This video about wildlife in Croatia and Slovenia was made in 2015 by Jasper Schiphof from the Netherlands.
Featuring hummingbird hawkmoth, butterflies, banded demoiselle, beetles, lizards, common sandpiper, redshank, and golden eagle.
This 6 December 2012 video is called Jean-Luc Mélenchon: For an alternative to austerity in Europe.
Another video used to say about itself:
Jean Luc Mélenchon speech at the Euro PlanB conference “Alternatives to the Europe of austerity”
29 November 2016
This speech was made at the Euro PlanB conference “Alternatives to the Europe of austerity” 19-20. November 2016, Copenhagen, Denmark.
The conference was a pan-european conference for the European Left, progressive social movements and trade unions. On the agenda was a open debate on alternatives and strategies for the left-wing in relation to economic austerity policies, currently imposed in the EU.
This video is in French; however, the subtitles can be changed to English or other languages.
By Kumaran Ira in France:
Macron advocates austerity, law-and-order and militarism in French elections
8 February 2017
French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron of En Marche outlined key measures in his program, which he will unveil at the end of February, this Saturday in Lyon. He is proposing deep austerity, dismantling the Social Security system, draconian police state measures and close collaboration with Germany on moves to further militarise the European Union (EU).
Portraying himself as “neither left nor right” and claiming that politics is now only a battle between progressives and conservatives, he asked: “I do not say that right and left don’t exist anymore. But in historic moments, can’t we get beyond such divisions?”
Trying to convince both right-wing and Socialist Party (PS) voters to back him, Macron praised former French presidents of all political stripes: “To be moved by [PS President] François Mitterrand’s speech on Europe a few weeks before his death, did one have to be left-wing? To feel pride at Jacques Chirac’s speech at the Vel d’Hiv, did one have to be right-wing? … No! One had to be French!” He also cited Philippe Séguin, the mentor of right-wing Les Républicains (LR) presidential candidate François Fillon.
After occupying key posts, including senior adviser to PS President François Hollande and then economy minister—where he helped design the Responsibility Pact deregulation package—Macron left the government last summer. He formed En Marche, his electoral movement, in November. While making nationalist appeals to discontent among youth, workers and middle class people disillusioned with the traditional ruling parties, PS and LR, he speaks unabashedly for big business. Should he win the election, he would seek to continue the policies of PS and LR governments.
The French presidential campaign is dominated by escalating conflicts between the major powers and the deep crisis of European and world capitalism. After the Brexit vote and the election of Trump, tensions are exploding inside the trans-Atlantic alliance, as Trump attacks the EU and backs the National Front (FN) in France and similar neo-fascist forces across Europe. Trump’s economic nationalism, his overt hostility to German economic strength, and his war threats against China and the Middle East are all pushing the European ruling class to reconsider its alliances.
As US-EU conflict intensifies, Macron proposed in Lyon to boost ties with Germany. Criticizing Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, he said, “There will be no wall in my program.”
In Lyon, Macron called for an increase of defense spending from 1.6 to 2 percent of France’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), that is, a €9 billion increase each year. “I want a more European defense, with partnerships between Germany and France,” he said.
He added, “If we live in dangerous times, it is because the international context itself is dangerous.” He branded Russia, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia as rising authoritarian regimes, declaring: “We must in this context hold our rank, know our history and its guiding logic.”
Macron aims to place the burden of stepped-up military spending and war planning squarely on the backs of the working class. He proposes to slash labor costs, social spending and business regulations, claiming this will simplify business creation and boost France’s economy.
Macron wants an even harsher labor law than the one Hollande rammed through parliament last year, in the face of mass protests and overwhelming popular opposition. He intends to impose drastic reductions in the contributions to social spending employers pay on workers’ wages in order to move France towards a situation where workers will have no social or health protections.
He said, “I want labor to be cheaper, by cutting employers tax rates on jobs paying up to 2.5 times the minimum wage, and a 10 percent cut in taxes at the minimum wage.”
Macron tries to justify this policy by claiming that will boost workers’ purchasing power. His measures will only force workers to take private health insurance, however, and leave workers with ever smaller unemployment benefits if they are sacked. “To liberate labor, I want it to be better paid,” he said. “We should re-finance health care and unemployment to cut payments made by workers. Then everyone will have more purchasing power.”
