Why Academic Boycott?
December 15th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Last week I thoroughly dealt with the not-so-scholarly and o-so-fallacious Nobel Laureates’ statement on BDS. In almost pure cosmic irony I just got a link from a friend to a Prime Minister’s Office “non-tender”: Request for information about improving Israel’s image on U.S.A campuses.
Now that those talkback-esque arguments are out of the way, let’s get into the direct cynical use the Israeli government makes of the academia, in order to further its propaganda.
[Limited by my translation]:
Rap News
December 15th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
All must watch Rap News – featuring (the real) Julian Assange…
Careless Words and Callous Deeds
December 14th, 2010 § 1 Comment
by David Bromwich
It has lately become usual for right-wing columnists, bloggers, and jingo lawmakers to call for the assassination of people abroad whom we don’t like, or people who carry out functions that we don’t want to see performed. There was nothing like this in our popular commentary before 2003; but the callousness has grown more marked in the past year, and especially in the past six months. Why? A major factor was President Obama’s order of the assassination of an American citizen living in Yemen, the terrorist suspect Anwar al-Awlaki. This gave legal permission to a gangster shortcut Americans historically had been taught to shun. The cult of Predator-drone warfare generally has also played a part. But how did such remote-control killings pick up glamor and legitimacy? Here again, the president did some of the work. On May 1, at the White House Correspondents dinner, he made an unexpected joke: “Jonas Brothers are here tonight. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But boys, don’t get any ideas. Two words: predator drones. You will never see it coming.” The line caught a laugh but it should have caused an intake of breath. A joke (it has been said) is an epigram on the death of a feeling. By turning the killings he orders into an occasion for stand-up comedy, the new president marked the death of a feeling that had seemed to differentiate him from George W. Bush. A change in the mood of a people may occur like a slip of the tongue. A word becomes a phrase, the phrase a sentence, and when enough speakers fall into the barbarous dialect, we forget that we ever talked differently.
‘We don’t need no occupation … Hey, AIPAC, leave Palestine alone!’
December 14th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Great marshalling of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ by a CodePink flashmob yesterday.
On Monday, December 13, when the American Israel Public Affairs Committee held its annual dinner in Oakland, a group of activists performed a flashmob inside the Marriott hotel to the tune of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ addressing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Six activists and one writer were arrested. The flashmob was coordinated by activists representing CODEPINK Women for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, US Boat to Gaza, Students for Justice in Palestine, Queers Undoing Israeli Terror and Don’t Buy Into Apartheid.
Death Squads versus Democracy
December 14th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
by Prof. Michael Keefer
Right-wing Canadian pundit Tom Flanagan contemplating Julian Assange's assassination.
Tom Flanagan, University of Calgary political science professor, right-wing pundit, and mentor and former senior adviser to Prime Minister Harper, has earned himself more international media attention during the past week than even he may have an appetite for.
On November 30th, Flanagan spoke as one of the regular panelists on CBC Television’s national political analysis program, Power and Politics with Evan Solomon. Staring into the camera, while across the bottom of the television screen there appeared a banner reading “WIKILEAKS LATEST: New document mentions PM Stephen Harper,” Flanagan had this to say about Julian Assange, the founder and editor of Wikileaks:
Well, I think Assange should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something.
Michael Moore Supports Julian Assange
December 14th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Michael Moore puts his money where his mouth is:
Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.
But wait, isn’t Assange a RAPIST!?
For those of you who think it’s wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he’s being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please — never, ever believe the “official story.” And regardless of Assange’s guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in putting up the bail money — and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release today.
Finally:
Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that’s the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you’re up to. You simply can’t be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.
And that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done. WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions. And any of you who join me in supporting them are committing a true act of patriotism. Period.
Things the BBC forgot to ask Jody McIntyre
December 14th, 2010 § 1 Comment
BBC newsroom to be added shortly (Image from thetvroom.com)
BBC anchor Ben Brown has proven himself an ace investigative reporter, revealing during an interview with disabled victim of British police violence Jody McIntyre that the latter has not yet launched an official complaint with the police—despite the fact that the incident occurred several days ago! Thus, McIntyre’s brutal treatment must be a fabrication, even though it is recorded in video footage shown on the BBC.
In case the incident really did happen, Brown accusingly interrogates McIntyre about reports that he wants to start a revolutionary movement and that he was rolling toward police in his wheelchair, obvious provocations that warrant being dragged across asphalt and hit with a baton. He then cuts off McIntyre’s attempt to liken BBC coverage of the tuition fee protests with BBC coverage of the Palestinian issue, both of which focus on blaming violence on the victims.
Jody McIntyre exposes the BBC’s disabilities
December 14th, 2010 § 10 Comments
This is what passes for journalism on the BBC. Here is Jody McIntyre, a disabled youth, a wonderful human being, who was assaulted by the police at a student protest. And what does the BBC do? It spends over eight minutes fearlessly interrogating the wheelchair-bound youth with cerebral palsy, prodding him to explain how he invited the attack by ‘provoking’ the police. McIntyre demonstrates that he may be physically impaired, but he is a moral giant. The BBC on the other hand is disabled both morally and ethically.
The disgusting sack of shit conducting the interview is called Ben Brown. Please make sure to register your displeasure: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/ and please share widely, lest anyone still harbour the belief that the BBC is anything but a state propaganda organ.
UPDATE: Reader Squall has this useful suggestion:
Don’t complain to the BBC. They’re already rejecting complaints about this, and they never agree that they’ve failed to be impartial anyway.
Complain to Ofcom. State that the BBC has broken section 5.1 (Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy in News) of the Broadcasting Code.
https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/specific-programme-epg
Iraq’s child prodigy
December 14th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Iraq’s youngest photographer was born in the same year his country was invaded by the United States. But the young man known as the boy wonder refuses to take any pictures of the violence that surrounds him.
Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh reports from Baghdad.
Naomi Wolf on Julian Assange’s Charges
December 14th, 2010 § 10 Comments
In “J’Accuse: Sweden, Britain, and Interpol Insult Rape Victims Worldwide” feminist author Naomi Wolf writes the following about the charges launched against Julian Assange:
…Never in twenty-three years of reporting on and supporting victims of sexual assault around the world have I ever heard of a case of a man sought by two nations, and held in solitary confinement without bail in advance of being questioned — for any alleged rape, even the most brutal or easily proven. In terms of a case involving the kinds of ambiguities and complexities of the alleged victims’ complaints — sex that began consensually that allegedly became non-consensual when dispute arose around a condom — please find me, anywhere in the world, another man in prison today without bail on charges of anything comparable.
Wolf’s biting final statement shuts down the confused and opportunitistic people who have been trying to smother the importance of Assange’s and WikiLeaks’s work with smear attempts while simultaneously diminishing the real legitimacy of true rape case charges:
Anyone who works in supporting women who have been raped knows from this grossly disproportionate response that Britain and Sweden, surely under pressure from the US, are cynically using the serious issue of rape as a fig leaf to cover the shameful issue of mafioso-like global collusion in silencing dissent. That is not the State embracing feminism. That is the State pimping feminism.
And we are still waiting for verifiable statements from the actual complainants, one of whom has reportedly “stopped co-operating with the Swedish prosecution service and her own lawyer” and moved to Palestine.
