The Double Standard of Energy Politics

The reactionary corporate establishment of the U.S. has some standard propaganda lines about energy that they repeat year after year, ad nauseam.

One is that solar and other such green energy technologies are not viable because of insoluble technical obstacles that make them uneconomical.

But then, those technologies haven't had billions and billions of dollars in government subsidies showered on them since 1950 to promote them and pay for research.

And here's an ACTUAL insoluble technology problem- containing highly radioactive wastes for thousands of years so they can't leak into the environment.

It can't be done. And there is no way to speed up the decay process of radioactive isotopes. The glib answer to that objection?

"We'll figure something out."

Right-wing business rags like the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and Forbes constantly run rants attacking the piddling government subsidies for green energy and saying those subsidies "prove" these technologies aren't viable, since they can't make it in "the market" on their own.

But they never call for an end to the billions of subsidies for nuclear. Or for oil, for that matter. Filthy rich oil corporations like ExxonMobil don't pay Federal taxes on their billions of profits- perfectly legally. Yet the corporate propagandists keep screeching that at 35%, the (strictly notional) U.S. corporate tax rate "is one of the highest in the world!!" But the actual rate for many big corporation is a big fat 0%. That's on their profits. And the New York Times just had a page one article on how GE pays nothing on their billions in profits. In fact, because of tax credits, the U.S. "owes" GE $3.2 billion, even though GE made $14.2 billion profit in 2010. This is because GE gets to write parts of U.S. tax law to benefit itself. And Obama is in bed with Jeffrey Immelt, boss of GE.  (But if you make, say, $200 a week gross working, after all the payroll tax deductions you're left with about $140.- better than a 25% gouge. And you're supposed to live on that.) [ See: "GE's Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether," New York Times, March 25, 2011.]

Then we have the Price-Anderson Act, originally passed in 1957 and still in effect, which caps the liability of the nuclear reactor owner/operators and those who build them at a small fraction of what the actual damage would be. Otherwise the utilities would never build nukes- the insurance would be prohibitively expensive.

Obama wants another $36 billion in loan subsidies for new nukes, on top of the billions he's already given them. At the same time, he's slashing aid for the poor, like home heating oil subsidies (let 'em freeze!). Oh, what a radical "socialist" he is. Amazing what dildoes American neofascists are. And how many millions of cretins there are who can believe such preposterous crap.

Obama pays Homage to GE boss Jeffrey Immelt: January 2011.

Obama appointed GE boss Immelt to some phony for-show panel grandiloquently titled the "President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness." On Immelt's perfect qualifications for this propaganda exercise, Obama opined, "He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy.”

Meaning: he knows how to outsource American workers' jobs to China, Malaysia, and etc. And not pay taxes. Go U.S.A.!

Thus do our rulers try and dupe us into thinking that they're helping us while in fact making us poorer and enriching themselves. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "America."

U.S. Media Scrambles to Protect Nuclear Power Industry

Another decade, another nuclear disaster. In the 1970s it was Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. In the 1980s it was Chernobyl, which poisoned all of Europe. Now it's six 40-year-old nuclear reactors mismanaged by Tokyo Electric Company (Tepco), an outfit run by mendacious sacks of shit who have been lying for years about their reactors. For example, they recently lied about inspecting 33 key safety parts in the plant- they didn't inspect them. The Japanese nuclear regulators agreed to extend the licenses on these reactors just before the earthquake and tsunami wiped out ALL THREE of their power systems, causing melting of the fuel rods, exposure of spent fuel rods in pools on the roofs (great place for 'em!) of the reactors, and releases of radiation, which has already contaminated food, milk, and the nearby ocean.

The U.S. media has done it's standard song and dance of claiming that the extra radiation is "safe," or not an "immediate health risk." Note the lawyerly weasel word, "immediately." It means you aren't going to die in a week from acute radiation poisoning. Maybe you'll die in a decade or two from cancer, or your damaged genes will cause you to give birth to defective children, and/or pass on genetic damage to future generations.

