Kinda sorta. Actually, Uncle Joe is using the Higgins by-election (December 5) to draw attention to other matters. His policies are set out in his campaign literature. They include:
1. establishment of a “people’s bank”;
2. improved workers’ compensation;
3. a treaty between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians;
4. Mabo Day (June 3) to be declared a public holiday;
5. adoption of the Eureka flag as the national flag of Australia;
6. reform of the housing sector (in the interests of low-income earners);
7. an end to public subsidies of private skools and health care providers;
8. decriminalisation of drug use;
9. reform of immigration policy (with preference being given to family reunions as opposed to skilled migration);
10. increased taxes on polluters (as opposed to financial compensation — with such compensation as exists being aimed at workers, not employers);
11. constitutional reform (allowing for citizens’ initiated referenda);
12. use of superannuation funds to subsidise the establishment of workers’ co-operatives in non-polluting, socially-useful industry and;
13. legal recognition of same-sex marriage.
But serious… I just stumbledupon Capitalism: a love story (Anti-German Translation, November 27, 2009). It has a crack at filmmaker Michael Moore and wealthy gadabout Noam Chomsky. According to A-GT, Uncle Noam is ‘an anti-capitalist warrior with stocks in the military-industrial complex’.
Or something.
As evidence, AG-T cites a four-year-old essay by some bloke called Peter Schweizer. The essay — or a version thereof — is contained in Schweizer’s book Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy (Doubleday, 2005).
Schweizer’s conclusion is simple: liberalism in the end forces its adherents to become hypocrites. They adopt one pose in public, but when it comes to what matters most in their own lives–their property, their privacy, and their children–they jettison their liberal principles and adopt conservative ones. If these ideas don’t work for the very individuals who promote them, Schweizer asks, how can they work for the country?
Schweizer’s scribblings on Chomsky the liberal hypocrite were re-published in the Canadian newspaper The National Post (published by convicted fraudster ConradBlack — currently incarcerated at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida) as ‘Noam Chomsky’ (March 21, 2006: “Chomsky talks an anti-capitalist game, but what does he practice? Market economics at their most profitable”) and in the house zine of the Hoover Institution, the Hoover Digest, under the title ‘Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist’ (No.1, 2006).
The article is entertaining, but crap. Thus Schweizer fails to provide any source documentation for his claims (but, presumably, these are provided in the book version); his line of argument is tendentious in the extreme.
Oh look, that old piece of trash – and that’s the best you can do? Here is the unedited version of my letter that was published in the National Post in response to that hit piece they published, along with selected comments that I received from Chomsky (in bold) as feedback before revisions. The published letter was heavily edited of most content critical of The Post:
“I would like to thank the National Post for providing such a fine example of Noam Chomsky’s thesis which places the operation of mainstream media under corporate ideological control.
Perform a search on the Post‘s website for “Chomsky” and one will find a considerable lack of content pertaining to the man who was recently recognized as the world’s leading public intellectual.
This being the case, many questions may be raised by the fact that the Post suddenly felt the urge to fill space with an excerpt from a book that was published in October 2005. While the author of the book, Dr Peter Schweizer’s PhD may have provided him with the credentials to work for the Hoover Institute, a right wing think tank, he could apparently use some help when it comes to performing an internet search.
Apparently, we should be shocked that the company that records Chomsky’s speeches actually attempts to receive remuneration for its product [A reference to the fact that in 2000 Alternative Tentacles, in collaboration with AK Press, re-issued Free Market Fantasies: Capitalism In the Real World]. Had Dr. Schweizer gone to the first site listed when typing “Chomsky” into Google, he would have found an up to date collection of Dr. Chomsky’s speeches, all offered free of charge. Had he gone to the second site, he would have found a vast collection consisting of virtually every single recording ever produced by Dr. Chomsky.
While gleefully announcing that Chomsky’s website has (gasp) a copyright warning, Schweizer smugly points out that the site “does give you the opportunity to ‘sublicense’ the material[“]. However, Schweizer apparently found it unnecessary to include the full quote, which is: “(a)ny requests to reprint, translate, repost, or sublicense any of this material should be directed to” the site[‘]s webmaster. A statement which makes it sound much less likely that Chomsky would request compensation from a smaller entity.
