Uprising In Turkey
All Quiet On Albuquerque's West Side

Istanbul tonight

Reinforcement protesters are reported to be streaming into Istanbul, and protests have spread to other cities, after the government attacked the 50,000 protesters in Istanbul with tear gas and water cannons today, killing at least one woman with a tear gas grenade.

The Erdogan government's increasingly dictatorial rule is behind the protests, as The Guardian reports, but its focus has become the occupation of a city park that Erdogan wants to turn into a shopping mall, i.e., wants to take from the people and hand over to the wealthy. One Facebook post said it's the last remaining green space in Istanbul's downtown. Posts about today's developments are being ignored by the corporate media and everyone is urgently getting the world out. It's flooding Facebook tonight. I've not seen such an explosion about one topic since the height of the Occupy protests.

People streaming into Istanbul earlier today

 Khaled Akil took this video from his balcony tonight.






Here at the soon to be fashionable Tierre Pointe apartment's on Albuquerque's West Side it's quiet, a typical Friday night. The predominately Hispanic residents, largely young families and single working men and women, have either gone to bed or are watching TV with the sound down. These people work. Once in awhile, a group of people will move into an apartment here and I'll walk by on my way to work and they'll be hanging out on the landing and they'll be up late partying and making some noise, but they don't stay long. When I come home at around 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning, it's always easy to find a parking place. Everyone who works and drives a car is already at work.

Last night on my way out to Holbrook I listened to a podcast from Global Research, a radical Canadian web site that's widely read in the US. They were talking about the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership.

The TPP is a trade deal being secretly negotiated by the Obama Administration, although some drafts have been leaked. Privvy to the deal at present are the governments of the US, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, and, according to Global Research, 600 US corporations who are party to the agreement and who, unlike the people of the United States, can read the drafts and have input into the negotiations. The US government's web site about the TPP is directed at these "stakeholders" and lists the briefings they can attend.

The TPP is in part an attempt to create an economic nose around China's neck, the economic arm of President Obama's military "pivot to the east", but it also represents the new breed of so called free trade agreement, that establishes tribunals in which corporations can sue a government for damages when any of that government's policies or laws harm the corporation's profits, and even future profits. Some of these pacts are already in effect and have been used to counteract environmental laws and citizens' movements. The TPP, and another agreement being negotiated between Canada and the European Union, will bring a lot more of the world under their purview. They are being called massive corporate power grabs.


I came home this morning to read an article by William T Hathaway, a US ex-patriot who lives in Germany, about how the Democratic Party, Leftist media, and unions, channel peoples' anger and rebellion into manageable channels. This is a longstanding critique and one I've written about myself. Hathaway laid out a concise outline of the problem, but the comments under his article soon became an argument over whether Leftists should abandon or reform the Democratic Party, and then over what the true history of the Democratic Party really is.

This is how it is on the Left. There's always broad agreement over what the problems are, and always a lack of unity when it comes to deciding what to do. Everyone wants their ideas heard, their solutions adopted. There's posturing, ego, splitting and fracturing, until something like Occupy comes along, or the situation in Istanbul. Suddenly everyone's focus is shifted away from themselves and to that. It's all the talk on Facebook. The human dynamic begins to take affect that leads to mass movement, mass action. Rebellion becomes possible. Sometimes revolution breaks out.

There's always a question about whether or not people in power are consciously aware, all the time, of this potential in the masses, and about the extent to which they take active measures to prevent and forestall the restive part of human nature. There's talk about how the internet as an avenue for free expression is under threat, and how the corporate media serves the interests of those in power.

That those in power are unconsciously aware of the threat posed by the masses is not in question. Human nature is such that anyone, anywhere, does what they do in large part to keep what they have, their status, their possessions, to hold onto whatever it is that provides them with their sense of security.

There's been a lot of talk about the increasing power of Hispanics in America, less about what lengths the dominant grouping of people might do to hang onto their privileged status which, the daily struggle being what it is, most don't even know they have until it becomes threatened. All over the Middle East and in parts of Africa you can see what happens when divisions in the working class are created and exploited. Workers are killing and raping and torturing each other and blowing each other up. Not just political parties but whole nations are fracturing.

