Diana Johnstone

The Move to Muzzle Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala

French mainstream media and politicians are starting off the New Year with a shared resolution for 2014: permanently muzzle a Franco-African comedian who is getting to be too popular among young people.

In between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, no less than the President of the Republic, François Hollande, while visiting Saudi Arabia on (very big) business, said his government must find a way to ban performances by the comedian Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, as called for by French Interior Minister, Manuel Valls.

The leader of the conservative opposition party, UMP, Jean-François Copé, immediately chimed in with his “total support” for silencing the unmanageable entertainer.

In the unanimous media chorus, the weekly Nouvel Observateur editorialized that Dieudonné is “already dead”, washed up, finished. Editors publicly disputed whether it was a better tactic to try to jail him for “incitement to racial hatred”, close his shows on grounds of a potential “threat to public order”, or put pressure on municipalities by threatening cultural subsidies with cuts if they allow him to perform.

The goal of national police boss Manuel Valls is clear, but the powers that be are groping for the method. The dismissive cliché heard repeatedly is that “nobody laughs at Dieudonné any more”.

In reality, the opposite is true. And that is the problem. On his recent tour of French cities, videos show large, packed theaters roaring with laughter at their favorite humorist. He has popularized a simple gesture, which he calls the “quenelle”. It is being imitated by young people all over France. It simply and obviously means, we are fed up.

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Mike Gurstein

As the avalanche of Snowden revelations resumes after it’s brief organizational regrouping and holiday hiatus a few learnings and even more direct and pertinent questions are starting to emerge.

Evgeny Morozov in an otherwise interesting piece in the Financial Times is surely incorrect in his bald statement that “Snowden now faces a growing wave of surveillance fatigue among the public”. The emotion isn’t “surveillance fatigue” but rather shell shock at the revelations as they keep coming, in wave after uncomfortable wave. The first reaction of course was shock (and awe), the second was a feeling of anger and rising resistance. But as the revelations have kept coming, each one more disturbing than the last; but now shifting from pointing to quantity of surveillance (everything, everyone, everywhere, forever), to quality (from metadata to communications content to networking to instantaneous full-spectrum profiling); the emotion is now–what on earth can we do–this is impossible, democracy or even any form of popular sovereignty is at immediate risk, but what on earth can we do?

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Gilad Atzmon

In a uniquely dishonest piece, The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland paid a tribute today to Israel’s veteran PM Ariel Sharon.

According to Freedland, Sharon, “as one of Israel's founders… had the credibility to give up occupied territory – and even to face the demons of 1948”. Freedland speculates also that “Sharon's final mission might well have been peace.” This is indeed a big statement, but how does Freedland support his creative historical account?

“Sharon's final act” says Freedland, “was to dismantle some of the very settlements he had sponsored. In 2005 he ordered Israel's disengagement from Gaza, seized in the 1967 war in which Sharon had been a crucial, if maverick, commander.”

Let alone the fact that Freedland comes short of reminding his readers about Sharon’s colossal war crimes, he actually completely distorts the political narrative that led Sharon to the 2005 unilateral disengagement.

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Stephen Lendman

Resistance is a national imperative.
The alternative is full-blown tyranny.
No one should accept this anywhere anytime.

Police state lawlessness reflects official US policy. Numerous examples explain. Congress opposes fundamental freedoms. It terrorizes most people. So do rogue US administrations. Washington is more ruthless today than ever.

Waging war on humanity is much worse. It's ongoing globally. It's reflected in congressional legislation. Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF - September 2001) approved open-ended permanent wars. They rage out-of-control. They do so at home and abroad.

The FY 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) targets freedom. It prioritizes militarism and permanent wars. It authorizes over $600 billion for global belligerence, mass killing and destruction. It's a portion of what America spends overall. Around $1.5 trillion or more annually goes for domestic and foreign militarism. It's authorized when America's only enemies are ones it invents. It's on top of trillions of dollars of Pentagon waste, fraud and grand theft.

In December 2006, George Bush signed FY 2007 NDAA into law. Included were hidden sections 1076 and 333. Media scoundrels ignored them. They amended the 1807 Insurrection Act and 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. They prohibited using federal and National Guard troops for law enforcement. They did so except as constitutionally allowed or expressly authorized by Congress in times of insurrection or other national emergency.

