The Largest Minority

July 3rd, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Former congresswoman and presidential candidate for the Green Party Cynthia McKinney calls WBAIX during her second day in prison. She was kidnapped by Israel for attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. There has been no statement from the Obama Administration, which is apparently intent on making Cynthia invisible like they did during the campaign. Coverage has also been non-existent from the Western media, which recently couldn’t stop reporting about the strong arm tactics and human rights violations of the Iranian regime. Rather, what’s been dominating not only the corporate news but the blogosphere and twitter is Sarah Palin’s latest plea for attention.

July 3rd, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Alan Woods, editor of marxist.com, speaks to a meeting in London on June 25, 2009.

June 30th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement regarding the announcement that U.S. troops have left the cities and towns of Iraq and turned over formal security to Iraqi security forces.

“The withdrawal of some U.S. combat troops from Iraq’s cities is welcome and long overdue news. However, it is important to remember that this is not the same as a withdrawal of U.S. troops and contractors from Iraq.

“U.S. troop combat missions throughout Iraq are not scheduled to end until more than a year from now in August of 2010. In addition, U.S. troops are not scheduled for a complete withdrawal for another two and a half years on December 31, 2011. Rather, U.S. troops are leaving Iraqi cities for military bases in Iraq. They are still in Iraq, and they can be summoned back at any time.

“This is not a great victory for peace. On May 19, the Christian Science Monitor reported that Iraqi and U.S. military officials virtually redrew the city limits of Baghdad in order to consider the Army’s Forward Operating Base Falcon as outside the city, despite every map of Baghdad clearly showing it with in city limits. In fact, according to Section 24.3 of the “SOFA” U.S. troops can remain at any agreed upon facility. The reported reason for this decision is to ensure U.S. troops are able to ‘help maintain security in south Baghdad along what were the fault lines in the sectarian war.’

“This troop movement should not be confused with a troop withdrawal from Iraq. In reality, this is a small step toward Iraqi sovereignty as Iraqi security forces begin assuming greater control over security operations, but it is a long way from independence and a withdrawal of the U.S. military presence.”

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via AlterNet

June 26th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador is unlike career politicians in the United States. He actually sees his job as not an end in itself but as a means to accomplish social justice. Correa is also an economist who was educated in the US and has displayed his Chavez-sized balls by rejecting his nation’s national debt as illegitimate and pledging to fight creditors in international courts. Democrats, take note. This is what an actual liberal looks and sounds like.

The president of Ecuador has criticised capitalism for its role in the global financial crisis, in a speech to delegates attending a United Nations conference on the state of the world economy.

Raphael Correa also suggested on Thursday that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, two bodies within the group of so-called Bretton Woods institutions, be dismantled.

“Patching up the Bretton Woods system, which we do not control, makes no sense for [developing] countries,” Correa said on the second day of the summit at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Making changes to the IMF and World Bank “would be an insufficient stop-gap solution,” he said.

“We are faced with a crisis unlike those [previously] provoked by capitalism.”

If the Bretton Woods bodies, which were set up in the aftermath of World War II, cannot be abolished they should at least hold less power over the world’s poor countries, Correa said.

Decisions on how to manage the global economy should instead be transferred to the United Nations, he said.

The three-day UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis is being attended by 140 developing nations, with most of them calling for changes to be made to the global economic system.

Scores of countries attending the conference have argued that the global downturn is due to reckless economic liberalisation and de-regulation of financial systems by Western nations.

But not a single representative of a developed country is attending the summit, highlighting the divide between richer and poorer nations on how the global financial system should be managed.

“We are now dealing with the consequences of excluding the majority from the decision-making process, but it is the majority that has to pay the worst consequences and the worst price for the errors made by - I’m sorry to say it - a greedy minority,” Miguel D’Escoto, the president of the UN General Assembly, told Al Jazeera.

