Christchurch After the Big Shake

Excuse the language. I think you'll understand .

Union Thuggery in Sacramento

Listen to this union thug lie his little bald head off.

Peace and Love in Wisconsin

Strong language warning.

Mad (ison) Man?

Madison Wisconsin has been invaded by unionists, socialists and......escaped psychiatric patients?

Socialist Opinion Shapers 1 John Nichols, Propagandist and Rabble Rouser

The founder of an organization that has influenced the Obama Administration's media and information policy,  is both reporting on and leading  the labor union/socialist occupation occupation of Madison Wisconsin.

John Nichols

John Nichols founded Free Press, "a national, nonpartisan organization" with Marxist Robert McChesney  in 2002 to "engage citizens in media policy debates and create a more democratic and diverse media system".

Free Press has contributed  former affiliates to Obama Administration positions, including  pro Hugo Chavez "Diversity Czar" Mark Lloyd and State Department policy adviser Ben Scott.

John Nichols from The Nation and the Madison Capital Times has been a major national spokesman  for  the strikers and demonstrators currently occupying Madison Wisconsin.

Nichols has not simply reported events in Madison, he has played a major activist role in the disruption.

Nichols is a very influential journalist - he is also a committed socialist, with close ties to America's largest Marxist organization - Democratic Socialists of America.

On April 28 2000, the Sacramento D.S.A.  Local hosted a regional Harrington-Hamer Institute training in "media skills and community organizing" featuring John Nichols of The Nation and Salim Muwakkil of In These Times

Based in Chicago In These Times includes former Weather Underground terrorists and Obama associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn on its Board of Editors. Nichols is an I.T.T. contributing editor.

Democratic Socialists of America kicked off events at the 2000 Democratic National Convention by organizing a major panel on the  presidential and congressional elections.

Panelists John Nichols, Maria Elena Durazo, president of H.E.R.E in LA, and Antonio Villaraigosa, then Speaker Emeritus of California’s Assembly, later Mayor of Los Angeles and member of the Obama Transition Team.

John Nichols, was a  featured speaker at a media workshop held in conjunction with the Democratic Socialists of America 2001 National Convention in Philadelphia. He discussed with the audience "various ways of having an impact on media in an age of media concentration and decreasing attention to local news".

In 2006 attendees at the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America local’s 48th annual Debs-Thomas-Harrington dinner heard keynoter John Nichols predict that “this year is the end of [the Bush] administration. The only thing that stands in the way is the Democratic Party".

Nichols, 2008 Chicago DSA dinner

The Chicago Democratic Socialists of America 48th Annual Eugene V. Debs - Norman Thomas - Michael Harrington Dinner was held on Friday evening, April 28, 2008 at the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza, just across the Chicago River from the Loop.

It was held on the eve of a major anti-war demonstration in New York City that drew some 350,000 participants. A few days later, on May 1st, there were demonstrations across the nation in support of immigrant rights. The march and rally in Chicago was estimated to have drawn nearly a half-million participants.

The featured speaker was John Nichols, a radical journalist whose work appeared regularly in The Nation and Wisconsin's Capitol Times.

According to a D.S.A. advertisement for the event,

John Nichols of The Nation, will speak to the need to go beyond taking back our country, beyond things just not getting worse, and the need for a progressive agenda.

On the weekend of March 18th-20th, 2011, the D.S.A. junior wing,   Young Democratic Socialists held their annual Winter outreach conference "Their Crisis, Our Pain: The Democratic Socialist Response to the Great Recession".  Former Obama Black Advisory council member Cornel West was the featured speaker,  alongside John Nichols, New York ACORN leader Bertha Lewis, DSAer Mark Engler, and Dan Cantor from the Working Families Party.

Nichols is also close to  the Communist Party spin-off Committees of Correspondence  for Democracy and Socialism.

At the C.C.D.S.  National Conference and Convention, July 25-28, 2002,  San Francisco State University, the Plenary Panel and Discussion on Electoral Reform and the Struggle for Democracy comprised; John Nichols, former Berkeley mayor, D.S.A. and C.C.D.S. member Gus Newport, "peace" activist Medea Benjamin, and C.C.D.S. leader Mildred Williamson.

John Nichols, "The Nation magazine writer, who covers electoral issues", addressed the C.C.D.S. 5th National Convention and Symposium July 20 - 23 2006 in Chicago - Panel 3: "Strategies for Winning at the Polls in 2006 and 2008".

John Nichols is more than an activist and  journalist. He is a propagandist. His mission in life is to increase the ability of the far left to reach  the American public with its message.

Whether influencing the Obama Administration toward "net neutrality" or rabble rousing in Madison, John Nichols is an influential opponent of American  liberty.

Socialist Opinion Shapers 2 here

"Puppet on a String"

"Stop Obama's Union Bosses"

 The RNC finally starts to get serious.

Christchurch Earthquake Update

123 confirmed dead, 220 plus still missing. No survivors found since Wednesday.

30% of buildings in the Central City will have to be  demolished. The CBD will be closed down for months.

Power back on to 80% of the city, water to 50%.

10,000 people a day leaving town for temporary accommodation elsewhere.

Schools closed all next week at least.

Things slowly returning to normal and people generally holding up well.

Lots of gratitude here for all the international help and money flowing into our city.

Wide Ranging Interview With Allen West

 All great stuff.

More Madison Marxists

The International Socialists are one of several Marxist groups active in the Madison Wisconsin "mini revolution".

Gun Control the Shatner Way!

 Go Danny Crane!

