5112개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Here the "Weekend Reading"(source: Haaretz, 1.06):
When the Messiah comes, Israel will deport him
When the Messiah comes, he will be without papers.
When the Messiah comes, he will be taken into a small room, off-white and chilled, with one gray metal chair at each side of a gray metal desk.
When the Messiah comes, he will be questioned by a junior officer of the Shin Bet, and by an official of the Interior Ministry, who got his job through his cousin, who is an inspector of ritual dietary observance at a cookie bakery and who got his job through his sister's father-in-law, third assistant to the deputy chair of the Shas party branch in Ramla.
When the Messiah comes, no one will know.
His donkey, which is white and is named Snowpea, will be impounded in a leaky underground police lot near the Lod railroad station. There will be no paperwork. By nightfall it will have disappeared, spirited into a closed truck by the lot's watchman, who after his shift will drive the donkey to a moshav. Money will change hands, and the donkey as well, four times, until it is sold by settlers to Palestinians some of whose ancestral land now lies inside the settlement fence.
When the Messiah comes, the first sign will be a gag order.
A coded report on a high-profile news website will be made to disappear. It will reappear on a blog in Seattle, and then in the Guardian. The government will delay response, finally issuing a statement ascribed to sources in Jerusalem, reading "We have no knowledge of this." The IDF, quoting an unnamed senior military official, will state that there is no evidence that a Messiah of any kind has come. It will later soften the denial, saying it is checking the report and directing reporters to the Defense Ministry, which turfs them to the Prime Minister's Office, which cannot be reached for comment.
When the Messiah comes, rabbis will treat him like Jesus.
They will brand him disloyal, diseased, Reform.
In wall posters, Sabbath sermons, ritual decrees and signed petitions, careful not to use his title, chief rabbis of cities and towns will warn of an existential threat to the essential Jewish character of the state. Under no circumstances are Jews to sell or rent homes or lots to someone like this. The rabbis' wives will vilify him as a carnal threat to Jewish girls.
The rabbis' declarations will divide the Jewish people and bring wrath and dishonor upon Israel. The rabbis will continue to draw large civil service salaries, as well as generous tips, in cash, goods and services under the table and off the books.
When the Messiah comes, the Right will crucify him. Im Tirzu will roll out ads and billboards showing him with a tail to go along with his horns. A blogger from Commentary will call him a whiny, petulant boob. In Maariv and the Jerusalem Post, seven columnists will all have at him in the same three day period. NGO Monitor will ask for donations to expose his sources of funding.
When the Messiah comes, the Occupation will end.
But before it does, a global social network led by the Republican Jewish Coalition, Fox News, The Zionist Organization of America and Daniel Pipes, will launch a campaign aimed at exposing the Messiah as a Muslim.
When the Messiah is crucified, the army will deny that he was even present at the time.
When the Messiah comes, an Israel political party whose voters are routinely denigrated by native-born Israelis as whores and non-Jews will propose legislation declaring him a delegitimizer of Israel and the army (over the crucifixion), a blasphemer of Zionism (for suggesting that the Palestinians were not the sole obstacles to peace), and rendering him ineligible for citizenship unless he signs a loyalty oath stating that even if Israel did practice crucifiction, it did so in a democratic and Jewish manner.
Aides to Knesset Member Michael Ben-Ari, along with Beitar Jerusalem soccer fans, will take out a Facebook page headed "Mavet L' Mashiach" – Death to the Messiah.
When the Messiah comes, he will be granted refugee status by the United Nations as a legitimate seeker of asylum, but will be held at a detention camp in Israel's Area 51, near the perimeter of the Dimona nuclear reactor facility, where a judge will trick him into signing an illegible document, which will force his deportation to Chad.
By the time the messiah leaves the Jewish state, he'll be thrilled to go.
Y'day and also today, despite massive police terror, tanks and curfews, the...
TUNISIAN PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION
...goes on!!
Here a brief summary of yesterday's "events" reported from the "front line":
- Interior minister, Rafik Belhaj Kacem, dismissed.
- Prime minister announces release of all those arrested during recent protests.
- Heavy armed police units stormed the headquarter of the trade union (UGTT).
- Mass demo (aprox. 30,000) in Sfax, attacked by "security forces" with tear gas and life ammunition.
- Hatem Bettahar, assistant professor (a French citizen) shot dead – by a gov't sniper in Douz.
- Protests in Hammamet (important tourist destination). At least one or more dead; police station burned.
- Ruling party headquarters in Dar Chaabane (Nabeul) on fire.
- Army increasingly visible on the streets of Tunis and other cities.
