The Silicon Standard for Human Rights

The Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference put forth a statement of 15 principles this past October for guiding the behavior of ICT companies in relation to human rights. According to the organizers at Access, "The document is designed to complement other existing frameworks and uses the international human rights framework as its foundation." There's a lot to chew on here. I'll let the principles speak for themselves:

1. Technology and Revolutions: Technology companies play an increasingly important role in enabling and supporting the end user's capacity to exercise his or her rights to freedom of speech, access to information, and freedom of association. ICT companies should respect those rights in their operations and also encourage governments to protect human rights through appropriate policies, practices, legal protections, and judicial oversight.

2. On Human Rights: In both policy and practice, technology companies should apply human rights frameworks in developing best practices and standard operating procedures. This includes adhering to John Ruggie's Protect, Respect, and Remedy framework outlined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

3. Frontline Lessons from Other Sectors: Technology companies should look to the innovative examples and incorporate important lessons from other sectors, such as the apparel and extractive industries. The experiences of these sectors can and should guide them as they develop their human rights policies. These must be reflected in their operating practices in a transparent and accountable manner.

4. On Internet Regulation: To ensure innovation and the protection of human rights, internet regulation should only take place where it facilitates the ongoing openness, quality, and integrity of the internet and/or where it enables or protects users' ability to freely, fully, and safely participate in society. To achieve this end, it is critical that ICT corporations engage in multistakeholder dialogue.

5. Human Rights by Design: During the research, development, and design stages, technology companies should anticipate how and by whom their products and services will be used. Developing a human rights policy and engaging in due diligence at the earliest stages helps companies prevent crises, limit risk, and enable evidence-based assessment of company activities and reporting.

6. Encryption of Web Activity: Effective internet security is essential to ensuring freedom of speech, privacy, and the right to communicate. Technology companies must provide a basic level of security (e.g., HTTPS and its improvements) to their users by default and resist bans and curtailments of the use of encryption.

7. Getting Practical: Technology companies should implement human rights-respecting policies and practices in their day-to-day operations. These companies should utilize multi-stakeholder and cross-sector dialogues to review challenges faced within their markets with a view to improve their best practices.

8. Coding for Human Rights: Recognizing the human rights implications in code, engineers, developers, and programmers should ensure that technology is used in the exercise of fundamental freedoms, and not for the facilitation of human rights abuses. Technology companies should facilitate regular dialogue between engineers, executive leadership, and civil society to ensure that all parties are informed of the potential uses and abuses of their technologies.

9. Social Networking: Social networking platforms are both increasingly important to their users' capacity to communicate and associate online and are most used when customers trust the service's providers. When companies prioritize the rights of their customers, it is good for the long-term sustainability of their business, their brand, and their bottom line.

10. Intermediary Liability: In an era of computer-mediated communications, freedom of speech, association, and commerce increasingly depend on internet intermediaries (e.g., broadband service providers, web hosting companies). These intermediaries should not be required to determine the legality of, or held liable for, the content they host.

11. Legal Jurisdiction in a Borderless Virtual World: To foster the continued growth of an open and interconnected internet, technology companies should work alongside governments and civil society to ensure that users' rights are protected to the fullest extent possible. Governmental mandates that infringe upon freedom of expression and other human rights should be interpreted so as to minimize the negative impacts of these rules and regulations.

12. Visual Media and Human Rights: Technology companies should pay special attention to the unique human rights challenges of visual media technologies and content—especially on issues such as privacy, anonymity, consent, and access.

13. Social Media in Times of Crisis: Technology companies should resist efforts to shut down services and block access to their products, especially during times of crisis when open communications are critical. Blanket government surveillance of corporate networks should be resisted. Moreover, the burden of proof for privacy-invasive requests should lie with law enforcement authorities, who should formally, through court processes based on probable cause and rule of law, request a warrant for each individual whose information they would like to access.

14. Privacy: Technology companies should incorporate adequate privacy protections for users by default. Furthermore, technology companies should resist over-board requests from governments to reveal users' information, disclose no more information about their users than is legally required, and inform their users so that they can choose to legally respond to these requests. Furthermore, technology companies should be transparent about how user data is collected, processed, and protected—including disclosures of unauthorized access to user data.

15. Mobile and Telcos: Telecommunications companies must protect their users' fundamental human rights, including support for the protection of human rights in their operating licenses, and ensure that the free flow of communication is not curtailed or interfered with, even in times of crisis.

The big thing missing here is the subtext: While it's incredibly important to ensure that human rights are fulfilled in the use of information and communication technologies, it does us no good to simultaneously ignore abuses in their manufacture. My hope going forward is that this framework can be deepened to explicitly include the supply chains and labor rights problems associated with the ICT sector. The freedoms these magical gadgets enable must extend all the way down to the minerals.

What Does Accountability Mean to You?

There was plenty of finger pointing last Tuesday morning as WNYC's talk show host Brian Lehrer led a spirited discussion with a live audience on the subject of "Occupy New York." The most contentious topics were accountability for U.S. income disparity, and the causes of our financial crisis. Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer accused the Federal Reserve of lack of oversight; New York Federal Reserve Deputy Chairwoman Kathryn Wylde blamed international economic pressures; and Occupy Wall Street protester Jesse LaGreca blamed a non-representative democracy.

