CORRUPTION UPDATES 127
Posted: October 30, 2007
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1) The Articles linked below were Abstracted from the sources cited. After the abstract there's analysis and commentary, links to related articles, and a link to the database with suggested search terms.
Impending Disasters Confronting California, the Nation and the World
1. Water, food, energy
A massive drought is stregthening in California, and across the whole South of the US. A dry winter pattern has been establishing itself in Northern California and the Southern US for over a decade.
It looks like a Southern dominated pattern is establishing itself, which will diminish the power, and deflect the course of the North Western storms that used to bring us "normal" Winter storm patterns.
Last year, the "winter" storms came out of the west, full of pollution from China.
New weather patterns have established themselves over California, the Continential US, and the world. Although the changes are just beginning, we can see that our traditional pattern of seasonal change is over.
This change is bringing massive water, energy, and Crop yeild disruptions that will trigger human, economic, and finally political disruptions here in California that are directly reflecting the seasonal pattern disruptions that are happening around the world.
Massive weather disruptions are in the process of cascading through every aspects of our lives.
Those who actually watch nature have been aware of these changes for well over a decade. These climatic changes are now on the quick path towards triggering a global political crisis as climate change disrupts food and energy production.
Every marginally stable country in the world is now being pushed to the edge by the economic, as well as the environmental repercussions of the shifting seasons.
Political instability will quickly follow the rise of food prices due weather shifts. Add in the high cost of fuel to the precipitiously rising food prices, and we are beginning to see many "stable" third-world countires decline into chaos. The already significant crop failures and yeild declines are just beginning.
This crisis may force our ignorant people, politicians, and press to directly address the cause of this mess: It is our own corruption, incompentence, and visciousness that brought us to this point.
This government has already lost all credibility as a legitimate democracy based on our Constitution, but nobody cares. The possibility of restoring our democratic republic is rising as our corporate government's policies of greed continue to undermine our environment and economy. Our people may care about the loss of our democracy when the fools that stole our government collaspe our environment and can no longer stuff consumer's faces full of worthless crap
The envirnomental and economic blowback from our policies of unchecked demographic and consumptive growth are presenting a profound oppertunity to change the direction and character of the United States.
The key lays in how we respond to these crisis. To end the reign of the corporate fascists in America, we are required to pin the tail on the donkey. That means directly tying the failures of our flawed political system of corporate fascism not just to the destruction of our democracy, which took out our schools, hospitals, and social infrastructure when it went down, but show how the design of our corporate state has fueled the irresponsible growth that has taken down our environment.
This means that we must respond politically to our environmental crisis, not by becoming yet another faction bidding against the bribes of the Corporate Titians for the attention of "our" well-bribed representatives, but by completely sweeping the anti-democratic bribes of the corporations and special interestes from the halls of our Legislature and Congress.
Corporate control of our democracy has brought catastrophic consequences that must be used to discredit the failed policies and theories that underpin our corporate fascist state.
We must replace the corporate philosopy of the endless pursuit of wealth and profit through irresponsible growth with a practical democratic system that will balance our different political players to prevent any one group, be they the capatilsts, commies, or religious freaks, from imposing their will on the rest of us.
Our Revolutionary Forfathers called it democracy.
To achieve this, the key is going to be changing people's fundamental understanding of what is important. Of first importance is the legitimacy of our government. We must restore the quality of our democracy and health of our polity as our primary concern. With a healthy democracy we can address the problems political corruption has created.
The freedom of our country can be measured by the liberty and sovereginty of each citizen. Today, our personal liberties and security are like amimals hunted by well bribed politicians looking to put together a block of voters. Both parties do it: The republicans hunt gays and abortions, the democrats hunt guns and smoking. Each side collects bribes to take away the other side's rights. While our citizen's are watching the fight, both parties steal every penny they can stuff into their corporate sponsor's pockets.
As an AMERICAN , I realize that each person's freedom is as valuable as every others' (if you are above 18 and of sound mind). The majority of people in our country have no concept that their duty as citizens require they defend the rights of every other citizen as if it wasy their own.
Today, our people are better described as obedient consumers of the empire who are willing to impose their personal moral values on the rest of us by subverting our rights, our government and our Constitution.
As the benefits of obedient consumption dissappear, we must draw peoples' attention back to their duty as citizens. Citizens are required to attest to the legitimacy of our democratic government, and if they find it wanting, their duty requires that these flaws be fixed, at the cost of our honor, our property, and our lives, if necessary.
As people find it harder to go shopping, consume luxury products, and even afford food and fuel, we will help shift American's priorities from their level of consumption, to the quality of our political character as a democracy. Democracy first, Money second.
The second priority is establishing qualitative growth, rather than quanative demographic growth, as the economic engine of our society. This is impossible today, as the wisdom, honor, and intelligence that does exist in our country has been precluded from politics by the monopoly the corporate parties have over politics. No good person would go into party politics today.
If we break the linked chain of bribery between the corporations, the special interests, the parties and the candidates, then we will be able to bring the wisdom, honor, and intelligence that has been excluded from corporate politics back into our government.
If we can manage to hold democratic elections free from bribery, we can bring people into Congress that will address, rather than feed, all of our impending catastrophies.
Ultimatly, our water and weather problems are our own fault. They are direct consequences of us allowing our polity to be hijacked by the corporations and special interestes. Since then, our country has been dedicated to profiting from irresponsible growth.
California's growth is a case study of growth without regard to the consequences. Our corporate politicians have made the environment and the lower classes pay the terrible costs of their greed and corruption. California is embamatic of the central cause of global warming: Corporate politics driving irresponsible growth in the United States.
None of our corporate politicians or corporate press can face the fact that the climate calamities that California and the Nation are facing even exist, let alone that they have the same source: the massive demographic growth, and massive growth of consumption by the United States.
The United States is responsible for the lion's share of the world's pollution, and Californina leads the nation's growth. And no one has dared question our massive growth rate. Not the Repugnants, nor the Democraps.
Despite the high stakes and severity of the crisis, no politician in California, or Congress, can even suggest limiting growth to what our country's environment, let alone its social and physical infrastructure can responsibly support.
Never! That would threaten the profits of the corporations, who heavily bribe the politicians to maintain the profits of the corporations, who then heavily bribe all the candidates.
So we hear nothing from the politicians, nor the corporate press, nor the corporations themselves, about the real dangers that we are facing, or the corporate government that led us to this point.
Wise politicians and a free press would address how we reached this point, identify, and address the problem at its source, and work to restore our democracy and put a stop to our irresponsible growth.
