Thursday, May 14, 2009

Asia: Burma / Myanmar: R+ts advocate jeopardized by 'idiot Yank' swimming into her house-arrest residence

Emma Harley writing in Telegraph UK, "Ang Suu Kyi's biggest fan gets her arrested" (May14,2k9)

So some idiot Yank has swum across the lake surrounding the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma, and given the junta that has usurped her office the ammunition it needs to renew her detention if it chooses.

The American was uninvited. No one asked him to splash his way over and then drip on her carpet until men with guns came to take the object of his political desire away - the lady herself apparently asked him to leave. Acquaintances of Vietnam veteran John Yettaw, who at 53 is described as "a psychology student", say he is "a nutty fellow". No kidding. Let's hope he's not also given to self-recrimination because he has done something terminally, criminally stupid.

It is tempting to see this manic foreign intervention as a metaphor for the ill-focused good intentions lavished on Mrs Suu Kyi by the West. But for the regime to jail her for the actions of this selfish lunatic would be akin to jailing someone for being stalked. Or deselecting an MP for receiving the inevitable letters written in green and purple ink with the extra important addendums written sideways in the margin (such letters are always written on lined paper for some reason). It would be like killing a goat for being too seductive after it had been buggered by a goatherd. To jail her for this would demonstrate, if further proof were needed, that the regime in Burma is unreceptive to any kind of logic as the rest of the world understands it. It makes you wonder why they need a pretext at all?
Read the irreplaceable Garma Chang on Buddhist Logic (in trans 1969? Pennsylvania State University Press).
This is a regime that murdered thousands of students in 1988 when Burma had its own Tiananmen Square moment, which is consistently described by those in a position to know as one of the worst five regimes in the world, and which is currently jailing its own citizens for periods of 34 years and more for doing what the government itself failed to do and helping each other after 140,000 people died as a result of Hurricane Nargis - then having the timerity to speak about it to each other.
Think of the lack of paths to uppper mobility in Burma today. The military is like an established Buddhist order, with lifetime formation once you join up and rise in rank a little or a lot over time as you prove your ability and loyalty. A general has first of all his ranks and then the Sanga of Buddhists priests to secure first of all. Democracy? Instability, they think.



The French oil company Total is in Burma, as is US-owned Chevron. So the sanctions are patchy, to say the least. Brad Adam, director of Human Rights Watch's Asia operation, says that the only pressure that would make any conceivable difference to the Burmese junta would come from India, Thailand and most of all China.

"China is holding out against action on the UN Security Council. If anyone wants to help counteract the damage that has been done to Aung San Suu Kyi's democracy movement, they could usefully write to the Chinese embassy and tell them how angry they feel that China could fail to speak out to Burma, disregarding this brave woman's actions. There is a feeling that Burma is getting very close to the end of what China is prepared to put up with on this issue."
So, the point seems to be that People's Republic of China may have grown weary of Burma's rightwing generals and Buddhist h+ priests, with China preparing to pull the plug on them. I doubt it.

-- Politicarp

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Civil War: Pakstn: WaPo's Pamela Constable and Haq Nawaz Khan report 'Great Fear, Great Rage' in Pakistan

the militants agreed to disarm if sharia courts were made the exclusive form of justice in Swat.
According to reporters Constable and Khan (May7,2k9), the militants are Taliban armed forces the forward units of whom are holded-up in several emerald mines. More, they "looted three banks and occupied police and civil administration buildings in Mingora. The military reported that an additional 50 militants had been killed in Bruner" [another NorthWest terrritory of Pakistan, an active operation of the Taliban but outside their main thrust in Swat; Bruner has numerous Sufi-mystics shrines that the oncoming Talibani will have to destroy as anti-Wahabbist in the extreme; Sufi Islam is not immune from the barbarian fanatics of the Taliban].
The United Nations humanitarian office in Islamabad said it has already registered more than 2,200 families in new camps, "many of them arriving with little more than the clothes they are wearing." In a statement, the office said it would also increase assistance to help about 6,000 additional families in existing camps for Afghan refugees.
This area of Pakistan, in two territories of the NorthWest, Swat and Buner, is the area at which the jihadist eruptions in several countries over the last some years are now again cresting into a frenzy of violent activity of the kind that constitutes a "civil war" where civility is being uprooted and refugeed . To establish a fair electoral system, and a shelf of ordinary r+ts, the parliamentary government must pursue the Taliban and ... and ... what?...destroy them?

Re-educate? What of the wives and children? And the worst of them ... re-develop Guantanomo to receive new "enemy combatants" ?

