23 Health Insurance Executive Resigns, Reveals Plans to Stop Health Care Reform

(1) Hitler & the Big Lie - Syd Walker
(2) Health Insurance Executive Resigns, Reveals Plans to Stop Health Care Reform
(3) Zapatistas vs NAFTA
(4) North Korea falsely blamed for attacks on South Korean & US computers

(1) Hitler & the Big Lie - Syd Walker

From: Syd Walker <syd@sydwalker.info> Date: 21.07.2009 11:12 AM

LIES, DAMNED LIES & BALLISTICS

July 21st, 2009 by Syd Walker

http://sydwalker.info/blog/2009/07/21/lies-damn-lies-and-ballistics/

If you follow politics, you've probably heard plenty of politicians complaining about the lies of their opponents.

It's a staple diet of democratic political discourse. Does a day go by when Parliament (or Congress) is in session in which copious accusations of lying aren't hurled across the chamber? If so, I must have missed them.

But how many politicians do you know who admit to telling lies? Telling lies themselves, that is – and not just lies but really big lies. Politicians like that are certainly unusual.

I'll thicken the plot. How many politicians do you know who brag about telling really big lies in a best selling book published before their political career gets underway? Such a politician would be rare indeed.

Yet that's what a lot of people seem to believe about Adolf Hitler. If they don't actually believe this, they certainly like to make out they do.

Take this quotation, which has become famous thanks to its frequent repetition on the Internet:

"All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true in itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.

Yuk! What a nasty mind! (In case don't know already, those are the words of Adolf Hitler, written in his semi-autobiographical book 'Mein Kampf', published in the mid 1920s).

It's astonishing, when you think about it, that Hitler got away with boasting about all the Big Lies he was about to tell. How did he still get so many votes? Did Germans 70 years ago admire politicians who brazenly admitted they were huge liars? Amazing!

Actually, it is amazing – too amazing by half. In fact, it's nonsense.

The quoted words of Hitler are authentic enough (it's a translation into English from the original German). But some rather significant context is missing…

Here's the paragraph that follows… in the same translation of Mein Kampf, as provided by Wikipedia:

"From time immemorial. however, the Jews have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious community, whereas in reality they are a race? And what a race! One of the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the Jews for all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true.  Schopenhauer called the Jew "The Great Master of Lies." Those who do not realize the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend a hand in helping Truth to prevail."

Ah – now the famous quotation makes more sense! Hitler wasn't talking about his own lies at all. Like most politicians, he was complaining about other peoples' lies. That's a lot more plausible!

As of today, a Google search for the first paragraph alone – inside inverted commas so the search is for the exact text – returns 384 results. By contrast, a search for the second paragraph alone returns 4 results. Clearly, a lot of people are quoting Hitler's words about 'the Big Lie' out of context. About 100 to 1 on that count!

It's hardly surprising when this kind of thing happens in wartime. Propaganda against Hitler was to be expected during World War Two. But why propagandize against a man who died over 60 years ago? Rather odd, don't you think?

It's clear when searching for instances of this notorious quotation that many of the folk who repeat it are Jewish. That strikes me as even odder. Surely they'd do well to stop quoting from that particular page of Mein Kampf? Hitler was, after all, being very rude about them – as the smallest amount of research makes apparent.

Now, for pointing out such elementary and easily verifiable facts in today's 'western world', it's customary to be branded a 'Fascist' or 'neo-Nazi''. That really just demonstrates how far rational discourse has been debased by slavish conformism to one particular, absurdly biased, historical narrative.

Just in case I'd latched onto a statistical artifact, I found another version of the same quotation, this time in the Jewish Virtual Library. The words are essentially the same, but the punctuation is different and in this instance the two paragraphs are collapsed into one:

All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true in itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. From time immemorial, however, the Jews have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious community, where as in reality they are a race? And what a race! One of the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the Jews for all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. Schopenhauer called the Jew "The Great Master of Lies". Those who do not realize the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend a hand in helping Truth to prevail.

Once again, I did a Google search for the first part of the text (shown in red above) – then the second half. On this occasion, Google returned 385 and 16 results respectively.

