Monitoring World Left/liberal/communists

Bharatvarsh · 02-07-2007, 09:19 AM

QUOTEDravid attends RSS function; Left unhappy

*Sutirtho Patranobis*

New Delhi, February 6, 2007

The Left parties have expressed their displeasure over Indian cricket team
captain Rahul Dravid attending a function organised by an RSS-affiliated
body in Nagpur in January.

On January 20, Dravid inaugurated a "*surya * *namaskar*" (a yoga-based
ritual to worship the sun) programme organised on the occasion of Makar
Sankranti by Vidya Bharati, an RSS-affiliated organisation that runs a chain
of schools. After lighting the lamp at a gathering in the Ramnagar area of
Nagpur, Dravid went on to give a speech and asked the attending children to
do '*surya* *namaskar'* daily. It keeps the body fit, Dravid added.

Following the event, RSS mouthpiece *Panchjanya * carried an article on the
event complete with a picture of Dravid, flanked by RSS members, addressing
the audience. The article was carried in the February 4 issue of the weekly
magazine. In the issue, dated February 11, *Panchjanya * again made a
reference to Dravid, saying that after his participation in the January 20
programme, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh followed suit and
organised a similar event.

The Left said on Tuesday that what Dravid played at the Ramnagar Maidan in
Nagpur on January 20 was not cricket. Both CPIM and CPI raised objections to
the fact that one of the most famous cricketers in the country is rubbing
shoulders with an organisation that spreads "sectarian politics" and is
"fascist in nature".

"He (Dravid) might be the Indian cricket captain but he is also an
individual and an adult. In the end, it is his choice. And if his choice of
company is the RSS, good luck to him. Everyone knows, that RSS promotes an
ideology that is sectarian. It is his choice if he wants to be made use of
by the RSS," CPIM politburo member, Brinda Karat, told *HT*. She added that
the '*surya* *namaskar'* is not a monopoly of the RSS and millions of
Indians go through the ritual everyday.

CPI's National Secretary D Raja was more direct and said that Dravid should
not have taken part in an RSS function. "Why should he take part in a
function organised by RSS, which believes in a fascist and communal
ideology? Why should he allow himself to be identified with RSS," Raja
asked.

"I was asked to got to a function where a lot of school children were coming
to talk on the benefits of yoga. I have no political leanings. Yoga is
something where even the Indian cricket team does. I had no idea that this
could be used for political purposes,'' Rahul Dravid told HT from Calcutta
on Tuesday evening.

http://hindustantimes.com/news/181_1921185,0008.htm
Oops I guess "Muslim League" which the commies were in alliance with back in the day in Kerala was "secular".

02-15-2007, 05:18 PM

British Jews take on Israeli lobby

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /> The virus continues to spread.......

QUOTE SOME OF the leading British Jewish intellectuals such as Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, Marxist thinker Eric Hobsbawm, and film-maker Mike Leigh have come together on a common platform with a cross-section of others from the community to start a debate on free speech. This, they hope, will encourage independent voices in other communities also to stand up against attempts to gag them in the name of religious, ethnic, and national "solidarity."

In what has been billed as a "unilateral declaration of independence" from the Jewish Establishment, their campaign is meant to challenge the claim of the Israeli state and its proxy institutions abroad to represent the opinion of all Jews, especially on the Palestinian issue. More significantly, it questions the idea that any criticism of Israel is, ipso facto, an attack on the Jewish people and therefore amounts to anti-semitism.

It is this aspect of the campaign, launched by the newly created Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) last week, that has wider resonance. No doubt, Jewish sensitivities around race identity and nationhood are particularly acute because of the history of their persecution but it is not something unique to Jews. We have all met Muslims who see any criticism of their community as an attack on Islam itself; Hindus who regard critics of Hindutva as anti-Hindu; and Sikhs who are quick to dub the slightest criticism of Sikh practices an insult to their faith.
....................

Husky · (This post was last modified: 02-19-2007, 06:47 PM by Husky.)

http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/world/cam...unal/index.html Cambodian genocide tribunal - Flash presentation

27 years after the communist regime of the mass-murdering Pol Pot and his genocidal communist komrades, the tormented Cambodians are finally getting a genocide tribunal to try their torturers and tyrants.
After such a long time, lots of the vilest of the vile communists might already be dead. But the tribunal will be going after those that remain. Finally. I hope they get every single one of them.

I've seen the host on a travel show explain how a number of ancient Cambodian Buddhist temples were desecrated by the communist villains murdering the noble Buddhist Cambodians (Buddhist populace, but also Buddhist monks and nuns) there. So these temples became also a place of painful memories, instead of only harmonious meditation on Buddha.
(In the same episode, the travel host also stated that the oldest temples in Cambodia were Hindu temples, but that's generally known.)

03-05-2007, 02:37 AM

PRONOUNCED GUILTY - Indian communismâs other betrayal
Indian communists are often chastized for not supporting the Quit India movement of 1942. But a far greater crime of which they were guilty is little talked about nowadays. This took place six years later, when the Communist Party of India fomented an insurrection to strangle the infant Indian state at birth.
----------
However, by the end of 1947, P.C. Joshi found his line challenged by the radical faction of the CPI. This claimed that the freedom that India had obtained was false â âYe Azaadi Jhoota Haiâ, the slogan went â and asked that the party declare an all-out war against the government of India. The radicals were led by B.T. Ranadive, who saw in the imminent victory of the Chinese communists a model for himself and his comrades. A peasant struggle was already on in Hyderabad, against the feudal regime of the Nizam â why not use that as a springboard for the Indian revolution?
-------------------

Husky · (This post was last modified: 03-08-2007, 10:50 AM by Husky.)

