Marine Le Pen’s far-right gets chance to change France in Sunday parliamentary vote

by Associated Press
June 7, 2012

A desolate patch of northern France that thrived for centuries when coal was king is now the hunting ground of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who promises a morose populace a new political order if they hand her a seat in parliament.

Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Front, buoyed by her strong third-place showing in the spring presidential race, is looking to put its first lawmakers in the lower house since the 1980s. Her chance to upset a system that has locked her party out comes in elections starting Sunday.

Her aims of undoing the euro currency, shrinking immigration, protecting “Frenchness” and fighting what she calls Islamization have won her fans among extreme right movements around Europe. The potential impact of a Le Pen victory in the Henin-Beaumont region is so great that France’s leading voice on the far-left, fourth-place presidential finisher Jean-Luc Melenchon, decided to run for the same parliamentary seat to thwart her chances.

Win or lose, Le Pen vowed in an interview this week with The Associated Press, “Nothing will be like before.”

The race in the 11th precinct of this former coal mining basin is among the most watched in France. Le Pen will likely sail through Sunday’s first round, but the outcome in the runoff a week later is unclear.

“I think we can force ... a reordering of (French) political life ... It’s the most important thing in 25 years,” she said, before heading out to press flesh at a nearby market, bodyguards in tow.

Le Pen, along with 570 other National Front candidates, is challenging a system that she labels “undemocratic” because her party remains sidelined despite years of strong election showings under Jean-Marie Le Pen, her firebrand father. Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the runoffs in the 2002 presidential race but was stopped by a rare alliance of right and left who voted for the incumbent, conservative Jacques Chirac.

Daughter Le Pen, a 43-year-old mother of three, has a soft touch that appeals to voters once too timid to vote for the extreme right — but also a steely resolve and a tongue that can be as cutting as her father’s.

Her ultimate plan is to “explode” the mainstream right of former President Nicolas Sarkozy to become the main opposition to Socialist President Francois Hollande. Her party claims to be the sole ally of French sovereignty in a multicultural, globalized nation under the boot of Brussels, the governing seat of the European Union.

Le Pen’s anti-globalization mantra and disavowal of the euro find resonance in this joyless red brick town where unemployment is at some 20 percent and factory after factory has closed down. Her drive against “Islamization” also gets listeners, even though the Muslims here are largely descendants of North Africans of France’s former colonies who came to help work the now-shuttered mines.

“The region is increasingly doomed,” said Leonardo Colangela, a former schoolteacher whose father immigrated here from Italy. He runs a brasserie on the main square in Henin-Beaumont, one of the few in town. “The big industry closed and the little ones are following. No one wants to set up here.”

He scans the social horizon with the eye of an expert: fragile families, youth without education. And a Muslim population who “came and lived to work,” joining other coal miners in building the region’s prosperity. “The first Arabs here didn’t scare you.”

Today, Colangela said, with the economy in a shambles, “if a Frenchman steals, it’s more easily accepted than if an Arab does ... People are afraid.”

Le Pen feels at home in this hardscrabble land, and is trying to craft a new image to erase the stigma of racism and anti-Semitism that clings to the National Front.

[ed. Especially when such labels keep being used by journalists like this one...]

The National Front typically acts as a spoiler in elections, and has even forced some mainstream candidates to adopt their rhetoric. While running for re-election, Sarkozy took up National Front themes in hopes of winning over far right voters.

“We were the center of gravity of political life in the presidential elections,” Le Pen said, noting the attention Sarkozy attracted over themes dear to her. He spoke of halal butchers, perceived threats to French secularism from France’s at least 5 million Muslims and immigrants taking government aid and French jobs.

The 11th precinct, with Henin-Beaumont at its center, is a no-holds-barred battle between the noisy extreme left campaign by Melenchon — his campaign truck blasting music and decked with portraits of the radical left candidate — and Le Pen’s unusually sedate extreme right fight.

In a changing world, “The National Front represents a France that no longer exists,” said Melenchon during a visit to a nearby open-air market, arriving on the heels of Le Pen.

Melenchon, who would requisition failing companies to put them on their feet and whose candidacy puts him back on the national political map, says he wants to see Le Pen and her National Front “eradicated.” Playing on the National Front slogan “French first,” Melenchon’s slogan is “Humans first.”

Le Pen’s campaigners, trying to one-up him, caused a scandal by passing out postcards bearing Melenchon’s photo and saying in French and Arabic, “There’s no future for France without Arabs and Berbers ... Vote for Melenchon.”

“The goal was to create a buzz,” Le Pen told The AP, and put immigration back at the center of the debate.

A poll published Wednesday by the IFOP firm for the local Voix du Nord newspaper suggested Le Pen could get 37 percent of the vote in Sunday’s first round, compared to 25 percent for Melenchon and 21.5 percent for the Socialist candidate, Philippe Kemel. But she could lose if she faces either Melenchon or Kemel in the second round.

Hollande is counting on such surprises to help him win a strong Socialist majority to unwind the programs of Sarkozy and carry out his leftist agenda.

For her part, Le Pen says a win is “doable,” pointing to the margin of error of some 3 percentage points in the poll of 604 people. But “my credibility doesn’t depend on (this) election,” she insisted.

In Henin-Beaumont, Marine Le Pen has Tekla Plucinski’s vote. The retired 78-year-old who worked at a cotton fiber factory complains to Le Pen about life on €500 a month.

“I don’t understand why the French don’t revolt,” she said. But she’s happy for a moment. “I can say it now. I saw Madame Le Pen.”

