Cleaning Up Some Air

A lot of publicity is a very good thing when it keeps the air and land from being despoiled. That has actually happened for and in El Paso, TX, where the state tried to reopen an old smelter that had already taken a huge toll in pollution. Officials who were friendly to business were put in charge of decisions involving the environment, and as usual Hell was deemed a suitable habitat for citizens of the state.

A series that the Dallas Morning News featured on environmental issues that saw Texas turning its back on health and safety has had a desirable effect. The business interests claim that the economy is unsuitable for reopening a polluting plant.

One of the bitterest environmental fights in Texas history ended Tuesday when Tucson-based Asarco LLC said it was dropping its effort to reopen its copper smelter in El Paso.

Instead, the company said it would tear down the smelter. Asarco attributed the decision to a "dramatic downturn of the world economy."

However, the company's announcement came on the same day when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told Texas officials that under federal law, the smelter did not qualify for the permit renewal that Texas gave the facility last year.

Without a reconsideration by Texas, the EPA might be forced to formally object to the permit, order any work on the smelter stopped, and initiate enforcement action, Acting EPA Regional Administrator Larry Starfield told Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Executive Director Mark Vickery in a letter dated Tuesday.

The smelter was in such poor condition that the EPA considered it permanently "shut down," meaning it required a complete new permit instead of a renewal of its old permit, Starfield wrote.

In addition, he wrote, new federal rules on ozone, lead and airborne particulate matter necessitated new reviews, endorsing opponents' arguments that the TCEQ rejected.

Asarco's plan to restart the smelter, northwest of downtown El Paso and just yards from Juarez, Mexico, stirred a six-year battle that pitted the company and its supporters against the city of El Paso and local and statewide environmental advocates. Opponents decried the 7,000 tons of pollution that the facility's permit would allow each year. (Emphasis added.)

The atmosphere that the right wing pretends is pro-business is one that despoils working people and destroys the economy. Environmental quality is one of its major victims.

The maladministration that came from TX went a long way toward spreading its destructive approach through all of the executive branch. It is a poison wherever it gains power. The air will be cleaner in D.C. now that it's been pitched out. Unfortunately, the poisonous attitude will be all the more power hungry following its losses.

Progressive elements in Texas have won this one, and hopefully can gain strength from actually triumphing in this public service. We are going to need that strength.

The New Frontier; Drug Wars

As the wars of the recently rejected occupied White House wind down, the employment situation for mercenaries would appear to be diminishing. Resourceful as ever in inventing ways to get on welfare, your hired warriors have a new field of operations. Violence along the southern border has heated up, and Mexico may be the next occupied state.

While you may have read recently about the gang wars in states as far from the border as Tennessee and the Dakotas, fertile soil is being dug by 'contractors' in the area this country controls nearest to Mexico. They can start there and spread inland like, say, boll weevils, if past experience is an indicator.

Alarmed by spiraling drug violence along their shared border, U.S. and Mexican officials say they foresee an enhanced U.S. role in the battle against powerful cartels, including joint operations that could involve private American contractors or U.S. military and intelligence personnel.

The U.S. and Mexican officials say their cooperation could go beyond the current practice of "sharing intelligence." They say that historical concerns about Mexican sovereignty may be overcome by the challenge in restoring stability to key regions, particularly along the border.

Several officials, interviewed separately and on the condition of anonymity, stressed that specifics about an enhanced U.S. role remain unclear and that the timing is also unclear and will largely depend on the widening violence.

But "everything is on the table," one Mexican official said, including "joint operations."

"I agree with that statement," said a senior U.S. counternarcotics official agrees. "I think the cooperation is unprecedented, and it's yielding unprecedented results."
(snip)
The number of gangland slayings more than doubled in 2008 from the previous year, to more than 5,700. U.S. officials say they view the violence as a national security threat because routes to transport drugs north could be exploited by terrorists.

Underscoring those concerns are new alarms being sounded, including a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command that says lack of security puts Mexico and Pakistan at risk of becoming failed states.

That assessment is challenged by senior U.S. and Mexican officials, including Mexico's Interior Minister Fernando Francisco Gómez Mont and Garza.

"Mexico is not even close to becoming a failed state," Garza said. "You can bet there will be more violence, but we need to be supportive of this administration's efforts and build alliances with Mexico, not slip back into a climate where we blame first and think later."

Next month, the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, a Washington research organization, will recommend that both governments "establish joint or combined binational law enforcement units capable of quick response to cartel activity."

To deal with issues of mistrust, one analyst suggested, the U.S. government will need to allow Mexican federal law enforcement investigators on U.S. soil, albeit in limited roles.

Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, a political consultant, predicted that "joint operations on both sides of the border will be a key decision made by the Obama and Calderón administrations in the months to come. Otherwise, joint operations will be unacceptable for the Mexicans."

Mexican agents are already being posted in key U.S. agencies, he said.

"We're talking about a transnational threat that doesn't stop on the Mexican side," he added.

Of course, with drug activity becoming the new frontier for hired war personnel, the hope for an end to prohibition by drug laws, greatly diminishing the population inside our U.S. jails and commercially run prisons, is greatly reduced. Blackwater and Co. have shown they have great lobbyists, and even have managed to operate outside the law inside Iraq. The border has always been far removed from that rule of law we like to think the U.S. enjoys. It is under a threat in this operation of being put altogether into the Abandon Hope category if the mercenaries are in charge.

Hopefully we will have a Department of Justice back in operation before long. The return of a law-abiding government would be a good point to start in putting this Drug War back into rational containment.

The Value of Government Plates

Now here's a real morale booster for regular citizens: government cars parked illegally may get tickets, but those tickets can safely be ignored, according to this article in the Washington Post.

According to a congressional report scheduled to be released today, federal workers in the District and New York City failed to pay $176,000 in fines for 1,147 tickets issued last year to their U.S. government vehicles.

Leading the way in the District were the Army, Navy and Air Force, whose employees ignored 158 tickets for $28,000 in 2007. Most were racked up by recruiters working at the Armed Forces Recruiting Center near 13th and L streets NW.

In New York, FBI agents set the worst example, accumulating $35,000 in fines and comfortably besting the Department of State ($28,000) and the Marine Corps ($20,000) in unpaid violations.

Almost half of the citations were issued during morning and evening rushes, increasing congestion and creating safety hazards, the report concludes. Other violations included parking on sidewalks, in handicapped zones and in front of fire hydrants and bus stops. Only 6 percent were for expired meters.

Parking in front of fire hydrants or in handicapped zones? Mere technicalities. Nice, eh?

Why aren't the local agencies responsible for parking enforcement doing their job by towing or booting the miscreant vehicles? Well, it seems there's a certain amount of, well, fraternal understanding:

The federal government's blatant disregard of city parking restrictions apparently is not drawing much ire from enforcement agents in the District and New York. And the report provides its take on the reason why: Municipal workers in agencies directly responsible for assessing fines failed to pay thousands of dollars in parking fines of their own.

In the District, city workers ignored $33,000 in penalties assessed to their government vehicles, including $10,000 racked up by the Department of Public Works, which is responsible for assessing the majority of tickets.

And in the Big Apple, where city employees had not paid $491,000 on 2,562 tickets, the New York Police Department had a delinquent balance of $192,000.

So, the lesson is that mere citizens cannot park illegally, but government employees can and do, apparently a lot. Laws don't apply to them. I guess it's a fringe benefit.

