Information to Fire the Imagination...

Manufacturing consent and corporate misinformation

2010-10-15T19:27:00.001+01:00

This is an excellent example of idiots trying to keep a fast declining lie going........welcome to the future!

in reference to: Murdoch: “There is an Ongoing War Against the Jews” « Revolt of the Plebs (view on Google Sidewiki)

Positive press for Soundart Radio

2010-09-30T12:01:00.001+01:00

This is a good article for highlighting the Radio Station.

in reference to:

"Soundart"
- Radio head: British radio triumphs in New York | Television & radio | The Guardian (view on Google Sidewiki)

Silent weapons for a quiet war

2010-07-19T23:15:00.001+01:00

2010-04-15T16:49:00.002+01:00

This is my truth tell me yours.......

2010-03-25T17:03:00.002Z

Thanks to TOMOGRAM for this dispatch.....America in grip of unfounded fears...

2010-01-18T08:55:00.003Z

January 17, 2010
Tomgram: Ira Chernus, The Wages of Fear in Israel and the U.S.

A country programmatically gripped by fear -- yes, that’s us for more than eight years now. Fear of terrorism to be exact, even as truly terrible things happened in this land and elsewhere, from hurricane Katrina in 2005 to last week’s devastating Haitian earthquake, which should have put our fears into perspective. But no such luck.

Since 9/11, the thought of “terrorism” has seized the U.S. by the throat. People who are terrified of flying for fear of a terrorist attack are perfectly willing to drive a car to the nearest mall without a passing worry, even though traffic fatalities indicate that this is a relatively dangerous act. There were a staggering 34,000 fatal crashes in the U.S. in 2008, 12.25 fatalities for every 100,000 Americans, and carmakers are now intent on featuring ever more immersive Internet-linked “infotainment systems” on dashboards. These are sure to up the distraction level and lead to more deaths on the highway, and yet the country is barely focused on this fact. And mind you, despite all the attention, not one American died in a terrorist attack on an airplane last year. In fact, Nate Silver of the website FiveThirtyEight.com recently crunched a few numbers and came up with the following: “the odds of being on [a] given [airplane] departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade.”

But keep in mind that fear, wherever directed, is a remarkably profitable emotion to exploit. Just think of those controversial full-body-scan machines now being installed in airports at a cost of up to $170,000 each. One promoter of them is former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff, “who now heads the Chertoff Group, which represents one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines, Rapiscan Systems.” He’s part of a growing “full-body-scanner lobby” of ex-Washington politicos just made for our moment.

Every jolt of terror, in other words, is a jolt of profit for some company or set of companies. After a while, those jolts of fear become repetitive adrenaline rushes for a whole set of interests which, in the American system, soon hire lobbyists, corner senators and congressional representatives, retain law and publicity firms, and live well as long as people remain terrified.

If these last years tell us anything, it’s that money follows fear. By 2006, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security, that second Defense Department, a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy created from the terror of terror, already had a mini-homeland-security-industrial complex growing up around it; and that, in turn, was part of a global security business aimed at “thwarting terrorists” then worth an estimated $59 billion. (If we had news media worth their salt and DHS was a real beat, we would undoubtedly have more recent, far more striking figures for this.)

At the comical (but also profitable) end of this spectrum of fear were all those places like Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, and the Mule Day Parade that were put into the DHS’s National Asset Database as “potential terror targets,” opening up the possibility that they might receive DHS money to protect them. “The database,” reported the New York Times, “is used by the Homeland Security Department to help divvy up the hundreds of millions of dollars in antiterrorism grants each year.” Consider just the Weeki Wachee mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs in Hernando, Florida. In 2005, the St. Petersburg Times reported that the Weeki Wachee staff was “teaming up with the Hernando County Sheriff's Office to ‘harden the target’” -- as they attempted to access DHS anti-terrorism funds “allocated to the Tampa Bay region.” ("’I can't imagine (Osama) bin Laden trying to blow up the mermaids,’ [marketing and promotion manager John] Athanason said. ‘But with terrorists, who knows what they're thinking. I don't want to think like a terrorist, but what if the terrorists try to poison the water at Weeki Wachee Springs?’")

All of this might be dismissed as a joke, if American life weren’t filled with phantasmagoric terrors that are also money machines. Everywhere that fear rules, from the U.S. to Israel, there are people exploiting and making money off it -- and it’s in the nature of the beast for them to want the gift-that-never-stops-giving to go on forever. On this Martin Luther King Day, TomDispatch regular Ira Chernus takes a deep, dark look into what fear does to Americans and Israelis alike and the ways in which it drives us all. Tom

Wall street is war street - The class war in America

2009-10-16T18:02:00.002+01:00

Wall Street Trinity

As unemployment approaches 10% (the actual number, when everyone is included, is far higher) and people continue to lose their homes and savings, we now learn that Wall Street will be paying out record bonuses this year.

Ouch.

Of course, huge bonuses on Wall Street is not a new concept. Employees at investment banks have long been paid fairly small stipends throughout the year with the understanding that their true earnings would come via the bonus. This is just how it was always done –and nobody complained about it because nobody really cared.

Then came TARP. Now we notice. Now we care – big time.

Yet the tin ears on Wall Street have determined to tune out the large cries of disgust that could lead to some very unpleasant results just as they determined to tune out every signal warning of the impending catastrophe they brought about inside the casinos that lined The Street.

It is not particularly remarkable that bankers continue to earn big sums of money. What is stunning is that these wizards of Wall Street have yet to grasp the wisdom of altering the method in which they pay their employees so as to avoid the most toxic words in today’s English language – the bonus.

Flaunting wealth before those who are less fortunate used to be referred to as ‘bad form.’ But it has become something so much more important. Sticking the thumb of Wall Street into the eyes of a suffering America is precisely the behavior that will inflame and, ultimately, lead to a war between the classes. That will be good for nobody – including the money-makers on Wall Street.

The roots of a social revolution between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ have already been planted.

I don’t pretend to have taken the tea bag movement very seriously. But when I see these people beating up on Sen. Lindsay Graham,(R-S.C.), a man with one of the most conservative records in government, my lack of interest in tea baggers turns to a genuine concern that these folks have grown dangerously irrational and out of control. Wall Street’s behavior is the perfect trigger to push this over the edge and onto some dark and dangerous territory.

It’s not hard to understand how the banker class came to believe that they are insulated from the reactions of those who do not benefit from their fancy financial footwork. When one can claim ownership of at least one branch of government-the Treasury- one begins to feel pretty darn powerful and above it all. And let’s face it, how many lower middle class and poor people spend much time studying the market for buying opportunities? When was the last time one of these folks sat in a boardroom with a bunch of bankers and lawyers working through a merger or acquisition?

Still, Wall Street continues to place itself in the line of fire. And while an uprising, expressed in ways that could prove very frightening, might be explained away as deserved karma for the bankers, all Americans stand to become the collateral damage of the bankers’ insensitivity and greed.

When the pay-off for Wall Street’s hubris comes, it will extend far beyond the financial district in Manhattan. It will strike at the very heart of America.

Robocops Come to Pittsburgh

2009-10-09T09:22:00.003+01:00

Mike Ferner
Lew Rockwell.com
Thursday, Oct 8th, 2009

No longer the stuff of disturbing futuristic fantasies, an arsenal of “crowd control munitions,” including one that reportedly made its debut in the U.S., was deployed with a massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last week’s G-20 protests.

Nearly 200 arrests were made and civil liberties groups charged the many thousands of police (most transported on Port Authority buses displaying “PITTSBURGH WELCOMES THE WORLD”), from as far away as Arizona and Florida with overreacting…and they had plenty of weaponry with which to do it.

Bean bags fired from shotguns, CS (tear) gas, OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) spray, flash-bang grenades, batons and, according to local news reports, for the first time on the streets of America, the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD).

Mounted in the turret of an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), I saw the LRAD in action twice in the area of 25th, Penn and Liberty Streets of Lawrenceville, an old Pittsburgh neighborhood. Blasting a shrill, piercing noise like a high-pitched police siren on steroids, it quickly swept streets and sidewalks of pedestrians, merchants and journalists and drove residents into their homes, but in neither case were any demonstrators present. The APC, oversized and sinister for a city street, together with lines of police in full riot gear looking like darkly threatening Michelin Men, made for a scene out of a movie you didn’t want to be in.

As intimidating as this massive show of armed force and technology was, the good burghers of Pittsburgh and their fellow citizens in the Land of the Brave and Home of the Free ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Tear gas and pepper spray are nothing to sniff at and, indeed, have proven fatal a surprising number of times, but they have now become the old standbys compared to the list below that’s already at or coming soon to a police station or National Guard headquarters near you. Proving that “what goes around, comes around,” some of the new Property Protection Devices were developed by a network of federally-funded, university-based research institutes like one in Pittsburgh itself, Penn State’s Institute for Non-Lethal Defense Technologies.

* Raytheon Corp.’s Active Denial System, designed for crowd control in combat zones, uses an energy beam to induce an intolerable heating sensation, like a hot iron placed on the skin. It is effective beyond the range of small arms, in excess of 400 meters. Company officials have been advised they could expand the market by selling a smaller, tripod-mounted version for police forces.
* M5 Modular Crowd Control Munition, with a range of 30 meters “is similar in operation to a claymore mine, but it delivers…a strong, nonpenetrating blow to the body with multiple sub-munitions (600 rubber balls).”
* Long Range Acoustic Device or “The Scream,” is a powerful megaphone the size of a satellite dish that can emit sound “50 times greater than the human threshold for pain” at close range, causing permanent hearing damage. The L.A. Times wrote U.S. Marines in Iraq used it in 2004. It can deliver recorded warnings in Arabic and, on command, emit a piercing tone…”[For] most people, even if they plug their ears, [the device] will produce the equivalent of an instant migraine,” says Woody Norris, chairman of American Technology Corp., the San Diego firm that produces the weapon. “It will knock [some people] on their knees.” CBS News reported in 2005 that the Israeli Army first used the device in the field to break up a protest against Israel’s separation wall. “Protesters covered their ears and grabbed their heads, overcome by dizziness and nausea, after the vehicle-mounted device began sending out bursts of audible, but not loud, sound at intervals of about 10 seconds…A military official said the device emits a special frequency that targets the inner ear.”

* In “Non-lethal Technologies: An Overview,” Lewer and Davison describe a lengthy catalog of new weaponry including the “Directed Stick Radiator,” a hand-held system based on the same technology as The Scream. “It fires high intensity ‘sonic bullets’ or pulses of sound between 125-150db for a second or two. Such a weapon could, when fully developed, have the capacity to knock people off their feet.”
* The Penn State facility is testing a “Distributed Sound and Light Array Debilitator” a.k.a. the “puke ray.” The colors and rhythm of light are absorbed by the retina and disorient the brain, blinding the victim for several seconds. In conjunction with disturbing sounds it can make the person stumble or feel nauseated. Foreign Policy in Focus reports that the Department of Homeland Security, with $1 million invested for testing the device, hopes to see it “in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents and National Guardsmen” by 2010.
* Spider silk is cited in the University of Bradford’s Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project, Report #4 (pg. 20) as an up-and-comer. “A research collaboration between the University of New Hampshire and the U.S. Army Natick Research, Development and Engineering Center is looking into the use of spider silk as a non-lethal ‘entanglement’ material for disabling people. They have developed a method for producing recombinant spider silk protein using E. coli and are trying to develop methods to produce large quantities of these fibres.”
* New Scientist reports that the (I’m not making this up) Inertial Capacitive Incapacitator (ICI), developed by the Physical Optics Corporation of Torrance, California, uses a thin-film storage device charged during manufacture that only discharges when it strikes the target. It can be incorporated into a ring-shaped aerofoil and fired from a standard grenade launcher at low velocity, while still maintaining a flat trajectory for maximum accuracy.
* Aiming beyond Tasers, the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, (FY 2009 budget: $1B) the domestic equivalent of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), plans to develop wireless weapons effective over greater distances, such as in an auditorium or sports stadium, or on a city street. One such device, the Piezer, uses piezoelectric crystals that produce voltage when they are compressed. A 12-gauge shotgun fires the crystals, stunning the target with an electric shock on impact. Lynntech of College Station, Texas, is developing a projectile Taser that can be fired from a shotgun or 40-mm grenade launcher to increase greatly the weapon’s current range of seven meters.
* “Off the Rocker and On the Floor: Continued Development of Biochemical Incapacitating Weapons,” a report by the Bradford Disarmament Research Centre revealed that in 1992, the National Institute of Justice contracted with Lawrence Livermore National Lab to review clinical anesthetics for use by special ops military forces and police. LLNL concluded the best option was an opioid, like fentanyl, effective at very low doses compared to morphine. Combined with a patch soaked in DMSO (dimethylsufoxide, a solvent) and fired from an air rifle, fentanyl could be delivered to the skin even through light clothing. Another recommended application for the drug was mixed with fine powder and dispersed as smoke.
* After upgrades, the infamous “Puff the Magic Dragon” gunship from the Vietnam War is now the AC-130. “Non-Lethal Weaponry: Applications to AC-130 Gunships,” observes that “With the increasing involvement of US military in operations other than war…” the AC-130 “would provide commanders a full range of non-lethal weaponry from an airborne platform which was not previously available to them.” The paper concludes in part that “As the use of non-lethal weapons increases and it becomes valid and acceptable, more options will become available.”

* Prozac and Zoloft are two of over 100 pharmaceuticals identified by the Penn State College of Medicine and the university’s Applied Research Lab for further study as “non-lethal calmatives.” These Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), noted the Penn State study, “…are found to be highly effective for numerous behavioral disturbances encountered in situations where a deployment of a non-lethal technique must be considered. This class of pharmaceutical agents also continues to be under intense development by the pharmaceutical industry…New compounds under development (WO 09500194) are being designed with a faster onset of action. Drug development is continuing at a rapid rate in this area due to the large market for the treatment of depression (15 million individuals in North America)…It is likely that an SSRI agent can be identified in the near future that will feature a rapid rate of onset.”

In Pittsburgh last week, an enormously expensive show of police and weaponry, intended for “security” of the G20 delegates, simultaneously shut workers out of downtown jobs for two days, forced gasping students and residents back into their dormitories and homes, and turned journalists’ press passes into quaint, obsolete reminders of a bygone time.

Most significant of all, however, was what Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, told the Associated Press: “It’s not just intimidation, it’s disruption and in some cases outright prevention of peaceful protesters being able to get their message out.”

The Demise Of The Dollar

2009-10-07T20:38:00.004+01:00

By Robert Fisk

07 October , 2009
The Independent

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning - along with China, Russia, Japan and France - to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place - although they have not discovered the details - are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil - yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power - along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system - which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq - blocked by the US until this year - and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.

Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements - the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system - America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

Mandatory vavvination for swine flu jab contain nanotechnology microchip

2009-09-26T10:53:00.003+01:00

There are some who believe that the swine flu vaccination program has a more sinister application. Rumours from the source of the manufactures Baxters are suggesting that nanotechnology microchips are being injected at the same time as the flu vaccination jab. Thus implanting control chips in to the world population that are invisible to the human eye, of course this could be a completley untrue story. I shall report further findings as the story develops!!! For more information on this subject please see David Icke on the web.

Mandatory vaccination, contamination, big phama and New world order.

2009-09-14T22:51:00.001+01:00

Global War and Dying Democracy: The Revolution of the Elites

2009-09-09T19:33:00.002+01:00

Global Power and Global Government: Part 5

by Andrew Gavin Marshall

.
Global Research, August 19, 2009

This article is the 5th and final part in the series, "Global Power and Global Government," published by Global Research.

Part 1: Global Power and Global Government: Evolution and Revolution of the Central Banking System
Part 2: Origins of the American Empire: Revolution, World Wars and World Order
Part 3: Controlling the Global Economy: Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission and the Federal Reserve
Part 4: Forging a “New World Order” Under a One World Government

Transnational Totalitarianism

Global trends in political economy suggest that “democracy” as we know it, is a fading concept, where even Western industrialized nations are retreating from the system. Arguably, through party politics and financial-corporate interests, democracy is something of a façade as it is. However, we are entering into an era in which even the institutions and image of democracy are in retreat, and the slide into totalitarianism seems inevitable.

The National Intelligence Council report, Global Trends 2025, stated that many governments will be “expanding domestic security forces, surveillance capabilities, and the employment of special operations-type forces.” Counterterrorism measures will increasingly “involve urban operations as a result of greater urbanization,” and governments “may increasingly erect barricades and fences around their territories to inhibit access. Gated communities will continue to spring up within many societies as elites seek to insulate themselves from domestic threats.”[1] Essentially, expect a continued move towards and internationalization of domestic police state measures to control populations.

The nature of totalitarianism is such that it is, “by nature (or rather by definition), a global project that cannot be fully accomplished in just one community or one country. Being fuelled by the need to suppress any alternative orders and ideas, it has no natural limits and is bound to aim at totally dominating everything and everyone.” David Lyon explained in Theorizing Surveillance, that, “The ultimate feature of the totalitarian domination is the absence of exit, which can be achieved temporarily by closing borders, but permanently only by a truly global reach that would render the very notion of exit meaningless. This in itself justifies questions about the totalitarian potential of globalization.” The author raises the important question, “Is abolition of borders intrinsically (morally) good, because they symbolize barriers that needlessly separate and exclude people, or are they potential lines of resistance, refuge and difference that may save us from the totalitarian abyss?” Further, “if globalization undermines the tested, state-based models of democracy, the world may be vulnerable to a global totalitarian etatization.”[2]

Russia Today, a major Russian media source, published an article by the Strategic Cultural Fund, in which it stated that, “the current crisis is being used as a mechanism for provoking some deepening social upheavals that would make mankind – plunged as it is already into chaos and frightened by the ghost of an all-out violence – urge of its own free will that a ‘supranational’ arbitrator with dictatorial powers intervene into the world affairs.” The author pointed out that, “The events are following the same path as the Great Depression in 1929-1933: a financial crisis, an economic recession, social conflicts, establishing totalitarian dictatorships, inciting a war to concentrate power, and capital in the hands of a narrow circle.” However, as the author noted, this time around, it’s different, as this “is the final stage in the ‘global control’ strategy, where a decisive blow should be dealt to the national state sovereignty institution, followed by a transition to a system of private power of transnational elites.”

The author explained that a global police state is forming, as “Intelligence activities, trade of war, penitentiary system, and information control are passing into private hands. This is done through so-called outsourcing, a relatively new business phenomenon that consists of trusting certain functions to private firms that act as contractors and relying on individuals outside an organization to solve its internal tasks.” Further, “he biggest achievements have been made over the last few years in the area of establishing electronic control over people’s identities, carried out under the pretext of counterterrorism. Currently, the FBI is creating the world’s biggest database of biometric indexes (fingerprints, retina scans, face shapes, scar shapes and allocation, speech and gesture patterns, etc.) that now contains 55 million fingerprints.”[3]

Global War

Further, the prospects of war are increasing with the deepening of the economic crisis. It must be noted that historically, as empires are in decline, international violence increases. The scope of a global depression and the undertaking of restructuring the entire global political economy may also require and produce a global war to serve as a catalyst for formation of the New World Order.

The National Intelligence Council document, Global Trends 2025, stated that there is a likely increase in the risk of a nuclear war, or in the very least, the use of a nuclear weapon by 2025, as, “Ongoing low-intensity clashes between India and Pakistan continue to raise the specter that such events could escalate to a broader conflict between those nuclear powers.”[4]

The report also predicts a resurgence of mercantilist foreign policies of the great powers in competition for resources, which “could lead to interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy resources to be essential to maintaining domestic stability and the survival of their regime.” In particular, “Central Asia has become an area of intense international competition for access to energy.”[5]

Further, “Sub-Saharan Africa will remain the most vulnerable region on Earth in terms of economic challenges, population stresses, civil conflict, and political instability. The weakness of states and troubled relations between states and societies probably will slow major improvements in the region’s prospects over the next 20 years unless there is sustained international engagement and, at times, intervention. Southern Africa will continue to be the most stable and promising sub-region politically and economically.” This seems to suggest that there will be many more cases of “humanitarian intervention,” likely under the auspices of a Western dominated international organization, such as the UN. There will also be a democratic “backslide” in the most populous African countries, and that, “the region will be vulnerable to civil conflict and complex forms of interstate conflict—with militaries fragmented along ethnic or other divides, limited control of border areas, and insurgents and criminal groups preying on unarmed civilians in neighboring countries. Central Africa contains the most troubling of these cases, including Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Central African Republic, and Chad.”[6]

In 2007, the British Defense Ministry released a report in which they analyzed future trends in the world. Among many of the things predicted within 30 years are: “Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. ‘Flashmobs’ - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.”

It further reported that, “The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organisms but not buildings ‘might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world’. The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the ‘application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues’. The ‘explicit use’ of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.” Further, “an implantable ‘information chip’ could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilise ‘flashmobs’, challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.”

In regards to social problems, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx.” Interestingly, “The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: ‘The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest’. Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the ‘sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism’.”

The report also forecasts that, “Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.”[7]

RAND corporation, a Pentagon-linked powerhouse think tank, connected to the Blderberg Group, Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations, came up with a solution to the financial crisis in October of 2008: for the United States to start a major war. Chinese media reported that RAND “presented a shocking proposal to the Pentagon in which it lobbied for a war to be started with a major foreign power in an attempt to stimulate the American economy and prevent a recession.” Further, “the target country would have to be a major influential power,” and Chinese media “speculated that the target of the new war would probably be China or Russia, but that it could also be Iran or another middle eastern country.”[8]

Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, the most highly respected trend forecaster in the United States, has been sounding the alarm over the trends to come in the next few years. Having previously predicted the 1987 stock market crash, the fall of the Soviet Union, the dot-com bubble burst, and the 2008 housing bubble burst, these forecasts should not be taken lightly.

Celente told Fox News that, “by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.” He stated that this will be “worse than the great depression.” In another interview, Celente stated that, “There will be a revolution in this country,” and, “It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen.” He further explained, “The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.”[9]

In June of 2009, Gerald Celente reported that, “The measures taken by successive governments to save the politically corrupt, morally bankrupt, physically decrepit [American] giant from collapse have served to only hasten its demise. While the decline has been decades in the making, the acceleration of ruinous policies under the current Administration is leading the United States — and much of the world — to the point of no return.” This coming catastrophe, which Celente refers to as “Obamageddon,” will become the “Greatest Depression.”[10]

In May of 2009, Celente forecasted that a major issue is the “bailout bubble” which is bigger than the dot-com bubble or the real estate bubble that preceded it, and is made up of 12.8 trillion dollars. He states that with the bursting of this bubble, the next trend would be what he calls “fascism light” and that it will be followed by war.[11] He stated that, “this bubble will be the last one. After the final blowout of the bailout bubble, we are concerned that the government will take the nation into war. This is a historical precedent that’s been done over and over again.” He elaborated, “So, it’s not the dollar that will survive. We may not even survive. Look at the German mess after WWI. It gave rise to Fascism and WWII. The next war will be fought with weapons of mass destruction.”[12]

The Imperial Project

War should not be understood as a recent phenomenon in regards to accelerating capitalism through expansion and transition, as this has been a continual theme throughout the history of capitalism. The notion of “surplus imperialism” is what describes the function and role of war and militarism within capitalism. The concept is built around the function of “constant war.”

Ellen Wood explains the notion of ‘surplus imperialism,’ in that, “Boundless domination of a global economy, and of the multiple states that administer it, requires military action without end, in purpose or time.”[13] Further, “Imperial dominance in a global capitalist economy requires a delicate and contradictory balance between suppressing competition and maintaining conditions in competing economies that generate markets and profit. This is one of the most fundamental contradictions of the new world order.”[14]

Shortly after George Bush Sr. declared a “new world order coming into view,” in 1991, the US strategic community began setting forth a new strategy for the United States in the world. This first emerged in 1992, with the Defense Planning Guidance. The New York Times broke the story, reporting that, “In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union,” and that, “The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.”

The main figure that drafted this policy was the Pentagon’s Under Secretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, who would later become Deputy Secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush administration, as well as President of the World Bank. Wolfowitz is also a member of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and is currently a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think tank.

The document places emphasis “on using military force, if necessary, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in such countries as North Korea, Iraq, some of the successor republics to the Soviet Union and in Europe,” and that, “What is most important, it says, is ‘the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S.’ and ‘the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated’ or in a crisis that demands quick response.” Further, “the new draft sketches a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders ‘must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role’.” Among the necessary challenges to American supremacy, the document “postulated regional wars against Iraq and North Korea,” and identified China and Russia as its major threats. It further “suggests that the United States could also consider extending to Eastern and Central European nations security commitments similar to those extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states along the Persian Gulf.”[15] The Secretary of Defense at the time of this document’s writing was none other than Dick Cheney.

When George Bush Sr. was replaced by Bill Clinton in 1993, the neo-conservative hawks in the Bush administration formed a think tank called the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC. In 2000, they published a report called, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century. Building upon the Defense Policy Guidance document, they state that, “the United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars,”[16] that there is “need to retain sufficient combat forces to fight and win, multiple, nearly simultaneous major theatre wars,”[17] and that “the Pentagon needs to begin to calculate the force necessary to protect, independently, US interests in Europe, East Asia and the Gulf at all times.”[18] Further, “the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”[19] In describing the need for massive increases in military spending, rapidly expanding the armed forces and “dealing” with threats such as Iraq, North Korea and Iran, they state, “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”[20]

Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, former National Security Adviser and key foreign policy architect in Jimmy Carter’s administration, also wrote a book on American geostrategy. Brzezinski is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg Group, and has also been a board member of Amnesty International, the Atlantic Council and the National Endowment for Democracy. Currently, he is a trustee and counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a major US policy think tank.

In his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski outlined a strategy for America in the world. He wrote, “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated by Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional domination and reached out for global power.” Further, “how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail African subordination.”[21] Brzezinski explained that, “the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.”[22] Brzezinski also outlines Russia and China, in cooperation with Iran and possibly Pakistan, as the most significant coalition that could challenge US hegemony.

With the George W. Bush administration, the neo-conservative war hawks put into action the plans set out in their American imperial strategic documents. This made up the Bush doctrine, which called for “a unilateral and exclusive right to preemptive attack, any time, anywhere, unfettered by any international agreements, to ensure that ‘[o]ur forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hope of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States’.”[23]

In 2000, the Pentagon released a document called Joint Vision 2020, which outlined a project to achieve what they termed, “Full Spectrum Dominance,” as the blueprint for the Department of Defense in the future. “Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations.” The report “addresses full-spectrum dominance across the range of conflicts from nuclear war to major theater wars to smaller-scale contingencies. It also addresses amorphous situations like peacekeeping and noncombat humanitarian relief.” Further, “The development of a global information grid will provide the environment for decision superiority.”[24]

The War on Terrorism, as a war with invisible enemies and borderless boundaries, a truly global war, marks a major stage in the evolution of the constant war “surplus imperialism” of the American empire. The US military, while being used as a vehicle for surplus imperialism; is also creating and maintaining and expanding NATO. NATO is expanding its role in the world. The wars in Yugoslavia following the collapse of the Soviet Union were used to legitimize NATO’s continued existence, which was created to have an alliance against the USSR. When the USSR vanished, so too did NATO’s purpose, until it found a new calling: becoming a global policeman. NATO has undergone its first major war in Afghanistan and its expansion into Eastern Europe is enclosing Russia and China.

Ivo Daalder, the US representative to NATO, also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote an article for Foreign Affairs in which he advocated for a “global NATO” to “address the global challenges of the day.”[25] In April of 2009, NATO began to review its Strategic Concept “in order to stay relevant in a changing security environment,” and that, “The leaders envisage cyber-attacks, energy security and climate change as new threats to NATO, which would mean big changes in NATO's future operations.”[26] Since 2008, NATO has been re-imagining its strategy and moving to a doctrine of advocating for pre-emptive nuclear warfare.[27]

As George Orwell wrote in 1984, “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”

The Revolution of the New World Order

The new system being formed is not one based upon any notion of competition or “free markets” or “socialist morality”, but is, instead a system based upon consolidation of power and wealth; thus, the fewer, the better; one government, one central bank, one army, one currency, one authority, one ruler. This is a much more “efficient” and “controllable” system, and thus requires a much smaller population or class to run it, as well as a much smaller population to serve it. Also, with such a system, a smaller global population would be ideal for the rulers, for it limits their risk, in terms of revolt, uprising, and revolution, and created a more malleable and manageable population. In this new capitalist system, the end goal is not profit, but power. In a sense, this is how the whole capitalist system has functioned, as profit has always acted as a means and lever to achieve power. Power itself, was the goal, profit was merely the means of achieving such a goal.

Shortly following the origins of the capitalist system, central banking emerged. It was through the central banking system that the most powerful figures and individuals in the world were able to consolidate power, controlling both industry and governments. Through central banks, these figures would collapse economies, destroying industry and thus, profits; bankrupt countries and collapse their political structures, destroying a base for the exercise of power; but in doing so, they would consolidate their authority over these governments and industry, wiping out competition and eliminating dissent. It is these individuals who have played the greatest roles in shaping and reshaping the capitalist system, and are the main figures in the current reorganization of world order.

However, such is the nature of individuals whose lives revolve around the acquisition and exercise of power. Like the saying goes, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.” Those who are driven by the lust for power often eliminate and remove all of those who helped them reach such a position. Hitler undertook the Night of Long Knives, in which a series of political executions were carried out, targeting prominent figures of the SA, who helped Hitler rise to power. Stalin similarly, also purged the Soviet Union of those who helped him rise to power.

Power alters the psychology of the individual that holds it. It is an extremely lonely condition, in which, once power is achieved, and with no more power to gain, the obsession turns to the preservation of power, and with that, paranoia of losing it. This is why those that assist the powerful in gaining more power are doomed to a fate that is similar or worse than those who fight against such a power. This, ultimately, is why it is futile to join forces with such systems of power, or ally oneself with such powerful figures.

Power is a cancer; it eats away at its host. The greater the power held, the more cancerous it is, the more malignant it becomes. The less power held by individuals, the less chance there is for growth of this cancer, or for it to become malignant. Power must be shared among all people, for the risk carried thus becomes a risk to all, and there is a greater degree of cooperation, support, and there is a more efficient and effective means through which everyone can act as a check against the abuse of power.

Theoretical Foundations of Global Revolution

Currently, we are witnessing, in the wake of the massive economic crisis, a revolution in the global political economy. This revolution, like all revolutions, is not simply a top-down or a bottom-up revolution. Historically, revolutions are driven by a combination of both the grassroots and the elite. Often, this materializes in clashes between social groups, such as with the American Revolution. Although, the American Revolution itself was primarily waged by the American landed elite against the foreign imperial elite of Great Britain. The French Revolution was the combination of the banking and aristocratic elite co-opting, manipulating and controlling the grassroots opposition to the established order. The Russian Revolution, also being able to see rising social tensions among the lower classes, was co-opted by an international banking elite.

Currently, the transnational elite are very aware of the increasing social tensions among the worlds majority. As the crisis deepens, tensions will rise, and the chances of revolt and revolution from below greatly increase. Governments everywhere, particularly in the Western industrialized nations are building massive police states to monitor and control populations, and are actively preparing for martial law and military rule in the event of such a situation unfolding.

However, the transnational elite are undertaking their own revolution from above. This revolution is encompassing the restructuring of the global political economy through their orchestrated economic crisis.

Neo-Gramscian political economic theory can help us understand how this revolution has been and is currently being undertaken. Neo-Gramscian IPE (International Political Economy) emerged in the 1980s within the critical camp of theory. Largely based off of the Italian Marxist writer, Antonio Gramsci, it places a great focus on analysis of global power, order and structure. There has been much analysis within Neo-Gramscian theory on the nature and structure of the transnational capitalist class. Among the analysis of transnational classes, Neo-Gramscian theory also places emphasis on the notions of hegemony and resistance, or counter-hegemony.

The Gramscian notion of hegemony differs from other perspectives in, particularly mainstream, Global Political Economy. With the Gramscian concept of hegemony, it does not focus simply on the use of state power at exerting power, but rather defines hegemony as a system of power that is dual; it requires both coercion and consent. Consent is key, as it implies the active consent of “subaltern” or “subordinate” groups (in other words, the great majority of the world’s people), to being submissive to the system itself. This hegemony is built around the notion of conformity; thus, conformity is an active consent to hegemony. By conforming, one is submitting to the system and their place within it. This is also an internationalizing concept, in that this hegemony is not nation-based, but transnational, and backed by the threat of coercive force.

