Need 15 reasons to eat organic food?

Posted on August 14, 2011 by NMT

Organic foods are higher in nutrients, free of neurotoxins, growth-supportive, not pesticide factories, not water-polluters, ecologically sustainable, economically sustainable, better tasting, not gas-ripened, safer for farm workers, conducive to wildlife, less likely to be cancer-causing, free of antibiotics and hormones, tried & tested, and supportive of biodiversity. Read on, from Care2 make a difference:

15 Reasons to Eat Organic Food

1. In study after study, research from independent organizations consistently shows organic food is higher in nutrients than traditional foods. Research shows that organic produce is higher in vitamin C, antioxidants, and the minerals calcium, iron, chromium, and magnesium.

2. They’re free of neurotoxins–toxins that are damaging to brain and nerve cells. A commonly-used class of pesticides called organophosphates was originally developed as a toxic nerve agent during World War I. When there was no longer a need for them in warfare, industry adapted them to kill pests on foods. Many pesticides are still considered neurotoxins.

3. They’re supportive of growing children’s brains and bodies. Children’s growing brains and bodies are far more susceptible to toxins than adults. Choosing organic helps feed their bodies without the exposure to pesticides and genetically-modified organisms, both of which have a relatively short history of use (and therefore safety).

4. They are real food, not pesticide factories. Eighteen percent of all genetically-modified seeds (and therefore foods that grow from them) are engineered to produce their own pesticides. Research shows that these seeds may continue producing pesticides inside your body once you’ve eaten the food grown from them! Foods that are actually pesticide factories…no thanks.

5. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that pesticides pollute the primary drinking source for half the American population. Organic farming is the best solution to the problem. Buying organic helps reduce pollution in our drinking water.

6. Organic food is earth-supportive (when big business keeps their hands out of it). Organic food production has been around for thousands of years and is the sustainable choice for the future. Compare that to modern agricultural practices that are destructive of the environment through widespread use of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers and have resulted in drastic environmental damage in many parts of the world.

7. Organic food choices grown on small-scale organic farms help ensure independent family farmers can create a livelihood. Consider it the domestic version of fair trade.

8. Most organic food simply tastes better than the pesticide-grown counterparts.

9. Organic food is not exposed to gas-ripening like some non-organic fruits and vegetables (like bananas).

10. Organic farms are safer for farm workers. Research at the Harvard School of Public Health found a 70 percent increase in Parkinson’s disease among people exposed to pesticides. Choosing organic foods means that more people will be able to work on farms without incurring the higher potential health risk of Parkinson’s or other illnesses.

11. Organic food supports wildlife habitats. Even with commonly used amounts of pesticides, wildlife is being harmed by exposure to pesticides.

12. Eating organic may reduce your cancer risk. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers 60% of herbicides, 90% of fungicides, and 30 percent of insecticides potentially cancer-causing. It is reasonable to think that the rapidly increasing rates of cancer are at least partly linked to the use of these carcinogenic pesticides.

13. Choosing organic meat lessens your exposure to antibiotics, synthetic hormones, and drugs that find their way into the animals and ultimately into you.

14. Organic food is tried and tested. By some estimates genetically-modified food makes up 80% of the average person’s food consumption. Genetic modification of food is still experimental. Avoid being part of this wide scale and uncontrolled experiment.

15. Organic food supports greater biodiversity. Diversity is fundamental to life on this planet. Genetically-modified and non-organic food is focused on high yield monoculture and is destroying biodiversity.

Daily Gaza fishing flotilla blockaded by Israeli Navy, no fishing to supplement carefully measured aid starvation diet

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Eric Verlo

The fishermen of Gaza are harassed daily by IDF gunships which shoot them outright when there are no Western witnesses present. The late Vittorio Arrigoni was one of the International Solidarity Movement who regularly accompanied fishing boats, forcing the Israelis to set aside their machine guns for water cannon when he was around. Of late activists have their own boat, the Oliva, to escort the fishing fleets. And today the Oliva was accompanied by another skiff commissioned by the Guardian. Their Jerusalem correspondent Harriet Sherwood tweeted the following adventure just now:

On boat heading out from Gaza port. Fishermen regularly fired on by Israeli military. Going to check.

Getting close to 3 mile limit for fishing. Israeli gunboat speeding towards us.

There are 7 boats in our group. 4 fishing boats, 2 press boats, 1 human rights group boat.

Israeli gunboat circling around. Siren sounding. Machine gun mounted at rear.

IDF coming very close. Sirens. Banking hard causing a lot of backwash for our small motor boat.

6 or 7 troops on bridge, all armed. We have cut our engines.

We are 2 or 2 and a half miles from shore so within fishing zone. IDF preventing us going further.

Phone signal going in and out. A 2nd IDF boat heading towards us.

Fishing boats are throwing lines. But very few fish this close to shore.

Guardian boat is flying under Barcelona FC flag….

Now 2 gunboats stopping us going further.

This is our GPS location: N31.5727176 and E034.37703. Can someone work out exactly how far we are from Gaza City?

Fishermen saying there are no fish. They want to go out another 50 metres. But that could provoke reaction. No boat willing to go first.

One fishing boat heading further out. But the guys are asking us (Guardian) to go in front for protection.

One IDF boat just circling our boats about 50m away. Other boat a bit further away.

A lot of resources devoted to a few tiny fishing boats.

Sea is calm today – except our little bit. Backwash creating lot of waves. They keep sounding siren. But we have all cut engines.

I’m told that the point of the IDF continually circling us is to create continuous waves and noise. Makes fishing harder.

One fishing boat just been swamped by backwash. They are giving up and going back to port.

One IDF boat appears to be heading away. The other coming closer.

Water canon military boat in distance. Maybe heading towards us. Hope not.

Both gunboats have moved off as water canon boat approaches.

Water canon boat maybe 200m away. Heading straight towards us. May have to put comms away for a bit.

Boats being water canoned. Very dangerous. The NGO boat almost went under.

Was mini hi-speed boat chase as we cut and run and the IDF chase.

IDF still firing on Oliva the human rights boat. They are trying to drown it says my translator.

We are keeping distance. Feel cowardly.

Amazing that the Oliva is still afloat.

We are within 3 mile limit so why is IDF doing this?

I will call them later to ask.

Other fishing boats yelling at us what are you still here. Go in, go in!

We are heading in. Water canon boat close behind.

All boats okay and heading back to port. No one hurt – but no fish either.

Water canon boat still firing its water into an empty sea.

Correction – one fishing boat passes and shows me its haul. 6 tiny ones. They are angry says my translator.

Water canon boat now firing on another group of fishing boats.

These fishermen are strangely euphoric – singing clapping dancing on their boats. Glad simply to survive I guess.

Back on dry land. 9.55am. Welcome back to safety says my translator, laughing ironically.

The Oliva, the water canoned boat, coming into port now with the other fishing boats.

The Oliva was rammed by the water canon boat and its engine damaged. The captain says all boats were within the 3 mile limit.

The fishing boats have gone back out. The Oliva’s captain is still bailing out his boat.

Captain says the engine fan is broken. It will cost around $4-500 to repair.

The gear is also damaged. This is the 3rd time the crew say.

Captain says they will go out again tomorrow if they can repair the engine. They have to find the parts, not easy in Gaza.

He says every time he goes out he expects to be attacked by water canon, live bullets, ‘whatever.’

That’s it from Gaza City port. I will be writing a piece for the Guardian and we have shot video. Over and out, as they say.

We’ll link to the Guardian article as soon as it’s out.

UPDATE: Rad the CPSGaza account.

French craft DIGNITY breaks for Gaza, leads Flotilla II until rest allowed to go

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Eric Verlo

UPDATED– In a flurry of conflicting tweets, French Flotilla II member DIGNITE AL KARAMA made for the open sea, beyond the reach of Greek authorities currently detaining the AUDACITY OF HOPE, TAHRIR, LOUISE MICHEL, GUERNICA, JULIANO and others. Reporter Quentin Girard has been communicating the DIGNITY’s progress, its eight activists electing last night to complete their run all the way to Gaza.

The French vessel escaped Greece on a technicality, as a pleasure craft, the Dignity is not confined by the regulations being used to block the larger Flotilla participants. Aboard the Dignity with Girard, are Olivier Besancenot, Julien Rivoire, Omeyyaa Sedic, Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, Annick Coupé, Nabil Ennasr. (Both Coupé and Besancenot are registered on Twitter, but neither has communicated yet.)

Girard’s most recent tweets, translated:

July 5, 3:02
All is well thank you 🙂 but we were in an area where reception was bad.

July 5, 3:15
Despite what we can read, the Dignity is still in international waters. It will be there in one hour.

July 5, 7:41
The passengers of the Dignity have finally come to the decision (only now really) to go to Gaza.

July 5, 8:19
TF1 should attempt to rejoin Dignity and embark.

July 5, 8:43
We’re moving again after a “media” pause on the high seas. 15 hours of sea left before I might go silent. Kisses!

July 5, 12:19
Into the night the DIGNITY continues its advance. In the distance, small lights.

July 5, 13:38
Not really enough beds for everyone, so I sleep under the stars on the upper deck. beautiful sky.

In their original French:

05.07 3:02
tout va bien merci 🙂 mais on était dans un endroit où ça captait mal.

05.07 3:15
Malgré ce qu’on peut lire le Dignité n’est pas encore dans les eaux internationales. Il y sera dans une heure.

05.07 7:41
Les passagers du Dignité viennent de prendre enfin (seulement maintenant vraiment) la décision d’aller jusqu’à Gaza

05.07 8:19
TF1 devrait tenter de rejoindre le Dignité et embarquer dessus

05.07 8:43
On bouge à nouveau après une pause “média” en haute mer. C’est parti pour 15h de mer, où je risque d’être silencieux. Des bises.

05.07 12:19
Dans la nuit le dignité avance toujours. Au loin, des petites lumières.

05.07 13:38
Pas vraiment de couchettes pour tout le monde, donc je dors à la belle étoile, sur le pont supérieur. Beau ciel

Below is the Girard’s July 5 article in the LIBERTE.FR (auto-translated, sorry, until I can review it)

En route to Gaza, “Dignity” is appealing to the media

The French ship of the “freedom flotilla” sailing in international waters off the coast of Greece. The crew decided to go to Gaza.

By QUENTIN GIRARD special envoy on the “Dignity”

16 hours in Greece, somewhere in international waters, on Tuesday afternoon. After much discussion, the Dignity passengers finally made their decision. They will go to Gaza. A bit surreal moment where the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, they set up banners and make an official statement.

When they left the industrial port of Salamina, Monday morning, they did not really know how far they try to go. There, as they finally arrived in international waters a little to 15 hours – after wet night in a small cove – they say they are determined. “We’re going to Gaza. The French and international community officially announced that they supported us regardless of our decision, “enthuses Julien Rivoire, one of the spokesmen of the campaign. “But to get there, we also need the media, as TV join us to show our work and safety issues,” he continues.

In the distance we see no island, not even a few freighters, these little black spots that usually reassuring scattered throughout the year. “We wanted to show that we could block the Greek blockade, says Julien Rivoire. It once was that we wondered what we were doing then. ”

Return to France? Impossible

That same morning, the discussion was intense as ever on the Dignity. What to do? Return to France? Impossible for them. Go to another country such as Tunisia symbolic to wait, to show that it is a stopover? Why not, it’s better, they say. But no. The only viable solution they think is necessary. Go to Gaza. “You have the dignity to the end represents French and international committees,” argues Olivier Besancenot.

“The important thing that determines the political feasibility, technical feasibility, must be as representative as possible and supported,” Nabil Esnari continues, President of the Association of Muslims in France. “We do not want to be seen as Islamic-leftist Khmer-green-act in our corner,” says the MP-Europe Ecology Nicole Kiil-Nielsen.

“My preference would be to go to Gaza without delay,” takes on Olivier Besancenot position as others. “Our protection is proof that we exist, we continue to move forward. We can not afford to become a ghost ship. ”

There remains the question of technical means. The Dignity is a small yacht of 15 meters long, categorized craft. It was originally one of the smaller boats in the fleet. He has no self to go off the ridge to Gaza. It would necessarily need to be refueled and water en route. Hence the difficulty that there will in the coming hours to coordinate the political ambitions and technical means.

A small creek, goats, and … Sea

But they want confident. The twelve passengers (1) are refreshed by their two days at sea after a week of pitfalls in Athens. Although the coup, the Greek landscapes provide a particular coloration to the adventure. In the capital locked up in meeting rooms to multiply the points and plan protests, the mood was serious and solemn. Not even have time to visit the Acropolis.
There hard to escape the Greek islands. On the night of Monday and Tuesday, the Dignity was anchored in a cove of a small island. In the morning, passengers were woken up by goats with bells tinkle merrily. A shepherd ran along the cliff, the whoop, some small white houses with blue shutters, of steep cliffs, the water so beautiful … “In the morning, you go through three stages,” said Olivier Besancenot. “First you wake up, you do not know where you are, then you look around you and you say,” oh yes, it’s beautiful. ” And just after you wonder what’s next meeting, what is the plan that will be put in place. ”

The Plan: Gaza, having embarked with TVs. Maybe he will change in the coming hours. Meanwhile, the Dignity vogue. Engine noise makes deaf. The smell of fuel oil a little drunk. In front, nothing. The sea, just the sea.

(1) On board were three crew members, eight activists – Olivier Besancenot addition there are Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, MP, Europe-ecology, Annick Coupe, spokesman for the union Solidarity trade union, or Nabil Ennasr, President the Collective of Muslims in France – and a journalist, the author of these lines.

The earlier July 4 Liberte.fr article:

On board the “Dignity”, en route to Gaza

A French ship with a few activists on board, including Olivier Besancenot and Annick Coupé, eventually left Athens and headed to Gaza despite the obstacles. The “flotilla to Gaza” is reduced to its simplest expression. The story of our special correspondent on the deck of “Dignity.”

