used to propagate revisionist views.  Through this analysis (and another to follow) I hope to dispel some of these fallacies and revisionist views and hope that some common ground or resolve can finally be reached.

First, let us discuss the issue of Brockes’ Guardian article that Ed Vulliamy refers to in his open letter.  While it is true that article was retracted and The Guardian issued an apology to Chomsky for the misrepresentation within the article, the issues regarding Chomsky’s support of revisionist views and his opinion that Ed Vulliamy was “probably wrong” in regards to the Trnopolje have not been dispelled by Chomsky in his formal complaint to The Guardian (however, it should be noted that Chomsky did object to the whole article based on the one misrepresentation that he does defend).  Nor are the issues solely based on the Brockes’ article, but are also based on Chomsky’s own confirmations about defending Johnstone’s free speech. 

Certainly, Chomsky has the right to defend Johnstone’s freedom of speech.  He has the right to agree with her and reflect that agreement in his public opinions, which he certainly does as will be demonstrated later.  However, Chomsky cannot be afforded the luxury of having opinions that go both ways.  In Chomsky’s formal complaint, located on Chomsky’s own site, he states:

“In the open letter, readily available on the internet (and the only source), I went through the charges one by one, checked them against the book, and found that they all ranged from serious misrepresentation to outright fabrication. I then took — and take — the position that it is completely wrong to withdraw a book because the press charges (falsely) that it does not conform to approved doctrine. And I do regret that “I didn’t do it strongly enough,” the words Brockes managed to quote correctly. In the interview, whatever Johnstone may have said about Srebrenica never came up, and is entirely irrelevant in any event, at least to anyone with a minimal appreciation of freedom of speech.”

Further, The Guardian states in its own retraction:

“Both Prof Chomsky and Ms Johnstone, who has also written to the Guardian, have made it clear that Prof Chomsky’s support for Ms Johnstone, made in the form of an open letter with other signatories, related entirely to her right to freedom of speech.”

 Interestingly, Chomsky’s own site which offers several hyperlinks in his reprint of the Brockes’ article offers no link to the “readily available on the internet” open letter which is at the heart of the issue.  It is 2009, 4 years later, and through extensive digging I came up with no open letter defending Johnstone on my own, but was forwarded this link.  These are some highlights with my commentary from what I am told is the formal complaint to Ordfront (italics bold: Chomsky; italics: commentaries; normal font: Samaha):

 “I have known her for many years, have read the book, and feel that it is quite serious and important.”

In my personal opinion that statement goes above and beyond defending Johnstone’s freedom of speech and is an introduction to endorsement of Johnstone’s work which is highlighted in other portions.

“(1) ‘According to her it cannot be a matter of genocide when women and children are spared. But to me it is obvious that genocide and crimes against humanity have been committed in Srebrenica…’”

“Reference is apparently to Johnstone’s statement (p. 117) refuting the claim that the charge of “genocide” is demonstrated by the fact that the Serbs who conquered Srebrenica offered safe passage to women and children. In response to this absurd claim, she writes: “However, one thing should be obvious: one does not commit `genocide’ by sparing women and children.

I do not see how her entirely appropriate comment justifies the charge in (1)”

Can someone explain to me how Johnstone’s comment does not justify the charge in (1)? It certainly appears to me that Johnstone is at the very least insinuating genocide denial and that Chomsky’s referral to Johnstone’s quote as “appropriate comment” has the appearance of supporting that insinuation. 

Furthermore, I am not aware of any definition of genocide that exempts an action from genocide because one gender was spared.  Instead, an act of genocide has taken place if one gender of the target population is specifically targeted for extermination and the other is left alone.  The reason for this is: if one gender is eliminated procreation amongst the target group is hindered which is part of a systematic plan and recognized by the UN.  Furthermore, Lemkin, who coined the word genocide further details that complete destruction of a group does not need to take place.  This faulty logic of genocide being exempt because women and children have been spared has been attempted at the Krstic genocide trial and has failed.  The court has ruled that the females and children being spared has no bearing on whether or not genocide took place.

 “3) ‘Johnstone asserts that more effort has gone into exaggerating the number of dead than into identifying and caclulating the actual number of victims, that there was never any real wish to find out how many were killed and who they were. She suggests that several thousand hade fled and survived.’”

“I read that section too. I am aware of no evidence — of course, meaning evidence available to her at the time she wrote — that the statements she actually made in this regard (as distinct from those attributed to her) are incorrect.”

Chomsky should have the academic integrity to distinguish the actual statements that Johnstone made as opposed to the statements that were “attributed to her”.  We should keep in mind that these statements are made in November of 2005.  If Johnstone has suggested that thousands fled and survived, then the onus is upon Johnstone to prove those allegations since during the time of her writing thousands of bodies had already been discovered in mass graves.  Evidence and trials have already established the contrary.  At this point it is not a matter of innocent until proven guilty since a record of the event has been established.  The burden of proof lies with Johnstone – it is simply not acceptable to place this burden of proof on others and reflects poorly on the academia that insists otherwise.

“’… the revisionist author Diana Johnstone, foreground figure in the slander-convicted magazine “Living Marxism”. She insists that the Serb atrocities – ethnic cleansing, torture camps, mass executions – are western propaganda. That is also what Slobodan Milosevic and his ilk profess. Thus the Ordfront left is suddenly travelling in the same compartment as postcommunist fascism.’”

(…)

“But putting that aside, let’s now consider his reasoning. Johnstone argues — and, in fact, clearly demonstrates — that a good deal of what has been charged has no basis in fact, and much of it is pure fabrication. For van Reis, this is outrageous.”

Again, this certainly appears to be a clear endorsement of Johnstone’s revisionist views.

“A final comment on “genocide.” People are free to use the term “genocide” as they please, and to condemn Racak and Srebrenica, say, as genocidal if they like. But then they have a simple responsibility: Inform us of their bitter denunciations of the incomparably worse “genocide” carried out with the strong backing of the US and UK at the very same moment as Racak. Say, the massacre at Liquica, with perhaps up to 200 civilians murdered, one of many (unlike Racak), in a country under military occupation and hence a grave war crime (unlike Racak), and in this case simply a massacre of civilians, without even a pretext of resistance (again unlike Racak).”

