January 3, 2015 - No. 1

20th Anniversary of CPC(M-L)'s Historic Initiative

Nation-Building in Canada Can
Only Mean One Thing

20th Anniversary of CPC(M-L)'s Historic Initiative

Nation-Building in Canada Can Only Mean One Thing

"Nation-building in Canada can mean only one thing: that the working class
must provide society with a modern constitution, with a modern political
mechanism, with a change in the direction of the economy and
with independence."
- Hardial Bains, January 1, 1995 -

Twenty years ago, at a time when all political forces were busy manoeuvring to place themselves in power so as to administer the state in their own favour, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) launched a plan of action to put the working class in power at the head of nation-building. This Historic Initiative was launched by the Party's founder and leader Hardial Bains on January 1, 1995. It calls for a modern constitution which places sovereignty in the hands of the people and for democratic political mechanisms which ensure that it is the people who must govern themselves. It also calls for the rational and conscious re-organization of the economy, changing its direction to serve the well-being of the people.

It was very moving to hear Hardial Bains describe not only the details, paying attention to the objectivity of consideration, but also the interaction and the key -- the decisive role of organizing the human factor, social consciousness.

"This plan of action is so concrete and covers all aspects of organizing in such detail that the success of any of its aspects will lead to the success of the whole while the failure of any one or other of its aspects will have no effect on the outcome of the plan. More importantly, and as a decisive thing in victory, it puts the human factor, social consciousness, in first place, in the place which determines everything," Comrade Bains said at the time.

Speaking on January 1, 1995 when he launched the Historic Initiative, Hardial Bains explained:

"In the work of peoples and nations one of the most important and crucial aspects is what happens to all the energies which are engendered in the work. Are they utilized for a very definite aim or are they simply squandered? Today on the world scale, generally speaking, there are very few countries which have set an aim for themselves, an aim for the benefit of society, for the well-being of the people. (...) In Canada, as far as the Canadian people are concerned, there is no aim towards which all the resources are directed. The only aim which is presented by the governments at various levels is one of creating an environment for the success of the monopolies in the global market. And even that aim has mainly propaganda value, claiming that the prosperity of the country depends on the monopolies becoming successful in the global market.

"In medieval times, in the dark ages, the aim was set by the ruling forces, by the church and the feudal lords. It was directly self-serving in the name of some divine power. All the productive forces and all the assets of society were directed towards the satisfaction and greater glory of those forces. There came a time when a break took place with the medieval attitude; then people were defined according to their individual rights, and the jurisdiction and boundaries of the state were drawn in their defense. The aim was set so that all the resources available to society would be directed towards the greater glory of individual rights. However, this then blocked the satisfaction of collective rights.

"The whole period of nation-building became the main content of the democratic revolution. Once the modern bourgeoisie gained the upper hand, the satisfaction of individual rights became the sole aim of nation-building. With the rise of the monopolies, the banner of the nation was thrown in the mud. The states were consolidated and their role developed in the interest of the ruling circles themselves or the financial oligarchy. For instance, American propaganda speaks about defending the national interests of the U.S. everywhere, but it does not speak about what the Americans want to accomplish in this world. Canadians do not have an aim either.

"The only exception was the period of the 'dirty thirties' when the bourgeoisie was facing the disaster of the Depression. It was terrified that it would lose everything if the aim of satisfying the collective interests was not put in place. Thus, in the late thirties and after the war various countries gave themselves the aim of building a social welfare state. In Canada, by the 1960s, they presented the aim of building a 'just society' and spoke about a 'sacred trust' which must be defended, and so on. This was also in response to the aim which the Soviet Union as a socialist country had set for itself -- that is, to satisfy the ever-rising material and cultural needs of the people.

"Now the collective interests are once again on the chopping block. All sorts of demagogy is used and all kinds of promises are made, but the net result has been the rejection of all that was said before about social welfare. This is done under the pretext that making payments on the debt to decrease national indebtedness is the most important aim at this time. On the basis of the claim that this is the best thing for the collective and for society, people are being called upon to make all the sacrifices.(...)

"In the Historic Initiative, the main question is: What should be the aim? Many times in the past various forces have set the aim based purely on the theoretical and ideological premises that we are for socialism. Can it be said that socialism is what the people should take up at this time, that at this time the working class should take up the construction of socialism as its aim and put all its resources behind this aim? Of course, such a decision can be made. It is consistent with our strategic program, but it will not stop the bourgeoisie from pushing its aims. Our consideration in setting the Historic Initiative is not merely theoretical and ideological. It is mainly how the working class must stop the bourgeoisie from squandering the national resources, the independence of the country and its well-being. What is the slogan which the working class must present in order to defeat the bourgeoisie and rally the masses of the people to its side? The answer to this question is to use the resources for the collective interests.

"The slogan of nation-building is appropriate not only because it opposes what the bourgeoisie is talking about -- that everybody should create an environment for the success of businesses in the global market -- but also because it arouses the people to take into their own hands what belongs to them and to create a society which will favour them. Of course, when everything is said and done, nation-building today is equivalent to the construction of socialism, but to present matters in this way will be making an extremely serious blunder. A program has to be set not from the point of view of theory, but from the needs of society at a particular time. Canadian society needs an aim at this time. The Canadian people need an aim which can be easily understood and appreciated by everyone. This aim can only be the aim of nation-building. Of course, the main content of this project is that the working class must constitute itself the nation. In other words, the aim of the working class must become the aim of the nation, just as the bourgeoisie in its ascendency put its aim, the aim of defending individual interest, private property, as the aim of the nation and even subordinated the nation to this aim.

"The time has now come for the working class to constitute itself the nation. It must establish its own aim as the aim of the nation. In other words, the working class itself must take up the question of nation-building. It must lead the broad masses of the people to take up this aim as well. It is not possible for the working class to channel all its resources at this time without taking up the aim of satisfying the collective interests of society. This amounts to nation-building. Nation-building in Canada can mean only one thing: that the working class must provide society with a modern constitution, with a modern political mechanism, with a change in the direction of the economy and with independence.

"The issue does not change, whether we speak of the nation of Quebec, or Canada, or the nations of the indigenous peoples. When we speak of the sovereignty of Quebec, it is the working class which should take up the aim of nation-building at the point which is most favourable for the working class. On the day the Yes-vote wins the referendum on sovereignty, the working class must give the slogan of nation-building and constitute itself as the nation. At the same time, it must fight for a change in the direction of the economy, for a modern constitution, for democratic renewal, and for independence.

"The Historic Initiative is aimed at causing a discussion on the question of nation-building amongst the broadest masses of the people by using all the resources available to us. The Historic Initiative is a plan of action, the main objective of which is to ensure that a discussion on this question takes place. In other words, its aim is to get the working people to set the agenda of nation-building. Within this framework, the other aim for the working class is to create the conditions for the formation of the mass communist party. This means that one of the most important tasks in the Historic Initiative is to appropriate the best from the present and the past. It means that there is a need for work to develop and to enrich the content of contemporary Marxist-Leninist thought. It means to look at all phenomena and all events, and to promote those which favour the working class and favour the aim of nation-building."

