tagged w/ Corporate Greed
-
Owens Electric cooperative (http://www.owenelectric.com/) is an electric cooperative located in northern kentucky, and the sole provider of electric service to much of the area. this fact has given them a sense of power in that they are as they have stated 'the only game in town'. Apparently these greedy so and so's have sunken to a new low. Many lower income families in their service area are now facing shut off due to an illegal practice. One such family recently moved into the area, and signed up for service. they were told they needed to pay a $250 security fee. Being of lower income, they went to the CAC, a community access group that uses feseral funds to offer heating and electric assistance. This group paid the security deposit , and all would seem fine in the world. But then a bill came in for over $900. When questioned why the bill was such, the family was told that since the brother of the girlfriend of the home owner (convoluted, yes?) owed a past due balance, and the girlfriend lived with the brother at one point and now lived with the home owner, even though she wasnt on the bill, they could move the brothers balance onto theirs!! Furthermore they took the federal aid money that was approved for the home owner and applied it to the brothers past due balance, the brother who lives in another state!! They are now threatenting to shut off the power and when called said flat out if you dont like it we will shut you off now. the CAC said that this is inot an isolated case, that 19 other families have the same complaint, and one family specifically of an older woman on disability had her powwer shut down for failing to pay a balance that was her sons and she had no legal responsibility for.
This is an outrage, and we at opensourceworld.us are asking you all to contact Owen and let them know this is intolerable!!
Owen Office/Service Center
8205 HWY 127 N
PO Box 400
Owenton, KY 40359
502-484-3471
Toll Free 1-800-372-7612
e-mail: owenbill@owenelectric.com
Boone Office Group
(859) 283-5800
8100 Ewing Blvd Suite 220
Florence, KY 41042 Grant Office Group
(859) 824-3020
300 Arbor Dr. Suite 1
Dry Ridge, KY 41035
Pendleton Office Group
(859) 472-2600
10599 US HWY 27 N
PO Box 187
Butler, KY 41006Owens Electric cooperative (http://www.owenelectric.com/) is an electric cooperative... more
-
-
One of the top priorities for Republicans this year has been to preserve and extend corporate tax breaks. This includes GOPers like former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) who have eagerly defended corporations like Bank of America, ExxonMobil, and GE which have avoided paying a dime in corporate income taxes in recent years, but rake in huge annual profits.
Another one of those companies making millions in profits but failing to pay any corporate income tax is Arch Coal. In 2009, for instance, the corporation netted over $42 million, yet was able to use tax loopholes and gimmicks to avoid contributing anything in corporate income taxes.
ThinkProgress asked Gingrich about these corporate tax-dodgers this week at a St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in Nashua, New Hampshire. Gingrich defended Arch Coal and other corporations who avoided paying income taxes because “they don’t owe that” to the U.S. government. Striking an anti-populist note, the former House Speaker also praised the fact that even though many corporations were avoiding taxes, their employees would still be forced to contribute to the government’s coffers.
Gingrich concluded by enthusiastically championing corporate tax loopholes, telling ThinkProgress that corporations were using “an incentive…not a loophole.” “We should celebrate that as a good thing,” Gingrich added:
KEYES: There have been a lot of complains from the left and right about corporations not paying their fair share in taxes. For instance, Arch Coal in 2009 made $42 million but paid nothing in corporate income tax. What are your thoughts on that?
GINGRICH: My thoughts are I’m opposed to tax increases. I want to create more jobs in America, not fewer.
KEYES: But they’re not paying anything right now in corporate income tax.
GINGRICH: But you don’t know why they’re not paying anything. Did they buy new equipment? Did they do things that actually create jobs? I can’t give you an answer for any one company.
KEYES: But in general, corporations who are making millions and millions in profit but then not contributing anything to the United States government. Do you think that’s fair?
GINGRICH: First of all, if they make millions and millions in profit, they probably employ thousands and thousands of people and those thousands and thousands of people are contributing a lot to America. I am for the maximum job creation in the United States and I think that means lower taxes, not higher taxes. It means less regulations, not more regulation.
KEYES: But you don’t think we should try to be forcing them to pay what they owe?
GINGRICH: First of all, they don’t owe that. If what they did was legal, and if it was designed to create more jobs. For example, if we gave you 100 percent write-off for new equipment so you could compete with China, and you use that 100 percent write-off, you actually did what we wanted you to do. [...] You have to go ask Arch [Coal] “what is it they did right in order to lower their tax liability and did it create jobs in America?”
KEYES: Would you like to see those corporate tax loopholes closed though? [crosstalk]
GINGRICH: I just want to say this because it’s an important difference in how we approach this. If we give you an incentive to do something right that creates more jobs, that is not a loophole. That’s an incentive. If you then intelligently follow that incentive and create more jobs, we should celebrate that as a good thing.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/18/gingrich-corp-taxes/One of the top priorities for Republicans this year has been to preserve and extend... more
-
-
Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.
Google’s income shifting -- involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” -- helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.
“It’s remarkable that Google’s effective rate is that low,” said Martin A. Sullivan, a tax economist who formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. “We know this company operates throughout the world mostly in high-tax countries where the average corporate rate is well over 20 percent.”
The U.S. corporate income-tax rate is 35 percent. In the U.K., Google’s second-biggest market by revenue, it’s 28 percent.
Google, the owner of the world’s most popular search engine, uses a strategy that has gained favor among such companies as Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The method takes advantage of Irish tax law to legally shuttle profits into and out of subsidiaries there, largely escaping the country’s 12.5 percent income tax. (See an interactive graphic on Google’s tax strategy here.)
The earnings wind up in island havens that levy no corporate income taxes at all. Companies that use the Double Irish arrangement avoid taxes at home and abroad as the U.S. government struggles to close a projected $1.4 trillion budget gap and European Union countries face a collective projected deficit of 868 billion euros.
Countless Companies
Google, the third-largest U.S. technology company by market capitalization, hasn’t been accused of breaking tax laws. “Google’s practices are very similar to those at countless other global companies operating across a wide range of industries,” said Jane Penner, a spokeswoman for the Mountain View, California-based company. Penner declined to address the particulars of its tax strategies.
Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, is preparing a structure similar to Google’s that will send earnings from Ireland to the Cayman Islands, according to the company’s filings in Ireland and the Caymans and to a person familiar with its plans. A spokesman for the Palo Alto, California-based company declined to comment.
Transfer Pricing
The tactics of Google and Facebook depend on “transfer pricing,” paper transactions among corporate subsidiaries that allow for allocating income to tax havens while attributing expenses to higher-tax countries. Such income shifting costs the U.S. government as much as $60 billion in annual revenue, according to Kimberly A. Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
U.S. Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, and other politicians say the 35 percent U.S. statutory rate is too high relative to foreign countries. International income-shifting, which helped cut Google’s overall effective tax rate to 22.2 percent last year, shows one way that loopholes undermine that top U.S. rate.
Two thousand U.S. companies paid a median effective cash rate of 28.3 percent in federal, state and foreign income taxes in a 2005 study by academics at the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina. The combined national-local statutory rate is 34.4 percent in France, 30.2 percent in Germany and 39.5 percent in Japan, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Drucker in New York at jdrucker4@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gary Putka at gputka@bloomberg.net.
MORE AT THE LINK!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.htmlGoogle Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique... more
-
-
The Corporate Stash | Counter Punch
Two and a half years have passed since Lehman Brothers collapsed and US consumers are still digging out.The Corporate Stash | Counter Punch
Two and a half years have passed since Lehman... more
-
-
A friend in Tennessee was arrested for protesting for Union Rights. All caught on tape. Very interesting to see the tactics the women used. "Shame, shame." Exactly. Shame. Everything that happened in Wisconsin was blatant, corporate greed, and the Government allowed it to happen. "You work for us, you work for us."A friend in Tennessee was arrested for protesting for Union Rights. All caught on... more
-
-
ThinkProgress has been documenting conservative efforts to shift the burden of record budget shortfalls onto middle-class Americans, while simultaneously doling out tax cuts to corporations. While progressive governors have proposed raising revenue from those who can afford it, alongside painful cuts to programs, Republican governors have unveiled budgets that cut taxes for corporations and raise them on the middle-class and working poor. In this report, ThinkProgress evaluates the priorities conservatives have set in twelve states:
NEW JERSEY: Last year, Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) budget raised taxes on the working poor and middle-class by cutting the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and homestead rebates — yet still found money for lucrative corporate tax cuts. This year, Christie’s budget calls for $200 million in business tax cuts, while cutting mental health services, $540 million from Medicaid, and witholding property tax rebates for seniors until public workers give up many of their health and pension benefits. Many New Jerseyans have said they prefer a tax on millionaires to Christie’s draconian cuts.
MICHIGAN: Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) budget would make Michigan’s already regressive tax system even more unfair for the state’s poorest residents. The plan cuts taxes on business by more than 86 percent while slashing $1.2 billion in funding for “schools, universities, local governments and other areas.” Snyder also wants to raise personal taxes by 30 percent — an increase that will fall disproportionately on Michigan’s lowest income residents.
GEORGIA: Last week, the Georgia House passed an austerity budget that will increase health insurance costs by more than 20 percent for state workers, teachers and retirees and cut funding for state universities by $75 million. The House has already gutted the state’s HOPE scholarship program, and is now considering implementing a regressive new tax system that would lower income taxes for the rich while raising the sales tax on basic necessities. House Majority Leader Larry O’Neal (R), meanwhile, has introduced a bill that would implement a flat income tax rate and cut corporate taxes by 33 percent.
FLORIDA: At a Tea Party rally last month, Gov. Rick Scott (R) unveiled his budget, telling supporters he would make the state the most “fiscally conservative” in the nation. The budget would slash corporate income and property taxes, lay off 6,700 state employees, cut education funding by $4.8 billion, and cut Medicaid by almost $4 billion.
OHIO: Gov. John Kasich (R) has proposed cutting 25 percent of schools’ budgets, $1 million from food banks, $12 million from children’s hospitals, and $15.9 million from an adoption program for children with special needs. A Kasich staffer revealed yesterday that these cuts are more about politics then budget-balancing, telling the Cincinnati Dispatch that “even if there weren’t an $8 billion deficit, we’d probably be proposing many of the same things.” The plan includes tax cuts for oil companies, a repeal of the estate tax and an income tax cut for the rich that former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) halted last year because of the state’s fiscal crisis.
IOWA: Gov. Tom Branstad (R) began this year proposing a budget that included a $200 million tax cut on commercial property taxes and corporate income but would freeze spending on schools, cut $42 million to state universities and lay off “hundreds” of state workers. Since then, the Governor has already begun laying off state nursing home workers and frozen funding for mental health services. The budget is now moving through the politically divided legislature, where Republican-controlled House committees have gone even further, approving tax refunds for upper-income Iowans while cancelling infrastructure investments, eliminating preschool for 4-year-olds, closing Iowa workforce development offices, and making even deeper cuts to public universities.
PENNSYLVANIA: Gov. Tom Corbett (R) presented a budget last week that would cut taxes for corporations, while freezing teacher salaries, cutting dental care for Medicaid recipients, and eliminating more than half of the state’s universities. Yet the state has lots of revenue potential in northern Pennsylvania, where out-of-state energy companies’ “fracking” of natural gas has reaped them hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Corbett has refused to tax these companies, many of which helped fund his gubernatorial campaign, and has instead opted to lay of more than 1,500 state workers.
MAINE: Despite calling for “shared sacrifice” Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage’s (R) budget would cut income taxes for Maine’s wealthiest one percent, while actually raising property taxes for the state’s middle class. This so-called “jobs budget” freezes healthcare funding for working parents, cuts money for schools and infrastructure and raises the retirement age for public workers. Yet LePage was still able to find more than $200 million in tax cuts for large estates, business and the rich.
