Jeg har ikke altid været vild med George Galloway, men her er han endog særdeles skarp og præcis. Hør endelig det hele.
Month: March 2011
Til Obama og hans “støtte” til arabisk frihed: Fuck off
Beklager den voldsomme titel, men lejligheden kræver det.
Mark LeVine, professor i historie ved University of California og Reza Aslan, som bl.a. er forfatter af bogen “Kun en Gud”, rammer hovedet gentagne gange på sømmet i et fælles indlæg på Al Jazeera English:
However noble and justified the United States’ intentions may be in launching an attack on a dictator who has murdered his own people and supported international acts of terrorism, the hypocrisy and inconsistently with which the Obama administration has dealt with the so-called “Arab Awakening” risks generating as much ire in the region as did the invasion of Iraq, especially among the young people who have led the pro-democracy revolutions that have inspired the world.
If there is one thing that the Arab world’s “Facebook Generation” does not suffer, it is hypocrisy, either by its own governments or by its foreign allies and patrons.
Yet it is impossible not to recognise the rank hypocrisy in supporting the rights of anti-government protesters in Libya, while turning a blind eye to the same in Bahrain, where government troops have massacred dozens of unarmed civilians; in Yemen, where the regime of president Ali Abdullah Saleh has been firing live ammunition into peaceful crowds; in Saudi Arabia, whose military has been sent into neighbouring countries to brutally suppress people’s demand for the most basic rights and freedoms; in the Palestinian territories, where non-violent demonstrations for an end to Israeli settlements have been completely ignored by an American administration who, until recently, vowed that a settlement freeze would form the basis of its Middle East policy.
In announcing the military strikes against Colonel Gaddafi, Obama declared that the United States “cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy, and his forces step up its assault on innocent men and women [who] face brutality and death at the hands of their own government.”
He reiterated this theme in his latest speech.
Does the president not recognise the irony of those words, which could be applied to any one of America’s dictatorial allies in the Middle East?
Problemet er, at Obama-regeringens troværdighed som forkæmpere for eller blot støtter af demokrati efterhånden lander på et stort, rundt og hårdt tilkæmpet nul. Hvordan kan man sige, at man ikke vil acceptere, at en diktator myrder sit folk – for blot at bede “begge sider” vise tilbageholdenhed, når regeringen med saudisk hjælp myrder folk på gaden i Bahrain? Hvordan kan man komme ud med en helhjertet støtte til den problematiske “grønne bevægelse” i Iran – blot for at sige, at “Yemens stabilitet er vigtig”, når snesevis af demonstranter bliver dræbt på gaden dér, som det faktisk skete forleden?
Men, læs ikke kun det, jeg citerer herover, læs hele Levines og Aslans indlæg. Der er mere – der er f.eks. det her:
Mr. Obama’s speech did nothing to address the inconsistencies in America’s response to the so-called “Arab Spring”.
And at the meeting of “allies” behind the no-fly zone in London, secretary of state Clinton’s declaration that, “it is obvious to everyone that Gaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead” betrayed irony and hypocrisy in equal measure, since by any reasonable definition of “legitimate” few if any leaders in the Arab world have “legitimacy to lead”.
At the same time, by refusing to become a party to the International Criminal Court, the United States undermines the legitimacy of the ICC as a venue for trying Gaddafi for crimes against his people, as allies like Britain have suggested.
Link: Zenga zenga, Mr. Obama
Tvangsopløs Danske Bank og ATP
De danske lønmodtagere lider i disse år under de danske bankers uansvarlige opførsel op til finanskrisen. Især Danske Banks uansvarlighed har kostet mange, mange milliarder og mange arbejdsløse danskere må sende bitre tanker til bankens ledelse.
De mange lønmodtagere der må se deres månedlige realindkomst falde i 2010 og 2011 er forhåbentlig også være vrede på banken og dens ledelse.