This is circumstantial rhetoric that has no place within the defense of freedom of speech.  More so, I find it extremely disturbing that an academic would use sarcasm by saying that the term “genocide” can be used liberally, to refer to Racak and Srebrenica as  “say, as genocidal, if they like”, implying otherwise, and then refer back to “200 civilians” and imply that Liquica does qualify as a genocide. 

Mr. Chomsky, I have lost friends and family due to Serb aggression on Bosnia and I am not an academic, however I have always been careful in the way I use the term genocide in terms of the aggression that took place on the Bosnian population.  This is not a term to be taken lightly, nor is it a term that should lose all meaning due to academic inclinations or political tactics.  Perhaps the 200 civilians that were killed in Liquica qualifies as a genocide, to be honest I am not informed of the matter to the same extent that you are informed, but myself and the whole of Bosnia are aware of the over 8,000 that lost their lives at Srebrenica.  Perhaps you feel the need to incorporate Srebrenica into your global power and media package, but realities usually have no perfect boxes to fit into.  Instead we are left to sorting the pieces and trying to make sense of it all.

Certainly, the examples and quotes provided here demonstrate that the issues Ed Vulliamy presents in his Open Letter to Amnesty International are valid regardless of the lack of citations and quotations within his letter.  It should also be noted that I do not believe that the letter was intended to read as a new media format with hyperlinks. 

To conclude part I, Chomsky claims to be simply defending freedom of speech on one hand and supporting revisionist views on the other; this is problematic.  Perhaps though, common ground lies in the very issue of revisionist views.  Chomsky clearly demonstrates his own dislike of misrepresentation and fabrications in his own open letter to the Guardian regarding the Brockes article.  In this case though, the accuracy or inaccuracy puts history at issue, which in turn discourages or facilitates future atrocities on the Bosnian population.  I can’t imagine that anyone would want to facilitate another “massacre” (quotes are mine for emphasis – I consider the worldview of Srebrenica as genocide to be acceptable).

Although, I feel that the issue of Trnopolje, one of many camps of the war, and the ITN/LM/Knightly fiasco brought up by Herman and Peterson with all of its misrepresentations and fabrications is a red herring which has repeatedly been debunked and is irrelevant to the issue of Amnesty International inviting Chomsky to speak at a human rights event – I will focus on the issue for the purposes of personally recording the continued propagation of these fallacies, along with the facts that disqualify the argument for my blog in part II.

Interview by fellow wobbly Diane Krauthamer. Originally posted at Znet.

DK: I would like to start this interview with a discussion of the economic crisis and how workers can deal with the issues which we face. In your recent piece titled “Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours,” which was published in the Boston Review, you state that the “the financial crisis will presumably be patched up somehow, while leaving the institutions that created it pretty much in place.” Following on that, there has been a recent upsurge of militant industrial action in workplaces, primarily throughout Europe, and also in North America. As you know, the Republic Windows and Doors Factory in Chicago was the first factory occupation in the U.S. since the 1930s.

NC: No, not quite, because the 1979 strike against U.S. Steel in Youngstown, Ohio was an occupation—and actually, that’s a model that really should be pursued now. They went on from striking to trying to have the workforce and the communities take over the abandoned factories that U.S. Steel was dismantling. The legal effort that followed was led by the radical labor lawyer Staughton Lynd. They didn’t win in the courts, but they could have won, and they would have had enough support. It could have meant a lot.

DK: That leads me to my question about how workers are responding to mass layoffs. I feel what they are aiming for are parochial gains without thinking more long-term of how they can move towards workers’ self-management.

NC: That’s what the IWW should be doing: providing that spark. You’re right, it’s reactive. But the same was true of the sit-down strikes in the 1930s. I mean the reason the sit-down strikes struck such fear in the hearts of management was that they knew that a sit-down strike was just one step short of taking over the factory.

DK: I feel at the moment we’re gaining numbers and we’re gaining a lot of strength and power, but the rest of the American labor movement does not perceive that we are very serious. It is a very difficult feat to go from what we’re doing now to really being a part of the broader labor movement in the U.S., which is important if we are to provide that spark.

NC: The U.S. is different from Europe and other industrial countries in this respect. The U.S. is, to a very unusual extent, a business-run society. There are all kinds of reasons for that—it has no feudal background, so institutions that remained in place in Europe did not remain in place here. There are a lot of reasons. But the fact of the matter is that the U.S. is run by an unusually class-conscious, dedicated business class that has a very violent labor history, much worse than in Europe. The attack on unions has been far more extreme here, and it has been much more successful. Also, the business propaganda has been far more successful. Anti-union propaganda has been considerably more successful here than in Europe, even among working people who would benefit [from] unions. In fact, a rather striking aspect of business propaganda in the United States is the demonization of government, starting after the Second World War.

The Second World War ended with a radicalization of the population in the United States and everywhere else, and called for all kinds of things like popular takeovers, government intervention, and worker takeovers of factories. Business propagated a tremendous propaganda offensive. The scale surprised me when I read the scholarship—it’s enormous, and it’s been very effective. There were two major targets: one is unions, the other is democracy. Well, [to them] democracy means getting people to regard government as an alien force that’s robbing them and oppressing them, not as their government. In a democracy it would be your government. For example, in a democracy the day when you pay your taxes, April 15, would be a day of celebration, because you’re getting together to provide resources for the programs you decided on. In the United States, it’s a day of mourning because this alien force—the government—is coming to rob you of your hard-earned money. That’s the general attitude, and it’s a tremendous victory for the opponents of democracy, and, of course, any privileged sector is going to hate democracy. You can see it in the healthcare debate.

The majority of the population thinks that if the government runs healthcare, they’re going to take away your freedom. At the same time, the public favors a national healthcare program. The contradiction is somehow unresolved. In the case of the business propaganda, it’s particularly ironic because while business wants the population to hate the government, they want the population to love the government. Namely, they’re in favor of a very powerful state which works in their interest. So you have to love that government, but hate the government that might work in your interest and that you could control. That’s an interesting propaganda task, but it’s been carried out very well. You can see it in the worship of Reagan, which portrays him as somebody who saved us from government. Actually he was an apostle of big government. Government grew under Reagan. He was the strongest opponent of free markets in the post-war history among presidents. But it doesn’t matter what the reality is; they concocted an image that you worship. It’s hard to achieve that, especially in a free society, but it’s been done, and that’s the kind of thing that activists in the IWW have to work against, right on the shop floor. It’s not so simple, but it’s been done before.

