5112개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
The S.K. ruling class and its state/gov't (MoJ/public prosecution dept./police..), according to yesterday's Korea Times (K.T.), would like to "delight" the progressive and labor movement with a very special "New Year Gift":
Communist Sympathizers, Strikers Face Crackdown
The nation's top prosecutor said Friday in his New Year's message that the prosecution will eradicate leftists spreading communist ideology.
Prosecutor General Lim Chae-jin said, "Those who deny the nation's pro-democracy identity and attempt to destabilize society are to be punished.''..
The chief prosecutor stressed harshness in punishing laborers organizing or participating in illegal (*) collective actions such as unauthorized strikes...
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/01/117_37259.html
* Surprise, surprise!! K.T. forgot (^^) to mention, that only the ruling class and its flunkies (i.e. the S.K. state/gov't..) defines what's "legal" or "illegal". Certainly, in case of doubt: Everything what comes from the "left", incl. the labor (and any other resistance) movement, is - as a matter of course - ILLEGAL!!
Somehow related:
☞ Police and protesters clash at weekend rally (Hankyoreh, 01.05)
Israel's war against Hamas/Gaza. The 9th day:
Since nearly 24 hours the "long-awaited" ("eagerly-awaited" by Hamas and other Palestinian "resistance" organisations) IDF ground operation, the "2nd Phase" of its war against Hamas, takes place inside the Gaza Strip.
Yesterday in the late afternoon (local time in Gaza) Israel dramatically escalated its war with Hamas, sending thousands of troops and tanks pouring over Gaza's borders in a move designed to reoccupy parts of the northern Gaza Strip. Amid reports of fierce clashes inside Gaza, columns of military vehicles and what the army said was "a sizeable number of troops" moved across the border at several points, backed by an intense air and artillery bombardment.
The Israeli gov't ordered today the call-up of tens of thousands of reservists, suggesting the operation will be expanded further. The army said it expected to be in Gaza "for many long days".
Gaza City, last night: attacked by IDF artillery..
Hamas leader Ismail Radwan "promised" y'day afternoon: "Gaza will be a graveyard for you (the IDF) and the aggression will not be a picnic. You have no choice but to stop the aggression and end the siege unconditionally. You will not enjoy security unless the Palestinian people enjoy it first."
Just 24 hours later y.net 'reported': "IDF chief of staff: Not much left from Hamas government in Gaza. Military Intelligence chief: They understand violating the lull was a strategic mistake."
For more latest news:
☞ Israel pushes deeper into Gaza (al-Jazeera, 01.04)
☞ Some 500 killed since start of Gaza op (y.net, 01.04)
☞ Our fighters inflicted heavy casualties in the ranks of IOF troops (PIC, 01.04)
☞ Shin Beth: Hamas has eased its demands.. (Haaretz, 01.04)
Related articles:
☞ Analysis: Who will come out on top? (Guardian, 01.03)
☞ Palestinian in Gaza chronicles life under bombardment (Guardian, 01.03)
☞ 'Even the Left Was in Favor of Striking Hamas' (Interview, Der Spiegel, 01.02)
Special reports:
☞ War On Gaza (al-Jazeera)
☞ Warfare in Gaza (Haaretz)
Related link:
☞ PFLP (Palestinian former M/L organisation)
50 years after the Cuban Revolution:
"We Already Live in Capitalism" (*)
Yesterday the Caribbean Island marked the 50th anniversary of its revolution, but...
As hard times bite, Cubans show
little appetite for celebration
The revolutionary leader said history would judge him, but the daily struggle to survive is testing even his most loyal supporters
Carmen Gonce remembers the triumph of Cuba's revolution as the happiest day of her life. Fidel Castro and his guerrillas swept down from the Sierra Maestra and delivered the island from a corrupt and brutal dictatorship. People danced in the streets and welcomed the "bearded ones" into their homes. It was 1 January 1959 and a time for hope. "We were nearly all Fidelistas," she said.