Another lie they keep repeating is that Three Mile Island (TMI) was a "near meltdown." No, the fuel rods DID MELT. It was a "partial" meltdown, meaning the rods didn't completely melt into puddles of molten metal. The false claim- let's call it a lie, because the facts are readily available, so these "news" organizations surely must know- is that no radiation was released at TMI.

A third lie is that no adverse health effects results from TMI. In fact epidemiological studies have documented increased cancer rates downwind from the meltdown.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency and various Western "nuclear experts" keep lying about the horrific consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. This is made easier for them since the IGNORE ALL THE PUBLISHED RUSSIAN RESEARCH. (They can do that apparently with clear consciences since they don't read Russian, and I guess are too cheap to spring for translators.) The nuclear establishment "experts" claim almost no cancers, and NO birth defects. The Russians say there are up to ONE MILLION cancer cases from Chernobyl, and there are photos of such defects as one-eyed children (a single eye in the center of the forehead) to put the lie to the "no birth defects" canard.

Two of the supposedly most reputable and "respectable" -if not downright august- newspapers have regurgitated these lies- the Wall Street Journal, voice of big capital, and The New York "Newspaper of Record" Times. These are papers aimed at elites here.

Today in fact the Times devoted several pages to minimizing the damage and deceiving about the health risks of the Japanese meltdowns. The media is pretending that Tepco is getting on top of the matter. That's false. Tepco has managed to string new power  lines to some of the reactors. One little hitch- the pumps that are needed to run to pump in cooling water to the reactor cores and spent fuel rod cooling pools WERE DAMAGED by the tsunami. So just as soon as they manage to haul new pumps in and install them in buildings filled with lethal levels of radiation, everything will be just swell.

The ideological fanatics at the WSJ barely waited a day after the disaster to run an editorial AND an op-ed pooh-poohing the situation, and opining that this shouldn't stop the building of LOTS MORE NUKES. In fact, they opined, it would be a shame if this derailed the new, modern nukes supposedly in the works. This was after two explosions had already occured- and a third explosion occurred later that same day. Real convincing, WSJ.

Don't know what it is about the ruling establishment that makes them so fanatically, incorrigibly pro-nuclear.It's an absolutely insane, dangerous technology, run by incompetent greedheads, with no margin for error. Their reassurances and "backups" always are proven to be Potemkin-village type shams. The "back up" generators at the Tepco complex were knocked out at the same time as the external power to run the pumps was lost, and the "fail safe third backup," batteries, only are good for eight hours, max. These irresponsible con men gamble with human lives on the environment we depend on for life. 

And of course, there's the insoluble problem of the wastes these plants generate, unstorable, and dangerous for thousands of years. They're still working on "solving" that little problem. The elephant in the room, it is virually always ignored in establishment media commentary on nuclear power.

U.S., other media give undue credence to Qaddifi regime's lies

Don't know why so much attention is paid to all the lies being spewed by Qaddafi and his minions. Why do they grant the man and his minions so much credence? All the nonsense about "ceasefires" and "civilian casualties," easily disproved as lies. The same media rarely prints facts from progressives. It's galling. n
Another thing: they keep referring to Qaddafi and his gang as "Libya." That's how Qaddafi has it, equating himself with the country. Or "the government." It's no government. In fact there's barely been a real state in Libya for decades. It's a cult of one man and his deranged followers and enforcers.

And if they're so afraid of being seen as "colonialists," why amplify Qaddafi's sham anti-colonialist rhetoric along these lines? (The egregious Russian boss Vladimir Putin echoed Qaddafi, calling the UN Security Council resolution authorizing military action  a "crusade," as in the Christian invasions of Muslim lands a thousand years ago. (Some people sure can hold a grudge a long time, huh?)

"The resolution is defective and flawed," Putin told workers at a Russian ballistic missile factory. "It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades." So why didn't Russia VETO it, Vlad? You could have.

Stalemate Shaping Up in Libya?

