Olga Benario Prestes: The German who fought fascism, to the death

In her final letter to her husband, Luis Carlos Prestes, and her daughter Anita two months before her death in 1942, Olga Benario Prestes wrote, "I fought for the just and the good, to make the world better. If I must now say goodbye, I promise I won't give you any cause to be ashamed of me, not to my last breath." Killed in a Nazi euthanasia centre shortly after turning 34, the German communist’s words alluded to her lifelong fight against fascism. Hers is a story of bravery and resistance that speaks to the various times in which it's been told, and which has left a legacy in Germany, Brazil and beyond. For her daughter, Anita Leocadia Prestes, today a retired professor and historian living in Rio de Janeiro, it’s a legacy that needs to be remembered.    

The daughter of the German communist killed by the Nazis discusses her legacy in the modern fight against the far right.

The 82-year-old tells Al Jazeera: "It's important to publicise fighters like [Olga] Benario so people understand it's necessary to stop the rise of fascism and to prevent similar tragedies. Her example is inspiring to young people who want to fight against fascism, and for social justice and freedom." https://aje.io/b5k33

From Marc Lamont Hill to the Quakers, no criticism of Israel is allowed

CNN’s firing of Marc Lamont Hill and outrage at Airbnb and the Quakers reveals a complete intolerance of criticism

  Middle East Eye – 7 December 2018

    For 30 years, the United Nations has held an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November. The event rarely merited even a passing nod in the mainstream media. Until last week.   Marc Lamont Hill, a prominent US academic and political commentator for CNN, found himself deluged by a tsunami of outrage over a speech he had made at the UN headquarters in New York. He called for an end to Oslo’s discredited model of interminable and futile negotiations over Palestinian statehood – a strategy that is already officially two decades past its sell-by date.   In its place, he proposed developing a new model of regional peace based on a single state offering equal rights to Israelis and Palestinians. Under a barrage of criticism that his speech had been anti-semitic, CNN summarily fired him.   Howls of outrage His dismissal echoes recent, largely confected furores greeting attempts by organisations to take a more practical and ethical stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both Airbnb, an accommodation bookings website, and the UK branch of the Quakers, a society of Christian religious movements, have faced howls of indignation in response to their modest initiatives.   Last month, Airbnb announced that it would remove from its site all properties listed in illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory in the West Bank. Shortly afterwards, the Quakers declared that they would refuse to invest in companies that profit from Israel’s theft of Palestinian resources in the occupied territories.   Both moves fully accord with international law, which views the transfer of an occupying powers’ population into occupied territory – the establishment of settlements – as a war crime. Again, like Hill, the two organisations were battered by adverse reactions, including accusations of malevolence and anti-semitism – especially from prominent and supposedly liberal and representative Jewish leadership groups in the US and UK.   What all three cases illustrate is how the definition of anti-semitism is being rapidly expanded to encompass even extremely limited forms of criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights. This redefinition is occurring at a time when Israel is led by the most intransigent and ultra-nationalist government in its history.   These two trends are not unrelated. The cases in question also reveal the growing weaponisation of an emotive identity politics that has been turned on its head – depoliticised to side with the strong against the weak.   Lesser human beings Of the three “controversies”, Hill’s speech offered the biggest break with western orthodoxy on how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – or at least an orthodoxy established by the Oslo agreements in the mid-1990s. Those accords intimated that, should the Palestinians wait patiently, Israel might one day concede them a state on less than a quarter of their homeland.   Some 25 years later, the Palestinians are still waiting, and most of their proposed state has in the meantime been devoured by Israel’s settlement-colonies.   In his speech, Hill put the Zionist movement’s dispossession of the Palestinians in its proper historical perspective – one increasingly recognised by academics and experts – as a settler-colonial project.   He also correctly noted that the chance for a two-state solution, were it even feasible, has been usurped by Israel’s determination to create a single state over all of historic Palestine – one that privileges Jews. In Greater Israel, Palestinians are doomed to be treated as lesser human beings.   History, Hill observed, suggests there is only one possible ethical resolution of such situations: decolonisation. That recognises the existing reality of a single state, but insists on equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.   Jewish genocide Rather than challenge Hill on the unassailable logic of his argument, critics resorted to inflammatory soundbites. He was accused of using anti-semitic language – employed by Hamas – in referring to international action to secure “a free Palestine from the river to the sea”.   In a double leap of faulty logic, Israel and its apologists claimed that Hamas uses the term to declare its genocidal intent to exterminate Jews, and that Hill had echoed those sentiments. Dani Dayan, Israel’s consul-general in New York, termed Hill “a racist, a bigot, an anti-semite”, and compared his remarks to a “swastika painted in red”.   Ben Shapiro, an analyst on Fox News, echoed him, claiming Hill had called for “killing all the Jews” in the region. Seth Mandel, the executive editor of the Washington Examiner, similarly argued that Hill had urged a “Jewish genocide”.   The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a prominent and supposedly liberal Jewish organisation that claims to support equal treatment for all US citizens, denounced Hill too, arguing: “Those calling for ‘from the river to the sea’ are calling for an end to the State of Israel.”   Likud’s ‘river to the sea’ slogan In fact, the expression “from the river to the sea” – referring to the area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea – has a long pedigree in both Israeli and Palestinian discourse. It is simply a popular way of referring to a region once named historic Palestine.