Macron is also proposing a few token measures to cover up his right-wing program, posing as a friend of education. He claimed he wants to increase teachers’ salaries, especially those working in disadvantaged “priority” zones. “I want us to be able to halve the number of students per class in our schools. In primary schools, in all priority education zones, I will pay teachers who are going there much better. They will have more autonomy to carry out their projects.”
He promised to give every young person €500 when they reach the legal age of adulthood, as a “youth pass” to spend on cultural activities.
Insofar as Macron’s entire program is aimed at slashing social spending and workers’ legal rights, his proposals for minor handouts and wage increases to a few select categories of workers and his pose of concern for education and youth development are a reactionary farce.
Aware that his program is no different and no more popular than the policies he helped formulate under Hollande, who became the most unpopular president in French history, Macron also proposes law-and-order measures handing extraordinary powers to police and intelligence services. He has pledged to recruit 10,000 police in the next five years, adding, “We will reorganize our intelligence services, for a more efficient and omnipresent territorial intelligence presence. We will recreate a police service that is effective for daily security.”
Macron’s candidacy has come to the fore particularly after Fillon, the LR candidate, was staggered by accusations that he organized the provision of fictitious jobs paying nearly €1 million in public money to his wife Penelope. According to recent polls, Macron would eliminate Fillon in the first round of April 23 vote, and face neo-fascist National Front leader Marine Le Pen in the May 7 run-off. He is thus at present the favorite to become France’s next president.
Macron expressed his concern over this scandal, fearing that it would further alienate masses of people from LR and the PS and boost the far-right FN as a so-called “anti-system” party.
He warned, “We are living a moment where each day, scandals reveal practices of another time. Be serious in such times, because what is happening in our media and political life is not good for anyone. Because we are struggling to do everything so that what happens will not benefit to the party of the National Front. … Because today, what is emerging in our country is a gangrene on democracy, it is generalized mistrust.”
Macron’s posture as the best opponent of the FN’s rise is a political fraud. His campaign itself intensifies the moods on which the FN is proposing, insofar as Macron has publicly met with and embraced nationalist far-right figures such as Philippe de Villiers.
French ex-president Sarkozy indicted over 2012 campaign finances: here.
This video is about white-winged black terns. It is from the Netherlands where this species nests rarely. I saw these beautiful birds in Poland.
This video from the USA says about itself:
Billionaire Oligarch Christian Fundamentalist Approved For Education Secretary
8 February 2017
The nomination of billionaire heiress Betsy DeVos to head the Department of Education is one vote shy of failing in the Republican-controlled Senate. One thing that could come to her aid is that she and the entire DeVos family are massive Republican Party donors who helped fund the election of the remaining senators who will decide her fate.
By Ed Hightower in the USA:
Trump proposes tax break for church political activities
8 February 2017
President Donald Trump made a bizarre and rambling speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last week attacking the bedrock democratic principle of the separation of church and state, by promising to eliminate restrictions under the tax code on political activities by religious groups.
Trump told the audience of religious and political leaders that he would “get rid [of] and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.”
The president was referring to a section of the tax code that makes the tax-exempt status of religious or charitable organizations dependent on their refraining from endorsing candidates for office or from otherwise engaging in partisan electoral politics. The rule, part of the 1954 version of the Internal Revenue Code and bearing the name of then-senator Lyndon Johnson, was regarded for decades as spelling out in the language of tax law the longstanding custom that church groups did not engage in overt political campaigns.
Only in the last 25 years have politically active right-wing Christian fundamentalists and Republican politicians begun to paint the Johnson Amendment as a violation of freedom of speech and religion. This turns reality on its head.
The Johnson Amendment applies only to organizations that are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions, such as churches and synagogues, universities, or any number of charities e.g. the Salvation Army, Goodwill, the Red Cross and so on. Since 1917 American tax law has favored such enterprises on the grounds that they serve a public good. In order to encourage donations to organizations that will provide important social services, the tax code has allowed taxpayers to deduct from their taxable income a certain amount of funds they donate to such groups. These 501(c)3 organizations—named for the section of the tax code that applies to them—are essentially subsidized by the federal government through the tax revenue that it gives up.
