The Last Frontiers of a Killing Economy: Capitalist Democracy’s Sad Finale

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Another press release:

RIGHTS: U.N. Condemns Land Grabs in Native Territories, By Haider Rizvi.

http://sec.11alive.com/quote/04T44x81tc86J
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49986

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14, 2010 (IPS) – Millions of people around the world who belong to indigenous communities continue to face discrimination and abuse at the hands of authorities and private business concerns, says a new U.N. report released here Thursday.

It is happening not only in the developing parts of the world but also in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which champion the causes of human rights and democracy, the report says.

Despite all the “positive developments” in international human rights setting in recent years, the study’s findings suggest that indigenous peoples remain vulnerable to state-sponsored violence and brutality, which is often aimed at confiscating their lands.

“This carbon market insanity privatises the air and sells it to climate criminals like Shell so they can continue to pollute and destroy the climate and our future, rather than reducing their emissions at source…”

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Fascistic Danish Police Force Threatens to Shoot Activists!

Friday, December 18, 2009

The policing of COP15 has been totalitarian and democratic rights routinely suspended: no one is considered innocent until proven guilty, but simply arrested “preventatively”. Close to two thousand – 968 in one swoop – were  arrested without committing any offence and been left to sit for hours in a freezing cold street, in their own piss and shit, with plastic strips around their bleeding wrists. Some, including delegates, have been severely beaten.

There have been riots in the animal cage prisons (illegal according to Amnesty) and some spokespeople have been arrested and will be charged with – so far all taking place behind closed doors! -  the intentions to be violent against the police and for the intentions to incite riots. In part based on phone tapping of interviews with journalists and  alleged illegal tapping of Greenpeace. This is what democracy looks like! The police has since admitted that they “only performed two illegal acts of surveillance of phones, nothing more” and Johan Martini Reimann, Director of Copenhagen Police, in order to calm the waters with an unwitting irony, ensures the public that “they have not operated in a manner differently from normal“. Nice to know that the Danish Police routine breaks the law – and as usual revealing to hear what total disregard for the rule of law that this institution has!

In other words, the rule of law no longer rules (did it ever?) the little rotten Duck Pond. There has been world wide reporting of the fascistic policing measures (see for instance: “Copenhagen: the sound of silence: Denmark’s reputation is being destroyed by police action outside the summit and the gagging of NGOs and poor nations inside“), which, of course, does not really surprise those familiar with the Danish police force and political system. Chavez has interestingly stated that Denmark is more repressive than Venezuela.

In connection with a funny, rather innocent, yet cheeky and coordinated Greenpeace action last night in front of and inside the Danish Parliament – Christiansborg – the Chief Inspector of Copenhagen Police, Per Larsen (currently accused of covering up a terrorist act for political gain) , now severely threaten people. First he states that such an action is “as stupid as anything can be. When you do that kind of thing, you are going to pay for it. And that bill is being prepared now“:

»Det er så dumt, som noget kan være. Når man laver den slags, så kommer man til at betale for det. Og den regning er ved at blive udstedt nu«, siger chefpolitiinspektør Per Larsen fra Københavns Politi.

That’s not enough for Per Larsen, however, who also threatens to shoot activists. He says that “the risk is present if anyone feels threatened. When you do such a thing you expose yourself to risks”:

»Den risiko er også til stede, hvis nogen havde følt sig truet. Når man gør den slags, så udgør man da en risiko for sig selv«, siger Per Larsen.

As we have seen throughout COP15 the Danish police do whatever they can, whatever the want, with whatever means necessary to repress protests and to intimidate and scare people from participating in saving the world from corrupt politicians and greeedy corporate pigs, but this is the first time that they directly threaten to shoot people. (Of course they have infamously shot at protesters in Copenhagen before – in 1993 when 113 rounds were fired at an anti-EU demonstration. Denmark just is like that!)

Obviously poor little Per Larsen is upset that the Greenpeace activists took the piss out of him and his imbecile force and now he wants revenge and speaks like a little boy who has had his toy taken away.

While activists climbed lamp posts etc. in front of the parliament building, three others, dressed in appropriate galla fashion entered the fine dinner where the Danish Queen were receiving the “leaders” of states for some pompous food and drink. The exact same style of action was carried out a week earlier in Brussels. EDIT: The four Greenpeace activists have still not been released, causing the Spanish state to “help” one of them, namely the Spanish head of Greenpeace, Juan Lopéz de Uralde.

All bets are off now, all targets – by any means necessary – are legitimate, it seems.

