Across the pacific:
The peasants are waking. What i find fascinating about this is that, with the U.S. demanding “democracy” in China, this movement — which holds Mao as a hero — is the one with the most potential to achieve it.
Meanwhile, back “home”, the military’s ranks are swelling — with untold numbers of unemployed.
I hope it ain’t, but it could be the beginning of a trend….

Posted by: china_hand2 | Apr 20 2009 8:16 utc | 3

@citizen – ch2 probably meant this story

The Army last month stopped accepting felons and recent drug abusers into its ranks as the nation’s economic downturn helped its recruiting, allowing it to reverse a decline in recruiting standards that had alarmed some officers.
While shunning those with criminal backgrounds, the Army is also attracting better-educated recruits. It is on track this year to meet, for the first time since 2004, the Pentagon’s goal of ensuring that 90 percent of recruits have high school diplomas.
The developments mark a welcome turnaround for the Army, which has the military’s biggest annual recruiting quota and had in recent years issued more waivers for recruits with criminal records. That, coupled with unprecedented strains from repeated deployments, led some senior officers to voice concerns that wartime pressures threatened to break the all-volunteer force.
Now, though, rising unemployment, security gains in Iraq and other factors have helped make military service more attractive and have allowed recruiters to be more choosy, according to military officials and Pentagon data.

Posted by: b | Apr 20 2009 13:18 utc | 5

… just saw AHMADINEJAD’S typically crazed speech at the Racism conference in Switzerland. It was crazy not so much because of the points he made but by the fanatical manner in which he presented them, plus his omission of any reference to the innumerable human rights abuses on his own doorstep.
The ‘packaging’ was atrocious.
And it looks like his pre-conference call for a re-trial of the imprisoned and convicted Iranian-American journalist was a desperate effort to prevent even more people from walking out on his speech.

Posted by: Parviz | Apr 20 2009 14:30 utc | 7

FMC-
yes, lots and lots of things slip though the airports… remember that these screenings are just a “dog and pony show” to make people think they’re safer.
Terrorism is mostly state sponsored… there are few people that act out alone like the Unibomber… but for the most part “terrorist” are simply stooges used by nations and corporations to keep populations at home and abroad fearful so that we continue to fund government.
Otherwise how would these dangerous extremest groups exist? Look at some recent crazy shooters… that kooky duo on the east coast shooting people from the trunk of their car… those kooks in AZ shooting folks for sick kicks… These are examples of individuals acting alone and look how quickly both were taken down… Or those kooks who started a huge manhunt out in the southwest after stealing a dumptruck… they didn’t get too far. What I’m saying is terror groups that continue to terrorize, only do so because their terror benefits governments.
The majority of humans given food, water and shelter, don’t want to kill other humans; psychopaths in government however… Yeah a bunch of murdering idiots. I have a brother in the Army and I was talking to him this weekend about a bunch of stuff but we got on the subject of the military and it really dawned on me while talking to him that he was on death row for the entire time he’s in the army. Anytime a general or politician wanted, they could send my brother to die for no other reason than because they needed a few dead soldiers to parade for the cameras… or maybe they were just having a bad day.
My brother is a big boy, made his choice and has been in the army for enough years he’ll be retired in five or six more years… And his much older bother (me) is still so far away from a “real” job I have to laugh, but as I was saying he’s in the military for reasons only he knows. Part of it is because he likes playing soldier, ( the camping, shooting and blowing stuff-up during training… the wars; what soldier likes war?) from his time spent in Bosnia and Iraq he has a lot more stories of helping people than he has of hurting people. This holds true for the the average soldier who wants to help, that’s why they joined the service in the first place. I’m not saying I agree with the sort of groupthink required of a soldier; I argue with him all the time, but he’s my brother and I love him and support him. I don’t think he’s a perverted psychopath and I don’t envy him when he’s overseas.
But hearing some of his training stories I have to admit the twelve-year-old in me wishes I could go play war with him when he’s stateside doing maneuvers … camping, paintballs, wrestling, blowing stuff up… his training sounds a lot like my raft trips 🙂
The more I read the hidden histories of our world the more I’m convinced the world’s problems are from concentrating too much power in government. Remember when the lovely Dianne Feinstein told her constituents that she’d voted for TARP because it was for their own good. (Yeah, I paraphrased that, but you should check out what she said… her words read like the script from a sad comedy… maybe someone, (the voters in california) could make her eat them?)
Another beautiful colorado day… I’ll be outside thinking of everyone stuck in worse places… goddamn there are lots of them now. NPR was trying to sell the wonders of L.A.’s Skid Row… the left coast making homelessness cool, even Doonsbury in the mix with today’s cartoon. LMAO. Peace!

Posted by: DavidS | Apr 20 2009 15:28 utc | 9

maybe this would be a good time to repost jonathan cook’s How Israel is Engineering the “Clash of Civilizations”, From the New “Anti-Semitism” to Nuclear Holocaust.

Posted by: annie | Apr 20 2009 21:11 utc | 11

It’s really hard to imagine what the world looks like from where I sit, if all the banks are truly insolvent and no FDIC left.

Posted by: slothrop | Apr 21 2009 1:10 utc | 13

“if”
Rather appears O’s order of business is to rescue the capitalist class. It’s difficult to quantify, but imagine the 6 trillion of worthless assets written off and internalized as real losses by the global capitalists. Poof! Problem solved. Return their valuables to art detention centers, and make state parks and nursing homes out of their villas and mansions. And then regulate forever the occupations of unproductive labor. They’re just parasites anyhow.
b’s idea of voiding these ponzi obligations is spot on.

Posted by: slothrop | Apr 21 2009 2:53 utc | 15

How true. But Goldman Sacks has bought an empty suit, it seems. Expropriation will have to proceed by other means, maybe with foreign backing. Maybe our Chinese overlords will fund a revolution when they’ve put the last of their currency swaps in place.

Posted by: …—… | Apr 21 2009 3:13 utc | 17