WISCONSIN: The tax cuts Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed earlier this year worsened his state’s fiscal condition, so now Walker is planning to raise taxes on the poor, eliminate $26 million in tax credits for seniors and single mothers and cancel property tax rebates for low-income Wisconsinites making less than $24,000 a year.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has proposed ending the state’s corporate income tax, even while she calls for cutting physical education, K-12 schools, and Medicaid. Haley has received pushback from Republican colleagues: last week the legislature rejected her plan to force state employees to pay more for health insurance.
KANSAS: Facing a $493 million budget shortfall, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has called for eliminating the corporate income tax while proposing a $50 million cut to education. With majorities in both Houses, Republicans have proposed a cut to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit that would push 6,500 families below the poverty line.
ARIZONA: Last October, as she ignored 26 other possible funding solutions, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) implemented painful cuts to the state’s Medicaid program, which resulted in 2 deaths and left 98 Arizonians waiting for transplant funding. After months of protests, Brewer finally agreed to set aside $151 million in an “uncompensated-care pool to pay health-care providers for ‘life-saving’ procedures, including transplants.” However, House Republicans refused to restore funding for organ transplants because, as House Appropriations Committee chair Jon Kavanagh (R) said, “not enough lives would be saved to warrant restoring millions in budget cuts.” Then, while peoples’ lives were in danger, Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses that will cost the state $538 million.
Despite calling for “shared sacrifice” in their plans, Republican governors have yet to ask corporations to share the burden of record budget shortfalls. Ultimately, choosing big business over Main Street could undermine the already slow economic recovery. However, a Main Street Movement in many of these states has emerged to protest placing the burden of deficit reduction solely onto the backs of the middle-class and public employees.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/16/gop-state-corporate-tax-cuts/ThinkProgress has been documenting conservative efforts to shift the burden of record... more
-
-
Welcome to the United Corporations of America, home of the pittance wage!
Jobs returning — but good ones, NOT!
Isn't it amazing, when an informative but startling article (Below) like this is written about the fast decline of the middle-class...? Astonishing, that there’s not a conservative snarky comment to be found (I did not go through the 4192 responses but past articles would be full of tea party delusional mind-set verbiages, right from the get-go) I wonder why that is...? Perhaps (for those who wear rose colored glasses 24/7) these reality fact-checks, (opposed to the Fox News misinformation type) are a little too close to what they are feeling in their real lives, just too damn outright, to scribble nasty things all over the comments portion. It must be painful for these people to confront the dire straits we Americans are in, due to the Billionaires with pockets full of politicians doing their bidding to get them even more wealth and power… I fear for us Americans, who use to fancy ourselves middle-class, we are a dying breed and it may take years (longer than one's lifetime) to get back any resemblance of our past when it took only one person per household to bring home the bacon. Welcome to the United Corporations of America, home of the pittance wage and corporate personhood! thinkingblue
Jobs returning — but good ones not so much
By Zachary Roth
When it comes to jobs, it's not just quantity that matters--it's also quality. It's great news that the economy is finally producing jobs again--even if it'll take another few years of this kind of growth to get us back to where we were before the Great Recession. But that also means it's now time to ask what kind of jobs are being created. And on that front, things are a lot less encouraging.
Several recent studies suggest that the new jobs pay less and offer fewer work hours than the ones they have replaced. Let's look at the numbers:
• Lower-wage industries -- things like retail and food preparation -- accounted for 23 percent of the jobs lost during the recession, but 49 percent of the jobs gained over the last year, a recent study (pdf) by the National Employment Law Program found. Higher-wage industries, by contrast, accounted for 40 percent of the jobs lost, but just 14 percent of the jobs gained. In other words, low paying jobs are increasing as a percentage of total jobs, while high-paying jobs are on the decline.
• Meanwhile, the percentage of those working who have part-time jobs and want full-time ones surged in mid-February to 19.6 percent -- almost as high as it was a year ago before the recovery began, according to Gallup numbers. That suggests, of course, that a large number of the new jobs created over the last year are part-time.
• And a recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that even though productivity rose 5.2 percent from mid 2009 to the end of 2010, wages increased by just 0.3 percent. That means only 6 percent of productivity gains were shared with workers. In past recoveries, that figure has averaged 58 percent. This time around, far more of the gains went to shareholders, in the form of profits, which are at record levels.
There are no easy answers for how to fix the problem. Some argue that workers need more clout in their relationship with employers, something that would require a renaissance of private-sector labor unions, which have been on the decline for the last half-century. But that prospect looks unlikely: Indeed efforts are underway in several states to make public-sector unions as weak as their private-sector counterparts.
Still, as the economy continues to add jobs in the coming months, it's worth keeping the issue of quality in mind. An economy with a glut of low-paying and part-time jobs isn't an economy that's working for most Americans. COMMENTS HERE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110309/ts_yblog_thelookout/jobs-returning-but-good-ones-not-so-much#mwpphu-container
Now please listen to Michael Moore's passionate oracle about the Corporatehood Shenanigans’ that have happened in Wisconsin. tb
AMERICA IS NOT BROKE
http://www.thethinkingblue.com/americanotbroke.htmlWelcome to the United Corporations of America, home of the pittance wage!
Jobs... more
-
-
We were repeatedly told that major financial institutions were in "deep trouble" after the American sub-prime housing meltdown, yet these very institutions reported all-time record revenues and corresponding bonuses in 2009-2010, just one year after the global economy was on the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, wealth inequality in terms of incomes, financial worth and net worth has never been greater in the developed world. Regardless of whether this phenomenal transfer of wealth was a premeditated, coordinated effort by global financial elites, or a more "natural" result of financial evolution in a capitalist system, it is undeniable that the practical effects are the same - the rich get richer and more powerful while the poor get poorer and more desperate.
It is the latter fact that potentially poses a serious threat to the financial elites and their existing structures of power, as perhaps evidenced by the popular revolts throughout Africa and the Middle East, and to a lesser extent, the EU periphery and South Asia. This article will explore specific developments of the ongoing financial crisis from the perspective of financial elites, and their goals of maintaining the global structures of power that provide order. The financial crisis reflects a systemic, structural instability that may reverse the global trend towards increased socioeconomic complexity, which has always fed into and off of the concentration of wealth and power.
