- "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter."
-
- Those were the words of the Reverend Martin Luther King
Jr.
-
- Archbishop Tutu says it another way: "The truth
hurts, but silence kills."
-
- And kill it does. Your silence gives assent to political
will, and year after year, administration after administration, results
in genocide against colored people both at home and abroad. We can no
longer remain silent. It's imperative that we concerned citizens of this
planet speak out, because the media, the politicians, and Wall Street aren't
going to fix anything unless we force them to. At the polls if possible,
at gunpoint should the time come. My hope is that we can work toward the
former, and avoid the latter.
-
- But if it comes to revolution, the fault doesn't lie
with us. As John F Kennedy said, "Those who make peaceful revolution
impossible make violent revolution inevitable."
-
- The silence of the mainstream television media is an
observable fact.
-
- www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030225/4894862s.htm
-
- "Of 414 stories on the Iraqi question that aired
on NBC, ABC and CBS from Sept. 14 to Feb. 7, Tyndall says that the vast
majority originated from the White House, Pentagon and State Department.
Only 34 stories originated from elsewhere in the country, he says.
-
- Similarly, a check of major newspapers around the country
from September to February found only 268 stories devoted to peace initiatives
or to opposition to the war, a small fraction of the total number."
-
- That's less than 10% of TV news stories related to opposition
to war, if that. Where newspapers are concerned, considering how many
of them there are, it's probably much worse.
-
- The media is used to shape opinion and manufacture consent.
They've been moving the line in the sand between 'right' and 'left' so
far to the right that there isn't anything even resembling liberal views
being expressed by journalists anymore. Now, even the guests are weighted
in this way.
-
- I was watching CNN yesterday, when Rep Trent 'Crow' Lott
(R) and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D) showed up to talk about Iraq with Larry
King. Never mind that he's a Rockefeller. This particular Rockefeller
has shown remarkable independence, and as Governor and Senator, he's been
instrumental in passing a large number of laws that have cost his family
billions of dollars. So, when he showed up on Larry King, I was thinking,
"Great! He's going to slam Bush for his Iraq policies like he's been
doing of late, as reported in the fringe media."
-
- NOT. It was a good-cop bad-cop routine without the good-cop.
Rockefeller agreed with virtually everything Trent Crow said, and even
laughed about the outsourced use of torture by the US State Department.
-
- I started to get frustrated and depressed, but with a
slim hope that perhaps these two came out as the pro-war supporters, and
that people representing the anti-war movement would be next. While there
WAS an anti-war opinion that came up after the Trent and Jay show, what
we got was not Medea Benjamin, or Ramsey Clark, or Ken Nichols O'Keefe.
-
- What we got, as the counterpoint to Rockefeller and Lott,
was Henry Kissinger and Zbignew Brzezinski. Brzezinski was the guy who
some years ago wrote the Grand Chessboard, a book about why we should make
preparation to invade and steal Central Asia.
-
- www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0303/02/le.00.html
-
- That's what passes for the 'left' today on American TV.
A genocidal maniac of war crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, East Timor,
Chile, and Argentina; and the guy who wrote the roadmap for 9/11 and the
invasion of Afghanistan.
-
- You really need to understand what's going on here.
Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Powell are so greedy and psycho that they
even scare people like Brzezinski and Kissinger. That should tell you
something.
-
- CNN's been doing this since Isaacson took over. It's
nothing new, but this particular combination of guests was just a little
too much middle finger at the 'little people.'
-
- AUDITING THE ENEMY
-
- One TV station that's been trying to get real news out
from time to time is PBS. Bill Moyers show NOW was the first (and only)
to report on the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (aka Patriot
Act II) and what it means if this bill gets passed.
-
- Moyers has been very critical of the Patriot Act and
the Homeland Security Bill. The irony of his sign off, "For NOW,
I'm Bill Moyers", has been hitting home of late. I keep expecting
to see reruns and no more Bill. But it hasn't happened. Yet. For now,
he's still Bill Moyers.
-
- If the GOP gets its way, he'll be gone shortly. They're
already using bully tactics, and pushing for an audit of PBS. That's how
it starts. Next thing you know, Bill Moyers is off the air, and PBS never
mentions proposed Bush legislation ever again.
