Tag: politics

You know the US is in trouble…

… when The Onion sounds more like the “real” news every day.

Chinese ghost cities

Planned economy ftw I guess…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm7rOKT151Y
(clicky because embedding has been disabled) 

Vast new cities are being built across China at a rate of ten a year, but they remain almost completely uninhabited ghost towns. Racing to stay ahead of the world economy, is the superpower about to implode?
“There are around 64 million empty apartments in China,” claims analyst Gillem Tulloch. It’s all part of the Chinese government’s efforts to keep its economy booming and there are plenty of people who would love to move in, but the properties are priced out of the market. It’s after 2pm and in the new city of Dongguan shop owner Tian Yu Gao is yet to serve a single customer. “It’s a bit boring,” he sighs. His open shop is a rare sight in the Great Mall: once heralded by the New York Times as proof of China’s astonishing consumer culture, today it is an eerie vista of emptiness. “It can’t stay this way,” insists Tulloch, “when the bubble bursts, it will impoverish vast numbers of people”.

Slavery in Pakistan


Thousands of women are imprisoned for adultery and even locked up for having been raped.
In a bare prison cell a veiled teenage girl huddles against the wall. Ruqaiya Khan is in prison because she wants independence from her family and in Pakistan Islamic law says that a woman’s Place is in the home. Stark faces peer from behind the bars of a Karachi insane asylum, housing 1200 women. Abuse and over-work cause women to die on average younger than men. We speak to lawyers who fight the cases of women trapped by Pakistan’s harsh Islamic laws. On any day up to 3,000 slave girls are for sale on Karachi’s streets. We speak to a 14 year old who was sold. A community leader says that even the government is involved in a protected and flourishing slave trade. Pakistani prostitutes dance for our camera. The brothels are legal. In Pakistan men have made a society designed only for their comfort.
A film by Mark Stucke.
Journeyman Pictures

How to read a State Department briefing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBuMuzhvYeA

Understand what Hillary Clinton really means… :)

Understand what Hillary Clinton really means… :)

How to analysze a State Department briefing

Unfortunately I will need to make some remarks about the peoples movement in Egypt
We continue to use our secret intelligence closely,
We are depply scared about our  empire in the region
And slightly embarrassed that we fund the Egyption security forces to repress their own people,
And we call on the 30 year dictatorship in Egypt to do everything in its power to protect our interests
At the same time we encourage to portrayal of protestors as more violent than the Egyption army
As we repeatedly say, we promote human  rights for the priviled, when it is politically beneficial to us
Including freedom of expression, except in our own country if you engage in any dissident groups
We urge the Egyption mafia to use covert CIA tactics similar to those used in COINTEL program
And promote the similiar steps used during the Honduran 2009 coup to cut off communications
The protests underscore the fact that Egypt is the second largest recipient of US Aid $, after Israel
And the Egyptian regime that we support with $1.3 billion in military aid (tear gar, guns, tanks, training)
That maybe with enough violence we will make these people go away
As Obama has said yesterday, reform, but not an inspiring revolution, is critical in Egypt
Egypt has long been an important puppet of the United States on a range of financial issues
As a partner we won’t know what to do if the political climate in the region changes
The Egyption government needs to push through more neoliberal World Bank and IMF politicies
To implement a whitewashed attempt to appear to be concerned with the problems of the masses
We continue to spy on the Egyptiptian people as we do inside our borders and around the world,
The imperative is to hold onto our stable economic interests to profit at the expense of the people
And encourage the participation of US companies to profit abroad
We want to partner with the Egyptian oligarchy and who ever we name as their future government
To impose on them our need for domination to secure oil interests for our overcomnsumption
That respects our strategy of imperialism to maintain our over 1,180 military bases worldwide
When I was recently in the region staying in 5 star hotels far removed from the poverty of the people
I met with submissive groups and I explained to them as well…
We overthrew Saddam Hussein when it was convenient & simply we’re not ready  to dispose of Mubarak
We want you to believe most of the people in the Middle East are all terrorists, especially so you fear Muslims
[Who] are seeking freedom from the poverty which we push their governments in using foreign “aid”
and to have a little or no role in the decisions that will shape their lives
As I said in Doha, leaders we install need to prevent this type of revolution from happening
And to help ensure the rich can live extravagantly at the expenses of our collective resources
They need to ignore this revolution so people in the USA don’t get the same ideas.