Indonesians suspicious of Namru-2 Lab

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Bird Flu germ warfare the killer whale of chemical weapon ordnance Have you heard of NAMRU-2? It’s a US military laboratory set off limits on an Indonesian college campus in Jakarta. The lab’s stated purpose is to study tropical diseases coming from the region. But Indonesians have become suspicious about the application of what the US is learning, and why the lab workers need diplomatic immunity.

The secretive lab has yet to share information with Indonesian researchers. There has been no instance when the Navy Medical Research Unit 2 has assisted with Indonesia’s health system. Then there’s the specter of the lab being administrated under the authority of our Department of Defense. Indonesians point to the certainty that this also means the US intelligence community.

Might it be fair to wonder what Namru-2 is working on and for who?

As Indonesians are raising questions about the foreign lab’s legitimacy, their political representatives have succeeded in stalling negotiations for a new lease. Would “curious” describe the current sticking point: Americans are insisting on diplomatic immunity for the lab staff?

Goodbye War Drum Major George

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Eric Verlo

The vote is in, we send George Hutton packing. But not without a good eulogy.

Colonel George, as we liked to chide him, was known to the local peace community as a regular attendee, who usually near the end of a meeting stood up to tell us all we were wrong, and misguided, and a disgrace, we were giving aid and comfort to the enemy, etc, then he’d sit down. After long he didn’t need to say anything because his scorn, if ever soft spoken, hung over every discussion.

I recommended uninviting Mr. Hutton from the PPJPC (the planning sessions of all things!) and returning his membership fee for the benefit of un-muddling our energies, but well intended pious Netties lobbied to keep the door open, hoping someday he’d see the light. They didn’t see how their faith in George’s salvation was meanwhile sabotaging our otherwise elevated team spirit.

At a protest, I saw George, participating with us in his uniform, step toward the TV cameras and volunteer for an interview. Then, instead of speaking for us, he spoke against our pacifist message and characterized us as throwback hippie loons.

On another occasion, I saw George reduce a very gentle-hearted peace activist to tears with his spite toward anyone who would so insult the boys in uniform. Many of us tried to engage George, thinking his persistence at our events betrayed a guilty conscience about what he did in Vietnam, but George never did blink from his icy disapproving stare.

When online discussion on the PPJPC website commenced in earnest, George eventually stumbled across it and began spamming the comments with his passive aggressive vitriol. This resulted in indignant exchanges and led the goodness-gracious Nellies of the organization to ponder whether we needed such an uncivil thing as a blog forum at all. Sooner than have the disagreement-averse older crew scuttle the project I advocated banning George Hutton from the blog and we did.

But George petitioned and bent every ear, and now the PPJPC staff has overruled the board and so the pernicious troll returned. For some odd reason however, Major Hutton took the decision to mean he was sanctioned to comment on Not My Tribe too. At first I thought it best to draw his fire here, sooner than at the nascent J&P site. To his credit, despite his boorish admonitions about our “neg vibes,” George prompted wonderfully heated rebuttals. Until we became simply bothered.

Tony has stated the case plainly enough. Paid or not, George’s mission was to defend American Imperialism, re-justify Vietnam, and disrupt any antiwar talk. And frankly, he was doing quite well. Look at me, I’ve been lured into writing him a God-damned send-off!

George, this is not about Freedom of Speech. No one is entitled to disrupt the speech of others for the sake of his own. What you are doing is simply interference jamming. That’s not protected expression. You’re not interested in discussion, only keeping your opponent covered. Go find your own soapbox. Send us a link. If you make it interesting, we might check in on you.

No eulogy would be complete without a tribute. Here I excerpt George Hutton in his own nutshell:

Just so you know I had a TS, NATO, CRYPTO, ATOMIC, NSA-SI clearance. So know a bit. Was in the ASA too.

I was in the Army & Texas Guard.

I was in the Rangers (airborn) too. 3 full tours too. From 1964 – 66 & 70-71.

As for the trip to Cambodia, I was there. It failed due to comminist within the South Viet-nam military.

I went to OCS after 20 years as an enlistedman. Was E1 to E7 & O2 & finished as O4 with my military service. Skipped 2LT as I was #2 in my class. Was a NCO most of my service so I know about &*&%$# Officers too.

I did 2/3 of my time “in the field” traing Turkish & Greek military folk to advisor in Viet nam. So, do try to understand me, been there – done that.

What pearls of wisdom did Mr. Hutton offer NMT? How about this chestnut about the Greek isle of Lesbos (Lesbos is the origin of the word “lesbian,” having been home to the ancient poet Sappho who wrote about love between women.) But in George’s account:

Having been stationed in Turkey & going to Greece & islands the rumer is these folks did not like males very much. Ran the island & used the males then killed them keeping girl babies to keep the island going. Just bit of history.

Bye George.

The PLO has now been turned into a tool of Israel and the US

Posted on May 3, 2008 by Tony Logan

The PLO is now running operations for Israel and the Bush gang against Palestinians, as they sweep gangs of armed thugs into Palestinian towns like Jenin. What a sad demise to the PLO, who under Arafat turned towards corruption and capitulation in a massive way. Under Abbas, this process is now complete, and little remains of the PLO other than goon squads under foreign control. See Abbas sends forces to north WBank in security push

When Jimmy Carter met with Hamas representatives, he as carrot carrier of the US, was well aware of this relative new reality, one which the American public hasn’t quite caught up to understanding. Hamas, with all its defects and blemishes, at least is not corrupted in the manner that the PLO became when it began to get bought off by the US. Hamas has taken over the leadership of the Palestinian community, while the leadership of the PLO went totally astray, looking principally for personal gain for the ‘leaders’.

The US and Israel want a PLO group that is willing to collaborate with the oppression of the Palestinians, in much the same way that many Jews once tried to collaborate with the Nazis, to curry favor for their own personal selves and families. Iraq and Afghanistan also have clumps of traitors, who collaborate witht the foreign occupiers, too.

The PLO is now dead and should be buried. It was defeated by Israeli and American firepower.

National Day of Prayer versus May Day

Posted on May 1, 2008 by NMT

A billion years to raise the tree frog

A hundred million years of lovers curling against each other in sleep

Half a million years of campfire sparks ascending to the stars

Twenty-one centuries since Spartacus and his fellow slaves brought Rome to its knees

Two centuries since the Luddites demonstrated the proper treatment of workplace technology

One hundred and twenty years since the Chicago government used the Haymarket disturbance to justify the execution of seven innocent men: “Hang these men and you kill Anarchy in this country!”

A century since anarchist Leon Czolgosz proved them wrong by assassinating President William McKinley

Eighty years since Henry Ford tried to buy off workers with the weekend

Sixteen years since the rioters of Los Angeles showed what it takes to get justice in this country

Eight and a half years since the WTO protests shattered plate glass in Seattle and complacency across the world

One day to gather in our communities, to celebrate the coming of spring and the potential of resistance

Counting the days to our next chance to make history

Eleven weeks to the international day of action against climate change called to coincide with the G8 meetings in Russia*

Eight months to plan unpermitted marches and rowdy street parties for New Year’s Eve

Nine months to prepare a surprise for the next Presidential Inauguration

A decade to establish radical social centers and free schools in every community

Twenty years to explore everything that can be accomplished while wearing a mask

A generation to replace grocery stores with gardens and cough syrup with licorice root

A century for dairy cows and toy poodles to go feral

Five hundred years to melt down cannons into wine goblets, water pipes and sleigh bells

A millennium for the dandelions growing out of the sidewalk to become redwoods

…and the rest of eternity to enjoy

(*Adapted from Crimethinc, MAYDAY 2006)

AIDS research has failed to find cause

Posted on April 29, 2008 by JB

“AIDS research has not failed because it never found a cure … AIDS research has failed because it never found a cause”

Twenty four years and no cure, no cause, no answers. But billions of tax dollars to an established AID$ industry who refuse to look at the facts. More money has been spent on AIDS research than any other disease in the history of medicine, all with no results! Giving a weakened or compromised immune system a name, “AIDS”, is trickery. Telling us it is caused by an old and harmless retrovirus is dishonest. But treating immunodeficiency, whatever is causing it, with toxic chemo ARV drugs, that destroy DNA and bone marrow, is criminal! It’s time to get mad and get the word out and demand a reappraisal. Or accountability for the terror, stress, damage and destruction to many lives.

FACTS:
1. HIv has never been isolated as a pure virus, direct from human blood or tissue nor have control groups been used who are HIv “positive” and HIv “negative”. One must understand that HIv is a harmless passenger retrovirus, not a disease causing virus like HPV or HSV. (see 3 and 8.)

