Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon has passed away on January 11, 2014. His life was controversial. His death was a long process. He was a reactionary. I don't gloat over his death, but neither will I omit his errors. His family and friends should receive comfort and compassion in their lives. Yet, Ariel Sharon's errors ought not to be omitted either. He was the 11th Prime Minister of Israel. He suffered a stroke and became incapacitated by it. He was in a coma until his body started to serious fail and then he died. He was a commander in the Israeli Army way back in 1948 when it was first established. For long decades, many of his supporters were vicious racists who harbor bigotry against those who are of Arabic descent. Ariel Sharon was known in Israel before his election for the advice he gave to the occupying forces for dealing with Palestinian demonstrators, "Cut off their testicles!" (Yediot Ahronot, 29/12/82) He also said that "the only good Arab is a dead Arab." (Maariv, 18/02/83). So, we know about his extremism and bigotry. He was a reactionary through and through. Many of his actions violated the precepts of the Geneva Convention and other international laws. In 1953, he led Unit 101 that murdered 69 civilians in their houses (in the Palestinian homes in Gaza under the flimsiest pretext of security). He led the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. This caused the killing of more than 15,000 Lebanese civilians. In 1982: he provided the floodlights and military protection for his Phalange militia allies to massacre up to 3 000 unarmed refugees in Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps after the Americans had negotiated the departure of the Palestinian fighters and a 'truce'. An Israeli Commission of Enquiry found him "personally responsible" and ruled that he was too dirty even for the politics of the state. Sharon has always organized extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian leaders, the bombings of Palestinian residential areas, and a host of other activities illegal under international law. He has always refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency any access to Israel’s nuclear facilities, revealed to the world by the heroic Rector of Glasgow University, Mordechai Vanunu. By 2005, he resigned as head of the Likud party. He formed the new party called Kadima in November 21, 2005. He was loved by ex-President George W. Bush. Birds of a feather flock together. George W. Bush advanced imperialism globally and other reactionary policies domestically too. Bush loved Ariel Sharon's agenda and the establishment's way of life. Ironically, anti-civil liberty laws exist in America and Israel. There were Israel attacks on Lebanon and later Hezbollah was ironically strengthened. Many reactionaries in Israel want to restrict the housing and other human rights of Israel's Arabic citizens. Ariel Sharon's life was complicated and controversial all in the same time. The lesson is that Jewish and Arabic human beings deserve peace. It is as simple as that.
Ariel Sharon's funeral was a historic time. Many folks paid homage to the war criminal. He was once an Israeli general and former Prime Minister of Israel. Many people in the funeral were political establishment figures and proponents of the same imperialism that Ariel Sharon advanced. The folks there included U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There were delegations from just 21 countries that attended the official service in Jerusalem, which was greatly downplayed in the global media. The funeral allowed human beings to expressed admiration for Sharon. Ariel Sharon was a serial war criminal. We know about his support of aggressive massacred and targeted assassinations of Palestinians accompanied by the land of Palestinian land on a massive scale. We see that the political and the mainstream media have shown a degree of restraint in expressing their respect for a man that was justifiably opposed by the millions of opposed human beings (and workers) in the Middle East including globally. Biden spoke on behalf of U.S. imperialism. Blair is the mouthpiece of the former regional colonial power of Great Britain. Both of them have an interest in covering up the crimes of Sharon. The reason is that both of their nations supported Sharon and employed many of the same methods as part of their foreign policy agenda. No foreign head of state participated and only one government leader, Czech Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok. There were no delegations officially listed from the Middle East, Africa or Latin America. Two foreign ministers were on hand, those of Germany and Australia. Other ministers or deputy ministers were present from Italy, Bulgaria, Britain, Holland, Singapore, the Philippines, France, Canada, Romania, Greece and Cyprus, along with the chairman of the Russian Duma. During the ceremony, there were no references to the many crimes of Ariel Sharon. According to media reports, few ordinary Israelis came to bid farewell to Sharon. Sharon was involved in the massacre of women and children in the Jordanian village of Qibya and events in Lebanon too. Ariel Sharon also was known for his reactionary, free market social policies. He opposed to the struggle of working class struggles, etc. He became Israel's largest private farm owner in a country that ranks among the worse in the world for poverty and inequality. After yesterday’s proceedings, Sharon was buried on his 1,000-acre property near the Gaza Strip. Biden said that Sharon's death was like a death in the family. Blair led British troops to fight the U.S. led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003. He admired Sharon. Blair also worked as an envoy for the failed 2007 Middle East peace process (it was sponsored by the U.S., the UN, the EU and Russia). Many in the two party system of Republicans and Democrats love Ariel Sharon. It tells me that too many Democrats like tons of Republicans are loves the interests of Wall Street, Netanyahu called Sharon as an Israeli founding father. Sharon was not really trying to find peace. He wanted to confine Palestinians to ghettos and did not want imperialism to die. Sharon was part of the overall imperialism agenda that caused the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and the drive to overthrow the Syrian government too.