While the provinces of Swat and Buner are geopolitically strategic for the parliamentary govt, nearby in Islamabad, the Pakistan territories of Waziristan

R+t now (May12,2k9), UN Ambassador John Bolton (under Prez Bush II) is talking on TV (FoxNews, Greta's On the Record show) about the situation in Pakistan, adding his analysis that the Taliban / Al Quaeda axis in Afghanistan and now most especially in Pakistan, this axis now dominates in Pakistan's Intelligence Corps (which is a part of the Army and has a lot of clout among the non-Intel regulars, among whom conversions to Sunni Wahabbi Talibani Islam and its warriors is a small noticeable trend, apparently. Bolton painted a scenario where a whole section of the Army breaks off, not to disarm, but to f+t in alliance with Taliban / Al Quaeda against the Pakistan parliamentary government and its governing coalition of parties and its Prez Asif Ali Zardari. It's best hope for an eventual democratic peace.

By the way, Zardari ... "insisted that his country's nuclear arsenal is 'definitely safe,' despite growing concerns about recent gains by the Taliban along the country's border with Afghanistan, reports CNN (May6.2k9).

The Tribal Areas comprise seven Agencies, namely Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, North and South areas of Waziristan and six FRs (Frontier Regions) namely FR Peshawar, FR Kohat, FR Tank, FR Banuu, FR Lakki and FR Dera Ismail Khan. The main towns include Miranshah, Razmak, Bajaur, Darra Bazzar, Ghalanai as Head Quareters of Mohmand Agency and Wana.

The 7 tribal areas lie in a north-to-south strip that is adjacent to the west side of the 6 frontier regions, which also lie in a north-to-south strip. The areas within each of those 2 regions are geographically arranged in a sequence from north to south.

The geographical arrangement of the 7 tribal areas in order from north to south is: Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan, South Waziristan. The geographical arrangement of the 6 frontier regions in order from north to south is: Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Tank, Dera Ismael Khan.
About 3.5 million people live in the 7 tribal areas and 6 frontier regions.

-- Politicarp

Civil War: Pakistan: Extremist attacks + nuke-armed Pakistan = "the most dangerous country in the world"

Agence France Presse (AFP) reports Peter MacKay, Defense Minister of the Canadian Government (May11,2k9) spoke officially on the status among Canada's international priorities of Afghanistan and Pakistan, both now immediately terrorist civil wars against the government.

Extremist attacks across nuclear-armed Pakistan in recent years have made it "the most dangerous country in the world," Canada's Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Monday. ...

Around 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistan security forces are battling Islamist fighters in three northwest districts in what Islamabad says is a fight to eliminate militants -- branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West. ...

Extremist attacks have killed at least 1,800 people across Pakistan in less than two years and around Pakistani 2,000 soldiers have died in battles with Islamist militants since 2002.
I don't see the term used much, but I'd call what's going on in Pakistan r+t now, a Civil War, of Taliban terrorists against the Civil Government, its Prime Minister, its cabinet and social services--with a possible prize alluring the terrorists who may be seeking to gain control of the country's nuke warheads and missiles.

Meanwhile the temporarily re-noticed Civil War in Sri Lanka has especially a portion of the Tamil ethnic minority population undergoing severe displacement and deeper misery.


Killing of civilians in Sri Lanka, 'a blood bath'

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Labour USA: UAW retirees: Soon to benefit from Fed protection of their "blue-collar aristocracy" pension-funds investments, preferential treatment

United Auto Workers retirees apparently will soon benefit from Fed protection of their "blue-collar aristocracy" pension-funds investments for future health care, under a will-of-the whisper preferential treatment UAW gets over less-spectacular more-marginalzed unions, including the Christian Labor Association of the USA.

See Monday's blog-entry: Economics USA: Autos: GM again slated for bankruptcy as Obama preferential treatment for UAW takes effect

Repeating myself momentarily, today's blog-entry continues the discussion I bagan yesterday, now under the title: Labour USA: UAW retirees: Soon to benefit from Fed protection of their "blue-collar aristocracy" pension-funds investments, preferential treatment of the UAW, closed-shop vs. freedom of association within the workforce by membership in a union alternative to the UAW, like CLA-USA, proportionate to those who freely vote for it as their representative on the shop floor and in the bargaining unit (with a minimum of at least one minority vote there), and whereas UAW pratices check-off of dues for causes not directly belonging to union membership (like political and leftwing causes), CLAC does not arbitrarily check-off dues or practice other skimming off the top for inappropriate forced contributions.

