Bryan Dyne

The Obama administration has approved Shell Oil’s plan to begin drilling for oil in the Beaufort Sea, off the Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska. This will be the first offshore drilling operation authorized in the region since the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe in April 2010. It only the latest example of the Obama administration’s prostration before major oil interests.

Approval for drilling came from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). The agency adopted the plan given to it by Shell Oil without even a cursory examination. Instead, it adopted an uncritical attitude towards the company, entrusting it not to violate safety regulations and risking a similar disaster to that which occurred last year.

The BOEMRE is also ignoring the ecological impact of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. When the oil tanker struck the Bligh Reef, it spilled somewhere between 42,000 and 120,000 cubic meters of crude into the Prince William Sound. This resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 seabirds and hundreds of sea otters, harbor seals and bald eagles, as well as four humans poisoned during the cleanup. The immediate economic impact was the loss of 26,000 jobs and $2.4 billion.

In addition, the clean up efforts were not sufficient to completely eliminate oil. An NOAA report issued in 2007 revealed that, despite cleanup efforts, 26,000 gallons of oil still remain in the soil of the contaminated shoreline, impeding the repopulation of wildlife in the area. The amount of oil left in the ocean is unknown. Moreover, residents of the area who used to rely on fishing for subsistence are still wary of consuming local catches for fear of leftover oil.

The more recent explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon, which killed eleven workers, has left a much deeper scar. From April to June of 2010, the oil rig leaked 780,000 cubic meters of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, contaminating almost 800 kilometers of coastline in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Hundreds of thousands of fish, birds and other animals were affected, with thousands turning up dead. One estimate, given by Earth Economics, values the damage done at approximately $1 trillion to the Mississippi River delta alone.

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Stephen Lendman

For years, America and Israel followed similar paths toward full-blown tyranny, threatening all their citizens. Believing either is democratic and egalitarian is ludicrous and nonsensical, especially now under right-wing neoliberal governments, cracking down hard against challenges to their authority.

In Israel, moreover, Arabs have no rights. In fact, they're treated more like fifth-column threats than citizens with equal rights as Jews. They never had them or do now.

Three articles, among others, discussed Israeli governance under Netanyahu and Israel's most extremist ever Knesset, accessed through the following links, here, here and here.

Since becoming prime minister on March 31, 2009 for the second time (earlier serving from June 1996 - July 1999), Netanyahu's hardline coalition government enacted measures repressive enough to make some right-of-center politicians blush. At the same time, left-of-center ones worry where Israel is heading, a direction they very much oppose.

Already, Netanyahu's gone a long way toward wrecking Israeli society, similar to what Obama's done to America, handing it more than ever to wealth and power interests, especially bankers, war profiteers and militarists.

Moreover, Congress and Israel's Knesset enacted numerous hardline measures. This article discusses a new one MKs will now consider called, "Basic Act: Israel - the State of the Jewish Nation," not one for all its people.

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Stephen Lendman

Israeli Palestinian "suspect" publicly assaulted by police

What do you call a country that persecutes occupied people and one-fifth of its own population for not being Jewish? An illegal occupier for over 44 years, suffocating over 1.6 million Gazans under siege! A nation practicing torture, persecution, and racism as official policies! A modern day Sparta, glorifying wars and violence!

A country spurning rule of law principles! An unparalleled regional state terrorist! A nuclear armed global threat! A society of extreme social inequality! A nation with no legitimacy for all of the above reasons, besides having stolen another people's nation violently!

It's called Eretz Yisrael - Israel, a nation where thousands of fed up Jews vote with their feet and leave regularly. Like America, Israel isn't fit to live in. One day perhaps that will be its epitaph.

Many Jews and analysts believe Zionism is destroying Judaism. In his book "Overcoming Zionism," Joel Kovel explained how it fosters

"imperialist expansion and militarism (with) signs of the fascist malignancy," adding that it turned Israel "into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses."

Author Alan Hart calls Zionism "the real enemy of the Jews," an ideology contemptuous of moral and ethical principles. Others call it corrosive, destructive, racist, extremist, undemocratic and hateful, espousing violence, not peaceful coexistence.

Nations living by the sword in the end die by it. Israel and America aren't exceptions. They've, in fact, partnered on a self-destructive mission, perhaps taking planet earth with them before they're through.