I rest my case – or to coin a phrase from Gerald Posner, 'Case Closed'

Posner, for those who haven't heard of him before, is a truly epic liar of our own era.

He's the man who still promotes the risible 'magic bullet' theory – a recycled lie originated by fellow-liar Arlen Specter, formerly adviser to the 1964 Warren Commission. In the early 1990s, he wrote Case Closed – a book that supposedly vindicates the Warren Commission's verdict on the Kennedy assassination.

These days, Specter is a US Senator who lies often and unremittingly, mainly for the benefit of the military industrial complex and the Israel Lobby…

Incidentally, Zionists are very well-represented among those people on earth who still believe what I suggest might appropriately be called Hitler's mistake (not all lies are deliberate – sometimes misinformation is spread by people who don't know better).

By what conceivable stretch of the imagination are Jews a 'race'? (whatever 'race' actually means). Compare and contrast Jewish folk from Ethiopia or India with Jews from Sweden or Lithuania? Can you spot the difference? Me too.

Apparently, Hitler couldn't. But many folk believed strange things three quarters of a century ago.*

In modern civilized society, we expect ideas to evolve and become more factually-based over time. It's a natural process… but of course, it's a process impeded by the incessant repetition of one-sided untruths.

__ Footnote *

In fairness to Hitler (a rare trait in the 21st Century), I suspect the word he used in Mein Kampf to describe Jews was 'Volk'.

Should this really be translated into English as 'race'?

This is what today's Wikipedia has to say on the translation into English of the word 'Volk' – and its changing usage over time (EMPHASIS ADDED):

Background

In German the word Volk can have several different meanings, such as folkpeople in the ethnic sense, and nation. (simple people), people in the ethnic sense, and nation.

German Volk is commonly used as the first, determing part (head) of compound nouns such as Volksentscheid (plebiscite, lit. "decision of/by the people") or Völkerbund (League of Nations), or the car manufacturer Volkswagen (literally, "people's car").
19th century and early 20th century

A number of völkisch movements existed prior to World War I. Combining interest in folklore, ecology, occultism and romanticism with ethnic nationalism, their ideologies were a strong influence on the Nazi party, which itself was inspired by Adolf Hitler's membership of the Deutsche ArbeiterparteiMein Kampf himself denounced usage of the word völkisch as he considered it too vague as to carry any recognizable meaning due to former over-use. Today, the term völkisch is largely restricted to historical contexts describing the closing 19th century and early 20th century up to Hitler's seize of power in 1933, especially during the years of the Weimar Republic. (German Workers' Party), even though Hitler in even though Hitler in Mein Kampf himself denounced usage of the word völkisch as he considered it too vague as to carry any recognizable meaning due to former over-use. Today, the term völkisch is largely restricted to historical contexts describing the closing 19th century and early 20th century up to Hitler's seize of power in 1933, especially during the years of the Weimar Republic. himself denounced usage of the word

Nazi era

During the years of the Third Reich, the term Volk became heavily used in nationalistic political slogans, particularly in slogans such as Volk ohne RaumVölkischer Beobachter ("popular observer"), an NSDAP party newspaper. Also the political slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer ("One people, one country/empire, one leader"); and the compound word Herrenvolk, translated as "master race". — "(a) people without space" or

Even though Hitler, in his book Mein Kampf often erroneously applied specific biological and zoological terms such as race, species, and others, THE NAZI-ERA USE OF VOLK COULD NOT, DEPENDING ON CONTEXT, BE INTERPRETED AS "RACE","Germanic", or "European." In Nazi propaganda, several peoples made up a race, so these two terms did not denote the same thing during the Nazi years. The German people was considered part of the Germanic race which latter officially included the Scandinavians, the English, and the Dutch as well (while Hitler himself also included the Celts), so Volk did not equal Germanic either. Nazi-era publications on pre-history only differed whether their Germanic race equalled the Indo-European race or the Germanic race itself was part of a family of Indo-European races, since indogermanisch is the common German term for Indo-European.

