Posts from — November 2012

Nasrallah calls for regional support of Gaza
16 November, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah Thursday called on all Arab and Muslim countries to use all means possible to stop Israel’s vicious assault on the Gaza Strip, including raising oil prices.

Nasrallah urged Arab nations to suspend relations with Israel and the US, saying the only solution is for the world to pressure the United States, which will press Israel to end its blockade on Gaza.

He advocated the use of financial levers such as limiting oil production to push the West into stripping Israel of economic and political support.

“Some say the Arabs don’t have the courage to stop oil production,” he said.

“Decrease your oil exports … you will shake the United States, you will shake Europe …Put on some pressure. No one is calling for armies or tanks or planes.”

The Hezbollah leader also hailed the firing of long-range rockets from Gaza into Israel as a “very significant development” for the Palestinian struggle.

“The firing of Fajr 5 rockets on Tel Aviv today shows the maturation, the wisdom and strength, and the courage of the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip,” Nasrallah said. He added that Israel had not expected retaliatory fire on Tel Aviv, the Jewish state’s economic center.

He reaffirmed solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, saying “we in Lebanon are concerned about events in Gaza, because this is not only the battle of Gaza but of all of us.” …source

The BICI started out as a State Department-al Khalifa ruse and remains that today. It misdirects attention from revolutionary efforts and seeks to place the al Khalifa’s in control of the ‘narrative of reform’. Western liberals and those who embrace the goal of liberalized Western Capitalism seem comfortable in advancing the BICI as something relevant beyond that of a record of egregious wrongs against those who continue to suffer under the scourge of Western enabled repression in Bahrain. Phlipn out.

Bahrain, One Year Later
The Arabist – 16 November, 2012

From POMED’s report assessing the implementation of the BICI report:

We have found that the Government of Bahrain has fully implemented three of the BICI report’s 26 recommendations. Two other recommendations were impossible for us to properly evaluate due to a lack of available information, and 15 recommendations have only been partially implemented. Finally, the government has made no meaningful progress toward six of the recommendations, which are precisely the most important steps that need to be taken – accountability for officials responsible for torture and severe human rights violations, the release of political prisoners, prevention of sectarian incitement, and the relaxation of censorship and controls on free expression.

Nearly as troubling as the failure to address key areas has been the unrealistic assessment by the Government of Bahrain of its own progress. Bahraini government officials, including the Ambassador to the United States, have claimed in public statements to have fully implemented 18 of the 26 recommendations. It is difficult to expect the government to make significant progress on the many unfulfilled recommendations while it maintains that most of those steps have already been completed.

POMED Report HERE

Assassinating The Chance For Calm
The Arabist – 16 November, 2012

Gershon Baskin, who has been conducting negotiations to secure a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, writes in Open Zion:

Yesterday morning, hours before Israel assassinated Ahmed Jaabari, my counterpart in Hamas presented the draft to Jaabari and to other Hamas leaders. Senior Hamas leaders on the outside had already seen it and had instructed him to check the reactions to it in Gaza. I was supposed to receive the draft yesterday evening to present to Israeli officials who were waiting for me to send it to them.

That option is now off the table. Jaabari is dead and so is the chance for a mutually beneficial long term ceasefire understanding. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu do it? The cynical answer already offered by Aluf Benn in Haaretz is elections consideration. Cast Lead was also conducted before elections. Hitting Jaabari, according to Netanyahu’s thinking, would help him in the upcoming Israeli elections. Perhaps this is true, perhaps not.

It seems to me that some of the commanders of the Israeli army have been very frustrated that the previous agreements to return to calm left Israel in a weaker position, with Hamas calling the shots. They have been calling to rebuild Israel’s deterrence. Let them in Gaza feel the pain of a serious Israeli attack and then they will think seven times before shooting more rockets, is what they proposed. In the last days there has been a lot of talk from politicians, military experts and officers to return to the policy of “targeted killings.” This, they claim, would make the Hamas leaders hide for their lives and stop shooting at us. These military geniuses failed to realize that what never worked in the past will not work now either. …source

Jordan protesters call for ‘downfall of the regime’
16 November, 2012 – By Suleiman al-Khalidi – Reuters

AMMAN: Thousands of protesters chanted the Arab Spring slogan “the people want the downfall of the regime” in Jordan’s capital on Friday, as demonstrations against rising prices gather force in a country so far spared the brunt of Middle East unrest.

