MAY LOVE PREVAIL ON EARTH
August 23, 2006
Veracity Series #14: Time for a Renewed Commitment to Peace and Truth
Hello everyone!
I hope this compilation will find you in a happy mood and able to access within what it outwardly offers through information and spiritual stimulation.
As usual, feel free to share ;-)
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
NOTE: There will be a new Meditation Focus issued next Saturday.
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"The Court's decision further suggests that President Bush has already committed a war crime, simply by establishing the military tribunals [at Guantánamo] and subjecting detainees to them [because] the Court found that the tribunals violate Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Conventions]—and under the War Crimes Act, any violation of Common Article 3 is a war crime."
- Taken from Supreme Court Strikes Fear: Reprimanded by the Supreme Court, the Bush administration rushes to evade punishment below. GOTCHA!
"All I would like to say is that our first and foremost problem with continuing on to become Who We Are is that these 'Illuminati' fools, who dare challenge our existence, have a firm grip on even the same minds that you reach through these fantastic messages. It is very troubling that even those strongest believers of Truth are fooled by the darkness that is associated with the Evening News. Even my truly high-spirited grandmother Carlene Burnett has an impossible time accepting the notion that the Illuminati have been controlling what she thinks about politics. Every person I ever try speaking to, and no matter how Light-minded they are, each person is unable to see thru the smog (it's not fog, because fog is naturally created -- smog is man-made filth, just like the Illuminati). These wonderful souls are full of Light, but they are unable to break thru the shadows of what the Illuminati tools of power have been building over the past several decades. When people are growing into their 70's and 80's .... it is the same people who were only young, impressionable children when the Illuminati first adopted their authoritarian approach. We cannot just wait 30 years for these souls to return back home to the other side -- NO -- we must TEACH these elderly folks what they have been lied to about for OH-SO-LONG. There is just one purpose to this life of ours and it is for us to teach those who came before us, and to learn from those who come after us."
- Travis J. Burnett travisjburnett@yahoo.com in response toThe Moment of Truth Series #2: Daring to Be Optimistic
Worthy of Your Attention
Peace Day - September 21 - The International Day of Peace - 25th Annual Observance!
The United Nations' International Day of Peace (Peace Day) is a highlight of the Culture of Peace Initiative. Peace Day is a unique opportunity to bring attention to the millions of little and big things that individuals and organizations around the world are doing all year long to make this world a better place. September 21, 2006 will be the 25th annual Peace Day observance! This year, events and activities include concerts, parades, marches, fasts, conferences, festivals, gatherings, service projects, ceremonies, children's activities such as peace art & essay contests and pinwheels for peace, Peace Day parties and peace vigils that are being planned by more than 1500 organizations in over 160 nations. For highlights, local listings and to list your event, please visit http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org/
Join the global movement for a culture of peace ...
There is so much going on for a better world all around us that the mainstream media never shares. Many different movements for social change are beginning to converge into what UNESCO has described as "a global movement for a culture of peace." The Culture of Peace Initiative (formerly the "We The Peoples" Initiative) is a United Nations-designated Peace Messenger Initiative, coordinated by Pathways To Peace, that is helping to connect organizations and individuals to build a culture of peace. Participation is free ... please visit http://www.cultureofpeace.org/
Who's the terrorist now? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6tBgmRCumM&mode=related&search=
Rap video made by an amateur Palestinian band....about Israeli terrorists calling Palestinian freedom fighters "terrorists"."One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist". Please don't call those who fight to regain their independence and stolen homes "terrorists". It's a shame to humanity.
UFOS ARE REAL!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEA7oIzoBnM&NR
Flotilla%20of%20spacecrafts%20over%20Madrid%20last%20June%2010,%202006%20Flotilla of spacecrafts over Madrid last June 10, 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fVCLd21f7s
You have to be patient and watch carefully to see the movements of the lights relative to each other. Videotaped from a street in Madrid.
“STAR NATIONS” TO MAKE PRESENCE KNOWN TO EARTH (August 15, 2006)
http://www.starcraftisabella.blogspot.com/
Starcraft Display in Skies, the Oldest of its Kind - Demonstrations to Show Federation’s Benevolent Intention. Note from Jean: If you have an interest in this and want to assist in making this happen, please review the following 3 messages:
Delay in first Public Demonstration: an explanation, and how you can help
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DrRichBoylanReports/message/1756
Request from Captain Talessian Namor (August 19)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DrRichBoylanReports/message/1757
An important Vision (August 21)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DrRichBoylanReports/message/1760
(...) Talessian is not just going through a physical battle with energy-being clusters thrown up against him by Cabal psi operators, but is also engaged, whether he recognizes it or not, in a spiritual battle. This is made clear by the part of the vision where Talessian is sitting inside of the Medicine Circle. CLIP
The Black Vault
http://www.blackvault.com/
This is the result of almost 10 years of research into the U.S. Government, their secrets, and the archiving over 440,000 declassified government documents. Recommended by Linda Evans evanl@rmi.net
Excellent History Channel Documentary "Mind Control: America's Secret War"
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060823mindcontroldocumentary
Mind Control: America's Secret War is the title of the History Channel's excellent documentary exposing top secret government mind control programs. This powerful documentary reveals how for decades, top secret government projects worked virtually non-stop to perfect means of controlling the human mind. This disturbing, yet incredibly important video can be viewed free at
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13845.htm
CONTENTS
1. Don't Let the Government Grind You Down
2. A Permanent Goodbye to the United States
3. Moving Retort to Ruppert's Fatalism
4. Fatalism ?
5. Ignoramuses, Fools and Cowards
6. Amateur warlords
7. Bush Must Negotiate to Make America Safer, Say Former Generals
8. 203 Palestinians Killed Since Beginning of Operation "Summer Rains" - as of August 10
9. Pentagon Orders American Special Forces To Mexican Oil Fields As Civil War Looms
10. Scientist Says Chemtrails, Shuttle Launches Endangering Earth
11. New Scientist: TV Unravelling Your Reality
12. Bush says: “Iraq Had Nothing To Do With 9/11”
13. Supreme Court Strikes Fear
14. The NationMaster.com facts may change your perception
15. Message Of Love From Diana To Mankind
See also:
Israel accused over 'war crimes' (August 23)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5276626.stm
Amnesty criticises attacks on fuel supplies - Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. The human rights group says attacks on homes, bridges, roads and water and fuel plants were an "integral part" of Israel's strategy in the recent war. The group also calls for a UN investigation into whether both Israel and Hezbollah broke humanitarian law. (...) "The pattern, scope and scale of the attacks makes Israel's claim that this was 'collateral damage', simply not credible," said Kate Gilmore, Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International. South Beirut before and after the war [Images: Digital Globe]Enlarge ImageThe document details what it describes as "massive destruction by Israeli forces of whole civilian neighbourhoods and villages", together with attacks on bridges "in areas of no apparent strategic importance", on its list of supporting evidence. It also says Israel targeted supermarkets, water pumping stations and water treatment plants, which may have broken a prohibition in humanitarian law against targeting objects crucial to civilian survival. The report lists Israeli statements - such as comments made by Israeli Chief of Staff Lt Gen Dan Halutz that "nothing is safe [in Lebanon], as simple as that" - to support its claims. (...) Hezbollah responded to the Israeli air and ground offensive by firing thousands of rockets into Israel's northern towns. About 1,000 Lebanese - most civilians - died in the conflict, while 161 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were killed.
Cafferty - Jail to the Chief (Video) (August 17) MUST WATCH!
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/8/17/17468/7925
TRANSCRIPT: "Seems like we are having this discussion about the judge's ruling in the abstract, as if there's no precedent for what the judge decided. The judge upheld the ruling of the FISA court, which said if you want to wiretap phones, you need a court order to do so. The law of the land says -- get a warrant. The actions of the administration have ignored the law of the land in that regard. So it's not a discussion in the abstract. It's not hypothetical.There are laws on the books against what the administration is doing. And it's about time somebody said it out loud. This federal judge rules President Bush is breaking the law by spying on people in this country without a warrant. The judge said the president is violating the first amendment, the fourth amendment and the foreign intelligence surveillance act, FISA, passed by congress in 1978, specifically to reduce this kind of abuse of power. That's why the FISA court was created in the first place.What does this mean? It means President Bush violated his oath of office, among other things when he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It means he's been lying to us, when he tells us there's nothing illegal he's been doing. And a 75-year-old black female judge in Michigan has finally stepped in and done the job that Congress is supposed to do, namely oversight of the executive branch over government. But the Congress is controlled by Republicans and they are controlled by the president and they'd have done nothing in the way of oversight. I hope it means the arrogant inner circle at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue may finally have to start answering to the people who own that address, that would be us, about how we conduct our country's affairs."
Major Arms Soar to Twice Pre-9/11 Cost (19 August 2006)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081906Y.shtml
Systems to have little direct role in terror fight. Washington - The estimated costs for the development of major weapons systems for the US military have doubled since September 11, 2001, with a trillion-dollar price tag for new planes, ships, and missiles that would have little direct role in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. The soaring cost estimates -- disclosed in a report for the Republican-led Senate Budget Committee -- have led to concerns that supporters of multibillion-dollar weapons programs in Congress, the Pentagon , and the defense industry are using the conflicts and the war on terrorism to fulfill a wish-list of defense expenditures, whether they are needed or not for the war on terrorism. The report, based on Defense Department data, concluded that the best way to keep defense spending in check in the coming years lies in "controlling the cost of weaponry," especially those programs that the Pentagon might not necessarily need. The projections of what it will cost to acquire "major weapons programs" currently in production or on the drawing board soared from $790 billion in September 2001 to $1.61 trillion in June 2006, according to the congressional analysis of Pentagon data. Costs for some of the most expensive new weapon systems -- such as satellite-linked combat vehicles for ground troops; a next-generation fighter plane ; and a cutting-edge, stealth-technology destroyer for the Navy -- are predicted to cost even more by the time they are delivered, because many of them are still in their early phases. In a quarterly report to Congress on weapons costs earlier this month, the Pentagon reported that of the $1.61 trillion it thinks it will need for big-ticket weapons, it has spent more than half so far -- about $909 billion. But the huge increase in weapons costs is already placing enormous strain on the federal budget, according to government budget specialists, who predict major increases in defense spending for years to come so that the Pentagon can afford all the weapons it has on the books. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for example, estimates that between 2012 and 2024 the Pentagon budget will have to grow between 18 percent and 34 percent over what was appropriated this year. Overall, annual defense spending has increased by about 11 percent per year since 2001, to about $400 billion this year, not including hundreds of billions of dollars that Congress has set aside to pay for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military operations and maintenance costs, as well as salaries and health benefits for people in uniform, have all gone up by about 40 percent. CLIP - IMAGINE THE MILLIONS OF LIVES THAT COULD BE SAVED AND ALL THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND RESTORATIONS PROJECTS - TO NAME JUST THESE 2 TOPICS - THAT COULD BE FINANCED WITH ALL THIS MONEY AND ALL THE DWINDLING EARTH'S RESOURCES THAT ARE WASTED TO CREATE TOOLS TO KILL, MAIM, AND DESTROY... AH! THE UTTER FOLLY OF THESE MEN DRUGGED ON POWER AND MONEY...
Is the Next Step a Draft? (August 22, 2006)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/08/is_the_next_ste.html
An Iraq War veterans group says the call-up of thousands of Marines from the Individual Ready Reserve, announced by the Pentagon today, is "one of the last steps before resorting to a draft." "This move should serve as a wake-up call to America," said Jon Soltz, an Army captain who served in Iraq and heads the group VoteVets.org, which raises funds for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans running for Congress. "Today's announcement that thousands of Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve will be called back to go to Iraq is proof that our military is overextended, and there is no plan for victory in Iraq." While the Pentagon has repeatedly maintained the armed forces have met their recruiting and retention goals, Soltz says, "Today's actions speak louder than words." The IRR are reservists, who have returned to civilian life, don't drill on a regular basis and prior to the Iraq war were rarely called to active duty. The Army has been dipping into their IRR pool since shortly after the beginning of the war, but today the Marine Corps said they also planned to call thousands of these traditionally last resort troops back to active duty. CLIP
Putting the Iraq War on Trial
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082206D.shtml
When he refused to deploy to Iraq in June, Army Lt. Ehren Watada said he was following his conscience and upholding his duty not to obey illegal orders. Military officials charged him with violating Army rules and sent him on a path toward a likely court-martial. In doing so, they set up an unusual collision between a man who is believed to be the first officer to refuse duty in Iraq and a military justice system that is now effectively being asked to rule on the war's legality.
Israel's Next War
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/israel/view/
They do not believe in peace talks. They do not want to share the land. They are well armed and are carrying out increasingly violent attacks, even targeting innocent civilians. They are members of Israel's militant far right, and they are threatening to become Israel's next big problem. In "Israel's Next War?" FRONTLINE goes deep inside the world of militant Jewish radicals who pose a grave new threat to Israeli security and, potentially, to the region. "The dream of these extremists"—to blow up the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, one of the most important holy sites in the Muslim world—"should give us sleepless nights," says former Israeli Security Chief Avi Dichter. "Jewish terror is liable to create a serious strategic threat that will turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a conflict between thirteen million Jews and a billion Muslims all over the world." CLIP
Afghanistan Descends Into Chaos Once Again
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082206A.shtml
Nelofer Pazira, the journalist who starred in the film "Kandahar," has gone back to the southern Afghan city for the first time in four years. There she found residents living in fear as Islamic insurgents extend their deadly reach still deeper into the country.
