måndagen den 15:e mars 2010
Hela världen
Terrorism är inte alltid vad du tror
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Terrorister spränger hus och bilar, vanligtvis.
Finns det andra sorters terror?
Ja, definitionen av vad som räknas som terrorism utökas varje år.
2009 släppte DHS (Homeland security) en rapport om terrorism där många olika protestgrupper inkluderades.
"Terrorgrupper finns i ditt kvarter, och ser inte ut som du tror!", kanske man kan sammanfatta den rapporten.
I engelskspråklig media förekommer idag termen Anti government protest.
Gränsen mellan vanliga politiska protester (lagliga demonstrationer och underteckandet av protestlistor, skrivandet av politiska bloggar, diskussioner etc) och vad som är brottsligt suddas alltmer ut.
Snart kommer termen Anti government activism.
Kanske det är brottsligt att ifrågasätta vissa politiska skeenden?
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Du är inte brottslig för att du ifrågasätter dagens politiska klimat.
Vad än DHS och vår svenska regering kommer med för nya brottsrubriceringar för att skydda sitt eget skinn!
Kolla artikeln nedan!
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HOMELAND INSECURITY
Guess how DHS defines who is a terrorist now
2nd 'domestic extremism' report includes 'alternative media,' 'tax resisters' in lexicon
Posted: May 02, 2009
8:35 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
Two weeks before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security penned its controversial report warning against "right-wing extremists" in the United States, it generated a memo defining dozens of additional groups – animal rights activists, black separatists, tax protesters, even worshippers of the Norse god Odin – as potential "threats."
Though the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" was reportedly rescinded almost immediately, Benjamin Sarlin of The Daily Beast recently obtained and published online a copy of the unclassified memo, dated March 26, 2009.
While many of the groups listed in the lexicon – such as Aryan prison gangs and neo-Nazis – may indeed be widely considered extremists, others will likely take offense at being described as a potential "threat."
For example, the memo defines the "tax resistance movement" – also referred to in the report as the tax protest movement or the tax freedom movement – as "groups or individuals who vehemently believe taxes violate their constitutional rights. Among their beliefs are that wages are not income, that paying income taxes is voluntary, and that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed Congress to levy taxes on income, was not properly ratified."
The report, however, continues in its assessment of tax protesters, asserting that members "have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence and terrorism in an attempt to advance their extremist goals."
Similarly, the lexicon concludes its definition of "black separatists" by asserting, "Such groups or individuals also may embrace radical religious beliefs. Members have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence directed toward local law enforcement in an attempt to advance their extremist goals."
In his blog piece titled "Who You Calling an Extremist?" Sarlin writes, "Partisans leapt to decry the first DHS memo as part of a Democratic conspiracy to marginalize right wingers. But it became clear that DHS's broad descriptions of extremists were symptomatic of an ongoing agency problem that crossed ideological lines."
The lexicon states its purpose is to provide "definitions for key terms and phrases that often appear in DHS analysis that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States."
Apparently, the DHS analyzes the "threat" level of Internet news websites like WorldNetDaily, for the lexicon defines "alternative media" as "a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets."
The term "black power," widely used in a variety of contexts, also merits a definition in the lexicon: "A term used by black separatists to describe their pride in and the perceived superiority of the black race."
The DHS memo also includes precursors to the ill-fated "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" report, which prompted outrage from legislators and a campaign calling for the resignation of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.
For example, the lexicon contains virtually the same broad-stroke language the right-wing extremism report used.
"Rightwing extremism," the lexicon defines as those "who can be broadly divided into those who are primarily hate-oriented, and those who are mainly antigovernment and reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority. This term also may refer to rightwing extremist movements that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."
The lexicon further points to those who oppose driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
"Anti-immigration extremism," the lexicon defines as "a movement of groups or individuals who are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration, particularly along the U.S. southwest border with Mexico, and who have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence and terrorism to advance their extremist goals. They are highly critical of the U.S. Government's response to illegal immigration and oppose government programs that are designed to extend 'rights' to illegal aliens, such as issuing driver's licenses or national identification cards and providing in-state tuition, medical benefits, or public education."
Unlike the right-wing extremism report, however, the lexicon includes definitions of extremism across a broad spectrum of issues: anarchy, animal rights extremism, black nationalism, Cuban independence, environmentalism, Jewish extremism, Mexican separatism, right-wing militias, white supremacists, the anti-war movement and more.
Among the more curious groups the DHS appears to be monitoring is the "racial Nordic mysticism" group, defined as "an ideology adopted by many white supremacist prison gangs who embrace a Norse mythological religion, such as Odinism or Asatru."
Among the more comical definitions is the description given of what "racist skinheads" wear, enabling law officers, it appears, to identify skinheads by their preferred brand of footwear:
"Dress may include a shaved head or very short hair," the report states, "jeans, thin suspenders, combat boots or Doc Martens, a bomber jacket, and tattoos of Nazi-like emblems."
