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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org
Thousands Of Students March In Delhi Demanding Justice For Rohith Vemula
By Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc230216B.htm
Thousands of students marched through the streets of Delhi demanding justice for Rohith Vemula who committed suicide inside University of Hyderabad hostel room on January 17 after being targeted by the university and the right wing sangh parivar. Thousands of students, including those from the Jawaharlal Nehru University joined the protest march organised under the banner of Joint Action Committee for Social Justice of University of Hyderabad from Ambedkar Bhawan to Jantar Mantar
Soni Sori's Condition Stable
By Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc230216.htm
The condition of Soni Sori, Adivasi activist from Bastar, Chhatisgarh who was attacked with acid-like chemical Sunday night is stable says the doctors who treat her in Delhi's Indraprastha Apollo hospital
PUDR Writes To Chief Justice Of India On Attack On Soni Sori
And Other Rights Violations In Chhattisgarh
By People's Union For Democratic Rights
http://www.countercurrents.org/pudr230216.htm
Open letter to the Chief Justice of India for immediate intervention into physical attacks and eviction drives against women activists by police and vigilante groups in Chhattisgarh
Need For Equity, Diversity And Inclusion Initiatives In Indian Higher Education
By Bharat Rathod
http://www.countercurrents.org/rathod230216.htm
Currently, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’ initiatives are part of public and private higher education institutions in the U.S. These initiatives/programs are great support for underrepresented students and staff members. It focused on raising institutional awareness regarding issues of discrimination, setereotypes, social justice, inclusive pedagogy and campus climate, and enhancing diversity. The U.S. higher education admitted that students of color are being discriminated, whereas still we hesitate to acknowledge that lower caste students are being discriminated. Now, the point is that MHRD proactively wants to deal with caste-based discrimination in higher education or create a toothless reactionary policy that will maintain the status quo
Nationalism Vs. Rationale: Where Are We Heading?
By Rutuja Deshmukh Wakankar
http://www.countercurrents.org/wakankar230216.htm
The greatest travesty has already happened when Kanhaiya Kumar the arrested JNUSU president, leaders and party workers of CPI (Marxist) and journalist were beaten up inside the court premise. Responsibility of this lynch-mob mentality lies with us, how long are we going to tolerate this or propagate it? The day is not far where you or me will be taken by this lynch mob for not dressing-up in tune with their nationalistic sentiments
Godse’s Children versus Midnight’s Children
By Vaidyanath Nishant
http://www.countercurrents.org/nishant230216.htm
January 30, 1948, as Bapu walked for his evening prayer, three bullets pierced him. Nathuram Vinayak Godse surrendered himself to the police. Ten months later, during the famous Red Fort Trial made a detailed statement before the Court regarding the prosecution case against him which lasted about a year. The text of his statement was banned till the year 1968. In his statement there are two things that really have significance in the political state the nation is in now. He had said, “If devotion to one’s own country amounts to a sin, I admit I have committed a sin. If it is meritorious, I humbly claim the merit thereof.” There is a very interesting similarity that I find between what Godse had said years ago and what the current goons which includes, lawyers, police, politicians and activists, are giving as an explanation for their violence against students, teachers and anyone else who doesn’t favour the BJP. Any of us need not shout slogans against the nation, but
the very
fact that we criticize the activities of this goon gifts me a label of being anti-national
Undermining Democracy: Stifling Academic Institutions
By Ram Puniyani
http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani230216.htm
On the back of the death of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad Central University (HCU), one of the most prestigious University of the country Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been targeted by the ruling Modi Sarkar. The frightening things which happened in HCU were just the beginning of attack on autonomy of universities, on the free thinking in a democracy
Reclaiming Dissent
By Concerned Citizens
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc230216A.htm
Letter of Solidarity with JNU students and faculty from professionals, academics, artists in West Bengal
Solidarity With India: The Struggle Is Global And Ongoing
By Suzanne Adely
http://www.countercurrents.org/adely230216.htm
We are community, student and legal activists in the United States fighting racialized and Islamaphobic state repression and the continuing assault of neoliberalism in our universities, workplaces and communities. As we watch India’s students and activists mobilize in mass for the right to dissent in the face of state sanctioned violence and relentless harassment we realize the many ways in which our struggles are interconnected. We send strong messages of solidarity to all students, workers, communities and human rights defenders throughout India struggling against an increasingly repressive right-wing nationalist and neoliberal regime
