Stephen Lendman

Lendman: Bahraini State Terror Continues

Al-Khalifa despots run Bahrain. State terror is official policy. Washington supports it. Generous aid is provided. King Hamad remains a close US ally. Double standard hypocrisy defines America's foreign and domestic agenda.

King Hamad calls peaceful protests "foreign plots." He banned them earlier. Unauthorized public meetings and seminars were prohibited. On October 30, public gatherings were again banned. Authorities call them illegal. Participants face severe harshness. That's how police states operate. Fundamental rights are criminalized. Daily nonviolent protests still continue. Participants brave severe repression. Some end up dead.

Bahrainis want democratic change. They want popularly elected leaders. They want despotic monarchal rule, ruthless persecution, widespread corruption, and Shia discrimination ended. For many months, they've braved tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets, live fire, arrests, torture, imprisonments, and disappearances. They won't quit. The price of freedom is high.

Patrick Martin

SOS: Participants in a rally in Salem. Bargaining broke down over a state
proposal that could cut in half the number of home care workers eligible
for employer-provided health coverage. (Photo: nwlaborpress.org)

...Democrats, Republicans prepare major cuts in workers’ wages, benefits

Four days before the New Year triggers a series of tax increases and budget cuts, both the Obama administration and congressional leaders are whipping up a crisis atmosphere to justify attacks on the social benefits and living standards of working people.

Whether or not there is a last-minute deal to postpone some elements of the so-called fiscal cliff, the outcome of the political charade in Washington is not in doubt. The political representatives of the super-rich, Democrats and Republicans alike, are orchestrating events to insure that the main burden of the crisis falls on those least able to defend themselves, including the unemployed, the sick, the elderly and the poor.

All the proposals from the Obama administration and the Republican leadership to address the “fiscal cliff,” as measures that could take effect at the New Year, are premised on an historic attack on social programs that benefit the working class.