Too bad someone didn't start bombing Qaddafi's murderous minions a week to 10 days ago. Now it looks like a long stalemate is most likely in Libya. I keep reading ridiculous wishful thinking in the U.S. media that maybe Qaddafi will step down, maybe there will be a negotiated exit for him, maybe there will be a coup against him, maybe his inner circle will turn against him. All nonsense. This is like Hitler, writ small. He doesn't have a government, he has a cult of personality. And those still with him are committed. And all you have to do is listen to the man (and review his history) to see how ridiculous it is to think there's a snowball's chance in hell he'll throw in the towel. The man's a megalomaniac. Only force will remove him.

The Definition of a Tax "Hike" According to $ Propaganda Media

You might think the word "hike" means something rising. It can also mean something not going down, as in taxes on rich people. In fact, it can even mean a tax cut.

We have this from The New York Observer, an obnoxious, snarky, rag aimed at rich people who live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. A rich reactionary named Arthur C. Carter owned it for years until he got bored with it, so a punk rich kid named Jared C. Kushner had his real estate mogul daddy buy it for hinm. Jared put his name atop the masthead as "publisher." Always a reactionary rag obsessed with multimillion dollar real estate deals, it's even more flamingly right wing now. (And its obsession with rich real estate transactions in Manhattan is bizarre and parochial, and has the breathless adoring tone of celebrity "journalism.")

A rabid editorial in the March 21st issue fulminated about a proposed extension of an existing surcharge on incomes over $200,000 thusly: "A state surcharge on annual incomes of more than $200,000 is due to expire at the end of the year. Mr. Silver [Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the NY State Assembly] has proposed a one-year extension of the surcharge- a tax hike- although it would apply only to incomes of more than $1 million." In other words, a TAX CUT for people making between $200,000 and $1 million a year, and the same tax on people making OVER $1 MILLION PER YEAR. (What a ridiculous amount of money to make! But hey, how else can they afford to bid up apartments so they cost millions of dollars? And Hamptons mansions?)

The editorial throws around the usual foaming-at-the-mouth rhetoric about "wasteful" spending, and demands an end to "the millionaire's tax" and insists on "reform" instead. ("Reform" is code in this context for slashing social services spending.) Their man, nominal Democrat Andrea Cuomo, the reactionary Governor and son of former Governor Mario "Lock 'Em Up" Cuomo (whose sole accomplishment as Governor was a prison building spree- he had a terrible environmental record, a terrible poverty record, a terrible record on anything you might expect a "liberal" to have a good record on) is solidly in the corner of the rich, as the editorial approvingly notes.

Of course, this is a national phenomenon of the trillionaire oligarchy going mad with greed and wanting more more more. U.S. public corporations are currently hoarding almost two trillion dollars in cash. The Forbes richest 400 together control trillions in wealth. Yet these people insist they are overtaxed, and the U.S. and the 50 states just have no money and have to slash spending. (But not spending on the military, or secret police, or huge giveaways and subsidies for the rich and their businesses, like oil, nuclear, you name it.)

Their is massive transference of wealth in this country from the people who create it- workers- into the coffers of the superparasites.

Egyptian Military Junta Using Old Stalinist Trick

The military rulers of Egypt are "disbanding" the secret police. ("Security Service" in the euphemistic parlance of U.S. propagandists and their foreign fellow travelers.) But of course they say they're going to create a new "security service" to fulfill its so-called legitimate functions. And who do you think will be staffing this "new" organization? Why, the same torturers and murderers and professional oppressors who staffed the old secret police. In other words, old wine in new bottles.

Stalin employed the same trick. Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, went through various name changes under Stalin, like NKVD, NVD, etc. until finally becoming the KGB. (Which is now the FSB.)

