VOR Presents… A Day of Mourning in Hiroshima

On 6 August 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima was dropped American atomic bomb. When it exploded in the air about 600 metres from the ground, it killed 140,000 people were killed. On the 66th anniversary of the bombing, in the Peace Memorial Park, activists held a memorial ceremony that culminated in a rally entitled, “Life without Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons”.

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At the memorial service, Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto said that Japan has advocated and will continue to advocate with vigour the reduction and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. {Kan-sama is not from the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (a group of Neoliberal American lickspittles); he’s from the Minshuto (Liberal Party of Japan), a centre-left Social Market party that’s against “temporary” employment, for raising wages, and for giving family allowances to families with children. Don’t listen to rightwing loudmouths… the Left is NOT on the run: editor}

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The rally at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima brought together people from 66 countries and Japan, including residents from radiation-affected Fukushima Prefecture, where there’s an emergency involving a nuclear plant. In the image above, we see the Gembaku Dome in Peace Memorial Park.

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Annually, Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima hosts a memorial ceremony, involving politicians, public figures, ordinary citizens, and victims of the bombing.

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The atomic bombing on 6 August 1945 destroyed 90 percent of buildings in the city of Hiroshima. Until 1945, the Gembaku Dome was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. The building was 160 metres from the epicentre of the blast, but it wasn’t destroyed. Today, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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The Flame of Peace in the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.

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Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima is at the epicentre of blast of the atomic bomb dropped on the city on 6 August 1945. The park’s area is about 12 hectares (30 acres); it contains a memorial peace museum, a memorial bell, and the Flame of Peace. Japanese students visit the memorial as part of their normal course of studies.

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After the end of the memorial service marking the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the park hosted a protest against nuclear energy and weapons.

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The protesters called on the Japanese government to reconsider its nuclear policy.

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6 August 2011

Voice of Russia World Service

 http://rus.ruvr.ru/photoalbum/54277841/54277844/index.html

Editor’s Note:

President Dwight D Eisenhower said this concerning the Hiroshima bombing:

I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.

Here are three more quotes from Ike that I’d like you to think over:

Every gun that’s made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and aren’t fed, those who are cold and aren’t clothed. 

If a political party doesn’t have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that’s right and that’s moral, then, it isn’t a political party; it’s merely a conspiracy to seize power.

Un-American activity can’t be prevented or routed out by employing un-American methods; to preserve freedom, we must use the tools that freedom provides.

These three quotes convict the Tea Party, the New GOP, the rightwing commentariat, and its demented supporters of premeditated evil and greed before the Divine Bar of Truth. It’s why I oppose them without measure, and it’s why you should do the same. Otherwise, the lights WILL go out, maybe not permanently, but certainly for our time…

BMD

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6 August 2011. Good-Sense from Canada on Lil’ Mizz Sarah Palin… Why is Fox News Paying Her Millions? Perspirin’ Minds wanna Know!

Editor’s Foreword:

This was written about three months ago… it’s held up, and, even, gained in meaning. Why does Fox News pay MILLIONS to a rightwing has-been when there are MILLIONS unemployed… and their beloved Tea Party just slashed extended unemployment bennies for the newly-unemployed? More on that later… first, take a look…

BMD

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Last I heard about Sarah Palin was contained in a story with the headline, “Sarah Palin tours India and Israel to get to grips with foreign policy”. It was tempting to see this headline in itself as illuminating, if not incisive. Who else would undertake a crash course in foreign-policy issues by starting with countries that, in turn, start with the letter “I?” You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to see some significance… the joke writes itself.

Before that, the top item in Sarah Palin news was a spat between Palin and comedienne Kathy Griffin. As soon as it was announced that Griffin would play a Palin-like character on an episode of Glee, Palin was on the attack. On Fox News, live from Alaska… with water and trees in the background, naturally… she called Griffin a “50-year-old bully” and attacked her for mocking the former governor’s daughters. It was familiar Palin… smiling, finger-pointing, imprecise, and attacking a professional comedienne for making fun of people. Yet, it was all so lame. The Palin bite had gone. The Palin buzz has gone. Sarah Palin’s over, so over. How over? A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that her approval ratings among committed Republicans in the US had faded dramatically since previously measured last October. In fact, her “strongly unfavourable” rating has skyrocketed among Republicans. In recent political commentary in the US, the talk is of her presidential bid “imploding.”

