minimal-meandering

Psychopathy: Continuous or Categorical?

2008-08-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the "continuous vs categorical" debate in relation to psychopathy. I just started reading a book called "Thinking about Psychopaths and Psychopathy" edited by Ellsworth Lapham Fersch. It's a collection of questions and answers from seminars he's given on psychopathy, with contributions by various academics. Based on Fersch's introduction, it looks is promising and insightful. However, I wonder if Fersch really "gets it". While he talks about the importance of psychopathy quite eloquently and identifies the problems inherent in the conflation of psychopathy with antisocial personality disorder, there is a question and answer in the first chapter that is puzzling. (It is possible one of his colleagues answered this question, as the individual author is not listed for each section.)

In this question on the debate between psychopathy as either categorical (i.e. you either have it or you don't, like Turner's syndrome) or continuous (the extreme end of traits shared by everyone, e.g. someone with very high intelligence), he firmly takes the "continuous" side. However, I get the impression that he does so without understanding the crux of the matter, the implications of such a position.

He concludes that psychopathy is continuous because the PCL-R gives results on a spectrum (0 being "least psychopathic", 40 being "most psychopathic"), and because people can score low on the checklist (and thus, technically, have "psychopathic" traits), that people are only "more or less" psychopathic. In other words, because non-psychopaths can score more than 0 on the test and not be considered psychopaths, Fersch concludes that psychopaths only have extreme degrees of more or less "normal" human traits.

I think he is correct, but not for the reasons he would argue, because his argument is fairly weak and susceptible to distortion. First of all, the fact that the PCL-R measures a spectrum of traits does NOT mean that it is measuring a disorder which is itself a "spectrum". The fact that there is no definite "cut off point" on the scale does NOT mean that psychopathy is not categorical. It could just as well mean that we do not yet have the means of identifying an exact cut off point, or that there could be two distinct taxons (normal and psychopathic) that can overlap on the scale.

It is also possible that psychopathy is both categorical and continuous, i.e. that a person is either a psychopath or not, and that those who are psychopaths show a spectrum of indicators of psychopathy (theoretically, all psychopaths would have a majority, perhaps all, of the traits listed in the PCL-R, but they may not be detectable by known personal history and interview).

A thought experiment will make this clearer. Imagine that scientists create a robotic human with artificial intelligence, which will then be tested using a variation on the Turing test, which we will call the "human" test. Questions are asked to the robot based on a checklist of human traits. A normal human, responding to the test, will receive a score of 30 to 40, while primitive forms of AI will receive a low score. Severely mentally ill people may score in the mid-range.

Let us say that our new robot scores 26. It would be fallacious to say that, because the test is continuous, that this implies that the robot is "more or less" human. All it shows is that it shares traits with a human, and these traits may be mere programs. They are algorithms, not experiences with syntactical content. They only give the appearance of humanity.

In this example, one is either a human or not. A human will score mid- to high-range on on the scale, depending on various factors. A non-human will score low- to mid-range. In addition to this categorical difference (human or not), there is a spectrum of how "close" to human a non-human can test. Some robots will test 0 on the scale, while those with complex programming may score fairly high. However, this just shows the limits of the method of testing. Conclusions about the nature of the phenomenon cannot be discerned from measurements of a limited test.

So how do we account for seemingly psychopathic traits in non-psychopaths? I think this can be explained fairly easily. Lobaczewski describes psychopathy as a deficit, NOT an excess. That is, psychopathy is a LACK of certain essential human qualities, and this lack gives rise to the peculiarities of psychopathy. In the case of psychopathy, this lack is syntonic (social) emotions: those responsible for bonding and empathy. Because of this lack, psychopaths see people as objects and a lifestyle develops that makes use of these objects (parasitic, manipulative). Lacking "other-centered" emotions, psychopaths are wholly self-centered (traits which normal humans DO possess, in varying strengths when compared to their other-centered emotions), and thus grandiose, not able to take responsibility. They are unable to feel guilt.

The LACK is what categorically makes them psychopaths, the cause which gives rise to their psychopathic traits WHICH NORMAL HUMANS CAN SHARE. Dabrowski, a contemporary of Lobaczewski, and his concept of multilevelness of emotional functions, provides the necessary context. Normal humanity DOES exist on a spectrum. Many exist with a low level of emotional development, what Dabrowski called primary integration, thus they can be extremely self-centered and even possess many psychopathic traits. As such, normal people can have very poorly developed "other-centered" emotions (and thus the possibility to develop them), the difference being that psychopaths LACK these emotions.

It is also possible that non-psychopathic individuals can originally have such a potential for growth, yet at some point in their lives acquire brain damage that severely alters their emotions and behavior. They can also "learn" psychopathic behaviors. These people may even achieve the same score on the PCL-R as a real psychopath, but people like Fersch don't seem to see this possibility: that the PCL-R is not a perfect measure of psychopathy. It is very effective, but it is not 100% accurate. So the fact that the scale is continuous does NOT imply that the disorder is continuous.

That said, it seems that other factors may be responsible for the continuity WITHIN psychopathy, for example, hippocampus size. Successful psychopaths are perhaps just better at masking their traits, so that an interview and personal history would not necessarily reveal these traits. If we had omniscience, perhaps we would be able to make an accurate diagnosis for these cases, but a mid-range PCL-R score does not necessarily mean that a person is not psychopathic. It could simply be the result of insufficient data.

So it is important to make a distinction between the continuous nature of the PCL-R as an instrument of measurement, and and the nature of psychopathy as a categorical disorder, or taxon. To ignore this distinction is dangerous. As Lobaczewski related from his experience in Poland, pathocratic authorities muddy the waters of psychopathy research so as to evade detection. They do this by creating a "catch-all" phrase for criminal deviance. We have seen this phenomenon in American psychiatry where the official DSM-IV only recognizes "antisocial personality disorder", a catchall label that can apply to both psychopaths and non-psychpoaths. Psychopathy is NOT included in the DSM-IV, and is thus not officially recognized as a valid personality disorder by the Manual.

This might have been enough in pathocracies such as in the Soviet empire, thus providing "cover" for psychopaths who do not fit the diagnosis of "antisocial personality disorder". However, the concept of psychopathy, thanks to Cleckley and Hare, seems too well established in the scientific literature to be so easily embargoed. Thus, a new tactic was needed. Viewing psychopathy as simply an "extreme" form of normality robs us of any real understanding of the disorder.

The entire makeup of a psychopath is qualitatively different from a normal human: their thinking, their worldview, their behavior. It is this "otherness" that is responsible for their dreams of Empire and world domination. By bracketing the true nature of psychopathy from our awareness, we give up any hope of identifying the root cause of the social disease which threatens to choke humanity's life in the near future.

Limbic Warface and Martha Stout's "The Paranoia Switch"

2007-10-30T15:24:00.001-07:00

Martha Stout's newest book, The Paranoia Switch, is a welcome addition to the new and growing science of ponerology: the study of the root causes and genesis of evil, on both the social and interpersonal levels. Stout uses her years of experience as a trauma therapist to clinically diagnose the sickness of our 'terror culture,' and those who would manipulate this trauma for their own self-interest.

The paranoia switch

Traumatic events overload our limbic system. The heightened response of our amygdala, which registers the emotional significance of the event, leads to a decreased response in the hippocampus, which usually prioritizes information and allows the higher brain centers to create coherent memories, based on their emotional importance. So, traumatic events do not get integrated by the higher brain centers as true memories, but instead leave us with non-integrated fragments of memory: isolated images and sensations. These memories can then be "triggered" by similar images. In this way, a backfiring car can trigger a war vet into a state of paranoia. His "paranoia switch" has been flicked.

"Most overwhelming of all are traumatic experiences caused not by accident (unintended explosions or car crashes), or by "acts of God" (earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.), but rather by the deliberate acts of other people, acts such as assault, violent abduction, rape - or terrorism. It would seem that, for whatever reason, we are hardwired to be most fearful of harm when it threatens to occur maliciously, at the hands of our fellow human beings, and this special variety of fear is the most contagious of all." (62)

As Stout explains later in her book, fear brokers maintain their power through the exploitation of human weaknesses. Ironically, it is often the very people we are genetically "programmed" to fear (i.e. psychopathic individuals), that exploit this fear by focusing it on an arbitrary and convenient group. Hitler used anarchists, communists, and Jews. Bush is using "terrorists", Muslims, and critics of his policies.

Stout defines terrorism as "violence committed with the primary goal of manipulating the minds of the surviving population" (27). It creates a paranoia switch in our minds, or turns on an already existing one. Its "most cherished ambition is to affect us psychologically, to instill a sense of helplessness in the minds of individual citizens, and to steal, in wholesale grabs, from our collective store of hopefulness" (24).

It is in this way that terrorists (whether they be Western intelligence agency puppet masters or foreign "terrorist" patsies) are able to steer a battered public in the direction of their choice. However, we can make sure that terrorism does not work on our minds by being aware of its effects and its purpose, and the tactics of those who exploit it.

Limbic Resonance

Even though a terrorist attack directly affects only a very small portion of a population, the whole country can feel its effects. This phenomenon has its roots in our limbic system. "[T]he limbic system plays a dominant role in regulating our feelings, the accessibility of our memories, our motivations to act, our ability to make meaning of our experiences, and even our consciences" (77). "[C]onscience is a compelling feeling of obligation that is always based in our proclivity to bond with others... it is precisely our capacity to form emotional attachments that gives rise to moral character..." (75).

"[W]ith information from any or all of our senses, processed through the limbic system, we can perceive the internal state of another human being - her or his physiological and emotional status - to which we would otherwise be "blind." ... Not only does the limbic system allow us to perceive the emotions of others ... it functions, also, to align our emotions with those of the people around us, and vice versa." (78)

In this way, the trauma of a terrorist event is contagious. We are each affected by the emotional state of those around us; we all become traumatized. "[L]imbic resonance is one of the many reasons that personality, and especially character, should be primary considerations in choosing our leadership. For good or for ill, a high-profile leader can have a radiating emotional influence on large numbers of people" (83).

Machiavellian leaders are able to exploit this fact so well because they are psychopaths. They feel no pangs of conscience, no pain at the sight of a mutilated body. Nothing disturbs their cold, callous and unemotional nature.

Limbic War

When a leader chooses to exploit this contagion, rather than to calm and heal it, he is engaging in what Stout calls "limbic warfare." "If a leader chooses to focus the group's attention on the terrifying "others" - if he or she pounds the paranoia switch installed by trauma - the group's fear level is likely to remain over the top for a long time, and, whether or not he is competent, the leader's perceived authority will hold... [A]fter group trauma, large-scale social changes can be inaugurated, intentionally or not, by a handful of scaremongers who play to the anger and paranoia of a vulnerable population" (92-3, 95). It is at these key points in history that countries are ripe for pathocracy, a macrosocial disease that can last for decades - even centuries.

Stout identifies six stages of a limbic war:

1. Group Trauma: This takes the form of a national catastrophe, like 9/11, that "installs a nonconscious paranoia switch in the minds of a nation's citizens" (110).

2. Fear Brokers: Whether perpetrators (as is the case with 9/11) or merely opportunists (as was the case with Pearl Harbour), a small group of people will attempt to use this group fear to pursue their own agenda, repeatedly triggering the paranoia switch. Such frightened people "tend to be drawn to an authoritarian personality" for a leader (111). The rest of the steps depend on the success of this step.

3. Scapegoatism: The fear brokers will then contend that a specific group, usually innocent of the crime in question, is the responsible party. Such "successful scapegoatism slows the groups healing process to a crawl" (111). In this way, wars and hatred are initiated by the fear brokers' influence over the many.

4. Cultural Regression: With a concrete enemy to blame, such primitive instincts as lust for revenge can "crystallize." In this way, the fear brokers manipulate our moralizing tendencies. Separating the population into "patriots" and "traitors" (those who support the primitive response and those who do not) identifies and stigmatizes those who are not susceptible to the manipulations. Paranoia stifles dissent and creates an internal censor.

5. Recognition and Backlash: Eventually, people become aware of the insanity of such governments and their leaders are deposed. However, this may take decades. In this early stage, "protests begin, small and uneasy at the beginning, growing larger and bolder as time goes on" [e.g. the solidarity movements in Eastern Europe in the late 80s] (113). Unfortunately, these protests usually ignore the main issue - the psychological nature of such leaders - and focus on a side issue, e.g. McCarthy's alleged homosexuality or simply the corruption of such officials.

6. Regret and Forgetting: "As the original trauma-engendered fear beings to ease, often years later, we have difficulty recalling why we allowed ourselves to be so easily co-opted into an authoritarian agenda. Many of us are left in a state of dissonance and guilt, and this uncomfortable condition promotes forgetting..." (114).

Micro/Macro Scale

"[W]e can use the small social system of a highly dysfunctional couple to help explain the strange human allegiance to destructive authoritarians in general" (120). In an abusive relationship, the victim, paralyzed by constant fear, clings to the "protection" of the very person who terrorizes them. "A battered human being learns how not to "see" the egregious behavior of her authoritarian partner ... and how to construe empty minutiae as evidence that, somewhere deep down, her truly cares" (132).

The method involves three aspects: 1) a predisposition to fear (i.e., an already-existing paranoia switch), 2) isolation (i.e., the abuse occurs behind closed doors), 3) the conviction that because the world (in reality, the unhealthy relationship) is so fearful, loyalty to a protector (in reality, the abuser, and the creator of such fear) is necessary. When we lose the ability to recognize pathological behavior, this is the first criterion of the genesis of evil at any level; everything follows from this inability to accurately read objective reality.

"After all, our leaders, like our domestic partners, are supposed to be watching our backs, and when we have been terrorized, we will sometimes continue to assume that partners and leaders are so inclined, even in the face of life-threatening evidence that a particular spouse, or a certain leader, has no such caring motivation." (135) E.g., Mao "always promised to care for and protect the people he brutalized. They people believed him. Many of them believe him still" (136).

"[C]onstant fear generated by severe abuse draws and quarters families psychologically, separating even family members who are suffering the same destructive treatment at the hands of the same person. ... [C]hronic fear ... erodes and distorts human ties [which are only regained in the harsh period of pathocracy]." (149) "In a stressed democracy, when chronic fear is causing ties to break down anyway, influencing people to separate themselves according to the designations of liberal and conservative is not difficult to do." (150)

In this way, corrupt politicians can keep their enemy (i.e., the people) divided by focusing on side issues. While a population is busy infighting over gun control, abortion, religion, etc., the deviants in office can escape notice. If the people were aware of the manipulations being used on them by their leaders, such manipulations would prove ineffective. "Witnesses, and the clear light of day, are crucially important to our safety from abuse, and anathema to abusers. In The Wizard of Oz, the little man in the draped compartment, working the knobs to project the image of a gigantic, frightening wizard, shouts, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" - because he knows that, as soon as people pull back the drapes, the illusion will be over" (118). Wife abusers depend on the secrecy of their abuse, and do everything they can to keep it that way. In the same way, corrupt politicians use a controlled media to present their mask of sanity, operating behind a veneer of cheap propaganda and conduct their black-ops under "top secrecy".

Trojan Horse Politics

Stout identifies what she calls "cowbird politicians" after the bird that lays its eggs in another's nest to be nurtured by another. "A cowbird politician, who is interested only in acquiring and maintaining individual power, has few genuine convictions, either liberal or conservative, but many be ensconced in a traditional political party... The purloined "nest" serves as a power base and also as camouflage; we tend to honor party labels and not to look behind them, making pure self-interest difficult to see" (158). Lobaczewski deals with this phenomenon in much greater detail, pointing out that the cowbird politicians are often psychopaths (they are also called Machiavellian personalities), well-practiced in maintaining a façade (a mask of sanity) of deception, and at infiltrating social and political groups like "Trojan horses."

Stout identifies the various types of pathological types that aspire to power: the psychopaths, the vengeful, the ideologically obsessed, the neurotics, the psychotics. While Stout rightly points out that it is actions and not motivations that truly count, Lobaczewski has a more in depth understanding of the role of each different pathology. A brief summary: schizoids often provide the naïve and misguided ideology, paranoids are the first to gravitate towards leadership positions in ponerogenic groups, and psychopaths are the eventual inspirational source for the entire pathocratic system, occupying all positions of influence. Neurotics, ideologues, psychotics, are all minor, but important, players in such a system, even in positions of public leadership (look behind the veil of secrecy and you'll be sure to find a psychopathic éminence grise).

Stout points out that such leaders invariably attempt to shame their population, often with sex. Just as pathocrats manipulate normal people's innate tendencies to trust and to fear, they manipulate our moral nature with gross epithets, moralizing condemnations, and humiliating innuendo, that is, paramoralisms. Lenin called his opponents hucksters, servant-boys, and Judases. Bush has conspiracy theorists, terrorists, and traitors.

A Different Future

As Stout points out in her book, it is possible to overcome this process of ponerogenesis before it comes to full fruition in the form of pathocracy. But first, we must overcome the first criterion of ponerogenesis, that is, the inability to recognize pathological individuals and behaviours as pathological. Stout writes:

"In a democracy, a person displaying some or all of these behaviors would not be well tolerated under ordinary circumstances. Several of the ten characteristics [of fear brokers] are plainly unattractive and alienating. But, again, the behaviors are unattractive and alienating under certain conditions. Following a catastrophic national event, such as 9/11 in the United States, conditions are anything but ordinary. The people are traumatized, they long for someone to make them feel secure, and an ancient paranoia switch is once again waiting to snap on. Under these conditions, fear mongers thrive. Their characteristics are so hand in glove with the trauma reaction of the population that their identifying behaviors are scarcely "seen" at all. In short, after we have been thoroughly traumatized, we cannot see the devil." (186)

The fear brokers have an Achilles' heel: their psychopathic nature. When they are exposed as the petty con artists that they are, and their nature is understand scientifically and not emotionally, they cannot con us anymore. Dr. Stout, while perhaps not grasping the extent of the Bush regime's mendacity and ruthlessness (she seems to think that 9/11 was orchestrated and perpetrated by Muslim extremists, against all reason and evidence to the contrary), her work is an important addition to the growing body of knowledge falling under the heading Dr. Lobaczewski termed decades ago: ponerology.

World Trade Center Collapse: Spoof (A DailyKos parody)

2007-09-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

(A Signs of the Times production, inspired by the DailyKos and the bastion of truthiness, BBC)

by Codependent Thinker, DailyDros

Readers of DailyDros have seen more than one outrageous 9/11 conspiracy theory surface on these pages. And there have been a few diaries questioning why conspiracy theory diaries are not allowed. Would it have to do with something about lack of evidence? As we've been told by our fearless leaders repeatedly, there is a TON of evidence linking Bin Laden to the attacks. Sure, they haven't shown it to us, but they said they've got it. That's good enough for us here at DailyDros!

What do the Conspiracy Theorists have, anyway? Physical anomalies, inconsistent eyewitness testimony, physical traces of thermate at the WTC, WTC7. In other words, not much! They call this evidence?! On the other hand, we've got scores of scientists willing to support the idea that because the towers were not demolished, that they could not have been demolished. That's logic. Because the towers were not demolished, that means that there must be a plausible explanation for every aspect of the towers' destruction that SEEMED to be analogous to controlled demolition.