Benghazi Besieged By Qaddafi's Barbarians

There are reports today on the BBC (UK) and NPR (U.S.) that Qaddafi's tanks have entered Benghazi's suburbs, and the city is being shelled by his artillery and gunboats. Meanwhile his despicable lying frontmen insist they're observing a "ceasefire." Obviously their grotesque lies are aimed at his domestic base and sympathizers in other countries like Mali. (NY Times had an article on his popularity there, thanks to his handing out Libya's oil wealth in that country and others- instead of making life better for the Libyan people, in which case he wouldn't be facing a rebelling by the mass of the Libyan people in the first place. But the Libyans are just stepping stones for the grandiose dreams of this megalomaniac to be "King of Kings" - one of his own self-aggrandizing monikers for himself- of all Africa and even a global player. Yet as out of touch with reality on fundamental levels as he is, he is very crafty on a tactical and even strategic level. A horrible combination of insanity and criminal savvy. A sidenote- idiot fellow-traveling leftists are always taken in by the cynical rhetorical spoutings of such tyrants. Both left and right have authoritarians and pro-human rights types.)

Another point of the absurd insistence that they aren't attacking Benghazi and bombarding Misrata- which Qaddafi has cut off water to for 3 days now- is to pretend to be abiding by the UN resolution. That's purely delusional

A nastier move Qaddafi is planning is placing human shields around possible Allied bombing targets. Then he'll scream that it's those awful Western Imperialists who are killing civilians, not Qaddafi. (After all, why would he kill his own people? They love him. Those rebels are all Al-Qaeda terrorists, or kids drugged by Al-Qaeda, or traitors. Or rats and dogs, as one of his lovely sons says.}

President Hamlet (Obama) dithered for 2 weeks, while the French and British pressed to do something. According to today's NY Times, Hillary Clinton (Sec. of State) and Susan Rice (U.S. Ambassador to UN) pressed him to act. Interestingly, the hard men of the Pentagon and "National Security" orgs., in effect took Qaddafi's side and insisted that the U.S. had no "vital interests" in Libya, no "national security" dog in that fight. War Sec. Robert Gates, in testimony to Congress, grossly exaggerated the difficulty of imposing a no-fly zone on Libya and acted as if Qaddafi has a fearsome air force and air defense system. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper (who told the Senate March 10 that the Libyan rebels couldn't overthrow Qaddafi: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sc-dc-0311-clapper-20110310,0,1380828.story - he's a retired general who doesn't "direct" anything, his entire office being a pointless propaganda joint for the "war on terrorism," not the superpowerhouse controlling the rest of the vast repressive apparatus of the U.S. as it was advertised to be).

Today the French are the first to strike Qaddifi's murderous minions from the air. Just as they were the first (and so far, only) country to recognize the rebels as the legitimate government of Libya. Maybe the tough-guy Americans who mock the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" will take back that ridicule. (Oh by the way, tough guys, the U.S. has never been invaded by a superior enemy since 1812, whereas the French had to fight for their national survival at the hands of the Germans 3 times within about 50 years. The U.S. has a hemisphere all to itself, filled with much weaker nations it can bully and boss around at will. Except for Cuba, which is why the U.S. is so hysterical about that nation. And the French Navy won the Revolutionary war for America. Their fleet blocked the escape of Cornwallis, enabling Washington to finally win.)

It turns out the Canadians and even the Danes are doing more than the U.S. Both are contributing fighter jets to the mission over Libya. The U.S. says it will just shoot missiles from the Mediterranean at Libyan air defense installations. That's playing it nice and safe!

The Guardian (UK) reports that two whole U.S. planes were seen taking off from a base in Britain. That's getting tough with Qaddafi. (Or maybe they were flying to the grocery to pick up some mile?)

Late Saturday- 112 cruise missiles launched by U.S. and UK naval vessels at Qaddafi's military assets (at about $1 million a pop).  Good news indeed. And the French destroy an armored column including artillery and rockets that was threatening Benghazi.

