Summer 2009 - Brief Stories
June 28th 2009
On May 8th 2002, just after M. Chirac won a second term as president of France, a bomb exploded in Karachi, Pakistan beside a bus transporting French shipyard workers. These workers were assembling one of the three agosta submarines sold to Pakistan in 1994.
In this explosion, eleven French workers and three Pakistanis were killed. At that time, both Pakistani and French authorities blamed Islamists close to al-Quaida for the carnage. This claim was based on the confession of militant Asif Zaheer-possibly under torture. Asif Zaheer’s conviction in 2003 was quashed on appeal last month.
Now the lawyers for the French victims’ families believe the attack, was in fact part of a web of financial chicanery and political manoeuvring which may yet severely embarrass senior figures, including French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.
Two investigating judges, Marc Trevidic and Yves Jannier believe unknown figures in Pakistani establishment may have fomented the attack in retaliation for the non-payment of the about $100 million in sweeteners promised to senior officials when Pakistan bought these submarines.
These payments were blocked by Chirac to prevent kick-backs to the presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur - his 1995 presidential competitor.
During that period, M. Sarkozy was the budget minister. According to the Agence France Presse, a large part of the “commission” was paid out before M. Chirac’s intervention. The “commission” had already been “distributed” by the then Pakistani investment minister, Asif Ali Zardari, husband of the late Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, (By a report from Independent.co.uk, June 26, 2009).
Another example of overt corruption in the capitalist systems.
Spring 2009 - Brief Stories
May 31st 2009
On May 25, 2009, a report about the depth of German poverty was published on the Time.com.
The report reveals that, the wealth imbalance in Germany isn’t just between east and west; there are also large regional differences between the country’s north and south. And across the country there are pockets of poverty more crushing than the most Germans realized- and it’s only getting worse. The massive gap between rich and poor doesn’t only exist between regions, but within the regions, too.
In eastern Germany, for example, the average poverty rate is around 20%, with up to 27% of people in one area, Vorpommern (Chancellor Angela Merkel’s home state), living below the poverty line. North Bavaria, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland Palatinate, have a poverty rate of around 15%.
It is estimated that there are more than 3 million German children living in poverty; in Berlin alone, up to 36% of all children are poor. The numbers are even higher, because “people who claim state benefits are stigmatized by society” says Bernd Siggelkow a pastor who runs the Arche project in Berlin to help children in need.
This is the plight of the people in the world’s third biggest economy. This plight is even worse in the world’s second biggest economy (Japan); and even worst in the world’s first biggest economy (USA).
The question is, do the biggest and richest economies improve the living standards of their own citizens in capitalist countries? And how long must people wait to be prosperous under the rule of the highly developed capitalist systems?
April 19th 2009
Finally on April 16, 2009, the classified CIA documents about the use of torture on detainees were released.
The legal memorandum for the CIA, prepared by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, reviewed 10 enhanced techniques for interrogating Zubaydah, and determined that none of them constituted torture under US criminal law. The techniques were: attention grasp, walling (hitting a detainee against a flexible wall), facial hold, facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box, and water boarding.”(Times.com)
Released white House memos also provide new insight into claims that American agents used insects to torture the young children of alleged 9/11 mastermind khalid Shiekh Mohammed into revealing father’s whereabouts.
But the fact is that the use of torture (including the use of animals like dogs as we saw in the case of Abu Ghraib) is not confined only to the G. W. Bush era.
Imperialists, colonialists, and exploiters always have used these techniques to crush any resistance against their rules.
About one hundred years ago Mark Twain exposed and condemned the use of torture by the American forces (A Defence of General Funston, 1902). And the School of Americas – established in 1946 in Panama, then relocated to Fort Benning, Georgia in 1984 – along with other similar facilities trained and are continuing to train thousands of torturers for their puppet regimes in Latin America and other parts of the world.
Winter 2009 - Brief Stories
March 19th 2009
Today’s hot news is that insurance giant AIG, which has received more than $170bn in bailout (subsidies), is paying $165m bonuses to its executives.
AIG also acknowledged that more than half of this taxpayers’ money has been paid to investment firm Goldman Sachs- formerly led by Henry Paulson, who was treasury secretary at the time of the original AIG bailout – and several European banks (March 16, 2009, Aljazeera.net)
In another report by Reuters, Citigroup Inc., awarded chief executive Vikram Pandit $10.82m of compensation in 2008, a year when the government propped up the bank with $45 billion of capital (March 16, 2009).
In the face of public uproar against the $10bn executive bonuses, in a letter to congressmen, Timothy Geithner (new treasury secretary who evaded his past taxes) said $165m would be taken from $30bn the firm is due to get as part of its government bailout. (BBC, March 18, 2009).
What a ridiculous solution! And what about Bank of America that gave bonuses to Merrill Lynch & Co high ranks- before buying it in January 1- then requested for government subsidies?
These are only the tip of iceberg. When people are facing poverty, homelessness, unemployment and shoddy healthcare, their money is injected into the financial blackholes.
Why? Because in an imperialist system, the real rulers are finance-capitalists, not the people, otherwise their government would have nationalized these corporations and put their assets under the possession of the public, for the benefit of the people.
February 1st 2009
As silly talks in the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland continue, nearly all reports from the IMF, the World Bank and various imperialist think-tanks are predicting a dismal future for the global economy; a dire condition which will affect the lives of workers and the majority of peoples all around the world.
Many banks and different corporations are making layoffs. For instance: Pfizer/Wyeth 20,000 jobs, Caterpillar 20,000, Sprint Nextel 8,000, ING 7,000, and the list goes on.
According to the International Labor Organization, a UN agency, unemployment could rise to 230 million globally in 2009 – only in the developed countries.
Despite the fact that the factories, the resources and the workforces are the same as before, why are we facing such a catastrophic situation? The answer is that the governing system is failing.
The domino effect of the finance-Capital meltdown will affect all spectrums of the economy and of course the entire political and social life.
