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The Chinese Prison System I Know
The following are facts I've learnt about the Chinese prison system. Most are my personal experiences. Some were learnt from my cellmates.
1. Detention Centre
The inmates in the detention centre are classified into three groups: administrative detainees, criminal detainees and arrestees. Administrative detainees do not need to take off their clothing items like leather shoes and leather belts when admitted. Criminal detainees are not treated as leniently, as the moment they arrive at the detention centre, the guards force them to remove all their clothing and submit to a body search. The police use pliers to pull open zippers and metal closures on the clothes, resulting in many of the clothes being badly torn and damaged.
The most ridiculous thing at the centre is that there is a large bamboo basket near the door of the check-up room which the guards call the "trash bin." Inmates are not allowed to bring any valuable personal items like gold rings, watches, leather shoes, leather belts, or jewelry into the cell.
The police do not behave like they do on TV, and register your personal belongings for you. Instead they tell inmates to throw their possessions into the "trash bin." Some people's personal items that are worth several thousand, or even ten thousand yuan, are thrown into that bin. Of course it is pretty obvious where all this "trash" eventually ends up. A pair of my good running shoes were lost this way. At the time I realised where the so-called used shoes at the night market came from. But even the police in other branches do not know this fact.
Goods are for sale to inmates in the detention centre, but they are twice as expensive as in the market. Beer and cigarettes are also sold there. But the cigarettes are fake, not tobacco. Everyone is barefoot unless they were wearing slippers when admitted. All other shoes are thrown into the "trash bin." The wealthy inmates can buy slippers sold there. The poor inmates walk barefoot, and are forced to jog and do drills barefoot every morning. When it rains, the hardship is even more severe.
The food is also very poor. The allowance for each meal is 150 to 200 grams of cooked rice with several pieces of green vegetables and a little meat each week. Within ten seconds of the meal being served, even before I began to eat, some had inmates had already finished theirs.
My work at the centre was stringing lantern beads. I was forced to thread two pieces of copper thread through a hole in a plastic base, and then position the thread equally to both sides of the base. Because the thread was thin and the hole was small, it was hard to pierce and I always pricked my hands. The assignment was 2-4 bags each day, each bag containing 1000 pieces. The older inmates' assignment was half this much. Most people cannot finish the assigned work, and they have to work overtime at night. Some even worked until three or four a.m. However, if there is a Falun Dafa practitioner inside the cell, the inmates will help each other. Many inmates, including the heads of the cell, sincerely feel that Falun Dafa is good. They really have high respect those who practise Falun Dafa.
2. The "Take In" Centre
Our local "take in" centre was once used for brainwashing classes. The classes lasted more than two years, and illegally detained a large number of Falun Dafa practitioners. Some practitioners were sent from the "take in" centre to forced labour camps. After being released from the labour camps, some were sent back to the centre, and then returned to the labour camp again.
At that time the centre was mainly for detaining prostitutes and their customers. The term lasts from six months to two years. From the experience of some inmates here, we can see the chaos of the Chinese judicial system. One young man was a taxi driver. He drove a customer to a "hair salon" to see a prostitute, then waited for him outside the door. Then the police came to arrest customers of the prostitutes. The driver was also detained for six months. Another detainee was the head of a construction contracting company. He was arrested for consorting with a prostitute and asked to pay a 3000-5000 yuan fine. He thought he would be detained for at most fifteen days, so he refused to pay the fine. As a result, he was detained for two years. Actually the detention term is totally dependent on the whim of the police. There is no formal policy at all. Sometimes the police directly send the inmates to the detention centre without mentioning the fine. Almost all the inmates here are from other places, and the police dare not take in local people because their family members could make trouble.
The detainees are forced to do work such as threading lantern beads, tilling land, and carrying mud. Since the "take in" centre is for administrative penalties, the work is not heavy.
3. Drug Rehabilitation Centre
I did not personally go to the drug rehabilitation centre, but I learnt a lot about the centre from many drug addicts who were sent there.
The drugs addicts call our local drug rehabilitation centre "the darkest prison in Southeast Asia." The guards do not supervise the centre directly, as other inmates, known as "big brothers," supervise this area. There is no so-called study or education inside. The drug addicts only work hard to make money for the guards. The assignment for stringing lamp beads is seven or eight bags per day. It is quite common for newcomers to work around the clock without sleep to meet their quota. Only if they work quickly enough, can they earn time to sleep. If someone cannot finish the assignment over the long term, and if beating them every day also doesn't motivate the inmate, only then were they allowed to change to another job.
The "big brothers" do not need to work. Their work is to supervise others. If inmates cannot finish their work assignments, the "big brothers" beat them or have someone else beat them. The "big brothers" carry around large wooden clubs at all times. They check up on work progress in the afternoon. If anyone has not completed enough work, the "big brothers" beat them on the spot. The drug addicts have to give most personal items that are brought to them by their family members to the "big brothers," while keeping only one or two bags of instant noodles. The guards actually cover up all these facts. Both the guards and the big brothers have beaten inmates to death, but since the centre has a death quota every year, all the incidents were covered by paying out some money.
When higher authorities come to inspect, the centre does something to ensure a favourable review. For example, there is usually no meat for the inmates, but during the inspection a big slice of meat will be put into every inmate's bowl. But the inmates are told beforehand, "You are not allowed to eat it!" Then when the inspection is over, all the meat is collected. Some inmates were so starved that they ate the meat. As a result, they were beaten first, then thrown into a pool to soak, then exposed to the hot sun.
According to the law, the term for drug rehabilitation is three months. But in this centre the drug addicts were released after three months only if their family paid 3000 yuan. Without payment the term would be extended to one or two years.
I once heard that the centre director's two sons both died a violent death. People who knew the facts called it karmic retribution.
4. Forced Labour Camp
These forced labour "re-education" camps are intended to combine labour with "education." But in Chinese labour camps, there is only labour without education. As the cadres, (1) the police at the forced labour camp describe their mission, "We educate people by labour." In fact, it is nothing but a money-making tool of the police department.
There are numerous reports on the Internet of how labour camps have treated Falun Dafa practitioners. The cadres secretly do many evil deeds. They have other inmates monitor or watch "untransformed" practitioners around the clock, but after some time many of the monitors become practitioners' friends. Some even help practitioners transmit information outside the camp. When the evildoers suspect this they change the monitor, but the result is the same. Many practitioners' monitors were changed more than ten times. In fact many inmates know that the cadre are evil.
The most common way to deal with "untransformed" practitioners is depriving them of sleep. They are put in a small cell every day, and brainwashed by one or two brainwashing specialists and cadre members. If the practitioner is sleepy, he will be pushed to wake him/her up. According to practitioners who experienced the process, it is somewhat like hypnotising, making one dazed, unable to think normally, so one is more apt to be brainwashed.
On the women's team, practitioners are not allowed to drink water, except for the small amount of water in the vegetables served at each meal. Sometimes they are beaten in secret, but the cadres deny everything.
There are all kinds of work in the labour camp, including making coloured lanterns, knitting sweaters, making cloth toys, embroidering slippers, and grinding gems. Other miscellaneous work varies with the season.
Stringing lantern beads, as I mentioned above, is part of making coloured lanterns. Making coloured lanterns is one of the main activities in the labour camp. During holidays there are decorations with lanterns and coloured banners everywhere. Can you imagine that most of the beautiful lanterns are made by inmates under extremely arduous conditions? It is the same with embroidered slippers, cloth toys, necklaces, strings of beads, the stones mounted in utensils, and so on.
The work assignments in the labour camp are the amount one can finish from 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Some inmates can finish the assignment after dinner, but most need to work until 11:00 p.m. or midnight. It was once heard that someone on the women's team died from exhaustion. After that, the labour camp gave an order to stop work by 11:00 p.m.
But actually, every team forces inmates to secretly work past 11:00 p.m. For example, the inmates in the gem team had to get up at 5:00 a.m. and go to bed at 2:00 a.m. next day. Even so, the director stated in the monthly meetings, "Our team's output last month is less than some other teams. This month we need to make greater efforts."
Extending or reducing the terms of detainment is chaotic in the labour camps. Any cadre member can alter an inmate's term for any reason. The cadres arbitrarily extend the steadfast Falun Dafa practitioners' terms. However, after all the practitioners protested these actions, the cadres restrained themselves somewhat. Even so, every practitioner's term was extended, and some were extended the maximum of one year.
Note:
(1) Cadres are the police in charge of the forced labour camps in China
Published: Saturday 13th November 2004
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Chinese prison is a toy factoryChina produces 75% of the world’s toys.
61 Responses to “Chinese prison is a toy factory”om Chinese prison! For $80,000 USD, you can buy a fresh new human liver. It was actually over 900 people total. Over 400 Japanese men who wanted to participate in an 3 day orgy flew to China and were all staying at the same hotel with 500 prostitutes. Well, that's not an orgy, it's like.... synchronized swimming Prison Labor: Can U.S. Point Finger at China? By Paul Blustein
Horror stories are surfacing anew about the Chinese prison labor system and the sale of its products in the United States. But consider what is happening to the 64,000 U.S. convicts in the Florida prison system: Prisoners are required to work -- or face punishment. Most inmates, even ones digging ditches on chain gangs, are paid nothing. Moreover, some of the products they make, such as boots and license plates, are exported to foreign countries. Therein lies a question: Because inmates in many U.S. prisons are obliged to work, do Americans have the right to condemn China's prison labor practices? The question arises because China's "reform through labor" penal system, known in Chinese as laogai, is becoming a hot issue in Congress and the media amid the mounting debate over whether Beijing should be allowed to retain its trading privileges. Senate and House committees held hearings May 21 and 22 on allegations that goods made in Chinese prisons are being imported into the United States in violation of U.S. law and a U.S.-China agreement. Among those offering testimony about how easy it is to buy convict-made goods was Harry Wu, a former inmate laborer who has gained worldwide fame for returning to China to document the nation's "prison economy." An ABC "Nightline" program broadcast the night after the hearing featured videotape from another witness indicating that binder clips were being made in a Chinese women's prison for a U.S. office-supplies company. All of this is generating potent ammunition for critics of U.S. trade with China, who contend that Beijing is profiting from the toil of people railroaded into working cruelly long hours under appalling conditions. TV ads being readied by the Family Research Council, a group seeking to overturn China's most-favored-nation trade status, accuse Beijing of employing "slave labor." But some academic experts call this argument a classic example of hyping an issue to advance a political agenda. "Harry Wu and others have tried to stir up a great controversy about how goods made by forced labor are flooding into our market," said James Feinerman, a professor of Asian Legal Studies at Georgetown University. "But in fact, it's only a tiny fraction of all Chinese goods. And it seems to me to be the height of hypocrisy for us to get on our high horse about China making its prisoners work, given the fact that we do the same thing with our prisoners." The importation of goods made in Chinese prisons, while against U.S. law, should be a "non-issue because the amounts are so small," agreed James Seymour, a senior research scholar at Columbia University whose book on Chinese prisons is scheduled to be published shortly. Although the precise amount is impossible to determine, Seymour's book cites Chinese economic data indicating that the output of Chinese prisons constitutes less than one-fifth of 1 percent of total Chinese production. The U.S. federal prison system, and many state prison systems, require all able-bodied inmates to work, often in tasks that are designed to save taxpayers money, such as cleaning up highways, painting public buildings or making office furniture. Those who refuse typically are deprived of privileges or sent to higher-security institutions. Pay is far below minimum wage -- 12 cents to $1.15 an hour for federal inmates, and less than that in many state systems. So their products usually are barred from sale except to government agencies. But ironically, while the law prohibits importing prison-made goods and restricts their sale across state lines, there is no law barring their export. Thus, boots made by Florida prisoners have been shipped to Trinidad, license plates have been sent to Nicaragua and cedar-lined boxes have been exported to the Dominican Republic, according to Pamela Jo Davis, president of Pride Enterprises, an organization that pays about 4,300 Florida inmates 20 cents to 50 cents an hour for their labor and provides job training as well. "Being in Florida, we're targeting Latin America and South America," Davis said. "Those are clearly our trading partners." Florida's prisoners are not the only ones making goods for export; blue jeans bearing the brand name "Prison Blues," made by Oregon inmates, have become big sellers in Asia. Critics of China's penal system argue that it shouldn't be viewed as even remotely similar to the one in the United States. "Are you willing to compare the American system with the gulag [in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin] or the Nazi [labor camp] system?" said Wu, who directs the Laogai Research Foundation in Milpitas, Calif. Added Jeffrey L. Fiedler, president of the AFL-CIO's Food and Allied Service Trades Department, who investigates violations of U.S. prison labor laws: "The whole system is different. There is no law or due process in China." In China, Fiedler noted, a person accused of petty thievery or other misdemeanors can be sentenced to up to three years in a labor camp, with a possibility of an extended sentence, based simply on an administrative decision by local law enforcement authorities, with no formal trial. And while serious offenders usually are tried, judges often are Communist Party loyalists who dispense justice arbitrarily, according to experts on the Chinese system. Moreover, some of China's inmates are imprisoned for political activism -- or "counterrevolutionary offenses," as the Chinese put it. But by virtually all accounts, the number of such people -- about 2,700, according to the U.S. government -- is dwarfed by the numbers of others convicted of crimes such as murder, rape and robbery. (Wu estimates that 6 million to 8 million people are laboring in the various branches of the penal system.) "Most of the people in the laogai are of course ordinary criminals, not political," said Chen Pokong, a 33-year-old visiting economics scholar at Columbia who spent five years as an inmate. Chen's case illustrates what many experts find most troubling about the Chinese penal system -- the extensively documented evidence that prisoners often are treated brutally. Chen, who said he was sentenced in 1989 for helping to lead a student democracy movement in the southern province of Guangdong, said he spent two years in one facility where prisoners were forced to carry heavy stones for eight hours to load on ships. "Then, until midnight, we made artificial flowers; sometimes we had to work through the night," he said. "If you collapsed before you finished the quota, you were heavily beaten." Columbia's Seymour said some of the prisons he researched for his book were "totally inhumane," while in others, "conditions were much better." Prisoners generally received some paltry wage, he said. But repugnant as conditions in Chinese prisons might seem to many Americans, Georgetown's Feinerman said, they are based on a decision by the Chinese authorities "to make offenders pay a harsh penalty, on the theory that it scares people so they won't come back into the prison system. You can argue that it works. They have very low rates of recidivism. Who are we to argue with their choices?" Shanghai prison holds hearing behind bars for inmates SHANGHAI, March 30, 2005 -- Shen Dongming's jaw dropped when he heard prison authorities were to convene a hearing to seek opinions from thousands of prisoners inside the Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai. "How could the guards ask for our ideas?" said Shen, a native from east China's Jiangsu Province. "We could hardly believe it. It was like a fantasy." More than 4,000 prisoners at Tilanqiao responded with surprise at first, but later turned out in a week with 30 proposals to the hearing committee, asking prison authorities to tell inmates' their physical examination results, prolong family member meeting time, consult prices of instant noodles outside the prison and let them choose their hair style and even dye their hair. "It is absolutely unprecedented in thousands of years in China's prison history for prison officers to let prisoners have a say on prison management," said Qiao Liguo, warden of Tilanqiao Prison,China's oldest jailhouse still in use. "It is also our prison's first hearing since its establishment in the 1930s," Qiao said. Observers say the recent move by Tilanqiao Prison to hold a hearing for prisoners reflects a "great leap forward" in prison management as hearings are usually held in China on issues which might arouse fierce controversy like raising water and gas prices. "Chinese prisons used to closely link prisoners' basic rights to their performance behind bars and many such rights were usuallyrejected if they did not behave well," said Professor Wang Quandi of the law school with Shanghai-based Fudan University. "The hearing is one great step forward for Chinese prisons in their management," he said. At the hearing broadcast live to the entire prison via closed-circuit televisions on March 15, a deputy warden and five other officers from the education, administration and health sectors listened to the proposals made by 15 prisoner representatives chosen among more than 4,000. "I only heard about hearings hosted by local legislatures on issues of plane or train tickets before," said Li Zhiyong, one of the 15 prisoner representatives proposing at the hearing. "I had never expected such a hearing to let us voice our suggestions on prison management," said Li, a former doctor beforehe was jailed at Tilanqiao Prison. The prison authorities said the feasible suggestions by prisoners have been absorbed into the prison's new management rules and regulations at a plenary session attended by middle-level officers only a day after the hearing. "The hearing enables us prison guards to listen directly to the voices from those inmates," said Cui Jie, a prison police who attended the hearing, "their rightful requests were sometimes ignored in the past." The prison said hearings would be long-term measures before they publish any regulations closely related to prisoners at Tilanqiao where most inmates are serving jail terms of 15 years or above. Prisoners welcomed this change, hailing the hearing a "huge success". "We felt for the first time that we were striving together with the prison guards for a common good," said Shen Dongming, also a prisoner representative at the hearing. China has vowed to speed up reform of its judiciary system, especially the number of prisons, during recent years. Prisoners are now allowed to get married when serving their jail terms, and supermarkets and psychological hospitals have been opened inside prisons. Minister of Justice Zhang Fusen pledged to create a more humanitarian jail system and "integrate with the other parts of the society in a more open manner" at a national conference late last year. Beginning 2004, prisoners in Shanghai no longer have to shave their heads but are free to choose their hairstyle and wear a watch, which was unimaginable in the past. "Prisoners are still prisoners however well they behave," said warden Qiao Liguo, "the deprival of their freedom has been the biggest punishment for their crimes." "But they are still human beings and their basic human rights must be guaranteed," he added. AMERICA: FROM FREEDOM TO FASCISM "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." ~George Orwell. Today I saw the initial screening of Aaron Russo's film America: From Freedom to Fascism in Greenville. Thanks go to Wes Drawdy for his invitation (I didn't even know about this screening until yesterday, having been buried under papers to grade and final exams to prepare). This movie is scheduled for official release this summer. (Official website here; watch the official trailer here.) I cannot recommend it too highly. There will be another screening at Greenville Technical College Auditorium (S. Pleasantburg Rd.) this Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. If you are reading this, are living anywhere within driving distance of Greenville, South Carolina, and still care anything about the future of this country, I highly recommend the trip here. One way or another, we are going to get the problems raised by the income tax, the Federal Reserve central banking system, the consolidation of wealth and power in this country and the emerging New World Order before the public. Frankly, Aaron Russo makes a powerful case that this exposing and stopping the international banking cartel is the only chance this society has for remaining free--with the final stage in the eradication of individual freedom beginning in May 2008 with the National ID (which some of us fought successfully in the late 1990s). Wes Drawdy's comments: THE RED PILL - AMERICA FROM FREEDOM TO FASCISM Before seeing the movie for the first time today, I was a little bit reluctant to ask some of the people I know to come to the free showing that will be at the Verne Smith Auditorium at Greenville Tech on Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. I was afraid that they would be too dense or too intellectually self-suppressed to "get it". My fears were unfounded. This movie is so powerful, so logical, so dead-on, that virtually everyone who sees it "gets it". So now I am going to ask EVERYONE I KNOW WITH AN I.Q. OVER 100 to come to the screening. Even the ones who are in hopeless denial. It is that good. It is that A very simple, two question litmus test can be used to determine whether or not to invite someone to this movie: 1) Do they have a brain? If both answers are "yes" then you should do all you can to get them to the movie. This movie shows what HAS HAPPENED to the United States, and what IS GOING TO HAPPEN to the citizens of the United States if these monsters aren't stopped. Yes that means WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN to your kids and grandkids.... This stuff is enraging, frightening, and true. This movie "connects the dots" in a clear, accurate, This movie IS the *RED PILL* ------------------------- Definition of THE RED PILL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_red_pill In "The Matrix", Neo, a computer hacker, has been searching for the answer to the question: "What is the Matrix?" During his search he is contacted by the legendary hacker, Morpheus. Morpheus takes Neo to a room and offers him the choice between a "Red Pill" and a "Blue Pill". If he takes the Red pill he will find out the answer to the question, but his life will never be the same again. If he takes the blue pill he will forget all he has found out, and will return to his normal life. TODAY'S SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS SIGNATURE TAG LINE: FROM: http://www.lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan40.html “It is time for Congress to tell President Bush directly that he has no authority to go to war on Iran and to launch such a war would be an impeachable offense. If Congress lacks the courage to do its constitutional duty, it should stop whining about imperial presidents. Because, like the Roman Senate of Caesar's time, it will have invited them and it will deserve them.” –PAT BUCHANAN SY again: Our goals (this from the website): Primary Objectives * Stop the polarization of America Saturday, April 29, 2006Bush: the Democratic Dictator Bush may not yet be exercising dictatorial powers. At present he doesn't need to. But give him time. Particularly if any number of possible events threaten major disruptions on U.S. soil in the near future: (1) violent clashes between illegal aliens and any Americans who have decided to stand up to their bullying; (2) another "terrorist attack" on U.S. soil (given that the first one didn't terrify ordinary Americans sufficiently to make them give up their liberties); (3) a global economic disruption that sends gas prices soaring even higher (possibly born of an ill-advised attack on Iran), provoking a panicked reaction on the part of the public; (4) a collapse of the dollar in the face of other nations moving to the euro; (5) a staged bird flu "pandemic." I am sure readers can think of others. A Democratic Dictatorship Given all the discussion and debate about whether President Bush will order his military forces to attack Iran, now would be a good time to review the state of liberty in America. No one can deny that we now live in a country in which the ruler has the omnipotent power to send the entire nation into war on his own initiative. To use the president’s words, when it comes to declaring and waging war against another country, he’s the “decider.” It wasn’t always that way. The Constitution brought into existence a government in which the powers to declare war and wage war were vested in two separate branches of the government. While the president had the power to wage war, he was prohibited from exercising it without a declaration of war from Congress. The idea behind the Constitution itself was that a free society necessarily entails restrictions on the power of the government, especially its ruler. Yet we now live in a nation in which the president has the omnipotent power to ignore all constitutional restraints on his power. That might not be the way the president and his legal advisors put it, but that is the practical effect of what they are saying to justify his powers. They effectively claim that the Constitution vests the president — as military commander in chief during the “war on terrorism” — with such extraordinary powers that he is able to ignore restraints on his powers imposed both by the Constitution and by Congress. No restraints on declaring and waging war against other nations. No restraints on the power to secretly record telephone conversations of the American people. No restraints on the power to kidnap and send people into overseas concentration camps for the purpose of torture and even execution. No restraints on the power to take Americans into custody as “enemy combatants” and punish them — even torture and execute them — without due process of law and jury trials. If all that isn’t dictatorship, what is? “But President Bush is a good man. He’s trying to protect us. He’s waging war against the terrorists. He’s not evil like other dictators in history. He was elected. He can be trusted.” People who say that are missing the point. The suggestion is not that Bush is an evil man. The point is simply that Bush now wields the same omnipotent, dictatorial powers that other dictators in history have wielded. That is not a small transformation in American life when it comes to freedom. “Well, then, where are the mass round-ups, and where are the concentration camps?” Again, people who ask that type of question are missing the point. The point is not whether Bush is exercising his omnipotent, dictatorial power to the maximum extent. It’s whether he now possesses omnipotent, dictatorial power, power that can be exercised whenever circumstances dictate it — for example, during another major terrorist attack on American soil, when Americans become overly frightened again. Unless the American people figure out a way to reverse what has happened to their country — and have the will to do something about it — they will earn the mark of shame reserved for those people in history who voluntarily relinquished their freedom in exchange for the aura of security. Like all others in history who have chosen such a course, they will ultimately learn that they have lost both their freedom and their security. Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email. Friday, April 28, 2006Ron Paul on the 'Academic Bill of Rights' I have long suspected that the struggle against political correctness on college and university campuses had been hijacked by the neocons, who have an agenda of their own that has little to do with traditional academics. This would explain why political correctness remains firmly in control, even as showmen like David Horowitz make appearances around the country. (Who is bankrolling this guy, anyway?) This was a battle we (the struggling white guys defending truth, genuine openness, and the use of one's mind) were not supposed to win. Clearly, the so-called 'Academic Bill of Rights' is not the right way to oppose political correctness. I do not want to see institutionalized repression of critics of, say, radical feminism and racial preferences replaced by institutionalized repression of critics of the Iraq War and of Bush Regime interventionist foreign policy generally. As is often the case, Ron Paul's reasoning is razor-sharp. (Original is here.) The 'Academic Bill of Rights' by Ron Paul Before the U.S. House of Representatives, March 29, 2006 Opponents of increased federalization of higher education should be especially concerned about HR 609's "Academic Bill of Rights." This provision takes a step toward complete federal control of college curricula, grading, and teaching practices. While the provision is worded as a "sense of Congress," the clear intent is to intimidate college administrators into ensuring professors' lectures and lesson plans meet with federal approval. The "Academic Bill of Rights" is a response to concerns that federally-funded institutions of higher learner are refusing to allow students to express, or even be exposed to, points of view that differ from those held by their professors. Ironically, the proliferation of "political correctness" on college campuses is largely a direct result of increased government funding of colleges and universities. Federal funding has isolated institutions of higher education from market discipline, thus freeing professors to promulgate their particular views regardless of whether it benefits their students (who are, after all, the professors' customers). Now, in a perfect illustration of how politicians use problems created by previous interventions in the market to justify new interventions, Congress proposes to use the problem of "political correctness" to justify more federal control over college classrooms. Instead of fostering open dialogue and wide-raging intellectual inquiry, the main effect of the "Academic Bill of Rights" will be to further stifle debate about controversial topics. This is because many administrators will order their professors not to discuss contentious and divisive subjects, in order to avoid a possible confrontation with the federal government. Those who doubt this should remember that many TV and radio stations minimized political programming in the 1960s and 1970s in order to avoid running afoul of the federal "fairness doctrine." I am convinced some promoters of the "Academic Bill of Rights" would be perfectly happy if, instead of fostering greater debate, this bill silences discussion of certain topics. Scan the websites of some of the organizations promoting the "Academic Bill of Rights" and you will find calls for silencing critics of the Iraq war and other aspects of American foreign policy. Mr. Speaker, HR 609 expands federal control over higher education; in particular through an "Academic Bill of Rights" which could further stifle debate and inquiry on America's college campus. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to reject this bill. April 28, 2006 Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas. Thursday, April 27, 2006May 1--Illegal Aliens Plan To March! Here we go again! It's worthwhile to remember that the vast majority of these people are breaking our laws just by being here. I'm sure, however, that the power elite wants this thing to continue to escalate until--you guessed it!--martial law becomes necessary in America. REUTERS May 1 immigrant boycott aims to 'close' cities By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pro-immigration activists say a national boycott and marches planned for May 1 will flood U.S. streets with millions of Latinos to demand amnesty for illegal immigrants and shake the ground under Congress as it debates reform. Such a massive turnout could make for the largest protests since the civil rights era of the 1960s, though not all Latinos -- nor their leaders -- were comfortable with such militancy, fearing a backlash in Middle America. "There will be 2 to 3 million people hitting the streets in Los Angeles alone. We're going to close down Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tucson, Phoenix, Fresno," said Jorge Rodriguez, a union official who helped organize earlier rallies credited with rattling Congress as it debates the issue. Immigration has split Congress, the Republican Party and public opinion. Conservatives want the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants classified as felons and a fence built along the Mexican border. Others, including President George W. Bush, want a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship. Most agree some reform is needed to stem the flow of poor to the world's biggest economy. "We want full amnesty, full legalization for anybody who is here (illegally)," Rodriguez said. "That is the message that is going to be played out across the country on May 1." Organizers have timed the action for May Day, a date when workers around the world traditionally have marched for improved conditions, and have strong support from big labor and the Roman Catholic church. They vow that America's major cities will grind to a halt and its economy will stagger as Latinos walk off their jobs and skip school. Teachers' unions in major cities have said children should not be punished for walking out of class. Los Angeles school officials said principals had been told that they should allow students to leave but walk with them to help keep order. In Chicago, Catholic priests have helped organize protests, sending information to all 375 parishes in the archdiocese. CRITICS CHARGE INTIMIDATION Chicago activists predict that the demonstrations will draw 300,000 people. In New York, leaders of the May 1 Coalition said a growing number of businesses had pledged to close and allow their workers to attend a rally in Manhattan's Union Square. Large U.S. meat processors, including Cargill Inc., Tyson Foods Inc and Seaboard Corp said they will close plants due to the planned rallies. Critics accuse pro-immigrant leaders of bullying Congress and stirring up uninformed young Latinos by telling them that their parents were in imminent danger of being deported. "It's intimidation when a million people march down main streets in our major cities under the Mexican flag," said Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman volunteer border patrol group. "This will backfire," he said. Some Latinos have also expressed concerns that the boycott and marches could stir up anti-immigrant sentiment. Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles archdiocese, an outspoken champion of immigrant rights, has lobbied against a walkout. "Go to work, go to school, and then join thousands of us at a major rally afterword," Mahony said. And Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has long fought for immigrant rights, has said he expects protesters to be "lawful and respectful" and children to stay in school. In Washington on Thursday, immigrant-rights activists brushed off talk of a backlash. "This is going to be really big. We're going to have millions of people," said Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of the Latino Movement USA. "We are not concerned at all. We believe it's possible for Congress to get the message that the time to act is now." (Additional reporting by Aarthi Sivaraman in Los Angeles, Dan Trotta in New York and Michael Conlon in Chicago) © Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. If You Are Over 35: Worry! YIKES!!!!! (Courtesy of Charlotte Iserbyt. Original here.) Charlotte's comment: "THIS IS HORRIBLE. GOOD WAY TO CONTROL THE POPULATION BIRTH-WISE AND OTHERWISE. EVERYONE OUT OF A JOB WILL BE DEPENDENT ON 'GUESS WHO'?" Buyouts offered to those under 50 Is 35 now over the hill? Telecom giant LM Ericsson AB is offering buyouts to up to 1,000 of its employees in Sweden, a voluntary package that is only being offered to employees between the ages of 35 and 50. The novel initiative is meant to clear the way for younger workers. Ericsson also announced plans to hire 900 new employees—only those under 30 need apply—over the next three years. Ericsson, the world's biggest supplier of mobile phone equipment and networks, currently employs 21,300 people in Sweden and about 50,500 in 140 countries around the world. "The purpose of this program is to correct an age structure that is unbalanced," Marita Hellberg, Ericsson's global head of human resources, told the Financial Times of London this week. "We would like to make sure we employ more young people in order not to miss a generation in 10 years' time." It's a unique move, said professor Ronald Burke, who teaches organizational behaviour at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. "Clearly, it's rare to have a company even think along those lines." Companies typically reserve buyout offers for those aged 45 or 50 and up—the thin-haired rank-and-file who have racked up a decade or two of minimum service. That's because it's cheaper for the employer to fund a buyout worth a couple of years' salary than to keep someone on the payroll, at the top of the salary range, for several more years. Younger, less experienced staff, can often be hired for less pay. And the value of long-service employees' company paid pensions can also increase steeply as they spend more years on the job. For Ericsson, keeping its workforce young may be crucial to the company's ability to stay competitive in an industry built on offering consumers the latest gadgets and technology. For young people, especially, a cellphone isn't just a way to make a call—it's an Internet connection, a stereo, a camera, and a pocket-sized television "That's where they're hoping to attract the younger element in the market, with all of the stuff you do in addition to basic telephone calls," said Dan Ondrack, a professor of organizational behaviour at University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Organizations that don't hire for a long time get into ruts, Burke said. "You get a lot of people who've been there together for such a long period."For Ericsson in Sweden, the average age of its workers is 41. Globally, the average age of its workforce is slightly less, at 39. At rival Nokia Oyj, the Finland-based mobile phone maker, the average age is 35. It's difficult to say if Canadian companies may also start to offer voluntary buyouts to younger workers, Burke said. But certainly, restricting new hirings to those under 30 would be deemed discriminatory. "I'm not sure how (Ericsson) will defend that So, does this really mean that 35 is over the hill? "That's the subtext, I would say," Burke said. "I'd be worried if I was over 35, in terms of the subtle message that is being conveyed." Wednesday, April 26, 2006The Doors of Perception -- Or Is That, Deception? This is the single best, most interesting and the most enlightening piece I've encountered on the Internet in weeks if not months! Check it out, and then check out the entire website! It asks that all-important question, How much of what you think you know is really true? Some of it is, in fact, manifestly false. Lesson: follow the money trail; learn who is paying the bills! (For reasons of both length and copywrite I am only posting the first few paragraphs here.) THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION: - Tim O'Shea Aldous Huxley's inspired 1954 essay detailed the vivid, mind-expanding, multisensory insights of his mescaline adventures. By altering his brain chemistry with natural psychotropics, Huxley tapped into a rich and fluid world of shimmering, indescribable beauty and power. With his neurosensory input thus triggered, Huxley was able to enter that parallel universe described by every mystic and space captain in recorded history. Whether by hallucination or epiphany, Huxley sought to remove all bonds, all controls, all filters, all cultural conditioning from his perceptions and to confront Nature or the World or Reality first-hand - in its unpasteurized, unedited, unretouched infinite rawness. Those bonds are much harder to break today, half a century later. We are the most conditioned, programmed beings the world has ever known. Not only are our thoughts and attitudes continually being shaped and molded; our very awareness of the whole design seems like it is being subtly and inexorably erased. The doors of our perception are carefully and precisely regulated. Who cares, right? It is an exhausting and endless task to keep explaining to people how most issues of conventional wisdom are scientifically implanted in the public consciousness by a thousand media clips per day. In an effort to save time, I would like to provide just a little background on the handling of information in this country. Once the basic principles are illustrated about how our current system of media control arose historically, the reader might be more apt to question any given story in today's news. If everybody believes something, it's probably wrong. We call that CONVENTIONAL WISDOM In America, conventional wisdom that has mass acceptance is usually contrived: somebody paid for it. [Read the rest of this absorbing essay here.] Tuesday, April 25, 2006Gas Shortages? What if the whole thing is a hoax--one of many, with the overriding goal the "pooring of America"--or, at the very least, to get us all out of our automobiles and into mass transit, where we can be more easily controlled. (Presumably criteria for riding on mass transit will be introduced--like ID cards?) This comes courtesy of Roger D. (thanks). More to follow in a few days, some on oil company profits--the kinds that enable an Exxon/Mobil to pay a retiring executive a $400 million pension!--and some on the possibility that the fossil-fuel theory of oil is scientifically wrong. After all, the Russians have been deep-drilling for at least a couple of decades now and are slowly becoming one of the world's largest suppliers--I believe the correct phrase is the deep hot biosphere. Stay tuned. In the meantime, this is most interesting. The Proactive News Radio Show/Email Alert ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have sent this out already, but here it is again. Please spread the word. WHAT GAS SHORTAGE?? I just think everyone should know... I am a tugboat sailor. The gas shortage is totally bogus. There are "fleets" all up and down the gulf coast that you don't know about. They consist of hundreds and thousands of tank barges that we tie up daily that are filled with millions of gallons of fuel. The big companies pump their fuel into the barges and as long as the fuel is in a barge it is considered offshore and not part of the reserve. So, there are millions of gallons of fuel tied up to spud barges all through the bays, intracoastal inlets, and canals all up and down the coast that the companies don't have to report. They fabricate the shortage by pumping their millions of gallons of fuel and hide them in these fleets creating the shortage so they can make their multi billion dollar gains while we can't afford the gas at the pump. I've never in my life asked anyone to forward anything, but this has me fuming. Accidental pun now intended. With many voices, we can put a stop to this. James F. Ransdell ----------------------------------------------------------- Our website is http://www.proactivenews.com To join our email message list, send “subscribe” to bill@proactivenews.com Please support he Proactive News by send FRN's, check, or money to Proactive News The Proactive News is now heard weekday mornings Coming soon, the Proactive News on Shoutcast Education for the New World Order One of the goals of the New World Order is the destruction of the traditional American family as a unit capable of transmitting specifics regarding morality, etc. Families are too independent. Teaching elementary school students that homosexuality is normal while refusing an opt-out to worried parents is a means to this end. Another of its goals is to track every individual person. Tracking children through early childhood development programs is a means to this end. Along these lines, courtesy of Joan Masters (thanks), are the following reports from EdWatch: "Issues and Action in Education" Parents must consider the serious implications of this position [legalizing homosexual marriage] for our children and for the schools. The March 28th [2005] issue of National Review magazine features an article by David Frum entitled, "A New Word, A New Day," in which he describes a concept that will take hold in school curricula everywhere if same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land. The concept is called "Hetero-normative," and it means that words are homophobic if they imply "that standard sexual relationships are only between males and females." Some pooh-poohed our concerns, but now that homosexual marriage is legal in Massachusetts, teachers read first and second graders stories of homosexual "families" and "unions," such as the book King and King about the wedding of two princes. Parents can't have their children opted out. According to a recent PABBIS press release, the Lexington Superintendent of Schools told The Boston Globe that, "Lexington is committed to teaching children about the world they live in, and in Massachusetts same-sex marriage is legal." Advocates promote same-sex marriage as a simple issue of individual freedom. In fact, legalizing same-sex marriage publicly and legally redefines marriage for all people. No pretense of constraint will be possible in normalizing homosexuality in the classroom. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Indicator 1: Gross enrollment in early childhood development programs, including public, private, and community programs. When lawmakers tell us the state must assess all children and collect data on kindergarten readiness,and when children receive a child data ID at their first screenings that is used to upload their data to the federal National Center for Education Statistics, when childcare programs are certified and their child data collected, the data is used to report to the United Nations agencies over Education for All "accountability." Why is U.S. Early Childhood policy accountable to the United Nations? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ EDWATCH EdWatch is entirely user-supported. The continuation of our research and distribution work is entirely dependent upon individual contributors. If you want to assure that our work continues, click here. If you want to subscribe or unsubscribe to this EdWatch e-mail service, mail to: edwatch@lakes.com. Put "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" in the SUBJECT of the message. Resources of videos, books, and audiotapes are available on our shopping cart. Monday, April 24, 2006Dr. Madeleine Cosman: A Fitting Legacy Dr. Madeleine Cosman passed away unexpectedly earlier this year of a rare disease called schleroderma; she had been scheduled to join Michael Shaw, Henry Lamb and myself on our Sustainable Development: The Hidden Threat to Liberty panel at the Mises Institute's Austrian Scholars Conference. The material below indicates the serious health hazards that have been created in this country by the one-worlders' policy of open borders. Read Dr. Cosman's NewsWithViews.com article archive here. Dr. Madeleine Cosman's Legacy - A Harsh Warning: It is this reporter's opinion that we American citizens have lost one of our greatest advocates in the illegal alien invasion battle. Seldom does a person with such impeccable credentials step forward to participate in the effort to reclaim America. I speak of Dr. Madeleine Cosman, Ph.D., J.D., M.A., B.A. a medical/legal genius. Madeleine, a regular on this report, recently died of a rare progressive disease, scleroderma, that leads to hardening and tightening of the skin and connective tissues (the fibers that provide the framework and support for your body). Ironically, Dr. Cosman, a medical scientist who had dedicated her life to others in need, found herself afflicted by a disease for which there is no known cure. It is not considered contagious or cancerous, but in the case of Dr. Cosman, it has proved fatal. In this report and on our radio show, Madeleine familiarized us all with such unfamiliar diseases as dengue fever, Marburg fever, Chagas disease and the re-introduction to our society of smallpox, polio, hepatitis, tuberculosis and leprosy, which is not common knowledge. The good doctor was concerned in each public appearance and radio and television interview with the illegal aliens who cross our borders MEDICALLY UNEXAMINED. Said Madeleine, "We may know what illegal aliens carry in their BACKPACKS; we do not know what they carry in their bodies." Said Dr. Cosman: "When grandpa came to America, he kissed the ground of New York's Ellis Island. Then he stripped naked and coughed real hard. Every legal immigrant before 1924 was examined for infectious diseases upon arrival and tested for tuberculosis. Anyone infected was shipped back to the old country. That was powerful incentive for each newcomer to make heroic efforts to appear healthy. "Today, LEGAL immigrants must demonstrate they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residency green cards. But ILLEGAL aliens stop at no medical checkpoint. Whoever walks through our GOLDEN DOOR comes in whether healthy or sick. If we catch and detain a sick illegal alien who proves to have a serious disease, we keep him. Our foolish compassion makes us fear that his home country has neither adequate medical resources nor modern wonder drugs. "So we release sick illegal aliens to our American streets to infect others if their diseases are contagious, or we place them in our Medicaid program and pay for their expensive treatments." Thus we see horrendous diseases that we long ago conquered in America are coming back to plague us. Let's take tuberculosis as an example. Ordinary T.B. can be cured in six months with four drugs that cost about $2,000. Serious M.D.R.-T.B. takes 24 months at a cost in expensive drugs at approximately $250,000. Each illegal alien with M.D.R.-T.B. coughs and infects numerous people who will not show symptoms immediately; the disease explodes later like a time bomb. In "Hospital to the World Welcomes Illegals and Contagious Diseases" (April 25, 2005), Dr. Cosman informs us that: * T.B. was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002 it spiked a 17 percent increase. * Not far from Washington, D.C., T.B. had a meteoric rise of 188 percent. Public health officials blame immigrants, traced to illegal aliens from Mexico. * The Queens, New York, Health Department attributed 81 percent of new T.B. cases in 2001 to immigrants, with 42 percent of all new T.B. cases ascribed to the foreign born. * Violent T.B. outbreaks afflicted schoolteachers and children in Michigan and adults and kids in Texas. The teachers and kids caught it at school from the coughing children of illegal aliens. * In Minnesota, the police suddenly came down with M.D.R.-T.B. The cops caught it in their patrol cars when they arrested illegal aliens who coughed in their faces. * T.B. erupted in Portland, Maine, and DelRay Beach, Florida, directly traced to illegals. Dr. Cosman also told this reporter of other diseases brought back to us by illegals: * She cited Chagas disease, which has no known cure and has the revolting nickname of "kissing bug disease." The bug has parasites that favor the lips and the face for infection and infects 18 million people in Latin America. * She cites leprosy: Suddenly, in the past three years, America has more than 7,000 cases. Illegal aliens brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean and Mexico. * Next on the list: dengue fever. There was a recent outbreak in Webb County, Texas, on the border with Mexico. * Polio was eradicated from America but now appears in illegal immigrants. * Malaria was obliterated but is now emerging in Texas and other states. * About 4,000 young children under age 5 have contracted a disease called Kawasaki, known as "strawberry tongue." * And there's the deadly Marburg disease. * And there's the ever-present and increasing Hepatitis A, B and C; an outbreak occurred near Pittsburgh, where 3,000 came down with it thanks to infected Mexico-grown scallions and illegal alien kitchen workers in Chi-Chi's restaurant. Two Americans died. We can thank the late Dr. Madeleine Cosman for alerting us to what the illegal aliens bring to us as they cross our borders. Dr. Cosman was outstanding in the fields of law and medicine, and she provided constant updates on disease information we found nowhere else. She exposed the disease factors and the astronomical costs to the taxpayers for the medical services never reimbursed as well as the costs of "anchor babies." Madeleine knew that the wonderful nation left to us by our forefathers could be destroyed without constant vigilance. Indeed, we are the GOLDEN DOOR Hospital to the World and we're paying for all of it. But, dear doctor, you've done us a great public service in keeping us informed. You, dear friend, will be sorely missed. References Introduction to "Suckernomics" We're coming up on final exams here--been swamped for several days now grading student papers, which means swimming through a sea of misspelled words, poorly constructed paragraphs, etc. This all means that it has been, and for several more days will remain impossible to update this blog every day. (Already a few good things have gotten away from me.) Yet Dennis Cuddy's newest piece is an instant keeper. He forgot a small handful of things, among them the phony unemployment statistics that leave out the discouraged worker and are designed to convince the sheeple that the U.S. economy is in better shape than it is. Count the discouraged worker, and the actual unemployment rate in America is somewhere around 12 percent. The point of "suckernomics": keep America's masses illiterate and misled, using whatever resources are necessary (government schools will do, and where those leave off, employ mainstream media misinformation, and then think tanks and research institutes to pump out bogus "studies" and other forms of disinformation). This so they will not ask too many questions of those with money and power. Keep the sheeple spending, spending, spending, so they will end up broke and dependent. Original here. "SUCKERNOMICS" By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D. In my previous article, I introduced the term "Suckernomics." The reception to this new term was very positive, so I have decided to expand upon its principles. Suckernomics is the process whereby the American public is made, and kept, economically ignorant. It begins even in elementary school, and the following is a list of some of its basic principles. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, and I am sure that you, the reader, will be able to add examples to it. 1, Don't teach students basic reading and math skills, so they will not be able to compete economically against those of other nations. 2, Convince Americans that more money is needed to solve our educational problems, even though a tremendous increase in educational funding has occurred over the past 4 decades, with negative results. 3, Teach children that petroleum products come from decayed fossils, even though there is no evidence of massive numbers of dinosaurs or massive amounts of vegetation in Middle Eastern desert regions or in the North Sea or near Alaska where large deposits of oil have been found. Don't let them know petroleum products are plentiful and come from methane derivatives, available through deep-drilling techniques used by the Russians for decades. Otherwise, they won't believe there's an oil shortage, and pay continuously rising prices. 4, Require Americans to pay about 40% of their annual income in taxes, but tell them that they are still better off than the serfs of feudal days who paid a smaller percent of their production to the nobles. 5, Persuade Americans that they should pay taxes for government programs which operate less efficiently than if run by private enterprise. 6, Entice Americans to purchase items on credit, even though that increases the cost of the goods by 10-20%. 7, Have Americans place a large percent of their paycheck into a Social Security "Trust Fund," which Congress then raids, leaving future senior citizens wondering what happened to their hard-earned money for retirement. 8, Allow the federal government to get away with posting an inflation rate that does not include increases in the price of food and fuel. 9, Give authority regarding trade decisions to the World Trade Organization, run by unelected bureaucrats overseas who can tell Congress it has to change our laws. Convince Americans that this is "free trade" when it is actually "managed trade," because many nations still have trade restrictions and subsidize industries in their own countries. 10, Dismiss calls for "fair trade," claiming American workers can compete against slave and child labor. 11, Persuade Americans there are still such things as "American corporations" as ownership increasingly goes overseas (e.g., 97% of sound recording industries, 65% of metal ore mining, 64% of motion picture and video industries, 63% of book publishers, etc.). 12, Have Americans believe that profits from American companies still stay in the U.S. (e.g., Amoco's profits go to England, Random House's and Chrysler's profits go to Germany, Gerber's profits go to Switzerland, TransAmerica's profits go to The Netherlands, etc.). 13, Convince Americans that government incentives for American companies to locate offices/jobs overseas will not harm the job prospects of American workers (even comedian Jay Leno said President Bush went to India to visit the American jobs that had relocated there). 14, Persuade Americans that NAFTA and GATT would bring high-paying high-tech jobs to the U.S., while increasing numbers of high-tech jobs are outsourced to India, etc., and while President Bush and Congress propose dramatically increasing (from 65,000 to 350,00 annually) the number of H-1B visas so that high-tech foreign workers can come to the U.S. 15, Convince Americans that increasing numbers of guest workers working for minimum wage (because they are placed, for example, 10 in a house and pay only 1/10th each for expenses) will not undercut American workers in many industries (e.g., fast foods, construction, hotel and motel, grass-cutting, carpet-cleaning, etc.) who have to pay 100% of their own expenses. 16, Persuade Americans increasingly to purchase cheap foreign-made products here, leaving them to wonder why they cannot find a good-paying American job anymore. 17, Convince Americans that they have still gotten their monies' worth purchasing cheap products from overseas even though they don't last as long as American-made products. 18, Have government severely regulate/limit the use of people's private property, but still require them to pay the full amount of taxes on their property. 19, Force/coerce people to turn over their private property to the government in the name of preserving a pristine environment, but then this same property is contracted out to developers/mining companies, etc., for exploitation. 20, Drastically reduce the United States manufacturing base, yet assure Americans that having missile parts, etc., made in Communist China or elsewhere will not compromise our national security at any time, especially during wartime. 21, Persuade Americans that building up the economy of Communist China via investment and trade will not strengthen their military with which they can threaten/attack us. Also convince Americans that giving the Communist Chinese advanced missile technology will not aid them militarily either, if they decide to attack the U.S., Taiwan, Japan, or some other nation in the future. 22, Assure Americans that genetically modified foods and animals are economically beneficial, even though the long-term health consequences of such genetic modification is unknown. In an experiment, half of a field was planted with unmodified soybeans and the other half of the field with genetically modified soybeans----geese refused to eat the genetically modified soybeans! Do they know something we don't know? 23, Spend millions of American tax dollars to build the Panama Canal and then hand it over to a Panamanian dictator who sells operation rights at either end of the canal to the Communist Chinese who could destroy it if in a war with the U.S. in the future. 24, Have millions of American tax dollars spent on political campaigns to oust Slobodan Milosevic as leader of Yugoslavia at the same time Americans are expressing outrage over Communist Chinese political campaign contributions to American candidates. 25, Spend millions of American tax dollars on textbooks teaching Afghan children jihad (holy war) against foreign invaders, causing the Afghans when grown to fight against the U.S. invasion. The result of suckernomics will be a further withering of the middle class, resulting in a techno-feudal society ruled by an elite. Not only will this be a return to feudalism, but the "suckers" have also been conditioned to accept "futilism"----the idea that it is futile for them to resist dominance by a power elite intent upon synthesizing Western Capitalism and Eastern Communism into a World Socialist Government under the elite's control (an updated, indexed edition of my book, THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER, will soon be published). © 2006 Dennis Cuddy - All Rights Reserved Order Dennis Cuddy's new book "Cover-Up: Government Spin or Truth?" Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education. Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited twenty books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch. Thursday, April 20, 2006Communist China: Prototype for the Emerging New World Order? This is our Number One trading partner, to which the U.S. government gave Most Favored Nation status. Original here. China: New World Order Litmus Test Steve Watson & Alex Jones | April 18 2006 We have long documented how China is the New World Order Blueprint for a controlled Police State Surveillance Dictatorship. The elite have even admitted, in their own documents, how they wish to emulate the chinese model and apply it in the Anglo-American Western block. Sky News recently produced a segment which highlighted how, despite fierce anger and resistance amongst the people of China, the Communist Government has instilled such fear and has such control over the media that very few dare to stand up and speak out. Those that do are forcibly quashed. The Government and its contractors are seizing people's land and homes and building their own developments on it, forcing the population into living lives of poverty and squalor. The state controlled Chinese media does not cover this because they know they would be immediately shut down if they did. The only footage that comes out of China is shot by the people themselves or undercover foreign reporters. These revelations should remind us of the fact that tyrannical governments, in order to succeed know they have to infiltrate the lives of their populations to every degree, not allowing any form of self sufficiency or independence to endanger their iron fist control. In a startling reminder of how much closer we are to the Chinese model than we are distant from it, the US the Supreme Court has already decided that local governments can force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted, and the new project's success is not guaranteed. The true details of this situation were not picked up on by the mainstream media, just as they are not being reported in Communist China. A recent Virginia training manual used to help state employees recognize terrorists even lists property rights activists as terrorists and includes binoculars, video cameras, pads and notebooks in a compendium of terrorist tools. under section 802 of the Patriot Act any crime or misdemeanor that endangers human life can be considered terroristic. I guess protesting against the government grabbing your land can be included under this umbrella. This is just one of many horror stories to emerge from the Communist Chinese police state in recent times. The total dehumanization in China is the elite model for a prison control grid across the planet. Last year the London Guardian reported that Chinese cosmetics companies are using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe. Stories of organ harvesting are widespread and confirmed by multiple mainstream sources, yet the state department, even contradicting it's own reports, suggested that it is an "urban myth" China also still has a policy of public execution for dissidents. The country has flirted with mobile execution vans as it shifts away from the communist system's traditional bullet in the head, towards a more "civilized" use of lethal injection. The issues of forced sterilization and forced abortion have also recently resurfaced in the Communist country. Despite withdrawing some funds for these policies, the Bush administration still bankrolls UNESCO projects which have had direct links to forced abortions and sterilizations. Recently Dr Eric Pianka, a top University of Texas professor, advocated such policies when he said that China's one child policy, enforced by a brutal police state, was a good thing. Censorship is widespread in China with, particularly since the advent of the internet. The state has introduced cartoon cyber cops in an attempt to make the totalitarian regime internet-user friendly. In reality the characters are there to warn the people that Big Brother is watching them. The Internet police icons have been responsible for a 60% decline in the filtering of Internet postings for content challenging the political order. The sites that cannot be patrolled are simply shut down. New rules have been issued banning Internet news services from inciting illegal assemblies, marches and demonstrations as well as prohibiting activities on behalf of unauthorized civil groups. In a startlingly similar fashion, laws have been passed in both the UK and the US to impose "free speech zones" and bans upon any demonstrations that have not been okayed by the authorities beforehand. The search engine company Google has also attracted controversy recently by pandering to the Communist police state and agreeing to install government search filters on its Chinese based search engine. Not even the Rolling Stones could escape censorship when they toured in China. However, the Stones were censored TO A GREATER DEGREE when they played the Superbowl half time show in the US. I guess if its good for the totalitarian Chinese rulers, its good for the sweet Neocons. Since 2003 China has recorded details of more than 96 percent of its population on a police database, supplementing Internet and other state-sanctioned surveillance. The state is also to issue 1.3 billion RFID identification cards. Terrible you would agree, yet in Britain currently there is a program underway to add 100% of the population to a national database. The ID card act has been passed and, by 2008, anyone who requires a passport (and access to healthcare, education and the ability to buy or sell no doubt) MUST be registered and must carry an ID card. In addition, Under current UK laws, if you are arrested for any recordable offence, police are allowed to take your fingerprints and a sample your DNA. Even if you are subsequently released and found innocent, police can still keep your DNA, which is added to a PERMANENT database. Worse still, hundreds of thousands of children aged between 10 and 18 have had their DNA added to the database despite never being cautioned or charged for any offence. When it's China our governments agree such policies are dehumanizing, demoralizing and degrading, yet when it happens in our own countries that's just fine and dandy. Furthermore, in the leading police state regime in the world and the benchmark for the new world order control system, surveillance still lags behind that of the UK, with Chinese authorities learning lessons from the Orwellian surveillance capital of the world. "In this regard we've taken particular note of England, where basically everyone lives under the electronic eye," Mayor Xu Zhongheng of Shenzhen has said, remarking how important surveillance cameras were in tracking down the perpetrators of attacks on the London transport system last year. Were they important? Really? That's not what we were told. We were told that the cameras WERE NOT FUNCTIONING. The Chinese model is the benchmark test for the prison planet, as the state becomes more powerful and the people there become more downtrodden, more controlled and less able to resist, we see the same policies being transferred to our own countries. In many cases our countries are now even preceding China in their police state tactics. Furthermore our own economies and infrastructures are being systematically sold out to the Chinese government. Recently the Associated Press reported that Hutchison Whampoa Ltd was given a no-bid contract by the US government to take over radiation detecting security just 65 miles away from Freeport in the Bahamas with no oversight. Hutchinson Whampoa is admittedly a holding of the Chinese navy and the People's Liberation Army. In 1997 the Communist Chinese government took over the Long Beach Naval Air Base, the only major deep water port that can take large ships on the west coast. In 2000, the Communist Chinese, Hutchinson Whampoa which is run by the PLA, took over the Panama Canal and has stationed between 15,000 and 30,000 troops at the facility. Topping even that, U.S. taxpayers are lending Westinghouse Electric Co. almost $5 billion to build nuclear power plants in China. American tax money is directly funding the might of the Chinese Red Army despite the fact that we are told over and over that they are the future military threat and despite top Chinese generals continue to threaten nuclear attacks on America. Alex Jones' first documentary film America: Destroyed By Design, made in 1997, warned Americans that the sell-out to the Chinese was the first step on the road to the sacking of the American economy and pulling the plug on key US infrastructure. Click here to view a segment where Alex Jones discusses the Chinese sell-out. It is a stated goal of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission and the CFR to promote what they call 'interdependence' and to lobby governments to sell off key infrastructure such as roads, lakes, ports, and highways to international corporations so that corporations can grow to be bigger in size than government. People everywhere are not just being robbed of their ability to create wealth, we are being robbed of our infrastructure, our land and our capacity to work the land. Our currencies, our futures and our sovereignties are systematically being dismantled, looted and sold to the highest bidder by the corrupt elite and the corporations and governments they control like chess pieces. Tuesday, April 18, 2006Now THIS Has All the Makings of a Hoax! (Duh!) Just published, an account of a fairly amazing string of coincidences. And folks say we 'conspiracy theorists' are a bunch of nuts. That THIS could happen is what is nuts. Michael Rivero's comments are classic and worth reprinting in full. Oh come ON, now!!!!! A mix-up in Boston prevented the luggage from connecting with the plane that hijackers crashed into the north tower of the trade center. Seized by FBI agents at Boston's Logan Airport, investigators said, it contained Arab-language papers revealing the identities of all 19 hijackers involved in the four hijackings, as well as information on their plans, backgrounds and motives. Okay, let me see if I have this right. A guy who is planning suicide thoughtfully packs a suitcase he expects he will never see again with all the evidence the FBI will need to figure out the crime if by some miracle that suitcase doesn't get onto the plane that the suicide hijacker expects will perish in a huge ball of flame. Forget the bovine excrement meter on this one and go straight to building the Ark. - M. R Here's the title and first two paragraphs: An untold story of 9/11 April 17, 2006 Former federal terrorism investigators say a piece of luggage hastily checked in at the Portland, Maine, airport by a World Trade Center hijacker on the morning of Sept. 11 provided the Rosetta stone enabling FBI agents to swiftly unravel the mystery of who carried out the suicide attacks and what motivated them. A mix-up in Boston prevented the luggage from connecting with the plane that hijackers crashed into the north tower of the trade center. Seized by FBI agents at Boston's Logan Airport, investigators said, it contained Arab-language papers revealing the identities of all 19 hijackers involved in the four hijackings, as well as information on their plans, backgrounds and motives. [Read the rest here. I can't stop laughing!] Charley Reese When Charley Reese goes wrong, he goes wrong terribly (as in a column on LewRockwell.com where he described the UN not just as worthless but as weak because it doesn't have its own army). But when he gets things right, he, too, hits the nail right on the head. Here are two Charley Reese columns, and old one and a new one. The old one is just plain common horse sense regarding the manipulation of the American public to produce unthinking sheeple. The new one revisits the saber-rattling between Iran and the "international community" (read: neocons, the UN crowd) which we've been neglecting here of late. What would the effects be of an attack on Iran by the U.S. military doing the bidding of the Israeli or Jewish lobby? It wouldn't exactly make us any more friends in the Middle East, and could well trigger World War III. (Possibly it will soon be time to revisit Albert Pike, the celebrated Freemason of the 19th century and his infamous "Three World Wars" letter to Mazzini which just might turn out to be authentic.) Has anyone noticed how all the threats against Iran's nuclear program--which could be aimed at building a power station, for all anybody has proven or offered evidence for--is an assault on Iran's national sovereignty, just as "agreements" such as CAFTA and "partnerships" such as the SPP are assaults on U.S. sovereignty? National sovereignty is under attack the world over! HOW TO CONTROL PEOPLE Monday, 08-Jan-01 01:21:59 24.14.28.77 writes: HOW TO CONTROL PEOPLE The difference between true education and vocational training has been The first principle of people control is not to let them know you are It is easier than you think to control people indirectly, to manipulate One basic technique is to keep them ignorant. Educated people are not as It's possible to be a Ph.D., doctor, lawyer, businessman, journalist, or The most obvious symptom is their absence of original thought. Ask them That greatly simplifies things for the controller because with lots of Another technique is to keep them entertained. Roman emperors did not Just as a truly educated person is difficult to control, so too is an To keep trade unions under control, you just promote a scheme that Another technique is to buy both political parties so that after a while Pretty soon you will have a population that feels completely helpless, Then you can bleed them dry without having to worry overly much that one Charley Reese Israel - The Dead Roach In America's Salad The Israeli lobby and the neoconservatives are beating the drums for war with Iran. I hope the president is not that dangerously stupid. The betting on whether he is that stupid is about even. The neocons who, being self-centered, seemingly have no concept of human nature are advancing the premise that a military attack on Iran will cause the people to lose faith in their government and result in regime change. A military attack on Iran will have the opposite effect. The people will rally to their government, and any hope of regime change will be dead. That people will rally around their existing leaders in the face of an attack by a foreign power is as certain as sunrise. Neither Israel nor the U.S. could do a greater favor for the ruling mullahs and Iran's president than to launch an attack. It would cement their hold on power. The neocons' fallacious premise has already been disproved. In the first Gulf War, the first Bush administration confidently incited the Shi'ites and the Kurds to rebel after Saddam Hussein's forces were expelled from Kuwait. The administration thought that Saddam, embarrassed by a crushing military defeat, would fall from power in Iraq easily. Instead, he rallied his forces and crushed both the Shi'ites in the south and the Kurds in the north. Oops. In the first place, it is not embarrassing for a Third World country with obsolete equipment to be defeated by the world's No. 1 military superpower. In the second place, the Sunnis, however much they might have disliked Saddam, disliked even more the thought of being ruled by Kurds or Shi'ites. In the third place, by President George H.W. Bush's decision to not go to Baghdad, Saddam could say he duked it out with the world's superpower and was still standing after the fight. That, in most eyes, could be counted as a victory. Some months ago, an Iranian human-rights advocate pleaded with the current Bush administration to cease its rhetorical attacks on the Iranian government. She said, quite accurately, that such attacks make life impossible for Iranian reformers. Needless to say, the blockheads in Washington ignored her. What did we do when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked? We rallied behind George W. Bush Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. That's the natural reaction of normal human beings, and the Iranians are normal human beings. Attack their country and they will rally round the flag. The Iranians still insist they are not seeking nuclear weapons, and there's not a scrap of evidence to contradict that claim. They still adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They have often called for a nuclear-free Middle East. Once again, the dead roach in America's salad is Israel. The U.S. hypocritically opposes a nuclear-free Middle East because Israel has nuclear weapons. We hypocritically claim the Iranians are in violation of international law when, in fact, it is Israel that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses international inspections. Given our craven obedience to Israel, we have exactly zero credibility in the Arab and Muslim world. As I have said before, I don't care if the Iranians do develop nuclear weapons. My whole adult life was lived with 30,000 Soviet nuclear weapons aimed at me. I can certainly live with the six or seven Iran might be able to scrape together in the next five to 10 years. In the meantime, the U.S. government should kick the Israeli lobby out of the country and support Iran and the Arab League in pushing for a nuclear-free Middle East. The Israeli lobby pushing America to fight yet another war for Israel reminds me of what the French ambassador to Great Britain said at a party: "Why does the world allow this (expletive deleted) little country to cause so much trouble?" Why indeed? You should ask your politicians that question. Monday, April 17, 2006Tax Slavery Day This year Tax Slavery Day falls on April 17, since April 15 fell on a Saturday. Some might frown at the use of the expression Tax Slavery Day. But what would we call the day in which people "voluntarily" fill out forms, pay sums of their hard-earned fiat money to the government, reflecting the fact that they in effect work for the government from January 1 until (at the very earliest) right around this time in April and (more probably) until sometime in May? If you work for someone else involuntarily, and that someone else will have you arrested and thrown in jail for refusing to work for them, is that not a form of legal slavery? Neal Boortz isn't one of my favorite writers, and I sometimes find myself blatantly disagreeing with him (the Iraq War, which he defends, is an example). But when he hits the nail on the head, he nails it down good and hard! The below is an example, from his website. From Boortz's Archive, dated April 14, 2006: AND JUST HOW BIG IS YOUR TOTAL TAX BITE? The Georgia Public Policy Foundation steered me to a rather interesting (though not shocking) facts on taxation in America. The source is an article by Michael K. Evans posted on IndustryWeek.com. Do you have any idea just how huge your total tax load is? Take a look at these facts. First--and this fact is now beyond debate--all taxes are paid by individuals. All taxes are levied against wealth, and only individuals hold wealth. For those of you who attended government schools, and are thus a little slow on concepts like this, corporations are not wealthy. Corporate shareholders hold that wealth. Individuals. So ... for the sake of Evan's article, he says that the taxes are paid by employees or proprietors, the owners of small businesses. Now .. the tab: Total federal income taxes collected last year: $932 billion. That works out to $6,650 per employee. In addition to income taxes, the federal government collected another $1.286 trillion in taxes, mostly Social Security taxes. The total state and local tax burden amounts to $1.14 trillion. The grand sum here -- paid by employees and proprietors -- is $3.358 trillion. That's $3,358,000,000,000.00 This works out to $24,000 per employee. The total compensation earned by employees and individual proprietors last year was $8.2 trillion. This means that 40% of income goes to taxes of some sort. That rate, of