Elsewhere you can see what happens when peoples' attention is focused on the ways in which power is exercised over them for the benefit of the wealthy, as in Frankfurt, Germany today where protesters decended on the headquarters of the European Central Bank, and in Iraq and Syria today, and in Istanbul, where average people in jogging pants and windbreakers didn't go to work today but streamed into the downtown, en masse, in solidarity with people they've never met, answering an unconscious, primal urge to survive they didn't even know was there.

But here, on the West Side of Albuquerque, there's peace and quiet. Tonight.



.

.

Heinrich and Udall and GMOs

New Mexico:

Heinrich (D-NM), Yea

Udall (D-NM), Yea

Bernie Sanders of Vermont had introduced an amendment to the Farm Bill being debated in the senate that would have allowed states to require food companies to label foods that contain genetically modified organisms. Not required, allowed. The Democratic controlled senate rejected the amendment 71-27.

New Mexico's senators, Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, voted for the amendment, i.e., for GMO labeling.


I remember when the federal legislation was passed in the waning days of the George W Bush administration that made it against the law for states to require GMO labeling. It was rushed into law because California was about to require GMO labeling. It was one of the last things our former congressperson, the notorious Heather Wilson, voted for.

If you're ever having a bad day,  just remember, Heather's gone. She's in South Dakota teaching hillbillies how to drill for oil.



.





.

Remembering Those Who Served And Those Who Didn't

On this Memorial Day I came across this list of prominent politicians and pundits and their service records posted by Elwood P Dowd, which he calls "The list of republican cowards, draft dodgers and chickenhawks."

Service Records – Comparing Democrats To Republicans Democrats David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72 Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, etc Jimmy Carter: Lt. Commander in the Navy 1946-53 Wesley Clark: Army 1966-2000, Vietnam, Silver star, purple heart Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver/Bronze stars, Vietnam Bill Clinton: Did not serve (opposed war) Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72 Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze star Michael Dukakis: Army 1955-57 John Edwards: Did not serve Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71 John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs; Air Medal w/18 Clusters Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam as journalist Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74 Howell Heflin: Silver star WWII Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze star Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53 Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver/Bronze stars, purple hearts Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII Jim McDermott: Navy 1968-70 George McGovern: Silver star & DFC during WWII Zell Miller: Marine Corps, 1953-56 Walter Mondale: Army 1951-53\ John Murtha: Retired Marine officer and decorated Vietnam combat veteran Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver star, etc Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze star, Korea Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-79; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91 Chuck Robb: U.S. Marine Corps, 1961-70, Vietnam Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57 Mike Thompson: Staff Sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart John Conyers – US Army Republicans Spencer Abraham: Did not serve Eliot Abrams: Did not serve Richard Armitage: Navy, three tours in Vietnam John Ashcroft: Did not serve Roy Blunt: Did not serve Michael Bloomberg: Did not serve George W. Bush: Texas Air Nat. Guard; skipped duty; didn't take physical; suspended from flying Jeb Bush: Did not serve Saxby Chambliss: Did not serve. Attacked Cleland's patriotism Dick Cheney: Did not serve Christopher Cox: Did not serve Tom DeLay: Did not serve John Engler: Did not serve Douglas Feith: Did not serve Bill Frist: Did not serve Newt Gingrich: Did not serve Rudy Giuliani: Did not serve Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer Phil Gramm: Did not serve Dennis Hastert: Did not serve Tim Hutchison: Did not serve Jack Kemp: Did not serve. "Knee problem," continued in NFL for 8 years Jon Kyl: Did not serve Trent Lott: Did not serve John McCain: POW in Vietnam, Legion of Merit, Silver star, DFC, many more Mitch McConnell: Did not serve John McHugh: Did not serve George Pataki: Did not serve Richard Perle: Did not serve Colin Powell: 35 years in Army, 4-star general Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard Dana Rohrabacher: Did not serve Karl Rove: Did not serve Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor Rick Santorum: Did not serve Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base Richard Shelby: Did not serve JC Watts: Did not serve Vin Weber: Did not serve Paul Wolfowitz: Did not serve Andy Card – no service Condi Rice – no service John Bolton – no service Don Nichols – no service David Dreier - no service Pundits, Preachers, and Judges Bill Bennett: Did not serve Wolf Blitzer: Did not serve Pat Buchanan: Did not serve Mann Coulter: Did not serve Charlie Daniels: Did not serve Lou Dobbs: Did not serve Paul Gigot: Did not serve Sean Hannity: Did not serve Bill Kristol: Did not serve Rush Limbaugh: Did not serve Chris Matthews: Did not serve Michael Medved: Did not serve Ted Nugent: Did not serve Bill O'Reilly: Did not serve Dan Rather: Army Reserves Ralph Reed: Did not serve Michael Savage: Did not serve Antonin Scalia: Did not serve Kenneth Starr: Did not serve Clarence Thomas: Did not serve George Will: Did not serve Roger Ailes (Fox) – Did not serve Anne Coulter – Did not serve Fred Barnes – Did not serve Gary Bauer – Did not serve Neil Bortz – Did not serve Tony Snow - Did not serve Pat Robertson - US Army Jerry Falwell - Did not serve Bloggers Jim Baca - US Air Force Bubba Muntzer - US Army .