The mainly urban Muslim Brotherhood joined hitherto largely rural protests that have erupted in the last few days, raising the spectre of lasting instability in the kingdom, a staunch U.S. ally with the longest border with Israel.

Friday’s demonstration near the main Husseini Mosque in downtown Amman was peaceful, with unarmed police separating the demonstrators denouncing King Abdullah from a smaller crowd chanting in support of the monarch.

“Go down Abdullah, go down,” the main crowd of about 4,000 protesters chanted as police, some in riot gear, largely stayed away from crowd.

Protests have turned violent in impoverished towns across the kingdom since Wednesday when the government imposed a hike in the price of fuel. Unemployed youths and demonstrators have attacked police stations, closed roads with burnt cars and torched government buildings.

One protester was killed on Thursday as a crowed tried to storm a police station in the northern city of Irbid. The provinces appeared to be quieter on Friday.

The Brotherhood’s decision to back Friday’s demonstration adds the voice of the country’s best-organised opposition movement to the protests, although top Brotherhood figures did not appear in person.

“King Abdullah should take note of the situation by going back on the decision to raise prices. The Jordanian people are unable to shoulder more burdens,” Brotherhood leader Sheikh Hamam Said said in a statement ahead of the protests.

Instability in Jordan would come at a dangerous time for the region, when Syria’s war risks leaping borders and Israel is bombing Islamist-run Gaza.

The slogan “the people want the downfall of the regime” has emerged as the main chant of Arab Spring demonstrations that toppled autocrats from Tunisia to Yemen, in many cases bringing to power elected Islamists allied to the Brotherhood.

In Jordan, an opposition of liberals and Islamists has generally sought reforms, rather than the overthrow of the 50-year-old king, in power since 1999.

A friend of the West, the monarch is seen by many Jordanians as a bulwark of stability, balancing the interests of tribes native to the east of the Jordan river with the increasingly assertive majority of Jordanians of Palestinian origin.
…more

‘Bomb Tel Aviv’ West Bank protesters urge Hamas
16 November, 2012 – Agence France Presse – The Daily Star

RAMALLAH, West Bank: Thousands of angry Palestinians rallied across the West Bank on Friday, urging Hamas militants to “bomb Tel Aviv” as Israel pursued a relentless air campaign on the Gaza Strip.

More than 1,000 protesters gathered in central Ramallah, shouting slogans of support for Gaza’s Hamas rulers, and waving the Islamist movement’s green flag, AFP correspondents said.

“Hamas, bomb Tel Aviv!” they chanted a day after a rocket from Gaza struck the sea just offshore from the sprawling coastal city.

Coincidentally, a loud blast rocked Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon as sirens wailed to warn of an incoming rocket for the second day running, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

Police said sirens had sounded but could not immediately confirm that anything had hit the Tel Aviv area.

Protesters also held up huge pictures of top Hamas military chief Ahmed Jaabari, whose death in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City on Wednesday sparked the latest bloody escalation.

Similar scenes took place in the northern city of Nablus, where more than 3,000 people called on Hamas militants to “Bomb Tel Aviv,” another correspondent said.

Hamas flags were everywhere and angry demonstrators burned an Israeli flag, chanting “Death to Israel,” he said.

In annexed east Jerusalem, another 200 protesters gathered at the Damascus Gate into the Old City, with police arresting five for “disturbing public order,” police and an AFP correspondent said.

Since Wednesday’s strike, Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks on targets in Gaza. On Friday morning, two more Palestinians, including a child, were killed. That raised the overall toll to 20, with more than 240 injured, medics said.

