Twelfth Bough

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Archive for category Civil Rights

Message Control

Jun 3

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Media, Military, Torture | 2 Comments

Welcome to America. Is there anything I can help you find, like a detention facility perhaps?

60 Minutes did a story on Raytheon’s ray gun back in March, and now they just had to do another story on it. Now why would that be necessary, one might ask. Well, the Pentagon really needs this ray gun technology to enjoy the Walmart smiley face seal-of-approval with the American public. Because some people (cough) have suggested that this technology can be abused, and before that suggestion gets around, the DOD had better make sure that everybody knows that the US military is just a bunch of boy scouts who would never do anything to harm innocent civilians, and they only want to save lives, and…well…let’s see what they say.

The Pentagon has been developing a raygun which can harmlessly repel enemies by causing a burning sensation in the top layer of the skin. However, according to CBS’s 60 Minutes, the military is unwilling to actually trust this weapon enough to deploy it in Iraq.

It can ‘harmlessly repel enemies’, but the military is concerned about using this in Iraq. Mind you, over 1.2 million people have already been killed in Iraq, a fact which somewhat belies this grave concern about Iraqis.

Hymes demonstrated the weapon by staging what CBS somewhat oddly called “a scenario soldiers might encounter in Iraq” — a handful of military volunteers, dressed as civilian protesters, who carried signs saying “peace not war” and threw objects at a small group of soldiers. A series of raygun blasts from half a mile away disrupted their chants and finally sent them running.

It doesn’t get much more obvious than this. Watch the video. The gun is going to be used on protesters. American protesters. Anti-war protesters. Because the ray gun can ‘harmlessly repel enemies’. Enemies…protesters…same difference.

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisiton Sue Payton calls the Active Denial System a “huge game-changer” which “would save huge numbers of lives.” She told CBS, “It could be used to read someone’s mind, in effect. … If they continue to come at you, then you’re fairly sure … they’re probably a terrorist or an adversary who wants to do you harm.”

The Active Denial System was developed in secret for ten years before being unveiled by the Pentagon in 2001. As of 2004, it was being described as ready for use in Iraq within the next 12 months. This has still not occurred, and according to Secretary Payton, use of the weapon in Iraq is now “not politically tenable” because after Abu Ghraib “you don’t ever, ever, ever want a system like this to be thought of as a torture weapon.”

These links contain a lot of information, and this technology has been around for some time. The Pentagon would like us all to believe that they would really love to use this technology because it’s totally safe and would save lives, but unfortunately it carries dangerous political risks. People can claim that they have been tortured.

But, you know, torture is in the eye of the beholder. It’s whatever George Bush says it is. You might think you’re being tortured, but if George W Bush says you have not been tortured, well then you haven’t. And anyway, we don’t torture people. We might ‘torture’ them, but we don’t actually torture them. Do you follow me?

If you click through the ‘in secret’ link, Wired did a story on this in December 2006. The technology had already been tested extensively. Some subjects did suffer burns, but the effects were not ‘long lasting’.

The ADS was developed in complete secrecy for 10 years at a cost of $40 million. Its existence was revealed in 2001 by news reports, but most details of ADS human testing remain classified. There has been no independent checking of the military’s claims.

The ADS technology is ready to deploy, and the Army requested ADS-armed Strykers for Iraq last year. But the military is well aware that any adverse publicity could finish the program, and it does not want to risk distressed victims wailing about evil new weapons on CNN.

You see, it’s all ready to go, all except for the PR angle. It’s been ready to go since 2006. Actually, if you click the ‘described’ link to a Boston Business Journal story in December 2004, the technology was even then set to be deployed in Iraq.

With U.S. casualties in Iraq rising, expectations are growing that Raytheon’s weapon, called the Active Denial System, could be sent to Iraq in the next year, according to Charles “Sid” Heal, commander of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. A former Marine, Heal headed nonlethal-weapons training for the U.S. military in Somalia in 1995 and advised Raytheon on the beam’s development.

“It’s there, it’s ready,” said Heal, who has felt the weapon’s beam and compares it to having a hot iron placed on the skin. “It will likely be in Iraq in the next 12 months. They are very, very close.”

If you click on the ‘unveiled’ link, the NYT reported the weapon’s debut back in March 2001.

Known in Pentagon patois as an “active denial system,” the weapon is the fruit of 10 years of research and is intended to help American soldiers in the quasi-military roles they have increasingly been asked to play as peacekeepers or police in places like Kosovo and Ethiopia.

But now, June 2008, you are being asked to believe that the US military fears using this weapon in Iraq and has withheld using this weapon to avoid the possible backlash of the international community. And all this time it could have been saving lives. Obviously this is a tragedy caused by silly political correctness, so this is what we’re gonna do. We’re going to make sure that Americans demand that our military use this weapon to save lives in Iraq, even if we have to let them use it on us first. That’s right. Because we are a decent and upright people, and if we have to fork over billions of taxpayer dollars for secret weapons technology and destroy countries around the world to bring them democracy, well, dammit, we can take a little martial law practice. That will be our sacrifice. In fact, we’re going to volunteer those lefties over there for ray gun target practice.

However, the failure to deploy the weapon as planned has raised suspicions that the real intention is to use it for domestic crowd control.

In 2006, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne was quoted as saying that the device should be used first on Americans, because “if we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation. … If I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”

And now for the final touch…a little cry of poor-mouth from the Air Force.

Raytheon, which developed the system for the Pentagon, is currently selling a more limited-range civilian version of the system, under the name “Silent Guardian,” which it promotes as being suitable for “law enforcement, checkpoint security, facility protection, force protection and peacekeeping missions.”