Public Broadcasting Goes Private -- A Sad Story Just Keeps Getting Worse

The grand experiment in publicly funded broadcasting begun by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson and a Liberal Congress to uplift, enrich and inform the American public has failed. The Liberal belief, the product of Marxist thought, that society won't benefit if everything is left up to the market, has lost favor as both political parties have become more conservative since PBS was initiated in the late 1960s. Public media's funding has been slashed again and again, and it has relied more and more on corporate sponsorship, and shown more deference to its corporate funders in terms of programming.

It's been noted how PBS, which funds public TV and pubic radio, never does a story critical of Archer Daniels Midland or its other primary funders. Bill Gates comes to mind. As the conservatism that's now entrenched in both major parties has became more emboldened, its attempts to control the PBS message have increased. Recall how George W Bush installed a PBS head who hired private investigators to monitor programming for Liberal content.

I wrote recently about the hatchet job done on Venezuelan Socialism by Steve Inskeep, the NPR morning show host, and about how, if you wanted to get biased information about Venezuela you'd go straight to Rory Carroll, the Guardian's former Latin America correspondent, which is exactly what Inskeep did.

Inskeep was purportedly in Venezuala to cover its presidential elections, but we heard almost nothing about the election. Instead Inskeep, under the guidance of Carroll and representatives of the Venezuelan oligarchy, taxied out to a few places around Caracas that were supposed to demonstrate the failure of Venezuelan Socialism, which, coincidentally, the conservative US government on behalf of US Capitalism is doing all in its power to discredit and destroy, lest it set a good example for docile Americans and threaten the profits of Capitalism.

Near the top of the Capitalist dogheap right now sit the notorious Koch brothers, who are also among PBS' biggest funders, and the revelations this week about how one of them censored PBS programming that held him in bad light is just the latest sad news in an ongoing, sad, story.

It's also another chapter in a bigger story, about how Capitalism perpetuates itself. Its relentless, inherent tendency toward monopolization has resulted in a US media that's virtually all in the hands of a handful of corporations, six of them -- and this includes ownership by the same corporations of newspapers, television networks and television stations, radio stations, and the film and music industries, and now PBS -- and along with that, the message Americans get, the ideas they are exposed to, the information they get, the range of interpretation and critique of news and ideas and politics, becomes more and more limited, and more of what Capitalism thinks will make us better consumers and more docile workers.

Or would that be more docile consumers and better workers? Take your pick. Think about it. If you can.



.

You've been indoctrinated if... Someone gets ran over and then hacked to death and the first question you ask is: "Was is terrorism?"

Tweeted by Del Cameron - @dellcam



.

Police Persecution Of Citizen Journalists

When David Silva of Bakersfield CA died this week after being beaten by police, the first thing police did was confiscate the cell phones of everyone who'd witnessed the beating.

"Citizen journalists" have caught police doing many things since the famous 1991 video taping of the brutal beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police. One that still reverberates is when Oscar Grant of Oakland, CA, was shot in the back by a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police officer on New Year's Day in 2009 while other officers held Grant face down on the ground. At least two BART passengers recorded the shooting with their cell phones.

But more and more, police around the country are finding ways to prevent their misdeeds from becoming known. Citizen journalists, and even professional journalists, have been arrested, threatened with arrest, beaten, and wiretapped for recording police activities on public property.

Confiscating cell phone cameras, as in the Bakersfield case, is pervasive, because police know that when video evidence of their misconduct and crimes gets on the internet, it becomes very difficult to contain the damage.

