ideoclast
This blog is designed to dismantle our modern ideas and beliefs, specially the ones that shape our society and world views. //// The other, more personal blog (fromtheinsight.tumblr.com), is made for human introspection, nature/art contemplation and for expression.
Obama Administration To Argue In Court That They Can Spy On Americans With Impunity
The Obama administration is set to argue to a federal appeals court Friday that the government may breach, with impunity, domestic spying laws adopted in the wake of President Richard M. Nixon’s Watergate scandal.
The case tests whether Americans may seek recourse or monetary damages when a sitting U.S. president bypasses Congress’s ban on warrantless spying on Americans — in this instance when President George W. Bush authorized his secret, warrantless domestic spying program in the aftermath of the September 2001 terror attacks.
The government appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and arguments before a three-judge panel are set to be heard in Pasadena, California, this Friday.
Congress, with the vote of President Barack Obama — who was an Illinois senator at the time — subsequently legalized much of the warrantless spying in the summer of 2008. The legislation also provided the nation’s telecommunication companies immunity from lawsuits accusing them of being complicit with the government’s warrantless wiretapping.
The Obama Administration claims said it cannot be held liable under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act*, and that Congress has not waived sovereign immunity — meaning the government has not consented to being sued for breaching its own laws.
(via deus--ex-machina)
Because instantly alienating a huge chunk of your demographic through offensive humour is the best way to sell soda pop. (x)
(via amodernmanifesto)
“I love you because
your mouth knows how to yell
rebellion”
(Source : hojeandolibros, via amodernmanifesto)
The Young Lords Party is a Revolutionary Political Party Fighting for the Liberation of All Oppressed People.
1. We want self-determination for Puerto Ricans—Liberation of the Island and inside the United States.
For 500 years, first spain and then united states have colonized our country. Billions of dollars in profits leave our country for the united states every year. In every way we are slaves of the gringo. We want liberation and the Power in the hands of the People, not Puerto Rican exploiters.
Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!
2. We want self-determination for all Latinos.
Our Latin Brothers and Sisters, inside and outside the united states, are oppressed by amerikkkan business. The Chicano people built the Southwest, and we support their right to control their lives and their land. The people of Santo Domingo continue to fight against gringo domination and its puppet generals. The armed liberation struggles in Latin America are part of the war of Latinos against imperialism.
Que Viva La Raza!
3. We want liberation of all third world people.
Just as Latins first slaved under spain and the yanquis, Black people, Indians, and Asians slaved to build the wealth of this country. For 400 years they have fought for freedom and dignity against racist Babylon (decadent empire). Third World people have led the fight for freedom. All the colored and oppressed peoples of the world are one nation under oppression.
No Puerto Rican Is Free Until All People Are Free!
4. We are revolutionary nationalists and oppose racism.
The Latin, Black, Indian and Asian people inside the u.s. are colonies fighting for liberation. We know that washington, wall street and city hall will try to make our nationalism into racism; but Puerto Ricans are of all colors and we resist racism. Millions of poor white people are rising up to demand freedom and we support them. These are the ones in the u.s. that are stepped on by the rules and the government. We each organize our people, but our fights are against the same oppression and we will defeat it together.
Power To All Oppressed People!
5. We want community control of our institutions and land.
We want control of our communities by our people and programs to guarantee that all institutions serve the needs of our people. People’s control of police, health services, churches, schools, housing, transportation and welfare are needed. We want an end to attacks on our land by urban removal, highway destruction, universities and corporations.
Land Belongs To All The People!
6. We want a true education of our Creole culture and Spanish language.
We must learn our history of fighting against cultural, as well as economic genocide by the yanqui. Revolutionary culture, culture of our people, is the only true teaching.
7. We oppose capitalists and alliances with traitors.
Puerto Rican rulers, or puppets of the oppressor, do not help our people. They are paid by the system to lead our people down blind alleys, just like the thousands of poverty pimps who keep our communities peaceful for business, or the street workers who keep gangs divided and blowing each other away. We want a society where the people socialistically control their labor.
Venceremos!
8. We oppose the Amerikkkan military.
We demand immediate withdrawal of u.s. military forces and bases from Puerto Rico, Vietnam and all oppressed communities inside and outside the u.s. No Puerto Rican should serve in the u.s. army against his Brothers and Sisters, for the only true army of oppressed people is the people’s army to fight all rulers.
U.S. Out Of Vietnam, Free Puerto Rico!
9. We want freedom for all political prisoners.
We want all Puerto Ricans freed because they have been tried by the racist courts of the colonizers, and not by their own people and peers. We want all freedom fighters released from jail.