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Television destroyed Sarah Palin, just as it made her. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again… the arrival of Palin as a major political figure in 2008 was an emanation of the reality-TV culture, anchored in the belief that ordinary or “everyday” people, inarticulate though they may be, and with all the baggage of messy personal lives, are truly compelling public figures. Palin was the political equivalent. A figure that refracts national identity as it’s shaped by the culture’s most powerful medium. Authentic, populist, and dismissive of sophistication in thought and action. Then, television duly destroyed the Palin authenticity. The arc of her national political career began with a defining speech at the Republican National Convention in September 2008 and ended in November 2010, a few episodes into Sarah Palin’s Alaska. The show, a cringingly inevitable reality-TV series, gave her a huge platform, and she blew it. If her exposure on TV in 2008 brought out the authenticity, the show brought out Palin’s inner princess. She talked about being a mom 87 times an episode (I’m exaggerating, but only a little) and made dubious attempts to make political parables linking her family, the outdoors and wildlife. It was ego unbounded. This… after quitting her job as governor of Alaska. The series had many memorable moments and scenes, but what lingered… and obviously had an impact on Republicans… was the unsubtle undermining of Palin’s assertion that she and her family are “normal average Americans”. A salmon-fishing trip for the kids involved using a private bush plane to fly to a remote wilderness lake. Palin asserted that such a trip is “an everyday thing” in Alaska; yet, any fool watching at home knew the cost had to be in the many thousands. A mountain-climbing trip to Mount McKinley was presented as a trip in the family RV; yet, viewers were gobsmacked to find that the vehicle was more like those giant luxury tour buses used by rock bands.

Television isn’t kind to blatant hubris and hypocrisy and the series amounted to an epic failure to enhance Palin’s status as the genuine voice of authentic America. Television is flow, not content, and, in politics, TV isn’t a problem to be managed, but an instrument to be played (Marshall McLuhan told us so and it’s true.) The flow of Sarah Palin’s Alaska amounted to a river of platitudes and patently insincere assertions. Palin failed to play television as an instrument. The medium that gave her exposure and heft as a figure representing everyday reality and ordinary people’s views, finally, diminished her fatally. After succumbing to the temptations of a reality-TV series, Palin was exposed as overexposed. The other week, while on Fox News attacking Kathy Griffin, she had all the political heft of some batty lady calling into the phone-in radio show from remote Alaska and braying about things that made sense only in her own head. The presence, the charisma, was gone. Palin arrived as a creature of TV and the medium has eaten her up. Never mind the primaries and US presidential election in 2012. The political obituary can be written now.

23 May 2011

John Doyle

The Globe and Mail (Toronto ON)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/television/john-doyle/how-television-created-and-then-killed-sarah-palins-political-prospects/article1952055/

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This is also JP’s world… think on it…

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Editor’s Afterword:

This has particular resonance for us as Orthodox Christians. Some konvertsy are attempting to hijack the Church and ram rightwing shibboleths down all our throats in the name of a notional “culture war”. Jonas Paffhausen is such… his pal Matthew Tate is such… Moriak and Dahulich appear to echo such rubbish (one would think that po-nashemu sorts who came from the ACROD would show more good-sense)… the “OCA Truth” crowd marches to the tune of these demented drummers, too. Indeed, one can generalise and say that all of the former splinter Episkies who came to us from the PECUSA/TEC are radical rightwingers bent on deforming Christ and His Church… it’s why they were run out of the TEC… it’s why we’ll have to do likewise. They’re the Orthodox equivalent of Sarah Palin… they’ve had a 25-year run as the “darlings” of the Church… they’ve proven themselves empty and without merit. As a wise old Serbian priest said, “I’m glad that they’re Orthodox… everybody should be Orthodox. However, they can’t go about telling me how to be Orthodox”.