Living Rough

There is an exciting quality to pitching a tent, building a fire, cooking with metal pots and pans, seeing the sky overhead and grass under your feet. After a couple of months of it, somehow I fear the excitement would not keep you going. I've camped out, but I never actually have had nowhere to live. It's happening all around us, as people lose their homes.

If I had lost a job and my house, and had no one to take me in, I don't know that I wouldn't have wound up in a tent city, as so many have. The problem is growing, and the shelters are full.

From Seattle to Athens, Georgia, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.

Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening. iReport.com: What are tough times forcing you to give up?

"It's clear that poverty and homelessness have increased," said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the coalition. "The economy is in chaos, we're in an unofficial recession and Americans are worried, from the homeless to the middle class, about their future."
Don't Miss

* iReport.com: Feeling the pain
* iReport.com: What are you giving up?
* TIME.com: Government redefines 'homelessness'
* McCain calls for new agency to fix crisis
* CNN/Money: Bailout aimed to fix credit crunch

The phenomenon of encampments has caught advocacy groups somewhat by surprise, largely because of how quickly they have sprung up.

"What you're seeing is encampments that I haven't seen since the 80s," said Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, an umbrella group for homeless advocacy organizations in the California cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland -- and in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.

The relatively tony city of Santa Barbara, California, has given over a parking lot to people who sleep in cars and vans. The city of Fresno, California, is trying to manage several proliferating tent cities, including an encampment where people have made shelters out of scrap wood.

In Portland, and Seattle, homeless advocacy groups have paired with nonprofits or faith-based groups to manage tent cities as outdoor shelters. Other cities where tent cities have either appeared or expanded include include Chattanooga, Tennessee; San Diego, California; and Columbus, Ohio.

Bushvilles, anyone?

High Office and Criminal Conduct

When this maladministration showed its true colors, by refusing to acknowledge authority of the International Criminal Court to prosecute offenders in this country, maybe I was not the only one to see we were in trouble. Now I have company in recognizing that bad character is affecting this country in its most basic operations, and its well-being. Stealing from the public has become a way of life to deregulated industry, and those funds are not being put back into our economy.

Unfortunately, she describes moral underpinning as the old "Protestant ethics" (white men is understood in this sentence) and deplores diversity - ignoring the rapacity with which the western world has treated the rest of the world. Her main point, that greed without the rule of law has deprived our formerly prosperous society of its operational system, however, has validity.

No more are there wise men at the top, who take pride in running an honorable financial world that makes the world safe for everyone. Those who took their place, as the moral principles of the country also fell, were the new wise guys, often up from nothing and replacing the idea of public service with greed and ignorance. Analysts say that we have had more corporate scandals in the last five years than during the entire 20th century.

The new book The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy , by longtime investment counselor and wise man David Smick, has intellectually taken apart this distraught era. His title, of course, plays upon Thomas L. Friedman's well-known book praising globalization, The World Is Flat. But Mr. Smick takes issue with this. To him, the world is curved, uncertain, with no one really knowing what is ahead unless we rethink our principles.

He finds that "our leadership must reform today's dangerously flawed financial architecture." It is, he says, "a tale of greed, hypocrisy and sheer folly," in which the young brokers and investment bankers created their own private markets. As the banks repackaged individual loans and mortgages for the global market, banks moved further and further away from the borrower "or any need to worry about whether he or she would repay a loan." In short, the money-crazed wise guys of the new world cared only for themselves, and in the end, of course, lost themselves, as well as everything else.

The elements of its own destruction are evident in this wistful classic punditry op-ed, which insists that some of the creators of systemic injustice were noble and we need to have their kind back in power. There is much to be gained by plowing under the elites that simply kept out of power those who didn't look like them. A true test of the disempowerment of working classes has been the past almost eight years. We have failure on every front.

High standards of behavior, which the Geyer mantra assumes belong to the very rich, are what we have had wiped out to our great loss in the current occupied White House. She is correct that criminal conduct has hurt even the criminals.

Insurance Industry Is Listening

From Jason Rosenbaum today at The Seminal, reporting on the attempt to have a voice in those "public" hearings the Insurance Industry is holding, yesterday at a place I'm going to be visiting this weekend, Albuquerque, NM.

While I’m still waiting for video and news reports from the insurance industry’s “listening tour” stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico yesterday, here’s the report we got back from our people on the ground:

Karen Ignagni’s [the CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry's front group] moderator blew his cool with a group of ACORN people [who were protesting in support of Health Care for America Now], pointing at them angrily and calling them aside.

With the rest of the audience silent and watching, he spat, “What do you expect us to do?! They [the insurance industry] HAVE to make a profit!!” He went on, and then - with the whole auditorium’s wide eyes on her - an ACORN member burst back in response, “These are the corporations that killed reform efforts back in ‘93. Are you honestly telling me that they’re working for the people now? That they honestly want reform?!”

The moderator guy was so startled by her forcefulness that he physically back-peddled and stumbled over someone else.

So, they know we’re here.

Damn right they know we’re here. Americans want real health care reform. We can see through the insurance industry’s blurring strategy. We know that no matter what language the insurance industry uses, they are fundamentally against health care reform. They are working against the American people, and everyone knows it.

We’re here. We’re not going away. We’re going to win real health care reform in 2009.

Oh, and no word yet on the dates, times, and locations of the next stop on this sham listening tour in Providence, RI. As soon as we know, you’ll know, and we’ll all make sure they know we’re there.

Until the public interest has representation, the insurance industry seems to be assuming, as the whole right wing is, that they are in charge and there is no dissent allowed.

Through The Looking Glass, Again

The 'Lewis Carroll' pleadings showed the Department of Justice arguing that its findings were true because it repeated them three times. In the future, this same discredited Justice Department wants to keep any other pleadings off the table. As long as no argument is presented against its pleadings, it can finally prove something. Saying something three times isn't enough for the mad hatter department, it now has to have everyone else just shut up.

In a brief filed late yesterday with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the Bush administration asked that any review of the new warrantless surveillance law be kept secret and that the court refuse to accept legal briefs from anyone other than the Justice Department itself. The government is responding to a motion the American Civil Liberties Union filed earlier this month asking the FISC to ensure that any proceedings relating to the scope, meaning or constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) be open to the public to the extent possible.

The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project:

“The government is proposing that the intelligence court should consider the constitutionality of the new surveillance law in proceedings that will be entirely secret. If the government’s request is granted, the court won’t hear arguments from anyone except the government and those arguments will be presented to the court in secret briefs. At the end of the process, the court will issue a ruling that is also secret. The process the government is proposing is completely unacceptable. Especially because the new surveillance law departs so significantly from the standards that have applied to government surveillance for the last 30 years, any proceedings relating to the new law’s constitutionality should be adversarial and as informed and transparent as possible.”

In a separate legal challenge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the ACLU seeks a court ruling declaring that the FAA is unconstitutional and ordering its immediate and permanent halt. Plaintiffs in the case include Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the Nation and PEN American Center. (Emphasis added.)

This politicized group of second- and third-rate attorneys is certainly trying to cut the country off from any prospects of achieving the Justice this department was named for - back in the day. Its disreputable agents should be ordered out of the court, and a replacement with some degree of actual ability to represent its real client, the U.S. public, retained. The Republican National Committee should be ordered to pay the costs.

The Justice Department was set up to protect the Rule of Law, but the worst administration ever has much to fear from the law. Its power has been misused, and the effort made to keep the war criminals from justice. This has to be stopped, and the ACLU has never been needed so badly.

