The best evidence of the profound weakness of the “left” in the United States is that it is necessary to credit Bernie Sanders with making “socialism” a benign term in national political discourse. The price of socialism’s admission to polite conversation here in the belly of the hegemonic capitalist beast is that it must always be chaperoned by the word “democratic” so as to distinguish it from supposedly “authoritarian” ideologies of the same name. The “democratic” modifier works wonders, magically enlarging the historical “socialist” camp to include President Franklin Roosevelt, a wealthy guy that never thought of himself as a socialist but whose 1944 Economic Bill of Rights is the verbatim source of Bernie Sanders’ brand of socialism. At the same time, almost all the actual socialist movements and governments in human history are demonized.
Under this “democratic” form of socialism, the capitalist ruling class is never overthrown, but nevertheless acquiesces to reforms that grant working people basic economic and political rights. Seeing no necessity to overthrow the Lords of Capital at home, the Sandernista socialists have no principled objection to the military-political-economic structures of global capitalism -- a system most people in the world call imperialism. But American “democratic socialists” don’t like that word because it tends to upset the U.S. ruling class. Moreover, Bernie’s brand of “socialists” carry around much the same list of enemy nations as their right-wing and “centrist” corporate comrades: Libya, Syria, and now Venezuela – the “authoritarian” socialists.
Sanders’ socialism is devoid of solidarity -- except with those like-minded social democrats in white western Europe who long ago made peace with their own ruling classes and their predations in the colonized world, and who now accept the global domination of the U.S. war machine. V.I. Lenin put it succinctly in his 1917 volume, Imperialism, the Highest State of Capitalism. “The leaders of the present-day, so-called, ‘Social-Democratic’ Party of Germany are justly called ‘social-imperialists ,’ that is, socialists in words and imperialists in deeds.”
In current U.S. terms, “social imperialists” like Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are weak on peace -- only slightly less warlike than their corporate Democratic Party colleagues. In the face of President Trump’s blatant acts of war against Venezuela, including an ongoing attempted coup, savage economic sanctions, the outrageous theft of billions in economic assets, and threats of armed intervention, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez make weak noises against military action while accepting the rationale of the aggression. Neither has a word to say about international law, a subject that has been banished from polite discourse in the imperial headquarters country.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, February 28, 2019. Rallies for Julian Assange are mounting,
AFP discovers the brain drain in Iraq -- over 13 years after it started,
the Center for Constitutional Rights notes a development in the Abu
Ghraib scandal, and much more
Julian Assange. A truth teller. In England, he remains in an embassy. If he steps out, he could be arrested. If arrested, he could be handed over to the US government.
Some idiots -- there are so many on our side (the left) these days -- insist he has committed treason. That charge just goes to their own stupidity and to the failure of the American education system. Julian is a citizen of Australia. Find out how he committed treason against Australia, if you think you can. But his publishing the Iraq War Logs or, later, the DNC e-mails were not acts of treason and never qualified as such. Treason is a serious charge and before Hillary Clinton was so stupid that she lost the 2016 election, on the left -- even the faux left -- we didn't hear cries of "treason" the way we do today. It would do everyone a great service to calm the f**k down and also grasp that treason is a charge, that if convicted, can lead to execution.
It's a very serious charge and people would do well to treat it as such.
I get it, Hillary ran a lousy campaign. She morphed into Bully Boy Bush in fact. Maybe it was her age? In 2008, she was everywhere and she was everywhere over and over -- despite being a sitting US senator. In 2016, with no real job to speak of, she suddenly was Bully Boy Bush whining that she had to be at her home by nightfall, screw the schedule, screw visiting here or there, princess just wanted to sleep in her own bed. Fine and dandy, but don't run for president, dear. We've slammed Bully Boy Bush for that for years. We'll slam anyone for it. Running for president is hard work, if you're not up to it, if your delicate little butt needs to be home each night then don't run.
Had she run the same type of campaign in 2016 that she did in 2008, she probably would be in the White House. Not only did she do more campaign stops that year, she also met with working people and attempted to connect with them. Yes, chi-chi, frou-frou media and Barack Obama's hipsters (ugly men, one and all), slammed her for things like her April 2008 proposal to suspend (temporarily) the federal excise tax on gas. Working people liked the proposal.
