Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Please note I have a new phone number...

512-517-2708

Alan Maki

Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

A program for real change...

http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-progressive-program-for-real-change.html


What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it a mandatory requirement that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment.


"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens"

- Ben Franklin

Let's talk...

Let's talk...

Monday, November 16, 2009

Obama to China: Uncensored society is healthy

There is no end to Barack Obama's hypocrisy.

Look at the headlines:

Obama: Secret Economic Report - You think the recession is over? What Obama is hiding

Obama is hiding economic data and facts from the American people and the rest of the world and he is lecturing the Chinese about "uncensored society" and open societies and how he detests censorship!

This article says:

President Barack Obama sat down with the Chinese leader Monday night, hours after he pointedly nudged his host country to stop censoring the Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House - and suggested Beijing need not fear a little criticism.

We see what happens when Obama gets a little criticism... there is no end to American arrogance and hypocrisy.

Censorship and stifling democratic discussion, dialog and debate is one of the most salient and prominent features and a hallmark of what passes for "American democracy."

Democracy in the United States is for those who have the money to buy it... maybe Barack Obama has forgotten how much his Wall Street backers and Madison Avenue handlers spent electing a flim-flam man and insurance salesman to the White House.

Not to mention corporate bosses who don't take criticism very well from workers.

Barack Obama sticks his nose in the air when his handlers tell him not to look at demonstrators protesting the Israeli carnage in Gaza Strip and then he has the unmitigated gall to lecture the Chinese about being "open."

Barack Obama campaigned behind a call for change knowing he was going to do exactly the opposite of what his words led people to believe the change would be and then this worthless hypocrite goes lecture the Chinese about how they should run their country.

The Chinese should have given Obama the boot just like Obama did to his own minister who told a truth that was too much for Obama to take.

Barack Obama should spend a couple weeks going over the 40,000 page "red squad" file the FBI maintains on me because I write things like this and then he would have a better idea what kind of "personal freedoms" we have right here in this country after he looks at the records from taps on my telephones, intercepting my mail and e-mail and harassing me, my family and friends to no end simply because I speak my mind against racism, bigotry and injustices working people are subjected to routinely as a way this entire rotten and corrupt government functions on a daily basis as government agencies try to destroy dissent even while Obama hypocritically lectures the Chinese.

Judging from what is being written about Barack Obama during his China trip he isn't carrying with him photo albums of the rioting police at the Democratic or Republican Party conventions where the intent of the police was to prevent those who are upset with wars, racism and poverty of U.S, imperialism from being heard.

I can only assume Barack Obama isn't telling Chinese leaders how his "Organizers for America" demand as a price for omission to attending Barack Obama's road shows that people carrying "dangerous" signs advocating single-payer universal health care have to leave their signs at the door and how others wearing t-shirts calling for an end to the Israeli carnage of Palestinians are forced to turn their t-shirts inside out.

Alan L. Maki



Obama to China: Uncensored society is healthy

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20091116/D9C0K5CG1.html

Nov 16

By CHARLES HUTZLER

BEIJING (AP) - President Barack Obama sat down with the Chinese leader Monday night, hours after he pointedly nudged his host country to stop censoring the Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House - and suggested Beijing need not fear a little criticism.

The president's message during a town hall-style meeting with university students in Shanghai, China's commercial hub, focused on one of the trickiest issues separating China's communist government and the United States - human rights.

In a delicately balanced message, Obama couched his admonitions with words calling for cooperation, heavy with praise and American humility.

"I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Obama told students during his first-ever trip to China. "They can begin to think for themselves."

The first-term U.S. president and his delegation later arrived at the Forbidden City for Obama's third meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, where trade and economic issues were expected to dominate. The two leaders then sat down for what was expected to be a lavish dinner behind the walls surrounding the ancient city that was once home to Chinese emperors. They were scheduled to meet again Tuesday.

Obama's message, aside from his proddings on human rights, was clear: few global challenges can be solved unless the world's only superpower and its rising competitor work together. He and his advisers have insisted in virtually all public utterances since he arrived in Japan on Friday: "We do not seek to contain China's rise."

During Obama's opening statement to university students in Shanghai, he spoke bluntly about the benefits of individual freedoms in a country known for limiting them.

"We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation," Obama said. Then he added that freedom of expression and worship, unfettered access to information and unrestricted political participation are not principles held by the United States; instead, he called them "universal rights."

The line offered echoes of Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, who often talked of the "universality of freedom." Obama talked at length about the Internet, which he said helped him win the presidency because it allowed for the mobilization of young people like those in his audience in Shanghai.

"I'm a big supporter of non-censorship," Obama said. "I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet - or unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged."

Given where Obama was speaking, such a comment carried strong implications. And he appeared to be talking directly to China's leaders when he said that he believes free discussion, including criticism that he sometimes finds annoying, makes him "a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear."

China has more than 250 million Internet users and employs some of the world's tightest controls over what they see. The country is often criticized for having the so-called "Great Firewall of China," which refers to technology designed to prevent unwanted traffic from entering or leaving a network.

Obama's town hall was not broadcast live across China on television. It was shown on local Shanghai TV and streamed online on two big national Internet portals, but the quality was choppy and hard to hear.

Obama is in the midst of a weeklong Asia trip. He came with a vast agenda of security, economic and environmental concerns, although always looming was how he would deal with human rights while in China.

His China visit features the only sightseeing of his journey. He will visit the Forbidden City, home of former emperors in Beijing, and the centuries-old Great Wall outside of the city. Aides have learned that finding some tourist time calms and energize their boss amid the grueling schedule of an international trip.

U.S. ambassador Jon Huntsman called Obama's event the first ever town-hall meeting held by a U.S. president in China. Yet former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also spoke to students and took questions from them during stops in China.

China is a huge and lucrative market for American goods and services, and yet it has a giant trade surplus with the U.S. that, like a raft of other economic issues, is a bone of contention between the two governments. The two militaries have increased their contacts, but clashes still happen and the United States remains worried about a dramatic buildup in what is already the largest standing army in the world.

Amid all that, Obama has adopted a pragmatic approach that stresses the positive, sometimes earning him criticism for being too soft on Beijing - particularly in the area of human rights abuses and what the United States regards as an undervalued Chinese currency that disadvantages U.S. products.

The two nations are working together more than ever on battling global warming, but they still differ deeply over hard targets for reductions in the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause it. China has supported sterner sanctions to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but it still balks at getting more aggressive about reining in Iran's uranium enrichment.

Obama recognizes that a rising China, as the world's third-largest economy - on its way to becoming the second - and the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, has shifted the dynamic more toward one of equals. For instance, Chinese questions about how Washington spending policies will affect the already soaring U.S. deficit and the safety of Chinese investments now must be answered by Washington.

The White House hoped Monday's town hall meeting with Chinese university students would allow Obama to telegraph U.S. values - through its successes and failures - to the widest Chinese audience possible.

But those hopes had their limits in communist-ruled China.