By QUENTIN GIRARD special envoy on the “Dignity”

“The pins in the plastic, it will not be possible,” said Olivier Besancenot, in full session yourself. 11 hours on Monday, in a small Greek port. The Dignity Al Kamara, one of two ships of the French committee for Gaza, left at dawn the creek near the industrial town of Salamina, where he had hidden for three days. In another cove where he made a first step, the passengers – including Besancenot, so – try to install the satellite antenna to communicate with the outside world.

3 o’clock this morning, Julien Rivoire, a member of the NPA and a spokesman for the campaign called “Wake the captain, we’re back.” Between them and the small annex that links with the boat, watchdogs of the port or adjacent businesses. They bark violently at night. They fail to wake the whole neighborhood. Tunisian Omeyyaa Sedic and Julien Rivoire, equipped with the latest load required, can not pass. Latest in a series of tragicomic events that marked the week of the fleet. “We’re not James Bond, it is OSS 117” is trying to be amused Julien Rivoire finally climbing on Dignity.

Plaisance

Sunday evening, the decision was made. It was long in coming, interspersed with calls to Iniohos Hotel where the rest of the delegation. A consensus is emerging: the Dignity attempt to leave no matter what. This small yacht 13 meters long, having left France ten days ago, has a status of “craft” and is theoretically not subject to the same prohibition to start than other boats of the delegation.

On Friday, an American ship tried starting one. Saturday, the captain was imprisoned. It could several years in prison for having left without permission. After several announcements bullies, to show their determination and their will as strong as ever to go to Gaza to bring humanitarian assistance, the committees have defected last one after the other. Masters of Spanish ships and Canada have announced that they did not want to take as many risks as they were sure they could not be more than thirty meters. The former president of Greenpeace France, Alain Connan, captain of the main French ship Louise Michel, after long hesitation, agreed with this position, some attracted by the Greek jails.

He went to ask permission to start at the harbor. Refused of course. The passengers were then organized a demonstration on the deck of Louise Michel. They simulated a departure. They should all file a complaint for obstruction of freedom of movement in the afternoon.

Parano

5 o’clock this morning, the Dignity springs. The sun is not up yet. Some cargo ships moving in the distance. Around him, two or three carcasses that rust for too many years, the ferry may be ready to leave but which seem, at dawn, desperate still. Twelve boats, twenty-two different nationalities and several hundred passengers announced, the fleet is now reduced to three crew members, eight militants – Olivier Besancenot addition there are Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, MP europe-ecology, Annick Coupe, spokesman for the union Solidarity trade union, or Nabil Ennasr, president of the Collective of Muslims in France – and a journalist, the author of these lines.

The Dignity enters the channel. In the distance, lights, shadows indistinct, but no coastguard. Surprise among the passengers. They believed they were identified and a small star suddenly arise between two cargo ships to stop them. For two days, each gull, each fishing boat, each jet-ski with the big guys who spend every man piss in the night under the white lights of the port is an opportunity when paranoid.

To starboard there. A port, nothing. In the distance behind, already, the lights of Athens. The sun appears between two hills. After a week of failure or disruption, and the blows of fate have joined forces to keep them in port, for the first time the French committee actually managed something in Greece. They feel like defeat stress, even if they are tired, even if the tension is palpable at times between them, although discussions and waiting endlessly sometimes not.

Determination

Of course, they know that this little boat is not much. That Israel, obviously, has won the game this time and that the only issue that remains is to show that they have tried everything, it’s not a “fucking failure”, as stated Besancenot. Certainly they know that it is unlikely to go to Gaza, especially alone. Unless a Greek ship to join them. The committee led by Vengelis Pissias announced that they had a new, third, a “surprise” that the authorities do not know. But they have promised so many things since the beginning of last week …

The Dignity vogue. It will reach international waters in a few hours if not arrested by the Coast Guard before. There, passengers will make official statements. They expressed their determination against the blockade of Gaza and denounced the attitude of the international community against them. They then announce the next steps. If there is a sequel.

June 25 Le Monde article:

Gaza flotilla II imminent departure

A year after the arrest of a murderer off the first convoy of Israel, a new international fleet prepares to sail to Gaza to try to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian enclave. Unlike last year, two French ships involved in the operation.

The first of these ships, the “Louise Michel”, is currently in Greece. The second, “Dignity-Al Karama” sailed this morning from the Ile-Rousse in Corsica. I get on one of them and try to deliver on this blog Monde.fr the story of the expedition.

A campaign launched in October 2010

This project, called “A French boat to Gaza” would not be possible without the 600,000 euros of the money raised during the campaign launched in October under the leadership of the combined platform of French NGOs for Palestine and the National Collective for a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Nearly 70 organizations (associations, political parties and unions) were involved in mobilization. From Lille to Marseille via Strasbourg, Toulouse or Alencon, speakers and activists around the country. Three-week tour in February. “It was a real success,” testifies Julien Rivoire, a member of the New Anti-Capitalist Party and the coordinating committee of the campaign. “It happened in the markets with a sound truck, banners, leaflets and a bank. In Toulouse, the Mirail, 600 euros were collected in two hours. It was during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. There was a particular climate, people were saying ‘it is possible to make a difference “.

SNOWBALL EFFECT

Driven by this momentum, mobilizing snowballed, quickly exceeding traditional activist circles. Events, exhibitions, film screenings or symbolic release of paper boats … In the end, more than 1,500 events are held across France. Donations tributary. “We never imagined that the movement would take on such a scale,” comments Maxim Guimberteau, communications officer of “A French boat to Gaza.”

“I feel that this campaign has awakened people. A real fervor has replaced the fatalism that had won many former activists involved in the pro-Palestinian,” observes Alain Bosc, and member of the Cimade Coordinating Committee of “A boat to Gaza”. Very relayed in associations, the initiative has been enthusiastically received in poor neighborhoods and in particular “to the French families of Arab origin, sensitive to the Palestinian question and the fate of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.”

90% of individual donations

Many structures such as the Christian Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD-Terre Solidarity) or the Christians of the Mediterranean have also mobilized their networks. An appeal, launched at the initiative of the Archbishop of Sens-Auxerre and bishops of Troyes and La Rochelle, was sent to all dioceses to encourage the faithful “to a special place in their personal prayer and a community for the second flotilla of freedom to achieve its objectives in the service of peace. ”

The result of all collected 600 000 euros, 90% of donations come from individuals. According to organizers, “most people participated at 5, 10 or 50 euros.” Added to the contributions of the signatory organizations, grants from several local and payment of the foundation “A world for all.” All support checks were made payable to the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), which opened a special account to centralize. “Everything was done in a transparent, ensures the collective. We have not accepted money from foreign countries or associations.”

46 PEOPLE IN FRENCH VESSELS

The funds raised were allocated to the purchase of two vessels, the formation of crews, and communications expenses. “Chartering vessels is what has been the most difficult in the end, recognizes Alain Bosc. We’re not owners, there have been some setbacks.”

Finally, 46 people are expected on board. Alongside the militants of the various associations involved in the campaign, carrying several personalities from the political or voluntary, as Olivier Besancenot (NPA), the Communist deputy in Le Havre, Jean-Paul Lecoq, MEP Nicole Kiil-Nielsen (EELV) the Breton sailor Jo Le Guen, or Julien Bayou, the collective “Out of colonialism.”

From June 25 FRANCE3

The “Dignity-Al Karama”, a 19-meter boat flying the French flag, left the waters of the Ile-Rousse to 11:15. It must join in the next ten to twelve days boats that make up the flotilla to Gaza.

“The entire fleet will sail next week from various Mediterranean ports,” Julien Rivoire told AFP a committee member coordinating the French countryside. Ships, including two freighters carrying medical supplies, “should reach the port of Gaza at the end of next week,” he added. Among them, a cargo bought a quarter of France and the rest of Sweden, Norway and France, making the “Dignity” the only boat in the fleet entirely French.

“We hope we can do it so as to breach the blockade,” said Omeyya Seddik, a passenger on the “Dignity”, reached by telephone by the AFP, for whom “joy is the feeling that dominates the time of departure. “This fleet is part of “the natural continuation of the revolution for freedom and democracy,” in Arab countries, said Seddik, of Tunisian origin.

Before taking off, a passenger on the boat at the stern hoisted a Palestinian flag and made the “V” for victory.

UK C4: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka

Posted on June 19, 2011 by NMT

The UK’s Channel 4 has aired a documentary about Sri Lanka’s extermination of the Tamil Tiger rebels, including thousands of the Tamil population. Refugees were gathered into no-fire safety zones, then camps, even hospitals, a strategy it turns out, of concentrating people to more easily target them with artillery fire. Doc is below:

Shaken, stirred, totally Fukushima’d

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Now Fukushima Daiichi means the same in English as in Japanese. Although now apparently “meltdown” no longer means apocalyptic, “radiation” no longer means toxic, and to “exceed the safety levels” no longer means to pose adverse risk to your health. Curious. Because, I suppose, Japan can’t cry REACTOR FIRE in a crowded metropolis. Instead of blaming a Japanese government for being less than forthcoming about the obvious exponential horrors to come, realize they’re in hospice-caretaker mode, with little recourse but to comfort the imperiled population with big white lies. The Japanese are skeptical, but what are they supposed to do? They can no sooner stop drinking and eating than they can stop breathing. Will Fukushima be only a partial Chernobyl or verse visa? Halfway around the world, is the news being broken gently for our unknowing benefit? From across the Pacific, we can fret about the fallout –a word which now apparently means radioactive particles of no demonstrated significance. At least this president is not advising us to grab for duct-tape and visqueen. Leave the Japanese the stiff upper lip indispensable to island nations sin salida. For your own self-preservation, turn off the telly and heed experts who haven’t jettisoned the original nuclear power glossary. To those talking heads and blog comment trolls still shilling for the nuclear ambitions of the “Clean Power” Green Energy scam. Sayonara.

Crowd builds in Al Tahrir Square, Cairo, two million defy Mubarak intimidation

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Al Jazeera has reasserted live footage in Cairo today, for the Friday demonstration billed as “Day of Departure” meant to depose dictator Mubarak. Already gone are the US major network talking heads, fleeing in advance the predicted mayhem as if to dot the exclamation point of their Chaos in Egypt meme. Alas, they won’t be here to offer color commentary on the hundreds of dozens of demonstrators of indeterminate religious-political orientation massing for Egyptian on Egyptian rioting. For the rest of us, this is a veritable revolution before our eyes. Perhaps the monumental event of our lifetime. Regardless the outcome, most of us are probably so estranged from reality to recognize it. This is what Democracy looks like.

We only know representative democracy, warped beyond recognition by an electoral college system only a statistician’s mother could love. Switzerland is the only direct democracy we’re taught in school. But democratic participation in Switzerland is not much more complicated than a homeowners association in an affluent neighborhood. People power taking to the street, denouncing the illegitimacy of its authoritarian masters, leaderless, allied, that’s real democracy.

What a shame the American celebrities are missing the party. Williams and Couric fled with the expat community, Amanpour is already giving her veneer of respectability to the next interviewee, Zuckerberg not Assange, because the corporate media wants to call this a Facebook revolution sooner than Wikileaks’. Anderson Cooper is cowering on the hotel floor of an undisclosed location, unafraid to confess that he’s fearing for his life, working that [brown] people-are-revolting angle.

On the heroic independent media side, Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous spent the night in Tahrir Square, sleeping among the activists, half of them with bandaged heads, waking at intervals by the alarm sounding for anticipated stone-throwers.

None of the network journos showed any hesitation to criticize the harassment they encountered on the streets, though blaming Mubarak’s thugs was never explicit, and none of them veered from celebrating the riots as “Egypts killing each other.” Even Al Jazeera pretended to confuse the Pro and Anti sides, failing to discriminate between the side which was armed from the side taking cover, the knife wielders from desperate stone throwers trying to keep their attackers at bay.

Finally this morning an AJ text crawl mentioned 300 fatalities since the protests began January 25th, otherwise there has been scant mention of innocent civilians killed, some of them shot in the head by nighttime snipers.

All of the networks, even Al Jazeera express their incredulity that the demonstrators project no central leadership, failing to speculate why that may be.

Al Jazeera takes care to mention, every time they consult one of their three correspondents on the ground, that they omit speaker identities “for their own safety.” Even when they interview activists, the AJ anchors thank them for being brave enough to reveal their real names. Not discussed is the certain probability that calling out a demonstration leader will direct the security apparatus to deploy their snipers, summary arrest, or detention of family members. As the media wax horrific the barbarity of Cairo’s street culture chaos, they maintain a rudely unrealistic civil pretense to mask Egypt’s cruel police state.

My nightmare scenario, now that I’m looking over millions of peaceful undaunted Egyptians chanting for deliverance from their uncaring dictator? I worry about the US advisors reported to have flown into Cairo this morning, reassuring their cabby, it was reported, that everything was going to be fine.

I worry that Washington has spot on advice to offer Mubarak about how to respond to a “million man march.” After all, that’s old hat for DC. Let ’em eat waffle cake.

American protesters get the same response from Obama as they did from Bush 43. Praise for the glorious display of citizens exercising their constitutional rights. Talk away, shout it to the rooftops. Feel better? I hear you America. Thank you for your faith in the system. You are the change you’ve been waiting for. Please collect your refuse on the way out. Be sure to leave something in the hat to cover the expense of the Port-a-Johns. Thank you America, I’m honored, really. Yes we can, see you at the polls in 2012. Thank you for flying Air of Democracy. Bu’bye.

Egypt passes point of no return, for Mubarak and besieged pro-democracy

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Point of no return in Egypt. Mubarak is overseeing crimes from which he will not be able to walk away. Pro-Democracy demonstrators cannot leave Al Tahrir Square. Not because it is barricaded and besieged by plain-clothed “Pro-Mubarak protesters” but because activists who go home face immediate arrest by the secret police. Even as thugs harass the protesters, unhindered by the Egyptian army, Human Rights Watch expresses most concern for the protest organizers who are vulnerable to infiltrators facilitating their abduction or assassination by sniper. Here’s an illuminating first hand account from an activist who writes as Sandmonkey:

UPDATE 3/3 AM: Colleagues report Sandmonkey apprehended ferrying medical supplies to Al Tahrir Square. First an inspiration, now his statement is prophetic. UPDATE 3/3 tweets: “I am ok. I got out. I was ambushed & beaten by the police, my phone confiscated, my car ripped apart & supplies taken” and “Please don’t respond to my phone or BBM. This isn’t me. My phone was confiscated by a thug of an officer who insults those who call.”