I dag var det så dommens time, da aktionærerne skulle bestemme hvad bankens bestyrelse skulle have i løn for reelt at drive banken fallit og tvinge den danske stat til at give en enorm bankgaranti og tilmed rydde det økonomisk morads op bagefter. Banken har været gearet 29 gange sin egen egenkapital, og har derfor reelt truet ca. 1/3 af den samlede danske økonomi med undergang, da finanskrisen brød ud. Modsat fx Nordea der i Danmark har en lignende markedsandel, men som har haft en langt mere fornuftig udlånspolitik. Derfor er Nordea da også 161 mia kr mere værd i dag.
Dommen bestyrelsen fik var en lønfremgang på 37%! Det kan man da kalde en bonus for at drive Danmark ud til kanten, som kan få selv VKO til at blegne.
Man må formode det var Mærsk og hans familie der donerede deres venner en lønforhøjelse, for de har jo nogen interesse i at hive statsstøtte ud af de danske skatteydere og bruge overskudet på fråds, men det viser sig at 99% af aktionærerne stemte for uhyrlighederne!
Nu er det er ikke nemt at finde ud af hvem de 99% var, men en del af dem var helt sikkert ATP og den danske stat har også en slat A-aktier. Man må altså konkludere at Danmarks lønmodtagere har støttet at Danske Banks bestyrelse er blevet belønnet for at smadre Danmarks økonomi. Det er helt uhyrligt at en tvangsopsparing fra dig og mig sådan kan bruges til at støtte et milliardrøveri og efterfølgende belønning for højlys dag.
Danske Bank burde være tvangsopløst efter den finansielle krise, da det var tydeligt at de var “to-big-too-fail” og ikke ejede nogen form for moral der kunne forhindre dem i at udnytte dette skamløst. I dag fik de med støtte fra bestyrere af lønmodtagernes pensionsopsparing sat en stor tyk streg under deres moralske fallit. Det er kun et spørgsmål om år før de igen vil kræve at danskerne betaler for deres sindsyge roulettespil i den internationale finansverden. De er om nogen den største trussel mod Danmark.
Kåring af de værste politiske hjemmesider
Så nærmer folketingsvalget sig, og vi vil her på Modpress gøre noget for at forbedre kvaliteten af de politiske kandidaters hjemmesider, for der er godt nok plads til forbedringer!
Vi vil kåre de 10 værste politiske hjemmesider og der er kandidater nok. Men nu skal bloglæserne jo også have en mulighed for at komme med indspark, så skriv eventuelle kandidater i kommentarfelterne.
Mine to favoritter indtil videre er:
http://www.konservative.dk/BrianMikkelsen/Sider/forside.aspx – stavefejlene er blevet rettet, men prøv at tjekke hvad der står om Brian..eller nogle af billederne.Den forrige version var en klokkeklar vinder, men er nu rykket hertil.
og
http://www.vantingifolketinget2011.dk/ – tragisk tilfælde..
Der er også de klassiske der ikke er opdaterede i årevis, tjek fx:
Der skal naturligvis være en sammenhæng mellem hjemmesidens kvalitet og hvor vigtig personen er rent politisk – så hav det in mente når I går på jagt.
Må den værste hjemmeside vinde!-
Bahrain: Repressalier mod aktivisters familie
Styret i Bahrain er nu begyndt at slå ned på familiemedlemmer til demokratiaktivister, der bor uden for landets grænser. Sådan gik det for eksempel Sayed Mohamed Shuber, hvis onkel Yasser bor i Storbritannien og er aktiv i bevægelsen for demokrati i Bahrain:
At 2.20 yesterday morning, Bahraini and Saudi forces raided 20-year old Sayed Mahmood Shuber’s home in Jidali in Bahrain. They pointed guns at the heads of his family and abducted him. They beat him. He has now disappeared.
The abduction seems to be part of a concerted effort to punish Bahrainis in Britain and their families for expressing solidarity with the revolts against the country’s regime.
Yasser, Sayed’s uncle, is a British citizen living in Bolton. His family telephoned him to tell him about their ordeal.
Yasser told Socialist Worker, “Seven jeeps and two civilian cars pulled up outside the house. They raided the house, started shouting and pushing the family around.
