Colin Kaepernick is righter than you know: the American national anthem is a celebration of slavery

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From the Intercept

by
2016-08-28

Before a preseason game on Friday, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When he explained why, he only spoke about the present: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. … There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Twitter then went predictably nuts, with at least one 49ers fan burning Kaepernick’s jersey.

Almost no one seems to be aware that even if the U.S. were a perfect country today, it would be bizarre to expect African-American players to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Why? Because it literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans.

Few people know this because we only ever sing the first verse. But read the end of the third verse and you’ll see why “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not just a musical atrocity, it’s an intellectual and moral one, too:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

“The Star-Spangled Banner,” Americans hazily remember, was written by Francis Scott Key about the Battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812. But we don’t ever talk about how the War of 1812 was a war of aggression that began with an attempt by the U.S. to grab Canada from the British Empire.

However, we’d wildly overestimated the strength of the U.S. military. By the time of the Battle of Fort McHenry in 1814, the British had counterattacked and overrun Washington, D.C., setting fire to the White House.

And one of the key tactics behind the British military’s success was its active recruitment of American slaves. As a detailed 2014 article in Harper’s explains, the orders given to the Royal Navy’s Admiral Sir George Cockburn read:

Let the landings you make be more for the protection of the desertion of the Black Population than with a view to any other advantage. … The great point to be attained is the cordial Support of the Black population. With them properly armed & backed with 20,000 British Troops, Mr. Madison will be hurled from his throne.

Whole families found their way to the ships of the British, who accepted everyone and pledged no one would be given back to their “owners.” Adult men were trained to create a regiment called the Colonial Marines, who participated in many of the most important battles, including the August 1814 raid on Washington.

Then on the night of September 13, 1814, the British bombarded Fort McHenry. Key, seeing the fort’s flag the next morning, was inspired to write the lyrics for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

So when Key penned “No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,” he was taking great satisfaction in the death of slaves who’d freed themselves. His perspective may have been affected by the fact he owned several slaves himself.

With that in mind, think again about the next two lines: “And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave / O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

The reality is that there were human beings fighting for freedom with incredible bravery during the War of 1812. However, “The Star-Spangled Banner” glorifies America’s “triumph” over them — and then turns that reality completely upside down, transforming their killers into the courageous freedom fighters.

After the U.S. and the British signed a peace treaty at the end of 1814, the U.S. government demanded the return of American “property,” which by that point numbered about 6,000 people. The British refused. Most of the 6,000 eventually settled in Canada, with some going to Trinidad, where their descendants are still known as “Merikins.”

Furthermore, if those leading the backlash against Kaepernick need more inspiration, they can get it from Francis Scott Key’s later life.

By 1833, Key was a district attorney for Washington, D.C. As described in a book called Snowstorm in August by former Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley, the police were notorious thieves, frequently stealing free blacks’ possessions with impunity. One night, one of the constables tried to attack a woman who escaped and ran away — until she fell off a bridge across the Potomac and drowned.

“There is neither mercy nor justice for colored people in this district,” an abolitionist paper wrote. “No fuss or stir was made about it. She was got out of the river, and was buried, and there the matter ended.”

Key was furious and indicted the newspaper for intending “to injure, oppress, aggrieve & vilify the good name, fame, credit & reputation of the Magistrates & constables of Washington County.”

You can decide for yourself whether there’s some connection between what happened 200 years ago and what Colin Kaepernick is angry about today. Maybe it’s all ancient, meaningless history. Or maybe it’s not, and Kaepernick is right, and we really need a new national anthem.

Colin Kaepernick Is Righter Than You Know: The National Anthem Is a Celebration of Slavery

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Swanson: Protests of the national anthem restore my faith in humanity

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From David Swanson
August 31, 2016

Speaking out against racism is one thing — and a wonderful and admirable thing it is — but choosing to do so by sitting out the U.S. national anthem, and then having others join in, or “come out” as routine national anthem sitters: this is fantastic!

A self-governing republic of thinking people (whose first thought should be “My god, what are we doing to the rest of the planet with all this pollution and all these wars?”) ought to have no use for mandatory flag worship, required hand positions, or enforced recitations of pledges of allegiance to colored bits of cloth. Or if only some people outgrow such practices, others ought to leave them alone about it.