Yet despite their bickering, the panelists agreed that the income disparity in America is unacceptable; that the economy needs to improve; and that accountability is lacking. Amid the rapid-fire disagreements, there was a common struggle to grapple with the complex, systemic causes of our country's wobbly moment.

In an effort to poke a hole in LaGreca's arguments, business columnist Greg David asked, "What does accountability mean to you?" It's a fair question. Accountability is often vaunted as the unimpeachable principle missing from our country's response to recurring recessions and the widening income gap. And when we look at past bailouts of "black swan" level crashes and the moral hazard inherent in having institutions that are "too big to fail," it's clear that our system of accountability needs to be reconfigured. But how? In the heat of the debate, LaGreca defined accountability as investigations of bankers and corporate leaders, rather than a more global approach.

When Lehrer drew out LaGreca on the decision-making process underway at Occupy Wall Street, it became clear that LaGreca envisions the movement as a testing ground for a new form of accountable government. LaGreca is looking for a unicameral legislature (similar to Occupy Wall Street's General Assembly) where a 51 percent majority would be enough to pass a bill, thus ending the filibuster. He wants to eliminate political parties entirely and convert our system into a direct democracy.

With such a system, LaGreca contends, we would cut out the problems of campaign finance, party platforms, and special interests that stand in the way of true democratic consensus. Without party platforms or corporate interests to consider, he says, leaders would be accountable to their voters. With this new idea on the table, the meaning of accountability and its place in society has shifted.

LaGreca's plan is idealistic, and maybe impractical. Still, while parsing blame is a necessary step towards injecting accountability into the political-economic climate of the United States, it is clearly insufficient. We need more of the big-picture discussion that Lehrer was able to spark on Tuesday in order to truly confront and deal with the systemic lack of accountability.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Timothy Krause (CC).]

Uncertainty is the Strength of Occupy Wall Street

Now seems as good a time as any to start reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He writes in a passage on negative empiricism that "you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right." This statement resonates with me as the ethical backbone of the "occupation" style protests that have swept the world this year.

What do they want? is the common refrain in the media. It's OK that nobody knows yet. In fact, it would be sheer arrogance to assume that a small cadre has all the answers. The point is that when even in rich societies like the United States tens of millions of people are living in poverty, new processes are needed for people to debate the actions, rules, and directions of our societies.

The protesters in lower Manhattan have opted for a process of collaborative consensus. We shouldn't expect them all to be policy wonks (though even a Nobel laureate economist has stopped by). They are instead what Paul Hawken calls our social immune system. Here is their first statement:

STATEMENT OF THE NYC GENERAL ASSEMBLY

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

[PHOTO CREDIT: David Shankbone (CC).]

Iceland Writes an Information Age Constitution

Few things are as exciting and periodically necessary for a democracy as writing a new constitution. Iceland is in the process of doing just that, and they are doing it with a social media twist.

The Icelandic Stjórnlagaráð or Constitutional Council has solicited public feedback from citizens and is adjusting its drafts accordingly. The Council explains its method and rationale as follows:

The Constitutional Council is eager to make sure the public can be up to date while the work is in progress. It's possible to see the developments in the text of a prospective proposition and make comments. Furthermore, the Constitutional Council has made it possible for the public to send messages and already numerous messages have been sent to the Council. All messages are published on the Council's website under the sender’s name (anonymous messages are not accepted) and the public can read and comment on each of them which has already created a lively discussion on the website.

In this way the Constitutional Council emphasises an open communication with the Icelandic nation and has given the people an opportunity to participate in the formation of a new Constitution of the Republic of Iceland. The Council's work can also be seen on the major communicative media such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Every day short interviews with delegates are put on YouTube and Facebook. On Thursdays at 13:00 there is live broadcast from the Constitutional Council meetings on the webpage and on Facebook. There are also schedules for all meetings, all minutes from meetings of groups, the Board and the Council as well as the Council's work procedures. The webpage also has regular news from the Council's work as well as a weekly newsletter. Advertisements are published in the media encouraging the public to keep track of what is going on and to make comments.

That Iceland chose the digital route should come as no suprise—the country has one of the highest internet penetration rates in the world, and its voter participation rates are roughly double what is common in the United States. Still, it's an impressive maneuver for a country whose legislature, the Althingi, dates back to 930, making it the oldest existing parliament.

Should we expect any substantive surprises from this process? Perhaps it is too soon to tell, with the drafts still shifting wiki-style, but already some interesting ideas have emerged. (The current official English version is machine translated, so some of the following quotations may be awkward.)

THE POWER OF GOV 2.0

The statement on transparency couldn't be clearer: "Governance must be transparent." The new constitution also requires that all "matters and documents held by government … be publicly accessible," which includes complaints made to the government as well as procedures for their redress. That Iceland would uphold press freedom and freedom of information—"anyone is free to gather and disseminate information"—is in keeping with the strong laws they passed last year to protect journalists and anonymous sources, with implications for WikiLeaks and other whistleblowers.

