COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, January 09, 2015

French police surround terrorists





Live: Siege underway as police surround Charlie Hebdo suspects


© AFP | Members of the GIPN and RAID, French police special forces, walk in Corcy, northern France, on January 8, 2015 
Text by FRANCE 24 
Latest update : 2015-01-09

The police operation to detain the two suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack is underway Friday, with the three-day manhunt focused on a town 50 kilometres from Paris. The suspects are now surrounded and have reportedly taken at least one hostage.

  • The suspects - brothers Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34 - are thought to have taken one hostage at a small printing shop in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele in the Seine-et-Marne region, around 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) from Paris' main airport Charles De Gaulle. 
  • Shots were fired earlier on Friday north-east of Paris as police chased a car believed to contain the suspects, but there were no casualties.
  • The two brothers are suspected of killing 12 people at the Paris-based satirical weekly - eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker, and a visitor. 11 people were also wounded - four of them seriously.
  • Nine people have so far been detained in the search for the brothers.

Thursday, January 08, 2015

President Barack Obama on Thursday proposed making community college free "for everybody who is willing to work for it."


Obama to propose two free years of community college for students




President Barack Obama on Friday will propose making two years of community college free for students.

In a White House video posted Thursday evening, Obama said he wanted to offer “a little preview” of his plans for the Jan. 20 State of the Union address.

“What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.”

The proposal would make two years of community college free for students with a C+ average who attend school at least half-time and who are making “steady progress” toward their degree.

Obama will visit Pellissippi Community College in Tennessee on Friday. Beginning this year, any state high school graduate is eligible for two years of free community college tuition under the Tennessee Promise.

Federal funding would cover three-quarters of the average cost of community college, and Obama is asking states to pick up the rest of the tab — assuming Congress agrees to the plan in the first place.

“I hope we’ve got the chance to make sure that Congress gets behind these kinds of efforts to make sure that even as we rebound and grow in 2015, that it benefits everybody and not just some,” the president said in the video.
To be eligible, community colleges would have to offer academic programs that fully transfer credits to local public four-year colleges and universities or training programs with high graduation rates that lead to in-demand degrees and certificates. Community colleges must also adopt “promising and evidence-based institutional reforms” to improve student outcomes.

If all 50 states participate, the proposal could benefit 9 million students each year and save students an average of $3,800 in tuition, the White House said.
Nirvi Shah contributed to this report.








Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/barack-obama-free-community-college-114094.html#ixzz3OHP0zYFt

Paris suspects in Charlie Hebdo terror attack still at large

Paris Charlie Hebdo attack: live

Latest updates after attack in which three suspect al-Qaeda gunmen attack offices of Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, with 12 dead






This page will automatically update every 90 secondsOn Off
• Three suspects named; one, Hamyd Mourad, hands himself in
• Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi remain at large 
• Seven 'friends and associates' of suspects arrested 
• National day of mourning declared; midday silence
• Policeman seriously injured in second Paris shooting
• Paris Charlie Hebdo attack: January 7 as it happened