Iron Lady Smelt

Sometimes the words, they just sing. It has been pretty much ignored in our press, but the son of former English PM Margaret Thatcher has carried on that legacy of imperialism, and sought his fortune with a lack of respect for law that seems to be spreading in 'civilized' nation right wings.

British mercenary Simon Mann sought leniency from a court in Equatorial Guinea on Friday, saying he was sorry for having been part of a failed coup plot to topple the president of the oil-rich West African state.

Mann, an Eton-educated former special forces officer, risks being sent to jail for nearly 32 years for his role in the 2004 conspiracy to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. He has said he was just "an employee" in the plot.

"I apologise for what has happened and I am very happy that nothing actually happened in 2004," Mann told the court on the fourth and final day of his trial, held in a heavily guarded conference centre in the Equatorial Guinea capital Malabo.
(snip)
Equatorial Guinea's Public Prosecutor Jose Olo Obono said Mann had cooperated during the investigation and trial.

On Tuesday, he asked the court to sentence Mann to a cumulative jail term of 31 years and eight months on charges of crimes against the head of state, crimes against the government and crimes against the peace and independence of the state.

Olo Obono said Equatorial Guinea would seek the extradition of Mark Thatcher and Calil.

Defence lawyer Nvo said Mann had been lied to by Calil about the conditions in Equatorial Guinea, which, according to Mann's testimony, Calil had told him was ripe for a coup.

The persistence of profit motivation in relatives seems to be a primary object of holders of what are supposed to be public offices, and those oaths of office are discarded as soon as those offices are gained. Propaganda constitutes a weapon of these latter day coups - along with hired guns.

It seems that elections are a stepping stone up to status of coup leader. The banana republics used to be the creation of brutal - usually military - members of corrupt governments who took over the reins and the public trough by violence. Now it is using marketing firms and local voting officials. The violence comes afterwards.

**********************************************************

More banana republic maneuvers inside our U.S. right wing continue to echo.

The Senate report found that former Reagan administration consultant and Iran contra figure Michael Ledeen had brought two Farsi-speaking Pentagon officials—Rhode and Larry Franklin—to a December 2001 meeting in Rome with two unidentified Iranians as well as Ledeen's old Iran contra interlocutor Ghorbanifar, the subject of a CIA burn notice. Also attending the Rome meetings was at least one official with the Italian military intelligence service SISMI, which provided logistical support and a location for the Rome meetings. The Senate report found that Rhode later went to Paris for a second meeting with Ghorbanifar in June 2003—several months after then deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley had ordered Ledeen and the Pentagon to shut down the Ghorbanifar channel.

Revelations that Iran Contra figures Ledeen and Ghorbanifar were involved in a new channel to the Bush administration set off alarm bells throughout the US government, and prompted multiple inquiries into whether the channel amounted to an unauthorized covert action and a possible counterintelligence threat. The latter issue was never resolved, after a top Pentagon official shut down the counterintelligence inquiry only a month after it had begun.

But the allegation that Rhode had hired a defense attorney raised the possibility that the issue may still be under investigation.

"The Justice Department has to decline to comment on that," a spokesperson for the department told Mother Jones Friday, after checking on a reporter’s query about a possible Justice Department investigation involving the Pentagon official.

The corruption still remains, and impeachment/resignation of Nixon only slowed the subjugation of the constitution. The need to probe deep and remove the leftovers from the Iran-Contra, Watergate years has been made all the more compelling by their cropping up in our mercenary sidecar to the reduced military.

Taking Hostages

The pictures are hauntingly reminiscent of the Christmas tsunami that swept away flimsy houses by the millions, and ended hundreds of thousands of lives in Thailand, Indonesia and even as far away as India. The assistance of nations all over the world was mobilized, rescue missions immediately launched, and huge numbers of devastated peoples were taken under the wing of any number of charitable bodies.

The spectacle of devastation has seemingly stricken a feeling of threat, not of humanity, in the military junta in Burma. We get inklings from reporters who are working undercover, shielding their names and faces.

Now the junta is taking away the aid that is being sent.

The World Food Programme has halted aid shipments to Burma after the contents of its first delivery were impounded on arrival in the military-ruled country.

The UN body says the Burmese government seized tonnes of aid material flown in to help victims of Cyclone Nargis, which has killed tens of thousands.

The WFP said it had no choice but to halt aid until the matter was resolved.

Burma's ruling generals have faced mounting criticism over their handling of the crisis.
(snip)
"Three flights were scheduled for Saturday but now we have no choice but to suspend food aid until the food in the warehouse is released for WFP to distribute it," he told the BBC.

"It is sitting in a warehouse, it is not in trucks heading to Irrawaddy Delta where it is critically needed."

The WFP said that although flights were suspended, it would continue to pack up and prepare further supplies and negotiate with the Burmese authorities in the hope of releasing the aid and getting further flights in.

When distress inside a country inspires its leaders to fight against the effort to assist, the whole purpose of government is destroyed. There is a social contract that allows a populace to give power to a governing body.

Under a theory first articulated by Plato in his Socratic dialog Crito, members within a society implicitly agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society. Thus implicit in most forms of social contract is that freedom of movement is a fundamental or natural right which society may not legitimately require an individual to subrogate to the sovereign will.

When that contract is broken, the government has reversed its mandate, and is no longer legitimate. It is autocratic, and no longer serves its people. What is Burms'a government doing?

Yangon is Ground Zero; there are no more big trees left…Army Battalion no. 11, 22 and 77 are clearing the big roads. Otherwise, it’s mostly kohtu kohta (self-help). Monks are leading the cleaning-up process in the residential areas…

The subrogation of the public interest has become accepted procedure in military states that have leaders who are holding onto power - in denial of any right they might have to that power. When ambitions to power consume the holders of government offices, it becomes a battle against the rights of the people to hold onto that power.

The spectacle of a government fighting against the public interest is jarring. It's something the American public has always associated with other, foreign, bodies. This outbreak of outright hostilities against delivering care to its own people is chilling, and reminiscent of the kind of disaster that occurred when Katrina devastated much of our Gulf Coast. The fight by our government to minimize its justified effort was frightening. While our military wasn't deployed to prevent an outpouring of aid from foreign countries, it was deployed without really serving the affected victims.

Hopefully we can turn the tide here before the kind of rank violence against humane efforts we see happening in Burma occurs closer to home.

St. Laurita and The Borrowed Halo

I really tried not to listen to the occupied White House presser on Burma, but my hands were full during the NewsHour so I did hear St. Laurita declaim how she'd been drawn by the house imprisonment of Democratic advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party was elected to lead Burma in 1990. Needless to say, that was quite intriguing, and I do hope that the Clinton and Obama households are well equipped with home entertainment and nutricious snacks in November of 2008.

When the white-clad St. Laurita went on to diss the repressive tactics of the military junta in establishing a false constitution, I did have to turn off the sound although it meant putting away the digital camera/binoculars I'm working on setting up. This from the cabal that has falsified its oath to uphold our now falsified constitution?

They have no shame. Or else, they simply have no respect for the demonstrated lack of powers of comprehension of anyone who supports them after their demonstrated uselessness. The military junta in D.C. that has imposed a war on this country, and denies American people their freedoms and the benefits of their taxed earnings hardly is in a position to criticize another of the same ilk, yet they did.

"The response to the cyclone is the most recent failure of the regime to meet its people's basic needs," Bush told reporters.

