Strike Until You Drop
November 30, 2007
An excellent glimpse into the insulated, conformist world of US TV and Film writers from the Real News Network. Had some of them not been asked these questions by the RNN anchor, it is unlikely that they would have ever looked at these issues beyond immediate self-interest. After all, how much empathy or nuance can you expect from people who write garbage like 24?
Fore this reason and more, Christopher Ketchum sees no reason why the strike should have anyone’s support.His Memo to Striking Entertainment Writers reads: ‘Strike until you drop‘.
Dear Entertainment Writers on Strike: Recently returned to so-called civilization from the canyons of Utah, I had the opportunity, after long hiatus, to enjoy the product of some of your writing as it gets shoveled into the American maw via television (no TV in my house–shoot ‘em if they get close to the porch). What a feat, this writing. It evidenced so much that was stale, false, crass, violent, foolish, salacious, gimmicky, irrelevant, sycophantic, complacent, compliant –it was, in short, the perfect distraction in a dying republic fast on its way to tyranny, the gift that keeps on giving to a government that would hope to turn the screw on free-thinking citizens. In other words, writers–you keep on striking! Behold: The entertainment will grow cold and grey as the corpse that it already is, with no new cadavers to puppeteer for the newness of each season, where nothing is as new as the recycled dead from the last season. Like Plato’s chained slaves in the cave of shadows, let the viewers wake up, walk into the light, starved for reality–oh writers, let no new entertainments issue from your minds! You may just save the Republic.
Operation Pliers
November 30, 2007
Last night CNN en Español aired the above image, which captions at the bottom “Who Killed him?” by “accident”. The image of President Chavez with the caption about killing him below, which some could say subliminally incites to assassination, was a “production error” mistakenly made in the CNN en Español newsroom. The news anchor had been narrarating a story about the situation between Colombia and Venezuela and then switched to a story about an unsolved homicide but – oops – someone forgot to change the screen image and President Chavez was left with the killing statement below. Today they apologized and admitted it was a rather “unfortunate” and “regrettable” mistake. Yes, it was.
On a scarier note, an internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a very sinister – almost fantastical, were it not true – plan to destabilize Venezuela during the coming days. The plan, titled “OPERATION PLIERS” was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington. Steere is stationed at the US Embassy in Caracas under the guise of a Regional Affairs Officer. The internal memorandum, dated November 20, 2007, references the “Advances of the Final Stage of Operation Pliers”, and confirms that the operation is coordinated by the team of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in Venezuela. The memo summarizes the different scenarios that the CIA has been working on in Venezuela for the upcoming referendum vote on December 2nd. The Electoral Scenario, as it’s phrased, confirms that the voting tendencies will not change substantially before Sunday, December 2nd, and that the SI (YES) vote in favor of the constitutional reform has an advantage of about 10-13 points over the NO vote. The CIA estimates abstention around 60% and states in the memo that this voting tendency is irreversible before the elections.
Venezuela: Beyond the Corporate Thing
November 30, 2007
Today’s second guest editorial comes from my friend toni solo in Central America. In it he looks at the Western mainstream media’s sins of omission and commission vis-a-vis Venezuela.
Over the last week or so Western Bloc corporate media wrapped their clammy, information-choking tendrils mostly around the latest fake Middle East peace talks, continuing grief for the corporate financial sector and assorted disorders for Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Gordon Brown over there at No. 10 Gin Lane. Next week, one of the big corporate news efforts will be to suffocate the electoral victory supporters of President Chavez are likely to win on December 2nd for the Venezuelan government’s proposed constitutional reforms. To realise what is at stake one needs to check out a few headlines the Western Bloc corporate Thing will never release from its media maw.
The following have appeared in Latin American and other news sites over the last several weeks. They give a very different perspective on the Venezuelan government from the one generally marketed in the hopelessly biased mainstream corporate media.
Read the rest of this entry »
Aznar’s Policies With a Socialist Face
November 30, 2007
‘Spain’s PSOE Socialist Party follows the same foreign policy as the PP under Aznar’, reports my friend Agustin Velloso from Madrid in the first of today’s two guest editorials. He questions Spain’s servility towards Israel, and argues that its primary obligation in foreign policy should be upholding International Law.
Ex-President Aznar made himself dismally famous four years ago when he chose to ally his fate with that of US President Bush in the war of aggression against Iraq.
The lies, clichés and slick, superficial slogans, that mixture of political machismo and fake Spanish-ism that are typical of Aznar, have broken out again lately, the difference being they come not from him – although he backs them 100% – but from the PSOE Zapatero government Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos.
Just before the start of the war on Iraq, Aznar said, “in a fight, Spain knows who to stand by and it will stand with its friends, with the USA”. This is the same ill-starred mental bewilderment afflicting Moratinos, published by the EFE news service on November 15th, “Spain, simply, whatever the circumstances will always be on the side of Israel.”
The Quaint Contradictions of Dubai
November 30, 2007
A friend of mind described Dubai as a Xanadu-meets-Disneyland architectural abomination. But the reality of Dubai is even more surreal. The condition under which immigrant workers in U.A.E work is by now well know, but the veritable police state that this dazzling facade conceals is not. The Guardian recently published an interesting story from a British-American academic who was subjected to a 13 hour investigation by the Secret Police for his research work on expatriates in Dubai. The following part of the story is noteworthy:
Good cop also came to the nub of what I’d got myself into when he told me he liked me, but had doubts about my funding. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I think it is the Jewish,” he said. “Why would ‘the Jewish’ be funding me, a Muslim American, to ask questions of people in Dubai?” “I do not know, but I think it is them … and maybe the CIA.”