The protest thus far is severely limited, of course. The primary reason that it is useful to break down required patriotism rituals is their intimate connection to militarism. Yet many are claiming other motives and swearing their steadfast allegiance to militarism. That’s OK. It’s still an enormous step, and one that thousands are thanking Colin Kaepernick for taking.

Of course the endless wars abroad fuel racism at home, and vice versa. The endless military budget unloads free war weapons on police, and free trainers in war mentality. The bombs dropped abroad still explode in the ghetto. And militarists are claiming just the opposite, in support of Kaepernick, alleging that bombing Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Libya somehow creates Kaepernick’s “freedom” to sit out the national anthem while catching hell mostly from enthusiastic war supporters. Nonetheless, breaking a taboo is a tremendous first step to be followed by many more.

My concern with the national anthem and all such related ceremonies is chiefly the obedience and subservience to symbols of mass murder. But secondarily, the lyrics of the full song, and the earlier version of it, are absolutely unacceptable. That the third verse celebrates killing people who had just escaped from slavery, that the earlier version celebrated killing Muslims, and that the lyricist himself, Francis Scott Key, owned people as slaves and supported police killings of African Americans while shouting about “freedom” — these are all insurmountable hurdles if you’re trying to get me to respect or identify with this song that, let’s face it, is also awful as a piece of music.

But strip the song down to its current first verse, and it remains a celebration of war, of the mass killing of human beings, of a war of conquest that failed to take over Canada and instead got the White House burned. And during the course of that valorous piece of blood-soaked stupidity, Key witnessed a battle in which human beings died but a flag survived. And I’m supposed to stand, like an obedient mindless robot, and worship that glorious incident, and it’s supposed to matter what I do with my hand, but not what I do with my brain?

Nations don’t have to find their whole identity in war. The United States could celebrate democratic advances, heroic activists, rights won for all variety of previously disfavored groups. We could sing a song about creative nonviolence, generosity, bravery, kindness, and natural beauty. We could sing a song that offered friendship to the other 96% of humanity. We could have a widely covered national contest for the best new song, and perhaps bump these two hideous presidential candidates off the airwaves for a few moments.

Instead, it’s the Star Mangled Banner over and over and over. And, yes, I’ve been sitting it out for years. Welcome, Colin. We’ve been waiting for you.

http://davidswanson.org/node/5258
http://warisacrime.org/content/protests-national-anthem-restore-my-faith-humanity

The U.S. Department of Clinton

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From the Wall St. Journal

The latest emails show that State and the foundation were one seamless entity.

By Kimberley A. Strassel

Aug. 25, 2016

This is the week that the steady drip, drip, drip of details about Hillary Clinton’s server turned into a waterfall. This is the week that we finally learned why Mrs. Clinton used a private communications setup, and what it hid. This is the week, in short, that we found out that the infamous server was designed to hide that Mrs. Clinton for three years served as the U.S. Secretary of the Clinton Foundation.

For the complete article, subscribe at
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-department-of-clinton-1472167746

State Department resources “for sale”? Oversight Committee requests more documents from John Kerry

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From Town Hall

by Katie Pavlich
Aug 26, 2016

New revelations this week showing the Clinton Foundation used the State Department to find and recruit employees during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary are prompting questions from House Oversight Committee Jason Chaffetz.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State John Kerry Thursday, Chaffetz wants details about taxpayers resources used to recruit State Department experts for Clinton Foundation donors and wants to know whether federal ethics codes were violated in the process.

“State Department employees interviewed applicants for Clinton Foundation positions  and sought a Libya expert on behalf of Clinton Foundation donors. According to one report, Clinton Foundation employees also contacted the State Department in an effort to find jobs for Clinton Foundation donors. Moreover, earlier this week, the Associated Press reported ‘[m]ore than half the people outside of government who met with [Secretary] Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money – either personally or through companies or groups – to the Clinton Foundation.’ These reports give rise to a perception that access to our State Department’s official resources, were for sale,” Chaffetz states in the letter. “The allegations contained in the Associated Press report and others also raise questions as to whether State Department employees acted to benefit the Clinton Foundation in violation of executive branch ethics guidelines.”