EGYPT, RIGHT NOW!
Thursday, 3 Feb 2011

I don’t know how to start writing this. I have been battling fatigue for not sleeping properly for the past 10 days, moving from one’s friend house to another friend’s house, almost never spending a night in my home, facing a very well funded and well organized ruthless regime that views me as nothing but an annoying bug that its time to squash will come. The situation here is bleak to say the least.

It didn’t start out that way. On Tuesday Jan 25 it all started peacefully, and against all odds, we succeeded to gather hundreds of thousands and get them into Tahrir Square, despite being attacked by Anti-Riot Police who are using sticks, tear gas and rubber bullets against us. We managed to break all of their barricades and situated ourselves in Tahrir. The government responded by shutting down all cell communication in Tahrir square, a move which purpose was understood later when after midnight they went in with all of their might and attacked the protesters and evacuated the Square. The next day we were back at it again, and the day after. Then came Friday and we braved their communication blackout, their thugs, their tear gas and their bullets and we retook the square. We have been fighting to keep it ever since.

That night the government announced a military curfew, which kept getting shorter by the day, until it became from 8 am to 3 pm. People couldn’t go to work, gas was running out quickly and so were essential goods and money, since the banks were not allowed to operate and people were not able to collect their salary. The internet continued to be blocked, which affected all businesses in Egypt and will cause an economic meltdown the moment they allow the banks to operate again. We were being collectively punished for daring to say that we deserve democracy and rights, and to keep it up, they withdrew the police, and then sent them out dressed as civilians to terrorize our neighborhoods. I was shot at twice that day, one of which with a semi-automatic by a dude in a car that we the people took joy in pummeling. The government announced that all prisons were breached, and that the prisoners somehow managed to get weapons and do nothing but randomly attack people. One day we had organized thugs in uniforms firing at us and the next day they disappeared and were replaced by organized thugs without uniforms firing at us. Somehow the people never made the connection.

Despite it all, we braved it. We believed we are doing what’s right and were encouraged by all those around us who couldn’t believe what was happening to their country. What he did galvanized the people, and on Tuesday, despite shutting down all major roads leading into Cairo, we managed to get over 2 million protesters in Cairo alone and 3 million all over Egypt to come out and demand Mubarak’s departure. Those are people who stood up to the regime’s ruthlessness and anger and declared that they were free, and were refusing to live in the Mubarak dictatorship for one more day. That night, he showed up on TV, and gave a very emotional speech about how he intends to step down at the end of his term and how he wants to die in Egypt, the country he loved and served. To me, and to everyone else at the protests this wasn’t nearly enough, for we wanted him gone now. Others started asking that we give him a chance, and that change takes time and other such poppycock. Hell, some people and family members cried when they saw his speech. People felt sorry for him for failing to be our dictator for the rest of his life and inheriting us to his Son. It was an amalgam of Stockholm syndrome coupled with slave mentality in a malevolent combination that we never saw before. And the Regime capitalized on it today.

Today, they brought back the internet, and started having people calling on TV and writing on facebook on how they support Mubarak and his call for stability and peacefull change in 8 months. They hung on to the words of the newly appointed government would never harm the protesters, whom they believe to be good patriotic youth who have a few bad apples amongst them. We started getting calls asking people to stop protesting because “we got what we wanted” and “we need the country to start working again”. People were complaining that they miss their lives. That they miss going out at night, and ordering Home Delivery. That they need us to stop so they can resume whatever existence they had before all of this. All was forgiven, the past week never happened and it’s time for Unity under Mubarak’s rule right now.

To all of those people I say: NEVER! I am sorry that your lives and businesses are disrupted, but this wasn’t caused by the Protesters. The Protesters aren’t the ones who shut down the internet that has paralyzed your businesses and banks: The government did. The Protesters weren’t the ones who initiated the military curfew that limited your movement and allowed goods to disappear off market shelves and gas to disappear: The government did. The Protesters weren’t the ones who ordered the police to withdraw and claimed the prisons were breached and unleashed thugs that terrorized your neighborhoods: The government did. The same government that you wish to give a second chance to, as if 30 years of dictatorship and utter failure in every sector of government wasn’t enough for you. The Slaves were ready to forgive their master, and blame his cruelty on those who dared to defy him in order to ensure a better Egypt for all of its citizens and their children. After all, he gave us his word, and it’s not like he ever broke his promises for reform before or anything.

Then Mubarak made his move and showed them what useful idiots they all were.

You watched on TV as “Pro-Mubarak Protesters” – thugs who were paid money by NDP members by admission of High NDP officials- started attacking the peaceful unarmed protesters in Tahrir square. They attacked them with sticks, threw stones at them, brought in men riding horses and camels- in what must be the most surreal scene ever shown on TV- and carrying whips to beat up the protesters. And then the Bullets started getting fired and Molotov cocktails started getting thrown at the Anti-Mubarak Protesters as the Army standing idly by, allowing it all to happen and not doing anything about it. Dozens were killed, hundreds injured, and there was no help sent by ambulances. The Police never showed up to stop those attacking because the ones who were captured by the Anti-mubarak people had police ID’s on them. They were the police and they were there to shoot and kill people and even tried to set the Egyptian Museum on Fire. The Aim was clear: Use the clashes as pretext to ban such demonstrations under pretexts of concern for public safety and order, and to prevent disunity amongst the people of Egypt. But their plans ultimately failed, by those resilient brave souls who wouldn’t give up the ground they freed of Egypt, no matter how many live bullets or firebombs were hurled at them. They know, like we all do, that this regime no longer cares to put on a moderate mask. That they have shown their true nature. That Mubarak will never step down, and that he would rather burn Egypt to the ground than even contemplate that possibility.

In the meantime, State-owned and affiliated TV channels were showing coverage of Peaceful Mubarak Protests all over Egypt and showing recorded footage of Tahrir Square protest from the night before and claiming it’s the situation there at the moment. Hundreds of calls by public figures and actors started calling the channels saying that they are with Mubarak, and that he is our Father and we should support him on the road to democracy. A veiled girl with a blurred face went on Mehwer TV claiming to have received funding by Americans to go to the US and took courses on how to bring down the Egyptian government through protests which were taught by Jews. She claimed that AlJazeera is lying, and that the only people in Tahrir square now were Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. State TV started issuing statements on how the people arrested Israelis all over Cairo engaged in creating mayhem and causing chaos. For those of you who are counting this is an American-Israeli-Qatari-Muslim Brotherhood-Iranian-Hamas conspiracy. Imagine that. And MANY PEOPLE BOUGHT IT. I recall telling a friend of mine that the only good thing about what happened today was that it made clear to us who were the idiots amongst our friends. Now we know.

Now, just in case this isn’t clear: This protest is not one made or sustained by the Muslim Brotherhood, it’s one that had people from all social classes and religious background in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood only showed up on Tuesday, and even then they were not the majority of people there by a long shot. We tolerated them there since we won’t say no to fellow Egyptians who wanted to stand with us, but neither the Muslims Brotherhood not any of the Opposition leaders have the ability to turn out one tenth of the numbers of Protesters that were in Tahrir on Tuesday. This is a revolution without leaders. Three Million individuals choosing hope instead of fear and braving death on hourly basis to keep their dream of freedom alive. Imagine that.

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can’t allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn’t over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak’s gurantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be Heroes.

Wikileaks reveals inventory of US possessions critical to corporations

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Eric Verlo

To complain that a wikileaked list of off-US-soil “critical infrastructure and key resources” provides a checklist of targets for aspiring terrorists is to pretend that opponents of the US empire are as simple minded as American television viewers. The importance of most of the so-called Critical Foreign Dependencies is self-evident, more curious is how the US deems these proprietary interests, to what extent it will protect them, and for whom. Sole manufacturers of vaccines might be vital to public health, but what of communications cables, international ports, supplies of industrial metals and suppliers of components to US weapons systems? Those are critical only to bottom lines. The 2008 report in the State Department cable leaked yesterday reveals infrastructure critical to multinational corporations, whether US or not.

While American airwaves are full of denunciations of Wikileaks and Julian Assange for endangering the US, the Western press is ignoring incendiary cables making their rounds in the Middle East, in which the Lebanese Defence Minister Elias El-Murr asks his American liaison to assure Israel that a next invasion, restricted to rooting out Hezbollah, would not be opposed by Lebanese forces.

Amazon, Paypal and EveryDNS have thrown in with those that would censor Wikileaks, likely also Google and Twitter. Try to find the El-Murr story through Google News or Twitter.

Here’s the text of the 2009 cable:

2008 Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative (CFDI)
critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR)

AFRICA

Congo
(Kinshasa): Cobalt (Mine and Plant)

Gabon:
Manganese – Battery grade, natural; battery grade, synthetic; chemical grade; ferro; metallurgical grade

Guinea:
Bauxite (Mine)

South Africa:
BAE Land System OMC, Benoni, South Africa
Brown David Gear Industries LTD, Benoni, South Africa
Bushveld Complex (chromite mine) Ferrochromium Manganese – Battery grade, natural; battery grade, synthetic; chemical grade; ferro; metallurgical grade
Palladium Mine and
Plant Platinum Mines Rhodium

EAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Australia:
Southern Cross undersea cable landing, Brookvale, Australia
Southern Cross undersea cable landing, Sydney, Australia
Manganese – Battery grade, natural; battery grade, synthetic; chemical grade; ferro; metallurgical grade
Nickel Mines Maybe Faulding Mulgrave Victoria, Australia:
Manufacturing facility for Midazolam injection. Mayne Pharma (fill/finish), Melbourne, Australia: Sole suppliers of Crotalid Polyvalent Antivenin (CroFab).

China:
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing, Chom Hom Kok, Hong Kong
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing Shanghai, China
China-US undersea cable landing, Chongming, China
China-US undersea cable landing Shantou, China
EAC undersea cable landing Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong
FLAG/REACH North Asia Loop undersea cable landing Tong Fuk, Hong Kong
Hydroelectric Dam Turbines and Generators Fluorspar (Mine)
Germanium Mine
Graphite Mine
Rare Earth Minerals/Elements Tin Mine and Plant Tungsten – Mine and Plant Polypropylene Filter Material for N-95 Masks
Shanghai Port
Guangzhou Port
Hong Kong Port
Ningbo Port
Tianjin Port

Fiji:
Southern Cross undersea cable landing, Suva, Fiji

Indonesia:
Tin Mine and Plant Straits of Malacca

Japan:
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing, Chikura, Japan
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing, Shima, Japan
China-US undersea cable, Okinawa, Japan
EAC undersea cable landing Ajigaura, Japan
EAC undersea cable landing Shima, Japan
FLAG/REACH North Asia Loop undersea cable landing Wada, Japan
FLAG/REACH North Asia Loop undersea cable landing Wada, Japan
Japan-US undersea cable landing, Maruyama, Japan
Japan-US undersea cable landing Kitaibaraki, Japan
KJCN undersea cable landing Fukuoka, Japan
KJCN undersea cable landing Kita-Kyushu, Japan
Pacific Crossing-1 (PC-1) undersea cable landing Ajigaura, Japan
Pacific Crossing-1 (PC-1) undersea cable landing Shima, Japan
Tyco Transpacific undersea cable landing, Toyohashi, Japan
Tyco Transpacific undersea cable landing Emi, Japan
Hitachi, Hydroelectric Dam Turbines and Generators
Port of Chiba
Port of Kobe
Port of Nagoya
Port of Yokohama
Iodine Mine
Metal Fabrication Machines Titanium Metal (Processed) Biken, Kanonji City, Japan
Hitachi Electrical Power Generators and Components Large AC Generators above 40 MVA

Malaysia:
Straits of Malacca

New Zealand:
Southern Cross undersea cable landing, Whenuapai, New Zealand
Southern Cross undersea cable landing, Takapuna, New Zealand

Philippines:
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing, Batangas, Philippines
EAC undersea cable landing Cavite, Philippines

Republic of Korea:
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing, Pusan, Republic of Korea.
EAC undersea cable landing Shindu-Ri, Republic of Korea
FLAG/REACH North Asia Loop undersea cable landing Pusan, Republic of Korea
KJCN undersea cable landing Pusan, Republic of Korea
Hitachi Large Electric Power Transformers 230 – 500 kV
Busan Port

Singapore:
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing, Changi, Singapore
EAC undersea cable landing Changi North, Singapore
Port of Singapore
Straits of Malacca

Taiwan:
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing, Fangshan, Taiwan
C2C Cable Network undersea cable landing, Tanshui, Taiwan
China-US undersea cable landing Fangshan, Taiwan
EAC undersea cable landing Pa Li, Taiwan
FLAG/REACH North Asia Loop undersea cable landing Toucheng, Taiwan
Kaohsiung Port

EUROPE AND EURASIA

Europe

(Unspecified):
Metal Fabrication Machines: Small number of Turkish companies (Durma, Baykal, Ermaksan)

Austria:
Baxter AG, Vienna, Austria: Immune Globulin Intravenous (IGIV)
Octapharma Pharmazeutika, Vienna, Austria: Immune Globulin Intravenous (IGIV)

Azerbaijan:
Sangachal Terminal
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline

Belarus:
Druzhba Oil Pipeline

Belgium:
Germanium Mine
Baxter SA, Lessines, Belgium: Immune Globulin Intravenous (IGIV)
Glaxo Smith Kline, Rixensart, Belgium: Acellular Pertussis Vaccine Component
GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA, Wavre, Belgium: Acellular Pertussis Vaccine Component
Port of Antwerp

Denmark:
TAT-14 undersea cable landing, Blaabjerg, Denmark
Bavarian Nordic (BN), Hejreskovvej, Kvistgard, Denmark: Smallpox Vaccine
Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Bagsvaerd, Denmark: Numerous formulations of insulin
Novo Nordisk Insulin Manufacturer: Global insulin supplies
Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark: DTaP (including D and T components) pediatric version

