World Analysis Newswire Archive

This week we continue to examine the details of schooling as a social control mechanism. First, a section from John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education, followed by the conclusion of his Radio Free School interview and an excerpt from a speech on the scientific management of children. In hour 2, Peg Luksik of the Pennyslvania Parents' Commission asks Who Controls The Children?, focusing on increasingly sophisticated efforts by the schooling system to establish, log and 'correct' US students' attitudes.

This week we conclude our series on forced schooling, with a range of voices on its inter-relation with commercial organisations, including a radio adaptation of the Canadian film, "Corporations in The Classroom", an interview with Maia Szalivitz on the 'troubled teen' industry, and an interview with Dayna Martin on the emerging 'partnership' style of parenting known as radical unschooling.

Britain’s ruling elite are sharpening their neo-colonial claws once again in the guise of “humanitarian intervention”, this time utilising the suffering of the Libyan masses.

“Human Rights Watch singled out a severe retrogression in the status of women and girls, who under the secular dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party were “relatively better protected than other countries in the region.” Forced marriages, forced prostitution, domestic abuse and sexual abuse have all risen sharply in the years since the US invasion.”

Today, women in the Philippines and all over the world gather in different places and spaces to show our collective strength and make our collective voice heard as we speak out our sufferings, challenges, triumphs and aspirations. Our voices are joined together as we resist the abuses and marginalization wrought upon us by economic policies that discriminate against giving women productive employment, just wages and benefits at the workplace, and opportunities for livelihood and income; by societies that allow, or even promote, violence to be committed against women with impunity; by governments and public institutions that turn a blind eye to the human rights of women.

March 7 was a pivotal moment in plans by Western powers to launch military operations against Libya. After meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Washington, President Barack Obama stated "we've got NATO, as we speak, consulting in Brussels around a wide range of potential options, including potential military options, in response to the violence that continues to take place inside of Libya."

Britain and France, in close consultation with the U.S. and Germany (collectively the NATO Quad), are jointly writing a draft resolution for a no-fly zone over Libya to be presented to the Security Council. If the resolution is supported by nine or more of the fifteen nations on the Security Council and if permanent members China and Russia don't veto it, the stage will be set for a series of further military actions by the U.S. and NATO against Libya, which will be presented by the West as UN-sanctioned, in a manner alarmingly evocative of the process used to prepare the attack on Iraq in 2003.

"The Obama administration is persecuting and torturing Manning for two major reasons. First, to force him to implicate WikiLeaks and its co-founder, Julian Assange, in his alleged downloading of classified documents. The government, in its campaign to destroy WikiLeaks and punish Assange, needs such testimony from Manning to potentially extradite and prosecute Assange under US sedition laws."

To fully comprehend this agenda, one has to penetratingly understand what transpired in Kosovo in the 1990s, and what was the end result. The internationalization of the United Nations and NATO “peace keeping” forces in order to maintain peace and stability among a fractious people unable to govern themselves like civilized human beings. Kosovo set the legal, and UN sanctioned precedent for how the World Order of one-world government is to be principally governed. That very end result in the case of Middle East, throughout the 'arc of crisis' in the 'global zone of percolating violence', is evidently being sought through these manufactured “revolutions” which only seed chaos, civil war, Muslim on Muslim ethnic/religious/political violence, all leading to the demoralization and disintegration of the cohesive social fabric under the auspices of 4th, 5th, 6th, ... generation warfare methods designed to destroy nations and societies from within. Just as was done to Serbia.

Broadcast at 6pm Friday 4th March 2011.
This week's discussion was about the deepening military conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan. The new military government in Egypt and nascent civil war in Libya.

Beehive Collective // Antifa & Anti-Nuclear in Germany // Palestine bike ride // Climate week // Little Shit

They came, they camped, they conquered (well, almost). During a soul-searching Dorset retreat, Climate Camp have decided to suspend tent-centred activism - citing the “radically different political landscape” of 2011. Having been through Drax, Kingsnorth, Heathrow, RBS, Copenhagen and one helluva lot of hummus, the group are now turning their attention to coordination with the wider anti-cuts and anti-austerity movement.

Updated after the jump

On the Newswire: Statement | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010

In SchNEWS: 736 | 696 | 689 | 642 | 641 | 600 | 558

Links: www.climatecamp.org.uk/2011-statement

"The "lap dog presses" in western nations will not assist in revealing the horrific imperial grab now shaping up in North Africa. The western powers are on the "counter attack" as naval might is now poised to "intervene" in Libya to "save the day," read steal the victory, after the people themselves have deposed the dictator and begun to set up their own government. That is the west's' worst nightmare. Normal human beings, peacefully governing themselves? That would be a disaster and the most feared example from the "great white man's" perspective. And of course they want the oil and a potential launch pad for attacks (remember the contra war against revolutionary Nicaragua) on the new governments in Tunisia and Egypt should they deem to be too independent from the dictates of capital. Eh gads! They might decide to meet the needs of their citizens!

