Blogs

Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown Confirmed - by Stephen Lendman

Visual evidence now confirms what earlier was known: namely, that Tokyo Electric's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station experienced at least one core nuclear meltdown, perhaps much worse than now admitted.

An earlier article explained, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/04/fukushima-meltdown-confirmed.html

Nuclear expert Karl Grossman calls it the ultimate nuclear nightmare, a real time China Syndrome, portrayed fictionally in the 1979 film by the same name.

On May 12, Hiroshima Peace Institute Professor Robert Jacobs told Russia Today TV that plant conditions "are much more serious than we were told earlier."

In fact, confirming a coverup, he explained:

By John Grant

I know when night has gone
That a new world's born at dawn.

I'll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

"Tumbling Tumbleweeds"
-- Sons Of The Pioneers

_______________________

We live in frustrating times for anyone politically opposed to the relentless militarization and financialization of virtually every facet of life in America.

The idealism of the Sixties and Seventies was overwhelmed first by Reaganism, then by the tsunami of post-911 fear and, finally, by the momentum of two, now three, on-going foreign wars. We live in an enforced condition of permanent war and unfettered piracy.

By Charles M. Young

I have three comedians on my iPod: Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Bill Hicks. All of them evolved as much into prophets as comedians, and all of them died younger than they should have from maladies that probably had something to do with the stress of being a live performer on the road in corporate America.

Hicks died the youngest, of pancreatic cancer at the age of 32 in 1994. Perhaps his pancreas had had enough of his drinking, which started later than usual at the age of 21 but got excessive quickly. Or maybe it was road food from all that driving to comedy clubs around the country. He looked puffy by his mid-20s. If Hicks came back from the dead, he could do a good routine about government agents slipping some carcinogen (white sugar?) into his food because his routines had come too close to the truth.

From the Stay Human Convoy:
The sun had not yet risen in Cairo, as the Stay Human convoy began to prepare the departure for Gaza. The journey about to be embarked upon was one filled with expectations and hope. The importance of the crossing the border at Rafah following the protests that brought down the Mubarak regime was on the minds of everyone, as well as the desire to remember Vittorio Arrigoni in the same place where he dedicated his life. The convoy will carry a message to the people of Palestine addressed to the entire world: Palestine is not alone, Vik's dreams are also ours, solidarity towards those who struggle against oppression and exploitation knows no borders.

Check this out. Obama is pretending to partially comply with the War Powers Act in Libya. He thinks he gets a 60-day pass for undeclared war, but the 60 days runs out next week. Among the ideas to weasel around this: PAUSE the war for a minute and then start with a fresh 60 days. Dubya would be proud. John Yoo will probably claim credit.

http://tinyurl.com/3cxqce3

Resurrecting the Bogus FARC-EP Files/Venezuela Connection - by Stephen Lendman

The story surfaced in March 2008 after Colombia's military, with US Special Forces help, attacked a FARC-EP rebel camp in Ecuador. Over 20 people were killed, including 16 or more FARC-EP members while they slept. Key among them was Paul Reyes, the FARC-EP's second-in-command, their peace negotiator, public voice, and lead figure in the Chavez-led hostage negotiations with Colombia at the time.

Tensions rose when Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos Calderon said three laptops and other materials were found at the FARC-EP camp. Containing provocative evidence, he said, it showed a Chavez/Ecuadorean President Raphael Correa link to FARC-EP rebels, including Venezuela providing them weapons, munitions, and about $300 million.

Bahraini State Terror Continues - by Stephen Lendman

Bahraini and Saudi security forces continue daily terror in Bahrain, human rights groups condemning the violence, including Amnesty International (AI), providing regular updates.

On May 11, AI reported more than 47 health professionals, including doctors and nurses, have been arrested, charged and may face trial before a military court for doing their job. All are Shias in a Sunni-run state.

Entirely bogus charges against them include:

-- refusing to help people in need;

-- embezzling public funds;

-- assaults causing deaths;

-- unauthorized possession of weapons and ammunition;

-- refusing to perform duties;

-- putting people's lives and health at risk;

-- illegal detention;

-- abusing authority;

-- attempting to forcefully occupy buildings;

-- incitement to forcibly overthrow the Khalifa monarchy;

-- incitement of regime hatred;

-- incitement of the hatred of a segment of society;

By Dave Lindorff

A new Gallup Poll conducted for USA Today earlier this week reports that a majority of Americans (52%) say that they would prefer a third party instead of the two parties, Republican and Democrat, that have dominated American politics for nearly centuries.

