Suu Kyi to decide Burma's political future

Aung San Suu Kyi's party to decide Myanmar political comeback

RANGOON (AFP) - The opposition party of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to announce its return to the official political arena on Friday after years of marginalization by ruling [totalitarian] generals.

Senior members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) are to gather in Rangoon to decide whether to re-register as a political party, after boycotting elections last year -- the first to be held in Burma for 20 years.

• US Campaign for Burma
  
• AUDIO: Burma to Chair ASEAN (The World.org)
• Burma calls for sanctions to be lifted (WSJ), which explains why the military is making a show of treating Suu Kyi well.

Democracy in Burma? The US military would sooner force our version of democracy on Afghanistan through the barrel of a gun -- as Family Guy's Stewie and Private Brian find.

The NLD won a landslide victory in polls in 1990 but the win was never recognized by the then-ruling [military dictatorship] junta.

The party refused to take part in last November's vote mainly because of rules that would have forced it to expel imprisoned members. Suu Kyi was under house arrest at the time.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has spent most of the last two decades in detention, was released a few days after the polls and now appears to be planning an entrance to the mainstream political process.

"On the whole I think the great majority of our people will go in for re-registration," 66-year-old Suu Kyi told the BBC on Thursday. More

Kim and the Kardashians for Burma

A Buddhist Revolution in Orwell's world (video)

(Chanmyasoe) PART I. Orwell wrote 1984 about British and Burmese fascism in 1948.

"Burma VJ" (video journal) is a moving and shocking account of a recent Buddhist revolution against a totalitarian government. The popular protests that broke out across Rangoon in 2007 were brutally suppressed by police state tactics. Yet, they continue.

PART VI

This movie relies entirely on documentary footage shot by undercover reporters risking their lives to get the movement on film. It has been pieced together to form a picture of the events that took place over months.

It covers the initial protests led by Buddhist monks and nuns. Demonstrations broke out in response to a rise in fuel prices. This was a trigger on top of many government abuses and oppression. The movie also captures the brutal crack down by authorities.

Big Brother is alive and well in Naypyidaw as Ellen Page explains

A History of Revolution
Similar uprisings have taken place in other Buddhist countries: Tibet, with Chinese communist repression, Cambodia, with a violent reaction by the fascist Khmer Rogue regime, Nepal, a revolution spurred by Maoists and taken down by nervous pro-China government forces, Thailand, as Red and Yellow shirts or pro- and anti-government parties shut down the country, Laos, Vietnam, and Afghanistan (formerly Buddhist Kapilavastu), where American forces were instrumental in destroying rebellions.

Buddhist monks vow to protest

Buddhist monks rose against the totalitarian country about which Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four when it was in the British Empire (robertamsterdam.com).

Monks vow to continue Burma protest
AFP (SMH.au.com, Nov. 16, 2011)

The Saffron Revolution never really ended. Five Buddhist monks have staged a rare protest in army-dominated [totalitarian police state] Burma, at one point drawing a crowd of about 500 people with calls for peace and the immediate release of political prisoners.

After talks with senior clerics, the monks said they would continue protesting in Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, for the next three days, giving a speech each day to spell out their demands.

The five in their [saffron and] maroon-clad robes kicked off their demonstration early on Tuesday [Nov. 15, 2011] by briefly locking themselves in a building in a monastic compound a day after an expected amnesty for political prisoners failed to materialize. More

Buddhist monks led a series of uprisings against an Orwellian
government called the Saffron Revolution starting in 2007.

• Sexploitation of Yoga irks Hindus
• Tourists will be banned from Dutch cannabis cafes
• Sex study sheds light on the bedroom and beyond
• Occupy London and Zurich also face eviction
  
• VIDEO: Fans go crazy for "Twilight" stars at LA premiere
• Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner walk the black carpet for "The Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn - Part 1" in Los Angeles.
• Christian monks open monastery doors

Meditating with Deepak on Wall Street (video)

Get Grounded, Deepak Chopra, Occupy Wall Street, Wisdom Quarterly

(Getgroundedtv)

October, 2011 - There was meditation at Occupy Wall Street early on. Why? Meditation is about change and evolution. It is not passive resistance. It is internal activism that blossoms into external action. From the first day of coverage of the Occupy Movement in New York Getgrounded.TV will be putting out short videos on the network until it succeeds, and a documentary down the road.

“I personally believe that you can accelerate neural development and biological evolution through video games,” says Deepak Chopra. “Unfortunately, that’s not what we’re doing right now. What we’re doing is creating addictions to violence, adrenaline, and mindlessness, rather than mindfulness.”