EDUCATION A PRIORITY

Education is a high priority, and the opening section has a passage on academic freedom: "It should be ensured by law the freedom of science, education, arts and education." There is also a guarantee that everyone will receive a public education, free of charge at the primary level. The spirit animating the education section falls in line with the tradition of civic humanism: "Education shall aim at the full development of each individual, critical thinking and awareness of rights and duties."

WITHOUT NATURE, NOTHING

By far the most interesting language so far comes in the sections on ownership and natural resources. The overall sense of property rights is that "ownership is inviolable," while "exercise of ownership should not go against the public interest." At the same time, the "natural resources of Iceland are common and perpetual property of the nation. They should be utilized in a sustainable manner for the benefit of all citizens. No one can get them for permanent ownership or use." These clauses are driven by a belief that "Icelandic nature is inviolable. Each person must respect and protect. The utilization of common resources of the nation must act so that they are not diminished in the long term and the right of future generations is observed."

It would definitely be nice to see the "right to healthy environment, fresh water and unspoiled natural land, air and sea" enshrined in a new U.S. Constitution. As it stands, the current crop of Republican candidates has staked out a bizarre stance against environmental protection, despite the fact that the American public consistently supports clean air, clean water, and more renewable energy.

So the new Icelandic constitution may not be as radical as Bolivia granting rights to Mother Earth, but with its procedural innovations and a focus on sustainability and civic humanism, Iceland is certainly showing the world what twenty-first century democracy looks like:



[PHOTO CREDITS: Althingi by vovchychko (CC); Stjórnlagaráð by Stjórnlagaráð (CC).]

Ivory Coast: aid workers find 1,000 bodies in Duekoue

Refugee camp -- Wiki Commons

Aislinn Laing
London Telegraph

The single biggest atrocity in the long battle for control of Ivory Coast has emerged after aid workers discovered the bodies of up to 1,000 people in the town of Duekoue.

Charity workers who reached Duekoue said it appeared the killings had taken place in a single day, shortly after the town fell to troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the man internationally-recognised as having won last year’s presidential election.

The apparent massacre came despite the presence of United Nations troops and – if confirmed – will cast a shadow over Mr Outtara’s assumption of the Ivory Coast’s presidency after a four-month battle to oust Lawrence Gbagbo, the former president who lost the November election but refused to step down.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said he was “gravely concerned” by the violence and loss of life in Ivory Coast and added: “I am determined that all alleged human rights abuses… must be investigated and those responsible held to account.

Full article here

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Target China: A deeper look at the globalist blitzkrieg's final destination

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Far from the Founding Father's ideal representative republic, China has garnered a reputation as one of the most repressive regimes on earth. While some of this is well earned, much of it is due to the unsavory legacy left by Mao's "Great Leap Forward" which to this day is still being carefully and systematically dismantled. Another large factor at play is the entirely disingenuous and very much hypocritical campaign the Western corporate-financier oligarchy has waged against the 1.3 billion strong nation.

Foxconn, where your iPhone comes from. The nets are there 
to stem a suicide pandemic sweeping Foxconn's workforce, an issue
of little concern for the American consumer or the self- proclaimed
champions of human rights within the US government.

While lofty, poorly articulated ideals like "democracy" and "freedom" are used by the West as leverage to divide and weaken the nation, real affronts to human rights and freedom, such as China's "one-child policy" or the exploitation of labor are either ignored or wildly applauded by the West. In one New York Times op-ed by US Representative James Scheuer titled, "America, the U.N. and China's Family Planning," Scheuer states:

"China's approach to family planning may seem foreign to Western traditions, but that is natural considering that China's whole culture is vastly different from ours. The Chinese program relies on an incessant drumbeat of persuasion and peer pressure, which is undergirded by individuals' sense of responsibility to society and family, which supersedes any perception they may have of their own personal rights." 

In other words, Scheuer is justifying not only usurping human rights, but the article goes on to reveal, he is also defending the 36 million dollars the US funds the UN in assisting nations like China to enforce such policies. Scheuer, in the truly intellectually bankrupt tradition of Malthusians everywhere, would go on to state that overpopulation was causing disease and poverty in nations like Haiti and throughout Africa - willfully ignorant of the fact that education and technology are actually the missing ingredients.

Leveraging "Human Rights"

The hypocrisy doesn't end there. The corporate-financier run Western media has been recently beating their chests over the imprisonment of Nobel Laureate and "human rights activist" Liu Xiaobo, a proponent of ending China's strong central government and politically active military in favor of a weak, Western-style system run by corruptible, feckless, incompetent leadership that invites multinational corporations to entropically infest state institutions and seize control of the nation's people and resources. Liu Xiaobo's support goes beyond the media's scornful chastisement of China's government on his behalf, and includes "pro-bono" legal aid from the Council on Foreign Relations lined "Freedom Now" organization. Readers may remember "Freedom Now" from their extensive involvement in supporting the Syrian opposition leading the recent unrest against the Assad government.