In fact, the founding charter of the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressly envisions a Greater Israel that denies Palestinians any hope of statehood. It uses exactly the same language: “Between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”

Far from being a Hamas slogan, it is used by anyone who rejects the partition of Palestine and favours a single state. That includes all the various parties in the current Israeli government.   In fact, the founding charter of the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressly envisions a Greater Israel that denies Palestinians any hope of statehood. It uses exactly the same language: “Between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”   Even after the charter was amended in 1999, in the wake of the Oslo accords, it continued to call for a Greater Israel, declaring that “the Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.”   Israel’s model of apartheid The difference between the position of Hamas and the Israeli government, on the one hand, and Hill’s on the other, is that Hill proposes a single state that would treat all its inhabitants as equals, not provide the framework for domination by one religious or ethnic group over another.   In short, unlike Netanyahu and Israeli officials, Hill rejects a model of permanent occupation and apartheid. That, it seems, is a sackable offence in the view of CNN and the ADL.   By contrast, CNN has long employed former US senator Rick Santorum, even though he has argued that the area between the river and the sea is “all Israeli land” and uses language suggesting he supports a Palestinian genocide.   The preposterousness of the attacks on Hill should be evident the moment we consider that many of the recent leading actors in the peace process – from former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to former US secretary of state John Kerry – have warned that Israel is on the brink of slipping into apartheid rule over Palestinians.   They make this prediction precisely because a succession of Israeli governments have adamantly refused to withdraw from the occupied territories.   Given that under Donald Tump, the US has abandoned any vision of Palestinian statehood – viable or otherwise – Hill simply pointed out that the emperor lacks clothes. He presented a truth no one in a position to change the appalling status quo appears ready to consider.   Right to resist Hill was also accused of anti-semitism for supporting methods to pressure Israel into ending its intransigence, which has kept Palestinians under occupation for more than half a century.   Hill highlighted the right of an occupied people to resist their oppressor, a right that every single western capital has ignored and now invariably characterises as terrorism, even when Palestinian attacks are against armed Israeli soldiers enforcing a belligerent occupation.   But Hill himself advocated for a different, Gandhian-style resistance, of non-violence and solidarity with Palestinians in the form of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement – precisely the kind of international protest that helped to decolonise apartheid South Africa.   BDS turned into bogeyman In recent years, and under pressure from the Israeli government, apologists for Israel’s occupation and western states have transformed BDS into a bogeyman. Its merits are no longer debated. It is not presented either as a tactic to end the occupation, or even as a tool to pressure Israel into liberalising an ideology that demands ethnic supremacy for the Jewish majority over the fifth of Israel’s citizenry who are Palestinian.   Instead it is said to be proof of anti-semitism and increasingly, by implication, of genocidal intent. The fact that the BDS movement is taking hold on western campuses and has been taken up by a significant number of young, anti-Zionist Jews is simply ignored. Instead, the growing trend is to outlaw BDS and treat it as if it is a precursor to terrorism.   So Hill’s speech was a direct assault on the silent borders of public debate vigorously policed by Israel’s apologists and western states to prevent meaningful discussions of how to end Israel’s occupation and re-assert the right of Palestinians to dignity and self-determination.   Elephant in room Why it is so important for Israel’s apologists to silence someone like Hill is because he alludes to the elephant in the room.   His argument strongly hints at the fact that Zionism, Israel’s state ideology, is incompatible with equal rights for Palestinians in their historic homeland. He implies that the occupation is not an aberration that needs fixing but integral to the Zionist movement’s vision of “Judaising” Palestine, of its erasure of Palestinian presence in line with other colonial-settler projects.   Evidence that shielding Israel’s aggressive territorial ambitions from closer inspection is the true goal of Hill’s critics – rather than concern at a supposed rise in “leftwing anti-semitism” – is confirmed by the similar furores surrounding the very modest actions taken by the UK Quakers and Airbnb.   Quakers and ethical investments Late last month the Quakers announced that they would no longer invest in any company that profits from the occupation. The move is part of their “ethical investments” policy, similar to their refusal to invest in the arms and fossil fuel industries.   The Quakers represent a small group of Christian movements that have historically led the way in identifying the moral outrages of each era.   They were prominent in their opposition to slavery in the US and to apartheid in South Africa, and won a Nobel peace prize for their work in saving Jews and Christians from the Nazis during the Second World War. That included organising the Kindertransport that brought 10,000 predominantly Jewish children to the UK.   So it is hardly surprising that they should be taking a lead – one other British Churches have been too fearful to contemplate – in penalising those companies that profit from the subjugation and oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories.   In fact, rather than criticise the UK Quakers for the boycott of these companies, one might fairly wonder why it has taken them so long to act. After all, Israel’s military occupation has been around – and its bastard progeny, the settlements, growing – for more than five decades. Its terrible abuses are well documented.   Importing divisiveness But even the fact that the Quakers have been repeatedly proved to be on the right side of history has not shaken the confidence of Jewish organisations in the UK in denouncing the group. Most prominent was the Board of Deputies, which grandly claims for itself the status of the representative body for Britain’s Jewish community.   Its relentless attacks on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of anti-semitism, have been treated as authoritative by the British media for that very reason.   