In many Middle-Eastern countries distrust of Jews is quite widespread since the representative face of Judaism for them has always been the Israeli occupation soldier brutalizing a fellow Arab. But in Dubai this couldn’t be much of a consideration since in 2006 when Israel launched its brutal assault on Lebanon, UAE joined Saudi, Egypt and Jordan in condemning the Lebanese resistance instead. But more interestingly, YNet is now reporting that Dubai will now be home to the first Israeli store in the region. ‘Ml clothing chain, which specializes in large sizes, to open four stores in prestigious Dubai shopping areas’, it reports.
The Not-So-Sick Man of Europe Does Matter
November 29, 2007
An excellent anlytical piece by Scott Ritter. The case of Turkey (and Pakistan) should be instructive for those nations which are foolish enough to jump on the War-of-Terror bandwagon in the face of the oposition of their respective populations. While Turkey’s attempts at erasing the Kurdish identity are reprehensible, it is nevertheless ironic to find Europe pass judgements on its human rights record (which is abysmal) when Europe has itself materially assisted the genocidal war against Iraq and the ‘Rendition’ torture program.
As a teenager, I had the opportunity to spend two years (1975-1977) in Turkey, where my father, an active-duty Air Force officer, served as part of the Joint United States Military Assistance Advisory Team in the capital of Ankara. It was an exciting time for a number of reasons. First and foremost, experiencing a foreign culture firsthand (we lived among the Turks, not on a military base) was the opportunity of a lifetime. But what made it even more of an experience was the moment in history that these years represented. Turkey, a key NATO ally, had invaded Cyprus in 1974, an act which severely strained U.S.-Turkish relations. When we arrived in Turkey in the fall of 1975, the American flag was not permitted to be flown over the American installation at Balgat Air Base, on the outskirts of Ankara, where the American school and the U.S.-Turkish military logistics support establishment were located. There was one exception: July 4, 1976, when the flag was raised as part of the U.S. bicentennial celebration. But the flag came down the next day.
Bolivar Reborn
November 29, 2007
‘The Chávez revolution remains the most original and democratic experiment in Latin America, and is clearly here to stay’, argues Richard Gott.
In an unusually large open space, in a poor area of the city of Caracas where ramshackle houses built from breeze blocks and concrete columns occupy every available piece of ground, and where narrow streets wind up the hillside filled perpetually by throngs of people, one of the many thousands of cooperative enterprises created in the last few years has been securely established.
Two large hangars house workshops, and close by is a large well-equipped clinic and a government food store selling cheap food, known as a Mercal. It sells a limited range of basic foodstuffs but would hardly justify the title of supermarket. Today, as everywhere throughout Caracas, powdered milk is in short supply, although no one knows for certain if this is the result of opposition manoeuvre and malice, or of government incompetence.
Liberal Islamophobia
November 29, 2007
Imagine a headline in the British liberal press declaring ‘Judaism and the modern world don’t mix’. Inconceivable? Most definitely. The paper will be invite well deserved opprobrium and will be duly charged with anti-Semitism. This of course did not happen. Instead we have a headline in the liberal Independent declaring, ‘Islam and the modern world don’t mix‘. Now that is a pretty serious claim, and one surely wouldn’t expect to see it in a reputed daily unless the evidence were overwhelming. In this case, however, the evidence comprises of a sole incident in Sudan, which, incidentally, has been condemned by most Muslims. This did not deter the columnist, Joan Smith, from her sweeping generalization. This can of course be seen either as the eccentric opinion of a deranged blabbermouth published in the interest of the kind of sensationalism that without fail boosts paper sales. Or maybe there is something more going on here?
Joan Smith, for those who don’t know, is the partner of notorious Israel-fister and Islamophobe Denis MacShane who for some years has been active in the defamation campaign against Muslims. MacShane is also the purveyor of the ‘New Antisemitism’ thesis, and an active member of the UK wing of the Israel lobby, the Labour Friends of Israel. For more on this clown, check out my earlier post.
CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces
November 29, 2007
A Counterpunch exclusive: James Petras reports on the uncovering of CIA’s latest plans at destabilization in Venezuela.
On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which will influence the referendum this Sunday, December 2, 2007.
The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden. The memo was entitled ‘Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer’ and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym ‘HUMINT’ (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA’s polls concede that 57 per cent of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60 per cent abstention.
Covering Up the Trail of Dead Iraqis
November 28, 2007
My friend Dahr Jamail has an excellent report in Salon showing ‘how the Pentagon has used “tactical perception management” to obscure the killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces’.
“Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him.” — Col. Potter, M*A*S*H
Name them. Maim them. Kill them.
From the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq, airstrikes and attacks by the U.S. military have only killed “militants,” “criminals,” “suspected insurgents,” “IED [Improvised Explosive Device] emplacers,” “anti-American fighters,” “terrorists,” “military age males,” “armed men,” “extremists” or “al-Qaida.”
