Page pulled - Why?
(Click to see enlarged images.)
Strangely, a breaking story "Federal Reserve orders two trillion dollars to be printed and put into circulation" which featured on the website "Axis of Logic" yesterday evening, which was brought to my attention by one of my regular correspondents, was pulled from the website.
Mission Statement of Axis of Logic
I had already sent the link to Steve Clemons of The Washington Note, Congressman Representative John Conyers Jr. as well as Senator Barbara Boxer, plus all the major Liberal Talk Show Hosts.
Since it was really shocking news, I saved a screen shot of the page:
I do not think it was up long enough to be cached by Google.
And here is the retraction which was published a few hours later:
Can anyone throw some light on this?
I also have hard copy of this and a pdf version of the page.
Free Speech - Maturity
When a small child uses indecent words, the responsibility rests on the parents and his teachers to correct the child.
When grown-up politicians behave in a similar manner, it rests on a Free Press with responsible journalists to bring them under control by exposing such immature behaviour.
When journalists behave in this manner, whose responsibility is it to bring them under control? Street mobs, fundamentalists, religious zealots, opportunist "politicians", etc.?
In this entry, I take up the issue of politicians. I draw attention to the behaviour of Finnish prime minister, Matti Vanhanen, who recently went on a jaunt to India.
Vanhanen spent valuable Finnish tax payers money to go and open a Nokia Oyj factory in Chennai, formerly known as Madras, in India.
Did any responsible Finnish media journalist ask the question as to how and why a Finnish prime minister spent this money to open the factory of a multinational whose Finnish ownership is less than 20%?
Not one!
The best joke I read about this was from the Finnish Foreign Ministry news source (STT) which said that the opening of the factory (conveniently) coincided with the visit of the prime minister in India!
If you believe that, maybe I have a bridge to sell you.
Vihantasalmi Bridge in Finland"In relation to Finland's small size, Mr Vanhanen's visit received ample press coverage in India.
The prime minister said the interest could be partly explained by the official opening of Nokia's mobile phone factory in Chennai, timed to coincide with the visit. The factory is the first of its kind in India and is seen to represent a significant step forward for the whole country." (STT)
More interesting was the speech that Vanhanen gave in New Delhi where he called on India to open up its markets to "Free Trade" and embrace "Globalisation".
Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party), the Finnish prime minister, strongly advocated trade liberalisation at a lunch meeting with businessmen in Delhi on Monday.
With Kamal Nath, the Indian trade and industry minister, among the audience, Mr Vanhanen said free trade and deregulation together constituted one of the cornerstones of Finland's current economic prowess. He added that the early deregulation of the telecommunications and energy industries had catapulted Finnish firms to global success.
"Today our lesson learned is clear: barriers create inefficiency in the economic system at all levels. Exposure to global competition has taught us a lesson, the fruits of which are visible to you all," Mr Vanhanen said.
He also urged India to actively participate in the liberalisation of trade at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
"All studies show that a successful Doha round would produce tremendous benefits for the world economy, for developed and developing countries. WTO negotiations would help countries to progressively open their markets to competition for the benefit of all. India has a vital role to play in the Doha Development Round."(STT)
This showed the ignorance and stupidity of a person who, in a coup, took over the Finnish prime ministership.
What the public thought of him was revealed in the recent Finnish Presidential election where he mustered just 18.6% of the popular vote!
Does this man, Vanhanen, know that the wife of an Indian engineer who works for Nokia OYj in Finland, could not get her visa to stay in Finland renewed but had to fly all the way back to India to able to get a permit to stay with her husband?India has been the centre of Free Trade for generations. The spice markets of India have been known for thousands of years.
It was the western colonialists - Britain (British East India Company), Dutch, Portuguese and the French, who came to trade in India and then colonised the country for their personal benefit driving the Indians into poverty by exploitation - their version of “Free Trade”?
On the one hand, the Finnish media shows no restraint in highlighting the poverty in India.
On the other, the same media fails to question the drive of the Finnish Prime Minister towards the western powers agenda of Free Trade, which would result in causing greater discrepancy between the rich and the poor as the modern day colonialists want to drive the poor of India to greater poverty!
Luckily, India is a democracy, the world's largest, and there are enough political forces that will not allow Vanhanen type "politicians” to put Indians into deeper poverty under the guise of globalisation and free trade.
The Finns take great comfort in such utterances:
"Mr Vanhanen added that Finland's success in surveys about competitiveness, education, level of corruption and sustainable development might have something to do with the level of interest as well." (STT)
The Finnish bureaucracy and media is great at creating a polished image, an image far from the truth. They are masters of distortion to show the world that it it is progressive, corrupt-free country.