But the Board revealed its true colours by denouncing the Quakers, suggesting that their stance was motivated not by ethics but by anti-semitism. Ignoring the Quakers’ long history of taking a moral stand, newly elected president Marie van der Zyl argued that Israel was being “singled out”, and that the Quaker leadership had an “obsessive and tunnel-visioned approach”.   Paradoxically, she accused the Quakers of refusing to “tackle prejudice and promote peace in the region”. Instead Quaker leaders had “chosen to import a divisive conflict into our country”.   In fact, it is the Board and other Jewish leadership organisations that have imported that very divisiveness into Britain and the US by expressly tying their Jewish identities to Israel’s ugly colonial-settler actions. The Quakers are pointing out that in a conflict in which one side, Israel, is overwhelmingly stronger, there can be no resolution unless the stronger side faces effective pressure.   The Board, on the other hand, wants to intimidate and silence the Quakers precisely so Israel can continue to be free to oppress the Palestinians and steal their land through settlement expansion. It is not the Quakers who are anti-semitic. It is Jewish leadership organisations like the Board of Deputies that are indifferent – or even cheerleaders – to decades of Israeli brutality towards the Palestinians.   Airbnb’s role aiding settlers Similarly, Airbnb was bombarded with criticism when it promised the even more limited step of removing some 200 properties on its website located in West Bank settlements that violate international law. Indeed, some of them are built in violation of Israeli law too, even if Israel makes precisely no effort to enforce such laws against the settlers.   Until recently it was widely accepted that the settlements were an insuperable obstacle to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a two-state solution. Further, the settlements, it was understood, necessitated ever greater violence against the native Palestinian population to guarantee their protection and expansion.   That, after all, is precisely why international law forbids the transfer of an occupying power’s population into the occupied territory.   Airbnb was clearly aiding these illegal settlers by creating a stronger profit-motive for Jews to live on stolen Palestinian land. That economic motive was the tangential basis for a legal suit filed in the US last week by settler families claiming “religious discrimination”.   In reality, the firm’s decision to pull out of the West Bank was the very minimum that could be expected of them. And yet, even so, they managed to exclude Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem from their listing ban, although they constitute the bulk of the Jewish settler population exploiting Airbnb.   Double standards of ADL Despite Airbnb’s move being feeble and long overdue, it was again cast as anti-semitic by leading Jewish organisations in the US, not least the ADL.   The ADL claims to “secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike”, one of the reasons why it took an active role in fighting for civil rights for American blacks in the Jim Crow era. But like so many Jewish leadership organisations, its actions prove that, when it comes to Israel, it is in truth driven by a tribal, ethnic agenda rather than a universal, human rights-based one.   Rather than welcoming Airbnb’s action, it once again exploited and degraded the meaning of anti-semitism as way to ringfence Israel from pressure to end its ongoing abuse of Palestinians and the theft of their resources.   It accused the company of “double standards” for not applying the same policy in “Northern Cyprus, Tibet, the Western Saharan region, and other territories where people have been displaced”. As Forward commentator Peter Beinart pointed out, this argument was disingenuous at best: “Was the ADL guilty of a ‘double standard’ when its officials marched for civil rights for African Americans but not for American Indians, whose civil rights were not guaranteed by federal law until 1968?”   Israel under daily scrutiny What these three cases highlight is that, just as Israel’s ill-intent towards the Palestinians has become ever more overt and transparent, the officially sanctioned space to criticise Israel and support the Palestinian cause is being intentionally and aggressively restricted.   In an era of phone cameras, 24-hour rolling news and social media, Israel stands exposed like never before to intimate and daily scrutiny. Its long-standing dependence on colonial support, its creation based on the sin of ethnic cleansing, the institutional racism faced by its minority of Palestinian citizens, the brazen brutality and structural violence of its 51-year occupation are more widely understood than was possible even a decade ago.   That has happened at the same time as other major historic injustices – against women, people of colour, indigenous peoples and the LGBT community – have emerged into the spotlight with the adoption of a new kind of popular identity politics.   Denying what is self-evident Israel should clearly be on the wrong side of this story, and yet western governments and Jewish leadership organisations are vigorously helping it deny what should be self-evident, and thereby turning reality on its head.   A few years ago, only the most rabid supporters of Israel openly argued that anti-Zionism equated with anti-semitism. Now anti-Zionism and solidarity movements like BDS are uncritically characterised in mainstream discourse not only as anti-semitic but also implicitly as a form of terrorism against Jews.   The right of Palestinians to dignity and to liberation from Israel’s oppressive rule are again being made subservient to Israel’s right to pursue unchallenged its settler-colonial agenda – to displace and replace the native Palestinian population.   Not only this, but any solidarity with downtrodden Palestinians is characterised as anti-semitism simply because Jewish leaders in the US and UK claim a trump card: their superior right to identify with Israel’s settler-colonial project and to be protected from any criticism for their stance.   In this deeply perverse form of identity politics, the rights of the nuclear-armed state of Israel and its supporters abroad are weaponised to damage the rights of a weak, dispersed, colonised and marginalised community of Palestinians.   For decades, Israel’s supporters have conceded that Israel should be subjected to what they termed “legitimate criticism”.   But the reactions to Hill, the Quakers and Airbnb reveal that in practice there is no criticism of Israel that will be treated as legitimate and that when it comes to the suffering of Palestinians, the only acceptable stance is one of resignation and silence.”    

