The Tent People of today

Who is to Blame
for the Tent People?

By Garda Ghista
May 22, 2009 Hyderabad, India
Source
In America, more and more people are subjected to the humiliation of losing their job, and then when they cannot pay their mortgage they get a fat wad of papers delivered to their door by the local sheriff telling them in brief to pay up or vacate.

And then they have to leave or be thrown out of their own home. And then when no job is forthcoming they cannot even downsize to an apartment. They are forced to go to the lowest level of subsistence. They buy a tent and pitch it near some water, maybe a river or a tap somewhere.

I was becoming more and more appalled living in America in 2008 and up to May 2009 and watching more and more "tent cities" springing up across the country. And then as those tent cities get more and more established, at regular intervals, maybe once a month, the local police invade the area and make a brutal sweep of the premises and drive all those tent people out of their tents and onto the road somewhere. And after the police have gone, the people return to what's left of their tent and their meager possessions.

This is America today. It is "poverty amidst plenty." That phrase is from the 1929 Great Depression. And in 1929 the police conducted the same sweeps that they are doing today across America. Is it not heartbreaking? Or shall we say, does it not make your heart bleed to see this kind of existence of the people?

And now I am in Hyderabad, India. And if you go along Highway 9 which runs through Hyderabad, what do you see? All along the highway, there are vendors selling this and that like nariyal pani - coconut water - or mangoes or colorful little trinkets. But behind those vendors, in a fifteen foot wide corridor running along the wall, are tents. More tents.

And these tents have been there forever. They are not so nice as the American tents. They are made of dark green or black pieces of plastic somehow moulded or stuck together in some shape so as to rise a bit above the ground with one opening. And here is where the people live and sleep and go to the bathroom and take bath - but where do they go to the bathroom and where do they take their bath? And where do they cook and eat?

In the daytime they are lying in front of their "tents" or sitting and chatting happily. That's the amazing part of it. If we visit a tent city in America - the newly created tent city - it is sure we will find severe mental depression. Economist Shrii Prabhat R. Sarkar told us that this new Great Depression will be accompanied by severe mental depression. It is but natural.

But in Hyderabad, along Highway 9, I don't yet see that mental depression. And earlier in the 1990s when I used to visit the slums here or see the women breaking stones with axes in the rock quarries, there was no mental depression.

Why? I think it is because this was their life from birth. They never knew any other life. They never expected any other life. They lived with No Expectations.

But why should anyone, why should even a single person, be relegated to living in a tent, to living without a bathroom, without running water nearby, to keep themselves clean? Who is to blame that people live in tents? In America I was saying that it is the *&^%$ bankers and speculators who have robbed the country blind and are hence directly responsible for the tent people. But what about India where tent people have lived for decades if not longer? Who is to blame?

Is it the sum total of politicians who ruled all those decades and never gave a *&^%$ about the tent people? Then what do we tell to those tent people? Should we not tell them that God never meant for them to live under pieces of plastic along the highway? Should we not tell them that it is the moral responsibility of all political leaders to provide them with food, water, shelter, clothes, soap, health care and education?

How do we tell these simple, sweet tent people that there is a better way? How would you tell them? I want to tell them this now, but I don't know how to start. How do we talk to them in a way that is relevant to their lives? Is it our job then to take away their simple acceptance of their plight and inspire them to demand the minimum necessities from their cold, callous government?

Is that our job? Is it our job to take away their simplicity and raise their political consciousness and make them outraged at the economic injustice of their lives? For some reason, i cannot bear their plight and neither can I bear that they accept their plight so happily.

It reminds me of what Professor Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank founder, wrote in his autobiography regarding the famine of 1970s in Bangladesh. He would be teaching economic theories to his students inside the classroom, and outside, just at the door, starving men, women and children would just lie down and wait to die. They didn't fight. They didn't rebel. They were not even angry with anyone. They accepted everything – even their own vastly premature death.

See how painful also it is to read that 150,000 farmers across India have committed suicide in the past five years to escape the slow and agonizing process of starvation. Easier to die the short agony of poison than the long agony of starvation! But why do they feel no anger? Why don't they rebel? Is it that they do not know whom to rebel against? That they do not know who is responsible for their tortures and humiliations and finally their starvation?

Then again, isn't it our duty to tell them who is responsible? Isn't it our duty to inspire them to fight back? Did wealthy people ever distribute their wealth voluntarily to the downtrodden? No. They only distribute when the poor demand it.

So why not all of us go and meet the tent people and tell them that they do not need to live like this, that the immoral, indifferent, heartless politicians are responsible, and that they should fight those politicians, remove them from power and bring moralists to power who have hearts full of love for the common people. And whoever has a conscience, whoever loves morality should join them in that fight and guide them and become one with them.

