Monthly Archives: December 2014

Erdogan: Turkey’s Snake of the Year

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, image via internet blogspot

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, image via internet blogspot

On Sunday, December 14, Turkey arrested 27 journalists, media workers and police officers, accusing them of supporting an influential Muslim cleric whom President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused of attempting to overthrow his government.

“This is a reckless move toward dictatorship. It is nothing else than a rough attack against media freedoms with the pretext of a ‘community operation.” Cengiz Candar, via Twitter.

This is the latest in what has been a year-long tirade that amounts to foolish drivel and a desperate man attempting to hold power in a NATO country through intensified alignment with Islamism; denial of his population’s heritages; violations of human rights; breaking international laws and treaties; as well as further demonstrated support of certain terrorist organizations being opposed by his allies. Continue reading

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What Price Security – Kenyan Style

Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya. Photo by Nairobi123 (State House of Kenya/ Government of Kenya)  via Wikimedia Commons

Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya. Photo by Nairobi123 (State House of Kenya/ Government of Kenya) via Wikimedia Commons

All around the world, governments are worried about terrorism.  And, under the guise of stopping terrorism, tthey make laws. These laws differ in the exact details, but one theme that seems to run through them all is restrictions placed on their citizens. The latest to follow this trend is Kenya.

On Tuesday, the Kenyan government’s NGO (non-governmental organization) coordination board announced the deregistration of 510 NGOs. The board said in a statement that “some NGOs have been and continue to be used for criminal activities, including as conduits of terrorism financing in Kenya and in the Horn of Africa”. Fifteen of them are suspected of money-laundering and financing terrorism.

The statement went on to say; “The board has with immediate effect deregistered these organizations, frozen their bank accounts and forwarded information on them to relevant government security agencies for immediate action.” Continue reading

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The 6-Step Process to Wipe Out the Poor Half of America

Published by CommonDreams.org on December 15, 2014.

By Paul Buchheit

One of the themes of the superb writing of Henry Giroux is that more and more Americans are becoming “disposable,” recognized as either commodities or criminals by the more fortunate members of society. There seems to be a method to the madness of winner-take-all capitalism. The following steps, whether due to greed or indifference or disdain, are the means by which America’s wealth-takers dispose of the people they don’t need.

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A Sharp Contrast

Over the last couple months, there’s been a worrisome trend happening in the German city of Dresden. Every Monday night for the last nine weeks, a group named PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West, has held a rally and a march through Dresden.

The rallies started in October in response to clashes between Kurds and Sunni Muslims over the West’s intervention in Syria. What started as a fairly small protest rally of 200 people the first week has grown over time. On Monday, 15,000 people marched through the streets carrying banners bearing slogans such as “Zero tolerance towards criminal asylum seekers”, “Protect our homeland” and “Stop the Islamization”.

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The Winter of Our Discontent

South Korea General Strike, Dec 28, 2013. Image via Twitter.

South Korea General Strike, Dec 28, 2013. Image via Twitter.

If you have not realized it, there is something happening that makes the protests regarding police brutality stemming from cases like Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Michael Brown look quite tame and mild. It is something that has began sweeping across the globe in such a way that we recognize it as the most under-reported story of the year. Continue reading

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It’s more than just the NHS that’s at risk in Scotland from TTIP

This article was originally published on December 11, 2014 on openDemocracy.
By Liz Murray

The EU/US Trade Deal poses a threat to Scottish Water’s plans to deprivatise failing PFI facilities.

A protest outside the Scottish Parliament against the smell at SeaField

Last week, a Europe-wide petition against TTIP, the controversial and aggressively neo-liberal free trade deal between the US and EU, reached 1 million signatures. More than 180,000 of those were from the UK. Another petition here in Scotland, calling on the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to oppose TTIP, gained almost 25,000 signatures.Opposition to TTIP is growing at an astonishing speed as the public discover how it threatens democracy, social justice, public services and national sovereignty.

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How National Defense Became Nationally Offensive

On Friday, the Senate passed the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It’s a huge bill (1700 pages) covering the allocation of 60% of our country’s discretionary spending for the year. But, defense isn’t the only thing in the bill, and there’s a lot of just plain bad news for civilians and the military alike. Let’s look at some of the more egregious parts of this gargantuan bill, and why we think it deals with being nationally offensive instead of being strictly about national defense. Continue reading

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Jimmy Johns Delivers Oppression Faster Than Anyone Else!

Photo by Austin Loman (http://austinloman.blogspot.com)

Photo by Austin Loman (http://austinloman.blogspot.com)

Yes, we’re talking about that sandwich shop that makes the claim of being super-fast on delivery of your deli sandwich. What they don’t tell you about in their marketing campaigns is the non-compete clause they require every employee to sign.

The clause bans all employees from being able to work for any “competitor” within a three mile radius of ANY Jimmy Johns for a full two years after leaving Jimmy John’s employment. A “competitor” is any business that derives 10% or more of food sales through sandwich products. This includes all fast food establishments, almost all dinner restaurants, gas stations, vending services, schools, daycare centers, hospitals with cafeterias and anywhere else you might find sandwich makers trying to steal Jimmy John’s “proprietary” practices. Continue reading

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No Honor In Arizona

Since 2005, various federal legislators and foreign lobbyists have been trying to pass a bill known as the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange. This bill would privatize 2400 acres of land in the Tonto National Forest and open it up for mining by Resolution Copper Mining, a subsidiary of the British-Australian multinational mining group Rio Tinto.

Now, privatizing national park and forest land is bad enough. However, this case is especially egregious, as the land in question includes sites sacred to the San Carlos Apache tribe, such as Oak Flat, Gaan Canyon and Apache Leap, where 75 warriors leapt to their deaths rather than being killed or captured by U.S. troops in 1871. Continue reading

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Torture Report Vs. Rule Of Law

Washington crossing the Delaware River. Emanuel Leutze [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Washington crossing the Delaware River. Emanuel Leutze [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The fallout is still coming from the release of the summary of the Senate’s investigation of the CIA’s of torture. The strongest defenders of the Bush Administration say the fault is in the release of the report, not in the “enhanced interrogation program” that administration approved and signed off on.

Let’s just take a deep breath for a moment. The United States has been involved in writing the policies and laws that the international community has long heralded as aligning with civilized societies. Prominent in these laws and policies that we helped write and signed off on are those dealing with how torture is defined, and what violates human rights within the spectrum of torture. These are not “new” standards; they have been in place since 1907 and the Hague Convention IV , and were revised and expanded by the Geneva Convention III in 1949. Continue reading

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