Rivero - burying Wikileaks because of Israel and 911

Rivero's WRH is ignoring Wikileaks' releases, or where it does mention them, it is entirely critical and dismissive. Odd no? The leaks are extremely damaging to the USA, and hence Rivero should be interested? No, because the leaks show Arab nations urging USA to attack Iran to prevent the threat (to them!) of The Iranian Bomb, completely undermining Rivero's argument which has been that Israel wants Iran destroyed for its own supposed expansionism. Obviously having other Arab/Muslim states fearing an Iranian bomb destroys Rivero's purely anti-semitic slant, so he ignores it, and smears it.

Also, Wikileaks' release seems to provide no evidence for 911 conspiracy whatsoever. That's why Rivero, Alex Jones and the rest of the conspiros submit Wikileaks and Assange to insult and criticism. They even go so far as to suggest these leaks are a deliberate American policy, to defang conspiracism and help a drive to war with Iran etc! Rivero says:

I think Israel did invent WikiLeaks. After all, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange insists there is no 9-11 conspiracy, and not a single criticism of Israel appears anywhere in this latest dump; an impossibility in the wake of the lethal Israeli attack on the aid flotilla last May!

Mental illness beckons, Mr Rivero, if it hasn't taken root already. Mad.

And Rivero even prints Ahmadinejad's response, which sounds just like Rivero himself (Does Iran fund Rivero?)

Iran's president has dismissed as propaganda the leaking of US cables detailing Arab calls for Washington to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the release by the Wikileaks website of thousands of extracts from US diplomatic messages was simply psychological warfare against Iran.

Whilst ignoring all the content of the leaks, Rivero has published a special page (wooo!) on Wikileaks instead. I think it's what conspiros like to call a "hit piece":

Wikileaks, following much media fanfare (reason for suspicion right there) has just released a huge number of documents supposedly leaked to WikiLeaks and no other websites'. The media is denouncing this as a threat to the United States while US politicians wring their hands and wonder when they will be free of the curse of the First Amendment and all that troublesome nonsense about Freedom of Speech. Many observers think this is a propaganda set up and that neither Julian Assange or WikiLaeks should be taken at face value. After all, Julian Assange keeps insisting there was no 9-11 conspiracy and the 9-11 truth movement a "distraction." Apparently Julian Assange has patented conspiracy and nobody else may expose one except himself!

Of course, there is really not that much that is new in this latest dump. Like prior WikiLeaks dumps, most of it is old news mixed with some rather dubious claims. In his last such dump, Julian Assange included a claim that Osama bin Laden is still alive and controlling Al Qaeda. Of course, it is well documented outside the United States that Osama bin Laden has been dead for many years and that Al Qaeda itself is a fake front group created to hoax Americans into endless wars of conquest, much as the fictional Emmanuel Goldstein was used in George Orwell's "1984."

In yet another infamous propaganda attempt, WikiLeaks tried to claim that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, justifying the invasion. No such weapons were ever found.

As for the present batch of documents, again it is a rehash of stories already known to the blog-o-sphere. Even those people who did not know US diplomats spy on their United Nations counterparts did not find it surprising or in any way a new idea.

So what is the real purpose of Assange's little charade? Propaganda.

Propaganda is like rat poison. 95% of it is tasty, healthy food. But the purpose is to get you to swallow the poison. The same is true of the WikiLeaks document dump. The bait are all these old stories which we already knew about, used to convince us that the entire pile is "tasty, healthy food," except that it isn't. Buried in the pile of delicious, albeit past the expiration date morsels are the bits of poison which the US Government knows you will no longer accept at face value from the controlled media, but hope you will eat if handed to you by a con artist posing as hostile to the government.

So, given that 95% of the current WikiLeaks is really old news, as a public service I will point out the bits of poison that Julian hopes you will eat.

1. Iran is bad so you should all want to kill them.

2. Saudi Arabia is bad because they are funding Al Qaeda so you should all want to kill them.

3. North Korea is bad because they gave really long range missiles to Iran for Iran to put their nuclear warheads in, so you should all want to kill them.

4. China is messing with your computers, so you should all want to kill them.

That about sums it up. Oh yes, there is nothing negative about Israel in all these diplomatic messages, an impossibility given the lethal Israeli attack on the Aid Flotilla last May. That suggests who Assange really works for.

