Tidbits, Reader Response & Announcements
July 28, 2012

-  Saudi Police Fire Live Rounds On Protesters

-  SYRIA: cry for freedom turned into civil war- host
a screening of THE SUFFERING GRASSES to raise
awareness/action (Iara Lee)

-  Ecuador 'Checkmates' Sweden, UK, & US re
Julian Assange ! (James E Vann)

-  Re: 60 Mass Shootings Since Tucson (Richard
Kostelanetz)

-  Video: Capitalism in Crisis? - Interview with David
Harvey and Richard Wolff

-  San Francisco Event - What's Militarism Got to Do
with It?

-  Review: Bahrain, Shouting in the Dark

==========

Saudi Police Fire Live Rounds On Protesters in Qatif

Russia Today
July 28, 2012

http://www.rt.com/news/saudi-police-fire-protestors-qatif-wounded-212/

    Video By RT
    http://www.rt.com/files/news/saudi-police-fire-protestors-qatif-wounded-212/i3adc99fc6da515f8404a7b4e14e336de_qatif-clashes-saudi-arabia.flv

    Several demonstrators have been wounded in
    Saudi Arabia's eastern district of Qatif after
    security forces opened fire on protesters.

Several demonstrators have been wounded in Saudi
Arabia's eastern district of Qatif after security forces
opened fire on protesters. Officers fired live rounds
at demonstrators who carried posters of those
injured and arrested earlier this month.

Spokesmen for the Saudi Interior Ministry said
several people were burning tires during the
protests, and several arrests were made.

Among those arrested today was Mohammed al-
Shakhuri, who is on a list of the country's 23 most-
wanted people, Al-Manar News reported. Witnesses
said Shakhuri was taken to a military hospital with
bullet wounds in his back and neck.

"There were no casualties," the Interior Ministry said
in a statement.

Clashes between police and protesters have
increased in recent days, following the deaths of two
protesters earlier this month.

Protests began in Saudi Arabia last March, when a
Shia uprising in neighbouring Bahrain was crushed
by Gulf troops, led by Saudi Arabia.

Demonstrations escalated earlier this month, after a
prominent Shia cleric was arrested for being what
the interior ministry deemed an "instigator of
sedition."His detainment has been the source of
widespread demonstrations demanding an end to
sectarian discrimination in the region.

Shia Muslims have long complained of
marginalization at the hands of Saudi Arabia's
Sunni ruling family. They were demanding greater
rights and an end to what they believe is
discrimination by the rulers.

Political analyst Dr. Mohsen Saleh explains that the
protests are taking place in the country's major oil-
producing region, where, at the same time, the
poorest people live.

"The eastern part in Saudi Arabia has been
agonizing for a long time, for centuries.They have
been deprived of their basic rights," he told RT.
"When the peaceful [protests] started in Bahrain, the
Saudis thought [the same may happen in their
country] - and they were right in thinking so,
because they are discriminating against an essential
part of their people in the east.

"And it's an irony that all kinds of [carbohydrates -
oil] and gas are produced there. [And still], these
people are the poorest in their country. That's why
the [Saudi rulers] fear that the agony of these people
might be a mark of a great revolution in Saudi
Arabia. And that's what the United States and the
Saudis are really afraid of," he concluded.

The latest events in Saudi Arabia follow the eight
latest arrests that were made Thursday in the
United Arab Emirates, where the government
announced an investigation into groups plotting
crimes against the state.

Similar crackdowns have earlier taken place in
Bahrain.

============

-  SYRIA: cry for freedom turned into civil war- host a
screening of THE SUFFERING GRASSES to raise
awareness/action!!!

