As the Nine Eleven foundation myth calcifies into its ninth year, the they-went-thataway think tanks now say the US empire faces its greatest threat of terrorism from within –and they don’t mean the perps of the World Trade Center Reichtag Fire. While civil society struggles to insure that the definition of terrorism stretches from suicide to carpet bombing, the state holds that terrorism means enemy of the state. And Hate Speech means heresy.
The plus side of eco-vigilante James Lee’s Falling Down routine at the Discovery Channel headquarters is that viewers might be prompted to wonder what’s there to protest. Will the media paint the 43-year-old Lee as a kook, without addressing to what in particular the would- be superhero took offense? Maybe that the cable propagandists purport to inform as they dumb their national audiences to adolescence? No, it turns out Lee’s message is even less palatable, but made to order.
Why did James Lee want to task the Discovery Channel to “save the planet” instead of the major networks? Why Discovery, other than the peculiarity that some of their programs glorify large families, obviously a root cause of overpopulation and thus mankind’s disastrous impact on nature.
So far the reporting has avoided that line of question because it turns out James Lee’s crusade centers on a Malthusian epistemology not off limits to the MSM, in fact it’s right up Bilderberg Alley. Cries Lee:“All human procreation and farming must cease!” as he cites My Ishmael author Daniel Quinn for ideas of how to cut back food production to effect such a strategy.
Quinn’s 1992 “novel” received a one-of-a-kind 1/2 million dollar grant from Ted Turner, for its fearless anti-human prognosis. Which dovetails with the interests of another oligarch eugenicist of the Club of Rome ilk, Bill Gates, proponent of sterilization.
Cutting back on agriculture is no new idea. Genghis Khan had no use for agriculture. It supported city populations which threatened the open range. Modern times have restored the ultra rich who now seek to reestablish hunting grounds void of their subjects. No time like the present to prep the common man on the necessity of sacrificing oneself so that the sustainable few can survive.
What a golden opportunity to have a kook broach the subject, float the balloon so to speak, to set environmental do-gooders on the thought-path of rationalizing having to do themselves in.
The failed hostage-taker left a web page where he explained My Demands. My guess is that James Lee’s exclamation-point-ridden protestations remain unadulterated, a match for his ill-conceived and unpromising armed assault. Instead of elevating the debate, Lee has given America’s security agencies further excuse to demonize environmental activists as “terrorists” under the theme of The Green Scare.
The web page at savetheplanetprotest.com is reprinted below: “the demands and sayings of Lee.”
The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:
1. The Discovery Channel and it’s affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn’s “My Ishmael” pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other’s inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn’t, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)
6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don’t build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’s brains until they get it!!
8. Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You’re the media, you can reach enough people. It’s your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!
9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.
10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!
11. You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.
For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human’s lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It’s like a couple are having 30 babies even though it’s just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!
Also, war must be halted. Not because it’s morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!
The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.
Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
The humans? The planet does not need humans.
You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!
I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it.
These are the demands and sayings of Lee.
Penny auction scammers know their audience. Stupid Americans aren’t going to recognize one phony news reporter over another, even if it’s French anchorwoman Melissa Theuriau. Imagine if Lisa Hartman’s misnamed image popped up in embedded advertorials.
Not only are fake “penny auction” news pages posing the A-list celebrity as a generic TV spokesperson, but ads have been placed across the internet, on authentic media like MSNBC. Certainly the banner ad managers of MSM websites know that Theuriau is not shilling for penny auction scammers.
Where the CIA cannot yet use predator drones, it retains character assassins. Sweden’s authorities confirm that accusations of rape and molestation (!) made against Julian Assange in the Swedish tabloid Expressen will require the Wikileaks founder to report to police.
UPDATE: Prosecutors now say suspicions were unfounded.
Much to the consternation of its citizens, Swedish police have collaborated with CIA renditions, and the Swedish press is not outside of the reach of the Zionist media.
No, and that’s not why the Christian International Aid Mission was banished from Afghanistan, and why the US invasion reinstated it. Ask its volunteers why they don’t exert their humanitarian impulses for non-religious operations, then you’ll be getting past these pleas of feigned victimization. Missionary-tourism brochures extol bringing your faith “through the witness of humanitarian aid.”
We’re informed the missionaries killed in Afghanistan were bringing toothbrushes to youngsters who’d never seen toothbrushes before. Having floated that sparkling meme, the media would have us ignore the preponderance of photographs of smiling Afghan children, sporting cleaner smiles than the average American child. Not having “tooth brushes” does not mean their culture has subsisted without dental care. Perhaps the missionaries should like to impress us that they are bringing Velcro shoe-fasteners to children who know only shoe laces.
Reading about American missionaries on the receiving end of Islamic wrath, I found this quote by 23-year-old Allen Nunnally, caught up in the Ugandan bombing that targeted western missionaries assembled to watch the World Cup. The explosions killed a missionary from Delaware and wounded others from Pennsylvania. Even among United Methodists there are denominational loyalties.
“There was blood everywhere. There was blood on us,” Nunnally told The Birmingham News, but none of the Alabamans were hurt. “At first we didn’t know if it was ours. But we were literally untouched. We are so blessed and so in awe of God’s protection of us.”
Wikileaks has blood on its hands, says the US military, red-handed. No kidding. Wikileaks killed the war in Afghanistan is what it did, and all those who informed on the resistance or might have been thinking to collaborate with the US/NATO occupiers. 15,000 of the records were held back pending redaction, but Wikileaks informs us that even their full content will eventually be unveiled at a later, less sensitive date. In France there’s still contention about identifying those who betrayed the resistance during WWII. Wikileaks has struck a mortal blow to US war-making, as much as the media are trying to drum against it. Here’s what you can do to INSURE this great equalizing tool alive.
Wikileaks creator Julian Assange has stashed a “if anything should happen to me” file to be opened in the event of US obstruction. Not even Senator Lieberman’s effort to impose online Marshal Law will preempt the “insurance” this file offers, because things work differently on the interwebs. The file’s already out there, encrypted. You can grab a copy for yourself. If anything untoward befalls Assange, Wikileaks releases the key. Your taking a piece of the action assures that the number of copies out there will defy containment.
Right now you can go to wikileaks.org and download the insurance.aes256 file directly, or you can use P2P with a torrent link, in the process helping to disseminate the file. Next simply burn the file to a DVD and stash it away.
By the way, Assange has prefaced the mysterious contents of the file thus: it’s less about insuring his safety, than insuring that historical records aren’t usurped from mankind’s shared legacy.
Petition mongers are hoping you’ll help pressure the White House Correspondents’ Association to assign the front row briefing room seat recently purged of Helen Thomas to the public-serving NPR instead of the right-wing FOX. I favor whoever will unmask the corporate choke hold on the media and government, not who’ll perpetuate the facade that policy is guided by public discourse.
“Give Helen Thomas’ former briefing room seat to NPR, which has provided public interest coverage for decades – not Fox, which is a right-wing propaganda tool, not a legitimate news organization.”
I’d not give the seat back to Helen Thomas, if she asked. Talk about a caricature to confine the purported extremes of the Left.
Is it surprising that the US newspaper of record, the NYT which prints all the news that’s fit, should declare of the Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs: there’s nothing much new there? Oh REALLY? Point me to a NYT headline that read US Death Squads, or Civilian Casualties: We DO Body-Counts, or Insurgents Armed With Heat-Seeking Missiles, or War Crimes Being Committed Daily. Are we to accept that the NYT knew about these, but thought wisest not to report them? The only revelation which has been known, Pakistan Directs Taliban, is the leak they’re running with, because those reports are founded on intelligence, ie dubious conjecture, to discredit the others based on first hand accounts, and to rationalize more attacks on Pakistan.