DK: You mentioned that business is very class conscious. Can you elaborate on that statement?

NC: Well, all you have to do is read the business literature. In the 1930s they were very frightened and they were concerned about how the rising power of the masses was hazardous to industrialists. They used straight Marxist rhetoric—just the values were changed. The literature is like that—they are constantly talking about the masses, the danger they pose, and how to control them. They understand what they’re doing, and they’re very class conscious. They press policies which work for their interests. For example, the insurance industries and the big banks are absolutely euphoric now—on the business pages they don’t even conceal it—because they’ve succeeded in coming out of the crisis even stronger than they were before, and in a better position to lay the basis for the next crisis. But they don’t care, because they’ll get bailed out again. That’s class consciousness with a vengeance.

DK: On the topic of how businesses use propaganda. I would say now they use propaganda more so for union-busting than they use the violent tactics. Would you agree?

NC: For a while, after the Second World War, when there was strong support for labor, this was done subtly. But since Reagan, it has been done openly. I mean Reagan bitterly hated unions and wanted them destroyed. This began with the air controllers’ strike and went on from there. The Reagan administration told the business world that they were not going to enforce the labor laws. The number of illegal firings tripled during the Reagan years. It was at that time that you started getting these companies that specialized in how to destroy unions. They don’t make it a secret, and they have all sorts of techniques for management to destroy unions. Well, when Clinton came along, it sort of moderated a little bit, but Clinton had a different device for breaking unions called NAFTA [North America Free Trade Agreement]. Because the government was entirely lawless, employers could exploit NAFTA to threaten union organizers with transfer. It’s illegal, but when you’ve got a lawless government, it doesn’t matter if it’s illegal. I think the number of union drives blocked increased by about 50 percent. Part of the NAFTA legislation required studies of labor practices, and there was quite a good study that came out by a labor historian on the use of NAFTA to undermine and destroy unions. Well, that was going on in the Clinton years, then, of course Bush…who we don’t need to even talk about. But starting with Regan it became quite open, the attack on unions. It wasn’t the Pinkertons anymore, but it was just not applying the laws.

DK: We’re seeing that very much in the IWW, especially in the Starbucks Workers Union, whereby Starbucks will put out all kinds of anti-union propaganda both internally, within the company, and externally. A lot of what they do is tell workers that they don’t need a union.

NC: They’re better off without it, that’s the Whole Foods line.

DK: Right, they use the line of Corporate Social Responsibility, and a lot of it is very effective.

NC: It is.

DK: So how could we, as a small, independent labor union, work to fight against that kind of propaganda?

NC: You’ve just got to get people organized and tell them the truth. There aren’t any magic tricks to it. You know, sometimes it’s pretty amazing. Actually, I mentioned a pretty striking case of this in “Crisis and Hope,” which was the Caterpillar case in the early 1990s. Caterpillar was quite important because that was the first manufacturing industry that used Reaganite strike-breaking techniques. They illegally called in scabs to break a major strike. It was reported pretty well in the Chicago Tribune, who pointed out something very interesting. They said that the workers got very little support in Peoria when scabs illegally broke the strike, and that was particularly striking because that whole community had been built up by the union—it was a union-based community. But when it came to the crunch, the community itself didn’t support the union. Now that’s kind of interesting about Obama, because Obama was supposedly a community organizer in Chicago at that time. Now I’m sure he read the Chicago Tribune, so he knew about it, but when he went to show his solidarity with the workforce, the first place he went was Caterpillar. I don’t think he’s forgotten, and the labor movement didn’t react. Even radical labor historians didn’t remember. It was only 15 years ago, after all, but that’s a real triumph of propaganda in many ways.

It’s a lot of work to reconstruct a strong labor offensive, but it’s happened before. I mean in the 1920s the labor movement was almost completely destroyed. Well, in the 1930s it really revived and became pretty radical. Things can happen, but not by themselves. I mean, then you had the Communist Party, who was right at the heart of civil rights activism and labor activism and so on, but something else has to provide it. You don’t want to have their Russia worship, but domestically they had a pretty good record. I can remember it pretty well from childhood, because my family was mostly union people.

DK: Your father was in the IWW, right?

NC: He was in the IWW… but do you want to know the truth? [laughs]

DK: Yes I do.

NC: He came over as an immigrant and didn’t know any English. He went to work at a sweat shop in Baltimore. He told me later that this guy was coming around, and the guy seemed to be for the workers, so he signed up. It turned out that guy was an IWW organizer [laughs]. My father didn’t regret signing up; he just really didn’t know what was going on.

DK: What industry was he in?

NC: I don’t even know if I ever knew [laughing]—some sweatshop in Baltimore. I knew with my other relatives—some of the women were in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and men were shop boys and things like that. I happened to be in Philadelphia, but the family was in New York. I could see what the union was doing for them. It really saved their lives. I had two spinster aunts who were seamstresses, and of course unemployed in the 1930s, but the union gave them a life. They had a couple of weeks in the country for a union installation and they had educational programs and all sorts of things. There was a life, you know, a real community. And they were members of the Communist Party—they didn’t care one way or another about Russia, they just cared about the United States.

DK: On that note, I’m also looking to think ahead with what’s in the future for the labor movement and the IWW. More generally, if you had one piece of advice to offer future generations of Wobblies—especially in light of the tough financial times that we are facing and will probably continue to face for a long time in the Western world—what would it be?

NC: Well, I get a lot of letters from people. When I go home tonight I’ll have 15 letters today from mostly young kids who don’t like what’s going on and want to do something about it, and [they ask me] if I can give them some advice as to what they should do, or can I tell them what to read or something. It doesn’t work like that. I mean, everything depends very much on who you are, what your values are, what your commitments are, what circumstances you live in and what options you’re willing to undertake, and that determines what you ought to be doing. There are some very general ideas that people can keep in mind; they’re kind of truisms. It’s only worth mentioning them because they’re always denied.

