nous les 99%

Published on truthout.org, by Douglas Jamiel, May 4, 2014.

The historical cost of building our postal network, its unique characteristics and efficiency, the nefarious efforts to privatize and cripple it, and the economic and personal costs of losing it are considered … //

… Since the 1970s, the right has patiently tried to wrest control of the US Postal Service from the government using a three-step strategy characterized by:    Continuer la lecture de « Deride and Conquer: Dismantling the USPS (United States postal system) »

Published on Global Research.ca, by Andrew J. Santos, May 3, 2014.

The revelation concerning a secretive airborne surveillance test in Compton, CA is disturbing. The Los Angeles County Sheriff Department via “Persistent Surveillance Systems”, spied on residents in Compton, CA for nine days in 2012.[1]   Continuer la lecture de « Secretive Airborne Police Surveillance in California »

Published on Spiegel Online International, by SUSANNE AMANN, FRANK DOHMEN, JÖRG KRAMER, PAUL MIDDELHOFF AND BARBARA SCHMID, April 30. 2014.

As Moscow continues to escalate the situation in Ukraine, public and political pressure is turning against German companies who do business with Russia. The countries’ economic ties make disengagement next to impossible.
Clemens Tönnies usually says what he thinks. When, on a February morning, he climbed into a private jet with his wife Margit to fly to the Olympic Games in Sochi, he described his views on Russia to a reporter with Sport Bild magazine: It has « bothered him, how negatively this country has been portrayed … // Continuer la lecture de « Little Love for Sanctions: Ukraine Crisis A Tightrope Walk for German Businesses »

Published on Axis of Logic, by Alex Park/Mother Jones, April 28, 2014.

(Editorial comment: The French title of Jean Ziegler’s latest book translates literally as ‘Mass Destruction – the Geopolitics of Hunger’. When I translated the article by Édouard MARET (Hunger can be overcome, according to Jean Ziegler), the title in English as it is now, was already posted. His last few books had not found a publisher or a translator into English, which I have guessed may be due to titles like ‘The Empire of Shame’ and ‘Hatred of the West’, concepts hard to face in the western world. Those two, and others, are magnificent books that give us the inside view of what is going on in the world with more or less planned and calculated starvation of the poor and the takeover of the entire world by the Corporate giants).   Continuer la lecture de « World Food & Water: How Agribusiness Keeps Us "Betting on Famine" »

Published on Russia Today RT, by Nadezhda Kevorkova, April 28, 2014:

The Americans never intended to help us build our country. Now Kabul is asking them not to leave Afghanistan so that the Taliban will not attack them,” a Pashtun from Kabul in his Moscow shop muses.
“Just imagine: we had 44 countries invading Afghanistan with modern weapons, satellite monitoring, tanks and missiles. The Taliban has an army of less than 20,000. We have 400,000 Afghan troops and 200,000 Americans with the most advanced weaponry. How is it possible that they can’t prevail over the Taliban?” he says. Continuer la lecture de « US came to Afghanistan with TV & cash – they won’t let us go »

Published on Global Research.ca, by Prof. John McMurtry, April 26, 2014.

• Yet Russia gets all the blame for “brute force” in reclaiming Crimea – although 96% of a voluntary turnout of 82% voted to rejoin its traditional mother country. While denounced as “violation of international law”, the Crimea referendum choice expresses the “self-determination” of a society guaranteed under Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. Ukraine’s coup government, in contrast, has prohibited any referendum on its rule – especially the Eastern regions where popular uprisings with no mass deaths or beatings (as in the Kiev coup) call for self-determination against illegal rule from Kiev.   Continuer la lecture de « “Global Society Destruction” and The Ukraine Crisis: Decoding its Deep Structural Meaning »

Watch this video, 13.09 min, uploaded by The Real News, April 26, 2014 … and more videos in autoplay.

Links:

28.4.2014 Updated Link: Football ultras clash with anti-govt protesters in eastern Ukraine, at least 14 injured (PHOTOS, VIDEO), on Russia Today RT, April 27, 2014;

India losing water war, on dna India, by R.N. Bhaskar and S. Balakrishnan, April 27, 2014;

Hot statistics: Spanish exodus, Polish government finance ‘miracle’, more deflation in Ireland, Greek trade, on RWER, by merijnknibbe, April 26, 2014.