The disdain The Cult of Barack had for working class was evident in their response. They mocked it. They laughed at it. It would be about $11 a week, they snickered. That's about one cup of coffee.
Did the little bitches ever seem more out of touch? For working class voters, ten dollars matters. It might mean they can have Ramen or something better than Ramen. It might mean they can give their child 2 dollars more a day towards lunch. It was never going to be suspended for good but even if was only suspended for six months, that would be over $240 that Hillary's proposal would put in the hands of working class people and families. And to Barack's frou-frou set, those tough boys so eager to bleach their assholes right after their pedicures, $240 was a joke.
Hillary did not lose because of Julian Assange. She was a deeply unpopular politicians. That was true in 2008 as well. But in 2008, Hillary wasn't asking you to celebrate her or that you insist "I'm with her." In 2008, she ran as a fighter who would fight for you.
That Hillary would have won in 2016, regardless of her other problems and issues.
Julian Assange is not responsible for Hillary's defeat. Hillary is responsible and she's done how many speaking tours and that poorly ghost-written book and still can't take accountability -- demonstrating what a lousy leader she is. I remember another who couldn't own their mistakes: Bully Boy Bush.
Julian is a publisher. He needs to be free. An attack on him is an attack on the press.
WSWS gets this which is why they're covering this story. See below:
Julian Assange. A truth teller. In England, he remains in an embassy. If he steps out, he could be arrested. If arrested, he could be handed over to the US government.
Some idiots -- there are so many on our side (the left) these days -- insist he has committed treason. That charge just goes to their own stupidity and to the failure of the American education system. Julian is a citizen of Australia. Find out how he committed treason against Australia, if you think you can. But his publishing the Iraq War Logs or, later, the DNC e-mails were not acts of treason and never qualified as such. Treason is a serious charge and before Hillary Clinton was so stupid that she lost the 2016 election, on the left -- even the faux left -- we didn't hear cries of "treason" the way we do today. It would do everyone a great service to calm the f**k down and also grasp that treason is a charge, that if convicted, can lead to execution.
It's a very serious charge and people would do well to treat it as such.
I get it, Hillary ran a lousy campaign. She morphed into Bully Boy Bush in fact. Maybe it was her age? In 2008, she was everywhere and she was everywhere over and over -- despite being a sitting US senator. In 2016, with no real job to speak of, she suddenly was Bully Boy Bush whining that she had to be at her home by nightfall, screw the schedule, screw visiting here or there, princess just wanted to sleep in her own bed. Fine and dandy, but don't run for president, dear. We've slammed Bully Boy Bush for that for years. We'll slam anyone for it. Running for president is hard work, if you're not up to it, if your delicate little butt needs to be home each night then don't run.
Had she run the same type of campaign in 2016 that she did in 2008, she probably would be in the White House. Not only did she do more campaign stops that year, she also met with working people and attempted to connect with them. Yes, chi-chi, frou-frou media and Barack Obama's hipsters (ugly men, one and all), slammed her for things like her April 2008 proposal to suspend (temporarily) the federal excise tax on gas. Working people liked the proposal.
The disdain The Cult of Barack had for working class was evident in their response. They mocked it. They laughed at it. It would be about $11 a week, they snickered. That's about one cup of coffee.
Did the little bitches ever seem more out of touch? For working class voters, ten dollars matters. It might mean they can have Ramen or something better than Ramen. It might mean they can give their child 2 dollars more a day towards lunch. It was never going to be suspended for good but even if was only suspended for six months, that would be over $240 that Hillary's proposal would put in the hands of working class people and families. And to Barack's frou-frou set, those tough boys so eager to bleach their assholes right after their pedicures, $240 was a joke.
Hillary did not lose because of Julian Assange. She was a deeply unpopular politicians. That was true in 2008 as well. But in 2008, Hillary wasn't asking you to celebrate her or that you insist "I'm with her." In 2008, she ran as a fighter who would fight for you.
That Hillary would have won in 2016, regardless of her other problems and issues.
Julian Assange is not responsible for Hillary's defeat. Hillary is responsible and she's done how many speaking tours and that poorly ghost-written book and still can't take accountability -- demonstrating what a lousy leader she is. I remember another who couldn't own their mistakes: Bully Boy Bush.
Julian is a publisher. He needs to be free. An attack on him is an attack on the press.