INT'L ACTION NEEDED: what started as a cry for
freedom is now a civil war. The situation in Syria is
urgent, and it is crucial that we offer support and
solidarity to Syrian civilians displaced inside the
country, and those made refugees outside of it. We
are offering our film, THE SUFFERING GRASSES, as
a tool to help raise awareness and encourage
proactive involvement in support of a free Syria!
Host a screening for your community, or even for
your friends/family. Inspire them to extend
solidarity to the Syrian people! If you can host a
screening/debate, contact us at:
[log in to unmask]

Trailer and more info:
www.culturesofresistance.org/suffering-grasses

In solidarity,

IARA LEE
http://www.facebook.com/iara.lee.filmmaker.activist

www.huffingtonpost.com/iara-lee

                          - - -

THE SUFFERING GRASSES: when elephants fight, it
is the grass that suffers directed by iara lee

Over a year later, with thousands dead and
counting, the ongoing conflict in Syria has become a
microcosm for the complicated politics of the region,
and an unsavory reflection of the world at large.
Against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, NATO's
toppling of Moammar Qaddafi in Libya, and the
complicated politics of the region, this film seeks to
explore the Syrian conflict through the humanity of
the civilians who have been killed, abused, and
displaced to the squalor of refugee camps. In all
such conflicts, large and small, it is civilians -
women and children, families and whole
communities - who suffer at the leisure of those in
power. While focusing on the plight of those caught
in the crossfire of the hegemons, we seek to unravel
the conflict by exploring the motivations of its actors
- the Ba'athist regime of Bashar al- Assad, the Free
Syrian Army and other geopolitical players like the
United States, Israel, Russia, China, Iran, Lebanon,
Turkey, the Gulf countries... When elephants go to
war, it is the grass that suffers. This is a film about
the elephants, but made for the grasses.

==========

-  Ecuador 'Checkmates' Sweden, UK, & US re Julian Assange !

The Julian Assange saga has been nothing less than
vexing and slow-crawling employing the most idiotic
actions imaginable. Throughout, the Brits' have
exercised judicial fumbling, and ultimately a totally
wrong High Court decision to extradite Assange to
Sweden -- the exact outcome desired by the US.
The vampire US awaits, salivating at the
opportunity to grab Assange from a too too willing
Sweden, where under "extraordinary rendition" he
would be out-sourced to a brutal country to be
tortured, and if survives to face 'indefinite detention'
under current US illegal war policies.  It took the
little nation of Ecuador to voice the obvious.  Since
Assange has not been charged anywhere with any
crime, and since it is only one Swedish prosecutor
who wants to question him, why did it have to wait
for Assange to seek asylum before Britain simply
"invited" the Swedish prosecutor to come to UK, free
to question Assange to his satisfaction.  It has been
painful hoping in vain to hear such simple direct
solution from English lips, rather than their rush to
imprison and extradite Assange.  Finally, today,
Ecuador brilliantly 'checkmated' Sweden, Britain,
and US in the unescapable position of having to
expose their true intents.  Any wiggling from any of
the three will ensure permanent protective asylum
for the heroic Assange.  Brilliant !!

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/367-wikileaks/12633-ecuadorean-officials-invite-swedish-authorities-to-london-to-interview-assange

James E Vann, Political & Community Activist
Oakland, California

==========

-  Re: 60 Mass Shootings Since Tucson

how many, pray tell, were in places self-declared
gun-free (or whatever), thus giving safely to the
mass murderer?

Richard Kostelanetz

==========

-  Video: Capitalism in Crisis?

Interview with David Harvey and Richard Wolff The
Charlie Rose Show (PBS) July 26, 2012

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12474

[Portside thanks Chris Caruso for sharing this with
Portside readers.]

==========

San Francisco Event - What's Militarism Got to Do
with It?

The U.S. is winding down its direct military
involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are new
times for people concerned about peace and justice.
The 21st century's first "big" wars, the ones that
have sent hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers
across the world, are drawing to a close. But
Washington is still committed to dominance through
military power - whether that power is projected
with drone attacks, naval maneuvers, its far-flung
network of military bases, or its stockpile of nuclear
weapons.

Unfortunately, ending the engagements in Iraq and
Afghanistan doesn't mean a retreat from militarism
itself. Abroad, the U.S. continues to employ the
actual and threatened use of military power. And
here at home, economic, social, and cultural
structures enhance and enforce the belief that our
safety and security depend on the organized,
authoritative use of lethal force.

War Times/Tiempo de Guerras invites you to a
panel discussion about U.S. militarism - its
structure and meaning, and its effects on other
nations, our own communities, and on the men and
women who serve in the U.S. armed forces.