Free All Political Prisoners!
10. We want equality for women. Machismo must be revolutionary… not oppressive.
Under capitalism, our women have been oppressed by both the society and our own men. The doctrine of machismo has been used by our men to take out their frustrations against their wives, sisters, mothers, and children. Our men must support their women in their fight for economic and social equality, and must recognize that our women are equals in every way within the revolutionary ranks.
Forward, Sisters, In The Struggle!
11. We fight anti-communism with international unity.
Anyone who resists injustice is called a communist by “the man” and condemned. Our people are brainwashed by television, radio, newspapers, schools, and books to oppose people in other countries fighting for their freedom. No longer will our people believe attacks and slanders, because they have learned who the real enemy is and who their real friends are. We will defend our Brothers and Sisters around the world who fight for justice against the rich rulers of this country.
Viva Che!
12. We believe armed self-defense and armed struggle are the only means to liberation.
We are opposed to violence—the violence of hungry children, illiterate adults, diseased old people, and the violence of poverty and profit. We have asked, petitioned, gone to courts, demonstrated peacefully, and voted for politicians full of empty promises. But we still ain’t free. The time has come to defend the lives of our people against repression and for revolutionary war against the businessman, politician, and police. When a government oppresses our people, we have the right to abolish it and create a new one.
Boricua Is Awake! All Pigs Beware!
13. We want a socialist society.
We want liberation, clothing, free food, education, health care, transportation, utilities, and employment for all. We want a society where the needs of our people come first, and where we give solidarity and aid to the peoples of the world, not oppression and racism.
Hasta La Victoria Siempre!
(Source : iista, via amodernmanifesto)
What if all you had was a rock in your hand to defend your home, family, and life?
Resistance is not terrorism.
(Source : cosmicintifada, via thespiritofyamato)
Ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak sentenced to life in prison
The former Egyptian leader, shown from the cage he was held inside the courtroom, is the first former leader convicted in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions in the past 16 months. Mubarak’s conviction, however, may not stand — he was convicted for killings of unarmed protesters in the early days of the protests in Egypt, but many of the officials under him were acquitted for the same actions. Nonetheless, a significant event in the Arab Spring’s history. (photo via Reuters TV)
(via discoverynews)
Newly Released FBI “Domestic Terrorism” Training on Anarchists, Environmentalists, Show COINTELPRO Tactics
Newly released FBI presentations show the flawed and misleading information the government is using to train agents to identify and investigate “domestic terrorist” groups such as “black separatists,” anarchists, animal rights activists, and environmentalists.
Among the more troubling portions of the training materials are warnings of activists using the Freedom of Information Act, engaging in non-violent civil disobedience, and gathering in coffee shops.
The domestic terrorism training materials were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the ACLU. They offer additional insight into a disturbing pattern of FBI activity misrepresenting political activists as “terrorists” and manufacturing “domestic terrorism threats” where none exist, akin to the notorious COINTELPRO program of J. Edgar Hoover.
In presentations on “Anarchist Extremism,” the FBI warns:
– Anarchists are “Criminals seeking an ideology to justify their activities”
– Anarchists are “Not dedicated to a particular cause”
– Green anarchists believe “individuals should ‘get back to nature’”
Their meeting locations include “college campuses, underground clubs, coffee houses/ internet cafes.” Their criminal activity includes “Sleeping Dragons” (a form of civil disobedience in which people lock arms in PVC pipes).
Anarchists are also “paranoid / security conscious,” according to the presentation. This is an interesting observation coming from the FBI, considering there have been two recent cases where the FBI played a key role in infiltrating anarchist groups in order to orchestrate alleged terrorist attacks. In the Cleveland May Day arrests, and in the Chicago NATO arrests, the FBI trumpeted the arrest of “terrorists” that agents themselves tried desperately to create.
(via arielnietzsche)
Knowledge is not for knowing: knowledge is for cutting.
—Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader (via somethingquitequixotic)
El Vaticano es un imperio que devora con ingenio predicando por la caridad.
—Ska-p (via carminapelirosa)
(Source : azulraiz, via sin-patria)
New Syria 'massacre' reported; activists say 12 workers executed
Allegations of a fresh massacre in Syria surfaced Friday as activists said security forces shot and killed 12 factory workers returning home from work in a bus near the town of Qusayr in the restive province of Homs.
The men were traveling home from their jobs in a state-run fertilizer factory on Thursday afternoon when the bus was stopped at a military checkpoint on the outskirts the town, Salim Kabbani of the Syrian opposition activist network Local Coordination Committees told The Times via telephone.