Garda Ghista is a freelance journalist and author of The Gujarat Genocide: A Case Study in Fundamentalist Cleansing and Wife Abuse: Breaking It Down and Breaking Out. She is also Founding President of the World Prout Assembly, a non-profit organization dedicated to transferring economic power from corporations to the common people and to fighting injustice in every sphere of life.

The comments from oringinal article are quite interesting, especially the one from "Hide Behind".

Related:
Unite to End Homelessness

GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

Waterboarding = torture? Yep

Gotta love this story! My fantasy is that Dick, George, Paul, Donald, and Richard go next in undergoing waterboarding.

The Keith Olbermann Video

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here is the Dick Cheney position,
Torture (Waterboarding) is justified:


Mancow Waterboarded (VIDEO):
Conservative Radio Host Says It's Torture

05-22-09

Source
Erich "Mancow" Muller, a Chicago-based conservative radio host, recently decided to silence critics of waterboarding once and for all. He would undergo the procedure himself, and then he would be able to confidently convince others that it is not, in fact, torture.

Or so he thought. Instead, Muller came out convinced.

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow said. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back... It was instantaneous... and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face... I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

Here's video of Muller getting waterboarded: Source in case videos do not load.
Part 1 - the waterboarding experiment



Part 2 - The conclusions



Christopher Hitchens underwent nearly the same experiment last year. He, too, concluded that waterboarding is torture.

After the Irish NO

I wrote the commentary below on the Irish vote of the Lisbon Treaty last September, in 2008. Nothing has really changed since then, except, the people of Europe are more actively protesting their governments than ever before. If popular vote of EU citizens determined the passing of the Lisbon Treaty, this treaty would be burned. Yet the heads of state of many countries have ratified the treaty. Why?

Isn't government supposed to reflect the 'will of the people'? Can heads of state change the opinion of the 'people' by denying them a voice in their affairs? Why is the EU so bent on passing Lisbon WITHOUT the will of people behind it? Can the EU survive without the political will of its citizens?

These are important questions. The answer determines the health of the European electorate in general. What the people do not demand, they will not get. And with Lisbon ratification, the people want a voice. What reason could their be to deny this basic democratic request.

As an Irish voter on Lisbon and a citizen of the EU, I would gladly bow to the decision reached by a popular vote of the PEOPLE of the EU; afterall, the Treaty affects each and every person in the EU in a major way. Let us hold a vote of all citizens and decide this democratically.

The issue of the EU presidency going to two and a half years is CRITICAL: imagine having Sarkozy or Blair president of the EU for that length of time? Remember how much damage they did in their respective six month terms?

NATO is another critical issue: the role of NATO in EU affairs in the name of all EU citizens should be clarified. I cannot condone NATO helping to bomb and murder women and children in Afghanistan without some sort of accountability to the EU citizens. Other important issues include the policing function of countries and international legal processes that could violate our own constitutions.

We are just not ready for Lisbon I think: but, let the PEOPLE decide.

Related:

Irish blogs on Lisbon
No to Lisbon Treaty - Europa Libera

Commentary on Political Will of EU Citizens
toward Lisbon Treaty

Sheilanagig
September 2008
Source
I have spent much time in the EU forum discussing Lisbon with fellow Europeans and it has been very enlightening.

To start at the end, the political will to give more power to Brussels is simply not there.

This should be obvious to the EU elite now after the citizens of three member states have voted against it. Moreover, the very process of taking the Constitutional Treaty to only the representatives of the people as the Lisbon Treaty has created a high degree of distrust among those I dialogued with.

There is a great feeling of distrust among common citizens that Lisbon is being rushed through for some ulterior reason. Feeding this sentiment is the EU's lapdog behaviour with the Bush Administration on using NATO as the auxiliary US military in pushing relations with Russia to the breaking point.

Europeans have read the news on Georgia and well know that Russia did not invade Georgia; rather Georgia is guilty of military aggression and mass murder at the behest of USA and Israeli military advisors. Europeans are not at the level of Americans who willingly accept propaganda from their media; and we resent the official line Brussels has used in dealing with the Georgian Conflict as right out of Washington DC.

What is clear is that the EU elite is not standing up for its citizens,or in touch with them; but is more interested in military and oilpipe line collusion with the USA. Sarkozy has strayed from the principals of cooperation and interdependence for peace, in favor of a pro-American propaganda position. Many many people resent this unholy alliance of EU and USA politics. Sarkozy has failed to stand up for an EU with its own identity, and rather is seen as a pimp for the Bush warmongers.

This goes directly to the heart of Lisbon. People do not trust the EU elite to act in their best interest. And no doubt, Lisbon would fail on the basis of a referendum vote for each MS. If the citizens of the EU would not vote for Lisbon, why then have their heads of state done so?