“In addition, work on behalf of the Clinton Foundation on personal time may also violate section 2635.705 of the executive branch ethics code, which generally prohibits a superior from coercing a subordinate from performing activities other than official duties,” the letter continues.

Earlier this week the Associated Press published a report showing 50 percent of individuals who were granted interviews with Secretary Clinton were big time donors to the Clinton Foundation. We also learned long time Clinton aide Huma Abedin regularly denied requested meetings with Secretary Clinton, rerouted individuals through the Clinton Foundation, donations would be made and then meetings would be granted. Chaffetz makes the argument in his letter to Kerry that these revelations further show official State Department resources were “up for sale.”

Chaffetz has requested Kerry produce a number of documents, communications and a list of all individuals on Clinton’s official calendar during her time as Secretary by September 7.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2016/08/26/oversight-comittee-to-john-kerry-explain-why-state-department-was-used-to-find-clinton-foundation-employees-n2210369

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Arms dealing is the subject of Hollywood comedy film

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From David Swanson

August 29, 2016

I recall five years ago listening to an arms dealer on NPR respond to a question of what he would do if the war on Afghanistan were actually ended. He said he hoped there could be a big long war in Libya. And he laughed. And the “journalist” laughed. It was arms dealing as comedy.

The new Hollywood movie War Dogs is a comic biopic or a biographical crime war comedy-drama film but always described as some sort of comedy. The image above is of an ad for the film that one hopes is intended as funny, because otherwise it would be even worse than it is. The website it points you to purports to be an introduction to how you, too, can get stinking rich as a war profiteer. Then it shows youtube trailers of the movie, which appears to be all about sex, music, violence, punchlines, and arms dealing.

If you watch the movie itself, it starts out denouncing war as having nothing to do with what the propaganda suggests, as being all about weapons profiteering. But the rest of the movie shows almost nothing of war. Never is a single victim of all the weaponry that is bought and sold shown or even mentioned. Instead, we’re given a version of The Big Short or The Wolf of Wall Street where the particular financial scam is selling weapons rather than repackaging mortgages.

Perhaps the early scenes of the movie touch momentarily on the hypocrisy of profiteering on war while denying even to oneself that one supports the wars. But these scenes also depict a society in which the only way a young person can earn a decent living is by selling weapons. It’s a familiar tale from stories of drug dealing as the only route to significant wealth. But here the drug is weaponry, and the addict is the U.S. government.

And it’s true that the (based on a true) story depicted in the film ends up in disaster. But we never see the slightest hint at how arming people to commit mass murder might harm anyone, any more than Wall Street crime movies introduce you to people made homeless by Wall Street scams. The moral lesson of War Dogs seems to be: Abide by proper bureaucratic procedures, buy the instruments of death from approved nations, maintain propriety and transparency in death dealing, and you’ll get only slightly less stinking rich than these clowns did.

The cultural lesson, especially of the advertising, seems to be that joking about war profiteering is funny, cool, and edgy. Joking about cruelty to non-human animals would not be so acceptable in movie promotions. The industry of mass murder for human beings has become background noise in the era of permawar. All jokes about it will be labeled ironic, but the fact that it is an acceptable topic for joking says something very troubling about our culture.

http://davidswanson.org/node/5255

http://warisacrime.org/content/arms-dealing-subject-hollywood-comedy

Look to the Netherlands for Clinton Foundation’s ongoing source of cash

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From the Canada Free Press
By —— Bio and Archives August 28, 2016

Takeover of America through the compromise by foreign governments of Hillary Rodham Clinton

It’s the ever-gurgling running water from the taps of the borderless Postcode Lotteries that’s enriching the Clinton Foundation, a fact that seems to be passing straight over the heads of investigative authorities trying to source the Foundation’s steady cash flow.

Tragically, just like its most infamous member, Hillary Clinton, the corrupt Clinton Foundation, sustained by millions of dollars from Postcode Lotteries,  will never be brought down by FBI investigation.