When Israel’s Bulldozers Escape Our Attention
By Barbara Erickson
http://www.countercurrents.org/erickson230216.htm
The assault on al-Hadidiya loomed large in the lives of the struggling villagers, but it was a routine affair in the occupied West Bank. The Civil Administration, an Israeli military body that oversees the management of the West Bank, frequently issues demolition orders — for construction work carried out without permits that are rarely tendered, or as punitive measures against those where family members have been deemed a security threat. And demolitions are carried out often seemingly at random
Book Review: "The Need For A New Economic System" By John Scales Avery
By Dorothy Guyot
http://www.countercurrents.org/guyot230216.htm
The Need for a New Economic System by John Scales Avery is an important book for everyone concerned over the future of humanity. The urgent voice of the book stems from Dr. Avery's seeing the discontinuity between the loving care that people bestow on their children and their failure to reduce the harm to their children from a destructive economic system, climate change, resource depletion, and war. This book of advocacy demonstrates the need for solutions to problems created under the present economic system
The Age Of Authoritarianism: Government Of The Politicians,
By The Military, For The Corporations
By John W. Whitehead
http://www.countercurrents.org/whitehead230216.htm
America is at a crossroads. History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom
America is at a crossroads.
History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People,we have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age—the age of authoritarianism.Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has becomeAmerica’s new normal.
Let me take you on a brief guided tour, but prepare yourself. The landscape is particularly disheartening to anyone who remembers what America used to be.
The Executive Branch: President Obama, like many of his predecessors, has routinely disregarded the Constitution when it has suited his purposes, operating largely above the law and behind a veil of secrecy, executive orders and specious legal justifications. Rest assured that no matter who wins this next presidential election, very little will change. The policies of the American police state will continue.
The Legislative Branch: Congress may well be the most self-serving, semi-corrupt institution in America. Abuses of office run the gamut from elected representatives neglecting their constituencies to engaging in self-serving practices, including the misuse of eminent domain, earmarking hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracting in return for personal gain and campaign contributions, having inappropriate ties to lobbyist groups and incorrectly or incompletely disclosing financial information.
The Judicial Branch:The Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the United States Supreme Court have become the guardians of the American police state in which we now live.
Shadow Government: America’s next president will inherit more than a bitterly divided nation teetering on the brink of financial catastrophe when he or she assumes office. He or she will also inherit a shadow government, one that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country. Referred to as the Deep State, this shadow government is comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes right now.
Law Enforcement: By and large the term “law enforcement” encompasses all agents within a militarized police state, including the military, local police, and the various agencies such as the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace but now extensions of the military, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.
A Suspect Surveillance Society:Every dystopian sci-fi film we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful. Consequently, in the face of DNA evidence that places us at the scene of a crime, behavior sensing technology that interprets our body temperature and facial tics as suspicious, and government surveillance devices that cross-check our biometrics, license plates and DNA against a growing database of unsolved crimes and potential criminals, we are no longer “innocent until proven guilty.”
Military Empire:America’s endless global wars and burgeoning military empire—funded by taxpayer dollars—have depleted our resources, over-extended our military and increased our similarities to the Roman Empire and its eventual demise. The U.S. now operates approximately 800 military bases in foreign countries around the globe at an annual cost of at least $156 billion. The consequences of financing a global military presence are dire. In fact, David Walker, former comptroller general of the U.S., believes there are “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that contributed to the fall of Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.”
