October 30, 2006

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is surviving for a while but for how long?

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is surviving for a while but for how long? She is taking a position echoing the US policy against North Korea in order plead herself for continued US support amid the extreme political isolation she is experiencing. On the home front, after her bid to politically maneuver her extension and stay in office through changing the constitution was denied by the supreme court, she had instructed her leaders to mobilize the local government installing local militias to crush the peoples uprising in the rural areas as well in the cities. She indeed is heading for a stiff fight. Her fascist rule is now in question amid her posturing. She did boost in her visit in China that she’ll crush the NPA in 3 years? What a pitiful statement! The peasant’s revolution had been continuing for decades from the time of Spanish colonialism. For sure, she knows this though she is lying wherever she goes. But her lies are well exposed. An international court that convicted the Marcos dictatorship in the 80’s committing crimes against humanity is now acting to convict her for the same crimes. Under her rule for so short a period of time, many have died, church people and ordinary peoples fighting against her illegitimate presidency. She now goes home with the country wallowing in deep poverty and political strife. Can the people still take it?
Posted by Kalovski at 03:22:42 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

October 18, 2006

The reactionary opposition is now openly the target of GMA's political demolition

Now Mr. Puno in the DILG and her boss Macapagal Arroyo must watch out the backlash of their singling out Jojo Binay. Jojo Binay is an astute practitioner of real politik. He came to power during the heydays against Marcos. He came Prudente’s group wherein they have their People’s Liberation Movement before which was an urban based guerilla movement against Marcos though ironically Imee was their to support him yesterday. Seeing him wear his marine uniform signals Binay’s fighting spirit. Macapagal Arroyo has no bounds as she has just gone amok in persecuting people opposed to her. This time, she had just pushed the opposition to extreme with a new mix of alliance alliance against her. Month’s ago, Macapagal goons in the military had just assassinated Binay’s bodyguard, which means with the rate of killings in the Philippines, she had fast tracked digging her grave. This event had given another opportunity for the people to unite against her.
Posted by Kalovski at 03:44:23 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Mr. Jake coming back to life again and Mr. Mustang going home, though thanks for Mustang.

I got my Camry car back after one week in the repair shop. It has a rebuilt transmission. The shop had also installed a bigger cooler for Jake, the name of my car. Jake was given to me by brother though before giving it to me it had lots of problems. First I did changed his new wheels which was actually bought from a crush yard sale. Next I did brought him to a repair shop to fix his windows which cost me some amount of money plus fixing the oil leak. Barely a month of running his transmission did not function anymore and ocosted me again a huge amount of money. having to stay for a week in the repair shop, yesterday was a welcome home for Jake. He was repaired. Jake has been helpful to me and my family. He is the one that brings us to church, to school, to the mall and anywhere we want to go. One week Jake being absent was a terrible experience. My brother lent me his Mustang 87 model. Mustang was a great car especially in highways. He runs so fast that you have to maintain a speed of 45 miles per hour speed for his machine to feel relax, with speed and ease. Going below 45 miles per hour feels like a drag for Mustang. He emits a high pitch with his low gear. I have return the Mustang this afternoon in Berkeley. Mustang's steering was so great that driving Jake again felt his steering was tight. Tommorrow I hope to see all the set-up, transmission fluids, oil, steering, machine, coolant in place. I will not permit for Jake to be in the shop again since a car here in the US is like your shoes aside I have many things to do with all the killings happening in the Philippines. Being absent in meetings or school because your car broke down is just a bad experience and pisses you off. I still like the Philippines where I can just go anywhere with all the jeepneys, FX, taxi's and buses available in the road.
Posted by Kalovski at 00:26:01 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

October 14, 2006

Nuclear crisis made by USA

Nuclear crisis made in USA, Bush threats forced North Korea to arm in self-defense

By Fred Goldstein
Published Oct 12, 2006 9:28 PM

The Bush administration and the so-called “great powers” are hypocritically trying to create panic over the announcement by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Oct. 8 that it had successfully detonated a nuclear weapon. U.S. officials have declared it a “threat to international security.”