2. Isolation experiments, as recommended by the Perth Group and others, in the Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel Report of 2000, have never been done on control groups both with or without HIv. This is especially important since it is well known that thousands who test positive for antibodies for HIv remain healthy and thousands who have “AIDS” (by CDC definition) are not infected with HIv.

3. Kochs Postulates is and has been the widely accepted, time tested screen for determining whether an infectious germ or virus is causing disease. HIv fails all 4 (or 3 depending how you consider #4), of the postulates. A large effort must be undertaken to produce HIv in any quantities that are similar to disease causing virus. This is done by co-culturing HIv with leukemia cells in the lab (petri dish) or by adding growth stimulants. (See point 7 under “AIDS – Fact or Fraud”.)

4. HIv was first studied/discovered by Luc Montagnier as LAV around 1979. Montagnier admitted in 1990 that his LAV was probably benign. Robert Gallo stole Luc Montagniers work in approx. 1983 when Montagnier shared it with him. Gallo then claimed it as his own. He and the NIH were sued by the French government. Montagnier worked for the Pasteur Institute of Science. He also shared in the royalties. (see 13) Luc Montagniers LAV stood for Lymphademopathy Associated Virus. Part of the Pasteur Inst. charges in the initial lawsuit against Gallo were for Gallos claim that HIv was infectious. Regardless virus as causation of any kind of cancer, including lymphoma, is long proved false in the 70’s “Cancer Virus Program” through the Natl. Inst. of Cancer which is part of the NIH.

5. AIDS is nothing more than an acronym created by the CDC to create the categories of known diseases hypothesized as being “caused” by HIv. Suppression of the immune system however is not a disease and is caused by many things, which has led to much (purposeful?) confusion of the public. With a “positive” HIv antibodies test,(see 11,) or low T-cell count, or if in a risk group, and if showing symptoms of any one of 29 AIDS diseases as classified by CDC, any observation of those symptoms (see 19 for Africa) are now “AIDS-HIv” related and somehow deadly when most are not, all have other known causation and can be treated without antiretroviral drugs. All of this convoluted testing and categorizing adds to the numbers of HIv “positives” and then “AIDS” patient cases. Useful data for keeping the ARV drugs on the front line of treatment even though they are useless having been designed for cancer tumor therapy, and thus very harmful.

6. AZT, an ARV(antiretroviral), and other AIDS cocktails like HAART, are very toxic chemo CANCER drugs and destroy cells and terminate DNA chains. The initial trials of AZT based drugs showed wide evidence of harsh side affects, i.e. muscle wasting, organ failure, vomiting, diarrhea, destruction of bone marrow, yet FDA approved them on a fast track mandate in 1987. Many involved in the trials say these side effects were hidden. When AZT was created in 1964 it was deemed too toxic for use and was shelved. It is no “theory” that these drugs cause the very kinds of immune system destruction and breakdown that is deceitfully blamed on HIv. Admitted by the drug manufacturers themselves in their printed warnings. Why was this drug even thought to be useful for a “virus” when chemo therapy had never been used for virus treatment?

7. People who refuse AZT or the chemo drug cocktails after a “positive” HIv antibody test, remain healthy in most cases. (see risk groups #18) AIDS activists and counselors who are unaware of what HIv actually is, consistently fail to inform the “at risk” population that often call or visit them, that the HIv test is not a test for the virus. Or that the tests have disclaimers that say: “there is no recognized standard for establishing the presence or absence of antibodies to HIV-1 or HIV-2 in human blood”. And the viral load tests have the same disclaimers for what they are testing for. Besides, there is no proof of different specific HIv-1 or HIv-2 because HIv is a benign indistinguishable retrovirus.

8. The PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test is a desperate misleading attempt to detect DNA-RNA fragments of HIv retrovirus, in order to prove it is causing disease. Its inventor, Kary Mullis, rejects HIv as the cause of AIDS or anything else and says his test only amplifies and copies these fragments for study. No real disease causing cytotoxic virus needs this kind of help in it’s detection and purification.

9. HIv is non-cytotoxic.Therefore HIv cannot destroy the cells it infects. Nor can any retrovirus. In fact HIv is well known to virologists to be compatible with T-cells. Or most cells for that matter. This and transcriptease (the ability of retrovirus to insert themselves into cells RNA first, the reverse of cytotoxic virus) is the reason for their specific classification as retroviruses.

10. Real disease causing viruses can be vaccinated against in 95% of cases. But viruses are not always the cause of disease. As often in the case of scurvy, pellagra and weak immune system, it is a dietary and lack of proper exercise or nutrient problem/issue. The case of SMON in Japan was a similar search for a “virus” causation when finally the culprit was found to be a toxin. A toxin in the very drug that doctors were prescribing to SMON patients. This is what happens when “virus hunters” get carried away and take over research for professional recognition and monetary reasons. Or just plain stubbornness. Legionairres disease was a prime example of how the CDC/NIH missed a toxin causation completely and birthed a vaccine that did more harm than good. (Duesbergs “Inventing the AIDS Virus”)

11. The Western Blot HIv test is well known to give many false positives as many antibodies already in the body or other medical conditions (up to 70) can set off the non-specific protein strips in the test. All HIv diagnostic tests carry a disclaimer that the test is NOT to be used to determine the presence or absence of HIv antibodies. Regardless, presence of antibodies to HIv would mean the immune system has done it’s work and the body is protected. In reality based science anyway. In other words, it is impossible to be positive for HIv with these tests because a positive test really means you’re positive for the antibodies and negative for HIv! Thus the PCR tests and viral load(T-cell counts) became the new hope to detect fragments of HIv DNA/RNA or low immune response. (see 8, 16)

12. There are different standards of HIv positive in different states and countries! Why? If it’s a virus it’s a virus! One standard needed. But there is no “gold” standard test. Other than Kochs Postulates for virus and microbes which the CDC and NIH refuse to acknowledge or talk about or if they do they claim that Kochs method is outdated! That’s like saying the 2nd law of thermodynamics is useless.

13. Gallo/NIH received the patent on the HIv tests in the exact same week he announced the “probable” cause of AIDS in 1984. It made the NIH-CDC, Montagnier and Gallo, millions. He had no peer review and had not isolated pure HIv directly from any “infected” persons blood or tissue, at the time of announcement. He could only claim 40% of his “AIDS” patients had detectable HIv. Not anywhere close to claim HIv was infectious or the cause of AIDS by recognized science standards. But how did he determine his “AIDS” patients had HIv? By co-culturing HIv in the lab or with a growth additive. Why? Because retrovirus are weak non-cytotoxic passenger virus that do not multiply or destroy cells.

14. Gallo was involved in the Nixon “War on Cancer” program in the 70’s and helped the Natl. Inst. of Cancer to pressure Congress to fund the program with great promises of success to find retrovirus or any virus as the cause of cancer. But it failed. Luckily, the emerging AIDS “epidemic” helped to find NIH/CDC and the virus hunters a new program to keep and increase their funding and a disease for Gallos HTLV-3. At a time when Reagan needed a political solution, and as gay men were demanding an answer, HIv was acceptable because it erased blame from the gay community for the disease being a “lifestyle” or behavioral disease. But early in it’s announcements, the CDC claimed it was behavioral and called it GRID. Gay Related Immune Deficiency. This was a correct diagnosis as the first 5 cases were all same extreme sexual behavior, heavy drug use related causation. For the CDC, there was no money in a program for only gays. Thus heterosexuals had to be at risk as well. (see 18)

15. Testing people for HIv because they show “AIDS” related disease symptoms, with or without immune suppression, has become the standard line of reasoning though it is preposterous due to the falsity of the tests and absurdity of using other diseases as markers. (11) But the AIDS hysteria has swept through every corner of our medical professions, without a widely publicized critical analysis of testing procedures or reassessment allowed.

16. Low T-cell counts are misleading. A variety of illness, drug abuse, poor health/diet, colds, flu, disease are also responsible. Many athletic people have low T-cell counts and they can vary almost hourly. In people with detectable HIv (by PCR test), it has only been found to infect 1 in approx. 1000 T-cells, hardly enough to destroy immune response. Regardless monitoring the immune response is no way to detect specific disease. Laying in the sun will lower your T-cell count to under 200.
http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/viral_load_tcell/viral_load.html

17. Gallo claims his electron micrograph pictures are of an HIv virus, but nothing can be found by other virologists that resembles a true concentrated virus titer. It is now known that Gallo forged these pictures and was investigated for it by the NIH.

