"IT MAY BE HAMHANDED, BUT...THIS IS BRILLIANT PSYOPS"

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Contempla el pronunciamiento militar / $8 millones han sido gastado en propaganda

Operación Tenaza: Informe confidencial de la CIA devela plan de saboteo al referéndum del 2 de diciembre

Por: Aporrea.org
Fecha de publicación: 27/11/07



Larry Johnson from NO QUARTER says that it is not legitimate in its form but descriptive of reality and effective in its content,

Next up is the bogus memo allegedly written to the Director of the CIA by some nimrod diplomat at our Embassy in Venezuela. Dubbed Operation Pliers (on some websites) and Pincers (on others), we are offered a peek behind the curtain of CIA efforts to topple Chavez. It starts off:

November 20,2007

MEMORANDUM CONFIDENCIAL

De: Michael Middleton Steere, US Embassy

Para: Michael Hayden, Director Agencia Central de Inteligencia.

Asunto: Avance de la Fase Terminal de la Operación Tenaza

Tomando en consideración los anteriores avances documentales en torno a la Operación Tenaza que coordina Humint en Venezuela según la directiva 3623-g-0217, cumplo en informarle para los fines consiguientes, del status actual de dicha operación, la cual entra en su fase terminal según lo estimado.

As the official bubble burster let me state for the record, this is patent nonsense. State Department officers do not write memos to Hayden. Particularly mid-level Foreign Service Officers. A CIA officer under diplomatic cover sends his communications to headquarters via an encoded message. We call these messages cables, harkening back to the days of telegraphs and telegrams.

This, in my judgment, is the work–very clumsy work at that–of the Venezuelan intelligence service eager to build on the truth that the United States has sought to oust Chavez.

All of this is quite convenient with Venezuelan elections on the horizon. It may be hamhanded, but for internal Venezuelan consumption, this is brilliant psyops and should help Chavez further demonize the equally clumsy Americans.

Larry Johnson, Biography
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PIPELINE EXPLOSION NEAR CLEARBROOK MN

...an explosion and fire overnight (Nov 28) at a major pipeline in northern Minnesota threatened to cause supply disruptions.

The blaze occurred along the Enbridge Energy Partners LP Lakehead pipeline in northern Minnesota.

The pipeline carries crude oil from Saskatchewan, Canada, to the Chicago area, importing nearly 20 percent of U.S. crude.

The pipeline, which actually consists of four separate conduits, was completely shut down for a while.

But two of the four lines were restarted Thursday morning, said Larry Springer, a spokesman for Houston-based Enbridge, and the other two lines were expected to return to service soon.

A third line, designed to carry heavy crude, "remains shut down but is expected to return to service later (today) as it has now been confirmed that it was not damaged as a result of the incident," Enbridge said in a statement.

MALCOLM X

Revolution...

"Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing 'We shall overcome ... Suum Day...' while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against ? Who ever heard of angry revolutionists swinging their bare feet together with their oppressor in lily-pad park pools, with gospels and guitars and 'I have a dream' speeches ? And the black masses in America were - and still are - having a nightmare."

"The white man knows what a revolution is. He knows that the Black Revolution is worldwide in scope and in nature. The Black Revolution is sweeping Asia, is sweeping Africa, is rearing its head in Latin America. The Cuban Revolution - that's a revolution. They overturned the system. Revolution is in Asia, revolution is in Africa, and the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you think he'll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is?"

"It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a radical conflict of black against white or as a purely American problem. Rather, we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter."

"The same rebellion, the same impatience, the same anger that exists in the hearts of the dark people in Africa and Asia is existing in the hearts and minds of 20 million black people in this country who have been just as thoroughly colonized as the people in Africa and Asia."

"Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change."

THE "HACKS AND FLACKS" AT THE REUTERS "ALTAMIRA CIRCLE JERK"

I've been looking a bit at the "Flacks and Hacks" at the Reuters Caracas Bureau, led by chief and head flack Saul Hudson and his

• team of hacks; Fabian Andres Cambero, Enrique Andres Pretel,

• reporters; Patricia Rondon, Enrique Andres Pretel, Brian Ellsworth, Ana Isabel Martinez,

• and editors; Eric Walsh, Brian Ellsworth, David Wiessler

You can find a list of their thinly veiled propaganda boilerplate and even videos by keyword searching "Saul Hudson" here (or any of the other names).