WSWS gets this which is why they're covering this story. See below:
Free Julian Assange!
Australian filmmaker Curtis Levy demands freedom for Julian Assange
28 February 2019
Veteran documentarian Curtis Levy speaks out in defence of the WikiLeaks publisher and freedom of the press.
Australian workers and youth support March 3 and March 10 rallies demanding freedom for Assange
By
our reporters,
28 February 2019
“I’m going on March 3 and I think everyone should come because we need to take action to free Assange and end war.”
Australian media union complicit in the persecution of Julian Assange
By
Oscar Grenfell,
27 February 2019
SEP national secretary James Cogan calls for maximum participation in rallies to free Julian Assange
25 February 2019
Cogan explains the connection between the fight
for Assange’s freedom and the fight against the escalating government
attacks in every country against freedom of the press and other basic
democratic rights.
Attend March 10 Solidarity Vigil in London for Julian Assange
By
Robert Stevens,
25 February 2019
The SEP (UK) calls on all defenders of civil
liberties and democratic rights, all opponents of imperialist wars for
regime change, to attend the March 10 vigil and make it known in your
workplaces, campuses and schools.
The working class and the fight to free Julian Assange
By
James Cogan,
23 February 2019
Acclaimed
musician Roger Waters calls on people to demonstrate in Australia to
defend Julian Assange
Sydney Martin Place Amphitheatre, March 3! Melbourne State Library, March 10!
By
the Socialist Equality Party (Australia),
25 January 2019
Today: WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange detained in the UK for 3000 days--in violation of multiple UN rulings requiring his release. He is nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
defend.wikileaks.org
Jennifer Robinson: the free-speech champion who stuck by Julian Assange
thetimes.co.uk/article/jennif…
Julian has many supporters. He has lost two major supporters providing legal assistance. One is Michael Ratner who passed away. Michael was very vocal on the need to stop persecuting Julian Assange. I believe it's fair to say that Michael would see it as a contribution to his own life's work if those who could would call for an end to the persecution.
Support Julian #Assange's right to safe passage to Ecuador, without facing extradition & jail in the US. He exposed war crimes. To mark him serving the equivalent of 6 years imprisonment in the #Ecuador Embassy in London, rally outside 6pm 19 July. INFO
facebook.com/events/4160224…
Journalist and filmmaker John Pilger @johnpilger to speak at March 3 Sydney rally to defend Julian Assange - World Socialist Web Site: wsws.org/en/articles/20…
There are a series of rallies that will take place around the world. You can show your support for Julian in many ways.
If someone knows a list of these, please e-mail common_ills@yahoo.com and we will post it.
Meanwhile, AFP reports:
In Iraq, medicine is a matter of life or death — not just for patients, but for doctors facing threats by vengeful relatives and emigrating en masse.
Shaymaa Al-Kamali, a family physician in Baghdad, said her problems began when she barred a patient’s father from staying in the hospital after visiting hours.
Furious and carrying arms, their relatives stormed her clinic in protest, and she had to flee through a service entrance.
“I took off my doctor’s coat and ran out with a colleague. We got into a taxi as if I was his wife and not a doctor like him,” Kamali told AFP.
“I didn’t go back to work for ten days.”
Doctors, nurses, and other health workers across Iraq say they regularly risk being physically harassed, verbally threatened, and even kidnapped while on the job.
They blame this on the longstanding tradition of personal gun ownership in Iraq, a country ravaged by decades of violence.
What a load of crap.
How stupid do you have to be to type that garbage?
At least stupid enough to mention 2009 as your starting point.
It's the brain drain. Is AFP lying to pimp gun control? I have no idea but if AFP is worried about guns in Iraq they should make sure that those traveling with their journalists do not carry any.
Personal guns are not the issue. The militias have always been the issue here and, thanks to former prime minister Hayder al-Abadi, the militias are now part of the government.
Jonathan Steele (GUARDIAN) from March 23, 2006 (three years before AFP's 'history'):
Still ashen-faced six days after escaping death, Dr Ali Faraj pulls his hair aside to display a scar above his left ear. One of Iraq's top cardiologists, he was seeing a patient when a group of kidnappers wearing ski-masks stormed into his Baghdad clinic, knocked his receptionist to the floor and when he emerged to investigate the noise, ordered him to come with them.