18. “AIDS” has stayed within it’s risk groups, Gay and straight male intravenous drug users, heavy drug abusers, popper users (which causes Karposis Sarcoma), hemophiliacs, and the poor malnourished living in unsanitary conditions…. instead of spreading widely across the population as we’re led to believe. It is not sexually transmittable as claimed by the CDC and NIH, but this edict spread the risk to heterosexuals. With this false claim, and Americans ignorance of virology or HIv testing, funding for research and the following prescriptions for ARV’s was increased 1000 fold. HIv is an old retro-virus that has likely been with us for 100’s of years. Farrs law for dating virus proves this as HIv models exactly to Farrs test. The body’s DNA-RNA discards many cells and retro-virus everyday. Repeat: HIv is not sexually transmittable. It is a parinatally transmitted retrovirus.

19. AIDS related disease in South Africa was and still is occurring markedly in the overcrowded poor populations where malnutrition, common persistent parasitical diseases long vanquished from western populations, lack of health care, std’s infections and unsanitary environments persist. And this is true for the new countries AIDS is supposedly invading. To make matters worse, give them toxic chemo drugs on top of their persistent diseases and already compromised immune systems, and they will die. Many die of the common regional diseases regardless due to lack of health care services, known curative drugs, and of malnutrition. For instance, researchers who have examined the supposed massive deaths reported in Tanzania, find no such evidence. (Questioning AIDs in South Africa) And the CDC has now allowed themselves to categorize many common diseases in these areas as AIDS related, WITHOUT HIv testing, due largely to the expense of the HIv tests. (see Duesberg paper below) Of course they know the the testing is a hoax regardless. As a result, AIDS cases increase lending to the deception of a pandemic. All numbers the CDC and UNAIDS uses for HIv infection and AIDS cases are false and/or completely made up estimations and projections.

20. In fact now the NIH and CDC have admitted that they do not know how HIv causes destruction to the immune system (it doesn’t but the ARV drugs, immune suppressive behaviors, poverty, malnutrition do), and they are now factoring in a co-virus as a way out of their deception. A vaccine was promised in 2 years after the announcement of the “probable” cause HIv in 1984. No cure has ever been produced because no cure is needed or possible for a retro-virus (or passenger virus) that cannot cause disease. No vaccine because HIv isn’t a real disease causing virus.

21. Scurvy (citric acid deficiency), Pellagra (niacin deficiency), Beriberi (thiamine deficiency) , SMON (toxin in drug treatment), Zantac,Tagamet-Ulcers (bacteria, Tagamet, Zantac useless), Clioquinol-Diarrhea (toxin in Clioquinol treatment), Influenza (virus) , DES – Synthetic hormone( caused cervical cancer and sterility)…………all cases that were misdiagnosed or causations ignored by the medical/scientific profession at their specific occurrences in history to the detriment of the public. And in the cases where a drug was given and was causation, it was always to the profit of the pharmaceutical industry. In some cases the misdiagnoses, sickness and death went on for years.

———
From the website www.questionaids.com

Why isn’t an antibody test that’s verified by another antibody test good enough to say someone is infected with HIV?

The rationale for the use of antibody tests is that the immune system has the ability to detect foreign agents or viruses and to respond by producing antibodies that react with those agents or viruses. However, this rationale does not work in reverse. That is, the observation of an antibody reaction with a particular agent or virus does not prove that the antibody was produced in response to that particular agent or virus.

The problem with using antibodies alone to indicate infection with a particular agent or virus is twofold:

1. Antibodies can only be associated with a disease after it is shown that they are consistently generated after exposure to the pure virus. We are unaware that this has ever been accomplished with HIV.
2. Antibodies engage in indiscriminate relationships with a variety of agents or viruses. One could say that antibodies are “promiscuous,” that is, antibodies meant for one agent or virus may react with another agent or virus that is a perfect stranger. Or, to put it technically, there is ample evidence that antibody molecules, even the most pure (monoclonal antibodies) are not mono-specific, and that they cross-react with other, non-immunizing antigens.

———
FROM THE DVD “AIDS – FACT OR FRAUD?” Ten reasons why HIv cannot be the cause of AIDS:

“Classifying suppression or deficiency of the immune system, that long has had causation in many things, as a specific “syndrome” caused by a harmless retrovirus, is beyond comprehension and an insult to good medicine and science…unless you’re up to no good. But then treating an immune deficiency with poison chemo antiretroviral drugs, that destroy same immune system (bone marrow) and terminate DNA chains is criminal and insane! AIDS is an immune issue and should be treated as such. In fact, the acronym AIDS should be thrown away and banished from our vocabulary.”

1. HIv, like other viruses is harmless after antibody immunity. There is no known disease or virus that has re-emerged after a mature, healthy immune system created antibodies to it.(1) Testing positive for HIv means you have the antibodies and don’t have HIv. Unfortunately many different antigens are documented to set off the protein strips in the HIv tests which makes it difficult to lend any credibility to the tests. Thus the PCR test was invented.

2. HIv does not kill the T-cells it infects. In fact T-cells are compatible with HIv. Virologists know this for a fact. Abbot Labs used T-cells to grow HIv to make the protein strips for the Western Blot test.

3. HIv does not infect enough T-cells to cause AIDS. T-cells reproduce at the rate of 5% a day. HIv, after being destroyed mostly by antibodies produced, can only infect 1 in every 500 to one thousand T-cells. There is no virus in AIDS patients, only antibodies against virus. Gallo could never find any cytotoxic virus in T-cells.

4. HIv has no AIDS causing gene. HIv is no different in gene make up than other retrovirus. There are many retroviruses in the body all the time. If HIv can cause destruction of the immune system ( thus AIDS) then why don’t the other retrovirus? Or if the other retroviruses don’t cause AIDS, why does HIv? There is no genetic reason to explain why HIv causes AIDS.

5. There is no such thing as a slow virus. Gallo and Gajdusek gave HIv magical properties. Real virus cause specific disease and do so within days or a few weeks at most. (1) Herpes is not the exception as viremially it reproduces exponentially when active and passes Kochs Postulates. HIv does not. (Page 74 Duesbergs book IAV) And Herpes when first transmitted almost immediately shows its trademark sores. Gajdusek (NIH) had a history of claiming slow and dormant virus, but never in humans. Always in the lab. Also in his early work he gave retroviruses the ability to create more than one disease. All by correlation but never through proof. In fact he and Gallo and a few other retrovirologists seemed to always discover a retrovirus in the lab, then went looking for a disease.

6. HIv is not a new virus so HIv would not suddenly cause a new epidemic. New epidemics explode across populations. HIv has remained constant in populations and has been infecting every generation likely for centuries without causing AIDS. Farrs law is used for dating virus or microbe age and HIv models exactly to Farrs law. HIv then, is not sexually transmittable nor an epidemic. It is parinatally passed.

7. HIv fails all 4 Kochs postulates. A real disease causing virus or microbe must pass every one. The postulates are:1.) A virus or bacteria must be found in all cases of the disease, actively growing in large amounts call virus titer. HIv FAILS. 2.) Virus or germ must be isolated from the host and grown in pure culture. HIv FAILS HIv has only been grown substantially in the lab using a co-culture of leukemia cells and stimulated with chemicals, never directly from an HIv infected person in large quantities. 3.) The virus or bacteria must cause the same disease when injected into a new healthy host. HIv FAILS. 4.) The virus or bacteria must be isolated and found growing again in large amounts in the newly diseased host. HIv FAILS (failing 3 it cannot pass 4.)

8. AIDS has remained in its original risk groups for over 23 years. 97% AIDS patients made up of same risk groups. 3% risk group isn’t growing.

9. The CDC, WHO international profile of AIDS is inconsistent. U.S. and Europe = 90% male. Africa = 50/50 male female. U.S. and Europe fall 97% into risk groups. Africa = no risk groups.(the official UNAIDS line) The truth is the poor, malnourished living in crowded slums and shanty towns with no sanitation or clean water, or access to health care and continually fighting old parasitical diseases, are the most susceptible to immune deficiency disease, not HIv. They are the risk groups in poor overcrowded areas of developing countries. And CDC and UNAIDS have categorized all the old African diseases now as AIDS, whether HIv infection is present of not.

10. AIDS related disease occurs without HIv infection, and, most people with HIv antibodies, never develop AIDS related disease. What we see in this statement is evidence of no retrovirus in the first case or of a harmless retrovirus in the second case, that does nothing and has been cleared by immune response. Of course what is evident is that no one has HIv who has the antibodies present. If we can even verify that these antibodies are or have reacted to HIv proteins!!! And if it takes a polymerase chain reaction test to confirm that we can only find fragments of the DNA/RNA of HIv, not the HIv itself, then why is anyone worried about HIv??? Because we’ve been terribly misled by, as Duesberg calls them, the “virus hunters”.