It is vital to know that the less severe Economic Depression of the 1930s was finally fixed by the biggest, bloodiest and the most devastating war of all times, World War II.
At the same time, the ninth World Social Forum held in the Brazilian city of Belem sent a message to Davos “Another World is Possible”.
Fall 2008 - Brief Stories
November 22nd 2008
The world’s second largest economy, Japan slipped into recession this week. More than a third of its workforce is employed part time. Japan is experiencing growing inequalities and economic insecurities never seen in recent memories. Millions of young Japanese are pessimistic about the future under capitalism. They are looking for answers, thus turning to Karl Marx’s writings. One hundred forty years after Marx’s Das Kapital release, it is coming back again forcefully.
Treatise on capitalism is to be turned into magna comic. The comic is expected to be a bestseller. (From a report by Independent, U.K., November 20, 2008)
In the world’s third largest economy, Germany, the condition is the same as in Japan. The recession, here too, turned the people to Marx’s Das Capital to find why this is happening. This trend is more visible in eastern Germany where 14 per cent of the workforces are unemployed. So far this year the number of Das Kapital copies sold, are 3 times that of 2007 and a hundred fold increase since 1990. (From a report by the Independent, U.K., October 17, 2008)
Marx predicted that capitalism would crumble under the weight of its own contradictions.
November 3rd 2008
Early this year, 11 young men from a poor Bogotá suburb were kidnapped or lured by military with the promise of work, then killed in combat zones to exaggerate army performance against leftist rebels.
The scandal broke last month after the 11 civilian’s bodies are found in mass graves in north-eastern Colombia in August and September.
The crime was so appalling that even the criminal U.S. puppet president of Colombia Alvaro Uribe, called for an “investigation”.
Sources in the attorney general’s office said, hundreds of soldiers were under investigation in similar cases. (From a report by BBC News, October 25, 2008)
In the dawn of the 21st Century, what kind of world are we living in?
This brute world must be changed!
October 26th 2008
The worst crisis in the history of capitalism is now on the move. The Finance-Capitalist regimes of the developed countries are injecting billions of dollars to the failing banks around the world. These billions of the tax-payers moneys are evaporated like bursting bubbles in the air.
Of course this instinctive act of rewarding the banks is certainly expected from Finance-Capitalists, the imperialists. But what discloses the malice of imperialism is that instead of helping those millions of crisis stricken peoples, governments are even cutting what is known as the social benefits in these societies.
The Irish Prime Minister announces an end to the system of free medical cards for the over-70s, triggering anxiety among elderly Irish population. (Independent, October 20, 2008).
Plans to allow 4.5 million parents to work flexibly are to be delayed by the government (of U.K.), as it searches for ways to help businesses survive the economic downturn. (Independent, October 20, 2008).
According to a report by the Scientific American "fewer prescriptions filled as economy worsens", (October, 22, 2008). Americans have to choose between fuel, food and medication.
True face of the cruel and corrupt system.
Summer 2008 - Brief Stories
September 15th 2008
Recently, we had two repulsive news reported by the associated press. The first report on September 10, 2008, reveals that less than two months into the job in the oilfields of West Texas, Brandon Garret 23, was sliced in half by a motorized spool of steel cable as he and other roughnecks struggled to get a drilling rig up and running …Deaths among those working in the nation’s oil and gas fields have risen at an alarming rate (7 times the average for all occupations).
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, at least 598 workers have died on the job between 2002 and 2007.
During that period, the number of deaths per year rose by around 70 percent.
Some of the workers work 12 hours a shift and labor up to 14 days in a row. Now, with prices over $100 a barrel, many drilling companies are hiring workers with little or no experience, no training and there is no safety standards.
On the same day, another report says that, oil companies: Chevron, Shell, Hess Corp. and Gary-Williams Energy Corp. were gift givers to U.S. government brokers responsible for collecting billions of dollars in federal oil royalties - the U.S. taxpayers’ money.
Inspector general Earl E-Devany, while down playing the problem, alleged that one-third of the employees of the MMS Oil Marketing Group Royalty in Kind (RIK) program in Denver, “Socialized with, and accepted a wide array of gifts (including sex) and gratuities from oil gas companies with whom RIK was conducting official business.
As the companies become richer, they become greedier, more cruel and corrupt. This is the essence of the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism.
September 1st 2008
According to the Associated Press, the families of 12 Nepali men killed by Iraqi ‘insurgents’ have filed a federal lawsuit on August 27th 2008. They are accusing the U.S. military defense contractor KBR Inc. and Daoud & Partner, a Jordanian subcontractor of human trafficking, saying the men were sent to work in Iraq against their will after being promised jobs in a posh hotel in Jordan.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court alleges the workers were being taken to work at Al Asad U.S. Air Base in 2004 when ‘insurgents’ intercepted their caravan and beheaded them days later.
Buddi Prasad Gurung, the Nepali worker, whose car survived the attack, is also a plaintiff. Now back in Nepal, claims he was forced to work at the base as a warehouse loader for 15 months.
According to the lawsuit, passports of the 13 Nepali men were seized and were sent to Iraq forcefully.
Agnieszka Fryszman, attorney for the plaintiffs, said “the men came from poor families that went in to debt to send them abroad to work and were pushed deeper into poverty when they were killed”.
“It seemed there were a number of different recruiters and different contractors but they all seem to end at KBRs’ doorstep”, Fryszman said.
KBR formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton has ties with the Bush Administration, and Daoud and Partner cannot function in a country like Jordan without the consent of its rulers.
When it comes to profit, there is no end to a big firm’s criminal acts.
July 20th 2008
The first ever American Human Development Report launched on July 17, 2008, by Oxfam America, finds that although the US spends more per capita on health care than any other nation in the world (5.2 billion dollar daily), its citizens live shorter lives than citizens of virtually every western European and Nordic countries.
