Figure skating fiasco?

The Sochi Olympic Women's Figure Skating finished yesterday, with Adelina Sotnikova of Russia winning gold, and defending champion Yuna Kim of Korea winning silver.

Korea's newspapers today are full of criticism about the competition. Some reports very precisely cite bias & error (link). Some in Korea now call this the "Suchi" 수치 Olympics, using a word for humiliation or black eye. There's a great global search for allies abroad - people & reports who reconfirm: Yuna Kim and the people of Korea were robbed.

I know the extent 김연아 is beloved by the Korean people. And she surely gave a very strong performance. But good sportsmanship at minimum requires we also consider Sotnikova's performance - which surely was excellent, and perhaps she had more sparkle.

Kim seemed a bit tired and bored - not wholly the dynamic elegant brilliance we've much enjoyed in the past.

Consider Kim's short program:
"Send in the Clowns" is a dark song, full of regret. It talks of farce, fools, and "Losing my timing this late in my career..."

Sorry. Not an uplifting theme.

Was Ms. Yuna Kim predicting -- even forcing -- her own rejection?
"Making my entrance again with my usual flair.  Sure of my lines. No one is there..."

Here are additional analyses: for Sotnikova (link)  and for Kim and here's an NBC scored & annotated video comparing their performances (search for sotnikova-kim-free-skate-routines-side-side if link is dead).

Congratulations to all Olympic competitors !

Here's one further great analysis, by Joe Posnanski (link).

I prefer track & field. Athletics measures time, distance and height objectively, with far less subjective judgement and minimal potential for referee interference (events hotly contested in Olympia 2800 years ago). Perhaps, in present form, figure skating & synchronized swimming should not be Olympic sports at all. Should we add further medals for aerobics & square dancing, pottery & violin?

Sắm? mua sắm

I've never studied Vietnamese.

If born a few years earlier, I'd perhaps have been sent
by my government to Vietnam as  (choose one):
  · an emissary of peace
  · a pawn of imperialism
  · fertilizer

Anyhow, we in America now enjoy hard-fought freedoms won in part by the Vietnam carnage:  We've no required military servitude (draft, selective service) thanks to the sacrifices of Vietnam. No longer can America's wealthy, aging evil arseholes use federal funding to beat & brainwash our youth - shipping them abroad, forcing conflict with local enemy young'uns to battle unto death.

That American process is now open solely to volunteers  (and this season they're battling elsewhere).

But back to the word sắm - a word for the war we fought and lost - "SHOPPING"  - (sắm means "shopping" in Vietnamese).

Better shopping than suffering... But we were told the Vietnamese people were threatened with hell. That's why America & its allies bombed everywhere, and killed with abandon.

Why did we fight?   Did the average shopper win?   An online image search for  sắm  (link) shows scenes that might highly disturb the 50,000+ Americans (and 5000+ South Koreans, and 500+ Aussies) sent to horrible deaths in Vietnam. We killed over a million people in Vietnam, and badly lost (!?)   Was it simply corn-fed Daddy Warbucks vs. Tycoon asiatica? President Nixon & Nobel-laureate Henry Kissinger warned of horrors and fed us lies. Travel to Vietnam -- see for yourself. The shadow of war is unpopular with Vietnam's youth. But asking questions is vital to us, because America still fights elsewhere. Every American should examine the perversity of U.S. government deceit & understand it extends well beyond Dirty Dick Cheney. Our history of slavery, and genocide (native Americans), should indicate a need for careful checks-and-balances to counter psychopathic abuse of weaker folk.

"sắm" and "mua sắm" -- let's go shopping ...
It seems we fought for consumerism, for shopping, for love of profit and glitz.

Let's pray our leaders don't mislead us.
But expect they do & will....

sắm.com

Social Disgrace

Last Friday my former school district (where I was a student) decided to layoff 42 staff members, including eleven regular teachers, due to lack of funds. It's now the middle of the school year - an outrageous time for layoffs.

America funds overseas adventurism and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We keep huge permanent military bases in Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Germany, etc., and give bountiful aid monies to Egypt's puppet military rulers and to Israel...

