Archive for category Citizenship

ambitious plans for recruiting informants

Oct 20

Posted by A. Peasant in Citizenship, Civil Rights, FBI, Surveillance, Terrorism | No Comments

Hey, the The Nazi Gestapo started out as a volunteer neighborhood informant organization for the government, too. This goes back to 2003:

In a recent telephone interview, Licata said he wants to use CAT Eyes to create what he calls “a modern civil defense network,” converting neighborhood watch groups into anti-terrorist informant cells. These groups, constantly watching for signs of terrorist activity in their neighborhoods and workplaces, would report suspicious activities directly to the FBI. Said Licata: “I envision 100 million Americans looking for indicators of terrorism and promptly reporting it to a central database where it would get analyzed.”. . .

Licata has few qualms about the prospect of CAT Eyes-trained citizens spying on their neighbors. “If I felt that my neighbor of 10 years was doing fund-raising for a group, I’d turn ‘em in,” says Licata. After all, he says, the FBI will “just investigate them — and if you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And if you’re right, that’s a big thing!”. . .

Even communist East Germany, a tightly controlled society with more informants per capita than either Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, was not as ambitious about citizen surveillance as CAT Eyes. In its heyday, the EastGerman secret police, or Stasi, is generally believed to have had about 2 million informers, or about one-eighth of the East German population.

Oh but that would never happen here, right? Americans are freedom-loving people. This goes back to 2002:

In order to sell the community on this program, its creators probably equipped it with convincing propaganda, which is delivered by professionals. Although there has been no official admission that the following federal resources function as recruitment programs for public harassment, they are similar to ones used in German and Russian dictatorships.

The Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), appears to be a bulked-up version of a community-policing program. Even though TIPS was officially rejected by congress, the American Civil Liberty Union contends that it and similar programs are being used aggressively across the nation. Other programs must have sprung up around the planet because the reported tactics of Gang Stalking in other countries are similar.

But who is the threat? According to some of these documents at www.citizencorps.gov, the targets are criminals and terrorists. However, the definition of a terrorist in section 802 of the US Patriot Act is frighteningly vague. Basically it defines terrorism as any action that endangers human life or that violates state or federal law.

An article entitled, US Planning to Recruit One in 24 Americans as Citizen Spies, which appeared in the Sunday Morning Herald on July 15, 2002, provided us with another clue. It stated, “The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police.”

The articled revealed that the system is poised to recruit those whose work provides access to homes, businesses, and public transportation systems. Postal workers, utility employees, truck drivers, train conductors and others are to be recruited. On “state and local” levels these informants are to be directed by FEMA. This provides a motive for the reports of people being stalked by 18-wheelers, busses, city, postal, and utility vehicles.

Oh, hey, the CAKE IS FINALLY DONE! HERE THEY ARE NOW!!!

If you really think there’s a difference between iWATCH and Stasi, you’re a Good American. And I don’t mean that in the “nice” way.

The Stasi created a widespread network of civilian informants. These informants were citizens who cooperated with Stasi agents, sometimes in exchange for money or goods. These unofficial informants used their jobs, social influence, and family networks to spy on fellow citizens. Informants were required to report suspicious or anti-government behavior to Stasi authorities. Tips from informants were followed by further agent surveillance or immediate arrest. The Stasi maintained its own network of detention camps and prisons, the most notorious of which was Bauden II. The Stasi garnered a reputation for its use of brutality, torture, and blackmail as routine methods of extracting information and coercing cooperation.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that

Feb 4

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Citizenship, Israel, Media | 17 Comments

I have not been able to confirm this little gem of a quote from Israeli 10th TV channel, but it has the ring of truth, like the soap scum around a dirty bathtub.

“Another Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache, stated that she was not worried about negative ramifications the Israeli onslaught on Gaza might have on the way the Obama administration would view Israel. She said ‘You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can’t criticize Israel.”Commenting on the latest Israeli one-directional onslaught against the Palestinians of Gaza Strip, the Israeli 10th TV channel has disclosed that the Israeli genocidal forces had used half of its air force and had launched at least 2500 air raids against Gaza Strip.