“Some of them were in blue uniforms–the uniforms of special branch. Others were in civilian clothes and wore balaclavas so that only their eyes were showing.
“My nephew Sayed was beaten in front of his family very badly. The men then pointed a gun at him. My sister, Sayed’s mother, says she began screaming, ‘Don’t shoot my son’.
“The men then pointed a gun at her, telling her to shut up or they’d kill them both. From the accents my sister could tell that some were Saudi and some Bahraini.”
The men took Sayed’s laptop and mobile phone. They brought with them some papers and documents into the house and went into his room. They came out with papers and documents and took them away.”
“My dad has been arrested before and held for seven days. They stopped giving him his medication and told him it was because of my activities in Britain.“The Bahraini authorities monitor people in Britain. Maybe they saw me on demonstrations in Manchester in support of the democracy movement. Now my nephew is being punished.
“I call for justice and democracy and freedom for the people of Bahrain. But you ask for freedom on Bahrain and this is what you get.”
Med hensyn til USAs rolle og håbet eller mangel på samme om hjælp fra den amerikanske regering er Yasser som de fleste aktivister i eller fra Mellemøsten særdeles afvisende:
“The British and US governments are plain hypocrites. The US has marines patrolling the Saudi boarder with Bahrain. We don’t want any military in Bahrain, we want the US bases gone.
“For 100 years the US has used Bahrain to attack Japan, Vietnam, and to supposedly free Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We don’t get anything from this apart from more repression by our own government. The Bahraini government buys arms from the US to use against the people. The US marines train the army and special forces in Bahrain. Those people are the ones killing the protesters now.
“The people of Bahrain are strong and united, and can resolve their own issues. We do not want any foreign intervention. Our real friends in Britain and the US are the people who marched against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Link: Bahrainian government targets family members of pro-democracy campaigners in Britain
Syrien: Fortsat oprør og vold mod demonstranter
Demonstranterne kræver reformer, løsladelse af politiske fanger og ophævelse af den årelange nødretstilstand. Angry Arab rapporterer, at sammenholdet i den syriske regering er begyndt at slå revner: “The brutality of the regime is digging a bigger hole for itself“.
På al-bab.com skriver Brian Whitaker, at Syrien meget vel kan være på vej mod den kant, regimerne i Tunesien og Egypten (og til dels Libyen) faldt ud over:
The “fear barrier” is an important consideration for both protesters and Arab regimes. The regimes’ basic calculation is that at any given time only a relatively small number of people are likely to cause trouble – because the rest will be too afraid. So long as the fear barrier remains, they can be reasonably confident of dealing with the situation.What we saw in Tunisia and Egypt was that once the fear barrier was broken large-scale protests erupted in numerous places and the security forces were no longer able to cope. One sign of the fear barrier breaking is when people start openly destroying images of the president – and this is now happening in Syria.
Syria, at the moment, appears to be on the cusp. It’s probably fair to say that the fear barrier has been well and truly broken in Deraa, and it is cracking but not quite broken in other parts of the country.
Considering that it is little more than a week since the first serious stirrings against the regime occurred in Syria, events seem to be moving quite fast.
At styret er ved at miste det greb, som folks frygt har givet det over situationen, antydes blandt andet af scener som denne, hvor præsident Bashar Assads billede bliver angrebet:
Jeg håber det bedste for befolkningen i Syrien. De fortjener bedre end de sidste mange års diktatur og ufrihed, og de fortjener også at komme fredeligt ud på den anden side af det her.
Free Mohamed Radwan
3arabawy skriver:
My friend Mohamed Radwan has been detained in Syria, and is facing accusations fabricated by the Syrian security services that he is some Israeli spy. Please help spread the word. He is facing the risk of torture and ill treatment in Syrian custody.
Så typisk for de fremmede regimer at finde “fremmede” syndebukke for deres egen befolknings vrede. Lad os håbe, Mohamed Radwan og alle andre, der er fanget i de syriske myndigheders “operation syndebuk” hurtigt kan slippe fri igen.