Freedom Now is also providing legal services for Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer also imprisoned in China. Gao had written an open letter to the US Congress detailing human rights violations in China, and his family currently resides in the United States. Council on Foreign Relations minion Jerome Cohen, Canadian MP Irwin Cotler, and former Canadian MP David Kilgour are personally leading the campaigns for both Liu Ziaobo and Gao Zhisheng. All three, are also involved in meddling around the globe in similarly hypocritical gambits revolving around "human rights activists" who just so happen to be fighting governments the West would like to see changed.

While it may seem noble to champion for human rights, it is a matter of fact that men like Cohen, Cotler, and Kilgour, and the entire Freedom Now organization along with the CFR that populates its membership and the foundations that fund it, are amongst the greatest enemies of human rights and human freedom on earth. The Council on Foreign Relations has tirelessly repeated its goal of establishing a one world government, with members working ceaselessly to achieve it and their publications over the decades perpetually reflecting this ambition. This is a world government that is of, by, and for the corporate-financier oligarchy's interests, and their interests alone.

This gambit of leveraging the issue of human rights for geopolitical gain is clearly illustrated in another pertinent example, directly related to China's present predicament. Globalist lawyer and lobbyist Robert Amsterdam, of the Chatham House's Amsterdam & Peroff is currently cultivating two other clients as points of leverage.

From "Globalist Page: Robert Amsterdam:"

His [Amsterdam's] two most recent and perhaps most notorious cases involve one a Russian oligarch named Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and a Thai police colonel-turned-billionaire tycoonThaksin Shinawatra. Khodorkovsky is guilty and indeed sitting in a Siberian prison for embezzling billions. His Thai counterpart, Thaksin, also has two years coming to him for immense fraud. And while both are being defended by Amsterdam as "political victims" what is never mentioned, indeed buried deeply are the extra-legal, meddling affiliations both men have with the globocratic elite that undermine their political aspirations with megalithic, even treasonous conflicts of interest.

Accomplished researcher, William Engdahl, points out some very alarming connections and trends that served as the real basis for Khodorkovsky's current Siberian lodging. It seems that Khodorkovsky wasn't just embezzling money or involved in breathtaking displays of corruption, such was the nature of the times he came into power. It was rather his connections with the West, in particular Henry Kissinger and "Lord" Jacob Rothschild who were sitting on what Engdahl calls a George Soros Open Society-styled "Open Russian Foundation." 

Worth repeating indefinitely, is the role these "foundations" and the networks of meddlesome NGOs they maintain play as the next greatest threat to national sovereignty behind invading armies and the IMF's economic hitmen.

Using both his wealth and his Western organized NGO networks, Khodorkovsky set out on an ambitious political campaign to seize for himself the Russian presidency from which he would undoubtedly repay his foreign backers with the economic liberalization (read: sellout) of the Russian Federation. 

With uncanny exactitude, Thaksin Shinwatra attempted the same "soft-coup" in Thailand. He was a Carlyle Group adviser while holding office in then PM Chavalit's New Aspiration Party which oversaw the 1997 IMF's intrusion and controlled economic implosion of the Thai economy. He would later become PM himself in 2001 and through wealth procured through similarly fraudulent, though not unprecedented means, he began consolidating power, eliminating checks and balances, and preparing the liberalization of the Thai economy on behalf of his foreign backers. On the eve of the military coup that overthrew his government, he was literally standing in New York City giving a progress report to the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Since his ouster from power, he has been backed by fellow Carlyle man James Baker and his Baker Botts law firm, International Crisis Group's Kenneth Adelman and his Edelman Public Relations firm, and now Robert Amsterdam's Amsterdam & Peroff. His proxy political party maintains a "people's power" organization supported by several National Endowment for Democracy NGOs including "Prachatai," an "independent media organization" that coordinates the "people's power" propaganda efforts.

In both Khordovsky's and Thaksin's case we come back to Robert Amsterdam, who now concurrently meddles in both Russian and Thai affairs using these two overtly mired convicted criminals as leverage to push not only the legal cases for which he is responsible, but the continuation of his clients' political objectives of undermining Russia's and Thailand's establishments, which in turn represent the continuation of the "globocrats'" agenda. 

While Russia possesses the intelligence and military apparatuses to suppress significant internal unrest caused by Western backed NGOs and the continued and now lost cause of Khordovsky, the perceived "injustice" Robert Amsterdam accuses Russia of gives the West the moral high-ground to meddle in Russia's surrounding geography, notably color revolutions, NATO expansion, and political destabilization in Eastern Europe. 

Robert Amsterdam is also attempting to lend Thaksin Shinawatra and his organized mob the same credibility and moral high-ground ahead of yet another attempted overthrow of the Thai government this coming spring. While even Thaksin's mob leaders themselves have admitted on numerous occasions to having armed men involved in the bloodbath that ensued in 2010, Robert Amsterdam is now releasing a report that retroactively rewrites history and absolves them of their admissions. He also misses no opportunity to not only defend his "clients" (he also concurrently defends Thaksin's "red" mob) but calls on the Thai government to resign, as per the globocrat's aspirations of regime change and the subsequent economic liberalization under the re-installed Thaksin regime.