Here are a few selected quotes

• "In the last days of a campaign with the "Yes" and "No" camps neck-and-neck,

• "created news by setting a date for Venezuela to adopt its own unique time zone.

• "the moves could be part of a strategy to burnish Chavez's nationalist credentials and distract voters from unpopular details in his raft of constitutional changes that must be passed in a referendum.

• "Chavez wants Venezuelans to vote to let him stay in power as long he keeps winning elections,

• "...one of a series of measures that includes letting him take full control of currency reserves and "...censor the media during political emergencies.

• "...the United States has studiously avoided being drawn into diplomatic disputes with the ally of Cuba and Iran.

• "...a spat that erupted when he called an ex-prime minister a fascist and Spain's King Juan Carlos told him to "shut up."

• "The Cuba and Iran ally constantly rails at the United States,

• "Conservative Uribe had refused to withdraw his ambassador in Caracas. He said on Wednesday that Chavez should stop acting emotionally.

• "Heads of state should think not about their personal rage and their own vanity, but more about the need to respect the people they represent," Uribe said.

• "Known for harsh insults, Chavez usually focuses his attacks against the United States during campaigns, but this year the Bush administration has avoiding being drawn into a spat.

• "Wall Street economists say the fights could help distract voters from debating unpopular details in his reform package, such as wresting control over reserves from the central bank.

• "Well-known for wild accusations and harsh insults, Chavez usually focuses his attacks against the United States during campaigns.

• "With the Bush administration avoiding being drawn into a spat, he has become involved in disputes with Spain and Colombia and repeatedly lambasted the Roman Catholic Church.

• "Some political analysts and Wall Street economists say the fights appear to be a tactic that burnishes his nationalist credentials and also helps distract voters from debating some of the unpopulardetails in his proposed reform package.

• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez exhausted his Colombian counterpart's patience by speaking out of turn once too often,

• Chavez, who is on television on average 40 hours a week, acknowledges he finds it difficult to keep his mouth closed.

• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would not shut up for Spain's king but, over the weekend, he heeded a higher calling to stop talking -- his bladder.

• Venezuelan officials say Chavez is on television an average of 40 hours a week. He says he drinks coffee all day So in Venezuela there is puzzlement that Chavez usually avoids being seen going to the bathroom during his weekly TV show that can last up to 8 hours.

If these idiots are journalists,

then I am the King of Spain. "Why dont you shut the fuck up!"

"THEY WHO SING VICTORY OVER HIS DEATH ARE MISTAKEN" - FIDEL CASTRO

It is said that on 18 October 1967, nine days after Che was killed, Castro delivered a eulogy for Che, to a million people gathered in the Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana, and, among other things, this too he said,




“They who sing victory over his death are mistaken. They are mistaken who believe that his death is the defeat of his ideas, the defeat of his tactics, the defeat of his guerrilla concepts … If you want to know how we want our children to be, we should say, with all our revolutionary heart and mind: We want them to be like Che.”

PROGRAMMING ALREADY IN THE CAN

Yesterday CNN Espanol broadcast a split screen which was up for 10 seconds. The caption under Hugo Chavez photo, "Who Killed Him"

A NEW COLONY

The Iraqi Miracle – From Invasion to “Partnership”
By James Rothenberg

Now what was it that was so clear to some from the very beginning? That a takeover of Iraq was a natural way to establish a permanent military presence in the heart of the resource-rich Middle East. This was not a departure from longstanding American foreign policy goals but merely its latest iteration. Iraq happens to harbor the second largest proven oil reserves and oil just happens to be entering its scarcity mode.

The morning newspaper carries an Associated Press story detailing the signing by President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki of a “declaration of principles” between the two countries, which, for those still interested in the real reason we invaded Iraq, amounts to a full confession. Not in front of the International Criminal Court (that’s not for us) but mainstreamed, normalized, now fit to print.