Comrade Bains elaborated further:

"Besides appropriating what is best from the past, communists can find solutions to the complicated problems of the present. Only communists can lead the society to march on the high road of civilization. Only they can invoke and bring forth those theories, those human notions which are necessary to open the path for the progress of society at this time.

"The Historic Initiative is launched to call upon the working class and the broad masses of the people to bring to the fore the best that humankind has produced until this time and to develop it to the level necessary for the deep-going transformations which are the order of the day. In other words, it is a program to put the working class at the centre of all developments. More precisely, it is a program to put the human factor, social consciousness, at the centre of all developments. Of all the ingredients necessary to build a project, one has to decide clearly which ingredient is more important and crucial and which ingredient is less important. If the human factor is not there in the project of nation-building, no amount of scientific technical revolution, no amount of efficiency, no amount of other natural and social resources will make a difference.

"The human factor cannot be brought to the level necessary for these transformations unless there is social consciousness, unless there is debate and discussion amongst the broadest masses of the people, unless there is a real revolutionary movement with a mass character. In other words, the Historic Initiative is designed to create these conditions and to ensure that many of these aspects actually develop as essential factors in the creation of the subjective conditions for revolution. The human factor, in the final analysis, is the crucial factor. It is not possible to bring all the factors into play without the human factor."

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of CPC(M-L)'s Historic Initiative, it is more urgent than ever to activate the human factor, social consciousness so as to take up the aim of nation-building and build the mass communist party to turn historic success into historic victory. The country is entering an election year where everything the ruling circles peddle is counterfeit, a fraud. The anti-human factor, anti-social consciousness dominates the actions of the major political parties, spokespersons of the financial oligarchy and monopoly owned and controlled media, in the hopes that the working class will lose its bearings and take sides with this or that faction of the bourgeoisie seeking to usurp power through an electoral fraud. CPC(M-L) will intervene in the election for purposes of imbuing the working class with the aim of nation-building which can only mean one thing: "the working class must provide society with a modern constitution, with a modern political mechanism, with a change in the direction of the economy and with independence."

Today, even more so than 20 years ago, the Historic Initiative spearheaded by CPC(M-L) is crucial for all those who want to make a contribution to opening society's path to progress.

All Out to Turn Historic Success into Historic Victory!

Communism and Human Rights

On Combating Fascism and Not Being Deceived
by Its More "Human" Face

- Anne Jamieson -

With a federal election looming in the coming year and the monopoly media promoting this or that personage to represent and manage things for the financial oligarchy, it is very worthwhile at the present time to review some writings of Hardial Bains and CPC(M-L) on fascism and how it is being combated.

"A bourgeois democracy is, at once, a democracy for the bourgeoisie and real dictatorship over the people. When the political and economic situation is in good shape and modern capitalism is expanding, the bourgeoisie gives the impression of what is called liberal democracy but as soon as the situation deteriorates and the contradictions sharpen, it is the same bourgeoisie which espouses fascism." (Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), 1976 [1974]; p. 184-5)

Pointing to the number of times this state has committed fascism in Quebec, the author emphasizes that the Canadian state is no different, and warns:

"It is extremely dangerous to look at the state of Mussolini and Hitler not as the natural continuation of the rule of capital over labour, in more naked and vicious form, but as something else. It is extremely dangerous to create illusions about the nature of the state." (CPC(M-L), 1976 [1974]; p. 184-5)

In the Necessity for Change! analysis the author underlines the critical importance of breaking through anti-consciousness in self and in the rest of society, as a necessary step in combating the fascist ideology that is part and parcel of the bourgeois state apparatus:

"The manifestations of fascism are many, and an anti-conscious definition cannot explain them. We would suggest that the moment we believe something without undertaking the act of finding out, we are manifesting a fascist tendency. The acceptance without questioning of the fundamentals involved in a statement, an analysis or a concept is laying the basis of fascism. Cold War slogans operate in this manner, being built on half-truths and distortions." (Bains, 1998 [1967], p. 52)

Canadian soldiers take over the streets of Montreal following invocation of War Measures Act, October 1970.

With regard to the number of times the Canadian state has committed fascist acts against the people of Quebec, one has only to remember the War Measures Act, utilized by the state in 1970 to sweep up and jail hundreds of Quebecois who were suspected of sympathizing with the cause of an independent Quebec. The party in power at that time was, of course, the Liberal Party headed by Pierre Trudeau. There are numerous examples in the rest of Canada. Merely pointing to fascist tendencies and sympathies of the present Prime Minister, therefore, and suggesting by implication that the present leader of the Liberal Party, once in power, will never unleash fascist attacks on the people, is to create illusions about the Canadian state. Highlighting the fascist sympathies and intentions of Stephen Harper, without explaining it as a continuation of state policy at the present time, in effect serves the state because not only does it create illusions about the nature of the state, but it increases fear and insecurity among people without arming them ideologically and organizationally to defend themselves. The financial oligarchy and its representative in Parliament are more than happy if people are stampeded (as voting cattle) into voting for a false "alternative."

But preparations for war and fascist attacks against people at home and abroad are intensifying daily at every level of government: tight "security" in airports, ferry terminals, city streets, skytrains and subways are a fact of everyday life now. So too are arbitrary arrests and detentions of those suspected of "terrorism" or of being "illegal." (There was a case in December 2013 of an "illegal" immigrant from Mexico apprehended by SkyTrain security personnel and turned over to officials of the Canadian Border Services Agency who put her in jail at the airport, where she committed suicide -- a fact that was revealed due only to the efforts of members of the Latin American community in Vancouver).

The monopoly media degrades the cultural level of people and attempts to harden them, as does mainstream "art" that has converted itself from mere decadence and pessimism into outright propaganda for the agenda of the financial oligarchy (like the recent movie aimed against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea). It should not come as any surprise, then, that the Prime Minister harbours fascist sympathies and intentions, nor is it something apart from what people are already experiencing. The slogan of CPC(M-L) "Our Security Lies in the Fight for the Rights of All" is in direct opposition to the fascization of society.

In Combat This Growing Fascism (Bains, 1976 [1970]), the analysis of fascism -- its origins, traits and modus operandi -- is accompanied throughout by a description of (and prescription for) how Marxist-Leninists and progressive people are combating it. For example on page 15, the author notes that the whole fascist ideology of U.S. imperialism [into which nowadays the economy, politics and culture of Canada has become increasingly incorporated] is centred around confusing and mystifying three main aspects of society and life: 1. the basis of change, development and motion; 2. the role of consciousness in history; and 3. the relationship of the superstructure to the economic base. In the view of fascist and anti-people ideology, everything is static; there is no change except increasing exploitation; and anyone who opposes this is against "progress" and is against "law and order."

The agenda of the Marxist-Leninists, on the other hand, is to oppose fascist ideology on those three aspects. This necessarily means unleashing the initiative of the working class and people to organize to defend themselves and to change the world. In direct opposition to fascist ideology that offers no hope for the future of the people and for the planet, the New Year's greeting of CPC(M-L) "Our Future Lies in the Fight for the Rights of All" maintains that there is a future which can and must be fought for.

Bains, Hardial. 1998 [1967]. Necessity for Change! Ottawa: Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).

Bains, Hardial. 1976 [1970]. Combat This Growing Fascism. Toronto: Norman Bethune Institute.

Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) 1976 [1974]. "Summing Up the Stage of Discussion Between CPC (M-L) and En Lutte!" in On Unity of Marxist-Leninists. Montreal: CPC(M-L).

56th Anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution

Long Live Revolutionary Cuba!

This year the Cuban Revolution celebrates its 56th anniversary as always on a fighting footing to preserve Cuba's independence and the right of the Cuban people to set their own course. This year the struggle takes on added significance in the light of Cuba's victory on December 17. On that date President Barack Obama announced to the entire world the failure of U.S. policy towards Cuba and the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the island. The Cuban people also welcomed home the three remaining Cuban heroes who had been imprisoned for 16 years in U.S. jails in an attempt to humiliate Cuba. Instead, their return fulfilled the pledge of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Comrade Fidel Castro who said in 2001, "They Shall Return."

On this occasion, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sends militant revolutionary greetings to Comrade Fidel Castro, legendary leader of the achievements of this small nation of heroic people, to Comrade Raul Castro under whose leadership the Cuban people are facing ever greater challenges to overcome the pernicious effects of the criminal U.S. blockade of Cuba and to all the courageous people of Cuba as they celebrate what will surely be another year of glorious achievements.

In 2015, let us step up the work to end the criminal U.S. blockade of Cuba and strengthen people-to-people friendship!

Long Live Revolutionary Cuba!

One of many celebrations around Cuba of the 56th Anniversary of the Cuban revolution,
this one is in Santi Spiritus, December 29, 2014.

56 Years of Heroic Struggle!
56 Years of Historic Victories!

- Isaac Saney, Canadian Network On Cuba,
January 1, 2015 -

The Canadian Network On Cuba joins with the people of Cuba in celebrating the 56th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Cuba celebrates the triumph of revolution on the heels of a resounding revolutionary victory: the December 17, 2014 release of the final three of the Five Cuban Heroes and the announcement by U.S. President Obama that the United States government is taking steps toward the normalization of relations with Cuba. As much as the corporate media tries, these events cannot be divorced from the profound history in which they are embedded. The freedom of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero and Obama's initiatives are the culmination of Cuba's struggle for national affirmation, liberation, independence and social justice.

On January 1, 1959, the people of Cuba led by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro, firmly took control of their destiny. After a century long struggle, Cuba finally embarked on the path that established authentic self-determination, placing the Cuban nation firmly in the hands of the people of Cuba. The years since then are filled with rich and inspiring examples of modern nation-building, demonstrating what can be achieved when a country wins and defends its independence and exercises its right to self-determination.

The significance of the Cuban revolution extends beyond the geographical boundaries of the island nation. Since its inception, the Cuban Revolution has made an invaluable contribution to the global struggle for justice, social development and human dignity. Cuba has established an unparalleled legacy of internationalism and humanitarianism, embodying the immortal words of José Martí: "Homeland is Humanity. Humanity is Homeland." For example, more than 2,000 Cubans gave their lives to defeat the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. Today this Cuban commitment to humanity is mirrored in the tens of thousands of medical personnel and educators who have served and continue to serve across the world, battling in the trenches against disease and illiteracy. Today, this dedication to the cause of humanity is exemplified by the ongoing Cuban medical missions in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone that are engaged in fighting the Ebola epidemic. The Cuban medical mission is by far the largest sent by any country.

Cuba enters the 57th year of the Revolution as a united and conscious nation, unbowed in the face of the empire. Despite all efforts of the United States superpower to bring Cuba to her knees, the resilience and determination of the Cuban people to defend the independence and dignity of their homeland, which is the basis of their own freedom and dignity, have prevailed time and time again. As President Raúl Castro reaffirmed on December 20th, 2014, a revolutionary people, such as the Cubans, will not renounce any of its revolutionary principles. Today, as the Cuban people continue to renew their Revolution, they continue to be an inspiration to humanity, a living example that it is possible to build societies based on social relations of genuine solidarity and social love.

On the occasion of the 56th anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution, we also mark 70 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and Cuba. The Canadian Network On Cuba extends to the people of Cuba and its revolutionary leadership the warmest and most heartfelt greetings and congratulations, vowing to make headway in 2015 in the struggle to end the continuing and illegal U.S. economic blockade of Cuba.

Long Live the Cuban Revolution!

On January 1, 2015, President Raul Castro pays respect to the heroes and martyrs
of the Cuban revolution.

Diplomatic Relations Between Cuba and
the United States

- Ernesto Gómez Abascal, Alahednews, December 26, 2014 -

 Fidel Castro speaking in Havana, September 1960, a few months before U.S. broke diplomatic
relations with Cuba.

On days like these, in late December 1960, all of Cuba was preparing to face a U.S. military aggression. The revolutionary government was convinced that the shift of power from Eisenhower to Kennedy, which would occur in January, would give Washington the opportunity to attack and increasing information came of preparations in Florida and Central America to confirm this. In October I had completed my first military training, like many young Cubans, and in the new year we expected to be digging trenches around Havana.

On January 3, 1961, the U.S. announced the breaking of diplomatic relations. Now, on December 17, 54 years later, and after trying to liquidate the Cuban Revolution through all kinds of aggressive actions, including military invasions, commercial and financial blockades, sabotage, bombings and the application of all the evil plots conceived in the broad arsenal of the CIA, in which more or less 11 U.S. administrations were involved -- the Obama administration has acknowledged the failure of this policy, and announced the decision to restore and normalize relations.

"In this way we have for over half a century been trying and we have failed. Let's change it," he said, with a clear pragmatism.

Obama is neither better nor worse than other presidents before him. He represents the same imperial interests, but 54 years of failure of the anti-Cuba policy was too much. Each year in the UN General Assembly the U.S. had to face the vote on a resolution against the blockade of Cuba, which forced it to stand alone, totally isolated, joined only by the Zionist state, facing opposition from 188-189 countries, including most of its own allies.

Its influence in Latin America had lost ground at the same time as Cuba enjoyed increasing prestige. In the last year it had chaired the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which includes neither the U.S. nor Canada; hosted a meeting of the ALBA Summit (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) and another Cuba-CARICOM Summit meeting. Successful Cuban foreign policy is also evidenced in Africa and it has acted as one of the main leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement. If the United States had insisted on the same outdated position of trying to maintain Cuba's isolation preventing its participation in the Summit of the Americas, to be held in Panama this coming April, it would likely have caused the failure of this meeting, since the majority of countries in the region had announced they would not permit Cuba's absence once again.

However, there should be no illusions or delusions; the politics of the empire maintains its own hegemonic interests. Now we see they are making the same mistakes with respect to Venezuela as they did in their anti-Cuba policy for over 50 years.

Of course, the history of relations between the U.S. and Cuba has its own peculiarities, and to understand it, one must go much further back than the past half century. Nor is it only an ideological confrontation. Its roots are found in the early nineteenth century when Washington's leaders openly declared their interest that Cuba cease being a colony of Spain in order to incorporate it as another state of the Union. This interest has prevailed until today in most American politicians. They neither agree with nor accept Cuba's independence.

When this changes and they understand and accept that Cuba would fight forever if necessary to maintain its independence, then there will be normal relations between the two countries. Has Obama understood this?