To his surprise, they said they were taking him to the Interior Ministry. "I know the minister so I said I would check if it was really necessary. I put out my hand to pick up the phone, but they knocked my arm aside and struck me on the head with a pistol butt. They dragged me to the front gate where a car was waiting," he says, safe now in Jordan.
"It was about 7pm, already dark. Suddenly we heard shots. I couldn't tell where they were coming from. One of the kidnappers fell to the ground. He had been hit. Three of them started to lift him up. The fifth man ordered me into the car but I ran back to the clinic in the darkness."
Faraj was not totally unprepared for what has become a normal risk of Baghdad life. "I had a Kalashnikov in the clinic. My driver took it and started shooting. I also had a pistol in my drawer. The kidnappers drove off."
Bleeding from his head wound, he was taken home by colleagues. Only the next day did Faraj discover that the firing that saved him came from the garden of a tribal sheikh who lives opposite: "The man's bodyguards saw the gunmen going into my clinic, and were ordered by the sheikh to take cover and shoot if they were obviously abducting somebody when they came out."
[. . .]
The growing insecurity has set off a massive brain drain, as more and more Iraqis slip away from the country, perhaps never to return. While the fall of Saddam Hussein opened the door for an earlier generation of Iraqi exiles to go home, now the flow is going the other way again. Kidnap survivors are the lucky ones. Hundreds of Iraqi professionals are being murdered in what some Iraqis see as a deliberate campaign to destroy the country's best and brightest. The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research says that 89 university professors and senior lecturers have been killed since 2003, and police investigations have led to nothing.
The militias just assassinated a novelist this month, Alaa Mashzoub.
Search results
HORRIBLE. #Iraq-i novelist and critic Alaa Mashzoub assassinated in Karbalaa today with 13 bullets.
He criticized radicalism, ISIS, Iran rulers & its militias. Penned work about Iraqi Jewish minority, history of Karbalaa & many novels. Will we see justice? RIP v @BaxtiyarGoran
I drew the Iraqi writer Alaa Mashzoub, creator of novels about the pluralistic history of his city. This month, Alaa was murdered in front of his home in Karbala by unknown assassins. May his memory be a blessing. Solidarity to writers in Iraq
#alaamashzoub
The US treats Iraq as a geopolitical space to counter Iran/ISIS/withdraw/whatever. The Iraq the US left behind is also a place where amazing people such as Alaa Mashzoub get murdered for expressing opinions, but that is never the issue.
The opening of the 46th annual Baghdad International Book Fair has been darkened by the shadow of the murder of one of Iraq's most outspoken novelists, Alaa Mashzoub, earlier this month
It is critical that those who are willing to raise their voices and express dissident viewpoints have the freedom to do so. Holding Alaa Mashzoub's killers accountable is of paramount importance in preserving a vibrant cultural and civic life in Iraq.
When his cousin, Aws al-Khafaji, called out the mmilitias, he was taken away by the militias -- even though he was a militia leader himself.
This is a pretty stunning accusation by the Hashd al-Shaabi - Officially declaring the Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigade and its commander Aws al-Khafaji as 'fake hashd'
Show this thread
The leader of "Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas" militia -Aws al-Khafaji - ; exposes the facts about the leaders of the # militias in Iraq #, before his arrest.
.
facebook.com/iraqispringmc/… facebook.com/IraqiSMCEn/pos…
How awful that AFP is writing about attacks and ignoring the one from earlier this month.
The brain drain has been going on for years. Iraqi professionals and intellectuals have been fleeing the country for their own safety for years now. This is not an 'individual' issue -- don't sale guns! -- this is the government condoning and/or ignoring it. The Ministry of Interior had a well known history -- there have been US Congressional hearings about this -- of taking part in these attacks.
It takes a lot of stupid for AFP to publish that stupid and uninformed article.
In November of 2006, Kai Ryssdal was reporting on the brain drain for MARKETPLACE (link is text and audio):
KAI RYSSDAL: The news out of Baghdad has been changing all day. First reports this morning had about 150 people being kidnapped from a government education office there. Later updates have brought that number down to several dozen, perhaps as many as 50. The interior minister initially threatened to shut down all of Iraq's universities. He pulled back from that as the day wore on. But today's incident is a sharp reminder of the threats to Iraqi academics and professionals.
