War On Democracy: Spain And Japan Move To Criminalize Protests

As might be expected as political and economic policy failures pile up and citizens become increasingly mad, the status quo is becoming increasingly authoritarian (recall blogger “Mish” was just fined 8,000 euros for a blog post).

In the latest disturbing news from a desperate power structure, the conservative government in Spain has passed an Orwellian bill titled the Citizens’ Security Law, which allows for fines of up to 600,000 euros ($816,000) for “unauthorized” street protests, and a 30,000 fine for merely having signs with “offensive” slogans against Spain or for wearing a mask.

This law is a perfect example of the increasing neo-feudalism being implemented across the globe by a corrupt, decadent and depraved status quo. Such laws must be immediately resisted or they will only get worse, much worse. It is quite obvious what the power structure in Spain in trying to do. It is putting into place an egregious punishment framework that could bankrupt a person by merely protesting. Such a threat is intended to make people not even consider their rights as human beings to express grievances to a crony government.

Instead of eye for an eye, it is like 25 eyes and a limb for an eye. If this does’t tell the Spanish people all they need to know about their government I don’t know what will. Below are some excerpts from a Reuters storycovering the law:

(Reuters) – Spain’s conservative government agreed on Friday to toughen penalties for unauthorized street protests up to a possible 600,000 euro ($816,000) fine, a crackdown that belies the peaceful record of the anti-austerity protests of recent years.

Street protests and strikes have became increasingly frequent in recent years following huge cuts to education and health spending aimed at shrinking Spain’s public deficit to adhere to European Union demands.

But in contrast to Greece and elsewhere, where many similar protests have turned violent, Spain’s have remained largely peaceful, despite unemployment of 26 percent, rising poverty, and changes in labor laws that make firing easier.

Among other measures, protesters who cover their faces at demonstrations could be fined up to 30,000 euros while “offensive” slogans against Spain or its regions could reap a similar sanction.

The government also plans a new law restricting labor protests.

“This law … attempts to criminalize the act of protest,” said United Left lawmaker Gaspar Llamazares, questioning whether it complied with Spain’s constitution. “The government is trying to turn its political opponents into delinquents.”

”Compare events in Spain with those of other countries around us,” wrote conservative columnist Jose Antonio Zarzalejos on the website El Confidencial. “This security law … will add the stigma of authoritarianism to the political failure of the PP.”

It’s not just Spain though. This sort of panic attack from desperate members of the status quo is popping up elsewhere. Japan is another example, and over the weekend I read that Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba compared demonstrations to “acts of terrorism.” From theJapan Times:

Citizens demonstrating against the controversial state secrets bill are committing “an act terrorism,” according to Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba.

In a blog post Friday, he wrote: “If you want to realize your ideas and principles, you should follow the democratic principles, by gaining as much support as you can. I think the strategy of merely shouting one’s opinions at the top of one’s lungs is not so fundamentally different from an act of terrorism.”

My take is that people worldwide will not stand for such nonsense. Increasingly citizens have very little to lose and if they all say no together, there is not much the state can do. Just look at how Ukrainians responded to a ban on protests. Hundreds of thousands of them filled the streets in defiance. Below is a video of just one of the many incredible street scenes from over the weekend. In this case we see demonstrators using a tractor to break police barricades.

Interesting times indeed.

Zero Hedge

Chinese Yuan Surpasses Euro, Becomes Second Most Used Currency In Trade Finance

Slowly but surely the Chinese currency is catching up to the world's reserve and moments ago, according to SWIFT, the Yuan just surpassed the Euro in trade (remember trade: that's how countries once upon a time would generate capital flows in a time when central banks weren't there to literally print domestic funding needs) finance usage leaving just the USD in front.