Iraq’s government will “embrace a long-term U.S. troop presence in return for U.S. security guarantees [referred to in another business as a protection racket] as part of a strategic partnership…an enduring relationship in military, economic and political terms.” In addition, the agreement provides for U.S. support for the “democratic regime in Iraq against domestic and external dangers” (the “danger” being that they would be outside our influence).

The agreement specifically seeks (details have to be worked out you see) “preferential treatment for American investments.” At this point we might recall that the clever war marketeers chose not to use Operation Iraqi Liberation which would be lampooned as OIL.

In keeping with established practices of imperialist plunderers, the invader now guarantees the security of the invaded. When you think security, don’t think of being secure. Think prison and graveyard. The security is for the government. And when a state of emergency is declared in this country (just suppose), think that the emergency has nothing to do with the population. The emergency will be real, but it will be to the government.

DID BUSH JUST WIN HIS WAR?

“Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship Between the Republic of Iraq and the United States of America.”

The declaration of principles sets the framework for negotiations next year on a long-term bilateral relationship, including the presence of US troops and economic ties.

MPs from the Shia bloc loyal to the cleric Moqtada Sadr expressed deep reservations about the agreement.

The Sunni group the Association of Muslim Scholars said the Iraqi signatories of the declaration would be looked on a "collaborators with the occupier".

Correspondents say US investors benefiting from preferential treatment could earn huge profits from Iraq's vast oil reserves, causing widespread resentment among Iraqis.

Story here, and here.

AMIR OF MUJAHIDEEN IN CAUCASUS

I announce to all Muslims that I am waging a war against infidels under the banner of "La Ilaha Illa Allah".

This means that as the Amir of Mujahideen in Caucasus I reject everything associated with Taghut. I reject all kafir laws established in the world.

I reject all laws and systems established by infidels in the land of Caucasus.

I reject all names used by infidels to divide Muslims.

I declare ethnic, territorial and colonial zones carrying names of "North-Caucasian republics", "Trans-Caucasian Republics" and other such terms as outlawed.

I am officially declaring of creation of the Caucasus Emirate.

All lands in Caucasus, where Mujahideen who gave bayah (oath) to me wage Jihad, I declare velayats (states) of the Caucasus Emirate including Dagestan, Nokhchiycho (Chechnya), Ghalghaycho (Ingushetia), Iriston (Ossetia), the Nogay steppe and the combined areas of Kabarda, Bulkar and Karachay.

Our first task is to make the Caucasus Dar al-Islam, establishing the Shariah throughout the land and expelling the infidels.

Secondly, after expelling the infidels we must reclaim all historical lands of Muslims, and these borders are beyond the boundaries of Caucasus.

Today in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Palestine our brothers are fighting. Those who attack Muslims are our common enemies wherever they are. Our enemy is not Russia only, but also anyone who wages war against Islam and Muslims. They are our enemies because they are enemies of Allah.


Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!

25 Ramadan 1428

Amir of the Caucasus Emirate,
Dokka Umarov

PASHTUNISTAN -- IT'S BACK WITH A VENGENCE

There is no border to speak of; it's all part of Pashtunistan


The neo-Taliban have established a de facto Islamic emirate in North Waziristan, with Mirali as its capital; this is the home base of fabled Afghan jihad commander Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin.


The emir is none other than Mullah Omar (remember him - the uber-Taliban who escaped American bombing in 2001 on the back of a motorcycle?). Both Haqqanis run the day-to-day operations. The emirate's tentacles are up and running in all seven tribal agencies.

HARVEY COX SAID

It is always the task of the intellectual to “think otherwise.” This is not just a perverse idiosyncrasy. It is an absolutely essential feature of a society.

GARRY KASPAROV IS A PAWN. (AND A PUTZ)

US President George W. Bush said Monday he was "deeply concerned" at a crackdown on opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of elections, and called for their release from detention.

Among those arrested in Moscow on Saturday was former chess champion Garry Kasparov, leader of a coalition of Putin opponents called The Other Russia.

WHO IS GARRY KASPAROV?


