If people no longer expect objectivity from their political and legal systems, then all justice will be reduced to a power struggle between conflicting and irreconcilable perspectives, a struggle in which the most dominant and pervasive bias will replace fair and impartial process as the character of justice. But if objectivity in law and politics is everywhere supplanted by conflict between subjective interests, then the side of economic privilege and established authority will always retain dominance. A society in which people no longer expect representatives of its major institutions even to attempt to render objectivity in their professional demeanours is a society whose major institutions are in a crisis of ethical legitimacy. In such a society, there is wide spread cynicism regarding the possibility of fair political process because it seems impossible that impartial, unbiased dispositions could exist to enact such processes.

Robert Nicholls

Language and Logic

Thursday, December 13, 2007

More on Hillary's secret dealings with China

Friday, December 7, 2007

New Link

Uyghur Human Rights Project

http://www.uhrp.org/

Saturday, December 1, 2007

The Tank Man

Freedom is For Children

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

China Takes Aim at U.S. GPS System

Saturday, November 10, 2007

CBC A Division of China Central Television & media outlet for the Chinese Communist Party in Canada

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/575

By OnTheWeb: Clive Ansley Friday, November 9, 2007

On Tuesday, November 6, CBC television was scheduled to show a documentary entitled “Beyond the Red Wall”. This film focuses on the vicious persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, highlighting the illegal nature of the persecution, the use of torture, and the horrific fact that Falun Gong practitioners are today being slaughtered on demand to facilitate theft of their organs and resale of those organs to foreign “organ tourists”. David Kilgour, co-author of the comprehensive report which sets out the evidence of this “new form of evil on the planet”, is interviewed on the film. Also featured are Zhang Kunlun, a McGill University professor and Canadian Citizen who, on a visit to China, was thrown into a Labour Camp and tortured for three years, solely because of his Falun Gong beliefs.

Former Justice Minister, Irwin Cotler, is also described as “speaking passionately” about the persecution of Falun Gong. I am also interviewed in this film on the subject of the Chinese “judicial system”, or lack thereof, my call for a boycott of the 2008 Olympics, and the collaboration of the Chretien and Martin governments with the perpetrators of the worst atrocities the world has seen since the days of the Third Reich in Germany.

CBC had purchased this documentary from its producer, Peter Rowe, last March. Subsequently, it required Rowe to edit the film, primarily to delete certain charges against the Chinese government and to allow more extensive comment on Falun Gong by Chinese diplomatic officials.

Rowe complied and CBC management gave final approval to the edited version last spring. For weeks, CBC had been promoting the film.
Hours before it was to air, CBC pulled the film and replaced it with a re-run whitewash of Pakistan’s dictator.

Spokesmen for CBC lied about the reasons for the recall to a series of inquirers. One story was that there were “contractual issues”. Not with the producer, there weren’t. All contract issues between him and CBC had been finalized long ago. If there is a contractual issue, it consists solely of the fact that CBC has the Canadian contract for televising of the “Bloody Harvest Olympics” in Beijing next year. There is little doubt that Beijing threatened our national broadcaster with loss of this contract in the event that CBC were to allow Canadian audiences to view “Beyond the Red Wall”.

A second version was that the crisis in Pakistan pre-empted Peter Rowe’s film and that Pakistan was of immediate topical interest. That lie is particularly transparent. The crisis in Pakistan was almost a week old. Urgent up to the minute coverage could have been injected at any time. The film shown hardly touched the current crisis; it was an old film, essentially covering a dinner party conversation in which the dictator’s mother enthused about how he had always exhibited “leadership qualities”, even as a child, and the dictator himself was allowed to praise his own benevolence without challenge.

The truth is that Chinese diplomatic officials had contacted CBC, and had employed at least one long known Chinese Communist Party Agent to orchestrate a campaign against showing the film, which they denounced as “all lies”. How they could know this is unclear since no one has yet seen the film. CBC itself has acknowledged the intervention by Beijing, but has said only that it decided to ask for further editing after “it had become clear over the last 24-36 hours” that there was a great interest in this film.