Conclusion: HIv is not infectious nor sexually transmittable. With this information and finding of fact we should question any and all claims of disease that are supposedly caused by virus. Immediately what comes to mind are HPV, Hep B and HepC. These may be as harmless as HIv and treatment has been hyped to push people toward vaccinations that are untested and whose efficacy is not totally known.

Will race protest be curtains for Obama?

Posted on April 27, 2008 by Eric Verlo

If Al Sharpton has his way, it’s the end of Obama.

The policemen in New York City were let off for pumping fifty bullets into an unarmed black man, a young bridegroom on the eve of his wedding. Racism is alive and well at the NYPD, and an angry protest by Americans of Color, calling for recognition of racism and reform of the New York police department, will amplify the issue further.

Meanwhile in Pleasantville USA, the suggestion had been ceremoniously posited to the American television audience, and spun without a ripple of discord, that in one eloquent moment last March, Barack Obama transcended the color barrier and dispatched racism to the circular file of American folklore. What a glorious feeling it was, to imagine our nation ready for a smart man in the presidency, regardless his color, but someone forgot to read the memo at the NYPD.

If the black community in NYC gets up in arms about the recent verdict, and does object to policemen, even black ones, being permitted to gun down innocents who fit suspicious profiles, ie. are black –if there is a indeed still a racial divide– what then happens to the colorblind society tapped to elect Obama in November?

If racial tensions build in NYC, Obama is not going to be half white enough.

I’ll vote for a black man, so will you, so will every Democrat on our horizon, but can you speak for the Hoosiers and hillbillies beyond? They have the vote too. Cops have the vote. NASCAR fans and Christian bigots and Rush viewers have the vote too. Lets also throw in Fox viewers, and the CNN misinformed, and everyone who is going to be barraged with the already uninterrupted glowing tributes of maverick, heroic, white man father-knows-best Hi-Ho-Silver McCain.

The worst thing the media could muster about McCain, as an equal time aside, while it was percolating the Obama mystique, was that McCain was too old. They joked about it dismissively, as if McCain had not a black man’s chance in Mayberry. McCain has gotten no younger, but the media will call it a comeback, and we can add that to their new-leaf effusive attaboy of McCain.

Stop Homophobic Violence!

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Tony Logan

There is a rally 7 pm today on the steps of City Hall downtown in Colorado Springs that will be demanding that we all put an end to homophobic violence, especially that violence directed against young gay teenagers in public schools. Be there, or be straight!

No, just kidding…. Be there, or be square and hateful. Those of us who are (relatively) straight should be there, too. We all stand together or fall together as far as basic human rights are concerned. Our ‘straight’ presence is important alongside those Gays that stand up for the right to not be physically assaulted, or emotionally abused, by others.

DAY OF SILENCE RALLY TODAY

Supporters of the National Day of Silence will hold a rally starting at 7 p.m. today at the steps of City Hall in Colorado Springs, 107 N. Nevada Ave. The event is sponsored by the Colorado Springs Gay and Lesbian Community Center. It’s intended to honor people who have faced discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation.

Dave and 911 fail Dale Carnegie at KRCC

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Eric Verlo

911 is a lie COLORADO SPRINGS- Events took a shrill turn at the KRCC open house this weekend. My friend Dave got evicted from the party. If Dave can gather any consolation, I’d say he’s entitled to feel he did everything he could for the cause. Some would say a more gentle tact would have been more effective, but I think that wisdom is debatable for the 911 TRUTH keepers.

My friend Dave is a tireless advocate for the real story behind 911. He shares an ever-darkening hope -my sense- that if only the truth got out about what happened at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the whole Neocon ball of wax would melt like the towers, if steel can melt away like it did. Dave is so inflamed by the preposterousness of the lies supporting the official version of events, that he is determined to let no opportunity pass to raise his voice to cry foul.

Last Sunday, Dave’s chance was against Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, who came to visit KRCC. DN!, like its corporate news competitors, does not dwell on revisiting 911. Goodman has interviewed the makers of Loose Change, but that has been it. I remember the last time Goodman visited the Springs someone was trying to buttonhole her about 911. (It might have been Dave!) This time, Dave began shouting accusations of Goodman being a “gatekeeper,” as she walked to the stage, basically of her participation in the coverup of the Neocon equivalent of the Reichstag Fire. What can I say, I agree, but I’d rather hope there are bigger fish to heckle. But none really are accessible, are they? So Amy Goodman was Dave’s mark and he was determined to interrupt her speech sooner than wait his turn to ask her pointed questions in person.

What happened however, was that KRCC staff came to herd Dave away. They surrounded him, to quiet his tone and engage him, probably it’s fair to say, by distraction. But he evaded them, trying to get into a videographer’s camera angle. Eventually one of the smaller of the radio staff, a small woman, got in his face, and Dave was gesturing against her with his index finger and speaking with such ferocity that spit was flying. He didn’t purposely spit on her, but word went around that he had, and for the rest of the staff that was enough. Picking on a small woman is going too far, although no one noted that Dave is a pretty small guy himself. They were probably equally matched. But I can add that I’ve come against this woman myself, and she holds no punches when it comes to patronizing sarcasm.

But I am biased in a couple familiar matters. Number one, I can sympathize with being up against this radio staff who will positively broke no alternate view. They are rigid in their sense of what their role is in the community. They seek to generate no complaints. They fear listeners who complain about something being changed. Listeners who complain about something they’d like to see changed, are addressing nothing the radio station has done, the input is uninvited. If allowed to lead to change, most certainly it will generate counter complaints. Ergo, no go. Also, almost uniformly, the radio staff are uninterested in the complexity of news issues. They therefore have no empathy for those who would contend with their news.

I wondered if the radio staff saw the irony that by stepping in to stop Dave, they were being gatekeepers too. Probably they do not even understand the term. They are protecting their little non-profit, “like anything, we have to run it like a business,” and don’t want to jeopardize being able to do what they do. For them it’s enough to be somebody’s favorite little station, as opposed to fighting the good fight, or saving the world. In their own way, with music shows, they do that. But others, who see the potential of their power, guarded for official use only, see the guards as gatekeepers.

I don’t blame the radio staff for calling security on Dave, and I do believe they handled him as gently and as reasonably as they could. I only wish they might have shown some sympathy afterward, instead of treating him like a loon.

In a second fashion, I really feel for Dave. He’s up against everyone, and it’s not his fault. Dave has studied the evidence, he refuses to live in the darkness of a dark lie, and he wants to make the truth known. Who doesn’t want that? And so he has to break the surface, disrupt everyone’s tidy and comfortable world view. And when a newsperson with the capability to reach millions stops by in the flesh, Dave has to try to get to her conscience. It’s not like Amy Goodman has not studied the 911 controversy. It’s not like a private conversation would have enlightened her to an unearthed development. Dave had to haunt her like a telltale heart, and hope that at the next appearances someone else of like-minded 911 spirit would haunt her there. Until I suppose, she would resolve to broach the subject once more on the air, and again and again, until the truth was exposed. This is what I imagine to be Dave’s hope.

I have another friend in that camp, who was thankfully more civil, and came away thinking perhaps eventually Amy Goodman would be an ally. I had to agree. I speculated with him what might have been her answer to Dave, if she’d been forced to give him a candid answer, which no doubt she is not free to give.

Here’s what we figured Yoda would tell Dave:

Many are the 911 Truth seekers, but greater are the forces behind the official 911 Commission Report. The official channels, have they, and the institutions and the mouthpieces, and the means to present the truth tellers as crazy ill-mannered maniacs (you Dave). Even exploit the inevitably real crazies to full effect they can, and paint the rest by association. Not enough 911 Truth soldiers are there with which to mount an attack. But other battles to fight, there are. Throw our energies into those arenas, we must.

Someday historians will sort this out. The truth behind historic events is never for contemporaries to know. Knowledge is power. Are you in power? The real knowledge then, was not yours. Believe what you want, but suffer the fate of Galileo if you insist on trying to shake the system to its destruction. Galileo tried to put the very infallibility of the church to flame. Hard to blame them for threatening to burn him. Be satisfied with knowing.

Dave, I think you are right. I’m a far less audacious man than you. I’m not much of a friend when I can’t step in to support you, although I can try to explain afterward that you are neither crazy, nor dangerous. You are plenty rude, but you are a likable, well motivated person, looking out for the well being of all.

Commissioner rallies bikers to lobby

Posted on April 22, 2008 by NMT

CORRAL BLUFFS, COLORADO- Residents trying to hold on to open space –Save Corral Bluffs– east of Colorado Springs have been fighting efforts to build a motorcycle raceway adjacent a pre-existing motor cross park. Local archeologists have been leading tours of the area in hope of preserving the site. Mark Lewis has helped to videotape the effort and forwarded this interesting development.