Funny thing about rat poison. After a while the rats learn to eat the food and leave the poison behind.
SOURCE

What a complete crock o shite. How has OBL's death been "documented"? Rivero is simply imagining it. lol. And notice how Rivero, a supposed special FX expert doesn't even use a GIF for an image with flat-colour? Again, he's using jpegs when it should be a GIF. He's not just a moron, he's incompetent. Pathetic.

the next hammer falls

Ministers are to set out how they plan to overhaul the benefits system to provide greater incentives for work and sanctions for those unwilling to do so.

Central to the plan, being announced by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, is a single universal credit which replaces work-related benefits.

Claimants moving into work will keep more of their income than now, but face losing benefits if they refuse a job.

A sliding scale of sanctions will see those refusing work on three occasions having their benefits taken away for three years.
SOURCE BBC
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Wow. They are trying to increase the crime rate? They must be. Withdrawing benefits completely from losers is just bound to create a problem with rage and crime.

Seriously - how many unemployed people would 'refuse work 3 times'? It sounds like a sick joke when the government is furiously sacking people as quickly and ruthlessly as it dare. What work is there to refuse? This is a cruel joke?

The 2nd Chief Comedian, the LibDem leader, reportedly says 'the coalition's welfare changes will "reduce worklessness" in more than 300,000 families.'

What is 'worklessness'? I was surprised to find google return some results - seemingly all from British Government websites though. Here's their definition:

Worklessness is a less familiar term than unemployment to describe those who are economically inactive. The economically inactive are people of working age who are not working, not in full-time education or training and are not actively seeking work.

Many are outside the labour market voluntarily, because of family responsibilities or early retirement for example. It can also include those who are out of work because of illness. Such people may be claiming Incapacity Benefit (IB) or Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA).

So being sick or looking after someone who is sick is 'worklessness': are the government saying they will make these people better, or force them to get jobs? It is already doing that......

This whole revision of Welfare is surely just an excuse to smash the system and pay welfare claimants even less. And who will organise the riots of the ill and sick?

We need a National Union of Worklessness-ers.

From the ONS -

For the three months to June 2010, for those households with dependent children, 39.7 per cent of lone parent households were workless, 5.4 percent of couple households were workless.... Of those households without dependent children, 36.8 per cent ofone-person households were workless...

And again:

In 2009, there were three areas across the UK where more than three out of every 10 households had no-one in work, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics on workless households by local area. These were: Liverpool (32.1 per cent); Nottingham (31.3 per cent); and Glasgow City (31.0 per cent). The next highest rates of worklessness were in Gwent Valleys (27.6 per cent) and East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire Mainland (also 27.6 per cent). By contrast, the analysis shows that the five areas with the lowest rates of worklessness were: Bedfordshire (9.2 per cent); Surrey (10.9 per cent); Inverness and Nairn and Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey (11.0 per cent); Berkshire (11.2 per cent); and Hampshire (11.7 per cent).
SOURCE

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The Guardian is excellent on this:

A tougher-than-expected squeeze on the unemployed is to be announced today as the jobless face the threat of losing all benefits for as long as three years if they refuse community work or the offer of a job, or fail to apply for a job if advised to do so.

In the most severe welfare sanctions ever imposed by a British government, unemployed people will lose benefits for three months if they fail to take up one of the options for the first time, six months if they refuse an offer twice, and three years if they refuse an offer three times.

Downing Street sources said the new "claimant contract" will come into force as soon as legislation is passed, and may not wait for the introduction of a streamlined universal credit system in 2013-14.

Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, will tell MPs that he is introducing the biggest shakeup of the welfare system since the Beveridge reforms ushered in the welfare state after the second world war. He will say that a new universal credit system will make 2.5 million of the poorest people better off and reduce the number of workless households by 300,000.

The welfare white paper is deemed so groundbreaking that David Cameron chose to laud the measures as he landed at the G20 summit in South Korea.

He said: "The message is clear. If you can work then a life on benefits will no longer be an option. If people are asked to do community work they will be expected to turn up. If people are asked to apply for a job by an adviser they will be expected to put themselves forward. If people can work and they are offered work, they will be expected to take it. This is the deal. Break the deal and they will lose their unemployment benefit. Break it three times and they will lose it for three years."

The regime will apply to all 1.6 million jobseeker's allowance claimants, irrespective of how long they have been unemployed. JSA is worth only £64.45 a week for over-25s, and No 10 said it expected the sanction to be enforced, once warranted, as a matter of course.