Commander Charles “Sid” Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, who advised Raytheon in developing the raygun, told CBS that the real reason the system has not been deployed in Iraq is “cowardice.” Heal, a former Marine, took a variety of non-lethal weapons to Somalia in 1995 and was dismayed to find that his superiors felt their supposedly humanitarian mission was better accomplished by killing. He would love to have the Pentagon’s raygun available for such purposes as controlling prison riots.

The Pentagon is spending just $13.1 million on the raygun this year. Secretary Payton agrees this is “absolutely peanuts … chump change,” but she explained to CBS that with only a $475 billion annual budget, “we don’t have enough money to do things that are the here and now.” The raygun is seen as unproven because it has never been deployed in the field, and it has not been deployed in the field because it is unproven.

“Lethal weapons have an easier time getting into our system,” acknowledges Colonel Hymes.

So do you feel guilty yet? Are you ready to volunteer so that this wonderful, non-lethal weapon can be used to save lives? Do you trust that it will always and everywhere be used properly? Will you demand that more of your tax dollars be given to the DOD to resolve their horrible budget shortfalls?

Me either.

There’s Still a Difference

May 31

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Corruption & Crime, Military, Politics, Surveillance | No Comments

Having long been a liberal and a citizen, I certainly have been bitterly disappointed by the Democratic Party’s countless capitulations to the Republicans over the last eight long years. The specific reasons for this, I’m sure, would be fascinating to learn and someday I hope to read all about the dossiers and bribes and taps and threats, but the bottom line is they can’t be trusted and I’m not voting. Having said that, I reject the argument that they’re all (dems and reps) equally complicit in our current dismal state of advanced rotting decay. Complicit? Yes. Equally complicit? No. If they were all equally to blame, then why do things like this keep happening only to people on the left?

Carroll, who requested that his real name not be used, showed up early and waited anxiously for Swanson’s arrival. Ten minutes later, he says, a casually dressed Swanson showed up, flanked by a woman whom he introduced as FBI Special Agent Maureen E. Mazzola. For the next 20 minutes, Mazzola would do most of the talking.“She told me that I had the perfect ‘look,’” recalls Carroll. “And that I had the perfect personality—they kept saying I was friendly and personable—for what they were looking for.”

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

Carroll would be compensated for his efforts, but only if his involvement yielded an arrest. No exact dollar figure was offered.

The story goes on to recall how similar things happened in 2004.

Carroll’s story echoes a familiar theme. During the lead-up the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, the NYPD’s Intelligence Division infiltrated and spied on protest groups across the country, as well as in Canada and Europe. The program’s scope extended to explicitly nonviolent groups, including street theater troupes and church organizations.

There were also two reported instances of police officers, dressed as protestors, purposefully instigating clashes. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, the NYPD orchestrated a fake arrest to incite protestors. When a blond man was “arrested,” nearby protestors began shouting, “Let him go!” The helmeted police proceeded to push back against the crowd with batons and arrested at least two. In a similar instance, during an April 29, 2005, Critical Mass bike ride in New York, video footage captured a “protestor”—in reality an undercover cop—telling his captor, “I’m on the job,” and being subsequently let go.

Then we have the preparations for the DNC in Denver. Apparently, the biggest issue is security and crowd control because….well…just because.

Citing “Denver’s unjustified penchant for secrecy,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed a new lawsuit today in Denver District Court demanding disclosure of security-related equipment purchases connected to the Democratic National Convention this summer.

The suit comes hot on the heels of The Colorado Independent’s Riot Toyz series that last week detailed the panoply of high-tech security vehicles, non-lethal crowd control devices and just plain weird personal restraint devices available for purchase by the Denver Police Department, which has an $18 million equipment budget in its total $50 million federal earmark for convention-related security expenses.

…Responding to ACLU media inquiries that the Denver Police Department has purchased a “sonic ray gun” to subdue unruly crowds, Silverstein said: “If Denver is buying such a device, or any other new-fangled so-called ‘less lethal’ weapons,” Silverstein continued, “the public is certainly entitled to know. And the public is entitled to ask whether Denver has adequately evaluated the manufacturers’ self-serving claims of safety, has established appropriate policies to regulate how and when officers may use such weapons, and has adequately trained its officers.”

‘Non-lethal’ and ‘less lethal’ weapons - these euphemisms apply to the weapons discussed here.

People can say what they want about the weak and mewling democrats, and they may be totally justified, but how convenient for the republicans to have the police power of our nation arrayed in their service to intimidate and entrap their opposition. It indicates that the powerful still want to manage events in a certain direction, does it not?

So as long as things like this keep happening to the left end of the political spectrum and not to the right end, it seems very obvious to me that there is still a difference between democrats and republicans in power. Some people do the wrong things out of coercion and desperation, and others do them out of sheer enjoyment and a lust for power.

The Holy Grail of Crowd Control

May 30

Posted by Marlena in Citizenship, Civil Rights, Military, Torture | 1 Comment

That’s what they call Raytheon’s Silent Guardian, Pain Ray, ADS, call it what you will.

Transmitted at the speed of light over a 700 yard distance, the Pain Ray is a millimeter-wave beam that penetrates 1/64th of an inch beneath the skin, causing the water molecules there to bubble, producing an intense burning sensation, said to feel like being burnt by molten lava or a hot iron. Its delivery system attached to a Humvee and aimed right, the Pain Ray makes people run away — fast.

Tests conducted at Kirtland Air Force Base south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, employ realistic combat scenarios to determine its potential effectiveness in a deployed environment, the first to expose an entire test subject to the ray.