Garry Kasparov, aside from his well-known exploits in the game of chess, is a pawn of American neoconservatives:

his real constituency isn't in Russia, where he remains an obscure political figure,


but in Washington, D.C., where he stands amid such neocon luminaries as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and James Woolsey as a member of the Center for Security Policy.


The Center is a major neocon propaganda outfit headed by longtime neocon activist Frank Gaffney, whose name is virtually synonymous with the military-industrial complex. Kasparov served on the Center's National Security Advisory Council along with Woolsey....

IT'S ALL ABOUT ABYEI

Tension has risen between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) [over] lack of progress in the implementation of key provisions of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

"The SPLM is frustrated because it believes the NCP [the ruling National Congress Party] is deliberately failing the CPA,"

US President George W Bush and Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir [meet] on 15 November.

Al-Bashir also said he would not budge "an inch" on the contested borders of the oil-rich Abyei region. "The NCP is ready for war and will not ... retreat from the 1905 border,"

The SPLM gave a 9 January 2008 deadline for the resolution of several provisions in the CPA - including the

• Abyei protocol,

• redeployment of forces,

• demarcation of the border,

• population census,

• lack of transparency in oil sector management,

• democratic transformation and rule of law, and

• national reconciliation.

SPLM leaders deny there is a plan to break away from the rest of Sudan after the January deadline...Riek Machar, Vice-President of Southern Sudan, said.

The oil-rich Abyei region, which was granted special administrative status...A decision by the Abyei Boundary Commission was disputed by the NCP..."They want to implement the protocol minus the areas that have oil because they want to carve them out of the South. This is not acceptable."


another complication - a growing rapport between the SPLM and rebels from the war-ravaged Darfur region, who recently met in Juba to discuss a common strategy against the Khartoum government.

WHAT ARE THESE MONSTERS DOING THAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT?

Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Joseph Kabila (DR Congo)


KEITH HARMON SNOW RESOURCE

Marcelle Cendra said on November 25th, 2007 at 10:18 am #

Keith should be given a lot of respect for risking his life on the ground in Africa to bring us reports…for which he receives no personal compensation. In addition, his ability to make connections between horrors in Africa and U.S. interests/abominations elsewhere is very worthwhile. He is not about “debating,” but rather DOING something regarding the atrocities. In that vein, he tries to educate one and all. Thanks, Keith. — Marcelle



DARFURISM, UGANDA & U.S. WAR IN AFRICA The Spectre of Continental Genocide
Keith Harmon Snow

PROXY WARS IN CENTRAL AFRICA?Profits, Propaganda and Luxury Goods for the West --
Pacification, Rape and Slavery for the Rest

HOTEL RWANDA: Hollywood and the Holocaust in Central Africa
by Keith Harmon Snow
Global Research, October 16, 2005


Oil in Darfur? Special Ops in Somalia?
The New Old "Humanitarian" Warfare in Africa
by Keith Harmon Snow

Congo’s President Joseph Kabila: Dynasty or Travesty?
Written by keith harmon snow
Tuesday, 13 November 2007

keith harmon snow talks with Paul Rusesabagina, the ordinary man who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda.

All Things Pass - Keith Harmon Snow

Articles by Keith Harmon Snow - Global Research

All Articles by Keith Harmon Snow - ZNET

All Articles by David Barouski - ZNET

Articles by Keith Harmon Snow - Dissident Voice


(Click for larger image)

ISRAEL'S LUNCH COUNTER

from: Mondoweiss

One of [the] themes on this site is that Jewishness played a role in the prowar movement (just as Islam plays a role in jihadist radicalism). Jewish neocons were aggressive about using American power to preserve Israel's security, while liberal Jewish hawks asserted over and over that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and completely neglected the apartheid road system that is talked about across the Arab world.

Until liberal Jews come to terms with this element of the war support, Jewish intellectual life will remain in denial/crisis, the left will be riven by unspoken suspicions on this score and will remain ineffective, the neocons will remain unchallenged intellectually, and our foreign policy will remain broken.