There are 29 categories of non-profit organizations in section 501 of the tax code, covering everything from professional organizations, chambers of commerce, athletic leagues and social clubs, political parties, all of which can avoid paying taxes on the money they collect from members. Those who donate to most of these groups, however, are not be able to take a tax deduction for it. Only 501c(3) and 501(c)4 organizations offer this substantial benefit to their donors.
The Johnson Amendment allows the Internal Revenue Service to revoke an organization’s 501c(3) or 501(c)4 status if it endorses a political candidate or otherwise engages in partisan politics. This does not prohibit an organization from taking a position on a political issue. For example, the Catholic Church opposes abortion, says so openly and constantly, and maintains its tax status, receiving money that can be deducted from the donor’s taxable income. A priest or bishop can vote for whatever candidate or party, and can even speak at a political event if they refrain from doing so in their capacity as a religious leader. This happens every day in the United States without a single federal agent raising an eyebrow.
The law does not prohibit the aforementioned political activities, it only imposes an indirect financial penalty, because the church organization that engaged in electoral campaigns and other partisan activities would lose contributions from donors who only gave in order to gain the tax deduction.
It should be noted that Johnson proposed the amendment to the tax code in 1954 not out of a deep commitment to constitutional principles, but rather out of political expediency. (At the time, certain religious leaders in Texas supported his opponent in a primary campaign.) The Amendment served basically to codify what had been the relationship between religious groups and the IRS.
For decades, the Johnson Amendment was a complete political non-issue. However, politicization of the evangelical protestant churches, most notably the Southern Baptists, which developed in reaction to Supreme Court decisions desegregating public schools (1954), striking down school prayer (1962), permitting marriage betweens persons of different races (1967) and legalizing access to abortion (1973).
In 1979 the right-wing minister Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, which opposed homosexuality, abortion, and secularism in thoroughly political terms, jettisoning the traditional Baptist position of abstention from partisan politics. The organization served to integrate the new Christian fundamentalist movement into the Republican Party. Politically active evangelical churches now form the principal social base of the Republicans.
Evangelical churches brought court cases challenging the Johnson Amendment but lost in the Supreme Court on numerous occasions. Finally, in 2008, they began a campaign of open defiance, seeking to provoke a confrontation with the IRS by preaching partisan political sermons on a coordinated, advertised day. With the tacit approval of the Obama White House, the IRS took no action against any of the churches involved. Only one in 2,000 instances of “pulpit freedom Sundays,” as they were called, resulted in an audit. At the same time, the Republican Party adopted the repeal of the Johnson Amendment as part of its political platform.
Trump, who had little prior connection to the Christian Right, made repeal of the Johnson Amendment part of his 2016 presidential campaign to curry favor with this reactionary constituency and its leaders.
While the Johnson Amendment did not represent a very significant advance for secularism, its removal would have immediate and substantial consequences for the separation of church and state. Repeal of the Amendment would turn “faith leaders” and religious outfits into entities with more rights than normal citizens, especially if those citizens are disinclined to support any religion at all.
The Trump administration is making every effort to mold the most debased sections of society into a fascistic base of support for social policies that will devastate the working class and broad layers of the middle class. Paeans to the clergy, the appointment of pro-life judges, the curtailing of the rights of religious minorities and foreign nationals, these are the political chum thrown out to mobilize support for dictatorship.
This video from the USA says about itself:
Army Approves Final Permit for Dakota Access Pipeline Without Assessing Environmental Impact
8 February 2017
Nick Tilson of the Indigenous People’s Power Project says the decision reflects the long history of the U.S. government ignoring treaties and environmental protections.
By Shelley Connor in the USA:
Dakota Access pipeline construction to proceed
8 February 2017
On Tuesday, the United States Army Corps of Engineers filed documents with the US District Court in Washington, DC stating that it intends to grant an easement to Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) so that it can move forward with the completion of the Dakota Access pipeline. It also notified the Senate of its filings, stating that construction is expected to begin today. Only a court injunction can now officially block the construction.
The approved site will carry the pipeline under Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri River, which supplies the adjacent Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s drinking water. The Standing Rock Sioux have opposed the pipeline, citing fears of drinking water contamination and damage to sacred sites.
This marks the final hurdle needed for ETP to complete the 1,170 mile pipeline, which will carry crude oil from North Dakota to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. The Obama administration ordered a halt to the project in December by calling for an environmental review; President Donald Trump wasted no time in issuing an order of his own directing the Army to expedite construction.