course, is much higher for those earning higher incomes. Much lower for those in low income brackets. Nice, huh? Now ... grab this fact. Where did most of this money go? National defense? Homeland security? Hardly. In terms of Federal expenditures you have: $495 billion for national defense. $272 billion spent by the federal government for the purchase of goods and payment of employees $1.69 trillion sent to someone else. $1.69 trillion in income redistribution. This is just fine with those on the left who believe that income is distributed, not earned. For the rest of us? Well, I don't know about you, but I have a wee bit of a problem with all of this. [Me, too--especially as one of those low-wage earners subsisting in the academic ghetto of adjunct faculty members, I need every penny I can get my hands on. The supposed lower tax, or tax credit, or whatever it is, for low-wage earners doesn't really help all that much. SY.] Friday, April 14, 2006Shadow Statistics - Your Government At Work This isn't new--we've covered these matters before--but it all bears repeating. Courtesy of Joan Masters (thanks). The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: We all know to take what politicians have to SHADOW STATISTICS "Listen," I interrupted, "what nationality are you?" "I'm English," she replied. "That is, I was born in Poland, but my father "That makes you English?" "Yes," she said... - Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman, recently delivered an upbeat view of the U.S. economy. It was cheerful, optimistic...and delusional. The official government statistics hide many warts on the face of the U.S economy. Like makeup dabbed on an aging film star, they are an attempt to cover the wrinkles and present a veneer of youth. To most people, this is no revelation. Like plastic surgery and tummy tucks, it is what stars do to keep up appearances. However, few know the extent of the deceit. What if you learned that inflation were closer to 7% than to the official 3%? What if unemployment were closer to 12%, rather than the official 5%? What if the economy were actually contracting, as opposed to growing? What follows is a partial peek at the economy - sans makeup. And, more importantly, what it means for you and your hard-earned dough. It was the genius of writer George Orwell that he chose to build his dystopia on the foundations of language and information - how it is used to deceive, manipulate and control. His chilling novel 1984 stands out precisely because it is only a distortion of things that are happening now and that have always happened. Orwell's dystopia is a mirror in a funhouse, as you see enough of your own world in this disturbing reflection. Thankfully, there are still some people doing the important work of getting at the truth behind the official statistics - piercing the veil of Newspeak, sweeping away the cobwebs of sham. John Williams is an economist dedicated to doing just that. His Shadow Government Statistics reveals the extensive rot under the floorboards of the U.S. economy. Let's take the official inflation rate, tracked using the consumer price index, or CPI. The idea behind the CPI is to have a fixed basket of goods and track how the prices of these things change from year to year. It only gained prominence after World War II, as a way to adjust autoworkers' labor contracts, a practice that soon spread. Over time, its importance grew and more people looked to it as a gauge of general price inflation - and, hence, to get a feel for the health of the economy. The thing is, the way the CPI is calculated changed dramatically over the years. Politicians have figured out that these statistics are useful in winning elections. Ergo, nearly every administration has altered the calculation. And always, the changes made the CPI lower. Every effort to change the CPI, by design, aims to make the economy look "better" than it looked before the changes. The accumulation of these changes creates a huge difference over time. It's like making a series of small changes to a ship's course in the midst of a long voyage. Soon, you wind up way off course, miles and miles from where you think you are. The chart below is from William's Web page. It shows the extent of the difference, which is just massive. The rate of inflation using only the pre-Clinton era CPI is closer to 7%! The "Experimental C-CPI-U" is another innovation, introduced by the Bush administration to lower the CPI yet again, once again to paint a kinder portrait of the old hag known as the U.S. economy. But it's about more than just making the economy look better. For example, since increases in Social Security payments link to the CPI, a lower CPI also saves the government money. According to Williams, if you used the CPI when Jimmy Carter was president, you'd get Social Security checks 70% higher than today's levels. Yes, 70% higher. The government also duped all those people who thought it was such a great idea to buy TIPS (Treasury inflation-protected securities). Changes in the CPI determine the interest paid on these bonds. The higher the CPI, the more interest paid to bondholders. Some people loved the idea, figuring here was a bond that would keep pace with inflation. Given the government manipulates the CPI, you can be sure the interest rate paid will not keep pace with inflation - nor has it ever. The manipulation of the CPI explains the great disconnect between what the man in the street feels when he pays his bills and what the confident, well-dressed Fed chiefs and politicians try to tell him. The cost of living is rising a lot more than they want you to believe. At a 7% annual rate of inflation, the cost of living would double in about 10 years. Looked at differently, the purchasing power of your dollar will fall in half. What about unemployment? The government, since the time of the Kennedy administration, has been changing the definition of "unemployed." Again, many small changes over time lead to dramatic end results. According to Williams, if you back out the changes, you get an unemployment number closer to 12%! Let's look at the federal deficit - basically, the amount of money the government is losing every year. The official deficit for 2005 was $319 billion. However, this excludes unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations. Throw them into the mix and calculate the deficit the way a business does in its financial statements - and you get an annual deficit around $3.5 trillion. That's more than 10 times the so-called "official" deficit. By Williams' calculations, you could raise the tax rate to 100% - dump everyone's salaries into the U.S. Treasury - and still have a deficit. Years of such deficits have created a mountain of obligations for the U.S. government. As Williams says, "The fiscal 2005 statement shows that total federal obligations at the end of September were $51 trillion; over four times the level of GDP." These debts are unsustainable. The bills must go unpaid. If the U.S. government were a private corporation, its bankruptcy This is why Social Security and Medicare are not going to exist in the not-too-distant future. As Williams says, "There is no way the government can pay the Social Security or Medicare it has committed to." Williams believes GDP is contracting now. The government reported only a 1.1% increase in the fourth quarter. Even in an election year, and despite the government's best efforts to paint a pretty face, all it could muster was a measly 1.1%. More likely, the economy actually contracted 2% in the fourth quarter. This means we are in a recession NOW. This is not conspiracy-theory stuff. As Williams points out, it's all disclosed in the footnotes in the government's reports. All he is doing is backing out many of the changes to more realistically compare these numbers with the numbers of the past. The great H.L. Mencken, a scathing attack dog of idiocy in all its forms, wrote about "damning politicians up hill and down dale for many years as rogues and vagabonds, frauds and scoundrels." We need more Menckens. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with Williams and his cogent analysis of government skulduggery. Oddly enough, these insights do not change our approach here in the pages of Capital & Crisis. In fact, Williams' work reinforces several things we've already covered in past letters. To wit: Yields on real estate investment trusts (REITs) and utilities - to say nothing about the bond market - appear even more pathetic against an inflation rate of 7%. The yield for risks taken is simply not adequate. If the slumbering bond market awoke to the reality of a 7% inflation rate, there would be a sell-off the likes of which this country has never seen. Interest rates would bolt upward like a frightened cat. And the U.S. dollar is a doomed currency over the long haul. Bernanke, the self-professed student of the Great Depression, accepts the mainstream view that the Fed's great mistake then was not to flood the system with dollars. He won't make that "mistake" again. Expect the printing presses to run day and night at full capacity when the trouble starts. Trying to pin down the economy in precise numbers is futile anyway. It's too big, too complex. All macro statistics are severely flawed. This is why I seldom write about them. Investing using macro statistics is like trying to find the nearest post office with a globe. They are so vague as to be useless. The basic idea I want to leave you with is this: The economy is far weaker than generally portrayed. Most investors ignore the rat's nest of risks and invest indiscriminately in stocks - without proper due diligence. As investors, we need to stick to our fundamentals more carefully than ever. Regards, Chris Mayer Wednesday, April 12, 2006Coming Internet War? The power elite cannot control the Internet. It would be too obvious. So they may pursue the second best strategy--to use it as a disinformation tool, to confuse, disrupt, baffle, etc. Doubtless there are already sites with "information" on "conspiracies" that mixes truth with falsehood in ways intended to send us down false trails. With the technology steadily improving, the war for truth on the Internet may be just starting. It may be the power elite themselves doing this, or it may be just the neocons. Or it may be both. America's war on the web http://www.sundayherald.com/54975 While the U.S. remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones. Investigations editor Neil Mackay reports IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will. In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap, commissioned and approved by U.S. secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald. The Pentagon has already signed off $383 million to force through the document’s recommendations by 2009. Military and intelligence sources in the US talk of “a revolution in the concept of warfare”. The report orders three new developments in America’s approach to warfare: l Firstly, the Pentagon says it will wage war against the internet in order to dominate the realm of communications, prevent digital attacks on the US and its allies, and to have the upper hand when launching cyber-attacks against enemies. l Secondly, psychological military operations, known as psyops, will be at the heart of future military action. Psyops involve using any media – from newspapers, books and posters to the internet, music, Blackberrys and personal digital assistants (PDAs) – to put out black propaganda to assist government and military strategy. Psyops involve the dissemination of lies and fake stories and releasing information to wrong-foot the enemy. l Thirdly, the US wants to take control of the Earth’s electromagnetic spectrum, allowing US war planners to dominate mobile phones, PDAs, the web, radio, TV and other forms of modern communication. That could see entire countries denied access to telecommunications at the flick of a switch by America. Freedom of speech advocates are horrified at this new doctrine, but military planners and members of the intelligence community embrace the idea as a necessary development in modern combat. Human rights lawyer John Scott, who chairs the Scottish Centre for Human Rights, said: “This is an unwelcome but natural development of what we have seen. I find what is said in this document to be frightening, and it needs serious parliamentary scrutiny.” Crispin Black – who has worked for the Joint Intelligence Committee, and has been an Army lieutenant colonel, a military intelligence officer, a member of the Defence Intelligence Staff and a Cabinet Office intelligence analyst who briefed Number 10 – said he broadly supported the report as it tallied with the Pentagon’s over-arching vision for “full spectrum dominance” in all military matters. “I’m all for taking down al-Qaeda websites. Shutting down enemy propaganda is a reasonable course of action. Al-Qaeda is very good at [information warfare on the internet], so we need to catch up. The US needs to lift its game,” he said. This revolution in information warfare is merely an extension of the politics of the “neoconservative” Bush White House. Even before getting into power, key players in Team Bush were planning total military and political domination of the globe. In September 2000, the now notorious document Rebuilding America’s Defences [see link on page--SY] – written by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think-tank staffed by some of the Bush presidency’s leading lights – said that America needed a “blueprint for maintaining US global pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power-rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests”. The PNAC was founded by Dick Cheney, the vice-president; Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary; Bush’s younger brother, Jeb; Paul Wolfowitz, once Rumsfeld’s deputy and now head of the World Bank; and Lewis Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, now indicted for perjury in America. Rebuilding America’s Defences also spoke of taking control of the internet. A heavily censored version of the document was released under Freedom of Information legislation to the National Security Archive at George Washington University in the US. The report admits the U.S. is vulnerable to electronic warfare. “Networks are growing faster than we can defend them,” the report notes. “The sophistication and capability of … nation states to degrade system and network operations are rapidly increasing.” T he report says the U.S. military’s first priority is that the “department [of defence] must be prepared to ‘fight the net’”. The internet is seen in much the same way as an enemy state by the Pentagon because of the way it can be used to propagandise, organise and mount electronic attacks on crucial U.S. targets. Under the heading “offensive cyber operations”, two pages outlining possible operations are blacked out. Next, the Pentagon focuses on electronic warfare, saying it must be elevated to the heart of U.S. military war planning. It will “provide maximum control of the electromagnetic spectrum, denying, degrading, disrupting or destroying the full spectrum of communications equipment … it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities”. Put simply, this means US forces having the power to knock out any or all forms of telecommunications on the planet. After electronic warfare, the U.S. war planners turn their attention to psychological operations: “Military forces must be better prepared to use psyops in support of military operations.” The State Department, which carries out US diplomatic functions, is known to be worried that the rise of such operations could undermine American diplomacy if uncovered by foreign states. Other examples of information war listed in the report include the creation of “Truth Squads” to provide public information when negative publicity, such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, hits U.S. operations, and the establishment of “Humanitarian Road Shows”, which will talk up American support for democracy and freedom. The Pentagon also wants to target a “broader set of select foreign media and audiences”, with $161m set aside to help place pro-US articles in overseas media. 02 April 2006 Tuesday, April 11, 2006Civil War--the Real Thing--Coming Soon to America? That is, if we do not come up with a viable solution to the problem of somewhere between 12 and 20 illegal aliens on American soil demanding "rights" associated with U.S. citizenship (all the while retaining the primary loyalty to Mexico). Again: the power elites want things this way, because their aim all along has been the destruction of this country. The exact method by which the axe will fall may be yet to be determined. We should forget about Iraq and Iran and start protecting our own border--before it is too late. Forget About Civil War In Iraq-One Is Coming To America While American troops are hunkered down in "safe zones" in Iraq trying to stay out of an escalating civil war, our government seems oblivious to a growing threat of civil war right here in the United States. As anyone can see, millions of illegal aliens living here are becoming more vocal, more demonstrative, more belligerent, and more violence-prone by the day. Unless our government takes deliberate and significant action immediately, America could be in for serious civil unrest real soon. It is absolutely incredible that our government would tolerate people who are not even legal residents of our country to generate the kind of mass demonstrations and protests that we are witnessing on a daily basis! It is more than incredible; it is outrageous! According to The Christian Science Monitor (April 10, 2006), immigrants (most of them illegal) are "mobilizing for major 'action.'" Nearly 100 American cities will soon feel the brunt of this "action." Organizers describe these coming demonstrations as "the biggest social movement of Hispanics since the United Farm Workers of Cesar Chavez." In addition, organizers predict that thousands of Muslims will also join millions of illegal Hispanics on what can only be regarded as an anti-America crusade. The American people need to understand that the United States is under attack! No, not by Iraq or Iran, but by Mexico! Yes, Martha, you had better believe it. The Mexican government is deliberately and systematically working to destabilize and undermine the very fabric and framework of American society. And President George W. Bush and Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy (among others) are aiding and abetting this effort. Right now, much of Latin America is embroiled in a serious takeover by Leftist-Marxists. In all likelihood, Mexico's next leader will be an open Leftist. Vicente Fox has helped create an increased appetite for socialism (not that Mexico ever had a true understanding of freedom and republicanism), and the next Mexican leader is certain to finish the job. However, Fox has done more than turn his own country leftward. He has superintended over the biggest invasion of the United States in our country's history. That's right, invasion! A close, personal friendship with President George W. Bush has given Fox the opportunity to purposely allow (or even send) millions of criminals, thugs, anarchists, and potential terrorists to swarm over our southern border in breathtaking numbers. (As I have chronicled before in this column, nearly half of all illegal aliens currently living in the U.S. came here since Bush became president in 2000.) Yet, while Mexican President Fox encourages and even promotes massive illegal immigration to the U.S., his own country's constitution in Chapter 3, Article 33, states, "The Executive of the Union has the exclusive right to expel from the national territory, immediately and without necessity of judicial proceedings, all foreigners whose stay it judges inconvenient. Foreigners may not, in any manner, involve themselves in the political affairs of the country." Imagine that. Even without the massive demonstrations by millions of foreign invaders, America is reeling from the negative effects that these people have created. In an open letter to President Bush, Ron Maxwell (writer and director of "Gettysburg" and "Gods and Generals") wrote, "Where was the concern for American schoolchildren forced to sit in overcrowded classes, for American patients forced to wait in overcrowded hospitals, for American workers whose wages are being undercut, for American drivers forced to sit in interminable traffic jams in over-whelmed freeway systems, for the victims of organized gangs, for the American college students who are turned away from publicly funded state universities, for many African Americans who are being literally displaced from their neighborhoods while being moved figuratively, once again, to the back of the bus, for those environmentalists and conservationists who want to protect open space and slow down urban sprawl, for the American taxpayers who have had to bear the burden of billions of dollars in increased welfare costs, over-burdened prisons, extra police and security and even, adding insult to injury, for bilingual education?" (Source: The Washington Times, April 6, 2006) I trust Mr. Maxwell is not holding his breath while he waits for President Bush to respond, because Bush knows the problems his laxity and indifference have created and frankly, my dear, doesn't give a darn! If anything is going to be done about the illegal alien problem it will be because the American people, conservatives, liberals, moderates, independents, whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews and Gentiles, young and old, from blue states and red states, from big cities and small farms, Christians and unbelievers stand up and in This means making it a crime for any employer to knowingly hire an illegal alien punishable with serious fines and imprisonment for repeat offenses. It means demanding that our federal government seal our borders (especially the southern one) and stop the tide of foreign invasion immediately. If Saudi Arabia can put up a security fence between itself and Iraq (and it is doing just that), we can put one up between us and Mexico! It means to stop underwriting these foreign invaders by not paying for their health care, schooling, and food stamps. It means to stop giving them drivers licenses. It means making certain punishment worse than any potential benefit. We can either deal with the illegal immigration problem now as described above or we will certainly deal with open civil war in the very near future. The American people better decide right now which it will be, because time is running out for Congress to be able to fix the problem. Once that happens, we won't have to worry about civil war in Iraq, because it will happen right here in the United States. © Chuck Baldwin NOTE TO THE READER: This email editorial cannot be considered Spam as long as the To subscribe to these columns, send a message to majordomo@chuckbaldwinlive.com with the words subscribe chuck-wagon in the body of the message. To unsubscribe put the words unsubscribe chuck-wagon in the body of the message. Chuck Baldwin's commentaries are copyrighted and may be republished, reposted, or emailed providing the person or organization doing so does not charge for subscriptions or advertising and that the column is copied intact and that full credit is given and that Chuck's web site address is included. Hiding the Truth About Inflation My understanding is that gold has now reached $600 / ounce, its highest since the 1980s, and possibly on its way to its highest price ever as the value of the dollar continues to fall worldwide. In light of this, and in light of the likelihood that the federal government and its well-paid cadre of "economists" are simply lying to us about the actual inflation rate, the value of the dollar and the health of the U.S. economy generally, the material pasted in below seems worth checking out. Source: FromTheWilderness.com. We should also note in this connection that apparently the Fed recently ordered the printing of $2 trillion in fiat currency so the federal government can remain afloat. It's all very, very hush-hush: treasury department personnel have been threatened with losing their jobs if they divulge this to the public, as its effect on the economy would be--shall we say--very adverse! Nevertheless, this is the age of the Internet. Word leaked out. No wonder the power elites want control over the Internet! [Three categories make up the Money Supply: M1, M2, and M3. The Money Supply helps economists to understand how policies will affect interest rates and growth. Definitions of M1, M2, and M3 categories within the money supply are as follows: (Paraphrased from Web Source: http://www.investopedia.com/) * M1 - includes physical monies such as coins and currency. Also includes demand deposits (checking accounts) and NOW accounts (interest-earning bank accounts within which the client may write drafts against deposited monies). Another synonym for M1 is “narrow money” because the M1 category is considered to be the narrowest idea of money. Economists use the M1 category to quantify the amount of money in circulation. * M2 - includes all M1 categories, time-related deposits (such as CDs), savings deposits, and non-institutional money market funds. Economists use the M2 category to not only quantify the amount of physical money in circulation, but also to try explaining various economic monetary conditions. * M3 – includes all M1 and M2 categories along with large time deposits (such as lengthy CD terms), institutional money market funds, short-term repurchase agreements (short-term borrowing agreement for government securities dealers), and other large liquid assets. * MZM – “Money Zero Maturity” measures the liquid money supply in the economy. It includes all monies in the M2 category except for time deposits, and adds-in all money market funds. It is essentially a mix of all of the liquid monies and zero maturity monies found within the three categories of the money supply. MZM has become a preferred measure of the money supply because it represents monies available for spending and consumption in the economy. - FTW] The End of M3 Hiding the Truth About Inflation by James Turk In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Each week the Federal Reserve reports various measures of the US dollar money supply. One of these, M3, is the total quantity of dollars in circulation. Last week the Fed stopped reporting M3, explaining as follows the reason for their decision: “M3 does not appear to convey any additional information about economic activity that is not already embodied in M2 and has not played a role in the monetary policy process for many years. Consequently, the Board judged that the costs of collecting the underlying data and publishing M3 outweigh the benefits.” To the casual observer not familiar with the nuances of central banking, the above stated reason may seem plausible. But those with experience know that central bankers only tell you what they want you to hear. Therefore, what is the real reason the Federal Reserve stopped reporting M3? The answer is very simple. The Federal Reserve wants to hide the truth. They want to hide the fact that they are inflating the dollar. The Federal Reserve says that M3 is no longer needed, and that M1 and M2, which only measure part of the total quantity of dollars, are sufficient. But look at the following table which I’ve taken from the Federal Reserve’s last money stock report that included M3. H.6 (508) Table 2 Money Stock Measures M1 M2 M3 3-mos from Nov 05 to Feb 06 1.4% 6.6% 8.7% 6-mos from Aug 05 to Feb 06 0.6% 5.8% 8.7% 12-mos from Feb 05 to Feb 06 0.4% 4.7% 8.0% Inflation arises from creating too many dollars. Therefore, compare the growth rates of M1 and M2 to that for M3. Regardless whether you use the 3, 6 or 12-month reporting period, by looking at just M1 or M2 growth rates, one would get the impression that the level of current dollar creation was not unusual and that as a consequence, no inflationary pressures were building within the economy. But M3 reveals the truth, and the truth is that the Fed is pumping up the money supply. The total quantity of dollar currency is soaring, which is also apparent from the following chart which shows the annual growth rates of M3 at each month end since January 1975.