It is common knowledge that China’s media is totally controlled by the Chinese state and the Chinese Communist Party. For the past 8 years the Communist Party has used its media monopoly to vilify Falun Gong; Falun Gong practitioners, in contrast, have been totally stifled and have never had any means of replying to the spurious charges of the Beijing dictatorship. The Chinese media has regularly charged that the teachings of Li Hongzhi, founder and leader of Falun Gong, have led to widespread crimes by Falun Gong adherents in China, including murder, mass murder, suicides, infanticides, and rape.

But strangely, the teachings of Li Hongzhi would appear to have these toxic effects exclusively on disciples resident in China. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and other countries of Asia. But for some strange reason, the only Falun Gong practitioners ever charged with “crimes” outside of China are three women practitioners convicted in Singapore of passing out literature without a permit.

Human rights advocates the world over lament the Beijing government’s consistent suppression of accurate news reports in China, and its determination to ensure that Chinese citizens never receive fair and accurate information about Falun Gong. Now it is apparent that Beijing has the power to approve or disapprove what is broadcast by news services in democratic countries. CBC is apparently quite comfortable with the idea that what Canadians are allowed to see or hear should be determined by the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

Clive Ansley
President of CIPFG/Coalitiion to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong
China Country Monitor Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada
306-576 England Avenue, Courtenay, BC
Tel. 1-250-792-3547 or 250-334-3586

Yahoo isn't the only villain

http://www.laogai.org/news/newsdetail.php?id=2912

(Peter Navarro, Los Angeles Times, 11/9/2007)

Which company has committed the greater evil? Yahoo Inc. helped send a reporter to prison by revealing his identity to the Chinese government. Cisco Systems Inc. helps send thousands of Chinese dissidents to prison by selling sophisticated Internet surveillance technology to China.

If bad press is to be the judge, the "stool pigeon" Yahoo is clearly the bigger villain. In 2004, after the Chinese government ordered the country's media not to report on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo e-mail account to forward a government memo to a pro-democracy group. When China's Internet police -- a force of 30,000 -- uncovered this, it pressured Yahoo to reveal Shi's identity. Yahoo caved quicker than you can say Vichy France, and Shi is doing 10 years in a Chinese slammer for one click of his subversive mouse.

For ratting out Shi, Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang has been dragged before Congress, called a "moral pygmy" and forced to issue an apology. In contrast, Cisco and Chief Executive John Chambers have received little public scrutiny for providing China's cadres of Comrade Orwells with the Internet surveillance technology they need to cleanse the Net of impure democratic thoughts.

Cisco is hardly alone in helping China keep the jackboot to the neck of its people. Skype, an EBay Inc. subsidiary, helps the Chinese government monitor and censor text messaging. Microsoft Corp. likewise is a willing conscript in China's Internet policing army, as Bill Gates' minions regularly cleanse the Chinese blogosphere. Google Inc.'s brainiacs, meanwhile, have built a special Chinese version of their powerful search engine to filter out things as diverse as the BBC, freeing Tibet and that four-letter word in China -- democracy.

Business executives have justified their actions with a "when in China, do as the Chinese do" defense. To do business in China, these executives insist, they must comply with local laws. But China's local laws often force executives to make moral and ethical choices that would be intolerable in the West.

The broader problem is that American business executives have little training in how to deal with ethics in a corrupt and totalitarian global business environment -- blame U.S. business schools for that. As a result, moral horizons tend to be short, and executives who find themselves in the heat of a battle don't know where to draw the line, which is what happened to Yahoo.

Some executives also trot out the "constructive engagement" defense. This too-clever-by-half idea is that companies such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype and Cisco are actually pro-democracy elements because they are helping build China's Internet. Even though these companies collaborate through self-censorship and assist with Internet surveillance, the greater effect is to build free speech -- or so the argument goes.

What's missing from the American corporate perspective is this bigger picture: The collaborative tools that U.S. corporations provide to spy on, and silence, the Chinese people are far more likely to help prop up a totalitarian regime than topple it.

With American corporate help, China remains the world's biggest prison. As reported by the Laogai Research Foundation, millions of dissidents languish in Chinese-style gulags known as laogai, and thanks in part to U.S. corporations, their numbers are growing.