Latest 

08.39 Latest on the second shooting this morning in a suburb of southwestern Paris from: Henry Samuel 
QuoteThe police officer injured at Malakoff, southern Paris, is a woman. She is in a critical condition. The site has been cordoned off, with droves of police and emergency services.
However, authorities insist there is no proven link with the Charlie Hebdo killings.
According to iTele, two motorists were arguing after a collision, and when two police officers came over to help, one of the motorists opened fire. One suspect has been arrested, but the shooter has reportedly fled.
08.28 Thousands of people around the world have expressed their solidarity with satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo following the attack in Paris. 
We've pulled together a gallery of pictures from the global vigils held in protest against the terrorist atrocity. 
One of several Je Suis Charlie protests. (ENRIQUE CASTRO-MENDIVIL/REUTERS)
08.23 Matthew Holehouse, the Telegraph's Political Correspondent, says security has been raised at major public buildings in London following the Charlie Hebdo attack: 
QuoteExtra Metropolitan Police firearms officers were brought in from elsewhere in the capital to patrol the Houses of Parliament last night. 
Armed officers were also positioned at the front vehicle gates to the Palace of Westminster, in a change from normal practice. 
The attack coincided with the visit of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, to London. 
Police officers are also understood to have visited the officers of at least one magazine which has published articles critical of radical Islam. Staff were told to keep the front door locked and contact the Metropolitan Police at the first sign of trouble. 
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will this morning chair a meeting of COBRA, the government’s civil contingencies committee. 
The Prime Minister was briefed by MI5 and MI6 last night. He has offered France any assistance required from the British security services. 
The threat of an attack by a militant returning from Iraq and Syria is regarded as the greatest threat to British national security. 
The threat level was raised to Severe in August, meaning an attack is “highly likely” and could occur without warning. 
08.17 Television station iTELE said two police officers were lying on the ground after the attack. 
At least one officer has been seriously injured and one alleged gunman has been arrested, French media say. 
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is rushing to the scene of the incident, near Porte de Chatillon in the south of the French capital. 
08.11 We're getting the first pictures from the scene of the new Paris shooting this morning. 
Images show emergency medics and firefighters taking an injured person away on a stretcher near the site of the shootout in Montrouge. 
Medics and police at the scene of the Montrouge shooting. Thomas Samson/AFP
08.04 Le Monde reports that the Paris prosecutor's office has said no link has been confirmed "at this time" between the latest shooting and the attack against Charlie Hebdo. 
07.58 One suspect reportedly arrested after shootout in Malakoff, southern Paris. 
07.57 Said Kouachi, the older brother of the two suspects still missing, lived in Reims for the past year, a neighbour confirmed to RTL. 
07.46 Breaking: automatic gunfire has been reported at Montrouge near Paris, with one of two municipal policemen seriously injured, and gunmen escaping in metro, say French reports. 
Unclear if any link #CharlieHebdo 
07.44 The seven arrests made this morning are reportedly friends and associates of the three suspects. 
07.41 French sports newspaper L'Equipe - normally most accustomed to showing match results - has the headline: "Liberty 0 - Barbarity 12". 
Le Figaro's front page features an editorial claiming that "we did not, for a long time, want to admit that this war existed." It says that the French people must respond with unity, and with "arming themselves - morally, of course, but also politically and judicially."
Inside the paper, however, they detail why France should have expected this; how France is deeply involved in attacks against jihadists in North Africa and the Middle East; how 15 days ago a video was produced urging French Muslims to join the jihad; how Isil's magazine has just begun publishing in French. 
Le Parisien says "They will not kill freedom" - and inside describes the events as "Hollande's September 11". 
Liberation featured a blacked out cover with the words: "We are all Charlie."
07.30 The interior ministry has just confirmed that seven people have been arrested in connection with the investigation. 
It's not clear who they are, but we still think that the brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi are on the run. 
07.27 David Chazan in Charleville-Mezieres says Hamyd Mourad, the youngest suspect who handed himself in and according to some reports was in school during attack, is in custody and has not been charged. 
Hamyd Mourad is suspected of having been the getaway driver. 
07.03 Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, has been speaking on French television, and announced that "several" arrests have been made. 
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-Right Front National, has also been speaking - and told France 2 that "Islamists have declared war on France". 
