Questions from a worker who reads obituaries. posted by lenin

Labels: capitalism, cult, exploitation, technophilia, the rate of exploitation

The concentration of capital posted by lenin

Labels: banks, capital, capitalism, finance capital, monopoly

Whatever it is, it isn't justice posted by lenin

The Sun's front page headline said, "Cry Freedom", referencing the 1987 Richard Attenborough film about Steve Biko.  The subject of the headline was Amanda Knox, an upper class white American acquitted of participating in the murder of Meredith Kercher on appeal.  Let me pause to acknowledge that, had the original guilty verdict been upheld, the headline would have probably made some reference to the prosecutor's characterisation of Knox as a "she-devil".  I simply take it as read that misogyny of one form or another has characterised aspects of the prosecution and of the capitalist media's responses to the case.  Channel 5's The Wright Stuff, for example, sensitively asked male viewers "would ya?" with reference to "Foxy Knoxy".  What do we do with the thought, I wonder, that the obscene, contemptible slavering over "Foxy Knoxy" has nothing to do with the "beauty" that Rolling Stone drools over, and everything to do with the fact that she is an alleged murderer?  And why are these same media outlets now telling us that the conviction of Knox rested on misogyny and that she is the victim of a modern day Salem?  Meanwhile, how many people even know Raffaele Sollecito's name, never mind what he looks like? 

That said, the Sun's headline was revealing on its own terms, referring to a bizarre economy of racial affect.  Consider it next to the many articles that juxtapose Knox's name with that of Troy Davis, and you begin to realise that for our media, the racially victimised, oppressed subject is not the woman of colour who has been murdered, and whose family has seen no justice, but a wealthy white woman who had US senators, Hillary Clinton, the Berlusconi administration (which has its own fights with the Italian legal system over Berlusconi's alleged crimes), a rich suburban family and the greater part of the Anglophone media behind her.  She is the victim of, what else?, anti-Americanism.  And, indeed, the sympathy of the Anglophone press for Knox and her family, from the Sun to the New York Times to Rolling Stone, is staggering.  The relentless dissemination of claims obviously originating from either the defence or Knox's family or their PR firm is no less so. 

As you will have gathered, the appeal hinged on the quality of forensic evidence, which a panel of reviewers decided was unreliable.  Once the review panel had reached its findings, it was inevitable that the defence would focus on that as the weak link.  They didn't have to attack the whole prosecution case.  Now I'm not in a position to dispute the validity of that procedure, but you wouldn't know, judging from the responses in the press, that the whole case hadn't just been demolished.  You would get the impression from the news reports that Knox was convicted on comically risible evidence, and that an innocent woman spent four years in jail for nothing.  They had the killer, Rudy Guede, with abundant evidence supporting their argument for his guilt, but insisted on dragging two innocent people, Knox and Sollecito, into their account of what happened.  This, so the logic goes, required elaborate imaginative leaps, singular feats of interpretation from paltry evidence.

Let me take an example.  This is Timothy Egan in the NYT:  "In search of evidence to back a faulty narrative, prosecutors pulled a knife from the kitchen of Sollecito. Of course, Knox’s DNA was on the handle — she used it to cut bread at the home of her boyfriend. The prosecutors said there was a trace of Kercher’s DNA on the blade, a claim that was nearly laughed out of court by an independent panel of experts. These experts in the appeal found instead a kernel of starch on the blade — from cutting bread, most likely."  Thus, from less than a bread crumb, you would think, a murder case was developed.  How could a guilty verdict have been reached on the basis of that?  In fact the panel of exerts was in no position to 'find' anything on the blade, starch or otherwise, since it didn't examine the knife but the manner in which forensic evidence was gathered.  It did not deny that DNA evidence was found on the knife, but disputed the handling and thus reliability of that evidence.  The fact that experts testifying for the prosecution thought differently, ie that the DNA had been gathered according to international standards, is no reason in itself for me to dispute this conclusion.  But it is a reason for journalists not to caricature events.  Yet, this distortion is in an ostensibly serious piece.

