That’s What Friends Are For

Y’know how corporations who would lose money in a recession also like own a lot of media ‘n’ shit? And perception is a powerful weapon to keep the fantasy wealth of the markets real, well it’s so bad the Empire’s Mid East sidekick is helping out its buddy- Israel Bank intervenes in foreign currency market, buys dollars. But really there isn’t a recession, oh no siree bob.

High School Muse-ical

I’ve been busy doing that caring for another human being stuff (oh that’s soooo last season) and now I find myself coming back to numerous important things overwhelming me.

At Citizen Orange– A woman locked in a bare cell and left with no food or water or toilet for four days, a man imprisoned and denied medical care until his cancer was so far along he is on chemo close to death and had to have his penis amputated. Their common link? They are people deemed ‘illegal immigrants’ by the American authorities and thus become untermenschen, allusion intended.

In the UK our scumbag Home Office & Border & Immigration Agency match that telling 1,400 Iraqi’s it is safe for them to return and so you’ll get no more money, basically fuck off and die. Also via Chicken Yoghurt and my ears (I heard it on the radio, dig?) some class war, Nulabour and the tories have the same policies, in this case Nulab is going to fight poverty…by attacking poor people & the disabled. So a country where no choice exists in politics, isn’t that quite dictatory? The pundit class calls it consensus, but then they would, they are wealthy too.

Chris Floyd writes about Somalia–

This week, both the International Red Cross and UN officials issued dire assessments of the “dramatically” deteriorating situation. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are surviving on “something less than one meal a day,” the Red Cross reports. Food and water shortages are now “life-threatening” in several regions across the country. Violent conflict with insurgents – and brutal “counterinsurgency” measures by the Ethiopian invaders and the “transitional government” – are intensifying, sending thousands more fleeing into the already stripped and overburdened countryside. Hospitals in the capital of Mogadishu are overflowing with wounded civilians, while there is little or no treatment for multitudes in other regions, where conflict and disease are spreading rapidly. Six humanitarian workers have been killed in Somalia in this year alone; only 2,000 are working there now – six times fewer than in Darfur, as Reuters notes. “I truly believe this is the worst humanitarian crisis on the continent, possibly in the world,” says Phillipe Lazzarini, the UN humanitarian chief for Somalia. 

And there is this cry- Somalia’s message to the world: Get Ethiopia off our back

In Mogadishu and much of Somalia, the American-supported Ethiopian intervention caused the deaths of more than 6,000 Somalis. According to United Nations officials, the humanitarian crisis in Somalia is “worse than Darfur” — more than a million Somalis fled their homes.

The Ethiopian occupation did not deliver the outcome that Washington desired — crushing the Islamists, creating a secure environment and leaving the country quickly. Instead, after more than a year of occupation, the picture is one of assassinations, bombings, looting, media repression and systematic displacement. Worse, there is no end in sight to the quagmire.

If there is the will, the U.S. and the rest of the international community can reverse the Somalia crisis.

The issue is not about fixing an artificial and illegitimate government that exists on the backs of Ethiopian soldiers and donors’ money. The U.S. should aim at the real goals: ending the Ethiopian occupation (the source of Somalia’s current problems), addressing the humanitarian catastrophe, initiating a genuine Somali-owned peace process, and dealing with the war crimes committed in the country.

Yoshie points out what sanctions talk is really about (with graphs too!)-

The main point we need to get across is this: sanctions are not an alternative to war, but a prelude to it, so “diplomatic efforts” must be made against sanctions (without which clarification Washington can easily merge the pro-diplomacy and pro-sanctions blocs into a diplomacy for sanctions bloc).

We have seen how the use of economic warfare segues into the use of military force, in Iraq, most obviously, but also in Haiti, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. Economic sanctions degrade their target nation’s capacity for self defense, materially by diminishing the nation’s ability to maintain, let alone upgrade, economic foundations and military apparatuses for it, and psychologically by aggravating existing contradictions and antagonisms and sowing new ones within the target nation. That creates an opportunity for the empire. And, when sanctions fail to change behavior of the target government to the satisfaction of the empire, that creates a pretext . . . which is easy to do,

And via James @ The Mahatma X Files–

This is what Solomon Hughes makes quite clear in his new book War on Terror, Inc. Corporate Profiteering From the Politics of Fear just released by Verso.  Hughes is an investigative reporter that does that title proud.  His work has appeared in British newspapers and the journal Private Eye.  What he does in this book is nothing less than rip the mask of false patriotism and concern for the world’s well-being from the faces of the corporations that constitute a major part of the today’s war industry.  In the process, he exposes the shallow greed and willing corruption of the politicians and government bureaucrats who hand over their nation’s coffers to those companies, despite their public ineptitude and chicanery—not to mention the lies the whole shell game is based on.  Meanwhile, people die for no reason. 

Now I must get to work- It is niece number 2’s birthday tomorrow, she will be 12, after living through some tough times she is growing into a dazzling girl, elected head of her school year, a champion gymnast, yet having time to be thoughtful and kind. As has become customary I am firing up the photoshop and hand crafting a card for her, she is of her time, which means what pop music the main stations play becomes the music she likes, and of course she lurves the Disney Channel. So with the above truths about the world in my head I will pretend the world is shiny and happy and make a splendid card for her reflecting her favourite things. Which is fine for a 12 year old girl on her birthday, but it makes me think when does the Disneyland stop? Or to be more precise, does the ‘Disneyland’ fiction stop. Or is wilful ignorance a sign of maturity I haven’t cracked yet? Hmmm, Let this be a lesson for you, don’t stay up all night reading a book and getting very little sleep. You start writing any old crap.