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June 24th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

h/t Rebel Reports

June 20th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

If the submissions from liberal bloggers for the 93rd edition of Carnival of the Liberals is any indication of the health of our so-called “liberal movement” in America, then I’m sad to report we’re in tough shape. Hardly any that I received were critical of the Democratic Party. They were either laughable neo-con diatribes about the Socialist menace of the Obama Administration or lazy articles about Sarah Palin being ridiculous, which is as easy as shooting moose in a barrel. What we were looking for, and what you’ll find below, are honest leftist critiques of the current power structure, which happens to be Democratic at the moment. Unfortunately, most of the liberal blogosphere seems content on kicking their feet up for the next four years.

As a liberal not beholden to any party, it seems to me as though Democrats deal in piecemeal reform while Republicans move in huge world-changing steps. The idea that it’ll take an entire Obama presidency just to undo some of what George Bush fucked up is proof of that. We may take 1 triumphant step forward during a Democratic presidency, but are then pulled back 10 steps during a Republican presidency. Piecemeal reform sedates our fervor, allowing liberals to accept what they can get rather than fight for what they deserve. Marriage equality, single-payer health care, environmental protection, and troop withdrawal are all moral issues which can not be compromised in order to appease conservative and/or corporate interests.

It’s time to demand huge changes in our country. If we can’t do it when the Republican Party is in utter disarray then it will never happen.

• And nothing exemplifies the necessity for some of that classic liberal audacity more than the issue of health care. Guest blogger and fellow potty mouth Allison Kilkenny takes a look at Kennedy’s health care bill, explaining why anyone claiming to be a representative of the American people who then fights against a single-payer system should be severely beaten (and perhaps treated in Canada to dispel their single-payer fears?).
• Next is BuelahMan, who’s ended his long-standing feud with the corporate whores at YouTube to bring us a video commentary from Bill Maher concerning the failings of the corporate whores in the Obama Administration.
• But what about Iran? After all, that’s what all the twits are talking about these days. Well you’re in luck because The Unrepentant Marxist exposes the double standard of Obama’s disapproval of Iran, yet odd approval of other despotic regimes which benefit our capitalist interests in the region.
• Speaking of despotic regimes we’re comfy with, Obama’s speech in Cairo was hailed as a step forward by the Left. Prominent anti-war activists Jeremy Scahill and Anthony Arnove take a look after said speech at how the administration is Rebranding War and Occupation.
• A more recent speech was given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he finally allowed for the creation of a defenseless and divided Palestinian State with illegal settlements and without East Jerusalem. Hooray! Obama applauded the continued legitimization of annexation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing as a “step forward” for the peace process. I wonder what a step backward looks like. Can you goose-step backwards?
• While we’re on the contradictory pro-war leftist tip, it is with great pleasure that I introduce an article by Cindy Sheehan on After Downing Street regarding “faux-gressive” organizations. Cindy was widely supported by the Left until she started criticizing Democrats for the same crimes she criticized Republicans for. She has since been marginalized by hypocrites who once touted her as a courageous voice of peace.
• And if we’re going to celebrate the idea of millions of people mobilizing for change after years of oppression, we would be remiss not to also mention the struggle of the people of Latin America with an article about the Obama Administration’s attempts to subjugate more brown people and reign in revolution with a continuation of Bush-era policies. Nice dress though Hillary. I bet they can still smell the sulfur.
• If you have the strength to wade through the latest pics of Lindsay Lohan’s tits and apolitical comedy clips, you may find an actual article on The Huffington Post. This is one of them.
• Barney Frank is an Uncle Tom. Oh no he didn’t!
• And last but not least we have a humorous article from The Onion because satire sometimes tells the truth in ways we’re unable to.

This Way to the Egress.

I hope you all enjoyed the carnival ladies and gentlemen. Please consider hosting a Carnival of the Liberals yourself. It’s a fun time, it’ll make you popular, and you’ll start growing hair in weird places.

June 19th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at Tehran University, Khamenei backed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the president after the June 12 election.

“Candidates were put forward into public eye, everyone could judge for themselves … they have identified the person they wanted,” he said.

Khamenei refuted accusations of vote rigging, and insisted the poll was an “absolute and definitive victory”.