This then, is the same gambit being played out in China. Russia is being targeted as the other significant partner in the Shanghai Cooperative which is the focal point of the West's foreign ambitions, from which all other geopolitical policy is driven. Thailand of course constitutes part of China's so-called "String of Pearls," or one of many nations that reside in China's potential sphere of influence as it rises to power. Enticing nations like Thailand to remain aligned to the West has long since failed and a more aggressive and robust response has been formulated, namely color revolution leading to regime change. The West however, may just as well settle for perpetual destabilization to balk China's rise.

String of Pearls: Encircling China

The term "String of Pearls" is taken from the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute's report "String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China's Rising Power across the Asian Littoral." Throughout the report, China's efforts to secure its oil lifeline from the Middle East to its shores in the South China Sea are examined as are means to maintain American hegemony throughout the Indian and Pacific Ocean. The premise is that, should Western policy wonks and paper-pushers fail to entice China into participating in the "international system" as responsible stakeholders (fall in line,) an increasingly confrontational posture must be taken to contain the rising nation.

A map taken from SSI's report on China's "String of Pearls." The blue
arrow and the nations it passes represents China's strategic interests.
It also represents a region now mired in US-backed chaos.

Looking at events today, it appears that enticement has failed, and that the worst case scenarios discussed within the report have not only been put into play, but have thus far proven ineffective. Understanding this report and superimposing its implications upon a global map of today's conflicts, we see a nearly perfect match.

Middle East: Destabilization efforts and regime change in the Middle East headed by the US State Department aim at controlling and disrupting China's oil supply. We have seen how the transformation of the Middle East was meticulously planned and entirely coordinated by the West, despite claims that it was spontaneous. With the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt now on record having been supported and funded by the US State Department, and with the State Department now openly funding organizations like the BBC to "combat" Chinese censorship, the failed Chinese "Jasmine Revolution" appears to be more of a poorly veiled attack on China than an uprising of the people.

Though the "Jasmine Revolution" in China was a failure, the now more forceful reordering of the Arab world is setting the stage for the elimination of Iran, after which China and Russia will be further isolated, and further "encircled."

Pakistan: In building China's presence throughout Asia, cooperation with emerging giants like India and the populous Pakistan is in its best interest. So is stability. In order to shorten the trip oil must take to reach China, a transit corridor through Pakistan has been devised and a naval base constructed in Gwadar in Pakistan's southwest Baluchistan province.

China's holdings in Baluchistan have been under constant threat by both internal meddling by the US in Pakistan itself and on the borders of Baluchistan as part of the 10 year military occupation of Afghanistan, particularly the Helmand and Kandahar provinces which border Baluchistan. The globalist "National Interest" magazine published a February 2011 article titled "Free Baluchistan" which openly called for carving Baluchistan out of Pakistan:

"Most important, it [the United States] should aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression. Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces." 

Such irresponsible statements coming from the real authors of US foreign policy should be taken as a serious threat by both the Pakistani and Chinese governments. It should be no surprise that these "Baluch insurgents" are being employed across the border in Iran as well.

The same author, Selig Harrison of the foundation-funded Center for International Policy, elaborated further on Pakistani-Chinese relations in a recent March 2011 article titled "The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis." In it is described the joint development of Pakistan's northern Gilgit-Baltistan region and its forming of a gateway into Chinese territory. While Harrison is able to enumerate an impressive list of benefits both nations are reaping from this relationship, all he is able to offer as a possible US response is the reiteration of starting a full-blown insurrection within Baluchistan:

"To counter what China is doing in Pakistan, the United States should play hardball by supporting the movement for an independent Baluchistan along the Arabian Sea and working with Baluch insurgents to oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar. Beijing wants its inroads into Gilgit and Baltistan to be the first step on its way to an Arabian Sea outlet at Gwadar." 

In reading the piece, we see another example of leveraging human rights, with Harrison shamelessly able to go from openly admitting to using the Baluch insurgents in a bid to expel the Chinese, to citing Amnesty International and humanitarian concerns as a proposed narrative for justifying US involvement. This is a familiar globalist ploy, and one that is playing out in Libya under UNSC r.1973.

Southeast Asia: China has been developing infrastructure throughout Southeast Asia as well in a bid to create multiple avenues to and from its territory. In Myanmar (Burma) they are developing a deep sea port, an oil pipeline and a highway network that runs from the Bay of Bengal to the Myanmar-China border in the north. The Chinese in 2008 completed a large highway project through the mountainous terrain of Laos, connecting Kunming, China with northeast Thailand. China, Laos, and Thailand are now developing plans to create a high speed rail link between the 3 nations which would ultimately connect China to Singapore.

The West in response to China's growing influence in the region has deferred to the "String of Pearls" strategy and is attempting to contain China by fostering instability in both Myanmar and Thailand. This attempts to install servile, pro-Western regimes and by doing so, the globalists would be able to sever China's newly proposed links and force it to continue relying on the Malacca Strait.