The poll shows that one third of Democrats say there’s a need for a new political party, while 52% of Republicans say the same thing. Meanwhile, 68% of independents say they have no use for either Democrats or Republicans and would prefer another option (no surprise there--that’s why they are not registered with either of the two major parties).

Paul Pillar, a senior CIA analyst who worked on the 25-page "summary of intelligence" presented to Congress in 2002, later told PBS, "The purpose was to strengthen the case for going to war...I regret having had a role in it." (see page 79 of my book, Blood On Our Hands). Now the former Director General of Britain's Defense Intelligence Staff has told the Chilcot Inquiry that Blair's "dodgy dossier" was fabricated in a similar fashion and with the same purpose. If our leaders ever told the truth in making a case for war, how would we know?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/12/iraq-dossier-case-for-war

Alastair Campbell's claim that the Iraq dossier was not about putting the case for war was strongly denied by a top intelligence officer.

I've been asking for a congress member to do this for years. This is the first time one has said they would.

http://twitter.com/#!/RepMcGovern/status/68772828631146496

I tweeted this: Will you form a public whip list of members who will vote against any more war $? If not, why not?

@RepMcGovern tweeted: @davidcnswanson We're working on putting a list together now.

Good news indeed.

From the Stay Human Convoy:
12 May 2011,
After leaving Cairo this morning at dawn, the 80 activists of the ‘Restiamo Umani' convoy have entered Gaza at 4pm after crossing five Egyptian check-points.
The convoy, whose goal is to return to the place where Vittorio Arrigoni has spent his life, wrote a first report - posted on www.vik2gaza.org- “We are going to Gaza, Vittorio is with us”.
The convoy will remain in the Gaza strip until the 17 of May to meet the Palestinian people who day by day are trying to resist the Israeli military occupation. The convoy will also join the commemorations for the thirtieth day of Vittorio's death and for Nakba, the day of the Palestinian catastrophe, which will take place between the 14 and the 15 of May.

From the Stay Human Convoy:
Cairo.
Today marks the official start of the 'Stay Human' Convoy. 80 activists from all over the world, from Italy, Germany, England, the United States, France and Poland have gathered in Cairo.
The Egyptian capital, that is both a meeting place and a point of departure for the Convoy, has witnessed over the past few months huge mobilizations that led to the fall of the Mubarak regime.
A few days ago, and in response to popular pressure, the Egyptian government stated that the Rafah Border Crossing would be reopening. The capital is currently packed with demonstrators who are preparing 3 days of initiatives.

Human Trafficking in Israel - by Stephen Lendman

In February 2003, the Tel Aviv-based Hotline for Migrant Workers (HMW) published a report titled, "Modern Slavery and Trafficking in Human Beings in Israel," saying:

"In September 2002, a new 'Deportation Police' (Immigration Administration) was set up (to) expel 50,000 migrant workers" by year end 2003. Unprecedented in scope at the time, it reflected Israel's longstanding "official policy towards migrant labor."

HMW's report showed a pattern of denying migrant workers basic rights "to such an extent as to result in modern slavery and trafficking in human beings."

Ever since Israel allowed non-Palestinian migrant workers entry in the early 1990s, their rights steadily eroded. More recently, HMW said:

"Its primary manifestations include debt bondage, restrictions and violations of basic human freedoms, and renting and selling of workers," policies ongoing today.

Libyan Rebels Killing Civilians in Benghazi - by Stephen Lendman

In London, at a June 1999 anti-Yugoslavia war rally, Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter scathed US and UK leaders, saying:

"Let us face the truth....(N)either Clinton nor Blair gives a damn about the Kosovar Albanians. This action has been another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile....to consolidate....American domination of Europe."

Today, Obama doesn't give a damn about Libyans, any more than about Iraqis, Afghans or working Americans. At issue only is Washington wanting unchallenged dominance everywhere, including over the Mediterranean Basin, using two missiles - NATO and so-called rebels, enlisted, funded, trained and armed well before bombing began on March 19.

Italian construction firm Pizzarotti is stupefied, bewildered, stunned.
In an article on today's Corriere della Sera, Italy's top newspaper, covering Deutsche Bahn's withdrawal from the Israeli project for a high-speed train line that cuts through the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Michele Pizzarotti said "We are astonished to find ourselves involved in these protests."
Pizzarotti, through a joint venture with Israeli Shapir Engineering, has been contracted to build tunnels in section C of the planned A1 train route from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv; section C starts in the Latrun enclave and ends at Cedars Valley, both in the occupied West Bank.

