Bulletin N° 837

Le Roi Et L' Oiseau

https://archive.org/details/LeRoiEtLOiseau_201709

Subject : Cui bono?

13 March 2019

Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

The Latin phrase about identifying crime suspects ("to whom is it a benefit?") expresses the view that crimes are oftentimes committed to benefit their perpetrators, especially financially. Cui bono? stands for a first principle which stipulates that probable responsibility for an act or event lies with one having something to gain.

Today, a mountain of work is being done on investigating who benefits from Climate Catastrophe and War. If public knowledge is not yet translated into effective political action which is centered on collective self-interest it is because fear, confusion, and a myriad of distractions have dulled our critical capacities for thinking clearly. Nevertheless, axiomatic truths are breaking through the fog; and blind anxiety is turning into grief, lucid anger, and eventually into collective action.

A recent re-reading of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel, Brave New World, has brought home the fact that during these past many decades - since the end of World War II - our general prosperity has been based on a concentration of capital and power designed to dominate the sources of our great wealth at whatever the human costs. Pacification of the domestic population and the terrible displacement of violence which is visited periodically upon peoples living outside the borders of United States has been exposed as a necessary mechanism that operates to assure the mystique of a “Liberal Capitalist Order and Expansion.”

With the demise of this illusory “Order,” new questions are now being posed and scientific answers are being earnestly sought :

World War I (“to make the world safe for democracy” or safe for new capital investments?)

The Great Depression (capitalist collapse or capitalist opportunity?)

World War II (“in defense of ‘the four freedoms’” or for Freedom N°1 – to accumulate a maximum quantity of private capital?)

Were these historic events contrived? Were they conspiracies? Were they deliberately engineered?

-Nonsense! don’t even think about it!

“Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.

The times they are a-changin’.”

-Ambiguous . . . ? Maybe!

Huxley began his 1946 preface to Brave New World with the following observation:

CHRONIC REMORSE, As all moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoings. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean. (p.xli)

Life, like art, has its good moments and bad; we should not indulge in the fallacy of attempting to freeze the flow and lament a non-existent, imaginary static representation.

The 18 + items below offer readers more on current events which are generating mass opposition to the Fake Captialist Order, which is driven, as it were, by the forces of Vanity & Karma. With the several essays and articles below, we are encouraged to re-examin our past, using the tried and proven inductive method of Sherlock Holmes, asking ourselves continually the same question, over and over: “Cui bono?" We can then test our findings with the deductive method employed by Marxists.

Benediximus . . . !

Sincerely,

Francis Feeley

Professor emeritus of American Studies

University Grenoble-Alpes

Director of Research

University of Paris-Nanterre

Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements

The University of California-San Diego

http://www.ceimsa.org/

Big Capital, the Working Class, and US Imperialism: a Brief Look at Recent History

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/07/big-capital-the-working-class-and-us-imperialism-a-brief-look-at-recent-history/

by Chuck Churchill

Today, the two looming “existential threats” are the possibility of nuclear war, and unprecedented human-caused climate change, yet neither of these seems to unduly concern our plutocrats. Capitalism thrives on war, and we forget this historical fact at our peril. Nor do they seem worried about the drastic consequences of global warming, which has been denied, ignored, or downplayed in the corporate media. In fact, it may appear that the big business oligarchs who run the US and dictate policy to a large part of the rest of the world fear very little, perhaps least of all the world’s working classes. These people suffer most from capitalism: they die in large numbers in imperialist wars and are chronically victimized by unemployment and economic crises. They are (and will continue to be) the main victims of capitalist-caused climate change.

The world’s workers have the greatest incentive, and also a long history, of fighting back against oppression. The potential (and, historically, the actual) organized power of workers is what rulers have feared and fear today; in spite of the enormous apparent difficulties in bringing this power to bear, it represents the only possibility of countering big capital. Organized workers cut into profits at home and abroad and at times have represented a revolutionary threat to corporate power. They can disrupt ruling class expansionary plans, up to and including imperialist wars. Thus, big capital fights wars on several fronts but always with the aim of keeping the world’s working classes in a state of atomization essential to the continued functioning of capitalism.

Workers’ labor creates the wealth and power that is then used against them. To be competitive, capitalists replace workers with machinery (today it is computers and robotics) and cut wages. These practices consistently reduce the rate of profit and undermine purchasing power (demand) by depriving workers of jobs and adequate wages. Declining profits spell economic crises and sharper international capitalist rivalries, including competitive wars aimed at preserving or expanding empires. Weaker capitalists go bankrupt; their businesses are absorbed by the stronger, and ownership is concentrated into fewer hands (the 1%, or even a fraction of this) while the world’s workers suffer most from these processes. Monopolistic industries collude to stop price-cutting; but they cannot escape cost cutting measures that target labor and lead to economic slumps. From these fewer but more powerful capitalist big businesses have emerged to dominate economies and governments, currently headed up by the United States whose duopoly party system ensures corporate rule.

In the US, workers’ organized ability to protect themselves from big capital has waxed and waned. Today, it seems to be at its lowest point since the post-Civil War period that culminated in a handful of monopolized industries, “the trusts,” in control of land, railroads, oil companies, factories, and banks. This has all now been “normalized,” but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries large numbers of people opposed this monopolization and swelled the ranks of the Populist and Progressive movements that influenced both political parties and produced presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Neither of them, despite their rhetoric about restoring competition, really aimed to halt capitalist consolidation, but both were highly successful at containing opposition to it. Today, an even tinier minority of the population owns all major means of production, distribution, finance and media; despite their small numbers and tremendous power, they have been unable to overcome the capitalist tendency to produce economic crises and wars.