I mean, we have Bin Laden ON TAPE, admitting that he was responsible. In fact, whenever there is a terrorist attack, we have numerous different groups claiming responsibility. Luckily for our safety, this absolutely proves that all the groups claiming responsibility were in fact responsible. That's the way it works, folks. Plain and simple. If you admit it, you did it. To think otherwise would be to believe in Conspiracy Theories, and you'll find none of those here! In the REAL world, criminals don't conspire! And when they do, they get caught. It's that simple! (I mean, why would a good American fake a Bin Laden tape? What is this, a Robert Ludlum novel??)

And to all those people who blame the Reichstag on the Germans, who think the Nazis framed the Polish to justify an invasion, who think the Japanese staged the incident at Mukden, get real! There is simply NO evidence for any of these. In fact, it was a communist who was caught at the Reichstag. The Nazis merely retaliated. What are you people, "conspiracy theorists"? I mean, pshaw!

Evidence is the bane of kooky conspiracy theorists (from now on known as CT'ers). Those pesky Facts keep getting in the way of ever crazier ideas. Questions about why no wreckage found outside of the Pentagon of the plane that hit it are just one example. However easily refuted by Physics and Engineering (the two eternally objective sciences in which bias, corruption, and being wrong are never to be found) it is still not enough. Take our word for it.

I mean, what about the FACT that Mohammed Atta's luggage contained his will, a flight manual, and a koran?? This absolutely proves he was a fanatical Muslim terrorist plotting to fly a jetliner into a building for Allah! What other logical explanation is there? Are you going to tell us here at the DailyDros that this evidence (FACTS!!!) was planted?! Get real. No American would possibly do such a thing. I mean, only CRIMINALS would plant evidence to frame someone else, and that's conspiracy thinking.

The BBC has a story today about an engineer from Cambridge who mathematically tested the collapse of the twin towers. That's right. Mathematically. That means he can't be wrong. Take our word for it.

Dr Seffen was able to calculate the "residual capacity" of the undamaged building: that is, simply speaking, the ability of the undamaged structure to resist or comply with collapse.

His calculations suggest the residual capacity of the north and south towers was limited, and that once the collapse was set in motion, it would take only nine seconds for the building to go down.

This is just a little longer than a free-falling coin, dropped from the top of either tower, would take to reach the ground.

Sure, I know what you CT'ers are thinking. "Wasn't the pancake theory already discredited by official sources? How was there enough energy to both pulverize the concrete and destroy all the central steel columns in a total collapse? There's not even any evidence that the fires reached temperatures hot enough to heat the steel to the point of failure. In other words, there's no good explanation for how all the perimeter and central support columns failed at exactly the same time, from minimal fire damage."

Two words: horse hockey. This guy's got math. Residual capacity.

I can hear the CT'ers wailing that this guy was paid by the Bush administration to provide bogus evidence. Pretty hard to refute that claim, which is typical of CT'ers tactics. After all, it IS a CONSPIRACY theory.

What are they going to say next? That people actually blackmail scientists? That some scientists have the moral integrity of a jellyfish? That scientists are wrong? Get real. They wouldn't be called scientists if they were wrong. In case you forgot, science tells us what is true, and those scientists who say our commonly accepted theories about reality are wrong are just that -- wrong! Science didn't get where it is today by accepting the kooky theories of maverick thinkers, after all... We're right and we know it. What's not to get?

"But the buildings were brought down by controlled explosions", CT'ers cry.

The controlled detonation idea, espoused on several internet websites, asserts that the manner of collapse is consistent with synchronised rows of explosives going off inside the World Trade Center.

This would have generated a demolition wave that explained the speed, uniformity and similarity between the collapses of both towers.

Not so, asserts the good Doctor Steffen. I believe him. Why don't you? I mean he's a SCIENTIST, gosh darnit! Why WOULDN'T I believe him? I don't even need to read his paper, because it's obviously correct.

The University of Cambridge engineer said his results therefore suggested progressive collapse was "a fair assumption in terms of how the building fell".

"One thing that confounded engineers was how falling parts of the structure ploughed through undamaged building beneath and brought the towers down so quickly," said Dr Seffen.

Conspiracy theorists see evidence of a "controlled detonation"

He added that his calculations showed this was a "very ordinary thing to happen" and that no other intervention, such as explosive charges laid inside the building, was needed to explain the behaviour of the buildings.

You see, he says it was "very ordinary." That's evidence. Even though the only progressive collapses in the historical record are the WTC buildings, he says they were ordinary. Must be so, then. He's a scientist.

I realize that there will never be enough "proof" to convince CT'ers, but on the eve of the anniversary of this heinous attack on innocent citizens of the world, I can only say that I am glad Dros bans conspiracy theories.

Controversial 9/11 Diaries

DailyKos accepts that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by agents of Al-Qaeda. It is forbidden to write diaries that:

1. refer to claims that American, British, Israeli, or any government assisted in the attacks
2. refer to claims that the airplanes that crashed into the WTC and Pentagon were not the cause of the damage to those buildings or their subsequent collapse.

Authoring or recommending these diaries may result in banning from Daily Dros

There are enough nut cases around without having to put up with them.

Rejecting conspiracy thinking keeps it alive and well - Tossell should know!

2007-08-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

In a fitting and prototypical example of the conversive thinking that runs epidemic among our hysterized society, Ivor Tossell of the Globe and Mail demonstrates in a recent article the very fuzzy thinking he attempts to deride. If it wasn't so sad, and so pitiful a look into the lengths to which a seemingly healthy mind will go to hang onto a belief system, it would be humorous. For Tossell, in his article, accuses others of the very things he himself epitomizes, as will be shown in my comments below.

Tossell begins:

The problem with deriding conspiracy theories is that it really does leave your columnist feeling like he's just playing his part in the International Bankers' plan for one-world government.

Comment: In his first sentence, Tossell shows how little he has actually thought about "conspiracy theories." Has he ever asked himself, "Just what is a conspiracy theory?" I doubt it. If he did, he would probably conclude that a conspiracy theory was a theory (a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something) that involves a conspiracy (a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful).

So Tossell is a conspiracy theorist whether he likes it or not, for he posits that a group (Al-Qaeda) came up with a secret plan to do something unlawful and harmful. Now, for some reason, Tossell has rejected the idea that the American government and intelligence agencies could have been involved in said plan, or that said plan was not entirely secret and that there was advance knowledge of the attacks.

Why should he make such an a priori judgment? We know military and intelligence agencies commonly take part in conspiracies of their own. They are called "covert or black operations." The are also called psyops, or psychological operations, in which a lie is told for propaganda purposes. Many people are often involved, and the methods and means are often "extra-judicial." Sounds like "conspiracy theories" to me.

Already, from Tossell's use of the paramoralism "conspiracy theory" (that is, it has an emotional and moralistic connotation that makes it particularly derogatory and contagious) his logic must be: a) conspiracy theories are inherently irrational, b) the idea that the Bush-Cheney administration had anything to do with the attacks is a conspiracy theory, therefore c) the theory is irrational and cannot be true. Furthermore, using this logic, it is unlikely that the government has ever or will ever be involved in such "conspiracies". To think so is irrational!

Ironically, while Tossell sardonically mentions that he feels he is playing his part for the "International Bankers," he isn't that far from the truth. He is one in a long line of useful idiots.

Yet the topic asserts itself this week, despite my years-long attempt to ignore it.

Comment: Another clue! Tossell must have all the answers if he knows enough that he can ignore the issues, self-satisfied in his belief that one need not examine evidence to form an "opinion."

A two-hour movie, slickly produced and wrapped in an air of appealing mystery, has been making the rounds, propelled by recommendations from bloggers whose eyes were opened and lives changed. The reputable A-list websites are starting to acknowledge it. People in the offline world have asked me about it.

The thing is called Zeitgeist and can be found via Google Video. It's a online video set against a black backdrop, with no clue as to its creators' identities. It assembles archival footage, animations, and breathless narration into a kind of primer on conspiracies.

The movie comes in three parts. The first makes the case that Jesus is a mythological figure built from parts of earlier mythological figures. Christianity, say the filmmakers, is a concoction, just a form of social control.

So far, nothing ground-breaking. But now the movie jumps to 9/11, and things really get moving. The middle segment steps us through the orthodoxy of 9/11 conspiracy thinking.

Comment: Wait a minute... I thought the "orthodox (of the ordinary or usual type; normal) conspiracy theory" was the Al-Qaeda hijacker theory?

The twin towers weren't destroyed by jetliners; they were intentionally demolished with explosives.

Comment: In fact, there is a wealth of evidence to support this theory. If the towers were demolished, what would we expect to see and find? Total collapse, pulverization, explosions, molten metal, near free-fall collapse, traces of common "cutting" materials. In fact, there is evidence of all of the above. See the papers at the Journal of 9/11 Studies for the analysis of this evidence.

Something fishy happened to Flight 93, which the banker-controlled media will tell you crashed in Pennsylvania.

Comment: Something fishy did happen to Flight 93. Not only did eye-witnesses see a military jet trailing the flight (which the 9/11 Commission denied), they heard the sound of missiles being fired. The wreckage was strewn over a miles-wide radius, an impossibility if the plane had nose-dived as the official conspiracy has it. This is only scratching the surface of the problems with the official account of Flight 93. For more, see Dave McGowan's analysis at the Centre for an Informed America, and Rowland Morgan's book, Flight 93 Revealed.

The Air Force, we're told, deliberately failed to intercept any of the planes.

Comment: In fact, that the military were following a stand down order is the only plausible explanation for the events that happened on that day, according to which the FAA notified the military of each of the four hijacked airlines with enough time for interception, which did not happen. Instead, the 9/11 Commission fabricated a new story out of whole-cloth, ignoring much of the testimony that did not support their fabrication, in which the FAA failed to notify the military of any of the hijackings in time for interception. If Tossell believes the new account, he must believe that the military lied for three years to cover up for the FAA's incompetence and bringing possible charges of treason and murder upon the military. Fat chance, Tossell.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon wasn't hit by an airliner, but by something more like a missile.

Comment: In fact, there is very little evidence that the Pentagon was hit by an airliner. Not only was the damage to the Pentagon facade too narrow and short for the wingspan and height of a 757, Hani Hanjour could not have executed the 330 degree turn/descent, and would not have chosen the West side of the building. In addition, the only explanation for why the Pentagon's defense systems did not fire on the plane was that it possessed a military transponder, i.e., it was a "friendly." As with the questions surrounding Flight 93, these merely scratch the surface.

All of this leads to the conclusion that 9/11 was an inside job, staged by elements of the U.S. government to provide a pretext for invading Iraq and curtailing civil liberties.

Comment: That is exactly the issue. It is the same reason Hitler adopted a policy of terror. But is it "conspiracy thinking" to believe the Nazis were behind the burning of the Reichstag? I would think so...

To what end? Warming to its topic, the film shimmers into its third act. It seems that the Federal Reserve, the U.S. money-printing organ, is in fact the implement of a small cabal of International Bankers (the ethnicity of these money-lenders goes undisclosed) who stage global calamities to spur federal spending and enrich themselves.

They arranged for the Lusitania to be torpedoed, dragging the U.S. into the First World War. They manipulated FDR into essentially staging Pearl Harbour, starting The Second World War. (That was the start of The Second World War, right?) Ditto Vietnam, ditto 9/11.

Comment: Does Tossell dispute that Pearl Harbour was known about in advance and was allowed to happen in order to gain support for American entry into the war? Does he dispute that the Tonkin Gulf incident was staged to do the same with Vietnam? It would be hard to do so, as these facts are part of the historical record, not mere "conspiracy thinking."

Their ultimate goal? A one-world government whose citizens all carry implanted microchip IDs. And all the while, the hidden powers are using the consolidated mass media, the church, and the educational establishment to create a complacent zeitgeist - a spirit of the times - that leaves us dumb as sheep.

Comment: Does Tossell dispute that there exist such men with such goals? Or was Hitler an historical anomaly? These people exist. They are called PSYCHOPATHS, and they are ruthless in their pursuit of power. Luckily for them, they've left those like Tossell "dumb as sheep."

The film is an interesting object lesson on how conspiracy theories get to be so popular.

Comment: The same could be said for the 9/11 Commission Report...

(In 2006, one poll suggested that a full third of Americans thought their government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks.) It's a driven, if uneven, piece of propaganda, a marvel of tight editing and fuzzy thinking. Its on-camera sources are mostly conspiracy theorists, co-mingled with selective eyewitness accounts, drawn from archival footage and often taken out of context.

Comment: It would help if Tossell substantiated his claims. We have only his word that the footage is "often taken out of context."

It derides the media as a pawn of the International Bankers, but produces media reports for credibility when it suits it.

Comment: Perhaps Tossell does not understand the way this particular "conspiracy" works. He is part of the conspiracy, if only because he has a weak and gullible mind, as do most journalists. They report what they are allowed to report on. It is that simple. Often they will report on facts the importance of which they do not comprehend. This is how much of the evidence for a conpiracy comes to light. A media report (e.g., an interview with Dick Cheney where he says he entered the Office of Emergency Management up to a half-hour before the Commission says he did, demolishing his reason for not being able to have given a shoot-down order, and his reason for not knowing Flight 77 was approaching the Pentagon) will feature a piece of innocuous evidence that is later revised.

Perhaps Tossell would like to test his hypothesis that the media is not controlled. Try to publish an article from the perspective that the American government was responsible for 9/11. See how far that gets you.

It ignores expert opinion, except the handful of experts who agree with it.

Comment: Is that not expert opinion? Tossell seems to believe that experts are never wrong, or influenced by emotional thinking. Also he seems to think that the opinion of experts who disagree with official dogma are less reliable than those who espouse it.

And yet, it's compelling. It shamelessly ploughs forward, connecting dots with an earnest certainty that makes you want to give it an A for effort.

The funny thing about this stuff is that it's all been thoroughly debunked for years.

Comment: In fact, it hasn't. It seems Tossell has not read David Ray Griffin's book Debunking 9/11 Debunking in which he demonstrates, with precise logic, that none of these attempts have been successful.

Everyone from Scientific American to Popular Mechanics have produced reports puncturing the central claims of the 9/11 theory,

Comment: By "everyone", he means precisely Scientific American and Popular Mechanics. After reading Griffin's analysis you will see what a poor excuse for "science" these two publications actually are.

and when you look gullible next to Popular Mechanics, you know you're in trouble.

Comment: ?! If I understand Tossell's point here correctly he is saying that if you're more gullible than PM, you know you're in trouble. Is Tossell implying that PM is gullible? If so, I would wholeheartedly concur!

Evidently, debunking isn't the issue. You can't argue aliens with someone who has an "I want to believe" poster on his or her office wall. Nor can you cite the findings of the professional, journalistic, and academic consensus to someone who's decided that having credibility means being under the sway of shadowy forces.

Comment: It was until fairly recently that the "professional, journalistic and academic consensus" was that archaeology demonstrated the historicity of the United Monarchy of Israel. New findings have eliminated that belief. The consensus can change with new data. Tossell is right that it does not mean they are under the sway of shadowy forces, merely the results of their own paradigmatic thinking.

To that line of thinking, an expert who is rejected by his peers - say, for lunatic conspiracy thinking - gains credibility just for being ostracized.

Comment: Only in Tossell's twisted view of reality.

What troubles me the most is that, for all the talk of skepticism, conspiracy counterculture is really an anti-intellectual, populist movement - much like Intelligent Design. For all their absurdity, conspiracy theorists try to drag everything back to the level of common sense.

Comment: What absurdity? It is the official conspiracy theory that is absurd. In fact the intellectual leaders of the 9/11 truth movement are not anti-intellectual. For anyone who has read David Ray Griffin's books to say that can only be evidence of either their own anti-intellectualism, or their own sophistry. To expect all members of a movement to be clear thinkers and intellectuals is an unrealistic expectation. However, some aspects of the official conspiracy theory are so absurd as to only require a moderate degree of common sense to debunk.

Just look at the video evidence, they say! Did the collapsing buildings on 9/11 look like they were being demolished? Then they must have been demolished. Did the 757 that hit the Pentagon's blast-proof walls fail to make a plane-shaped hole? Then it must have been something else. Are there unexplained quirks in the official story? Then it must be the work of a higher power.

Comment: No, actually. The fact that controlled demolition provides a more intelligible explanation for the collapses is the motivating force. And the fact that Al-Qaeda did not have the means nor the opportunity to plant the explosives.

That's the thing: Conspiracy theorists want to see a guiding force, a malevolent design, behind events.

Comment: What evidence does Tossell have for this pop psychoanalysis of conspiracy theorists? Did he consider the fact that he does not want to look at the issue of 9/11 (after all, he said he has ignored it it for years) because of a FEAR of those malevolent forces? The vast majority of people do not want to believe in malevolent and ruthless forces controlling their lives; in fact, they actively reject information that leads to that conclusion. Does Tossell really believe they don't exist?!

The notion that calamity might be the unintended consequence of subtler causes doesn't hold the same appeal. Evil, whatever its other uses, drives a great narrative. Complexity, not so much.

Comment: This is not what "conspiracy theorists" want to believe, it is what follows naturally from the evidence, which Tossell has ignored.

The Internet bred the 9/11 conspiracy movement, and thanks to films like Zeitgeist, it's alive and well. Now riddle me this: I look at what's happening, and I see people using the Internet to gain widespread currency by rejecting social institutions in favour of an amateur-accessible common-sense approach.

Comment: And thank God for the internet! Without it, we'd all be reading apologetic drivel like this piece by Ivor Tossell.

I see people who are highly selective about facts,

Comment: So do I...

and who are ready to write off opposing views as the bile of powers that be.

Comment: ...or a symptom of the imaginary "conspiracy thinking."

I see them using the Web's echo-chamber to create a place where they're right, and everyone else is wrong.

Comment: The same could be said for mainstream journalists and their use of the term "conspiracy theory." They live in a hermetic environment of people who think the way they do. And if the poll results on the Globe and Mail's website are any indication, they're in the minority.

Does this sound familiar? If I told you that I look around the Internet, and am troubled to see this pattern everywhere, would you accuse me of seeing a conspiracy?

Comment: Irrational conspiracy theories flourish in the mainstream media. Just how can one tell the difference between a rational conspiracy theory and an irrational one? See comments to Tossell's hit piece to find out.
(Original)

Year Zero: This is the Beginning

2007-05-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

Introduction

Fifteen years in the future an innocent American Muslim is forcibly arrested, his daughter beaten to death - the news reports the break-up of a major terrorist cell. Iran is now Post-Iran, its Southern provinces nuked to oblivion. The War on Terror still rages and the United States is run by a cadre of fanatic evangelicals. Bioterrorism has left Detroit and New Orleans uninhabitable. The American population is implanted with surveillance microchips and Great Britain is following suit. Staged bioterrorism attacks garner support for a major pharmaceutical company to introduce a mind-numbing, conscience-killing drug into the water supply - in the guise of an immune system booster.

There are reports of something called "The Presence", which are denied by officials. The internet monitored, dissenters resort to the use of quantum encryption technology to send a batch of information - websites, banned books, top secret files, music - into the past, in hopes to change the future. Power and greed have run their course and the world is on the verge of utter destruction. It is Year Zero.