Sarah Palin, politically, and JP, Tate, Dreher, Freddie M-G, Mattingly et al, religiously, are cut from the same bolt of mouldy and moth-eaten cloth. They’ve all proven themselves devoid of anything substantially good… look at Lil’ Mizz Sarah resigning as Alaska governor to become a high-paying Fox News shill and look at JP refused to release any information on the Dickie Wood affair. They’re cut from the same block of wood… does it surprise you to find out that JP’s a rabid and extremist Tea Party rightwinger? Am I being catty in pointing up that JP was silent about his Tea Party pals slashing unemployment bennies? The number of employed people is going down, even in official figures, and this poseur says nothing. He’s in favour of those who slammed their boot-heel full-force into the faces of the prostrate unemployed! That means that he does so, as well, in God’s eyes. JP (and all those who agree with and defend him) will have to answer on the Last Day for his heartless, selfish, and smirky approval of this travesty… everyone who lost their living and suffered due to his cheerleading for the ‘baggers will accuse him… and, if he doesn’t turn from his sins and live, St Peter will trip the trap under him. He’ll have a WARM home for eternity…

BMD

Rogozin Said that NATO is Preparing to Attack Syria

There’s NO crisis… we have BILLIONS for bombing those horrible terrorist wogs in the Middle East… we have NOTHING for those lazy layabout unemployed louts in the USA… the Republican Party (and its oligarch backers) says so! Ponder the above image… it’s the end result of what Hillary Clinton and John Boehner want (along with their cheerleaders Rush, Lil’ Mizz Sarah, O’Reilly, and Michelle)… they don’t give a rat’s ass whether you live or die, so long as they live high off the hog…

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Dmitri Rogozin, the RF Permanent Representative to NATO, said that the alliance is starting to plan military operations against Syria, as the EU prepares to tighten sanctions against Damascus…

Today, Rogozin said, in an interview with the newspaper Izvestiya, that such a campaign would be “the logical dénouement of the military and propaganda operations of certain Western states in North Africa”. He went on to say, “Such actions are possible, particularly, where the country’s leadership factions don’t parrot the West’s self-serving party-line”. Rogozin also said, “Russia anticipates that the West will misinterpret UN Security Council resolutions, as they did in the case of Libya, so, we’ll prevent any violent development of events”. Last Wednesday, the UN Security Council condemned the Syrian government for using force against protests and called on all parties in the conflict to refrain from violence. This appeal was only in the form of a statement from the chairman of the UN Security Council; despite the fact that some Western countries sought a more rigorous reaction… they wanted an actual resolution. The Council also called on the Syrian authorities to carry out the reforms that they promised earlier.

EU didn’t decide to ban Syrian gas and oil imports into the EU

There’s no sustainable majority within the EU in favour of expanding sanctions against Syria in the form of a ban on Syrian oil and gas imports into the EU. The EU Committee on Policy and Security announced this after their meeting yesterday in Brussels. A Western diplomat noted that the results of the discussions showed “only a very small number of EU states now favour sanctions against energy imports from Damascus”. Meanwhile, the participants decided to prepare, for the upcoming 2 September meeting in Warsaw of EU foreign ministers, a draft for new sanctions against Syria. The EU didn’t exclude that it might include “energetic measures” {one should note that, in the BRD (the most influential EU member), die Linke, the Greens, and the SPD oppose such violent measures vigorously: editor}. Currently, Syria exports 150,000 barrels of oil per day, primarily to Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Italy. A number of European companies are involved in natural gas extraction in Syria, amongst them being the biggest energy group in the EU, Royal Dutch Shell. Annually, Syria earns approximately 1.8 billion Euros (72.7 billion Roubles. 2.57 billion USD. 1.57 billion UK Pounds) from energy exports, nearly 30 percent of the total state budget revenues. As they didn’t decide to place an embargo on the export of Syrian oil and gas, the EU Committee on Policy and Security ordered EU ambassadors in Damascus to provide an additional list of individuals and companies that they can use to augment the so-called “EU Black List”. To date, it forbids 35 citizens of Syria from entering the EU and outlaws four organisations. The EU has frozen all of their assets, including bank accounts. According to diplomatic sources, the EU may expand its “black list” next week. The Committee on Policy and Security is one of the EU’s permanent structures, which makes recommendations regarding the defence and diplomatic activities of the union, as well as issuing appreciations on the security situation. It’s composed of representatives nominated by the various EU governments.

