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Merkel joins 'tolerance vigil' rally in response to anti-Islamic mobs


RT
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:41 UTC
Berlin rally
© AFP Photo / Tobias Schwarz(L-R) German President Joachim Gauck, the chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany Aiman Mazyek, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and other political and religious leaders stand together as they attend a Muslim community rally to condemn the Paris jihadist attacks, promote tolerance and send a rebuke to a growing anti-Islamic movement, on January 13, 2015 in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
German leaders joined the Muslim community for a rally in Berlin to commemorate the victims of the Paris attacks and to promote "religious tolerance" amid ongoing mass rallies against immigration policies and the growing "Islamization" of the West.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck joined the rally, which promoted tolerance and religious freedom. The event, which was organized by the country's Muslim community and Turkish groups, took place near Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on Tuesday evening.

The slogan of the vigil was "Let's be there for each other. Terror: not in our name!"

Comment: As Germany's leader, Merkel is in a good position to say and do something meaningful in response to the CH attacks and the anti-Islamic response: to make sure Germans learn the lesson Germany should have learned almost a hundred years ago. It's doubtful she will, but somebody needs to do it. Otherwise Europe may suffer the same fate. See: The Mystic vs. Hitler, or Fritz Gerlich's Spectacles

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Eye 1

Best of the Web: EU nations wasting no time intensifying police state actions since Paris shootings

Ulrich Rippert
World Socialist Web Site
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:31 UTC
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Governments throughout Europe have responded to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in France by moving quickly to push through a raft of anti-democratic measures. They are exploiting the shock and confusion generated by the event in Paris to take actions that have long been prepared, but that have so far encountered resistance.

Immediately after the attacks, the police presence at airports, in front of embassies, government buildings, newspaper offices and public places was reinforced by thousands of security forces in European capitals and major cities.

Heavily armed and camouflaged military troops have been deployed throughout Paris and elsewhere in France, including at the Eiffel Tower and in all public places. Parts of the city resemble a war zone.

On Monday, the Ministry of Defence in Paris announced the deployment of 10,000 troops to maintain peace and order and protect public buildings. In addition, the government has provided 4,700 police officers and gendarmes to guard Jewish schools and synagogues that are considered particularly vulnerable.

After a cabinet meeting on Monday, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke of a permanent threat. Prime Minister Manuel Valls promised more money for the secret services and more effective surveillance.

At a security summit last weekend in Brussels, the European powers agreed that a European-wide passenger data system must be adopted as soon as possible. Airlines will be obliged to retain the records of their passengers for up to five years. US General Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and chief of the NSA, also took part in the meeting. Hayden has been responsible for implementing and expanding much of the illegal and unconstitutional spying programs developed in the United States.
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Nuke

North Korea proposes to suspend nuclear tests - U.S. rejects offer


RT
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:00 UTC
north korea
© Reuters / KRT via Reuters TVA Taepodong-2 rocket is seen being launched from the North Korean rocket launch facility in Musudan Ri.
Pyongyang is ready to suspend nuclear tests if the US cancels annual military drills with South Korea, according to North Korea's deputy ambassador to the UN, who once again reiterated the North's offer.

"We the government of the DPRK propose to the US to temporarily suspend the joint military exercises which it conducts every year in South Korea. And if this is the case, we will respond by temporarily suspending nuclear tests which the US is concerned about," An Myong Hun said in New York, as quoted by Inner City Press.

The deputy ambassador was also quick to blame Washington for the "division of the nation," calling US foreign policy "hostile" towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as every year the US conducts "dangerous military exercises" near the North Korean border.

Comment: Perhaps this latest move on North Korea's part has something to do with this?
Now, let's return to the Shoigu in Zhongnanhai mystery. And let's think of geopolitical surprise. Imagine if General Shoigu and Premier Li Keqiang were discussing North Korea. Background: Putin has been reaching out to Glorious Leader Kim's regime, and we know the deal Putin would want to get done with Pyongyang's regime: Give up the nukes, and the Double Helix will protect you. Give up the nukes and we'll force the U.S. to leave the Korean peninsular. Give up the nukes and China and Russia will develop your infrastructure. Give up the nukes and begin integration with the South economically and that process will include Russia and China. Give up the nukes and you will never walk alone. ...