Today

Because Volk is the generic German word for "people" in the ethnic sense today as well as for "people entitled to vote" (Wahlvolk), its use does not necessarily denote any particular political views in post-1945 Germany. However, because of its past, the word is rarely used with Bevölkerung ("population") serving as a substitute.

(2) Health Insurance Executive Resigns, Reveals Plans to Stop Health Care Reform

From: Thomas Baumgarten senior <thomas.d.baumgarten@gmail.com> Date: 22.07.2009 10:33 AM
From: PEERS: Inspiration and Education List <emaillist@peerservice.org>

The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform

By Wendell Potter

June 24, 2009

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8422
http://jointeffort.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/former-health-insurance-industry-insider-now-speaking-out/

I'm the former insurance industry insider now speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing.

Although by most measures I had a great career in the insurance industry (four years at Humana and nearly 15 at CIGNA), in recent years I had grown increasingly uncomfortable serving as one of the industry's top PR executives. In addition to my responsibilities at CIGNA, which included serving as the company's chief spokesman to the media on all corporate and financial matters, I also served on a lot of trade association committees and industry-financed coalitions, many of which were essentially front groups for insurers.

So I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers' profitability.

I also have seen how the industry's practices – especially those of the for-profit insurers that are under constant pressure from Wall Street to meet their profit expectations – have contributed to the tragedy of nearly 50 million people being uninsured as well as to the growing number of Americans who, because insurers now require them to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets before their coverage kicks in – are underinsured. An estimated 25 million of us now fall into that category.

What I saw happening over the past few years was a steady movement away from the concept of insurance and toward "individual responsibility," a term used a lot by insurers and their ideological allies. This is playing out as a continuous shifting of the financial burden of health care costs away from insurers and employers and onto the backs of individuals. As a result, more and more sick people are not going to the doctor or picking up their prescriptions because of costs. If they are unfortunate enough to become seriously ill or injured, many people enrolled in these plans find themselves on the hook for such high medical bills that they are losing their homes to foreclosure or being forced into bankruptcy.

As an industry spokesman, I was expected to put a positive spin on this trend that the industry created and euphemistically refers to as "consumerism" and to promote so-called "consumer-driven" health plans. I ultimately reached the point of feeling like a huckster.

I thought I could live with being a well-paid huckster and hang in there a few more years until I could retire. I probably would have if I hadn't made a completely spur-of-the-moment decision a couple of years ago that changed the direction of my life.

While visiting my folks in northeast Tennessee where I grew up, I read in the local paper about a health "expedition" being held that weekend a few miles up U.S. 23 in Wise, Va. Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals were volunteering their time to provide free medical care to people who lived in the area. What intrigued me most was that Remote Area Medical, a non-profit group whose original mission was to provide free care to people in remote villages in South America, was organizing the expedition. I decided to check it out.

That 50-mile stretch of U.S. 23, which twists through the mountains where thousands of men have made their living working in the coalmines, turned out to be my "road to Damascus." Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I reached the Wise County Fairgrounds, where the expedition was being held.

Hundreds of people had camped out all night in the parking lot to be assured of seeing a doctor or dentist when the gates opened. By the time I got there, long lines of people stretched from every animal stall and tent where the volunteers were treating patients. That scene was so visually and emotionally stunning it was all I could do to hold back tears. How could it be that citizens of the richest nation in the world were being treated this way?

A couple of weeks later I was boarding a corporate jet to fly from Philadelphia to a meeting in Connecticut. When the flight attendant served my lunch on gold-rimmed china and gave me a gold-plated knife and fork to eat it with, I realized for the first time that someone's insurance premiums were paying for me to travel in such luxury. I also realized that one of the reasons those people in Wise County had to wait in long lines to be treated in animal stalls was because our Wall Street-driven health care system has created one of the most inequitable health care systems on the planet.

Although I quit my job last year, I did not make a final decision to speak out as a former insider until recently when it became clear to me that the insurance industry and its allies (often including drug and medical device makers, business groups and even the American Medical Association) were succeeding in shaping the current debate on health care reform. While the thought of speaking out had crossed my mind during the months leading up to the day I gave notice, I initially decided instead to hang out my shingle as a consultant to small businesses and nonprofit organizations.