The people of Libya will need to state to the entire world that they will defend they're independence and sovereignty with the force of arms from all invaders. Only then will the imperialist consider backing off."

"The US is already in contact with Gadhafi. They will keep him “in country” until they make they’re move. Capture or kill the old “asset,” it will make little difference to the US ruling class or the “seals” that carry it out. All that matters to the “masters” are two things: 1) The country’s’ oil. 2) Certainty that the new rulers represent the same elite class interests. Nothing is to be gained by the Libyan people. They will have to fight to be able to determine their fates. Perhaps many others will rise with them? Otherwise, it will be imperial conquest as usual."

“There is now talk about a “humanitarian intervention” in Libya, similar to Yugoslavia and Iraq. A “no-fly zone” over Libya has been mentioned, as has NATO military intervention. The aims behind such statements are not humanitarian, but are intended to justify foreign interference, which could potentially lead to an invasion. Should this come to fruition, Libya would become an occupied country. Its resources would be plundered and its assets privatized and controlled by foreign corporations as in the case of Iraq.
Today, in Libya and the Arab World the ghosts of Omar Mukhtar and Saladin are still very much alive and active. Getting rid of Gaddafi and his sons alone is not the solution. The entire corrupt system of governance in Libya and the culture of political corruption must be dismantled. At the same time, however, foreign interference or domination should also not be allowed to take root in Libya. If the Libyan people are mobilized and steadfast, they can fight such schemes.”

Also:

"Reports by Al Jazeera about Libyan jets firing on protesters in Tripoli and the major cities are unverified and questionable. [9] Hereto, the reports that Libyan jets have been attacking people in the streets have not been verified. No visual evidence of the jet attacks has been shown, while visual confirmation about other events have been coming out of Libya.
Al Jazeera is not alone in its biased reporting from Libya. The Saudi media is also relishing the events in Libya. Asharq Al-Awsat is a Saudi-owned paper that is strictly aligned to U.S. interests in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. Its editor-in-chief is now running editorials glorifying the Arab League for their decision to suspend Libya, because of the use of force by Tripoli against Libyans protesters – why were such steps not taken for Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, or Yemen? Inside and outside the Arab World, the mainstream media is now creating the conditions for some sort of intervention in Libya."

As the wave of popular uprisings has spread across the Arab world, a flurry of articles have appeared suggesting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez could be the next “dictator” to be overthrown.

Such arguments follow a pattern in the corporate media of slandering the Chavez government and the revolutionary process it leads.

They aim to conceal the real threat that haunts imperialism: that the Arab world may follow the example of Venezuela and other countries in Latin America — and break away from Western hegemony.

"The Imperialist powers, they’re economies wrecked by the hubris endemic to their systems, would like nothing better than to seize, Libya’s petroleum assets during this time of eternal turmoil. And why wouldn’t they desire to invade now? They get to derail revolution and they get the oil! This would be London and Washington’s wet dream. And it would be a disaster for the people everywhere! In fact we may ultimately find that their dirty, greedy hands were behind the disaster in Libya in order to create pretexts for actions “imperial in nature” all over Africa. At any rate, no progressive person can believe that “western intervention” will be other than another grotesque rape of the people of the African continent. Please do all you can to resist this horrible possibility? The western powers simply cannot be trusted. Defend the Libyan nations’ right, and indeed all the revolutionary peoples’ of Africa’s’ right to self-determination. No less, and in fact, much more is at stake."

"By the 1980s, the reign of terror that blazed across Latin America was too much for most people to stomach. From death squads to torture chambers and various massacres, the Latin American generals who trained in the US to spread democracy around the world quickly gained reputations for major human rights abuses.
To replace the overt support for dictatorships, a new concept for regime change was born; one that sounds and looks better – democracy promotion."

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and
exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing
colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial
projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European
settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative
is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the
original inhabitants.

Hussein Al-alak is a journalist, campaigner and chairman of Iraq Solidarity UK.

1) The ships in question are old and can be used by Iran for little more than training, the stated mission.

2) Iran, just like Israel, has every right under international maritime law and rules to use this important waterway.

3) It is bluster to refer to the Iranian action as a “provocation.” The move is “assertive,” for sure. But how long did the Israeli leadership believe that the feelings of others and they’re longing for respect and justice on the international scene, could be ignored?

4) Perhaps this would be a good time for the real “international community” to assert our collective demand that these two nations solve a dispute w/o involving or harming the futures of any of the rest of us?

"Perhaps this would be a good time for the real “international community” to assert our collective demand that these two nations solve a dispute w/o involving or harming the futures of any of the rest of us?"