I’m sure Abe Foxman and other apologists would tell us that there’s nothing wrong, per se, with Israel controlling American media, our congress, show biz and basically everything here; but, again, as with Olmert, it’s a mistake to talk about it.

If that doesn’t make you spit nails, you really are a boot-licker.

Surviving the Exorcism

Oct 24

Posted by Marlena in Citizenship, Psychology, Religion | No Comments

While wrestling our current situation into a brown paper bag to give as a take-home for a dear friend, it just occurs to me why this is such a difficult thing to do. You see, how can it be any other way when we battle in the world of ideas? The epic struggle only partially manifests in the walking around world…so far…but it has raged in full-blown color across the internet for years. This is essentially the battle for truth. Meanwhile, the enemy, deathly afraid of being exposed, fills the internet with one thousand million lies to obscure the truth. Only with perseverance does one eventually thread the needle and say, WTF? Well, at least this is how I experience it.

So to be engaged in this battle before it breaks fully out into the open is a certain type of calling. That nagging desire to know the truth, to dig and dig and sort through all sorts of ideas, from absolute garbage to slick and glittering disinformation, and everything in between, in order to find the choice bits and sew them together into some crazy quilt of truth…if only Dr. Seuss were still here. It’s all so unbelievable and fantastical and yet, there’s a real moral to the story. A solid, simple truth really does exist, and it boils down to this:

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Matthew 6:24

That’s it. Every crazy thing happening in the world can be traced back to the sad fact that some people really hate God and love money. And when I say God, I’m not talking about this religion or that religion, because obviously, a lot of people use religions as yet another clever way to hate God and love money. I’m talking about the all-powerful God, who utterly transcends our puny abilities to apprehend him. Either you hate God or you love him. And if you love God, you will not be revolving your life around money.

It’s really very, very simple. Money should rightfully be a means to an end — serving God, rather than an end in and of itself — amassing piles of money and screaming maniacally as you fling handfuls of gold coins over your head, “I’m RICH!! I Rule the WORLD!! Bwa ha ha ha ha!!” And I think it has become painfully obvious to everyone concerned, and that would be everyone, that some people really have turned into cartoonish and demented evil-doers worshiping money, and as an aside, we should pray for them to have some sort of near-death experience or whatever it takes to smarten them up before they die and rot in hell for eternity. But I digress…

So the battle of ideas has been engaged for some time, and now it has begun to really spill out onto the streets via the financial sector. Does this not seem totally appropriate? How could it be any other way? The good news is this: since they have forced everyone to play their sick little game where the winners and losers get determined by $, everyone will now pay attention. That’s the risk to their end game — that we pissed-off losers pay attention as we lose ‘big time,’ and the winners become fully exposed as the cheaters and liars they are before they’ve had enough time to consolidate and secure their control over us poor losers.

So what can we expect now?

In M. Scott Peck’s book People of the Lie: The hope for healing human evil, he discusses two exorcisms he attended. To greatly oversimplify, first he describes how the pretense must be broken. After great turmoil comes the expulsion, followed by lots of threats.

Many skills were required in each of these battles with the demonic: analytic detachment, compassionate involvement, intellectual formulation, intuitive insight, spiritual discernment, deep understanding of theology, thorough knowledge of psychiatry, great experience with prayer, and others. No one person can possess all these skills…a true team approach was absolutely necessary. I also had a sense in both exorcisms that our weaknesses and mistakes were being used as well. (199)

We fast approach the breaking of the pretense, the dropping of the mask in public. When that happens, events will proceed very quickly. Thank God the work of exposing evil has been well underway for years on the internet, otherwise we might not survive the exorcism. But I believe we will.

The healing of evil - scientifically or otherwise - can be accomplished only by the love of individuals. A willing sacrifice is required. The individual healer must allow his or her own soul to become the battleground. He or she must sacrificially absorb the evil….I know that good people can deliberately allow themselves to be pierced by the evil of others - to be broken thereby yet somehow not broken - to even be killed in some sense and yet still survive and not succumb. Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world. (269)

I have begged people to please pay attention, to wake up, to look at pictures and read the painful evidence of evil. This is why. We must make certain sacrifices of our own comfort. Not just our physical comfort, though that is coming. We must sacrifice our intellectual comfort, our emotional comfort, and especially our pride if we will ever overcome evil on this earth. If you haven’t shed bitter tears yet for the innocent children of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine — children killed with our money — you have not yet taken the spear of evil into your heart and absorbed your share. It’s time. It’s time to love God and forget about money.

When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards. - CS Lewis

We are living through a hinge of history

Oct 20

Posted by Marlena in Citizenship, Corruption & Crime, McCain/Palin, Media, Politics, Psychology | No Comments

It’s hard to know what to say right now. Certainly there’s plenty to read, but understanding and integrating it all gives me intellectual indigestion. On top of that, certain dogs have not been barking lately, and that has to be factored in the calculus somewhere, too.

My overall impression — 100,000′ view — is that the forces of good are prevailing. However, I do not expect this to be obvious for some time. Something very important must happen first: the filthy infection of greed, selfishness, ignorance and the love of lies and liars must be radically expunged from our nation. Denial must end. Truth must be faced. People must feel shame, remorse, and contrition for what we have allowed to take place in our names. Some of us already feel this, but many still have that smug quality developed from years of professional scapegoating.

Yes, we have been lied to, stolen from, poisoned and abused, but we have also been complacent and greedy. And all our wounds, which we nurse and lick in misery, we’ve inflicted on innocent people around the world. Our country will continue to suffer until massive numbers (ie: 95%) of Americans face these facts and experience remorse.

Given the widespread inability to think and reason, the massive addiction to corporate media propaganda, and the rich veins of racism and anger currently being strip mined by McCain/Palin in particular; we’re nowhere near turning this thing around. But it has begun, and that is something; and it cannot be stopped. We will suffer until we have suffered enough, until the last ignorant asshole in America finally realizes that this country no longer caters to ignorant assholes. It’s going to take awhile, and it’s going to really suck; but this will be worth it.

Think about it

Oct 10

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Citizenship | No Comments

Bush has struck down Posse Comitatus. He has gutted the US Constitution. He has stationed US military units on American soil. From Wayne Madsen:

WMR has learned from knowledgeable Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sources that the Bush administration is putting the final touches on a plan that would see martial law declared in the United States with various scenarios anticipated as triggers. The triggers include a continuing economic collapse with massive social unrest, bank closures resulting in violence against financial institutions, and another fraudulent presidential election that would result in rioting in major cities and campuses around the country.

What can save us from this outcome? The military would have to disobey Bush’s orders.

They would have to go against the Commander in Chief, in support of their oath to defend the US Constitution and in spite of Bush’s many signing statements and other shenanigans designed to circumvent the US Constitution.

“Should Americans call on senior leaders in the Military to break publicly with this action and call on their own men and women to disobey these orders?”

“Every senior military officer’s loyalty should ultimately be to the Constitution. Every officer should publicly break with any illegal order, even from the President.”

“But if these are now legal. If they say, ‘Don’t obey the Commander in Chief,’ what happens to the military?”

“Perhaps they would be arrested and prosecuted as those who refuse to participate in the current illegal war. That’s what would be considered a coup.”

“But it’s a coup already.”

“Yes.”

Yes. Exactly. All the things that have happened already to dispose of the US Constitution, that annoying piece of paper, must be considered a coup. The Bush Regime has already overthrown the Republic, otherwise none of this would even be happening. As George Washington explains:

Remember that, for years, Congress has operated under “martial law” provisions which force Congress members to vote on legislation without having time to adequately read and review it.

Remember also that the U.S. has been in a declared state of national emergency for 7 years, and normal constitutional provisions were probably long ago superseded.

As University of California Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott has warned:

“The systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.

To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating [Congress' requests], then [the declared state of emergency] has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority.”

And remember that U.S. troops are being stationed inside the U.S. to suppress “civil unrest”.

Whether or not there is martial law in name, there is martial law in fact.