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2018-12-07/marc-lamont-hill-airbnb-quakers-no-criticism-israel-allowed/

 

Why the world is burning

What Happens When People and Societies Grow Starved of Capital? This Does.  

    How did stagnation come to happen this time around? In much the same way. A huge financial crisis. The banks were bailed out. A generation of neoliberal leaders, who imagined that their countries were now “bankrupt.” They began to cut social investment at precisely the same moment that the economy was faltering — bang! This double whammy crushed the average person. In Britain, for example, the fall in living standards was the greatest for centuries. In America, people’s lives simply began to fall apart — the middle class literally imploded, becoming a minority. In Germany, France, Italy, the comfort and ease of generations of social democracy was grinding to a halt.     The age of austerity had dawned. And unfortunately, that is still precisely where we are today. While Paris burns, as people rage, while Italy is aflame, as people grow furious, as America collapses, as Britain self-destructs in confusion and bewilderment — there is no plan to bail out societies, people, the old, and the young. None whatsoever. And yet without such a plan, if you understand all the above, there is no chance that the world will continue on a path of peace, partnership, and prosperity. Read More

Journalist Dies in Clash Over Dirty Coal in Germany

We could make our planet into a Paradise, Capitalism is however turning in into a dying Hell

The fight between RWE and climate activists has been going on for years and has become of the defining battles of fossil fuel extraction of our time. Activists are arguing RWE has to stop mining dirty coal to protect the oak and hornbeam forest, home to protected species such as bats, frogs and dormouse. They are also trying to prevent wider climate change too.

The Hambach open-pit mine is already vast: some 85 square kilometers or 33 square miles and a huge open scar on the landscape. One of the largest man-made holes in Europe, it is half the size of the U.S. capital of Washington DC. Most has already been ripped up and dug for lignite or brown coal, an especially dirty and carbon intensive fossil fuel. Of the 4,100 hectares that were there origin ally, some 90 percent has already been destroyed and only 200 hectares remain.

The tragedy could have been avoided. Like many other front-lines battles over fossil fuel extraction, it is a conflict that should not be taking place. We should not be expanding coal production. Steffan joins a list of people stretching back to Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995, who have died fighting (or reporting on the fight) between Big Oil and Big Coal and those seeking to protect their land or the wider climate.

Undeterred by the protests and criticism, RWE belligerently plans to clear cut the forest next month and bull-doze two more villages: the 1000 year old village of Kerpen-Manheim and Morschenich. Four other villages have also been destroyed in the last thirty years, consumed by Germany's love of dirty coal. They were bulldozed for the "common good."

But the fight to protect the forest has been growing for years and has come to a head this week, with police trying to evict the protestors. Last Sunday, saw thousands of activists—some estimates say 9,000 people—march towards the woodland between Cologne and Aachen in support and solidarity.

Others remain in the treetops. One of them is Mux, who told DW: "The problem is that it's not only destroying the forest and nature here, as well as the place where people in this region live, it's also causing climate change. There are lots of people dying because of global climate change, which is caused here, so I think I have to use my privileges to stand against that. I have to do it because I can do it." Read More

Bulldozing Palestine, one village at a time

Bulldozing Palestine, one village at a time | Israel | Al Jazeera

It was a bit ironic to see a small group of Israeli settlers enter the large solidarity tent stationed at the entrance of Khan al-Ahmar last Wednesday. They had come, they said, to show "solidarity" with the Palestinian Bedouins protesting a demolition order.

Since 2017, the whole Bedouin village has been threatened with demolition by the Israeli authorities. Earlier that day, Israeli soldiers attacked villagers and activists who had staged a protest, injuring 35.