The Political Benefits of Terror (July 10)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071006J.shtml
(...) It just so happens that nearly every terrorist warning that has been issued since 2003 came at a time when Bush's approval ratings lagged and when bad news was coming out of the war in Iraq. Go to pollingreport.com and then check the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department web sites and you'll see how the terrorist warnings were issued at the same time Bush started to fall behind in the polls.
Liquid Bombers Prove: They Hate Our Freedoms
http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/rants/theyhate.htm
(...) What kind of bombs? TATP bombs, short for triacetone triperoxide. What's more, Bush and Blair told us that Muslims favor the TATP bomb, mixed on the spot with separate liquids. With that lie, both Bush and Blair foreclosed any possibility that the Muslims involved actually were guilty. With that lie, both Bush and Blair disclosed themselves for the treasonous, lying criminals that they are. Why? Glad you asked.To Build the Impossible BombYou see ... it can't be done. It quite simply cannot be done. Not in any airplane toilet. Not with any resources that might be available aboard any airplane other than Tom Swift's Flying Lab. Not with the time afforded by a Trans-Atlantic flight. And certainly - not by anybody without chemistry lab training and experience - not under the circumstances claimed, anyway.If Muslims favor TATP bombs - and there is evidence to support the claim that Muslims use TATP bombs - then Muslims who might do so know full well the limitations and hazards inherent to such an explosive. No Muslim in his right mind would attempt what has been claimed, because he would know it can't be done - and, believe me, doing it under any circumstances would require a Muslim in his right mind. At best, the guy simply would kill himself, and do little damage to the plane's toilet. Regardless, nobody would be allowed the opportunity to spend hours in the toilet ... not aboard a jetliner. In a moment, I will prove to you why TATP simply cannot be made aboard jetliners, but first, please be really clear about the significance of that fact: that it conclusively proves Bush and Blair to be lying weasels. Not just dumb. Not just stupid. Lying, treasonous, unforgivable, murdering bastards. CLIP
Under Fire! U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst Targeted For Suggesting New Independent 9/11 Investigation
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/August2006/220806_b_Disloyal.htm
Army: Doubting Official 9/11 Story Is ‘Disloyal To The United States’ - According to unnamed military sources contacted by The Iconoclast, SFC Buswell "used his Government issued email account to send messages disloyal to the United States …" Because of these statements, SFC Buswell could soon find himself dishonorably discharged, court marshaled, or worse. (...) It’s not a paranoid conspiracy to think there are conspiracies out there...and, it’s not Liberal Lunacy either, nor is it Conservative Kookiness! People, fellow citizens we’ve been had! We must demand a new independent investigation into 911 and look at all options of that day, and all plausabilities [sic], even the most incredulous theories must be examined. Upon returning to his office the next day, Buswell discovered the locks had been changed, his security clearance was revoked, and an investigation had been launched. Buswell’s commanding officer, Colonel Luke Green, drafted a letter assigning Major Edwin Escobar to the investigation. According to sources, Colonel Green has asserted that SFC Buswell failed to obey Army regulations when he used his government issued email account to send what have been termed as messages disloyal to the United States with the intent of stirring up disloyalty, in a manner that brings discredit upon the United States Army. CLIP
Former President Carter: US and Israel Stand Alone
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081906G.shtml
Former US president Jimmy Carter speaks with Der Spiegel about the danger posed to American values by George W. Bush, the difficult situation in the Middle East and Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro.
Iraq's Spreading Civil War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082006Z.shtml
The debate is over: By any definition, Iraq is in a state of civil war. Indeed, the only thing standing between Iraq and a descent into total Bosnia-like devastation is 135,000 US troops -- and even they are merely slowing the fall. The internecine conflict could easily spiral into one that threatens not only Iraq but also its neighbors throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf region with instability, turmoil and war.
Congress Poised to Unravel the Internet (August 18)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082006B.shtml
/(...) Regardless of whether Congress passes legislation in the fall, progressives need to create a forward-looking telecom policy agenda. They should seek to insure online access for low-income Americans, provide public oversight of broadband services, foster the development of digital communities and make it clear that the public's free speech rights online are paramount. It's now time to help kill the Stevens "tube" bill and work toward a digital future where Internet access is a right--and not dependent on how much we can pay to "admission control."
At War with Syria and Iran: The Neo-Cons May Get Their Wish (August 10, 2006)
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3422
With no shame in drawing the U.S. into the Iraq quagmire three-and-a-half years ago, the same group of neo-conservatives including William Kristol, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthhammer are pushing for Israel/U.S. go to war with Syria and Iran. What is amazing is that despite the deep mess they got us into in Iraq, President Bush and his foreign policy team is actually listening to them.
Sheen Movie To Portray Rodriguez 9/11 Heroism (August 21 2006)
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/August2006/210806_b_Rodriguez.htm
The next 9/11 tale to hit the silver screen could be that of a World Trade Center janitor whose heroism helped save hundreds of lives.William Rodriguez says he is in talks with actors Charlie Sheen and Esai Morales to turn his riveting story into a feature film - and atop writer-director, David Marconi, is already involved in theproject. In a strange twist on the usual 9/11-hero tale, Rodriguez had pursued a federal lawsuit charging that the Sept. 11 attacks were aconspiracy orchestrated by President Bush to justify wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the lawsuit, which named Bush and 54 other government officials and agencies, was dismissed in June. And Marconi says the film would be a straightforward tale of heroism. Responsible for cleaning the stairwells of the north tower, Rodriguez - a 20-year veteran custodial staffer - had the only available master key to the WTC complex when the first hijacked plane struck. He led firefighters up floor after floor, unlocking doors and aiding rescue efforts. But when he got to the 39th floor, the second plane hit and he was forced to evacuate. The last person to escape the tower before it collapsed, Rodriguez was buried under the rubble for an hour before being rescued. Rodriguez met Sheen, Morales and Marconi last month at a 9/11 conference in Los Angeles. "Charlie told me, 'I'd be honored to turnyour story into a movie,' " Rodriguez said.
Indictment Still Sealed, Fitzgerald Still Busy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082106Z.shtml
An indictment first reported by Truthout said to be connected to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Plame investigation remains sealed, and Fitzgerald continues to work on the leak case.
Pull the Plug on Electronic Voting
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082206B.shtml
Aviel Rubin writes, "I am a computer scientist. I own seven Macintosh computers, one Windows machine and a Palm Treo 700p with a GPS unit, and I chose my car (InfinitiM35x) because it had the most gadgets of any vehicle in its class. My 7-year-old daughter uses email. So why am I advocating the use of 17th-century technology for voting in the 21st century - as one of my critics puts it?"
Damage and Doubts Linger After Katrina
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082106G.shtml
Nearly one year after Hurricane Katrina punched into the Gulf Coast, much damage remains, both in the shattered homes that litter parts of New Orleans and in the battered reputation of government institutions. Many Americans are not persuaded by federal assurances that the government is ready for the next big storm.
Trying to Make It Home: One Year After Katrina
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082206R.shtml
Bill Quigley: "If you have seen recent television footage of New Orleans, you probably have a picture of how bad our housing situation is. What you cannot see is that the rest of our institutions, our water, our electricity, our health care, our jobs, our educational system, our criminal justice systems - are all just as broken as our housing."
Experts: Sex Slavery Widespread in US
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/082206WA.shtml
Raids that uncovered more than 70 suspected sex slaves focused on 20 brothels in the eastern part of the US, but they illustrated a long-ignored national problem found in towns large and small, experts say.
Food, Biofuels Could Worsen Water Shortages
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/082206EB.shtml
Surging demand for irrigation to produce food and biofuels is likely to aggravate scarcities of water, an international report said. Conquering hunger and coping with an estimated 3 billion extra people by 2050 will result in an 80 percent increase in water use for agriculture.
Fixing Ozone Hole Raises Warming Concerns
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/082206EC.shtml
When more than two dozen countries undertook in 1989 to fix the ozone hole over Antarctica, they began replacing chloroflourocarbons in refrigerators and air conditioners. But they had little idea that using other gases that contain chlorine or fluorine instead also would contribute greatly to global warming.
1.
THESE VITAL QUOTES MUST BE READ BEFORE READING MICHAEL RUPERT'S ARTICLE BELOW...
Sent by Steve Marsden stvmrsdn@yahoo.com au August 18
Don't Let the Government Grind You Down
"When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent. When they took the second amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun. Now they've come for the first amendment, and I can't say anything at all."
- Tim Freeman
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
- Charles Austin Beard
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel."
- Patrick Henry
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
- George Washington
"Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous."
- William Proxmire
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered."
- Lyndon Johnson
"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."
- Robert Maynard Hutchins, 1899-1977
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!"
- Patrick Henry
"Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem."
- Ronald Reagan
2.
PSYOP OR SIMPLE SHEER DESPAIR? MAKE SURE TO ALSO READ THE NEXT ITEM IN RESPONSE TO MICHAEL RUPPERT'S ARTICLE BELOW... AND READ ALSO THE SECOND ITEM BELOW OFFERING ESSENTIAL PERSPECTIVES ON THIS AND MUCH MUCH MORE!
Forwarded by "Alex Kochkin - FFGA" ask@ffga.org
From: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/081606_burning_bridge.shtml
A Permanent Goodbye to the United States
by Michael C. Ruppert
"Sometimes you get your best light from a burning bridge"
- Don Henley, "My Thanksgiving"
August 16th 2006 - CARACAS - It was about a week before I left the United States forever that I watched Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tell Charlie Rose something all of us already know in our hearts. "Today," he said, "the United States is hated around the world far worse than it was at the height of the Vietnam War." I remember the Vietnam War. I will never forget it.
I opposed that war, and I still remember riots on the UCLA campus in May,1970 when four students were shot dead by National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio. I was a college student then, and I was 2S-deferred for the draft. A year later I would be re-classified 1A as the nation shifted to a lottery system. At least someone in my country was willing to risk his life in the face of injustice. It gave me hope. That kind of risk-taking was commonplace then, from the civil rights movement to the anti-war movement, to the American Indian Movement. American blood was shed regularly on American soil to resist American tyranny; from Watts, to Detroit, to Selma, to San Francisco to Memphis to Wounded Knee. It fertilized our lives and souls as it touched the ground. The willingness to endure physical suffering, material sacrifice, and jail for the sake of justice was a singular mark of the American character that earned respect as it infected the world.
What is the United States infecting the world with today?
Now it seems the American people won’t even risk their credit ratings, student loans, the next piece of ass, or a sideways glance from people who look at them like AIDS patients for daring to deviate from the corporate, media-instilled norm. We have come a long way backward. Rodney King’s "Can’t we all just get along" has become the modern day theme song for the surrender of America’s character, and the L.A. Rebellion of 1992 was probably the last flame of will to fight injustice in American history.
This new quiescence comes at a time when US crimes are far worse and more far-reaching than they were in 1970; certainly in the eyes of the world. In 2001 the US government both facilitated and executed the attacks of 9/11 against its own people, killing thousands of its citizens as an excuse to launch a neo-imperial conquest for energy. A few Americans held small rallies, organized some ineffective groups, bought a few hundred thousand books and DVDs, listened to a few radio programs and lectures, and then quietly lined up to have their bags, emails, credit histories, minds and bodies searched. Critical mass was never achieved as Executive Orders along with the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts shredded the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments to our Bill of Rights.
In my book Crossing the Rubicon I wrote that events that took place in the five years following those attacks would determine the course of human history for centuries to come. We now stand at the brink of that fateful anniversary.
After the 9-11 attacks the US government lied to create a war for oil in Iraq telling us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, almost-ready atom bombs, poison gas and deadly germs. We were told that he helped execute the 9/11 attacks. It was all lies, and no one has held the US accountable for the hundreds of thousands of deaths (murders) in Iraq and Afghanistan since then. Few have tried to hold the government accountable for 2,500 Americans who have died needlessly, and those who have, have been remarkably ineffective.
US presidential elections were stolen in 2000 and 2004 through rigged electronic voting software and intimidation. Not one drop of blood was spilled anywhere, even as the US Supreme Court rendered an illegal decision supporting the overthrow of the Constitution and trampling the rights of individual states.
I never thought I would call the 60s and 70s "the good old days". I would cry tears of joy today to see just one campus overrun by a modern equivalent of the Students for a Democratic Society. I would cheer to see a general strike paralyze a city. It would be living proof that American character had not been submerged, drugged, weakened, and rendered anemic beyond revival.
My country is dead. Its people have surrendered to tyranny, and in so doing, they have become tyranny’s primary support group; its base constituency; its chief defender. Every day they offer their endorsement of tyranny by banking in its banks and spending their borrowed money with the corporations that run it. The great Neocon strategy of George H.W. Bush has triumphed. Convince the American people that they can’t live without the "good things", then sit back and watch as they endorse the progressively more outrageous crimes you commit as you throw them bones with ever-less meat on them. All the while, lock them into debt. Destroy the middle class, the only political base that need be feared. Make them accept, because of their own shared guilt, ever-more repressive police state measures. Do whatever you want.
No amount of mind control spin can absolve any of us from acknowledging this ugly truth about the US and its crimes today. It lurks invisibly behind every corporate news broadcast, every commercially-made television show, every infomercial, every new magazine ad, and almost every new popular song that leads Americans deeper into ever-less-satisfying consumption, self-indulgence and debt. It stands grinning behind every report on the world’s rapacious financial markets and every new automobile, shampoo, or other product that promises to give the world larger and more potent sexual organs, bigger (more ridiculous) breasts, a better love life, and peace of mind.
