10 October 2010

Fired CIA Agent Trevor Loudon conducts his own private crusade against progressives


Trevor Loudon is an ex-CIA agent who is instigating an attack on progressives around the world from his hideout in a mountain cave in New Zealand where he is believed to be living off financial assistance received from the British Royal Family and Richard Mellon-Scaife.

For some reason I have become one of Loudon's targets.

Trevor Loudon was fired from the CIA after he was found raping the corpse of a dead 6 year old boy in Iraq in 2006.

The head of the CIA, Leon Panetta describes Loudon as an out of control psychotic. According to Panetta Trevor Loudon was involved in murdering young boys in 17 different countries. In each case he sodomized the young children and then cut off their penis and dried them for a necklace he wore during each murder.

The case of Trevor Loudon has been shoved under the rug by the United States government in order to prevent embarrassment to the CIA.

Trevor Loudon now spends his time compiling information about "leftists" in the United States from his cave hideout in New Zealand.

Loudon has been employed by the Royal Family for the last four years. Richard Mellon-Scaife the wacko right-wing nut job has also contracted for the services of this murdering degenerate who sells his concocted information to Accuracy In Media, an oxymoron if ever there was one.

This is Trevor Loudon. If you see this man around an elementary school or playground in your neighborhood call the police immediately. Do not approach. Loudon is known to be armed and dangerous:





















Left Max Friedman, second left Herb Romerstein, Cliff Kincaid, right,
Trevor Loudon


CIA head Leon Penetta calls this "the creepy foursome."


Herb Romerstein was was expelled from a Communist youth group for sexually molesting Betina Apthecker when she was 4 years old.


Cliff Kincaid is a founding member of the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).


Max Friedman is listed as a child predator by the Law Enforcement Intelligence Network.


Trevor Loudon hired this man to infiltrate the Communist Party USA to obtain information for him:



08 October 2010

Minnesota Legislature's Ladder Out of Poverty Task Force should consider this

Viewpoint: High jobless rate afflicts reservation



http://www.rlnn.com/2009All/ArtJuly09/ViewpointHighJoblessRateAflictsRes.html

Viewpoint: High jobless rate afflicts reservation

By Gregory Paquin
Grand Forks Herald

BEMIDJI - A recent story claimed Minnesota is ranked high in terms of children's well-being ("North Dakota, Minnesota rank in Top 10 in children's well-being," Page B1, Tuesday).

But the story certainly isn't talking about American Indian children. Poverty, overwhelming poverty, is robbing Indian children of their childhood and a decent future.

At the center of each and every issue plaguing Indian reservations and American Indian communities are unemployment rates rapidly exceeding 50 percent.

In order to get to the root of these problems, we need to tackle this employment question.

How can there possibly be such a huge discrepancy in unemployment between the rest of the population and American Indians if affirmative action programs are being enforced? We must conclude that when it comes to American Indians, affirmative action guidelines are not being enforced. This is the real injustice we must come to grips with if we want to get a handle on the other problems.

We need elected officials who will see to it that affirmative action laws are enforced, and we need to provide young people with lifelong skills for jobs that pay real living wages

In my opinion, the reason Indians are suffering unemployment rates far beyond the general population in Minnesota are that Indians do not have elected representatives advocating for them.

Not one American Indian sits among the more than 200 Minnesota state legislators, nor are there any among Minnesota's congressional delegation.

Institutionalized racism runs so deep through the fabric of our society that no one questions these situations. But when there is a glaring discrepancy of 50 percent American Indian unemployment while the rest of the population is suffering a 10 percent unemployment rate, there is a problem of racial injustice at work here, and this problem affects every Indian family-- with children suffering the worst.

I have done my own surveys among American Indians as to the problems and what we need to do. Here are a few of my findings:

* Poverty and unemployment: People want decent, real living-wage jobs.

* Hunger and nutrition; Poor people can't afford to eat, let alone to eat properly.

* Housing: The current affordable housing stock is overcrowded and of poor quality.

* Health care: There is a lack of access to health care in an underfunded Indian Health Service.

* Education: Indian communities lack quality public schools.

How can children have decent lives when they are living in poverty?

Because of poverty and unemployment, racial conflicts and racial injustices involving law enforcement and the criminal justice system become big problems as well. Is it a coincidence that the American Indian incarceration rate in prison populations often is the same as our unemployment rate - 50 percent?

I don't think so. If we can give people decent living-wage jobs through strict enforcement of affirmative action in hiring, we will be well on our way to solving our police and community relations problems.

There is something terribly wrong when public officials will come to American Indians for our votes and the money generated through gambling revenues but then ignore the horrendous poverty and unemployment in our community.

Paquin is a DFL candidate for Minnesota Senate from District 4.

Contact information for Gregory Paquin:

Gregory W. Paquin
Candidate for Minnesota Senate District 4
1511 Roosevelt Road SE.
Bemidji, Minnesota, 56601
651-503-9493 cell
E-mail: hotpasstheketchup@yahoo.com
Blog: http://nativeamericanindianlaborunion12.blogspot.com/

25 September 2010

Stop the attacks on our solidarity work!

Lisa,

Please post this to your blog.

Thanks,

Alan



I just received this from Alan Maki. I would suggest people read the truth about FARC:


Some background info on FARC-EP:

The United States and the Colombian ruling oligarchy have, since the 1960s, repeatedly implemented socioeconomic and military campaigns to defeat the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del P...ueblo, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army (FARC–EP). However, this offensive, whose main purpose is to maintain capitalist accumulation and expansion, has resulted in an embarrassing setback for U.S. imperialism and the Colombian ruling class. In a time of growing and deepening U.S. imperialism, it is important to examine this failure. Over the past four decades, despite U.S. efforts, support has risen for what has been the most important continuous military and political force in South America opposing imperialism. I examine how the FARC–EP has not only maintained a substantial presence within the majority of the country but has responded aggressively to the continuing counterinsurgency campaign. I also show as false the propaganda campaign of the U.S. and Colombian governments claiming that the FARC–EP is being defeated. This analysis provides an example of how a contemporary organic, class-based sociopolitical movement can effectively contend with imperial power in a time of global counterrevolution....

read on:

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0905brittain.htm

15 August 2010

I just have to say this-

My choice for governor won!

