May Day messages at Hong Lim

Fish will be at Hong Lim

Some of you may still remember Feed Me to the Fish and his passion to protect Singaporeans and their children from this questionable 6.9m population that is akan datang. Some are now flying the kite of 10m which will make 6.9m looks small and much more acceptable. We have yet to hear someone knowledgeable or responsible to tell the people the other side of the story, of what 6.9m could mean, the consequences and effects of such a huge population in such a small piece of rock. Nay, no one that is worth something, in monetary terms, will want to say something silly like this.

Fish may have left us for nearly three months. He was there at Hong Lim during the first Rally with his whole family. I am sure he will be there in full spirit to support the call for not going the 6.9m way. Fish is not going away, quietly.

The Spirit of Singapore is in people like Fish and all the Singaporeans who care and are concerned for the future of the island and their children.  Would there be more Singaporeans in Hong Lim today or will apathy take over and Singaporeans just resign to their 6.9m fate? I can understand those who think this 6.9m is a good idea for not attending the Rally. For those who disagree and do not want to see 6.9m in the near future, it is their choice and opportunity to make a stand today.

How many will be there? Would Hong Lim bring Singaporeans together as a people that will stand together in a crisis? Or will Hong Lim prove that Singaporeans are a defeated people, waiting to be extinguished and to disappear, to be replaced by new migrants becoming new citizens?

Freedom arrives: What next for the Littoral Combat Ships?

This is the title of an article by Euan Graham in the Today paper on the arrival of US combat ship Freedom in Singapore. The article was on Monday’s Today. The title is catchy but the meaning is something that keeps everyone guessing and some with the naive delusion that we are going to get our freedom. Is Freedom arriving in Singapore or is it bondage, or is Singapore going to lose its freedom and be caught in many warfares that it does not intend to be involved?

The 4 combat ships are going to give the Americans a bigger bite and in tempering with the affairs of Southeast Asian countries for sure. Without the presence of military assets, they could talk and any action would take time to happen. Now it is like hanging the guns on the tight of the cowboys who are ever ready for a gun draw or a street fight.  The Freedom combat ship will make it so much easy for the Americans to shoot first and talk later.

Southeast Asia, other than Vietnam, has enjoyed a period of relative peace after the WW2, thanks to the absence of American bases here. Vietnam was embroiled in 30 years of warfare against the Americans and only regained peace and independence after driving away the occupying forces. Now the Americans are back and claiming that they are here for peace when we already have had peace all these years after Vietnam. The truth is that the region is now seeing more tension with the American’s presence and their military pivot and increasing their military assets in the region.

Peace and Freedom are the last things that the Americans will bring to Southeast Asia. The aggressive and provocative stance of the Vietnamese and the Filipinos are clear evidences of who is behind their emboldened and belligerent conduct, trying to pick a fight with China.

Just wait and see when and which part of Southeast Asia will go up in flames. The arrival of the littoral combat ships is the first sign of the return of neo colonialism in the region.

Please send this article to all peace loving people round the world. Let the world know that USA, the Evil Empire is a satanic country creating all wars, troubles and terrorists acts in every corner of the earth. Ever since its independence from Imperial Britain in 1775, the Evil Empire has been run and control by evil politicians who believe in military might to carry out permanent wars of aggressioin against other countries so as to preserve and maintain supreme power and hegemony over every country in the world.

 North Korea’s Justifiable Anger 

 

April 10, 2013

Does Obama Want More War?

North Korea’s Justifiable Anger

by STANSFIELD SMITH

The corporate media reduces the DPRK (North Korea) to the Kim family and prefaces their names with the terms “madman”, “evil” and “brutal”. Such vilifications of foreign leaders are used here not only to signify they are target for US overthrow. They are meant to intimidate and isolate anti-war activists as being out in left field for ever wanting to oppose a war against countries ruled by “madmen” – be they Saddam, Fidel, Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Qaddaffi.

Yet to a sensible person, it is crazy that the US, with nuclear weapons thousands of miles from home, in South Korea, denies North Korea has a right to have its own nuclear weapons on its own land – particularly when the North says it is developing nuclear weapons only as a deterrent because the US won’t take its own weapons out of the Korean peninsula.

Missing in what passes for discourse on the DPRK in the corporate media is that the US was conducting month-long war maneuvers last March in Korea, now extended into April, using stealth bombers, undetectable by radar, capable of carrying nuclear weapons. And this year these are not “deterrent” war maneuvers, but “pre-emptive war” maneuvers.