Even if the Foundation were forced to send back billions to foreign countries who bought into Hillary Clinton political favors when she was Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, the Foundation would thrive and go on because investigating authorities do not know where to go to turn off the Foundation’s free-running, borderless taps.

Little wonder that Bill Clinton, on the Postcode Lottery board of directors to this very day, crowed back in 2009: “The (Postcode) lottery is the best thing I’ve seen”.

How do you turn the tap off on the “best thing ever seen”?

“The National Postcode Lottery, the second largest lottery in The Netherlands, has donated over $25 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation.” (The Dutch Government, the Clinton Foundation and the Postcode Lottery, Aug. 13, 2016)

And that’s just the amount that shows on Foundation books.

In essence, the Clintons have won the biggest lottery of all time.

In coming up with a fail-proof scheme—one that uses million s of unsuspecting lottery ticket buyers in a market now going worldwide—the Clintons, you might say, won the lottery and are running Western society into the ground with it.

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America’s “Humanitarian War” against the World

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By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, August 14, 2016

The following  text is a point by point thematic summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky‘s presentation at the Science for Peace Conference, Academy of Sciences, Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, 15-16 August 2016

Introduction

Historically, science has supported the development of the weapons industry and the war economy. “Science for Peace” indelibly requires reversing the logic whereby commissioned  scientific endeavors are directed towards supporting what President Eisenhower called “The Military Industrial Complex”.

What is consequently required is a massive redirection of science and technology towards the pursuit of broad societal objectives. In turn, this requires a major shift in what is euphemistically called “US Foreign Policy”, namely America’s global military agenda.

Military Affairs: The Current Global Context 

The world is at a dangerous crossroads.  The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the Western military alliance (U.S.-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest levels of the military hierarchy. We are not dealing with piecemeal military and intelligence operations. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Asia Pacific region.

The current situation is all the more critical inasmuch as a US-NATO war on Russia, China and Iran is part of the US presidential election debate. It is presented as a political and military option to Western public opinion.

The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states. America’s hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, support of terrorist organizations, regime change and economic warfare.

U.S. and NATO forces have been deployed in Eastern Europe including Poland and Ukraine. In turn, military maneuvers are being conducted at Russia’s doorstep which could potentially lead to confrontation with the Russian Federation.

The U.S. and its allies are also threatening China under President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia”.

The U.S. led airstrikes initiated in August 2014 directed against Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State are part of a scenario of military escalation extending from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.

*         *        *

THE HISTORY OF NUCLEAR WAR AND “COLLATERAL DAMAGE”  

“We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark…. This weapon is to be used against Japan … [We] will use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. …  The target will be a purely military one… It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.” (President Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945)

“The World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians..” (President Harry S. Truman in a radio speech to the Nation, August 9, 1945).

[Note: the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; the Second on Nagasaki, on August 9, on the same day as Truman’s radio speech to the Nation]

(Listen to Excerpt of his speech, Hiroshima audio video)

For the full article, charts, and photographs:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-humanitarian-war-against-the-world/5539814

 

The “hatred of life”: the world system which is threatening all of us

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By Prof. Claudia von Werlhof
Global Research, August 16, 2016
In this civilization, true democracy is impossible.

I only have a few minutes to convince you of the usefulness of a new term; a term that will help us understand the dangerous times we are living in as well as the related struggles on a deeper level, that is, from the roots.

The time for lighthearted jokes and uncertainties is over. The “storm” predicted by the Zapatistas is approaching faster than expected. Our confusion needs to end.

The world system that is threatening all of us is based on a strange phenomenon I was only recently able to fully grasp, namely a “hatred of life”. (2) This hatred has indeed become a system, society, global civilization. It is embodied in all of modern civilization’s institutions: in economics as much as in politics, in science as much as in gender relations, and, especially, in modern technology. There no longer exists a place where the hatred of life has not, literally, been poured into concrete as the basic idea and sensation of our existence. The hatred of life is no fleeting emotion or a mere individual or personal experience of a certain situation or moment. It is nothing less than hostility to life itself, which – and this is my thesis – has become the main foundation, driving force, and defining criterion for a patriarchal civilization dating back almost 5000 years.