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Ellen Brown

A message from Ben Bernanke to the cattle of the globe...

What just happened in the stock market? Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose or fell by at least 400 points for four straight days, a stock market first.

The worst drop was on Monday, 8-8-11, when the Dow plunged 624 points. Monday was the first day of trading after US Treasury bonds were downgraded from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor’s.

But the roller coaster actually began on Tuesday, 8-2-11, the day after the last-minute deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling -- a deal that was supposed to avoid the downgrade that happened anyway five days later. The Dow changed directions for eight consecutive trading sessions after that, another first.

The volatility was unprecedented, leaving analysts at a loss to explain it. High frequency program trading no doubt added to the wild swings, but why the daily reversals? Why didn’t the market head down and just keep going, as it did in September 2008?

The plunge on 8-8-11 was the worst since 2008 and the sixth largest stock market crash ever. According to Der Spiegel, one of the most widely read periodicals in Europe:

Many economists have been pointing out that last week's panic resembled the fear that swept financial markets after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Then as now, banks stopped lending each other money. Then as now, banks' cash deposits at the central bank doubled within days.

On Tuesday, August 9, however, the market gained more points from its low than it lost on Monday. Why? A tug of war seemed to be going on between two titanic forces, one bent on crashing the market, the other on propping it up.

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William Bowles

At 9.22 the Brixton shopping centre appeared almost calm by comparison to Railton Road. Rubbish was strewn across the main A23 Brixton Road; burglar alarms rang vainly from looted shops; and knots of youths, black and white, drifted along in the almost complete absence of police.” – ‘Eyewitness: Looters moved in as the flames spread’

No, not Brixton in August 2011 but Brixton on 13 April 1981 as reported by the The Times. “Absence of police” eh? Now we’ve all heard this somewhere else quite recently, so what’s changed that made it such an issue this time round?

Ah, I see, it’s the ‘law and order’ posse calling for tougher policing, even importing a NYC cop to bash some heads.

What a depressing state of affairs. The media, like some slavering pack of wolves, eager for blood has descended on our dispossessed and demonized them some more. It’s like something out of the worst of the Victorian period, where to be poor was literally regarded as a crime and treated as such.

It is not for communists to condemn the riots. They are a sign of capitalism’s crisis and decay. [...] So long as capitalism continues on its downward spiral of crisis with the rich getting richer and the poorest more and more excluded there will be more and more explosions like these. The race is on for the revival of a really liberating movement of the working class to present an alternative to capitalist barbarism. –’Driving People into Rebellion‘, Stephen Harper, Dissident Voice

Two thousand people arrested and all just to make a point. Courts working around the clock to make an example of anybody who dares challenge the status quo, no matter how chaotic and self-destructive such cries of rage are. History is littered with such spontaneous rebellions, all of which are symptoms of a much deeper malaise but clearly it’s a malaise that the political class do not want to confront, dare not confront, else they would be forced to deal with the conditions that they themselves have created.

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John Pilger

Bankers loot the Treasury, MPs fiddle their expenses . . . and then the establishment turns on deprived young people in England’s inner cities and calls them criminals. The August disturbances weren’t riots: they were the revolt of the working class.

On a warm spring day, strolling in south London, I heard demanding voices behind me. A police van disgorged a posse of six or more who waved me aside. They surrounded a young black man who, like me, was ambling along. They rifled through his pockets, looked in his shoes, inspected his teeth. Their thuggery affirmed, they let him go with the barked warning there would be a next time.

For the young at the bottom of the pyramid of wealth and patronage and poverty that is modern Britain - mostly the black, the marginalised and resentful, the envious and hopeless - there is never surprise. Their relationship with authority is integral to their obsolescence as young adults. Half of all black British youth between the ages of 18 and 24 are unemployed, the result of deliberate policies since Margaret Thatcher oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in British history. Forget plasma TVs; this was pano­ramic looting.

Such is the truth of David Cameron's "sick society", notably its sickest, most criminal, most feral "pocket": the square mile of the City of London where, with political approval, the banks and the super-rich have trashed the British economy and the lives of millions. This is fast becoming unmentionable as we succumb to propaganda once described by the American black leader Malcolm X thus: "If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing."