"You know, I try not to be afraid, but I don't know what will happen to us. Where will we go, what will we do?

Khan al-Ahmar, a village of 180 people, is about 15km northeast of Jerusalem and falls within what is known as Area C of the occupied West Bank, as defined by the Oslo Accords. The area has been inundated with more than 300,000 Israelis living in 125 illegal settlements and is under Israeli administrative control. Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authorities was supposed to take over administering the area, but, of course, Israel never let that happen.

As a result, it is now the Israeli state that controls the land in Area C and that decides on building permits. Khan al-Ahmar existed before the state of Israel was created in 1948. In the 1950s, Palestinian Bedouins expelled from the Negev desert by the Israeli army moved to the West Bank and settled in the village, expanding it. Read More

5 Ways Indigenous Groups Are Fighting Back Against Land Seizures

Governments, corporations and local elites are eager to acquire land to extract natural resources; grow food, fibers and biofuels; or simply hold it for speculative purposes. Most communities hold land under customary tenure systems and lack formal titles for it. While national laws in many countries recognize customary rights, the legal protections are often weak and poorly enforced, making community land especially vulnerable to being taken by more powerful actors.

Communities, however, are not standing by idly. They're increasingly taking action to protect their lands.

Here are five ways communities are defending their land rights: Read More

Britain’s Brave New World Just Got Braver

Sajid Javid: Backs dodgy software to spy on crowds. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

British Home Secretary Sajid Javid unveiled a new counter-terrorism initiative last week that he says targets an ever-metastasizing threat, yet it raises a raft of new questions about people’s rights.

The government is acting on the imperative that something needs to be done. But MI5 – officially known as Britain’s domestic Security Service and the lead organization combating terrorism within the UK – has already, since the start of the “war on terror,” doubled in size and has been promised yet more staff over the next two years.

Yet despite these boosted resources for MI5, as well as increased funding and surveillance powers for the entire UK intelligence community, virtually every terror attack carried out in the UK over the last few years has been committed by someone already known to the authorities. Indeed, the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, had been aggressively investigated but MI5 ignored vital intelligence and closed down the active investigation shortly before he carried out the attack.

This failure to target known threats is not just a UK problem. Attacks across Europe over the last few years have repeatedly been carried out by people already on the local security radar.

New approaches are needed. But this latest offering appears to be a medley of already failed initiatives and more worryingly, a potentially dangerous blueprint for a techno-Stasi state. Read More

Nikki Haley: ‘It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America’

All Hail The Land of the Fee & Home of the Slave

A United Nations report condemning entrenched poverty in the United States is a “misleading and politically motivated” document about “the wealthiest and freest country in the world,” according to the Trump administration's ambassador to the world body.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley criticized the report for critiquing the United States' treatment of its poor, arguing that the United Nations should instead focus on poverty in developing countries such as Burundi and Congo. The U.N. report also faulted the Trump administration for pursuing policies it said would exacerbate U.S. poverty.

“It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America,” Haley wrote in a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday. “In our country, the President, Members of Congress, Governors, Mayors, and City Council members actively engage on poverty issues every day. Compare that to the many countries around the world, whose governments knowingly abuse human rights and cause pain and suffering.”

The rebuke comes two days after Haley announced the United States' resignation from the U.N. Human Rights Council over that body's perceived bias against Israel and toleration of human rights abusers. Read More

UK MPs double down on demand for public registers

UK MPs double down on demand for public registers - Cayman News Service

Andrew Mitchell MP

Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell told the British newspaper, The Guardian, “The overseas territories share our queen, they travel under our flag and they must also share our values.” He said that he and Dame Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who was part of the cross-bench campaign, will not drop it. The next step, they say, is to include the Crown Dependencies.

Dame Margaret said no British territories should be allowed to continue financial services business without a publicly accessible list of beneficial ownership.

“All territories associated with Britain ought to be governed to the same standards and with the same transparency,” she added. “The purpose of this measure is to tackle all dirty money entering through any British territories. You cannot leave a few out.”

===

The relevant question, from the colonial point-of-view, the elephant in the room, is our future constitutional status. We, the colonies, not only have to stomache Orders-in-Council, but more importantly, are without democratic representation in London and are therefore second-class citizens.

I suggest that the Cayman Islands demand all the rights that we are not afforded, such as the National Health Service and all the social services and unemployment benefits that full UK citizens are entitled to.

