Danny Richardson

Again, some of the bricks etc that Israeli settlers throw onto Palestinian
passers-by. Amongst this stuff that could kill or maim, they also throw
excretia and urine.

The civil rights organisation B’Tselem states that more than half a million Israeli settlers are living on land situated within the West Bank. A report finds there are an estimated 300,000 people living in 121 official settlements, plus 100,000 in smaller unofficial “outposts”. The remainder in the 12 Jerusalem neighbourhoods annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality.

This represents a total control of 42.8 percent of West Bank land, equalling 2,399,824 dunam, (1 dunam = 1000 square meters) Outposts are settlements built without government approval, but with the support of various government ministries, the army, and the Civil Administration. The annexed Jerusalem neighbourhoods are part of a scheme meant to separate Jerusalem from the West Bank.

By Hook and by Crook: Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank, is an update to the B’Tselem 2002 report, Land Grab: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank. It was compiled using official state documents, cross-checked data from the Civil Administration, the settlements jurisdictional area and aerial photos taken in 2009.

In spite of the obstacles placed in its way, the report sets out in detail the historical expansion of settlements, official and unofficial, into the West Bank. It documents the methods used by successive Israeli governments since 1967 to illegally take control of land in the West Bank, the majority of which was known to be owned privately by Palestinians who were prevented from claiming back their land. It argues that this land grab is “an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal approach to international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders and Israeli law”.

The construction of settlements is a state run operation. From the misappropriation of the land, turning a blind eye to the lack of building regulations, the building of roads, power and water treatment plants and security fences, through to enticing Israeli citizens to populate the settlements, various offices of state ensure the construction goes ahead unimpeded. By classifying settlements as National Priority "A", the future settlers are given enormous non means-tested enticements to relocate. Cash incentives allow settlers to purchase quality inexpensive apartments that become linked to an automatic subsidised mortgage. Wide ranging benefits in education and community benefits are also on offer. Teachers receive higher salaries. Unemployment is lower than in Israel proper.

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John Pilger

Pentagon media propaganda: Green Beret handing a piece
of food to a child in Afghanistan.

"The Pentagon, says the Associated Press, spends $4.7 billion on public relations: that is, winning the hearts and minds not of recalcitrant Afghan tribesmen but of Americans. This is known as “information dominance” and PR people are “information warriors”."

The TV anchorwoman was conducting a split screen interview with a journalist who had volunteered to be a witness at the execution of a man on death row in Utah for 25 years. “He had a choice,” said the journalist, “lethal injection or firing squad.” “Wow!” said the anchorwoman. Cue a blizzard of commercials for fast food, teeth whitener, stomach stapling, the new Cadillac. This was followed by the war in Afghanistan presented by a correspondent sweating in a flak jacket. “Hey, it’s hot,” he said on the split screen. “Take care,” said the anchorwoman. “Coming up” was a reality show in which the camera watched a man serving solitary confinement in a prison’s “hell hole”.

The next morning I arrived at the Pentagon for an interview with one of President Obama’s senior war-making officials. There was a long walk along shiny corridors hung with pictures of generals and admirals festooned in ribbons. The interview room was purpose-built. It was blue and arctic cold, and windowless and featureless except for a flag and two chairs: props to create the illusion of a place of authority. The last time I was in a room like this in the Pentagon a colonel called Hum stopped my interview with another war-making official when I asked why so many innocent civilians were being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then it was in the thousands; now it is more than a million. “Stop tape!” he ordered.

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Stephen Lendman

This article updates an earlier one titled "The Struggle for Net Neutrality," accessed through THIS link.

First some background. As a candidate, Obama pledged support for "network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet." As president, he reneged across the board, including for Internet freedom and openness, Boston.com writer Joelle Tessler headlining, "FCC votes to reconsider broadband regulations," saying:

Federal regulators are "wading into a bitter policy dispute that could be tied up in Congress and the courts for years." At stake: a free, open, and affordable Internet, threatened by powerful phone and cable giants wanting to privatize and control it, have unregulated pricing power, and decide what's published at what speed or blocked.

On June 16, alternate regulatory paths were considered, including the one likely to prevail, favored by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski "to define broadband access as a telecommunications service subject to 'common carrier' obligations to treat all traffic equally."