In addition, human rights abuses are both systematic and endemic in China. From Catholics and Muslims to the Falun Gong, from pro-democracy voices and investigative journalists to the Free Tibet movement, the penalty for being caught for banned religious or political expression is arrest, beatings and sometimes death.

For all these reasons, it is ultimately shortsighted to single out Yahoo for the kind of behavior now common to many big U.S. companies operating in China. That's why we need to have a much bigger discussion about how to engage economically and politically with China. It's also why the proposed Global Online Freedom Act, which would make it unlawful for U.S. companies to filter Internet search results or turn over user information, should not be viewed as a magic bullet but rather as the start of that debate.

Peter Navarro is a business professor at UC Irvine and the author of "Coming China Wars."

Article: LA Times

Saturday, October 27, 2007

down with dictatorship

Down with Big Brother.
Live Free or Die Trying.

j

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Media Manipulation

Credit for the video goes to "dearpeter"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANbigv0bH3Y

Here's the original story, I saved the text file before the story was re-written.

Daily Mail UK
Burma: Thousands dead in massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.

Meanwhile, the United Nations special envoy was in Burma's new capital today seeking meetings with the ruling military junta.

Ibrahim Gambari met detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon yesterday. But he has yet to meet the country's senior generals as he attempts to halt violence against monks and pro-democracy activists.

It is anticipated the meeting will happen tomorrow.

Heavily-armed troops and police flooded the streets of Rangoon during Mr Ibrahim's visit to prevent new protests.

Mr Gambari met some of the country's military leaders in Naypyidaw yesterday and has returned there for further talks. But he did not meet senior general Than Shwe or his deputy Maung Aye - and they have issued no comment.

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.

There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.

In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted.

A Swedish diplomat who visited Burma during the protests said last night that in her opinion the revolution has failed.

Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. "The Burma revolt is over," she added.

"The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.

"Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear."

Mrs Agerlid said Rangoon is heavily guarded by soldiers.

"There are extremely high numbers of soldiers in Rangoon's streets," she added. "Anyone can see it is absolutely impossible for any demonstration to gather, or for anyone to do anything.

"People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned."

The diplomat also said that three monasteries were raided yesterday afternoon and are now totally abandoned.

At his border hideout last night, 42-year-old Mr Win said he hopes to cross into Thailand and seek asylum at the Norwegian Embassy.

The 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon's northern region, added: "I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.

"They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this."

With his teenage son, he made his escape from Rangoon, leaving behind his wife and two other sons.

He had no fears for their safety because his brother is a powerful general who, he believes, will defend the family.

Mr Win's defection will raise a faint hope among tens of thousands of Burmese who have fled to villages along the Thai border.

They will feel others in the army may follow him and turn on their ageing leaders, Senior General Than Shwe and his deputy, Vice Senior General Maung Aye.

Here is a link to the re-written story
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=484903

Lesson: whenever investigating online, save all important information to your hard drive,
then back up your important files, if necessary make multiple copies to distribute to your contacts in case you are compromised, if possible re-publish the information.

Live Free Or Die Trying

j

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Free Burma

www.free-burma.org

Monday, October 1, 2007

Burma: Thousands dead in massacre, monks corpses dumped in jungle

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Burma (Myanmar) Protests

The dictatorship of Burma opened fire upon pro-democracy protesting monks today. As the bloody bodies lay cold in the streets and the protesters are dragged away to prison, word has gotten out that government forces have targeted and are now attacking monasteries across the country. I have seen this over and over all across the world. The murder of freedom fighters across the world will continue and there is not a lot we can do since none of our leaders have the balls to do anything about it. All we can do is remember, this infectious oppression is spreading, and one day we may face it in our own lands, for the future is clouded
and we the people are the only force that can preserve the human spirit.
When our dawn rises we will stand and we will fight.
I feel I have seen too much of this never ending oppression,
as it weights down upon my soul, at times i must look away.
The prison camps are more full than usual tonight,
and it tears upon my soul to know the torture chambers are the same.
In a world of injustice, pain and death. Hope seems but a memory.
Yet not forgotten.
Live Free or Die Trying.