Communist genocide in Cambodia butchered 2 million of the people. This is the true, eternal face of communism (call it what you like, naxalite, maoist, leninist, stalinist, leftist, marxist, terrorist... it's all the same):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6425589.stm
QUOTEAbout two million people died during the years that the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia in the 1970s.
Also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6425589.stm
QUOTETalks to save Khmer Rouge trials
Foreign judges want full international legal standards, while the Cambodians say local law must take precedence.Stop meddling. Let the Cambodians have justice as they choose by local law. They deserve justice and a sense of resolution. Besides, nothing they might do these criminals will ever match up to the horrors that the latter perpetrated against them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/st...src=rss&feed=12
QUOTECritical talks to avert the collapse of a genocide trial for the extermination of 1.7 million Cambodians by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime began in Phnom Penh today.
A high-level committee of Cambodian and international judges is to meet over the next 10 days, in a final effort to thrash out the ground rules for the special war crimes tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge's senior leaders.
But the UN-appointed international judges have warned that if agreement cannot be reached on a framework to enable a fair trial that meets the highest standards, they will pull out.What fair trial? Did the communists give their Buddhist victims a fair trial before they massacred them (there are still skulls of the perished in Cambodian temples)? No. So UN can shut up. They don't know what they're talking about.

And more of Christo US' treatment of heathen Asia <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/furious.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='furious.gif' />
http://www.yale.edu/cgp/us.html
U.S. Involvement in the Cambodian War and Genocide
Let's see who US' friends are in Nepal? The heathen Hindus and Buddhists, OR the communists? Well, why guess when there's a precedent?

Bharatvarsh · 03-15-2007, 12:46 AM

QUOTEWB govt delaying citizenship process: Taslima

March 12, 2007 15:32 IST

Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen on Monday made an impassioned plea to her "second home" India to grant her citizenship and blamed the government of West Bengal, her current residence in exile, for delaying the process.

"I have been banished from my country and am living away from home for the last 12 years. I don't want to live in Europe any more," Taslima, who flew to Delhi on Sunday night from London to attend a publishers' convention, told PTI.

"India is my second home. I have been granted a six-month visa, but citizenship is being repeatedly refused to me," the author of works that have created controversies in Bangladesh and India said.

She blamed the West Bengal government for "coming in the way of the Centre granting her citizenship status.

"I need a recommendation letter from the West Bengal government before the Centre can consider my request for citizenship. They (WB government) are not granting me the much-needed recommendation before I can call this country my home," said the women's rights activist who fled her country after fundamentalists, outraged at her progressive views, issued a fatwa against her.

"If I can't live in my own country, and if I have to stay close to home, where I can speak my mother tongue, write in my own language? India is the second option. Where else will I go?" asked Taslima. The writer said she will soon make a fresh application to the Centre for citizenship.

Taslima believes that the "Muslim vote bank politics could be the reason behind the West Bengal government's refusal to recommend her to the Centre for citizenship rights."

"Ideally, the Left government should not have any ideological differences with me. I write for secular forces, for upliftment of human rights and rights of women and the downtrodden wherever I am. I see no clash of views with the Left there," she said.

Once a qualified medical practitioner in Bangladesh who had to give up her career in medicine "for refusing to tow the government line", Taslima said she will continue her fight against religious extremism, fundamentalism and censorship of books.

She saw no hope of ever returning to Bangladesh, which is on the brink of a political change.

"Be it Awami League, or Bangladesh Nationalist Party, they are all the same. During poll campaigning they all apparently promised fundamentalist election partners that they would be granted rights to issue fatwas once in power," she said.

"Whoever comes to power, it will not make a difference in Bangladesh where violence against women is on the rise," Taslima said.

Not the one to closely follow Bangladeshi politics, Taslima said what the country needs is a "secular and tolerant leader" before she can even dream of coming back to her home country.

"But there is hope. I get a lot of e-mails from young people in Bangladesh who write in to tell me that things may be changing slowly," she said.

Accusing the Bangladesh government of not renewing her passport for the last two years, Taslima said she has been running from pillar to post to get this done during her exile abroad.

http://in.rediff.com/news/2007/mar/12wb.htm

03-17-2007, 06:12 PM

http://www.hindustantimes.in/news/181_19...300006.htm

The struggling billion

Sitaram Yechury

March 14, 2007

There is considerable cheer in India Inc. The Forbes magazineâs 2007 rankings of the worldâs richest people include 36 Indian billionaires out of the global figure of 946. Globally, the number of billionaires has grown by 19 per cent and their total net worth grew by 35 per cent to $ 3.5 trillion (nearly five times Indiaâs GDP). India added 14 new billionaires in the last year. The combined worth of the 36 Indian billionaires is placed at $ 191 billion â equal to one-fourth of Indiaâs GDP. India has replaced Japan as the home for the largest number of billionaires in Asia.

âThis is the richest year ever in human history,â said Forbes. It went on to state, âIndiaâs rich are marching towards the top of our rankings and now has three in the upper echelons, second only to the US.â However, as a commentator noted, in the US this list is described as âserving primarily to remind readers of just how poor they areâ.

There is no need to grudge the success of Indiaâs billionaires. May their tribe increase. But what does this mean for the rest of India? A hundred crore plus population minus these 36 individuals shares the rest of the 75 per cent of our GDP. Within this, given the growing hiatus between âshiningâ and âsufferingâ India, the share of the vast majority of our population continues to dwindle. There is a need to look at the other end of the spectrum.