In the same period, militants have fired around 300 rockets over the border, killing three Israelis.
…source

Denial of justice and jail sentences for Bahraini news providers
14 November, 2012 – Reporters Without Borders

A Manama appeal court yesterday upheld journalist Reem Khalifa’s conviction on a trumped-up charge of physically attacking two women doctors and insulting a third after a Manama news conference in July 2011.

The charges were brought against Khalifa after she accused the three doctors, who are government supporters, of attacking and insulting her. She will have to pay a fine of 100 BD (210 euros) and a total of 500 BD in compensation to the doctors (BD 200 to each of the two she allegedly attacked and BD 100 to the one she allegedly insulted)

The appeal court’s decision is just the latest in a series of rulings that demonstrate the Bahraini judicial system’s complete lack of independence. The court did not examine the evidence provided by Khalifa’s lawyer.

On 23 October, Reporters Without Borders asked the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers to look into Police Lt. Sarah Al-Moosa’s acquittal by a Manama court the previous day on charges of torturing and mistreating Bahraini journalist Nazeeha Saeed, a correspondent for France 24 and Radio Monte Carlo Daouliya, at a Rifaa police station on 22 May 2011.

In another court decision yesterday, Internet user Ali Al-Haiki was sentenced to four months in prison on a lèse-majesté charge for messages he posted on Twitter. He is one of four netizens who were arrested on 16 October on charges of defaming public persons on social media. All four pleaded not guilty when their trial opened on 22 October.

The first to be convicted was Abdullah Al-Hashemi, who was given a six-month jail term on 1 November for “insulting the king.” The other two, Salman Darwish and Ali Mohamed Watheqi, were sentenced to a month and four months in prison respectively on 5 November.

The court also ordered the confiscation of the computers and mobile phones of all four cyber-activists. According to the interior ministry, the police are still looking for a fifth person.

Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that Sayed Yousif Al-Muhafda, the vice-president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and head of its documentation unit, was released today, 12 days after being arrested in Diraz (west of Manama) while investigating the use of violence to disperse a demonstration earlier the same day. …more

IMF Dirty MF
Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

IMF ready to provide funds to help Tunisia recovery
By Anna Yukhananov – 14 November, 2012 – Reuters

(Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund is willing to provide external financing to Tunisia to help it recover from last year’s political turmoil, David Lipton, the IMF’s first deputy managing director, said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The IMF stands ready to help Tunisia with policy advice, technical assistance and, if appropriate, financing,” said Lipton, who visited the country this week and met with political and business leaders.

Tunisia was swept up in the Arab Spring uprisings last year across the Middle East and North Africa, which toppled its ruler after an almost 23-year reign.

Since then, several countries in the region have struggled to regain economic stability while dealing with political transition and a slowing global economy. Governments have spent billions to create jobs and cope with rising living costs.

In its annual assessment of Tunisia earlier this year, the IMF said the north African nation is still struggling to emerge from recession and faces risks from the euro zone debt crisis and internal tensions.

Lipton said countries in the region should engage with the international community and private investors to shore up growth and create jobs.

“Many problems in the Arab countries in transition do not have ready-made solutions; work with many partners is necessary to address them,” he said. ….more

Call It Democracy
Bruce Cockburn – 1985

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament —
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called “developed” nations’
Idolatry of ideology

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It’s just spend a buck to make a buck
You don’t really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

“Family mourns Gaza boy shot by Israeli forces while playing football”
by As’ad AbuKhalil – Angry Arab News Service – 14 November, 2012

“Thirteen-year-old Muhammad Abu Daqqa vividly recalls the moment his friend and cousin Ahmad Abu Daqqa was killed outside his southeast Gaza home while they were playing football last Thursday afternoon.

“Suddenly, Ahmad fell on the ground and I was surprised to see him sort of bleeding right beneath his heart. An Israeli helicopter was buzzing overhead and other Israeli military jeeps and tanks were seen near the border line,” Muhammad explained.