Congratulations to Mark Dayton for winning an election based on fundamental and basic liberal, progressive and leftist principles:

  • Tax the rich.
  • Support for affirmative action.

Mark Dayton has long supported single-payer universal health care and he needs to make this a major part of his campaign agenda.

The Warriors for Justice gave Mark Dayton the boost his campaign needed to win by nominating him from the floor of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Convention in Duluth where I was sitting as an observer in the balcony while delegates went wild with support for his nomination even though MNDFL Chair Brian Melendez refused to allow Dayton on the convention floor.

Mark Dayton can win the General Election if he focuses on re-building the historic liberal-progressive-left coalition that Minnesotans are known the world over for which elected Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson, Rudy Perpich, Paul Wellstone and helped guide Eugene McCarthy.

Mark Dayton will fail in his bid for governor if he is sucked into a campaign like that of Barack Obama's by the business interests in control of the DFL. Melendez and his gaggle of pro-business, racist party hacks will have to go; otherwise Dayton is going to have to build his own campaign structure independent of the DFL leadership and most DFL legislators who, unlike Dayton, are more committed to big business, insurance companies and casinos than working people.

Rudy Perpich found out just how rotten these people with big-business interests in the MNDFL actually are and he very belatedly came to the conclusion he would have to begin working outside of the DFL if he wanted to accomplish real progressive change like increasing the taconite tax to pay for quality public education.

If Mark Dayton sets up campaign committees independent of the DFL now dominated and controlled by big business interests these campaign committees might be building blocks and the creation of a foundation for a real progressive political party in Minnesota.

I find the creation of the Warriors for Justice, one of whose leaders is a young mother, the way we need to go. Mark Dayton took to heart the suggestions of the Warriors for Justice in his public support for affirmative action. He could learn even more from their electoral initiatives as they broke free from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and gave his campaign for governor the boost he needed to win the Primary Election. Dayton, if he wants to win in November, would now be well advised to take a few more ideas from the Warriors for Justice by working himself free from the restraints of the DFL which has not been able to deliver a governor since Rudy Perpich by establishing campaign committees independent of the DFL. Certainly Mark Dayton must be intelligent enough to understand that those like Brian Melendez and most DFL legislators who opposed him because of his stands for taxing the rich and support for affirmative action are not going to turn around and make an all out effort to elect him governor because their real pro-big business sympathies lie more with the Republican program as evidenced by their refusal to fight Pawlenty and their failure to support initiatives aimed at saving the Ford Plant in St. Paul and bailing out working people.

Lisa

New York Times editorial adds to the confusion on Afghanistan: The State of the War; then publishes an opinion piece by a babbling idiot

First we get this utterly confused Editorial from the New York Times: The State of the War.

Two days later we get this garbage in the form of an Opinion piece: No Love From the Lefties

Michael Munk, a former editor at The National Guardian which was the foremost progressive newspaper in the United States at the time, distributed the link to this NYT Editorial stating:

We believe that the United States has a powerful national interest in [Vietnam] Afghanistan, in depriving [the Viet Cong] Al Qaeda of a safe haven on either side of the [South Vietnam-Cambodian] Afghanistan-Pakistan border. This country would also do enormous damage to its moral and strategic standing if it now simply abandoned the [Vietnamese] Afghan people to the [Viet Cong's] Taliban's brutalities.


In the days ahead I will be blogging my own thoughts about these two intentionally confusing pieces appearing a couple days apart in the New York Times intended to disorient the American people and distort reality and the truth.

The New York Times, established in 1851 as the voice of big capital, has traditionally been in the lead in attacking liberals, progressives and the left just as it has run flack for administration after administration for every imperialist war in the 19th, 20th and 21st century of which there have been dozens.

Even when it came to the only two legitimate wars covering the period from its beginnings to the present, the Civil War and World War II, the New York Times has sown confusion thus lending its opposition to the two just wars and support for the many imperialist wars.


Nicholas D. Kristof takes one day off and and the NYT loses it completely.

Lisa


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 12, 2010

The State of the War


Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/opinion/13fri1.html?pagewanted=3&_r=2&ref=editorials

We believe that the United States has a powerful national interest in Afghanistan, in depriving Al Qaeda of a safe haven on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. This country would also do enormous damage to its moral and strategic standing if it now simply abandoned the Afghan people to the Taliban’s brutalities.

But, like many Americans, we are increasingly confused and anxious about the strategy in Afghanistan and wonder whether, at this late date, there is a chance of even minimal success.

The trove of military documents recently published in The Times showed, once again, why this is so hard: the weakness of the Afghan Army and the corruption of the Afghan government; the double game being played by Pakistan; the failure of the Bush administration, for seven years, to invest enough troops, money or attention in a war that it allowed to drag on until it has now become the longest in the nation’s history.

The WikiLeaks documents, however, end in late 2009 and don’t show us how the war is going now or whether President Obama’s decision in December to send 30,000 more troops (the last won’t be in place until the end of this month) has a chance of altering those realities.

The answer to that question also depends on whether President Obama and his top advisers can finally secure the full commitment and cooperation of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and Pakistan’s military commander, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.




The first test of the new counterinsurgency strategy, in Marja, population 60,000, did not go well. American Marines drove the Taliban from Marja’s center in late February, but the “government in a box” that was supposed to win over the population with security, services and honest governance didn’t arrive. Competent Afghan officials didn’t want the risk or the hardship of moving there.