The Defense Department want to use it for protecting Defense resources, peacekeeping, humanitarian missions and other situations in which the use of lethal force is undesirable, but already there have been inquiries from other institutes and wealthy individuals about using it to protect private property.

Non-lethal force, eh? Protecting defense resources, peacekeeping and humanitarian missions? These guys do have a sense of humor, you have to admit. ‘Hey, we’re only going to make you feel like molten hot lava is on your skin, but you won’t actually die. It’s totally humane.’

And speaking of non-lethal force, it seems to me we were just hearing about that in Indianapolis, where the Marines are going to train at the Indiana State Fairgrounds and the Raytheon facility on Holt Road.

The Marines will practice firing weapons, conducting patrols, running vehicle checkpoints, reacting to ambushes and employing nonlethal weapons, according to a statement.

I’m just saying, that puts an arch in my eyebrow. I don’t know about you.

Raytheon congratulates itself on having developed a non-lethal weapon which has been described as “Holy Grail of crowd control,” but their Silent Guardian also has its critics. One, author Richard Hunter asks:

“But what happens if the people faced with such a weapon can’t just run away? What happens if they’re trapped in a crowd, and the crowd can’t move? How much pain must that crowd endure? How long can any member of the crowd be exposed to that weapon before his or her skin — or their eyes — simply cook off? What happens if the devices are used deliberately in a manner designed to cause maximum harm — say, by training the device on prisoners trapped in prison cells until they literally go mad with pain?

What happens if the system operator turns up the power? A little bit works well, why not try a lot?

What happens if the scientists didn’t test the devices thoroughly, and they turn out to render anyone touched by them blind, or impotent, or sterile?”

Precisely. I asked similar questions when 60 Minutes did a story on this technology a few months ago.

I don’t know who was interviewing Martin for this clip, but of course they were both serious as heart attacks discussing this new weapon. When she asks Martin to discuss how this might be used, he brightens right up. It can be used in Iraq! Instead of shooting Iraqis driving their cars near checkpoints, our military can stop them with the heat ray gun. Yeah, yeah that’s it. That’s what it’s good for - stopping people with evil intentions. It will save lives. It’s good. Good. It’s all good. Let us praise military technology, Amen. The clip ends.

Let’s think through some other uses, shall we? The heat ray gun leaves no marks whatsoever on the body, but it causes tremendous pain. The second you step out of the way the pain stops. All the victim has to do is step out of the way and the pain stops.

OK. Well, what if you couldn’t step out of the way? What if you were handcuffed to a wall and some sadistic military psychopath decided to torture you with the heat ray gun? Hmmm? Has anyone thought of that?

OK. Here’s another scenario. Let’s say there’s another terrorist attack on America and the military is called in to keep order. Let’s say the government institutes martial law. Let’s say people protest. Will they use the heat ray guns on Americans? What if a group of people is surrounded by heat ray guns and can’t get out of the way? Hmmm?

Will they be allowed to use it on children? The elderly? Does anybody know? Who enforces the rules? Can we expect the same gleeful use that we see with police officers using tasers? If the heat ray gun leaves no mark, does it come down to the victim’s word against the soldier? Who do you suppose will win that contest?

It’s so typical of our corporate press to not ask questions like this. That would be impolite because it would cast aspersions on our government and on our military, and we don’t do that no matter what they do. But we should. If you think for one second that the US government would hesitate using a weapon like this which tortures without leaving a mark on American civilians, you have not been paying attention. They hit the pay-dirt with your tax dollars. This was likely a black ops technology development. You paid for it, and you will have no recourse when they use it against….You.

Bullshit Detector - Activated

May 30

Posted by Marlena in Citizenship, Civil Rights, Military | 7 Comments

We have some exciting news to report from Indiana. Marines are coming to train in the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

Here you go.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080528/LOCAL18/805280444

U.S. Marine helicopters will land at the old Eastgate Consumer Mall, Brookside Park and other Indianapolis locations when the city becomes a mock battlefield next week.

About 2,300 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will conduct urban warfare training from Wednesday through June 19 in and around Indianapolis.

Most of the troops will be deployed at the Indiana State Fairgrounds and the Raytheon facility on Holt Road, said Debbi Fletcher of the Indianapolis/Marion County Emergency Management Agency.

“We don’t want anyone thinking that there’s an invasion happening or that we declared martial law or something like that,” Fletcher said.

Oh my gosh, Debbi, don’t be silly! Who on earth would think that? Oh ha ha ha ha. What a card.

The Marines have been cleared by state, federal and local authorities, Fletcher said. The unit’s commander promised to try to keep noise to a minimum and give neighbors plenty of warning.

“Our aim in Indianapolis is to expose our Marines to realistic scenarios and stresses posed by operating in an actual urban community, thereby increasing their proficiency in built-up areas,” Col. Mark J. Desens, commander of the 26th MEU, said in a statement. “While some of the activity will take place around Camp Atterbury, residents in many areas can expect to see helicopters flying overhead, military vehicles on the roads and Marines patrolling on foot,” Desens said.

The Marines will practice firing weapons, conducting patrols, running vehicle checkpoints, reacting to ambushes and employing nonlethal weapons, according to a statement.

Well, let’s get real for a second. The Marines need to be exposed to realistic scenarios? Only if you’re trying to get them used to the idea of enforcing martial law in the USA. Don’t Marines train for urban operations as a routine matter? And if not, what kind of blubbering incompetence is that? No, this activity is designed to expose AMERICANS to the idea of Marines flying around in helicopters overhead, driving their vehicles on the road and conducting foot patrols.

