R U Dinji / Dingy?

Yankee & Co. imprison, torture, and kill without trial or remorse.

Such acts are unjust and criminal. But the world does little or nothing to stop the blatant outrage and carnage.

Guantanamo prison was condemned as outrageous by US Sen. Barack Obama, but since the dude achieved the Presidency it ain't been fixed.

The "evil" of Guantanamo? It's bad PR - a snapshot of fascist power.

US drone missiles kill thousands of people. Most drone strikes are far from any battlefield - we now create battlefields anywhere & wherever convenient to us. Our enemy does likewise.

The killed and maimed are depicted as dinji. We don't see fresh & shiny children, bright eyed kids enjoying play or fun or discovery. We're shown dingy dusty angles at the end-of-the-world, as if pre-modern massacres.

The dinji / dingy people are unfortunate pitiful victims.
Who are the dinji?  You, me & all but a chosen few ...

Killing Peasants

There's no back-story available for people we kill with drones. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands of people enjoying innocent quiet lives are rudely violated when we rain death & destruction upon them (perhaps someone we hate may be passing nearby).

America's drone killings are criminal... such crime threatens us all.

Just dusty peasants, whose blood soaks into arid empty lands?

TPP - Tainted Privately Putrid

The top-secret TPP was given a sharp stick up its arse by the US Senate, which refused to allow the Executive Branch ability to "fast track" its secret trade negotiations.

We'll soon hear how Senators are deeply concerned about their essential need to debate key concessions, and how public transparency should be required.

Actually, it's likely more Senate members want access to the corrupt money underlying the treaty process. Many of these individuals will shut up & climb onboard if given a chunk of the wealth.

Just now, however, it's considered an important defeat against the
Tainted Privately Putrid - - - TPP treaty
Hurrah!

There's NO good reason trade deliberations should be kept secretly hidden from public review!

stopsecretcontracts.org

Mob Mentality

Exclusionism is an abiding part of life in Korea & Japan. If somewhat or somehow different, you're sure to be attacked. Anyone not born in those places is a perpetual outsider. Those with uncommon heritage (for example, a multicultural homelife) are regularly treated shabbily, regardless of linguistic or cultural abilities. You sin if different.

"The nail that sticks up gets pounded down" is a Japanese saying applying as often in Korea.


Many peoples share group mentality, and gang-up on anyone different. But competition for jobs and resources will surely hurt nations and regions smothering creativity. To train everyone simply to follow orders, and mimic others, is surely a path to disaster.

Does stifling diversity hold back Japan & Korea very much?  It's massively costly! ... Homogeneity may allow some pitiful common folk to feel better about themselves, but we need creative & entrepreneurial communities to supply jobs and fuel well-being.

Read here on Jasmine Lee, "One Of The Most Hated Women In Korea"
(article above and Wikipeda link)

UK Rejects Weasels

The UK election results are still not wholly reported, but one clear result: the Liberal Democrats were crushed.

This is the party whose weasel leadership joined in coalition with the Conservatives to rule the UK since 2010. The Liberal Democrats broke their promises to voters, to youth and the future, and have been justly routed & reamed.

People expect little from the Conservative Party. But the Lib Dems were a voice of reason before their sellout. Nick Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister for five years, and got to hobnob with fancy folk, but he sold-out his people. Clegg promised repeatedly to abolish university fees - but instead jacked-up fees horrifically (after he & his generation paid little or nothing). Lib Dems vows of "Fairness" were hypocrisy & deceit.

Clegg, his opportunist colleagues, and The Right Honourable Lord Ashdown now bear finery and flattery as rejected losers - wannabe lackeys outmaneuvered by the English ruling class.

Children's Day?

Japan & Korea celebrated Children's Day on 5th May.

Dedicating a national holiday to children is nice, but children's lives are often tough though surrounded by plenty.

Both Korea and Japan are highly competitive, and from infancy most kids are pushed to fight for advantage and grades. Children are forced to memorize large amounts of useless data, seeking to show one is slightly better than others. You compete with your peers instead of playing with them.

In Japan, the keyword is 偏差値, hensachi or deviation-value.

Koreans focus on 스펙, spec, or personal specifications.

It's a grim kind of hell from a kid's perspective.

Children's Day, central Seoul, demonstrating against excessive study & competition

USA Freedom Act

The hobbled American government is now debating The USA Freedom Act.

The new legislation supposedly will roll-back surveillance and limit use of dirty tricks against American citizens.

Why are we forced to legislate freedom?
Because some American elected officials & government employees subverted the Constitution and undermined our daily lives, creating a dangerously sloppy surveillance system infiltrated by assorted enemies, domestic & foreign.

Unacceptable.

Schoolteaching Sweden

Monday this week the OECD published a report (link) about systematic decline in Sweden's schools. Findings strongly suggest the teaching profession in Sweden needs uplifting.

The report was requested by Sweden's previous right-wing coalition government, who supervised eight years of profiteering while education declined. More schools became autonomously incorporated but teachers became more like production workers.
 