She asked the Burmese government to admit US state department disaster response teams that so far have been barred from entering the country. The regime has accepted targeted foreign cash assistance through the US embassy in Yangon.

The administration of Bush's husband has levied harsh economic sanctions on the senior members of the regime, leading to concerns that the Burmese would refuse aid from their American foes.

Bush acknowledged the tension between sanctions and disaster aid, saying economic blocks "seem to be the only kind of pressure the US has put on Burma". (Emphsais added.)

That parallels the economic blocks that the regime in the occupied White House has put on the American people. Perhaps we would be in a better position if we had a delegation to negotiate for our interests ... oh, right, we elected Democrats to Congress. There, the junta has its minions to keep them cut off from the administration of all programs, such that even basic repairs and education, economic parity and rights, legal redress and constitutional powers are denied.

If only New Orleans had been represented by a military junta, the St. Lauritas would have been bewailing not being able to get in and assist.

Somehow, it looks as if that happened in New Orleans. The St. Lauritas showed their true colors. Response teams were on the scene, there. They worried about their camouflage shirts. The true colors of this cabal are still flying in the destruction that lives on there.

When disaster strikes in America, it has been in the form of continuing violation of our constitution, our rights, the misallocation of our taxes, and undermining all the rights we have as a people.

If the democratically elected President Suu Kyi in Burma is ever able to regain the control she won, she might be well advised to keep the tight and damaging hold of this junta off the controls there.

Free Trade Fraud

Thank you, Speaker Pelosi, for refusing to let the worst administration in history make a shambles of the legislative process, as it has done to so much of our constitutional system.

The Colombia 'Free Trade' agreement proposed by the occupied White House does nothing for the workers, and nothing for this country. So much that the cabal has done is like this, it is only more welfare for our corporate sector.

Head of the AFL-CIO John Sweeney writes an op-ed today to try bringing light onto the matter. What he outlines for union workers there is more of a nightmare than our workers here have to deal with.

Globalization and trade should lift up and promote democratic societies. They should empower the many and lift the poor. They should create a fundamentally better world.

That is at the heart of an emerging and hopeful new consensus on trade.

For decades trade rules have protected business interests but offered few enforceable protections for workers' rights and human rights. Millions of good jobs have been shipped away from the United States, while living and environmental standards have been eroded in our trading partner countries. That is why we have fought to guarantee labor and environmental standards in our trade agreements.

But now the Bush administration's determination to ram through this agreement with Colombia before it has the capacity to uphold the rule of law threatens all the progress that has been made.

It's of little use to include a paper commitment to respect "freedom of association" when workers who organize and speak out for economic freedom -- and their families -- face an implicit death sentence. That is why working people in Colombian and American unions are united in opposition to ratification of this agreement.

President Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe are pulling out all the stops to persuade Congress to approve the trade deal in this session. The Bush administration has mobilized its Cabinet to lead congressional delegations on sanitized field trips to Colombia. The Colombian government is reportedly spending more than $100,000 a month to lobby for the agreement.
(snip)
Colombia claims to be taking steps to reduce the violence. That's good. But so far, it has done too little. And it has failed to bring its labor laws into compliance with international labor standards or enforce them effectively.

How many murders are "acceptable"? How many is too many? I can't answer those questions with a number other than zero.

And I know this: Unless working people can exercise their right to lift their families out of poverty and exploitation, trade cannot strengthen democracy or advance a better world.

The decimation of public interest, which is the purpose of the cretin in chief, has been so total under the present executive branch, that it is no longer even a consideration in their actions. Nothing in this 'agreement' benefits the U.S. Like the present attempts to forge a commitment to the Iraqi government, the executive branch has made an offer of benefits to another country that does nothing for U.S. workers.

Realization of the White House aims is widespread, and reader comments at WaPo do an excellent job of explicating the mess they are trying to create.

Comment from a reader:

iacitizen wrote:
As bad as the trade unionists and the workers in Columiba have it--and they are living under terrible circumstances--workers in America are also losing jobs. That alone should be enough to kill this deal. I can't believe we're negotiating trade deals in these hard economic times. Any member of Congress who approves any more trade deals will lose my vote.

Another informed opinion;
Southeasterner wrote:
.............So the same Republicans who claim to be against NAFTA now want to create another free trade agreement with Colombia?

Why in addition to the billions of aid we already give Colombia do we also need to give them a one-way free trade agreement for them to be our friends? We want to open trade, which will decrease the amount of cargo checks on Colombian imports by over 85%, to a country that supplies most of our cocaine? They don't sound like an ally they sound like a welfare recipient with a gun pointed at our head telling us what to do.

With or without a free trade agreement Colombia will still be our ally and still help us with our war on terrorism because we are the ones funding their “drug war”. The supporters of this bill could care less about our political agreements and are only concerned with shipping even more US jobs to a country with zero labor laws and bringing back more cocaine illegally.

Lula and Brazil = US ally
Uribe and Colombia = Bloods, Crypts and MS 13 ally
Chavez and Venezuela = Chevron and BP ally

My comment:
jocabel wrote:
That the government of Colombia violates basic standards of decency toward workers is enough to make this 'free trade' agreement unacceptable. Its complicity in murders makes it offensive. The administration sanctions any business interest no matter how lawless and abusive. That it calls Colombia successful shows its own lack of standards, and lawlessness.

***********************************************

WaPo editorialanimists have reached a new apex in aggressive ignorance in "Lapsed Principle" today. The Hiatt team gallops in, slamming Obama for campaign financing that results in lots for him to spend, while totally ignoring John McCain's violation of campaign finance laws.

I will ignore the idiot editors entirely, and give a few responsible and intelligent comments.

FergusonFoont wrote:
I know that the partisan Republican who wrote this editorial would very much like to see Obama only have available to him somewhere between a quarter and a tenth as much to spend during the general election phase of this campaign as John McCain had, but even his archest enemies do not accuse Barack Obama of being blithingerly stupid.

What is much more interesting is John McCain's acceptance of public financing funds during the primary phase of this election and then "opting out" of its limits so he can attrack more contributions after he has the nomination sewn up, to spend on trashing Democrats, thereby accelerating the general election phase for himself.

One can support a change in our election financing toward public financing while continuing to operate under current rules, as Obama has done. It's a bit dicier to permit McCain to shift back and forth, accepting public money at need but rejecting the conditions for its acceptance.

That's called "fraud."

Then succinctly:
Avedon wrote:
So, the fact that McCain is breaking the law on campaign finance is no biggie, eh?

Why should Obama be hamstrung if McCain isn't even going to play by his own rules?

And you're going to give McCain cover for it, too.

And a neat exposition of just the facts:
cassidyt wrote:
How utterly absurd. In contract terms, Obama made an offer and McCain failed to accept. Now McCain - and the Post - want to argue that Obama gave McCain and open-ended option! Look, McCain didn't accept the offer, as evidenced by his recent attempts to exit the public financing system. Obama certainly didn't offer to give McCain the option of first determining whether private or public funding was more advantageous to his campaign before accepting or rejecting Obama's offer.

Another ridiculous editorial from the Post. Obama should, and will, spend McCain into oblivion. Sorry, Freddie.

Then there's mine;
jocabel wrote:
John McCain's violation of campaign financing laws will not be prosecuted because of a lack of members on the regulatory board. Still, WaPo editors seems to be ignoring it entirely. Strange that only Mr. Obama's practices, not Mr. McCain's are the object of concern. Law breaking by GOP candidates, it would seem, is so standard a practice that is assumed in any campaign.

