The Nerve of Minerva

Nerves
Just as you thought it couldn’t get any worse, NORAD is running a Department of ‘Homeland Security Studies’ over at UCCS (The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs). The Pentagon has begun its Minerva Consortium, a program to help the Pentagon destroy and bomb to oblivion all university level Social Science Departments around the country!
 
The Pentagon is out to nuke American academia! Run to the bomb shelters NOW, Graduate Students!

Can you see it now? The Department of General Pinochet International Studies Center? The General Francisco Franco Spanish Studies Department? The General MacArthur Asian Studies Department? I’m really looking for a very liberal university environment in the days ahead! Students will be demonstrating to get the military off campus Directly inside the class room soon. Professor, your class really is a Five Star failure.

I hear that Professor General Petraeus’s courses are really easy to pass, but Professor General Colin Towel will give it to you right up the Rear Admiral! What courses are you going to take, Dwight? This will open up more Academic General Gates!

A soulless candidate- Barack Obama

Anybody but McCain? Why? …McCain is liable to collapse The Empire and that would be a good thing. Still, it is rather bad politically to push for collapse of one’s own nation even if it might benefit the rest of the world. So we turn to Barack Obama and see what the man offers up to us for our possible votes? Would we be doing better to vote for Obama or cast a vote for one of the marginalized non-candidates instead? Or to not even ‘vote’?

OK, so we agree that McCain is a bad vote, right? To vote for McCain is to vote for Incompetent Imperialism, Incompetent Empire, to vote for an Empire without future. But what are we voting for if we vote for Barack Obama? Obama himself offers up the answer, but is it really the case, this ‘CHANGE’ he talks about?

We have some recent history to offer US some insight to this question. We have the 12 years of Reagan-Bush and the arrival of the Clinton team offering up the same mantra of ‘hope’. Clinton promised us something different than the Reagan Era but instead gave us only a minor and insipidly weak gap time between Reaganism and Dubya. In fact, he was prep for getting us to Dubya.

So along comes the new ‘Blacker’ version of Clintonism which is Barack Obama, and we have to have some parameters and guidelines to evaluate him with. These parameters must at least include race, sex, labor, immigration, health environment, and war. What is Obama planning for us in these areas of policy? What is this ‘CHANGE’ he talks about? Sadly, he only seems to be talking changing the incompetence level of the Dubya clique in governing The Empire.

Of the issues noted above, the question of war is by far the most dominant and important one. Bush gave us war, McCain is a continuation of that, but is Obama a negation of what the other 2 stand for concerning war and peace? Or is Barack Obama a soulless candidate who promises change, yet will do the exact same imperialist aggressions in a stealth manner?

The key to evaluating Barack Obama’s positions of war and peace can be summed up in the name of one country- IRAN. Sadly, the news is bad. Barack Obama has clearly signed himself and the Democratic Party as a whole on to a planned war with this country Iran. He has signed himself up to an extension of the Iraq war into yet more neighboring lands!

Let’s face it, the time to speak out against this planned US-Israeli aggression is now, not tomorrow. Barack Obama has done quite the opposite though. Barack Obama has made it entirely clear that he supports going to war with Iran and Syria, and thereby spreading even further the bloodshed to inside Lebanon, too.

He is a man without soul, a liar and a con, when he talks about bringing us a change from Bush’s foreign policy. He now leads the element of the Democratic Party that has totally acquiesced to the neo-con game plan. And they want war with Iran.

What we will get with Barack Obama, is a new administration with an improved international public image, that will then carry out the Dick Cheney agenda in the Middle East. This is just not a good vote or a good way to spend one’s activist energies, spreading the word to vote for such a soulless creature. We will get more war.

Sad to say, that leaves us with voting for one foe the marginalized candidates (Nader, McKinney, etc.), or just not voting in an election rigged from the beginning to not give us any real choices. We do not have a functioning democracy in the US. We do not have a democracy unless the people can have a voice in the government, and not just the corporate world running the entire show.

Barack Obama is a dead end. Or worse yet, like Clinton before, Obama is just a further bridge to increase the stranglehold of the Far Right on our nation’s affairs. He will do nothing to breakdown the Right’s total current control over power in America. Vote for him at your own risk then. Vote for him if you are into self-delusion?

The Republican crowd votes for what they want and get it. The Democratic party voters seem to doom themselves to always chasing a pot of gold to be found at the end of a delusional rainbow. What is to be gained by this?

Hay bellies

I’ve read quite a bit about vegetarianism over the years. Nutritionists assert that in order to be healthy a vegetarian must actively seek the full complement of amino acids that make up protein, Hay ride the building blocks of our bodies, by consuming protein. This sounds like a reasonable assertion, but does it hold true in nature? Do living organisms, all of which are basically organized proteins, require ingested protein to survive?

Think of cows. What do they eat as they grow fat and delicious, merrily trotting the path to becoming culinary delights for the non-vegetarian population? Do they eat thick steaks, succulent chickens, light flaky fish, or the other white meat, pork? No, of course they don’t. They eat only plants — grass and hay — and only as much as they need.

Recent research suggests that our grains, fruits and veggies have become less nutritious over the past century. Man’s interference with the growth of plants — breeding for certain marketable traits, using chemical pesticides, artificially propping up the depleted soil with chemical fertilizers, speeding the ripening process — has resulted in not only dangerous food, but less nutritious food.