"Reporter Confronts U.S. Gov. Tool On Venezuela Lies"

http://youtu.be/EUUcnPDs1LM

Financial Imperialism: the Case of Venezuela

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/05/financial-imperialism-the-case-of-venezuela/

by Jack Rasmus

Invasion of Venezuela by US and its proxies is just around the corner! This past week vice-president Pence flew to Colombia once again—for the fifth time in recent weeks—to provide final instructions to US local forces and proxy allies there for the next step in the US regime change plan.

Evidence that the ‘green light’ for regime change and invasion is now flashing are supportive public statement by former president, Barack Obama, and several high level US Democratic party politicians and candidates, directly attacking the Maduro regime. They are signaling Democrat Party support for invasion and regime change. Events will now accelerate—just in time perhaps to coincide with the release of Mueller Report on Trump.

Behind the scenes it is clear, as it has been for months, that US Neocons are once again back in charge of US foreign policy, driving the US toward yet another war and attempt at regime change of a foreign government.

US Strategy in Brief

The US Neocon-led strategy is increasingly clear: establish a ‘beach-head’ on the Colombian-Venezuelan (and Venezuelan-Brazilian) border under the guise of providing humanitarian aid. Use the aid to get Venezuelans on the border to welcome the US proxy forces to cross over. Set up political and military structures thereafter just inside the Venezuelan borders with Colombia and Brazil, from which to launch further similar efforts deeper into Venezuela. Repeat this province by province, step by step, penetrating Venezuela space until enough local units of the Venezuelan military change sides and convince one or more of the Venezuelan military hierarchy to join them. Establish a dual state and government within and along the border of the Venezuelan state this way. A breakaway State and dual power within the country. Make it appear, by manipulating the media, that the Venezuelan people are rising up against the Maduro government, when in fact it is US proxy forces invading and using opportunist local politicians, military, and others in the ‘conquered’ zones, as the media covers for their invasion.

The main ideological justification being used for the invasion and regime change is that the Maduro government has grossly mismanaged the Venezuelan economy and driven its people into poverty. With Democrats now joining Trump and Republicans in support of invasion, the liberal mainstream US media, as well as the rightwing alternative media, are both pushing the same line, to blunt US opposition to invasion and yet another war before the final military assault is launched. Somehow the democratic elections less than a year ago, which returned the Maduro government to power, did not represent the ‘will of the people’. Explanations how they did not are thin and unconvincing, moreover. Nor is any explanation given how US policies and actions have played the central role in destroying Venezuela’s currency and economy. And the financial measures used to destabilize the economy are especially opaque.

Report From the Real Venezuela

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfD-7_kXs9E

with Max Blumenthal

Noam Chomsky on Venezuela

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjVHUEI_0-o

Presstitutes Turn Blind Eye to UN Report on Venezuela

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51251.htm

"Video of US aid trucks contradicts MSM narrative"

https://youtu.be/SmW_GO5TvE0

===========

The Infiltrators: How Undocumented Activists Snuck Into Immigration Jail to Fight Deportations

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/4/the_infiltrators_how_undocumented_activists_snuck

_______________

From: mkroopkin
Sent: Wednesday, 6 March, 2019
Subject: March 6 at Che Cafe: Co-ops & Collectives Alumni Presents

A FREE EVENT.

UCSD Co-ops & Collectives Alumni Presents

Our first event in our new series of teach-ins, workshops, book signings, and performances will be on Wednesday, March 6, 1 pm at the Che Cafe. Co-sponsored by Che Cafe Collective and UCSD Third World Studies. This event will be recorded by KSDT radio for future broadcast by KNSJ community radio and audio archive posting at newindicator.org

"The Impact of Lithium Mining in the Indigenous Communities of the Andes",
a conversation with UCSD professor Luis Martin-Cabrera.

Lithium, for batteries, has become essential in the growth of the solar power and electric car industries. Lithium mining is impacting indigenous communities in the Andes Mountains. In the tradition of teach-ins, the event will encourage participation and attention to solutions.

Some light refreshments will be available from the Che Cafe kitchen.

I hope you can make it. I hope you can help make our first series event a success.

See also the event page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/255124848751794/

Monty Kroopkin,

for C&C Alumni

The Sunrise Movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8OaXRk1i9c

with Noam Chomsky

Gilets jaunes : un manifestant violemment matraqué à Quimper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w28CyirhxHE

===========

With Ecuador’s Cooperation Bought by IMF Loans, Washington Waxes Optimistic on Assange Extradition

https://www.mintpressnews.com/ecuadors-cooperation-bought-imf-loans-washington-waxes-optimistic-assange-extradition/255942/

by Whitney Webb

Chelsea Manning’s fight against her subpoena in the U.S. Department of Justice’s grand-jury case targeting WikiLeaks founder and former publisher Julian Assange this past week has revealed several uncomfortable truths, not only about that investigation but also about the fate of Assange, whose asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy hangs precariously in the balance.