Complexity as a function of finance, therefore, is perhaps measured best by levels of global wealth inequality, and as mentioned before, these levels are still getting worse (more unequal). However, there comes a tipping point at which an overly-complex system begins to consume itself, as the peripheral networks and central hubs become less stable and less attached to the overall structure of the system. In this sense, the more damaging a crisis is to the ability of populations around the world to maintain their relative share of the global wealth pie, meager as it may be, the more difficult it will be for existing financial elites to maintain global complexity, order and control......
Please continue at:
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-7-2011-financial-threats-to-power.html
If you missed part 1:
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-1-2011-math-is-different-at-top.htmlWe were repeatedly told that major financial institutions were in "deep... more
-
-
There was nothing terribly sophisticated about the denial of service attack executed by the activist hackers at Anonymous to temporarily knock out the website of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
But the senior execs at Georgia Pacific and other corporate holdings controlled by the Koch brothers ought to be very nervous. Anonymous, best known for similarly crippling websites of firms hostile to WikiLeaks, says it has begun actively probing for network weaknesses in Georgia Pacific and other Koch brothers' holdings.
Should the activist hackers succeed in cracking into any of the Koch brothers' corporate networks, Anonymous could solidify its emerging persona as a digital-age Robin Hood, says Josh Shaul, Chief Technology Officer of network security company Application Security.
"These guys have so much attitude and spunk," says Shaul. "Anonymous is coming out of its shell and seems to be saying, 'Hey, we'll be the voice of the people, we'll be the Robin Hood fighting for the poor against the powerful.' "
In this statement, Anonymous accuses the Koch brothers of "fabricating grassroots organizations and advertising campaigns to sway voters based on their falsehoods." The statement concludes:
Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one, even when their own government refuses to listen or worse - is complicit in these attacks. We are actively seeking vulnerabilities, but in the mean time we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries' paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.
The group's highest profile hack to date shows what it is capable of. On Feb. 5, a group of five elite hackers gained deep access into data intelligence firm HBGary, defaced and damaged most if its systems, and stole 77,000 e-mails from the Google Enterprise cloud-based service used by the company.
Upon being made public on the Internet, the stolen e-mails were pored over by reporters and activists; they revealed stunning details of how high-stakes, corporate-backed disinformation campaigns get birthed.
Click here to read about the pivotal role a 16-year-old girl played in that hack. The lightning rod in that caper -- HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr -- on Monday announced his resignation. Barr will go down in tech history as the disinformation expert who stirred Anonymous into a higher gear -- by bragging that he had identified the group's leaders and planning to expose them on Valentines Day at the B-Sides Security Conference in San Francisco.
Though corporations have spent billions shoring up network perimeter defenses, determined hackers routinely gain deep access into corporate systems. They do so by combining simple social-engineering trickery with proven hacking tools.
We recently published this news story about how one cybergang stole more than $50 million by setting up an elaborate series of stings of European companies participating in Europe's carbon-credits exchange. Another gang got deep into Nasdaq's Directors Desk cloud collabartion tool for senior executives, where they lurked for more than a year before recently being detected.
The activist hackers at Anonymyous have demonstrated knowledge and skills of the techniques used by top hacking groups that concentrate on breaking into corporate networks for profit.
"They better be concerned," Shaul says of the Koch brothers. "What Anonymous is saying is 'we're getting ready to execute whatever attack we can, so you better be worried; in the meantime, we're going to be a big pain.' "
Update: 5:50 p.m Eastern. A Michael Goldfarb called Technology Live and identified himself as a spokeman for Koch Industries. Goldfarb requested to go off the record for a "substantive discussion." We declined. The caller declined to comment on the Anonymous attack.
GO TO STORY:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2011/03/anonymous-actively-probing-koch-brothers-corporate-networks-/1There was nothing terribly sophisticated about the denial of service attack executed... more
-
-
Corporations are working to take Wikileaks out, and the government is approving of it. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake.com explains.Corporations are working to take Wikileaks out, and the government is approving of it.... more
-
-
In the year since the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, there has been new scrutiny on the increasingly cozy relationship between corporate funders of elections and national policy makers. Exemplifying that relationship have been the Koch brothers, billionaires whose dollars have helped to fund right-wing organizations and campaigns for years, and who were behind one of the most powerful outside groups in the 2010 elections, Americans For Prosperity. The brothers also hold twice-yearly meetings of influential donors, pundits, and politicians—past guests have included Glenn Beck, Sens. Jim Demint and Tom Coburn, and even Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas (both of whom were in the Citizens United majority).
The Kochs held their most recent strategy meeting at a spa in Palm Springs this weekend. Attending the secretive event was House Republican Leader Eric Cantor, among other undisclosed guests. Outside were 800-1,000 protestors, 25 of whom were arrested for trespassing. The LA Times reports:
Protest organizers said they hoped to raise awareness about the Koch brothers and what activists portray as their shadowy attempts to weaken environmental protection laws and undercut campaign contribution limits.
The brothers control Koch Industries, the nation's second-largest privately held company. They have funded groups pushing a limited-government, libertarian agenda, helped organize "tea party" groups and contributed $1 million to a failed ballot initiative to suspend California's law to curb greenhouse gases.
"We cannot have democracy unless everyone has a voice," said Cathy Riddle, a Temecula website developer who held a sign reading "Corporations are not people." Donors like the Koch brothers are "drowning us out," she said. "Their voices are louder."
The protest, organized by Common Cause, included some members of People For the American Way. It came one week after activists, in events around the country, marked the first anniversary of Citizens United and called for a constitutional amendment to reverse it. Watch PFAW’s video explaining the decision and its impact:
http://blog.pfaw.org/content/hundreds-california-protest-corporate-influence-electionsIn the year since the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, there... more
-
-
With reports of Egypt's government completing shutting down the Internet in the country, talk about an "Internet kill switch" bill in the U.S. has reemerged. Could it happen here?
The bill in question is the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, a cyber-security measure introduced in June by Sen. Joseph Lieberman. It was an over-arching cyber-security measure that, among other things, would create an office of cyberspace policy within the White House and a new cyber-security center within the Homeland Security Department.
