Shadow Democracy Radio is on a short break coming off of our summer Internet broadcast schedule, but the show will be back in a few weeks with more of the news you won’t hear on cable, sprinkled with a little opinionated flavor from our hosts. Keep checking this blog for upcoming show schedule, including dates and times.

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Protesters continued to wave the peacock flag of the crushed pro-democracy movement on a solitary march Saturday through the bloody streets of Myanmar’s largest city. Many dissidents said they are resigned to defeat without international intervention as regimes like China stood around and watch people being butchered in the streets - same as Kosovo, same as Rwanda, same as Iraq. 

A top U.N. envoy on Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, arrived in the country but many protesters said they were nonetheless seeing a repeat of the global reaction to a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, when the world stood by as protesters were gunned down in the streets. “Gambari is coming, but I don’t think it will make much of a difference,” said one hotel worker, ”We have to find a solution ourselves.” A young woman who took part in the massive demonstrations said she didn’t think “we have any more hope to win.” She was separated from her boyfriend when police broke up the protest by firing into crowds.

Demonstrations began last month as a result of the crumbling economy in Myanmar, as people angry over massive fuel price hikes took to the streets — shortly afterward it ballooned into tens of thousands after monks began marching in protest. The Junta, who are oppressive militaristic rulers of Myanmar and closely tied to China, responded by shooting into a crowd of protesters that included monks and clubbing them with batons.

What is remarkable, is that China continues to back these criminals and has done nothing to interfere with the terror wrought on the protesters. Of course China’s reaction was predictable. After all, they did roll over the Chinese Democratic party with tanks in the Tiananmen Square Massacare in 1989. And don’t forget that Myanmar (Burma), is also resource rich, so why interfere? Let’s just let them beat the hell out of each other, then roll in and take over when the timing is right under the guise of liberation. Can anyone say Iraq? Funny how the drive for limited energy resources by developed nations is resulting in more and more of these nasty little skirmishes lately - don’t you think? 

But I digress…

Little more than lip service by the U.S., Russia, and China is being offered in order to restrain these thugs. The United States, which possesses limited leverage, froze any assets that Myanmar leaders may have in U.S. financial institutions and prohibited American citizens from doing business with them. The United Nations has resorted to the usual ineffective attempts at reconciliation that never really seem to fly. So the U.S. and others have turned a hopeful eye toward our ‘friends’ China. When they’re not busy poisoning our kids with lead paint, their busy poisoning Myanmar’s kids with lead paint, as they too are Myanmar’s biggest trading partner. 

However, China does not seem prepared to go beyond words in their dealings with the Junta, ruling out sanctions as they jostle for a chance to get at Myanmar’s bountiful and largely untapped natural resources, especially its oil. Can’t offend a friend I suppose. Human rights will have to be the bridesmaid yet again. Some Chinese academics and diplomats say the international community may be overestimating what Beijing can do. “I actually don’t think China can influence Myanmar (Burma) at all except through diplomacy. China’s influence is not at all decisive,” said Peking University Southeast Asia expert Liang Yingming.

Really? I have a few ideas to offer.

Key backers of this group of murders in Myanmar, particualrly China, must pay a cost for the blood they will have on their hands. Women were killed, the young, the old, children, monks were beaten are now holed up behind barbed wire - someone must answer…I say start with China. Specific businesses and their management should be targeted with sanctions as well as the Chinese government for the role they have played in furthering the interests of the Junta, in the name of oil and profit. China should be questioned and brought to bare before the world why they have backed these butchers for years. Name must be named, and the dead must be avenged. The U.S. must act and empower the U.N. as well, to impose sanctions against the junta and China if need be. If the Chinese people really back human rights, they should boycott these Chinese companies as well. There’s an old American saying folks - put your money where your mouth is.

Bush himself, lacks the credibility, intelligence, nerve or grammar to take on this regime and its backers in the world’s eyes, so we must rely on Congress to act so credible damage might be done to the reputations of China and the Chinese companies that do business in both Myanmar (Burma), and the U.S. Congress, along with the U.N. , should impose immediate sanctions on Chinese firms, while going after some of the illegal drug money that the Junta uses to finance these murder sprees. 

Maybe pull a Ronald Reagan.

Train and equip rebellious groups operating within Burma and along its border areas.  These groups are not exactly the proverbial good-guys, (given their history of drug trafficking), however some of them represent ethnic groups that have faced murderous behavior from the Junta that amounts to little more than ethnic cleansing - much like this last week. They could be a valuable ally in this struggle. If China wants to support the Junta, then it will have to accept the consequences of such support as well as running the risk of destabilizing all of Southeast Asia. Let’s see if they like that shit sandwich?

In my opinion, the time is now to finally send a message to China - you cannot simply do what you please whenever you please (or not in this case) without stiff consequences from the rest of the non-communist, non-dictatorial, non-civil rights violating, non-murdering, countries in the world. For the sake of the human condition, our government must take a stand on this situation. I urge Nancy Pelosi (who is cool at best on China) and the rest of the Democrats to act on a resolution that will put these policies into motion. There is no reason why we should tolerate this type of behavior in the name of failed globalistic economic ideals. At some point, the sanctity of human life must supersede the garnering of oil on the totem pole of foreign policy. 