Michael Collins

Speculation reigns supreme in your nation’s capital. Who is next in line after the bin Laden operation? The bipartisan coalition directing the war on terror forgot one important fact about the security of the United States of America. It doesn’t matter who they kill overseas, the assault on almost all citizens continues unabated at home. No one is doing anything to stop it. Only the financial and political elite remain immune. (Image-WikiCommons)

By Linn Washington, Jr.

In the wake of the Obama Administration’s ballyhooed elimination of Osama bin Laden, thousands of government workers across the United States wonder when their president will provide them the ‘comfort of closure’ through his attacking a terrorism they confront daily.

This terrorism ravishing government employees working in entities from mega-federal agencies to small municipalities fits the classic dictionary definition of terrorism: using force or threats to demoralize, intimidate and subjugate.

This terrorism is a tyranny predating the birth of al Qaeda: institutional racism and its related deprivations like vicious retaliation against anyone objecting to unlawful institutional inequities.

Interestingly, a raging battlefield in the institutional racism wars is the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Civil Rights, where numerous organizations have blasted that office’s director for his failures to enforce civil rights.

When a United Airlines pilot of a flight I was on celebrated the killing of Osama bin Laden, and I blogged about it, my friend Emily Levy urged me to complain to the airline. So I did. Here's their response, followed by what I had sent them.

Dear Mr. Swanson:

Thank you for contacting us. We are currently experiencing a high volume of emails, and I offer my apology for the delayed response to your message.

I am very sorry to hear that our pilot vocalized his personal opinion with the passenger’s onboard flight 210 on May 1, 2011. It is definitely a personal opinion on the reaction or outcome of the fact that Osama bin Laden was killed. Please accept my sincere apology. I have shared your comments to the onboard flight manager so he can take appropriate action to prevent this from reoccurring.

On another note, your email was so interesting it prompted me to continue on to read your website and blog.

Eleven slides were sexist, three advocated domestic violence, one was racist and two promoted child degradation. One slide featured a comic strip in which a man kicks his girlfriend in the stomach after she tells him she is pregnant.

Other slides, the investigator wrote, were culturally insensitive.

Report: 82nd battalion leaders ousted over inappropriate pictures

May 10, 2011 - On Sept. 27, 2009, about a month into a deployment in Afghanistan, the commanders of an 82nd Airborne Division battalion met for a daily update briefing that always included PowerPoint slides.

East Jerusalem Residents: Lawlessly Revoking Their Status - by Stephen Lendman

On April 7, 2011, HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) filed a petition, demanding that Israel's Interior Ministry stop revoking residency permits given East Jerusalem Palestinians.

After its June 1967 annexation, life for Palestinian residents became an ongoing cycle of neglect, discrimination, poverty, shortages, and persecution, compounded by the encircling Separation Wall and worsening daily hardships.

Commemorating Palestine's Nakba - by Stephen Lendman

What Ilan Pappe described as "the ethnic cleaning of Palestine," Edward Said called its "holocaust," saying:

"Every human calamity is different, but there is value in seeing analogies and perhaps hidden similarities." He called Nazi extermination "the lowest point of (Jewish) collective existence." Occupied Palestinians today "are as powerless as Jews were" under Hitler, devastated by "power used for evil purposes," not self-defense.

As a result, they hang onto life by a thread, while Israel's military juggernaut systematically reigns terror against them, no one intervening to help. "Is this the Zionist goal for which hundreds of thousands have died," Said asked? Isn't it time for justice advocates to demand for Palestinians what Jews spent decades to achieve.

In his book titled, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," Pappe documented Israel's master plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), a war without mercy:

TRANSCRIPT:

DAVID SWANSON: Okay, we’re recording, this is David Swanson, I’m speaking with Harvey Wasserman, long time wonderful activist, author, author among other of wonderful books of "Solartopia," and Harvey, you were emailing me yesterday a little bit about success stories. Do you want to elaborate?

We, the U.S., tour apart the pandora's box and opened the floodgates of destruction well beyond that which we did, in Iraq, expanded in Afghanistan and in and out of the region!

Iraqis’ mixed emotions over bin Laden’s killing

Al-Qaeda leader is not thought to have ever set foot in Iraq, but it became one of his main battlegrounds.

'There are new al-Qaeda leaders who belong to a generation after bin Laden and are even more blood thirsty and more extreme'

2011-05-09 - Iraq, a nation that has endured a steady barrage of al-Qaeda assaults that has claimed thousands of lives, reacted to the killing of Osama bin Laden this week with a mixture of relief and anger amid fears of further attacks.