Animals are instinctive. They know what they need. They neither over- nor under indulge. I mean, have you ever seen an overstuffed cow, lying on her side in a meadow, moaning oh my god, I feel like a fat cow? No, nature provides every needed nutrient, in proper portions and proportions, for our cattle.

Or at least she used to. These days, ranchers do, in fact, encounter fat cows, dissatisfied cows, cows with big hay bellies. When cows aren’t getting needed nutrients from the grass they eat, they eat more, and more again, until they do. The fact that ranchers are seeing hay bellies is an indication that food ain’t what it used to be.

We have a similar problem. As Big Food alters the natural food supply to ensure that food looks pretty, has a long shelf life, is conveniently packaged, transported, and prepared, we are starving to death. Without micronutrients like resveratrol to signal satiety, without phytochemicals, enzymes, vitamins and minerals to nourish and support our biochemical processes, we’re eating more and more to gain needed nutrients, and we’re getting fatter and unhealthier in the process.

Pinon Canyon public meeting WED 3PM

Pinon Canyon- Our land, our families, our heritage -PCEOC
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO- As previously announced, the Army is conduction a public scoping meeting on May 21 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Colorado Springs about their tentative Pinon Canyon takings. At 6:30pm they’ll outline their need to Grow-The-Army (GTA) on account of the GD-GWOT. Southeastern Colorado ranchers intend to voice their opposition at an early session 3-6pm and boycott the 6:30 public relations meeting. Here’s an invitation from Bill Sulzman:

What: Ranchers Coalition meeting.
When: Wednesday May 21, 3 – 6 PM.
Where: the Crowne Plaza Hotel (Circle and I-25)

Why?

This is an extremely important meeting in the long term struggle to prevent the Army from seizing a huge chunk of ranch land in Southeast Colorado in the area adjacent to the current Pinon Canyon Maneuver site in Las Animas County. This is one of three meetings organized by the opposing ranchers and their coalition. The reason for this time and place is that it precedes an official Army scoping hearing on Fort Carson troop expansion at the same hotel starting at 6:30 PM on May 21.

The official scoping meeting is a charade (in my opinion) . The Environmental Impact Statement that is the end goal of this process is almost certainly a done deal. At least 95% of what will finally be written is already in place in a series of formulas that are always the same when the Army does an EIS. Those who take part in scoping hearings and later hearings on a draft EIS validate the process without any real effect on the final decision. For that reason the ranchers are asking us to boycott the official session and attend their meeting to get the latest information on what is really happening.

This is a very critical point in the campaign. The Army will almost certainly use this latest troop increase proposal, on top of those already mandated by the BRAC process. to add one more argument to their call for hundreds of thousands if not millions of acres of southeast Colorado grassland, evicting ranchers in the process.

It is our chance to show solidarity with folks we usually do not have much interaction with. I believe their cause is just and urge as many of you as possible to stop by at whatever time you can get there on the 21st whether that is at 3 or 4 or 5 o’clock or later.

I think we also know that a further huge increase in our city’s dependence on Pentagon dollars is a bad idea in its own right. City and county budgets are already in the red. Water and energy concerns and social service shortfalls are already dogging our community. When is enough enough? See official announcement below.

Hope to see you there.

Bill Sulzman

Tiny doomsday prophets

If we listen closely, there’s a small voice in the wilderness, calling out to us, warning of a coming transformation.
 
No, it’s not John the Baptist. It’s America’s honey bee, dying by the millions, prophesying the demise of the country’s fruit and vegetable supplies.

More than a hundred crops rely on bee pollination for survival, yet bees are dying off by the millions — 90% of the feral bee population has died — due to a mysterious condition called Colony Collapse Disorder. No doubt it is due to man’s interference with delicate natural goings-on, and his extreme disrespect for the Earth herself. The health of the planet is being sacrificed on the the altar of corporate ignorance and greed.

A really amazing documentary called Vanishing of the Bees is in the works. Check out the trailer here. Seriously, check it out.

If this war, and those to follow, global warming, environmental toxins, inaccessible health care, the credit collapse, the burning of the Constitution, the destruction of community, apocalyptic Christian Zionism, the lies and deceptions and ugliness and hate and greed of this current administration, and the next, aren’t enough to cause self-examination and a commitment to change, this may very well be the thing that gets our attention.

Albert Einstein said if honey bees become extinct, human society will follow in four years.

Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of desolation and death. . . .

No Army expansion into Pinon Canyon

PCEOC Truck-sized billboard along Interstate 25
PUEBLO, COLORADO- The Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition (PCMiSCRAP) folks are parking semi-trailer billboards along I-25 to make certain the US Army expansion team gets their message. The ranchers have also scheduled their own public meetings to preempt the Army “Public Scoping” PR presentations.

KIM, COLORADO- The Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition will give the public an honest chance to comment on the proposed military expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, on three consecutive nights, just prior to the Army’s scoping hearings which will exclude testimony on the subject.

PCEOC hearing times are:
Tuesday, May 20, in Trinidad
Trinidad State Jr College, Massari Auditorium from 4 to 6p

Wednesday, May 21, in Colorado Springs
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Salon C (Grand Ballroom) from 3 to 6p

Thursday, May 22, in La Junta
Otero Junior College, Mc Bride Hall #137 from 4 to 6p

Army officials announced scoping hearings to discuss bringing additional troops to Fort Carson but said the hearings have nothing to do with the proposed expansion of the PCMS. The communities of Southeastern Colorado know this is not true and that the two issues are undeniably linked.