At issue is a US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia April 2010 ruling that the agency exceeded its authority over phone and cable giants, casting doubt on the future of Net Neutrality.

On June 17, Washington Post writer Jia Lynn Yang headlined, "FCC votes to seek comment on its new legal strategy" to impose rules on Internet providers, saying:

"Currently, broadband is defined as an information service," outside FCC oversight. "Genachowski's plan is to shift (it) into the same classification as telephone service," authorizing more agency control than now, partially regulating providers, a "third way" applying some rules, not all, excluding the likelihood of universal, affordable access, the Net Neutrality gold standard, anything less called unacceptable.

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Ellen Brown

“You all are the house, you're the bookie. [Your clients] are booking their bets with you. I don't know why we need to dress it up. It's a bet.” ~ Senator Claire McCaskill, Senate Subcommittee investigating Goldman Sachs (Washington Post, April 27, 2010)

Ever since December 2008, the Federal Reserve has held short-term interest rates near zero. This was not only to try to stimulate the housing and credit markets but also to allow the federal government to increase its debt levels without increasing the interest tab picked up by the taxpayers. The total public U.S. debt increased by nearly 50% from 2006 to the end of 2009 (from about $8.5 trillion to $12.3 trillion), but the interest bill on the debt actually dropped (from $406 billion to $383 billion), because of this reduction in interest rates.

One of the dire unintended consequences of that maneuver, however, was that municipal governments across the country have been saddled with very costly bad derivatives bets. They were persuaded by their Wall Street advisers to buy municipal swaps to protect their loans against interest rates shooting up. Instead, rates proceeded to drop through the floor, a wholly unforeseeable and unnatural market condition caused by rate manipulations by the Fed. Instead of the banks bearing the losses in return for premiums paid by municipal governments, the governments have had to pay massive sums to the banks - to the point of pushing at least one county to the brink of bankruptcy (Jefferson County, Alabama).

Another unintended consequence of the plunge in interest rates has been that “savers” have been forced to become “speculators” or gamblers. When interest rates on safe corporate bonds were around 8%, a couple could aim for saving half a million dollars in their working careers and count on reaping $40,000 yearly in investment income, a sum that, along with social security, could make for a comfortable retirement. But very low interest rates on bonds have forced these once-prudent savers into the riskier and less predictable stock market, and the collapse of the stock market has forced them into even more speculative ventures in the form of derivatives, a glorified form of gambling. Pension funds, which have binding pension contracts entered into when interest was at much higher levels, need an 8% investment return to meet their commitments. In today’s market, they cannot make that sort of return without taking on higher risk, which means taking major losses when the risks materialize.

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David Walsh

The visit by MSNBC news program host Rachel Maddow to Afghanistan in early July was as revealing as it was repugnant. Maddow is a principal voice of the liberal-left in the American media mainstream. When her program first aired in September 2008, the press made much of the fact that the she was the first “openly gay anchor” to host a prime-time news program in the US.

Maddow spent several days in Afghanistan this month, interviewing American officers and soldiers, touring Kandahar and Kabul, discussing counter-insurgency strategy and the overall state of the US military occupation. Whatever misgivings she might have about the ultimate fate of the American and allied effort in Afghanistan, Maddow solidarized herself fully with the occupation and the US military, endorsing the bloody suppression of the insurgency.

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, there were those in the US and elsewhere who were deceived into thinking that the American invasion of Afghanistan had something to do with bringing terrorists and their Taliban sponsors to justice. Nine years of the conflict—with the location and fate of Osama bin Laden largely dropped and the number of Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan calculated, by US officials, to be between 50 and 100—have clarified the issues.

The US ruling elite seized on the 9/11 attacks and, in the name of the “war on terror,” stepped up its drive for global domination. The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan never had anything to do with democracy, freeing the Afghan people from oppression, or safeguarding the US population from future terrorist attacks.

The massive military operation has everything to do with the vast energy reserves in the Caspian Sea region, oil pipeline routes, and the general determination of the US ruling elite to implant itself in the strategically critical Central Asian region, both in its own interests and to thwart those of its rivals in Europe, Russia, China and elsewhere.

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Alejandro Nadal
Translated by Supriyo Chatterjee

The Indian economy has maintained high levels of growth for several years and for many is an example worth following. It is even said that the experience of the subcontinent shows that neo-liberalism can certainly function. The reality is otherwise. The evolution of the Indian economy is a pathological process that feeds off social inequality and environmental destruction.