Not everyone is convinced that Le Pen has chased the devil from the ranks of the National Front.

“Madame Le Pen hides the ideas of her father behind a beautiful image. She scares me,” said Luc Vamech, 62, a recently retired teacher and ardent Melenchon supporter. “She can fool a lot of people like Hitler did.”

[ed. Like the EU does...]

The perception of the National Front as a global menace has spread as far as a video clip by Madonna which shows Le Pen in a montage with a swastika.

Le Pen scoffs.

“To be hooted at ... by a woman who went to buy babies in Africa with her money,” Le Pen said indignantly, denouncing the super-rich and referring to Madonna’s adoption of two babies from Malawi. “That’s almost worth a medal of virtue for me.”

We must quit the EU and be free of its 'shackles' or face joining a 'single country called Europe', says former Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen

By Martin Robinson
7 June 2012

Britain has the perfect opportunity to break from the 'shackles' imposed by Brussels as members like Germany close ranks to form a 'single country called Europe', Former Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen has said.

And to ensure Britain looks after itself, the electorate must be asked two simple questions, would the UK be better off leaving the EU, or staying and joining the euro, he said.

As the eurozone faces its biggest ever crisis, he said now is the perfect time to act decisively over the UK's future in Europe.

'A referendum on the future of Europe is inevitable at some point between 2013 and 2016 at the latest,' he wrote in The Times.

It came as Chancellor George Osborne again resisted calls for a snap in-out referendum.

Today Britain's Foreign Secretary from 1977-79 said the UK would be better off cutting links with Brussels to join a wider single market to include non-EU members like Turkey and Iceland, which he calls the 'European Community'.

This, he told The Times, has to happen because Britain's vision for an EU of no further integration and Germany's wish for near-complete integration are incompatible.

Lord Owen, who is the most senior British political figure to back a referendum so far, believes Eurozone members are squeezing together to form a group that is 'to all intents and purposes, though not in name, a single government.'

[ed. Dare it be called a Fourth Reich?]

'In the UK, but also in some other countries, there are growing public demands for a consistent position to resist any further merging of the two models, because the people in these countries to remain self-governing, in that they are determined to retain their own currency and remain in control of their own foreign, defence and fiscal policies,' he said.

'Yet these same countries see the argument for greater integration within the eurozone to help resolve the continued crisis. The way these issues can be resolved Europe-wide is to enable those countries who wish to integrate further to do so and allow those countries who do not ever envisage becoming part of the eurozone to remain in a restructured single market.'

Key areas that have been handed over to Brussels in the past, like agriculture and fishing as well as foreign, security and defence policy, would go straight back to Westminster, he said

Lord Owen makes these warnings in his new book, 'Europe Restructured', which says David Cameron and Ed Miliband will have to promise one between now and 2016.

Chancellor George Osborne, who is also David Cameron's campaign adviser, is said privately to be backing a referendum as a huge proportion of Tory members want it written into their 2015 general election manifesto.

[ed. This is not an issue to be 'played with' for petty party posturing, at election time every five years, these unconstitutional changes are happening today...]

But speaking this morning he resisted Lord Owen's calls saying that a vote would only be triggered if British sovereignty was threatened and the question would be based on an individual treaty, not a straight in-out poll.

'The British people would be concerned if there was any transfer of power, ' he told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.

'A reshaped relationship with Europe would involve a transfer of sovereignty or powers to Brussels. I think we have a very clear safeguard in the system now, thanks to this Government, which is, if there is any transfer of power from this country, transfer of competence or transfer of sovereignty from this country to the European Union then there will be a referendum.

'That is not something that happened at the time of the Lisbon treaty and the constitution, that’s not something that happened at the time of the Maastricht treaty.

'We have now put right that, ensuring in law there is this referendum lock, and as I say, people did not really notice the passage of this law about a year ago, but I think it’s one of the most significant things this Government has done.'

Tory Andrea Leadsom, co-chair of the Fresh Start group of MPs, said the euro crisis was a 'perfect opportunity' to renegotiate Britain’s position in the EU.

'This isn’t about profiting from the eurozone’s hardship - it’s about facing up to the reality of the damage the EU is doing to our economy and our civil society and showing the single-mindedness to do something about it,' she wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

Her plan would involve the 'nuclear option' of defying EU rules if it was in the interests of the UK.

Tory Douglas Carswell will attempt to use a private member’s bill to repeal the legislation which led to the UK joining the European Union.

He said: 'Getting Britain out of the EU is legally straightforward. Economically, it is increasingly desirable.

'Politically, it is no longer easy to dismiss as pie-in-the-sky.'

Meanwhile with the eurozone in meltdown David Cameron will tell German leader today Angela Merkel to put her country's full weight behind an ‘immediate’ rescue plan for the euro or start planning for the break-up of the single currency.

The Prime Minister is due in Berlin for crisis talks with the German chancellor as fears grow about the debt crisis engulfing the eurozone because Spain is edging closer to a £100billion bailout of its banks and is running out of money.

Mr Osborne said today the decision on whether to use bailout funds to bailout Spanish banks would not involve British taxpayers' money.

'First of all it’s eurozone money, and the reason that’s important for me and for this country is that it is not British taxpayers’ money, and as a result I think we have to respect the fact the eurozone need to make their own decisions about how exactly they get money into the Spanish banks, and the conditions they attach to that.

'Spain need to restructure their banking system, they need the resources to do that, and how exactly that is done, as I say, must be a matter for the Spanish government and the eurozone.'