This is the premise to Nine Inch Nails' (i.e., Trent Reznor's) latest studio album, Year Zero, released on April 17. Written and produced while on tour for his previous album, With Teeth, Reznor's latest effort is a departure from previous work. In an interview with Rolling Stone's Brian Hiatt (March 22, 2007) Reznor says, "I went into it with a sense of not giving a fuck. Not worried about singles, radio play, melody, 'correct' song structure, record labels, marketability, critics, kissing ass, my own fans' expectations, chart positions, being fashionable... I really just let my subconscious take over and steer the ship."

But Year Zero is more than just an album. It encompasses an entire online universe of websites created by Reznor, Rob Sheridan, and 42 Entertainment. It is music from the future, a warning of things to come, and ostensibly, an impetus for the creation of a resistance now which already exists in the future. Clues and puzzles are literally scattered across the globe: USB drives placed in bathrooms at NIN concerts contain sound clips, highlighted letters on t-shirts spell out web addresses, phone numbers reach pre-recorded "wire-taps" or song previews, codes are hidden in liner notes and distorted track noise. Year Zero covers all the bases.

Most intriguing about the concept, however, is its insidious "Trojan Horse" nature. In 2006, NIN were slated to perform their single "The Hand That Feeds" at the MTV movie awards. They planned on performing the song with an image of George W. Bush displayed behind the band. The event organizers, however, felt "uncomfortable" about this overtly "political" display. Refusing to play under such conditions, Reznor responded sardonically on his website: "Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me."

In an era when so-called "political statements" are not only few and far between, but overtly censored by a long-since emasculated mainstream media, Year Zero is art at its best: as a subversive warning; a mirror to the terror of the world; a form of resistance in and of itself. "Art is resistance."

The Terror of the Situation

One of the Year Zero websites, the home of "Cedocore", the pharmaceutical company responsible for the above-mentioned drug, Parepin - as well as "Opal", the government-sponsored crack-cocaine of the future - has an online quiz. My diagnosis? "Under the circumstances, it would be best to call or email the authorities and then sedate yourself until they arrive. Be careful, but be thorough. Lives are at stake. Remember, there is an IV drip with Prozira waiting for you at the hospital. You will learn to live and love and laugh again!" No doubt!

Try it yourself. If you are disgusted with the destruction of Iraq, the rape of Africa, the slow genocide of Palestinine, or any other form of such inhumanity, you may need medication! It may be humorous to read the Orwellian diagnoses provided on the "Cedocore" website, but they are a window into an unsettling truth: It is not an easy time to be a person of conscience. We live in a world ruled by those least capable to rule. Like a blind man leading those who can see through a dangerous terrain, the men and women who rule our world lack that quality essential for decision-making which will affect the lives of billions: conscience.

To those without conscience, our lives have meaning only insofar as we can serve as pawns in the fulfillment of their goals. The last hundred years have seen instance after instance of such mass hysteria and subsequent psychopathic rule. We have seen their fruits: an indomitable and unquenchable lust for more power, a narcissistic drive to force others to obey one's will, all leading to the inevitable mass genocide that characterizes such regimes. When those without conscience come to rule, it is a crime to have a conscience.

In Trent Reznor's Year Zero, as in any pathocratic (i.e. ruled by psychopaths) regime, books are banned: Twain, Whitman, Salinger, Joyce, Zinn, Orwell, Vonnegut, Milgram... Curiously, the last three in this list, Orwell, Vonnegut and Milgram, all provide essential pieces to this specter we have known variously as Bolshevism, Nazism, Stalinism, Zionism, and currently, Neoconservatism.

Orwell accurately described a pathocratic regime and its characteristic doublethink. Doublethink is defined as "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them." This is an apt description of what has become known as the Bush Doctrine: War for the sake of peace. That is, "War is bad. But war is good." Two contradictory beliefs, yet both are accepted, all contradictory evidence is repressed. It is also called conversive thinking, and it is epidemic in our myopic and psychologically illiterate culture.

While Orwell described the symptoms, Vonnegut nailed their cause, in an excerpt from his memoirs published by the Guardian:

George W Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka Christians, and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences.
To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete's foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr Hervey Cleckley, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Medical College of Georgia, published in 1941. Read it!

Some people are born deaf, some are born blind or whatever, and this book is about congenitally defective human beings of a sort that is making this whole country and many other parts of the planet go completely haywire nowadays. These were people born without consciences, and suddenly they are taking charge of everything.

PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And they are waging a war that is making billionaires out of millionaires, and trillionaires out of billionaires, and they own television, and they bankroll George Bush, and not because he's against gay marriage.

So many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick. They have taken charge. They have taken charge of communications and the schools, so we might as well be Poland under occupation.

They might have felt that taking our country into an endless war was simply something decisive to do. What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin' day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they don't give a fuck what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilise the reserves! Privatise the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

Vonnegut has also provided a framework from which to understand the Milgram experiment. For those unfamiliar with Milgram's work, here's a short summary: "The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."

In short, the vast majority of humans will do whatever they are told to, if the person telling them to do it is "authoritative". Of course, most people are unaware of this fact of human psychology, and would not conceive of strategically manipulating others by taking advantage of it. We tend to assume everyone is like we are. "Well, I would never tell someone to give a lethal shock to someone for no reason, so this doctor must be telling me to do it for a very good one!" We have trouble saying no to such a request! However, there is a certain small percentage of the human population for whom this is not only advantageous; it is their only way of being. These are the same individuals identified by Vonnegut: psychopaths.

"Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets. Completely lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret. Their bewildered victims desperately ask, 'Who are these people?' 'What makes them they way they are?' 'How can we protect ourselves?'"

So writes Robert Hare, one of the worlds leading authorities on psychopathy, in his book Without Conscience. To a psychopath, the world of normal people strikes him as odd and naïve. Ted Bundy, the infamous psychopathic killer, said there were two types of people: Gods (i.e. psychopaths) and Beasts (i.e. normal people). Psychopaths have nothing but contempt for the incomprehensible rules of society and the people who follow them. And they will actively use any means at their disposal (including their knowledge of normal human weaknesses, like that shown in the Milgram study) to achieve a position from which they are able to create a system more amenable to their deviant world view. Witness the inhuman totalitarian regimes of the past century, in particular. They truly, in their own minds, are waging a "War Against Terror" for the purposes of "freedom". That freedom, however, is freedom from the "terror" of living among such emotional and naive machines, i.e. us.

There is one banned book that is understandably absent from the list of books in the Year Zero universe. It is called Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes by Andrew Lobaczewski. The story of its publication is as dramatic (or morseo) as Reznor's vision. A small group of Polish scientists, living under the conditions portrayed so well in Year Zero, works in secret to understand the sickness which has taken over their nation. They are tortured, their work is repeatedly destroyed and suppressed, and they suffer unimaginable terror at the hands of a psychopathic regime. The work's author, Andrew Lobaczewski, is the last surviving member of this group, and his work is our only source of a science that describes everything that is wrong with life on this planet.

While many, like the authors of those works banned by the pathocratic Year Zero regime, can see the symptoms of such a societal disease for what they truly are, often described in haunting yet beautiful prose, they have all lacked the scientific language with which to truly understand the nature of evil, and thus prevent it. A disease cannot be cured simply by a description of its symptoms, no matter how precise.

This science, ponerology (i.e. the study of evil), describes where we are and where we will be if we continue on our present course. And without the insights which this group suffered so much to understand and pass on to us, it is a course that those in power are investing billions of dollars in bringing to its final conclusion.

Let us look where they have taken us in the last 7 years: a conscienceless, C-student President, 'winner' of two stolen elections, whose strings are expertly pulled by a group of power-lusting, clownish Neoconservative psychopaths; a false-flag operation that puts the Reichstag fire to shame and has served as justification for two (soon to be three) immoral invasions and occupations of sovereign nations; a 'two-party' system where Democrats and Republicans argue not about whether or not to go to war, but when and how to go to war; the resulting slaughter of more than 700,000 Iraqi civilians in the name of "freedom and democracy"; the raping and pillaging of Palestine by a Zionist regime of schizoid interlopers; a veritable Big Brother state in Great Britain; the list could go on for pages. Just take a browse through the archives at Signs of the Times for a look at the last few years in the making of our very own Year Zero. As Trent Reznor has said in a recent interview, "There are no concepts in the story that aren't rooted in things that already are happening".

A Warning

The increasingly brazen and coarse nature of the Neoconserative imperium has given rise to several forms of resistance. Despised the world over, Bush is widely seen as the megalomaniac that he truly is. The United States has seen the creation of large, albeit marginalized, anti-war and 9/11 truth movements. But these movements are doomed to fail without knowledge of psychopathy.

If Ponerology teaches us one thing it is that psychopaths are pervasive and chameleon-like in nature. They are not easily identifiable. As such, it is a given that any group unaware of their existence and their modus operandi are subject to ponerization. Any group.

Ideologies by themselves do not need psychopaths. Normal people are often at their root. However, psychopathic spellbinders need ideologies, and they don't care which one, either! They can with equal ease attach themselves to Communism or Capitalism. Even the so-called resistance. Watch as the ideology of the 9/11 and anti-war movements slowly becomes a justification for bloody revolution and murder. "Truth at any cost! Let the criminals hang!" The twist will be so subtle that most will not see it. Many will get caught up in the bloodlust, convinced that their motives are pure.

And that is the recurring problem that must be identified and watched for. The defeat of any psychopathic regime is merely killing one head of the hydra. The seeds of destruction are already evenly distributed throughout the population. Psychopaths will continue to rise through the ranks, donning their incredibly deceptive masks of sanity, and achieving positions of power over the rest of us. And we will not see it until it is too late. We never do.

The resistance is already infected. It was infected the moment it was started. And if we do not overcome our own self-importance and arrogance to see this simple fact, we are doomed. Take it to the bank. Neoconservatives are not the problem; Christian fundamentalists are not the problem; Jewish extremists are not the problem. Psychopaths are the problem.

Programmed to Kill

2007-03-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

©SpokesmanReview

Killing machine.

Having returned from Afghanistan in March of 2002, Sgt. 1st Class Rigoberto Nieves fatally shoots his wife then himself. Eighteen days later, on June 29, Master Sgt. William Wright, having returned the month before, strangles his wife to death. On July 9, Sgt. Cedric Griffin (who had yet to be deployed) stabs his wife to death. Ten days later, Sgt. 1st Class Brandon S. Floyd and his wife, Andrea, are found shot to death; another murder-suicide. All were stationed at Fort Bragg.

In July of the next year, at Fort Benning, Pvt. Jacob Burgoyne, whom base records had listed as "homicidal/suicidal" and diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), shoots Spc. Richard Davis to death. After seeing Noah P. Gamez stealing an ice chest from his Jeep, Spc. Kyle Edward Williams, 21, fires six shots into the man before also killing himself.

In early 2004, a US paratrooper who had raped a woman in Italy is given a light sentence because "the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others." James Kevin Pitts, after returning from Iraq in March, drowns his girlfriend. In April, Andrew Hallet, after serving a 6 month term in Iraq, is arrested for shooting at a police officer. In May, veteran Matthew James Denni kills his girlfriend and puts her body in the trunk of his car. In the latter half of 2004, a 35-year old Fort Riley, KS Army soldier back from Iraq is charged with 9 felony counts of forcible rape, sodomy, assault and unlawful use of a weapon.

Iraq vet Allen Gregg is sentenced to 21 years for the murder James Fallis. Spc. Pierre M. Cole ("the seventh Fort Riley soldier arrested in connection with a slaying in recent months") fatally shoots James Jung. 19-year-old Marine vet Andres Raya kills two police officers. A 30-year old vet kills his ex-girlfriend and her sister.

Spc. Brandon Bare, having returned in April 2005, kills his wife (stabbing her 71 times), as does Pfc. Stephen S. Sherwood, who then turns his gun on himself. Iraq vet Brandon Craddock, in August 2006, is charged with the attempted murder of his wife. And more recently, Iraq vet Zackary Bowen killed his New Orleans girlfriend, dismembered her, and cooked her flesh before killing himself.

This is just a sampling of the reported cases involving Afghanistan and Iraq war vets charged with murder, rape, child abuse, beatings, and assault, not to mention the hundreds who have committed suicide. What is obvious about many of these cases (and countless others) is the prevalence of PTSD. While 19% of Vietnam vets returned with the disorder, one third of Iraq vets suffer from PTSD.

A new study published by the Archives of Internal Medicine shows that mental health disorders or psychosocial ills have hit a third of the US soldiers that have returned from Afghanistan or Iraq.
The study shows that a third of all US soldiers returning from the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq have received treatments from the Veterans Affairs between 2001 and 2005 for mental illnesses or other psychosocial disorders.

However, many of those suffering are not getting the treatment they require. Thousands of British troops are going AWOL because of this.

Thousands of British soldiers have gone absent without leave since 2003 because the Army is unwilling to accept the gravity of mental problems caused by their tours in Iraq.
The Ministry of Defence estimates there have been 10,000 Awol incidents since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and 1,100 servicemen are currently "on the run" from the Army. ...

"As the nightmares and the flashbacks got worse, and I felt myself sinking lower, I reported to officers I was having problems dealing with what I'd experienced. Their response was to laugh at me. It's played down. Any serious issue is always laughed off. They think you're taking the mick. They just don't want to have to deal with it.''

Richard Livingston, a soldier who attempted to take his own life, said: "When I got in touch with the medical team, they put me through to a community psychiatric nurse. Once they found out about my suicide attempts and cutting myself they still sat and said, you're fit to go back to the Army as soon as possible."

While PTSD is certainly part of the problem, there are other possible factors contributing to this particular phenomenon. First of all, we do not know for certain which of the murders and murder/suicides were actually committed by the soldiers in question. It is conceivable that some have been framed, or are victims of double homicide. Perhaps the soldiers in question knew something they should not, or in some other way compromised so-called "national security" with their knowledge of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. While this is a very real possibility, given the sheer amount of cases, and their striking similarities, there is probably more to the story.

Consider the following from Andrew Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology:

When American soldiers returned from North Vietnamese prison camps, many of them proved to have been subjected to indoctrination and other methods of influencing by pathological [i.e. psychopathic] material. A certain degree of transpersonification [i.e. the effect on the mind and personality of persons with certain inherited or acquired psychopathologies] appeared in many of these. In the U.S.A. this was called "programming" and outstanding psychotherapists proceeded to effect therapy for the purpose of deprogramming them. It turned out that they met with opposition and critical commentary concerning their skills, among other things. When I heard about this, I breathed a deep sigh and thought: Dear God, what interesting work that would make for a psychotherapist who understands such matters well.
The pathocratic world, the world of pathological egotism and terror, is so difficult to understand for people raised outside the scope of this phenomenon that they often manifest childlike naiveté, even if they have studied psychopathology and are psychologists by profession. ...

I would here like to remind psychologists that these kinds of experiences and their destructive effects upon the human personality are not unknown to scientific practice and experience. We often meet with patients requiring appropriate assistance: individuals raised under the influence of pathological, especially psychopathic, personalities who were forced with a pathological egotism to accept an abnormal way of thinking. Even an approximate determination of the type of pathological factors which operated on him allow us to pinpoint psychotherapeutic measures. ...

Regardless of the social scale within which human individuals were forcibly reared by pathological persons, whether individual, group, societal, or macrosocial, the principles of psychotherapeutic action will thus be similar, and should be based upon data known to us, and an understanding of the psychological situation. Making a patient aware of the kind of pathological factors which affected him, and jointly understanding the results of such effects, is basic to such therapy. We do not utilize this method if, in an individual case, we have indications that the patient has inherited this factor. However, such limitations should not be consistent with regard to macrosocial phenomena affecting the welfare of entire nations....

Those people [under a psychopathic regime] who initially found the original ideology attractive eventually come to the realization that they are in fact dealing with something else that has taken its place under the old name. The disillusionment experienced by such former ideological adherents is bitter in the extreme. Thus, the pathological minority's attempts to retain power will be threatened by the society of normal people, whose criticism keeps growing.

Therefore, to mitigate the threat to their power, the pathocrats must employ any and all methods of terror and exterminatory policies [including war] against individuals known for their patriotic feelings and military training; other, specific "indoctrination" activities ... are also utilized. Individuals lacking the natural feeling of being linked to normal society become irreplaceable in either of these activities. Again, the foreground of this type of activity is occupied by cases of essential psychopathy, followed by those with similar anomalies, and finally by people alienated from the society in question as a result of racial or national differences.

In other words, in a country run by psychopaths, (whether overtly or covertly), patriotic men and women of conscience must be killed or otherwise neutralized. And there are numerous ways to do so. War thus serves a dual purpose for pathocrats. Not only does it eliminate foreign enemies, it helps eliminate portions of their own population who may pose a threat to their power. Thankfully for those in power, thousands of troops are killed or wounded in combat, and thousands, suffering from PTSD and/or "Gulf War Syndrome", lose the ability to function in society.

[Individuals exposed to certain endogenous toxins and viruses] progressively tend to lose their emotional color and their ability to intuit a psychological situation. They retain their intellectual functions but become praise-craving egocentrics, easily ruled by people who know how to take advantage of this. They become indifferent to other people's feelings and the harm they are inflicting upon them; any criticism of their own person or behavior is repaid with a vengeance. Such a change of character in a person who until recently enjoyed respect on the part of his environment or community, which perseveres in human minds, becomes a pathological phenomenon causing often tragic results.

Consider that endogenous toxins include heavy metals like mercury, pesticides, food additives, and industrial and household chemicals and we begin to see the scope of the problem: a small minority of psychopathic individuals is using every means at its disposal (or at least taking advantage of already existing conditions) to kill our consciences.

Soldiers are not receiving the care they need because they are a success. Those who come home to kill their families and themselves are behaving as planned. They are programmed to kill, and when they do, it only serves the pathocrats' interests: the population becomes more hysterical and more divided.

Similarly, the Iraq war is NOT a failure. It is progressing exactly as planned. Hundreds of thousands are dead and Israel is close to receiving its long-held wish: an Iraq dismembered into three weakened states. There is absolute chaos. And this is the way they want it.

Published on Signs of the Times.

The Protocols of Zion Protocol

2006-12-14T12:07:00.000-08:00

I've just about had it with the Protocols of Zion. To be more specific, I've had it with ADL spooks and useful idiots propagandizing said document for the purpose of character assassination, guilt by association, and the general spreading of moralistic claptrap. When a document is used by clownish racists (both Jew and Gentile) to incite both 'anti-Semitism' and 'philo-Isrealism' (and its accompanying 'anti-Arabism'), without any interest in facts or reality, something is up. What other document has served so well as propaganda for both sides of an ideological conflict?

It's easy to see how the Protocols have inspired anti-semitism. They are a set of protocols diabolical enough to whet the appetite of any aspiring megalomaniac. Regardless of their authorship (they are widely regarded as a 'fraud' or 'hoax'), they show a remarkable knowledge of human weaknesses and methods for exploiting these vulnerabilities. In short, they demonstrate an obviously psychopathic worldview. They could have been written by Soviets, Jews, Nazis, Christians, or any combination of a much more comprehensive list. By assigning these Machiavellian machinations to Jews, unthinking people are easily duped. They say, "Well, it's obvious that what is said in the Protocols is actually coming true (e.g. control of the press, the rise of the ubiquitous presidential 'advisor', and so on), so it must be the Jews!"