Half a century later, the girl of 15 is a pensioner of 64 who watches sunsets over the Caribbean from a cracked chair on the balcony of her Havana home a few blocks from the Karl Marx theatre. Much has happened since that day, yet it seems close enough to touch. "It feels just like last year."
Gonce still supports the revolution's principles and is grateful for a recent heart bypass operation. "A top surgeon - and I didn't pay a cent!" But celebrating the anniversary is not an option. The former author and book editor is nearly destitute. She has no money for decent food, cooking oil or soap, let alone treats. So she will stay at home, follow the anniversary commemorations on TV and reflect on a process that has simultaneously inspired and impoverished her. "The ideals are good but the reality of daily life ... " Her voice trails off.
The ambivalence reflects the complex legacy of a revolution which invested in health and education, crushed dissent and provoked admiration and revulsion. Cuba reaches today's milestone with the echo of the prediction Fidel Castro made from the dock as a young revolutionary in 1953: "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me." Well, did it?
Crisis
There is no disputing the revolution's durability. It survived the Bay of Pigs invasion, the missile crisis and the Soviet Union's collapse. Castro outlasted 10 US presidents and dodged countless CIA assassination attempts. Absolution or not, history will certainly remember him.
The anniversary coincides with a period of flux. Castro, 82, resigned as president last year because of an intestinal illness, but his recent partial recovery has revived his influence. His brother and successor, Raúl, 77, signalled modest reforms, but they have stalled. Barack Obama has promised to ease draconian US restrictions and shake up a policy pickled in vinegar since JFK.
"It feels that the end of the story has not been written. Nobody knows what is going to happen and that is unsettling," said Daniel Erikson, a Cuba expert at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based thinktank.
One safe bet, however, is that there will be no mass outpouring of jubilation to mark the anniversary, for a simple reason: living standards are dire. "Our situation is so precarious nobody wants to celebrate," said Gabriel Calaforra, 75, a former ambassador and high-ranking official. "There is almost total indifference. People are waiting for change."
The authorities have booked popular musicians for a free concert at the Anti-Imperialista Tribune on the Malecón, Havana's seafront, so there will be dancing. But joy, like so much else on the island, will be scarce. The struggle for decent food and basic goods makes people obsess about vegetables and conserving everything from soap to toilet roll. Few are in party mood.
Material hardship was eroding trust in the system, said Erikson. "A lot of people think the revolution has important accomplishments but pervasive scarcity puts economic questions at the front of their minds."
The government blames the long-standing US embargo. Unquestionably it has wrought havoc, but most analysts say communist central planning, stifling bureaucracy and lack of economic freedom have proved even more ruinous.
The state controls about 90% of the economy, obliging almost everyone to work for it, but pays an average monthly wage of about £12. A ration of rice, beans and other staples, and supposedly free public services, keeps people alive but does not avert grinding poverty.
To buy goods in the few decently stocked shops Cubans must change near worthless pesos into convertible pesos, a dual currency worth 24 times more that was designed for tourists.
"After I pay my rent I have $2 left for the month," said Miguel, 32, a whip-thin hospital doctor. As a favour, a European friend recently married Miguel to help him obtain an exit visa. "I want to get out," he said.
Poverty reeks from the decaying, overcrowded buildings of central Havana. Though from a distance they are picturesque, up close you see the grime and smell the plumbing. Likewise, the 1950s Chevrolets and Fords, surreal mechanical marvels, lose their charm if you are a sardine-wedged passenger or pedestrian choking on the fumes.
Cuba became dependent on tourism after the end of Soviet subsidies in 1991 triggered savage austerity and a need for foreign currency. With a casual tip dwarfing state wages, scientists, teachers and other professionals quit their jobs to become waiters, chambermaids and taxi drivers. "Our most brilliant minds - serving coffee," lamented Alvaro, a university lecturer turned tour guide.
