Le couple Chomsky-Dershowitz de nouveau réuni!

Alan Dershowitz, un homme dont Finkelstein dit qu'il est "constitutionellement incapable de dire quoi que ce soit de vrai", affronte Chomsky sur Israël lors d'un débat au Kennedy School of Government de Harvard (of Andrew Clearwood fame), hier. Les deux opposants sont séparés par un robot modérateur-animateur assez amusant, mais pas tout à fait au point. Le résultat? Exactement ce que vous pensez. Pour les paresseux, à 1:05:55, un résumé d'une minute, top chrono. ★★★★★

Le couple Chomsky-Herman de nouveau réuni!

Ça faisait un bail

In Western propaganda, the murderous sanctions are called "UN sanctions," which is technically accurate, but a cowardly evasion. It has always been perfectly obvious that they were initiated and conducted under US initiative, with the "spear carrier for Pax Americana" -- as Blair's Britain is described in Britain's leading journal of international affairs -- trailing politely behind. And the cruel and savage character of the sanctions (as well as the illegal oil shipments) trace right back to Washington, overwhelmingly. Q/A on the Iraq War

The most “effective” economic sanctions in recent history—imposed on Iraq by the U.N. Security Council following the 1990-91 Gulf war—have killed more civilians than any political action since the Holocaust. The U.S.-led sanctions have taken a country that, a little over a decade ago, approached First World status in terms of health care and education and turned it into a virtual refugee camp Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War

Qu'est-ce que la culture?

Awwwwwwwwww² via Boing Boing

Quelle est notre contribution réelle à la culture? Quels gabarits du bon goût sont les nôtres? Sommes-nous conséquents? Et tant qu'à faire, pourquoi me priver. Et ceci? Puis double awwwwwww, le meilleur pour la fin. Diane: ce site U.S. héberge aussi ceci. ★★★★☆ pour les deux derniers.

Oh no you didn't

Vous croyez que l'affaire Chomsky-Guardian est épuisée après leur rétractation? Relisez d'abord l'analyse de Chomsky lui-même. Pas mal, non? Et MediaLens qui procède, tel qu'espéré; indispensable je vous dit; je cogite et je répond... :

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that standards collapsed in deference to a clear decision by one or more senior figures on the paper to target Chomsky for a carefully planned attack.

It is surely the case that the intense liberal dislike of one of the world's leading radicals -- someone they perhaps imagined had little power or inclination to defend himself -- played a role in blinding the Guardian editors and journalists to their folly.

This bias is exactly reversed when the Guardian interviews powerful figures such as Bill Clinton -- then instinctive support for fellow 'liberals' and keen awareness of their ability to hit back with real force combine to produce fawning hagiography, as we have discussed elsewhere.

The Guardian's bold as brass smear and subsequent pained retraction inevitably call to mind an insightful comment made about Chomsky in, ironically, the Guardian itself. As we have once again seen, it is an observation that can of course be broadened to mainstream journalism:

"His boldness and clarity infuriates opponents -- academe is crowded with critics who have made twerps of themselves taking him on." (Birthdays, The Guardian, December 7, 1996)

Être Pierre Pettigrew

La voix de ce Teletubbie d'âge mûr est douce et sucrée comme un biscuit Oreo trempé dans le lait. Certaines mémères le trouvent même assez bel homme. [...] Tout en fredonnant des airs guillerets comme Dancing Queen et I Will Survive, il fit un saut chez son coiffeur avant de se mettre à la recherche d'un rédacteur qui pourrait torcher pour lui un essai sur l'humanisme à l'heure de la mondialisation. Jocelyn Coulon, journaliste au Devoir, lui suggéra Jean-François Nadeau, aujourd'hui rédacteur en chef du Couac. Nadeau reçut un appel de Pettigrew qui lui demanda avec empressement s'il accepterait de rédiger pour lui son beau livre. Nadeau refusa. Pettigrew insista. Nadeau refusa. Fin de l'anecdote.