Sarlin, who first publicized the memo, reports that a spokesperson for DHS told him the memo was recalled "within minutes" of being issued but declined to offer any details on the reasons for its withdrawal.
söndagen den 14:e mars 2010
Fotoutställning på Kulturhuset
lördagen den 13:e mars 2010
Jonas Gardells roll i medialandskapet
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Komikern Jonas Gardell har i vår en ny programserie i SVT, som diskuterar kristen tro och trosfrågor. I "Å Herregud", varvas progamledarens personliga funderingar med intervjuer av kristna svenskar.
Så här ser jag JG:s roll i svenska medialandskapet
(förenklat)
torsdagen den 11:e mars 2010
Kristendom under historia i skolan?
Just så.
fredagen den 5:e mars 2010
Derivattjänsterna är boven
Privata uppgörelser inom finanseliten och stora bets på kommande konkurser...
Det ser ut som Tyskland inte ska behöva betala för Greklands skulder.
A.I.G., Greece, and Who’s Next?
Published: March 4, 2010
First came the news that Greece had entered into derivatives transactions withGoldman Sachs and other banks to hide its public debt. Then came reports that some of those same banks and various hedge funds were using credit default swaps — the type of derivative that kneecapped the American International Group — to bet on the likelihood of a Greek default and using derivatives to wager on a drop in the euro.
European leaders have called for an inquiry into the Greek crisis. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, has told Congress that the Fed is “looking into”Wall Street’s deals with Greece, and the Justice Department is investigating the euro bets. That is better than turning a blind eye, but it is not nearly enough.
The bigger problem is in America, where markets are supposed to be fair and transparent. These particular — and particularly complicated — instruments are traded privately among banks, their clients and other investors with virtually no regulation or oversight.
The Obama administration and Congress have been talking for a year about fixing the derivatives market. Big banks have been lobbying to block change. And the longer it takes, the weaker the proposed new rules become.
Here are some of the problems that must be fixed:
NO TRANSPARENCY Derivatives are supposed to reduce and spread risk. In a credit default swap, for instance, a bond investor pays a fee to a counterparty, usually a bank, that agrees to pay the investor if the bond defaults. But because the markets in which they trade are largely unregulated, derivatives can too easily become tools for dangerous risk-taking, vast speculation and dodgy accounting.
A big part of the problem is that derivatives are traded as private one-on-one contracts. That means big profits for banks since clients can’t compare offerings. Private markets also lack the rules that prevail in regulated markets — likecapital requirements, record keeping and disclosure — that are essential for regulators and investors to monitor and control risk.
That is why it is so essential to move derivative trades onto fully transparent exchanges. The administration originally embraced that idea, with exceptions only for occasional, unique contracts. But when the Treasury proposed legislation in August, it included huge loopholes, and a derivative reform bill that passed the House in December has many of the same problems. (The Senate has yet to introduce a reform bill.)
Both the administration and the House would exclude from exchange trading the estimated $50 trillion market in foreign exchange swaps — similar to the derivatives Greece used to hide its debt. The rationale for the exclusion never has been clearly explained.
The Treasury proposal and House bill also would exclude transactions that occur between big banks and many of their corporate clients from the exchange trading requirement, ostensibly because those deals are only for minimizing business risks, not for speculation or for window-dressing the books. That’s debatable. But even if true, other derivatives users would almost inevitably find ways to exploit such a broad exemption.
What is clear about the exemptions is that they would help to preserve banks’ profits. What is also clear is that they would defeat the goals of reform: to lower risk, increase transparency and foster efficiency.
LIMITED POWER TO STOP ABUSES When the House put out a draft of new rules in October, it sensibly gave regulators the power to ban abusive derivatives — ones that are not necessarily fraudulent, but potentially damaging to the system. Derivatives investors who stand to make huge profits if a company or country defaults, for example, might try to provoke default — a situation that regulators should be able to prevent. In the final House bill, however, the ban was replaced with a requirement that regulators simply report to Congress if they believe abuses are occurring.
NO STATE REGULATION, EITHER Current law also exempts unregulated derivatives from state antigambling laws. That means that states have no power to police their use for excessive speculation. Treasury and House reform proposals have called for maintaining the federal pre-emption of state antigambling laws. Pre-emption could be tolerable if derivatives were traded on fully regulated exchanges. But as long as many derivative products and transactions are exempted from fully regulated exchange trading, pre-emption of state antigambling laws is a license for, well, gambling.
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The big banks claim that derivatives are used to hedge risk, not for excessive speculation. The best way to monitor that claim is to execute the transactions on fully regulated exchanges, pass rules and laws to ensure stability, and appoint and empower regulators with independence and good judgment to enforce compliance.
Without effective reform, the derivative-driven financial crisis in the United States that exploded in 2008, and the Greek debt crisis, circa 2010, will be mere way stations on the road to greater calamities.