Shortly after Seif Gaddafi, the son of Libya’s longtime leader, warned in a Sunday-night speech that the country would descend into “civil war” if protests continued, a Libyan American spoke with his brother in Tripoli, who described intense combat in the capital, where anti-government protesters were attacked after taking the main square.
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Violent clashes reportedly broke out late Sunday in Tripoli’s central Green Square. In a televised address just a few hours ago, Saif El Islam Gadaffi said his father would stand firm, and the country could plunge into civil war if the protests don’t stop. He said foreign media, Islamists, even drug addicts were part of a plot to bring down the government, and break up the country. Meanwhile, demonstrators in Benghazi claim to be in control of the city, despite yet another brutal crackdown. Human Right Watch says at least 233 people have died – with security forces continuing to use force to end the demonstrations. Al Jazeera’s Tom Ackerman has the latest.
Continue reading …Wisconsin Protests: America Speaks Out Against Destructive Republican Policies
February 21, 2011 No CommentWisconsin “Budget Repair Bill” Protest Pt 2 from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo . (Big props to Matt Wisniewski for the footage) See part 1 here How can you not be inspired and hopeful viewing this video of the Wisconsin protests? One of the dangers of solely getting your information from television news is that in the insular, rarefied air inside the Beltway from where these pundits opine, these are merely abstract concepts: deficits, collective bargaining, unions, state employees, protests, budgets, fiscal austerity, and on and on. But look at that video. Those aren’t abstract concepts. Those are real people: just like you and I, our fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. They aren’t fighting to keep obscene bonuses after needing the government to bail them out. They’re not even protesting to get raises, just the right to keep their collective bargaining rights for the future. And they are rising above the noise and bluster of right wing framing, and a complicit media who can’t seem to grasp that there’s a whole world outside of their cloistered cocktail circuit to fight for their right to a voice. And in doing so, they’re exhibiting more understanding of democracy in six days than the Republicans would like to see the dying middle class exhibit in their life. And make no mistake, there is a war going on and these protestors are not going to give in without a fight. My colleague Jon Perr writes about it on Perrspectives : In just the latest front in the perpetual GOP campaign to divide and conquer , Republicans are trying to get Americans to turn on their neighbors who work for government and unions on each other. Of course, the Republican assault on collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin , Ohio , around the country has nothing to do with recession-ravaged state budgets and everything to do with fatally wounding a Democratic constituency. And to do it, Republican leaders are telling tall tales about rapidly expanding government workforces stuffed with overpaid, undeserving public employees. Like so much else conservative mythmaking, it’s simply not true . The Mythical Pay Gap With a sluggish U.S. economy, cash-strapped states and under-funded pension programs, leading lights of the GOP are scape-goating government workers and their unions for the nation’s woes. Of course, there’s only one problem with Rush Limbaugh’s claim that public sector employees are “freeloaders” and the charge from Indiana Governor and GOP White House hopeful Mitch Daniels that they are a “new privileged class in America.” Perhaps the strongest recent broadside against public servants came from Minnesota Governor and 2012 Republican presidential contender Tim Pawlenty . In a December Wall Street Journal op-ed titled ” Government Unions vs. Taxpayers ,” Pawlenty echoed half-term Governor Sarah Palin by targeting “unionized public employees [who] are making more money, receiving more generous benefits, and enjoying greater job security than the working families forced to pay for it with ever-higher taxes, deficits and debt.” How did this happen? Very quietly. The rise of government unions has been like a silent coup, an inside job engineered by self-interested politicians and fueled by campaign contributions. Pawlenty repeated his charge to