In discussing resistance to hegemony, or counter-hegemony, Gramsci identified two forms of resistance; the war of position and the war of movement. Robert Cox, the most well known Neo-Gramscian theorist, analyzed how Gramsci defined these notions by comparing the experiences of Russia with the Bolshevik Revolution as compared with experiences in Western Europe. As Cox explained, “The basic difference between Russia and Western Europe was in the relative strengths of state and civil society. In Russia, the administrative and coercive apparatus of the state was formidable but proved to be vulnerable, while civil society was undeveloped. A relatively small working class led by a disciplined avant-garde was able to overwhelm the state in a war of movement and met no effective resistance from the rest of civil society.”[28]

So a war of movement was characterized by a small vanguard seizing power and overthrowing the state. “In Western Europe, by contrast, civil society, under bourgeois hegemony, was much more fully developed and took manifold forms. A war of movement might conceivably, in conditions of exceptional upheaval, enable a revolutionary vanguard to seize control of the state apparatus; but because of the resiliency of civil society such an exploit would in the long run be doomed to failure.” As Gramsci himself noted, “In Russia, the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between State and civil society, and when the State trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed.”[29]

In this instance, a war of movement was impossible to achieve in Western Europe, and thus, “The alternative strategy is the war of position which slowly builds up the strength of the social foundations of a new state. In Western Europe, the struggle had to be won in civil society before an assault on the state could achieve success.” This undertaking is massive to say the least, as it implies as a necessity, “creating alternative institutions and alternative intellectual resources within existing society and building bridges between workers and other subordinate classes. It means actively building counter-hegemony within an established hegemony while resisting the pressures and temptations to relapse into pursuit of incremental gains for subaltern groups within the framework of bourgeois hegemony.” In other words, it is a “long-range revolutionary strategy,” as compared to social democracy, which is “a policy of making gains within the established order.”[30]

However, I wish to take the concept and notion of the “war of position” and re-imagine it, not as a means of counter-hegemony, but as a means of supra-hegemony. This is not a war of position on the part of a counter-hegemonic group (grassroots opposition, etc), but is rather a war of position on the part of an embedded international elite, or supra-hegemonic group. Supra is Latin for “above,” which implies that this group is above hegemony, just as supra-national institutions (such as the European Union) are above nations. This is the elite of the elite, beyond national elites, and composing the top tier of the hierarchy within the transnational superclass. In terms of composition, this group is the highly concentrated international bankers, the dynastic banking families such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, who control the major banking institutions of the world, which in turn, control the international central banking system. Their centralized power is exemplified in the Bank for International Settlements.

I will refer to this group as the Global Cartel. This Cartel has usurped global authority and power through an incremental, multi-century spanning war of position. The Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, constituting two separate treaties, created the notion of the nation state and state sovereignty within Western Europe. Feudalism dominated Europe from the medieval period through the 16th century, and was slowly replaced by the emergence of Capitalism. Major European empires had, since the 15th century, been pursuing empire building, such as with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and expansion into the Americas. This formed the first truly global economy. The empires worked under and in service to the monarchies that oversaw them.

It was with the founding of the Bank of England in 1694 that a European group of bankers overtook one of the major European empires. Great Britain then became the dominant empire, experiencing the Industrial Revolution prior to any other nation, and became a global hegemon. With the French Revolution, these European bankers took over another major empire through the establishment of the Bank of France, and then financed and profited off of all sides of every major war, and expanded imperial reach.

Through the expansion of the central banking system, a highly concentrated group of European bankers were able to overtake the major nations of the world. The entire history of the United States is the story of a Republic’s struggle and battle against a central bank. Finally, the bankers usurped monetary authority with the establishment of the Federal Reserve, and built up and created the American empire.

It was in the 20th century that the war of position of the cartel is most apparent. As the world globalized, so too did the war of position. The major banking dynasties founded powerful philanthropies, such as the Carnegie Endowment and the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. These organizations shaped civil society in the United States and set their sights internationally in scope. Through the establishment of think tanks like the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in Britain and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the United States, this cartel was able to bring in and centralize the intellectual, academic, strategic, military, economic and political establishments under the cartel’s influence. This was expanded by the cartel through organizations such as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission.

Centralizing and controlling debate and discussion within these vital socio-political-economic realms was a vital component of institutionalizing hegemony, as Gramsci understands it, in that the cartel used their monetary and financial hegemony (controlling the printing and value of currencies) to stimulate an active consent among the socio-political-economic elite. National elites consented to the hegemony of the cartel, whose coercive hegemony was in their ability to destroy a national economy through monetary policy.

This hegemony, both coercive and consenting, based within the elite class themselves, facilitated the war of position of the cartel to advance their interests and proceed with their incremental revolution. The aim of this cartel, like many tyrants and power-hungry people before it, was world domination. Bankers command no army, lead no nation, and motivate no people. Their influence lies in co-opting the commanders, controlling the leaders, and manipulating motivation.

Thus, it was of absolute necessity for the cartel to undertake their ultimate aim of world domination and world government through a war of position, as no person would fight for, surrender a nation to, or be motivated to help any banker achieve their own selfish goals. Rather, they had to slowly usurp power incrementally; control money, buy politicians, own economies, build empires, engineer wars, mold civil society, control their opposition, overtake educational institutions and ultimately, control thought.

Conclusion

As George Orwell wrote, “Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

The more people that think for themselves; the worse it is for the cartel. People, free thinking individuals, are the greatest threat to this cartel and their war of position. That is why the answer and solution to exposing the supra-hegemonic war of position, challenging and triumphing over the New World Order, lies in the free-thinking individual. The challenge is global and globalized; the solution is local and localized. The problem is conformity and controlled thought; the answer is individuality and free thought.

While humanity is faced with such monumental crises the likes of which in scope and size, we have never before faced, so too, are we faced with the greatest opportunities for an ultimate change in the right direction. While people are controlled and manipulated through crisis and disorder, so too can people be awoken to seeing the necessity of knowledge and critical thought. When one’s life is thrown into disorder and chaos, suddenly observation, information and knowledge become important in understanding how one got into that situation, and how one can escape it.

With this in mind, while facing the potential for the greatest struggle humanity has ever faced, so too are we facing the greatest potential for a new Enlightenment or a new Renaissance; an age of new thought, new life, new potential, and peace. No matter how much elites think they control all things, life has a way of making one realize that there are things outside the control of people. With every action, comes an equal and opposite reaction.

We may not reach a new age of thinking and peace before we enter into a new age of oppression and war. In fact, the former may not be possible without the latter. People must awake from their slumber; their immersion in consumerist society and pop culture distractions, and awake to both the malevolence of world systems and the wonder of life and its potential. Through crisis, comes control; through control, comes power; through power, comes resistance; through resistance, comes thinking; through thinking, comes potential; through potential, comes peace.

We may very well be entering into the most oppressive and destructive order the world has yet seen, but from its ruins and ashes, which are as inevitable as the tides and as sure as the sun rises, we may see the rise of a truly peaceful world order; in which we see the triumphs of individualism merge with the interests of the majority; a people’s world order of peace for all. We must maintain, as Antonio Gramsci once wrote, “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”

Notes

[1] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence Council’s 2025 Project: November, 2008: pages 70-72: http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html

[2] David Lyon, Theorizing surveillance: the panopticon and beyond. Willan Publishing, 2006: page 71

[3] Olga Chetverikova, Crisis as a way to build a global totalitarian state. Russia Today: April 20, 2009: http://www.russiatoday.com/Politics/2009-04-20/Crisis_as_a_way_to_build_a_global_totalitarian_state.html

[4] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence Council’s 2025 Project: November, 2008: pages 67: http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html

[5] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence Council’s 2025 Project: November, 2008: pages 63: http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html

[6] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence Council’s 2025 Project: November, 2008: pages 56: http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html

[7] Richard Norton-Taylor, Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future. The Guardian: April 9, 2007: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/apr/09/frontpagenews.news

[8] Paul Joseph Watson & Yihan Dai, RAND Lobbies Pentagon: Start War To Save U.S. Economy. Prison Planet: October 30, 2008: http://www.prisonplanet.com/rand-lobbies-pentagon-start-war-to-save-us-economy.html

[9] Paul Joseph Watson, Celente Predicts Revolution, Food Riots, Tax Rebellions By 2012. Prison Planet: November 13, 2008: http://www.prisonplanet.com/celente-predicts-revolution-food-riots-tax-rebellions-by-2012.html

[10] Gerald Celente, Obamageddon — 2012. Prison Planet: June 30: 2009: http://www.infowars.com/obamageddon-2012/

[11] CNBC, Gerald Celente. May 21, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akH5C3f4aTI

[12] Terry Easton, Exclusive Interview with Future Prediction Expert Gerald Celente. Human Events: June 5, 2009: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32152

[13] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 144

[14] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 157

[15] Tyler, Patrick E. U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop: A One Superpower World. The New York Times: March 8, 1992. http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm

[16] PNAC, Rebuilding America’s Defenses. Project for the New American Century: September 2000, page 6: http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm

[17] Ibid. Page 8

[18] Ibid. Page 9

[19] Ibid. Page 14

[20] Ibid. Page 51

[21] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Pages 30-31

[22] Ibid. Page 36

[23] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 160

[24] Jim Garamone, Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance. American Forces Press Service: June 2, 2000: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45289

[25] Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier, Global NATO. Foreign Affairs: Sep/Oct2006, Vol. 85, Issue 5

[26] Xinhua, NATO changes to stay relevant. Xinhua News Agency: April 5, 2009: http://www.china.org.cn/international/2009-04/05/content_17554731.htm

[27] Ian Traynor, Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told. The Guardian: January 22, 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/22/nato.nuclear

Michel Chossudovsky, The US-NATO Preemptive Nuclear Doctrine: Trigger a Middle East Nuclear Holocaust to Defend "The Western Way of Life". Global Research: February 11, 2008: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8048

[28] Robert W. Cox, Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2: pages 164-165

[29] Robert W. Cox, Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2: page 165

[30] Robert W. Cox, Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2: page 165

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy and History at Simon Fraser University.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Andrew Gavin Marshall

America is aTerrorist Nation

2009-09-08T15:02:00.002+01:00

Exclusive: The Definition of Terrorism by Gary Sudborough
Posted on September 8, 2009 by dandelionsalad

by Gary Sudborough
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Sept. 08, 2009

Most Americans have a stereotypical image of a terrorist as a religious fanatic from the Middle East who straps explosives around his body or flies airplanes into buildings. I have a few more definitions of the word terrorist.

One who drops cancer-inducing substances like Agent Orange and uranium-238 on civilian populations.

One who trains foreign soldiers in torture techniques at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia and organizes death squads to assassinate leftists and union leaders.

One who uses the CIA to overthrow democratically elected leaders like Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala and Allende in Chile, leading to the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

One who arms, trains and finances proxy terrorist armies like the Contras in Nicaragua, UNITA in Angola and Renamo in Mozambique that attack “socialist” targets like schools, medical clinics and farm cooperatives, torturing and killing thousands of innocent men, women and children.

One whose embassy provided lists of communists to be murdered to Suharto in Indonesia, resulting in the deaths of nearly a million people in the massacre of 1965 that brought Suharto to power.

One who bombs the water, sewage and electricity infrastructure of a country like Iraq or Yugoslavia and then institutes an embargo prohibiting the import of spare parts to repair these systems, leading to outbreaks of disease and death.

One who transfers the Phoenix program of assassination, torture and mutilation from Vietnam to Argentina causing an estimated thirty-thousand people to be killed or “disappeared.” Leftists were pushed out of airplanes over the Atlantic ocean and pregnant women leftists were allowed to give birth, then killed and the babies given to military or police families. The United States subsequently used these Argentine butchers to train the Contras and the death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala.

One who uses the CIA to bring Nazi war criminals like Klaus Barbie, Walter Rauff, Otto Skorzeny and others to Latin America to impart their knowledge of repression to the police and military forces there.

One who attempts to assassinate foreign leaders like Fidel Castro and introduces diseases like African swine fever into Cuba to ruin Cuban agriculture, sabotages Cuban factories and adulterates Cuban sugar shipments.

One who supplies 70% of the world’s weapons, refuses to sign treaties banning land mines and biological weapons, continues to conduct research on new forms of atomic weapons and wants to extend weapons systems into space.

One who harbors terrorists like Haitian death squad leader Emmanuel Constant and refuses to extradite him to Haiti. Also, one who harbors and protects many Cuban exile terrorists like Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, who bombed a Cubana airlines plane in 1976, killing 73 people, including all of Cuba’s fencing team.

One whose psychopathic corporations create environmental and human catastrophes like the disastrous leak of methyl isocyanate at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. This easily preventable accident in a highly populated area killed 8,000 people in a short period of time and made tens of thousands more sick with lifetime maladies. Furthermore, it has resulted in birth defects, which extend the problem to future generations. There has been no attempt by Union Carbide, now Dow Chemical, to clean up the polluted area, so the water and soil are poisonous and continue to make people ill. Also, the compensation that Union Carbide corporation has given to the victims is a very paltry sum varying from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. People think of the large disasters like Bhopal or the Exxon Valdez oil spill, but these accidents happen much more frequently and are simply not reported. Corporations greatly relax their safety and environmental standards in Third World countries as they can make more profit by these means, and they value human life in those areas less because of racism. This is a very significant form of terrorism.

One who creates torture centers like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners are waterboarded and subjected to all sorts of other physical and psychological torture. Such torture includes hooding and light and sleep deprivation, which can lead to severe depression and suicidal thoughts, humiliation such as piling up naked prisoners and violating their cultural and religious beliefs. Desecrating the Koran in various ways is also a part of the humiliation phase of torture of Islamic prisoners. Standing in stress positions for hours can be unimaginably painful.

One who conducted and probably still conducts the more physical methods of torture used in Central and South America by the United States like electrical shock to the genitals, pulling out fingernails, torturing children in front of their parents and inserting various objects into the anus and vagina including bayonets, which would cause internal bleeding and often death. In Brazil one peasant’s penis was tied so he could not urinate, ruining his kidneys. Sister Diana Ortiz in Guatemala was lowered into a pit of wounded and dying people covered with rats and forced to stab another person with a machete. She testified before Congress that another American was present as an observer. Jennifer Harbury went on a hunger strike in Washington, D.C. in order to be heard, and she testified about the torture in Guatemala and asked the CIA about the fate of her husband, Everado, who was a guerrilla leader in Guatemala and had disappeared. All this material appears in books like Turning the Tide by Noam Chomsky, the Sword and the Dollar by Michael Parenti and Bridge of Courage by Jennifer Harbury. It is also verified in numerous reports of victims and eyewitnesses collected by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations.

Finally, one who controls the media and keeps the American people in the dark about all these facts and concentrates on sensationalistic and celebrity journalism or, if necessary, convinces them that these things are either crazy “conspiracy theories” or past “mistakes” that will never reoccur

Call for sanctions on US and Israel

2009-08-31T12:20:00.003+01:00

Paul Craig Roberts Archive
Paul Craig Robert's appeal on behalf of VDARE.COM
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August 30, 2009
Why Not Crippling Sanctions for Israel and the US?

By Paul Craig Roberts

In Israel, a country stolen from the Palestinians, fanatics control the government. One of the fanatics is the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Last week Netanyahu called for “crippling sanctions” against Iran.

The kind of blockade that Netanyahu wants qualifies as an act of war. Israel has long threatened to attack Iran on its own but prefers to draw in the US and NATO.

Why does Israel want to initiate a war between the United States and Iran?

Is Iran attacking other countries, bombing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure?

No. These are crimes committed by Israel and the US.

Is Iran evicting peoples from lands they have occupied for centuries and herding them into ghettoes?

No, that’s what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for 60 years.

What is Iran doing?

Iran is developing nuclear energy, which is its right as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran’s nuclear energy program is subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which consistently reports that its inspections find no diversion of enriched uranium to a weapons program.

The position taken by Israel, and by Israel’s puppet in Washington, is that Iran must not be allowed to have the rights as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that every other signatory has, because Iran might divert enriched uranium to a weapons program.

In other words, Israel and the US claim the right to abrogate Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy. The Israeli/US position has no basis in international law or in anything other than the arrogance of Israel and the United States.

The hypocrisy is extreme. Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and developed its nuclear weapons illegally on the sly, with, as far as we know, US help.

As Israel is an illegal possessor of nuclear weapons and has a fanatical government that is capable of using them, crippling sanctions should be applied to Israel to force it to disarm.

Israel qualifies for crippling sanctions for another reason. It is an apartheid state, as former US President Jimmy Carter demonstrated in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

The US led the imposition of sanctions against South Africa because of South Africa’s apartheid practices. The sanctions forced the white government to hand over political power to the black population. Israel practices a worse form of apartheid than did the white South African government. Yet, Israel maintains that it is “anti-Semitic” to criticize Israel for a practice that the world regards as abhorrent.

What remains of the Palestinian West Bank that has not been stolen by Israel consists of isolated ghettoes. Palestinians are cut off from hospitals, schools, their farms, and from one another. They cannot travel from one ghetto to another without Israeli permission enforced at checkpoints.

The Israeli government’s explanation for its gross violation of human rights comprises the greatest collection of lies in world history. No one, with the exception of American “Christian Zionists,” believes one word of it.

The United States also qualifies for crippling sanctions. Indeed, the US is over-qualified. On the basis of lies and intentional deception of the US Congress, the US public, the UN and NATO, the US government invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and used the “war on terror” that Washington orchestrated to overturn US civil liberties enshrined in the US Constitution. One million Iraqis have paid with their lives for America’s crimes and four million are displaced. Iraq and its infrastructure are in ruins, and Iraq’s professional elites, necessary to a modern organized society, are dead or dispersed. The US government has committed a war crime on a grand scale. If Iran qualifies for sanctions, the US qualifies a thousand times over.

No one knows how many women, children, and village elders have been murdered by the US in Afghanistan. However, the American war of aggression against the Afghan people is now in its ninth year. According to the US military, an American victory is still a long ways away. Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared in August that the military situation in Afghanistan is “serious and deteriorating”.

Older Americans can look forward to the continuation of this war for the rest of their lives, while their Social Security and Medicare rights are reduced in order to free up funds for the US armaments industry. Bush/Cheney and Obama/Biden have made munitions the only safe stock investment in the United States.

What is the purpose of the war of aggression against Afghanistan? Soon after his inauguration, President Obama promised to provide an answer but did not. Instead, Obama quickly escalated the war in Afghanistan and launched a new one in Pakistan that has already displaced 2 million Pakistanis. Obama has sent 21,000 more US troops into Afghanistan and already the US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is requesting 20,000 more.

Obama is escalating America’s war of aggression against the Afghanistan people despite three high profile opinion polls that show that the American public is firmly opposed to the continuation of the war against Afghanistan.

Sadly, the ironclad agreement between Israel and Washington to war against Muslim peoples is far stronger than the connection between the American public and the American government. At a farewell dinner party last Thursday for Israel’s military attaché in Washington, who is returning to Israel to become deputy chief of staff of the Israeli military, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, and Dan Shapiro, who is in charge of Middle East affairs on the National Security Council, were present to pay their respects. Admiral Mullen declared that the US will always stand with Israel. No matter how many war crimes Israel commits. No matter how many women and children Israel murders. No many how many Palestinians Israel drives from their homes, villages, and lands. If truth could be told, the true axis-of-evil is the United States and Israel.

Millions of Americans are now homeless because of foreclosures. Millions more have lost their jobs, and even more millions have no access to health care. Yet, the US government continues to squander hundreds of billions of dollars on wars that serve no US purpose. President Obama and General McChrystal have taken the position that they know best, the American public be damned.

It could not be made any clearer that the President of the United States and the US military have no regard whatsoever for democracy, human rights, and international law. This is yet another reason to apply crippling sanctions against Washington, a government that has emerged under Bush/Obama as a brownshirt state that deals in lies, torture, murder, war crimes, and deception.

Many governments are complicit in America’s war crimes. With Obama’s budget deep in the red, Washington’s wars of naked aggression are dependent on financing by the Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Saudis, South Koreans, Indians, Canadians and Europeans. The second this foreign financing of American war crimes stops, America’s wars of aggression against Muslims stop.

The US is not a forever “superpower” that can indefinitely ignore its own laws and international law. The US will eventually fall as a result of its hubris, arrogance, and imperial overreach.

When the American Empire collapses, will its enablers also be held accountable in the war crimes court?

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

Joe Glenton - Serving Soldier refusing to return to Afghanistan London July 23 2009

2009-08-08T16:00:00.000+01:00

'9/11 was an inside job' - US poet

2009-08-06T13:49:00.000+01:00

Vaccination as a Bioterror weapon?

2009-08-03T19:42:00.003+01:00

Vaccination Myths And Truths

By Stephen Lendman

03 August, 2009
Countercurrents.org

Alan G. Philips is an attorney with the following credentials:

-- he's one of the few American lawyers whose practice includes vaccine exemption and waiver issues;

-- he advises other attorneys seeking help for their own clients on vaccine exemptions;

-- he co-founded Citizens for Healthcare Freedom (CHF) as "a grassroots, nonprofit organization supporting an exciting new Consumer Health Freedom Act in North Carolina" where he lives and practices law;

-- he "may be the only attorney in the US with a website dedicated to vaccine exemptions" - vaccinerights.com;

-- he authored "The Authoritative Guide to Vaccine Legal Exemptions;" and

-- he's written numerous articles and publications on vaccinations and immunizations, including "Dispelling Vaccination Myths: An Introduction to the Contradictions Between Medical Science and Immunization Policy," published in 1996 and most recently updated in 2007.

Given the possibility of universally mandated untested, experimental, toxic, and extremely dangerous Swine Flu vaccinations this , Philips' work is especially relevant and vital.

In its entirety, it can be accessed at vaccinerights.com/dispellingvaccinationmythsx.pdf. A brief account follows below, focusing on 10 myths and truths he explains plus some additional information. More than ever, information is vital for protection against vaccines that can cause annoying to life-threatening autoimmune diseases, even the illnesses they're designed to prevent.

Of special concern is their affect on children. In America and elsewhere, they're over-immunized enough to destroy their immune systems, leaving them vulnerable to a lifetime of serious health disorders.

No one should voluntarily or otherwise take any vaccine, let alone one as untested and dangerous as for H1N1. But make no mistake. The dominant global media are readying a high intensity fear-mongering campaign to convince the unwary to jeopardize their health and well-being by doing . Just say NO!!

In America, laws in place empower the Health and Human Services and/or Defense secretaries to declare a national emergency and order mass vaccinations. Legally, individual states can resist, but not likely when enough pressure is applied.

Under the proposed, but not enacted, October 2001 Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA), states are advised on how to exercise extraordinary emergency powers without regard to civil liberties issues. Individual ones have adopted some of its provisions and may add more later given the power of Washington and the media to force them.

The WHO is also empowered under the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) to address but not mandate global vaccinations. But it has enough influence to compel nations to go along in case of a "declared" pandemic threat, even without evidence to prove one.

Suspicious H1N1's Origins

On April 24, AP reported that"

"Health officials are investigating a never-before-seen form of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses.... (It's) a growing medical mystery because it's unclear how (affected people) caught the virus. None (of seven cited had) contact with pigs." Nor had others reportedly affected in other US cities.

The "intercontinental" mixture included North American Swine Flu, North American Avian Flu, human H1N1 flu, and a fourth H3N2 strain found in Asia and Europe.

Suspicions about a synthetic laboratory-made virus have surfaced. Writing in NewsMax.com, Dr. Russell Blaylock quoted an unnamed viroligist saying: "Where the hell it got all these genes we don't know." According to Blalock: "Debate continues over the possibility that swine flu is a genetically engineered virus."

Dallas County Medical Director Dr. John Carlo voiced concern about the possibility that:

"This strain of swine influenza (may have been) cultured in a laboratory....something that's not been seen anywhere actually in the United States and the world...."

Recently interviewed on Russia Today TV, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen cited a University of Wisconsin lab conducting joint influenza vaccine research with drug company FluGen. On March 24, Reuters reported that:

"FluGen, Inc., an emerging leader in the development, production and delivery of influenza vaccines and related products, today announced it has secured exclusive rights to a novel, patent-protected vaccine-delivery technology (that) painlessly delivers seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines."

Madsen believes "the Swine Flu virus began in a lab," the objective being profits for vaccine makers with products "that may not actually be safe." Many noted experts share that view about all vaccines.

NutriMedical founder Dr. William Deagle reported that 6-8% of Swine Flu DNA matches no virus on record. He believes more lethal strains may appear in the fall.

Project Camelot "provide(s) a vehicle for researchers and whistleblowers to get their stories out." Interviewed on its Whistleblower Radio show, Burk Elder Hale claimed that a senior drug company biochemist (unnamed to protect him) told him:

"....an aerosoled precursor has been put into the air and almost everyone has breathed it into their lungs. (When Swine Flu) vaccines (are) administered in the fall, (they'll) be activated when (their) constituents come into contact with the aerosoled precursor in the body and will cause a rapid spread of the H1N1 influenza A virus. The biochemist is very upset about the matter....and is a very reliable source that needs our utmost protection."

Catherine Austin Fitts is a former high-level US government official and Wall Street insider. She's now the editor of Solari.com and runs Solari, Inc. as an "online media company focusing on ethical investment and preserving family wealth."

Admitting she's no expert, she wrote this about Swine Flu on July 22:

"I believe one of the goals of the swine flu vaccine is depopulation. Perhaps it is the goal of a swine flu epidemic as well, whether bio-warfare or hype around a flu season....Lowering immune systems and increasing toxicity levels combined with poor food, water and terrorizing stress will help do the trick....a plague can so frighten and help control people that they will accept the end of their current benefits....without objection. And a plague with proper planning can be highly profitable. Whatever the truth (about) swine flu and related vaccines....it can be used (to) control (a) situation that is quickly shifting out of control."

"In short, an epidemic can be used to offset the inflation of capital with increasing deflation of the value and income of labor and continual demand destruction. (What's coming next is the) meaner face of 'the establishment against the rest of society.' "

The possibility of a diabolical depopulation scheme can't be dismissed. The idea's been around for decades, including from the 1974 Henry Kissinger project - National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200). It was backed by Rockefeller interests to cull the world population of useless feeders so corporate giants could exploit world resources unimpeded.

Kissinger's scheme was to make birth control a prerequisite for US aid. He wanted the annual death rate doubled and for a population decline in the hundreds of millions by 2000. Poor third world women in countries like Brazil were involuntarily sterilized. Millions were harmed then. Perhaps today's toll from mandatory global Swine Flu vaccinations will be billions.

Yet US laws were passed to prevent it. In 1986, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) required:

-- giving parents written information on vaccine benefits and risks so they could decide on what was safe for their children;

-- maintaining a permanent record of all vaccines given children, including producer names and lot numbers;

-- keeping up to date medical records of all vaccinations given children; and

-- recording all serious health problems after vaccinations were administered and notifying the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) immediately.

At issue is whether federal laws and constitutional and Nuremberg protections will help. Nuremberg requires voluntary consent with full disclosure of known risks and avoidance of experimental treatments if there's any reason to believe harm may result. The Fifth Amendment protects against abusive government authority in stating that "No person shall....be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law...." The Eighth Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments." Harming human health is cruel and abusive. Mandating suspect drugs violates Nuremberg, the US Constitution, and other protective laws. Whether they'll be enforced is another matter.

Dispelling Vaccination Myths with Truths

Myth No. 1: Vaccines are safe

Under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Reporting System) was established. Annually, it reports about 11,000 serious vaccine reactions, including up to 200 deaths and many more permanent disabilities.

Far more alarming is the following;

-- the FDA estimates that only 1% of serious adverse reactions are reported;

-- CDC says it's 10%;

-- medical school students testified before Congress that they're told not to report these incidents;

-- according to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), only one in 40 New York doctors reported adverse vaccine reactions or deaths;

-- international studies show vaccines cause up to 10,000 US SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) deaths annually, and at least half of them are from vaccines;

-- another study determined that 3000 US children die annually from vaccines;

-- poor reporting in America suggests that annual adverse vaccine reactions, in fact, number from 100,000 - one million;

-- since 1988, the government's National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) paid families of affected children $1.2 billion in damages;

-- as authorized by the 2006 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, HHS Secretary Sebelius, granted drug companies legal immunity (except for impossible to prove willful misconduct) to proliferate dangerous, untested Swine Flu vaccines globally;

-- vaccines are legally mandated in all 50 US states, though legally avoidable in most (under normal circumstances) as explained below;

-- in settling vaccine damage suits, drug companies impose gag orders to keep vital information from the public; and

-- insurers refuse to cover adverse vaccine reactions because of the high potential liability they'd face.

Truth No. 1

Vaccinations cause high numbers of severe reactions, permanent disabilities, and deaths as well as an enormous personal and public cost. Virtually none of this gets reported.

Myth No. 2: Vaccines are very effective

Medical literature documents significant numbers of vaccine failures for measles, mumps, small pox, pertussis, polio and Hib-causing bacterial meningitis and pneumonia. In 1989, Oman experienced a widespread polio outbreak six months after completing a population-wide immunization program. In Kansas (in 1986), 90% of 1300 reported pertussis cases were "adequately vaccinated," and 72% of Chicago pertussis incidents in 1993 had been as well.

Truth No. 2

Evidence shows that vaccinations are an unreliable and dangerous way to prevent illness and disease.

Myth No. 3: Low US disease rates are attributable to vaccines

From 1850 - 1940, well before mandatory vaccination programs, the British Association for the Advancement of Science reported a 90% decrease in childhood diseases due to improved sanitation and hygiene practices. By 1945, US medical authorities noted a 95% drop in deaths from the leading childhood infectious diseases (diphtheria, pertussis, scarlet fever and measles), well before mass-immunizations began.

A recent WHO report found that third world disease and mortality rates had no direct correlation with immunization programs, but closely relate to hygiene and diet standards.

Truth No. 3

No evidence links vaccines with infectious disease declines. Proper hygiene and diet practices may be far more effective.

Myth No. 4: Sound immunization theory and practice prove the effectiveness of vaccines

Although vaccines stimulate antibody production, no evidence suggests that alone assures immunity. A 1950 British Medical Council-published study found no relationship between antibody count and disease incidence. Natural immunization involves many bodily organs and systems. Artificially producing antibodies can't achieve it.

Research also shows how squalene adjuvants harm the human immune system, making it susceptible to numerous illnesses and diseases ranging from very annoying to life threatening. In addition, the "herd immunity" notion of mass-immunizations effectiveness is largely discredited. Just the opposite is true as evidence shows that fully vaccinated populations have experienced epidemics numerous times in the past.

Further, vaccine effectiveness "remains scientifically unproven" because no double blind studies have been conducted to do it. Significantly, recent disease outbreaks have affected more vaccinated children than unvaccinated ones. And the common practice of "one size fits all" is troublesome. It lets tiny new-borns get the same dosage as a five year old. It tolerates dubious quality control practices producing what's known as "Hot Lots" - ones associated with disproportionately high death and disability rates.

Shockingly, the FDA refuses to act preventatively against them. In fact, individual vaccine lots have almost never been recalled even when associated with severe adverse reactions. Instead, they're administered under the assumption that all recipients respond the same, regardless of race, ethnicity, genetic makeup, or other characteristics.

A recent New England Journal of Medicine-reported study found that a significant number of Romanian children receiving polio vaccine contracted the disease. Evidence linked antibiotic injections to it. One innoculation raised the polio risk eight-fold; two - nine shots, 27-fold, and 10 or more 182-fold.

New research may reveal other unknown hazards, but public safety won't be addressed until government health officials act responsibly, report accurately, and adequately protect their populations from vaccines they never should allow.

Truth No. 4

Many supposed vaccine truths have, in fact, been proved false.

Myth No. 5: Childhood diseases are extremely dangerous

False. Even CDC data show a 99.8% pertussis recovery rate during the 1992-94 period. One Cincinnati Children's Hospital infectious diseases expert said at the time: "The disease was very mild, no one died, and no one went to the intensive care unit."

Nearly always, childhood infectious diseases "are benign and self-limiting. They usually impart lifelong immunity, whereas vaccine-induced immunization (when achieved) is only temporary." In fact, it can increase vulnerability later on by postponing better tolerated childhood illnesses until adulthood when death rates (though still low) are far higher.