I decided to take the shingle down, though, at least for a while, when I heard members of Congress reciting talking points like the ones I used to write to scare people away from real reform. I'll have more to say about that over the coming weeks and months, but, for now, remember this: whenever you hear a politician or pundit use the term "government-run health care" and warn that the creation of a public health insurance option that would compete with private insurers (or heaven forbid, a single-payer system like the one Canada has) will "lead us down the path to socialism," know that the original source of the sound bite most likely was some flack like I used to be.

Bottom line: I ultimately decided the stakes are too high for me to just sit on the sidelines and let the special interests win again. So I have joined forces with thousands of other Americans who are trying to persuade our lawmakers to listen to us for a change, not just to the insurance and drug company executives who are spending millions to shape reform to benefit them and the Wall Street hedge fund managers they are beholden to.

Take it from me, a former insider, who knows what really motivates those folks. You need to know where the hard-earned money you pay in health insurance premiums – if you lucky enough to have coverage at all – really goes.

I decided to speak out knowing that some people will not like what I have to say and will do all they can to discredit me. In anticipation of that, here are some facts:

    * I am not doing this because my former employer was pushing me out the door or because I had become a disgruntled employee. I had not been passed over for a promotion or anything like that. As I noted earlier, I had a financially rewarding career in the industry, and I'm very grateful for that. I had numerous promotions, raises, bonuses, stock options and stock grants over the years. When I left my last job, I was as close on the corporate ladder to the CEO as any PR person has ever climbed at the company. I reported to the general counsel, the company's top lawyer, whose boss is the chairman and CEO, a man I like and worked closely with over many years.

    * The decision to leave was entirely my own, and I left on good terms with everybody at the company. In fact, I agreed to postpone my last day at work by more than two months at the company's request. My coworkers gave me a terrific going-away party, and I received dozens of kind notes from people all across the country including friends at other companies and at America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade association.

I still consider all of them my friends. In fact, the thing I have missed most since I left is working as part of a team, even though I eventually came to the conclusion that I was playing for the wrong side. Being a consultant has its advantages, but I have missed the camaraderie. After a few months, I thought that maybe I should consider working for another company again. At one point, a former boss told me that another insurer had posted a PR job and encouraged me to contact a former CIGNA executive who worked there about it. Against my better judgment, I did, but I immediately decided not to pursue it. The last thing I wanted to do was to go from one big insurer to another one. What the hell was I thinking?

I'm writing this because, knowing how things work, I'm fully expecting insurers' PR firms to quietly feed friends of the industry (which include a roster of editorial writers and pundits, lawmakers and many others who fall under the broad category of "third-party advocates,") with anything they can think of to discredit me and what I say. This will go on behind the scenes because the insurers will want to preserve the image they are working so hard to cultivate – as a group of kind and caring folks who think only of you and your health and are working hard as real partners to Congress and the White House to find "a uniquely American solution" to what ails our system.

I expect this because I have worked closely with the industry's PR firms over many years whenever the insurers were being threatened with bad publicity, litigation or legislation that might hinder profits.

One of the reasons I chose to become affiliated with the Center for Media and Democracy [CMD] is because of the important work the organization does to expose often devious, dishonest and unethical PR practices that further the self interests of big corporations and special interest groups at the expense of the American people and the democratic principles this country was founded on.

After a long career in PR, I am looking forward to providing an insider's perspective as a senior fellow at CMD, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak out for the rights and dignity of ordinary people. The people of Wise County and every county deserve much better than to be left behind to suffer or die ahead of their time due to Wall Street's efforts to keep our government from ensuring that all Americans have real access to first-class health care.

Note: You can follow Wendell's incisive health care blog at this link. To see the original version of this article on the website of the Center for Media and Democracy, click here <http://www.prwatch.org/node/8422>. For another revealing article on this topic, including links to excellent articles on CNN and ABC, click here.

(3) Zapatistas vs NAFTA

From: Israel Shamir <adam@israelshamir.net>  Date: 22.07.2009 12:14 PM

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1990/1/

Anarchism, Marxism, and Zapatismo

By Hans Bennett

On January 1, 1994, the now-infamous North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. That same day, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), rose up and launched a military offensive that occupied towns throughout the state of Chiapas, in  Mexico. The EZLN, or "Zapatistas" had been covertly organizing for many years, but they specifically chose the day of NAFTA's implementation for their public rebellion.