The WaPo editors continue to feature shameful collections of bias rather than facts in the 'editorials' they post.

Charges Of Corruption

Recently, we have had all too much evidence of politicization of our executive branch for no other purpose than for electing candidates of one particular party. The party sinking to that level is, of course, the GoPerv party, the one that has the stranglehold on our former government of the people, by the people and for the people. The crooks in power have turned our reputable institutions into an imitation of the banana republics we used to censure for their practice of extremism and partisanship above the laws.

Its association with corrupt regimes would appear to have caused a rubbing off, their vices onto our occupied White House. Pakistan has been particularly problematic.

While I have for a long time suspected that the refrain about the late Benazir Bhutto that she was corrupt were an invention by her - and her distinguished family's - opponents, it is very satisfactory to me to come across actual documentation of what I long have believed.

Malik Qayyum is a former judge who resigned from the bench in 2001 amid charges of misconduct. On April 15, 1999, a two-judge panel of the Lahore High Court headed by Qayyum convicted Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari in a corruption case. They were sentenced to five years in prison, fined US$8.6 million dollars each, disqualified as members of parliament for five years, and forced to forfeit their property. The impending verdict led Bhutto to go into exile in March 1999.

In February 2001, the Sunday Times, a British newspaper, published a report based on transcripts of 32 audio tapes, which revealed that Qayyum convicted Bhutto and Zardari for political reasons. The transcripts of the recordings reproduced by the newspaper showed that Qayyum asked then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s anti-corruption chief, Saifur Rehman, for advice on the sentence: “Now you tell me how much punishment do you want me to give her?”

In April 2001, on the basis of this evidence, a seven-member bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld an appeal by the couple, overturning the conviction. In its ruling, the Supreme Court contended that Qayyum had been politically motivated in handing down the sentence. Faced with a trial for professional misconduct before Pakistan’s Supreme Judicial Council, the constitutional body authorized to impeach senior judges, Qayyum opted to resign his post in June 2001.

A close associate of Musharraf, Qayyum was appointed as the lead counsel on behalf of Pakistan’s federal government in the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, instituted after Chaudhry was first illegally deposed by Musharraf on March 9, 2007. A full bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court reinstated Chief Justice Chaudhry on July 20, 2007.

Qayyum was appointed attorney general of Pakistan by Musharraf in August 2007.

The long lasting stain on her reputation severely limited former Prime Minister Bhutto's ability to enlist western countries in needed assistance to her to return good government to Pakistan. In supporting the authoritarian regime of General Musharraf our worst administration ever did not ever seek to clear her name. It would have been inconvenient to their continued use of the corrupt Musharraf regime.

While if there are charges that could be proved, they should have been brought out, the methods and questionable people involved indicate that an honest prosecution would not have worked out well for Pakistan's military government, that was not elected to high office.

The lesson our war criminals learned was the usefulness of charges, however insubstantiated, against their opponents. The Department of Justice was dragged into a very similar operation during elections here, bringing charges against the opponents of their colleagues in the GoPervian party.

Unfortunately for all members of the presently minority party, the result was to revolt any decent and law-abiding members of their party. What remains is corrupted if not by their own actions, by the association with unconstitutional, unAmerican, unethical activities they have allowed to go on.

338 days

***************************************************

Tension is rising as elections approach, and an opposition candidate who was a follower of the late Ms. Bhutto, Sayed Hussain, was attacked, 37 followers killed, in an area of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan today. A great deal is at stake.

Mercs Unemployment Program Sends Mexico Our Problems

Just because killing Iraqi innocents got them kicked out of that country, don't think the psychopaths in charge of your money will let them look for work like the rest of the unemployed. We have a whole new program set up to take care of the former assassins.

Would you like a vacation in Mexico? Maybe sending your money will satisfy you, so speculates the cabal at the White House.

The U.S. and Mexican governments are expected Monday to announce an anti-drug package that will probably involve hiring private U.S. military contractors to train Mexican troops on the use of new technologies and equipment, senior U.S. officials said.

The government's use of private contractors has been highly controversial, especially since a deadly incident involving contractors last month in Iraq.

The counternarcotics plan, estimated at $1.4 billion over two years, is expected to be announced simultaneously by President Bush in Washington and President Felipe Calderón in Mexico City. It will cap seven months of talks carried out in response to spreading drug violence, considered by many the biggest threat to Mexican security.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the plan "a quantum leap forward, partly because Mexico is willing to take that risk to build a new relationship."

"This is transformational diplomacy at its best, but don't expect miracles," the official said. "If we can do this right with a partner who really wants to change the relationship, then this will have an impact on the future of the relationship."

The plan calls for increasing U.S. anti-drug aid to Mexico, now estimated at $44 million a year, to $1.4 billion over two to three years, said officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The assistance is designed to train Mexican law enforcement officials to more effectively take on drug traffickers equipped with advanced weapons, high-tech communications gear, and aircraft.

After their training totally to disrespect such values as life and liberty in Iraq, the mercs should do great work winning friends in Mexico. A long history of corrupt and violent police there will no doubt work out perfectly for their growing taste for power and disdain for the law.

The country's treasure is being used consistently with the cabal's value system, to further alienate law abiding citizens everywhere.

Hold your nose, it's time to take another dive

In this booming economy which is so full of promise that we can hardly keep U.S. consumers from beating down the doors at the malls to buy the Holy Stuff ... more great news.

The service sector, where the burger flippers who used to sell you sub-prime mortgages or manufacture your American cars or something silly like that, took a dive. Can you imagine, those U.S. workers who are trying to make the payments they took on while working a real job now can't buy the kids burgers and still keep the house, or the car or pay for insurance - silly me, I forgot you had to drop the insurance policy that now costs $1200 a month, hope those kids wash their hands and stay inside the house for you. Those consumers whose incomes go offshore can't get a massage now. They can't pay to have flowers delivered. They can't pay for the car wash 'n wax. Your service sector isn't making its way because the geniuses at the head of the corporations are saving money on labor. Funny thing, how they expect the wage deprived to continue buying at the same level as before.

This isn't funny, actually.

The U.S. service economy, feeling the drag of the slumping housing market, expanded at a slower pace in September than in August, a trade group said Wednesday.
The Institute for Supply Management's index gauging the health of non-manufacturing industries registered at 54.8 in September, down from 55.8 in August and below the 12-month high of 60.7 reached in June.

The index, now at its lowest point since March, was in line with economists' estimates. A reading above 50 indicates economic expansion in the service sector, while one below 50 indicates contraction.

The service sector makes up 80 percent of U.S. economic activity, and on Monday the ISM also reported weakening growth in the manufacturing sector.

With both of these portions of the economy losing steam, the Federal Reserve may feel more inclined to lower interest rates further.

These are the jobs that don't require education and training, it's that anxious looking older person who helps you take the groceries out - if you can still afford groceries. This service sector person may give your mom her drive downtown in the van that runs the elderly to the library or the dialysis. Your church flowers get delivered, by guess who? the service sector.

This is about 50% of the economy that's left since all the good jobs went byebye.

We're not in good economic health, you see. I was just giving the GoPerv line a little runby, to let you practice for the big lies they are going to have to tell you about the crisis they're going to have to run on, come 2008.