Most important is that nearly all common infectious diseases are rarely dangerous, and, in fact, can develop strong, healthy adult immune systems when they're most needed. In addition, few people know that children who didn't contract measles have a higher incidence of skin diseases, degenerative bone and cartilage ones, and tumors while ovarian cancer is higher among mumps-free adult women. The human immune system benefits from common childhood infectious diseases. Freedom from them may be harmful later on.

Truth No. 5

Childhood disease dangers are greatly exaggerated to scare parents into getting their children vaccinated with unsafe drugs.

Myth No. 6: Polio vaccinations were very successful

False again. In 1955, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered the most serious post-war public health problem. A year later, six New England states reported sharp rises ranging from more than double in Vermont to a 642% increase in Massachusetts. Other states also were badly impacted enough for Idaho and Utah to halt immunizations due to increased incidence and death rates.

In his 1962 congressional testimony, Dr. Bernard Greenberg, Biostatistics Department head at the University of North Carolina, reported sharp polio increases from 1957 to 1959 and a Public Health Service whitewash that suppressed it. In 1985, the CDC reported that 87% of US cases between 1973 and 1983 were caused by the vaccine. Later it added that it caused nearly all imported cases, and most of the victims were fully vaccinated.

Further, misdiagnosing, poor reporting, and cover-ups suggest that the actual number of vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP) cases "may be 10 to 100 times higher than that cited by the CDC."

In 1977, even Jonas Salk admitted that mass inoculations caused most polio cases since 1961.

Truth No. 6

The Salk vaccine proved highly dangerous. Information about it was suppressed, and declines in the disease were well underway when mass-immunizations were begun. In Europe, they occurred in countries that used, then rejected the vaccine proving it was never needed in the first place. Showing also that the same is true for other diseases, including Swine Flu with the WHO and CDC admitting that most cases are mild, unthreatening, and generally pass without treatment, let alone risking dangerous unneeded vaccines.

Myth No. 7: Lack of an initial adverse reaction proves vaccines are safe

Documented long-term health problems include arthritis, chronic headaches, rashes indicative of disease, non-healing skin lesions, seizures, autism, anemia, multiple sclerosis, ALS, cancer, and many others. Ingredients common to all vaccines are at issue. Squalene adjuvants are a biological time bomb that can harm or destroy the human immune system.

Other ingredients are known toxicants and carcinogens, including thimersol (a mercury derivative), aluminum phosphate, formaldehyde, phenoxyethanol, and numerous gastrointestnal toxicants like liver toxicants, cardiovascular and blood toxicants, and reproductive toxicants. "Chemical ranking systems rate many vaccine ingredients among the most hazardous substances" known, even in microscopic doses.

"Millions of children (and adults) are partaking in an enormous crude experiment, and no sincere, organized effort is being made to track the negative side effects or to determine the long-term consequences."

Dr. Bart Classen's epidemiological research found vaccines as the cause of 79% of insulin type I diabetes cases in children under 10. The sharp rise in numerous other diseases may also be linked with mass-immunizations. California's autism rate skyrocketed 1000% in the last 20 years. In the 1990s, MMR vaccine usage in Britain (for measles, mumps and rubella) occurred at the same time autism rose sharply. The January 2000 Journal of Adverse Drug Reactions reported that no adequate testing was done, so the vaccine never should have been licensed.

The Autism Society says: "Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and is the result of a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain...."

According to the CDC and National Vaccine Information Center, one in every 150 US children develop the disease. Tens of millions are affected worldwide, making it more common than pediatric cancer, incurable type 1 (juvenile-onset) diabetes and AIDS combined. In the early 1940s, prior to mass immunizations, autism was so rare that few doctors ever encountered it. Today it's a global pandemic.

Truth No. 7

Long-term vaccination reactions have been suppressed and ignored in spite of the alarming correlation between their use and the rise of autoimmune and other diseases. Vaccines aren't for protection. They're for profit and other nefarious purposes. Avoiding them is essential to protecting human health and well-being.

Myth No. 8: Vaccines are the only available disease prevention option

"Historically, homeopathy has proven many times...more effective than allopathic (conventional) medicine in the treatment and prevention of disease." During the 1849 US cholera outbreak, homeopathic hospitals documented a 3% death rate compared to 48 - 60% in conventional ones. It's as true today, and recent epidemiological studies show homeopathic remedies far superior to vaccines in preventing diseases. They're safe, effective, and toxin and side effect-free, yet most insurers won't cover them.

Truth No. 8

Alternative treatments and remedies have been safe and effective for generations, yet the medical establishment and governments attack and spurn them.

Myth No. 9: "Vaccinations are legally mandated and unavoidable..."

All states require them. However, laws vary by state, legal exemptions exist, and all states offer one or more of the following:

-- all states allow medical exemptions for persons susceptible to adverse reactions; parents can cite this for their children based on family history;

-- 48 states offer religious exemptions but may require membership in an established religious organization; "according to federal precedent, personal religious beliefs may be sufficient for a religious exemption regardless of which religious organization you belong to, or whether or not you belong to an organized religion at all;" in addition, the Supreme Court defined religion broadly for legal purposes; and

-- 17 states allow philosophical or personal exemptions.

All public and private schools must comply with federal and state vaccination laws and permit legal exemptions.

Truth No. 9

Some vaccines are mandated, but most, perhaps all, US citizens may use legal exemptions to avoid them. In a recent article, however, Phillips states:

"All non-medical exemptions in the US are ultimately provided conditionally. That is, states have the right to require immunization for everyone, legally exempt or not, during an (emergency) outbreak, other than (for) those" with medical exemptions.

Myth No. 10: Governments place public health concerns above all others

Vaccination history shows "documented instances of deceit portraying vaccines as mighty disease conquerors, when in fact vaccines have had little or no discernible impact - or have even delayed or reversed - pre-existing disease declines....Conflicts of interest are the norm in the vaccine industry." Government agencies like the FDA and CDC are stacked with corporate officials who return to high-paying industry jobs provided they place profit considerations over public health and safety.

In November 2000, concern over this and adverse reactions got the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) to pass a unanimous resolution at its 57th meeting calling for a moratorium on mandatory childhood vaccinations and for doctors to insist on "truly informed consent for (their) use...."

In October 1999, Dr. Bart Classen, founder and CEO of Classen Immunotherapies, told Congress:

"It is clear....that the government's immunization policies are driven by politics and not by science. I can give numerous examples where employees of the US Public Health Service....appear to be furthering their careers by acting as propaganda officers to support political agendas. In one case....employees of a foreign government, who were funded and working closely with the US Public Health Service, submitted false data to a major medical journal. The true data indicated the vaccine was dangerous; however, the false data" indicated no risk.

In addition, "four letters from the FDA/Public Health Service....clearly reveal(ed) that the anthrax vaccine" approved for US military personnel was done "without the manufacturer performing a single controlled clinical trial." They're essential to determine safety and effectiveness. Failure to conduct them proved devastating to the health and well-being of recipients and still does today. Besides, all vaccines are unsafe and some are extremely dangerous.

US military forces receive many or all of the following vaccinations:

-- three shots for hepatitis B;

-- two for hepatitis A;

-- annually for influenza so all military personnel will get Swine Flu shots;

-- all military personnel must have documented proof of receiving MMR vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella; those without them them get single doses;

-- two varicella (chicken pox) shots;

-- smallpox doses every ten years;

-- three for polio for adults never vaccinated; those fully vaccinated get a booster shot;

-- tetanus-diphtheria and pertussis vaccinations for personnel who haven't have them in the past 10 years;

-- tetanus every 10 years;

-- typhoid vaccinations in either oral or injectable forms;

-- a multiple dose series for anthrax;

-- yellow fever every 10 years in some cases;

-- three for rabies and later boosters;

-- tuberculosis screening and shots;

-- single pneumococcal doses;

-- meningococcal vaccinations every five years before deployment to certain regions; and

-- three Japanese encephalitis doses in some cases.

Multiple vaccinations for all US military personnel practically assures damage to their immune systems and severe health problems later on.

Truth No. 10

Public health officials approve dangerous vaccines on unsuspecting recipients and profit handsomely for their efforts.

Final Comments

All vaccines are biological weapons that weaken or destroy the human immune system. They often fail to protect against diseases they're designed to prevent and often cause them. The H1N1 vaccine is experimental, untested, toxic, extremely dangerous, and essential to avoid even if mandated.

In a December 1994 Medical Post article, Dr. Guylaine Lanctot said:

"The medical authorities keep lying. Vaccination has been a disaster on the immune system. It actually causes a lot of illnesses. We are actually changing our genetic code through vaccination....100 years from now we will know that the biggest crime against humanity was vaccines."

Dr. Viera Scheibner is internationally known as perhaps the leading expert on adverse vaccine reactions. Her analysis concluded that "there is no evidence whatsoever of the ability of vaccines to prevent any diseases. To the contrary, there is a great wealth of evidence that they cause serious side effects."

Nonetheless, immunization programs proliferate because the profit potential is enormous despite growing numbers of reputable scientific figures citing concerns.

Currently, over 200 new vaccines are being developed "for everything from birth control to (curbing) cocaine addiction." Around half of them are in clinical trials using human guinea pigs putting their health and safety on the line unwittingly.

New delivery systems are also being developed that include nasal sprays, mosquitoes, and genetically engineered fruits containing vaccine viruses. With every country in the world a potential buyer, health and safety considerations are suppressed for the sake of profits. Unless somehow this madness is stopped, the harm to our children and society will be catastrophic.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

Gaia Wizard Sets Doomsday Time Bomb By Robert S. Becker

2009-07-30T18:48:00.004+01:00

What’s scarier than severe recession? Okay, depression. Terrorism looms still, but for sheer panic, nothing matches 90% species die-off. Not from asteroids, nor nukes, nor is our planet doomed, though the approaching Andromeda galaxy looks to digest our Milky Way – but not for billions of years. Let's worry instead about our progeny and how they sustain humanity if James Lovelock is right. He foresees shrunken habitat, resource wars, scorched landscapes, and gruesome casualties.

Erratic populations are hardly novel: 99% of earth's emergent life forms have gone extinct. The demise of dinosaurs, awarding an obscure, half-pint mammal a leg up, dramatizes extinction – and yet a billion birds came forth. Our species is special in this regard: we hog 40% of global energy, but nothing (but the Rapture, a variant end of time fable) overrules physics, chemistry, and biology – or willful blindness towards overpopulation, pollution, and rising oceans.

Scads more of us jeopardize all, as oxygen-breathing, carbon-dioxide exhalers burn down life-forests that freely redeem oxygen from carbon dioxide. If we “grow, baby, grow” then we must “build, baby, build” and “drill, baby, drill” beyond sustainable practices. Actually, anointing ourselves “earthlings” doesn’t change our newcomer status: our million year genealogy pales next to a planet pushing 15 billion years. Lowly snapping turtles are 200 times older. On a 24 hour clock tracking 15 billion years, homo sapiens span the last 10 seconds. And may not make 15.

The 10% Doctrine

So, by logic alone, should we be gobsmacked when Lovelock, pre-eminent British wizard who authored the stunning Gaia Theory, predicts 90% species die-off when heat storms erupt – and without a sharp tipping point, “just a slope that gets ever steeper.” Destined for emergency action, survivors will “escape to higher ground. We have to make our lifeboats seaworthy now [and] stop pretending there is any way back to that lush, comfortable, and beautiful Earth we left behind sometime in the 20th century.” Post-apocalypse, planetary carrying capacity: 700 million, 10% of today’s booming population.

In comparison, Cornell ecologist David Pimentel figures two billion will live decently, though 12 billion more will scrape by, plagued by heat and famine. Irony reigns: too much procreation equals the opposite, and success spells failure. So effective in decimating other creatures, our species stands as the first to jeopardize its own existence, perhaps life on the planet – and, doubly doomed, be conscious of it. We are masters of our fate, but not as anticipated, potential fossils done in by addiction to fossil fuel. And some doubt God’s peculiar sense of humor.

Rising Seas Tell All

Lovelock favors sea levels to track global heating, his marker we’re beyond return to a 1950’s earth. Yet why the steep slope, not incremental change? The explanation lies in "positive" feedback loops by which one kind of warming feeds another: greenhouse gases melt reflective ice caps, thus more of the sun’s heat gets absorbed, thus warming oceans, thus fewer carbon-feeding algae, thus more greenhouse effect. Feedback loops amplify the rate of heating, causing today's rising ocean elevations double official U.N. predictions.

In the process, Lovelock debunks politically-popular “green” scams as half-assed, feel-good dodges, even snake oil, profiting tech and finance opportunists but not deflecting catastrophe. Included scams are “cap and trade,” the incentive program to reduce emissions, and carbon trading, whereby one entity, having reduced carbon-dioxide pollution below set levels, sells this “gain” to those above allowances. Three years ago, at 87, he published The Revenge of Gaia, warning the window to save the earth was shutting. Now comes Vanishing with his dire call, like J. Robert Oppenheimer after creating the atomic bomb, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Gaia Rings the Globe

Two decades ago, Lovelock introduced his own feel-good theory, encapsulating the planet with a mythological name. Gaia science depicts a self-adjusting, homeostatic balancing act in which major biosphere constituents – plants, animals, minerals, gases, the sun’s heat – interact to sustain a life-friendly habitat. Unless one clever, greedy animal finds a way, say running dirty industrial machines for 150 years, to overtax innate safety values. What Gaia provides Lovelock is a predictive global model more comprehensive, he claims, than experts monitoring parts of the whole. Thus, his focus on rising sea levels, not temperature, for they measure two heavy-duty warming sources: “the melting of glaciers and the expansion of water as it warms. Sea level is the thermometer that indicates true global heating.”

Admittedly, Lovelock is a minority doomsayer, but what if there’s a 1% chance he’s right? Or 10%? If Dick Cheney’s 1% Doctrine on terrorism holds for this greater menace, shouldn’t we do more than organize summits? Cheney equated a 1% chance of renewed terrorism with certainty, thus feeding wildly counter-productive over-reactions. Happily, Lovelock’s solutions don’t involve unwinnable wars against wrong foes, or thrashing humane Geneva Conventions or basic privacy rights, simply respect for science and technology, like nuclear power.

Epilogue on change

In The Black Swan, economist-finance guru Nassim Taleb delivers his own wake-up call: what impacts history isn’t foreseeable change, thus the past serves as notoriously misleading guide. Taleb argues paradigm shifts come out of the blue, consequences are disproportionately transformative, and disruptive shocks often contaminate best responses. Take 9/11 as “black swan:” Bush-Cheney egregiously misread terrorism, inflating it from incendiary, symbolic tactic into full-fledged assault on civilization, thus instigating a trillion dollar “global war on terrorism.”

We’ve handled the Internet better, a black swan whose seismic shifts persist, unintended or not, positive or not. I find Lovelock useful, even as alarmist, by projecting a worst case – well, short of extinction. Yet Lovelock remains a humanist, reinforcing Santayana’s maxim, “those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We need far more scientific literacy that honors empirical data, trends, and methodology: otherwise, wise and rational planning will again be trumped by paranoia and ideology. What if planetary disruptions are ultimately more predictable than one-time shock treatments malevolent radicals think will change the world for the better?

Fuck the New World Order and the twisted immoral Bankers!!!!!

2009-07-26T09:11:00.006+01:00

My belief in the existence of the New World Order centers around the activities, actions and writings of the members of the elite (mostly Anglo-American) inside the international banking cartel – which of course includes the Rockefeller and Rothschild families – over roughly the last century.
featured stories The International Banking Cartel is the New World Order

This cartel, through their financing of two World Wars; the revolutions of Lenin/Stalin and Hitler, among others; the creation of the IMF, World Bank and other private “central banks” like the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England; as well as their backing of international organizations like the United Nations, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization has sought to control not only the purse strings of the governments of the world, but also the policies, laws and programs that those governments and agencies implement.

Through their financing of both sides of wars (WWI and II, Cold War, War on Drugs, War on Terror, etc); their manufacture of financial crisis (Great Depression, the coming Greater Depression) and financing of ideological movements (eugenics/population control, feminism, communism, fascism, global warming, etc) the banking cartel has sought to undercut the political, economic and social sovereignty of nations around the world. As a result, their IMF, World Bank and other central bank proxies have managed to put nation after nation in massive debt to them. And as a result, they can further manipulate and control the governments (and citizens) of those nations to further enact their goal of a global government and banking system run – by them and for them – at the expense of all of humanity.

IMO, the New World Order is not a Jewish thing, it’s not a religious thing, it’s not even solely a money thing (although money is its greatest weapon). It instead is a control thing. They banking elite want to be able to control the globe and everyone in it.

However, as many who attempt to debunk the New World Order exists have said, nationalism and traditional political and ethnic hostilities have hampered the cartel’s quest for a one world government. Because of this, Russia, China and renegade states like Iran and Venezuela remain largely on the fringes of the NWO’s inner circle. Russia and China are both too big (unlike Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama) and potentially valuable to the cause to ignore or wipe out. But while political and economic relations exist between the western powers and the two outsiders; the potential for conflict with Russia and China in Eurasia or Africa remain very real.

Throughout the last century, the countries and political leaders that refused to play ball with the banking cartel got their asses kicked. Unfortunately, in the post-WWII world, the United States (both covertly and overtly) has been doing most of the ass kicking for the cartel. And we are in debt up to our eyeballs and our Constitution is hanging by a thread because of it (more on that later). Of course, we see the lesser “outsiders” Iran and Venezuela cozy up to Russia and China and use it to their advantage to thwart the banking cartel’s attempts to have the U.S., or other pro-cartel, military force take them out.

But, just as it was in the World Wars and the Cold War, the banking cartel benefits if any conflict (short of all-out thermonuclear war) takes place between major and even lesser powers. That’s because war – and the debt that follows it – makes them more money. And it also allows the cartel to step in and offer a “solution” for a peaceful future once hostilities are over, as they did with the United Nations and the Bretton Woods economic makeover after World War II.

Of course the United Nations, through the corporate media, has largely been painted ineffective to this point. But that ineffectiveness is only on the surface. When it comes to controlling the third world via their population control, medical and economic programs – which are full of systematic graft and corruption – the success of the UN has been tremendous because they “control” the third world by keeping it in the political and economic shitter while their resources are being stripped right out from under the very people the UN is supposed to be helping.

But, as money is the NWO’s greatest weapon, and nationalism and traditional nation-state and religious strife is painted as a major threat to its goals (it’s not of course, because as Smedley Butler said “War Is A Racket”). The biggest threat to the New World Order and their aims is the belief of personal liberty and the political self-determination that comes with it; which has stemmed largely from the United States since we were still colonies under British control.

That doctrine – which the whole of good humanity has aspired to and dreamed of for two centuries – and the future of what it entails is where We the People of the United States come in. What the banking cartel has been doing to other nations – engineered economic collapse via their economic hitmen and Wall Street jackals – is now being done to the United States. Our economy is being systematically destroyed through unprecedented debt via the private Federal Reserve. The goal – as it was in other countries who refuse to yield to global government – is to completely collapse the U.S. economy. Then – through the civil unrest and economic carnage that follows the collapse – install a centrally dominated, dictatorial government where, in the case of the United States, the Constitution and Bill of Rights no longer exist.

You can see now through the corporate media how anyone who questions the government and their policies as being painted as a potential terrorist. Department of Homeland Security has labeled citizens on the left and right side of the political spectrum as threats. The Department of Defense has said that protest is terrorism. Opponents of the Federal Reserve system are labeled extremists or kooks. And the legislation aimed at exposing its agenda is being ignored, despite its overwhelming support on Capitol Hill and on Main Street. And once again, just as they did with the stimulus – the banking cartel is engaging in economic terrorism – promising total economic collapse if a full open audit of the Federal Reserve takes place.

From the Patriot Act I and II, the Military Commissions Act, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act – to the current Hate Crimes, Cap and Trade and Cyber Security bills in Congress – the banking cartel and their political whores in Washington D.C. and elsewhere in our nation seek to destroy our founding doctrine and put us under the thumb of the most oppressive, controlled and tax heavy government in American history.

The longtime goal of the banking cartel and their agents in the U.S. government and corporate whore media is the total destruction of the American Republic. The cartel cannot complete their NWO agenda if We the People are running around touting our Constitution and Bill of Rights as a beacon of freedom for all of humanity to aspire to.

The banking cartel hates the Constitution. They hate the fact that it says – in Article 1, Section 7, that only Congress has the power:

“To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures”

The baking cartel hates the 1st Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

They hate the 2nd Amendment:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

They hate the 4th Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

They hate the 9th Amendment:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

They hate the 10th Amendment:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

And they would really hate if we removed the 16th Amendment, which by the way is quite likely the only amendment they love

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

They banking cartel hates the Constitution and those who believe in it, because we stand together in direct opposition to everything they seek in the United States and worldwide. And they hate that for the last 200-plus years, every human being seeking freedom and a better way of life for themselves, their family and their respective countries have looked to the American Republic and our founding doctrine and dream that one day they too can bring “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to their part of the world.

He said it, on national TV, just like Second National Bank of the United States chairman, Nicholas Biddle, wrote it back in the 1830’s (The following pages come directly from Arthur Schlesinger’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “The Age of Jackson”).

featured stories The International Banking Cartel is the New World Order

The Federal Reserve isn’t above the law. No one in the United States is above the law. And it will be up to We the People to restore the rule of law to our land and punish Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and the rest of the banking cartel and political scum who have brought the United States to the brink of financial ruin.

As trends forecaster Gerald Celente has stated:

“The fight that this country has been waging since its inception is for the central bankers not to take over the country.”

Thomas Jefferson warned of the central bank evils in 1791:

“If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.”

IMO, the central bankers – both in the U.S. and abroad – are the New World Order. They began their third quest to take over our nation in 1913. And unless they are stopped and the private and criminal Federal Reserve is audited – so that we can expose in broad daylight where each and every dollar they have received since its inception has gone to – they will complete their takeover. If that happens, the United States and the world will collapse into the darkest period since the Great Depression/World War II, when the cartel crashed the world economy, bankrolled Adolf Hitler and led the world into the most deadly and, in their case, profitable war in world history.

What would Andrew Jackson do?

There is no economy left to recovery

2009-07-16T13:28:00.002+01:00

Can The Economy Recover?

There is no economy left to recover. The US manufacturing economy was lost to offshoring and free trade ideology. It was replaced by a mythical “New Economy.”

The “New Economy” was based on services. Its artificial life was fed by the Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates, which produced a real estate bubble, and by “free market” financial deregulation, which unleashed financial gangsters to new heights of debt leverage and fraudulent financial products.

The real economy was traded away for a make-believe economy. When the make-believe economy collapsed, Americans’ wealth in their real estate, pensions, and savings collapsed dramatically while their jobs disappeared

The debt economy caused Americans to leverage their assets. They refinanced their homes and spent the equity. They maxed out numerous credit cards. They worked as many jobs as they could find. Debt expansion and multiple family incomes kept the economy going.

And now suddenly Americans can’t borrow in order to spend. They are over their heads in debt. Jobs are disappearing. America’s consumer economy, approximately 70% of GDP, is dead. Those Americans who still have jobs are saving against the prospect of job loss. Millions are homeless. Some have moved in with family and friends; others are living in tent cities.

Meanwhile the US government’s budget deficit has jumped from $455 billion in 2008 to $2,000 billion this year, with another $2,000 billion on the books for
2010. And President Obama has intensified America’s expensive war of aggression in Afghanistan and initiated a new war in Pakistan.

There is no way for these deficits to be financed except by printing money or by further collapse in stock markets that would drive people out of equity into bonds.

The US government’s budget is 50% in the red. That means half of every dollar the federal government spends must be borrowed or printed. Because of the worldwide debacle caused by Wall Street’s financial gangsterism, the world needs its own money and hasn’t $2 trillion annually to lend to Washington.

As dollars are printed, the growing supply adds to the pressure on the dollar’s role as reserve currency. Already America’s largest creditor, China, is admonishing Washington to protect China’s investment in US debt and lobbying for a new reserve currency to replace the dollar before it collapses. According to various reports, China is spending down its holdings of US dollars by acquiring gold and stocks of raw materials and energy.

The price of one ounce gold coins is $1,000 despite efforts of the US government to hold down the gold price. How high will this price jump when the rest of the world decides that the bankruptcy of “the world’s only superpower” is at hand?

And what will happen to America’s ability to import not only oil, but also the manufactured goods on which it is import-dependent?

When the over-supplied US dollar loses the reserve currency role, the US will no longer be able to pay for its massive imports of real goods and services with pieces of paper. Overnight, shortages will appear and Americans will be poorer.

Nothing in Presidents Bush and Obama’s economic policy addresses the real issues. Instead, Goldman Sachs was bailed out, more than once. As Eliot Spitzer said, the banks made a “bloody fortune” with US aid.

It was not the millions of now homeless homeowners who were bailed out. It was not the scant remains of American manufacturing–General Motors and Chrysler–that were bailed out. It was the Wall Street Banks.

According to Bloomberg.com, Goldman Sachs’ current record earnings from their free or low cost capital supplied by broke American taxpayers has led the firm to decide to boost compensation and benefits by 33 percent. On an annual basis, this comes to compensation of $773,000 per employee.

This should tell even the most dimwitted patriot who “their” government represents.

The worst of the economic crisis has not yet hit. I don’t mean the rest of the real estate crisis that is waiting in the wings. Home prices will fall further when the foreclosed properties currently held off the market are dumped. Store and office closings are adversely impacting the ability of owners of shopping malls and office buildings to make their mortgage payments. Commercial real estate loans were also securitized and turned into derivatives.

The real crisis awaits us. It is the crisis of high unemployment, of stagnant and declining real wages confronted with rising prices from the printing of money to pay the government’s bills and from the dollar’s loss of exchange value. Suddenly, Wal-Mart prices will look like Nieman Marcus prices.

Retirees dependent on state pension systems, which cannot print money, might not be paid, or might be paid with IOUs. They will not even have depreciating money with which to try to pay their bills. Desperate tax authorities will squeeze the remaining life out of the middle class.

Nothing in Obama’s economic policy is directed at saving the US dollar as reserve currency or the livelihoods of the American people. Obama’s policy, like Bush’s before him, is keyed to the enrichment of Goldman Sachs and the armament industries.

Matt Taibbi describes Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentless jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Look at the Goldman Sachs representatives in the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. This bankster firm controls the economic policy of the United States

Death to the 'New world Order'......killing joke....

2009-07-04T20:07:00.000+01:00

Fuck Fox news and their bullshit!

2009-07-04T08:14:00.003+01:00

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries

2009-07-03T08:03:00.003+01:00

Recent revelations concerning the U.S. importing Taliban members into Iraq to foster false flag terrorism is merely the tip of the iceberg when compared to the U.S. intelligence complex’s multi-decade history in sponsoring Sunni Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups around the world.

Wayne Madsen recently revealed how Taliban fighters were being imported from Afghanistan into Iraq to attack civilians and U.S. soldiers, as well as how Muqtada al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army was being allowed to import materials to make IEDs.

However, this is just one aspect of how the U.S. has used terrorist groups as pawns on the global chessboard, moving them around the globe in line with their geopolitical objectives.

As is voluminously documented, the U.S. first worked covertly with Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979-1989.

Following this, the Al-Qaeda pawns were moved on to Bosnia shortly after the outbreak of war in 1992 to fight against Bosnian Serbs who were subsequently the target of NATO air strikes.

Following the end of the war, “hundreds of Bosnian passports were provided to the mujahedeen by the Muslim-controlled government in Sarajevo,” according to Lenard Cohen, professor of political science at Simon Fraser University. This all happened with the approval of the United Nations and the United States, who had brokered the peace deal to end the war.

“They also set up secret terrorist training camps in Bosnia — activities financed by the sale of opium produced in Afghanistan and secretly shipped through Turkey and Kosovo into central Europe,” reports the National Post.

Shortly before the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Sunni terrorist groups moved into Kosovo, Serbia’s southern province, to aid the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Albanian terrorist faction that was being supported by the U.S. and NATO in its terror campaign against Serbs in the region.

“The United States, which had originally trained the Afghan Arabs during the war in Afghanistan, supported them in Bosnia and then in Kosovo,” reports the Post.

With the help of Bin Laden’s terror network, backed up by the U.S. and NATO, no less than 90% of Serbians were “ethnically cleansed” and forced to leave the region, while the international media played its role dutifully in portraying the Albanians as the “victims” of Serbian aggression.

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky writes, “The fact of the matter is that the Atlantic Alliance had been supporting a terrorist organization. The KLA was not supporting the rights of ethnic Albanians. Quite the opposite. The activities of this terrorist organization on the ground, in Kosovo, provided NATO and the US with the pretext to intervene on humanitarian grounds, claiming that the Serb authorities had committed human rights violations against ethnic Albanians, when in fact the NATO sponsored KLA was involved in terrorist acts on behalf of NATO, which triggered a response from the Serb police and military.”

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries

Barely weeks before 9/11, former members of Al-Qaeda who had subsequently joined the Kosovo Liberation Army were airlifted out of Macedonia by U.S. paratroopers.

As German sources reported, “Samedin Xhezairi, also known as Commander Hoxha, joined the Kosovo Liberation Army when armed conflict in Kosovo began, fighting in three operation zones. He was a fighter in Chechnya, trained in Afghanistan and acted as the commander of the Mujahideen 112th Brigade operating in the summer of 2001 in the region of Tetovo [Macedonia]. In August of the same year 80 members of the 3/502 battalion of U.S. paratroopers evacuated him from Aracinovo [Macedonia], together with his Albanian extremists and 17 instructors of the U.S. private military company MPRI which was training the Albanian paramilitary formations.”

“In other words, the US military was collaborating with Al Qaeda, which according to the Bush administration was involved in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. Yet, the US military was working hand in glove “enemy number one” barely a few weeks before 9/11, and we are led to believe that the Bush administration is committed to waging a battle against Al Qaeda,” wrote Chossudovsky.

Following the invasion of Afghanistan, MSNBC reported that in November 2001, hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters were rescued from Kunduz and flown out on Pakistani air force cargo planes. This could not have possibly happened without the approval of U.S. forces who had secured the region.

With the U.S. now attacking targets in Pakistan under the pretext of going after the Taliban, the lineage of how this situation developed, with the U.S. moving their pawns around the globe at the most opportune times, can be clearly traced.

All the more revealing therefore were the comments of Qari Zainuddin, a former Taliban leader who defected to the Pakistani government, alleging that the Taliban were senselessly attacking civilian targets and that they were working with U.S. and Israeli intelligence. A few days after he dropped this bombshell, Zainuddin was shot dead.

Meanwhile, in Iran, A senior member of the Jundullah terrorist group confessed in an Iranian court case to being trained and financed by the U.S. and Israel.

Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Under the 2007 program aimed at destabilizing Iran and fomenting regime change, the U.S. government is arming and bankrolling Jundullah to carry out terrorist attacks in Iran, such as the May bombing of a mosque in Sistan-Baluchestan which killed 25 people.

In addition, the fingerprints of another U.S. sponsored terror group, Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which was formerly allied with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, have been found in the recent election unrest in Iran. In addition to supporting terror groups from Iraq, the Anglo-American establishment has also staged terror attacks, such as the February 2006 Samarra mosque bombing.

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries 200905mercs

And if there aren’t enough terrorists in supply, why not just dress up and pretend to be them? That’s what two British SAS members did when they were caught dressed in Arab garb with fake beards, driving a car full of explosives while shooting at Iraqi police officers in Basra in September 2005.

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries 200905wigs

After the SAS men were caught in the act and taken to jail, U.S. and British forces launched a rescue operation, blowing up half the prison and allowing 150 inmates to escape.

All over the Middle East and the Balkans, from Afghanistan, to Bosnia, to Serbia, to Pakistan, to Iraq and to Iran, the United States, through black budget programs, has funded and armed Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorist groups to destabilize and topple regimes targeted by the Anglo-American establishment.

This documented fact debunks the “war on terror” as a cruel hoax and exposes how current events in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran are being carefully orchestrated while the media sells the public on the belief that manufactured sock-puppet enemies, and not geopolitical domination and control of resources and the global drug trade, are why these wars are being fought, when in reality groups like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are firmly in the pocket of the U.S. military-industrial complex.

David Shayler

2009-07-01T17:03:00.000+01:00

Eviction Day from anaconda on Vimeo.

Network-centric Warfare Dominating entire societies Worldwide through ubiquitous surveillance

2009-06-14T13:07:00.004+01:00

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13939

Global Research, June 11, 2009
Antifascist Calling...