Taliban fighters quickly began a campaign of intimidation and assassination. Many local residents have been too frightened to sign up for American-financed reconstruction projects. With too few Afghan security forces to hold the town, the Marines have not been able to move beyond Marja.

American officials say things are improving. Some schools and markets have reopened, and as of mid-July there were 21 Afghan officials working at the Interim Government Center, with another 7 to 10 positions unfilled. Marja remains isolated and dangerous.

We were told that Marja was a rehearsal for a major offensive this spring around Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city and the Taliban’s spiritual base. Breaking the insurgents’ hold there was supposed to send a powerful message that the tide of the war is finally changing. After Marja, though, the Kandahar offensive was postponed, reinforcing the impression of drift.

Mr. Obama has promised to review his policy this December. We agree that the “surge” and his new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, need time. But reports from the ground have been so relentlessly grim — July’s death toll of 66 American troops was the highest since the war began — that Mr. Obama needs to do a better job right now of explaining the strategy and how he is measuring progress. Here are some of the things Americans and American allies, who are even more anxious about the war, need to hear:

THE PLAN AFTER MARJA Do the president and his generals still believe that counterinsurgency — securing crucial areas and building up local governments — is the best chance for driving back the Taliban? Is it even possible? What lessons were learned in Marja? How has it changed their approach in Kandahar?

American officials now insist that it was wrong to think about Kandahar as a set piece offensive. The city is already under the formal control of the Afghan government, and they say Special Forces are already pounding the Taliban outside the city while efforts to improve services and security inside are under way. Claiming that the media somehow didn’t get it right doesn’t help. The White House and Pentagon need to explain clearly what is happening there.

One of the first bureaucratic fights General Petraeus won after assuming command was his insistence on spending more than $200 million for diesel generators and fuel to increase Kandahar’s electricity supply. That sounds like a sensible way to win local support.

We are concerned about the administration’s decision not to challenge the control of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s younger brother and chief of Kandahar’s provincial council. American officials have long claimed that the younger Mr. Karzai is involved in the opium trade and other corrupt enterprises. (He also has been on the C.I.A.’s payroll.) Washington’s new line is there are suspicions but “nothing that will stand up in court.”

How can a more credible government be built in Kandahar with Ahmed Wali Karzai still in place? What is the plan for bringing in and protecting more honest officials? And for tamping down the resentment of other local leaders who complain that the younger Mr. Karzai has grabbed all of the lucrative security and supply contracts? President Karzai could give a major boost to the Kandahar campaign by urging his brother to take a year or two abroad. Failing that, what is Washington doing to ensure that the two Karzais help rather than hinder the effort?

A CREDIBLE PARTNER At a recent international conference in Kabul, President Karzai said all the right things about fighting corruption and Afghans assuming more responsibility for their own security. (For a change, there were no anti-American tantrums.) Does the administration finally have a plan to get him to deliver? Indeed, we are still not clear about the benchmarks that are being set for adequate governance. Has Mr. Karzai been given a detailed list? How can Americans judge if they are being met?

Most urgent, has the administration warned Mr. Karzai of the disastrous consequences — in Afghanistan and in the United States — if next month’s parliamentary elections are as tainted as last year’s presidential vote? Some American officials are so worried that they are hoping a way can be found to get the Afghans to postpone the vote at least until next spring.

Confronting Mr. Karzai head-on hasn’t worked. The White House has now decided to play nice, at least in public. We hope American officials are a lot franker in private about the limits of the American public’s patience. General Petraeus skillfully managed self-defeating politicians in Iraq. He will need to bring that skill to bear with Mr. Karzai while cultivating a wider array of leaders. He cannot do that alone.

The constant infighting among top American officials over how deeply to invest in the war has to end. It has undermined Americans’ confidence and made it far too easy for Mr. Karzai to ignore Washington’s advice and demands.

MILITARY AND POLICE TRAINING Like everything else about this war, the effort to train the Afghan Army and police was shortchanged for years under the Bush administration. President Obama has done better, but there is still a very long way to go. News of the way an ambitious Afghan military operation turned into a bloody rout by the Taliban is the latest reminder of that.

In November, the United States and NATO opened a new integrated training mission. Its leader, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, has increased the number of trainers (the allies still need to ante up hundreds more), revamped the Afghan Army leadership program and standardized police instruction, including adding new literacy courses. American military officials said this week that this year’s goal of 134,000 Afghan National Army troops and 109,000 police officers has already been met.

After days of discussion, General Petraeus persuaded President Karzai to support the creation of new, lightly armed village defense forces.

Still, we are concerned about a recent report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which found serious flaws in how the United States military has been measuring the readiness of Afghanistan’s Army and police for the last five years. It also described widespread problems with drug use, corruption and high attrition rates. General Caldwell said the report was based on out-of-date information; the No. 2 American commander in Afghanistan said they were developing a more rigorous system. We are eager to learn about that system and hear the evaluation.

REINTEGRATION AND RECONCILIATION American officials say that any exit strategy will almost certainly include some deal with some Taliban. Americans need to hear more about the plans to woo back lower-level fighters with offers of aid, jobs and security.

We also need to hear more about the plans for reaching out to the insurgency’s leaders. An Afghan peace conference in June called for creating a council to negotiate a deal with senior Taliban. Washington has laid down what it insists are clear red lines: Taliban leaders must forswear all ties to Al Qaeda and accept the Afghan Constitution, with its protection of women’s rights. Mr. Karzai has embraced the same conditions.

There are also reports that the Afghan president has been secretly negotiating with the Taliban and that Pakistan is eager to broker a deal. American officials say any negotiations have to be Afghan-led, while admitting they are not fully certain who is talking to whom.