I haven’t even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few, but what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.
That brings me to the final and most important factor in bringing about America’s shift into authoritarianism: “we the people.” We are the government. Thus, if the government has become a tyrannical agency, it is because we have allowed it to happen, either through our inaction or our blind trust.
Essentially, there are four camps of thought among the citizenry when it comes to holding the government accountable. Which camp you fall into says a lot about your view of government—or, at least, your view of whichever administration happens to be in power at the time.
In the first camp are those who trust the government to do the right thing, despite the government’s repeated failures in this department. In the second camp are those who not only don’t trust the government but think the government is out to get them. In the third camp are those who see government neither as an angel nor a devil, but merely as an entity that needs to be controlled, or as Thomas Jefferson phrased it, bound “down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution.”
Then there’s the fourth camp, comprised of individuals who pay little to no attention to the workings of government, so much so that they barely vote, let alone know who’s in office. Easily entertained, easily distracted, easily led, these are the ones who make the government’s job far easier than it should be.
It is easy to be diverted, distracted and amused by the antics of the presidential candidates, the pomp and circumstance of awards shows, athletic events, and entertainment news, and the feel-good evangelism that passes for religion today. What is far more difficult to face up to is the reality of life in America, where unemployment, poverty, inequality, injustice and violence by government agents are increasingly norms.
The powers-that-be want us to remain divided, alienated from each other based on our politics, our bank accounts, our religion, our race and our value systems. Yet as George Orwell observed, “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”
The only distinction that matters anymore is where you stand in the American police state. In other words, you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.
About John W. Whitehead: Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His book Battlefield America: The War on the American People(SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
Apple, Surveillance Technology And The Police State
By Jon Kofas
http://www.countercurrents.org/kofas230216.htm
The APPLE issue reveals very clearly that the more technology dependent a society becomes, the more it slips down the road of a police state at home because it is pursuing militarism abroad. This does not mean that technology in and of itself is a bad thing – no Luddite thesis here – but that the use of technology by corporations and the state makes it easier to have a police state
Hillary Clinton Is Backed By Major Republican Donors
By Eric Zuesse
http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse230216.htm
Hillary Clinton is a good investment for a billionaire — even for the 70% of them who are Republicans. And, based on those 2015 donation-figures, it seems that they would prefer a President Hillary Clinton, over a President Donald Trump. However, their three favorite candidates, in order, were: Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. But, in a Clinton-versus-Trump contest, Hillary Clinton would likely draw more money from Republican mega-donors than Trump would, and, of course, she would draw virtually all of the money from Democratic mega-donors. In such an instance, Hillary Clinton would probably draw a larger campaign-chest (especially considering super-pacs) than any candidate for any political office in U.S. (or global) history. Hillary Clinton would almost certainly be the most-heavily-marketed political product in history, if she becomes nominated and ends up running against Trump
An analysis of Federal Election Commission records, by TIME, which was published on 23 October 2015, showed that the 2012 donors to Romney's campaign were already donating more to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign than they had been donating to any one of the 2016 campaigns of — listed here in declining order below Clinton — Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, or Jim Gilmore. Those major Romney donors also gave a little to two Democrats (other than to Hillary — who, as mentioned, received a lot of donationsfrom these Republican donors): Martin O'Malley, Jim Web, and Lawrence Lessig. (Romney's donors gave nothing to Bernie Sanders, and nothing to Elizabeth Warren. They don't want either of those people to become President.)
Clinton is the only Democratic candidate who is even moderately attractive to big Republican donors.
In ascending order above Clinton, Romney's donors were donating to: John Kasich, Scott Walker, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush. The top trio — of Bush, Cruz, and Rubio — together, received around 60% of all the money donated for the 2016 race by the people who had funded Mitt Romney's 2012 drive for the White House.
So: the Democrat Hillary Clinton scored above 14 candidates, and below 6 candidates. She was below 6 Republican candidates, andshe was above 11 Republican candidates (Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore). The 6 candidates she scored below were: Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Scott Walker, and John Kasich.
