Defend the RNC 8

Read this and please, please sign the petition:

Eight RNC Protesters Accused of 'Furthering Terrorism' Thanks To Statute
by Matt Snyders
[…] The Saturday before the Republican National Convention, [Eryn] Trimmer was sleeping upstairs in his two-story home in Minneapolis's Powderhorn neighborhood when he was awakened by a clatter. Within seconds, armed officers burst through his bedroom, guns drawn, and arrested Trimmer, his live-in girlfriend Monica Bicking, and their roommate Garrett Fitzgerald.
Five more RNC protesters would be rounded up during that weekend in advance of the RNC. Dubbed the "RNC 8," the defendants-seven of whom were members of anarchist group the RNC Welcoming Committee-stand accused of "conspiring to riot," a second-degree felony. According to a police affidavit, the eight acted as ringleaders in a plot to "kidnap delegates" and "sabotage the Xcel Center."
Authorities leveled the charges based on evidence provided by paid informants and undercover agents who infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee in the months leading up to the convention ("Moles Wanted," 5/21/08). "We assumed the group was under surveillance and that that could include informants," Trimmer says. "It was an open group and we weren't organizing anything illegal, so we didn't want to kick anybody out."
But the RNC 8 face more than the standard felony charges. For the first time, authorities are wielding an obscure state anti-terrorism statute passed in the nervous aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Second-degree "conspiracy to commit riot" ordinarily carries a maximum two-and-a-half-year prison sentence, but because the alleged crime was intended to "further terrorism," the sentence can be doubled to a maximum of five years.
"The statute's definition of 'terrorism' appears to be modeled after a statute in the Patriot Act," says attorney Bruce Nestor, who is defending one of the accused conspirators. "But whereas the Patriot Act statute requires an act of violence against people, the language here extends the definition to include 'violence to property.'"
[…] The most controversial aspect of the statute is its characterization of terrorism, which includes any felony that "significantly disrupts or interferes with the lawful exercise, operation, or conduct of government, lawful commerce, or the right of lawful assembly." Attorney Larry Leventhal, who is representing accused RNC 8 conspirator Max Specktor, says the language is overly broad.
"By that rationale, the definition of terrorism could be extended to anything," Leventhal argues. "If they don't like what you and I are saying to each other over a phone they're tapping, they can say that it's 'terroristic.'"
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher says that the RNC 8 may not look like the terrorists who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center, but their actions justify the stiffer penalties. Fletcher points to the fact that a 50-pound sandbag was hurled from a freeway overpass onto a busload of delegates as proof.
[…] The RNC 8 deny having any operational involvement in the sandbag incident, but admit that some members may have planned acts of "civil disobedience," such as blockading the Xcel Center.
At a probable cause hearing Monday, attorneys for the RNC 8 successfully argued for an extension to gather further evidence. But even if the defendants are convicted, it's doubtful any of them will serve the five years in prison called for by the new law.
[…] That comes as little consolation to Luce Guillen-Givens, one of the eight accused. Having been involved with various immigrant-rights and antiwar groups since the age of 15, Guillen-Givens, now 24, worries what will happen to the next person accused of "furthering terrorism."
"Historically, these crackdowns serve the purpose of disrupting and undermining movements of resistance," she says. "First, you try conspiracy charges out on the fringes and, if it works there, you move incrementally in."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/12-0

Defend The RNC8! Dismiss the Charges!
Target: Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/defendthernc8

While trying to find details on the "sandbag drop," (which so far has resulted in zero usable hits) I came across this:

RNC Activist Dave Mahoney Facing New Charges
Submitted by haloka on Thu, 10/16/2008

