The Humbling of Yahweh

Yahweh was the god of a small blue green earth planet, orbiting an unspectacular star towards the outer rim of a relatively typical galaxy.

He was mightily proud of the beauty and wonder of his creation: the landscapes and lifeforms and evolving patterns. Indeed it was a wondrous place, but he took a fancy to a species he created in his own image: man he called it. And to this man he gave great power over other lifeforms, and most particularly to his enforcers: those who ruled in his name.

To enhance his splendour and magnify his glory, and reward his adherents, Yahweh created a heaven. It truly was illustrious, a wonder to behold: infused with ethereal music, abounding in magnificent fruits beyond all imagination. A citadel for his servants, popes and princes, presidents and pharisees: as sweet dessert for administering their God-given rights.

Yahweh sat upon golden throne as adherents and underlings gulped wine and sung his praises. Earth as plaything, crisis followed drama followed crisis while laughter and merriment rung through celestial spires. In all creation none held even a flickering ember to the brilliance of Yahweh: as ever more power infused his ravenous servant.

*

Unto this heaven one day comes a strange but beautiful blue-black boy. Thrusting aside the golden gates the boy enters Yahweh’s magnificent court.

“What brings you here little boy?” Demands Yahweh.

“Well,” says the boy, “I have heard that you have built a wondrous heaven, like no other Yahweh before you ever built.”

“Yahwehs before me,” Rumbles an agitated Yahweh, bringing a nervous, expectant hush through the court: as popes and dancing girls suspend their proclivities. “Little boy, what are you talking about?”

To which the boy responds, “Yahwehs before you, I have seen them come and go. Imagine, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On this lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being, governed by a Yahweh. Brahma closes his eyes and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is four hundred and thirty two thousand years. When he dies the lotus fades and another lotus forms, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies into infinite space, each a lotus, with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes. And the Yahwehs? There may be ingratiates in your court who would volunteer to count the drops of water in the oceans of the world or the grains of sand on the beaches, but no one would count those Brahmin – let alone those Yahwehs.”

While the boy is talking, an army of ants parades across the floor. The boy laughs when he sees them, and Yahweh’s hackles begin to rise.

“Why do you laugh?” fumes Yahweh.

“Do not ask unless you are willing to be hurt.” The boy answers.

“I ask,” growls Yahweh.

And so the boy points to the ants and says, “Former Yahwehs all. Through many, many lifetimes they rise from the lowest depths to highest illumination. Then they administer there own world, surround themselves with sycophants and think what a great lord am I: and down they go again.”

At this moment a dishevelled old yogi enters with a banana leaf parasol. He is naked except for a hempen loin cloth, and on his chest is a disk of hair, of which half have fallen out.

The boy greets him and just as Yahweh opens his mouth, the boy asks all the questions forming on Yahweh’s tongue:

“Old man, what is your name? Where do you come from? Where is your family? Where is your house? And what is the meaning of this curious constellation of hair on your chest?”

“Well,” says the yogi, “my name is Hairy. I don’t have a house, life is too short: I just have this parasol. I don’t have a family. I just meditate on Vishnu’s feet, and think of eternity, and how passing time is. You know, every time a Yahweh dies, a world disappears: these things flash by like that. Every time a Yahweh dies, one of the hairs falls out of this circle on my chest. Half are gone now, pretty soon they will all be gone. Life is short: why build a house?”

Yahweh slumps horrified in his throne, speechless.

“Time to re-establish some equilibrium methinks Vishnu.” Says Hairy to the blue-black boy.

“Undoubtedly so Shiva.” Responds the blue-black boy.

“Yahweh!” calls Hairy, “prise that somewhat more enlightened son of yours away from washing feet for a moment will you: and have him dust off his sword. The time has come to reshape the order of things.”

***

Adapted from, ‘The Humbling of Indra’ from the Upanishads
(with many words, phrases and sentences nicked wholesale from the legendary Joe Campbell)

A Eulogy to Hemp: the most dangerous substance in the universe

A Eulogy to Hemp

the most dangerous substance in the universe

I didn’t really discover cannabis until well into my twenties. I’d smoked a few js back in my late teens, quite enjoyed them but didn’t mix in such circles so forgot about it, gave up smoking altogether and entered the rat-race.

I’d been an idiot at school, bottom in every subject. I sort of knew I wasn’t exactly stupid, just incapable of organising my thoughts, particularly if they had to climb on board the time train for tests and exams. But finding I understood telephone circuits at least as well as most telephone engineers, I lied my way onto a government training programme and six months later qualified as a computer engineer.

Computers were very simple in those days, programs were tiny, and where I found a job, mostly written directly to PROMs – and, no two computer systems spoke entirely the same language. I was working with was something completely alien to ASCII, or EBCDIC, or BCD or… and consequently it required translation for communication. And, as if by magic, Hey Presto! cannabis again popped into my life.

As a kid I’d always loved puzzles, the more complex the better (think the Rubik’s Cube took me about six months) – it didn’t matter how long they took, the importance lay in the achievement – and with cannabis, logic danced: albeit to a primordial beat. I was always the slowest engineer, slowest at fixing things and slowest on the uptake, but given enough time and space, and puff, it seemed as if there was nothing I couldn’t do with a bit of boolean algebra, a few conditional statements, and a little wiring. Cannabis enabled me to focus, to shut out everything but the here and now, and the problem at hand – it truly was a wonder drug.

That was some years back, companies no longer tolerate days down time, everything is replaceable, modularised, universalised. And I’ve long since become disillusioned with the capitalist model. Nice house, smart car, expense account, holidays wherever… – plenty of prestige and loose cash, but really I found precious little time to enjoy it, and when I did, in reality it was mostly shallow and meaningless. I found far more joy and wonder, and meaning in nature, most particularly with cannabis catalysing perception.

Colin died in ’97 from a stroke. He was my younger brother and had done as much as anyone to enhance my perception of cannabis and the world of nature, and, consequently, the meaninglessness of materialism. Spent a week in France effectively waiting for him to die – the doctors had given him 48 hours, but bloody minded to the end, he lived on for six days – where my few remaining attachments to consumerism were well and truly undermined. I returned to the UK and was Prozaced back to work, but beyond the puzzle solving, which had effectively become history, I found nothing of value.

Two years later, the last day of 1999, I quit my job deciding to search for a more meaningful path. Bummed around for a while and found myself in the Corbieres (land of the Cathars) come the summer of 2001, where my appreciation of nature and cannabis scaled new heights. Then I discovered what had happened on 9/11 – on top of a mountain – and the brutality of humanity came crashing back in.

I wintered in London, holed up in my mum’s back room, writing countless letters, email, articles about the blind, ignorant violence being perpetrated on the poor people of Afghanistan, supposedly in response to 9/11: knowing that understanding why people would willingly go to their death for a belief was key to any genuine solution. But the “Why?” question was simply not part of anyone’s agenda, not press, not politicians: it was enough to label the supposed perpetrators as ‘evil doers’, with knee-jerk violence to obliterate all dissenters to their particular model of the world order.

I spent early 2002 in North Wales painting and decorating and working on the land – admiring sunsets across the Menai Straits – yet knowing this was no more than escapism and a waste of my analytical reasoning, unlocked by the herb, and, in truth, not any genuine long term solution. So after much contemplation and deliberation I chose to enter the lair of the beast: I applied for, and was accepted, to study International Politics at Aberystwyth University (the birthplace of ‘International Relations’), commencing that September.

However, at uni, despite my enthusiasm and commitment, and love of learning, I found myself plunged back into school days: simply not finding enough time to organise my fragmented thoughts into rational arguments, in the couple of hours allocated for exams. A fellow student mentioned he also he also had this difficulty and had been diagnosed with dyslexia. Dyslexia hadn’t been invented when I was at school so I contacted the authorities and asked if I could be evaluated. They agreed and organised for a specialist to visit and make a psychological assessment.

The day arrived and as a friend had given me a fragment of soap bar just a few days before, it seemed wholly logical to add cannabis to the equation, given its catalysing effects. As per usual, I didn’t finish the tests, cannabis was unlikely to tune me in to that extent, but nevertheless they projected my ‘verbal reasoning’ to be as good or better than 99% of the population and my ‘perceptual organisation’ to be as good or better than 99.9%: it seems the naysayers of cannabis must be struck dumb or recognise my potential score to be even greater 😉 Personally I think such tests are both narrow-minded and superficial and do nothing more than isolate fragments. However I do accept that at some level, they point to specific attributes, with, without doubt, cannabis catalysing my performance.

All that’s as maybe (despite extra exam time, PC and whatnot), for my university professors saw no more than my school teachers, and marked accordingly. Still, I had recognised very early into my time at university, marks are no more than marketing, to sell both student and university: and actually, in real life, worthless beyond perceptual value. Genuine value lay in learning: from literature, discourse and interaction, and I had three years of it, uninterrupted, without concern for finance or outside obligations, and my wonder drug.

That was five years back, and although I’d largely brushed over the core texts, seeing them as superficial and confining, still for the most part I’d been trapped within the university’s resources: library, lectures and structured, weighted, confined debate. Since then I’ve discovered the wonders and delights of bittorrent and knowledge/speculation unconfined by structured authority.

Cannabis and I have no interest in material conceptually ‘owned’ by some manifestation of mass media. We are searching for alternate perspectives and ideas, most often that others wish to share, yet state and corporation prefer to see sidelined, silenced, or obliterated. The two that come most readily to mind are, 9/11 and hemp.

This is no place to discuss 9/11, but, hemp, well…

I used to think cannabis was just some drug that turned smokers into peaceniks, opened doors of perception and potentially alienated users from society: which, given government corporate motivation, seemed to me at least, unsurprising. But I was wrong. Well, not wrong exactly, more completely unaware of how woefully superficial and limited my understanding was.

You see, there is no plant, no mineral, no concoction that comes remotely close to cannabis hemp in terms of it’s central value to humanity though its evolution: both material and spiritual.

Such a story, a history, would take many volumes and still it would be little more than a gesture, so what I offer here is a snapshot, woefully inadequate, based on the most superficial research, yet with facts, statistics, uses… true as stated. A glimpse into the depths and profundity of humanity’s age old relationship with cannabis hemp: its tree of knowledge, tree of life.

A history of hemp

Lord Shiva, humanity’s oldest continually worshipped deity, lord of dance and plants and champion of the oppressed, brought cannabis down from the mountain for the delight and enlightenment of us all.

The Chinese, ever the practical, already using hempen fishing nets and garbed in hempen cloth (humanity’s first fabric), recognised cannabis hemp as their earliest medicine, and a millennium or so later as the perfect material for paper making.

The Buddha, ever the ascetic, was nourished on his six year journey towards enlightenment with just one Hemp seed a day.

[Conjecture: In what became known as Mesopotamia however, where male dominated hierarchical society evolved and women were condemned to serve, disseminators of truth were not enamoured with this extraordinary two sexed plant: knowledge and life, male and female. And although they will tolerate the male, knowledge, for cloth and cord, the female, life, was shunned eastward, for all but reproduction.]

So history continued, western man discovered alcohol, rotting fruit, for intoxication, and hemp was restricted to clothing, rope, sail etc. And, in time, oil and paper.

Come the thirteenth century, as knowledge of cannabis hemp’s medicinal and spiritual effects were becoming increasingly known, Pope Innocent VIII associated cannabis with the devil and forbade all intoxicants bar alcohol: under pain of torture and death. So, through fear, herbalism declined and died and knowledge of cannabis for medication and enlightenment passed from public memory.

Yet, with hemp, just two centuries later, Europeanism set about conquering the world. For such a feat would have been impossible without hempen sail and rigging, oakum and clothing: where, in Africa and the East, Europeans rediscovered the medicinal and spiritual properties of cannabis. And with the Roman Church’s monopoly on truth fragmenting come the sixteenth century, cannabis now became a central component in medicine, and favoured inspiration for many of our seminal writers and poets: William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, Alexander Dumas, Arthur Conan-Doyle, John Keats, Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll…

An association across race, time and continents to the early twentieth century blues and jazz musicians and innovators emerging from slavery in the US: … Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington … who, together with cannabis, were set to become the targets of white supremacists in their quest for world domination.

