Friday, April 08, 2005

Conspiracy Theory or Ruling Class Studies

WALL STREET AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION By Antony C. Sutton
Found on the web the full book by Anthony Sutton a rational conspiracy researcher, he studies machinations of 20th Century business decisionsof the Wall Street movers and shakers that have had important political impacts. His focus is on the masks of capitalism, the movers and shakers of the corporate world and their political allies.

His dedication is interesting as well:

To
those unknown Russian libertarians, also
known as Greens, who in 1919 fought both
the Reds and the Whites in their attempt to
gain a free and voluntary Russia

Suttons book is an excellent supplement to Maurice Britons outstanding libertarian history of the Russian Revolution; The Bolsheviks and Workers Control. The libertarians in the Russian Revolution were centred around the Ukrainian Anarchist Nestor Makhno.

Sutton debunks the Jewish Conspiracy theory in his appendix to this book, which is printed below.
"Capitalism and Bolshevism are the two sides of the same international Jewish coin." - Adolf Hitler
This is the core conspiracy theory behind the American/English/European/Christian and Islamic belief that the Jews rule the world. One could just as well make the case for the Anglo American Alliance conspiracy theory which sees the the US and England in a long battle with the Vatican. Or that it is all an attempt by the Freemasons to enlighten the world. Or the attempt by Cecil Rhodes to revive the power of the declining English Empire with his round table group, Rhodes himself being a notorious racist and anti-semite. All these conspiracy mythos come to a single conspiracy conclusion that there is one mysterious body of leaders behind all this and it is always the same metatheory whether it is the Illuminati or the New World Order it ends up as the Jews are behind it. Since conspiracy theorists are single minded in their 'faith' that there is a single power at the top of their pyramid their metatheory always ends up as anti-semitic. Being a monolithic view that there is a conspiracy to monopolize power, the conspiracy faithful build intricate patterns of roots and branches eventually all leading to Zion. Or is it Sion? Ah well it's B.S. as Sutton correctly points out. Conspiracy theorists enamoured upon their discovery that "the history of the world is the history of secret societies"(as Ishmael Reed said in his novel Mumbo Jumbo) forget that other dictum; the ruling classes compete for power. Regardless of whether that power is to maintain the antiquated aristocracy of the various European royal families, or the Arabic clans and families, or the Indian Brahamin class, or the Japanese Samuria culture now embedded in their Corporatist State, or the American power struggle between Yankees and Cowboys ( Carl Oglesby ), it is all the same struggle. The capitalist system of politics makes each national bourgoise , the executive arm of their particular national capital and its political economy, regardless if it is a mixed economy, a private market or state capitalism. And within this national executive the Power Elite, (C. Wright Mills,) form political camps and vie for power and global hegemony. The Trilateral Commission, the Davos World Economic Forum and the Bilderburger group, are excellent examples of this ruling class conspiracy (conspiracy in the sense that these are private meetings which do not have public oversight and involve all the superstructures of the capitalist state) to maintain its power. The decisions and policies of these institutions of the ruling class elite, think tanks really, set the wheels of globalization, the WTO, and the new corporate state in motion; American Imperialism through free trade and privatization, while right wing think tanks, like the Cato institute, act as the cheerleaders for these policies . Like the story of the Wizard of Oz the conspiracy theorist needs to believe in the metatheory that the Wizard is behind it all, when in reality it is like the machinery of the Wizard; being the machinery of capitalism, the interlocking families, businesses, corporations, and the state compete to maintain their hegemony of power, and to become a monolithic hegemony (imperialism). The conspiracy theorists do us all a favour in revealing exactly the magnitude of what Chomsky calls the institutional structure of the ruling class. But rather than dismissing the conspiracy culture as Chomsky does, we should look at the facts they raise, not for their racist xenophobic conclusions, but rather as a way of assessing the machinations of the global ruling classes in all their internal conflicts to maintain their power and hegemony. This is what makes Suttons books such a damn good read. They clearly show that rather than being a monolithic conspiracy that goes back thousands of years to lost Atlantis, the corporate hegemony of the elites over the state in the twentieth century is really politics as usual under a still ascendant capitalism. In this way Sutton is not so much a conspiracy researcher, though many of his fans are, as he is a student of Ruling Class Studies. As were Caroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, another source for the conspiracy cult, Ferdinand Lundberg The Rich and the Super-Rich and William Domhoff', Who Rules America? Another excellent sociological study of an actual ruling class secret society is the doctoral dissertation by Peter Martin Phillips, A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the San Francisco Bohemian Club. This struggle of the power elites goes back to the origins of modern capitalism between 1400 and 1700 as it evolved out of fuedalism to finally challenge it with a new method of production in the 18th and 19th centuries, and a new State, certainly needs no Atlantean connection to make it worthy of study and understanding. As the power of the elites under capitalism expanded so did their riches. Which is what intriques the conspiracy faithful, they expose the inheritance of power and wealth of the elite. The fortunes of the capitalist ruling class are not made by production, sales, work, creation of factories, or jobs but by inheritence the very source as, Marx points out, of the origin of capital. The right wing in America, so enamoured of conspiracy theories, justifies this inheritance of power and wealth by the elites and the ruling classes which is ironically, the very source of their conspiracy theories.