The EU will be nothing without the support of its citizens; it will fall apart at the first test. Political identity must be deepened before MS are willing to give more sovereignity away.

The disrespect Mr. Sarkozy has shown to Ireland has been well noted by other small MS as well, and it is fair to say he has done more harm than good to the opinion toward Lisbon.

The people say: Let Nice stand. And if alterations must be made, let them be offered in a clear format and well debated before a vote. It is not up to Ireland to get our vote right; it is up to Brussels to get its treaties right.

The political will is simply not there to support Lisbon across the EU.

Irish have a chance to block the Bilderbergs

In an effort to cast my little grain of sand into the wind of people power, I present the two articles below: first on the news blackout of the current Builderberg meeting; and second, on the content of the meeting. An excellent video is also included.

What do the Bilderbergs have to do with the Irish? Ireland is the only country now where the people can vote to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. If all the citizens of the EU could vote, there would be a decided probability that Lisbon would go down in flames. Europeans do not want to concede any more power to the EU at this time it seems to me.

So it's all down to the Irish, Libertas and Declan Ganley. After considering the Lisbon Treaty carefully, I cannot in good conscience vote for it as I believe many other Europeans without a vote would reject it. What does this have to do with the Bilderbergs? The question begs to be answered.

Bilderberg: News Blackout Continues

Steve Watson
Source
Saturday, May 16, 2009 One single short article in the Wall Street Journal that merely acknowledges this weekend’s Bilderberg Group meeting in Athens is the only US media coverage of a confab involving around 150 of the globe’s most influential movers and shakers. “The managers of world capitalism aren’t always popular, which is one reason the Group of Seven leaders now meet in out-the-way resorts that are hard for protestors to reach.”

WSJ reports. A Google News searchon “Bilderberg,” which is now in its third day, returns 33 results, all of which consist of articles from this website, a smattering of other alternative media reports, in addition to a snippet from the French Press Agency and Charlie Skelton’s London Guardian updates. Even if you accept the ludicrous claim of the debunkers - that Bilderberg is a mere “talking shop” that contributes nothing towards actual policy - do you still not think it odd that only one mainstream U.S. press outlet has even mentioned it in passing?

A mere book signing by an ex-politician would generate at least a few headlines, yet we have dozens of CEO’s, European and Federal Reserve banking and finance kingpins, Prime Ministers, European royalty, NSA officials, professors from top Universities, NATO and UN officials, oil company chairmen, and foreign policy luminaries meeting behind closed doors and yet only one U.S. media report!

The outright complicity of the corporate media in blackballing Bilderberg coverage reminds us why the elite encounter little hindrance in conspiring in such a secretive and undemocratic manner every single year without facing any substantial public scrutiny.

Related: Charlie Skelton's Bilderberg files

Bilderberg Fears Losing Control
In Chaos-Plagued World

Investigative journalist Daniel Estulin reveals Bilderberg’s plan to destroy world economy, lower global population by two thirds

Listen to Estulin’s interview with The Corbett Report below (text summary follows).

Paul Joseph Watson
Source Monday,
May 18, 2009
Investigative journalist Daniel Estulin, whose information from inside Bilderberg has routinely proven accurate, states that the global elite’s plan to completely destroy the economy and ultimately lower global population by two thirds has stoked fears even within Bilderberg itself that the fallout from such chaos could ultimately result in the globalists losing their control over the world.

In a telephone interview, Estulin re-iterated his original points about Bilderberg’s 2009 agenda, which were released in a pre-meeting booklet to members. These include the notion that investors, whipped up into a false state of euphoria by the belief that the economy is recovering, are being suckered into ploughing their money back into the system as a set up for “massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead” as the stock market reverses its uptrend and plummets to new lows.

One of Bilderberg’s main topics of conversation at this year’s meeting was whether to oversee a long period of economic stagnation or to quickly sink the economy with a rapid depression. Estulin called the “bank stress tests” recently conducted as being “little more than a shameless hoax based on the irrational assumption that the economy wont get as bad as it already is.”

Bilderberg are also intent in pushing through the Lisbon Treaty despite it being rejected by countries in Europe who allowed their population to vote on the issue, and are prepared to manufacture demonization campaigns against anti-EU pressure groups, namely the Libertas organization fronted by Declan Ganley.

One of Bilderberg’s primary concerns according to Estulin is the danger that their zeal to reshape the world by engineering chaos in order to implement their long term agenda could cause the situation to spiral out of control and eventually lead to a scenario where Bilderberg and the global elite in general are overwhelmed by events and end up losing their control over the planet.