For sure, cannabis hemp was indispensable to humanity: our primary crop over ten millennia, but technology moves on and various substitutes appeared: weaker, of poorer quality but also produced on grand scales through industrialisation, by companies eager to expand, monopolise and control. For which cannabis hemp was unsuitable, growing as it does as a weed and more suited to self sufficiency and local processing. And worse, being a plant, beyond patent, therefore outside business control.

Worse still for big business, as technology finally turned its attention towards cannabis hemp, it promised even greater diversity, strength, production and access for the common man. A wholly unpalatable prospect for corporate interests like Dupont, Hurst Newspapers, Big Cotton… with positions to protect, profits to be made and domination pursued, and now intrinsically linked and intermarried with government and law enforcement.

So began a propaganda campaign, to associate cannabis (aka marijuana) with violence and madness, and blacks and Latinos. ‘Reefer Madness’, ‘Assassin of Youth’ and countless fabricated horror stories flooded the popular media. Without foundation but to an ignorant public, and more importantly, ignorant politicians, most of whom were unaware marijuana was cannabis, cannabis hemp now became a menace that must be eradicated.

Cannabis hemp was effectively outlawed through a tax act in 1937, and although it briefly had its praises sung once again in the early ’40s, as no other crop could support the US war effort – when the Ministry of Agriculture produced the famed “Hemp for Victory” (knowledge of which the government attempted to wipe from existence) – once the war was over hemp was again demonised. Only this time, because of Cold War paranoia, for precisely the opposite reason: cannabis did not make people violent: it made them pacifists! and therefore, as a consequence, less likely to participate in imperialist wars.

So henceforth cannabis hemp would disappear from history and corporate interests would fill the vacuum, alcohol would be promoted as authority’s drug of choice and war could continue unabated.

However, come the ’60s, as black musicians and their music found increasing acceptance and bands like the Beatles and Stones ventured beyond the white middle classes for inspiration, western youth culture discovered for themselves the delights and insights of cannabis. And still further, disillusioned soldiers returning from Vietnam also brought home cannabis, together with questions for which their government had no legitimate answers: only violence and repression.

It was in this environment that Tricky Dickey, aka President Nixon, believing it was the pot smokers who were hampering his war games, commissioned a study into the health effects of cannabis, determined to find an excuse to ban cannabis outright: thus enabling him to crush antiwar protests.

The Shafer report gave cannabis a clean bill of health, citing many of its positive qualities, so Dickey ditched the report and used Vietnam and the rampant paranoia of the Cold War to persecute and criminalise users anyway.

Under Reagan the ban became rigorously enforced. He had a particular dislike for kids who “read books, smoked marijuana and talked”, seeing them, one assumes, as somehow a threat to his established order, and the orders of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama…

Yet, test after test, study after study have been commissioned on cannabis by governments and institutions worldwide and none have found anything significantly harmful. Indeed, what has become clear, although you will never hear it from the popular press, is how benign and beneficial cannabis is: in 10,000 years there is not one reported death due to cannabis use alone (compare that to the three million who die annually from tobacco smoking, or the hundreds of thousands who die annually from prescription drugs), and “one of the safest and most therapeutically active substances known to man”, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency’s own law judge.

The only exception being to children, whose brain development may possibly be influenced by excessive use of cannabis at a young age: until approximately fifteen.

This, in any rational, humane society, would lead to production monitoring, regulation and licensing, so cannabis was not available to children, potentially contaminated, or bred in secret, artificially, solely for the high. Instead, because of government policy, we have a black market, where dealers sell cannabis of unknown origin, potency or content to anyone, provided they have the cash: and in the process, offer them access to heroin, coke, crystal meth…

This is government undermining the health, welfare and future of our progeny, undermining our trust, and consequentially undermining their very reason for existence.

Why? Given the Cold War is now a memory, what makes cannabis hemp so absolutely, terribly dangerous that truth must be purged from history and our children, our future, are but a minor sacrifice?

The billion dollar crop

As previously mentioned, as technology caught up with hemp, a world of new potential materialised. In 1938 ‘Popular Mechanics’ prepared an article on Hemp called ‘The Billion Dollar Crop’, in which they stated hemp fibres could be converted into 5,000 products ranging from rope to lace and the remaining woody ‘hurds’ containing 70% cellulose, converted into 25,000 products ranging from dynamite to cellophane.

This however was four score years ago. Technology has moved on, as has inflation. To a point where it would not unreasonable to see cannabis hemp as a Trillion Dollar crop.

To give the briefest glimpse of hemp’s potential:

Fabric of any quality and consistency, from coarsest sackcloth to finest silk, without the need for pesticides or fertilisers, or, genetic modification: with twice the yield per acre of cotton, and at least three times its strength, absorbency, warmth and longevity.

Plastics of every kind, from earplugs to aeroplanes, packaging to insulation: biodegradable, without poisonous by-products, toxic fumes or excess CO2.

Finest bond paper that does not yellow or disintegrate through time, card and board, stronger and more enduring than wood pulp alternatives, renewable, sustainable: at five times the yield per acre of forest, and without producing acid rain.

For construction: hemp is ideal for fireproof insulation, and board made from hemp fibre has several times the tensile strength of wood-chip and can be fireproofed and weather proofed for walls and roofs. And, in time, given cannabis hemp’s extraordinary strength to weight ratio, likely an ideal material for bridges and skyscrapers.

For fuel: cannabis hemp produces more net biomass than any other plant on earth. With small adjustments in processing it can produce, ethanol, acetone charcoal, tar, creosote… and has the potential to replace all fossil fuels: without pollution, as it does not require poisonous processing chemicals, or produce excess CO2.

For food: hemp seed is the most nutritionally complete food on earth. Second only to soy in the plant kingdom as a protein source, but much higher for essential fatty acids, including Omega 3 and 6 oils and vitamins A and E, both powerful antioxidants: and, without genetic modification, pesticides or fertilisers.

And medicine, for literally thousands of ailments and diseases: from cancer to glaucoma, MS to depression, obesity to AIDS… the list appears endless, with the likelihood of overdose: Zero.

Cannabis hemp is also an excellent base for cosmetics, cleaning products, paints, varnish…

Plus, cannabis hemp works in harmony with the environment, grows just about everywhere, without fertilisers or pesticides, is renewable, sustainable, and with its long tap root, ideal for ground reparation.

All this from a plant anyone can grow in their garden! – sound too good to be true?

The most dangerous substance in the universe

As history is my witness, even without twentieth century technology, cannabis hemp has been interwoven with our evolution: From the spiritual gift of Shiva, the god Indra’s favourite drink and nectar of the gods in Vedic symbolism and tradition, cannabis hemp spread across culture and continent as our first and primary fibre, be it for clothing, fishing, bow strings, cordage… and as medicine, central to well-being: acknowledged since before the written word across Asia, and, come the twentieth century an ingredient in 50% of all medicines. Established as the best and most durable material for paper by the Chinese, a position unchallenged until industrialisation laid claim to the forests: and a jealously guarded secret, that did not find its way to Europe until the eighth century: on which, by the light of hemp oil lamps, monks and scholars produced our most enduring texts.

Artists painted with hemp oil paints on hemp canvas (canvas finding its entomological root in cannabis), and hempen rope and sail powered and steered Europe’s mighty galleons as they set sail to conquer the earth.

In the Americas, settlers set about conquering the continent with canvas covered wagons. The original Levi jeans were made from hempen sailcloth, riveted, tough enough for the 49ers to load their pockets with gold. Hemp could hardly be more central to US culture, for, together with its hempen flag, the declaration itself was drafted on hemp paper. Homesteads would invariably cultivate a ‘hemp patch’ and president after president sung hemp’s praises:

George Washington: “Make the most of Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!”

Thomas Jefferson: “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of our country.”

Abraham Lincoln: “Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp and playing my Honer [harmonica].”

John Adams: “We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our consumption.”

Sentiments continuing into the Twentieth Century where Henry Ford, the great industrialist, asked: “Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making or the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?”

And finally, delving further into hidden history, one other use for this remarkable little weed. As settlers – Europe’s poverty stricken oppressed – began their quest for independence, to undermine British sterling, hemp became recognised as an alternative currency for trade and commerce: a currency all could find value in. Indeed, hemp was still used to pay taxes long after Limey had been vanquished from the ‘New World’.

Plastic, paper, pharmaceuticals, fuel, food, fabric, finance, soil enhancer, pollution devourer, spiritual benefactor: cannabis hemp is a complete companion, and the answer to a prayer for our desperately beleaguered and polarised world. Cannabis hemp, together with its multitudinous material uses, also engenders balance and harmony, through its catalysing effects towards spirituality: and returning value to nature, where, in reality, it belongs.

But, the more one owns: property, status, ego, power…, the less one finds a taste or use for cannabis hemp. Silk for nobles, canvas for peasants, meat for the elite, gruel (originally hemp seed) for the surf, alcohol for society, grass for the dispossessed, materialism for the wealthy, spirituality for the poor.

So through history, it was ever thus: hemp had its place, service, for the job at hand: functional, reliable, adaptable, and cheap – and everywhere. Shiva’s gift to the wretched: sustenance, shelter and spirituality.

Until now, where nature is outlawed. Outlawed, not for it’s danger to humanity, far from it, cannabis hemp could catalyse our saviour: but to the power hungry egotists who would own our world – and others besides.

Cannabis hemp comes head-to-head with all of our world’s most powerful corporations: oil, big pharma, big cotton, lumber, seeds and genetic modification, alcohol and tobacco, and the war machine. Furthermore, what government, after decades of dishonest and ill conceived laws that have destroyed the lives of millions (with law enforcement and private prisons now as powerful lobbying groups in their own right), could ever dare recognise their woeful error and duplicitous complicity in the persecution and attempted annihilation of God’s greatest gift to humanity?

So we are left with a world of poisonous chemical, genetically modified unnatural alternatives, dictated and dispensed by a handful of merchants and their whores defining our world order, who see power and wealth and expansion as primary objectives in themselves. A world without balance or harmony, driven by materialism and insecurity, where all must remain hungry and all must remain fearful, forever: as fuel, for the insatiable engine of capitalism.

To governments and corporations, and bankers: Cannabis Hemp is indeed, the most dangerous substance in the universe.

A personal perspective:

It is easy to become trapped in the brutality and injustices of our polarised, intolerant world, or overwhelmed by the sensory images that bombard us 24/7, together with the fragmented sound bites fed to us as truth. A chaotic mass of apparently unrelated data, seemingly incoherent and disparate, yet nevertheless, designed to shape the thought and motivation of populations: hungry, fearful, clueless populations.

Cannabis engenders dispassionate reflection and harmony with all. It diffuses blame with understanding, prompting us to stand back and consider the bigger picture, to take a holistic perspective: beyond the establishment narrative. Beyond little stories in boxes, couched in terms of ‘good and evil’, that invariably hide strategic and economic motivation and racial and religious bigotry, and consequences beyond the pocket story. In today’s world, even to suggest such connections, brands one a psychotic or a terrorist, or some other such label, packaging the non-conformer as at odds with establishment order and establishment thinking.

And this, to me, is where the true beauty (and danger) of cannabis lies: in smashing illusions, opening doors of perception – beyond the personal and possessive, beyond the immediate and simplistic, beyond the agenda driven bullshit defining parameters and perspectives – as a gateway to nature and the now, to being, and as the progenitor of question and a catalyst to wonder.

Our tree of life, real life: imbuing holism and harmony, reflection and understanding, peace, and love. So to those who would command, who would see our world owned and who would live off hate and the toil of others, Shiva’s seminal offering truly is: the most dangerous substance in the universe.