So, already we know a couple facts: the Protocols describe a conspiracy, one that undoubtedly exists wherever a group of power-hungry men decide to put one over their bleeding-heart brothers and sisters. Also, we know that many an anti-Semite fervently backs this document as proof that Jews, collectively, are evil. But let's add another fact to this mix: the fact that Israel is an Apartheid state. Israel (and its supporters), since before its 'creation' in 1948, has had a history of terror: massacring entire villages, destroying homes, ethnic cleansing, assassination, psychological warfare, false-flag terror, daily humiliation, targeting civilians, stealing land. No serious academic denies these facts.

Recently, Jimmy Carter broke the politician's 'code of silence', and spoken the unspeakable. He spoke the truth. He said what the whole world knows but is afraid to say. But here we come to the crux of the matter, and the subject of this article. Why are they so afraid to say it? For an answer, Jimmy Carter is a perfect case study, and I thank him for offering himself up for public character assassination and demonisation to demonstrate this oddity of what passes for political discourse on all subjects Israeli.

It is here, at this critical juncture, that the opposing camp dons their mask of feigned contempt and waxes histrionic: "How dare he! Like the pharaoh before him, Carter is stirring the multitude against Jews!" Novelist Jack Engelhard even went so far as to compare Carter's book to Mein Kampf. Listening to Abe Foxman speak to Marc Levin in the latter's documentary The Protocols of Zion, one would think that any criticism of Jews "goes right back to the Protocols", thus discrediting the criticism. You see, in the twisted minds of these defamers of character, any criticism of Jews or Israeli policies is "anti-semitic" and hearkens back to the infamous "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." I guess you could call it 'innocence by association with previous but unrelated absence of guilt'.

Can you imagine the fun George Bush could be having if he had his very own Protocols ascribed to his ancestors? With the Protocols under his belt, Bush too could stroll up to some stranger's house, blow a hole in its wall and tell its inhabitants they have 15 minutes to leave before their home is destroyed; he can saunter up to young child he does not like and shoot her in the head repeatedly for looking like a terrorist; he can set up an Apartheid state and a pro-Bush lobby that bribes and threatens foreign politicians not to speak out against his crimes, 'or else.' And then, when the criticism inevitably comes that "Bush has an overwhelming amount of power for just a single man", or that "Bush has created an Apartheid state", or that "Bush kills innocent civilians as a form of collective punishment", he can rest easy and give thanks for the well-worn copy of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Bush. He can put on a face of shocked disbelief and say, "I cannot believe you could say that? What you are saying hearkens right back to the Protocols! I mean, they're a proven hoax, and they're just downright ridiculous. When the Protocols - saying that the Bushes rule the world - were proven a hoax, it really meant that any indication that I, personally, was committing similar crimes is a blatant lie! Don't you see? It's impossible that I'm a criminal, because the book saying I'm a criminal was discredited long ago! Isn't it obvious?!"

Well, by the looks of some of the recent attacks on Jimmy Carter for his recent book, it would appear that yes, to some, it is obvious. Unfortunately, these people have no sense of 'facts' or 'reality'. To them, these are malleable and relativistic concepts. "When a fact suits an agenda, use it; when it doesn't, don't." These people get a rise out of using a kernel of truth (i.e. that the Protocols weren't necessarily written by Jews) to cover up a whole field of lies (i.e. that Israel is a racist monster of a state, hiding behind a façade of weakness, vulnerability and Democracy). Thank God there are some Jimmy Carters out there who, when confronted with a blatant lie, give it what it asks for: the truth.

source

I Heard You Malachi

2006-11-28T11:09:00.000-08:00

I read about Malachi Ritscher the other day. In fact, I'm surprised more people have not heard of him. Have you? I didn't even believe his story when I first read it. I thought, "If it was true, the news would have reported it! It would be all over the world by now!" The fact is, on Friday, November 3, Malachi doused himself in gasoline, sat on a Chicago street corner, and lit a match. He immolated himself in protest of the 650,000 Iraqi dead as a result of the American continuing invasion and occupation.

I've heard of Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who similarly set himself on fire in 1963 to protest the corrupt and brutal regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. He's even on the cover of a Rage Against the Machine album. Why haven't you heard of Malachi? In a country where the Iraq war is the biggest 'talking point', why haven't you heard of the guy that killed himself in protest?

[Malachi protesting the Iraq war in 2003]

He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family. On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician even penned his obituary.

At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 3 Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.

Aglow for the crush of morning commuters, his flaming body was supposed to be a call to the nation, a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq.

"Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country," he wrote in his suicide note. "... If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."

There was only one problem: No one was listening.

It took five days for the Cook County medical examiner to identify the charred-beyond-recognition corpse. Meanwhile, Ritscher's suicide went largely unnoticed. It wasn't until a reporter for an alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader, pieced the facts together that word began to spread.

Soon, tributes - and questions - poured in to the paper's blogs.

Was this a man consumed by mental illness? Or was Ritscher a martyr driven by rage over what he saw as an unjust war?

"This man killed himself in such a painful way, specifically to get our attention on these things," said Jennifer Diaz, a 28-year-old graduate student who never met him but has been researching his life. Now, she is organizing protests and vigils in his name. "I'm not going to sit by and I can't sit by and let this go unheard."

Ritscher's family disagrees about whether he had severe mental problems.

In a statement, Ritscher's parents and siblings called him an intellectually gifted man who suffered from bouts of depression. They stopped short of saying he'd ever received a clinical diagnosis of mental illness.

"He believed in his actions, however extreme they were," his younger brother, Paul Ritscher, wrote online. "He believed they could help to open eyes, ears and hearts and to show everyone that a single man's actions, by taking such extreme personal responsibility, can perhaps affect change in the world."

Born in Dickinson, N.D., with the name Mark David, Ritscher dropped out of high school, married at 17 and divorced 10 years later. Eventually, he would change his name to match his son's and, coincidentally, a world-famous prophet. At the end, he worked in building maintenance and was a fixture in Chicago's experimental music scene.

He described himself as a renaissance man who'd amassed a collection of more than 2,000 musical recordings from clubs in Chicago. He was a writer, philosopher and photographer. He was an alcoholic who collected fossils, glass eyes, light bulbs and snare drums. He paid $25 to become an ordained minister with the Missionaries of the New Truth and operated a handful of Web sites protesting the Iraq war.

A member of Mensa who claimed to be able to recite the infinite number Pi to more than 1,000 decimal places, he titled his obituary "Out of Time." Friends, who seemed surprised about his death, found themselves searching for answers. Ritscher's death became even more enigmatic than his life.

Perhaps the most famous self-immolation occurred in 1963, when Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself at a Saigon intersection in protest against the south Vietnamese regime. Another activist, Kathy Change, lit fire to herself in 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania to protest the government and the country's economic system.

Ritscher's death brought back memories for Anita King, a 48-year-old artist from West Philadelphia who was Change's best friend.

"I think both of them, they just felt like their death could be the last drop of blood shed," King said. "It was too hard for them. They had too much of a conscious connection to the struggle to go on in their lives."

In the end, only Ritscher knew the motivations for his suicide. There is little doubt, though, that he was satisfied with his choice.

"Without fear I go now to God," Ritscher wrote in the last sentence of his suicide note. "Your future is what you will choose today."

As I said, the Iraq war is a divisive issue. The only problem is, it is a division of a vast majority to a small minority. Did you also hear about the 22,000+ person School of the Americas / San Jose Massacre protest on November 19? Didn't think so...

JFK

2006-11-22T10:31:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since my last post, and today is an important day. 43 years ago, on November 22, 1963, John Kennedy was assassinated. As many of you know, this was the beginning of the end, and those responsible have been in power ever since. The assassination was a clear message to any future leader who would: a) promote peace instead of total war (Kennedy planned on pulling out of Southeast Asia, Johnson reversed this policy), b) fight organized crime (John and Robert Kennedy tried, and both died for it), c) oppose Israel's aggressive nuclear ambitions (Kennedy refused to support Ben Gurion's nuclear weapon program at Dimona, Johnson reversed this policy), d) support social programs to educate and support the poor majority. There are more mentioned in the article below.

Kennedy was killed because he acted on what he saw. He knew the games of power politics, and like a Trojan Horse, tried to reform the system from the inside. He had to make deals with organized crime, the Israeli lobby, the CIA, to get the needed support for presidency. When he double-crossed these elements by cracking down on organized crime, refusing to support Israel's nuclear ambitions, and planning to dismantle the CIA, he made enemies with every arm of what he called the "monolithic and ruthless conspiracy".

On April 27, 1961, John Kennedy gave a speech to the American Newspaper Publishers Association at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared; no borders have been crossed by marching troops; no missiles have been fired.

If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of clear and present danger, then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear, and its presence has never been more imminent. It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions, by the government, by the people, by every businessman, every labor leader, and by every newspaper.
For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence; in infiltration instead of invasion; on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice; on guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined, its dissenters are silenced, not praised; no expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the cold war, in short, with a wartime discipline no democracy would ever hope to wish to match.

While he could obviously see the nature of the sickness affecting what Eisenhower called the "Military Industrial Complex", it seems he thought he could get away with exposing it and working to bring it to its knees. He didn't. He was gunned down like a sick dog, and the current state of the world is a direct consequence of that day. Kennedy was trying to educate America. Perhaps we should work on educating ourselves. By doing so, with enough numbers, the people of the Americas, and every continent under their influence can refuse to be processed like cattle. If we do not, the 'dreamers' will all end up dead, as they did in Germany 68 years ago; as Kennedy did 43 years ago; as John Lennon did 26 years ago.

John F. Kennedy and the Monolithic and Ruthless Conspiracy

As I mentioned in the previous chapter of the present series, I was 11 years old and in my 6th grade classroom when the news of John F. Kennedy's assassination was first broadcast. I was not ignorant of the idea that evil existed in the world, but I thought about it as something that was personal, local even, not some sort of global juggernaut stalking whole societies. John Kennedy's assassination was the event that changed all that. Even though I was not able to fully comprehend it then, years later I was better able to articulate the raw, horrifying face of evil I had seen on that Sunny November day in 1963. I didn't know then that Kennedy himself had already seen it and described it:

For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy...

Well, of course, George W. Bush says the same thing, doesn't he? The difference is, Kennedy died for saying it, Bush didn't. That suggests that Kennedy had in mind the real conspiracy, and Bush either doesn't have a clue, or is busy directing attention away from it.

John Kennedy went to Texas to lay the groundwork for the next election. Even though he had not formally announced that he would run again, it was clear that he intended to and that he knew he would have to rely on the support of the people. Earlier, in September, he had spoken in nine states in a single week, focusing on natural resources and conservation efforts, improving education, maintaining national security, and promoting peaceful relations between countries. He talked about the achievement of a limited nuclear test ban, which the Senate had just approved, and the public made it clear that they were enthusiastically behind him. The masses knew that he cared about them, their sons and daughters, and most of all, peace.

Then, in early November, Kennedy had held a political planning session for the upcoming election. At that meeting, he noted the importance of winning Florida and Texas and that's where he announced his plans to visit both states in the next two weeks. JFK was aware that a relatively small but vocal group of extremists was contributing to the political tensions in Texas and would likely make its presence felt—particularly in Dallas, where UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been physically attacked a month earlier after a making a speech there. As an aside, one wonders if it is just coincidence that George Bush was governor of Texas and Jeb Bush was governor of Florida during the 2000 election which it is now agreed by almost everyone who can read and think, was fraudulently stolen? The trip to Florida and Texas was Jackie Kennedy's first extended public appearance since the loss of their baby, Patrick in August which had been a cruel ordeal for her and the whole Kennedy family. Nonetheless, JFK was said to have appeared to relish the prospect of getting out among the people.

So it was that, on November 21, the John and Jackie Kennedy departed on Air Force One for a two-day, five-city tour of Texas.

On November 22nd, 1963, the 1,036th day of his presidency, a light rain was falling, but a crowd of several thousand had gathered in the parking lot outside the Texas Hotel where the Kennedys had spent the night. A platform had been set up and the President came out to make some brief remarks without a raincoat or umbrella.

Notice the smirky look on Lyndon Johnson's face. This will be important further on.

“There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth,” he began, “and I appreciate your being here this morning. Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it.” He talked about the nation’s need for being “second to none” in defense and in space, for continued growth in the economy and “the willingness of citizens of the United States to assume the burdens of leadership.” The audience loved him and that love was palpable as John Kennedy reached out to shake hands amidst a sea of smiling faces.

Back inside the Hotel, he addressed a breakfast meeting of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce for about 12 minutes. His talk began, as usual, with humor and the audience loved him! He proceeded to talk about defense projects, emphasizing the role of the military in maintaining peace: ". . . to that great cause, Texas and the United States are committed."

"Committed" was his last publicly spoken word.

The 1,037th day never came.

Listen to: Remarks at the Breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, November 22, 1963

Now, let us turn to the Official History which tells us:

"The presidential party left the hotel and went by motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base for the thirteen-minute flight to Dallas. Arriving at Love Field, President and Mrs. Kennedy disembarked and immediately walked toward a fence where a crowd of well-wishers had gathered, and they spent several minutes shaking hands. The First Lady was presented with a bouquet of red roses, which she brought with her to the waiting limousine.

Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie were already seated in the open convertible as the Kennedys entered and sat behind them. Since it was no longer raining the plastic bubble top had been left off. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson occupied another car in the motorcade.

"The procession left the airport and traveled along a ten-mile route that wound through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon. Crowds of excited people lined the streets waving to the Kennedys as they waved back.

The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza. Bullets struck the President’s neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The Governor was also hit, in the chest." (emphasis, mine)

As it happened, there was a spectator in the crowd at Dealey Plaza that day with a home movie camera. Abraham Zapruder, standing in the area that has come to be known as the "grassy knoll," had filmed the assassination. Let's watch it and then continue with the story.

Life magazine bought the Zapruder film and locked it up. Not even the Warren Commission viewed it as a motion picture. The magazine published staggered still frames in a cover story endorsing the Warren Report when it was issued in 1964 with captions under each frame. The caption under frame 313, where Kennedy's head explodes, said it was from a shot from the front. But that meant that Oswald could not have fired the "head shot." When Life realized its "error," it stopped the presses and rewrote the caption as a shot from the rear. The film also graphically demonstrated that the president and Texas Governor John Connally, sitting in the jump seat in front of him, were struck by bullets within three-quarters of a second of each other, which meant that there HAD to be more than one weapon.

The Warren Commission disposed of this problem with what has come to be known as the "Magic Bullet Theory."

According to the Warren Commission, the bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald hit John Kennedy in the back, then went UP and exited via his throat, pass through John Connally's upper right arm, went inside his body, shattered a rib, exited his body under his right nipple, entered his upraised lower right arm and shattered his wrist, crossed his body to the left and entered his left thigh.

And then, magically, the bullet itself just fell out of John Connally's body onto the stretcher at the hospital, completely intact.

That's a pretty amazing bullet, wouldn't you say? It's like the Boeing 767 that allegedly hit the Pentagon and liquified and just flowed in there and melted away. But that Magic Bullet is even more amazing when you actually SEE it. And here it is:

Yes, folks, this is the actual alleged actual bullet that slaughtered John F. Kennedy, and put Governor John Connally in a world of hurt.

Look at it carefully.

It's pretty shiny and sleek looking, isn't it? Looks pretty deadly.

This bullet left fragments in Governor Connally's body, too, by the way. Doesn't look like it's missing any fragments to me. How about you?

Now, let's look at some other bullets. The following selection are the exact same type of bullet, same manufacture, same caliber. They have all been fired into different objects to see how those impacts would affect the appearance of the bullet itself.

Above, a bullet that has been fired through cotton wadding.

Fired into a goat carcass.

Fired into, and retrieved from, a human cadaver.

I think we can determine that the bullet that fell out of John Connally's thigh must have been planted there. And that means that there was someone in the hospital who knew what kind of weapon was supposed to be the murder weapon and came prepared.

Now, we notice in the official history above that it says: "Bullets struck the President’s neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy." They are saying that he was struck in the NECK, first.

Ford jottings offer something new for JFK conspiracy theorists

By MIKE FEINSILBER The Associated Press 07-02-1997

WASHINGTON (July 2) - Thirty-three years ago, Gerald R. Ford took pen in hand and changed - ever so slightly - the Warren Commission's key sentence on the place where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy's body when he was killed in Dallas.

The effect of Ford's change was to strengthen the commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally - a crucial element in its finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman.

A small change, said Ford on Wednesday when it came to light, one intended to clarify meaning, not alter history.

''My changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory,'' he said in a telephone interview from Beaver Creek, Colo. ''My changes were only an attempt to be more precise.''

Can we say "an attempt to cook the data to fit the fantasy"?

But still, his editing was seized upon by members of the conspiracy community, which rejects the commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone.

''This is the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission report,'' said Robert D. Morningstar, a computer systems specialist in New York City who said he has studied the assassination since it occurred and written an Internet book about it.
The effect of Ford's editing, Morningstar said, was to suggest that a bullet struck Kennedy in the neck, ''raising the wound two or three inches. Without that alteration, they could never have hoodwinked the public as to the true number of assassins.''
If the bullet had hit Kennedy in the back, it could not have struck Connolly in the way the commission said it did, he said.

Click to enlarge and see the bullet hole in Kennedy's shirt.

The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that a single bullet - fired by a ''discontented'' Oswald - passed through Kennedy's body and wounded his fellow motorcade passenger, Connally, and that a second, fatal bullet, fired from the same place, tore through Kennedy's head.

The assassination of the president occurred Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas; Oswald was arrested that day but was shot and killed two days later as he was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail.

Conspiracy theorists reject the idea that a single bullet could have hit both Kennedy and Connally and done such damage. Thus they argue that a second gunman must have been involved.

Ford's changes tend to support the single-bullet theory by making a specific point that the bullet entered Kennedy's body ''at the back of his neck'' rather than in his uppermost back, as the commission staff originally wrote.

Ford's handwritten notes were contained in 40,000 pages of records kept by J. Lee Rankin, chief counsel of the Warren Commission.

They were made public Wednesday by the Assassination Record Review Board, an agency created by Congress to amass all relevant evidence in the case. The documents will be available to the public in the National Archives.

The staff of the commission had written: ''A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.''

Ford suggested changing that to read: ''A bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the spine.''

The final report said: ''A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.''

Ford, then House Republican leader and later elevated to the presidency with the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon, is the sole surviving member of the seven-member commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren.

In spite of the fact that Ford admitted falsifying evidence in the Warren Commission report, and that the evidence shows that his changes had nothing to do with any attempts to be "precise," but rather to support the "Lone Assassin", the "official sources continue to use various media outlets to propagandize their fantasy.