Allen West "Like the Song by Tom Petty 'I Won't Back Down'"

Canadian PM Harper - Canada Will Defend Israel "Whatever the Cost"

A fine speech from Steven Harper.



If only the U.S. President was on the same side.

Red Reps. 1 Kyrsten Sinema - Communist Party and Soros Connections

Kyrsten Sinema

Kyrsten Sinema is a State Representative from Arizona. She serves as the Assistant Leader to the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives and represents central Phoenix in the Arizona Legislature District 15.  Now in her third term, she is the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Regarded as an high flyer, Sinema will almost run for national office at some point in the future.

Sinema is an Arizona native, born and raised in a border region.  She graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in Social Work at the age of 18.  While advocating for "marginalized and oppressed communities in the state", she earned her master’s degree in Social Work and later went on to graduate cum laude with her juris doctorate from Arizona State University.  In addition, she was hired as an adjunct professor in the School of Social Work at ASU at the age of 26 to teach master’s level courses in fundraising and political and social policy.  Kyrsten Sinema  was elected to the House of Representatives in 2004, after nearly a decade of professional practice as a social worker and "social justice" advocate.

The Communist Party USA, plays a major role in Arizona's "progressive community" and has in the past  counted Sinema among its affiliates.

Kyrsten Sinema was a signatory to an advertisement "May Day and Cinco de Mayo greetings" placed in the Communist Party paper People's Weekly World May 4, 2002. Such ads were traditionally placed in the Communist Party paper every May Day, sponsored by local party clubs, members or supporters. 

Arizona's progressive community extends May Day and Cinco de Mayo greetings to all our friends across the country. We commit ourselves to resist the Bush Administration's drive for ever increasing military spending and a neverending state of war. We must redouble our efforts to build a people's coalition that will drive the ultra right out of Congress next November

Co-signing the advertisement with Sinema were Communist Party USA members Joe Bernick, Jack Blawis, Lem Harris, Lorenzo Torrez, Anita Torrez, Carolyn Trowbridge, Steve Valencia, the Tuscon and East Valley Clubs of the Communist Party and party fronts the Arizona Peace Council  and the Salt of the Earth Labor College.

Click to enlarge

Here is Kystern Sinema's endorsement;

To see the whole page, go here

Shortly after her election in 2004, Kyrsten Sinema and former State Representative Steve May formed Arizona Together, the statewide coalition to defeat Arizona’s same-sex marriage ban. During the course of the two years leading up to the 2006 election, Sinema led the campaign’s effort to raise nearly $3 million, research, craft, and deliver a winning message, and build a broad-based, statewide coalition of community leaders, organizations, and businesses.

Arizona made history Nov. 7 2006, when its voters became the first in the nation to reject a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Wrote Arizona Communist Party  leader and Arizona Together  activist Joe Bernick

So how did we do it? 

The answer is: educating, organizing and mobilizing.As soon as proponents started circulating petitions to put 107 on the ballot, opponents brought out their own clipboards, signing up thousands of volunteers. Arizona Together emerged as the campaign committee, chaired by progressive state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema.

Circa 2008, four members of the Arizona state legislature, including Sinema,   joined together to form a "Progressive Caucus" in  the House of Representatives of the Arizona State Legislature.

In 2010, Kyrsten Sinema served on the Board of Directors for the Progressive States Network, an organization which seeks to "transform the political landscape by sparking progressive actions at the state level".  This organization is funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute.

Sinema serves on numerous community and national boards, including as Board President of Community Outreach and Advocacy for Refugees, the YWCA of Maricopa County, the influential Center for Progressive Leadership, and the Young Elected Officials’ Network.  She is the recipient of awards for her political leadership, including the NAACP Civil Rights Award, AZ Hispanic Community Forum Friend of the Year, Planned Parenthood Legislative CHOICE Award, Sierra Club’s Most Valuable Player, and the AZ Public Health Association Legislator of the Year.

Significantly,  Sinema also serves as board  member of  Progressive Democrats of America (as the only state legislator on the board), a project  of  Democratic Socialists of America, the far left Institute for Policy Studies and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, designed specifically to move the Democratic Party to the far left.

To whom does Kyrsten Sinema owe her primary allegiance - the progressive Soros agenda, her old friends in the Arizona Communist Party, or to the "mom and pop" voters of Arizona?

Red Reps. 2 here

New Series

Thought I should start some new series on New Zeal.

• Red Reps. - A series of profiles of far left State Senators, State Reps and city councillors.
• Socialist Opinion Shapers - A series of profiles of leftist journalists and media people.
• Socialist Activist Profiles - What it says.
• Socialist Academic Profiles - What it says.
• RINO Watch - Exposing those dirty rotten Republicans In Name Only.

Nominations welcome.

Tomorrow - A leftist State Rep. from Arizona.

The Summer of 2012?

Beck on Van Jones and the "American Dream"

Courtesy of the Daily Beck

AFSCME, Socialism and the Battle for America

While several unions and a multitude of Marxist groups are involved in the Wisconsin and other state capitol protests, the lead organization is undoubtedly America's huge public sector union, the  American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

AFCSME website

While ostensibly about preserving public sector union collective bargaining 'rights', the protests are really a confrontation of values.

AFSCME wants to preserve and expand union power in an increasingly government dominated economy.

AFSCME is confronting several, mainly 'Tea Party' backed state governors who want to roll back the power of the unions, in order to save their states from bankruptcy, strengthen the private sector and restore  free enterprise and economic growth

This essentially a battle between certain socialism and the possibility of freedom.