Many components of NAFTA favored US corporate interests at the expense of Mexico's general population, but the Zapatistas were particularly opposed to NAFTA's rewriting of the Mexican Constitution, in order to eliminate the population's biggest victory won during the Mexican Revolution fought years before, at the time of World War One. "The Mexican Revolution wrote into the national constitution the opportunity for a village to hold its land communally, in an ejido, so that no individual could alienate any portion of it," writes Staughton Lynd, co-author of the new book Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History. Both Lynd (a Marxist from the US) and his co-author Andrej Grubacic (an anarchist from the Balkans) are public supporters of the Zapatistas, who they argue have set a powerful example of revolutionary organizing that should influence anti-capitalists around the world. Much like the historical traditions of the Haymarket Martyrs and the 'Wobblies' (the Industrial Workers of the World) in the United States, Lynd and Grubacic argue that the Zapatistas have synthesized the best aspects of both the Marxist and anarchist traditions.

Based upon his research and his personal travels to the Zapatista communities in Chiapas where he met with historian Teresa Ortiz, Staughton Lynd identifies three key "sources of Zapatismo." First, is the issue of land. Before NAFTA,  the communal lands called ejidos made up more than half of Mexico's land. The day of the 1994 uprising, the Zapatistas occupied formerly communal lands that had been appropriated. Directly citing the legacy of the Mexican Revolution, the Zapatistas named themselves after Emiliano Zapata, an anarchist revolutionary who was a key figure in the Mexican Revolution, and whose popular slogan "Land and Liberty" is still heard today.

Second, Lynd identifies a form of Liberation Theology that is influenced by both Christian and Native American spirituality, with Bishop Samuel Ruiz being a key figure.

"The final and most intriguing component of Zapatismo, according to Teresa Ortiz was the Mayan tradition of mandar obediciendo, 'to lead by obeying'…When representatives thus chosen are asked to take part in regional gatherings, they will be instructed delegates. If new questions arise, the delegates will be obliged to return to their constituents. Thus, in the midst of the negotiations mediated by Bishop Ruiz in early 1994, the Zapatista delegates said they would have to interrupt the talks to consult the villages to which they were accountable, a process that took several weeks. The heart of the political process remains the gathered residents of each village, the asemblea," writes Lynd.

This anti-authoritarian tradition of mandar obediciendo was central to the Zapatista's decision not to see themselves as a revolutionary vanguard. Lynd explains that "beginning in early 1994, Marcos said explicitly, over and over again: We don't see ourselves as a vanguard and we don't want to take power." To support his argument, Lynd cites a variety of statements from Marcos, including his August 1994 statement at the National Democratic Convention in the Lacandon Jungle. Here, Marcos proclaimed that the Zapatistas had decided "not to impose our point of view," and that they had rejected "the doubtful honor of being the historical vanguard of the multiple vanguards that plague us…Yes, the moment has come to say to everyone that we neither want, nor are we able, to occupy the place that some hope we will occupy, the place from which all opinions will come, all the answers, all the routes, all the truth. We are not going to do that."

Lynd, coming from the Marxist perspective, harshly criticizes the influence of vanguard politics on Marxist revolutionary movements, whereby these movements have adopted authoritarian and anti-democratic practices, with these abuses of power being justified by the argument that their particular group is the vanguard of the revolution, and is therefore entitled to lead the revolution as it sees fit. Lynd sees the Zapatista's rejection of vanguard politics as representing a "fresh synthesis of what is best in the Marxist and anarchist traditions." The Zapatistas, Lynd writes, "have given us a new hypothesis. It combines Marxist analysis of the dynamics of capitalism with a traditional spirituality, whether Native American or Christian, or a combination of the two. It rejects the goal of taking state power and sets forth the objective of building a horizontal network of centers of self-activity. Above all the Zapatistas have encouraged young people all over the earth to affirm: We must have a qualitatively different society! Another world is possible! Let us begin to create it, here and now!"

