statism watch

Oh, like the legislation the Harper government just proposed. What a coincidence. The free Internet is under attack and taking heavy fire. If you want to save it, you’d better call your MP or Congressional representative, assuming those bodies aren’t already vestigial chambers rubber-stamping legislation handed to them from international thinktanks.

Flashback: Do We Need a New Internet?

Declan McCullagh, CNet News
February 19, 2009

Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations.

The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.

“While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. “Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level.” [Ed. Note: Same justification every time.]

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Good thing these crises keep rolling in, or there’d be little chance for such opportunities. Why do those close to the levers of power appreciate crises so much? A chance to stampede the herd? Check your head, Iggy – sovereignty isn’t ‘protectionism’. And NAFTA isn’t free trade. Since Martin’s out on the road selling the G20, it looks like Ignatieff is the local cheerleader for the same globalist agenda being espoused by Gordon Brown, Timothy Geithner, Volcker, Greenspan, Kissinger, and the rest of the usual suspects around the CFR and IMF. Perhaps in four years we can start afresh with a new batch of leaders a little further removed from the establishment that’s hell-bent on shoving these ideas down our throats. But likely not. At least he restrained himself from peppering the article with the word ‘governance’.

Flashback: Take note Naomi Klein: Democrats consider crises as opportunities, too | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | Cheney Considered False Flag Operation to Justify War with Iran | Wolfowitz: U.S. Future Hinges on Another ‘Crisis’ | McCain adviser says terrorist attack would boost campaign | Rumsfeld to Pentagon Media Analysts: America Needs another Attack | New Documents Reveal North American Union PR Campaign

Michael Ignatieff, The National Post
February 19, 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Canada offers us an opportunity for partnership that we should seize with both hands.

We won’t get out of our economic crisis unless we work with our neighbour to make the North American economy more efficient and competitive. The crisis creates an opportunity for political leadership on both sides of the border, and a chance to break down the barriers that prevent our two economies from reaching their full potential.

A North American agenda begins with a strong defence of continental free trade. President Obama has shown leadership in condemning “Buy American” measures in Congress, and leaders in Canada need to stand up against protectionism in our own country, as well. Protectionist moves in Congress, like the Country of Origin labelling in livestock, continue to hold back our exporters. No country stands to lose more from a protectionist turn in the U.S. than Canada, and we need to say loud and clear that protectionism will lead both of our countries backwards.

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It’s not too often glimpses of the old boy’s network make it this far in the mainstream media. Fascinating. Start trolling the net for more info on the Skull and Bones and you start learning a lot about who really runs the joint down south. And you turn up a lot of interesting information along the way. Like, for instance, the fact that Prescott Bush was the bagman for Nazi financiers Brown Brothers Harriman in the lead up to WW2.

Stephanie Reitz, Associated Press
February 19, 2009

Lawsuit launched against U.S. government, Yale U., secret society for return of remains

HARTFORD, Conn.–Descendants of warrior Geronimo are suing the U.S. government, Yale University and a powerful secret society at the Ivy League school in hopes of returning the Apache chief’s remains to New Mexico.

Geronimo’s great-grandson, Harlyn Geronimo, said they believe members of the secretive group Skull and Bones took some of the remains in 1918 from the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery in Fort Sill, Okla., to keep in its New Haven, Conn., clubhouse.

The society, which is not affiliated with the university, includes as members former presidents William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and many others in powerful government and industry positions.

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CBC News
February 19, 2009

The new Canadian commander in Afghanistan said Thursday he welcomes the addition of thousands of American soldiers to the country.

Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance officially took charge of the more than 2,800 Canadian soldiers, air crew and support staff serving in Kandahar during a ceremony in the volatile southern province.

Vance replaces Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, who led the troops for the past nine months. He takes over as Washington begins to shift its overseas military emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan.

U.S. President Barack Obama has announced an extra 17,000 soldiers and marines will arrive in Afghanistan by the summer, including at least one combat brigade in Kandahar, where the Canadians operate.

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“When you have nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire.” – Stars

I don’t imagine Torquil Campbell of the Stars meant it literally when he wrote the introductory sample from ‘Your Ex Lover is Dead‘, but the source of the passion is the same. Murugathasan, too, was losing people he loved. Is this the measure of last resort against corrupt power for those who do not wish to go the route of armed conflict? Surely there must be a better way.

Sam Jones, The Guardian
February 19, 2009

Self-immolation has been a powerful symbol of protest in the Western media since Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire to protest the Vietnamese regime

His life had taken him from the northern tip of Sri Lanka to a pebble-dashed semi in north-west London and finally to a cold square in Geneva. But it is for his death that the 26-year-old Tamil, Murugathasan Varnakulasingham, is likely to be remembered.

A little after eight o’clock last Thursday night, the computing graduate and part-time Sainsbury’s shelf-stacker doused himself in petrol in Geneva and set light to his body outside the United Nations complex in the Place des Nations. Police officers rushed to try to save Murugathasan, who stood “burning like a torch”, but he was too badly injured. A few metres away, they found a letter typed in Tamil and English explaining why he had chosen to die: “We Tamils, displaced and all over the world, loudly raised our problems and asked for help before [the] international community in your own language for three decades. But nothing happened … So I decided to sacrifice my life … The flames over my body will be a torch to guide you through the liberation path.”

Seven Tamils – including Murugathasan – have burned themselves to death in the past month to protest about the treatment of their people by Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese government. Most were in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, but on 14 February, another British-based Tamil allegedly tried to set himself on fire outside Downing Street, but was arrested before he could do so.

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