Time Mag: Protester-Person Of The Year. There goes the neighborhood…

16 Comments

1. 

   Arthur Gilroy on December 14, 2011 at 10:44 am

   Please.

   AG

2. 

   Quentin on December 14, 2011 at 11:37 am

   The protester is a jihadist or the jihadist is a terrorist. Which would mean that the terrorist really isn’t a terrorist but a protester and the protester really is a terrorist. Oh my, however you want it. Who knows? So we must move the ‘war on terror’ to the ‘homeland’. I guess the whole thing comes down to that. It’s time magazine guys, once it might announce the ultimate truth and declare itself the ragmag of the year despite its pretentions.

3. 

   Oui on December 14, 2011 at 12:41 pm

   .

   Is the Pentagon out to stifle the Arab Spring?

   (TomDispatch)  As the Arab Spring blossomed and President Obama hesitated about whether to speak out in favor of protesters seeking democratic change in the Greater Middle East, the Pentagon acted decisively.  It forged ever deeper ties with some of the most repressive regimes in the region, building up military bases and brokering weapons sales and transfers to despots from Bahrain to Yemen.

   
   Saudi National Guards entering Bahrain  

   As state security forces across the region cracked down on democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on training missions to allied militaries there.  During more than 40 such operations with names like Eager Light and Friendship II that sometimes lasted for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering, and information operations — skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings.

   Training Saudi pilots in Idaho, part of $60bn deal …

   • Saudi beheadings on the rise including women punished for sorcery.  

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     Oui on December 14, 2011 at 1:24 pm

     .

     Saudi crackdown takes on sectarian character

     (BBC News) – In the Saudi Arabian city of Qatif, four young men were shot and killed by security forces over a four-day period. Qatif, a port in the oil-rich Eastern Province, has a population of roughly half a million, almost all of whom are Shia. The men who were killed were Shia.

     The protesters’ deaths, the first to occur in decades, coincided with the accession of the Interior Minister, Prince Nayef, to crown prince and heir apparent to the Saudi throne. Prince Nayef is known as a hardline conservative who is deeply distrustful of Shia, seen as fifth columnists.

     • Bahrain: Shia majority oppressed by Sunni Khalifas rulers

     "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

4. 

   Oui on December 14, 2011 at 1:05 pm

   .

   Sakharov prize laureates grateful for Europe’s support to Arab Spring

   “By awarding the Sakharov Prize to the five Arab Spring activists, the European Parliament recognises the efforts of all those who struggle for dignity, basic freedoms and political change in the Arab world”, said President Buzek at the Sakharov Prize award ceremony on Wednesday in Strasbourg.

   Mr Buzek pointed out that: “The historical events also remind us of our responsibilities, including the need to support an emerging, young and vibrant civil society” and he underlined the “decisive role played by women during the Arab Spring”  

   • Wilders’ Anti-Islam party disapproves of prize  

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

5. 

   BooMan on December 14, 2011 at 1:17 pm

   “I don’t like them fellas who drive in two runs and let in three.”- CS

   Kinda your point about Time, right?

   • 

     Arthur Gilroy on December 14, 2011 at 2:58 pm

     Precisely.

     Kinda my point about this administration, too.

     Bet on it.

     AG

6. 

   Arthur Gilroy on December 14, 2011 at 11:09 pm

   While we’re at it, I want to recommend the following to all who are interested in deconstructing (and thus better understanding) the semantics of the Empire and its media.

   Noam Chomsky’s recent speech at the 25th anniversary of FAIR. (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting)

   The Chomsky speech to which I refer is brilliant. It is being run on LINK TV…go to their website for the schedule…but since LINK TV is about as popular with mainstream media carriers as Noam Chomsky is with the mainstream media, most of us cannot receive the station. (Direct TV be praised!!!) However, it is downloadable in torrent form from a number of downloaders. I downloaded it from OneBigTorrent.com. Slow but steady. Do a search for…Chomsky + “25th anniversary” + speech + FAIR + download…for a number of available sites. Worth the wait. He has never been better. Clear, cogent, gently humorous but right on point.  An hour long and never boring. Quite amazing.

   Dassit.

   This day is through!!!

   Later…

   AG

   • 

     BooMan on December 14, 2011 at 11:57 pm

     From 2007:

     Questioner: Hello Mr. Chomsky. I’m assuming you know who Ron Paul is. And I’m also assuming you have a general idea about his positions. Here my summary of Mr. Paul’s positions:
     – He values property rights, and contracts between people (defended by law enforcement and courts).

     Noam Chomsky: Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.

     – He wants to take away the unfair advantage corporations have (via the dismantling of big government)

     Noam Chomsky: “Dismantling of big government” sounds like a nice phrase. What does it mean? Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability? Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)? Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded? like what we’re now using, computers and the internet? Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation? Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window? Quite a few questions arise.

     – He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it).

     Noam Chomsky: Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you’ve already mentioned.

     There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.

     – He proposes staying out of the foreign affairs of other nations (unless his home is directly attacked, and must respond to defend it).