211th Anniversary of the Haitian Revolution

Outstanding Victory for Freedom and Human Rights

"Combat de Vertières" by Patrick Noze, oil on canvas, from Haitian Art in the Diaspora. The
Battle of Vertières was the decisive conflict of the Haitian revolution, fought in November 1803

January 1, 2015 marks the 211th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution. On this date in 1804 in Gonaïves, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed Haiti's independence, signalling the formation of the world's first black republic, the Republic of Haiti.

The Haitian Revolution was the only slave revolt which led to the founding of a state. Furthermore, it is generally considered the most successful slave rebellion ever to have occurred and as a defining moment in the histories of both Europe and the Americas. The revolt began with a rebellion of black African slaves in April of 1791. It ended in November of 1803 with the French defeat at the Battle of Vertières. Haiti became an independent country on January 1, 1804, with Jean-Jacques Dessalines being chosen by a council of generals to assume the office of governor-general.

The Haitian Revolution was an earth-shattering development in the struggle for the emancipation of labour all over the world and the establishment of citizenship rights on a modern basis. Starting from 1791, Haitian revolutionaries led by Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines successfully fought off successive European powers -- the French, Spanish and British -- until they eventually overthrew both slavery and colonial rule.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines (left) and Toussaint L'Ouverture 

However, from that point until the present, great efforts have been made by the colonial and imperial powers to interfere in the development of the Haitian nation and block the realization of the aspirations of those courageous human beings who freed themselves from their condition of slavery and bondage.

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sends its militant revolutionary greetings to the Haitian people, both in Haiti and in the diaspora, on the occasion of their history-making anniversary. The renewed enslavement of Haiti and the deplorable conditions imposed on it by the U.S. and other foreign powers attest to the profound racism and inhumanity of these big powers and the need to settle scores with them once and for all. The crimes Canada itself commits and condones in Haiti tell us all there is to tell about what the Canada of the Monopolies stands for.

All Out to Support the Haitian People to See that Justice Is Done!

Impeach Martelly: A Solution for Civil Society in Haiti

- Ezili Danto*, December 6, 2014 -

Tear gas fired at protesters during December 6, 2014 demonstration in Port-au-Prince.

There is no acceptable and peaceful solution to the current Haiti constitutional crisis other than the immediate impeachment of Michel Martelly by the only active democratic entity left in Haiti: the Senate. The Deputies are out of session and when their vacation is over, so are their terms in office. The terms of 10 out of the 20 remaining Senators will also be over on January 12, 2015.

The people of Haiti have not remained silent as Martelly-Lamothe tried to sell-off -- by decree -- the country's offshore islands, pristine areas, mineral wealth and to give away Haiti's assets to the imperialists, amongst other things.

The issue raised is how to legally remove Martelly from office even though he was far from legitimately elected? This is an issue that Haitians participating in the rising protests throughout Haiti have put in the background. It urgently needs to be brought to the forefront. We do not want Haiti's traditional enemies to capitalize off the current Haiti protests and chaos and launch their military to "bring order back" to Haiti. A Haiti solution must be administrated that is a ratification of the protestors' very legitimate concerns for democratic governance and to free Haiti.

Martelly can legally be removed from office through impeachment. Haiti has always added an unofficial public referendum to that official procedure.

For whatever reason, the Internationals have pulled back their UN-PMSC guns in Haiti and allowed more and more space for the people of Haiti to protest against the U.S. puppet regime in Haiti. Almost every day, there are anti-government demonstrations. Some call it Haiti's "Operation Burkina Faso" and it's meant as a peaceful, nationwide mobilization, like the one that occurred in Burkina Faso, to take down dictatorship and install a sovereign Haiti. On December 6, 2014, there were major anti-governmental protests in the three major cities of Port au Prince, Aux Cayes and Cap Haitian. Although tear gas was fired at the protesters the marchers actually reached the front of the National Palace.

If the rising protests throughout Haiti are any indication of people power in a democracy, then the people have publicly impeached the Martelly-Lamothe regime many times over. This time, it's not the fake U.S.-George Soros, NGO-created "populous uprising" of Haiti 2004. This 2014 Haiti referendum -- Pèp souvren pran lari, li ba Mateli Kanè -- openly and dangerously confronts the military, economic, diplomatic and political commands of the all-powerful United States and their UN troops in Haiti. The UN troops act as the old bloody Haiti army to keep the neoDuvalierist, Martelly-Lamothe regime, in power. We've seen this with the OAS sanctions of Martelly's questionable election in 2011 as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton's various take over initiatives after the catastrophic earthquake.

Demonstration in Port-au-Prince, December 13, 2014

Haiti is under occupation with nearly 10,000 foreign troops on its soil. The illegal and unpopular Martelly-Lamothe regime has been allowed to run amok with no Parliamentary oversight for three years.

There's a small window of opportunity open for the 20 Senators, who are the only active political authority left in Haiti with a semblance of legal power to impeach Martelly and move the country forward with fair and honest elections.

Every other idea out there to handle this sham democracy without taking down the UN presence; every notion to keep the facade going with an extension of the expiring Parliamentary terms of office, or an amendment to the Constitution or for Martelly to remain in office, et al, risks [prolonging] Haiti's brutal suffering and plunging the country into more crisis, more extra-constitutional institutions and more clashes with the U.S.-trained, Ferguson-style, militarized police; more tear gas killing 3-month old babies and more imprisonment of protestors.

Where are the UN troops in Haiti? Haitians in their right minds see the sudden pull-back as a tactical decision and not a desire, as the head of the UN Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), Sandra Honoré, has put forward, to respect the people's right to peacefully protest.

A Haitian Senator put it correctly: "Why would you expect certain people to care about fair policies in Haiti when in the U.S. Black lives do not matter. Why would they care about Haitians when in the U.S. Blacks are choked like animals and grand juries justify the slaughter."

Time is of the essence to save Haitian lives and property before the January 12, 2015 fifth anniversary of the earthquake arrives and the repugnant international media lands in Haiti, once again, to feed their ratings on the "failed Haiti" spiel, the "proud and suffering Haitians" spiel and the "failed-Haiti-reconstruction-after-the-quake" chorus line.

To reinforce democratic institutions, the 20 Senators should listen to the people of Haiti who they serve, stop allowing Martelly-Lamothe to make their parliamentary existence futile and in one legal motion, lower the majority to 11, indict and unanimously impeach Martelly (...) as soon as possible.

(...)

Martelly-Lamothe have ruled Haiti by decree and obstruction of Parliamentary duties for three years. They've blocked general elections, unilaterally appointed their cronies to mayoral, municipal and regional offices, imprisoned protestors and blocked indictment for impeachment in the lower house for three years. They have no right to benefit from their ill-gotten gains. Today, the Lower House gridlock can be resolved without their impediments by the only remaining active parliamentary authority with any semblance of legal authority in Haiti: The 20 Senators. And no one is qualified to call into question procedural deficiencies or the integrity of this process if carried out by the Senate to safeguard Haitian life and national security.

The Senators are the obvious legal transitional body to meet the people's Constitutional demands towards sovereignty, release of the political prisoners, setting up commissions with the people's participation to investigate corruption and guard against further foreign interference in Haiti's political, civil and economic life. This would be the beginning of a Haiti solution to the current crisis.