I’m galled even that Wikileaks chose to let the NYT in on the advance team. Of course the NYT went right to the White House and Pentagon to warn them of what was about to be unleashed.
The files were given to three news organizations simultaneously to limit the spin each might try to apply. The move to involve the press in advance was for stories and their context could hit the ground running.
It’s curious that most columnists and news blogs are favoring the Guardian’s analysis the logs, over the NYT’s.
In spite of the peer review, the NYT is pushing back harder the the White House, which isn’t disputing the authenticity of the material, only their outrage that the facts are being made public. Small wonder.
Worse than denying them, the NYT is dismissive. No big deal. And it’s working. The rest of the MSM is characterizing the “alleged” logs as “accusations.” Despite the un-argued official admission that these are the unadulterated records.
Most of the discussion is about the leak itself, and Julian Assange’s motive as an activist. No mention he’s anactivist for “justice.” Not partisan, not pacifist, but moral. You’d think that shouldn’t differentiate him from a journalist.
The NYT has some nerve to pretend the logs aren’t going to bring on a sea change of despondency about the war, even in Iraq. In particular with the soldiers’ families starved for news, who will recognize from the reports the snippets of sensitive information they get from their individual soldier, with no idea it forms the character of the whole picture. We’re fucked. We can’t throw more at it, we can’t fire truer, wiser, safer. This is unwinnable.
And those are the reports our government has been seeing. Maybe that’s what the NYT means to say, we/they already know this material. Our leaders have been reading these reports daily and they don’t dispute that. Their glass-half-full projections for success in Afghanistan is half-full with blood. Now we know it.
That’s the sordid quality of these revelations. Soldiers lives FUBAR. These are more than the Pentagon Papers, these are American war-making unspun, undone.
NYT et al, will have us blame the messenger, condemn Private Bradley Manning for his breach of security. Our national security depends on keeping secrets is their unchallenged theme. Do you believe it’s the media pressing that point? These assholes are embedded so far into America’s military export industry, we need to look elsewhere for the news that’s fit.
You thought death squads were only for banana republics? Meet covert US Task Force 373 which circulates in Afghanistan with a 2,058 name “Kill or Capture List” killing all witnesses, even policemen, who get in their way. The sudden transparency is due the AFGHANISTAN WAR LOGS, courtesy at last from Wikileaks. While dodging US DHS agents, Wikileak’s Julian Assange was able to coordinate a clever self-checking joint release of the documents via the Guardian UK, Der Spiegel, and the New York Times. The events reported aren’t accusations, they’re the soldiers’ own records.
This leak of over 90,000 files represents the US military’s account of the Afghanistan conflict virtually in its entirety. The news outlets have attempted the present the data in manageable articles, while also providing the raw material for download. The Guardian even offers a tutorial.
The coordinated release ensures that no one can alter the information, and Assange’s choice of outlets was also clever: all three of them are/were pro-war.
There will be lots of revelations from these leaked document, including underestimates of civilian casualties, and acknowledgment of casualties not admitted to the media, CIA hits, and another Black Ops SF squad called Scorpion 26, but let’s get back to the death squad.
We don’t have to allege that TF 373 is an extrajudicial, fully-illegal assassination team, we have their own logs. Who they killed, tried to kill, killed instead, killed trying to get there, killed covering their tracks. Men, women and children. The logs cover up to November 2009, but we have no reason to think they’re not killing still.
Task Force 373 operates out of Kabul, Kandahar and Khost, comprised of soldiers of the 7th Special Forces Group of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. They are transported by Chinook and Cobra helicopters flown by 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, of Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia. Special Forces Airborne death squads.
Or is America inured by our armed drones which assassinate from up high. Whether the trigger man wears a mask in Afghanistan, or sits at a console in Nevada, the hit is a war crime. Outside of a field of battle, it’s simply murder.
And lookey here, the 7th Special Forces have a patch for their record in El Salvador in 1984…
Addressed by their commander in 2001: “From Fort Bragg to Colombia to Venezuela to Peru to Ecuador to Bolivia to Nicaragua to Argentina, you have been instrumental in forging deeper bonds with the democracies of Latin America,”
So before I let the banana republic slur go. Let’s recall that Latin American death squads were often trained at the US School of the Americas, when they or their governments weren’t being directed by Americans outright. Or the 7th, the “Devil’s Brigade.”
House Republicans have crafted a resolution to offer US approval for Israel to use “all means necessary” to confront Iran, reviving Holocaust fears and misquoting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where “wipe from the map” conflating the “Zionist Regime” with the Jews. Below is the full text of the resolution, supported by Republican congress members including Colorado’s Doug Lamborn.
111TH CONGRESS
2D SESSIONH. RES. 1553
Expressing support for the State of Israel’s right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time to protect against such an immediate and existential threat to the State of Israel.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JULY 22, 2010
Mr. GOHMERT (for himself, Mr. AKIN, Mrs. BACHMANN, Mr. BARTLETT, Mr. BISHOP of Utah, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. BONNER, Mr. BROUN of Georgia, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. CAMPBELL, Mr. CHAFFETZ, Mr. CONAWAY, Mr. CULBERSON, Ms. FALLIN, Mr. FLEMING, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. GINGREY of Georgia, Ms. GRANGER, Mr. GRIFFITH, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. HERGER, Mr. KING of Iowa, Mr. LAMBORN, Mr. LATTA, Mr. LOBIONDO, Mrs. LUMMIS, Mr. MARCHANT, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. PENCE, Mr. PITTS, Mr. POSEY, Mr. PRICE of Georgia, Mr. OLSON, Mr. ROONEY, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. SHADEGG, Mr. SMITH of Texas, Mr. WESTMORELAND, Mr. ROSKAM, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. BROWN of South Carolina, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mr. MCCLINTOCK, Mr. JORDAN of Ohio, Mr. BARTON of Texas, Mr. KINGSTON, and Mr. CARTER) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
RESOLUTION
Expressing support for the State of Israel’s right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time to protect against such an immediate and existential threat to the State of Israel.