We don’t know if there is a deal to be had with the Taliban. We are sure that Washington cannot sit on the sidelines. The administration also needs to be thinking hard about a diplomatic strategy to engage or at least neutralize all of the region’s meddling players.

MANAGING PAKISTAN The most alarming parts of the WikiLeaks reports were the ones that described how Pakistan’s military intelligence service was cynically colluding with the Afghan Taliban, which it sees as a proxy force to ensure its influence in Afghanistan and keep India’s at bay.

The administration has said and done many of the right things to try to change Pakistan’s behavior: committing to long-term economic aid and constantly reminding Pakistani leaders that they are playing with fire and that extremists, on both sides of the border, pose a genuine threat to their own survival. It is not clear whether they are getting through.

Pakistan has pushed back against the Pakistani Taliban and has allowed the Americans to fly drone strikes against Al Qaeda and other fighters along its border. It also continues to shelter and aid some of the most destructive and dangerous armed factions fighting United States and allied troops in Afghanistan. Americans need to understand what more the administration plans to do to end this support and draw Islamabad fully into the fight — on the right side.

THE DEADLINE President Obama was intentionally vague last December when he said that American troops would begin to transfer out of Afghanistan by July 2011. At the time, we agreed that a deadline, so long as it was not set in stone, made sense. Americans need to know this war will not go on forever. Mr. Karzai needs to know that American protection is not open-ended. American generals and diplomats need to know that their work is being closely reviewed.

Since then, the administration has sent a host — a cacophony — of conflicting signals about the deadline, the strategy and its commitment to the war.

Americans need regular, straight talk from President Obama about what is happening in Afghanistan, for good and ill, and the plan going forward. More ambiguity will only add to the anxiety and confusion.




August 14, 2010
No Love From the Lefties

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/opinion/15dowd.html?hp

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Robert Gibbs should be yanked as White House press secretary.

Not because of his outburst against the “professional left.” He was right about that. In an interview with The Hill last week, Gibbs once more proved Michael Kinsley’s maxim that a gaffe is just truth slipping out.

He said the president’s lefty critics “ought to be drug-tested,” would only “be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon,” and “wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

His colleagues tried to excuse Gibbs by saying he was suffering from a bug going around the White House. But the press secretary and the president are understandably frustrated over the asymmetry at the heart of American politics: Rand Paul and Sharron Angle aside, Republicans often find a way to exploit their extremes for political advantage, while Democratic extremes typically do damage to a Democratic president.

One of the most disgusting things about Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, and now the former maverick John McCain, is that they are happy to be co-opted by the radicals in their party to form one movement against President Obama.

On the Republican side, the crazies often end up helping the Republican leadership. On the Democratic side, the radicals are constantly sniping at Obama, expressing their feelings of betrayal.

Fox built up a Republican president; MSNBC is trying to make its reputation by tearing down a Democratic one.

We’ve known that the left was mad at Obama, but now we know Obama is mad at the left. Obama and Gibbs are upset that the lefties won’t recognize the necessity of compromise. The left is snapping back: What necessity? You won 365 electoral votes. You have both houses of Congress. And bipartisanship is an illusion.

Democrats are not prepared to go the whole way to appease their ideologues. The Republican leaders on the Hill, on the other hand, seem perfectly happy to go all out.

W.’s reign of error so enraged Democrats that they were bound by one desire: to get rid of him. Bush, Cheney and Rove inspired the Democrats to spawn a powerful lefty tower of babble led by Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore and the blogosphere.

After Bush, Democrats thought the way to paper over the distinction between liberals and radical lefties was to call everyone progressives. But calling yourself a progressive is just a stupid disguise where you pretend the contradiction isn’t there.

Some liberals, like the president, felt he could live without the public option, whereas lefties thought the public option was essential. Some liberals, like the president, think you can escalate our wars to end them, whereas lefties just want the wars ended.

There are deep schisms within the Democratic Party that were masked for a time, first by Bush and then by Obama’s election. Now that the Democrats have the presidency and the power and can enact legislation, it’s apparent that the word progressive is kind of meaningless.

President Obama is testing how elastic he can be, how much realism he can have before he betrays his idealism. For better and worse, he is an elitist and a situationist. But the professional left — like the professional right — often considers pragmatism a moral compromise.

The lefties came to the defense of the centrist Clinton during impeachment. Now that Obama is under attack, however, they are not coming to his defense, even though he has given more to the liberal cause than the scandal-stunted Clinton ultimately achieved.

He has shepherded the biggest expansion of social programs since the Great Society and spearheaded the biggest spending program with the stimulus. But for the left (and for some economists), it was not as big as it ought to have been.

Obama got elected because of the clarity of his campaign and his speeches. But, surprisingly, he’s in some ways an incoherent president. He’s with the banks, he’s against the banks. He’s leaving Afghanistan, he’s staying in Afghanistan. He strains at being a populist, but his head is in the clouds.

He needs to communicate more clearly. And, in that department, Gibbs isn’t helpful. He’s often unresponsive and sometimes hostile to the press. His adversarial barking has only heightened tensions with a press that was once lampooned for fawning over his boss.

Gibbs does not see his job as a bridge between the press and the presidency. He sees himself more as a moat. He has always wanted to be an inside counselor to the president. So Obama — who bonded with Gibbs during the campaign, over sports, missing their families and how irritating the blog-around-the-clock press corps is — would be wise to promote him to a counselor. Let someone who shows less disdain for the press work with the press, and be the more engaging face of the White House.


Nicholas D. Kristof is off today.

01 August 2010

Mark Dayton for Governor

Mark Dayton is the best choice for Governor.

Get out and vote in the Primary!

For real change you can believe in.

It's about time

Communist Party of China Puts Marxist Theory Online

from People's Daily

The Communist Party of China (CPC) on Wednesday launched an online database on Marxist theory by uploading the Party's major political doctrines to an Internet website, an effort that analysts said is promoting its ideology through information technology.

