Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Published on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Faiza Rady, March 6, 2014.

“We came to this labour meeting to talk about what is happening to our jobs and our factory but you won’t listen. Even among our fellow workers we are marginalised. All you want to talk about is the minimum wage but our situation is worse. Since our factory was declared bankrupt we have been paid just 30 per cent of our salaries. Over and above legitimate minimum wage considerations you should listen to us because we are waging a struggle to survive,” said Nabila Abbas Al-Saidi from the Wabriyat textile and garment mill in the Delta town of Samanud.   Continuer la lecture de « Egypt: we want to work, they won’t let us »

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 946, by NUMSA, March 6, 2014.

A. The world we live in today and our 20 years of “Democracy”:

It is impossible to deny that the world has seen the most severe crisis of the global capitalist system. And, there is no end in sight, to this crisis.   Continuer la lecture de « The State of Class Struggle in South Africa »

Published on Intrepid Report, by Ellen Brown, J.D., March 6, 2014.

In a nearly $13 billion settlement with the US Justice Department in November 2013, JPMorgan Chase admitted that it, along with every other large US bank, had engaged in mortgage fraud as a routine business practice, sowing the seeds of the mortgage meltdown. JPMorgan and other megabanks have now been caught in over a dozen major frauds, including LIBOR-rigging and bid-rigging; yet no prominent banker has gone to jail. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of all mortgages nationally remain underwater (meaning the balance owed exceeds the current value of the home), sapping homeowners’ budgets, the housing market and the economy. Since the banks, the courts and the federal government have failed to give adequate relief to homeowners, some cities are taking matters into their own hands.   Continuer la lecture de « The stone that brings down Goliath? »

Interview with Alexander Marin, published on Socialist Worker.org, by Eva Maria, March 4, 2014.

… Alexander Marín is a student organizer and member of Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide), a group working within the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), founded in 2007 by supporters of the late Hugo Chávez. Marín talked to Eva María about the nature of the protests rocking Venezuela, where they are headed and the state of the revolution today … //

… WHAT WOULD you say is the social character of the protests since mid-February? What motive or motives have pushed the people to go out to the streets?   Continuer la lecture de « How can the right be defeated in Venezuela? »

Live Updates:

• on Mirror: Live updates after Russian soldier fires first shots in Crimea as surrender deadline passes, March 5, 2014;
• on Russia Today RT: Ukraine turmoil, March 4-5, 2014;    Continuer la lecture de « Crimea: LIVE UPDATES and press »

How international financial elites change governments to implement austerity – Published on Intrepid Report, by Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, March 4, 2014.

… Despite their many differences, these social turbulences share two common features. The first is that they are largely induced, nurtured and orchestrated from outside, that is, by the United States and its allies—of course, in collaboration with their class allies from inside. And the second is that, contrary to the long-established historical pattern of social revolutions, where the desperate and disenfranchised masses rebelled against the ruling elites, in most of the recent struggles it is the elites that have instigated insurgencies and civil wars against the masses. The two features are, of course, integrally intertwined: essentially reflecting the shared interests and collaborative schemes of the international plutocracies against the global 99%.  Continuer la lecture de « Global war on the 99% »

Published on TomDispatch, by Tom Engelhardt, March 2, 2014.

There is, it seems, something new under the sun.

Geopolitically speaking, when it comes to war and the imperial principle, we may be in uncharted territory.  Take a look around and you’ll see a world at the boiling point.  From Ukraine to Syria, South Sudan to Thailand, Libya to Bosnia, Turkey to Venezuela, citizen protest (left and right) is sparking not just disorganization, but what looks like, to coin a word, de-organization at a global level.  Increasingly, the unitary status of states, large and small, old and new, is being called into question.  Civil war, violence, and internecine struggles of various sorts are visibly on the rise. In many cases, outside countries are involved and yet in each instance state power seems to be draining away to no other state’s gain.  So here’s one question: Where exactly is power located on this planet of ours right now?   Continuer la lecture de « A New World Order? Missing in Action, What Happened to War and the Imperial Drive to Organize the Planet? »

Published on Real-World Economics Review Blog, by Peter Radford, March 1, 2014.