Date: Saturday, August 4, 2012

Time: 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Panel: -  Rebecca Gordon, War Times/Tiempo de
Guerras -  Rachel Herzing, Critical Resistance -
Sarah Lazare, Civilian-Soldier Alliance, organizer
with U.S. anti-war veterans and the GI resistance
movement

Place: The Eric Quezada Center for Culture and
Politics

518 Valencia Street, San Francisco (wheelchair
accessible/near 16th Street BART)

====================

Review: Bahrain, Shouting in the Dark

By Nama Khalil
Foreign Policy in Focus
July 24, 2012

http://www.fpif.org/articles/review_bahrain_shouting_in_the_dark

Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaTKDMYOBOU

During the democratic uprisings that began in the
Arab world in 2011, the entire world has focused on
Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and now Syria. On February
16, Bahrainis participated in what the Qatar-based
television station Al Jazeera has called a "secret
revolution," one that was "abandoned by Arabs,
forsaken by West and forgotten by the world." With
no international reporters in Bahrain to capture the
uprising, Al Jazeera documented, in trembling
closeness, the courage demonstrated by the
Bahraini protesters, and then the horrors and
bloodshed that ensued once the ruler's forces
commenced their attack.

This timely and inspiring footage, which ultimately
tells a disheartening story, can now be seen in the
new documentary Bahrain: Shouting in the
Dark.The film documents how Bahrainis maintained
their dignity through years of absolutism and then,
inspired by events taking place elsewhere in the
Arab world, gathered around the Pearl Roundabout
in the capital city of Manama to demand freedom
from a corrupt regime. It started with the familiar
chant "the people want the fall of the regime" but
ended when the regime crushed the protests at the
Pearl Roundabout.

Bahrain is a small island situated near the western
shores of the Persian Gulf. Since the 18th century,
the Khalifa family has ruled the country. The
current head of the family is Hamad bin Isa Al
Khalifa, who became the emir of Bahrain in 1999
and proclaimed himself King of Bahrain in 2002.
The documentary reveals that the ruling family
acquired $40 billion in public land for
themselves-approximately 10 percent of the
country. The Al Khalifa family professes Sunni Islam
and rules a majority Shia population. The Bahraini
uprising has often been portrayed as a sectarian
struggle between Sunni and Shia. However,
Shouting in the Dark provides an alternative
narrative that demonstrates the unity among
Bahrain's citizens and the political, rather than
religious, nature of their demands. The
demonstrators simply wanted their "minimum basic
rights" as human beings.

Shouting in the Dark narrates how Western rulers
chose to ignore Bahrain because the Bahraini ruling
familyis an important strategic ally in the Middle
East. The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet is based in
Bahrain, and the island state is located near Saudi
Arabia's oil fields.  Furthermore, the Gulf
Cooperation Council-the political and economic
union of the Arab states bordering the Persian
Gulf-pledged to support the Khalifa ruling family.
Saudi Arabia sent tanks to Bahrain to surround the
Pearl Roundabout and restore order in the country.

In the aftermath of the protests, the Bahraini
government severely cracked down on the activists.
State television launched a campaign that divided
the people and ignited sectarian tension. The
government accused the protestors of being traitors
and blamed Iran for the violence that ensued in the
roundabout. The Bahraini authorities arrested
prominent Bahrainis like A'ala Hubail and his
brother Mohamed Hubail, both members of the
national soccer team, in connection with their
participation in the 2011 protests, humiliated them
on television, and then imprisoned and tortured
them. Ayat al Qurmezi, a veiled young female, was
arrested for reciting a poem that criticized the royal
family. Human rights lawyer Mohammed Al Tajer
and opposition politician Matar Matar were also
arrested and are currently on trial. Security forces
gunned down several peaceful Bahraini protestors
in the streets and in their homes. Police detained
many dissidents at police checkpoints, then later
dumped their bodies on the road, marked with
unmistakable evidence of torture.

Shouting in the Dark is a painful, mesmerizing, and
tragic documentary. Finally, with all this Al Jazeera
footage in one place, it is possible to view the one
Arab uprising that has largely been hidden from
view.

___________________________________________

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