G20: Protest divorced from politics

It does warm my heart to see people prepared to get out there and protest, but it's so formalised, so ritualised. And worse, there's no political programme at all.

What exactly do they expect? That our owners and operators will look down from their comfy eyries and take pity? "Oh look, they're so cute and well-meaning. Let's give them what they want". Reverse the habits of generations, put common good ahead of personal and family wealth? Yeah, right.

It's interesting to see all the middle class and corporate organisational techniques deployed in fine-grained fashion, the details of protest, bullet points, the distribution of information. But to what end? There's no equivalent organised investigation of the processes of political change, of leverage and influence, of the history of resistance and insurrection. So centuries (if not millenia) of thought and experience is discarded.

I suspect the middle class influence at work in the reluctance to look at certain examples, fearing for their respectability. They don't want to threaten the fluffy media image. They seem to think a bit of media coverage is of any value, in and of itself. "We're getting the message out," they might say, "winning hearts and minds". What goddam message? We've gone backwards in the last 35 years by most measures, including climate change. (Except on identity politics issues, and therein hangs a tale...)

So what's left? Insignificant 'violence', shouty emotional people. And cops playing the old propaganda games, and trying out the new toys.

Change you can believe in: rendition

Obama's new CIA Director Leon Panetta... said that Obama was keeping rendition as an option in the fight against terrorism.
Reuters

Israel: boycott, disinvestment, sanctions

The practical initiatives are summed up in three letters - BDS - boycott, disinvestment, sanctions. Counterpunch.

Also worth a look, a Naomi Klein article on boycotting Israel.

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Obama and Gaza

Obama clearly hopes Israel can 'resolve' the Gaza before he comes to power. The lives of how ever many hundreds or thousands (which, we wait to see) of Palestinian women and children clearly for him, a price well worth paying.

The 'audacity of hope', don't make me laugh, don't make me cry...

Anyway, he's wrong in that particular audacious hope. Israel will lose, again, just like in Lebanon, and just like its big stupid sponsor in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Here we go again, US/Israeli war crimes and a hurricane of lies

For those inclined to fall for the lie that the Gaza 'operation' is about Hamas rockets and 'terror' - some little truths by Michel Chossudovsky in a short piece entitled The Invasion of Gaza: "Operation Cast Lead", Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda.

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Quote: Stalin

The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
Joseph Stalin

Quote: Year Zero in Afghanistan

"Our goal is to rebuild the government and society from the ground up in our model."

An effusive US officer in Naray, from Princess Patricia and the Taliban by Eric Walberg. Every dead Pashtun a 'taliban'.

The audacity of hope? Don't make me laugh/cry....

Obama scenarios:

1. Used to knock Hilary out; now media reverts to type, election gets stolen again.

2. Corporate shill - proven - takes lobby money through lawyers, says he doesn't take lobby money. True in only the most legalistic/dishonest sense. See Pam Marten's articles on Counterpunch. So you get a Wall Street lackey, more public money to bail out banks etc.

3. Hope & despair machine for the US people - get 'em hopeful, drop 'em low, have 'em well-primed for more global evil. Worst scenario for the rest of the world. And the most likely.

4. No matter what, no matter who. it's more treasure, blood and war for Israel.

Think that covers it.

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P.S. Can't believe I'm back. Didn't mean to. I just wrote this as a comment somewhere and thought, hell, let's post it, get a marker down for the latest propaganda tidal wave...

Quote: James Petras

"The failure of Washington's will to a world empire has led to the shrinking of power relative to its global situation prior to 2001. And in large part that is due to the fighting capacity and organized resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan: both have demonstrated that despite the great store of modern technological warfare and monopolies of media propaganda, wars are decided on the ground, by the popular majorities directly affected."

James Petras, Imperial Rot: Are the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the Beginning of the End of the American Empire?