Day: June 8, 2009

Joe Higgins, “the Best Fighter Money Can’t Buy,” Elected as MEP

Leave a comment

Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party, receiving 82,366 votes (of which 50,510 were first preference votes), was elected to the Dublin Constituency for the European Parliament.

Listen to Higgins’ speech to the media after his victory.

http://will.illinois.edu/images/flash/player.swf

“This is a roar of opposition by ordinary people in Dublin to the savage policies of the Fianna Fáil-Green Party government in making working people and the unemployed pay for a crisis caused by speculators, by big developers, and by big bankers, facilitated by Fianna Fáil.” — Joe Higgins

Click here for a brief biography of Joe Higgins. For more information, go to the Web site of the Socialist Party (at www.socialistparty.net) or Higgins’ campaign Web site (at www.joehiggins.eu).


MEDIA LENS ALERT: CARTOON KOREA – FILTERED TO FIT: How The Media Keep Us Angry, Ignorant And Afraid

Leave a comment

8 June, 2009 – Media Lens – Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

How much do you know about the increased political tensions on the Korean peninsula? The answer, even for diligent readers of the mainstream press, is likely to be ‘not much’. In place of serious, penetrating analysis the public has been sold a cartoon version of events based on a well-worn propaganda template. It is a tale spun by journalists who appear to know little of the real issues and who have internalised the key rules of ’balanced’ reporting: do not point the finger of blame at your own government (or its allies), and do not question your government’s demonisation of official enemies (learn nothing from the past).

The message being delivered is that North Korea is of the James Bond school of cackling, malevolent villains. This is signalled through unsubtle trigger words whose true meaning is hidden but understood. Thus Simon Tisdall writes in the Guardian:

“What is clear is that the grand panjandrums [self-important people] of Pyongyang, the secretive leaders who dwell in the hermit kingdom’s mysterious palaces of smoke and mirrors, have confounded their adversaries once again.” (Tisdall, ‘Analysis: shock waves felt in US, but Kim’s real target may be closer to home,’ The Guardian, May 26, 2009; www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/25/north-korea-nuclear-test-analysis)

Continue reading →

Lina Suleiman – State of “Caged” Palestinians

Leave a comment

8 June, 2009 – Palestine Think Tank

hillary-obama.jpgAmerican rhetoric is full of devious political Language. The Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview with Al Jazeera in May 19 confirmed that “the US is going to be pushing for a two-state solution which, by its very name, implies borders that have to be agreed to”.

But why the borders should be negotiated and agreed to? Aren’t they fixed by the UN resolutions? Do resolutions drop by the reason of time elapsing?  Shouldn’t the US and their western allies push for the implementation of international law as they did in the Iraqi and Lebanese cases?   And who is expected to negotiate with whom? Is it the corrupt, self-serving, feckless and illegitimate government of Abbas and Salam Fayyad? The CIA and President Obama could not trust but only the latter to have the lead for the new Palestinian government?  By that, we have to thank the current American administration, the unity talks have turned into hostility again. That is so convenient for both Israel and the US to maintain the propagandized claims of “there is no real partner for peace” and “Palestinians cannot rule themselves”. But should it be a surprise at all? Wasn’t it the Bush administration that agitated the bifurcation among Palestinians in line with the widespread conventional political wisdom of “divide and rule”? According to Vanity Fair, a covert initiative to provoke a Palestinian civil war was approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams. The plan was for forces to be trained by the “moderate” Arab governments to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. Then why we should believe the mendacious cries by the US and the branded “moderates Arabs” for Palestinians unity afterward?

Continue reading →