Don’t know what this is, but if it is the site chomsky.info, first of all, I have nothing to do with it (or any other site), as [Schweizer] could have found out with 5 minutes inquiry. It’s put up (with my permission) by others. I’ve never seen it. I do refer people to them when they want to find something, and I’ve never heard of anyone being charged anything at all for reprinting, unless it is from the original publisher, who may have reprinting arrangements (which have nothing to do with me). That aside, almost all of my talks are recorded and videotaped, and usually distributed widely (with my permission, and never any remuneration). As for Schweizer’s [fairy] tale about honoraria, that’s just what it is: an invention. And he knows it. I know that from personal correspondence where he made the claims and had to concede that he had not a particle of evidence. The briefest research would have enabled him to discover that when I give talks somewhere, I never ask for an honorarium, [Schweizer writes: “Chomsky’s business works something like this. He gives speeches on college campuses around the country at US$12,000 a pop, often dozens of times a year.”] and if there is one (which is rare), I ask them to donate it to some appropriate organization, and if they can’t do that (say a university, which is not permitted to do so), then I donate it myself. These are only a few of the gross fabrications.
I am unable to attest to the accuracy of any of Dr. Schweizer’s allegations with regard to Dr. Chomsky’s retirement provisions, nor the steps Chomsky has taken to prepare for his family’s security following his death. I would imagine that the National Post would be equally hard pressed to provide assurances as to the accuracy of Schweizer’s statements, considering that it lacked any critical analysis of the above noted misstatements.
I think the word “allegations” is out of place. It’s no secret that my retirement provisions go through TIAA-CREF, like virtually all faculty, or that I have trust funds for my children. And it’s not an allegation, because there isn’t the slightest reason why I or anyone else shouldn’t do it. Schweizer’s charges are on a par with some Soviet commissar denouncing a dissident because he goes to a doctor or a university while condemning the crimes of the Kremlin, or the “accusation” that we drive cars or take buses or planes while objecting to a transportation-energy system that may lead to catastrophe. Would we help prevent the catastrophe if we stayed home without heat or electricity instead of working to overcome these threats? Do peasants in Colombia driven from their homes care whether I put my money in a bank instead of under a mattress, or whether I work with others to try to prevent the crimes committed against them? Etc., etc.
In general, if I were to charge someone with living by the principle “Do as I say, not as I do,” I’d have three choices: (1) provide examples of where the person issued that injunction, say one statement; (2) withdraw the charge and apologize; (3) take the coward’s way out and slink away in silence or pretend I don’t understand. Schweitzer takes (3) — quite consciously, as personal correspondence revealed. Did his NP article or his book provide even a single example of (1)? It didn’t, he knows it, and so do the editors of the NP, if they are not complete imbeciles.
Those who are familiar with Noam Chomsky’s work know full well that he does not necessarily advocate a society without commerce or the accumulation of personal wealth. Instead, he advocates for a system of government in which each individual is involved in decisions affecting their future, as opposed to the current system where corporate interests, such as those of the Post‘s owner, overshadow those of the average citizen. In other words, Chomsky does not speak out against the ability of a professor to prepare for retirement. Instead he is more concerned with the current structure of governance that has, for example, made it possible for the tax-shelter haven of Barbados to be the third largest recipient of Canadian foreign direct investment behind the United States and Great Britain.”
Lopez: Tell me the great hypocrisy of that greatest of all public intellectuals according to one recent depressing survey: Noam Chomsky.
Schweizer: Noam Chomsky thinks he’s the Moses of this age and even those on the Left who don’t agree with him on everything accept his moral authority. But Chomsky is a socialist who practices capitalism, and an anti-militarist who has made millions off of Pentagon contracts. Wonder what his followers would think of that? Then there is his constant lecturing about “tax gimmicks” and “tax shelters” that “the rich” use to avoid paying their “fair share.” He must have forgotten about that when he set up his tax shelter.
Lopez: And he wasn’t a lot of fun when you got in touch with him, was he?
Schweizer: I give credit to Chomsky for responding to my questions. His excuses were something to behold. No wonder he teaches linguistics. It’s amazing how he twists his words. By the way, he said it was okay to criticize other rich people for setting up trusts and setting one up himself. After all, he explained, he’s been fighting for poor people his whole life.
An ‘honest’ critique of Chomsky would probably take issue with what he actually says — or the anonymous commentator’s characterisation of Chomsky’s advocacy “for a system of government in which each individual is involved in decisions affecting their future, as opposed to the current system where corporate interests, such as those of the Post‘s owner, overshadow those of the average citizen”. Some relevant discussion on this question occurred in the pages of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, ‘Reform And Revolution: Noam Chomsky on Anarcho-Syndicalism’ (#25, Summer 1999), ‘Reform And Revolution: Noam Chomsky on Anarcho-Syndicalism Part II, with commentaries by James Herod and Graham Purchase’ (#26, Fall 1999), ‘Chomsky Symposium: Jeff Stein, Mike Long, and Jon Bekken on the ASR Chomsky Interview’ (#27, Winter 1999). In which context, ‘Knowledge, morality and hope: The social thought of Noam Chomsky’, Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers (New Left Review, 187, May/June 1991, pp. 5-27) is useful, as is chomsky.info’s section on ‘Writings on Chomsky’.