-
- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=91&u=/bpihw/20030304/en_bpi
- hw/lawmakers_call_for_cpb_review&printer=1
-
- "WASHINGTON (The Hollywood Reporter) --- A group
of congressmen are seeking an investigation of the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting's funding programs.
-
- The lawmakers have asked the General Accounting Office
to review the CPB's funding programs as public broadcasting system legislation
comes up for renewal during this congressional session.
-
- The lawmakers wrote: "While the goal recognized
by the Congress in CPB's enabling statute -- to 'encourage the growth and
development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the
use of such media for instructional, educational and cultural purposes'
-- remains important today, it is also necessary to reassess the mechanisms
of distributing public dollars for these purposes to ensure that they are
fair and fundamentally sound."
-
- The last GAO investigation into CPB's funding was conducted
in 1984.
-
- Ken Johnson, spokesman for House Energy and Commerce
Committee chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., said the lawmakers were not necessarily
expecting the examination to turn up any wrongdoing, but wanted to get
solid numbers before reauthorizing the programÉÓ
-
- The request was signed by Tauzin; Ralph Regula, R-Ohio,
chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human
Service & Education; Richard Burr, R-N.C., vice chairman of the Energy
and Commerce Committee; and Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the Energy
and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet."
-
- WAR DRUMS, OIL DRUMS, AND PORK BARRELS
-
- Bush is getting ready for war. The Australian news has
laid out a probable strategy for the Iraq war.
-
-
- Air And Ground Double Whammy To Be Unleashed
-
- By Thomas Ricks in Washington
- Sydney Morning Herald
- March 3 2003
-
- "The Bush Administration's plan for an assault on
Iraq is essentially in place, based on an unusual approach that envisages
simultaneous air and ground operations, according to several people familiar
with the strategy.
-
- General Tommy Franks, the chief of United States military
operations in the Middle East, reviewed the plan with his army, navy, air
force and special operations commanders in Qatar last week.
-
- The broad outlines of the war plan are now apparent.
-
- It aims to combine the armoured fist of the tank-heavy
1991 Persian Gulf War with the speed of the overnight 1989 US takeover
of Panama and the precision bombing of the 2001 US campaign in Afghanistan.
-
- The formal onset of the war is expected with three nearly
simultaneous moves.
-
- On the ground, tanks and Apache attack helicopters will
charge north into Iraq from Kuwait. Most Army units will be on the west,
heading north towards the Euphrates River, while the Marine Corps and British
forces will jump off farther to the east and move up alongside Iraq's southern
marshes around the city of Basra."
-
- www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/02/1046540072845.html
-
- A fast, speedy war, featuring a multi pronged air and
ground assault using air power, tanks, and troops. Let's just call this
what it is. BLITZKREIG.
-
- Gee, who invented THAT strategy?
-
- This next piece of news has a fitting prologue with a
truly ironic double entendre, but when I saw it, I didn't know whether
to laugh or cry...
-
- "Private contractors are carving up defence procurement.
Nick Mathiason reports on a military coup."
-
- Apparently, Bush isn't the only one engaging in Corporatism
these days. Tony Blair's getting in on the game, too...
-
- The First Privatised War
-
- Private contractors are carving up defence procurement.
- Nick Mathiason reports on a military coup...
-
- The Observer - UK
- March 2, 2003
-
- More than 40,000 British troops are bracing themselves
for action in the Gulf. 'Our Boys' are backed by hundreds of tanks, fighter
jets and warships in what is the UK's biggest military build-up since the
Falklands conflict.
-
- But any imminent action against Iraq will be historic
for another reason. This could be the last war fought by British armed
forces predominantly in the public sector. The Ministry of Defence is poised
to enter into a welter of partnerships with business, ushering in the most
fundamental shake-up of the military for more than 100 years.
-
- (*MY NOTE* What were the Brits doing a little over 100
years ago? I'll give you a hint. It had something to do with Boers, a
war, and concentration camps that mirrored the American concentration camps
in the Philippines.)
-
- Entire training, logistics and supply operations are
set to be hived off to big business in the most far-reaching intrusion
of the private sector into what was considered the state's preserve. More
than 900 procedural reviews by MoD officials and consultants are coming
to a head. There are strong indications from within the ministry and unions
that a shift is under way from the armed forces' procurement body being
a 'decider and provider' of logistic support to an 'intelligent decider'
that may contract out most requirements,.