So this has become a game of semantics. Resisting a coup which has already occurred against the US Constitution, is simply resisting a coup. Resistance is an act of patriotism in defense of the US Constitution, which has been ruthlessly attacked. Again, the coup has already taken place by the Bush Administration and its Congressional and Judicial Enablers, Media Tools and Corporate Minions. They just didn’t call it a coup. They are saving that very speficic, emotionally loaded term to use against the American People and People in the US Military Who May Decide to Uphold Their Oaths to Protect and Defend the US Constitution from All Enemies Foreign and Domestic once those enemies start attacking the American people In Earnest.

But we have seen this all before. In exactly the same way that racist Zionist supremacists loudly accuse anyone who confronts them of being anti-semites, the Bush government will loudly accuse anyone resisting its tyranny as tyrants and violent upstarts trying to overthrow the Government, and Democracy, and Western Civilization, and All that is Good and Just in Creation. Ha. Such propaganda.

The Release

Oct 7

Posted by Marlena in Citizenship | No Comments

As it appears (so far at least) that nothing really major, meaning no one big event like a terrorist attack, etc., triggered the language release discussed and predicted at Urban Survival. The day isn’t done yet, but so far so good.

So what does it all mean? The release language has started, and the guys over there have a theory:

well, Igor informs me that we shifted over into release language sometime around 6:15 am UTC this morning. [go read the items]

…Our best guess as to scenario goes to a continuing, inexorable, grinding down of the global economy as a result of the dying of the usofa dollar. We expect that each day brings more release language, and more behavior alteration which begats even more release langauge as it all piles on…day after day after day for months. With a few exciting release gasps thrown in just as seasoning on the mix.

Yes. I think to be even more specific, what started happening today is that many people are being released from their mind-prisons. They are waking up. Suddenly their eyes begin to focus. Suddenly they begin to comprehend that we really are getting screwed, and that it actually does matter! Who knew?! All those people bitching and pissing and moaning…they were right!

Well Good Morning, People! Come have a cup of coffee. There’s lots of work to do.

So…what shall happen next? I do not know, of course, but I predict that — scary as all the frightening possibilities are with the police state, etc. — that the suddenly awakened people will not walk like zombies into traps. In fact, I think people will create a relatively peaceful chaos as they attempt all sorts of things, independently and in small groups, to cope with the financial destruction. It shall be for the mighty powers lording it all over us like herding cats, as some people go this way, and others go that way.

You see, we are on our own. This is what has become and will increasingly become very obvious, even to those disinclined to believe such things. Bush doesn’t care about us. The bankers don’t care about us. Congress doesn’t care about us. The presidential candidates don’t care about us. Nobody with power cares about We the People, and nobody in power has any credibility whatsoever to tell us what to do. All they have is force, and should they be foolish and cruel enough to take that route, even that will fail.

Since nobody is leading, you are hereby released from following. Go in peace and find a way forward.

Naomi Wolfe: The Coup Began 10/1/08

Oct 7

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Citizenship | No Comments

Is the shoe really going to drop?

Oct 1

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Citizenship, Economy | No Comments

I believe in goodness, and I hope that good will prevail. Deep within this ironical and disappointed being of mine there is a child hidden — a frank, sad, simple creature, who believes in the ideal, in love, in holiness, and all heavenly superstitions. A whole millennium of idylls sleeps in my heart; I am a pseudo-skeptic, a pseudo-scoffer. - Henri Frederic Amiel

Oh people, there are things afoot.

Urban Survival has predictions about next Tuesday, October 7th, and what you should be doing in the event that something big happens, such as:

Due to the proximity of the October 7 events, starting today I would suggest:

Printing off your bank and investment records onto a printer so you have a snapshot of all your financial records

Make offsite back-ups of all critical data on non-magnetic media (e.g. DVD’s)

Have enough cash on hand to live an uninterrupted lifestyle for one week without a bank card working.

October 7th area events are not guaranteed, but if you do these things, you have no downside and only upside if the wheels come off the economy in this patch of time.

Meanwhile, Karl Denninger has a new post up explaining that the bailout actually takes care of the foreign investors, which, strangely enough, has been kept on the QT.

And if that isn’t bad enough for you, the rush rush rush meme might have to do with something called Basel II agreements. An important deadline was missed last night.