US government accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of complicity in the deaths of more than 2,000 Syrians

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that the brutal actions of the government of Bashar al-Assad in suppressing “peaceful” demonstrations in Syria led to the deaths of more than 2,000 people. During his speech, Ms Clinton reiterated that Washington “doesn’t consider Bashar al-Assad the legitimate leader of Syria”. She went on to say that, today, the USA and its allies “have enabled a strategy to put more pressure upon the government of the republic, in addition to the sanctions that we announced on 4 August”. Yesterday, the USA imposed sanctions against one of the largest employers in Syria, Muhammad Hamsho, and the EU Committee on Policy and Security ordered EU ambassadors in Damascus to provide an additional list of individuals and companies that they can use to augment the so-called “EU Black List”. According to figures from US sources, the last day of the riots in Syria killed more than 100 people. Protests in Syria began in March in Dera’a in the south, and, then, spread to other regions. According to Syrian human rights activists, more than 1,350 people died, and nearly 3,000 people were missing in clashes with security forces. According to official figures, 340 soldiers and security personnel died since the beginning of “events instigated by armed terrorist elements”, whom Syrian authorities blame for the current violence.

5 August 2011

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2011/08/05/54216673.html

Editor’s Note:

It’s clear that the US political duopoly, both Internationalist Democrats and Tea Party Republicans, is in the deep kimchi. They’re desperately trying to divert attention from the deteriorating situation at home by mad jingoistic adventures in foreign parts. The Tea Party Republicans are in worse shape than the Democrats are… only they don’t realise it (as they’re generally an ignorant dimwit lot (they make Jethro Bodine look like a genius)). The budget cuts will cut into and slash the middle class horribly… yet, the the Five Percenters party on heartily, with no sacrifices whatsoever. Ordinary folks will notice that… if they have good-sense, they’ll vote out the godless money-grubbing Tea Party filth next November.

However… the banks have thrown some two million families onto the street via foreclosure (some five to six million more families are going to join them in the coming year), S&P reduced the US government’s credit rating in retataliation for the non-passage of the Tea Party’s extortionate and lunatic demands, and emergency unemployment benefits for all those losing their jobs after 1 July 2011 were terminated. The Tea Partiers are demented children dancing about a pile of dynamite… and they’re tossing matches on the pile, giggling manically away… nothing’s going to happen to them! Shall Syria be “a bridge too far?” I fear that American soldiers from ordinary families are going to die for the hubris of the Tea Party and the Internationalist Democrats (and to fatten the boodle bags of the oligarchs… their kids aren’t coming home in zinc coffins, no siree). Doesn’t that make you sick? Don’t forget to comfort and extend your hand to the families of those who’ll lose loved ones in this pointless war… they didn’t cause it… but don’t forget who DID cause it! VOTE… you CAN vote the Tea Party out! Bernie Sanders for US President… now, that’s someone I’d be GLAD to vote for…

BMD  

Ex-Ukrainian PM Yuliya Timoshenko Arrested

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All reports indicate that the number of “protestors” is very small… most Western agencies are releasing VERY tightly focused shots of these groups… predominately, they’re fewer than fifty people, and they’re closer to twenty than to fifty in most cases.

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On Friday, a Ukrainian court in Kiev approved the detention of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Timoshenko. The move came during a court hearing on abuse of offices charges stemming from Timoshenko signing a 2009 Russian-Ukrainian gas deal. Timoshenko supporters, including opposition lawmakers, scuffled with some 30 police officers who entered the courtroom to detain her. The court satisfied a request by procurator Lilya Frolova to arrest Timoshenko rather than just maintain a current ban on her travelling outside Kiev, citing repeated violations of court order by the defendant. Frolova said Timoshenko obstructed the investigation into the case. The Prokuratura filed their request to detain Yuliya Vladimirovna during Friday’s court session after Timoshenko accused current Ukrainian PM Nikolai Azarov of corruption whilst he was giving testimony. Timoshenko’s lawyer, Yuri Sukhov, said he would appeal her detention on Monday.