Ominous Signs of Damage Caused By Incompetent Government

Reading this morning about the maladministration of Myanmar brought home to me the potential for abuse that incompetent government commits. As we watch the present executive branch degenerate into a ragtag bunch of political hacks such as FEMA director Brown of Katrina infamy, we need to be aware that this isn't petty theft. It is a harbinger of real dangers for this country.

In the case of Myanmar, the people have no choice but to try overthrowing their government, as they are literally starving. In our case, we still can activate real involvement in our government before it comes to that state. It can't be accomplished, though, without direct involvement. Protests are one way, blogs are another, involving friends is another, and getting out voters who are bright enough to see what's happening is a really good way.

In Myanmar, the government constituted itself of criminals who built up a defense bulwark it is taking street fighting to overcome.

When the military took power in 1962, then-military strongman Ne Win decided to take the country down an isolationist path, the "Burmese Way to Socialism" as it was called, which stressed self-sufficiency, and called for the nationalisation of almost all private companies.

Military officers took over these companies, as well as many civil service positions. It was their mismanagement that led to chronic inflation and near economic collapse by 1988, and the mass protests that came close to overthrowing the government at that time.

After that, the military tried opening up the economy to market forces and foreign investment, but it has never been willing to release its grip on crucial areas of the economy:

Imports and exports all require licenses, confronting entrepreneurs with mountains of red tape, and opening opportunities for corruption.

The trade in rice is entirely controlled by military-connected companies.

Internal transport is hobbled by poor infrastructure and frequent military bans on access to troubled areas.

Many commodities are subsidised, but available in very limited quantities.
There is an official exchange rate for the local currency, the kyat, which is 200 times lower than the black market rate.

Add to that the fact that more than half the annual budget goes to the armed forces, and that Burma is subject to strict sanctions by the United States and the European Union, and it has proved impossible for Burma to lift itself out of poverty.

The construction of a secretive new capital city since 2005, hacked out of the bush 400km (249 miles) north of Rangoon, must have added considerably to the government's financial difficulties, although it has given no figures for how much this mega-project is costing.

Note that the government began by taking over civil service positions - such as has occurred in our Justice Department where laws were ignored, displaced, or violated and the competent, ethical staff departed en masse.

More than half of th annual budget goes to the armed forces in Myanmar, while our mounting expenses to execute the president's war are not even acknowledged, many kept off budget.

These are things that we have to watch over, and combat, and report.

We don't want to be governed from the new Eagles Nest in Paraguay.

Addendum: Tonight I watched press footage of White House press person Dana Perino decrying the junta in Myanmar detaining innocents and holding them without representation for long periods of time. These people are either so dissociative they're certifiable, or they're beyond cynical.

Corruption of Media

Some one who grew to understand that evil had been elected to high office in this country - and the media that exposed it was WaPo - a very sad day has come. The editorial titled "Assault on an Ally" attacks the Dems for their refusal to support a criminal regime because they are friends with the maladministration.

The comments to the editorial are far more knowledgeable than the editorial is. And yesterday's news was full of the finding of bodies of the victims of the militias carrying out the various factions' goals which extensive aid from the U.S. has not been brought to bear on.

I am going to put up here a valuable and informed comment from WaPo, and think you readers do well to see what is real which is not making an impression on that no longer viable media organ. Though its reporters are excellent, its editorial board is ignorant.

Labour activists killed in Colombia We have decided to defend ourselves undertaking a well planned military operation to once and for all locate, exterminate, disappear and finish off this trade union cell. Threat sent to the Trade Union Congress offices in Santander Department by the Bloque Central Bolívar army-backed paramilitary group. Colombia: Paramilitaries Power Threatens Democracy Congressional Testimony on Democracy, Human Rights, and US
Policy towards Colombia So, if you take the time to educate yourself, youll see that in fact the Democrats are unwilling to enter into a free trade arrangement with a country that allows death squads to handle their internal labor disputes. Good thing too, we cant really compete with a country where you get murdered for asking for a raise or decent working conditions. As recently as February of this year a Columbian labor organizer was kidnapped and murdered by the government. I think this farce has gone far enough, arguments in favor of the agreement are vapid and unsurprisingly lacking in factual substantiation, much like the editorial I am responding too. I know the editorial board of the WaPo is comprised of over-compensated lard bottoms who dont have a care for the oppression, persecution or murder of other human beings, but are we really going to let these human pigs lead us to betray the people they exploit? Are we really going to join them in impoverishing ourselves as well as the Columbian people? I wont. Id ask you to join me.
By dijetlo | May 6, 2007 11:28:46 AM | Request Removal

I just discovered WaPo wont let you post a hyper-link to demonstrates their morally bankrupt sophism. How unsurprising. Take a look at Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International to get the story. Dont bother with the WaPo and its editorial board, they are just too busy quivering over the opportunity the further exploit both the US workers, as well as their Columbian counter-parts, to bother with facts or reality. Republicans want to trade with murderers, but then again, who else with even talk to them? Birds of a feather, after all.

Colombians leave their country every day to come here illegally so that they can live. It isn't just the wages, it's the conditions. The kind of ignorance this editorial demonstrates is making the illegal immigration problem daily more serious in the U.S.

The End Of Justice As We Knew It

Since the AG has this taste for turning out U.S. Attorneys who aren't meeting standards of Gooperism, here's one that didn't make the cut. Next round, perhaps?

Poorly written Justice Department documents cost the federal government more than $100 million in what was supposed to have been the crowning moment of the biggest tax prosecution ever.

Walter Anderson, the telecommunications entrepreneur who admitted hiding hundreds of millions of dollars from the IRS and District of Columbia tax collectors, was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison and ordered to repay about $23 million to the city.

But U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said he couldn't order Anderson to repay the federal government $100 million to $175 million because the Justice Department's binding plea agreement with Anderson listed the wrong statute.

Friedman said he could have worked around that problem by ordering Anderson to repay the money as part of his probation. But prosecutors omitted any discussion of probation -- a common element of plea deals -- from Anderson's paperwork.

"I've come to the conclusion, very reluctantly, that I have no authority to order restitution," Friedman said. "I hope the government will appeal me."

Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, which prosecuted the case in cooperation with Justice Department headquarters, said the government would bring civil charges against Anderson.

Seems the DoJ has too much on its mind what with calling up acting U.S. Attorneys to tell them not to enforce the laws. But at that level, to write court filings this poorly sure does seem to indicate that it's okay to be really dumb, as long as you leave the GOP criminals alone.

However, this Department of Justice flinging poo at any regulating of business is having its effect for sure;

European countries and Singapore have surpassed the United States in their ability to exploit information and communication technology, according to a new survey.

The United States, which topped the World Economic Forum's "networked readiness index" in 2006, slipped to seventh. The study, out Wednesday, largely blamed increased political and corporate interference in the judicial system.

We really, really need to get these people out of high places where they're doing too much harm to the (former) Rule of Law and the United States, in so many, many ways.

Theft By Deception

Interesting to listen in on the hearings and floor discussion on the administration of government in Iraq, and on the U.S. administration's proposed budget, and those costs. Without CSpan, we'd have to rely on news reports, and I really doubt it would be possible to see the full extent of the malfuntions.

Representative Issa, R-CA, was asking the Inspector General Stuart Bowen about the amount of expense we are sending in to Iraq, and the amount that has been going into overseas accounts because of the corruption of Iraqi officials. The IG had a rough figure of about 2,000 cases being pursued, but no figure for the monetary amount.