Since we have neither a free press or wise politicians, this is not going to be a pretty process to restore our democracy. Both the politicians and press have been are fighting for their corporate masters, along with their obedient foreigners, to justify and maintain the irresponsible growth rates that have destroyed our democracy and environment.
They just plow blindly forward, hoping beyond hope that Bush will somehow crush the middle-east, and assure we have the oil to double our population during the next 35 years, as we did during the last 35 years.
But who can we invade to steal the water we need? Judging by legislature and govenor, we in California will steal water from each other, while damning every creek and rivlut in the state.
America's irresponsible growth has stripped our country of its natural resources, and that has made our corporate aristocracy incredibly wealthy and politically untouchable. And they depend on this wealth to maintain their empire of corruption.
Until the floor falls out from under their Empire of Abuse.
2. Energy
Californina's growth leads the national charge to open up every wilderness in the Nation that sits atop one BTU of energy. California's growth provides the ammo for advocates of nuclear energy to restart this dangerous form of energy. California's growth is leading the charge in justifying the spread of coal-fired power plants.
California is leading the charge to tap the last bits of our declining global and domestic energy resources. We are doing this in a very simple way. We are radically increasing our population with a historically unprecedented influx of foreigners.
This massive population change has changed our state by destabilizing the distribution of wealth between the middle class and the upper classes. This has in turn broken the last bottom up restraints that witheld our corporate aristocracy from seizing full power.
This last wave of immigrants, unlike the previous industrial immigration, which destroyed our farmer democracy and replaced it with a corporate aristocracy, has fed the corporate aristocracy so well that it has found the strength to assert full control of our polity, and transform the united states into a corporate fascist state domestically, and Globally, as an empire.
This last immigration is been the straw that broke the back of what was left of our the tattered remains of our democracy. And with that went our rights, our environment, and our very character as a free, self-governing people.
Our domestic political disaster, the breakdown of the democratic balance between classes in the US, has allowed our corporations, and our corporate aristocracy, to achieve the power to threaten the whole world's ecology, economic balances, and political freedom.
American growth has changed our climate, drained our water, energy, and educational systems, overburdended our social infrastructure, enriched our corporate thieves, and finally, has killed our democracy, and suppressed freedom around the world.
3. Economics
Greed has found its full expression in our political and economic policies of unlimited quanitive growth. Greed is the underpining all of our political, environmental and economic problems. The irresponsible policies of our politicians have subsituted greed for democracy, and replaced the general welfare of our country with service to greed as their central principals.
This change in political values has created and spread massive poverty across California to enhance their profits. These unaddressed costs are now threatening us with economic collaspe.
But California is "rich," many fools say, without looking at the thick layer of poverty and abuse which makes the wealth of the few possible.
California's wealth has two putrid sources which assures that the generation of profits also generates poverty: California specializes in importing impoverished, state subsidized illegal labor from mexico, and exporting American manufacturing and tech work to profit from China and India's impoverished labor forces, and their lack of labor, environment, or consumer safety regulations.
California is the major player in developing and exploiting China and India's ugly industrialiazation, and the poverty of mexicans, putting corporate profits above our sovereginty and the general welfare of American citizens.
Both of these forces of impoverishment, China and India, have aimed squarely at the heart of the American middle class by our politicians and their corporate masters.
Our middle-class has been sacrificed to the corporate hunger for Global wealth and power, as industries vital to our national security and the welfare of our people are shipped offshore. Domestically, the crimmigration has been used to smash the middle-class's social infrastructure, drain the American Middle-Class' share of our national wealth, and finally, smash our democracy.
California's riches depend on our government's abandoning middle and lower class Americans in favor of exploiting foreign labor here, and overseas.
4. Political
Much of the massive profits of our Corporations come from having their puppet government strip our society of its medical, educational, energy, and penal infrastructures of the taxation required to maintain them.
As corporate profits swelled with the swelling population, and the very predictable loss of wages, and huge increase in prices, our corporations flexed their political muscles, and avoided paying the responsible taxes to medicate, educate, or incarcerate their crimigrant labor force.
The growth in Public poverty and Corporate wealth are the two sides of the same coin. Our infrasturctures have collapsed as our corporations have gorged themselves on historical profits and the largest share of the nations's wealth in our history.
It should be no surprize that both the parties have agreed to "privitize" our social infrastructure, giving their corporate sponsors virtually complete ownership of everything in America, and giving our citizens a major screwing.
It should be no surprize that both the parties have agreed that regulations on industry should be voluntary, as our politicians are the creatures of the corporations, not the representatives and servants of American Citizens.
As our population continues to massively swell with crimigrants, our corporate aristocracy continues to keep all of their profits, and have thrown the costs of educating, medicating, incarcerate, and provide social services onto the public.
We, the people are subsidizing the crimigrant labor force that funds the massive profits of our corporate aristocracy. These massive irresponsible profits have empowered the corporations to forstall labor and environmental laws by purchasing political influence through their bribed parties and politicians.
It is plain that the majority of the frivilious wealth that our country wasted during the last 15 years came from abusing our environment, abusing our people, abusing crimigrants here, and abusing cheap labor in China and India. All of these crimes eminated from the corporate subversion of our democratic government and institutions.
Our country could have lived well for a hundred years on what we consumed during the last 15, and we would have been a hell of a lot better off.
Another deadly result of our gross expansion is China's devastating level of pollution. As we have doubled our population during the last 30 years, we have relied heavily on accelerating development in China and India, among others, to supply our consumer goods.
This has brought India and China into the modern world through an uncontrolled industrial nightmare akin to our era of robber barons, but on a scale thousands of times larger. Rather that using industrialization to help India and China industralize safely by subordinating industry to their local values and needs, our leaders allowed our corporations to quickly more the bulk of our manufacturing offshore. This impoverished our middle-class as it enriched our corporate masters, and it has devestated the environment in India and China.
Although it is American pollution that brought the world to this point, our trade and economic policies have tripled the global output of CO2. Today, India is approaching our levels of pollution, and China has surpassed them.
Our expanding global empire has also established a global web of mutually, and permenantly, impoverished laborers, and above them, American backed dictators and authoritarian states. There is an Evil Empire that depends on an Axis of Allies to threaten the peoples of the world: It is us.
California leads the nation in irresponsible demograpic growth, which has heavily increased the costs of housing, food, fuel and energy for our lower class citizens. At the same time this massive influx of crimigrants flooding the labor market has driven working class wages and living conditions to 3rd world levels.