A provision that got the most attention, however, was one that gave the president the power to "authorize emergency measures to protect the nation's most critical infrastructure if a cyber vulnerability is being exploited or is about to be exploited."
Some interpreted that to mean that the president would have the authority to shut off the Internet at random. Lieberman refuted the "Internet kill switch" assertion as "misinformation" during an appearance on CNN, and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chairs, later published a "myth vs. reality" fact sheet on the bill.
The bill passed the committee, but did not see any significant action before the end of the session. Earlier this week, however, CNet reported that Lieberman will re-introduce the bill in this Congress, and that the updated bill will include a provision that says "the federal government's designation of vital Internet or other computer systems "shall not be subject to judicial review."
A Lieberman spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If it does go anywhere, though, should Americans be concerned about the Internet being shut down in the U.S.? In all likeliehood, no. Besides the fact that Lieberman himself says that his bill would not provide the government with an Internet kill switch, the bill - in theory - is intended to protect U.S. Web infrastructure from attacks that would irreperably harm the network rather than squash anti-government protests.
In Egypt, it appears that the government demanded that its four major ISPs shut down service. Could the U.S. government get away with asking Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and the like to shut down their networks to stop citizens from organizing protests? Anything is possible, of course, but at this point, it seems unlikely.
The current administration has already condemned the shut down in Egypt. In a Friday tweet, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration is "very concerned about violence in Egypt - government must respect the rights of the Egyptian people & turn on social networking and internet."
PJ Crowley, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, also tweeted that the "events unfolding in #Egypt are of deep concern. Fundamental rights must be respected, violence avoided and open communications allowed."
President Obama, meanwhile, made net neutrality and the concept of an open Internet part of his campaign , and continues to support the idea. The administration also relied heavily on social networking and the Web to reach voters, so efforts to restrict the Web for anything other than public safety would be surprising.
Of course, defining what constitutes a public safety threat could be a bit tricky. That being said, the bill still has to be formally introduced and make its way through a now-divided Congress by the end of the year; Lieberman has announced plans to retire in 2012.
TO GO TO THIS STORY:
http://mobile.pcmag.com/device2/article.php?CALL_URL=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376888,00.aspWith reports of Egypt's government completing shutting down the Internet in the... more
-
-
A year ago today, the Supreme Court issued its bizarre Citizens United decision, allowing unlimited corporate spending in elections as a form of “free speech” for the corporate “person.” Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the dissent, had the task of recalling the majority to planet earth and basic common sense.
“Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires," wrote Stevens. “Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/resolution_amend_constitution_banning_corporate_personhood_vermont_20110124/A year ago today, the Supreme Court issued its bizarre Citizens United decision,... more
-
-
http://is.gd/hogVd3
By Gerard Ange'
This is a News Story about a new platform of protest. Similar to the civil rights marches and anti-war marches & protests of the past ~ people in the streets voicing their support of a worthy and valiant cause. A combined humanistic call to action to temporarily block traffic... To let the world know..... that they should pay attention to what is going on...
Today... nothing is changed The same ideals the same objections the same people trying to do something good! The same solidarity... The same look in their eyes... The sound of people marching... shouting to let the world know that they should pay attention to what is going on...! The only difference is the in 2011 is.... the people marching are on the "Cyber Streets" these are just as meaningful and just as valid as the Marches of people of the past... These are the marches and the protests of today 2011 Virtual Marches of tens of thousands of people blocking "Cyber Traffic" protesting against Fascism and Oppression... Anywhere it exists...
The word today is... Join the March!!! This is the future.... This is Our Future...
Our Future in NOW.... Not Tomorrow...
"Join AnonymousIRC now ~ protect freedom!"
STAND UP FOR THE TRUTH!
Protest Against Fascism!
Protest Against Oppression!
Protest Against Corruption!
Support Freedom of Speech!
Support Freedom of the Press!
Support Freedom of the Internet!
=== STAND UP FOR THE TRUTH! ===
#OpTunisia: 272 users
#OpAlgeria 161 users
#OperationPayback 155 users
TO GO THE ORIGINAL NEWS STORY CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW:
http://search.mibbit.com/channels/AnonOpshttp://is.gd/hogVd3
By Gerard Ange'
This is a News Story about a new... more
-
-
MEDIA ALERT: = THE NEWS YOU DON'T SEE IN THE USA !!!!
Today our television media news in the USA is a joke - The News coverage to the American people is nonexistent causing it's population to argue nonsense topics amongst themselves... Blinded with nonsense, and fueled with distractions it is easy to divide a population and control a population.
It should be a wake-up call: When the people outside of our US borders know more about what happening inside our country than it's own citizens do.... Then we should all realize that we have a big problem! The Main stream Media ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC & FOX...all design what news you watch and listen to.
The insert a large amount of "Fluff Stories" and edit out many topics = NOT reported and NOT broadcast.
The citizens have lost their independent media... The Media has been taken over and is controlled by Corporations .... The Corporations decide what you hear in the news...
QUESTION: Why do you think Julian Assange & Wilkleaks was targeted and Attacked and insulted by the media? Because if the media were doing their jobs... Wikileaks wouldn't have any secrets to leak! The media is not doing their jobs.
( I work in the news media = I know!)
AMERICA TODAY.... Time to Follow the Money!
As we all now all look around us... Look at all the hard working American families all being foreclosed on and forced out into the streets as the Corporate Royalty award Billions to themselves as; A Job Well done! 1.3 million more foreclosures scheduled in 2011 to come! Look at all of us today....We all sit fighting between ourselves for only the basic fundamental things in life like affording to buy (safe food to eat), healthcare, a warm place to live to sleep at night....or an affordable good education for our Children....
If we are fighting amongst ourselves.....We all don't see that all we are only fighting for the crumbs left after the 98% of our countries wealth has been stolen and hoarded by the ultra Wealthiest 2-3%.... I guess that is the plan....if we are so busy arguing with ourselves we are not looking up and seeing what is really going on.... Maybe it time we all look up and ~ Follow the Money!
Okay now what?
So now we all go back to sleep? Back to business as usual & doing nothing?
Doing nothing is stupid!