First of all, don’t believe anything you hear from power systems. So if Obama or the boss or the newspapers or anyone else tells you they’re doing this, that, or the other thing, dismiss it or assume the opposite is true, which it often is. You have to rely on yourself and your associates—gifts don’t come from above; you’re going to win them, or you won’t have them, and you win by struggle, and that requires understanding and serious analysis of the options and the circumstances, and then you can do a lot. So take right now, for example, there is a right-wing populist uprising. It’s very common, even on the left, to just ridicule them, but that’s not the right reaction. If you look at those people and listen to them on talk radio, these are people with real grievances. I listen to talk radio a lot and it’s kind of interesting. If you can sort of suspend your knowledge of the world and just enter into the world of the people who are calling in, you can understand them. I’ve never seen a study, but my sense is that these are people who feel really aggrieved. These people think, “I’ve done everything right all my life, I’m a god-fearing Christian, I’m white, I’m male, I’ve worked hard, and I carry a gun. I do everything I’m supposed to do. And I’m getting shafted.” And in fact they are getting shafted. For 30 years their wages have stagnated or declined, the social conditions have worsened, the children are going crazy, there are no schools, there’s nothing, so somebody must be doing something to them, and they want to know who it is. Well Rush Limbaugh has answered – it’s the rich liberals who own the banks and run the government, and of course run the media, and they don’t care about you—they just want to give everything away to illegal immigrants and gays and communists and so on.

Well, you know, the reaction we should be having to them is not ridicule, but rather self-criticism. Why aren’t we organizing them? I mean, we are the ones that ought to be organizing them, not Rush Limbaugh. There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany. Hitler was appealing to groups with similar grievances, and giving them crazy answers, but at least they were answers; these groups weren’t getting them anywhere else. It was the Jews and the Bolsheviks [that were the problem].

I mean, the liberal democrats aren’t going to tell the average American, “Yeah, you’re being shafted because of the policies that we’ve established over the years that we’re maintaining now.” That’s not going to be an answer. And they’re not getting answers from the left. So, there’s an internal coherence and logic to what they get from Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of these guys. And they sound very convincing, they’re very self-confident, and they have an answer to everything—a crazy answer, but it’s an answer. And it’s our fault if that goes on. So one thing to be done is don’t ridicule these people, join them, and talk about their real grievances and give them a sensible answer, like, “Take over your factories.”

América Latina es hoy el lugar más estimulante del mundo, dice Noam Chomsky. Hay aquí una resistencia real al imperio; no existen muchas regiones de las que pueda afirmarse lo mismo.Entrevistado por La Jornada, uno de los intelectuales disidentes más relevantes de nuestros tiempos señala que la esperanza en el cambio anunciada por Barack Obama es una ilusión, ya que son las instituciones y no los individuos los que determinan el rumbo de la política.

Por:     David Brooks, Hermann Bellinghausen y Luis Hernández*  

Presente en México para celebrar los 25 años de La Jornada, el autor de más cien libros, el lingüista, crítico antimperialista, analista del papel que desempeñan los medios de comunicación en la ”manufactura” del consenso, explica cómo la guerra a las drogas se inició en Estados Unidos como parte de una ofensiva conservadora contra la revolución cultural y la oposición a la invasión de Vietnam.

A continuación, presentamos la transcripción completa de sus declaraciones.

América Latina es hoy el lugar más estimulante del mundo. Por primera vez en 500 años hay movimientos hacia una verdadera independencia y separación del mundo imperial; se están integrando países que históricamente han estado separados. Esta integración es un prerrequisito para la independencia. Históricamente, Estados Unidos ha derrocado un gobierno tras otro; ahora ya no puede hacerlo.

Brasil es un ejemplo interesante. Hacia principios de los 60, los programas de (Joao) Goulart no eran tan diferentes de los de (Luiz Inacio) Lula. En aquel caso, el gobierno de (John F.) Kennedy organizó un golpe de Estado militar. Así, el Estado de seguridad nacional se propagó por toda la región como una plaga. Hoy día Lula es el muchacho bueno, al que están tratando de cultivar, en reacción a los gobiernos más militantes en la región. En Estados Unidos no publican los comentarios de Lula favorables a (Hugo) Chávez o a Evo Morales. Los silencian porque no son el modelo.

Hay un movimiento hacia la unificación regional: se empiezan a formar instituciones que, aunque no funcionan del todo, comienzan a existir. Es el caso de Mercosur y Unasur.

Otro caso notable en la región es el de Bolivia. Después del referendo hubo una gran victoria, y también una sublevación bastante violenta en las provincias de la Media Luna, donde están los gobernadores tradicionales, blancos. Un par de docenas de personas murieron. Hubo una reunión regional en Santiago de Chile donde se expresó un gran apoyo a Morales y una firme condena a la violencia, y Morales respondió con una declaración importante. Dijo que era la primera vez en la historia de América Latina, desde la conquista europea, en que los pueblos habían tomado el destino de sus países en sus propias manos sin el control de un poder extranjero, o sea Washington. Esa declaración no fue publicada en Estados Unidos.

Centroamérica está traumatizada por el terror reaganiano. No es mucho lo que sucede allí. Estados Unidos sigue tolerando el golpe militar en Honduras, aunque es significativo que no lo pueda apoyar abiertamente.

Otro cambio, aunque atropellado, es la superación de la patología real en América Latina, probablemente la región más desigual del mundo. Es una región muy rica, siempre gobernada por una pequeña elite europeizada, que no asume ninguna responsabilidad con el resto de sus respectivos países. Se puede ver en cosas muy simples, como el flujo internacional de capital y bienes. En América Latina la fuga de capitales es casi igual a la de la deuda. El contraste con Asia oriental es muy impactante. Aquella región, mucho más pobre, ha tenido mucho más desarrollo económico sustantivo, y los ricos están bajo control. No hay fuga de capitales; en Corea del Sur, por ejemplo, se castiga con la pena de muerte. El desarrollo económico allá es relativamente igualitario.

Control debilitado

Había dos formas tradicionales con las que Estados Unidos controlaba América Latina. Una era el uso de la violencia; la otra, el estrangulamiento económico. Ambas han sido debilitadas.