Look at the explanation offered: ‘The Marines will practice firing weapons, conducting patrols, running vehicle checkpoints, reacting to ambushes and employing nonlethal weapons.’ Practice firing weapons? Seriously, don’t the Marines practice firing weapons, conducting patrols, running vehicle checkpoints and reacting to ambushes all the time at their military training facilities? Isn’t that why we give billions of dollars to the DOD each and every year? Isn’t that sort of training to be expected at the bare minimum?

Just think about the security around a military base. Can civilians just drive right in and look around? Of course not. Laughable. And why is that? Because the military does not want us pesky civilians poking around and observing all their training drills. No no no. It’s secret, technical, military knowledge. But according to this bright little story, we are to believe that they need to practice all this stuff live in a real American city just so the Marines can acclimate to the stresses of urban warfare. Yes, because the Americans in Indianapolis will be waving and blowing kisses and asking for autographs and taking pictures and being awestruck at the tremendous might of the US Marine Corps, and it’s all certain to be very stressful. Uh huh. Sure.

Last word: The military only lets you see this stuff when they want you to see it. This display is for your benefit, American Citizen, not theirs.

UPDATE: A good take on it here from some former military people.

Deep Weirdness

May 29

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Corruption & Crime, Psychology, Torture | No Comments

However, your being uninformed about the shadow side of the US govt. does not make me crazy. Most people in the US have a kind of delusional reality, one given to them by over reliance on Corporate Media for their source of information. That is your responsibility to correct. I am glad to see so many people sincerely seeking the truth on the internet and being willing to investigate.

This is the kind of stuff where people’s brains just typically shut right down. You would just have to read it for yourself and click through the links and pictures to see if your imagination is big enough to contain what this woman claims.

I’ll say this, the way she claims to have been tortured strikes me as completely plausible.

Also note that the comment shoots her right down as mentally ill. But who is he? Who knows. The vaguest of profiles on Blogger, dating back to May 2007, right around the time that this story first appeared…it really doesn’t tell us much, now does it?

Disparaging comments like this always pop up to bat down every ‘kooky’ idea. Who do these comments benefit? Well, if your plan is to control people’s thoughts, then no, you do not want people wandering down certain lanes. Since most people care about being accepted and not being considered crazy, they will turn right around and abandon the line of inquiry as soon as someone labels it crazy. So it is that people who make these comments work as little gatekeepers.

So just jump the fence. It’s really not that high.

You Are Here

May 19

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

At least, I’m pretty sure I am here. I am a Target Head.

Because, you see, I do a lot of reading and a lot of thinking and quite a bit of writing, and all that probably makes me Very Dangerous in some people’s eyes. I could be a (ahem) ‘Thought Criminal’.

Now you probably wouldn’t find me very dangerous in person. I’m not very big. I’m a mom. I suppose I can wield a frying pan for a weapon…that’s about it. Nonetheless…

Our government has been collecting names of people, and compiling databases, and spying on us to protect us from us, or them from us, or us from ‘them’ (meaning the ‘terrorists’) or something like that. Actually, it’s to protect them, the government, from us, the active and engaged citizens. Anyone just zipping along on autopilot watching FOX News and American Idol probably has nothing to worry about. But you never can tell because nobody knows if they’re on the list or not, or how to get on the list, or what might happen to the people on the list if something happens to us as a nation. It’s all very secret.

So if you’re already thinking to yourself, “What the hell is she talking about?”, then it’s time to go read this and find out.

I saw this via Cryptogon, who has additional links for your reading enjoyment.

And so far it looks like 8 million names are on this secret list, or roughly three Americans in one hundred. So if you live in a town of 15,000 people, roughly 450 people in your town may be at risk for anything from heightened surveillance to detention should some sort of terrorist attack happen again.

That’s quite a lot of people. I would be really happy if that many people in my town knew what was going on, but personally, I find that number impossibly optimistic. Just in terms of having good information about what is currently happening, I would estimate maybe three people in 1000 have begun to limn out the reality. That’s just a totally wild-assed guess based on my own observations. So basically what I’m trying to say here is that I think this list is total bullshit. It’s very seriously doubtful whether anyone on this list poses any threat whatsoever to national security, unless of course you define national security as ‘whatever George W Bush prefers’. Now if you do that, sure, it would be pretty easy to rustle up 8 million people who think that ass-clown should go. But that still doesn’t make them dangerous. Seriously.

Do you see what we’re dealing with here? Do you see why it’s so important to prevent some new bogus war? Do you see where this is all going? This country can change overnight. All they have to do is flip the switch, and we’ll be living in a police state.

Now I just want to say that if I ever get detained for thinking and writing about the psychopaths who have taken over our country and are itching to create a police state, let it be known that some of us saw them walking over to that switch. We see them raising their hands, and we are screaming at you people to LOOK. For the love of God and country, look at what they are doing. They are going to plunge us into darkness.

That’s what makes us ‘dangerous’. And that’s it. So remember that someday.

War Criminals

May 14

Posted by Marlena in 9-11, Afghanistan, Bush/Cheney, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Military, Psychology | 2 Comments

Pay attention.

American Goy has a good long post up about how, back in the fall of 1992 mind you, a neocon named Bernard Lewis wrote an article suggesting that the US should ‘Lebanonize’ the Middle East. Meaning, smashing up into various squabbling bits and pieces the countries hostile to Israel. And by the way, he recommended using American military forces to do the smashing. But as a bonus, this process ‘could even be precipitated by (Islamic) fundamentalism’. How convenient.