No JFK conspiracy, new analysis shows

October 28, 2003

The United States' ABC television network said today it conducted an exhaustive investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, complete with a computer-generated reconstruction, which irrefutably confirms that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

A two-hour special on the event is scheduled to air on ABC News in the United States on November 20, two days before the 40th anniversary Kennedy's killing.

"It leaves no room for doubt," said Tom Yellin, executive producer of the special, narrated by Peter Jennings.

He called the results of ABC's study "enormously powerful. It's irrefutable". The conclusion that Oswald alone shot Kennedy during a motorcade in Dallas mirrors that of the Warren Commission, the official government inquiry into the assassination.

Even today, public opinion surveys find that less than half of Americans don't agree with that conclusion, said Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

I believe that the last polls I read indicated that only about 10% of Americans believe that there was "no conspiracy."

But that reservoir of doubt, largely fed by government secrecy and Oliver Stone's movie on the assassination, is important to address, Yellin said.

You got it, buddy. And there's no way you can refute that bullet above. It is, no pun intended, the "smoking gun" evidence that the government's single assassin, single bullet theory is a total crock of horse-hockey.

ABC News worked with an expert who created a computer-generated reconstruction of the shooting based on maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, films and autopsy reports, ABC said.

It enables a person to view the scene from any number of perspectives, including what Oswald saw from the sixth floor of the former Texas school book depository, Yellin said.

"When you do that, it's chillingly clear what happened," Yellin said.

He dismisses theories that there was another gunman.

Through interviews and other documentation, ABC News also concludes that Jack Ruby, who later killed Oswald, acted simply out of his love for Kennedy.

Yeah, right!

The computer-generated technology, only available for the past few years, is now frequently used in criminal investigations, Yellin said.

While Stone's movie raised doubt in many people's minds about the Warren Commission, it also led to the release of many government documents that had previously been kept hidden and fueled conspiracy theorists, Yellin said.

Yes, those documents certainly did "fuel conspiracy theorists". It's important to remember what a "theory" is: it is a reasonable conjecture based on an assembly of facts and observations. On the other hand, the Warren Commission Report is a total fantasy.

None of the documents offer significant evidence refuting the conclusion that Oswald acted alone, Yellin said.

Still, much of Americans' cynicism about their government can be traced to November 22, 1963, making further investigation important even 40 years later, he said.

"I think it's very hard for people to accept the fact that the most powerful man in the world can be murdered by a disaffected person whose life had been a series of failures up to that point," Yellin said.

Both Yellin and Mack admit that no matter what evidence ABC News lays out, it's not likely to quiet people who believe otherwise.

"The history of this subject is pretty clear," Mack said.

"No matter what information comes out, people are going to believe what they want."

So, based upon maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, films and autopsy reports, the good folks at ABC have made a computer-generated reconstruction of the shooting that leaves no doubt that Oswald acted alone.

Glory Hallelujah! We have been saved from those evil, lying, conspiracy theorists by Lee Harvey Oswald and ABC!

Now, in addition to the Magic Bullet - you know the one that entered Kennedy's back and then jumped up and exited through his throat and went on to bounce around in Connally like a lethal pinball - there was another bullet. Let's look at what that bullet, allegedly fired by marksman Oswald, from the rear, did to John Kennedy's head:

Next is the photo doctored by the Warren Commission for public consumption. The problem is, if the bullet that came in JFK's back, and exited through his throat, then hit John Connally, and the second bullet hit JFK in the head, where is the exit wound of the second bullet?

Notice how he is all cleaned up. There's another shot available on the net that purports to be the back of John Kennedy's head, minus the blown-out brains that is clearly fraudulent because here are the embalmer's notes:

The issue of the head-shot that killed Kennedy is as contentious as the current day issue of the Pentagon Strike on 9/11. The government and its apologists have produced endless "experts" to prove that a gunshot to the head from the rear can cause the head to fly violently backward - in the direction the shot came from - and, at the same time, that the shot to the rear of the skull will cause a large piece of the skull to fly off to the rear as can be seen to happen in the Zapruder film above. That is, in fact, what Jackie Kennedy is seen to be trying to retrieve. To see that poor woman watch as her husband's head literally explodes in front of her eyes, and to see her try to get the pieces to put him back together, is unbearably painful to watch.

One of the key elements of the "official explanation" for the headshot is that John Kennedy's head can be seen to first move forward, and then jerk violently backward. Somehow this is twisted into some kind of off-planet physics to be hard evidence for the shot from the rear, i.e. the Texas School Book Depository, i.e. Oswald. Never mind that there are thousands, if not millions, of cases where the point of entry is small, and the bullet tears a gigantic hole when making its exit; a hole exactly like the one on the back of John Kennedy's head.

As it happens, shortly after the assassination, Dallas resident Billy Harper was walking down the median in Dealey Plaza and found a piece of the President's skull laying in the grass. Taken together with the violent motion of the President's head, the blood spray dousing the motorcycle cops who were behind Kennedy to his left rear and then the skull pieces found in the grass opposite the grassy knoll, the debris pattern clearly indicates that the head shot came from the front. Thousands of murder cases have been prosecuted on this type of evidence. If, suddenly rules of criminal evidence were to be reversed by all the so-called experts trying to support the Warren Fantasy, then how many criminal cases might be overturned based on this newly discovered law of physics?

There is a reason that JFK's head moves forward just a fraction of a second before it moves violently back and to the left.

From the confession of James Files:

"When I got to the point where I thought it would be the last field of fire, I had zeroed in to the left side of the head there that I had because if I wait any longer then Jacqueline Kennedy would have been in the line of fire and I had been instructed for nothing to happen to her and at that moment I figured this is my last chance for a shot and he had still not been hit in the head. So, as I fired that round, Mr. Nicoletti and I fired approximately at the same time as the head started forward then it went backward. I would have to say that his shell struck approximately 1000th of a second ahead of mine maybe but that what's started pushing the head forward which caused me to miss from the left eye and I came in on the left side of the temple."

Houston Chronicle Published Nov. 22, 1963:

Dr. Kemp Clark, neurosurgeon, said:"I was called because the President had sustained a brain injury." "It was apparent the President had sustained a lethal wound," Dr. Clark said.

"A missile had gone in and out of the back of his head, causing extensive lacerations and loss of brain tissue. Shortly after I arrived, the President's heart stopped. We attempted resuscitation, initiating closed chest heart massage, but to no avail.

"We were able to obtain a palpable pulse by this method but again to no avail.

President Kennedy died on the emergency table after 20 minutes.

See: I Shot JFK Results of a 10 year private unbiased investigation provide the first hard evidence of conspiracy in 40 years! [video]

Let us now return to our official history of that day:

"The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital, just a few minutes away. But there was little that could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites and at 1:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. Governor Connolly, though seriously wounded, would recover.

"The President’s body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m."

As I have already mentioned in a previous chapter, Lyndon Johnson had already drafted National Security Memorandum 273, dated November 21st, 1963 - the day before John Kennedy met his fate in Dallas - which suggests that LBJ knew something. So, let's have a look at the "grim-faced" Lyndon Baines Johnson taking the oath of office as described above:

The "grim-faced" Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as President.

The man to the left in the bowtie is Congressman Albert Thomas, winking at LBJ. Though you cannot see his face directly, it is clear that LBJ is grinning back. Lady Bird looks like the cat that ate the canary. What, one wonders, was there to wink about? Kennedy had spoken at a dinner to honor Thomas the night before...

Barr McClellan, father of former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Mark McClellan, wrote a book entitled: "Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K". His thesis was that former President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His book apparently includes photographs, copies of letters, insider interviews and details of fingerprints as proof that Edward A. Clark, the powerful head of Johnson's private and business legal team and a former ambassador to Australia, led the plan and cover-up for the 1963 assassination in Dallas.

Well, I don't think that LBJ was behind it, but we already suspect that he was involved - as were 90% of the pathological deviants in the United States at the time - most of whom were successful businessmen, mobsters and politicians.

The fact is, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a form of control of the government of the United States. It is the ultimate form of control of the election process. Understanding this can lead us to understand what has happened to our country since that terrible day in November, 43 years ago. Studied carefully, the assassination of John F. Kennedy can reveal who really controls the United States and its polices, particularly foreign policy. As John Kennedy himself said:

For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence; in infiltration instead of invasion; on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice; on guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined, its dissenters are silenced, not praised; no expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the cold war, in short, with a wartime discipline no democracy would ever hope to wish to match. ...

He was right; but I think he didn't realize how far they were willing - and able - to go.

Nowadays, we know how far they are able and willing to go: just look at the events of September 11, 2001, which bear the same unmistakable stamp of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In fact, as I have mentioned before, the same gang is involved.

Today, we live in a country where the poor and old cannot afford health care, something that John Kennedy was trying to correct. We live in a country where the economy is falling apart; a country where 44 million people live on less than $12,000 dollars a year; a nation where over 2 million people are homeless; a country where the entire media system is owned by only six media mega conglomerates; the country with the highest crime rate in the world (not being at war); a country with the world's largest prison population; a society where 25% of children under 12 live in poverty; a country that gives Israel billions of dollars a year to kill and maim Palestinians while there are over 2 million homeless on our own streets; a country where the gulf between the rich and poor is wider than it is in most other civilized countries; a nation that supports dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey; a country that spies on its own citizens, has trashed the Constitution; a country that has undertaken to torture people when it is known that no intelligence that comes from a tortured person is likely to be accurate; a country where the government is full of corruption worse than any Banana Republic; a country where 40 percent of the homeless are military veterans, in a country with the world's highest teen suicide rates; and all of these were issues that concerned John F. Kennedy, issues that he was working very hard - against a stubborn, oligarchic system - to correct.

As people throughout the nation and the world struggled to make sense of the senseless act of the slaughter of a man who had the brains and guts to solve America's problems, and to articulate their feelings about President Kennedy’s life and legacy, many recalled these words from his inaugural address which had now acquired new meaning:

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days,nor in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration. Nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

John Kennedy was on his way to give a speech on that Sunny afternoon in Dallas, Texas, 43 years ago. I think it is only fitting that we close this chapter with the words he planned to say, but never got the chance:

Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas

President John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963

I am honored to have this invitation to address the annual meeting of the Dallas Citizens Council, joined by the members of the Dallas Assembly--and pleased to have this opportunity to salute the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest.

It is fitting that these two symbols of Dallas progress are united in the sponsorship of this meeting. For they represent the best qualities, I am told, of leadership and learning in this city--and leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial and political support and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research and graduate facilities--from MIT to Cal Tech--tend to attract the new and growing industries. I congratulate those of you here in Dallas who have recognized these basic facts through the creation of the unique and forward-looking Graduate Research Center.

This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country's security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.

There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.

But today other voices are heard in the land--voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness. At a time when the national debt is steadily being reduced in terms of its burden on our economy, they see that debt as the greatest single threat to our security. At a time when we are steadily reducing the number of Federal employees serving every thousand citizens, they fear those supposed hordes of civil servants far more than the actual hordes of opposing armies.

We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will "talk sense to the American people." But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.

I want to discuss with you today the status of our strength and our security because this question clearly calls for the most responsible qualities of leadership and the most enlightened products of scholarship. For this Nation's strength and security are not easily or cheaply obtained, nor are they quickly and simply explained. There are many kinds of strength and no one kind will suffice. Overwhelming nuclear strength cannot stop a guerrilla war. Formal pacts of alliance cannot stop internal subversion. Displays of material wealth cannot stop the disillusionment of diplomats subjected to discrimination.

Above all, words alone are not enough. The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.

I realize that this Nation often tends to identify turning-points in world affairs with the major addresses which preceded them. But it was not the Monroe Doctrine that kept all Europe away from this hemisphere--it was the strength of the British fleet and the width of the Atlantic Ocean. It was not General Marshall's speech at Harvard which kept communism out of Western Europe--it was the strength and stability made possible by our military and economic assistance.

In this administration also it has been necessary at times to issue specific warnings--warnings that we could not stand by and watch the Communists conquer Laos by force, or intervene in the Congo, or swallow West Berlin, or maintain offensive missiles on Cuba. But while our goals were at least temporarily obtained in these and other instances, our successful defense of freedom was due not to the words we used, but to the strength we stood ready to use on behalf of the principles we stand ready to defend.

This strength is composed of many different elements, ranging from the most massive deterrents to the most subtle influences. And all types of strength are needed--no one kind could do the job alone. Let us take a moment, therefore, to review this Nation's progress in each major area of strength.

First, as Secretary McNamara made clear in his address last Monday, the strategic nuclear power of the United States has been so greatly modernized and expanded in the last 1,000 days, by the rapid production and deployment of the most modern missile systems, that any and all potential aggressors are clearly confronted now with the impossibility of strategic victory--and the certainty of total destruction--if by reckless attack they should ever force upon us the necessity of a strategic reply.

In less than 3 years, we have increased by 50 percent the number of Polaris submarines scheduled to be in force by the next fiscal year, increased by more than 70 percent our total Polaris purchase program, increased by more than 75 percent our Minuteman purchase program, increased by 50 percent the portion of our strategic bombers on 15-minute alert, and increased by too percent the total number of nuclear weapons available in our strategic alert forces. Our security is further enhanced by the steps we have taken regarding these weapons to improve the speed and certainty of their response, their readiness at all times to respond, their ability to survive an attack, and their ability to be carefully controlled and directed through secure command operations.

II.

But the lessons of the last decade have taught us that freedom cannot be defended by strategic nuclear power alone. We have, therefore, in the last 3 years accelerated the development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, and increased by 60 percent the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe.

Nor can Europe or any other continent rely on nuclear forces alone, whether they are strategic or tactical. We have radically improved the readiness of our conventional forces--increased by 45 percent the number of combat ready Army divisions, increased by 100 percent the procurement of modern Army weapons and equipment, increased by 100 percent our ship construction, conversion, and modernization program, increased by too percent our procurement of tactical aircraft, increased by 30 percent the number of tactical air squadrons, and increased the strength of the Marines. As last month's "Operation Big Lift"--which originated here in Texas--showed so clearly, this Nation is prepared as never before to move substantial numbers of men in surprisingly little time to advanced positions anywhere in the world. We have increased by 175 percent the procurement of airlift aircraft, and we have already achieved a 75 percent increase in our existing strategic airlift capability. Finally, moving beyond the traditional roles of our military forces, we have achieved an increase of nearly 600 percent in our special forces--those forces that are prepared to work with our allies and friends against the guerrillas, saboteurs, insurgents and assassins who threaten freedom in a less direct but equally dangerous manner.

III.

But American military might should not and need not stand alone against the ambitions of international communism. Our security and strength, in the last analysis, directly depend on the security and strength of others, and that is why our military and economic assistance plays such a key role in enabling those who live on the periphery of the Communist world to maintain their independence of choice. Our assistance to these nations can be painful, risky and costly, as is true in Southeast Asia today. But we dare not weary of the task. For our assistance makes possible the stationing of 3-5 million allied troops along the Communist frontier at one-tenth the cost of maintaining a comparable number of American soldiers. A successful Communist breakthrough in these areas, necessitating direct United States intervention, would cost us several times as much as our entire foreign aid program, and might cost us heavily in American lives as well.

About 70 percent of our military assistance goes to nine key countries located on or near the borders of the Communist bloc--nine countries confronted directly or indirectly with the threat of Communist aggression--Viet-Nam, Free China, Korea, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, and Iran. No one of these countries possesses on its own the resources to maintain the forces which our own Chiefs of Staff think needed in the common interest. Reducing our efforts to train, equip, and assist their armies can only encourage Communist penetration and require in time the increased overseas deployment of American combat forces. And reducing the economic help needed to bolster these nations that undertake to help defend freedom can have the same disastrous result. In short, the $50 billion we spend each year on our own defense could well be ineffective without the $4 billion required for military and economic assistance.

Our foreign aid program is not growing in size, it is, on the contrary, smaller now than in previous years. It has had its weaknesses, but we have undertaken to correct them. And the proper way of treating weaknesses is to replace them with strength, not to increase those weaknesses by emasculating essential programs. Dollar for dollar, in or out of government, there is no better form of investment in our national security than our much-abused foreign aid program. We cannot afford to lose it. We can afford to maintain it. We can surely afford, for example, to do as much for our 19 needy neighbors of Latin America as the Communist bloc is sending to the island of Cuba alone.

IV.

I have spoken of strength largely in terms of the deterrence and resistance of aggression and attack. But, in today's world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles--on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny.

That is why our Information Agency has doubled the shortwave broadcasting power of the Voice of America and increased the number of broadcasting hours by 30 percent, increased Spanish language broadcasting to Cuba and Latin America from I to 9 hours a day, increased seven-fold to more than 3-5 million copies the number of American books being translated and published for Latin American readers, and taken a host of other steps to carry our message of truth and freedom to all the far corners of the earth.

And that is also why we have regained the initiative in the exploration of outer space, making an annual effort greater than the combined total of all space activities undertaken during the fifties, launching more than 130 vehicles into earth orbit, putting into actual operation valuable weather and communications satellites, and making it clear to all that the United States of America has no intention of finishing second in space.

This effort is expensive--but it pays its own way, for freedom and for America. For there is no longer any fear in the free world that a Communist lead in space will become a permanent assertion of supremacy and the basis of military superiority. There is no longer any doubt about the strength and skill of American science, American industry, American education, and the American free enterprise system. In short, our national space effort represents a great gain in, and a great resource of, our national strength--and both Texas and Texans are contributing greatly to this strength.

Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society.

It is clear, therefore, that we are strengthening our security as well as our economy by our recent record increases in national income and output--by surging ahead of most of Western Europe in the rate of business expansion and the margin of corporate profits, by maintaining a more stable level of prices than almost any of our overseas competitors, and by cutting personal and corporate income taxes by some $ I I billion, as I have proposed, to assure this Nation of the longest and strongest expansion in our peacetime economic history.

This Nation's total output--which 3 years ago was at the $500 billion mark--will soon pass $600 billion, for a record rise of over $too billion in 3 years. For the first time in history we have 70 million men and women at work. For the first time in history average factory earnings have exceeded $100 a week. For the first time in history corporation profits after taxes--which have risen 43 percent in less than 3 years--have an annual level of $27.4 billion.

My friends and fellow citizens: I cite these facts and figures to make it clear that America today is stronger than ever before. Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom.

That strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions--it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations--it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.

We in this country, in this generation, are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas , November 22, 1963

Pathocracy: Disease

2006-08-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

What happens when psychopaths rule?

Here's what.

V for Vendetta, Again

2006-08-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

For those of you who didn't see the connections the first time, this video spells them out in a pretty blatant manner. Despite its heavy-handedness, it is striking.

The Racist Beast Called Israel

2006-07-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

Here are some numbers to make you think. No, scratch that. These are some numbers to make you burn with anger. And if you read the following, and watch the video after it, and you feel nothing, ask yourself who it is that has killed your conscience.

The toll

Lebanese - Since outbreak

Military deaths 66

Civilian deaths 377

Wounded 1,550+

Israeli - Since outbreak

Military deaths 24

Civilian deaths 17

Wounded 360+

In other words, Israel has lost 41 lives, with a ratio of 1:1.4, civilian to military deaths. Lebanon has lost 443 lives, with a ratio of 5.7:1, civilian to military deaths. Israel is butchering Lebanese civilians almost SIX times more than they are the Lebanese military men and women. And look at the number of wounded. Jesus Christ! How is this a war on Hezbollah!? This is GENOCIDE! How many more women and children need to die before people realize the Middle East is being run by a group of Judeo-Nazis?? And that they have the full military support of a group of insane Christo-Nazis in America?