(https://caymannewsservice.com/2018/06/uk-mps-double-down-on-demand-for-public-registers/

The intellectual capacity of local authorities are staggeringly lacking

Hundreds of homeless people fined and imprisoned in England and Wales

Councils use a range of tools to crackdown on begging, but PSPOs are the most popular. Breaching a PSPO can lead to a £100 fixed-penalty notice, but offenders face a summary conviction, sometimes a criminal behaviour order (CBO) banning an individual for future begging and a fine of up to £1,000 if they fail to pay. Violating a CBO can result in five years in prison. Read More

Local councils are criminalizing poverty, however, the thought process behind the fines are laughable. A person begging or ‘sleeping rough’ can be fined up to £1,000 for so doing. Obiously someone at this state of poverty has no money. The fine therefore, will be uncollectable and the individual will go to jail, thereby costing the state more money. It costs £65,000 to imprison a person in the UK once police, court costs and all the other steps are taken into account. https://goo.gl/hf0mnj ]

However, inprisonment has vastly improved the situation for the homeless person as they now have a roof, food, a warm bed and full medical care. Eventually they may be able to sue the government for wrongfull imprisonment and collect enough to purchase a home.

Ignorance on a shocking scale

How we grew arrogant enough to believe we have the right to kill

In the aftermath of the Santa Fe High School shooting, Texas' lieutenant governor Dan Patrick blamed such attacks on gun owners who don't lock up their guns, and on the "design of schools" which have too many "entrances and exits".

While licensed gun holders should certainly take care to safely lock up their guns, that does not address the larger issue of gun ownership, nor does it address our US culture that, whether we admit it or not, has become desensitised to these mass shootings. Furthermore, blaming building design for this shooting is just one more way US officials are evading their very real responsibility to do more to stop such attacks

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/grew-arrogant-kill-180520180022502.html

1937’s Revenge

Why an Imbalanced Global Economy is a Recipe for Disaster

In the 1930s, it was countries that grew apart and unequal. Germany owed too much money to Britain and France — much more than it could ever repay. The reparations broke its economy, shattered the lives of its people, drove them into penury. Hungry, resentful, embittered, enraged, what happened next? They turned to the most strident and bombastic strongman they could find. They sought in his arms what had been taken from them, at root — dignity, a sense of belonging, pride, meaning. But instead of seeking those in healthy, positive, beneficial ways, they sought them in destructive, negative, and violent ones — turning on their neighbors, scapegoating Jews, immigrants, gays, minorities. And thus the seeds of atrocity and war were laid by the hand of austerity, indebtedness, and stagnation. Read More

Gazan Gandhis: Gaza Bleeds Alone as ‘Liberals’ and ‘Progressives’ Go Mute

Does no State or Head of State have the intestinal fortitude to speak out?

Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the Gaza-Israel border.

Yet as the casualty count keeps climbing – nearly 45 dead and over 5,500 wounded – the deafening silence also continues. Tellingly, many of those who long chastised Palestinians for using armed resistance against the Israeli occupation are nowhere to be found, while children, journalists, women and men are all targeted by hundreds of Israeli snipers who dot the Gaza border.

Israeli officials are adamant. The likes of Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, perceives his war against the unarmed protesters as a war on terrorists. He believes that “there are no innocents in Gaza.” While the Israeli mindset is not in the least surprising, it is emboldened by the lack of meaningful action, or outright international silence to the atrocities taking place at the border.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), aside from frequent statements laced with ambiguous legal jargon, has been quite useless thus far. Its Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, derided Israel’s killings in a recent statement, but also distorted facts in her attempt at ‘even-handed language’, to the delight of Israeli media.

(https://sabrangindia.in/article/gazan-gandhis-gaza-bleeds-alone-liberals-and-progressives-go-mute

Paris to decide fate of 'mega' gold mine in forests of French Guiana

Environmentalists and indigenous chiefs have vehemently opposed the “mega-mine”, warning of serious risks of pollution in the basin of the Mana river which flows through indigenous land, and damage to the area’s biodiversity.

Opponents have particularly expressed concerns over the 57,000 tonnes of explosives, 46,500 tonnes of cyanides and 142m litres of fuel WWF estimated the company will use over the mine’s 12-year lifespan. Montagne d’Or has contested the figures.

Christophe Pierre, a 24-year-old indigenous activist from the village of Terre Rouge about 100km away from the proposed mine is unyielding.

“The project is intolerable and not negotiable,” he said. “It impedes on our living space. There is hunting land nearby and pre-Colombian sites were found next to the proposed mine.

“We never gave up our sovereignty on this land. The French state does not recognise our presence prior to its arrival but this has been our land for thousands for years.” Read More

We should be horrified, and we are not anymore

What You Need To Know About The Massive National School Walkout On Friday

Lane Murdock, a 16-year-old sophomore from Ridgefield, Connecticut, launched the National School Walkout.

She was disturbed by her own reaction — or lack thereof — to the February massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

“When I found out about the shooting at MSD, I remember I didn’t have a huge reaction. And because of that, I knew I needed to change myself, and we needed to change this country,” Lane said.

