I have spent the day calling people trying to track down my old Diet for a Small Planet. I don't know if I loaned it out or what. I haven't seen it since the start of December. And last night, I turned the house upside down trying to find it -- with no luck.
Today, I even called Elaine to ask her to look and see if Mike accidentally packed when he was here for the holiday?
Nope.
But she did mention it to C.I. who called and asked which one it was? I said, "Let me explain --" She cut me off saying, "No need. I read your site. I know you've got the latest edition and I know you're wanting to compare it to the one you had before."
It's the 20th anniversary issue. She's shipping her copy to me. I should have called her last night. C.I. has thousands of books. Besides bookcases in every room she's got a library in her home. So when it comes in, I'll do another take on Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet.
Let me note this from Sarah Lazare (In These Times):
In recent weeks, President Biden has largely abandoned social programs, like expanded unemployment insurance and the child tax credit, aimed at helping people weather the pandemic, and has vowed to avoid public safety measures, like temporary stay-at-home directives during Covid surges, that defined earlier periods of the crisis. Instead, he is turning towards vaccines as his key strategy for fighting the virus, alongside urging Americans to wear a mask and pledging to unroll test reimbursement programs (while telling people to use Google to figure out where to take a test). This approach appears rooted in a belief that the spread of the Omicron variant is inevitable, a turn evidenced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declining to recommend higher quality masks, like N95s, and cutting its 10-day isolation guidance in half as Omicron swept across the United States in early January.
Vaccines are certainly a powerful tool against the pandemic, and should be encouraged by political leaders and public health officials. But the president’s turn to a vaccines-only approach has come hand-in-hand with an ugly, and even vindictive, tone of scolding the unvaccinated. This approach is especially egregious in light of the fact that President Biden bears tremendous responsibility for profound global inequities in vaccine access. Only 9.5% of people in poor countries have received at least one dose of a vaccine. In Nigeria, the largest country in Africa, just 2.26% of people are fully vaccinated. How do these people, deprived of vaccines thanks to lack of donations and patent sharing, factor into President Biden’s newfound strategy of “blame the unvaccinated”? Do they even register at all?
People in the Global South should not be left to die due to a lack of vaccine access. And this stunning American chauvinism puts everyone at risk: As long as the virus spreads anywhere, it will give rise to new and more dangerous variants that will inevitably show up in the United States. By embracing a vaccine strategy in which vast swaths of the globe are left with insufficient access, Biden is prolonging the pandemic and ensuring more deaths, and doing so with a sanctimonious wag of the finger.
One of the most alarming comments came from Jeffrey Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator, at a December 17 press briefing, just as Omicron was beginning to surge in the United States. In remarks clearly aimed at scaring the unvaccinated into getting their shots, he said, “For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.”
Like C.I.'s been saying, 2021 was the best Joe Biden's ever going to be. Pray for us all.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Wednesday:
Wednesday, January 12, 2022. The people of Iraq suffer and the corporate press ignores it, Julian Assange suffers and the corporate press ignores it.
Starting with the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange. As the world watches, US President Joe Biden -- who voted for the illegal war and then tried to lie about it in 2019 and 20202 -- continues to persecute Julian Assange for revealing truths about the Iraq War and about the murder of civilians. This will be Joe's legacy and he needs to grasp it, the world needs to make him grasp it.
Matilda Dunchan (INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA) observes:
In 2010, Assange and WikiLeaks – in partnership with numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel – published a curated cache of 250,000 diplomatic cables revealing the corruption and destruction of the Bush-era and early Obama-era wars, into which Australia so subserviently followed.
Without Assange’s work, numerous war crimes, mass surveillance schemes and unreported civilian casualties would have gone uncovered. In one year, he generated more consequential journalistic scoops confronting Western centres of power than the rest of the world’s news organisations combined.
Some of the information published by Assange has since become the subject of criminal investigations into the CIA and U.S. authorities before the International Criminal Court, which, as lawyers for Assange testified during his extradition hearing, is further evidence that the U.S. case against him is politically motivated.
Further, irrefutable illustrations of the significance of the “content” of Assange’s work can be found in comparisons between it and the lies and deceptions fed to the Australian population by this country’s press in the Iraq War years. Consider, as just one example of many, WikiLeaks’ publishing of the detainee assessment briefs and manual for Guantanamo Bay, where children as young as 15 were held, in contrast with the vapid first-hand account of the illegal prison presented by one of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s top foreign correspondents, Leigh Sales.