In fact, it is the U.S. imperialist government and its ally, Japan, that have created the crisis situation and are the main threats to peace in Asia.

The DPRK, in a statement from its Foreign Ministry on Oct. 3, had announced publicly that it intended to carry out the test. It says it was forced into nuclear testing because the Bush administration “seriously threatened the DPRK’s sovereignty and right to existence.” It condemned threatened sanctions as an “attempt to isolate and stifle it and bring down the socialist system chosen by its people themselves.”

“The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defense,” the statement continued.

To the Korean people, the U.S. threat is real. Washington divided their country after World War II and has kept it divided until today through a large U.S. military presence. For decades, Washington propped up one dictatorial South Korean government after another.

The U.S. led a brutal war against the North from 1950 to 1953, dropping 800 tons of bombs a day in saturation raids. It used napalm—jellied gasoline that clings to skin and causes a horrible death. Every town, village and city was left in rubble.

Four million Koreans died. Innumerable atrocities were carried out by U.S. troops. And Washington used nuclear threats throughout the armistice negotiations.

What can end the crisis

The crisis on the Korean peninsula and in the region could be ended if the U.S. government would do three basic things: recognize the sovereignty of the DPRK; establish normal diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries; and guarantee the DPRK’s security against a U.S. attack.

The North Korean government has been asking for this for over 50 years, since the end of the Korean War.

In addition, the DPRK has made innumerable proposals for the denuclearization of the peninsula and the surrounding region.

Above all, this kind of stability should be embodied in the signing of a peace treaty formally ending the state of war between the U.S. and the DPRK. Washington has resisted such demands for over 50 years.

The big business media and the government are treating the DPRK leaders as if they are paranoid and irrational. But the facts show a different story.

Bush administration threats

In his State of the Union address in January 2002, President George W. Bush branded the DPRK as part of an “axis of evil,” along with Iraq and Iran. In that same period, Bush ordered the Pentagon to develop “flexible” plans for the use of nuclear weapons as part of the Nuclear Posture Review. Sections of it were leaked showing that the DPRK was on the Pentagon’s list of seven targeted countries.

The National Security Strategy of September 2002 put forward the doctrine of “preemptive war” and “regime change,” linking it to Bush’s “axis of evil” assertion. Six months later Washington launched a preemptive, unprovoked war to bring about regime change in Iraq and overthrow the Saddam Hussein government.

All these threats were being made by a superpower with 10,000 nuclear warheads, a $10-trillion economy, a population of 300 million and highly developed weapons systems spread throughout Asia, especially in the vicinity of North Korea. In contrast, the DPRK has a population of 25 million, an economy of $16 billion, and has been undermined economically by half a century of U.S-imposed sanctions.

DPRK ringed by U.S. military

Furthermore, the DPRK is surrounded by U.S. nuclear bombers, nuclear-armed submarines, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers and destroyer fleets. Some 30,000 U.S. troops are based in South Korea, as well as a U.S. military high command that has final authority over several hundred thousand South Korean troops. Their mission is war against the North.

As recently as June of this year, the U.S. Air Force held tests of its Minuteman III missiles near the Korean peninsula. Three U.S. Navy carrier battle groups—including 22,000 troops, dozens of fighter planes and several heavy bombers—were assembled in the western Pacific off Guam in the largest naval mobilization since the Vietnam War. The USS Curtis Wilbur and USS Fitzgerald, both guided-missile destroyers, sit off the coast of North Korea. The U.S. sent spy planes on 170 missions during this period.

U.S. hawks block normalization

Far from causing the present crisis, the DPRK has tried repeatedly to avoid having to develop a nuclear deterrent. Each time the U.S. government or militaristic factions within it have found ways to thwart any agreement.

A year ago, in September 2005, the North Korean government signed an agreement at six-party talks with the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. In the agreement the DPRK pledged to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” In return the U.S. and North Korea agreed “to respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations.”

Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country’s access to the international banking system, branding it a “criminal state” for alleged money laundering and so-called “trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.” (Newsweek, Oct. 10)

In 2004, negotiators from the State Department had worked out an agreement with the DPRK “outlining steps to resolve the standoff over the country’s nuclear weapons. But it lacked the tough language on disarmament that North Korea had rejected and [Vice President Dick] Cheney knew Mr. Bush wanted.”