In dismissing Judt's view that Zionism is anachronistic and must yield to ideas of a binational state in Palestine, Cohen writes with typical bombast: "I suppose India can save itself from being an unfortunate anachronism by a reintegration with Pakistan..." The key error in this statement is that partition actually worked 60 years ago in India: Pakistan became a state.

The Palestinians are stateless; the Israelis are expansionist. If the Palestinians had been given a state when real opportunity arose, there wouldn't now be a high concrete wall on their land, the hilltops wouldn't be colonized by religious settlers, and Muslims would have freedom to visit their holy sites.




Of course Cohen writes that he opposes the "settlements." He says this in passing as an example of legitimate criticism of Israel. The settlements. The issue here is how monstrous the Israeli policies in the West Bank are to you. One line about the settlements is like an American of 40 years ago saying, Of course I am opposed to those whites-only lunch-counters and bathrooms. The issue then was: segregation and the South were corrupting American society. We couldn't make any claim to real democracy in the eyes of the world so long as those conditions existed. This is Israel's situation today, and the reason that progressive intellectuals are attacking Zionist ideas.

SOCIALISM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY AND THE FIVE "MOTORS" OF THE REVOLUTION

This new form of socialism, which emphasizes not repeating the same errors of previous socialist states is still a project in design.

These changes were laid out in five steps, the five "motors" of the revolution, as Chavez called them. These "motors" would set the framework for a new social, economic, and political organization of the country.[1]

WE WERE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THESE WERE MASS PRODUCED IN ITALY

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A labor rights group alleged Tuesday that crucifixes sold in religious gift shops in the U.S. are produced under “horrific” conditions in a Chinese factory with more than 15-hour work days and inadequate food.

“It’s a throwback to the worst of the garment sweatshops 10, 20 years ago,” said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee.

Kernaghan held a news conference in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to call attention to conditions at a factory in Dongguan, a southern Chinese city near Hong Kong, where he said crosses sold at the historic church and elsewhere are made.





Kernaghan said the factory’s mostly young, female employees work from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. seven days a week and are paid 26 cents an hour with no sick days or vacation. Workers live in filthy dormitories and are fed a watery “slop.”





Trinity spokeswoman Diane Reed said her church had been “under the impression that these were mass-produced in Italy.”



Dongguan lies at the center of China’s export manufacturing industry, which relies heavily on low wages to remain competitive. Factories there have been accused in the past of labor abuses, including those making products for McDonald’s, Disney, Mattel and the Beijing Olympics.

National Labor Committee: http://www.nlcnet.org/

DRINKING THE US CORPORATE MEDIA KOOL-AID: A CASE STUDY

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So you thought the US government had to overthrow the Venezuelan government because the constitution referendum for December 2nd is:

• going to nationalize the central bank which will lead to the dumping of huge reserves in devalued dollar denominated funds ,

• going to end the monopolies on food distribution currently held by the oligarchy which is used by them for political ends,

• going to allocate state revenues directly to neighborhood councils rather than the corrupt, patronage-infested municipal and state governments,

• going to allow the executive to declare a state of emergency and intervene in the media in the face of violent activity to overthrow the constitution, allowing dissent but also allowing democracy to defend itself against the enemies of freedom,

• going to accelerate Venezuela’s moves from political to social transformation,

• and from a capitalist welfare state toward democratic socialism,

• is going to expand a virulent case of anti-neoliberal, ‘class against class’ war, in which the entire future US "Latin American Empire" is at stake.
  

• going to mitigate against Washington’s hold on its biggest oil supplier.

Or is this what you thought

• is going to allow Chavez to run for reelection indefinitely ... (unlike our allies Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia who both declare martial law to remain in office indefinably because an election would send them fleeing for the next border).

• plus, the King of Spain doesn't like him

• and he has big lips

Well now there is an even bigger reason to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

Compared to the "DynCorp pesticide, death squad democracy" the US created next door for the Colombians a study finds that the Venezuelan people are happier and more satisfied and more well adjusted.



Thanks to BoRev.Net for pointing out this study.

The Chilean polling firm Latinobarómetro has released a report on what the Latin Americans are thinking. Comparing the citizens of Venezuela against Colombia...