Egan adds that the prosecution was particularly culpable in its attempt to supply a motive for the killing: "This is where any defender of women’s rights, or modernity, should howl. Standing in front of the crucifix that adorns Italian courtrooms, prosecutors and lawyers for their side called Knox a “she-devil,” a seducer, a “witch,” someone who manipulated Sollecito into an orgy with Kercher and Guede."  This is an argument that has been repeated many times.  Now, the evidence on which Knox was convicted is discussed in the Massei report (pdf, or summarised in detail here) outlining the reasons for the court's guilty verdict.  If you've read through this, two things are clear.  First, while the motive is discussed in the Massei report, it isn't a very important plank of the conviction.  Second, whatever the misogynistic rhetoric, the jury which convicted her didn't base its conviction on that rhetoric.  It rejected a number of prosecution claims concerning the motive, specifically any pre-meditated component.  It infers from the circumstances that both Knox and Sollecito spontaneously decided to help Rudy Guede as he tried to force himself on Meredith Kercher.  There is no she-devilry, and no witchcraft.  You would not know this from Egan's account.  Nor would you know that the "she-devil" remark was made not by the prosecutor but by a lawyer for Patrick Lumumba, and not during the original trial process but earlier this year.

Before going any further, I want to briefly summarise what I understand to be the main points in the Massei report.  The report describes the circumstances of the murder, and indicates a number of points at which Knox's descriptions of what happened were drastically at variance with material evidence.  It notes that Knox's falsehoods would, if verified, have provided her and Sollecito with an alibi.  On the other hand, as she was seen at a grocery shop purchasing cleaning products when she claimed to have been in bed, her alibi is untenable.  It touches on Knox's attempt to frame her boss, a bar owner named Patrick Lumumba, for the killing.  (She claimed, when the case against Lumumba collapsed, to have 'imagined' hearing Meredith Kercher scream as she was sexually assaulted and murdered by Lumumba.)  It describes the incompatibility of the wounds with the 'single attacker' theory, suggesting that multiple attackers must have restrained Meredith Kercher and assaulted her from different angles while preventing her from engaging in defensive movements.  It describes how the kitchen knife recovered from the apartment, allegedly with Kercher's DNA on the blade, was compatible with the large, fatal stab wound to Kercher's neck; and how Knox had shown distress on being shown the knife, and conveyed her concern to her parents about precisely that piece of evidence.  It describes how a bloody footprint in the bathroom matched those of Sollecito.  It describes several instances of Meredith Kercher's blood being mixed with Knox's DNA, dismisses the idea that this was due to ex-foliation on Knox's part, and suggests that it was due to the vigorous scrubbing of hands and feet, which resulted in the blood and DNA being found spattered over the bidet and sink.  It describes evidence of blood being traipsed about the house by Knox and subsequently cleaned up vigorously with bleach.  It describes the expert testimony concerning the DNA evidence.  It describes evidence indicating that the killers had staged a burglary of the flat after the murder was committed to give the impression that the killer had broken in.  It concludes that Rudy Guede initiated sexual advances on Meredith Kercher, that Kercher refused, that Knox and Sollecito then joined in when Kercher resisted, and that the situation escalated spontaneously from a sexual assault to a murder.

Having read the above, I invite you to download the Massei report and compare it with any number of articles making the case for Knox's innocence - the Rolling Stone article is a real peach, its author doing a word-perfect imitation of an amanuensis for Gogerty Stark Marriott.  What you find is that public opinion is being decided by factors that have nothing to do with evidence, court procedures, police conduct or anything of the kind, and everything to do with resources.  Reasonable doubt liberates Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito, while Rudy Guede is in jail, and is unlikely to be freed.  It is beyond my competence to say whether this is legally appropriate.  This would only become clearer in light of a further appeal.  Yet, if the Massei report holds for the evidence not discounted by the review panel, it would seem that he could not have committed the crime alone.  Only Sollecito could have tramped Meredith Kercher's blood into the bathroom to make the footprint on the mat, only Knox could have left the bloody footprints subsequently cleaned up and traced with Luminol, and only Knox could have scrubbed the blood off her hands and feet in such a way as to leave her DNA spattered on the bidet and sink, mixed with Kercher's blood.  So it may be legally appropriate that the appeals court acquitted Knox and Sollecito.  But it doesn't look like justice to me.