The local school district claims the cause of budget problems is "special education" for children diagnosed with irregularities. More reasonably, such funding should come from the national budget, but social services are also threatened there.

Thus we've not enough money to run decent schools in America...

Education of the average kid now comes from Fox News, CBS, Disney, MS-NBC, etc.

The result is permanent subservience. Sure, a local child might secure success as a hip-hop artist or pro golfer. But for most onward opportunities, the public school kids won't be competitive with kids from more proper private schools.

Our communities create more & more restless proles, shut out from the elite workforce.

But this "elite workforce" is actually insecure. Employers typically cannot be loyal to staff. A business downturn or supply source recalculation may mean any worker might suddenly be told to clear their desk and escorted from the workplace. 

So in fact we must help train young people to become more self-reliant, more entrepreneurial, and more independent. It's either that or our youth is only prepared to be mired in low-wage service jobs.

GOP Dunderheads

The Republican Party of the USA treats people as idiots.

They gave us Vice-President Dan Quayle, who dreaded travel to Latin America cause he never studied Latin. We were saddled with George W. Bush, an idiot & asshole who only advanced past 8th grade cause Daddy was rich and Grampa could get you fired. Sarah Palin is another washout - an icy drip to fade away unless summary justice finds her first...

Republicans offer shit, then beg us to forget: Nixon, John Mitchell, Robert Bork, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Palin, Mitt Romney. Each a scumbag loser no more momentous than yesterday's trash. They each fade to rich retirement while the typical American gets nothing but grief. Thank Republicans each time you're reamed (& Democrat dogs won't help - Wake Up - to the cost of apathy!).

Don't Sit Back

      Complacency  =  Consent  =  Captivity

Conquer Babylon!

Corruption & blackmail are cunning, quick-growing, costly parasites.

Americans today are taught it's discourteous to talk politics; meanwhile, politicians steal our wealth. Our kids are shipped abroad by the military: to kill & die for some asshole's greater profits.  

Grey grit, icy stairs
The world outside is frightful
Conquer Babylon!

"引蛇出洞"

Blizzard!

It's foolish to slowly release the "Snowstorm snippets" of Edward Snowden.

Snowy and his cohorts could be terminated any time.

Spread the information now around the world. Let's see how we've each been raped.

Show Us the Information.

Super Bowl Tuesday?

What if 2 teams forever challenged the Super Bowl?

Their fans choose the lineup.

Seems like a bad idea? Welcome to politics USA, where Election Day offers Republican Dickwad vs. Democrat Dork. Both funded by (and fully indebted to) Richie Rich.

Keep telling yourself -- it's the best system possible.
Baaaa--

 

Poisoned Trust - NSA

Let's assume the NSA is well-meaning and truly trying to promote public welfare.

(In fact, I'm skeptical - I believe the NSA and its private contractors serve corporate interests and other paymasters before they get around to helping us common folk, but...) Let's assume the costly secretive spying is non-political, public-spirited, purposeful and professional.

A key problem is that comprehensive monitoring and data accumulation by the NSA shreds & dirties the provider-customer compact. If a firm asks us to take a survey or seeks feedback, we must assume our responses are copied to government databases and ultimately not confidential. Participation increases our secret police files. As threatened in elementary school - "it goes into your permanent record!"

NSA = Nothing Secure Anymore

Major telecom providers, hardware vendors, and software service companies have become untrustworthy. Their hands are tied. The upshot: our secret police implanted uncertainty & distrust into all our telecom relationships -- the insecurity is very costly for otherwise competitive American businesses.

Poisoned trust does far more damage than a few crazed zealots could inflict.

Transient or Immigrant?

I've been a transient, I've been an immigrant. They are different conditions.

Communities invest in themselves, which creates a prosperous society. Communities need not accept & support everyone around the world who demands access and use of local common or private resources.

By investing in local development, places become more attractive. Visitors are typically welcome as tourists. But this does not mean that transient visitors must be given part of the common wealth. If we're forced to accept all comers, and cannot make rules limiting support, we become swamped. With diminishing incentives to invest, our better communities are targets to deteriorate.