I left my last classes that spring day in 1970 after four students had been murdered, crying from both the emotional pain and the tear gas that wafted up the Janns Steps and onto the Quad at UCLA. I went to my job as an intern at the Los Angeles Police Department. After donning my khaki uniform without gun or badge I returned to UCLA to work at LAPD’s command post, ferrying dispatches and running errands for Deputy Chiefs, Commanders, and Captains as LAPD batons shed the blood of my fellow students. My life has always been full of ironies. Then, I believed that the system could be changed from the inside. Then, I believed that the United States could be changed from the inside.
Mistrusted by both sides there was no safe place for me to cry that day.
My shame today is that it took a set of circumstances where my life was in danger to make me make the right choice, a choice I would now like to say was totally a matter of conscience, but it was not. The truth is that I was prompted to do what I should have done long ago out of a well-justified desire to save my life.
In this life I have chosen not to die a martyr’s death. As I am learning every day, there are more difficult and demanding ways to write the final chapters of one’s life. I left the United States with one large suitcase, my laptop, and a backpack. I left behind my precious library, most of my clothing, my personal possessions, my guns, and a house full of furniture. I brought with me less than eight thousand dollars in cash and gold to start the final segment of my life.
My permanent exodus from the US was actually ordained thirty years -- to the month -- before I left for good on July 18th, 2006. It was thirty years ago that my then-fiancée, a career contract agent for the CIA, disclosed to me that "her people" were interested in giving a major boost to my career with LAPD if I would become involved with her "anti-terror" operations that involved "overlooking" (i.e. protecting) large drug shipments coming in while facilitating the movement of large quantities of firearms going out. I refused to compromise my ethics as a police officer and -- as I wrote on page 6 of Crossing the Rubicon - "that has determined the course of my life ever since."
Like all humans I want to hold on to dreams for as long as possible, even long after I know they will never come true. I have tried and sacrificed with every fiber of my being to change my country, but the plain fact is that the United States of America cannot and will never be changed from within. I recall the words spoken to me by a senior FBI agent in Los Angeles in 1986: "Mike, the world doesn’t want to be saved."
Stupid me. I still believe it does -- at least the parts of it that lie outside the US, Great Britain, and Israel; the real Axis of Evil.
Today the United States is the cause of ever-expanding wars (covert and overt), carnage, suffering, and political and economic exploitation -- even within its own borders against its own people -- that fill our corporate-issued headlines and TV shows. The US economy, the privately-owned Federal Reserve system, and the government which they operate like a franchise are the greatest enemies of the entire human race and especially the rapidly- deteriorating and fragile ecosystem which supports all life. U.S. citizens are slowly discovering that they are not immune because of their nationality. On our planet today, what happens to one must inevitably happen to all. Peak Oil and global warming will spare no nationality in the end.
The US economy, driven by a fiat currency, fractional reserve banking, debt-based financing -- and "doped" with the billions of dollars of drug profits laundered through its corporations and banks -- is a superheated pyramid scheme of infinite growth wherein 5% of the world’s population consumes 25% of the world’s energy and a totally disproportionate share of the world’s diminishing resources and commodities.
In their silence and acquiescence Americans have voted -- even if by abstention -- to stand on the shoulders of all drowning peoples in the vain hope that they will somehow be saved from a paradigm which they support and empower by obeying it; by endorsing it with their silence or knowingly impotent protests; by refusing to throw themselves against the gears of the machine. In this world, a protest which is allowed and encouraged, corralled into free-speech areas, and then policed by the ruling government only to be ignored by the media is, by definition, meaningless.
The US is a nation where the "non-negotiable" and unsustainable "American" way of life is propped up by global conflict, out-of-control military spending, massive and unsustainable debt, and an increasingly-aggressive fascist police state. It is a nation where all US citizens who do not resist and disconnect from this paradigm enjoy their ever-diminishing privileges with the guilty knowledge that somewhere else, hopefully in some "other" country, others are paying the price for it.
The world is now my country.
With the passage of time, the degree of corporate oppression, the outrageousness of the cruelty, and the absurdity of the lies can only increase as dwindling resources diminish and desperation erupts. Ironically, the disappearing American middle class will still cheer at each new millionaire success story, even if they quietly understand that a hundred or a thousand of their kind had to disappear to create it. They chase illusions of hope rather than the real possibility of justice and change like lottery players with a one-in-a-billion chance of winning. They prefer that to hard work and sacrifice with much better odds where almost everybody can win something.
As the human race enters the first stages of inevitable collapse resulting from Peak Oil, it does so ass-backwards, in complete denial, and in the one way most certain to guarantee the greatest amount of suffering and death for future generations. It does so because, for a time at least, U.S. foreign, military, and economic policy holds the steering wheel of human destiny through dollar hegemony, military force, technology and globalization.
This control is inevitably weakening, and other hands in other countries are successfully struggling for an ever-increasing measure of influence. The Empire is dying from within, and like all wounded beasts, it is becoming more vicious and dangerous in the process; its lies more transparent.
A different world is possible. A better world is possible. It took the imminent threat of my own death at the hands of my government to make me fully admit to my innermost self what I have known for years. Having failed to change my country’s direction after 30 years of effort, I had to stop living in the problem and start living in the solution. If I did not, my soul would have died just as surely as my body would have died after the recent burglary that savaged our offices.
I do not know where I will spend the rest of my days. Maybe in Venezuela, maybe in Mexico with the Zapatistas, maybe in Bolivia, maybe in France, Germany, or even Russia. But because Venezuela has become the singular world leader in resisting US domination under the courageous, intelligent, and inspired leadership of Hugo Chavez, I want to begin the rest of my days here.
Being freer to speak, to learn, to experience and to witness real solutions being discovered and implemented by peoples willing to take risks and who understand the challenges, I will be better able to report usefully to FTW readers and the world in future books and articles. I am currently in a country where the people have changed and are changing their government; where the elected head of state has won six elections while George W. Bush has stolen two. Is it any wonder I feel better already?
One thing is certain about fascism and that is that its behavior and evolution are remarkably predictable. Five years ago I helped bring into world consciousness a forgotten quote from Benito Mussolini wherein he said that, "Fascism ought to more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power." Nothing better describes the state of the world today. The U.S. is a nation of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation. As such it has placed something different from and opposed to the welfare of human beings on the compass as its "true North".
Fascism always becomes more vicious as it evolves. It never retreats, and as with drug addition, larger and larger doses of oppression and violence are always required to sustain its inevitable path towards self-destruction. As the great Cynthia McKinney said to me not long before her just-orchestrated ouster from the House of Representatives, "any fool can see it coming."
DETAILS ON BURGLARY AND OFFICE STAFF OMITTED HERE
A NEW BEGINNING
Since my departure Carolyn Baker, Michael Kane, Stan Goff, Jamey Hecht and the remaining FTW office staff consisting of Brendan, Spencer and Luke have been performing heroically. A brave and honorable Ashland attorney has valiantly stepped in with complete power of attorney over my affairs. My agent and publicist Ken Levine has been steadfast and true. It was he who helped to get me out of the country in secret. In the coming weeks some of these wonderful people will provide our subscribers with their accounts of my last days in the US. There were many poignant moments in the way we put together and executed a plan to get me out of the country in just 18 days, even as I noticed renewed and ominous surveillance around the office.
To all those who will assert - and I’m sure they will - that all of these things happened because I’m some kind of deranged maniac who pisses everyone off, I ask how I could possibly have earned and retained the loyalty of these wonderful people and all of our subscribers for all these years.
FTW is going to be bigger and better. I will continue to write and offer editorial guidance, but my days of running the business are over. Carolyn Baker, Mike Kane and Stan Goff are giants in their own rights, and they need room to blossom and carry on the FTW tradition with their own unique styles and personalities. Since leaving the US I have been offering occasional editorial guidance, but I have come to realize that FTW’s writers need very little of this. They have the map and are reading it well. Listen to them.
FTW needs your help now. We need donations. We need sales. Very soon we will have a new DVD which will show you my last two public appearances ever in the United States. It will be my farewell message to all of you even as I say hello in a new form. After FTW’s current, considerable expenses and staff are paid, some of that badly-needed money will find its way to me in Venezuela where I sorely need it.
I have said time and again that the only thing that matters to me is effecting real change in the political landscape. Revolution is not a dinner party. The economy and government of the United States of America are my enemies and the enemies of the entire human race and even of the American people themselves. They must be weakened, defeated and replaced by something which places the welfare of human beings ahead of profits and share value.
With these words I have committed a crime in the eyes of US law. There is no turning back. The bridge is burned. But I will reply with the words of the Declaration of Independence which state:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it,…
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations… evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, their duty, to throw off such Government.
In 1776 there was no concept of any limitation in terms of resources, space or possibilities. We live in a fundamentally different era today, and so therefore, I would add to these truths the following:
We must also recognize that Happiness cannot be defined solely within the mind and the will of individuals alone, without regard to the availability of the same potential for all mankind and all life placed here by the Creator. One human being, or group of human beings, cannot possess a disproportionate share, deprive others, and justly call this Happiness. True Happiness and Peace result from harmony between peoples, the planet and all life forms without which no life is possible. These can only be achieved in a world where men and women in all places realize the need for Balance, Equity, Harmony and Justice and that only these will ensure equal and fair Rights for subsequent generations and the sustainability of the planet itself.
In many lectures I have uttered another one of my trademarked lines: The human race is now being presented by a dispassionate universe with one test; either evolve or perish. I, for one, have chosen to evolve.
Now that I am in the world and not a "country", my prayer is that my future adventures for as long as I live will connect me with other world-changers so that we can support and empower each other and all peoples. I am already finding out that there are more people who clearly see these challenges than I ever suspected.
But I am also under no illusions about the increased danger this will bring. Even though life is very difficult now as I live on the cheap and struggle to become halfway fluent in Spanish, I wake up each morning with something I haven’t felt in a long time - hope, real hope.
I promise to send some home.
**The opinions expressed here are not necessarily or entirely those of From The Wilderness as a corporation.**
---
"I wish you only wonderful days, wherever you are. You and your book has changed my life forever. My whole world was turned upside down only about six months ago as I slowly came out of the fog and discovered what my government has been doing to all of us. I didn't sleep for weeks. It was like I woke up on another planet, my "normal" world completely gone. I have read and researched until my eyeballs felt bloody. I have felt hopeless that no one is going to listen. Everyone is like zombies walking around, just like I was. Thank you for everything you have given me. We are about the same age and I identify with what you have been through."
- Mike - just one of many comments to this letter and words of appreciation for Ruppert's work and dedication over the years, all posted at http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22903415&postID=115584972895701190
3.
From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net
Subject: Moving Retort to Ruppert's Fatalism
Date: 18 Aug 2006
Cathy Garger savorsuccesslady3@... wrote:
I start off my reply to this piece by quoting Michael C. Ruppert: "And there was nothing left in the United States worth fighting for."
Uh, Hel-LO Mr. Ruppert. USA, person-to-person call to EARTH, Mr. Michael C. Ruppert. You are as depressed as hell - more depressed, in fact, than *anyone* else I know - and I'm afraid that you and I actually do NOT see eye to eye on this little issue of America's in the toilet, and I'm getting the hell outa here-attitude. No, Mr. Ruppert, oh great investigative journalist from somewhere in that Utopian Venezuelan wilderness. Sorry, Mr. Ruppert. We do not see eye to eye at all.
Mr. Ruppert, there are MANY things left worth fighting for. These are called namely: MY FELLOW AMERICANS. And ya know what? Actually, a great number of these - my FELLOW AMERICANS - are mere innocent children and babies and babies still yet-to-be-born. There are, in fact, Mr. Ruppert, over 300 MILLION things - or, actually more to the point, 300 MILLION HUMAN BEINGS left in the USA that are indeed worth my fighting for, Mr. Ruppert.
Michael C. Ruppert's piece is, admittedly, brilliantly written and makes many superb points. He does a great job describing some real truths about the organized crime gang that sits in federal control rooms within our national District of Slime. There are, however, a few things that are quite interestingly and curiously left out. Ruppert blames us - Americans - without explaining precisely WHY and HOW we have gotten into the horribly sad mess in which we currently find ourselves sinking ever more deeply. I call this quick sand for the American soul.
Yes, Ruppert tells many truths. But by his omissions? I say that his piece is morally dishonest.
Please reflect on another of Mr. Ruppert's "wisdoms" if you will... "I have tried and sacrificed with every fiber of my being to change my country, but the plain fact is that the United States of America cannot and will never be changed from within."
There you go. Now you have it. We can not change our nation. It's useless, so let's all stop trying! I guess it's high time that we all lie down and die in utter despair and hopelessness. Either that, or fly off to Caracas and sit around and drink shade coffee in shady Venezuela with our shades on, in joyous bliss and "freedom" with Mr. Ruppert, eh?
Don't reserve a seat for me at your cafe, Mr. Ruppert. There is far too much work to be done here, back home. In the States. And besides, I don't need a dose of your bitter brand of shade- y "optimism" anyway.
Mr. Ruppert, please know this much. We who are still "back home" both can - and will - change things from within, whether you want us to believe it - or not.
Mr. Ruppert makes it sound like the hopelessly pathetic Americans with our lopsided and ridiculous-looking boob jobs and mindless, drooling Brangelica/Paris/Jessica/ Vaughniston fantasy obsessions are where we ALL are because of our own doing. Au contraire. Note that Mr. Ruppert's article does not go the distance and explain how the Empire has been working for more years than most of us have been alive in order to turn our society into a place that would fully allow the criminal regime in power to do their thorough raping of the nation's resources (physical, mental, and spiritual) and then go on to systematically wage strategic campaigns to imperialistically rape and pillage other nations in secret operations and not-so-covert military operations.