Prez Barack Obama keeps digging himself a deeper trench in regard to his failure, as a law-trained graduate of Harvard and law prof elsewhere, to bring forward strict pluralization of bargaining-unit workforces from larger company to large company--that indeed is the place to start if Obama wants to advance a less decrepit, and a less totalitarian theory of labour representation than the one he now is enacting thru promised / planned legislation (his erstwhile end run to head off secret-ballot voting of all workers in the present (no freedom of association) or the-here-proposed (freedom of association type of) bargaining unit, whose workers/members will then be able individually and in secret ballotting to select from alternative unions for their official representation; thereby they would be claiming the very right of association which the UAW denies). It's a pity that the UAW did not in itself lead the way toward such pluralized representation for Big-3 autoworkers.

The burning issue in industrial relations, autoworkers, and the monopoly position the UAW has fostered for itself, along with a check-off of dues of workers who do not want to contribute to the UAW's leftwingaling causes and/or do not want to be associated with such a union as UAW but want the autowork and the more-fully-negotiated pay made possible by pluralization of workers' representation. Now UAW wants to get rid of the secret ballot, instead it wants a far less trustworthy and certifiable card switch.

Having made that very serious and fundamental point of totalitarian monolithic lack of freedom of association in UAW and its pension-fund ownership, which could be reversed by instituting pluralization--via co-participation with other unions based on other principles, I now turn to inquire: if the UAW unjust system of representation still, via their pension-funds, qualifies them for 55% ownership of the UAW after Obama's restructuring of the corporation, coupled now with a boondoggle for the workers' pension-fund owners (which means the UAW's brass who run the pension fund), still doesn't this mean that Obama has uniquely preferred these or Chrysler's or GM's (not to mention Ford's) closed-shop UAW, while the latter's leadership is campaigning to do away with secret ballots.

The Christian Labor Association of the USA, functioning legally since 1934, should be put on the secret ballot and be permitted to elect a proportion of the shop stewards and union representatives to sit in all inner-planning committees of the combined unions of each company, and to designate at least one member of the overall-contract bargaining committee, a party to dialogue with both the majority union (UAW) and the company (either GM, Chrysler, and Ford). So should / would the CLAC-USA take its place where individual autoworkers choose to vote for this alternative Christian union, welcoming people of all faiths and no-faith to its ranks--based on the Christian social principles formative for CLAC's labor stance and policies (the latter constantly under internal reivew to match the stance).

The CLA works to promote harmony between Employer and Employee. This makes us a unique organization. The CLA is a labor union, certified by the National Labor Relations Board and similar state and local agencies. Our right to act as bargaining agents for employees is protected by law. The CLA is not affiliated with a large international union, but democratically governed by its membership. The CLA promotes harmony among all workers. Our method of operation allows for the crossing of trade lines, eliminating craft disputes. The CLA realizes that the livelihood of the employer and employee is derived from the same source.

CLAC-USA's small national board consists of three different ethnicities as indicated perhaps by surname (1 Hispanic-named, 2 English-named, and 2 Dutch-named).

Monday, May 04, 2009

Economics USA: Autos: GM again slated for bankruptcy as Obama preferential treatment for UAW takes effect

Circumstances force President Obama to choose between bondholders and UAW retirees' health fund in the Chrysler automaker's current meltdown. The President's preferential option for elite proletarian health funds (the blue-collar aristocracy) over other claimants upon Chrysler, conditions our expectations regarding his moves on General Motors. Obama's siding with the UAW's preferential treatment in the Chrysler case, should he remain consistent in his treatment of one company and the other, bodes ill for the other, General Motors--which now may be closer to bankruptcy.

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. may be more likely to end up in bankruptcy based on the Obama administration’s willingness to place Chrysler LLC into court protection to safeguard union health-care benefits.

With GM and its biggest bondholders at odds over resolving $27 billion in unsecured claims by a June 1 deadline, the Chrysler model indicates that President Barack Obama may resort to bankruptcy to end any impasse over that debt, said Martin Fridson, chief executive officer of New York-based credit investment firm Fridson Investment Advisors.
Ford is doing fine. Why should Chrysler not go into bankruptcy; it, like GM, has played the fool and succumbed to many years of overcompensation of its unionized workers. The union has been irresponsible. The company did not resist certain of the union's exorbitant demands; the company also played the fool in other respects, including its anti-environmental car production generally. In the end, Chrysler came up short as a business. Let it die as businesses do, perhaps.
Chrysler filed for protection April 30 after the U.S. was unable to persuade secured lenders to swap $6.9 billion in claims for $2.25 billion in cash. A union retiree health-care trust was offered a 55 percent stake in Chrysler.