After a virtual ban of 30 years, the term “patriarchy” is now re-emerging. It was commonly used by radical feminists whose movement was destined to be destroyed with the arrival of neoliberalism.

The appearance of so-called “gender studies” was a consequence of this. The term “patriarchy” was shunned and the advocates of gender studies soon rallied behind demands for “equality” within the present system. The goal was integration and a share of power – something the Left had been propagating for a long time.

But the challenge lies in moving beyond a system driven by the hatred of life instead of (voluntarily!) turning into an ever more loyal accomplice in the massacres it is responsible for.

It has been repeatedly suggested here that the patriarchal system is a system of death. That is not entirely correct. The patriarchal system is a system of killing, that is, of artificial death: ecocide, matricide, homicide in general, and finally “omnicide”, the killing of “everything”.

Omnicide is already appearing on the horizon in the form of so-called “geoengineering”. Geoengineering has begun with the destruction of the planet itself, of Mother Earth and of her living order. Geoengineering intends to turn planet Earth into a gigantic weapon of war. (3) It uses new, “post-nuclear”, technologies of mass destruction intended to take control of the planet and its energies to employ “weather warfare” and “plasma weapons” among others.

The military geoengineering we are facing is an “art of war against the earth” that has been developed during 70 years of experimentation with the planet. It cloaks itself in “civil” and “scientific” clothing and claims to protect us from “climate change” and “global warming”. However, climate change and global warming are the results of the named experimentation and not of greenhouse gas emissions, as we are falsely led to believe in order to hide the crimes of the military. (4)

In this context, I would like to announce the publication of Planeta Tierra – la Nueva Guerra, the Spanish edition of Dr. Rosalie Bertell’s book Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War, which will be released by La casa del mago, based in Guadalajara. (5)

We always knew that the military was no institution expressing a love of life. But until recently we didn’t know that our civilian institutions were poisoned by the same perverse, illogical, and, in the words of Ivan Illich, “counterproductive” hatred of life.

How can you hate life when you are a part of it? How can you hate yourself? And why?

It is this scandalous secret that needs to be revealed. It is self-evident that the hatred of life cannot be acknowledged or openly named, supported, or propagated. It is never mentioned. Practically no one would want to partake in a project driven by a hatred of life. The love of life is still ours; it is deeply human. It is still with us from the times of non-patriarchal civilization, so-called “matriarchy”. Matriarchal civilization is based on a love of life. It is a civilization that cooperates with life, that celebrates life, and that cherishes the “good life” of communities, without the state and hierarchies, without the police and banks. (6)

The sinister motive of hating life needs to be hidden. The unspeakable crimes that all patriarchies have committed against life itself, against children, women, and all human beings, against the earth, animals, and plants must not be revealed. The hatred of life is the reason and the rational justification for the violence against it; a violence that intends to prevent any rebellion or uprising of those not believing in the system it protects; a system that many would see as a grave assault on their dignity if they only recognized it.

We are told that this violence is necessary for development, progress, and a better life for all of us. It is usually only understood and recognized by those who are directly affected by it. Even then, the promise of a better life is supposed to be a consolation, although any chance for a better life has, in fact, been sacrificed!

Why do we so seldom recognize how flawed this logic is? Why do we so seldom recognize the blatant contradiction of sacrificing life in order to improve it?

The reason is patriarchy’s utopian project. This was already laid out in ancient texts, during the times of the early patriarchies. The project’s purpose is to turn the natural order upside down and to establish an unnatural, and anti-natural, order instead. (7)

The origins of this can be found in the wars of conquest against the world’s matriarchal civilizations. Establishing control over those conquered required a system able to administer control: the state. It began to control life itself: humans, nature, and matriarchal culture. (8) The system based on a hatred of life was developed in order to prevent any challenge to patriarchal rule. It culminated in the desire to replace the natural order with an artificial one to dispose of the “problem of life” once and for all. All dependency on nature, women, mothers, and the earth was to be overcome. A male, patriarchal system of creation was invented that had no room for nature’s cycles, webs, and motions. The Goddess was replaced by “God the Creator” and, finally, by today’s “worldly gods”, the managers of an artificial life supposedly “post-human” and “trans-human”, a life of cyborgs, robots, artificial uteri, test tubes, and global industries of reproduction. (9)

The project of replacing life with non-life could only be realized with the help of modern patriarchal-capitalist civilization and its machine technology. All of the earlier “alchemist” attempts to produce better, higher, and more divine forms of life had failed. Only modern technology allowed for the monstrous manifestation of the patriarchal project we are witnessing today. This is why I call modern patriarchy: “the Monster”!