-
- The Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO), which costs
£6 billion a year - a quarter of the MoD's budget - is responsible
for providing supplies such as arms, food and aircraft. It is the prime
candidate for a radical shift away from traditional procurement.
-
- Advised by McKinsey since last summer, a recently published
DLO strategic plan said that to achieve its vision would require it to
'leverage industrial capacity and shape our relationship with industry'.
-
- The shift will be welcomed by companies such as Compass
and Sodexho, which provide food services, and a host of defence contractors.
-
- Training of troops is the other main area of focus. BAE
Systems and VT Group, the shipbuilder and defence PFI specialist, along
with Thales and a number of building firms, are set to benefit hugely from
lucrative new contracts. Training schools for the Army, Royal Navy and
Royal Air Force are now separate, but they are set to amalgamate in what
could be a property bonanza.
-
- Most controversially, perhaps, management of the armed
forces' secret files - which cover Northern Ireland, the Gulf war and a
host of sensitive and historic areas - is set to be handed over to a private
contractor. Two private firms are vying to take on the contract, move staff
from west London to the North and computerise the records.
-
- Alarm bells are ringing about Britain's fighting capability
being fatally compromised by wide-ranging privatisation. Critics point
to recent MoD procurement from the private sector as the shape of things
to come, and list a number of botched or delayed key projects :
-
- á Most glaring is the scandal over the multi-million-pound
upgrade of RAF Nimrod aircraft, which suffered a setback because the wings
built by BAE were the wrong size. Nimrods are used for reconnaissance and
submarine hunting and have been deployed in every significant British military
operation in the past 30 years. Not this one, though.
-
- á New Apache helicopters, costing £27m each,
are being mothballed at a cost of £6m. The National Audit Office
(NAO) last November found pilot training was messed up because of an attempt
to introduce competition into the regime, which cost an extra £34m.
The helicopters are absent from the Gulf deployment.
-
- á The SA80 rifle, once feted as the ultimate assault
weapon, was the target of widespread complaints by soldiers. Made by BAE,
it could not be fired in the left-handed position because ejected rounds
hit the firer in the face, it was difficult to maintain in bad weather
and the magazine fell out when carried against the body. The faults have
since been corrected, according to the MoD.
-
- á Halliburton, the oil and defence combine that
US vice-president Dick Cheney worked for, was contracted to rebuild Devonport
dockyard in Plymouth. Last December, an NAO report said the price had escalated
from £505m to £933m and could be a lot more.
-
- á Britain's Gulf build-up has already been dogged
by supply shortages and equipment failures. Ten days ago it emerged that
troops in Kuwait are so short of rations they are being sent food parcels
by their families. Basics such as desert boots are unavailable. There are
even reports of shortages of toilet paper.
-
- 'It was horrific logistical debacles during the Crimean
War in 1854 and the Boer War in the early 1900s which forced government
to take overall responsibility for procuring supplies and co-ordinating
military training,' said Dean Rogers, negotiations officer at the Public
and Commercial Services Union, which represents thousands of civil servants
currently working in the armed services. 'Now there is a serious risk that
this is all being unwound and the implications are truly frightening.'
-
- Senior officers have voiced doubts in private about the
imminent shift. They are training a searchlight at beleaguered Defence
Secretary Geoff Hoon, and asking if he is aware of the magnitude of the
reviews undertaken by his department.
-
- One prominent officer who contacted The Observer despaired
at the prospect of a carve-up. 'The Army spent £3bn on Apache fighter
helicopters. Training the pilots was a contract given to the private sector.
The helicopters are ready but there are no pilots. They haven't been trained
and I don't think they'll be ready for at least three years. This is a
shambles. And yet the indications are the ministry is proceeding with wholesale
privatisation.
-
- www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,905559,00.html
-
-
- DID YOU SEE IT? Dickhead Cheney's Halliburton slimed
their way into a UK military service contract. BAE systems, the UK's biggest
contractor, was also mentioned. What wasn't mentioned was the BAE systems
is now owned and operated by the American-based Carlyle Group, who employ
George H W Bush, former PM John major, and oh so many other of the 20th
century's most heartless bastards.
-
- This war is all about oil and military service contracts.
It always has been.
-
- The UK is being turned into a vassal state of the American
Empire, and Tony Blair's finishing what Thatcher started with the sale
of BP, by selling BAE to the Carlyle Group. The UK is now well on it's
way to becoming Wall Street's bitch.