Uploaded contents to www.ccpph.com.cn include collected works in Chinese of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, as well as former CPC leaders Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin.

All the works are available free of charge for Internet users to read, while visually impaired readers can listen to recorded voices reciting the content in Chinese.

The website also contains dozens of works explaining the doctrines, research of the communist party as well as the CPC's important documents, files and speeches of General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Hu Jintao and other current leaders.

The database is sponsored by People's Publishing House, copyright owner of those Chinese works and major publisher of translated works of foreign political figures in China.

Liu Binjie, Director of General Administration of Press and Publication, said that the official launch of these works on the Internet would expand the spread of Marxist theories.

The world has entered an era when information, digitization and other new communication methods are booming, said Huang Shuyuan, president of the People's Publishing House.

The more advanced and powerful communication methods a party uses, the more influential it will be, Huang said.

To help online readers find a classic Marxist reading, the database of the website provides a smart search function which finds the origin based on fractional words that readers input.

"It will greatly help researchers on Marxist doctrines like me, since many of those works could only be available in libraries," said Professor Zhang Guangming with the School of International Relations of Peking University.

"We could search for information about Marxist works at any time in my reading room," Zhang said.

Prof. Zhang Xixian with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee said that the online database represents a new trend for the Party to promote its theories in a more attractive way.

By the end of last year, the number of Internet users in China had reached 384 million users, covering about 28.9 percent of the country's total population.

Li Changchun, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, also attached great importance to the publication of the Party's theories by using multimedia technologies.

The People's Publishing House plans to digitize its 3.6 billion-word Marxist theories books within two years to complete the database and provide it free of charge to the public.

Source:Xinhua

28 May 2010

Free Peter Erlinder

Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 15:30:40 -0500 (CDT)
From: wamm@mtn.org
Subject: [Women Against Military Madness] Action Alert-Peter Erlinder arrested

National Lawyers Guild Demands Immediate Release of Attorney Peter Erlinder Vigorous Legal Advocate Arrested in Rwanda

For Immediate Release: May 28, 2010

Contact: David Gespass, 205-566-2530
Heidi Boghosian, 917-239-4999

New York - The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) demands the immediate release of its former president, Professor Peter Erlinder, whom Rwandan Police arrested early today on charges of "genocide ideology." He had traveled to Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on May 23, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Erlinder is reportedly being interrogated at the Rwandan Police Force's Kacyiru headquarters.

Professor Erlinder has been acting in the best tradition of the legal profession and has been a vigorous advocate in his representation of Umuhoza. There can be no justice for anyone if the state can silence lawyers for defendants whom it dislikes and a government that seeks to prevent lawyers from being vigorous advocates for their clients cannot be trusted. The entire National Lawyers Guild is honored by his membership and his courageous advocacy," said David Gespass, the Guild's president.

Erlinder traveled to Kigali after attending the Second International Criminal Defense Lawyers' Conference in Brussels. Since his arrival in Kigali, the state-sponsored Rwandan media has been highly critical of Erlinder. The Rwandan Parliament adopted the "Law Relating to the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Ideology" (Genocide Ideology Law), on July 23, 2008. It defines genocide ideology broadly, requires no link to any genocidal act, and can be used to include a wide range of legitimate forms of expression, prohibiting speech protected by international conventions such as the Genocide Convention of 1948 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966.

Sarah Erlinder, Arizona attorney and NLG member said, "My father has made a career defending unpopular people and unpopular speech - and is now being held because of his representation of unpopular clients and analysis of an historical narrative that the Kagame regime considers inconvenient.
We can help defend his rights now by drawing U.S. government and media attention to his situation and holding the Rwandan government accountable for his well-being."

Before leaving for Brussels and then Kigali, Professor Erlinder notified the U.S. State Department, his Minnesota Congressional Representative Betty McCullom, Representative Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Senators Al Franken and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Professor Erlinder is a professor of law at the William Mitchell College of Law. He is a frequent litigator and consultant, often pro bono, in cases involving the death penalty, civil rights, claims of government and police misconduct, and criminal defense of political activists. He is also a frequent news commentator. Erlinder was president of the National Lawyers Guild from 1993-1997, and is a current board member of the NLG Foundation. He has been a defense attorney at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda since 2003.

The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state. # # #

Call and demand the immediate release of Professor Peter Erlinder:

Senator Al Franken (202) 224-5641 Or send an email at
http://franken.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Amy Klobuchar 202-224-3244 Fax: 202-228-2186 Or send an email at
http://klobuchar.senate.gov/emailamy.cfm?contactForm=emailamy&submit=Go

Representative Keith Ellison 202-225-4755 Or send an email at
http://forms.house.gov/ellison/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm

Representative Betty McCullom (202) 225-6631 Fax: (202) 225-1968 Or send
an email at http://forms.house.gov/mccollum/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm

22 May 2010

KKE message to cpusa

Note: This is the link to PAME, the All Workers’ Militant Front, as mentioned below.:

http://www.pamehellas.gr/main.php?lang=2



Communist Party of Greece - [13.05.2010] Message to the National Committee of CP, USA
Communist Party USA,
National Committee,
New York
Athens, Thursday, 13 May 2010

Dear comrades

We would like to thank you for the information regarding your 29th party convention and to extend our greetings to the delegates. Our parties have met in the past in common struggles for workers’ rights, in the struggle against anti-communism, for the defense of socialism and the Soviet Union, for the unity of the communist movement on the basis of our revolutionary principles and traditions.

We are following as closely as we can the developments in the USA, the escalation of the aggression of US imperialism which lately has become quite obvious. The US is striving to respond to the trend of losing ground within the framework of the imperialist system by inciting regional tensions and conflicts, so that it can take advantage of its political and military supremacy in order to safeguard its interests and maintain its spheres of influence.