Le gai savoir, Marco De Blois, mai 1999

On June 17, 2005 an incident occurred at a conference in Montreal regarding the subject of Haiti, at one point during the conference, Pettigrew was splashed with a red substance by Yves Engler, a political activist associated with the group Haiti Action Montreal. As Engler threw the red substance on Pettigrew, he shouted "Pettigrew lies, Haitians die". Engler claimed that the red substance was meant to symbolize the blood on the hands of the Canadian state due to Canada's involvement in the occupation of Haiti and the resulting mass murders of Haitian civilians calling for the return of their elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Pettigrew told police that he wanted full charges pressed against Engler. However, a couple of days later, Pettigrew suddenly decided to drop all charges. This led to speculation that Pettigrew was pressured by the Prime Minister to drop the charges in order to avoid a trial and the resulting media coverage that would come with it. Pierre Pettigrew sur Wikipedia

6 HAM[Haiti-Action Montréal]ers disrupted a talk at UQAM by Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew by repeatedly shouting him down. Two other people not affiliated with HAM joined in spontaneously and Pettigrew was forced to spend a significant part of his time shouting back at the activists to defend Canada's policy in Haiti. This is the latest action in a continuing effort by HAM to make public appearances in Montreal a trying affair for Pettigrew, and given his angry comments about how we are "following him everywhere", it appears he is starting to feel a bit besieged. trublions lors de ce grand moment de réthorique du 10 novembre 2005

Police-UN Killings in Haiti (Pierre Pettigrew), Aaron Mate, 10 octobre 2005

Catapult the Propaganda

Beau petit vidéo sur le rôle crucial des médias U.S. lors de la campagne de marketing de l'invasion de l'Irak, via le blogue d'In These Times, un magazine fondé par James Weinstein avec l'aide de Daniel Ellsberg, E.P. Thompson, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Julian Bond et Herbert Marcuse, c'est pas peu dire.

Le vidéo est particulièrement édifiant puisqu'il se termine par une série de plogues de médias indépendants, et, joie suprême, un coup de chapeau au génial Keith Olbermann de MSNBC, celui qui avait servi toute une leçon de journalisme à ses confrères lors de Katrina. Manu Militari propose d'ailleurs aujourd'hui la dernière sortie du monsieur.

Ahhhhh je rêve d'un Keith Olbermann québécois; imaginez, juste pour prendre un exemple récent, il donne sa liste de 10 émissions de télé qu'il vaut la peine de regarder, et pour justifier le drôlissime Family Guy au #3:

to see Mel Gibson voluntarily walk off a cliff and plummet to his death while someone says the punchline “Christians don’t believe in gravity,” is by itself worth the price of admission. And the absolute acceptance of an evil genius super baby with a football head, and a talking dog, as ordinary members of society, is almost unparalleled in art. Blogue de Keith Olbermann

Right on! Et sur Fox News Watch (#7) sur... Fox News (coudonc j'ai-tu ça moi?)

Skip the last segment - the viewer e-mails are apparently all from mental patients.

O.o

Ah ben calvaire, me serais-je fait avoir par la propagande de Washington^*, MOI?

Steven E. Jones, Département de Physique et Astronomie, Brigham Young University:

The observation of molten metal at Ground Zero was emphasized publicly by Leslie Robertson, the structural engineer responsible for the design of the World Trade Center Towers, who reported that "As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running." (Williams, 2001)

[...]

I maintain that these published observations are consistent with the use of the high-temperature thermite reaction, used to cut or demolish steel. Thermite is a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum powder. The end products of the thermite reaction are aluminum oxide and molten iron. So the thermite reaction generates molten iron directly, and is hot enough to melt and even evaporate steel which it contacts while reacting. On the other hand, falling buildings (absent explosives) have insufficient directed energy to result in melting of large quantities of metal. The government reports admit that the building fires were insufficient to melt steel beams [...] Metals expert Dr. Frank Gayle (working with NIST) stated:

Your gut reaction would be the jet fuel is what made the fire so very intense, a lot of people figured that's what melted the steel. Indeed it did not, the steel did not melt. (Field, 2005)

[...]

