Freedom Flotilla (5). Today's news review.

First of all I have to say that I woke up from my nap, many hours ago, listening accidentally to a patio conversation among various neighbors outraged at the crimes of Israel. A Rumanian neighbor (easy to pick apart by her strong accent) in particular was very outraged at the horror of Gaza as gigantic prison and compared Apartheid South Africa favorably to the situation of Palestine. It really reflects how nearly every single person is outraged at Israel.


News:

Al Jazeera reports that Israel is deporting either by plane or through the border of Jordan all the kidnapped activists on board of the ships. The figure is finally of circa 700 and not 500 as reported earlier by some sources.

But notice that Window into Palestine mentions that this is simply not true:

At least four Palestinian/Israelis, Free Gaza Movement board director, Lubna Masarwa, Sheik Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Mohammed Zeidan, Director of International Advocacy Programme for the Arab Association for Human Rights and Hamed abu Dabis are facing multiple serious criminal offences for their participation in a peaceful voyage to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

No information is yet known on the injured, some of them severely so, or on the corpses of the murdered ones. Their names seem still not known either.


Al Jazeera also says that Egypt is opening the Gaza border to humanitarian aid, though it is not clear for how long on under which restrictions.


The article also includes the declarations of journalist Mohamed Vall, who was aboard the Mavi Marmara:

The Israeli assault took those of us on the ship by complete surprise. We saw about 30 war vessels surrounding this ship, and helicopters attacking with very luminous bombs. More troops came and immediately opened fire, and killed people on the ship without any distinction.

In this other article there are photos of some of the aid carried by the flotilla after Israeli search: toys, books, clothes, wheelchairs.


The Qatari news site also has an opinion article by Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, very critical of Israel, as well as some images from the still ongoing popular protests across the World, even inside Israel.


Also La Haine covers to some extent with photos, videos and links the protests happening in Europe, such as this one at Milan:

Justice has, among other interesting stuff, a Haaretz report on the cross-accusations in the Kneset between Israeli MP Hanin Zoabi, who was aboard of the flotilla, and fascist (Likud, NU, etc.) elements in the racist legislative body.


Kawther Salam includes an article explaining how Zionist soldiers shot each other (they are said to be "the elite" but the images I have seen show them extremely nervous and unprofessional).


International Solidarity Movement offers the declarations of Greek passengers of the Freedom Flotilla, denouncing the Zionist ultra-violence, declaring that they refused to sign the inculpatory declarations provided by the Zionist military after their kidnapping, demanding the Greek government to break relations with Israel and declaring their intent to repeat their feat until the siege of Gaza is lifted:

Until the biggest concentration camp created by Israelis in the 21st century stops to exist.


Sabbah Report has an article by US academic Alan Sabrosky, really saying that the ball is in the US court and that the situation created by Israel by this aggression is so serious that nobody, absolutely nobody, would opposse or doubt if the USA took the much belated initiatives to either break the Gaza siege by force, establish sanctions against Israel or suspend Israel from UN membership.

It is only US attitude of subservience to Zionism what blocks the World from taking the much needed action against the rogue state.


The McLoughling Post has a report on Israeli pacifist movement B'Tselem's information director, Lizi Sagi, denouncing Israel as a Nazi state.


At Palestine Video I found this most interesting interview with rapper Immortal Technique at a New York demonstration saying very clarifying things:



It really made me think, added to watching yesterday at TV Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11, including a very brief caption of Cynthia McKinney and other Afroamerican congresswomen some years ago opposing the anti-terrorist laws passed by the Bush administration, that the USA could really have much better people in positions of power, including the presidency and Congress.

Just that for that it would need to be a real democracy and not a media-crazy.


Palestine Video includes this most revealing interview by Russia Today (a media outlet I have already praised before for their impartiality) to Danny Schechter on how the mainstream media, specially in the USA, allows itself to be manipulated by Israel and the Zionist Lobby:




International reactions continue. Window into Palestine, that has kept very good track of the events, reports that Nicaragua has suspended relations with Israel on the attack and that the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Brian Cowen has warned Israel against the use of violence as the Rachel Corrie approaches Gaza.