In Germany, swastika-lickers face a new legal hurdle, as the ‘Constitutional Court has determined that when it comes to glorifying Hitler’s regime, the right to assembly does not apply. According to the court, “Given the injustice and terror the Nazi dictatorship caused, this exception is inherent to the rules limiting propaganda approving the historic Nazi dictatorship”‘ (Germany censors its neo-Nazis, Rachel Mendleson, Macleans, December 3, 2009). Presumably, the ruling may be challenged; further, who determines what public assemblies ‘glorify’ the Nazi dictatorship, and how, is another question. Legal restrictions on neo-Nazi activity, while hampering it in some of its manifestations, has obviously not stopped it, and the movement has adapted its practices in response. The ruling should also be considered alongside of an earlier (August) one that ruled that “if Nazi slogans are presented in a language other than German, they are not illegal. The ruling overturned a decision by a lower court that convicted and fined a German neo-Nazi the equivalent of $6,000 for distributing clothing and merchandise bearing the slogan “Blood & Honour” in English” (Germans OK Nazi Signs, in Other Languages, Intelligence Report, Winter 2009).
Heil Victory!
In the US, poor old/rich young Bill White — former Führer of the short-lived Hollywood Nazi groupuscule the ‘American National Socialist Workers Party’ — and Internet hero (and FBI informant) Hal Turner are having their own legal difficulties.
Federal court allows white supremacist’s trial to proceed
AP
December 3, 2009
ROANOKE, Va. — An avowed white supremacist accused of threatening people is scheduled to go on trial next week after a federal judge refused to dismiss the charges.
William A. White is head of a Roanoke-based neo-Nazi group. He is charged with threatening a newspaper columnist, a mayor and several others over the Internet and by telephone.
His attorneys argued that White’s e-mails and online postings were protected by the First Amendment, but U.S. District Judge James Turk denied a motion to dismiss the charges.
White’s trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 9.
As for Hal, his trial for advocating on his blog the death of a Federal judge (or two) has been adjourned. Gawker writes: Hal Turner: America’s Most Pitiful Man | Witness Testimony Details Hal Turner’s FBI Role, dokumentationsarchiv, December 3, 2009: “Motivated partly by money, Turner provided intelligence on leaders of prominent white supremacist groups, including the National Alliance and Aryan Nations, according to Special Agent Amy Pickett, who supervised the FBI agent handling Turner during Turner’s first two years as an informant.”
In the UK, anti-Semitic bizarros Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle — the ‘Heretical Two’ — “have started appeals against the UK’s first convictions for inciting racial hatred via a foreign website” (Web racists challenge convictions, BBC, November 20, 2009). The case is important for a number of reasons, not least because of the ramifications it has for online publishing.
In Australia, a precedent was set several years ago by Joseph Gutnick, the Melbourne-based multi-millionaire and — worse yet — Melbourne supporter when he sued US-based publisher Dow Jones for defamation in 2002, and won. Anna Beyer (Defamation on the Internet: Joseph Gutnick v Dow Jones, eLaw Journal: Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law, Volume 11, Number 3 (September 2004)) writes:
It remains to be seen what long-lasting repercussions, if any, Gutnick will have on online publishing. So far, Gutnick has been cited – internationally – as a precedent on at least two occasions. On 27 January 2004, a Canadian Superior Court judge, Pitt J, referred to Gutnick while giving reasons for ruling “in favour of the plaintiff’s choice of forum” in the Bangoura v The Washington Post case.
Ten days later, in the King v Lewis and Ors case, invoking (among others) Gutnick, a British High Court judge, Eady J, observed that “the common law currently regards the publication of an Internet posting as taking place when it is down-loaded”. He also took the view that an English court was the most convenient forum to deal with any English publications – however limited and technical – that relate to an English corporation.
This does not, of course, spell the death of the Internet as we know it, but suggests that Gutnick’s battle against Dow may influence the way online publishing is perceived and understood by the judiciary. Hopefully, the debate surrounding the case will contribute to a greater understanding of defamation laws in different countries among online publishers.
On the first anniversary of the police murder of Alexis/Andreas (Alexandros) Grigoropoulos on December 6, things are hotting up in Greece. Oh and the trial of Epaminondas Korkoneas (a former[?] member of the fascist Golden Dawn) and Vassilis Saraliotis — the policemen accused of shooting Andreas — has been delayed until January, 2010.