Sources: (video): The Union – Run from the Cure – The Hemp Revolution – Magic Weed – The Hemplands Conspiracy – Hemp and the rule of Law – The Medicinal use of Cannabis – In Pot we Trust – The Emperor of Hemp – Hemp for Victory – The History of Marijuana – American Drug War, the Last White Hope

(books/literature): Cannabis, a History – Shiva, the Wild God of Power and Ecstasy – The Forbidden Medicine – The Emperor Wears no Clothes – The Shafer report

The Myth of African Poverty

There is a great fallacy, a lie perpetuated through history and around the globe: that Africa is poor.

Africa is presented as poor, because it doesn’t have any of this strange folding stuff called money. It has plenty of everything else, it is what capitalists and prospectors call resource rich.

Indeed, it is the most perfect place to grow our tea, coffee, cocoa… fruit, vegetables, flowers… and harvest our rubber, hardwood… oil… jewels, minerals… It’s enough to destabilise governments for!

We then offer them some of this folding stuff and they fall back into line. And lie and cheat and steal all the way from the top down, so this paltry representation of real value never gets anywhere near those who work the land or were driven off it. Yet because the dispossessed were duped with the concepts of land ownership and hierarchical authority (and violence), they feel disempowered and they too have fallen under the spell of this strange stuff called money.

Africa has never been poor. It has a history and wealth of diversity unequalled. And further, if we are to believe our anthropologists and geneticists, the very birthplace of humanity. Surprising then, is it not, that while in Western Europe and North America we’ve decimated the forests, worn out the soil, polluted the rivers and water tables and exhausted the mines, Africa remains, to the large part, thriving and fruitful. A godsend to Western governments with stomachs to fill, corporations with consumers to satisfy and banks with interest to manufacture.

Africa’s Western educated, financed, supported, armed leaders remain happy to perpetuate this myth, too ignorant or seduced to wish any change in perception: preferring the enormous power and the largely unsupervised bankroll. Corruption further suits Western interests: favouring personal/tribal associates, backhanders, etc. creating resentment, division, tension and potential conflict.

Manufacturing and maintaining divisions is a tactic that dates back two and a half millennia. More recent however is the lucrative and thriving arms industry, the UK’s only remaining indigenous industry, which reaps the benefit of internal repression and maintaining fictitious borders – while banks, merchants and Western governments profit from the extraordinary value such power hungry individuals place on violence, and how little value they place on basic foodstuffs.

Again, we find this strange folding stuff valuing the most useless and dangerous commodities with enormous worth, although they have no practical purpose, while basic nourishment, God’s gifts and harvesting, are valued as virtually worthless (one should however note, upon reaching Western supermarkets their value will have multiplied many, many times).

So we find the impossible situation, where the richest place on earth is labelled poorest, continues to haemorrhage genuine wealth, while being kept enslaved and divided through arbitrary concepts and artificial boundaries, turning tribe against tribe and hoodwinking the people with the lie of money.

The Suspicious and Timely death of Father Anthony de Mello, SJ.

There seems a depressing inevitability about the fate of those who would challenge the established order, and engage popular support. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X come readily to mind, and of course President Kennedy. Undoubtedly people who had made powerful enemies but had also polarised various social, religious and political groups enough to conjure a host of scapegoats and confusion. Where the heavy finger of blame points in only one direction, subtler methods are required.

*

Tony was a rising star in the Catholic Church. OK, at 55 he was no spring chicken, but nevertheless by comparison to the higher orders, he was youthful indeed. Tony founded the Sadhana institute in 1973, which over the years gained an international reputation, along with its founder. Tony found himself frequently jetting around the world giving conferences and talks and gaining ever more popularity with an increasing audience.

Tony captivated audiences with simple stories, parables and sayings from across culture and religion: Chinese, Indian, American, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist… using them as gateways to understanding, windows upon awareness. Moreover, Tony held a deep appreciation for scripture, the messages, signposts held within, and the early Christian mystics whose writings he blended seamlessly with spiritual wisdom, from wherever it came.

Come the mid ’80s, although resistant at first, Tony allowed occasional recordings of his talks. In 1986 he gave his first videoed conference, ‘Wake up to Life!’, held over four days in New York. It was an enormous success, Tony appeared to be going places.

*

I knew nothing of Tony at this time, I’d been C of E and lapsed somewhat. In fact I’d found more sense in Daoism and Buddhism so had focused my spiritual journey there. When it came to Catholicism, my connection, hence understanding, had consisted of little more than, ‘In God’s Name’ by David Yallop (arguing Pope John Paul I was assassinated because he was about to curtail the Vatican Bank’s money laundering for the Mafia and return the Church to the poor), ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’ by Michael Baigent et al. (which, amongst other things, examines the construction and editing of the Bible and Rome’s attempts at exterminating dissidence), and ‘Father Ted’, so ‘followers of the faith’ were unlikely to be top of my reading list.

Not long after the Internet came into being, a friend who is prone to such things, sent me a quote from Anthony de Mello:

“You are so proud of your intelligence”, said the master. “You are like a condemned man proud of the vastness of his prison cell”.

I liked it very much. It sat comfortably with someone who, at least academically, was intellectually challenged. In fact, it was a great source of comfort as I fought my way through three years of International Relations Theory at university.

Never really thought any more about it after uni, until browsing in a London book store, wanting something for my return journey to Aberystwyth, when I came across ‘Sadhana: a way to God – Christian exercises in Eastern form’. When I read Anthony de Mello was a Jesuit priest I almost retuned the book to the shelf, almost, but… something stayed me. It is important, as I would hear Tony tell me, just a day or so hence, not to let prejudice stain my window.

Sadhana was a joy. To be honest it transformed my picture of what Christianity could be. Tony made such simple, wholesome sense, seamlessly tying east and west. In fact, what Tony was saying, seemed to me the antithesis of Catholicism as I had understood it.

And indeed, although willing to reappraise my opinion, given the shining beacon of Tony, and as I was to discover, some remarkably brave nuns and priests in Latin America, I could find little, or nothing, to substantially challenge my original position. For as I examined recent Papal decisions and actions in relation to censuring and silencing campaigning priests, organised crime, child abuse, financial dealings, power… the actions appeared as autocratic, unanswerable, arbitrary as ever. With the fearsome Herr Ratzinger appearing as Pope John Paul II’s henchman for throttling dissidence.

*

Tony must have been a big, big problem. Tony would not be silenced, he was here to dance his dance. He spoke his truth in a simple, logical, understandable way, engaging with increasing numbers as word spread. His 1986 tour of the US, as mentioned above, was a huge success. Unfortunately, all the video footage of the four day conference was destroyed, leaving just eight hours of audio (of which most would be published as ‘Awareness’ some three years later).

1987, a year on, Tony is back in the States, ready for his summer tour. Surely this year there would be no such accident, backups would be made, safeguards put in place. ‘Tony, the video’ was about to go public through every Catholic bookshop worldwide! A most unpalatable prospect for the powers that be.

*

It would be a futile exercise to attempt to uncover any validity behind the possible assassination of Tony. As a priest within the Jesuit order, he would be effectively encased within their system. Their meals, their autopsy, their press release, no need for external examination. So we see motivation, means and method, but that is all, and as Tony would advise us, one must keep an open mind, open to, and awareness of, each and every possibility and eventuality.

Assassination or not, for Herr Ratzinger, Tony’s death was a timely ‘Godsend’. Unfortunately for Ratzinger, Tony’s work did not dry up. Posthumously published works appeared and interpretations also began to surface. He was not best pleased. On Ratzinger’s request the Vatican banned Tony’s books, however, finding the ban unworkable, this was transmuted to a ‘Notification’, penned by Ratzinger and authorised by Pope John Paul II, placed in all Tony’s books warning Catholics away from such dangerous and subversive teaching.

*

Tony represented a potential schism in the Church, encouraging people to become aware, to think for themselves, rather than let the Church, or any ideology do it for them.

“To doubt”, Tony argues, “is infinitely more important than adoration… to question is so much more important than to believe”.

Everywhere people are searching for objects to adore, but I don’t find people awake enough in their attitudes and convictions. How happy we would be if terrorists would adore their ideology less and question more. However, we don’t like to apply that to ourselves; we think we’re all right and the terrorists are wrong. But a terrorist to you is a martyr to the other side.

The process that we use for making a St. Francis Xavier could be exactly the same process used for producing terrorists.

What is scripture, then? It’s a hint, a clue, not a description. The fanaticism of one sincere believer who thinks he knows causes more evil than the united efforts of two hundred rogues. It’s terrifying to see what sincere believers will do because they think they know. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, “We don’t know”?

Unfortunately Tony’s observations on the scriptures did not survive the accident, but having gone over the eight remaining hours of the ‘Wake up to Life!’ conference tapes times past counting (cutting, splicing, reordering, editing… (it appears as if no one cared for these recordings) a long and would be tedious process, if not for the joy of listening to Tony and his insights) the few biblical observations which did survive paint a remarkably different picture to the one presented as Truth by religious hierarchy.

“Sleeping people read the scriptures and crucify the Messiah on the basis of them.” Tony is not limiting his observation to lay people, but challenging all, citing examples of priests and religious scholars who, through the Bible and enculturation, lose sight of deeper meaning, preferring attachment to understanding.

Awareness, awareness, awareness – the message is so simple, yet complex as life itself. To find awareness one must first shatter illusions, get deprogrammed, remove the control that society has imposed. So what about Tony’s awareness? Tony’s deprogramming? Tony’s society?

One can of course only speculate, and it is most difficult to see that which surrounds us, pervades us (like, to use one of Tony’s analogies, the little fish in the ocean: “Excuse me, I’m looking for the ocean. Can you tell me where I can find it?”), however, from examining Tony’s words, I believe he was under few illusions about Catholicism, and the ruthlessness of its hierarchy.

One might even suggest he was poking fun or taunting them, with all his talk of awareness, understanding, discovery, and not taking the Bible literally, which flies in the face of those with an interest in power and control, who prefer blind obedience and subservience. Further, in his condemnation of religion Tony suggests the Church falls prey to idolatry: a mental idol, producing “the more dangerous idol worshippers”.

“All revelations, however divine, are never any more than a finger pointing to the moon… When the sage points at the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger.” Tony is not of course limiting his observation to Catholicism or Christianity but religion in general and the idols: texts, symbols, rituals, which too often become a “barrier to getting in touch with reality, because sooner or later we forget that the words are not the thing. The concept is not the same as the reality. They’re different… The final barrier to finding God is the word “God” itself and the concept of God.” “You miss God because you think you know. That’s the terrible thing about religion.”

Tony is universally scathing of nations and governments of all kinds, “I don’t know of one government, not one, that is selfless, individuals perhaps, but governments, oh, oh, oh”. Can Tony, in his awareness, be overlooking the government in Rome?

I wondered at his tenacity, fearlessness, abandon, and I am tempted to say foolhardiness, as he jokes, perhaps?, of becoming Pope (edited out of the book), questioning the honesty and capacity of priests and pouring scorn on weeping for one’s sins – “a great religious distraction”, says Tony. “That’s not what repent means: wake up! Become aware! What’s the use of weeping for your sins, which you committed while you were asleep anyway?” But, Tony also informs us, you cannot truly live until you have abandoned fear, and fear of death.

And Tony shows no fear, as he enters into the heat of battle, with his heart at the lotus feet of the Lord (“should I battle my relatives? Go right ahead, do your duty”).

He is not threatened by criticism, he does not care what you think of him or what you say about him. He’s cut all those strings: he’s not a puppet any longer.

“He’s terrifying. So we’ve got to get rid of him. He tells the truth: he has become fearless: he has stopped being human.”

Human! Behold! A human being at last! He broke out of his slavery, broke out of their prison.

This is Tony from ‘wake up to life, 86’. Jesus appeared as the immediate example in my mind, but the more I examined Tony’s words the more I found challenges to Rome, its orthodoxy and references to their potential response. Is it in any way possible that Tony could be blind to the anger his perspective generated amongst Church hierarchy? Or is he predicting his fate?