The RNC 8 aren't the only activists facing trumped up terrorism charges in the wake of the RNC. Dave Mahoney, one of the many who came to the Twin Cities to join thousands of local residents protesting the convention, is now facing new charges and the possibility of several years in prison.
According to his support site, Dave was arrested by FBI agents while bicycling to a grocery store on September 4th. After being accused of allegedly throwing a sandbag off a bridge, the Star Tribune reported on October 3 on that an assault charge against Dave had been dropped. But in a letter from Dave dated October 10 (below), he says that Ramsey County prosecutors plan to charge him with two counts of assault in the second degree and two charges of terroristic threats. His next court date is November 13 in St. Paul.
"The prosecutors have created a new official complaint. I have not seen this complaint so I can only repeat what my Lawyer told me.
Now I am facing two charges of assault to the second degree and two charges of terroristic threats. I don't know the new maximum punishment, but part of me doesn't really want to know. This change is based on two Republican delegate witnesses saying they were 'scared' and allegations of me aiding a person by pointing my finger. I wish I could go into more detail about how ridiculous this is.
I feel like I have personally dealt with enough assault and terroristic threats from the police and 'justice system' to last me a lifetime. This is abuse, in jail it was physical, and now its psychological.
My court date has changed to November 13th. At this date the prosecutors will present their appeal and new complaint.
I dunno what to say right now..."
Dave

Dave Mahoney's support site, with info for donating, is http://helpdavemahoney.blogspot.com/

Rove Confronted by Claremont Citizens

Reading these reports makes it clear the people of Clairmont were willing to take risks to present Mr. Rove with the legacy of his Bush years. May he realize the damage he's done and do something useful. Bravo, citizens!

Rove speech greeted with protests, bomb threat, claims of pepper spray

Wes Woods II, Staff Writer

Article Created: 09/16/2008 12:32:27 AM PDT

CLAREMONT - Karl Rove, the former Deputy Chief of Staff and senior advisor to President George W. Bush, discussed presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama and gave his take on the legacy of the current president.

But hundreds of protesters greeted Rove before, during and after his speech.

When Rove tried to leave the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, at least two people and possibly a third claimed they were pepper sprayed while campus officials said they were not.

A bomb threat was also determined to be unfounded, campus officials added.

Rove's speech took place from 6:45 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday inside the Claremont McKenna College Athenaeum at 385 8th St.

One of the most important resources is time," Rove said about the 2008 presidential election.

Rove said Obama had not seized the narrowing election days to "advance his case."

For instance, Obama linked the country's economic problems to Bush and McCain instead of showing "he's up to the job" with a specific proposal.

Rove said he felt Bush was a "successful" president but they had "done a lousy job of explaining" why he was.

Rove listed the million dollar AIDS relief fund for Africa, the accountability of the No Child Left Behind performance program, large amounts of money invested in alternative energy and privatizing social security.

After the speech, Todd Logan, 21, of Pomona College, said he saw two people get hit by pepper spray when Rove was led out by security while other students reported three.

Some students said they were hit by the vehicle Rove was drove off campus in but officials denied their claims.

Henry Watkins, consultant for Claremont McKenna College, said no students were hit with pepper spray or hit by a vehicle.

A bomb was reported at 7:31 p.m. inside of nearby Collins dining hall but was later found to not be true, Watkins said.

http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_10471652

You can go to LA IndyMedia’s coverage [link below] for all the photos, but here’s a couple along with excerpts:

Karl Rove detained for crimes against humanity in Claremont
by Rockero Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2008 at 3:10 AM
rockero420@yahoo.com

16 September 2008
CLAREMONT - Over 300 justice activists detained Republican mastermind Karl Rove for over an hour yesterday in Claremont, demanding he be brought to justice for crimes against humanity, democracy, and general moral sensibility. Despite fervent efforts, they were unsuccessful in executing a citizen's arrest.

[...] The drums were beating and the chants were flowing. Someone or a group of someones had spiked the fountain outside the Claremont McKenna College's venerable Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum so that the waters ran as red as the blood that flows in the streets of Iraq. Participants, some of them masked, carried signs reading "Karl Rove I Want You [with a picture of Uncle Sam] Tried for War Crimes," "KKKarl Rove

