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MYANMAR JUNTA HOLDS UP RELIEF EFFORTS

FOR POWER OR PROFITS, GENERALS STONEWALL

Colonial, Imperial & Corporatist Powers Rattle Their Swords

Meanwhile chaos reigns even in Yangon (Rangoon). Millions remain homeless and destitute in the coastal provinces. Whether the strategy of exaggerating the crisis, if it is exaggeration, and feigning military action, if it is just a feint, will work remains to be seen.


"US diplomat: 100,000 may have died in Myanmar cyclone"

"France urges UN to force cyclone aid on Myanmar"

"EU Expands Economic Sanctions against Junta"


compleat links to aid organizations on the ground now in burmese disaster areas: donate now online

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It has been 57 years since the Navy deployed the Fourth Fleet in the waters off the coast of South America.  But apparently Bush does not like some of the Presidents who have recently been elected in South America so Bush has decided to redeploy the Fourth Fleet.  This is Bushevikism/Fascism/Corporatims all rolled into one.

While Americans dither around trying to elect a new President to replace the World’s Dumbest, Most Dangerous Leader, the answer to their country’s dire political mess lives to the south, in Venezuela!

Yes, folks, Hugo, the darling of the South Americas, is the answer that America is looking for. He will clean up their entrenched political corruption and wealth-based elitism in double-quick time.

To be fair, he won’t be able to be a full-time Commander in Chief because he has his own country to run and his own people to look after.

Talk about potential for growth. If this or a similar deal goes through: the sky’s the limit for Blackwater.

Update: According to ABC News, it appears as though the deal is off. (Great news)

The gigantic hedge fund, Cerebus, that owns a controlling interest in Chrysler Motors and GMAC, the large financing arm of General Motors, is in intense negotiations to purchase outright the controversial North Carolina-based security mercenary firm Blackwater Worldwide. Blackwater has been the recipient of huge U.S. Defense Department [no-bid] contracts over the past decade worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

On paper, the purchase appears to be a good deal for both parties, with enormous profit potential attached. Besides the expected bloated profit margins, the deal would also set up the huge security mercenary firm for expansive growth opportunities all over the world, largely at U.S. taxpayer expense.

It amazes me how shallowly "progressive" many people are, even the seeming majority of what passes for the left in American politics, including most of the subscribers to this site.

It is now overwhelmingly apparent that the recklessly optimistic relegating of history solely to the realm of nostalgia and outdated modes of style, behavior and consumption, to paraphrase Christopher Lasch nearly 40 years ago, and/or the association of all the founding American republican and legal traditions with bigotry, racism, colonialism, patriarchy, etc... has had some rather dire consequences for American republicanism and democracy, as well as western civilization as a whole.

The global Islamists are correct to identify a crisis of national identity, to challenge our ability to perceive the implications of our actions and to criticize civic values and governmental practices of the western world, namely the United States, the preeminent economic, cultural, and military leader of that community.  

An amazing story slipped by me last week.  I am writing about it today because, given the turbulence of the Pennsylvania primary, it probably slipped by many of you as well.

If there has been one country in Latin America that seemed that it was permanently sunk into a morass of reactionary totalitarianism, it is Paraguay.  Paraguay, the longtime fiefdom of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, notorious retirement village of departed Nazis.  Of all of the countries in the region, this was the one where one could bet change would not come.  That may be one reason that President Bush followed "Reverend" Sun Myung Moon in buying a huge tract of land in Northern Paraguay.  (Follow down the thread.)

And then a week ago, guess what?

Paraguay chose as its new President Fernando Lugo, a man knows as "the bishop of the poor."

Following up on the last week's psychotic eerily Thatcher-esque nuke-rattling, Clinton went even further Daisy Spot-ward this morning to put a punctuation mark on her "look-at-my-testicles" tactical assault. You've probably already seen it, but if not:  

The ABC debate moderators made it unclear if Clinton is really a candidate. And if so, is she running for the title "Her Imperial Highness"?

I'm an Obama supporter and, still, I saw the lopsided nature of tonight's debate. Certainly, it was mostly about attacks being aimed at Obama, but for the first hour of the debate it was as if Clinton were not even a candidate. She was an extra given a few supporting lines as a member of the rabble. All the pundits will be talking about whether or not he handled it well. Not much to say about Clinton. Except her continuing surrogacy of the Republican campaign.

When they did finally let her take some questions, I was shocked by her response to the one about defending Israel from Iraq.

SENATOR CLINTON: Well, in fact, George, I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region.

Whoa!

'As Iraqis Stand Up, We Will Stand Down,' Bush Tells Nation

WASHINGTON, June 28, 2005 – On the one-year anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq to a transitional Iraqi government, President Bush tonight promised that U.S. forces would remain in Iraq until the job is complete, "but not one day longer."

"The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists," he said. "And that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."

American Forces Press Service, June 28, 2005

They still are not standing up nearly three years later.  The New York Times today reports that Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions in Sadr City, "defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against Shiite militias."

More after the fold

Owen Lattimore said in 1949 that Asia was going to be out of control, and that the West might want to change its imperial policy from repression to negotiation.  Great debates followed in the State department, and the repressors won.  