"In a capitalist society, the institution of inheritance is more than a moral institution, it is part of the process whereby wealth is transferred to those who can best use it to serve the wishes of consumers." The Super-Rich Tax Themselves by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.


And who better to know what we want, then our rulers whose only claim to power is the wealth they did not earn but inherited from their families who have been exploiting us for centuries. How this wealth came to be, theft, murder, etc., in the hands of a small elite is not anwsered by the right wing apologists for the power elite. And when the ruling class fears things aren't going their way they create their own counter revolution; Fascism.


As Domhoff points out:

Most sectors of the American economy are dominated by a relative handful of large corporations. These corporations, in turn, are linked in a variety of ways to create a corporate community. At an economic level, the ties within the corporate community are manifested in ownership of common stock on the part of both families and other corporations, as well as in joint ventures among corporations and in the common sources of bank loans that most corporations share. At a more sociological level, the corporate community is joined together by the use of the same legal, accounting, and consulting firms and by the similar experiences of executives working in the bureaucratic structure of a large organization. Then too, the large corporations come together as a business community because they share the same values and goals-in particular, the profit motive. Finally, and not least, the common goals of the corporations lead them to have common enemies in the labor movement and middle-class reformers, which gives them a further sense of a shared identity.

hundreds of very large corporations ... are privately owned by a family or group of families. The size and extent of such corporations is often overlooked in discussions of the modern corporation.

The fact that the upper class is also intertwined with the corporate community adds a second dimension to the nature of its cohesiveness. The cohesion is not only social, based on school and club affiliations, but economic, rooted in common stock ownership and most visibly manifested in the complex pattern of interlocking directorships that unites the corporate community and creates a dense and flexible communication network.
And this is exactly what Anthony Sutton's books document is the American Power Elite and their influence in the 20th Century. In Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, he says;
"This politically active Wall Street group is more or less the same elitist circle known generally among Conservatives as the "Liberal Establishment," by liberals (for instance G. William Domhoff) as "the ruling class," and by conspiratorial theorists Gary Allen and Dan Smoot as the "Insiders." But whatever we call this self-perpetuating elitist group, it is apparently fundamentally significant in the determination of world affairs, at a level far behind and above that of the elected politicians."


Sutton is also the author of "America's Secret Establishment. An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones." His work on the Skull and Bones has seen renewed popularity as both George W and John Kerry were members of this Anglo American establishment institution, as is William Buckely Jr. Scratch a right winger, even a so called libertarian right winger, in the United States and you will find a conspiracy theorist. A simple review of conspiracy web sites will reveal the fact that all of them lead to evangelical protestant sects in America and their websites, bible study courses and mass media broadcasts about the coming end days. And of course these sects are notorious anti-semites, cause they know who killed Jesus. So now you know who is really behind the conspiracy.


Appendix II

THE JEWISH-CONSPIRACY THEORY OF THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION


There is an extensive literature in English, French, and German reflecting the argument that the Bolshevik Revolution was the result of a "Jewish conspiracy"; more specifically, a conspiracy by Jewish world bankers. Generally, world control is seen as the ultimate objective; the Bolshevik Revolution was but one phase of a wider program that supposedly reflects an age-old religious struggle between Christianity and the "forces of darkness."