“This confirms the fear, which right along has been that the Obama administration is more sensitive or beholden to the unions than the bondholders,” Fridson said. “It makes it clear that GM bondholders aren’t likely to be able to work out anything outside of bankruptcy.”
I can't weep for the bondholders either, whether Chrysler or GM. Those bondholders also made grievously bad business decisions, holding bonds in companies they knew were in deep dodo for some time.

Should not the vaunted rules of the market, apply to all concerned?--GM, Chrysler, UAW, and bondholders. The moral itch in this situation is simply that the UAW itself nor its pension and health-care funds as such are not identical to the retirees who will, in some cases, most desperately need their expected insurances for old-age health needs.

In contrast, have the elites of the funds, the UAW, GM, Chrysler, and the bondholders got inadequate health insurance? Of course, they don't. Well, let them eat cake!

--EconoMix

Friday, May 01, 2009

Economics: Mainland China & Taiwan: Deeper cooperation planned


China View, an English-language digital publication of the official party-line lite, reports an equally official news agency, Xinhua (Ap26,2k9) news release regarding a top-level meeting of continental representatives in Nanjing together with a large set of visiting Taiwan island representatives, regarding investment in both directions, and trade.

·The cross-straits ties have ushered into a "new era of peaceful development," said mainland top negotiator.

·The two sides would also try to reach consensus on mainland investment in Taiwan.

·It would set a foundation for market entering threshold of the financial sector, said Taiwan top negotiator Chiang.
The War that never arrived, one m+t say of the shifts in attitudes and (lack of) contacts that characteried continental and Taiwan island, the one or two Chinas, now that Hong Kong, Macao, Tibet and Uigurland have all been absorbed. Only North Korea slipped thru the net that continental Communist-dominated China has set here there and all roundabout.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Ad review: Towards a Christian Conception of History by MC Smit (d.1981), translated by Donald Morton & Harry Van Dyke

This book was published in English (2002) from the Dutch original of the author's esays over the years, edited and translated by H. Donald Morton and Harry Van Dyke. It's an outstanding work of reflection on Christian historical thinking, plus Smit's development of his own historical attitude.


--refWrite publisher, Albert Gedraitis


Using AdDesign, I made my own adtext to fit into a moving digital graphic structure. But I haven't yet gotten it to work here in my blogs. Blogs are not website's, but mine is a hybrid in some respects.



"http://www.addesigner.com/images/linktous/adbut-1.gif"
width="88"height="31" border="0" alt="Design awesome banner
ads like this one FREE at AdDesigner.com">.




Currently, Ads refWrite is exploring further both AdDesigner and Google Ads, as in the present instance, as well as in the off-beat introductory image of AFG in the background our title followed by thawt-teasing text to complete the over-sized super-width and fullpage height (as 8.5 X 11 inches) digital-magazine cover, so to say. The co-involved staff under the editorship of Owlb, suggested the gist of my design. So taking their advice, I did as I did.

So, egomaniacally, I put my own visage on the first "cover page" of refWrite in its 5th year, is it?, after five years of going without any cover page whatsoever. Altho I did call refWrite frontpage my flagship for my particular and, yes, idiosyncratic experiment toward a reformational journalism in the digital age of electronic communications, of telecommunications, of a reformational telcom, refTelcom with its own inner copyr+t.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Labour USA: Autos: Workers reps make concessions in deal with Chrysler-Fiat, bankruptcy deadline is Wed Ap29,2k9

Tom Krisher reports for Associated Press, "UAW [United Auto Workers labour union], Chrysler, and Fiat reach concession deal" (Ap26,2k9).

Chrysler has been living on $4 billion in U.S. government loans and is expected to get another $500 million. Without government help, it would have gone out of business around the first of the year.

After rejecting the original plan, the government had said the UAW and Canadian Auto Workers unions must make further concessions, including the UAW taking equity in the company for at least half of a $10.6 billion payment into a union-run trust that will take over retiree health care costs starting next year.

The CAW ratified a concessionary deal on Sunday which CAW President Ken Lewenza said makes labor costs competitive with non-unionized Toyota in Canada.
Working against a deadline that would fall-due on Wednesday, Ap29, nowhere in this rescue-programme and restructuring of the enterprise and workers' salaries (down!) is there any sl+test opening for a national reconsideration of the theory and presuppositions that dictate single-union bargaining units, instead of a multi-union representation according to the workforce's diverse and more principial choices.

-- Economix

Americas Summit: Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez affably gives Obama a book by Eduardo Galleano

Eduardo Galleano's Open Veins of Latin America (translated from the Spanish) is a historical interpretation of the presumed underdevelopment and oppression of Latin America by the gringos and gringas to the North, and those in the Latinos' very midst--particularly, in recent eras, the United States of America.