Labels: amanda knox, crime, media, meredith kercher, murder, propaganda, racism

First we take Manhattan posted by lenin

Wall Street's famously chaste, humble bearing may not be the secret of its charm.  When you ask what is, you begin to realise what the Right has accomplished.  It has plausibly retailed something as banal as markets, and all the variations and derivatives thereof, as a libidinised field of popular (competitive) participation, the final source of all wealth/value (stock markets delivering oodles of the stuff like ducks farting out golden eggs), and, if this isn't a tautology, a genre of erotica.  The insurance company as an aphrodisiac.  Yet it had to occur to someone to give Goldman Sachs and allies something to worry about, a something from which they have thus far been protected.  Under the Obama administration, which treats the quack orthodoxies of investment bankers as technocratic panaceas, the politically dominant fraction within the US ruling class has rarely seemed more powerful and at ease.  In their home city, the banks and traders have colonised the political system to the extent that one of their own sons, Michael Bloomberg, can take office and actually run the city as a favour to them.  (Bloomberg declines remuneration for his services.)  This is 21st Century philanthropy.

On that very subject, it must be a felicitous coincidence that JP Morgan Chase donated $4.6m to the New York Police Department on the same day that the same department engaged in a mass arrest of hundreds of #OccupyWallStreet activists marooned on the Brooklyn Bridge.



"The whole world is watching," the protesters chant. No doubt. The question is whether any of those watching will take this as a cue to join the occupation in solidarity.  Admittedly it is already an over-worked reference, but there are compelling, if distant, echoes of Tahrir Square in New York (and now, I understand, financial districts in Boston, Miami, Detroit, San Francisco, etc.), in the sense of a nascent attempt to find a new model commune.  What the occupiers seek to create is both a rallying point for oppositional forces, and a model of participatory democracy that, if replicated, would give popular constituencies the ability and authority to solve their problems.  We'll come back to the model of self-government being debated in Zuccotti Park, but as far as rallying opposition forces and pricking the mediasphere goes, the occupation has been having some success. The critical moment has been the participation of the organised labour movement, with the direct involvement of transport and steel workers, and the solidarity of Tahrir Square protesters.  (A mass strike by transport workers in Egypt has just won a major victory, gaining a 200% pay rise, just months after the army outlawed strikes).  The context of which it partakes is a germinal revival of class struggle in the United States.  Doug Henwood, who initially expressed reservations about the (lack of) politics of the initiative, describes the situation as "inspiring".  This is why the initiative has been greeted with the predictable sequence of tactful silence from officials, followed by open hostility, police brutality, threatening murmurs from Bloomberg and, finally, last night's mass arrest - which I would imagine follows orders from the mayor's office. Bloomberg, you'll be relieved to know, is not exercised on behalf of multi-billionaires like himself, but those Wall Street traders on a measly $40-50k, inconvenienced by anticapitalist wildlife. 