What Pentagon theorists describe as a "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA) leverages information technology to facilitate (so they allege) command decision-making processes and mission effectiveness, i.e. the waging of aggressive wars of conquest.

It is assumed that U.S. technological preeminence, referred to euphemistically by Airforce Magazine as "compressing the kill chain," will assure American military hegemony well into the 21st century. Indeed a 2001 study, Understanding Information Age Warfare, brought together analysts from a host of Pentagon agencies as well as defense contractors Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton and the MITRE Corporation and consultants from ThoughtLink, Toffler Associates and the RAND Corporation who proposed to do just.

As a result of this and other Pentagon-sponsored research, military operations from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond aim for "defined effects" through "kinetic" and "non-kinetic" means: leadership decapitation through preemptive strikes combined with psychological operations designed to pacify (terrorize) insurgent populations. This deadly combination of high- and low tech tactics is the dark heart of the Pentagon's Unconventional Warfare doctrine.

In this respect, "network-centric warfare" advocates believe U.S. forces can now dominate entire societies through ubiquitous surveillance, an always-on "situational awareness" maintained by cutting edge sensor arrays as well as by devastating aerial attacks by armed drones, warplanes and Special Forces robosoldiers.

Meanwhile on the home front, urbanized RMA in the form of ubiquitous CCTV systems deployed on city streets, driftnet electronic surveillance of private communications and radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips embedded in commodities are all aspects of a control system within securitized societies such as ours.

As Antifascist Calling has written on more than one occasion, contemporary U.S. military operations are conceived as a branch of capitalist management theory, one that shares more than a passing resemblance to the organization of corporate entities such as Wal-Mart.

Similar to RMA, commodity flows are mediated by an ubiquitous surveillance of products--and consumers--electronically. Indeed, Pentagon theorists conceive of "postmodern" warfare as just another manageable network enterprise.

The RFID (Counter) Revolution

Radio-frequency identification tags are small computer chips connected to miniature antennae that can be fixed to or implanted within physical objects, including human beings. The chip itself contains an Electronic Product Code that can be read each time a reader emits a radio signal.

The chips are subdivided into two distinct categories, passive or active. A passive tag doesn't contain a battery and its read range is variable, from less than an inch to twenty or thirty feet. An active tag on the other hand, is self-powered and has a much longer range. The data from an active tag can be sent directly to a computer system involved in inventory control--or weapons targeting.

It is hardly surprising then, that the Pentagon and the CIA have spent "hundreds of millions of dollars researching, developing, and purchasing a slew of 'Tagging tracking and locating' (TTL) gear," Wired reports.

Long regarded as an urban myth, the military's deployment of juiced-up RFID technology along the AfPak border in the form of "tiny homing beacons to guide their drone strikes in Pakistan," has apparently moved out of the laboratory. "Most of these technologies are highly classified" Wired reveals,

But there's enough information in the open literature to get a sense of what the government is pursuing: laser-based reflectors, super-strength RFID tags, and homing beacons so tiny, they can be woven into fabric or into paper.

Some of the gadgets are already commercially available; if you're carrying around a phone or some other mobile gadget, you can be tracked--either through the GPS chip embedded in the gizmo, or by triangulating the cell signal. Defense contractor EWA Government Systems, Inc. makes a radio frequency-based "Bigfoot Remote Tagging System" that's the size of a couple of AA batteries. But the government has been working to make these terrorist tracking tags even smaller. (David Hambling and Noah Shachtman, "Inside the Military's Secret Terror-Tagging Tech," Wired, June 3, 2009)

Electronic Warfare Associates, Inc. (EWA) is a little-known Herndon, Virginia-based niche company comprised of nine separate operating entities "each with varying areas of expertise," according to the firm's website. Small by industry standards, EWA has annual revenue of some $20 million, Business First reports. According to Washington Technology, the firm provides "information technology, threat analysis, and test and evaluation applications" for the Department of Defense.

The majority of the company's products are designed for signals intelligence and surveillance operations, including the interception of wireless communications. According to EWA, its Bigfoot Remote Tagging System is "ideal" for "high-value target" missions and intelligence operations.

EWA however, isn't the only player in this deadly game. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's geek-squad, has been developing "small, environmentally robust, retro reflector-based tags that can be read by both handheld and airborne sensors at significant ranges," according to a presentation produced by the agency's Strategic Technology Office (STO).

Known as "DOTS," Dynamic Optical Tags, DARPA claims that the system is comprised of a series of "small active retroreflecting optical tags for 2-way data exchange." The tags are small, 25x25x25 mm with a range of some 10 km and a two month shelf-life; far greater than even the most sophisticated RFID tags commercially available today. Sold as a system possessing a "low probability of detection," the devices can be covertly planted around alleged terrorist safehouses--or the home of a political rival or innocent citizen--which can then be targeted at will by Predator or Reaper drones.

The Guardian revealed May 31 that over the last 18 months more than 50 CIA drone attacks have been launched against "high-value targets." The Pentagon claims to have killed nine of al-Qaeda's top twenty officials in north and south Waziristan. "That success" The Guardian avers, "is reportedly in part thanks to the mysterious electronic devices, dubbed 'chips' or 'pathrai' (the Pashto word for a metal device), which have become a source of fear, intrigue and fascination."

According to multiple reports by Western and South Asian journalists, CIA paramilitary officers or Special Operations commandos pay tribesmen to plant the devices adjacent to farmhouses sheltering alleged terrorists. "Hours or days later" The Guardian narrates, "a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles. 'There are body parts everywhere,' said Wazir, who witnessed the aftermath of a strike."

It is a high-tech assassination operation for one of the world's most remote areas. The pilotless aircraft, Predators or more sophisticated Reapers, take off from a base in Baluchistan province.

But they are guided by a joystick-wielding operator half a world away, at a US air force base 35 miles north of Las Vegas. (Declan Walsh, "Mysterious 'chip' is CIA's latest weapon against al-Qaida targets hiding in Pakistan's tribal belt," The Guardian, May 31, 2009)

But while American operators may get their kicks unloading a salvo of deadly missiles on unsuspecting villagers thousands of miles away, what happens when CIA "cut-outs" get it wrong?

According to investigative journalist Amir Mir, writing in the Lahore-based newspaper The News, "of the sixty cross-border Predator strikes...between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US Predator strikes thus comes to not more than six percent."

So much for "precision bombing." But as CIA Director Leon Panetta recently told Congress, continued drone attacks are "the only game in town."

A "game" likely to reap tens of millions of dollars for enterprising corporate grifters. According to Wired, Sandia National Laboratories are developing "Radar Responsive" tags that are "a long-range version of the ubiquitous stick-on RFID tags used to mark items in shops."

A Sandia "Fact Sheet" informs us that "Radar-tag applications include battlefield situational awareness, unattended ground sensors data relay, vehicle tracking, search and recovery, precision targeting, special operations, and drug interdiction." Slap a tag on the car or embed one of the devilish devices in the jacket of a political dissident and bingo! instant "situational awareness" for Pentagon targeting specialists.

As Sandia securocrats aver, Radar Responsive tags can light up and locate themselves from twelve miles away thus providing "precise geolocation of the responding tag independent of GPS." But "what happens in Vegas" certainly won't stay there as inevitably, these technologies silently migrate into the heimat.

Homeland Security: Feeding the RFID Beast

One (among many) firms marketing a spin-off of Sandia's Radar Responsive tags is the Washington, D.C.-based Gentag. With offices in The Netherlands, Brazil and (where else!) Sichuan, China, the world capital of state-managed surveillance technologies used to crush political dissent, Gentag's are a civilian variant first developed for the Pentagon.

According to Gentag, "the civilian version (which still needs to be commercialized) is a lower power technology suitable for commercial civilian applications, including use in cell phones and wide area tracking." Conveniently, "Mobile reader infrastructure can be set up anywhere (including aircraft) or can be fixed and overlaid with existing infrastructure (e.g. cell phone towers)."

One member of the "Gentag Team" is Dr. Rita Colwell, the firm's Chief Science Advisor. Headquartered at the University of Maryland, College Park and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, according to a blurb on Gentag's website "Colwell will lead development of detection technologies that can be combined with cell phones for Homeland Security applications."

Another firm specializing in the development and marketing of RFID surveillance technologies is Inkode. The Vienna, Virginia-based company specializes in the development of low power devices "for integration into all types of products." According to a 2003 article in the RFID Journal, the firm has developed a method for "embedding very tiny metal fibers in paper, plastic and other materials that radio frequency waves can penetrate. The fibers reflect radio waves back to the reader, forming what Inkode calls a 'resonant signature.' These can be converted into a unique serial number."

Indeed, the fibers can be embedded in "paper, airline baggage tags, book bindings, clothing and other fabrics, and plastic sheet," Wired reported. "When illuminated with radar, the backscattered fields interact to create a unique interference pattern that enables one tagged object to be identified and differentiated from other tagged objects," the company says.

"For nonmilitary applications, the reader is less than 1 meter from the tag. For military applications, the reader and tag could theoretically be separated by a kilometer or more." The perfect accoutrement for a drone hovering thousands of feet above a target.

More recently, the RFID Journal reports that Queralt, a Wallingford, Connecticut-based start-up, received a Department of Homeland Security grant to design "an intelligent system that learns from data collected via RFID and sensors."

Tellingly, the system under development builds on the firm's "existing RFID technology, as well as an integrated behavioral learning engine that enables the system to, in effect, learn an individual's or asset's habits over time. The DHS grant was awarded based on the system's ability to track and monitor individuals and assets for security purposes," the Journal reveals.

And with a booming Homeland Security-Industrial-Complex as an adjunct to the defense industry's monetary black hole, its no surprise that Michael Queralt, the firm's cofounder and managing director told the publication, "The reason this development is interesting to us is it is very close to our heart in the way we are going with the business. We are developing a system that converges physical and logical, electronic security."

The core of Queralt's system is the behavioral engine that includes a database, a rules engine and various algorithms. Information acquired by reading a tag on an asset or an individual, as well as those of other objects or individuals with which that asset or person may come into contact, and information from sensors (such as temperature) situated in the area being monitored, are fed into the engine. The engine then logs and processes the data to create baselines, or behavioral patterns. As baselines are created, rules can be programmed into the engine; if a tag read or sensor metric comes in that contradicts the baseline and/or rules, an alert can be issued. Development of the behavioral engine is approximately 85 percent done, Queralt reports, and a prototype should be ready in a few months. (Beth Bacheldor, Queralt Developing Behavior-Monitoring RFID Software," RFID Journal, April 23, 2009)

Creating a "behavior fingerprint," Queralt says the technology will have a beneficial application in monitoring the elderly at home to ensure their safety. Homes are laced with humidity, temperature and motion-sensing tags that can for example, "sense when a medicine cabinet has been opened, or if a microwave oven has been operated." In other words, the Orwellian "behavioral engine" can learn what a person is doing on a regular basis.

But given the interest--and a $100,000 DHS grant, chump change by current Washington standards to be sure--corporate and intelligence agency clients have something far different in mind than monitoring the sick and the elderly!

Indeed, the RFID Journal reports that "a company could use the system, for instance, to monitor the behavior of employees to ensure no security rules are breached."

Want to surveil workers for any tell-tale signs of "antisocial behavior" such as union organizing? Then Queralt may have just the right tool for you! "The workers could be issued RFID-enabled ID badges that are read as they arrive at and leave work, enter and exit various departments, and log onto and off of different computer systems," the RFID Journal informs us. "Over time, the system will establish a pattern that reflects the employee's typical workday."

And if a worker "enters the office much earlier than normal on a particular occasion," or "goes into a department in which he or she does not work," perhaps to "coerce" others into joining "communist" unions opposed let's say, to widespread surveillance, the ubiquitous and creepy spy system "could send an alert."

Queralt is currently designing an application programming interface to "logical security and identity-management systems" from Microsoft and Oracle that will enable corporations to "tie the RFID-enabled behavioral system to their security applications."

The Future Is Now!

This brief survey of the national security state's deployment of a literally murderous, and privacy-killing, surveillance technology is not a grim, dystopian American future but a quintessentially American present.

The technological fetishism of Pentagon war planners and their corporate enablers masks the deadly realities for humanity posed by the dominant world disorder that has reached the end of the line as capitalism's long death-spiral threatens to drag us all into the abyss.

The dehumanizing rhetoric of RMA with its endless array of acronyms and "warfighting tools" that reduce waging aggressive imperialist wars of conquest to the "geek speak" of a video game, must be unmasked for what it actually represents: state killing on a massive scale.

Perhaps then, the victims of America's "war on terror," at home as well as abroad, will cease to be "targets" to be annihilated by automated weapons systems or ground down by panoptic surveillance networks fueled by the deranged fantasies of militarists and the corporations for whom product development is just another deadly (and very profitable) blood sport.

The Bilderberg Plan for 2009: Remaking the Global Political Economy

2009-05-27T14:56:00.004+01:00

By Andrew G. Marshall

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13738

Global Research, May 26, 2009

From May 14-17, the global elite met in secret in Greece for the yearly Bilderberg conference, amid scattered and limited global media attention. Roughly 130 of the world's most powerful individuals came together to discuss the pressing issues of today, and to chart a course for the next year. The main topic of discussion at this years meeting was the global financial crisis, which is no surprise, considering the list of conference attendees includes many of the primary architects of the crisis, as well as those poised to “solve” it.

The Agenda: The Restructuring of the Global Political Economy

Before the meeting began, Bilderberg investigative journalist Daniel Estulin reported on the main item of the agenda, which was leaked to him by his sources inside. Though such reports cannot be verified, his sources, along with those of veteran Bilderberg tracker, Jim Tucker, have proven to be shockingly accurate in the past. Apparently, the main topic of discussion at this year's meeting was to address the economic crisis, in terms of undertaking, “Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty ... or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.” Other items on the agenda included a plan to “continue to deceive millions of savers and investors who believe the hype about the supposed up-turn in the economy. They are about to be set up for massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead,” and “There will be a final push for the enactment of Lisbon Treaty, pending on Irish voting YES on the treaty in Sept or October,”[1] which would give the European Union massive powers over its member nations, essentially making it a supranational regional government, with each country relegated to more of a provincial status.

Shortly after the meetings began, Bilderberg tracker Jim Tucker reported that his inside sources revealed that the group has on its agenda, “the plan for a global department of health, a global treasury and a shortened depression rather than a longer economic downturn.” Tucker reported that Swedish Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, “Made a speech advocating turning the World Health Organization into a world department of health, advocating turning the IMF into a world department of treasury, both of course under the auspices of the United Nations.” Further, Tucker reported that, “Treasury Secretary Geithner and Carl Bildt touted a shorter recession not a 10-year recession ... partly because a 10 year recession would damage Bilderberg industrialists themselves, as much as they want to have a global department of labor and a global department of treasury, they still like making money and such a long recession would cost them big bucks industrially because nobody is buying their toys.....the tilt is towards keeping it short.”[2]

After the meetings finished, Daniel Estulin reported that, “One of Bilderberg's primary concerns according to Estulin is the danger that their zeal to reshape the world by engineering chaos in order to implement their long term agenda could cause the situation to spiral out of control and eventually lead to a scenario where Bilderberg and the global elite in general are overwhelmed by events and end up losing their control over the planet.”[3]

On May 21, the Macedonian International News Agency reported that, “A new Kremlin report on the shadowy Bilderberg Group, who this past week held their annual meeting in Greece, states that the West's financial, political and corporate elite emerged from their conclave after coming to an agreement that in order to continue their drive towards a New World Order dominated by the Western Powers, the US Dollar has to be ‘totally' destroyed.” Further, the same Kremlin report apparently stated that, “most of the West's wealthiest elite convened at an unprecedented secret meeting in New York called for and led by” David Rockefeller, “to plot the demise of the US Dollar.”[4]

The Secret Meeting of Billionaires

The meeting being referred to was a secret meeting where, “A dozen of the richest people in the world met for an unprecedented private gathering at the invitation of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to talk about giving away money,” held at Rockefeller University, and included notable philanthropists such as Gates, Buffett, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller Sr. and Ted Turner. One attendee stated that, “It wasn't secret,” but that, “It was meant to be a gathering among friends and colleagues. It was something folks have been discussing for a long time. Bill and Warren hoped to do this occasionally. They sent out an invite and people came.” Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Stacy Palmer said, “Given how serious these economic times are, I don't think it's surprising these philanthropists came together,” and that, “They don't typically get together and ask each other for advice.” The three hosts of the meeting were Buffet, Gates and David Rockefeller.[5] [See: Appendix 2: Bilderberg Connections to the Billionaire's Meeting].

Bilderberg founding member David Rockefeller, Honourary Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Honourary Chairman and Founder of the Trilateral Commission, Chairman of the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society, former Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan.

At the meeting, “participants steadfastly refused to reveal the content of the discussion. Some cited an agreement to keep the meeting confidential. Spokesmen for Mr. Buffett, Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Gates, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Soros and Ms. Winfrey and others dutifully declined comment, though some confirmed attendance.”[6] Reports indicate that, “They discussed how to address the global slump and expand their charitable activities in the downturn.”[7]

The UK newspaper The Times reported that these “leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world's population,” and that they “discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.” Interestingly, “The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires' aides were told they were at ‘security briefings'.” Further, “The billionaires were each given 15 minutes to present their favourite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an ‘umbrella cause' that could harness their interests,” and what was decided upon was that, “they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.” Ultimately, “a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat,” and that, “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.” One guest at the meeting said that, “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government.”[8]

The Leaked Report

Bilderberg investigative reporter Daniel Estulin reportedly received from his inside sources a 73-page Bilderberg Group meeting wrap-up for participants, which revealed that there were some serious disagreements among the participants. “The hardliners are for dramatic decline and a severe, short-term depression, but there are those who think that things have gone too far and that the fallout from the global economic cataclysm cannot be accurately calculated if Henry Kissinger's model is chosen. Among them is Richard Holbrooke. What is unknown at this point: if Holbrooke's point of view is, in fact, Obama's.” The consensus view was that the recession would get worse, and that recovery would be “relatively slow and protracted,” and to look for these terms in the press over the next weeks and months.

Estulin reported, “that some leading European bankers faced with the specter of their own financial mortality are extremely concerned, calling this high wire act "unsustainable," and saying that US budget and trade deficits could result in the demise of the dollar.” One Bilderberger said that, “the banks themselves don't know the answer to when (the bottom will be hit).” Everyone appeared to agree, “that the level of capital needed for the American banks may be considerably higher than the US government suggested through their recent stress tests.” Further, “someone from the IMF pointed out that its own study on historical recessions suggests that the US is only a third of the way through this current one; therefore economies expecting to recover with resurgence in demand from the US will have a long wait.” One attendee stated that, “Equity losses in 2008 were worse than those of 1929,” and that, “The next phase of the economic decline will also be worse than the '30s, mostly because the US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt. Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.”[9]

According to Jim Tucker, Bilderberg is working on setting up a summit in Israel from June 8-11, where “the world's leading regulatory experts” can “address the current economic situation in one forum.” In regards to the proposals put forward by Carl Bildt to create a world treasury department and world department of health under the United Nations, the IMF is said to become the World Treasury, while the World Health Organization is to become the world department of health. Bildt also reaffirmed using “climate change” as a key challenge to pursue Bilderberg goals, referring to the economic crisis as a “once-in-a-generation crisis while global warming is a once-in-a-millennium challenge.” Bildt also advocated expanding NAFTA through the Western hemisphere to create an American Union, using the EU as a “model of integration.”

The IMF reportedly sent a report to Bilderberg advocating its rise to becoming the World Treasury Department, and “U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner enthusiastically endorsed the plan for a World Treasury Department, although he received no assurance that he would become its leader.” Geithner further said, “Our hope is that we can work with Europe on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight.”[10]

Bilderberg's Plan in Action?

Reorganizing the Federal Reserve

Following the Bilderberg meeting, there were several interesting announcements made by key participants, specifically in regards to reorganizing the Federal Reserve. On May 21, it was reported that US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “is believed to be leaning heavily towards giving the Federal Reserve a central role in future regulation,” and “it is understood that the Fed would take on some of the work currently undertaken by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.”[11]

On Wednesday, May 20, Geithner spoke before the Senate Banking Committee, at which he stated that, “there are important indications that our financial system is starting to heal.” In regards to regulating the financial system, Geithner stated that, “we must ensure that international rules for financial regulation are consistent with the high standards we will be implementing in the United States.”[12]

Bloomberg reported that, “The Obama administration may call for stripping the Securities and Exchange Commission of some of its powers under a regulatory reorganization,” and that, “The proposal, still being drafted, is likely to give the Federal Reserve more authority to supervise financial firms deemed too big to fail. The Fed may inherit some SEC functions, with others going to other agencies.” Interestingly, “SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro's agency has been mostly absent from negotiations within the administration on the regulatory overhaul, and she has expressed frustration about not being consulted.”

It was reported that “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was set to discuss proposals to change financial regulations last night at a dinner with National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers [who was also present at Bilderberg], former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker [also at Bilderberg], ex-SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt and Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University law professor who heads the congressional watchdog group for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.”[13] The Federal Reserve is a privately owned central bank, owned by its shareholders, consisting of the major banks the make up each regional Fed bank (the largest of which is JP Morgan Chase and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). This plan would essentially give a privately owned bank, which has governmental authority, the ability to regulate the banks that own it. It's the equivalent of getting a Colonel to guard a General to whom he is directly answerable. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house. It is literally granting ownership over the financial regulator to the banks being regulated.

As Market Watch, an online publication of the Wall Street Journal, reported, “The Federal Reserve, created nearly 100 years ago in the aftermath of a financial panic, could be transformed into a different agency as the Obama administration reinvents the way government interacts with the financial system.” Referring to Geithner's Senate appearance, it was reported that, “Geithner was also grilled on the cozy relationships that exist between the big banks and the regional Federal Reserve banks. Before Geithner joined the administration, he was president of the New York Fed, which is a strange public-private hybrid institution that is actually owned and run by the banks.” In response, “Geithner insisted that the private banks have no say over the policies of the New York Fed, but he acknowledged that the banks do have a say in hiring the president, who does make policy. The chairman of the New York Fed, Stephen Friedman, was forced to resign earlier this month because of perceived conflicts of interest due to his large holdings in Goldman Sachs.”[14]

The IMF as a Global Treasury

The Bilderberg agenda of creating a global treasury has already been started prior to the Bilderberg meeting, with decisions made during the G20 financial summit in April. Although the G20 seemed to frame it more in context of being formed into a global central bank, although it is likely the IMF could fill both roles.

Following the G20 meeting at the beginning of April, 2009, it was reported that, “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity,” as the Communiqué released by the G20 leaders stated that, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,” and that, “SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.” Essentially, “they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body.”[15] [See Appendix 2: Creating a Central Bank of the World]

Following the Bilderberg meeting, “President Obama has asked Congress to authorize $100 billion in loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help create a $500 billion global bailout fund,” which would give the IMF the essential prerogative of a global treasury, providing bailouts for countries in need around the world. Further, “the bill would allow the IMF to borrow up to $100 billion from the U.S. and increase the U.S. fiscal contribution to the IMF by $8 billion.” Elaborating on the program, it was reported that, “World leaders began on the global bailout initiative, called the New Arrangement for Borrowing (NAB), at the G-20 summit in early April. The president agreed at that time to make the additional funds available.” Obama wrote that, “Treasury Secretary Geithner concluded that the size of the NAB is woefully inadequate to deal with the type of severe economic and financial crisis we are experiencing, and I agree with him.”[16]

With the G20 decision to increase the usage of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), forming a de facto world currency, it was recently reported that, “Sub-Saharan Africa will receive around $10 billion from the IMF in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to help its economies weather the global financial crisis,” and that, “As part of a $1.1 trillion deal to combat the world economic downturn agreed at April's G20 summit, the IMF will issue $250 billion worth of SDRs, which can be used to boost foreign currency reserves.”[17]

Recent reports have also indicated that the IMF's role in issuing SDRs goes hand in hand with the Bilderberg discussion on the potential collapse of the US dollar, and, “Transforming the dollar standard into an SDR-based system would be a major break with a policy that has lasted more than 60 years.” It was reported that, “There are two ways in which the dollar's role in the international monetary system can be reduced. One possibility is a gradual, market-determined erosion of the dollar as a reserve currency in favor of the euro. But, while the euro's international role – especially its use in financial markets – has increased since its inception, it is hard to envisage it overtaking the dollar as the dominant reserve currency in the foreseeable future.” However, “With the dollar's hegemony unlikely to be seriously undermined by market forces, at least in the short and medium-term, the only way to bring about a major reduction in its role as a reserve currency is by international agreement.” This is where the SDRs come into play, as “One way to make the SDR the major reserve currency relatively soon would be to create and allocate a massive amount of new SDRs to the IMF's members.”[18] This is, interestingly, exactly what is happening with Africa and the IMF now.

Former IMF Managing Director Jacques de Larosière recently stated that the current financial crisis, “given its scope, presents a unique opening to improve institutions, and there is already a danger that the chance might be missed if the different actors cannot agree to changes by the time economic growth resumes.” He is now an adviser with BNP Paribas, a corporation highly represented at Bilderberg meetings, and he was head of the Treasury of France when Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was President of France, who is a regular of the Bilderberg Group.[19]

The Guardian Covers Bilderberg

The British paper, the Guardian, was the only major mainstream news publication to provide ongoing coverage of the Bilderberg meeting over the weekend. His first columns were satirical and slightly mocking, referring to it as, “A long weekend at a luxury hotel, where the world's elite get to shake hands, clink glasses, fine-tune their global agenda and squabble over who gets the best sun loungers. I'm guessing that Henry Kissinger brings his own, has it helicoptered in and guarded 24/7 by a CIA special ops team.”[20] However, as the weekend dragged on, his reporting took a change of tone. He reported on the Saturday that, “I know that I'm being followed. I know because I've just been chatting to the plainclothes policemen I caught following me,” and he was arrested twice in the first day of the meetings for attempting to take photographs as the limousines entered the hotel.[21]

He later reported that he wasn't sure what they were discussing inside the hotel, but that he has “a sense of something rotten in the state of Greece,” and he further stated, “Three days and I've been turned into a suspect, a troublemaker, unwanted, ill at ease, tired and a bit afraid.” He then went on to write that, “Bilderberg is all about control. It's about "what shall we do next?" We run lots of stuff already, how about we run some more? How about we make it easier to run stuff? More efficient. Efficiency is good. It would be so much easier with a single bank, a single currency, a single market, a single government. How about a single army? That would be pretty cool. We wouldn't have any wars then. This prawn cocktail is GOOD. How about a single way of thinking? How about a controlled internet?,” and then, “How about not.”

He makes a very astute point, countering the often postulated argument that Bilderberg is simply a forum where people can speak freely, writing: “I am so unbelievably backteeth sick of power being flexed by the few. I've had it flexed in my face for three days, and it's up my nose like a wasp. I don't care whether the Bilderberg Group is planning to save the world or shove it in a blender and drink the juice, I don't think politics should be done like this,” and the author, Charlie Skelton, eloquently stated, “If they were trying to cure cancer they could do it with the lights on.” He further explained that, “Bilderberg is about positions of control. I get within half a mile of it, and suddenly I'm one of the controlled. I'm followed, watched, logged, detained, detained again. I'd been put in that position by the "power" that was up the road.”[22]

On Sunday, May 17, Skelton reported that when he asked the police chief why he was being followed, the chief responded asking, “Why you here?” to which Skelton said he was there to cover the Bilderberg conference, after which the chief stated, “Well, that is the reason! That is why! We are finished!”[23] Do reporters get followed around and stalked by police officers when they cover the World Economic Forum? No. So why does it happen with Bilderberg if all it is, is a conference to discuss ideas freely?

On the Monday following the conference, Skelton wrote that, “It isn't just me who's been hauled into police custody for daring to hang around half a mile from the hotel gates. The few journalists who've made the trip to Vouliagmeni this year have all been harassed and harried and felt the business end of a Greek walkie-talkie. Many have been arrested. Bernie, from the American Free Press, and Gerhard the documentarian (sounds like a Dungeons and Dragons character) chartered a boat from a nearby marina to try to get photos from the sea. They were stopped three miles from the resort. By the Greek navy.” As Skelton said himself, “My dispatches on the 2009 conference, if they mean anything at all, represent nothing more acutely than the absence of thorough mainstream reporting.”[24]

Skelton's final report on Bilderberg from May 19, showed how far he had gone in his several days of reporting on the meeting. From writing jokingly about the meeting, to discovering that he was followed by the Greek State Security force. Skelton mused, “So who is the paranoid one? Me, hiding in stairwells, watching the pavement behind me in shop windows, staying in the open for safety? Or Bilderberg, with its two F-16s, circling helicopters, machine guns, navy commandos and policy of repeatedly detaining and harassing a handful of journalists? Who's the nutter? Me or Baron Mandelson? Me or Paul Volker, the head of Obama's economic advisory board? Me or the president of Coca-Cola?”

Skelton stated that, “Publicity is pure salt to the giant slug of Bilderberg. So I suggest next year we turn up with a few more tubs. If the mainstream press refuses to give proper coverage to this massive annual event, then interested citizens will have to: a people's media.”

Amazingly, Skelton made the pronouncement that what he learned after the Bilderberg conference, was that, “we must fight, fight, fight, now – right now, this second, with every cubic inch of our souls – to stop identity cards,” as, “It's all about the power to ask, the obligation to show, the justification of one's existence, the power of the asker over the subservience of the asked.” He stated that he “learned this from the random searches, detentions, angry security goon proddings and thumped police desks without number that I've had to suffer on account of Bilderberg: I have spent the week living in a nightmare possible future and many different terrible pasts. I have had the very tiniest glimpse into a world of spot checks and unchecked security powers. And it has left me shaken. It has left me, literally, bruised.” Pointedly, he explains that, “The identity card turns you from a free citizen into a suspect.”[25]

Who was there?

Royalty

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, the largest shareholder in Royal Dutch Shell

Among the members of the Bilderberg Group are various European monarchs. At this years meeting, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands was present, who happens to be the largest single shareholder in Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world's largest corporations. She was joined by one of her three sons, Prince Constantijn, who also attended the meeting. Prince Constantijn has worked with the Dutch European Commissioner for the EU, as well as having been a strategic policy consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton in London, a major strategy and technology consulting firm with expertise in Economic and Business Analysis, Intelligence and Operations Analysis and Information Technology, among many others. Prince Constantijn has also been a policy researcher for RAND Corporation in Europe. RAND was initially founded as a global policy think tank that was formed to offer research and analysis to the US Armed Forces, however, it now works with governments, foundations, international organizations and commercial organizations.[26] Also present among European Royalty was Prince Philippe of Belgium, and Queen Sofia of Spain.

Private Bankers

As usual, the list of attendees was also replete with names representing the largest banks in the world. Among them, David Rockefeller, former CEO and Chairman of Chase Manhattan, now JP Morgan Chase, of which he was, until recently, Chairman of the International Advisory Board; and still sits as Honourary Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Chairman of the Board of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, Honourary Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, which he founded alongside Zbigniew Brzezinski; also a founding member of the Bilderberg Group, prominent philanthropist and is the current patriarch of one of the world's richest and most powerful banking dynasties.

Also present was Josef Ackermann, a Swiss banker who is CEO of Deutsche Bank, also a non-executive director of Royal Dutch Shell; Deputy Chairman of Siemens AG, Europe's largest engineering corporation; he is also a member of the International Advisory Council of Zurich Financial Services Group; Chairman of the Board of the Institute International of Finance, the world's only global association of financial institutions; and Vice Chairman of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum.[27]

Roger Altman was also present at the Bilderberg meeting, an investment banker, private equity investor and former Deputy Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration. Other bankers at this years meeting include Ana Patricia Botin, Chairman of the Spanish bank, Banco Español de Crédito, formerly having worked with JP Morgan; Frederic Oudea, CEO and newly appointed Chairman of the Board of French bank Societe Generale; Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, an Italian banker and economist, formerly Italy's Minister of Economy and Finance; Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman of Investor AB; Marcus Wallenberg, CEO of Investor AB; and George David, CEO of United Technologies Corporation, who also sits on the board of Citigroup, member of the Business Council, the Business Roundtable, and is Vice Chairman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. [For more on the Peterson Institute, see: Appendix 1]

Canadian bankers include W. Edmund Clark, President and CEO of TD Bank Financial Group, also a member of the board of directors of the C.D. Howe Institute, a prominent Canadian think tank; Frank McKenna, Deputy Chairman of TD Bank Financial Group, former Canadian Ambassador to the United States, former Premier of New Brunswick; and Indira Samarasekera, President of the University of Alberta, who is also on the board of Scotiabank, one of Canada's largest banks.