• YUAN OVERTAKES EURO IN TRADE FINANCE USAGE: SWIFT
  
• YUAN IS SECOND MOST-USED CURRENCY IN TRADE FINANCE: SWIFT

More from Bloomberg:

• Chinese currency had 8.66% share in letters of credit and collections, or trade finance, in Oct., Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications says in statement today.
• Euro’s shr in trade finance was 6.64% in Oct.
• Top 5 countries using yuan for trade finance in Oct. were China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany and Australia
• Yuan mkt shr in global payments was 0.84% in Oct. vs. 0.86% in Sept.
• Yuan payments value rose 1.5% in Oct. vs. 4.6% growth for all currencies: Swift

And so while the "developed" world is busy crushing its fiat through trillions in annual currency dilution and debasement in an attempt to make its exports cheaper and outtrade its peers through beggar thy neighbor policies (not to mention inflate away its debt), the leader of the "emerging" world, China, is doing just that.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Over 700,000 people on US watch list: Once you get on, there’s no way off

The names of nearly three-quarters of a million individuals have been secretly added to watch lists administered by the United States government, but federal officials are adamant about keeping information about these rosters under wraps.

A report by the New York Times’ Susan Stellin published over the weekend attempted to shine much-deserved light on an otherwise largely unexposed program of federal watch lists, but details about these directories — including the names of individuals on them and what they did to get there — remain as elusive as ever.

More than 12 years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, federal agencies continue to keep lists on hand containing names of individuals of interest: people who often end up un-cleared to enter or exit the US due to an array of activity that could be considered suspicious or terrorist-related to government officials.

In 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union claimed that an Inspector General of the Department of Justice report found at least 700,000 individual names on the database maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sub-office tasked with overseeing the “single database of identifying information about those known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity.” Five years later, that number of suspicious persons is reportedly close to what it was at the time. Half-a-decade down the road, however, Americans and foreign nationals who end up on the government’s radar are offered little chance to find out how they ended there, or even file an appeal.

According to some, that’s just the start of what’s wrong with these lists.

“If you’ve done the paperwork correctly, then you can effectively enter someone onto the watch list,” SUNY Buffalo Law School associate professor Anya Bernstein told Stellin for this weekend’s report. What’s more, though, according to Bernstein, is that “There’s no indication that agencies undertake any kind of regular retrospective review to assess how good they are at predicting the conduct they’re targeting,” suggesting that anyone can be targeted and added to such a list with little oversight to protect them.

“When you have a huge list of people who are likely to commit terrorist acts, it’s easy to think that terrorism is a really big problem and we should be devoting a lot of resources to fighting it,” Bernstein added. With almost no transparency and outrages aplenty, though, she argues that the government’s watch lists are largely flawed and can erroneously ruin an innocent person’s life.

Such is the case with Rahinah Ibrahim, 48-year-old a former Standard University doctoral student who was expected to be in federal court in San Francisco, California Monday morning for the latest hearing in a case that stems from an incident in 2005 that ended with her learning she had been added to a terrorist watch list. Ibrahim was attempting to board a Hawaii-bound plane from San Francisco International Airport in traditional Muslim garb when she was taken into custody and told she had landed herself on a terrorist watch list. Nearly a decade later Ibrahim continues to disavow any connections with terrorism, but the issues surrounding the watch list program has made it seemingly impossible to find out what she did, let alone have her name removed from the list.

“We’ve tried to get discovery into whether our client has been surveilled and have been shut down on that,” Elizabeth Pipkin, a lawyer representing Ms. Ibrahim, added to the Times. “They won’t answer that question for us.”

"She doesn't want this to happen to other people -- to be wrongfully included on these lists that haunt them for years and years," Pipkin said recently to Northern California’s Mercury News.

"No one knows how the targets get on the lists," she said. "The government has never contested this case on the merits. We don't think they have a defense."

But with Monday’s hearing coming nearly a decade after Ibrahim first found herself in trouble, the likelihood of any reform coming soon to the watch list system seems slim-to-none. ACLU lawyer Hina Shamsi even told the Times that the system keeping the watch lists in tact seems to be more flawed than the one guarding over terrorist suspects held at America’s military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“People who are accused of being enemy combatants at Guantánamo have the ability to challenge their detention, however imperfect that now is,” Shamsi told Stellin. “It makes no sense that people who have not actually been accused of any wrongdoing can’t challenge.”