-
- CHANGING SIDES, AND CHANGING SPOTS
-
- Some people who were once on the inside are now trying
to make amends and do their part to fix things. Joe Stiglitz, former Chief
Economist for the World Bank is one of them. PLEASE go read his book,
Globalism and Its Detractors. It's a mea culpa the likes of which you've
never seen. He admits to being the guy who invented the IMF Structural
Adjustment Programs, and then goes on to explain what those policies are
doing to the Third World in horrific detail.
-
- Go support your local Indigo or Chapters book store by
purchasing Stiglitz's book at one of their many locations. I say this
with sincerity because of a correspondence I just completed with the Privacy
Department at Indigo. I wrote them, asking them what their privacy policy
was. I suggested that they stop collecting purchase information of Indigo
card holders, so that if the feds tried to use the Patriot Act to seize
book records, the company wouldn't be able to break the Constitution by
complying.
-
- As it turns out, they already have a program in place
that will cease filing your purchase records on purchases made though physical
bookstores, by dumping the purchase records into anonymous accounts. Cardholders
have to write them at www.indigo.ca to opt out of the 'Rewards' program
and request that their information be deleted, but once that's done, you
don't have to worry about Indigo giving records of your reading habits
to Uncle Sam or the Canadian government.
-
- So for now, I support Indigo and Chapters books, so long
as they continue to diversify the ever-expanding number of books kept in-store.
If they start moving in the other direction, you'll be the first to know,
because I don't endorse Corporations lightly. Please consider purchasing
Joe Stiglitz' Globalism and Its Detractors from your local Indigo or Chapters
store.
-
- Another side-switcher of late is Warren Langley, former
head of the Pacific Stock Exchange.
-
- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle
- /archive/2003/03/04/MN183728.DTL
-
- If the United States attacks Iraq, a former president
of the Pacific Exchange plans to participate in nonviolent demonstrations
aimed at shutting down San Francisco's Financial District, including his
former employer.
-
- Warren Langley of San Francisco, a U.S. Air Force veteran
who was president of the exchange from 1996 to 1999, will work with Direct
Action to Stop the War, the activists organizing civil disobedience on
the first business day after a U.S. attack.
-
- "I felt I needed to do something more than marching
in a demonstration, more than talking to my friends about it, more than
sending e-mail letters to (Sens. Barbara) Boxer, (Dianne) Feinstein and
(Rep. Nancy) Pelosi," Langley said Monday. "I feel that this
is an important enough issue to take a risk."
-
- The 60-year-old Russian Hill resident expects to be involved
in nonviolent protests in front of the exchange.
-
- A spokesman for the Pacific Exchange declined to comment
Monday on Langley's involvement. Langley will formally announce his participation
at an 11 a.m. news conference today in San Francisco. Now an independent
consultant, Langley resigned from the exchange during management changes
there.
-
- A 1965 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Langley
raised money to help fund an acclaimed 1998 documentary on Vietnam War
prisoners of war, "Tom Hanks Presents: Return with Honor." Several
of his academy classmates were POWs.
-
- Now, he wants to speak out against the war.
-
- Anti-war activists have been planning to blockade the
Transamerica Pyramid, the Pacific Exchange and other "war-making"
corporate and federal headquarters in San Francisco on the first business
day after a U.S. attack.
-
- Since last October, dozens of small affinity groups,
clusters of five to 25 like-minded individuals, have been planning sit-ins,
intersection blockades and theatrical productions around more than two
dozen locations, most in the Financial District.
-
- The activists' goal, as stated on their Web site and
flyers: "If the government and corporations won't stop the war, we'll
shut down the war makers!É"
-
- This is a great idea if you ask me. Protesting at the
spot where the oil moneyÕs going to end up after the war. Poetic
justice.
-
-
- GET UP, STAND UP
-
-
- A lot of people are still arguing that now is not the
time to be standing up, when faced with such an oppressive and brutal dictators
as the Bushies have become with their bogus laws and double standards and
penchant for secret arrests and assassination. They're saying that in
such times, one's first and foremost duty should be to look after one's
own, to survive, and to not go looking for trouble unless trouble comes
looking for you. Keep your head down and ride it out.
-
- That kind of talk reminds me of being in a henhouse.
It MUST be a henhouse, because when I hear that kind of talk, I don't
smell nothing but chickenshit. If we refuse to stand up to injustice,
we are guilty of collaboration by silent consent. BOK BOK.