The Monster is not only characterized by exploitation, extraction, and appropriation. It is, first and foremost, characterized by transforming its possessions into their opposites, that is, into everything we call “capital”: value, money, machines, and hierarchical structures (following Marx).

In this civilization, true democracy is impossible. We are up against a totalitarian system that does not care for its subjects, that can not (or no longer) be stopped, and that is constantly becoming faster and more efficient in its attempt to end life on this planet – while turning even this very process into a tool for further accumulation of profit and power…

Supposedly, everything that exists today derives from so-called fathers; each origin is patriarchal and no longer maternal, deriving from a mother, from Mother Earth, matri-archal. Patriarchy is a new “technological formation” that produces and transforms everything that exists violently. It will not stop before everything has been annihilated.

Capitalism is the modern form of materializing this utopian project of total transformation. When “pure” patriarchy arrives and even the tiniest matriarchal remnants have disappeared, we will all be dead.

*

I hope that the men among you who before had difficulties with the term “patriarchy” can now see that it concerns you, too. I hope that you will decide to switch sides and join nature and women. Women are (still) closer to life, since life emerges from them. They are always the first victims of the hatred of life, but they are also closer to the truth of life.

When women rise up, they rise up in the defense of life. It has always been like that. Today, women are rising up again against violence and for life, massively and all over the world. Everyone ought to follow them, embrace them, and love them for it. It is not them who are the threat, it is the Monster, the patriarchal “hydra”, an all-encompassing combination of capitalism, neoliberalism, colonialism, globalization, and militarism.

Patriarchy is a historical project that has reached its peak with capitalism. Because of its hatred of life it inevitably will collapse. It cannot replace the life it continuously destroys. Capital cannot return anything to life. The process of “patriarchization” is irreversible. It is a religion. And the patriarchs cannot stop believing in it, because they would otherwise be forced to return to matriarchy…

What a great idea that would be! What joy it would bring! We could leave the patriarchal deception behind us and revive human dignity by rejecting this monstrous system. Without our participation and cooperation it cannot be maintained.

Mother Earth or death! This is the alternative we are confronted with today. (10) From a common house to a common cause: liberating ourselves from the ludicrous hatred of life, a collective disease buried in our collective unconscious.

Life is not here to be killed; it is here to be loved and defended!

Translation from German: Gabriel Kuhn

Notes:

  1. Claudia von Werlhof: El „odio a la vida“ como característica central del patriarcado, Mex. Nov 20, 2015a
  2. _____: El secreto inefable de la civilización moderna, man. Mex. 2015b
  3. Cf. Rosalie Bertell: Planet Earth: The latest weapon of war. London 2000, Women’s Press
  4. Cf. Planetare Bewegung für Mutter Erde, www.pbme-online.org; Claudia von Werlhof: La destrucción de la Madre Tierra como último y máximo crimen de la civilización patriarcal, Mex. 2015c, in: DEP, no. 30, Venice, Feb 2016
  5. Rosalie Betell: Planeta Tierra – la Nueva Guerra, Guadalajara 2016, La casa del mago
  6. Heide Göttner-Abendroth: Das Matriarchat, several volumes, Stuttgart, from 1988, Kohlhammer
  7. Cf. BUMERANG – Zeitschrift für Patriarchatskritik, no. 0, 2015, www.fipaz.at
  8. Cf., for example, Doris Wolf: Was war vor den Pharaonen?, Zurich 1994, Kreuz
  9. Cf. Claudia von Werlhof: Der unerkannte Kern der Krise. Die Moderne als Er-Schöpfung der Welt, Arun 2012, Uhlstädt-Kirchhasel; BUMERANG, no. 1: Mutterschaft im Patriarchat, 2015, www.fipaz.at
  10. Claudia von Werlhof: Madre Tierra o Muerte! Reflexiones para una Teoría Crítica del Patriarcado, Oaxaca 2015d, El Rebozo
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Prof. Claudia von Werlhof, Global Research, 2016
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-hatred-of-life-the-world-system-which-is-threatening-all-of-us/5541269