Los controles económicos son ahora más débiles. Varios países se han liberado del Fondo Monetario Internacional a través de la colaboración. También se han diversificado acciones entre el sur, en lo que la relación de Brasil con Sudáfrica y China ha entrado como factor. Han podido enfrentar algunos problemas internos sin la poderosa intervención de Estados Unidos.

La violencia no ha terminado. Ha habido tres golpes de estado en lo que va de este siglo. El venezolano, abiertamente apoyado por Estados Unidos, fue revertido, y ahora Washington tiene que recurrir a otros medios para subvertir al gobierno, entre ellos ataques mediáticos y apoyo a grupos disidentes. El segundo fue en Haití, donde Francia y Estados Unidos tiraron al gobierno y enviaron al presidente a Sudáfrica. El tercero es el de Honduras, que es un asunto mixto. La Organización de Estados Americanos asumió una postura firme y la Casa Blanca tuvo que seguirla, y proceder muy lentamente. El FMI acaba de otorgar un enorme préstamo a Honduras, que sustituye la reducción de asistencia estadunidense. En el pasado éstos eran asuntos rutinarios. Ahora esas medidas (la violencia y el estrangulamiento económico) se han debilitado.

Estados Unidos está reaccionando y ha dado pasos para remilitarizar la región. La Cuarta Flota, dedicada a América Latina, había sido desmantelada en los 50, pero se está reahabilitando, y las bases militares en Colombia son un tema importante.

La ilusión de Obama

La elección de Barack Obama generó grandes expectativas de cambio hacia América Latina. Pero son sólo ilusiones

Sí hay un cambio, pero el giro es porque el gobierno de Bush se fue tan al extremo del espectro político estadunidense que casi cualquiera se hubiera movido hacia el centro. De hecho el propio Bush en su segundo periodo fue menos extremista. Se deshizo de algunos de sus colaboradores más arrogantes y sus políticas fueron más moderadamente centristas. Y Obama, de manera previsible, continúa con esta tendencia.

Giró hacia la posición tradicional. Pero ¿cuál es esa tradición? Kennedy, por ejemplo, fue uno de los presidentes más violentos de la posguerra. Woodrow Wilson fue el mayor intervencionista del siglo XX. El centro no es pacifista ni tolerante. De hecho Wilson fue quien se apoderó de Venezuela, sacando a los ingleses, porque se había descubierto petróleo. Apoyó a un dictador brutal. Y de allí continuó con Haití y República Dominicana. Mandó a los marines y prácticamente destruyó Haití. En esos países dejó guardias nacionales y dictadores brutales. Kennedy hizo lo mismo. Obama es un regreso al centro.

Es igual con el tema de Cuba, donde durante más de medio siglo Estados Unidos se ha involucrado en una guerra, desde que la isla ganó su independencia. Al principio esta guerra fue bastante violenta, especialmente con Kennedy, cuando hubo terrorismo y estrangulamiento económico, a lo que se opone la mayoría de la población estadunidense. Durante décadas, casi dos tercios de la población han estado en favor de la normalización de las relaciones, pero eso no está en la agenda política.

Las maniobras de Obama se fueron hacia el centro; suspendió algunas de las medidas más extremas del modelo de Bush, y hasta fue apoyado por buena parte de la comunidad cubano-estadunidense. Se movió un poco hacia el centro, pero ha dejado muy claro que no habrá cambios.

Las ”reformas” de Obama

Lo mismo sucede en la política interna. Los asesores de Obama durante la campaña fueron muy cuidadosos en no dejarlo comprometerse con nada. Las consignas fueron ”la esperanza” y ”el cambio, un cambio en el que creer”. Cualquier agencia de publicidad sensata habría hecho que ésas fueran las consignas, pues 80 por ciento del país pensaba que éste marchaba por el carril equivocado. McCain decía cosas parecidas, pero Obama era más agradable, más fácil de vender como producto. Las campañas son sólo asuntos de mercadotecnia, así se entienden a sí mismas. Estaban vendiendo la ”marca Obama” en oposición a la ”marca McCain”. Es dramático ver esas ilusiones, tanto fuera como dentro de Estados Unidos.

En Estados Unidos casi todas las promesas hechas en el ámbito de reforma laboral, de salud, de energéticos, han quedado casi anuladas. Por ejemplo, el sistema de salud es una catástrofe. Es probablemente el único país en el mundo en el que no hay una garantía básica de atención médica. Los costos son astronómicos, casi el doble de cualquier otro país industrializado. Cualquier persona que tiene bien puesta la cabeza sabe que es la consecuencia de que se trate de un sistema de salud privado. Las empresas no procuran salud, están para obtener ganancias.

Es un sistema altamente burocratizado, con mucha supervisión, altísimos costos administrativos, donde las compañías de seguros tienen formas sofisticadas de evadir el pago de las pólizas, pero no hay nada en la agenda de Obama para hacer algo al respecto. Hubo algunas propuestas light, como por ejemplo ”la opción pública”, pero quedó anulada. Si uno lee la prensa de negocios, encuentra que la portada de Business Week reportaba que las aseguradoras celebraban su victoria.
 
Se realizaron campañas muy exitosas en contra de esta reforma, organizadas por los medios y la industria para movilizar segmentos extremistas de la población. Es un país en el que es fácil movilizar a la gente con el miedo, e inculcarle todo tipo de ideas locas, como que Obama va a matar a la abuela de uno. Así lograron revertir propuestas legislativas ya de por si débiles. Si en verdad hubiera habido un compromiso real en el Congreso y la Casa Blanca, esto no hubiera prosperado, pero los políticos estaban más o menos de acuerdo.

Obama acaba de hacer un acuerdo secreto con las compañías farmacéuticas para asegurarles que no habrá esfuerzos gubernamentales por regular el precio de las medicinas. Estados Unidos es el único país en el mundo occidental que no permite que el gobierno use su poder de compra para negociar el precio de los medicamentos. Un 85 por ciento de la población se opone, pero eso no significa diferencia alguna, hasta que todos vean que no son los únicos que se oponen a estas medidas.

La industria petrolera anunció que va a utilizar las mismas tácticas para derrotar cualquier proyecto legislativo de reforma energética. Si Estados Unidos no implanta controles firmes sobre las emisiones de dióxido de carbono, el calentamiento global destruirá la civilización moderna.