In 2007, Sales wrote of her second visit to Gitmo:
'At the same time, my own eyes and ears led me to believe that Guantanamo wasn’t as barbaric as it was made out to be either. None of the detainees came running to the wire, begging for help to get out.'
One Guantanamo Bay prisoner has recently waived his right to appear in court on numerous occasions because he suffered “rectal damage” while in custody of the CIA that makes it too painful for him to sit.
WIKILEAKS notes:
Is the corporate lapdog media in the US not covering those sort of items? No, they're too busy pretending Joe Biden is cognisant and knows what's going on around him. There is no improvement for Joe. He is on the downhill slide -- that's physically, that's mentally and that's a historical figure.
This is how you make change for Julian. This is how you end the persecution. You hold Joe Biden responsible for what is being done to Julian by the US government because Joe is the head of the US government. We keep saying it because it's reality.
Underlings can hide behind Joe made them do it. Joe can't.
Does Joe -- in those rare lucid moments -- care what others think about him and how history will see him?
Of course he does. If he didn't, he wouldn't lie so much. He lies about big stuff and he lies about small stuff. He needs to grasp that he can't lie his way out of this one, that he world will not let him.
He needs to grasp that even Tulsi Gabbard still wants to whore whatever is left of her reputation for him, she's a known liar. She's the liar who covered for him in the debates when he was being held accountable for the Iraq War. When he was going around insisting to people that he turned against the war and did so almost immediately and blah blah blah. Tulsi carried his testes for him -- like a good little whore -- while pretending she was anti-war. She went after Kamala.
I remember the men of the left -- men because women seemed wise to Tulsi -- braying like jackals and insisting she'd destroyed Kamala. Kamala's the Vice President. She may yet destroy herself but Tulsi didn't destroy her. More to the point, when Tulsi pulled her garbage of excusing War Criminal Joe Biden, there were people against the Iraq War on that stage and running for the nomination. All Tulsie did was run interference for Joe which was her plan throughout the debates. Kamala goes after Joe? Don't worry, they'll dispatch Tulsi to go after her in the next debate.
Tulsi servied her purpose -- like a good whore -- and then she faded away.
Joe lied and he lied because he knows what he is, he knows the monstter that he is. But he doesn't want the world to see that. So he rewrites how he imprisoned African-Americans, he rewrites his support for the war, he pretends he didn't shame others who spoke out against the illegal war, he pretends did a lot for women (are we counting paying for abortions?), he rewirtes everything, papers over everything with lies.
Again from WIKILEAKS:
Joe needs to grasp that the world knows who's going after Julian Assange and that the world will hold him accountable for it throughout history.
That's how you get the US government to back off.
That went up yesterday afternoon. We noted it last night. An e-mail asked if that's why I said what I did in yesterday's snapshot. Nope. The video wasn't up. And we'd been saying that for weeks and weeks. I was also asked if I'd link to the article Danny mentions in the video above? Glad to. Whenever it gets posted. That's not an insult. Please. THIRD has its own problems getting its new stuff up each week in a timely fashion and we're not suffering a death the way BLACK AGENDA REPORT is with Glen Ford. At some point, hopefully later today, the article Danny says posted will post. If it does, we'll note in tomorrow's snapshot (but at present, January 5th is the date on the most recent article at BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
It's most likely over for Joe and even he is dimly aware of that. Ronald Reagan was 73 years old when he was sworn in for his second term as president. If Joe were re-elected, he'd be 81 when he was sworn in. He's too feeble and frail to be president right now. He's a menace to the people. His crying jags at the White House? The press is ignoring them. But for how much longer? How long before they have to start reporting on what's really going on?
Julian needs to be free and that needs to be made clear by the world. The world also needs to make clear that we are holding Joe Biden responsible for the continued persecution and for any additional suffering. That will be Joe's historical legacy and we will ensure that it's seen with the same disgust as when other despots persecute journalists and whistle-blowers.
Julian will die if this persecution does not end. Joe needs to grasp that the blood will be on his hands and that it will be how he is remembered.
WIKILEAKS Tweets:
Turning to Iraq, let's drop back to "2021: The Madness of the Partisan Left (The Year of Silencing Speech):"
Which brings us to the third big story of Iraq.