Firemen and others described flashes and explosions in upper floors near where the plane entered, and in lower floors of WTC 2 just prior to its collapse, far below the region where the plane had struck the tower (Dwyer, 2005). For instance, at the start of the collapse of the South Tower a Fox News anchor reported:

There is an explosion at the base of the building… white smoke from the bottom… something happened at the base of the building! Then another explosion. (De Grand Pre, 2002)

Firefighter Edward Cachia independently reported:

[We] thought there was like an internal detonation, explosives, because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down…It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit." (Dwyer, 2005)

And assistant fire commissioner Stephen Gregory provides additional insights:

When I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, ..I saw low-level flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought -- at that time I didn't know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down.

Q. Was that on the lower level of the building or up where the fire was?

A. No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw. And I didn't broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don't know if I'm crazy, but I just wanted to ask you because you were standing right next to me… He said did you see any flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them, too. (Dwyer, 2005, Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory FDNY WCT2 fichier No. 9110008)

It is highly unlikely that jet fuel was present to generate such explosions especially on lower floors, and long after the planes hit the buildings. Dr. Shyam Sunder, Lead Investigator for NIST stated: "The jet fuel probably burned out in less than 10 minutes." (Field, 2005)

I totally agree with the urgent yet reasoned assessment of expert fire-protection engineers, as boldly editorialized in the journal Fire Engineering:

Respected members of the fire protection engineering community are beginning to raise red flags, and a resonating [result] has emerged: The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers.

Fire Engineering has good reason to believe that the 'official investigation' blessed by FEMA… is a half-baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure. Except for the marginal benefit obtained from a three-day, visual walk-through of evidence sites conducted by ASCE investigation committee members- described by one close source as a "tourist trip"-no one's checking the evidence for anything.

Some citizens are taking to the streets to protest the investigation sellout. Sally Regenhard, for one, wants to know why and how the building fell as it did upon her unfortunate son Christian, an FDNY probationary firefighter. And so do we.

Clearly, there are burning questions that need answers. Based on the incident's magnitude alone, a full-throttle, fully resourced, forensic investigation is imperative. More important, from a moral standpoint, [are considerations] for the… present and future generations… (Manning, 2002)

[...]

The occurrence of nearly symmetrical, straight-down and complete collapses of the WTC 7 and the Towers is particularly upsetting to the 'official' theory that random fires plus damage caused all these collapses. Even with explosives, achieving such results requires a great deal of pre-planning and expertise. [...] FEMA admitted that WTC 7 collapsed onto a well-confined footprint [...] This feat requires such skill that only a handful of demolition companies in the world will attempt it. (Harris, 2000)

[...]

Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum – one of the foundational Laws of Physics? That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors – and intact steel support columns – the fall must be significantly impeded by the impacted mass. If the central support columns remained standing, then the effective resistive mass would be less, but this is not the case – somehow the enormous support columns failed/disintegrated along with the falling floor pans.

How do the upper floors fall so quickly, then, and still conserve momentum in the collapsing buildings? [...] The paradox is easily resolved by the explosive demolition hypothesis, whereby explosives quickly remove lower-floor material including steel support columns and allow near free-fall-speed collapses.

And these explosives also readily account for the turning of the falling Towers to fine dust as the collapse ensues. Rather than a piling up with shattering of concrete as we might expect from non-explosive-caused progressive collapse (“official theory”), we find that most of the Towers material (concrete, carpet, steel, etc.) is converted to flour-like powder WHILE the buildings are falling. The Towers’ collapses are not a typical implosions, but quite possibly series of “shock-and-awe” explosions – at least the evidence points strongly in this direction. The hypothesis ought to be explored further.