Fukushima
There is the evil of the Fukushima radiation disaster. Some believe that the radiation from the Fukushima a power plant is decimating wildlife in the Western portion of North America. We now have seals, seal lions, polar bears, bald eagles, sea stars, turtles, king and sockeye salmon, herring, anchovies, and sardines all suffering from mysterious diseases. These animals are suffering mysterious diseases and killing many in the West Coast of North Carolina. There are bald eagles dying in Utah. 20 have died in a few weeks alone. There is no conclusive evidence on why these things are transpiring. Officials at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center have their own theories. Some point to radiation from Japan after the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Buz Marthaler, Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah co-founder: “It’s just hard to have your national bird in your arms, going through seizures in a way it can’t control — when you can see it’s pain but don’t know what’s happening to it. As a human being, you just have problems with that. And when you lose one, it just grabs your heart. [...] In an average year, we might get one or two, but we’ve received nine so far, and five of those have died. The other four are still in our care. [...] We aren’t ruling out anything.” We know that the American and the Japanese governments are doing everything that they can to cover up the severity of the Fukushima disaster. We know that anytime the government or big corporations mess things up, the government works to cover it up instead of actually trying to fix the problem. We have issues in Detroit too. There is the battle of the people against the tyranny of corporate rule in Detroit. Detroit should not experience some free market utopia that is corporate ruled totally. Detroit has been heavily privatized and gentrification is going on in the city as well. Detroit entered bankruptcy and their resources are being stripped. Detroit has slightly less crime than 1987, but Detroit is having huge economic problems. Governor Rick Snyder the emergency bankruptcy Kevyn Orr handles much of the power of controlling Detroit's finances. For years, the right-wing Mackinac Policy Center has advanced the idea of privatizing government services in Detroit and across Michigan. They have called for the sale of assets – like electrical utilities, water/sewer, and public electricity. Now the city's electrical grid is on its way to being sold to DTE Energy. The emergency manager will also put up Detroit's trash collection for private bidding. So, Detroit's mostly African American population is being exploited for the sake of corporate exploiters that want sports facilities, outdoor markets, and restaurants. So, the struggle continues.
The TPP and TAFTA
The TPP has been called NAFTA on steroids. TPP stands for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. According to researcher Kevin Zeese, the TPP has been drafted in an unprecedented degree of secrecy. The supporters of the TPP believe that is will expand trade between North American and the rest of the world. The claim of increased trade and investment has been used as smokescreen that conceals the TPP's corporate assalult on food safety, the environment, worker rights, access to health care, and basically every facet of our lives as free citizens. There has been a recent release of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter from Wikileaks that confirmed the fears of trade liberalization critics that the reach of patents, copyrights, and trade secrets will be extended at the expense of consumer rights and safeguards. There have been those who accuse TPP IP regime of trying to trample individual rights and free expression. The TPP secured third place among Project Censored’s most censored stories of 2012-2013. The Sonoma State University media research program describes the TPP as “an enforceable transfer of sovereignty from nations and their people to foreign corporations.” FLUSHTHETPP.ORG is a real website that is famous to oppose the TPP. The TPP is a secret trade agreement that is being negotiated behind the scenes of the American people including Congress. There are at least 600 corporate advisers doing the negotiation. The TPP will strengthen corporate power in dealing with health care, the environment, worker rights, food safety, etc. Much of the secret negotiations have been done by Big Ag like Monsanto, Dupont, Cargill, and Syngenta. The TPP alows corporations to sue governments (including local and state government) who pass food and safety regulations or laws protecting family farmers (they claim that they are "barriers to trade" that hurt expected future profits). Therefore, the TPP places the profits of multinational corporations over the food security needs of individual nations. Fast track is wrong, because under Fast Track, the President will negotiate and sign TPP without congressional approval. Afterwards, Congress will have an up or down vote with no public airing of the content via hearings, no testimony from experts and no amendments. According to leaked documents, the TPP would establish international trade tribunals with more power than governments. This is done by allowing corporations to sue governments whose laws or policies adversely impact expected future profits. Similar provisions in NAFTA have resulted in the overturning of many environmental and consumer protection laws. Judges in this system would consist mostly of corporate lawyers on leave from their regular jobs with multinational corporations. In this rigged system, appeals would not be allowed. There have been many protests against the Trans Pacific Partnership. Margaret Flowers, MD, who dressed as a workman to attach a sign to the front of the US Trade Representative said that “the TPP will undermine health care systems, make pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices more expensive and therefore increase pain and suffering and even cost people their lives.” Flowers an advocate for a national health care plan that treats health care as a human right rather than a commodity warned that “The TPP will undermine the excellent single payer health care systems in Japan, Australia and New Zealand and make it more difficult for the United States to put in place a single payer system — which is what most Americans and doctors want to see.” The Fast Track is a blatant attack on democratic rights and democratic government. Congressmen and Congresswomen opposing Fast Track are Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN), Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), and many others. Sen. Warren noted in her letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, “if transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.” Folks have the right to openly debate an agreement that will empower corporations to dominate our lives from food, water, health care, wages, jobs, the Internet, etc. The full content of the TPP is not fully known. A new report from the Center for Economic Policy and Research finds that the TPP will produce small economic growth of only 1/10th of 1 percent per year, but it will hurt working Americans as 90 percent of workers will see their income reduced as a result of the TPP. Unions including the Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO and Teamsters have raised serious concerns about the TPP’s impact on working families, and doctors have also highlighted consequences for access to health care and life-saving medicines. There has been opposition to the treaty in Japan and Malaysia. Readily, transnational corporations control and design free trade agreements like the TPP.