Everyone, generally, admits that it's a mess over there and for the most part names the cause as 'poor preparation'. I contend it's a matter of cynically throwing our public funds into a den of thieves without any real concern for the outcome.

The current budget is being introduced by this administration on the pretext that it will pay for the war and end the deficit this White House has incurred by 2012. However, as brought out on the floor yesterday, the Social Security Trust Fund will be tapped into in the amount of billions, passing the debt to Social Security instead of the deficit, or loans from foreign countries, that it now taps. This is another violation of the public trust, and misuse of public funds.

As Senator Kent Conrad said Monday;

And here is what happens, according to all of the projections with respect to debt if the tax cuts are extended, made permanent, without paying for them, without offsetting them: The debt absolutely skyrockets. And they begin to skyrocket right at the worst possible time. This is when the trust funds of Medicare and Social Security go cash negative. So at that very time -- and if you layer in the President’s tax cuts -- what you see is the debt absolutely exploding.

That’s why I say this budget is a combination of deception and debt in a way that’s disconnected from reality.[emphasis added]

Another travesty of accounting is being played out on the public by the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Looked at another way , what the Bush tax cuts give to taxpayers, the AMT grabs back. By 2012, if it isn't changed, the AMT would take back almost one-third of the Bush tax cuts. As the accompanying chart shows, it would take back more than half of the tax cut for people making between $100,000 and $200,000.

In fact, in an irony that only a tax geek could love, the AMT has been transformed from its original purpose, a means of assuring that the wealthiest pay at least some taxes, into a way of underwriting tax cuts for the wealthiest. Because the AMT hits fewer of those with the highest incomes, the rather comfortable end up subsidizing Bush's tax cuts for the super-rich.

Instead of dealing with the AMT, the administration has simply slapped on another one-year fix. It says it wants a permanent solution but in the context of revenue-neutral comprehensive tax reform. This is Washington-speak for "we have to find the money somewhere, but we're not ready to say how yet."

The most disturbing part of this whole scenario is that generations of Americans are being saddled with a debt that is paying for a disaster that was deliberately committed by the cretin in chief and his operatives. It was brought down on the American public by perversion of the truth, by the threat of WMDs - which only twisting the facts could establish. Theft by deception has been committed. It should not be visited on the public to pay for these crimes. Rather, if justice were done, the personal fortunes of the perpetrators of the war crimes should be taken for the payment of the costs they've brought down on this country.

If this country is to be torn down by the crimes of its leaders then it should be compensated by international justice bodies such as the International Criminal Court. This country's economic wellbeing has been destroyed for generations to come, and the U.S. should be compensated by confiscation of the criminals' fortunes that have been built up by their crimes.

History Doesn't Wait

The long reign of Augusto Pinochet began in 1973 when the government of Chile which had been elected legally was overthrown in a violent coup. From that time on, human rights violations mounted until the recent imbroglio from which the former dictator escaped by his death. I have inserted a collection of sketches of the many cases which I am sure are horrible, but a finding commemoration of the Pinochet record.

THE RIGGS CASE - FINANCIAL INQUIRY
What it is about:
An American investigation into the US-based Riggs Bank found in 2004 that Gen Pinochet held up to $8m in secret accounts there. Chilean investigators later found that the former ruler had about $27m in secret foreign accounts.

The judicial process:
General Pinochet was free on bail after being charged with tax evasion and using false passports to open accounts abroad. A court also stripped him of his legal immunity so he could be investigated for embezzlement of state funds, but no charges were filed. His wife, four of their five children and a number of other associates have also been charged in this case.

What the defence said:
Gen Pinochet's fortune was acquired legally, through savings, donations and accrued interest. His lawyers say that the reason he did not declare all his income was not to evade taxes, but to protect himself against possible trials abroad. They say he was given false passports for security reasons.


VILLA GRIMALDI - HUMAN RIGHTS CASE
What it is about:
Villa Grimaldi is said to have been one of the biggest secret detention centres in operation in Santiago during the military regime. Thousands of people were tortured at the centre between 1974 and 1977; many of them disappeared.

Judicial process:
The allegations against Gen Pinochet involve 23 cases of torture of political prisoners at the Villa Grimaldi detention centre and 36 of kidnapping, a charge that refers to people who disappeared in police custody and are presumed dead. Before charges could be filed, the Supreme Court had to uphold a ruling stripping him of his legal immunity.

What the defence said:
Gen Pinochet was not fit to stand trial. Lawyers also argued that there was no basis for the allegations - they said a face-to-face meeting between their client and the former head of the secret police, ordered by a judge, had cleared the general.


OPERATION COLOMBO - HUMAN RIGHTS CASE
What it is about:
At least 119 dissidents are alleged to have been abducted by state forces and later killed in what was known as Operation Colombo in 1975. At the time, the government claimed that the victims had died in clashes between rival armed dissident groups.

Judicial process:
The former president spent seven weeks under house arrest, charged with the disappearance of nine dissidents, before being granted bail. During this time, the Supreme Court ruled Gen Pinochet was fit to stand trial and he was formally booked for the first time. The court was due to rule on the lifting of the general's immunity by a lower court so he could be investigated for the disappearance of 37 dissidents.

What the defence said:
Gen Pinochet did not order that anyone be tortured, killed or disappeared, and was not in charge of the secret police. His lawyers also disputed medical reports that suggest the former leader was fit to stand trial.


OPERATION CONDOR - HUMAN RIGHTS CASE
What it is about:
Operation Condor was established in 1975 by at least six South American military regimes - Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia - to hunt down and kill their left-wing opponents. A joint information centre was established at the headquarters of the Chilean secret police, the Dina, in Santiago.

Judicial process:
In December 2004, Judge Juan Guzman charged Gen Pinochet with nine counts of kidnapping and one of murder and placed him under house arrest. But, the following year, the appeals court ruled that he was not mentally fit to stand trial; the ruling was upheld by the top court. The case was expected to be dismissed.

What the defence says:
Gen Pinochet's lawyers successfully argued in this case that he was to ill to stand trial.


Return to top

CARAVAN OF DEATH - HUMAN RIGHTS CASE
What it is about:
In October 1973, soon after the coup led by Gen Pinochet, a military "delegation" toured provincial cities in northern and southern Chile, killing 97 of the new regime's political opponents.

Judicial process:
In 2000, the appeals court stripped Gen Pinochet of his immunity so he could be charged with 18 kidnappings and 57 executions. The former leader was charged and placed under house arrest in January 2001. The appeals court later downgraded the charges - accusing him of being an accessory to the crimes rather than the author - before ruling he was unfit to face trial.

However, in January 2006, the appeals court lifted the former ruler's immunity so he could be investigated in connection with the deaths of two of President Salvador Allende's bodyguards during the Caravan.

What the defence says:
Gen Pinochet's lawyers denied he had any responsibility for the killings and argued he was not mentally capable of defending himself.


PRATS CASE - HUMAN RIGHTS
What it is about:
The former head of the army, Gen Carlos Prats, and his wife, Sofia, were killed in 1974 by a bomb detonated by the Chilean secret police in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

Judicial process:
Gen Pinochet was accused of being the intellectual author of the attack against his predecessor. In December 2004, the appeals court stripped the former ruler of his legal immunity in this case, but the ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court and later dismissed on procedural grounds. However, in 2006, the Buenos Aires district attorney issued an international warrant for Gen Pinochet's capture in connection with the killings.