Am I exaggerating? Where is my proof that AFSCME has a socialist agenda?

The proof lies in AFCSME's leadership - much of which is allied to the U.S.'s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America.

Gerald McEntee

Gerald W. McEntee - Long time AFCSME International President was part of the movement which made D.S.A. member  John Sweeney President of the AFL-CIO in 1995 - which marked the beginning of the socialist/communist  re-conquest  of the U.S. labor movement.

While not publicly known as a a D.S.A. member, McEntee was named as such in a 1999 email from then San Francisco DSAer Michael Pugliese;

BTW, for what it's worth McEntee, is one of the DSA notables in the labor bureaucrat column. As is John Sweeney.

McEntee has been involved in several D.S.A. led organizations  including Campaign for America's Future and the Economic Policy Institute.

McEntee's long time No 2 man former AFSCME Secretary/Treasurer William Lucy (retired 2010), was a confirmed D.S.A. member,  with an affiliation to  Communist Party USA creations  such as the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and the National Anti-Imperialist Conference in Solidarity With African Liberation.

McEntee and Lucy, on behalf of AFCSE, placed an advertisement in D.S.A.'s Democratic Left, Issue #4 1998, page 10, "AFSCME proudly salutes Democratic Socialists of America".

Click to enlarge

Lee A. Saunders

Lee A. Saunders - William Lucy's replacement as AFL-CIO Secretary/Treasurer  is a very well connected activist.

Saunders serves as a vice president of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, which guides the daily work of the labor federation. He is an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee, treasurer of the leftist Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and a member of the Executive Committee of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute's 21st Century Committee.

In addition, Saunders serves on the board of the George Soros funded  Progressive States Network, which supports "progressive state legislators with research, policy, communication and strategic resources".

Paul Booth

Paul Booth - A real power in AFSCME, Booth serves as Executive Assistant to Gerald McEntee, and is regarded by many as the 'brains' of the organization.

Booth is one of America's key leftist activists. In the 1960s he was National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society.

In 1986 and 1990, Booth was named in D.S.A. publications as a member of that organization.

Paul Booth is married to prominent Democratic Party activist and D.S.A. 'friend' Heather Booth, founder of the infamous Alinskyite radical training center,  the Midwest Academy.

Both Paul and Heather Booth serve on the Midwest board alongside DSAer Nancy Shier,  Cathy Hurwit (representing DSAer and Illinois Democratic Party rep. Jan Schakowsky  and D.S.A. affiliates Jackie Grimshaw (once Barack Obama's Hyde Park next door neighbor) and Jackie Kendall (2008 trainer of Camp Obama activists).

Several AFSCME International Vice presidents also have D.S.A. ties including Henry Bayer and Roberta Lynch of Illinois and Henry Nicholas of Pennsylvania.

There is no doubt that D.S.A. sees labor 'struggles' in socialist terms.

In an article in D.S.A.'s Democratic Left , Spring 2007,  D.S.A. National political Committee member David Green of Detroit wrote in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, often known as  "card check".

What distinguishes socialists from other progressives is the theory of surplus value. According to Marx, the secret of surplus value is that workers are a source of more value than they receive in wages...

Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace...

We can accomplish this by promoting full employment policies, passing local living wage laws, but most of all by increasing the union movement’s power...

That is the real issue here. AFSCME and their D.S.A. comrades understand that this is a 'class' battle, a 'struggle' to advance  socialism. They understand that the winner of this battle gets to decide America's future.

While very few of the firemen and teachers putting their bodies on the line for AFSCME would realize this, they are merely pawns in their leadership's Marxist agenda.

AFSCME on Wisconsin

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees propaganda video on the Wisconsin protests.

Deluded, but they understand the stakes.

"Public Sector Unions vs America"

 This lays it on the line.



Hat Tip Powerline

Beck on Global Chaos

 Beck gets better by the day.

Glenn gets fired up as chaos is beginning to break out all over the world, including in the US. From the growing revolutions in the Middle East to the budget cut protests popping up everywhere, it seems the perfect storm could finally be upon us...



Courtesy of The Daily Beck

Earthquake in Sumner

 A British tourist caught this in the Christchurch seaside suburb of Sumner, Tuesday afternoon. A man was killed in this rockfall.

Van Jones on Wisconsin - "It is Time to Draw a Line in the Sand"

Long time communist activist and former Obama "Green Jobs Czar " Van Jones has issued a call to support protesting government workers and their socialist puppet masters in Wisconsin.

From the Huffington Post (where else?)

In the past 24 months, those of us who longed for positive change have gone from hope to heartbreak. But hope is returning to America -- at last -- thanks largely to the courageous stand of the heroes and heroines of Wisconsin.

Reinvigorated by the idealism and fighting spirit on display right now in America's heartland, the movement for "hope and change" has a rare, second chance. It can renew itself and become again a national force with which to be reckoned.

Over the next hours and days, all who love this country need to do everything possible to spread the "spirit of Madison" to all 50 states. This does not mean we need to occupy 50 state capitol buildings; things elsewhere are not yet that dire. But this weekend, the best of America should rally on the steps of every statehouse in the union.

Moveon.org and others have issued just this kind of call to action; everyone should prioritize responding and turning out in large numbers.

On Saturday, the powers-that-be (in both parties) should see a rainbow force coming together: organized workers, business leaders, veterans, students and youth, faith leaders, civil rights fighters, women's rights champions, immigrant rights defenders, LGBTQ stalwarts, environmentalists, academics, artists, celebrities, community activists, elected officials and more -- all standing up for what's right.