[ed. Referendum NOW!]

"Racist" -- A Word Invented by USSR's Leon Trotsky

by Dustin Stanley
January 07, 2010

The word "racist" has for a long time been the single most effective fear-word in the leftist and neoconservative arsenal. For decades, they have successfully used it in the political arena to slander traditionalists, shut down debate, and leave opponents running for cover. In the social arena, they have caused even more damage by using it to brainwash impressionable children and young college students, and to teach people to hate their nation, their cultural traditions, and worst of all, themselves.

What surprisingly remains almost totally undiscussed, even on the hard core traditionalist Right, is the word's origin. Did it come from a liberal sociologist? A 60's Marxist college professor? Perhaps a politician in the Democratic Party? No. It turns out that the word was invented by none other than one of the principal architects of the 74-year Soviet nightmare, the founder and first leader of the infamous Red Army, Leon Trotsky.

Take a look at this, dear reader.

Славянофильство, мессианизм отсталости, строило свою философию на том, что русский народ и его церковь насквозь демократичны, а официальная Россия -- это немецкая бюрократия, насажденная Петром. Маркс заметил по этому поводу: "Ведь точно так же и тевтонские ослы сваливают деспотизм Фридриха II и т. д. на французов, как будто отсталые рабы не нуждаются всегда в цивилизованных рабах, чтобы пройти нужную выучку". Это краткое замечание исчерпывает до дна не только старую философию славянофилов, но и новейшие откровения "расистов".

This is Leon Trotsky's 1930 work, "The History of the Russian Revolution", from which shown above is a passage. The last word in that passage is "расистов", whose Latin transliteration is "racistov", i.e., "racists". This work here is the first time in history one will ever find that word.

My more doubtful readers may check the internet, the microfiche and microfilm at the local library, as well as the numerous books arrayed along the shelves there, but they shall never find an earlier usage of the word "racist" than Trotsky's coinage of the word here.

So the next logical question is what was Leon Trotsky's purpose in inventing this word? To find out, let us look at a full English translation of the paragraph we looked at before.

"Slavophilism, the messianism of backwardness, has based its philosophy upon the assumption that the Russian people and their church are democratic through and through, whereas official Russia is a German bureaucracy imposed upon them by Peter the Great. Mark remarked upon this theme: "In the same way the Teutonic jackasses blamed the despotism of Frederick the Second upon the French, as though backward slaves were not always in need of civilised slaves to train them." This brief comment completely finishes off not only the old philosophy of the Slavophiles, but also the latest revelations of the 'racists.'"

The Slavophiles which Trotsky alluded to were historically a group of traditionalist Slavs who valued greatly their native culture and way of life, and wanted to protect it. Trotsky on the other hand saw them and others like them as an impedement to his internationalist communist plans for the world. This man didn't care one iota about the Slavic Russians whom he supposedly served. To him, Slavophiles, i.e. Slavs that committed the "crime" of loving their own people and trying to protect their traditional ways were simply "backward", and others like them were simply "racists".

The reality of the word's origin is indeed quite a far cry from the left-liberal version of the story: that the word was coined in bona fides to identify people who were just plain bigoted against certain racial groups, and as a rallying cry for good liberals to protect the racial minorities from the bigots. On the contrary, the actual concept behind the word (even though he hadn't invented it quite yet) -- that ethnocentric "backwardness" must take a back seat to "enlightened" internationalism -- was often used by Army-Navy Commissar Trotsky as a rallying cry for good Red Army communists to embark upon murderous rampages against people who resisted having their traditional way of life paved over and replaced with an alien system. [1]

Fast-forwarding to today in 2010, the only changes to the word and its underlying concept from 1930 (besides Marxists having perfected the art of achieving the same thing with less blood but no less misery) are that the word's targets have expanded from just Slavs who won't submit to the Marxist internationalist plan to uproot and destroy their culture and traditional way of life, to all white people, Slavic or otherwise, who won't submit to that same vile Marxist plan. Also, those who arm themselves with the word have expanded from a handful of communists to the entire liberal and neoconservative establishment in nations all across the world.

Leon Trotsky, after helping Lenin to create the Soviet murder machine in which he and Trotsky killed 1 to 4 million[2] people, was removed from power and expelled from the Soviet Union in the year 1929 after losing a power struggle to become Lenin's successor to Josef Stalin. However, before fading into the pages of history, Leon Trotsky would do one last thing in 1930 that would arguably cause more damage to the West than Stalin and his successors' entire Soviet nuclear arsenal could ever have done. He would invent a word that would empower literally the most rotten, traitorous weasels within the West to redefine those loyal to their people, their cultural traditions and way of life as the worst evil, and to send the government, the education system, and the mass media on an absolute royal crusade until they themselves and virtually everyone else around them actually believe it. And this unholy creation would be repeated over and over again, bolstered by revisionist history fabricated by more of the same rotten weasels falsely protraying the white man as the sole perpetrator of slavery and genocide in the world, and this would go on and on until the West would submit via demoralization to the entire Trotskyist internationalist agenda without a single shot being fired. We can see the final stages of this playing out right now, with racial double standards having been created here in America (at the expense of American whites, of course), with the creation of "racism" and "hate speech" offenses in Europe (only targeting the indigineous population, of course), with the Canadian and Australian governments having implemented "multiculturalism" as official state policy (at the expense of the pre-existing Canadian and Australian cultures), and most of all, with the huge wave of third-world immigration into the West, supported by all Western governments (otherwise it wouldn't be happening), which is radically changing the makeup and culture of those countries, and is threatening their original populations with becoming a minority in their own countries within just a few decades.