Fox News: “You have public employees making more than their private-sector counterparts. They used to be under-benefited and underpaid. Now they’re both over-benefited and overpaid…it needs to stop.” Sadly for would-be President Pawlenty, the charge – whether at the federal, state or local level – is false. That’s the conclusion of a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute . Just one of many recent analyses debunking Republican charges about government workers and their unions, EPI found that “on average, state and local government workers are compensated 3.75% less than workers in the private sector.” The report by Labor and Employment Relations Professor Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University revealed that public employees are undercompensated compared to similarly skilled private sector counterparts
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Click here to view this media On Fareed Zakaria GPS , George Soros responded to the attacks being made against him by Glenn Beck and Fox News and he weighed in on the so-called “tea party” members being duped by the big monied interests pulling their strings. Sadly the network this aired on isn’t far behind Fox with the propaganda and the promotion of this astroturf Republican rebranding effort called the tea party. ZAKARIA: So, George, Glenn Beck has been on this kick that you are actually the mastermind who is trying to bring down the American government. How do you react when you see this kind of thing? SOROS: Well, I would be amused if — if people saw the joke in it, because what he is doing, he is projecting what FOX, what Rupert Murdoch is doing, because he has a — a media empire that is telling the people some falsehoods and this — and leading the government in the wrong direction. But, you know, by accusing me of doing that, it kind of makes it rather hard to see that it’s really, he is working for the man who is doing it, which is FOX News. ZAKARIA: But it’s very personal. I mean, he talks about you as a 14-year-old boy and he accuses you of — of essentially helping to round Jews up — you’re Jewish yourself. You’ve lost — SOROS: Yes. ZAKARIA: You lost many, many people in the holocaust. How did you feel when you heard that? SOROS: Well, look, FOX News makes a habit — it has imported the methods of George Orwell, you know, newspeak, where you can tell the people falsehoods and deceive them. And you wouldn’t believe that at an open society and a democracy these methods can succeed. But, actually, they did succeed. They succeeded in Germany where the Weimar Republic collapsed and you had a — a Nazi regime follow it. So this is a very, very dangerous way of deceiving people, and I would like people to be aware that they are being deceived. Now, I — because I saw it as a child, I immediately react that way. But people in America, they are innocent. They — they haven’t had the experience. But having the experience now, and I hope they wake up and they realize that they are being deceived. ZAKARIA: What do you think of this broader movement of the Tea Party, of — of what’s going on on the right? SOROS: Look, I think the people in the Tea Party are very decent people, hard-working. They’ve been hit by a force that — that comes from somewhere which they can’t fully understand, and — and they are being misled. And they are misled by people who are using it for their selfish purposes, namely to remove regulations and — and reduce taxation. So reduce taxation and regulation, and they are being used and deceived. ZAKARIA: Do — do you think that there is some — I’m struck by the fact that when I first met you, you were always accused of being this ultra capitalist. You were the speculator, you were the person who, you know, understood markets better than anyone. And now, you’re painted as this kind of left wing iconic figure. It’s been quite a journey. SOROS: Well, you just had the experience of speaking through the — to the puppet master and the extreme left wing manipulator, and you and the audience can make their own decisions.
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From France to the United Kingdom, European leaders have condemned the violence in Libya. In recent years, European countries have been cultivating a relationship with Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi – for business reasons. Harry Smith reports.
Continue reading …Lindsay Graham: What’s All The Complaining About? Walker Is Doing What He Campaigned On.