And we should announce that our renewed movement is more than just a mobilization to back unions or oppose illegitimate power grabs (as important as those agenda items are). Something more vital is at stake: our country needs a national movement to defend the American Dream itself. And the fight in Wisconsin creates the opportunity to build one...
It is time to draw a line in the sand -- nationally. Someone has to stand up for common sense and fairness. It is time to use all nonviolent means to defend the American people and our American principles from these abuses.

If we take a bold and courageous stand, over time, we can win. Make no mistake about it: this is our "Tea Party" moment -- in a positive sense.

In fact, we can learn many important lessons from the recent achievements of the libertarian, populist right. Don't forget: even after the Republican's epic electoral defeat in 2008, a right-wing uprising was still able to smash public support for "new New Deal" economics. Along the way, it revived the political fortunes of the GOP.

A popular outcry from the left could just as easily shatter the prevailing bipartisan consensus that America is suddenly a poor country that cannot possibly help its people meet our basic needs.

April 15, 2009, marked the beginning of the national movement to remember the Tea Party and pull America to the ideological right.

Let Saturday, February 26, 2011, mark the beginning of the national movement to renew the American Dream and return us to the moral center -- where everybody counts, and everybody matters.

This is the "pressure from below" that Jones has long called for . The left understands that this "do or die." If they do not stand now, their movement will crumble and Barack Obama will lose in 2012.

That is why every patriotic American should be backing Wisconsin Governor Walker in his stand against union blackmail.

This is a vital showdown - the left must be defeated, or all of our freedoms are in peril.

Ohio Union Protest

Charles Henthorn, retired Air Force Colonel and candidate for US Senate in 2012, visited the union rally at the Ohio State Capitol on February 22, 2011.

The unions were protesting S.B. 5. The bill would reduce union negotiating power with the state, which in turn would reduce the cost of unions and give the state government a better opportunity to balance its budget.

Notice Ohio Congressman and Communist Party USA supporter Dennis Kucinich in the last minute of the clip.



Hat tip Ushanka.us

Socialist Gerard Winds Up Winsconsin Union Mob

Democratic Socialists of America supporter and United Steel Workers President  Leo Gerard, winds up a mindless  union mob in Madison Wisconsin.


Madison State House Feb 21 2011 from Scott Marshall on Vimeo.

Notes From a Disaster Zone

I sit here typing this as helicopters continually fly overhead. It feels a little like a Vietnam War movie. Copter after copter, some loaded with monsoon buckets - when I could go for for days and not see one. There are continual aftershocks. Huge jolting shakes - many over 5.0 on the Richter scale.

40% of the of our city of 400,000 is without power. 80% without running water or toilets.

There is real fear of water borne disease as sewer and water pipes are ruptured all over the city.

People are being asked to dig holes in their back gardens for toilets.

The family is currently boling water and filling bottles for friends who have no water.

There are massive queues in supermarkets, petrol stations and at emergency water stations. Farmers are bringing tanker trucks full of water to specified points in the city.

The central city looks like it has been bombed. Buildings are down everywhere. The City's tallest building, The Grand Chancellor Hotel is leaning against a neighboring building and could collapse at any time. Nobody knows how many more buildings the "domino effect' could take down.

The eastern suburbs are now a network of flooded buckled roads. The whole east side of Christchuch is built on swamp and water and sand is bubbling through everywhere as the quake and continual aftershocks have turned the ground to jelly. Many people in the East live week to week and they are suffering without power and water as food supplies run low.

The affluent seaside suburb of Sumner and the port town of Lyttelton - where the quake was centered are in ruins. Boulders the size of trucks have careened down hillsides, right through houses. Roads are blocked through landslips all over the area and the Lyttelton Road Tunnel is out of service.

This means Christchurch can't get petrol from the port and fuel is being trucked in from Timaru,  100 miles away.

The official  death toll is in the 70s, but there are over 300 people still missing and countless bodies are being left in the wreckage as rescue teams desperately try to find the still living.

Very few of the dead have been identified. A friend of mine, Jo Giles is missing, believed to be the downed five story Canterbury TV building, which may hold more than 50 people.

There are believed to be 20 people in the wrecked Christchurch Cathedral, an iconic city landmark.

Teams from Australia, Britain, the US, Taiwan and other countries are working with our soldiers, police, fire and rescue services to rescue the living.

We are all so grateful for this help.

The last live person was pulled from rubble yesterday, but we are all hoping for miracles.

Even our major rugby venue, the AMI stadium has been badly damaged. Our world champion Crusaders rugby team, has forgone their Super 15 match this weekend in Wellington, in solidarity with the suffering here.

After the last big earthquake in September 2010, we were all hoping that this year's Rugby World Cup (which New Zealand is hosting) would bring much needed tourism into the city. That is now in real doubt as the central city is almost totally destroyed and many large hotels are badly damaged or completely wrecked.

Last year's quake was estimated to have caused $4 to $8 million in damage. Estimates of a further $10 to $16 in damage are already being bandied about.

Apart from my friend Jo, my family has been relatively untouched so far s. As casualties are named however I expect this to change. With several hundred deaths, in a small city, we will almost certainly know other victims.

In terms of lives lost and economic damage, this will be New Zealand's biggest ever natural disaster.

I am beginning to have some appreciation of how New Yorkers must have felt after 9/11.

If you are planning an overseas vacation in the next  year, please consider New Zealand. This is a beautiful country, with some of the friendliest people you will ever meet.