Note that little fascist shits in Greece have been doing their pea-brained best — by way of attacking migrant workers, social centres, independent media and so on — to help quash movements of resistance in the birthplace of democracy but “Our response cannot be other than the one given by society itself during last year’s revolt: The state and its dogs won’t scare us.”
In any event, let’s hope that the comrades remember US philosopher Jerry Springer’s words: “Until the fire next time, take care of yourself, and each other.”
Gogol Bordello is a multi-efnik Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of New York City that formed in 1999… or possibly 1998.
60 revolutions per minute
This is my regular speed
So how do you want me to live with it?
How do you want me to live with it?
Without ringing all alarms!
Without overthrowing czars!
Without emptying the bars!
Without screwing with your charts!
60 revelations per minute
This is my regular need
So how do you want me to live with it?
How do you want me to live with it?
Without ringing all alarms!
Without overthrowing czars!
Without emptying the bars!
Without screwing with your charts!
I’m gathering new generation
That’s gonna stand up to it
To this karaoke, karaoke dictatorship
Where posers and models with guitars
Boogie to the shit for beats
I make a better rock revolution
Alone with my dick!
Without ringing all alarms!
Without overthrowing czars!
Without emptying the bars!
Without screwing with your charts!
Si lo mueve como lo bate que rico el chocolate
No esperarás que por alguien me mate
Without ringing all alarms!
Without overthrowing czars!
Without emptying the bars!
Without screwing with your charts!
60 por minuto es mi reputación
Y no te estoy hablando de revolución
Hace mucho tiempo que no te decían
Basta de injustica, muerte y policía
Digas lo que digas ya esta todo arreglado
Hagas lo que hagas te mandan deportado
El que tiene impone y sobre la ley dispone
Mientras que el pobre es pobre
Muere de hambre y otro se la come
Sonidelo nacional esta rumba Cuba…
Oh yeah, speaking of Gogol…
On Gogol Boulevard (OGB) was the irregular bulletin of New York City Neither East Nor West, networking East and West alternative oppositions and printing news and documents unavailable in the corporate and “left” media, using mostly material from Communist/ex-Communist countries. We singularly filled a void and we used this needed Eastern specialty as a doorway to incorporating concerns of “Third World” and “Fourth World” (land-based indigenous peoples) struggles, with a particular focus on supporting activists with anti-authoritarian and anti-Stalinist perspectives.
The OGB News Service had regular sections in The Shadow, Profane Existence, Fifth Estate, Black Fist and other papers and are now also published on the internet…
[The] title refers to Moscow’s Gogol Boulevard, a favorite hangout for counter-culture youth dissidents, anti-war, and human rights activists. On May 3, 1987 this milieu braved poking a hole in the Soviet dictatorship by organizing a small art exhibit/demonstration on Gogol Boulevard. It was met with a violent riot by plainclothes agents, police, and special internal forces soldiers. On May 4, blood was spilled again with Gogol Boulevard being raided and swept with mass arrests. On May 10 Gogol Boulevard witnessed one of the Glasnost era’s first ever youth demonstrations that openly called for human rights. Though also repressed, it was a formative event, and we take our name from that week. See you on Gogol Boulevard…
Next : http://flag.blackened.net/agony/nenw.html. Unfortunately, flag is down atm, so… I’ll dig through the archives for some of the original materials published by OGB (and its predecessors) and maybe then throw up on my blog.
Disturbing assessments of Bainimarama are tempered by Peni Moore, a self-declared anarchist who runs the Women’s Action for Change lobby and sat on the committee that drafted his charter for Fiji’s future.
“I’m quite extreme in my views, but they were taken on board in the charter process – in which the military was not involved,” she told the Herald.
The FAB has denounced Jock Palfreeman, supports the Bulgarian government’s case against him (in which the Roma he intervened in order to defend have disappeared, and his motivation was provided by way of some form of mental pathology), and joined the far right in calling for the imposition of the maximum penalty. Still, despite the best efforts of the FAB, soli demos were held in Canberra, Australia and Athens, Greece on Monday, November 30 (and possibly in London, England, as well).
Seven German far-right radicals have been convicted of inciting racial hatred and violence with a neo-Nazi radio station on the internet, a court said on Tuesday.
The court in Berlin found the group responsible for broadcasting European Brotherhood Radio on the web between June 2006 and March 2009 playing neo-Nazi music, conducting interviews with right-wing extremist leaders, espousing racist violence and denying the Holocaust.