Apparently a 90-day extension was given for U.S. banks to get their books in order. That extension expires on Sept. 30th so by Oct. 1st U.S. banks MUST be compliant or they CAN’T DO BUSINESS WITH COMPLIANT (more honest) BANKS. I would guess that the REAL REASON for the sudden big PANIC and RUSH has to do with these deadlines. Nothing else makes sense. And the blaming of “bad mortgages” for the whole mess is totally disingenuous.

IT’S ABOUT THE CRIMINALITY, STUPID!

Basel-II has been a long time coming, and NOW is the due date.

If we consider C. Story’s reports we realize that major U.S. banks have been involved for years in illegal off-the-books hanky panky involving vast sums (trillions) from various trusts. I think Basel-II would put an end to that.

Take a look at Story’s report about this at:
http://www.worldreports.org/news/112_bush_criminal_operation_to_sabotage_basel_ii

BUSH CRIMINAL OPERATION TO SABOTAGE BASEL II

U.S. CRIMINAL OPERATION TO SABOTAGE BASEL II
The US Dark Forces led by Godfather Bush Sr., George Bush 43, Mk-Ultra (’Himmler’) Cheney, the ‘late’ Henry M. Paulson, the late Robert M. Kimmitt, and their collaborators and partners in High Crimes and Misdemeanours, former President William Jefferson Clinton and Hillary Rodomski Clinton, have been desperately seeking, with the enthusiastic assistance of their co-conspirator Robert Rubin at Citibank, and the other US criminal financial institutions led by the CIA’s Bank of America, to torpedo the implementation of Basel II, since it defangs their corruption at the source, causing the criminal kleptocracy immense problems for the future.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE OF STORY RE: BASEL-II

Summary: the panic of Paulson, Bernanke, Bush, Cheney is because their crimes are close to being exposed. Those congressmen who have been bribed to ignore these crimes are also in a panic.

I don’t know about all of this, but if you click through these links you will surely get an eyefull. When one ponders the magnitude of current events, and the world-wide scope of the players involved, and their monstrous greed…well, one almost doesn’t know what to say anymore.

But I will say this. I hope and pray that the good people in the world outnumber the bad people in the world, and that God is merciful and just, and He will give us courage to do the right thing at the appointed hour, which could be very soon. And if we expect foreign peoples to give a crap about our lives and our futures, perhaps we had best show them that we’re worth saving.

This is about Trust

Sep 29

Posted by Marlena in Citizenship, Corruption & Crime | No Comments

In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition, and by the opposition of those who can give the full strength of the argument on the side of error. In an age of authority and spiritual bondage, the opinions of an individual are often important, — sometimes decisive. One voice may determine the judgment of a country. But in an age of free discussion, little is to be feared from great names, on whatever side arrayed. When I hear a man complaining that some cause which he has at heart will be put back for years by a speech of a book, I suspect that his attachment to it is prejudice, that he has no consciousness of standing on a rock. The more discussion the better, if passion and personality be eschewed; and discussion, even if stormy, often winnows truth from error, a good never to be expected in an uninquiring age. — William Ellery Channing, American preacher and religious reformer, 1780-1842, on the slavery question

The proposed bailout will not work because it does not address the problem. In fact, it makes the problem worse.

The problem is trust. It doesn’t exist. It has been actively, purposely eroded by people in all positions of power, whether in Congress, the White House, or the panelled boardrooms of corporate America. Greedy, powerful people erased trust by refusing to deal with the American people in good faith. Republicans did it, and Democrats did it, and corporations did it. And we have been well aware of that for many years. But as it turns out, they don’t deal with each other in good faith, either. Whoever could have predicted such a thing?!?!?!?!

Now ’suddenly’, ‘without warning’, ’surprising them no end’, ‘we’ have a ‘crisis’. Oh boo hoo hoo they cry. Give us lots of money so we can have more confidence.

No. These are junkies and dealers, addicted to money and power. It’s time to go to detox and rehab.

Poor planning on your part does not make a crisis on my part.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay: Princes and lords may flourish or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, When once destroyed can never be supplied. — Oliver Goldsmith, Irish poet, dramatist and novelist, 1728-1774, from The Deserted Village