Central Bankers

Of course, among the notable members of the Bilderberg Group, are the world's major central bankers. Among this years members are the Governor of the National Bank of Greece, Governor of the Bank of Italy, President of the European Investment Bank, James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank, and Nout Wellink, on the board of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).[28] Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank was also present.[29] There is no indication that the Governor of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke was present, which would be an odd turn of events, considering that the Federal Reserve Governor is always present at Bilderberg meetings, alongside the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William C. Dudley. I have contacted the New York Fed inquiring if Dudley visited Greece or went to any meetings in Greece between May 14-17, or if another senior representative from the New York Fed went in his stead. I have yet to get a response.

The Obama Administration at Bilderberg

National Security Adviser General James Jones

The Obama administration was heavily represented at this years Bilderberg meeting. Among the attendees were Keith B. Alexander, a Lieutenant General of U.S. Army and Director of the National Security Agency, the massive spying agency of the United States; Timothy Geithner, US Treasury Secretary and former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan; General James Jones, United States National Security Advisor; Henry Kissinger, Obama's special envoy to Russia, longtime Bilderberg member and former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor; Dennis Ross, special advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; David Patraeus, Commander of CENTCOM, (U.S. Central Command, in the Middle East), Lawrence Summers, Director of the White House's National Economic Council, former Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, former President of Harvard University, former Chief Economist of the World Bank; Paul Volcker, former Governor of the Federal Reserve System and Chair of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board; Robert Zoellick, former Chairman of Goldman Sachs and current President of the World Bank;[30] and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.[31]

Other Notable Names

Among many others present at the meeting are Viscount Étienne Davignon, former Vice President of the European Commission, and Honourary Chairman of the Bilderberg Group; Francisco Pinto Balsemão, former Prime Minister of Portugal; Franco Bernabè, CEO of Telecom Italia and Vice Chairman of Rothschild Europe; Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden; Kenneth Clarke, Shadow Business Secretary in the UK; Richard Dearlove, former head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Services (MI6); Donald Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Company; Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, Secretary-General of NATO; John Kerr, member of the British House of Lords and Deputy Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell; Jessica Matthews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute; Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister; J. Robert S. Prichard, CEO of Torstar Corporation and President Emeritus of the University of Toronto; Peter Sutherland, former Director General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), first Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and is currently Chairman of British Petroleum (BP) and Goldman Sachs International as well as being a board member of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, Vice Chairman of the European Roundtable of Industrialists, and longtime Bilderberg member; Peter Thiel, on the board of directors of Facebook; Jeroen van der Veer, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell; Martin Wolf, Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator of the Financial Times newspaper; and Fareed Zakaria, US journalist and board member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[32] There were also some reports that this years meeting would include Google CEO Eric Schmidt, as well as Wall Street Journal Editor Paul Gigot,[33] both of whom attended last years meeting.[34]

Conclusion

Clearly, it was the prerogative of this year's Bilderberg meeting to exploit the global financial crisis as much as possible to reach goals they have been striving toward for many years. These include the creation of a Global Treasury Department, likely in conjunction with or embodied in the same institution as a Global Central Bank, both of which seem to be in the process of being incorporated into the IMF.

Naturally, Bilderberg meetings serve the interests of the people and organizations that are represented there. Due to the large amount of representatives from the Obama administration that were present, US policies revolving around the financial crisis are likely to have emerged from and serve the interests of the Bilderberg Group. Given the heavy representation of Obama's foreign policy establishment at the Bilderberg meeting, it seemed surprising to not have received any more information regarding US foreign policy from this year's meeting, perhaps having to do with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

However, the US recently decided to fire the general who oversaw the Afghan war, being replaced with “Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a former Green Beret who recently commanded the military's secretive special operations forces in Iraq.”[35] From 2003 to 2008, McChrystal “led the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which oversees the military's most sensitive forces, including the Army's Delta Force,” and who Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh singled out as the head of VP Cheney's “executive assassination wing.”[36]

So, given these recent changes, as well as the high degree of representation Obama's foreign policy establishment held at Bildebrerg this year, there were likely to have been some decisions or at least discussion of the escalation of the Afghan war and expansion into Pakistan. However, it is not surprising that the main item on the agenda was the global financial crisis. Without a doubt, the next year will be an interesting one, and the elite are surely hoping to make it a productive one.

APPENDIX 1: Bilderberg Connections to the Billionaire's Meeting

Peter G. Peterson, one of the guests in attendance at the secret billionaires meeting, was the former United States Secretary of Commerce in the Nixon administration, Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc., from 1977 to 1984, he co-founded the prominent private equity and investment management firm, the Blackstone Group, of which he is currently Senior Chairman, and in 1985, he became Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, taking over when David Rockefeller stepped down from that position. He founded the Peterson Institute for International Economics and was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank from 2000-2004. The Peterson Institute for International Economics is a major world economic think tank, which seeks to “inform and shape public debate,” from which, “Institute studies have helped provide the intellectual foundation for many of the major international financial initiatives of the past two decades: reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), adoption of international banking standards, exchange rate systems in the G-7 and emerging-market economies, policies toward the dollar, the euro, and other important currencies, and responses to debt and currency crises (including the current crisis of 2008–09).” It has also “made important contributions to key trade policy decisions” such as the development of the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, APEC, and East Asian regionalism.[37]

It has a prominent list of names on its board of directors. Peter G. Peterson is Chairman of the board; George David, Chairman of United Technologies is Vice Chairman, as well as being a board member of Citigroup, and was a guest at this year's Bilderberg meeting; Chen Yuan, Governor of the China Development Bank and former Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China (China's central bank); Jessica Einhorn, Dean of Washington's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University, former Visiting Fellow of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), former Managing Director of the World Bank, and currently on the board of Time Warner and the Council on Foreign Relations; Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Central Bank of Israel, former Vice President at the World Bank, former Managing Director at the IMF, former Vice Chairman of Citigroup, and has also been a regular participant in Bilderberg meetings; Carla A. Hills, former US Trade Representative, and was the prime negotiator of NAFTA, she sits on the International Advisory Boards of American International Group, the Coca-Cola Company, Gilead Sciences, J.P. Morgan Chase, member of the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission, Co-Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations, and played a key part in the CFR document, “Building a North American Community,” which seeks to remodel North America following along the lines of the European Union, and she has also been a prominent Bilderberg member; David Rockefeller also sits on the Peterson Institute's board, as well as Lynn Forester de Rothschild; Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, who is at every Bilderberg meeting; Paul A. Volcker, former Governor of the Federal Reserve System, regular participant of Bilderberg meetings, and current Chair of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Honourary Directors of the Peterson Institute include Bilderbergers Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, a prime architect of the current crisis; Frank E. Loy, former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, and is on the boards of Environmental Defense, the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Resources for the Future, and Population Services International; George P. Shultz, former US Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, President and Director of Bechtel Group and former Secretary of the Treasury.[38]

APPENDIX 2: Creating a Central Bank of the World

Jeffrey Garten, Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Clinton administration, former Dean of the Yale School of Management, previously served on the White House Council on International Economic Policy under the Nixon administration and on the policy planning staffs of Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Cyrus Vance of the Ford and Carter administrations. He also was a managing director of Lehman Brothers and the Blackstone Group, is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. As early as 1998, Garten wrote an article for the New York Times in which he advocated the creation of a global central bank.[39]

Amid the current financial crisis, Garten wrote an article for the Financial Times in which he advocated for “the establishment of a Global Monetary Authority to oversee markets that have become borderless,” acting as a global central bank.[40] In late October, Garten wrote an article for Newsweek in which he said that world “leaders should begin laying the groundwork for establishing a global central bank.”[41]

Three days after the publication of Garten's Newsweek article, it was reported that, “The International Monetary Fund may soon lack the money to bail out an ever growing list of countries crumbling across Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, raising concerns that it will have to tap taxpayers in Western countries for a capital infusion or resort to the nuclear option of printing its own money.” Further, “The nuclear option is to print money by issuing Special Drawing Rights, in effect acting as if it were the world's central bank.”[42]

[For a detailed look at the moves to create a global central bank, regional currencies, a global reserve currency and a world governing body, see: Andrew G. Marshall, The Financial New World Order: Towards a Global Currency and World Government: Global Research, April 6, 2009]

Endnotes

[1] CFP, Annual Elite Conclave, 58th Bilderberg Meeting to be held in Greece, May 14-17. Canadian Free Press: May 5, 2009:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/10854

[2] Paul Joseph Watson, Bilderberg Wants Global Department Of Health, Global Treasury. Prison Planet: May 16, 2009:
http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-wants-global-department-of-health-global-treasury/

[3] Paul Joseph Watson, Bilderberg Fears Losing Control In Chaos-Plagued World. Prison Planet: May 18, 2009:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/bilderberg-fears-losing-control-in-chaos-plagued-world.html

[4] Sorcha Faal, Bilderberg Group orders destruction of US Dollar? MINA: May 21, 2009:
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6807/53/

[5] Kristi Heim, What really happened at the billionaires' private confab. The Seattle Times: May 20, 2009:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thebusinessofgiving/2009244202_what_really_happened_at_the_bi.html

[6] A. G. Sulzberger, The Rich Get Together (Shhh, It Was a Secret). The New York Times: May 20, 2009:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/the-rich-get-together-shhh-it-was-a-secret/

[7] Chosun, American Billionaires Gather to Discuss Slump. The Chosun Ilbo: May 22, 2009:
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/05/22/2009052200772.html

[8] John Harlow, Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation. The Sunday Times: May 24, 2009:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece

[9] Press Release, Investigative Author, Daniel Estulin Exposes Bilderberg Group Plans. PRWeb: May 22, 2009:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/Bilderberg_Group_Meeting/Daniel_Estulin/prweb2453144.htm

[10] James P. Tucker Jr., BILDERBERG AGENDA EXPOSED. American Free Press: June 1, 2009:
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/bilderberg_2009_179.html

[11] James Quinn, Tim Geithner to reform US financial regulation. The Telegraph: May 21, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/5359527/Tim-Geithner-to-reform-US-financial-regulation.html

[12] Greg Menges, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy F. Geithner speech before the Senate Banking Committee. Examiner: May 20, 2009:
http://www.examiner.com/x-8184-Boston-Investing-Examiner~y2009m5d20-U-S-Secretary-of-the-Treasury-Timothy-F-Geithner-speech-before-the-Senate-Banking-Committee

[13] Robert Schmidt and Jesse Westbrook, U.S. May Strip SEC of Powers in Regulatory Overhaul. Bloomberg: May 20: 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a18ctNv3FDcw

[14] Rex Nutting, Fed could be completely retooled, Geithner says. Market Watch: May 20, 2009:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-could-be-completely-retooled-geithner-says

[15] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The G20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency. The Telegraph: April 3, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/5096524/The-G20-moves-the-world-a-step-closer-to-a-global-currency.html

[16] Marie Magleby, Obama Wants U.S. to Loan $100 Billion to Global Bailout Fund. CNS News: May 20, 2009:
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=48329

[17] Joe Bavier, Sub-Saharan Africa to receive $10 bln in SDRs-IMF. Reuters: May 25, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLP336909

[18] Onno Wijnholds, The Dollar's Last Days? International Business Times: May 18, 2009:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090518/dollar-rsquolast-days.htm

[19] MATTHEW SALTMARSH, Former I.M.F. Chief Sees Opportunity in Crisis. The New York Times: May 22, 2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/business/global/23spot.html?ref=global

[20] Charlie Skelton, Our man at Bilderberg: in pursuit of the world's most powerful cabal. The Guardian: May 13, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/13/in-search-of-bilderberg

[21] Charlie Skelton, Our man at Bilderberg: They're watching and following me, I tell you. The Guardian: May 15, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/15/bilderberg-charlie-skelton-dispatch

[22] Charlie Skelton, Our man at Bilderberg: I'm ready to lose control, but they're not. The Guardian: May 15, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/15/bilderberg-charlie-skelton-dispatch1

[23] Charlie Skelton, Our man at Bilderberg: 'You are not allowed to take pictures of policemen!' The Guardian: May 17, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/17/charlie-skelton-bilderberg

[24] Charlie Skelton, Our man at Bilderberg: Fear my pen. The Guardian: May 18, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/18/bilderberg-charlie-skelton-dispatch

[25] Charlie Skelton, Our man at Bilderberg: Let's salt the slug in 2010. The Guardian: May 19, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/may/19/bilderberg-skelton-greece

[26] Dutch Royal House, Work and official duties. Prince Constantijn:
http://www.koninklijkhuis.nl/english/content.jsp?objectid=18215

[27] Deutsche Bank, Management Board. Our Company:
http://www.db.com/en/content/company/management_board.htm

[28] InfoWars, Bilderberg 2009 Attendee List (revised). May 18, 2009:
http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-2009-attendee-list/

[29] Demetris Nellas, Greek nationalists protest Bilderberg Club meeting. AP: May 14, 2009:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jep_nbEq1srzJHFQ8fRGNQO3P38QD987H3200

[30] InfoWars, Bilderberg 2009 Attendee List (revised). May 18, 2009:
http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-2009-attendee-list/

[31] MRT, Top US official arrives in Greece. Macedonian Radio and Television: May 15, 2009:
http://www.mrt.com.mk/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6112&Itemid=28

[32] InfoWars, Bilderberg 2009 Attendee List (revised). May 18, 2009:
http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-2009-attendee-list/

[33] WND, Google joins Bilderberg cabal. World Net Daily: May 17, 2009:
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=98469

[34] Adam Abrams, Are the people who 'really run the world' meeting this weekend? Haaretz: May 14, 2009:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085589.html

[35] YOCHI J. DREAZEN and PETER SPIEGEL, U.S. Fires Afghan War Chief. The Wall Street Journal: May 12, 2009:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124206036635107351.html

[36] M.J. Stephey, Stan McChrystal: The New U.S. Commander in Afghanistan. Time Magazine: May 12, 2009:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1897542,00.html

[37] PIIE, About the Institute. Peterson Institute for International Economics:
http://www.petersoninstitute.org/institute/aboutiie.cfm

[38] PIIE, Board of Directors. Peterson Institute for International Economics:
http://www.petersoninstitute.org/institute/board.cfm#52

[39] Jeffrey E. Garten, Needed: A Fed for the World. The New York Times: September 23, 1998:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/23/opinion/needed-a-fed-for-the-world.html

[40] Jeffrey Garten, Global authority can fill financial vacuum. The Financial Times: September 25, 2008:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7caf543e-8b13-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F7caf543e-8b13-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwilliamnotes.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F30%2Fgarten-on-a-global-monetary-authority%2F

[41] Jeffrey Garten, We Need a Bank Of the World. Newsweek: October 25, 2009: http://www.newsweek.com/id/165772

[42] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, IMF may need to "print money" as crisis spreads. The Telegraph: October 28, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3269669/IMF-may-need-to-print-money-as-crisis-spreads.html

Andrew G. Marshall is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy and History at Simon Fraser University.

“Terrorism has become a ‘normal’ mode of behaviour and an inevitable form of warfare”.

2009-05-27T11:22:00.003+01:00

“Terrorism has become a ‘normal’ mode of behaviour and an inevitable form of warfare”.
The Oxford dictionary defines ‘normal’ as conforming to the standard; usual, typical or expected. So terrorism has been and is a recognised form of warfare , it has existed throughout the history of mankind whether through the use of violence or the implementation of fear on others.
“ In the 1790’s it took the resources of Robespierre’s Jacobean government in revolutionary France to round up hundreds of thousands of suspects and turn the guillotine, with its official toll of 17,000 executions, into the symbol and the Reign of Terror. The conservative British politician, Edmund Burke, was among the first to use the terms ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’. He wanted to draw attention to the murderous excesses of the Jacobean state and its strong group of irregulars....let loose on the people. A perfect example of state terrorism using proxies” (Barker, pg.10).
Terrorism may also come from within the civilian population of a state as in the case of the Northern Irish insurgency against British rule in the past few decades. Terrorism may also come in the form of attacking a governing power from another part of the world as was probably the case on 9/11. So it can be assumed that terrorism is an intense, overpowering fear...the use of terrorising methods of governing or resisting a governing power.

Oded Lowenheim (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), states in his book, ‘Predators and parasites of transnational harm and great power authority’. After 9/11, Bin Laden stated his aim was to totally undermine the authority of the United States as a superpower attacking the homeland in such a spectacular way, this was certainly achieved.
Just as the Jihadists had proved the Soviet ‘superpower myth’, during the Afghan war of the 1980’s.
What he failed to mention though in this respect was that the Afghan resistance was only successful in the end by massive covert intervention by the United States supplying both sophisticated modern weaponry and logistical support. This then is an example of one superpower undermining another by secretly supplying an insurgent, guerrilla movement against another superpower.
These same Jihadhi fighters then became what is known as ‘al qaeda’, in the west and formed terrorist cells all over the world.

“In the War on Terror in Afghanistan, the United States attempted to set right a time out of joint. The purpose of the war was not only revenge, self-defense, or even deterrence. The war embodied a strong effort to restore previous notions of authority (as legitimized power) and thus to realign the course of
time, to relegate the unthinkable that suddenly materialized with 9/11 to the realm of fantasy once again”. (Lowenheim,week 3).

Soon after 9/11 both Bush and Blair gave passionate and highly emotive speeches respectively to their populations. In the wake of such a shocking unimaginable atrocity it was easy for both politicians to claim a higher moral ground than the terrorists, spinning a religious side to their rhetoric. Claiming a higher moral ground as Christians against a Muslim aggressor. So thus demonising the muslim world and creating a clash of cultures and religion.

It must be said that, in particular Britain had been culpable of many atrocities against muslims, particularly in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to set up the state of Israel in 1948.
Israel has to this day occupied the Palestinian territories and has employed brutal warfare on a densely populated area as in the Gaza strip war 2008/9 and the state of Israel receives massive investment and military supplies from the United States. This is an example of asymmetrical warfare.
So it would not be unreasonable to expect some form of revenge attack for the oppression of the Palestinian people.

Since the invasion of Afghanistan one month after 9/11 and the ‘Shock and Awe’ at the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003. A form of asymmetrical warfare has been raging in both countries. Massive firepower being employed against a civilian population with insurgents, guerrillas and an influx of fighters from foreign lands to fight a holy war against the occupiers. This warfare has been typified by the use of suicide bombers as in the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks. The forces against the occupier have also employed many other forms of terror such as car bombing and a massive use of IED (improvised explosive devises). Being able to blend in with the civilian population has increased civilian casualties caught up in the line of fire from both sides.

Suicide bombing is not a new form of terrorism , but , by its very nature is an extremely powerful message of defiance and fear . Having the element of surprise and ultimate sacrifice makes it non-compatible with Western morality and values.

In these two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the indiscriminate nature of attacks from coalition forces with the use of carpet bombing whole areas. Cluster bomb attacks with many unexploded devices left lying around in populated areas is certainly barbaric and tantamount to genocide. The death toll of
civilians in both these wars is extremely high exposing the myth of the western values. A muslim life is not worth as much as a person from the west, this is surely a form of international terrorism.

Worth a mention at this point is the use of ‘False flag terrorism’, in which governing power often within the state apparatus sets up what looks like a terrorist attack on strategic targets to make it appear that the homeland territory has been attacked or provoked by an outside entity or state so as to proceed with a declaration of war against the supposed perpetrators.
One such well documented event is ‘Operation Northwoods’. This document titled “Justification for US military intervention in Cuba” was provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to secretary of Defence Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962. This memorandum describes plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a US invasion of Cuba. These included blowing up a US ship in Cuban waters and blaming it on Cuban sabotage.

"Millions of people have been misled regarding the causes and consequences of September 11.
When people across the US and around the World find out that Al Qaeda is not an outside enemy but a creation of US foreign policy and the CIA, the legitimacy of the bipartisan war agenda will tumble like a deck of cards." ( Michel Chossudovsky 2005)
So in conclusion the nature of warfare has certainly changed throughout history. Since the end of the 2nd world war in 1945 the ratio of civilian dead to military has altered radically. Before this time when it was normally one army against an opposing army the majority of casualties were the troops involved . This is when the prevalent form of warfare was symmetrical, in recent history with the increase in asymmetrical warfare ,civilian wars within states and international terrorism the casualties are now far more likely to be civilian populations caught up in the conflict.

Barker,J.(2003) The no-nonsense guide to terrorism, chapter 1, page 10.
Lowenheim,O.(2007)Week 3: Predators and parasites, D271 course website, Milton Keyes, The Open University.
Chossudovsky,M.(2005) America’s “War on terrorism,” Global research[online] http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html

The Awful truth behind the psy op New World Order.

2009-05-10T16:00:00.002+01:00

A good doctor is one who will tell his patient what ails him, no matter how bad the news... A good doctor begins by making a correct diagnosis of his patient's condition. A bad doctor, however, either cannot make a proper diagnosis (because he lacks expertise) or, worst still, he hides the truth afrom his patient...

When a dread disease patient is told what he is suffering from, before actually accepting the envitable he first goes through the stages of disbelief and denial. There's disbelief when we hear the patient say "this is not right: the doctor's made a mistake!". But when the dignosis of his illness is confirmed, then in dispair he goes info full denial saying "Impossible! This can't be happening to me!!".

A good doctor helps his patient weather this painful process, guiding him towards acceptance of his predicament. Only then can the healing begin. Something similar happens - albeit more abstractly -, when the People are hit by social turmoil as a consequence of severe crises arising from what Carl G. Jung called "epidemics of the mind and soul".

Below, we address some key issues that we feel reflect the fact that a cycle is coming to an increasingly abrupt end in the whole world, even though the global media may be looking the other way (i.e., hiding the truth and generating smoke screens), most politicians hardly understand what is going on (on account of their ignorance), the bulk of the population in all countries see and feel this but cannot rationalize what's happening (disbelief), and some intelectuals may actually understand what's going on and where we're being dragged, but find it too hard to accept (i.e., denial).

In our communiqué No. 52 of October 3, 2008 dealing with the Global Financial "crisis" that had then just broken out, we said that there was no such "crisis". Rather, what began Monday, September 15, 2008 was the beginning of a terminal and irreversible collapse of the global financial system, which is part of a controlled Model through which other objetives will be achieved. Those objective go far beyond merely financial goals: rather, they seek to advance towards the next geopolitical stage in the "New World Order" (NWO). And this is nothing more and nothing less than the enthronement of a WORLD GOVERNMENT. At that time, we also described the NWO Elite's three basic "Plans", i.e.,:

- Plan "A" seeks to resolve the on-going financial "crisis" through merely financial measures. It's not working....

- Plan "B" will seek to resolve the "crisis" by a comprehensive overhaul of the global financial system, which among other factors will include introducing a New Dollar, backed by "foolproof" gold bullion. This will allow the global elites to transfer the bulk of Wall Street and European bankers' losses to other geographies (amongst them, China, which is one of the focus of present crisis, as well as Latin America), and

- Plan "C" that will seek to "kick the chessboard", so to speak, triggering a planetary war.

We believe that these three "Plans" are presently in different stages of implementation: Plan "A" is almost dead. Plans "B" and "C" are about to be activated. Let's see where we stand at present....

1) WORLD GOVERNMENT -

First, we must understand that "New World Order (NWO)" is not an actual "stage" in the global political structure but, rather, it's a generic term. Thus, we had several "New World Orders" over the past century:

- in 1919, when World War I ended and the Council on Foreign Relations (New York) and Royal Institute of International Affairs (London) were created, as geopolitical controlling and planning organizations bent on promoting Anglo-American-Zionist interests throughout the world.

- in 1945, when the Post-World War II Bipolar World was designed: i.e., Bretton Woods, Yalta, the UN, the "cold war".

- in 1991, after the USSR was thrown into the dust bin of History to make way for NWO "globalization", as announced by George HW Bush, Sr. (on 11-Sept.-1991!), and

- in 2008, when now ambiguous and dying "globalization" begins phasing out, to be replaced by something far more ambitous: an authoritarian and mandatory World Government, as announced in the London "Financial Times" on December8, 2008 by Gideon Rachman.

Today we are undergoing the violent stage just prior to imposition of World Government. Amongst its goals:

- Disolution and destruction of all National Sovereignties (the demise of the Nation-State promoted by the CFR, Trilateral and Bilderbergers)

- The Twilight of the United States of America as the "indispensable" superpower (ergo, Obama was allowed into the Oval Office)

- Drastic depopulation of the world (pendemic hysteria)

- Total electronic surveillance and control of surviving citizenry (Psywar drills that increasingly lower people's resistance to inocculation), and

- Monolithic centralization and strict comprehensive control over politics, the economy, finance, the military, culture, the media, technology and even religious activities.

All of this CANNOT be achieved without war. Thus, Plan "C" has just been activated.

2) CONFRONTATION WITH RUSSIA AND CHINA -

Over the past months, China has been looking at the US and the Wall Street parasites with an increasingly fixed and unblinking gaze...

They want to know what is going to happen with the 1.7 Trillion Dollar-denominated Reserves that they are holding on to (some Washington observers call this "The Chinese Nuclear Bomb"). The US is not answering because they simply don't have any answer to give...

Were China to make a "strong move" (such as changing their US Dollar-denominated Reserves into Euros on very short notice), the effect would lead to the collapse the US Dollar (for this Contingency they have Plan "B" as described).

Actually, one of the main sources of financing of American public deficits is, in fact, China which until recently had been soaking up huge tranches of American Public Debt (today these needs are running as high as u$s 170 billion a week!!).

The recent mysterious fly-over of Air Force One, low over Manhattan in New York City, triggering panic and the evacuation of the World Financial Center and other Manhattan skyscrapers, seems to be linked to this: it appears that Obama and some from his team had decided to meet with Trustees and representatives from China and other foreign powers to try to reach some agreement/solution. But Obama did not properly consult with "those upstairs who have the final say", who then decided otherwise and ordered Air Force One to land in Washington DC, doing that with a more than threaterning demeanor. Fearing the worst, the Air Force One pilot decided to protect his plane by having it "seen by millions" over the skies of New York City, in such a way that the two F16 fighter jets "escorting" him could do nothing "strange" (see the incredible low fly-by videos on YouTube). Later on, the missions of these foreign creditors of the US - Chinese included - were involved in a confussing shoot-out with FBI operatives that left several agents dead...

3) THE ISRAELI DETONATOR -

The State of Israel continues moving forward with its announced plans of unilateral attack on Iran. We have been informing about this for more than two years now. This will be a premeditated, unjustified, unilateral attack perpetrated by the State of Israel, the only country in the Middle East that wields Weapons of Mass Destruction - 400 nuclear artefacts ceded by the US -, and shows an unequivocable willingness to use them. Naturally, their excuse is Iran's nuclear program. The London "Times" newspaper, in its April 18,2009 edition informs that the Israeli Air Force is fully ready to attack and are only waiting to receive the green light from the new ultra-right wing Israeli primer minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his even more ultra-right wing foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, and the IDF high command (see article "Israel stands ready to bomb Iran's nuclear sites").

THAT will be the trigger for generalized war involving WMD's - biological, chemical and nuclear. Israeli sources say that they will attack Iran with or without the Obama Administration's green light, knowing full well that Zionist power in America is above any Administration, whether Democrat or Republican. Netanyahu will meet with Obama on May 18th. Either way, once Israel attacks and Iran retailiates, the Obama Administration will be FORCED by Zionist power structures in control of the US, to fight for them (see "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy", Stephen Walt & John Mearsheimer). This was just been ratified by "The Daily Telegraph" of 7th May.

4) GEOPOLITICS FOR A WORLD GOVERNMENT -

This "Israeli Detonator" goes hand in hand with the repositioning of the US military along the lines suggested by Zbigniew Brzezinski's geopolitical strategic thought, which calls for the US detaching from the Iraqui mess and focusing on Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Taliban and the Caspian Sea oil fields. Afghanistan is in a horrific mess, with the Taliban having recovered the better part of that country. Today, they stand a mere 160 kms from Islamabad, in Pakistan, which too is in a horrific crisis. US bombs fall on Afghanistan and Pakistan daily without their puppet governments doing anything about it.

From their respective viewpoints and interests and with varying criteria and levels of alarm, Iran, Russia and China closely observe these threatening maneouvers (supplemented by NATO's dangerous encircling strategy against Russia in Poland and other parts of Europe). The three, however, recognize that they have the same adversaries: The US (for Russia and China), Israel and the US (for Iran). A truly explosive formula, but a necessrary risk for the NWO elite bent on enthroning World Government.

This ought to be a wake-up call for all countries around the world. Red lights should be blinking and alarm bells ringing in every nation, because World Government will not leave any country out; and any country not wanting to "voluntarily join" this World Government geared on US, UK and Israeli global interests, will be automatically branded a "Rogue State", "antidemocratic", "contrary to humanity", "anti-Semitic", and when that happens, we all know what comes next...

5) MORE AND MORE BANKRUPTCIES: UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY FOR MILLIONS OF WORKERS -

US and European banks are bankrupt, many major industries are bankrupt (Chrysler being the latest to fall), global insurers and reinsurers are technically broke, whilst most all financial institutions are technically unsound, at best, and unviable at worst. First World Governments must bail out company after company. Yet more proof that, when left to its own dynamics, Extreme Capitalism leads to a Soviet-like system in which the State takes over corporations ("too large to fail", naturally) and runs the economy to protect the bankster Nomenklatura...

Time and again, we see the same cycle: first come decades of privatizing huge profits which flow straight into the pockets of bankers, "investors", speculators and parasites of all sorts, types and shapes, and then when the whole System comes crashing down as happens now, the ensuing and predictable gigantic losses are socialized by way of government funded bail-outs with taypayer money, and irresponslble money printing to save those who should sit in jail. Everybody else is left high and dry, and on their own.

The US-Dollar has been technically hyperinflated, even though no one is saying "the king is nude!!"... Not yet, anyway...

We now learn that recession in the US, Europe and Asia is "much worse than thought and expected", so say the experts...

Millions loose their jobs and livelihood, millions loose their homes and assets, millions loose their pensions and life's savings, millions start taking to the streets: manifestations, "tea parties"... Social War... Reprisal and repression.

6) FRAUD AND MORE FRAUD -

"Wall Street Inversor" Bernard Madoff (ex-president of NASDAQ y director of Yeshiva Univerrsity in Tel Aviv) has become a symbol of the white collar Banker Mega-fraud which is an integral part of the Extreme Capitalist system (using the Ponzi Scheme Pyramid as its basic model), with his 70 billion dollars stolen from other "investors" (ha!...they now seem to have fallen into a modern version of cannibalism, taking bites amongst themselves..!).

We should, however, be "kinder" to Bernie Madoff because he's taking all the blame and getting all the bad "Ponzi Schemer" headlines, whilst the the truth is that the ENTIRE global financial system is one vast Ponzi pyramid. This is how CitiCorp (William Rhodes, Robert Rubin), Bank of America, Goldman Sachs (Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner), Morgan Stanley, AIG (Maurice Greenberg) and most all other global banks and insurers operate all the time.

To get a better idea of what's really happening behind the scenes, take a look at Freddie Mac whose recently appointed 41 year old Chief Financial Officer David Kellermann "commited suicide". Russian intelligence sources, however, point to a more credible cause of death linked to the fact that Kellermann appeared to have discovered that Freddie Mac had syphoned over 50 billion dollars to Zionist and Israeli interests and organizations, and he was about to become a whistleblower going public with that explosive information... Bear in mind that when Freddie Mac collapsed late last year, one if its directors was Rahm Emanuel, today president Obama's dual-citizenship (Israeli and US) chief-of-staff, also suspected of being an Israeli Military Intelligence operative.

7) H1N1 SWINE FLU "EPIDEMIC" -

This would seem to be yet another smoke screen imposed on the world media's headlines, in order to keep the above dramatic events as much out of the front pages and newscasts, as possible. So far, there are only around 2000 H1N1 cases globally; of the 160 Mexican deaths originally reported by FoxNews a couple of weeks ago, we are now down to around 30... The same goes for the rest of the world. The media have gone into Hysteria Over-drive, generating what one major risk consultancy has labelled "pandemic hysteria", to the great joy of major Pharmaceutical Labs who are having near record sales of "Tamiflu" and other Influenza medications. The NWO people were also able to test and assess results of their PsyWar Operations, geared on controlling large masses of people by instilling fear, so they can be willingly inocculated. Face masks, quarantines, mass vaccinations, cancelled flights, the whole circus of a global drill... as occured with the Bird Flu scare, back in 2004 and 2005 (whatever became of that??).