According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), the life of the football-obsessed 13-year-old was cut short when a bullet fired by Israeli soldiers stationed nearby hit him in the stomach (“New Israeli escalation against the Gaza Strip,” 11 November).

Ahmad Abu Daqqa was born and raised in Abbasan al-Kabira town, a rural area east of Khan Younis. The boy is one of several Gaza children who have been killed by Israeli fire in recent days; two teen cousins, 16-year-old Muhammad Harara and 17-year-old Ahmad Harara, were also killed by Israeli fire while playing football near Gaza City on Saturday, according to PCHR.” …source

Joint Statement-Bahrain: Death of 16 year old boy as use of excessive force continues
9 November, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) and the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) express their grave concern regarding the news of the death of 16 year old Ali Radhi.

Security forces enforced a siege around a central mosque in the village of Duraz today to prevent people from Friday prayers. When security forces blocked the streets, people headed to Duraz on foot in an attempt to reach the mosque.

People climbing over walls in attempt to reach Duraz for Friday prayer

The security forces attempted to prevent hundreds of people from getting to Duraz by using teargas, in one instance reportedly shooting tear gas directly into a car full of women as shown in this Video:

According to eyewitnesses, Ali Abbas Radhi-16 years old- and a few friends were walking towards Duraz when they were chased by riot police. Ali Abbas Radhi reportedly ran into the highway to get away from the riot police when he was hit by a civilian car which caused his death.

The BYSHR and BCHR hold the Ministry of Interior responsible for the death of Ali Abbas Radhi. The BYSHR and the BCHR call on the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and all other close allies and international institutions to put pressure on Bahrain to:

1. Immediately stop attacking religious processions
2. Respect people’s right to freedom of religion
3. Stop the use of excessive force against civilians
4. Immediately launch independent investigations into the death of Ali Abbas Radhi and all other victims killed since February 14th 2011.
5. Hold accountable all those who are taking part in, supervising, overlooking, giving orders and/or knowingly allowing human rights violations and extra-judicial killings to take place.

The BCHR and the BYSHR remind the Bahraini authorities of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights:“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
…source

Guerrero: Social insurrection in Olinalá against organized crime
SIPAZ blog – International Service for Peace – 14 November, 2012

On 31 October, more than 700 residents of Olinalá, some of them armed with rifles, installed barricades in the five access-points to the municipal center so as to impede the passage of organized crime. After several violent acts in the past few days for which organized crime has been responsible, the residents established a supervision commission in Olinalá, saying that they saw themselves as obligated to take justice into their own hands, given the extortion, disappearances, and murders committed by organized crime in this municipality of the Mountain Region of Guerrero, without any appropriate response from authorities. On 27 October, bothered by lack of security, hundreds of residents of the same municipality took city hall for the entirety of the day and detained a presumed kidnapper from a gang that in recent days had assaulted the region with kidnappings and murders.

On 6 November, members of the Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities (CRAC-Communal Polices) from San Luis Acatlán affirmed that, while the presence of Navy and Army units in Olinalá could be positive, “when the federal forces go, the problems will continue.” They emphasized that the state and federal governments have failed to observe their obligation to provide security to the municipalities of the Mountain. That same day, the state Congress called on Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero to open dialogue with the residents of Olinalá toward providing assurances of security for the population. …more

Mexico: UN Committee against Torture expresses grave concern for the practice of torture in Mexico
SIPAZ blog – Internation Service for Peace – 14 November, 2012

On 31 October the United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT), with headquarters in Geneva, opened its evaluation of the Mexican State, in the presence of a delegation of more than 30 public officials from the federal government and that of different states. The CAT is entrusted with monitoring the observance by member-states of the Convention against Torture.

The Committee expressed its grave concern for the practice of torture in the country, particularly in light of the use of armed forces in tasks of public security and the “phenomenon of grave impunity” in which acts of torture remain. It indicated that the penal reform that seeks to change this practice by means of a transition to an oral and accusatory system is not serving well, given that security forces and the Public Ministry continue to utilize coerced testimony as evidence in juridical proceses.