“The Army knows that a majority of Coloradans, a majority of state lawmakers and a majority of federal lawmakers oppose the expansion,” said PCEOC President Lon Robertson. “By excluding any discussion of PCMS from the scoping hearings, Army officials are attempting to avoid a difficult subject and skirt federal law.”

In 2007, Congress passed and the President signed into law a military appropriations bill which outlawed all funding on the proposed expansion of the PCMS.

“If the Army held a hearing on expanding the site, they’d violate the law so instead, they are pretending that increasing the force at Fort Carson will have no impact,” Robertson said. “In reality, if they get more brigades at Fort Carson, we know they will turn around and demand more acreage on which to train them.

“And the real question is why won’t the Army take no for an answer?” Robertson said. “This has been dragging on too long and even the threat of expansion is having devastating effects on our communities and economy.”

The Army is behaving lawlessly and now it seems they don’t even follow their own guidelines set by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRACC). The additional troops cited in this latest effort completely exceed the numbers stated in the 2005 BRACC report.

The Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition, or PCEOC, is a broad-based coalition representing communities across Southern Colorado in their opposition to the proposed military expansion. PCEOC members include business owners, teachers, students, elected officials, ranchers, environmentalists and many others.

The coalition is united in its opposition to any expansion of PCMS. No funding, no expansion.

USA acronyms want Pinon Canyon again

May 8 PSA from the DECAM/NEPA coordinator at the FCPAO:
(Release 08-056)
 
FORT CARSON, COLO.– Part of GTA effort: USA issues NOI to prepare an EIS for bringing IBCT and CAB to USAFC and the PCMS, against the NAA. PUBLIC SCOPING MEETINGS (to hear NAA!) are May 20 in TAD, May 21 in COS (6:30PM Crowne Plaza Hotel) and May 22 in LHX.

Glossary:
PSA -Public Service Announcement
DECAM –Directorate of Environmental Compliance and Management
NEPA –National Environmental Policy Act
FCPAO -Fort Carson Public Affairs Office
GTA –“Grow the Army”
USA -United States Army
NOI -Notice of Intent
EIS -Environmental Impact Statement
IBCT -Infantry Brigade Combat Team (3,900 soldiers)
CAB -Combat Aviation Brigade (2,800 soldiers)
USAFC –United States Army Fort Carson
PCMS –Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site
NAA -No Action Alternative

TAD -Trinidad, Colorado
COS -Colorado Springs
LHX -La Junta (Airport codes)

Wikipedia explains this GWOT acronym:

AWR — (Alpha Whiskey Romeo) Allah’s Waiting Room. When engaged, insurgents have a tendency to flee to the same building (the AWR), at which point the troops radio in an air strike.

Corral Bluffs safe from tire track erosion

COLORADO SPRINGS- El Paso County Board of Commissioners decided today not to pursue a proposed Corral Bluffs OHV park. Their reluctant vote followed a recommendation from El Paso Parks Department that the site would be inappropriate for motorcycle trails. Open Space proponents exchanged smiles at the unexpected turn, but bore the brunt of scolding as the board tripped over each other to pander to their yokel constituency.

Our speakers today were careful to point out the argument had never been against OHV parks in general, merely for this site. Off-road motorcycling being a recreational orientation like any other. As if gas-guzzling, air-noise-polluting, and terrain-shredding were inalienable rights, a God-given American pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the Constitution.

El Paso hayseeds.

The El Paso County commissioners could have made this vote a stand on environmental grounds and heralded the Pikes Peak region’s awakening to the enlightened frame of mind generally attributed to the rest of Colorado. But no, El Paso County are proud hayseeds.

Voting down the OHV turned into protestations for having to do the right thing, without understanding, nor fully believing why. This included repeated admonitions to the Open Space group for its presumed condescending attitude toward the lowly off-road bikers. One commissioner even called upon the presumed eco-nimby crowd to help their motorcycle-preoccupied brethren to find a suitable alternative OHV location, and “not a dump, or under power lines,” etc. She would “hold [our] feet to the fire” until an OHV site was found for them.

Do we have to?

With receding fuel supplies, global warming, and a rising appreciation for man’s unsustainable environmental footprint, the days of feeling entitled to moshing about on motorized dirt devastators are probably coming to a close. I’m not sure how to defend the argument that hillbillies must be permitted their heritage of behaving badly.

It’s fun? I’m sure it is. So was bear-baiting I’m sure, and spitting, smoking or snag-hooking spawning salmon. Having come up against man’s better judgement, maybe it’s time to rain on our off-road thrill-seeking destructo-hicks. Who has the time to police whether they can tell an anthill from a pile of sawdust? They’ll scatter either like it was confetti.

A chief argument made by Commissioner Bensberg had to do with the sticker fees already collected from motorcycle owners. They’re entitled to something for that. I say they’re entitled to get their money back. Having collected the fee is not a reason to keep prostituting your down syndrome sister once someone with better judgment has let you know it’s wrong. Give the fee back. Go pimp something else, if that’s all you know to do.

El Paso County is clearly a poor steward of our land resources. Beside the sprawl, beside the lacking mass-transit system, look at our mountain scape. How are we doing? There are the mining scars along the Front Range, our part of the Front Range, where we shave for aggregate because it’s cheaper than digging for it like every other town. The mining companies have old, pre-environmental contracts, but apparently we do not care enough to stop them. For tourists, our mountains are our natural resource. How much deep-thinking do we have to do to figure out they are worth more than cheap aggregate?

