Blog Against the Theocracy - Easter Weekend March 21-23, 2008

More details here.

(With gratitude to Blue Gal.)

Mankind at the Turning Point

From Information Clearing House :

The Club of Rome is a premiere think tank composed of approximately 100 members including leading scientists, philosophers, political advisors and many other characters who lurk in the shadows of power. This series of articles described the major conclusions of the 1974 book Mankind at the Turning Point: The Second Report to The Club of Rome [1]. Part 1 described their desire for the development of a totalitarian world system presented under the euphemism of an "organic society". Part 2 described the need to create a new value system to ensure the acceptance of the upcoming world government. This new value system will be based on a "world consciousness."

Mankind at the Turning Point used an absurd, exponentially based computer model of the world system in an attempt to hide their predetermined conclusions behind the veil of science. One of the main scenarios developed by the model was an analysis of the price of oil. This was an obvious choice due to the importance of oil to the world economy and the Middle East oil crisis which began the previous year (1973). The conclusion of this analysis was that an optimal price exists for oil. A price too high, would encourage development of alternatives and result in long-term losses to the exporting nations. A price too low, would encourage over use and resource depletion which would result in long-term losses of the importing nations who would not have sufficient time to develop alternatives. Therefore, there existed an "optimal" price for oil and that the only way to obtain this price was through cooperation. Naturally, an optimal price would exist for all commodities and the only way to obtain these prices was a planned world economy. After all, a planned economy was working so well in the Soviet Union, why not extend it to the rest of the world?

~ read on... ~

'The realization that capitalists, not the proletariat, are the ones bringing down the system'

If you walk through London's High Gate cemetery and wander over to the grave of the late Karl Marx and then listen closely with your ear to the ground, you might hear a repetitive murmur of the phrase "I told you so" in a distinctly German inflected accent.

You might also see the earth moving ever so slightly as what's left of the bones below turn over in the realization that capitalists, not the proletariat, are the ones bringing down the system.

Fellow blogger Ian Williams, a former disciple of the bearded prophet, is now chanting, "Shareholders of the world unite" in recognition of the way the world is changing. The fall of Bear Sterns and the collapse of confidence in our financial system is a profound turning point.

When you turn this rock over -- and not just England's Northern Rock bank that failed earlier -- you see a seamy swamp of delusion, and deception, with `Wall Street worms slithering off to their condos in Colorado or their hangouts in the Hamptons.

This could be the end of an era of legalized greed, aided and enabled by the deregulation policies of the Busheviks with the active complicity of so many bi-partisan worshippers at the temple of the Free Market...

~ read on... ~

My Lai probe hid policy that led to massacre

The directive in question, a copy of which has been obtained by Inter Press Service, makes it clear that the policy of humane treatment did not extend to civilians in areas which had been under long-term communist rule, as was the case with My Lai. That revelation would have placed the responsibility for the orders on the My Lai operation squarely on Westmoreland's shoulders.

The Peers report found that the troops who entered My Lai and three other hamlets of the village of Son My had been led to believe that everyone in the village should be killed. Testimony before the Peers inquiry also showed that the platoon leaders involved in the operation had been given that same message by two company commanders.

The report concluded that the task force commander responsible for the operation, Colonel Frank Barker, had failed to "make clear any distinctions between combatants and non-combatants in their orders and instructions". The result, it stated, was that he had "conveyed an understanding that only the enemy remained" in My Lai.

[ ... ]

But the directive made it clear that this motivation for humane treatment of civilians did not apply to those who had been under long-term communist rule. A key point in the directive said, "Specified strike zones should be configured to exclude populated areas, except those in accepted VC bases."

The term "accepted VC bases" referred to large parts of South Vietnam, including Son My village and most of Quang Ngai province, where the Viet Minh movement had mobilized the population to fight against the French and where the communist movement had strong organizations throughout the Diem regime and in the early years of the US war in Vietnam.

The directive thus made it clear the US military command's policy was to consider the civilian population in long-term communist base areas as the enemy which could be subjected to the same treatment as communist military personnel. The Peers report description - which avoided quoting directly from the document - effectively covered up the actual intention of the command's policy toward non-combatants in places like My Lai.

Directive 525-3 is not the only piece of evidence pointing to a military command policy of treating non-combatants in Viet Cong base areas as subject to indiscriminate violence. In his own memoirs published in 1976, Westmoreland himself wrote that, once the "free fire zones" were established, "anybody who remained had to be considered an enemy combatant", and operations in those areas "could be conducted without fear of civilian casualties".

~ more... ~

Crises with 'the crucial enabling role of China' in common

One sobering aspect of the tragedy of Tibet is to consider a list of the places in the world where abuses of human rights are most common. Darfur in Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Myanmar (or Burma), Uzbekistan and Tibet would come high on most peoples' lists.

And what they have in common is the crucial enabling role of China. Tibet, where the official Chinese figure of 10 dead in the disturbances of the last four days is dwarfed by the more reliable reports from inside the country of more than 100 dead, has been under direct Chinese rule since 1951.

Tibet has been ruled with an iron hand, while also being colonized by the deliberate immigration of vast numbers of Han Chinese as part of what the Dalai Lama calls "cultural genocide." Han Chinese shopkeepers have been a particular target of the latest riots.

It should not be forgotten that China's current leader, Hu Jintao, boasts in his credentials for high office his ruthless role in crushing the last round of Tibetan unrest in 1989-90, when he was party chief in Lhasa.

~ from Walker's World: China in Tibet ~