Democracy, Haitian Style - by Stephen Lendman

Except for Aristide's tenure, what passes for Haitian democracy would make a despot blush, thanks to America's imperial grip on the hemisphere's poorest, long-suffering people.

As a result, last November's presidential and legislative elections might best be called a cruel joke. The entire process was rigged to exclude 15 parties, including by far the most popular, Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas.

Moreover, the election was so tainted by brazen disenfranchisement and fraud, including ballot box stuffing and other irregularities, that legitimate independent observers would have demanded throwing out the results and starting over.

Most Haitians, however, weren't fooled. A scant 22%, in fact, voted, a hemispheric low since record keeping began over 60 years ago.

From David Swanson:

I'm looking forward to speaking at the Athens Human Rights Festival in Athens, Ga., on May 14 and 15, 2011.  

I'm also looking forward to hearing the great line-up of speakers, poets, singers, and musicians. 

Here's the schedule. 

This festival began in 1979 to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the Kent State murders. That first year, Gene Guerrero (Director - Georgia American Civil Liberties Union) urged students to oppose the reinstatement of the draft.  Attorney Hue Henry criticized UGA President Fred Davison's "pattern of arrogance" and supported the Free Speech Task Force's lawsuit against the Board of Regents' policy of preventing students from addressing Board meetings. Gary Appelson (Athenians for Clean Energy) appealed for unity to fight nuclear power. Promoting solar energy, Appelson said, "We think we are free to go to war and to interfere in the Middle East. Americans are oil junkies." Tommy Jordan played acoustic guitar and has performed at every festival since.

At the 1981 festival, Dave Dellinger warned, "If the world is going to survive, the resurgence of the peace movement must continue," and Elton Manzione (Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Grass Roots Organizing Workshop - GROW) spoke from his experience as a Navy SEAL.

The history of the Athens Human Rights Festival is one of relentless support for human rights, including the rights of humans targeted by the United States military.

This is an example to most U.S. human rights groups.

And the music makes this event an example for most activist productions.  This is the revolution with the music.

I hope to see you there:

SATURDAY May 14th 10 a.m. to midnight

SUNDAY 2 pm to 10 pm

College Square, Athens, Ga.

Rain or Shine.

The New York Times has posted seven super-short columns on how to cut the U.S. military. All seven seem to support cutting the military in one way or another. That's excellent, and I don't mean to complain, but . . . .

The United States has the largest military in the world. We could cut it by 85% and still have the largest military in the world. And that's without counting all the military spending that we funnel through departments other than the Pentagon, spending that brings our annual total to around $1 trillion.

The New York Times published an op-ed on May 7th by a professor here in Charlottesville, Va., arguing that celebrating the killing of Osama bin Laden is actually a good thing, because in so celebrating we are building solidarity with those we view as part of our exclusive group. Implicit in this argument is that we can do no better. Bonding over our common hatred of an outsider is better than no bonding at all, and therefore we should rebrand such hatred as altruism. Or so says psychology professor Jonathan Haidt.

And why? Why was putting the Nazis on trial rather than simply putting bullets in their heads not just an unusual occurrence but a physiological impossibility, something that did not occur because it could not have? Why? Because professor Haidt has read some research on ants, bees, and termites.

Troy Anthony Davis: Unjustly Sentenced to Death - by Stephen Lendman

Capital punishment is barbaric, unjust, and unacceptable for any reason in modern societies. No wonder Amnesty International (AI) calls it "the ultimate denial of human rights. It is premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state. This cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is done in the name of justice."

In fact, there's nothing just about state-sponsored murder, especially against falsely accused victims. In America, they're mostly poor Black or Latinos denied due process and judicial fairness by a corrupted prosecutorial system rigged to convict even known innocent defendants like Troy Anthony Davis.

New Bin Laden Tapes Appear Fake Like Earlier Ones - by Stephen Lendman

On May 2, AP writer Matt Apuzzo headlined, "US Official: New bin Laden tape, recorded shortly before death, expected to surface soon," saying:

"US intelligence officials believe (he) made a propaganda recording shortly before his death and expect that tape to surface soon....A new recording (would) provide a final word from beyond the grave...."

On May 7, New York Times writer Elisabeth Bumiller headlined, "Videos From Bin Laden's Hide-Out Released," saying:

On May 7, the administration "released five videos recovered from" his alleged hideout, showing him "threatening the United States, condemning capitalism and at some points flubbing his lines and missing a cue."