You know, those "blue-eyes," whom Prez Lula of Brazil likes to say, are a stampede of in-flying accountants, descending on his country's national financial policies to examine and poke holes (in Lula's accounting books, perhaps), mostly as enforcers for the International Monetary Fund (USA) and the World Bank (Europe).

What does the president to president gift-giving and gift-receiving between Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama mean?

One answer is the review of Galleano's book by Alvaro Vargas Llosa. Re-gift, Please! (Ap?2k6)

-- Politicarp

Friday, April 24, 2009

South Africa: Elections: Zuma ANC trounces ex-ANC Mbekists

Africa National Congress, South Africa's only ruling party and government since the collapse of apartheid, has just won new elections (the 4th round since the change-over fron minority rule under the hegemonic white racist regime). But in the process the party split with the with the old ANC leadership under Thabo Mbeki (the AIDS denier) and came under the spell of a dubious character of great charisma, Jakob Zuma. The Zuma ANC won the elections by 12 million--despite a corrupton trial!

South Africans voted in general and provincial elections on April 22nd, the fourth chance they have all had to do so since the birth of democracy in 1994. After months of increasingly feverish punditry in the domestic media about the country’s political trajectory, the people finally got their chance to speak at the ballot box. So what did they say?

The first message was that the poll mattered to them. The total number of ballots cast had not been officially released at the time of writing, but the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) reckons 77% of 23 million registered voters voted on Wednesday. That’s 17.71 million people, 13.5% higher then the 15.34 million voters recorded in 2004.

The national population growth rate, ravaged as it is by deaths from HIV/Aids, is estimated at just 0.28% a year, so the increase cannot be explained by that alone.
The reason for the high turnout was that people cared deeply about the outcome.

ANC supporters turned out in their masses to re-elect the party, with an estimated 12 million people voting for the party this time round, two million more then last time. One reason for this substantial growth is the ANC’s determination to trounce a new party contesting elections for the first time, the Congress of the People (Cope). Cope was formed last November by prominent members of an ANC faction that had supported former president Thabo Mbeki, but which was routed by a rival faction supporting Jacob Zuma at an ANC General Congress in Polokwane in December 2007. Mbeki lost the ANC’s presidency at Polokwane, and all his supporters were voted off the National Executive Committee (NEC). Although he was beaten in the presidential contest, Mbeki still took 40% of the vote. If all that support could be translated into electoral support for Cope, the ANC had a real crisis on its hands.
Read the whole article in openDemocracy by clicking this blog-entry's title; "South Africans have voted. What did they say? by GHregory Mthembu-Salter (Ap24,2k9).

-- Politicarp

Britain: Economy: Shrinkage rate of superindex for Gross Domestic Product fastest in 30 years

Julia Kollewe, writing in the Guardian (Ap24,2k9) claims that "British economy shrinks at fastest rate for 30 years." This news must be troublesome for most Brits, terrifying to some.

On the ideology of Growth in economics, Reformational economist, Dr Bob Goudzwaard, has long ago called for a stable sustainable economy--no shrinkage, no growth. I'm wondering if he's modified that line in recent years, but unmodified that would imply no-growth in developing countries, which is not part of BG's programme. He's all for growth where millions are starving, and critiqued the "overdeveloped West." So, quite the opposite of supreme economic goal of growth,he has always called for Development in non-Western society. At present, however, he surely has considered the blazing-rate development of China and India, and surely has noted the blazing-rate of industrial pollution presently contaiminating with tremendous excess those hitherto "virgin" economies.

-- EconoMix

Military torture USA: Chronology: Reporter constructs time-line of USA military torture since 9/11 2k1

Presenting a "Web Exclusive" by Annie Lowrey, Foreign Policy chronicles a time-line that lists by consecutive date the events relating to military torture of captured terrorists-jihadists in the USA War against Terrorism. Click this blog entry's title to arrive at 3-page piece.

-- Politicarp

Thursday, April 23, 2009

USA: Economics: Big Bank's finances manipulated by Paulson's threatening "leverage" which intimated top banker

MarketWatch reports/comments from New York (Last update: 2:45 p.m. EDT April 23, 2009)

Bernanke and Paulson look foolish if Lewis is right
Commentary: Bank of America CEO describes power in a panic

If Ken Lewis is telling the truth -- and he'd be foolish to lie to New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo -- then Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were more than concerned about the financial crisis. They were panicking.