All parts of the country offer stunning scenery and great tourist activities, especially the central North Island and much of the South Island.

I've never met a tourist yet who didn't love this country and this great city.

While Christchurch will struggle for awhile, we now have a chance to make this city even more beautiful. Don't forget Christchurch, when you visit. We will recover from this. Services will be up and running in a few weeks  and we will look after you very well while you are here.

Thanks for all your supportive messages. Thanks for the generous help that has already flowed into our city.

Written on the verge of tears.

Trevor Loudon

US Fears

 From Hawke's Bay Today

Staff who work for the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), based in Christchurch, are among those missing following yesterday's devastating earthquake.

The USAP, which is managed by the National Science Foundation (NSF), said on its website it had accounted for 60 percent of the people in the program who were in New Zealand when the earthquake hit.

``NSF is deeply concerned about the welfare of those people affiliated with Antarctic Program who, as yet, have not been accounted for and remains hopeful that they will be discovered to be safe and sound,'' the statement said.

Many of those unaccounted for may be on personal travel within New Zealand, and not necessarily in Christchurch, the statement said.

Donations - Christchurch Earthquake

Several people have asked me how to donate to help Christchurch in our time of great need.

I suggest donating through our local Salvation Army.

To donate online, please go here

Please specify "Christchurch Earthquake Appeal" in the box provided.

All pride thrown aside, Christchurch  really does need help right now.

Communists Backing Wisconsin Solidarity Protests

The Communist Party USA is promoting widespread protests across the United States in support of leftist and labor protesters in Wisconsin.

Reports Ohio Communist Party leader Rick Nagin reported from Columbus;

Ohio protests

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, the state AFL-CIO and its affiliates have called for a massive turnout for a rally Tuesday at the Statehouse in Columbus to protest a Republican bill to repeal collective bargaining for public employees.

In robocalls and emails sent throughout the state, Strickland said "the fate of Ohio's middle class is on the line" and urged people "to join with the thousands who will gather to oppose Senate Bill 5 and the rest of our opponents' backward agenda."

The agenda of Gov. John Kasich, who narrowly defeated Strickland in November, includes drastic cuts in health and education programs, abolishing the state's tax on large inheritances, privatizing agencies, such as the turnpike and prisons, curtailing reproductive freedom and restricting rights of immigrants.

"The people of Wisconsin are standing up and speaking out," Strickland said. "We must do likewise. We must defend the people of our state."

Communist Party labor journalist  John Wojcik reported from Indianapolis;

A thousand union members and their allies are sitting in and blocking the entrances to the state Senate chamber here. The demonstrators, singing, playing music and chanting slogans, say they are fighting two anti-union measures that Republicans are seeking to pass in the state legislature.

Democrats, taking their lead from their counterparts in Wisconsin, are boycotting the senate proceedings, denying Republicans a quorum required to vote on the "right to work for less" proposals.

North Texas Communist Party leader Jim Lane reported from Austin;

Texas protest

Texans rallied in front of their state Capitol, Feb. 21, to show solidarity with Wisconsin workers fighting to maintain their union rights.

They had marched from the Texas AFL-CIO office in the early evening, led by state AFL-CIO President Becky Moeller and her second in command John Patrick. At least three Democratic state representatives joined her in congratulating the crowd of 500 or so. About 150 of them were union leaders from across the state who were gathering for a legislative conference the next day. The rest were Austinites. All were bursting with enthusiasm for the opportunity to express solidarity with the working people of Wisconsin, who were continuing to grow their numbers and national support. 

Several speakers lamented the sorry performance of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who is head of the National Governors Association and is publicly encouraging right-wingers to support union-busting in Wisconsin. "What's disgusting?" asked the Texas crowd, answering: "Union-busting!" "What's disgusting? Union-busting!"

Montana's leading (and probably only) Communist Party member Jesse Jack reported from Helena;

Montanans from Helena and across the state assembled at the State Capitol here on President's Day to reject the ultra-right state legislature's assault on working families.

Among what are considered the worst pieces of legislation to be introduced this session are bills to privatize veterans' homes, roll back public employee salaries to 2005 levels, criminalize abortion and prohibit its coverage by insurance plans, cap state employee salaries, slash budgets for the Montana university system, gut state environmental law, repeal incentives for renewable energy - and even declare global climate change to be beneficial for the state.

With Republicans in Montana's legislative bodies going to town on the State budget with what the protestor's categorize as reckless abandon, it would be easy to assume that the state was in the midst of a financial crisis. However, Montana has over $350 billion in the bank, a luxury previous governments secured by not deflating surpluses through handouts for the rich. Furthermore, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, has proposed a budget that maintains funding levels for public programs and still allows the government to live within its means.

The Republican attack on Montanans brought people from all walks of life, and from all around the state, to Helena, beginning with an assembly on the Capitol lawn under a banner reading "For love of Montana", and featuring a spirited crowd of environmental activists. Conservationists, hunters, families and concerned citizens of all types gathered to join in song and discussion within view of the lawmakers who were debating these bills...

This is not a matter of spontaneous labor protest. This is an orchestrated, nationwide far left challenge  to the "Tea Party"/Republican agenda.

This is a battle for the future of America.

West Bests CAIR Pest

While on the subject of mass destruction, Congressman Allen West annihilates a Koran toting Nezar Hamze, Executive Director of the Council for American Islamic Relations.

Thank You

Thanks for the kind messages flooding in from all over the world. The Loudons and our immediate  family are all absolutely fine.

