Racial Maddow vs. the Islamic Republic of Iran - Shirin Sadeghi.
Love Shirin for writing this. I’m relieved to know not everyone’s foolishly in love with Rachel Maddow.
(via mehreenkasana)
I just watched the video, ugh. Orientalist, imperialist propaganda from Maddow. Another excuse to portray Bush’s axis of evil in convenient ‘us and them’ terms, painting all Iranians as extremist zealots, and yet more footage of North Korean people all doing the same thing in a large crowd, as if that’s the only footage of them in existence. i.e. both countries are clearly nothing more than brainwashed collective masses who don’t know what’s good for them and so of course need the enlightened west, where everyone’s a free individual (and definitely not Muslim or anything like that) to come spread democracy and rationality.
The whole patronising ‘dictatorship’ spiel - ffs it was your CIA who overthrew the democratic government of Iran and replaced it with a US-friendly monarchical dictatorship in the 50s. And hmm I wonder if America had anything to do with Korea in the past… let’s not mention that though.
Ugh and the way she sneers at ‘dictatorships’ for celebrating their leaders birthdays, less than a minute after having shown the US list with Lincoln’s birthday right there ffs. Funnily enough no comment on how the land of the free celebrates mass colonial genocide on Columbus day either…
The highest military spending in the world, a bloody global empire, the highest prison population in the world, institutional racism, entirely unscientific drug laws, 90% of media controlled by 6 companies with interlocking share ownerships, 3 times fewer women in ministerial government positions than Iran.
But yeah keep pointing that finger.
‘Progressive’
(via kyaryarchy)
Rachel Maddow breaks it down so simply that an 8th grader could understand it:
- ExxonMobil is more profitable than Walmart, Google, McDonald’s, American Express and Goldman Sachs combined
- Exxon’s fine for the oil Pegasus Pipeline spill in Arkansas is only a tiny fraction of its daily profit
- Again, Exxon paid just a tiny fraction of its daily profit for the entire Yellowstone oil spill
This begs (at least) three questions: Why does the U.S. Government even subsidize oil companies in the first place? Why doesn’t our government have more serious fines for oil spills? AND ARE WE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE?!? REALLY? NO, REALLY?The Keystone Pipeline
will absolutely, positively spring a leakalready has sprung several leaksThe oil industry has no clue how to clean up or prevent the leaks and they aren’t even exploring new technologies for oil spill clean ups
The KXL Pipeline will go through a MAJOR clean water drinking aquifer. Is America so stupid to “drill baby drill” that we’re willing to endanger our most valuable non-renewable resource —water— for a finite fossil fuel that wind and solar tech will ultimately replace?
This needs WAY more notes
OK so in case anyone’s surprised about how the oil cartel gets away with this sort of thing:
- ExxonMobil is the biggest company in the US.
- Chevron is the 2nd biggest oil company (and 3rd biggest overall)
Back in the 70s there were 7 oil companies (‘The Seven Sisters’) which entirely dominated the world market.
These were:
- Standard Oil of California (SoCal) which became Chevron
- Standard Oil of New York (Socony) which became Mobil
- Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso) which became Exxon and then merged with Mobil to form ExxonMobil
- Texaco which was then acquired by Chevron
- Gulf Oil which was then acquired by Standard Oil of California and incorporated into Chevron
- Anglo-Iranian oil company which became British Petroleum
- Royal Dutch Shell
5 out of 7 are now either ExxonMobil or Chevron. 3 of them were borne from John D. Rockefeller’s original Standard Oil, which itself once had a 90% market share (there was also Standard Oil of Indiana, or Amoco, but that merged with BP…)
It is an obscene concentration of wealth.
John D.’s heir/only surviving grandson, David Rockefeller, happened to chair one of the most influential policy think tanks in the US. He was also the single largest shareholder in Chase bank.
Then there was the other Rockefeller grandson, Nelson - he helped launch the modern war on drugs and later became vice-president.
I wonder if it all means anything.