She said: "French people need us to tell it like it is."
06.45 These image of the two suspects still on the run - Said, left, and Cherif Kouachi - have been released by the French police: 
AFP 
06.00 Harriet Alexander, one of the Telegraph team in Paris reports: 
QuoteFrance is waking up to the news that one of the three men suspected of being involved in the attack has handed himself in, while the other two remain on the run. 
"Hamyd Mourad, 18, was thought to be the getaway driver but at around 11pm last night he went to police in Charleville-Mezieres, northeast of Paris, to say that he was not connected to the attack. BFMTV spoke to someone who claimed that he was at school with Mourad at the time of the attack. 
"Said Kourachi, 34, and his 32-year-old brother Cherif - who is well known to police - remain on the run, and television channels this morning are warning people not to approach them and giving out a phone number to contact if they are seen by the public. 
04.20 Tributes continue to pour in for the slain journalists and cartoonists. a tearful Phillipe Val, the former Charlie Hebdo, is particularly poignant and moving on France Inter. 
Quote
“They were so alive, they loved to make people happy, to make them laugh, to give them generous ideas. They were very good people. They were the best among us, as those who make us laugh, who are for liberty ... They were assassinated, it is an insufferable butchery. 
"We must be helped to stand up against this horror. Terror must not defeat joie de vivre and the freedom of expression. 
"I am all alone, all my friends have gone...our country is not the same.A type of journalism has been exterminated. 
"We must continue to laugh, but it is difficult today
03.40 David Chazan is at Charleville-Mézières, north-eastern France, where the youngest suspect surrendered, He reports: 
Quote
The youngest of the three suspects, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, has surrendered to police here. He reportedly walked into the main police station of this town in north-eastern France and told investigators he was innocent. 
Police have issued photos of the two other suspects still at large, Said Kouachi, 34, and his brother Cherif, 32. They are appealing to anyone who sees them to alert police but not to approach them, as they are likely to be armed. Local sources say police reinforcements have been deployed on the border with Belgium, and a manhunt is in progress in the region.
03.00 Plenty of political reaction to the horrific attack in Paris. The remarks of Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican and one time presidential hopeful, on NewsMaxTV are likely to prove controversial. 
Quote
This is pretty obscene, when it comes to violence, and libertarians are pretty annoyed by anybody who initiates violence 
But in the context of things, France has been a target for many, many years, because they’ve been involved in foreign affairs in Libya, and they really prodded us along in — recently in Libya, but they’ve been involved in Algeria, so they’ve had attacks like this, you know, not infrequently. So, it does involve, you know, their foreign policy as well. When people do this, you know, the rejection of the violence has to be made, and with that I agree.”
I put blame on bad policy that we don’t fully understand, and we don’t understand what they’re doing because the people who are objecting to the foreign policy that we pursue, they do it from a different perspective,” Paul added. “They see us as attacking them, and killing innocent people, so yes, they, they have — this doesn’t justify, so don’t put those words in my mouth — it doesn’t justify, but it explains it. 
02.25 Police name of the two brothers suspected of carrying out the killings, Cherif Kouachi, 32 and his brother Said, 34, who are still at large and described as "armed and dangerous". 
01.25 AFP and French broadcaster, iTele are both reporting that the youngest of the suspects, Hamyd Mourad, 18, has surrendered to the police at Charleville-Mezieres, 53 miles north east of Reims. 
01.00 White House says President Barack Obama rang his French counterpart, Francois Hollande from Air Force One to voice his sympathy and support. 
QuoteThe President reiterated his earlier remarks that our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their loved ones, and that Americans stand beside the people of France in the aftermath of this outrage. He offered the resources of the United States as France works to identify, apprehend, and bring to justice the perpetrators and anyone who helped plan or enable this terrorist attack. 
President Hollande thanked the President for his words of support and provided an update on steps being taken to care for the victims and to arrest those responsible. He affirmed that France will never waver when faced with such adversity and will continue to defend the values of freedom and tolerance that the French republic and its people so nobly embody. 
00.30 Francois Hollande, French president announces a day of national mourning. 
QuoteNothing can divide us, nothing should separate us. Freedom will always be stronger than barbarity. France has always known how to defeat its enemies when it has known how to defend its values. Let us be united and we shall triumph.

Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Which vile interest groups will take advantage of this deliberately polarizing atrocity to push their own agenda?

Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment)
The horrific murder of the editor, cartoonists and other staff of the irreverent satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, along with two policemen, by terrorists in Paris was in my view a strategic strike, aiming at polarizing the French and European public.
The problem for a terrorist group like al-Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam. France is a country of 66 million, of which about 5 million is of Muslim heritage. But in polling, only a third, less than 2 million, say that they are interested in religion. French Muslims may be the most secular Muslim-heritage population in the world (ex-Soviet ethnic Muslims often also have low rates of belief and observance). Many Muslim immigrants in the post-war period to France came as laborers and were not literate people, and their grandchildren are rather distant from Middle Eastern fundamentalism, pursuing urban cosmopolitan culture such as rap and rai. In Paris, where Muslims tend to be better educated and more religious, the vast majority reject violence and say they are loyal to France.
Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.
This tactic is similar to the one used by Stalinists in the early 20th century. Decades ago I read an account by the philosopher Karl Popper of how he flirted with Marxism for about 6 months in 1919 when he was auditing classes at the University of Vienna. He left the group in disgust when he discovered that they were attempting to use false flag operations to provoke militant confrontations. In one of them police killed 8 socialist youth at Hörlgasse on 15 June 1919. For the unscrupulous among Bolsheviks–who would later be Stalinists– the fact that most students and workers don’t want to overthrow the business class is inconvenient, and so it seemed desirable to some of them to “sharpen the contradictions” between labor and capital.
The operatives who carried out this attack exhibit signs of professional training. They spoke unaccented French, and so certainly know that they are playing into the hands of Marine LePen and the Islamophobic French Right wing. They may have been French, but they appear to have been battle hardened. This horrific murder was not a pious protest against the defamation of a religious icon. It was an attempt to provoke European society into pogroms against French Muslims, at which point al-Qaeda recruitment would suddenly exhibit some successes instead of faltering in the face of lively Beur youth culture (French Arabs playfully call themselves by this anagram). Ironically, there are reports that one of the two policemen they killed was a Muslim.
Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, then led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, deployed this sort of polarization strategy successfully in Iraq, constantly attacking Shiites and their holy symbols, and provoking the ethnic cleansing of a million Sunnis from Baghdad. The polarization proceeded, with the help of various incarnations of Daesh (Arabic for ISIL or ISIS, which descends from al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia). And in the end, the brutal and genocidal strategy worked, such that Daesh was able to encompass all of Sunni Arab Iraq, which had suffered so many Shiite reprisals that they sought the umbrella of the very group that had deliberately and systematically provoked the Shiites.
“Sharpening the contradictions” is the strategy of sociopaths and totalitarians, aimed at unmooring people from their ordinary insouciance and preying on them, mobilizing their energies and wealth for the perverted purposes of a self-styled great leader.
The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals. 
For those who require unrelated people to take responsibility for those who claim to be their co-religionists (not a demand ever made of Christians), the al-Azhar Seminary, seat of Sunni Muslim learning and fatwas, condemned the attack, as did the Arab League that comprises 22 Muslim-majority states.
We have a model for response to terrorist provocation and attempts at sharpening the contradictions. It is Norway after Anders Behring Breivikcommitted mass murder of Norwegian leftists for being soft on Islam. The Norwegian government launched no war on terror. They tried Breivik in court as a common criminal. They remained committed to their admirable modern Norwegian values.
Most of France will also remain committed to French values of the Rights of Man, which they invented. But an insular and hateful minority will take advantage of this deliberately polarizing atrocity to push their own agenda. Europe’s future depends on whether the Marine LePens are allowed to become mainstream. Extremism thrives on other people’s extremism, and is inexorably defeated by tolerance.
Let me conclude by offering my profound condolences to the families, friends and fans of our murdered colleagues at Charlie Hebdo, including Stephane Charbonnier, Bernard Maris, and cartoonists Georges Wolinski Jean Cabut, aka Cabu, and Berbard Verlhac (Tignous)– and all the others. As Charbonnier, known as Charb, said, “I prefer to die standing than to live on my knees.”.