The pipeline has been the focus of intense clashes between protesters, the Army Corps of Engineers and law enforcement. Popular opposition to the pipeline and to the US government’s dismissal of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s concerns drew tens of thousands of protesters to the site in the fall of 2016.
A coordinated response of local law enforcement and the Army National Guard aimed at driving away protestors resulted in several serious injuries to protesters, among them hypothermia, traumatic brain injury and burns. Six hundred protesters were arrested.
With the deepening of winter, the number of protesters has decreased to around 1,000, most of them concentrated in a camp on land owned by the Army Corps. The protesters there have vowed to stay, despite the fact that the camp is situated on a flood plain and other camps have been cleared. A group of veterans opposed to the pipeline has vowed to send more protesters as the tension over the planned construction heightens.
The concerns expressed by the Standing Rock Tribe are well founded. Three major pipeline spills occurred in the United States in October 2016. Through the course of the year, well over 200 pipeline leaks or ruptures occurred. Over 3,000 spills occurred in the United States between 2006 and 2016, costing $4.7 billion. Many pipelines are aging, causing these incidents to occur more and more frequently. Considering the Army Corps’ poor record in maintaining even the simplest infrastructure entrusted to it, the pipeline’s placement in the reservoir is almost a guarantee of disaster for the Missouri River and those depending upon it for drinking water.
Despite a well-documented history of poor management and hazards of such pipelines, the Dakota Access Pipeline has enjoyed bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota praised the corps’ decision and denounced the “continued delays and stalling tactics” of the Obama administration, and stated, “…it’s crucial that all parties double down in their resolve to listening and working together.” She did not mention how those opposed to the pipeline, most especially the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, might be heard over the din of sound cannons and water cannons employed by law enforcement in the service of ETP and other stakeholders in the project.
John Hoeven, a Republican senator from North Dakota who chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, similarly crowed over the Corps’ statement, claiming that it represented a victory for the economic wellbeing of his constituency. He has consistently characterized the protesters as violent public enemies. Although he chairs the Sentate Committee on Indian Affairs, he has dismissed the pleas and demands of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
While Obama enjoyed accolades for his halting of construction, he essentially succeeded, not in stopping the construction all together, but in merely interrupting its progress. He left its fate in the hands of Trump, who vociferously supported the pipeline during the presidential campaign.
Trump wasted no time; one of his very first acts as president was to issue an executive order demanding that the Corps act expeditiously to ensure that construction went forward. The Corps complied with haste.
The Standing Rock tribe has vowed to fight the pipeline’s construction legally, and several protesters have likewise stated that they intend to fight the pipeline’s construction. As the protests wore on in 2016, gaining widespread popular support, shares of ETP declined in value. Yet on Tuesday, with the announcement of the Corps’ intention to grant its easement, the stock finished the day with a 20 cent uptick.
Prior to his election, Trump owned a significant stake in ETP. He has declined since then to provide any paperwork to demonstrate that he has divested from the company. Senator Hoeven owns shares in several oil wells in North Dakota, all of which stand to profit from the pipeline’s construction.
Just across the state’s northern border, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has hailed the pipeline as an economic boon to Canada’s petroleum industry. While Trudeau has postured as a champion of indigenous rights and of the environment, his support of the Dakota Access pipeline, along with those proposed in Canada, belies the hollowness of liberal bourgeois pretexts internationally.
As mass protests grow internationally against the anti-democratic measures enacted by President Trump, Republican state legislators in the US are preparing a raft of bills intended to restrict demonstrators’ right of free speech and ability to peacefully assemble: here.
This is a monk parakeet video from the Netherlands; where some feral individuals of this South American species nest.
This video from New York City in the USA says about itself:
Rabbis Protest Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban at Trump Tower
7 February 2017
19 rabbis were arrested standing up for Muslims and refugees during a protest at Trump Tower. “This is what theology looks like!”
By Patrick Martin in the USA:
US appeals court to rule on restoration of anti-Muslim travel ban
8 February 2017
The Trump administration argued Tuesday for the restoration of its temporary ban on visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from any country in an hour-long court hearing conducted by telephone.
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in San Francisco, heard the government appeal to overturn the temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge in Seattle, who acted on a lawsuit brought by the states of Washington and Minnesota.