[...] One of the most beautiful actions of the night was a song, inspired by Bush's reference to Rove as the "architect" of his 2004 "re-election"¹ springing seemingly spontaneously from the crowd:
"Architect of terror
architect of hate
throw the man in jail
lock his ass away"
[...] We realized our only chance for action was at Rove's egress, so we decided to cover every exit, ostensibly to issue a citizen's arrest. A large crowd gathered in front of a limo parked in back of the Athenaeum just beside the rear exit. A small group kept its eyes on a small side entrance guarded by two nervous security guards. The largest remained outside the north entrance, although for some reason, most of us remained within the confines of our partial plastic-chain enclosure of a "free speech zone." There we used a combination of approaches, from reaching out to heckling, on the shameless fascists exiting the event. These tie-choked, starched-collar, spiked hair white fraternity boys foamed at the mouth to see such an energetic group daring to peacably assemble and demand redress of greivances. Perhaps they felt they were protecting their rich parents and Claremont's conservative elite when they yelled at us, calling us "hippies" Most of the demonstrators yelled "Arrest Karl Rove!," but some near the front had more interesting messages for the [... error in original text]
Then, a large group mobilized toward the south entrance of the building. It seemed that they had been attracted by a police mobilization and the fact that cars had pulled up at a small roundabout there. Lines formed, and police brought out their riot gear. I saw them pull out a large, red-colored weapon. Some of the protestors said it was used for pepper spray. A confrontation seemed imminent. I saw one cop pushing one protestor away from a car. But nothing really happened.
At various times, organizers requested that people cover one exit or another when it appeared (based on cop activity) that Rove may be leaving. How do we know, I wondered, that the cops aren't going to take advantage of this to smuggle this guy out?
Which is what happened. A rumor circulated that Rove had made to another (yet somehow connected) building and was attempting to escape from a distant side door. Nonetheless, people went running. The paper today claimed that a bomb threat caused the shift in manpower that distracted a number of protesters. But we knew the real reason the cops claimed there was a bomb.
People who refused to be tricked stuck to where they knew Rove was. There, some of them were maced, which allowed Rove's driver to exit, plowing through the few remaining activists without regard for their safety in the midst of the confusion.[...]
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2008/09/220462.php

International Peace Day Candle Action, 9/21

Candle for Tibet on
International Peace Day

Sunday, 21 September 2008

We will light candles and pray for peace and freedom to the people of Tibet.
We will do it at home, with friends or combined with other peace activities we plan for Peace Day.
PLEASE INVITE ALL YOUR FRIENDS

http://candle4tibet.ning.com/

The People's Heroes Demand The Right to Protest

When people ask why I’m so passionate about Tibet, I feel confused by the question. I don’t understand why the Tibetan struggle isn’t apparent to all liberty loving people. Their struggle is exactly the same as the desire for Sicilians to remain Sicilian in nature and practice. Sicilians are (so far) lucky to not be persecuted for practicing cultural activities or demeaned (at least in public and with government support) for cuisine, clothes, live styles, etc. Unfortunately for their cousins the Roma, Northern League fascists have signaled them out as scapegoats for all that’s wrong with Italy today. But be sure that the heat can come down on any other group that does not see exactly the same world as il imperatore Napolesconi. But in Tibet today people are afraid to display their ethnic pride. It is also not the case for the 56 “recognized” ethnic minorities that make up part of the Han dynasty, such as the Zhuang, Uyghurs, Mongols, Taiwanese, etc.
But I digress…
Two women in China are sentenced to one year at a labor camp because they asked, A S K E D permission to publicly protest the loss of their homes due to the Olympics! Are you shocked? Wait, there’s more … THEY’RE IN THEIR SEVENTIES AND ONE IS LEGALLY BLIND! Tell me more about how fabulous China is, please!
Chinese Woman, 79 with Disabilities, Sentenced to Labor Camp
As we draw nearer to the close of the Summer Olympics and the wall-to-wall coverage of the various events, stories of the toll these games have taken on the Chinese people continue to leak out, despite incredible efforts by the government of that nation to hide the reality of life in China. Now we read of two women in their late 70's and how they have been sentenced to a year in a labor camp as part of what the chinese government refers to as a re-education program. While you pause and wonder what threat two little old ladies could pose to China, know also that one of them is blind and has other disabilities.
Perhaps you caught the NBC Nightly News Report earlier this week that examined the process that China established through which citizens could petition for the right to protest at three specially appointed locations during the Olympics. It turns out that of 77 requests filed by citizens that none of them were granted. [my bold] Further, it appears that some who have made these requests have been arrested or, as in this case, sentenced to re-education programs which appear to be nothing more than a quick and convenient way to punish people without allowing the individuals any rights or chance to defend themselves.
Wu Dianyuan, 79, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77, [right on, sisters!] were notified Sunday that they were to serve a yearlong term of re-education through labour, said Wang’s son, Li Xuehui. Officials did not specify a reason and still had not acted on the order, he said.
Instead, the pair were under the observation of a neighbourhood watch group and it was unclear if they would be sent to prison, he said.
The order followed the pair’s repeated attempts to apply for permission to protest their forced eviction from their homes. China agreed to allow demonstrations in three designated areas during the games, which end Sunday. So far, there have been no protests in any of the official areas.
The re-education system, in place since 1957, allows police to sidestep the need for a criminal trial or a formal charge and send people to prison for up to four years to perform penal labour.
Beijing has pointed to the special zones — public parks far away from Olympics venues — to defend its promise to improve human rights in China that was crucial to its bid to host the games.
Obviously China never had intentions of allowing citizens or foreigners for that matter any right to voice or exhibit opposition to their way of rule, especially during the Olympic games. Unfortunately, while the world is being treated to one of the finest exhibitions of sport and athletics ever to have taken place at the summer games, many of the people of China have been moved from their homes, lost their jobs and been displaced so that we don't see their reality.
I don't expect that NBC will revisit this story and report to the average American that people wanted to protest but have been sentenced to hard labor and prison for daring to consider the possibility. The average person will only remember Michael Phelps and is incredible gold metal performances. However, at least for the next year and perhaps longer, a blind chinese woman will pay for wishing for the right to express her views while the world moves on to other issues.