The men were summarily executed there by gunshots, Kabbani said, and their bodies were dumped in a field on the outskirts of Qusayr. None of the men were known activists, and all were buried Thursday evening, Kabbani said.
But the pro-government Facebook page, the Homs News Network, put the blame on the killings on the rebel Free Syrian Army, saying the workers were killed because they were state employees, the Associated Press reported.
The killings again raised fears that Syria was plunging into a cycle of tit-for-tat sectarian massacres and a possible civil war, fears voiced by this week by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
The latest reported massacre remained uncorroborated by U.N. monitors inside Syria, but video was posted on the Internet purporting to show the bodies of at least nine men, wrapped in white sheets, laid out inside a building.
[Updated 10:56 a.m., June 1: The U.N. monitors’ spokesperson said Friday that opposition and government groups confirmed that at least 12 people were killed in the Qusayr area, but the circumstances surrounding the killings are contested by both sides.
The images and other online video of men with grievous wounds said to be victims of the bus massacre could not be independently confirmed.
The incident would be the third massacre reported from Syria in the last week — including the execution-style murder of 13 men near the eastern city of Deir Elzour and the house-to-house killings of 108 people, mostly children and women, in the township of Houla in Homs province.
The Houla massacre has galvanized international public opinion against the Syrian government, but authorities say anti-government “armed groups” carried out the killings, targeting loyalist families, including the family of a member of parliament.
Brig. Gen. Qassem Jamal Suleiman, chief of the Syrian government’s committee probing the Houla massacre, alleged that gunmen gathered inside the town following Friday prayers, along with 600 to 800 fighters from other areas, and began the “onslaught simultaneously,” Syria’s official SANA news agency reported. Suleiman said the goal of the “armed attack” was to bring the area under control of the “armed groups.”
Syrian activists, however, blame the gruesome killings in Houla on the shadowy pro-government paramilitary militia known as Shabiha, from the Arabic word for ghosts. Activists of the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page — a driving machine behind anti-government rallies — are urging Syrians to take to the streets Friday in protest for the “Children of Houla.”
Activists also called on members of the capital’s merchant class who shuttered their shops in Old Damascus earlier this week in an apparent protest of the Houla killings to continue their strike. Merchants have been considered a key sector of support for the embattled government of President Bashar Assad.
“These strikes represent a major blow to the now-defunct regime, which had been counting on the masses to maintain their silence,” the Local Coordination Committees said Friday in a statement.”But the train of history is on its way. And this train must stop at the station in central Damascus -– a station that may represent the beginning of the end.”
The latest massacre scenario — with the factory workers said to have been pulled off a bus — matches at least one earlier mass killing in the Homs area. It was unclear Friday if a sectarian motive was involved, but other such cases have reportedly featured gunmen at roadblocks selecting motorists and bus passengers for execution based on their sect.
Homs, like all of Syria, is mostly made up of Sunni Muslims, but the province also has significant minorities of minority Christians and Alawites, the latter an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Assad and much of the leadership of his security and intelligence apparatus come from the Alawite sect.
(via maozedongisnotcool)
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
—Oscar Wilde (via themusingstranger)
(via arielnietzsche)
Drug war devastation in Latin America
President Obama recently announced an aid package of more than $130 million to fight the narcotraficantes (narco-traffickers) in Central and Latin America. The infusion of money was announced at the Summit of the Americas in April in Cartagena, Colombia, to head off criticism of the “war on drugs”—and spreading calls to declare it a failure and end it.
The White House wants the world to believe drug prohibition works, and to forget the murderous legacy of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Central and Latin America.
The CIA and the DEA have been directly involved in drug trafficking in the region for decades. They’ve trained, armed and funded death squads and right-wing paramilitary groups that share control of the lucrative drug trade. Corrupt officials at the highest levels of government and sections of the business class also profit enormously from the illicit drug trade.
Latin America has borne the brunt of the U.S.-led war on drugs that has turned several countries into virtual war zones full of massacres and mayhem. Drug cartels operate with near impunity and assassinate judges, journalists, mayors, police and anyone unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
No country wants to become the “next Mexico,” where more than 60,000 people have died in gruesome, drug-fueled violence. Over 250,000 have been internally displaced, and kidnapping for ransom is rife. In many parts of Mexico, drug cartels now battle openly with government forces for control of cities and towns.
The effects on the Mexican economy, in particular tourism, have been devastating. In Acapulco last year, 15 decapitated bodies were found on a walkway to a popular beach. Another 12 victims, including two police officers, were killed in the city on the same day. The drug war has turned Mexico into vast killing fields and economic wastelands.
(Source : anticapitalist, via arielnietzsche)