Why else would the two most important administration officials presiding over the financial crisis play hardball backroom politics with Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America Corp, who had taken significant risk by acquiring Merrill Lynch & Co. last September?

Lewis testified that Paulson used threatening language to push through the deal, according to a letter released by Cuomo's office Thursday.
Torture? Mental torture of Lewis by Paulson, perhaps. Perhaps.

This is a useful comment-article that should by read by many interested in the recent financial misdeeds and ensuingly-increasing uncertainty as to financial stability of banks sui generis, Bank of America included.

Further Research:

Forbes.com "For Freddie and Fannie Trouble at the Top" (Apr24,2k9), by Maurna Desmond
American Southern becomes year's 26th failure, by Wallace Witkowski, MarketWatch (Ap24,2k9)
Some banks rise refWrite (Ap11,2k9)

--EconoMix

Monday, April 20, 2009

Racism: Geneva: Obama says UN conference's 'anti-Israel slant is hypocritical'

On the eve of the controversial Durban II UN conference on racism, US President Barack Obama lashed out at the language of its draft declaration, saying it showed "antagonism toward Israel in ways that were often times completely hypocritical and counterproductive."

UN anti-racism conference set to begin amid much controversy

The weeklong meeting in Geneva is widely expected to repeat the inflammatory, anti-Israel rhetoric that marred the first UN racism conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

Explaining the US decision to boycott "with regret," Obama said in Trinidad on Sunday: "Hopefully, some concrete steps come out of the conference that we can partner with other countries on how to actually reduce discrimination around the globe, but this wasn't an opportunity to do it."
This is the same strategy used by former Prez Bush, and outlined by Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay in their book, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (2003) in which the UN is not conceived as normative whatever it decides on whatever issue, but rather in which the US may partner with "alliances of the willing" on specific world-problems, in this case racism.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman echoed Obama's remarks, calling it "a hypocrisy summit."
Britain's govt is joining keynoter Ahmadi-Nejad (yes, Iranian hatemonger and nuclear adventurist) in attendance at the event--while Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany and others have announced they will not be in attendance. Pope Benedict, however, thinks the conference is "necessary."

Of course, the UN bureaucracy is wringing its hands about the US position, but the UN is itself responsible for sponsoring a gathering on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day that previously was remarkable for its indiscipline and anti-humanity at Durban I in South Africa (2001) and now again apparently at Durban II in Geneva. The meeting is largely an Arab-states hate-fiesta against Jews and Israel, strategically designed to round-up as much of Africa and Asia as it can for arch-manipulative purposes. Iran (with only a minority of Arabs) competes with the Arab-majority states generally to lead the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic cabal.

-- Politicarp

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Homeland Security: USA: FBI will deploy to create "rightwing extremists" on model of Timothy McVeigh

In a lie-entitled article, "Napolitano defends report on right-wing extremist groups" (Apr15,2k9, CNN Politics.com, hypotheticals are built up to an absurd conclusion. It looks like a fandango to boost FBI funding for an Obama witchhunt of the rightwing.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Department of Homeland Security will never monitor ideology or political beliefs, the head of the agency said Wednesday, responding to criticism of a recent report on right-wing extremist groups.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the U.S. will never monitor ideology or political beliefs.
It already does; and it's inevitable with a vengeance, if they target what rallies Iraq and Afghanistan combat vets may possibly attend.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the U.S. will never monitor ideology or political beliefs.
Propagandistic repetitiveness.
"Let me be very clear: We monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a written statement.
"Risks"? Note: not violent extremism, but theoretical risks she and her squads imagine but for which she has admittedly got no evidence. She means the FBI will concentrate on new targets, that don't presently exist to her or apparently anyone's knowledge, on the base of risk-management criteria that are of the broadest social kind regarding recent history. It's a theory about American combat soldiers, largely, but she tries to hide that ermbarassing truth in her next sentence.
"We don't have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence."
"One group"? What group is that she cites but doesn't name? Why it's Islamacist terrorists, the jihadists, the pirates. But, of course, both her report and her defense of it does single out Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans. A few of whom may just possibly join groups she designates as "extremist"--not jihadists, not terrorists, just some group/s that are rightwing. This is a strategy to control thawt and political expression in America instead of getting rid of the terrorists already in existence in sleeper cells. Instead, Janet Napolitano resorts to the wildest hypotheticals to conjure up propaganda points.
The report, "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," said right-wing extremist groups may be using the recession and the election of the nation's first African-American president to recruit members.
"MAY BE"?--a guess, a hypothetical which when challenged becomes a theory but not a fact, a choice of words to cover her lack of evidence. A dishonest manoeuvre tricked up and trucked out just before the Tea Parties, where ... perhaps ... maybe some vets register their discontent regarding the dishonest unread tax laws that Congress passed and Obama signed.
The report, which was prepared in coordination with the FBI, was published last week. It was distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement officials. Mainstream media picked up the story after it was reported by conservative bloggers. ... »

