Here in America, when we think of Kim Il-Sung, we probably think of this:
The reality is that this sick son of bitch, now mercifully dead (for the people of North Korea), was the author of famine in his country and an oppressor of his people -- to serve his own pleasures:
From 1995 to 1997, famine raged in North Korea. According to a report by North Korea’s Public Security Ministry, up to 3 million lost their lives (source). As this isn’t the most neutral observer, real numbers are probably much higher. (See an older post here about not trusting governments with the job of human rights measurement). Still today, the country is in such a state that it won’t take much for famine to return.
It was Kim Il Sung who used to say, “Communism is rice,” meaning the system would succeed by giving the people enough to eat. The famine was caused by mismanagement and the inability to adapt to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic transformation of China.
All that said, Kim Jong Il acted with callous disregard to the suffering of his people. Rather than lose face, the North Koreans denied the food crisis for years and then kept humanitarian aid out of the places it was most needed. The regime executed people who tried to adapt by engaging in private business.
By the way, Kim Jong Il is famous for being one of the biggest foodies in Asia. Throughout the nineteen-eighties and well into the famine, he flew couriers around the world to procure delicacies for his own palate — fresh fish from Tokyo for his sushi, cheese from France, caviar from Uzbekistan and Iran, mangoes and papaya from Thailand.
Kim Jong-Il got the power by primogeniture from Kim Il-Sung and has passed it onto his 27-year old son, Kim Jong-Un, who is expected to be controlled by his uncle on his mother's side, Chang Sung-Taek.
Here's the three generations:
Grandfather
Father
Son
Grand Vizier (Chang Sang-Taek)
I'm sure they're expecting us to invade right now, and I'm sure Beijing is there to stop it, diplomatically at first.
This will be a very interesting week for President Obama. His Administration is saying it's taken out Al Quaeda, how about breaking down the walls into North Korea at this critical juncture. The top strategist in America against a regime that's been prepared to lose their dear leader for awhile, but probably hoped it would still not be so soon.
The question is, will someone from this crime family end up on a meathook and, if so, who will it be?
One of the key ways to identify fascists is that they rewrite history to alter, erase, disguise or bend the facts their their political contingencies. One of the least discussed aspects of grifter Palin's appeal and following is that they are immune to facts, they just channel their resentment into her cult of personality, since she plays the smugly self-righteous card better than anyone else. It's blind following.
In her typical modis, she created Palinesque word salad version of the great ride of Paul Revere, essentially inverting the story in order to show, I think, that she likes guns. Paul Revere was warning the colonists, a top secret plan (one-if-by-land, two-if-by-sea) that Palin turned into another example of her particularly fanciful American braggadocio, that Revere was somehow stickin' it to the British with his trash talk warning that we're gonna whup her butt. You know, truthyistory:
This is seriously chilling. Just like Goebbels moving from Nazi Party to German government, these are the digital thugs who will come with any Palin Administration, should that science-fiction disaster come to pass.
So the U.N. okayed going after that ruthless megalomaniac klepto-fascist psychopath, Qaddafi, and that means the U.S. is entering it's third war at once (or second, if you think 50k troops in Iraq is strictly advisers, no longer war). The most interesting discussion of this has been on Andrew Sullivan's blog, with Andrew taking his mea culpa for supporting the Iraq sell-in to war while airing plenty of dissents, as he does so well and daily on his blog:
You should be applauding the way Barack Obama is handling the Libya situation. It is realpolitik in a most self-aware, calculating, interest-driven, human rights driven, cold-blooded form. It's something you claim to want in our foreign policy.
The US is not leading this, and probably won't, ever. That is why Barack Obama is not making a public drive for support. In fact, we were moved toward a no-fly zone by Arab countries largely, and Europe, decisively. When was the last time that happened? Ask yourself why Obama is acting this way.
Evidently both Clintons wanted this action, likening it more to that Administration's success in Bosnia, particularly getting NATO to take their part, than invading with mainly American troops. But Obama may have done the Clinton's one better:
But notice that unlike Clinton in the case of Bosnia, and unlike Bush in the case of Iraq II, Obama has managed to get something his predecessors could not: UN support for what could be a major multilateral intervention led by states other than the U.S. Doesn't this remind you in some ways of how he handled healthcare, and succeeded where his predecessors had failed, to do something of real significance through patience, reserve, and a commitment to process?
And then there is, interestingly enough, an important ally in Egypt:
Egypt has an open border with the rebel-controlled east of Libya, and just one brigade of the Egyptian army would be enough to stop Gaddafi’s ground forces in their tracks. The Egyptian air force could easily shoot down any of Gaddafi’s aircraft that dared to take off, especially if it had early warning from European or American AWACS aircraft. The Egyptian army would probably not need to go all the way to Tripoli, although it could easily do so if necessary. Just the fact of Egyptian military intervention would probably convince most of the Libyan troops still supporting Gaddafi that it is time to change sides.