Mr. Ruppert talks a bit about our media's brainwashing of the US public but does not even nearly scratch the surface. He does not explain the Empire's role in taking over our churches, our schools, our non-profit organizations, our foundations, our natural resources, our phony false resistance organizations that masquerade as being "peace and social justice" groups, but exist, in actuality, to do nothing more effective than to get bleeding heart liberals to believe that by voting eternally for the blue donkey that they have some hope in actually changing the system at the polls.
We are where we are all according to the infiltration of our government's truly malevolent mind programming into virtually every aspect of our society. Case in point happened just yesterday when my daughter asked me to take a quiz yesterday based on her favorite cartoon show. I smiled, agreed to take the test, and thought "This will be fun!" Imagine my utter horror when the very first question of the "fun" quiz that my pre-teen asked was: "From this category, choose which weapon you would like to use?" Uhhhh...test officially OVER at question one in order to have a little heart-to-heart with my beloved Small Fry. Sick to my stomach, I helped to make my young charge realize that Teen Titans was not merely just a "fun" cartoon after all...
Oh good GOD we have to educate our children, Mr. Ruppert!
Yeah, the true and utter depth of the psychopathology suddenly HITS US in a big way when we realize what the evil doers have done, with the de-sensitization of our kids to violence that's even permeated into the cartoons that our kids watch. And when I read recently that the military is planning a theme park for kids based on the military (i.e., war) theme in VA outside an army base? I realized then that it was truly now the end of the world as we know it.
Ruppert does not tell us that this was all done to us over the past 50 or so years, nor even how they did it to us. He knows better. He is trying to make us feel like we are a bunch of pathetic, amoral, hopeless, uncaring, self-centered, shallow, stupid, apathetic losers. But the truth of the matter is? For a great number - perhaps even close to a majority of Americans - this is simply not true! I know lots of people who are aware that something is wrong and they genuinely do care...they are just immobilized by both fear and shock and truly don't know what the hell to do about all of this!
I see Ruppert as having just written the most brilliant psyops piece of all time.
Please, dear friends, do not give in to his call to bring us into hopelessness and utter despair. The Empire knows that we (the knowing and the caring) have been hit HARD. They keep SLAMMING US with one slap of horror, one after another after another. Some days, there are not even enough hours in the day to read of all the evil- doing that our so-called "leaders" are busily carrying out! It's all going quite according to plan, too... in order to demoralize us, to break down our spirits, to get us to want to skip town - to have us throw up our hands as Ruppert has done and entice us to give up - or, better yet, to leave the USA.
I see the recent story about Chris Bollyn's unfortunate episode as basically accomplishing the same thing. I do not know that journalist, other than having read a great many of his works. And I have not seen any pictures of him all beat up. But people I respect do believe in this writer. So yes, for a moment now, let us assume he genuinely was beaten up and arrested, precisely as he wrote. If this is indeed true, then the arrest and beatings were done because the powers that be fully *knew* that Bollyn would write about the experience. Moral of the story for all of us? Don't BE a 9/11 researcher and writer because then men in dark suits, dark shades, and dark cars will go outside your home and rough you up in a rather unpleasant, brutal way.
Don't fall for this. It is bullshi*. They want us to ring our hands together and pack our bags and go. Yes, they have the money and they have the formal set-ups to accomplish their unfathomably vile malevolence. What we have however, is far more valuable, as we are the ones with a conscience, the ones with the BRAINS and the HEART. All we need to do is find our COURAGE! We can educate our fellow sleeping Americans. We have to BE the media right now... It is more important at this day in US history than ever, ever before.
We need to make a daily commitment. I have started thinking, I need to wake up just ONE person today. Just ONE. It can be in the grocery store or through something that I have written that I just HOPE to god that someone will read and pass along to her neighbor who will finally wake up and get a clue - and then go tell his nephew who is currently serving in the military...
Don't listen to Ruppert. Don't run away and give up (or want to) because you are disgusted in the dirty deeds done dirt cheap by those in power and by the lack of action on the part of the American people. Stay and fight via truth education about these disgusting, dirty, corrupt, amoral powerfuls who have seized control of our nation because of the tremendous love within your heart for the rest of your neighbors and fellow citizens. We must do everything we can to take back control of our country from those who are discompassionately un-concerned with the rights and needs of other human beings.
After careful contemplation, I believe that the only way that we can take back control of this country (absent physical violence, that is, which I abhor) is through widespread and *immediate* grassroots education.
So to Michael C. Ruppert I say, thanks for all you have done in the past. Now kindly stop writing about your current level of disgust of the people you used to call your fellow citizens. And let the rest of us now carry on, taking upon our shoulders the monumental task that so critically, desperately requires our full focus, dedication, and attention.
I wish Mr. Ruppert nothing but good health and much happiness in Venezuela. And I also maintain that Americans remaining within this country - that we still love so very much - do not need the dark and purposeful poison infiltrating our hearts and our hope that Michael C. Ruppert so skillfully tries to crush.
With best wishes and good riddance, Michael C. Ruppert.
Cathy Garger
4.
A MUST READ - FROM A FRIEND (AND LONG-TIME ERN SUBSCRIBER) WHO HAS A MOST UNIQUE AND PRECIOUS PERSPECTIVE TO OFFER. FEEL FREE TO RESPOND TO HIM AS HE WILL BE VERY INTERESTED IN YOUR THOUGHTS AND REACTIONS ...
From: "Alex Kochkin - FFGA" ask@ffga.org
Date: 20 Aug 2006
Subject: Fatalism ?
20 August 2006
Dear Jean,
I would like to comment on the FTW/Ruppert article but I must say something first. A lot, actually.
Deep change in the social and personal consciousness of the people who make up the U.S.A. is likely to be catalyzed under two likely near-term scenarios emerging from of our current trajectory: In the first scenario, the U.S. economy and political order is severely crippled, brought on by ongoing wars of aggression, disease crises, agricultural crises, and growing social disorder – exacerbated by escalating natural disasters and internal civil strife due to economic stresses on a consumption-based culture. This would further be fueled by various scandals and revelations from high level personages that would tear more of the façade from the current regime that runs the U.S. as their preferred base of operations for global dominance. The second scenario entails the incremental unfolding of what could come to be known in the future as an openly fascistic and brutally militaristic home rule. Some combination of these scenarios are likely to be needed before U.S. society as whole engages with their higher freewill and resolutely brings an end to the corruption that infects all levels of society and personal life.
This has been the question facing humanity as a species most dramatically in the last century. In other words, “how close to the point of ‘no return’ does enough of humanity have to go before enough people wake up to the fact that those ‘driving the bus’ must be permanently relieved -- and for everyone to learn how to drive”?
With over 6 billion people, perhaps few remember or feel the terrible death and destruction over the past hundred years. Perhaps things need to get even more extreme. I would hope not. But I am not placing any bets, not right now at least.
(There is also a third scenario and that involves something totally amazing that will very dramatically bring a halt to most human aggression and dysfunction at all levels. This third scenario presently depends largely on the outcome of the quiet dismantling of extensive and subtle levels of control that have been in place for too long. This is the subject of a future essay called “Plan A”.)
All scenarios aside, the big question is: “What will it take for the public to effectively surrender to the power of their own higher consciousness and set about creating something new and wonderful that has nothing in common with the old paradigm”? As of this writing, the first most likely scenario will be most unpleasant for a many of Americans. As I have written before, it will not be a grand unification under the “threat” of global climate change – that tack is being headed up the same powers that be that are engineering a police state at home and false flag state terrorism globally.
Of paramount importance is the formation of a coherent spiritually-aware social movement – as the old order gets broken up, it would be a good idea for the leading elements of humanity to be ready with a bridge plan and actions toward this -- right now. It is their duty and responsibility as erstwhile leading people, otherwise they have abrogated their responsibilities and cannot be regarded as leaders. We cannot passively wait for the forces of Light to rescue us, we must also organize a break-out to coincide with those efforts. This includes “lifeboats” and “bridges” such as The Global Interchange and other new initiatives of comparable scope and depth that may emerge in the nick of time.
It does no good to blame ourselves or for one person to blame humanity, or to blame a complex society like that of the U.S. Here is where “discernment with compassion” (ttp://www.pfcn.net/ANA/key-concepts.htm) is essential in comprehending the insidious dynamic of the deliberate engineering of the denial of our innate freewill and to get people to “willingly” participate in their own imprisonment. Such is what U.S. society and most modern industrial society has come to. Nevertheless, freewill is an innate right and function bestowed by the Highest levels of Creation and can never be totally deleted, no matter how clever the social programming may be to the contrary. So there is hope. People are fundamentally good and can recognize right from wrong, truth from falsehood. But this can only be done if presented with genuine choices. And that is the rub. How are people to be presented with such choices? How are people to be educated quickly enough and with what they need to know now?
As you know, one of our “litmus tests” for several years was to explore the practical possibilities for large-scale synergistic cooperation among some of the more spiritually conscious leaders of our times. We met with and offered strategies and resources to various visionaries from the U.S. and other countries. Alas, not one of these people or organizations was willing to embrace something bigger in scope than their own immediate sphere of work. They would rather jealously guard their contact lists and small support bases, rather than share with one another and cooperate in creating something really big that would eventually benefit their own projects as well as benefit countless millions of people worldwide. They would rather ask for small donations to support their grant writers who in turn would generate more grant requests, etc. So, can politically-progressive social-spiritual visionaries work in a focused manner and harness their common resources – financial, human and otherwise for something truly bigger than any one of them or their respective work? This has been of grave concern to Carlos Barrios, a Mayan prophet and futurist. He too has decried the lack of cooperation among those spiritual progressives who fail to “walk their talk” in terms of sharing and cooperation and who would rather keep to a small minded approach that presumes each has “cornered the market” on “the way” forward for humanity.
Now to get the Ruppert piece, here are a few of my comments for you to use if you like:
Your letter from Cathy Garger says that the only way forward, short of violence, is through public education. (One of FTW’s specialities was to educate about facets of contemporary political-economy and political affairs.) However, until there is the cooperation and gathering sufficient financial and human resources, public education a the scale that is needed now, is a practical impossibility. This is one of the purposes of raising the tens of millions of dollars needed to launch The Global Interchange (http://www.pfcn.net/ANA/ch13-01.html) and a companion new social movement: Decade of the Heart. This project would be very easy to achieve if merely ten or twenty of the most influential social-spiritual visionary leaders would stop their well-intentioned busy-ness long enough to find the highest common denominator to work together from. Within 30 days, each of them could make enough phone calls to key funders to raise $50 to $100 million. We have gone as far as we can in the planning and rationales needed to properly utilize these funds. Will the erstwhile leaders of humanity’s rescue come forward?
I do not know Michael Ruppert personally, but I have come to respect the quality of the material presented through his online publication, “From The Wilderness”. Its main value and purpose has been to expose many hidden details behind “the powers that be” and the social-economic matrix they have created to imprison and parasitize humanity. Occasionally they publish material from people who offer positive solutions, such as self-organizing communities and new social-economic models. As far as FTW went, there was value in their well-written and well-researched exposures. Now it is time for all who can to focus on creating an alternate matrix to the dark one we find ourselves seemingly stuck in. The dark control matrix is already in the most fragile, yet still deadly, state of increasing disorder. In lieu of any coherent and spiritually-aware and capable global or national leadership, the most important thing right now are spontaneous self organizing communities that seek to embody a spiritual awareness and that seek to develop practical self-sufficiency in their locales.
First, I do not think Ruppert to be a psy-ops agent, per se. A discouraged crusader, yes. Was his piece objectively psy-ops, regardless of his intentions? That depends mostly on how much influence he truly really has with people who in turn can really influence the outcome of the struggle against the current “control matrix”. For sure, he has been too much a loner -- like most investigative journalists and solo crusaders. A few of those who really stuck their solo necks out are eventually financially strapped and limited in what they can do. This was one his shortcoming as I know it. Another was in not connecting to a broader perspective that spiritual and cosmic consciousness offers. The approach of lone crusader and band of “musketeers” has a similar problem to those people who seem to always have the energy for “anti-war” public protests, etc. but direct so little energy to truly creating something different together. (Make no mistake, as part of a greater concerted effort, public protests can be very effective!)
TO QUOTE THE END OF HIS LETTER/ARTICLE: ..."In many lectures I have uttered another one of my trademarked lines: The human race is now being presented by a dispassionate universe with one test; either evolve or perish. I, for one, have chosen to evolve. Now that I am in the world and not a "country", my prayer is that my future adventures for as long as I live will connect me with other world-changers so that we can support and empower each other and all peoples. I am already finding out that there are more people who clearly see these challenges than I ever suspected. But I am also under no illusions about the increased danger this will bring. Even though life is very difficult now as I live on the cheap and struggle to become halfway fluent in Spanish, I wake up each morning with something I haven't felt in a long time - hope, real hope. I promise to send some home."
Reading more deeply into the person behind the words, I can empathize. He has needed to find a safe refuge outside the borders of the US. The closest country that has the potential capacity to stand up to the NWO/TPTB, etc., is Chavez’ Venezuela, so he goes there to see if things could be different. He ends his article with an expression of hope and intent to evolve. To me that is the first step toward a more spiritualized consciousness. When people who understand the mechanisms of control and power move into a greater spiritual understanding, they have the opportunity to combine knowledge and spiritual insight into something powerful for positive change that can move many.