France:
APOLLO undersea cable, Lannion, France
FA-1 undersea cable, Plerin, France
TAT-14 undersea cable landing St. Valery, France
Sanofi-Aventis Insulin Manufacturer: Global insulin supplies Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine finishing
Alstrom, Hydroelectric Dam Turbines and Generators
Alstrom Electrical Power Generators and Components
EMD Pharms Semoy, France: Cyanokit Injection
GlaxoSmithKline, Inc. Evreux, France: Influenza neurominidase inhibitor
RELENZA (Zanamivir) Diagast, Cedex, France: Olympus (impacts blood typing ability)
Genzyme Polyclonals SAS (bulk), Lyon, France: Thymoglobulin
Sanofi Pasteur SA, Lyon, France: Rabies virus vaccine

Georgia:
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline

Germany:
TAT-14 undersea cable landing, Nodren, Germany.
Atlantic Crossing-1 (AC-1) undersea cable landing Sylt, Germany
BASF Ludwigshafen: World’s largest integrated chemical complex
Siemens Erlangen: Essentially irreplaceable production of key chemicals
Siemens, GE, Hydroelectric Dam Turbines and Generators
Draeger Safety AG & Co., Luebeck, Germany: Critical to gas detection capability
Junghans Fienwerktechnik Schramberg, Germany: Critical to the production of mortars
TDW-Gasellschaft Wirksysteme, Schroebenhausen, Germany: Critical to the production of the Patriot Advanced Capability Lethality Enhancement Assembly
Siemens, Large Electric Power Transformers 230 – 500 kV
Siemens, GE Electrical Power Generators and Components
Druzhba Oil Pipeline Sanofi Aventis Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Lantus Injection (insulin)
Heyl Chemish-pharmazeutische Fabrik GmbH: Radiogardase (Prussian blue)
Hameln Pharmaceuticals, Hameln, Germany: Pentetate Calcium Trisodium (Ca DTPA) and Pentetate Zinc Trisodium (Zn DTPA) for contamination with plutonium, americium, and curium IDT
Biologika GmbH, Dessau Rossiau, Germany: BN Small Pox Vaccine.
Biotest AG, Dreiech, Germany: Supplier for TANGO (impacts automated blood typing ability) CSL
Behring GmbH, Marburg, Germany: Antihemophilic factor/von Willebrand factor
Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics GmbH, Marburg, Germany: Rabies virus vaccine
Vetter Pharma Fertigung GmbH & Co KG, Ravensburg, Germany (filling): Rho(D) IGIV
Port of Hamburg

Ireland:
Hibernia Atlantic undersea cable landing, Dublin Ireland
Genzyme Ireland Ltd. (filling), Waterford, Ireland: Thymoglobulin

Italy:
Glaxo Smith Kline SpA (fill/finish), Parma, Italy: Digibind (used to treat snake bites)
Trans-Med gas pipeline

Netherlands:
Atlantic Crossing-1 (AC-1) undersea cable landing Beverwijk, Netherlands
TAT-14 undersea cable landing, Katwijk, Netherlands
Rotterdam Port

Norway:
Cobalt Nickel Mine

Poland:
Druzhba Oil Pipeline

Russia:
Novorossiysk Export Terminal
Primorsk Export Terminal.
Nadym Gas Pipeline Junction: The most critical gas facility in the world
Uranium Nickel Mine: Used in certain types of stainless steel and superalloys
Palladium Mine and Plant Rhodium

Spain:
Strait of Gibraltar
Instituto Grifols, SA, Barcelona, Spain: Immune Globulin Intravenous (IGIV)
Maghreb-Europe (GME) gas pipeline, Algeria

Sweden:
Recip AB Sweden: Thyrosafe (potassium iodine)

Switzerland:
Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc. Basel, Switzerland: Tamiflu (oseltamivir)
Berna Biotech, Berne, Switzerland: Typhoid vaccine CSL
Behring AG, Berne, Switzerland: Immune Globulin Intravenous (IGIV)

Turkey:
Metal Fabrication Machines: Small number of Turkish companies (Durma, Baykal, Ermaksan)
Bosporus Strait
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline

Ukraine:
Manganese – Battery grade, natural; battery grade, synthetic; chemical grade; ferro; metallurgical grade

United Kingdom:
Goonhilly Teleport, Goonhilly Downs, United Kingdom
Madley Teleport, Stone Street, Madley, United Kingdom
Martelsham Teleport, Ipswich, United Kingdom
APOLLO undersea cable landing Bude, Cornwall Station, United Kingdom
Atlantic Crossing-1 (AC-1) undersea cable landing Whitesands Bay
FA-1 undersea cable landing Skewjack, Cornwall Station
Hibernia Atlantic undersea cable landing, Southport, United Kingdom
TAT-14 undersea cable landing Bude, Cornwall Station, United Kingdom
Tyco Transatlantic undersea cable landing, Highbridge, United Kingdom
Tyco Transatlantic undersea cable landing, Pottington, United Kingdom.
Yellow/Atlantic Crossing-2 (AC-2) undersea cable landing Bude, United Kingdom
Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine finishing
BAE Systems (Operations) Ltd., Presont, Lancashire, United Kingdom: Critical to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
BAE Systems Operations Ltd., Southway, Plymouth Devon, United Kingdom: Critical to extended range guided munitions
BAE Systems RO Defense, Chorley, United Kingdom: Critical to the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) AGM-154C (Unitary Variant)
MacTaggart Scott, Loanhead, Edinburgh, Lothian, Scotland, United Kingdom: Critical to the Ship Submersible Nuclear (SSN)

NEAR/MIDDLE EAST
Djibouti:
Bab al-Mendeb: Shipping lane is a critical supply chain node

Egypt:
‘Ayn Sukhnah-SuMEd Receiving Import Terminal
‘Sidi Kurayr-SuMed Offloading Export Terminal
Suez Canal

Iran:
Strait of Hormuz
Khark (Kharg) Island
Sea Island Export Terminal
Khark Island T-Jetty

Iraq:
Al-Basrah Oil Terminal

Israel:
Rafael Ordnance Systems Division, Haifa, Israel: Critical to Sensor Fused Weapons (SFW), Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers (WCMD), Tail Kits, and batteries

Kuwait:
Mina’ al Ahmadi Export Terminal

Morocco:
Strait of Gibraltar
Maghreb-Europe (GME) gas pipeline, Morocco

Oman:
Strait of Hormuz

Qatar:
Ras Laffan Industrial Center: By 2012 Qatar will be the largest source of imported LNG to U.S.

Saudi Arabia:
Abqaiq Processing Center: Largest crude oil processing and stabilization plant in the world
Al Ju’aymah Export Terminal: Part of the Ras Tanura complex
As Saffaniyah Processing Center
Qatif Pipeline Junction
Ras at Tanaqib Processing Center
Ras Tanura Export Terminal
Shaybah Central Gas-oil Separation Plant

Tunisia:
Trans-Med Gas Pipeline

United Arab Emirates (UAE):
Das Island Export Terminal
Jabal Zannah Export Terminal
Strait of Hormuz

Yemen:
Bab al-Mendeb: Shipping lane is a critical supply chain node

SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA

Kazakhstan:
Ferrochromium Khromtau Complex, Kempersai, (Chromite Mine)

India:
Orissa (chromite mines) and Karnataka (chromite mines)
Generamedix Gujurat, India: Chemotherapy agents, including florouracil and methotrexate

WESTERN HEMISPHERE

Argentina:
Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine finishing

Bermuda:
GlobeNet (formerly Bermuda US-1 (BUS-1) undersea cable landing Devonshire, Bermuda

Brazil:
Americas-II undersea cable landing Fortaleza, Brazil
GlobeNet undersea cable landing Fortaleza, Brazil
GlobeNet undersea cable landing Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Iron Ore from Rio Tinto Mine Manganese – Battery grade, natural; battery grade, synthetic; chemical grade; ferro; metallurgical grade Niobium (Columbium), Araxa,
Minas Gerais State (mine)
Ouvidor and Catalao I,
Goias State: Niobium

Chile:
Iodine Mine

Canada:
Hibernia Atlantic undersea cable landing Halifax , Nova Scotia, Canada
James Bay Power Project, Quebec: monumental hydroelectric power development
Mica Dam, British Columbia: Failure would impact the Columbia River Basin.
Hydro Quebec, Quebec: Critical irreplaceable source of power to portions of Northeast U. S.
Robert Moses/Robert H. Saunders Power, Ontario: Part of the St. Lawrence Power Project, between Barnhart Island, New York, and Cornwall, Ontario
Seven Mile Dam, British Columbia: Concrete gravity dam between two other hydropower dams along the Pend d’Oreille River
Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, Ontario, Canada
Chalk River Nuclear Facility, Ontario: Largest supplier of medical radioisotopes in the world
Hydrofluoric Acid Production Facility, Allied Signal, Amherstburg, Ontario
Enbridge Pipeline Alliance Pipeline: Natural gas transmission from Canada
Maritime and Northeast Pipeline: Natural gas transmission from Canada
Transcanada Gas: Natural gas transmission from Canada
Alexandria Bay POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Ambassador Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Blaine POE, British Columbia: Northern border crossing
Blaine Washington Rail Crossing, British Columbia
Blue Water Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Champlain POE, Quebec: Northern border crossing
CPR Tunnel Rail Crossing, Ontario (Michigan Central Rail Crossing)
International Bridge Rail Crossing, Ontario
International Railway Bridge Rail Crossing
Lewiston-Queenstown POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Peace Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Pembina POE, Manitoba: Northern border crossing
North Portal Rail Crossing, Saskatchewan
St. Claire Tunnel Rail Crossing, Ontario
Waneta Dam, British Columbia: Earthfill/concrete hydropower dam
Darlington Nuclear Power Plant, Ontario, Canada.
E-ONE Moli Energy, Maple Ridge, Canada: Critical to production of various military application electronics
General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada, London Ontario, Canada: Critical to the production of the Stryker/USMC LAV Vehicle Integration
Raytheon Systems Canada Ltd.
ELCAN Optical Technologies Division, Midland, Ontario, Canada: Critical to the production of the AGM-130 Missile
Thales Optronique Canada, Inc., Montreal, Quebec: Critical optical systems for ground combat vehicles
Germanium Mine Graphite Mine
Iron Ore Mine
Nickel Mine
Niobec Mine, Quebec, Canada: Niobium Cangene, Winnipeg, Manitoba:
Plasma Sanofi Pasteur Ltd., Toronto, Canada: Polio virus vaccine
GlaxoSmithKile Biologicals, North America, Quebec, Canada: Pre-pandemic influenza vaccines

French Guiana:
Americas-II undersea cable landing Cayenne, French Guiana

Martinique:
Americas-II undersea cable landing Le Lamentin, Martinique

Mexico:
FLAG/REACH North Asia Loop undersea cable landing Tijuana, Mexico
Pan-American Crossing (PAC) undersea cable landing Mazatlan, Mexico
Amistad International Dam: On the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas and Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila, Mexico
Anzalduas Dam: Diversion dam south of Mission, Texas, operated jointly by the U.S. and Mexico for flood control Falcon International Dam: Upstream of Roma, Texas and Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas, Mexico
Retamal Dam: Diversion dam south of Weslaco, Texas, operated jointly by the U.S. and Mexico for flood control
GE Hydroelectric Dam Turbines and Generators: Main source for a large portion of larger components
Bridge of the Americas: Southern border crossing
Brownsville POE: Southern border crossing
Calexico East POE: Southern border crossing
Columbia Solidarity Bridge: Southern border crossing
Kansas City Southern de Mexico (KCSM) Rail Line, (Mexico)
Nogales POE: Southern border crossing
Laredo Rail Crossing
Eagle Pass Rail Crossing
Otay Mesa Crossing: Southern border crossing
Pharr International Bridge: Southern border crossing
World Trade Bridge: Southern border crossing
Ysleta Zaragosa Bridge: Southern border crossing
Hydrofluoric Acid Production Facility
Graphite Mine
GE Electrical Power Generators and Components
General Electric, Large Electric Power Transformers 230 – 500 kV

Netherlands Antilles:
Americas-II undersea cable landing Willemstad, Netherlands Antilles.

Panama:
FLAG/REACH North Asia Loop undersea cable landing Fort Amador, Panama
Panama Canal

Peru:
Tin Mine and Plant

Trinidad and Tobago:
Americas-II undersea cable landing
Port of Spain
Atlantic LNG: Provides 70% of U.S. natural gas import needs

Venezuela:
Americas-II undersea cable landing Camuri, Venezuela
GlobeNet undersea cable landing, Punta Gorda, Venezuela
GlobeNet undersea cable landing Catia La Mar, Venezuela
GlobeNet undersea cable landing Manonga, Venezuela

Army “Revolutionary” XM25 weapon will revolutionize US people killing

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Eric Verlo

The $35,000 rifle fires exploding ordnance, enabling US infantrymen to kill people behind walls or at distances of 2,300 ft. No indication that our soldiers can now SEE behind walls, or differentiate between combatants and noncombatants at such great distance. Meaning the XM25 will “revolutionize” killing, as military spokesmen say, probably the same innocents we’re massacring now, but an order of higher magnitude. If the same braggarts had a hand in naming the XM25, it means times (X) a magnitude (M) of 25, which I’ll bet is an arbitrary underestimation, where Collateral Damage approaches 100%. And get this, the Army assure us that the XM25 can be fired from the safety of distance and from cover, both of which the XM25 deprives of our adversary. “Revolutionary” pretends to reference the spirit of America’s only defensible war for our independence, but it really means another leap in the arms race, use of disproportional power, further distorting our inhuman arm’s length from war conventions, eliminating “cover” for our victims, but not for our own fighters because our opponents could never afford such a weapon. The DoD’s own words.

It’s class war after all. The haves against the have-nots. Specifically have-not the means to defend themselves from foreign oppressors. Nothing revolutionary about the wealthy keeping down the people.

And there’s nothing technologically revolutionary about the XM25 either. Laser metering, exploding bullets, timed remote detonation, none of those is a new development. Putting all that into a rifle bore is just a matter of budgeting for sky-is-the-limit weaponry. We could make guns that launched miniature yellow submarines if defense spending wanted to bear the expense.