This is the first war President Obama has chosen that wasn't a remnant of previous Presidents. To me it's where we'll see his true Commander-in-Chief character, as even Afghanistan, for all the talk of him now owning it, was essentially a mulligan from the Bush Administration's failure to capitalize on their initial success, due to their pathological and Oedipal focus on Iraq.
I don't know if Sullivan's fighting the last war (a common error) and I don't want the U.S. in another long slog either, but I really want to see Qaddafi at The Hague, if not hung by rope or meathook first. Bad is bad, and he's essentially paying a mercenary army to do his dirty work -- yours and my gasoline credit card purchases paying for the leveling of villages controlled by the rebels. So I like the idea of making Libya's neighbors do the policing.
The following video contains cold-blooded murder by the faceless soldiers of a guy in a polo shirt. You've been WARNED.
There's even worse video out there. These fascists in Libya and Bahrain seem to be winning now. Bad news, so sorry for their people, but at least this time, thanks so mobile and social, evidence of the rulers' crimes are documented and disseminated immediately, globally.
It's going to be a huge moral issue -- by all rights should become a traffic jam at The Hague.
The governor of Michigan is trying to force through the legislature a bill that would establish emergency rule, LITERALLY. Gov. Snyder is seeking emergency powers that would enable him to 1) unilaterally declare a "financial emergency", 2) disincorporate entire municipal governments, 3) dismiss elected officials with no replacement election to follow, 4) seize control of local civil services, 5) hand taxpayer money, services and POWERS to private, for-profit firms.
And more of the same in Florida, with even Gov. Rick Scott's Republican comrades railing against him...for canceling much-needed high-speed rail:
“The governor doesn’t understand there is a State Constitution and that we have three branches of government,” said State Senator Mike Fasano, a Republican from New Port Richey who upset Mr. Scott with rough handling of his staff during a testy committee hearing. “They are talking about the attitude that he is still the C.E.O. of his former health care corporation, and that is not going to work in this state, in Tallahassee, in my district. The people believe in three branches of government.”
Republican lawmakers in Florida were hoping for a smoother transition. Instead, they say, they got top-down management from a political novice.
It turns out that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is less popular than when he was elected just this past November - in fact, he'd be defeated today:
...if voters in the state could do it over today they'd support defeated Democratic nominee Tom Barrett over Scott Walker by a a 52-45 margin.
We try to warn voters about these crony capitalist Republicans, but sometimes Voldamort has to rise again before enough people take the threat seriously. Per the Center for American Progress:
The chart below compares the 10 safety-net programs slated for deep cuts with the cost of the tax breaks that should also be considered for reduction or elimination to bring the budget into balance. The column on the left is a list of safety-net programs that have already been targets of the House leadership’s budget ax. The column on the right is the cost to specified tax breaks:
Now get ready for the loss of another three-quarter of a million jobs...thanks to the GOP House of Representatives, from Talking Points Memo:
According to Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi -- who the Washington Postreports "has advised both political parties" -- Republican plans to slash government spending will impact the GDP in such a way that would eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs this year and the next.
From the report:
The House Republicans' proposal would reduce 2011 real GDP growth by 0.5% and 2012 growth by 0.2 percentage points This would mean some 400,000 fewer jobs created by the end of 2011 and 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2012.
Republicans were nonplussed by the findings.
Of course they were. They don't care, as long as that Koch Family cash keeps rolling in.
BTW, Americans support the right of public unions to collective bargaining by almost 2:1.
And Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) blocks journalists from following his tweets. Not quite at the level of a Middle East dictator blocking the Internet, just somewhere on the spectrum. Who can't handle the truth?
Freshman Republican Gov. Scott Walker of the great state of Wisconsin is one of the guys (per Forbes) fueled by the Koch Brothers, doing their bidding in his now seemingly rash attempt to steal the rights of public unions to collectively bargain under the guise of reducing the deficit, in a Shock Doctrine of his own making:
People are starting to think Walker is an asshole, and he's just upping the ante with "dire" layoff threats. Sieg heil. But other GOP Governors are already distancing themselves from trying to eliminate the worker's universal right to collective bargaining. With US union membership down to maybe 11% of the national workforce. And there's definitely shock resistance engaged and in motion.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, Rahm had a most excellent night.