And now, police have gotten laws passed in some states making it a crime to takes photos or video of police.

When there is no cell phone video, of course, it's next to impossible to receive justice for criminal activity by police. The misconduct is investigated by the police themselves, and the final decision about whether or not to prosecute a case is made by district attorneys, some of whom simply refuse to pursue police misconduct.

Journalist Carlos Miller created the web log Photography Is Not A Crime to keep track of the efforts by police to shield themselves from the truth, after he was arrested in 2007 for photographing police who were questioning a man, and charged with numerous crimes, including resisting arrest, all of which were eventually dropped or overturned.

Sure enough, when I looked up Miller's site tonight for this post I found that he is on top of the Bakersfield case. Two people have had their cell phones returned. One, whose cell phone didn't contain incriminating evidence, had it returned intact. Another, whose cell phone contained incriminating video, had it returned with the incriminating video deleted.

Activate iCloud and video away.



.

Life In America

Life, in America, is cheap.

In England, the two suspects in yesterday's brutal murder of an active duty solider are in the hospital, after being shot by members of a rapid response team. The police showed up having been told the men were armed, with knives, a meat cleaver and a gun.

In Albuquerque, police have killed at least 17 people over the past three years. Many of them were unarmed. One had a butter knife. One had a pair of pliers in a holder on his belt.

In Florida yesterday, FBI agents were questioning a man in relationship to the Boston Marathon bombing in his home when they say he grabbed a knife. They shot him dead.

Again, in England, the police took out their guns and wounded two armed men. Here, whether someone is armed or not, whether they are mentally ill or not, police take out their guns and kill them. In situations where law enforcement has the upper hand, has the person surrounded, has the training and the ability to disable or disarm a suspect, they pull out their guns and kill them, because in America, life is cheap.

In America we love our death penalty and our guns and our military and our police. We kill each other at rates that leave the rest of the world in the dust. We kill foreigners in foreign wars by the millions. Our police have open license to kill.

The district attorney in Albuquerque has never brought charges against a single cop who killed an unarmed person. Never.

In America, life is cheap. America is cheap.



.

The Syrian Question

A column in the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt General Paper), which is roughly the German equivalent of the New York Times, the nation's paper, lays out the pitfalls of military intervention in Syria by comparing that situation to Iraq and Afghanistan. In those two cases it was relatively easy for the US and its allies to achieve a quick military victory, Gunther Nonnenmacher points out, but the occupations and attempts to build democracy in those two countries have failed. The column was posted today in Watching America, the foreign press translation service that I link to in the right-hand column.

Those lessons are already being ignored when it comes to Syria. President Obama has resisted steady pressure from the right to get the US more military involved in Syria, especially from neocons, as in the example of New York Times columnist Jennifer Rubin. And as Rubin points out, with recent dire warnings in the press about increased Hezzbolah and Iranian involvement in Syria, and about the Syrian regime possibly turning the tide against rebel forces, Democrats in congress are beginning to desert the president, too.

The other argument against intervention in Syria has to do with sectarianism. As in Iraq, and also in Libya, Syria has been one of those countries where, despite what you think or thought about its ruler, sectarian divisions were suppressed and the people identified themselves as Iraqi or Libyan or Syrian, not as Sunni, Shia, Christian or Kurd. Religious fundamentalism was suppressed, and civil rights, although they weren't what we're used to here, were more respected than they are in, for example, Saudi Arabia.

Fortunately, the US public is overwhelmingly against a war in Syria, but public opinion won't necessarily deter the government, and that opinion is liable to change if  the government and the media start waging the kind of propaganda campaigns that paved the way for the wars against Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

If Bashar Assad is ousted, the situation in Syria won't improve and will more likely disintegrate. Whether the US and its allies try to import western style democracy there in the absence of the kind of institutions that facilitate it, like political parties and a free press, or whether it's left to devolve into competing tribal fiefdoms, it's hard to imagine a scenario where Syria doesn't end up worse off than it is now.





.

Who's More Credible: Fox News Or Sponge Bob? You Decide




Liberal Viewer shows how Fox News edited clips of President Obama's press conference to make it appear he was evading questions.

Fox News has done this before. Recall how it has used highly edited clips produced by Andrew Breitbart to destroy the organization ACORN and the reputation of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod.



.