• How would you describe in general, the current economic situation of the country. Would you say that it is very good, good, etc

Venezuela 52
Colombia 20

• In the next few months do you believe, in general, the economic situation in the country will be much better, a little better, etc

Venezuela 60
Colombia 31

• Imagine the following situation: Two people, same age, working as computer programmers, doing the same job. One earns more than the other but their work is faster, more efficient and more reliable. Do you consider this pay differential just.

Venezuela 65
Colombia 48

• Do you agree that the privatization of state business has been beneficial?

(Incongruent. Must be a measure of overall satisfaction)
Venezuela 47
Colombia 33

• It is said that the state can resolve the problems of our society because they have the resources to do this. Do you think that the state can resolve your problems

Venezuela 67
Colombia 36

• How just do you believe the distribution of earnings are in the country. Here answer for only very just or just

Venezuela 55
Colombia 17

• In all countries there are differences and conflicts between different social groups. In your opinion, how strong is the conflict between the rich and the poor. Answers only for very strong or more strong

Venezuela 68
Colombia 84

• In your opinion, how strong is the conflict between business owners and workers. Answers only for very stron or more strong

Venezuela 54
Colombia 74

• In your opinion, how strong is the conflict between different racial groups. Answers only for very strong or more strong

Venezuela 43
Colombia 65

• In your opinion, how strong is the conflict between men and women. Answers only for very strong or more strong

Venezuela 47
Colombia 63

• Where a "0" is left wing and "10" is right wing, where do you locate yourself on this scale

Venezuela 5.26
Colombia 5.81

• In general, would you say that you are satisfied with the way functioning of democracy in your country?

Venezuela 59
Colombia 32

• How much confidence do you have in the political parties. Here answer only for much or some.

Venezuela 36
Colombia 18

• There are different opinions about access to justice in the country. Do you believe that people have equal opportunity to justice.

Venezuela 38
Colombia 23

• Have you are a family member been a victim of a crime in the last twelve months.

Venezuela 49
Colombia 34


And finally,

• Would you say that you are very satisfied, well satisfied, etc. with the education to which you have access.

Venezuela 74
Colombia 62





So the question is:

• Do you think the people of Colombia would like to trade places with Venezuela?

• Do you think the people of Colombia would like to have a Chavez rather than a Uribe?

If you answered yes then you would be right, and that is a big problem for the US

GRAFFITI: Universidad Nacional, Bogota
´Paramilitary working for Justice and Peace´ This piece refers to the impunity given to the crimes of ´demobilized´ paramilitaries by the Justice and Peace Law

DONT SERVE THE KOOL-AID!!

'a censored press' leads to 'hypocrisy', the greatest of vices...the government hears only its own voice...surrenders to the illusion that it hears the voice of the people...The people on its side falls either into political superstition or else into indifference, and so turns completely away from the life of the state

-C. Wright Mills

MICHAEL BARKER RESOURCE

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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO ORGANIZATIONS
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Explanation






Explanation



Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University, Australia and writes on the question

"It seems that only when the wider progressive community has critically engaged with the work of the “democratic” proponents of civil disobedience, can activists begin to be more sure that they are adopting the most suitable strategies to enable our planet to move toward

• a high-intensity participatory democracy,

rather than

• a low-intensity neoliberal “democracy” or polyarchy."

All Articles by Michael Barker - ZNET

Michael James Barker’s Weblog

Articles by Michael Barker - Green Left Weekly

Michael Barker in Venezuelanalysis.com

DEBUNKING GLOBALIZATION THROUGH THE IDIOCY OF THOMAS FRIEDMAN

The World is Flat?
A large resource base

The Continuing Nuisance of Thomas Friedman

UPDATE:

Thanks to the commenter for providing this additional resouce.

The sadism and idiocy of Thomas Friedman

"MR. KING, DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THE COUP D'ETAT

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...the king had "got very mad, like a bull. But I'm a great bullfighter - olé!"...Mr King, we are not going to shut up."

"perhaps Aznar thinks he is Fernando VII and we are still a colony. No, Carabobo [a battle of independence] already happened. Aznar, Ayacucho [another battle during the wars of independence] already occurred. The Spanish empire was already thrown out of here almost 200 years ago Aznar. Let those who stick their noses in Venezuela take note that we will not accept it."