UPDATE
________________________

Cherif Kouachi: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know


Cherif Kouachi, 32, has been named as one of three suspects in the January 7 terror attack that killed 10 journalists and two police officers at the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo satire magazine in Paris. 
The other suspects have been named as Said Kouachi, 34, and Hamyd Mourad, 18. 
Here’s what we know so far:

1. He’s a Convicted Terrorist

cherif kouachi photos
(Handout)
The Associated Press reported in 2008 that Cherif Kouachi had been sentenced to three years in prison in Paris for helping to funnel prospective jihadi fighters from France to Iraq. He served 18 months, with the remainder of his sentence was suspended. In that case, Cherif was named as a member of the 19th arrondissement network, named for the mainly North African neighborhood where they were based. 
The New York Times first reported on Cherif in 2005. It was reported that he had become inspired to fight in jihad due to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses. Prior to the emergence of those abuses, the Liberation newspaper reported, that Cherif was not a devout muslim. He had girlfriends and smoked and drank alcohol.

2. Cherif & Said Are Orphan Brothers

Said Kouachi Passport Photo
Said Kouachi. (Handout)
Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi were born in Paris, raised in the French city of Rennes, and later moved to Paris, where Cherif worked as pizza delivery man, reports Metro News. The Kouachi brothers were orphaned by their Algerian-immigrant parents as children, reports Liberation.
(Handout)
(Handout)

Said Kouachi: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Said Kouachi has been named as one of the terrorist suspects who killed 12 journalists inside the offices of satire magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7.
Click here to read more

3. The Terrorists Were Armed With Rocket Launchers & Assault Rifles


It’s alleged that Mourad and his accomplices were armed with assault rifles and rocket launchers. In total 12 people were killed when the terrorists, who were described as commandos, stormed the offices of French satire magazine, Charlie Hebdo.
Of the 12 dead, 10 are journalists and cartoonists and two are police officers. Early reports suggest that specific journalists were called out by the gunmen before being shot. One of the police officers was shot at close range as he lay on the street. You can see more raw footage of the attack above.
A further 10 people were wounded in the attack, with a police spokesman describing the terrorists as “commandos.” Some of the wounded are reported to be in critical condition. Up to 50 shots were fired during the murders. 
French President Francois Hollande called the attack one “of exceptional barbarity.” Some of the deceased people have been named as Georges Wolinski, an 80-year-old famed cartoonist and economist Bernard Maris. The other victims have only been mainly referred to through their pen names, Cabu, Charb and Tignous. In 2012, Charb, Stephanie Charbonnier, was quoted as saying, “I prefer to die standing than to live on my knees.” He had received numerous death threats in the past and had been living in police protection. The magazine’s editor-in-chief Gerard Biard was not hurt in the attack, he was in London when the shooting occurred. 

4. The Investigation Is Centered in the City of Reims

Reims to Paris terrorist map
The city of Reims is about 90 miles east of Paris. (Google Maps)
French security forces have elevated the terror threat in the country to the highest possible level. La Parisien reported that cops had made raids on homes in Paris and also in the city of Reims related to the Charlie Hebdo attack. 

Hamyd Mourad: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Hamid Mourad has been named as one of the suspects in the terrorist attack on the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. 
Click here to read more

5. One of Cherif’s Alleged Comrades Just Graduated High School

charlie hebdo shooting, pictures, photos
(Philippe Dupeyrat/AFP/Getty Images)
While Cherif is an experienced jihadi, Hamyd Mourad is reported to be just 18 years old. Metro News in Paris reports that he was a student at a high school in in Charleville-Mezieres, in the city of Reims. 

Paris - Charlie Hebdo , Satirical Magazine Attacked: “Two black-hooded men entered the building with Kalashnikovs. A few minutes later we heard lots of shots."








Text by FRANCE 24 
Latest update : 2015-01-07

Shots have been fired at French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in the heart of Paris Wednesday, with Paris officials reporting at least 10 fatalities. Witnesses at the scene reported seeing multiple masked gunmen.