Conditions favorable to high prices and low wages have been intentionally created by our corporate politicians. In the meantime, the corporations have stolen everything that's not bolted down, starting with our democracy.
Americans from the bottom and middle classes have been stripped of their economic resources. Now this system of corruption is tottering towards a major fall, crippled by our own domestic corruptions and internal flaws. Our foreign policy of ignorance, incompentence, and unilateral violence is threatening to bring down our Global control of resources.
The speculative bubble that is our economy is collasping, and our cities and counties are facing an impending fiscal meltdown as tax revenues plunge. The rich have stolen everything, and their pyrimid scheme is at an end. The poverty we see now is nothing, and will soon swell to threaten the corporations control of our country. Be ready.
Although our country is at the high point of this massive storm of greed and corruption, their ability to maintain the growth required to continue has hit the wall. We cannot physically, financially, or politically accomodate the demographic growth required to maintain ever increasing rises in prices and profits.
The debt that this generation of Americans created can not be paid back from the rising value of our houses. The era of anticipating that rising housing prices and profits will cover debt is offically over.
The debts of this generation will not be paid by the growth of prices and profits in the future is over. All borrowing dependent on future rises in housing prices will go into default.
Our environmental problems are physical expressions of a deep ethical corruption that is infecting the spirit of our country. This corruption manifests itself through the politicians and corporations that put themselves, and their desires for wealth and power, above our democratic ethics. Our ethical problem has brought us past the point of environmental breakdown.
The storm will soon break, and we are going to have to clean up the mess left after a 35 year festival of political greed and corruption.
The best cleaning agent for corporate fascism is democracy.
Foreign Policy
America's foreign policy has become a personal tool of the corporate interests. As most of us are now realizing, Iraq is a war for the oil companies and Israel, not for America's true security interests.
Our foreign policy can be easily summed up. It consists of illegal wars, kidnapping, torture, secret prisons, and our global ring of allied dictatorships and authoritarian governments.
Prior to Bush, we sponsored these crimes and the criminal governments that committed them. The US generally stood three paces back as our proxies did the dirty work. Until Bush.
Bush has revealed the direct link between our corporations, our military, our political parties and our global ring of dictatorships and various authoritarian and tyrannical governments.
All of this is propped up by a global ring of carrier task forces and military bases designed to protect and control our hold on global resources.
Conclusions
Our country's social, economic, and political practices are those of a cruel corporate fascist state, an empire, not a democratic republic.
Our climate cannot be saved by just changing a few policies, and putting a filter on the massive pollution that pours out of our fat asses.
To save our climate, we must first save our country. If we do not end the reign of the corporations and restore our democracy, our corporate govenment will persist in following their policy of endless growth. This will bring environmental, economic, and political catastrophy.
Restoring our democracy will bring relief to the nations around the world that are suffering under our global necklace of American sponsored tyrannies, dictatorships, and authortian states.
We cannot be a beacon to the world until we first free ourselves from the tyranny of our own making.
Americans from the bottom and middle classes have lost their democracy, their social infrastructure, and their personal wealth. They have lost their civil rights and their democracy. In total, we have lost the core elements that made our country a free country.
Now is the time for us to seize our rights, and force our corporations totally out of government, and restore our democratic republic.
The only way for loyal Americans to confront all the ugly consequences of having a criminal government is to attack it at its source. We must break the link between corporate wealth and politcal power, and replace the power of money with the practice of democracy. This is the key to addressing, if not unraveling all of our destructive practices and policies of the last 35 years.
To be successful in the future we must identify and abandon our presently corrupted political ethics, practices, and politicians, and rearm ourselves with our forefathers highest democratic ideals, the values that once made us a great country.
If we are unable to recover and translate our core historic and constitutional values into today's world, our future is looking very dark indeed.
Join us to outlaw the the direct link-the bribery-that binds the politicans to the corporations, in their criminal conspiriacy to deprive the people of their democratic rights.
We must exclude all corporate money from all of our elections, and Assure that the Local Voters account for no less than 70% of any candidates' funding.
Political party contributions must be the only way candidates receive money from outside the body of local voters, and party contibutions to candidates must be limited to no more than a third of the amount contributed by the local voters.
Weather
Corruption Updates 39, 10th article on the page, Top Scientists Warn of Water Shortages and Disease Linked to Global Warming
Corruption Updates 47, 9th article on the page, Earth faces a grim future if global warming isn't slowed, U.N. report says
Corruption Updates 124, 1st article on the page, NOAA Predicts another Historically Dry Winter
Crops
Corruption Updates 125, 9th article on the page, Australia slashes wheat forecast
German Harvests "Dust"
USDA Global farm Report
EU Farm Report
Giews World Report
Expect Northern Hemisphere Crop failures this year
Weather Story Links
Economics
Corruption Updates 36, 7th article on the page, "More in U.S. plunge deeper into poverty"
Corruption Updates 36, 8th article on the page, CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL: PERMANENT LOW COST LABORING UNDERCLASS CREATED IN US
Corruption Updates 36, 9th article on the page, "HONEST STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ONLY SHOWS MONETARY COST OF IMMIGRATION"
Corruption Updates 45, 8th article on the page, "Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows: US Main Products Poverty and Luxury"
Search the Corruption Database under
Environment
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2) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Iran Steps Up Preparations for US War
October 28, 2007
Telegraph
Tim Shipman in Washington and Kay Biouki in Teheran
http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2007&m=10&d=28&a=3
Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is stepping up preparations for possible war with America by replacing a string of moderate regime officials with hardliners who more closely share his views.
After months in which his government has played down the risk of war over Iran's nuclear programme, officials have also begun making bellicose pronouncements in an apparent attempt to ready public opinion for a military clash.
Last week's resignation of Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, and his replacement by Saeed Jalili, an Ahmadinejad ally who is a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, was merely the most visible of a series of discreet personnal changes, diplomats have revealed.
In recent weeks Mr Ahmadinejad has fired ministers responsible for oil and heavy industry, and forced out the governor of Iran's central bank for refusing to back his policies. Last week he also quietly brought in hardliners to the justice and foreign ministries. "We don't need people with specialities, we need people who are devoted," he said.
But the lack of worldly experience among his appointees has unnerved US officials.
The new nuclear negotiator speaks little English and had not travelled to the West before Mr Ahmadinejad was elected president, according to Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Western diplomats have also been alarmed by the appointment of General Mohammad Ali Jafari, who took part in the storming of the US Embassy in Teheran in 1979, as head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, one of the most powerful institutions in Iran. A Pentagon adviser compared him to the US general in charge of forces in Iraq. "He is the Iranian Petraeus. He has studied counter-insurgency warfare."