http://www.disabilitynation.net/blog/chinese-woman-79-disabilities-sentenced-labor-camp

NY Times Acknowledges Freedom is Squelched in China

Now you might think a blog called DisabilityNation would be biased toward two old ladies who are blind and need a cane. So ok, for a less, er, subjective report, the New York Times makes this story sound almost cute and normal. Note the lack of the words "freedom, liberty, dissent." Note the presence of the words "demonstrate, protest, disturbing public order". Maybe the NY Times doesn't see things so differently?
Too Old and Frail to Re-educate? Not in China
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: August 20, 2008
BEIJING — In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote.
The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, [are you listening, Lower East Side?] is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.
But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying [my bold] to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
They became the most recent examples of people punished for submitting applications to protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, [my bold] [yikes!] at least for the duration of the Games, squelching already diminished hopes that the influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games would push China’s leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression.
“Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?” asked Li Xuehui, Ms. Wu’s son, who said the police told the two women that their sentence might remain in suspension if they stayed at home and stopped asking for permission to protest.
“I feel very sad and angry because we’re only asking for the basic right of living and it’s been six years, but nobody will do anything to help,” Mr. Li said.
[...] When the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Beijing in 2001, ignoring critics who said China should not be rewarded for repression, its president, Jacques Rogge, offered assurances that the Games would invariably spur China toward greater openness.
But prospects dimmed even before the opening ceremony, when overseas journalists arrived to discover that China’s promise to provide uncensored Internet access [my bold] was riddled with caveats. The ensuing uproar did persuade the government to unblock some politically sensitive Web sites, but many others, including those that discuss Tibet and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, remain inaccessible at the Olympic press center.
[...] “In order to ensure smooth traffic flow, a nice environment and good social order, we will invite these participants to hold their demonstrations in designated places,” Liu Shaowu, the security director for Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee, said at a news conference. He described the creation of three so-called protest zones and suggested that a simple application process would provide Chinese citizens an avenue for free expression, a right that has long been enshrined in China’s Constitution but in reality is rarely granted.
But with four days left before the closing ceremony, the authorities acknowledge that they have yet to allow a single protest. They claim that most of the people who filed applications had their grievances addressed, obviating the need for a public expression of discontent.
Chinese activists say they are not surprised that the promise proved illusory. Li Fangping, a lawyer who has been arrested and beaten for his dogged representation of rights advocates, said there was no way the government would allow protesters to expose some of China’s most vexing problems, among them systemic corruption, environmental degradation and the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of residents for projects related to the Olympics.
“For Chinese petitioners, if their protest applications were approved, it would lead to a chain reaction of others seeking to voice their problems as well,” Mr. Li said.
During the past two decades, China has embraced a market economy [my bold] and shed some of the more onerous restrictions that dictated where people could live, whom they could marry and whether they could leave the country. But with political dissent and religious freedom, the government has been unrelenting.
[...] In recent months, the pressure has only intensified: scores of rights lawyers and political dissenters have been detained, and even the armies of migrant workers who built the Olympic stadiums have been encouraged to leave town, lest their disheveled appearances detract from the image of a clean, modern nation. [my bold] [oh, please, I can’t S T A N D it!]
“When you have guests coming over for dinner, you clean up the house and tell the children not to argue,” Mr. Bell said.
While the demands of Ms. Wu, 79, and Ms. Wang, 77, the protest applicants, might be seen as harmless, they threatened to expose the systemic problems that bedevil the lives of millions of Chinese. Like many disenchanted citizens, the two women, former neighbors, were seeking to draw attention to a government-backed real estate deal that promised to give them apartments in the new development that replaced their homes not far from Tiananmen Square. Six years later, [9/11 First Responder Alert!] they are living in ramshackle apartments on the outskirts of the city, and their demands for compensation have gone unanswered.
On Monday, when they returned to the police station to follow up on their protest applications, the women were told they had been sentenced to one year at a labor camp for “disturbing public order.” For the moment, the women have been allowed to return to their homes, but they have been warned that they could be sent to a detention center at any moment, relatives said.
[...] At a news conference on Wednesday, Wang Wei, the vice president of Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee, was asked about the lack of protests. He said it showed the system was working. “I’m glad to hear that over 70 protest issues have been solved through consultation, dialogue,” he said. “This is a part of Chinese culture.”
But human rights advocates say that instead of pointing the way toward a more open society, the Olympics have put China’s political controls on display.
“Given this moment when the international spotlight is shining on China, when so much of the international media are in Beijing, it’s unfathomable why the authorities are intensifying social control,” said Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China. “The truth is they’re sending a clear and disturbing message, one they’re not even trying to hide, which is we’re not even interested in hearing dissenting voices.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21protest.html?ex=1219896000&en=bbbd73a1742fcf00&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Bao Tong: A Working Class Hero

