Blogs

I recently watched The Mayfair Set by Adam Curtis -
"Four Stories about the Rise of Business and the Decline of Political Power"
(not to say. corporatism or fascism:)
It's about how "market forces" (speculators) have taken the power over countries away from politicians, and increasingly so with globalization.
Thinking about the Middle East revolts in this light, and seeing Soros' hand in it, it's increasingly doubtful if there will be any betterment for common people from toppling a national ruler.

I wish to congratulate the brave people of Wisconsin for standing up to the tyrant and are now engaged in a fight of their life. I also wish to extend this to people in other states and to urge my fellow countrymen across the nation to take to the streets and stand up for our basic rights. Make no mistake the people in Wisconsin know this isn’t just a fight for wages or benefits. They know the issue extends beyond the state line and that the governor’s bill is an assault on their basic rights and freedoms.

Gene Sharp, the modern Mazzini, will be a familiar figure to anyone who has read Tarpley's Obama the Postmodern Coup.

Now the New York Times has shared clues about the soft power pioneer with their readers. Richard Cottrell sent us the article.

What we need now is someone to adapt Sharp's ideas for bringing down dictators to the task facing us: bringing down the oligarchy and realizing democracy in the USA and its colonies.

In London right now four young men, three Pakistanis and another Jamaican-born, are on trial for mass murder. Their right to silence is being duly respected, since they are conveniently dead. This interesting demonstration of British justice is in fact a blatantly rigged 'inquest' into the deaths of 52 passengers on London Transport services, supposedly blown up by these young men on the 7th July 2007.

The United Kingdom is run by an aloof pair of ex-Etonian toffs who once belonged to an exclusive Hooray Henry Oxford boozing club renowned for trashing restaurants on gala nights. Between them, the Woosterish David Cameron and his sidekick, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Finknottle Osborne, have an ear for public opinion as finely tuned as a deaf organ grinder. The Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition -- already dubbed The ConDamned by its growing band of critics -- has distinguished itself in less than year by sinking below so recently defeated Labor in the polls.

The grand jury of time is not yet ready to deliver its verdict whether Egypt 2011 equals Hungary 1956, or perhaps looms larger in the scale of world history. Cairo presents a striking comparison in many respects with Budapest 55 years ago, yet there is a strong flavor too of the French Revolution of 1789 and the hopes raised there, then dashed, of permanently upending the social order.

Two Progressive Press authors, Engdahl and Tarpley, have made a case in interviews on Russia Today that the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt are Color Revolutions.  [1] This thesis has raised a number of eyebrows and objections, chiefly that

* The revolt arises out of real grievances of oppression.
* Rising food prices are what spontaneously triggered the uprising at this time.
* Why would the US topple a leader who has been so useful to them, and whom they have been funding with over a billion a year in aid?

The eruption of popular discontent roiling the Middle East has naturally seized the world’s attention. Ferment of this kind and on such a grand scale is quite rare but actually not unprecedented in the Arab world, although a glance at simplistic mainstream media reporting is to imagine that it is. The great colonial struggles in North Africa and notably the Algerians freeing themselves from the French, the seemingly interminable struggles among the Lebanese, seem to have slipped from the vaults of memory.

The evidence is mounting that Silvio Berlusconi is indeed Italy's take on Zine El-Abidine, the recently deposed Tunisian dictator, in waiting. He's outlived his usefulness to powerful backers like the US, the EU and NATO (not excluding organized crime -- a fifth of GDP) thanks to the onset of advanced dottiness and some rather clear evidence that he may be short-circuiting upstairs, sparks flying literally like mad around the cranial lobes.

When Julius Caesar led his invasion force over a small brook in north eastern Italy in 140 BC, he set an historical precedent which rings a clarion echo to this day. Caesar had crossed the Rubicon. He was on his way to Rome to overthrow the Republic and declare himself dictator. In the long story of Italy another Rubicon has just been crossed.