According to the 2005-06 National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the third in a series of national surveys, malnutrition continues to be a significant problem for children and adults in India. The most striking has been the increase in wasting (too thin for a given height) among children. In the seven years since the last survey, the number of children wasted has gone up from 16 to 19 per cent. Thirty-eight per cent of our children are stunted (too short for their age) and 46 per cent are underweight (too thin for their age).

NFHS-3 has found a remarkably high prevalence of anaemia â 79 per cent â among children between six and 35 months. Seven years ago, this figure was 74 per cent. Anaemia is also disturbingly common among adults. Among women, its prevalence has actually increased over the past seven years â from 52 to 56 per cent among married women and from 52 to 58 per cent among pregnant women. Among men, the anaemia levels are 24 per cent, unacceptably high given global standards.

This is the status of the health of mothers who are producing and rearing Indiaâs future. While the nutritional health of our people is directly related to their economic status, the Stateâs support towards improving this has also been woeful. Public health continues to remain neglected despite considerable public outcry to increase expenditures. Only 44 per cent of our children, who are less than two years old, receive all recommended vaccinations.

How do those who miraculously survive these conditions live? Fifty-eight per cent of India, 72 per cent of rural India, does not have access to piped drinking water. Fifty-six per cent of India, 74 per cent of rural India, does not have access to toilet facilities. Fifty-nine per cent of India, 75 per cent of rural India, does not live in a pucca house. Fifty-five per cent of Indians do not own any agricultural land.

Over one-third of India in the six plus age group is illiterate. The dropout rates continue to remain very high. So does the prevalence of child labour. Once again, all this cannot be changed for the better unless the economic conditions of the vast majority of our people are radically improved. Are we moving in that direction?

Improving economic status of the people implies providing them with decent levels of livelihood. Instead, we are witnessing the opposite. The annual growth of employment in the organised sector between 1994 and 2004, according to this yearâs Economic Survey, has actually declined by 0.38 per cent. The country, therefore, is losing existing jobs rather than creating new ones. The figures of the latest round of the National Sample Survey show that both in rural and urban India, for men and women, the unemployment rates by most categories have increased. The increase for women is much sharper.

The agrarian distress continues unabated with over 20,000 of our farmers committing suicide every year. The decline in foodgrain production is ominous for the already fragile food security situation in the country.

On top of such a misery comes the current murderous price rise. Inflation is the classic instrument of income redistribution in favour of the profit-earners away from the wage-earners. Therefore, instead of moving towards the economic empowerment of the vast majority of our people, the current situation is doing the exact opposite.

Under these circumstances, the objective should be to maintain a high growth trajectory that is inclusive and non-inflationary. This is the declared intention of the UPA government. However, the policies pursued and the allocations made in the recent Budget lack the commitment to achieve this objective.

Inclusive growth means continuous economic empowerment of our people. This, in turn, means much larger expenditures and public investment in the social sector. This is what was promised to the people in the UPAâs Common Minimum Programme (CMP). However, the total expenditure on the social sector as a percentage of GDP declined from 28.26 in 2001-02 to 27.19 per cent in 2006-07.

This yearâs Budget could have substantially addressed the promises made in the CMP, given the healthy economic parameters. A high growth rate, a larger foreign exchange reserve, high savings and investment rates etc. gave the government an unprecedented excellent opportunity to sharply increase the levels of public investments. Unfortunately, this opportunity has not been utilised. The growth in expenditures is in the same range as the growth of the economy. In other words, the Budget simply does not make any effort, despite the opportunity before it, to make a radical shift in the policies that would have ensured a better livelihood for the vast majority of our people.

There is a need for the UPA to make a mid-term course correction to redeem its pledges made in the CMP. The economic empowerment of the vast majority of the Indians is not only a question of human compassion.

Of course, it is absolutely imperative that all of us need to work to remove the misery that stalks the vast majority of our people.

Economic empowerment increases the purchasing power of our people thus bolstering the aggregate demand in the economy. This, in turn, serves as the impetus for greater levels of manufacturing to meet this demand. This, in turn, would generate employment and further improve the livelihood of the people. Even from the viewpoint of economic development, not merely humane considerations, the economic empowerment of our people is imperative.

Thus, far from resting on the laurels of our billionaires, the UPA must now sincerely get down to implement the promises that it had made to the Indian people and affect a shift in the content of economic reforms â from being predominantly preoccupied with increases in corporate profits towards improving peopleâs welfare.

Sitaram Yechury is a Rajya Sabha MP and member, CPI(M) politburo

Husky · (This post was last modified: 05-04-2007, 08:11 PM by Husky.)

Ain't communism grand: another ideology that can only breed murdering terrorists.
Communist terrorists in France and Germany:

(1) 2 articles on France's trial of Carlos the Jackal
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070504/19/13ckr.html
QUOTE Friday May 4, 11:06 PM
'Carlos the Jackal' faces new trial for French bomb attacks

Photo : AFPÂ
PARIS (AFP) - The convicted Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal is to stand trial for a wave of 1980s bomb attacks in France that left 11 dead, legal officials said Friday.

The Marxist-Leninist radical, who once boasted that his plots had killed more than 1,500 people, is already serving a life sentence in France for the 1975 murder of two French policemen and an alleged police informer.

Top French anti-terror judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere has now ordered him to stand trial for "complicity in killings and destruction of property using explosive substances" in relation to four bombings in France in 1982 and 1983 that killed 11 and injured more than 100 people, officials said.