While George W. Bush and his crew eat, drink and make merry on the backs of our labor and the sweat of dedicated atheletics, it's time to recognize a Chinese hero. Bao Tong's legacy will grow stronger as we relay his story. Learn more from an April interview on RFA:

Ex-Official Slams Olympics
2008-08-06
A former top Communist Party official has slammed Beijing's hosting of the Olympic Games as being built on the back of corruption and human rights abuses. "In China, we produce miscarriages of justice and trumped-up charges like a high-intensity industrial zone," writes Bao Tong, who is under house arrest at his Beijing home.
Bao Tong at his Beijing home, April 2008.
Bao Tong, former top Communist Party aide to the ousted late Chinese premier, Zhao Ziyang, has been under house arrest at his Beijing home for nearly two decades after his boss's fall from power during the 1989 pro-democracy movement. Following are edited extracts from a three-part series of his essays about the Olympic Games in Beijing, broadcast on RFA's Mandarin service beginning Aug. 4:
It is very naive to take the number of gold medals won as an indicator of the rise of China. That sort of patriotism...has nothing to do with the Olympic spirit...There are subtle differences between China and other countries when it comes to the training and selection of athletes. Other countries use athletics as a way of training the body. China uses athletics to snatch prizes.
China has sponsored a top-down professionalized system, a totally segregated approach to athletic training. Non-Chinese may not understand the term "away from production." It has its roots in the Chinese Communist Party's experience of the 1927-37 Chinese civil war, when peasants who relied on the land for their existence took up arms as their revolutionary duty to fight for a share of it. In the process, they were torn away from their families, from the rest of society, and from normal economic activities. They were said to be taken "away from production" to fulfill this task.

China's athletes are chosen as young children...and taken away from their families, from their schools, and totally cut off from normal social activities. The door is closed, and they give up their entire youth and part of their childhoods for the sole aim of entering and winning competitions, an aim for which they are totally re-molded by the system.
Elitist training
China has the largest population of any country in the world, and therefore an unending supply of human resources with which to win glory and acclaim for country and Party. But it is a totally different thing from encouraging ordinary Chinese people to get fitter and healthier.A gold medal is just a gold medal. It is not of the same order as the well-being of the people, or the fate of the nation. The former Soviet Union won countless gold medals. The gold medals are still there today, but where is the Soviet Union?

