December 5, 2013

Message auto-removed

November 15, 2013

Anti-UAW Consultant: Defeat ‘Invading Union Force’ at VW Plant Like Our Confederate Ancestors

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177162/anti-uaw-consultant-defeat-invading-union-force-vw-plant-our-confederate-ancestors

Yesterday, In These Times’s Mike Elk got his hands on a private document showing how DC-based political groups have moved to block the United Automobile Workers organizing effort at the Volkswagon plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Though workers at the plant, VW and the UAW seem largely in agreement about forming a workers’ council at the factory, prominent anti-union groups have swarmed Chattanooga to obstruct the deal. A consultant named Matt Patterson, formerly with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, authored the document, obtained by Elk, that spells out his efforts to mobilize Tea Party, libertarian, and local media attacks on the VW organizing drive.

In his proposal to donors, Patterson says his plan is to kill the momentum for unionization in the South, noting, “significant impact can made be over the next year in Tennessee, Alabama, and throughout the South to keep the UAW from organizing the foreign-owned auto facilities.” Though much of Patterson’s tactics have been concealed until now, he did author an op-ed in May that called on Southerners to regard the union-drive as a chance to reenact the “bloodiest days of the entire Civil War.” Patterson wrote:




snip

November 15, 2013

The Child-Rape Assembly Line

IN RITUAL BATHHOUSES OF THE JEWISH ORTHODOXY, CHILDREN ARE SYSTEMATICALLY ABUSED


Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, the lone whistleblower among the Satmar, a powerful Hasidic sect, who recently was the victim of a bleach attack in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-child-rape-assembly-line-0000141-v20n11

Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg—who is 63 with a long, graying beard—recently sat down with me to explain what he described as a “child-rape assembly line” among sects of fundamentalist Jews. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to be graphic,” he said. A member of Brooklyn’s Satmar Hasidim fundamentalist branch of Orthodox Judaism, Nuchem designs and repairs mikvahs in compliance with Torah Law. The mikvah is a ritual Jewish bathhouse used for purification. Devout Jews are required to cleanse themselves in the mikvah on a variety of occasions: women must visit following menstruation, and men have to make an appearance before the High Holidays such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many of the devout also purify themselves before and after the act of sex, and before the Sabbath.

On a visit to Jerusalem in 2005, Rabbi Rosenberg entered into a mikvah in one of the holiest neighborhoods in the city, Mea She’arim. “I opened a door that entered into a schvitz,” he told me. “Vapors everywhere, I can barely see. My eyes adjust, and I see an old man, my age, long white beard, a holy-looking man, sitting in the vapors. On his lap, facing away from him, is a boy, maybe seven years old. And the old man is having anal sex with this boy.”

Rabbi Rosenberg paused, gathered himself, and went on: “This boy was speared on the man like an animal, like a pig, and the boy was saying nothing. But on his face – fear. The old man [looked at me] without any fear, as if this was common practice. He didn’t stop. I was so angry, I confronted him. He removed the boy from his penis, and I took the boy aside. I told this man, ‘It’s a sin before God, a mishkovzucher. What are you doing to this boy’s soul? You’re destroying this boy!’ He had a sponge on a stick to clean his back, and he hit me across the face with it. ‘How dare you interrupt me!’ he said. I had heard of these things for a long time, but now I had seen.”

The child sex abuse crisis in ultra-Orthodox Judaism, like that in the Catholic Church, has produced its share of shocking headlines in recent years. In New York, and in the prominent Orthodox communities of Israel and London, allegations of child molestation and rape have been rampant. The alleged abusers are schoolteachers, rabbis, fathers, uncles – figures of male authority. The victims, like those of Catholic priests, are mostly boys. Rabbi Rosenberg believes around half of young males in Brooklyn’s Hasidic community – the largest in the United States and one of the largest in the world – have been victims of sexual assault perpetrated by their elders. Ben Hirsch, director of Survivors for Justice, a Brooklyn organization that advocates for Orthodox sex abuse victims, thinks the real number is higher. “From anecdotal evidence, we’re looking at over 50 percent. It has almost become a rite of passage.”

snip

November 2, 2013

Why Washington Can’t Stop: The Coming Era of Tiny Wars and Micro-Conflicts

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175763/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_what_planet_are_we_on/

In terms of pure projectable power, there’s never been anything like it. Its military has divided the world -- the whole planet -- into six “commands.” Its fleet, with 11 aircraft carrier battle groups, rules the seas and has done so largely unchallenged for almost seven decades. Its Air Force has ruled the global skies, and despite being almost continuously in action for years, hasn’t faced an enemy plane since 1991 or been seriously challenged anywhere since the early 1970s. Its fleet of drone aircraft has proven itself capable of targeting and killing suspected enemies in the backlands of the planet from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia with little regard for national boundaries, and none at all for the possibility of being shot down. It funds and trains proxy armies on several continents and has complex aid and training relationships with militaries across the planet. On hundreds of bases, some tiny and others the size of American towns, its soldiers garrison the globe from Italy to Australia, Honduras to Afghanistan, and on islands from Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Its weapons makers are the most advanced on Earth and dominate the global arms market. Its nuclear weaponry in silos, on bombers, and on its fleet of submarines would be capable of destroying several planets the size of Earth. Its system of spy satellites is unsurpassed and unchallenged. Its intelligence services can listen in on the phone calls or read the emails of almost anyone in the world from top foreign leaders to obscure insurgents. The CIA and its expanding paramilitary forces are capable of kidnapping people of interest just about anywhere from rural Macedonia to the streets of Rome and Tripoli. For its many prisoners, it has set up (and dismantled) secret jails across the planet and on its naval vessels. It spends more on its military than the next most powerful 13 states combined. Add in the spending for its full national security state and it towers over any conceivable group of other nations.