Due especially to Trotsky's hand in the murder of millions of people under the Lenin regime, as well as the ongoing global recession causing many fence sitters to take a side in these affairs, Rightists have a real opportunity to shut the lid on this word once and for all, simply by telling the truth about who invented the word and what its purpose was (and is). It is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss. One can hardly imagine a true Euro-nationalist movement where most of the people in it believe they are "racists" for daring to embark on such a project, as today's reigning system would have us believe.


[1]There is an appalling lack of good material available on the internet about the additional tragedy of the repression of regional sovereignty and self-determination movements after the Czar's collapse in Russia by Trotsky's Red Army. One of the best things you'll find on the web about it is the Nina Turmarkin interview which is the last thing I linked on the paragraph demarcated by this footnote, and is located here:
(http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/interviews_tumarkin.html). Ms. Turmarkin discusses the optimism that existed after the February Revolution which overthrew the Czar, about villages that declared their independence from the regime and sewed their own flags, etc. She doesn't go on to say what happened to those villages and such, but if you know the history, you know of course that they were forced back into the fold, an even worse fold than the Czar's for that matter, at the point of a Red Army bayonet held by a soldier commanded by Trotsky, and those who would not go back into that worse fold were of course killed. Anyhow, I truly would suggest that the interested reader on this subject get hold of book sources for further reading, because unfortunately what is out there on the web is the bottom of the barrel.

[2]The higher estimate of state murder (4 million) under the Lenin/Trotsky regime is that of political scientist R.J. Rummel in his book Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917, found here: (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE4.HTM). I myself was taught a lower estimate of 1-2 million during my school years. The main factors in the deaths were executions of dissidents, brutal suppressions of the self-determination movements that arose after the fall of the Czar and in reaction to the early Soviet police state, and the Russian famine of 1921. The new Soviet government was certainly responsible for the first two. They were at least somewhat responsible for the third, but exactly how responsible is a matter of debate that is beyond the scope of this article. Either way, 1-2 million, 4 million, or somewhere in between, it is absolutely atrocious what happened under that regime.

Foie-mageddon: California in one last foie gras binge before statewide ban

By Nick Allen, Los Angeles
06 Jun 2012

With a deadline of July 1 looming prices have doubled, restaurant menus are replete with every possible version of the dish, and gastronomes are engaging in one last cholesterol-inducing binge.

California's decision to ban foie gras, which is made from the liver of a specially fattened duck or goose, was taken in 2004 and signed into law by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but an eight-year period of grace was allowed.

Since then a debate has raged between gourmands and some chefs on one side, with animal welfare activists on the other. There have been protests, warnings of future black market bootlegging, and even death threats against non-compliant chefs.

One such chef, Chris Cosentino, has reportedly received death threats. In response he accused animal rights activists of having an "agenda for a vegan country."

With three weeks left to what has been dubbed "foie-mageddon" eateries are churning out dishes and customers are snapping them up.

At Melisse in Santa Monica, which has two Michelin stars, chef Josiah Citrin is offering a $185 (£120) "Foie for All" five-course tasting menu including truffled foie gras agnolotti, dover sole with poached foie gras, and foie gras with pudding. Around 30 per cent of customers are ordering the foie gras.

"It is definitely one of the most popular things we serve here," according to the chef. "The great thing about America is we have freedom of choice. I'm personally sad because foie gras is a foundation of haute gastronomy."

Protesters who picketed the restaurant last month disagreed. Madeline Bernstein, president of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said: "People are allowed to eat food, not allowed to torture it first."

The recent statewide protests have driven some enthusiasts underground, with clandestine wakes being held for their favourite food.

One dining website, Dishcrawl, organised a series of events at secret locations, and they sold out. Spokesman Tracy Lee said: "I believe in the freedom to eat what you like and it's been nice for people to enjoy it without protesters. A lot of people coming to these events have been buying loads and freezing it. They're stocking up. The price has gone up, it's practically doubled."

California's only foie gras producer is Sonoma Artisan Foie Gras, which is going out of business, despite business booming with clients placing bumper orders at $60 a pound in the weeks before the ban starts.

Owner Guillermo Gonzalez told The Daily Telegraph: "Our farm is being forced to shut down at the end of June, and the most unfortunate fact is that science has not been given a chance to play a role in this debate.

"Ultimately, chefs' and consumers' freedom of choice is being taken away. Who knows what food product is next?"

The idea of force feeding birds to enlarge their livers stretches back to at least Roman times when the author Pliny the Elder recorded it in the 1st Century AD.

Today, the vast majority of foie gras is produced in France using a controversial process known as "gavage." Ducks are force fed by having a pipe placed down their throats several times a day for three weeks, and their livers can expand tenfold.

Annual consumption of foie gras in the US has been estimated at around 420 tons. Thousands of ducks a week are grown to make it and foie gras is also imported from France.

Gavage has been banned in around a dozen countries including Britain, although foie gras produced elsewhere can still be imported into the UK.

Opponents of the California ban, under which chefs would be fined up to $1,000 for each violation, argue that the birds do not have a gag reflex and are used to gorging on fish.

But the Animal Protection and Rescue League, which pushed for the prohibition, says that "after weeks of enduring this force feeding torture many ducks have difficulty standing, walking and breathing."

The ban was originally drawn up by John Burton who was State Senate president in 2004 and is now the chairman of the California Democratic Party.