Doing something is courageous...
WIKILEAKS IS A WAKE-UP CALL !!!
Wikileaks is a global "Virus Protection Software" that has shown all of us that our systems are infected.... That there is a trojan virus running in the background - doing things against the interests of the People of the Country that the government is mandated to represent.
This is a real wake-up call for people everywhere.... that Corporations have taken over all our government systems... Stealing all our freedoms and making us slaves of their corporate system.
LEARN FROM HISTORY.....
Mussolini quote: " Fascism should be appropriately called Corporatism because of a merger of State & Corporate Power."
That is what is going on here...
This is a wake-up call for everyone.. and
Wikileaks is the Alarm Bell !!!
Truth is courageous...MEDIA ALERT: = THE NEWS YOU DON'T SEE IN THE USA !!!!
Today our television... more
-
-
http://sourceforge.net
By Marius Bosch and Georgina Prodhan
JOHANNESBURG/LONDON (Reuters) - If anyone needed proof that cyber activists can create havoc in the real world, the last few weeks have provided evidence in megabytes.
Rallying behind WikiLeaks, the thousands of internet activists who made headlines in December by bringing down the websites of MasterCard and Visa have been branching out.
Operating under the banner "Anonymous", their other forms of action have included hacker defacements of websites, real-life protests such as mass leafleting, and a role in Tunisia's "Jasmine Revolution".
Anonymous activists attacked and shut down several government websites before the ouster of former President Zine al Abedine Ben Ali. They have also targeted governments they see as enemies of free speech. Last month the website of Zimbabwe's finance ministry was hacked and the homepage replaced by a message from Anonymous.
A report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) this week said such attacks on computer systems are unlikely to cause a global shock on their own, though could do if launched in the midst of a natural disaster such as a large solar flare that wipes out satellites and other key communications hardware.
But this misses the point. Global chaos is not Anonymous' aim. As the WikiLeaks and Tunisia cases show, the group targets specific institutions and its attacks are designed to temporarily delay more than destroy. Think of them not as acts of cyber war but as high-profile guerrilla strikes.
1> CATALYSTS
A look inside some of the main online forums suggests that those behind the WikiLeak-inspired attacks are patient, coordinate almost organically, and remain wary of outsiders. That all means that their next moves remain unpredictable.
In the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels -- chat rooms where up to 3,000 participants at a time can discuss strategy and plot attacks -- reporters are treated with suspicion. Over the past few weeks, though, a few Anons -- as activists refer to themselves online -- agreed to talk to Reuters.
There is anecdotal evidence that Anonymous is growing stronger. Several Anons told Reuters the arrest of Assange and the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against Visa and Mastercard -- in which company websites were bombarded with so many requests they crashed -- inspired them to join the group.
"Saw it on a news article, joined the IRC, and things went on from there. 4 months ago," one Anon nicknamed "tflow" told Reuters in a private message on the IRC channel.
"I was angry at the arrest of Assange and how the credit card companies shut down WikiLeaks' accounts. Been here since," said another, going by the name of Noms9001, referring to the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Britain.
"I'm not a rebel, I can say that. For me, it's been an issue of governments and corporations attempting to control what we say and hear online."
One said they had been involved with Anonymous since the group's Project Chanology protests against the Church of Scientology in 2008. Another blamed a failed late December attack on Bank of America on a splinter group of Anonymous, and said an expected drop by WikiLeaks of documents related to the bank could provide an opportunity for a renewed effort to bring down its site.
2> MONITORING
Targets are chosen by consensus and can be attacked by as many as 10,000 computers simultaneously. Communication is mainly through IRC but supporters also use micro-blogging site Twitter and video-sharing site YouTube to release information.
The activists claim to come from all over -- Europe, the United States, China and elsewhere in Asia -- and share an almost paranoid concern with covering the tracks left by the software they use.
During the attacks on Tunisian government websites over the past couple of weeks, activists warned Tunisian citizens in the OpTunisia IRC channel against joining an assault on local internet hosting organisation ATI.
"If you are Tunisian, do not participate in the DDoS attack. Chances are that you will get traced and arrested. Unless you have means to conceal your IP and know what you are doing, do NOT attack," warned one activist.
"Do NOT give out any personal information on this IRC network. This is a public chat and you can be sure that it is monitored," the activist added.
There's a good reason for the caution. Two Dutch teenagers were arrested in December in connection with cyber attacks by WikiLeaks supporters. Both have been released and are awaiting trial.
And the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation raided a Texas server-hosting company last month looking for evidence that Anonymous had used its servers to launch attacks on PayPal, according to an affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun website.
Some activists hope their sheer numbers will prevent authorities from trying to trace them. "Imagine tracking 9,000 plus computers across the planet for an arrest," Calgarc said in the IRC channel in reply to a question on how an attacker can hide his tracks.
3> FIRE YOUR CANNON
All you need to wage cyber war is a fast-paced internet forum packed with hundreds of determined activists and a simple piece of software called a Low Orbit Ion Cannon. Activists download the LOIC -- initially developed to help internet security experts test website vulnerability to DDoS attacks -- and start firing packets of data at the targeted website.
If enough people join in, a DDoS attack prevents the overloaded server from responding to legitimate requests and slows the website to a crawl or shuts it down totally.
Attackers can even listen to a dedicated internet radio station, Radiopayback, during attacks.
A quarter of a million copies of the LOIC software have been downloaded from sourceforge.net so far, more than half of them since November when Web hosting and banking organisations began withdrawing support from WikiLeaks.
One in five downloads since the start of November was in the United States, with a few hundred in Tunisia, and a handful in bandwidth-deprived Zimbabwe.
Users of the software can be traced. A study by Dutch researchers found last year that the tool did not mask the host computer's internet protocol (IP) address.
Barrett Lyon, a security expert who specialises in protecting companies against denial of service attacks, said the LOIC program is fairly rudimentary but effective if used by thousands of people. "It doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles. It's not as focused as it could have been. If they got their software together in a more sophisticated kind of way, this kind of thing could have gotten easier with more violence."
Lyon said depending on the time of day there were 500-10,000 computers involved in the attacks.