Estulin said that the economic crisis is a vastly greater threat than a mere recession and that, as long as the present structure of the global economy remains the same, it will ultimately lead to a massive population reduction of two thirds within a generation or two.

Estulin said that such a massive crisis would bring many unknowns that “Scare and frighten some of the more savvy members of the Bilderberg inner circle who are wondering how far they have actually gone not only to destroy the world but perhaps even destroy themselves,” adding that this subject was a topic of conversation at this year’s meeting.

Estulin highlighted a phrase that he first ran across in Bilderberg documents many years ago but only came to understand more recently following the 2002 meeting in Chantilly Virginia, the term “demand destruction”. Estulin said that a source connected to the World Bank explained to him that, “You destroy demand by destroying the world economy on purpose - which is what we’re witnessing right now,” added Estulin, “destruction of the world economy on purpose.”

Rape Pix Obama won't release

I have posted these pictures before. They are some of those Obama does not want released. Many more can be found on the porn sites of the web - if you care to look. I recommend you search this blog for 'aafia' and read her story too. There is little doubt these horrors occurred - are we going to let them get away with it so they can be repeated again and again?

"A released Iraqi POW has come forward and stated to the internationl media that that he was sodomized at the Abu Ghraib prison while a female US soldier cheered and the entire incident filmed."

Read entire article and view pictures here.

Los Angeles, Alta California - May 2, 2004 - (ACN) The release, by CBS News, of the photographs showing the heinous sexual abuse and torture of Iraqi POW's at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison has opened a Pandora's box for the Bush regime. Apparently, the suspended US commander of the prison where the worst abuses took place, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, has refused to take the fall by herself and has implicated the CIA, Military Intelligence and private US government contractors in the torturing of POW's and in the raping of Iraqi women detainees as well.

Shape of things to come

I have written on the shape of things to come before here. Disturbing trends are converging at a rapid rate which portend an entirely different future than humans have imagined (except in science-fiction).

Three articles below stand out as huge milestones in the relentless march toward a New World Order: sophisticated human implants, corporation monopolies of food production and the alliance of China and Russia politically. The vehicle of implementing surveillance through implants and DNA collection, could very well be world hunger as corporations have taken over food production.

When I first blogged on these issues, I was alarmed. But finding the ongoing progress of technology to control the masses, I am beginning to fear the road ahead for us. Not that I have a solution - but the first step in definitely being aware.

Saudi 'Killer Chip' Implant Would Track,
Eliminate Undesirables

05-17-2009
Source
It could be the ultimate in political control — but it won't be patented in Germany.

German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi inventor's application to patent a "killer chip," as the Swiss tabloids put it, had been denied.

The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily.

Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat.

The inventor said the chip could be used to track terrorists, criminals, fugitives, illegal immigrants, political dissidents, domestic servants and foreigners overstaying their visas.

"The invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law — which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals," German Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told the English-language German-news Web site The Local.
Click to enlarge pic.

The 21st century's bleak harvest

Rising food prices increased the aid dependency of developing countries [GALLO/GETTY]

By Asif Mehdi, development practitioner
Source
As the world staggers from one economic crisis to another, it seems easy to forget the global food crisis that occupied centre stage in 2008.

World prices for essential grains more than doubled between 2006 and 2008.

Rice, the staple food of most of Asia, doubled in price in just seven months. And, despite their commitments to trade liberalisation, a few significant grain-exporting developing countries rushed to protect domestic grain stocks by banning exports.

The poor, who typically spend between 50 and 70 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, were most affected by the crisis.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the food crisis raised the number of undernourished people from 923 million to more than one billion by this year.

In late 2007 and 2008, the crisis caused food riots in at least 15 countries across the world, from Brazil to Bangladesh, and international media and forums spoke of little else.

Then, as suddenly as it struck, declining prices relegated the food crisis to collective global amnesia.

Causes not addressed

However, while prices for grains and foods have declined in 2009, they are still higher than pre-crisis levels and the fundamental causes of their volatility have not disappeared.

The international economic system has witnessed a dramatic disbanding of trade and investment barriers.

However, the international market for agricultural commodities, the nature of industrial agriculture, changing consumption patterns and international finance all threaten to make food price volatility and food insecurity a recurrent feature of the early 21st century.

Agriculture offers a textbook case of international market distortion. And in this case, the market distortion is created by precisely the developed countries that extol the virtues of free markets.

Double standards

The developed world protects its domestic agriculture with any number of subsidies and technical barriers to trade.

In 2006, for example, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that agricultural subsidies in OECD member countries were about $230bn.

In contrast to the magnitude of those subsidies, Official Development Assistance from OECD member states amounted to $120bn (the US alone had a military budget of $600bn in 2007).

