A. Loewenstein Newsletter

Racism rampant within Israeli society

Posted: 18 Aug 2011

 
More here.

Screw the media hacks who only follow elections to get high

Posted: 18 Aug 2011

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald on what elections are really about; the corporate press and business with the general populace mere bystanders:

Obviously, at least in theory, presidential campaigns are newsworthy.  But consider the impact from the fact that they dominate media coverage for so long, drowning out most everything else.  A presidential term is 48 months; that the political media is transfixed by campaign coverage for 18 months every cycle means that a President can wield power with substantially reduced media attention for more than 1/3 of his term.  Thus, he can wage a blatantly illegal war in Libya for months on end, work to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past his repeatedly touted deadline, scheme to cut Social Security and Medicare as wealth inequality explodes and thereby please the oligarchical base funding his campaign, use black sites in Somalia to interrogate Terrorist suspects, all while his Party’s Chairwoman worksliterally to destroy Internet privacy — all with virtually no attention paid.
Paradoxically, nothing is more effective in distracting citizenry attention away from events of genuine political significance than the protracted carnival of presidential campaigns.  It’s not merely the duration that accomplishes this, but also how it is conducted.  Obviously, how the candidates brand-market themselves has virtually nothing to do with what they do in power; the 2008 Obama campaign, which justifiably won awards from the advertising industry for how it marketed its product (Barack Obama), conclusively proved that; or recall the 2000 George W. Bush’s campaign vow for a “more humble” foreign policy.

Having opinions about immigration detention isn’t acceptable

Posted: 17 Aug 2011

The message here is that privatised care enforces strict bounds of discussion, and honesty isn’t part of the equation:

And she said the human resources representative who sacked her over the phone admitted she did not know what was said in the training. The termination letter, obtained by the NT News, said she was sacked because of complaints from Serco managers, Immigration Department staff and the company’s employees.
The woman yesterday stood by her opinion.
“They said sometimes people’s suggestions can be implemented into policy and changes to the benefit of the detainees basically,” she said. “I said to someone, ‘I don’t believe in detention and I think it contributes to the mental illness of detainees’. I mean if you look on the net, there are millions of articles about it.

Calling anybody who knows how much US money being paid to insurgents?

Posted: 17 Aug 2011

No, didn’t think Washington has any real idea:

The U.S. military has moved to stem the flow of contract money to Afghan insurgents, awarding at least 20 companies new contracts worth about $1 billion for military supply transport and suspending seven current contractors it found lacking in “integrity and business ethics.”
The new contracts, which were finalized Monday and will take effect next month, aim to eliminate layers of brokers and middlemen who allegedly skimmed money, and to allow more transparency in a complex web of Afghan subcontractors paid to provide security for the supply truck convoys.
“I think we’ve finally got our arms around this thing,” said a senior military officer who was authorized to discuss the matter only on the condition of anonymity. The new contracts, the official said, were the result of a year’s worth of “intelligence work and asking the right questions. We’re now starting to take action.”
Congressional investigators determined last year that much of the transport and security money went to the Taliban and Afghan warlords as part of a protection racket to ensure the safe arrival of the convoys, conclusions that were confirmed this spring by military and intelligence inquiries.
House and Senate committees have said that the military has long been aware of the problem but has been reluctant to disrupt the system and risk interrupting a supply chain that provides virtually all fuel, food and weapons for U.S. troops across Afghanistan. Some lawmakers have criticized the length of time it has taken the military to act and wonder whether the new system will change much.
“I appreciate that the Department of Defense has taken steps to reform its Afghan trucking contracts, but I am concerned that they still lack sufficient visibility and accountability to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not getting into the hands of the enemy,” said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), whose House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee investigated the contract last year.

Sydney’s 2SER Radio on aid to Palestine and Zionist lobby pressure

Posted: 17 Aug 2011

I recently wrote about progressive unions in Australia being pressured by the Zionist lobby, conservative politicians and elements within the Labor Party to stop supporting Palestine.
I was interviewed on Sydney 2SER radio’s AidWorks program about this issue and why BDS so scares Israel firsters opposed to Palestinian rights. The segment starts around 16.38:

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