We know that economists and policymakers have harmed the U.S. economy. We know that the economy has been damaged by the poor suffering and the offshoring of middle class jobs (for the benefit of corporate profits). It is self-evident that the Federal Reserve's policy of Quantitative easing has not worked. It is only primarily utilized to support oversized banks that the government protects from market discipline. QE not only distorts bond and stock markets. It threatens the value of the dollar and it has caused the manipulation of the gold price as well. It is easy to witness that when U.S. corporations send jobs offshore, the GDP, consumer income, tax base, and careers associated with the jobs go abroad with the jobs. Corporations gain the additional profits at large costs to the economy. The economy then suffers less employment, less economic growth, a reduced state, local, and federal tax revenues, wider deficits, and impairments of legitimate social services. When the policymakers allow the big banks to become independent of market discipline, they made the banks an unresolved burden on the economy. There has been no real, honest report on the condition of the banks made by the authorities. Time will tell if the Federal Reserve can create enough money to monetize enough debt to rescue the banks without collapsing the U.S. dollars. Allowing the big banks to fall and be reorganized would be much cheaper. That is why some want to break up the big banks too. Many economics and U.S. policymakers let their country bad badly. Some of them claim that these trends are necessary to develop the new economy from the old economy. Yet, for over a decade, U.S. jobs statistics show no sign of the promised new economy at all after jobs were moved offshore. The same policymakers and economists believe in the lie that the markets are self-regulating and that the financial sector could safely be deregulated (along with confusing jobs offshoring with free trade). It is obvious that offshoring jobs are destructive to the U.S. economy. As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, “the recovery” is entirely the artifact of the understated measure of inflation used to deflate nominal GDP. By under-measuring inflation, the government can show low, but positive, rates of real GDP growth. No other indicator supports the claim of radical economic recovery. John Williams writes that consumer inflation, if properly measured, is running around 9%, far above the 2% figure that is the Fed’s target and more in line with what consumers are actually experiencing. We have just had a 6.5% annual increase in the cost of a postage stamp. The Fed’s target inflation rate is said to be low, but Simon Black points out that the result of a lifetime of 2% annual inflation is the loss of 75% of the purchasing power of the currency. He uses the cost of sending a postcard to illustrate the decline in the purchasing power of median household income today compared to 1951. That year it cost one cent to send a post card. As household income was $4,237, the household could send 423,700 postcards. Today the comparable income figure is $51,017. As it costs 34 cents to send one postcard, today’s household can only afford to send 150,050 postcards. Nominal income rose 12 times, and the cost of sending a postcard rose 34 times. Americans know about the destructive "free trade agreements." These agreements are nothing more than ruling class tools to moving jobs abroad. The new effort by the corporations to loot and defraud the public is called the "Trans-Pacific Partnership." The TPP deals with fast tracking. The bill allows corporations to write the bill in secret without congressional input. Some research proves that 90% of all Americans will suffer income losses under TPP while wealth becomes more concentrated at the top. The TPP deals with our lives from what we eat, the Internet, and to the environment. According to Kevin Zeese in Alternet, “the leak of the [TPP] Intellectual Property Chapter revealed that it created a path to patent everything imaginable, including plants and animals, to turn everything into a commodity for profit.” The TPP is secretly drafted. It allows the executive branch to change existing U.S. law to make the laws that were not passed in secret compatible with the security written trade bill. Theoretically, buy American requirements and any attempt to curtail jobs offshoring would become illegal restraint on trade. The House and the Senate should never turn over their legislative functions to the executive branch at all. The financial media has helped the FED and the banks to cover the issues with the TPP up. Last week interest rates on 30 day T-bills have turned negative or people were paying more for a bond than it would return at maturity. An event similar to the Cyprus banks' limits on withdrawals, last Friday (January 24) the BBC reported that the large UK bank HSBC is preventing customers from withdrawing cash from their accounts in excess of several thousand pounds. We see threats about the value of the dollar harmed, possible high inflation, exchange controls, pension confiscations possibly, etc. We know that capitalist greed aided and abetted by economists and policymakers have harmed America a great deal. We should fight evil. I have hope for the future though. I never lost my faith in God or in real humanity.