There’s the Pikes Peak Highway. Still unpaved, despite the environmental devastation it causes. Was it the advent of automobiles that convinced civilized man to pave the roads? Did I say autos? I meant Romans. Of course, paved roads came late to the American West, but they came when we tired of wiping the mud off our boots every time we crossed the street. Later we learned that paved roads are better for the environment. Well some folks believe that.

There are the ridge top homes. Pikes Peak is the only region of Colorado where homes are permitted on ridge tops. The practice is terrible for erosion and flooding, not to mention everyone else’s view, but in these parts we say Okie Dokie!

Of proposed methods for saving the archeology of Corral Bluffs, Commissioner Bensberg professed he didn’t see how either flooding or paving would preserve the artifacts, hence his preference for motorcycle trails. If you are not prepared to follow the recommendation of experts because your inexpert self doesn’t understand it, you’re probably not suited to vote on the matter.

Pikes Peak region trustees can point to the mining scars on the Front Range, the still unpaved Pikes Peak Highway, and the ridge top homes as proof that Colorado Springs won’t be told how to care for nature. And we’ll look to serve the OHV throwbacks too. Give those yokels their spitoons!

Aneuploidy and the cause of cancer

Cancer it is turning out, may not be gene mutation. Peter Duesberg, the man who was first to challenge that HIV, (the “probable” cause of AIDS as announced by U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary in April of 1984), was not capable of causing cell or immune destruction, is now challenging the established scientific theory that gene mutation is the cause of cancers. And he may be right. His proposition for chromosomal damage by cell aneuploidy, supports the suspicion that many of us have had and is being established more so in the mainstream …that cancer is caused by combination of poor diet, lethargy, non-nutritional, toxin ridden industrial food manufacturing, fast foods and man made environmental toxins and carcinogens of all sorts.

AIDS research has failed to find cause

“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.

Waldo Canyon, Colorado


Sometimes the only thing standing between me and complete despondency is the mountain.
 
My fellow bloggers have endless energy to tackle important issues — homelessness, hunger, war, politics, environment, media, government, healthcare, torture, death. The list is depressing and endless. I admire them, but I am not made of steel like they are. I am more a fragile flower and, when buried under humanity’s toxic waste and cut off from nature’s largesse, I wither very quickly.

For me, the correlation between physical and mental energy is 1:1. So, rather than blog or read the Sunday paper today, I hiked Waldo Canyon!

A bit about the hike:
Heading west on Highway 24, you’ll find the trailhead on the right side just past the Manitou Springs exit. The Waldo Canyon loop is seven miles of easy trekking and amazing views. The scenery, especially the view of Pikes Peak, is the best reason to do this hike. In my opinion, seven miles of easy hiking is about four miles too many. I like to earn my relaxation with a couple miles of sheer hellish exertion.

I suppose if I were a runner — and there were quite a few of them beginning to train for the Pikes Peak Ascent — I might feel differently. Nonetheless, the cool weather, beautiful vistas, and proximity to the serious runner crowd made for an excellent Sunday morning!

Please don’t tell me what world news I’ve missed. Let me just enjoy my tired muscles and slightly sunburned shoulders until I’ve finished sorting my photos. The horrid world can wait for me today.



Commissioner rallies bikers to lobby

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.

Earth Play

Calling Mr.Green Jeans! Calling Mr. Green Jeans! It’s Earth Play soon, a day for pretense that corporate America really, really cares about the environment. You personally might even get a free day pass from the Gestapo if you go smoking organic on Earth Play! …Yeah, this Earth Day, why don’t we scrape Off the Greenwash some?

Earth Play is now 24/ 7 though. Everybody is doing it! I wouldn’t be surprised if the funeral industry doesn’t soon get into the act soon! The military already has, and soon the police might be getting electrical vehicles, hybrids, or even hydrogen celled ones! The Taser is green, not gas powered! Solar panels for The Supermax, Anybody? Hey, some at the J$P might even bite! I know they would.

The J$P is Greeeen! The T-shirts are greeeeen. The hug fest is getting greeeener! Earth Play is the Fun Way and it’s green. Give me a Green Mac with Secret Corporate Sauce, please. Meanwhile, nature keeps a dying off. Make that murdered off. Earth Play won’t work.

April 22 is Ride the Bus for Free Day

COLORADO SPRINGS- Hop on as many Mountain Metro buses you like tomorrow, they’re free! It’s a Colorado Springs Earth Day gesture to encourage riding the bus instead of commuting to work by car. There still aren’t many routes, and buses run few and far between, but some are like-new, routes E3 and E4 have wireless, and you’ll have company tomorrow, more than the usual out-patients and DUI penitents.

Manitou Springs tribute to my mother

Lifetime achievement awardMANITOU 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.

Eco-conscious, yes. Sustainable? Hardly.

COLORADO SPRINGS- Johann of First Affirmative Financial Network, asked me to relate my experience at the now notorious PPJPC meet-up to discuss Economic Sustainability. Though Tony wasn’t able to attend, he’s initiated a debate here: is there such a thing as “economic sustainability?” Since I was there, perhaps I could elucidate, because I believe I heard the answer.

I was quite impressed by the questions brought to the event by the audience, who proved to be no shrinking violets. The interests ranged from some who wanted to indict the Fed, to those who questioned economic growth as being sustainable. The housing market for example is predicated on real estate increasing in value. Must it? Should it? Can it? Successful investing is inherently about your investment growing, otherwise you are losing money. Can investment be done without growth? When posed this question, our intrepid investment-biz guest braved an answer: “I don’t know.”

