Monthly Archives: February 2017

The government of Sweden has been accused of hypocrisy for attacking Donald Trumps stance on womens rights but rolling over for the oppressive regime in Iran.

Female ministers in Sweden who claim to run a feminist government gloried in viral fame earlier this month for Trump over his executive order restricting funds to pro-abortion groups.

After Trump was slammed for signing the order surrounded by men, Swedish officials staged an all-women photo as a smug rebuke to the White House.

However, just weeks later they have been accused of double standards for sucking up to Iran when they demanded government visitors wear the hijab a symbol of female oppression during a trade visit.

Swedish trade minister Ann Linde was photographed in a veil in Tehran, alongside female officials and journalists, who all had to do the same thanks to Irans Islamic modesty laws.

Activists in the country said the incident shows that Sweden is happy to put economic advantage ahead of womens rights when it suits them.

The My Stealthy Freedom campaign which records how Iranian women are arrested and beaten upby police for wearing the wrong clothes released a statement condemning the Swedish authorities:

The criticism was taken up by Swedish politicians, who attacked their government for abandoning its principles.

Amineh Kakabaveh, a Swedish MP of Iranian descent, said: Iranian women are fighting to not wear the veil. Then the feminist government representatives go and put on the veil instead taking a stand.

An article by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladetreported that the dress of Swedish female visitors was closely policed when they came on the visit.

It said: During the visit President Hassan Rouhanis staff went round the female journalists and ensured that they wore a tightly concealing shawl.

Even women from the Swedish government received instructions.

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Anti-Trump Swedish Government Accused of Hypocrisy for Kowtowing to Iran - Heat Street

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Feb 13, 2017

Prior to last years election, supporters of Hillary Clinton worried that Donald Trump and his supporters might not accept Hillary Clintons victory as legitimate. It never occurred to them that the shoe might soon be on the other foot. Shortly after it became apparent that there would be no Clinton victory party, many of her supporters instantly switched gears and began to question the legitimacy of Trumps victory.

No matter how much it angers some people, though, Donald Trump is the duly elected President of the United States. Still, there is a much more fundamental question about the legitimacy of the government he leads. Its has nothing to do with who won the election.

Over the past four decades, American government has been completely transformed by the growth of the Regulatory State. Most governing decisions are now made by distant bureaucrats with little input from Congress. Courts rarely provide any checks and balances giving executive branch officials free reign to interpret laws according to their own preferences and agendas.

An unaccountable government, insulated from the public and their elected representatives, threatens the very legitimacy of a democratic political system, according to Yale Universitys Jonathan G.S. Koppell. The Regulatory State is not merely unconstitutional; it is anti-constitutional, adds Boston University Law Professor Gary Lawson. The Constitution was designed specifically to prevent the emergence of [these] kinds of institutions.

By placing its faith in unaccountable government officials to pick winners and losers, the Regulatory State is a rejection of the core American values of freedom, equality and self-governance. This hostile takeover of Americas government did not happen by accident or misunderstanding. Its architects did not misunderstand the Constitution, explains Lawson. They understood it perfectly well. They just didnt like it.

Lacking Constitutional authority, the Regulatory State might conceivably claim legitimacy by appealing to the higher values expressed in the Declaration of Independence. But that great document says clearly that governments can derive just authority only from the consent of the governed.

The Regulatory State fails on that front as well. During the entire four decades of its existence, there has never been a time when a majority of Americans trusted the federal government (other than a brief blip immediately following 9/11). The longer that people have lived under the regulatory regime, the less they support it. Over the past decade, the number trusting the federal government to do the right thing most of the time has fallen to 25 percent or less.

The Regulatory State, therefore, can claim no legitimacy from either the Constitution or the Declaration. Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office and who controls Congress, it is an illegitimate form of government. It gives far too much power to the president, a fact that instills tremendous fear of oppression among those who support the losing candidate.

Its time to re-establish a legitimate government in America and restore our national commitment to freedom, equality, and self-governance. That means forcing the bureaucracy to live within our Constitutional system of checks and balances. Its the only way to ensure a bright future for our nation. Its also the only way to ensure that, regardless of who wins an election, all Americans can enjoy the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

See more here:

Do we have a legitimate government? - Altoona Mirror

Commentary by Danya Zituni |

February 12, 2017

Minneapolis protest against Trump's Muslim ban. (Fight Back! News/staff)

Tampa, FL - On Jan. 27, President Trump signed an executive order titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States which bars entry of nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries regardless of whether they have valid visas, green cards or refugee status.

This is a racist attack that specifically targets the people of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. These same countries in the Middle East and Africa have been subjected to the terror of U.S. wars, bombings and economic sanctions for decades. With military bases in foreign lands, armed personnel in 130 countries, and a military budget larger than the next ten governments combined, the U.S. ruling class maintain a worldwide empire of oppression that is constantly at war.

Sovereign governments that dare not bow to U.S. political and economic domination are punished with crippling sanctions as a form of collective punishment against civilians, and are targeted for brutal overthrow through direct invasion or proxy groups. Sanctions on Iran alone have resulted in massive inflation and 40% of the entire population in poverty, while the total death toll from ten years of the U.S.-led War on Terror is estimated at 2 million lives, according to a study from Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Trumps executive order calls for a review of the visa and refugee programs arguing numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since Sept. 11, 2001. But why should people perceive foreign-born terrorists as grave domestic threats when the FBI continually manufactures its own plots? In 2012, Petra Bartosiewicz in The Nation reviewed the post-9/11 body of terrorism cases and concluded that nearly every major post-9/11 terrorism-related prosecution has involved a sting operation, at the center of which is a government informant. Many informants are incentivized by money, and can be paid as much as $100,000 per assignment. The U.S. government provides the weapons, suggests the targets, and entraps Muslims to justify their War on Terror.

The billions invested yearly by the U.S. government into racist state repression and genocidal wars for corporate profit could instead be used to finance and improve education, health care, people's rights and welfare. However, it is not in the interests of bank-bailing and investor-driven politicians to make such radical changes a reality. Only through organizing independent of the political establishment controlled by and built for the rich can oppressed people harness and exercise our collective power as a conscious and united force to demand change. Through coordinated action we are saying that there can be no business as usual until our demands are met, and that the ruling class who own everything in society cant actually produce anything or make schools run without subservient students or workers.

A federal judge issued a temporary halt on Feb. 4 against the Muslim ban after tens of thousands of people protested in airports, communities and campuses across the country. Around 1000 Yemini owned stores closed for eight hours on Feb. 2 in the city of New York. Grassroots, mass-based organizations such as Arab American Action Network (AAAN) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) have continued to organize and raise demands for sanctuary campuses and cities. The Council on American and Islamic Relations (CAIR) has engaged in a legal battle with the Trump administration over the ban.

Additionally, one of the biggest victories for Muslim communities recently was the dismantling of a long existent bi-partisan Muslim registry called the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). NSEERS devastated our communities, alongside aggressive FBI surveillance and vicious entrapment. Thousands of families were torn apart, jobs were lost; some communities never fully recovered. Only after 14 years of almost constant organizing by groups such as Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) was it successfully dismantled.

The lesson of our recent victories, and nearly every historic struggle that won people's basic rights under this system, is that we need to build organizational power opposed to both parties of the capitalist 1% and their oppressive policies. Organizing paves the way for people to learn through struggle the necessity of organization as a means to protect their rights and welfare, a lesson we must consistently summate when educating our communities about their rights.

Read the rest here:

Organize to defeat Trump's Muslim ban - Fight Back! Newspaper