The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world’s richest countries. The US ranked 34th in the survival of infants to age. There are huge gaps in living standards and quality of life among different US states. The US ranked 42nd in global life expectancy. Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living.
Suicide and murder are among the top 15 causes of death in the US. Although the US has 5% of the global population, it contains 24 % of the world’s prisoners.
The report concludes that even though the US is one of the most powerful and rich nations in the world, it is woefully behind when it comes to providing opportunity and choices to all Americans to build a better life.
Despite an almost cult-like devotion to the belief that unfettered free enterprise is the best way to lift Americans out of poverty, the report points to a rigged system that does little to lessen inequalities.
Spring 2008 - Brief Stories
June 1st 2008
The first of June is The International Children’s Day. But there is no time for celebration. The lives of millions of world’s children have never been as desperate and catastrophic as is now, in the turn of the 21st century.
As the result of new opportunities and advances in medicine, hundreds and possibly thousands of poor children are abducted and sold to organ harvesting schemes; As an example: in India (Asia News, January 7, 2007), in Philippines (pedestrianobserver, May 13, 2008), in Sudan, Chad (Africaresource, January 16, 2008), and many other places.
Thousands of poor children as young as six, exchange sex for food, even to the UN Aidworkers and Peacekeepers. In Ivory Coast, Southern Sudan, Haiti … Peacekeepers sexually abused and even gang raped children (BBC News, May 27, 2008).
Children are suffering and dying from hunger, malnutrition, child labor, wars and diseases by millions around the world. Sixty percent of Palestinian children are anemic due to Israeli occupation and siege (WHO, May 23, 2008).
In the US, thousands of children who lived in Katrina trailers were exposed to formaldehyde which is a health hazard and carcinogen. They were ignored by the authorities in spite of health warnings (Associated Press, May 27, 2008).
These recent shameful events are only parts of a long-lasting plight of our children under capitalism; Plights which will worsen day by day with the existence of this cruel and corrupt system.
May 10th 2008
Two appalling news were broadcasted this week in the media, which are alarming and an insult to the human race, as the most evolved species on this planet.
First, Human Rights Watch said that it has reviewed investigations carried out at the time, and that it believes that about 400 Serbs who went missing after the war in 1999, were taken from Kosovo into Albania by ethnic Albanians. HRW asserts that in Albania “doctors extracted the captives’ internal organs’’ to sell in the markets. It also affirms that the allegations are “serious and credible”. A claim that is supported by the Ex-war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, in her book, (BBC News, May 6th 2008).
The Kosovo Liberation Army is trained, supported and still is under the protection of imperialist powers, especially the U.S. Imperialism.
In the second news, Amnesty International has called for the role of the U.S. in Somalia to be investigated, following publication of a report accusing its allies of committing war crimes.
According to the report, based on the testimonies of refugees who have fled Somalia’s capital, in recent weeks, Ethiopian troops have killed civilians by slitting their throats.
Ethiopian and Somali forces were also accused of gang-raping women and attacking children.
A refugee, named Haboon, accuses Ethiopian troops of raping a neighbor’s 17-year-old daughter. When the girl’s brothers - aged 13 and 14 - tried to help her, Ethiopian soldiers gouged out their eyes with a bayonet.
U.S. troops trained Ethiopian forces involved in military operations in Somalia, and the U.S. government supplied military equipment to the Ethiopian military, (Independent.co.uk, May 7th 2008).
It is interesting that the new “state” of Kosovo and governments of Albania and Ethiopia are among a chain of imperialism’s imposed “democracies” around the world. These “democracies” heinous acts remind us of atrocities committed by German Nazis and Japanese militarists during WWII.
May 2nd 2008
According to the report broadcasted by the BBC on the 30th of April 2008: Doctors in Afghanistan say rates of some health problems affecting children have doubled in the last two years.
The Canada-based Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) believes the cause might be depleted uranium.
UMRC found very high levels of uranium in Afghans during tests just after the invasion.
Doctors in Kabul and Kandahar showed data indicating that, premature birth and malformations including neural tube defects, malformation of limbs, small or larger than normal heads, or big masses on the back of babies have increased.
Asef Durakovic, UMRC president and a former US army adviser, believes that exposure to depleted uranium weapons may have brought a rise in birth defects as well as “symptoms of muscular-skeletal pains, Immune system disorders, lung disease, and eventually cancer,” in adults.
Villagers near the Tora Bora Mountains, scenes of a massive US bombardment, say “there was strange smell, and most of the trees here did not yield fruit.
This is only a paradigm of imperialism’s imposed “Democracy” on the world, in this case on Afghanistan, and if things continue in the same way, we will see more.
Winter 2008 - Brief Stories
February 1st 2008
On January 27, 2008, General Suharto, the butcher of Indonesia, died in a tranquil hospital in Jakarta. He was buried the next day with full honor by his accomplices. Suharto took power in a 1965, CIA sponsored bloody coup. He used Islam to slaughter more than one million intellectuals, teachers, students and communist sympathizers to pave the way for the international corporations to plunder Indonesia. In 1975, with the approval of the US and UK imperialists, he invaded newly independent small island of East Timor and slaughtered more than one-third of its 600,000 population. As the president and chief of the army, Suharto was responsible for displacement and disappearance of millions of dissidents and peasants in Indonesia during his reign. As the imperialists pillaged the country, he, his family and the cronies robbed the nation and collected tens of billions of dollars. Yet the International Court of Justice is completely blind to them. The world is a very cruel and corrupt place. Only the organized peoples armed with progressive thoughts have the ability to change this evil for good.
Fall 2007 - Brief Stories
November 24th 2007
The US Department of Agriculture says 12.6 million households nationwide, or more than 30 million people – 10% of the population – did not have enough food at some point in 2006. In New York City 1.3 million people, one in six New Yorkers, can not afford enough food, with queues at soup kitchens getting longer, anti-poverty group says.