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Stephen Lendman

Voting for any Republican or Democrat - for president, Congress, state or local office - is wasting it, defiling your own welfare. Unless duopoly power ends, Americans won't be free, safe or equitably treated.

Consider the unpalatable 2012 options, a choice between:

• a so far unopposed lawless/crime boss/militarist/pro-war/anti-populist president; and
• a rogue's gallery of Republican aspirants, looking more like a police lineup than legitimate candidates for any office, let alone the nation's highest.

The one exception, Ron Paul, is ignored by America's media and for the following reasons:

(1) He advocates abolishing the Federal Reserve, owned and run by Wall Street. In fact, several times in Congress, he introduced the Federal Reserve Abolition Act. With no co-sponsors, no further action followed.

Yet, restoring sound money and a healthy economy requires Fed abolition, returning money creation power to the US Treasury as the Constitution mandates (Article I, Section 8).

(2) He also wants squandering America's resources on imperial wars ended, using the nation's wealth instead for productive economic growth.

(3) In addition, he opposes police state laws like the USA Patriot Act, though not for all the right reasons. Key for him is loss of personal privacy.

(4) While advocating free trade, he's against NAFTA, DR-CAFTA, and other one-sided FTAs, serving special interests, not everyone equitably.

(5) He calls the war on drugs "costly and ineffective, while creating terrible violent crime." True enough, but it's much worse, largely responsible for creating the world's largest gulag, mostly filled with nonviolent inmates, deserving reprimands and perhaps fines at most, not prison time.

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Gilad Atzmon

The Fairy tale: Settling in "The Promised Land". Aliyah.
The reality: Click on image to find out. Warning: it might
upset you to do so. More reality here, here, here and here.

"I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them." ~ Baruch Spinoza

Daniel Cohen (fictitious name) is deeply admired by many. He is a humanist, an anti Zionist and he is also a man of great integrity. A week ago, Daniel decided to challenge my views, and launched a courageous debate. Being a gracious man he might have hoped to open my eyes to some ‘categorical mistakes’ he believed I was making. For my part, I was very open to his criticism and engaged in the dialogue.

Daniel was not happy with the way the exchange has evolved. Though he circulated his comments and my interventions to his close Jewish friends, he made it clear that he wanted to stop the exchange at a certain stage. Daniel was very angry with me. He also made it clear that he did not want me to publish the exchange of views. As I always do in such cases, I suggested that together, we should edit the debate, but he refused. Respecting Daniel’s request for anonymity, I have now re-edited the text myself, concealing Daniel’s real name, removing all sections and biographical references that could reveal Daniel’s identity. Occasionally, I have re-phrased Daniel’s comments for purpose of continuity and clarity, but I have faithfully retained his meaning.[*]

Unlike Daniel, I believe that issues to do with Jewish history and Jewish ideology must be discussed openly and without fear.

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Medea Benjamin & Charles Davis

Since coming to Washington, Barack Obama has won a Nobel Prize for Peace, but he hasn't been much of a peacemaker. Instead, he has doubled down on his predecessor's wars while launching blatantly illegal ones of his own. But, as his supporters would be quick to point out, at least he's standing by his pledge to bring the troops home from Iraq. - Right?

That's certainly what America's latest war president has been saying. Speaking to supporters this month, he was unequivocal.

“If somebody asks about the war [in Iraq] . . . you have a pretty simple answer, which is all our folks are going to be out of there by the end of the year.”

Obama's statement was a welcome reaffirmation of what he promised on the campaign trail:

"If we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am President, it is the first thing I will do,” he thundered in the fall of 2007. “I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank."

But don’t count on cashing that check. The Washington Post brings the unsurprising news that Iraqi leaders have agreed to begin talks with the U.S. on allowing the foreign military occupation of their country to continue beyond this year – re-branded, naturally, as a mission of “training” and “support.” The move comes after an increasingly public campaign by top White House and military officials to pressure Iraqi leaders into tearing up the Status of Forces Agreement they signed with the Bush administration, which mandates the removal of all foreign troops by the end of 2011.

As with any relationship, saying goodbye is always the hardest part for an empire. The U.S. political establishment has long desired a foothold in the Middle East from which it could exert influence over the trade of the region's natural resources. Remember, Iraq has lots of oil, as those who launched the invasion of the country in 2003 were all too aware. They aren't too keen on giving that up.