Tony finishes the conference with his wonderful story of ‘the man who invented fire’, who shared his invention with the cold and hungry and so enraged and terrified the priests that they got rid of him. Again, this could be reference to Jesus, yet it might just as readily apply to the man who rediscovered it.

***

document with references available for download at Scribd

‘Awareness’ by Anthony de Mello, 8 CDs torrent file

other resources at http://awareness.tk

not worth reporting

Not worth reporting

Today in Gaza Israel has bombed three hospitals, the UN compound, holding a goodly percentage of the remaining, dwindling food supplies and the Red Crescent office. They used phosphorous bombs, banned under international law: prosperous burns flesh to the bone.

None of this is considered newsworthy by the BBC. Their lead was the “killing” of Hamas interior minister, Said Siyam. No mention that he was democratically elected, nor the collateral damage of his family members killed along side.
I wonder where on earth this execution, without trial, would not be classed as murder? Mass murder. Yet it is trifling in terms of death and ethics if we are considering statistics, or significance. Significance in terms the ethical constructs humanity had supposedly developed over the last couple of millennia.

A hollow shell of hypocrisy. ‘Human Rights’, ‘International Law’ – meaningless rubbish, occasionally to hide behind, but mostly to ignore. Worthless, useless: worse than useless. Worse than useless because they enable political leaders to bend and manipulate ‘morality’ to service their agenda and feign legitimacy.

Our press is impervious and the BBC is exemplary. Words that do not exist include murder, slaughter, genocide, ethnic cleansing: they prefer war, casualties and collateral damage. Words to fit with the agendas of their masters: those who wish to see Islam and its ideology wiped from existence, and those who would profit from the exercise.

The god Capitalism cannot work without Usury – also not worth reporting

Smoking is good for you?

 

 

Smoking is good for you?

 

Why do governments want to ban smoking? I mean, it’s not as if they actually care about their citizens’ health. If so, they would spend more on healing than killing. But, more to the point, they would address the far more personally and socially destructive effects of alcohol and refined sugar, (which of course, are one and the same) evidenced by alcohol fuelled late night violence and sex between drunken obese teenagers (and beyond), who cram casualty departments and make our city centres no-go areas until the sun comes up. Yet, regardless of this epidemic, because the sugar/alcohol multinationals’ influence is so powerful, health is a minor distraction – however, tobacco companies carry the same political influence, so this is not the reason. In addition, governments make billions annually from smoking: taxes, needless to say, but also in terms of unneeded pensions and the extraordinary savings in health care which escalate dramatically in old age.

Given this perspective, is it not strange that whilst not exactly pushing it, (they would not want to appear heartless now, would they?) governments do not offer smoking the same tacit approval they give to alcohol, junk food and gambling – all of which are many times more socially destructive?

So why do they hate smoking so much?

It was a question that had tumbled around in my head for months. The best I could come up with, was that they wanted to use the fields for a more lucrative crop. But what, barring illicit drugs, could generate such revenue? (Particularly with Heroin production back up to pre Taliban levels.) It just did not make sense.

Then, by chance i happened upon ‘Political Ponerology’ by Andrew Lobaczewski, which considers how wicked, power hungry people gradually take control over society. And he points out, that the last organised attempt to stifle smoking on the scale now under way in Europe and the United States was in pre-war Germany, under the Nazis. (P.156)

You see, what Nazi scientists discovered very soon into their research, was that carbon-monoxide, a central component of tobacco smoke, creates resistance to pathocratic influence: i.e. imbibers are more likely to question and less likely to blindly follow orders from psychopathic leadership (perhaps we could think of it as ‘attitude’, as symbolised by ’50s icons like James Dean and Marlon Brando). What is more, research also suggests ‘second-hand smoke’, as breathed by children of smokers, may in fact immunise them against the influence of psychopaths. Hardly useful, one would suggest, if the objective is filling heads with supremacist beliefs and obtaining undivided loyalty.

To Nazi leadership, with their early, unsophisticated attempts at propaganda, reducing peoples’ critical thinking and increasing their susceptibility to messages of hate and fear and identification were central to their objective. So while the government made supply of tobacco increasingly difficult, and smoking areas increasingly limited, the Nazi propaganda machine set about pushing the party line, vilifying and condemning “red-man’s weed” and persecuting those who would smoke it. It was a campaign begun in the mid 1930s and continued and intensified until they were finally overthrown. (The anti-tobacco campaign of the Nazis – http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/313/7070/1450 )

Today, when one considers the enormous advances in psychological warfare, be it for product sales, national/religious/corporate identity or fear of the other, and the increasingly sophisticated delivery techniques, the need for smoking to be eradicated becomes blazingly obvious. What government or corporation (or religion) in their right mind, whose primary goals are submission and association, cannot see the benefit of losing a few million in taxes, pensions, operations… for the benefit of a compliant, malleable ready made workforce, and market. From such a perspective, considering our current political and corporate leadership, it is clear, smoking never stood a chance.

What a good job we have a free and independent news media to stand up for the citizen, expose authoritarian lies and ensure governments and corporations cannot cynically manipulate and frighten people into servicing their nefarious goals… oh, err… looks like we’re in big trouble.

Better get puffing guys!

 

 

 

 

Information Underground Weekly Report: Blackwater and Private Security Companies

Stories from the Conspiracy Central Forum:

A day to remember from 1933

Posted by Ognir

http://conspiracycentral.info/index.php?showtopic=16153

Long before the Hitler government began restricting the rights of the German Jews, the leaders of the worldwide Jewish community formally declared war on the “New Germany” at a time when the U.S. government and even the Jewish leaders in Germany were urging caution in dealing with the new Hitler regime. The war by the international Jewish leadership on Germany not only sparked definite reprisals by the German government but also set the stage for a little-known economic and political alliance between the Hitler government and the leaders of the Zionist movement who hoped that the tension between the Germans and the Jews would lead to massive emigration to Palestine. In short, the result was a tactical alliance between the Nazis and the founders of the modern-day state of Israel – a fact that many today would prefer be forgotten.

http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/jdecwar.html

Know Your History

France’s Secret Wars in Africa

Posted by Hei Hu Quan

http://conspiracycentral.info/index.php?showtopic=16168

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article3030349.ece

For 40 years, the French government has been fighting a secret war in Africa, hidden not only from its people, but from the world. It has led the French to slaughter democrats, install dictator after dictator – and to fund and fuel the most vicious genocide since the Nazis. Today, this war is so violent that thousands are fleeing across the border from the Central African Republic into Darfur – seeking sanctuary in the world’s most notorious killing fields

2 Koreas Strike Wide Reconciliation Deal

Posted by Maximus Minimus Mediumus

http://conspiracycentral.info/index.php?showtopic=16130

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea pledged to detail its nuclear programs and disable all activities at its main reactor complex by year’s end, then signed a wide-ranging reconciliation pact with South Korea Thursday promising to finally seek a peace treaty to replace the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun also said they would open regular links across their heavily fortified border under the deal struck a day after the North made its firmest commitment yet to nuclear disarmament.

They Come at Night and Murder the Monks

Posted by hardboilednwokilla

http://conspiracycentral.info/index.php?showtopic=16135

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,509232,00.html

They surrounded a monastery on Weiza Yandar Street. All the roughly 200 monks living there were forced to stand in a row and the security forces beat their heads against a brick wall. When they were all covered in blood and lay moaning on the ground, they were thrown into a truck and taken away. “We are crying for our monks,” said the man, and then he was gone.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=484903&in_page_id=1

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23414471-details/Burma:%20Thousands%20dead%20in%20the%20massacre%20of%20the%20monks%20dumped%20in%20the%20jungle/article.do

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma’s ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: “Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.”

Via GlobalResearch.ca:

Licensed to Kill

Bush Justice Department embraces torture as a tool for collecting intelligence

by Scott Horton

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7002

The Bush Justice Department does have an essential law enforcement mission, though sometimes it seems to behave much more like a criminal syndicate. It warmly embraces the crime of torture as a tool for collecting human intelligence notwithstanding both its manifest illegality and immorality and the uniform view of intelligence professionals that torture consistently produces corrupted, inherently unreliable information. In so doing of course it is engaged in a fairly primitive game of self-protection. It can’t acknowledge the fundamental criminality of its conduct, so it turns the Justice Department into its consigliere. Three different lawyers in the office of legal counsel have rendered formal opinions giving a stamp of approval to a universal crime. Indeed, this sort of legal dexterity now seems to be accepted as a rite of passage for “movement” lawyers–a fact which is very revealing of the new character of the “movement.” It has nothing to do with ideals, and everything to do with personal fidelity. In each of these cases, the opinion boils down to the fundamental principle of the authoritarian state, namely: if the Leader authorizes it, then it must be okay. I can’t wait to see the intellectual conversion that will occur on January 20, 2009, when the opposition party furnishes the Executive.

Why Not Impeachment?

by Robert Parry

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7001

The disclosure that the Bush administration secretly reestablished a policy of abusing “war on terror” detainees even as it assured Congress and the public that it had mended its ways again raises the question: Why are the Democrats keeping impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney “off the table”?

Dangerous Crossroads: US Sponsored War Games

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6997

US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) has announced the conduct of major war games under Vigilant Shield 2008 (VS-08).

Vigilant Shield 2008 (15 to 20 October, 2007) is designed to deal with a “terrorist” or “natural disaster” scenario in the United States. The operation will be coordinated in a joint endeavor by the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.

Yet, VS-08, which includes a massive deployment of the US Air Force resembles a war-time air scenario rather than an anti-terrorist drill. The VS-08 war games extend over the entire North American shelf. Canadian territory is also involved through Canada’s participation in NORAD. (See Nazemroaya, October 2007)

These war games are being conducted at an important historical crossroads, amidst mounting US pressures and threats to actually declare a “real war” on Iran.

VS-08 is predicated on the doctrine of preemptive warfare, with a vie to protecting the Homeland. The war games are coordinated with anti-terrorist drills directed against presumed Islamic terrorists.

1) What is the origin of Blackwater?
Blackwater USA was formed in 1997 to provide training support to military and law enforcement organizations. In 2002 Blackwater Security Consulting (BSC) was formed. They are the single beneficiaries of government no-bid contracts due to the amount of military and intelligence insiders from the Pentagon and CIA. In the new world order of mercenaries Blackwater is one of a growing number of outsourced pseudo-military security companies such as Aegis, DynCorp, Triple Canopy, Intercon, Steele Foundation, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI). The men work for ISI, which describes its employees as “veterans of the Israeli special task forces from the following Israeli government bodies: Israel Defense Force (IDF), Israel National Police Counter Terrorism units, Instructors of Israel National Police Counter Terrorism units, General Security Service (GSS or ‘Shin Beit’), Other restricted intelligence agencies.” The company was formed in 1993. Its website profile says: “Our up-to-date services meet the challenging needs for Homeland Security preparedness and overseas combat procedures and readiness. ISI is currently an approved vendor by the US Government to supply Homeland Security services”.

Blackwater is rapidly expanding its operations, creating a new surveillance-blimp division, fleet of 20 planes, launching new training facilities in California and the Philippines, and increasingly setting its sights on the lucrative world of DHS contracts. It is clamoring to get into Darfur and has also hired Chilean troops trained under the brutal rule of Augusto Pinochet in addition to South African commandos from the Apartheid era.

2) What is the background of Erik Prince, the founder and CEO of Blackwater?
Blackwater’s owner and founder is Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL. Erik Prince attended the Naval Academy, graduated from Hillsdale College, and was an intern in George H.W. Bush’s White House. Prince has contributed $168,000 to the Republican National Committee since 1998, and also has supported the candidacies of politicians such as President George W. Bush and Senator Tom Coburn. A CIA source with whom I spoke said that Prince is very tight with top agency officials and has a “green badge,” the security pass for contractors who have access to CIA installations. “He’s over there [at CIA headquarters] regularly, probably once a month or so,” this person told me. “He meets with senior people, especially in the D.O.” (The D.O., or Directorate of Operations, runs covert operations; last year, it was absorbed by the newly created National Clandestine Service). Blackwater founder Erik Prince shares Bush’s fundamentalist Christian views. He comes from a powerful Michigan Republican family and social circle, and his father, Edgar, helped Gary Bauer start the Family Research Council.