"Keep smiling," the girl in wheelchair told herself despite the risk of Tibetan separatists trying to grab the Olympic torch......

"Along the Seine River, at first one person tried to take the torch from me. Then further down the route other people hit me and also tried to snatch the torch," Jin told sohu.com during an interview two days after the event.

"I managed to protect the torch with my body. At times the protestors got so close that I had to bow my head down and clutch the torch tighter to prevent them from getting at it."

"They even pulled my hair," Jin told sohu.com reporters, adding her chin was hurt during the heated physical confrontations.......

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/... Pages 1-4 (click at foot of page to see PICS on following pages)

Additional PIC http://www.rue89.com/...

The following is a response to a question I received yesterday about a comment I made.  In the comment I suggested that war is "the ultimate form of capital devaluation."

The person was asking what I meant.

Below the fold is my reply.

Political reconciliation hasn't happened, and violence has leveled off and may be creeping back up," said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House committee. "So how can we encourage, if not force, the intransigent political leaders of Iraq to forge a real nation out of their base sectarian instincts?

That above is from AP article here on the Petraeus testimony.
That is a Democrat there, talking as if the Iraqis actually invited the USA to invade them.

There's been a good deal of debate over the China/Tibet situation here recently. Much of it has been heated, with discreditable contributions from both the "f*ck China" and the "America is always wrong" ideological bedlams.

For myself, I have always found it odd that anyone claiming a progressive position could defend any action of an unrepresentative dictatorship that has invaded and occupied a neighboring country. The extent and nature of our response should be discussed, of course: would boycotts be productive? if so, of what kind? protests? to what extent and of what nature? But simple approval of China's actions in Tibet seems quite beyond the pale for anyone to the left of Genghis Khan.

In case anyone still doubts this, I've put together below a list of one major logical error in the "pro-China" case, and five questions that have the same effect on pro-Peking elements that garlic has on a vampire. The same five questions, softly and tactfully advanced, can usually at least discomfit even a rabid Chinese nationalist, though as we see in our own part of the world, nationalism has a powerfully solvent activity on logic and reason.

Though America, via its current deranged, imperialist leadership, could soon create circumstances which will inevitably lead to the end of our world, it does have a nucleus of people who, given the right environment, could turn the country around. Understanding this, surely we who live in the free world must try to help America to save itself because, in so doing, we will save ourselves.

I use the term ‘free world’ deliberately because, currently, America is not free in the normal sense of the word. Its citizens are under observation by the state and their freedoms are being curtailed; its seriously unintelligent President is acting more and more like a tyrant everyday; its politicians don’t represent the people but their own self-interest and/or that of religious and corporate lobby groups; those in Congress and the Senate are profiting mightily from the wars they keep initiating and supporting, etc.

So how can we from the free world assist those decent Americans who deplore what their country has become and where it is headed?

The greatest criticism that can be made of any nation is that it engaged in an act of genocide. In the usual meaning of the term, genocide denotes the conscious attempt of one nation or one movement to murder the citizens of another race. The most shocking example is the documented intention of the leaders of Nazi Germany to eliminate the Jewish people of Europe in the early 1940s.

Now China, as you all know, has two genocides on its hands.

Hosting the 2008 Summer Olympic games in Beijing was supposed to be China's chance to showcase its remarkable pace of economic development and to rightfully claim its place as a 21st-century world power. Well, no. Some of us are deeply concerned about China's human rights record, its handling of Tibet and its support for the vile regime of Sudan, which is enabling the ongoing genocide in Darfur. In February, Hollywood director Steven Spielberg withdrew as artistic adviser to the games in protest of China's relationship with Sudan. Now, protesters and activists are seizing an opportunity to highlight China's dismal rights record by disrupting the traditional torch relay as it travels around the world.

As I read news reports of the crackdowns in Tibet and the subsequent protests worldwide especially those in London and Paris in the last two days, I have the sickening feeling that I once had as this country was heading toward the Iraq war.

Many people in this community blamed the Iraq war on the Bush-Cheney regime. This is a denial of reality: The Iraq war was an American war. It was supported overwhelmingly by the American people (as seen by public opinions polls at the time and by their elected representatives' support of the Iraq war bill).

How could this happen?

There's a lot of controversy surrounding China's "oppression" of Tibet.  My girlfriend is Chinese and I have spoken to many of her friends about this, and the one overriding feeling I get from them is that western media reports news only to make China look bad - it is not objective journalism.

I have no doubt there are bad things happening in Tibet.  However, why these peace loving religious society who are being prayed upon by a rising communist superpower?  This is the "reality" our news channels would have us believe.  However, after the fall of Baghdad, it's clear our own news channels are complicit in propaganda that is convenient for our governments - and my country (UK) and yours are desperate to shift the spotlight away from the disaster in Iraq.  As such I've been taking time to investigate this further.

When you scratch the surface of the history in Tibet, it is shocking.  Slavery, servitude, theological oppression, punitive mutilation, even institutional sodomy of children.  Summary: if the US or UK were China, we would view ourselves as liberators.