The defendants, among whom was a 31-year-old woman, received sentences ranging from a jail term of two years and nine months to a 16-month suspended sentence.
The two leaders of the group already had criminal records for activities in the neo-Nazi scene.
Not unusually, the female neo-Nazi — “Sandra F” — was also a government informant:
Sandra F. had been an informant for the Office of Constitutional Protection in Lower Saxony, or Verfassungsschutz, from late 2007 until she and the other accused were arrested in March.
She was recruited to spy on the nationalist German People’s Union (DVU) and received a modest compensation for the information she provided.
It appears that her involvement with the radio station was not known to the Verfassungsschutz until the state police began investigating her and her co-defendants, the paper reported.
The case therefore has uncomfortable echoes of previous instances of out-of-control, far-right informants for the Verfassungsschutz.
In 2003, when the federal government tried to ban the far-right National Democratic Party, the case collapsed amid farce when the country’s highest court discovered that many sections of the party’s platform may have been written by paid informants of the security services.
Happily, in Australia, running a neo-Nazi radio show is perfectly legal, and you can listen to local members of Blood & Honour (an organisation which, sadly, is banned in Germany) courtesy of internode.net any time of the day or night. Oh, and if you’re in the mood for getting a swastika tattooed on your forehead — or an image of Uncle Adolf on your chest — give the Blood & Honour organiser for Victoria, Justin O’Brien, a call on (03) 9888 8668. Alternatively, why not drop by Justin’s studio for a chat? Hold Fast Body Art enjoy doing walk-ins and they always have time to sit down and talk to you about ideas and designs, The Jewish Question, and why we have to rid Australia of Asians, blacks, and homosexuals.
UPDATE OCTOBER 2019 : Almost 10 years later, Jock remains in prison, despite having won parole in September 2019.
minus two
Even moar meeja: Bulgarian court sentences Australian to 20 years, Malcolm Brown and Ari Sharp (and AAP), The Age, December 4, 2009 / Family vows appeal against Bulgarian ruling, Malcolm Brown and Ari Sharp, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 4, 2009. Note that ‘A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said the Government had ”made representations at senior levels of the Bulgarian Government”’, which is the first reference I can recall reading regarding any such ‘representation’.
minus one
Follow Jock’s case on Twitter, and help support Jock and his family stay strong for the trials ahead.
THE Mosman brother of Jock Palfreeman has spoken for the first time of the “tough and emotional” two years since his brother was locked up in the notorious Sofia Central Prison in Bulgaria on murder charges.
Jock is set to give his final statement in court today. It is understood he could be facing up to 20 years in jail.
Today’s statement is Jock’s chance to tell his side of the story in court, almost two years since the day that changed his life…
A verdict is expected on December 2 or December 3 in the trial of Australian Paul “Jock” Palfreeman.
Palfreeman, 22, is charged with the murder of law student Andrei Monov after a street brawl in Sofia at the end of 2007. He has also been charged with the attempted murder of a 19-year-old (with a knife) during an altercation.
Palfreeman, from Sydney, denies both charges and says he was trying to defend himself from a group of men when he intervened after seeing them attack a group of Roma…
NB. Both accounts by Belinda Hawkins are of excellent quality, and provide the most detailed summary of Jock’s case. Her latest account includes Dr Simon Palfreeman’s summing up of the case in full. Dr Palfreeman concludes his summary as follows:
…In summary, the prosecution has to establish without any doubt a motive for her accusations. The prosecution has had to resort to the motive of hooliganism to explain her versions of events in the absence of any other evidence supporting her view. I am close to my son and know him well. He comes from a large, strong and morally upright family. Combined with a good Christian education, this has encouraged Jock to grow into a young man with firm values of social justice, the worth of every human being and respect for social order. His strong belief in, and desire to defend justice and social order was behind his decision to join the British army. He is a good-natured man with a lively sense of humor. He makes friends easily. The presence of so many loyal friends and family from Sofia, Samakov, the UK and Australia in the courtroom throughout this trial is a testament to his character.
I am particularly proud of the way he has conducted himself throughout this trial, when so many witnesses were so obviously lying in an attempt to keep him in prison. My opinion of Jock is completely supported by the expert psychological report that confirms this impression of a man with a strong sense of social justice and a non violent character. The character reference presented to the court confirm this in all aspects of Jock’s life. His school wrote “He displayed a strong interest and commitment to [social] justice” and “he would go out of his way to help others”. One of his employers wrote “Mr Palfreeman does not have an inherently aggressive or threatening manner or approach to people. This is what makes the reports of the 28 December incident so incredible and seem so out of character for Mr Palfreeman”. The father of the Bulgarian family that Jock lived with (an ex-Bulgarian air force pilot) also provided a reference. He stated that Jock was reliable, not aggressive and a good friend to the family.