In terms of advanced and unchallenged military power, there has been nothing like the U.S. armed forces since the Mongols swept across Eurasia. No wonder American presidents now regularly use phrases like “the finest fighting force the world has ever known” to describe it. By the logic of the situation, the planet should be a pushover for it. Lesser nations with far lesser forces have, in the past, controlled vast territories. And despite much discussion of American decline and the waning of its power in a “multi-polar” world, its ability to pulverize and destroy, kill and maim, blow up and kick down has only grown in this new century.

No other nation's military comes within a country mile of it. None has more than a handful of foreign bases. None has more than two aircraft carrier battle groups. No potential enemy has such a fleet of robotic planes. None has more than 60,000 special operations forces. Country by country, it’s a hands-down no-contest. The Russian (once “Red”) army is a shadow of its former self. The Europeans have not rearmed significantly. Japan’s “self-defense” forces are powerful and slowly growing, but under the U.S. nuclear “umbrella.” Although China, regularly identified as the next rising imperial state, is involved in a much-ballyhooed military build-up, with its one aircraft carrier (a retread from the days of the Soviet Union), it still remains only a regional power.

Despite this stunning global power equation, for more than a decade we have been given a lesson in what a military, no matter how overwhelming, can and (mostly) can’t do in the twenty-first century, in what a military, no matter how staggeringly advanced, does and (mostly) does not translate into on the current version of planet Earth.


snip

October 31, 2013

Important Fukushima Radiation Updates , Synopsis

Streamed live on Oct 23, 2013
This is very important , you have to know this info , the nuclear experts are screaming .

October 31, 2013

Glenn Greenwald's Farewell (For Now) Letter: "Stand Against The Attack On Press Freedoms In The US"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-31/glenn-greenwalds-farewell-now-letter-stand-against-attack-press-freedoms-us


Originally appearing in The Guardian:

On leaving the Guardian


Reporting the NSA story hasn't been easy, but it's always been fulfilling. It's what journalism at its crux is about, and we must protect that

As many of you know, I'm leaving the Guardian in order to work with Pierre Omidyar, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill and soon-to-be-identified others on building a new media organization. As I said when this news was reported a couple of weeks ago, leaving the Guardian was not an easy choice, but this was a dream opportunity that was impossible to decline.

We do not yet have an exact launch date for the new outlet, but rest assured: I'm not going to disappear for months or anything like that. The new site will be up and running reasonably soon.

In the meantime, I'll continue reporting in partnership with foreign media outlets (stories on mass NSA surveillance in France began last week in Le Monde, and stories on bulk surveillance of Spanish citizens and NSA's cooperation with Spanish intelligence have appeared this week in Spain's El Mundo), as well as in partnership with US outlets. As I did yesterday when responding to NSA claims about these stories, I'll also periodically post on my personal blog – here – with an active comment section, as well as on our pre-launch temporary blog. Until launch of the new media outlet, the best way to learn of new stories, new posts, and other activity is my Twitter feed, @ggreenwald. My new email address and PGP key are here.

I'm gratified by my 14-month partnership with the Guardian and am particularly proud of what we achieved together over the last five months. Reporting the NSA story has never been easy, but it's always been invigorating and fulfilling. It's exactly why one goes into journalism and, in my view, is what journalism at its crux is about. That doesn't mean that the journalists and editors who have worked on this story have instantly agreed on every last choice we faced, but it does mean that, on the whole, I leave with high regard for the courage and integrity of the people with whom I've worked and pride in the way we've reported this story.

As I leave, I really urge everyone to take note of, and stand against, what I and others have written about for years, but which is becoming increasingly more threatening: namely, a sustained and unprecedented attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process in the US. That same menacing climate is now manifest in the UK as well, as evidenced by the truly stunning warnings issued this week by British Prime Minister David Cameron:

snip

October 24, 2013

The Nation Magazine: Israel's New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land

About 60,000 African migrants have arrived in Israel since 2006, fleeing unrest in their home countries. But upon arrival in the ostensibly democratic country, the migrants have faced intense persecution and have been branded as "infiltrators" by right-wing politicians and activists.

For more, read Max Blumenthal's article, "Israel Cranks Up the PR Machine," http://bit.ly/19870PJ

October 24, 2013

Taxpayers To Help Pay JPMorgan’s Fine For Causing 2008 Financial Crisis

http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/10/23/taxpayers-to-help-pay-jpmorgans-fine-for-causing-2008-financial-crisis/

Feeling generous? You should because you are about to help pay for JPMorgan’s $13 billion fine for causing the 2008 financial crisis. According to tax experts the money JPMorgan will be paying to the government ($9 billion) and to wronged customers ($4 billion) can be written off as a “business expense.” In other words, JPMorgan may be sticking the taxpayers with the bill.



Me either professor.

And just in case the situation was not absurd enough already, part of the $13 billion will go to the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) for bad bonds JPMorgan sold to taxpayer-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.




snip