Qaddafi On Verge of Crushing Libyan Rebellion

The Libyan people are about to suffer a horrendous fate at the hands of the vicious dictator Qaddafi and his sons and cutthroat hirelings. His forces are moving on Benghazi. Meanwhile they are cutting off the highway to Egypt, creating a death trap for all the people trapped on the section of the Mediterranean coast where the rebels still hold out.
Meanwhile President Hamlet of the U.S. dithers, playing with all the "options" on his "table," like a child.
In their pathetic naivete, the rebels seem stunned that "the international community" or "the world" or whoever didn't come galloping to their rescue. Thus the perniciousness of Western propaganda, that deludes people into thinking the U.S. bloc gives a damn about human beings, or the necessity for them to have rights and democracy.
Meanwhile, U.S. pals Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, loathsome, primitive oil kingdoms, have sent in 2000 troops to bolster their fellow "King" in Bahrain against his own people, attacking the protest camp in Pearl Square in the capital.
We can see the shallowness of the people's revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, which replaced some faces but not the oppressive systems, in the fact that neither of those nations is lifting a finger to aid the Libyan people. The Egyptian military certain could wipe out Qaddafi's thugs- or at least aid the rebels.

The Strange Double Standards of the Anti-Anti-Semites

Various anti-anti-Semites see a "resurgence" of anti-Semitism in the world. For evidence, they commonly cite recent trivial events: Julian Assange blurting out in a phone call that a Jewish media cabal is out to get him, then taking it back in the same phone call; a couple of drunken, nasty tirades by the fey fashion designer John Galliano; Charlie Sheen calling evil producer Charles Lorre "Chaim Levine" [1] and other such statements. (And there's always the odd swastika here and there, daubed on a tombstone by some jerk somewhere, which can be inflated into the second coming of Hitler. Which is why those punks sneaking around at night with spraypaint cans do it- because it gets a rise out of people.)

Oddly, we never hear a mention of the lethal anti-Semitism practiced by Pakistan. By "Pakistan," I mean the rulers of Pakistan. And make no mistake, the real rulers of Pakistan are the Military and its terrorist arm, the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence).

Remember the recent terrorist onslaught in Mumbai, India? That lasted 3 days and killed 160 people. Among the specific targets was the Hasidic Nariman House, where six Jews were killed. The ISI directed the attack from Pakistan. The ISI sponsors the group that provided the personnel for the attack, a gang of loathsome fanatics called Lashkar-e-Taiba, which means "Army of the Pure." (How's that for a self-righteous name? Pure scum, I'd say. Amazing how full of themselves the most loathsome people on earth always are. Guess that gives them the necessary arrogance and total lack of self-doubt or self-awareness to impose their horrors on others.) In July 2010, U.S. JCS Chair Adm. Mike Mullen called them a "global threat" during a trip to Islamabad to "confer" with "our" Paki "allies," as the U.S. rulers like to delude themselves- or maybe they're just trying to delude us. Maybe someday "secret" documents will clear up that question. This gang of cutthroats openly runs madrassas (terrorist brainwashing centers masquerading as religious "schools") and other facilities right out in the open.

How often do you hear the likes of Abe Foxman, chief noisemaker of the "Anti-Defamation League," squawking about LETHAL Pakistani anti-Semitism? It seems that ideological enforcement of the ban against criticising Israel is the raison d'etre for the ADL and the rest of the "Jewish lobby." Not that Galliano isn't a loathsome jerk. But he lost his job. He was punished. And all he did was spew nasty words, not murder people. (And he's also facing criminal charges in France, where such speech is prosecuted.) The ADL's webpage on the attack goes out of its way to avoid holding Pakistan or the ISI responsible. The only mention of Pakistan is to cite Pakistan's pathetic lies denying having anything to do with it. And this is after the webpage speculates wrongly as to the identity of the attackers, including maybe they were Indian Muslims (they weren't). [http://www.adl.org/main_Terrorism/mumbai_terror_jews.htm]

Of course, not everyone can kill Jews and avoid the public attack by the anti-anti-Semites. Palestinians have no such privileges. Palestinians in general need to be demonized, in fact, to justify driving them off their homeland, because Jews from Brooklyn claim it's their land, a gift from "God" thousands of years ago. The U.S. throws the full weight of its might behind this ridiculous, religiously fanatical proposition.

Anti-Semitism is a form of bigotry. Sometimes, like all bigotries, it reaches murderous extremes. But the selective outrage of the anti-anti-Semitics reveals their cynicism. You would think lethal anti-Semitic terrorist attacks sponsored by a sovereign state would be a huge scandal. Instead the drunken ravings of some fashionista is the outrage du jour.