From the first night in the police station, throughout the investigation period and giving evidence in front of this court, Jock has not changed his story. This is because it is the truth. It is clear from Jock’s history, the expert psychological report and his conduct in court that Jock is not the homicidal hooligan the prosecutor has tried to portray.
From the evidence we are now able to attach the real motives to all the events that happened that night. The initial motive was the assault on a Roma man by this gang, initiated by Monov and Yordanov. This was a racially motivated attack. All of this gang should be held responsible for the tragic outcome and for their subsequent attempt to hide the truth with lies (they could be charged under Article 163). The motive for Jock’s involvement was initially to help the Roma man and then defend himself. This was an act that can only be described as heroic. While as a parent, I would have preferred he stayed safe, as a human being I am proud that a young man would try to help another person despite such dangerous circumstances.
There can be no doubt that when the group (initiated by Yordanov and Monov) attacked the Roma boys, someone was going to be seriously or mortally wounded. It could have been Jock, the Roma boy or as it happened 2 from the group.
I am also in no doubt that the subsequent events that led to such a tragic end were the result of the vicious attack by the gang on Jock and his justified self defense. This gang made a determined and conscious decision to assault Jock that night, using their superior numbers and large concrete tiles as weapons. They did this because he dared to confront them and prevented severe injury to the Roma man. They left him no choice but to defend himself.
What happened on that evening of 27th Dec 2007 was a tragedy. As I am also a parent I can understand and respect the grief being experienced by the Monov family and would like to express my sorrow for their loss. As a family we too have suffered with Jock being in prison for almost 2 years. It would only make this tragedy worse if the truth of what happened that night was ignored and another young life lost.
I would like the court to free my son on the basis that all his actions that night were motivated by a genuine desire to help another human being in mortal danger. There was no intention to hurt anyone. He then, in a state of severe fear, had to defend himself when he, too, became the victim of this violent gang.
Go Tories!
Women demand more rosaries on their ovaries!
The argument on climate change is absolute crap!
(And who remembers Bernie Banton anyway? He’s dead!)
World War 4 Report has been monitoring the Global War on Terrorism and its implications for human rights, democracy and ecology since the immediate aftermath of 9-11. With an international network of contacts and correspondents, we scan the world press and Internet for important stories overlooked by the mass media, and examine the headlines with a critical eye for distortion, deceit and propaganda. We report on the forgotten wars outside the media spotlight, and seek out unexamined contexts that go beyond mainstream sound-bite coverage. We endeavor to expose the corporate agendas behind the new military interventions, and to find pro-autonomy, anti-militarist voices we can support in the countries under imperialist assault. We support the secular, progressive anti-imperialist forces in the Middle East who reject the spectacularized “jihad-vs-GWOT” duality. We especially seek to loan solidarity to land-rooted, stateless, and indigenous peoples—the “Fourth World.” Above all, we are committed to real journalism (as opposed to mere opinion-spewing and bloggery), and seek through our example to resist its alarming decline. We are fastidiously non-sectarian, and our first loyalty is always to the truth.
In other news, another casualty in the war in/on the “Fourth World” is “Venezuelan media activist Mijail Martinez, the son of a former state deputy for the chavista Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) … assassinated in a drive-by shooting Nov. 26 at his home in the city of Barquisimeto, Lara” (Venezuela: anti-impunity activist assassinated).
In just the latest attack on social movements in the country, unidentified gunmen shoot dead a 24-year-old cameraman involved with the Comité de Víctimas en Contra de la Impunidad (CVCI) in Barquisimeto, Lara, Venezuela. Below is the translation of an official communiqué from Caracas-based anarchist newspaper El Libertario:
On the morning of 26/11/2009, Mijail Martínez – 24 years old – was assassinated in the city of Barquisimeto, Lara state. Martínez was a cameraman and activist with the Victims’ Committee Against Impunity in Lara state (commonly referred to as CVCI-Lara in Spanish – translator). According to witnesses, two persons unknown attacked Mijail outside his front door, and after calling his name several times they fired several shots into his chest area. The victim was an audiovisual producer who worked on the television programme of his father, Victor Martínez, a longtime Bolivarian militant and former representative on the region’s Legislative Council. Demonstrating the contradictions within the so called “Bolivarian process”, Victor had recently been making a series of official complaints in which he had implicated a whole host of important, high up governmental and police figures in corruption and human rights violations.