India maintained a modest growth after independence in 1947. The industrialisation project sustained a limited but stable expansion (4 per cent) from 1950 to 1980. Per capita income grew an annual average of 1.3 per cent in that period. The commercial balance was in permanent deficit and the economy was closed to commercial and capital flow.

The world debt crisis of the Eighties tied India to the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and in the Nineties neo-liberal cuts were imposed, which represented a radical turn in the political economy. In the past 10 years, India has had on average an annual growth of 6.8 percent. The international press has presented this as an economic miracle. In these years inequality and poverty has worsened in India. Today, 42 per cent of the total population of that country (1,173 million) live on less that one dollar a day. Some 75 per cent of the population live on two dollars a day and the economic model is not going to overturn such an unequal structure.

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Project Armannd

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. ~ Thomas Huxley

Obedience is defined as receiver compliance to source authority. The classic example of obedience is the officer giving orders to the soldier. The soldier complies with the officer because the officer has legitimate, organizational power. The compliance does not occur because the soldier likes the officer or necessarily respects his judgment and expertise, but rather simply because the the officer has power and the soldier was trained to obey.

As demonstrated by the Milgram experiment in the 1960s, humans have been shown to be surprisingly obedient in the presence of perceived legitimate authority figures.

Stanley Milgram carried out his experiments to discover how the Nazis had managed to get ordinary people to take part in the mass murder of the Holocaust. The experiment showed that compliance to authority was the norm and not the exception.

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Flora Nicoletta

"Why Pharaoh is so arrogant? Because nobody stops him!" ~ Palestinian saying

"In the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip live 1.5 m people. At least 800 are in jail in Israeli and have been deprived of family visitation for three years. The Israeli navy fire at the fishermen, arrest them, confiscate their equipment. IOF fire at farmers working on their lands close to the "security belt"; at the workers collecting raw construction materials from ruins of destroyed buildings in border areas; at Palestinians and Internationals who peacefully demonstrate at the border against the establishment of a buffer zone. Furthermore, IOF conduct "limited' incursions into the Gaza Strip."

At present in Gaza the flame trees bear enormous balls of orange-red flowers. The frangipani trees perfume the streets with their white flowers which seem porcelain. Other big trees bear clusters of yellow or mauve flowers.

The Gazans love ice cream, are fond of pizza, adore their children, inundate their beaches and meditate about their fate. Many foreigners have always lived and worked in Gaza and they feel very well here. So one wonders: why is it compulsory to murder Palestinians, dispossess them, imprison them, expel them, occupy them, besiege them? Why and why?

There is a question always in our ears. The people ask: "Kif Ghaza?", how is Gaza? how is the situation? From the tone of their voice we understand they are not content. Nobody is content here. The man-made disaster that envelop Gaza and all Palestine has pushed them on the edge of an abyss. Many don't dream anymore of Jerusalem and Haifa. They dream of Norway and a Schengen visa.

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Stephen Lendman

As dawn broke on Monday, Haitians woke to another day in
their tent cities.

"While the quake has been an overwhelming human catastrophe, it's been "particularly (hard) for women with significant risks of worsening. The crisis has intensified (their) responsibilities, such as care-giving for the vulnerable, including infants, children, the elderly and disabled, and amplified existing social inequalities, therefore exposing women to higher rates of poverty and violence." ~ The Huairou Commission

Six months after Haiti's January 12 quake, inadequate relief has arrived, numerous accounts calling conditions hellish, unsanitary and unsafe - New York Times writer Deborah Sontag's July 10 article for one, headlined, "In Haiti, the Displaced Are Left Clinging to the Edge," saying:

Conditions around Port-au-Prince "contain a spectrum of circumstances: precarious, neglected encampments; planned tent cities (with poor sanitation); debris-strewn neighborhoods, (and only) 28,000 of the 1.5 million (or more) displaced moved into new homes," the affected areas "a tableau of life in the ruins."

Oxfam's Julie Schindall said "Everywhere I go, people ask me 'When will we get out of this camp?' " She doesn't know so can't say.

In her July 3 article, Montreal Gazette writer Sue Montgomery headlined, "Haiti's camps of despair," saying

"life in Haiti's 1,300 camps is crowded, unsanitary and increasingly dangerous, (an ongoing) miserable, boring existence....proper housing (and pre-quake conditions) years away" at best.