This chart provides a useful roadmap that illustrates the inflationary and disinflationary trends in the US dollar. There was double-digit inflation in the 1970s because M3 was growing at double-digit rates. Paul Volcker was appointed Fed chairman in 1979 and given the mandate to bring inflation under control. He achieved that objective by ushering in a period of disinflation by deliberately implementing a monetary policy that resulted in the declining M3 growth rates clearly visible on the above chart. After his appointment in 1987, Alan Greenspan continued the same disinflationary policy until September 1992 when the quantity of M3 had actually declined from the prior year. This decline in the money supply was deflation according to its classical definition, but this brush with deflation was brief. The Fed began reflating, and continued to do so until Y2K, in the process creating the greatest stock market bubble of all time. Thereafter, M3 growth rates began to decline along with the US stock market, bringing in another period of disinflation. But look at what is happening now. I have highlighted with the red circle the recent trend in M3 growth. The rate of dollar creation has begun a new upward path, which I call the “Bernanke Inflation”. It is this new upward trend that the Fed does not want anyone to see. By not reporting M3, the Federal Reserve thinks they can inflate without consequences. As evidence of this conclusion, please read the following quote from a presentation given on March 13th by Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. To provide some necessary background information, she first explained in effect that expectations by the public for future inflation have consequences because their expectations cause people to take actions to protect the purchasing power of their dollars. She then goes on to state: “Over the past two years, wages, core inflation, and long-run inflation expectations have remained well contained despite a dramatic increase in energy prices. With inflation expectations under control, we have avoided a rehash of the 1970s and the need to rein in inflation by engineering a severe recession.” In other words, if people don’t believe inflation is a problem, the Federal Reserve has more opportunity to intervene, taking actions potentially debasing and inflationary to the dollar and to do this without consequences. Or at least that what’s the Fed thinks. But the Fed is only fooling itself. First of all, who really believes that inflation is under control? The price of everything is going up, except perhaps computers, but in contrast to food and energy, computers are not an everyday purchase. A poll published by The Wall Street Journal reveals that 75% of those participating believe that the inflation they experience is worse than the inflation rate reported by the federal government’s Consumer Price Index. “By eliminating its reporting of M3, the Fed is shooting itself in the foot. This misstep will only hasten the rush out of dollars into the safety and security of gold.” The reason for forecasting as I did a flight from the dollar into gold is that I suspected that the Fed’s decision to discontinue its M3 reporting would be immediately recognized for what it is – something to be expected from a ‘banana-republic’. In other words, if things are that bad that the Fed is no longer going to report the whole story, then, the thinking goes, the sooner one exits the dollar the better. And the best way to hedge oneself against the effects of inflation is to buy gold. Clearly, the rise in the gold price that has occurred since the Fed announced in November its decision to no longer report M3 must in part be attributable to this gross misstep by the Fed. Given the new upward trend in the M3 growth rate on the above chart, it seems inevitable that the price of gold is going to rise much higher because inflation will continue to worsen, regardless whether the Fed reports it or not. Monday, April 10, 2006Pro-Immigration Rally in Greenville, S.C. Here in Greenville, pro-immigration demonstrators are out in force downtown (having real work to do not being bankrolled by left wing foundations, I've been nowhere near the place). Not a word about the Constitution or about the rule of law. Some of those in this country legally and holding up signs denying being criminals are doubtless right; but some of those they are supporting undoubtedly are criminals. Btw, if Hispanics are entering this country out of "economic despair," as one man says, does this not imply that NAFTA did not work, and that the "solution" to the failure of internationalism is now to import more poverty in America? Ah! NAFTA was not supposed to work, unless you are in the economic top 5 percent in either nation. Silly me! Monday, April 10 | Upstate South Carolina News, Sports and Information Immigration demonstrators fill City Hall plaza Published: Monday, April 10, 2006 - 11:55 am By Claire Anderson More than a thousand people are on the plaza today beside Greenville City Hall on Main Street as a show of strength and concern about how Congress deals with immigration and those who are in the United States illegally. Jose Florez, a Colombia native and cabinet maker who has been in the United States 11 years, stood with a group holding a sign that said: “We are not criminals.” Requel Gonik, who came with her son, said, “We came here to support the Hispanic community, not protest. We’re here to plead with the Senate to consider a change for us.” Gonik said she married a man from Greenville and has obtained legal status. But she said it has been much more difficult for other family members. Wilfredo Leon, who organized the demonstration, said he opposes Bill 4437 that was passed by the House of Representatives in December. The bill would make coming to the United States as an illegal immigrant a felony crime rather than a misdemeanor. Leon said today’s demonstration is important because immigration reform will impact the 50,000 Latinos living in the Upstate. Leon, who is Puerto Rican and settled in Greenville after visiting a friend in the area, publishes a local Hispanic newspaper called Latino Newspaper. “You have to admire the fire in someone’s belly that makes them get up one day and go to a land where they don’t have any support,” Leon said. He said most Hispanic immigrants come to the U.S. out of economic despair. David Rutledge and his wife, Debbie, came to the demonstration to express their support for immigrant rights. “I believe that immigrants are human beings and should have the same rights as everyone else,” said Rutledge, a Greenville lawyer who handles some immigration cases. National Debt Reaches $8.4 Trillion Today's national debt is more out of control than at any given time in U.S. history, or probably in the history of civilization itself. According to the U.S. National Debt Clock, our national debt is now over $8.4 trillion and skyrocketing fast enough that it will soon be necessary for Congress to pass yet another law raising the debt ceiling even higher (one wonders why they don't pass a law simply abolishing the notion of a debt ceiling). This figure is only a fraction of our total indebtedness (which includes both personal and corporate debt). And to whom is all this debt owed? To the banks, and ultimately to the international banking cartel. US debt: At least it's not $1 zillion By Richard Cowan After all, how much is a trillion? It's the number one followed by 12 zeros. But that doesn't shed much light on just how deeply in debt the federal government is that it must pass a law enabling it to borrow up to $8.965 trillion. "It's hard to understand what a trillion is. I don't know what it is," confessed Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, this week when debating the government's staggering fiscal obligations. [Read the rest here.] Here's a method for understanding just how high the sums are. Consider a baseball player whose contract pays him a tidy $2.5 million per year. This is higher salary than most of us will ever see in our lives, as it is. But this player would have to play baseball for 3,360,000 years--that's 3.36 million years--to earn an amount of money equal to that of our current national debt. I guess we can always tell ourselves it's only Federal Reserve created fiat money anyway. Sunday, April 09, 2006Population Reduction? The Case of Depleted Uranium (DU) Last week I posted an article by a nutcase professor out in Texas claiming that we need to reduce the population of human beings by 90 percent in order to save the planet. For some time now, rumors have floated around on the Internet that the power elite plans to reduce the population of the world by up to 90 percent. For starters, they cannot control 6 billion people. For seconds, the kind of managed (collectivist) global economy being planned cannot create enough useful jobs for 6 billion people. There are just too many "useless eaters," many of them too old and many others with the wrong sorts of "skills" or not obedient enough. Does the power elite have a plan in motion that would eventuate population reduction over a period of time lasting anywhere from a few years to a few decades? But read the story below, and then think about it. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to read this before you go to bed tonight. Wait until tomorrow, and you're in a brightly lit room. LUNG CANCER EPIDEMIC FROM DU HAS BEGUN IN U.S. By Dr. James Howenstine, MD. In the year 2005 there were 175,000 new cases of lung cancer in the United States. The months of January and February of 2006 have already yielded 172,000 new cases of lung cancer in our nation. What has lead to this shocking new development? Second hand smoke exposure and cigarette smoking obviously can not explain this dramatic rise in lung cancer. Following exposure to radioactive iodine particulate debris in the air from shells and bombs, between 2 to 5 years of time is needed to lead to the appearance of malignancies. Our bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 (four and a half years ago) and the new bombing in Iraq began in March 2003 (exactly three years ago). Aerial bombs are more effective than artillery shells in increasing airborne radioiodine because they release more dust into the atmosphere. The radioactive iodine increment from these bombings was registered in the UK in the Aldermaston Report[1] released on Feb. 19, 2006. The U.S. government has not released any information about the levels of radioactivity being observed in the U.S. and the controlled media in Europe and the U.S. has said nothing about the 4 genocidal nuclear wars the United States and it’s British ally have foisted off on the populace of the world. (Bosnia, Iraq twice and Afghanistan). The DU wars surely reflect the population lowering program for the world being implemented by the New World Order elitists (Tilateral Commisson., Bilderbergers, Club of Rome, 33rd degree Masons, Illuminati, Council of Foreign Relations.) Breathing radioactive particlulate matter has long been known to cause lung cancer. Miners working in uranium mines and other types of mining where radioactivity is an occupational hazard have a higher incidence of lung cancer. This danger from airborne radioactive iodine is greater than that found from cigarette smoking. The radioactive iodine particles go directly to DNA which is “trashed”. There are no ways the human body can rid itself of the radioactive particles so the health damage is permanent. This results in severe health problems particularly malignancies which have no effective therapies. Physicians in Bosnia are seeing patients present for care with three simultaneous malignancies something never previously reported in medicine. Children in Iraq are dying in epidemic numbers from malignancies. In most nations cancer in children is uncommon. This makes depleted uranium shells and bombs an ideal vehicle to diminish the world population. The absence of media exposure critical of this genocidal program makes DU warfare a low risk program for lowering world population. One of the attractive features of using radioactive uranium for biologic warfare and population lowering is that there are no known effective ways to heal an individual who develops a malignancy after radioiodine iodine exposure. A frightening aspect of depleted uranium warfare is that there is no way to protect oneself from this hazard. Clothing and gas masks are easily penetrated. The key persons running the New World Order are brilliant planners. They would not want themselves to die from lung cancer along with the rest of humanity. My guess is they have discovered methods to protect themselves from developing lung cancer. Certainly one has to be impressed with how effectively David Rockefeller, Zignev Brezinski and Henry Kissinger appear to have managed to avoid the infirmities of aging at least to outward appearances. I do not know if persons living in the Southern hemisphere are also being exposed to radioiodine fallout. Recently Christopher Reeves wife, Dana, died of lung cancer at age 44. She was a healthy non smoker so her death appeared puzzling. The DU fallout may provide a rational explanation. Because prevailing winds have carried radioiodine dust to Europe and probably the U.S. it appears that at least half the persons on planet earth are currently breathing radioiodine. The topic of depleted uranium bombs and shells will not be discussed in the media because the world’s media is controlled by the New World Order elitists. World wide public outrage could ruin their plans to rapidly lower the world’s population by 90 % if this issue was publicly discussed. When a biologic warfare agent like the borrelia burgdorfi spirochete (Lyme Disease) turns out to spread person to person it becomes a gigantic success. We all must breath to stay alive. With at least half the persons on earth now breathing radioactive iodine the bio-warfare scientists appear to have their second big winner. Expect lung cancer deaths to rapidly increase worldwide. Footnotes: 1, CNN American Morning program March 8, 2006 Miles and Soledad O'Brien © 2006 Dr. James Howenstine - All Rights Reserved Dr. James A. Howenstine is a board certified specialist in internal medicine who spent 34 years caring for office and hospital patients. After 4 years of personal study he became convinced that natural products are safer, more effective, and less expensive than pharmaceutical drugs. This research led to the publication of his book A Physicians Guide To Natural Health Products That Work. Information about these products and his book can be obtained from amazon.com and at www.naturalhealthteam.com and phone 1-800-416-2806 U.S. Dr. Howenstine can be reached by mail at Dr. James Howenstine, C/O Remarsa USA SB 37, P.O. Box 25292, Miami, Fl. 33102-5292. E-Mail: jimhow@racsa.co.cr Divide and Conquer! This essay, courtesy of Warren Appleton (thanks!), addresses a question I am sometimes asked: are the demonstrations by illegal aliens orchestrated? The answer: of course they are, as has been the entire program aimed at bringing down this country from within or from without. Direct military conquest of the United States of America is obviously not an option; but most Americans are incredibly naive about economics, and about how the international banking cartel has used both economic and cultural forces to achieve their goals--dividing this nation against itself, from within, being among their chief instruments. Warning: this piece is hard-hitting! It names names! Maybe that's what we need. Conversation with neighbor earlier this day relaying earlier conversation between her and Hispanic woman, who had said (this is a paraphrase, I can't remember the statement word for word): "You ['gringos'] aren't even fighting for it. If you won't fight for it, you don't deserve to keep it. Sorry." BEHIND THE DEMONSTRATIONS: DIVIDE AND CONQUER By: Alan Stang In 1928, a man named Joseph Pogany came to this country and used the name John Pepper. Pepper had been a general in the short-lived Communist dictatorship in Hungary after World War I. Now he was an agent of the Communist International and Stalin sent him here to destroy these united States. Stalin called the tactic they would use the "Negro Soviet Republic." The rationale was that the united States were too big to swallow whole. So, the Soviets would break it into digestible pieces. The idea was to use the southeastern states where the black population of this country was largest. The scenario called for the new country to secede from ours. It would ostensibly be a black country, controlled in fact by white Communists. The plan failed because Pepper could not convince enough black Americans to participate. The Negro Soviet Republic never got started. (For more on the subject, read my book, It’s Very Simple: The True Story of Civil Rights. If you can’t find it, send $10 to P.O. Box 580503, Houston, TX, 77258-0503.) Now comes an equally Communist scheme called Aztlan, which would use Latinos as pawns in the creation of a country carved out of the U.S. southwest. The Aztlan forces recently were involved in the huge demonstrations of illegal aliens across the country, tantamount to a man breaking into your house and making demands. Let’s let Aztlan speak for itself. Here is Ernesto Cienfuegos, of La Voz (The Voice) de Aztlan: "What does the immense success of ‘La Gran Marcha’ mean to Mexicanos and other Latinos? It simply means that we now have the numbers, the political will and the organizational skills to direct our own destinies and not be subservient to the White and Jewish power structures. "If the racist "Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil disobedience movement will emerge. . . . The next and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the states within Aztlan." Cienfuegos speaks of "a Jewish dominated school board and a White superintendent that are just fleecing the schools of much needed funds. School board Jews like Julie Korenstein, Marlene Canter, David Tokofsky, Jon Lauritzen and Mike Lansing are just enriching themselves and their cronies through crooked deals involving school construction projects, and contracts with so called consultants and vendors. The LAUSD is the second largest in the nation, next to New York, with a multi-billion dollar annual budget. It has an overwhelming Mexican and Latino student population. Jews have their own private schools so why are 5 Jews out of 7 school board members interested in governing the school district?" Indeed, the Aztlan movement is riddled with hatred for Jews, virulent enough and blatant enough to recall Hitler’s Nazis: Aztlan activists refer to the "Jewish s--t hole called Manhattan." All of which puts into an embarrassing spot the phony Jewish organizations that spend most of their time creating anti-Semitism by attacking American patriots. If those pseudo-Jewish groups do not respond vigorously to such Hitlerite sentiments, if they do not launch the usual propaganda blitzkrieg, this time against illegal aliens, they will at last be exposed as the utter frauds they are – and so far they haven’t said a word. Of course, Aztlan groups advocate killing blacks as well as whites and driving them out of the southwestern states with brutal ethnic cleansing. Also, American blacks are rapidly losing jobs to these criminal invaders, so the black con men who operate lucrative swindles using the problems of black people as the excuse are in the same spot as the phony Jewish groups. Flags and placards carried at marches depict white people having their heads cut off. Another group in the revolutionary mix is MEChA, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, whose own slogan says, "For the race, everything. For those outside the race, nothing." Again, the movement is disgustingly racist. Typically, it accuses anyone who challenges it of racism. It is also Communist. Recently, in the District of Criminals, chicanista "clergymen" donned handcuffs and sang "We Shall Overcome," the unofficial anthem of the civil rights era, which translates into Spanish as "Venceremos," which in turn just happens to be the slogan Fidel Castro coined when the Eisenhower Administration installed him as Communist dictator of Cuba. A couple of other elements in the revolution are the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the National Council of La Raza (La Raza). Both these outfits were created and are still financed by the Communist multi-billion dollar Ford Foundation. During the Eisenhower Administration, the Communist activities of huge, tax-exempt foundations like Ford became so blatant that a committee of Congress investigated. The chief investigator of that committee was Norman Dodd. Norman went to New York, met with then Ford Foundation President Rowan Gaither and asked him what the foundation was doing. Gaither explained that many of the people who then ran the government had worked for OSS (Office of Strategic Services), forerunner of CIA during the war. Rowan Gaither told Norman Dodd that their activities now were governed by White House directives and that their assignment at Ford was "so to alter the culture, economy and life of the United States that it can comfortably be merged with the Soviet Union." Needless to say, chief investigator Dodd almost fell off his chair. He asked Rowan Gaither to save everyone considerable time, energy and money by holding a press conference and telling the world what he had told Norman Dodd. Gaither chuckled and said that of course he would do no such thing. Unfortunately, Norman Dodd was not wired. Remember, this was a few years after World War II. And today’s Ford Foundation is still doing exactly that. No, Communism didn’t collapse. In fact, the "collapse" of Communism is a Communist tactic. Ford not only founded and financed MALDEF; it also decided where it should office, who should run it and which cases it should argue. MALDEF in practical effect is a branch of the Ford Foundation. Ford was also in at the creation of La Raza, another Ford subsidiary. So conspirators at the very top are creating, financing and directing Communist revolution at the bottom. Remember that Communism is always forced down on people. It is run from the top. The Communists call the technique "pressure from above and pressure from below," a manifestation of dialectical materialism. The pressure from below creates the spurious "justification" for the Communists at the top to act. The Communists always control both sides of the argument and whipsaw the target population between them. For more on the subject, read And Not a Shot Is Fired, by Jan Kozak, who explains therein how the Communists seized Czechoslovakia. Call the American Opinion Bookstore of North Hollywood, (800) 470 8783. Tell Lady Patricia I told you to call. And the government of Mexico is collaborating in the scheme. Ruben Aguilar, spokesman for President Vicente Fox, said as follows about the recent demonstrations: "The government of the (Mexican) Republic ratifies its commitment to the Mexicans who live in the United States and its intention to work in the defense of their rights ..." In fact, Mexico is publishing ads in American newspapers not only demanding the legalization of criminal aliens already here, but also maintaining that "in order for a (U.S.) guest workers program to be viable, Mexico should participate in its design, management, supervision and evaluation." Which boils down to mean that Mexico is demanding the power to veto American immigration law. The Communists failed with the Negro Soviet Republic. They are succeeding with Aztlan. Probably the most important thing enough Americans must understand but still don’t is that Communist world government traitor George W. Smirk is exactly that – an enemy of this nation – and so are the monster multinational corporations that have bought our government. There is little time left. This thing will be decided while most of us still live. Maybe it has already been decided. The present attempt in the Senate to award illegal aliens with amnesty is the latest front in the war. Patriots already are prepared – in the most important place, the mind. Liberaloids and phony conservatives are not. They have stale cottage cheese for brains and are pansy soft. They will fold on Der Tag. The patriots know who you are. They know where you are. If you succeed in destroying the country, won’t you have to leave the safety of your gated strongholds at some point? Try to understand that when you do you will face not only the Communists but also the patriots, who will be as mad as a black mamba with an attitude and will be debating how William Wallace would do it. "Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact." Alan Stang has been a network radio talk show host and was one of Mike Wallace's first writers. He was a senior writer for American Opinion magazine and has lectured around the world for more than 30 years. He is also the author of ten books. Go to www.stangbooks.com to read about Alan Stang's blockbuster new novel, He, about the greatest hero of all time, Jesus Christ. If you would like him to address your group, please email what you have in mind. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone. Alan Stang can be reached at: feedback@stangbooks.com We invite you to visit his website at: www.stangbooks.com Published in the April 7, 2006 issue of Ether Zone. Saturday, April 08, 2006Amnesty For Illegals Thwarted - For the Moment Letter from Bay Buchanan (Pat's significant other*): Congratulations!! Both Immigration Bills Fail! Dear Friends, Congratulations!! You did it!! I knew you could and you did!! Thanks so much for all the calls and the visits. I am told by everyone that the phones were constantly ringing in the Senate offices. This is why the Senators wanted the vote to pass today. They figured they would take a two week vacation and return when the storm had passed. Now they will return to a much larger storm!! Here is what happened. The Republicans knew they couldn't move ahead with the bill as it was-they were demanding Senator Frist allow amendments to the bill. Democrats said no amendments-the bill had to go to a vote as is-blanket amnesty, in state tuition, et al. So the Republicans refused to let the bill go to the floor for any vote. Then the Senate refused to let the Frist bill, another disastrous immigration proposal, go to the floor. Two great victories for our side!! We won another battle today, and a huge one at that, but we can't let our guard down! The Senate plans to resume this debate after Easter!! They have even scheduled a vote for their first day back-April 24. And you know the Business Round Table crowd must be up in arms and working overtime to get their 'guaranteed cheap labor' bill back on track. So here is what we need you to do. The Senate and the Congressman are back on their home turf. Find them-use the phone or the car-but find them. Go to their offices again and again-find out if there are any town hall meetings or any public appearances and go there-make yourselves heard so loud that it shakes these fellas out of their elite little worlds. Make them realize you, your family, your friends, and Americans everywhere have had enough. Demand they secure the border, demand they enforce our laws. And then let them know you will accept no amnesty and no guest worker. I must tell you--you have made my day! You have won one for America! I consider it a privilege to be on the same team with you. I'll update you again next week-in the meantime have a great weekend. You have earned it!! With the greatest of respect, Here is a link (from our website) to the Senators' local offices. Friday, April 07, 2006From Illegal Immigration to Potential Social Upheavel In a word, this situation with illegal aliens seems to be getting more dangerous all the time, as the so-called immigration reform bill (the likely amnesty-for-illegals bill appears to be stalled in the Senate, at least as of my latest information as of this writing). But consider the radical statements from at least some of the dangerous subgroups within the larger group of illegals; I know we've noted this things before, but they are worth revisiting again and again--whatever it takes to wake up America before we lose this country. We can thank the globalists--or the internationalists or the one-worlders, if you prefer. They have been planning for a borderless North America for some time now, and the consequences are slowly materializing! (Thanks to Cal S. for this.)