Yeeeaah, oil companies getting $78bn in US government subsidies 2012-2017! Record profits even as workers are sacked! Let’s go bomb Iran! etc
(via randomactsofchaos)
so important
the US military-industrial-media complex relies on dehumanising and othering the civilian populations of its target nations
the people in these pictures are not an unindividuated mass/horde of brainwashed commie robot zombie drones who spend their days at axis of evil hq plotting to blow up the white house
they are actual human individuals, 100% real people, with varied lives and loves and interests, they cook meals and fuck and listen to music, and experience the full spectrum of human emotions, and don’t deserve to be murdered by flying death robots or whatever the fuck
all of which is so basic it should never need to be said, but every time I hear about the latest ‘surgical strike’ to ‘neutralise’ ‘insurgent’ ‘forces’ w/ ‘collateral damage’ I’m reminded that apparently it does
(Source: canadian-communist, via babustation)
What is modern propaganda? For many, it is the lies of a totalitarian state.
In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl and asked her about her epic films that glorified the Nazis. Using revolutionary camera and lighting techniques, she produced a documentary form that mesmerised Germans; her Triumph of the Will cast Hitler’s spell.
She told me that the “messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above”, but on the “submissive void” of the German public.
Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? “Everyone,” she said.
Today, we prefer to believe that there is no submissive void. “Choice” is ubiquitous. Phones are “platforms” that launch every half-thought. There is Google from outer space if you need it.
Caressed like rosary beads, the precious devices are borne heads-down, relentlessly monitored and prioritised. Their dominant theme is the self. Me. My needs. Riefenstahl’s submissive void is today’s digital slavery.
Edward Said described this wired state in Culture and Imperialism as taking imperialism where navies could never reach. It is the ultimate means of social control because it is voluntary, addictive and shrouded in illusions of personal freedom.
Today’s “message” of grotesque inequality, social injustice and war is the propaganda of liberal democracies. By any measure of human behavior, this is extremism.
Article goes into the CIA’s propagandising via Hollywood, which really shouldn’t be a taboo subject when:
- Argo is misleading anti-Iranian propaganda
- Zero Dark Thirty tries to justify torture and uncritically follows the US military’s version of events regarding bin Laden’s death
- Olympus Has Fallen comes out at just the right time with its ‘omg North Korea is going to attack America’ bullshit, and
- Homeland is winning awards on TV for promulgating the view that America needs to be even more vigilant against all these ‘Al Qaeda terrorists’
- etc etc
As Pilger mentions the CIA has an ‘entertainment industry liaison office’ and it’s a matter of public record that they’ve been engaged in manipulating the media for decades (going back to Operation Mockingbird in the 50s).
Is it any wonder that all the media listed above feature sympathetic portrayals of CIA operatives? Or that they serve to reinforce US imperialism?
Just look at the timing of the anti-Iran and anti-DPRK movies, I mean really now, come on.
all the cool kids know about the Sykes-Picot agreement
…do YOU?
Here’s some imperialist fuck from pro-Israel lobby group/think tank The Washington Institute for Near East Policy talking about the need for ‘crisis initiation’, i.e. how America can start a war with Iran.
‘We are in the game of using covert means against the Iranians. We could get nastier.’
United States President Barack Obama said there is a real chance for peace in the framework of the two-state solution. “I do not say peace guaranteed, but possible,” he said
put your money where your mouth is
Little to no difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to mindless slaughter in the name of foreign policy.
A lot of stories are circulating right now claiming that Black and Latino voters are to blame for Prop 8 passing. Beneath this claim is an uninterrogated idea that people of color are “more homophobic” than white people. Such an idea equates gayness with whiteness and erases the lives of LGBT people of color. It also erases and marginalizes the enduring radical work of LGBT people of color organizing that has prioritized the most vulnerable members of our communities.
Current conversations about Prop 8 hide how the same-sex marriage battle has been part of a conservative gay politics that de-prioritizes people of color, poor people, trans people, women, immigrants, prisoners and people with disabilities. Why isn’t Prop 8’s passage framed as evidence of the mainstream gay agenda’s failure to ally with people of color on issues that are central to racial and economic justice in the US?