Among the more than 70 questions posed by the CAT experts, those associated with the “evident contrast” of the number of denunciations of cases of torture and the number of punishments meted out were stressed.

By means of a communique released jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Governance (Segob), and the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR), it was noted that the ten members of the CAT posed several challenges to the Mexican State as regards the classification of the crime of torture at the national level, the application and effects of the Istanbul Protocol, the advances in the implementation of the reform of the judicial system, the situation of migrants in the country, the application of community control, the protection of the human rights of women, as well as challenges in the prison system, among other things. …more

Hamas: Israeli strike ‘has opened gates of hell’
14 November, 2012 – Lebanon Now

An Israeli air strike that killed top Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jaabari on Wednesday has “opened the gates of hell,” the armed wing of the ruling Islamist movement said.

“The occupation has opened the gates of hell on itself,” said a statement from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which vowed its militants would “continue the path of resistance.”

Israeli military spokesperson Avital Leibovich said the strike was the start of an operation targeting armed groups in Gaza following multiple rocket attacks on southern Israel.

Jaabari was killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City that also killed his bodyguard.

The killing of Jaabari sparked furious protests in Gaza City, with hundreds of members of Hamas and its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, chanting for revenge inside Shifa hospital.

Outside, armed men fired weapons into the air, and mosques throughout the city called prayers to mourn the commander’s death.

Palestinian security sources and medics confirmed a total of four air strikes across Gaza during the late afternoon—two in Gaza City, one of which killed Jaabari, one in northern Gaza, and a fourth in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
…source

Hamas’s vows to retaliate and warned the killing had “opened the gates of hell.”

Gaza Under Attack
14 November, 2012 – Gaza live with Nadeem Baba

Over the past 48 hours, the Israeli army has escalated their aerial and ground attacks against the Gaza Strip. At least five Palestinians, including children, have been killed, and more than 30 others, including 6 women and 12 children, have been wounded.

Four of these deaths and 38 of the injuries, some of them serious, resulted from an Israeli attack in the al-Shoja’iya neighborhood east of Gaza City which occurred on Sunday.

The Israeli army said that four soldiers were injured when an “anti-tank missile was fired at an IDF patrol along the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip”.

On the first day of the attack, Shifa hospital struggled to deal with the number of injured Palestinians.

In response to Israeli attacks, Palestinian fighters have been sending rockets to Israel while Israel continues to attack different locations in the Gaza Strip, including during the funeral of one of the Palestinians killed in Jabaliya.

Source, credit to Aljazeera- http://www.aljazeera.com/video

FAIR USE NOTICE: This video has been posted to further advance our understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, Technological, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues which constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 for research and educational purposes.

…source

Mexico’s New President Set to Empower a “Devil’s Cartel”
14 November, 2012 – NOVANEWS – SHOAH

Baruch Vega, a long-time CIA operative, has raised a red flag over the incoming president of Mexico’s decision to employ the former head of the Colombian National Police, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, as his security advisor in the war on drugs.

CIA Operative Claims Corrupt Colombian Law Enforcer Now Advising Peña Nieto Is Sign Of That Danger Ahead…

“I do not think Naranjo will be running a war against drugs,” Vega contends. “He will be running a war to protect Mexican drug traffickers.”

Vega contends there is a real danger that Mexican president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto is on a path to recreate a similar corrupt alliance between government security forces and major narco-traffickers — many shadowed in the trappings of legitimate business interests — as existed in the early to mid-2000s in Colombia during Naranjo’s rise to power in the Colombia National Police (CNP) while he also allegedly was assisting elements of the infamous North Valley Cartel.In addition to the role Naranjo will play in helping to cultivate Mexico’s drug-war strategy for Peña Nieto, the president-elect has already made public his plans to stand up a paramilitary force, composed of ex-soldiers, that would be some 40,000 strong. Peña Nieto also hopes to created a single, consolidated national police force.