     Noam Chomsky: He is proposing a form of ultra-nationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc. Apart from being next to meaningless, the idea is morally unacceptable, in my view.

     I really can’t find differences between your positions and his.

     Noam Chomsky: There’s a lot more. Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally, then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn’t themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens). His claims about SS being “broken” are just false. He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based, the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need. He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we’re at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).

     So I have these questions:

     1) Can you please tell me the differences between your schools of Libertarianism?

     Noam Chomsky: There are a few similarities here and there, but his form of libertarianism would be a nightmare, in my opinion, on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.

     2) Can you please tell me what role private property and ownership have in your school of Libertarianism?

     Noam Chomsky: That would have to be worked out by free communities, and of course it is impossible to respond to what I would prefer in abstraction from circumstances, which make a great deal of difference, obviously.

     3) Would you support Ron Paul, if he was the Republican presidential candidate, and Hilary Clinton was his Democratic opponent?

     Noam Chomsky: No.

     link

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on December 15, 2011 at 12:24 am

       Yup.

       Here’s the difference, Booman.

       Noam Chomsky and any number of other good, intelligent, well-meaning people have been speaking on these matters for about 60 years now. The evils of economic imperialism, the reasons for the impending economic crisis that has finally come upon us, the utter falsity of the media’s various disinformation campaigns…

       60 years.

       And they have had almost no impact upon the policies of our national government.

       None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

       They have become intellectual icons of the impotence of the left.

       Why?

       How?

       Because they didn’t get into the trenches. It’s too messy down there.

       There has not been a candidate with a real chance at winning the presidency in all of that time who was opposed to our internationalism, our reliance on militarily supported economic imperialism to bogart the joint of the world. Not one.

       And now there is one. Ron Paul.

       I do not much care what anybody thinks “might” happen to the society, the culture and the economy if he wins, because the idea of pulling our troops out of the foreign lands in which they stand guard over our ongoing tactics of murder and theft is so totally revolutionary that no one knows what will happen. Further, a number of the things that Ron Paul wants to do will not happen because of the same kind of politics that stops almost everything else from happening in Washington. He won’t be elected King or Supreme Leader, he’ll just be another president kicking it around with a couple of packs of rival hustlers each looking for a payday.

       He’s the first one, Booman!!! Everybody made a big fuss about Barack Obama being the first brownish president. Hell man, that ain’t shit compared with being the first president who thinks that violence is not an acceptable or even useful means of international communication and commerce.

       C’mon…

       For all of Noam Chomsky’s understanding regarding how the world works, he is always the scholar standing outside. Always the observer. Who gets shit done? People like Ron Paul.

       Sometimes.

       We shall see.

       Soon enough.

       The next part of the tale will be written in Iowa.

       Watch.

       Obama obviously doesn’t give a shit what Chomsky says. Why should Ron Paul? In fact, I’ll betcha that Ron Paul actually pays more attention to him than does the Obama/Clinton alliance.

       Betcha.

       Old as he is, it appears to me that Ron Paul’s still open to learning something, which is more than i can say for most pols.

       Watch.

       AG

       • 

         BooMan on December 15, 2011 at 1:04 am

         I’m not sure Ron Paul has learned anything in his entire political career.  But, whatever.

         First of all, I’m old enough to have known guys who fought at the Battle of Peleliu and at Iwo Jima and against Rommel in Libya up into Anzio.  The US isn’t just some imperialist oppressor.  When we got done beating real imperial aggressors, we still a had a big fat nuclear armed Soviet Union to contend with. You want to talk about assholes?  

         We built the post-war infrastructure that should rightly be used against Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld today.  The Nazis didn’t do that.  The Soviets pulled out of it long enough to get us a Korean War.  

         I don’t support the whole scam the Dulles Bros. foisted on us, but their counterparts weren’t angels, Arthur.  

         There’s a reason we play in the big boy sandbox, and that’s because we don’t want to be the ones getting  trampled.  Everything we got right, Ron Paul wants to undo.  That’s Chomsky’s point, and that is what you ignore.  Your plan would leave us with nothing.  We’d still have the things that both Paul and Chomsky hate, but nothing that Chomsky likes.

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 15, 2011 at 1:53 am

           You write:

           The US isn’t just some imperialist oppressor.

           It is now, Booman.

           All over the globe.

           You cite Noam Chomsky in opposition to Ron Paul. Listen to that link that I poted. “U.S. oppression” is its entre subject. U.S. oppression and tactics that it uses to achieve its ends by international political and military means plus an obedient media to lull the American sheeple to sleep so that they won’t rebel in shame.

           When we got done beating real imperial aggressors, we still a had a big fat nuclear armed Soviet Union to contend with. You want to talk about assholes?  

           We built the post-war infrastructure that should rightly be used against Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld today.  The Nazis didn’t do that.  The Soviets pulled out of it long enough to get us a Korean War.  

           I don’t support the whole scam the Dulles Bros. foisted on us, but their counterparts weren’t angels, Arthur.

           You are living in the past, Booman. Everthing is different now.

           Everything.