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The Republicans are in trouble this time around, so what do they do? - what they have always done…change the rules. Our compassionate conservative friends who brought us the Willie Horton ads, the Swift boat campaign, disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida, the Iraq debacle and Tom Delay, are trying to hatch a plan to steal California electoral votes. Arnold would be proud.

It’s almost sad really - but it appears they can’t help themselves. With an eager eye toward seizing the White House next year, the Republicans, even if they lose the popular vote - are trying to rewrite election rules for the distribution of electoral votes in California. You know the old Republican saying…when you’re beat…cheat. 

Under current law, all of California’s 55 electoral votes go to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote statewide. This is a ”winner take all” system and is the norm in states across the country except for Maine and Nebraska. So here’s the plan… 

Scumbag lawyers with close ties to the Republican Party say they can work to scrap the current system in California and replace it with one that would divide up the electoral votes in a way that would likely give 20 or more of them to the candidate who loses the popular vote in the state…how convenient. Under this new proposal, the 20 or more electoral votes that would be denied to the winner of the statewide popular vote could be just enough to steal the White House for the Republicans, effectively neutralizing the California Democratic 800 pound gorilla. 

To pull it off, the Republicans have resorted to typically deceptive tactics. First off, it has been named the ”Presidential Election Reform Act,” yet only state Republicans seem to think the election rules in California need reforming. The name is even more telling. Let’s name the legislation something that indicates a problem is afoot with the goal of fooling people. Its kind of like the Nazis putting the statement, “Work will set you free” over the main gates at death camps. 

Thomas Hiltachk of Bell, McAndrews and Hiltachk, a conservative law firm that has represented both the state Republican Party and G.O.P. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is linked to a political committee, that targeted Democratic candidates in 2006. Others tied to this firm and political action committee, and longtime supporters of George W. Bush, contributed millions of dollars to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose unconsciously deceptive campaign in 2004 was so damaging to the candidacy of John Kerry, that it cost him the presidency. These guys are just more of the same liars that have come to define the entire Bush regime from top to bottom.

The burning question is - are California Democrats going to stand up to this blatant deception? Democrats must realize that this effort is a clear abuse of California’s initiative process and stop it cold before these criminals get any traction.

The proposal is flawed on it’s face for many reasons including: the proposal might be unconstitutional, at least in the eyes of the Supreme Court. In Bush v. Gore, a concurring opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia, concluded that when the federal Constitution, in Article II, enlists state “legislatures” to determine the method of selecting members of the Electoral College, the Constitution necessarily forbids states from involving other entities, including state courts, in a way that interferes with the state legislature’s wishes.

Also, if moving away from winner-take-all rules makes so much sense, then why aren’t more blue states doing it? I would think Republicans should unilaterally give up their advantages in red states in electing a President. If Republican majorities in other states are not doing the same thing in states they control, then the fundamental basis for reform is a joke.

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By continually flooding the labor market in the U.S. with inexpensive foreign workers, we are destroying our own talent pool in a long run. What would motivate a prospective college student go into a technology, spent years of time, money and effort and keep on developing his own skills if he can see how quickly the market could be flooded with a cheap replacement? This will only compound an ongoing issue, as we continue to create tremendous downward pressure on wages, and force businesses to complete based on the dependency of foreign workers. I can see corporate America’s view I suppose, if you can’t have slavery, this is the next best thing. These are people who routinely work overtime for free under the threat of their visa being ‘revoked’ and universally accept lower wages for equal work being done by their American counterparts.

Moreover, large corp[orations like Microsoft, want us to buy into the idea that there is such a shortage of skilled tech workers, that HB-1 workers are needed. Places like Monster are loaded with resumes of American IT workers who can’t buy a job with their soul - and if you’re over forty, you may as well hang it up. It also takes longer for unemployed IT people to find jobs than ever before - just talk to people like myself (MCSE, MCDBA, A+, Net+, Linux+, 15 years experience, etc.) It took me 17 months to find gainful employment at a reasonable wage. In fact, during the last economic downturn (that Bush said never happened), IT people were among the hardest hit, and many had to leave the industry all together as IT budgets sank to just 3% of total sales on average, while training dollars went up in smoke. The real effort should be to re-claim these workers and get them back into the industry, not replace them with lower paying HB-1 Visa holders. Any other explanation is a smoke and mirrors tactic by the corporate fat cats who need to pad the almighty bottom line at the expense of American workers.

Equally important, given how many resources a local IT worker invests in their skills, they should be carefully protected so we might keep our economy moving. It is one thing to jerk around an employee who has just couple of months of formal training at the entry level, it is quite another to push someone out who has spent 10 years and $100,000 on education and skills development, like myself and many of my colleagues did. Where do these fools, who are perpetuating this nonsense, think this is all going? When did corporations stop caring about American born workers and begin sacraficing them for profit?

Lastly, the quality of foreign workers is mostly a myth. Many companies put foreign workers through internal training and there is absolutely no reason why this training should not be offered to American born workers instead. In fact, many IT advocate groups for American workers have found that few foreign workers start providing high quality, high volume output from the first day on the job.

Many bloggers are questioning whether HB-1’s should be regulated or levels allowed to be dictated by the market. Some question whether or not supply and demand laws ha