The argument and its variants can be found in the most surprising places and from quite surprising persons. In February 1920 Winston Churchill wrote an article — rarely cited today — for the London Illustrated Sunday Herald entitled "Zionism Versus Bolshevism." In this' article Churchill concluded that it was "particularly important... that the National Jews in every country who are loyal to the land of their adoption should come forward on every occasion . . . and take a prominent part in every measure for combatting the Bolshevik conspiracy." Churchill draws a line between "national Jews" and what he calls "international Jews." He argues that the "international and for the most atheistical Jews" certainly had a "very great" role in the creation of Bolshevism and bringing about the Russian Revolution. He asserts (contrary to fact) that with the exception of Lenin, "the majority" of the leading figures in the revolution were Jewish, and adds (also contrary to fact) that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship were excepted by the Bolsheviks from their policies of seizure. Churchill calls the international Jews a "sinister confederacy" emergent from the persecuted populations of countries where Jews have been persecuted on account of their race. Winston Churchill traces this movement back to Spartacus-Weishaupt, throws his literary net around Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxemburg, and Emma Goldman, and charges: "This world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing."

Churchill then argues that this conspiratorial Spartacus-Weishaupt group has been the mainspring of every subversive movement in the nineteenth century. While pointing out that Zionism and Bolshevism are competing for the soul of the Jewish people, Churchill (in 1920) was preoccupied with the role of the Jew in the Bolshevik Revolution and the existence of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

Another well-known author in the 1920s, Henry Wickham Steed describes in the second volume of his Through 30 Years 1892-1922 (p. 302) how he attempted to bring the Jewish-conspiracy concept to the attention of Colonel Edward M. House and President Woodrow Wilson. One day in March 1919 Wickham Steed called Colonel House and found him disturbed over Steed's recent criticism of U.S. recognition of the Bolsheviks. Steed pointed out to House that Wilson would be discredited among the many peoples and nations of Europe and "insisted that, unknown to him, the prime movers were Jacob Schiff, Warburg and other international financiers, who wished above all to bolster up the Jewish Bolshevists in order to secure a field for German and Jewish exploitation of Russia."1 According to Steed, Colonel House argued for the establishment of economic relations with the Soviet Union.

Probably the most superficially damning collection of documents on the Jewish conspiracy is in the State Department Decimal File (861.00/5339). The central document is one entitled "Bolshevism and Judaism," dated November 13, 1918. The text is in the form of a report, which states that the revolution in Russia was engineered "in February 1916" and "it was found that the following persons and firms were engaged in this destructive work":

(1) Jacob Schiff
Jew (2) Kuhn, Loeb & Company Jewish Firm Management: Jacob Schiff Jew
Felix Warburg Jew
Otto H. Kahn Jew
Mortimer L. Schiff Jew
Jerome J. Hanauer Jew (3) Guggenheim Jew (4) Max Breitung Jew (5) Isaac Seligman Jew

The report goes on to assert that there can be no doubt that the Russian Revolution was started and engineered by this group and that in April 1917

Jacob Schiff in fact made a public announcement and it was due to his financial influence that the Russian revolution was successfully accomplished and in the Spring 1917 Jacob Schitf started to finance Trotsky, a Jew, for the purpose of accomplishing a social revolution in Russia.

The report contains other miscellaneous information about Max Warburg's financing of Trotsky, the role of the Rheinish-Westphalian syndicate and Olof Aschberg of the Nya Banken (Stockholm) together with Jivotovsky. The anonymous author (actually employed by the U.S. War Trade Board)states that the links between these organizations and their financing of the Bolshevik Revolution show how "the link between Jewish multi-millionaires and Jewish proletarians was forged." The report goes on to list a large number of Bolsheviks who were also Jews and then describes the actions of Paul Warburg, Judus Magnes, Kuhn, Loeb & Company, and Speyer & Company.

The report ends with a barb at "International Jewry" and places the argument into the context of a Christian-Jewish conflict backed up by quotations from the Protocols of Zion. Accompanying this report is a series of cables between the State Department in Washington and the American embassy in London concerning the steps to be taken with these documents:

5399 Great Britain, TEL. 3253 i pm

October 16, 1919 In Confidential File
Secret for Winslow from Wright. Financial aid to Bolshevism & Bolshevik Revolution in Russia from prominent Am. Jews: Jacob Schiff, Felix Warburg, Otto Kahn, Mendell Schiff, Jerome Hanauer, Max Breitung & one of the Guggenheims. Document re- in possession of Brit. police authorities from French sources. Asks for any facts re-.