What the defence says:
Lawyers for the general said there was no precedent to charge him in "such a horrible case". As in other cases, they also argued the general was unfit to stand trial.

As recounted in a brief sketch in Wikipedia, the rift between leftists who elected Salvador Allende and Pinochet's faction was encouraged by aggressive support of Richard Nixon and on the other side Fidel Castro. Armed conflict overthrew the Allende government and the atrocities resulted.

It has been argued [weasel words] that with a mere 36.61% of the vote, Allende did not have a clear "mandate" to embark in the wide reforms put forward on his program. Conversely, it has been argued [weasel words] that because Radomiro Tomic garnered 28.11% of the vote with a similar platform, Allende did have a "mandate". In any event, the legality of the election itself has never been in dispute. President Allende's Socialist political agenda brought opposition from many sectors of Chilean society as well as the United States, which placed diplomatic and economic pressure on the government to unstabilizing it and deteriorate the internal atmosphere.

Towards the end of 1971, Cuban leader Fidel Castro toured Chile extensively during a four-week visit. [1] This gave credence to the belief of those on the right that the Chilean Way to Socialism was an effort to put Chile on the same path as Cuba.

In an open support of Richard Nixon, in October 1972, Chile saw the first of what were to be a wave of confrontational strikes led by some of the historically well-off sectors of Chilean society. A strike by truck-owners soon joined by the small businesmen, some (mostly professional) unions, and some student groups. Other than the inevitable damage to the economy, the chief effect of the 24-day strike was to bring the head of the army, general Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister.[2]

Despite declining economic indicators, Allende's Popular Unity coalition actually slightly increased its vote to 43.2 percent in the parliamentary elections of March 1973. However, by this point what had started as an informal alliance between Allende's coalition and the Christian Democrats was long gone. [3] The Christian Democrats now leagued with the right-wing National Party to oppose Allende's government, the two parties forming the Confederación Democrática coalition (CODE). The conflict between the executive and legislature paralyzed initiatives from either side. [4]

On June 29, 1973, a tank regiment under the command of Colonel Roberto Souper surrounded the La Moneda presidential palace in a violent but unsuccessful coup attempt.[5] This failed coup was followed by a general strike at the end of July, joined this time by the copper miners of El Teniente as well.

In August of 1973, a constitutional crisis was clearly in the offing: the Supreme Court publicly complained about the government's inability to enforce the law of the land and on August 22 the Chamber of Deputies (with the Christian Democrats now firmly united with the National Party) accused Allende's government of unconstitutional acts and called on the military ministers to enforce constitutional order. [4]

Forsome months, the government had been afraid to call upon the national police known as the Carabineros, for fear of their lack of loyalty. On August 9, Allende made General Carlos Prats Minister of Defense. Nonetheless, General Prats was forced to resign not only this position but his role as Army Commander-in-chief on August 24, 1973, embarrassed by the Alejandrina Cox incident and a public protest of the wives of his Generals in front of his home. He was replaced as Commander-in-chief by General Augusto Pinochet that same day. [4]

I hear the left wing in Latin America called communist, socialist, left-leaning, anarchist, all manner of unflattering descriptions. It has a history that this administration would like to be forgotten by the same history the cretin in chief says is going to judge him only after his death. History marches much too quickly for those who've stood for really destructive measures. It caught up with Pinochet.

Old Debts

Being heavily in debt, a major holder of our national I.O.U.'s being China, the American public knows that it is being misused, but it's new to the position of debtor. In Latin America this is an old story, with lessons the U.S. might study to its own benefit.

Latin America has a long history of corrupt and indifferent governments, the traditional banana republic being made up of implants from Old Europe who economically, politically, and militarily dominated the indigenous populations who were conquered by the invading Conquistadores.

A history like that makes for schisms that give the ruling class an inclination to look on the populace as basically inferior, and the role of the working class that of support for the rulers. In a tradition of this sort, indebtedness was piled up by the rulers without consideration for the coming generations, especially as rumblings of rebellion grew and inevitable sharing of power arrived. Democracy in Latin America is putting in place the burgeoning population that so long was disserved by its governments.

In Ecuador, yesterday's voting results were again highly favorable for the indigenous population, and the socially progressive forces resoundingly defeated the old line group that has been running up the country's debt.

From Wall Street, the reaction is predictable. Ecuadorian bonds declined.
But among the pessimists who predict that in order to meet the needs of an impoverished people, some predict that the newly elected left-leaning government will honor its debts to keep from upsetting the world's bankers.

JP Morgan said on Monday Ecuador is unlikely to default in 2007 despite pledges of a debt restructuring that Rafael Correa, who leads the vote count of Sunday's presidential elections, made during the campaign.

The bank bucked a wave of negative recommendations on Ecuador's bonds by telling investors to remain "marketweight" on the country's debt. It also said it would be a "better buyer" of the securities if valuations reach the extreme lows seen before the first round of elections.

"Despite the concerning (but still vague) rhetoric on debt restructuring, we do not expect Correa to resort to default in the short term, since oil inflows will allow his administration to install a robust social spending and still service Ecuador's moderate debt burden," JP Morgan wrote in a research note.

It noted that more social spending, and not a debt renegotiation, was the center of the political debate in the run-up to Ecuador's second-round vote. [emphasis added]

"That said, clarity on this front may take time as we await the elaboration of the 2007 budget, and the results from a debt 'audit' being carried out by a commission installed by President Palacio to identify 'illegitimate' debt," JP Morgan added.

Throughout the third world, the legacy of hostile government running up debt for its own interests - that is now left for the rebelling populace to pay - is one the 'civilized' world ignores. JP Morgan is showing a surprisingly intelligent reaction, one that is far ahead of this administration in seeing the responsible character of the socially responsible.

In this neighboring continent, where now the debtridden indigenous population blames our financial realm for visiting the debts on them, it is a sound practice to work with and not against those working classes. The financial realm has much to make up for, from supporting the ruling classes that ran them up, to working to keep those classes in power and to making war on the resurgent popular movements such as the Sandanistas, this country has put itself in a shaky position with the new governments.

There has been a lot of corruption and violence involved in the class struggle, and Sandanistas among others were guilty of much that is totally reprehensible. Unfortunately, in this country the tendency of the majority here has been to condemn the excesses and occasional criminality of the left, and ignore the same by the right wing, 'conservative', element.

While most of us are decent people, we haven't gone the extra mile of becoming informed. The rise of the left in Latin America is the rise of economic and political equality for the working class in that country. It is one we are increasingly part of, as the government here shows its hostility to the interests of the working class - what not so long ago was the 'middle class'.

In Ecuador, today we have yet another new government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Rafael Correa, the leftist nationalist headed to victory in Ecuador's presidential race, already is planning radical changes when he takes office in January.

Such moves would put Correa on a fast track to a confrontation with the country's opposition-controlled Congress -- a body he has referred to as a "sewer" but needs to carry out his reforms.
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With 52.3 percent of the ballots counted, Correa had a 67 percent to 33 percent lead over banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal said Monday.
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Correa said his victory "is a clear message to our traditional political class of the profound changes that our citizens want. This country doesn't need being patched up. It needs a new constitution in tune with the times."

A government in the U.S. that favors the very wealthy cannot make a relationship with the emerging left in Latin America and elsewhere. This country badly needs leadership that is socially responsible, and that can relate to the needs of the working class.

In the meantime, the government that we have is helping elect left leaning governments abroad by showing its dissassociation from popular needs, and its repudiation of its own.