Watch this video to see the terrorists Israel's gang of Stormtroopers of YHWH are targetting.

War Crimes in Lebanon

2006-07-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

I'll keep this one short and let the images speak for themselves. Kurt Nimmo has created a 5 minute video entitled Reality in Lebanon.

Is this what this Israeli girl was wishing for? How brainwashed must a population be for its youth to welcome this kind of sickness? I'm afraid we've seen it before. Israel is committing atrocities on the level of those committed against Jews by Nazi Germany. Because psychopathy knows no racial or religious divisions. Evil is not a specific religion or philosophical system, despite what Bush and Olmert would have us believe.

Internet Media Spin in Action

2006-06-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

Check it out. Seven 'terrorists' go from being peaceful Americans and bible-reading "Seas of David" to Al'Qaeda-inspired lunatics intent on murder. Amazing isn't it? But then again, I guess this just shows how the media likes to present both sides of a story. [excuse me while I use a sick bag]

The War on Children

2006-06-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Another essential article. Please read this piece by John Pilger. If you say to yourself, "it can't possibly be this bad," I can only say two words: it's worse. What else can we do but tell others how bad it is? Some will see, some will not, but perhaps with enough awareness, something can be done.

Also, Kurt Nimmo writes that, "Buried in the Week in Review section of the New York Times is an admission that Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be “wiped off the map,” a reference to a mistranslated phrase bandied about the corporate media over the last several weeks as an example of Iran’s intention to attack Israel, especially after it develops nukes, either next week or a decade out, depending on the level of fanaticism of the neocon making the claim."

I've got three words: Big [Frakk]ing Surprise. Now that we 'know' Ahmadinejad never said this (forget the fact that we knew this ages ago), where is the international pressure against the terrorist state, Israel, for threatening to wipe Iran off the map, which they, in fact, did.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Monday that "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map."

Peres is a clever psychopath. Notice the use of passive voice. "I did not say we would wipe them out, only that they could be wiped out."

10,000 Hadithas

2006-06-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

As many of you already know, Haditha-like massacres are occuring daily in Iraq. The following piece, by Dahr Jamail, analyzes the various stages of government-sponsored propaganda in regards to these 'leaks.' Please read the entire article.

Propaganda and Haditha
By Dahr Jamail and Jeff Pflueger
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 09 June 2006

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during World War II

Propaganda is when the Western corporate media tries to influence public opinion in favor of the Iraq War by consistently tampering with truth and distorting reality. It is to be expected. And it is to be recognized for what it is. On occasions when the media does its job responsibly and reports events like the November 19, 2005, Haditha Massacre, it must also be willing and able to anticipate and counter propaganda campaigns that will inevitably follow. It is to be expected that the responsible members of the media fraternity will stick to their guns and not join the propagandists.

This piece is a summary of five most commonly deployed crisis management propaganda tactics which the State and Media combine that we can expect to see in relation to the Haditha Massacre. Listed in a loose chronological order of their deployment, the tactics are: Delay, Distract, Discredit, Spotlight and Scapegoat. Each of the five public relations campaigns will here be discussed in the context of the Haditha Massacre.

Delay

Al-Jazeera channel, with over 40 million viewers in the Arab world, is the largest broadcaster of news in the Middle East. It has been bearing the brunt of an ongoing violent US propaganda campaign. Their station headquarters in both Afghanistan and Baghdad were destroyed by US forces during the US invasions of both countries. In Baghdad, the attack on their office by a US warplane killed their correspondent Tareq Ayoub. Additionally, al-Jazeera reporters throughout Iraq have been systematically detained and intimidated before the broadcaster was banned outright from the country. These are somewhat contradictory actions for an occupying force ostensibly attempting to promote democracy and freedom in Iraq.

On November 19, 2005, the day of the Haditha Massacre, al-Jazeera had long since been banned from operating in Iraq. The station forced to conduct its war reporting from a desk in Doha, Qatar, was doing so via telephone. Two Iraqis worked diligently to cover the US occupation of Iraq through a loose network of contacts within Iraq. Defying the US-imposed extreme challenges, al-Jazeera, by dint of its responsible reporting, had the entire Haditha scoop as soon as it occurred, which they shared with Western and other media outlets, while the latter were content to participate in delaying the story nearly four months by regurgitating unverified military releases.

Two days after the massacre, DahrJamailiraq.com was the only free place on the Internet that carried al-Jazeera's report translated into English (it could be viewed at MidEastWire.com for a fee).

The anchorperson for al-Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, interviewed journalist Walid Khalid in Bahgdad. Khalid's report, translated by MidEastWire.com, was as follows:

Yesterday evening, an explosive charge went off under a US Marines vehicle in the al-Subhani area, destroying it completely. Half an hour later, the US reaction was violent. US aircraft bombarded four houses near the scene of the incident, causing the immediate death of five Iraqis. Afterward, the US troops stormed three adjacent houses where three families were living near the scene of the explosion. Medical sources and eyewitnesses close to these families affirmed that the US troops, along with the Iraqi Army, executed 21 persons; that is, three families, including nine children and boys, seven women, and three elderly people.

Contrast this to the reportage of the slaughter by the New York Times, the "newspaper of note" in the United States. Unquestioningly parroting the military press release, their story of November 21, 2005, read: "The Marine Corps said Sunday that 15 Iraqi civilians and a Marine were killed Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. The bombing on Saturday in Haditha, on the Euphrates in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar, was aimed at a convoy of American Marines and Iraqi Army soldiers, said Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, a Marine spokesman. After the explosion, gunmen opened fire on the convoy. At least eight insurgents were killed in the firefight, the captain said."

The organization Iraq Body Count (IBC) immediately endorsed this, clearly demonstrating how its tally of Iraqi civilian deaths due to the war is way below the actual numbers. Exclusively referencing samples from the Western media that willingly embrace the official propaganda, IBC can hardly constitute an unbiased or truthful source of information.

In April 2006, their database of media sources cited an AP story and a Reuters story from November 20, 2005, along with a March 21, 2006, London Times article. This is how IBC distilled the stories; "Haditha - fighting between US Marines and insurgents-gunfire" and the number of civilians killed was recorded as 15. It is difficult to understand why IBC has once again opted to cite US fabrications mindlessly repeated by the Western media rather than take into account the readily available English translation of al-Jazeera's Haditha report.

On June 6, 2006, the Haditha Massacre is recorded by IBC as "family members in their houses and students in a passing car" and the declared number of victims is 24. One cannot help wonder how many uncorrected, unverified and unchallenged pieces of US military propaganda lurk in IBC's database. Haditha could be just the tip of the iceberg.

It wasn't until four months after the event that the Western corporate media started to straighten out the story. On March 19, 2006, it was Time Magazine that "broke" the Haditha story in a piece titled "Collateral Damage or Civilian Massacre in Haditha." The primary sources for this piece were a video shot by an Iraqi journalism student produced the day after the massacre and interviews conducted with witnesses. Another glaring evidence of how a few simple interviews with Iraqis and some readily available photographs and video can drastically correct the glaring errors in the Western media's representations of the occupation.

It is significant that this "exclusive" story came from the same publication that graced its cover with George W. Bush as the 2004 Person of the Year for "reframing reality to match his design." That brazen advertisement for the most unpopular re-elected US president in history more than establishes the fact that the magazine has an agenda that has less to do with responsible journalism than it does with influencing public opinion. That Time set its clocks back four months in regard to Haditha, when evidence was readily available the day after the event, only supports the charge that it willingly participates in US state propaganda. Journalists should aggressively expose the truth that Time, like its acclaimed 2004 person of the year, also reframes reality to match its design. If journalists do not look at Time's story with a skeptical eye as an exercise in PR before jumping on the Haditha bandwagon, they too risk shortchanging the public's trust with a meaningless opportunity to participate in a PR crisis anagement campaign.

But the Haditha Massacre is far from being the only story that the Western corporate media has delayed covering. On May 4, 2004, journalist Dahr Jamail, one of the authors of this piece, wrote "Telltale Signs of Torture Lead Family to Demand Answers." The story, published by the NewStandard, was about a 57-year-old Iraqi named Sadiq Zoman, who was detained at his residence in Kirkuk on July 21, 2003, when US troops raided the Zoman family home in search of weapons and, apparently, to arrest Zoman. Over a month later, on August 23, soldiers dropped Zoman off, comatose, at the main hospital in Tikrit. His body bore telltale signs of torture: point burns on his skin, bludgeon marks on the back of his head, a badly broken thumb, electrical burns on the soles of his feet and genitals and whip marks across his back.

Jamail originally wrote the story in January 2004 and shared the information with over 100 newspapers in the US for them to report on. The story was conveniently ignored by the US corporate media until it was forced to run other torture photos from Abu Ghraib after journalist Seymour Hersh threatened to scoop 60 Minutes II by running his piece about torture in the New Yorker, in late April 2004.

Another example of this delayed "reporting" involved the report on the use of white phosphorous by the US military against civilians in Fallujah during the November 2004 assault on the city. Jamail originally reported a story titled "Unusual Weapons Used in Fallujah" with Inter Press Service. US corporate media ignored the story until the Independent in the UK ran his reporting about the atrocity. Even after this, aside from a few token editorials that mentioned this war crime, most major news outlets continued in their silence. This despite the fact that the Pentagon admitted to the use of these weapons, and residents of Fallujah like Abu Sabah had long since told a reporter, "They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud, then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of soke behind them." He also described pieces of these bombs that exploded into large fires that burnt the skin when water was thrown on the burns.

There are countless other stories which the US corporate media has deliberately delayed from their reportage and which may never reach the wide US audience that they deserve. It is necessary to ask, when will the corporate media report on stories such as the following:

November 19, 2004: "As US Forces Raided a Mosque," Inter Press Service (At least four worshippers are killed and 20 wounded during Friday prayers when US and Iraqi forces raided Abu Hanifa Mosque in Baghdad.
April 19, 2004: "US Troops Raid Abu Hanifa Mosque, Destroy Fallujah Relief Goods," The NewStandard News (Tanks and Humvees are used to crash through the gates of a mosque in the middle of the night. Foodstuffs stockpiled for Fallujah relief are destroyed, worshippers are terrorized, shots fired, copies of the Holy Qu'ran are desecrated.)

December 13, 2004: "US Military Obstructing Medical Care," Inter Press Service (US military prevented delivery of medical care in several instances and regularly raided hospitals in Iraq.)

April 23, 2004: "Fallujah Residents Report US Forces Engaged in Collective Punishment," The NewStandard News (Despite what Marines called a "ceasefire" in Fallujah, refugees trapped outside and Fallujans still under siege continued to face measures of collective punishment.)

January 3, 2004: "US Military Terrorism and Collective Punishment in Iraq" (Mortars fired at a farmer's home and land in al-Dora, near Baghdad. As Jamail wrote in the aforementioned web log at that time, residents reported, "We don't know why they bomb our house and our fields. We have never resisted the Americans. There are foreign fighters who have passed through here, and I think this is who they want. But why are they bombing us?" When the farmer was asked what happened when he requested that US military remove the unexploded mortar rounds, he said, "We asked them the first time and they said 'OK, we'll come take care of it.' But they never came. We asked them the second time and they told us they would not remove them until we gave them a resistance fighter. They told us, 'If yo won't give us a resistance fighter, we are not coming to remove the bombs.'" He held his hands in the air and said, "But we don't know any resistance fighters!")

November 18, 2004: "Media Repression in 'Liberated' Land," Inter Press Service (Journalists increasingly detained and threatened by the US-installed interim government in Iraq. Media were stopped particularly from covering recent horrific events in Fallujah. The "100 Orders" penned by former US administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer included Order 65, passed March 20, 2004, to establish an Iraqi communications and media commission. This commission has powers to control the media because it has complete control over licensing and regulating telecommunications, broadcasting, information services and all other media establishments. Within days of the "handover" of power to an interim Iraqi government in June 2004, the Baghdad office of al-Jazeera was raided and closed by security forces from the interim government. The network was banned initially for one month from reorting out of Iraq, subsequently extended to "indefinitely." The media commission ordered all news organizations to "stick to the government line on the US-led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action.")

February 14, 2005: "Media Held Guilty of Deception," Inter Press Service (A people's tribunal held much of Western media guilty of inciting violence and deceiving people in its reporting of Iraq. The panel of judges in the Rome meeting of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI), an international people's initiative seeking to unearth the truth about the war and occupation in Iraq, accused the United States and the British governments of impeding journalists in performing their task, and intentionally producing lies and misinformation.)

Distract

Once a damaging, and most likely delayed, story hits the Western corporate media consciousness, concurrent stories may be released that distract the audience or dilute the potency of the main story. The handling of the Haditha story by corporate Western media is being managed similarly.

For example, on June 1, 2006, the BBC released a story detailing an alleged "massacre" at Ishaqi on March 15, 2006. Dahr Jamail had reported on the incident and had photographs posted nearly two months before. The BBC's story was suspicious: not only was it delayed by two and a half months, but its timing was concurrent with a peak in media interest in the Haditha Massacre scandal. Meanwhile, the BBC's version of the Ishaqi story itself, while tragic, didn't seem to be much of a scandal at all. It was not surprising that the day after the BBC story "broke," ABC published a story entitled, "US Military Denies New Abuse Allegation at Ishaqi" reporting that the US Military had conductd an investigation and found that there was no basis for claims of a massacre at Ishaqi. The idea that the BBC could "break" a story and the military could respond, investigate and have a press release about it in time for ABC to report findings of innocence the next day is unbelievable if not outright ridiculous. This series of media events served primarily to distract people from the Haditha story and sow seeds of doubt in their minds about the Haditha Massacre. One would expect savvy journalists to recognize the set-up from a mile away.

On June 5, 2006, the New York Times provides us with two additional distractions - one involving paid Internet advertising and the other the front page of the paper.

If one did a Google search on "Haditha" on June 5th, one was presented with a story entitled "Disbelief Over Haditha": via Google's AdSense. The story is essentially a patriotic piece comprised of interviews with military individuals at Camp Pendelton on Memorial Day where the interviewees were granted a national audience in the Times and an opportunity to shower sympathy on the soldiers involved in the massacre and cast doubt on the event itself. The fact that the NYT is paying for this story to appear every time one types in "Haditha" in Google, and that this story unarguably serves to create doubts about the events that occurred in Haditha, is clearly a distraction from the horrendous fact of the massacre itself. A question to ask: why isn't the New York Times paying to promote a neutral piece about the Haditha Massacre rather than for a piece promoting blatant and exclusive American patriotism and denial?

But on this same day, the New York Times goes further in obfuscating the Haditha Massacre with distraction and doubt by swallowing whole a media event sponsored by the US military. Two reporters were flown by the US government to an excavated mass grave site in a military helicopter. The mass grave site was ostensibly created when Saddam Hussein's secret police murdered people connected with the Shiite uprising in 1991. Coincidentally, the number of people found in this site is 28, nearly the same number allegedly killed in the Haditha Massacre. The reason that the US flew the reporters to the site is clear; this story of a similar massacre at Saddam Hussein's hands distracts the public from the Haditha Massacre with the faulty logic of, "Well, if he did it ..." The New York Times did not feel the need to delay the story and published "Uncovering Iraq's Horrors in Desert Graves" on the front page merely two days after the journalists received a government tour of the site. After the kind of directed criticim of the role that the New York Times, via US state and military propagandists like Judith Miller and Thomas Friedman, has played in orchestrating Iraq War propaganda, one would imagine that reputable journalists would know better than to accept a US-sponsored media outing in Iraq. Reputable journalists should additionally wonder why the New York Times continues to accept this type of propaganda as news, while ignoring events such as the ones where the people of Fallujah dug mass graves to bury the thousands killed during the US assault of the city in November 2004.

But the mother of all distractions came on June 8, 2006, in the media spasm over the alleged killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. We can be certain of this week's front page news. The ridiculous thing is that Zarqawi himself is perhaps more a US propaganda and media fabrication more than a real threat to the Iraqi people, let alone the security of the US. The story of Zarqawi served to simplify and put an al-Qaeda face on what is really a much more complicated situation regarding the resistance and rising sectarian tensions in Iraq. Now with Zarqawi's alleged death reported by the US Government, the media is swallowing the state's version of this story whole, despite all the fraud that we've seen in past US propaganda stunts, such as the Jessica Lynch "rescue," the Pat Tillman fabrication, the pulling down of Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdos Square in Baghdad, and even the capture of Hussein himself. Will the death of Zarqawi slow the violent resistance in Iraq? No. Will the death of Zarqawi bring improvement n the electricity, water and medical infrastructure in Iraq? No. Will the death of Zarqawi bring stability and security to the Iraqi people? No. But is the death of Zarqawi a perfect distraction from the Haditha Massacre, total failure of the US occupation of Iraq, and the ongoing US military assault on the city of Ramadi? Absolutely. And his death conveniently distracts the corporate media from reporting that while the Prime Minister of Iraq appointed most of his cabinet last weekend, the position of Vice President Abel Abdul Mahdi, which had been set over a month ago, was the re-appointment of one of the most aggressive supporters of the economic agenda of the Bush administration in Iraq. An agenda which includes the implementation of corporate globalization of Iraq's laws and far, far greater US corporate control of Iraq's oil supply.

Discredit

Perhaps the most interesting propaganda campaign we have seen in connection with the Haditha Massacre was a massive and well-coordinated effort on the part of FOX news and the right wing bloggers to discredit any allegations of war crimes simultaneously running down the entire "left wing" Internet. This campaign came in the form of fraudulent video testimony from Jesse MacBeth. In this video "testimony" Jesse MacBeth claims to have been a soldier in Iraq and to have committed a variety of horrendous war crimes. The video barely made a stir on the web since people questioned its validity within hours of its release. Yet, on May 24, 2006, mere days after the video's first appearance on the web, FOX news spun fabrications about the video calling it an "anti-war video" and claiming "that thing posted on the Internet [was] the #2 most cicked-on blog on the Internet in the last few weeks." #2 most clicked-on blog? One should question where FOX news had been able to obtain data on the most popular blogs - unless Dick Cheney's news favorite is even closer with the NSA than some might suspect. The data comparing traffic to various web sites certainly is not available to FOX to make such a claim. But the claim was false anyway. Jesse MacBeth never had a blog. The video was posted on a small, low bandwidth web site that could never have handled anywhere near the kind of traffic required for the #2 blog. In fact, three days before FOX's show, the web site publicly registered just over 1,500 hits - total - and the video wasn't available because the site couldn't meet even that meager demand. At 5 pm pst, two days before FOX's wild promotion of the MacBeth video, a Google search on Jessie MacBeth revealed only two obscure references to the video at all. The video was in fact downright difficult to find anywhere on the web that day, let alone! the "last few weeks" before FOX's broadcast. FOX's deceptive promotion of this video and concurrent discrediting was deliberate propaganda to pre-empt any future or existing claims of war crimes, such as the Haditha Massacre, as well as an attempt to dismiss the entire left wing blogosphere and the "anti-war" movement. By far the greatest promoters of the MacBeth video were FOX news and the right-wing bloggers.