Sidelines
Everyone has some type of sideline - selling knick-knacks, baking cakes, pilfering state resources. "A population of hustlers and mini-capitalists, that's how our communism survives," said Luis, 42, an academic who rears pigs in his garden.
The government knows its legitimacy and longevity hinge on raising living standards. After succeeding Fidel last year Raúl announced minor reforms: more privately-run farms and taxis, greater wage flexibility and permission to stay in hotels and buy computers, DVD players and mobile phones.
Some things have improved. Hundreds of Chinese-made buses have eased transport shortages and subsidised Venezuelan oil has helped to banish power blackouts. But reforms have stalled, disappointing Cubans and puzzling observers.
"It's in limbo. Raúl unleashed expectations but apart from agriculture very little is happening," said a senior diplomat.
The official explanation is that three summer hurricanes devastated crops and infrastructure, wrecking 500,000 homes and causing $10bn damage. The global economic downturn and a dive in nickel prices, a key export, have also hit state coffers, forcing Cuba to reschedule debt payments. The crippling US embargo compounds the woes.
There is suspicion that Fidel has been doing his bit to slow reforms since his health reportedly improved. His regular newspaper articles are sharper. "There's a sense, oh-oh, Fidel's back," said the diplomat. Raúl-inspired calls for bold self-criticism and a "revolution within the revolution" have ebbed.
In the absence of material improvements the revolution's legitimacy rests largely on healthcare and education, success stories that have given Cuba first-world rates of infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy and university graduations.
Gonce's bypass operation shows the system at its best. Many hospitals and polyclinics have been overhauled and modernised. But the system is creaking. Under a barter deal for Venezuelan oil more than 20,000 Cuban doctors are working overseas and foreign patients are leapfrogging queues. The result is delayed treatment and overworked staff, said Miguel, the doctor who hopes to emigrate.
Education is also under strain because so many teachers, fed up with low salaries and an ideology-imbued curriculum, have quit. Adolescents straight out of secondary school have been recruited to teach classes with the aid of video cassettes.
"Pupils are not encouraged to think freely, to develop their own ideas and curiosity," said Enrique, 25, a disillusioned teacher. "The other problem is purely economic. University students don't consider teaching to be something serious." Enrique has resigned from the Communist Youth organisation.
Loyal
Older Cubans who remember the corrupt tyranny of Fulgencio Batista, the US-backed dictator toppled 50 years ago, tend to be more loyal. "The thing is working," said Marilyn, a proud member of a Committee for the Defence of the Revolution, a neighbourhood network. "We have health, we have education."
Such fidelity is being tested by increasing inequality. Che Guevara's egalitarian dream long ago gave way to division between the dirt poor and those who have access to foreign currency through tourism jobs, remittances and government contacts.
Raúl's cautious reforms have underlined that split by giving the privileged minority more opportunities to consume. You see them snapping up Sony wide-screen televisions, Paco Rabanne perfume and Adidas trainers in shopping centres like La Puntilla, out of bounds to most but with a poster of Fidel's revolutionary exhortations at the entrance. Most Cubans are black or brown-skinned but most of the shoppers here are white - just as top government echelons are white.
"Equality was and still is supposed to be one of the pillars of the revolution but now there are people with loads of money," said Eduardo, 56, a historian. Too broke to treat his wife on their wedding anniversary, the former Young Communist was not minded to celebrate the revolution's.
Despite the sour mood there is little public protest or even graffiti. It would change nothing and you could get fined or jailed, so why bother, is a common refrain. Opposition parties are banned and by some counts there are more than 200 political prisoners. The government says they are US-paid mercenaries.
A rare demonstration in Havana by the "ladies in white", an organisation of relatives of jailed dissidents, was instructive. Clutching flowers and leaflets about human rights, about 30 chanted "liberty" from the steps of the Capitolio before filing through busy streets, tailed by plainclothes policemen. Not one passerby cheered the solemn procession. Lacking funds, media and grassroots organisation, the opposition is isolated and largely unknown. One European diplomat was blunt: "Dissidents are irrelevant."