Without benefit of some measure of spiritual consciousness, we too would have given up hope that the awakening of humanity could ever occur in a big way. Over the most recent several years, humanity was headed to a highly probably reality with an encounter with the “cosmic recycling bin” as the only available way to end the grip of the dark on this beautiful corner of Creation. Today we see enough evidence of the breaking down of many levels of the “dark force control matrix” in the material and non-physical realms, to be encouraged to stay in the game awhile longer. This may be humanity’s last opportunity for a very long time to end the grip of the “controllers” and to consciously shift to an entirely new basis for living and being. I say “basis for living”, because humanity has been in a degenerating spiral for too many decades now and question must be considered: why should the present version of the human species continue unless it is capable of giving birth to a new self and a new more evolved and enlightened humanity? That would make it all worthwhile.
Now to return to the main point:
We have the potential. We need to intend differently, find the will, and act accordingly.
Humanity is closer than ever before to activating the most extreme consciousness and reality-shifting possibilities. As of this writing, the level of tension between catastrophic change by human or natural origins and the influx of higher consciousness has grown to a truly unprecedented magnitude.
We have before us a very simple proposition: If a sufficient portion of humanity as a whole proves unable to voluntarily make new choices based on a greater level of discernment on behalf of a spiritually-based and life-affirming future, then events will rapidly catalyze this process for us. However, there is no principle that says we must allow ourselves to fall into a catastrophic abyss first before deciding it is not in our best interests as human and spiritual beings.
Our ultimate destiny is that of spiritual beings occupying a unique medium between the solid physical matter of planets and the non-physicality of pure Spirit. This is the purpose of human biology: to provide a distinctive interface between these two aspects of creation. Our destiny is to discover the possibilities available within the magnificence of Creator consciousness.
We can and must make new choices and act upon them. It is within in our grasp and capacity to do so. The first step is to wake up to this option. We have so artfully managed to distract ourselves with personal and collective pleasures and power-seeking that we, as a species, seem hopelessly unconscious to an impending dramatic crossroad in our reality.
What is before us is the emergence of an evolutionary shift in our physical, social, psychological, and spiritual existence. This shift benefits everyone, regardless of their personal circumstances or belief system. All that is needed is to surrender our ordinary personal and societal "ambitions" to welcome the adventure beckoning to us more powerfully every day from our future selves. Thus, we can find resolution to all aspects of ordinary human suffering and our seemingly endless conflict with our natural environment.
This is truly the choice before us now. It has always been our choice to make.
What matters is now.
Best to you always,
Alex
5.
AN IMPORTANT VIEW FROM ANOTHER LONG-TIME ERN SUBSCRIBER
From: "Bill Cain" cain@metrocast.net
Subject: Ignoramuses, Fools and Cowards
Date: 21 Aug 2006
Ignoramuses, Fools and Cowards
By Bill Cain
Frankly, I’m getting sick and tired of reading article after article in the alternative media about all the crimes of the current administration with nary a mention by these writers about the biggest crime of all – that of 9-11. How can it be that otherwise intelligent people with PhD’s and other impressive credentials can continually identify the latest lie or crime and put together well thought out, articulate dissertations explaining in detail the nuances of these nefarious acts at the higher levels of our government, but be utterly perplexed and somehow unable to put two and two together when it comes to 9-11? Somehow it seems, according to these journalists, that everything the Bush administration says these days is a pack of lies and that everything it does is criminal, but the one thing, based on their collective silence, about which these liars and criminals can surely be trusted is their official conspiracy theory regarding the events of 9-11. You’d think that independent journalists who don’t have to answer to corporate bosses or other gatekeepers would be able to express what needs to be expressed, but apparently not. It makes no sense, but I think I’ve come to understand this phenomenon.
Bush bashing can be considered just good, old fashioned, partisan mud slinging – a game we all like to play here in the US. It’s safe – at least for now. However, when it comes to expressing a fundamental flaw in the fabric of this country – one that undermines everyone’s comfort zones and disrupts their life-long worldviews, while suggesting that a long overdue wiping of the slate is needed – the line is drawn.
One lame excuse I received from an articulate journalist who wrote a piece recently about the administration’s use and manipulation of fear, without ever mentioning the fear produced from 9-11, was that there were so many “conspiracy theories” about what really happened on 9-11, that it was impossible for him to know which one was correct and so he will continue to embrace the official story and that was his opinion. Apparently, it never occurred to him that those in the 9-11 Truth movement aren’t offering a full alternative timeline to the events of that day – at least not at this juncture, but that their main argument is the official story has as many holes in it as a block of Swiss cheese, and that a new investigation is needed. This isn’t rocket science, my friends, unless you’re predisposed to think otherwise.
From my vantage point, I can identify three types of people who continue to subscribe to the official fairy tale. The first group is comprised of the brain-dead addicts to the mainstream media with it’s continual stream of lies, who are unaware of the mountain of overwhelming evidence that shows beyond any reasonable doubt that 9-11 was an inside job. These are the ignoramuses. The second group are those who are aware of such evidence, but who reject, a priori, the need to investigate it on the basis that if something appears on the surface to be fantastic and untrue, then it certainly must be. These people are fools. Then there is the third group, which actually understands 9-11 Truth, but is in denial out of fear. These are the cowards who value their social/professional well being over Truth.
One generation ago tyranny took hold in Germany while good people who understood what was happening chose silence over doing the right thing. Their rationale was that certainly nothing of this sort could possibly be happening in their beloved country; or they were simply afraid of what they were witnessing. The result was that countless millions of people died needlessly. Today the same thing is taking place here, and history is in the process of repeating itself.
So, to those journalists out there – and you know who you are – who feel comfortable continuing to write about the latest Bush misadventure, while ignoring the one issue which, if exposed, could make a significant, positive difference in the world, I would ask you the question: “Are you an ignoramus, a fool or a coward?” There are no other choices.
6.
From: http://torsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2006/08/20/1766266-sun.html
Amateur warlords
Bush, Cheney, Blair -- and now Olmert -- have demonstrated they have no grasp of military affairs
By ERIC MARGOLIS
August 20
For a leader who styles himself "the war president," U.S. Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush's military record now stands at 0 for 4. Even Italy's born-again "imperial Roman conqueror," Benito Mussolini, fared better.
- Fiasco I: Five years after Bush ordered Afghanistan invaded and proclaimed "total victory," U.S. and allied forces are fighting a losing war against Afghan resistance groups. Afghan heroin exports are up 90%. The U.S. just quietly deployed thousands more troops to Afghanistan to hunt Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in a desperate attempt to save Republicans from getting clobbered in November midterm elections.
- Fiasco II: "Mission accomplished" in Iraq. Bush's war in Iraq is clearly lost, but few dare admit it. The U.S. has spent $300 billion on Afghanistan and Iraq, with nothing to show but bloody chaos, deficits, body bags, and growing hatred of America. The Bush/Dick Cheney "liberation" of Iraq has now cost more than the Vietnam War.
- Fiasco III: The White House had the CIA and Pentagon spend tens of millions bribing Somali warlords to fight Islamist reformers trying to bring law and order to their strife-ravaged nation. The Islamists whipped CIA-backed warlords and ran them out of Somalia. Following this defeat, the U.S. is now urging ally Ethiopia -- shades of Lebanon -- to invade Somalia, thus raising the threat of a wider war between Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Good work, Mr. President.
- Fiasco IV: Bush and Vice President Cheney egged Israel into the hugely destructive but militarily fruitless war in Lebanon over the past month, in what many view as the first part of their long-nurtured plan to militarily crush Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. They did there best to thwart world efforts to halt the conflict.
To Washington and London's shock and awe, Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria emerged the war's victors. Hezbollah is now the Muslim world's new hero after battling Israel's mighty armed forces to a humiliating draw.
Hezbollah's victory put the kibosh on the Bush/Cheney Holy Land crusade.
No sooner had bombing stopped last week than Hezbollah bulldozers were busy clearing rubble, and Hezbollah social workers resettling refugees. Perhaps Bush should ask Hezbollah to take over rebuilding New Orleans.
Israelis have now turned from fighting Arabs to furious finger-pointing. Politicians and generals are blaming each other for the Lebanon debacle that killed 118 Israeli soldiers and 41 Israeli civilians, cost at least $1 billion, ruined the summer tourist trade, and, after a burst of initial sympathy, brought worldwide condemnation. And no captured soldiers -- the war's supposed objective -- have been yet returned.
Still, a swap of Israeli prisoners for Lebanese and Palestinian ones remains likely, as this column predicted at the war's beginning. The killing of 1,000 Lebanese civilians, a million Lebanese and Israelis made refugees, and billions in wanton destruction, could all have been avoided.
ROUTINE SKIRMISH
By turning a routine skirmish into a big war, Israel's PM Ehud Olmert showed he had no more grasp of military affairs than those other amateur warlords, Bush, Cheney and British PM Tony Blair.
Even Washington hawks are wondering if invading Iran may not be such a cakewalk as they envision. Iran's Revolutionary Guards helped train and arm Hezbollah's fighters.
America was the big loser in the Lebanon war. From Morocco to Indonesia, each night some 1.5 billion Muslims watched the carnage in Lebanon on TV and most blamed America. Even the poorest shepherd in Uzbekistan heard that the U.S. was airlifting the precision bombs and deadly cluster munitions to Israel that wound up killing hundreds of Lebanese.
Any hope of damping down the Islamic world's surging hatred of the U.S., Britain, and Israel (and now Canada, thanks to the federal government's pro-Israel stance) was killed in Lebanon.
Even the interestingly-timed airport hysteria in London over claims of liquid bomb plots failed to divert attention from the latest egregious U.S.-British Mideast policy disaster.
The "war president" has become the fiasco president. The White House should stop listening to bogus military advice from neocon couch commandos who thirst for Muslim blood, and start listening to experienced Pentagon officers who understand the meaning and cost of war.
7.
IMPORTANT STATEMENT BY 21 RETIRED US GENERALS
From: http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/137958/1/4536
Also from http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081906F.shtml
Bush Must Negotiate to Make America Safer, Say Former Generals
By Aaron Glantz - OneWorld.net
18 August 2006
San Francisco - Twenty-one former generals and high ranking national security officials have called on United States President George W. Bushto reverse course and embrace a new area of negotiation with Iran, Iraq,and North Korea. In a letter released Thursday, the group told reporters Bush's "hard line" policies have undermined national security and made America less safe.
Of particular concern for the generals was increased saber rattling between Washington and Tehran over the development of an Iranian nuclear program.
"We call on the administration to engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions to help resolve the current crisis in the Middle East and to settle differences over an Iranian nuclear program," their letter read.
"An attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for security in the region and U.S. forces in Iraq," they argued. "It would inflame hatred and violence in the Middle East and among Muslims everywhere."
In a telephone news conference Thursday morning, the former security officials took particular aim at the Bush Administration's policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists or with states that support them.
"That seems strange since Ronald Reagan was willing to negotiate with the Soviets even though they were the 'Evil Empire," said retired Lt. General Robert Guard, who served as special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War and now works at the non-profit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "One wonders why George Bush can't negotiate with the Axis of Evil."
The generals further argued that the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq is at least partially responsible for Iran's drive to develop a nuclear program.
"When you announce an axis of evil of three countries and invade one and then say that Iran should take that as a lesson, it does seem that it may give them an incentive to do precisely what we don't want them to do," Guard said, "develop a nuclear weapon."
Former director of Policy Planning for the State Department, Morton Halperin, said the same goes for North Korea. The more belligerent the Bush Administration behaves, he said, the faster North Korea will work to develop nuclear weapons.
"The North Koreans want to talk to us directly," said Halperin, who now works for the Washington, DC-based Center for American Progress. "Their concern is about getting security assurances from us and about getting diplomatic recognition. We should not be afraid to talk to our opponents."
At the White House, Bush's spokesperson Tony Snow dismissed the letter.
"In a political year people are going to make political statements, including retired generals, and they're perfectly welcome to," Snow told reporters at his daily briefing. "It's an important addition to the public debate. But we're also--the president is a guy who has got real responsibility here. Now, I've got to tell you, just given to what I said...in response to the sort of ongoing cost of promoting freedom around the globe, do you not think a president will do everything in his power to succeed? And the answer is, yes. He's not sitting around saying, boy, I'm stubborn, I'm going to stick with it."
"That's not the way the president is," Snow said, insisting the Bush administration is planning policy changes while declining to offer specifics.
But the generals who signed the letter say Bush has been stubborn, and a poor student of history.
General Joseph Hoar, the Commander in Chief of U.S. Military Central Command under presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, said the George W. Bush administration would be advised to remember the French occupation of Algeria, which lasted 134 years.
Nationalist rebels launched an insurgency against the French in 1954. After eight years of insurgent bombings and counter-terrorism operations, France was finally forced to quit Algeria in 1962.
Hoar says like the Battle of Algiers the current war on terror is a war of ideas.
"Until we get away from the idea that we can solve these problems through the use of military force and begin to change the political problems causing discontent by providing security and services, we're not going to win this war," he said.
8.
From: http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_new/english/details.asp?name=17040
10/08/2006
203 Palestinians Killed Since Beginning of Operation "Summer Rains": PNIC Report
GAZA, Palestine, August 10, 2006 (IPC) - - A recent report revealed that Israeli occupation forces have killed 203 Palestinians and injured 800 others since the start of their operations in the Gaza Strip, dubbed "Operation Summer Rains", which was launched in June 25.
The report, which was published by the Palestinian National Information Center (PNIC), asserted that since June 25, Israeli forces have amassed a large number of military vehicles around the Gaza Strip, while closing all border crossings including the Rafah border terminal, in addition to laying siege to the Strip's one-and-a-half million residents.