Still from Leela, a meditation video game for Xbox 360

“[V]iolent games stress you out? Would you like to meditate to a soothing video game after a long day’s work? If so, spiritual guide Deepak Chopra and THQ may have a game for you. Called Leela, a word that means “play” in Sanskrit, the game uses Microsoft’s Kinect or the Wii Remote to combine the world of games with breathing and meditation exercises, reports the AP. More

The Buddha's Peaceful Protest

Seven, Amber Dorrian, CC Liu (Wisdom Quarterly)
(serenescentsations.com)

Peaceful demonstrations, anti-war protests, sit ins, teach ins, and the like have a long history in Buddhism. The Buddha's own life holds one great example that may have been the model for Burma's Saffron Revolution as Buddhist monks rose up to defy the totalitarian Burmese regime. He repeatedly and peacefully came between two neighboring kingdoms to prevent war. He occupied a spot by the river to bring peace. Eventually, however, he realized that their karma was such that he could only put it off. He had the penetrating insight to eventually realize that. We do not. So we are wise to continue our demonstrations indefinitely.

What peace looks like, which is what NYC's Z Park can look like if the peace is won.

• Thus have I heard. At one time petty squabbles arose between the farmers on both sides of the Rohini river. The river served as the boundary between the Shakyan [where Siddhartha grew up before setting off on a spiritual quest] and the Koliyan kingdoms. Each side was trying to divert as much water as possible to their fields. Finally, these conflicts led to a major confrontation between two armies. The Buddha becoming aware of this arrived on the scene. At first just his presence forced the sides eager for war to rethink their actions. But their selfishness, anger/fear at one another, and ignorance about what was to be lost as a result of war brought them again to the verge of war.
  

The Buddha's "sit in" on the Rohini river to prevent war became a "teach in."

• The Buddha exhorted them on the calamitous results of war and the many advantages of arriving at a peaceful resolution and just settlement. In this way, war was averted and peace restored. It is said that the Buddha has so far been the only religious teacher to visit a battlefront in person to act as a mediator that averts war which, once triggered, never really plays itself out. People, groups, and ideologies want to retaliate even centuries later. Why? It is because the roots (greed, hate/fear, delusion) that led to war have not been addressed at all.

"The people united will never be defeated," Zuccoiti Park patriots chanted as they continued to occupy a corporate creation for peace and economic justice.

War is exhausting itself. Peace is a rest. Peace is easy. Peace is natural. War opposes peace. Peace does NOT really oppose war: It just is. Peace that "opposes" war is not peace, just more war.

Peace is a state in the absence of conflicts. Nonconflict is just a base, not a goal in itself. Beyond peace we want harmony, happiness, growth, development, opposition, cultural evolution.

Conflict is neither good or bad except that what we do with it (how we respond) makes it so. What is the cause of war and peace? Each is due to the various motives in our heart/mind.

The happy resolution (repose) of thoughts that fall under the categories of greed, hate, and/or delusion certainly lead to peace. Permanent peace will only come when one has completely eradicated these mental defilements. Wars will cease and peaceful dialogue between individuals will lead to a world of peaceful and harmonious living.

• Occupy Together: The American Autumn gets heated
• Occupy Wall Street rediscovers radical imagination

Why Occupy, why Rebel?

Occupy Berkeley in the Sixties (video)

Wisdom Quarterly, Occupy Boston, Occupy Los Angeles, AlJazeera.net, Occupy Wall Street

Joined by labor unions, protesters march from Foley Square to Zuccotti Park, NY (Reuters/AlJazeera).

UC Berkeley was occupied giving rise to a generation of activists (Criticalthinking007)

"You will respect my authoritay!" is the police mantra chanted around the country. Teachers, unions, professionals can all join students, activists, and elderly demonstrators. The mantra is the same. As now, so in the 1960s. Then it was illegal wars, racism, and a lack of civil rights for all. Today the issues are far more pressing -- a matter of survival. Having enough to eat as bankers give a new spin to the ancient "Let them eat cake" utterance that preceded the French Revolution commemorated by Bastille Day. Wall Street onlookers from on high giggle "Let them sip champagne."

• College students, nurses join Occupy Boston
  
• Occupy Wall Street: Los Angeles Branch
• Occupy Washington DC starts tomorrow
  

"People over Profits" as transport unions join Occupy Wall Street demonstration.

Power to the People
AlJazeera.net
A diverse group of powerful unions has joined demonstrations in New York's financial district, lending some focus, credibility and potentially hundreds of participants to a movement that began with a few university students.