* Ezili Danto is executive director of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network.
(For the entire article see here)

Venezuela

President Maduro Calls for Reforms to
Tackle Economic War

Mass rally in Caracas, Venezuela, December 15, celebrates 15 years of the Bolivarian
constitution and rejects U.S.imposition of sanctions.

The President of Venezuela acknowledged his administration has yet to defeat the economic war being waged against the country by sectors of Venezuela's business class as well as the United States, but says the country needs to change its economic model.

President Nicolas Maduro gave a year-end assessment of his administration at an international press conference Tuesday, December 30, announcing that in the coming year the country would undergo a major change of economic policies to address the 'economic war' being waged against it.

Maduro recalled the "guarimbas," the violent demonstrations fomented by the most radical factions of the right-wing in February last year, demanding the president's "exit" -- just two months after his party won the local elections.

In addition to the loss of "43 compatriots" killed during the violence as well as damage to public infrastructure, Maduro said this was the beginning of the most recent phase of the economic war conducted against Venezuela by these sectors.

"Inflation is not a neutral number; rather it is a result of an economic war," he explained, comparing the current situation to the year 2002, when Venezuela's business confederation and right-wing unions organized a prolonged strike prior to attempting a coup against former President Hugo Chavez.

"This year's destabilization was the most violent attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government since the coup attempt of 2002," added Maduro.

The Venezuelan leader said that while the violence was brought under control, the second half of the year brough on an "escalation of the economic war."

Maduro suggested that the dramatic drop in oil prices -- at least 50 per cent in six months -- is part of an effort principally to attack the Russian economy, but it is also directed at South America´s leading oil producer, Venezuela. The president referenced an interview given by U.S. President Barack Obama wherein he acknowledged coordinating attempts against Russia's oil-based economy.

Washington is waging economic war against Venezuela, as it has against Cuba or more recently against the Russian economy, as Barack Obama has acknowledged.

"Their goal is to destroy OPEC, to destroy oil prices, which will have other collateral effects that will be disastrous for the South, and for the world. It is a war," Maduro claimed.

The Venezuelan president outlined a plan aimed at "changing the economic model," including three phases of six months, two years, and four years.

Part of the immediate reforms announced include the appointment of a board of directors of the Petróleos de Venezuela (Sociedad Anonima), (PDVSA), Venezuela's state owned oil and natural gas company, with "a plan to diversify the oil company's national and international investments."

Maduro also outlined a 7 point economic policy to be implemented starting January 3 which includes:

1. optimizing investments in social programs, infrastructure, etc, while stabilizing prices;

2. maintaining and increasing investments in the socialist economy;

3. guaranteeing the necessary resources for the functioning of the economy, especially the provision of foreign currency;

4. adjusting policies in order to better combat smuggling;

5. building a broad productive alliance including special economic zones;

6. setting up a new productive model for state and occupied enterprises; and

7. putting in action the new central agency for the planning and re-activation of the economy.

These measures will be overseen by a team appointed by the new state agency, who will implement the measures including:

1. the implementation of a new, unified exchange system;

2. the implementation of a fiscal reform;

3. the optimization of public investment;

4. the strengthening of foreign currency reserves and the creation of a reserve investment system in bolivars (Venezuela's currency);

5. the application of a system of fair prices;

6. the control of excess liquidity, in order to help stabilize prices; and

7. the implementation of special economic zones.

(Telesur, December 30, 2014)

Mexico

Human Rights Commission to Examine Army Role in Disappearance of 43 Students

December 1, 2014 demonstration in Mexico city demands justice for missing students and an
end to government impunity.

The President of Mexico's Human Right's Commission (CNDH) has announced that the Commission will investigate the role of the Mexican army in the disappearance of 43 Mexican students in Iguala, Guerrero in September.

After meeting the parents of the students, human rights ombudsman Luis Raul Gonzalez told reporters December 27 that the CNDH has requested the Mexican army provide a report of its actions in Iguala on September 26, when the students went missing.

That night the Iguala municipal police and armed masked men kidnapped 43 students from Ayotzinapa teachers training college, and allegedly handed them over to a local drug gang. According to Mexican authorities the students were burned to ashes.

The remains of one of the missing students, Alexander Mora, were identified by Austrian forensic scientists earlier in December, but the whereabouts of the other 42 students remains unknown.

The students' parents have not accepted the Mexican authorities’ version of what took place and are working with other organizations to find their sons.

In their meeting with Gonzalez the parents asked him to investigate why the Mexican army did not help the students when the military knew that they were being attacked.

Gonzalez told reporters that even though the commission has no power to investigate crimes, it will review all violations of human rights that federal forces and authorities may have committed.

New evidence indicates that federal forces not only denied help to the students the night of the attack, but even planned and participated in it, though Mexico's Attorney General, Jesus Murillo Karam, has denied any involvement by the federal police.

(Telesur, December 29, 2014)

Russia

Key Points of Vladimir Putin's Annual State of
the Nation Address

On December 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly, both chambers of Russia's parliament. The address is a document which outlines the President's positions on major policy directions not only for the coming year, but also in the longer term.

Position on the Ukrainian Crisis and Crimea's Unification with Russia

Russia has the right to pursue its own line of development, Putin said. "This applies to Ukraine as well," he said. He called hypocritical the use of the human rights issue to cover up the coup d'etat in Ukraine.

Putin recalled the Crimean referendum and the reunification of the republic with Russia. The reunification, he said, is a major historic event. Crimea has and will always have significance for Russia.

On U.S. Influence

Speaking about relations with the U.S. and Europe, Putin said Russia is guided by interests rather than sentiment in dealing with its partners.

Addressing the way Russia's dialogue with Europe and the U.S. on Ukraine is developing, the President said, "It is not by chance that I have mentioned our American friends, as they have always been influencing our relations with neighbours directly or behind-the-scenes."

"Even if some European countries have forgotten about their national pride long ago and consider sovereignty to be a great luxury, real state sovereignty is an absolutely essential condition for Russia's existence," Putin said.

On Sanctions

"Of course, sanctions are harmful, but they are harmful for everyone, including those who initiate them," Putin stressed. The Russian president said sanctions and restrictions also provide motivation to achieve set aims. Putin said the sanctions are not just a "nervous reaction of the United States and its allies" to Russia's behaviour in connection with events in Ukraine and not due to "the Crimean spring."

"The policy of containment was not invented yesterday. It has been carried out against this country for many many years -- always, one might say. For decades if not centuries," Putin said.

"Each time someone believes Russia has become too strong, and independent, these tools are used immediately," the Russian leader said.

Russia isn't going to end relations with Europe or America. In any case, Putin said, Russia has many strategic friends and partners in the world. The country will be open for the world and for attracting investments from abroad for joint projects, the president said. He set a task of increasing outside investment in the Russian economy to 25 per cent of the GDP by 2018.

On Import Substitution

Reasonable import substitution is Russia's strategic goal in the near future, Vladimir Putin said in his address. Russia should get rid of dependency on foreign equipment, including for oil drilling in the Arctic, he said. Putin stated that when foreign companies buy equipment abroad, it doesn't do Russia any good and that they should use local products. If Russia buys anything abroad, the products have to be unique. Putin set the task of creating conditions for small- and medium-sized enterprises to take part in government procurement programs.