Update: Der er nu en Facebook-side, hvor man kan følge sagen.
Update, 2: New York Times har en glimrende gennemgang af sagen.
Foto: Mohamed Radwan såret af skud fra haglgevær på Tahrir-pladsen 20. januar, af Hossam El-Hawalawy.
EU: OK at dræbe demonstranter
EUs toprådgiver for Mellemøsten udtaler nu, at det er OK at skyde demonstranter ned med skarpt, hvis det er det, der skal til for at genoprette ro og orden i Libyen Syrien Bahrain.
Det skriver The Guardian:
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, has denounced the beating of medical personnel and the takeover of hospitals by security forces.
But Robert Cooper, one of the EU’s highest-ranking diplomats and councillor to Ashton on the Middle East and the Balkans, told MEPs: “I’m not sure if the police have had to deal with these public order questions before. It’s not easy dealing with large demonstrations in which there may be violence. It’s a difficult task for policemen. It’s not something that we always get right in the best western countries and accidents happen.”
Briefing MEPs after a fact-finding mission to the Gulf, Cooper stressed that two of those killed were police. He said that Bahrain, home to the US fifth fleet, is “a rather pleasant, peaceful place”.
While still calling for dialogue between protesters and the government, he said: “One should understand the authorities were right to restore calm and order and that’s what they’ve done.”
Breaking news: Bombetogterne over Libyen afblæses. “One should understand that Gaddafi was right to restore calm and order and that’s what he’s done”, udtaler EUs udsending for området. Eller Assad. Eller Ahamadinejad. Hvorfor er det lige præcis, det ikke fungerer lige sådan med hensyn til krav om frihed og demokrati i lande, vi ikke er allieret med?
Undertrykkelsen i Danmark rammer også DIG
Du synes måske, du har det godt her i Danmark; at du lever i et frit samfund, hvor alle kan få lov at gøre som de vil, hvis bare de overholder loven og lader andre være i fred.
Måske har du hørt om, at Danmark er et land, hvor uskyldige mennesker kan sidde fængslede i månedsvis, helt uden at de er mistænkt for at have gjort noget som helst galt, og uden hensyn til, om de er gravide eller ofre for vold eller voldtægt.
Men du er jo ikke hverken asylsøger eller fremmed, og så gælder det ikke. Eller gør det?
På Adventures and Japes undersøger den britiske skolelærer TackiestOnes, hvor sikker du egentlig kan være på, at den slags ikke rammer netop dig.
Hun begynder med at citere en artikel, der forklarer, at i Danmark kan torturofre tvinges til at tage antidepressiva, også selv om de ikke virker og tværtimod gør ondt værre. Landets jobcentre har sågar tiltaget sig magten til at påtvinge sådanne mennesker antidepressiv, også selv om deres læge direkte fraråder det.
TackiestOnes forklarer:
The Danish school system spends more money per pupil than any other, you might have heard. But did you know that the education system is so good that anyone can prescribe medication? All employees of the borough council in Denmark have the right to say which drugs you should receive, what the dosage should be and for how long you should be on the drugs. What a wonderful country! If a worker in a Job Club is a bit unsure about which drugs would be best, they can ask a doctor but the doctor is not required to see the patient.
As everyone is so well qualified in medicine here, the patient is not allowed to refuse.
The Caseworker will see you now
Men okay, siger du – jeg er ikke torturoffer, bliver ikke bedt om at møde på jobcentret og er i det hele taget ved godt helbred, uafhængig og fri.
We don’t have to deal with the kommune!
Bortset fra, at det ikke kun er flygtninge og torturofre, der kan tvinges til at tage antidepressiva, som ikke virker og uanset, om lægen fraråder dem eller ej – det er alle, som risikerer på et eller andet tidspunkt af deres liv at få en depression samtidig med, at de er nødt til at søge økonomisk hjælp af en eller anden slags. Vi ved det godt – det kunne ikke ske for dig.