- Hamma Hammami (Communist Workers' Party of Tunisia), arrested.
- Former political prisoner Lamari Ahmed arrested.
- Abdelwahhab Maatar, lawyer for rapper El Général, reportedly arrested.
- Headquarters of ruling party in Sfax said to be on fire.
- Curfew declared in Tunis and the suburbs from 8pm until 5.30am...
Related articles/reports:
☞ Deaths in Tunisia despite curfew (al-Jazeera, 1.13)
☞ Tunisia's youth finally has revolution on its mind (Guardian, 1.13)
☞ Tunisia: The Brink of Revolution (al-Bab, 1.11)
TUNISIAN PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION
Today's news from the "front line":
Tunisian protesters, many of them are now organized in several "People's Resistance Committees"(PRC) say they will continue demonstrating over unemployment, mass poverty and against the dictatorship in the North African country despite the government's deadly crackdown on them.
PRC announced they will hold mass rallies across the country for the next three days, starting today.
The trade union, General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) has also said it will call a general strike in several southern cities in response the police brutality, i.e the state terror.
Protests have been going on across Tunisia for almost a month now. The UGTT says more than 70 people have been killed in clashes with government forces since the last weekend.
"It's chaos here in Kasserine after a night of violence, sniper fire, theft and looting of shops and homes by policemen in civilian clothes," said Sadok Mahmoudi, an activist of the UGTT regional union describing yesterday's situation there. This story was corroborated by other witnesses.
"The number of killed has exceeded 50," Mahmoudi said, citing a report obtained from the medical staff at the regional hospital of Kasserine, where the bodies were transported.
This comes as UGTT has called on Tunisian President(resp. the dictator!!) Ben Ali to order an independent inquiry into the deaths of demonstrators. But the call was rejected by the regime!
Meanwhile, according to sources of the People's Resistance, in the last hours thousands of heavy armed Soldiers in APC and backed by tanks were deployed in the centre of Tunis after the People's Rebellion spread to the capital's center.
Almost at the same time "the gov't sacked the interior minister and announced it would free protesters", AFP reported a short while ago.
"It's a People's Uprising"
Like that Sihem Bensedrine, spokesperson for the banned National Council fot Freedom in Tunisia(CNLT), described the current developments in Tunisia in her today's interview with the German newspaper die tageszeitung.
Fear has changed sides in Tunisia. For years the Tunisian population, its youth, its workers, its mothers were paralysed by fear of repression. Political lethargy was the rule, revolt the odd exception. Now things have turned upside down. Defiance of the brutal regime, its state, its spies, its media, its ruling party, its police and its army has become the rule during the four weeks of the uprising which has shaken Tunisia. Today's main slogan on the streets of the north African coutry:
"We do not fear you any more!"
The movement has not been subdued by persecution, imprisonment, torture and killings. Nevertheless the regime continues to kill, maim and torture the best of its youth. Last weekend alone, the orgy of repression reached a new climax as 20 protesters were killed by the forces of repression. Yesterday the police fired live ammunition into the crowds in Tala, Kasserine and many other cities in Tunisia, incl. its capital Tunis, killing at least 11 more people (according to Tunisian human right activists at least 50 protesters and activists were killed since the beginning of the uprising).
Al-Masry Al-Youm (independent Egyptian media organization): "In Tunisia, young people, the poor, thousands of workers and many other members of the civil society are leading an uprising that will go down in history as an important struggle for improved social, economic and political conditions."
Since exactly one week more than 30 janitors and cleaning personnel - representing 170 mainly female irregular workers in their 50s and 60s - have been holding a sit-in protest in the main building of Seoul's Hongik University, demanding the school withdraw the collective termination of their employment contracts (more background info here and here!).
But despite the support by KCTU and several (student) solidarity groups, they have not only sympathizers among the student body of Hongik University... as you can see/read here (describing last Thursday's ugly incident, explained by Tae-Jun Lee):
In the picture, Hongik University's student body president(the man who wear a blue jacket) is breaking into and trying to interrupt the rally.
He said, "Student are studing now, so this loudness interrupt their concentration. External forces(he is constantly describing the peple who band together about this problem to this expression.) should be banned to get into the school and interfere the problem. Irregular workers, just wait and keep quiet, and we student will solve the problem." But until now, they have done nothing for the laborer, on the contrary they plainly opressed the laborer's protest like this picture showing...
Social Rebellion in North Africa
In Tunisia since almost four weeks, in Algeria since last Wednesday: An increasing mass movement, initiated and joined by thousands of workers and the unemployed (young and old, both males and females), fights against exploitation and oppression...
