Day: June 19, 2009

Tell YouTube not to censor Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana’s video

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The night before President Obama spoke in Cairo, Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana took a video camera to downtown Jerusalem and asked kids on the street – mainly Americans in Jerusalem over the summer – how they felt about Obama. The answers they heard: mainly hardcore racism enhanced by expletives, homophobia, Islamophobia, Arab hatred, and a lot of ignorance.

Blumenthal posted a video to YouTube called “Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem on Eve of Obama’s Cairo Address”. Then, without explanation, YouTube took down the video and has stonewalled all attempts to find out what happened.

The night before President Obama spoke in Cairo, Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana took a video camera to downtown Jerusalem and asked kids on the street – mainly Americans in Jerusalem over the summer – how they felt about Obama. The answers they heard: mainly hardcore racism enhanced by expletives, homophobia, Islamophobia, Arab hatred, and a lot of ignorance.

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Water for Sale: Thirst for Profit: Corporate Control of Water in Latin America

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19 June, 2009 – Council on Hemispheric Affairs

  • What is called for is an international code for the public’s access to a guaranteed supply of water as a basic human right.

The Corporate Crusade to Commodify Water

Water has been characterized as the oil of the 21st century. Blue gold. It is essential to life, and yet humanity faces a growing water crisis as a result of severe mismanagement in water and sanitation, which will be exponentially exacerbated in the coming decades by population growth combined with declining resources. Latin America has the greatest income disparity in the world and the population’s access to water reflects this inequality. Over 130 million people living in the region do not have access to potable water in their homes, and sanitation is in even poorer condition, as it is estimated that only one in six persons has adequate sanitation services. According to the 2007 Annual Report from the nonprofit organization Water For People, ‘Every day, nearly 6,000 people who share our world die from water-related illnesses – more than 2 million each year – and the vast majority of these are children…There are more lives lost each year to water-related illnesses than to natural disasters and wars combined.’ It is clear that lack of access to clean water is a serious issue, one that has only started to gain international attention from a variety of organizations in recent years.

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Video: Israeli troops humiliate Palestinians – and put it on YouTube

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19 June, 2009 – Ha’aretz

http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Groupvideo.2765705

Forty-three seconds: that’s the duration of a video clip uploaded to YouTube less than a year ago under the category of “Comedy.”

For the “hero” of the clip, an unidentified young Arab, they were probably eternally long seconds and far from amusing. He was forced to slap himself and sing to the jubilant shouts of the photographer and his buddies – all of them members of Israel’s Border Police.

This clip, which has been viewed more than 2,800 times, shows the unknown Palestinian standing in a desert setting while a disembodied voice orders him in Hebrew to hit himself: “Yallah, start, do it hard!”

The viewers hear the chuckles of the other policemen and a clear voice telling the Arab: “Say ‘Ana behibak Mishmar Hagvul’ [“I love the Border Police? in a mix of Arabic and Hebrew]. Say it!”

They see him obey in a subdued voice and with a frightened look, even as he goes on slapping himself. They hear the “director” laughing and the faceless voice shouting: “Again! Ana behibak Mishmar Hagvul.”

After a little more than 30 seconds, the voice says, “Say ‘Wahad hummus wahad ful'” – and the Arab man obeys and then is told to complete the rhyme: “Ana behibak Mishmar Hagvul.”

After 40 seconds, the abusers appear to have had enough and the voice impatiently orders the victim: “Yallah, rukh, rukh, rukh” (“go”). The camera turns and for a fraction of a second a Border Police Jeep is visible.

A few dozen viewers sent comments. “Hahahaha, it was great the way he excruciated himself.” Another added: “That’s how it should be!!!!! Stinking Arab.”

And a third pointed out, “He should have been shot!! Sons of bitches.” A few viewers took pity on the victim, though with reservations. One person remarked, “Mercy on the guy, even if he’s an Arab. What’s it in aid of? He didn?’t do anything.”