Though the nine-page report said it had "no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence," it said real-estate foreclosures, unemployment and tight credit could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past."
The twitter-brained head of Insecurity is definitely implying armed confrontation. Even that however was not the case with McVeigh (in the prosecution of whom Napolitano was involved), not so much that, rather truer to armed confrontation between the FBI and the Branch Davidian sect's compound where a slawter was conducted by the FBI, "the 1993 siege on their property near Waco, Texas, by the ATF and the FBI, which resulted in the deaths of 82 of the followers of David Koresh" (Wikipedia.)
"Mainstream media tended to discount the critical views presented in early documentary films, because they were seen as coming from the political fringes of the right and left. This changed in 1997, when professional film makers Dan Gifford and Amy Sommer produced their Emmy Award winning documentary, Waco: The Rules of Engagement.[46] This film presents a history of the Branch Davidian movement and, most importantly, a critical examination of the conduct of law enforcement, both leading up to the raid and through the aftermath of the fire. The film features footage of the Congressional hearings on Waco, and juxtaposition of official government spokespeople with footage and evidence often directly contradicting the government spokespeople. The documentary also shows infra-red footage demonstrating that the FBI likely used incendiary devices to start the fire which consumed the building and that the FBI did indeed fire on, and kill, Branch Davidians attempting to flee the fire.

Waco: The Rules of Engagement was nominated for a 1997 Academy Award for best documentary and was followed by another film: Waco: A New Revelation." (Wikipedia.)

"The destruction of the Waco compound enraged McVeigh and convinced him that it was time to take action. The government's use of CS gas on women and children angered McVeigh; he had been exposed to the gas as part of his military training and thus was familiar with its effects. The disappearance of certain evidence, such as the bullet-ridden steel-reinforced front door to the complex, led him to suspect a cover-up. He believed that even if David Koresh had committed crimes, his followers did not deserve to be killed." (Wikipedia.)
(blockquote)The report compared the current climate with that of the 1990s, saying a recession, criticism over outsourcing of jobs and a perceived threat to U.S. power at that time fueled a resurgence of right-wing extremism.

However, it said, "Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years."

It warned that the groups may use proposed restrictions on firearms and the debate on immigration as recruiting tools, and said the groups may try to reach out to veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today," the report said. It noted that Timothy McVeigh, the bomber of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, was a military veteran.

Radio talk show host Rush LimbaughI don't like him except for his recent support for the Humane Society, and his correctness as follows:
decried the report on Tuesday, saying, "There is not one instance they can cite as evidence where any of these right-wing groups have done anything," according to a transcript of his remarks on his Web site.

"You have a report from Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama, Department of Homeland Security portraying standard, ordinary, everyday conservatives as posing a bigger threat to this country than al Qaeda terrorists or genuine enemies of this country like Kim Jong Il," he said, referring to the leader of North Korea.

Michael Savage, another conservative commentator, also criticized the report.

"What does Big Sis say these right-wingers are concerned about?" he wrote on his Web site, referring to Napolitano.

"Illegal aliens, the increasing power of the federal government, gun grabs, abortion and the loss of U.S. national sovereignty. In other words, anyone who is worried about preserving our borders, language and culture is on Big Sis' watch list."

In her Wednesday statement, Napolitano said the agency is on "the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not -- nor will we ever -- monitor ideology or political beliefs."

She said she was briefed on the general topic, which "struck a nerve as someone personally involved in the Timothy McVeigh prosecution."

Napolitano said she intends to meet with American Legion National Commander David K. Rehbein, who sent her a letter Monday stating his concern about the report.

"Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime," he wrote. "To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical 'disgruntled military veteran' is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam."

He added, "I think it is important for all of us to remember that Americans are not the enemy. The terrorists are."

Napolitano said in her statement that she will tell Rehbein that the Department of Homeland Security honors veterans and employs thousands, including Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute.
So what? She can't discriminate in hiring because it's unlawful. Nor can she legally curtail the political expression of those employees who go to an Anti-Tax rally or want Obama's misguided tax laws repealed.The Obama administration in January issued a warning about left-wing extremists. Both reports were initiated during the administration of President George W. Bush.But how is "extremist" being defined? Why are there separate reports? Why is the timing so different, and why does the anti-vet press flood come out just before Tax Day and the Tea Parties? Why is Bush being referenced when all his other actions have been defamed and/or reversed. The FBI-like coverup by Nappy demonstrates that she is another Obama misguided appointment.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Calendar: April 15: What's in store tomorrow on Tax-Day? Are you going to a Tea Pary? Beware the FBI may be monitoring ...

