11 August 2011 — Stop NATO
11 August 2011 — MRZine
Two of my favorite quotes come into play here, one by the English poet, Alexander Pope, who explained that “some people will never learn anything . . . because they understand everything too soon,” and George Bernard Shaw, much more resigned and ironic in stating that “we learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.” From various misguided and superficial “open letters” to “the left” on Libya, to the recent renewal of righteous interventionism with respect to Syria, it seems that the greatest deficit in Western thinking about these unruly and barbarous others is not a deficit in sincerity, as I once mistakenly thought, but a learning deficit.
11 August 2011
Yesterday, 10 August our vainglorious pm announced that the communities from which it is alleged the ‘rioters and looters’ emanated from were “sick”. But more on who is really sick in our society later. In the meantime I’d like to pick up on an aspect of the state’s response (or apparent lack of) to the uprising that I referred to yesterday, namely my assertion that the forces of ‘law and order’ deliberately allowed fires to burn and shops to be looted, as it served to demonize the people involved as well as justifying the use of heavy firepower and a complete lockdown (which happened yesterday).
9 August — Morning Star – Comment
For all the sense that David Cameron spoke following the Cobra emergency committee meeting, he might as well have stayed in his luxury Tuscan villa.
11 August 2011 — williambowles.info
Shmoop Snoops the Facebook Profiles and Email Inboxes of the Gods, Launches …
San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
@shmoop went all WikiLeaks on us… mere mortals are all up in our Olympian business. SOCTLB* According to an anonymous Valhalla-based publicist, Shmoop’s team of private investigators infiltrated some seriously personal files and facts about the Greek …
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/10/prweb8708932.DTL
9 August 2011 — Global Research
“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan.” General Wesley Clark
9 August 2011 — Global Research
“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan.” General Wesley Clark
10 August 2011 — New Left Project
Consider the following hypothetical situation: a group of policeman unlawfully kill a suspected criminal. We do not know what has lead to the unlawful killing – only that it takes place and – having taken place, must now, somehow, be presented to the public as a ‘lawful kill’.
10 August 2011 — Black Agenda Report
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Britain’s Black rebellion shocked the nation, but has not produced the kind of carnage that routinely accompanies urban unrest in the United States. ‘Had London’s current disturbances occurred on a similar scale in New York City, with outbreaks across the various boroughs, the police would have unleashed a bloodbath.’ Which is not to say that the United Kingdom’s criminal justice system is not as thoroughly racist as its American cousin. It’s just that white Brit society is – relatively speaking – less bloodthirsty.
11 August 2011 — Center for Economic Policy Research
Does fiscal consolidation lead to social unrest? From the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1930s to anti-government demonstrations in Greece in 2010-11, austerity has tended to go hand in hand with politically motivated violence and social instability. In this paper, we assemble cross-country evidence for the period 1919 to the present, and examine the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. The results show a clear positive correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability. We test if the relationship simply reflects economic downturns, and conclude that this is not the key factor. We also analyse interactions with various economic and political variables. While autocracies and democracies show a broadly similar responses to budget cuts, countries with more constraints on the executive are less likely to see unrest as a result of austerity measures. Growing media penetration does not lead to a stronger effect of cut-backs on the level of unrest.
10 August 2011 — New Left Project
Obviously this isn’t exhaustive, but here are a few things that have come up:
1. A group of community activists have called a demonstration for this Saturday: Give Our Kids a Future! A North London Unity Demonstration
Details: 1.00pm : Saturday, 13th August. Meet Gillett Square, Dalston and march to Tottenham Green
You can sign up at the Facebook page. Here’s the accompanying statement:
11 August 2011
10 August 2011 — Black Agenda Report: News, commentary and analysis from the black left
Barack’s Satan Sandwich Only The First Course: Will We Re-Hire the Chef in 2012 Anyway?
Bruce A. Dixon
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver pronounced the debt deal a Satan Sandwich. The CBC is conducting its own “jobs tour,” without any government jobs, and the House progressive caucus is denouncing the series of rolling raids on Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security that the debt deal sets in motion. But will this, or anything stop progressives from re-hiring Chef Obama again in 2012?
10 August , 2011 — VTJP
News
International Middle East Media Center
Fatah Report Claims Dahlan Poisoned Arafat and Stole Millions
IMEMC – Wednesday August 10, 2011 – 13:00, An official Fatah report claims that former Gaza security chief, Mohammad Dahlan, was responsible for the poisoning of Yasser Arafat. It also accuses Dahlan of stealing millions of dollars in US aid money.
10 August 2011 — Information Clearing House
NATO Kills 85 Civilians In Libya
Video
Video shows outrage to the massacre of 85 civilians by NATO
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28809.htm
The New Dark Age 