Johan Martini Reimann, politidirektør, Københavns Politi

»Der er ikke andre tilfælde i nogle andre sager om anholdelser af klimaaktivister, hvor aflytninger er underkendt«, siger Carsten


NASA’s mission to bomb the Moon: Who _are_ these people?

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

News are circulating as matter of fact statements that NASA will bomb the moon without any critical reflection. Bomb the moon? Who in the heaven’s name are these people?

The ScientificAmerican.com writes:

“NASA will tomorrow launch a spectacular mission to bomb the Moon. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet. The missile, a Centaur rocket, will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft that will guide it towards its target – a crater close to the Moon’s south pole. Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.”

This is what it will look like in an “artists’s representation”:

LCROSS_Centaur_Sep

Apparently this is a cool thing to do:

“NASA has always done cool things, but its latest mission is really a sci-fi geek’s dream come true, as it includes flying a rocket into the moon, triggering a huge explosion.”

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Tarnac 9 and Anti-terrorism: it “positively produces the political enemy as terrorist”

Thursday, May 28, 2009

The following interview was published in Le Monde on 25 May 2009 and translated by NOT BORED! 27 May 2009. It also appears in the Tarnac9 blog, and here, as well as in this tag collection. Spread the word!

LeMonde | 5.25.09 – Here are the responses to the questions that we [Isabelle Mandraud and Caroline Monnot] posed in writing to Julien Coupat. Placed under investigation on 15 November 2008 for “terrorism,” along with eight other people interrogated in Tarnac (Correze) and Paris, he is suspected of having sabotaged the suspended electrical cables of the SNCF. He is the last one still incarcerated. (He has asked that certain words be in italics.)

Q. How are you spending your time?

A. Very well, thank you. Chin-ups, jogging and reading.

Q. Can you recall the circumstances of your arrest for us?

A. A gang of youths, hooded and armed to the teeth, broke into our house. They threatened us, handcuffed us, and took us away, after having broken everything to pieces. They first took us into very fast cars capable of moving at more than 170 kilometers an hour on the highways. In their conversations, the name of a certain Mr Marion (former leader of the anti-terrorist police) came up often. His virile exploits amused them very much, such as the time he slapped one of his colleagues in the face, in good spirits and at a going-away party. They sequestered us for four days in one of their “people’s prisons,” where they stunned us with questions in which absurdity competed with obscenity.

The one who seemed to be the brains of the operation vaguely excused himself from this circus by explaining that it was the fault of the “services,” the higher-ups, all kinds of people who want [to talk to] us very much. Today, my kidnappers are still free. Certain recent and diverse facts attest to the fact that they continue to rage with total impunity.
Q. The sabotage of the SNCF cables in France was claimed [by someone] in Germany. What do you say about that?
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Obama: A Mad Men Creation of Lies, Wars and Torture for Profit

Thursday, April 30, 2009

When the Obamamania swept the public imagination of TV watching, non-critical minds and those so desperate for change that anything? seemed believable, the colonos blog, as so many others outside of the corporate conspiracy practices, pointed out that – if any change at all – Obama was for the worse. More intimately linked to zionist extremists, particularly through Rahm Emanuel, deeper in bed with corporate banks, particularly the zionist Goldman Sachs, and the elite intelligentsia, such as the racist, misogynist Larry Summers, who no longer need to be embarrassed  about their president’s IQ, Obama is quite possibly the worst thing that has ever happened in political terms to the Planet Earth.

Uncle Tom the Warmonger in the White House of Profit. Calling him black is in itself a form of (warped) racism. Born by a white woman, raised by a white woman, taught by white men, elected by white people, he walks the walk and talks the talk of the White Man. What makes him black? The genetic input of an absent father? His “tainted” skin colour? White is as white does.

What is the point of repeating these so god damn obvious aspects of the elite’s new face of control? Well, they merely serve as an introduction to a recent summary of Obama, the Mad Men business as usual leader, by journalist John Pilger, which I shall leave you with:

Obama’s First 100 Days:
The Madmen Did Well

John Pilger, On April 28, 2009 @ 9:00 pm

The American soap Madmen offers a rare glimpse of the power of corporate advertising. The promotion of smoking half a century ago by the “smart” people of Madison Avenue, who knew the truth, led to countless deaths. Advertising and its twin, public relations, became a way of deceiving on a scale imagined by those who had read Freud and applied mass psychology to anything from cigarettes to politics. Just as the Marlboro Man was virility itself, so politicians could be branded, packaged, and sold.