"How would you like to have a tube crammed down your throat and corn forced down it? It's very inhumane," said Mr Burton.

"Any restaurant that serves foie gras is a high class restaurant so I don't think they'll be going broke because of this."

Around 100 chefs have formed the Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards (CHEFS) in an attempt to repeal the ban. They are advocating improvements such as using cage-free birds, gentler hand feeding, and animal welfare inspections.

But that has been dismissed by the Humane Society of the United States. Jennifer Fearing, California director, described such measures as "like putting lipstick on a pig, or in this case lipstick on a pipe that's being shoved down a duck's throat."

[ed I wonder how they feel about "Halal" slaughter then?...]

San Francisco To Get Pre-Crime Surveillance Cameras

Paul Joseph Watson
June 6, 2012

Hundreds of pre-crime surveillance cameras are to be installed in San Francisco’s subway system that will analyze “suspicious behavior” and alert guards to potential criminal or terrorist activity – before any crime has been committed.

“Manufacturers BRS Labs said it has installed the cameras at tourist attractions, government buildings and military bases in the U.S. In its latest project BRS Labs is to install its devices on the transport system in San Francisco, which includes buses, trams and subways,” reports the Daily Mail.

The cameras are programmed with a list of behaviors considered “normal”. Anything that deviates from usual activity is classified as suspicious and guards are immediately alerted via text message or a phone call.

Equipped with the ability to track up to 150 suspects at a time, the cameras build up a “memory” of suspicious behavior to determine what constitutes potential criminal activity.

A total of 288 cameras will be installed across 12 transport hubs.

Authorities are increasingly turning to pre-crime methods of surveillance in order to reduce the need for human intelligence and eliminate the requirement for camera footage to be watched by employees in real time.

The technology is inextricably linked with the 2002 science fiction film Minority Report starring Tom Cruise, based on the short story by Philip K. Dick. The movie depicts a ruthless police state that employs psychics called “precogs” to apprehend criminals before crimes occur.

Law enforcement agencies in Washington D.C. are already using a software database developed by the University of Pennsylvania that they claim can predict when crimes will be committed and who will commit them, before they actually happen.

The technology sifts through a database of thousands of crimes and uses algorithms and different variables, such as geographical location, criminal records and ages of previous offenders, to come up with predictions of where, when, and how a crime could possibly be committed and by who.

The program operates without any direct evidence that a crime will be committed, it simply takes datasets and computes possibilities.

Other forms of pre-crime technology in use or under development include neurological brain scanners that can read people’s intentions before they act, thus detecting whether or not a person has “hostile intent”.

Pre-crime technology is also being rolled out in airports and other public venues in order to identify suspect travelers and single them out for interrogations. This face-scanning system “successfully discriminates between truth and lies in about two-thirds of cases,” which equates to little more accuracy than chance alone, making it even less reliable than the notorious polygraph test, which has been widely discredited and is habitually inaccurate.

As we have previously documented, the Department of Homeland Security’s FAST program is based around similar technology that professes to detect “malintent” by means of pre-crime interrogations and physiological scans.

A promotional video for the program shows individuals who attend “security events” being led into trailers before they are interrogated as to whether they are terrorists while lie detector-style computer programs analyze their physiological responses. The subjects are asked about their whereabouts, and if they are attempting to smuggle bombs or recording devices into the “expo,” proving that the technology is intended to be used at public events and not just airports. Individuals who do not satisfy the first lie detector-style test are then asked “additional questions”.

As surveillance cameras become more sophisticated, the temptation to use pre-crime technology is likely to intersect with the rollout of so-called “smart” street lighting systems that double as “homeland security” spying hubs.

As we have documented, talking surveillance cameras that bark orders at passers-by and can also record conversations are heading for U.S. streets, with the government-backed introduction of the ‘Intellistreets’ system.

[ed. I wanted to post this article because I found it an interesting concept in our age of heavy surveillance and encroaching police statism. I am not sure this technology is as accurate as described however as police/security networks still rely on an awful lot of legwork and/or criminals dropping themselves in it, despite having a lot of toys at their disposal, and even then their cleanup rate is pretty appalling.

It seems to me that another part of "crime prevention" (whatever that may be at the time) is "psych-ops" or the idea that the onmipotent government have YOU on their radar and it is just a matter of time before you are caught, a bit like the telescreens in '1984' which could come on at any moment, therefore you have compliance. This idea is perpetuated by hollywood action films where the computer geek can look at an up to the minute database of your activities with a few clicks of the mouse.

Make no mistake however, we are moving toward that point, governments would love a 'person of interest' type computer but I do not believe we are there YET...]

U.N. takeover of the Internet must be stopped, U.S. warns

by Declan McCullagh
May 31, 2012

A U.N. summit later this year in Dubai could lead to a new international regime of censorship, taxes, and surveillance, warn Democrats, Republicans, the Internet Society, and father of the Internet Vint Cerf.

Democratic and Republican government officials warned this morning that a United Nations summit in December will lead to a virtual takeover of the Internet if proposals from China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are adopted.

It was a rare point of bipartisan agreement during an election year: a proposal that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described last year as handing the U.N. "international control of the Internet" must be stopped.

"These are terrible ideas," Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, said during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing. They could allow "governments to monitor and restrict content or impose economic costs upon international data flows," added Ambassador Philip Verveer, a deputy assistant secretary of state.

Robert McDowell, a member of the Federal Communications Commission, elaborated by saying proposals foreign governments have pitched to him personally would "use international mandates to charge certain Web destinations on a 'per-click' basis to fund the build-out of broadband infrastructure across the globe."