The government’s legal representative, August Flentje, special counsel to the assistant attorney general, faced a skeptical reaction from the panel, which peppered him with questions and did not allow him to develop a coherent argument, although it was unclear whether he could have done so even without interruption.
None of the three judges—William Canby, appointed by Jimmy Carter in 1980; Richard Clifton, appointed by George W. Bush in 2001, and Michelle Friedland, appointed by Barack Obama in 2013—seemed sympathetic to the White House claims that the states did not have legal standing to challenge the executive order.
An analogous case was brought by a group of Republican state attorneys-general in 2015, challenging an Obama executive order on immigration enforcement as unduly lenient. That case was heard by a federal district judge in Texas and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, both on standing and on the merits of their suit.
One of the first questions, from Judge Friedland, was whether the Trump administration had any evidence of an imminent threat emanating from any of the seven countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. No traveler from any of those countries has been involved in a terrorist attack inside the United States since at least 1975.
As with most of the public performances of the Trump administration, factual accuracy and logical coherence were replaced by authoritarian bluster and fear-mongering at the court hearing. Flentje sought to base his argument for the travel ban on the claim that the president’s authority on national security matters was virtually absolute.
When asked by Judge Friedland whether the executive order was “unreviewable,” he hesitated, then said, “Yes.” The court was entitled to consider only whether the executive order was properly drafted and not facially invalid. The judges were obliged to confine their scrutiny to the “four corners” of the paper signed by Trump on January 27, he argued.
This line of argumentation ultimately collapsed on itself, since Flentje retreated from the claim that Trump had the authority to strip legal resident aliens, holders of green cards, of their constitutional rights. After customs agents targeted green card holders in the first weekend of enforcement of the executive order, the White House revised its instructions without changing the text of the order, merely issuing an “interpretation” of the order by White House counsel Don McGahn.
Judge Friedland noted the contradiction between the initial claims that the courts had to concede Trump’s unchallengeable authority to make national security determinations, and the White House counsel’s intervention to attempt to salvage the executive order. Could Trump’s national security authority be delegated to a White House lawyer, she asked?
Speaking for the states of Washington and Minnesota, Washington solicitor general Noah Purcell initially avoided the democratic and constitutional issues at stake, instead diverting the proceeding into a discussion of the exact legal steps to be followed, including whether the Appeals Court panel would send the case back to the district court for further review or issue its own opinion that could immediately be appealed to the Supreme Court.
When he finally turned to the main issues, however, the strength of the case against the executive order became plain. He noted that the Trump administration had “no clear factual claim or evidentiary claims” as to the irreparable harm that would result from the suspension of the executive order, adding, “It was the executive order itself that caused irreparable harm.”
He discussed several legal issues relating to proving that the travel ban violates the First Amendment clause forbidding the establishment of religion. Dismissing the argument that since the ban targeted only seven of the 43 Muslim-majority countries it wasn’t a Muslim ban, he explained that this was not the legal standard: “You don’t have to prove it harms every Muslim—you just need to show the action was motivated in part by animus.” Even an action within the legal powers of the president could be illegal and unconstitutional if motivated by religious bigotry.
The discriminatory intent could be demonstrated from Trump’s own statements, both during the election campaign and in preparing the order, Purcell argued. Trump called for a Muslim ban during the campaign, and after his election asked one of his advisers, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to prepare a version of the Muslim ban that would pass legal muster. Trump also discussed his desire to favor Christian refugees over Muslims in an interview with a Christian broadcaster.
It was rare that so much evidence of intent was available even before any discovery had been conducted, he said—hinting at the possibility that Trump administration officials, and even potentially Trump himself, could be called to testify under oath if the case goes forward.
This led to a heated exchange, as Flentje declared, “It’s extraordinary for the courts to enjoin a president’s national security decision-making based on some newspaper articles.” Judge Clifton then asked whether the government attorney was claiming that the reports of Trump’s anti-Muslim comments were false. Flentje backed off, conceding that Trump had made the statements in question, but arguing that no judicial notice should be taken.
All three judges pressed Flentje on whether the president could simply issue a ban on Muslims entering the country, and if he did, would anyone, under the government’s theory, have legal standing to challenge it. Under repeated prodding, Flentje conceded that such an order would raise significant First Amendment and establishment of religion questions, but he maintained that only individuals directly harmed by the order, and not state governments, had legal standing to challenge such an order in court.