Scott Peterson's in Baghdad for the Christian Science Monitor. Scott, good to talk to you.
SCOTT PETERSON: Good to talk to you.
RYSSDAL: Have academics and professionals been increasingly the targets of these sorts of attacks in Baghdad?
PETERSON: Well, this is certainly the most spectacular mass kidnapping that we've had but it also is capping a process — a trend, if you will — that's been going on for the last two or three years here. Professionals who've been leaving. Professionals who've received threats, both Sunnis and Shias, but primarily Sunnis who are the ones who formed most of that class during the Saddam era. So, they have been under fire and a lot of people . . . there's been an extraordinary brain drain that's taken place in Iraq.
RYSSDAL: What was making the ones who did stay, stay and possibly get kidnapped today?
PETERSON: Well, I mean, they recognize that without their input, without their intelligence, without their experience, no one is going to be able to build this country up.
RYSSDAL: The ones who do leave, Scott, where are they going and what kinds of work are they able to find?
PETERSON: Most of them are going to Jordan and to Syria. The U.N. put out figures just a week ago, saying that 2,000 people are crossing every day into Syria. And that there were 1,000 a day crossing into Jordan. This is, of course, all Iraqis — 3,000 a day. About an exodus of 100,000 a month.
Meanwhile, the Center for Constitutional Rights notes a development in the Abu Ghraib scandal:
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
Judge Rejects Latest Efforts by Private Contractor to Have Case Dismissed
February 27, 2019, Alexandria, VA – Today, a federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by survivors of torture at the infamous “hard site” at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq against private military contractor CACI Premier Technology, Inc., over the for-profit company’s role in the torture. CACI provided interrogation services at the prison. The Center for Constitutional Rights filed the case in 2008, and CACI has sought to dismiss it 16 times, resulting in multiple trips to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Leonie Brinkema’s rejection of CACI’s latest motions means that, nearly 15 years to the date when the world first saw the shocking photos of naked, hooded Iraqis stacked in human pyramids and subjected to horrific abuse, three of the original Abu Ghraib survivors in the case, Suhail Al Shimari, Asa’ad Al Zuba’e, and Salah Al-Ejaili, will finally be able to have their day in court. They will be permitted to testify either live or by video link, representing a rare opportunity for the American public to hear directly from victims of this historic human rights atrocity.
Trial is scheduled to begin on April 23, 2019 in the federal courthouse in Alexandria Virginia.
“After
the smoke from more than a decade of litigation fights has settled, we
now see an important moment in the quest for justice and accountability
for victims of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib. Our clients have waited
patiently for the lawyers to do their work – now, they finally have a
chance to tell their story directly to an American jury,” said Center
for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy.
U.S.
military investigators long ago concluded that CACI interrogators
conspired with U.S. soldiers, who were later court martialed, to “soften
up” detainees for interrogations. A U.S. Army general referred to the
treatment as “sadistic, blatant, and wanton.”
A number of low-level military officers were court-martialed over their
roles in the abuse, but CACI has gone unpunished and continues to reap
millions of dollars in government contracts.
In a 2018 ruling, the court held
that the treatment alleged by the men at Abu Ghraib constituted
torture, war crimes, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,
actionable under the Alien Tort Statute. The men were subjected to
stress positions, isolation, sensory deprivation, beating, forced
nudity, exposure to extreme temperatures, and sexual assault – treatment
that caused them to suffer then – and continue to suffer now – severe
physical and mental harm.
“More than ten years
passed for us to reach this point and achieve justice,” said plaintiff
Salah Al-Ejaili. “We faced a lot of obstacles along the way that we had
to surpass and we stayed patient because we wanted to win our right to
equality in the law.”
For more information, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case page.
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LP, and Shereef Akeel & Valentine, P.C. in Troy, Michigan, are co-counsel on the case.
The
Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to
fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and
strategic communications. Since 1966, The Center for Constitutional
Rights has taken on oppressive systems
of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic
inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.
The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley, BLACK AGENDA REPORT and ANTIWAR.COM -- updated:
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THE GIFTED9 hours ago
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State of the world of fear9 hours ago
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Ellen Page just gets more stupid10 hours ago
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Dr. Phil talks Jussie Smollett10 hours ago
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Mr. Cohen and other crooks10 hours ago