For US policymakers that is reason to despair. They have long counted on the so-called "biological solution": when Fidel Castro died, his ramshackle regime would collapse. That has turned out to be wishful thinking. The commandante has seamlessly transferred power to Raúl and his inner circle.
Not only will the revolution outlast him, Fidel can die feeling vindicated. Not long ago he was an international pariah, but a new generation of leftist regional leaders has feted him as a symbol of Latin American pride and nationalism. And prescience: his critiques of imperialism and capitalism resonate in the light of the Iraq war and global economic crisis.
"Cuba is returning to where it always should have been," Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's president, said at a summit last month. "We are complete." It is a view shared by centrist leaders such as Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Argentina's Cristina Kirchner. Largely for economic reasons, China and Russia, and to some extent the EU, have also courted Havana.
Final chapter
After half a century, Fidel Castro's experiment has significant accomplishments and glaring failures. Historians will struggle to untangle the political and social meaning. Diplomats will try to anticipate the next and possibly final chapter. It will be left to the 11 million people who live on the island to decide if the "bearded one" who swept down from the Sierra Maestra all those years ago is to be absolved.
For Luis Poey, 69, a guard at the entrance of the Association of Veterans of the Cuban Revolution, the answer was obvious. "In this country one lives proud all the time. We fought giants and that made us a giant." He jabbed his thick cigar. "We are still fighting."
Source: Guardian, UK (01.01)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/01/fidel-castro-raul-castro
* Yoani Sanchez, Cuba's "most famous" blogger (☞ Generación Y), according to the German daily Berliner Zeitung (08.12.29), explained the situation 50 years after the revolution...
Well, of course (!!), Cuba's "special friends" also noticed the anniversary (^^):
☞ Outside forces cannot end Cuba's revolution (Miami Herald, 01.01)
Related:
☞ "Wir leben schon im Kapitalismus" (Berliner Zeitung, 08.12.29)
Sorry! But the New Year begins as it ended: with bad and bloody news (especially for the Palestinans)!
Israel's war against Hamas/Gaza. The 6th day.
Yesterday afternoon the German magazine Spiegel.Online had it "top" headline: "Israel's gound offensive is very unlikely" ("The majority of military analysts predicts.."). Only 12 hours later the article disappeared (so much for the "reputable" bourgeois journalism!!^^). Instead: today in the morning y.net (just as one example) headlined:
IDF: WE'RE READY FOR THE BATTLE!
But: No Problem! Olmert just today "promised": "We will treat the Palestinian civilians with kid gloves and provide humanitarian aid. We did not declare war on Gaza's residents, but we will deal with Hamas with an iron fist..", according to today's Yedioth Ahronoth (*).
Israeli and Palestinian reactions:
"That's it, its done, we are going in - in our own way, with our own surprises, fighting dirty, not like before. We reached the end of your bullshit. All is on the line, its no more crap. Gazans, join us to kill hamas/jihad or die with them. Hamas, don't drink the water underground,we are poisoning it. Ishamel-wait for us. haniyeh, you are on the list, say goodbye to your family. Zophar, we will not forget you."
Alexi, Israel (01.01.09)
"I was looking at TV tonight and I noticed the kind of races that form the israeli population (ethiopians, polish, russians, americans, moroccans...)
This army of mixed nationalities will be crushed by indigenous population because they have their roots in that land while you are a lost population without roots. just look at an ethiopian (who has clearly of ethiopian genes) what right can he claim on palestine??" (**)
Ibrahim, Gaza (01.01.09)
"The victory is near, insha'Allah, and it's nearer as you think!", I. Haniyeh (Hamas' leader) said y'day in Al-Aqsa TV.