So one-sided were the exchanges that at one point Flentje remarked, in an understatement, “I’m not sure I’m convincing the court.” He later offered a compromise ruling, suggesting that the judges could reinstate the travel ban at least for refugees and others who had never previously entered the United States, while allowing it to lapse for green card holders and others with greater ties to the country.
In a media advisory before the hearing, a spokesman said that “a ruling was not expected to come down today, but probably this week.” The Trump White House has already announced that it intends to appeal any unfavorable result to the Supreme Court, which currently has only eight members, making a 4-4 tie vote very possible. That result would leave the Ninth Circuit decision intact.
The Trump administration’s open hostility to the judicial system’s intervention in the travel ban was expressed not only in Trump’s speech to Special Forces soldiers in Florida , but also in remarks by retired General John F. Kelly, Trump’s appointee as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that directly enforced the ban.
Testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee Tuesday, Kelly admitted that no one from the seven countries targeted for the travel ban has committed a terrorist attack inside the United States. But he said that it was impossible to rule it out, since US agencies wouldn’t know of such an attack until the “boom,” as he put it. This is an argument, of course, for prohibiting all visitors to the United States from all countries—and for rounding up countless Americans as well.
This video from the USA says about itself:
Trump Childish When Judge DESTROYS Muslim Travel Ban
6 February 2017
After Judge James Robart put a stop to President Trump’s executive order temporarily barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States, Trump’s Justice Department tried to challenge the ruling but was rejected by the Federal Appeals Court.
By Barry Grey in the USA:
In speech at Florida Air Force base
Trump appeals to the military against the press and the courts
8 February 2017
In an extraordinary appearance Monday at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, President Donald Trump dispensed with democratic protocol to deliver a political speech. He denounced the press and implicitly suggested the formation of a presidential-military alliance against the courts and the Constitution.
In his brief remarks, Trump lavished praise on the Central Command and Special Forces Command troops that are based at MacDill. He began by thanking the military for its lopsided vote in his favor in last November’s election. “And I saw those numbers—and you like me and I like you,” he said.
He continued: “And we’re going to be loading [MacDill] up with beautiful new planes and beautiful new equipment… We’re going to load you up.” He returned to this theme several times, stating at one point, “We will make a historic financial investment in the Armed Forces of the United States…”
Invoking the specter of “radical Islamic terrorists,” he darkly accused the press of deliberately downplaying the threat. “It’s gotten to the point where it’s not even being reported and, in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons and you understand that.”
Following this suggestion that the press is aiding and abetting the terrorists, Trump promoted his anti-immigrant measures, without referring to them directly, and implicitly criticized the courts for temporarily blocking his anti-Muslim travel ban.
“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism, and we will not allow it to take root in our country… You’ve been seeing what’s been going on over the last few days. We need strong programs so that people that love us and want to love our country and will end up loving our country are allowed in—not people that want to destroy us and destroy our country.”
The speech followed his tweets denouncing the judge who ruled against his travel ban and blaming any future terror attack on the “court system.” His top political aide, the fascist Stephen Bannon, has meanwhile told the press to “shut up.”
Trump’s speech comes in the midst of an intense conflict within the state over foreign policy and national security questions, involving not only the travel ban but also new attacks by the Democrats and much of the media for his supposed “softness” toward Russia.
It also takes place in the context of ongoing demonstrations across the country and internationally in opposition to his racist immigration measures and other antidemocratic policies.
The MacDill event marks a milestone in the long-term strengthening of the role of the armed forces in US political life and erosion of the constitutional principle of civilian control. Trump has packed his administration with retired generals, including James “Mad Dog” Mattis as secretary of defense, Michael Flynn as national security adviser, and John Kelly as head of the Homeland Security Department. The latter appointment for the first time places a military man at the head of a sprawling apparatus for domestic repression established as the internal component of the “war on terror.”
These developments follow the sinister incident, which remains unexplained and virtually unreported by the media, that occurred toward the beginning of Trump’s inaugural address. Ten officers from the various services lined up behind Trump and remained there long enough for the image of the new president flanked by uniformed military men to be broadcast across the country and internationally. This was no accident, but rather a calculated maneuver devised by Trump and advisers such as Bannon to present an image of a quasi-military government, prepared to crack down on opposition at home and wage war against multiple enemies abroad.