"10,000 people have quite a bit of fire power," he added.
4> CREDIBLE COUNTERFORCE
TO GO TO NEXT PAGE CLICK BELOW :
http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-54257020110119?ca=rdt
http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2011/1/6/tunisia-cyber-special-anonymous-takes-down-the-government.htmlhttp://sourceforge.net
By Marius Bosch and Georgina Prodhan
JOHANNESBURG/LONDON... more
-
-
One year after an earthquake devastated Haiti, much of the promised relief and reconstruction aid has not reached those most in need. In fact, the nation’s tragedy has served as an opportunity to further enrich corporate interests.One year after an earthquake devastated Haiti, much of the promised relief and... more
-
-
German officials are investigating possible "illegal activity" after a company allegedly supplied 25 animal feed makers with 3,000 tonnes of contaminated fatty acids.
A food scandal in Germany has deepened, as regional authorities shut down more than 4,700 farms after tests showed animal feed had been contaminated by a chemical that can cause cancer. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Justin Sullivan) Tests from the Harles und Jentzsch plant in Schleswig Holstein found excessive levels of the poisonous chemical dioxin, officials said.
Some 4,700 German farms have been shut.
Officials say the dioxin levels pose no risk to humans, but contamination fears have spread across Europe.
Initially, the scare was confined to Germany but then it emerged that a batch of eggs had been exported to Holland and from there to Britain.
British authorities said that the amounts of dioxin - which is linked to the development of cancer in humans - in any egg would be very small, and not enough to be dangerous.
The dioxin scare has prompted South Korea to block imports of German pork and poultry products because of health concerns, local media reported on Friday.
No deliveries
Officials have traced the contamination to the Harles und Jentzsch plant in the northern state of Schleswig Holstein, where oils intended for use in bio-fuels were distributed for use in animal feed.
"The first indications point to a high level of illegal activity," said a spokesman for Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner on Friday.
A private laboratory's sample test from the plant on 19 March 2010 had found more than double the acceptable level of 0.75 nanograms of dioxin per 1kg of fatty acids used in animal feed.
Health officials only learned about the excessive level on 27 December, said a spokesman for the state agriculture ministry. The cause of the delay between the test results and the notification of the ministry remains unclear.
The extent of the problem was only revealed earlier this week when German officials said 3,000 tonnes of feed had been affected. They say the closures - mostly affecting pig farms in Germany's Lower Saxony region - are only a precaution.
Authorities believe some 150,000 tons of feed for poultry and swine containing industrial fat have been fed to livestock across the country.
A doctor from the town of Havixbeck, near Munster, has lodged a criminal complaint of attempted murder and severe injury against Harles und Jentzsch, saying the company had acted out of greed.
Last week, more than 1,000 German farms were banned from selling eggs after dioxin was found in eggs and poultry.
cont.German officials are investigating possible "illegal activity" after a... more
-
-
It is disappointing to see the same president who ran on his constitutional law professor bona fides devote so much time and effort to discrediting WikiLeaks and working up charges against its founder, Julian Assange. WikiLeaks, like the New York Times before it with the publication of the Pentagon Papers, has committed no crime. If the law of the land holds true, the administration will get nowhere with the foolish notion that Assange can be tried for conspiracy under the Espionage Act for doing what major media outlets do every day: publishing classified information about the government. The claim that somehow WikiLeaks is different because it allegedly encouraged sources to come forward is a red herring: even if the charge proves true, this is what journalists at every major media outlet in the country do every day.
Still, we wonder at those who assert that the cables "demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S." (Floyd Abrams) or "provide very little evidence of double-dealing or bad faith in U.S. foreign policy" (Gideon Rachman). In fact, the U.S. Embassy cables, like the Pentagon Papers, show our government involved in systemic wrongdoing and wide scale deception. They present irrefutable evidence that this administration and its predecessor have been tampering with other countries' legal systems to prevent prosecutions against government employees for committing human rights abuses and transgressing international law under often-secret post 9/11 policies.
This April 1, 2009 cable reveals the U.S. trying to derail the prosecution of the senior architects of the Bush administration's torture program in Spain. The U.S. frets that "The fact that this complaint targets former Administration legal officials may reflect a 'stepping-stone' strategy designed to pave the way for complaints against even more senior officials." When it looks to Chief Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza to stall or derail the proceedings, he reassures them: while "in all likelihood he would have no option but to open a case" he does not "envision indictments or arrest warrants in the near future." (Untrue, by the way. Zaragoza and the U.S. may have succeeded in stalling the investigation, but this week CCR will take the next steps toward encouraging the judge assigned to the case to move forward despite the failure of the U.S. to respond to his inquiries.)
This February 6, 2007 cable shows the previous administration trying to prevent Germany from prosecuting the 13 CIA agents who abducted German citizen Khaled el-Marsi and flew him to Afghanistan for interrogation as part of the U.S. "extraordinary rendition" program--only to discover after many months that they had the wrong man. In public, Angela Merkel's office called for an investigation while Munich prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the agents. In private, the German Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry reassured an anxious US that they were not interested in pursuing the case.
Like the NYT when it published the Pentagon Papers, WikiLeaks has been accused of irresponsibly dumping a large cache of top secret documents into the public domain that compromise the safety of our country and our allies. In fact, despite the hysterical claims of a variety of elected officials, there's been absolutely no documentation of any resulting harm, unless one counts the embarrassment of having Russian Premier Minister Vladimir Putin make fun of U.S. officials for trying to suppress free speech. WikiLeaks has only released 1,974 of the 251,287 cables in its possession, and none were classified as "top secret" (over half were not subject to classification at all). Finally, while its offer to go over redactions with the State Department prior to publication was ignored, the five major newspapers that have been publishing the cables have gone to great lengths to communicate with each other and the State Department regarding redactions.
Our government, as journalist and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald has noted, increasingly wishes to operate through a one-way mirror where all of its citizens' activities are open for surveillance while the activities of the government itself increasingly take place behind a wall of executive privilege, untouchable even by judicial oversight. But democracy demands the cleansing light of openness as a guard against the abuses of power. We should thank WikiLeaks for shedding light on governmental wrongdoing. Now let us hope that the U.S. public, as well as its politicians and media, will consider investigating these abuses at least as important as maligning the messenger.