China's array of medals and prizes was produced out of the sweat, tears, and lives of generations of athletes and paralympians...You can't use the achievements of our young people to cover up or to dilute the mistakes of the country's leaders.The Chinese Communist Party has used the Olympics as a way of suppressing all other political duties. It has put all its energy into this for the past decade, emptying out the last drop of strength. All political, economic, propaganda, and diplomatic effort has been channeled into the Olympics. The entire Party and nation has repeated the message about the importance of the Games time and again, an importance which is greater than that of the fight against corruption, disaster relief efforts, human rights, or the livelihood and welfare of ordinary Chinese.
Ordinary citizens pay the price
It is hard to see how the efforts of ordinary people will be repaid. Aside from the more obvious contributions of effort and money from those who have it, there are all those people who have had their land grabbed away from them, or whose homes have been forcibly demolished, or who have been forced to give up their...business. Those who have been forced to return to their hometown as part of the pre-Olympics "clean-up," or those who have been detained against their will. Those who have been forbidden to speak, forbidden to conduct interviews, forbidden to offer legal services, or forbidden from helping people stand up for their civil rights or property.

There is a fly in the ointment, and that lies in the fact that the Chinese government has refused to keep the promises it made to improve human rights and to allow greater press freedom when it applied to host the Games in the first place.

In the eight years since China applied to host the Games, with the continued suppression of human rights and continuing controls on the freedom of the press, those promises have turned into nothing but empty words. And an empty promise is very hard to keep.

Chinese people who have had their rights infringed know it. A lot of the international media know it. Communist Party and government officials know it too, in their heart of hearts. Who would have the gall to propose or second this motion, to talk the empty talk about "the best Olympic Games ever"?
Manufacturing injustice
The best at suppressing the news? Maybe. The best at trampling on people's rights? Perhaps. Even though the curtain has yet to rise on the Olympics, we can say with 100 percent certainty that we have lost all hope of being "the best."
There is one extremely good thing about a one-party system, and that is that it can achieve pretty much anything it wants to. That's why Deng Xiaoping said that China should never go the way of the West, because it was terribly troublesome, and that any attempt to get anything done petered out in argument. That's quite right. Who would have dared to argue with Deng or Mao? That's why Mao announced in 1976 that Deng was an enemy of the people, and why Deng announced in 1989 that Zhao Ziyang was the enemy.
History repeats itself, and the wheel comes full circle. Leaders at every level have to deal with dissenting opinion, and at every level they have the power to brand the other a public enemy. In China, we produce miscarriages of justice and trumped-up charges like a high-intensity industrial zone, rolling them off the conveyor belt at a rate no-one else can match.
We are so efficient at it: Why stop now? It is a task beloved of Chinese officials at every level of leadership. One thing they are particularly good at, for example, is allowing people they like to get rich first. All you need to get a bank loan in the blink of an eye is the favor of a local ranking official. In the blink of another eye, you can acquire a whole state enterprise for the token price of between three and five percent of its market value, which you can then transfer into your own private ownership.
One-party system
In the same blink of the eye, you can get access to a plot of land "approved" for your use, expel a large crowd of people who live on it and farm it, and begin a lucrative career as a property developer. Will anyone make a fuss? Well, that's easy to deal with. In the blink of an eye, anyone making a fuss will have lost their livelihood and received a warning from the authorities. Who will have the courage to publish such a negative news story? That would be revealing state and Party secrets, calling all sorts of trouble down on the heads of the journalist and even the whole newspaper.
In the case of a lawsuit being filed, the lawyer will either be warned off, obstructed at every turn, or have his license to practice taken away, or be convicted himself of a criminal offense. In the case of any mass unrest, the last resort is to send the security forces in to stamp out trouble. There is one of these "mass petitioning incidents" in China every five minutes, 80,000 a year, and they are all the inevitable by-product of a one-party system.
Under today's one-party system, we have a highly efficient system for an exponential increase in the gap between rich and poor, for corruption, state-sponsored robbery, oppression, and for the control of information. All these things fit together seamlessly. This is the human rights record and the state of press freedom against which it will be very hard to gain any improvements. This is the big, bad secret.
The efficiency of the one-party system can be applied in any number of ways. For example, to stop anything from happening that Party leaders do not like. China has been a People's Republic for 59 years now, but we haven't seen any progress in the direction of democracy in any of those years. The only reason China sent a delegate to the United Nations to sign the covenants on human rights back in October 1998 was because of the forthcoming application to host the 2008 Olympics.
Voting with their feet
As soon as the bid was successful, the thing was shoved into the shadows. The National People's Congress was never asked to ratify it. Putting on a show is indeed very efficient. Actually doing something is very inefficient. Thanks to China's one-party system, they really have been able to make a momentary difference to the air quality in Beijing. But as soon as the Games are over, who knows how many lifetimes ordinary Chinese residents will have to wait to get decent air to breathe again.
There is one clear barometer of how good a political system is. It's no good listening to what people say; mouths are very unreliable. You have to look at what the feet are doing. A good system will attract people. People in China may be living quite happily, and foreigners may make light of traveling a thousand miles to visit. But would they want to emigrate here? When they have seen the Olympics, seen the show, and had a chance to understand Chinese people a bit better, and to compare China to their own country, then what? I am certain that while they will say a lot of nice things about China, they are not going to start flooding in to live here. Whereas Chinese people would be leaving in their tens of thousands if the opportunity was there. That is my prediction. History will be the judge of whether I am right or not.
Original essay in Mandarin by Bao Tong. RFA Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/baotong-08062008132212.html