* * * * *

Oct. 17 Great Britain TEL. 6084, noon r c-h 5399 Very secret. Wright from Winslow. Financial aid to Bolshevik revolution in Russia from prominent Am. Jews. No proof re- but investigating. Asks to urge Brit. authorities to suspend publication at least until receipt of document by Dept.

* * * * *

Nov. 28 Great Britain TEL. 6223 R 5 pro. 5399
FOR WRIGHT. Document re financial aid to Bolsheviki by prominent American jews. Reports — identified as French translation of a statement originally prepared in English by Russian citizen in Am. etc. Seem most unwise to give — the distinction of publicity.

It was agreed to suppress this material and the files conclude, "I think we have the whole thing in cold storage."

Another document marked "Most Secret" is included with this batch of material. The provenance of the document is unknown; it is perhaps FBI or military intelligence. It reviews a translation of the Protocols of the Meetings of the Wise Men of Zion, and concludes:

In this connection a letter was sent to Mr. W. enclosing a memorandum from us with regard to certain information from the American Military Attache to the effect that the British authorities had letters intercepted from various groups of international Jews setting out a scheme for world dominion. Copies of this material will be very useful to us.

This information was apparently developed and a later British intelligence report makes the flat accusation:

SUMMARY: There is now definite evidence that Bolshevism is an international movement controlled by Jews; communications are passing between the leaders in America, France, Russia and England with a view to concerted action....4

However, none of the above statements can be supported with hard empirical evidence. The most significant information is contained in the paragraph to the effect that the British authorities possessed "letters intercepted from various groups of international Jews setting out a scheme for world dominion." If indeed such letters exist, then they would provide support (or nonsupport) for a presently unsubstantiated hypothesis: to wit, that the Bolshevik Revolution and other revolutions are the work of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

Moveover, when statements and assertions are not supported by hard evidence and where attempts to unearth hard evidence lead in a circle back to the starting point — particularly when everyone is quoting everyone else — then we must reject the story as spurious. There is no concrete evidence that Jews were involved in the Bolshevik Revolution because they were Jewish. There may indeed have been a higher proportion of Jews involved, but given tsarist treatment of Jews, what else would we expect? There were probably many Englishmen or persons of English origin in the American Revolution fighting the redcoats. So what? Does that make the American Revolution an English conspiracy? Winston Churchill's statement that Jews had a "very great role" in the Bolshevik Revolution is supported only by distorted evidence. The list of Jews involved in the Bolshevik Revolution must be weighed against lists of non-Jews involved in the revolution. When this scientific procedure is adopted, the proportion of foreign Jewish Bolsheviks involved falls to less than twenty percent of the total number of revolutionaries — and these Jews were mostly deported, murdered, or sent to Siberia in the following years. Modern Russia has in fact maintained tsarist anti-Semitism.

It is significant that documents in the State Department files confirm that the investment banker Jacob Schiff, often cited as a source of funds for the Bolshevik Revolution, was in fact against support of the Bolshevik regime. This position, as we shall see, was in direct contrast to the Morgan-Rockefeller promotion of the Bolsheviks.

The persistence with which the Jewish-conspiracy myth has been pushed suggests that it may well be a deliberate device to divert attention from the real issues and the real causes. The evidence provided in this book suggests that the New York bankers who were also Jewish had relatively minor roles in supporting the Bolsheviks, while the New York bankers who were also Gentiles (Morgan, Rockefeller, Thompson) had major roles.

What better way to divert attention from the real operators than by the medieval bogeyman of anti-Semitism?



Tags


Wednesday, March 30, 2005

The Canadian Panama Mining Swindle

Petaquilla Minerals chairman-CEO steps aside temporarily due to legal issues



March 23, 2005
VANCOUVER (CP) - The chairman and chief executive of Petaquilla Minerals Ltd. has stepped aside temporarily due to an investigation into allegations of irregularities while he was the governor of Panama's Cocle province.