North Korea is desperately trying to weaponize their atomic devices. (37) Pakistan would be the bearer of this technology. It is conceivable Pakistan's military assistance deal with Russia, signed by Shoigu, would have 'rewards' for staying out of North Korea's nuclear program. ...

Nuclear disarmament automatically means South Korea is actively drawn into the Eurasian Economic Belt. It leaves the region with no threat against the Hegemon's allies, Japan and Philippines. America's Pacific Century ends when the nukes go away in North Korea. ...

Such a cataclysmic geopolitical event of Pyongyang surrendering its nukes would force the U.S. to concede its raison d'etre for a presence on the landmass in the Asia Pacific region....

The U.S. must make certain North Korea remains nuclear.


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Dollar Gold

Political chokehold: Congress may force Palestinian unity govt to recognize "Jewish" Israel in order to receive aid

Allison Deger
MondoWeiss
Tue, 13 Jan 2015 21:07 UTC
haniyeh abbas
© Hatem Moussa/AP/The Times of IsraelPalestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, left, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh from Hamas, right, raise their linked arms as they move through the crowd at a special session of parliament in Gaza City, March 17, 2007.
Congress has passed provisions that immediately end funding to the Palestinian Authority in the event of a unity government with Hamas, or a joint government where Hamas exercises "undue influence." Though, there is one exception. If a supposed unity government recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, the aid will continue.

The limitation to the Palestinian Authority's assistance became law on December 16, 2014 as a section in the U.S.'s annual budget on bilateral support. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2015 requires a series of redlines to be met on support to the Palestinian government. Notably, no funds "may be obligated for salaries of personnel of the Palestinian Authority located in Gaza," and no funds can go to a "power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member, or that results from an agreement with Hamas and over which Hamas exercises undue influence."

Comment: Democracy - where the people choose their leaders - is only legitimate if the U.S. likes those leaders. If they don't, the U.S. is free to do whatever they want in order to get their way (i.e., Israel's way).

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Star of David

'We told you so' - Israeli embassy in Ireland posts photo of Mona Lisa in Muslim headdress


Various agencies
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:50 UTC
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Israeli embassy in Ireland posted a picture of Mona Lisa in Islamic headdress holding a rocket.
"We told you so, France."

That appears to be the message implied in a provocative tweet courtesy of the Israeli embassy in Ireland, which reposted a photograph on its Twitter account on Wednesday featuring Mona Lisa decked out in Islamic garb while holding what appears to be a rocket. The apparent implied message is that the recent Paris attacks amount to French society and culture having been overtaken by Muslim extremism.

The image was originally posted by the Israeli embassy in Ireland in July last year along with three other images depicting iconic figures of other European nations as being under threat of a takeover by Islamic radicals. At the time the images were quickly removed after a popular backlash against what was labeled "crass propaganda".
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Attention

Best of the Web: Freedom of Speech in France and around the world - Blatant Hypocrisy - Watch

Dieudonne
YT
Mon, 12 Jan 2015 15:04 UTC
Image
Little more needs to be said. Watch.

Comment: See also this video of BBC reporter Tim Wilcox pointing out to a Jewish woman in Paris yesterday that the Palestinians suffer at the hands of the Israelis, to which she responds, "we cannot do an amalgam", which basically means that when discussing Jewish suffering or terrorist attacks, context is not allowed.

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Hiliter

Best of the Web: Attack on Charlie Hebdo and the hypocrisy of pencils

Corey Oakley
Red Flag
Sun, 11 Jan 2015 10:42 UTC
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© Unknown
It was Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight who tipped me over the edge.

To be fair, he wasn't wholly responsible. If it wasn't for all the lunacy that preceded him, I probably would have dismissed his cartoon as just another Herald Sun atrocity, more a piece of Murdoch-madness to be mocked rather than trigger for outrage. But context is everything. And after days of sanctimonious blather about freedom of speech and the Enlightenment values of Western civilisation, his was one pencil-warfare cartoon too many.