While reporting on the probe has largely focused on the nature of the still-sealed DOJ case, most reports have largely missed the fact that the marked increase in activity relating to the probe is directly related to the fact that Ecuador has, by all indications, agreed to rescind Assange’s asylum so that he may be extradited to the United States. As a consequence, the U.S. is moving forward with its case against Assange and WikiLeaks — which began nearly a decade ago in 2010 — now that it has received assurances that Assange’s extradition is a matter of when, not if.

Just days into 2019, the former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, who had originally granted Assange asylum in 2012, shared via Twitter a document showing that Ecuador’s current government, led by Lenín Moreno, was “auditing” Assange’s asylum as well as Assange’s Ecuadorian citizenship, which he had been granted in late 2017.

Sydney rally issues strong demand for the freedom of Julian Assange

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/04/rall-m04.html

The Prisoner Says No To Big Brother

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51204.htm

by John Pilger

Whenever I visit Julian Assange, we meet in a room he knows too well. There is a bare table and pictures of Ecuador on the walls. There is a bookcase where the books never change. The curtains are always drawn and there is no natural light. The air is still and fetid.
This is Room 101.
Before I enter Room 101, I must surrender my passport and phone. My pockets and possessions are examined. The food I bring is inspected.
The man who guards Room 101 sits in what looks like an old-fashioned telephone box. He watches a screen, watching Julian. There are others unseen, agents of the state, watching and listening.
Cameras are everywhere in Room 101. To avoid them, Julian manoeuvres us both into a corner, side by side, flat up against the wall. This is how we catch up: whispering and writing to each other on a notepad, which he shields from the cameras. Sometimes we laugh.
I have my designated time slot. When that expires, the door in Room 101 bursts open and the guard says, "Time is up!" On New Year's Eve, I was allowed an extra 30 minutes and the man in the phone box wished me a happy new year, but not Julian.
Of course, Room 101 is the room in George Orwell's prophetic novel, 1984, where the thought police watched and tormented their prisoners, and worse, until people surrendered their humanity and principles and obeyed Big Brother.

Freedom for Julian Assange depends upon

the intervention of the working class

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/04/jcra-m04.html

by James Cogan

Speech by James Cogan, March 3, 2019

I want to add my thanks to all of you who have rallied today, and who are taking part via the Facebook Livestream—which I believe is also going out via Unity4J—and tweeting comments and support.

This demonstration, like the demonstration we held on June 17, 2018, is demanding that the Australian government intervene and exercise the full weight of its diplomatic power and legal discretion to compel the government of Britain to immediately cease arbitrarily detaining WikiLeaks publisher and Australian citizen Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Edward Snowden rips light Manafort sentence: 'Your sentence derives from your proximity to power'

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51245.htm

by Daniel Chaitin

As Manning Goes to Jail, Watch the 19th Vigil for Assange

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/03/08/as-manning-goes-to-jail-watch-the-19th-vigil-for-assange/

===========

WikiLeaks Whistle-blower Manning Subpoenaed to Testify in Case Against Assange

https://sputniknews.com/us/201903031072918581-wikileaks-manning-chelsea-subpoena/

Chelsea Manning Loses Bid to Avoid Testifying About (Apparently) WikiLeaks

https://gizmodo.com/chelsea-manning-loses-bid-to-avoid-testifying-about-ap-1833079175

by Dell Cameron

Chelsea Manning is in jail. Our silence is shameful

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51244.htm

Melbourne rally calls on workers and youth to defend Assange and Manning

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/11/melb-m11.html

===========

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Wednesday, 6 March, 2019
Subject: [MCM] Israel lobby "disproves" Omar's claim about its massive influence by proving it

Anyone who needs the truth of what she said spelled out for them should read Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. esp. pp. 152-62.

MCM

Israel Lobby Rebuts Omar’s Claims About Its

Immense Influence By Exerting Its Immense

Influence

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/05/israel-lobby-refutes-omars-claims-about-its-immense-influence-by-exerting-its-immense-influence/

by Caitlin Johnston

In response to criticisms made by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar that US political leaders have too much allegiance to Israel and its lobbying groups, House Democrats have put forward an entire House resolution in accordance with demands made by AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League.

“The backlash [over Omar’s comments] continued on Monday, as the Anti-Defamation League wrote a letter to Pelosi calling for a House resolution to specifically reject what the organization calls Omar’s ‘latest slur,'” Politico reports. “‘We urge you and your colleagues to send the unambiguous message that the United States Congress is no place for hate,’ the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote in a letter.”

“The charge of dual loyalty not only raises the ominous specter of classic anti-Semitism, but it is also deeply insulting to the millions upon millions of patriotic Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, who stand by our democratic ally, Israel,” tweeted the Israel lobbying group AIPAC on Friday in response to Omar’s comments.

“I hope @AIPAC isn’t too angry that it took Democratic House leaders almost 48 whole hours to do what they’re told to condemn their own member and will instead be understanding that it was a weekend and that’s what caused the delay,” snarked journalist Glenn Greenwald in response to the news of the House resolution.

Ilhan Omar in Her Own Words: I Know What Hate Feels Like

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/8/ilhan_omar_in_her_own_words

It’s Time to Tell the Truth: Israeli Journalist Gideon Levy Supports

Ilhan Omar’s Critique of Israel

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/8/its_time_to_tell_the_truth

The Zionists, “The Skinnies”, and American Democracy

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51241.htm

Former AIPAC employee MJ Rosenberg: Is it all about the money?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMVeKK2UhQs

===========

Europe must abandon these foolish Brussels treaties

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/10/abandon-foolish-brussels-treaties-emmanuel-macron

by Jean-Luc Mélenchon

The UK Labour Party’s “Antisemitism Crisis”

and the Likud Supporters in Its Leadership

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/06/the-uk-labour-partys-antisemitism-crisis-and-the-likud-supporters-in-its-leadership/

by Kenneth Surin

The Labour party’s “antisemitism crisis” keeps dragging on.