The company said Wednesday that no charges have been laid against Richard Fifer, but in the interest of good corporate governance he would step aside for the time being. Fifer will continue to serve the Vancouver company in a non-executive role and will remain on its board.

Petaquilla is a Canadian-based mineral explorer focused on developing a property in north-central Panama containing copper, gold, silver and molybdenum, a specialty industrial metal.


Richard Fifer is accused of embezzelment and shady dealings in Panama, hoping to cash in on his links to the government and knowing in advance the expansion plans for the Panama Canel he suddely revives his mining company reserves in Panama exactly where the Canel is supposed to expand.

Meanwhile he is financing his Canadian based Panama Mining operations in the infamous Vancouver Stock exchange, notorious for it's insider trading and other swindles and scandals. And along comes Fifer to create another one.
See my Alberta Stock Exchange Scandal for more on the Vancouver Exchange.


If there ever was the need for a SINGLE Regulator over the five Canadian exchanges, here is another good example of why.

And of course Fifers mining operations are an environmental hazard, being a get in, get out, get rich quick scheme. Is this another Bre X in the making?

You would of course never know this from the CP story. So I have added background news on Fifer from Panama.

Panama News
Vol. 11, No. 5
March 6 - 19, 2005
Panamanian government officials, IADB used as stage props by Fifer’s company
Canadian authorities looking at Petaquilla Minerals over possible insider trading

by Eric Jackson

Petaquilla Minerals Ltd, which has an extensive but never operational mining concession for northern Cocle and western Colon provinces that may be in the way of plans to expand the Panama Canal, may be in trouble with Canadian authorities over transactions on the Toronto Stock exchange.

Former Cocle governor Richard Fifer, the CEO of Petaquilla Minerals Ltd, was charged with embezzling public funds while serving as governor of Cocle on February 4. An arrest warrant was issued and Fifer went into hiding while his lawyers sought to quash the warrant. On February 10, while Fifer was a fugitive from Panamanian justice and before there had been any mention at all about his trouble in the Canadian press, Petaquilla sold 500,000 company shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange. On February 21, a court in Cocle province cancelled the arrest warrant but not the charges, and required Fifer to report to police every 15 days and prohibited him from leaving the country.

On February 20, while Fifer was still sought by Panamanian authorities, President Martín Torrijos and officials of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) appeared at a ceremony in La Pintada, Cocle, to announce a $20 million contract for several projects, including improvements to the road to Coclesito.* At that event Torrijos was photographed with Petaquilla CFO Kenneth W. Morgan, and the company used that photograph and a deceptive headline to imply that the bank is supporting the company’s purported mining development. (That clipping is found on the Internet here.) In another press release about the event, Petaquilla claimed, without citing a date, that Morgan and Fifer met with the Vice-Minister of Commerce and Industry (See here.)

The Panama News asked the Presidencia and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry whether officials of the Torrijos administration had met with Fifer while he was a fugitive from justice. A spokesman for President Torrijos referred The Panama News to Petaquilla for answers to that question. A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that no such meeting showed up on the ministry’s logs.

Meanwhile, this reporter contacted the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), which oversees activities on the Toronto Stock Exchange, asking if it would have constituted insider trading for Petaquilla to sell shares on the exchange when the fact that its CEO was a fugitive from justice was undisclosed to the Canadian market.

In a delayed response to the questions from The Panama News, the OSC acknowledged the February 10 transaction, and said that "your email has been forwarded to appropriate OSC staff for further review" but added that "the OSC does not generally disclose the existence or status of a review or investigation until we issue a Statement of Allegations and the matter becomes part of the public record."

The OSC also pointed out that "[o]n February 25, PTQ responded to news reports in Panama regarding the investigation of their Chairman and CEO Richard Fifer.... [t]he News Release does not seem to have had a dramatic effect on the stock price."

From the company's perspective, continuity in the stock price was the objective. But the problem is that the Petaquilla press statement was a lie.

Petaquilla Addresses Press Reports
Distribution Source : CCNMatthews
Date : Friday - February 25, 2005

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(CCNMatthe ws - Feb. 25, 2005) - Petaquilla Minerals Ltd. ("the Company")(TSX:PTQ)( OTCBB:PTQMF) has responded to news reports in Panama that Richard Fifer, Chairman and CEO of the Company, is being investigated for alleged irregularities while Governor of Cocle Province, Panama.