The cartoon in question depicts two men - masked and armed Arab terrorists (is there any other kind of Arab?) - with a hail of bomb-like objects raining down on their heads. Only the bombs aren't bombs. They are pens, pencils and quills. Get it? In the face of a medieval ideology that only understands the language of the gun, the West - the heroic, Enlightenment-inspired West - responds by reaffirming its commitment to resist barbarism with the weapons of ideas and freedom of expression.

It is a stirring narrative repeated ad nauseam in newspapers across the globe. They have been filled with depictions of broken pencils re-sharpened to fight another day, or editorials declaring that we will defeat terrorism by our refusal to stop mocking Islam.

It is well past time to call bullshit. Knight's cartoon made the point exceptionally clear, but every image that invoked the idea that Western culture could and would defend itself from Islamist extremism by waging a battle of ideas demonstrated the same historical and political amnesia.

Reality could not be more at odds with this ludicrous narrative.

For the last decade and a half the United States, backed to varying degrees by the governments of other Western countries, has rained violence and destruction on the Arab and Muslim world with a ferocity that has few parallels in the history of modern warfare.
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Magnify

Best of the Web: Charlie Hebdo attack has nothing to do with freedom of expression  -  It was about war

Asghar Bukhari
Medium.com
Wed, 07 Jan 2015 23:00 UTC
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Most white people don't like to admit it, but those cartoons upheld their prejudice, their racism, their political supremacy, and cut it how you will - images like that upheld a political order built on discrimination.

In less than an hour of the dreadful shooting of 12 people at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the politicians had already started to lie to their own public.

John Kerry, US Secretary of State, declared that, "freedom of expression is not able to be killed by this kind of act of terror."

The media lapped it up - the attack was now spun as an attack on 'Freedom of Speech'. That cherished value that the West holds so dear.

The British Government was so in love with it, that they were passing laws that demanded nursery school teachers spy on Muslim toddlers because they had too much of it. Toddlers were 'free' to speak their mind as long as it agreed with UK Government policy.

Still at least it was not as draconian as Western Governments routine harassment of those they thought spoke a bit too freely. Ask Moazzam Beg, the freed Guantanamo Bay Detainee and human rights campaigner, who was falsely accused of terrorism and imprisoned for months, after flying back from Syria with damning evidence of Britain's complicity in torture in the Muslim world.
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Crusader

SOTT Focus: The Mystic vs. Hitler, or Fritz Gerlich's Spectacles

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Sott.net
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 12:00 UTC
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© KJJ Visual
I've often wanted to get my hands on the German newspapers of the time before and immediately after Hitler came to power so as to try to understand what was really going on in Germany at that moment. I wondered if we could draw any lessons from it for our present time. I've asked many people if they have ever seen any such articles reproduced anywhere, or have they heard of them, and I've always drawn a blank on that question. After all, if we suppose that our present time has any similarity to the Third Reich of Hitler, it would be nice to have some concrete material that was written in real time, at the time, on which to base comparisons. As it happens, a guy named Ron Rosenbaum was curious about it too but for a different reason. He interviewed a Holocaust survivor who mentioned an article that he remembered from the time, and Rosenbaum went looking for it. He found a lot more than he bargained for. He found Fritz Gerlich and the Munich Post. Rosenbaum calls Fritz and his ilk the "First Explainers."
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MIB

SOTT Focus: Imperial Designs

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 01:58 UTC
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Thomas Cole: 'The course of empire - destruction' - 1836
President Eisenhower, in an internal discussion, observed to his staff, and I'm quoting now, "There's a campaign of hatred against us in the Middle East, not by governments, but by the people." The National Security Council discussed that question and said, "Yes, and the reason is, there's a perception in that region that the United States supports status quo governments, which prevent democracy and development and that we do it because of our interests in Middle East oil. Furthermore, it's difficult to counter that perception because it's correct." 1
While the West has been waging a war on terrorism over the past 13 years, the ordinary Muslim people of Middle Eastern countries have born the brunt of the devastating effects of that war. The war on terror has involved the invasion, occupation and bombing of only Middle Eastern nations. The countries in question - Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Palestine - had no significant standing armies to counter any offensive, and the Western attacks were, by definition, attacks on the civilians of those nations, some of whom took up arms in a futile attempt to resist. In Iraq alone, 2.7 million Iraqi Muslims, most of them civilians, have been slaughtered as a direct or indirect result of the 'war on terror'.2
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