The immense growth in the size, power and political influence of the military is not something new or unique to the Trump administration. Rather, as with every other manifestation of the decay of American democracy, with the Trump presidency a protracted process of decline has reached a qualitatively new stage.
Twenty-five years of unending war following the dissolution of the Soviet Union have vastly increased the power of the military brass. The consolidation of a professional military has increasingly isolated the armed forces from civilian society, creating a distinct social caste that asserts its independent interests in the affairs of state ever more aggressively.
The greater the level of social inequality, the more widespread the alienation of the working masses from the entire political system, the more the ruling financial oligarchy seeks to base itself on the military. Already in the 2000 election, in which the Supreme Court handed the White House to George W. Bush, the loser of the popular vote, by shutting down a vote recount in Florida, Democrat Al Gore agreed to Republican demands that illegal military votes in Florida, mainly for Bush, be counted.
Both Bush and Barack Obama set records for the number of speeches they gave to military audiences. With Trump’s chauvinist “America First” government of generals and billionaires, the semi-criminal financial oligarchy bares its teeth and removes the mask of democratic niceties.
In the press and among the think tank strategists of the ruling class, the demise of the bedrock constitutional principle of civilian control of the military is being openly discussed and debated.
The headlines of articles on the subject that have appeared since Trump’s election include: “Is Civilian Control of the Military in Jeopardy?” (The American Conservative), “The ‘Civilian Control of the Military’ Fallacy” (Defense One), and “Trump is surrounding himself with generals. That’s dangerous” (Washington Post). An article published by Foreign Policy in December by Georgetown University Professor Rosa Brooks argues that civilian control of the military has “become a rule of aesthetics, not ethics, and its invocation is a soothing ritual that makes us feel better without accomplishing anything of value.”
The Democratic Party will not oppose the further politicization of the military and militarization of politics. On the contrary, in recent days media outlets aligned with the Democrats have presented the military brass as a democratic check on Trump’s fascistic impulses. The New York Times responded to Trump’s elevation of Bannon to the National Security Council and demotion of the director of national intelligence and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by urging Trump to seek advice in matters of war and peace from “more thoughtful experienced hands” such as Defense Secretary Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dunford.
The Atlantic magazine published an article with the headline “Are Trump’s Generals Mounting a Defense of Democratic Institutions?”
There is no faction of the ruling class or its political representatives, Democratic or Republican, that will defend democratic rights. The collapse of American democracy, as with democratic institutions all over the world, is the outcome of the mortal crisis of American and world capitalism. It is up to the working class to take the lead in the defense of basic rights through an independent struggle for political power and socialism.
The author also recommends:
Media remains silent on appearance of military officers at Trump’s inauguration
[27 January 2017]
The emails that detail the Trump team’s request for “military tactical vehicles” for inaugural parade.
New Zealand: Approximately 1,000 people gathered in central Auckland on Tuesday to protest against the anti-immigrant bans imposed by US President Donald Trump on seven majority-Muslim countries—Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Those in attendance included many young people, immigrants and former refugees: here.
This video says about itself:
14 September 2015
At Hakodate, Japan – After their early morning feeding, these seabirds are grooming their feathers and taking a rest, along that huge motionless breakwater.
From BirdLife:
Japan is home to one third of all seabirds – so we mapped its waters
By Alex Dale, 7 Feb 2017
Japan is known for its densely-populated cities, but some of its most vital areas for bird conservation are places where humans rarely venture – its marine waters.
A nation comprised of a chain of islands, Japan is blessed with a long and rugged coastline, which is home to a particularly high diversity of seabirds within Asia. Nearly a third of all known seabird species venture into Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, which stretches 200 nautical miles from its coastline. These species includes all three North Pacific albatrosses, eight auks and eleven petrels and shearwaters.
As seabirds are one of the most threatened groups of birds worldwide, it’s no surprise that some of these species have been assessed by BirdLife as threatened, and are in urgent need of protection. These include the Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus, listed as Vulnerable due to its extremely small breeding range, which is limited to several Pacific islands; Tristram’s Storm-petrel Hydrobates tristrami, which is threatened by predation by rats and cats introduced to the islands it breeds on; and Japanese Murrelet Synthliboramphus wumizusume, which is threatened by human disturbance by anglers at its breeding sites and accidental capture in gillnet fisheries, among other factors.