The agricultural subsidies cover a host of measures - from domestic price support, to compensation to farmers for maintaining fallow land, to export price subsidies to dumping, some of which is disguised as food aid.

Paradoxically, international trade negotiations and, more importantly, International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending conditions expect developing countries to remove agricultural subsidies and liberalise domestic markets to imported foods.

While these measures allow for the increased availability of food, they have also eroded domestic agriculture and impoverished the rural economy, often in the most economically fragile states.

It was not surprising that the most impoverished countries were unable to meet the international price surge with increased domestic production, or the release of buffer stocks of staple food commodities.

In fact, those countries became ever more aid dependent as governments struggled to find the resources to pay the bills for imported food (and fuel), in the face of sharpened threats of hunger and undernourishment.

Industry domination

The opening of developing country markets does not benefit the average farmer in the developed world.

The international agricultural industry is dominated by a few grain, seed, chemicals and oil companies.

Such is their market power that three companies control the global grain trade and one company controls 60 per cent of seed production.

The grain trading conglomerates have unchecked market power to hoard and influence world prices.

Seed companies have employed breakthroughs in biotechnology to produce seeds that are compatible only with certain brands of pesticide or supply patented terminator seeds which germinate just once, and therefore the seed from a harvest cannot be used to grow a second crop.

This last feature of the seed business ensures a seed serfdom for the farmer, who cannot set aside part of the harvest for replanting.

It is no wonder, then, that the profits of the grain traders soared to astronomical heights in 2007, in one case up by 60 per cent over the previous year.

And it is no wonder that small farmers are bankrupted by one crop failure because of their inability to afford to buy or finance the procurement of seed for a new crop.

Industrialised agriculture

The other facet of industrialised agriculture is its energy intensity and reliance on hydrocarbon resources, whether as fertiliser or as fuel.

The poorest were most seriously impacted by rising food prices [GALLO/GETTY]
During the heyday of the Green Revolution, one study noted that between 1945 and 1994 US energy input for agriculture increased four-fold while crop yields only increased three-fold.

Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield.

Barring a breakthrough in seed technology, industrial agriculture has reached a point of diminishing marginal returns from energy usage.

In addition, the fact that oil resource availability has peaked suggests that oil prices will be on a long-term increase, thereby increasing the costs of food production.

Given the nature of the financial crisis in developed countries, it is highly doubtful that governments will have the fiscal resources to increase subsidies to the agricultural sector, in order to contain the increase in prices.

For the developing world, fiscal constraints on governments and the likely drying up of development assistance will have the same impact.

Food to fuel

The recent movement in the developed world to produce bio-fuels is yet another factor propelling the price of grains.

A World Bank study, prepared in April 2008, pointed out that a third of US corn production goes to produce ethanol and half the vegetable oils produced in the EU to the production of biodiesel.

This diversion from food to fuel is subsidised extensively, while imports from Brazil (which has had the longest standing and most extensive bio ethanol production) are subjected to tariff barriers that effectively prohibit imports of Brazilian ethanol into these markets.

Commodity speculators, seeing the potential from increased demand for grains in these subsidised programmes, drove up futures commodity prices which in turn raised current prices in grain markets.

The same World Bank study contends that 75 per cent of the food price increase was due to bio-fuels, a figure hotly contested by the Bush administration at the time.

An International Food Policy Research Institute study asserts that the effect was somewhat less, at 30 per cent of the food price increase.

Ideology of the rich

The financial crisis in itself was a cause for the food price hike.

While prices rose steadily through 2006 and 2007, the latter half of 2008 saw a sharp increase in prices, in a so-called price spike.

However, little had changed in the fundamental conditions of supply or demand to cause such dramatic market adjustments.

If the financial crisis reduces aid another food crisis could be devastating[GALLO/GETTY]
By now it is clearly evident that as the unregulated and complex financial sector of the US was facing the unfolding effects of the real estate bubble, trillions of dollars moved across sectors and spaces and invested in food and primary commodities, causing another price bubble, this time of an altogether more serious consequence.

The simultaneous inflation of oil and food futures caused cost increases in the production of food while inflating its trading prices at the same time.

It seems that finance had run out of opportunities for profit, so it turned to the earth as a means of generating speculative profit, whether through real estate or primary commodities and food.

As the more recent financial crisis has shown, there is no regulatory capacity to stop such profiteering from reoccurring.

These are the difficult prospects and consequences of a world run by the ideology of the rich and powerful.

Development lessons

There are development lessons to be learned here.

First, food security is an issue requiring long-term international effort and food security demands that local agriculture be able to supply domestic needs wherever possible and that reserve stocks are garnered for difficult times.

Second, the developing nations are justified in holding out in the Doha Round of trade negotiations until real and tangible concessions are made with regard to trade in agricultural products.