In Myanmar, another Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been leading the opposition and has garnered support from every globalist cadre, think-tank, and organization imaginable. She was a finalist in the Chatham House Prize 2011, and not surprisingly a benefactor of Freedom Now's services as well. Aung San Suu herself, was born into an immensely wealthy and politically well connected family. She studied abroad, worked for the UN in New York City, and received a Ph.D from the University of London before returning to Myanmar to lead the "pro-democracy" movement. Whatever her convictions may really be, the West has fully hijacked her movement as a means of removing the current military junta and replacing it with one more conducive to their corporate agenda, which most assuredly has nothing to do with "democracy for the people."

Knowingly or unknowingly serving the globalist agenda since
1972, Aung San Suu Kyi now leads the Western- backed opposition
bidding to oust Myanmar's ruling regime.

In 2007 there was the so-called "Saffron Revolution," made a spectacle by the corporate-owned media, but gained little ground. Despite the rhetoric, the artificial aura of credibility and heroism built-up around yet another Nobel Peace Prize wearing crowbar trying to pry out another obstacle of globalization, China's heavily invested presence inside Myanmar makes the prospect of regime change highly unlikely.

In Thailand the globalist tool of choice is Thaksin Shinwatra and his "red shirt" color revolution. He and his Western backers have attempted twice, in 2009 and 2010 to overthrow the Thai government with increasingly violent street mobs. This year, a combination of mob leaders being released from prison, the announcement of upcoming elections, and a "convenient" border skirmish with neighboring Cambodia, has taken the wind from the "red" mobs' sails. Likely wanting to ride the wave of destabilization in the Arab world, they now lack both credibility and any conceivable justification to come out into the streets.

"The giant wave of democracy, from Tunisia to Thailand" says 
the globalist-backed red shirt propaganda. Thaksin's "red shirts"
hoped to ride that wave back into political power. (photo: 2bankok.com)

Thailand has also been deepening its ties with China and distancing itself from the West. Repeated rows between the US and the Thai government over intellectual property rights along with the proposal of Tobin taxes aimed squarely at the unraveling international bankers residing in London and on Wall Street all but ensures this chasm widens further.

To a lesser extent, the US has been competing with China in countries like Cambodia, where free-market payoffs and military aid is offered by America while mega-infrastructure projects like rail and dams are on offer from China. Cambodian strongman Hun Sen must be looking at the Middle East with the realization that he is an endangered species and that no amount of appeasement will ultimately save him from globalization. And appease the globalists he has. Nearly 50% of Cambodia's landmass has been sold to foreign investors and at a great humanitarian cost. While the Western media has been wringing its hands over Libya and Syria, it has barely mentioned at all the misdeeds of Cambodia's Hun Sen against his own people. With Hun Sen recently leaning toward China, this corporate media self-censorship may not last long.

Dr. Webster Tarpley breaks down the history and reality surrounding
the personality cult of the "Dali Lama." The Tibetan movement has 
received significant US aid, including clandestine CIA backing over the years.

In several instances, these efforts to destabilize China's peripheries cross over into China itself. Tibet has long been a point of leverage against Beijing, combining nearly ever trick in the globalists' book from the Nobel Laureate Dali Lama complete with his own Hollywood-made personality cult, to human rights cases, to arming and backing sedition and unrest throughout the region.

Conclusion

Of course, by offering China a commanding role in the emerging "international system" it is hoped that given enough coercive pressure it will acquiesce in becoming a "responsible stakeholder." As we see on a smaller scale in Libya, pressure, both militarily and economically, aims at causing divides within any given regime in hopes that enough support can be extorted to effect the globalists' desired changes. Reports like the Brookings Institute's "The Advantages of an Assertive China: Responding to Beijing's Abrasive Diplomacy" says as much in regards to prodding and leading China along.

Disrupting China's oil supply, encircling them with a wave of destabilization along with stoking domestic tension internally, all aims at frustrating their ambitions as a sovereign nation while creating a viable combine of defectors solely interested in their self-preservation. This combine can then effectively steer China toward servile obedience within the globalists' unipolar "international system." It is a delicate balance of both pressure and enticement, constantly refined and adjusted, simultaneously applied and systematically monitored.

As more pressure is overtly applied on China, via the brazen "Jasmine Revolution" and increasingly aggressive destabilization efforts around China's borders and throughout the Arab world where it receives the majority of its oil imports, it appears that the regime has weighed the empty promises and paper empire of the globalists against the 1.3 billion people of China who demand pragmatic, not political solutions to their immediate problems. Most certainly, these 1.3 billion people pose a more immediate threat to the survival of the Chinese ruling regime.

Meeting these demands is done via industry, education, technology, and tangible progress. Policies, including the "one child policy" glowingly appraised by US Representative Scheuer, is an invasive, unpopular measure that is unsustainable and only partially addresses concerns like pollution and poverty. It is also a policy the Chinese government is in the process of rolling back.

As the globalists build financial networks of fiat paper, the Chinese are building networks of high-speed rail throughout their nation and beyond their borders. They are building real, tangible infrastructure from neighboring Laos to the continent of Africa. What possible incentive besides the threat of chaos and upheaval can the West offer China and its "String of Pearls" that solves both the immediate problem of self-preservation of regimes and the multitude of problems of the people under these regimes?