Timoshenko, currently a leader of the opposition, faces charges for signing a 2009 gas contract with Russian gas company Gazprom that Kiev says was disadvantageous to the Ukraine and which, according to the new government that came to power last year, Timoshenko had no right to sign. Timoshenko’s former lawyer Sergei Vlasenko described the court’s decision to arrest her as “unprecedented and groundless”. The presiding judge removed Vlasenko from the case for contempt of court because he continually refused to stand when the judge entered the courtroom. In late July, the court rejected a previous request by the prosecutor to arrest the former premier. Besides the gas case, the ex-premier also faces charges of misusing 425 million USD (12.015 billion Roubles. 298 million Euros. 260 million UK Pounds) that her government received in 2009 from the selling its carbon emission rights under the Kyoto protocol. She faces up to ten years behind bars if found guilty. Timoshenko repeatedly dismissed all charges brought against her as political, saying she is being targeted for opposing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who narrowly beat her in the presidential election in February 2010.

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On Saturday, Ukrainian PM Nikolai Azarov said that the detention of ex-Ukrainian PM Yuliya Timoshenko wouldn’t cause difficulties in Ukrainian accession to the EU. Before the end of this year, Ukrainian authorities expect to sign an association agreement with the EU and create a free trade zone. Previously, a number of European politicians and human rights organisations expressed concern about the criminal prosecution of ex-PM Yuliya Timoshenko and former members of her Government, stating that such actions by the Ukrainian security apparatus may affect relations between Kiev and Brussels. “As our country’s rich and prosperous, we’ll integrate into Europe very easily and quickly. We won’t beg for handouts… no, that’s not what we’re going to do. Our European future depends on us, not on any cliques, any experts, or any other dependent set”, Azarov said when he arrived in Kiev Oblast to attend a festival. Azarov also asked journalists questioning him about the possible consequences of the arrest of Timoshenko not to dwell on the possible bad outcomes for the Ukraine that could come of it.

On Friday, during a hearing on the gas contract corruption charges, the authorities took Timoshenko into custody. Procurator Liliya Frolova requested a change in Timoshenko’s bail status after Timoshenko accused present Ukrainian PM Azarov of corruption during his administration of the tax administration (Azarov was head from 1996-2002). The Court granted the motion of the Prokuratura; in particular, Judge Rodion Kireyev argued that Timoshenko repeatedly violated the orders of the Court, making it difficult to establish the truth of the case. Timoshenko was Ukrainian PM in 2005 and 2007-10. The Ukrainian Genprokuratura accused her of exceeding her official powers in signing a contract for the supply of Russian gas in 2009. Yesterday, Oleg Voloshin, the Director of Information Policy for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told RIA-Novosti that Timoshenko’s detention wouldn’t affect the process of the Ukraine’s European integration and it wouldn’t complicate relations between Kiev and its European partners.

5 August 2011

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20110805/165580506.html http://ria.ru/world/20110806/412747900.html

Thieves Belong in Prison

Arkady Arseniev

2004

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Editor’s Note:

One of my Moscow friends has an interesting theory (there’s no evidence, but it shows what people are talking about). She believes that Yuliya’s in the nick because the Ukrainian government feared an American operation to free her. That’s one of the rumours that’s reached the Centre. In the light of the bin Laden hit, it appears that Yanukovich’s taking no chances (after the S&P downgrade, the USA’s looking for “good news”). After all, there’s enough unpatriotic and self-serving Neoliberal “conservative” Uniate and Proddie swine who’d cooperate with any American special services op (never forget that the last Uniate chieftain held a US passport and was the CIA’s drooling lapdog). Seen in this light, such an action isn’t paranoid; it’s prudent and shows eminent good-sense. As for the actual motivation of the detention, there’s no real information… that’s why everyone’s speculating on it. However, no matter what the merits of the gas contract corruption charge, Yuliya Vladimirovna was both corrupt to the bone and had contacts with American special services… both merit imprisonment… as the above poster says, “Thieves belong in prison”…

BMD