Third, national development efforts need to be replenished with such 'old fashioned' endeavours as investing in rural production, water availability and the empowerment of the small farmer.

Economic history shows us that industrialisation was preceded by agricultural transformations, with the state playing a heavy role.

And economic history is a better guide to policy than the theorising of free marketers serving powerful corporate interests.

Asif Mehdi works in international development with an international intergovernmental organisation and has worked extensively in Asia and Africa during his 29-year career as a development practitioner.

The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera.

China's top legislator: China-Russia partnership
enjoys fast growth

05-17-2009
Source
The strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Russia is currently showing all-round momentum and rapid growth as high-level contacts remain frequent, China's top legislator said in Moscow on Wednesday.

Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, made the remark during a meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

Wu, who arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for an official goodwill visit, said he appreciates the frequent contact between leaders of the two countries.

He said Medvedev's visit to China last year helped lay the foundation for continuous growth of the strategic partnership between the two countries.

Medvedev said that he and Chinese President Hu Jintao held their first meeting this year during the London G20 summit in April. He expressed the wish that they will have more meetings later this year.

The Russian president said he expects Hu to pay a state visit to Russia in June. Medvedev also expects to meet with Hu during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and the summit of "BRIC" countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China, later this year.

China and Russia this year also are to hold a series of activities to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Wu and Medvedev stressed the importance of parliamentary exchanges between the two countries, saying they reflect the high level of development of the China-Russia partnership of strategic cooperation.

Wu said the strong China-Russia partnership is reflected in such areas as frequent contacts between top leaders of the two countries, the staging of "Russian Language Year" in China, the signing of an oil cooperation agreement between the two governments, and exchanges between the NPC and the Russian parliament.

Russia, Medvedev said, places high importance on parliamentary exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.

The Russian president also said Wu's visit reflects the momentum of fast growth in bilateral links.

Source: Xinhua

http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2009-05/14/content_252734.htm

Sunday reading - Quotes from George Orwell

Source

A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

Big Brother is watching you.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.

We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.

Candid camera - the Sheikh shows his character

We don't often get to see the savagry of the upper classes. Mostly, they are cloaked in media with robes of bright and mysterious light. Yet any time of the day or night, turn on the TV and find examples of the lower classes' savagry: crime dramas. The character of the elites are protected by their anonymity and their ownership of media itself.

Sometimes though - things get out.



This is definitely a story the UAE did not want to surface. However, it is as unfair to paint all elites as this brutal; mostly their hands are clean because they have other foot soldiers and pawns to carry out their atrocities.

As unpleasant as this video is, there are much worse stories from Gaza, the Congo and around the world. How about a crime drama telling the story of an Indian farmer who became a serf of Monsanto, whose crop failed and he committed suicide? There are thousands of examples of those - growing by the day in more and more countries.

Suppose for a minute that the TV fare on tonight had 10 different dramatisations of corporate/elite crime and human rights violations? Plenty of diversity for crimes: starvation, bombing, poisoning, torture, orphans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Wouldn't there be some great story lines in those subjects? I think some might even support a mini-series. I have a feeling that right about now, this is a highly marketable approach to TV programming.

So I am grateful for having this video and story in the public eye, and for Sheikh Issa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE for baring his ugly elite soul to the world. We don't often get to see the real handiwork of the big dogs at the top so honestly reproduced for public consumption. Really gave me a wake up call.

Sheikh Issa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE
has tortured a business partner.

Source
Emirati authorities have reportedly arrested the Abu Dhabi Prince who was caught on camera while sadistically torturing an Afghan man.

The world reacted in horror to recently-exposed footage that showed Sheikh Issa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, son of the late UAE president and brother of the Abu Dhabi crown prince, ruthlessly torturing an Afghan grain dealer who had allegedly cheated in a business deal.

The victim was beaten with wooden planks with nails protruding from them, after which the prince poured salt on his bleeding wounds.

The video also shows the prince setting fire to the victim’s genitals, giving him electric shocks with a cattle prod, ramming desert sand into his mouth, and firing bullets around him with an automatic rifle.

The video caused uproar among human rights organizations and prompted Abu Dhabi prosecutors to detain Sheikh Issa on Tuesday to further investigate into the incident.

According to a statement by the UAE Judicial Department, “all documents, related to the recently broadcast video, depicting the ill-treatment of an individual have been referred to the Abu Dhabi Public Prosecution Office.”

If the case goes to trial, it would be the first time that a member of the ruling family in the United Arab Emirates faces criminal charges in a court of law.

Torture allegations against Sheikh Issa came to light a year ago when his former business associate, Bassam Nabulsi, sued the sheik for millions of dollars and submitted the video tapes to a US federal court in Houston.