Also the UN Human Rights Council has voted by overwhelming majority to condemn Israeli actions and to dispatch an international probe on Israel's behavior.


Palestine Think Tank has translated to English the full discourse of Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan, a couple of days ago in Chile, on the murderous Israeli attack in international waters to aid ships, several of which were Turkish jurisdiction. Some excerpts follow:

Today I do not only want to speak to my dear people but to all of humanity.

...

Despots, gangsters even pirates have specific sensitiveness, follow some specific morals. Those who do not follow any morality or ethics, those who do not act with any sensitivity, to call them such names would even be a compliment to them. Israel has, by attacking a ship with volunteers from 32 countries, in fact defied the world. World peace has been deeply wounded. This brazen, irresponsible, reckless government that recognises no law and tramples on any kind of humanitarian virtue, this attack of the Israeli government by all means – but by all means, must be punished.

...

Those ships were all ships of mercy. And their cargo was the heart of humanity.


More news and opinions at Palestine Blogs Aggregator.

USA and Brazil: America's largest nations in collision course

What the latest (un-)diplomatic row on Iran's nuclear program has shown is not just that, as I said earlier, the USA seems dead set to attack Iran no matter what, but that it's also dead set to sabotage everything that Brazil attempts. This was already very clear last year with the coup in Honduras and the de-facto annexation of Colombia, as well as in the most strange case of the US invasion of Haiti on the pretext of the earthquake.

According to Raúl Zibechi (La Haine[es]) this is all part of a growing confrontation between the USA and Brazil for influence in Latin America and around the World and therefore not really unexpected, not even by the Brazilian government.

For Zibechi this confrontation is anyhow centered at the Amazonia region and the control of South Atlantic oil. In other words: the USA aims to control Brazil as it used to do in the past. As reaction Brazil is building up for the unthinkable: a war with the greatest global power ever, a war they cannot afford to happen... or to lose if it does happen.

For that reason the Amazonian military region is seing its manpower doubled, the Army has grown 30% overall and new naval and air equipment is being added to the nation's military. All purchases include clauses of full technological transfer and none of them includes US-made material, but rather Russian or French. The goal is to create a Brazilian national military-industrial complex that does not need to rely too much on foreign imports.

Eventually Brazil will have to get nuclear weapons, of course, if it wants its dissuasive power to be effective. The National Defense Strategy of 2008 clearly speaks of the need to "develop and dominate nuclear technology".

In any case it is not something that affects only this or that party: all Brazilian media is rallying around Lula on these matters and that is because it is a matter of highest national interest that goes beyond classes or political parties.

With a different viewpoint and emphasis on China's and Russia's discreet role on the Teheran agreement, it's worth mentioning Pepe Escobar's opinion at Asia Times Online, where he quotes the Chinese military genius Sun Tzu: Allow your enemy to make his own mistakes, and don't correct them. For Escobar, it is clear that the USA has made a great mistake by sabotaging this agreement so bluntly, what can only harm Washington's power and prestige (even more) and get it confronted with more and more regional powers, not just Brazil but also hyper-strategical and again self-confident Turkey and who knows what else.

Again it seems that, much like Charles V and his son Philip, the US Empire is embroiled, more often than not willingly, in way too many fronts, wasting precious economical resources in a megalomaniac attempt to control the whole World in a self-defeating strategy of total global domination (as defined by Brezinsky and camarilla) that is even more absurd now that it was in the 16th century. Because now we know that total control is plainly impossible, a mere error of imperfect and too arrogant thought.

See also: The geopolitics of today (or 'BRICs are heavy'), for a broader analysis at Leherensuge, and this other analysis by Raúl Zibechi at Voltaire Net, this time in English.

The reality of Capitalism

In these days when the Spanish government bows to Emperor Barack I and his court of EU and IMF bureaucrats, cutting the budget in anything but police and military spending, it's good to know what are these promoting at the expense of the common citizen.