This means that, in the entire 17-candidate Republican field, she drew more Republican money than did any one of 11 of the Republican candidates, but less Republican money than did any one of 6 of them. So, if she were a Republican (in what would then have been an 18-candidate Republican field for 2016), she would have been the 7th-from-the-top recipient of Romney-donor money.
Therefore, to Republican donors, Hillary Clinton is a more attractive prospect for the U.S. Presidency than was 64% of the then-current 17-member Republican field of candidates.
Another way to view this is that, to Republican donors, a President Hillary Clinton was approximately as attractive a Presidential prospect to lead the nation as was a President Graham, or a President Kasich — and was a more attractive prospective President than a President Lindsey Graham, a President Rand Paul, a President Carly Fiorina, a President Chris Christie, a President Rick Perry, a President Mike Huckabee, a President Donald Trump, a President Bobby Jindal, a President Rick Santorum, or a President George Pataki.
To judge from Clinton's actual record of policy-decisions, and excluding any consideration of her current campaign-rhetoric (which is directed only at Democratic voters), all three of those candidates who were in Clinton's Republican-donor league — Graham, Clinton, and Kasich — would, indeed, be quite similar, from the perceived self-interest standpoint of the major Republican donors.
As to whether any one of those three candidates as President would be substantially worse for Republican donors than would any one of the Republican big-three — Bush, Cruz, and Rubio — a person can only speculate.
However, the main difference between Clinton and the Republican candidates is certainly the rhetoric, not the reality. The reason for that Democratic rhetoric is that Ms. Clinton is competing right now only for Democratic votes, while each one of the Republican candidates is competing right now only for Republican votes.
Hillary Clinton's rhetoric is liberal, but her actual actions in politics have been conservative, except for her nominal support for liberal initiatives that attracted even some Republican support, or else that the Senate vote-counts (at the time when she was in the Senate) indicated in-advance had no real chance of becoming passed into law. In other words: her record was one of rhetoric and pretense on a great many issues, and of meaningful action on only issues that wouldn't embarrass her in a Democratic primary campaign, to attract Democratic voters.
In terms of her actual record in U.S. public office, it's indistinguishable from that of Republican politicians in terms of corruption, and it's indistinguishable from Republican politicians in terms of the policies that she carried out as the U.S. Secretary of State for four years. Her record shows her to be clearly a Republican on both matters (notwithstanding that her rhetoric has been to the exact contrary on both matters).
In a general-election contest against the Republican nominee, Clinton would move more toward the ideological center, and so also would any one of the Republican candidates, who would be nominated by Republican primaries and so running against her in the general election, to draw votes from the center as well as from the right. The rhetorical contest would be between a center-right Clinton and a slightly farther-right Republican; but, at present, the rhetorical contest is starkly different on the Democratic side than it is on the Republican side, simply because the candidates are trying right now to appeal to their own Party's electorate (Democrats=left; Republicans=right) during the primary phase of the campaign, not addressing themselves now to the entire electorate (as during the general-election campaign).
Only in the general-election contest do all of the major candidates' rhetoric tend more toward the center. The strategic challenge in the general election is to retain enough appeal to the given nominee's Party-base so as to draw them to the polls on Election Day, while, at the same time, being close enough to the political center so as to attract independent voters and crossover voters from the other side.