Those who wish to preserve as inviolate fundamental physical laws may wish to take a closer look. Consider the collapse of the South WTC Tower on 9-11: vidéo (serveur 1) vidéo (serveur 2) image par image

références citées
De Grand Pre, Donn (2002). “Many Questions Still Remain About Trade Center Attack,” American Free Press, 3 février 2002 [lien]

Dwyer, James (2005). “City to Release Thousands of Oral Histories of 9/11 Today,” New York Times, 12 août 2005, témoignages [1] [2]

Field, Andy (2004). “A Look Inside a Radical New Theory of the WTC Collapse,” Fire/Rescue News, 7 février 2004. [lien]

Glanz, James (2001). “Engineers are baffled over the collapse of 7 WTC; Steel members have been partly evaporated,” New York Times, 29 novembre 2001

Harris, Tom (2000). “How Building Implosions Work,” [lien]

Manning, William (2002). “Selling out the investigation,” Editorial, Fire Engineering, janvier 2002

Williams, James (2001). “WTC a structural success,” SEAU NEWS; The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah, octobre 2001.

Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?, Steven E. Jones, septembre 2005

Aussi à voir

• Excellent résumé vidéo Larry Silverstein a acheté l'ensemble du complexe WTC pour une fraction du coût (location sur 99 ans) moins de 2 mois avant 9/11



• WTC 7.net The official explanation that fires caused the collapse of Building 7 is incredible in light of the fact that fires have never caused a steel-framed building to collapse, before or after September 11th. [...] There have been hundreds of incidents involving severe fires in such buildings, and none have led to complete collapse, or even partial collapse of support columns.



• The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11



• 9-11 Research: Red flags



• Rétorques



• Site du NIST

* ceci dit, rien dans le post n'incrimine Washington, mais pointe vers une 'inside job'. La propagande fait référence aux lendemains du 9/11, en particulier les études bidons, l'élimination des preuves, etc. Pour la possible implication, peu probable à priori, de l'administration Cheney (par inaction volontaire, par exemple), voir le site de 9-11 Research.

Ajout 16 novembre: Pr. Steven E. Jones sur MSNBC! JONES: Let's start with the collapse of Building seven. Can you roll the video clip that I sent to you? [...] Are we rolling that? CARLSON: No. We just see the building.

Les prochains sur la liste?

While the world looks to Iran and Syria for the next Bush attack, Venezuelans know they may well be next. On 17 March, the Washington Post reported that Feliz Rodríguez, "a former CIA operative well-connected to the Bush family" had taken part in the planning of the assassination of the President of Venezuela. On 16 September, Chavez said, "I have evidence that there are plans to invade Venezuela. Furthermore, we have documentation: how many bombers will over-fly Venezuela on the day of the invasion... the US is carrying out manoeuvres on Curacao Island. It is called Operation Balboa." Since then, leaked internal Pentagon documents have identified Venezuela as a "post-Iraq threat" requiring "full spectrum" planning.

The old-young man in the jeep, Beatrice and her healthy children and Celedonia with her "new esteem", are indeed a threat - the threat of an alternative, decent world that some lament is no longer possible. Well, it is, and it deserves our support.

America's new enemy, John Pilger, 14 novembre 2005 via^-1 Z Mag

Pour un mini-portrait lumineux de la révolution vénézuélienne: Venezuela's Path, Michael Albert, 6 novembre 2005

While the coup [supporté par Washington en 2002] was in progress the New York Times editorialized: "Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."
Bush vs. Chavez, Roger Burbach, 11 novembre 2005

Le Canada n'existe déjà plus

Ce fut l’abondance. À pleine pages, de clips en reportages, des entrevues à profusion, de savants commentateurs qui nous faisaient des sermons de gouvernance, des titulaires de chaires du Canada qui pontifiaient avec toute l’autorité des entretenus de la confrérie. Il y en a eu du brouhaha. Une véritable débauche médiatique pour relayer une thèse induite par la formulation même du mandat : toutes ces magouilles révèlent des failles de gestion.

L’affaire des commandites n’est pas un scandale de gouvernance, c’est une obscénité politique.

[...]

« Contrairement au programme des commandites et à l’histoire de la commission Gomery, poursuit Mme Copps, le ministère du Patrimoine canadien a joué un rôle énorme et a travaillé autrement. Mais l’argent a été bien géré, il n’y a pas eu de scandale, et personne ne sait ce qu’on a fait.» ( Robin Philpot, Le référendum volé).