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The Real News Network – Iran's supreme leader appeals for calm

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Khamenei gave his Friday prayer sermon in Tehran since last week’s election which sparked the biggest street protests in the Islamic Republic’s history. “Today the Iranian nation needs calm,” the supreme leader said. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran’s enemies were targeting the Islamic establishment by questioning the authenticity of this month’s election. “The enemies (of Iran) are targeting the Islamic establishment’s legitimacy by questioning the election and its authenticity before and after (the vote). “After street protests, some foreign powers…started to interfere in Iran’s state matters by questioning the result of the vote. They do not know the Iranian nation. I strongly condemn such interference. The Supreme Leader, Iran’s ultimate authority, had earlier urged his compatriots to unite behind hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the declared winner of last Friday’s poll. But supporters of the runner-up, Mir Hossein Mousavi, have so far ignored the call holding huge unauthorised rallies.

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Video: The Real News Network – Nuclear threats and double standards Pt.3

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19 June, 2009

IAEA’s Gustavo Zlauvinen: Israel must join the NPT and get rid of their alleged nuclear weapons

In the latest video, TRNN Senior Editor Paul Jay asked Gustavo Zlauvinen about the apparent hypocrisy of the IAEA’s pursuit in limiting Iranian nuclear armament. Jay asks that if the major nuclear powers were not disarming, and not signing the NPT, by what standard should countries like Iran limit their own nuclear programs. The international pressure to prevent Iranian nuclear weaponization has drawn attention to the nuclear arsenals of other Middle Eastern countries like Israel, a country with allegedly extensive nuclear capabilities. Zlauvinen says that “there are number of resolutions” from the IAEA and other organizations “calling on Israel to join the NPT, calling on Israel to place all their nuclear facilities under inspection of the IAEA, and obviously by getting rid of their nuclear weapons, as allegedly they are.”

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MACHETERO WINS BIG IN THE UK TAKING AWARDS IN BOTH WALES AND ENGLAND

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17 June, 2009

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Continuing on its film festival world tour, MACHETERO screened at two back-to-back festivals in the UK, the Swansea Bay Film Festival in Wales and the Heart Of England International Film Festival in Tamworth, England.

The highly controversial political film written and directed by vagabond took the UK by storm!

vagabond.jpgvagabond, Nick Hudson (Heart Of England Festival Director & Jim Lee (RADIO2 in the UK)

MACHETERO’s European Premiere in the Swansea Bay Film Festival in Wales took home the Award for Best Film – USA. The film is an exploration into the use of violence as a means towards liberation using the specific example of the island nation of Puerto Rico as springboard to delve into the broader and more complex implications of ongoing struggles against colonialism in general.

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The micro budget film stars Issach de Bankolé, (The Limits Of Control, Ghost Dog, The Keeper) Not4Prophet (of the Puerto Punk band RICANSTRUCTION and Hip-Hop group X-VANDALS), Kelvin Fernandez, (in his first starring role) and Dylcia Pagan (who served 20 years in US prisons for trying to free her country Puerto Rico) and features a completely improvised score by RICANSTRUCTION.

After winning in Wales, vagabond continued the next week to Tamworth, England to the Heart Of England International Film Festival where MACHETERO went on to win Best First Film – USA. When vagabond won the award he said, “This award is not just an award for me and those who worked on the film but is an act of solidarity towards all those who are working for the independence of Puerto Rico”. The film seems to be working well as a means of educating people on the United States colonial relationship with Puerto Rico. “People have been coming up to me and saying that they never realized that Puerto Rico was a colony of the United States,” says vagabond, “so the film is not a personal artistic endeavor but it’s informing people and getting them to think about a situation they never knew existed, I can’t think of a higher compliment.”

Since last June at the Hollywood Black Film Festival MACHETERO been nominated 4 times. With vagabond’s previous Award for Best First Film in the International Film Festival South Africa last October the two wins in the UK bring MACHETERO’s current Award count to three. A momentum seems to be gathering for MACHETERO.

For more information on the film and it’s recent award vagabond will be available for interviews. Video clips of the film can be made available to web and television outlets with audio clips available for radio outlets.