On Foreign Support for Terrorism in Russia and Disequilibrum in the World

Since 2002, when the U.S. abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, there's been a threat of strategic disequilibrium in the world, and Vladimir Putin said; "I think this is harmful for the United States as well, because it creates the dangerous illusion of invincibility."

He noted Russia isn't going to get involved in the arms race though it will do its best to provide for its security. The president added that Russia has unconventional solutions. "We are strong because we are right," he said.

It's useless to try talking to Russia from a position of strength, Putin said. "We remember the countries that supported the terrorists in Russia ...and those people are making trouble today in Chechnya," Putin said. The terrorists, according to the president, still receive support from abroad. "Those countries want the Yugoslavian scenario to happen in Russia," he said. They will fail as Hitler failed he stated.

On Government Spending

The Defence Ministry should create a new system for control of budget spending, the President stated noting that "Improper spending in the sphere of defence can be considered a threat to national security."

He said all budget corporations should have a common treasury, and all companies with large state participation should reduce their costs several per cent each year.

On Industry Modernization

Putin said Russia is capable of modernizing its economy and being a world leader in certain industries. To achieve this, Russia has to use internal resources, like the Academy of Sciences, and attract Russian nationals from abroad. By 2020 half of Russian colleges should have training courses for the 50 most common professions, he said.

On Demographics and Care for the Disabled

Russian demography programs have proven efficient and the programs will be extended to the Crimea, Putin reported.

"The country's population is almost 144 million people, that's 8 million more than the UN outlook," Putin said. Russia has a life expectancy of over 71 years and has good possibilities to increase it to 74, he continued.

Putin thanked the Russian athletes for their participation in the Sochi Paralympic Games. Russia should increase support for the disabled, the president said, including among other things, professional training, and the production of specific goods.

(ItarTass)

Ukraine

Ukrainian Jewish Refugees to be Granted Israeli Citizenship while West Supports Neo-Nazi Parties

- Dr. Christof Lehmann -

Demonstration October 5, 2014 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa opposes Canada's support for
Ukrainian fascist forces.

The Israeli government is holding closed-door meetings about receiving some 6,000 Jewish citizens who have been displaced due to the Ukrainian civil war, reports the Israeli Maariv newspaper. Meanwhile, western support for overtly National Socialist and Ultra Nationalist parties and militants in Ukraine continues.

The cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly plans on the construction of "refugee camps" to receive the "6,000 displaced" Ukrainian Jews, reports Maariv. The construction of refugee camps to receive the 6,000 Ukrainians is reportedly being planned under the supervision of Israel's Minister of Economy, Naftali Bennett. Maariv didn't specify where these 6,000 Ukrainians should be settled.

The news comes as the death toll of a recent attack on a Jewish Synagogue in Jerusalem has risen to five and a row between the Netayahu government and the Palestinian government under President Mahmoud Abbas. While Netanyahu blames Fatah and Hamas for terrorism and for the attack, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded, blaming Israel's occupation of Palestine for causing conflict and driving people into terrorism.

The rapid spread of ultra nationalism, overtly Nazi Parties and militia, and their rapid rise to power during the Western-backed "Euro-Maidan" protests in Kiev has resulted in pogroms and threats against Jews and Jewish communities throughout Ukraine with the exception of the areas in the rebelling Donbass region which are firmly under the control of the rebelling regional governments, as well as with the exception of Crimea, which acceded into the Russian Federation after a referendum in Crimea on March 16, 2014.

Ukraine risks becoming a failed state after the pogroms, wrote contributing editor of Route magazine and nsnbc contributor Igor Alexeev as early as December 2013. Alexeev forecast the detrimental effects of the developments on Ukraine's economy which has ground to a halt. Alexeev also warned about the rise of Ukraine's Svoboda party to power. In his December 2013 article Alexeev warned:

Originally known as the Social-National Party, Svoboda is rooted in Nazi collaboration. Svoboda also honours "Ukrainian veterans" who fought with the Nazis against the Soviet Union during the Second World War in the Waffen SS-Galicia and the party is fighting against a threat which they describe as "Jew Communism." The issue has been described in an article by Michael Goldfarb in the Global Post, titled "Ukraine's nationalist party embraces Nazi ideology."

The also overtly National Socialist paramilitary UNA-UNSO, associated to Ukraine's Pravy (Right) Sector, has since morphed into the so-called "special military units" or ADS corps which are operating semi-autonomously, and are associated to command structures within Pravy Sector, the Interior Ministry, the Defence Ministry as well as foreign and NATO intelligence. The UNA-UNSO has been linked to NATO's so-called stay-behind a.k.a. "Gladio" network.

The U.S. and other western governments have consistently passed their "partners" in Ukraine off as "moderates" and rejected allegations about cooperation with Ukrainian parties and organizations with Nazi ideology.

In May 2014, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, however, admitted during a two-hour hearing before the House of Representatives, that the U.S. Administration cooperates with Ukrainian Nazis.

The cooperation with Ukrainian Nazis was, however, not limited to official members of the Obama administration. Among those directly involved in cooperating with e.g. Svoboda "leader" Tyahnbok was U.S. Senator John McCain, who is also known for making "deals" with ISIS "Caliph Ibrahim," a.k.a. al-Badri or al-Baghdadi.

Israeli military units were reportedly also involved in the coup d'état in Ukraine that lead to the rise of Nazi ideologists and the threat against Jewish citizens and communities in Ukraine.

In an article from March 14, 2014, the director of the Canada-based Centre for Research on Globalisation, Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, noted that the Jewish news agency JTA reported about the presence of units associated to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in Ukraine. JTA quotes "Delta," a member of the IDF's Givati Infantry Brigade as confirming the presence of Israeli forces during the coup d'état.

The Givati Infantry Brigade was, among others, involved in Israel's 2009 "Operation Cast Lead" against Palestine's Gaza Strip as well as in massacres in Tel El-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza, reports Chossudovsky.

While the threat against members of Ukraine's Jewish community is real, the situation poses the question whether the Netanyahu administration participated in creating the threat with the purpose to create potential new Israeli immigrants and citizens. Over the last two years, Israel experienced a marked increase of Israeli citizens who are leaving Israel for Germany, the USA, and other western countries. 6,000 new Ukrainian Jews could help the Netanyahu administration with maintaining Israel's policy of aggressive settlement expansion in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

(nsnbc international, November 19, 2014)

Film Review

Stranger than Fiction: The Interview and U.S.
Regime-Change Policy Toward North Korea

- Christine Hong, The Asia-Pacific Journal, December 29, 2014 -

Obama looks into the DPRK from what he calls “Freedom’s Frontier” on March 25, 2012.

Yet, whether they realize it or not, Americans view and naturalize North Korea through a lens that is clouded by the fog of an unfinished war. In what has unfurled as one of the strangest PR campaigns for a Hollywood Christmas release ever, the FBI’s assertions that North Korea was behind the cyberattack on Sony -- an intelligence assessment presented without evidence yet framed as self-sufficient fact by the Obama administration -- highlights the centrality of intelligence as the filter through which we are urged to perceive North Korea and other historic enemies of the United States. It is worth remarking that the two primary ways that Americans “know” North Korea are through forms of intelligence -- defector and satellite, precisely the two types of supposedly airtight evidence that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the UN Security Council in early 2003 as incontrovertible “proof” that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Then as now, information about a longstanding U.S. military target is not aimed at producing a truthful picture about that society or its leadership but rather at defeating the supposed enemy -- in short, paving the way to regime change. It is precisely within this haze of disinformation about North Korea that Hollywood churns out films that walk in lockstep with a relentless U.S. policy of regime change.