Paul Joseph Watson/ March 29 2006 At the height of last year's French riots, Voz de Aztlan leader Ernesto Cienfuegos stated that similar scenes of chaos would be witnessed on the streets of America. As reports of violence begin to filter through, a deliberately fomented race war hiding behind an immigration debate creeps ever closer. "Today, here in Los Angeles, we are already seeing ominous signs of an impending social explosion that will make the French rebellion by Muslim and immigrant youths seem 'tame' by comparison," said Cienfuegos on November 8. "All the ingredients are present including a hostile and racist police as in France. In fact, we came close to having major riots on three separate occasions just this year alone." As the mainstream controlled media reports the immigration protests as peaceful and affords them a wealth of credence and credibility, ignoring the plethora of foreign flags compared to US flags, turn to Mexican TV news stations and you will encounter radical proselytizing about enacting the brutal plan on the invasion and takeover of the southern American states. Aztlan's goal, known as la reconquista, is to cede and take over the entirety of the southern states by any means necessary and impose a Communist militant dictatorship. President Bush's blanket amnesty program goes a long way to helping the extremists achieve their aim. Despite the fact that the majority of documented Hispanics oppose illegal immigration, as do the majority of Americans, Aztlan and La Raca race hate groups have become the self-appointed voice for a separatist movement that threatens a violent overthrow of the Constitutional system and a barbaric program of ethnic cleansing. This is held up by the media as 'diversity' and to vociferously oppose it is scorned as racism. Aztlan and Mecha groups advocate killing all whites and blacks and driving them out of the southern states by means of brutal ethnic cleansing. Flags and placards carried at marches depict white people having their heads cut off, as seen in the picture below. Those that protest such groups are then attacked by the establishment media and labeled as racists, despite the fact that the Plan of San Diego, a rallying cry for the Hispanic Klan groups, advocates total eradication of any race but Hispanics. Mecha's own slogan reads, "For the race everything. For those outside the race, nothing." TV stations owned by rich white industrialists erect giant billboards in Los Angeles claiming the city belongs to Mexico, as seen below. Mainstream Hispanics who love America abhor the virulent racism that the Mexican Klan groups embrace. And who bankrolls these pocket radicals? Billionaire tax-exempt foundations and NGO's owned by white men. Organizations like the Ford Foundation, groups who are zealous in their quest to eliminate the middle class and destroy America, turning it into a cashless society, compact city, surveillance control grid where only two tiers of society exist - the elite and the poor slaves. The Atzlan website today carries the following comments. "If the racist "Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the states within Aztlan." Here is the open call for violent separatism and the overthrow of existing state government structures. A sizeable proportion of the secular humanist Westerners who like to think of themselves as part of the establishment, when in reality they are unwitting tools of the true elite, have bought into the cuddly utopian philosophy that the West is a global village which welcomes all comers and has the enlightened innate ability to homogenize millions of different people of all different colors and creeds into one giant melting pot. The reality couldn't be further from the truth and last year's images of flaming buses, schools, nurseries, terror and panic in France betray that fact. Protests over changes in employment laws have flared into riots and we are now witnessing similar scenes on the streets of Paris as we saw last November. The real power behind the clash of civilizations lies with Globalists, in whose interest it is to foment race wars. Their vision of the Western world can best be described as a corporate fascist high tech slave plantation, with all the proles packed into high rise compact cities. The middle class simply won't exist. Every major minority movement throughout history has been infiltrated and steered by the elite in an attempt to obtain these objectives. The elite want us to be at each others throats while they dominate over the downtrodden and befuddled warring tribes. Race is the ultimate touchstone hot button issue and the Globalists have enacted policies of rampant uncontrolled immigration in order to force hostile cultures to intermingle. The outcome is always tribal warfare, as we saw in Bosnia and Kosovo. The Mexican Klan must be opposed at every turn if we are to prevent America being fed to the dogs of racial purity and ethnic cleansing, an ideology that was supposedly defeated in 1940's Germany but is openly called for today while the groups carrying it out are protected and funded by the establishment. Thursday, April 06, 2006The Great Economic Disconnect The disconnect is between those (invariably inside the "system" with secure jobs and hefty incomes) who trumpet a "booming" economy and those of us struggling from paycheck to paycheck, who recognize that the numerical price on everything is going up but our numerical wages are not, and that the actual value of our wages is falling relative to the cost of living, and that we don't dare get sick because none of our part-time or temporary jobs come with health-care benefits. The former are telling us that we just "don't understand how great the economy is doing," because we are looking past "the numbers" and seeing that nearly all the job creation of the past ten years has been in either the low-paying service sector or in government jobs. Guess we're just "pessimistic" or "irrational" in not seeing how great we have it. Perhaps, then again, the measure of the GDP or the Dow isn't the measure of the economic health of the nation as a whole, which is something more than the health of those running the largest corporations or the Chamber of Commerce. And perhaps the answer to the question posed below, why this crowd's opinion is considered the measure of economic health and not that of ordinary Americans, lies with the fact that the former hold the reins of power in the media. Such thoughts as these will undoubtedly strike some as vaguely leftist, or as suggestive of class warfare. That there is a difference in perception between the elites who have benefited from the consolidations of wealth and power over the past few decades and ordinary Americans who have been harmed by them seems to me as plain as the nose on my face when I look in the mirror; I've no control over ideological interpretations of the observation, but I submit them as fact. I think of them as supporting libertarian populism, not liberalism or leftism. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Good News! The Rich Get Richer By Janine Jackson http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2854 The Bush administration made a concerted effort to trumpet a “booming” U.S. economy in early December, widely understood as an attempt to reverse what polls indicate to be the public’s largely negative views on the matter. There are, of course, obvious reasons the majority of Americans dissent from the White House’s rosy presentation of the economy: Most American households are not, in fact, seeing their economic fortunes improve. GDP is up, but virtually all the growth has gone into corporate profits and the incomes of the highest economic brackets. Wages and incomes for average workers, adjusted for inflation, are down in recent years; the median income for non-elderly households is down 4.8 percent since 2000 (Economic Policy Institute, 8/31/05). The poverty rate is rising, as is the number of people in debt. But rather than confront these realities, and explore the implications of the White House’s efforts to deny them, most mainstream media instead assisted the Bush team’s PR by themselves feigning confusion over the gap between the official view and the public mood. As the New York Times put it (12/6/05), the economy “has improved in the past two years, though polls show that most people think it has gotten worse.” USA Today (12/5/05) had it that “despite positive economic numbers, polls show that many Americans believe the economy remains weak.” And the Los Angeles Times (12/6/05) referred matter-of-factly to economic “good news,” noting Bush’s concern that “voters give him little credit for the improving economy.” Again and again, the majority of Americans’ understanding of their own economic situation was presented as somehow disconnected from reality, ascribed to “pessimism,” ignorance or irrationality. The Wall Street Journal (12/6/05), among others, suggested poll respondents’ negative assessments might be “spillover from concerns about the Iraq War,” as if the war rendered people incapable of noting whether or not they can pay their bills. Conservative pundit George Will (ABC’s This Week, 12/4/05) blamed media coverage for the public’s failure to understand that “the economy is booming,” attributing this misapprehension to “Will’s two laws of economic journalism,” which mandate that “there’s no such thing as good news.” On Fox (Special Report, 12/2/05), Charles Krauthammer likewise cited the press, which “emphasizes the negative,” for the fact that the public didn’t appreciate the “incredible resilience of this economy,” which he called “a tribute to the tax cuts which kept our economy strong.” Even the inclusion of significant countervailing data, like sluggish wage growth or escalating healthcare costs—-data that demonstrate that Bush’s vision of an economic horizon “as bright as it’s been in a long time” (UPI, 12/2/05) is simply not the reality for most people—-was insufficient to shift the story from one of essentially “good news.” The most outlets could manage was to say that such factors suggest “that recent gains in the economy do not apply across the board” (L.A. Times, 12/6/05), that many workers are not “fully participating in the economy’s gains” (Wall Street Journal, 12/6/05), or that “many economic benefits are not making their way to ordinary workers” (Washington Post, 12/6/05). But why these ordinary workers, representing the majority of households, should not be considered the arbiters of whether or not “the economy” is good is never explained. There were a couple of high-profile exceptions to this upside-down framing, in which the existence of an “upswing” was taken as a given and journalists sought only to account for the public’s failure to “get” it, or to sufficiently credit the White House. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich (ABC’s This Week, 12/4/05) pointed out that the much-cited report of 215,000 new jobs created in November, which Bush held a Rose Garden ceremony to crow about, was “nothing to celebrate,” noting that it was less than the average per month growth in the Clinton administration, and that 150,000 new jobs are required just to keep up with population growth. Reich urged consideration of job instability along with health care and energy costs. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman was likewise direct. “Americans don’t feel good about the economy because it hasn’t been good for them,” he wrote (12/5/05). While “GDP growth has been reasonably good, and corporate profits have soared” in recent years, Krugman explained, “most families actually lost economic ground,” with real median household income falling for the fifth year in a row. But in their hardly radical suggestion that discussion of the economy ought to reflect the concerns of average salaried workers at least as much as those of the investor class, the likes of Krugman and Reich are not just a tiny minority in media opinion forums; they are effectively shouted down by a daily litany of stories that privilege the views of economic elites—-with the most significant biases often lurking in the unspoken premises and parameters of supposedly neutral, “straight” reporting. Media’s tendency to tacitly promote the official storyline came through in the decision by a number of outlets (ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today, CBS’s Early Show, CNN’s American Morning, 12/5/05) to “cover” Bush’s economic stumping with solo interviews of White House counsel Dan Bartlett; and in the ubiquitous tactic of bracketing straightforward information that might undermine the White House view as the detractions of “Democrats.” Thus for the L.A. Times (12/6/05) it was only “Democrats” who were “not persuaded by Bush’s upbeat rhetoric, arguing that his policies, especially the across-the-board tax cuts, have disproportionately benefited the wealthiest segments of society.” Having devoted the first 15 of 17 paragraphs to unchallenged stenography of Bush and his advisers, AP’s account (12/5/05) offered a comment from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, prefaced with the line, “Democrats were quick to criticize the president’s speech.” Ingenuous reporting of Bush rhetoric was pervasive, as with his exhortation of corporate America to “keep your promises” to workers. That phrase made headlines, but reporters merely wrote it down, rather than take the somewhat obvious step of researching Bush’s record on the issue. As David Sirota noted (Huffington Post, 12/6/05), a quick Google search would’ve shown Bush’s “major concrete action” in this arena to be his push to legalize controversial “cash balance pensions” schemes, though government auditors have said these reduce the pensions promised to longtime workers (New York Times, 3/9/03). Finally, there is the gaggle of unabashedly pro-business shows like CNBC’s Kudlow and Company, where Treasury Secretary John Snow was invited (12/5/05) to exult, “There’s just so much good news,” and to explain that that’s due to Bush and “his leadership in lower taxes that created the condition under which this economy could take off.” Kudlow also gave Snow a chance to respond to Paul Krugman (described by the host as a “Princeton economist and so forth and so on”) with a supply-side primer about how “high returns to capital” lead directly to “better wages and better compensation.” Nowhere in mainstream media do such shows have an opposite number, in which progressive economists regularly lay out their worldview at length and in hospitable company. Or even a show where labor, poverty or consumer rights organizations get to respond directly to the selective numbers and analysis put forward by the administration. Such a program couldn’t balance the slant of a press corps that headlines economic “good news” when most families fall behind; but it would be a start. See FAIR's Archives for more on: Wednesday, April 05, 2006The Current Invasion MapAnother Academic Embarrassment (Or: This Is Where Evolution and Deep Ecology Take Us) At first glance, I've little idea what to make of this guy and even less what to make of those who would give him an award, except perhaps to say that there are times when I must admit embarrassment to be associated with academia in any way. But these are the people being awarded the full-time academic jobs. Courtesy of Messsinger (thanks). Scientists cheer holocaust wish -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com What would happen if a world-renowned scientist and evolutionary ecologist told hundreds of his colleagues that 90 percent of the human race needed to be wiped out by exposure to Ebola or some other deadly virus? Apparently, according to a scientist who claims to have witnessed such a remarkable event one month ago, the fiend would get a standing ovation and an award.
That's the story being told by Forrest Mims III, a member of the Texas Academy of Science, chairman of its environmental science section and editor of the Citizen Scientist. The speech Mims heard was delivered by Eric R. Pianka, a lizard expert from the University of Texas. It is recounted in detail in the latest issue of the Citizen Scientist. "We're no better than bacteria," Mims quoted Pianka as saying in his condemnation of the human race, which, he claimed, is overpopulating the Earth. The only way to save the planet for the rest of the species is to reduce the human population to 10 percent of its current number.
[Read the rest here if you've the stomach for it.] Tuesday, April 04, 2006A Potpourri of Recent Reads Too many to post in full here, so once again, I post a few initial "teaser" paragraphs plus the link to the entire article. This one reminds me why I no longer send articles to that site. There is such a thing, after all, as the rule of law. Moreover, there is the same sensibility here that one finds with the "booming economy" crowd, that whatever is "good for the economy" (i.e., above all, keeps the money flowing into the hands of the elites) is "good for the country," and that every choice made ought to be valued or even endorsed simply because it is "voluntary and not coerced," no matter how stupid it is. Mass stupidity, I fear, is going to be our downfall. Not to mention the religion of money, which more and more trumps the rule of law and even common horse sense. The international banking cartel is just taking advantage of all this; if we're this stupid, maybe we don't deserve to keep this country. Here is what Lou Dobbs actually said on CNN, quoting Theodore Roosevelt: "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American. "There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room but for one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." He added, "The government doesn’t know how many illegal aliens live in the United States. But we know what they cost. And that’s plenty." If that's "whining" about illegal aliens who are being allowed openly to flout the rule of law in the name of "helping the economy," then so be it. The next article is top flight, and almost redeems the site: "Within the so-called American conservative movement intellectual and political confusion are today rampant. Hence the following attempt to sort out what is what. "First of all, a conservative is acutely aware of the flawed nature of man. The capacity of human reason is limited. Our existence is ultimately a great mystery. Conservatives recognize that for these reasons we need the best of the human heritage to help guide us. "The Jacobin suffers from no such humility. Who needs history when there are universal principles that are also self-evident? It’s all so clear. Traditions are but historical accidents, props for old elites that should be replaced by the enlightened and virtuous, people like him. Leo Strauss and his disciples have taught us to disdain "the ancestral" and heed only principles of reason. "Conservatives and Jacobins differ profoundly on what ultimately commands our loyalty. Conservatives stand in awe of a higher power. The ancient Greeks spoke of it as the good, the true and the beautiful. Others refer to it as the will of God. This higher reality is, in any case, not some ideological blueprint. To feel obligated to look for and to do the right thing is not the same as to know just what it is in particular circumstances. The complexity and unpredictability of life disincline the conservatives to sweeping, categorical assertions. "The Jacobin is a true believer. He has access to universal principles, you see, and they demand "moral clarity." You are either for his principles, which makes you virtuous, or you are against them, which makes you evil. It’s all so clear. "To have unquestioning faith in one’s own moral superiority is for Christians the cardinal sin. Only a profoundly conceited person could think that for another to oppose him is by definition morally perverse. "But the Jacobin assumes a right to have his way. Behind his moralism hides a desire to dominate. The hesitation or trepidation that may trouble men of conscience do not deter him. The will to power silences all doubt." Read the entire article by Claes G. Ryn here. I wonder when it will be noticed that anarchocapitalists do in fact have their universal principles combined with an absence of any sense of complexity outside pure economic science (as they understand it), and so are considerably closer to the Jacobin spirit than they care to admit. They are unlikely to get us involved in unnecessary foreign wars, but are becoming unknowing dupes of the global elites. Other worthy reads: Joan Veon's latest on the Federal Reserve is stellar: "It’s about time Americans woke up to the fact that their future is intricately woven into the web of a black widow spider called “The Federal Reserve.” Just as the black widow has jaws and fangs that spring out of it and inject a poison that is 15 times that of a rattle snake, so too does the Federal Reserve have jaws and fangs. The best way to explain it is that it is not federal (the jaws) and it has no reserves (the poison). The name, however, IMPLIES that it is federal and that they have endless streams of money to lend to the American government. They do not. " Read the entire article here. A question worth pondering: "Why pay taxes? "You can't decide how government spends your money, but you can choose not to send it "Each year about this time, as many of us supplement our paycheck-to-paycheck giving unto Caesar, I raise this question. This year, let's start with the following observation from a reader, sent in the wake of the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. He notes that "terrorism" is defined, in Webster's, as "the systematic use of terror, esp. as a means of coercion," and provides a long list of examples, past and present, where the U.S. government has done exactly that. He then notes that under the current Patriot Act, it is now illegal to provide money to organizations that practice terrorism, and therefore concludes that as a matter of national security he must refuse to pay his federal taxes. "Now, it's unlikely that any IRS or federal court will agree with that novel conclusion, but our reader has a point. Why do we continue to willingly pay for programs and policies that put ourselves and our country (not to mention countless people in other lands) in greater danger? The bloodshed and corporate welfare in our name and with our money -- and our kids' money, and their kids', and their kids' -- raises an obvious but seldom-asked question: why do so many of us pay our income taxes? " Read the entire piece here. More to come tonight. Monday, April 03, 2006Defining the Borders of Europe As Superstate Not an SPP update, exactly--but this is where our continent is heading if that process is allowed to continue. Europe is just a few years ahead of us on the curve (and their problems with unassimilated immigrants, their socialist-communitarian "globalist" economic system, rates of unemployment, labor-related violence, etc., show it). This comes courtesy of Joan Masters (thanks). Sarkozy calls for definition of 'borders of Europe' EUOBSERVER / ROME - Nicolas Sarkozy, a presidential hopeful in next year's French elections, has suggested the EU should become clear about where its borders lie and what other types of partnerships it can offer to countries aspiring to join the club. Several high-profile speakers at the congress of the centre-right European People's Party gathered in Rome on Thursday (30 March) made comments about limiting EU enlargement plans. Mr Sarkozy, who received strong support from the forum for his ambitions to become the new French president, argued Europe needs to give "political answers" to some crucial questions before it can offer solutions to the "crisis" it is currently facing. "We have to ask: should Europe have borders? And the answer is yes, it should," he said, adding "A Europe without borders will become a subset of the United Nations." "Another question is what exactly is 'privileged partnership'? Can we just consider accession and nothing else or what exactly do we have to offer?" 'Privileged partnership' has been floated by some EU leaders as a potential form of integration for countries like Turkey and Ukraine - bringing closer ties than they currently have with the EU but not offering full membership. Leaders of both countries say they want to be full members of the club, with Turkey already having opened membership talks with Brussels. Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schussel said in his speech that the EU should keep its commitments to the Balkans and its promise to "begin negotiations with Turkey" - but stressed "Europe can't extend itself without limit... Europe must have its core." Deeper Europe first German chancellor Angela Merkel did not make any comments on further EU enlargement - although she herself recently mooted the idea that a "privileged partnership" could be an option for some states of the western Balkans, as well. But in a speech, she indicated there is a link between Europe's enlargement policies and the institutional changes it requires. "Some countries were happy to join the EU but they are not happy about its deeper integration," she said, pointing out that the enlargement issue requires "a great deal of tact" from politicians at the moment. The institutional make-up of the EU after enlargement was outlined in the EU constitution but its ratification was put on ice after last year's failed referendums in France and the Netherlands. The EPP congress is due to adopt a memorandum expressing support for the document. "We want the achievements and reforms proposed by the Constitutional Treaty to become reality," says the draft memorandum. Speakers at the party's congress did not float new ideas on how it could be achieved given the current deadlock. But Mr Sarkozy said some compromise should be found for the 14 countries that have already adopted the treaty as well as for those that failed to convince their citizens to support it. He argued political leaders should "re-assemble" and "struggle with the text" and set some timetable to agree on its potential changes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © EUobserver.com 2006 The information may be used for personal and non-commercial use only. This article and related links can be found at: http://euobserver.com/9/21278 Sunday, April 02, 2006SPP Update: Welcome to "the Neighborhood" The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com Bush banks on guest-worker bill By Stephen Dinan THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published April 1, 2006 CANCUN, Mexico -- President Bush yesterday did not rule out vetoing a border security bill if it does not include a guest-worker program, but said he's convinced Congress will send him a bill that includes such a provision. His stance puts him on a collision course with the House, which passed such an immigration enforcement-only bill in December, and particularly with many House Republicans who insist immigration enforcement must come before a foreign-worker program. Meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Cancun, Mr. Bush said immigration issues were a major topic here, just as they are in Washington, where the Senate has begun its own debate. Mr. Bush drew a laugh from Mr. Fox when he told the Mexican leader the legislative process on immigration is like making sausage: "It kind of -- you know, it looks -- probably appears a little unpleasant from your perspective." Asked specifically if he would veto a bill that doesn't include a guest-worker initiative, Mr. Bush said he is not even thinking about that. "No answer. I said I want a comprehensive bill," he told the reporter who asked the question. "You're presuming there won't be a comprehensive bill. I believe there will be a comprehensive bill." Mr. Fox spent both days assuring Mr. Bush his country is taking steps to fight border violence along the U.S.