Spotlight

When an issue becomes too large and too damaging to control effectively, savvy PR professionals work to focus the public's attention on a single topic within the larger issue. The public thereby loses its view of the forest - the more damaging and larger issue - for the single tree of a selective topic or event related to the issue. This single topic needs to be controversial enough to capture a large audience, but sufficiently containable so that the particulars remain debatable and do not spiral out of control. We have seen this pattern of PR repeated over and over in the war. Examples include endless debates about the 500 prisoners illegally held in Guantanamo Bay, when the reality of the larger issue involves over 14,000 Iraqis detained without trail in both disclosed and undisclosed Iraqi prisons, as well as countless people held in secret US detention chambers in Eastern Europe. Another instance is the torture "scandal" at Abu Ghraib, where public attention was focused on sexual humiliation and inane ebates over the uses of dogs or water-boarding, when in fact there exists documentation of torture much more violent, systematic and widespread at US hands.

The Haditha Massacre is becoming the Spotlight event in the much broader and more volatile issue of US War crimes in Iraq. Haditha is by no stretch of the imagination an isolated incident. Journalists should work to broaden the reporting of Haditha to include a discussion of the much broader issue of International Law and War Crimes. This is, after all, a war where US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales described the Geneva conventions as "quaint," chemical weapons were used on a civilian population in Fallujah, violent torture continues at the hands of the US or its proxies, arbitrary detentions of Iraqis continue in violation of international law, hospitals have been intentionally destroyed and occupied, cluster bombs and flechettes have been deployed on dense civilian habitations, civilians are being killed daily, and journalists have been intentionally targeted by US troops. If we lose the forest for the trees on the issue of the Haditha Massacre, we risk participation in US propaganda.

Scapegoat

Parallels are being drawn between what happened in Haditha on November 19, 2005, and the 1968 massacre in My Lai during the Vietnam War, in which US forces ruthlessly slaughtered 500 unarmed women, men and children in a small village. The most direct parallels will probably involve what happens legally to those chosen by the internal military investigation to take the blame for the event in Haditha. In the case of My Lai, a lengthy internal investigation was launched, and followed by a court-martial. Despite the massively brutal nature of the massacre, the cover-up, and the many people involved, in the end, one man, Lt. William Calley, spent roughly 3 years under house arrest.

As we see the media spotlight on the Haditha Massacre, we can expect to see damage control measures through inventing scapegoats as was done in My Lai and Abu Ghraib. As in the Abu Ghraib torture media blitz, the military will not concern itself with loyalty for the troops that put their lives on the line daily. The military will readily sacrifice its Charles Graners and Sabrina Harmans while its superiors dodge and evade responsibility and the incident is made to look isolated. Haditha will be erroneously presented as the crime of a few "bad apples." With the massive cover-up by military superiors, countless other war crimes occurring in Iraq, and a US media landscape that has assisted in the cover-up, journalists need to do more than produce propaganda of the various trials and legal minutiae of the scapegoats identified to pay for the Haditha massacre. There are much bigger stories that await telling if the offered PR bait can be rejected.

Conclusion: Is the US Corporate Media Complicit in War Crimes?

According to principles set during the Nuremburg Trials and the UNESCO Charter, the primary responsibility of journalists during a time of war is not to incite the public to violence. In the case of the Haditha Massacre cover-up, we need to ask: Is the US Corporate Media complicit in the cover-up of this War Crime? By helping to cover up countless events like the Haditha Massacre, is the US Corporate Media inciting the public to violence by distorting the truth about the war in Iraq?

Already, stories from the US Media and "journalists" like Judith Miller who promoted the war with fabrications have failed the test of journalistic responsibility set by the Nuremburg Trials and the UNESCO Charter. But the US corporate media seems extremely resistant to responsible reform. How can the New York Times be satisfied publishing an unverified official account of what happened in Haditha presented by a military that has been caught in countless lies, such as the Pat Tillman fabrication and the invented Jessica Lynch "rescue?" Is the US corporate media prepared to challenge these government propaganda deceptions? Or are they going to remain engaged in aiding and abetting the war crimes of the US military and its commander in chief?

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spent over 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq. He presented evidence of US war crimes in Iraq at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York City in January 2006. He writes regularly for TruthOut, Inter Press Service, Asia Times and TomDispatch, and maintains his own web site, dahrjamailiraq.com.

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Jeff Pflueger is Dahr Jamail's electronic publicist. He maintains a web site at jeffpflueger.com.

Jeff Rense aka "Compulsive Liar"

2006-06-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, Jeff Rense is an extremely popular alternative radio host. He talks about such issues as Bird Flu, 9/11, UFOs, and generally anything else considered conspiratorial. However, he is an odd dude. For one, he is extremely secretive. No one has seen him in person or knows where he lives. The only picture available of him online is a photoshopped cartoon of god-knows-who.

Well it turns out, Rense isn't all he's cut himself out to be. Please read all of Lisa Guliani's article, Jeff Rense: A Reinvention of What?, available here and here. It seems Rense has some connections to the very people he pretends to denounce. Now, why would he want to do that?

As an update, see how fast Rense worked to try to get this piece offline. It seems he doesn't like past employers revealing that he is a liar. He refuses to even answer simple questions to clarify his so-called resume. Can we say "Psychopath?" To discuss further, participate here.

Here's the text of the article:

Patsy Smullin has run KOBI-TV for the last 30 years, and her father founded it. If anybody would have known Jeff Rense and the supposed 5,000 newscasts he claims to have made, it would be Patsy.

As it happens, Patsy Smullin does remember Jeff Rense, and in two different telephone conversations I had with her over the past few days, she confirmed that he did have a position at her television station for a brief time as a reporter and news anchor. Smullin stressed that Jeff Rense, or “a guy calling himself Jeff Rense” (her words), was employed at KOBI (an NBC affiliate) from June 1983 to May 1984, and she is not aware of him working at any other station in the state of Oregon either prior to his employment at KOBI-TV or afterward. [I would think if he'd worked at other stations previous to his KOBI position, these would be listed on his job application or resume when given to KOBI-TV.]

Patsy had more to say. She revealed that in her experience as Jeff Rense’s employer (and this is a direct quote), “He was not known for his honesty.” Think about it. Patsy Smullin was Rense’s employer some twenty-odd years ago. After all this tiime, the characteristic that has remained clearly in her memory is that “he was not known for his honesty”. What does that say to you? According to Ms. Smullin, at that time Jeff was also involved in several court battles with other people. One wonders if it has anything to do with him not being known for his honesty?

When asked if she could elaborate on the comment she'd made regarding Rense not being known for his honesty, her response was: "Sure. He was a compulsive liar." Also, when questioned as to the claim that Jeff anchored and produced “5000 newscasts,” Patsy Smullin laughed heartily and stated, “This is absolutely false. He never did that here.” Okay, if not at KOBI-TV, then where? Perhaps Jeff Rense will reveal this to us all at some point so we can check it out.

But on his own website, Jeff Rense claims to have been an award winning news director and TV news anchor for 10-12 years (accounts vary). If not at KOBI, then where?

An American Treasure

"…an award-winning television News Director and News Anchor for over ten years, Jeff continually pushed for higher standards of journalism and responsible, intelligent reporting and inquiry. Regrettably, those goals were often at odds with the irrevocable TV news obsession for tabloid exploitation of the trivial, the tragic and the sensational. The situation became so dubious and distasteful that one day he walked away from his highly-successful news anchor/news director career (as high as a 53 Share of the audience - Nielsen) and moved to radio, recognizing it as the last viable approach to bringing reality to the American public...and now with the internet, to the world."

Interesting that Rense declares himself to have worked as a news director and TV news anchor. An online search to verify this claim will return only Jeff’s words – repeated endlessly ad nauseum - as to the truthfulness of this assertion. There is literally no data to substantiate this claim anywhere on the Internet. The claim exists only on the Rense website and a few other websites that have copied and pasted the Rense claims onto their own pages.

Here’s another variation on the same theme: Jeff Rense Hosts Sightings

"During 12 years as an award-winning broadcast journalist, Jeff anchored and produced more than 5,000 television newscasts. This devoted single dad is also author of the book AIDS Exposed and passionately investigates ways to prevent diseases and extend life. His brother is Rip Rense, longtime reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Jeff first did radio while an education major at the University of California Santa Barbara, and in 1994 he returned to this first love with the talk radio show "End of the Line." In 1997, by agreement with Henry ("the Fonz") Winkler and Paramount Pictures, this show transformed into the ratings star "Sightings."

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Based on the following article he was a former news anchor at KOBI-TV. However, if one searches KOBI, there is no information on the former popular TV news anchor/news director Jeff Rense to be found.

The Truth Is Up There

"Presiding over this conspiratorial miasma is talk-radio host Jeff Rense, whose weeknight show, Sightings, is broadcast from a studio somewhere in Southern Oregon. (Citing threats to his life, Rense asked WW not to print his exact location.) Five nights a week, millions of Americans (including an estimated 21,000 Portlanders) in 120 cities tune in to Rense to catch up on the latest news on alien abduction, Bigfoot, paranormal phenomena--and chemtrails. A former news anchor at KOBI-TV in Medford, Rense began to hear reports of chemtrails in 1999."

________________________________________________________________

The above page also says:

"...By the late 1980s, Rense had worked for a handful of network affiliates in the West. He said his ratings were high, and he got 'lucrative offers' from several Oregon stations. But he had also become disillusioned with TV news and decided to quit the business...." "...After walking away from his TV career path, Rense returned to Santa Barbara and opened three pet stores..."

"...By the early 1990s, he had sold his All About Pets outlets and in 1994 approached KTMS with his idea for a talk-radio show, or at least his version of one..."

A Professional Broadcast Journalist

"As an award-winning broadcast journalist, Mr. Rense has anchored and produced well over 5,000 live 30-and 60-minute television newscasts… He began his End of the Line radio show which is now in its fourth highly successful year. Recently, the End of the Line was acquired by the Premiere Radio Networks, one of the top two radio syndicators in the U.S., and renamed Sightings On The Radio through an agreement with Paramount."

"As a journalist and private citizen, he became aware of the misinformation and propaganda surrounding the worldwide AIDS epidemic. Devoting three years of his life to researching, collecting, and compiling information, Mr. Rense authored the underground best-seller, AIDS Exposed, published in 1996. This 420-page book has been acclaimed as 'overwhelming,' 'invaluable' and 'the supreme public service' by broadcasters, medical professionals, and educators alike. Appearing on scores of radio and TV talk shows as an author, Mr. Rense has also been invited to lecture at such institutions as the University of California and USC. He has also written numerous articles, papers, and reports on a wide range of subjects and acts as a consultant on many different issues."

Rense's radio show "End of the Line" was renamed "Sightings on the Radio" with Paramount's backing.

An extensive online search for articles, journalistic reports and papers from Rense’s purported pre-Rense.com prior journalism career yields nothing.

How can this possibly be if he has written ‘numerous articles, papers and reports’? His book, AIDS Exposed, does not appear to be available anymore, with the exception of potential availability of a random used copy, if you’re lucky.

A search on the publisher of this book, Bioalert Press, coughs up nothing as far as any listing for a company website. The top link on Google search for Bioalert Press says: Bookstore-- Balaam's Ass Suggests you Read These Good Books-- Health AIDS Exposed-- Jeffrey Rense-- BioAlert Press-- Order from Jeffrey Rense, Box 764, Goleta, CA 93116. www.balaams-ass.com/bookstor/health.htm -

The above Google link would not come up for me in multiple attempts on different days. Regarding the Balaam’s Ass link, one has to order the book directly from Jeff Rense. Is Bioalert Press really just Rense? Has anyone out there ever heard of BioAlert Press?

I find it very ironic that Rense claims to have become so disillusioned with the nature of the mainstream news broadcast business and its inclination to report tabloid style and sensationalistic material, when all anyone has to do is peruse the Rense.com website for 10 minutes to realize that this well-funded site – funded by the same mainstream businesses that Rense claims to detest – is full of nothing but a never-ending series of sensationalistic, tabloid-type, speculative, unsubstantiated or fabricated “news” articles. I have to ask: Is it only wrong, disillusioning and distasteful when “other” people do it, Jeff? Or are you doing it for them?

Furthermore, online searches for any evidence of Jeff Rense’s longstanding claims regarding his extremely elusive broadcast journalism career path result in even more dead ends. There is an article on the Rense website entitled “The Most Dangerous Man in Talk Radio”, authored by an alleged LA writer named Kennedy Grey.

In this article, Kennedy Grey tells us, “When Jeff Rense walked away from a #1 rated Oregon TV news anchor position, people suspected job burnout. But Rense wasn't burned out on his job - his dissatisfaction was with the entire news media mainstream itself. Grey also states that Jeff spent “Twelve years as on on-air news anchor and News Director "up and down the west coast". Grey further says, “Rense set out to re-invent himself into a liberator of truth from the confines of a corrupt and bloated news broadcast industry.” He directly quotes Jeff Rense, who states that “Radio is theatre of the mind - a classroom of the mind."

Very interesting comments, aren’t they? The news anchor/news director statement is impossible to verify via the Internet, and thus far Jeff Rense is not forthcoming with information in spite of email sent to him containing a link to our website inquiry dated Friday, May 26, 2006 entitled Who is "Jeff Rense"?.

Does anyone have a copy of any of these 5,000 Jeff Rense newscasts? We’d sure like to see one. Thus far, we have not been able to locate anyone other than one person who remembers seeing Jeff Rense anchoring a TV newscast.

Only one TV news station’s call letters has been identified thus far. KOBI-TV 5 out of Medford, Oregon, which is an NBC affiliate. Pretty slim pickings. Nevertheless, I made a few phone calls to Medford, Oregon. One would think that as popular as Jeff Rense supposedly was, surely someone would remember him from the 1980s – particularly if he had produced and anchored 5000 newscasts up and down the West Coast. I contacted the Mail Tribune and spoke with an employee in the newsroom there. She had never heard of Oregon’s (former) #1 top rated news anchor, Jeff Rense. I’m awaiting a call back from Bob Hunter, editor of the Mail Tribune newspaper, to see if he has any recollections on this matter.

“5000 newscasts” is a lot of face-time, wouldn’t you agree?

Three calls to Rense’s former place of employment, KOBI-TV, speaking to four people who worked there didn’t help Rense very much. The first three individuals I spoke to had never heard of Jeff Rense and have no idea who he is. The fourth person was the owner of KOBI-TV, Patsy Smullin.

Jeff claims to have left KOBI due to his disillusionment with the mainstream news business and the tendency of TV news to sensationalize and dip into tabloid reporting, as stated above. I read Jeff’s published claims about this to Patsy Smullin. She responded, “That’s not the reason he gave to us at all. He said he was leaving to join his wife in their pet store.” (I am currently checking out the pet store information.)

Overall, Patsy Smullin did not give the impression that Jeff Rense had been a good employee while at KOBI-TV. In fact, her remarks lead one to believe that he was dishonest and untrustworthy. It was all I could do to restrain myself from asking if he conducted newscasts while wearing a wig.

The question we are entitled to ask is: why would Jeff Rense make so many claims about himself, and why would he twist the truth and make public assertions that are simply not true? Isn’t the “reinvented Jeff Rense” supposed to be all about truth and realism as opposed to sensationalistic, tabloid-style garbage? If one looks through his massive website, is it conceivable that a person might have some difficulty trying to discern the difference between Rense shinola and honest-to-god truth? Where does one end and the other begin? Furthermore, is Jeff Rense the person we really want to ask? Maybe that’s a little like asking the Bush Gang to investigate 911? (Oh, right! That’s already been done. Vanity Fair called it a “whitewash.”)

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“Jeff Rense” is a familiar name to countless political/conspiracy talk radio listeners and web surfers. In these circles, virtually everyone has heard of Rense.com. What very few people realize, or have even stopped to think about, is that very little is known about Jeff Rense himself. The available online biographical information is vague and deals in generalities, and has been copied and pasted from one web page to another over the years. The Rense legend has been dished out for public consumption in small, measured doses over time in word-bytes, with hardly anyone daring to openly question its veracity. Rense fans embrace, and often even vehemently defend the legend; those who don’t end up being ridiculed and attacked. That’s a curious feature of Rense’s position as a “Don of Conspiracy Theory.”

Jeff Rense is an interesting guy, wouldn’t you say? He’s almost a “legend,” and is even listed on a government site as the number one purveyor of “misinformation.” That’s quite an accomplishment in a world where “conspiracy theories” are mostly ignored and/or ridiculed. You could even say that it’s very good PR to get on such a list.

My curiosity about Jeff Rense began to grow when I realized that he has maintained a large Internet presence for over a decade, and despite this, there is virtually no information on him other than that which one finds on his website. How has Jeff Rense managed to keep information about himself off the world wide web all these years? That’s an interesting question.

We live in a time that discourages curiosity about the ‘wrong” topics – that’s a hallmark of the Fascist Bushistas - and it seems that questioning Rense is definitely “off limits”. We have to wonder why that is? Asking questions about the ‘wrong” people is treated almost as sacrilege. We love to hold our heroes and gurus high, don’t we? But we have learned the hard way that questions are only discouraged by those who have something to hide.

What could such a nice guy, such a great “patriot” as Jeff Rense possibly have to hide?

After spending some time combing through his claims and trying to find verification, I began to realize that “Jeff Rense” is little more than a reinvention. He has made some very interesting claims over the years, particularly with respect to his former stints in broadcasting and journalism; claims that served as building blocks in the creation of a legend, a legend constructed from the twisting of truth.

Well, let’s look at “Jeff Rense” shall we?

Claim #1: On the Rense.com homepage, we see the following:

“7-time Peabody Award Nominee”

Rense Peabody Talkers claim

Peabody Awards

Truth: The Rense.com website claims 7 Peabody Award nominations. The Peabody Awards do not have nominees. Anyone can fill out an entry, and then later the winners are announced. The following is an email from the Peabody Awards Foundation:

"The Peabody Awards program receives between 1,000 and 1,200 entries each year. We have a 15 member judging panel that meets several times during the judging season, as well as listening to/watching entries alone in their homes. They discuss all entries as a group, usually awarding between 30 and 35 Peabodys each year. There are no set number of awards given, and the board does not choose winners according to categories. We do not have a list of finalists or "nominees" as other awards programs have.

Basically we have entrants and winners.

Danna L. Williams Senior Administrative Assistant, emailed Feb. 6th 2006 "

In other words, you could nominate me, I could nominate you, and we could all nominate Bozo the Clown. The Peabody panel will most likely be interested in these suggestions, but ultimately it is THEY who choose the winners – not the public. There are no official lists of “nominees”. Rense’s website claim to be a “7 Time Peabody Award Nominee” is not only misleading, it means essentially nothing. It is presented to create a false impression of Rense’s achievements, basically it’s deceptive bullshit.