Our rules and laws on inheritance and immigration are not always fair. But lack of law is worse.

The Massachusetts legislature is considering an appeal to allow those in the state illegally to obtain an official Massachusetts driving license, typically used for identification (link). This is a big mistake.

Undocumented workers undercut & erode community. This isn't to say such people are uncivil or bad, but they ultimately assert we've no right to administer our systems -- that their personal saga supersedes law.

Illegal residents are difficult to protect -- their lack of status leaves them open to shakedowns & manipulation. Many become victims to sexual abuse & economic blackmail (link). To attract & encourage more illegal residents is reckless & costly.

We can encourage immigration and enforce our immigration laws.
Let's welcome proper immigrants & refugees, and respect the law.

Media Enslaved

Most media serves the interests of its corporate owners or our political masters.

There was no independent media in Nazi Germany or Fascist Japan. What existed was systematically crushed. Dissent was punished.

Today there are fewer concentration camps and summary executions.

We've more opportunities for independent media to operate. Sure, we've far too many secret police, with the inherent corruption of the corporate state. Not enough people recognize the domination and tyranny of big corporate media.

Look at news reports of Edward Snowden. Yesterday, Snowy was interviewed on German ARD TV; his comments were noted around the world.

Hundreds of international news reports described U.S. industrial espionage & NSA focused spying on individuals (such as tapping allied German leader Angela Merkel's phone).

But many U.S. media outlets avoided controversy & reported nothing. The Google news consolidator ("U.S. edition") failed to list the story, and search revealed another disturbing slant.

American media focused on Snowden's claims to be under personal threat. The private drama was the lead & headline for a large percentage of American news reports -- not state-sponsored espionage, blackmail, corruption, fundamentally-compromised data, and the tremendous waste of tax monies.

Wake up dum fux.

  

Our Poor

Our modern society is worse than the Victorians in terms of avoiding unpalatable discussions. They avoided sexuality, we avoid poverty & injustice.

Obama disusses "income inequality" -- not pain & hunger. 

BBC News recently reported on the municipal public showers in Toulouse (link). Wise readers will recognize they themselves might suddenly be pushed to poverty and need such public facilities.

But we avoid discussing the poor, though their numbers multiply around us. It is surely easier to imagine they are lazy or somehow fundamentally different. But reality is our whole system, our attitudes, and our infrastructure are inhumane -- yes, cruel.

Wasteful Social Darwinism threatens richy too.

POOR US

Fucking Americans?

Who is Stanley Fischer?

He's a highly trained economist & former MIT professor. He's a former Vice-Chairman of Citigroup Inc.

Who is Stanley Fischer?

He's the late PM Ariel Sharon's appointment to lead the Bank of Israel. He's a naturalized Israeli-American (link) born in Northern Rhodesia, who's been a successful advocate for boosted US aid & subsidies to Israel. He was Larry Summers' economics professor (who first gave Summers work, but now supplants).

Who is Stanley Fischer?

He's the dude Obama supports to be Vice-Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the US central banking system. He'll soon supposedly be working for the American people in a vitally critical financial & policy job, "in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates." He's in the Trilateral Commission & Bilderberg Group. He's an exceptionally intelligent & motivated global leader. He's an extremely powerful unelected official. He'll likely be assertive in channeling business away from Iran (link), but does he know - or care - much about a typical American?

Who is Stanley Fischer?

Some white-haired smiley guy we're told everyone likes, who'll control our money & regulate our lives.

Threat and the NSA

Should the NSA be part of everything we do online?

I don't think so.

The pervasive secret police magnify any threat. The spy system is threatening because it's fundamentally corrupted by corporate & foreign interests with commercial spying & political espionage agendas. It's out of control. Only the treacherous support this huge & costly mistake.

Save Snowy

We read horrible news, of illegality, blackmail, corruption and espionage that reaches into every home & pocket in America and around the world.

Edward Snowden is now threatened from the dirt he uncovered. The corruption's not his story, the pollution ain't because of him; but the whistleblower is forced to pay.