In his suit, Nabulsi also charged Issa and other members of the ruling family with false imprisonment and with torturing him in an attempt to get the tapes back after Nabulsi’s business relations with Issa soured.

The UAE, the world’s third-largest oil exporter, has been grappling with its human rights image after facing severe criticism from humanitarian organizations.

More than 80 percent of the UAE population consists of foreigners, most of whom come from the Indian subcontinent.

A torrent of human rights reports have revealed that laborers are largely subjected to extreme conditions. Many are housed in shanty camps and are forced to work long hours in the scorching desert climate. Employers often retain their passports.
Also See:

52% say legalise marajuana

"Cannabis by Night"
Colurtesy: geopium.org

New Poll: 52% Say Marijuana Should Be Legal,
Taxed, Regulated

Zogby Poll Commissioned by Conservative Group
Is Similar to Other Recent Surveys.

Salem-News.com
Source
May-06-2009
(WASHINGTON D.C.) - A new Zogby poll commissioned by the conservative-leaning O'Leary Report has found 52 percent voter support for treating marijuana as a legal, taxed, regulated substance.

The survey, published as a full-page ad in today's issue of the political newspaper The Hill, polled a sample of 3,937 voters weighted to match the 2008 presidential outcome -- 54 percent Obama voters and 46 percent McCain supporters.

"This new survey continues the recent trend of strong and growing support for taxing and regulating marijuana and ending the disastrously failed policy of prohibition," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.

Voters were asked: "Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government's effort to legalize marijuana?"

Documentary on PTSD Needs Help to Reach Completion (VIDEO)

The results showed a decisive majority of 52 percent in favor with 37 percent opposed and 11 percent not sure -- slightly higher than the 46 percent support reported in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released at the end of April.

In California, the respected Field poll recently found 56 percent support for making marijuana a taxed, regulated product that is legal for adults.

"Voters are coming to realize that marijuana prohibition gives us the worst of all possible worlds -- a drug that's widely available but totally unregulated, whose producers and sellers pay no taxes but whose profits often support murderous drug cartels," Kampia said.

"The public is way ahead of the politicians on this."

With more than 27,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.

White House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs'

"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."

No more guns in the US for the people - HR 2159

The article and video below this commentary,
document the bills now in the US Congress to disarm the American public.

I don't like guns. I wish noone, including the government had any. And though I fall on the far left side of the political spectrum, these days I often find myself in agreement with some of the positions of the far right: these are confusing times where - Nothing's right, and nothing's left. Yet I do not believe in violence, except as a last, very very last, resort. The People could bring Big Government and Corporatism to its knees begging within one week with the methods of Ghandi. If only people would unite! If I belong to any 'ist' or 'ism' as an adherent, I would have to call myself a Constitutionalist. Only the people can ratify a constitution.


Loss of Constitutional rights, some say, is a slippery slope; and in some aspects, this is true. But the reality today, is this: AMERICANS HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ANYMORE. The Patriot Act superseded all of them long ago - while America was shopping with mortgage refi money and raising angry fists to bomb them thar evil terrorists in Iraq. Yes they were all gone years ago....but US citizens are just realising this. Americans are in the valley below the slippery slope now.

Sadly, this is not just a US phenomenon. It is happening all over the world. The critical difference is that Europe is on fire with protests and America yawns hoping the bedtime story has a 'happily ever after' ending. While Europeans are fighting the changes they see eroding their human rights in the streets - they are still doing it from 'panic-virus'; hopefully, this will mutate into the realisation that 'together we are stronger', and many countries will unite within Europe to voice their concerns about the EU superstructure growing every moment.

Ironically, the EU machinery itself (as well as the US machinery) provides the very (international) democractic mechanism by which the People can control the Bureaucracy. It is being used now by the Irish in the NO to Lisbon campaign. It will not become our strength until EU citizens pressure their MPs for unification with other national populist movements.

Guns are not the issue here. Evaporation of civil rights which are replaced by an international surveillance and control system of every person's activities is a far more toxic pandemic. The right to bear arms is a Constitutional one in the US, the purpose of which was to ensure that government could never oppress the People with tyranny. However, now, anyone who opposes tyranny is a 'terrorist': even if the tyranny IS the government itself. And you don't have to own a gun....words on a blog such as this can very well designate one as a 'person of interest' nullifying all Consitutional rights by authority of the Patriot Act.

The government now possesses the appropriate “watch lists” and has designated specific categories of Americans as domestic terrorists. If H.R. 2159 becomes law the Obama administration and the Justice Department will go after opponents to their far-reaching plan to disarm the nation and deliver it defenseless into the clutches of bankers and corporatists determined to reduce a once proud constitutional republic to the status of a fuedalist backwater. (Article below)

Whether one is far left, far right or center, this enforceable law described below will be what rules daily life for all. I await the day when Americans wake up and realise that people on the other side of the pond are not the enemy; but, fight for the same right to a decent life that all people from all nations want (this is THE purpose of government, no corporate/banking profitability).