Presidents can now claim emergency powers. They can declare martial law unilaterally. They can suspend the Constitution. They can do it on alleged "national security" grounds. They can deploy federal and/or National Guard troops on US streets. They can do it to suppress whatever is called disorder. It includes lawful peaceful protests. America's First Amendment permits them. Congress and Bush acted unconstitutionally. They did numerous times throughout Bush's tenure. Things got worse under Obama.

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John Pilger

In five-star hotels on Mumbai's seafront, children of the rich squeal joyfully as they play hide and seek. Nearby, at the National Theatre for the Performing Arts, people arrive for the Mumbai Literary Festival: famous authors and notables drawn from India's Raj class. They step deftly over a woman lying across the pavement, her birch brooms laid out for sale, her two children silhouettes in a banyan tree that is their home.

It is Children's Day in India. On page nine of the Times of India, a study reports that every second child is malnourished. Nearly two million children under the age of five die every year from preventable illness as common as diarrhoea. Of those who survive, half are stunted due to a lack of nutrients. The national school dropout rate is 40 per cent. Statistics like these flow like a river permanently in flood. No other country comes close. The small thin legs dangling in a banyan tree are poignant evidence.

The leviathan once known as Bombay is the centre for most of India's foreign trade, global financial dealing and personal wealth. Yet at low tide on the Mithi River, in ditches, at the roadside, people are forced to defecate. Half the city's population is without sanitation and lives in slums without basic services.

This has doubled since the 1990s when "Shining India" was invented by an American advertising firm as part of the Hindu nationalist BJP party's propaganda that it was "liberating" India's economy and "way of life". Barriers protecting industry, manufacturing and agriculture were demolished. Coke, Pizza Hut, Microsoft, Monsanto and Rupert Murdoch entered what had been forbidden territory.

Limitless "growth" was now the measure of human progress, consuming both the BJP and Congress, the party of independence. Shining India would catch up China and become a superpower, a "tiger", and the middle classes would get their proper entitlement in a society where there was no middle. As for the majority in the "world's largest democracy", they would vote and remain invisible. There was no tiger economy for them.

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Elliott Vernon

Shanika, a mother of two children, has been homeless for
two-and-a-half years since she came to New York City from
Georgia to stay with her mother, who subsequently lost her
section 8 housing subsidy. - She's caught in a catch-22.

According to the 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) presented to Congress by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in November, nearly 64,000 people, including 22,000 children, are homeless in New York City.

In 2013, the number of homeless in New York City increased by 13 percent compared to January 2012. New York State led the nation with the largest increase over 2012. These statistics, coming on top of federal cuts to unemployment benefits and food stamps, reveal the increasing misery in the city with the largest number of billionaires on the planet.

A recent report in the New York Times describes the city’s upsurge in homelessness as “occurring even as the local economy has recovered,” as though the phenomenon were paradoxical. But the exacerbation of New York’s longstanding housing and homelessness crisis is inevitable, given the policies of the Bloomberg administration and the spiraling inequality that is a feature of daily life in America’s largest city.

The economic recovery is a myth for all but the wealthiest. Ninety-five percent of income gains since the 2008 recession have gone to the top 1 percent. Over its four terms in office, the Bloomberg administration has responded to New York’s housing crisis with programs that rely on market forces and tax breaks for real estate developers to incentivize the creation of affordable housing. The failure of these programs is self-evident as the numbers of homeless people continue to break records, rising by 69 percent in 12 years.

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John Ward

Sailors decontaminate the flight deck aboard USS Ronald
Reagan, March 23 2011. (Photo: Kevin B. Gray / flickr)

USS Reagan & Fukushima cancer levels are miles above comparative levels, according to John Ward. Slowly, the world is waking up to the realities of Japan's nuclear catastrophe: this disaster is real.

We have seen strong evidence of poor build quality in the original General Electric construction at Fukushima. We have seen example after example of covered up seriousness and urgency by both Tepco the plant owners, and the Tokyo government keen to keep its ownership of the 2020 Olympic Games.

Now evidence is coming through to flatly contradict Establishment reassurances about cancer levels both among Fukushima residents, and on board USS Ronald Reagan - the US aircraft carrier that sailed offshore from Fukushima after the 2011 tsunami to bring aid and relief to a stricken population.