I am preparing a talk on inequality here in America, and so have been re-reading the Piketty and Saez work. Amongst the more eye-opening facts I have come across is the assertion, by Saez, that the surge in the top 1% incomes is so large that the growth of the bottom 99% amounts to only half the average [mean].

Think about that for a moment. Continuer la lecture de « Inequality »

von MacroAnalyst auf YouTube hochgeladen:

• 1.3 Modul-1 Europäische Währungsunion, 14.18 min,
• 1.4 Modul-2: Europäische Fiskalunion, 15.41 min,
• 1.5 Modul-3: Bankenunion, 13.49 min;

von Jens B auf YouTube hochgeladen: Continuer la lecture de « EURO, von der Union zum Alptraum »

watch this video with former NASA Scientist Richard Hoover, 23.31 min, uploaded by Open Minds Production, Feb 19, 2014: former NASA Scientist Richard Hoover shares revelations with journalist Lee Speigel from the Huffington Post. Hoover talks about the fact that someone may have destroyed evidence of life on Mars. This took place at the Open Minds 2014 International UFO Congress and Film Festival in Fountain Hills Arizona.

Published on Necessary and Proportionate.org, Info and Link received by Newsletter-Email, From: HURIDOCS, Date: Feb 11, 2014:

Dear reader, Privacy is a human right: People need it, governments have to protect it and business has to respect it. Too often, this is not the case.

Today is the day we fight back: Thousands of individuals, international experts and a coalition of NGOs from all around the globe demand an end to unchecked mass surveillance. Privacy is dear to everyone of them: It enables them to speak freely. To meet others without being watched. To know that it is their decision to share information about themselves.   Continuer la lecture de « International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance »

Published on Global Research.ca (first on World Socialist Web Site WSWS), by Peter Schwarz, Feb 27, 2014.

“When the Soviet Union was collapsing in late 1991, Dick wanted to see the dismantlement not only of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire but of Russia itself, so it could never again be a threat to the rest of the world,” wrote former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his recently published memoirs. Gates was referring to the then-Secretary of Defense, and later US Vice President, Dick Cheney.

The statement sheds light on the geopolitical dimensions of the recent putsch in Ukraine. What is at stake is not so much domestic issues—and not at all the fight against corruption and democracy—but rather an international struggle for power and influence that stretches back a quarter of a century … // Continuer la lecture de « The Geopolitical Dimensions of the Coup in Ukraine: A Struggle for Power and Influence »

Interview with Daniel Ellsberg, re-published on ZNet, by AlJazeera, February 26, 2014.

In 1971, US military analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked thousands of pages of a top-secret study on the Vietnam War to the American press. The Pentagon Papers, as the leak would come to be called, revealed previously shrouded layers of deception on the part of the US executive branch regarding decades of military involvement in Indochina … // Continuer la lecture de « US Culture of Secrecy & Security Overreach »

Published on Counterpunch, by Alfredo Lopez, Feb 25, 2014.

It might seem like a game of Monopoly played by real monopolies and, with a tired groan, one might be tempted to dismiss it as part of an ugly but irreversible trend. But the merger of cable-television mammoth Comcast with its runner-up competitor Time-Warner Cable is a huge piece of news whose outcome, if it goes forward, will be crippling to communications in this country … //

… The courts can stop this merger. Most analysts doubt they will.   Continuer la lecture de « Playing Real-Life Monopoly »

Published on Worker’s Action, by Shamus Coke, Feb 24, 2014.

… And although Sawant has been assured by the Seattle mayor that $15 is a done deal, she’s warning the Seattle public otherwise. Sawant recently spoke at a conference organized by the coalition “$15 Now,” and blasted the intrigue of the mayor’s committee set up to implement the new wage. Sawant knows the inner workings of the committee because she’s on it.

Sawant’s speech warned Seattle that the Seattle 1% are plotting a counter-offensive, aimed at undermining $15 by adding a variety of exceptions, loopholes, and extending the implementation time. In response Sawant demanded “$15 now, no exceptions.” The “$15 Now” coalition is staying on the offensive, going into the neighborhoods to ensure that $15 is implemented — they’ve given the Mayor’s committee a deadline and are preparing to organize a ballot initiative if necessary.  Continuer la lecture de « The Murky Politics of the $15 Minimum Wage »