February 21, 2011 No CommentSenator Lindsay Graham doesn’t understand why Wisconsin voters are so up in arms over Walker’s designs to bust unions. After all, isn’t that what he campaigned on? Voters elected him so now everyone should just shut up and let him do what he’s elected to do. SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: David, if I could just add, this is a campaign flyer I have. I don’t know if you can see it. From the last election cycle, where Wisconsin Union said, “If you elect this guy, Scott Walker, he’s going to reform or limit collective bargaining.” He was open about what he was going to do about contributions to pensions and retirement. And he told the people of Wisconsin, “I’m going to change collective bargaining because it is– impedes progress when it comes to education. It’s too hard to fire anybody. It– is too complicated. And I’m going to change that system.” So in a democracy, when you run on something, you do have an obligation to fulfill your promise. He didn’t take anybody by surprise. He’s doing exactly what he said. There was a referendum on this issue, and the unions lost. And the Democrats in Wisconsin should come back to Wisconsin to have votes. You know, just like the Republicans have done for the last two years with President Obama . After all, he was elected campaigning on health care , stimulating the economy back from the brink that destructive Republican policies brought it to, extending the strategic arms treaty Reagan developed . Just like that, Huckleberry? Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican. DAVID GREGORY: Let– let me ask you– about what is becoming a federal issue. And that is what’s happening in Wisconsin. This was the scene on Friday in the rotunda in Madison as union workers– were protesting the move by– the governor of Wisconsin to demand a greater participation on unions in terms of pension– contributions, as well as health care contributions, also trying to end collective bargaining in the state. And you see the response there. President Obama did an interview and Weighed in on this. This is what he had to say. (VIDEO NOT TRANSCRIBED) DAVID GREGORY: Senator Graham, did the President do the right thing, weighing in to this controversy? SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: I think the President should be focusing on what we’re doing in Washington. The President’s budget this year is the highest level of spending as a nation– 25.3 percent of GDP, since World War II. So that’s not the number to use to get this place in– in– in– in fiscal sanity. We should be looking at the dollars we’re actually spending. That’s what the House did. But when the President talks about Wisconsin, I think that’s– that really is inappropriate. The governor of Wisconsin is doing what he campaigned on. He said he would ask contributions from government employees for– pension and for health care at a level that I think’s reasonable. And he also put on the table renegotiating and reforming collective bargaining. He told me yesterday it takes 15 months to do a contract with government employees in Wisconsin. And so he’s doing what he said. There was an election on his proposals, and he won. And he should be allowed to fulfill his mandate, just like the House Republicans. DAVID GREGORY: Senator Durbin, is the White House– is the President using his own campaign operation, an operation of supporters, to fuel protests in Wisconsin? SENATOR DICK DURBIN: Let me tell you why– what’s happening in Wisconsin. Just north of Illinois. Goes way beyond the discussion of the Wisconsin budget. If you think this is just about money and the budget, then you might believe Caesar Chavez was just working to get a couple pennies more per pound for grapes, or that Martin Luther King was really working for access to hotels and restaurants. There’s a much bigger issue at stake here. For over 80 years in America, we have recognized the rights of our workers to freely gather together, collectively bargain, so that they could have fairness in the workplace and fairness in compensation. And that is what’s at stake here. It goes way beyond this budget issue. This governor of Wisconsin is not setting out just to fix a budget, he’s setting out to break a union. That is a major move in terms of American history. I believe the President should have weighed in. I think we should all weigh in and say, “Do the right thing for Wisconsin’s budget, but do not destroy decades of work to establish the rights of workers to speak for themselves.” SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: David, if I could just add, this is a campaign flyer I have. I don’t know if you can see it. From the last election cycle, where Wisconsin Union said, “If you elect this guy, Scott Walker, he’s going to reform or limit collective bargaining.” He was open about what he was going to do about contributions to pensions and retirement. And he told the people of Wisconsin, “I’m going to change collective bargaining because it is– impedes progress when it comes to education. It’s too hard to fire anybody. It– is too complicated. And I’m going to change that system.” So in a democracy, when you run on something, you do have an obligation to fulfill your promise. He didn’t take anybody by surprise. He’s doing exactly what he said. There was a referendum on this issue, and the unions lost. And the Democrats in Wisconsin should come back to Wisconsin to have votes.