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Bill Van Auken

Juan Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Profes-
sor of History at the University of Michigan. (IC)

More people have already died in the US-NATO war against Libya than were ever killed by Gaddafi’s repression, and the threat of a far greater massacre is looming. Whatever Cole says now, he has blood on his hands.

Last week, Professor Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor of Middle Eastern history, posted a comment on his Informed Comment blog slandering the World Socialist Web Site with the lie that we support efforts by the Gaddafi regime to reconquer the east of Libya and would welcome a massacre of Libyan civilians.

On August 10, the World Socialist Web Site issued “An open letter to Professor Juan Cole: A reply to a slander,” answering Cole’s lies and demanding that he post a “full and public retraction” on Informed Comment.

On August 11, we received the following emailed reply from Cole:

“Hi. I hope you will stop supporting the murderous Qaddafi regime and attacking people who want the people of Benghazi to be safe from him.
cheers,
Juan”

This is the kind of response one would expect from someone who is drunk. In Cole’s case, however, this would be an unduly charitable interpretation.

The reality is that he is incapable of articulating any coherent defense of his position. Cole’s one-sentence reply merely reiterates his original slander without adding a word of substantiation.

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Stephen Lendman

The battle for Libya continues. Overwhelming numbers support Gaddafi and want their country free from imperial control. They're also prepared to fight for it, knowing the unacceptable alternative - colonization, pillaging, loss of freedom, and perhaps their lives.

Major media specialize in what they do best: truth inversion (aka bad fiction), not doing what journalists are supposed to do - their job, especially covering imperial wars for dominance and rich spoils.

With Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) falling apart and rebel forces in disarray, today's headlines belie the truth, reported by independent "un-in-bed-with" journalists and other sources.

On August 16, Lizzie Phelan's Libya diary "clear(ed) up the latest media rubbish on Libya," saying:

Gaddafi forces liberated the "hitherto rebel-held" town of Misrata. "Last night, the Libyan army moved into the center of the city, and now the rebels are trapped between Misrata and Tawergha."

About three-fourths of the city, including its port, is secured, "which was a lifeline" for shipping rebels arms and other supplies.

At a press conference attended by around 200 tribes (including the four largest comprising half the population), Libya's media spokesman, Dr. Moussa Ibrahim, confirmed it. The major four, including Wafalla, Tarhouna, Zlitan and Washafana, all support Gaddafi.

"The tribal leaders also confirmed that Zawiya and Sorman are secure, in contrast to (falsified) claims by (in bed with) foreign reporters in Tripoli and Djerba (Tunisia) that they have been taken by the rebels."

In addition, claims that rebels control Ghuriyan are untrue. Ongoing clashes there continue.

Major media reports lie, although pockets of rebel resistance remain. Nonetheless, they're "isolated and surrounded by the Libyan army and tribes." Falsified major media reports stand in stark contrast to "Libyan tribes who, of course, know their land with great intimacy."

It's clear media bosses want Libyans demoralized to think all is lost so give up.

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Stephen Lendman

It begs the question why Israelis put up with lawless governance harming them as well as Palestinians. When will weeks of social injustice outrage arouse them to embrace universal equity?

Why haven't Martin Luther King's words hit home that, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." In Israel and Occupied Palestine, Arabs and Jews both are harmed. Injustice to anyone denies it to all.

Since the 1980s, destructive neoliberalism plagued Israel like the West. A race to the bottom followed, producing social injustice, inequality, and growing human need. Israelis finally reacted, demanding change, at the same time showing a hint of solidarity with Arab citizens, far more gravely impacted than themselves.

It's high time that this spirit of neoliberalism addressed the 44 years of Occupied Palestinian torment. In their own time of need, will Jews embrace the universal struggle for justice everywhere, especially a few kilometers from their own backyard? Turning a blind eye to that injustice no longer can be tolerated.

What's now ongoing bears witness. Overnight, Israeli jets bombed Gaza, killing at least one resident and wounding seven or more others (including a child) in a series of lawless raids.

Gaza's medical emergency spokesperson, Adham Abu Salmiyya, said three residents were seriously injured after Israel bombed the Al Zeitoun neighborhood, Rafah tunnel areas, and an alleged Al Qassam Brigades training center in Gaza City's At-Tuffah community.