CIA and Pentagon analysts are fearful that Gen Jafari's views are reflected among the other senior appointments made by Mr Ahmadinejad. He has declared his wish to identify "martyrdom-seeking individuals in society" and warned: "Each of our suicide volunteers equals a nuclear bomb."
Last week, Gen Jafari announced changes in the structure of the Revolutionary Guards and the feared Basij paramilitary forces, to make them better able to "defend the revolution against any kind of threat, whether domestic or foreign".
At the same time a Revolutionary Guards general, Mahmoud Chahar Baghi, threatened to "fire 11,000 missiles at US targets in the region in the first few minutes of the conflict", and it was announced that Iran has signed a deal with China to purchase 24 J-10 fighter jets by 2010, which have the range to hit Israel.
Mr Rumsfeld's successor, Robert Gates, confirmed that "routine" planning was under way to give President George Bush options for striking at Iran. At the same time the president sought $88 million of congressional funding to modify B2 stealth bombers to carry a 30,000lb bunker-buster bomb, capable of damaging Iran's underground nuclear facilities.
2b) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Iran Adapts to Economic Pressure
October 29, 2007
The Washington Post
Steven Mufson and Robin Wright
http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2007&m=10&d=29&a=5
Confronted by mounting U.S. and U.N. pressure, Iran has been steadily shifting its trade from West to East and, with the benefit of record high oil prices, is likely to be able to withstand the new U.S. sanctions, according to U.S., European and Iranian analysts.
China, a permanent member of the Security Council that can veto any U.N. resolution, is expected to overtake Germany as Iran's biggest trading partner this year. Germany and other European countries had consistently been Iran's largest trading partners for more than a decade, according to the Iran Investment Monthly.
The U.S. Treasury said that more than 40 banks, mostly in Europe, have curbed business with Iran as a result of U.S. pressure, but smaller banks, Islamic financial institutions and Asian banks are likely to step in and replace the Western financial institutions through which Iran has long sold oil on the international market. Oil traders said that Iran does an increasing portion of its petroleum sales in euros and yen, instead of U.S. dollars, and often through third parties, to help its customers circumvent U.S. financial sanctions.
"Given particularly the price and demand for oil, Iran clearly has leverage with countries that need Iran's oil," said Shaul Bakhash, a George Mason University historian and author of "The Reign of the Ayatollahs." In addition, he said, "Iran has a huge cushion of foreign-exchange reserves."
"It raises the cost of operation for all Iranian banks," said Jahangir Amuzegar, a former Iranian finance minister and representative to the World Bank before Iran's Islamic revolution. "But whether sanctions are going to cripple banking operations, I don't think so. Sanctions are effective only if they are comprehensive and universal."
observers said that sanctions had little political effect in places like Cuba, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South Africa and North Korea. "Iranians have a strong sense of themselves," said J. Robinson West, chairman of PFC Energy. "If these new sanctions create internal problems and cause the people to unify, then they won't work. But if the sanctions can drive a wedge" between the regime and its constituents, they have a chance to work.
Sanctions could even generate greater resistance. "This is a regime that hates to be seen to be backing off under international and U.S. pressure, so it seems unlikely that the threat of international sanctions alone will cause the Iranians to back off on the nuclear issue," said Bakhash, the George Mason historian.
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October , 2007
I wrote this in May 2007;
Cheney Threatens Iran with American Military Incompetence
With the American army broken, and as the parts of the middle east not burning are slipping away from our control, Cheney is threatening to expand the war to Iran.
Iran must be thrilled. The last neo-con brilliant "Plan" has improved Iran's regional standing, and has provided them with Scores of Iraqi Shia allies. Iraq may soon become Iran's best friend in the middle east, due to Bush's last brilliant war "plan."
The last brilliant plan is still destroying our influence around the world, and in the middle east, is still draining our treasury, and is giving Bush the moxie to destroy what was left of our democracy.
The Iranians must be thrilled: Bush's last plan eliminated their enemy, Saddam, allowing the Iranians and Shia majority in Iraq to become fast friends.
Bush's next "plan" should unify the whole middle east, if not the whole world, against us.
The Iranians are hoping Bush acts, because each time Bush takes action, he shoots himself (and us) in the foot.
It is likely that this time Bush will shoot himself (us) in the foot with an even bigger gun than last time.
Bush's incompetence and whorishness demands we take action to end the political corruption that allowed this fool to rise to the presidency.
We must change how we finance the election of our leaders to prevent bribery and corruption from ever again allowing corporate bribery to lift incompetents to the highest office in the land.
Corruption Updates 126, 1st article on the page, NY Times Says US Sanctions Revolutionary Guard
Corruption Updates 126, 2nd article on the page, US Actually declared Iranian Defense Department a Terrorist Organization: The whole Iranian Military, and Industrial Complex of Iran is declared a "Terror" Organization!
Corruption Updates 126, article 2b on the page, China not Down with US Sanctions
Corruption Updates 126, 3rd article on the page, Putin not Down with US Sanctions
Corruption Updates 126, 10th article on the page, Gulf States Suffer Inflation, Pressure on Dollar Peg, as Dollar Collaspes
Iran Links
Search the Corruption Database under
Iran
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3) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
IAEA chief lashes out over Israeli raid in Syria
by Jitendra Joshi
Sun Oct 28, 3:58 PM ET
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/IAEA_
chief_lashes_out_over_Israeli_raid_in_Syria_999.html
UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei Sunday accused the Israelis of taking "the law into their own hands" with a mysterious raid on Syria last month and demanded more information about what was hit.
Neither Israel nor the United States has furnished "any evidence at all" to prove that the Syrian site bombed in early September was a secret nuclear facility, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN.
"That to me is very distressful because we have a system: if countries have information that the country is working on a nuclear-related program, they should come to us. We have the authority to go out and investigate," he said.
"But to bomb first and then ask questions later, I think it undermines the system and it doesn't lead to any solution to any suspicion, because we are the eyes and ears of the international community."
"And I would hope if anybody has information, before they take the law into their own hands, to come and pass the information on," he said.