Let’s remember the politics of marriage itself. The simplistic formula that claims “you’re either pro-marriage or against equality” makes us forget that all forms of marriage perpetuate gender, racial and economic inequality. It mistakenly assumes that support for marriage is the only good measure of support for LGBT communities. This political moment calls for anti-homophobic politics that centralize anti-racism and anti-poverty. Marriage is a coercive state structure that perpetuates racism and sexism through forced gender and family norms. Right wing pro-marriage rhetoric has targeted families of color and poor families, supported a violent welfare and child protection system, vilified single parents and women, and marginalized queer families of all kinds. Expanding marriage to include a narrow band of same-sex couples only strengthens that system of marginalization and supports the idea that the state should pick which types of families to reward and recognize and which to punish and endanger.
We still demand a queer political agenda that centralizes the experiences of prisoners, poor people, immigrants, trans people, and people with disabilities. We reject a gay agenda that pours millions of dollars into campaigns for access to oppressive institutions for a few that stand to benefit.
We are being told marriage is the way to solve gay people’s problems with health care access, immigration, child custody, and symbolic equality. It does not solve these problems, and there are real campaigns and struggles that would and could approach these problems for everyone, not just for a privileged few. Let’s take the energy and money being put into gay marriage and put it toward real change: opposing the War on Terror and all forms of endless war; supporting queer prisoners and building a movement to end imprisonment; organizing against police profiling and brutality in our communities; fighting attacks on welfare, public housing and Medicaid; fighting for universal health care that is trans and reproductive healthcare inclusive; fighting to tax wealth not workers; fighting for a world in which no one is illegal.
"(via afrofuturisticlingo)
yes true, all very sensible but
a) we can’t monopolise the sun. our friends in the oil cartel, Exxonmobil, Chevron and ConocoPhilips (1st, 3rd and 4th biggest companies in US) not happy about this
b) solar panels don’t come with permanent military bases. military-industrial complex clearly not happy about this that’s kinda their thing
c) less debt and less interest on debt. banks and financial cartel entirely not happy about this.
d) the proles would be less dependent on us. everyone not happy about this (apart from the proles obv but fuck them lol)
always with the bright ideas, pah.
next: a motion to bomb Iran, all those in favour say aye
(Source: questionall)
The “Jews Say No” movement held a protest in Upper Manhattan expressing their opposition to the recent air attacks by Israel on the Gaza strip. They stood silently, holding posters and placards which voiced their concerns. New York, USA, 22nd August, 2011. (Demotix Images)
if anyone thinks that criticising the racist, genocidal atrocities of the Israeli government and military (aided and abetted by the imperialist Anglo-American establishment) = anti-semitism, then please feel free to unfollow
(via americanfascism)
[…]
However, this crime is not Rios Montt’s, alone. The genocide would have been impossible without the United States, which had run the show in Guatemala since 1954 and had armed the general to the teeth. The U.S. corporate media like to call President Ronald Reagan the “Great Communicator” but, in Guatemala, he was the Great Exterminator, encouraging and financing General Rios Montt’s orgy of mass murder. Reagan described the racist butcher as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment” who was “getting a bum rap.” All told, a quarter million or more Guatemalans died in the 40 years since the CIA robbed them of their democracy and independence."
(Source: findingupsidedown)
Arundhati Roy (via azspot)
Read this over and over. Ponder it. Try to trace its ramifications. She has her finger on a very important pulse.
(via shrinkrants)
#Arundhati Roy #perpetual war #war industry #psycosis
(via cultureofresistance)
The point she makes about the collusion between Western capitalist powers and radical Islam is right on the money (excuse the pun) and is so important to get your head around. Just look at the continued US military alliance with Saudi Arabia, or the US/UK backing of the mujahideen in Afghanistan during the Cold War. The idea that it’s ‘democracy vs radical Islam’ is as Roy says just political rhetoric, and doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation.
Iranian-American FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has come out with some very important information related to this subject, particularly as regards NATO’s stay-behind operation ‘Gladio B’. (x)
(via the-uncensored-she)