In dismal slums, she describes traumatized Haitians living in "torn, sweltering and soaked tents suitable at best for weekend camping," surrounded by rubble and the stench of rotting garbage, their patience taxed to the limit, their lives shattered for lack of basic services, including housing, sanitation, and enough food and clean water.

Torrential afternoon rains leave "lake-sized puddles in which mosquitoes breed, then spread malaria. Deep, raspy coughs can be heard everywhere. Scabies and other infections transform children's soft skin into irritating red bumpy rashes. Bellies are swelling and hair turning orange from malnutrition. Vomiting and diarrhea are as common as flies."

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Stephen Lendman

Across America, daily incidents occur, one of many the cold-blooded January 1, 2009 murder of Oscar Grant - unarmed, offering no resistance, thrust face-down on the ground, shot in the back, and killed, videotaped on at least four cameras for irrefutable proof. USA Today said five bystanders taped it.

His killer: Oakland, CA transit officer, Johannes Mehserle, tried for the killing, the jury told to consider four possible verdicts - innocent, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter, jurors deciding the latter.

The Legal Dictionary defines it as "The act of unlawfully killing another human being unintentionally," the absence of intent distinguishing it from voluntary manslaughter. Many states don't define it or do it vaguely. Wallin & Klarich Violent Crime Attorneys say in California it carries a two - four year sentence. However, since a gun was used, Judge Robert Perry can add three to 10 additional years.

Because minority victims seldom get justice, especially against police, Mehserle may serve minimal time, then be paroled quietly when the current furor subsides.

After the verdict, it erupted on Oakland streets, hundreds turning out to protest, Bay Area indymedia.org saying:

"The actions of the Police in Oakland tonight (including dozens of arrests) show their disrespect for justice in General. Their heavy handed violence towards protestors just reinforces their total disconnect with the people of Oakland." It's as true everywhere across America, police acting like Gestapo, usually unaccountably.

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James Abourezk

I picked up a copy of a memoir written by the long-gone CIA Director, George Tenet. On the first page of the book's preface, Mr. Tenet described what it was like on the day after the World Trade Towers had exploded as a result of the terrorists' actions on 9-11-01.

I quote Mr. Tenet here:

“All this weighed heavy on my mind as I walked beneath the awning that leads to the West Wing and saw Richard Perle exiting the building just as I was about to enter. Perle is one of the godfathers of the neoconservative movement and, at the time, was head of the Defense Policy Board, an independent advisory group attached to the Secretary of Defense. Ours was little more than a passing acquaintance. As the doors closed behind him, we made eye contact and nodded. I had just reached the door myself when Perle turned to me and said, 'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. 'They bear responsibility.' (Italics added).

“I was stunned but said nothing. Eighteen hours earlier, I had scanned passenger manifests for the four hijacked airplanes that showed beyond a doubt that al-Qa'ida was behind the attacks. Over the months and years to follow, we would carefully examine the potential of a collaborative role for state sponsors. The intelligence then and now, however, showed no evidence of Iraqi complicity."

The idea that George W. Bush's neocon advisers--Perle included--convinced him that the U.S. should invade Iraq received some attention after the Iraqi war started. But to my knowledge, no one, either in politics or the media, pressed the case too hard, lest they discover that those who wanted to invade Iraq had, not America's interest, but Israel's interest in mind.

There was never a threat to the United States from Saddam Hussein. He was a threat to his own people, but not to our country, a fact which became much more clear as the war went on. But Bush's critics stopped short of implicating Israel's interests as a reason for invading Iraq. A great many people believe, myself included, that Israel wanted Saddam out of the way because, while he was not really a military threat to Israel, he was a political threat. He was someone, like Hizbollah, who stood in the way of Israeli hegemony over the entire Middle East.

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Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood considers the deadly implications for humanity of US President Barack Obama’s decision to sell Israel nuclear materials and technology and to reaffirm “a four-decade-old secret understanding that allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, against the background of total congressional servitude to Israel.

I went cold, very cold, when I read in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that "the US has reportedly pledged to sell Israel ... nuclear technology and other supplies, despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT].