OECD Director for Education & Skills Andreas Schleicher highlights "Only five percent of teachers think what they do everyday is respected by society."  Surely that's a problem!
For more see Sweden's 2013 Teaching & Learning International Survey summary (here); or the full TALIS report (link).

Sweden's educational troubles are no surprise. Increasing numbers of teachers work outside the public sector, in publicly-funded corporate schools. Such "schools" may not be clearly labeled as private businesses though staff are corporate employees, typically subverted as quickly-replaceable units to fuel profit-driven corporate success.  

Sweden's school sector has suckled a class of politically well-connected corporate swine instead of cultivating efficiency and innovation. Fat venture capital parasites feast on underpaid labor, minimally invest in professional development, and cut support services & 'non-essential' dimensions such as the school library or student counseling. Students, parents and society are ill-equipped to fully analyze these firms, and there've been tragic cases of full corporate collapse (such as the 2013 JB Education bankruptcy - owned by Danish venture capital firm Axcel - that directly injured 10,000 students in 20+ schools).

Belief in Brutality?

Does anyone believe it's healthy to be Black in America?

U.S. polarization makes Justice trivial and senseless. People are afraid of each other, terrified by government, savaged by local law enforcement.

Big bosses live large; the rest of us fight for scraps. We're brutalized by frightened pigs hiding anxieties behind arrogance & bravado. The cops require respect for doing shit work, but they can never be paid enough.

Provoking each other:
(one nasty t-shirt earns a pepper spray facial & violent takedown):
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=83f_1430654444

Government's creative response? Beat on the People -- More.

Knowledge is Power

Yes -- Knowledge is Power.

That's why our political masters try to keep us in the dark.

In Western nations (before these ruler-jokers) the Church claimed to know better. Dey kept Power for themselves ... look for the gold of their palaces & retreats.

Thank MASA to help us know bettah:

Manning
Assange
Snowden
Anyone

Info for the Masses?

The European Parliament is debating if nutritional contents should be added to alcoholic drink labels.

All other mass-produced drinks and foods require such labeling... but not if alcoholic (1.2% or more by volume). Why the liquor exemption?  The big-business drinks lobby provides lots of political 'donations' to grease their perspective...

There seems no good reason to keep us in the dark about calories & additives, and many reasons we should know (such as rising obesity & dietary restrictions) what's inside the stuff we could consume.

Conditions are much worse in the USA, where even alcohol percentages are hidden.

Pretty packaging hides dangers. Knowledge is Power!

Anzac - The Rulers Know Best

This week is memorial to ANZAC, the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. Especially remembered are fighting & losses in 1915 at Gallipoli - Çanakkale Savaşı.

As with all wars, the losses and maiming are huge. Profiteers and scavengers (properly incorporated & politically connected) do very nicely. But most grunts simply suffer from WTF:
"What the Fuck Am I doing Here?"
Many go from pain to a box in the earth...

The following leads to a great song, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" as done by The Pogues. The described battle could as well be Vietnam or one of the hundreds of conflicts through history from Afghanistan to Zion. Before enlisting to struggle & sweat & sacrifice for Empire, herded to the killing grounds for Wall Street & The City, listen to war well-told from a peon perspective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqN1glz4JY

Fast Track to TPeeP

Why's Government keeping trade concessions secret? Why can't the people know?

It's Piracy laddie! A corrupt insider scam.

From the scum who gave insider-bankers our national treasuries.

TPP and TTIP will swindle you from home & community.
(And ye cannot emigrate to jobs in China).
Shut it down!

RIP Ms. Sabeen Mehmud

A ruthless response
Smothering debate with guns
Cocky right-wing thugs

Gunned down in the street
Is Karachi beyond shame?
Two unarmed women ...

Dried blood in the dust
Whatever will be, will be?
Fight ignorance now!

 

Petraeus Favoritism?

Former CIA Director David Petraeus mishandled highly sensitive information and violated the U.S. Espionage Act, sharing classified national secrets with his lover during an adulterous affair.

He's now a Federal criminal; but his misdemeanor conviction carries no jail time.

The progressive press is outraged:
"he's a bum"
"Slap on the wrist ... reveals double standard" (link)

A further worry: "initially Petraeus lied to investigators" (link)

Many analysts focus on how rank-and-file whistle blowers who expose government misconduct & criminality are threatened & imprisoned for espionage, and wish the same penalties on arch "insider" Petraeus.

Golden-boy Petraeus was previously widely thought to have Presidential ambitions. And David Petraeus was brought down soon after declaring that US interests often conflicted with Israeli operations. Did God punish foul Petraeus for failing to kiss Netanyahu's fat arse? (link) Perhaps Petraeus was considered unmanageable as a politician.

The "old boys network" in the USA that supposedly spared David Petraeus is not strong.

 The key is active leverage.

The eight highly classified notebooks the FBI found in an unlocked drawer at the Petraeus home were perhaps a diversion.

Petraeus was head of the CIA, he could easily have protective information (real dirt) that kept him from jail.