           You write:

           There’s a reason we play in the big boy sandbox, and that’s because we don’t want to be the ones getting  trampled.

           We are getting trampled, Booman. Don’t you get it? The whole culture has been trampled by all of the lying. In the times of which you speak there weren’t that many lies necessary. The Nazis and the Imperial Japanese were indeed some bad juju. But then the feds just kept replaying the same game, against “opponents” that had nothing to do with anything but our desire to control the world for our own benefit. The U.S.R.? It was a paper tiger. Inefficient, bogged down in rep tape, drunk as hell…the truth came out in Afghanistan. Vietnam? Please. Iraq? Panama? Etc., etc., etc. etc., etc.

           And you are still talking about Rommel and Iwo Jima?

           Get real.

           We have lied ourself into a trap. Billions of people worldwide hate us enough to die for their various causes. Our own government is in up to its armpits in surveillance of its own citizens because the lies piled upon lies piled upon lies piled upon lies are finally becoming too top-heavy for even the greatest propaganda machine ever to be invented to be able to continue to prop them up.

           Gotta start somewhere, sometime Booman.

           Like every other junkie.

           One day clean at a time.

           But the first day is the hardest. If you don’t start, you can’t get there. Ron Paul is offering a start. Not a guarantee, just a start. First you have to own up to your problem.

           And our problem is economic imperialism.

           Sorry brother, but there it is.

           All of the current rot in this system?

           It all stems from that one thing.

           American exceptionalism.

           We get more. Or else.

           But…we cannot any longer back up that “or else.”

           Not really.

           Sure, we can kill or ruin the lives of any number of Iraqis. But look around you. How’re we doing? Better? I don’t think so.

           Karma is the real deal, Booman. It’s not “mystical,” it’s simply the the collected wisdom and observation of the best of the best of us over thousands of years. The chickens always come home to roost eventually, and America is now turning into a shit-filled henhouse.

           Gotta clean up, baby.

           Gotta clean up.

           Soon, before it’s too fucking late.

           Obama’s not going to do that. He’s playing the old game with new tools is all. The Republicans…w/the exception of Ron Paul…want to play the old game the old way. Only Paul is suggesting the obvious, that we simply stop playing that game and then try to figure out how to deal with the consequences.

           Makes sense to me…

           We’ll see if it maks sense to enough Americans.

           Soon.

           Watch.

           AG

         • 

           BooMan on December 15, 2011 at 10:12 am

           I suggest you wait around for someone less foolish on the other 98% of things that concern mankind.  

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 15, 2011 at 10:40 am

           We are running out of time, Booman. Survival is first.

           AG

         • 

           BooMan on December 15, 2011 at 10:52 am

           quit with the chicken little bullcrap.  

           you wanna panic about something, panic about the planet cooking off all higher life forms.  Ron Paul would be awesome about addressing that.  

           panic about the political gridlock created by Ron Paul’s party that makes us vulnerable to every kind of surprise that requires quick and sane action.  

           You sound ridiculous pimping for a 76 year-old Ayn Rand-blinded fool.  

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 15, 2011 at 12:57 pm

           Again…it could be that I am “ridiculous.” I was told much the same thing when I supported Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama because I did not believe that he had the experience or political chops to effectively fight the right wing in DC.

           I am simply a pragmatist, actually. There was no anti-war movement available then and I wished to find a way to at least perserve some sort of “centrist” government through a term or two. And…on the evidence of the last 3 years…I was right.

           Obama began capitulating to the right wing from the minute that he took office. He lost the House in two years and he now stands a good chance of losing the Senate this year despite the rosy prognostications of Dem analysts like yourself who profess to see a silk lining in the cloudy, foolish series of Republican debates and the proliferation of  idiot-level candidates like Trump, Palin, Santorum, Perry, Bachmann, Cain, et al. Meanwhile he has ramped up the surveillance state to an incredible degree…ostensibly to combat “terrorism”, which is entirely a product of the following policy…and continues the single most damaging long-term policy in which the United States has ever involved itself, the world-wide, overt and covert military support of the economic imperialism, a policy that is itself responsible for the unemployment and general lack of self-sufficiency that is easily observed in this country today. The culture is in ruins (It really is, Booman.); the country’s infrastructure is falling apart at the seams; there is massive unemployment (And perhaps even more threatening, massive underemployment as well. [Census data: Half of U.S. poor or low income]), and an astounding number of Americans no longer believe that any form of available government has the slightest interest in their own wellbeing.

           Chicken Little or the economic imperialist chickens finally coming home to roost after a 60+ year flight?

           I’ll take the latter, myself, on the evidence of my own eyes, ears, heart and mind.

           Your results apparently differ.  So it goes. I personally suggest that you turn off the TV; stop reading the papers; put a serious limit on your internet time (meanwhile trying during that time to spend more of it than is apparently your present habit away from the leftiness, preaching-to-the-choir sites) and go out into the world and look, Booman. It has been so long since you were free of the effects of the hypnomedia that it would take you months to recover. But it would be worth the effort.

           Bet on it.

           Later…

           AG