“With Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, at a black-tie dinner where they could not easily be reached on secure telephones, Mr. Cheney ‘declared this thing a loser,’ said a former senior official.”

Bush sent new instructions to the negotiators—through the National Security Council, rather than the State Department—“that essentially killed the deal.” (New York Times, Oct. 10)

Hostile to North-South dialog

In 1999 a new prime minister, Kim Dae-jung, was elected in South Korea. Kim declared a “sunshine policy” of building friendly relations with the North. In 2000, Kim Dae-jung had an historic summit meeting in Seoul with Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader. When Bush took office in 2001, he refused to meet with Kim Dae-jung, signaling U.S. government opposition to any relaxation of tensions on the peninsula and anything that could be favorable to North Korea.

The Clinton administration had also tried to undermine the DPRK. In 1993, after the collapse of the USSR, as part of the retargeting of U.S. nuclear weapons, Clinton let North Korea know it was being targeted by some of them. Clinton authorized Operation Team Spirit in March 1993, mobilizing bombers, cruise missiles and naval vessels against the DPRK. He went to the demilitarized zone separating North and South and threatened the DPRK with war in early 1994.

When the government in Pyongyang, North Korea, threatened to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Clinton prepared for war, including the use of nuclear weapons. South Korean Prime Minister Kim Young-sam argued with Clinton for half an hour over the phone to stop the war. Faced with the prospect of a nuclear attack, Kim Il Sung, then president of the DPRK, invited former President Jimmy Carter for talks. At their conclusion, Carter announced an agreement, later called the Framework Agreement, negotiated in Geneva.

Under this agreement, the DPRK, which was trying to develop nuclear energy to supply electric power since it has no oil or gas, agreed to shut down its nuclear reactor and stop development of two others in exchange for two light-water reactors. The U.S. was supposed to organize the production of these reactors by 2003 and supply fuel oil in the meantime.

It was also supposed to lift sanctions, recognize the sovereignty of the DPRK, work towards normal political and economic relations, and guarantee against nuclear attack. The U.S. immediately backtracked on everything but supplies of fuel oil, and those deliveries came late.

Washington sought sanctions against the DPRK in the UN, put it on the “terrorist list,” refused to guarantee against an attack and did not move an inch to normalize relations. It delayed production of the light-water reactors so they would be finished at the earliest by 2010.

The DPRK was in extraordinary economic difficulties following the collapse of the USSR and was forced to delay its economic recovery under threat of war.

Furthermore, in 1998, the U.S. military conducted exercises simulating an attack on the North with 30 nuclear bombs. U.S. warplanes based at Seymour Johnson Air Base in North Carolina, carrying concrete dummy bombs in place of B61 nuclear bombs, dropped them at a base in Florida as part of operational plans drawn up by the National Command Authority. (Gregory Elich, “Strange Liberators,” Llumina Press, 2006)

Strategy of demonizing DPRK

The strategy of demonizing North Korea and constantly threatening it serves a dual purpose. It keeps military tensions in the region at a fever pitch and provides the basis for maintaining more and more military hardware in Asia. Bush has promoted a high-tech, highly expensive and highly profitable (to the military-industrial complex) missile defense system.

Administration denials notwithstanding, it is the policy and ambition of the U.S. ruling class and its military to destroy the socialist government of North Korea. It has been the policy ever since the Korean Revolution after World War II, led by Kim Il Sung. The bosses and the landlords were thrown out and the society was taken over and run for the workers and peasants. That was the first “crime” of the DPRK.

The second “crime” was the outcome of the Korean War. In spite of enormous casualties, the revolutionary armies of the North, with the assistance of the Chinese Red Army, inflicted the first military defeat on U.S. imperialism by stopping it from taking over all of Korea.

One of the long-standing goals of Washington has been to break up any solidarity between the DPRK and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It is difficult for progressives and revolutionaries to watch the PRC lending itself to the anti-DPRK schemes of Washington and Tokyo. Hopefully, the current narrow, unjust and self-defeating policy of supporting sanctions on the DPRK will be reversed.