The reason for the constant alarmism over "the rise in anti-Semitism," which goes hand-in-hand with "Israel has never been in more peril," is pretty transparent. The anti-anti-Semities unfortunately don't give a darn about bigotry. They care about defending and promoting Israeli imperialism, period. And portraying any opposition to that imperialism, and any peep of protest against Israeli oppression and various atrocities, as anti-Semitic, is a longstanding tactic to squelch objective discussion of Israel. And it works.

[1] "Chuck Lorre" was born Charles Levine. Like many Jews in the media, he seems shy about his Jewishness and so adopted an alias. "Chaim" is Hebrew for Charles. Making the whole situation more ambiguous, "Chaim Levine" was the name of a character Chuck Lorre himself played in a cameo in one of his own sitcoms. (No egotist he.) Sheen claimed he was referring to that. Roseanne Barr seconds Sheen's opinion of Lorre-Levine's loathsomeness. A recent puff piece cover story in The Hollywood Reporter on Lorre inadvertently gives a glimpse into how smug, obnoxious, and full of himself this typical Hollywood hustler type is. Which is not to say that Sheen doesn't have obvious psychological problems, which the media are cynically exacerbating by indulging his ravings. (If they really disapprove, they don't have to give him such major coverage. It's the same hypocrisy operating when they blare lurid coverage of sex "scandals." And it's a contrast with newsworthy things they TOTALLY BLACK OUT, like the Obama regime's persecution of anti-war activists and other dissidents in the U.S. So we know they can ignore things when they want to. But that's things they don't want people to know about.)

Obama's Heart "Aches" for Japanese, Not Libyans

Apparently it makes a big difference whether someone is suffering because of a natural calamity, or at the hands of murderous criminals. Obama's heart "aches" for the Japanese, who just got hit with a tsunami arising from an earthquake. (The meltdown of a nuclear power plant as a result hopefully will put another nail in awful nuclear power.) But the sight of people struggling to be free of a suffocating tyranny is nothing to feel bad about, to Obama. (To be fair, he probably feels zilch for the Japanese too, and is just making a political statement. Everything out of this political creature's mouth is calculated. He's really just as phony and calculating as Nixon, or the Clintons, the only difference being Nixon and Hillary were/are lousy actors, whereas Clinton and Obama are better ones.)

World Fiddles While Libya Burns

The murderous tyrant Qaddafi is on a roll in Libya. Using tanks, artillery, and jet aircraft about common Libyans with only small arms and pickup trucks, he's gone on the offensive. A massive bloodbath is in the offing when he takes Benghazi.


Meanwhile, those great self-proclaimed lovers of democracy, freedom, and human rights, "the West," (i.e. the U.S. and its European lackeys, with the former English-speaking British colonies of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand thrown in) issue proclamations calling on Qaddafi to "stop, stop, you brute!" and to "resign, forthwith!" With the predictable result- the thug is emboldened by this lame display of weakness. If Qaddafi had half the military might of the U.S. and its allies, he would have conquered the world by now- or destroyed it.

Ironically, these selfish, phony nations claim one reason they're afraid to intervene, even slightly with a lame-o no-fly zone, is that someone might call them "Imperialists." You'd think they'd be used to that by now. Of course, fear of being called that name has never inhibited them from ACTUAL imperialist actions, like invading Iraq in 2003, to cite a recent example. All over the world, just in the past half century or so, the U.S. has overthrown governments it didn't like, started wars, and invaded countries with little or no inhibitions. The list of nations that have been victims of U.S. brutality is long. Haiti, Iran, El Salvador, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Congo, Nicaragua, Chile, the Dominican Republic, the Brazilian military coup of 1965, the slaughter of 800,000 "communists" in Indonesia, aiding and abetting mass murder in East Timor, the Greek military fascist coup, and many more. So fear of being seen as "imperialist" for JUST ONE TIME helping people fighting to overthrow a tyrant, has to be some kind of sick joke as an excuse.