The 65 dead has been downgraded to 39, but this is "identified" victims. Dead bodies are being left where they lie as rescuers concentrate on finding the living. Around 11 people were pulled out alive from collapsed buildings overnight. Police have warned that the finally death tally will be "significantly higher".

Personally I have only been touched twice - so far.

A friend's truck was crushed by rubble, 5 minutes after he stepped out of it.

Another friend,  Jo Giles,  hasn't been heard from. She is possibly in the 5 story CTV building that was leveled. Both bodies and survivors have been pulled from this building.

 Please keep her in your thoughts.

Thanks again for all the kind messages.

Disaster

 From Russia Today - the hillside suburb of Sumner and parts of the Central City



The Press - St. Albans and parts of the Central City.



Associated Press - Central City



TVNZ - Central City


TVNZ - Central City

Scenes From My City

Christchurch Earthquake - Again!

My home town of Christchurch was devastated at 12.51 pm today by a 6.3 Richter Scale earthquake.

Though not as big as the 7.1 earthquake last September, it was far shallower and much closer to the city center. Much, much more violent.

At least 65 reported deaths so far. Whole streets flattened and 5 story buildings leveled.

We have at least six major aftershocks since - several over 5.0.

 My good friend  Andy biked the outskirts of the inner city the afternoon and made this video.

This is shot outside the police cordon and does not show the inner city which looks like a war zone.



My family and friends are all fine. We have power, phone, drinking water, food and a roof over our heads.

Thank you all for the many, many messages of concern.

Will update tomorrow.

From Cairo to Madison With Revolutionary Love

Message from the Egyptian revolution to socialist agitators and revolutionaries currently occupying Madison, Wisconsin - from Kamal Abbas, General Coordinator of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services.



Interestingly Abbas attended the World Forum on Democracy conference in Warsaw, Poland 25-27 June 2000, with an whole bunch of Open Society Institute luminaries including Aryeh Neier and the great "light bearer" George Soros himself.

"Country Boy"

 Cool song. Cool message.

Beck With Lila Rose and the Deadly Legacy of Margaret Sanger

Great Beck show on racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger,  plus 22 y.o. Lila Rose, the scourge of Sanger's creation Planned Parenthood.

A must see, for either side of the abortion debate.

Decent Aussie Bloke Cruelly Taunted

 Cruelty, thy name is woman...

"All in the Family" - Obama to "Lula" - A Very Few Degrees of Separation

Life long Marxist Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva , or "Lula", was president of Brazil until he was "term limited" out in 2010. He then handed his "crown" to former Marxist-Leninist urban terrorist Dilma Rousseff.

Rousseff and "Lula", Communist Party of Brazil conference

Fidel Castro, "Lula"

In the early 1990s "Lula" and Fidel Castro established the Sao Paolo Forum, a regular gathering of Latin American communist, terrorist, socialist and leftist political parties. This alliance laid the groundwork for the almost total conquest of Latin America by the left since that time.

Incredibly, rather than being treated as the hardcore revolutionary that he is, "Lula" has been courted by the U.S. as an ally against the "extremist" Hugo Chavez of Venezuela!

Hugo Chavez, "Lula"

"Lula", Obama, Rousseff

Since at least the early 1980s, "Lula" was courted and coached by forces within the U.S. left.

Stanley Gacek

Stanley Gacek is a labor attorney and AFL-CIO official , responsible for the Federation’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean.

Since 1981, he has served as a special advisor on North American affairs to the Brazilian Workers Party and has been a friend and adviser to "Lula" for the entire period.

Gacek is a long time member of the U.S.'s largest Marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America  and has represented that organization at the 2003 gathering of the Socialist International in Sao Paolo, Brazil


Since August 1, 2006, Stanley Gacek has been the Associate Director of the newly restored International Department of the AFL-CIO, the largest national trade union central in the United States.

From 1997 until 2005, Gacek was Assistant Director for International Affairs. Prior to his position at the AFL-CIO, Gacek was Assistant General Counsel to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

Barack Obama, John Sweeney

Gacek was brought into the AFL-CIO in 1997 by  then president John Sweeney, coincidentally another member of Democratic Socialists of America.

John Sweeney has been a long time supporter of Barack Obama, who has an almost 30 year history with Democratic Socialists of America.

On February 15, Barack Obama awarded comrade John Sweeney the Medal of Freedom in a special ceremony at the White House.

Revolutionaries are an incestuous bunch - they have to be. Their vision will never win the majority in the West, so they work to infiltrate the system - feeding off each other, promoting each other, a "Marxist Mafia" gradually consolidating power, while the world blithely goes about its business.

Must Read: Russia, China, Radical Islam and the Latin American Threat to US Survival

Brazilian philosopher, Olavo de Carvalho is an expert on the Latin American Left and its ties to Islam, Russia and China.

Olavo de Carvahlo

In this interview, with Jeff Nyquist,  de Carvahlo eloquently and forcefully states a theme I've long promoted on this blog - that Russia, China, Cuba, Iran radical Islam and the Latin American Left, co-ordinated by Cuba and Brazil through the Sao Paolo Forum,  are working together to destroy the the United States of America.

I emphasize - not to weaken, to marginalize, to impoverish - but to DESTROY the USA.