Published on transform, by Elisabeth Gauthier, April 23, 2014.

The abstention levels of 39% were a record high for municipal elections. They were particularly high in areas most affected by the crisis; in metropolitan communes; among the young; workers; and voters of the Front de Gauche (Left Front) and of the FN (National Front). In addition, almost 3 million potential voters were not registered to vote.  Continuer la lecture de « Municipal elections in France: Historic failure for Social-Democratic Left »

Published on The Market Oracle.co.uk, by Raul I. Meijer, April@3, 2014.

A lot of words are being spent again these days on deflation and the QE measures that are supposed to “cure” it. Paul Krugman, who when it comes to stimulus is a hammer seeing nails only, now has it in for Sweden’s central bank, which he labels monetary sadists for not opening the spigots. But it’s all a hugely deceptive false flag; it’s not an issue of whether you launch QE or not. There’s a third, and much more valid, way of looking at this.  Continuer la lecture de « QE Is A Fraud Perpetrated By Made Men »

• 2,700 more Muzaffarnagar riots victims apply for relief, on The Indian Express, April 23, 2014;
• India / Uttar Pradesh: KILLING FIELDS OF MUZAFFARNAGAR, 47.34 min, uploaded on YouTube by Gobal Menon, Feb 22, 2014 (in local language, subtitles in english): 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots is the worst communal violence in India in the last decade …;
• 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots on en.wikipedia, The clashes between the Hindu and Muslim communities in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, India in August – September 2013, resulted in at least 49 deaths and injured 93 and left more than 50,000 displaced.[5][6][7][8] By 17 September, the curfew was lifted from all riot affected areas and the army was also withdrawn[9] …;
• Muzaffarnagar: Post Riot Assessment – Report, by Citizens’s Inquiry Team, not dated, 20 pdf-pages;

See also:

India / Gujarat: The Unholy War, uploaded on YouTube by Gopal Menon, April 19 + 22, 2014:

• Part 1, Development, 59.24 min,
• Part 2, in search of Justice, 69.48 min:

Narendra Modi has made tall claims about good governance in Gujarat. His vibrant Gujarat campaign claims that the state is the most developed state in the country. Is it true? All the social indicators prove otherwise. All the public services have been privatised …;
find this also on the Website of Countercurrents.org.

Published on Washington’s Blog, by Charles Hugh Smith, April 23, 2014.

Before an empire collapses, it first erodes from within. The collapse may appear sudden, but the processes of internal rot hollowed out the resilience, resolve, purpose and vitality of the empire long before its final implosion.
What are these processes of internal rot? Here are a few of the most pervasive and destructive forces of internal corrosion:   Continuer la lecture de « This Is How Empires Collapse »

… the United States’ desperate solutions for not sinking alone – Published on GEAB N°84, April 17, 2014.

In the present confrontation between Russia and the West over the Ukrainian crisis, the image of the Cold War inevitably comes to mind and the media are obviously fond of it. However, contrary to what it gives us to understand, it’s not Russia that seeks the return of an iron curtain but really the US. An iron curtain separating the old powers and emerging nations; the world before and the world afterwards; debtors and creditors. And this in the crazy hope of preserving the American way of life and the US’ influence over “its” camp in the absence of being able to impose it on the whole world. In other words, go down with as many companions as possible to give the impression of not sinking.   Continuer la lecture de « Europe dragged into a division of the world between debtors and creditors »

The case for Aggressive War against George W. Bush and his Administration – Published on Global Research.ca, by Inder Comar, April 21, 2014.

… At the Nuremberg Trials, American chief prosecutor and associate justice of the US Supreme Court Robert H. Jackson focused his prosecution on the planning and execution of the various wars committed by the Third Reich. Jackson aimed to show that German leaders committed “crimes against peace,” and specifically, that they “planned, prepared, initiated wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances.”   Continuer la lecture de « Crimes against Peace: Historic Class Action Law Suit against George W. Bush »

Published on Real-World Economics Review Blog, by Peter Radford, April 18, 2014.

I will not pile on any more: the Piketty book is required reading. Enough said.
What strikes me is that his data set is so comprehensive that it ought to end many of those lingering debates within economics. I doubt it will, but it ought to.
I have a few comments I want to make because of his book and the reaction to it.

First:   Continuer la lecture de « Capital: Piketty and such »