After that came ‘A Clean Break’ (1996), PNAC (1997), 9/11 (2001), Afghanistan War (2001-present), Iraq War (2003-present)…

This has all come to pass. Please note the current results in the Middle East: chaos, turmoil, countries smashed up into various squabbling bits and pieces, 1.2 million dead Iraqis, etc. Today’s situation was premeditated, planned out and executed precisely to be the chaotic bloody mess it is. OK? This was not unintentional incompetence. The neocons and the Bush Administration deliberately fucked up the Middle East and sent Americans off to kill and die there. It’s all in writing — their writings, their speeches, their documents, and their statements. These are Conspiracy Facts.

Over at Chris Floyd you can read how this process continues in Lebanon.

And so in Lebanon — as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia — the policies of the Bush Administration have only produced more extremism, more terrorists, more violence.

Can we not discern a pattern here, a clear intention? The “War on Terror” produces terror; it’s part of the “creative destruction” that the militarists used to boast about, when they dreamed that their crimes of aggression, torture and murder would lead future generations to “sing songs about us,” in the immortal words of Michael Ledeen. This quote is often attributed to Richard Perle, but it comes from Ledeen’s call for “total war” in a speech at American Enterprise Institute on October 29, 2001. Ledeen followed this up with a piece on National Review Online in August 2002, when he mocked Brent Scowcroft’s concern that an invasion of Iraq could turn the Middle East into a cauldron. Ledeen’s response:

One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today.

These are the sick minds running foreign policy in the United States. These very same people, the architects of the Iraq War, want to bring more wars and more death and more destruction to the Middle East, using more American lives to whip up the pain and suffering that they obviously feed on. Far too many people in the United States still cling to the LIE that all this bloodshed is somehow helpful to Americans. It’s not. It will just lead - at a bare minimum - to our certain economic demise, and in all probability things will be much worse than that. So leaving aside the profound moral implications of all this killing, which so unfortunately has not been enough to snap people out of their torpor, just imagine letting these monsters slit your economic throat, because they certainly will, and with pleasure.

Or, we can try to stop them.

Conditioning the American People

May 13

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Corruption & Crime, Economy, Media, Military, Psychology | No Comments

Every weekday morning I scan alternative news and pick some stories to post here. Sometimes patterns emerge. Now this morning, I could not help but notice the various ways Americans are being conditioned to accept a dramatically increased police presence in our lives.

First off, here’s a picture of a DHS bus, which you can see is full of people. I never knew until today that DHS has their own buses. Did you? And look…it’s full of people.

These people were taken into custody at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, IA and then transported to the Cattle Congress complex in Waterloo, IA.

This story gets very interesting, as the sources who tipped off federal officials complained about both the workers and the management. It’s hard to tell who is really the target here, but it appears that the owners and managers of this plant behaved with impunity and disregard for the law.

According to search warrants, ICE agents interviewed a former plant supervisor – identified as “Source 1” – in November 2007, who told them that the plant employed foreign nationals from Mexico, Guatemala and Eastern Europe. Roughly 80 percent of those workers were living illegally in the U.S., the supervisor said.

“Source 1” told federal agents that some employees were running a methamphetamine lab in the plant, and were bringing weapons to work. The supervisor confronted a higher-level manager about the drugs, and shortly after was fired.

The supervisors also described an encounter with the plant’s human resources manager about three separate Social Security cards from different employees with the same number. The human resources manager “laughed when this matter was brought to her attention,” the supervisor told federal agents.

In February 2008, a confidential informant identified as “Source 7,” who has worked with federal agents in past immigration cases, detailed several incidents of alleged worker abuse at the plant.

The workers were bussed to Waterloo, IA, where DHS had already taken over a portion of a large park, the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds. The federal government leased the grounds from approximately May 6th through May 25th. Ventilation systems and generators have been installed, windows have been covered up, and no information was made available — allegedly not even to US congresspeople.

Think about that. DHS leases and takes over a fairgrounds, starts conducting a bunch of mysterious preparations that frighten people, and does not even have to inform the people’s elected representatives to Congress. How can that be right? Oh, get used to it.

Setting all this aside for a moment, as the purpose of this post is to show you how we are being conditioned to accept a police state, let’s just move on to some other examples.

In El Paso, TX, KFOX TV reports (breathlessly) that citizens were invited to watch elite FBI teams train.

They deal with drug dealers, hostage takers and crazed gunman — all to keep people safe. And KFOX got a firsthand look at how the El Paso FBI trains. As part of the El Paso FBI’s Citizens Academy, average citizens got to stand and watch just feet away as the elite, FBI Swat Team practiced how they would handle a sniper situation. “We invite citizens to take an inside look at the FBI. We explain the investigations we conduct, some of the methods we use, and really the why of what we do,” Special Agent In Charge David Cuthbert said. Topics in the six-week-long academy range from white-collar crime to terrorism. Citizens come from all backgrounds, eager to learn firsthand how the FBI handles a number of different crimes. “I’ve always wanted to do something like this; it just looked exciting,” GECU employee Becky McDorman said. Many who participated said they gained newfound respect for what the FBI goes through to help keep everyone safe.

Men in uniforms, with guns, training, and all just to keep Becky safe. She believes!! She believes!! She will worship at the temple of military and police power, gaining ‘newfound respect’. She is just a lowly ‘average citizen’, but she will be allowed to ’stand and watch just feet away’ from the ‘elite FBI Swat Team’.Bow your heads, people. You are but lowly worms. Pay your taxes and be grateful if any public servant shall deign to protect you. Who do you think you are?

Here’s the answer to that question. Look at this illustration accompanying an apologia for Greenspan and Bernanke’s policies, the very policies that have destroyed the dollar and the middle class.

Yes. This is a picture of gun-toting military or police men traipsing across the detritus of a ruined Wall St.

I guess the message is that Wall Street failure shall lead to martial law.