The charge sheet against Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, says the attacks were part of a "private war" waged by Carlos against France to try to obtain the release of two members of his gang who were arrested as they prepared an attack on the Kuwaiti embassy in Paris.

The charges relate to attacks on a train travelling from Paris to the southwestern city of Toulouse that left five dead; on the Paris office of the Arabic-language Al Watan magazine that killed one; on the Saint-Charles train station in the Mediterranean city of Marseille that killed two; and on a high-speed TGV train that killed three.

The Paris-Toulouse train line was frequently used at the time by Jacques Chirac, France's outgoing rightwing president who was then mayor of Paris.

According to Hungarian and East German archives cited in the case, Chirac was the target in the attack on that line.

But attempting to assassinate Chirac is not one of the charges being laid against Carlos in this case, and he was not on the train when the bomb went off.

Three other people, Christa Margot Frohlich, Ali Al Issawi and Johannes Weinrich, have also been ordered to stand trial in the case. Weinrich is currently serving a prison term in Germany. It was not immediately clear where the two others were.

The trial is unlikely to start before next year.

Carlos, 57, rose to infamy in 1975 when he took 11 ministers hostage from the powerful OPEC oil cartel.

His commando group burst into the conference room where the OPEC ministers and their staff were meeting in Vienna, killing a Libyan delegate, an Austrian policeman and an Iraqi bodyguard.

Saying he was acting for the "Arm of the Arab Revolution," a previously unknown group, Carlos demanded the broadcast of a text condemning Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the oil monarchies of the Gulf and then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.Â

The siege at OPEC headquarters went on until the following morning, when Carlos's team took a DC-9 plane supplied by Austrian authorities to fly towards Algiers with 40 hostages.

After two decades on the run, Carlos was finally captured in Khartoum in 1994 by French secret service agents acting with the help of the Sudanese government.

He is serving his life sentence in Clairvaux prison in eastern France.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070504/15/13ckf.html
QUOTEFriday May 4, 10:13 PM
Carlos the Jackal to go on trial in France

Photo : REUTERSÂ
PARIS (Reuters) - Carlos the Jackal, one of the most notorious armed militants of the 1970s and 80s, will be tried in France for four attacks that killed 11 people and injured almost 200 others in the 1980s, a justice official said on Friday.
Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere granted prosecutors' request that Carlos, a Venezuelan whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, be tried for the attacks. A trial is expected at the end of 2007 or beginning of 2008.

Prosecutors say Carlos, now serving a life sentence for the murders of two French secret service agents, launched the bomb attacks in a bid to win the release of his companion, Magdalena Kopp, a German former revolutionary held in France at the time.

He is charged with the March 29, 1982, bombing of a Paris-Toulouse train; the April 22, 1982, attack outside the Paris offices of newspaper Al Watan; and the December 31, 1983, attacks on a TGV high-speed train and a Marseille station.

If convicted, any sentence will have to run concurrently with his existing life term handed down at a 1996 trial for the deaths of the secret service agents and their informer in 1975.

At the time of the 1980s attacks, Carlos was close to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, running a multinational group of activists throughout the globe with the support of the secret services of the then Communist bloc.

Carlos was once one of the most wanted men in the world, having shot to notoriety with the 1975 assault on an OPEC meeting in Vienna in which he and five others took 70 people hostage, including 11 oil ministers.

In 1994, France spirited Carlos out of his refuge in Sudan, where he had converted to Islam and married a local woman under Muslim rites. He has since married his French lawyer.Who said communism and islam don't go together, eh? All the same ideology in the end.

(2) Germany - concerns an incarcerated terrorist of the leftwing terror group RAF:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,15...19,00.html
QUOTENO AMNESTY FOR NOW
RAF Terrorist Klar to Remain in Jail
Crime, punishment and forgiveness are recurring themes in German 20th century history. With the first two behind him, Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist Christian Klar learned this week that he'll have to wait a while longer for the third.

Birgit Keller, victim of a Red Army Faction (RAF) hostage taking in 1977, was concerned last month that her former abductor Christian Klar was about to go free. Speculation abounded that German President Horst KÃ¶hler was about to grant Klar amnesty. Keller wrote an open letter addressed to KÃ¶hler asking him not to let Klar go.

On Thursday, his letter in reply was printed in Germany's mass-circulation tabloid Bild Zeitung. And it looks like Klar is going to have to wait a little longer for his freedom. KÃ¶hler wrote that, given the "many factors that have to be taken into consideration," a decision could not be expected in the foreseeable future.

Klar's fate has been the focus of considerable attention in Germany in recent weeks. A Stuttgart court recently granted his RAF comrade Birgit Mohnhaupt parole after 24 years in the clink. But whereas she was up for parole, Klar still has to serve two more years before he can be let out. For a earlier release, he would have to be granted amnesty by the German President's office.

Klar himself recently made it much more difficult for KÃ¶hler to do just that. He sent a letter from jail to a recent conference in Berlin, hosted by the Marxist newspaper Junge Welt. In the letter, read aloud at the conference, he claimed that Europe was being ruled by an "imperial pact" and that society must purge its "chauvinistic" forces if it is achieve the "final defeat of capital."

While he made no call to violence, his message was heavily criticized in the German media, prompting Klar to call the media as "block wardens" -- a reference to Nazi neighborhood spies during the Third Reich.I hope they don't release these RAF people at all. Leftists and fascists are all the same.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 09-25-2007, 07:03 PM by Husky.)