A good example of the fudging that typically occurs during the general-election phase would be the 2012 contest itself. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney drew closer to the rhetorical center during the general-election matchup; but they were actually much more similar to each other than their rhetoric ever was. (After all, Obamacare is patterned upon Romneycare.) During the general-election Romney-Obama contest, Romney famously said that Russia "is without question our number one geopolitical foe, they fight for every cause for the world's worst actors.” Then, Obama criticized that statement, by saying, "you don't call Russia our No. 1 enemy -- not Al-Qaida, Russia -- unless you're still stuck in a Cold War mind warp.” But, now, as President, Obama's ownNational Security Strategy 2015 refers to Russia on 17 of the 18 occasions where it employs the term “aggression," and he doesn't refer even once to Saudi Arabia that way, even though the Saudi royal family (who control that country) have been the major funders of Al Qaeda, and though 15 of the 19 perpetrators on 9/11 were Saudis — none of them was Russian — and though 92% of the citizenry in the nation that the Saud family owns and whose ‘news' media and clerics drum into those people's heads the holiness of jihad, approve of ISIS (which the Saud family prohibit inside Saudi Arabiua even while supporting and funding the jihadists in Syria and elsewhere), and though the Sauds as the country's leaders are using American weapons and training to bomb and starve-to-death Yemenis. Instead of calling the Saudi regime “aggressors,” we supply arms to them, and cooperate with them against their major oil-competitor, Russia. (For example, we arm the Saudi-funded jihadists that Russia is bombing in Syria, because Syria is a key potential pipeline route into Europe for Saudi oil and Qatari gas, to replace Russian oil and gas in Europe. So, we support the jihadists, even though Obama's rhetoric opposes them — and even though Obama killed Osama bin Laden, whose Al Qaeda was funded mainly by the Saud family and their friends. Hillary Clinton is even more hawkish against Russia than is Obama. She would be even better for Republican donors than Obama has been.)
Also regarding such fudging: on 27 March 2009, President Obama in secret told the assembled chieftains of Wall Street, “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks. … I'm protecting you.” Romney could have said the same, if he had been elected. And President Obama's record has now made clear that he indeed has fulfilled on that promise he made secretly to them. The reality turned out to be far more like Romney, than like Obama's campaign rhetoric had ever been. Similarly, on Obama's trade-deals (TPP, TTIP, and TISA), he has been very much what would have been expected from Romney, though Obama in the 2008 Democratic Presidential primaries had campaigned against Hillary Clinton for her having supported and helped to pass NAFTA. Obama's trade-deals go even beyond NAFTA, to benefit international mega-corporations, at the general public's expense.
What Hillary's fairly strong appeal to Romney's financial backers shows is that the wealthy, because of their access to leaders in government, know and recognize the difference between what a candidate says in public, versus what the winning public official has said to them (in private) and actually does while serving in office. They know that she keeps her promises to them, not her promises to the electorate.
Hillary Clinton is a good investment for a billionaire — even for the 70% of them who are Republicans. And, based on those 2015 donation-figures, it seems that they would prefer a President Hillary Clinton, over a President Donald Trump. However, their three favorite candidates, in order, were: Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. But, in a Clinton-versus-Trump contest, Hillary Clinton would likely draw more money from Republican mega-donors than Trump would, and, of course, she would draw virtually all of the money from Democratic mega-donors. In such an instance, Hillary Clinton would probably draw a larger campaign-chest (especially considering super-pacs) than any candidate for any political office in U.S. (or global) history. Hillary Clinton would almost certainly be the most-heavily-marketed political product in history, if she becomes nominated and ends up running against Trump.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Pro-GMO Activism In India: Journalism Gives Way To Spin, Smears And Falsehoods
By Colin Todhunter
http://www.countercurrents.org/todhunter230216.htm
In a recent piece for the magazine Swarajya (an online and print publication based in India), its national affairs editor, Surajit Dasgupta, makes it clear that he has no time for any criticisms about the use of GMO technology in food and agriculture. He has even less time for those who voice such criticisms
Rally Of Farmers, Workers And Various Movements For Their Rights Tomorrow
By National Alliance of People’s Movements
http://www.countercurrents.org/napm230216.htm
On 24th February, 2016 a massive rally of farmers, workers and various movements is being organized at Jantar Mantar, where thousands of farmers, workers, fisher folks, adivasis and project affected people from ten states will be converging on Feb 24th to protest against these issues
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