With Obama stepping into the role of booster-in-chief for The Interview, we might examine the blurred lines between what both the U.S. President and Seth Rogen have insisted is an issue of freedom of speech and artistic expression, on the one hand, and government propaganda, on the other. The collusion between Sony, the White House, and the military industrial complex, as revealed by leaked emails, merits a closer look. Not only did Obama, in his final 2014 press conference, manage to avoid any discussion of the CIA torture report, but also he gave outsized attention to a film that Sony had reportedly shelved, in effect giving an invaluable presidential thumbs-up for The Interview. With the spectacle of North Korea implausibly rearing its head in the president’s remarks as “the biggest topic today,” the pressing issue of U.S. accountability for torture, with even major media outlets calling for a criminal probe into the responsibility of former Vice President Dick Cheney, former CIA director George Tenet, legal architect John Yoo, among others, was deflected.[12] Instead, North Korea was launched to front-page news and Sony’s temporary, arguably savvy, PR decision to pull The Interview was framed, in accordance with Obama’s comments, as a capitulation to censorship by “some dictator someplace.”[13] We might ask: what political capital stands to be gained from maintaining a hard line on North Korea, at a moment of détente with Cuba? As hacked emails from the head of Sony Entertainment, Michael Lynton, disclose, Sony’s tête-à-tête with the Obama administration over The Interview must be dated back to the production stage. Having screened a rough cut of the film at the State Department, Sony appears to have queried officials, including Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, Robert King, specifically about what it worried was the over-the-top violence of the head-exploding assassination scene of Kim Jong Un (played by Randall Park). Harboring no such qualms, the State Department gave the green light.

Obama vows to respond to cyberattack on Sony at December 19, 2014 year-end press conference.

 Asked by The New York Times in a December 16, 2014 interview whether they were frightened by “the initial ambiguous threats that North Korea made,” lead actor James Franco stated, “They went after Obama as much as us,” adding in tongue-in-cheek fashion, “Because Obama actually produced the movie.” Seth Rogen, co-lead and, along with Evan Goldberg, co-director of The Interview, clarified, “They don’t have freedom of speech there, so they don’t get that people make stuff.”[14] Within the space of the same NYT interview, however, Rogen offered a less innocuous account of the production process: “Throughout this process, we made relationships with certain people who work in the government as consultants, who I’m convinced are in the C.I.A.” Indeed, in addition to State Department officials, Bruce Bennett, a North Korea watcher and regime-change advocate at the Rand Corporation, the U.S. military-funded think tank, and a consultant to the government on North Korea, also served as a consultant with Sony on this film. His primary, albeit hardly novel, thesis on North Korea is that the assassination of the North Korean leader is the surest way of guaranteeing regime collapse in North Korea. In a June 25, 2014 email to Sony Entertainment CEO, Lynton, who also sits on the Rand Board of Trustees -- an indication of Sony’s cozy relationship with the military industrial complex -- Bennett implied that a North Korean regime-change cultural narrative, by dint of its politicized reception within the Korean peninsula, might oil the machinery of actual regime collapse. As he put it, referring to his 2013 book, Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse, “I have been clear that the assassination of Kim Jong-Un is the most likely path to a collapse of the North Korean government. Thus while toning down the ending [the assassination scene] may reduce the North Korean response, I believe that a story that talks about the removal of the Kim family regime and the creation of a new government by the North Korean people (well, at least the elites) will start some real thinking in South Korea and, I believe, in the North once the DVD leaks into the North (which it almost certainly will). So from a personal perspective, I would personally prefer to leave the ending alone.”[15] In their defense of the film’s creative integrity (prior to the email leaks), both Rogen and Goldberg claimed that their decision to explicitly identify the North Korean leader of the film as “Kim Jong Un” was met with “some resistance” at Sony, yet as The Daily Beast subsequently reported, the leaked emails “strongly suggest that it was Sony’s idea to insert Kim Jong Un in The Interview as the film’s antagonist” following consultation with “a former cia [sic] agent and someone who used to work for Hilary [sic] Clinton.”[16]

Perhaps none of this should come as a surprise. Hollywood, after all, has given us Black Hawk Down, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, and other propaganda films. Yet it runs counter to a reading of The Interview as harmless entertainment, much less as a matter of freedom of speech or pure artistic expression. It might also remind us that culture, when it comes to U.S. enemies, has always been a terrain of manipulation and war. During the Korean War’s hot-fighting phase, the United States dropped a staggering 2.5 billion propaganda leaflets on North Korea as part of its psy-war “hearts and minds” operations. Throughout the Cold War, the CIA, as is well-known, funded American arts and letters in a kulturkampf with the socialist bloc, maneuvering behind the scenes to foster “democratic” cultural expressions that would, in turn, be held up as evidence of the superiority of the culture of American freedom. Today, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a supposedly non-governmental agency established in the Reagan era to do what the CIA did covertly during the Cold War and funded almost entirely by Congress, sponsors and disseminates defector narratives, what the CIA calls “human intelligence,” as the truth about North Korea. [17] Central to NED’s objectives is the promotion of “second cultural” products about target or “priority” countries, for example, the “dissemination of books, films or television programs illuminating or advocating democracy,” as a means of delegitimizing and ultimately destabilizing the leadership of “closed societies.”[18] In its work on North Korea, NED supports defector organizations in South Korea and Japan, which it mobilizes as an exogenous alternative to North Korean civil society -- a second culture whose propaganda can be infiltrated via radio broadcast, balloon drops, smuggled USB drives, and other underground distributional means into North Korea. Although leaked emails indicate that Sony’s South Korean division opted early on not to screen The Interview in South Korea, citing an aversion to its caricature of the leader of North Korea and spoof of a “North Korean” accent, South Korea’s centrality as a site for a more sinister distribution of the film might give us some pause.[19] Much along the lines advocated by Bennett, organizations like the U.S.-based, right-wing Human Rights Foundation headed by the self-professed Venezuelan “freedom fighter” Thor Halvorssen Mendoza as well as South Korean defector groups asserted their readiness, even prior to Sony’s temporary pulling of the film, to conduct illegal balloon drops of DVD copies of The Interview from South Korea into North Korea. We might note that one of the Korean subheadings on Sony’s promotional poster for the film reads explicitly to a North Korean audience: “Don’t believe these ignorant American jackasses.” Of the film’s propagandistic value, Halvorssen, who describes comedies as “hands down the most effective of counterrevolutionary devices”-- here, echoing Rogen’s cavalier assessment of the film’s supposedly subversive potential, “Maybe the tapes will make their way to North Korea and start a fucking revolution”-- told Newsweek, “Parody and satire is powerful. Ideas are what are going to win in North Korea. Ideas will bring down that regime.”[20]

Propaganda balloon drops launched into North Korea by Human Rights Foundation.