Communism - it will apparently 'save' you, but it will kill you all horribly first. The long-promised but never-witnessed communist Utopia/christoislami heaven comes after death, didn't you know. And if you don't want to join in, well, then they'll kill you anyway. It's for your own good. Be saved!
http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/khm.../fall.html
QUOTEHundreds of thousands of Cambodian families began the long march to their home villages in the hopes of finding surviving relatives. In many cases, though, Cambodians returned to find nothing left of their former lives - no homes, no possessions, and most tragic, no relatives. The (heroes of communism) Khmer Rouge came hauntingly close to succeeding in their radical attempt to erase all memories of the old Cambodia.

Vietnamese occupying forces, who themselves were hardened by the brutalities of the Vietnam War, were shocked as they soon discovered the legacy of the Khmer Rouge. Throughout the countryside, Cambodia was pockmarked by sunken depressions of dirt, as if hell had sucked in small pockets of earth in the hopes of devouring the world above it. As we all soon discovered, the depressions were indeed the stuff of hell, for each marked the spot of another mass grave: the graves of the hundreds of thousands of Cambodians slaughtered by their own countrymen.Un-friggin-bearable.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 09-25-2007, 08:21 PM by Husky.)

Found more. "How to achieve communist utopia" - a perfect example as set by those communist masters of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, themselves:
http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/khm...camps.html
My comments in purple - couldn't help it.
QUOTEThe Work Camps: Life and Death in the Farming Cooperatives

One of the main goals behind resettling urban residents into the countryside was to build a new Cambodia focused on agricultural success: "to build socialism in the fields," as it was once suggested (Chandler, History of Cambodia, 214). Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge leadership developed a "four-year plan" in which Cambodians were expected to produce an average national yield of 3 metric tons of rice per hectare (1.4 tons per acre). But even during pre-Khmer Rouge, peacetime Cambodia, the average national yield was only one metric ton of rice per hectare. To meet these new demands on rice production the Khmer Rouge enforced strict policies where workers labored in the fields for 12 hours a day without adequate rest or food. Many new people lacked any experience in manual labor and became ill and died, since the Khmer Rouge favored the traditional medicine of the peasants and hilltribes over modern western medicine. Those new people who survived but were not well enough to work often vanished: after being taken away to a distant field or forest, they would be forced to dig their own graves before Khmer Rouge soldiers would bludgeon them on the back of the head with a shovel or hoe. It didn't matter whether the blow killed them or not; either way the victims were buried on the spot and left to die a suffocating death. (Communist compassion! Nazifascists.)

Many Cambodians soon discovered that hard work wasn't necessarily enough to keep them alive. "Keeping new people is no benefit," so the Khmer Rouge slogan went; "Losing them is no loss." (Remember: communism is egalitarianism: you can all be equally dead!!!!!) The lives of new people were seen as having little to no value, so even the most minor infraction was enough reason to get sent to a killing field. For example, foraging for extra food was a capital offense, despite the fact that the Khmer Rouge's daily food allowance was so low it would cause hundreds of thousands of people to starve to death. (= the communist idea(l) of economic progress and justice. WOoohooo.) And because family relationships were now banned (for parents exploited their children, so the argument went) (communistic lying), associating with a relative without the permission of Angka could get you killed. Khmer Rouge cadres would look for any excuse to kill new people. If you spoke French, you would die. If you were educated, you would die. If you wore glasses, you would die. If you practiced Buddhism, you would die. Families with connections to previous Cambodian governments were especially susceptible to ill treatment; while former soldiers and civil servants were usually summarily executed, their families were often forced to work themselves to death. Those who managed to survive for a time would eventually be charged as associate enemies of the state and sent to the killing fields.And to think it's the Indian admirers of these mass-murderers that are writing our history books and ruling two states and have taken over Nepal.

09-25-2007, 08:31 PM

Huskyji,
Dark glasses CM of TN must be thinking - so many despots, so many accomplishments and so few kids to name -

Pol Pot - 2 million deaths
Kim Jong Il - 2 million starved
Mao Chinese revolution - 60 million death
Stalin, Beria - 40 million deaths
Che - 400 executions
Castro - 110,000 deaths
Commies Nepal - ??
Naxals in India - ??

Husky · (This post was last modified: 09-26-2007, 07:21 PM by Husky.)

QUOTE(Viren @ Sep 25 2007, 08:31 PM)Dark glasses CM of TN must be thinking - so many despots, so many accomplishments and so few kids to name - [right][snapback]73535[/snapback][/right]Yeah. But then perhaps he will opt for christening his kids, which will give them access to two names each. So he can have kids called "Mao Hitler" and other such combinations; and when Stalin is baptised he can become "Pol Pot Stalin".

QUOTEMao Chinese revolution - 60 million deathA documentary I saw about China during Mao and the various communist genocides there, came to a tally of 100 million by the end of the program. The doco-makers had rightly included the staggering figure for the death-by-starvation caused by China's communists' looney plans.
And that's only China under Mao. What's the estimated total since after then? Shudder.

Communism and fascism are exactly the same (other than that communism has managed to kill more people, but communism's been allowed to reign for longer). The difference is merely technical - it's based on where they start their killing programs:
- communism = genociding one's own people first-and-foremost; minor targets include other people
- nazism/fascism = genociding some 'other' people first-and-foremost; minor targets include own people

09-26-2007, 08:48 PM

QUOTE(Husky @ Sep 25 2007, 10:31 AM)And to think it's the Indian admirers of these mass-murderers that are writing our history books and ruling two states and have taken over Nepal.
[right][snapback]73533[/snapback][/right]


3 states Husky. Dont forget Tripura, which these criminals are looting in their 5th term - 3rd consecutively. All three states, such a rich source of Indic cultural.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 10-09-2007, 08:24 PM by Husky.)