Hamas also writes TMs for Israeli citizens:
"Rockets on all cities, shelters not protect, Qassam rocket, Hamas."
* Don't Believe The Hype! (Public Enemy)
** In my opinion: pure fascist argumentation/propaganda! Isn't it?
Related articles:
☞ We must reshuffle the deck (Yedioth Ahronoth, 01.01)
PS:
Y.net's main site today in morning, "adorned" with following picture:
Wow! War (massacres, mass destruction etc.)
can be sooo beautiful!!
Israel's war against Hamas/Gaza. The 4th day:
While the..
"Ground War is on Horizon"
..according to the current "top story" by CNN - "An Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip appears to be just a matter of time" (Der Spiegel) - it seems as if the Palestinian "resistance" (Hamas, IJ, PRC..) await eagerly the coming (bloody) battles in the streets of Gaza City, Khan Younis, Beit Hanoun...
Well, just "enjoy" following messages from Gaza:
"We have many surprises for Israel! We are just waiting for the ground attack to teach them an unforgettable lesson."
"We Will Fight Till the Last breath"
"Im from Gaza near the border, and i have SMS for Barak and Olmert.... stupids if you think that we will fall or cry becuse of casulties, till the last child of our generations we will resiste you. we ready for being all in the heaven with Muhamad PBUH .... come on and we will give IDF our special dragon Kiss."
"Kill our children, kill our women, kill us all, but our march to freedom will not be stopped. Your occupation will be defated, no matter what yu do. We are waiting for your sissy army here, come one, come all."
If there's a ground invasion, Abu Obeida (spokesman for Hamas' military wing) promised worse: "If you enter Gaza,our children will collect your flesh which will be spread out through the streets.", according to Ma'ariv.
Related articles:
☞ Israeli Troops Ready for Ground Invasion (Der Spiegel)
☞ Hamas is hoping for an IDF ground operation (Haaretz)
☞ PRC spokesman urges IDF troops to 'fight like men' (Yedioth Ahronoth)
PS:
Still al-Jazeera TV has the best, most informative reports about the war in Gaza. You can find its live stream here:
http://www.livestation.com/channels
Israel's war against Hamas/Gaza. The 3rd day:
"Shock Treatment for Hamas"
Death, Tears and Rage in Gaza
First of all: The German (bourgeois) Welt.Online reported today in the late morning that Hamas political "leader" Khaled Mashaal has said that he is ready to sign a ceasefire agreement for Gaza that would involve Israel ending its attacks and its blockade of the territory (*).
But Israel/the IDF will be - very likely - not really impressed by his offer: Almost short while later the Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Brigadier-General Dan Harel said: "We are just at the beginning of the battle, this will not be hasty. The worst is not behind us – it is still ahead of us, and we should be prepared for this." and continued: "After this operation there will not be one Hamas building left standing in Gaza, and we plan to change the rules of the game."
At the same time Israel's war ("defence") minister E. Barak "promised": "We'll fight this war until the bitter end!"
Already yesterday GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant said that in attacking Hamas' regime in the Gaza Strip, the IDF will try to "send Gaza decades into the past".. while achieving "the maximum number of enemy casualties.."
Meanwhile, since the early afternoon, IAF reduced the number of airstrikes in Gaza while IDF ground forces complete preparations for possible incursion.
Following a small selection of reports of the recent developments:
By al-Jazeera:
☞ Israel in 'all-out war' with Hamas
☞ Hamas calls for third intifada
For more, detailed and daily informations please check out:
☞ Haaretz (IL)
☞ Yedioth Ahronoth (IL)
☞ PIC (Hamas propaganda..)
* A lot of "interesting" comments related to Mashaal's "offer" you can read here!