Revealingly, those who profess to be so concerned about democracy when it comes to the release of The Interview rarely, if ever, consider the profoundly undemocratic implications of Obama’s militarized “pivot” toward Asia and the Pacific. Here, Hollywood’s North Korean “bad guy” merits critical consideration against the context of U.S. policy, past and present, within a larger Asia-Pacific region in which the United States seeks to ensure its dominance. Although Barack Obama’s foreign policy is unavoidably identified with the Middle East where he has continued and intensified Bush’s interventionist policies, his foreign policy vision from the outset has been explicitly oriented toward the Pacific. As Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton signaled the significance of Asia by making it her first overseas destination, bypassing Europe, the customary grand tour destination for her predecessors. Offering a blueprint of twenty-first-century U.S. power designs within the Asia-Pacific region, which he identified as America’s “future,” “the world’s fastest-growing region,” and “home to more than half the global economy,” Obama, in a November 2011 speech before the Australian Parliament, stated, “Our new focus on this region reflects a fundamental truth -- the United States has been, and always will be, a Pacific nation.”[21] As both Obama and members of his administration have taken pains to convey, the United States must be globally understood to be “a Pacific power.”[22]

Ripped from the script of Red Dawn 2, the bait-and-switch narrative Obama has adhered to with regard to Asia and the Pacific requires North Korea to fulfill a necessary devil-function. Here, it is worth recalling that in 2012, MGM, facing a barrage of criticism from news media in China -- not coincidentally the second largest movie market in the world, one that brought Hollywood an estimated $1.4 billion dollars in the year of Red Dawn 2’s release -- announced it had decided, at the eleventh hour, to replace the film’s Chinese bad guys with North Korean villains. North Korea, of little significance as an open consumer market in today’s global entertainment industry, could be pasted in as China’s proxy, with few financial consequences. Digitally altering PRC flags, military insignia, and propaganda posters to appear “North Korean” would cost the studio well over a million dollars in the post-production phase. Although Obama’s policy toward North Korea has officially been one his advisers dub “strategic patience,” or non-engagement, North Korea has served as a cornerstone in this administration’s interventionist approach toward the Asia-Pacific region. Although an expanded American military role in the region, including a “rebalancing” of U.S. naval forces to 60% (in contrast to 40% in the Atlantic), may be aimed at containing a rising China, the growing U.S. regional military presence, under Obama’s “pivot” policy, has been overtly justified by the specter of a nuclear-armed, volatile North Korea.

Still photo from Red Dawn 2 (2012) in which the original PRC flag was digitally altered to appear as a DPRK flag.

Not merely the stuff of Hollywood fantasies, North Korea, inflated as an existential menace, has been indispensable, for example, to “the deployment of ballistic missile defenses closer to North Korea,” not to mention sales of surveillance drone technology to regional allies.[23] Indeed, central to the staging of U.S. forward-deployed missile defense systems -- Aegis, Patriot, and THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) -- in and off the coast of Hawai‘i, Guam, Taiwan, Japan, Okinawa, and South Korea (including, eventually on Jeju Island) has been the purported dangers posed by an armed, dangerous, and totally unpredictable North Korea to both the western coast of the United States and regional allies in the Pacific. In recent years, this portrait of an unhinged, trigger-happy North Korea has justified the acceleration of the THAAD missile-defense system in Guam, a second U.S. missile defense radar deployed near Kyoto, Japan, the positioning of nuclear aircraft carriers throughout the Pacific, and lucrative sales of military weapons systems to U.S. client-states through the Asia-Pacific region. Albeit all key elements in U.S. first-strike attack planning, this amplified militarization of the “American Lake” is justified by the Pentagon as a “precautionary move to strengthen our regional defense posture against the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat.”[24] As early as June 2009, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in announcing the deployment of both the THAAD and sea-based radar systems to Hawai‘i, explained, “I think we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory” from a North Korean threat. [25] In early April 2013, in a press release announcing its missile defense deployment throughout the Asia-Pacific region, the Pentagon stated, “The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and stands ready to defend U.S. territory, our allies, and our national interests.”[26] Advertised as safeguarding “the region against the North Korean threat,” the X-band radar system, which the United States sold to Japan “is not directed at China,” as U.S. officials were careful to state, but simply a defensive measure undertaken in response to the danger posed by Pyongyang.[27]

13. “Remarks by the President in Year-End Press Conference.”

14. Dave Itzkoff, “James Franco and Seth Rogen Talk about ‘The Interview,’” The New York Times, 16 December 2014.

15.Although purportedly an expert on the Korean peninsula, Bennett offers an assessment of South Korean receptivity to The Interview that is contradicted by Sony’s own internal emails. Fearing controversy, Sony’s South Korean division passed on opening the film in South Korea. For an account of how another “axis of evil” film, the Bond thriller, Die Another Day (2002), incited widespread protests in South Korea, see Hye Seung Chung, “From Die Another Day to ‘Another Day’: The South Korean Anti-007 Movement and Regional Nationalism in Post-Cold War Asia,” Hybrid Media, Ambivalent Feelings, ed. Hyung-Sook Lee, special issue of Spectator 27:2 (2007): 64-78.

16. Rottenberg, “Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg Like That Kim Jong Un Doesn’t Get the Joke”; William Boot, “”Exclusive: Sony Emails Say Studio Exec Picked Kim Jong-Un as the Villain of ‘The Interview,’” The Daily Beast, 18 December 2014.

17. On this point, William Blum writes: “Allen Weinstein, who helped draft legislation establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in 1991: ‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.’” See William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 2000), 180.

18. NED, “Statement of Principles and Objectives: Strengthening Democracy Abroad: The Role of the National Endowment for Democracy,” NED.

19. See Biddle, “Leaked Emails.”

20. Josh Eells, “Seth Rogen’s ‘Interview’: Inside the Film North Korea Really Doesn’t Want You to See,” Rolling Stone, 17 December 2014; Paul Bond, “Sony Hack: Activists to Drop ‘Interview’ DVDs over North Korea via Balloon,” The Hollywood Reporter, 16 December 2014; Katherine Phillips, “Activists to Send DVDs of ‘The Interview’ to North Korea by Balloon,” Newsweek, 17 December 2014 .

21. Barack Obama, “Remarks by President Obama to the Australian Parliament,” 17 November 2011.

22. Hillary Clinton, “America’s Pacific Century,” Foreign Policy, 11 October 2014.

23. Barbara Starr and Tom Cohen, “U.S. Reducing Rhetoric That Feeds North Korea’s Belligerence,” CNN 13 April 2013.

24. Department of Defense, News Release No. 208-13, 3 April 2013.

25. John J. Kruzel, “U.S. Prepares Missile Defense, Continues Shipping Interdictions,” U.S. Department of Defense, 18 June 2009.

26. “Department of Defense Announces Missile Deployment,” Press Release, Department of Defense, 3 April 2014.

27. Lolita Baldor and Matthew Lee, “US and Japan Revamp Defense Alliance to Counter North Korean Threat,” Business Insider, 3 October 2013.

28. Peter Symonds, “Obama’s ‘Playbook’ and the Threat of Nuclear War in Asia,” World Socialist Web Site, 5 April 2013.

29.Ibid.

30. Judy Kurtz, “FLASHBACK -- Seth Rogen: No Regrets about Making ‘The Interview,’” The Hill, 17 December 2014.

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