3) There have been reports that Blackwater is involved with extraordinary rendition torture flights. Is there any substance to this?
An investigation by the European Parliment on the CIA using British airports to execute ‘torture flights’, has uncovered fresh evidence that a plane repeatedly linked to the controversial programme landed in the UK in June. Further details indicate that on June 2, 2007, at 4:36 pm, the CASA-212 Aviocar Flight touched down at RAF Mildenhall Airfield in Suffolk, UK. Its registration number N964BW, clearly visible on the fuselage, identified it as a plane which the European Parliament says has been involved in ‘ghost flights’ to smuggle terrorist suspects to shadowy interrogation centres abroad.

Records show the plane is owned by Blackwater USA, a CIA contractor described as “the most secretive and powerful mercenary army on the planet”. An eyewitness, who previously worked as an RAF electronic warfare expert, said that as the plane – a CASA-212 Aviocar Flight #N964BW – taxied to a stop on the runway it was met by a US military Humvee. The vehicle contained four US security policemen armed with M16 assault rifles, who accompanied the camouflaged crew to the airport terminal.

A report last November by a European Parliament committee placed the plane – registration number N964BW – is on a list of “companies and aircraft used by the CIA for extraordinary rendition flights”. The plane was previously registered with the Bolivian army, and has been pictured on the ground in the Afghan capital Kabul within the past year. The American Federal Aviation Authority lists the plane as being operated by two companies, Aviation World Wide Services and a sister company, Presidential Airways.

The European Parliament committee report describes these as shell companies operating as subsidiaries of Blackwater USA, “an important contractor for the CIA and the US military” which bases the planes in Malta. Research by a further group, The American Centre for Media and Democracy, claims that flight-tracking internet technology shows the plane landed at least twice in the first six months of 2006 at Camp Peary, the U.S. naval reservation in Virginia known as The Farm and widely alleged to be a CIA training facility. Another smoking gun in Blackwater’s involvement in “extraordinary rendidtions” regards their Vice-Chairman J. Cofer Black. Who is a thirty-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and was one of the key CIA people in Africa throughout the ’70s and ’80s. Particularly in support of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. J. Cofer Black is reputed to have essentially run the extraordinary rendition program. He was a key figure in the extraordinary rendition program, the government-sanctioned kidnap-and-torture program, and he’s now a major figure at Blackwater USA.

3) What was Blackwater’s role in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?
To establish a precedent of using pseudo-military mercenaries without accountability or oversight domestically within the U.S. At the behest and aegis of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. Deputized by Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco their role was to was to stop looters and confront criminals. Many of the mercenaries had gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges and confirmed that they’d been deputized.

Jeremy Scahill interviewed Cofer Black–the former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, and now one of the top people at Blackwater–at a mercenary conference, and he told me that they sent a helicopter and a bunch of their guys down there without any contracts at first. Within days of their guys deploying down there, Blackwater was handed a very lucrative $409,000 contract–literally to guard a morgue in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

4) There have been widespread reports from witnesses and insiders of Blackwater’s murderous escapades. What are they?
In an October 1, 2007 Congressional report, based on 437 internal Blackwater incident reports as well as internal State Department correspondence, says that that Blackwater’s use of force “is frequent and extensive, resulting in significant casualties and property damage.” It notes that Blackwater’s contract authorizes it to use lethal force only to prevent “imminent and grave danger” to themselves or the people they are paid to protect.

“In practice, however,” the report says, “the vast majority of Blackwater weapons
discharges are pre-emptive, with Blackwater forces firing first at a vehicle or
suspicious individual prior to receiving any fire.” Among the incidents cited in the
report:

On June 25, 2005, a Blackwater team in Hillah fatally shot an Iraqi man, a father of
six, in the chest. The victim’s family complained to the State Department, which said
in an internal report that the Blackwater gunmen initially failed to report the killing
and tried to cover it up.

On Oct. 24, 2005, Blackwater guards fired on a car that failed to heed a warning to
stop. In the gunfire, a civilian bystander was hit in the head with a bullet, but
Blackwater personnel did not stop.

On Nov. 28, 2005, a Blackwater motorcade traveling to and from the Iraqi oil
ministry collided with 18 different vehicles. According to an internal Blackwater report of the incident, the statements from employees were “invalid, inaccurate, and at best, dishonest.” Two Blackwater employees were dismissed, but there was no other apparent action taken as a result.

On Dec. 24, 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraq’s Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi. The AP previously reported the contractor had gotten lost on the way back to his barracks in Baghdad’s Green Zone and fired at least seven times when he was confronted by 30-year-old Raheem Khalaf Saadoun.

The guard was terminated by Blackwater. Within 36 hours of the shooting, the department allowed the 26-year-old contractor to be transported out of Iraq, according to a staff report. An unnamed State Department official then recommended Blackwater pay the guard’s family $250,000 as an “apology.”

But the Diplomatic Security Service, the department’s own law enforcement arm, said that was too much money and might prompt other Iraqis “to ‘try to get killed'” in order to provide for their families, according to the report. “In the end, the State Department and Blackwater agreed on a $15,000 payment,” the report says. Initial news coverage by Middle Eastern media of the killing said a “U.S. soldier” was responsible.

In a company e-mail obtained by the committee, a Blackwater employee said the mistake in the news “gets the heat off of us.”

On Sept. 16, 2007, 11 Iraqis were killed in a shoot-out involving Blackwater guards protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad. Blackwater says its guards acted in self-defense after the convoy came under attack. Iraqi witnesses have said the shooting was unprovoked. The convoy of four Blackwater vehicles drove into
the square about half an hour after a bombing prompted another Blackwater team that was guarding a U.S. diplomat to rush from the area and back to
the Green Zone, the enclave in Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi government agencies have headquarters. The police officer, whom CNN is identifying only as Sarhan, said the Blackwater guards “seemed nervous” as they entered the square, throwing water bottles at the Iraqi police posted there and driving in the wrong direction. He said traffic police halted civilian traffic to clear the way for the Blackwater team. Then, he said, the guards fired five or six shots in an apparent attempt to scare people away, but one of the rounds struck a car and killed a young
man who was sitting next to his mother, a doctor.

Sarhan said he and an undercover Iraqi police officer ran to the car but
they were unable to stop it from rolling forward toward the Blackwater
convoy. “I wanted to get his mother out, but could not because she was holding her
son tight and did not want to let him go,” Sarhan said. “They immediately
opened heavy fire at us.” “Each of their four vehicles opened heavy fire in all directions, they shot and killed everyone in cars facing them and people standing on the street,” Sarhan said. The shooting lasted about 20 minutes, he said.
“When it was over we were looking around and about 15 cars had been destroyed, the bodies of the killed were strewn on the pavements and road.”
Sarhan said no one ever fired at the Blackwater team.

“They became the terrorists, not attacked by the terrorists,” he said. “I saw parts of the woman’s head flying in front of me, blow up and then her entire body was charred,” he said. “What do you expect my reaction to be? Are they protecting the country? No. If I had a weapon I would have shot at them.”
Mohammed Abdul Razzaq was driving into Nusoor Square with his sister, her three children and his 9-year-old son Ali at the same time the Blackwater team arrived.
“They gestured stop, so we all stopped,” Razzaq said. “It’s a secure area so we thought it will be the usual, we would stop for a bit as convoys pass. Shortly after that they opened heavy fire randomly at the cars with no exception.”
“My son was sitting behind me,” he said. “He was shot in the head and his brains were all over the back of the car.” The others ducked and were spared, he said. He later counted 36 bullet holes in his car, six in his sister’s headrest.
“Anyone who got out of his car would be killed,” he said. “Anyone who would move was killed. Anyone sitting in a car was killed.”
“I saw a guy in a small car who got out to flee, they shot him and he hit the ground,” Razzaq said. “They fired at him again and again with his blood flowing in the street, but they continued to shoot him.”

Blackwater has had to fire dozens of guards over the past three years for problems ranging from misuse of weapons, alcohol and drug violations, inappropriate conduct and violent behavior, says the 15-page report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. A total of 122 Blackwater mercenaries ahve been terminated by Blackwater, and is roughly one-seventh of the work force that Blackwater has in Iraq, a ratio that raises questions about the quality of the people working for the company. Blackwater has been involved in 195 shooting incidents since 2005, or roughly 1.4 per week. In more than 80 percent of the incidents, called “escalation of force,” Blackwater’s guards fired the first shots even though the company’s contract with the State Department calls for it to use defensive force only, it said. In the vast majority of cases, Blackwater mercenaries fired their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the injured, the report found.

6) The Bush administration has circumvented use of the military in the Iraq war by using military contractors such as Blackwater, who are intentionally beyond the scope of both international civilian and military law. What legal means are in place to keep forces like these in line and protect the rights and property of civilians?
Blackwater USA has 2,300 active personnel deployed in nine different countries around the world. The cost for each Blackwater mercenary in Iraq, is $445,000 per year. With 20,000 additional forces at the ready (as of March 2007), they have set their focus increasingly to getting these troops strategically positioned within the United States. Blackwater now has been seeking deployment in Illinois, California for military and law enforcement training, in addition to their active deployment in New Orleans during the aftermath of Katrina. However, the U.S. government has sidestepped the legal obstructions inherent in the Posse Comitatus Act by using mercenary contractors. For those who are unfamiliar, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use of the Armed Forces as a Posse comitatus to execute the laws except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress. Since then there have been measures to malignantly reinterpret and subvert the intent of the original Act through means of surreptitiously passed Bills and Amendments. The ultimate goal being the clear use of the military in all domestic policing operations, with the police and the military being virtually indistinguishable. With the Bush administration effectively undermining the Posse Comitatus Act (John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122.ENR) and nullifying it under color of law, that will be eventually achieved. Until then, the covert use of Blackwater and other contracted mercenaries for contrived wars and synthetic emergencies, has altogether sidestepped the obstructive Posse Comitatus altogether by using what amounts to sanctioned gang members to patrol and police. Effectively Blackwater has been placed above the law with no accountability, oversight or punishment mechanism for war crimes and criminality in general.

7) Have there been any reprisals against Blackwater for egregious behaviour?
Yes, on March 31, 2004, four Blackwater soldiers were ambushed and killed in Fallujah. Their bodies burned and disfigured and then hung from a bridge. After which the U.S. launched a now notorious campaign of revenge attacks on the city of Fallujah that killed and maimed thousands. Many were civilians and it caused a massive resistance against the occupation that escalated the war to where it sits festering right now. Over 800 Blackwater soldiers have been killed in the course of the war yet their deaths have deliberately not been counted along with the other U.S. military deaths. Injuries as well as war crimes are not calculated nor officially documented. In effect they are exactly like black ops soldiers working for any intelligence agency, with zero oversight or accountability, and sanitized logistical information.

8) The Department of Homeland Security plans to keep its contract with Blackwater for two to five years, what does that mean?
No one knows as not even members of Congress can see these contracts. One member of Congress said that she’s not even allowed to see any of the contracts in general, but when she is, she has to go into a padded room. She’s not allowed to bring in any kind of writing equipment or paper, and she’s not allowed to say what she saw in that room after she’s viewed the contracts.