Don't forget -- Snowden was not a government employee, but most recently worked for Booz Allen Hamilton and then previously for Dell. This highlights a dangerous & corrupt corporate-government alliance. Data collected is insecure: our information can be compromised or sold by business interests and recompiled by foreign agencies, as well as being misused by our own governments.

Snowy's not the problem. Compare his troubles with someone finding a polluted lake, river or seacoast, and telling us...  The sheeple can't handle the truth. Save Snowy!

Only Surveillance?

The NSA network of global spying is creepy story of the year. Thanks to Mr. Edward Snowden, Mr. Glenn Greenwald & Ms. Laura Poitras !  But can we handle the truth?

The revelations thus far are not very surprising, although the 'unholy' alliances are worrisome: the systematic sharing of huge amounts of information between assorted sleazy governments and private contractors is indefensible.

But reports claim there is much more to come. Unfortunately, those revelations are likely to be terrible.

Surveillance is troubling. But active espionage, extortion, blackmail and state-sponsored corruption are far worse.

Since the Abu Ghraib revelations we've known at least something about our systems of torture, widespread abuse, and militaristic brutalization. Much continues today at Guantanamo We employ tens of thousands of "anti-terrorist" operatives throughout the USA & around the world. Our governments have deliberately weakened hardware & software security and monitor our personal lives. A hidden core of bureaucrats and "allies" spy worldwide on friendly governments and the private sector. Bluntly: foolish information policy analysts have constructed a hugely dangerous system -- infiltration & abuse are inescapable. 

How long can the American people continue funding & support for such costly secretive government operations?  Have opinions about big corporate government changed over the past year? What costs & benefits flow from our huge systems of lies & corruption? We've encouraged too much trespassing.

Merry Christmasin America

Trust the Neighbors?

Here's (link) an interesting article on  distrust
"Japanese Don't Trust Korea, China"
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/12/17/2013121701441.html

The Chosun Ilbo article is based on a Yomiuri Shinbun report, citing a Gallup poll of Japanese and Americans.

So we've an inexactly-cited survey with unknown bias and sampling error, with results filtered through two news organizations (and now a blog). What can we learn?

We might at least ask these key questions:

• What percentage of people distrust their own government? 

• Who profits most from mistrust?  ( Answer: militarists & right-wing opportunists )

• Do US military leaders prefer peace? (and dismantling their systems, downsizing manpower, reducing budgets)?

• Might US military leaders prefer military alert?

If the citizenry is asked "Can media always be trusted?" - nobody should answer "Yes" -- But it's so much more provocative & explosive to hear of unknown neighbors distrusting us.

Gallup political surveys

Donkey: Medicare for All

I don't like the Affordable Care Act.

I don't like President Obama.

I don't like the nickname "Obamacare" -- it's a deceptive label.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act / Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act is a frankenstein from big healthcare. The giant American corporate healthcare industry, especially insurers and accountants, have hobbled the American people & medical professionals as surely as trapping a donkey hoof in a snare.

Medicare for All.

Obama didn't want this Affordable Care Act compromise, though he now acts its champion (it extends coverage to 32 million now-uninsured people). Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), tool of healthcare lobbyists, was the overpaid weasel largely responsible for the monstrosity. But the bastard Obamacare is an ugly collage - an artwork we can throw away -- an abomination easily adjusted. Humanists: Arise and demand Medicare for All while you still can! True Democrats: find your voice before you're silenced.

Medicare for All. 

Killing Criminals

I don't agree that governments should execute criminals.

There are far too many criminal executions in the USA and around the world.

It becomes most perverse in cases of state security. Pyongyang recently executed General Chang Song-thaek (장성택) for trying to overthrow the State. But as much as the South Korean government, USA & allies highlight the case, it then appears more likely "Uncle Chang Song-thaek" was a foreign agent.

Was he "despicable human scum ... worse than a dog" (link)?
We'll never know for certain. Anyhow - he dead.

Why does this execution continue to reverberate in reporting by our many submissive media outlets? Because as the USA & NATO withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan, we need enemies; some militarists would welcome redeploying to Korea ...