UN admits role in Haiti cholera outbreak that killed 10,000 people

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From RT
August 18, 2016

United Nations officials acknowledged, for the first time, the role peacekeepers played in the 2010 deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti that killed 10,000 people and sickened hundreds of thousands of others.

The Office of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in an email this week said “the UN has become convinced that it needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial outbreak and the suffering of those affected by cholera,” reported the New York Times.

For six years, UN officials refused to accept blame for bringing cholera to Haiti, but suspicions settled on a group of UN troops from Nepal who arrived after the January 2010 earthquake. Nepal had a cholera epidemic underway at the time and raw sewage from the latrines at the UN troops’ came was allowed to seep into an adjacent river.

The earthquake crippled the capital of Port-au-Prince, killing 200,000 people, then the cholera outbreak sickened hundreds of thousands of others, and killing 10,000.

The families of 5,000 Haitian cholera victims petitioned the United Nations in 2011 for redress, but its Office of Legal Affairs simply declared their claims “not receivable.”

An attorney who represents Haitian cholera victims who have filed a suit in US federal court seeking reparations from the UN told the Washington Post that acceptance of culpability could make it more likely plaintiffs will finally receive financial compensation.

“The UN has broad immunity from national courts, but that has always been conditioned on providing remedies out of court to victims who are harmed by UN operations,” Beatrice Lindstrom told the Washington Post. “It has been in breach of the treaty granting it immunity in the first place, so if the UN follows through on remedies, that would make questions of immunity mute.”

UN “peacekeepers” were deployed to Haiti following the 2004 ouster of then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The deputy spokesman for the secretary-general, Farhan Haq, told the New York Times the United Nations will draft a new response within two months and present it “once it has been fully elaborated, agreed with the Haitian authorities and discussed with member states.”

“This is a major victory for the thousands of Haitians who have been marching for justice, writing to the UN and bringing the UN to court,” said Mario Joseph, a Haitian human rights lawyer representing victims of the epidemic.

The UN acknowledgment comes after top officials were provided a draft 19-page report by an adviser criticizing their handling of the cholera outbreak.

The report written by NYU law professor Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, will likely be published in September and present by Ban at the UN General Assembly in October.

Alston wrote that the United Nations’ Haiti cholera policy “is morally unconscionable, legally indefensible and politically self-defeating,  according to the New York Times.

Alston went beyond criticizing the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to blame the entire United Nations system. “As the magnitude of the disaster became known, key international officials carefully avoided acknowledging that the outbreak had resulted from discharges from the camp,” he noted.

When the outbreak occurred it spread rapidly in the muddy, crowded tent camps where Haitians had sought refuge after the quake. The disease continues to sicken Haitians, especially in rural parts of the country without access to clean drinking water. A new spike of infections has been reported this year.

A recent report by Doctors Without Borders has raised the possibility the disease may have killed far more Haitians than previously estimated.

The secretary-general stopped short of saying the United Nations caused the outbreak. The organization continues to hold the position it is immune from legal action as a result of the outbreak.

https://www.rt.com/usa/356428-un-admits-role-haiti-cholera/

‘Insane blackmail’ or ‘historical responsibility’? Greece demands WW2 reparations from Germany

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From RT

August 18, 2016

Does Germany still owe Greece billions of euros in compensation for Nazi crimes in World War Two, or should bygones be bygones since Berlin has anyway given Athens billions as part of benefits and bailout measures?

Greece continues to demand about €270 billion from Germany in reparation payments for atrocities committed by the Nazi government during World War Two. Athens said it could take legal action against Germany to receive the compensation.