Further attacks struck eastern Khan Younis, causing extensive damage but no injuries. Israel targets Gaza regularly by air, land and sea, falsely claiming self-defense every time. It long ago rang hollow.

Imagine if instead Israeli neighborhoods were bombed regularly, killing innocent civilians? Western leaders would express outrage in response.

In contrast, when Palestinians are killed, it goes unnoticed, notably by major media sources more focused on supporting NATO aggression, slaughtering people in the name of "liberating" them.

The hypocrisy is stark and galling, yet commonplace backing wrong over right. The horrors need volumes to explain.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli forces also razed Palestinian farmland south of Hebron, bulldozing fruit trees belonging to several Palestinian families. At the same time, several Hebron neighborhoods were raided. In addition, residents of Yatta, Tarqomia, and other Palestinian communities face regular Israeli incursions, harassing and aiming to displace them.

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Nahida Izzat, Exiled Palestinian

In his article Alan Hart present us with a myth of a solution to the chronic Palestinian suffering, presented as an alternative way to solve this long-lasting problem.

Mr. Hart wants us to believe that the only hope for Palestinians is to turn to the major powers, led by America, and find a way to make them "put Israel on public notice" and that if Israel "resort to a final round of ethnic cleansing" that "it would be universally condemned as a criminal state and subjected to sanctions of every kind, universally applied."

I am sorry to disappoint Mr. Hart, but his calculations, his conclusion and his solution are wrong, yet again!

In his analysis and elucidation, Mr. Hart puts "zero" value for the Arab and Muslims populations, these millions of oppressed masses, who have been raging for decades, do not even surface in his conscious or subconscious mind.

His three possible outcomes that he presents in his article are not the only scenarios as he would like to believe.

There are many more that he seems to be unaware of or ignore.

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Madison Ruppert

Cameron: Free speech is an outdated concept and should be eradicated whenever the government deems necessary for however long the government deems necessary.

It is sad to say that the United Kingdom is heading down the road of tyranny to be a complete police state like the United States and Prime Minister David Cameron has announced just that today.

Cameron is under the impression that the riots were caused by a “slow-motion moral collapse” without entertaining any other theories which might be a bit more accurate.

It is much more convenient to blame the problems on the powerless citizens than the bankster overlords that Cameron happily serves or the police’s actions.

Cameron thinks that Britain is now broken and in reaction he has said that he is going to wage “an all-out war” against what he called “gangs” but what others might call “rioters” or “protesters” depending on their motives.

Prime Minister Cameron said that the riots have come out of failures of British culture to make people take responsibility for their actions. This is a bit ridiculous given that riots are a reality in today’s culture around the world.

Furthermore, Cameron implied that single-parent families could have some impact on this issue by saying that the fear of “stigmatizing” individuals by dealing with topics like single-parent families has made it harder for Britain to handle issues like this.

Again, it seems a bit ludicrous to blame the riots on a fear of speaking out against issues like single-parent families.

One thing I do agree with in Cameron’s statement is his point that, “In this risk-free ground of moral neutrality there are no bad choices, just different lifestyles. ‘Live and let live’ becomes ‘Do what you please.’”

However, if Cameron actually supported such an anti-moral relativism position as I do, he might realize that he is a condemnable, immoral human being who supports the murder of civilians abroad in the name of freedom.

I seriously doubt that Cameron even understands the position he attempts to hold as he would realize that there is no justification for murder, aggression or violence and in doing so would find himself to be a disgusting and thoroughly amoral individual.

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Adnan Al-Daini

U.S President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961 warned us about the military-industrial complex with these words:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Fifty years later, these words have more resonance in today's world than at any time since. We now have the security-industrial complex to add to the military-industrial complex. The idiotically named "war on terror" led by the United States, with Britain acting as its outrider, is being fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, supposedly to make us, in the West, safe. Stephen Vizinczey in an article in the Telegraph (August 2, 2010) entitled "Afghanistan is an unwinnable war, and our leaders know it" writes:

"The most hollow justification for the Afghan war is that unless we fight the terrorists in Afghanistan and other foreign places we will have to fight them at home. But as the convictions of terrorists in Britain demonstrate, it is only at home that terrorists can be fought effectively. No atrocity has succeeded here for quite some time, which is certainly not the case in Afghanistan. And it is difficult to believe that the Government's main concern is to prevent terrorism at home, when it intends to cut the budget of the security services."