A Terrorist Screening Center official reached for comment by the Times claimed that fewer than one percent of those listed on such rosters are US citizens or legal permanent residents, but as Stellin points out, “there is no way to confirm that number.”
credit to RT

Your Government: Now Paying psychiatrists $3,000 For Every Veterans Gun They Confiscate

An anonymous New York psychiatrist (Dr. X) who works for the VA has come forward to state that “things have been getting a little bit uneasy . . . for veterans.” That’s an understatement. We already know that New York State is going after veterans who have sought any kind of treatment for mental health. Dr. X reveals that, when veterans come to the VA for help, they’re often treated by ultra-liberal interns and residents who think of them as baby-killers; the VA actively seizes guns from any veterans treated for mental health issues, not matter how minor or stable the problem; veterans who refuse to give up their weapons are institutionalized; and psychiatrists get a $3,000 incentive whenever a veteran loses his guns.

Almost all VA hospitals, says Dr. X are associated with teaching hospitals or medical schools. The VA recruits residents from those doctor pools, so that the residents got experience and the VA gets low-cost doctors. Too often the result is that extremely politically liberal interns and residents end up on the front line for treating veterans – and these young people view veterans with disgust and disdain as “baby=killers.” (One suspects that these same young people give are giving baby-murderer Kermit Gosnell a pass.)

In addition to mean-spirited residents, the system’s professional psychiatrists get $3,000 bonuses if they can grab veterans’ guns. According to Dr. X, when a veteran first comes into the system, he’ll collect as much information about him (including information about gun ownership). In past years, if the veteran is basically well, just anxious or depressed, he gets treatment and some meds, and then comes back every three months for follow-up and prescription renewals.

What’s been happening recently, though, is that the VA is pushing psychiatrists to seize guns. When doctors see a patient – even one who has been totally stable for years — the doctor says “I see on this progress note that you own fire arms.” If the patient says “yes,” Dr. X is required to ask the veteran to surrender his firearms. Veterans invariably refuse. When they do, the psychiatrist then summons the VA police to the room, saying “You’re going to surrender your firearms, or we’re going to involuntarily hospitalize you.” (Read this story, which corroborates what Dr. X is saying.)

Please listen to this audio and confirm Dr. X’s hope that, in light of the outrage greeting the story of veterans who received gun confiscation letters from the VA, the time is ripe for this story to go viral – and for us to support our veterans. The current administration’s attacks on veterans are shameful and shameless. These attacks give the green light to local communities that refuse to let veterans fly American flags or to fly flags honoring other vets, and they make our legislators think that vets can be hustled off to prison for “getting out of line.” Our veterans gave to us; it’s time for us to give back to them. Contact your Congress person about this one.

Credit to Mr Conservative

Pope Francis: Use intelligence to understand signs of the times

During his daily Mass, Pope Francis spoke of the importance of man's intellect in understanding the Lord, and cautioned those present against “restricted” thought which keeps us focused on ourselves.

“What path does the Lord want? Always with the spirit of intelligence with which to understand the signs of the times. It is beautiful to ask the Lord for this grace,” the Pope said in his Nov. 29 daily homily.

Pope Francis directed his reflections to those present in the Saint Martha guesthouse of the Vatican, where he has chosen to reside.

He began by recalling of how in the Gospels, the Lord taught his disciples to pay attention to the signs of the times, which the Pharisees failed to understand, emphasizing how one must think not only with the head, but also with the heart and the spirit in order to fully comprehend “way of God in history.”

“In the Gospel, Jesus does not become angry, but pretends to when the disciples do not understand him,” the Pope explained, adding that at Emmaus Jesus says, “'How foolish and slow of heart.'”

“He who does not understand the things of God is such a person,” noted the pontiff, emphasizing how “The Lord wants us to understand what happens, what happens in my heart, what happens in my life, what happens in the world, in history.”

“What is the meaning of what is happening now? These are the signs of the times!”

“On the other hand,” he continued, “the spirit of the world gives us other propositions, because the spirit of the world does not want a community: it wants a mob, thoughtless, without freedom.”