In Greece, the working class and the popular strata are facing a barbaric attack, on the pretext of the economic crisis; an attack which has been jointly unleashed by the social democratic PASOK government, the EU and the IMF, with the assistance of the conservative ND party and the open support of the nationalist LAOS party.

The remarkable resistance presented by the labor and popular movement is spearheaded by KKE which continually strives to reveal the real cause of the crisis, the sharpening of the basic contradictions of capitalism. Without the consistent exposure of the compromised and discredited in the eyes of the workers trade union leaderships of GSEE and ADEDY (the national confederations of the private and public sector respectively), without the decisive contribution of PAME (All Workers’ Militant Front), the national trade union front comprised of class oriented Federations, trade unions, labor centers and trade unionists, the labor movement in our country would have been disarmed, unprepared, and unable to fight back.

KKE calls upon the working class, the self-employed, the poor farmers, and the youth to engage in even stronger, more massive and organized actions in order to stave off the onslaught and pave the way for a different path of development. There can be no way other than the nationalization of the monopolies. The working class must take possession of the concentrated means of production and mobilize them with central planning and popular participation. This presupposes a struggle aiming for people’s power, for socialism-communism.

The fightback against anti-communism, the adamant defense of the historical contribution of the Soviet Union and socialist construction in the 20th century, of the identity and revolutionary traditions of the communist movement, take on particular importance today.

As long as the crisis of the international communist movement persists, as long as the situation does not improve and retreats from ideological and theoretical principles are not resolutely confronted, as long as the front against opportunist views that hinder the formation of a single revolutionary strategy against imperialism does not become strengthened, the situation will harbor the danger of an even greater backslide.

The existence of strong Communist Parties steadfast to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, with a revolutionary program for the overthrow of the rule of monopolies, for building socialism - communism, is the foremost demand of our times.

We look forward to learning the conclusions and the resolutions of your convention.

With comradely greetings

The Central Committee of KKE

e-mail: cpg@int.kke.gr
International Meetings
________________________________________

• KKE at international meetings
• Meetings of communist & workers'parties

15 March 2010

If we had more candidates like Nicole Beaulieu people would want to vote

From: Alan L. Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2010 10:07 AM
To: sknutson@mnaflcio.org; amistad.nai@rcn.com;
Subject: Please !!!!!!!!!! Give this the widest distribution possible: Nicole Beaulieu announces for MN DFL House seat 4-A


Please hit “forward” and distribute this e-mail as widely as possible. Minnesota has one of the largest Native American Indian populations in the United States and there is not one single Native American Indian sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature--- this must change. Send this e-mail to all of your friends. People need to know about what is going on in Minnesota. This is the change we have been seeking. This article is from the Bemidji Pioneer, northern Minnesota’s largest circulation daily newspaper.

Link to article: http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/article/id/100016853/

“It’s time to go back and fix the things we left behind so we can move forward in unity for a better Minnesota.”

Nicole Beaulieu

Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Candidate for District 4-A

Published Sunday March 14, 2010

Beaulieu opposes Persell for 4A bid

Nicole Beaulieu of Bemidji, a student and Ojibwe language teacher, filed recently as a Democratic candidate for the House 4A seat held by Rep. John Persell, DFL-Bemidji.

By: Brad Swenson, Bemidji Pioneer

· Nicole Beaulieu




Nicole Beaulieu

Nicole Beaulieu of Bemidji, a student and Ojibwe language teacher, filed recently as a Democratic candidate for the House 4A seat held by Rep. John Persell, DFL-Bemidji.


She’s running “because I know we aren’t being represented as well as we can be. It’s time to go back and fix the things we left behind so we can move forward in unity for a better Minnesota.”


She filed March 4 with the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board as a DFL candidate for House 4A, although a three-page news release last week didn’t indicate which party.


In it, she leveled criticisms at both Persell and Bemidji Mayor Richard Lehmann, who a week ago declared his candidacy as a Republican for House 4A.


“Both John Persell and Mayor Lehmann have repeatedly failed the native community of Bemidji area by excluding our needs and special problems resulting from systemic and institutionalized racism from all matters or events that are meant to demonstrate concern for our shared community and citizens,” Beaulieu wrote.


“Neither Mayor Lehmann nor Rep. John Persell do anything about helping people living in poverty as a result of the lack of enforcement of affirmative action which is only one of the many reasons why I wish to be your 4A House of Representative chair holder,” she said.


Beaulieu did not return an e-mail asking for more information.


Born in Duluth, Beaulieu grew up in Bemidji and spent summers with her grandmother on the Leech Lake Reservation. She was graduated from Bemidji High School in 2005, and earned an associate’s degree in Anishinaabe studies from Leech Lake Tribal College in 2008. Currently she is a student at Bemidji State University and teaches Ojibwe language at Leech Lake Tribal College.


“I will work to improve the relationship between natives and non-natives. I would like to change the perspective of the native and non-natives opinion of one another by working hand in hand in all matters we engage ourselves in within our community,” she wrote. “… it saddens me to think of my own daughter exposed to the harsh realities of institutionalized racism of teachers and non-native students alike, which I have endured …”


She recalls growing up in a family of seven, making use of government programs and the food shelf, and said she would work to ensure those programs are available to all in need and entitled to receive.

“Throughout my candidacy I will make the recognition of native American issues in this city a priority along with several other important downfalls of our community,” Beaulieu wrote. “I want the people of the state of Minnesota to know that we are citizens too and we can represent our state just as well as anybody else. We want fair opportunities at whatever it is a native American may pursue as an opportunity to raise above and beyond discrimination.”


In these economic times, government programs need to be expanded, not cut back, she said, adding that it is “interesting Mayor Lehmann chose to build the Bemidji Regional Event Center rather than create the kinds of programs to help the people of Bemidji to cope better with life here.”