Whereas with the dawn of modern Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, some 150 years ago, the Jewish people determined to return to their homeland in the Land of Israel from the lands of their dispersion;
Whereas in 1922, the League of Nations mandated that the Jewish people were the legal sovereigns over the Land of Israel and that legal mandate has never been superseded;
Whereas in the aftermath of the Nazi-led Holocaust from 1933 to 1945, in which the Germans and their collaborators murdered 6,000,000 Jewish people in a premeditated act of genocide, the international community recognized that the Jewish state, built by Jewish pioneers must gain its independence from Great Britain;
Whereas the United States was the first nation to recognize Israel’s independence in 1948, and the State of Israel has since proven herself to be a faithful ally of the United States in the Middle East;
Whereas the United States and Israel have a special friendship based on shared values, and together share the common goal of peace and security in the Middle East;
Whereas, on October 20, 2009, President Barack Obama rightly noted that the United States–Israel relationship is a ‘‘bond that is much more than a strategic alliance.’’;
Whereas the national security of the United States, Israel, and allies in the Middle East face a clear and present danger from the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran seeking nuclear weapons and the ballistic missile capability to deliver them;
Whereas Israel would face an existential threat from a nuclear weapons-armed Iran;
Whereas President Barack Obama has been firm and clear in declaring United States opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran, stating on November 7, 2008, ‘‘Let me state—repeat what I stated during the course of the campaign. Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon I believe is unacceptable.’’;
Whereas, on October 26, 2005, at a conference in Tehran called ‘‘World Without Zionism’’, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated, ‘‘God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism’’;
Whereas the New York Times reported that during his October 26, 2005, speech, President Ahmadinejad called for ‘‘this occupying regime [Israel] to be wiped off the map’’;
Whereas, on April 14, 2006, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said, ‘‘Like it or not, the Zionist regime [Israel] is heading toward annihilation’’;
Whereas, on June 2, 2008, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said, ‘‘I must announce that the Zionist regime [Israel], with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion, and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene’’;
Whereas, on June 2, 2008, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said, ‘‘Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come, and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started’’;
Whereas, on May 20, 2009, Iran successfully tested a surface-to-surface long range missile with an approximate range of 1,200 miles;
Whereas Iran continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons;
Whereas Iran has been caught building three secret nuclear facilities since 2002;
Whereas Iran continues its support of international terrorism, has ordered its proxy Hizbullah to carry out catastrophic acts of international terrorism such as the bombing of the Jewish AMIA Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1994, and could give a nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization in the future;
Whereas Iran has refused to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with full transparency and access to its nuclear program;
Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 1803 states that according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘‘Iran has not established full and sustained suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities and heavy-water-related projects as set out in resolution 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) nor resumed its cooperation with the IAEA under the Additional Protocol, nor taken the other steps required by the IAEA Board of Governors, nor complied with the provisions of Security Council resolution 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) . . .’’;
Whereas at July 2009’s G-8 Summit in Italy, Iran was given a September 2009 deadline to start negotiations over its nuclear programs and Iran offered a five-page document lamenting the ‘‘ungodly ways of thinking prevailing in global relations’’ and included various subjects, but left out any mention of Iran’s own nuclear program which was the true issue in question;
Whereas the United States has been fully committed to finding a peaceful resolution to the Iranian nuclear threat, and has made boundless efforts seeking such a resolution and to determine if such a resolution is even possible; and
Whereas the United States does not want or seek war with Iran, but it will continue to keep all options open to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) condemns the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for its threats of ‘‘annihilating’’ the United States and the State of Israel, for its continued support of international terrorism, and for its incitement of genocide of the Israeli people;
(2) supports using all means of persuading the Government of Iran to stop building and acquiring nuclear weapons;
(3) reaffirms the United States bond with Israel and pledges to continue to work with the Government of Israel and the people of Israel to ensure that their sovereign nation continues to receive critical economic and military assistance, including missile defense capabilities, needed to address the threat of Iran; and
(4) expresses support for Israel’s right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran, defend Israeli sovereignty, and protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within a reasonable time.
Pardon the delay, but when an activist is arrested for the literature he’s carrying, I’ve got to find that material. 34-year-old Walter Edmund Bond was arraigned today for setting the Denver Sheepskin Factory fire in May. ATF agents report that in his knapsack was a tract entitled Declaration of War: Killing People to Save the animals and the Environment The ATF alleges his copy was subtitled: Strike a Match, Light a Fuse, We Only Have the Earth to Lose. Bond was arrested after an informant taped him confessing to being the “Lone Wolf” who took credit on an Animal Liberation Front website. In the meantime, media outlets have linked Bond to a 1977 conviction for arson, failing to note he would have served the time as a toddler. (Turns out “1977” was a typo.)
This story makes me sad, because as much as direct action now requires a culture of secrecy, and as renegade as “Lone Wolf” may have been, if it was Bond, what happened reminds us that wolves are in fact a social animal like we, and every ideologically driven person needs to seek out like-minded comrades.
While it was probably a foregone conclusion that the Sheepskin Factory fire was set to make a statement about animal rights, today’s media requires that someone take the credit. Lone Wolf’s online post performed that protocol, and that should have been that. Doubtless it’s hard to recruit allies for future projects without wanting to claim a resume of past deeds. And what’s to stop everyone from pretending to have been there?
The certainty with which the ATF ties Walter Bond to the fire is built on his bragging to a friend. His choice of reading material, or tattoos, corroborates the subject of his interest, equally likely what he would brag about, and not his actual culpability.
The Smoking Gun has obtained the full affidavit submitted by ATF Special Agents Rennie Mora, which details a call received by fellow agent Christopher Forkner. Someone who hadn’t talked to Walter Bond since the suspect was 22, called the ATF to relate a phone call he/she received from Bond in late June. Asked what he’d been up to lately, Bond referred “Informant CI-01” to the website voice of the voiceless and directed her/him to scroll down to the “Denver Sheepskin fire.” There “ALF Lone Wolf” had posted an explanation for why he’d targeted the business. Concluded the informant: “that’s what he had been up to.”
The informant then called the authorities, the ATF claims, because of fears firefighters might be endangered by future fires the suspect might light.
The affidavit also mentions that the informant passed on photographs of Bond to the ATF.
At the direction of the ATF, Informant CI-01 contacted Bond in Utah. Though Bond had called initially from “a phone at a Salt Lake City public library,” the affidavit offers no details about how the informant reached Bond. The informant suggested Bond travel to Denver and meet at a Ramada Inn on East Colfax, where their conversation was then recorded.
Had the ATF been tracking Bond since his arson conviction in 1997, or at activist gatherings since? There are no ready explanations for what motivated or enabled Informant CI-01 to ensnare her friend of twelve years before. It should be interesting to learn from Bond how he recounts the past weeks’ events and whether if was indeed a friend he last spoke with during his first stint in prison. The informant could have been a prison relation worried about violating parole, or a full-fledged undercover agent.
It appears Bond was short on friends. He was apprehended in the yard of friend Billie Jo Riley who described Bond as an “unlikable drifter.” She made a point to ridicule Bond for accepting two hamburgers in spite of the tattoo on his throat which reads “vegan.” The reporter from Denver’s 9News prodded her incredulously. “Did he know they were real hamburgers?” 9NEWS asked, as if anyone doesn’t recognize meat fat by just its smell. “Yeah” Riley complied, adding again “He ate two of them, two of them.”
The evidence which the ATF asserts corroborates Bond’s taped admission is his “VEGAN” tattoo and the aforementioned “propaganda.”
Which it very well may be. The 1991 screed is attributed to one “Screaming Wolf” and its publishers claim it came by floppy-disk, by mail, its postmark undecipherable. The text is available at Animal Liberation Front, archived under Philosophy/Legal. I’ll reformat it here for legibility, and of course, for curiosity only.
A DECLARATION OF WAR
?Killing People To Save Animals And The Environment ?
This book is dedicated to the animals who have been killed by human greed, selfishness, and bloodlust. In their names, and in the names of current and future generations of innocent beings who will suffer and die as a result of human brutality, the liberators are striking back. Our fellow creatures who have been mutilated, slaughtered, burned, poisoned, strangled, gassed, shot, electrocuted, microwaved, run over, skinned, eaten, enslaved, and domesticated are now being defended. Humans, beware!
?– Screaming Wolf –
Table Of Contents
A MESSAGE FROM THE UNDERGROUND
MAJOR DISCLAIMER BY SCREAMING WOLF
CHAPTER 2: THIS WORLD IS MEANT FOR ALL BEINGS
CHAPTER 4: THE EVERYDAY HOLOCAUST
CHAPTER 5: THE MYTH OF NON-VIOLENCE
CHAPTER 7: FINDING PEACE IN TIMES OF WAR
?
—A MESSAGE FROM THE UNDERGROUND
(Preface from the original editors)My husband and I are animal rights activists. For the past ten years we have been in trenches fighting for the animals. But we have always fought legally. We have used the system to its fullest, coordinating various educational, legislative, and litigious campaigns.