El diario Financial Times señaló con razón que si había una esperanza de que Obama pudiera haber cambiado las cosas, ahora sería sorprendente que sí cumpliera con lo mínimo de sus promesas. La razón es que no quería cambiar tanto las cosas. Es una criatura de quienes financiaron su campaña: las instituciones financieras, las energéticas, las empresas. Tiene la apariencia de buen tipo, sería un buen acompañante de cena, pero eso no permite cambiar la política; la afecta un poco. Sí hay cambio, pero es un poco más suave. La política proviene de las instituciones, no está hecha por individuos. Las instituciones son muy estables y muy poderosas. Por supuesto, encuentran la manera de confrontar lo que sucede.

Más de lo mismo

Los medios están un poco sorprendidos de que se esté regresando adonde siempre se estuvo. Lo reportan, es difícil no hacerlo, pero el hecho es que las instituciones financieras se pavonean de que todo está quedando igual que antes. Ganaron. Goldman Sachs ni siquiera intenta ocultar que después de haber hundido la economía está entregando jugosos bonos a sus ejecutivos. Creo que en el pasado trimestre acaba de reportar las ganancias más altas de su historia. Si fueran un poquito más inteligentes lo intentarían ocultar.

Esto se debe a que Obama está respondiendo a quienes apoyaron su campaña: el sector financiero. Miren nada más a quién escogió para su equipo económico. Su primer asesor fue Robert Rubin, el responsable de la derogación de una ley que regulaba al sector financiero, lo cual benefició mucho a Goldman Sachs; asimismo, se convirtió en directivo de Citigroup, hizo una fortuna y se salió justo a tiempo. Larry Summers, quien fue la principal figura responsable de detener toda regulación de los instrumentos financieros exóticos, ahora es el principal asesor económico de la Casa Blanca. Y Timothy Geithner, quien como presidente de la Reserva Federal de Nueva York supervisaba lo que sucedía, es secretario del Tesoro.

En un reportaje reciente se examinó a algunos de los principales asesores económicos de Obama. Se concluyó que gran parte de ellos no deberían estar en el equipo de asesoría, sino enfrentando demandas legales, porque estuvieron involucrados en malos manejos en la contabilidad y otros asuntos que detonaron la crisis.

¿Por cuánto tiempo se pueden mantener las ilusiones? Los bancos están ahora mejor que antes. Primero recibieron un enorme rescate del gobierno y los contribuyentes, y lo utilizaron para fortalecerse. Son más grandes que nunca; absorbieron a los débiles. O sea, se está sentando la base para la próxima crisis. Los grandes bancos se están beneficiando con una póliza de seguros del gobierno, que se llama ”demasiado grande para fallar”. Si se es un banco enorme o una casa de inversión importante, es demasiado importante para fracasar. Si se es Goldman Sachs o Citigroup, no puede fracasar porque eso derrumbaría toda la economía. Por eso pueden hacer préstamos riesgosos, para ganar mucho dinero, y si algo falla, el gobierno los rescata.

La guerra contra el narco

La guerra contra la droga, que desgarra a varios países de América Latina entre los que se encuentra México, tiene viejos antecedentes. Revitalizada por Nixon, fue un esfuerzo por superar los efectos de la guerra de Vietnam en Estados Unidos.

La guerra fue un factor que llevó a una importante revolución cultural en los 60, la cual civilizó al país: derechos de la mujer, derechos civiles. O sea, democratizó el territorio, aterrorizando a las elites. La última cosa que deseaban era la democracia, los derechos de la población, etcétera, así que lanzaron una enorme contraofensiva. Parte de ella fue la guerra contra las drogas.

Ésta fue diseñada para trasladar la concepción de la guerra de Vietnam, de lo que nosotros les estábamos haciendo a los vietnamitas, a lo que ellos nos estaban haciendo a nosotros. El gran tema a fines de los 60 en los medios, incluso los liberales, fue que la guerra de Vietnam fue una guerra contra Estados Unidos.

Los vietnamitas estaban destruyendo a nuestro país con drogas. Fue un mito fabricado por los medios en las películas y la prensa. Se inventó la historia de un ejército lleno de soldados adictos a las drogas que al regresar se convertirían en delincuentes y aterrorizarían a nuestras ciudades. Sí, había uso de drogas entre los militares, pero no era muy diferente al que existía en otros sectores de la sociedad. Fue un mito fabricado. De eso se trataba la guerra contra las drogas. Así se cambió la concepción de la guerra de Vietnam a una en la que nosotros eramos las víctimas.

Eso encajó muy bien con las campañas en favor de la ley y el orden. Se decía que nuestras ciudades se desgarraban por el movimiento antibélico y los rebeldes culturales, y que por eso teníamos que imponer la ley y el orden. Allí cabía la guerra contra la droga.

Reagan la amplió de manera significativa. En los primeros años de su administración se intensificó la campaña, acusando a los comunistas de promover el consumo de drogas.

A principios de los 80 los funcionarios que tomaban en serio la guerra contra las drogas descubrieron un incremento significativo e inexplicable de fondos en bancos del sur de Florida. Lanzaron una campaña para detenerlo. La Casa Blanca intervino y suspendió la campaña. Quien lo hizo fue George Bush padre, en ese tiempo encargado de la guerra contra las drogas. Fue cuando la tasa de encarcelamiento se incrementó de manera significativa, en gran parte con presos negros. Ahora el número de prisioneros per cápita es el más alto en el mundo. Sin embargo, la tasa de criminalidad es casi igual que en otros países. Es un control sobre parte de la población. Es un asunto de clase.

La guerra contra las drogas, como otras políticas, promovidas tanto por liberales como por conservadores, es un intento por controlar la democratización de fuerzas sociales.

Hace unos días, el Departamento de Estado de Obama emitió su certificación de cooperación en la lucha contra las drogas. Los tres países que fueron descertificados son Myamar, una dictadura militar –no importa, está apoyada por empresas petroleras occidentales–, Venezuela y Bolivia, que son enemigos de Estados Unidos. Ni México, ni Colombia, ni Estados Unidos, en todos los cuales hay narcotráfico.

