El Libertario: beware Venezuela’s false ‘anarchists’

El Libertario: beware Venezuela’s false ‘anarchists’
by George Ciccariello-Maher on March 28, 2014

When it comes to the Venezuelan protests of recent weeks and months, misinformation reigns supreme. Just as liberals and progressives have been misled by desperate hashtags like #SOSVenezuela and simplistic comparisons to Occupy, so too has the radical left been tempted by the some self-described Venezuelan anarchists, and El Libertario in particular.

This is not a critique of anarchism in general or even of all Venezuelan anarchists (I will discuss others below). I have always been very close to the anarchist milieu and, while frustrated by certain anarchist blindspots, I am influenced by anarchism as a doctrine of revolutionary struggle that understands the inherent contradictions of the state. The liberal, middle-class anarchism of El Libertario, however, represents not the fulfillment but the betrayal of this revolutionary anarchist vision. Condescending toward the poor and utterly absent from concrete struggles, it has instead allied itself—as it does today—with reactionary elite movements.

In a recent piece published in English both by Libcom.org and ROAR Magazine, El Libertario figurehead Rafael Uzcátegui (not to be confused with the former guerrilla of the same name), put forth a highly misleading but also revealing account of the recent protests to provide an “anarchist perspective” for the “poorly informed.” Unfortunately, the piece leaves us even more poorly informed than before, and lacks any anarchist perspective whatsoever. (While this is not the time to fully dissect Uzcátegui’s book, translated into English as Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle, let’s just say that—as the title suggests—it’s more Debord than Magón or Bakunin.)

What is misleading is that Uzcátegui repeats mainstream misrepresentations of how the protests started, claiming police repression when the police only acted in response to a February 6th attack on the governor of Táchira’s house. He uncritically reports arrests and torture allegations, despite the fact that most of these were never actually reported to the competent agencies, and some are under investigation. While rightly mentioning the role of intelligence officials in deaths of both protesters and Chavistas on February 12th, he fails to mention that the officers responsible were promptly arrested and charged (the number of officials arrested for excessive force has now reached 17).

More:
http://roarmag.org/2014/03/critique-libertario-venezuela-anarchism/

22 Facts About Plastic Pollution (And 10 Things We Can Do About It)

22 Facts About Plastic Pollution (And 10 Things We Can Do About It)
Lynn Hasselberger, The Green Divas | April 7, 2014 1:35 pm

It seems nearly impossible to escape plastic in our every day lives, doesn’t it?

And we can’t escape plastic pollution, either.



Plastic is literally at my fingertips all day long. Plastic keyboard. Plastic framed computer monitor. Plastic mouse. The amount of plastic I encounter daily doesn’t end there. Chances are, you can relate. Plastic is an epidemic.

But where does all this plastic go? We ship some of it overseas to be recycled. Quite a bit ends up in landfills. And more than you can imagine ends up on the loose as plastic pollution, eventually making its way into our waterways.

Tiny plastic beads used in hundreds of toiletries like facial scrubs and toothpastes have even been found in our Great Lakes—the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world! Giant garbage patches (one twice the size of Texas) can be found floating around in the oceans. And all this plastic pollution is not only a problem for the earth, it’s bad for our health.

More:
http://ecowatch.com/2014/04/07/22-facts-plastic-pollution-10-things-can-do-about-it/

Out-of-State Money Pours Into Local Fight Against GE Crop Ban

Out-of-State Money Pours Into Local Fight Against GE Crop Ban
Beyond Pesticides | April 7, 2014 4:03 pm |

A recent report by The Oregonian found that enormous amounts of money are being spent by agrichemical and biotechnology companies in one Oregon county to stop an ordinance that would ban farmers from being able to plant genetically engineered (GE) Crops. This current legislative fight encapsulates the uphill funding battle that anti-GE activists face when organizing state and local level campaigns.

The ordinance that will appear on the upcoming May ballot in Jackson County, OR, will ban the planting and rising of GE plants within the county. The ordinance also calls for the county to conduct inspections and allows enforcement through citizen lawsuits. Jackson County was the only county exempt from a law enacted last fall that made the state the regulator of agricultural seeds.