The implacable U.S. imperialist hostility towards the Korean revolution and the socialist government of the DPRK comes from its ambitions to conquer Asia and turn the Pacific Ocean into a U.S. lake. This policy has been a stated goal for over a century.

Challenge to anti-war movement

The anti-war movement in the U.S. now recognizes that the Bush administration is an aggressor in Iraq and is planning aggression against Iran. It is beginning to recognize the reactionary role of the U.S.-client state in Tel Aviv as the cat’s paw of the Pentagon in the Middle East. It recognizes that Washington has designs to overthrow the Cuban government and the Venezuelan government.

It is time to elevate the cause of the DPRK in the movement and fight against Washington’s demonization, its sanctions and threats.

It is U.S. militarism that is the threat to peace, not the defensive measures taken by the government of the DPRK. North Korea has done everything possible to avoid having to resort to a nuclear deterrent. But it has experienced a solid wall of hostility, threats, military maneuvers, vilification, and attempts at isolation and economic sabotage.

It has seen “preventive war” against Iraq. It has witnessed the destruction of the government of Yugoslavia after a massive U.S. bombing campaign. The DPRK does not want more nuclear weapons in the area. On the contrary, it has offered many proposals to get rid of them. It has called for signing a peace treaty. It has called for a non-aggression pact. It wants peace, while Washington wants war and counter-revolution in Korea and all of Asia.

Right now a dangerous bloc exists between Washington and Tokyo. Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and ruled it as a colony until 1945. The Japanese imperialist ruling class wants to use this crisis as a springboard to build up its military. It is using the Bush administration’s full court press for sanctions and the strangulation of the DPRK as its cover.

The workers and oppressed in this country can only suffer from an increase in militarism around the Korean peninsula. Either they will be dragged into war or forced to pay the price of increased military spending—or both.

Those who are exploited by the bosses, whose wages are going down, whose benefits are being cut, have nothing to gain by supporting the war drive of the billionaires’ government in Washington, the military-industrial complex and Big Oil, who are behind the present crisis.
Posted by Kalovski at 00:48:51 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

October 11, 2006

Akbayan shows its true color, parroting US propaganda line of condemning North Koreas' deterrent program

Now the reactionary clique of Bush adminsitration is threatened by North Korea's move to detonate their nuclear bomb. The US is thinking of laying off their hands against North Korea. For long time now, the US had been bullying North Korea. It had instituted economic embargo, or food blockade. The US had used its propaganda machinery to politically isolate North Korea by documenting hardships and the supposed restrictions on peoples freedom. One teacher of mine had rechoed the US political propaganda line not knowing that before the detonation test happened all US guided missiles where aimed in the direction of North Korea with all US ships incircling the country like wolves ready devour the country. Now the US has been slurred after the test. All they can do now is condemn it while they are busying themselves testing their own nuclear bombs in the Pacific without our knowledge.

I am not surprised Akbayan which is a pseudo- people's organization had reechoed the US position condemning North Korea's nuclear test. They have not been clear what they are up to. They do not realize that it has been 50 years now that North Korea has long been trying to get Washington to end its threats and provocations, normalize relations and sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War. During that war, which ended in 1953 with a cease-fire, U.S.-led forces killed 4 million Koreans and leveled the North with saturation bombing.

Now these grouplets in the Philippines instead of condemning the US bullying efforts for long a time, it had trained their guns against North Korea condemning it irresponsible . Now let us encourage this groups to call the US to stop the crisis. Let us call the US to stop threatening North Koreas; Let us call to recall their sanctions against the DPRK and respect Koreas sovereignty. Let us call the US to sign a peace treaty now and stop their President from labelling NorthKorea as axis of evil inorder to justify their intervention and lust for power.


Posted by Kalovski at 22:51:32 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

October 07, 2006

The reactionary and fascist regime of Macapagal Arroyo is hell bound and determined to kill and demoralize the legitimizers of the struggle of the poor.