"Other countries have refused to cooperate with Israel on nuclear matters because it has not signed the NPT, and there has been increasing international pressure for Israel to be more transparent about its nuclear arsenal."

Obama and Netanyahu also discussed the upcoming International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference on a nuclear-free Middle East, which was proposed during the 2010 NTP review conference in New York and which Netanyahu is refusing to attend because Israel would be singled out. Well, obviously.

So Obama thought it best put the toys back in Bibi's pram before he threw another tantrum. The two leaders agreed to work together to oppose efforts to single out Israel at the conference in September, in which case what will be the point of it?

In what many will see as a pact with the devil, Obama has emphasized that the US will cuddle up to Israel to "support our common efforts to strengthen international peace and stability" and ensure that arms control initiatives don’t rock the boat on Israel's precious security.

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Stephen Lendman

Jewish squatters on stolen Palstinian land. -Evidently not coy about it either.

B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, addressed it in its July 2010 report titled, "By Hook and By Crook: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank", ahead of a July 6 meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama, their fifth - a shameless love fest endorsing Israeli crimes, Obama saying Israel has "got to be able to respond to threats or any combination of threats in the region," ones it manufactures to pursue ruthless, lawless policies, nonviolent civilians the victims.

On July 5, Israeli National News.com writer Hillel Fendel headlined, "Timed to Sabotage," quoting Yesha Council (YC) head Danny Dayan calling B'Tselem "an anti-Zionist tool for the destruction of Israel," citing the report and its report release date as one example.

YC (the Hebrew acronym for Judea, Samaria, and Gaza) is the successor to Gush Emunim ("Block of the Faithful"), the militant pro-settlement movement committed to Palestinian displacement, its members influential in Israeli politics, advocating a Greater Israel exclusively for Jews, its ideology based on religious zealotry, its members calling Cast Lead a religious war, its bogus justification for systemic violence, barbarism, military occupation, land theft, and efforts to silence truth.

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Matthew Harwood
t r u t h o u t report

In his fight against British imperialism, Mahatma Gandhi described the life cycle of successful civil disobedience: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mikey Weinstein, the 55-year-old founder of the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), likes to quote it, knowing full well he's crossed the line into a bloody-knuckle brawl. Over the past year, Weinstein and his organization have recorded a tremendous string of victories in the fight against Christian supremacists inside the armed forces.

In January, the MRFF broke the story on the Pentagon's Jesus Rifles, where rifle scopes used in Afghanistan and Iraq were embossed with New Testament verses. In April, he got the military to rescind its invitation to the Reverend Franklin Graham to speak at May's National Prayer Day because of Islamophobic remarks. Most shockingly, MRFF received its second nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in late October. These high-profile victories have earned him the enmity of the hardcore Christian Right and the mentally unstable. And the crazies are getting crazier. Weinstein and his family are bombarded with hate mail, from the grammatically incorrect and easy to dismiss - "I hope all your kids turn out gay as hell, take it in the ass, and get aids and die!!!!" - to the kind of threats that immediately make you leap out of your chair and double-check that the doors and windows are locked. (MRFF has referred multiple death threats on Mikey, his family, and MRFF employees to the FBI.)

Unlike Gandhi, Mikey's no pacifist. Aggression rises up in his voice like a white shark's fin breaks the waves. In a recent conversation, Mikey bragged how a punk wouldn't shut up in a movie. When a confrontation ensued and the man took a wild swing, Mikey put him down. None of this is surprising. Weinstein boxed during his Air Force days, his face marked by a strong jawline sitting below a bald head on top of a stocky body - a cross between Rocky Marciano and Butter Bean. Simply put: Mikey Weinstein can be a brute and a zealot. He knows this and admits it freely. But he believes it's the only position a reasonable person can take when confronted with a faction dedicated to mutating the U.S. military into "a weaponized Gospel of Jesus Christ."

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Stephen Lendman

On July 6, Bibi and Obama met privately for 79 minutes, Atlanta Journal Constitution writer Jay Bookman calling it "empty theatre, actors going through the motions of pretending to pretend, (when, in fact, there's) no willingness or political ability within Israel to withdraw from settlements (or) create a viable Palestinian state, (nor is there) stomach in Washington" to endorse an equitable agreement. "I can't recall a time when I have been more cynical about peace prospects there, and the prettily staged theatrics in Washington" only harden that view.