-Mexico divide, and said they are working to stop illegal aliens coming up from Central America and South America. Mr. Bush seemed to warn Mexicans to live up to those promises, saying ongoing violence could threaten economic prosperity. "I don't see how you can be prosperous if you don't have security," he said, adding it will be difficult if "the towns along the border aren't secure." Mr. Fox said through an interpreter that the two nations are already cooperating on sharing information and Mexico has taken steps to crack down on criminal gangs. The immigration issue is political dynamite in the United States, where Mr. Bush is fighting with members of his own party. A new poll by the Council on Foreign Relations found that nearly 8 in 10 people grade the country a "C" or lower in protecting the borders from illegal entries. The dissatisfaction crossed party lines more than any other international issue in the January survey of 1,000 American adults. The poll also found that the percent of Americans giving an "F" grade on protecting the borders rose to 30 percent, up from 24 percent six months earlier. While Mr. Fox and Mr. Bush said they made some progress on immigration and security, Mr. Harper and Mr. Bush didn't reach any accord on two bilateral sticking points: an ongoing fight over U.S. restrictions on Canadian softwood lumber imports and new U.S. regulations requiring all travelers to show a passport to enter the United States. Mr. Harper said he understands Mr. Bush is constrained by the law Congress passed requiring passportlike documents for entry into the United States. He said the two leaders agreed that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day will meet to try to work out a compromise. For his part, Mr. Bush said Mr. Harper "made it very clear" how damaging the restrictions could be for Canada's economy, and promised to work with both Mexico and Canada to come up with standards. The meeting was the one-year checkup after 2005's meeting in Waco, Texas, at which the three governments announced the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. Since that first meeting, Mr. Harper has become prime minister. By next year's meeting in Canada, Mr. Fox will have relinquished the Mexican presidency. This year the leaders agreed to create a North American Competitiveness Council and to cooperate in the instance of a pandemic, particularly an outbreak of the avian flu. Mr. Bush referred to the three nations as "the neighborhood," and Mr. Harper echoed Mr. Bush's recent call to Americans to reject protectionism and isolationism. We cannot afford the politics of isolation," Mr. Harper said. The three men stood on a stage in an indoor tennis court at one of Cancun's resort hotels and took two questions each from Mexican, American and Canadian reporters. Mr. Bush also dodged one of those questions about whether sanctions are the next step if Iran defies a United Nations 30-day deadline to comply on its nuclear program. Instead he backed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's efforts in Europe this week to shore up the coalition looking to pressure Iran. "We agree on a goal, now the question is, how do we work together to achieve that goal," Mr. Bush said. The president did offer U.S. assistance for victims of yesterday's earthquake in Iran. Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Constitution Party on the Immigration Bill This came yesterday, courtesy of Al Hafer (thanks). Good and truthful information. If this bill passes, we are in danger of losing this country within ten years, if not sooner. Then, of course, there is no prosperity for anyone, American or Hispanic. The Constitution Party is strongly opposed to the weak immigration bill the U.S. Senate is proposing. It is clearly amnesty for millions of illegal (law breakers) Hispanics. Let your voice be heard! Write, call ,FAX your Senators and Congressmen. Terrorists and drug criminals are now walking across the Mexican border unimpeded. We are being invaded and the Federal Government is laying down on the job. Do something before it is too late. NOTE: To unsubscribe from this SC Constitution Party E-mail list reply to this E-mail and put the word "Unsubscribe" in the Subject line. PHONE YOUR 2 SENATORS AND TELL THEM THAT A VOTE FOR THE JUDICIARY BILL ON THE SENATE FLOOR WILL SADDLE THEM WITH A GIANT AMNESTY RECORD THE REST OF THEIR CAREERS. What happens later today is anybody's guess, but many are guessing that the Kennedy/Specter Judiciary bill (with amnesty and 30 million more permanent immigrants the next decade) will come up for a first vote today. The idea will be to add it as an amendment to Majority Leader Frist's less damaging immigration bill. (We also oppose Frist's bill because its enforcement provisions are tied to doubling annual legal immigration.) 1. TESTIMONIAL FROM A FIRST-TIME PHONER -- SHE DID IT EASILY. NOW, HOW ABOUT YOU? "Normally, I am just a faxer. I have never found the nerve to actually call a Senators office. "BUT, that all changed today. I think what did it was watching Sen. Dick Durbin on C-Span. He actually had the nerve to say that we should welcome illegal immigrants because they probably made our breakfast this morning, watched our children in daycare, took care of our elderly parents in nursing homes, manicured our lawns and took care of the greens where we play golf. "Can you believe this guy? Is he for real? The ultimate elitist. Boy, myself and millions of others must be missing out. We get up every morning, fight for our jobs and work for lower and lower wages with fewer benefits (if benefits at all.) In my household, I do not work because it would cost us more for daycare than my wages. So we struggle to get by. Nursing homes for elderly parents? It's 5,000 a month for a decent one. Be real. I am so angry I cannot see straight. "Needless to say, I called Sen. Durbins office and thanked him for throwing the American worker down the tubes. I then called Sen. Bidens office and told them I would no longer support him for a Presidental run, in fact I would no longer support the Democratic Party. "My last step today was to unregister as a Democrat and re-register as an Independent. A donation to your great organization is coming shortly." 3. U.S. HOUSE MEMBERS WILL CHALLENGE SENATORS TODAY **MEDIA ADVISORY** Tancredo, More than 20 House Members to Tell Senate: No Amnesty WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Chairman of the 94-member House Immigration Reform Caucus and nationally-recognized leader of immigration reform, will join more than 20 House Members to tell the Senate that their current immigration proposals which include amnesty are unacceptable and will not pass the House. Expected to join Tancredo are Reps. Beauprez, Brown-Waite, Campbell, Cubin, Culberson, Deal, Trent Franks, Gingrey, Goode, Hayworth, Istook, Walter Jones, Steve King, Kingston, McHenry, Pence, Tom Price, Rohrabacher, and Dave Weldon. 4. WASHINGTON TIMES COLUMN HAS THE DATA YOU NEED FOR PHONING Mexican illegals vs. American voters By Tony Blankley It is lucky America has more than two centuries of mostly calm experience with self-government. We are going to need to fall back on that invaluable patrimony if the immigration debate continues as it has started this season. The Senate is attempting to legislate into the teeth of the will of the American public. The Senate Judiciary Committeemen — and probably a majority of the Senate — are convinced that they know that the American people don't know what is best for them. National polling data could not be more emphatic — and has been so for decades. Gallup Poll (March 27) finds 80 percent of the public wants the federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. A Quinnipiac University Poll (March 3) finds 62 percent oppose making it easier for illegals to become citizens (72 percent in that poll don't even want illegals to be permitted to have driver's licenses). Time Magazine's recent poll (Jan. 24-26) found 75 percent favor "major penalties" on employers of illegals, 70 percent believe illegals increase the likelihood of terrorism and 57 percent would use military force at the Mexican-American border. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (March 10-13) found 59 percent opposing a guest-worker proposal, and 71 percent would more likely vote for a congressional candidate who would tighten immigration controls. An IQ Research poll (March 10) found 92 percent saying that securing the U.S. border should be a top priority of the White House and Congress. Yet, according to a National Journal survey of Congress, 73 percent of Republican and 77 percent of Democratic congressmen and senators say they would support guest-worker legislation. I commend to all those presumptuous senators and congressmen the sardonic and wise words of Edmund Burke in his 1792 letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe: "No man will assert seriously, that when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to keep them in order is to furnish them with something substantial to complain of." The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus. But if they would be dictators, it would be nice if they could at least be wise (until such time as the people can electorally forcefully project with a violent pedal thrust their regrettable backsides out of town). It was gut-wrenching (which in my case is a substantial event) to watch the senators prattle on in their idle ignorance concerning the manifold economic benefits that will accrue to the body politic if we can just cram a few million more uneducated illegals into the country. ( I guess ignorance loves company.) Beyond the Senate last week, in a remarkable example of intellectual integrity (in the face of the editorial positions of their newspapers) the chief economic columnists for the New York Times and The Washington Post — Paul Krugman and Robert Samuelson, respectively — laid out the sad facts regarding the economics of the matter. Senators, congressmen and Mr. President, please take note. Regarding the Senate's and the president's guest-worker proposals, The Post's Robert Samuelson writes: "Gosh, they're all bad ideas ... We'd be importing poverty. This isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking, many are. Nor is it because they don't assimilate, many do. But they generally don't go home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly replenished ... It is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico ... The most lunatic notion is that admitting more poor Latino workers would ease the labor market strains of retiring baby boomers ? Far from softening the social problems of an aging society, more poor immigrants might aggravate them by pitting older retirees against younger Hispanics for limited government benefits ... Moreover, it's a myth that the U.S. economy 'needs' more poor immigrants. "The illegal immigrants already here represent only about 4.9 percent of the labor force." (For all Mr. Samuelson's supporting statistics, see his Washington Post column of March 22, from which this is taken.) Likewise, a few days later, the very liberal and often partisan Paul Krugman of the New York Times courageously wrote : "Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the [government> benefits they receive ? As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, 'We wanted a labor force, but human beings came.' " Mr. Krugman also observed — citing a leading Harvard study — "that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration. That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants 'do jobs that Americans will not do.' The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays — and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants." Thusly do the two leading economic writers for the nation's two leading liberal newspapers summarily debunk the economic underpinning of the president's and the Senate's immigration proposals. Under such circumstances, advocates of guest-worker/amnesty bills will find it frustratingly hard to defend their arrogant plans by their preferred tactic of slandering those who disagree with them as racist, nativist and xenophobic. When the slandered ones include not only The Washington Post and the New York Times, but about 70 percent of the public, it is not only bad manners, but bad politics. The public demand to protect our borders will triumph sooner or later. And, the more brazen the opposing politicians, the sooner will come the triumph. So legislate on, you proud and foolish senators — and hasten your political demise. 5. COLUMN YOU CAN USE FROM CHICAGO TRIBUNE Does immigration bill cross the line? March 28, 2006 BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN The U.S. Senate has begun what is likely to be a long debate on immigration reform. The House of Representatives, responding to the anxieties of most Americans, recently passed a bill that would reduce illegal immigration by placing sanctions on employers who hire them and by improving border security. Of course, it is already against the law to hire illegal aliens and to enter the country illegally. So this simple but necessary measure essentially tells the U.S. government to enforce existing laws. That is too much for the Senate. Responding to the pressure of corporate America and the White House for cheap labor and to demands from ethnic lobbies and labor unions for cheap recruits, senators are likely to insist that any enforcement legislation include amnesty for the 11 million illegal immigrants already here and admit more legal immigrants by a "guest-worker" program and other methods. WHAT AMERICANS THINK 59 percent say they oppose allowing illegal immigrants to apply for legal, temporary-worker status, an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found. 62 percent say they oppose making it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens, a Quinnipiac University poll said. Three-fourths say the United States is not doing enough along its borders to keep illegal immigrants out, a Time magazine poll found. In other words, the Senate thinks as follows: In order to have fewer immigrants, we must admit more of them. In order to halt illegal immigration, we must legalize it. And in order to enforce the law, we must reward those who have broken it. Until very recently the advocates of this upside-down logic -- Senators Kennedy and McCain, President Bush, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, various pro-immigration "experts," and almost all the nation's editorial writers -- maintained that immigration of all kinds, illegal and legal, was not a problem at all. It was a benefit from which all Americans and the U.S. economy gained enormously. So the federal government simply stopped enforcing the 1986 law some time around, say, 1987. By 2004, though, everyone knows that most of the 11 million illegals hold undercover jobs, exactly four employers nationwide were fined for employing them. Four. In recent years, however, the evidence has been mounting -- and the voters have been noticing -- that many Americans, mainly unskilled workers on lower incomes and their families, were harmed by the competition of immigrants willing to work for much less. A study by Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies shows that between March 2000 and March 2005 only 9 percent of net new adult jobs went to native-born Americans. One comparison of Camarota's is especially striking: the number of adult immigrant workers with a high school degree or less increased by 1.6 million while unemployment among their American counterparts increased by nearly one million -- and the number of discouraged Americans who left the labor force altogether rose by 1.5 million. The impact of this low-wage immigrant competition has been especially severe on black Americans. According to a recent New York Times report: "The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990s. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20s were jobless -- that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts." As statistics show, there are no occupations in which immigrants form the majority of workers. So Americans actually do the jobs they allegedly won't do. Illegal immigrants, despite their impact on wages, are less than 5 percent of the U.S. work force and only between a quarter and third of workers even in those industries most dependent on them. And their disappearance -- as suggested in the pro-illegal immigration movie, "A Day Without Mexicans" -- would result not in the seizing up of the U.S. economy but in the automation of some jobs, the export of others, and an increase in wages for low-paid Americans, including legal and assimilated Hispanic immigrants already here. For low-paid immigrants, mainly but not entirely Mexican and Hispanic, are among those who suffer from continuing high levels of unskilled immigration. As Robert Samuelson has argued in his Washington Post columns, our immigration policy is a recipe for importing poverty: "Since 1980 the number of Hispanics with incomes below the government's poverty line (about $19,300 in 2004 for a family of four) has risen 162 percent." Most Americans benefit only slightly, if at all, from the low-wage competition it brings. A survey of recent economic research on immigration by a Cambridge economist and an Oxford demographer concluded with dry British understatement: "The claim that U.S. prosperity has been driven by immigration, as opposed to driving it, appears to lack any academic support." As these facts have become indisputable, the pro-immigration lobby has switched from simply defending uncontrolled and illegal immigration to arguing that it can only be controlled by being legalized. That is, of course, the argument used to justify the 1986 amnesty. The tough enforcement measures promised in return for that amnesty resulted in the 2004 prosecutions of four employers. Since 1986 the United States has been admitting about one million immigrants each year through expanded legal channels. But these legal immigrants, far from being a substitute for illegal ones, were a magnet for them. They sheltered newcomers from home, found jobs for them, and provided a sea in which 11 million of them could swim undetected by the law. If past experience is any guide, adding more legal immigrants via a guest-worker program or higher quotas is likely to increase the number of illegals as well. This time, we're told, the federal government really means to crack down on illegal border crossings and scofflaw employers. Terrific! But why wait until a guest-worker/amnesty bill goes through? After all, the additional tasks these bills impose on the Homeland Security bureaucracy (processing millions of new legal and existing illegal immigrants) will actually get in the way of enforcing a crackdown. Passing the House bill ASAP would enable us to calm and control the situation while working out a sensible long-term immigration policy. Such a policy must address not only the economic well-being of Americans but also their social and national solidarity. When half the flags waved at rallies to defeat the House bill over the weekend are Mexican, then immigration may be helping to create a divided bicultural society at best -- or a second nation at worst -- within the United States. And having arrived here by breaking our laws, that second nation evidently feels empowered to intimidate us into changing them to suit its power and interests. Saturday, April 01, 2006A Day Without Americans Let's do it! Having read this, I intend to cancel my class that Monday morning, and will encourage other native-born Americans not working in essential jobs (police, those in hospitals, emergency workers, etc.) to stay home from work on Monday, April 17, 2006, and also spend no money that day--not anywhere, not on anything--especially if Congress passes their unconstitutional amnesty-for-illegal-aliens legislation. This is also Tax Slavery Day, as April 15 this year falls on a Saturday. We need the full context, though, so I've also reprinted below the "Day Without Latinos" call. Interesting that they chose May 1--International Workers Day, the original Communist holiday and the day on which Adam Weishaupt founded the Bavarian Illuminati in 1776. Courtesy of Joan Masters (thanks), this originally appeared at http://www.thedustininmansociety.com/blog/?p=98 A day without Americans - April 17, 2006! In response to the recent mass national rallies fearlessly staged by the illegal alien lobby, The Dustin Inman Society is suggesting that Americans nationwide stay home from work and not spend any money on April 17. 2006 - income tax day. The country and its government needs to witness a day without Americans. It is not an overstatement to observe that the federal government has abandoned the American people and we teeter on the brink of national suicide. The well-funded illegal alien lobby has been successful in galvanizing the millions of illegal aliens in the nation to march in American streets demanding no less than open borders, continued selective law enforcement and amnesty for people who should be in fear of apprehension and deportation. It has also galvanized many Americans who are seeing for the first time the true nature and result of our intentionally unsecured borders. Enough! The message to the U. S. government and the world is that another amnesty for illegals is tantamount to erasing any pretense of a nation of secure borders, rule of law and a common language. Amnesty - by any name - does not stop illegal immigration. We have reached the point in our national history at which we as a nation must choose whether to resist …or to wave the white flag of surrender. We are suggesting that Americans who do not work in medical, law enforcement or emergency capacities stay home from work on April 17 and that we, as a united people, reply to the government that has refused to protect us by refraining from spending any money. Those who have nothing to fear from violating any law that is not beneficial to them are not the only group with power in these United States. We are demanding that the American government offer the same protection in the United States that the Mexican government provides its people. This is our country. We dishonor our grandfathers if we do not try to protect the republic that was lovingly passed on to us. A national day of public opposition to illegal immigration April 17, 2006! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Comment: We need "Americans who will do the work" strikebreakers! http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/30/105135.shtml?s=et Reprinted from NewsMax.com Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:47 a.m. EST Latinos Plan Nationwide Worker Strike Hispanic groups in the U.S. are planning a major boycott of American life dubbed a ”day without Latinos” to protest proposed legislation that would criminalize illegal immigration. Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) President Nativo Lopez, one of the organizers of the recent protests in Los Angeles that saw at least 500,000 people take to the streets, said the May 1 "day without Latinos” would send a stern message to Washington. "We are looking forward to a major action in all large U.S. cities where immigrants make up a significant proportion of the workforce,” Lopez told Agence France-Presse. "We are asking people not to go to school, or work, or shopping, and instead to go out and protest against the racist and inhumane measures in this bill.” MAPA and other grass roots Latino groups are also organizing an April 10 protest in 20 major American cities – including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas – in a bid to defeat the proposed immigration reform bill, Lopez said. And a third day of protest is scheduled to take place Saturday in Costa Mesa, a town in Orange County, Calif., that has been a focus of anti-illegal immigrant protests for the past several months. The city’s mayor has pushed a proposal through the city council to train police to nab and deport illegal aliens who commit crimes. Said Lopez: "We are going there to make a tough statement right in the bedrock of the anti-immigrant movement.” Perhaps not surprisingly, May 1 is also known as "May Day," the International Worker's Day, which is infamously celebrated in Moscow's Red Square and by communists and socialists throughout the world. Next: Iran, ... and then Venezuela?!?!Are the Neocons really this crazy, to end up fighting foreign wars on four fronts? Only if we assume (1) that the Neocons aren't really in charge, the international banking cartel is; and (2) America's masses are now so poorly educated and so oblivious to history that they don't care--or are too busy, busy, busy trying to survive or too distracted by entertainment to have time to pay attention. The emerging New World Order, as it presently stands, cannot survive, much less expand, without oil. This means the international banking cartel can further two goals at once: using U.S. military might to wage wars whose real goals are to bring the recalcitrant foot-draggers into the emerging New World Order (Afghanistan, Iraq, then Iran, then Venezuela), in full consciousness of the fact that doing so will eventually create within the U.S. economy such extreme indebtedness, possibly including hyperinflation, that only the international banking cartel will be able to bail us out. That, of course, will be the official end of the sovereignty of this nation, as it goes the way of Rome, Napoleon, and other past empires. Leaving Americans under the totalitarian heel of whoever the international banking cartel has instilled in Washington. March 31, 2006 The War Drums Are Getting Louder and Sounding a Clear Message by Stephen Lendman The way things are today, why on earth would those in charge in Washington ever want another war or maybe two of them. Already they're embroiled in two out-of-control debacles in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the country is leaching multi-billions we don't have to pay for them. Despite this hopeless chaos, it looks almost certain we're now headed for a new one with Iran and may try to "double our displeasure" by adding still another with Venezuela to remove their twice dem Do these neocrazies in Washington really think they can pull all this off - wars on four fronts. Don't these guys have anyone around with a sense of history? Forget about morality and such. These folks have none of that. But even kids in high school learn that Hitler was doomed when he decided to wage war on two fronts. And we all know what happened to Napoleon and a few other less notables. It's the indigestion that results from imperial overreach that historically always has had a bad ending. It's no different now than a couple of generations ago or a couple of centuries either. AGAIN, IT'S FOR THE OIL STUPID, AND THE THIRD AND FOURTH TARGETS ARE IRAN AND VENEZUELA Call it the curse of having too much oil or maybe any. If only they just grew stuff we eat there instead of pumping the stuff our "gas guzzlers" do. Iran and Venezuela have so much of the "black gold" their countries are practically floating on it. But in a world where a predatory USA can't even breathe without it, that makes them public enemies one and two - unless they agree to hand it all over to us. In "Godfather" language, that's called "making an offer they can't refuse." That's the way it works in a world where "only what we say goes and we make all the rules." Any nation unwilling to follow our orders and obey them becomes a target for regime change by whatever means it takes - including by illegal aggression using industrial strength nuclear weapons the US now plans to throw around like hand grenades. I've written some in other articles about Iran and said then and now I believe things are "hotting up" as my UK friends would say. They're No. one in the target queue, and it could be (nuclear) bombs away at any time. But here I only want to discuss Venezuela because after Iran I have almost no doubt Venezuela is next. The US may even try to make it a twosome in their infinite lunacy. The reckless, lawless cabal governing us is often wrong but never in doubt. When you rule the world or want to, you even believe you have the right to blow it up. To understand what's in the wind, all you have to do is clean out your ears, open your eyes and pay attention. The US war drums are beating a duet, and they're getting louder. Listen up, here's the message on the Venezuelan front. On March 28, the Virginia Pilot of Norfolk, VA (that's where the biggest US naval force is based and where I once lived for a year) reported that the US Navy is sending an aircraft carrier strike group composed of four ships and 60 aircraft to Caribbean and South American waters for a "major" training exercise. All four ships are capable of launching cruise missiles that might and could be armed with nuclear warheads. By my reckoning, that's a provocative and hostile act. Now combine that with the growing hostile rhetoric coming out of Washington directed at Hugo Chavez. I wrote in a previous article that Latin American expert James Petras wrote (now some months ago) that the US has a strategy to overthrow President Chavez by military force and at the same time destroy the Cuban revolution in a "two step" process - "first overthrow the Chavez government in Venezuela, cut off the energy supply and trade links (to Cuba) and then proceed toward economic strangulation and military attack." He also believed then the US would employ a "triangular strategy" to overthrow Chavez - "a military invasion from Colombia, US intervention (by air and sea attacks plus special forces to assassinate key officials) and an internal uprising by infiltrated terrorists and military traitors, supported by key media, financial and petrol elites." That's an ominous scenario to consider, but now add to it the kind of Washington rhetoric that makes it all sound possible. Here's some of the language from 2005 to the present, and it's getting meaner. Various US officials including CIA Chief Porter Goss, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a growing number of others have called