“Greece and its people will not forget the slaughter and war crimes of the Nazi army and demand tangible recognition by the German government. Greece will do whatever is necessary, mainly at a diplomatic level, and if necessary, at a legal [level],” Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said earlier this week, during a visit to Kommeno to commemorate the victims of the 1943 massacre in the northwestern village, where Nazi troops killed 317 civilians.

RT sat down with political theorist Marina Prentoulis, member of Syriza, and Eike Hamer, a political commentator from Germany, to discuss whether Greece can really claim the money 70 years after the war.

Marina Prentoulis agrees it’s been a long time, but insists that one has to remember that “crimes against humanity never expire.”

Reparation – Germany’s historical responsibility for Nazi occupation 

“The people of Greece will always have to live with the memories of the Nazi occupation. I would like to say that [on August 17] in 1944 we had a very dark anniversary for Greece – the anniversary of Kokkinia, a place in the western Athens, where the same day many years ago 20,000 people were gathered at the local square – 350 of them were executed, and 800 of them were taken hostages, and they were tortured by the Nazi army and the Gestapo,” she said.

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A man searches for the names of victims written on a memorial plaque, on the eve of the 69th anniversary of the Distomo massacre committed by the Nazis during World War Two, at the village of Karakolithos near Distomo village, about 165 km (103 miles) northwest of Athens (Reuters/John Kolesidis)
Greece demands €278bn WWII reparations from Germany – more than its debt to EU

Eike Hamer argues, though, that the issue of fairness here is not the point, as “there is hardly any other country that has got as much money from Germany as Greece.”  He recalled that back in 1960, West Germany paid 115 million deutsche marks to Greece as compensation for Nazi war crimes. Now the main point is to “live together again in peace and with respect to each other,” he says.

That won’t be possible if one side “comes with old stories [over and over] again to blackmail the other one and to demand any money or whatever from them,” Hamer says. “We’re comrades in the EU, and this is insane to make a break through the population, by demanding such insane things.”

Prentoulis agrees that living in peace is crucial, but, she insists, “this is why we have a historical responsibility to the people of Europe to recognize how Greece was devastated by the Nazi occupation.”

As for the 1960 payment, she said, “it was only a fraction of the money that they were supposed to give to Greece.”

“And now it is time to recognize that as comrades and for the good of the whole of Europe in order to be able to put this story in history and remember the horrific things that happened to Greece with not wanting to do anything like that again in the future; for peace and prosperity of Europe,” said Prentoulis.

No other country in the world pays Greece as much as Germany 

Since the 1960 compensation, Hamer argues, Greece has enjoyed advantages worth “a couple of hundred billion” euros. He referred to low interest rates, European – “mainly German” – aid and other indirect payments, including advantages Greece received because of having “many contracts” with Germany.

“There is no other country in the world paying Greece that much as Germany through the EU, through other things,” he said.

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ARCHIVE PHOTO: A Presidential guard pays tribute at the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier during an anniversary ceremony marking the end of World War II in front of the parliament in Athens (Reuters / Yorgos Karahalis)Athens cheers German president’s stance on WWII reparations to Greece

“It is funny that you can pay Greece as much money as you want and the elites divide this money amongst each other, take the money away, move to London, or whatever. Now, when the people are left behind from their own elites, they are demanding more money from Germany,” Hamer said, adding that “this is not fair.”

Prentoulis insists that it’s Greece that is being treated unfairly.

“Greece is getting one of the worst treatments across the Eurozone,” she said adding that economic issues and war reparation payment should be differentiated.

“But if you want to talk about the situation in Greece now, I have to remind you again about the 1953 London Debt Agreement, when a lot of countries, including Greece, decided to cut the debt of the German state by half and connect their repayment with a prosperity of the German state. This was an act of good will from the people of Europe,” she said.

Greece, however, is being treated differently now, says Prentoulis.

“The Greek people have been totally brought to the knees, once again because of austerity, because of the decisions of the conservative government of the EU, including the German one, and they are going on suffering since the crisis of 2008. You remember what happened with the Greek negotiations, and the whole Europe has been witnessing that,” she said.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/356398-greece-reparations-eu-germany-ww2/