Israel has said it bombed a military target inside Syria on September 6 but has provided no more details, amid speculation that the target may have been a site storing nuclear materials from North Korea.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
International Law Means Nothing to US-Israel
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October , 2007
NY Times, September 12, 2007; U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week
Agence France-Presse, October 28, 2007: ElBaradei: No Evidence Iran is Making Nukes
BBC, 9-20-07; “Rice pushes peace summit,” Real Headline: Rice Supports Israeli declaration of Gaza “Hostile Entity:” Rice-US Condones Israeli War Crimes
Haaretz, 9-20-07; UN chief: Cutting off fuel to Gaza is violation of international law: Rice confuses Hostile Hamas with Civilian Population, Condones Mass Punishment of Gaza
Corruption Updates 126, 6th article on the page, Israel approves Gaza power cuts
Corruption Updates , th article on the page,
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4) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Sabra and Shatila Massacres, 25 years later
Published Date: 05/10/2007
http://www.ptimes.org/main/default.aspx?xyz=BOgLkxlDHteZpYqykRlUuI1kx%2fVDU
OFoRGZY%2bXZPvpAaDbqxaZ%2b6ELo%2fYpUCmfxlbCrwhoW0o6Xe0Y0nhm4Mrz6
UrbNmXfjSc5026uQMgcViddAUs8FYArgh%2f3M97m%2f1dWzoAe20Up8%3d
On the evening of 16 September 1982, the Israeli occupation army in Beirut allowed the Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia, under the command of Elie Hobeika, to enter the two refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in order to carry out “mopping-up operations.”
For the next 36 to 48 hours, the Phalangists massacred the inhabitants of the refugee camps, while the Israeli military guarding the exits continued to provide flares by night. The Israeli occupation army also prevented refugees from fleeing the slaughter, forcing them to return to face certain death.
A unit of 150 Phalangists, including some SLA (Israeli-puppet South Lebanese Army) fighters, was assembled at 4 p.m. These militiamen armed with guns, knives and hatchets entered the camps at 6 p.m. A Phalangist officer reported 300 killings, including civilians, to the Israeli command post at 8 p.m., and further reports of these killings followed throughout the night. Some of these reports were forwarded to the Israeli government in Jerusalem and were seen by a number of Israel's senior officials.
At one point, one militiaman radioed a question to his commander, Elie Hobeika, about what to do with the women and children in the refugee camp. It was overheard by an Israeli officer, who heard Hobeika reply, "This is the last time you're going to ask me a question like that; you know exactly what to do."
On Friday, 17 September, while the camps were still sealed off, a few independent observers managed to enter. Among them were a Norwegian journalist and diplomat Gunnar Flakstad, who observed Phalangists during their cleanup operations removing dead bodies from destroyed houses in the Shatila camp.
The Phalangists did not exit the camps at 5 a.m. on Saturday as ordered. They forced the remaining survivors to march out of the camps, randomly killing individuals and sending others to the stadium for interrogations; this went on for the entire day. The militia finally left the camps at 8 a.m. on 18 September. The first foreign journalists allowed into the camps at 9 a.m. found hundreds of bodies scattered about the camp, many of them mutilated. The first official news of the massacre was broadcast around noon.
The shocking massacres did make headlines in the U.S. However, the way the massacres were treated by the mainstream American media was utterly incompatible with the horrible events. One would just imagine how differently the American media would have reacted if 2,000-3,000 Israeli Jewish women and children had been slaughtered by Palestinians.
Indeed, the bulk of the American media, the so-called agenda-setters, while reporting some of the goriest details of the Auschwitz-like mass slaughter refrained as much as possible from indicting Israel, with key TV networks and newspapers seeking to give Israel the benefit of the doubt.
Israel’s numerous shipyard dogs in the media did their best to deflect blame by parroting Israeli denials.
Eventually, the media treatment of the issue gave the impression that the main story was no longer the massacres themselves, but rather Israel’s grievances that the world was treating the Jewish State unjustly by making comparisons with the Nazis and the holocaust.
Once again, the weapon of “anti-Semitism” was unleashed in the face of those who would call the spade a spade, as if Jewish Nazism, unlike German Nazism, was kosher, as, indeed, many Jews believe.
Seeking to deflect blame, Menachem Begin, then Israel’s certified war criminal Prime Minister, claimed that Israel was innocent and that all that happened was that “Arabs were killing Arabs.”
The truth of the matter, which many honest-minded Jews readily recognize, is that Israel was the enabler, planner, abettor, and ultimate perpetrator by giving the fascist murderers access to the demilitarized camps where they continued to slaughter every moving thing for close to 48 hours.
Hence, the claim that Ariel Sharon didn’t know what was going in inside the camps should be treated as a form of fornication with truth.
The horrible slaughter represented a certain message Zionism wanted to communicate to the Palestinian people, namely that Israel was targeting their very physical survival and was determined to exterminate them.
Today, 25 years have passed since the massacres of Sabra and Shatila were perpetrated, and the wanton killings of Palestinians, including children and women, are still occurring on a daily basis.
4b) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Fateh also committed crimes against the Palestinian people
Published Date: 05/10/2007
Palestine Times
http://www.ptimes.org/main/default.aspx?xyz=B
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IBtQIlWoY3hSFTx6mSOS9g%2bdTPLYc
PPivNX%2fXeCZhmmvjlZdh21pr8ZmHt%2
bbTE4Ev0KQ1Q42p5HvPW5fIUktCKy7i2Dlp146z37eJc%2fs9g%3d
Occupied Jerusalem-PT
Ever since the failed attempt by former Fateh strongman, Muhammad Dahlan, to overthrow the democratically elected government in Gaza by using American weapons and monies, the Fateh leadership has been waging a black-propaganda war against the Hamas-led government in Gaza.
Fateh media, including the so-called “Palestine TV,” has not stopped calling Hamas all the nasty names in the dictionary, so much so that an uninformed observer would think that the Palestinian people’s ultimate enemy is Hamas, not the Nazi-like Israeli occupation and its Palestinian tools—the hateful quislings and collaborators.
Well, no one denies that Hamas made some mistakes in handling the American-backed attempted coup which was aimed at killing Palestinian democracy and raping the will of the Palestinian people.
However, the wanton crimes and acts of treason perpetrated by certain elements within Fateh exceeded in their gravity and treachery by a million light years anything done by Hamas.
To begin with, it is well known to all Palestinians that Fateh never really came to terms with Hamas’s election victory in January 2006. Fateh leaders and spokesmen reacted with spasmodic anger to Hamas' electoral triumph, refusing to join the Islamic movement in a government of national unity.
Fateh leader Dahlan even threatened to punish any Fateh member joining the Hamas-led government saying, “I will rough them up.”
Indeed, for many months prior to the regrettable mid-June events in Gaza, we had been exposed to a plethora of news reports from Washington about large shipments of weapons and military gear going to Fateh via the Israeli-controlled border crossings with Gaza, namely Eretz and Nahal Oz.