It's not politically correct, but half the time I read or say Hosni Mubarak's first name I go Great White North and think of "Hosed!" like I'm on SCTV. But the Eqyptian people truly got hosed today by their incalcitrant dictator. He could have given it up, the regime could have given him up, but he dug in, whether with their ascent or because his $70B family holdings makes him @ #15 worldwide.
The crowd is pissed and the world is with them. Who will really want to kill a ton of protesters defending this 84 year-old rich man who's had more than his allotted time? He's older than his main enemy, the Internet. And almost all of the Egyptian people.
There are three explanations for this characteristic, but still remarkable, display of stubbornness, and in fact elements of all three combined may explain what is occurring:
The President and those in the regime still loyal to him, including Vice-President Suleiman, are truly deluded. It is amazing to think that this group really might believe that the President's 'concessions' would get people off the streets. But, given how the regime has repeatedly misread the protests to date, this is a plausible explanation.
The regime is preparing for something really ugly. There have been increasing reports that the army (not just the police or state security) has been brutalizing protesters, which is undermining the popular image of the military as neutral. Much depends now on the interpretation of the military high command's move hours before Mubarak's speech. It issued a very ambiguous statement titled 'Communique number one' which referred to its decision to 'remain in continuous session to consider what procedures and measures that may be taken to protect the nation, and the achievements and aspirations of the great people of Egypt.' This was initially read as something akin to the military taking over, but it could also be interpreted as preparation for a more repressive move.
There is a serious rift within the regime. The expectations that Mubarak was going to resign were in part fueled by members of the regime, including the head of the ruling party, Hussam Badrawi. It may even be that the original interpretation of 'Communique number one' was correct and the military was genuinely expecting Mubarak to stand down. This would mean a very serious breech has now opened, not just between the military and Mubarak but also between the military (specifically the Defence Minister, Field Marshall Tantawi) and Vice-President Suleiman. My gut tells me that this is what is happening, but it is very hard to be sure. The key signal will be how the military reacts now: 'Communique number two' should be very interesting.
Here's the response in Tahrir Square:
Here's the people:
The corrupt past vs. the promise of the future. If it were a democracy, he's have been long gone.
Egyptian"President" Hosni Mubarak reveals his true colors:
Automatic weapons fire pounded the anti-government protest camp in Cairo's Tahrir Square before dawn on Thursday in a dramatic escalation of what appeared to be a well-orchestrated series of assaults on the demonstrators. At least three protesters were killed by gunfire, according to one of the activists. ...
The crowds seeking an end to Mubarak's nearly three decades in power were still reeling from attacks hours earlier in which Mubarak supporters charged into the square on horses and camels, lashing people with whips, while others rained firebombs and rocks from rooftops.
Word is the Egyptian government opened prisons, released criminals, and the business supporters of the regime paid thugs to be Mubarak "supporters" and attack the peaceful protesters viciously. Classic fascism: license your thug class.
This put Mubarak squarely in the category of dictator who slaughters his own people and deserves the justice eventually dealt Romania's Ceausescu, Iraq's Hussein and Italy's Mussolini.
So if know-nothings like Sarah Palin and Nevada GOP Tea Party Senate candidate Sharron Angle can't talk to the real (i.e. non-Faux News) press because they will be exposed for the dangerous losers that they are, do they still get to ban the press from talking to them as they walk away?
Witness Angle, who is running ahead of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the polls, running away from answering substantive questions. (Embed issues -- click link for video.)
It's criminals that run from the press when leaving court. Not politicians running for office. At least not in a real democracy. And now her campaign has banned the free press from covering them. You know, another step towards a fascist state, if these 'baggers get their wins.
Meanwhile, corporate fascists in the McDonalds world are telling their workers how to vote -- or else:
The owner of a franchise in Canton, Ohio enclosed a handbill in employees' paychecks that threatened lower wages and benefits if Republicans don't win on Tuesday.
Here's an essential read by Sara Robinson on where the Tea Party may be taking us, "Fascist America: Is This Election The Next Turn?" A taste:
Paxton defined fascism as:
...a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
Paxton laid out the five basic lifecycle stages of successful fascist movements. In the first stage, a mature industrial state facing some kind of crisis breeds a new, rural movement that's based on nationalist renewal...
...In the second stage, the movement takes root, turns into a real political party, and seizes a seat at the table. Success at this stage, Paxton writes, "depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner..."
...In the face of this deadlock, the corporate elites forge an alliance with rural nationalists, creating an unholy marriage that, if it continues, will soon breed a fascist state. And, of course, this is precisely what's happening now between the Koch Brothers, the oil companies, Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party.