United Left, a Spanish political party, qualified Juan Carlos' statements as "excessive." Willy Meyer, spokesperson for the party, said that Juan Carlos behaved as if he was still in the 15th or 16th centuries. "The King can't tell the Spanish President to shut up," he said, "and doesn't have the right to do this to others outside of Spain."

By attacking Juan Carlos, Chávez may cast himself as a true Venezuelan patriot fighting against the domineering attitude of the old Spanish Empire. It's a move that plays well to the Chavista base and Venezuelans' sense of national pride.

...Josefina Carbaño from San Juan de Los Morros questioned the authority of Juan Carlos to make such pronouncements. "A king imposed by the dictatorship of General Franco has no moral or political authority to silence the President of Venezuela," she said.


In 1969 Juan Carlos was formally designated Prince of Spain and heir apparent to fascist dictator, General Francisco Franco. Juan Carlos often performed official and ceremonial state functions alongside Franco before proclaiming a constitutional monarchy after the dictator's death in 1975.

ALL THORNS NO ROSES

Mark Almond is Lecturer in History at Oriel College, Oxford. He has visited Georgia a dozen times since 1992 on behalf of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group and (in 1995) the Norwegian Helsinki Human Rights Group. He only expresses his own opinions.

...the myth of People Power has been tarnished once more by the reality of the power struggles and back-stabbing among yesteryear’s “reformers”.

Georgia’s revolution in 2003 was actually been cited as a model by Western media for the saffron-robed monks of Burma protesting against the military government there.[6]

Many of the Western groups who funded and trained the so-called “rose revolutionaries” in Georgia in 2003 have been behind the scenes of the “saffron revolution” in Burma. If Burma’s military rulers should go the way of Eduard Shevardnadze will Burma fall through the floor into the same politics of corruption, drugs smuggling and backstabbing which have pock-marked Georgia’s tragic post-Soviet history.

The Economist and so-called human rights watchdogs like the Council of Europe have a lamentable record of fellow travelling with successive corrupt and cruel regimes

Washington Post’s Peter Baker who gushed about the new class ruling Georgia in 2004:

Western media like The Economist and CIA-endorsed outfits like the Jamestown Foundation attribute all the smuggling in the Gori region to the neighbouring breakaway province of South Ossetia, local school children know...

Every “People Power” revolution has had its murder mystery from shooting of Benigno Aquino on his return to Manila in August, 1983...death of Prime Minister, Zurab Zhvania, due to a gas leak while paying a late-night visit to the apartment of a young male friend in Tbilisi on 3rd February, 2005, never convinced many people in Georgia that Zhvania’s death was an accident.[25]

Zhvania had been a potential rival to Saakashvili for the presidency having enjoyed Shevardnadze’s patronage too and acted as his premier before shifting to the new Western-backed reformer,

the true power behind Saakashvili’s throne. ...Okruashvili accused Gigi Bokeria of destroying a church for gain.

Mr Bokeria is at the heart of the inner circles of the global People Power enterprise.

• He was the Rose Revolutionary who ran the Soros-funded Liberty Institute

• and organised the Kmara (Enough) youth movement

• which was the public face of the mob which gathered to storm the Parliament building on 23rd November, 2003.

• An index of how influential Mr Bokeria is was the glimpse of him smoking a large cigar [!] in the Washington offices of Bruce Jackson, NATO-expander-in-chief and LOckheedMartinMarieta alumnus, in the French documentary film Revolution.com.

...wanted the Georgian oligarch, Badri Patarkatsishvili removed by a car bomb was only one of the sensational allegations made by the ex-defence minister on the television channel, Imedi, which is a joint-venture between Mr Patarkatsishvili and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Badri Patarkatsishvili has links to both Russia’s exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky as well as to Rupert Murdoch. Berezovsky and Murdoch enjoy intimate contacts. Back in September, 2004, “Mudlark” put an intriguing item in his column in the Financial Times entiled, “Kremlinology”: “Rupert Murdoch and exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky had lunch yesterday at the Savoy Grill....