Sources:
• Jeremy Scahill – Blackwater: Shadow Army (2006)

• “Revolving Door to Blackwater Causes Alarm at CIA” by Ken Silverstein of Harper’s magazine

• “In the Black(water)” by Jeremy Scahill – The Nation

• “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” by Jeremy Scahill

• “Blackwater Portrayed as Out of Control” by Richard Lardner – Yahoo News

• Blackwater Incident Witness: ‘It was hell’ by Jomana Karadsheh and Alan Duke – CNN News

See Also:

The World of Blackwater: Private Wars for Public Monies

recorded 9/21/07

By Mumia Abu Jamal of Prison Radio

1) 2:48 Radio Essay short – Mp3

2) 4:07 Radio Essay long – Mp3

 

The World of Blackwater: Private Wars for Public Money

{col. writ. 9/20/07} (c) ’07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

The news running off the wire was unexpected in its rarity: the Iraqi ‘government’ announced that the U.S. private security company, Blackwater, would no longer be able to function in the country, following the killing of over 20 Iraqis by Blackwater personnel.

According to published reports, the U.S. State dept. will essentially ignore the Iraqi order, announcing that Blackwater would continue to work in the country. Blackwater provides security for many Americans working in Iraq, as well as some of its chosen puppets. (So much for ‘a sovereign nation.’)

The recent Blackwater shootout wasn’t the first, and unless I miss my guess, it won’t be the last.

For folks who’ve been following the American security company (and others like them), it should surprise no one that this company was involved in the shooting of civilians.

According to some researchers and reporters, Blackwater was getting down similarly — in the U.S.!

Think back to 2005, when the winds, rains, and gushing waters from Lake Pontchartrain swept through New Orleans, another force beset the already besieged town.

Blackwater was one of the number of such companies, armed with automatic weapons and contracts from the Dept. of Homeland Security. They were allowed to play cowboy when people were suffering from this natural disaster.

Several years ago, writer and “Democracy Now!” correspondent, Jeremy Scahill reported a conversation he had with a man from one of those private security companies during the height of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

Scahill described his conversation with a man named Michael Montgomery, who worked with an Alabama-based company known as Bodyguard and Tactical Security (BATS). This guy told Scahill that he was in New Orleans on the second night of the catastrophe. As Scahill explained:

They got stopped in the ninth ward. He said they came under fire from a group of people on an overpass that he described as black gang bangers. He said, “At the time I was on the phone with my business partner.” I said, “What did you do then?” He said, “I dropped the phone and opened fire.” I said, “With what kind of weapons?” –“AR-15 assault rifles and Glock 9’s.” Fired up at the people he described as black gang bangers on this bridge. I said, “Then what happened? Did you kill them?” He said, “Well, let’s just put it this way, I heard a lot of moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped. Enough said. “

Scahill was making his remarks on the Friday, Sept. 23 rd, 2005 edition of the nationally broadcast program, “Democracy Now!”

According to Scahill, these and other such groups were functioning in Louisiana, without licenses to operate in the state. What they had were contracts from the Homeland Security Dept., and a letter from the Governor of Louisiana! Thus, armed with automatic weapons, they patrolled the property of the rich, while they waged war against the poor.

Scahill explained that after the shooting, army officers and Louisiana State Troopers came on the scene – but neither agency filed a report. Scahill continued:

So this is the climate of impunity…..[H] ow do we know that he was fired upon? How do we know what that incident was? Why wouldn’t law enforcement file any kind of report on a shootout in which this guy is openly bragging to having shot up a bunch of people he described as black gang bangers on an overpass?

There are almost as many contractors working in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers — but the Blackwater people make a whole lot more money, and are better equipped.

That’s because they aren’t fighting for ‘democracy’, they’re fighting for good old American money. They are fighting for those who can afford them.

What do they care about Iraqis? What did they care about ‘Americans’ in the midst of the whirlwind and the storm?

–(c) ’07maj

 

Unholy Knights of the Red Shield

Unholy Knights of the Red Shield

The Rothschilds, we speak of them often and many don’t really know who and what they are. Sometimes one wonders whether there is some fable behind the shadowy crest that is the “Red Shield,” for which the families name is derived. Thoughts of mystery or some other novelty told to children around bed time, meant to keep them in bed, covers drawn over their faces. The Rothschilds are that wicked Cabal that forms the pupil in the eye on top of the pyramid. They are the dearth of humanity, fattened by greed and full of lust, destroying what little hopes humanity has for independence. Unlike the state sponsored education you’ve come from, here we practice reality in all its glorious horrors. During this Journey you won’t be fed the traditional rotten meat of fictitious fables, formed from the pens of perverted historical prostitutes. But instead have your eyes opened as history is rewritten to reflect what really happened as opposed to the bed time story you’ve come to know. It is not the premise of the author or this article to play to the status quo. We will delve and dive head long into revisionist history or more aptly put, return the facts back to their proper places. Let the journey begin

Lucifer Rising, time to answer the who and what that makes up the Rothschilds. To begin, we must first dispel with the claim that they are Jewish, this is important for two reasons: the first to show that their critics are not evil “Anti-Semites” and second to remove any historical ties to Ancient Judaism. It’s not important to show any religion at all with regards to the family, but if one is needed Luciferianism would be its name. Many look to the Star of David and falsely ascribe Hitler as its creator, however the story goes much deeper. Mayer Amschel Bauer (Rothschilds Patriarch) aka Mayer Amschel Rothschilds revived it, not out of thin air, but from a careful study of the Occult practices he followed. In the Bible the Star can be found in the worship of the dancing Israelites as Moses came down from the mount with the first set of Ten Commandants, this account is detailed in the book of Amos. That not being enough, we see it explained and named in the book of Acts, where it‘s called Remphan, an Egyptian god, also worshiped by other religions as the god Saturn. Pagan history aside, we see that what calls itself Jewish is not, its formation was in Egypt and probably even earlier (Straightway Truth). To further the divorcement of Rothschilds and “Jew“ we now go to the genetic proof: The Rothschilds claim to Jewish blood is also a myth. The explanation of which will take us to 9th century Turkey were we meet King Bulon of the Khazars. The King had a unique problem, he was surrounded by Muslims on one side and Christians on the other. This presented a huge issue for the king, as he rightly suspected invasion due to the lack of affiliation with either. His answer to this issue was to give his empire an identity that would protect it from the outside worlds interests. The solution came in the form of Judaism as it was determined that the Jews were able to deal well with both Muslim and Christian. From this conversion the Ashkenazi Jew was born (IM NIN’ALU). So now we come back to our illustrious Rothschilds, which are the posterity of this marriage of necessity. The important thing here to remember is that Jewishness of this family is a cover and it always has been.

Money Pit, fractional banking is what makes the Rothschilds world go round. It is the staple of debt creation and has afforded them the power to take down entire countries. This may sound odd, but something as simple as having an initial reserve of precious metal i.e. Gold or Silver and then attributing value to worthless paper that is supposedly represented by precious metal. On the surface this appears to be viable, as it would negate the necessity of caring around all that heavy metal; the problem happens when you start loaning out money for which there is no backing and then continue to do so with complete abandonment. This system of finance is what the Rothschilds have perfected. The idea for such a system is not their invention, and probably has its roots in the Templars, who used it as a means to gain wealth and power themselves throughout Europe. How Rothschild wields his way into the courts of Europe is not important, it is however worth noting that he did perfect the Government Loan and use this as the base for the creation of his initial wealth (Hitchcock).

Spies like us, Napoleon, Wellington, and the take over of Britain are the next phase of the growth of the family. Now without going to much into the battle at Waterloo itself it is important to note that through its interests in Europe the Rothschilds had developed the first intelligence agency and through a system of fast ships and couriers had created a mechanism for moving information at incredible speed. What happens next is the biggest case of market manipulation in history. The Rothschilds had already funded both sides of the War, Nathan Rothschilds funded Wellington in England and Jacob Rothschilds saw to Napoleon‘s needs in France. So they were going to win either way with this War, what makes this unique is that using the courier system they had in place Nathan Rothschilds was able to get the results of the battle before Wellington‘s own couriers could bring news of his victory over Napoleon. The significance here is that through this information Nathan began to sell Bonds (called Consuls at the time) seeing as everyone knew Rothschilds to be shrewd and have good inside information they assumed Wellington had lost the battle and began selling there bonds at near Pence on the Pound. When there was sufficient amount of bonds on the table Nathan made his move and bought them all up for nearly nothing. When news arrived the next day of Wellington‘s victory it was too late Nathan’s financial coup had already been complete, he now controlled the wealth of England for all intents and purposes (Hitchcock).

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Fascism & Communism two birds of a feather that the Rothschilds tied together. The Rothschilds created Fascism from the writings of Nietzsche. And at the same time Marx (real name Moses Levy Mordecai) was drafting the writings of Communism both funded by the Rothschilds, for the sole purpose of creating a dialectic (Hitchcock). This was the same plan to destroy religion and politics put forward by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 (also a Rothschild plant), but thwarted by the German Government in 1785 when the Illuminati was disbanded. It is at this time that Gutle Rothschild states before her death that, “If my sons did not want wars, there would be none” (of note Gutle is the patriarchal mother of the Rothschilds). It is with this knowledge that we must accept the fate of this world. No one can make statements like these without some form of knowledge to back it up. Mayer Rothschilds had some years back been kicked out of Russia by the Tzar and vowed revenge and now after his death his sons where bringing his threat to life. Just like with Wellington and Napoleon, both Communism and Fascism were funded to bring about the necessary boiling point needed for war (Hitchcock). And wars they created just like the currencies that now paid for them they were numbers created on a ledger. There was no real reason for them, the boundaries and catalysts that forged these conflicts where figments of the imaginations of the House of Rothschild. Every war since Napoleon can be traced back to an origin with a Rothschild name on it. Its not feasible without the need for many, many more pages to add the supporting material to substantiate and catalog these occurrences, but having known the scope of this undertaking before it was begun it was decided to supply the necessary reference material needed to complete the task of further investigation on ones own.

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles, everybody loves a monopoly right? Well this is a staple of the Rothschilds business ethic. Why divide and conquer in a true free market, when you can coheres and subvert the whole thing for yourself and take all the profits. This could go on and on like the previous section so for the sake of space and time we will look at Standard Oil, owned by the American arm of Rothschildss, our good friends the Rockefellers. These families are all intermarried and use this to cover their wealth and their name as to hedge suspicions of their monopolistic control. John D. Rockefeller, through his banking connections to the Rothschildss in Europe buys up all the competition and sets up the first monopoly in the United States (Hitchcock). What’s of note here is that the money doesn’t actually exist, the real desire of these families and their agents is not to empty your accounts, they already own those, but to take real property with the artificial money they’ve created. So in the end what was merely entries on a sheet of paper has through hypothecated slide of hand been turned into real assets. Estates, land, and utilities are all in the control of one of the Rothschildss front companies or an agent acting on their behalf.

Sex, Lies, & Video Tape, no financial takeover is complete without a political one. Soon after they there Bank set up they begin to seek out like minded people to further their cause on their behalf. Now most people have some sense of decency and as such sometimes a little persuasion is required to get the right results. When a particular Bill or other important legislation needed to be passed it was the job of agents to provide the necessary incentives for the votes they needed. If a politician could not be bought outright a little prostitution or blackmail goes a long ways to getting quick results. One such case of this is with Woodrow Wilson who has an extra marital affair and is coerced by Samuel Untermyer for the sum of 40,000 Dollars which was to be paid to the woman he slept with. Wilson didn’t have the money and Mr. Untermyer offered to pay the sum from his own pocket, which most certainly sealed the deal for any and all actions needed of the President for which a seat on the Supreme Court was sought (Hitchcock). Once again the recipe here was all part of the original Weishaupt formula back in 1776.

Weishaupt‘s full symphony of destruction reads like this:

1) Use monetary and sex bribery to obtain control of men already in high places, in the various levels of all governments and other fields of endeavor. Once influential persons had fallen for the lies, deceits, and temptations of the Illuminati they were to be held in bondage by application of political and other forms of blackmail, threats of financial ruin, public exposure, and fiscal harm, even death to themselves and loved members of their families.

2) The faculties of colleges and universities were to cultivate students possessing exceptional mental ability belonging to well-bred families with international leanings, and recommend them for special training in internationalism, or rather the notion that only a one-world government can put an end to recurring wars and strife. Such training was to be provided by granting scholarships to those selected by the Illuminati.

