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Friday, December 7, 2018

Links — 7 Dec 2018

Moon of Alabama
Neocons Sabotage Trump's Trade Talks - Huawei CFO Taken Hostage To Blackmail China

Zero Hedge
China Prepares Retaliation To Huawei CFO Arrest
Tyler Durden

Counterpunch
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: Time to De-Colonize Human Rights!
Ajamu Baraka

Counterpunch
The Bomb that Did Not Detonate: Julian Assange, Manafort and The Guardian
Binoy Kampmark, lecturer at RMIT University, Melbourne


FAIR
Factcheck False Equivalence - WaPo rates Ocasio-Cortez's misconstrued Pentagon study as bad as Trump's biggest lies

RT
Paris warns radicals are trying to exploit Yellow Vests & overthrow the government

SouthFront
 French Govt Deploys Armoured Vehicles, Thousands Of Security Personnel To Crack Down On Protests In Paris

Sputnik International
Gilets Jaunes Infiltrer: Undercover French Police Wear Yellow Vests Too

The Vineyard of the Saker
France’s Yellow Vests: It’s just 1 protest…which has lasted 8 years
Ramin Mazaheri

Popular Resistance
What The ‘Yellow Vests’ Movement Tells Us About The Massive Level Of Discontent In France
Marie Brunerie

Sputnik International
US Accuses Pro-Syrian Government Forces of 'Likely' Using Tear Gas in Aleppo

RT
Putin calls for common dollar-less payment system as key for economic sovereignty

RT
Russia ready to switch off Visa & Mastercard ahead of tougher US sanctions

Open Democracy
Is the internet to blame for the rise of authoritarianism?
Juan Ortiz Freuler | Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society

Common Dreams
After Rejecting US Resolution Condemning Hamas, UN Easily Passes Resolution Condemning Israeli Occupation
Andrea Germanos

Common Dreams
The GOP's Plot to Destroy Our Democracy Is Coming Into View
Sonali Kolhatkar

TRNN
Bernie Sanders: Billionaires Are Destroying the Fabric of Our Country
Paul Jay interviews Bernie Sanders (with transcript)
at

6 comments:

  1. KonradDecember 7, 2018 at 4:49 PM

    The lie that shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17

    Don’t forget Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished into thin air on 8 March 2014, along with 239 people while it was over the South China Sea, where the USA was leading a naval war games exercise.

    The South China Sea is so highly contested that if the Chinese learned that a US missile had accidently shot down a plane with 153 Chinese nationals aboard, the Chinese would have a pretext to dramatically upgrade its military presence in the area, and bar the Americans from entering. The South China Sea was never searched for wreckage.

    Accidental shoot downs have happened several times. On 3 June 1988 the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 (290 people murdered, including 66 children).

    On 17 July 1996 the US Navy accidentally shot down TWA Flight 800 (230 people murdered).

    On 4 Oct 2001, the Ukrainian Government shot down Siberian Airlines Flight 1812 over the Black Sea (78 people murdered).

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was not an accident. It was a false flag (298 people murdered by Ukraine).

    ReplyDelete
  2. KonradDecember 7, 2018 at 4:59 PM

    Paris warns radicals are trying to exploit Yellow Vests & overthrow the government.

    We have to be on guard against RT, just like any other media outlet.

    For example, RT says, “France caves in to nationwide calls to abandon fuel tax-hike.”

    France did not “cave in.” France is doing the protesting.

    Nor did the government “cave in,” since the latest fuel tax hike has only been postponed a few months.

    Meanwhile all other neoliberal attacks on workers continue.

    ReplyDelete
  3. KonradDecember 7, 2018 at 5:27 PM

    Alain De Benoist on the yellow vests movement

    The protests will continue indefinitely, since the neoliberals will never stop their attack on French workers. Even if the neoliberals wanted to stop their attack (which they do not) they could not stop, because the euro currency combined with France’s trade deficit makes ever-increasing debt and austerity unavoidable.

    Normally the corporate media outlets cripple the masses by pitting right against left, but this will not work in France, since the protest is economic, and is class-based. People only bicker about ideology when they are not hungry and scared. For example, who cares about #MeToo when everyone is materially on the precipice? Thus, “intellectuals” (i.e. liars and bullshitters) on all sides are being ignored.

    During genuine protests, like in France, the government doesn’t know what to do. I’m surprise that Macron has not yet shut down the Internet. If food becomes scare or unaffordable, France will have a full-blown Revolution.

    US corporate media outlets ridiculously claim that French protesters selfishly don’t care about “climate change.” The truth is that “climate change” and “green taxes” are camouflage for Macron’s neoliberal attacks on workers.

    At present most of the protesting is done on weekends, since people have to work on weekdays. But the protests will become daily as unemployment continues to worsen.

    Germany and the Troika will have to reduce their pressure on France, if they want the Macron government to survive.

    ReplyDelete
  4. KonradDecember 7, 2018 at 7:21 PM

    .
    France’s Yellow Vests: It’s just 1 protest…which has lasted 8 years.

    Part 1 of 2

    “It is not just one tax / measure / policy / reform: it is all of them combined.”

    Correct. In France there is a relentlessly escalating neoliberal attack on workers.

    “And we are talking about 8 years’ worth.”

    Actually we are talking about 19 years’ worth. Protests have been occurring in one form or another since France adopted the euro on 1 Jan 1999. Each year the protests become stronger, because each year the neoliberal attacks become stronger.