“We should be horrified, and we’re not anymore. It’s American culture.” Lane Murdock

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Dreaming Beyond Capitalism: a Culture Without Fear

First Nation tribes from North America coined a term to describe the ‘disease of the white man’ – wetiko. In their understanding, wetiko consists of two essential characteristics: chronic inability for empathy and an egoistic fixation on ones own personal benefit and profit. The First Peoples used this word specifically because they could not fathom any other explanation for the behavior of the European colonialists. While often declared as unchangeable psychological features of humanity, greed, selfishness and violent impulses may in fact not be our “human nature” as many claim, but rather the outcome of our alienation under capitalist conditions. Marx said, “Social being determines consciousness.”[ii] According to epigenetic research, our genetic programming contains many different possibilities of existence. Whether wetiko takes holds of our psyche or we become compassionate strongly depends on the social structures we live in. We only consider egoism, hatred and brutality to be “normal” because over the past few thousand years our civilization has been conditioned in this way – basing its economy on war, its social organization on domination and conformity, its religion on punishment, damnation and sin, its education on coercion, its security on the elimination of the supposed enemy, its very image of love on fear of loss. Read More

Will Israel pay a price for its latest Gaza massacre?

The Electronic Intifada

Palestinians are calling for escalating global campaigns to isolate Israel after its army killed 16 people in the Gaza Strip and wounded almost 1,500 others.

Meanwhile, Israel has rejected calls for an international investigation and its defense minister has commended soldiers on Friday’s slaughter.

“Evoking memories of the South African apartheid regime’s massacre of peaceful protesters in Sharpeville in 1960, Israel’s military committed a new massacre against Palestinian civilians as they were peacefully commemorating Palestinian Land Day,” the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) said Monday.

The BNC, the steering group for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, urged people around the world to “mainstream the demand for all private and public entities in your country to end all cooperation and/or trade with the Israeli military and ‘security sector.’”

It also calls for heightened campaigns targeting companies and financial institutions complicit in Israel’s crimes. Read More

It is expensive to be poor

But who made the "Poor' poor? Or to put it another way, was where did all the money go?

Poverty is a shortage of money.

Johnson seemed to have established the principle that it is the responsibility of government to intervene on behalf of the disadvantaged and deprived. But there was never enough money for the fight against poverty, and Johnson found himself increasingly distracted by another and deadlier war—the one in Vietnam. Although underfunded, the War on Poverty still managed to provoke an intense backlash from conservative intellectuals and politicians.

In their view, government programs could do nothing to help the poor because poverty arises from the twisted psychology of the poor themselves. By the Reagan era, it had become a cornerstone of conservative ideology that poverty is caused not by low wages or a lack of jobs and education, but by the bad attitudes and faulty lifestyles of the poor.

Picking up on this theory, pundits and politicians have bemoaned the character failings and bad habits of the poor for at least the past 50 years. In their view, the poor are shiftless, irresponsible, and prone to addiction. They have too many children and fail to get married. So if they suffer from grievous material deprivation, if they run out of money between paychecks, if they do not always have food on their tables—then they have no one to blame but themselves. Read More

Coat Bomb and Explosive Prosthesis: British Intel Files Reveal How the Zionist Stern Gang Terrorized London

In July 1946, one of these groups, the Irgun, led by the future Israeli prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Menachem Begin, blew up the headquarters of the British administration in Palestine, Jerusalems King David Hotel, with heavy loss of civilian life and damage. The newly released MI5 files show that another group fighting the British, the Lehi or Stern Gang, dispatched cells to carry out bombings and assassinations in Britain itself. The Stern Gang is thought to be the worlds last terrorist group to describe itself publicly as terrorist, with some of its members using the term as a badge of honor.

In April 1947, two Stern Gang terrorists, a man and a woman, attempted to blow up the Colonial Office in Whitehall in the center of London. They planted a bomb containing 24 sticks of explosives at Dover House, headquarters of the Colonial Office, but it failed to go off because it was not fused correctly. The head of Londons Special Branch, commander Leonard Burt, believed that if the bomb had gone off, it would have caused as much damage as the bombing of the King David Hotel in London nine months earlier. Read More

Then They Came for the Globalists

I’ve been thinking and writing about globalism, which most dictionaries define as “a national policy of treating the whole world as a proper sphere for political influence,” or “the development of socioeconomic networks that transcend national boundaries,” or something like that … which was more or less my understanding of the term. Little did I know that these fake “definitions” had been infiltrated into these dictionaries by discord-sowing Strasserist agents to dupe political satirists like myself into unknowingly spreading anti-Semitism as part of Putin’s Master Plan to destroy the United States of America and establish worldwide Nazi domination. Read More

Cambridge Analytica's ruthless bid to sway the vote in Nigeria

The Observer has obtained an astonishing and disturbing video that Cambridge Analytica used in the campaign.

“Coming to Nigeria on February 15th, 2015,” the voiceover says in the manner of a trailer for a Hollywood movie.

“Dark. Scary. And very uncertain. Sharia for all.” And then it poses the question: “What would Nigeria look like if sharia were imposed by Buhari?”