One of the county commissioners deciding the fate of Corral Bluffs has weighed in on an online dirt biker message board. It’s though this might be grounds to ask for his recusal on the matter. El Paso County Commissioner Jim Bensberg had this to say:

“Thursday morning, April 24, at the County Office Building, about 9 a.m., the Board of County Commissioners will decide whether to spend $35,000 of your OHV sticker money on a park planner pursuant to our original grant request.

The anti-access folks will be out in force to protest this next step in the plan. The point needs to be made, by someone other than me, that 18” of single track for 20 miles = 3.5 acres out of a proposed 900-acre park. Can you say “Open Space?” Sure ya can!

If the motorcycle community wants to be heard, this is a prime opportunity. Otherwise, all the Board will hear is the constant whining from the likes of Lee Milner and the NIMBYs.

So, spread the word. If motorcyclists continue to be underrepresented at these critical public meetings, they will get nothing in return. Democracy requires participation!

Jim B.”

Mark’s got lots of videotapes of the planning meetings and town forums at CSAction.org. What’s at stake is described in great detail at SaveCorralBluffs.com. The area is so-named because cattle drives could easily corral their cows in the natural confines of the bluffs. There are even cliffs discovered to have been used for buffalo jumps by Native Americans.

Manitou Springs tribute to my mother

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Eric Verlo

MANITOU SPRINGS- (Last night my mother Kathy Verlo was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Open Space activists at the Manitou City Council. I was overcome by their gracious tribute. Here are the notes I prepared in thanks.)

I’d like to thank you so much for this recognition of my mother, and assure you that my father very much wanted to be here today. He intended to be here, but inadvertently scheduled a trip, and as an afterthought realized the conflict. He asked me to relay his gratitude and apology.

It is actually fitting that my father is missing this meeting by being away on a trip, because travel was always a bone of contention he shared with my mother. They both liked to maintain their connections around the world, but my mother’s sense of obligation to the local community was very strong, and when she served on the city council, her responsibilities became more regimented. When my father would propose an idea for a trip, my mother would agree, so long as she could be back to Manitou by the next Tuesday City Council meeting. This posed an interesting challenge for their travels. Sometimes Mom would have to return early, often she would not go along at all. So it is hardly a coincidence that after her death, my father has been away with more frequency.

I relate this detail about my mother, not to reflect on her dedication to this city, but to illustrate the determination she showed to make a difference, and the effort she knew it required. I can imagine that all of you serving on the council right now know full well this task. I’m sure a number of you are very reluctant to miss a single meeting, less the interests of opposing parties take advantage of your absence. This was how my mother was able to hold steadfast to the ideals she believed in. This was the strategy required to stand firm against the development of areas now celebrated as open space. She lost plenty of battles, but with a great deal of help from you, won some important ones, and that’s why we are here today.

Now… in Kathy’s spirit, I would like to divert my remarks for a moment. I’ll confess straight off I’m barely brave enough to do it without this preamble, but I’d like to take advantage of this podium to address an important issue, and I hope some of you recognize this as vintage Kathy. No matter the occasion, it was never about my mother, but about what could be accomplished with each given opportunity. You could be discussing last week’s flier, but at the same time, she would be handing you another flier.

I have to rush from this meeting, to another scheduled at the same time, the annual meeting of the ACLU, where we are discussing free speech and the limitations being considered at the State Democratic Convention to be held in Colorado Springs in May. There are plenty of issues to protest, relative to what neither major party is doing, and I hope any or all of you seize this chance to advocate for your particular concerns when the state delegates arrive to put together their party platform.

As well, I’ve passed out fliers to many of you already about an event happening this Sunday at Colorado College, related to KRCC 91.5 on the radio. Amy Goodman, of the news show Democracy Now, is paying a visit, and will speak about the current state of the nation at 3 o’clock on Sunday. Please come. We worked very hard to bring Democracy Now to KRCC, my mother included, but they’ve put the show in a terribly unpopular time-slot, 7pm weekdays. Are you able to listen to Amy Goodman at that time? Undoubtedly not. In fact, she’s on right now, and we are attending a meeting. One of many.

Democracy Now is a wildly popular news program, wherever it’s carried. Many people stream it off the internet, and it keeps everyone so much better informed than the usual corporate media sources, including NPR. Public radio listeners think they are well served by NPR until they hear Amy Goodman, and then they become just sick about how they are being betrayed by corporate spin.

We have to spread that sickness to as many people as possible. If we can convince KRCC to reschedule Democracy Now to the morning drive hour, many more people will, not by accident, become immediately better acquainted with world events. There will be no more uncritical interviews with only government spokesmen or think-tanks to hear “the surge is working” or to keep placing a question mark after “global warming.”

If more of your friends and neighbors get to hear more than the corporate-interest-only news, you won’t have to do as much proselytizing yourself. You will more readily find agreement on issues that benefit our community. Like the environment, and health care, and social inequity, and peace. Instead of the media diverting us with issues like Free-Tibet, more of us will question “hey, is the CIA behind the unrest in Tibet?” Fewer of us might advocate for militarized intervention to Save-Darfur if we are asking “hey, is this about our oil companies fighting with China over who gets their hands on the Sudan?” The list goes on.

The opportunity Democracy Now presents is an urgent one. All of you, I know, have interests in bettering our community and in particular issues you’d like to become better understood. Your biggest hurdle is an uniformed public, and your biggest adversary by far is the media which keeps them that way. We can seize hold of that media, locally, by making it more responsive to the people. Like any enterprise, there will be so much less to do later, if we do more now. Please come on Sunday and lobby KRCC to do this for the community.

I’m going to make this same appeal tonight to the ACLU folk, and other ensuing gatherings this week, so I hope we can bring some real support this weekend.

I impose on you like this with the full confidence that my mother would support this plea, as she was fully supportive of every of my efforts –like any good mother, and so I should add– in particular those that advocated for the benefit of all.

I thank you for this opportunity. I apologize if I’ve taken undue advantage, but in the spirit of my mother I remind you –and you know this– the struggle lives on. Thank you on behalf of my father, and my sisters. As much as my mother would have quickly turned to re-gift this award to the nearest person in the room who she considered more deserving or perhaps someone who she suspected would grow by the encouragement, I accept it on behalf of her family. Your recognition of my mother really does mean a great deal to us.

The Dalai Lama in Seattle

Posted on April 13, 2008 by Tony Logan

George Bush confers with the Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama has just descended from the heavens into a football stadium in Seattle where he gave a seemingly peaceful and non-violent message. His demands for Tibetan autonomy are reasonable enough on the surface, and he has also spoken out against a boycott of the Chinese Olympic games, unlike Harry Potter (authoress Rollings), who has just this weekend called for the assemblage of an army of wizards from his (her) home in England, to attack the Chinese devils with mass condemnation and mass magical incantations. The Dalai Lama in Seattle prefers the spiritual approach though.

The problem is, what exactly is the Dalai Lama doing by coming to venues like middle class America’s Seattle? What is it he hopes to find there, instead of say in Lagos, Nigeria, Dhaka, Bangladesh, or Cairo or Bogota? In short, what’s he doing in Rome? Trying to get the ear of the World’s Emperor perhaps? And of course, we know that The Emperor commands legions of troops. Wonder if any of that has effected the spiritual style of the Dalai?

We also want the Tibetans to have autonomy but are not pushing for the independence of Tibet from China, and that is the exact same position the Dalai Lama is currently taking. So then we would agree nominally with the Dalai Lama about this. But let us also think about Tibet a little in more detail then.

In fact, the Tibetans already do have an independent state in the Himalayas, and it is called Bhutan. There, the Tibetan Buddhists have been about as cruel to the non Tibetan community as they think the Chinese are to them in China. Out of a population of less than 1,000,000 the dominant Tibetan Buddhist Bhutanese government managed to expel, in the last decade or so, about 100,000 Nepalese residents from Bhutan. Oh, where, oh what, is the Dalai Lama’s position on those events?

One of the complaints of the Chinese based Tibetans is their lack of linguistic autonomy compared to the Chinese of China themselves. There is a problem for the Chinese government though. Out of the 51 Tibetan language dialects for a population of some several millions, how many should the Chinese make efforts to keep these languages on an equal status with Chinese, say? It would be interesting to know how many of the American fans of the Dalai Lama speak any of these Tibetan dialects/ languages?

This drama will continue. Americans are not really adept in participating in the Chinese propaganda machine, and the Chinese are not adept in representing themselves well in the Anglo corporate media disinformation machine either. Of course, the Chinese are not demanding that the US government respect the autonomy of the Black American community or the various Native American communities. Imagine if the Black Community had ‘autonomy’ over the US prison industrial complex? The Chinese should demand autononmy for America’s racial and national minorities. And they should economically boycott the US until the US government accedes to their just demands.