Job advisers should not use discretion to let people stay on benefit, Downing Street said, arguing that too many advisers do not make use of the sanctions available to them.

The new workfare regime is certain to be criticised for expecting the jobless to take work at a time when unemployment is forecast to rise. The move could potentially leave thousands of people receiving no benefits other than some money to cover their housing costs.

Many charities and local government leaders will be wary of offering work to unemployed people, especially if they have been in effect forced to take the work or lose benefit. The community jobs set aside for the jobless include clearing up litter and doing charity work.

Cameron argues that the new regime is necessary to prevent a dependency culture. He believes a new universal credit system bringing together tax credits and a range of benefits simplifies the system so much that it will ensure work will always pay in comparison with staying unemployed. Ministers say that, with 5 million people on out-of-work benefits and almost 2 million people growing up in workless households, they have to embark on "root and branch reform".

The new universal credit, costed at £2bn for this parliament, is designed to remove the financial disincentives to work, ensuring that someone keeps a minimum 35p in every extra pound earned. Cameron said: "It simply has to pay to work. You cannot have a situation where if someone gets out of bed and goes and does a hard day's work they end up worse off. That is not fair and sends entirely the wrong message."

Duncan Smith will cast his reforms as a "once-in-a-generation" attempt to get the jobless back to work. But the man credited by Duncan Smith as his greatest influence on poverty reduction criticised the changes . Bob Holman, an academic and community worker from Glasgow who has worked for Duncan Smith's thinktank, the Centre for Social Justice, accused the work and pensions secretary of forcing people into "degrading" jobs.

Asked his opinion about Duncan Smith and his plans for welfare reform, Holman said: "Well, my view has taken a bit of a dent. When Iain came to Easterhouse in 2002, one of the things he expressed admiration for were unemployed people who were working or giving their time as volunteers to our project … now he seems to have turned that on its head.

"He seems to be regarding them with disrespect and saying you're not really a part of society. We're going to force you to do these, what are really degrading jobs, which won't equip them for anything, but in a way are punishing them for not working and in a climate in which jobs are hard to get."
SOURCE

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So yes, it seems 'worklessness' will be overcome by compelling the 'workless' to do menial jobs that no-one will pay them a worhwhile wage to do. And 'charity work'. Handy, as the government already said it wanted charities to do more. Now we see the Big Society taking it's awful shape. And isn't it vicious. Did anyone seriously vote for this? They never mentioned any of it....

Wow, it's vicious.

"Refusing work means losing benefits" sounds like something that many people would likely agree with. But it really means "Refuse to do anything you are told to do and you lose benefits!" This isn't training people, it's marching them about to do the most menial work. It's humiliation and punishment. That bloke in the Guardian is spot-on. What a bunch of bastards.

And this is supposed to be justified/necessary on the back of economic crisis where banks and big business have been bailed out billions time and again because they fucked everything up. Everyone blames the bankers but some know different - it was all the loafers on welfare.

Students 'Riot' - who can blame them?

There have been violent scenes as tens of thousands of people protested against plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England.

Demonstrators stormed a building in Westminster housing the Conservative Party head quarters, smashed windows and got on to the roof.

Outside, a crowd of thousands surged as placards and banners were set on fire and missiles were thrown.

Student leaders condemned the violence as "despicable".

They say about 50,000 people took part in a march through Westminster earlier.

A stand-off is still taking place between about two dozen demonstrators and the police.
SOURCE - BBC



Add this is the Telegraph report! Modern riots are potentially quite different in this internet age. Everyone can see, and report. Interesting. Surely this is only the first of many such protests. Good.

Elections

Students could face £9,000 fees

Wow.

I was given money to go to higher education. I was amongst the last year of students whom could even claim housing benefit for their rent during term-time and unemployment benefit during Winter and Summer term-breaks. Cushy. Very privileged.

But back then about 15% of any year of students went to higher education, IIRC. And the last 'New' Labour Government set a target of 50% - which they made major progress towards.

The last Labour Government had introduced the fees? But specifically to fund greater numbers. Essentially a very good thing, greater numbers. But students at the time were furious, and I disagreed with their complaints, whilst understanding them. My view was a little different. Yes, I'm all for education: I would like 'free' life-long learning available to everyone, that's the goal, and the minimum. But it really shouldn't be used as an excuse for a piss-up and a state-subsidised A-road for social climbing. Moreover it has to be provided for by everyone else, including those who never get the opportunity to go.