What can the Labour leadership do about it?

The Labour’s leadership has tried appeasing its critics, but this has not worked. Appeasement has only emboldened these critics.

Jeremy Corbyn’s detractors, both inside and outside the party, are adept at moving the goalposts, and will never be satisfied until he is gone as leader, and Labour once again becomes a “natural” home for opportunists like Tony Blair and his followers, and their friends in the Zionist lobby.

Best just to have a proper process of scrutiny in place, with a complementary disciplinary framework, and place the onus on these to deal with the charges of “antisemitism”, most of which have no merit.

Anti-Semitism Versus Anti-Zionism in Today’s France

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/06/anti-semitism-versus-anti-zionism-in-todays-france/

by Lawrence Davidson

We are at a new stage of the fight to realize Palestinian rights and free both Palestinians and Jews from the consequences of Zionist racism. There was a time when very few in the West understood the racist nature of the Israeli state. For a long time the Zionists controlled the public relations message and most people took as fact the fictional account of Israel’s founding—such as the one given in Leon Uris’s book Exodus. After the 1967 war, and Israel’s decision to keep even more conquered Palestinian territory, things began to change. Of course, Israel had always been a racist place designed for one group alone. But now the contradictions created by post-war occupation made, and continue to make, that fact harder to hide, and the mythical picture of Israel as a grand democratic experiment has eroded. Increasingly the real, illiberal Israel has become apparent to Western audiences, and particularly to an increasing number of Jews. As a result, Israel has largely lost the public relations battle at the popular level of Western society.

However, the winning of this battle is not to be equated with the winning of the fight mentioned above. The Zionists are still able to maintain Western financial and military support of Israel at obscene levels despite Israel’s revealed apartheid nature. To combat the popular criticism that Israel is now subject to, the Zionists have shifted tactics. They have abandoned popular debate and now use their influence with the West’s ruling elites to simply criminalize any rhetoric that points out the real discriminatory nature of the Zionist state. The gambit here is to have such criticism legally equated with anti-Semitism.

Bacevich: Questioning U.S.-Israel Ties Has Long Been Impermissible in Congress, But That’s Changing

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/7/bacevich_questioning_us_israel_ties_has

From: "Working Families Party"
To: "FRANCIS FEELEY" <francis.feeley@u-grenoble3.fr>
Sent: Thursday, 7 March, 2019

Subject: Report: House to vote today on resolution re: Rep. Ilhan Omar

Working Families Party

Francis — Reports are circulating that the House of Representatives may vote on a resolution TODAY. Please read the below message about why we need to unite against all forms of hatred and bigotry, then add a contribution to let Rep. Ilhan Omar know you stand with her in the face of the attacks she is facing from the right wing.

PREVIOUS EMAIL:

Francis —

In January, Rep. Ilhan Omar became one of the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress. Ever since, she has found herself under sustained and coordinated attack from the white nationalist, extremist right.

Death threats in her own district. Elected Republicans shamelessly linking her to 9/11. Calls for her to be expelled from Congress and worse.¹ All coming from a Republican Party that has gone all-in on defending and excusing white nationalism, anti-Semitism, and bigotry of all kinds. All targeted at a young, progressive, trailblazing woman of color — one who has acknowledged and apologized for misstatements, but who has a record of listening and learning, and of standing up against hate.²

But it’s not only Donald Trump and Fox News enabling these attacks. It’s also some in the Democratic Party establishment.

The far-right in this country has seized upon recent comments made by Rep. Omar that were critical of the influence of lobbyists for Israel's far-right government on members of Congress — all in order to escalate their campaign against her.³ That's what we can expect from the right. But Democratic House leadership is reportedly considering introducing a Congressional resolution as soon as this week that would have the effect of singling her out for shaming.⁴

Make a split donation right now: let’s vow to elect even more progressives like Rep. Omar and demonstrate just how many of us are standing shoulder to shoulder with her in the face of these right-wing threats.

Contribute $3 »

Anti-Semitism is real, and it exists across the political spectrum — on the left, as well as the right. Especially with terrifying acts of anti-Semitic violence like the deadly attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, we cannot turn a blind eye to it anywhere.

Rep. Omar has apologized for her choice of words and committed to learning from them. Her biggest critics, on the other hand, include people like Rep. Steve Scalise — who has himself spoken at a conference organized by David Duke — and Donald Trump, who said there were “good people” among the white nationalists who protested in Charlottesville (and who has certainly never apologized or learned anything from his own anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, racist, and xenophobic tweets).

When West Virginia Republicans displayed a poster effectively calling Rep. Omar a terrorist, there was no outrage from Democratic leadership in Congress. And AIPAC, the group leading the offensive against Rep. Omar, is still inviting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to address them, even as he allies with the most far-right, ethno-nationalist force in Israeli politics.⁵

It’s all the more reason why we should be focused on uniting across differences to stand up to fight hate and bigotry in all its forms: anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim bias like the kind Rep. Omar experiences, as well as racism and xenophobia. And we can only do that by standing together, not choosing to play directly into the trap laid by the far right.