Not for New York Times writers Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mark Lander headlining, "US and Israel Shift Attention to Peace Process," saying:

They "articulated a timetable for peace negotiations (reflecting) a palpable shift in the administration's approach to a relationship that has been rife with tension" since Obama took office. In fact, for decades, Israeli-Washington relations have been rock-solid, including under Obama and the current Congress, the powerful Israeli Lobby assuring it stays that way.

Haaretz writers Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya were also upbeat, headlining "Obama-Netanyahu summit focuses on warm relations, avoids settlements," saying:

They "radiate(d) a sense of friendship and the absence of any crisis in relations between the two leaders," Obama calling "the bond between (the two nations) unbreakable," Bibi "emerg(ing) from the White House meeting in high spirits."

His sources said no pressure was exerted on settlement issues, both sides avoiding the topic, focusing instead on handshakes, photo-ops, and post-meeting comments - customary disingenuous boilerplate, Obama calling Netanyahu a "man of peace," Bibi saying the president is "a great leader (and) a great friend of Israel...."

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Stephen Lendman

An earlier article about the National Labor Committee's (NLC) work explained what's repeated below, relevant to this article.

NLC puts "a human face on the global economy," saying in its mission statement that:

"Transnational corporations (TNCs) now roam the world to find the cheapest and most vulnerable workers." They're mostly young women in poor countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Haiti, and many others working up to 14 or more hours a day for sub-poverty wages under horrific conditions.

Because TNCs are unaccountable, a dehumanized global workforce is ruthlessly exploited, denied their civil liberties, a living wage, and the right to work in dignity in healthy safe environments. NLC conducts "popular campaigns based on (its) original research to promote worker rights and pressure companies to end human and labor abuses. (It) views worker rights in the global economy as indivisible and inalienable human rights and (believes) now is the time to secure them for all on the planet."

Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

"(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests."

Article 24 states:

"Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay."

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Joshua Holland

Last month, the Supreme Court exposed Americans to jail sentences of up to 15 years just for giving advice to groups the U.S. government considers untouchable. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the court ruled that the USA Patriot Act's expanded definition of “material support” for “foreign terrorist organizations” passes Constitutional muster. The broad wording of the statute not only makes it a crime to support violent activities, but also prohibits Americans from offering "services" or "training, expert advice or assistance" to any entity designated as a terrorist group.

Providing weapons, materials or know-how that might help terrorists commit violent acts has long been a crime, but it was only with the rushed passage of the Patriot Act just weeks following the 9/11 attacks that “expert advice or assistance” was added to the definition of “material support.”

The Constitution offers Americans the freedom of speech and association. There are only a few exceptions -- you don’t have a right to associate with people conducting a criminal act, and your freedom of speech doesn’t extend to "fighting words," inciting a riot or other forms of speech that might lead to violence.

In criminalizing non-violent speech, the ruling is anathema to our system of constitutional government. In this article I’ll demonstrate just how easy it is to violate the Patriot Act by giving some peaceful advice to a few of the 45 groups the State Department has designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

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Alex Lantier

L'écoeurement populaire s'accroît concernant des révélations selon lesquelles, tandis qu'ils exigent d'énormes coupes sociales de la classe ouvrière, des représentants français haut placés ont reçu de l'argent de la milliardaire Liliane Bettencourt et l'ont aidée à frauder le fisc. La fortune de Bettencourt, 87 ans, s'élevant à 17 milliards d'euros, principalement en avoirs du géant des cosmétiques l'Oréal, fait d'elle la femme la plus riche de France.

Il y a quelques jours, le site Internet d'information Mediapart publiait des entretiens impliquant le président Nicolas Sarkozy dans l'affaire Bettencourt. Mediapart avait interviewé Claire T., ancienne comptable de Bettencourt, et actuellement entendue par la Justice, après qu'elle eut témoigné auprès de la police la nuit précédente.

Le témoignage de la comptable suggère que Bettencourt a illégalement financé la campagne électorale de Sarkozy. Ceci risque de miner la position politique de Sarkozy dans la classe dirigeante et rende difficile pour lui d'effectuer les coupes exigées par les marchés financiers et l'establishment politique. La cote de popularité de Sarkozy est au plus bas dans les sondages à 26 pour cent.