As you can see, Japan’s seabirds already face a complex web of threats, and the concern is that the ongoing expansion of offshore wind farms in and around the country could heap yet more pressure onto the most threatened species.> They are being built to meet a national need for renewable energy, one which has only grown following the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster of 2011. Clearly, there is a pressing need for Japan’s most vital marine sites to be properly monitored and protected.
However, this is currently not the case. The Japanese government has stated that 8.3% of the country’s waters are protected – but concerns have been raised about how effective this protection is for preserving the country’s marine biodiversity. For example, it includes marine areas that are locally managed by fisherman and so lack legal protection, and also marine areas that are indeed protected by national laws, but don’t contribute to marine biodiversity conservation. All in all, that 8.3% is not the be all and end all when it comes to protecting Japan’s seabirds.
But we have now taken an important first step towards improving protection for seabirds. In 2004, BirdLife International and its Partners initiated a project to designate sites that are important for coastal and marine conservation as Marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (Marine IBAs). This is part of an ongoing push that has created the largest global network of important sites for biodiversity. Using simple but robust criteria to identify these crucial sites helps inform decision makers by highlighting areas of land and sea most in need of protection.
To this end, the Wild Bird Society of Japan, (WBSJ, BirdLife Partner), and BirdLife International Tokyo have just completed identification of Japan’s 27 new Marine IBAs, adding to the 167 terrestrial or near-shore IBAs that were already recognised in 2004.
Seabirds are excellent indicators of the health of the marine environment’ explains Yutaka Yamamoto, Conservation Division Chief at WBSJ. ‘Identifying key seabird sites in Japan will inform marine conservation priorities and actions needed for the protection of our oceans.’
The results have just been published in a booklet that covers the new marine IBAs, including details for the breeding sites, threats, and biology on the 18 ‘trigger species’ for which sites were selected, and case studies about local communities working on seabird conservation. This includes several towns and villages where local conservation groups, fisheries associations, government, and seabird scientists are taking action to monitor and raise awareness about seabirds, and develop nature-based tourism. Kadogawa Town, close to the new Birou-jima Island marine IBA – which contains the world’s largest breeding colony of Japanese murrelets -, has even adopted the species as their town symbol.
Identifying Japan’s marine IBAs has been a long process involving many collaborators and a lot of data’, said Mayumi Sato, BirdLife Marine Programme Coordinator for Asia, ‘but it’s actually an initial step, and I am optimistic that it will help inform protection of many crucial areas of coast and sea. It gives me much hope to see local communities and fishers who are already active and working alongside government and scientists to promote and protect wildlife in these unique seabird sites.’
This important work was made possible thanks to kind funding from The Keidanren Nature Conservation Fund and from The Tiffany & Co. Foundation through a grant to American Friends of BirdLife International.
The booklet can be downloaded from The Wild Bird Society of Japan’s website.
This satiric video says about itself:
Belgium welcomes Trump in his own words
2 February 2017
After the Netherlands’ video, Belgium wanted to present itself to Donald Trump as well, so here we go.
Watch other European countries’ videos here.
These three poems by English poet Attila the Stockbroker are about United States President Donald Trump:
A TALE OF THREE BUSHES
Thatcher met Bush senior.
Blair met Bush no-hoper.
But May has drawn the short straw.
She just met Bush groper.A MAN OF HIS WORD
As the last Trump
exploded from the febrile rectum
of the loathsome demagogue
enveloping all before him
in a stinking fog of bigotry and hatred
he turned to the cameras
and spoke.
‘My fellow Americans:
During my election campaign
I made you some promises.
I am following through
on those promises.
Here are three of them.
I promised to build a wall.
To ban Muslims.
To end free healthcare.
I am keeping those promises.
I repeat:
I am following through.
All over America.’THERESA THE APPEASER
Theresa The Appeaser
Met the lady garden squeezer
Her brain was in the freezer
She treated him like Caesar
He’s a really nasty geezer
So tell Queen Liz, if he sees her,
“Grab his knob with a tweezer
And revoke his sodding visa!”
Dear Kitty. Some blog 