Mohamed Zitout, a former Algerian diplomat, explained: "It is a revolt, and probably a revolution, of an oppressed people who have, for 50 years, been waiting for housing, employment, and a proper and decent life..."
Last week's/current protests in Algeria:
Protests in Tunisia:
Related reports:
☞ Algeria cuts food costs amid unrest (al-Jazeera, 1.09)
☞ Algeria protests turn violent (al-Jazeera, 1.08)
☞ Anger in Algeria (al-Jazeera, 1.07)
☞ Algerian riots resume over food prices (Guardian, 1.07)
And here you can check out al-Jazeera's special section (articles, videos and pics) about the Tunisian Social Uprising: ☞ "Trouble in Tunisia"
For more updated info please check out LabourStart!!
"Enjoy" the weekend reading, although the subject is almost unbearable!!!
The following nasty feature has been published last Monday in Germany's notable (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel:
The Village Where the Neo-Nazis Rule
Hitler salutes in the street and firing practice in the forest: Neo-Nazis have taken over an entire village in Germany, and authorities appear to have given up efforts to combat the problem. The place has come to symbolize the far right's growing influence in parts of the former communist (i.e. "real socialist" and NOT communist!!) east.
Horst and Birgit Lohmeyer have been working on their life's dream for six years, renovating a house in the woods near Jamel, a tiny village near Wismar in the far northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Birgit Lohmeyer writes crime novels, her husband is a musician, and both try to pretend everything is normal here in Jamel.
It wasn't easy to find their new home. The Lohmeyers spent months driving out to the countryside every weekend, heading east from where they lived in Hamburg, but most of the houses they saw were too expensive. Then they came across the inexpensive red brick farmhouse in Jamel. Slightly run-down, but not far from the Baltic Sea, the house sits surrounded by lime and maple trees, near a lake.
The Lohmeyers knew that a notorious neo-Nazi lived nearby -- Sven Krüger, a demolition contractor and high-level member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). What the Lohmeyers didn't know was that other neighbors felt terrorized by Krüger. He and his associates were in the process of buying up the entire village.
Jamel is an example of the far-right problem that has plagued Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for years. The rural region, once part of communist East Germany, has a poor reputation in this regard -- the NPD, which glorifies the Third Reich, has been in the state parliament since 2006 and neo-Nazi crimes are part of daily life. In recent months, a series of attacks against politicians from all the democratic parties has shaken the state. Sometimes hardly a week goes by without an attack on another electoral district office, with paint bombs, right-wing graffiti and broken windows.
Norbert Nieszery, leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the state parliament, calls it an "early form of terror." Nieszery's own office windows have been smashed twice. State Interior Minister Lorenz Caffier of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) says he has registered a "new level" of right-wing extremist violence. He believes the NPD is trying to raise its profile through aggressive behavior ahead of the state parliament election in September. One local mayor requested police protection after receiving repeated right-wing threats. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, has warned that the NPD is becoming increasingly influential in local municipalities and that the neo-Nazis are trying to entrench themselves in daily life.
Mounting Concern About Far-Right Influence
Nowhere have they succeeded as well as in Jamel. If the right-wing extremists left, the village would be empty. Jamel is no longer just a problem at the regional or federal state level -- even Berlin is growing concerned about the situation.
SPD member Wolfgang Thierse, vice president of Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag, visited the village a few months ago. He spent half an hour in the Lohmeyers' living room and promised to support them in their fight against the neo-Nazis. So far, nothing has changed. Jamel has come to symbolize the fact that there are places in Germany where right-wing extremists can do virtually whatever they want.
When the Lohmeyers moved here in 2004, they started to fix up their country house and to make contact with the neighbors -- although not with the neo-Nazi Krüger. They were sure right-wing extremists wouldn't be the only people in Jamel.
Only gradually did they realize just where they had ended up. Plaster crumbled from many of the houses in the village and one roof had collapsed completely. Beer bottles, car tires and gas canisters were littered behind the bus stop. There were metal fences surrounding some properties and attack dogs strained against their chains in the front yards. No one bothered to remove the swastika scribbled on the sign at the entrance to the village.
Children Giving Hitler Salute
There were young men with shaved heads and army trousers in the village and Nazi rock music could be heard from across the fields on the weekends. Shots sounded from the woods, where the neo-Nazis practiced their shooting -- police later found bullet casings in trenches there. When the Lohmeyers walked through the village, children raised their hands in the Nazi salute.