Une affaire canadian, Robert Laplante, 7 novembre 2005

Awwwwwwwwww

On me demande souvent ce que j'entend par awwwwwwwwwwww, que j'utilise à profusion; je crois que ce vidéo en est une très bonne définition.

Et du même site, essayez de ne pas rire: blooper classique

Autour de Chomsky, la gauche est la réalité

In late September 2005, the General Secretary of the Confédération des travailleurs haitiens (CTH - one of Haiti’s biggest unions), Paul “Loulou” Chéry, visited Ottawa and Montréal. Chéry was on a speaking tour organized to allow Canadian and Québecois trade unionists direct access to a trade union voice from Haiti.

Paul Chery interviewé par Kevin Skerrett, 4 novembre 2005

Norman Finkelstein en ville

Mardi 8 novembre
19:30 Salle S1-4

McGill University
Stewart Biology Building
1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue

Norman Finkelstein

You have said that you believe there is a potent insurance out there against fraudulent material being published, except when it comes to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Is this what’s coming into play here?

N. Finkelstein: I think there a couple things. That’s part of it, but another part of it is that Harvard can’t acknowledge that its senior most professor of law is a hoaxer and a plagiarist. It says something about the institution – it’s so devastating that they just can’t do it. It shines a light on them that is quite shocking. There’s the element of Israel and there’s the element of institutional protection.

Thus far, but no further

Q: Do you regret supporting those who say the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated?
A: My only regret is that I didn't do it strongly enough

I did express my regret: namely, that I did not support Diana Johnstone's right to publish strongly enough when her book was withdrawn by the publisher after dishonest press attacks, which I reviewed in an open letter that any reporter could have easily discovered. The remainder of Brockes's report continues in the same vein. Even when the words attributed to me have some resemblance to accuracy, I take no responsibility for them, because of the invented contexts in which they appear.

As for her personal opinions, interpretations and distortions, she is of course free to publish them, and I would, of course, support her right to do so, on grounds that she makes quite clear she does not understand.

Lettre à l'éditeur du Guardian, Noam Chomsky, 2 novembre


"... her piece de resistance, the claim that I put the word 'massacre' in quotes. Sheer fabrication. She and the editors know perfectly well that there is nothing like that in print, or anywhere, certainly not in the interview: people don't speak with quotation marks. That's why they allowed her to refer vaguely to the phrase she invented, so as to insinuate that it is in print -- which she knows, and the editors know, is a lie. Just ask them to produce the source."

[...]

This is one of the most shocking and appalling media smears we have seen - and we have been shocked and appalled many times in the past.

Smearing Chomsky - The Guardian In The Gutter, David Edwards, 4 novembre 2005


Prevention of an imaginary "genocide" in Kosovo was the pretext for the United States to establish the precedent of unauthorized military intervention, convert NATO to a new mission of "humanitarian intervention", and thereby reaffirm U.S. supremacy in Europe after the end of the Cold War. When no "weapons of mass destruction" are found, "humanitarian intervention" to overthrow the "genocidal" Saddam Hussein becomes the retroactive excuse for the invasion of Iraq. And what next...? Current issues of war and peace are matters of importance which should be the object of serious public debate, instead of being treated as sacred dogma, from which any deviation is condemned as heresy.

Lettre non publiée au Guardian, Diana Johnstone, 5 novembre 2005

L'analyse d'Alexander Cockburn, 5 novembre 2005


Contrary to the illusions of the postindustrial theorists [e.g. Fukuyama], power is not shifting into [the intelligentsia’s] hands---though one should not underestimate the significance of the flow of trained manpower from university to government and management for many decades. But the more significant function of the intelligentsia is ideological control. They are, in Gramsci’s phrase, “experts in legitimation.” They must insure that beliefs are properly inculcated, beliefs that serve the interests of those with objective power, based ultimately on control of capital in the state capitalist societies. The well-bred intelligentsia operate the pump handle, conducting mass mobilization in a way that is, as [Harold] Lasswell observed, cheaper than violence or bribery and much better suited to the image of democracy.

via ZNet Blogs tiré de Toward a New Cold War

16 novembre 2005: The Guardian se rétracte