As Annikki, my better half has put it "Finns like to show the world a highly polished image of themselves, like a beautiful apple. But if one is to cut this apple open, one finds rather a rotten core inside!"
In my humble opinion, based on my personal experience over the last 22 years, Finland has a corrupt political system, aided by a corrupt law enforcement service and judiciary, but above all a totally corrupt self-serving bureaucracy.
The very fact that Vanhanen is prime minister today demonstrates the degree of corruption in the country.
An lady politician, Anneli Jääteenmäki, who took the Centre Party to victory in the last General Election, was dislodged by two viscous Finnish politicians - Paavo Lipponenn (Social Democrat) and none other than Vanhanen.
When Anneli Jääteenmäki was cleared of all charges by the Finnish Courts, did Vanhanen offer to give the lady back her rightful place as the Prime Minister of the country?
No way - as he is enjoying his power base.
And has the Finnish Media said a word - NOT ONE!
Arundhati's take on the Bush visit to India
Arundhati Roy shares her opinion of the Bush visit to India!
It's not in our power to stop Bush's visit. It is in our power to protest it, and we will.
"When George Bush places flowers on that famous slab of hig! hly polished stone, millions of Indians will wince."
ON HIS triumphalist tour of this part of the world, where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush's itinerary is getting curiouser and curiouser.
For his 2nd of March pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian Government tried very hard to have him address our Parliament. A not inconsequential number of MPs threatened to heckle him, so Plan One was hastily shelved. Plan Two was that he address the masses from the ramparts of the magnificent Red Fort where the Indian Prime Minister traditionally delivers his Independence Day address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as it is by the predominantly Muslim population of Old Delhi, was considered a security nightmare.
So now we're into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from Purana! Qila, the Old Fort.
Ironic isn't it, that the only safe public space for a man who has recently been so enthusiastic about India's modernity, should be a crumbling medieval fort?
Since the Purana Qila also houses the Delhi zoo, George Bush's audience will be a few hundred caged animals and an approved list of caged human beings who in India go under the category of "eminent persons." They're mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive animals, incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their gilded cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and unruly multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the centuries.
So what's going to happen to George W Bush?
Will the gorillas cheer him on? Will the gibbons curl their lips? Will the brow-antlered deer sneer? Will the chimps make rude noises? Will the owls hoot? Will the lions yawn and the giraffes bat their beautiful eyelashes? Will the crocs recognise a kindred soul?
Will the quails give thanks that Bush isn't travelling with Dick Cheney, his hunting partner with the notoriously bad aim? Will the CEOs agree?
Oh, and on the 2nd of March, Bush will be taken to visit Gandhi's memorial in Rajghat. He's by no means the only war criminal who has been invited by the Indian Government to lay flowers at Rajghat. (Only recently we! had the Burmese dictator General Than Shwe — no shrinking violet himself.) But when George Bush places flowers on that famous slab of highly polished stone, millions of Indians will wince. It will be as though he has poured a pint of blood on the memory of Gandhi.
We really would prefer that he didn't.
It's not in our power to stop Bush's visit.
It is in our power to protest it, and we will. ¨
The Government, the Police and the Corporate Press will do everything they can to minimise the extent of our outrage. Nothing the Happynews Papers say can change the fact that all over India from the biggest cities to the smallest villages, in public places and private homes — Geo! rge W. Bush, incumbent President of the United States of America, world nightmare incarnate, is just not welcome.
— © Arundhati Roy
I concur! Do you?
Mainline: Geostrategy Feeds America's Oil Addiction
Cross-posted on all my main blogs -
Jacob's Blog
Seventh Heaven for Mumbai Cathedralites;
Kooler Talk for Delhi Stephanians;
Oulu Chaff
Move The UN.
My topical article
"Geostrategy Feeds America's Oil Addiction", which relates to the visit of Bush to India, has appeared in a major North American online journal
Raise the Hammer in their fortnightly issue dated
1st March 2006.
Editor Ryan McGreal has really tidied up the article. Thanks.
What is original in this submission?
It is my long term speculations about:
1. The rationale for the attack on and occupation of Afghanistan relating to the Enron history.
2. Who most likely perpetrated the fraud of the Iranian election.
3. Why the Indian Industrial Community desperately want Bush and his malAdministration to stay in office for another 3 years!
4. Why the nuclear attack on Iran is imminent.
Many may wrinkle their foreheads in disbelief. But that is what political analysis is all about. I theorise and later people fit the facts to my theories.
Hope you enjoy it and would love to have your feedback - even if it is abusive!!
I love getting abusive email. I thrive on it as it drives me on harder to more fantasy! :-)