As Carvalho explained, “The Russian-Chinese influence has been growing more and more in Latin America. The U.S. Government has missed this because it still sees Russia and China as allies, in spite of the fact that they are the two largest weapons suppliers to terrorism around the world. One must remember that the Putin government’s foreign policy is today guided by the so-called ‘Eurasian’ strategy, invented by Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who proposes that Russia, China, and Islam ally with all the anti-American forces in Western Europe, Africa and Latin America, for the purpose of laying final siege to the United States. This strategy already has strong military support in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a kind of eastern version of NATO, which brings together Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.”


I asked Carvalho about recent reports of a deal between Islamic Iran and communist Venezuela to build a strategic missile base aimed at the United States. I asked if the Marxists of South America were allied with al Qaeda and Tehran. “Yes, they are,” he replied. “They are also allied with the ETA, which is a Basque terrorist organization. There are lots of agents of these organizations in Hugo Chavez’s entourage. This fact is not unknown to many Latin American governments, but most of them are committed to remaining silent about it because of the agreements they signed as members of the Sao Paulo Forum, the spearhead of the communist movement in Latin America...”


I then asked Carvalho to name the countries working with the terrorists worldwide for the destruction of the United States. He replied as follows: “Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, and especially China are the main ones. In Latin America, Venezuela is the most obvious example, but Venezuela would be nothing without the support it gets from all the governments of the Sao Paulo Forum, the leader of which is Brazil...”


According to Carvalho, the Left continues to consolidate its position in Latin America. “It has been following a strategy explicitly presented in a Chinese communist congress a few years ago: to take power by means of legal elections and then erode the democratic system from the inside to prevent the opposition from ever coming back to power in future elections,” he explained. “This is to say: they win a first match and then proceed to change the rules of the game. In Brazil this strategy has led to spectacular results. First, the idea was to limit the political field to only two contestants: radical Left and moderate Left. All other forces were dismantled by means of targeted tax audits and corruption charges which did not even need to be proved, since they destroyed reputations once and for all as soon as they were trumpeted by the media...”


Could America’s traditional ally in South America be under the control of a totalitarian movement? How could we miss such an astonishing development? “American opinion-makers have a wrong view of Brazil,” said Carvalho, “because the Brazilian government has always acted in a two-faced and camouflaged way. On the one hand, it has been courting American investors to strengthen the Brazilian economy, but on the other, it has been taking advantage of economic success in order to consolidate the Leftist sway at home, to make impossible any political opposition which is not that of the moderate left, and to give effective support to the rise of the Left in neighboring countries, while protecting openly terrorist organizations like the FARC and the Chilean MIR, which thus have ended up controlling the local criminal organization and getting the monopoly of the drug market in Brazil. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez has also dismantled the opposition, but using more blatant methods...”


Since Brazil harbors the core of the communist movement in Latin America, how is the anti-American campaign progressing? According to Carvalho the Left is not always able to move forward. “It follows an alternating rhythm,” he explained, “according to whether the important thing at the moment is to flatter foreign investors or to unify and strengthen the Latin American Left...”


“For more than ten years,” Carvalho noted, “I have been warning that the Worker’s Party [in Brazil] is not an organization like the others; that is, willing to alternate with the opposition in power. The Worker’s Party is a revolutionary organization committed to reshaping the state and the entire society after its image and likeness, by using, for this purpose, the vilest and most corrupt resources. Since no one has ever believed any of this, everyone has kindly disarmed himself in the face of this rising party, and now that it controls everything, no one can do anything against it. Brazil is governed by a single party which has several names. I see no prospect of changing this situation in the short or medium term...”


And what is the most important thing Americans should know about the present political situation in South America? “The most important thing,” said Carvalho, “is the deep and solid unity of the local Leftist movements across national borders, the unity of the revolutionary strategy that lies behind seeming and misleading differences of national character. There are no ‘two Lefts’ in Latin America. There is only one Left, which has so much solidarity with itself that it never loses control of the two faces it employs to fool American observers.”

It is worth noting that the Brazilian Workers Party came to power on the back of an alliance of Trotskyists, communists, black radicals, environmental activists, Christian socialists, youth activists and the poor - sound familiar America?

Such alliances were promoted across the world in the early 1990s, by the Trotskyite 4th International and allied groups.

In Western nations, the New Zealand Alliance Party, the Australian Socialist Alliance and the US Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, all attempted to follow this strategy, with varying degrees of success.

Barack Obama was very much part of this  movement, through his ties to Committees of Correspondence, Democratic Socialists of America and the Chicago New Party.

The idea was to cobble together an big enough alliance to gain power ONCE. Then it became a matter of marginalizing and destroying your opposition, until your power could no longer be challenged.

America is in this stage now.

If the Obama Alliance is not decisively defeated in 2012, America will almost certainly  go the way of Brazil and Venezuela - as will the rest of us eventually.

Wallerstein on Egypt and World Revolution

Immanuel Wallerstein

One of the U.S.'s leading academic Marxists, Immanuel Wallerstein, was one of 60-100,000 people attending the the communist organized World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal from Feb. 6-11, 2011.

Other notable attendees included Latin American Marxists former Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva and Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Wallerstein wrote "The World Social Forum, Egypt, and Transformation", for Commentary No. 299 15 February 2011;

By unforeseen coincidence, this was the week of the Egyptian people's successful dethroning of Hosni Mubarak, which finally succeeded just as the WSF was in its closing session. The WSF spent the week cheering the Egyptians on - and discussing the meaning of the Tunisian/Egyptian revolutions for their program of transformation, for achieving another world that is possible - possible, not certain.''

To hold such an event, the WSF requires strong local social movements (which exist in Senegal) and a government that at least tolerates the holding of the Forum. The Senegalese government of Abdoulaye Wade was ready to "tolerate" the holding of the WSF, although already a few months ago it reneged on its promised financial assistance by three-quarters.''