As far I can tell, the occupation began with a deliberate strategy of having minimal concrete politics and no demands.  The idea was that the politics and tactics of the occupation would be agreed in the context of a participatory, open-ended symposium.  No doubt some of this is mired in what I would consider a destructive and caricatured anti-Leninism, but I can imagine it comes from real experiences and expresses legitimate desires.  Some participants reportedly argued that what was important was the process, not a set of demands.  The process itself, the decentralised, participatory system, should be the main 'demand' in this perspective.  "Join us," would be the slogan.  I can't imagine this approach being effective.  There was an early fear that this could mean that right-wing elements would easily take over the movement and distort its agenda, and indeed some of the Tea Party websites have been vocal in their support for the occupation.  Yet they aren't setting the agenda in New York.  The political messages vary from the extremely abstract ("Care 4 Your Country") to the bluntly specific ("End Corporate Personhood"); from the maximalist ("Smash capitalism, liberate the planet") to the broadly populist ("I am the 99%").  The best slogan I've seen is, "How do we end the deficit?  End the war, Tax the rich."  This has the virtue of being a popular demand, a concise point, and right on the money.

On the issue of populism, I see that Doug Henwood has reported some misplaced sympathy for small businesses among some of the occupiers.  Perhaps this would be a fitting moment to revive the old Stalinist/Eurocommunist idea of the "anti-monopoly alliance".  I'm not being completely sarcastic.  While the petty bourgeoisie is largely a bedrock of reaction, it can have its radical moments, especially when capitalism is wrecking the lives of small traders, shopkeepers, homeowners - as we've recently seen in Greece, where the lower middle class is overwhelmingly on the side of the working class and the left in this fight.  I'm just saying that while one wants ultimately to win people to consistently anticapitalist politics, a sort of leftist, Naderite populism opposing the 99% to the 1% (the people against the ruling class in other words) is not a terrible place to start.  The main thing is what the most organised and militant sections of the working class do - if they throw their weight behind the movement, they will probably lead politically.

But what I find most interesting is not the immediate politics, the tactics and the process - which I think tends to become an obsession - but what these say about the strategic orientations of the occupiers.  In the broad outline, there have been two major strategies for those challenging capitalism.  The reformist strategy has been the dominant one, and immense human capital and potential has been sunk into its promise.  It posits society as, above all, a body of intelligent, rational citizens who can judge capitalism as wanting by reference to standards that transcend the system itself - ethical precepts that are universal, rational and humanistic.  The influence of Kant on such thinking is well-known.  The goal is therefore firstly to mobilise people behind a community interest favouring the gradual supercession of capitalism.  This allows for a certain elitism, since it requires the dominance of those deemed most articulate, rational and intelligent in their advocacy of socialist values, as well as those most equipped to handle office.  Secondly, those people are to put their trust in parliamentary means, using the power of the executive to impose abridgments of capitalist relations.  Those advocating this strategy have differed immensely on the degree to which such an approach needs to be supplemented by industrial militancy and mass pressure.  But it is ultimately the parliament which asserts the community's interests versus capitalist interests.

The revolutionary strategy rests on a different analysis.  It judges capitalism by standards immanent to it, and raises socialism not as an abstract, supra-historical project, but as one situated within a specific historical moment - a technologically advanced, complex socialism has become possible because capitalism has created the material preconditions for it.  Its universalism is not abstract, but class-anchored; rather than the sane, adult citizenry being the repository of universal values, it is the working class that is the 'universal' class, since it has a direct interest in the abolition of capitalism and an historically produced capacity to bring it about.  Finally, it sees parliament not as an ideal democratic space in which socialist values can be elaborated and implemented with the authority of the executive at its back, but as a component of the capitalist state that is hostile to socialism.  It follows that the aim is to create alternative, working class centres of sovereignty capable of implementing democratic decisions made at the level of the rank and file.  Whether such a counter-power was to call itself a soviet, a commune or a Committee of Public Safety (as envisioned in News from Nowhere), its purpose would be to work as a rising alternative form of legitimate authority that would eventually be in a position to challenge the capitalist state.  Through a period of dual power, the working class would learn to govern itself, acquiring the skills and self-confidence it would need, resisting attempts by the state to suppress it, until it was in a position to win a majority for taking power.  This counter-power would logically centre on the process of production, but extend well beyond the workplace.  It would have its own media, its own budget, its own leisure, and its own pedagogy.  It would be the material infrastructure of the socialist order it sought to create.  This doesn't preclude parliamentary strategies, as a means of helping legitimise and even attempting to legalise extra-parliamentary power.