"Google, iTunes, Facebook, and Netflix are mentioned most often as prime sources of funding," McDowell said. Added Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat whose district includes Facebook's headquarters, many countries "don't share our view of the Internet and how it operates."

What prompted today's hearing -- and a related congressional resolution (PDF) supporting a free and open Internet -- is a Dubai summit that will be convened by the 193 members of the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union, which was chartered in 1865 to oversee international telegraph regulations.

Called the World Conference on International Telecommunications, or WCIT, the summit will review a set of telecommunications regulations established in 1988, when home computers used dial-up modems, the Internet was primarily a university network, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a mere 4 years old.

That review has created an opening for countries with a weak appreciation of free speech and civil liberties -- with Russia and China in the lead -- to propose the U.N. establish an new "information security" regime or create an alternative to ICANN, the nonprofit organization that has acted as the Internet's de facto governance body since the late 1990s.

Unless the U.S. and its allies can block these proposals, they "just might break the Internet by subjecting it to an international regulatory regime designed for old-fashioned telephone service," Rep. Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican said. (U.S. allies include Japan, Canada, Mexico, and many European countries.)

This is hardly the first time that the U.N. or its agencies wanted to expand their influence over the Internet. At a 2004 summit at the U.N.'s headquarters in New York, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan criticized the current system through which Internet standards are set and domain names are handled, and delegates from Cuba, Ghana, Bolivia and Venezula objected to what they said was too much control of the process by the U.S. government and its allies.

Two years later, at another U.N. summit in Athens, ITU Secretary General Yoshio Utsumi criticized the current ICANN-dominated process, stressing that poorer nations are dissatisfied and are hoping to erode U.S. influence. "No matter what technical experts argue is the best system, no matter what self-serving justifications are made that this is the only possible way to do things, there are no systems or technologies that can eternally claim they are the best," Utsumi said.

In 2008, CNET was the first to report that the ITU was quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous. A leaked document showed the trace-back mechanism was designed to be used by a government that "tries to identify the source of the negative articles" published by an anonymous author.

December's meeting has alarmed even the Internet's technologists. The Internet Society, which is the umbrella organization for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), sent a representative to today's hearing.

ISOC's Sally Wentworth, senior manager of public policy for the group, warned that the proposals to be considered are not "compatible" with the current open manner in which the Internet is managed.

Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist, co-creator of the TCP/IP protocol, and former chairman of ICANN, said the ITU meeting could lead to "top-down control dictated by governments" that could impact free expression, security, and other important issues..

"The open Internet has never been at a higher risk than it is now," Cerf said.

Twenty Years of Illusion about Islamism

by Daniel Pipes
June 2, 2012

The broad lines of U.S. government, other government, and generally establishment policy toward Islamism were laid down on June 2, 1992, when Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Edward P. Djerejian delivered a major speech, "The U.S. and the Middle East In a Changing World," at Meridian House International, in Washington, DC. After some throat clearing about the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kuwait War, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, Djerejian gave what has been called "the first major U.S. government statement on fundamentalist Islam" and, in just over 400 words, sketched out a policy that has been held to with remarkable consistency over the subsequent 20 years.

Edward P. Djerejian, assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs in 1992.

Djerejian started by noting that "the role of religion [in the Middle East] has become more manifest, and much attention is being paid to a phenomenon variously labeled political Islam, the Islamic revival, or Islamic fundamentalism." He praised Islam "as one of the world's great faiths," while noting that its cultural legacy "is a rich one in the sciences, arts, and culture and in tolerance of Judaism and Christianity." Djerejian then analyzed the Islamist movement:

In countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa, we … see groups or movements seeking to reform their societies in keeping with Islamic ideals. There is considerable diversity in how these ideals are expressed. We detect no monolithic or coordinated international effort behind these movements.

That diversity is fine, he went on, so long as there is

real political dialogue between government on the one hand and the people and parties and other institutions on the other. Those who are prepared to take specific steps toward free elections, creating independent judiciaries, promoting the rule of law, reducing restrictions on the press, respecting the rights of minorities, and guaranteeing individual rights will find us ready to recognize and support their efforts, just as those moving in the opposite direction will find us ready to speak candidly and act accordingly. … Those who seek to broaden political participation in the Middle East will, therefore, find us supportive, as we have been elsewhere in the world.

Indeed, Washington "has good, productive relations with countries and peoples of all religions throughout the world, including many whose systems of government are firmly grounded in Islamic principles." But the U.S. government is "suspect of those who would use the democratic process to come to power, only to destroy that very process in order to retain power and political dominance. While we believe in the principle of 'one person, one vote,' we do not support 'one person, one vote, one time'."

Djerejian then adduced the general rule, that the concern is political not religious. In his words: "religion is not a determinant-- positive or negative--in the nature or quality of our relations with other countries. Our quarrel is with extremism and the violence, denial, intolerance, intimidation, coercion, and terror which too often accompany it."

Which leads to the take-away quote of the speech: "the U.S. government does not view Islam as the next 'ism' confronting the West or threatening world peace. That is an overly simplistic response to a complex reality. The Cold War is not being replaced with a new competition between Islam and the West."

Comment: Djerejian makes a fundamentally faulty assumption here, namely that Islamists can be agents to "broaden political participation." That illusion remains, two decades later, the abiding hope of the State Department and nearly the whole of the establishment. No, simply put, a deeply anti-democratic ideology cannot bring on democratization. Islamists have picked up on this hope and invariably, including right now in the campaign for the run-off presidential elections in Egypt, present themselves as democrats.