3) All influential people trapped into coming under the control of the Illuminati, plus the students who had been specially educated and trained, were to be used as agents and placed behind the scenes of all governments as experts and specialists. This was so they would advise the top executives to adopt policies which would in the long-run serve the secret plans of the Illuminati one-world conspiracy and bring about the destruction of the governments and religions they were elected or appointed to serve.

4) To obtain absolute-control of the press, at that time the only mass-communications media which distributed information to the public, so that all news and information could be slanted in order to make the masses believe that a one-world government is the only solution to our many and varied problems.

These official ingredients for subversion read off like something Orewll would have written if he had spent the time to explain how Big Brother came into being (Hitchcock).

Wag the Dog, no true takeover can be complete without the media right? Ever since Marlon Brando went on Larry King and said the Jews run Hollywood, people have wondered. Well media as well as entertainment is all part of the package and as such is in need of mention. Enter the Council on Foreign Relations created by the Rothschilds in France at Hotel Majestic and put together by Jacob Schiff in 1921 with a 1000 members made up of bankers and heads of industry and executed Colonel Edward Mandell House (Hitchcock). The CRF was than tasked with financially supporting those whose position matched their own for any office in the U.S. Government. It was decided that in order to further there efforts and contain information from the public eye newspapers and other forms of media should be acquired. This task was divided up between other powerful and influential Ashkenazi Jews of the time like: Kuhn Loeb, Goldman Sachs, the Warburgs, and the Lehmanns (Hitchock).

Happily Never After, The point of this essay was to introduce the reader to Zionism indirectly and attribute that term to its proper parent, the Rothschildss. One can not overlook the Cabalism in this families history, its the linchpin to the Occult nature of the family and probably supports the premise of its Zionistic goals for the start. These are the authors suppositions and not that of any of the sources. But since so much of modern Judaism is based on Cabala, the Talmud having already long since denounced the traditional Jewish Torah in favor of its own law. It wouldn’t be to ambitious to claim the precepts of the aforementioned belief system to be the hallmark of its thoughts and actions. The Rothschilds through birthright adopted an Occult religion, founded on the mysteries of Babylon and Egypt and through its teachings fomented a system from which with to take over the world. It has hijacked a religion for the sake of concealing another, all along claiming to be a disenfranchised party deserving protection and sympathy. It‘s a grand hoax from a Grand Lodge and one that has been played out for over a hundred years. In closing lets look at a direct quote from the Jewish Encyclopedia from 1925 it states of the existence of Ashkenazi Jews (who represent approximately 90% of so-called world Jewry), with the startling admission that the so called enemy of the Jews, Esau (also known as Edom, see Genesis 36:1), now actually represents the Jewish race, when on page 42 of Volume V it is stated, “Edom is in modern Jewry.” So what they’re basically saying is that these Ashkenazi Jews, who represent 90% of the so-called Jewish population, are actually gentiles or goyim themselves.

Works Cited
The History of the House of Rothschild. 15 Dec. 2005. The French Connection. 30 Sep. 2007
<http://iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Rothschilds.htm&gt;.

The Khazars. 26 Apr. 2002. IM NIN’ALU. 30 Sep. 2007
<http://www.imninalu.net/Khazars.htm&gt;.

The Star of Remphan. 24 Feb. 2007. StraitwayTruth.com. 30 Sep. 2007
<http://www.straitwaytruth.com/artman/publish/article_44.shtml&gt;.

Depleted Uranium

Information compiled by Hei Hu Quan

1) What is D.U. or Depleted Uranium?
Depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process.

Depleted Uranium, or DU, is a waste material left over from the nuclear industry. A vast amount of this waste DU is produced when natural uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Only the uranium isotope U-235 can be used in nuclear processes, such as reactors and weapons. As most of this isotope is removed from naturally occurring uranium, the remaining uranium product comprises U-238 and smaller amounts of the more highly radioactive U-235 and U-234. DU is both chemically toxic and radioactive. It is this latter product, the left over uranium, comprising mainly U-238, which has been used to make ‘depleted’ uranium weapons. It is used for weapons because this heavy, dense metal is judged by the army to be an excellent penetrator of enemy armour, tanks, and even buildings.

The term “depleted uranium” is a misnomer. DU is “depleted” only in the isotopes U234 and U235 which constitute less that 1% of the total uranium. The fact is that both “depleted” uranium and “natural” Uranium are over 99% composed of uranium-238. Depleted uranium is almost as highly concentrated as pure uranium and may contain plutonium in trace amounts.

A large amount of DU in the stockpiles held in the United States has been contaminated with recycled spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors. For example trace amounts of U-236 and highly radioactive substances such as plutonium, neptunium and technetium were found in a DU anti-tank shell used in Kosovo. Hundreds of thousands of tons of this contaminated stock was exported to the UK, France and other countries in the 1990s. The extent to which this DU has been contaminated with recycled spent fuel is still unknown and undisclosed.

Depleted uranium is a risk to health both as a toxic heavy metal and as a radioactive substance. The UK and US Governments have long sought to play down these risks.

2) What is it used for and why?
DU is used in a variety of military applications. It is attractive to the military, governments and the nuclear industry for three main reasons. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, it is in cheap and plentiful supply and solves the problem of storage and monitoring. Secondly, it is a very effective battlefield weapon because its high density and self-sharpening qualities enable it to penetrate hard targets with ease. Thirdly, DU is pyrophoric, which means it burns on impact, enhancing its ability to destroy enemy targets.

The US military uses DU mainly for its Abrahams tanks and A10 warplanes, although it is also used in its Bradley fighting vehicles, AV-8B Harrier aircraft, Super Cobra helicopter and its Navy Phalanx system. It is also used by the US military for a variety of other applications including bombshells, tank armour plating, aircraft ballast and anti-personnel mines. Although the US and UK militaries are the only countries who have been properly documented as using DU weapons, they are known to be held by at least seventeen other countries including: Australia, Bahrain, France, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

Modern warfare since the Gulf War in 1991 has employed weapons which make use of DU for its properties:

1. It is cheap and available to arms manufacturers free of charge.
2. It has a very high-density which makes it a superior armour piercing material.
3. It burns upon impact producing intense heat and easily cuts through steel.
4. It acts as a self-sharpening penetrator.

The 1991 Gulf War saw the first verified use of DU weapons. Around 320 tonnes of DU in weapons were used in the war, of which about 1 tonne was used by the UK military. According to data from the US Department of Defense, tens or hundreds of thousands of US military personnel could have been exposed to DU. Both the US and UK Governments refused any responsibility for decontamination and both refused to study the exposure rates or after-effects of this DU use. After a few years, evidence began to emerge from Iraq about the increasing incidence of cancer and birth deformities in the south of the country. After heavy US lobbying in November 2001 the UN General Assembly voted down an Iraqi proposal that the UN study the effects of the DU used there.

In the 2003 attack on Iraq, the US and UK militaries used DU again despite the lack of reliable data on the effects of using it in Iraq 12 years previously. The British Government has admitted using 1.9 tonnes of DU. Even though this is only a tiny proportion of all DU used in Iraq, it is double the amount used in 1991. The US authorities have still not said how much has been used, although an initial Pentagon source revealed 75 tons of DU may remain in Iraq from A-10 planes alone.

The implications for Iraqi civilians are very alarming. Unlike the first Gulf War, which was largely confined to desert areas, much of the DU use has been in built-up, heavily populated areas. The US Government has refused any cleanup of DU in Iraq, clinging to the statement that it has no link with ill health, while the British Government has for the first time admitted it does have a responsibility but says it is low on their list of priorities.

3) Are there international laws against its use?
No, there are none.

4) What countries are using D.U. currently?
The United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Bahrain, France, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

5) What are the specific health threats?
Uranium is most dangerous when it burns and is aerosolized as happens when it is used in weapons. Inhaled uranium can remain in the lungs and bones for years where it continues to emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Each alpha particle can traverse up to several hundred cells causing somatic and genetic alterations. Soldiers inside a tank or armoured vehicle can inhale tens of milligrams of DU after the shell goes through the tank. Compare this to the maximum allowable yearly dose in the U.S. for inhaled uranium is 1.2 milligrams per year.

Serious long-term effects include: Compromised immune system, metabolic, respiratory and renal diseases, tumours, leukemia, and cancer.

A 1998 study conducted by Dr. Livengood showed that DU contamination transforms normal bone cells into tumorous ones.

It is estimated that 300 – 800 metric tons of DU were deposited in the battlefield in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. Dr. Doug Rokke (DU expert and former US army physicist) estimated that 120 to 480 million grams of DU would be aerosolized if 40% of the DU were burnt up.

The smaller the particles of DU, the greater the danger. Particles less than 5 microns can be inhaled and deposited in the lungs where they can remain for years. A study found DU particles 42 km away from the source.

Compare these numbers to the allowable limits for radiation releases in the US. The National Lead Industry Plant in Colonie, NY was closed down for violating a New York state court order which limited the amount of radiation released to 387 gram of DU metal per month. The plant closed down in February of 1980 for exceeding this limit and closed permanently in 1983. The area has been decontaminated. The engineering report states that the soil from 53 of the 56 nearby properties was beyond the radiation limits and had to be removed to a low-level radiation storage site. The cost was over 100 million USD. The cleanup cost was 1000 USD per cubic meter.

It’s not just in terms of increased risk of cancer that DU DNA damage can affect health. It is also implicated in causing a depressed immune system, reproductive problems, and birth defects. For example, a study of US Gulf War veterans has found that they are up to three times as likely to have children with birth deformities than fathers who had not served; and that pregnancies result in significantly higher rates of miscarriage. A major 2004 Ministry of Defence-funded survey study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found that babies whose fathers served in the first Gulf War are 50 per cent more likely to have physical abnormalities. They also found a 40 per cent increased risk of miscarriage among women whose partners served in the Gulf.

There are three main routes through which DU exposure on the battlefield takes place: inhalation, ingestion and wounding. As a DU penetrator hits its target some of the DU from the weapon reacts with the air in the ensuing fire and becomes a fine dust (often called an ‘aerosol’) that makes inhalation and ingestion a possibility for those in the area. Even after the dust has settled, the danger remains that it may be resuspended in the future by further activity or the wind, and again pose a threat to civilians and others for many years into the future. DU particles have been reported as travelling twenty-five miles on air currents. Open wounds also allow a gateway for DU into the body and some veterans have also been left with DU fragments in their bodies, remaining after combat.

Inhaled DU dust will settle in the nose, mouth, lung, airways and guts. As a DU penetrator hits its target, the high temperatures caused by the impact ensure the DU dust particles become ceramic and therefore water insoluble. This means that, unlike other more soluble forms of uranium, DU will stay in the body for much longer periods of time. This aspect of uranium toxicology has often been ignored in studies of the health effects of DU, which base their excretion rates on soluble uranium. DU dust can remain in the sticky tissues of the lung and other organs such as the kidneys for many years. It is also deposited in the bones where it can remain for up to 25 years. This helps explain why studies of Gulf War veterans have found that soldiers are still excreting DU in their urine over 12 years after the 1991 conflict. Ingested DU can be incorporated into bone and from there will irradiate the bone marrow, increasing the risk of leukaemia and an impaired immune system.

In Basra, in southern Iraq, there have been striking reports for a number of years about the rise in local childhood cancers and birth deformities seen there. The findings of a leading Iraqi epidemiologist, Dr Alim Yacoub, were presented in New York in June 2003 and suggest there has been a more than five fold increase in congenital malformations and a quadrupling of the incidence rates of malignant diseases in Basra.

The Dutch Journal of Medical Science reported the findings of the Flemish eye doctor, Edward De Sutter. He found 20 cases out of 4000 births in Iraq of babies with the phenomenon anophthalmos: babies who have been born with only one eye or who are missing both eyes. The very rare condition usually only affects 1 out of 50 million births.