Before we get going, the good news is that California-based lawyer Charles Bonner (see below) has confirmed to me that he is still heavily involved in the case of 70+ US navy personnel currently attempting to get redress for various illnesses that have all the hallmarks of radiation sickness.

I hope to be able to interview him at some stage over the holidays, but in the meantime there have been three major debunking developments in relation to the Establishment's "explanations" of what the truth is about the USS Reagan's crew, and the link between rapid cancer development (RCD) and the Fukushima incident.

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Edward Snowden

Six months ago, I stepped out from the shadows of the United States Government's National Security Agency to stand in front of a journalist's camera.

I shared with the world evidence proving some governments are building a world-wide surveillance system to secretly track how we live, who we talk to, and what we say.

I went in front of that camera with open eyes, knowing that the decision would cost me family and my home, and would risk my life. I was motivated by a belief that the citizens of the world deserve to understand the system in which they live.

My greatest fear was that no one would listen to my warning. Never have I been so glad to have been so wrong. The reaction in certain countries has been particularly inspiring to me, and Brazil is certainly one of those.

At the NSA, I witnessed with growing alarm the surveillance of whole populations without any suspicion of wrongdoing, and it threatens to become the greatest human rights challenge of our time.

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Tom Carter

US District Judge William H. Pauley’s ruling in the case of ACLU v. Clapper on December 27, which sanctions dragnet NSA surveillance of the telephone records of the entire country’s population, has immense significance for democratic rights.

Although it is written by a federal judge, it is not so much a legal opinion as it is a fascist-style polemic that advocates scrapping the US Constitution and implementing a police state. The fact that a federal judge makes such arguments is a significant indication of the extent to which a pro-dictatorship consensus has developed within the highest levels of the judicial system.

The entire opening section of the opinion is a self-consciously political case for police state spying and silencing whistle-blowers. Responding to United States District Court judge Richard Leon’s decision earlier this month calling NSA surveillance “almost Orwellian,” Judge Pauley employs the argument that every dictatorship throughout history has made in one form or another: that “national security” and the threat of “terrorism” necessitate the abrogation of democratic rights.

This is nothing but a variation on the arguments made by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt that state interests, as determined by an all-powerful executive (a “fuehrer”), may warrant a “state of exception,” during which the constitution may be suspended and democratic rights trampled upon.

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Nahida Izzat, Exiled Palestinian
Poetry for Palestine

To expose the absurd and unrealistic nature of the “one-state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians”, and to extract one of the main perils it encapsulates, I would mention here mainly three facts. These facts have the double merit of being crystal clear, and also of being based on fundamental pillars of civilization, i.e. time-tested. I would suggest that they become fundamental guidelines for any further proposition:

Firstly: to allow mass-murderers, land-thieves, ideological supremacists, destroyers of cultural heritage to keep the loot, is ethically unacceptable. Worse still, in our era of post-Nuremberg Principles of International Law, and post-Geneva Conventions, this would represent a perilous turn backwards of the wheel of history, by re-allowing and even justifying land acquisition by means of military conquest and terrorism, down to genocide and democide.

Secondly: to force or coerce victims of slow genocide, -ongoing since seven decades, to live with their rapists and murderers of their children, is ruthless, inhumane, and also an incentive for the perpetrators to perpetuate said crimes, even increase their insane cruelty.

Thirdly: to bring to the fore the notion of “equal rights” when the parties concerned are one of dispossessed victims, and the other one of serial killers and supremacists, it constitutes an oxymoron which itself is nothing else than sabotage of the very foundation of Justice.

To sabotage foundational elements of human cohabitation, is downright perilous for mankind, and yet this is what is promoted by people under the ominously fake pretext of “peace”! A peace that justifies past massacres and promotes future massacres, is not peace. - Enough is enough!