At some point, they will no doubt let loose some synthetic "selective" virus which will target increasingly focused social groups and types (was HIV a precursor?), because one of the key objetives of World Government is to trigger intensive depopulation of the world, as recommended by Henry Kissinger's National Security Strategic Memoranum 200, back in 1974.

Finally, the seven issues we address above should not be seen as isolated and unconnected. Rather, they are inter-related and should be viewed holistically, as part of a much vaster strategy geared on imposing World Government, one way or another... Addressing these and other factors jointly, and projecting their medium- and long-term effects will allow us to begin to understand what is really happening in the world; which is a very different story than what we hear on CNN, FoxNews, the BBC, The New York Times, Washington Post, Daily Telegraph, ABC, CBS or NBC...

In short, the key question we must ask should become increasingly obvious to us all, everywhere: How much time do we have left? How much time do we really have in the US, in Europe, in Argentina, in the whole world?

You be the judge... you make your own choice. You can either be a Homer Simpson-like couch potato, zapping on your TV remote control, or... we can all start getting a grip on this whole disaster - no matter where each of us is - and start doing something about it....

Whatever we do, we had better start doing it fast!

The police are an enemy of the people

2009-05-03T16:54:00.002+01:00

Police storm into a pro-Palestinian demo in central London in January
The death of Ian Tomlinson during protests against the G20 in London on 1 April has made thousands of people question the true nature of

the police. We are told that the police exist for our benefit.

They are said to protect us from crime and are supposed to respond to all people throughout society equally – unless you fall into the “criminal” category.

The police uphold “law and order”. But this role doesn’t work in everyone’s interests – it backs up some people much more than others.

The law and order that the police protect is that of the rich and powerful.

These are the people who own and control the resources of society – the factories, call centres and businesses.

This ruling class is determined to maintain its domination, but it is far outnumbered by the people who are forced to work in order to survive.

It needs a powerful state and armed bodies, such as the police and the army, to keep control over those at the bottom and stop them threatening its power.

So there are endless laws when it comes to protecting property. And the police are most focused upon protecting the property of the ruling class.

In this context it is easier to understand why the police treat working class people the way they do – particularly when they take part in any kind of resistance.

Strike action directly threatens the process of production and the profits of the rich.

The police always back the bosses during strikes – whether by protecting scab labour or harassing strikers.

The police force as we know it today was formed as a way of dealing with working class resistance.

The “Peterloo Massacre” in 1819, where part-time soldiers killed 11 people on a demonstration demanding workers’ rights in Manchester, sparked a wave of strikes and protests that frightened the ruling class.

Inflame

Some sections thought that a police force would be able to dish out punishment with truncheons and arrests – without creating “martyrs” to further inflame working class anger.

One of the first things the newly formed police force had to deal with was Chartism, the great working class movement of the 19th century.

This aimed to take back some of the fruits of workers’ labour from the bosses and landowners.

Many ordinary people resisted the police’s attempts to keep the working class in order.

To enable the police to carry out their role, the state strives to have a monopoly of violence.

Ordinary people fighting outside a pub may be arrested, charged and punished according to the law.

But the same rules do not seem to apply to the police. The police have been responsible for countless deaths – whether of protesters, strikers or of those held in police custody.

Individual police officers are sometimes suspended from duty or moved to different departments.

But police officers are rarely brought to justice by the courts for deaths they have been responsible for.

As well as the key flashpoints in the history of the police in Britain – the Miners’ Strike, the poll tax riots and so on – there is the day to day harassment of working class people.

Stop and search has been used systematically against black and Asian people.

This harassment continues today, particularly under anti-terror legislation.

Although the names of the laws have been changed, it remains oppressed groups who are the targets.

The role that the police play in preserving society as it currently stands explain why oppression and discrimination feature so strongly in the “canteen culture” of the police.

Racism and sexism are rife because the have to uphold the prevailing ideas of a society based on inequality.

The police uphold racist laws – such as the laws over immigration controls.

They believe most crime is concentrated in the inner cities, so black people are viewed as potential criminals and are subject to constant harassment.

This institutional racism can be seen in the way that black and Asian people who work in the force are treated.

The police’s racism and violence is not a case of a few rotten apples – it is an intrinsic part of the police force.

Hierarchy

The chief constables and those at the top of the police hierarchy mix with those at the top of society, enjoying huge salaries and the ear of the government.

They share the ideology of the ruling class.

Meanwhile, regular police officers are pulled from the working and lower middle classes.

Of course, some people join thinking they will be able to make a positive difference to society.

But those from working class backgrounds have to show that they are willing to adapt to the police’s role. This means taking a hard, bullying attitude to the working class.

We are told the role of the police is to ensure that all people live peaceably together.

In reality the police exist to protect one thing – the status quo.

Swine Flu? A Panic Stoked in Order to Posture and Spend:

2009-05-01T18:28:00.002+01:00

Despite the hysteria, the risk to Britons' health is tiny - but that news won't sell papers or drugs, or justify the WHO's budget

-- -We have gone demented. Two Britons are or were (not very) ill from flu. "This could really explode," intones a reporter for BBC News. "London warned: it's here," cries the Evening Standard. Fear is said to be spreading "like a Mexican wave". It "could affect" three-quarters of a million Britons. It "could cost" three trillion dollars. The "danger", according to the radio, is that workers who are not ill will be "worried" (perhaps by the reporter) and fail to turn up at power stations and hospitals.

Appropriately panicked, on Monday ministers plunged into their Cobra bunker beneath Whitehall to prepare for the worst. Had Tony Blair been about they would have worn germ warfare suits. British government is barking mad.

What is swine flu? It is flu, a mutation of the H1N1 virus of the sort that often occurs. It is not a pandemic, despite the media prefix, not yet. The BBC calls it a "potentially terrible virus", but any viral infection is potentially terrible. Flu makes you feel ill. You should take medicine and rest. You will then get well again, unless you are very unlucky or have some complicating condition. It is best to avoid close contact with other people, as applies to a common cold.

In Mexico, 2,000 people have been diagnosed as suffering swine flu. Some 150 of them have died, though there is said to be no pathological indication of all these deaths being linked to the new flu strain. People die all the time after catching flu, especially if not medicated.

Nobody anywhere else in the world has died from this infection and only a handful have the new strain confirmed, most in America and almost all after returning from Mexico. A couple from Airdrie who caught the flu on holiday in Cancun are getting better. That tends to happen to people who get flu, however much it may disappoint editors.

We appear to have lost all ability to judge risk. The cause may lie in the national curriculum, the decline of "news" or the rise of blogs and concomitant, unmediated hysteria, but people seem helpless in navigating the gulf that separates public information from their daily round. They cannot set a statistic in context. They cannot relate bad news from Mexico to the risk that inevitably surrounds their lives. The risk of catching swine flu must be millions to one.

Health scares are like terrorist ones. Someone somewhere has an interest in it. We depend on others with specialist knowledge to advise and warn us and assume they offer advice on a dispassionate basis, using their expertise to assess danger and communicating it in measured English. Words such as possibly, potentially, could or might should be avoided. They are unspecific qualifiers and open to exaggeration.

The World Health Organisation, always eager to push itself into the spotlight, loves to talk of the world being "ready" for a flu pandemic, apparently on the grounds that none has occurred for some time. There is no obvious justification for this scaremongering. I suppose the world is "ready" for another atomic explosion or another 9/11.

Professional expertise is now overwhelmed by professional log-rolling. Risk aversion has trounced risk judgment. An obligation on public officials not to scare people or lead them to needless expense is overridden by the yearning for a higher budget or more profit. Health scares enable media-hungry doctors, public health officials and drugs companies to benefit by manipulating fright.

On Monday the EU health commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou, advised travellers not to go to north or central America "unless it's very urgent". The British Foreign Office warned against "all but essential" travel to Mexico because of the danger of catching flu. This was outrageous. It would make more sense to proffer such a warning against the American crime rate. Yet such health-and-safety hysteria wiped millions from travel company shares.

During the BSE scare of 1995-7, grown men with medical degrees predicted doom, terrifying ministers into mad politician disease. The scientists' hysteria, that BSE "has the potential to infect up to 10 million Britons", led to tens of thousands of cattle being fed into power stations and £5bn spent on farmers' compensation. A year later, the scientists tried to maintain that BSE "might" spread to sheep because, according to one government scientist, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". The meat industry was wrecked and an absurd ongoing cost was imposed on stock farmers with the closure and concentration of abattoirs.

This science-based insanity was repeated during the Sars outbreak of 2003, asserted by Dr Patrick Dixon, formerly of the London Business School, to have "a 25% chance of killing tens of millions". The press duly headlined a plague "worse than Aids". Not one Briton died.

The same lunacy occurred in 2006 with avian flu, erupting after a scientist named John Oxford declared that "it will be the first pandemic of the 21st century". The WHO issued a statement that "one in four Britons could die".

Epidemiologists love the word "could" because it can always assure them of a headline. During the avian flu mania, Canada geese were treated like Goering's bombers. RSPB workers were issued with protective headgear.The media went berserk, with interviewers asking why the government did not close all schools "to prevent up to 50,000 deaths". The Today programme's John Humphrys became frantic when a dead goose flopped down on an isolated Scottish beach and a hapless local official refused to confirm the BBC's hysteria. The bird might pose no threat to Scotland, but how dare he deny London journalists a good panic?

Meanwhile a real pestilence, MRSA and C difficile, was taking hold in hospitals. It was suppressed by the medical profession because it appeared that they themselves might be to blame. These diseases have played a role in thousands of deaths in British hospitals - the former a reported 1,652 and the latter 8,324 in 2007 alone. Like deaths from alcoholism, we have come to regard hospital-induced infection as an accident of life, a hazard to which we have subconsciously adjusted.

MRSA and C difficile are not like swine flu, an opportunity for public figures to scare and posture and spend money. They are diseases for which the government is to blame. They claim no headlines and no Cobra priority. Their sufferers must crawl away and die in silence.

The bioterror is unleashed

2009-04-27T16:33:00.002+01:00

If you sell crack, join a gang, or rob the mob you can expect to die a violent death, but if you listen to your mother, eat all the right foods, and study hard in college to become a microbiologist, you should expect to live to a ripe old age and die peacefully.

That being the case, a few eyebrows were raised when five microbiologists either disappeared or died mysteriously violent deaths in 2001. A short time later the number rose to 19, and then 29.

They were found stabbed to death in the trunks of cars, thrown off bridges, or they wrapped their cars around trees after their brake fluid disappeared. Once again, this is the stuff of Hollywood spy stories, and not the way you would expect a microbiologist to give up the ghost.

By 2005, we lost 40 micro-biologists in less than 4 years, all under suspicious circumstances, and during this time someone discovered that they were all working for the government, or government contractors, on projects related to bio-terrorism, flu pandemics, or anthrax. Obviously they weren’t trying to find a cure for anything, or there would be no need to silence them.

Then it was discovered that our government was involved in strange experiments that involve exhuming bodies of people that were killed by the 1918 Spanish flu, and genetically engineered flu viruses, all the while the media is preparing the public with stories of bird flu wiping out thousands of chickens (acid test?) and even a few people here and there.

People who are becoming accustomed to the practices and motives of our criminal government tried to warn you of an impending flu pandemic, but your TV training taught you to dismiss them all as "crazy conspiracy theorists," and you naturally associated all their warnings with stories of Bigfoot and UFO abductions, just as you were trained to do.

The good folks of FEMA predicted a need for a few million plastic coffins, which are now spread out across the country, but despite this revelation, most of America still thinks their biggest concern is a toss up between the Super Bowl and American Idol.

Well it seems as if the crazy conspiracy theorists were right again, because the world-wide flu pandemic they were warning you about has been unleashed, and it will dominate the headlines until millions, if not billions of people are dead. It won’t be stopped because no one with the means to stop it wants to stop it.

Wash your hands often, pull your kids out of school, avoid crowds, if not people altogether, avoid alcohol or drugs that will weaken your resistance, and stay well-nourished.

Two of the goals here are to cull the population, and to encourage general mayhem and misery that only a World Government can save you from. You’ll be so worn out and tired of death and depression that you’ll offer little resistance to the new order. The economic collapse and World War three are part of the same plan, and it’s all been tried before. It’s the same crew behind this latest attempt, and it’s not difficult to see who’s behind it all, once again.

This flu pandemic that will soon cause people to drop like flies is no mutated bird flu. It’s a genetically engineered virus designed to kill as many people as possible. And after people do start dropping like flies, political dissidents will be accused of being flu carriers and no one will object to them being hauled away. Good luck. -- Jolly Roger

A Meditation on Our Monetary System: State of Permanent Siege

2009-04-24T17:06:00.002+01:00

THE LEVEL OF PUBLIC IGNORANCE on the topic of the U.S. and world monetary system is astonishing. This is part of the plan, of course, because the monetary elite control not only the financial system but also the news media, the publishing industry, and the educational system. The blueprint for control was put together over a century ago by Cecil Rhodes and his friends, including British financier Nathan Rothschild, as documented by Professor Carroll Quigley.

During the 20th Century the power shifted to the U.S., with the Rockefellers playing the dominant role as they continue to do today. It is no accident that J.P. Morgan Chase—the Rockefeller family bank—dominates the U.S. derivatives market; nor that Exxon-Mobil, the Rockefellers' oil company, is the most profitable corporation in history.

The basic plan was to place all of mankind in a state of permanent mental and emotional siege so that in the end we would trade all our liberties to the controllers in return for protection; even freedom of thought would be traded for physical safety. That plan is well advanced. The sheeple have been prepared for the final shearing.

Meanwhile, every attempt at real reform has been strangled in the cradle. Past voices for monetary sanity like those of Congressmen Louis McFadden and Jerry Voorhis were silenced. Starting in the 1970s, functionaries like Kissinger, Brzezinski, and Volcker carried out David Rockefeller's plan to outsource manufacturing to China and eliminate the U.S. as the world's greatest industrial democracy, replacing it with a financier oligarchy.

Barack Obama obviously works mainly for the financiers, as did Bill Clinton before him. The job of the Democrats is to keep the sheeple quiet by now and then implementing some “reforms”; the Republicans were a more blatant gang of looters.

During the 2008 election campaign, Ron Paul called for the end of the Federal Reserve, the bastion of financier control, but no one effectively organized the millions of people who responded to his call or had a viable plan to put in place. Barack Obama obviously works mainly for the financiers, as did Bill Clinton before him. The job of the Democrats is to keep the sheeple quiet by now and then implementing some “reforms”; the Republicans were a more blatant gang of looters.

With the financial crash of 2008-2009, the noose is tightening everywhere in the world. The International Monetary Fund is announcing, “The current global recession is likely to be ‘unusually long and severe, and the recovery sluggish.'” (BBC News, “IMF Sees Long and Severe Slowdown,” April 16, 2009.) In reality, as the IMF knows, it would be possible to put every nation in the world on the road to recovery by allowing them to prime the economic pump through sovereign control of their own monetary systems, with freedom to utilize their own natural resources.

The IMF announcement is in fact the start of a worldwide program of genocide similar to what was done to Russia in the 1990s, with crushing poverty, slashing of incomes, reduction of benefits for the poor and elderly, rising levels of disease and malnutrition, and reduction of life expectancy. We in the West will view the carnage with alarm from our own stripped-down economies but remain docile out of fear the same will be done to us.

Awareness of the hideous evil of the financiers' plans to destroy the soul of humanity is growing. This is being accomplished through the internet and the work of a number of writers who understand what is at stake. I doubt this channel of expression will be available indefinitely. Already alternative websites are being isolated and marginalized. But the fight must be waged.

The one organization that has a program which is comprehensive and free from outside influence is the American Monetary Institute, which has drafted the American Monetary Act. If the Act is introduced in Congress, it will be imperative for it to be recognized and supported as the one chance to save our nation from the dark night that is threatening. But even progressive writers shrink from taking on the Monetary Power, with many of them putting forth the absurdity that all we need to do is reform the banking system.

The American Monetary Act has been in process since 2003. It may be found on the AMI website at: http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf. AMI will conduct a presentation on the Act on Capitol Hill, April 23, 2009, in Room 304 of the Cannon House Office Building. Presentations will take place at 10:00 AM and at 2:00 PM.

At the same time, groups of relatively conscious people can come together on their own to create refuges of sanity until the danger passes–over a period of years, decades, or even generations. And, to look at it from a spiritual perspective, we can hope that the Higher Powers who observe humanity's destiny refuse to allow our particular experiment in consciousness to be obliterated.

Destruction of human consciousness is the real goal of the financiers and their minions. It is lies above all that do this. The financiers' power is the biggest lie of all.

Russia moves troops closer to Georgia's capital

2009-04-23T13:01:00.003+01:00

At a military checkpoint between Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia, the word "Russia" is hand-painted in pink on a concrete security barrier.

"It will be Russia," said a Russian army lieutenant as the Ossetian soldiers under his command nodded.

"And Georgia used to be Russian, too," said the young freckle-faced lieutenant, who would give only his first name, Sergei. Three armored personnel carriers and a tank were dug in around the checkpoint.

Russia has troops just 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Georgian capital, in violation of the European Union-brokered cease-fire that ended last year's brief war. And in recent weeks, it has put even more soldiers and armored vehicles within striking distance of the city ahead of street protests against Georgia's president.

The protests, which began April 9, drew about 10,000 people Tuesday, and opposition leaders said they would continue daily until President Mikhail Saakashvili resigned.

The demonstrations have been fed by public anger over Georgia's humiliating defeat in the August war, which left Russian troops on previously Georgian-controlled territory and drove tens of thousands of Georgians from their homes.

By reinforcing its military presence at a time of potential political instability, Russia appears determined to maintain pressure on Saakashvili, whom Moscow has openly said must be replaced before relations can be repaired.

Georgia's Western-leaning government accuses the Kremlin of hoping to capitalize on political unrest to restore its influence over the former Soviet republic, which for almost 200 years was ruled by Moscow.

The presence of the Russian troops poses a dilemma for Washington as it aims to improve relations with Moscow. Georgia worries the Obama administration will be reluctant to pressure Russia to comply with the cease-fire while seeking its cooperation on priority issues like the war in Afghanistan and North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

Tensions over Georgia also complicate efforts to restore ties between Russia and NATO, which broke off contacts following the war. Russia has strongly objected to NATO military exercises scheduled to begin May 6 in Georgia and has warned the U.S. against helping Georgia rebuild its army.

The military checkpoint near Akhmaji enforces a new boundary between Georgia and South Ossetia, the Russian-supported region that was at the center of the fighting. After routing the Georgian army, Russian troops took over entire districts of South Ossetia that had long been under Georgian control.

Russian forces also occupied a new swath of territory in a second breakaway republic, Abkhazia, along the Black Sea coast.

The European Union and United States consider Russia in violation of the cease-fire signed by President Dmitry Medvedev, which called for troops to pull back to positions held before the war began.

Russia says the cease-fire has been superseded by separate agreements it signed with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow now recognizes as independent states.

The actions by Russia reflect both its military strength and its willingness to challenge the West to reclaim a dominant role in Georgia and elsewhere in its former sphere of influence.

Georgia's government sees Russia as determined to prevent the West from considering Georgia a reliable transit country for oil and natural gas, contending that was Russia's main objective in the war.

The pipelines that cross Georgian territory are among the few that bypass Russia in supplying Europe with energy from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. During the war, Russia bombed areas near the pipelines.

"Russia wants to be the monopoly supplier," said political analyst Shalva Pichkhadze.

Russia's Foreign Ministry confirmed the Kremlin has sent reinforcements to the boundary lines. It was responding to fears the Georgian government would provoke clashes to distract from the opposition protests, ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.

Georgia's Interior Ministry said Russia has 15,000 soldiers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which would be far more than in past months. Since the beginning of April, Russia has moved 130 armored vehicles toward the boundary line from elsewhere in South Ossetia and 70 more have entered South Ossetia from Russia, ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said.

Russia's Defense Ministry refused to comment on the composition of its forces, and Georgia's claims could not be independently verified. European monitors who patrol the boundary lines are not allowed into South Ossetia or Abkhazia, and journalists also are stopped at Russian checkpoints.

Peter Semneby, the EU special representative for the South Caucasus, said the Russian military presence is clearly "significantly larger" than it was.

From a Georgian police checkpoint just 100 yards (meters) from a Russian roadblock controlling access to the village of Akhmaji, a half dozen Russian tanks and other armored vehicles can be seen in the valley.

Local police chief Timur Burduli said the vehicles appeared during the first week of April and are the Russian forces closest to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. "A tank needs only 40 minutes," he said.

Along the highway to Tbilisi, a freshly dug anti-tank trench stretches across a long field. Steve Bird, spokesman for the EU monitors, said the Georgians have been building such defenses in recent weeks.

USA sent 14,000 tonnes of munitions to Israel one week before attack on Gaza

2009-04-12T14:16:00.002+01:00

A week before Israel launched an aerial bombing campaign on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the U.S. military shipped 989 20-foot containers of munitions, each weighing 14,000 tonnes, to Israel.
In the dying days of the Bush administration, and a week before Israel launched an aerial bombing campaign, followed by a land invasion of the Gaza Strip, the U.S. military shipped 989 containers of munitions to Israel.

Each container was 20-feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tonnes. The shipment reportedly reached Israel last month at Ashod, 40 kiometres north of Gaza. The huge arsenal of munitions will replenish those expended in the Gaza War.

According to Amnesty International in the UK, the shipment included white phosphorous.

The international organization says 300 of the containers had been unloaded at Ashod in March by a German cargo ship, Wehr Elb.

"We are sure that the consignment contained arms and munitions." We have a strong suspicion that it contained white phosphorous which has been used against civilians in Gaza," Brian Wood, head of Arms Control Campaign at Amnesty International in London said late this week.

"The cargo ship had been chartered and controlled by US Military Sealift Command. It left the USA for Israel on December 20, one week before the start of Israeli attacks on Gaza. The vessel was carrying 989 containers of munitions, each of them 20-feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tonnes," he said.

"The world community including the Palestinians should be able to know where the remaining 680 containers on board the Wehr Elbe have gone and why the US is not transparent about the final destination of the dangerous cargo.

"A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to Amnesty International that "the unloading of the entire US munitions shipment was successfully completed at Ashdod on March 22," Wood pointed out.

The spokesperson had said the shipment was destined for a US pre-positioned munitions stockpile in Israel, he said. Under a US-Israel agreement, munitions from this stockpile may be transferred for Israeli use if necessary.
"There is a great risk that the new munitions may be used by the Israeli military to commit further violations of international law, like the ones committed during the war in Gaza," Wood said.

"Legally and morally, this US arms shipment should have been halted by the Obama administration given the extent of the evidence showing how military equipment and munitions of this kind were recently used by the Israeli forces for war crimes. Arms supplies in these circumstances are contrary to provisions in US law," he said.

An independent inquiry into possible abuses of international law by both sides in the Gaza conflict has been launched by the United Nations. The panel is being headed by Justice Richard J Goldstone of South Africa.

"The victims of this brutal conflict have a right to justice and reparation. The perpetrators on both sides must be held accountable if there is to be an end to the cycles of violence and impunity that have persisted for so long. There must be no excuse for either Israel or the Palestinians not to fully cooperate with the inquiry,' Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa Programme Director Malcolm Smart said this week.

30,000 Gather In Strasbourg, France / popular protest

2009-04-10T08:59:00.005+01:00

As protesters begin to build barricades and set them on fire, the Franco-German border bridge is brimming with cops in full riot gear. People are milling about, exchanging flyers, watching the dozens of police boats zip around on the Rhine, and walking back and forth from the large meeting ground 500 yards or so away. The atmosphere is tense. Police surround the island that is the Port of Strasbourg, yet on the island itself protesters have free reign. Destruction is in the air.

Thursday (April 2) already saw the 1,500 strong black block wreak havoc in the south part of the city, smashing windows at the police headquarters and a military base, graffiti-ing all along the way. Police repression followed with an invasion of the 10,000 strong protesters’ camp ground and 140 arrests. Later on Thursday, an attempted invasion of the camp was fought back as police launched tear gas into surrounding residential neighborhoods, and protesters lit barricades on fire and responded with Molotov cocktails. Friday was a “lighter” day as the anti-NATO conferences went ahead with big speakers such as Tariq Ali and Noam Chomsky, though following the conferences there were once again skirmishes on the outskirts of the camp.

Saturday however was the first official day of the NATO Summit in Strasbourg hosting all the leaders of NATO countries and the announcement of their “New Strategic Concept for the 21st Century” in which NATO, in effect, intends to replace the UN as the deciding international body. This “concept” will undoubtedly continue NATO’s post-1989 trajectory of encircling Russia by pursuing military bases in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and its missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland despite massive popular opinion against the project.

However, the clearest motive of Barack Obama’s American delegation is the “comprehensive strategy” in Afghanistan which intends to continue the occupation’s escalation by the Bush administration - between 2004 and 2007 the number of air strikes increased from 86 to 2,926 - by adding 21,000 troops to the already 38,000 plus on the ground there. As the country is already divided into occupied sectors of Italians, Americans, French, Germans, and Dutch/Canadian/British like post-Nazi Germany or Austria, the current intervention continues a war that has hardly ceased for 30 years with 8,000 dead in 2007, 260,000 having fled the country, and ¼ of the population lacking adequate food and water. Additionally, only $15 billion of the $25 billion in promised aid from NATO has reached the country, albeit with 40% of the aid given to European and American companies contracted to maintain the occupation there and thus never actually reaching the population.

The situation is dire, as 46,000 Afghans have already died avoidable deaths in the first 40 days of the Obama presidency. And while Obama claims he desires a more global outlook by reaching out to other world leaders, he is also demanding more “responsibility” on their part by fighting America’s wars in the Muslim world. Just one month before the NATO summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the full reintegration of France in NATO’s military command after a 40-year absence. This peaked people’s interest: would this mean that France - and other European countries - will send more troops to fight the illegal war in Afghanistan? And could this compromise France’s future capability to challenge illegal American wars as they did in Iraq?

Regardless, the move proved a rallying cry for the anti-war movement and the roughly 30,000 protestors who gathered in Strasbourg to say no to NATO.

Despite initial police provocation preventing protesters from safely reaching the meeting point for the protest on Saturday, large groups began to amass in the residential area of the Port of Strasbourg around 1 o’clock. Contingents made their way to the German border bridge where police had formed a formidable obstacle for the 7,000 German protesters on the other side - who were emptily told they could join the French protest - and consequently set fire to the customs office. Helicopters zoomed overhead, their view obscured by the smoke. Desks came out of the building to fuel the fiery barricades. Graffiti scrawled on the walls proclaimed “social war,” “this is for the Afghans,” and “down with NATO, down with capitalism.” Walking toward the meeting grounds, protesters start dismantling billboards, security cameras, and ATMs. With the protest still unable to start as police cordoned off the zone preventing more protesters from entering and those inside from leaving, the destruction begins to take on a new element. A joint bank-pharmacy, like the customs office, goes up in flames sending huge waves of smoke into the sky. Bus stations are obliterated with crow bars, street signs are thrown on developing barricade fires, and church doors are graffiti-ed with quotations from the Enlightenment. The next target is a 6-story hotel which is pillaged and set on fire. Shortly after, the police arrive with tear gas, forcing out the last protesters. A cloud of tear gas envelopes the zone, reaching the assembled 30,000 protesters just 100 yards away. Thousands are coughing and spraying serum into their eyes to alleviate the unbearable burning sensation. Nevertheless, the speeches continue with the overwhelming majority condemning the police actions against the crowd.

The protest finally begins at roughly 3 o’clock as the large mass makes its way along the port to the entrance bridge into the city. Thousands of riot police block the passage, forcing the protest to turn right and circle its way back into the embattled neighborhood. Arriving at the railroad crossing over the entrance back into the neighborhood, the passage is once again blocked. Police begin to close people in on both sides, shooting rubber bullets, tear gas, deafening grenades and spray from a water cannon. Offices are once again smashed, a post office ransacked. Rocks from the train tracks rain down on police who respond with more tear gas. Police violence reaches a peak when they regain control of the tracks and corner a group of pacifists against a wall raining tear gas down upon them. They consequently herd the defenseless and weary mass out of the port zone arresting anyone dressed in black. In the end, roughly 300 are arrested - though only 12 remain in custody - with around 50 injured - ¼ of which are police.

Of course the following day the consensus in the media was shock and condemnation. The only interesting perspective was that of residents in the ravaged working class neighborhood who directed their shock at the authorities who “allowed their community to be sacrificed.” While they were confused and afflicted by the destruction of their neighborhood, they seemed to understand that a city which welcomes a NATO summit in the current environment will not come out unscathed. To the contrary, a city which welcomes the 60th anniversary celebration of NATO’s war crimes must inevitably pay a heavy price. Yet, they were the ones forced to shoulder the burden.

Growing Interest in Islamic Finance

2009-04-08T20:23:00.002+01:00

As the western capitalist model is on the defensive, there is a growing interest in interest-less Islamic finance.

Islamic finance, an approach to economic activity that incorporates Shariah religious law, is gaining momentum as an alternative to the western capitalist economic model as the global recession continues. The Western capitalist model is on the defensive as leaders, entrepreneurs, and economists chafe against growing protectionism and erect regulations. Champions of Islamic finance cite its resilience in the current economic climate, but what are the implications of it as a global system?

Islamic economics emerged as a concept and academic discipline in the 1970s. Its founders argued that Islam encompasses all areas of human existence including economics. Islamic finance features divestment in alcohol, gambling, and pork related businesses and zakat, or almsgiving. The most central feature of Islamic finance, and subject of debate within the Muslim world, is the prohibition against riba, which is translated as usury or interest, reflecting two divergent economic approaches and interpretations of the Quran itself.

Moderate practitioners of Islamic finance define riba as usury or an exploitative interest rate. Proponents of this interpretation note the context of the Quran where the pre-Islamic Arabian institution of riba was observed by the prophet Mohammad. During that time, the amount of money a debtor owed would actually double with each default of payment, essentially resulting in economic slavery. This interpretation, which calls for modest or fixed interest, allows the finances to Muslims to be more easily incorporated into, and accommodated by the existing economic system in which interest is a critical component. For example, government bonds, arbitrage, and stock trading are allowable with minor adjustments.

When riba is understood to mean interest of any kind in the strictest possible definition advanced by Islamists, the Islamic economic model is construed as a model which must operate entirely separate of the existing system. It is an asset based system emphasizing profit sharing over interest and applying strict Islamist interpretations to modern financial products. An Islamic business loan, for example, may peg an implicit interest rate to the profit of a venture. If the business makes no money, neither does the bank, and if profits grow, so too may the implied interest. Once the principal on the loan is paid, the profit-sharing arrangement ends. Collateral expectations are generally higher than traditional banks in order to protect the bank from default, and because risk is shared between banks and account holders, banks are expected to scrutinize transactions more closely.

Critics note that the early founders of Islamic economics were Islamists explicitly interested in establishing strict Islamic rule over society and secular governments, supplanting the western economic model, and priming the world for eventual Islamic hegemony. They further cite institutional weaknesses and suggest that weaker financial reporting standards may result in greater access to financing for terrorist and criminal activities. Patrick Sookhdeo of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity cites that Muslim critics assert that Islamic economics is an “invented tradition” and “neither Islamic nor efficient” and likens the practice to “financial smoke and mirrors” that use legal and financial tricks to merely repackage interest.

Islamist conceptualizations of Islamic economics can be problematic for micro-finance. Micro-lending, which has economically empowered over 100 million of the world’s poorest, faces challenges in parts of the Muslim world. For example, in Bangladesh, where tensions between secular and Islamic influences are increasingly pronounce, some villages accept the much needed aid while others turn it down on the grounds that it is incompatible with Shariah law.

Nevertheless, in the Muslim world, the banks are seen by Muslim leaders as more resistant to the current economic downturn than traditional banks. Malaysia is a regional hub of Islamic economic activity, and Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi cites a need for an alternative system due to the, “unbridled greed in the financial system.” In neighboring Indonesia, a G20 member and the world’s most populous predominantly Muslim nation, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is calling on Islamic bankers to “do some missionary work in the Western world,” pointing out that the West has never been more receptive than it is now.