Wobblies & Zapatistas is highly recommended to both the seasoned fan of books about radical history and theory, and the reader who is just now becoming interested in radical politics. While rooted in the inspirational examples of both the Wobblies and the Zapatistas, this book uses refreshing language and an informal conversational format of Grubacic interviewing Lynd. Their dialogue provides a big picture of global struggles against capitalism, and all forms of oppression. I myself learned for the first time that in the US, both the Haymarket anarchists of the late 1800s, and the anarchist Wobblies of the early 1900s were heavily influenced by Marxism. I also learned that many Marxists, such as Rosa Luxemburg from Germany, were themselves very critical of the anti-democratic and elitist consequences of the vanguard strategy of organizing that has been embraced by so many Marxists.

Lynd and Grubacic's exploration of the relationship between Marxism and anarchism is played out through their examination of so many fascinating stories of popular rebellion throughout world history. Many of these stories are about workers' rebellions, but Lynd emphasizes that while the role of workers in making revolution is very important, workers are only part of the big picture, and workers should not be prioritized over other parts of society, including prisoners, students, women, and racially oppressed groups. Lynd summarizes his theory for best making revolutionary change: "We are all leaders, not just as a collection of individuals, but as persons embedded in different kinds of institutions and communities of struggle. The framework with within which all these aspirations must be lodged is the collective action, not of taking state power, but of building down below a horizontal network of groups and persons that is strong enough to command the attention of whoever is in government office."

To accompany this book review, I interviewed co-author Staughton Lynd, asking him these four questions below.

Hans Bennett:            This decade in Latin America has seen so many successful poor people's movements. Are you particularly inspired by any of these victories? How do these embody those traits that you spotlight as so positive regarding the Zapatista movement?

Staughton Lynd:       As your question suggests, the most hopeful part of the earth during this past decade has been Latin America.  The Zapatista movement seems the most significant effort, but I believe it is organically connected to movements in other countries that have elected Leftist governments.  The Zapatistas speak of governing in obedience to those below, "mandar obediciendo."  The Zapatistas interpret these words to direct them not to try to take state power, but instead to create a horizontal network of self-governing communities sufficiently strong that the national government will have to pay attention to "the below" and be accountable to it.  However, in Bolivia when Evo Morales became president, he said in his inaugural  speech that he intended to "mandar obediciendo":  that is, he accepted the Zapatista formulation as to how it should be between elected officials and the electorate, and in his capacity as an elected official, he intended to try to live up to it.

HB:     How can US organizers adopt the Zapatista's approach?

SL:      The fundamental problem is that unlike the Zapatistas we do not have communities that have existed for centuries, that make decisions by consensus, that designate many persons to undertake small tasks or "cargos" for the community, that understand the first obligation of an elected representative to be listening, not talking.  Instead, "organizing" in the United States is invariably quasi-Alinskyan, that is, inspired by the methods of Saul Alinsky, who in turn modeled his work on trade union organizing in the 1930s.  I was one of four original teachers at Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation Training Institute founded in 1968-1969, and am an historian of the labor movement in the 1930s, so I think I know whereof I speak.  The Alinsky approach assumes that people are motivated by individual, short-term, primarily economic self-interest.  "Solidarity unionism" instead encourages people to take small steps in the interest of the group as a whole:  for example, in a layoff to share the pain equally rather than strictly applying seniority.

HB:     Given that we're living in the "belly of the beast," how do you think we in the US can best support Latin America poor people's struggles that are resisting both their local ruling class, and US influence/dominance?

SL:      Support for radical or revolutionary movements in other countries is a tricky undertaking.  The Left in the United States has over and over again fallen into the error of romanticizing foreign movements and regimes.  Examples are:  the Soviet Union, revolutionary Cuba, the National Liberation Front in Vietnam, Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, and perhaps now, the Zapatistas.  I believe what is helpful is to say, 'The United States should cease to intervene in Country X,' but not, 'We unreservedly favor whatever insurgent movement exists there.'  We should have learned this from the period of the Vietnam war.  As soon as the Vietnamese had driven out the United States they created "re-education camps" against which I, at least, felt obligated to protest. Similarly, when the Sandinista government was voted out of office in 1990, Margaret Randall exposed the fact that a handful of men had run everything, including AMNLAE, which presented itself as a women's organization.  So we in the US are better off when we support the withdrawal of US troops, closing of US military bases, the nationalization of US private investments, but do not try to control what happens next.