Communism tried to kill Taoism by persecuting Taoists and killing the Taoist spiritual heads (where did we come across that before....)

I can't find the website "TaoistRestore.org" mentioned in here, but it's available from Archive. Will post a page from there at the end.

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1999...999-11-12.shtml
QUOTEReviving Taoism 
2500 year old faith blooms after 50 years of communist suppression
By Mark Hawthorne, California

An elderly monk, dressed in the traditional blue robe and jade-studded black cap of his Taoist sect, carefully places a burning joss stick in a large black urn. He pauses to watch a thin coil of smoke rise from the fragrant incense. Age belies the monk's physical energy; he goes about his many monastic duties with the stamina of a young man. But the passage of time has not been so kind to Taoism, an ancient tradition with many affinities to Hinduism and now threatened with extinction. After a long absence, the monk--one of China's remaining "Lao Tao" masters--has been brought back to this monastery on sacred Wudang Mountain after decades under house arrest. The same government that once repressed the open expression of his beliefs now wants him to pass along his knowledge to the next generation of Taoist monks. Similar former prisoners, with growing international support, give Taoism a crucial chance for survival in its homeland.

The decline of Taoism began late in the last century, during the Qing Dynasty. On the cusp of a new China, Qing emperors were religious patrons who struggled with a certain skepticism of Taoism. While they reserved a portion of their annual budget to support the monasteries, imperial enthusiasm for organized Taoism began to wane. When the monarchy finally fell in 1911 and the Nationalist government was installed in 1912, Taoism lost the long-standing financial and institutional support it had received from China's emperors. The new government regarded Taoism as mere folklore and myth. It allowed the religion to struggle on its own, and stood by as ancient temples, shrines and monasteries began to decay.

War between Japan and China destroyed Taoist sites in the 1930s, then came Mao Zedong and his communists who, following a destructive civil war, toppled China's government in 1949 and soon outlawed religion altogether. The following year, the new People's Government suppressed all faiths. Buddhist and Taoist monasteries were destroyed or requisitioned as government buildings. Monks and nuns were imprisoned in labor camps, reducing the clergy from several millions to about 50,000--the same fate to later befall Tibetan Buddhists.
(Tell that to them Indian zombies following communism proclaiming they are secular. Liars. Nothing secular about communism/psecularism.)

By the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Taoist sites throughout the country had been closed to religious activity and plundered for their ancient bronze statues. Remaining monks and nuns were forced into work camps; others were tortured and killed. 

Mao's death in 1976 heralded a new mindset in China--a more liberal attitude which sees Taoism both as an important part of traditional Chinese culture and a source of revenue, since temples and shrines attract tourists. The Chinese government has even apologized for the Cultural Revolution, calling it "an error comprehensive in magnitude and protracted in duration."

Non-Chinese took an interest, too, especially the US-based Taoist Restoration Society (www.taorestore.org). "We thought Taoism was a dead religion," says TRS president Brock Silvers. He founded the non-profit organization in 1990 after visiting China and seeing for himself how Taoism was threatened with extinction. TRS's head office is in Chicago, with an branch in Beijing, China. TRS supports the restoration of monastic institutions and assists Taoist communities. "We are not interested in exporting, altering or Westernizing Taoism," Silvers says, "nor in gaining converts to any religious cause. TRS believes that it is vital that we protect the world's vanishing cultures and ancient traditions." To that end, the organization helps rebuild Taoist sites and supports the revival of organized Taoism. It is especially involved in the restoration of temples, almost all of which--some tens of thousands--were seized or destroyed by the government.

History: Taoism refers to both a philosophy and a religion, and dates from the Han Dynasty (206 bceÂ220 ce). Taoism's central concept is the Tao, which means both "the way" and "teaching." Metaphysically, the Tao is the reality that gives rise to the universe, the primordial source of all life; its function is simply being. It is akin to the Hindu concept of dharma. The same universal law that says all things originate from the Tao also dictates that everything must return to the Tao. To realize this law of returning to the Tao, say the Taoists, is to achieve enlightenment. Religious Taoism, taojiao, incorporates the worship of many gods, the veneration of nature, simplicity and a mystical viewpoint. Taoists regard matter and spirit as inseparable, so the goal is not to liberate the soul from the body, but to realize the truth within oneself, thus attaining the Tao.

Philosophical Taoism, taojia, focuses on nature as the provider of everything. The Tao is both the creator and creation itself. Since the Tao is without purpose and continually changing, say Taoist philosophers, this should also be the nature of human beings. Unlike followers of religious Taoism, they are not in pursuit of immortality; instead, practitioners of philosophical Taoism seek to form a mystical union with the Tao through meditation and by following the nature of the Tao through thought and action.

Taoism's central principles of Yin-Yang and Wu-wei are elucidated in the Tao Te Ching of Lao-tzu, who lived 2,600 years ago. Yin and Yang are polar energies--complementary yet contradictory--in constant fluctuation to achieve harmony. Yin is feminine, receptive and soft, while Yang is masculine, creative and hard; Yin represents night, shadow, moon, water, even numbers and death, while Yang represents day, light, sun, fire, odd numbers and life. Nothing is purely one or the other; everything is a balance of Yin and Yang. Wu-wei is the principle of non-action. Wu-wei, the saint's attitude, is nonintervention in the natural course of life, thereby allowing for things to unfold in accordance with their own nature.