I posted the story of Alistair Lundeby last week here. This is an example of how the Patriot Act defines a 'terrorist'. Yes, this can happen to you your family anytime - it only takes a call from a cranky neighbour or ex-lover reporting you for 'suspicious' activities or associations. Or perhaps you visited some dodgy websites while doing a search online. Hard to believe, isn't it? That the US (and Great Britain) now have the same state mechanisms as Stalin and Hitler. But a fascist but any name stinks as much.

Update on domestic terrorist labels

House Bill Aims to Strip “Rightwing Extremists”
of Second Amendment Right

05-11-2009
By Kurt Nimmo
Source
A sinister bill working its way through the House may eventually serve as a companion piece to the Department of Homeland Security’s “Rightwing Extremist” report that labels veterans and advocates of the Second Amendment as dangerous terrorists — H.R. 2159, The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009, sponsored by Rep. Peter King of New York.


The bill would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.”

On April 29, with little fanfare or corporate media coverage, H.R. 2159 was introduced and referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. The bill would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.” The entire bill can be read on the Govtrack website.

A similar bill was introduced in the Senate in 2007 but did not make it out of committee.

As noted above, the DHS has compiled a long list of folks the government considers terrorists. The bill, if enacted, would allow the attorney general, a documented gun-grabber, to deny millions of Americans due process. “[Rep. King] would deny citizens their civil liberties based on no due process,” Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, tells WorldNetDaily.

Pratt worries that the new bill will be used in conjunction with the DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report. “By those standards, I’m one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano’s terrorists,” Pratt continues. “This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they’re all potential terrorists. Actually, we could rename this bill the Janet Napolitano Frenzied Fantasy Implementation Act of 2009.”



On May 1, 2009, Infowars reported on the existence of another DHS document, the “Domestic Extremism Lexicon.” It adds more suspected terrorists to the government’s list, including people working in the alternative media, anarchists, pro-life activists, skinheads, lone terrorists, members of the militia movement, “decentralized” terrorists, and others.

Update on domestic terrorist labels


The DHS reports were distributed to “federal, state, local, and tribal counterterrorism and law enforcement officials so they may effectively deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States.”

Earlier this week, a man was stopped in Louisiana and detained by police for the crime of displaying a “Don’t tread one me” bumper sticker on his car. A background check was conducted to determine whether he was a member of an “extremist” group, according to The American Vision website. “Don’t tread on me” was originally displayed on a flag designed by general and statesman Christopher Gadsden during the Revolutionary War. It is depicted as a terrorist symbol in the DHS “Rightwing Extremist” report.


House Bill Aims to Strip Rightwing Extremists of Second Amendment Right


Stephen Halbrook, Independent Institute Research Fellow and author of the book The Founders’ Second Amendment, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to Attorney General nominee Eric Holder.


During Holder’s shoo-in confirmation hearings earlier this year, Stephen Halbrook, Second Amendment attorney, detailed Holder’s vehement opposition to the right to bear arms. Holder’s role in the Waco massacre and Ruby Ridge were expected to be brought up during the hearings but were not.

Shortly after 9/11, Holder penned a Washington Post op-ed entitled “Keeping Guns Away From Terrorists.” In the article, the future Attorney General argues that a new law should give “the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a record of every firearm sale.” He also states that prospective gun buyers should be checked against the secret “watch lists” compiled by various government entities. In order to make his point, Holder makes the ludicrous hypothesis that Osama bin Laden would be able to purchase an unregistered firearm at a gun show in America.

The government now possesses the appropriate “watch lists” and has designated specific categories of Americans as domestic terrorists. If H.R. 2159 becomes law the Obama administration and the Justice Department will go after opponents to their far-reaching plan to disarm the nation and deliver it defenseless into the clutches of bankers and corporatists determined to reduce a once proud constitutional republic to the status of a fuedalist backwater.

Watch live - baby eagle chick

Thanks to Reject the Herd for this great find!

This image will only be clear for daylight hours of Canada's west coast PST. I have never been in an eagle's nest with a chick before and never thought I would be: but, among the amazing things I have seen in this cam view, is the mother eagle feeding the baby chick and 'doing housekeeping' chores. The absolute vigilant strength of a mother's instinct in this magestic predator is spellbinding for me.

Also amazing is how many viewers are like me, watching this cam; 500+ at one time. Ah if only we had a chat line too...tho I am not sure that words can express the miracle that happens in this eagle's nest. Hope you enjoy it and catch an active period on the cam.