The county’s measure qualified for the May ballot before the Oregon Senate passed S.B. 863, which preempts localities ability to regulate seed, so it was exempted in the bill. The bill preempts the efforts in Benton and Lane counties to restrict GE agriculture. Despite state preemption, Josephine County has a similar measure on the May ballot to ban GE crops.

According to a recent report in The Oregonian, the ordinance is facing strong opposition from out of state funding sources. According to the report, six pesticide and plant biotechnology firms have donated $455,000 to Good Neighbor Farms, an organization fighting the GE crop ban.

More:
http://ecowatch.com/2014/04/07/out-of-state-money-in-fight-ge-crop-ban/

The Perception Management Priority

The Perception Management Priority

April 4, 2014


Since the Reagan era, Republicans have pushed “perception management” to manage how Americans perceive the world. A key element is right-wing talk radio, which has now lured Rep. Mike Rogers from his powerful intelligence post to a seat behind a microphone, as JP Sottile explains.

By JP Sottile

Rep. Mike Rogers has a dream. Apparently, he’s been secretly harboring this dream since his formative days at a small liberal arts college in Adrian, Michigan. This dream stayed with him through his time in the U.S. Army, his years as a Special Agent in the FBI and his tenure in the Michigan State Senate.

Nothing can hold back Mike’s dream, not even his safe congressional seat in Michigan’s 8th District, nor his chairmanship of the powerful House Intelligence Committee. Mike wants to be a radio talk-show host.

Luckily for Mike, the second largest radio system in America — Cumulus — couldn’t wait to make his long-simmering dream come true. Beginning in January 2015, the National Security Agency’s devout defender and Congress’ loudest advocate for keeping whistleblowers quiet will be on the air nationally, using his gift of gab to reinforce the idea that Americans should feel insecure about national security.

According to The Detroit News, DJ Mike will reignite his “college passion” by bringing “former intelligence officials and ex-spies on his show.” And what an entertaining show that promises to be! If his incessant appearances on the Sunday Show circuit are any indication, his radio show promises to be just slightly less entertaining than running your pinkie toe into the leg of a coffee table.

More:
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/04/the-perception-management-priority/

[center]~ ~ [/center]
Earlier thread, by bemildred, March 28th, in Politics 2014:
US Rep. Mike Rogers Leaving Congress for Radio Gig
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251358699

House Republicans Hold Anti-Endangered Species Hearing on Bills to Weaken Endangered Species Act

April 7, 2014
5:43 PM

House Republicans Hold Anti-Endangered Species Hearing on Bills to Weaken Endangered Species Act

Witnesses Cherry-picked for Hostility to Wildlife Protection

WASHINGTON - April 7 - House Republicans will hold a hearing Tuesday on four bills that would divert funding from protecting species and discourage citizens from helping enforce the United States’ landmark law for protecting endangered wildlife. The four bills would weaken the Endangered Species Act’s effectiveness and redirect scarce agency resources from species recovery to pointless reporting requirements. To create a facade of support, Rep. Doc Hastings, the Washington Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, has invited several witnesses with a long history of outright hostility to endangered species and the Endangered Species Act itself.

“There isn’t a single provision — or even single word — in any of these bills that would help any species anywhere in the country move toward recovery,” said Brett Hartl, endangered species policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Protecting species has never been of genuine interest to Doc Hastings or to the witnesses who will heap praise on these ludicrous Tea Party bills. No one should be fooled by their calls for ‘reform,’ because all they want to do is weaken the Endangered Species Act and restrict the right of the American public to make sure it’s enforced.”

The Republican witnesses for this hearing have made a consistent practice of attacking the Act, as follows:

• Dr. Rob Roy Ramey II relied on genetic samples that showed evidence of contamination to determine that the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse was not a separate species — a decision that incorrectly led to a proposal to remove the species from the list of endangered species until an independent peer-review panel of genetics experts determined that “no reliable evidence” supported Ramey’s analysis. Ramey was also hired by former Bush administration Deputy Interior Secretary Julie MacDonald, who herself resigned under a cloud of controversy, to write a report that concluded that the Gunnison’s sage grouse was not a separate species that could be protected under the Endangered Species Act. The subsequent 2006 decision not to protect the sage grouse was one of 20 decisions investigated in a 2008 Inspector General report on the influence of political considerations on species listings; the increasingly rare bird is now proposed for endangered species protections.