Moreover, U.S. Congress on several occasions allocated tens of millions of dollars to “strengthen Abbas against Hamas,” as if the Palestinian problem had nothing to do with the Nazi-like Israeli occupation and had everything to do with the existence of Hamas.
In the West Bank, especially in Jericho, and also to a lesser extent in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian youngsters were being trained by CIA trainees who were telling them that “your enemy is not Israel, your enemy is Hamas.” This was being done while all PA Fateh officials were dead silent, as if the training was taking place on a different planet.
Fateh should have understood from the very beginning that Dahlan and his cohorts were crossing a sacred red line and that the Palestinian people won’t ever forgive such a crime. But Fateh didn’t, and it is not about to.
Well, Fateh may be gaining favours from Israel and money and some weapons from the United States.
However, Fateh should realize that the Palestinian people won’t forget and won’t forgive.
Hidden History of Israel: Born in Terror, Ethnic Cleansing, and Genocide; Perpetuated by Crimes against Humanity
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September 20, 2007
"Israel" Thievery of Arab Lands continues from 1948 to Present
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 20, 2007
Israel has no legitimate basis. Israel is based on violence, ethnic cleansing, and the military, economic and political power of the United States, and nothing else.
All of Israel is occupied land gained through terrorism, war, and other crimes against humanity.
Until the US recognizes these facts, the middle east will resist, and eventually overthrow, our Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian Dictators. Then the middle east will destroy Israel.
Until the US defines "democracy" as something more than a thin cover for Corporate control of our nation's politics, our middle eastern foreign policy will continue to be nothing more than a tool of the Oil and Israel lobbies. Both political parties have been corrupted by these fascistic interests, and both parties are incapable of dealing honestly with the middle east.
The dismal situation in Iraq represents the final failure of Democracy in America, not the spread of American Democracy.
America's unwarranted attack on Iraq represents the victory of wealth and power over our American democracy, and our foreign policy. In the case of the Iraq war, we got an example of the massive power of the Oil and Israeli lobbies to easily use America's power and wealth to advance their criminal agendas. They have stolen yet another nation. Except this time their hand is wedged tight in the cookie jar.
The Iraq war, and how it came about, does not represent the actions of a democratic country. The Iraq war represents the actions of a corporate fascist state.
Unfortunately for us, the majority of Arabs who are suffering under our various middle eastern dictators and the iron fist of our Jewish colony, have concluded that what we call "democracy" is completely unjust, patently immoral and unacceptable, and are instead embracing political forms based on religion.
Sadly, these religiously based systems, despite their considerable drawbacks and shortcomings, provide considerably more justice than our "democratic" system delivers.
The fault for the rise of extreme islamic radicalism lies with us, with us for allowing our own corporate christian taliban to smash our democracy, and seize the reigns of our foreign policy.
The rise of radical islam is nothing more than a response to our own extreme corruption, which is also the source of the loss of our own democracy.
This tragedy did not begin with 911, as our political and media liars constantly tell us. 911, and many more tragedies to come, began with the loss of our democracy, and our imposition of dictators and tyrants on countries in every continent in the world.
Resistance to American-supported puppet governments around the world is growing rapidly as colonized nations are rejecting our farcical "democratic" governments run by dictators, and seizing the right to define their own identities, cultures, and political systems.
This inevitable post-colonial evolution will only stop if America recognizes the right of every country in the world, especially the nations sitting on top of Oil, mineral resources, and labor, to self-determination and self-definition without us threatening them with war, death squads, or military coups to seize their assets.
If we continue to pursue our program of corporate globalism, the post colonial revolution we are experiencing will end with the violent destruction of our middle eastern dictatorships, Israel, and the shattering of our globalized web of corporate thievery.
A Democrat Congress and President is not going to change this scenario one iota. Until we reimpose democracy on our corporate politicians and release our "free" press from its corporate bondage, the corporate politicians of both parties will only be capable of spreading our corruption and tyranny, not our Democratic Principals, around the world.
The global revolution of democracy must start here, not over there.
Mearsheimer and Walt, March 2006, THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY.
Book Review by Stepen Lendman: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.
Book Review by Kim Petersen: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe
Corruption Updates 42, 4th article on the page, Bolton Admits US ALLOWED ISRAEL TO DESTROY LEBANON
Al Ahram, 25 - 31 October 2007: Much like Auschwitz: Israel's regard for Palestinians can be summed up in how it imprisons and terrorises them, writes Khaled Amayreh in the occupied West Bank
Palestine Times, 05/09/2007; Ramallah’s anti-Palestinian regime
Links on Israeli Crimes
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Israel
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5) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
New Chinese Constitution:
Chinese Government Website, Oct 25, 2007
http://english.gov.cn/2007-10/25/content_786513.htm
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Amazing that our corporate fascists are so enthralled by irresponsible profits that they have embraced and empowered the authoritarian Chinese police state.
The Chinese announced the “socialist market economy” and private property as the future path of China. The goal is that, “The Party must respect work, knowledge, talent and creation and ensure that development is for the people, by the people and with the people sharing in its fruits.”
As someone who has watched his own government betray its founding principals, I recognize the same pattern occurring in China.
As I mentioned previously, China’s great challenge is to merge its commie and capital elites under an artificial Constitution sufficient to neutralize the 700 million peasants who remain commies, long after their country has abandoned communism in favor of a monolithic, industrial police state.
As our corporate fascist government represents this same blend of hypocritical politics, and police state powers, it is not so amazing that our government is comfortable with EVIL allies such as China, and Musharraf, and Mubarak, and on and on with our list of American allied and supported dictatorships.
Like us, the Chinese “commies” have put corporate profits before all else:
“…the Communist Party of China must persist in taking economic development as the central task, making all other work subordinate to and serve this central task.”
Disturbingly, the reason our government and corporations get along so well with China is that our Corporate Fascist government has more similiarities to the China Commie elite than to the general welfare of our own citizens and our Constitution.
We also share the same vision of democracy with the China Commies, as strange as that may sound. As the commies put it, they are dedicated to,
“…upholding democratic centralism. Democratic centralism is a combination of centralism on the basis of democracy and democracy under centralized guidance. It is the fundamental organizational principle of the Party and is also the mass line applied in the Party's political activities.”
That sure sounds a lot like America’s plan to democratize the world. It sounds like that by our acceptance of the rigged elections in Egypt, Pakistan, Colombia, and Mexico that put American Stooges into power through rigged elections make us “democratic centralists” as much as it identifies us as corporate fascists.