Victor told the media that he believes that there was a political motive to the murder, and that it represents an attempt to silence him: “Chávez, I helped you when you were imprisoned and abandoned and noone gave you the time of day,” he said, “yet you are clearly responsible for the death of my son and many other crimes, because instead of being the most fervent defender of the Constitution, you violate it. As a result, all Venezuelans suffer from the insecurity that there is in this country”.
This political attack must be understood within a regional context of degradation at every level of government. As human rights organisations such as Provea have detailed, the state police in Lara have the second worst record nationally for human rights violations, accumulating 19.4% of all cases in 2008, with a total of 31 victims. State police have also been accused of participating in extortion, bank robberies, kidnappings and the production and trafficking of drugs in Barquisimeto, activities which overwhelmingly affect the poor.
The chronic situation in Lara has led to the formation of a number of popular organisations, one being the CVCI, which was founded in 2004. The CVCI has denounced the involvement of high-ranking regional officials – such as Rodríguez Figuera, the former police commander – in the creation of police mafias, alongside Luis Reyes Reyes, the previous state governor, who also participated and then covered his role up. Instead of investigating the official complaints, federal government rewarded the ex-governor, putting him in charge of the Ministry of Popular Power for the Presidential Secretary (which enforces Chávez’ edicts in national Congress – translator).
Due to their reports and demonstrations, CVCI activists have received a number of death threats and a number of attempts to criminalise their work. Mijail Martínez had been recording on video the organisation’s public activities with the intention of making a documentary about the members’ experiences. Some of his work can be found at http://www.vimeo.com/5130428 (in Spanish).
El Libertario denounce this event as the latest chapter in the government’s attack against base-level, autonomous, revolutionary and dissident organisations. We also send our messages of condolence and hurt to Mijail’s family and friends. Mijail was a young man, committed to social struggle, and we can personally testify as to his enthusiasm and comradely nature. We also consider this crime to be just one part of the criminalisation of popular protest undertaken by a government which is subservient to globalised capitalism.
Finally, we denounce the complicity of the government, of the media at both local and pseudo-“community” levels, of the Attorney General, the Ombudsman and the Justice Courts for any action that puts in jeopardy the life and/or integrity of Victor Martínez and his family, other CVCI activists and members of other popular social struggles within the state which have registered complaints – complete with full names – against the involvement of police and state functionaries in corruption, drug-trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and assassination in the Central-Western region of the country.
At the head of everything is God, the Lord of Heaven.
Everyone knows that.
Then comes Prince Torlonia, lord of the earth.
Then come Prince Torlonia’s guards.
Then come Prince Torlonia’s guards’ dogs.
Then, nothing at all.
Then, nothing at all.
Then, nothing at all.
Then come the peasants. And that’s all.
Update : Blood on the Tracks, Roland Oliphant, Russia Profile, November 30, 2009: The Professionalism of the Attack Suggests Islamist Terrorists from the North Caucasus Have Struck Deep Inside Russia Once Again. “The attack on the Neva Express has traumatized the nation. Coverage of the incident has dominated the news for the past three days. President Dmitry Medvedev has issued his own statement of condolences to the families of the injured and killed. Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, on Sunday hosted a memorial service in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, in which he condemned the terrorists for breaking “not only the law of man, but the law of God.” But amid the mourning, professionals are looking hard at who carried out the attack – and why… ” Also : A Sickening Bombing in Russia, Roland Oliphant, The Faster Times, December 1, 2009.
More death in Russia. Smash your head on the punk rawk!
THE cause of the crash of one of Russia’s most illustrious trains has been confirmed as a bomb that went off on the tracks between Moscow and St Petersburg, killing more than 25 people, wounding scores of others and raising fears of a new era of terrorism.
Officials called the weekend explosion the worst terrorist attack in Russia in years, outside volatile Muslim parts of the North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya. There were no immediate credible claims of responsibility…
Steve Gutterman writes (‘Victims being identified after Russian train wreck’, AP): “Nationalists were blamed in a similar blast that caused a derailment along the same railway line in 2007, injuring 27 passengers. Authorities arrested two suspects in the [August 13] 2007 train blast and are searching for a third, a former military officer.”
Which may or may not be the case. However, if you were to substitute ‘anarchists’ for ‘nationalists’, the story does recall the attempted framing of anarchists for the crime (see : Russian anarchists still languishing in police custody, September 1, 2007). However, after having used the incident as a pretext for the political repression of anarchists, Russian authorities “later arrested two residents of the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region of Ingushetia, but said the mastermind behind the attack was ex-soldier Pavel Kosolapov, a former associate of late Chechen rebel commander Shamil Basayev”.