In other words, if We the People want these greedy bastards held accountable for wrecking the American economy, then We the People shall have ‘unthinkable consequences’. That’s what the man says. Go ahead. Read it yourself. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

Oh by the way, this was in the New York Times. Subtle? Not so much.

The American Failure of Imagination

May 3

Posted by Marlena in 9-11, Afghanistan, Bush/Cheney, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Injustice, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Media, Military, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Psychology, Russia, Stupidity, Unreality | 1 Comment

The following blog post from Opening Inner Space is reprinted in full. To my mind, this seems about right. Just last night I was talking with some enlightened people who mainly focused on the election and what might happen after that. Instead of banging my head against the wall, I suggest we focus on what’s happening right now, or it will not matter on whit who gets elected in November. The scariest thing happening right now remains our continued, stubborn failure of imagination about the consequences of striking Iran. People need to break free of the thought parameters constantly reinforced through corporate media.

Believe it or not, there are way more important things to focus on than the election. Attacking Iran is not like invading Grenada, though you’d never know as long as you rely on the corporate media for news. These media shills will be our deaths and the deaths of millions. They already are.

The truth about what could happen in the Middle East must be made known to our fellow citizens immediately.

War doesn’t bring peace. People don’t just lay down and die because the US or Israel tell them to. They fight back. I often wonder just who, exactly, we think we are that basic human nature confounds us daily. Do we think we’re somehow above other people? The inability to predict how people will respond to being attacked (in Iraq, Palestine, Iran, etc.) belies the truth that we are racists and find ‘others’ mysterious. Thus the continual shock and surprise when Iraqis and Palestinians fight for their own survival, though this is a perfectly normal and predictable reaction that any human being would take and should readily be able to understand. You would do the exact same thing.

Having said that, there are ‘others’ among us, but they’re not who you think. 94% of people in the world are normal people who want to live normal, peaceful lives. The remaining 6% are clinical psychopaths. Being free from conscience, many psychopaths have attained positions of power in the world. They are highly successful precisely because they can do things that normal people can’t do and still sleep fine at night. That’s one out of every 30 people. You know some, and you probably think of them as the assholes in your life because that’s what they are. For more information, start here. Understanding the presence and role of psychopaths in the general population helps everything make sense, and it frees up the imagination to accept the reality that people in and unfortunately leading our government will willingly sacrifice not only innocent foreign lives, but also our own American civilian and military lives in pursuit of their hidden agendas. Again, they already have on 9/11 and in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Set your naivety aside, my fellow citizens. The wolves are here among us, and they have a plan that will rock your world.

Newsmax: USA To Declare Nuclear War On 1.3 Billion Muslims This Summer

Newsmax.com has an influential Jewish American source who said the decision has already been made to use nuclear weapons against Iran this summer but that is only on Day 1. I took the liberty to point out in my headline what Day 31 will look like as it is the purpose of this essay to show the world the consequences of dropping nuclear weapons on tens of thousands of Muslim civilians in Iran.

Newsmax has recently published two stories citing an “inside source” saying that a nuclear attack against Iran is to take place this summer. In the first of these two stories they claimed to have an influential Jewish source who told them that Cheney’s recent 9 day trip to the Mideast, which included stops in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Turkey, was made to organize the coming war against Iran. At the time Dick Cheney went to Israel, the Israelis were completing the largest homefront military exercises in its history. The Israelis have also recently unveiled their new million dollar TV control center which is to be used to propagandize the viewers both inside and outside of Israel after the rockets start flying in retaliation for the forthcoming invasion of Lebanon. The Israeli army has been training to re-fight their last war which against Hezbollah. I believe Israel will invade Lebanon again as a first step to World War III. Israel wants to deplete Hezbollah of its rockets and push them back from Israel’s borders before they attack Syria.

Newsmax also said that Saudi Arabia started preparations to protect their oil kingdom from the radioactive fallout expected to be unleashed by the nuclear attack against Iran. The Iranian nuclear facilities are deep under ground so they cannot be the source of the planned for radiation. [More info here. - Ed.] I believe Saudi Arabia was told by vice-President Cheney during his trip in March to make preparations for nuclear war as their preparations began after his recent visit. The radioactive source will be nuclear bunker buster bombs which George W. Bush has re-classified as conventional weapons. But no amount of obfuscating rhetoric can turn a nuclear weapon into a conventional one.

The Bush-Cheney administration has made other moves that pave the way to war this summer. General David Petraeus will replace Admiral William Fallon as head of CENTCOM, the U.S. Central Command, which means that, if there is war this summer, General Petraeus will be the commander in charge of executing the policy. Admiral Fallon had said he was opposed to war with Iran. Unfortunately, the Senate Democrats, including Barrack Obama, have decided to support the nomination of the man who could be the commander responsible for launching WW III.

George W. Bush lacks the political capital to do what Dick Cheney’s visit was promising in March which is to launch a nuclear first strike against Iran’s atomic facilities that are buried deep under ground and have tens of thousands of civilians living on the surface above. That is why I have been saying since last year that Israel will launch the first strike against Iran and that she will retire from the field of battle very quickly after starting World War III. Israel will allow the United States to fight 1.3 billion Muslims in general and the nation states of Iran, Syria. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in particular though Israel will help us fight Syria which does border them.

The Iranians have Russian made anti-ship missiles The SS-N-22 Sunburn and the SS-N-26X Yakhonts which were designed to sink aircraft carriers. They have Mach 4 speed and have ranges of 120 and 180 miles respectively. They are deadly accurate which is a necessity if you are planning to sink a modern aircraft carrier with a lot of separate compartments that can be sealed off. The Iranians also have Russian made rocket torpedoes that travel several hundred miles per hour underwater. And they have rocket artillery with ranges up to 150 kilometers. The Iranians have said that they will fire 11,000 rockets and artillery shells at Americans and Israelis in the first 60 seconds of an attack by either Israel or the United States.

Soviet military doctrine dictated that you have a few very advanced weapons and a lot of deadly but cheap older ones to throw into the mix. The Iranians also have hundreds of NATO and Chinese made anti-ship missiles to use on the two American carrier task forces which have 17,500 sailors and marines on board. I have been warning the world since 2007 that those American men and women are in harms way in the Persian Gulf and not in the safety of the Indian Ocean precisely so they can be sacrificed in a 21st century Pearl Harbor. Think about it. If Bush, Cheney and the Israelis cared about the lives of those men and women, they would not place them in range of Iran’s Russian made missiles. When the Bush-Cheney administration came into office in 2001, they tasked the Navy to develop a plan to protect our aircraft carriers from Russian made missiles. No such plan has been forthcoming and Dick Cheney knows that even if President Bush does not.

My regular readers are well aware that I believe since Bush lacks the clout to attack Iran which is protected by Russia’s Caspian Sea declaration and is seeking additional protection from China by asking to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This means that only Israel can launch the first strike against Iran as Russia is currently obligated to come to the aid of Iran if it is attacked and China could soon be required to do the same. Israel is above international law and Russia has at least 12,000,000 Jews. And 8 of the 9 men that the Russian economy was given to after the fall of the Soviet Union were Jewish. Russia cannot attack Israel. That is why I have been saying since last year that Israel will attack Iran with American supplied nuclear bunker buster bombs. Iran will respond by sinking the ships holding 17,500 sailors and marines. They also have 1,000 fast rubber boats and lots of suicide volunteers to capture as many survivors as they can.

The United States Central Command homepage list 27 nations which currently allow America to station troops. 25 of 27 of these nations are Muslim. When we and the Israelis start bombing Muslim civilians with nuclear weapons, I would expect rogue army officers in many of those 25 states to fire artillery shells at American air bases. After one minute, no planes will be able to either land or take off. Then the artillery batteries can concentrate their fire on fuel depots. ammunition dumps and finally upon defenseless American troops until they either surrender or die. We could lose our entire Central Command in a matter of weeks.

In Iraq the pro-Iranian militia, military and police could join the resistance and attack the American supply lines. The Iranians have lots of oil money and could have already bought thousands of shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles to take out our 550 helicopters in Iraq. Their primary objective would be to cut off supplies coming in on the two roads from Kuwait to Baghdad. The Iranians would have already cut off all oil going out of the Persian Gulf and all military supplies coming in. The Iranians have already recruited and trained 40,000 suicide volunteers many of whom would be used against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Israeli jets will need to be refueled by jet tankers to make the round trip from Israel to Iran. If America were not controlled by Zionists, our military would tell the Israelis that they would shoot down the refueling tanker jets making the Israeli air strike a one way suicide mission. Saudi Arabia could scramble its jets to shoot down the refueling planes, but that is not even remotely possible. The Saudi government might be the protector of Mecca but to date has been unwilling to defend Muslims. However, Pentagon planners must be made aware that the rank and file Saudi military cannot be relied upon to do nothing while unarmed Muslim civilians are killed by American nuclear weapons given to Israel. Just a few Saudi pilots and a radar crew could cancel the return flight from Iran to Israel. The Israeli jets would have to land in Iraq to refuel which would make life extremely difficult for the American occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If America is willing to allow Israeli jets loaded with American supplied nuclear weapons to bomb Iranian civilians by transiting U.S. controlled Iraqi air space, then the army officers and the spiritual leaders of the 25 Muslim nations that host U.S. Central Command troops will conclude that America is no longer their ally so they must act to protect innocent Muslim civilians from American and Israeli nuclear weapons. If the American opinion leaders and the military brass in the Pentagon learned what their 25 Muslim allied nations would do after they see the evidence America has turned against them, then the Pentagon just might be forced to say no to allowing Israeli jets safe passage through Iraqi skies to Iran.

The military and religious leaders of our 25 Muslim allies are likely already contemplating doing considerably more than shelling American air bases, fuel depots, and ammunition dumps. They will certainly take hostages, civilian and military and sponsor terrorist attacks on Americans worldwide including inside the U.S. The American Military and public must be made to understand that its troops in the Central Command will be sacrificed for nothing. They will not die protecting their homes and families. They will die to fulfill the imagined needs of Israel or rather its insane leaders. A clear majority of both Israelis and American Jews are opposed to war with Iran but the Zionist leadership routinely disregards the wishes of its people and does [sic] care what happens to Americans.

If the Israelis want to feel safe, they ought to make Muslims feel safe. Israel is the only nation in the world where it is perfectly legal for soldiers to shoot unarmed 12 year-old school girls for fun and for howling mobs of adults armed with automatic weapons to beat five and six year-old children as they walk to school.

By Day 20 of World War III the United States could be reduced to dropping nuclear weapons on Muslim civilians from planes stationed either at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean or on American aircraft carriers sent to replace the two we will certainly lose in the Persian Gulf on Day 1. Pakistan has hydrogen bombs. I would expect a coup or revolution in Pakistan by Day 7. It is entirely possible that one H-bomb could take out our base at Diego Garcia between Day 7 and Day 31.