Explaining that while the spirit of the world tries to lead us down a “restricted path,” the Apostle Paul warns that this spirit “treats us as thought we lack the ability to think for ourselves; it treats us like people who are not free.”

“Restricted thought, equal thought, weak thought, a thought so widespread. The spirit of the world does not want us to ask ourselves before God: ‘But why, why this other, why did this happen?’”

Or, the Pope observed, this worldly spirit “offers a prêt-à-porter ('ready to wear') way of thinking, according to personal taste: ‘I think as I like!’”

While there are many who say that this attitude is ok, the Pontiff noted, the spirit of the world does not want “what Jesus asks of us: free thought, the thought of a man and a women who are part of the people of God, and salvation is exactly this!”

Pope Francis then encouraged the Mass attendees to think of the prophets who proclaimed that “You were not my people, now I say my people,” stating that “so says the Lord.”

“And this is salvation: to make us people, God’s people, to have freedom.”

Reflecting on how Jesus asks us to “think freely…in order to understand what happens,” the Pope stressed that “we are not alone,” and that “we need the Lord’s help” in order to “understand the signs of the times.”

In order to do this, the Pope went on to say, the Holy Spirit “gives us this present, a gift: the intelligence to understand.”

Emphasizing how the Lord always wants us to walk along the path of intelligence, Pope Francis highlighted how “it is beautiful to ask the Lord for this grace, who sends us this spirit of intelligence, in order that we avoid weak thought, we do not have a restricted thought and we do not have a thought according to personal preference.”

We must only have “a thought according to God,” he stated, adding that “with this thought, which is a thought of the mind, of heart, and of soul; with this thought, which is the gift of the Spirit, (we) look for the meaning of things, and to understand the signs of the time well.”

Bringing his homily to an end, the Pope said that we must ask the Lord for the grace to have “the ability which gives us the spirit” to “understand the signs of the time.”




Credit to Chatolic News Agency

'Saudis, Israelis developing new ‘super Stuxnet’ against Iran nuclear program'

Saudi Arabia and Israel’s Mossad intelligence division are co-conspiring to produce a computer worm “more destructive” than the Stuxnet malware to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, according to a report from the semi-official Iranian Fars news agency.

“Saudi spy chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency Tamir Bardo sent their representatives to a meeting in Vienna on November 24 to increase the two sides' cooperation in intelligence and sabotage operations against Iran’s nuclear program,” an anonymous source close to the Saudi secret services told Fars over the weekend.

The source noted that one of the major methods discussed was “the production of a malware worse than…Stuxnet.”

Stuxnet, a computer worm discovered in 2010, formed the basis of a cyberattack that sabotaged Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Its complexity prompted researchers to claim that it could only have been developed by a nation state.

It was generally believed to have been developed by the US and Israel, with former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden only confirming their covert roles in an interview this July.

The intention behind the development of the new malware would be “to spy on and destroy the software structure of Iran’s nuclear program.” The source expressed a desire to remain anonymous on account of the sensitivity of information being shared.

The plan would need a great deal of time and funding, with a rough figure of US $1 million being given as an estimate. It was apparently welcomed by Saudi Arabia with open arms.

Saudi spy chief Bandar met with Mossad’s Bardo in Jordan’s Aqaba port city, inciting some concern from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulazi, who had advised against Bandar engaging in direct consultations, instead deeming ‘clandestine’ discussions with Israel over strategic Middle Eastern issues more appropriate.

The Fars source mentioned that a recent agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany) unsettled Saudi officials, with Bandar having previously denounced the interim deal as the “West’s treachery.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lambasted the agreement, which was reached on November 23, as “a historic mistake.”

On November 17, The Sunday Times reported that the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency and Saudi officials were working together to develop a contingency plan should Iran’s nuclear program not be adequately curtailed. Both governments reportedly expressed concern that negotiations could result in concessions being made to Iran.

Prince Bandar also participated in a meeting in Tel Aviv with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Francois Hollande to discuss US relations with Iran last week, according to local media.

Credit to RT

Georgia not ready to join European Union yet