Where does Occupy Wall Street fit into this?  It is not my objective to pigeon-hole it as either a revolutionary or reformist strategy - it is neither, in fact.  To put it in what will sound like uncharitable terms, it is baby-steps, the experimental form of a movement in its infancy, not yet sufficiently developed theoretically or politically to be anything else.  There is a sort of loose autonomism informing its tactics, while its focus on participatory democracy is redolent of the SDS wing and the Sixties 'New Left', but it is not yet definite enough to be reducible to any dominant strategy or perspective.  It is, however, potentially the nucleus of a mass movement, and how it relates to the problems addressed by both reformists and revolutionaries now will make all the difference in the future.  At a certain point, the severity of the state's response to it will force a theoretical and political clarification on its (official or unofficial) leadership.  Recall how the high watermark of Sixties radicalism in 1968 was also the moment at which the state got serious in its repression.  This was the year in which the term "police riot" was invented to describe Chicago cops' response to protesters outside the Democratic convention, where police mercilessly assaulted protesters and bystanders alike, while students chanted "The whole world is watching".  This was the year in which the FBI murdered several black leaders.  It was in the years that followed that the movement was forced to crystalise politically, to become a much more grim undertaking - though with the unfortunate drawback that many of the leaders were drawn into the most ultra-Stalinist politics while others simply took their 'community organising' schtick into the Democratic fold.  So, I would say that if a mass movement emerges from this, the early orientation of Wall Street occupiers to the major strategic questions will make a big difference.

The very attempt to mimic Tahrir Square implies a goal of creating an oppositional, popular sovereignty - a goal also hinted at in the rhetoric about "being the change you want to see in the world".  It implies an aspiration, at this stage no more, to take and keep control of public spaces, conveniences, workplaces, government buildings, etc.  This is a good, radical development.  For the moment, it would be an improvement if they could march on a public highway without being arrested for it, and that is why it is so important that the movement spreads and enlarges.  To that end, the evidence of class-anchored analysis and tactics by the occupiers is hopeful. For example, Pham Binh reports that Occupy Wall Street won the support of the Transit Workers' Union after engaging in a solidarity actions with workers at Sothebys and the post office.  In this respect, the movement is already light years ahead of some of the early New Left trends, while the union movement is politically in a much better place than it was in, say, 1965.  As in Wisconsin, the fate of this movement will partially depend on how much it defers to the Democratic leadership.  I see no evidence of Obamamania or any other form of Democratic filiation among these occupiers.  Indeed, the movement arrives just as Obama's support is crumbling among all sectors of his base (despite the efforts of apologists such as Melissa Harris-Perry to reduce this to the carping of white liberals), and could work as an alternative pole for its scattered elements, much as the left and various fragments of Clinton's disaffected base were fused together into a movement in Seattle in 1999.  The achilles heels of the movement will inevitably be any tendency to exaggerate the suspicion toward centralism, which would tend to leave it vulnerable to repression, and also any tendency to over-state novelty as a virtue in contrast with the ideologies of the 'old left', which would leave it ideologically disarmed - as if any movement can do without the condensed learning and experiences of past generations facing similar problems.

At any rate, there is much to be said for the idea of an American Spring.  And beginning the arduous process of experimenting in self-government is not a bad way to herald its advent.

Labels: barack obama, capitalism, democrats, occupation, occupy wall street, protest, ruling class, socialist strategy, strategy, wall street

Syria's opposition and 'intervention' posted by lenin

Anti-regime activists inside Syria oppose the Syrian National Council, an opposition body formed in Turkey last month, because it favors foreign intervention, prominent activist Michel Kilo said on Thursday.
"The opposition within the national council are in favor of foreign intervention to resolve the crisis in Syria, while those at home are not," Kilo claimed in remarks to Agence France Presse at his home in Damascus.
"If the idea of foreign intervention is accepted, we will head towards a pro-American Syria and not towards a free and sovereign state," he said.
"A request for foreign intervention would aggravate the problem because Syria would descend into armed violence and confessionalism, while we at home are opposed to that."
Kilo, 71, a writer who has opposed the ruling Baath party since it came to power in 1963, was jailed from 1980 to 1983 and from 2006 to 2009.