And suddenly "international law" is a big impediment. Funny, that never stopped any imperialist power before. Again, invading Iraq was completely "illegal." For that matter, Israel's colonization of the remainder of Palestine, conquered in 1967, is completely illegal, as is well-known everywhere in the world outside the U.S., which supports it to the hilt.

The U.S. taxpayer has been bled for trillions of dollars for the military since 1945. Too bad it can't ever be used as a force for good.

For that matter, Egypt, the recipient of $35 billion and counting in U.S. military aid, could easily help their fellow arabs. The Egyptian people just overthrew their own dictator. They should understand.

And of course the oligarchs of China and Russia don't want foreign "interference." So "the west" cleverly tied its own hands by insisting that the UN Security Council, on which China and Russia hold veto power, must approve any military aid- even arms to the people of Libya to fight!

One vicious act of Qaddafi's might nip him slightly. He tried to assassinate the King of Saudi Arabia a few years ago. So the Saudis aren't particularly fond of him. As well as being the dominant power in the Gulf Cooperation Council (a club of Arabian Peninsula nations), they swing weight in the Arab League. (Qaddafi had the gall to just send a delegation to the League's latest meeting- they said they wouldn't let them in.)

The Bogus Alibi For Banning Al-Jazeera English in America

The U.S. Corporate oligarchy which controls what is broadcast on television in America has virtually banned Al-Jazeera English in this country. It is only available on two small cable providers (one in Vermont, the most normal state in the U.S.) plus the capital city of the empire, Washington, D.C., where the Imperialist elites have used it to get their information on the uprisings in their middle eastern client states. (How ironic, the network they revile, which their military has repeatedly bombed, is where they go to get a realistic view of the "facts on the ground." To escape their own propaganda system, they turn to one of their hated enemies. Al-Jazeera's crime, of course, is being too honest.)

The lie, which you can read in places like The New York Times, is that there is no demand for Al-J in America, that it's merely a business decision, all about ratings, nothing more. The bogusness of this bullshit is easily revealed. For one, millions of people in America have tuned in to Al-J English via the Internet during the past couple of months. For another, as anyone with cable well knows, there are hundreds of channels on cable, many of them empty, and many of them filled with unbelievable sludge that no one watches, plus a lot of duplication. Ergo, this is another Lie designed to disguise the ideological and political motivation of the oligarchs.

In the same vein, Rupert Murdoch's reactionary motives are ALWAYS denied in the media, including the "liberal" media like the aforementioned NY Times. He is said to be motivated solely by business factors. Pure bullshit, as anyone who has observed him at all can see. Just two examples: keeping the NY Post for decades, which loses millions of dollars a year, but provides a platform for vile reactionary agitprop in New York City, and his Fox "News," which contains no objective news at all, but functions as a 24 hour platform for incessant reactionary ideological drumbeating. Murdoch personally appointed lifelong GOP political operative Roger Ailes, who masterminded Nixon's media strategy in 1968, among other crimes, to run it. Ailes is a hardcore, dogmatic fanatic.

Hostage-Taking Qaddafi Vows Massacre If He's Raided

Gadhafi vowed that "we will fight until the last man and woman."  He made a veiled threat to murder thousands more Libyans if the West intervened.

"We will not accept an intervention like that of the Italians that lasted decades," Gadhafi said, referring to Italy's colonial rule early in the 20th Century. "This will lead to a bloody war and thousands of Libyans will die if America and NATO enter Libya." While on its face this seems to mean people fighting for him will die, it's reasonable to interpret it as a death threat towards his Libyan former subjects, as he and his vile son (the one the U.S. media told us was a "reformer" with a "modern, Western" outlook) have already made a number of bloodcurdling threats about blood running in the streets and etc.

Note also phony anti-Colonial posturing. That stuff is generally catnip for leftists. But this time their pro-people bias trumps it. But among Third Worlders it probably still has some resonance.

His fellow phony tyrant thug "revolutionary leader" Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, a murderous burden on the long-suffering people of that nation, has been sending his soulmate Qaddafi reinforcements.