The New York City coalition against hunger says the number of people who use food pantries and soup kitchens in the city increased by 20% in 2007, quote from BBC News, November 21st, 2007.
Here we are talking about food as a basic need for life, not poverty as a whole. If, 10% of the people do not have enough food in the richest capitalist country and the leading imperialist power of the world – The United States of America – and the problem is worsening, hence this economic system, capitalism, is a failed system.
November 19th 2007
A CBS News investigation about a suicide epidemic among veterans was broadcasted on November 13-14, 2007. This investigation, which provided the Agency with this data, disclosed that only in 2005, for example, there were at least 6,256 suicides among veterans in just 45 states. That’s one hundred and twenty veterans each and every week in just one year. What is revealed is stunning.
Knowing that things have gotten worse since 2005, and if this rate of approx. 6000/year is applicable through all 50 states from 2003 to 2007, we could have thousands of unaccounted deaths. It’s obvious that these numbers have to be added to the official numbers of US Military personnel killed in imperialist wars on Iraq and Afghanistan each year.
October 17th 2007
According to a study by the Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh published in the Saudi daily Okaz, more than 80,000 “street children” can be found at any one time in the six oil-rich Gulf Arab monarchies: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
The interior ministry announces almost daily arrests of beggars. Over the past five months, 15’000 of them, including around 2’700 Saudis, have been rounded up.
Child beggars have proliferated in Mecca and Medina, some maimed by traffickers to draw sympathy of Muslim faithful who flock to Islam’s holiest cities in Saudi Arabia,…
Officials fear the children could be exposed to sexual exploitation or sickness. (Dubai, AFP, October 12, 2007)
If such cruel and disgusting things are happening in the richest countries of the world and are worsening day by day, capitalism has failed as a system for the well-being of man kind!
Summer 2007 - Brief Stories
September 17th 2007
Before the events of 9/11, 2001, the price of oil was $21 per barrel, and the average price of gas was $1.66 per gallon. After those events the price of oil and gas are increasing constantly. Today a barrel of oil costs about $80, and the average price of a gallon of gas is about $3.05, an increase of 83 per cent.
There were no significant changes in the amount of supply and demand during this period; even with no changes in supply, immediate demand for gas was lower due to the decrease in the number of flights. The Iraq invasion started in March 20th, 2003, and the Iraq’s oil export was already sanctioned by the U.N. Hurricane Katrina hit in the late August 2005, and both of these two events have nothing to do with the continuation of the ascending curve of oil prices. Here is the question to consider; other than the beneficiaries of these horrible events, who else is making profits from these terrorist acts?
September 4th 2007
On august 29, 2007, Associated Press reported that among thousands of contracts with the U.S. army – which may be tainted by waste, fraud and abuse – are contracts with KBR, former Halliburton subsidiary. This company has received billions of dollars of tax-payer’s money since 2001, to provide food and shelter services to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason behind such a privilege is that connections take the place of competition in the imperialist stage of capitalism and it is obvious that connection harbours corruption.
August 31st 2007
Growing corn to produce ethanol as a fuel for cars, not only does not reduce the amount of green-house gas emissions, but adds to the hardship lives of ordinary peoples.
Lands are used to grown higher price corn, instead of wheat and other grains. As a result the supply of foods to the people will reduce. Cattle and poultry will have less food, so the supply of meat, milk, and eggs will drop significantly. This problem will worsen by the increasing demands of the surging population day by day, and will raise the cost of everything. This is already happening, as BBC reported on August 24, 2007, that the price of wheat has increased 120 per cent since last August.
Capitalism is more concerned about feeding its cars than feeding the people and guarding the environment.
Spring 2007 - Brief Stories
May 22nd 2007
Some of the US intellectuals who are suddenly awaken in the repulsive political scenes of recent years, say that we want our country back! We want our democracy back!
Maybe they are right, and it is due to the invasion of imperialism in every aspects of life, which has squeezed and pushed them down towards the low income strata of society, and caused them to feel this pain.
But since its creation and up to the era of James Monroe Doctrine; since the time of Mother Jones struggle against injustice and up to the era of McCarthyism; since the time of Truman Doctrine and to the era of Homeland Security fever, the USA has never been the country of the disadvantaged majority, nor was the birth place of democracy. Never in the history of mankind has a regime done so much harm to the human values of its own people. Never has a regime brought so much misery for the peoples all around the world and never has it destroyed their environment as the US imperialism is doing.
April 7th 2007
If the colonial powers and the early stage of imperialism fooled the people mostly by words and tricks of priests, muftis and mullahs, – as the British imperialism did in the past – contemporary imperialism headed by the US imperialism is so greedy and aggressive that it disgraces the Iraqis and the entire humanity in Abu Graibs, insults Persians, Greeks, Africans and Asians by its propaganda machine in ridiculous movies like 300. And in spite of that, expect them to be fooled, friendly and ready to be exploited and plundered to the end. And if that does not work, it uses its war machine and bombs them.
Winter 2007 - Brief Stories
March 12th 2007
The tension between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq is completely an American doing, as other colonizing powers like the British imperialism have done in the past.
There had been no conflict between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq before the imperialist invasion.
The uprising of the Iraqi peoples, just after the first Persian Gulf War in1991, against Saddam’s Regime, was not a religious one. Both Arabs (Shia and Sunni) and Kurds (Shia and Sunni) were involved in those revolts.
Iraq is mostly a tribal society, which contain both factions. Furthermore, Shias and Sunnis have intermarried and the majority of the people are mixed. Just until recently many people did not know if they were Shia or Sunni, or even the difference between these two sects.
It is necessary to say that the same plots are planned for oil rich Iran, to divide this country between the different ethnics and religions in order to conquer it.
However, when a disturbance occurs in a body by a foreign object, the best cure is to remove it!