The "Occupy Wall Street" protest movement, which began three weeks ago in New York's financial hub, was joined on Wednesday by a dozen US labor unions.

Among those who joined the clamor were members of the Chinatown Tenants Union and the Transit Workers Union, the liberal group MoveOn.org, [CodePink,] and community organizations such as the Working Families Party and United NY. More

(MORE)

Purging the Police (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

“Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -Ben Franklin (stevequayle.com / infowars/prison planet)

The police and paramilitary personnel will be the second to go when the purge comes. First they will be used to terrify, violate, arrest, and kill "undesirables" as defined by the military-industrial complex establishing a new "world order." It sounds Orwellian, and it is coming from the mouths of libertarians not liberals. Why would the state (NSA, CIA, TSA, White House, NSC, FBI, Homeland Security) and, moreover, the Shadow Government (NorthCom, higher level Pentagon, DUMBs) kill police after using them to implement plans against a resisting population? Why would they kill them before? They are needed to do the dirty work of betraying civilians before they get hung out to dry by those giving them orders.

Police State III

• The Unexamined Orwell [1984]
• Yes, it is a police state
• Tell me what a police state looks like
  
• Orwellian language of NHS "reform"
• NORTHCOM plans 5-day Martial Law exercise
  
• Napolitano dismisses report over "Orwellian...Big Sis" view

India trying to woo Burma from China

Harsh V. Pant (special to The Japan Times)

LONDON — Even as a senior Burmese diplomat in Washington has defected, Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has suggested that some people, both at home and abroad, have deceived themselves into thinking a new government has brought change to her country.

Political dynamic is undergoing a slow transformation in Burma (aka Myanmar) and the neighboring states are being forced to respond accordingly.

USCampaignForBurma.org

Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna was in Rangoon (aka Yangon) last month to engage the new civilian government which came to office in March. His visit came a year after the visit of Myanmar's reclusive military leader, Gen. Than Shwe, to India.

[As a ruthless military dictator supported by relatives in China, Than Shwe] heads the State Peace and Development Council. India rolled out a red carpet for him and signed a raft of pacts including treaties on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, counter terrorism, development projects, science and technology and information cooperation. More

(quicktake)

• China Burma India Theater
  
• Senators ask Spy Chief: Are you tracking us through iPhones?
• Secret Weapons Now Beaming Into Your Skull
• "White House press briefing" on Roswell
• Discovery of worms in Earth raises questions about life in space
• Truth about Shuttle - It should have been retired 25 years ago
• Cryptozoology-Botany: Remembering dragons II
• Lochness Monster (Nessie) sighted on land
• Flying cars approved in United States
• Tobacco, a colonial addiction
  

Legal slavery under Burma's dictatorship

uscampaignforburma.org

Elsewhere in Asia, policeman attempts to beat Tibetan Buddhist monk to assert Chinese rule (damncoolpictures.com). China is Burmese dictatorship's main support.

Why Being Forced into Military Labor Can Be a Death Sentence for Convicts in Burma

TIME.com

Yay Zoe was not yet midway through an 18-month sentence in Miektila prison in central Burma when he found himself among some 70 inmates assembled for transfer. He assumed he was destined for one of the government's many labor camps.

Authorities, however, felt he would be more useful to them elsewhere: he was bound and trucked to the country's eastern border, where he was forced to serve as a porter for soldiers fighting ethnic-minority forces.

A group of porters carry goods for Burmese soldiers in a village in Karen state (undated photo released by Free Burma Ranger/AP).

The backbreaking duty of carrying mortars and rice sacks all day with meager provisions of food and water was the least oppressive part of his ordeal. The 21-year-old said he was regularly beaten by soldiers and forced into veritable suicide missions.

On three occasions, he was ordered at gunpoint to spearhead patrols through a minefield by prodding the ground with a bamboo stick. "Whenever I touched a landmine, I was forced to dig it out with a knife. My hands trembled because I assumed I was about to die." More

• Thailand scrape past Burma
• Shan Women condemn Burma Army of using rape as war weapon
• ASEAN sensitive to world opinion on Myanmar
• Washington: another Burmese diplomat asks for political asylum
• 2nd Myanmar diplomat defects in Washington
• HRW: Myanmar torturing prisoners
• Burmese convicts "forced to serve on front"
• Rights group: Myanmar uses "convict slave labor"
• Lao PM Myanmar visit further enhances bilateral friendship, co-op
• Second Burmese Defector Was Summoned Home, Says Kyaw Win
• Burma accused of using prisoners to clear landmines
• Killer python trial: Couple guilty on all counts
• Burma's army uses convicts as "human mine sweepers" - HRW