It is 100 days since Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. The “Obama brand” has since been named Advertising Age’s “marketer of the year for 2008,” easily beating Apple. David Fenton of MoveOn.org describes Obama’s election campaign “an institutionalized, mass-level, automated technological community organizing that has never existed before and is a very, very powerful force.” Deploying the Internet and a slogan plagiarized from the Latino union organizer Caesar Chavez – Si se puede! – “yes, we can,” the “mass-level, automated technological community” marketed its brand to victory in a country desperate to be rid of George W. Bush.

No one knew what the new brand actually stood for. So accomplished was the advertising – a record $75 million was spent on TV commercials alone – that many Americans actually believed Obama shared their opposition to Bush’s wars. In fact, he had repeatedly backed Bush’s warmongering and its congressional funding. Many Americans also believed he was the heir to Martin Luther King’s legacy of anti-colonialism. Yet if Obama had a theme at all, apart from the vacuous “change you can believe in,” it was the renewal of America as a dominant, avaricious bully. “We will be the most powerful!” he declared.

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“There are two sides: the agents of waste and the lovers of the wild.”

Monday, April 20, 2009

The recent, very violent policing of protests against the G20 meeting in London has become a matter of concern. The story that the authorities tell is one of disobedient police officers. The story, with a bit of imagination, could be understood as if, perhaps, there aren’t just a few bad apples in the barrel, some individuals: maybe there is a disease inside the institution, indeed it is “very worrying“:

“Some officers now appeared prepared to flout recent orders from senior commanders to display their numbers, Huhne said, with another officer photographed at the protest staged by Tamils in Parliament Square with his numbers disguised. “What we appear to have is repeated cases of police officers ignoring the direct orders of their police supervisors and this is very worrying.

“There’s only one motive for a police officer disguising his identity and that’s because he thinks he’s going to be doing something reprehensible.”

Senior Metropolitan police officers held a series of crisis meetings throughout last week and sources said Sir Paul Stephenson, the new commissioner, was determined to get a grip. One Met source said he was ready to “kick some ass” among senior officers. The IPCC has received more than 185 complaints about the G20 protests, of which 44 are not eligible for consideration, including complaints from people who saw footage on TV. Around 90 complaints about use of force included witness accounts as well as those from alleged victims.”

It is obviously wishful thinking that the current concern will translate into institutional reforms on a large scale. Most likely it will subside into a few firings, extended suspensions (paid holidays) and early retirements with golden handshakes. The police as an institution is intricately connected to the economy and representative democracy, representing industrial, private interests, as such it is a force of violence that is mobilised when the masses threaten the elite. The police are the arms of the agents of waste.

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Miembros del Centro de Medios Independientes: Arrestados en Ecuador!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Four independent media activists from Indymedia-Ecuador have been arrested without charges, making the reason for arrest obviously political – and (as such) in violation of human rights and of article 24(4) of the Ecuadorian constitution. It is an attack on the freedom of speech in Ecuador – as in so many other places in the new world order and permanent global state of exception. Spread the word, show your support and keep struggling for human rights and the freedom to speak your mind!

====================

COMUNICADO DE PRENSA
Ecuador. Francisco de Orellana, 07 de mayo del 2008. (hora: 11:50)
REMITIMOS COMUNICADO DE PRENSA.

Quito /Ecuador / INREDH

Comunicadores independientes víctimas de arresto arbitrario. El día martes 6 de mayo de 2008, entre las 10 y las 12 de la noche, fueron arrestados los comunicadores sociales Carlos Andrade, Santiago Cadena, Diana Cabascango y Francisco Jaramillo. miembros del Centro de Medios Independientes Indymedia-Ecuador.

El fiscal del caso, Doctor Francisco Noboa, encabezó el operativo de allanamiento a los domicilios y captura. Dicho fiscal se negó a informar al abogado de los detenidos sobre las razones de su detención, no quiso informar cual era el juez que conocía la causa, no mostró la orden de detención, ni la de allanamiento.

Esta actuación es violatoria al artículo 24(4) de la Constitución, el cual señala: Toda persona, al ser detenida, tendrá derecho a conocer en forma clara las razones de su detención, la identidad de la autoridad que la ordenó, la de los agentes que la llevan a cabo y la de los responsables del respectivo interrogatorio.

Por esta razón, el INREDH presentará una denuncia en contra del agente fiscal mencionado. El personal de la Policía Judicial no permitió que los detenidos se entrevisten con su abogado, por lo cual se configura una situación de incomunicación, por lo que el INREDH denunciará ante asuntos internos de la Policía Judicial esta falta para que se impongan sanciones a los policías responsables.

Estos hechos configuran una detención por conciencia, es decir una detención cuyo móvil es político. Las actividades comunicacionales de los detenidos eran de constante crítica al sistema constituido y de denuncia por los atropellos del poder a los derechos de las personas. Los bienes incautados de sus domicilios fueron computadoras, documentos de trabajo y afiches alusivos a su tendencia política.