MOSCOW — Two Ingush suspects charged in the 2007 bombing of a Moscow-St. Petersburg train told a court Tuesday that they had been tortured by police and subjected to interrogations in a forest and a cellar rather than the police station. The suspects, Maksharip Khidriyev and Salambek Dzakhiyev, both 41, maintained their innocence in opening statements made to a Novgorod court at the start of their trial for the bombing, which injured 30 passengers and derailed the Nevsky Express train…
Elsewhere, Combat 18 rears its stoopid head (Description Released of Train Bombing Suspect, The Other Russia): “The neo-Nazi organization Militant Autonomous Group Combat 18 (Ingria) allegedly took responsibility for the attack, which Russian authorities are calling a terrorist act, but ultranationalist[s] are calling the announcement a provocation to frame them in the incident. Investigators do not consider Combat 18’s claim to be credible…”
Leaving aside the almost certainly bogus claim of responsibility by some Russian nutzis, the media is drawing a close comparison between this latest bombing and earlier terrorist attacks, especially ‘the Moscow theater hostage crisis’ of October 2002. This incident was handled superbly by the Russian state, with Spetsnaz pumping poisonous gas into the theatre, killing at least 129 of the hostages. The official investigation was, much like other official investigations, by any state, a sham also a complete success: failing, as it did, to provide positive information on the gas agent that killed the hostages; any possible antidote to that agent; the number of hostages released by the operation; the number of militants who seized the theatre; and the names of the officials responsible for conducting the assault.
Unpatriotic elements have called for an independent inquiry, which is now dying a slow death in the EU courts. The fate of those Russians who undertook an investigation of their own into the ‘crisis’ suggests that this is a slightly dangerous undertaking:
An independent investigation of the event was undertaken by Russian politicians Sergei Yushenkov, Sergei Kovalev, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Hoover Institute scholar John B. Dunlop, and former FSB officers Aleksander Litvinenko and Mikhail Trepashkin. According to their version, FSB knew about the terrorist group prior to its arrival in Moscow and actually directed the group to the theatre through their agent provocateur Khanpasha Terkibayev (“Abu Bakar”), whose name was included in the list of hostage takers and who left the theatre alive. At the beginning of April 2003, Litvinenko gave information about Terkibayev (“the Terkibayev file”) to Sergei Yushenkov when he visited London. Yushenkov passed this file to Politkovskaya and she was able to interview Terkibayev in person. A few days later, Yushenkov was assassinated by gunfire in Moscow. Terkibayev was later killed in an apparent car crash in Chechnya.
In June 2003, Litvinenko stated in an interview with the Australian television program Dateline, that two of the Chechen militants involved in the siege—whom he named as “Abdul the Bloody” and “Abu Bakar”—were working for the FSB, and that the agency manipulated the terrorists into staging the attack. Litvinenko said: “[w]hen they tried to find [Abdul the Bloody and Abu Bakar] among the rotting corpses of dead terrorists, they weren’t there. The FSB got its agents out. So the FSB agents among Chechens organized the whole thing on FSB orders, and those agents were released.” The story about FSB connections with the hostage takers was also put forward by Mikhail Trepashkin. “Abu Bakar” (presumably Terkibayev) was also described as an FSB agent and the actual organizer of the terrorist act by Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Khinshtein and other journalists.
Sergei Yushenkov was murdered on April 17, 2003; Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on October 7 (Vladimir Putin’s birthday) in 2006; Alexander Litvinenko was murdered on November 23, 2006. Stanislav Markelov — who acted as a lawyer for Politkovskaya — was murdered on January 19, 2009; Anastasia Baburova — a journalist who, like Politkovskaya, wrote for Novaya Gazeta — was murdered alongside Markelov.
Prior to the 2003 “crisis”, there was another series of ‘terrorist attacks’, in September, 1999. On this occasion, presumed terrorists — allegedly belonging to the ‘Liberation Army of Dagestan’, a group which emerged to claim the bombings and has since disappeared — exploded bombs in a number of apartment buildings in the cities of Buynaksk (September 4), Moscow (September 9 and 13), and Volgodonsk (September 16). Hundreds were killed or wounded, the bombings were followed by the outbreak of the ‘Second Chechen War’, and independent investigations into the bombings — which some claim were also the end result of a FSB plot — blocked at every opportunity by Russian authorities. Said Putin: “There are no people in the Russian secret services who would be capable of such crime against their own people… The very allegation is immoral.”
We all have the strength to endure the misfortune of others.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