6) Other Countries Contaminated by DU Include:

BOSNIA 1994-1995 – Around 10,800 DU rounds, or 3 tonnes, were used in Bosnia.

KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA 1999 – US A-10 aircraft fired around 31,300 rounds of DU, or 9 tons of DU in areas of Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro during NATO action there in 1999.

AFGHANISTAN 2001- 2004 – There is some evidence that DU has been used in Afghanistan, although this has never been confirmed officially. For example, US A-10s and Harrier aircraft, which both use DU ammunition, are known to have been active in the region.

Geneva Convention Rules (to which US and UK are signees)

– The limitation of unnecessary human suffering [Art.35.2]
– The limitation of damage to the environment [Art. 35.3 and 55.1]
– It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering [Art. 35.3]
– It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment. [Art. 35.2]
– In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives. [Art. 48]
– Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. [Art.51.4]
– Care shall be taken in warfare to protect the natural environment against widespread, long-term and severe damage. This protection includes a prohibition of the use of methods or means of warfare which are intended or may be expected to cause such damage to the natural environment and thereby to prejudice the health or survival of the population. [Art. 55.1]

Sources:
The Uranium Medical Research Centre – DU Facts and Fictions – http://www.umrc.net/facts_and_fictions.aspx

Viewzone – Depleted Uranium – The Truth – http://www.viewzone.com/du/du.html

Dinosaurs and Hamburgers

ConCen Blog
Friday, September 28th, 2007
By mothandrust

This piece was the appendix to my dissertation on International Relations Theory. It earned me a big fat zero! As far as I am aware, it’s the only dissertation ever to have been marked at 0% (without being disqualified for cheating).

 

Dinosaurs and Hamburgers

 

Do you know where the word Education comes from?

It comes from the Latin Verb, Educe – meaning, to bring out.

No, I would never have guessed either.

*

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote two treatises, Du Contract Social, on Man in society, and Émile, on how society’s future members should be encouraged to learn.

He breaks this into four stages and recommends that, children should learn firstly from nature and given freedom to explore and discover things for themselves – followed by the age of reason, then strength and finally wisdom – leading to the “age of happiness – all the rest of life.”[102] Further, he argues, learning should be interaction and understanding driven by imagination, within the primary political unit, the family. Education should be a guide not a master.

The state, Rousseau argues, can never be trusted to deliver an unbiased education. Indeed, he suggests, “any education aimed at producing the sort of citizen states wanted would be as bad as the states themselves.”[103]

*

What is the purpose of education? There are two distinct purposes, which ideally should be one. Namely, to educate, and to turn out productive members of society – those who will enhance and validate the structure, those who in time will become authority.

Learning cannot of course be removed from this picture, States cannot stand still, particularly as the pace of change accelerates. Ideally the education structure produces the tools to satisfactorily fuel national ambitions – so at this level, learning is of vital importance. However, this learning is potentially superficial in the extreme. The reason being, such learning will be built on the existing structures, which necessarily validate the system – that is, find sympathy within hegemonic thinking. This creates a situation where foundations and structures are barely ever questioned, except in the most superficial manner.

To Use International Relations (IR) as an example, let us examine how the suppositions of some of their favoured thinkers (remembering, all of whom are reliant upon the structure) are used to validate the structure, whilst scientific discoveries are overlooked for the sake of expediency.

*

Structuring the Debate

We need not I think rehash Hobbes’ view of the state of Nature, nor its inaccuracy in consideration of anthropological findings. It must be accepted (at least if one is not a creationist – and even then the Biblical account destroys Hobbes’ argument) the idea of humanity’s origins as war of each against all, belongs in the dustbin of history, along with his attempts to square the circle and the Flat Earth Society.

Hobbes is of course an easy target – the frightened ‘intellectual’, the ‘bourgeois’,[104] happy to renounce his freedom for state security and foundationally subservient to the structure – and eager to justify and enhance his position within it. One can hardly blame him for that, there’s (almost) no-one on academia’s reading lists and in their study packs that isn’t.

But, Hobbes is an excuse, convenient justification for the international order. The argument most likely posed in defence, is that Hobbes is instrumental in shaping behaviour. But, does he shape it? Or does he validate it? If Hobbes had never existed authority would have found another ‘philosopher’ to justify its behaviour – just as they support him with Thucydides, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas… through to modern day equivalents.

Such ‘thinking’ is endemic within academia, it structures all debate, framing the discourse in terms of such ‘extremes’ as Hobbes and Kant or Huntington and Fukuyama or Neo and Neo but always within the structure – and always validating violence and authority.

Occasionally, very occasionally, individuals appear who potentially challenge the structure – Christ being the archetypical example but also including the likes of Nietzsche, Einstein, Orwell and of course Rousseau. Such texts will generally be obscured, omitted, doctored, or misrepresented. Examples being Rousseau’s ‘the State of War’ – doctored to remove it’s most challenging accusations[105], the forty or so pages cut from Émile and ‘the Stag Hunt’, from his ‘Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’ – showing how Civilised Man behaves when confronted with short term self-interest, whereas the point should never be lost – natural man, hunting with tribe or family would never adopt such behaviour – yet IR appears oblivious.

*

As previously noted, the state, in its very broadest sense, has existed for no more than 10,000 years (http://corianderjax.tk/dissertation.htm) – the blink of an eye in terms of human evolution. Yet, nevertheless, in IR, it appears cast in stone. However, as we have also seen, whilst it maybe all powerful in the international arena, it is also an amorphous structure, ebbing and flowing, from the joining of Europe to the fragmentation of the Soviet Union. Further, as governments worldwide sell off infrastructure, whether willingly or forced, the state’s very nature appears in metamorphosis. Yet, this is another road virtually un-travelled in IR – as are, sociology, psychology, anthropology, ecology, genetics… and largely economics.

In effect, it is a discipline built around war, upon the notion that man is violent and cannot escape his nature – meaning, upon disagreement without authority, i.e. the state, violence is the only method of resolving the dispute.[106]

*

My International Relations (ir)

The trouble is, these opinions, used to justify world order, do not describe me in any form I can recognise (nor I would suggest, most people I know at a personal level). That is, in any dispute with another my first tactic is understanding, not violence. Therefore, the arguments of Hobbes & Co. must be flawed.

Having spent approaching three years developing My ir and watching how numerous others do likewise, I must report, although occasional dispute, I have seen no sign of violence whatsoever. In truth, the reality appears to be the opposite of what we are led to believe (supporting Rousseau’s argument, that it is the state itself that is the cause of war). From experience, I would say people by nature when unthreatened get on perfectly well. Indeed, as evidenced through our time at university, international relationships potentially blossom and flourish across borders and cultures, without the prejudice of authority to define the structured agenda.

*

Another thing I have noticed, is that at the start of year one, people arrived with anticipation and excitement, feeling that they could potentially change the world. Since then, they have been moulded and taught into ‘thinking’ and writing in the ‘correct’ manner and marked into conforming. Until, by the end of year three, when instead of feeling empowered and equipped to challenge and question, most have settled for something – a rung on the structure.

This is a consequence of the biasing inherent in all structures, none of which can be immune, which favours arguments and techniques sympathetic to the modus operandi and validation of said structure. This is further compromised by the ever increasing demands of expansion,[107] McDonaldization[108] and reliance on external finance.[109] Leading to what is in effect a sort of ‘flat-packed’ indoctrination, governed by vast reading lists which no one ever need go beyond and the potted texts of study packs to cement structural values in place. Effectively creating a body of workers all singing from (roughly) the same hymn sheet – which of course becomes a boon for throughput, when having to mark six months work in five minutes and in establishing values for said students – in relation to the structure.

*

Just a thought

I began this paper by discussing how life had developed: from the simplest organisms (http://corianderjax.tk/dissertation.htm), concerned only with feeding and breeding, through to the incomprehensible variety and sophistication of our World today. If you don’t believe me, watch a few nature programmes – nature, as well as being a cornucopia, is also a wonder.

Humanity’s part and path is perhaps one of the most astounding – we are after all continually telling ourselves how clever we are. And indeed, since man became ‘Enlightened’, it seems there is no end to his talents. But, at what cost?

Humanity’s social structures evolved over evolutionary time scales. It is perhaps the case that family unit has been under threat since the conceptualisation of good and evil and the birth of structured authority; but, in reality, it is in just two or three generations that we have seen its fragmentation – particularly since the arrival of the ‘science of the mind’ and ‘freedom’ in the form of ‘democracy’.

The science of the mind is the most powerful tool operating in our world today. It works, as discussed above (http://corianderjax.tk/dissertation.htm), by stimulating our genetic urges, fear and hunger, our primary drivers. What are of lesser use are the more sophisticated ‘higher’ animal instincts – perception and reasoning. What is of least use is human nature – evolving with the family, being content, when all one’s needs are filled – which is positively counter-productive in the incessant drive for expansion and power.

Indeed, by twisting and appealing to genetic drives and constantly bombarding humanity with ‘good and evil’ and violence as the solution, structured authority, obsessed with its inexorable expansion, is potentially returning us to, or projecting us towards, some sort of Hobbesian state of nature: a state without society, trust or common goals (excepting short term personal gain).

For Hobbes was not of course showing us humanity’s origin, he drew his conclusions from observing those around him, his world’s controllers and profiteers, “the bourgeois of London and Paris,”[110] those at the top of the food chain, the ‘Hawks’ and ‘Cheats’ (as Dawkins might call them) – those, that society, what’s left of it, is encouraged to envy and emulate. That has nothing to do with the past, except at a primordial level – but, in mistaking gratification for goodness, could Hobbes, rather than seeing our past, be depicting our future?

This prospect must have alarmed Kant, who thought humanity either to be progressing or regressing[111] – it is why he must reject Rousseau, his “Newton of moral order”,[112] in seeing ‘natural man’ as at one with itself – the prospect of such a future was just too terrifying to contemplate.

*

Rousseau, in qualifying his attestation, that “the good man orders everything with regard to the whole; the wicked orders everything with regard to himself”, and appreciating the irreversible rise of ‘Enlightened’ man, Rousseau recognises “ if there is no God, then the wicked man is right and the good man nothing but a fool.”[113]

However, he was not looking into the twenty-first century, with money as a belief structure, rampant consumerism, dwindling power resources, global pollution and ‘free’ market capitalism thrashing the donkey. He might however have pointed out, the binary opposition to enlightenment is delusion.

*

Ah well, who’s to say? We can only work within our own reason, judgement and understanding, and with the information accessible to us: which is what I have attempted to do.

I hope at least some of this makes sense.

Note

One final observation, contrary to popular opinion, the dinosaurs did not become extinct – they evolved – another testament to nature, it’s adaptability, ingenuity and mind boggling brilliance.

The dinosaurs became birds and as far as palaeontologists can ascertain they did not go via a state structure.

Whereas humanity’s, or, more specifically, its structures’, imagination can see no further than ‘universalisation’ and modularisation and the unending drive for expansion. Expansion – growth – not in terms of what we could be, but in terms of what we must do.

Instead of reaching for the skies, filled with potential, our structured authority, our state, our sovereign, our money, our interests, our fear, our hunger project us towards a primordial slime of feeding and breeding, satisfying nothing but our stomachs and our genitals, and creating an environment safe enough in which to do it.

An environment, governed by status and security and uniformity – where right thinking comes pre-packaged and modularised, and our eager progeny gobble it down, like caged pigs being pumped full of genetically enhanced growth hormone, before their eager leap into the maw of the structure.

Shiny brand new members of the human race, packed, processed and ready for shipment, with their cascaded 2:1s marketing them to the structure – processed meat patties ready to be consumed by the corporate world.

Would you like fries with that degree sir? Regular or Super-size Debt to kick-start adulthood and chain you to the structure?

 

 

But Eeyore wasn’t listening. He was taking the balloon out, and putting it back again, as happy as could be…

– A. A. Milne[114]