That's why we are standing with Rep. Ilhan Omar today. Can you join us? Every single individual grassroots donation we generate for Ilhan sends an unmistakable message that any right-wing attempts to divide us will be met with solidarity and even more support.

Thank you,

Working Families Party

Sources:

1. FBI investigating assassination threat against Rep. Omar scrawled on gas station bathroom stall , Roll Call, March 6, 2019

2. The Democratic Party Attacks on Ilhan Omar Are a Travesty, The Nation, March 5, 2019

3. The dishonest smearing of Ilhan Omar, Washington Post, March 5, 2019

4. House’s Anti-Semitism Resolution Exposes Generational Fight Over Ilhan Omar, New York Times, March 5, 2019

5. At home and abroad, Netanyahu faces backlash for far-right alliance, Reuters, February 24, 2019

Become a Working Families Party Sustainer! Other political groups have corporate donors. We have you. Just $10 a month supports our fight

Paid for by Working Families Party National PAC (1 Metrotech Center North 11th Floor, Brooklyn, NY).

===========

From: "ana hona" <anahona366@gmail.com>

Sent: Thursday, 7 March, 2019 2:48:16 AM

Subject: A martyr and 20 injuries in night demonstrations just east of Gaza, and shelling throughout Gaza

Hello dear

The Israeli occupation forces killed Saif al-Din Imad Nasser Abu Zeid, 15 years old, who died from wounds sustained in eastern Gaza a few hours ago.

The Israeli occupation forces began shelling several places in the Gaza Strip

The Gaza Strip faces several fierce attacks every day and night, shooting at protesters and with varying injuries<

The demonstrators in the Gaza Strip to go to the east of the Gaza Strip at night because of the poor economic situation experienced by the sector since the beginning of the suffocating siege since 2006<

We in our group suffer from a great shortage of treatments, medicines and first aid.

We need you and need your support.

We began to lose control of the injured and our group began to collapse because of the lack of material and moral support for us.

We do not have any of you all we need you.

I beg you to stand by us and support us.

We need you please do not leave us.

thank you all

I am sorry for the inconvenience I am doing.

Please support us through the following new link: https://gogetfunding.com/amal/

Amal Arafa

Thanks

cid:ii_jsxxjdub0

cid:ii_jsxxjduy1

cid:ii_jsxxjdvd2

cid:ii_jsxxjdvo3

cid:ii_jsxxjdvw4

cid:ii_jsxxjdwe6

cid:ii_jsxxjdwn7

cid:ii_jsxxjdww8

Israel hammers Gaza for 3rd night in ‘vigorous response’

ordered by Netanyahu

https://www.rt.com/news/453444-israel-strikes-gaza-attacks/

Palestinian protester shot in the head near Gaza border: ministry

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/palestinian-protester-shot-head-gaza-border-ministry-190308180407086.html

Tamer Arafat, 23, died from his wounds after being shot in the head during Friday's protest, Gaza health ministry says.

From: "ana hona" <anahona366@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, 9 March, 2019 4:11:06 AM
Subject: A new child kills and we stand idly by. Three children are killed in one week A call for help !

Please read carefully

The Israeli occupation forces continue to practice the policy of killing children and killed three children this week, the last of which is today.

The Israeli occupation forces on Friday killed the child Tamer Khaled Arafat east of Rafah in the Gaza Strip

I am probably from here to send my last message and perhaps all of our work will stop and I will stop the group I manage

All this depends on the support we will get in the coming days

I am telling you that we can not collect first aid, medicines and painkillers.

We are approaching the first anniversary of the start of our group and the beginning of the major return marches in the Gaza Strip

A full year was killed in 290 people from the Gaza Strip, all of whom were killed in cold blood as they stood demanding the lifting of the siege on the Gaza Strip

The Israeli occupation forces have wounded tens of thousands of people, more than a quarter of them in need of treatment almost daily

We can not provide these supplies continuously because we always need you

I hope to have your urgent appeal

Please take this seriously because stopping our work means stopping the treatment of many of the people who depend on us

Please be my message to you

We really need you

Very sorry for your inconvenience

I hope you support us via the following link

https://gogetfunding.com/amal/

Palestinian teenager killed by Israeli sniper in Gaza

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/palestinian-teenager-killed-israeli-sniper-gaza-190307063207081.html

Saif al-din Abu Zeid, 15, was shot in the head by Israeli sniper during Wednesday protest, Gaza health ministry says.

===========

From: "Al Burke" <editor@nnn.se>
Sent: Monday, 4 March, 2019 1:43:28 PM
Subject: Amnesty International "Dismissing the Truth"

Greetings!
Amnesty International has distinguished itself in some ways, but certainly not in its reporting on Nicaragua. That is painfully clear from Dismissing the Truth, a lucid analysis published by U.S. and British solidarity groups.

Reproduced below is the Foreword by Camilo Mejia, a former AI prisoner of conscience. The PDF document is available at http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/5704
Let me know if you have any questions and/or comments and I'll pass them along.

Best regards,
Al Burke

P.S. What with the shameful behaviour of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the mounting disgrace of The Guardian, the corruption of Swedish and other varieties of social democracy, etc., etc., I am beginning to wonder if there is some law of human nature which ordains that all positive forces in society are destined to be taken over by witless and/or evil forces — and perhaps that likelihood or certainty ought to be reckoned into their formative stages.