If you would have asked us how we felt about our work, we would have told you that our struggle for animal rights and a more humane world was finally becoming mainstream and acceptable. We really believed that our message was beginning to be heard.
However, on the morning of January 18, 1991, our lives were turned upside down.
Included in our mail was a small package with no return address. Inside was a computer disk. There was no explanation of what this disk was for, or who had sent it to us. We looked at the postmark on the envelope, but it was faint and illegible. With no clues as to its contents, we decided to put it in our computer and see what was on it.
The disk had one file on it called, A Declaration of War. We opened the file, and the following message appeared.
“This manuscript explains the philosophy of a group of individuals throughout the world who call themselves, ‘Liberators’. They believe in a revolution to liberate animals and, if necessary, to kill their oppressors. They say such extreme action is needed to stop the horrible human caused suffering of animals and the destruction of the world. They believe that nothing short of a total overthrow of this system will free our brothers and sisters. Please see that this ‘Declaration of War’ is published for the world to read and understand.
Signed – Screaming Wolf”
?
Our curiosity kept us glued to the computer for the next four hours, as we read this bold manuscript. When we finished, we were extremely disturbed. What kind of person could be responsible for this, we wondered. At first, we couldn’t understand why we were chosen as the recipients of this ‘Declaration of War’. After thinking it through, we assumed it was because of some similarities in our personal philosophies. We, too, see humans as the destructive force in the world. We feel that this planet was not put here for humans to exploit, and that nature and other animals, not humans, are at the center of our moral thinking. ?
But what was this talk of killing oppressors? We never promoted or defended violence. Why did Screaming Wolf decide to contact us? The answer to that question is still a mystery, But the reason for our selection is a moot point. We have been selected and must now deal with this terrifying manuscript. ?
Screaming Wolf explains the reason why ‘Liberators’ feel that they must declare war on society. We expect that many activists in the animal rights and environmental movements agree with much of what the ‘Liberators’ have to say, but would seldom admit these deep and frightening thoughts, even to themselves. Feelings of frustration, feelings of alienation, feelings of love and hate and anger and fear, all of these, and more, are common to all of us working within the system for change. ?
However, the ‘Liberators’ go beyond these feelings, and describe real or proposed actions: actions which the public will immediately decry as terrorism, actions which the ‘Liberators’ defend as heroism. According to Screaming Wolf, who apparently is a spokesperson for these ‘Liberators’, these terrorists are a branch of the A.L.F. (Animal Liberation Front). This group has claimed responsibility for breaking into laboratories and factory farms, rescuing animals and damaging equipment. However, the A.L.F. has maintained a commitment of nonviolence towards all living beings, including humans. Liberators, according to Screaming Wolf, have decided to end their commitment of non-violence towards human life. These people actually feel that violence against humans is the only way to make a real difference for the animals. ?
After reading this manuscript, our anxiety and fear almost prompted us to toss it in trash. We were looking for any excuse to forget what we had just read. However, we concluded that Screaming Wolf’s message is too important to simply dismiss. People must know what ‘Liberator’ believe, and can come to their own conclusions about what it means, how they feel about it, and what they want to do about it. ?
We know that publishing a book like this is risky, despite the alleged First Amendment rights of freedom of press. People in this country are allowed to purchase and bear arms, but not to announce a call to arms. We expect some people to construe our publication of this book as an endorsement of violence, despite our disclaimers to the contrary. We looked into the laws regarding publication of literature concerning terrorism and realized at once that the risk in publishing this book is real. We expect to be slapped with dozens of lawsuits, and probably death threats as well. As one lawyer put it, our publishing this book may be totally legally defensible, but we will most likely have to repeatedly prove that fact over the next decade, costing us a fortune in legal fees, and draining our energy and time as we deal with the legal system. ?
The situation, as we see it, is that we have been the recipients of a manuscript that describes a terrorist group of people declaring war on humans to save animals and the environment. If we ignore the manuscript, the public will not know of this threat to its safety. People need to know that ‘Liberators’ exist. We also feel that everyone who believes in working within the system needs to engage in open and honest dialogue about all ways of seeing a problem and its possible solutions, including the solution offered by the ‘Liberators’. This applies to activists and those invested in the status quo. The message of ‘Liberators’ affects all of these people. ?
We concluded, therefore, that we must accept the responsibility of publishing this manuscript. In the name of truth and honesty, people must hear this message of the ‘Liberators’. ?
In an attempt to protect ourselves from criminal prosecution, we, the publishers, would like to make the following direct disclaimer. We do not endorse or support any of the illegal, terrorist activities described by Screaming Wolf or the ‘Liberators’. We present this book for informational purposes only. ?
The entire manuscript of Screaming Wolf could have been printed with quotation marks from the first word to the last, since all that follows this preface are the words of that individual and his or her presentation of the ‘Liberator’ position. We have excluded such quotation marks for the purpose of clarity. ?
This is a glimpse into the world of animal liberation terrorism. We suspect that the life and message of a ‘Liberator’ will be a difficult one for most people to understand. But we feel that the public has a right to have this information. After all, if the ‘Liberators’ continue to carry out their tactics, it may be a matter of life and death.
The Publishers ?
February, 1991. ?
Read the entire manuscript in our archives: A Declaration of War.
While MIT has been racing to design the world’s first $100 computer, India has performed an end-run at a third the price, and it’s a tablet no less. Running with open-source software, as genuine volks-werks will, the iNDIAPAD will reach third world schoolchildren for $35, developers at the India Institute of Science hope even as low as $10. Absent keypad and hand crank, but with camera, touchscreen and wireless. Which begs the question of course, what indispensable features drive Apple prices? Bill Gates earned his fortune on them. Patents.
Do you wonder how it is Fox News can retain its broadcasting license? While traditional news outlets scrupulously uphold a pretense of objectivity, Fox spews forth with unapologetic propaganda, often easily debunked. You’d think our government could prosecute Fox for abuse of the public airwaves, for propagating untruths, even treason. Is it that regulators must not be seen to pick on conservative voices, or that this comically-rendered caricature of the Right is better than a real critic? They may be unfunny clowns, but they’re our clowns.
Fox as a distinct role within the corporate media. As Palin to Obama, or Mel Gibson to the Israeli Lobby, they’re bogeymen meant to frighten in a calculated way.
Plans are once again underway for another attempt to run the blockade of Gaza. Two ships are set to sail from Lebanon today or tomorrow, despite intimidation from Israel –which worked to prevent the aid ship INFANTS OF GAZA scheduled to leave from Iran. As a result, the Israeli navy is maneuvering to intercept, as it did for the recent Libyan AMALTHEA, and the Irish RACHEL CORRIE before that. Israel is even preparing “Flotilla 13,” the Shayetet commandos who killed nine activists on the Mavi Marmara in May. If it does leave, the Lebanese convoy will consist of a ship named MARYAM, carrying only women and nuns, and the JULIA (the Naji Al Ali) carrying journalist and Reporters Without Borders. It’s hard to imagine what reception the journalists are intent to document, Israel can hardly surpass itself with brutality, so will it be news?
Meanwhile another flotilla is in the works for September, which may include Spanish footballers. Canadian activists have announced efforts to contribute a Canadian ship, and US activists are raising funds for an American ship, to be named “The Audacity of Hope,” after President Obama’s autobiographical self-promotion. Personally I think the pay-it-forward Nobel Prize to Obama paid squat. Obama couldn’t even muster outrage over Israel’s murder of the Freedom Flotilla activists, nor would he sanction an international investigation. Why credit him with any part of the rescue of the Palestinians of Gaza?