One of the things that really bother me is the boldness of the killings going on in the Philippines targeting church people, priests, lay workers, and now Bishops. The reactionary and fascist regime of Macapagal Arroyo is hell bound and determined to kill and demoralize the legitimizers of the struggle of the poor, the peasants and workers and the whole Filipino people who wants change that addresses the structural problems of backwardness, poverty, disempowerment, landlessness and many more.

Now its good that the Promotion of Church People's Response, an organization of church people from different denominations had already exposed treats of church workers lives as early as now in order to preempt whatever evil plans of assassination the military will do at the backdrop. Macapacapal's assassination council fronting in as taking charge of the security concerns headed by Ermita and the rest have lately devised ways as that method used in killing Bishop Ramento, make it appear as if it was a robbery instigated thing and had used a knife instead of pumping bullets to their victims. What a semblance of those assassinations taking place in Latin American experiences before. What an imprint of US though methods usually used by their intelligence department. I suspect those organizations such as those associated with Jun Alcover and his friend Cerge Remonde's Nationalist Alliance for Democracy and other rabid anti-communist organizations plus group lets of ragtag bandits have been used to this campaign.

The silence of Macapagal Arroyo and her quick default defense of throwing these case to her Commissioned whitewashing organizations such as those headed by Justice Melo and the Task Force Usig (Shout) are there to pacify, defuse and elude responsibility. Firstly these formations are intended as her political shield. It has no fangs to prosecute and investigate to the fullest. It has no sufficient funding in the first place.

What is so insulting is that every time killings happen, Malacanang operates so sync with all departments. Of course we hear Ignacio Bunye lay out the lies in public. We hear the old Gonzalez in the Department of Justice justify all and throws intrigues and accusations deemed to protect GMA. You hear the military generals in top positions sow red baiting accusations as running the campaign of purges of the communists.

But their propaganda line are all debunked. We have seen media practitioners exposing their lies. Thus, journalist too are targets of assassinations and killings as well. You cannot count now with your bare fingers how many are already killed from the media practitioners ranks in the Philippines. Nonetheless lawyers are also killed as they are the ones that are in the position to expose the legal justifications of these killings. They are the ones who point out the main motive of these killings. Students are killed too. They are the ones that are active in exposing these evil deeds. More the peasants and workers who are the forefront of the struggle for land and freedom.

Will there be a halt to these killing sprees? I do not know. It is up for the people to frustrate them. It is up for the people what to do.

What the masses of people can do now is to intensify and escalate our resolve to expose and oppose these evil things happening, fight to get rid of an illegitimate government runned by a military junta from within with GMA as their main head.

Posted by Kalovski at 12:38:54 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

October 03, 2006

Macapagal’s regime is so treacherous that their treachery can be gleaned million of miles away from home. Indeed, a military junta from within.

Bishop Alberto Ramento, 69, chair of the Supreme Council of Bishops of the Philippine Independent Church (PIC) was killed yesterday. I suspect the military have hired killers to kill the bishop and planned it as if it was a robbery instigated. It was done inside the convent. The treachery of GMA’s assassins know no bounds. They have been so angered with the Bishop’s role and involvement in defending and supporting the people’s movement in Central Luzon. The Bishop was a staunch critic against GMA's fascist rule. He was vocal and active in opposing the ongoing militarization in Central Luzon. He was an advocate for peace as his face is familiar to many in dialogues and conferences. He was an advocate and mover for justice as he was in the frontline supporting the striking agricultural workers in Hacienda Luicita. Early as now the power’s that be, that is from the local police up to the halls of Malacanang will justify the killers show that the killing was done by robbers. This byline story will be replicated in the controlled media within the coming weeks. I know for sure GMA will immediately convene her fact finding commission or a task force delegating the tasks to the actual conspirators or perpetrators programmed who will handle the cover-up and  whitewash. Macapagal’s regime is so treacherous that their treachery can be gleaned million of miles away from home. Indeed, a military junta from within.

Militarization and killings is what GMA and her cohorts do to maintain themselves in power... and the people will rise up and overthrow them.
Posted by Kalovski at 13:48:05 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |