Interview with Jonathan Fryer, broadcaster and journalist
American Awakening?
As many political analysts believe recent revolts in the US and Europe against the ruling economic systems are part of a global movement, some other observers argue that the uprisings simply seek personal demands.
Phi Beta Iota: Excellent lead-in video, video interview with three figures, focus on global banking system optimized to fraudulently confiscate wealth. Transcript also included.
Further Note: The well-intentioned mobs are falling apart for lack of a narrative and organization scheme. They need to get a grip, to include having articulate spokespersons to counter the Wall Street narrative now playing out, that they are spoiled mis-behaving children who will go away once it gets cold.
CORRUPTION is the common enemy, both in government and in the private sector.
According to a spokesman of the Libyan National Transitional Council Qadhafi is believed to be holed up near the western town of Ghadamis near the Algerian border under the protection of Tuareg tribesmen. Qadhafi supported Tuareg rebellions against the governments of Mali and Niger in the 1970s and allowed them to settle in Libya.
The Algerian Foreign Minister announced last week that his country was ready to work closely with the new Libyan authorities, adding that Algeria would eventually recognise the National Transitional Council.
We circulate below an article published by Al Jazeera which attempts to consider the many and confusing factors which influence developments in the Sahara including the position of Niger, Chad and Mali as well as Algeria and Libya, the Tuareg and other Saharan people, al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), American pursuit of the “global war on terror” GWOT, and most recently the possibility that Qadhafi or his supporters will continue disruptive activity after their defeat in Libya itself. The author is a professor of social anthropology at the London School of Oriental and African Studies who seems to be the only analyst of the area writing in English.
Libya's uprising is causing turmoil in amid its neighbours and speculation of a Tuareg rebellion has emerged.
Jeremy Keenan
Aljazeera, 28 Sep 2011
EXTRACT:
Prior to the start of Libya's revolution in February, the Sahelian regions of Niger and Mali had already suffered eight years of increasing political instability and insecurity. The reasons for this are complex:
First, having partially recovered from the Tuareg rebellions of the 1990s, the rulers of both Niger and Mali became willing, pliant and corrupt partners in the global war on terror (GWOT). This transformation occured following the complicity between the US and Algeria's mukhabarat [security services] and the Departement du Renseignement et de la Securite [DRS – Department of Intelligence and Security] in fabricating terrorism in the region in order to justify the launch of the 2003 second front in the GWOT in the Sahel/Sahara. That alone brought an almost instant decimation of the predominantly Tuareg tourist industry and an annual loss of an estimated $50m.
Another factor contributing to instability in the region occured in 2005, following the political provocation of the Tuareg by the Niger government. This led to a short-lived rebellion, while in May 2006 the US and Algeria's DRS orchestrated a Tuareg rebellion in northeastern Mali. This was followed, four to five months later, by two contrived “terrorist” engagements designed to facilitate the name change of Algeria's GSPC into al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its “insertion” into the Sahel.
Follow the Online Trading of Greek & other EU PIIGS CDS Bankruptcy Defaults. Discover how all EU PIIGS Govt Bond Spreads, Interest Rates & Govt Lending Programs are daily Manipulated
Submit your Complaint, attaching any Document or other Proof of Fraud.
Bank Docs, Receipts, Greek Bonds Buy/Sell Orders & Order Forms, Short Selling Proof Docs, Transactions & Settlements Information & Docs, CDS Contracts, Agreements, Banks, Companies, Investment & Hedge Funds details, Speculators, Accomplices & Partners details, Greek Partners, Intermediaries & Govt Officers details, Corruption Proofs, Articles, Blogs, etc.
SPANISH CRIMINAL CHARGE AGAINST RATING AGENCIES : A dozen Spanish Layers, represented by Gonzalo Boye, following to our lawsuit, charged with criminal fraud the US Rating Agencies Moody's, Standard & Poors and Fitch Ratings.
Phi Beta Iota: We anticipate the eventual eradication of Goldman Sachs particularly, and the New York banks generally. Governments and the public are beginning to recognize the possibilities of mass legal action and the value of both the re-nationalization of property and the confiscation of third-country assets acquired by Goldman Sachs as a result of its fraud.
Little coverage to begin with, then mostly negative following ….. indications that the “fat cats” are calling in favors to discredit this initiative. With the Transport Workers Union filing a complaint about the commandeering of buses to move the detained, word is spreading….time for social media to step up to the plate as it has
elsewhere?
And for sleet and torrential rains – anything that might convince the precious insufferables who have taken over Wall Street that they have had enough of exercising their First Amendment rights to the inconvenience of tens of thousands of people who actually have to work for a living.
This bunch ought to get down on their knees in thanks that America‘s capitalist Founding Fathers saw fit to protect the privileges of the dumb and obnoxious along with everyone else.
They should also salute the NYPD and all its officers for paying diligent attention to ensuring that peace and harmony reign in their daze of rage. But no.
Instead, in a disgraceful attempt at intimidation, partisans of Occupy Wall Street, as the micromovement calls itself, posted on the Internet the name, address and telephone number of a ranking cop who dosed a couple of upstarts with pepper spray – along with the same information about the officer's family members.
If the NYPD has made any tactical error in this episode, it was in being too tolerant.
Phi Beta Iota: Despite the topless bits and the strong flavor of 1960's emergence, the mob is disorganized and lacks both leadership and focus at the ground level. Strategicially there have been flashes of genius, including the recognition that Electoral Reform must be the core demand – all corruption stems from the corruption of the electoral system, and that the movement must be nation-wide. Lacking an intellectual framework for self-governance, and a means for bringing pressure to bear (such as calling for a general strike and a national sick-out in sympathy, while demanding that each Representative co-sponsor Electoral Reform Act 2.2), it is very possible they will be diminished by time as Wall Street waits for winter.
[This is an excerpt taken from Chapter 1 of my dissertation]
Activists are not only turning to social media to document unfolding events, they are increasingly mapping these events for the world to bear witness. We’ve seen this happen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and beyond. My colleague Alexey Sidorenko describes this new phenomenon as a “mapping reflex.” When student activists from Khartoum got in touch earlier this year, they specifically asked for a map, one that would display their pro-democracy protests and the government crackdown. Why? They wanted the world to see that the Arab Spring extended to the Sudan.
The Ushahidi platform is increasingly used to map information generated by crowds in near-real time like the picture depicted above. Why is this important? Because live public maps can help synchronize shared awareness, an important catalyzing factor of social movements, according to Jürgen Habermas. Recall Habermas’s treaties that “those who take on the tools of open expression become a public, and the presence of a synchronized public increasingly constrains un-democratic rulers while expanding the right of that public.”
This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on september 29, 2011As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.
We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses. They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one¹s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices. They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions. They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right. They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' healthcare and pay. They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility. They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance. They have sold our privacy as a commodity. They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit. They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce. They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil. They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit. They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit. They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media. They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt. They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas. They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone. To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.Join us and make your voices heard!
Democrats in the US like to think they can use green politics to revitalize their base. But will going green achieve this end when most of the people in the world (and the US) are either poor or lower middle class and the distribution of income is getting worse in a global economy dominated by the ideology of neoliberal economics? The attached essay in the French journal Le Monde Diplomatique provides some interesting food for thought in that regard, at least as far a Germany is concerned.
The Greens are likely to be a major part of the next German government; few seem to have noticed that they’ve already been a substantial part of its regional governments for 59 years
by Olivier Cyran, Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2011
EXTRACT:
The fat cats who live in [the totally green] Marco Polo Tower may not vote Green in the elections. The tower was built on a natural promontory in the port that gives residents a bird’s eye view of the landing stage for liners. But the designers forgot that these floating palaces belch out toxic smoke that the wind blows back on to the balconies and windows of the tower. According to an investigation by Der Spiegel, a “breath of fresh air” for Marco Polo’s residents contains the equivalent of the emissions from “50,000 lorries travelling at 130kmph, with significant quantities of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and other carcinogenic particles”. Multi-millionaires poisoned by luxury cruises: sustainable development has some surprising twists.