The naming of “Maryam” or Mariam, after the Virgin Mary is already being resisted by the Israeli press, which is referring to the ship by its previous identity JUNIA. No doubt the all-woman ship will present a challenge to the brutality-prone IDF.
The confusion over the identity of Julia/Junia may be part of the subterfuge meant to evade Israel sabotage which succeeded in hampering the Freedom Flotilla’s CHALLENGER I and II.
GAZA WE ARE COMING is the title of a documentary made about the earlier attempts to break the siege of Gaza by sea. The project is more complicated than you might think, having to avoid the MOSSAD at every turn. Each successive wave has involved bigger ships, so far, taken as prizes by Israel. Will a sovereign government finally step forward to provide official escort to a convoy?
The United Nations has ruled the siege of Gaza to be illegal. Israel itself pretends that Gaza is autonomous, thus the naval blockade cannot be a pretext to protect Israeli waters. Debates in the media about who’s in the right are merely charades.
Even my Democrat friends are tired of apologizing for their party. They can point to nothing they and Obama have accomplished that’s reason enough to rally for Democrats in November, EXCEPT the specter of Sarah Palin. Ya think? –because I don’t. There may be American voters who prefer to elect a president they can drink a beer with, but in the feminine that’s going to be a Budweiser Girl. My apologies to feminists, but Bush’s dumbfuck shtick from the mouth of a woman comes across as a shrew. Palin’s invention of “refudiate” is no funnier than a common Bushism. It’s a sign her writers think they can crib the Bush playbook, but this time for a bogeyman, I think they misunderestimate the American public.
At a recent party, I ran into a friend who mentioned her son was in the Philippines. “He’s in the Special Forces,” she explained tentatively in view of her audience, adding disarmingly “who knows what they are doing there.” I couldn’t help but snap back “They’re killing Filipinos is what they’re doing.”
I instantly regretted my cheap shot but spent the ensuing days rationalizing why the Philippines in particular should not have to abide American shoulder-shrugging.
What right has civil society to insulate itself from the unpleasant details about how it maintains order?
If her soldier had been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, I would have held my tongue, in the context of unrelated festivity at least. Whether you support the current occupations or not, the violent facts about who’s doing what are not disputed, generally. I’ve no business facing off with a lone mother who more than likely has mixed feelings about the wars, although put on parade it’s a different story.
Perhaps too, other US interventions prompt only vague comprehension of their nature, of the true evil which our country is perpetrating. But we can say the same thing about commercial enterprises which comprise the capitalist global onslaught. None of it party talk.
Few examples match the longevity of US imperial atrocities in the Philippines. There our public ignorance has no right to be ambivalent.
US military activities in the Philippines may as well be the Indian Wars for all the American public understands them, as racist and despotic, and ongoing. Our specialists have been exterminating Filipino insurgents for over a century. When we are not committing the atrocities ourselves, our military advisers are directing them for what has never risen above a client state. The rebels of Mindanao have been trying to fight off foreign occupation since the original Spanish invaders. They are the Philippines’ indigenous Taliban, and we keep trying to put them down.
The insignia of the 4rth Cavalry still commemorates what we call the “Battle of Bud Dajo” but what was in reality a massacre. where US Marines scaled an extinct crater to mount machine guns to fire into a Moro village and exterminate thousands of men, women and children.
The antiwar, anti-imperialist movement of the early 1900s knew the barbarity which our boys were visiting on the Filipinos. It was US soldiers who popularized “waterboarding” there. But since the facade of granting the islands their independence after WWII, Americans have absolved themselves of what is an ongoing occupation.
Will this be the future of Afghanistan’s puppet regime? Continued suppression of the Afghan’s efforts to fight for their liberty?
I say this with the full authority of my own personal experience: nonviolence is for cowards. When push has come to shove, I stepped to the sidewalk but I am so full of admiration for those who stayed in the line of fire. Today much of the world commemorates Bastille Day, France’s unique independence day, because it launched the French Revolution. Not just a revolution for the masses of humanity, but their Enlightenment. Storming the Bastilles was no small transformative event, and the sans-culottes were not led by urgings to keep it nonviolent. The monarchy took heed, as it had for every historic concession, because the citizenry had it scared to death.
Have you changed social inequity by voting in the polls? Have you found justice via protest? Sought, beseeched, was as far as you got. Violent uprising has not lately looking too effective either. But it’s got the track record.
I’m not saying I’m up to the task, but I assure you I have the courage to be nonviolent in spades.
It is a most self-aggrandizing dishonesty that holds nonviolence to be brave. There is nothing easier than to take the path of least resistance. I don’t mean to downplay the audacity to protest, as opposed to conforming, although isn’t sticking to your principles squarly self-indulgent? I claim no credit for failing to bend on matters of principle. In fact, sometimes I feel positively anti-social.
But taken the next step, what’s easier than subjecting yourself to the authority of the sword? Again it’s the principle of not becoming like your abuser, another no-brainer, but no-bravery required.
Standing up for what you believe? Easy-peasy. To the death? Positively cowardly lion.
This is you inner dialog, be honest: I defy your authority, but only so far. I reject your physical oppression, but just kidding. I call for the total destruction of your hierarchy, but only in words, I’m entitled, and you can’t lay a finger on me because I’m playing by the rules.
Hope of getting anywhere: dismal. Modern social movements have only Gandhi and Mandela as purported success stories. But I’ll not insult the elders. The Gandhi and Mandela of our textbooks bear no resemblance to the reality, they are false role-models put forth by fascists who want to blunt every effort to rise against power.
Oh, nonviolence is the higher ideal, sure. Lovely. Browny points for the afterlife. Trickle-up transcendence has as much potential for success as awaiting extraterrestrials or building playing fields for disgraced baseball reincarnates.
Unless power wants to transcend the human experience, and lift all of us with it, mankind is not going anywhere. The only way you’re going to levitate powerful heads is with a guillotine. Dreadfully eighteenth century, but check out the horrific bygone days from which they’re reconstituting torture and feudalism.
You can probably contrive a litany of rationalizations for why it would be beneath you, but imagine picking up a gun and having a go against the overwhelming power of the state. Now that’s terrifying.
Remember when George Bush couldn’t define “sovereignty?” Maybe it wasn’t his fault. How would you describe sovereign lands where US extraction and exploitative industries can operate without regulatory oversight, and tribes can issue identification papers unless they mean to travel somewhere. When the original Indian treaties were signed, US destiny was manifested with promises that the former landholders’ sovereignty would be respected. The Iroquois Lacrosse team have just learned tribal sovereignty means carrying the occupier’s passport.
The US State Department at first refused to grant travel permission to the sovereign Iroquois because they didn’t have the newfangled, traceable, trackable, American passport. When congressmen intervened on behalf of the Iroquois who did not wish to submit to United States stinkin’ papers, the government relented, granting a one-time exemption.
How do suppose they mean to explain that? A just-this-once exception on the sovereignty whatsit.
But the lacrosse team’s destination was England, and British bureaucrats held firm on the original argument that the sovereign Native Americans required non-Native American passports. Post 9/11 days are no time apparently to permit international travelers to pass themselves off with rinky dink documents issued by who knows what maize-republics. The USA may foist whatever charade it wants on its captive vanquished aborigines, that doesn’t mean England has to play dumb too.
Maybe the British are mindful not only that the Iroquois were among the inventors of lacrosse, but that they once used the pretext of a game to successfully storm an English fort. Is that among their worries, Post 9/11?
Post 9/11 is no time for the pretense of sovereignty. Whether schoolchildren can grasp its contradictions or not.
Here’s Bush again, doing his best Miss South Carolina:
“Uh, tribal sovereignty means that. It’s sovereign. You’re a, you’ve been given sovereignty and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.”
A recurring discussion at the base of Mount Rushmore is whose face next belongs alongside America’s fantastic four. There’s room for more obviously, as the mountain’s Lakota name was the Six Grandfathers. They saw resemblance enough in the rocks without the Denver Mint faces. Visitors can be excused not recognizing Theodore Roosevelt, the only cameo without a coin –he lacks a DC monument too, but Teddy most certainly belongs here. To determine who else might qualify, we have to wonder at what exactly Mt Rushmore means to memorialize.
Mount Rushmore immortalizes above all a New York lawyer who persevered for half a century to assure the not inobscure landmark was named after him. The government approved carve-up was intended to draw visitors to South Dakota. Concurrent tourist spot projects included the cement dinosaurs of Rapid City and Wall Drug. The icon-fashioned mountain became its own icon, casting a Cliff Notes summary of American History into stone. Whatever posterity would have to say about their legacy, these presidents would remain an unscalable height above reproach.
George Washington was father of our country, if not what today we hold as our ideals. Washington wanted to liberate colonial profits from the tiers owed its royal investors. He fought only for the independence of the American propertied class, and faced revolt from the common soldiery who bore the brunt of fighting off the British.
Thomas Jefferson pushed us west and invented the facade of democracy based on an illusory “all men created equal” utopian agrarian society. Jefferson would have known that no farms can operate without farmhands, and that peasant revolts have never sparked revolution. Above all, who was Jefferson to pretend that you can keep everyone down on the farm once they’d seen Paree? A farmer can imbibe education and culture only if he’s got slaves doing the work.
Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and held the union together. An America divided would have been vulnerable to resorption by the European powers. More important, the engine of our export economy was the South. Cotton and tobacco dwarfed fur.
Theodore Roosevelt championed conservation, like the national parks, but he’s on the mountain because he took America’s Manifest Destiny international. Roosevelt oversaw industry extend its empire-building offshore in search of cheap labor, resources and markets.
When conversation turns to whose face should adorn the pantheon of American expansionists, we are not lacking for capitalist do-gooders. I overheard “Obama”, “Henry Ford” or “Bill Gates,” perfectly in keeping with the theme.
In chronological order after the Rough Rider, to my mind, JP Morgan could be the beginning and the end, as father of the malevolent banking monopoly which has fated the world to Potterville.
Improving Rushmore would naturally be to efface it. How much longer really are the sculpted heads going to look like a “feat of engineering” and not simply a defilement of nature? Already what’s praised as a “work of art” looks more like a bad tattoo. Native American voices oppose the nearby Affirmative Action Crazy Horse Monument because no Indian they say would want his image superimposed on landscape.
If we can’t take it down, I have a suggestion for an additional face that neither perpetuates the enshrinement of our patronizing leadership, nor pretends to reflect a rehabilitated self-awareness. I propose we conduct an essay contest among American school children. From the dead-last, dumbest entry we select a child’s face to represent our nation’s failed intellectual promise, product of poor schooling, propaganda and poisoned spirit. That would be the face to commemorate America’s hard-headed, dumb as a brick, jackboot future.
As a musician and fan of stage musicals, I must proffer this disclaimer about American theater composer Jason Robert Brown: he’s terrible. Brown is a poster child for the music industry’s common mediocrity, of commerce’s habitual triumph over art. Now Brown has appointed himself defender of intellectual property rights, holding that teens should not use the internet to pirate his sheet music. Of course, I can only wish him foolproof success.
American musical theater saw a golden age in the 1940s, with notable glimmers of resurgence since then, in ever infrequent cycles. I don’t think anyone would argue that in-between was constant dreck –to which “show tunes” owe their stigma. Defenders of Andrew Lloyd Webber will find themselves similarly unrestrained enthusiasts for popular music, popular fiction and television. To each his own slop.
I have particular antipathy for contemporary composers of awfulness because they drive the inartistic music publishing industry where it does irreparable harm. School bands and theater departments are influenced to pay royalties for the performance pieces whose rights are most profitably leveraged, at the expense of older works of renown. Instead of seeding young repertoires with melodies and lyrics to enrich their memories, teachers pollute their students with forgettable claptrap, courtesy of bards like Brown.
I have the same prejudice with regard to literature. Why aren’t today’s students reading Stevenson or Poe instead of Blume or Rowling? Of course, composer JR Brown is more on par with author RL Stine, he’s that horrible. But don’t take my word for it, have a listen.
That said, here’s Jason Robert Brown championing not just the exclusive right to sell online what his publishers hawk through their network of scholastic pushers, but he wants the same markup. If ever a commodity could change hands for its true worth, Brown’s entire catalog should be ventilated for free through file sharing. Instead he’s personally joining various trading websites and then emailing each and every member who appears to be trading in his goods.
To paraphrase: Hello, I’m Jason Robert Brown, yes, The Jason Robert Brown, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped illegally sharing my music, since it deprives me of my rightful royalties.
Brown has posted some of the ensuing email exchanges on his blog, without any mention of offering remuneration for their contributions. Most laughable, but consistent with the weakness of his music work, Brown has engaged chiefly teens in his discussion of intellectual rights. He lists one discussion in which he compares his stolen sheet music to a loaned screwdriver, a Xerox’d book, and a copied CD.
Mr. Brown, might I direct you to the innumerable organizations which argue that intellectual property rights are not inalienable. They are restraints to trade, impediments to idea sharing, and diametric to elevating community wealth.
You have every right to contrive a product and sell it by whatever connivance, but your monopoly ends there. Whoever were your customers should have the right to do with their purchases what they will. What right have you to tax the use of your thought fart as it passes from ear to ear? Home Depot can’t charge multiple times for a screwdriver it’s already sold; to use your example.
Consider also that your melody was plucked from the ether of shared cultural experience. Should a rights police attach royalty liens on every whiff of inspiration you borrowed? Better to admit we are all channels of a community expression.
Mr. Brown, please be satisfied to exploit the business advantages you’ve built. Your Tony Award is indication enough of that accomplishment. Insisting that you deserve more only invites scrutiny of your ouevre. Your arguments may find refuge with fans of the “Twilight” caliber, but I am not about to underestimate the sophistication of your own musical taste. If you love Broadway, you know the incredible deficiency of the songs you are peddling. Describing your “music sensibility [which] fuses pop-rock stylings with theatrical lyrics” is faint self-praise enough.
Young stage enthusiasts. To you, JRB may appear a “genius” but what else would we expect of a generation raised on High School Musical. For superior fare, check out the pre maudlin days of Broadway, the shows which see regular revivals. If you want something further afield, look to lesser known works by those same composers. Even their obscure productions eclipse the best efforts of hacks today. Much of this material is freely available, but you’ll find that real showstoppers will have you showing no reluctance to part with your lunch money.
Jason Robert Brown, please stop your indecorous whine about the new leak in your traditional income monopoly. Leave your fans to trade them for their real worth.
Organizers of the 2010 gay pride parade in Toronto have relented to allow the participation of QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID. At first it was declared that the two words “Israeli Apartheid” would jeopardize their city subsidy and summon a perfect storm of angry Canadian Jews. Faced with queers determined to parade for their social cause in spite of the ban, Toronto Pride opted to honor their members’ freedom of expression.
COLORADO SPRINGS- The complicit media accepts the Army’s characterization of the 1:30AM crash as a “hard landing” and neither the condition of the Apache Longbow aircraft nor its occupants is being revealed; even though emergency vehicles reached the downed Apache via Gold Camp Road and the crew were rushed to Memorial Hospital, civilian jurisdiction. The citizens of Colorado Springs are being kept on a need to know basis, as Fort Carson increases its flight training for choppers being deployed to Afghanistan, even as the training battleground becomes the skies about our neighborhoods.
June 18 marked the 70th anniversary of the Free-French General de Gaulle’s famous 1940 radio address when he urged occupied France to resist because victory over their invaders would be inevitable. Does the western media commemorate de Gaulle’s message without an inkling of irony?
Of course, today’s occupied peoples cannot be offered the same assurance, that help is on its way. Just as Europe was overwhelmed by Hitler’s superior force, de Gaulle knew that US industry would trump that. There will be no white knight to rescue Iraq and Afghanistan, but “L’Appel du 18 Juin,” celebrated in 2010, reaffirms every people’s right to resist foreign invaders. And not nonviolently.
General Petain, leader of France’s Vichy government, was forever condemned for surrendering France and collaborating with the Germans. But he too knew that US industrial might, and its unlimited resources, ensured an allied victory. Petain can be thanked for sparing French cities the excessive ravages of war. Most of France’s historical architecture survived WWII because Petain played along with the occupiers. But France is free today thanks to the resistance.
Gearing up for Saturday’s World Cup match between the USA and Ghana, media talking heads are already preparing US viewers for the home field advantage that will favor the remaining African team in contention. Convenient actually, because by chance our A-Team is booed in any arena it sets its invader’s foot. The now maligned South African horns have so far masked a third world animosity that might put most Americans over the edge. The nerve of those ingrates, to boo, hiss and whistle the emperor’s freedomTM fighters?
The results of Israel’s self-investigation of the Mavi Marmara Massacre are in: surprise, the IDF commandos did no wrong, but were set back by a deficiency of intelligence. It’s what many of us were already thinking, but there’s another punchline which Israel invites by pairing the deadly raid with IDF “intelligence” assets gone missing.
Six passengers of the humanitarian convoy are still unaccounted for. Rumors spread they may have been tossed off the ship, or languish in Israeli detention, but the trouble is, the six are also lacking for anyone missing them. Without friends or families registering concern, the convoy organizers can now deduce that the six were agents of Israel, who elected obviously to stay behind in Israel. Might this be because they were the principal provocateurs brandishing the pipes to give the IDF boarders pretext to fire upon the activists?
That would be a “pretext” in hindsight of course, because the record is emerging that the Israeli commandos were firing on the ship well in advance of attempting a boarding party. One of the objectives Israel had in detaining the activists was to prevent their account of the raid from reaching public eyes before the IDF could inundate Youtube with clips of what it planned to pretend had happened.
From the video spread round by the IDF, one gets the impression the Israeli soldiers were pummeled to within an inch of their lives. But in reality the soldiers emerged nearly unscathed. Is it possible the pipe-wielders were striking against the deck and serving also to keep the genuine activists at bay?
In fact the video footage which the activists succeeded in spiriting past their IDF jailers show the same scene devoid of what Israel described as a “lynch.” What may have looked like beatings, from Israel’s thermal camera aimed from beside the Marmara, did not register at all from up close. Curiously stealthy choreography.
While we look for the incriminating names, here are the US senators and congressmen who’ve signed on to letters drafted by AIPAC to show their support for Israel’s raid on the humanitarian convoy, and to urge President Obama to use the Security Council veto power to block any effort to investigate the killings.
Signatories to the Reid-McConnell Letter
on the Gaza Flotilla IncidentTotal Number of Signatories: 85
As of June 18, 2010
Senator State Party
Alexander, Lamar TN R
Barrasso, John WY R
Baucus, Max MT D
Bayh, Evan IN D
Begich, Mark AK D
Bennet, Michael CO D
Bennett, Robert UT R
Bond, Christopher MO R
Boxer, Barbara CA D
Brown, Scott MA R
Brown, Sherrod OH D
Brownback, Sam KS R
Burr, Richard NC R
Burris, Roland W. IL D
Cantwell, Maria WA D
Cardin, Ben MD D
Carper, Tom DE D
Casey Jr., Bob PA D
Chambliss, Saxby GA R
Coburn, Tom OK R
Cochran, Thad MS R
Collins, Susan ME R
Conrad, Kent ND D
Corker, Bob TN R
Cornyn, John TX R
Crapo, Mike ID R
DeMint, Jim SC R
Dorgan, Byron ND D
Durbin, Richard IL D
Ensign, John NV R
Enzi, Mike WY R
Feinstein, Dianne CA D
Franken, Al MN D
Gillibrand, Kirsten NY D
Graham, Lindsey SC R
Grassley, Charles IA R
Hagan, Kay NC D
Hatch, Orrin UT R
Hutchinson, Kay Bailey TX R
Inhofe, Jim OK R
Inouye, Daniel HI D
Isakson, Johnny GA R
Johanns, Mike NE R
Johnson, Tim SD D
Kaufman, Ted DE D
Klobuchar, Amy MN D
Kohl, Herbert WI D
Kyl, Jon AZ R
Landrieu, Mary LA D
Lautenberg, Frank NJ D
LeMieux, George FL R
Levin, Carl MI D
Lieberman, Joseph CT I
Lincoln, Blanche AR D
Lugar, Richard IN R
McCain, John AZ R
McCaskill, Claire MO D
McConnell, Mitch KY R
Menendez, Bob NJ D
Mikulski, Barbara MD D
Murkowski, Lisa AK R
Murray, Patty WA D
Nelson, Ben NE D
Nelson, Bill FL D
Pryor, Mark AR D
Reed, Jack RI D
Reid, Harry NV D
Risch, Jim ID R
Roberts, Pat KS R
Schumer, Charles NY D
Sessions, Jeff AL R
Shaheen, Jeanne NH D
Shelby, Richard AL R
Snowe, Olympia ME R
Specter, Arlen PA D
Stabenow, Debbie MI D
Tester, John MT D
Thune, John SD R
Udall, Mark CO D
Vitter, David LA R
Voinovich, George OH R
Warner, Mark VA D
Whitehouse, Sheldon RI D
Wicker, Roger MS R
Wyden, Ron OR D
Colorado’s on board!