Krüger has shaped the village. He grew up here, with a father who was known as a right-wing radical and who used to make his son salute each morning in the snow. Young Krüger was an outsider at school, an acquaintance remembers, and didn't find friends until he joined the skinhead scene. As a young man, he incited right-wing thugs to attack a campsite and spent time in pre-trial detention on suspicion of burglary. Still, for a long time, the Krügers were the only neo-Nazis in the village.
"Now," says Horst Lohmeyer, "they see Jamel as a 'nationally liberated zone'" -- a neo-Nazi term for places foreigners and those of foreign descent must fear to tread. The extremists took over the village in just a few years. They now own seven of the 10 houses and have driven out anyone who couldn't come to terms with them. They battered down doors and broke windows, slashed tires, flew the German imperial war flag and celebrated Hitler's birthday. In the 1990s, they stuck dead chickens on one family's garden fence with the warning, "We'll smoke you out."
The village emptied and Krüger encouraged his right-wing friends to buy the available houses. Few others dared to venture into Jamel anymore. Neo-Nazis greeted one couple that wanted to move there with "Piss off" -- and the couple's house burned down shortly before they planned to move in. One new property owner dared to set foot in the village only accompanied by police.
The Lohmeyers have made it their life's work not to let themselves be driven out of Jamel. Each year, they host a rock festival on a field behind their house. Governor Erwin Sellering of the SPD has been patron of the festival since 2009. Police fence in the area and guard the entrance, and in past years, things remained largely calm.
Help is Far Away
This summer, though, neo-Nazis jumped over the fence, yelling slurs and attacking concertgoers. Police stepped in and stopped the troublemakers. But police can't always protect the Lohmeyers -- the nearest station is 12 kilometers away.
Horst Lohmeyer sits in his kitchen, bent over a map, and runs his finger along the roads and through the towns -- Gressow, Neu Degtow, Grevesmühlen. It takes a quarter of an hour to reach the nearest police station. When Krüger got married this summer, the village was inundated with several hundred right-wing extremists from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, including a number of high-ranking NPD politicians such as Stefan Köster, NPD party head for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Jamel has become a right-wing pilgrimage site -- they come from all over Europe to see the village where neo-Nazis call the shots. They celebrated Krüger's wedding until late in the night, with nationalist rock music and fireworks. The Lohmeyers lay awake in bed, frozen with fear.
Mayor Uwe Wandel is helpless in the face of the right-wing movement in his community. He sounds bitter when he talks about Jamel. "The police, the authorities, no one dares to intervene," he says. "The Nazis are laughing in our faces." Wandel says he has repeatedly asked the state government for help. The interior minister and a parliamentary delegation came by one time, he adds. "They stayed for 20 minutes, expressed concern -- then they left again."
No One Responsible
Jamel has become a lawless place, Wandel complains, and the authorities don't take decisive enough action against the right-wing extremists. He says Krüger is allowed to dump demolition waste and burn trash in the village with impunity. The head of the department of public order in nearby Grevesmühlen says higher-level officials at the district level need to tackle the problem. They in turn say the local authority is responsible for Jamel.
Krüger, meanwhile, has much bigger plans. He has been a member of the district council for the NPD since 2009 and has bought parts of a concrete factory in Grevesmühlen, which he uses for his NPD office and his demolition company. The company logo shows the outline of a Star of David being smashed; the slogan is, "We do the dirty work." Barbed wire encloses the factory premises and dogs bark. A sign above the entrance reads, "Better dead than a slave." Krüger prefers not to comment on the accusations against him. All he says is, "Nothing that's written about me is true. I don't stand a chance against the system."
Krüger has hired new employees in the last few months. He gets contracts from fellow members of the far-right scene, but also from local businesses. Mayor Wandel says he's appalled by how far these right-wing structures now extend. "I'm afraid of a second, third, fourth Jamel," he says.
Neo-Nazis placed a boulder at the entrance to the village. A plaque attached to the rock reads, "Village of Jamel - free, social, national." Signs next to it point the way to Hitler's birthplace ("Braunau am Inn 855 km") and to the formerly German cities of Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) and Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). No one has removed the rock. "We've given up on Jamel," Wandel says.
Only the Lohmeyers are left.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,737471,00.html
The following article was published in today's (bourgeois) Korea Times:
Temporary workers struggle to regain jobs
Jan.05: Workers eat lunch during a sit-in protest in a building of Hongik University in Seoul
More than 30 janitors and cleaning ladies in their 50s and 60s have been holding a sit-in protest in the main building of Hongik University in Seoul for four days since Monday morning, demanding the school withdraw the collective termination of their employment contracts.
Despite freezing weather, they have been eating and sleeping on the cold floor of the Munheon Building on the campus. The first floor of the building was full of workers Wednesday; some chatting with one another and others preparing for another long, cold night. Many were busy preparing meals for everyone, while others were worried about their family back home.