President Chavez a "threat to democracy" and an "elected dictatorship", and they said it without even a touch of irony. They accused him of doing "away with the rule of law, (packing) the courts (and) carrying out anti-democratic activities" like a dictator. It gets worse. The just updated National Security Strategy, published so we can all read it, specifically singles out Hugo Chavez as "a demogogue awash in oil money (who is) undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region." The complicit US corporate media echo this venom as often as the Washington cabal asks them to. And there's lots more of it including a recent US Army report that calls Hugo Chavez "the largest threat since the Soviet Union and Communism", and Don Rumsfeld compares him to Hitler. And in case you missed it, I'll repeat what John Pilger (one of my great heros) wrote on March 30 on VHeadline.com titled: "British Channel 4 paints President Chavez a Dictator -- Hugo to go?" I watched that ugly and appalling program on March 27, painful as it was to do it. In his article Pilger says "This was a piece seemingly written by the US State Department....." It sure sounded like it, and I've heard enough of it through the years to agree. Here's a choice line from it Pilger quotes: "He (Chavez) is in danger of joining a rogue's gallery of dictators and despots --Washington's latest Latin nightmare." There's so much more of the worst kinds of gross lies and deception in the Channel 4 report, but you get the idea. Read the Pilger article if you haven't yet. Unlike myself, a simple amateur, he's a pro's pro, an honest one, and as good as they come. All of what I cite above are the clearest signals yet something is up and will happen - the only question is when and precisely what. I only hope but do believe Hugo Chavez is listening and hunkering down for "the inevitable." IN AN ORWELLIAN WORLD THE ONLY TRUTHS ARE THE LIES WE SAY ARE TRUTHS It makes no difference to the Washington crowd that Hugo Chavez was democratically elected twice, is loved by the overwhelming majority of his people and has already survived three attempts by the US to oust him. Coming up for sure is number four. Chavez surely knows this and also believes (as do I) that this time the US plan is to kill him. In US perverted logic, they believe - no more Hugo Chavez, no more Bolivarian revolution. Well, President Chavez may have a thing or two to say about the first premise, and the Venezuelan people may have a thought or two about the second, at least the 80% of them who cherish it and will likely fight to keep it. Readers should understand and never forget that Hugo Chavez gave the people of Venezuela a participatory democracy and an array of essential social programs for everyone, especially the 80% or more poor or desperately poor who never before had them. That's why the majority of Venezuelans love him, will likely fight to protect and keep him, and will never easily surrender the essential services they now have. That's also why the US hates him and will try to remove him. He represents the greatest of all threats to us - a good example, one that may spread to other nations, and we can never tolerate that. It's bad for business. By US rules it's corporations first, second, third, and to hell with the people. We're doing the same thing here in the US so why would we ever care about those dark-skinned Venezuelans - except the rich ones, of course. With them the only color that counts is green. For the ordinary people everywhere, the virulent undercurrent of racism always surfaces as a key factor in the target countries we choose. Since the beginning of the republic, race hate has been so much a part of our white leaders' DNA that even caucasian Arab people aren't white enough. And the only post-WW II war we've fought that's an exception was the illegal aggression against and breakup of Yugoslavia. In that case, strategic factors outweighed race. The exception, as they say, proves the rule. THE US ROAD TO TYRANNY LEADS THROUGH AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, IRAN AND VENEZUELA I've written several times before that the George Bush junta today is taking the US from a republic to tyranny, and we're already perilously close. This is a man who believes he's "above the law" and the "Constitution is just a goddamed piece of paper." I say this in deadly seriousness, this is not a test, it's real and it's coming unless we find a way and soon to stop it. Is anyone paying attention? All my senses detect it enough to make my skin crawl, and I'm desperately trying to sound the alarm to all I can reach including Hugo Chavez who I respect, admire and can only wish we had someone like him here. We need a lot of Hugo Chavezes and a few more Paul Reveres to echo the alarm, but this time it's not a case of "one if by land and two if by sea." It's coming at us from all directions, and it may be armed with a nuclear warhead abroad and the end of our republic and sacred constitutional rights here with martial law and tyranny replacing them. It's that serious. Is anyone listening? The United States has less than 5% of the world�s population, but we incarcerate 25% of all the prisoners in the world. We leave China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and all the other nations we like to look down our noses at far in the dust. We not only lockup more of our citizens than all totalitarian nations, we even lockup more people than China which has more than 4 times the number of Americans, and India which has almost 4 times the number of Americans, and Iran COMBINED. The US not only leads in the numbers of prisoners but far outpace China when measured per capita. We rank 1st among all nations with 715 prisoners per 100,000 people. China, ranks 71st with 119 prisoners per 100,000 people. According to a report released by the Bureau of Prison Statistics, one out of every 32 adults in the United States was in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole at the end of 2005. US leaders love to point out China as a violator of human rights and their penchant for slave and prison labor. While it�s principled to point out abuses by the Chinese, Americans should also recognize that slavery is not only legal in the US, it�s also practiced. The 13th Amendment authorizes it, �Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.� The key word here is �except� and being convicted of a crime in the United States is that exception. In today�s America, drug laws have become the new Jim Crow laws, the prison/industrial complex has become the new plantation, and the warden has become the new overseer. America�s newest slaves aren�t picking cotton. They�re assembling computers, making women�s lingerie, booking airline flights over the phone, telemarketing for major corporations, and doing all kinds of tasks that free Americans used to be employed at doing. What appeared to be a normal plant closing by U.S. Technologies when it sold its electronics plant in Austin, was actually the company relocating its operations to a nearby Austin prison. One hundred and fifty �free� employees lost their jobs to the new slaves. African-Americans are the most loyal constituency the Democratic Party has, but the Democratic Party will not adequately address this critical issue for fear of being seen as �soft on crime.� Thus, the Democratic Party itself perpetuates the stereotype. The biggest explosion of Americans going to prison happened under Bill Clinton. Under Clinton, more people went to federal and state prisons than under any president in American history. Clinton also signed a bill that prevented U.S. Sentencing Commission amendments to equalize the penalties for crack and powder cocaine from taking effect. The disparities in sentencing and probation are well-known and were certainly known to Bill Clinton. Then Attorney General Janet Reno said the sentencing disparity is unfair. "Clearly I think should be equalized with respect to possession offenses," she said. "And equally clearly, I don't think the 100-to-1 ratio is fair." She also said that people who provide powder cocaine to those who cook it into crack should get "the more appropriately stiff sentence than the person who distributes the crack.� Under Clinton, the federal 3 strikes law was enacted and many states soon followed with similar legislation of their own. Eighty-five percent of those sentenced under the �three strikes you�re out� law in California faced prison for a nonviolent offense. The law requires a mandatory 25 years to life sentence. Two years after the law went into effect, there were twice as many people imprisoned under the three-strikes law for possession of marijuana as for murder, rape and kidnapping combined. More than 80 percent of those sentenced under the �three strikes� law are African-American and Latino. It was supposed to be meant to protect society from violent and dangerous criminals, but is fueling the prison/industrial complex with those caught for non-violent crimes. Up to 75% of American prisoners are locked-up for non-violent crimes. During the past two decades roughly a thousand new prisons and jails have been built in the United States. Nevertheless, America's prisons are more overcrowded now than when the building spree began, and the inmate population continues to increase by 50,000 to 80,000 people a year In 1977 the inmate population of California was 19,600. Today it�s over 170,000, which amounts to more inmates in its jails and prisons than do France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and the Netherlands combined. After spending $5.2 billion on prison construction over the past fifteen years, California now has not only the largest but also the most overcrowded prison system in the United States, and for the first time among large states, California will spend more on its prisons than on its public universities. Prisons are rising all over America. It�s a fast rising growth industry with investors on Wall Street and corporations we all know are paying peanuts to prisoner/slaves so they don�t have to employ those who buy their products. Even when crime goes down, jail population still goes up. Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the Civil War ended, blacks were imprisoned on a variety of trumped up reasons and were then loaned or hired out to plantations and farms and all would share in the profit, except the prisoner/slave of course. That same �hiring out� of prisoners is still practiced in the United States today. The prison/industrial complex is a multi-billion dollar industry complete with lobbyists, trade shows, and conventions. It profits from an evil in the US that neither democrats nor republicans will seek to remedy |
Source: http://jigiart.blogspot.com/2008/03/blog-post_4138.html
September 27th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Yes. It’s cruel of us rich people making those poor Chinese people leave behind their subsistance farming to manufacture toys for our kids.
If we would only boycot their products it would force them back to the rural idyl that they stupidly keep doing their best to escape from
September 28th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Well if sending them back to subsistence farming will bring back good manufacturing jobs to the US, the I’m all for it.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:45 am
no wonder chinese toys dont last that long …
September 28th, 2007 at 9:53 am
This is not a prison. It’s a big toy factory. If it were a prison, do you think they’d let some western photographer in there?
September 28th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Question: Is this a former prison being used as a factory, or an active prison where the inmates assemble toys?
If it’s an active prison, then what heinous crimes could these innocent faces have committed?
September 28th, 2007 at 10:23 am
You’d think I’d feel bad but honestly I don’t. What else are you going to do with 1.5 Billion people? If sure if the rest of the world had that many extra people around they’d make more minimum wage jobs like these for those people.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Globalisation has its evils. I’m not sure, however, that there is any evidence in these images to support the cliam that THIS factory is a prison. I’ve worked in grubbier looking places here in Canada.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Although it is well documented that the Chinese Laogai system is used to manufacture all sorts of products, many of which are illegally exported to the US and elsewhere, I’ve seen these photos before and they are not from a Chinese prison.
This is a run of the mill Chinese toy factory… I don’t know if that’ll make most of you feel better or worse!
September 28th, 2007 at 11:14 am
That is a prison, really? Looks like a toy factory to me. I’m sure all those people would rather have no jobs.
Stupid hippies.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:45 am
OK, in UK the criminals gets their own TV in their cells while they can sit around doing nothing all day long! So let me get this straight, are people actually shocked by putting convicts to a productive use?
September 28th, 2007 at 11:52 am
boo fucking hoo
its not a prison, they can quit their job any time they want, it just so happens back breaking labor in humid insect infested fields is fucking shit and you can barely make enough food to feed yourself let alone buy things like electricity and tv’s
your idiocy embarrasses yourself, slaves throughout history have fought to free themselves from actual slavery, i’m sure the chinese workers at this factory appreciate you patronizing them by assuming they are too fucking stupid to quit a job and get something better
September 28th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Well….. some bodies got to do it!
September 28th, 2007 at 11:53 am
This is just exactly what our USA factories looked like back durring our Industrial Revolution…. Just the growing pains of a nation catching up to GB, USA.. Just look at the way India is moving, they too are moving the way the USA did, more to a service based industry. If you can do a job for cheaper, open a factory, if you find that its to hard to do in the USA due to regulations, liscenses, traifs, property, government oversight, well then elect officials that that keep the government responsibilities to a minimum.
Conversly, start a business that provides oversight to business that informs the public of problems and watch the free market balance things out.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Well put tonupkid. You are absolutely right… they should show some US workers in a chip or shaving cream factory. same shit.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Considering I recognize many of the photos from the documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China I call BS.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Wow ur an idiot. The only option is farming ehh… how about not having children sweat shops and paying ppl normal f&#%ing wages. & tonupkid id like to c u work in a dark/wet/dirty room for 18+ hours and get paid 1$ a week. Enjoy ur f*$&ing nikes ok!!
September 28th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Fucking liar.
How can you tell the people in the pictures are prisoner?
September 28th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Maybe rich people like yourself should do something better for the less fortunate rather than waste time posting vain, worthless comments.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
@tonupkid…
Maybe you missed that this is a prison … they didn’t choose to be there to make a buck… they are in prison and this is slave labor.
Even if it were slave-wage labor instead of a prison factory, you should consider that this is the sort of thing that makes companies trip over themselves in their hurry to move jobs from the US to China and other countries.
If you boycott the products, then the Chinese military (who run many of their companies) won’t have any use for the labor, slave or not, and won’t have an excuse to imprison so many people anymore. Yeah, they can go back to sustinance farming or whatever.. at least they will have a life where their efforts reward their bellies rather than some fat-cat Chinese military bureaucrat. Besides, what is so bad about that life? Just because it is alien to you, who must have and have and have more and more and more - what? Crap? The consumerist life sure does produce a lot of crap - as in refuse. Perhaps some people understand that enough is, well, enough. A life lived with harmony and balance is a good life indeed.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Well well well. Once again, propaganda is here. I just wonder why the hell Mattel would employ Chinese prisoners. Probably looking for cheap labor. If you ask me, we’ve brought this upon ourselves.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Why is this marked as being a prison? This set of photos (and with some people smiling) is available elsewhere, and is clearly not a prison. Irresponsible naming of articles.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I used to think about these people when i was shopping in the “1€ shops”. It is just amazing the stuffs that you can get just for 1€ and i guess how they are made. One day i bought for example one pinocchio of wood really good, but the cheap things have very often too many dark tales behing. Check for example these videos about chineses cat and dogs fur farms…
About 10 furs cost only 1$ and they kill animals like devils. I think that China have some things to learn, not only cheap prices…
September 28th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
I’ve seen most of those photos before. What makes you think they were taken in a prison?
September 28th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
How is this a prison? They’re all in plain clothes, there are no guards inside (a security guard outside a factory is not unusual) and they don’t seem to be required to wear prison uniforms.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
What’s stupid is that tonupkid didn’t read the article. These people don’t have freedom - THEY’RE PRISONERS!
September 28th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to take from these pictures…that they have boring jobs? They seem to be fairly well nurished and their clothes look clean and in good condition. What are we supposed to take from this that is so horrible?
September 28th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
[…] prison is a toy factory Chinese prison is a toy factory: Chinese prison is a toy […]
September 28th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
That’s a pretty misleading headline. That’s no prison, it IS a toy factory. I don’t really see any problems in any of these pictures. So the people are lined up in the first picture as they file by a guard. SO WHAT? He’s not armed (as far as I can tell).
And honestly, do you really expect me to believe that the Chinese government lets its prisoners wear street clothes in prison?
You’re a LIAR.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
This terrible life you call substinance farming is actually quite nice… no overcrowding, you own your own land, you keep what you produce by your own hands, no pollution, no noise, no commute, you live in beautiful countryside, and you take pride in what you make because its yours.
To work in a city factory is to be dispossed of your own destiny, to not own your own tools, to be paid a minimal wage that is spent on food you do not produce yourself and mostly for a tiny flat apartment in a big overcrowded building that you don’t own, and which is probably owned by the factory bosses themselves.
I’ll take the farm life, and freedom, any day, over working in a factory.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Boycotting made in china products in my opinion might be abit too hard :S
September 28th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
tonupkid - maybe you should learn to spell before you start question other peoples intelligence…
September 28th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
tonupkid - maybe you should learn to spell before you start questioning other peoples intelligence…
September 28th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
that’s a fucking retarded comment. most of the unskilled labor workforce is sent involuntarily by their impovrished families to factories, in hopes that they will earn degrees or be able to send money back home (promises which the factories often make).
have you lived in china? have you spoken to any factory workers?
congratulations on callously justifying your exploitation of fellow human beings.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
the second dumbest comment is that subsistance farming in china is “nice”. you are exploited, poor, and barely educated enough to support yourself. rural china is suffering an aids epidemic. the government is putting extremem demands on farmers and many of them are forced or coersed into leaving for an even worse fate in the cities at underpaid factory, construction or restaurant jobs.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
This is way their economy is killing ours.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Duh, that’s not a prison you sick, warped, horn-honker. It’s a bloody factory, like any other in china. Get your facts stra
September 28th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
[…] the facade of Chinese toy makers Here is a Chinese prison that is also a toy factory (see more pics at the […]
September 28th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
[…] Where Do Toys Come From Posted on September 28, 2007 by badtx http://lumq.com/09/china-prison-toy-factory/ […]
September 28th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
It should be of no concern to us. I don’t care how much they suffer or work.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Haven’t yall ever seen a factory before? It’s the same. here in the U.S as is in China. Of course there aren’t that many factories here in the U.S. anymore.
Anyhow, if you think Chinese factories aren’t great, try the ones in Indonesia and India. Those factories are worst.
September 28th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Great pics. The title of the post doesn’t make clear what the prison is. It doesn’t seem like the production facilities are a prison, the only evidence is a guy in uniform in the first picture, but it seems like he’s probably just a security guard. Or is China itself the prison, metaphorically?
September 28th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
This is so lame - not only this is NOT a prison, these photos are actually stolen from other sources!
September 28th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Hmmmm, look closely at the pics.
Number one: No bars on the windows. Dont prisons have bars??? Hmmmmm…..
Number two: don’t they have prison uniforms in prisons???
Wow!! This is a great way to start propaganda. It simply looks like a plain old factory to me.
OH! and the one guy that looks like a prison gaurd? Gee, he looks like a plain ol security guard in a plain ol factory to me.
Look, I’ve been to China and this is simply a PLAIN OLD FACTORY DUMBASS!!
Who starts this kind of crap anyway?
September 29th, 2007 at 3:11 am
These pictures have been reposted a few times but this is the first time i have seen them posted with the caption claiming the workers are actual prisoners making toys. I seriosly doubt this claim though.
They are walking past a guard in one photo, how many people dont walk past a security guard in thier building/factory/workplace?
September 29th, 2007 at 4:34 am
Prison or factory, it is taking YOUR future, your Family’s future. It is developing a good work ethic that our people are losing. It is is increasing the prosperity of their people, that we are losing. It is strengthening their currency, while the dollar hits record lows. It is providing money for their military while the entire costs of Iraq and Afghanistan are BORROWED money, NOT on the books. But hey, just so long as the Walmart family gets richer, THAT is whats important. Don’t worry, SOON you will be in THOSE pictures.
September 29th, 2007 at 6:17 am
This isn’t actually a prison. Its a factory that might as well be a prison. They force the workers to live there and keep them locked up so that they can’t leave or quit but they apply for jobs voluntarily - so in a sense it is a prison. I watched a documentary about this a few years ago but I can’t remember if there is some sort of lease the workers sign to say that they will work there for so long or what. What do you guys think people in the united states do? License plates are made by prisoners and they are also the ones that clean up the highways and do other jobs - those are just the two that come off the top of my head.
September 29th, 2007 at 7:32 am
What’s so wrong with these pictures? I can’t see any prison here, and only bad thing for me, and that comes from china, is too many people working together the same thing. I can’t see anything bad in any kind of working, but seeing so many people around you doing the same thing all day can be a little depressing, and you can loose sense of individuality.
But we’re so many on this little rock.
September 29th, 2007 at 9:11 am
very powerful and moving, thanks
September 29th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
How can this be a prison when they are not in prison garb? Pose for the camera in prison? Give me a break!
September 30th, 2007 at 5:33 am
I think someone write wrong “Chines prison is toy factory”. It should be “Cines toy factory is a prison”.
September 30th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Cool, asi deberia de ser en todas las carceles. Deben de sacarle provecho a los criminales, vividores.
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:58 am
WOW!!!!
to either how people here are so easily fooled,
or to how “prisoners” in China can wear whatever they want or take a nap whenever they want to.
October 4th, 2007 at 3:23 am
From the photos you can not make our that these girls are all prisoners. They look so innocent.
October 4th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
no matter weither the people are in prison or not.
Big buisnesses are getting richer every day by exploiting these people.
I beleive that freedom as a peasant is better than 14h shifts barely paid under 1 dollar a day ( if not weeks).
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
fake pics!
e.g. the first one, the guy wearing the blue form was not police.
cannot believe so many people here get fooled
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:20 pm
[…] also have to feel bad for these people who are exposed to these chemicals every day, as if they didn’t already have enough to worry […]
November 11th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
If you live there, you know what these pictures depict. The depict people who are working in factories where it is cramped, far from home, and there are thousands packed into factories to work. Not forced to work absent of their own will, but forced to work there because of their own economic struggles. Being far from home and away from loved ones is not fun. Not having enough money to live somewhere is not fun so you have to find somewhere to sleep. Food distribution by the company if supplied would require orderly lines to provide orderly distribution. Order is a big priority.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:47 am
very nice factory .. peoples are doing handworks … GREAT ..
this is surely a big toy company in china …
sorry .. but i don’t think that they are like prisoners… in the growing market u have to do lots of hard work .. this type of situation is everywhere in every industry …
BTW .. i belong to animation industry .. and i know we are also like this only … we love to do hard work for our family ..
IF SOMEONE CAN TELL ME HOWZ THE TOY INDUSTRY WILL BE IN COMING FUTURE… IT WILL BE GREAT HELP …
THANKS
December 17th, 2007 at 7:42 am
Great photos,
especially the portraits.
Can I ask where this prison is and how you got in there?
Keep up the amazing work!
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
there’s no wway thats a prison, but its still sad, fuck disney!
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:42 pm
First of all, do your research before questioning these photos. They are merely documented proof of the labor force China offers.
But, there pay regardless of the currency exchange value is poor. They are normally forced to work long hours (the minimum is normally 60 per week.) They must work silently, and if they live in a dorm situation are normally faced with overcrowding and dirty accommodations.
Yes there are many people. but this institution of low-pay foreign labor force causes the destruction of many American based jobs.
Eventually things will change, you can merely take note of it through the looking glass.