Un lugar interesante

El elemento central del neoliberalismo es la liberalización de los mercados financieros, lo cual hace vulnerables a los países que tienen inversionistas extranjeros. Si uno no puede controlar su moneda y la fuga de capitales, está bajo control de los inversionistas extranjeros. Pueden destruir una economía si no les gusta lo que este país hace. Ésa es otra forma de controlar pueblos y fuerzas sociales, como los movimientos obreros. Son reacciones naturales de un empresariado muy concentrado, con gran conciencia de clase. Claro que hay resistencia, pero fragmentada y poco organizada, y por ello pueden seguir promoviendo políticas a las que se opone la mayoría de la población. A veces esto llega al extremo.

El sector financiero está igual que antes; las aseguradoras de salud han ganado con la reforma sanitaria, las empresas energéticas ganarán con la reforma energética, los sindicatos han perdido con la reforma laboral y, por supuesto, la población de Estados Unidos y la del mundo pierden porque ya de por sí la destrucción de la economía es grave. Si se destruye el medio ambiente, los que de veras sufrirán son los pobres. Los ricos sobrevivirán a los efectos del calentamiento global.

Por esto América Latina es uno de los lugares verdaderamente interesantes. Es uno de los sitios en los que hay verdadera resistencia a todo esto. ¿Hasta dónde llegará? No se sabe. No me sorprendería que haya un giro a la derecha en las próximas elecciones en América del Sur. Aun así, se ha logrado un avance que sienta las bases para algo más. No hay muchos lugares en el mundo de los que pueda decirse lo mismo.

*Periodistas de La Jornada de México

Fonte: http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/contexto/1300/noam-chomsky-america-latina-es-el-lugar-mas-estimulante-del-mundo/

Postado por Lais Niman

Frappé par une grippe qui devrait normalement être réservée aux cochons de ce monde, j’ai été forcé de garder la position horizontale durant toute une toute semaine.  Incapable de poser mes doigts sur le clavier de mon ordinateur, mon existence s’est limitée à lire un peu et à regarder la télévision beaucoup.  Les nuits courtes m’ont amené d’étranges cauchemars, j’ai même cru un moment que la maladie m’avait été infligée par les gouvernements et les chambres de commerce, un complot visant à m’empêcher de critiquer mon existence et m’invitant à reprendre les rangs de la ferme.  Napoléon est fort têtu: il fera tout en son pouvoir pour amener Boule de Neige à une docilité nécessaire…

Toutes ces heures passées devant le téléviseur ont provoqué un effet contraire.  Après avoir visionné les chaînes d’information en continu – qu’elles soient québécoises, canadiennes, américaines ou britanniques – je n’ai pas réussi à modifier mon interprétation du quotidien.  À l’exception de quelques bons films et de rares documentaires, je n’ai pas pu faire autrement que de constaster que la télévision est toujours le reflet de notre imbécilité. En réécoutant une vieille copie du documentaire “Manufacturing Consent“, j’ai au moins trouvé une explication à cette supercherie en couleurs, 24 heures sur 24, 7 jours sur 7: on nous veut confortablement engourdis.  Surtout avec l’arrivée de Noël, à 637 dollars par famille…

Je me sens beaucoup mieux.  Retour au boulot aujourd’hui, retour à la vie normale.  Le blogue devrait reprendre vie au cours des prochains jours.  Bien hâte de reprendre le dialogue.  Santé à vous.

Son con los hechos y acciones -no con palabras y discursos-, que la verdadera esencia de un hombre político, en este caso de Barack Obama, queda plasmada.

Y es esto lo que está sorprendiendo a más de un intelectual o analista político. La mayoría de las promesas formuladas durante su campaña electoral: cierre de Guantánamo -centro de tortura en Cuba-, la retirada militar en Irak después de la invasión del país por el petróleo u otras no son respetadas. El reconocido pensador Noam Chomsky comenta esta situación:

<<Las esperanzas y perspectivas para la paz no estaban bien fundadas ni de lejos. La tarea consiste en afinarlas. Presumiblemente fuera ése el intento de la comisión del Premio Nobel de la Paz al elegir al presidente Barack Obama. El premio «parecía una suerte de plegaria e impulso de la comisión del Nobel a un liderazgo estadounidense más consensuado», tal y como escribieron Steven Erlanger y Cerril Gay Stolberg en The New York Times.

La naturaleza de la transición Bush-Obama radica directamente en la probabilidad de que las plegarias y los ánimos puedan implicar algún progreso.

Las preocupaciones de la comisión del Nobel eran válidas. Escogían la retórica de Obama en punto a la reducción del armamento nuclear.
Precisamente ahora las pretensiones nucleares de Irán dominan los titulares. Las advertencias son que Irán puede estar ocultando algo a la Agencia Internacional de la Energía Atómica (IAEA) y violando la Resolución 1887 del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, aprobada el mes pasado y jaleada como una victoria de los esfuerzos de Obama por contener a Irán.

Significativamente, el debate sigue sobre si la reciente decisión de Obama de reconfigurar los sistemas de defensa de misiles en Europa es una capitulación ante los rusos o un pragmático paso adelante en la defensa de Occidente ante un ataque nuclear iraní.

El silencio es a menudo más elocuente que el más atronador de los clamores, de modo que atendamos a aquello que permanece implícito.

En pleno furor sobre la doblez iraní, la IAEA aprobó una resolución en que exhortaba a Israel a suscribir el Tratado de no proliferación nuclear (NPT) y abrir sus instalaciones nucleares a su inspección [1].
Los Estados Unidos y Europa intentaron bloquear la resolución, pero ésta salió adelante de todos modos.
Los medios de comunicación obviaron en la práctica el acontecimiento.

Los Estados Unidos aseguraron a Israel su apoyo al rechazo de la resolución, reiterando un acuerdo secreto que ha permitido a Israel mantener su arsenal nuclear a resguardo de las inspecciones internacionales, según funcionarios habituados a esos arreglos [2].
De nuevo los medios de comunicación permanecieron en silencio.

Los funcionarios indios saludaron la Resolución 1887 de la ONU con el anuncio de que la India «puede construir ahora armas nucleares del mismo poder destructivo que los arsenales con mayor poder nuclear del mundo», según informó Financial Times.
Tanto la India como Pakistán están aumentando sus programas de armamento nuclear. Han estado por dos veces cerca de la guerra nuclear, y los problemas que a punto han estado de encender la catástrofe permanecen vivos en gran medida.