    It isn’t only things like unemployment, and ever-rising taxes and the cost of living. Neoliberal attacks include things like this year’s changes to university admittance rules. Before the bankers had installed Macron, any French student wanting to attend public university in France could sign up for admission, as long as they passed their high school baccalaureate exam. This process had been in place since the time of Napoleon. Moreover French public university tuition was only about 450 euros (USD $525) a year. Meanwhile in the USA the average undergraduate tuition of Ivy League colleges is 100 times that, or $51,486 per year.

    Also under Macron, university admission criteria have become arbitrary and secret. French students must now apply to many, many colleges in the hope that one college will accept them. Many students never get accepted. Students from Paris have more chance than students from the immigrant suburbs. And tuition is now rising. Soon France will have a student loan crisis.

    All this is part of Macron’s neoliberal attack.

    “I hear and read stories about the French in 2018 similar to what I used to read about Greece in 2012 – because austerity is cumulative.”

    Exactly. Neoliberal attacks are like compound loan interest. The worse inequality becomes, the faster it grows.

    “French inflation, according to my calculations, has increased by 14% since 2008: therefore, people have effectively taken a 14% wage cut in 10 years. This helps explain why “decreased purchasing power” has been the number one concern of the French year after year after year.”

    Inflation happens because consumer goods are scarce. They are scarce because France has a severe trade deficit.

    If inflation has risen 14% despite the bankers stealing more and more money from the French economy, then the situation is grave.

    . . . Continued below . . .

    ReplyDelete
  5. KonradDecember 7, 2018 at 7:24 PM

    .
    Part 2 of 2

    “A key plank of austerity is reducing the size of the government. This means YOU foot the bill for many services the government used to totally provide or subsidize.”

    WRONG. A key plank of austerity is reducing the size of benefits and social services that help average people. While social spending is cut, government spending is increased for wars, weapons makers, and corporate bailouts. The actual size of government is irrelevant to this. For neoliberals, “big government” means social programs. “Small and efficient government” means the government serves only the rich.

    With or without neoliberalism, the suffering of French workers will continue to worsen as long as the French government keeps the euro and / or France has a trade deficit.

    With or without neoliberalism, the trade deficit means that France must borrow all its euros from bankers (who create loan euros out of thin air). The French government is increasingly squeezing workers in order to keep paying on debts to the bankers.

    Since the French government cannot create euros out of thin air, French workers must pay for their social safety net. But the money they pay for the safety net is stolen by the bankers, who collect their money before anyone else does in French society.

    “Can you hear the Mainstream Media shouting to drown me out: ‘The problem is just the diesel tax, just the diesel tax I tell ya!’”

    Yes, and it’s disgusting. It is designed to make Americans think that French workers are spoiled and selfish. “What’s all this fuss about a little fuel tax?”

    “Of course the Yellow Vesters are going on vacation shortly – it’s December 6. The past 10 years of French history ALWAYS shows that the protesters taking a vacation to sustaining their political momentum. Nothing must stand in the way of several weeks off in December-January and August!”

    Not this time. French workers are scared and desperate. They are not protesting to simply “make a point.” They are in hell, and all they can see in the future is ever-worsening hell. Macron ignores them while he jets around the world.

    “If the Yellow Vest movement proves to be different it will be largely because they have no leaders or spokespeople.”

    Without “leaders” to bribe and threaten, the government has no easy way to divide and conquer protesters.

    “But I don’t think such a Red-Brown alliance can happen in France. Hatred for the National Front cannot be overestimated, and Le Pen permanently lost many by clowning against Macron in their 2017 debate instead of realizing she had a chance to win.”

    The National Rally (no longer the National “Front”) has over 30,000 members, and Le Pen is much more popular than is Macron. This so-called “hatred” of the National Rally is a product of corporate media lies, and of peasant comfort. When the peasants are not starving, they can afford to indulge in self-righteous condemnations of nationalists and conservative populists. (“Nazis!”)

    Now French workers no longer have the luxury to be self-righteous snobs.

    Now they are forced to admit that their real enemies are not Le Pen, but people like Macron, the evil dwarf.

    ReplyDelete
  6. KonradDecember 7, 2018 at 8:05 PM

    What the ‘yellow vests’ movement tells us about the massive level of discontent in France.

    “The tax rise was aimed at injecting money into a climate-related support program.”

    NO! Stop drinking Macron’s kool-aid. The “climate” stuff is a smokescreen for neoliberalism.

    France is a heavily taxed country, but everybody agrees that sending their kids to school for free from elementary school to university or not paying for medical expenses (our world-famous and much envied “social security system”) has a price.

    WRONG. The U.S. government creates its spending money out of thin air, and does not run on tax revenue. The French government cannot do this. Hence the two governments cannot be compared.

    “Macron’s economic goal through his tax reforms is to increase France’s competitiveness, having faith in the so-called “trickle-down” effect.”

    WRONG AGAIN. Macron’s neoliberal attacks have nothing to do with “competitiveness.” They are about keeping the euro, and keeping France subservient to the Troika.

    “This is disgraceful, for the French know that the money is there. France IS a rich country… or it could be, were the tax revenues equitably redistributed.”

    WRONG AGAIN. With or without a more equal distribution of tax revenues, France will keep dying because the euro combined with France’s trade deficit means that billions euros are being bled out of France each month. Some of those euros go to pay bankers who lend to France. Some of the euros are used to buy imports.

    “The outcome of the European elections next spring and of our next presidential election in 2020 might well, this time, see the darkest populist forces at play seizing their moment.”

    Fu*k off. What could be darker than the current situation? Why do you insist on defending hell by saying that any populist escape from hell is “dark?”

    ReplyDelete