Israeli army evicting Palestinian orphans

Posted on April 10, 2008 by NMT

This news just in from the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron:

“Thursday 10/4 -Update: This morning Israeli Military soldiers came to the girls orphanage, took some inventory of supplies, and announced that the girls have to be out of the orphanage by Sunday. There is no decision given yet by the Israeli High Court whether the orphanages and schools have to be closed. We will keep you posted.
-Mary Anne”

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Art Arbour, JoAnne Lingle

Hebron Orphanages Press Conference
8 April 2008

HEBRON
The Popular Committee for Supporting the Orphanages hosted a press conference, on Monday, April 7th, at the Hebron Girls Orphanage with approximately 70 attending, including independent media, internationals, and clergy. The Israeli Military has given orders to shut down the orphanages and schools run by the Islamic Charitable Society by 7 April.

The lawyer representing the Islamic Charitable Societies spoke of the invaluable work of serving 2,500 children, 240 of them orphans, aiding an additional 4,000 students and 5,000 needy families, running a dairy and 2 bakeries, a warehouse and 4 small store fronts which serve the schools and orphanages of the Hebron area. The warehouse, bakeries and the storefronts were raided on 6 March 2008. The Israeli Military confiscated food, clothing, school supplies, refrigerators and 2 buses worth $300,000.

The lawyer also spoke of how the monies donated to support the orphanages and schools are accounted for and audited by certified
public accountants and monitored by the Palestinian Authority. The books are open to audit by the Israeli Government as well. Twenty
percent of the monies donated come from the Hebron local community. The other eighty percent come from Europe and the US and Middle East countries. The Islamic Charitable Society is highly respected by locals, NGO’s, and other reputable organizations such as Catholic Charities.

During the conference Rabbi Arik Ascherman, of Rabbis for Human Rights, spoke to the press conference by speaker phone, saying that under Jewish law there must be evidence brought before the court and that there must be witnesses to that evidence. Even in the name of security, this closure is not warranted, as the Islamic Charitable Society has threatened no human life.

Members of CPT and other internationals slept at the orphanages to accompany, and to document any possible incursion by the Israeli Military; however by midnight of 7 April, the attorney for the Israeli Military had asked for an extension of time to prepare and submit to the court a full justification for the closures of the schools and orphanages.

Illegal raid on Eldorado religious compound goes by without protest

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Tony Logan

Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints The illegal government raid on the Eldorado religious compound has gone by unprotested by all for a week now. While we have no love for any Right Wing Christian cultists, let alone these split off fundamentalist Mormons, we have a hard time understanding why the liberals and Left of this country are so nonchalant about this particular governmental violation of fundamental US citizen civil liberties? You cannot expect for others to respect your own rights if you stay silent in cases like this.

This raid at Eldorado, Texas was made seemingly without any evidence against anybody, resulted in no material arrests for any crimes supposedly committed before the raid, and separated hundreds of children from their fathers and mothers. And the liberal community wants to act as if nothing important is going on, and that all has been done legal and fair? It is all very sad, though it seems very typical of the liberal community to see them respond in such a manner.

Meanwhile, the government propaganda against this pathetic religious sect continues unabated in the press. It is typical of the type of government propaganda meant to justify almost all government actions, and includes unsubstantiated charges, calls for harsh judgment against myriad unspecified people, and a total self justification about why the government has thrown these 417 kids into the miserable Texas Child Protective Services Department’s control. Hardly any ‘liberation’ for these kids at all.

At least one liberal has stepped up to the plate at this time; that liberal being Gerald Goldstein, attorney for the religious group under attack. Unfortunately, he does not seem to be doing a very good job at getting out his client’s case before the general American public. It is time for others to begin to question how this raid was initiated and handled, to question who are the major government players in the whole affair, and to question their motives for making a small case against one accused man a monstruos call for almost lynch mob hysteria against a whole group of people?

We should not doubt for a moment, that our government misleaders want always to create comic book villains for the general public to make us hysterical about, in order top better mislead all of us to a sorry end. That is what their Eldorado, Texas ‘event’ is all about. These people under the gun now deserve our defense for their civil liberties, though they do not deserve much respect for their religious belief system. Wrong as they might be, they are people who have rights, and not just media and government made monsters for us to cast our scorn upon.

‘White-facing’ MLK

Posted on April 5, 2008 by Tony Logan

Every year in America, we go through a sick ceremony that ‘White-face’s’ MLK. That ceremony is called MLK Day, where leaders of the White Community, that wouldn’t have bothered spitting on the living Man, as opposed to tasering him, start to slobber all over themselves in order to lecture the general public about ‘the message’ of Martin Luther King.

MLK has been converted into another Establishment Christ figure, but one that seemingly is Black. Per American media, MLK just like their Christ version, loved all equally and supposedly opposed any anger at the racist well-to-do war monger, that the corporate media adore. Don’t be angry, was the message of MLK per the US Establishment.

Here is a commentary about this phenomena 40 Years Later, Martin Luther King Is Still Silenced published on alternet.

MLK, largely did not get openly angry, except that begin to change in the last few months of his life. He stopped staying silent about many issues that he had not addressed previously, in his role as a raterh conservative pastor. The flock had gotten tired of all that ‘turn the other cheek’ stuff, and demanded more from Martin, and he began to belatedly deliver more. That anger that came out at the end of his life is the real message of Martin Luther King today. He spoke out and lost his life for it in the end. Don’t let the corporate media and government turn MLK into a white-faced Establishment pastor. MLK had broken from that mold. He had gotten fed up.

St Baldrick patron saint of subservience

Posted on April 3, 2008 by Eric Verlo

What is the point of shaving one’s head in the fight against cancer? You raise awareness of the continuing plight of cancer victims? You show solidarity with those afflicted? You normalize what kids can only regard as the stigma of chemotherapy? I’m not exactly sure. To be crass, I wouldn’t jump off a bridge just because my friends are suicidal. I’m not sure shearing one’s hair is not a more profound abasement than it looks.

Raising money for cancer feeds three coffers: medical care, medical research or media advertising. This year our local St Baldrick’s has set a goal to raise $150K for the cause. That’s a lot, considering these are pledges based on goading your friends about whether they will or will not dare to go bald. Let me ask you however, $150K buys a fraction of what in the medical world? It buys how many seconds on TV?

What is fund-raising for cancer but a secondary tax for funds to support a health care system, and no funds still flowing to the patients?

I’m sorry to be disrespectful of cue-baldness, or to exacerbate the stigma, but what do shaved heads denote historically? Captive peoples? Prisoners, soldiers, eunuchs, slaves. Today we explain it as a hygienic necessity when concentrating people in close quarters, or for spartan utilitarianism. But there’s a solitary reason people’s heads are shaved who have no say in the matter. Control. They are easily identified en masse, and their individuality is not only demeaned but effaced.

Chemo patients who lose their hair are thereby marked for their involuntary subjugation to man’s imperfect medicine. More instructively, they are victims of our imperfect, reckless, even murderous technologies. Should we not fight against the toxic causes of cancer, sooner than symbolically queue into the ranks of its unfortunate collateral damage? And how can we fight this foe with our highest potency?

Since ancient times, slaves were shorn to prevent them from blending in with free people. Shaving has served that function ever since: to preempt thoughts of escape, desertion, or assimilation. Early religions stressed letting your hair be. He who retained their hair retained their power. Even today, politicians and celebrities fare much better who have a full head of hair.

Many traditions still call for beards to be grown unrestricted. This de-emphasizes the individual by appearance at least. Similarly women are expected to cover themselves to varying degrees, also perhaps to equalize their haphazardly distributed differences.

I personally prefer a society of revealed and clean-shaved faces because it allows for people’s unique identities. Scientists might argue that craniums are equally unique. I suspect that’s true, most appreciably to biometric scanners. I’m unsure about the benefit to the community of man of appearing uniform, yet having individuals detectible at security portals or by surveillance cameras. You want unanimity among people except to their overseers?

Since the Enlightenment, the west has been enamored of its face. These days with makeup, chemical or scalpel, we can augment our face to suit us. Hair is where we have daily autonomy over how the world perceives us. It can conform or not, complement us or disguise us. Where our bone structure might be God-given, a hairdo, wig or hat is entirely ours to command.

Modern culture has accepted the shaving of facial hair such that we barely see it as an obeisance to the new norm. That Samson lost his strength owing to an involuntary trim, is not to me an abstract lesson.