Its answer to that question is certainly dark. And scary. It’s also graphically, brutally, violent. One minute and 19 seconds of archive news footage from Nigeria’s troubled past set to a horror movie soundtrack.

There are scenes of people being macheted to death. Their legs hacked off. Their skulls caved in. A former contractor said: “It was voter suppression of the most crude and basic kind. It was targeted at Buhari voters in Buhari regions to basically scare the shit out of them and stop them from voting.”

If Buhari wins, the film warns: women would wear the veil. Sharia law would be introduced. And the inference is, you may be macheted to death. Read More

Another incestuous political relationship

The name which jumped out at me of course was Lord Ivar Mountbatten, direct descendant of Queen Victoria and scion of the family closest friends with that of the UK’s unelected monarch.
The only person listed by Companies House as having “significant control” – ie over 25% of the shares – is Roger Gabb, the wine merchant known for large donations to the Tory Party. I have now spoken to people who know him fairly well who, I must note in fairness, universally say he is a kind and very bright man, but with no technical input in the kind of work performed by SCL/Cambridge Analytica.

SCL is as Establishment as a company can get. The most worrying aspect of this is that SCL is paid by the British government to manipulate public opinion particularly in the fields of “Security” and “Defence”, and still more worryingly SCL – this group of ultra Tory money men seeking to refine government propaganda at the expense of you, the taxpayer – is cleared by the MOD to access classified government information.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/03/the-deep-state-breaks-surface/

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SCL, A very British coup
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/03/20/scl-a-very-british-coup/

A new report is out on how the US economy is rigged against the poor

A new report is out on how the US economy is rigged against the poor. Via TomDispatch

"The 2018 Prosperity Now Scorecard and its report, Whose Bad Choices? How Policy Precludes Prosperity and What We Can Do About It, also make the argument that the U.S. economic system and policies of the Trump administration and Congress are stacked against people of color.

Criminalize poverty and start a revolution

“'We’ve heard more rhetoric lately about [low-income] people making ‘bad choices’ or being ‘irresponsible with money’ and that’s been the direction policy has been going,’ said Kasey Wiedrich, director of applied research at Prosperity Now. 'We wanted to attack that.' One example of the rhetoric: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) recently said lower-income Americans 'are just spending every darn penny they have whether it’s on booze or women or movies.'

"In reality, however, the Prosperity Now report said, 'the dominant narrative about low-wealth people is nothing but a series of myths.' Poor choices, the analysts there say, aren’t why people are poor." https://goo.gl/WkU7AJ

Shades of the Third Reich

The shocking story of Israel's disappeared babies | Israel News | Al Jazeera

The first consequence is likely to be mounting pressure on the government to open the state's adoption files so that the true extent of the disappearances can be gauged and families reunited.

But Hanegbi's otherwise evasive comments will do little to end suspicions that officials are still actively trying to avoid confronting the most contentious questions: Why were the infants taken from their families? Did hospitals and welfare organisations traffic children in Israel's early years? And were state bodies complicit in the mass abductions?

When asked by Israeli TV programme Meet the Press whether government officials were involved, Hanegbi would say only: "We may never know." Read More

Brexit: 89% of Britons want dual citizenship after leaving EU, finds survey

89 per cent of UK citizens would like to have a second citizenship and many of them are prepared to spend a considerable amount for the privilege, according to a new survey.

Some 58 per cent admitted Brexit has been the motivating factor in their decision. According to the "Citizenship Survey", conducted by CS Global Partners, three in four participants believed a second passport would give them the ability to travel and explore the world with greater ease.

The second most popular reason was the belief that a second non-UK citizenship would mean "increased freedom and human rights" - with nearly three in five citing this as their concern. One in six people wanted a second passport for business and career opportunities.

CS Global Partners - a law firm specialising in citizenship and residence solutions - spoke to 500 people between the ages of 18 and 50 years old within the last month. Read More

Pope Francis Shares a Devastating Photo for His New Year Message

As part of his New Year’s address, Pope Francis shared the most important image you’ll see all day.

Pope Francis has printed a card calling for peace and empathy in this New Year as a bleak warning of what the face of global conflict looks like. Featuring one of the most devastating photos to come out of World War II, the card simply reads in Italian “il frutto della guerra,” which translates into English to “the fruit of war.” Read More

The Voices of justice need to be heard

Ahed Tamimi: The voice of justice needs to be heard.

A slap is a physical act not meant to wound, maim nor kill. It is rather, an act born of frustration, of indignation and a stinging rebuke for unwanted action.

Ahed Tamimi is a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who lives in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh where villagers have resisted the Israeli occupation.

The Israeli occupying army functions as the military defenders of Jewish settlers in the nearby Jewish settlements of Halamish. This is a settler village whose residents steal the Nabi Saleh villagers’ water, and illegally confiscate their farm land to expand the settlement. httjps://goo.gl/wsu3QT