High-placed friends & wealth might also help...

Gawker sordid flowchart (link)

Nippon... maa...

This sensitive report will require more care to cover properly. But bare bones focus is three topics (as signified by "maa"):

Mishima
Aum
Atomic

Mishima Yukio (三島 由紀夫 born 平岡 公威) was an uncommon character. A novelist and social commentator, he was also able to create a private militia that sometimes trained together with the Japan Self-Defense Forces (Mishima enlisted himself in the JSDF at age 42). One day Mishima and a few of his team pushed their way into the JSDF Ichigaya military headquarters seeking to spark a national coup. When Mishima's bellowing was ridiculed, he gutted himself, and his assistants chopped-off his head. Nutty but Big News.

Aum Shinrikyo (オウム真理教) was a salvation-focused religious group that began to assassinate its enemies, and ultimately released sarin nerve gas on five crowded Tokyo subway trains. But nearly nine months prior, on 27 June 1994, Aum attacked a Matsumoto neighborhood (Nagano-ken, Japan) with poison sarin gas, killing 7 and injuring hundreds. Law enforcement in Japan was heavily criticized for not curtailing Aum's killing operations earlier, as there were many other extreme incidents prior to the Tokyo Subway attacks (Aum attempted perhaps 20 more chemical & biological attacks in the wider community - link, including use of VX nerve agent to murder followers including Tadahito Hamaguchi, and attacking Noboru Mizuno and others). Nutty - and Big News.

Atomic weapons (原子爆弾) were suddenly & violently introduced to Japan in August 1945. Officially, Japan since then has sought to be free of nuclear weapons. But the military alliance with the USA secretly allowed parking such bombs in Japan. After the Fukushima meltdown, it's reasonable to be suspicious of the haste which the present Abe government seeks to restart nuclear power plants -- understanding that nuclear power operations can mask nuclear weapon-building operations. Western governments have repeatedly accused Iraq and Iran and North Korea of such duplicity - maybe some subset of the Japanese government has ambitions for Japan to join the nuclear weapons club... Is this so nutty?

Concepts overly odd are nonetheless sometimes true...

Second Sewol Shipwreck?

Overloaded ferry Sewol 세월호 sank a year ago due to overloading, poor seamanship, and corrupt management. Hundreds of high-school students drowned when the crew ignored safety regulations and public rescue services proved inept.

The Sewol scandal is highly sensitive. But Korean Pres. Park Geun-hye's right-wing forces lost control this weekend in central Seoul, resorting to battering Sewol memorial marchers with clubs, water cannons & tear gas, and making scores of arrests.

Mainstream Korean citizens are increasingly upset by official arrogance and harsh government cruelty...  watching grieving parents & grandparents shot directly in the face with tear-gas... all from an administration only in power because of psy-ops (from organizing corrupt disinformation on their political opposition -- link).

Koreans are being punished for asking questions & disobedience. But it was unquestioning obedience that got the Sewol kids killed !

Buying Blackmail Access

The security services (NSA, FBI, GHQ, MI6, Mossad, etc.) collect and share massive amounts of information. They process and sort the information with private-sector contractors. Ed Snowden officially was employed by Dell during part of his intelligence career; he later followed NSA Director Mike McConnell to Booz Allen Hamilton (McConnell admits some incompetence, but maintains dogged disinformation - link).

Anyhow, the spooks continue collecting a treasure trove of global information about people, love affairs, finances, national security information of governments around the world, business secrets, competitive intelligence, and enemy schedules.

Intel is valuable. Where will the new train line stations be located? Land prices around each site will skyrocket in value. Early knowledge allows purchase option bargaining.

Mid-sized governments spend tens of billions on defense procurement. Or they could spend far-less to discover fundamental rival vulnerabilities.

Key knowledge can be quickly worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The bad guys know this. Ruthless little fuckers like Whitey Bulger have money and contacts. Yakuza or less-connected governments or ambitious corporations are each eager to invest. Weak links are targeted -- that will collapse to blackmail or bribery. Our own arrogant leadership infects us with pathogens created for our protection.

NSA's Treasure Trove is surely already infiltrated, and the corruption is global.

Our spying is dangerous to all.

Atoms for Abe?

Nuclear reactor restart is very unpopular in Japan, with only 27% in favor. But Prime Minister Abe's in a heap of hurry to restart Nippon's reactors. After the horrible Fukushima disaster one might reasonably wonder WHY? ...

Atomic restart becomes much more understandable assuming Japan has nuclear weapons capability (or substantive nuclear weapon ambitions) secretly hidden inside its nuclear power industry.

Fearsome Fantasy?

We hope a sane voice decides: "Shut it down."

세월호 Haiku

Careless billionaires
Hungry spawn of Dr. Hwang
Sewol Splashing

Politician tears!
So dry beside the ocean
Sinking Gangnam style

Hijacked radiance
Bright youth choked by nasty Wealth
Down in the eel grass

From spec to ilbe
Live, Work, Die - pali pali
Enthralled by ego