We know that economists and policymakers have harmed the U.S. economy. We know that the economy has been damaged by the poor suffering and the offshoring of middle class jobs (for the benefit of corporate profits). It is self-evident that the Federal Reserve's policy of Quantitative easing has not worked. It is only primarily utilized to support oversized banks that the government protects from market discipline. QE not only distorts bond and stock markets. It threatens the value of the dollar and it has caused the manipulation of the gold price as well. It is easy to witness that when U.S. corporations send jobs offshore, the GDP, consumer income, tax base, and careers associated with the jobs go abroad with the jobs. Corporations gain the additional profits at large costs to the economy. The economy then suffers less employment, less economic growth, a reduced state, local, and federal tax revenues, wider deficits, and impairments of legitimate social services. When the policymakers allow the big banks to become independent of market discipline, they made the banks an unresolved burden on the economy. There has been no real, honest report on the condition of the banks made by the authorities. Time will tell if the Federal Reserve can create enough money to monetize enough debt to rescue the banks without collapsing the U.S. dollars. Allowing the big banks to fall and be reorganized would be much cheaper. That is why some want to break up the big banks too. Many economics and U.S. policymakers let their country bad badly. Some of them claim that these trends are necessary to develop the new economy from the old economy. Yet, for over a decade, U.S. jobs statistics show no sign of the promised new economy at all after jobs were moved offshore. The same policymakers and economists believe in the lie that the markets are self-regulating and that the financial sector could safely be deregulated (along with confusing jobs offshoring with free trade). It is obvious that offshoring jobs are destructive to the U.S. economy. As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, “the recovery” is entirely the artifact of the understated measure of inflation used to deflate nominal GDP. By under-measuring inflation, the government can show low, but positive, rates of real GDP growth. No other indicator supports the claim of radical economic recovery. John Williams writes that consumer inflation, if properly measured, is running around 9%, far above the 2% figure that is the Fed’s target and more in line with what consumers are actually experiencing. We have just had a 6.5% annual increase in the cost of a postage stamp. The Fed’s target inflation rate is said to be low, but Simon Black points out that the result of a lifetime of 2% annual inflation is the loss of 75% of the purchasing power of the currency. He uses the cost of sending a postcard to illustrate the decline in the purchasing power of median household income today compared to 1951. That year it cost one cent to send a post card. As household income was $4,237, the household could send 423,700 postcards. Today the comparable income figure is $51,017. As it costs 34 cents to send one postcard, today’s household can only afford to send 150,050 postcards. Nominal income rose 12 times, and the cost of sending a postcard rose 34 times. Americans know about the destructive "free trade agreements." These agreements are nothing more than ruling class tools to moving jobs abroad. The new effort by the corporations to loot and defraud the public is called the "Trans-Pacific Partnership." The TPP deals with fast tracking. The bill allows corporations to write the bill in secret without congressional input. Some research proves that 90% of all Americans will suffer income losses under TPP while wealth becomes more concentrated at the top. The TPP deals with our lives from what we eat, the Internet, and to the environment. According to Kevin Zeese in Alternet, “the leak of the [TPP] Intellectual Property Chapter revealed that it created a path to patent everything imaginable, including plants and animals, to turn everything into a commodity for profit.” The TPP is secretly drafted. It allows the executive branch to change existing U.S. law to make the laws that were not passed in secret compatible with the security written trade bill. Theoretically, buy American requirements and any attempt to curtail jobs offshoring would become illegal restraint on trade. The House and the Senate should never turn over their legislative functions to the executive branch at all. The financial media has helped the FED and the banks to cover the issues with the TPP up. Last week interest rates on 30 day T-bills have turned negative or people were paying more for a bond than it would return at maturity. An event similar to the Cyprus banks' limits on withdrawals, last Friday (January 24) the BBC reported that the large UK bank HSBC is preventing customers from withdrawing cash from their accounts in excess of several thousand pounds. We see threats about the value of the dollar harmed, possible high inflation, exchange controls, pension confiscations possibly, etc. We know that capitalist greed aided and abetted by economists and policymakers have harmed America a great deal. We should fight evil. I have hope for the future though. I never lost my faith in God or in real humanity.
By Timothy
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