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CONTACT: 347-512-0917
vagabond@machetero-movie.com
www.machetero-movie.com
www.myspace.com/macheteromovie
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1312208
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=87B21DE74BD824A2

Book Review: In praise of Engels By Michael Fitzpatrick

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19 June, 2009 – spiked

A new biography of Engels shows that he loved wine, women and song, and was never afraid to leap headfirst into the intellectual battles of his day.

This article is republished from the May 2009 issue of the spiked review of books. View the whole issue here.

engels.jpgMy old comrade, the late Dave Hallsworth, always referred to Friedrich Engels as ‘Fred’. This familiarity reflected the affection and respect in which Marx’s great collaborator was held among British revolutionaries, and a certain pride in his long association with the Manchester proletariat of which Dave was an active protagonist.

As Tristram Hunt observes in his new biography, Engels’ writings – from his impassioned critique of industrial capitalism in Manchester in the 1840s (The Condition of the Working Class in England) to his polemical introduction to Marxism in the 1880s (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific) – were more accessible than Marx’s theoretical writings and had a major impact on the labour movement in the twentieth century.

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Network-centric Warfare: Dominating entire societies Worldwide through ubiquitous surveillance By Tom Burghardt

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11 June, 2009 – Global Research – Antifascist Calling…

What Pentagon theorists describe as a “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA) leverages information technology to facilitate (so they allege) command decision-making processes and mission effectiveness, i.e. the waging of aggressive wars of conquest.

It is assumed that U.S. technological preeminence, referred to euphemistically by Airforce Magazine as “compressing the kill chain,” will assure American military hegemony well into the 21st century. Indeed a 2001 study, Understanding Information Age Warfare, brought together analysts from a host of Pentagon agencies as well as defense contractors Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton and the MITRE Corporation and consultants from ThoughtLink, Toffler Associates and the RAND Corporation who proposed to do just.

As a result of this and other Pentagon-sponsored research, military operations from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond aim for “defined effects” through “kinetic” and “non-kinetic” means: leadership decapitation through preemptive strikes combined with psychological operations designed to pacify (terrorize) insurgent populations. This deadly combination of high- and low tech tactics is the dark heart of the Pentagon’s Unconventional Warfare doctrine.

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Iran: Khamenei rides a storm in a tea cup By M K Bhadrakumar

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Western capitals must make a difficult choice: how long to pin hopes on the eruption of a “color” revolution in Tehran? The burden falls almost entirely on Europe, since Washington has different priorities.

The United States cannot afford to be spotted in the barricades on the frontline of any attempt to prise open the Iranian regime at this delicate point in Middle Eastern politics. Tehran will not forgive for another quarter century at least any such American folly, and the Barack Obama administration has no intentions of committing hara-kiri, either.

Within Europe, it is unclear who is spearheading the charge of the light brigade. No country seems to want to be seen up front – except the Czech Republic, which has no choice, since it currently chairs the rotating European Union presidency. But then, most European countries would probably seldom fail the chance to be Tehran’s bete noire, but will, true to a pattern, swiftly fall back the moment they estimate that the law of diminishing returns is at work and continued tirades might jeopardize lucrative commercial interests in Iran.

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Netanyahu’s “brilliant” peace plan By Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah

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17 June, 2009 – The Electronic Intifada

“What is particularly dismaying about the position stated by Obama in Cairo — and since repeated constantly by his Middle East envoy George Mitchell — is that the United States is committed to the “legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.” This formula is designed to sound meaningful, but these vague, campaign-style buzzwords are devoid of any reference to inalienable Palestinian rights. They were chosen by American speechwriters and public relations experts, not by Palestinians. The Obama formula implies that any other Palestinian aspirations are inherently illegitimate.”

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The Har Homa settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Netanyahu defied calls for a halt to settlement expansion in his speech on Monday. (ActiveStills)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a peace plan so ingenious it is a wonder that for six decades of bloodshed no one thought of it. Some people might have missed the true brilliance of his ideas presented in a speech at Bar Ilan University on 14 June, so we are pleased to offer this analysis.

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