Would the US government and people get a little “irrational” if a foreign country that previously had killed millions of our people, sent nuclear capable stealth bombers off the coasts of New York City, Washington DC, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, there to fly around for a month in preparation for a possible nuclear attack on us? For what is called, in warped US language, war “games”?

The US may have killed 20% of the population of Korea, said General Curtis Lemay, who was involved in the US air war on Korea. If so, that is a higher rate of genocidal slaughter than what the Nazis inflicted on Poland or the Soviet Union. The Korean War may be unknown ancient history to us, but it is no more ancient history to Koreans than the Nakba is to Palestinians.

North Korea knows that history, and it is warning the US they know what to expect and are arming themselves to prevent it. Are the DPRK leaders “paranoid” or taking justifiable precautions?

What kind of deranged people call war preparations a “war game”? North Korea doesn’t think it’s a “game.” Over 4 million died in the last war to reunify their country that the US divided. If men had an annual rite called “group rape games” wouldn’t we think it a criminal misogynist pathology, and wouldn’t women be justified in being outraged and arming themselves in self-defense?

An accurate reading of the events leading up to the present situation shows that North Korea is responding to US military escalation, and in particular to US refusal to negotiate. This includes a peace treaty to end the Korean War, any steps towards reunifying Korea, the end to the US occupation of South Korea and ending the annual month-long US-South Korean war maneuvers. Even today, it includes US refusal to talk in order to lower the tensions.

North Korea was hit with US/UN Security Council sanctions for a missile launch last year. South Korea sent off a missile this year; were there any sanctions?

Since World War II there have been 9000 missile launches. 4 were by the DPRK. There have been 2000 atomic bomb tests. 3 were by DPRK. No country was sanctioned by the UN Security Council for this. No country except the DPRK. Why wouldn’t the North Koreans be incensed by this double standard, especially when the US has nuclear weapons in South Korea?

The US kill rate in the 1950-53 Korean War equaled more than one 9-11 every day, day after day, for the whole 1100 day war. US people had a scar from one 9-11.  So what kind of war scars do Koreans have?

Korea is divided because our country invaded and divided it after the Japanese surrender. The leaders of the DPRK had been fighting the Japanese since the early 1930s, and 200,000 had lost their lives. When Korean liberation was at hand in 1945, the US intervened and blocked it.

The US was supposed to leave in 1948, along with the Soviet Union, but because Kim Il Sung was likely to win planned nation-wide elections, the US made the division permanent and blocked national elections, just as it did later in Vietnam. This lead to the Korean War, the cause of the present militarization: A foreign country divided and occupied their country against their will.

We should play our part to improve the human rights situation in Korea, not only in the North but in the South as well. Both societies are more closed and controlled than our own. Whether being occupied by foreign troops, threatened with war and war maneuvers, or subjected to harsh economic sanctions, this does not facilitate free and open societies.

If we really want more rights for the people of the DPRK then we should stop pointing a gun at their head. If we listened to Kim Jong Un’s message delivered a month ago, ignored by President Obama, “We don’t want war. Let’s talk,” that would only foster a more open society there – and in South Korea, just as we know it would  here in the US.

Stansfield Smith is an anti-war and Latin America solidarity activist in Chicago who recently returned from a trip to North Korea [Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK)], with Koryo Tours. He can be reached at: stansfieldsmith@yahoo.com

6.9m, try feeling the weight

What is 6.9m going to be like in 2030? A 4 member family unit will mean 400,000 flats to house an increase of 1.6m people. This could mean two Tampines estates or equivalent land needed at least. And assuming 10% of these 400,000 households will be car owners that will be 40,000 cars on the road and more roads and parking spaces needed, and 40,000 more COEs.

If each household has a school going child, there will be 400,000 more school children running around, needing transport and schools. How many more polytechnic and university places are needed?

If each of these household is a two income family, 800,000 more jobs will need to be created.

If each family eat 4 eggs daily, 1.6m more eggs must be laid by the chickens, daily.

Just think about the consumables and multiply them by 1.6m, a lot more consumption will add on to the economic numbers.

And all this will be piled on to the already congested little islands we are living in.

Are these what we want, progress, growth, well being? Or it is all about congestion, inflation, competition, stress and strains, working and working and working for a little shoe box apartment? By then the size of flats will be determined by the hard realities around us, 6.9m will dictate your life and decide what kind of life you will be living.

Tomorrow is the Protest Rally at Hong Lim Park, 4pm. Will you be there?