A Word from the Dead

Making war in Vietnam was outrageous.

Growing up as a young man in America, I was personally threatened. There's been no apology.

The killed can't complain. The rest of us, American, Vietnamese & their neighbors, people around the world, were brutalized for... what?

Some lost a parent, others lost a limb, many sacrificed years of suffering, decades of sadness. Look around and find wasted lifetimes. Why was this allowed to happen?

Those killed can't complain. 

Change the subject? Pass the remote?  Let's eat dinner?
Must I love the goddamn militarists?

Our "leaders" -- proven corrupt -- deserve no trust.
They are the enemy.  Dick Cheney & Karl Rove are the rusty dirty faces to a pack of rabid animals, Republican & Democrat enemies of the citizenry who'd ensnare and enslave the lot of us. They're like the fucking moles who keep popping-up till the money runs out. We must build accountability and transparency into our social systems -- before rot, mold and treachery finish us off as a nation and as loving decent humans.

The Banker's View

--  by Genki

Mr. Banker & Ms. Politician claim:

You're Entirely A LOAN

We Citizens ≠ (not) Enemy

Open letter from Peter Kofod & US - UK national security agents
-- from The Guardian 11 Dec. 2013  (quote):

At least since the aftermath of September 2001, western governments and intelligence agencies have been hard at work expanding the scope of their own power, while eroding privacy, civil liberties and public control of policy. What used to be viewed as paranoid, Orwellian, tin-foil hat fantasies turned out post-Snowden, to be not even the whole story.

What's really remarkable is that we've been warned for years that these things were going on: wholesale surveillance of entire populations, militarization of the internet, the end of privacy. All is done in the name of "national security", which has more or less become a chant to fence off debate and make sure governments aren't held to account – that they can't be held to account – because everything is being done in the dark. Secret laws, secret interpretations of secret laws by secret courts and no effective parliamentary oversight whatsoever.

By and large the media have paid scant attention to this, even as more and more courageous, principled whistleblowers stepped forward. The unprecedented persecution of truth-tellers, initiated by the Bush administration and severely accelerated by the Obama administration, has been mostly ignored, while record numbers of well-meaning people are charged with serious felonies simply for letting their fellow citizens know what's going on.

It's one of the bitter ironies of our time that while John Kiriakou (ex-CIA) is in prison for blowing the whistle on US torture, the torturers and their enablers walk free.

Likewise WikiLeaks-source Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning was charged with – amongst other serious crimes – aiding the enemy (read: the public). Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison while the people who planned the illegal and disastrous war on Iraq in 2003 are still treated as dignitaries.

Numerous ex-NSA officials have come forward in the past decade, disclosing massive fraud, vast illegalities and abuse of power in said agency, including Thomas Drake, William Binney and Kirk Wiebe. The response was 100% persecution and 0% accountability by both the NSA and the rest of government. Blowing the whistle on powerful factions is not a fun thing to do, but despite the poor track record of western media, whistleblowing remains the last avenue for truth, balanced debate and upholding democracy – that fragile construct which Winston Churchill is quoted as calling "the worst form of government, except all the others".

Since the summer of 2013, the public has witnessed a shift in debate over these matters. The reason is that one courageous person: Edward Snowden. He not only blew the whistle on the litany of government abuses but made sure to supply an avalanche of supporting documents to a few trustworthy journalists. The echoes of his actions are still heard around the world – and there are still many revelations to come.

For every Daniel Ellsberg, Drake, Binney, Katharine Gun, Manning or Snowden, there are thousands of civil servants who go by their daily job of spying on everybody and feeding cooked or even made-up information to the public and parliament, destroying everything we as a society pretend to care about.

Some of them may feel favourable towards what they're doing, but many of them are able to hear their inner Jiminy Cricket over the voices of their leaders and crooked politicians – and of the people whose intimate communication they're tapping.

Hidden away in offices of various government departments, intelligence agencies, police forces and armed forces are dozens and dozens of people who are very much upset by what our societies are turning into: at the very least, turnkey tyrannies.