It also referred to the series of incursions and brief re-occupation of several areas in Gaza, such as North Gaza, Shejaeya Neighborhood in Gaza City, Al Maghazi Refugee Camp in Central Gaza Strip, and the Shoka farming community in the southern Gaza province of Rafah.
In addition to the ongoing incursions, Israeli artillery positioned on the borders of the Gaza Strip pounded Palestinian population centers with nearly 12 thousand shells until August 6. Israeli warplanes also launched several sonic-boom raids at low altitude above densely-populated areas in the Strip, causing massive material damages and endangering the lives of civilians, especially those with chronic diseases and weak hearts.
Furthermore, the PNIC report also mentioned that the number of Palestinians killed so far by the Israeli military operation reached 203, of them 188 in the Gaza Strip and 15 in the West Bank. The number of children killed among those was 42 in addition to 24 female victims.
The report also noted that some of the dead civilians were killed en masse, as entire families were killed during Israeli incursions or air strikes, such as the Hajaj, Abu Selmiyeh and Okal families.
As for the injured, the report explained that 800 Palestinians were reported injured due to the Israeli aggressions, including 100 with severed limbs due to the new and lethal type of missiles and shells used by the Israeli tanks, artillery, combat helicopters and unmanned drones.
With regards to arrests, the PNIC stated in its report that Israeli forces launched dozens of arrest campaigns, especially in the West Bank, where 649 Palestinians were arrested, including Palestinian members of parliament and members of the current government - the most recent of whom was the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Dr. Aziz Duweik, and Ramallah PLC member Sheikh Fadl Hamdan.
---
See also:
On The National Day of Refugee : 4.26 Million Palestinian Refugee in The World
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_new/english/reports/details.asp?name=16576
PALESTINE, June 19,2006 (IPC) - -Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics published a report in which shows a statistical overview about demographic status of Palestinian refugees totaled according to UNRWA records 4,255,120 till 31st of March 2005, distributed by state of residence.
PNIC: 4097 killed people, 760 were children, and 45274 wounded since the beginning of Al-Aqsa uprising - MIND-BOGGLING STATISTICS THE MEDIA NEVER REPORT!!
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_new/english/reports/details.asp?name=6709
GAZA, Palestine, August 11, 2005 (IPC)--The number of the killed people since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa uprising on 29-9-2000 and until now have reached 4,097 killed people, in addition to 82 people, were not recorded because of the Israeli procedures, whereas the number of wounded have reached 45,247, in addition to 8,435 received field treatment. A report issued by the Palestinian National Information Center (PNIC) which belongs to the State Information Service (S.I.S), mentioned that the number of the killed children who are underage went up to reach 760. The number of the people who were killed by the Israeli air-bombing reached 732; 265 female killed people; and 344 members of the national security. In addition to 842 students and teachers. According to the report, the number of the (extra-judicial executed people) reached 338 citizens, whereas the number of the ill patients who died because of the Israeli hurdles and checkpoints reached 135. 51 people were killed because of the settlers' attacks. And 36 ones from the medical staffs and the civil defense also were killed, in addition to 9 journalists and press workers, and 220 sportsmen. (...) PNIC's report referred also that the gross total of the houses which were completely and partially damaged reached 71,470. 7628 houses of them got damaged completely, 4785 of them locate in Gaza Strip. Whereas, the number of the houses which were damaged partially reached 63,842, and 23,622 houses of them locate in Gaza Strip.The number of the buildings belongs to the public sector and the security facilities which were completely and partially is 590. (...) According to the Israeli violations in the agricultural sector, the report made clear that the area of the lands which were raze up measured 76876 dunums. 1,355,290 trees were uprooted. 770 agricultural stores were demolished by the occupation. 756 pens were swept away. 31263 dunums provided with irrigation nets and 1327 water pools and tanks were destroyed. The fences of the agricultural lands which were destroyed measured 609593 meter. And 929984 m. of the main water pipes were also bulldozed. CLIP
Plenty more such horrific news through http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_new/english/reports/reports.asp
9.
Forwarded by "Ricardos" ricardos@auroville.org.in
From: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index942.htm
Sorcha Faal sorchafaal@fastmail.fm
August 16, 2006
Pentagon Orders American Special Forces To Mexican Oil Fields As Civil War Looms
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Russian Subscribers
Russian Military Analysts are reporting today that the United States Military Leaders have ordered an ‘advisory contingent’ of American Special Forces Officers to Mexico in order to prepare their Mexican counterparts for an expected siege upon Mexico’s vast oil fields, and which provides to the US its second largest amount of imported oil after Canada.
The actions being taken by the Americans is in response to the growing rebellion in Mexico over the stealing of its Presidential election by its present government and backed by US corporate interests, and which fear a leftist controlled Mexican government would break away from its present orbit around the United States Empire.
Every day on its present march towards outright Civil War sees new escalations in this present conflict, and which today has seen the Mexican Government protecting their government buildings, and as we can read as reported by New Zealand’s NZTV News Service in their article titled "Mexican riot police seal Congress", and which says:
"Hundreds of riot police in black body armour sealed Congress with roadblocks and a metal wall on Tuesday to keep leftist protesters away after a violent clash over Mexico's disputed presidential election. Federal police took control of all the streets around Congress in a show of force to prevent protesters from blockading the building ahead of President Vicente Fox's state of the nation speech there in two weeks time.
About 15 legislators from the left-wing party whose presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, narrowly lost the July 2 election were among those hurt on Monday when police tore down tents in their partially built camp, tear gassed protesters and drove them back with clubs."
Though the violence against those rebelling against the theft of the Mexican Presidential election is increasing they have likewise warned that their efforts will not cease, and as we can read as reported by the BBC News Service in their article titled 'Siege' warning to Mexico rival", and which says:
"Supporters of Mexico's left-wing presidential candidate have pledged to place his rival "under siege" if he is declared winner of the disputed poll. A spokesman for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's party said Felipe Calderon would not be able to operate outside his office if he was made president."
Perhaps most importantly about these events, and as we have previously noted many times, is that the American people themselves are not allowed to know about these events by their Military Controlled Propaganda Media Organs, and as we can see evidenced by Britain’s Guardian Unlimited News Service in their article titled 'People power' is a global brand owned by America", and which says:
"A couple of years ago television, radio and print media in the west just couldn't get enough of "people power". In quick succession, from Georgia's rose revolution in November 2003, via Ukraine's orange revolution a year later, to the tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan and the cedar revolution in Lebanon, 24-hour news channels kept us up to date with democracy on a roll.
Triggered by allegations of election fraud, the dominoes toppled. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was happy with the trend: "They're doing it in many different corners of the world, places as varied as Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and, on the other hand, Lebanon ... And so this is a hopeful time."
But when a million Mexicans try to jump on the people-power bandwagon, crying foul about the July 2 presidential elections, when protesters stage a vigil in the centre of the capital that continues to this day, they meet a deafening silence in the global media. Despite Mexico's long tradition of electoral fraud and polls suggesting that Andrés Manuel López Obrador - a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) - was ahead, the media accepted the wafer-thin majority gained by the ruling party nominee, Harvard graduate Felipe Calderón.
Although Mexico's election authorities rejected López Obrador's demand for all 42m ballots to be recounted, the partial recount of 9% indicated numerous irregularities. But no echo of indignation has wafted to the streets of Mexico City from western capitals."
The greatest tragedy of these present events in Mexico, though, rests with it being yet another reminder of how the once mighty and great peoples of the United States have truly fallen from their once idealized status as the defenders of freedom to that being the suppressors of freedom, and in an irony not to be lost upon any of us, have surrendered their own freedoms and liberties without showing the courage of their Mexican neighbors who today are fighting, and dying, so that their Nation could remain free.
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Go at http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index942.htm to review this article with all the links provided.
---
See also:
Chiapas Vote Increases Mexico's Electoral Tensions
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082106S.shtml
A little more than 3,000 votes separated the candidates for governor in Mexico's volatile Chiapas state Monday as each side declared victory in the latest competition between Mexico's conservative ruling party and the party of leftist presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
10.
From: http://www.willthomas.net/Chemtrails/Articles/Earths_Ozone_Layer.htm
Scientist Says Chemtrails, Shuttle Launches Endangering Earth
by William Thomas
Aug 7th 2006
A Canadian atmospheric scientist warns that chemtrails, airliners and shuttle launches are weakening the stratosphere and destroying Earth’s ozone layer—threatening all life on Earth.
It was one of those messages that phones are notorious for delivering—the kind of call that cancels the sleep and makes flu symptoms worse. But this time, the health of the entire planet was at stake.
A concerned Canadian scientist named Neil Finley was on the line to inform me that high-altitude jet traffic, space launches and chemtrails are threatening to destroy not only Earth’s protective radiation shielding—but the stratosphere itself.
This wasn’t entirely news. Ken Caldeira, the scientist at the Lawrence Livermore atom bomb laboratories who had run Edward Teller’s computer simulations for an atmospheric “sunscreen” had earlier told me that a program involving the spraying of millions of tons of sunlight-reflecting chemicals high in the stratosphere could “destroy the ozone layer.”
What was news was an atmospheric scientists expressing concern over chemtrails.
CHEMBOWS
On June 16, 2006, while driving on Highway 1 near Victoria, British Columbia, ” Finley related, “I stopped to view a huge, white, flat cloud—incredibly white, incredibly wide. It was shocking to see.”
Sunlight reflected from that massive unnatural cloud through his tinted sun visor “occulted” the sun, as he described it, into prismatic bars: “all pink, green and purple.” Such “birefringence,” Finley explained, “never happens with water vapor, because color separation only occurs in a crystal index of refraction.”
Say again?
Such prismatic interferences with wavelengths of light only occur with “extremely, extremely fine solid material,” Finley tried again. These fine, suspended particles “causes interference patterns around each particle, changing the color of the light.”
Finley said he was specifically referring to the chemicals artificially released into the sky by “tankers”.
While water vapor freezing into high-altitude ice crystals can put “sundogs” around the sun and an occasional halo around the moon, the oily rainbow colors much more commonly seen in jet-trails and artificial clouds are chemical signatures, he related.
EARTH’S OZONE LAYER STILL SHREDDING
These chlorine chemicals cascading directly into the ozone layer from airliners, chemtrail tankers and other military aircraft flying above 13 kilometers—as well as nearly continuous solid-fuel rocket launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base are chewing up Earth’s remaining ozone layer.
After years of misleading media reports hailing Earth’s “recovering ozone layer”, we are still “on the cusp” of ozone recovery, says atmospheric researcher Elizabeth Weatherhead at the University of Colorado and lead author of the most recent ozone study. [Nature May 4/06; CBS/AP June 1/06]
The Associated Press and CBS News now confirm that Earth's sunscreen “appears poised” for the recovery they’ve been long reporting. Unless, that is, rapid Greenhouse Warming continues to skew atmospheric temperatures and circulations patterns, the rapid rise of methane gas from billions of cows and megatons of melting permafrost, a steep rise in nitrous oxide emissions from more than 5 million high-altitude jet airliner flights annually—and a projected 1,468 orbital rocket launches between 1998 and 2010 added to 3,174 launches already made from 1991 to 1997—“affect the outcome.” [CSIRO Telecommunications and Industrial Physics, Australia Feb 28/02]
Guess what?
Last winter, the protective ozone layer over the Arctic thinned to the lowest levels since records. At high altitudes, 50% of the protective layer was destroyed.
ICE CLOUDS COMMETH
What’s going on?
While increased greenhouse gases in the air trap more heat in the lower atmosphere, sunlight reflected back into space by artificial clouds formed by chemtrails, airline exhausts and solid-fuel rocket launches is causing the upper stratosphere (between 14 and 26 kilometres above the Earth) to get much colder.
Winter stratospheric ice clouds trap vast expanses of ozone-eating chemicals—and they are increasing in size and frequency. From the end of November 2005 to the end of February 2006, there were more ozone-destroying ice clouds that lingered for longer periods than ever previously recorded.
In late March, when ozone depletion was at its worst, ice clouds drifted over the UK and Europe as far south as northern Italy—frying exposed life forms below.
On April 26, 2005, scientists told a meeting in Vienna that "the atmospheric lifetime of these [ozone depleting] compounds is extremely long and the concentrations will remain at dangerously high levels for another half century."
As Professor John Pyle explains, “We thought things would start to get better because of the phasing out of CFCs and other chemicals because of the Montreal protocol, but this has not happened. The pollution levels have leveled off but changes in the atmosphere have made it easier for the chemical reactions to take place that allow pollutants to destroy ozone. With these changes likely to continue and get worse as global warming increases, then ozone will be further depleted even if the level of pollution is going down.”
RADIATION DAMAGE
For each 1% drop in ozone levels, about 1% more UV-B reaches the Earth's surface. [WMO 2002]
A reduction in ozone of 1% leads to increases of up to 3% in some forms of non-melanoma skin cancer. [UNEP 1998]
The UN environment program estimates that for every 1% thinning of the ozone layer there is a 2% to 3% rise in skin cancer. It can also cause cataracts--even if dark glasses are worn. Since some species are more vulnerable than others, an increase in UV exposure has the potential to cause a shift in species composition and reduce diversity in ecosystems. Excess UV radiation cuts photosynthesis in plants, reducing the size and yield of winter wheat and other crops.
Over half of all new cancers are skin cancers. One person dies of melanoma every hour. More than 1 million new cases of skin cancer were diagnosed in the United States in 2004The incidence of melanoma more than tripled among Caucasians between 1980 and 2003. [Rachel’s Jan 5/87]
NO PLANKTON = NO PEOPLE
Onboard a plant that is mostly seawater, the microscopic plants that underpin all life in the oceans are being starved as global warming halts the vital up welling of nutrients from the deep sea.