-
- Read these excerpts from the Reverend Martin Luther King,
written from a Birmingham Jail.
-
- 'We know through painful experience that freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well
timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the
disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!"
It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait"
has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of
our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice
denied."
-
- "The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent
frustrations, and he must release them. So, let him march; let him make
prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides-and try
to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released
in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is
not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get
rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal
and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent
direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.
-
- "But though I was initially disappointed at being
categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I
gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus
an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let
justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my
body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist:
"Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John
Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a
butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation
cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that an men are created equal ..."
So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of
extremists we viii be. We we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we
be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of
justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified.
We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime---the
crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below
their environment. The other, Jeans Christ, was an extremist for love,
truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the
South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
-
- "Is organized religion too inextricably bound to
the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my
faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the
true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God
that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken
loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active
partners in the struggle for freedom, They have left their secure congregations
and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down
the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have
gone to jai with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have
lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted
in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their
witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning
of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope
through the dark mountain of disappointment."
-
- This last paragraph reminds me of the true words of Jesus,
which are not contained in the Bible and are considered Heresy by today's
Charlatans.
-
- www.webcom.com/~gnosis/naghamm/gosthom.html
-
- 76. Jesus said, "The Father's kingdom is like a
merchant who had a supply of merchandise and found a pearl. That merchant
was prudent; he sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself.
-
- So also with you, seek his treasure that is unfailing,
that is enduring, where no moth comes to eat and no worm destroys."
-
- 77. Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all
things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.
-
- Split a piece of wood; I am there.
-
- Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."
-
- 78. Jesus said, "Why have you come out to the countryside?
To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a person dressed in soft clothes,
[like your] rulers and your powerful ones? They are dressed in soft clothes,
and they cannot understand truth."
-
- Those words are from the Gospel of Thomas, from the Nag
Hammadi transcripts found several decades ago in the Holy Land. They're
written in Jesus original tongue, Coptic, and date back to (or close to)
the lifetime of Jesus himself. They're the closest thing we have to the
actual words of Jesus of Nazareth.
-
- I encourage one and all to check out the Nag Hammadi
archive.
-
- <http://www.webcom.com/~gnosis/naghamm/nhl.html>www.webcom.com/~gnosis/naghamm/nhl.html
-
- If you read through these works, and then compare what
Jesus says in Coptic compared to what he says in today's Bible, which is
in English translated from Latin translated and heavily edited from Greek,
which was itself translated and edited from the original Coptic, you'll
find that the teachings of Jesus have been edited, twisted, and corrupted
so as to be unrecognizable as the teachings of Jesus in the original language.
-
- His words more closely resemble those of Che Guevara
and Buddha than the garbage passed off as the teachings of Jesus today,
garbage thumped loudly and proudly by our televangelists.
-
- Jesus, the TRUE Jesus, has been silenced by today's media,
just like We, the People.
-
- In reality, he was silenced long ago, in 322 AD, when
the Roman Emperor Constantine decided he needed a religion to go marching
with, and ordered the scribe Eusebius to create a definitive collection
of gospels that would be digestible by a Roman audience, and would serve
the needs of the state better than the Roman/Greek Pantheon or Mithraism,
which were the other religious cults competing with Christianity.
-
- People need to understand this. The Bible as we know
it is NOT the verbatim words of Jesus Christ. It's a bastardized and twisted
version of Jesus' words that no scholar of Roman history disputes was created
by Constantine and Eusebius in 322 AD.
-
- Get it? NO ONE who's made serious study of the Byzantine
era disputes this. The Bible was translated, edited, and compiled by a
Roman Conquerer more three centuries after Jesus lived and died. There
are numerous historical records passed down since 322AD that support this
fact beyond any reasonable doubt.
-
- Any who has eyes, let him see. Any who has ears, let
him hear.
-
- It's time to break the silence. It's time to move forward
as a species and rise above our animalistic tendencies, so we can at long
last achieve human civilization. But to do this, we need to be willing
to be persecuted, spat on, and crucified by lesser minds.
-
- Believe me, you're not the only one who's scared. I'm
just as scared as any of you, even if it doesn't seem that way. But despite
my own fears, I put one foot in front of the other, step by step, person
by person, trying to make a difference.
-
|