With these tools, he says, the Mexican military can be replaced as the primary enforcer of security in the drug war in Mexico and the battle can be refocused from hunting down the top narco-capos to stemming street violence and other crimes against the community, such as extortion and kidnappings.

The elements of Peña Nieto’s plan, however, as Vega has already exposed in Colombia while working as a US government asset, are almost identical to what gave birth to what Vega calls the “Devil’s Cartel.”Dark AllianceVega told Narco News that between 1997 and 2000, the FBI and DEA each employed him as an operative in separate investigations focused on the North Valley Cartel leadership.
At the same time, Vega claims, he also worked as a foreign counterintelligence source for the CIA. Those facts are verified in US federal agency judicial-hearing documents [link here].During the course of those DEA and FBI investigations, Vega claims he discovered the operations were being compromised by corrupt players within both DEA and U.S. Customs — a federal law enforcement agency whose investigative arm has since become U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. ICE is part of the US Department of Homeland Security.

Vega’s allegations are supported by a US Justice Department memo obtained by Narco News in 2008, known as the Kent Memo. That memo, drafted by Department of Justice attorney Thomas M. Kent, contains some of the most serious allegations ever raised against U.S. antinarcotics officers: that DEA agents on the front lines of the drug war in Colombia are on drug traffickers’ payrolls, complicit in the murders of informants, and directly involved in helping Colombia’s infamous paramilitary death squads to launder drug money. …source

URGENT APPEAL: After Judge Denies Two Requests for Medical Treatment; Ebrahim Saleh’s Lawyer Fears for his Life
14th November, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses grave concern for the well being and life of political prisoner Ebrahim Saleh. Twenty-one year old Ebrahim Saleh Ali was shot with a pellet shotgun while participating in a peaceful protest in his home village Karranah on the 20th of October.

According to information received by the BCHR. Ebrahim Saleh was carrying a Bahraini flag and protesting peacefully when he was severely injured. After he fell unconscious he was reportedly beaten by riot police and imprisoned for illegal gathering. Throughout his detention and until this day, Saleh has been denied treatment by the authorities. The pellets are spread throughout Saleh’s body but are mostly concentrated in the genital area.

The BCHR has been informed by Ebrahim Saleh’s lawyer, Reem Khalaf, that Saleh was interrogated at the military hospital, and that his health is deteriorating quickly and that he is in severe pain. Saleh has trouble moving and sitting. Reem Khalaf has requested the court twice for medical treatment for her client, but her requests were denied both times.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights appeals to the United States government, the United Kingdom, the United Nations and all other ally governments and international institutions to put pressure on the Bahraini authorities to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release Ebrahim Saleh.

2. Allow Ebrahim Saleh immediate access to medical treatment.

3. Immediately stop using excessive force against peaceful protesters.

4. Hold all police officers and those in charge accountable for the deaths and injuries caused by excessive use of force.

The BCHR respectfully reminds the Government of Bahrain of Article 20 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.”

…source

Movement Strategy Brunches: “Campaign Season” Never Ends for the Professional Left “One Big Progressive Cluster-F–k”
by The INSIDER – November 14, 2012 – counter punch

President Barack Obama was elected merely a week ago in a presidential campaign that ran a bill of $6 billion.
“Campaign Season,” as its called by the electioneering professionals and most journalists, has officially come to an end in the eyes of most citizens and the press, both mainstream and “independent media” alike. For the “Professional Left” though, “campaign season” never actually ends, which explains why they refer to their form of activism as “campaigns.” It’s truth in advertising, at last!

The newest “campaign” in town is being run by….wait for it….a MoveOn.org offshoot in the form of “Movement Strategy Brunches” being held nationwide on Nov. 17-18.