Argentine sociologist, Atilio A. Boron, explains at his blog[es] with facts what is Capitalism. I use his data here with my own comments:

Population: 6.8 billion. Almost 100% live in Capitalist areas (with very few exceptions nowadays). Of which:

• 1 billion (15%) are chronically undernourished
• 2 billion (29%) have no access to medicines
• 884 millions (13%) have no access to edible water
• 924 millions (14%) have no home or live in precarious ones (slums)
• 1.6 billion (24%) have no electricity
• 2.5 billion (37%) have no sanitation
• 774 million adults are illiterate
• 18 millions die (are murdered by the system) every year because of poverty, most of them children under 5.
• 218 million children (5-17 y.o.) work under slavery conditions in dangerous or degrading jobs such as soldiers, prostitutes, servants, agriculture, construction or the textile industry.
• 25% of people have only 0.9% of all wealth, while 10% owns 71%. Data from 2002, when it had worsened in relation to 1998. It's most likely that the gap today is much wider.
• In this 1998-2002 period the wealthiest 10% increased their wealth in 6.7%, fraction that, if distributed, would double the incomes of 70% of people, saving many many lives (and activating the market a lot).
  

He concludes:

After five centuries of existence this is what Capitalism has to offer. What do are we waiting to change the system? If Humankind has a future it will be Socialist. Under Capitalism instead there will be future for nobody, not for the poor and not for the rich. F. Engels' sentence, which is also R. Luxemburg's one: 'Socialism of barbarism' is today more real than ever before. No society can survive when its vital drive is greed and its engine is profit. Sooner or later it causes social disintegration, environmental destruction, political decadence and moral crisis. We are still in time but we cannot wait for too long.

May Day: class struggle day

Our ancestors saw the need to create a holiday that was not religious but secular, not of the aristocrats nor the bourgeois but of the working class. They implemented May 1st, not without a fight.

Today it is celebrated throughout the World (except in rare reactionary countries such as Saudi Arabia and the USA) and in these dark years we are going through ('black storms shatter the air, dark clouds don't let us see...') it seems an even more important day.

Happy day of struggle! Let's save Humankind from the parasites inside! Let's destroy Capitalism for good and make up something better!

Happy May Day!

The Crisis is far from over

I just read Andrew Gavin Marshall's latest article at Global Research: Debt Dynamite Dominoes: The Coming Financial Catastrophe.

And I fear he's way too correct in his evaluation.

Some paragraphs at the beginning are really descriptive of what awaits to the still too quiet citizens (every day more like denizens in fact) of the so-called Western World:

When the crisis is over, the middle classes of the western world will have been liquidated of their economic, political and social status. The global economy will have gone through the greatest consolidation of industry and banking in world history leading to a system in which only a few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources; governments will have lost that right. The people of the western world will be treated by the financial oligarchs as they have treated the ‘global South’ and in particular, Africa; they will remove our social structures and foundations so that we become entirely subservient to their dominance over the economic and political structures of our society.

This is where we stand today, and is the road on which we travel.

The western world has been plundered into poverty, a process long underway, but with the unfolding of the crisis, will be rapidly accelerated. As our societies collapse in on themselves, the governments will protect the banks and multinationals. When the people go out into the streets, as they invariably do and will, the government will not come to their aid, but will come with police and military forces to crush the protests and oppress the people. The social foundations will collapse with the economy, and the state will clamp down to prevent the people from constructing a new one.

The road to recovery is far from here. When the crisis has come to an end, the world we know will have changed dramatically. No one ever grows up in the world they were born into; everything is always changing. Now is no exception. The only difference is, that we are about to go through the most rapid changes the world has seen thus far.

This is a truth as big as the Burj Khalifa, the babel tower of Dubai's debacle. This is where we stand now.

But the article has a lot more substance than this "apocalyptic", yet too real, forecast. Marshall dwells on the many facets of the ongoing crisis, from the ineffective bailouts and "stimulus packages" China's "vote of no confidence" to US debt (Japan is now the largest US bondholder) and the failed economies of Europe (Iceland, Latvia, Greece, etc.). It also goes to criticize those who say that some economic policies are "socialist": they are nothing but fascist economics, which is designed to make the rich richer at the expense of the workers and even the middle classes.