The Surge morphs into The Purge

Posted on March 27, 2008 by Tony Logan

The US is now attacking the allies of Iran within the Iraqi Shia community, and this new battle in the US War to Re-Colonize the Middle East is now underway. It is an effort by the US to clean up behind the lines before it begins its bombardment of Iran.

All the candidates for the presidency have signed on to this new campaign by merely keeping their silence, as both the corporate political parties have done exactly the same thing. And the antiwar and Peace community seems totally befuddled by it all, while the mass media keeps it silent and news and clues-less as long as possible for the general public.

Yes, The Surge has morphed into The Purge, and nobody seems to have much taken notice. In fact, it looks like we’ll all have yet more nap time until the direct bombardment of Tehran begins. What, us worry? Not a chance!

Bush calls The Purge, a positive moment. Increase in death and fighting always seems to turn Dubya and Dick on. There is almost something Hitler-like in their attitude toward other peoples dying. No sacrifice on other peoples’ parts is too much for them, it seems. America must control the region… America must control the declining world oil supplies.

The mixed up Peace Community

Posted on March 22, 2008 by Tony Logan

The Peace Community is just plain mixed up. They are always ‘commemorating’ false anniversaries, and have a great ability to count by thousands (though not by hundreds of thousands, or millions). ‘This is the 5th year of The War, and this is 4,000 down, etc. and yada, yada, yada’ …, however, they don’t really seem to have even a clue.

What I am getting at, is that The War date to remember really is January 17, 1991. That’s when the US went to war with Iraq. That’s the date the Peace Community should be commemorating, but doesn’t, simply because most of those years the so called Peace Community was MIA, or advocating even a US war against Yugoslavia. Congratulations, People, you are really on the ball! You were to busy with the Rush Limbaugh War those days, I guess?

Even now, many of the clueless people want to go campaigning to stop the Olympics, save the Fur people and give them a Dar, and to chop off a fifth of Chinese territory and make a new country out of it. Whoopeee!!!!!

Let’s think about the US some more, shall we? When did the US government go to war with the Afghan people? Come on, Peace Buddies! Hey, was it way back when Osama was still considered a Freedom Fighter? You guys are really quite clueless! Even today, you hardly are campaigning for America to end that war, now are you?

And when did the US go to war against Iran? Hey, wasn’t that back when Saddam Hussein was our government’s good friend? See the Wikipedia some about our history here… The Gulf War

Shoot, that was when most of the Peace Community was part of the porra (cheerleaders) for Daniel Ortega and team. They didn’t really have time to think about how Saddam was being backed by the US government to wage war on the Iranian people. They didn’t have time, as they took their revolutionary vacations elsewhere.

Yes, the Peace Community is just mixed up most of the time. So this election year, we’ll keep that in mind. Americans are always on Cloud Nine…. for an eternity it seems. And that includes the Peace Community. If I they didn’t forget to oppose the Drug War so much even, they might not be so drugged out? Who knows?

I guess what I am saying with this rambling rant, is that it is so sad that much of the Peace (and Justice, too) Community misses about 99% of what goes on around them, about 99% of the time. The corporate media just screws with their minds too much for most to follow what goes on in the world. The Peace People can see that in the conservative element of the population, but is quite oblivious to their own propensity to be manipulated, and about 99% of the time.

It certainly is frustrating to try to work with these people. It might be easier to work with Jehovah’s Witnesses, or some other hard-to-have-success project? Lord only knows? But I continue to work with Unitarians instead. It’s a Unitarian Peace Community.

Peace.

The destruction of the dollar

Posted on March 13, 2008 by Tony Logan

The American business community, the Democratic and Republican Parties, and the US government they control have destroyed the dollar. Simply put, they pumped it up with empty air, and now nobody wants to use it as international currency. Look at the 3 alternative currencies: gold, the Euro, and barrels of oil. All these alternatives have real use value based on real evaluation of what they can buy, while the paper dollar has nothing other than the Pentagon to back it up now. Take it or bake, is how they want others to shake.

What the paper dollar actually has to back it up, is only our promise to pay the national debt sometime. However, our government acts more like international gangsters rather than any type of legitimate business men. Gangsters are pretty damn iffy, hence the dollar is plummeting in real value recognized by others.

I include a barrel of oil as true and valued currency in today’s world, along with gold and the Euro. Remember those Mad Max movies? Remember how scarce petroleum was the key to survival in those movies? Thank our American ‘leaders’ for creating the new Mad Max movie we are now part of the cast of.

The dollar is dead, How Long Live the Empire?! Remember The Empire of Mad Max’s world? Good luck, Kids. The Empire is turning you into rats that will scurry around for survival. It’s not the movies any more. It’s what the supposedly responsible American business community has done for y’all. It’s Mad Max’s world!

Paul Roberts’ asks, ‘Who is going to bail us out?’ Good question, so see his answer for yourself.

When in Rome, do you know what to do?

Posted on March 5, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Apparently the music at Give Peace a Dance was terrible -in the opinion of those over 50 who excused themselves early because they thought the noise was deafening and/or cacophonous. Had the PPJPC targeted the dance to younger people, I’m sure critical reviews would have been favorable.

Outreach to community subgroups different from your own, might by definition, require stepping outside your comfort zone. Catering to youth might mean a buffet at odds with your palate. So what? Don’t go. But if you admit the need to embrace age diversity into your organization, perhaps you have to tolerate some of their ways.

Likewise if you’re thinking to reach out to “the internets,” there’s a chance the language and discourse of that world might be too coarse for your sensibilities. Send internet emissaries to do your courting. That’s the principle behind ambassadors. Send someone who can speak to the natives. Don’t venture where you might be fainthearted.

Courting diversity and different strokes is paramount to building a broader community consensus. It may be a compromise of your particular taste, and it may feel like one hell of a compromise, but it shouldn’t mean compromising your fundamental principles.

Covering your ears to bear the discord is a far cry from disparaging your own ideals in order to ingratiate yourself with potential recruits. I’d sooner speak in another language to reach people foreign to my cause, than speak English but repudiate my origins in order to find agreement with erstwhile opponents.

There might be something honorable in cozying up to your enemy to show them you are flesh and blood like them. If they agree with you on one thing, perhaps they will become acclimatized to consider another. It’s a fitting long term goal, but in the meantime, what? Do you grab knives and partake in the crimes you are against?

The PPJPC has a group of members interested in the cause of sustainability. Our opponent, the war machine, has a PR department that has glommed unto “sustainability.” On one side you could call that green-washing the business of death and destruction. Neither death, nor destruction being sustainable. On the other side of the argument, you could say that the mother of all budgets being splurged on promoting sustainability cannot but help. Both sides can be true.

So death might be portrayed as fertilizing the soil for new life. Feeding the cycle of life, TM Disney. Do we no longer hold sacred the sanctity of each life span individuated from the cycles?

Killing is wrong, no matter how much fertilizer you are able to make. Reaching across to the sustainability crowd, by minimizing anti-war ideals as merely differences of opinion, is to compromise not just taste, but substance.

America’s newest Border Wall

Posted on March 5, 2008 by Tony Logan

The US and French governments are now able to cooperate once again, and have chosen to show their new willingness to be friends by building a new ‘Border Wall’ together. And what better place than in Chad?

Here, a puppet dictator whose survival is an essential necessity to protect the joint US and European plans to further militarize North Africa, is in mortal danger of falling. So what better place to build the world’s newest ‘Border Wall’, which will serve as a barrier between the capital of Chad, and the entire rest of the country? This is a work of true genius!

And maybe some day Washington D.C. will build such a construct, too? (but what about the Pentagon, Tony? It’s in Northern Virginia, isn’t it?)

Trench to encircle Chad’s capital

I keep waiting for the ‘Save Darfur’ people to raise their voice in opposition to the European Union (the French and US) takeover of Chad. But wait a second???? Wasn’t that actually something that they
were actually calling for? (Oh, Tony, none of them ever said that!).

OK, now? Am I really stretching to call this trench ‘America’s newest Border Wall’?

Answer…. Not really. Walls are just IN with the Pentagon gated community crowd!

UN Secretary-General condones Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Tony Logan

The international big business press continues to paint a false picture of a neutral United Nations, by quoting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s comments that supposedly condemn Israeli for an ‘disproportionate and excessive use of force‘ in Gaza. In fact, these Israeli attacks on civilians are war crimes, and Ban Ki-moon’s remarks actually condone them by pretending a false neutrality, a neutrality that just isn’t there.

All Israeli use of force against defenseless Palestinian civilian neighborhoods is criminal, and the use of Israeli violence and terrorism cannot be artificially divided into non-excessive amounts and excessive amounts, as the UN Sec-Gen does in his game of playing neutral in the conflict.