I supposed as much, hence my initial skepticism about the subject of the talk. But I expected to hear about options, not to hear my foregone conclusion foreclosed. What then does FAFN, our fellow sustainability boosters, have to offer? It turns out it is the usual green investing. Working Assets was so 90s, “sustainability” is the eco catch-phrase of the new millennium. It’s still about the 3Es, as Johann told us they say in the greening biz, or the 3Ps: people, planet and profit.

Johann’s employer’s concrete claim to “sustainability” was a novel certification of a green office remodel. No small task, although the pitch from Johann is that it requires a surprisingly small expenditure. So, small task. And FAFN is all about giving recognition for setting a good example. Here’s how this works in their business model: Chiefly their portfolio is comprised of only green stocks, plus stocks you might want to encourage to be green. General Motors is decidedly not green, but you could recommend them as an incentive for GM to show some eco-thinking. That’s an actual example from our discussion. I’m hoping if Monsanto issued a press release that they would be recycling their break-room Dixie cups, our sustainability cheerleaders wouldn’t jump tp award the bold step with a buy recommendation.

I came to the PPJC meeting with an even more hardcore question. How can someone who makes a living from the interest earned on money, consider themselves sustainable? Our guest’s response was “there certainly are plenty of us around.” But is that an answer? Economically sustainable, yes. Environmentally? Hardly. I believe that is the crux of what Tony raises as a paradox.

Charging interest for the loan of money has presented an age-old moral dilemma. The function of money was to facilitate barter, as one good or service was exchanged for another. Religious thinkers have most often concluded that a person should not profiteer from the exchange of money itself, adding as they have, no value to the equation. Jesus was certainly against it. Although Johann interpreted “go forth and multiply” to mean you should multiply your money.

Whether it’s moral or not, how can money lending be environmentally sustainable? If you are producing no good or rendering no labor, what should you be taking out of the system for your consumption? Can a negative-contribution be sustainable?

When I first moved to UCLA, and saw the mass of wealth built around the west side of Los Angeles, the opulence seemed to me built on an intangible cloud of finance. I wondered what kind of bank vacuum lay behind the scene, sucking from the natural and human resources of the world to sustain the decadence beyond imagination of LA’s suburbs, foothills and ridge-tops. I concluded something then. The arbitrary financial arrangements, probably no more legitimate than royal lineage, or less usurious than a loan shark, were the only grip the owners had on the victims of their exploitation. Short of militarized enforcement, it would become tenuous at best, and certainly will not be sustainable, economic or otherwise.

Join the Clorox Club!

Join the Clorox Club and bleach America Green! I wonder if this is now seen as a ‘Green investment’ nowadays? Some Clorox company products do now get the Sierra Club endorsement, that’s for sure. Sierra Club Launches Partnership with Clorox’s new Green Works Line

I’m looking for the Sierra Club to now partner with the National Rifle Association, Smith and Wesson, and the Pentagon to come up with a Child Safe GI Joe National Park Ranger with gun (to protect the park boundaries from rowdy visitors that want to harm Bambi). What about it, Carl Pope (long time head of Sierra Club)? Got a deal in the works yet with these Green friendly folk? Bang-bang.

Seriously though, is partnering with toxic producers really the way to go about trying to save the envionment? You get your Big Mac and your salad both!???

Actually the real result is that your ‘environmental organization’ begins to partner to block government regulation that would outlaw or heavily regulate the production of toxic products. That’s the result of having a Cloroxenvironment Club out there. Just stop sending money to the Sierra Club until it gets its act together? That might be never at this point? They’ve been bought out.

Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan together in Mexico City!

Below, we reprint 2 speeches made in Mexico City Friday, just yesterday, April 4, 2008. The speech Greed … by Cindy Sheehan, and another speech by Cynthia McKinney that is without title.

Cynthia McKinney
Segundo Encuentro Continental de los Trabajadores
Mexico City, Mexico, April 4, 2008

Brothers and Sisters in the Movement

I am happy to be here in Mexico City where the people all over Latin
America are on the move:

On the move for justice, self-determination, and peace.

I love that you have created a Power to the People movement with your
votes that is stronger than the mightiest military force on the
planet!

With the power of your vote you have taken your countries back.

Now, all we have to do is to count all the votes in the United States
and Mexico!

In the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, an estimated six million
people went to the polls and voted, but their votes weren’t counted.

In 2000, and again in 2004, Democrats helped to install Republicans
into power rather than fight for the victory that the voters had
given them.

As a result of this kind of collusion, the Democratic majority in our
Congress has failed to impeach Bush. They have failed to institute a
livable wage, stop the multiple wars the U.S. is fighting right now,
and they have failed to protect human rights anywhere in the world,
including even at home.

That’s why I left the Democratic Party.

I refused to become complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity,
crimes against the peace, spying on the American people, and ripping
our Bill of Rights to shreds.

And so I declared my independence from the U.S. leadership that gave
us tax cuts for the wealthy and a country 53 trillion dollars in debt
and Hurricane Katrina.

To my brothers and sisters at this Conference and in the United
States, I say:

Hands off Haiti!

Hands off Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Argentina now making a claim for
the Falklands!

Hands off Venezuela and Ecuador!

No to Plan Mexico; No to Plan Colombia! Hands off Pemex!

And finally, it was on this date, 40 years ago, that Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. was murdered.

We now know that Dr. King was murdered as part of a conspiracy that
included his own government. Hatched in the bowels of the Pentagon,
where so many other regime change operations have been hatched, the
government of the United States launched regime change at home on
Black America. We blacks in the United States have long known the
pain and the consequences of having authentic leadership snatched
from us; of having someone else pick our leaders before we pick them
ourselves.