Beaulieu wrote that she is anti-abortion, “but why are we worrying about the unborn when the living are going without jobs, going hungry, going without adequate health care, or adequate education?”


She disputes Lehmann’s economic solution to jumpstart the economy by allowing the private sector to expand with less government regulation.


“It is because of this over-emphasis of doling out taxpayer money to private industry which is largely responsible for the present state of the economy,” Beaulieu wrote. “Massive public works programs will create jobs and stimulate the economy. Mayor Lehmann’s ‘trickle down’ theory of economics has been proven not to work.”


She also advocates for a public health program providing everyone with free health care, as is the goal of the Indian Health Service for American Indians, would create thousands of jobs in Minnesota.


She sides with Senate 4 DFL candidate Greg Paquin that the city failed to use affirmative action policies in hiring for the BREC, a decision the city says went to the construction manager and which there is no formal policy as no federal funds are involved.


“It saddens me when we have to utilize these laws meant to open up doors of opportunity for my people. But, the door has been slammed in our faces, once again, because of lack of enforcement of affirmative action,” she said.


Beaulieu is part of an effort to petition the United Nations human rights commissioner in Geneva to review human rights within the United States, including that of American Indians.


“I am doing this in hopes of giving our matters global attention so that those that create these injustices can no longer hide their corrupt agenda which has been devaluing the quality of life of my people for a very long time,” Beaulieu wrote. “Native American aboriginals are not represented by present Democrats from Senate District 4 or House Districts 4A or 4B.”


In filing her Nicole Beaulieu Committee, she lists herself as campaign chairwoman and treasurer. She reports she will not collect a public subsidy for her campaign.


Lehmann has yet to file a campaign committee with the state board.



For Nicole Beaulieu’s complete statement, check out her blog and bookmark Nicole’s blog to keep abreast of campaign activity:


http://anishinaabecandidate.blogspot.com

Also check out Gregory W. Paquin’s blog:

http://nativeamericanindianlaborunion12.blogspot.com/

MN DFL Senate Candidate District 4

Contact info:

1511 Roosevelt Road SE.
Bemidji, Minnesota , 56601
Home: 218-209-3157
Cell: 651-503-9493

Please hit “forward” and distribute this e-mail as widely as possible. Minnesota has one of the largest Native American Indian populations in the United States and there is not one single Native American Indian sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature--- this must change.

Yours in struggle and solidarity,

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Let’s talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for real change.

12 March 2010

Coffee Party movement

The Coffee Party movement has offered our small Communist Party Club the opportunity to reach out to our friends and neighbors.

We had 14 people at our first gathering at Starbucks in Forest Lake.

We had a terrific discussion about Barack Obama's healthcare legislation. All present agreed it needs to be defeated.

We discussed the three points of the Tea Party movement:

1. Fiscal responsibility.

2. Limited government.

3. Support for free markets.

We noted the leader of the Tea Party movement in Minnesota, Toni Backdahl, stated in a radio interview that the Tea Party movement doesn't get into social issues."

All fourteen of us agreed we need to talk about at least three social issues if we are going to create a government that is fiscally responsible while the size of government is not the issue because we need a government capable of working properly on behalf of the people. We don't support "free markets" because capitalism got us into this economic mess.

The Tea Party movement we felt is going to be short lived because people want peace, socialized healthcare and jobs which is all about social issues.

20 January 2010

Can we afford peace?

Can we afford peace?

by Helen Thomas hthomas@hearstdc.com
Albany Times Union
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=890123&category=opinion
January 19, 2010


No one in the Obama administration is going to acknowledge that our foreign policy in the Middle East has alienated many Arabs.

The U.S. pro-Israel policy and our shocking neglect of the beleaguered Palestinians underlie almost every initiative or tactical tilt that comes out of Washington.

President Obama and his predecessors in the White House have scored domestic political points by embracing this world view. This is one vantage point that is truly bipartisan, to the point where no one discusses it.

Michael Scheuer, a former CIA specialist on the al-Qaida terrorists, complained on C-SPAN recently that any debate about American support for Israel is "normally squelched."

"For anyone to say our support for Israel doesn't hurt us is to just defy reality," he added.

Another former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, says the 9/11 Commission report noted that Khalid Sheikh -- the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- cited his violent disagreement with U.S. support for Israel as the motivating dynamic behind the attacks.

Obama knows enough about the Middle East that tightening airport security is not the whole answer to fighting terrorism. He should try a more even-handed policy in the region.

Grievances of the Arab man on the street include bitter criticism of the U.S. for supporting harsh authoritarian regimes in the Arab world and the failure of those U.S.-backed regimes to help the Palestinians in Gaza.

Surely after several years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can dispense with the obfuscation and evasion that flood forth from official U.S. megaphones.

Terrorism spawned in the Middle East is not the only threat we face.

As the American economy digs out from the debris of the Great Recession triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble, we should think about what could happen about another bubble that invisibly chugs through the American economy.

I refer to our bloated defense spending.

The United States spends more for its arsenal than any other 10 countries combined. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. accounts for more than 40 percent of the world's total military spending. China is in second place, at a relatively puny 5.8 percent.

If the U.S. defense spending bubble were ever to deflate, domestic job losses would be catastrophic, a stunning fact that raises the question of whether we can ever afford peace.

The American people have long shown they can handle the truth. When it comes to the Middle East and to threats to our economy, so should our leaders.

02 December 2009

Afghans say: Obama builds occupation

Some change Obama is bringing to this country. This new escalation of the war in Afghanistan makes me sick.

Alan Maki has it right in his letter to leaders of the peace movement (see his blog below this Reuter's article).

