Beyond Orwell: The Electronic Police State, 2010
by Tom Burghardt
A truism perhaps, but before resorting to brute force and open repression to halt the "barbarians at the gates," that would be us, the masters of declining empires (and the chattering classes who polish their boots) regale us with tales of "democracy on the march," "hope" and other banalities before the mailed fist comes crashing down.

Putting it another way, as the late, great Situationist malcontent, Guy Debord did decades ago in his relentless call for revolt, The Society of the Spectacle:

"The reigning economic system is a vicious circle of isolation. Its technologies are based on isolation, and they contribute to that same isolation. From automobiles to television, the goods that the spectacular system chooses to produce also serve it as weapons for constantly reinforcing the conditions that engender 'lonely crowds.' With ever-increasing concreteness the spectacle recreates its own presuppositions."

And when those "presuppositions" reproduce ever-more wretched clichés promulgated by true believers or rank opportunists, take your pick, market "democracy," the "freedom to choose" (the length of one's chains), or even quaint notions of national "sovereignty" (a sure fire way to get, and keep, the masses at each others' throats!) we're left with a fraud, a gigantic swindle, a "postmodern" refinement of tried and true methods that would do Orwell proud!

by Rettet den Regenvald (Rainforest Rescue)

Since 09.03.10 1144 people have participated in this protest action.

Stop the evictions and massacres! Stop the evictions and massacres!

Multinational corporations are covetting strategic natural resources in the Lacandon Forest in the Mexican state of Chiapas. At the same time, the state government is pursuing ambitious plans to surround the Lacondan Forest with oil palm plantations, while disguising the forest around the plantations as ‘eco’- tourism areas. The corporations are preparing for those projects, by attacking and evicting indigenous communities.

On 21st and 22nd of January this year, the indigenous Tselales communities of Laguna El Suspiro and Laguna San Pedro Guanil, both inside the Biosphere Reserve of Montes Azuls in the Lacandon Forest, were evicted. Montes Azules is home to one third of Mexico’s biodiveristy.

Aren't We Cheneyed Out Yet?
by Laura Flanders
At what point do we call them the family of mass intimidation and simply stop playing into the Cheney clan's tired old terror tactics?

Liz is the latest. Cheney child number one made the headlines this week, with an innuendo-laced video questioning the loyalty of lawyers who represent Guantanamo detainees. "The Al Qaeda 7: Who are they?"

 

Asks the voice on a video released by Cheney's supposedly nonprofit, non-partisan new hit squad. (They call it an advocacy group?)

 

 

 

"Political Islamic groups have taken southern Iraq, are fully in power there, and are using the financial support of Iran to recruit troops and allies. The financial and political support from Iran is why the Iraqis in the south accept this, not because the Iraqi people want Islamic law."

With the new law has come the new lawlessness. Nora Hamaid, 30, a graduate from Baghdad University, has now given up the career she dreamt of. "I completed my studies before the invaders arrived because there was good security and I could freely go to university," Hamaid tells IPS. Now she says she cannot even move around freely, and worries for her children every day. "I mean every day, from when they depart to when they return from school, for fear of abductions."

A Matter of Timing
by Uri Avnery l Gush Shalom
Some weeks the news is dominated by a single word. This week’s word was “timing”.

It’s all a matter of timing.

 

The Government of Israel has insulted the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, one of the greatest “friends” of Israel (meaning: somebody totally subservient to AIPAC) and spat in the face of President Barack Obama.

 

So what? It’s all a matter of timing.

If the government had announced the building of 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem a day earlier, it would have been OK. If it had announced it three days later, it would have been wonderful. But doing it exactly when Joe Biden was about to have dinner with Bibi and Sarah’le – that was really bad timing.

Lawfare Redux
by Scott Horton
As the recent attacks by Liz Cheney and her organization demonstrate, “lawfare” as a subject is not going to disappear anytime soon. Lawyers simply make too inviting targets–even when they’re working pro bono on projects that they believe are advancing the Rule of Law. A conference yesterday in New York showed just how the “lawfare” concept can be reshaped to address new situations and different facts.

The resplendent meeting room of the New York County Lawyers Association, filled with Beaux Arts details and crystal chandeliers, was a curious site for the gathering organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Generations of bar leaders stared down from the walls—many of them key players in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, the Genocide Convention, and other mainstays of the world’s human-rights legal infrastructure–as speakers took to the podium to tell the audience that international law wasn’t all it was cranked up to be.

There was a danger of “taking international law too seriously,” as George Mason University’s Jeremy Rabkin put it. “It’s not like the tax code,” he argued; the rules are unclear and, more to the point, there is no court to enforce them. Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton also spoke at the event, and is indeed well known for his denigrating views about international law:

    It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so–because over the long term… those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States.

* More than 25,000 miles have been dredged for navigation

 

by TRNN
Mark Weisbrot reports back on Hillary Clinton's 6-country tour of Latin America. While seeking to repair the US image, her campaigns for the recognition of the controversial Honduran government, and the sanctioning of Iran, didn't win over her hosts.

 

urging recognition of controversial Honduran gov't

He aptly concluded: “It’s despicable, the national press corps right now.”

Sure enough, the Thursday edition of the New York Times had no room for the historic debate on its front page, which did have room for a large Starbucks ad across the bottom.

Despite the news media and the lopsided pro-war tilt on Capitol Hill (reflected in the 356-65 vote Wednesday against invoking the War Powers Act), antiwar organizing has a lot of hospitable terrain at the grassroots. National polling shows widespread opposition to the Afghanistan war effort -- a far cry from the dominant lockstep conformity in Congress.