Wikileaks has crippled US warmaking, now, what you can do for Wikileaks

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Eric Verlo

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.

US House Resolution 1553 offers go-ahead for Israel to attack Iran

Posted on July 25, 2010 by Eric Verlo

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 SESSION

H. 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.

Animal Liberation Lone Wolf betrayed by ATF informant, literature and tattoo

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Eric Verlo

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 1: THE LIBERATORS

CHAPTER 2: THIS WORLD IS MEANT FOR ALL BEINGS

CHAPTER 3: HOMO DESTRUCTUS

CHAPTER 4: THE EVERYDAY HOLOCAUST

CHAPTER 5: THE MYTH OF NON-VIOLENCE

CHAPTER 6: A TIME FOR WAR

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.

Uri Brodsky, Dubai Mossad assassins tied to Taglit-Birthright Israel

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Eric Verlo

One of the 33 operatives which UAE investigators have tied to the January assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai was apprehended in Poland. Suspected Mossad agent Uri Brodsky awaits extradition to Germany to account for a fake German passport issued to a “Michael Bodenheimer.” Israel is naturally insisting that Brodsky be returned to Israel, where their “legal system is known throughout the world and can handle this issue.” Brodsky claims to be a victim of mistaken identity, something about his fingerprints. Does it make you wonder about the first exonerated suspects who, safety [back] in Israel, were able to claim that whoever used their passports wasn’t them? Meanwhile the credit cards used by the Israeli hit team have been traced to Payoneer, a financial facilitator for Taglit-Birthright pilgrims.

Flotilla not a Love Boat, it was a lynch, says Netanyahu, describing beating of IDF soldiers, not deaths of aid workers

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Eric Verlo

What’s a lynch? I find it intriguing that Israel’s spin machine can drop an American pop culture reference like Love Boat, and simultaneously flub basic usage with “a lynch.” According to Israel, that describes what befell their crack-troop Mavi Marmara party-crashers. What does “a lynch” mean? Apparently someone feels at liberty to shorten Lynch Mob, or Lynching, to coin a new threat to Israel. But doesn’t it stretch credulity to imagine the IDF has never claimed to have been baited into an “ambush?”

Every modern military with a propaganda office, when it suffers a setback, attributes it to an ambush. When the US and Israel do it, it’s an attack; when our dastardly adversaries do it, it’s an ambush. Let’s set aside that the night watch on the Mavi Marmara’s deck might have been defending themselves. For the moment the IDF version of events is the only one Israel is allowing.

Ambush, trap, beating, getting jumped, wouldn’t these be appropriate descriptions for what Israel is asserting its night-vision video depicts? To lynch someone -it’s a verb- implies a hanging, extrajudicial, usually perpetrated by a crowd against a lone victim, unarmed. So where does the IDF get “lynch?”

To my mind, the Israeli-accented tender of “lynch” is feigned bad English, stuttered -I hope in shame- as perpetrator blames victim, but stuttered conveniently, to make the accusation less preposterous. Isn’t a rape victim who is too well versed in the crime perpetrated against her, less convincing than a victim who fumbles to comprehend the outrage she suffered? Poor Israel, its soldiers stepped into a, a, a lynch.

Emitted from military spokespeople however, one projects a reflexive followup “-that’s the ticket.”

I’m guessing grasping a straws like “lynch” is played for sympathy. And while I deconstruct the false unfamiliarity of otherwise precisely crafted English: PM Netanyahu’s mention of “Love Boat” had a bumbling Bush “the internets” ring to it. Anyone old enough to know the television show about the enchanted cruise ship knows there’s not “a Love Boat” but The Love Boat.

If the newly nouned “lynch” is intended to define a hate crime unique to anti-Semites, the motive fits with Israel’s insistence that first genocide, now holocaust, can only apply to Jews. Such an implication is aided by Netanyahu’s suggestion that the lynch was “plotted.” Because common understanding of mob misbehavior precludes a premeditated plot. This may reflect a naive dismissal of the responsibility of authorities who manipulated the lynch mobs and witch hunts, but dictionaries seldom chronicle the injustice of the victors who write the history. Conventional wisdom holds that lynchings were improvisational.

Perhaps the English speaking viewers are meant to associate the implicit racism of the term. Ambush after all doesn’t conjure the slightest whiff of antisemitism. But here’s where Israel’s liberal arts wordsmiths may have outsmarted themselves. While it’s true that thousands of African Americans were lynched through our nation’s history, to the average American who dwells not very often on shameful pasts, the definition of lynching encompasses simply an execution in lieu a trial. Even an unfair trial, or kangaroo court, can be called a lynching. A lynch mob is an enraged crowd meting vigilante justice, hanging high what to them is an indisputable wrongdoer. The overwhelming number of lynching victims in America’s lawless west were hunted criminals. While xenophobia may always have skewed the mob’s judgment against Indian, Chinese, Mexican, or Black, a lynching was not by definition about racial prejudice.

If the beating of the Israeli commandos illustrated a hatred, was it racist? One is meant to assume the motive was anti-Semitic, but I wonder if Arab-Israelies serving in the IDF, or foreign nationals or mercenaries, don’t garner antagonism as vociferous. The historic prejudice decried by ADL and holocaust remembrance stalwarts has been against Jews, but the world today reviles Israeli arrogance. The US has become universal despised, but American tourists are still assured the world hates America, not its people. It’s what we’re told, if even if it is untrue. I do not know of course if Israelis are proffered the same polite assurance.

Did Israel mean that the Freedom Flotilla was an attempted lynching of Israel’s international reputation? In that case, Israel’s predictable militant reaction made such a hanging a matter of assisted suicide. If the Israeli national character suffers irreparably, who’s going to be to bame?

Presuming to paint its soldiers into a lynching scene, which character does Israel assert they played? Were the IDF the horse thieves? Bandying about the connotations of lynchings makes for an interesting turning of the tables. Were the convoy defenders the ones pronouncing hasty judgment upon their dark-of-night assailants? Or were Israel’s commandos declaring themselves judge and jury on the alleged arms smugglers?

In cases of breaking and entering, the home field advantage is accorded the right to self-defense. A SWAT team might make the argument that identifying itself as law enforcement preempts a homeowner’s recourse to armed resistance, based on the principle that an arresting officer’s safety is inviolate. Israel may assert it was policing its border, but unfortunately last Monday it was operating beyond its border. What protection can a law enforcement function claim if outside its jurisdiction?

It might be well and good to say Israel reserves the right to protect itself from enemies anywhere in the world, but it can’t pretend its badge should command universal obeisance.

The Mavi Marmara had declared her intention to run Israel’s blockade, but hadn’t yet attempted the crossing. In fact the Freedom Flotilla was moving away from the contentious area at the time of Israel’s attack.

Who then was the victim of this “lynch?”

I’ll tell you why it’s lynch and not lynching. Because Israel’s soldiers weren’t killed, they were beaten. Not to diminish what might have been their adversaries’ worst intentions, but the gantlet the IDF commandoes received was not a hanging specifically, and not very effective in terms of proving fatal. On the other hand, the outcome was the killing of an as yet undisclosed multitude of civilians, unarmed to an extent that the killings can be defined as executions, the entire result already adjudged to have been a massacre.

Israel’s invention of “lynch” is an utterance which I believe betrays the sign of shame the world longs to see from Israel. Even as the public revels in watching the Israeli hubris on self-destruct, empathy has us hoping to see Israel grasp for its lost humanity. To describe the events on the Turkish passenger ship as a “lynch” is to fail to summon the chutzpah to bear false witness, to accuse the dead of capital murder. Neither does Israel dare to raise the specter that summary executions were committed that night at all.

There is a term to describe

a) Israel’s taking the law into its own hands by pirating a ship belonging to another nation while it sailed in international waters,

b) Israel’s soldiers not being a police force but an ideology-deputized posse,

c) opting in a confused fervor to punish outlaws thought to have been caught red handed,

d) issuing on the spot death sentences.

It’s called a mass lynching.

Unusual mechanical failures delay, but fail to scuttle, Gaza Freedom Flotilla

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Eric Verlo

First the MV Rachel Corrie suffered a breakdown shortly after leaving port. Then the Challenger I lost its steering mechanism and another Greek ship has to return to port. Though derided by Israeli critics as “tin buckets,” the ships had been certified sea-worthy before the convoy set sail. Suspicions about system failures can wait until proper investigations. Cyprus denied the Challenger permission to harbor for repairs, so its passengers were transshipped to the Mavi Marmara, and the convoy delayed its rendezvous. The revised timing will deny the Israeli navy a chance to attack during the night. The relief ships will not be approaching the contested waters off Gaza until after daybreak.

As it did during earlier relief convoy efforts, Cyprus responded to pressure from Israel and refused to allow convoy ships to assemble at its ports. This time the Greek Authority of Cyprus enforced a ban against the Freedom Flotilla vessels from entering its waters. WitnessForGaza has a video of a Cypriot helicopter keeping the Challenger I at bay, even though it was becoming increasingly disabled and need to reach a safe harbor.

What can you do to protect the convoy?

Subject: Call For Action As The Flotilla Faces Serious Threats From Israel

“People are very aware that the Israeli authorities and indeed others are playing all sorts of mind games, with threats alternating with so called offers, which would include surrendering the aid into Israeli hands, something which the participants of the flotilla find entirely unacceptable”

Speaking from the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, Kevin Ovenden from Viva Palestina outlined some of the concerns and realities currently been faced by over 750 people on board the 9 ships sailing towards Gaza.

The last of the ships departed from Turkey at midnight last night, and they are all currently in International waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Their journey is faced with incredible danger, given the threats that have been issued by the Israeli Government. They have stated that they will stop this Flotilla at all costs, even by force if necessary. Their safety is in grave danger, and the time has come for the international community to stand up for their safety and well being.

Tomorrow, Saturday, the flotilla should be sailing into Gaza, however, given the threats issued, the likely hood of this happening is looking uncertain at this stage. We are calling on everyone to contact various political leaders to ask them to do everything in their power to ensure the safety of these brave people, and to stand up and add their voice in support of this humanitarian flotilla.

Will our city presume to prohibit life for whoever can’t afford to pay their way?

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Eric Verlo

In case you thought City Council’s reprieve earlier this winter reflected a soft spot in their heart for the homeless forced to live in tents, in reality the city attorneys advised any purge of the unsightly camps be delayed until an iron-clad ordinance could be devised. The suggested legal verbiage was reviewed at Monday’s meeting, to be formally adopted today. It reads “9.6.109. Camping on Public Property Prohibited.” The definition of “camping” to include: “Sleeping or making preparation to sleep, including the lying down of bedding for the purpose of sleeping.”

No sleeping. On public property.

By the way, I care not the least about a slippery slope that might infringe on your prerogative to take a nap in the park. This is not about the average man losing his middle class privileges to the creep of authoritarian rule-making. At some point I have to presume we agree that human beings have some inalienable rights. They used to be lofty ideals, protected by fundamental principles. On the issue of sleep, we are discussing the right to an involuntary life function.

The right to defecate is what’s got these homeless camps in trouble, but it stands to reason that to shit is more than a right too, it’s a necessity. All of this is dreadful platitude unless it’s escaped our city administrators. Are they suggesting that because the city cannot provide for the services for its people, that the people must forgo their basic creature needs?

What inhuman folly. And on public ground. Where are they to go? Must man pay rent to exist?

That you can dictate the rights of another on private land is open to debate. By whose authority do you claim dominion to use land for yourself? How dare you refuse a fellow human being, wherever he might need to rest his head? Granting the argument for private property, who are you to force your will upon others on shared common property? Others can’t do what? Where?

Do public lands belong only to property owners? You can legislate the right to take property for yourself, but you can’t hoard all of it. You have the right to private land precisely because the remainder is reserved for the public. The authority to give the deed to you comes from a governing entity empowered by everyone. A government is bound to providing for the land-less in exchange for the privilege to sell premium land to the better-off.

And a city has obligations to service that public land just as much as it serves the private lots. Can local administrators say, sorry, no more money for water, sewer, utilities, or security? Neither can it fail its responsibilities to the poor.

You aren’t obligated to provide eat, drink and shelter to all, but you can’t deny men access to the basic resource of land. Would you have men born into cells until they agree to work for their sustenance? Colorado Springs would deny them heat and sleep too. If we could, would we regulate breath?

On public land you have limited authority to regulate. Where private property owners crow about property rights, so do the public have property rights. Every bit, and perhaps more sacrosanct. The public can consent to regulation, for the safety and health of all etc, but that doesn’t encompass prohibition. You want health and safety, you provide the services. You have no authority to deny the service and then deny man’s basic needs. What an absolute crock.

Below is the text of the city’s proposed ordinance. It describes the creation of a new section, under 9.6.109.

9. Public Offenses, fair enough;

6. Offenses Affecting Property, a functional necessity of course;

109. Camping on Public Property Prohibited. Huh?

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF COLORADO SPRINGS:

9.6.109: CAMPING ON PUBLIC PROPERTY PROHIBITED:

A. It is unlawful for any person to camp on any public property, except as may be specifically authorized by the appropriate governmental authority.

B. For the purposes of this section “camp” or “camping” means to use the public area for living accommodation including, but not limited to, the activities and circumstances listed below. These activities and circumstances may be considered in determining whether reasonable grounds for belief have arisen that a person has “camped” or is “camping” in violation of this ordinance.

1. Sleeping or making preparation to sleep, including the lying down of bedding for the purpose of sleeping.

2. Occupying a shelter out-of-doors. “Shelter” shall mean any cover or protection from the elements other than clothing, such as a tent, shack, sleeping bag, or other structure or material.

3. The presence or use of a camp fire, camp stove or other heating source or cooking device.

5. Keeping or storing personal property.

Sleep, a basic animal function. Shelter, a fundamental human need. Fire, the first of mankind’s tools. Before agriculture was fire.

Property. How unbecoming that an ordinance seeking to prohibit the public’s right to public property should also deprive the public of the ability to keep personal property.

Also presented on Monday were recommendations from the city management, detailing the consequences of violating the camping prohibition. They included this paragraph:

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS: A violation of these updated ordinances may result in a fine and sentencing to the Criminal Justice Center (CJC). In the past, homeless individuals have been known to ignore summonses to appear in Municipal Court until it is advantageous for them to be placed in CJC (cold weather, need for food and/or shelter, etc.). The preferred method of dealing with these types of violations would be to gain the cooperation of the individuals involved without relying upon the criminal justice system, thus removing them from the circumstance by linking them with the appropriate service agency.

Making the specious argument basically that since homeless persons sometimes get themselves arrested on purpose, authorities are justified in accommodating them full time. How considerate of us.

Olbermann offers Obama an out

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Afghanistan is being summarized as telling President Obama to Get Out Now. Olbermann’s words stir our enthusiasm, but he leaves damning loopholes as far as I am concerned. The MSNBC newsman conditions his advice to the president with “unless you are right,” then at the end, showing a tact far too reckless, he tells Obama to “listen to yourself.”

No. That’s not why we elected Barack Obama.

The inexperienced senator had no record. Our hope didn’t spring from a demonstration of ability. Obama was elected for the hope he offered because he appeared to be listening to the American people. It would probably have been inconceivable to imagine then that Obama could not but respond to the unprecedented surge of electoral participation prompted by George W. Bush’s wars.

Listen to the people Mr. Obama, and no one else. To ask Obama to listen to himself is to offer him entirely too much slack. Give an authoritarian leader too much rope, that’s more rope he has to hang you.

And then there is no “unless you are right.”

What is that but a straight man’s setup? That line is for the President to show America how sure he is of his decision. The people want a leader who’s offering supreme confidence, so Olbermann is holding the door. He goes on to frame the challenges posed by Afghanistan, as surmountable by a qualified prez. Olbermann invites the President to be “precisely right.” Isn’t that exactly what will sooth the viewers, after Obama has famously taken so much time to arrive at a decision?

But there is no “unless you are right.” Unless Olbermann meant it with an implied irony. But he didn’t. He didn’t say unless black is white, or up is down. Olbermann allowed for the possibility that an escalation could be right.

“If not, Mr. President, this way lies Vietnam.”

IF NOT Olbermann says. Doesn’t he mean no if and or buts?

When Walter Cronkite finally spoke out about Vietnam, and declared the war un-winnable, it was not because it had become un-winnable. It had not transformed into a quagmire, the chance for victory had not escaped us. The illegal and immoral subjugation of the Vietnamese people was never a winnable strategy. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, it was a predictable calamity, a crime. Moral observers knew it from the beginning.

America did not LOSE Vietnam, and we will not LOSE Iraq and Afghanistan. We DESTROYED those landscapes and millions of lives, and we continue to “finish the job.” It’s an immeasurable, apocalyptic tragedy.

If Barack Obama escalates in the footsteps of Lyndon Johnson, it will similarly be no mistake. The travesty is that the American people have once again been waylaid in their determination to find a leader to represent their desire for peace.

Here is the text of Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment:

SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, ‘Countdown’
Mon., Nov . 30, 2009

Mr. President, it now falls to you to be both former Republican Senator George Aiken and the man to whom he spoke, Lyndon Johnson. You must declare victory, and get out.??

You should survey the dismal array of options in front of you — even the orders given out last night — sort them into the unacceptable, the unsuccessful, and the merely un-palatable, and then put your arm down on the table and wipe the entire assortment of them off your desk — off this nation’s desk — and into the scrap heap of history. ??

Unless you are utterly convinced — willing to bet American lives on it — that the military understands the clock is running, and that the check is not blank, and that the Pentagon will go to sleep when you tell it to, even though the Pentagon is a bunch of perpetually 12-year old boys desperate to stay up as late as possible by any means necessary — get out now. ??

We are, at present, fighting, in no particular order, the Taliban; a series of sleazy political-slash-military adventurers, not the least of whom is this mountebank election-fixer Karzai, and what National Security Advisor Jones estimated in October was around eight dozen al-Qaida in the neighborhood.??

But poll after poll, and anecdote after anecdote, of the reality of public opinion inside Afghanistan is that its residents believe we are fighting Afghanistan. That we, Sir, have become an occupying force. Yes: if we leave, Afghanistan certainly will have an occupying force, whether it’s from Pakistan, or consisting of foreign fighters who will try to ally themselves with the Taliban.??

Can you prevent that? Can you convince the Afghans that you can prevent that? Can you convince Americans that it is the only way to un-do Bush and Cheney policy catastrophes dating back to Cheney’s days as Secretary of Defense in the ’90s? If not, Mr. President, this way lies Vietnam. If you liked Iraq, you’ll love Afghanistan with 35,000 more troops, complete with the new wrinkle, straight from the minder-binder lingo of Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.”??

President Obama will be presenting an exit strategy for Afghanistan. The exit strategy that begins by entering still further. Lose to win, sink to swim, escalate to disengage. And even this disconnect of fundamental logic is predicated on the assumption that once the extra troops go in, when the President says “okay, time for adult swim, Generals, time to get out of the pool and bring the troops with you,” that the Pentagon is just going to say “Yeppers.”??

The Pentagon, often to our eternal relief, but just as often to our eternal regret is in the War business. You were right, Mr. President, to slow the process down, once a series of exit strategies was offered to you by men whose power and in some case livelihoods are predicated on making sure all exit strategies, everywhere, forever, don’t really result in any service-man or woman actually exiting.??

These men are still in the belly of what President Eisenhower so rightly, so prophetically, christened the military-industrial complex. Now and later as the civilian gray eminences with “retired” next to their names, formally lobbying the House and Senate and informally lobbying the nation through television and the printed word, to “engage” here, or “serve” there, or “invest” everywhere, they are, in many cases, just glorified hardware salesmen. ??

It was political and operational brilliance, Sir, to retain Mr. Bush’s last Secretary of Defense Mr. Gates. It was transitional and bipartisan insight, Sir, to maintain General Stanley McChrystal as a key leader in the field. ??

And it was a subtle but powerful reminder to the authoritarian minded War-hawks like John McCain, and the blithering idiots like former Governor Palin, of the Civilian authority of the Constitution it was a picture drawn in crayon for ease of digestion by the Right, to tell our employees at the Pentagon, to take their loaded options and go away and come back with some real ones.??

You reminded them, Mr. President, that Mr. Gates works for the people of the United States of America, not the other way around. You reminded them, Mr. President, that General McChrystal is our employee, not our dictator. You’ve reminded them Mr. President. Now, tonight, remind yourself. Stanley McChrystal.??

General McChrystal has doubtless served his country bravely and honorably and at great risk, but to date his lasting legacy will be as the great facilitator of the obscenity that was transmuting the greatest symbol of this nation’s true patriotism, of its actual willingness to sacrifice, into a distorted circus fun-house mirror version of such selflessness.??

Friendly fire killed Pat Tillman. Mr. McChrystal killed the truth about Pat Tillman. And that willingness to stand truth on its head on behalf of “selling” a war or the generic idea of America being at war to turn a dead hero into a meaningless recruiting poster, should ring essentially relevant right now.??

From the very center of a part of our nation that could lie to the public, could lie to his mother, about what really happened to Pat Tillman, from the very man who was at the operational center of that plan, comes the entire series of plans to help us supposedly find the way out of Afghanistan? We are supposed to believe General McChrystal isn’t lying about Afghanistan???

Didn’t he blow his credibility by lying, so obviously and so painfully, about Pat Tillman? Why are we believing the McChrystals? Their reasons might sound better than the ones they helped George Bush and Dick Cheney fabricate for Iraq, but surely they are just as transparently oblivious of the forest. ??

Half of them insist we must stay in Afghanistan out of fear of not repeating Iraq, while the other half, believing Bush failed in Iraq by having too few troops, insist we must stay in Afghanistan out of fear of repeating Iraq. And they are suddenly sounding frighteningly similar to what the Soviet Generals were telling the Soviet Politicos in the 1980s about Afghanistan.??

Sure it’s not going well, sure we need to get out, we all see that. But first let’s make sure it’s stabilized and then we get out. The Afghans will be impressed by our commitment and will then take over the cost of policing themselves, even though the cost would be several times their gross national product. Just send in those extra troops, just for awhile. Just 350,000.

I’m sorry, did I say 350,000? I meant 35,000. Must be a coffee stain on the paper. Mr. President, last fall, you were elected. Not General McChrystal, not Secretary Gates, not another Bushian Drone of a politician. You. On the Change Ticket. On the pitch that all politicians are not created equal.??

And upon arrival you were greeted by a Three Mile Island of an economy, so bad that in the most paranoid recesses of the mind one could wonder if the Republicans didn’t plan it that way, to leave you in the position of having to prove the ultimate negative, that you staved off worldwide financial collapse, that if you had not done what you so swiftly did, that this “economic cloudy day” would have otherwise been the “biblical flood of finance.”??

So, much of the change for which you were elected, Sir, has thus far been understandably, if begrudgingly, tabled, delayed, made more open-ended. But patience ebbs, Mr. President. And while the first one thousand key decisions of your presidency were already made about the economy, the first public, easy-to-discern, mouse-or-elephant kind of decision comes tomorrow night at West Point at eight o’clock.

You know this, Mr. President: we cannot afford this war. Nothing makes less sense to our economy than the cost of supply for 35,000 new troops. Nothing will do more to slow economic recovery. You might as well shoot the revivified auto industry or embrace John Boehner Health Care Reform and Spray-Tan Reimbursement.

You know this, Mr. President: we cannot afford this war. Nothing makes less sense to our status in the world than for us to re-up as occupiers of Afghanistan and for you to look like you were unable to extricate yourself from a Military Chinese Finger Puzzle left for you by Bush and Cheney and the rest of Halliburton’s hench-men.

And most of all, and those of us who have watched these first nine months trust both your judgment and the fact you know this, Mr. President: unless you are exactly right, we cannot afford this war. For if all else is even, and everything from the opinion of the generals to the opinion of the public is even, we cannot afford to send these troops back into that quagmire for second tours, or thirds, or fourths, or fifths.

We cannot afford this ethically, Sir. The country has, for eight shameful years, forgotten its moral compass and its world purpose. And here is your chance to reassert that there is, in fact, American Exceptionalism. We are better. We know when to stop making our troops suffer, in order to make our generals happy.

You, Sir, called for change, for the better way, for the safety of our citizens including the citizens being wasted in war-for-the-sake-of-war, for a reasserting of our moral force. And we listened. And now you must listen. You must listen to yourself.

Ward Churchill speaks on which settler invasion wrote the book on Apartheid

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Ward Churchill spoke in Tucson on Friday and Brenda Norrell has posted the footage. Watching the ex-CU professor speak, I can’t help but think about the university students’ loss. They’re missing the lamentably rarefied perspectives he offers of course, but more important, the inspiration gained from such an engaging luminary.

Throughout his lectures, Churchill likes to put questions back at his audience. He understands, if I can presume to project his rationale, that a mentor’s role is to bounce ideas around, and be sure his students have minds open enough to let them resonate. It’s also a sign of someone fully confident with what they are teaching. Churchill gives you the impression he’s interested in the best argument you’ve got, and I believe him, but in reality he’s going to have few peers up to the task.

When it’s time for Q and A, Prof. Churchill calls it mud-wrestling, and welcomes all shots, “even spit wads.” He draws the line at brick bats, because he says, one might bounce off his head and hit somebody else. He warns, as if he’s had practice, “because someone might get hurt. I can assure you it won’t be me.”

I wished at that moment that Tucson was not so far from Churchill’s curiously vile detractors, who attended his trial in Denver, and who hold bitch fests online about every Churchinalia for reasons unspecified. I predict they’re remunerated; the love-to-hate pretext is wearing thin, these yahoos are pro-Israeli tea-baggers. So there’s no Drunkablog or Pirate Ballerina there tonight to take the “perfessor’s” challenge. Although wouldn’t such an exchange have been simply tedious? I recall this dismal attempt mounted against “Wart” by a couple CU college Republicans, it was just embarrassing. Have Churchill’s online critics ever confronted him in person I wonder? They can spout off in the safety of anonymity, and that’s about it.

Churchill’s speech to the predominantly Anglo and O’odham border activists was about the bigger issues behind the border wall. The theme of the gathering was Apartheid in America, and Churchill demonstrated how South African Apartheid came of the successful colonial methods practiced in the United States. These were the strategies employed by the Germans in taking and settling the Eastern Front during WWII, and of course the goals of Israel in Palestine.

Churchill described how settler invasions vary from colonial administration. In the latter case, the colonizers can go home, in the former, they stay. Another distinction is critical, the settlers aren’t moving to a land and becoming part of the social system, they remain citizens of the occupying force. They bring their identity and the foreign system with them, to apply against the people indigenous to the land. The process involves two steps: displace enough of the natives to make room for yourselves, but leave just enough to serve as a labor pool, for all the building that is required of empire building. You’ve need of only a portion of the original population, to do the manual labor required of developing the land, but eventually you need them to die off. The Nazi strategy in Poland was to eleminate a great deal via war, then another mass through starvation, ill health and exposure. Methods mirrored today in Gaza. As a USA example, Churchill sited the average life expectancy of a Native American on a reservation in 1975. The age was 44.6 years old. That’s 1/3 less that the G-Pop average, equivalent to thinning the population by a third.

To cut to the quick, Churchill asked his audience how they felt about social challenges like sexism, racism, ageism, classism. All were basically in accord as being against. What’s the problem, Churchill asked. If so many are against these things, why do they persist? Then he threw imperialism into the mix, which had not been mentioned. Churchill said we cannot adequately address the others until we have a clean conscience about the land taken from America’s First Peoples. This must be the priority. First Peoples, First Nations, First Priority.

Below is the video of Friday’s Tohono O’odham event in Tucson. Take note also of the excellent speeches which followed the keynote, by Ofelia Rivas and her brother in particular.

Click ON DEMAND, then select the “Live Show Fri Nov 13 2009 06:20:55 PM” or watch it at Livestream/earthcycles.