Dunstan Prial, writing in FOXBusiness, "What's in Store at Tax-Day Tea Parties" (Apr14,2k9). I've culled that interesting article as my first quote for your meditation in conjunction with another. The second is a report from Obama's Homeland Security that they've just begun their examination of the rightwing to determine who may be categorized as "extremist," presumably in order to protect Americans from a right-wing coup.

Here's the first:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

That’s the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and if you haven’t reviewed your copy of the document recently you’re probably not alone.

Tax Day Tea Party organizer Joan Stanley says no one in Washington, D.C., seems to have reviewed theirs recently either.

Stanley, 62, is an organizer of Bozeman, Mont.’s Tea Party, one of hundreds of such events scheduled to be held across the U.S. on Wednesday to protest government bailouts, budgets and deficits, in roughly that order.

“We’re coming together in unison to fight for what America has always stood for -- that’s freedom and liberty. We love our country and we want to take it back from the self-serving politicians who run Washington,” said Stanley.

Essentially a grassroots effort run by local organizers, the movement is tied together on the national level through a Web site, taxdayteaparty.com and by way of a handful of mostly conservative bloggers angry at the Obama Administration’s strategy of spending the country out of its current economic doldrums.

The first events were held nationwide on Feb. 27 and some 30,000 people participated in about 40 cities, according to the movement’s Web site. Wednesday was picked for the next round of protests because April 15 is ‘Tax Day,’ or the day tax returns are due.

The Tea Party Web site conveys the mood of its participants with quotes such as, “I do not believe that spending what we do not have will pull us out of a black hole economy,” and, “We citizens will be standing outside, protesting government overreach and proclaiming our rights.”
Please click on the blog-entrty title above and read the whole FxBiz article.

The second report bears the screen-name "national," date Apr14,2k9, entitled "Homeland Security Warns of the Rise in Right-Wing Extremism," on National Terror Alert.
An intelligence assessment released to law enforcement last week claims news of recession, the election of an African American president, rumors of new gun restrictions and the inability of veterans to reintegrate [-- factors which together] create fertile ground for radicalizing and recruiting right-wing extremists.

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement agencies that recent news is helping “right-wing extremist groups” recruit new members and could lead to violence, and warns about the possible recruitment and radicalization of returning veterans.
So, the scenario comes to mind: undercover FBI agents as individual particpants-observers as well as in small groups with banners and slogans; they function at tomorrow's tea parties as agent provacateurs, trying to attract war veterans, trying to recruit them as counter espionage agents who will eventually be sent into the right-wing extremist groups--if, when, and as they arise.

Monday, April 13, 2009

South Pacific: Fiji: Court says govt illegit, govt suspends constitution & reinstates military chief, press freedom ended

Update:
Fiji coup regime ruled unlawful

Fiji coup leader restored as PM : Fiji's leader has restored his military chief to the ppost of interim prime minister a day after suspending the constitution

Fiji's military have been given permission to shoot civilians without fear of being prosecuted

Fiji Coup without military intervention

Statement by Citizens to Protect Journalists,
defending journalists worldwide
Fiji should halt censorship and media expulsions

New York, April 13, 2009--Fiji's interim government must relax its reporting restrictions after the government declared a 30-day state of emergency on Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Three foreign reporters have since been ordered to be deported and one local journalist detained, according to international news reports, and newspapers and broadcasts have been censored. ... Continued on refWrite refBloggers Insert (Apr14,2k9).

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Calendar: Happy Easter!

Christ is risen!

-- refWrite publisher and staff

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Economy USA: Banks: Some banks rise, investors respond with "biggest jump" since 1933

Eric Martin and Lynn Thomasson in their Blomberg.com report, "US Stocks Gain, Capping Biggest Jump since 1933 as Banks Rise" (Apr10,2k9), documenting a steady 5-week rise. That's the plus side. But, in a short work week due to a holiday,

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added [only] 0.8 percent to 8,083.38 this week. U.S. exchanges are closed today for Good Friday.
The positive trend is confirmed a day after Prez Obama's remark about "glimmers of hope" in the economy. Michael Fletcher reports the President's take in "On economuy, Obama sees glimmers of hope and signs of progress."

At the same time, authorities continue to close down banks that have endangered the broad spectrum of their depositors and those who are paying regularly on their loans.

-- EconoMix