Badri Patarkatsishvili met Murdoch in New York on 25th September.[31] At about the same time as the Badri-Murdoch summit, Okruashvili appeared on their Georgian television channel, Imedi, to launch his sensational charges against President Saakashvili.

As his relations with the Saakashvili regime soured, on 31st October, it was announced by Imedi TV that Badri had “granted his shares” to Murdoch’s News Corp.[32] Then Badri flew back from his London base, home to so many distressed oligarchical folk, and announced modestly, ““I am not a person with an experience in staging demonstrations,

...Badri’s words echo the classic sentiments offered by People Power advocates denying their ambition for high office. Who said? “The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all...Those were Vaclav Havel’s sentiments as he embarked on his march on Prague Castle and twelve years in office! With Okruashvili’s forced exile, maybe Badri is stepping up to the plate as Georgia’s next Great White Hope...

...Having demanded media freedom for their onslaught against Shevardnadze in 2003, Bokeria’s former colleagues in the Liberty Institute drafted a media bill backed by the Georgian government which would have regulated what journalists could say...

...At the beginning of 2007, Richard Holbrooke, the would-be next Democratic Secretary of State declared, “the 38-year-old Saakashvili represents almost everything the United States and the European Union should support."[39] But as the year progressed ominous signs appeared that the Georgian President was no longer the darling of the West...

...Even the new hyper-active President of France who celebrated victory night by denouncing Russia’s “crimes” in Chechnya has distanced himself from his Georgian counterparts Russophobe rhetoric...

...The surprise visit of NATO secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, later on 3rd October was an indication of how alarmed Western security circles were by the developments in Georgia...

...Then at the beginning of November, Washington’s point man for People Power, Assistant Secretary of State, Dan Fried, appeared in Tbilisi and met the opposition leaders...

...When will Georgetown or Oxford or the Central European University, let alone Transparency International analyse the family trees of the public officials whose salaries George Soros pledged to pay out of his own funds to put corruption in the dustbin of Georgia’s history...

...On 6th January, 2004, the Soros-US taxpayer co-funded website “Transitions online” reported on “Georgia: A President without a palace”...

...for readers relying on Transitions online for information, the magazine never got around to telling them that before long Mr Saakashvili decided that populism is good but palaces are better...

...But surely the Open Society advocates and civil society NGOs in the West along with the Council of Europe, OSCE and inter-governmental human rights agencies ought to sit up and take notice. Consistency on human rights observation has never been one of the virtues of the OSCE and Council of Europe and their incestuous friends in the NGO community. Georgian regimes have got away with murder...

...Ordinary Georgians have seen no benefit from the coups in 1991 and again in 2003 which were hailed in the West as “People Power” pure and simple. However disillusioned Georgians and other long-suffering people around the world may be with the West’s cult of revolution, so long as bogus revolutions to suit geo-strategic purposes can be passed off as the work of the people,...

...dissidents in Georgia are only interviewed by key Western media or quoted by the International Crisis Group when the regime’s fate has been decided in Washington...

...will recall the sudden appearance of an anti-Shevardnadze article by Georgetown’s Charles King in the National Interest in 2001.[61] Early in the current crisis, a similar “Nina Andreevna”-style...

...When Zviad Gamsakhurdia sought asylum in the West after the pro-Shevardnadze Putsch...Now his son, Konstantin, is received in the halls of influence by some of the same long-serving political elite who derided his father. Saakashvili knows that such people don’t host luckless outsiders, only potential future insiders...

...Maybe Okruashvili’s spell in the Isolator will give him Khodorkovsky-style credentials: he can be sold as a martyr...but maybe Okruashvili’s video-confession will discredit him – opening the way for a more plausible anti-corruption champion like Salome Zurabishvili...Already using the presidential third person when speaking of herself, Ms. Zurabishvili may have grounds for seeing herself as the Benzir Bhutto of the Caucasus.

...There will be little comfort for Saakashvili that the Council of Europe’s Secretary-General, Terry Davis, was the rapporteur who approved Georgia’s...