Obama saludó la Resolución 1887 de modo distinto. El día antes de que se le concediera el premio Nobel por su compromiso con el estímulo de la paz, el Pentágono anunciaba que estaba acelerando la distribución de las más letales armas no nucleares en su arsenal: 13 toneladas de bombas para bombarderos sigilosos B-2 y B-52, diseñadas para destruir búnkeres ocultos en profundidades y protegidos por 10.000 libras de hormigón.

No es ningún secreto que esos cazadores de búnkeres podrían emplearse contra Irán. Los planes por tales «destructores de artillería masiva» empezaron en los años de Bush, pero languidecieron hasta que Obama hizo un llamamiento a desarrollarlos más rápidamente cuando llegó al poder.

Unánimemente aprobada, la Resolución 1887 exhorta a poner fin a las amenazas de fuerza y a la firma por todos los países del NPT, como hiciera Irán hace años.

Quienes no lo han firmado son la India, Israel y Pakistán y todos ellos han desarrollado armas nucleares con la ayuda de los EEUU, violando el NPT.

A diferencia de los Estados Unidos, Israel y la India (que ocupa brutalmente Cachemira), Irán no ha invadido a ningún otro país desde hace centenares de años.
La amenaza de Irán es minúscula.
Si tuviera armas nucleares y sistemas de transporte para utilizarlos, el país sería desintegrado. El analista estratégico Leonard Weiss apunta que creer que Irán vaya a utilizar armamento nuclear para atacar a Israel o a cualquier otro «es tanto como asumir que los líderes iraníes están locos» y que están deseando ser reducidos a «polvo radioactivo», y añade que los submarinos portamisiles de Israel son «prácticamente impermeables a los ataques militares preventivos», por no hablar del inmenso arsenal estadounidense.

En sus maniobras navales de julio, Israel envió sus submarinos Dolphin, capaces de transportar misiles nucleares al mar rojo a través del Canal de Suez, a veces acompañados de buques de guerra, a una posición desde donde podrían atacar a Irán [3], ya que tienen el «derecho de soberanía» para hacerlo, según el vicepresidente de los EEUU, Joe Biden.

No es la primera vez que se cubre con un velo de silencio lo que aparecería en titulares de portada en sociedades que valoraran su libertad y se preocuparan por el destino del mundo.
El régimen iraní es duro y represivo y persona humana alguna quiere que Irán o cualquier otro disponga de armamento nuclear.
Pero un mínimo de honestidad no haría daño al tratar estos problemas.

Al Premio Nobel de la Paz, huelga decirlo, no le interesa sólo la reducción de la amenaza de una guerra nuclear terminal, sino más bien la guerra en general y la preparación para ésta. En lo tocante a esto, la selección de Obama produce sorpresa, no menor en Irán, rodeado de ejércitos de ocupación estadounidenses.

En las fronteras de Afganistán y Pakistán, Obama ha intensificado la guerra de Bush y es probable que prosiga ese camino, quizás con dureza.

Obama ha dejado claro que los Estados Unidos proyectan a largo plazo un despliegue mayor en la región. Lo indica suficientemente esa enorme ciudad dentro de la ciudad llamada la embajada de Bagdad, distinta de cualquier otra embajada del mundo.
Obama ha anunciado la construcción de macroembajadas en Islamabad y Kabul y consulados enormes en Peshawar y en todas partes.

Informes independientes sobre presupuestos y controles de seguridad para el ejecutivo sostienen que la demanda de la «administración de 538.000 millones de dólares para el Departamento de Defensa en el año fiscal 2010 y su acreditada intención de mantener un nivel alto de financiación en los próximos años colocan al presidente en el camino de gastar más en defensa, en dólares reales, que cualquier otro presidente en un solo mandato desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial».
«Y no se contabilizan los 130.000 millones adicionales que la administración ha solicitado para financiar las guerras de Iraq y Afganistán durante el próximo año, lo que supondrá un gasto militar previsto para los próximos años aun mayor».>>

‘The Nobel Peace Prize committee might well have made truly worthy choices, prominent among them the remarkable Afghan activist Malalai Joya. This brave woman survived the Russians, and then the radical Islamists whose brutality was so extreme that the population welcomed the Taliban. Joya has withstood the Taliban and now the return of the warlords under the Karzai government. Throughout, Joya worked effectively for human rights, particularly for women; she was elected to parliament and then expelled when she continued to denounce warlord atrocities. She now lives underground under heavy protection, but she continues the struggle, in word and deed’. – Noam Chomsky, ‘War, Peace, and Obama’s Nobel’. In These Times, November 5, 2009.

“He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being”.  Actually Linda Loman, I think in regards to your husband, it’s the other way around. According to this list, your husband Willy stands alongside The Wandering Jew, Betty Boop, and Shylock as the 100 most influential people who never lived.

Lit.

• Gore Vidal rips William F. Buckley.  No response from Buckley, because he’s dead.

• Leo Tolstoy is also dead.  Today is the anniversary of him dying.

• Malcolm Gladwell writes a letter.

• Electric Literature on Writing & Money.

• The daughter of Orson Welles wrote a book about being the daughter of Orson Welles.

• Paste weighs in on the most influential books of the decade.

• HTMLGiant complain about eyewear models, talk about Chomsky getting a new pair of glasses.

• Three Guys One Book talk to Dan Chaon.

• Tin House and The Rumpus threw a party.  Somebody was sober enough to remember Jonathan Ames discussing being “bald, impotent and depressed.”

We can stop talking about New Moon after today.

• Jessica Hopper saw it already, liked the screaming.
  

• Do vampires break all the rules, or are they just really good at evolving?

• Something zany about people auditioning for Twilight on McSweeney’s.

• Robert Pattinson would “show his peen” for his art.

Rock and/or roll

• Matt Friedberger (Fiery Furnaces’) vs. Radiohead and Beck in a deathmatch!

• Noah and The Whale go on tour, and keep a diary.

• Beth Ditto is Tobi Vail’s hero.  That rules.

Peace out O!

• The entire book industry is going to crumble!

• It’s a small, small world full of Oprah wannabe’s.

• Oprah-geddon? Really?

Other things

• Are there racist Tweeps out there?