February 27th 2007
America is not yet ready to send a woman or an African-American to the White-House. The media’s big attention and aggrandizement of Senator Hillary Clinton and especially Senator Barack Obama, as the Democratic Party candidates, is a plot of imperialism’s think-tank, to select a Republican right-wing and pro-war individual even worse than G. W. Bush as the US President.
A trick to fulfill imperialism’s agenda of conquering more and more natural resources around the world, continue the business of war for the pockets of big companies, in the expense of the peoples blood and misery.
It would be different if the majority of the people of the U.S. wake-up, bypass these two governing parties, participate responsibly in their political life and show that, at least, they care about themselves, the well-being of their children and their future generations.
February 22nd 2007
One of the most ridiculous aspects of corporate media propaganda and imperialism’s politicians and Military men’s argument is that they start from the present situation or from the middle of an event or a process. For instance, Iraq’s is that we have to secure this country before we leave it. But, they do not say why this country became insecure in the first place; what happened in the beginning and why are they presently stuck there? Who installed Saddam and empowered his regime?
In the case of Afghanistan, they argue: we went there to help those people to have a peaceful and better life. But, they would never tell you what had happened in the beginning, at the time when the same powers did everything to destroy a progressive government which for the first time in the history of a backwarded country – with no history of any kind of election – did good things for the people. A government which was attacked by imperialist and reactionary forces six months before the Soviets were invited in 1979 to assist them. A government which resisted all out assault and the tricks of the American imperialism and other reactionary forces, for more than 2 years after the departure of the Soviet forces in 1989.
By this kind of argument these institutions underestimate the intelligence and memory of the society and hence insult the people.
January 6th 2007
In Iceland, which is one of the richest countries of the world, thousands of families live under the poverty line. Children go hungry to schools, and the people do not have enough clothes to protect themselves from the harsh winters of the country. Students drop out of school because of poverty. In this country a small minority is getting richer, while the majority are becoming poorer. (From a report by BBC News, December 29th, 2006).
Lack of opportunity, lay-offs and growing unemployment – the un-curable diseases of capitalism – are the main causes of poverty.
If life is miserable for many in Iceland, a Scandinavian country with the 7th highest GDP per capita in the world and only a population of 250’000, there isn’t any hope to have a decent and prosperous life in the other parts of the world under capitalism!
Fall 2006 - Brief Stories
December 19th 2006
More than 250 million children work in the world. The worst is happening in the mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo. These mines which are running by the trans-national corporations, do not even give the children enough food to eat. A small amount of money is paid for six long days of work a week (a report by the BBC News, December 12, 2006).
The scenes from the reportage remind us of the Hollywood movie Spartacus, with the exception that here the slaves are young children suffering to death in the turn of 21st century.
December 18th 2006
30 years after the end of the Vietnam War, children are still born with genetic disorders. The Agent Orange which was used against the Vietnamese people contains dioxins that are very toxic. (BBC News, December 11, 2006).
We will have to wait and see what will be the consequences of the US and Israeli bombardments in the Afghanis, Iraqis and Lebanese future generations.
November 24th 2006
Why is there so much ado about the loss of lives in Darfur, and almost nothing is heard through the media about the killing fields in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
In Darfur, imperialists-backed separatist rebels and the Sudanese government responses are the cause of these blood sheds. In D. R. Congo, private armies of different imperialist companies are committing these crimes to secure their plundering fields. The reason behind this hypocrisy in the media is that the oil of Darfur will go to China by contract, but the gold, diamond and coltan of D. R. Congo are plundered by the imperialist companies silently. Although every loss of life is deplorable, in Darfur about 200'000 and in the D. R. Congo more than 5 million people were killed during recent years.
That is the reason why the crocodile tears which are shedding for Darfur, are dried from the source for D. R. Congo.
November 12th 2006
On the 5th of November, Daniel Ortega, the leader of the Sandinista, was elected for the 2nd time as the president of Nicaragua, and this happened in spite of the U. S. government interventions and intimidations.
It has been 16 years since he lost the presidential election to the U.S. imperialism backed and financed coalition.
During the Sandinista government, there were great improvements in the quality of life for the Nicaraguans, for instance free health-care and education was implemented for all, land reforms took place, nationalization of big domestic and foreign corporations were started and corruption tackled while the country was fighting against imperialism created Contra rebels.
To day Ortega is facing a country which is rated as the 2nd poorest country in the western hemisphere. Corruption is rampant, and 7 out of every 10 Nicaraguans live under the poverty line.
This is what democracy means for the exploiters.
Summer 2006 - Brief Stories
September 10th 2006
On September 6th, 2006, G. W. Bush, the president of the USA, said no torture had taken place in the secret CIA prisons. But he said the CIA programme had interrogated a small number of key figures suspected of involvement in 9/11.
Mr. Bush said the CIA had used an “alternative set of procedures”. The obvious question is what are these “alternative sets of procedures”? According to the BBC News, these procedures include: the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners, water boarding (the practice of submerging prisoners under water), any kind of sexual humiliation and many other interrogation techniques.
But maybe he is right and these techniques are not considered as torture. In the culture of the US imperialist’s governments, torture may be consist only as cutting ears, pulling out the eyes, piercing the skulls, cutting the tongues, breaking the bones and many other similar procedures. The procedures which were carried out against the defendants of democracy, by the butchers of coup-d’états, in Iran, in Guatemala, in Indonesia, in Chile and in many other parts of the world (and are still practiced) under the auspices of CIA agents.
August 28th 2006
Airliners terrorist plot discoveries and similar dramas, which are widely broadcasted in the mainstream media, will possibly continue until the U.S. mid-term, November 2006, elections.
Accordingly we are witnessing diverted & cancelled flights and passengers all around world are stranded in the airports; from within the U.S., from England to the U.S., from Egypt to Italy, from Netherlands to India... Only on August 25th, about 9 airliners were diverted in the U.S. alone.
Passengers were handcuffed, harassed and interrogated (as happened to the 12 Indian passengers of the U.S. North West airline by Dutch authorities).