The real difference between us and China is a matter of perspective. In China, the politicians get together every few years, and this pack of liars rewrite the Commie Constitution. Here in the US, the Constitution remains constant, but we suffer under a pack of politicians who brazenly defy the Constitution, damage our democracy and inalienable rights, and lie about it.
Our lying politicians and China’s lying politicians are on two different paths that both lead to the same place: An Authortarian Police State, otherwise known as Corporate Fascism.
Also See:
Chinese Government Website, Oct 27, 2007 China Congratulates New Myanmar PM
Corruption Updates 113, 9th article on the page, An Opportunity for Wall St. in China’s Surveillance Boom: China Catches up with West: It's 1984 in China
Our Chinese "Friends" are Autocratic Dictators who we are Empowering With Trillions of Dollars of Irresponsible Manufacturing and Trade Profits
Alex, May 24, 2007, CU 59_7
The Chinese are using the profits from our trade to build missiles, fleets, and armies. The Chinese are expanding their global reach, using the profits from our trade to finance development in Venezuela and Sudan.
And the Chinese are also using these profits to build a high-tech domestic police state.
Funding, equipping, generally empowering China's Evil Government is not a problem to the leaders of either party. Why?
Because profits are more important to our globalized corporate politicians than the welfare of our country. While the China trade has empowered China, and swelled the profits of our corporations, it has impoverished our middle class, and made America dependent on offshore sources for our most basic needs.
The China Trade, in combination with illegal immigration, has impoverished Workers Here, pushing all the money, and political power, to the American Corporate Aristocracy.
Couldn't have done it without the cooperation of the Chinese. (And Mexico Too!)
A similar phenomena has occurred in China. A big chunk of the Chinese Peasantry has moved to the big city, and is being screwed over worse than any illegal in Los Angeles.
Moving American manufactures to China has concentrated a massive amount of Wealth into the hands of a very small group, giving birth to a nascent Chinese corporate aristocracy.
Our Corporate Aristocracy has no problem financing and arming dictators around the world. Providing the tools for authoritarian governments to impose police state powers on people around the world seems to offend none in our corporations, our corporate press or our corporate government.
Until we stop the corporations from buying our elections and politicians, our Corporate Aristocracy and its government will continue to have more in common with the Chinese "Commie" leadership, and other petty dictators around the world, than with our own people. Well, what's left of them.
I am amazed that our capitalists are not freaked out by the Chinese government's power to seize anything they want. I'm doubly surprised that they are funding a serious threat to their own domination of the world's resources. An even greater problem is that China has no reliable rule of law to define or defend corporate property.
Our corporations have become so greedy that their own greed is empowering China, the greatest threat to Western Global Dominance we have ever faced.
On the other hand, China does have one thing our corporations seem to be angling for here: a centralization of political and economic power in the hands of a small elite that controls the political, economic, and religious affairs of the whole country.
It is obvious that China's tyrannical government does not offend either our government or press's definitions of freedom or human rights. This is amazing considering their expansive range of civil and human rights abuses.
Abortion
I am really amazed that China's forced abortion policy has not attracted more attention from our President and his evangelical allies. I'm surprised that China's forced abortions are not a hot topic among the presidential candidates, considering what a political weapon abortion has been inside our country against our own citizen's rights.
It seems the Dems and Repugs will both tolerate forced abortions for the profits of the China trade. The Dems tolerate the human rights abuse, while the Repugnants prove themselves hypocrites before both god and man.
To all you Christians dealing with China: China Forces Women to have Abortions. Get your mind around that one, then keep cheering for, and participating in, the China Trade.
This is a rare moment when Human Rights and the Christian Right could actually fit together: they could both demand that China back away from imposing abortions, among other abominations, on its people.
But apparently our Christian President, and all the zealots who want to deny Abortions to women who want one here, have no problem making money in a country that imposes Abortions on unwilling women.
Maybe the Christians and Chinese would agree that the power to compel people is more important than what you compel them to do. Or not to do.
Tibet
To all you hippies, who see globalism as a way to hold hands with the world: China took Tibet, raped it, and calls it "China," and is flooding it with Chinese nationals. Yeah, let's all hold hands...
Environment
To the environmentalists: China is finishing off the destruction of the Climate that the United States started. China has no intention of curbing its massive domestic pollution, nor its production of greenhouse gasses. Like the US, China puts the economy before the environment.
In brief, China is one of the most unfree, greedy, and dirty countries on the face of the planet. And our relationship with China is accelerating and empowering all of these characteristics both here and there.
Corruption Updates 36, 6th article on the Page, "China about to pass U.S. as world's top generator of greenhouse gases"
Corruption Updates 41, 9th article on the Page, "China jails editor for subversion"
Corruption Updates 59, 7th article on page, "Chinese Police Arrest 28 in Riots Against Family Planning Laws"
Corruption Updates 65, 7th article on the page, China puts economy before climate
Corruption Updates 94, 8th article on the page, US puts economy before Climate
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China
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New China Hierarchy May Limit President’s Power
By JOSEPH KAHN
NY Times, October 13, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world/asia/
13china.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
BEIJING, Oct. 12 — After intensive bargaining, China’s Communist Party has approved a new leadership lineup that denies President Hu Jintao the decisive consolidation of power that his supporters hoped would allow him to govern more assertively in his final five-year term as China’s top leader.
The party’s Central Committee agreed to elevate four senior officials to the ruling Politburo Standing Committee, but only one of them, Li Keqiang, the party secretary of Liaoning Province, clearly owed his rise in the hierarchy to Mr. Hu’s patronage, people told about the results of a Central Committee meeting said Friday.
Xi Jinping, the party boss of Shanghai, is also expected to join the Standing Committee. He would outrank Mr. Li and become the most likely successor to Mr. Hu as party chief, head of state and top military official in 2012, the people said.
Mr. Xi, whose father was a senior party official under Mao, is viewed as a compromise choice, acceptable to Mr. Hu but also to his now-retired predecessor as top leader, Jiang Zemin, who party officials say exercised broad sway over the reshuffling. Mr. Xi moved to Shanghai from Zhejiang Province just six months ago to replace the now disgraced Chen Liangyu, who was ousted in China’s biggest corruption scandal of the past decade.
The committee also said the party would amend its Constitution. That suggests that Mr. Hu’s concept of “scientific development,” a catch phrase for his policies to promote more balanced, equitable and sustainable development, will be enshrined in the Constitution alongside the political slogans of Mao, Deng Xiaoping and Mr. Jiang.