Gaza, Friday afternoon. Palestinian "resistance" fighters:
Palestinian "resistance" fighters - only 24 hours later:
While last Friday (12.26) in the morning Israel opened the border crossings to Gaza for about 100 trucks with humanitarian aid - fuel, food etc. - almost at the same time the Palestinian "resistance" organisations (IJ, PRC, incl. the "ruling" Hamas..) resumed their mortar and rocket attacks against targets in Israel and the Karni crossing. At the end of the day two Palestinian girls were killed - by "friendly fire" (i.e. rockets of the "restistance"..).
Meanwhile, at least since the end of the cease-fire (12.19), the "rulers" (Hamas) in Gaza and the other "resistance" organisations did everything to assure the Palestinians (and the rest of the world) that there will be no attack from Israel, despite almost daily rocket/mortar attacks against communities in Israel. Because: "Israel is weak..", "The Olmert gov't is complete powerless and impotent..", etc.
One example from last Thursday (12.25): "Barak won't dare attack," Abu Abir, the spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) told the Nazareth-based (Palestinian) newspaper Arb al-Dahel. "He and the Shin Bet (*) know what awaits them in Gaza. Should the IDF attack, Israel won't be able to sustain the Palestinian response even for a day."
And now?
Since almost 30 hours Gaza suffers constantly attacks by the IAF! Until now, according to al-Jazeera, nearly 300 people were killed and more than 700 injured..
* Israel Security Agency
About one week ago Taru Taylor (Professor of English at Semyung University, Jecheon, S.K.) contributed following remarkable article to Korea Times, but finally the bourgeois newspaper refused to publish it (*):
Imperial Korea?
South Korea has learned well from Japan, its onetime imperial master—how to be an imperialist. Witness the recent deal between the Republic of Korea and Madagascar, brokered by Daewoo Logistics, for a 99-year lease of 3.2 million acres, half of Madagascar’s arable land. “The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” indeed! Except South Korea, too, is now a master.
One might have thought that the suffering endured under Japanese imperialism had taught Korea to sympathize with poor and oppressed peoples. That, in the person of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, South Korea pointed the way to equity between the white bourgeois and the colored proletarians and peasants of the world. As a Black American who has suffered from the tyranny of the white majority, I thought Koreans might prove soul mates. But Korean employers requiring photos to screen out Black applicants like me exploded that wishful thought.
Nevertheless I eagerly applauded the Seoul street protests last spring, apparently against American beef but really against Anglo-American imperialism and its chaebol and yangban flunkies. President Lee Myung-bak apologized to the people. I felt humble before the might of the ordinary Korean. They truly seemed the beacon of the true democracy necessarily anchored in the proletariat and the peasantry.
I sought historical perspective for the beef protests and found it in the “Tonghak” (“Eastern Learning”) of native Korea as opposed to the “Western Learning” of Europe. Its slogan: “Drive out the Japanese dwarfs and the Western barbarians, and praise righteousness.” Its author: Choe Cheu, a wandering peasant martyred in 1864. He inspired the Tonghak rebellion of 1894, which compelled the Korean aristocracy to bring in 1500 Chinese troops to suppress it. He inspired “Chondogyo” (“Society of the Heavenly Way”), the indigenous religion of Korea that had changed its name from Tonghak in 1905. The first signer of the March 1, 1919 Declaration of Independence from Japan was Son Pyong-hi, leader of Chondogyo, which provided 15 of the 33 signers.
Choe Cheu—author of Tonghak and of Chondogyo—is the true hero of Korea. His Tonghak philosophy and his Chondogyo religion seem the portals for discovering Korean identity. When, last summer, I described the beef protests as a 2008 Tonghak rebellion, I meant that Choe Cheu still lived as the archetype of modern Korea. Just as Luke Skywalker led the Rebellion against Lord Vader’s Empire, the specter of Choe Cheu haunted the “new world order” from the streets of Seoul.