The West's ineptitude is not wholly unprecedented in history. Many empires have been buried by this sort of degenerate, runaway greed exhibited by the globalist corporate-financier oligarchies - often times replaced by a more pragmatic, constructive power like China. However, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a certain "strategy of tension" is at play, where a purposefully oafish and aggressive West drives and unifies the otherwise fiercely independent nations of Asia and the Shanghai Cooperative together, only to be folded into the global government at a later time.

Particularly in Southeast Asia, much of China's development is being coordinated by the suspiciously globalist "ASEAN" organization. Not only does ASEAN closely resemble other institutes of the West's unipolar model of globalization, but it interfaces with it seamlessly, with many of its greatest proponents being unabashed members of the Western globalist elite.

While rail-links, highways, and infrastructure that mutually benefit participating nations are not necessarily a bad thing, some of the free-trade agreements proposed and pushed through by China are nearly as one-sided and damaging as any US FTA. Foreign ownership laws may not have been changed by these Chinese FTA's, but ASEAN seeks to collectively lower such barriers by 2015.

China should not be looked to as a hero to rescue nations from the creep of the globalist corporate-financier oligarchs. While China may really be battling these oligarchs today, uniting under an analogous model of world government vis-a-vis the Washington consensus only makes it that much easier for the globalists to absorb a larger prize should China fail, or should the Chinese have already agreed to "responsible stakeholding" behind closed doors.

China's real affronts to humanity must be continuously exposed and cited as failures, and efforts to move away from grotesque and invasive policies like population control and social engineering should be encouraged and cited as real progress. So too should China's current stance of across-the-board non-interference within the borders of other nations. Similarly, its current dedication to solving problems with technical, pragmatic solutions involving technology, education, and expanding superior infrastructure should also be encouraged and cited as a viable model of progress.

Ultimately, whatever the end game may be, personal and local independence along with a paradigm shift away from centralized governance and corporate domination can ensure globalism by any name does not prevail. We must commit ourselves to an effort to make real freedom, real progress, and national sovereignty the global consensus, not the morally bankrupt, interdependent, antiquated, and degenerate policies of world governance - regardless of who it supposedly falls under, the West or Asia.

Tony Cartalucci's articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at 
Land Destroyer Report.

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Docs Reveal TSA Plan To Body-Scan Pedestrians, Train Passengers

Alan Greenberg
Forbes

Giving Transportation Security Administration agents a peek under your clothes may soon be a practice that goes well beyond airport checkpoints. Newly uncovered documents show that as early as 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning pilot programs to deploy mobile scanning units that can be set up at public events and in train stations, along with mobile x-ray vans capable of scanning pedestrians on city streets.

The non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Wednesday published documents it obtained from the Department of Homeland Security showing that from 2006 to 2008 the agency planned a study of of new anti-terrorism technologies that EPIC believes raise serious privacy concerns. The projects range from what the DHS describes as “a walk through x-ray screening system that could be deployed at entrances to special events or other points of interest” to “covert inspection of moving subjects” employing the same backscatter imaging technology currently used in American airports.
The 173-page collection of contracts and reports, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request, includes contracts with Siemens Corporations, Northeastern University, and Rapiscan Systems. The study was expected to cost more than $3.5 million.

One project allocated to Northeastern University and Siemens would mount backscatter x-ray scanners and video cameras on roving vans, along with other cameras on buildings and utility poles, to monitor groups of pedestrians and assess what they carried. In another program, the researchers were asked to develop a system of long range x-ray scanning to determine what metal objects an individual might have on his or her body at distances up to thirty feet.

“This would allow them to take these technologies out of the airport and into other contexts like public streets, special events and ground transit,” says Ginger McCall, an attorney with EPIC. “It’s a clear violation of the fourth amendment that’s very invasive, not necessarily effective, and poses all the same radiation risks as the airport scans.”

Read Full Article
Epic Body Scan Foia Docs Feb 2011[11]
RELATED ARTICLE:
Judge Napolitano on FOX Discussing TSA Abuse and Plans for Genetic Scanners

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Cyber Nationalists or Critical Netizens?

Yifan Xu reports for Policy Innovations on a survey of Chinese Internet users.

Is the Internet spreading and intensifying nationalism among the Chinese public? A nationwide opinion survey conducted in 2008 by the Research Center of Contemporary China sheds some light on the issue. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with nationalistic statements such as "the world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Chinese," and nationalist policies such as "China should limit the import of foreign products in order to protect its national economy."

The results show that Chinese netizens with higher education and income levels are less likely to be nationalistic and are less supportive of protectionist policies. In particular, for the statement "the world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Chinese," using the Internet decreases the probability of agreement by 10.7 percent; expressing oneself online reduces the probability of agreement by 10.3 percent; and using government websites reduces the probability of agreement by 17.6 percent.

This suggests that the old cyber-libertarian dream of the Internet serving as a catalyst for political reform may still have some elements of truth. At least the Chinese Communist Party must think so, given its extensive censorship of the Internet.