This begs the question of why Bush and those around him were determined to convince the American public, by deception, and distortion of intelligence, particularly with the war on Iraq, that wars in faraway places were the appropriate response to the horror of 9/11. I believe that the anger and grief of the populace after 9/11 was exploited by the unscrupulous and powerful around a weak and uninformed president to enrich themselves and their corporations through arms sales, providing security services in those faraway places, and gaining oil concessions, the very scenario prophetically foreseen by President Eisenhower.

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Stephen Lendman

Despite a deepening global depression, establishment economists are in denial. On June 9, the Wall Street Journal said those surveyed expected slow, steady growth through 2011, despite high US unemployment, a housing depression, European sovereign debt in crisis, and the unreported insolvency of major French and other banks.

On June 8, testifying before the House Budget Committee, Fed chairman Bernanke fantasized about 3.5% US growth through 2011, stopping just short of ruling out the possibility of recession he called "unlikely."

And in 2007, when equity and housing bubbles peaked, neither he or Greenspan expressed alarm, destroying their credibility in the process.

Based on an early August survey, establishment (in bed with Wall Street) economists now put the chance of "another" downturn at 30%, compared to 15% in May, expecting 2.5% growth over the next year.

Some, in fact were sanguine, calling America's economy strong, attributing negative views to a crisis of confidence, not hard reality, signaled by the August 4 shot across the bow market rout.

Despite a predictable rebound, it signified much worse to come because conditions are dire getting worse. Even manipulated data show enough to sound alarms, highlighted by economists like David Rosenberg.

On August 15, he expressed surprise about so

"little reaction to the shocking US consumer sentiment data that were released on Friday - the worst since the tail end of the Jimmy Carter recession era in 1980."

Moreover, consumer spending is weak even with suspect upward revisions. In addition, "(n)ew mortgage and refinancing loan volumes fell 19% in Q2 to" a three-year low. Further, auto buying plans declined to a decade low, likely headed much lower as economic conditions deteriorate. Other big ticket buying plans also dropped to 2008-09 depths when the economy falling off a cliff seemed possible.

In fact, growth indicators overall are rapidly heading south at a time they're already woefully weak. There's no end to decline in sight. Remarkably, negative household assessments of government policy hit record lows, surpassing the depths of the early 1980s recession and Watergate.

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Stephen Lendman

Unaffordable housing prices ignited mass social justice protests in Israel. At issue is settlement developments at the expense of other construction, creating a supply/demand imbalance enough to cause prices to skyrocket. Israelis demand that issue be addressed responsibly.

In response, Netanyahu's government announced thousands of illegal new West Bank/East Jerusalem settlement units on stolen Palestinian land, harming them grievously. At the same time, he arrogantly ignored the urgency of addressing serious shortages in Tel Aviv, Haifa, West Jerusalem, and other Israeli cities.

In addition, Israel's Knesset passed a controversial housing bill despite popular protests against it. It calls for solving Israel's housing crisis by expanding West Bank settlements, defiantly avoiding what's needed.

It also called for quick action to expedite construction of 50,000 apartments, circumventing planning commissions that take time to decide. Doing so, however, will exacerbate Israel's housing crisis, making an intolerable situation worse.

Since protests began, Netanyahu signaled no meaningful change, saying "solutions (must be) economically sound." In other words, business as usual will continue, papered over with minor cosmetic concessions sure to ignite greater anger sooner or later.

In early August, he appointed Professor Manuel Trajtenberg to head a 14-member "panel for socioeconomic change," saying its "recommendations will reflect the need to maintain fiscal responsibility in the state budge. Such responsibility is especially necessary at a time of economic uncertainty," signaling minimal changes at best, far less than vitally needed and demanded.

Neoliberally constructed, Trajtenberg's panel will conduct discussions, propose solutions, and present them to Israel's socioeconomic cabinet (composed of establishment figures headed by neoliberal finance minister Yuval Steinitz) by late September.