• Karen Budd-Falen has been vocal in her opposition to the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and believes that most management of public lands is nothing more than “bullying” to achieve a “cleansing” of rural America. Budd-Falen represents the extreme far-right wing of the Republican Party and has spoken in support of controversial groups such as the “constitutional sheriffs” who refuse to enforce federal laws they believe do not comport with the U.S. Constitution.

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2014/04/07-9

US-Colombia Labor Action Plan is ‘useless and detrimental’: workers unions

US-Colombia Labor Action Plan is ‘useless and detrimental’: workers unions
Apr 7, 2014 posted by Alexandra Jolly

The joint US-Colombian Labor Action Plan (LAP) to defend workers rights and improve labor conditions in Colombia has been deemed “useless” by Colombian labor leaders, who say the Colombian government has not lived up to its responsibilities to ensure workers’ rights.

Approved three years ago Monday, the LAP was included into the broader free trade agreement signed between the two countries as a way of assuaging critics in the US Congress concerned about the dangers facing organized labor in the Andean nation. In theory, the agreement would tie a higher standard of labor guarantees to the implementation of free trade economic policies, the likes of which began taking effect last year.

According to Colombian labor leaders, however, the LAP has not only failed to live up to its promises, but has actually hurt labor conditions in the country. The LAP, and the free trade agreement of which it is a part, is “useless and detrimental for both the Colombian economy and the rights of workers,” said Tarcisio Rivera, president of a national labor unions confederation (CUT), in an interview with Colombia Reports.

~snip~

“In 2013, 26 trade unionists were murdered, four more than in 2012. Attempted murders also increased, from seven to 13 over that period. Since the LAP was signed, there have been 31 attempted murders, six forced disappearances and nearly 1,000 death threats. Likewise, impunity remains high at 86.8% for murder and a near total 99.9% for threats against unionists. The overall impunity rate for human rights violations against trade unionists is at 96.7%,” reads the AFL-CIO report.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/labour-action-plan-useless-detrimental-workers-union/

Paramilitary leader willing to testify against Colombia officials

Paramilitary leader willing to testify against Colombia officials
Apr 7, 2014 posted by Philip Acuña



A paramilitary leader is willing to testify against at least 50 Colombian military and civilian officials who were complicit in the paramilitary’s criminal activities, Noticias Uno broadcast center reported Saturday.
Hector German Buitrago, alias “Martin Llanos”, was the political leader of the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Casanare, a paramilitary faction based in the eastern state of Casanare.

According to Noticias Uno, Llanos said that he is willing to testify that Colombian military and government officials were complicit in criminal paramilitary activities.
The paramilitary commander has allegedly been requesting that the government include him in the Justice and Peace process since December 2012, but has yet to receive a response.

In the same statement, Llanos claimed that he was the only paramilitary commander not permitted to demobilize his troops in 2005, during the administration of former President Alvaro Uribe. In addition he says that he is the only paramilitary commander that “never fought” alongside government troops. As a result, he is willing to disclose information regarding the relationship between paramilitary commanders, and politicians, members of the judiciary and members of Colombia’s armed forces.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/paramilitary-leader-willing-testify-colombian-government-military-officials/

Surge in Central America minors trying to cross desert into US

04/04/2014 / UNITED STATES/MEXICO
Surge in Central America minors trying to cross desert into US

The US government has recorded a surge in the number of unaccompanied children arriving at the southern US border from Central America. Our Observers at the border are seeing more children try to make the dangerous crossing into the US through the Sonoran desert. These children, younger than ever before, say that they are fleeing for their lives.