But then came the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, and the government got cold feet. What if the presence of the WSF inspired a similar uprising in Senegal? The government couldn't cancel the affair, not with Lula of Brazil, Morales of Bolivia, and numerous African presidents coming...

Was the Senegalese government right to be so frightened of the WSF? The WSF itself debated how relevant it was to popular uprisings in the Arab world and elsewhere, undertaken by people who had probably never heard of the WSF? The answer given by those in attendance reflected the long-standing division in its ranks. There were those who felt that ten years of WSF meetings had contributed significantly to the undermining of the legitimacy of neoliberal globalization, and that the message had seeped down everywhere...

There was nonetheless one underlying complaint among those in attendance. People said correctly we all know what we're against, but we should be laying out more clearly what it is we are for. This is what we can contribute to the Egyptian revolution and to the others that are going to come everywhere...

For the moment, all eyes are on the Arab world and the degree to which the heroic efforts of the Egyptian people will transform politics throughout the Arab world. But the tinder for such uprisings exists everywhere, even in the wealthier regions of the world. As of the moment, we are justified in being semi-optimistic.

The "semi-optimistic" revolutionary Immanuel Wallerstein should be taken seriously. Wallerstein is very well connected internationally. he was once even affiliated to the Soviet era U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences.

In 2008, Wallerstein was one of several Marxists to  support Progressives for Obama. In 2007 , Wallerstein served on the board of P.F.O.'s parent body Movement for a Democratic Society - an alliance of former Weather Underground terrorist leaders, Communist Party USA supporters, Democratic Socialists of America and Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism leaders and independent Marxists.

In M.D.S. Wallerstein was allied with  with Obama associates Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Carl Davidson,  Rashid Khalidi and Cornel West, as well as internationally known revolutionaries such as  Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis,  Tom Hayden,  and the late Howard Zinn.

International revolution, is just that 'international'. It reaches from Brasilia to Cairo, to Dakar, to Moscow and to Washington DC.


We are entering a tumultuous era.

A Message for the Governor of Wisconsin

How Ronald Reagan handled illegal strikers.

Go Wisconsin.

Communists Converge on Madison

Every communist and socialist group in the U.S. Midwest is sending cadre to beautiful Madison, Wisconsin, in protest at Governor Walker's Budget Repair Bill.

Here is a short interview with a Maoist from the Chicago chapter of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Alarm Bells - Radical Union Leader Appointed to Important Trade Post

President Barack Obama has appointed a far left labor unionist to a security sensitive U.S. trade post.

Bob King

On February 16, 2011,  Obama  announced the appointment of United Auto Workers president Bob King to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.

As U.S. trade positions and data are always  key targets of foreign intelligence services, one would think that appointments to such a body would be subject to thorough scrutiny.

Either this was not done in King's case, or affiliation with far left organizations, is no longer considered any sort of danger to national security in today's Washington.

As a long time leader of the U.A.W. King would have to be closely linked to America's largest Marxist organization,  Democratic Socialists of America. Many of  U.A.W. leading officials in recent years have been D.S.A. members or sympathisers, including King's long time fellow union Vice Presidents Elizabeth Bunn and Richard Shoemaker.

U.A.W. leaders have, over several years, placed (presumably paid) advertisements in D.S.A.'s Democratic Left magazine,  praising the publication as a "strong voice for social and economic justice."

Bob King, Elizabeth Bunn, Richard Shoemaker and many othe U.A.W. leaders have signed these ads.

Click to enlarge

It is worth remembering that former D.S.A. National Political Committee member Kurt Stand is currently serving 17 years imprisonment for spying for East Germany and the former Soviet Union. Many D.S.A. members have ties to Cuba and the organization also works closely with the Communist Party USA and other foreign affiliated radical groups.

Of even more concern is King's affiliation with the Detroit based Maurice & Jane Sugar Law Center.

Named after the famed communist U.A.W. lawyer Maurice Sugar, the Center is openly affiliated to the communist founded  National Lawyers Guild and to the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Once a well documented Soviet front, the I.A.D.L. is still run by communists, mainly from Cuba, India,  Palestine, Vietnam and former East Bloc nations.

I.A.D.L. president Jeanne Mirer serves on the board of the Sugar Law Center, as does her I.A.D.L. board member colleague and N.L.G. leader Marjorie Cohn.

Other "Sugar" board members include Cuban "sympathizer"  Debra Evenson and former endorsers of the Communist Party offshoot Committees of Correspondence, Julie Hurwitz and Bill Goodman.

Evenson, Hurwitz and Cohn, all signed an October 2008 statement in support of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers - then under attack his  close associations with Barack Obama.

In November 2010, Bob King welcomed to Detroit,  another well known Obama associate - "former" communist and ex  "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones.

The Sugar Law  Center presented Jones with  its annual "Maurice Sugar Voice for Justice Award."

Click to enlarge

Bob King served on the Sugar Center's honorary host committee,  alongside D.S.A. member David Elsila, ultra radical Detroit City Council member JoAnn Watson, Communist Party affiliate and pro Palestine activist Hasan Newash and retired Detroit judge and life long  communist "sympathizer"  Claudia Morcom.

In his new position, Bob King may well be privy to some very sensitive U.S. trade data - which if it got into the wrong hands could severely damage U.S. economic, strategic and security interests.

Given his associations, is Bob King the kind of man to be entrusted with such information?