Tag: social services

US-Funded Riots Target Indonesia (or, NED is Alive and Well…) 

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)3 Comments

US-Funded Riots Target Indonesia (or, NED is Alive and Well…) 

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in May during the Singapore-based Shangri La Dialogue the US would focus more on the, “Indo-Pacific” region after years of distractions waging war and regime change elsewhere around the globe. 

Source: Remarks by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the 2025 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore (As Delivered) 

Since then, there has been a border war between Thailand and Cambodia precipitated by US-backed politicians on both sides of the border, and now violent “student protests” in Indonesia similar to US-sponsored riots in Hong Kong and Thailand in recent years. 

Known Western government funded (including US NED-funded) media organizations, “rights groups,” and others (like Remotivi, Project Multatuli and Jakarta Legal Aid) in Indonesia are openly backing the protests and attacking the current government. 

Sources: Project Multatuli admits on its site collaboration with Open Society and a variety of NED-adjacent funding tools used by the US for political interference worldwide: Collaborations

Remotivi and Project Multatuli are both mentioned as being disrupted by temporary NED funding freezes earlier this year: ‘Without us, no scrutiny’: Indonesia’s independent media count cost of US funding cuts

Their social media presence has spent the duration of the protests condemning the government and police and encouraging unrest. The same formula of violent protests forcing police responses, leading to injured or dead protesters, thus increasing the size and violence of the protests is in motion. The same US color revolution gimmicks – using colors, flags, pop culture symbols for protest branding are also being used. In Thailand it was the “Hunger Games” and “Harry Potter,” in Indonesia, the BBC boasts of “One Piece” pirate flags being flown. 

Source: How a cartoon skull became a symbol of defiance in Indonesia

The goal at best is to install a client regime willing to transform Indonesia into a Ukraine-style battering ram against China, and at a minimum, destabilize the nation and reduce its utility in both China’s and all of Asia’s rise.

Brian Berletic: Twitter

Previously:

Tensions soar across Indonesia as protests against police erupt in multiple cities

Thai-Cambodian Conflict Only Suits American Interests

Tensions soar across Indonesia as protests against police erupt in multiple cities

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)2 Comments

Tensions soar across Indonesia as protests against police erupt in multiple cities

The unrest came after a video on social media apparently showing the death of the motorcycle taxi driver during Thursday’s clashes shocked the nation and spurred an outcry against the security forces.

…

Witnesses told local television that the armored car from the National Police’s Mobile Brigade unit suddenly sped through the crowd of demonstrators and hit Kurniawan, causing him to fall. Instead of stopping, the car ran over him.

Related:

Prabowo Criticizes Police as Protest Death Fuels Jakarta Unrest

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[2021] Fact-check: Do refugees receive more monthly benefits than Social Security recipients?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Instagram posts: The government pays out “$2,125/month in refugee benefits to refugees resettled in the United States,” while Social Security recipients “who have paid into the system their whole lives receive $1,400/month on average.”

PolitiFact rating: Mostly False

Fact-check: Do refugees receive more monthly benefits than Social Security recipients?

Biden’s ally in Guatemala?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

CHIUL, Guatemala − Life in Bartolo Báten’s village has been defined by corruption: A teacher who can’t get a job at the school until she pays a bribe. A water project that runs out of money before the pipes reached town. Sick residents who can’t afford the medicine that’s available elsewhere.

Insurgent candidate tells Guatemalans: Stay, don’t go to the U.S. This time, they’re listening. (archived)

Related:

Seven Decades After Guatemala Coup, Bernardo Arévalo Sees a Dramatic Rise (Will Freeman, CFR)

Arévalo and Semilla are centrists—but in a country where politics habitually skews right, they are often described as center-left. “Semilla has a social democratic element, but its program is centrist, and it also has some center-right followers,” said Lucas Perelló, a political scientist who has spent time studying the party’s formation. Arévalo says he wants to gradually universalize existing social assistance programs to include a greater share of poor Guatemalans, reduce the cost of medicines and healthcare, and link isolated parts of the country through new infrastructure—doable tasks, given Guatemala’s exceptionally low share of debt as GDP, and necessary ones, given the country’s soaring poverty and malnutrition rates.

On security issues, another major concern for Guatemalans, Arévalo promises to increase state presence in crime hotspots, reclaim jails from gangs, and use intelligence-gathering to dismantle mafias. He says Bukele’s anti-gang strategy is not applicable to Guatemala. He is also critical of human rights abuses in Venezuela and Nicaragua and Putin’s war on Ukraine and has no stated plans to recognize China over Taiwan. Asked for a leader he admires, he named the ex-president, José Pepe Mujica, of Uruguay, where he was born during his father’s exile.

Biden proposes $1 trillion in social spending cuts after announcing $375 million more for war in Ukraine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

At a press conference Sunday following the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, President Joe Biden called on Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to meet face to face to revive talks on a bipartisan plan to slash social spending in return for raising the nation’s debt ceiling and averting a default.

Biden proposes $1 trillion in social spending cuts after announcing $375 million more for war in Ukraine