“Drink Mimosas”

On Nov. 8, writing to a confidential email list, Liz Butler, a “Senior Fellow and Network Organizing Project Director” of the Movement Strategy Center, declared,

“We are asking you to set up a Movement Strategy Brunch – an informal, low-key way to bring together you and other local grassroots people at the local level to reflect, drink mimosas (or healthy green smoothies) and talk about the future. Sound fun? It’s supposed to be! After so much hard work, it’s nice to be able to kick back, drink some orange juice, and munch on a flaky croissant.”

The Movement Strategy Center is the Fiscal Sponsor for Van Jones’ Rebuild the Dream, according to Rebuild the Dream‘s website. Jones’ front group for the Democratic Party set up shop in June 2011 when MoveOn.org gave $348K to Rebuild the Dream in start-up capital, according to its most recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 990 form.

Rebuild, as regular CounterPunch readers will likely recall, was responsible for the attempt to co-opt the Occupy movement not once, but twice – once in the fall of 2011 and once again in the spring of 2012.

Butler oversaw the “99 Spring,” the front operation for both MoveOn.org and the Democratic Party. Prior to her current stint at the Movement Strategy Center in April 2012, Butler worked for 3.5 years as the Campaign Director for 1Sky, which in April 2011 merged with 350.org, currently in the throes of its “Do the Math” campaign.

The email was co-signed by Billy Wimsatt, a Fellow at the Movement Strategy Center, as well as an employee of Rebuild the Dream, two outfits that are interchangeable and one-in-the-same. A WhoIs.net search shows Wimsatt registered the website for the “Movement Strategy Brunches” on Oct. 16, a few weeks ahead of the Nov. 6 election.
“Consensual Domination”

Like its cousin the 99 Spring, the ”Movement Strategy Brunches” give well-meaning grassroots activists the illusion of having full control of things at the local level. “YOU organize it,” shouts its website.

Yet again, it’s the same players managing a brand new version of what University of California-Santa Barbara Sociology Professor William I. Robison refers to as “consensual domination” in his classic book, “Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony.”

“The Gramscian concept of hegemony as ‘consensual domination’ exercised in civil and political society at the level of the individual nation (or national society) may be extended/applied to the emergent global civil and political society,” he wrote in the book’s introduction. “The emergence of ‘democracy promotion’ as a new instrument and the orientation in US foreign policy in the 1980s represented the beginnings of a shift – still underway – in the method through which the core regions of the capitalist world system exercise their domination over peripheral and semi-peripheral regions…”

The tools of imperialism have come home to the core of the empire, as they always do. This time, like the many times before, it’s in the form of “consensual domination” on the part of citizens who partake in “activism” that’s nothing more than freshly installed astroturf for the Democratic Party disguised as “democracy promotion.”
“These pseudo-revolutionaires no doubt believe their own propaganda, or their ‘memes,’ as they prefer to call them. But these liberal cultists are nothing more than convenient lap dogs for the ‘progressive’ millionaires who fund them and the Democrats,” said John Stauber, author of the book Toxic Sludge is Good for You and Founder of the Center for Media and Democracy. ”They are well fed, they groom each other, they regurgitate the same talking points, and they consistently accomplish nothing in the real world except to push a false hope that they are leading a real Movement. In other words, it’s a classic form of cooptation, which is both made possible by the severe limitations of the political process and of course serves to limit it further. It is essential to maintaining a status quo that benefits the 1%. Follow the money, this is one big progressive cluster-fuck.”

The Insider is the pseudonym of an activist who works inside the Liberal Foundation-Funded Democratic Party-Allied Belly of the Beast.

Two homemade bombs defused in Bahrain
11 November, 2012 – Muslim World News – By IANS/WAM,

Manama: The Bahraini security forces have defused two homemade bombs, just like those used in the recent string of terror attacks.
s
The bombs were found Thursday during a search of a minibus parked near a shop. The visiting special security squad later defused them.

Meanwhile, in a clampdown on terror acts, the security forces raided a warehouse in Bani Jamra area and seized 178 Molotov cocktails, 11 fire extinguishers, 200 iron rods and two petrol tanks. …source