Gates Applauds Dissent, Wants More Predators

Here's another recent story that might flesh out more on the loose nukes theme. It certainly is rare to hear the Secy of Defense criticizing his own forces AND praising dissent, but these are rare and strange times:
Gates: Air Force Lagging In War Effort Pentagon Chief Says Getting Air Force To Send Aircraft To War Zones "Like Pulling Teeth" WASHINGTON, April 21, 2008
(CBS/AP) Defense Secretary Robert Gates [...] said in a speech at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., that getting the Air Force to send more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft to Iraq and Afghanistan has been "like pulling teeth."
[...] He cited the example of drone aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents without risking the life of a pilot. He said the number of such aircraft has grown 25-fold since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He said he has been trying for months to get the Air Force to send more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, like the Predator drone that provides real-time surveillance video, to the battlefield.
[...] Gates said he established last week a Pentagon-wide task force "to work this problem in the weeks to come, to find more innovative and bold ways to help those whose lives are on the line."
[...] "All this may require rethinking long-standing service assumptions and priorities about which missions require certified pilots and which do not," Gates said, referring to so-called unmanned aerial vehicles that are controlled by servicemembers at ground stations.
The military's reliance on unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, [my bold] largely in Iraq, according to Pentagon data. The Air Force has taken pilots out of the air and shifted them to remote flying duty [my bold] to meet part of the demand.
"The secretary of defense is essentially saying, 'tough - we need these Predators over Iraq more than you need to keep training new pilots'," reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.
Gates, who served in the Air Force in the 1960s as a young officer before he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, urged the officers in his audience to dedicate themselves to thinking creatively.
[...] "Dissent is a sign of health in an organization, and particularly if it's done in the right way," Gates said. [Who's way? MY way! And my bold]
Gates made no direct mention of a series of mistakes and missteps involving the Air Force in recent months, beginning with an episode last August when a B-52 bomber flew from an Air Force base in North Dakota to another in Louisiana with the crew unaware that it was carrying nuclear weapons.
Last month Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne announced that four Air Force nose cone assemblies designed for use with nuclear missiles [previously described as ballistic missile fuses] were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006. The error was not verified until shortly before Wynne made the announcement, and the matter is under Pentagon investigation.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/21/national/main4030601.shtml
C'mon, gang, let's think creatively! Let's listen to Chairman Gates and put the pieces together re loose nukes, ballistic missile fuses, Syria, North Korea, etc. The first to solve the puzzle gets a full year's subscription to DANCE AWAY BLUES!