In an unprecedented move over the past several days, Syrians in Syria and abroad have been calling for Syrians to take up arms, or for international military intervention. This call comes five and a half months of the Syrian regime’s systematic abuse of the Syrian people, whereby tens of thousands of peaceful protesters have been detained and tortured, and more than 2,500 killed. The regime has given every indication that it will continue its brutal approach, while the majority of Syrians feel they are unprotected in their own homeland in the face of the regime’s crimes.
While we understand the motivation to take up arms or call for military intervention, we specifically reject this position as we find it unacceptable politically, nationally, and ethically. Militarizing the revolution would minimize popular support and participation in the revolution. Moreover, militarization would undermine the gravity of the humanitarian catastrophe involved in a confrontation with the regime.
Militarization would put the Revolution in an arena where the regime has a distinct advantage, and would erode the moral superiority that has characterized the Revolution since its beginning.

Our Palestinian brothers are experienced in leading by example. They gained the support of the entire Palestinian community, as well as world sympathy, during the first Intifada (“stones”). The second Intifada, which was militarized, lost public sympathy and participation. It is important to note that the Syrian regime and Israeli enemy used identical measures in the face of the two uprisings.
The objective of Syria's Revolution is not limited to overthrowing the regime. The Revolution also seeks to build a democratic system and national infrastructure that safeguards the freedom and dignity of the Syrian people. Moreover, the Revolution is intended to ensure independence and unity of Syria, its people, and its society.
We believe that the overthrow of the regime is the initial goal of the Revolution, but it is not an end in itself. The end goal is freedom for Syria and all Syrians. The method by which the regime is overthrown is an indication of what Syria will be like post-regime. If we maintain our peaceful demonstrations, which include our cities, towns, and villages; and our men, women, and children, the possibility of democracy in our country is much greater. If an armed confrontation or international military intervention becomes a reality, it will be virtually impossible to establish a legitimate foundation for a proud future Syria.
We call on our people to remain patient as we continue our national Revolution. We will hold the regime fully responsible and accountable for the current situation in the country, the blood of all martyrs – civilian and military, and any risks that may threaten Syria in the future, including the possibility of internal violence or foreign military intervention.
To the victory of our Revolution and to the glory of our martyrs.
The Local Coordinating Committees in Syria

Labels: 'humanitarian intervention', dictatorship, liberal imperialism, revolution, syria, US imperialism

Police attack Wall Street occupation posted by lenin

Odd how you get these spaces for dissent in the US capitalist media. You rarely see anything like this in the UK:

Labels: capitalist crisis, class struggle, finance capital, police brutality, ruling class, us politics, wall street

Zero Authors' Statement on Gilad Atzmon posted by lenin

Labels: antisemitism, gilad atzmon, Israel, racism, zionism

Review of 'Chavs' by Owen Jones posted by lenin

Labels: 'chav', class struggle, labour, labour left, neoliberalism, reactionaries, ruling class, tories, trade unions, working class

Breivikism in the Daily Mail posted by lenin

Most of us may not realise this but the ideological Left certainly does, for it has long been part of its grand plan to destroy Western civilisation from within. The plan's prime instigator was the influential German Marxist thinker ('the father of the New Left') Herbert Marcuse. A Jewish academic who fled Germany for the US in the Thirties, he became the darling of the Sixties and Seventies 'radical chic' set.

He deliberately set out to dismantle every last pillar of society – tradition, hierarchy, order – and key to victory, he argued, would be a Leftist takeover of the language, including 'the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care etc'.