I am proud to join this international movement for
self-determination; for justice and for peace. Despite today’s
difficulties, we must never let our dream be deferred. We in the U.S.
gain inspiration from your successes here so we can carry the
struggle to every nook and cranny of the United States.

Que vivan los pueblos de america!

Cindy Sheehan -Key Note Speech “GREED”
Segundo Encuentro Continental de los Trabajadores
Mexico City, Mexico, April 4, 2008

First of all I would like to thank the International Labor Council and the Electrician’s Union for such a warm welcome and I would like to assure you all, my brothers and sisters that I represent millions of North Americans who are in solidarity with you, because we are also plagued with an illegitimate President!

Once, a couple of years ago, I was getting a pedicure in the deep south in the USA, of all places, and my pedicurist was a Latina from Mexico. She lived two hours from where she and her husband owned the shop and she left her young son home with her mother-in-law for six days a week, while she and her husband toiled at the shop. She was very sweet and sympathetic to my situation as a mother whose son was killed in Iraq, but she looked up from my feet at one point and asked me: “Why do you Americans have to have everything. If you all weren’t so greedy, I could still live in my country with my family.” Greedy? Hmm? Her earnest and passionate comment gave me much to think about.

Dictionary.com defines greed as the rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions

Greed is also one of the seven deadly sins and I know more than most Americans that the same twisted drive for, not just a fair share of prosperity, but ALL the prosperity is what caused my son’s death and, similarly, my nail persons’ need to have to leave the beloved country of her birth.

Greed is not what drives Latin Americans to try and cross the border to go north, existential necessity is; but corporate-capitalist greed is what makes the dangerous journey necessary. Building walls on the border is not the way to solve the immigration “problem” just as invading two countries and killing innocent civilians was not the way to solve the terrorism problem. Healing the systems of oppression that cause immigration is the way to solve the “problem.” People in Latin America want the right to not have to emigrate. Like my pedicurist, they want to be able to make a good living in their own countries.

In a study done by the Economic Policy Institute in 2004, it was found that 5% of the US population owns 58% of the wealth and only 1.2% of the wealth is owned by 40% of our citizenry. I am sure if a similar study were done, this disparity would be much wider in these days of irresponsible corporate bailouts while Americans are losing their homes at the rate of 250,000 a month and the war economy has made the fat cats astronomical profits while robbing our communities of essential services and needed infrastructure improvements. The Milton Friedman model of disaster capitalism, which Naomi Klein exposes so well in her book, Shock Doctrine, is responsible for economic disaster from New Orleans to Baghdad and the basic underlying root sickness of this is greed.

Statistics can be easily manipulated as we know the statistics reporting the “success” of free trade agreements such as NAFTA are. Facts, numbers and experiential data cannot be so easily manipulated, though. In the years since the Clinton administration (with the support of my Congressional opponent, Nancy Pelosi) foisted NAFTA on our continent, both Mexico and the US have lost farmland and good paying jobs. Many of our manufacturing jobs have gone overseas to Indonesia or China and the Wal Martization of our cultures creeps up on us unchecked and corporations such as Wal Mart have been the main beneficiaries of NAFTA to the detriment of working class people in both countries.

What can we do to improve the situation and reclaim our prosperity from the control of the 21st Century Robber Barons and slave-traders?

First of all, “free” trade treaties should be replaced with fair trade agreements. Small business owners and workers should be protected from being crushed under the heels of multi-national corporations. Any agreement should have protection for workers. A worker who makes shoes, computers, cars, or grows crops should make the same livable wage in Mexico or China, as they would in America. There would be no incentive for off-shoring jobs or relocating manufacturing plants if workers in China made the same wages as workers in America.

All workers should be guaranteed the basic human right of being able to belong to a union. Unions elevate the conditions of workers and families and should remain a strong political force for good and not allow them selves to be beaten into submission or weakness by governmental or corporate pressure. (But aren’t the corporations and governments so intimately linked these days in their fascistic oppression of us average citizens?)

The fragile ecology of our planet must be protected in these agreements and the same standard of sustainability and environmental protections should be uniformly recognized and practiced globally.

Small farmers should be protected from the encroachment of “agri-giants” and their lands protected from the eminent domain of greed.

I know there are many more solutions and a comprehensive platform of “No human left behind” would guarantee the rights of all humans to safe and plentiful food and drinking water; shelter; good and free education; sustainable employment; security and safety from US corporate-militarism; and the basic rights that were guaranteed of: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

For far too long, the United States of America has greedily gobbled up too much of global wealth and resources and our chickens of greed and violence are coming home to roost. As alarming as these trends are, we North Americans are only slightly beginning to feel the ravages of what we have been manufacturing and exporting for years: death and destruction. A new paradigm of global sharing and caring must be implemented and today is the beginning.

Today, as we commemorate and mourn the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr who was assassinated 40 years ago in Memphis, Tn; and as I mourn the murder by the war machine of my son Casey, who was killed in Sadr City, Baghdad 4 years ago today—we must renew our commitment to peace and justice to honor their sacrifices and the sacrifices of others who have also gone before us. We just celebrated the birthday of Cesar Chavez who dedicated his life to the most marginalized and exploited of workers and I am constantly inspired by the devotion of people like Dr. King, Casey and Cesar Chavez andI hope that we all take inspiration to rededicate our lives to peace and justice.