No, not the October 10th election. That's been misreported by the US media to a large degree, yes, but it is there go-to subject when they feel they have to cover Iraq.
Far more important? The protests. They have been woefully under-reported in the media. Most Americans don't know that Iraq's current prime minister (hopefully, outgoing prime minister) only holds that spot because protesters drove the previous one of out office.
These protests throughout Iraq in 2021 have been under-reported and ignored.
December saw two resignations. Most Americans have no idea. The governor of Dhi Qar, Ahmed al-Khafaji resigned right before Christmas due to protest. And, at the same time, the governor of Najaf, Louai al-Yasseri, resigned -- also due to protests.
When these protests aren't covered, I guess it's easier for the media to pretend that the ongoing Iraq War is a success. After all, if the US truly 'liberated' the Iraqi people, all would be fine and dandy and Iraqis would have no reason to take to the streets.
But all is not well and that's why Iraqis are making their voices heard -- heard on the streets, heard via social media and heard via the Arabic press. Sadly, the US press really doesn't pay attention to what's actually going on in Iraq. It's so much easier to just write 500 words or so of nothing while tossing around the term "king-maker."
Omar Sattar (AL-MONITOR) reports:
Dhi Qar Gov. Ahmed Ghani al-Khafaji and his counterpart in Najaf, Louay al-Yasiri, have resigned against the backdrop of the popular protests in December 2021 amid many political objections raised by opposition parties to the government of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
Kadhimi accepted Khafaji’s resignation on Dec. 23, 2021, and Yasiri’s on Jan. 4. Yasiri stated in his resignation letter, “I am offering to [resign from my] position, to be replaced by my deputy,” explaining that he was not subjected to pressure from the leader of the Sadr movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, or Kadhimi. Meanwhile, Khafaji stated that his resignation “serves the public interest and aims to provide security and stability and preserve the interests of the citizens of Dhi Qar.”
During the past few weeks, citizens took to the streets of Najaf calling for Yasiri’s dismissal due to poor service conditions. Shiite leader Sadr promised to work to dismiss Yasiri and stressed during his visit to Najaf on Dec. 22, 2021, that there was no need to protest and demand his resignation, explaining that there are political and legal means to dismiss him, adding, “Enough noise, enough riot.”
In Dhi Qar, Khafaji resigned after protests calling for better living conditions and job opportunities turned into violent confrontations with security forces, causing injuries among protesters. As a result, Kadhimi ordered a special investigation committee to uncover the circumstances of the incident.
Although several governors have resigned or been dismissed by Kadhimi over the past months, the political atmosphere has made the recent resignations a subject for political debate as some Shiite parties fear that the Sadr movement will control the local administration in these provinces, especially since the movement is making similar demands to dismiss the governors of Babil and Diwaniyah.
They're in the streets and will be back in the streets. They also may be in the Parliament.
Who is the prime minister of Iraq? Hopefully, he is the outgoing one but he is Mustafa al-Kahdimi. When did he become prime minister? In May of 2020. Why? Because the protesters forced out Adil Abdul-Mahdi.
And is anyone going to comment on how Mustafa did not bring change?
Or how about the rest of the corrupt system that the protesters were against? That included the Speaker of Parliament and it included the President of Iraq.
Despite -- or maybe because of -- his personal history with corruption, Mohammed al-Halbusi was given a second term Sunday as Speaker of Parliament.
Barham Salih wants a second term as president. Even though he belongs to the losing political party n the KRG, he believes he has the right to be president.
What about the rights of the Iraqi people?
And when does the press start championing them? Ffity years from now when they can pretend the US government had nothing to do with the multitutde of horrors plauging the country?
The people of Iraq took to the streets to decry corruption. They're not seeing any changes.
The following sites updated (Stan posted twice yesterday so let me note the first one since it won't show up below "Weekend box office"):
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Mon Laferte: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert4 hours ago
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Communing with Albert Camus in 20224 hours ago
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Grab bag12 hours ago
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Jimmy Dore, Ava and C.I., Alan MacLeod13 hours ago
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James Poniewozik13 hours ago
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Diet for a Small Planet13 hours ago
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Dwayne Hickman13 hours ago
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Deadline, the online magazine that lies13 hours ago
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