In each case there was no evidence of terrorist plots. These ridiculous events are taking place to buy votes for the Republicans in the next U.S. mid-term elections.
If the Republicans win the elections, the most rabid imperialist agenda of the Neo-Cons will continue. The agenda which serves, mostly, the interests of the finance-capital and the military-oil-industry complex.
Factitious plots play a major role in these events. For imperialism more profits will justify all kinds of criminal acts. These acts generate more terrorism and terrorism brings more pretexts to curb social and human rights continuously. A vicious cycle which only ends with the end of capitalism.
August 6th 2006
American generals talked about the eminent civil war in Iraq in a theatrical show in the US senate.
The reason behind this show is that the US forces must stay in Iraq for a long time, possibly for ever.
It is important to know that inciting sectarian violence in Iraq is a part of the US plan to divide and conquer this country.
Creation of death squads like the Wolf Brigade by the US imperialism, with the mission to kill one side and blame the other side, serves the ultimate intention of colonizing Iraq.
Colonization of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon are only the beginning of the creation of a new Middle East.
The colonization must be fulfilled hurriedly before the emergence of any rival powers, so it is swift and as a result brutal (as in the case of Lebanon).
But on August 4, 2006, a day after that show in Washington, more than one million Iraqis from all sections of the society filled the streets of Baghdad and rejected the imperialists' plan and showed their repulsion against the brutality of its gendarme, Israel.
June 29th 2006
According to news by the BBC, rich Russian investments in the UK are rising to a surprising point.
In 2002, deposits by the Russian companies and individuals held in UK banks amounted to 5.8 billion pounds.
By 2004, that had risen to 14.4 billion pounds, and by the end of March this year the figure was a staggering 49 billion pounds.
Russian money is having a big impact on all kinds of markets, and London estate agents, art dealers and banks all are eager to deal with a new breed of big spenders (June 23, 2006).
This happens in a very rich country, which more than one-fourth of its population are officially declared as poor and it is continuously worsening.
This is what promised “freedom” brought after 15 years.
This is what democracy means by capitalists.
But this is simply theft and plunder!
Spring 2006 - Brief Stories
June 7th 2006
On May 29th, 2006, after a US military vehicle apparently lost control and smashed into at least 12 civilian cars in Kabul, hundreds of Afghans gathered in this bloody scene and chanted, “Death to the occupiers”, “Death to Karzai”,…
This peaceful demonstration provoked by anger was confronted with bullets shot by the American forces. As a result many were killed and wounded.
When the news spread out, the whole city rioted against the brutality and wild behaviour of the occupation forces. To quell the riot, tanks were brought in and a curfew was imposed. Dozens were killed and hundreds were wounded only in this day.
These people were not Taliban; they were ordinary citizens of Kabul, who simply practiced their promised democratic rights through peaceful demonstration. But, they did not know that for the protection of their promised “democracy”, they have to be shot and smashed under the tanks, detained and faced torture to death.
The imperialist forces which step by step are closing their magic shops of “democracy” in their home-lands are insistently eager to open these in their plundering fields abroad.
It is ridiculous!
May 11, 2006
USA Today reported that three main telecommunication companies AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon are turning-over tens of millions of US telephone calls to the NSA, the American Government spy agency, during the years after 911.
First, what is apparent is how big companies conspire against their customers for their strategic goals, namely preservation of capitalism with any means.
Secondly, if tens of millions of American families are suspected to have sympathy for terrorists that would mean that the system is really decayed.
Thirdly, this is all about gathering information to blackmail vulnerable opponents and to silence them so that they would fulfil the current rabid imperialist agenda – repression inside and invasion outside.
In Liberia, girls as young as 8 years old, exchange sex for food with the agents of the UN aid organization, to feed their starving families (from news by BBC, May 7, 2006).
There is no surprise, it happened before and it will happen in the future, here and there.
When the world is mostly ruled by the imperialist powers, corruption is the simplest thing that can happen. The UN is no exception!
April-10th-2006
French companies had more than a 50% profit last year. This profit has come from abroad and not from within France. (PBS News, April 4, 2006)
Therefore if there is no profit from the inside, we can not provide job security and of-course no free health care, no free education, no affordable housing and etc in the future.
This is the essence of imperialism. In this final stage of capitalism, ruling classes are finance capitalists which have no homelands. They transfer the capital by the speed of light. Wherever there is more profit, there will be their homeland. People are no more than tools of consumption, but only if they can afford to buy.
About one thousand Africans drowned during their attempt to reach the European costs since the beginning of this year. One in every five Africans is perished in their doomed journey toward Europe. (From news by BBC on April 4, 2006)
There is no doubt that Africa is a very rich continent, but is brutally plundered by the imperialist powers. Young African peoples are taking risks in thousands to seek even a slave’s job in the industrial countries so that they can feed themselves and provide help to their starving families.
Child pornography is a business with $21 billion profit each year globally. (ABC news, April 4, 2006)
What is noticeable is that 70% of these children are lured by their parents and other close family members to expose themselves.
Why would their parents and other close family members do this heinous crime?
They need money. And wherever capitalism is more advanced, the scale of this crime is higher.
April-1st-2006
PBS NEWS reported on March 6, 2006, that telecommunication giant AT&T is planning the acquisition of Bell-South Corporation in a $67 billion deal that would make AT&T, the largest U.S. provider of telephone services,…this merger will increase the consumer prices and will cut about 10’000 jobs. Mergers are taking place more rapidly during the stage of imperialism (monopoly of the finance capital).
Those people who lose their jobs due to administration cuts and those workers, who become unemployed because of automatization, are the same who have to buy goods and services from these newly emerged giants. But they can not. This flaw of capitalism has no palliative cure.
Winter 2006 - Brief Stories
In the U.K., those who pay enough, can get a peerage and even become a lord. Brotherhood with the lords can make you even a prime-minister. In capitalism, power like everything else, is tradable in the free market. (From news by the B.B.C., March 17, 2006)
In France, more than 20% of the 18 to 25 year-olds are unemployed. The youth unemployment among the poorest communities (mostly immigrants) can reach up to 40% (B.B.C. News, March 17, 2006).