In the worldview of the American right -- and the polling shows conclusively that that's who the Tea Party is -- the nation, misled by President Obama, has gone down the path to socialism. In fact, far from venturing down that road, we've been stuck on the road to hyper-capitalism for three decades now. The Tea Partyers are right to be wary of income redistribution, but if they had even the slightest openness to empiricism, they'd see that the redistribution of the past 30 years has all been upward -- radically upward. From 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- effectively, all but the rich -- increased from 64 percent to 65 percent, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, that means that the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent was growing, too -- from $17,719 in 1950 to $30,941 in 1980 -- a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.
Since 1980, it's been a very different story. The economy has continued to grow handsomely, but for the bottom 90 percent of Americans, it's been a time of stagnation and loss. Since 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent has declined from 65 percent to 52 percent. In actual dollars, the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent flat-lined -- going from the $30,941 of 1980 to $31,244 in 2008.
In short, the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich -- the super-rich in particular -- have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America's wealthiest 1 percent rose from 9 percent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 percent in 2007.
Try telling the Tea Party ideologues that it was the New Deal that created the mid-century prosperity they crave, while it was Reaganomics that took it away. But we've all known people in our lives who were passionately committed to the wrong information.
Too bad when that ardor means they may win control of our U.S. Congress.
Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)
Dunbar and her allies deserve public humiliation if not treason trials for their fascistic use of power. Not only did Thomas Jefferson's writing inspire revolution around the globe, he's the author of our Declaration of Independence, the ultimate great revolutionary document of all time.
Obama may be President, but he hard right threat to this nation is only just getting started. Since Texas buys a disproportionate number of text books, there are other states that will be infected by this school board's lies.
Don't be surprised if, somewhere down the line, we start finding out that Sarah Palin felt slighted in some way by her new employer, Fox News, or -- more likely, she gets some sort of chip about Glenn Beck and, to a lesser extent, Bill O'Reilly. Or, she'll say, their people -- maybe try to get a producer fired.
I say this because I've watched a few minutes of her debut interview with O'Reilly and then a few minutes of her hour with Glenn Beck the last night, and thought it was pretty evident that these big dogs were protecting their turf quite a bit more than enhancing her star. They were essentially fitting her into their script and using her draw as a way to enhance their own power -- O'Reilly by nailing her in the first few minutes by saying they'd covered the ground she was starting to trod the night before, Beck by calling her out on her "Bull crap!" when she starting doing her "I love them all" schtick on the favorite Founding Father question -- as she had when Katie Couric asked her what publications she reads:
When all else fails, who doesn't know that George Washington was the first President (the only job she wants that pays less than a million bucks a year)? "He 's got to rise to the top," like cream, I guess, letting us not only watch but hear her think. Beck asked her the simplest of questions in that anyone who's spent any time reading American Revolutionary history can name at last three other guys, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. Or maybe she missed the HBO series.
Andrew Sullivan has an correct view on how she's being positioned by the FNC party (now having defacto control of the RNC at this point in history), to be the Washington-type reluctant candidate. You know, the thing that happens with the hero for most of the first act of every movie, until he's forced into action. Like, by acclamation of a Teabagger convention.
So it's clear she was set up with the Washington line, as she has to be set up with everything, a shiny vessel for reactionary political positions, but if she doesn't know yet, she's not their final tool of choice yet. Maybe it's their traditional sexism, maybe it's that she really is an outsider and they only see use for her as a fundraising vessel so far, but I think it's that they will do and say anything necessary not to make their own careers submissive to hers. Especially the ones competing for the limelight, for the television camera.
A reliable source that change in Iran is not only on the way, but underway?
Q: Do you expect a collapse of the government any time soon?
A: The government has already collapsed. There's going to be big changes very soon. Believe me, it will happen soon. I can promise you that I will meet you for the next interview in Teheran very soon. However, I am afraid that the transition won't be peaceful. You see what has happened during the religious ceremony called Ashura a few days ago. They killed so many people, 11 to be exact, not eight as was reported by the western media.
We want to keep our country as the Islamic Republic of Iran, but religion and politics must be separated. We want to change the structure of the government. The good clerics should help the people and the government, while the bad ones should be ousted from government. If you look back at history, several hundreds years ago, the church controlled everything in Europe. We are experiencing the same situation. Some of the top Ayatollahs have a lot of power.
Q: What will it take to remove the people in power?
A: We are working on it. The western media could help us if they could talk directly to the Iranian people, to tell them the truth. This would help. The Iranian media don't belong to the people. They are controlled by the government which is using them to spread lies.
Q: You said you worked closely with the current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Could you be more specific?