- - - - - -

Dismissing the Truth

Foreword

Camilo Mejia, former Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience

‘In war, truth is the first casualty.’ (Aeschylus)

The above quote, attributed to the ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus, is timely and relevant to the Nicaraguan crisis more than 2500 years after its writing, not only because what has been happening in Nicaragua since April of last year is nothing shy of a war — military, economic, psychological, cultural, political – but also because the truth about the crisis, with the full support of Amnesty International, was indeed the first casualty.

Throughout this critique of Amnesty International’s coverage and reporting of the crisis in Nicaragua, readers will find how public opinion has been manipulated in order to present a highly biased, antigovernment account of the violent events that befell the Central American nation between April and September of 2018. For starters, the first three people who died were a Sandinista, a police officer, and an innocent bystander returning home from work, and their deaths were not only violent, they marked the beginning of a pattern of death and destruction carried out by the opposition that was completely ignored by AI’s two reports: Shoot to Kill and Instilling Terror.

Equally damaging to AI’s omission of the killing of Sandinistas, and anyone standing up to the opposition, is its insistence in portraying the anti-government protesters as peaceful, despite overwhelming photographic and video evidence to the contrary. Along with the misleading portrayal of protesters as unarmed and peaceful, Amnesty also insists on painting the different actions by the opposition as legitimate civic acts of protest, when in reality they were marred by violence and death, as is obvious from the evidence throughout the report which follows.

Some of the notable cases overlooked by AI include the kidnapping and attempted murder of student union leader Leonel Morales, who supported the initial marchers on behalf of his union but was nearly killed by the opposition after the government called for a national dialogue, prompting Morales to call off the protests. Another case was that of Sander Bonilla, a member of the Sandinista
Youth whose kidnapping and torture, overseen by both Catholic and Evangelical priests, were captured on video. There are many other cases, presented here, of victims of the opposition that were either omitted or manipulated by Amnesty International in its two official reports.

Perhaps the most important benefit that this response provides its readers is the encouragement to verify much of the information countering AI’s claims. This response does not address the entirety of AI’s reports (and focuses on the second one), but it provides sufficient information for readers to gain access to enough facts to discover a much wider picture of the crisis, and that in itself is a huge achievement.

While it is of vital importance that people become aware of the reality that we can no longer trust prestigious human rights organizations to tell us what is happening in the world, the real triumph of this critique would be for readers to go beyond both the crisis in Nicaragua and the destabilizing role Amnesty has played in it, because the truth is not a casualty only in Nicaragua, but everywhere else as well. And the real tragedy is not that we may no longer trust AI or others to tell us the truth, but that we have ceded our own agency, our own ability to question dominant narratives, and have chosen instead to blindly trust what powerful entities tell us.

As I write this foreword the United States’ war drums beat on Venezuela, where Amnesty
International has also played a very destabilizing role. And that is how the story goes: the United States chooses a government for regime change, calls upon its grantees — media outlets of global reach, human rights organizations, diplomatic entities, other powerful nations — to vilify the chosen government; before we know, and without ever taking the time to vet the information, we fall prey to the media spell and begin to provide our consent for intervention.

Lives matter! All lives! — including the lives of those whose deaths were omitted by Amnesty International in its two reports on Nicaragua. The lives of those the anti-government opposition robbed, kidnapped, tortured, raped, killed, and even burned in public view, matter. So why not view this critique of a highly reputable human rights organization as an invitation to question the dominant narratives that herald invasions and occupations? We must reclaim our ability, our moral duty, to search for the truth, to find it and uphold it, to protect it, and to hold everyone accountable to it, starting with ourselves.

This report, Dismissing the Truth, provides a way for readers to do precisely that: find the truth on their own.

Miami, Florida
February 2019

===========

BAR Book Forum

Roberto Sirvent’s Review of “Designs for the Pluriverse”

https://www.blackagendareport.com/bar-book-forum-arturo-escobars-designs-pluriverse

by Arturo Escobar

Multiple world crises require that humans construct new designs according to very different principles and categories than those of capitalist modernity.

“We design the world and the world designs us back.”

In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Arturo Escobar . Escobar is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.His book is Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds.

Roberto Sirvent: How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social climate?

Arturo Escobar: Designs for the Pluriverse is precisely about design’s embeddeness in the contemporary world, including its role in creating the multiple crises the world faces today. It is also, consequently, about the potential for reclaiming design for other world-making purposes—less ridden by multiple axes of domination in terms of class, gender, race, coloniality, heteronormativity, the disregard for nonhumans, and so forth. “We” (where “we” should be read as applying more directly to those most directly benefiting from global patriarchal/colonial capitalism) are literally destroying the world at an alarming rate, and I am not just talking about the disappearance of species and the manifold and increasingly destructive effects of climate change. I am also talking about the disruption of basic human sociality, the breakdown of social relations, the proliferation of wars and violence, massive displacement of peoples and nonhumans, abhorrent inequality, racism and xenophobia, and the difficulty many young people face today in crafting lives of meaning for themselves. So much suffering and devastation is becoming unbearable for those who are genuinely attentive to the Earth and to the fate of their fellow humans. The book argues that design is central to the current crisis and that it may be a crucial factor in confronting such a crisis imaginatively and effectively. The book is a plea for us all to look deeply into the world around us so that we perceive anew the devastation that surrounds us, near and far, reaching out to our innermost selves for the strength to face it with utmost care, courage, and hope. This is why the book is dedicated to exemplary figures of struggle for a better, and different, world, including Bob Marley, the Zapatistas of Chiapas, and the Afro-descendant and indigenous peoples of Colombia’s southwest with whom I have been working for twenty-five years.