DUI gone postal

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Brother Jonah

News 5 is trying metaphorically to crucify the Postal Service and especially the Postal Workers union because a mail-carrier wasn’t fired for being convicted of DUI. So I thought to myself (as I often do) “Self, I bet Freedom Communications has literally hundreds of people working for them who have DUI convictions”.

Their piss-and-moan about it is (allegedly) that the Postal Service is losing money. This from minions of a Corporation that’s in bankruptcy. And one of their subsidiaries, the Colorado Springs Gazette, has just laid off half their employees.

But whenever a person takes the stand in court, either as a witness or a defendant, he has to state where and for whom he works. So, fair being fair, posting a partial list of the employees of their Corporate Masters who have criminal convictions would perhaps be in order. I thought of doing it myself, look up the transcripts and report thereof…

Leaving out the names of those who work labor jobs for them, drivers, warehouse, the temps who stuff the circulars into the Sunday and Wednesday papers and assemble the mailings… cut those guys a lot of slack. They already are in wage bondage to a hostile employer anyway. Edit to add… they were the first to go in the layoffs.

On the other hand, there’s a TV reporter from Dallas and who I believe works for one of the Denver stations now, Leeza Gibbons., who was convicted of joyriding on I 30 from Grand Prairie to the west side of Ft Worth at 110 miles an hour and leading the po-pos from 8 different municipalities, 2 counties and the State Department of Public Safety on a high speed chase. And this kind of event isn’t really all that rare. That would be the type to publish. Also any who would fit into a suit and tie on a regular basis.

The ones who slither in and out of their corporate boardroom. The ones who are serving up the Union-bashing and the ones who ordered it done.

It’s also convenient that the Union Bashing is done at a time when two of their Loyal Corporate Partners are demanding that the Grocery Workers Union accept a really arrogant “Last and Best Offer” contract.

H1N1 vaccine safe as yearly flu vaccine

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Eric Verlo

CBS’s pharmaceutic advertisers trotted out their shills at 60 Minutes to herd the American public toward the awaiting H1N1 vaccine. The segment featured a worst case scenario, lots of anxious Kool-aid drinkers, and directions for where to get yours. The story purported to quell the fears of apparently 40% of Americans about the vaccine’s efficacy and safety. But the interviewer had to pretend the answers were conclusive, because quite oddly they were not. 60 Minutes might have hoped the industry spokesman would answer “yes” to whether the H1N1 vaccine was safe, instead he replied, “as safe as the flu vaccines.” Are these folks not even reading the reports they’re up against? Fatal side effects of the infamous Swine Flu vaccine were dismissed as aberrant, although the industry still does not know what went wrong.

To mandate health insurance premiums is to privatize tax collection & spending

Posted on September 30, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Compulsory insurance premiums represent the privatization of taxes. Talk about taxation without representation. How would a personal expense mandated by the government be any different than a tax? The burden is contributed toward the common good, but administrated privately. While oversight might fall to civil service regulators, nowhere is an elected official part of the loop. They’re privatizing the public sector: the military, the utilities, the media, the schools, the Postal Service, and of course they’re after Social Security. Taxpayers pay for the social safety net. Making them pay health insurance premiums is to privatize their taxes.

One man dared

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Eric Verlo

I’d like to revisit photographs of George Bush. On everyone pictured standing next to him, I’ll stamp “NOT AL-ZAIDI,” meaning, NOT A HERO. The tag would apply to all of us of course, but in particular, to those who had a chance -but didn’t- to confront the naked emperor. The single bravest man in the world, Muntadhar al Zaidi, was released from prison this week, to recount the torture he endured for his act. Is your courage bolstered or tempered by his example? We are inspired by the unbroken Al Zaidi, but his keepers, our governments, know how to repress our audacity. We’re let to celebrate Al Zaidi as a hero, but he has also been made an example, for rule by state terrorism.

Said al Zaidi: “What provoked me to a confrontation was the injustice that has befallen my people, and the way in which the occupation wanted to humiliate my country by placing it and its people—the elderly, women, children and men—under its boot. At the time the Iraqi prime minister appeared on satellite channels saying he would not sleep until he was assured of Bush’s safety, I found ample bedding and cover. As the prime minister was speaking, I was being tortured in the most cruel manner, being electrocuted, beaten with cables, beaten with metal rods.”

Osama on Obama

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Eric Verlo

The usual channels have yielded another video from Osama bin Laden, wherein a still photo of the al-Qaeda godfather accompanies an audio “statement to the American people,” purportedly recorded June 4. Here is the full English translation of the 10 minute tape. First, two questions.

ONE: I find it interesting that the message echoes what most anti-imperialists already believe. From a Chavez, or Ahmadinejad, this text would be timid. Throw in the unverified nature of this transmission, the mystery of whether Osama lives, or whose interest he really served, and this new tape subverts somebody’s message, but whose?

For example, in the new tape, Osama bin Laden recommends three books. The NYT is quick to tell us that any recommendation from bin Laden is certainly unwelcome by any author. The books? The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. The NYT just as quickly dismissed the titles as well.

TWO: Why does no one release the full translation of Osama’s message? Newspapers comment on his statements based on interpretations made by US intelligence contractors, who themselves do not release their translations to the public.

Are there no Arabic speakers who wish to translate bin Laden’s words for the international audience? Why is everyone content to hear what the US government says is Osama’s message?

Extracts the US media is reprinting of Osama’s message:

“Reasonable people know that Obama is a powerless man who will not be able to end the war as he promised, but rather, will continue it to the highest point possible.”

“The bitter truth is that the neoconservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you.”

“Ask yourselves to determine your position: is your security, your blood, your children, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation dearer to you than the security of the Israelis, their children and their economy?

“If you choose your security and cessation of war … this requires you to work to punish those on your side who play with our security.”

“The time has come for you to liberate yourselves from fear and the ideological terrorism of neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby.”

“The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine.”

“If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups.”

“Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq — as Bush claimed — it should have been liberated.”

“If you stop the war, then fine. Otherwise we will have no choice but to continue our war of attrition on every front… If you choose safety and stopping wars, as opinion polls show you do, then we are ready to respond to this.”

“You have only changed the faces in the White House.”

The full English translation, courtesy of the NEFA Foundation:

“All praise is due to Allah who created [the] creation for His servants and commanded them to justice, and who permitted those who have been unjustly treated to carry out similar vengeance against their oppressors…”

“O’ people of America, my speech to you is a reminder of the reasons behind [September] 11 and what took place in its aftermath in the form of wars, and claims, and the path to escape from its causes. Specifically, I draw attention to the families of those who were killed during these events, and those who have recently called for open investigations to determine the causes that led to them— this is your first step in the right direction amongst many steps that deliberately missed the path throughout eight years of little prosper that have passed you by. And it is correct that the American people should have sympathy for them, because the longer it takes you to recognize the real causes, the higher a price you will pay, needlessly. Thus, since the administration in the White House—one of the sides in this struggle— has appealed to you for years that war is necessary to ensure your security, then, to understand the truth, a wise man would want to heed and listen to both sides of the struggle, so lend me your ears.”

“First, I say: we have shown and declared many times over more than two and a half decades that our dispute with you [is based on] your support of your allies; the Israeli occupiers of our land in Palestine. It was this stance—along with other injustices—that moved us to carry out the events of September 11. If you realized the extent of our suffering caused by the injustices of the Jews backed by your administration, then you would understand that both of our nations are victims of the policies laid down by the White House, which in reality is nothing but a puppet in the hands of powerful interest groups, specifically big corporations and the Israel lobby.”

“And, the best voice who has tried to explain to you the reasons behind [September] 11 is one of your own citizens, the veteran former CIA agent whose conscience awoke in his eighth decade [of age] and he decided to tell the truth despite the pressure against him, and explained for you the message behind September 11. Thus, he carried out some actions for this purpose

specifically, from within that is his book titled, ‘Apology of a Mercenary.’ Similarly, with regards to the suffering of our people in Palestine, Obama recently confessed in his speech in Cairo to the suffering of our people there [in Palestine], under occupation and sanctions. And the matter becomes even clearer if you read what your former president Jimmy Carter has written about the Israeli discrimination against our people in Palestine, or had you listened to his statement some weeks ago, while visiting besieged and ravaged Gaza, when he said, ‘the people of Gaza are treated more like animals than human beings’…”

“And here we should pause for a moment, for anyone with an atom’s weight of mercy is compelled to sympathize with the suffering of the elderly, women, and children under the fatal siege, while above them the Zionists pour down burning American-made white-phosphorus bombs. Life there is miserable beyond any conception, such as the number of children who are dying in the hands of their fathers and doctors because of a lack of food, medicine, and basic electricity. It is truthfully a stain of shame on the forehands of all world politicians who facilitate this, and the people who ally with them with prior knowledge of their intentions—along with the influence from the Israeli lobby in America. The details regarding this have been clarified by two of your citizens, they are John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt in the book ‘The Israel Lobby in the United States.’ Upon reading these various suggested works, you will discover the truth and you will be terribly shocked by the scale of the deception that has been used against you. You will also discover that, even today, those who issue statements from inside the White House and claim that your wars against us are necessary for your security are the same ones who worked under the regime of Cheney and Bush, and marketed their former policies of fear to safeguard the interests of large corporations at the expense of your blood and economy. Truthfully, those are the ones responsible for forcing war upon you, not the mujahideen—as we are [merely] defending the right to liberate our land.”

“And should you consider your situation at some depth, then you will discover that the White House is actually occupied by interest groups, and that it [the White House] should have been liberated, instead of fighting to liberate Iraq as Bush claimed. The role of a White House leader in today’s atmosphere, regardless of his name, is like a train conductor who has no choice but to move forward on the rails laid down by interest groups—or else its path will be obstructed—and who lives in fear that his fate will be that of the former president [John F.] Kennedy and his brother.”

“The conclusion of my speech: it is time to liberate yourselves from the fear and mental terrorism that the neo-conservatives and the Israeli Lobby have used to manipulate you. Put the issue of your alliance with the Israelis up for debate and ask yourselves what your stance is: is your own security, blood, children, money, jobs, homes, economy, and reputation more important to you, or do you prefer the safety of the Israelis, their children, and economy? If you choose your own security and bring the war to a halt—and this is what the opinion polls have shown is most popular—then you must work and replace the hands of those from amongst you who have endangered our safety, and we are ready to respond to this decision in accordance with sound and just principles that have been previously mentioned. And here, there is an important point that requires attention regarding the war and stopping it: when Bush took power and appointed a secretary of defense who had assisted in killing two million suffering villagers in Vietnam, intelligent people predicted on that day that Bush was preparing for new massacres during his term in office, and this is what occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then, Obama took charge and kept Cheney and Bush’s men—those from the senior leadership in the Pentagon—like Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus. Intelligent people understand that Obama is a weak man who cannot stop the war like he promised, but instead, he will postpone it to the greatest possible degree. If he was really in control, then he would have handed over leadership to the generals who have opposed this foolish war—like the former forces commander General Sanchez and the head of Central Command who was forced by Bush to resign shortly before leaving the White House because of his opposition to the war. Instead, he [Bush] appointed someone else who would press on after him.”

“Furthermore, Obama—under the pretext of his willingness to cooperate with the Republicans— has tricked you with a big fraud, as he kept the most important and most dangerous secretary— Cheney’s man—to continue the war. It will become clear to you over the coming days that you have changed nothing in the White House except faces—the bitter truth is that the neo-conservatives are still heavily shadowing you.”

“Returning back to the original point, if you stop the war, then so be it. But otherwise, it is inevitable that we will continue our war of extermination against you on all possible fronts, just as we annihilated the Soviet Union for a decade until it was dismantled, by the grace of Allah. So, go ahead and prolong this war as long as you want, but you are engaged in a miserable losing war for the interests of others that seems to have no end in sight. The Russian Generals—who were shaken by the battles in Afghanistan—warned you what the outcome of the war would be before it began, but you refuse to listen to those who advise you. This war is being financed through ghoulish interests, the morale of your soldiers is collapsing, and they are committing suicide on a daily basis to escape it. It is a failed war, Allah willing.”

“This is has all been prescribed for you by the doctors Cheney and Bush as medicine for the events of September 11, yet, the bitterness and loss this has caused is worse than that of the events themselves. The accumulated debt alone has almost led to the collapse of the entire American economy. It has been said, some illnesses are tolerated more than their medicine. And we, by the grace of Allah, continue to carry our weapons slung over our shoulders, fighting the evil powers in the east and west for thirty years, and in all that time, we have not recorded a single incident of suicide despite the global pursuit targeting us, praise be to Allah. This should tell you something about the righteousness of our doctrine and the justice of our cause. Allah-willing, we are moving forward on our path to liberate our land; patience is our weapon and we seek victory from Allah, and we will not abandon Al-Aqsa Mosque, as our grasp on Palestine is greater than our grasp onto our souls… Thus, you can lengthen the war as you desire, [but] by Allah, we will not compromise in the least over it.”