“I worked at Hongik University for five years, and some have been here even longer, and the school told us to leave without any advance notice,” said Seo Bok-deok, 57, who was making coffee for fellow workers sitting on mats covering the cold concrete floors.
“I do wish we could have negotiations with the school, but they have not said anything,” she added.
Structural problems
The seeds of dispute were sown when 170 janitors, cleaners and guards of the school formed a labor union on Dec. 1 and demanded higher wages and better working conditions.
They were not directly hired by the school but were working for the school through contracts signed with two labor-supply companies. At the call for higher wages, the service companies asked the school to reflect their demand on contracts between the companies and school.
However, the school refused to sign the contracts, and the labor-supplying companies in turn informed the workers of the termination of contracts on Dec. 31.
The workers said they have been working, receiving hourly wages of 4,120 won, which is lower than the minimum legal wage of 4,320 won, and the school wanted them to extend the contract under the same conditions.
School officials refused to talk to reporters. They have maintained the position that the workers are not the party with which the school should talk with, as they were not directly hired by it.
Non-permanent workers
The conflict at the university is the latest in a series of labor disputes involving temporary workers. From top conglomerates and small mom-and-pop businesses, a growing number of employers are relying on these temporary workers as they can hire them at far lower wages.
The dispute at Hongik University reflects that the problem of non-regular workers is developing into a social issue that encompasses all generations from the youth to the elderly, analysts said.
According to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), many schools have gone through such disputes with workers’ unions over the past couple of years.
Some 90 workers at Dongguk University were sacked after the school switched to a different service company, but it agreed to rehire them after they held days of demonstrations and sit-ins in December.
“The problem is that the universities usually avoid negotiations, claiming they are not the direct employers. The only way to solve this is to have them realize that the school is actually in charge of hiring and employing workers,” said Ryu Nam-mi, a policy director from the Preparation Committee for KCTU.
The student council at the school expressed their stance Thursday, saying that it in principle supports the workers who were fighting for their rights. It claimed that it was a matter to be solved between the school, workers and the contractors, indicating that the labor umbrella group should not meddle in the case.
Earlier the student council issued a statement that criticized the workers for their alliance with the militant KCTU in their struggle against the school, claiming that such protests could negatively affect the school’s reputation.
Most of the workers at Hongik worked 50 hours per week, receiving a monthly wage of 750,000 won plus 300 won for lunch a day.
When asked what she hoped for her and her fellow workers, Seo’s voice shook a bit, both from the cold and disappointment.
“There’s nothing complicated about it. We have received nothing prior to the layoffs. What more can we want? We just want our jobs back,” she said.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/01/117_79288.html
Today's struggle rally in front of Hongik University's main building
Today's related reports:
☞ 홍익대 총학생회, 청소노동자 집회 난입 외부세력 운운
☞ 홍익대 집단해고에 맞선 점거농성 3일차 투쟁보고
Yesterday's Hankyoreh had the following report (oddly enough filed under "entertainment"):
Harsh retribution
Female subcontractors that maintain and clean school facilities in Hongik University, Seoul, engage in a sit-in demonstration in front of the president’s office, demanding a meeting with the president and withdrawal of dismissals, Jan. 3.
Around 170 subcontractors in their 50s and 60s were fired last month as the university management terminated a contract with the service company that hired them. It was just several days after they organized a labor union in early December. The contracts of the subcontractors who were charge of cleaning, maintenance and security were in place since 1998 when South Korea was hit by foreign currency crisis, even though the service company hiring them changed. The only defense at this time was the fact that they made a labor union for improving treatment.
The workers usually worked from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. but earned a net income of about 750,000 Won ($668) and just 9,000 Won for lunch a month. They have shown strong determination to continue sits-in until they can work again...
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_entertainment/457145.html
Related articles:
☞ 홍익대 청소·경비·시설노동자 170명 학교 점거 (KCTU, 1.04)
☞ 홍익대 청소노동자, 88만원 ‘노년’세대를 보다 (NewsCham, 1.05)
Student's solidarity with the worker's struggle (agitprop):
N. Korea celebrates the New Year("Juche 100") with a new stamp, issued last Sunday...
...and the "Joint New Year's Editorial"(*) with 'brandnew'(^^) propaganda posters:
"Let Us Thoroughly Implement the Joint New Year Editorial!"
"Exert Every Effort Once Again for Improving the People′s Standard of Living!"
* The same bullshit has been celebrated y'day with a mass rally at Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung Square "held to vow to implement Militant Tasks for 2011", according to KCNA:
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