But they never are.

D-DAY

D-DAY 6TH JUNE, 2012

LEST WE FORGET

Is it racist to say 'blacks attacking whites'?

Anti-White Race Hate Watch:
(Victims no more)

By Colin Flaherty
6th June, 2012

Let’s say thousands of people riot in your upscale downtown neighborhood. And it happens a few dozen times in just a few years: Not just partying, but violence, destruction, theft and serious injuries.

Much of it on YouTube.

Question: If people notice that most of the criminals were black and most of the victims were white, does that make them racist?

Depends. In Philadelphia, it makes you a hero. In Baltimore, a bigot.

Let’s start with Philadelphia: For three years, the black mayor, Michael Nutter, said race had nothing to do with the dozens of violent episodes of black people marauding through older neighborhoods, stealing, beating and destroying property.

“There is no racial component to stupid behavior,” Nutter told the New York Times in one of the few stories to even raise the topic – if only to dismiss it.

Despite their denials, the violence continued. Sometimes daily. Injuries mounted. So did the explicit videos on YouTube and pressure to confront the obvious.

Finally, Nutter changed: The rioters were black and “they were hurting their own race,” Nutter told a crowd at his neighborhood Baptist church.

At his side: the head of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP, J. Whyatt Mondesire. Nutter’s comments were “courageous,” he said. “These are majority African-American youths and they need to be called on it.”

TheGrio.com, a division of NBC News that “satisfies the desire of African Americans to stay informed and connected with their community,” said Nutter’s comments were “tough love … about things black people think but won’t say.”

Nutter was “Disgusted by the mobs of African American youths who have been terrorizing folks in City Center lately, he gave the black community a good old-fashioned whipping,” said Annette John Hall, columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The tough love had weak results: Violence continued – as did the local media’s willingness to ignore its racial component.

One hundred miles down the road, mob violence at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor may have been less manic and less reported, but it was at least as widespread.

Most famously, on St. Patrick’s Day 2012, a group of black people beat and stripped and mocked a drunken tourist. Videos they posted went viral.

Police officials said the incident was small and limited. The Baltimore Sun would later release a study showing the violence was far greater and more widespread than city officials reported.

As to the race of the criminals in this and other incidents? That’s not something reporters Baltimore wonder about.

But state legislator Pat McDonough did.

In the spring of 2012, McDonough and his wife saw it for themselves while visiting the Inner Harbor for a charity dinner: Hundreds of people marauding through the streets, fighting, wreaking havoc.

With not a cop in sight, the McDonoughs noticed the rioters were black.

A few weeks later McDonough issued a press release, calling for the mayor and governor to declare a “No-Travel” zone in the area because it was not safe. The headline on his press release read: “Black Youth Mobs Terrorize Baltimore on Holidays.”

Which is what the black columnist for the Inquirer said just a months before. No matter: The governor, mayor, elected officials and the media lined up to blast McDonough.

“Race-baiting,” said a fellow legislator.

“Racially charged publicity stunt,” said a spokesman for the mayor.

The governor “dismissed” McDonough because crime was down.

The former head of the NAACP in Baltimore said McDonough was guilty of bigotry.

The editorial writers of the Baltimore Sun dutifully heaped on the scorn: “Bluster … Bombast … Bloviating,” they called it. “Why is the race of those involved in criminal behavior pertinent?,” they asked McDonough.

Fair question, McDonough said.

“They should tell us,” said McDonough. “In the days before and after this editorial, the Sun has run articles referring to race more than 100 times. There were stories about black homesteaders, black ministers, blacks and illegal immigration, blacks and schools, blacks and gay rights, black tennis stars, blacks in the 1940 census, black school children, black criminal suspects, black criminal victims. The list goes on and on. All from the paper that pleads with us to ignore race. I’m confused. Do we ignore race or not?

“Or is it sometimes yes and sometimes no?” he said.

“If you pay attention to race are you a bigot or enlightened? These big city newspapers writers are just too bright for me.”

McDonough’s supporters in and out of Baltimore noticed that despite the name-calling, no one questioned his facts.

In the days following The Sun editorial, several similar incidents were reported, some on video.

While the editorial was still in the news stands, two groups of high school students left their bus in the Inner Harbor and beat a white person.

“The 19-year-old victim was white and the attackers were all juvenile black males,” the paper grudgingly reported.

It was just on May 18 when McDonough had called a news conference about the issue he had raised to Gov. Martin O’Malley “requesting the possible assistance of the Maryland State Police to work with the Baltimore City Police Department in order to prevent the consistent and dangerous attacks upon citizens by roving mobs of black youths. St. Patrick’s Day witnessed another out-of-control incident involving hundreds of young people in a mob-like posture, fighting among themselves, and attacking innocent tourists and visitors to the Harbor Area.”

Leaders plotting EU superstate: 'Fiscal union' looms... with the Germans in charge

By James Chapman
5 June 2012

European leaders are edging closer to a federal union in response to the financial crisis engulfing the Continent.

In crisis talks yesterday, Britain and the US joined forces to urge Germany to create a central Brussels body that could assume sovereignty over individual countries’ budgets and fiscal policies.

There is growing frustration in London and Washington at Germany’s reluctance to take steps towards a single economic government and put its vast resources behind the struggling countries in the eurozone.

Their fears were aired yesterday in a conference call between finance ministers from the G7 group of leading nations.

Four EU leaders have been asked to draft proposals for a deeper eurozone fiscal union, to be presented to an EU summit at the end of this month.