RS: What do you hope activists and community organizers will take away from reading your book?

“Calling Dr. Strangelove: The threat of nuclear war

cannot prevent World War III forever”

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/453260-ww3-nuclear-weapons-threat/

by Robert Bridge.

===========

democracyatwork

From: Richard Wolff
Sent: Wednesday, 6 March, 2019
Subject: Link to order my "Understanding Marxism"

Dear Friends,

We just published a new, short book directed to the fast-growing interest in socialism and Marxism in the US (see below). Students and activists are the target audiences. We would appreciate your bringing it to the attention of possibly interested people.

Thank you.

Richard D. Wolff

rdwolff.com

“Understanding Marxism”

http://www.lulu.com/shop/richard-d-wolff/understanding-marxism/paperback/product-24002973.html

by Richard D. Wolff (Paperback) - Lulu

Economic Update: Fighting the System

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH6S4of5hJ8&feature=youtu.be

"Capitalism and the Family"

https://youtu.be/plOn4Wz4Uv8

with Richard Wolff

===========

Sanders on Venezuela –

Does His Critique of US Policy Go Far Enough?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0AAHJbeB4g&feature=youtu.be

with Norman Solomon

At the CNN town hall, Sanders opposed U.S. intervention in Venezuela, refused to call Maduro a dictator, or recognize Guaido, but he didn’t call for an end to sanctions - with Jacqueline Luqman, Eugene Puryear, Norman Solomon and host Paul Jay

"Wasserman Schultz Threatens Kicking Bernie Out Of Party

Over Venezuela"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnlEVf7oaVQ&feature=youtu.be

with Greg Palast

US Stealth War on Venezuela

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51242.htm

by Finian Cunningham

Presstitutes Turn Blind Eye to UN Report on Venezuela

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51251.htm

by Paul Craig Roberts

Venezuela's Maduro: Blackout due to cyber-attack, infiltrators

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/venezuela-maduro-blackout-due-cyber-attack-infiltrators-190310065500250.html

"The Media is Complicit in U.S. Coup Attempt for Oil in Venezuela! #HandsOffVenezuela"

https://youtu.be/-fvLRU1y8UQ

===========

Young climate strikers can win their fight. We must all help

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/20/manifesto-youth-climate-strikers-win-fight

by George Monbiot

===========

BBC - Future - What Sherlock Holmes taught us about the mind

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160107-what-sherlock-holmes-tells-us-about-the-mind

“The End of the DOLLAR WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE!”

https://youtu.be/HpPRKNH_Y9U

with G. Edward Griffin

“America from the Outside - How the World sees US – 2013”

https://youtu.be/KJ9nvAX-S1g

with Chris Hedges

===========

How much longer will the middle class politely tolerate its own destruction?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51250.htm

by Robert Gore

The Rise Of Totalitarian Technology

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51249.htm

by Neil Howe

Is technological progress bad for human autonomy? That’s the question posed by Shoshana Zuboff in “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” a book that recounts the ways in which corporations and governments are using technology to influence our behavior. Zuboff is just the latest to chime in on “totalitarian technology” (or “total tech”), a term that describes devices and algorithms by which individuals forfeit their privacy and autonomy for the benefit of either themselves or some third party.

In the United States, total tech can be sorted into three different categories, or “spheres” of life: consumer services, the workplace, and government and politics.

“What does Google know about me?”

https://www.quora.com/What-does-Google-know-about-me/simple_answer/Gabriel-Weinberg

by Gabriel Weinberg

I run a search engine (Duck Duck Go)

Unbreaking America: A NEW Short Film about Solving the U.S. Corruption Crisis

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51243.htm

“Is Religion an Opium of the People?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhHp3Zfu7eE

with Richard Wolff

Liberals Are Digging Their Own Grave With Russiagate

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/liberals-are-digging-their-own-grave-with-russiagate/

It's time to check the Senate majority leader's power: Mitch McConnell doesn't represent the people

https://www.salon.com/2019/03/11/its-time-to-check-the-senate-majority-leaders-power-mitch-mcconnell-doesnt-represent-the-people/

===========

Jared Kushner ‘will eventually be exposed as an

insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold’: Harvard Law professor

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/jared-kushner-will-eventually-be-exposed-as-an-insatiably-greedy-benedict-arnold-harvard-law-professor/

by Bob Brigham

Senior White House advisor Jared Kushner was slammed on Saturday for being “the greatest domestic danger to America.” It started with a Twitter thread by University of New Hampshire professor…

===========

Calling Dr. Strangelove: The threat of nuclear war

cannot prevent World War III forever

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/453260-ww3-nuclear-weapons-threat/

===========

From: Jim O'Brien
Sent: Thursday, 7 March, 2019
Subject: [H-PAD] H-PAD Notes 3/7/19: Links to recent articles of interest.

Links to Recent Articles of Interest

"When the Frontier Becomes the Wall: What the Border Fight Means for One of the Nation's Most Potent, and Most Violent, Myths"

By Francisco Cantu, The New Yorker, March 11 issue

Review-essay on Greg Grandin's new book The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. The reviewer is a writer and translater and former Border Patrol agent.