We must build upon the coalition that we have gathered here in this beautiful and historic place to include every group that we are a part of. We can no longer say that we have to focus on “one” issue, because all the issues are the same. My country is waging deadly and lost-cause occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and so many groups in my country say that we have to focus on bringing our troops home and not become “distracted” by other issues. Profound economic inequality and unchecked greed is the root cause of these occupations as it is the root cause of the occupation of Palestine by Israel and all the violence in the world’s hot-spots today.

In our coalition, we must educate our brothers and sisters that equalizing prosperity and neutralizing greed are the solutions to these acute problems.

I also stand here in solidarity with my brothers and sisters who are working in the Legitimate Government of Mexico to prevent the illegitimate government from privatizing PEMEX. The oil of Mexico belongs to the people of Mexico, and if I can’t be here with you all to block the crimes with my body then I will definitely be with you in spirit.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. It has been an honor to be here.

PROTESTCOLORADO targets the 2008 Colorado State Democratic Convention

The City of Colorado Springs has interesting plans for you if you feel inclined to raise a citizen’s voice at the 2008 State Democratic Convention to be held May 16-17 at the World Arena. The city is hosting a public forum or two, scheduled to run at the same time as the convention, for the public to vent its concerns without having to disrupt the Democratic Party activities. Possible demonstration areas for the 2008 Democratic State Convention As for protest, they are hoping to see no more than the 2005 Bush visit demo which police contained to the west side of Venetucci Boulevard. This time however, there will be no presidential secret service prerogative to commandeer public property.
 
You may be excited about Obama, but has he promised anything substantive on issues dear to you? Come let the Democrats know what you think of their centrism –when it leaves unresolved immigration, economy, labor, environment, health care and war. Join the fun on Friday evening, May 16, as the delegates arrive, and all day Saturday May 17.
No permits are needed. Check PROTEST COLORADO for updates on logistics. Make this Representative Democracy a Participatory Democracy!

Anti-environmentalist Gale Norton visits

Gale Norton resigned from George W.’s cabinet in the midst of the Jack Abramoff scandal, with good reason, and has been hired by Shell Oil to go after Colorado’s shale. During her five years as Secretary of the Interior, as frinktank put it, “she exposed government land in the west to oil and gas drilling, sent loggers into our nation’s forests, reintroduced snowmobiles to Yellowstone National Park, exhibited rampant disregard for the Endangered Species Act, desperately tried to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the oil industry.” Gale Norton and George W. Bush
(They missed the “Clean Skies Initiative” and erosion of the Clean Water Act.)
Gale Norton co-founded the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) with Grover Norquist, described by the NRDC as “a group sponsored by mining, chemical and chlorine industries.” The REP called CREA a “green scam.”
 
On Monday April 7, Norton will be the keynote speaker at the Colorado College State of the Rockies conference. WTF? She speaks at 7:30pm at Armstrong Hall. Do CC students serve pie?

My Earth Minute of Reflection

I’m typing this on the Earth Hour. Immediately after, actually. By the time we’d thought to look at the time, we’d missed the whole thing. Our usually regressive city council had registered Colorado Springs as an official participant, and we wondered if we’d watch the city lights go dark, on a Saturday night, when offices and stores are vacant anyway. Except for the clubs, which would surprise me if they even dimmed the music to mark the event.

Earth Day became Earth Hour became an Earth Minute of Reflection.

Had we observed Earth Hour, extrapolating that by advocating turning off the lights, the organizers had meant all power, I would have unplugged by laptop, to rely on my battery until such a time, the hour later, when I could plug back in to recharge and resume my online connection.

I’m playing right into the comparison described by a friend. He said the Earth Hour effort reminded him of the calls to boycott gas stations on a collectively agreed date, which keep circulating via email. Even if everyone is able to conspire to stop buying gas for one day, the gas companies can count on twice as many customers the next day. Nothing changes unless we curb our consumption of energy.

Earth Hour is wonderfully pragmatic by offering a palatable measure of ECO effort for attention spans which could no longer apply themselves to a whole day of green etiquette required by Earth Day. Perhaps this hoopla garnered more adherents. I missed it. The thought I gave to the environment and Global Warming was my Earth Minute or two. Talking about it. Probably next year I can shorten that.

What does it accomplish when we lower the bar to accommodate the slower adapters? Earth Hour seems all the more a tragic opposite of another progressive concept, the Long Now. Thinking in terms of expanding our sense of responsibility to the future, by tying it to our present, seems a more promising revelation. Earth Minute seems to me like Pennies For Peace, it suggest we can get away with paying the fiddler from just the change in our pocket.

A gift for a traitor

A Black Spot deliverd to ExxonMobileAdbusters:
In the classic novel, Treasure Island, any pirate suspected of betrayal is handed a piece of paper with a black spot on it — a warning that the receiver has been marked for judgement. So dreaded is this mark that when the grizzled pirate Billy Bones has one slipped into his hand, he suffers a fear-induced stroke and dies.

Since the late 1980s, the oil gian ExxonMobil has pumped tens of millions of dollars into dozens of front groups whose sole job was to confuse people about the link between fossil fuels and global warming. This strategy of “manufacturing uncertainty” has served ExxonMobile well, with the company riding its wave of confusion to record profits — $39 billion in 2006 alone, making it the world’s most profitable public corporation.