When Google withdrew its business from China in early 2010, Chinese netizens made a few sarcastic comments comparing the CCP's Internet censorship with the "closing door" policy of the Qing Dynasty—just like the Qing governors struggled to maintain the great Chinese Empire, the CCP is trying to create a "great Chinese Intranet." The CCP's logic is simple: the Internet makes possible negative information and news about the Party, which was previously unavailable from the traditional mass media.

In recent years, Chinese political dissidents have been actively using the Internet to reach out to ordinary people as well as foreign populations. For instance, while human rights activist Hu Jia was under house arrest, he remained active via emails and blogs, and posted a series of video diaries on YouTube. The Internet is in fact thick with opinions from nationalists and anti-nationalists alike.

The most interesting survey finding is that people who have used the Internet to access a government website—to get information, make a comment, or lodge a complaint—are even less likely to be nationalistic. This could be a spillover effect from dissatisfaction with the government.

The August 2010 Zhouqu landslide provides an interesting contrast. Generally speaking, disastrous events cause a nationalistic surge. In the 2008 survey, following the Wenchuan earthquake, respondents were more likely to agree with nationalistic statement. Yet the Zhouqu landslide has led to wide criticism of the government online. Netizens accused the government of working harder to promote a positive image of itself than to mount an effective rescue effort.

As New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof observed in 2002, nationalism in China is a double-edged sword: "it has potential not just for conferring legitimacy on the government but also for taking it away." Armed with personal computers, critical netizens are able to quickly spread anti-nationalist discourse and protests in a decentralized fashion. Should that happen in China, the cyber-libertarian dream may materialize.

[PHOTO CREDIT: March oh! (CC).]

Thwarted Immigration Delegitimizes the Democratic Project

While the George W. Bush era of democracy promotion may be behind us—"sit tight, we'll bring the democracy to you"—global immigration pressure will mount this century as population grows and global inequality increases. People migrate and apply for asylum as much because they are unfree as because they are less free, because they are poor and poorer. Slavoj Zizek captures this friction between immigration, inequality, and globalization in his 2008 book Violence:

A couple of years ago, an ominous decision of the European Union passed almost unnoticed: the plan to establish an all-European border police force to secure the isolation of Union territory and thus to prevent the influx of immigrants. This is the truth of globalisation: the construction of new walls safeguarding prosperous Europe from the immigrant flood. One is tempted to resuscitate here the old Marxist "humanist" opposition of "relations between things" and "relations between persons": in the much-celebrated free circulation opened up by global capitalism, it is "things" (commodities) which freely circulate, while the circulation of "persons" is more and more controlled. We are not dealing now with "globalisation" as an unfinished project but with a true "dialectics of globalisation": the segregation of the people is the reality of economic globalisation. This new racism of the developed is in a way much more brutal than the previous ones: its implicit legitimisation is neither naturalist (the "natural" superiority of the developed West) nor any longer culturalist (we in the West also want to preserve our cultural identity), but unabashed economic egotism. The fundamental divide is one between those included in the sphere of (relative) economic prosperity and those excluded from it.

...

When, at the beginning of October 2005, the Spanish police dealt with the problem of how to stop the influx of desperate African immigrants who tried to penetrate the small Spanish territory of Melilla, on the Rif coast of Africa, they displayed plans to build a wall between the Spanish enclave and Morocco. The images presented—a complex structure replete with electronic equipment—bore an uncanny resemblance to the Berlin Wall, only with the opposite function. This wall was destined to prevent people from coming, not getting out. The cruel irony of the situation is that it is the government of Jose Zapatero, at this moment leader of arguably the most anti-racist and tolerant administration in Europe, that is forced to adopt these measure of segregation. This is a clear sign of the limit of the multiculturalist "tolerant" approach, which preaches open borders and acceptance of others. If one were to open the borders, the first to rebel would be the local working classes. It is thus becoming clear that the solution is not to "tear down the walls and let them all in," the easy empty demand of soft-hearted liberal "radicals." The only true solution is to tear down the true wall, not the Immigration Department one, but the socio-economic one: to change society so that people will no longer desperately try to escape their own world.

As a corollary to Zizek's point, my fear is that practical patches to immigration law, such as merit-based points systems—"give us your doctors, your entreprenuers"—will in their own unique way erode the motive force of the democratic project: liberty, liberation, emancipation. The risk is that human rights will end up looking more like human resources, with the state as just another service provider among the array of corporate entities that supply our needs—"access to work" in this case. So, the irony is that if developed countries cannot figure out how to be less dictatorial internationally, they will soon find themselves accelerating down the slippery slope of fascism domestically.

The Arizona immigration law is a harbinger of this trend, though it may also galvanize the immigrant rights community, as Mark Engler argues in Dissent. Certainly the cultural politics of immigration become more caustic in periods of economic stress. The musician M.I.A. released a (very graphic and violent) video this week for her song "Born Free." In it an unambiguously American SWAT force descends like la migra to apprehend people in an apartment complex. The captives are then made to run across the desert in a scene reminiscent of Burmese "atrocity demining"—all because they were born... wrong.

PHOTO CREDIT: Bloodied clothes on the barbed wire border fence between Melilla (Spain) and Morocco. By fronterasur (CC).