Signatories to the Poe-Peters Letter
on the Gaza Flotilla IncidentTotal Number of Signatories: 292
As of June 21, 2010
House Member Party State
Ackerman, Gary D NY
Aderholt, Robert R AL
Adler, John D NJ
Akin, Todd R MO
Alexander, Rodney R LA
Altmire, Jason D PA
Andrews, Rob D NJ
Arcuri, Mike D NY
Austria, Steve R OH
Baca, Joe D CA
Bachmann, Michele R MN
Bachus, Spencer R AL
Barrett, Gresham R SC
Barrow, John D GA
Bartlett, Roscoe R MD
Barton, Joe R TX
Berkley, Shelley D NV
Berman, Howard D CA
Biggert, Judy R IL
Bilbray, Brian R CA
Bilirakis, Gus R FL
Bishop, Rob R UT
Bishop, Sanford D GA
Bishop, Tim D NY
Blackburn, Marsha R TN
Blunt, Roy R MO
Boccieri, John D OH
Boehner, John R OH
Bonner, Jo R AL
Bono Mack, Mary R CA
Boozman, John R AR
Boren, Dan D OK
Boswell, Leonard D IA
Boyd, Allen D FL
Brady, Kevin R TX
Brady, Robert D PA
Bright, Bobby D AL
Broun, Paul R GA
Brown, Corrine D FL
Brown, Henry R SC
Brown-Waite, Ginny R FL
Buchanan, Vern R FL
Burgess, Michael R TX
Burton, Dan R IN
Buyer, Steve R IN
Calvert, Ken R CA
Camp, Dave R MI
Campbell, John R CA
Cantor, Eric R VA
Cao, Anh “Joseph” R LA
Capito, Shelley Moore R WV
Cardoza, Dennis D CA
Carnahan, Russ D MO
Carney, Chris D PA
Carter, John R TX
Cassidy, Bill R LA
Castle, Michael R DE
Castor, Kathy D FL
Chaffetz, Jason R UT
Chandler, Ben D KY
Childers, Travis D MS
Coble, Howard R NC
Coffman, Mike R CO
Cohen, Steve D TN
Cole, Tom R OK
Conaway, Michael R TX
Cooper, Jim D TN
Costa, Jim D CA
Crenshaw, Ander R FL
Critz, Mark D PA
Crowley, Joseph D NY
Cuellar, Henry D TX
Culberson, John R TX
Davis, Artur D AL
Davis, Geoff R KY
Davis, Lincoln D TN
Davis, Susan D CA
DeLauro, Rosa D CT
Dent, Charlie R PA
Deutch, Ted D FL
Diaz-Balart, Lincoln R FL
Diaz-Balart, Mario R FL
Djou, Charles R HI
Donnelly, Joe D IN
Dreier, David R CA
Driehaus, Steve D OH
Ehlers, Vern R MI
Ellsworth, Brad D IN
Emerson, JoAnn R MO
Engel, Eliot D NY
Fallin, Mary R OK
Flake, Jeff R AZ
Fleming, John R LA
Forbes, Randy R VA
Foster, Bill D IL
Foxx, Virginia R NC
Frank, Barney D MA
Franks, Trent R AZ
Frelinghuysen, Rodney R NJ
Gallegly, Elton R CA
Garrett, Scott R NJ
Gerlach, James R PA
Giffords, Gabrielle D AZ
Gingrey, Phil R GA
Gohmert, Louie R TX
Goodlatte, Robert R VA
Gordon, Bart D TN
Granger, Kay R TX
Graves, Sam R MO
Grayson, Alan D FL
Green, Gene D TX
Griffith, Parker R AL
Guthrie, Brett R KY
Hall, John D NY
Hall, Ralph R TX
Halvorson, Debbie D IL
Hare, Phil D IL
Harman, Jane D CA
Harper, Gregg R MS
Hastings, Alcee D FL
Hastings, Doc R WA
Heinrich, Martin D NM
Heller, Dean R NV
Hensarling, Jeb R TX
Herger, Wally R CA
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie D SD
Higgins, Brian D NY
Himes, Jim D CT
Hodes, Paul D NH
Holden, Tim D PA
Holt, Rush D NJ
Hoyer, Steny D MD
Hunter, Duncan D. R CA
Israel, Steve D NY
Jackson, Jesse, Jr. D IL
Jenkins, Lynn R KS
Johnson, Sam R TX
Johnson, Tim R IL
Jordan, Jim R OH
Kagen, Steve D WI
Kildee, Dale D MI
King, Peter R NY
King, Steve R IA
Kingston, Jack R GA
Kirk, Mark R IL
Kirkpatrick, Ann D AZ
Kissell, Larry D NC
Klein, Ron D FL
Kline, John R MN
Kosmas, Suzanne D FL
Kratovil, Frank D MD
Lamborn, Doug R CO
Lance, Leonard R NJ
Langevin, Jim D RI
Larsen, Rick D WA
Larson, John D CT
Latham, Tom R IA
LaTourette, Steven R OH
Latta, Bob R OH
Lee, Christopher R NY
Levin, Sander D MI
Lewis, Jerry R CA
Linder, John R GA
Lipinski, Daniel D IL
LoBiondo, Frank R NJ
Lowey, Nita D NY
Lucas, Frank R OK
Luetkemeyer, Blaine R MO
Lummis, Cynthia R WY
Lungren, Dan R CA
Mack, Connie R FL
Maffei, Dan D NY
Maloney, Carolyn D NY
Manzullo, Donald R IL
Marchant, Kenny R TX
Marshall, Jim D GA
Matheson, Jim D UT
McCarthy, Carolyn D NY
McCarthy, Kevin R CA
McCaul, Michael R TX
McClintock, Tom R CA
McCotter, Thaddeus R MI
McHenry, Patrick R NC
McIntyre, Mike D NC
McKeon, Howard “Buck” R CA
McMahon, Michael D NY
McMorris Rodgers, Cathy R WA
McNerney, Jerry D CA
Meek, Kendrick D FL
Mica, John R FL
Miller, Candice R MI
Miller, Gary R CA
Miller, Jeff R FL
Minnick, Walt D ID
Mitchell, Harry D AZ
Moore, Dennis D KS
Moran, Jerry R KS
Murphy, Patrick D PA
Myrick, Sue R NC
Nadler, Jerrold D NY
Neal, Richard D MA
Neugebauer, Randy R TX
Nunes, Devin R CA
Nye, Glenn D VA
Olson, Pete R TX
Ortiz, Solomon D TX
Owens, Bill D NY
Pallone, Frank D NJ
Paulsen, Erik R MN
Pence, Mike R IN
Perlmutter, Ed D CO
Peters, Gary D MI
Peterson, Collin D MN
Pitts, Joseph R PA
Platts, Todd R PA
Poe, Ted R TX
Polis, Jared D CO
Posey, Bill R FL
Price, Tom R GA
Putnam, Adam R FL
Quigley, Mike D IL
Radanovich, George R CA
Rehberg, Dennis R MT
Reichert, Dave R WA
Reyes, Silvestre D TX
Roe, Phil R TN
Rogers, Harold R KY
Rogers, Mike R MI
Rogers, Mike R AL
Rohrabacher, Dana R CA
Rooney, Tom R FL
Roskam, Peter R IL
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana R FL
Ross, Mike D AR
Rothman, Steve D NJ
Royce, Ed R CA
Ruppersberger, C.A. Dutch D MD
Ryan, Paul R WI
Salazar, John D CO
Sanchez, Linda D CA
Sarbanes, John D MD
Scalise, Steve R LA
Schakowsky, Jan D IL
Schauer, Mark D MI
Schiff, Adam D CA
Schmidt, Jean R OH
Schock, Aaron R IL
Schwartz, Allyson D PA
Sensenbrenner, James R WI
Sessions, Pete R TX
Sestak, Joe D PA
Shadegg, John R AZ
Sherman, Brad D CA
Shimkus, John R IL
Shuler, Heath D NC
Shuster, William R PA
Simpson, Mike R ID
Sires, Albio D NJ
Skelton, Ike D MO
Slaughter, Louise D NY
Smith, Adrian R NE
Smith, Christopher R NJ
Smith, Lamar R TX
Space, Zack D OH
Spratt, John D SC
Stearns, Cliff R FL
Sullivan, John R OK
Sutton, Betty D OH
Teague, Harry D NM
Terry, Lee R NE
Terry, Lee R TX
Thompson, Glenn R PA
Thornberry, William R TX
Tiahrt, Todd R KS
Tiberi, Pat R OH
Titus, Dina D NV
Tonko, Paul D NY
Turner, Mike R OH
Upton, Fred R MI
Walden, Greg R OR
Wamp, Zach R TN
Wasserman Schultz, Debbie D FL
Waxman, Henry D CA
Weiner, Anthony D NY
Westmoreland, Lynn R GA
Whitfield, Edward R KY
Wilson, Joe R SC
Wittman, Rob R VA
Wolf, Frank R VA
Yarmuth, John D KY
Young, C.W. Bill R FL
Young, Don R AK