The original Arabic transcript:

????? ??? ???? ?????? ???????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ? ???? ??????? ?? ????? ?? ????? ??????.?????? ????? . .?????? ????? ???????? ? ????? ??? ????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ?? ????? ???????? ??????? ?????? ?? ????? ? ?????? ?????? ??? ???????? ?? ??? ??????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ????? ????? ?????? ??????? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ?? ??????? ?????? ?? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ??? ???? ????? ???? ???? ??? ????? .????? ?????? ???????? ??? ?? ???? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ??????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ???? ????? ? ??? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ????? ????? ? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??????? ?? ??????? ??? ???? ?????? ??????? ??????? ? ???????? ??????? .
????????? ???? : ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ?? ????? ???????? ???????????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ? ??????? ??? ?? ??? ??????? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??? ? ??? ????? ??? ???????? ?? ???? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ???????? ??? ?????? ?? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????? ????? ?????? ? ????? ?? ?? ??????? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ?????????? .???? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ??? ?? ??? ???????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ????????? ? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ??????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??????? : ( ?????? ????? ??????? ) .????? ???? ??? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ?????? ? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ??????? ??????? ????? ???? ???????? ??? ???????? ??????? ? ?????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ?????? ????? ?? ?????? ???????????? ??? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??????? ??? ?????? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ???????? ????? ??? ??? : ” ?? ???? ??? ???????? ???? ???????? ???? ?? ????? ????? ” ? ?????? ???? ???? ??????.????? ????? ?????? ?????? ? ??? ??? ???? ?? ??? ????? ????? ???? ?? ???? ? ?? ???? ??? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ?????????? ?? ?????? ??????? ???????? ???????? ??? ?????? ?????? ? ???? ??? ??? ????? ???????? ????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ????????? ????? , ??????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? , ??? ???? ??? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ???????? ???? ?????? ??????? ??????? ???????? ? ???? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ??????? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ? ??? ???? ????? ????? ? ??????? ?? ?????? ?????????? ?? ?????? , ????? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ???????? ??? ??? ???????? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ( ?????? ?????????? ?? ???????? ??????? ) ? ???? ??????? ????? ???????? ??????? ??? ??????? ???????? ?????? ????? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ????? ???????? ????? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ??????? ?? ?????? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ????????? , ?????? ?? ?? ??????? ????? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? ????????? , ???? ???? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ????? .???? ?????? ?? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ???? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??? ??? ??? ? ??????? ???? ????? ?????? ?? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ?? ???? ??? ??????? ???? ?????? ?????? ????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????.??????? ????? : ?? ?????? ?? ??????? ?? ????? ???????? ?????? ???? ?????? ????? ????????? ????? ??????? ?????????? ? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ???????????? ??? ????? ?????? ???????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?? ????? ??????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ??????? ??? ????? , ?? ??? ???????????? ???????? ????????? ? ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ?????? – ???? ?? ?????? ????????? ????? – ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ??? ???? ???????? ?????? ?? ????? , ???? ??????? ??????? ?? ??? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ??? ????? .????? ???? ???? ????? ???????? ????? ????? ????? ???????? ??? ??? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?? ??? ??????? ?? ???????? ?????????? ?? ?????? ? ????? ???? ??????? ?? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? ?????? ?????????? ? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???????? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ????? ???????? ??? ??????? ?? ?????? ???? ?????? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ??? ??? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ? ??? ??? ?? ?? ????? ??? ?????? ??????? ????????? ????????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?????? ?? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ???? ????? ??? ??? ????????? ??? ??????? ????? ?????? ????? ????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? .????? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ???????? ??????? ?? ?????????? ? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ??? ??? ????? ????? ?? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ? ??????? ??? ?? ?????? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ??? ?????? ??? ?? ???????? ?????? ?? ?? ????????? ????? ?? ????? ????? ??????? ??????? ?????.
?? ?????? ??? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ????? ???? , ???? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ?????? ??? ?? ?????? ??? ????????? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ??????? ??? ???????? ??????? ????????? ???? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??? ??? ? ??????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ????? ?????? ?????? ????? ????? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ????? .????? ????? ??????? ????? ????? ?????? ??????? ?? ????????? ?????? ????? ??? ?? ??????? ? ?????? ?? ????? ???????? , ????? ??????? ??? ???????? ?????? ??????? ????? ????? ? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ???? ? ??? ???? ?????? ???? ???? ????? . ????? ????? ????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ? ????? ??????? ???????? ???? ?? ????? ??????? ????? ? ??? ?? ?????? ??????? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ? ??? ??? : ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????? .????? ???? ???? ????? ???? ?????? ??? ??????? ? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ??? ?????? ??? ? ??? ??????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ???????? ??????? ??? ???? ????? ??????? ? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ? ???? ???? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ?????? ????? , ?????? ????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ? ??? ?????? ?? ??????? ??????? ??????? ???? ?? ?????? ???????? .???????????? ??? ?????? ?? ??????? ? ?????? ??? ?????? ???????? ?????? ..???? ???? ????? ?????? ???????? ?????? ????? ?????????? ???? ?????????? ?????
???????? ??? ?? ???? ????? .

Speak 2 x 4 to power, just do it.

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Found this brilliant submission in the Start-Propaganda collection. The Reichtag Fire false- flag attack will have nothing on the debris of the WTC. For your 8th commemoration of the enigmatic event which is still used to justify the occupation of Afghanistan, check out the Italian documentary ZERO. My favorite segment is George Bush on the perpetrators of 9/11: “It’s hard for Americans to imagine how evil the people are who are doing this.” Less and less so.

In keeping the anniversary of 9/11, we also revisited the sentimental documentary by the Naudet brothers, whose video had captured the impact of the first plane, and the ensuing action of the firefighters inside Building One. Excised from the final cut were the firehouse discussions of other explosions they’d heard and their observations that the collapses resembled demolitions. Those clips are accessible online, and now you’ll recognize the individual firemen. Perhaps those details were deemed inappropriate for the CBS audience in 2004.

It’s also sad to look upon these interviews of men who later worked ceaselessly at Ground Zero, often without masks, and wonder how many are now dead, or dying of respiratory ailments, victims of the government fraud about the safety of the environment in the aftermath of the disaster.

Watching the doomed firemen ascend into the WTC without a thought that the towers might collapse, and being shown the buildings vaporize, narrated by uncritical newspeople, we cannot wonder now but did they take American viewers for idiots?

Among the many documentaries which question the official version of events, Italian Telemaco’s ZERO: an Investigation into 9-11 takes the least sensational approach. Italian celebrities, a laughing physicist (and Nobel laureate), and Gore Vidal shrug off the sheer pretense of the USA narrative.

Watching the original 911 exposés like 911 Loose Change and 911 Conspiracy – In Plane Sight gets old doesn’t it? Not because their presentation is shrill, but because unanswered, what can they do but repeat themselves?

The mainstream response has only been to dismiss the 911 Truth movement as Conspiracy Theory. Throw Alex Jones’ Prison Planet TV into the mix with his 9/11 The Road To Tyranny and alternative versions of September 11th, 2001, begin to look paranoid.

For a fresh perspective from the UK, check out 911 and the British Broadcasting Conspiracy.

Remember, the mainstream media which dismisses 9/11 truth seekers as conspiracy theorists, is the same media which is now telling us that the American public does not want universal health care.

The same media which has been “questioning” Global Warming now puts the onus for change on whether an American public will believe Global Warming.

The same corporate media is owned, and speaks for, big agra, big pharma, big oil, and the arms industry.

Is there a Monsanto/Cargill/Archer-Daniels-Midland conspiracy to monopolize the food supply? Is there a military industrial conspiracy to foment war and instability? Is there a globalization conspiracy to harness developing world resources while enslaving all peoples?

Who is the corporate media to defend the 911 myth against accusations of conspiracy?

What the impregnability of the accepted 9/11 story means to me, is that the 911 Truth Movement clings to an outdated notion that what the population knows matters. In a post-democratic world it doesn’t. The people can believe their feudal overlords to be ogres, so long as it isn’t uttered with intent to dethrone. Then it’s heresy.

The Spirit of Revolt

Posted on August 5, 2009 by NMT

There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an application in life. These ideas are opposed by the inertia of those whose interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling atmosphere of prejudice and traditions. The accepted ideas of the constitution of the state, of the laws of social equilibrium, of the political and economic interrelations of citizens, can hold out no longer against the implacable criticism which is daily undermining them?…?Political, economic and social institutions are crumbling. The social structure, having become uninhabitable, is hindering, even preventing, the development of seeds which are being propagated within its damaged walls and being brought forth around them.

The need for a new life becomes apparent. The code of established morality, that which governs the greater number of people in their daily life, no longer seems sufficient. What formerly seems just is now felt to be a crying injustice. The morality of yesterday is today recognized as revolting immorality. The conflict between new ideas and old traditions flames up in every class of society?…?the popular conscience rises up against the scandals which breed amidst the privileged and leisured, against the crimes committed in the name of “the law of the stronger,” or in order to maintain these privileges. Those who long for the triumph of justice, those who would put new ideas into practice, are soon forced to recognize that the realization of their generous, humanitarian and regenerating ideas cannot take place in a society thus constituted. They perceive the necessity of a revolutionary whirlwind which will sweep away all this rottenness, revive sluggish hearts with its breath and bring to mankind that spirit of devotion, self-denial and heroism, without which society sinks through degradation and vileness into complete disintegration.

In periods of frenzied haste toward wealth, of feverish speculation and of crisis, of the sudden downfall of great industries and the ephemeral expansion of other branches of production, of scandalous fortunes amassed in a few years and dissipated as quickly, it becomes evident that the economic institutions which control production and exchange are far from giving to society the prosperity which they are supposed to guarantee. They produce precisely the opposite result. Instead of order they bring forth chaos; instead of prosperity, poverty and insecurity; instead of reconciled interests, war – a perpetual war of the exploiter against the worker, of exploiters and of workers among themselves. Human society is seen to be splitting more and more into two hostile camps, and at the same time to be subdividing into thousands of small groups waging merciless war against each other. Weary of these wars, weary of the miseries which they cause, society rushes to seek a new organization. It clamors loudly for a complete remodeling of the system of property ownership, of production, of exchange all economic relations which spring from it.

The machinery of government, entrusted with the maintenance of the existing order, continues to function, but at every turn of its deteriorated gears, it slips and stops. Its working becomes more and more difficult, and the dissatisfaction caused by its defects grows continuously. Every day gives rise to a new demand. “Reform this,” “Reform that,” is heard from all sides. “War, finance, taxes, courts, police, everything would have to be remodeled, reorganized, established on a new basis,” say the reformers. And yet all know that it is impossible to make things over, to remodel anything at all because everything is interrelated; everything would have to be remade at once. And how can society be remodeled when it is divided into two openly hostile camps? To satisfy the discontented would be only to create new malcontents.

Incapable of undertaking reforms, since this would mean paving the way for revolution, and at the same time too impotent to be frankly reactionary, the governing bodies apply themselves to half-measures which can satisfy nobody, and only cause new dissatisfaction. The mediocrities who, in such transition periods, undertake to steer the ship of state, think of but one thing: to enrich themselves against the coming debacle. Attacked from all sides they defend themselves awkwardly, they evade, they commit blunder upon blunder and they soon succeed in cutting the last rope of salvation. They drown the prestige of the government in ridicule, caused by their own incapacity.

Such periods demand revolution. It becomes a social necessity; the situation itself is revolutionary.

When we study in the works of our greatest historians the genesis and development of vast revolutionary convulsions, we generally find under the heading “The Cause of the Revolution” a gripping picture of the situation on the eve of events. The misery of the people, the general insecurity, the vexatious measures of the government, the odious scandals laying bare the immense vices of society, the new ideas struggling to come to the surface and repulsed by the incapacity of the supporters of the former regime – nothing is omitted. Examining this picture, one arrives at the conviction that the revolution was indeed inevitable, and that there was no other way out than by the road of insurrection?…?But, between this pacific arguing and insurrection or revolt, there is a wide abyss – that abyss which, for the greatest part of humanity, lies between reasoning and action, thought and the will to act. How has this abyss been bridged??…?How was it that words, so often spoken and lost in the air like the empty chiming of bells, were changed in actions?

The answer is easy. Action. The continuous action, ceaselessly renewed, of minorities brings about this transformation. Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, are as contagious as cowardice, submission and panic.

What forms will this action take? All forms – indeed, the most varied forms, dictated by circumstances, temperament and the means at disposal. Sometimes tragic, sometimes humorous, but always daring; sometimes collective, sometimes purely individual, this policy of action will neglect none of the means at hand, no event of public life, in order to keep the spirit alive, to propagate and find expression for dissatisfaction, to excite hatred against exploiters, to ridicule the government and expose its weakness and above all and always, by actual example, to awaken courage and fan the spirit of revolt.

When a revolutionary situation arises in a country, before the spirit of revolt is sufficiently awakened in the masses to express itself in violent demonstrations in the streets or by rebellions and uprisings, it is through action that minorities succeed in awakening that feeling of independence and that spirit of audacity without which no revolution can come to a head.

Men of courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the means to transform them into action – men of integrity for whom the act is one with the idea, for whom prison, exile and death are preferable to a life contrary to their principles, intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to dare in order to succeed – these are the lonely sentinels who enter the battle long before the masses are sufficiently roused to raise openly the banner of insurrection and to march, arms in hand, to the conquest of their rights?…?Whoever has a slight knowledge of history and a fairly clear head knows perfectly well from the beginning that theoretical propaganda for revolution will necessarily express itself in action long before the theoreticians have decided that the moment to act has come.

Nevertheless the cautious theoreticians are angry at these madmen, they excommunicate them, they anathematize them. But the madmen win sympathy, the mass of the people secretly applaud their courage and they find imitators?…?Acts of illegal protest, of revolt, of vengeance, multiply.

Indifference from this point on is impossible?…?By actions which compel general attention, the new idea seeps into people’s minds and wins converts?…?Above all, it awakens the spirit of the revolt: it breeds daring?…?The people observe that the monster is not so terrible as they thought; they begin dimly to perceive that a few energetic efforts will be sufficient to throw it down. Hope is born in their hearts, and let us remember that if exasperation often drives men to revolt, it is always hope – the hope of victory – which makes revolutions.

The government resists; it is savage in its repressions. But, though formerly persecution killed the energy of the oppressed, now, in periods of excitement, it produces the opposite result. It provokes new acts of revolt, individual and collective. It drives the rebels to heroism, and in rapid succession these acts spread, become general, develop. The revolutionary party is strengthened by elements, which up to this time were hostile or indifferent to it. The general disintegration penetrates into the government, the ruling classes, the privileged. Some of them advocate resistance to the limit; others are in favor of concessions; others, again, go so far as to declare themselves ready to renounce their privileges for the moment, in order to appease the spirit of revolt, hoping to dominate again later on. The unity of the government and the privileged class is broken.

The ruling class may also try to find safety in savage reaction. But it is now too late; the battle only becomes more bitter, more terrible, and the revolution which is looming will only be more bloody. On the other hand, the smallest concession of the governing classes, since it comes too late, since it has been snatched in struggle, only awakes the revolutionary spirit still more. The common people, who formerly would have been satisfied with the smallest concession, observe now that the enemy is wavering. They foresee victory, they feel their courage growing, and the same men who were formerly crushed by misery and were content to sigh in secret, now lift their heads and march proudly to the conquest of a better future.

Finally, the revolution breaks out, the more terrible as the preceding struggles were bitter.

The Spirit of Revolt, Pyotr Kropotkin, 1880.

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The Myth of Middle Ground

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