Este arresto arbitrario esta siendo denunciado ante organismos internacionales como Amnistía Internacional, la Federación Internacional de Derechos Humanos, la Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura y la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.

Exigimos que se frene la incomunicación de los detenidos, que se señalen las causas de su detención, que se sancionen al Agente Fiscal y a los oficiales de la Policía Judicial por la violación de los derechos
humanos de los detenidos y que si los supuestos legales no se cumplen se los deje en inmediata libertad.

Pedimos a la opinión pública que se mantenga vigilante de estos hechos que parecen configurar un ataque a la libertad de expresión en nuestro país.

Más información: Comunicación INREDH
Amanda Trujillo: 2526365 / 088994039
Ana Cristina Vera: 096200423


WORLD FACING HUGE NEW CHALLENGE ON FOOD FRONT: The 11th Hour in context

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

We watched Leonardo DiCaprio’s “11th hour” last night (you might be able to watch it here or via quicksilversreen.com and read more about it here) and although it was by no stretch of the imagination a very good film on any terms (structure, presentation of material, cinematography or in terms of delivering a profound radical political message) it was still a positive surprise. But hey! what would you expect, come on, be honest?

In the critical (mainstream environmentalist?) words of Rikke Bruntse-Dahl, writing for smartplanet.com:

“The overall message was that we’ve forgotten that we’re part of nature and even though the Earth as such will survive, it will not be a pleasant — or indeed habitable — place to be if we don’t start looking after it and each other. While it’s undoubtedly a good message, which we’d like as many people as possible to hear, the film itself is just not up to scratch.

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Correa’s idea of saving the Amazon: a new airport?

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Rafael Correa is being billed as a great hope for his own version of “21st century socialism”, for “his” proposal to leave the oil in the soil – and he talks about respect for the traditional culture of the people who live in the Ecuadorian Amazon. But the last thing the people who live traditionally in the Amazon they could possibly need is an airport; so that’s what they’ll have? But let us first take a look at the facts about the historical genocide and the current situation for the people at the receiving end of Correa’s revolution:

“Manuela Omari Ima, who is the new chairperson of Waorani women’s organization, Amwae, has first hand experience in the devastating consequences of oil exploration. “The indigenous peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon have been decimated in just a few decades,” she says. “The Waorani people alone numbered around 16,000 at the end of the 1960s, when the oil exploration began. Today, there are no more than about a thousand of us left… I don’t know how much longer we can survive under the current conditions. Perhaps the industry will out-live us – judging by how it has wiped out other tribal peoples in the Amazon. Maybe the earth will have nothing left to give when the companies leave.” … Altogether, an estimated 90% of the indigenous peoples in the Amazon region of Ecuador have been wiped out over the past few decades”

An airport in the Ecuadorian Amazon can serve only people employed by the extractive industries, politicians and celebrities on photo shoots, cocaine gangsters, mercenaries and stupid tourists that should stay at home – it is total disrespect for the people of the Amazon, many of whom have serious financial problems getting on a 50 cent bus to take a dying child to the hospital in town. There is already one airport too many – in Tena.

“President Correa will seek Chinese investment in a major airport in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where construction is planned to start in 2008, the ministry said… Ecuador is seeking and enlarging cooperation with and investment from China, the ministry said. “The diplomatic relations between the two countries, since established in 1980, have witnessed more progress,” the ministry added… Ecuador has received 1.8 billion U.S. dollars of investment from China, making it the leading recipient of Chinese investment in Latin America. In the first nine months this year the bilateral trade volume has topped 669 million dollars.”

In the last ten years the Ecuadorian Amazon has been halved and towns like Tena doubled. Some peoples almost eradicated. Will it never stop? If Correa’s government is a socialist revolution, then what does it take to challenge the destruction of the Amazon rain forest?


Rafael Correa: With God On Our Side

Thursday, November 1, 2007

In the same week as Rafael Correa announced that Ecuador would eradicate illiteracy by 2009 he also used anti-consumerist rhetoric to denounce a pagan celebration, which the Christian church, unlike most other pagan days, have not yet managed to appropriate; but, of course, the capitalist have seized the day.

What is Correa saying, then? Well, firstly he is saying that in two years there will be no one who cannot read and write in Ecuador – so perhaps he is going to nuke the last bit of the Amazon – or deprive those who live there of their citizenship (not that they ever asked for it in the first place, but still..)?

Once more he is speaking as if the people who live in the Ecuadorean rain forest just don’t count…..

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