Restoration: Perhaps no one in China is more devoted to the fight to save Taoism than its clergy. Monks and nuns alike--what is left of them--are helping out with the painstaking restoration effort. Yin Xin Hui, the Abbess of Mao Mountains Qian Yuan Guan Nunnery, is currently working to rebuild a section dedicated to meditation, which was destroyed by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1938.

Another clergy member, a young Taoist monk whose name translates as "Mysterious Secret," has spent the last eight years traveling across China and rebuilding its Taoist infrastructure. He worked three years restoring the Heng Mountain Temple before moving on. At 28 years old, Mysterious, who was ordained at age 18 in the Complete Reality sect, represents the first generation of post-communist monks now reaching spiritual maturity. His efforts also include the establishment of a temple on Mozi Mountain, a hill in downtown Yueyang.

Assisting in many of these projects, TRS hopes to see at least one major Taoist place of worship in every large Chinese city. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /> There is no official restoration plan. Taoist clergy and volunteers usually handle smaller projects. The government runs some projects and funds for other reconstruction come from supporters throughout Asia, Europe and the US.

Silvers notes that it is difficult to follow traditional use of Taoist iconography and symbols as the sites are rebuilt. "From what I have seen," he says, "the government doesn't really care about authenticity. And even those who do care--officials and monks alike--are often hampered by a combination of poverty and ignorance."

The government's National Taoist Association and local religious affairs bureaus across China are also working to save the tradition from extinction, with varying degrees of success. Last January, for example, the government opened a renovated temple dedicated to the God of Tai Shan. A local tourist bureau rebuilt the ancient temple, one of the largest in Beijing. But, rather than being renovated as a place of worship, the temple now stands as a cultural museum. No Taoist clergy are allowed to engage in religious activity there.
(Communism trying the old "culture-but-dead" trick that christians have been using with Ancient Greece and Rome. "Dead culture" can't affect christianism, but it can be plagiarised from, sold as a tourist attraction and held up to show how 'open-minded' christianism is in tolerating it. But when the supposedly dead culture shows signs of life - as it does in Greece - christians freak. And communists too.)

"Taoism is a mystical religion relying on oral transmission of many teachings," explains Silvers. "The number of monks remaining from Taoism's pre-Mao days, the so-called 'Lao Tao,' is small and dwindling. These masters are generally 70 to 100 years old." It is not so easy to coax them back into practice after so many decades of repression and fear. Most have learned to keep their religion to themselves.

After a decade of fighting to save Taoism, Silvers is hopeful but pragmatic. He sums up the religion's chance for survival by invoking the Lao Tao masters. "The ability of organized Taoism to continue as an authentic religious tradition," he says, "rests squarely on the aged shoulders of a small number of monks and nuns battered by time, who may or may not remember the rituals they were forced to abandon or the scripture they were forced to burn fifty years ago."

TRS: 907 W. BELMONT AVENUE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60657 USA. WEB SITE: WWW.TAORESTORE.ORG


Here's a page I found in the Archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20051201030535/...mexplained.html
QUOTETaoism Explained

Taoism and Deities

TRS receives a great deal of email and correspondence from people who insist that the tao doesn't need deities, or that the Dao De Jing doesn't mention deities, and thus original "pure" Taoism doesn't include deities. These positions, however, fail to consider a number of important factors.

The tao is omnipresent. That means it is present throughout Taoism, but that it is equally present throughout Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Voodoo, Santeria, and every other religion. The tao is completely areligious. If being a part of the tao was a religious experience or qualification, then every single person in the world would be a Taoist. Tao and Taoism, however, are not the same thing. Taoism is a specific religious tradition and not everyone is a Taoist. To claim so would be an insult to the hundreds of millions of people who sincerely claim to follow other religious traditions. So while the tao may or may not require deities, that has no bearing upon Taoism's requirement.

But how does Taoism require deities when the Dao De Jing doesn't seem to mention them? In order to understand that, one has to first examine Taoism's historical development. The Dao De Jing dates to the 6th - 2nd Centuries B.C. Taoism was founded in the 2nd Century A.D. No matter where one places the Dao De Jing, it came into existence at least several centuries prior to Taoism's founding. By the time Taoism came into existence, it relied upon a complex foundation of ideas and traditions, of which Laozi's philosophy was only a part. This foundation came to be captured within a "canon" or an officially sanctioned group of core religious texts. The earliest versions of the canon contained many thousands of texts, of which the Dao De Jing was but one. The fact that one text within the canon may not contain a specific idea does not mean that the rest of Taoism does not hold that same idea to be valuable and necessary.

It is also questionable whether anyone can make a concrete case that the Dao De Jing doesn't consider deities. There are several passages in the Dao De Jing that seem to imply recognition of deities. But even more important is the fact that Taoists often interpret the Dao De Jing in radically different manners than do standard Western translators. Whereas Americans simply walk into a bookstore and purchase a copy of a translation, Taoists are traditionally taught an oral tradition of interpretation that has great religious and ritual importance. Taoists see deities in the Dao De Jing, while areligious Western translators often do not.