Lisa



This article deserves the widest circulation possible…

Afghans say: Obama builds occupation

Kabul money changer Ehsanullah wondered why U.S. forces had managed to find former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but had yet to locate Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden or Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who both fled U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2001.

"This is part of America's further occupation of Afghanistan," he said. "America is using the issue of insecurity here in order to send more troops."

http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSSP236797

Wed Dec 2, 2009

Afghans unimpressed by Obama's troops surge
Reuters
·


By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) – Thirty thousand more U.S. troops for Afghanistan? Esmatullah only shrugged.

"Even if they bring the whole of America, they won't be able to stabilize Afghanistan," said the young construction worker out on a Kabul street corner on Wednesday morning. "Only Afghans understand our traditions, geography and way of life."

U.S. President Barack Obama's announcement of a massive new escalation of the eight-year-old war seemed to have impressed nobody in the Afghan capital, where few watched the speech on TV before dawn and fewer seemed to think new troops would help.

Obama said his goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al Qaeda in Afghanistan and "reverse theTaliban's momentum."

The extra U.S. forces, and at least 5,000 expected from other NATO allies, would join 110,000 Western troops already in the country in an effort to reverse gains made by the Islamist militants, at their strongest since being ousted in 2001.

Shopkeeper Ahmad Fawad, 25, said it would not help.

"The troops will be stationed in populated areas where the Taliban will somehow infiltrate and then may attack the troops," he said. "Instead of pouring in more soldiers, they need to focus on equipping and raising Afghan forces, which is cheap and easy."

For many, the prospect of more troops meant one thing: more civilian deaths.

"More troops will mean more targets for the Taliban and the troops are bound to fight, and fighting certainly will cause civilian casualties," Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, a former Afghan prime minister, told Reuters.

"The civilian casualties will be further a blow to the U.S. image and cause more indignation among Afghans."

"NOTHING REALLY NEW"

By late morning, the Afghan government had yet to issue an official response to Obama's statement.President Hamid Karzai has in the past said he favors additional Western troops, although he wants Afghan forces to take over security for the country within five years.

Although Obama pointedly addressed Afghans, telling them the United States was not interested in occupying their country, parliamentarian Shukriya Barakzai said she was disappointed because the speech contained little talk of civilian aid.

"It was a very wonderful speech for America ... but when it comes to strategy in Afghanistan there was nothing really new which was disappointing," she told Reuters from her home.

"It seems to me that President Obama is very far away from the reality and truth in Afghanistan. His strategy was to pay lip-service, and did not focus on civilians, nation-building, democracy and human rights."

Other Afghans, hardened by decades of war and wary of foreign forces whom have for years fought proxy battles in Afghanistan, were skeptical of the United States' intentions.

Kabul money changer Ehsanullah wondered why U.S. forces had managed to find former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but had yet to locate Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden or Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who both fled U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2001.

"This is part of America's further occupation of Afghanistan," he said. "America is using the issue of insecurity here in order to send more troops."


Tuesday, December 1, 2009

An open letter to peace activists who supported Barack Obama
Peter Lems and Mary Zerkel, American Friends Service Committee;

Here is a President many of you “leaders” of peace organizations supported knowing that Obama’s stated intent was to expand the war in Afghanistan… now he has fulfilled this campaign promise and you pretend to be surprised.

There is no shortage of funding... for wars from the president and Democrats you supported but there is a lack of funds for socialized health care or single-payer. I have to ask a question here: What is going on; will all these organizations go out into the streets and carry signs saying the escalation is a bad idea and then turn around and campaign and vote for the Democrats and Barack Obama in 2010 and 2012?

I hear all kinds of “mass activities” being planned to oppose this escalation of the war; but, why is there no ADDITIONAL suggestion that in retaliation for escalating this dirty imperialist war the Democrats will suffer repercussions at the polls… This is called “accountability.”

“Accountability” is something basic and fundamental to democracy.

“Accountability” goes like this…

No peace; no votes.

Yet, I haven’t heard either of you or one single one of these “leaders” of the peace movement talk about holding Barack Obama and the rest of these warmongering Dumb Donkeys “accountable” at the polls.

What gives?

Go out and hold a little peace parade and then turn around and tell these war mongers you are going to be supporting them in the next election?

Of course, if you aren’t going to be supporting warmongering Democrats in the next Election; that kind of begs another question… do we challenge these warmongers and Dumb Donkeys in their own primaries and continue on as independents in the general election or should progressives begin to consider organizing an alternative to this two-party trap set for us by Wall Street. Could we do both?

Something to think about:

Accountability.

If politicians don’t know the meaning of the word, give them a dictionary… but not your vote.

No peace; no votes.

Should there be an organized movement demanding “accountability” from Obama and the Democrats as a means to end these wars?

Should peace organizations be leading this effort for “accountability” at the polls?

I am having a very difficult time understanding how it is that I should protest the escalation of this war with you if you are then going to go right back and urge people to vote for the Democrats and Obama.



We heard a lot of talk from liberals, progressives and those on the left as they enthusiastically supported Obama often telling us that this support would provide our peace and other progressive movements with clout.

From the same people eager to sell us on Obama we were assured they would be initiating and leading movements for real change as a means of "holding Obama's feet to the fire" but so far we have only seen these people sitting on resources required to mobilize people in defense of their rights and interests, and holding an occasional press conference where they made all kinds of fantastic claims to be "organizing" on our behalf but no movements have developed as these foundation funded organizations walk away from the required struggles.


One has to ask how you get any kind of accountability from Barack Obama and these Democrats if promises are made to campaign and vote for them the next time around?

No peace; no votes.



Something to think about around the dinner table as Barack Obama sends off another 30,000 troops to fight and kill in an unjust, illegal and unconstitutional war in Afghanistan.




Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763


Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell phone: 651-587-5541


E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net



Check out my blog:



Thoughts From Podunk



http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/