Now, faced with solid science that it can no longer even pretend to refute, ExxonMobile is using a multi-million dollar ad campaign to wriggle out of responsibility for its role in endangering the planet with expanding deserts, vanishing fresh water supplies, rising sea levels and massive crop failures. It says that it has stopped funding fake grassroots organizations, and that it is sinking a tiny fraction of its profits into alternative energy research.

We say this isn’t good enough. We say that if you act like a plundering villainm you should be treated like a plundering villain. We say it’s time to hand ExxonMobil –the modern world’s equivalent of a traitorous pirate– its very own black spot.

Help us mark ExxonMobil for judgement. Join the strategy talks in the Meme Wars forums at Adbusters.org

Pesticides and Parkinson’s

There is such an assault on the idea that environmental toxins actually do cause disease these days, that this study linking Parkinson’s to pesticides is noteworthy. Pesticide Parkinson’s link strong Of course, poisons cause diseases like Cancer, Asthma, and Parkinson’s, etc. and not just genes and heredity, but the media generally keeps quite silent about that as a general rule. Don’t want anybody to seriously propose more government regulation, now do they? That would harm the ‘free market’ and be socialism, something that the corporate press is quite allergic to.

Is promoting First Affirmative Financial Network promoting ‘economic sustainability’?

Financial sectionIs promoting the First Affirmative Financial Network actually promoting real ‘economic sustainability’? The reason I ask this, is that tonight the Justice and Peace group here in Colorado Springs is hosting the message of this FAFN group in the PPJPC offices downtown. The host (a paid PPJPC office staff member) is somebody that keeps pushing something he calls ‘sustainability, but has never defined what he means by this.

It seems now, that his idea of economic sustainability is having and/ or pushing a stock investment portfolio in so-called ‘green’ companies. Read The Gazette about this outfit Certified green

Yes, Yes. The Gazette is certainly a great champion of environmental causes, right? This color green keeps coming up with the PPJPC, does it not? So now it arises that the PPJPC is championing ‘green investment’ as the idea of how capitalism can solve earth’s problems. Wow! It’s great to have common cause with The Gazette on this one, for sure. That is sarcasm now.

The point is that there is a big difference between championing the environment and the championing the green washing of a certain sector of the corporate world. That is what the First Affirmative Financial Network is more about than anything else, but is the world going to be saved by pushing for people to make nicer investments? That is a totally doubtful idea, and is a simplistic strategy to help save the environment for future generations.

Is the Justice and Peace Commission to be nothing more than green-washing huggers for the city, the military, and a certain sector of the corporate world? I hope not, but that seems to be the direction that some in the PPJPC want to push the group, while keeping out real discussion about what saving the environment for future generations would actually entail.

Will the Obama speech trump tribalism?

The press misleads us about the war, the economy, the environment, our health, even our food. Would you care to proffer one topic for which they do not present a perspective skewed by corporate interest? I can’t. Our national media cannot still broach the suggestion that our president is an imbecilic jackass. And now they’re fawning over Obama.

Oh the usual Fox buffoons are raising their objections, but I suspect it’s their turn as good cop bad cop, further building this perfect storm of electoral excitement. Everywhere I go, I hear friends talking about Obama’s speech. Oh it was some speech. Historic? Momentous? But are those their words? To compare it to JFK means to eclipse MLK like he was unsliced bread. Have you heard the speech? Is this buzz generating from you?

As a theatrical chorus setting the tone, the media is showing a wildly selective memory in rationalizing their adulation. Did we/they mean to skip over Reagan? He gave good speech. Many actors have made memorable speeches. And politicians. I favor James Galloway’s speech before the Senate, before that, I remember Oliver North’s.

Men of substance can make great speeches. Literary heros come to mind. What would happen if Americans held the presidential candidates to those standards? Czechoslovakia did. Couldn’t the most powerful elected office in the world command a higher wisdom quotient?

Barack Obama is certainly quick witted and persuasive. Has he persuaded you with the intelligence he’s displayed as a legislator? Going to war, the Patriot Act, Torture, Impeachment? Has he voiced concerns for health care reform, for example? You think Obama isn’t at liberty to be candid about those problems NOW?

Back to the media: who do you suppose our corporations, Wall Street, the World Bank, and the Military Industrial Complex want to see in our highest office? Bush is term limited, so who’s the next “best man for the job?”

I can see Americans voting for a woman, half the population are women, one hundred percent of everybody’s mothers are women. We’ve always entrusted teaching and nursing to women. More and more of our professors, judges, mayors, and governors are women. Hillary Clinton not only has political experience, she’s had a close personal brush with the top job. And to assuage any chauvinists, Hillary will have a male presidential chaperone, the traditional spouse and mentor, himself a role model to chauvinists. Is this woman electable? You have only to look beyond the media defamation to see a fully competent “bitch”.

Barack Obama’s speech may have addressed the issue of race in America with a finesse to make you swoon. So did he resolve it, put it to bed, as the media would like our own excited buzzings to conclude? Racism is in our hands, isn’t it?

I’d like to ask you, if you’ll turn off the telly for a mo, in your heart of hearts, will American voters, 90% of them who are white and can get into the polls unobstructed, will they vote for a black man? Visualize the red state voters who returned Bush to office for a second term. Visualize the ugly operatives, Christians and Blacks among them, who conspire to uphold Neo-conservative power, will they acquiesce to a black challenger?

I too would like to hope, but I’d like to hope Americans wake up to the difficult, self-critical rhetoric it’s going to take to reclaim our democracy. God Damn the anti-democratic corporate mouthpieces for offering us a calculated false hope. When Obama looses, they’ll shame us for not showing faith enough in hope.