Senior Tory MPs are to press David Cameron to hold a referendum on Britain’s future in Europe if the moves go ahead.

They insist the Government must seek a mandate from voters to demand that key powers are repatriated from Brussels to Westminster in exchange for agreeing to treaty changes that would allow eurozone countries to pool sovereignty.

They fear a core eurozone, led by Germany, would be in a powerful position to push whatever policies it wanted affecting the rest of the 27-member EU.

The Prime Minister and Chancellor George Osborne have long argued that a single currency can only work if the eurozone creates an effective fiscal union.

They believe that for any single currency to work, richer areas must pay to support poorer ones.

Britain would stand outside any such arrangement, and Mr Cameron refused to sign a treaty taking more tentative steps towards a fiscal union last year.

But senior Conservatives say such a move would so fundamentally alter the balance of power and daily running of the EU that a referendum would have to be offered to determine whether British voters wanted to remain in Europe’s ‘slow lane’.

Up to ten chairmen of Commons select committees are understood to be preparing to call for a popular vote on Britain’s future place in the EU if a fiscal union goes ahead.

Some believe Britain should leave the EU in such circumstances, while others argue that a demand for a looser relationship with Brussels would be given greater force if endorsed in a referendum.

Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the public administration select committee, said: ‘Clearly the European Union becoming a federation which expressly does not include the UK is a dramatic change in the terms of our relationship with our EU partners.

‘The Government needs to lay its demands on the table so British law and British taxpayers’ money are both protected by a sovereign UK Parliament.

‘Any new arrangements should be subject to a referendum.’

The Coalition has changed the law to ensure that no more powers can be passed from Westminster to Brussels without a referendum. But it is far from clear that one would be triggered if the eurozone countries decide to pool sovereignty.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed this week that measures to create a closer union for countries in the euro were being considered.

‘The world wants to know how we see the political union in complement to the currency union,’ she said.

‘That requires an answer in the foreseeable future and Germany will be a very constructive partner.’

Berlin does not expect to take final decisions on strengthening economic policy coordination until March 2013, with only a ‘roadmap’ being agreed at the Brussels summit this month.

Governor Walker's Victory Spells Doom For Public Sector Unions

Bill Frezza
6/05/2012

Public sector unions have reached their high water mark. Let the cleanup begin as the red ink recedes.

Despite a last-minute smear campaign accusing Scott Walker of fathering an illegitimate love child, the governor’s recall election victory sends a clear message that should resonate around the nation: The fiscal cancer devouring state budgets has a cure, and he has found it. The costly defeat for the entrenched union interests that tried to oust Walker in retribution for challenging their power was marked by President Obama’s refusal to lend his weight to the campaign for fear of being stained by defeat. We’ll see how well this strategy of opportunistic detachment serves in the fall as Obama reaches out to unions for support.

This fight is not without precedent. Progressive patron saint Franklin Delano Roosevelt—who more than any other president set our country on a course away from the founding principles of limited government—knew that public sector unions would be the death of the social welfare state he worked so hard to create. Hence, he consistently opposed allowing government employees to unionize. Today, Greece sets the example of what happens when public sector unions gain the upper hand.

In 1959 Wisconsin became the first state to allow collective bargaining by government employees. The projected cost of supporting Baby Boomer union retirees now threatens to bankrupt the state, as it does many others. Scott Walker ran for office promising change. The fiscal medicine he is administering may be bitter, but it looks like it is starting to work. The state budget has been balanced. The unemployment rate has been dropping and is now below the national average. Property taxes are down. Fraudulent sick leave policies—which allowed employees to call in sick and then work the next shift for overtime pay—have been ended. The government has stopped forcibly collecting union dues from workers’ paychecks.

Best of all, the myth that union bosses represent their members’ interests has been exposed as a lie. Now that union dues are voluntary, tens of thousands of union members have stopped paying them. Membership in the Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union (AFSCME) has dropped by half. Membership in the stat’s American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is down by over a third. Given unions’ influential role in most elections, the national implications of this trend are staggering.

Walker’s message is clear: The key to bringing balance back to public sector labor relations and balance state budgets is to break the iron triangle of closed-shop mandatory unionization, compulsory dues collection, and oversized campaign donations to politicians that promise to do the unions’ bidding. If other governors take his cue and take up the cause, that giant sucking sound you hear will be the air coming out of union bosses’ bloated political action budgets.

The work in Wisconsin is not complete. The controversial law exempted police and firefighters, a political concession to get the legislation passed. Federal courts have zeroed in on this anomaly, striking down certain sections of the law because they do not treat workers equally. This needs to be repaired— by rescinding the exemption for public safety workers. With the recall election behind him, Walker may be sufficiently emboldened to do just that.

The power of private sector unions was long ago broken by many heavily unionized companies going bankrupt. While this was painful for both workers and shareholders, the economy motored on as nimbler non-union competitors picked up the slack. This approach is problematic for the public sector because bankrupt state and local governments cannot be replaced by competitors waiting in the wings. Yes, citizens can always vote with their feet, emptying out cities like Detroit, leaving the blighted wreckage behind. But isn’t Walker’s targeted fiscal retrenchment less painful than scorched-earth abandonment?

Chicago machine candidate Barack Obama rode into office to the tune of Hail to the Chief, promising the unions that backed him the gift of card check elections, ending the secret ballot that shields employees from union intimidation. He may well ride into retirement to the tune of On Wisconsin as the era of closed shop unionism comes to an end.