Now, increased solar radiation streaming through the holes left rocket launches and airline flights are also frying the oceanic plankton that provide most of our spaceship’s oxygen, while scrubbing huge amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere. “Reducing the world's populations of phytoplankton would significantly impact the world's carbon cycle,” warns the Guardian, by leaving more carbon in the air. [Independent Jan 19/06; Guardian Apr 27/05]
In November 2005, starvation from lack of plankton led, in turn, to catastrophic collapse in sea and bird life along America's Northwest Pacific seaboard and in the North Sea. [Independent Nov 13/05]
CHEMTRAILS THREATEN EARTH
The chemtrail saga began in August 1997, when the late Dr. Edward Teller presented a paper prepared by the US government’s National Academy of Sciences to the 22nd International Seminar on Planetary Emergencies in Sicily. Teller predicted, “Increases in average world-wide temperature of the magnitude currently predicted can be canceled by preventing about 1% of incoming solar radiation” from reaching the Earth. “The total cost of such an enhanced scattering operation would probably be at most $1 billion per year.”
But chemtrails are wrecking the atmosphere.
Radar observations reported by Air Traffic Controllers tracking US air force tankers and their lingering chemical plumes over Edmonton, Canada and every major airport in the USA report specially sequestered altitudes for these chemical lay downs at 37,000 feet—right at the floor of the stratosphere, which until recently began about 13 kilometers above the surface of the Earth.
The 7-10 million tons of aluminum oxide Teller urged to be added to jet fuel as a protective “sunscreen” are being released into an ozone layer that, if compressed at sea level would be no thicker than the gap in a spark plug (approximately 0.1 inch thick). [www.ucsusa.org]
Exactly as Caldera’s models forecast, chemtrails are reflecting enough sunlight from this planet’s upper atmosphere to cool the stratosphere and form giant ice-clouds that concentrate megatons of long-lingering ozone-destroying chemicals. Finley has discovered that a 3-degrees Fahrenheit temperature drop per decade at an altitude of 40 km has resulted in “about a 10% cooling of the stratosphere.”
GOING UP
After a year or two, Finley said, millions of tons of aluminum oxide in chemtrails and solid-fuel rocket exhausts falls downward to form a new boundary layer between the troposphere and the stratosphere above. According to Finley, these aluminum oxide deposits are allowing the troposphere where we live, and where weather is formed, to push higher into a weakened stratosphere.
Storm clouds are characteristically flat on their “anvil” tops because they are hitting the bottom of stratosphere. As the stratosphere weakens, storm tops broaden and rise. As convection updrafts drill upwards from 13 to14 to 15 kilometers, more moisture is sucked higher, where, Finley explained, “incredibly low temperatures holds hail up there become baseball-size killer stuff”—just like the monster hail that hammered Arizona, stripping paint off cars and causing flash floods, in late July 2006.
During the past three decades, researchers have measured a cooling of the stratosphere and a warming of the lower troposphere. These changes could affect the height of the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Such a change could, in turn, affect the height of convection currents within the troposphere, such as those associated with thunderstorms, and could possibly affect the intensity of those storms. It might also alter the positions of the planet's jet streams and thus the movement of weather systems. [www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca]
The upwards-expanding troposphere is especially invasive of the stratosphere in the hot tropics, Finley added, “where typhoons and hurricanes form.”
Comparing the chemtrail and shuttle-shredded ozone layer to “a tire being eroded to core,” Finley warned that an atmospheric “blowout” could be fatal to life on Earth.
CHEMTRIALS: “A DETONATOR TO DYNAMITE”
Stratospheric cooling resulting from reflected sunlight is not the only atmospheric threat posed by chemtrails, whose microscopic particle irritants are also linked to severe human health affects on the ground. According to the Space And Missile Systems Center Air Force Materiel Command, “Worldwide use of CFCs over the last several decades has resulted in the introduction of about 25 million tons of CFCs to the atmosphere.”
But as ultraviolet radiation from sunlight breaks down these chlorine molecules, about 300,000 tons of chlorine atoms are liberated into the stratosphere each year.
Now comes the Catch-22 of ozone depletion: The destruction of atmospheric ozone results in no net loss of the chlorine required to cause the destruction. This means that the same chlorine molecules are available to restart the destruction cycle! [Space And Missile Systems Center Air Force Materiel Command Nov 1/94]
“And that pool of more than half a century’s accumulated chlorine emissions is enormous,” Finley observed.
This anxious atmospheric scientist cautioned that by reactivating this atmospheric reservoir of ozone depleting chlorine, the aluminum oxide found in lab tests of chemtrails fallout is acting “like a detonator to dynamite.”
SPACED
Space launches aren’t helping.
Every time the space shuttle is launched, 250 tons of hydrochloric acid is released into the air. And every dab of chlorinated, solid rocket fuel goes a long ways: just 1 gram eats 200 square-meters of Earth’s protective solar radiation shielding.
Tsien Hsue Shen, father of the Chinese space program, chose lower-thrust liquid fuels for his country’s 1994 “Long March” rocket program because he opposed atmosphere-eroding solid-fuel perchlorate.
The Russians also opted for less efficient liquid fuel space rockets for the same reason.
Valery Burdakov, co-designer of the Russian liquid-fueled “Energiya” rocket engine, also notes that each shuttle launch produces seven tons of nitrogen--another major ozone depleter—as well as 387 tons of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming and looming Climate Shift.
Each solid-fuel shuttle launch also deposits another 177 tons of aluminum oxide throughout the ozone layer. Through the multiplication effects of sunlight-activated atmospheric chemistry, each US Delta rocket launch, for example, destroys eight million tons of protective ozone. Ditto (approximately) the US Titan, and the French Ariane V launches at the equator in French Guiana. [San Francisco Chronicle Aug 21/90]
Burdakov notes that the history of ozone depletion correlates closely with the increase of chlorine discharged by solid fuel rockets since 1981. While Soviet rockets employ a fuel combination 2000-times less damaging than the shuttle’s, each Russian launch still destroys 1,500 tons of atmospheric ozone.
There is currently a chlorine-fueled launch every two weeks from Vandenberg, Ariane and Canaveral (Kennedy).
While chemtrails tonnages have not been released, worldwide space launches currently contribute over 800 tons of chlorine and 1,000 tons of alumina particles to the stratosphere annually. Because this represents just 0.25 percent of the total inorganic chlorine produced in the stratosphere, NASA isn’t worrying. [San Francisco Chronicle Aug 21/90]
But is this low number accurate?
NASA ACCUSED OF FALSIFYING CRUCIAL OZONE DATA
No, they aren’t, Finley claimed. According to this Canadian scientist, who crunched the numbers by hand instead of relying on skewed computer models, NASA’s “Exhaust Effects Panel” identified potential dangers from chlorinated rocket fuels eight years before first shuttle launch.”
Finley further noted that Robert Hudson “was head shuttle exhaust effects panel 1973 when shuttle designed. Became chairman of the International Ozone Commission 1996 –a post to which he has just returned.”
On Hudson’s watch, Finley charged that the number relating to the ozone-eating emissions of each shuttle launch “was reduced by a factor of a hundred.”
NASA’s “don’t worry, be happy” data regarding the atmospheric effects of its rocket exhausts were not consistent with previously published and peer-reviewed numbers.
In 1998, reaction studies by the TRW space corp. verified a one-part-in-50 reaction rate of aluminum oxide emitted by shuttle exhausts.
But the number was changed in NASA’s own 1998 Ozone Assessment to one part in a thousand.
“In fact, their studies were off by orders of magnitude,” he says. “And no one could say they weren’t,” Finley said. “What the bloody hell’s going on here? NASA’s name is on the cover. And the numbers are 100-times better than their supposed to be. This is our atmosphere we’re talking about.”
“They know this,” Finley alleged. The people behind chemtrails know that the atmosphere is changing. And this “is relevant to the tankers more than anything else.”
CFC CONCENTRATIONS STILL RISING
Finley was sure of his own numbers. A self-described “player” in atmospheric physics, he was the one who told the Nobel winner that his numbers are wrong.
But a sneak preview of the not-yet-released Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion for 2006 emphasizes, “stratospheric chlorine loading has stabilized.” [U of Miami 2006]
What this means, explains Robert Parson, an Associate Professor and physical chemist studying gas-phase processes in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, is that although the rate of increase has diminished, CFC concentrations are still increasing.
And because the atmospheric lifetime of a typical CFC molecule is 50 to 100 years, accumulated CFCs in the atmosphere will continue to contribute close to 300,000 tons of inorganic chlorine annually well into the next century.
If we get there.
Finley was not optimistic. From his own experience trying to stop the destruction of Earth as a habitable planet, this scientists concedes that trying to stop space shuttle launches until the engines can be exchanged for non-ozone-destroying Russian and Chinese models or similar technology is a mission even more quixotic than trying to rein in the Bush gang, and the banks that back them.
As for NASA—
“They knew damn well about this fuel all the way along,” Finley accused. “Now, people who lied for NASA are running the show.
“Billions of dollars are involved with this,” he added. Ozone-destroying, climate-change accelerating, ocean-killing solid-fuel rockets are “America’s road to space.”
CHECKING IN
On June 28, 1974 two chemists at the University of California—Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina—published the first scientific paper warning that human-generated chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) could cause serious harm to Earth's protective ozone layer. [www.wunderground.com]
Finley told this reporter that he brought up his concerns with Rolland—“top man in the atmosphere in the world.”
He also discussed his calculations with Harold Shiff, Dean of York University’s Atmospheric Studies—“One of best in world,” Finley says. “We talked many times.”
In 2004, Finley showed his figures to Kenneth Hare, of the American Association Advancement Science. The Dean of Science at the University of Victoria also backed him up.
Finley has also spoken with Paul Crutzen, one of the first scientists to sound the alarm over ozone depletion, who is still active in the field.
Finley even showed Hudson his findings of “a chlorine exhaust peak at 43 kilometers.”
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, squinting hard at Finley, the former head of NASA’s shuttle exhaust effects panel and chairman of the International Ozone Commission allegedly replied, “What do you want? Money?”
It might have been a joke.
But Finley felt a chill run up his spine.
CANADIAN COURT CAN’T HELP
Finley feared that rocket launches are causing irreversible damage to the atmosphere. “The atmosphere is extremely unstable,” he said. Each shuttle launch is “like heading the Titanic right at the iceberg.”
Ironically, he added, everybody is “busy flying satellites” to check the atmosphere, “and nobody’s doing the math, and frankly I find it very disturbing.”
On July 1, 2005, Finley petitioned the British Columbia Supreme Court to stop the shuttle launch scheduled for July 2006, by demonstrating that cascading atmospheric effects would endanger British Columbians. Though reportedly convinced by Finley’s argument, the Justice reasonably ruled that he “did not have jurisdiction” to slap a padlock on an American launch pad.
IN COLUMBIA’S WAKE
Too bad. Because the space shuttle Columbia’s launch on January 16, 2003 generated a water-vapor plume about 3 kilometres wide and 1000 kilometres long.
Within four days, this vast high-altitude cloud migrated south from Cape Canaveral over ozone-challenged Antarctica, forming massive polar mesospheric clouds some 85 km above the Earth. Geophysicists found that this single shuttle launch accounted for as much as 20% of the total mass of CFC-trapping ice in these super-high clouds over Antarctica. [Geophysical Research Letters Oct 29/05; New Scientist.com July 8/05]
One of the most striking aspects of updated droughts, melting icecaps and other manifestations of Climate Shift is that scientists are continuously expressing their astonishment at the speed of atmospheric and oceanic breakdowns.
Neil Finley suspected that the high ice clouds continuously formed by jetliner exhausts, rocket launches and chemtrails account for this unexpected acceleration of already fast-melting Arctic sea ice and Greenland’s icecaps and other atmospheric changes not accounted for in current predictive models.
The good news, he said, is that by acting now, “We can buy some time.”
If we can find the political will to defy the powerful oil, airline and space lobbies and switch to fewer liquid-fueled rocket launches, ground all stratospheric jetliners, and stop the chemtrail spraying, we can drastically slow Climate Shift’s rocket-like acceleration.
It’s time to design a new and safer space shuttle, anyway. And there are legal grounds to ground all further flights.
As Neil Finley insisted, “The problem is that a huge gigantic engineering project has been built on bad science. They don’t have the right to break the laws to do it, by changing numbers to show the shuttle is safe. If the numbers are wrong in the International Ozone Assessment, they need to be right before it goes. We need to take a look at this before it launches. Certification to fly is wrong.”
11.
From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net
Subject: New Scientist: TV Unravelling Your Reality
Date: 21 Aug 2006
BEWARE your TV. Depending on who you listen to, it makes you more violent, increases obesity and consumption of tobacco and alcohol, encourages risky sexual behaviour and leads to greater social isolation. If you still aren't convinced of the dangers, try this one: the way television covers current affairs so distorts your sense of reality and the risks you face that you end up living a fantasy life.
You may not realise it, but your ideas of the world and the decisions you make - how to travel, where to live - are heavily influenced by what you see on news programmes. Since they are a poor reflection of what's going on, you end up making poor judgements. People running governments are no exception: they pass policies based on false realities. This is not a neo-Luddite manifesto: there's plenty of research to back it up. First, though, why pick on television? Surely all media influence our picture of the world. True, but television is particularly potent: it is visual and direct, which makes it more likely to trigger an emotional response than newspapers or radio. And when we get emotional, we're less able to make sensible judgements about risks.