So is it really worth sending 50% of each year's youth into 'university'?

One of my lasting memories of higher education was that nobody cared about any of it - apart from that it 'should make them money'. Even the people doing Business and Finance had no idea how they were going to make any money. They wanted money, and were 'studying' Business & Finance because they thought that was the way to get it. But what were they actually going to do? No idea......

Others were studying Law becuase 'it pays great!' I can remember being struck by how cash-oriented every single Law student was. Platitudes about the majesty of Justice just never even figured.

I found all that fabulously disillusioning. Not that I wasn't already disillusioned. And not that I set any sort of example. I was a far worse student than the money-driven bastards I saw all around me.

I had loved school and all the learning stuff when I was small - it was just life, and I loved it. And I did very well, generally. But only until my consciousness began to break through and I began to recognise my own life existence amongst everything, and I began to see I too was a 'process', a Student ID, a grantee, a UB40 claimant, a reproductive unit etc.

I then saw all that writ large at college amongst the acquistive students.

So, whilst I am all for learning, I am extremely skeptical that the community should expend so much effort on it - as it exists. Much of my experience of it was awful. And it seems to just exemplify the failings of the wider capitalist culture. Is it really something we want to be doing - sending most children into this? I can't believe it, though doubtless a £9,000 price tag will lead to greater consideration. And isn't that the point of the £9,000? To put people off? So I should be pleased? Well, I am, but that's why I hate it - because it will severely deter everyone but the most privileged. Of course, they say they 'will look after the poorest' - but that's relatively easy and insignificant. £9k won't have the least impact on the privileged, other than to heighten their position of privilege.

But would - has? - sending the masses to get 'an education' served its purpose? I don't think so, because the education they've been sent to get is of a particular sort: imperialist capitalist.

To me it seems a class issue - that the ruling class have tried to split the masses by offering qualification for 'elite workers'. It divides mass culture through buying-off a segment of the masses. The price is to accept the ideology (and now the debt too.) They thereby succeed in perverting the culture even more whilst further dividing the masses.

I just don't agree with the idea that most students hold dear - that getting an education should raise you above 'the others'. I don't believe it does. That isn't the point of it, is it? Well, sadly it is, and has been for a longtime. Always? The notion was always around when I was a student - 3 different times. Doubtless I expressed the same things too. But that's what I mean - the culture is what it is. It makes life - and learning - a shadow of what it is so easy to imagine it could be.

So, I'm not upset at all that fewer students will go to 'get an education'. But I'm furious that it might cost a bright average person nine fucking thousand pounds to get an education they really want. I'm also disgusted that very many are going to be so deterred by the costs that they will leave education aged just 16.

But I am also pleased people will be put-off from going to university. Why should we be sending people to such places? And why in hell should we pay for it? Why should everyone subsidise the indoctrination of an entire culture of privilege?

It doesn't help the class. (As in the proles, not 3M)

That's not to denigrate education - only to recognise how much of a factor it is in class structure - indoctrination - and that the only education available is entirely determined by the class constructs which provide the education. As is obvious. As it must be?

And so, the question arises - from where will change come? Hard to imagine, other than through a (crude?) materialism ie that conditions change such as to bring about a change in consciousness, and not the other way around. Ah - an old argument huh?
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An interesting news story in retrospect - complaints about the education budget in the face of rising student numbers during the last government. (The next (ie present) government were to make much more enormous cuts in higher education - cutting the funding for teaching by 50%, for example.) Incredible to look back only 10 months:-

Guardian: Record number of new students, Ucas figures reveal

Funding row looms after universities take on 12,000 more applicants than the government is prepared to pay for

Update 1 - The Independent reports:

The Government was facing mounting fury tonight over plans to charge students up to £9,000 a year in tuition fees.

Under the proposals, which represent the most radical shake-up of student funding for decades, the fee cap will be raised to £6,000, with universities able to charge up to £9,000 - triple the current cap - in "exceptional circumstances".

Tuition fees currently stand at £3,290 a year.

It opens the door for England's top universities to charge the maximum amount, providing they ensure access for disadvantaged students.

The changes are politically explosive as many Liberal Democrat MPs, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, publicly pledged during the General Election campaign not to allow fees to go up.

The proposals, announced by universities minister David Willetts today, immediately led to fresh concerns about the introduction of a two-tier system, with poorer students being priced out of elite institutions.
SOURCE