One of them is you.

You're thinking:
● Undermining democracy and eroding civil liberties isn't put explicitly in your job contract.
● You grew up in a democratic society and want to keep it that way
● You were taught to respect ordinary people's right to live a life in privacy
● You don't really want a system of institutionalized strategic surveillance that would make the dreaded Stasi green with envy – do you?

Still, why bother? What can one person do? Well, Edward Snowden just showed you what one person can do. He stands out as a whistleblower both because of the severity of the crimes and misconduct that he is divulging to the public – and the sheer amount of evidence he has presented us with so far – more is coming. But Snowden shouldn't have to stand alone, and his revelations shouldn't be the only ones.

You can be part of the solution; provide trustworthy journalists – either from old media (like The Guardian) or from new media (such as WikiLeaks) with documents that prove what illegal, immoral, wasteful activities are going on where you work. 

There IS strength in numbers. You won't be the first – nor the last – to follow your conscience and let us know what's being done in our names. Truth is coming – it can't be stopped. Crooked politicians will be held accountable. It's in your hands to be on the right side of history and accelerate the process.

Courage is contagious.

Signed by:
Peter Kofod  ex-Human Shield in Iraq (Denmark)
Thomas Drake  whistleblower, former NSA senior executive (US)
Daniel Ellsberg  whistleblower, former US military analyst (US)
Katharine Gun  whistleblower, former GCHQ (UK)
Jesselyn Radack  whistleblower, former Dept. of Justice (US)
Ray McGovern  former senior CIA analyst (US)
Coleen Rowley  whistleblower, former FBI agent (US)

Electronic Abuse in Korea

Governments around the world are being criticized for spying & espionage, against each other and against their own citizenry.

But the major espionage scandal brewing in South Korea is extreme. ---> At least we hope it's not common among democratic governments...

Reportedly, the Korean National Intelligence Service was enlisted by the right-wing government to manipulate public opinion & assure their candidate's election for President (and she subsequently "won").

A segment of the Intelligence Service's Psychological Operations Division was instructed to systematically post fraudulent political messages on bulletin boards and chat rooms, and to tweet positively about the favored candidate while trashing the opposition. All this was done secretly using online aliases and fake identities (which itself is illegal in Korea). A recent report (link) calculates more than 22 million Twitter messages may have been generated in this orchestrated spoof. (link in Korean & English) A New York Times article reports Korea's Cyberwarfare Command was part of the deception. (Cyberwarfare Command is part of Korea's Defense Ministry). What claimed to be public opinion was dishonest propaganda manufactured by the government to prolong the Saenuri Party term in power.

The gradual unfolding of information and evidence over many months has been further troubled by cover-up efforts, press censorship, job transfers & creepy Watergate-like dirty tricks. Korea's government has been more shaken by wider recent global notice of the scandal than by the fraud itself (link). Too many Koreans fear making any comment -- which itself is shameful for government.

Any election misconduct seriously subverts democracy.

Of course, the American NSA were likely watching... if not themselves involved...

Dirty Pilgrim

Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is situated next to Pilgrim Nuclear Waste Dump in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It's just a short walk to the site of the first Thanksgiving.

But the Nuclear Station is felt by many to be highly dangerous, a Fukushima-like threat to the region. It's operated by Entergy, a US$25 billion outfit headquartered in Louisiana. The plant uses an old design, it's been repeatedly closed for safety violations, and its lifetime has only been extended over many objections.

Now the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRC has appointed a new resident inspector.

I don't know this new man, Brian Scrabeck, but he used to work for Entergy (he was Senior Reactor Operator in Oswego, NY). He's been with the "regulatory" NRC just eighteen months.

The job assignment was criticized by Cape Downwinders founder Diane Turco, who labeled appointment of Entergy-insider Scrabeck "a clear conflict" (link).

Scrabeck gained the posting when his NRC predecessor, Brian P. Smith, left to rejoin the corporate sector.

Reportedly, the NRC made the decision to replace Smith, but when asked if Pilgrim Nuclear's long string of unplanned forced shutdowns contributed to the move, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Diane Screnci claimed (link) "Not at all." -- inspectors "routinely move."