The UN is now openly and fully under the control of the US and the Western European imperialist powers and is totally behind US war making world wide, as well as in Gaza. The UN and Ban Ki-moon is acting as US spoke voice for the Pentagon on almost a daily basis now, and are able to muscle other nations aside by various threats against them if they do not go along with US directives.

Another case in point to prove this is the UN Security Council falling in line with the US plans to aggressively attack Iran, both economically and militarily. The UN, just like it did with Iraq, is moving economic sanctions into place against Iran. This, once again, is support for criminally targeting civilians for murder by military forces led by the US. It is always the US military that enforces these supposedly UN made economic sanctions.

The UN is a dead body. It no longer acts as a world body, but rather as nothing more than camouflage for US imperialism. It is more than time for the US antiwar community to take a new look at the actual work of the UN in the world today, and to condemn its constant complicity and active involvement in US war crimes.

We need to abolish the United Nations and start over altogether once again in building a real world body of government free of control by the super power. This won’t be easy but still it must be done. The UN, as it is, is nothing more than an organization for the promotion of constant war. The military-industrial complex controls the UN as well as it controls the United States government.

Gold Hill blows arsenic and lead our way

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Winds have been blowing up dust from Gold Hill, in part due to a two month discontinuance of keeping damp the exposed 210-acre toxic mound. Neighbors are complaining, but have no fear, developer Bob Willard told the Westside Pioneer “I take responsibility for that.” That’s great. If years later health statistics point to an abnormal concentration of debilitating illness due to arsenic or lead, we’ll know where to knock.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Profit now at all cost later.

The State of Colorado authorized the Gold Hill development on a “brownfiled” site, the mound of tailings from the old gold-mill. Their proviso was that particular care be taken to, among other measures, keep the freshly disturbed tailings from being inhaled by the city’s residents.

For some reason, perhaps owing to the housing market financing problems, Willard decided to forgo the water trucks until someone complained. Oh, is that how enforcement of state instructions work? Open the can of worms, whether you have the means to stick around or not, don’t bother about the lid.

It looks as if the state will bear some fault for this too. But meanwhile the developer tells us he will bear full responsibility for his lack of diligence to safeguard community health. Is he planning to abscond to Paraguay with his takings before we all start falling sick?

The PPJPC and the old firehouse

Posted on March 2, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Once upon a time the PPJPC met in an old firehouse. Coincidence.

I’m thinking about a little fire department, getting along just fine, no major fires to deal with, and community support ebbing for lack of concern about fires. The firehouse has to organize bake sales and fundraisers to keep itself going, and before long they get pretty focused on bake sales. And then there’s a fire.

You might think that everyone would agree you call firemen in the case of fire, except for the fire department staff which had situated itself best for baking cookies and raising money. They don’t have the constitution for fighting fires, and so it becomes up to the volunteers to assemble themselves for the task. They undertake the work, trying not to resent the paid firemen now cookie sellers. But the fund-raising activities are now so well-oiled that they can’t spare their buckets for the brigade, nor their water for the fire. And some complain about the firefighters’ boots getting the floors too muddy, or the wet coats making others wet. And there’s even grumbling about the amateurish performance of the firefighting, worrying that it will impact negatively on cookie sales.

Of course another adverse impact on cookie sales, has to do with the people who originally supported the fund-raiser. The volunteers now manning the hoses are the people who would be the regular bake sale patrons, but have come to see that the fireman funds no longer go toward the firefighting.

And then there are the ideological divides, about how fires must be fought or not fought. Directly, or metaphorically, arguing between applying fighting and non-fighting skills. Some believing that you can fight the core of what causes fires, by holding bake sales. There is something undeniably hopeful about the idea that everyone can come together over a plate of homemade cookies.

Of course we can argue all day about the conspiratorial theory that some fires are set deliberately, or that similar elements find it beneficial to cultivate a culture which glamorizes fires, accepts them as inevitable, or at the very least, becomes incapable of putting them out. Those elements promote an attitude which disparages the uncool, traditional values of calling for fires to be put out, and by wile or guile, sabotage the preventive infrastructure assembled by the community, leapfrogging the common wisdom which had led the community to build the firehouse and hire the firemen in the first place.

Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission

Posted on March 1, 2008 by Tony Logan

The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission is not a real community group at all. Real constituent organizations hold membership meetings from time to time, but the Justice and Peace Commission doesn’t. Instead, worse than a Stalinist organization, the group holds one supposed general meeting per year, where a small clique presents ‘board’ decisions as fait accompli to any who are suckered into watching the show.

The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission structure is that of a small business board, whose principle concern is always to raise funds. The funds are principally to be used to maintain a managerial staff who take a proprietary view of the organization. The organization is seen as theirs to be run for others, which is exactly what they proceed to do. Actually, the others are most often seen to be mainly themselves, as the office staff constantly fight to continuously keep an income flow moving to help guarantee their continued employment.

Over the head of all this, is now a minister who runs ‘the board’ as if he was running a church. Churches are small businesses and despite the pious manner of the pastors, most often pastors act like small business owners. Originally, it was a group of nuns who set the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission into operation, modeled along the lines of a semi-liberal church group. Despite the pretense of the group to be representative of ordinary people, the group has maintained the same undemocratic mode of ‘business’ managing that currently exists, over several decades now.

The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission board sees itself as a wheeler and dealer with the local power establishment. As such, it does not want to appear to be too confrontational in any way, but rather to appear as a responsible element of the community. It constantly embraces ‘communication’ with the military, police, and city council as a result. In addition, it fears anything and anybody that might impede this ‘communication’.

The PPJPC is not truly an antiwar group or justice group at all, but has taken on many characteristics of being a ‘new age’ organization. That’s a pretty safe way of maintaining some semblance of appearance of being different, without ever having to defend much substance or real opposition to the established order at all.

The real problem is that many small semi-alternative businesses and churches in the community give backing to this sort of thing. Plus, like a company union, the PPJPC is something that the mainstream Power Establishment would rather deal with than the real thing, which would be a real community organization run in a more democratic manner

Southern Colorado deserves better than this as it would be much better to have a pro-Peace organization that is not run from top down like a small business. That’s what we should strive for.

The Rosa Parks Lone Rider Theory

Posted on February 27, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Rosa Parks photographed after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, posed with newspaper reporter “Rosa Parks did so act on her own!” I’m faced with this repudiation yet again, as J’s high school class revisits the civil rights movement. Their reading list includes Howard Zinn, but still the lesson plan is determined to press home the Parks as lone rider theory.

It makes a heroic story, to tell of lone brave Parks (she’s even painted as elderly, are you kidding me?), riding home from a tiring day at work, so tired that she becomes tired of being told to go to the back of the bus. She stands her ground, an example to us all, and changes history.

Yes it is inspiring, yes it feels empowering. But IS it empowering? Does it empower you to stand up to injustice in the face of harsh, legal if also physical, consequence? Have you yet? You’re no Rosa Parks I could confidently guess, and it’s not your fault.

Do you doubt that there haven’t been countless upstarts, individuals railing against repressive authority, who’ve spoken their piece, made their gesture, only to be humbled by arrest, jail, judges, fines, and the ridicule of the community? It happens all the time. They are marginalized, broken, and ultimately worn down.

Let me describe another kind of heroism. Working for civil rights activists as a stenographer, being in on the discussions about who would make the strongest test case, and picking the right moment mindful of the preparations needed to mobilize colleagues to rally to your defense; thus committing your act of civil disobedience with ready support. Is that any less heroic? I’d suggest it takes more bravery because you know you are launching a political act that will have legs. And it will require more from you than just anger or being tired.

Cindy Sheehan didn’t just march down to Crawford Texas and pitch her lone tent. She consulted with an incredible network of organizers to conceive the plan, Code Pink maven Medea Benjamin among them

Rosa Parks and the bus she rode in on launched a key maneuver for the civil rights movement, and that’s certainly not a lesson the establishment wants to teach its children. Teach them that history is made by individuals, unique, gifted iconoclasts, with whom you’d have to have delusions of grandeur to identify. “You Sir, are no Kennedy,” or Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks. It’s the monarchist belief that only special people are endowed to rule. No need for commoners to concern themselves, the aptitude for nobility is hereditary.

Don’t teach children that to change anything you have to take on the establishment with its own weapons. Idealistic youth don’t want to hear that you have to fight politicians with politics.

You don’t have to become the system to defeat it, but you have to inhabit the system and understand that it operates with the mechanisms of human nature. You must play the system, and no one, absolutely no one, has ever done it alone. Not even Eve.

Was Rosa Parks an iPod-wearing rebel-without-a-cause? Not hardly.

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The Myth of Middle Ground

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