"The Long History of US-Russian 'Meddling'"

By Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation, posted March 6

The author is a professor emeritus of Russian history at Princeton University and New York University.

"Bread, Circuses, and Duct Tape: Bound at the Border, or How to Make Border Porn"

By Greg Grandin, TomDispatch.com, posted March 5

The author teaches history at New York University.

"The US Quietly Negotiates 'Peace with Honor' in Afghanistan"

By Andrew J. Bacevich, Boston Globe, posted March 1

The author is a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University.

"What Does It Take to Destroy a World Order? How Climate Change Could End Washington's Global Dominion"

By Alfred W. McCoy, TomDispatch.com, posted February 28

The author teaches history at the University of Wisconsin

"White Supremacism in the U.S. Military, Explained"

By Dave Phillips, New York Times, posted February 27

This article includes historical background covering recent decades.

"A Clash Is Coming over America's Place in the World"

By Stephen Wertheim, New York Times, posted February 26

Describes conflict between two groups within the US elite: the "New Cold Warriors" and the "Restrainers." The author teaches history, currently as a visiting assistant professor at Columbia University.

"The VICE File: Dick Cheney Declassified"

by Tom Blanton and Nate Jones, National Security Archive, posted February 22

Presents a range of newly declassified documents shedding light on tghe former vice-president's checkered career.

"Power Is Sovereignty, Mr. Bond"

By Daniel Immerwahr, Dissent, posted February 18

The author teaches history at Northwestern University and his book How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States has just been published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Hands Off Venezuela: A Primer on Capitalism, Imperialism, Revolution, and Crisis

Published by the Organization for a Free Society, February 2019

10-page historical essay plus 59 recommendations for reading on specific topics.

Thanks to Kevin Young and an anonymous reader for suggesting several of the articles in the above list. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.

===========

From: "World BEYOND War" <info@worldbeyondwar.org>
Sent: Monday, 11 March, 2019
Subject: WBW News: Support those who refuse to support war

Click here for online version with language translation.

Support Microsoft Employees Who Refuse War Work
A global coalition of Microsoft employees is refusing to work on military weaponry.
Learn more and sign your name in support of their moral stance.

No to NATO, Yes to Peace FESTIVAL
April 3-4, 2019, Washington, D.C.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is coming to Washington, D.C., on April 4.
We’re organizing a peace festival to unwelcome them.
Here's why, and who will be there, and how you can reserve a spot:
http://notoNATO.org

End the War on Yemen
Both houses of the U.S. Congress have voted to end U.S. participation in the war on Yemen. Both have to vote again, and may do so very soon.
Read: Will the U.S. Senate Let the People of Yemen Live?
Read: Which U.S. Congress Members Support Ending Which Wars
If you're from the United States, email Congress.

Announcing NoWar2019 in Limerick, Ireland, October 5-6
We’re excited to announce our fourth annual conference, combined with a rally.
Learn more and register here:
https://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2019

Support our work today!
World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. We work to advance the idea of not just preventing any particular war but abolishing the entire institution. And we strive to replace a culture of war with one of peace in which nonviolent means of conflict resolution take the place of bloodshed. Please show your support by donating today.

No to NATO, Yes to Peace Webinar

On March 7, 2019, World BEYOND War hosted a webinar on NATO – the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization – and why we’re calling for its abolition. NATO now accounts for three-quarters of all military spending and weapons dealing on the globe. Panelists for this webinar: Ana Maria Gower, a Serbian-British mixed media artist and a survivor of the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia; Jovanni Reyes, member coordinator of About Face: Veterans Against the War and U.S. army veteran who was deployed to the Balkans in 1996 as part of NATO’s first ever military intervention in Yugoslavia; and Kristine Karch, Co-Chair of the international No to War/No to NATO Network. Watch the full video here.

Get a serious panel on war abolition included in a major conference
Together with allies, we've submitted a proposal for a panel at the Netroots Nation conference in Philadelphia in July. Please check out our proposal and vote for it, which will make it more likely to be approved.

Study War No More - Coming to a City Near You!

We're excited to announce that our partners in Toronto and Fresno are taking our online courses into the real world! They'll be offering free in-person

"Study War No More" courses this spring, modeled after our book and study & action guide. If you're in Fresno, email president@peacefresno.org or call 251-3361 to register. The classes will be held once a month at the Fresno Center for Nonviolence. If you're in Toronto, click here to sign up for the free classes, which will be held at the Parkdale Free School, starting March 5.
Not in Fresno or Toronto? You can access the free Study War No More online learning tool here. The guide can be used for independent study or as a tool for facilitating dialogue and discussion in classrooms (secondary, university) and with community groups. Contact us for help with starting a course, book club, or discussion group in your area!

New Chapters Forming!
The Somao for a World BEYOND War chapter kicked off on March 1 in Somao, Spain!

Thanks to our dedicated volunteer chapter coordinators who are organizing events and grassroots campaigns in their communities around the world, focused on peace education, war divestment, closing military bases, and more. Chapters have access to our organizing assistance and educational resources - like our book, powerpoints, videos, and Study War No More Guide Study War No More Guide - as tools for facilitating dialogue, discussion, and action. Contact usto organize a meetup with other WBW members in your area.

Ads Are Now Up on Buses in Alaska
The Alaska Peace Center has put these ads on buses.
Learn more about our billboard campaign and find out how to put some up in your area.

News From Around the World :