A: I have been working with him for almost 19 years. I saw him frequently, sometimes 10 times or more in one day. We were very close. I was a protector of the leadership apparatus. I was head of a committee for strengthening the Islamic State and preventing anything from weakening it. I helped him too much. He used to be a good, open-minded man until he started a close relationship with Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a spiritual adviser to a group of hard-line fundamentalists. He is a very crazy man who hates Israel and the United States especially. Unfortunately, President Ahmadinejad is one of his big fans as well.
Q: Tell us about the clergy. Are they divided?
A: The Ayatollahs are very much divided. They have so many problems between each other. There are many Ayatollahs who have different views. However, the ones in the government have the power, not the others.
It is impossible to change Iran in a religious way. Iranian people are, have been and always will be religious people. However, I believe that politics and the religion might be divided soon.
Q: What is the feeling within the military? Can the government rely on them? Are they loyal?
A: At this moment, the government cannot rely 100% on the Iranian Army and even on the Revolutionary Guards, who are more powerful. There are now only a few hard-line religious people inside the Revolutionary Guards who are against the people.
There are some people inside the Revolutionary Guards who are against the government and side with the people. The government is aware of that. And the same applies to the Iranian Army. Many of them are now on the people's side. Many of them are now against the government, but they are afraid to say it openly because they might have problems.
As for the relationship between the Army and the Revolutionary Guards, theoretically they are united, but in a reality, they are not. They don't like or trust each other. The government trusts and gives more support and benefits to the Revolutionary Guards than to the Army. Some agents of the Revolutionary Guards are placed inside the Army to watch them both officially and secretly.
You wouldn't know it from the mainstream media, but there have been major developments in the Iran citizen uprising this weekend. The regime forces killed the nephew of the man likely robbed of electoral victory by the fascist regime earlier this year (which sparked the uprising to begin with) and citizens throughout the country are in the streets -- and getting beaten mercelessly by the brutal basji (paramilitary police).
I'm blogging on Blackberry tonight so you'll have to find your own way to Andrew Sullivan's blog or any other covering this ongoing and mounting civil disobedience, but while cable news remains mired in endless empty plane terrorist cycling, at least the White House is speaking out with a change in tone from earlier this year, coming down hard against the Iranian government for thie violent subjugation of their people.
The next few days will begin a cycle of mourning for Mousavi's nephew, who was an important man as in line for iman, and hardset against the current government. Fascists lose when they create the wrong martyrs. Here's to this one leading to their demise.
The annual Quds Day in Iran, something I'm quite against since it is the government-mandated anti-Israel day, was different this year. On Friday Holocaust-denying election-stealer Ahmadinajad gave his usual hateful speech, but the people used the traditional rallies as a means to protest the regime, which was responded to by state violence:
Supporters of the Green Movement gathered at 7 Tir square (a major intersection) and began moving toward Tehran University, where the Friday prayers and Ahmadinejad’s speech were to be held. Mehdi Karroubi joined the demonstrators and walked with them all the way to the vicinity of Tehran University.
To prevent the Green Movement’s supporters from penetrating Tehran University, public buses had been used to block all the streets around the campus. Security forces, the Basij militia, and plainclothes agents used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse the demonstrators.
Former president Mohammad Khatami joined the demonstrators close to Palestine square, a short distance from the campus of the University of Tehran. He was then attacked by a mob led by Abolfazl Shariatmadari, son of Hossein Shariatmadari, the hard-line managing editor of Kayhan, the mouthpiece of the hardliners and security forces. Khatami was rescued by the people, and sustained minor injuries. He was then taken away.
The protesters, seeking as fairly elected representation -- something that some Americans take for granted -- don't appear to have been cowed by the horrific violence, both on the streets and in the prisons, dealt by the Basra:
In some cases, protesters stood their ground, hurling stones at security forces and chasing them to engage in bare-fisted sparring, witnesses said. “People seemed less fearful compared to previous demonstrations,” one participant said. ”This time, they were fighting back.”
Throughout the day, regular police officers reportedly stayed on the sidelines for the most part.
Police officers even protected the demonstrators in one instance cited by an eyewitness. ”Plainclothes forces attempted to attack a group of protesters carrying a long green banner, but the police intervened and prevented physical confrontation.”
Take a look -- green protest:
The thugs and regime-lovers they're up against:
More pix here. It's amazing the difference in the two sides. The opposition is completely male, segregated, and looks like the sorry past, while the so many of the protesters are women, always there.
Here's opposition leader (and likely the real election winner) Mousavi's supporters and aides repelling the thugs:
Ditto the supporters of protesting ex-President Khatami, where Basra tried to pull off his turban to humiliate him, and failed.
It's tougher than ever for a fascist regime to keep the lid on over the long haul, not with 2009's social media capabilities.