In other words, those of us who believe in smaller government or other 'Right-wing' heresies should be for ever silenced.

Labels: breivik, culture wars, fascism, islamophobia, marxism, norway, political correctness, racism

Yemen's revolution and declining US power posted by lenin

I am sorry not have to kept up to date with the inspiring resistance in Syria and Yemen. I note that David Cameron's speech at the UN used the example of Libya to argue for more interventions, citing both these countries as being in need of 'reform'.  For what it's worth, it presently seems unlikely that Britain will be able to drive further military interventions, as the conditions that made a relatively low cost and low commitment intervention in Libya possible aren't likely to be replicated elsewhere.  However, the adoption of the language of 'reform' is very interesting, and signals that the strategy of the dominant states has shifted from simply backing the ancient regimes to looking for a managed transition to more liberal societies.  The spirit of this was, I think, summed up in Blair's panicked remarks upon the Egyptian revolution:

"All over that region, there is essentially one issue, which is how do they evolve and modernise, both in terms of their economy, their society and their politics.
"All I'm saying is that, in the case of Egypt and in the case in Yemen, because there are other factors in this – not least those who would use any vacuum in order to foment extremism – that you do this in what I would call a stable and ordered way."
Blair said the west should engage with countries such as Egypt in the process of change "so that you weren't left with what is actually the most dangerous problem in the Middle East, which is that an elite that has an open minded attitude but it's out of touch with popular opinion, and popular opinion that can often – because it has not been given popular expression in its politics – end up frankly with the wrong idea and a closed idea."

Cameron would not be as crude as Blair, since he is an opportunist while the latter is an out and out bampot, but I think he shares essentially the same idea.  As regards Yemen, it's been obvious for a while now that despite Washington's backing for repression and involvement in killing opposition leaders dubbed 'Al Qaeda', they're no longer content to leave Saleh in charge.  The scale and endurance of the resistance, coming as it does from fractured sources and with different motives, combined with internal plotting against Saleh, has forced Washington to change tack (see Obama's UN speech).  As Sheila Carapico points out in MERIP, they have done so reluctantly, and with a clear lack of sympathy for the protesters.  In April, when they thought a face-saving deal might be reached, the US embassy in Sanaa issued a press release urging "'Yemeni citizens' to show good faith by 'avoiding all provocative demonstrations, marches and speeches in the coming days'."

The ongoing UN negotiations over a power transfer concern the terms of Saleh's departure, and constitute an effort by the US to engineer a settlement it can live with.  Meanwhile, as the regime continues to use live rounds, tear gas, sewage water cannons, artillery and tanks to suppress the opposition, it is so important that the opposition has not been demobilised as the Obama administration would like it to be.  This is a mass rally in Yemen today following a week of repression:



This suggests that, despite the very intelligent, cautious and successful intervention in Libya, US power has still taken a very significant regional knock, and its ability to control events is in question. Look at what's happening with Palestine. Egypt relaxing Rafah crossing restrictions, and supporting Fatah-Hamas peace talks, the Israeli embassy beseiged, Turkey continuing its historic break with Israel, and now the Palestinian statehood bid which, with all caveats noted, has left the Israeli leadership manifestly rattled.  Obama has just sent Israel more weapons, and he will almost certainly instruct his ambassador to the UN to veto the bid.  Susan Rice, the administration's uber-humanitarian-interventionist, threatened the UN with the withdrawal of US funding if member states backed Palestinian statehood.  Still, a majority of states may approve the bid, and that would be a defeat for the US and Israel.  As importantly, the Palestinian leadership has decided to sidestep America as the key mediator in the process.  Both the US and Israel insist that there can be no talk of statehood outside the 'peace process'.  But Mahmoud Abbas, after all these years, is acting as if he knows that the 'peace process' is intended to suffocate the very possibility of Palestinian statehood, which is not a small thing.

Labels: gaza, Israel, libya, middle east, palestine, revolution, US imperialism, yemen