But South Korea lately seems more like Park Chung-hee, the mastermind who modeled South Korea after Japan. He epitomizes the Korean bourgeoisie even as Choe Cheu epitomizes its proletariat and peasantry. In America, Thomas Jefferson had advocated agrarian democracy and limited government—states’ rights—as against monopoly capitalism as commandeered by the imperial government of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton won the debate, for first president George Washington sided with his Secretary of the Treasury against his Secretary of State.
Although not contemporaries like Jefferson and Hamilton, Choe Cheu and Park Chung-hee are the grand interlocutors of Korean destiny. Tonghak is one portal; imperialism is the other. The “Republic of Korea” and “Imperial Korea” are the terms of the debate between the agrarian hero and the capitalist dictator. The beef protests argue for Choe Cheu; for Tonghak; for Korea as Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. But the Madagascar deal argues for Park Chung-hee; for Imperial Korea; for Korea as Anakin Skywalker nee Sith Lord Darth Vader.
“Imperialism,” of course, is a heavy word, perhaps the heaviest word of current political discourse. Before we proceed with the question of Imperial Korea we would do well to come to terms with it. For, as Confucius reminds us in Book 13 Chapter 3 of “The Analects,” semantics are the essence of sound government. Asked by Tzu-lu the first thing the governor must do, Confucius replies “rectification of names.” He explains: “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.” So without further ado let’s rectify “imperialism” and thus put South Korea’s deal with Madagascar in perspective.
According to Merriam-Webster, “imperialism” is “the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas.” V.I. Lenin’s economic treatise, “Imperialism: the Final Stage of Capitalism” (1916), expands this definition. He first of all insists that imperialism is in essence economic, a mere function of finance capital. That imperialism is “monopoly capitalism” writ large. That imperialism is “parasitism” whereby the ruling class of the oppressor nation uses colonies to enrich itself at their expense. That imperialism has for its complement “opportunism,” that is, corruption of the elite bureaucrats of the proletariat by means of bribery. That imperialism creates privileged sections of the proletariat who thus detach themselves from the proletarian and peasant masses, what we would call tokenism.
Is there really any doubt, given the above rectification of “imperialism,” that South Korea is not now colonizing Madagascar? That it is not now Imperial Korea? That the bureaucrats of Madagascar who are making this deal aren’t Uncle Toms selling out their people just as Esau sold out his birthright to Jacob? Interestingly, Lenin cites Japan as an example of imperialism for its then recent annexation of Korea. History has come full vicious circle, for now Korea is exhibit A of imperialism for its annexation of Madagascar.
* T. Taylor's comment in IMC (12.24):
"The article ... entitled 'Imperial Korea?' was published and then unpublished by The Korea Times.
What I mean is, it was put up onto the website Thursday afternoon, then taken down a few minutes later. The executive managing editor of The Korea Times said to me Friday morning that it had been taken down because the issue of Madagascar and Korea had been discussed in The Financial Times already. He told me that my piece was not "original".
The only reason I knew about it having been published in the first place was that someone emailed me to compliment me on the 'Imperial Korea?' article Thursday at around 4 pm. I then read it online on The Korea Times website. There were even two very critical comments, by a different reader, on the article in the commentary section beneath it. I remember him saying that my argument would've been stronger if I had not brought in Lenin and Confucius, if I had just analyzed the situation in Madagascar on the ground with more facts and details.
The article ... was published by The Korea Times. Then, I say again, it was unpublished.
It would've been OK if I had been told weeks ago, when I first submitted the article, that it would not be published. I can live with rejection. I understand that it's a provocative piece. But to be told on two different occasions that it would be published, then to actually have it published, then to have it unpublished.... an outrage!
Censorship.
Indeed, Orwellian."
http://www.indymedia.org/fr/2008/12/918255.shtml
And - finally - here's my "comment":
What a surprise! The author is quoting Lenin's “Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism” and the bourgeois newspaper is refusing to publish the piece.. (^^)
Has the author ever heard about anti-communism in S.K. in general, and the "NSL" in particular??
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