Claire T. a expliqué qu'elle retirait 50.000 euros par semaine des comptes de Bettencourt: « Une partie servait à payer des médecins, des coiffeurs, du petit personnel,etc. Et une autre, c'était pour les politiques... Dédé, [le mari décédé de Liliane, André Bettencourt] arrosait large. Chacun venait toucher son enveloppe. Certaines atteignaient même parfois 100.000, voire 200.000 euros. »

Un jour, a-t-elle expliqué, le conseiller financier de Bettencourt Patrice de Maistre lui avait demandé de retirer une somme inhabituellement importante de 150.000 €. A la question de savoir pourquoi cette somme était nécessaire, de Maistre avait répondu: « Mais enfin, c'est pour financer la campagne présidentielle de Sarkozy ! Je dois donner de l'argent à celui qui s'occupe du financement de la campagne, Eric Woerth. Et 50.000 euros, ce n'est pas suffisant. »

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Matthew Nasuti

America’s last chance to prevail against the Taliban depends on a sound strategy and a unified, competent civilian/military command structure. The current State Department effort is fractured by having Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, “Special” Representative/Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke and Deputy Secretary of State Jacob J. Lew sharing authority over Afghanistan.

This author, in 2009, called for Karl Eikenberry to be replaced as he is gloomy and orthodox. More importantly, he does not support President Obama’s current counterinsurgency strategy. President Obama has four reasons to replace Eikenberry:

1. The U.S. Embassy, in 2009, decided to open “show” consulates in Mazar-e Sharif and Herat instead of complementing the military strategy by focusing on opening a consulate in the heart of Taliban territory - Afghanistan’s second largest city, Kandahar. Other countries have consulates in Kandahar; they are not afraid of the Taliban. In contrast, Eikenberry’s decisions radiate fear of the Taliban and confusion over President Obama’s strategy.

2. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, in 2010, created negative publicity for the United States when it decided to hire controversial Blackwater/Xe to provide security for the unnecessary Mazar-e Sharif and Herat consulates. Ambassador Eikenberry will not admit that the consulates are a mistake and he has no qualms about compounding his mistakes.

3. The ArmorGroup security guard sex and alcohol scandal at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, in September 2009, was a major public relations embarrassment for which no U.S. Embassy officials have yet to be held accountable.

4. The U.S. Embassy announced that it will complete its civilian “surge” by January 1, 2011. On that date, it will finally have all its personnel in-place for the expanded effort that President Obama announced in January 2009. This surge (more accurately a trickle) of well under a thousand civilian experts has been a half-hearted and lackluster effort that is hurting the war effort.

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David Rothscum

Anas Hamed (R) and his sister Inas who suffer from birth
defects are pictured on November 12, 2009 in the city of
Fallujah

DavidRothscum.blogspot.com, July 10, 2010. Today July 6th of 2010 is the day that Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan Entesar Ariabi released their epidemiological study on the health problems the people of Fallujah are suffering from. The full study can be downloaded HERE, free of charge. You may not have heard of these men yet, but I am quite sure their names will be found in the history books. The reason for this is that they have gathered scientific evidence of the genocide the people of Fallujah are suffering from at the hands of the imperialists that invaded Iraq. Unfortunately, they have not yet raised much attention to their discoveries, and thus I feel compelled to help with this myself.

A few days ago, on 2 July, they released a press release on Uruknet that showed some of their findings. It was entitled "Genetic damage and health in Fallujah Iraq worse than Hiroshima". In April, they announced preliminary findings on Global Research, a site I suspect most of you are familiar with. Please realize that when people discover horrendous atrocities, that the mainstream media refuses to touch, they come to you, the Truth movement, and it is you that are responsible for this information becoming public. Before 2003, before the invasion of Iraq war, the slaughter of Fallujah, and so much more, you were trying to raise awareness of Gulf War Syndrome, the epidemics of cancer and birth defects in Southern Iraq due to Depleted Uranium, and were generally met with ridicule and disbelief.

Now that the horrors you warned of are slowly being revealed to the world, all of you have reason to be proud of your hard work. Not just the main activists (Leuren Moret, Doug Rokke, and many others) but all of you who contributed in their own way by reposting their stories to blogs, forums, writing to politicians, and everything else you did to raise awareness to this atrocity. If people listened to you much of it could have been prevented. I find it important you realize you should be proud of yourselves for the effort you took while most people around you did nothing.

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