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Mark Glenn

I remember first hearing it in college, and while initially I recoiled somewhat at the base, crass language used in expressing it, after considering it intellectually was forced to concede the undeniable truth contained in it–

“A hard dick has no conscience…”

I apologize to the reader, because if it is one thing we don’t need more of right now, it is the already-overwhelming vulgar, disrespectful sexual discourse that pervades (and perverts) much of our world these days as a result of western (Jewish) media’s control of language and themes. For the record, I generally shy away from, well, “sensitive” themes such as this, and for the simple reason that I hold ‘it’–meaning sex–to be something sacred. Given to us as a gift by our creator, in my opinion it is not something to be handled coarsely, discussed crudely or made to be the butt of adolescent-level jokes as it has in “western” (again, meaning Jewish) media.

However, as I said there is an undeniable truth associated with this statement that figures powerfully in the present situation in the Middle East and in particular the bloodshed in Gaza. Sexually-starved individuals who haven’t “had it” in a long time get nutty and are capable of doing all sorts of things to get their rocks off. Like some frat boy accustomed to getting his way all the time, he’ll spend every dime he has trying to get his victim drunk, promise her the moon and the stars, tell her she’s the most beautiful thing her has ever laid eyes on and is madly in love with her and “let‘s get married right now“ and blah, blah, blah, just so he can satisfy his biological urge and lighten his load, no pun in tended.

And sometimes, when all these things don’t work, he’ll resort to “Plan B” which is violence and rape. He won’t think of what might happen down the road–of arrest, imprisonment, or even an angry father who might come calling with a baseball bat or shotgun. All he knows is that his animal nature to invade and conquer some soft, defenseless territory where he can leave his footprint behind is screaming at him and he can’t stand the noise any longer. And this later scenario is particularly the case with repeat offenders who have gotten away with it in the past and who might even hold a certain amount of influence with powerful political people who can pick up the phone and order an investigation or prosecution quashed.

Therefore, as the images continue pouring in of the destruction of human life and the deliberate holocaust being waged against civilians (mostly women and children) in Gaza by that “Light among nations“–Israel–people around the world are asking the question – “Where is Israel’s conscience???”

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Stephen Lendman

● What country is a modern day Sparta? Which one lives by the sword? Which one deplores peace and stability? Which one threatens an entire region and beyond?
● Which one ignores rule of law principles? Which one has no constitution? Which one has no official borders?
● Which one won't declare them? Which one won't do it because it wants them expanded? Which one intends doing so by stealing other people's land?
● Which one mocks democratic values? Which one spurns fundamental human and civil rights? Which one institutionalized racism? Which one violates all international humanitarian laws?
● Which one persecutes people for praying to the wrong God? Which one ignores all UN resolutions compromising its interests? Which one considers Muslims subhumans?
● Which one is all take and no give? Which one has no legitimacy? Which one lacks credibility? Which one can't be trusted? Which one says one thing and does another.
● Which one denies freedom to prisoners it releases? Which one illegitimately rearrests them?
● Which one harasses, intimidates and terrorizes released prisoners? Which one treats an entire people the same way?
● Which one does it because they're not Jews? Which one gets away with murder and lots more?
● Which one operates with impunity? Which one gets away with it because world leaders able to make a difference support its worst crimes?
● Which one rules lawlessly? Which one mocks fundamental decency? Which one considers mass murder, ethnic cleansing, land theft, torture, and other high crimes divine rights?
● Which one wages aggressive wars without mercy? Which one did so to steal another people's land? Which one illegitimately transformed Palestine into Israel?

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Robert Stevens

Note the altered logo of Intel’s “Intel Inside” campaign (from
the 90s) in the bottom left corner: “TAO Inside” (LeakSource)

The US National Security Agency (NSA) runs an Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), described by Germany’s Der Spiegel as the “NSA’s top operative unit—something like a squad of plumbers that can be called in when normal access to a target is blocked.”

A report published Sunday based on documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden states that the TAO operates as a vast hacking unit on behalf of the US government.

Based in San Antonio, Texas and formed in 1997, the TAO, “are involved in many sensitive operations conducted by American intelligence agencies. TAO’s area of operations ranges from counterterrorism to cyber attacks to traditional espionage. The documents reveal just how diversified the tools at TAO’s disposal have become—and also how it exploits the technical weaknesses of the IT industry, from Microsoft to Cisco and Huawei, to carry out its discreet and efficient attacks.”

In 2008, the TAO unit had 60 specialists the magazine said—a number set to escalate to 270 by 2015. The TAO’s duties according to the NSA are based on “Getting the ungettable.”

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