Ruling out fraud behind Ahmadinejad’s victory, he said “the Islamic establishment will never manipulate people’s votes and commit treason.

“The legal structures and electoral regulations of this country do not allow vote rigging.”

He said that any doubts concerning the results must be investigated through legal channels and called on supporters of defeated candidates to cease street protests, adding, “otherwise they will be responsible for its consequences, and consequences of any chaos”.

Farzad Agha, an Iranian analyst, told Al Jazeera: “This clearly is a threat to the demonstrators and supporters of the opposition candidates … He is saying that if you continue we will deal with you.”

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June 16th, 2009 by Guest

originally posted at Lenin’s Tomb

I think it’s a consensus on the liberal-left in the US and UK that the Iranian elections were fixed. If they are right, we are watching a bloodless coup turn into a bloody one, as protesters have been beaten and are now being shot at and killed by cops. One of Mousavi’s supporters alleges he was told that a coup was coming. If they are not right, we are still faced with a state busily beating and killing the opposition. The Iranian state is still detaining ‘reformist’ MPs, censoring newspapers, shutting down access to social networking sites (although people are still finding ways to Twitter), and behaving as if for all the world it had every reason to act guiltily. It is not inherently implausible that Ahmadinejad got 63% of the vote, and it has to be shown that there was a fix. The fact that Ahmadinejad used state oil revenues to fund programmes for the poor can be approved or derided, but it arguably gave large numbers of people an interest in voting for Ahmadinejad against his more explicitly neoliberal rival. It gave him a base among some of the working class and bazaaris. Still, it is hardly implausible either that some vote-rigging went on, if only to make the win decisive enough to avoid a run-off.

So, the first question that occurs is, why should the ballots be rigged? This is skated over in a lot of the commentary as if the answer were obvious - Mousavi advocated reform, duh! However, Mousavi is hardly a dangerous candidate for the Iranian ruling class: rather, he represents a powerful faction of it. True, he was once on the ‘Islamic Left’ back in the 1980s, and it was due to the support of the left-leaning majles that he was made prime minister against Khomeini’s preferences. Today, however, he is a centrist allied to the ‘Modern Right’. His solutions to Iran’s problems of accumulation and development are impeccably neoliberal. This is why he got the backing of the old crook, cynic, capitalist and Iran-Contra arms dealer, Hashem Rafsanjani. He supports privatization, and wants to reform Article 44 to assist the process. He supports strong counter-inflationary policies. Of course, he would like to take a slightly less ‘hard line’ with respect to the US. Indeed, like other would-be ‘reform’ candidates, his campaign tried to channel Obama - with some success since his wife, who spearheaded some important reforms in the late 1980s, was cast as the Michelle Obama of the campaign. Still, he isn’t an outsider by any means. His candidacy wasn’t struck off, while those that offend the Council of Guardians usually are. He wasn’t excluded from the debates, as far as I can find out. He wasn’t excluded from the polls, some of which put him ahead, and some behind. Why should he have suddenly become so dangerous that the Iranian state, or powerful sectors within it, would risk a stupid fix? The answer could only be that by tapping a popular demands for reforms, the candidacy might have unleashed a movement that seriously frightened some factions in the ruling class.

The next question is, what can come of the protests? Whatever the motivations of Mousavi, we have an enormous number of people on the streets, with a clear demand for political reform. They took to those streets, reportedly ignoring warnings that the police were carrying live ammunition. This means they are brave, certainly, and also confident in their numbers. Already, Khamenei has ceded the question of investigating the elections, which it seems clear he didn’t want to do. The Iranian state may kill people, but these protesters are already starting to win. They can make gains far beyond the very limited promises that Mousavi made in order to excite progressive layers. (As far as I can tell, Mousavi was mildly critical of some state repression of television channels, and promised to ‘review’ legislation that could be harmful to women - hardly a tribune of the oppressed). So, whatever the truth about the claims of a fix, these protests can do nothing but good. They may, in addition to getting rid of some particularly onerous forms of oppression, open up a space in which the left can operate more freely, and in which the labour movement can assert itself more forcefully.

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