Even so, the coming party congress seems likely to underscore the collective nature of decision making in the ruling party, as well as Mr. Hu’s clout.
...(Hu)...he has also kept a tight rein on news media and done little to improve China’s domestic human rights record or legal system. He has taken few significant steps to overhaul the one-party system or allow more political pluralism.
Some supporters of Mr. Hu, who is 64 years old, have speculated that he might push political change in his second term, particularly if he eclipses the influence of Mr. Jiang, 80, and assumes more decision-making power.
Corruption Updates 7, 5th article on the page, Struggle for the Corrupt Fruit of Political Victory in China
Corruption Updates 12, 8th article on the page, Chinese Elite Holding "Election" of Leadership with Thinly Disguised "Corruption" Purge
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China (59 Abstracts)
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7) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
China Promotes Taiwan-Focused Military Officers
By DAVID LAGUE
NYT, October 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/world/asia/10china
.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
BEIJING, Oct. 9 — China has promoted at least four senior military officers with experience in planning for war over Taiwan, ahead of a major political meeting next week at which the Communist Party has said it will adopt a new strategy to stop the self-governing island from moving toward independence.
In a move that was quietly handled even by the standards of China’s secretive military, Beijing last month elevated Gen. Chen Bingde of the army to chief of the general staff, a post where he will exercise day-to-day operational command of the country’s 2.3 million-member armed forces.
General Chen’s previous post was director general of the general armaments department, where he led the rapid modernization of Chinese military hardware and the country’s high-profile space program.
Gen. Xu Qiliang, a veteran air force pilot who served in a number of operational and staff posts in the Nanjing military region, was appointed head of the air force last month, state news media reported.
Last month, state news media reported that another air force officer with command experience in the Nanjing region, Gen. Ma Xiaotian, had been promoted to deputy chief of the general staff.
Experts say these appointments are not intended specifically to threaten Taiwan, but are part of China’s overall military development, where a top priority is enforcing the mainland’s claim of sovereignty over the island if necessary.
“It sends a message more broadly that Beijing is enhancing its military capability to deal with Taiwan in any future conflict,” said Andrew Yang, secretary general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a security policy institute based in Taipei, Taiwan. “There is more emphasis on the quality of the commanders.”
The proportion of officers holding important command positions with firsthand experience in planning for a conflict over Taiwan has been increasing in recent years, experts say.
(President Hu Jintao)...who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, the top military decision-making body, has overseen recent military promotions and is quite likely to support further sharp increases in defense spending, analysts say.
Who Owns Taiwan? US and China in Contest for Control of Taiwan
China has become a Bushiean Corporate Fascist dreamland. China's Commie Government possesses unlimited power over individuals, business, and governmental authority. And they are greedy for wealth, power, and prestige, just like our leaders. They disregard their Constitution and laws, just like our leaders. China's ambition is to apply their power to expand their influence across South Asia.
China has transformed itself into a nearly perfect capitalist state dedicated to profit. Internally, China has not worked out the relationship between political and economic power. Externally, the terms of China's relationships with American power, and our allies in their backyard, have not been worked out at all.
Taiwan has made the transition from an authoritarian dictatorship to Corporate Fascism. From individual rule, to small group rule. As have South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, among others. The differences between the former, the authoritarian fascists, and the latter, the greed fascists, is causing stress in both China and Taiwan.
The distinction between the two groups is small, but vital. A fascist dictator, like most Authoritarian states, bases its power on national or cultural ideals. Corporate fascists base their authority on the universality of greed, independent of national or cultural ideals.
China has not decided where it stands in this debate. China has not claimed its true identity, yet. And China is rising in power, wealth, and influence. China and Taiwan, Japan, the Phillipines and Indonesia have a lot of issues to work out as the reach of American Corporate Greed diminishes in power and influence in the region, while simultaneously providing China with the tools to strengthen its position against our influence, and allies, in the region. The rising power of China can be measured by the rising level of demands they put on Taiwan.
China will continue to use the carrot and stick approach against Taiwan. This will continue until internal Chinese social and economic conditions ripen. If things go badly for China, a Taiwan invasion will unify an unruly domestic situation. If things go well for China, they will have the power and wealth to force Taiwan to "unify," as they did with Hong Kong.
In either case, American foreign policy, with both China and South Asia, is adding fuel to a serious conflict over who will dominate South Asia in the near future: American Corporations and their authoritarian client states, or China.
We established the tone and direction of this conflict when we took over the failed British and Dutch colonies at the end of World War II, and propped them up with military dictatorships. Now, after 30 years of moving manufacturing to China to wildly increase Corporate Profits, and disenfranchise our middle class here at home, the Chinese are entering the world power game with enough wealth and power to win it, in South Asia, to begin with.
Corruption Updates 45, 6th article on the page, China to U.S.: Halt Taiwan weapon sales
Corruption Updates 61, 3rd article on the page, Pentagon Worries About China Weapon Test
Corruption Updates 61, 4th article on the page, US fears grow over China military
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China opens coffers for minerals
China has signed a deal to loan the Democratic Republic of Congo $5bn to develop infrastructure and mining.
BBC, 9-18-07
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7000925.stm
Infrastructure Minister Pierre Lumbi said the money will be spent on building roads, hospitals, health centres, housing and universities.
In exchange, China will get rights to DR Congo's extensive natural resources, including timber, cobalt and copper.
A recent study concluded that China's main interest in Africa is to guarantee supplies of raw materials.
This is the largest single loan to any African country of the $20bn that China has pledged to finance trade and investment in the continent over the next few years.
New partnership with Africa
The official Xinhua press agency recently estimated there are at least 750,000 Chinese working or living for extended periods on the continent, a reflection of burgeoning economic ties that reached $55bn in trade in 2006.
Chinese trade and investment has galvanised mineral production from South Africa (manganese) to Niger (uranium), and from Sudan to Angola (oil).
Much of that activity reflects an intense appetite for the African resources needed to fuel China's manufacturing sector, but big Chinese companies have quickly become formidable competitors in other sectors as well, particularly for big-ticket public works contracts, like the ones now proposed for DR Congo.
China is building major new railroad lines in Nigeria and Angola, large dams in Sudan, airports in several countries, and new roads almost everywhere.
One of the largest road builders, China Road and Bridge Construction, owned by the Chinese government, has 29 projects in Africa (many financed by the World Bank or other lenders) and offices in 22 African countries.
Corruption Updates 61, 1st article on the page, Snubbed by U.S., China Finds New Space Partners
Corruption Updates 61, 3rd article on the page, China Investing American Profits to Turn World Balance of Power against US
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