(Smith, that last Pilgrim Nuclear resident inspector, vacated his job as an NRC regulator for an industry post with Exelon's Delta, Pennsylvania nuclear plant. Exelon Corp. is a US$42 billion utility services holding company headquartered in Chicago).

As regards new man Scrabeck being back at Entergy, Cape Cod Times reporter Christine Legere asked NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan if it was "somewhat incestuous to have a federal inspector supervise his former employer" -- the NRC said no.

Poor are People

          by Genki

Poor are people.
Our poor people.
Damn many we are..

All of us lazy?
Richy claims we're deadbeats.
'Course he says so.

Our communities
Highly polarized
Generate bad solutions

Barack's done squat for us.
Petty bourgeois mealymouth -
Looking out for hisself.

Nelson Mandela and
the African National Congress
Built reconciliation

Peace won't simply grow
From win & loss.
Perhaps it cannot...

ANC activist (now businessman)
Tokyo Sexwale explained:
"the liberation struggle of our people
was not about liberating blacks from bondage,
but more so about liberating
white people from fear."

Might Our terrorfied Richies
So scared of being mugged
Unclench creativity & compassion
To help poverty relief...?

Better we enlist the rich folk
Than besiege them in their castles

Supporting Education.
Teaching how to fish...
What a wonderful world.

Go Nelson !

As big corporate media tries to sanitize Nelson Mandela, some of his statements commanding activism are available at CommonDreams.org (link)

Nelson Mandela was self-admitted tip of the iceberg for the African National Congress -- declared "Terrorist" by Reagan, Thatcher, and corporate powers who'd love to tyrannize all the world for private profits and personal overconsumption.

Push back against enslavement.   ...that's Mandela's legacy.

Mandela's legacy is built on the bones of others cruelly murdered in South Africa and elsewhere: Stephen Biko, Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm Little, Maurice Bishop, George Jackson, Chris Hani, and so many people entangled by oppression: racist, colonialist, militarist.

Mandela refused to be a whipped animal - he stood up & struggled for a better world.

Beyond labels & rabid reactions, here was a man who managed to project goodwill and dignity while horrible systems of oppression raged all around. He made our world better.

R.I.P. Nelson Mandela  

Obama Pretends to Awaken

Nearly six years into his horrible administration, US President Barack Obama gave a speech yesterday seeking remedies for economic collapse he engineered.

Obama and his minions consistently support big finance in raping the American middle class. They began with government-funded bailouts & the TARP program: undercutting all but the largest most-favored mega-businesses.

Obama  continues many militaristic policies of his failed predecessor:  we're still mired in Afghanistan, and still maintain our Guantanamo torture center. We kill increasing numbers of innocent third-world civilians with our drone weapons.

Obama spies on the American people, and wastes much of the budget. He's antidemocratic.

Obama claims to be waking up - but he's five years too late. Someone rightly labeled anyone now supporting Obama as either evil or stupid....  !

Pop-up & Advertising Hell

I formerly enjoyed thelocal.se to see details of Swedish happenings.

Their business has been good, and they successfully expanded to other markets in Switzerland & Germany. But unfortunately they now pack their sites with pop-ups and very obnoxious blinking advertising. Looking at their page is frenzied & uncomfortable.

Sorry, people of thelocal -- but your site now sucks.

Regulatory Environment, Thank EU

Thanksgiving Day.

Though many parts of the world suffer from predation without accountability, the European Union has developed many positive consumer protections. EU citizens have greatly benefited from reform of assorted regulatory regimes (and in many nations, building up from lack of protections) toward systematic and uniform safeguards. Big business & lapdog media complain, but most of us benefit greatly.

Lower charges for bank machine usage & mobile phone roaming, clarity in billing, transparent pricing for air travel, etc., these are ways the EU makes a positive contribution to our lives.

The overall theme is to fight against the scam and systemic corruption.

We each enter the world naked & helpless. At your final end comes ...

We need protections.  Thanks for that!