There will be no cure, even no temporary relief for this sickness of employment within capitalism. It will get worse with time.
March 15, 2006, A.B.C. News – In an internet child-pornography ring, which was recently discovered, thousands of children were being molested and sexually abused. The youngest child who was shown in pictures was less than 18 months old. The ring was mostly operating in U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New-Zealand.
No doubts, the parents of these children are so poor that selling their children for a bit of money will help continue their miserable life. The traders are making money in this free-market, and the consumers like the other two components of this vicious cycle are the products of the very advanced capitalism in these countries.
March-09-2006
Without any sympathy towards the oppressive and corrupt regime of Iran, the problem at hand with this country is not about having or not having atomic bombs in the future. It is about the existence of a sea of oil and gas which she is sitting on, and her strategic location which connects the rich Caspian Sea oil and gas fields, to the rich Persian Gulf oil and gas resources.
The most rabid think-thanks of the imperialist forces, believe that anyone who controls these resources will maintain its supremacy over other future emerging powers in the 21st century. This being said, the U.S. imperialism wants to colonize these areas, split them to small countries, hostile to each other and ready to be exploited to the ends.
Imperialism at this stage can not live without colonies and enslaved peoples, and this trend has nothing to do with the future well-being of the majority of the American people.
Fifty percent of India’s peoples have no access to electricity (BBC news, March 2nd, 2006)
More than one-third of India’s population (the size of the US) have nothing. The lives of these peoples are appalling (CBS news, March 2nd, 2006)
These things are happening 58 years after this country’s independence and “flourishing” of the biggest “democracy” in the world. What is called the recent booming economy of India is nothing more than the importation of some cheap labour and sell-off of the country’s assets to domestic and foreign private sectors.
A mudslide burried the entire village of Guinsaugon in the Southern Philippines and killed about 2000 people.
Improper cut down of the trees into logs by greedy international companies is the main cause of this disaster. A practice that destroys jungles and leaving the land unprotected against rainfalls (February 17, 2006).
Why are things going so wildly in Iraq? Reason being that, Iraq has become the new Wild West. War profiteers swarm from everywhere to collect their jackal share. They rent a share from imperialist powers to grab some of the booties. And it is the people of Iraq that like New-World Indians must pay the price with their lives and livelihood (February 12, 2006).
German car-maker Volkswagen is to cut up-to 20’000 jobs in the next 3 years. This happens while the company reported a preliminary net profit of 1.1 billion euros for 2005, (BBC News, Feb. 10, 2006)
One of the main causes of these lay-offs is ever-increasing automatization of the tools of production. In capitalism unlike socialism, progress in technology, adds to the misery of the workers. These things take place everywhere in the capitalist world, no matter the religion, the nationality, the race, and so on.
According to CBS News on February 10, 2006, $8.8 billion of the Iraq reconstruction budget is not accounted for.
It is the final aim of invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq, and possibly Iran: plunderage by every means.
Electronic eavesdropping in the US has raised outrage among many senators and congressmen. The reason is that under the name of electronic surveillance of Al-Qaeda sympathizers, The White-House collected information about politicians and its opponents to silence them and if needed used against them. It is estimated that about 80’000 people were eavesdropped, which most likely is far more than the al-Qaeda sympathizers in the US. (Feb, 09, 2006)
The proposed US budget for 2007, shows that Mr. Bush wants to cut spending on Medicare – the healthcare programme for the poor, elderly and disabled – by $35.9 billion over the next 5 years. While there is an increase of 6.9% for military and a 3.3% increase in homeland security funds. (BBC News, February 06, 2006).
According to the Yahoo News on Feb, 01, 2006, US House of Representatives already passed a bill to cut $39 billion subsidies to Medicaid, Medicare and student loans over five years, to tackle the deficits.
Feb, 05, 2006
Why would the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad who were first published purposefully in a Danish letter on Sept. 30, 2005, suddenly burst into the mainstream media in early Feb, 2006, and provoked anticipated violent demonstrations in some parts of the world?
The reasons are:
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To shift public opinion from pro-Palestinian to pro-Israeli, especially in Europe, after the Hamas victory in Palestine.
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To bring public support especially in Europe for the future possible attack on Iran, after referring it to Security Council.
For what: to colonize country after country!
While in California there is a brand of beer for rich people’s dogs (NBC News, Feb 05, 2006), Katrina stricken people in New-Orleans and Mississippi do not even have a healthy drinking water. Here there is no need to talk about backwarded countries.
United Airlines announced the end of its bankruptcy. Nevertheless, many workers feel betrayed; they say that while they took cuts, executives cashed in on the airline’s reorganization. Four hundred top executives are making more than $400 million (from News by CBS, Feb, 01, 2006).
The direction in which capitalism moves makes the rich richer and the poor poorer; if there will be no struggle for a decent life by the majority, a small minority will enslave all.
January 30, 2006
Exxon Mobil Oil Company reported its quarterly profit which is $10.7 billion. Its annual net income has reached $36 billion, $11 billion more than last year. Its revenue for the full year was $371 billion.
Wal-Mart’s revenue was $300 billion over the past year.
In the same range are the high revenues of British petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, General Electric.., whilst the US budget deficit is around $300 billion, with this deficit causing problems for the US government, guess which of the two is more powerful? The US government or the big multinational companies, and which imposes its influence over other.
BBC News reported on January 27, 2006, “Two billion people or 1/3 of the world’s population are infected with bacillus tuberculosis. They are in danger of getting the full blown disease if they are not treated properly.
Do not forget that we are living in the turn of 21st century, not in the middle ages.
There are about 10’000 homeless in Moscow; they are dying under the freezing weather of minus 30 degree centigrade. (From News by the BBC; January 19, 2006). In other words they are reaping the fruits of a paradise called capitalism.