But, of course, the greatest threat ahead is US debt, which is the usual case of overstretching empires (cf. Spain under the Habsburgs). This means that somehow the hegemonic power held by the USA must (at least in what regards to capitalist interest) pass to some other institution. Something like a global totalitarian empire, oddly enough inspired in the successful Chinese model of capitalism, he thinks. In other words: globalized fascism, the triumph of Hitler long after his death and, again oddly enough, under Zionist leadership.

The fear of a Marxist renaissance is not absent from such totalitarian plans:

In 2007, the British Defense Ministry released a report in which they analyzed future trends in the world. It stated in regards to social problems, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx.”

This, notice, is not too different from the concept of the Social Worker, predicted by Marx and reclaimed by Negri. The term "middle classes" is surely misleading in this context but anyhow they will not exist anymore soon, thanks to Goldman Sachs and co.

In this sense, Marshall reminds us that none of the highly controversial plans to impose martial law and suppress civil rights in the USA have been revoked by the Obama administration.

The last paragraphs are an appeal to fight back at global level and build truly worthy world in which we, as well as the future generations, can live with dignity and freedom:

The people of the world must pursue and work for peace and justice on a global scale: economically, politically, socially, scientifically, artistically, and personally. It’s asking a lot, but it’s our only option. We need to have ‘hope’, a word often strewn around with little intent to the point where it has come to represent failed expectations. We need hope in ourselves, in our ability to throw off the shackles that bind us and in our diversity and creativity construct a new world that will benefit all.

No one knows what this world would look like, or how exactly to get there, least of all myself. What we do know is what it doesn’t look like, and what road to steer clear of. The time has come to retake our rightful place as the commanders of our own lives. It must be freedom for all, or freedom for none. This is our world, and we have been given the gift of the human mind and critical thought, which no other living being can rightfully boast; what a shame it would be to waste it.

Sure, what a shame!

Most people think 'free market' needs at least major reforms

Interesting global survey the one published today by BBC on account of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It shows that the world is divided between those that demand regulation and reforms for "free market" (an euphemism for Capitalism) and those that think that this system is a failure and something else is needed. The fraction that are happy with the economic system as it is are a minority everywhere, barely surpassing 20% in the hyper-Capitalist USA.

Among those more emphatic on a new system being necessary are the peoples of France, Mexico, and Brazil. Instead the nations among whom people mostly think that only reform is needed are Germany, USA, UK, Pakistan and Canada. But in all countries people is mostly unhappy with the system as it is now.

Another issue asked is whether the fall of the USSR was a good or bad thing. In this case, the dividing line is between the West (where nearly everybody believes it was a good thing) and the rest (where substantial numbers think it was something disgraceful). Egypt, Russia and Ukraine are the countries where there is more resentment for the fall of the USSR, while in Asia opinions are very divided.
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Visitor map reset and year recount

Just got notification that the ClustrMaps geographic visitor counter is going to be reset. Seems it's been counting visitors for a whole year now, so the counter starts over.

So guess it's a good reason to post the current yearly stats for Leherensuge:

(click to expand)

9156 unique visits have stopped by (between the 08-09 Summer solstices) from the following administrative divisions:

• More than 3000: USA.
• More than 500: Spain, France and UK.
• More than 100: Canada, Netherlands, India, New Zealand, Germany, Australia, Belgium and Italy.
• More than 50: Finland, Portugal, Turkey, China, Sweden, Brazil, Israel (sic) and Mexico.
• More than 25: Poland, Morocco, Norway, Greece, Japan, Czechia, Switzerland, Russia, Rumania, Hungary, South Africa and Singapore.
• More than 10: UAE, Croatia, Ireland, Serbia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Austria, South Korea, Bangladesh, Jordan, Denmark, Bulgaria, Latvia, Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, Argentina, European Union (eu domain probably), Pakistan, Slovakia and Egypt.
• More than 5: Slovenia, Colombia, Chile, Indonesia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Peru, Palestine Territory, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Tunisia, Lebanon, Taiwan and Algeria.
• And many many other places with 5 hits or less.

For the ongoing counter, just scroll all the way down any page at Leherensuge.

Enjoy.
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Map of the food crisis

Just made this map of the current food crisis situation based in FAO and media data:

Click on thumbnail to expand

Sources:
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)
- BBC: the cost of food: facts and figures (and other articles)
- Al Jazeera (several articles)