Continue reading …It really sickens me to listen to the hypocrisy of western politicians calling for both sides to “exercise restraint” in the popular protests that are now sweeping across the Arab world ( Death tolls rise in Bahrain and Libya , 19 February). These same politicians have maintained a deafening silence for years when it suited them to support a swath of autocratic (often oil-rich) Arab governments. I think in particular of Libya, which I recently visited as an academic from a leading UK university. Having moved from pariah to western friend, it was awash with new American oilmen making big bucks and contractors building the first western hotels. But those few frightened Libyans who would risk talking to me spoke of 40 years of totalitarian rule, political prisoners, torture and the complete impossibility of change. In the last couple of days one of my Libyan students here in the UK managed to contact his family in the east of the country (internet down, many tele phones cut off and no journalists) and they spoke of cold-blooded massacres by “foreign mercenaries brought in from neighbouring countries”. The words of that student, in tears in my office, still ring chillingly in my ears: “He [Gaddafi] is completely mad. This is not in like Egypt or Tunisia. He will massacre every one. May God help us all!” Name and address supplied • What are teargas canisters and “crowd control ammunition” ( UK supplied weapons used in Bahrain crackdown , 18 February) if not weapons “which might be used to facilitate internal repression”? Why were licences for them approved after the government had “closely consider[ed] allegations of human rights abuses”? Allan Baker Kettering, Northamptonshire Libya Bahrain Egypt Tunisia Middle East Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Howard Kurtz in Lara Logan Segment Says Schlussel’s Conservative, Doesn’t Mention Rosen’s Liberal
February 21, 2011 No Comment
Howard Kurtz devoted a good part of “Reliable Sources” Sunday to the attack on CBS's Lara Logan when Egypt's Hosni Mubarak resigned as President. As he addressed some disgraceful comments made about the incident by members of the media, Kurtz made it clear to viewers that Debbie Schlussel was a conservative, better never once depicted Nir Rosen as a liberal (video follows with transcript and commentary): HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: After CBS's Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted in Cairo, a journalist named Nir Rosen, who's written for “The New Yorker” and “The Nation” among others, lost his job at NYU Fellow for tweeting the following, Lara Logan had to outdo Anderson, meaning Anderson Cooper who was roughed up in Cairo. It would have been funny if it happened to Anderson too. Nir Rosen went on Cooper's 360 and here's what he had to say. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANDERSON COOPER, HOST “ANDERSON COOPER 360″: Nir, how do you explain your tweets? NIR ROSEN, FREELANCE JOURNALIST: I don't have an explanation. I was a jerk. It was 2:00 in the morning and I was being thoughtless, forgetting that I wasn't just talking to a couple of people, that I was talking, in theory, to hundreds of thousands of people. (END VIDEO CLIP) As that clip was playing, the chyron at the bottom of the screen said, “Nir Rosen, Freelance Journalist.” Nothing about him being a liberal: KURTZ: Mary Elizabeth Williams, what he wrote was appalling, but he apologized profusely. Was this an overreaction for him to lose his job? MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS, SERVED AS CULTURE CRITIC FOR PUBLIC RADIO INTERNATIONAL'S “THE TAKEAWAY”WILLIAMS: And he also — he apologized. He expanded upon that in salon.com this week, where he said, again, that he apologized, but then he also backhandedly started talking about how he was so outraged that this attention only comes when, as he put it, the pretty blond lady has something happen to her. So is the outrage justified? It depends on who you're talking to. I know he's received threats. I think people have harassed him. That's never excusable. That's never the right reaction. Should he have lost his job. Yes, I think he should have because I think what he said was despicable. KURTZ: All right. Tweeting at 2:00 in the morning in dangerous. Now watch how Kurtz made it a point that Schlussel was conservative: KURTZ: Donatella Lorch, a conservative blogger named Debbie Schlussel wrote the following: “So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And then this. How fitting that Lara Logan was 'liberated' by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the liberation. Hope you're enjoying the revolution, Lara.” What are we to make of that? While he was speaking, this was on the screen clearly denoting Schlussel as a “Conservative Political Commentator”: As such, two mentions of Schlussel's political leaning but nothing about Rosen's. Why, Howie?
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Click here to view this media Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that the Bush’s administration’s erroneous belief that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was not the only reason for invasion, but it was “the big one.” “I think the concern I had that the information we had was imperfect,” Rumsfeld told CNN’s Candy Crowley. “It was more than imperfect,” Crowley interrupted. “Some of it was just flat wrong.” An Iraqi defector, codenamed Curveball, who allegedly helped convince the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had a secret stash of biological and chemical weapons, admitted this week that he made it all up. Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi told The Guardian that he invented the stories to help topple Saddam Hussein, but was shocked when the US used tales as an excuse to go to war. “Well, the intelligence community talks to hundreds of people,” Rumsfeld explained. “They have human assets such as this man. Some are honest. Some are dishonest. Some do it for money and some do it for self-aggrandizement and some just lie.” “Did anyone say ‘give me the person who gave the intelligence’ because sitting here listening to you, to me, the fault of the war was the intelligence community — the false premise of the war?” Crowley asked. “Well, first of all, there were a variety of reasons for the war, not simply WMD,” Rumsfeld replied. “If you looked at the resolution from the Congress, there were multiple reasons, and if you looked at the UN resolution, there were multiple reasons so it wasn’t a sole reason.” “But it was the big one,” Crowley observed. “No question it was the big one,” Rumsfeld agreed. “I think probably people would argue to you that we wouldn’t have gone in had we said ‘no, they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction,’” Crowley noted. “I think that’s probably right. A great many people would not,” Rumsfeld admitted.