"We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press," says Nicholas Taleb, professor in the sciences of uncertainty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "We're too impressionable. The television media is destroying our probabilistic mapping of the world. If you watch a building burning on television, it's going to change your attitude towards that risk, no matter your intellectual sophistication."
Underlying this is a phenomenon known as the "availability heuristic", first identified in the 1970s by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. It describes how people base their predictions about the future more on the vividness and emotional impact of past events than on the probability of them happening again. So people rate their chances of dying in a plane crash higher after watching a news item about such an event.
Unpublished research by Corinne Enright at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville found that Americans who watched media coverage of the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks not only thought another major attack in the US was more likely, they also suffered more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than those who didn't. This psychological effect was noted in 2002 by William Schlenger, then at the Research Triangle Institute, North Carolina, who found the likelihood of someone suffering PTSD as a result of 9/11 increased with the number of hours of television coverage they watched (Journal of the American Medical Association, vol 288, p 581).
For individuals, these effects really matter. They suffer unnecessary anxiety, and may waste money and time on avoiding or accounting for risks that are vanishingly small - paying for terrorism insurance, for example, or travelling by car instead of plane. It can also lead governments to make unwise policy decisions, such as funding anti-terrorism measures, when spending the money on improving car safety would save many more lives. We all worry about terrorism because it is often in the news - the alleged plot to blow up 12 aircraft travelling from London to the US has left many travellers thinking of little else. But consider this reality check: the number of Americans killed by terrorism since the late 1960s is roughly the same as the number killed by lightning.
So, with all around losing their heads, how do we ensure we keep ours? Governments could force TV channels to run warning notices on emotive news reports, or screen statistics to give people a more balanced picture. Call me old-fashioned, or (as a print journalist) biased, but you could take matters into your own hands and stop watching the news. Believe me, it feels a lot safer.
From issue 2565 of New Scientist magazine, 19 August 2006, page 19
12.
Forwarded by From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net
From: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/21/bush-says-iraq-had-%e2%80%98nothing%e2%80%99-to-do-with-911/
Bush says: “Iraq Had Nothing To Do With 9/11”
By: John Amato
Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are not happy campers today that's for sure. He admits he was wrong about WMD's in Iraq and now this.
Video-WMP
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Bush-saysIraq-didntattackus-08-21-062.wmv
Video-QT
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Bush-saysIraq-di.mov
QUESTION: A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?
BUSH: I square it because imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein, who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who had relations with Zarqawi.
You know, I've heard this theory about, you know, everything was just fine until we arrived [in Iraq] and - you know, the stir-up-the-hornet's- nest theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned.
The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East. They were...
QUESTION: What did Iraqi have to do with that?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attacks upon the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing. . . . Except for it's part of - and nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a - Iraq - the lesson of September the 11th is: Take threats before they fully materialize,
13.
From: http://villagevoice.com/news/0634,hentoff,74221,6.html
Supreme Court Strikes Fear
Reprimanded by the Supreme Court, the Bush administration rushes to evade punishment
by Nat Hentoff
August 20th, 2006
The interrogations of prisoners now condemned by the Supreme Court were ordered by policy makers at the highest levels of the administration—who could be prosecuted under the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. Scott Horton, chairman of the New York City Bar Association's Committee on International Law and adjunct professor, Columbia Law School
In June, the Supreme Court ( Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) placed commander in chief Bush and the top of his policy-making chain of command in jeopardy for the treatment of their suspected-terrorist prisoners in Guantánamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan and elsewhere.
So much has happened since June—the Middle East war, the civil war in Iraq, and the plot to blow up multiple U.S.-bound passenger planes—that most Americans have only a hazy idea of this Supreme Court decision that blew up the administration's grand strategy for extracting information from its prisoners around the world by any means necessary.
But quietly, in fear of that ruling, the administration has drafted two changes—in the War Crimes Act and in our treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions—to foreclose any prosecutions of the Bush high command. The goal is to get these amendments passed by the Republican-controlled Congress before the midterm elections that could put the Democrats in control of the Senate or otherwise significantly increase their power in Congress as a whole.
Says Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice: "This bill can . . . in effect immunize past crimes. That's why it's so dangerous." As Fidell also told the Associated Press, the intent is "not just protection of [high-level] political appointees but also CIA personnel who led interrogations"—including in their secret prisons.
Here, specifically, is how the Bush high command is trying to escape the consequences of the Supreme Court's stinging reprimand. One proposed amendment would forbid any prisoner to use the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights in any American court. But—as National Public Radio's Ari Shapiro points out—the administration's lawyers claim that this restriction "does not affect the obligations of the United States under the Geneva Conventions." Huh? I'd like to see White House press secretary Tony Snow handle that yo-yo if anyone in the White House press corps knows enough to ask the question.
The second amendment the Bush team wants Congress to push through would change our War Crimes Act, which calls for the prosecution in our civilian courts of those who commit war crimes. The amendment would exclude from prosecution those who've violated a section in the War Crimes Act that references this language from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting "at any time and in any place whatsoever . . . outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." (This would also expunge the much publicized language of the McCain Amendment to the Detention Treatment Act of 2005.)
International-human-rights lawyer Scott Horton—to whom military lawyers at Guantánamo went early on to protest the administration's rigged interrogation rules there—told me: "This amendment would continue to allow waterboarding, hypothermia [subjecting prisoners to freezing temperatures], and other severe sufferings that have also led to deaths of prisoners. These amendments are part of a fog machine to keep the policy makers safe from prosecution."
Furthermore, indicating the boundless duplicity of this administration, the amendment to the War Crimes Act—bypassing the abuses forbidden by that law, the Geneva Conventions, and now the Supreme Court of the United States—excuses any of these crimes that have been committed since September 11, 2001! Anyone who has ordered or perpetrated "humiliating and degrading" treatment since then gets off scot-free.
All the official lawlessness since 9-11—now even overruling a Supreme Court decision—makes chilling a recent, little-publicized speech by Justice Anthony Kennedy on August 5 before the American Bar Association:
"The rule of law must be binding on all government officials; it must respect the dignity, equality, and human rights of every person, and it must guarantee people the right to enforce the law without fear of retaliation."
If these administration amendments—mocking the American rule of law—are passed by Congress and, of course, signed by this president, who believes he is the law, they will be fought in court by a host of constitutional lawyers, including Scott Horton. When the case gets to the Supreme Court, I hope Justice Anthony Kennedy remembers the speech he made this summer while Bush's lawyers were setting up their three-card-monte game.
Among the lawyers joining Scott Horton in opposition will be David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center, already a premier litigator against the administration's unilateral revision of the Constitution. In the August 10 New York Review of Books, during a penetrating guide to the Supreme Court's landmark Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision, Cole points out:
"The Court's decision further suggests that President Bush has already committed a war crime, simply by establishing the military tribunals [at Guantánamo] and subjecting detainees to them [because] the Court found that the tribunals violate Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Conventions]—and under the War Crimes Act, any violation of Common Article 3 is a war crime."
What the Supreme Court said about those sham tribunals, which ignored American military law as well as the Geneva Conventions, was that according to the Geneva Conventions, prisoners' sentences must be handed down "by a regularly constituted court" that "provides all the judicial guarantees recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
The homicidal terrorists— not only Al Qaeda—who constitute our enemy are, as Colin Powell said soon after 9-11, engaged in what could be an endless war against civilization. What keeps this nation civilized, so far, is our ability to expose and combat this administration's uncivilized evisceration of U.S. and international law.
14.
Forwarded by Phyllis Montague phyllism5@juno.com
The NationMaster.com facts may change your perception
American has the world's fourth largest population and is:
#1 for military expenditures - More than five times as much as #2 - China
#1 for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction per capita
#1 for the number of rapes
#1 for teenage pregnancies
#1 for total number of divorces
#1 for CO2 emissions
#1 for CO2 emissions from fossil fuels 2000 (per capita)
#1 for electricity consumption
#1 for nuclear energy consumption
#1 for oil imports
#1 for total energy usage per person
#1 for municipal waste per capita
#1 for nuclear waste pollution
#1 for the number of threatened species
#1 the largest debtor in the world (This listing needs updating)
#1 for firearm discharge
#1 the highest divorce rate
#1 for total crimes committed
#1 when it comes to adults prosecuted for crimes
#1 when it comes to the numbers of their population in prison - Over two million! 34% more than China which has 241% more people
#1 when it comes to the number of criminal record holders
#1 for plastic surgery procedures and
#1 for the amount of money spent on healthcare
#46 for life expectancy and there are estimated to be about 45 million Americans that do not have any health insurance
#2 for the number of abortions
#2 for heart attacks and
#2 for asthma sufferers
America is not even in the top 30 for public spending on public education so it's not surprising that it's ...
#14 for duration of education and...
#47 for total education spending and
#14 for school life expectancy and
#68 for the percentage 'literacy' level of the population
#11 for unemployment
#6 in the world for the total number of murders
#3 for the total number executions along with our democratic 'friends' in China, Congo and Iran
#13 for social security expenditure as % of GDP
#98 for GDP real growth rate
#1 for soft drink consumption
#1 for the number of television hours watched
Admit it! You are a little surprised aren't you? It gives you an idea why the rest of the world is not interested in us spreading our freedom and democracy all over their part of the globe, they know that the American dream is no longer a dream.
The perception of America by other, non-US peoples has changed dramatically over the last five years. According to numerous polls done in non-US countries, the vast majority of people outside the USA now see American politicians as lying, greedy, arrogant, conceited, bullying warmongers hell-bent on needless destruction to protect their special interests.
Based on US actions over the past decade, how could any knowledgeable person (who doesn't work for the the US war machine) disagree with that!
Thankfully, in the Pew poll for example, the "attitudes about the United States focused on the Bush administration, not on the American people themselves."
Non-US people on the street still think that the average American is a good guy but their opinion of the people running our country is a whole different ballgame.
Andrew Kohut, the director of the Pew Center stated that: "Perhaps one of the most striking findings in the survey is that China now has a better image among the publics -- European publics -- than does the United States," he said.
Now that has to come as a surprise...
Written by Charlie McCormack* who is ex-Special Forces now happily 'retired' in Costa Rica.
* Pen name.
---
NationMaster.com is a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank, World Resources Institute, UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD.
15.
AFTER I GOOGLED "EARTH RAINBOW NETWORK" OUT OF CURIOSITY (TRY IT YOU'LL BE AMAZED!), I "FORTUITOUSLY" FOUND THE FOLLOWING...
From: http://www.spiritual-endeavors.org/channeling/diana.htm
Message Of Love From Diana To Mankind
through Lise Lachance
Note from the webmaster:
The following submission comes from Lise Lachance, a very simple French speaking woman in Quebec. She was awakened in the middle of the night and asked to write down the following message. It was given in French, because Lise speaks French. When Lise realized the content of the message, she asked the energy that was speaking to her to validate both the message and its sender by also giving the message in English, a language which Lise had very little understanding of, but was Diana’s native tongue.
This submission to Spiritual Endeavors was prefaced by a note from Jean Hudon, coordinator of Earth Rainbow Network. Jean is also a professional English – French translator. Jean States," Both message state about the same thing, although the French one is longer, but in my view, both are formulated as they would be respectively by a French speaking person and an English speaking one... It is NOT a translation. I believe we have something absolutely exceptional here…
Whether you believe or not that this is truly coming from Lady Diane speaking to us from the other side does not really matter. Please, allow yourself for a few seconds to open your heart and sense from within, as I did, the profound meaning of these few yet so truthful words, and like me you will know for yourself."
Both English and French messages are presented for your inspection.
ENGLISH
Message of love from Diana to mankind.
My dear friends from all around the world. It is with deep emotions that I received your love after my death. I never, never suspected that you could spread so much love for me. If only I had known you were capable of such love for me, I would not have searched for it so much. I searched for it all along on the outside not understanding that everything comes from the inside. Only we have all the answers and we keep looking all around us in search of a miracle to make us feel wanted and loved. If only I had known. If only I had had the knowledge to look inside of me for the answers. Now, I want to share this message with you around the world. It is not too late to start loving yourself and from that love will emerge Love for the others. You can change the world if only you believed in yourself and started loving yourself without judging. Accept yourself as you are. You are wonderful, only you don't believe it and you are waiting for others to tell you. You may wait for a long time. Don't take that route. I have tried it and it doesn't work.
Start loving yourself for who you are: a lovable living person with a great heart who doesn't know how to use it. You can change the world by loving yourself and spreading this love around you. Simply by a loving sincere tender look. You don't have to speak, just let the love flow through you and you will make wonders. You will achieve the impossible. You will move mountains : mountains of hatred, mountains of sorrows, mountains of pain, pain in the heart, pain from living, pain from being scared. Believe in yourself and start experiencing this love with no conditions attached, this pure Love that all human beings are capable of. This planet needs it and only your love, your pure Love and your devotion to attain success can save it. Time is running short. You must spread the word of love all around you. If you start, your neighbors start, your friends and their friends start, you will start the unending wheel of love that all humans need so much.
I thank you personally for spreading this word of love all around you. As a gift, when you read this message express the desire of experiencing the Love that you are capable of and I will be beside you to help you attain it. You don't have to believe it, just do it and you will see. Make sure you spread this message and let everyone, you know, experience that love can mean to them.
With all my love without boundaries Diana, Princess of Love.
through Lise Lachance of Quebec, Canada. Channeled on October 3rd 1997
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To read the French version, please go at http://www.spiritual-endeavors.org/channeling/diana.htm
See also:
EARTH EMERGENCY: A CALL TO ACTION
http://www.911dossier.co.uk/peace01.html
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