The Company has retained independent legal counsel in Panama to investigate the allegations against Mr. Fifer.

The Company has been informed that there are no outstanding warrant orders, charges or arrest orders for Mr. Fifer, despite what some newspaper articles are currently reporting.

The Board of Directors assures all stakeholders that it will continue to seek additional information and will act decisively and promptly if further action is warranted.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of

PETAQUILLA MINERALS LTD.

"Kenneth W. Morgan"

Kenneth W. Morgan, CFO and Director
Petaquilla Minerals Ltd.
Kenneth W. Morgan
CFO and Director
(604) 694-0021
(604) 694-0063

No stock exchange has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.


Panama News
Vol. 11, No. 4
Feb. 20 - March 5, 2005

Is this an alleged embezzler’s ploy to cash in on canal expansion?
Just as the Cerro Petaquilla mine promoters say they're set to start, problems arise

by Eric Jackson, partly from other media

There’s gold in them hills. Also, copper, silver molybdenum and other mineral resources. Proof of that is the frequency by which the police have to move in to eject wildcatters, many of them Colombian, who wash away hillsides in the forest with high-pressure hoses to get the gold.

But how much of the metal that drives white men crazy, extractable at what cost? And is Cerro Petaquilla really a world-class copper deposit?

These questions could come front and center in Panamanian political discourse within the year, as soon as the Panama Canal Authority issues its plan to expand the canal. If previous suggestions to flood areas west of the canal are part of the plan, then all of a sudden the Cerro Petaquilla mining concession would become the largest single property for which compensation would have to be paid.

Now if that compensation is for mineral rights that have never been proven, let alone exploited, that would lead to one set of assumptions about the value of the concession. But if the concessionaires can claim that they were busy developing a mine when the government came in and declared eminent domain, that could support a different valuation.

In recent weeks a series of reports have appeared in La Prensa and El Panama America, announcing the imminent start of work at the Cerro Petaquilla mining concession, actually a set of nine concessions encompassing some 250 square kilometers of northern Cocle and western Colon provinces, held by Petaquilla Minerals Ltd. That limited partnership includes Vancouver-based Adrian Resources Ltd (listed as ADL on the Toronto Stock Exchange), among whose directors and shareholders is former Cocle Governor Richard Fifer, and Inmet Mining, another Canadian outfit. Richard Fifer is chairman of the board of Petaquilla Minerals Ltd.

In the face it presents to Panama, Cerro Petaquilla has always been Fifer’s project. He first claimed mineral rights at Cerro Petaquilla in 1987. Through his company GeoInfo, this reporter was taken along with other journalists on a tour of Cocle province back in the mid-90s. In the recent corporate mainstream media reports on the project, the Fifer connection is always prominently mentioned. The press releases by the promoters invariably appear over Fifer’s signature.

There are a several interesting features about the recent Cerro Petaquilla stories.

One is that they state certain figures about the amount of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum in the ground at the Cerro Petaquilla concession, generally without attribution and always without question. The figures cited are invariably the concessionaires’ estimates, but are usually presented as undisputed facts.

Another oddity about many of the recent Cerro Petaquilla stories is that they are not by journalists on the staffs of the publications involved, but by freelancers.

And then there’s the story that Reuters disseminated, which announced that a Canadian company had obtained $1 billion in financing and the word to start mining work. But the company denied that it had obtained a line of credit.

Most importantly, Richard Fifer now stands accused of embezzlement. After more than two weeks as a fugitive sought for embezzlement from the government between 1999 and 2002, when he was the governor of Cocle, a court has rescinded a warrant for his arrest but forbidden him to leave the country and required him to report tro police every 15 days while his criminal case is pending. Earlier, from his hiding place he had his lawyers surrender $68,000 he allegedly pilfered from the funds at the Cocle governor’s disposal, and another $47,000 allegedly diverted from Spain’s contribution toward the Arias Brothers Museum in Penonome to the Office of Patrimonial Responsibility. No admission of wrongdoing was made, but prosecutors aren’t calling off the criminal prosecution.

Panama News
Jan 26-Feb 8. 2002

Fifer replaced as Cocle governor

After complaints from the provincial organization of his own party, arguments with ANAM about permits from projects that would have environmental consequences and a lot of criticism over plans that would establish new pushbuttons in Penonome, Richard Fifer has been removed as governor of Cocle province. The new governor is Irving González and the new lieutenant governor is Ernestina Tejada. Fifer had used his own property to furnish the governor's offices and he took it with him when he left, so not only are provincial employees wondering whether they will have jobs under the new administration, but in many cases they've been having to improvise places to sit and to write.

University takes sides in Penonome pushbutton row

The promoter, Eros Nos, SA, says that it plans to build a "short-term lodging facility," but the Catholic Church and municipal officials in Penonome say that what is really contemplated is a new "pushbutton" place of assignation and they disapprove. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the governor of Cocle have issued some of the necessary permits, but the city refuses to sign off and now the Cocle Regional University Center (CRUC), which is located near the site proposed for the project, has joined the opposition. The administration has criticized the project, a student committee has been formed to moblize public opposition and law students at the University of Panama branch are organizing a possible legal battle to stop the development.

Latin Business Chronicle

Panama Economic and political overview.

Martin Torrijos, a U.S.-educated economist assumed Panama's presidency on September 1, 2004, pledging to negotiate a free trade agreement with United States and implement reforms aimed at reducing government expenditure and taxes. Despite Panama's status as a major trading nation, the country only signed its first free trade agreement in 2002 - with El Salvador.

Torrijos has also vowed to reduce and fight corruption, which was widespread under his predecessor, Mireya Moscoso.( who appointed Fifer as Govenor e.p.) Transparency International gave Panama a score of 3.4 (with 10 being best) on its latest survey of corruption perception.

In addition to a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Panama is home to the world's largest shipping registry, Latin America's largest banking center (in number of banks) and largest free trade zone (Colon Free Zone) and a major offshore company registry.

As a result, Panama is Latin America's most globalized economy, according to the 2004 Globalization Index from A.T. Kearney and Foreign Policy magazine.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Legalize & Unionize the Sex Trade


Prostitution laws under fire

Last Updated Mar 29 2005 07:17 PM PST
CBC News


VANCOUVER – An advocacy group representing Vancouver sex-trade workers is calling for the repeal of Canada's prostitution laws that would make street prostitutes' lives safer.
Katrina Pacey">

Katrina Pacey

The PIVOT Legal Society argued its case to the parliamentary sub-committee, which is holding hearings in Vancouver Tuesday and Wednesday, seeking input on the sex trade in Canada. Prostitution is legal, but negotiating sex in exchange for money remains illegal, as are brothels. Katrina Pacey of the PIVOT Legal Society, which did a study on 91 prostitutes in Vancouver, says the current laws compromise the safety of street prostitutes.
Libby Davies on the left- on tour of the Downtown Eastside">

Libby Davies on the left- on tour of the Downtown Eastside

"The criminal laws place them in a work environment that is extremely dangerous," she says. "…ultimately used to criminalize nuisance and to move sex workers into neighbourhoods that are very unsafe." Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies, who helped establish the sub-committee, agrees that Canada's current laws are making street prostitution more dangerous than it has to be. And Davies says she's also concerned about the escort business – noting it accounts for up to 95 per cent of prostitution in Canada. While several of the MPs on the committe favour decriminalization of prostitution, at least one of them does not. Calgary Conservative MP Art Hanger, a former police officer, calls the concept utter nonsense. "So what does that mean? That all of a sudden, they become professional people? That they be looked upon no differently than a dentist, or a lawyer, or a police officer?" The committee has held hearings in cities across the country, and plans to forward its final report to Justice Minister Irwin Cotler.




Yes Art that is exactly what it means that sex trade workers are professionals who should be unionized and allowed to operate worker owned and controlled cooperatives as I said in Whose Family Values?

"Sex Workers Union: Whether strippers, prostitutes, escorts, porn actors, etc. women workers in thus unregulated industry face the dual oppression of being exploited by owners and customers, and their banishment by society at large. The exploitation of children and young adults as well as immigrant women is allowed to exist due to this free market. Laws against prostitution need to be abolished and the regulation of this industry be under workers control through a sex workers union."