           HB:     Given today's "global economy," do you know of any examples of any US workers being involved with cross-border working class organizing?

SL:      Cross-border organizing has been timid and bureaucratic.  I would like to see, for example, General Motors workers in Mexico, Canada and the United States strike together.  The demands of each national group of workers would be somewhat different, but so what?  Instead, even reform movements in American trade unions acquiesce in chauvinism.  Thus Teamsters for a Democratic Union tries to keep Mexican truck drivers from entering the United States, even though (a) NAFTA requires their admission, (b) simple solidarity would suggest that if Iowa corn farmers can take advantage of NAFTA to destroy the livelihoods of countless Mexican campesinos by exporting corn to Mexico without import duties, then truck drivers in the United States should meet with their Mexican counterparts and seek solutions that benefit all workers involved.

--Hans Bennett is an independent multi-media journalist whose website is: www.insubordination.blogspot.com

-- Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History is available for purchase from PM Press.

Staughton Lynd taught American history at Spelman College and Yale University. He was director of Freedom Schools in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. An early leader of the movement against the Vietnam War, he was blacklisted and unable to continue as an academic. He then became a lawyer, and in this capacity has assisted rank-and-file workers and prisoners for the past thirty years. He has written, edited, or co-edited with his wife Alice Lynd more than a dozen books.

Andrej Grubacic is a dissident from the Balkans. A radical historian and sociologist, he is the author of Globalization and Refusal and the forthcoming titles: Hidden History of American Democracy and The Staughton Lynd Reader. A fellow traveler of Zapatista-inspired direct action movements, in particular Peoples' Global Action, and a co-founder of Global Balkans Network and Balkan Z Magazine, he is a visiting professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco.

(4) North Korea falsely blamed for attacks on South Korean & US computers

Korea and US DDoS attacks: The attacking source located in United Kingdom

12:21 am under Security Research

http://blog.bkis.com/?p=718

Bkis, as a member of APCERT, received a request from KrCERT (Korean Computer Emergency Response Team) to investigate the incident that was performing DDoS attacks on websites of South Korea and the US.

We have analyzed the malware pattern that we received from KrCERT and have located the botnet controlled by 8 Command and Control (C&C) servers via controlling code embedded in a file named "flash.gif". Every 3 minutes, zombies randomly select one of the 8 servers to connect to and to receive orders. Especially, we found a master server located in UK which controls all of the 8 C&C servers to make a series of cyber-attack last week. So the source of the attacks has been identified to be in UK. The existence of master server has never been reported before.

In order to locate the source of the attacks, we have fought against C&C servers and have gained control of 2 in 8 of them. After analyzing the logs of these 2 servers, we discovered the IP address of the master server, which is 195.90.118.xxx. This IP is located in UK. The master server is running on Windows 2003 Server Operating System..

During the past few days, the number of zombies has been estimated to be 50,000 by Symantec and about 20,000 by Government of South Korea. But, by taking control of two C&C servers and analyzing logs on these servers, we count the exact number of zombies that have been querying C&C servers to receive commands. Accordingly, there have been 166,908 zombies from 74 countries around the world that have been used for the attacks.

Top 10 zombies host countries

No COUNTRY
1 Korea, Republic of
2 United States
3 China
4 Japan
5 Canada
6 Australia
7 Philippines
8 New Zealand
9 United Kingdom
10 Vietnam

Having located the attacking source in UK, we believed that it is completely possible to find out the hacker. This of course depends on the US and South Korean governments. We have sent KrCERT and US-CERT the IP address of the attacking source.

Nguyen Minh Duc
Senior Security Researcher / Bkis Security Director

Bkis has sent the detail of research and the information of the master server in UK to US-CERT and KrCERT.

At present, US-CERT and KrCERT are cooperating to investigate the attack source.