Last year, US Customs and Border Protection apprehended 21,537 unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. While the number of adult apprehensions is down, the number of children has more than doubled every year for the past three years, according to UNHCR’s report, “Children on the Run.” Experts say that the number could reach 60,000 in 2014.

“There’s an assumption that kids are coming because they are being drawn by the promise of the US, but what we found is that they are running from something,” said Michelle Brané of the Women’s Refugee Commission, which reported on the trend in “Forced from Home.”

That “something” is violence. Drug cartels and gangs are terrorizing the populations of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Domestic violence is also rising, which experts tie to societal breakdown.

More:
http://observers.france24.com/content/20140404-central-america-children-border-arizona

The ‘Cuban Twitter’ Covert Program: Misleading Denials by the Obama Administration

Published on Monday, April 7, 2014 by Common Dreams

The ‘Cuban Twitter’ Covert Program: Misleading Denials by the Obama Administration

by Howard Friel

A simple reading of the report last week by the Associated Press that a U.S. State Department agency was engaged in a destabilization program in Cuba suggests that administration officials who responded to the report coordinated their comments to present a smoothly articulated but misleading case that the program was legal under U.S. law.

In its April 4 story, “White House Defends ‘Cuban Twitter’ to Stir Unrest,” the AP reported the details of a USAID-sponsored covert program in Cuba as follows:

• “The U.S. government masterminded the creation of a ‘Cuban Twitter’—a communications network designed to undermine the communist government in Cuba, built with secret shell companies and financed through foreign banks, the Associated Press has learned.”

•“USAID and its contractors went to extensive lengths to conceal Washington’s ties to the project, according to interviews and documents obtained by the AP. They set up front companies in Spain and the Cayman Islands to hide the money trail.”

•“‘There will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement,’ according to a 2010 memo from Mobile Accord Inc., one of the project’s creators.”

•“The social media project began in 2009 after Washington-based Creative Associates International obtained a half-million Cuban cellphone numbers. It was unclear to the AP how the numbers were obtained, although documents indicate they were done so illicitly from a key source inside the country’s state-run provider.”

• “The estimated $1.6 million spent on ZunZuneo [the code name for the USAID project] was publicly earmarked for an unspecified project in Pakistan, public government data show, but those documents don’t reveal where the funds were actually spent.”

•“Executives set up a corporation in Spain and an operating company in the Cayman Islands—a well-known British offshore tax haven—to pay the company’s bills so the ‘money trail will not trace back to America,’ a strategy memo said.”

Eight Headlines the Mainstream Media Doesn't Have the Courage to Print

Published on Monday, April 7, 2014 by Common Dreams

Eight Headlines the Mainstream Media Doesn't Have the Courage to Print

by Paul Buchheit


The following are all relevant, fact-based issues, the "hard news" stories that the media has a responsibility to report. But the business-oriented press generally avoids them.

1. U.S. Wealth Up $34 Trillion Since Recession. 93% of You Got Almost None of It.

That's an average of $100,000 for every American. But the people who already own most of the stocks took almost all of it. For them, the average gain was well over a million dollars -- tax-free as long as they don't cash it in. Details available here.

2. Eight Rich Americans Made More Than 3.6 Million Minimum Wage Workers

A recent report stated that no full-time minimum wage worker in the U.S. can afford a one-bedroom or two-bedroom rental at fair market rent. There are 3.6 million such workers, and their total (combined) 2013 earnings is less than the 2013 stock market gains of just eight Americans, all of whom take more than their share from society: the four Waltons, the two Kochs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett.

3. News Sources Speak for the 5%

It would be refreshing to read an honest editorial: "We dearly value the 5 to 7 percent of our readers who make a lot of money and believe that their growing riches are helping everyone else."

Instead, the business media seems unable to differentiate between the top 5 percent and the rest of society. The Wall Street Journal exclaimed, "Middle-class Americans have more buying power than ever before," and then went on to sputter: "What Recession?...The economy has bounced back from recession, unemployment has declined.."

The Chicago Tribune may be even further out of touch with its less privileged readers, asking them: "What's so terrible about the infusion of so much money into the presidential campaign?"

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/07-0