Continue reading …Democratic Party: Want To Know Why You Struggle During Elections? Stop Using GOP Terminology
February 20, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media (h/t Heather at VideoCafe ) It’s a well-known truism in public relations, advertising and most importantly, politics: He who controls the framing wins the argument. So perhaps it’s not a surprise that the DLC is closing its doors under Harold Ford’s chairmanship . Because, honestly, is there a bigger Republican in the Democratic Party than Harold Ford? As a favorite and repeated member of David Gregory’s Meet the Press round table, Ford is the GOP Party’s best advocate, routinely undermining Democratic principles and platforms by not only accepting GOP framing, but actively pushing it . How sick is it that the purported spokesperson for the Democratic Leadership Council does nothing more than echo the pandering Lindsay Graham ? Once again, the very young, well-compensated Ford has no problem with extending the age of full benefits for Social Security to 70. Well, when the most arduous thing you do at work is pucker up to Republican memes, I’m sure you can imagine another 30 years of working. But tell me, Harold, what about the vast majority of people who rely on Social Security as the primary source of income in their retirement? Should we make truck drivers stay on the road to the age of 70? What do we say to those with back-breaking blue collar jobs? Suck it up until you’re 70? Should my grandmother have been doing the surprisingly physical work of nursing terminal patients in her 70s? My mother is not yet 70. By Ford’s calculation, she should still be working, the freeloader, instead of caring for my grandmother, allowing her the dignity of remaining at home despite her age-related dementia. Harold, you selfish prick, do you consider anyone’s situation beyond your own cushy existence when speaking out AGAINST the Democratic platform? As George Lakoff says : Democrats help radical conservatives by accepting the deficit frame and arguing about what to cut. Even arguing against specific “cuts” is working within the conservative frame. What is the alternative? Pointing out what conservatives really want. Point out that there is plenty of money in America, and in Wisconsin. It is at the top. The disparity in financial assets is un-American – the top one percent has more financial assets than the bottom 95 percent. Middle-class wages have been flat for 30 years, while the wealth has floated to the top. This fits the conservative way of life, but not the American way of life. Democrats help conservatives by not shouting out loud, over and over, that it was conservative values that caused the global economic collapse: lack of regulation and a greed-is-good ethic. Democrats also help conservatives by what a friend has called “Democratic Communication Disorder.” Republican conservatives have constructed a vast and effective communication system, with think tanks, framing experts, training institutes, a system of trained speakers, vast holdings of media and booking agents. Eighty percent of the talking heads on TV are conservatives. Talk matters, because language heard over and over changes brains. Democrats have not built the communication system they need, and many are relatively clueless about how to frame their deepest values and complex truths. And Democrats help conservatives when they function as policy wonks — talking policy without communicating the moral values behind the policies. They help conservatives when they neglect to remind us that pensions are deferred payments for work done. “Benefits” are pay for work, not a handout. Pensions and benefits are arranged by contract. If there is not enough money for them, it is because the contracted funds have been taken by conservative officials and given to wealthy people and corporations instead of to the people who have earned them. Democrats help conservatives when they use conservative words like “entitlements” instead of “earnings” and speak of government as providing “services” instead of “necessities.” I’ve been really angry by the lack of progressive voices on these shows. And Harold Ford–the ultimate in entitlement figures–is emblematic of the dangers inherent in a system that gives Ann Coulter a platform but still blackballs progressives like Markos Moulitsas. Please Democrats, for the love and continuation of this democracy, STOP USING REPUBLICAN MEMES!
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