Calls for the expansion of Islamic banking mirror its growth over the last 40 years. Since the first Islamic banking institutions opened their doors in the 1970s they have expanded, numbering at least 300 in 75 countries with global assets nearing US$300 billion according to a 2005 IMF report. In 2006, US$1 trillion was handled in an Islamic manner and 50 to 60 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims are expected to have their savings handled by an Islamic financial institution by 2020. Outside of the Muslim world, the availability of Islamic financial products continues to grow, particularly in the UK and the US. A 2006 report by the Middle East media Research Institute (MEMRI) attributes the expansion of Islamic banking outside of the Muslim world to the outpouring to wealth from Gulf financial hubs like Dubai.

Muslim wealth will continue to grow and become enmeshed with the global economic system, and so too will Islamic finance. The question within the Muslim world, the UK, and the US is whether or not it is compatible with the traditional financial system. If it is, what are its merits? If it is not, what are the implications of its incompatibility? How Islamic economics is conceptualized by Moderates and Islamists in this financial climate will affect the future of investment and economic engagement in the Muslim world.

America collapses

2009-04-08T16:48:00.003+01:00

I told you that it's a funny world getting funnier. Many American analysts are saying that America's real economic collapse could come by the end of this year. "It will come to be known as 'The Crash of 09', they say. Others, especially a Russian political analyst, are predicting its physical collapse too. There's no doubt that the country is up the dirtiest of imaginable creeks without a paddle. But what's amazing is that America remains mired in stunning denial, continuing to make bad situations worse with useless bailout plans and messing around with the world instead of facing up to the reality that its time as a hyper-power is up, that's its economic system has failed and that its only recourse is to end its adversarial doctrine and get out of its lost wars as painlessly and honourably as possible. There's no point in going on flogging dead horses. The only sensible thing that survival demands is to craft a new moral economic and financial system and a moral foreign policy.

The deep recession verging on depression that we have seen so far was caused by the crash in the US housing market. Since other developed industrialised nations, especially of Europe, were aping the shenanigans of unchecked and poorly regulated American bankers and financiers, the collapse of their markets, banks and economies followed like dominoes. Iceland was the first to officially declare bankruptcy. Its GDP is only about $6.5 billion but its banks had lent something like $65 billion while its regulators were asleep on the wheel. Britain has not declared bankruptcy officially but we all know that it is bankrupt for all intents and purposes and none of its banks and financial institutions has any legs left.

However, this is only the aperitif. Wait for the crash of US commercial real estate, which analysts think will happen by autumn this year.

Shops are closing down and there's no one to rent them. Companies are retrenching and freeing up a lot of office space or closing down entirely and vacating even more precious office space with no one to rent it again. Huge skyscrapers are becoming ghost-scrapers.

All this expensive commercial real estate is mortgaged to the hilt. With no rental income coming in, the loans against them will become difficult to service and there will be fearsome default. There's insurance and re-insurance here also and the amounts involved are mind-boggling. No bailout plan would come even close to coping.

When the commercial real estate collapse comes, all hell will break loose. And if multinationals like General Motors and Ford call it a day, it won't just be thousands upon thousands of people unemployed (though its heartless to use the word 'just' here). Two entire towns will be become ghost towns. That's terrible. If you count the number of people - wives, children and parents - who are dependent on those incomes, it becomes worse than terrible. It becomes absolutely and totally unconscionable, while corrupt and greedy bankers and the likes of Bernie Madoff have made off with billions - perhaps trillions - of dollars and are still doing so because "our contracts say so."

Then there is Professor Igor Nikolavich Panarin whom I came across in a December 2008 article by Andrew Osborne of the Wall Street Journal no less, not some fly-by-night rag. If he has got it right, next year will come to be known as 'The Collapse of 2010' for that is when the USA will disintegrate into six separate entities. Those six entities, says Prof Panarin, are The California Republic, The Central North American Republic, Atlantic America, The Texas Republic, Hawaii and Alaska going back to Russia.

With millions of Chinese living on America's eastern seaboard (The People's Daily's circulation there alone is over five million) The California Republic, Prof Panarin thinks, will either be part of China or come under Chinese influence. The Central North American Republic will be part of Canada or under Canadian influence, Atlantic America may join the European Union, The Texas Republic will be part of Mexico or under Mexican influence and Hawaii will go either to Japan or China.

Prof Panarin is a former KGB analyst and a Russian professor of political science, Dean of the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Academy in Moscow and author of several books on geopolitics. Thus one can hardly call him a fruitcake. Actually, he first made this prediction not after the economic meltdown that started last year but in Linz, Austria, in September 1998 in front of 400 delegates at a conference devoted to information warfare and the use of data to get an edge over a rival. Of course it was received with consternation. "When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he says. Later, many delegates asked him to sign copies of the map. Its like when the French political scientist Emmanuel Todd made his famous forecast in 1976 about the collapse of the Soviet Union 15 years before it actually did and many people laughed. But Todd had the last laugh.

Prof Panarin doesn't say that America's collapse is a forgone conclusion. "There's a 55-45 percent chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. But if it comes it will be driven by three factors - "mass immigration, economic decline and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar.

Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the US will break into six pieces... He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the US. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the Union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The US will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in." All we Pakistanis thus have to do is hang in there and soon America will not be meddling in our affairs any more, what to talk of General Patraeus's adviser David Kilcullen saying that Pakistan could fall apart in five or six months.

It's not easy to comprehend the collapse of an empire or a superpower. When termites are eating away at their vitals for years one cannot see it. People are too much in thrall of their power, wealth and panoply. Thus when the collapse comes it seems sudden, and takes people by surprise. "I went to sleep last night and when I woke up next morning the Soviet Union was gone." The most powerful war machine ever built couldn't save it. Remember the British Empire on which "the sun would never set"? It set so firmly that only six decades later Britain is not only bankrupt, it has become America's appendage, a third rate power and could itself disintegrate soon with Scotland seceding. The history of the world is replete with the demise of civilisations, empires and superpowers. The graveyards of nations are full of their bones.

That there may be something to what Prof Panarin says is borne out by the fact that the late Bush Administration made contingency plans to impose martial law in case of economic collapse or massive and violent social unrest with blood on the streets.

His predictions seem plausible, even probable, if all the dire scenarios come right, as they have thus far. According to Rand Clifford the US has already made plans to "round up insurgent US citizens" and detain them in what are called "Rex 84" camps. Plus they have made "safe facilities" for members of Congress and their families. A report by the Phoenix Business Journal says: "A new report by the US Army and War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks." The Journal's story quote from the War College report: "Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defence establishment to reorient priorities in extremist to defend basic domestic order and human security." It needs saying that the military regularly makes plans for the most dire of situations, however seemingly unlikely.

Let Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter and an early supporter of Barack Obama have the last word. The US is "going to have millions and millions of unemployed people really facing dire straits. And we're going to be having that for some period of time before things hopefully improve. And at the same time there's public awareness of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals at levels without historical precedent in America...hell there could even be riots."

Anarchist Blocs, Black and Otherwise

2009-04-06T19:38:00.005+01:00

As one middle-aged mother observed while members of the Quebec Black Bloc hugged each other before going off to battle the cops, “I always thought this was going to be sinister, but these are just brave kids!”
Materials:
# Matching clothing that conceals the wearers’ identities
# Trust and communication
# A mission
Optional Materials:
# Provisions: water (plenty, especially if you’ll be dressed in hot gear or expect chemical weapons attacks), food (don’t rely on shops or shopkeepers in contested zones), etc.
# Camouflage: different layers of clothing for different purposes or stages of the action
# Defensive gear: banners, shields (possibly disguised as puppets or placards), steel-toed shoes (should still be comfortable for running!), body armor or padding, gas masks or goggles and bandannas soaked in lime juice (store in ziplock bags until necessary), rain coats or chemical protection gear (if there is a risk of chemical attack), whatever relevant medical supplies you know how to apply, etc
# Offensive gear: spraypaint, projectiles, slingshots, signs or flags on thick poles (or just plain poles), molotov cocktails, bright lights (to obscure police or camera vision during night actions), ladders and/or bolt cutters for scaling or breaching barriers, etc.
# Communications equipment: hand radios, cell phones, police scanners, flags, drums, shared codes for making internal announcements
# Transportation: bicycles, enough change for the subway, keys to your SUV (easy there, killer, it’s just a joke!)
Action:
What is a Bloc? Are there other kinds besides the Black Bloc?

You may have heard of the notorious Black Bloc, a venerable, if not doddering, anarchist tradition in which a mass of direct action enthusiasts gather, all wearing black clothing and masks, and engage in some level of illegal activity. This tactic has won some famous victories in the past couple decades, and failed utterly more times than anyone can count, too. The specific cultural characteristics that are associated with the Black Bloc tactic today can make it easy to overlook the long history of the Bloc tactic and the wide variety of applications for which it can be used. The Boston Tea Party, for example, was a perfect example of a Bloc at work: the participants organized secretly, wore matching disguises (though their choice to costume themselves as “Indians” wasn’t exactly politically correct), and engaged in a mass act of provocative property destruction; presumably their strategies for communication and mutual defense weren’t much different from those used by the famous Black Blocs that, a couple hundred years later, attacked similarly noxious coffee corporations in Seattle. Those who practice direct action would do well to keep in mind the wide range of scenarios in which a version of the Bloc approach can be useful.
What is a Bloc good for?

Acting in a Bloc is especially useful when some of the participants in the action expect they may break laws. When everyone in a group looks the same, it is difficult for the police or others to tell who did what. Most criminal activities are better carried off in a less obvious manner, of course, but there are situations in which it is necessary to step outside the limits in public. The Bloc tactic as it’s known these days is best for conditions in which the action called for occupies the grey area between overt and covert, and as such it must be applied carefully: if you participate with a Bloc in an entirely legal action, you may make a police target of yourself unnecessarily, or needlessly frighten bystanders; on the other hand, if you intend to engage in serious organized criminal activity, you might be better off doing so outside the traditional Bloc format, in a totally closed group, with the element of surprise and so on. It’s not a coincidence that people don’t liberate animals from fur factories in Black Blocs.

One of the positive sides of public Bloc activity is that, unlike entirely underground activity, it can create open-ended situations, in which the actions of a few can open the floodgates for others to join in. One of the many objectionable qualities of terrorism is that, at best, it is still a spectator sport; a Bloc, on the other hand, can be a participatory and contagious radicalizing experience. The most obvious way to facilitate this is to organize an open or semi-open Bloc. In an open Bloc, a general call goes out to all interested to gather and act in a Bloc; open meetings are held to discuss goals, strategies, and so on. The benefits of such an approach are that more people can be involved; the obvious drawback is that security is so compromised that the possibilities for action are severely limited. In a semi-open Bloc, the organizing takes place in secret, between people who know and trust each other, but when the Bloc itself comes together, others in Bloc attire are welcomed to it; in the past few years of Black Bloc activities, this has been the most frequent format. In such Blocs, it is still necessary that the participants be prepared to deal with infiltration, but they at least have the benefit of secure planning and internal structures. In an entirely closed Bloc, the participants prepare in secret and do not welcome the participation or company of any outsiders during the action. Even when such a Bloc is called for, it can still be valuable to act openly, as a Bloc, rather than covertly: the public nature of the action may send an important message, others outside the Bloc may be inspired to engage in similar actions of their own, the crowd cover itself might enable an escape that would be more difficult for those opting for a clandestine approach.

Besides getting away with public criminal acts, there are other reasons to act in a Bloc. Bloc participation can be really exciting, and good for morale—acting in a mass of people who are ostensibly prepared to do what they believe is right regardless of police intimidation is often a hell of a lot more empowering than chanting weakly with the liberals, and matching battle-dress is a ritual for inspiring courage that need not be abandoned to our uniformed enemies. A Bloc presence may convey important information: to the powers that be, don’t fuck with this march, or don’t you dare rig that jury; to allies or possible allies, don’t despair, we’re with you. Finally, anonymity: there are countless reasons to conceal your identity at mass actions. Even if you do not plan on committing any crimes, even if you don’t mind the secret service capturing your image for their files, you still do a great service to others by masking up and increasing the number of people who are disguised, thus making it more difficult for the police to keep up with all of you. Those others might not just be criminals, either; they might be foreigners who don’t want their participation in radical activities to be used as grounds for deportation, or teachers who don’t want to risk losing their jobs. Sometimes a masked crowd is unnecessarily intimidating to the public; sometimes few enough people are masking up, or police attention is so focused on the Bloc, that you may deem it safer not to draw attention to yourself by doing so, even if you may engage in illegal activities; and sometimes it’s better to show your neighbors where you stand, or let the public and the cameras see that not everyone involved in radical activity is young, white, and male. Otherwise, if others are masking up, you might as well do the same.

Those masks don’t necessarily have to be black ski masks, anyway; there are plenty of more fun, family-oriented ways to obscure your identity. Beyond the Black Bloc, endless possibilities open up: pink Blocs, clown Blocs, doctor Blocs, maintenance worker Blocs… Wherever there are a bunch of people wearing either identical clothing or costumes, the Bloc tactic could be deployed utilizing the matching crowd for camouflage. Halloween, for example, could offer a great opportunity for Bloc action—as could a high school graduation!
Where and how can the Bloc tactic be applied?

Black Bloc actions have been a hit at mass actions over the past couple decades: there have been Blocs in the protests at meetings of such despicable gangs as the World Trade Organization, at political events such as debates between presidential candidates, at anti-war demonstrations and solidarity marches with communities that are suffering police brutality. Wherever there is a mass gathering of protesters, it may make sense to deploy or call for a Bloc.

In such environments, the Bloc can serve many purposes. As mentioned before, it can simply be present as a promise of solidarity, or a threat. It can act as a line of defense for or a distraction from other activists doing civil disobedience actions such as lock-downs and blockades, who will be unable to defend themselves from the police. It can engage in property destruction: this can achieve economic ends, such as inflicting financial losses upon wicked corporations, or other practical goals: a city can be persuaded never to risk hosting another fill-in-the-blank, or alienated workers (and even activists!) can experience firsthand that the stranglehold their oppressors seem to have on reality can literally be broken. A Bloc can attempt to prevent delegates from reaching an unwanted meeting, or trap them inside the meeting space to make sure they get the message that their shenanigans are not welcome. It can reclaim urban space, opening up and protecting a street or park for others to reinterpret and enjoy, or rerouting a permitted march into unpermitted areas. It can engage the police in conflict, and thus disrupt business as usual—a meeting in Quebec City to discuss the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement had to be halted temporarily when tear gas from the streetfighting below entered the vents of the building hosting it. It can offer the possibility of contesting power and control in immediate actions, rather than mere words, and thus keep spirits up and appetites whetted. A Bloc might attempt to set off full-scale rioting, in hope of precipitating an insurrection—or it could simply create a spectacle, to emphasize the anarchist presence and foreground its romantic appeal: liberal carping about “alienating the public” notwithstanding, the Black Blocs in Seattle and afterwards did as much to increase the mass appeal of anarchist action as any propaganda publication ever has. If nothing else, a Bloc action can be good practice for future such actions that may achieve more.

When choosing goals for a Bloc at a mass action, it is critical that the intentions, needs, and comfort levels of locals and others who will be involved or present be taken into account. Alienating people needlessly is not only counterproductive, but endangers Bloc participants; the police are already enough enemies for anyone breaking the law. The last thing you want to do is endanger others with your actions—don’t throw stones at the police from the back of a crowd, don’t risk provoking police attacks on peaceful marches, especially if you’re not planning on sticking around to bear the brunt of them. If you’re operating in a mostly out-of-town group that will be acting in a residential neighborhood, don’t be so arrogant as to think you should be the ones to decide what level of conflict is most appropriate for the situation—far better you show that you respect the needs and perspectives of the locals, and are willing to follow their lead. There may be cases in which it is appropriate to bring a level of intensity to an action that others aren’t prepared to—for example, if liberal organizers are addressing a gross injustice with useless gestures that will do nothing to put things right—but it’s good form to make sure that the first ones to pay the piper for whatever goes down will be you and your companions, not innocent bystanders.

Similarly, it is important to be realistic about what you can hope to accomplish in the situation at hand, given your experience, numbers, and other resources. If the local populace hates the arrogance of the leaders who are meeting in their city, but mistrusts the equally foreign hordes who have gathered there to protest them, it might make more sense to target those leaders than to smash corporate windows in what the locals might perceive as an outsiders’ attack on their home streets. Take everything into account: the personality of the police force, the current local political climate, how aware others will be of what happens to you and your companions, whether the authorities will want to teach you a lesson this time or avoid inopportune media coverage, whether the police will be trying to secure the whole area (in which case you can expect them to attempt mass arrests, if they have the numbers) or simply protect a part of it (in which case they may resort to dispersal or defense tactics, if they are outnumbered or uncertain). Is your action intended for media coverage, for those who witness it in person, for those who participate in it, or for those who foot the bills? Is your goal worth the risk, is it appropriate to the event in question?

Outside the mass at mass actions, acting in a Bloc is a much riskier proposition, for the Bloc can be easily surrounded and neutralized by the police. Historically, at demonstrations, almost every Bloc that has mixed well with a much larger mass of law-abiding protesters has managed to maintain some degree of safety and coherence, while almost every Bloc that has attempted to operate in their absence has suffered or at least risked serious police repression. Some lessons we can draw from such previous successes and failures are:

1. The Bloc should not operate without either the element of surprise or the benefit of broad crowd cover, at least not unless it is expected to be of vast numbers, high morale, and great defensive experience, or unless the purpose of the action is to get a lot of participants arrested.

2. Announced direct actions (Blocs, unpermitted marches, etc.) at mass events should always take place on or before the big day of general protest, never after them. When direct action precedes or coincides with massive marches and gatherings, it often sets the tone for everything that follows, upping the ante and radicalizing the event in general; when direct action enthusiasts are the only ones left out on the street after the law-abiding activists have gone home, the police know they can isolate, abuse, and arrest them without fear of stepping on the toes of the “wrong” citizens, or being observed by such citizens as they do so. The presence of others who would witness police brutality is an important deterrent; work without it at your peril.

3. Those operating in a Bloc need to have the support or at least the respect of some, if not most, of those outside the Bloc, so as to ensure their safety on the field, let alone general good will in the activist community. In one historic instance, a Black Bloc was surrounded and cornered by police, who were moving in to finish it off when a march organized by a liberal women’s organization was re-routed to pass through the area and provide members of the Bloc with an opportunity to blend in and escape. To this end, it helps a great deal if the goals or targets of the Bloc are instantly comprehensible to outsiders, so whether or not others agree with the tactic itself they can at least understand why it is being employed.

On the other hand, there are cases in which none of these rules of thumb is relevant. Entirely outside the realm of mass actions, as long as the element of surprise is present, there are many other environments in which the Bloc tactic can be applied; indeed, such applications may be the most promising for the future of the Bloc, now that police are very familiar with and prepared for Bloc presence at demonstrations. A Bloc operating swiftly and with the element of surprise against an unsuspecting target can accomplish a great deal, especially if it is of decent size. Consult the illustration at the end of this text for an example of how a Bloc can be deployed outside the demonstration format to wreak havoc on corporate and governmental property.

When acting in a Bloc with no demonstrating mass for cover, the most important advantage you have to work with is surprise. If you organize in such a way that the authorities in question don’t see your action coming, you may be able to get everything done and escape before they’re able to respond. Even when they do arrive, chances are they will not be prepared to make mass arrests, so you can expect them to attempt only to seize individuals; in this situation, the individuals carrying out high risk actions may be able to disappear in the commotion (enthusiasts of civil disobedience could even snarl the police up in petty arrests to facilitate this, though they might thus risk a conspiracy charge if they were connected to the Bloc)—or, if the group is able to act with a high degree of solidarity and audacity, staying close together and not permitting police to get their hands on individuals within it, it might be possible to negotiate a departure en masse, though you can expect to be followed at the very least. It has happened before that groups of activists breaking the law together, who showed that they would not be intimidated nor allow members to be picked off, have been permitted by unprepared police to leave an area in return for concluding their action. It’s also happened that they’ve had rubber bullets shot at them, though! If some of you are planning illegal activity of a serious nature, it may be a good idea to have others in your group applying a wide range of less confrontational tactics, so the police won’t be as likely to treat you all as hard-core criminals . Always be sure everyone in your group, especially the ones who aren’t keen on taking great legal risks, knows exactly what the highest level of possible illegal activity is in advance, as you never know whether the police will choose to hold others responsible for the actions of those they couldn’t catch!

If you’re showing up at a corporate office at sunrise, you can expect to be practically the only ones there, and you’ll have to count on speed and clever escape routes for your liberty; but there are other situations in which, just as at a demonstration, there will be crowd cover—even potentially supportive crowd cover—to melt into. Who knows, a Sports Fan Bloc mixing with the jubilant crowd celebrating a home team football victory might be able to touch off hard-core anti-corporate vandalism and looting!

When making plans and setting goals for a Bloc action in a particular context, it is always important to look back in history for precedents. If the last time someone tried something similar to what you are trying was a disaster, you had better figure out what new element you can throw in to give yourself a better chance. History tends to repeat itself—at least when we don’t use our ingenuity to derail it! Get familiar with the history of Bloc actions over the past few years; whenever you’re considering joining in one, pick out and consider the previous example that best indicates what you can expect from this one—keeping in mind, of course, that your adversaries have been doing the same, so counting on a particular stratagem to work twice is a risky proposition. It is at least as important to know when not to do a Bloc action as it is to know when to try one: unsuccessful attempts to act in Bloc, when there are not enough participants available or the conditions are not favorable, can sap energy better applied elsewhere. When you strike in Bloc, strike hard and impressively, then wait for the next realistic chance to do so again.
Structure

Naturally, the affinity group is the basic building block of any Bloc. It is impossible to overstate the importance of engaging in Bloc activity as part of a small group capable of fending for itself and making decisions; to do otherwise is to abdicate responsibility for yourself to the mass, and to deny that mass the benefit of your participation as an equal. Blocs made up of self-sufficient affinity groups can make democratic decisions quickly, can split up into equally effective smaller groups, can handle stressful situations without the added stress of herding a flock of confused followers. It goes without saying that within your affinity group, you should establish common expectations about what goals are, what level of risk is acceptable, what kind of security is appropriate. Security is especially important in Bloc activities, because of the sketchy mix of public and unlawful activity that may be involved; be sure everyone has the same sense of security culture.

Regardless of the total size of the Bloc, each affinity group should be totally self-sustaining, at least in regards to the goals it intends to achieve. Escape routes, legal resources, emergency backup plans, knowledge of the area—every affinity group should have all of these. A buddy system inside a group is useful, so if the group itself is dispersed individuals can take responsibility for the safety and whereabouts of their partners. Internal roles can be assigned: for example, scouts who keep track of activity and police presence (these can be equipped with hand radios or cell phones with which to communicate with the main group, and can ride bicycles for extra speed and mobility; it usually makes the most sense to position them a block or so away from the group, so they can provide early warnings and broader perspective on the area), communications people (also with radios or cell phones, and perhaps a police scanner) to exchange information with the scouts and other groups, runners to communicate new information to nearby groups, experienced folks to correlate and consider information and take responsibility for making split-second decisions, persons to actually carry out the actions planned, lookouts to cover them, perhaps a flag-bearer or marching band to maintain morale and keep the group visible from a distance, and so on. It might be wise to have one person in non-Bloc clothing to attend the Bloc, to handle such tasks as explaining to spectators that they should not take photographs, for the police can seize their cameras and use the pictures in court. The role the affinity group plays in a larger group can also be specialized: an affinity group could serve as scouts for a larger Bloc, or set out to blockade a particular intersection, or concentrate on maintaining a banner at the front of a large group.

An affinity group can form a small, ad-hoc Bloc on its own, but a larger, more powerful Bloc can be formed as a cluster of affinity groups. In this case, it is critical that efficient and democratic structures be set up within the cluster. It should be possible for news, questions, and answers to be communicated swiftly between individuals within affinity groups and between affinity groups themselves, in even the tensest of situations. Some have argued in favor of a more militaristic Bloc model, that would presumably operate more like the hierarchical regiments our enemies pit against us, but the very strength of the Bloc is its decentralized, unpredictable nature; it seems foolish to try to beat our oppressors at their own game rather than capitalizing on our own strengths. Better we improve our coordination, rather than control: we are conductors setting the stage for improvisation, not military tacticians with underlings and commanding officers.

In a Bloc made up of affinity groups from different areas, the local group will inevitably have the most information about what is possible, and may well consequently have done the most thinking and preparing. This is not necessarily a problem, as long as others trust them and are organized enough themselves to retain their autonomy. The local group should make provisions for sharing as much information with others as is safe, and also be sure not to assume unthinkingly a position of authority over the other groups; a local group attempting to lead an uninformed mass on an unrevealed secret mission can be a real recipe for disaster.
Preparation

One of the most important things to do before an action is learn the area. As many members of each group as possible should spend time traversing it, taking careful note of escape routes and dead ends, cameras, places the police may mass or seek to protect, possible targets, possible resources (barricading materials such as moveable fences, etc.), and above all making sure they will not get lost. Those who cannot be there in advance should at least memorize maps. It is possible to get aerial maps off the internet, for locations for which street maps are unavailable or do not suffice.

Make sure you have safe accommodations before the action, if there’s any chance the police are expecting it. Far too many times, the police have raided activist housing before an action and arrested hundreds of people; do everything you can to find a place to sleep and prepare that is off their radar, so you won’t run that risk. Stay with a friend of your uncle, or rent sleeping space at a YMCA. Don’t be stuck trying to sleep in your car on the streets they’re patrolling in preparation for the next day’s riot! If you’re from out of town, make equally sure your traveling group (which may not be the same as your affinity group) has planned a safe regrouping and departure from the area, and has a backup plan in case of emergency. Keep in mind that if things really go off, certain parts of the city may be closed off to you after the action, so you’ll need to regroup elsewhere.

Advance meetings are a critical part of the preparation for most Blocs. Again, how secure or public these meetings are will depend on how many people (and with what level of direct action experience) you hope to involve, and what degree of legal risk you’re willing to take. If you’re trying to organize a massive but largely symbolic open Bloc, you might choose to circulate meeting times openly; if you’re organizing the core of a Bloc that will be open in the street but needs some preparation in private, tell others you trust to pass on an invitation to the meeting only to those they trust; if you’re preparing an entirely closed Bloc, not only should you only reveal the time and place of the meeting to your companions in the action, but you should also make sure they all know not to mention the existence of the project itself to anyone, and to have alibis ready so their other friends won’t wonder what they’re up to.

Meeting location is an important factor in security. You don’t want a place that can be monitored (no private residences), you don’t want a place where you can be observed all together (not the park across from the site of the next day’s actions), you don’t want a place where you can be seen entering and leaving or that someone could enter unexpectedly—post scouts, lock the door once things get started, watch out for anything suspicious. I’ll never forget exiting an ultra-high security meeting in a university basement only to discover that while we’d been locked in, a crowd of liberal student protestors had flooded the adjoining room to watch a slideshow—which all the organizers of the next day’s militant Black Bloc had to wade through in embarrassment! Oops! Small groups can take walks and chat; larger groups can meet in quiet outdoor settings—go hiking or camping, if there’s time—or in private rooms in public buildings, such as library study rooms or empty classrooms. Best case scenario: though he has no idea you’re involved in direct action, you’re close with the old guy who runs the café across town, and he doesn’t mind letting you have the back room one afternoon for a private party, no questions asked.

Once everyone is together, if the folks in attendance do not all know each other already you can establish the level of security by playing the “vouched for” game: each person puts a hand on someone else present they know and trust. Hopefully, everyone in the room will be touching, through one connection or another, and the meeting can begin with some degree of confidence in the air.

If you are part of an affinity group participating in a larger Bloc, you’ll want to have your own meetings first, so when a representative of your group attends the larger meeting she can present the information you have, the resources you have to offer, the goals you hope to achieve, and the plans you propose, according to how much of this you trust a larger number of people to know. If this is a mass action and there is a larger spokescouncil meeting taking place, at least one person from the Bloc or in communication with it should attend; it may or may not be safe for this person to identify herself as such, but she should at least be there to take note of what else is going on. A representative of the Bloc could attend the spokescouncil presenting herself as a part of an affinity group hoping to do support for those involved in Bloc activity, and thus test the waters or even meet others interested in the Bloc.

In the meetings with your affinity group and the Bloc, you’ll want to establish a plan of some kind for the day (these almost never come off as intended, but they help to get everyone in practice thinking about the situation, and it’s good to be prepared to have something to do in case everything does work out), and a structure to facilitate the Bloc communicating and making quick, democratic decisions, as described above. Structure will make you adaptable and thus effective, whether or not your plans come to fruition. You should establish a meeting point for the Bloc, plans for dispersal, and a possible time and place for regrouping, if that would be desirable should the Bloc be divided early. Share legal information, what resources will be available for those who are arrested. Go over every possible scenario, what you can expect from each other in each of them. Psychology is important here: plan for the worst, but don’t demoralize yourselves—you’re considering the possible problems so you’ll be ready for them, not to talk yourself out of action.

Finally—if there will be more than one language spoken among demonstrators or locals, make sure to learn a few important phrases in each of them: “we are not against you, we want no trouble with you,” “don’t run, walk!” “medical assistance needed!”
During the action

It is often wise to write the phone number of a legal contact on your body in permanent marker shortly before an action, so you can be sure it will be available to you if you are arrested, regardless of what else transpires. You may need to know other cell phone numbers and so on for the day’s actions: try to learn them by heart, or, failing that, write them on your skin in an ink that you can rub off if absolutely necessary. You’ll also want to have enough money on you for food, transportation, and phone calls, but no more, as that would probably disappear in the event of arrest. Remove piercings that could be torn out. Do not carry your address book, or unnecessary anarchist propaganda, or anything needlessly incriminating or illegal; take your I.D. with you if you want to be processed as your “true” identity in the event of arrest, make sure you have no identifying papers on you if you plan on withholding your identity from the police in that event. Carry plenty of water and high-energy foods with you; be prepared for emergencies—if you get separated from everyone and have to spend the night hiding out in a dumpster, you don’t want to be starving too—but don’t weigh yourself down with anything unnecessary. Carry with you whatever first aid supplies you know how to use that might be useful. Be aware of what medical assistance—such as street medics and clinics—is going to be present in the streets, and have a plan if you have to go to a hospital (a fake name and social security number, and an alibi, if you fear you might encounter police there); be similarly aware of whether legal observers and media will be present in the streets, and whether you’ll want them around or far away from you.

Be prepared for the situation at hand. If the police outnumber you, are waiting for you, and there are reporters and civilians in the area, don’t come in a gas mask and body armor like the folks in your favorite street riot photographs—they’re not going to gas and beat you, they’re going to try to encircle and arrest you, and you’ll need to be able to move quickly and blend well to avoid it.

Clothing is the one essential feature of the Bloc tactic, and the rock upon which it rests or founders. Far away from the action itself, you may want to practice moving and acting freely in your Bloc gear, so you won’t still be getting used to it when it’s too late. The whole idea of a Bloc is to look indistinguishable from each other, so make sure whatever your Bloc theme is, everyone is on the same page about it, and that your own clothing doesn’t bear any features that distinguish it. In a worst-case scenario, you can make a t-shirt into a mask: use the neck hole for your eyes, tie the sleeves behind your head.

Your clothing should protect you from the hazards you expect, while not weighing you down unnecessarily; it should be adaptable should unexpected situations arise. Layers are key: if possible, wear an outer layer in which to travel to the Bloc action, a layer of Bloc clothing, and then another layer of getaway clothing beneath this—without risking hyperthermia, of course. It may be most sensible to carry the outer layer of your getaway layer in a sealed bag, in case you are covered in paint, tear gas, etc. by the time you need to use it. If you expect chemical weapons attacks, wear a waterproof outer layer that admits no access, and under that synthetic fibers that won’t absorb chemicals (cotton will). For serious confrontations, choose a gasmask with shatter-proof lenses and replaceable non-asbestos filters that won’t obscure your vision too much; otherwise, you can breathe through a bandanna soaked in vinegar or lime juice (transport the bandanna to the action in a sealed bag; you can carry a lime or two with you to keep it fresh) and wear swimming goggles (these can be obtained in prescription form for those who wear eyeglasses; when not wearing them over your eyes, keep them inside out on your forehead so they won’t fog up). You can add a particle mask underneath the bandanna for extra protection. I’ve read that ear plugs can offer some protection against concussion grenades, but how one is supposed to know when to put them in and when to have them out so as to be appropriately attentive is beyond me. If you expect to risk receiving blows or projectile fire, wear body armor of some kind (sports gear can suffice) and foam or padding, and a bicycle or motorcycle helmet.