Taoism, from its very beginnings until today, incorporates deities. It doesn't, however, recognize a God in the Western sense. There is no great omnipotent being, external to man, who manages the universe. Such management is left to the tao, but the tao itself is not worshipped. Taoist deities are part of our universe, not separate from it, and are as equally beholden to the movements of the tao as are normal people. In that sense they are "deities" moreso than "Gods." They are worshipped or venerated in Taoist temples. Without deities, there would be no need for temples! Taoist deities exist in a great pantheon. Within this pantheon is a structure, with various deities operating under the authority of other deities. The pantheon generally changes over time, and various Taoist sects have differing views of it. But all Taoist sects acknowledge the pantheon's existence.Slight difference in my experience: from how it appeared to me - from Malaysian Chinese and Taiwanese Taoists (and can include the Taiwainese and Chinese Taoist-Buddhists) - there are major Gods.

10-23-2007, 10:14 AM

QUOTEUmbrellas open here as it rains in Beijing 
pioneer.com
VR Jayaraj | Kochi
Inclusion of religion in Communist Party of China's constitution sparks debate in Kerala

Communists in Kerala used to unfurl their umbrellas whenever it rained in Moscow. Debates used to rage here over Krushchev and Brezhnev while EMS Namboodiripad ruled supreme in the world of Marxist theatrics. Then, perhaps, their fatherland was the (erstwhile) Soviet Union. It all began to wane after USSR invaded Afghanistan and it came to a dead end when the fatherland disintegrated in the beginning of the 1990s.

The scene has now shifted to Beijing. The intelligentsia of Kerala has lost its sleep over a new word in the constitution of the Communist Party of China: Religion. The CPC has been atheistic officially so far but it had never prohibited religious beliefs of party members. The Communist theorists -- former and existing -- have lost sleep over the "surprising" shift in the CPC policy towards religion, and those who had once shouted "China's chairman is our chairman" during the time of Mao Zedong are divided over the new development.

Television channels on Sunday night were loud with discussions on the subject, with almost all the anchors posing the same question -- "What does this mean?" -- to the participants. Almost none of them had any clear answer, but ex-communist intellectual K Venu, who later would contest an Assembly election as a candidate of the UDF, led by the same man (K Karunakaran) and party which had worked overtime to crush people like him, saw the dawn of a new thought and political process in China. Venu saw the introduction of the word 'religion' into the CPC constitution as one appropriate for the times.

Venu has an opinion, of course, as he has almost on any issue (a Maoist said Venu's logic was simple: That he would adopt a position that is diametrically opposite to the one generally accepted by the communists). The other intellectuals, like KEN Kunhahmed, a formal spokesman of the communist culture, did not have one to offer. Still, the debates raged.

But there were not many who asked the vital question: Has CPC ever opposed religion? Did the simple absence of the word religion mean that the party constitution was against religion? Somehow, the television anchors also did not feel like asking this question. Rather, that was not their issue.

But those who are serious in supporting and opposing the theories on religion's role in a communist set-up are unanimous in their opinion that the entry of the word "religion" into the CPC constitution has nothing to do with the "glasnost" and "perestroika" now taking place in China. They say that the "new openness" to terms like religion and democracy has no relation to China 's present efforts at economic liberalisation.

"The official inclusion of religion in the party constitution will in fact go against the interests of liberalisation. As far as I can see, the considerations are totally different and our intellectuals seem to miss the point," says a radical communist theoretician, who prefers to remain anonymous because he does not want to be seen holding an unfurled umbrella while it rains in the Forbidden City.

He says the considerations for including the term religion in the constitution is still the anti-American sentiment prevalent among the Chinese.

Freddy Thazhath of the CPI(ML) Red Flag says Mao Zedong had taken particular care not to annoy party members who were believers. The CPC had formed a special battery, the Muslim Red Army, during the years of revolution, and Mao had specifically asked the party bigwigs not to ask any of the members of that army why they did not eat pork. "Keralites who now unfurl their umbrellas as it rains in Beijing perhaps do not remember this," he said.

Freddy says that the intention, as far as he can see, behind the new term in the constitution is a new opening in places like Tibet and Myanmar, where the Americans are most likely to focus on once their relations with India blossom fully. CPC general secretary Hu Jintao has to think of a Communist consolidation in Tibet with the blessings of the Panchen Lama and help of all the Buddhists against the Americans who support the Dalai Lama, says Freddy.

"The same justification is true in the case of immediate neighbour Myanmar, where Buddhist monks are on the streets as the cry against the junta is growing louder. The idea is to strengthen party defence including the Buddhists -- and also Muslims, Christians and Taoists -- against any US-backed precipitations," says Freddy.

05-14-2009, 06:48 AM

"Yuri Bezmenov on demoralization"

05-14-2009, 08:30 AM

In last 2 years, ACORN had opened offices in India.
Why they had gone to India?

added later
Looks like Moron Singh gave them permission to enter India. They had opened offices in 2005. They are also involved in J&K. Today this was refered in Glen Beck programme. What is their agenda in India?
ACORN -India

Capt M Kumar · 05-23-2009, 11:07 AM

<!--emo&

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /> Prior to the polls, there was an outside chance that if the CPM under the leadership of state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan who chose to befriend Abdul Nasser Madaniâs Peopleâs Democratic Front, won a good number of seats, the CM could be eased out of his post.

But the drubbing of the Left has handicapped the official faction in the party, leaving little pressure on the chief minister. And with Mr Vijayan having to face allegations related to the Rs 374-crore SNC Lavalin scam, observers say that the CM could well roll over in laughter again.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/P...how/4567647.cms

05-26-2009, 08:54 PM

Ok, Left got thrashed. Who is going to fill that space? It will not be BJP for sure <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='whistle.gif' />

06-01-2009, 08:15 PM

American capitalism gone with a whimper

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