The price of oil is currently pushing against the $120 a barrel barrier. Even without a war I have calculated that within months the American trade deficit will exceed one trillion dollars a year. America is buying 12,000,000 barrels a day on credit. The U.S. is also fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on credit. If Iran is forced to defend itself, it will cut off all oil coming out of the Persian Gulf. If Persian Gulf Oil is withdrawn from the world market, China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea could afford to pay cash in advance for a year’s supply of oil at $400 a barrel. If America were forced to buy its 4.4 billion barrels of imported oil on credit, the dollar would crash. American society would be destabilized to say the least. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve theoretically has a daily withdrawal of 4.4 million barrels which means we would have to pay $400 a barrel for the remaining 7,600,000 barrels a day the U.S. must import Unemployment could at least double or even triple. Nearly half of those Americans who do have jobs would not be able to afford to buy gas to get to work and food to eat so they would have the strength to work. Inflation would wipe out the meager incomes of the 43,000,000 Americans on Social Security.

You might question why would America risk destroying itself and the world we knew to drop nuclear weapons on Iran ? The only real answer was given in a public forum by Ann Lewis, a Democratic political operative and sister of Congressman Barney Frank. She said, “The role of the President of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel.” She is herself Jewish and her remarks were quoted by a Jewish columnist in a Jewish owned newspaper. She was applauded by her Jewish audience but her statement of the obvious regarding the relationship between America and Israel not been made known to the general public. I wonder why?

My purpose in writing this essay is to stop World War III before it starts. I believe we will be under martial law before we get to Day 10 of WW III. That means that attending anti-war demonstrations could get you a one way ticket to one of those concentration camps the Senate and House of Representatives have been funding with American tax dollars or more truthfully by borrowing from foreigners who should never expect to be paid back.

There are Central Bankers, foreign corporations and wealthy individuals who would be willing to dump dollars in order to cut the funding of endless Zionist inspired wars. They know of these wars are fought on credit. They feel it is long past time for the world to tell American militarists that the joy of killing unarmed civilians, polluting foreign lands with Depleted Uranium and giving the unborn children of both their allies and their enemies birth defects is over. They firmly believe America should no longer be allowed to commit war crimes on credit.

These men and women are a minority but if enough act at a time when America is about to destroy itself and the world with still another suicidal war, they can cause a stampede in the markets as all investors know the dollar will soon crash. They just don’t know the specific day. If the majority of rational investors saw an imminent war America cannot win and a lot of people stampeding for the exits, these more logically inspired men and women would certainly dump the dollar rather than risk the loss of their entire fortunes defending a losing cause.

If American opinion leaders knew the world financial community was seriously contemplating sending the United States into an inflationary depression that will personally bankrupt them, then they just might give the Senate and the Congress the spine to say no to Israel and yes to the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

If America allows Israel and the Bush-Cheney administration to sacrifice 17,500 sailors and marines in order to launch World War III, their leaders will demonstrate just how ruthless, insane and depraved the New American-Israeli World Order will be if it is not stopped.

My suggestion is that we tell as many people as possible that Israel will attack Iran precisely so they can sacrifice 17,500 American sailors and marines in the Persian Gulf. Our servicemen and women are to be deliberately sacrificed in a 21st century Pearl Harbor just so Israel and the Bush-Cheney administration can start a world war killing tens of millions if not billions of people. If enough people are made aware of the plan for war in advance, then the conflict cannot take place.

It is time for every man and every woman to say no to war. Even if you personally survive the coming holocaust, you will likely despise the world Bush, Cheney and Israel will allow you and your family to live in until either you or someone you care for dares to speak out against the corruption and the mass murder that has become our new government.

References

The Ann Lewis quote can be found here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR2008031702440.html

These are the URLs to the two Newsmax articles.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/iran_nuclear_strike/2008/04/14/87887.html?s=al&promo_code=4940-1

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Ross_Warning_iran/2008/04/23/90322.html?s=al&promo_code=49D1-1

They need help destroying the Constitution

Apr 14

Posted by Marlena in Citizenship, Civil Rights | 1 Comment

You really have to have a certain kind of mindset, call it the Good German American, not to recoil in horror at our government encouraging neighbors to spy on each other and giving them instruction sets to make it easier:

The Neighborhood Network Watch announced today the start of a new community program, the Home Network Awareness Program (HNAP). HNAP is aimed at providing an easy way for people to get involved and to contribute to the efforts of the Neighborhood Network Watch as well as providing the group with valuable information on the states of networks that reside in the homes of our nation.

Participants in HNAP would collect sample network traffic from their own home networks as well as samples from networks within the vicinity. The Neighborhood Network Watch will be making a set of freely available instructions on how to capture network traffic, using the open source packet sniffer TCPDUMP, and how to log onto nearby wireless networks that maybe being operated by neighbors.

These samples of network traffic would then be sent to the Neighborhood Network Watch for analysis using the latest revision of the NNWKAA. The participants would then be sent back a rating for each network along with a rating for the area as a whole.

This allows the participants to not only find out how their own home network is being used but also valuable information about those around their home that may have large amounts of terrorist related traffic flowing over them. This also provides the Neighborhood Network Watch with the ability to see if there is potential terrorist cell activity in or around the participants homes.

The Neighborhood Network Watch will also be releasing a new public service announcement highlighting the goals of HNAP and a how to section on how to search for networks as well as how to capture network traffic.

You have got to be kidding me.

Danger Will Robinson!!! Your neighbors may have ‘large amounts of terrorist related traffic’ flowing over their networks!!! Here…quickly!! Take this instruction set and collect some samples!! Use your hazmat suit for God’s sake!! Send us the samples right away because we have very important analysis to conduct on your neighbors!! Phew, that was close. Thank you for helping protect the homeland. You’re a True Patriot. Keep up the good work.

Shaking head.