A Bloc that intends to defend territory in clashes with the police may decide to use shields. These can be made from trash can lids or cut traffic barrels, inflatable rafts or inner tubes heavily reinforced with duct tape and possibly a layer of tarp, good old-fashioned cardboard, or layered (super-glued together) and reinforced plexiglass. Soften up the handles with a thick wrapping of duct tape so the shock of impact won’t break your wrists, and provide plenty of room on the grip so your knuckles don’t take all the blow. Larger shields are better for protecting against projectile weapons or functioning as a mobile barricade, while smaller ones provide better mobility and serve better in hand-to-hand combat. A line of individual shield-bearers can form a shield wall, especially if they are practiced at moving together; alternatively, massive multi-person shields can be constructed, such as the insulation board placards mentioned below. The latter shields should have enough joints in them to navigate narrower streets; keep in mind that these joints are also their weakest points.

Slapstick as it is, it often happens that comrades who discussed and prepared together will not be able to recognize each other in their Bloc gear on the day of the action. You may want to identify yourselves to each other early on, especially people from different cities and affinity groups who intend to work together, so it will be easier to keep up with each other in the chaos.

The moment the Bloc forms can be pivotal. Where and when to mask up is a hard question: if you do it too late, once you’ve joined the Bloc, you risk being identified; if you do it too early, before you’ve joined the Bloc, you risk being nabbed by the police. Little masked groups walking around before or after events are perfect targets for their enemies. At a big demonstration, one of the best options is to get in your gear in the midst of a large crowd that is not yet under much surveillance, with people around you that you trust, and to move in the body of the crowd to a meeting point with your fellows in the Bloc. Wearing layers is important here, too: if you can start in a disposable outermost layer that makes you look like a civilian or liberal activist (if perhaps one overdressed for the weather), masking up will simply mean discarding it and simultaneously pulling up your mask. At an action in which you have the benefit of surprise, you can always pick a safe, quiet place near your convergence point and mask up there.

In a mass action situation, the convergence of the Bloc should never occur before other protesters are out in the streets; once again, the police will simply pick off the Bloc when no one else is there to provide crowd cover or bear witness. Don’t mill around for long at your convergence point—be timely, and get moving. It can happen that the Bloc has a difficult time getting out into the field of action, once it has gathered. One of the best options at a mass action is to have the Bloc form somewhere outside the area of heavy police presence, and move into it (uh, if that’s really where you need to go! maybe you should consider what you could accomplish in the other direction…) as part of a much larger group, before separating to act as a Bloc. When moving with a mass of others, a Bloc should keep close to them as well as tight internally; police may try to push in and isolate the Bloc.

Once together, stay tight spatially (with the obvious exception of the scouts, who need to be further out)—you need to keep police out of your ranks, prevent snatch squads from getting in to grab individuals, and also keep your friends at your sides rather than strangers or possible undercover officers. Banners (reinforced with PVC pipe or, far better, if you can get them safely out into the streets, great placards made from tough but limber insulation board, with hand-holds cut into them; these can be tied or chained together, to create a mobile, jointed full size barricade) down the front and sides of a group can offer useful barriers to this end. Remember, your physical presence and togetherness comprise your strength, your readiness to repel police charges and foil arrest attempts is your marching permit. If you strike when they’re not prepared to make mass arrests or attack with chemical weapons, they’ll be forced to try to intimidate you by singling out individuals for attack or arrest; make this impossible, defend each other and don’t back down.

It’s possible to conceal useful materials in an area in advance—a dumpster can be filled with sticks and rocks or spraypaint cans. Sensitive materials (such as projectiles) can be transported to the action concealed in puppets, and puppets built from paper mache over stronger stuff can serve as effective shields—though those poor puppeteers get enough shit from the secret service already without suffering on your account too. Keep in mind that carrying a bag of rocks, bottles, gasoline, etc. will not look good if you get arrested. Don’t forget, also, that with a simple tool it’s always possible to break concrete or asphalt up into projectiles on the spot—beneath the concrete, the paving stones, isn’t that how the old French saying goes?

Everyone in your group should have a one-time-only nickname for the duration of the planning and action, so you can address each other without giving away your identities. Those communicating over cell phones or hand-held radios can count on the possibility that the police are listening in; it may be wise for those doing communications to learn a code of some kind, or at least keep in mind what not to say over the air. It can also be good for an affinity group or Bloc to learn coded announcements in advance, so you can communicate openly without anyone else understanding. “Tighten up!”, “The pigs are moving in!”, “We need to break through their lines!”, “It’s time, let’s do it!”, “Split up and regroup at convergence point B!” are all examples of typical announcements you might want to code. Don’t use codes unnecessarily, or assume that if you just say “cookie” every time you mean “molotov cocktail” it’s going to protect you; clumsy use of code can actually put you in greater danger, for the authorities can claim that your coded terms stood for more serious things than they actually did. Also, don’t be afraid to make uncoded announcements to everyone: “Don’t panic, stick together!”, “We need to get closer and fill in this space here, slow down up ahead!”, “Medic!”, “Who can verify what he’s saying?”, “Hold the fucking line!”

In the heat of action, it’s easy for all the structures you have set up in your affinity group to dissolve as individuals get caught up in new developments. Don’t lose your head and let the mob mentality take over; make sure to stay spatially close with your group at all times, keep in communication with them about what is happening, don’t get distracted from your role. It might help to have an informal formation—you can stay a couple paces behind a particular companion at all times, with another friend always at your side, and another behind you, for example. Plans will change, but don’t lose the structures that enable you to change them in unison.

Don’t panic, don’t believe unsubstantiated rumors. You probably won’t get a clear idea of what was going on everywhere else during the action until the day after, if you ever do; in the midst of everything, it will be easy to get buffeted about by waves of faulty information, so resist acting on news until you’ve double-checked it. Don’t spread rumors yourself, and don’t just tell others your conclusions based on what you’ve seen or heard—tell them what you’ve seen or heard and let them draw conclusions too.

Scouts should practice using communication equipment without being obvious, and while bicycling, if applicable; those recognized as scouts can count on police harassment, which will be all the more problematic because they are alone and critical to the success of the group. They should be particularly quick and alert. Those using radios should make sure they have decided together on a channel to use in advance, and a backup channel should there be problems.

Barricades can be made out of anything from newspaper dispensers to burning dumpsters, and can serve to slow police progress or simply halt traffic; if you’ve scouted in advance, you should be able to get them in place very quickly, amid crowd confusion. Don’t ever completely block off an escape route you may need! In a less confrontational situation, you can make it more difficult for the police to follow you in an organized line by simply moving the wrong way up a one-way street, provided there’s still traffic coming down it. Offensive use of projectiles is serious stuff—one can go to prison for many years, if arrested—but it can serve to keep police at a distance in order to protect an area, or provoke them into using tear gas (which may actually be a tactic they hoped to avoid). Don’t begin throwing projectiles in a small group that can be surrounded—save it for massive clashes in which the city belongs to the police in one direction and the protesters in the other. When you throw, do so as part of a large group, from the front of the crowd, and maintain a steady hail in the contested area. Those behind the throwers can take provide more ammunition via bucket brigade.

If you’re planning to do property destruction, come equipped with the appropriate tools. Make sure you’re informed about your targets and their weakness or strength; if you get in position and strike that felonious blow only to find you’re unable to break the shatter-proof glass, you’ve just risked a lot for nothing. Sometimes spray paint can be more eloquent than broken glass: “Network TV, keep your eyes on the issues” across the front of the smashed corporate storefront they’ll want to film—or, of course, if possible, you can always just spraypaint their camera lenses! Stay abreast of the different stations’ coverage, so you can offer a pithy retort to the reporter who accuses you of interfering with free speech: “We saw your coverage of the social forum last night—you know as well as I do you don’t care about free speech.” Then disappear into the crowd while he angrily telephones his boss.

The most dangerous weapons you should probably ever consider using in a street confrontation are molotov cocktails. Understand that if you use these, you can expect serious reprisals from the police; only do so when you’ve got a police-free zone behind you and a sympathetic crowd close by that you can escape into without unnecessarily endangering anyone. Best case scenario, you split from the angry mass in a small team, apply your cocktail, and disappear. Try to aim them at property, not officers, if possible. Of course, with the government spending thousands of dollars on each officer’s special storm trooper suit, throwing stuff at cops is practically a victimless crime (and don’t give me that shit about more police officers than demonstrators going to the hospital at the anti-I.M.F. protests in Prague—first of all, how many demonstrators do you think felt safe going to those hospitals, and second of all, haven’t you ever heard of offensive injuries?)—but you’d be much better off throwing paint bombs at them (which can be made from glass bottles, light bulbs, hollow Christmas tree ornaments, or wax balls filled with paint), or shooting paint gun pellets from your slingshot. If they get paint over their clear helmets and shields, no one’s injured, but they’re rendered blind in their expensive armor and have to retreat.

There is a variety of police weapons that may be deployed against you: pepper spray, tear gas, water cannons, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, clubs, charging horses or vehicles. Know what to expect in each situation, and be prepared. Sometimes the best defense really is a good offense; a Bloc prepared to act more quickly and courageously than law enforcers expect can disable a water cannon before it is employed against them. Tear gas canisters can be thrown back at the police, but they will be extremely hot when they land; if you expect to be doing this, make sure you have on welding gloves or other serious protection from heat, and that you have a good enough throwing arm and aim to get them out of the area entirely. Don’t pick them up until they begin releasing gas—they may explode and injure you. Horses may balk at approaching an area where things are on fire; a less confrontational mass can deter a horse charge by all sitting or lying down.

Police will endeavor to disperse unwanted crowds when they are not prepared to arrest them. Tear gas, concussion grenades, horse charges, rubber bullets, etc. may be employed first, if the mass seems particularly rowdy; then, when they deem it safe, the officers will move in. They will probably do so in lines, charging and falling back to regroup and consolidate their gain before charging again. Violent individual arrests will take place at this time to intimidate the mass, unless the side of the throng facing them is tight-knit and protected by barricades or united by linked arms. While the crowd seems volatile and daring, the police may well keep a distance; if the crowd is confused, passive, or disintegrating, they may move in to form lines in its midst, to speed the process along. At no point should you panic and run—this can only increase your chances of charging into trouble, and endanger others in the process; if others start running, shout out “Walk, don’t run!” At the same time, keep moving quickly, keep things chaotic to prevent the police from getting a sense of where their opponents are or what to expect; never let them come together inside the mass.

If you are on the street, they will attempt to force you onto the sidewalk; this thins the crowd, lowers morale, and puts you a step closer to being cornered. If you are forced onto the sidewalk, you can use a street crossing or turn onto a side street to retake the asphalt; banner-carriers can rush forward and block the space to be taken while it is filled with people, as can bicyclists. The same goes for other lanes of traffic, if they are endeavoring to limit you to the one you have seized. If the police cannot get everyone onto the sidewalk, they will at least try to scare the less militant in the crowd into moving onto it and adopting a spectator role, so they can then deal with the hard core contingent; in this case, try to keep moving and circulating so the “spectators” can be absorbed again, though of course if you are moving in a tight Bloc you don’t want to lose your cohesion in such a situation. In an urban environment, it can be possible for an organized, alert group to move more quickly on foot than even mounted police officers; always keep moving and stay ahead of your foes. Sudden bursts of speed and changes in direction can keep them particularly confused—just make sure your group can engage in these without itself becoming confused or divided. To coordinate simultaneous action in large groups, you can shout out a countdown from ten to one.

Police snatch squads can be sent into a crowd to grab individuals the police consider leaders or dangerous (or who have been observed committing a crime). Sometimes you can clearly see the commanding officer point out an individual to be snatched (this can also be the case if there is an officer firing rubber bullets—another officer may be picking out the targets for him, and by watching you can tell who is about to be targeted). The squad will attempt to surround the target, while keeping an open corridor back to police lines. To protect against this, keep a close watch on police movements—they may form a straight line perpendicular to the mass before pushing in. If you know who the target is, get them out of the area and into different clothing. Put your body between approaching officers and the target; keep moving and obstructing their path, while making it seem as accidental as possible, so as not to become a target yourself. If a group can isolate and surround individual officers that have entered a crowd, these will back off if they don’t feel in control.

Others can attempt to unarrest individuals who have been nabbed. The time to do this is as soon as the police strike, before they have made their way back to their lines. You’ll need a few people to break the officers’ grip and others to block their path. As soon as your comrade is free, link arms and disappear immediately into the crowd. The squad will probably try to snatch again, and will aim for the unarresters now too; keep in mind that unarresting may result in more serious criminal charges than the original target would have faced, so only hazard it if you have a good chance of success or the stakes are too high not to. It has happened before that police vehicles surrounded by an angry crowd have been forced to release arrestees, but they have to be trapped there, not just heckled. If their tires are punctured (stick the sidewall, not the tread), that will force them to a halt, but popping tires can be loud—again, don’t try this unless you’re in a trusted crowd with cover in range.

If you are grabbed by police, keep in mind that even self-defense of the mildest sort can result in assault charges. If you expect your companions to try to snatch you back, keep the arresting officers’ job difficult by continuing to move, or else go limp: this will not result in assault charges (though “resisting arrest” is not unheard of), and will force the officers to work much harder to move you. Bear in mind that going limp may provoke them into being even more violent to you. If every arrest they make costs them a lot of manpower and time, your friends will be in a better position to escape or attempt to rescue you.

There’s always the chance that the police will totally surround your group and arrest you one by one. If this occurs, you’re in trouble. The best defense is to keep abreast of police movement by means of scouts: they may attempt to move up side streets to surround you, or lure you forward while sending a line around to cut off your retreat. If you find your group surrounded by police lines that are thin in one direction, you can attempt to charge out: use your own tight front line, protected with a barrier (banner, shields, fencing, linked arms at the least), to push as a solid wall, potentially with a plow point at the very front to divide them. A Bloc once used a wheelbarrow appropriated from a construction site to front a charge that broke through police lines. Apply this tactic as soon as possible after you’ve been encircled, before they are entirely sure of the situation, and with maximum confidence if you want it to work. Often your best chance to escape will be all together as a cohesive group; this also allows you to keep your equipment and clothing in the process, so you can maintain your effectiveness as a Bloc, even if you only choose to use it to escape. On the other hand, if you are part of a crowd that is moving into what you think is a trap, it may be wisest just to disappear onto the sidewalk and out of your Bloc gear before you enter a space you can’t escape. If you are hopelessly trapped, make sure you ditch all incriminating items before you are arrested, hopefully in such a way that they cannot be connected to you.

Remember that the police won’t be able to make mass arrests unless they have lots of plastic handcuffs and vans or busses in the area, so these can be a good tip-off for what to expect. The same goes for chemical weapons; if they’re ready to use tear gas, they’ll all be wearing gasmasks themselves.

Think about what the goals of the police will be, and how these affect your options: if they are trying to keep a parade route or fenced area secure, you may actually have free run of other areas for some time. If they are trying to keep a massive march under observation, they will have to split their forces to keep up with a breakaway march; this will only be difficult for them if they are unprepared in numbers, of course, but in certain situations it may be true that ten groups of fifty are much more effective than one group of five hundred. There will be moments during unexpected developments when they are paralyzed waiting for orders; take advantage of these—but if an unusually long period passes without police activity, it may be an indication that they have a trick up their sleeves, such as a new, more heavily armed and armored force massing nearby.

At an action the powers that be see coming, you can expect to be under surveillance by undercover officers, and you may have to deal with agents provocateurs, too. Stay aware of those around you, especially strangers; undercover agents may be easy to identify (pairs of big men with two days of stubble on their faces, nice wristwatches, and communications equipment), or very difficult to. Keep your companions aware of every person you suspect, but don’t “out” undercover agents unless you are absolutely sure they are agents (for example, one of your scouts has been following one, and seen him chatting with his coworkers), and something concrete can be gained from it. Unsubstantiated accusations between demonstrators can only make situations more tense and demonstration environments less welcoming. As for agents provocateurs and just plain stupid people, they may be moving among or near you, smashing locally owned stores and private vehicles; whether or not you can prove they are cops or allies thereof, you can certainly make it clear to them that what they are doing is unacceptable and has to stop. Don’t get snarled up in a tactical debate in the middle of an action, just make your point (or, in a worst case scenario, intervene) and get on with things.

Stay aware of others, too, besides the police; other demonstrators of more “liberal” or authoritarian bents may take it upon themselves to interfere your activities, unmasking you, assaulting you, or pointing you out to authorities; the same goes for local civilians. Never, ever respond to this with violence; walk away, or run if necessary. A direct action that turns into a brawl with locals or other activists is disastrous for everyone. Attempt to talk out differences, if this appears possible and worthwhile, when tempers have cooled, in a safe space removed from the immediate action; send a spokesperson if necessary, preferably a supporter from outside the Bloc. At the least, this can distract the meddlers while the rest of the group moves on to other actions.

As crazy as things get, remember that the police have firearms, and there’s rarely any reason to risk getting killed for an action. A street confrontation with better-armed police officers is almost always going to be something more of a spectacle of confrontation than a no-holds-barred, life-or-death battle; there’s no shame in this fact, it’s just important to take into account. The police are restricted in what they can do by what public opinion will decree about it; you are limited in what you can do by a similar question, for whenever you move up to a more confrontational tactic the police will immediately upgrade their tactics to a level higher than yours. In this sense, streetfighting is a matter of chivalry for us radicals: we always permit our opponents the more powerful tools, in order to keep the violence from getting too out of hand—and, of course, to show off how much more noble and courageous we are! If the papers read (as they have before) “Violence erupted when activists began throwing back tear gas canisters fired by the police,” it will be clear to everyone what’s going on.

Stay flexible, tactically. If you showed up in riot gear for a confrontation with the police, but find yourselves totally outnumbered and unprepared, you can turn the other direction and move through nearby neighborhoods picking up trash and beautifying the area—that’ll give the media a confusing message to distort!

Once again, all this will be very different if you are applying the Bloc tactic outside the demonstration setting. Rather than engaging in a confrontation with the police which you hope will be contagious, or at least risking the possibility, you will probably be doing everything you can to avoid encountering the police. Scouts, in this case, will serve more to warn you about the approach of the police than to monitor the lumbering movements of nearby police forces, and, accordingly, may be better posted at freeway overpasses or in disguise outside the liquor store than on bicycles.

Escape: at the end of the action, the final remaining challenge is to get out of your gear and disappear. Layers, once again, are key: under your Bloc clothing, you should be wearing clothing that will make you blend easily with whatever liberal protesters or civilians will be in the area. You may have to get down to this layer at an instant’s notice: for instance, if the police have singled you out and are pursuing you. Make sure it’s a quick and easy transition to make (though not one that can happen accidentally, in the midst of the action!). Try to do this in a mass of inattentive people, or around a corner or in a bush; if you’re seen or caught on camera changing, all that trouble you went to masking up may be wasted. Hopefully you have a clever escape route or two already planned out: an inconspicuous alley, an open space too wide for any police barricade to block, a fence you can climb more quickly than any pig officer. If possible, you might want to lock a bicycle somewhere nearby, so once you’ve gotten away you can hop on that and move quickly; in urban environments, you can also try to get a taxi (provided they’re out and about), or get on the subway (though in a serious situation this may be shut down, or the police checking people coming in), or duck into a restaurant and just eat fries in a quiet corner in your civilian disguise until things quiet down. Unless things have gotten really hairy, you should still be with your partner, if not a few members of your affinity group.

Finally, the number one rule of all direct action: quit while you’re ahead. Take things as far as you can, but live to fight another day, unless this really is the Last Battle.
Afterwards

After the action, gather again in your affinity group at a place and time safely removed from danger and surveillance. Give everyone a space to share how they’re feeling. Discuss and critique what happened, what you learned from it, what it means for the future. If applicable, make sure to report on your conclusions to other affinity groups who were involved, and seek their feedback as well. If any of you have been arrested or are facing other difficulties such as injury, discuss how to handle this. Celebrate your achievements, offer emotional support, swear and plot revenge if need be. Make sure above all that everyone involved knows they are loved and supported.

Don’t ever brag about your achievements in a Bloc, or share anything others don’t need to know, especially if it could incriminate someone. Keep in mind that it’s possible you’ve been caught on camera and, however carefully disguised you were, identified by the authorities. In Sweden, a few months after a street confrontation at a meeting of the European Union, early one morning the police arrived at the residences of a couple dozen activists who had been involved and arrested them all at the same moment. That’s a worst case scenario—don’t let it make you paranoid. Just stay aware of the dangers; if you’re doing a lot of heavy stuff, or organizing for it, you might want to live in such a way that your enemies would be hard-pressed to know where to find you any given morning.

Some important related subjects not covered in this recipe:
Jail solidarity and prison support
Medical Treatment
Legal Observers
Handling arrest
Counseling and support
Molotov Cocktail: a martini made with
too much vermouth and not enough olives.
Account:

Local anarchists and Earth First!ers wanted to make an offensive strike against a biotechnology company whose crimes had not been brought to public attention (in fact, the corporation had bribed the local town government). There was considerable discussion about what tactics to use—and there was a huge variety of tactical differences, with some of us committed to non-violence and others being wild militant anarcho-primitivists! Being from small towns in an area not well-known for having lots of activists, we had to work together to allow everyone to participate at whatever level they were comfortable. The non-violent folks could have dropped a banner, or someone might have come at night and shredded the crops, but what could be done that would allow us to work together, be safe, damage this evil corporation, and provide a wake up call such as our placid small towns had never seen before? What better than the ‘bloc’! Who says we need a major mobilization or a giant anti-war protest to use such tactics? We can have the excitement and the action of any global day of action any day of the week in our own town. It’s not like there’s more state to smash in Washington D.C., Genoa, or Seattle than there is in our own neighborhoods. Not only that, but this time the cops wouldn’t be ready for us.

Since we were going to combat biotechnology, it made more sense for us to dress in biohazard suits than in black—not only did they disguise us, but they got our message across by themselves. Bought in bulk, they were less than three dollars each. The suits lacked face masks, so we made a quick trip down to the hospital for them. We started spreading news of the action to our friends by word of mouth, keeping our bloc limited to only those we trusted.

Committed folks drove in from out of town and set up a ‘base camp’ for the action at a local farm, building banners, preparing flags, writing flyers and media releases. The excitement was contagious: local puppeteers brought down a gargantuan puppet of an indigenous farmer, and a local farmer wanted to dig up the front lawn of the biotechnology company to plant organic seeds. Work was spontaneously and naturally divided among teams: media, art, etc. The media team made different pamphlets for different people—one for the corporate media, one for people walking down the street, even one for the employees working there to explain to them what was happening. As time progressed and more and more car-loads of people drove down the dirt road to the farm, we knew that Monday morning, our day to strike, was going to be larger than we expected.

We had picked our target in complete secrecy, and only a few people knew its name and location. If somehow word had leaked to the biotechnology company that we were planning something, our action would have been ruined. Unlike many blocs at protests, we didn’t have a horde of protesters to serve as a distraction, so the main element in our favor was surprise. We told everyone else to trust us—it was going to be a biotechnology target somewhere nearby—and that we had scoped it out. Indeed, we had discovered that the entire complex, one of the main research centers for a biotechnology company, had only a few security guards!

This company had genetically engineered corn to feature “traitor seeds,” seeds modified to be dependent on their expensive pesticides. Farmers would purchase these cheap seeds, and then go into debt buying the pesticide, losing their land and livelihood. This destruction of small and indigenous farming and of biodiversity was leading to huge demonstrations in Brazil and India in which these crops were ripped from the ground and the seeds burnt, in public! These seeds were being designed right down the street—and no one even knew about it. The company was so smug they didn’t even hire much in the way of security. Everyone agreed that it was a worthy target, and everyone from pacifists to militants was happy with keeping the exact location secret until the day of action.

The night before, we went over a map, including aerial photos (which are easily downloaded from the internet—try www.terraserver.) and detailed maps. We didn’t give away the precise location except to one driver from each of the cars. People were given an all-too-quick training on un-arresting and bloc techniques, and communication equipment was distributed among the affinity groups. This lack of training, especially considering most of the participants had never been part of a bloc, was a great mistake. Still, affinity groups had come together naturally over the few days before the action, everyone joining groups with close friends who wanted to risk the same level of arrest and participate in the same type of action. Without any argument or coercion, autonomous groups had formed for a truly diverse range of actions: climbing on the roof of the building and dropping banners, digging up the front yard of the biotechnology company to plant seeds, doing independent media work, passing out flyers on the sides of nearby highways to the traffic that would be snarled by the spectacle we were to create, performing in a play involving the giant indigenous farmer puppet, acting as police liaisons (a police liaison is a person whose job is basically to delay the police by acting as the ‘spokesperson’ for the group), and, of course, property destruction. Surprisingly, there was no predictable conflict about violence versus non-violence; everyone felt that they were participating in a collective action in which every group and every action was vital to the overall success of the whole project—the project at hand being to utterly humiliate a biotechnology company that had counted on no one even knowing they existed.

At the crack of dawn, everyone put on their biotechnology suits, double-checked their props, and jumped into their cars. We parked in the parking lots of a nearby hotel and family restaurant, and ran into the front yard of the massive biotechnology complex. Immediately groups scrambled up onto the roof and dropped banners; other groups began spray-painting ‘Fuck Biotechnology’ and ‘Free the Seed’ on the walls of the building. Giant banners were unfurled, and within minutes an unearthly play began, with groups of biotechnology-suited people and a traditionally-dressed farmer tearing up the carefully manicured lawn of the company, planting organic seeds, while giant biotechnology corn visuals were erected facing the highway. The employees of the company must have thought one of their own experiments had gone horribly awry, and fled inside, locking their doors and staring out the windows. The security guards, vastly outnumbered, just watched with mouths agape. This entire action was visible from the highway, and more participants dressed in biohazard suits handed our flyers out and carefully talked through the issues with passing traffic—traffic that soon ground to a halt. Within fifteen minutes, our action had completely paralyzed one of the largest biotechnology companies in the world and had frozen traffic on one of the major highways in the United States. Of course, it was the cops that actually shut down the highway—maybe in fear the public would see the spectacle ahead.

Of course the cops did come eventually—although, due to the element of surprise, we had free run of the place for almost an hour. Even when the first cops arrived, they realized like the security guards that they were outnumbered by a large mass of maniacs in biotech suits. They tried “talking” to our police liaisons, who repeatedly told them we had to consult with each other on any decision, a delaying tactic that enabled us to get more of the action done—a mistake in retrospect, since that was when we should have re-grouped and prepared for the inevitable police assault. Even after reinforcements arrived, the cops were afraid to act until some of the businessmen came out of the office and whispered in their ears. A few of the officers began trying to arrest people, starting by arresting the only person they could identify—the farmer. Unfortunately, all the affinity groups were so absorbed in carrying out the actions they had planned they let some precious seconds pass before they could act—and by then the police managed to pepper-spray one individual in the face. However, through quick thinking, our white biotech suit disguises, and some ridiculously brave unarresting techniques (including giving cops wedgies and pulling people free from their grasp) we managed to protect almost everyone from arrest.

At this point the bloc had become a very loose cluster of affinity groups, most folks not even spatially near each other, which played into the hands of the cops. When calls to ‘bloc up’ were made, it soon became apparent most people didn’t have any idea what we were talking about, and had little grasp that by gathering together as a larger group we could stand off the cops—a difficulty due to our lack of training beforehand. Still, when cops came out on bikes, protesters nimbly jumped over fences to avoid them, leading one cop to a near-collision with the fence! For a good fifteen minutes pure pandemonium reigned, with cops unsuccessfully chasing protesters and protesters swarming outside the cops’ grasp without evacuating the premises of the company. The farmer chose to be arrested non-violently while the person who was pepper-sprayed was finally cuffed after a considerable battle. Finally, the cops settled down and agreed to let us move our protest off the premises. Rescuing our giant banners, we managed to regroup our scattered forces and make a quick getaway to our cars. Altogether, out of fifty-some people at the action, there were three arrests.

We tried to make it back to our secret hide-out, only to find out the city had sent undercover cops after us. After some quick driving, we escaped the police and pulled into a truck station—we had to dispose of our biotech suits, which we were still wearing! We went around back to an isolated dumpster and began throwing our biotech suits and other incriminating evidence inside. Then, to our surprise, we noticed a trucker watching us through his shades. He gave us a thumbs up and a shady smile. Our victory was all over the CB radios!

Reunited at our secret hideout, we gathered around and decided to march downtown and to the jail. Everywhere, people were talking about our action, at diners and in shopping centers, old men and young women—no one had seen it coming, and people got the message! Not only that, but almost everyone was supportive—“I don’t believe they’re putting that in our food,” “they’re messing with God’s creation,” “that company’s just out to make money regardless of the cost to this town or the world” …I had never before seen such a positive reaction to an action. When we finally got to the jail, our boring little town was scandalized—as was the biotech company!

A lawyer agreed to defend the defendants for two hundred bucks, and we raised the money through benefit concerts in which every style of music from punk to bluegrass was played. In court, the cops admitted that due to everyone wearing white biotech suits they were unable to identify exactly who did what, so they couldn’t really make any charges stick. At the end, the defendants were let off with community service and the cops even apologized!

As in any action, there were things that went wrong and things that went right. We definitely had free run of the place for a while, and could have inflicted much more serious damage on the biotechnology company than we did—at the risk of possibly alienating some people. Given the weight of the issue, it probably would have been worth it. We definitely should have done more unarresting trainings—the methods we used, like jumping and wrestling with cops, may be courageous, but are not recommended. We could have also used a good bloc training—people didn’t really respond when folks called out ‘bloc up’ to tighten our ranks. Fifty people together could definitely have stood up the cops, but when people panicked and began running around as lone individuals, the cops managed to nab them. Lastly, we should have had a lawyer ready ahead of time. Still, hindsight is always clearer than foresight, and the creative use of bloc tactics with great public outreach made this an action people in our small town will be talking about for years—and one that’s caused the biotechnology company considerable grief and expense.

There are some that say the bloc is dead, but it is only as dead as the ideas that motivate it. Trying to repeat Seattle is going to fail: those ideas died after they were employed, but they were well and alive at the time because they were new and creative: the cops couldn’t see them coming. Don’t just think about previous blocs, look around you for living inspiration. The real question is not whether the bloc is dead or alive, but what ideas we can come up with for striking the next blow against capitalism. May that next blow be a killing one!

Riot Cops Killed Newspaper Seller At G20

2009-04-06T17:56:00.002+01:00

Multiple eyewitnesses say man was attacked after media initially reported death was accidental
The death of a newspaper seller during the G20 protests last week which was initially reported by the media to have been caused by a heart attack was actually a result of an attack by riot cops, according to eyewitnesses.

Ian Tomlinson, 47, was not even taking part in the G20 protests, he was walking home from his job as a newsagent near the Bank of England when he collapsed and suffered a heart attack.

News reports immediately after the incident stated that Tomlinson looked dazed and confused before collapsing and being treated by medics.

The explanation that the man’s death was accidental was strongly pushed by the media in the hours after the incident, and a police post mortem examination attributed his death to natural causes.

However, eyewitnesses have come forward to state that Tomlinson was attacked by riot police before his collapse.
Anna Branthwaite, an experienced press photographer, told the IPCC: “I can remember seeing Ian Tomlinson. He was rushed from behind by a riot officer with a helmet and shield two or three minutes before he collapsed.”

Amiri Howe stated that Tomlinson was struck ‘near the head’ with a police baton.

Another protester said she saw Mr Tomlinson being pushed aggressively from behind by officers.

Police have promised to make further inquiries as a result of the new testimony, but since British cops can get away with shooting innocent people in the head multiple times and not face charges, we are skeptical that anyone will be brought to justice for the murder of Tomlinson.

Tomlinson’s murder echoes the death of Carlo Giuliani, who was murdered by riot police at the G8 summit in 2001 in Italy. Giuliani was shot twice and ran over twice by police. The officer who shot Giuliani was later charged with murder but escaped punishment after a judge ruled that the shots fired by officer Mario Placanica “ricocheted off plaster”.

However, forensic doctor professor Marco Salvi claimed the shots were a direct hit and that police ran over Giuliani’s body when he was still alive. Mario Placanica later claimed that he was a patsy for a wider cover-up, and soon after was involved in a “suspicious” car accident, days after allegedly observing someone tampering with his car.