In late October, Steinitz will present his own recommendations to Netanhayu, who'll review them and deliver a final proposal to Israel's cabinet by early November, giving officials enough time to let street protests subside. Or so they hope to get away with minimal changes, if any.

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Paul Stuart

The British political establishment and its state apparatus are imposing the most vicious class justice against young people accused of involvement in the riots that swept London and other cities last week, following the police killing of 29-year-old father of four Mark Duggan.

Nearly 3,000 people have so far been arrested as police continue to raid homes across the capital. Already, almost half of these have been dragged before kangaroo courts with barely any pretence of due process. Despite the fact that most have no previous convictions, more than two thirds of those rounded up are being held without bail and subject to punitive custodial sentences.

Collective punishment is now the order of the day, as whole families face eviction from council housing in a fundamental assault on their democratic and social rights.

The family of 18-year-old youth Daniel Sartain-Clark, from Battersea, South London, is the first to have been served with an eviction notice. This is despite Sartain-Clark pleading innocent to charges of involvement in the riots in neighbouring Clapham.

His mother, Maite De La Calva, accused the police of beating up her son and his girlfriend. “It was brutal the way Daniel was treated”, she said. “My child and J-Niel [Daniel’s girlfriend] were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were being stupidly curious.… The police have made mistakes. They have beaten two children up.”

Daniel, his mother and 14-year-old sister face homelessness. De La Calva has made clear the family has nowhere to go. Not only are they unable to afford the astronomical rents in the private sector—especially under conditions where the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government is cutting housing subsidies as part of its £80 billion package of austerity measures. But a campaign is underway to block legislation designed to protect people against destitution from being used to provide emergency accommodation to those evicted.

The Conservative leader of Wandsworth council, Ravi Govindia, said the eviction notice against De La Calva and her children was only the start. Local authority “officers will continue to work with the courts to establish the identities of other council tenants or members of their households as more cases are processed in the coming days and weeks,” he threatened.

Labour-controlled councils in other parts of the capital, and in Manchester, the West Midlands and elsewhere, are following suit. In Manchester, the Labour-controlled city council has said it plans to evict the family of a 12-year-old boy accused of stealing a bottle of wine from a supermarket during the disturbances.

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Dallas Darling

It is said that John Stuart Mill once rebuked Jeremy Bentham for being interested only in the question "Is it true?" Mill believed a more significant question was "What is the meaning of it?"[1] (Recall that Mill was a British philosopher and economist who believed in individual liberties instead of unlimited state control. He was also a proponent of Utilitarianism, or "the greatest good for the greatest number.")

When British rioters flooded the streets over deferred opportunities and dreams, Prime Minister David Cameron should have asked "What is the meaning of it?" Instead, ruling elites, backed by powerful corporate entities and financial institutions, sent thousands of security forces to arrest and beat "looters" and "gang" members. Social networking was banned, houses indiscriminately raided. Youthful dissent was crushed and criminalized.

Discontent and grievances over social, economic and political conditions and disparities in Britain is not new. The contentious but enlightening exchange between Mill and Bentham occurred during the Industrial Revolution. It was an era that disrupted families by forcing them from their small farms and imposing a harsh and regimental factory system, one that favored Britain's aristocracy and monopolists and large land owners.

To survive, family members, including children and youth, were forced to labor for long hours and low pay in squalid conditions and unsafe work environments. The factory system, a kind of techno-natural selection, caused mass unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and death. Strikes, protests and riots were common. Britain's rulers combated public disturbances with penal colonies, mass hangings, work houses, and even massacres.

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Stefan Steinberg

The growth of long-term unemployment for a broad layer of European youth, including very many highly educated young people with academic qualifications who are unable to find work, has led a number of commentators to refer to a “lost generation”.

According to the latest figures from the German Statistical Office and Eurostat, youth unemployment across Europe has increased by a staggering 25 percent in the course of the past two and a half years. The current levels of youth unemployment are the highest in Europe since the regular collection of statistics began.

In the spring of 2008, prior to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the financial crash of that year, the official unemployment rate for youth in Europe averaged 15 percent. The latest figures from the German Statistical Office reveal that this figure has now risen to over 20 percent.

In total, 20.5 percent of young people between 15 and 24 are seeking work in the 27 states of the European Union. At the same time, these numbers conceal large differences in unemployment levels for individual European nations.

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