In the earthquake stricken areas of Pakistani Kashmir, 3 million people are still homeless months after the earthquake. In severe winter not only many adults but also many children have no shoes and go with bare-foot on snowy and icy rude mountains. (BBC News, January 12, 2006).
Meanwhile Pakistani government spends millions of dollars to purchase arms.
Retirees in the U.S. will face a very difficult situation in the near future. They are using their credit cards for purchasing medications, food, energy, etc. But due to financial hardships by loosing their pensions, they will not be able to pay their debts, and will be bankrupted, (ABC News, January 5, 2006).
The lobbyists are using gifts of money, foreign trips and lavish meals to buy political influence.
Prominent lobbyist, Jack Abramoff and his former business partner, Michael Scanlon were putting millions of dollars for bribing lawmakers in Washington.
Lobbying is a multi-billion dollars business which acts as a middle man between companies and lawmakers to pass legislations in favour of those companies (News Agencies January 4, 2006).
2005 - Brief Stories
On December 29, 2005, PBS News broadcasted a documentary which was about the discovery of mass graves in Guatemala. The direct consequence of criminal acts posed by military and right-wing death squads’.
But PBS did not mention that these mass graves were the results of U.S. imperialism backed coup in 1954 which deposed the elected president Jacobo Arbenz.
Jacobo Arbenz was a progressive president who wanted to do something good for his people. A move that was not in the interests of big multinational companies.
This heinous act has been repeated many times in other countries and recently in Haiti; on February 2004, elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted by U.S. imperialism forces.
As news agencies reported on December 29, 2005, U.S. government loans to small businesses impacted by 911 attacks, has gone to big businesses which mostly have no connection to 911 attacks.
Corruption in the systems and within the corporations is not an exception, it is a rule engender in capitalism itself, and is widespread, for instance we see it in Elf France energy company, in Enron, in Nortel Networks, in Tyco, in Royal Dutch Schell, in Qwest, in Hollinger International, in Halliburton, in Parmalat (Italian-based company), in WorldCom, in Columbia hospital, etc, etc.
Bankruptcy of the many auto-part companies will hurt the life of millions in the U.S.A. alone, and it is just the beginning. (News by NBC, December 27, 2005).
These millions are the same people who have to buy the products of these companies. But they can’t, because they will have no money.
This is one of the flaws of capitalism, with no cure.
One year after the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean, people are still without shelter and without jobs, along with the many devastated areas with no electricity and healthy drinking water. Governments did little, and most of international aid did not reach the disaster zones. International aids, as usual, are melted in the pots of bureaucratic administrations, or simply are embezzled (December 26th 2005, from News Agencies).
According to a report by NBC News broadcasted on December 25th 2005; since the beginning of war on Iraq (March 20, 2003), about 30 000 wounded American soldiers were brought to Germany for treatment. This does not include those who are being treated in Iraq itself.
As BBC News reported on December 22nd 2005, the bones of Alistair Cook (a broadcaster who died recently) were removed from his corpse before cremation. These cancerous bones are perhaps, to be sold to a company which trades body parts for transplantation. What ever is the motivation behind this bizarre event, displays that nothing will be immune from trading in market-economy, if there is a profitable demand.
Each week about 10’000, people mostly from Latin America, take the risk and cross the dangerous borders of the U.S. to work there, as slaves (News Agencies, December 22nd 2005).
Three days of strike by the transit workers in New York City showed how powerful organized workers can be. The strike nearly paralyzed the city and had great impact on the economy of the whole state and even the country. The strike cost one billion dollars to businesses (News Agencies, December 22, 2005).
A report by News Agencies on December 22nd, 2005, shows that “each F22 Raptor fighter-jet which is recently manufactured costs 350 million dollars. The U.S. government buys about 150 of those jets”.
To increase the demand for these very profitable commodities, there is a need to wage wars. This is one of the main reasons behind the creation of crises and wars in the international stage.
ABC News reported on December 21st, 2005, that, “all of the public and private institutions are cutting their retirement pensions.”
This policy will leave millions of people in misery. One of these companies is Verizon that according to ABC News (December 06th, 2005) is in good financial shape.
This happens because of brutal war between companies, those who get less profit will be swallowed by the bigger ones (the law of the jungle).
These policies of imperialism constantly add to the number of poor and continuously lead to the creation of a small minority of rich and powerful people.
Despotic puppet rulers installed or supported by imperialism, suppress all the progressive and secular parties and organizations in one hand, and in the other hand, help or condone the growth of religious organization. That is what happened in Iran of the Shah, in Egypt of Hosni Mobark, in Saudi Arabia of Kings, in Pakistan of Generals and so on. (December 20, 2005).
Desensitization is a mechanism, by which the imperialist governments privatize public institution step by step to avoid the people’s reactions and opposition to these very harmful acts. Of course the mainstream media which are the properties of big companies play a great role in misleading the people. (December 18th, 2005).
If the U.S. government does not torture the so-called prisoners of war, why does it keep them in secret places, called black-sites? Why does it send them to countries that openly torture their people, countries like Egypt, Algeria, Saudi-Arabia, Morocco, … or why would they send them to some of the East-European countries (which recently embraced that heavenly capitalism), to be tortured there? (December 10, 2005).
One third of Romania’s population live under the poverty line, each year about 4 to 9 thousand, children are abandoned there by their mothers after birth (December 09, 2005, BBC News).
The insurance companies in the U.S.A., constantly increase their premium and put the blame on costly, high-tech, expensive medications and increasing hospital fees.
Companies like GM, Ford … say healthcare is expensive and no longer can they cover their fraction of responsibility. Each part of this chain blames the other, but the real culprit is capitalism itself, which can not see anything except for profit (December 08, 2005).
ABC News reported that, “1 to 3 million children are living in the streets of the United States of America (November 27, 2005).