Vince Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights
To Go To Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-warren/wikileaks-and-democracy_b_805498.htmlIt is disappointing to see the same president who ran on his constitutional law... more
-
-
By ISRAEL SHAMIR
In Part One of my report last weekend here on the CounterPunch site I showed that the US was secretly funnelling money into Belarus to fund the unelected opposition. Previously, the claim had been routinely denied. Now we have sterling proof. It is engraved in a confidential cable from a US Embassy to the State Department. It is undeniable.
That is, if you found the cable and were able to understand it.
And you happened to understand the political background of the cable.
The cables are raw data. Not as raw as Afghan Diaries, the previous coup of Wikileaks, but still quite raw. They are written in obscure state department lingo; much of the story is implied, as the cables were composed for colleagues and definitely not for strangers. They simply have to be explained, interpreted, annotated and then finally delivered to the reader. Dumping raw cables onto the web would not do: you’d never find the relevant cables and probably you wouldn’t be able to understand its significance even if you did find it.
The main job of a newspaper or news website is to process raw data and transmit it to a reader. This work requires an experienced and highly qualified staff. Not every newspaper or website has such resources, and none of the independent sites can compete with the mainstream outlets for readership. If all the cables were published in a local newspaper in Oklahoma or Damascus, who would read them? In order to get our news to you, our reader, we are forced to make use of the dreaded mainstream media.
That is why Julian Assange chose to partner with a few important Western liberal newspapers of the mainstream media. Let us make it perfectly clear that we understand that all mainstream media are at their heart embedded; in bed with the Pentagon, the CIA, with Wall Street and all its counterparts. Let us also make it clear that we understand that not every journalist on the staff of The Guardian, Le Monde or The NY Times is a crooked enforcer of imperialist ideology; no, not even every editor. We do understand that not everyone is willing to sacrifice their career to field a story that will attract storms of protest. From this point of view, the difference between the soft liberal and the hardline imperialist media is one of style only.
For instance, if they plan to attack Afghanistan, the hardline Fox News would simply demand a high-profile strike against the sand rats, while the liberal Guardian would publish a Polly Toynbee piece bewailing the bitter fate of Afghani women. The bottom line is the same: war.
Modern embedded media constitute the most powerful weapon of our rulers. The modern Russian writer Victor Pelevin succinctly explained their modus operandi: "The embedded media does not care about the content and does not attempt to control it; they just add a drop of poison to the stream in the right moment."
Furthermore, they skilfully arrange the information in order to mislead us. The headline might scream MURDER MOST FOUL but the article describes an unavoidable accident. We do not look beyond the headline, but the headline has been written by the editor and not the journalist who penned the article. Twitter is nothing but a mess of headlines; we are being trained to think in terms of slogans.
In the case of Belarus, the Guardian published three cables the day before elections in order to maximize the exposure and to influence the results of the election. One of the headlines, published on December 18, 2010 said: “WikiLeaks: Lukashenka’s [sic] fortune estimated at 9 billion USD”. It was a very misleading headline. Wikileaks made no claims about Lukashenko’s wealth. Read the entire article, and you will find that it was nothing more than a US embassy employee who had heard a rumor and transmitted it to the State Department. Only in the second to last sentence of the article do they mention that the cable admits: “the embassy employee couldn’t verify the sources [sic!] or accuracy of the information”.
So a corrected headline would read: “Wikileaks reveals: US diplomats spread unverifiable rumors about Lukashenko’s personal wealth.” But the Guardian made it appear as if it was Wikileaks itself that made the claim.
Let us suppose that one day Wikileaks will publish cables from the Russian Embassy in Washington to Moscow Centre. Shall we expect to see in the Guardian a screaming headline like: "WikiLeaks: The Mossad behind 9/11!!"
Isn’t it more likely we would be soberly told: “Wikileaks reveals that Russian diplomats in Washington report the persistent rumors on Israeli involvement in 9/11”?
Another cable on Belarus published on the same day was headlined: “US embassy cables: Belarus president justifies violence against opponents”. Again, a misleading headline, and again the majority will never read beyond it. In reality, this very interesting report contains the debriefing of the Estonian Foreign Minister after his long chat with President Lukashenko. The most interesting factoid was deliberately not highlighted in the article: Lukashenko told the Estonian visitor that the opposition in Belarus would never unite, and only existed “to live off western grants.” When you read the article, your eye gravitates to the highlighted section, skipping the valuable information just above. In fact, the highlighted section itself says nothing about justifying violence against opponents. The text says something completely different: “Lukashenko stated the opposition should expect to get hurt when they attack the riot police”. Again, it is sterling truth: in every country, people who attack riot police end up getting hurt. In Israel they also get shot, but that’s another story.
Thus the Guardian made use of Wikileaks in order to influence Belarus voters and Western audiences, and prepare them for an Election Day riot.
So here we are: in order to get valuable data to the people, Julian Assange had to make a deal with the devil: the mainstream media. It was most natural for him to deal with the liberal flank of the mainstream, for the hardliners would not even touch it. But since the liberal papers are also embedded, they freely distort the cables by attaching misleading headlines and misquoting from the text.
For me, a Guardian reader since I worked at the BBC in the mid-1970s, it is painful to say that the Guardian has become an impostor. This paper pretends to provide the thinking liberal and socialist people of England with true information; but at the moment of truth, the Guardian, like a good Blairite, will switch sides.
Next, the Guardian apparently decided to destroy Wikileaks after using it. The Moor did his job, the Moor may go. The Guardian’s embedded editors, understanding full well that the Wikileaks crew won’t be tamed or subverted, are preparing a book called The Rise and Fall of Wikileaks. It’s not quite released yet; they have still to arrange for the fall.
This will be done in two ways.
Go To Next Page:
http://www.counterpunch.org/shamir01052011.htmlBy ISRAEL SHAMIR
In Part One of my report last weekend here on the CounterPunch... more
-