You are correct. The chances that you will fall on hard times and continue to stay in the country are indeed low. It will, as you have noticed, probably not affect you. Maybe your children. But not you. Probably. Depression is really rare, right? Especially in countries with nine-month-long winters, the likes of which you have never experienced… Especially not in countries where outsiders find it hard to build a support network….
Let’s just for a second consider what it all means, what the big context is.
The Danish State is huge, it is the biggest employer and it touches every aspect of your life. The minister for employment, the social workers, the case workers in the Job Club, the office workers in the borough council and so on, they all have enormous power.
If they decide, just POOF, one day decide that the best treatment for depression is antidepressants then it becomes so. Even if they only help a minority of people. Even if the side effects can be so bad that they drive people to suicide. Even if the drugs they force you to take, eat away a huge proportion of your benefits cheque. Even if your own doctor and an entire group of specialists say the drugs are not advisable in your particular case, you can still be forced to take them.
Men … det påvirker jo stadig kun nassere, siger du. Ikke folk, der overholder reglerne, passer deres arbejde, betaler deres skat. Og altså ikke bliver deprimerede. Ikke folk som dig. Og du har måske ret. Med mindre, du altså går hen og bliver skilt. Hvis du bliver skilt og ender med at være den, der tager sig af børnene, erhverver kommunen sig herved ret til at overvåge dig dag og nat uden hensyn til, hvad loven siger – det kunne jo være, at de herved kunne finde selv det spinkleste grundlag for at tage børnetilskudet fra dig.
Måske du vil finde, at det ikke altid er morsomt at leve i et socialistisk paradis.
You might also find, to your surprise, that your facebook is printed out, that the shoes outside your front door are noted, that the cars that visit your house are logged. You might find that as a result of this, you may be denied something you should be allowed or forced to do something. You might have your children taken off you.Fun fact, if your children are not in daycare and they are “behind” in their Danish language development, they can be forced into daycare. If you refuse, your family can be “investigated”. If you were planning on staying home past six months after your baby’s birth, think again. Even if you do not have a job to go to, you will be told to send your children to daycare around the six months mark so they can learn how to “socialise”.
Alt sammen i Danmark, verdens bedste land – det socialistiske paradis, hvor få har for meget og færre for lidt, og hvor vi alle finder sammen omkring vores “hygge”, som er et ord, der ikke findes på nogen andre sprog, bortset fra norsk, svensk, hollandsk, engelsk og sikkert mange andre sprog.
Ret skal være ret, det særegne, socialrealistiske mareridt, som vi i Danmark påtvinger samfundets svageste borgere, findes nok ikke helt magen til nogen steder. Og gud ske lov for det.
Link: Should I move to Denmark: Denmark is a Socialist Paradise.
Yemen: Massakre gav bagslag
Det er i hvert fald en rimelig tolkning. Flere højtstående officerer er nu gået over til demonstranterne og kræver at diktatoren Saleh går af:
in the streets of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, rival tanks were ranged against each other after three senior army commanders announced that they backed the protesters.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Gabool al Mutawakil, a youth activist, said: “We are now in the middle of two militaries – one that has joined the protesters and one that is under the authority of president Saleh. There is fear of civil war, but we are insisting on having a peaceful revolution.”
Earlier Major General Ali Mohsen Saleh, the head of the north western military zone and the head of the first armoured division, announced his support for the protesters.
Brigadier Hameed Al Koshebi, the head of brigade 310 in the Omran area, Brigadier Mohammed Ali Mohsen, who heads the eastern division, Brigadier Nasser Eljahori, the head of brigade 121, and General Ali Abdullaha Aliewa, an adviser to the Yemeni supreme leader of the army also deserted the president.
Saleh, den næste arabiske eks-diktator i rækken. Måske der bliver til en hel kalender? Januar Ben Ali, februar Mubarak, marts og april – ja, hvem ved. Måske året kan sluttes af med Saudi-Arabiens kong Abdullahs fald i november eller december, skarpt fulgt af Qatar og De Forenede Arabiske Emirater. Lige for øjeblikket ser det sort ud på mange måder, men billedet kan nå at vende adskillige gange i de kommende måneder.