Talkers Magazine

Claim # 2: The Rense website states: “Talkers magazine top 100 Host”

Talkers Magazine ‘Heavy Hundred’

Truth: Please note that Jeff Rense isn't listed in the top 100, and he isn't even listed in the additional 250 names cited in the rest of Talkers Top Radio Show Host picks for 2006. Rense failed to make the cut for 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, etc. Rense was on the list once about 6 or 7 years ago, according to a response to my inquiry from Talkers. In fact, they find it pretty interesting that Jeff Rense is continuing to present this claim on his website, creating the appearance of his inclusion on this popular list, when in fact he is currently not listed. Talkers characterized this misleading representation in one word: “deceptive”, saying they will be keeping an eye on Rense and any Talkers-related claims from here on. Take a look at the list linked above. Call Talkers Magazine and ask them yourself if he is indeed on the Heavy Hundred list.

Claim #3: Rense’s Myspace web page at:

Rense My Space Profile lists his location as Ashland, Oregon – yet his Rense.com fan page says he is in California. Which is it? Oregon or California? Does Rense have two residences? If so, how does one afford two residences on an Internet radio income?

Of course, the answer could be that one is his residence and the other is his business address, but again I ask: if he is just doing his thing because he is a “true patriot,” knowing how hard it is for other true patriots to make ends meet, we have to ask who is paying for his office? What money is backing him? His MySpace page states an income of $100,000-$150,000 per year. That’s a pretty good chunk of change for a guy who claims to be in the business out of the goodness of his heart and his interest in truth.

Claim #4: Jeff Rense From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Former television news anchorman Jeff Rense, who lives in Santa Barbara, California, is a popular conspiracy theorist and is the host of the Jeff Rense program which is broadcast on terrestrial radio and on the Internet. He originally became famous in the 90's with the program "Sightings". His radio program and website (See below) cover such subjects as UFO reports, paranormal phenomena, conspiracy theories, reports of new diseases and a plethora of other material rarely covered by the mainstream media. Jeff Rense leans towards a populist approach regarding politics and media. Rense does not subscribe to any conventional political standpoint and many of his views are simultaneously left and right leaning. Rense has one brother: writer, Rip Rense. His step mother, New York socialite and editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest Magazine, is Paige Rense. His father, now deceased, was sports journalist, Arthur F. Rense (1917-1990). Jeff Rense is also a vegan."

Here we learn that Rense’s views are simultaneously both left-leaning and right-leaning. Sounds like an impossible contortion to me. It is also established from more than one source that Jeff’s father, Arthur Rense, formerly a sportswriter and sometime poet, also landed a job at Douglas Aircraft doing PR. How does a poet and sports writer qualify for work as a public relations director at Douglas Aircraft, one of the biggies of the Military Industrial Complex? Here is the NY Times obituary for Arthur Rense:

Arthur F. Rense, Public Relations Executive, 74
Published: January 5, 1991
“Arthur F. Rense, a retired public relations executive, died on Dec. 28 at his home in Las Vegas, Nev. He was 74 years old. He died of leukemia, said his wife, Paige Rense, editor in chief of Architectural Digest. Mr. Rense had been director of public relations for the Summa Corporation, owned by Howard R. Hughes, until he retired in 1985. He had been public relations director for the missiles and space systems division of Douglas Aircraft Company and director of public relations at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. Besides his wife, Mr. Rense is survived by three sons from a former marriage, Kirk of Irvine, Calif., Jeff of Santa Barbara , Calif., and Rip of Sherman Oaks, Calif.; four brothers, Randy, Andy and Frank, all of Cleveland, and William of Denver; and two grandchildren.”

Regarding Summa Corporation: The Washington Post for April 1, 1975, carried this information:

Summa Corp. is the financial umbrella under which most of (Howard)Hughes' worth is contained. . . .Most recently, another Summa "asset" hit the news: the $350 million Hughes Glomar Explorer vessel that Hughes built at the behest (and the expense of) the Central Intelligence Agency . . . Mormons, Hughes, & CIA

Summa Corporation has been tied to CIA contracts on more than one occasion, to say the least. Douglas Aircraft Company is also well-known for its numerous government contracts, not to mention the starring role it is now playing in Bush’s Endless War. So again I ask: how did “poet and sports writer” Arthur Rense end up as public relations director for Douglas Aircraft and Summa Corp? In bed with the Feds? More importantly, what kind of connections does his son Jeff have with these same gangs? After all, his views are “both left and right” which suggests that he could have “left” views to vacuum in his audience all the while subtly converting them to “right” views.

Douglas Aircraft also has ties with RAND Corporation:

RAND (Encyclopedia)

The RAND Corporation is an American think tank.

"A think tank is a group of individuals dedicated to high-level synergistic research on a variety of subjects, usually in military laboratories, corporations,... first formed to offer research and analysis to the U.S. military. The organization has since expanded to working with other government and commercial organizations Project RAND was set up in 1945 by the USAAF, under contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company. An interesting aside, Condoleezza Rice is a former RAND CorporationTrustee 1991-1997 and current Secretary of State for the United States, a war whore if ever there was one."

Okay, I think everybody knows that Summa, Douglas Aircraft, and RAND are all major players with DOD, military and intelligence agencies in the fascist government that Jeff Rense claims to oppose. Yet we find that his father, Arthur Rense, poet, sports writer, was “somehow” a public relations director for both Douglas Aircraft and Summa Corporation? I would very much like to hear Jeff Rense publicly discuss this curious fact one of these fine days and explain how he could live much of his life with alphabet soup guys swarming around and avoid being sucked into the game. Funny how this topic never seems to come up, isn’t it? Perhaps he just keeps forgetting to mention it.

Now I want to come back to the fact that Jeff Rense has been “honored” by being listed on an official government website as a major purveyor of “disinformation.” Among the conspiracy minded crowd, that is a high kudo indeed. But is it evidence that Jeff truly is a news source standing in opposition to the Bush Reich and their Endless Wars of Lies and Agression? Maybe not. As Robin Ramsay, Editor of Lobster Magazine, wrote in the February issue of Fortean Times:

Recently, the US State Department has begun trying to rebut some of the current conspiracy theories about America. Their first targets were a couple of websites - www.rense.com and Conspiracy Planet - and the late Joe Vialls, an Australian. What a boost for the named sites! Attacked by the State Department![...]

[Y]ou don't have to be a PR genius to see that what you simply mustn't do is launch official attacks: all they do is amplify and legitimise the theories by announcing that they are deemed to be worth attacking. [Fortean Times 206, February 2006, p. 19]

What a coup for Rense and Alex Jones! To be officially declared the primo disinfo sites! Now, if you know anything about COINTELPRO, you expect that the real COINTELPRO operations will be attacked "officially" in order to legitimize them exactly as Robin Ramsay has described. That also means that those who are honest and sincere seekers of truth and who do their homework and expose the lies of the Bush Reich will most certainly NOT be martyred by the official government. It's way too dangerous and gives them legitimacy. Rather, they will be defamed by the “officially designated disinformation agents” – and dare we say it? – agents of COINTELPRO - such as Jeff Rense, Alex Jones and similar disinformation agents that have received the Bush Reich seal of approval. In fact, it seems that this is a well-orchestrated plan that is described in detail in that much maligned document, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” A really good way to keep your eye on the ball is to consider Protocol 12...

Now, it is important when reading the Protocols to not assign it's origin to any national, ethnic, or religious group. Rather, consider it to be a statement of any group that seeks to control and dominate and use the public for their own gain Then you will truly begin to understand who is who. (Excerpts of Protocol 12: Control of the Press are located at the end of this article):

Recently, Jeff Rense accused WING TV of engaging in deception, trickery, subterfuge, lying, slandering and libel, just to name a few of the charges. He has publicly called Victor Thorn and myself “dirtball scum” and together with Alex Jones and their groupies, charged us with being “cointelpro assets, government agents and un-American operatives." True to form and apparently attached to Rense at the hip and the lip, (and linked on the official government site, I should add), Alex Jones reinforces, endorses, and repeats Rense’s vomitus, only louder. What’s amusing about this is that Rense, Jones, nor any of their groupie parrots have yet to substantiate any of these bogus charges made against us.

Let me get this straight: nobody has to qualify with data anything they say, including (and particularly) veteran journalist Jeff Rense? Alex Jones has yet to qualify any of his ridiculous comments about us either, and he refuses to hold himself accountable for his own words.

Ask yourself: Why? Is it conceivable to anyone out there that they cannot PROVE the things they say about WING TV? Moreover, this begs the question, can they prove any and all of the other “gospel-truth” claims they’ve made over the years? That is another very good question.

You see, we are supposed to just believe what they say simply because they say it. Forget about facts, data or substantiation. Forget about showing evidence of their assertions; forget about journalistic ethics; just nod your head and agree. Don’t ask questions. Gobble up the lies and twisted half-truths and get your fill of the fix du jour. After all, in the words of Jeff Rense, it is all a “theater of the mind”.

What we observe is that both Rense and Jones pander to a “least common denominator” audience demographic, the people out there who don’t bother to check things out for themselves and will just repeat what they hear and read over and over, like good little automatons. This is the ideal Rense-Jones target audience, one which will worship blindly, surrender critical thinking skills, believe without questioning or disagreement, and of course, shell out the bucks.

Incidentally, I did a search on Kennedy Grey, the LA writer who penned the article about Rense entitled “The Most Dangerous Man in Talk Radio”. He (she) is supposedly the founder of a group called RAS, an acronym for ‘Rock Against Suicide’. Unfortunately, a Google search for Kennedy Grey did not yield a website for the RAS group anywhere, but there is an interview with Kennedy Grey on this website: The Internet Nirvana Fan club.

Nirvana Fan Club. Oh boy, how impressive. A Curt Cobain suicide website.

I was not able to find any links online to Grey’s organization, RAS, or to Kennedy Grey, other than the single article he wrote which is published on Rense.com. I would like to find Kennedy Grey and ask whether he/she even bothered to check out any of the claims Rense made to him in the interview. I’d like to learn if Kennedy Grey is a real person, for that matter, or just a construct of Rense. Whatever the case may be, it doesn’t look like Grey checked out any of the statements Rense made in that interview. If some fact-checking had been done, Grey’s article would probably be written a bit differently. At the very least, it should have been.

Rense and Alex Jones enjoy howling that “Honest-to-God patriots" NEVER attack other patriots. That sounds a lot like:

"For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy…. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification." [Protocols]

The fact is, those who do the research know that the Founding Fathers engaged in a great deal of spirited, heated, sincere dispute with one another. Some of them hated one another with a passion, yet in spite of this animosity, worked together for the common good of all; as the cause was greater than themselves, and they all knew this to be true. So where do Rense and Jones come off bellowing such obnoxious bullshit, especially when we consider the fact that merely branding oneself a “patriot” does not necessarily make it so. I could call myself “Madonna”, but that doesn’t mean I AM Madonna.

Appearances can be very deceiving, especially when some so-called “patriots” choose to hide behind microphones in undisclosed locations, behind wigs and a couple of re-touched, photo-shopped cartoon pictures of themselves, and when all they choose to disclose is a limited amount of extremely vague babble about their alleged past accomplishments, achievements, or experience designed solely to “create a legend”.

And then, when we discover, with a minimum of investigation, that their claims do not hold up, that it is all completely manipulated, twisted, exaggerated, amplified and contorted facts designed to present a false front, we are entitled to question everything else. Why do people tell lies, whether overtly or by omission? Some do it because of mental issues, some do it for profit, and some do it just because they can.

Bottom line: Jeff Rense has falsely accused WING TV of trading in lies, deception, duplicity, innuendo, disinformation and trickery. Jeff Rense better start looking in the mirror, because I see a so-called “patriot” that needs to come clean about a few things, someone who is “not known for his honesty”.

Definitions of deception on the Web:

• misrepresentation: a misleading falsehood
• the act of deceiving
• magic trick: an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers
• Deception is providing intentionally misleading information to others.
• To practice deceit.
• To give a false impression: appearances can deceive.
• To cause to believe what is not true; mislead.
• to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid intransitive verb : to practice deceit
• be false to; be dishonest with - 2: cause someone to believe an untruth

Stay tuned, because this investigation is not over. More to follow soon.

"The big print giveth and the small print taketh away."
~ Tom Waitts ~

Protocol 12: Control of the Press

1. The word "freedom," which can be interpreted in various ways, is defined by us as follows –

2. Freedom is the right to do what which the law allows. This interpretation of the word will at the proper time be of service to us, because all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.

3. We shall deal with the press in the following way: what is the part played by the press to-day? It serves to excite and inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest idea what ends the press really serves. We shall saddle and bridle it with a tight curb: we shall do the same also with all productions of the printing press, for where would be the sense of getting rid of the attacks of the press if we remain targets for pamphlets and books? …

For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy…. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification.

I BEG YOU TO NOTE THAT AMONG THOSE MAKING ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO BE ORGANS ESTABLISHED BY US, BUT THEY WILL ATTACK EXCLUSIVELY POINTS THAT WE HAVE PRE-DETERMINED TO ALTER. WE CONTROL THE PRESS

4. NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.

5. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the GOY communities to such an extent that they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses; if already now there is not a single State where there exist for us any barriers to admittance into what GOY stupidity calls State secrets: what will our positions be then, when we shall be acknowledged supreme lords of the world in the person of our king of all the world ....

6. Let us turn again to the FUTURE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. Every one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or printer, will be obliged to provide himself with the diploma instituted therefore, which, in case of any fault, will be immediately impounded. With such measures THE INSTRUMENT OF THOUGHT WILL BECOME AN EDUCATIVE MEANS ON THE HANDS OF OUR GOVERNMENT, WHICH WILL NO LONGER ALLOW THE MASS OF THE NATION TO BE LED ASTRAY IN BY-WAYS AND FANTASIES ABOUT THE BLESSINGS OF PROGRESS. Is there any one of us who does not know that these phantom blessings are the direct roads to foolish imaginings which give birth to anarchical relations of men among themselves and towards authority, because progress, or rather the idea of progress, has introduced the conception of every kind of emancipation, but has failed to establish its limits .... All the so-called liberals are anarchists, if not in fact, at any rate in thought. Every one of them in hunting after phantoms of freedom, and falling exclusively into license, that is, into the anarchy of protest for the sake of protest.... FREE PRESS DESTROYED

7. We turn to the periodical press. … if there should be any found who are desirous of writing against us, they will not find any person eager to print their productions. Before accepting any production for publication in print, the publisher or printer will have to apply to the authorities for permission to do so. Thus we shall know beforehand of all tricks preparing against us and shall nullify them by getting ahead with explanations on the subject treated of.

8. Literature and journalism are two of the most important educative forces, and therefore our government will become proprietor of the majority of the journals. This will neutralize the injurious influence of the privately-owned press and will put us in possession of a tremendous influence upon the public mind .... If we give permits for ten journals, we shall ourselves found thirty, and so on in the same proportion. This, however, must in no wise be suspected by the public. For which reason all journals published by us will be of the most opposite, in appearance, tendencies and opinions, thereby creating confidence in us and bringing over to us quite unsuspicious opponents, who will thus fall into our trap and be rendered harmless.

9. In the front rank will stand organs of an official character. They will always stand guard over our interests, and therefore their influence will be comparatively insignificant. 10. In the second rank will be the semi-official organs, whose part it will be to attack the tepid and indifferent.

11. In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards.

12. All our newspapers will be of all possible complexions -- aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchical - for so long, of course, as the constitution exists .... Like the Indian idol "Vishnu" they will have a hundred hands, and every one of them will have a finger on any one of the public opinions as required. When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we hang out for them.

13. In order to direct our newspaper militia in this sense we must take special and minute care in organizing this matter. Under the title of central department of the press we shall institute literary gatherings at which our agents will without attracting attention issue the orders and watchwords of the day. By discussing and controverting, but always superficially, without touching the essence of the matter, our organs will carry on a sham fight fusillade with the official newspapers solely for the purpose of giving occasion for us to express ourselves more fully than could well be done from the outset in official announcements, whenever, of course, that is to our advantage.

14. THESE ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO SERVE ANOTHER PURPOSE, NAMELY, THAT OUR SUBJECTS WILL BE CONVINCED TO THE EXISTENCE OF FULL FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND SO GIVE OUR AGENTS AN OCCASION TO AFFIRM THAT ALL ORGANS WHICH OPPOSE US ARE EMPTY BABBLERS, since they are incapable of finding any substantial objections to our orders. ONLY LIES PRINTED

15. Methods of organization like these, imperceptible to the public eye but absolutely sure, are the best calculated to succeed in bringing the attention and the confidence of the public to the side of our government. Thanks to such methods we shall be in a position as from time to time may be required, to excite or to tranquillize the public mind on political questions, to persuade or to confuse, printing now truth, now lies, facts or their contradictions, according as they may be well or ill received, always very cautiously feeling our ground before stepping upon it .... WE SHALL HAVE A SURE TRIUMPH OVER OUR OPPONENTS SINCE THEY WILL NOT HAVE AT THEIR DISPOSITION ORGANS OF THE PRESS IN WHICH THEY CAN GIVE FULL AND FINAL EXPRESSION TO THEIR VIEWS owing to the aforesaid methods of dealing with the press. We shall not even need to refute them except very superficially.

16. Trial shots like these, fired by us in the third rank of our press, in case of need, will be energetically refuted by us in our semi-official organs.

17. Even nowadays, already, to take only the French press, there are forms which reveal masonic solidarity in acting on the watchword: all organs of the press are bound together by professional secrecy; like the augurs of old, not one of their numbers will give away the secret of his sources of information unless it be resolved to make announcement of them. Not one journalist will venture to betray this secret, for not one of them is ever admitted to practice literature unless his whole past has some disgraceful sore or other .... These sores would be immediately revealed. So long as they remain the secret of a few the prestige of the journalist attacks the majority of the country - the mob follow after him with enthusiasm.

18. Our calculations are especially extended to the provinces. It is indispensable for us to inflame there those hopes and impulses with which we could at any moment fall upon the capital, and we shall represent to the capitals that these expressions are the independent hopes and impulses of the provinces. Naturally, the source of them will be always one and the same - ours. WHAT WE NEED IS THAT, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS WE ARE IN THE PLENITUDE POWER, THE CAPITALS SHOULD FIND THEMSELVES STIFLED BY THE PROVINCIAL OPINION OF THE NATIONS, I.E., OF A MAJORITY ARRANGED BY OUR AGENTUR. What we need is that at the psychological moment the capitals should not be in a position to discuss an accomplished fact for the simple reason, if for no other, that it has been accepted by the public opinion of a majority in the provinces.

19. WHEN WE ARE IN THE PERIOD OF THE NEW REGIME TRANSITIONAL TO THAT OF OUR ASSUMPTION OF FULL SOVEREIGNTY WE MUST NOT ADMIT ANY REVELATION BY THE PRESS OF ANY FORM OF PUBLIC DISHONESTY; IT IS NECESSARY THAT THE NEW REGIME SHOULD BE THOUGHT TO HAVE SO PERFECTLY CONTENDED EVERYBODY THAT EVEN CRIMINALITY HAS DISAPPEARED ... Cases of the manifestation of criminality should remain known only to their victims and to chance witnesses - no more.

I think that all of the above may sound very familiar to all of you reading this. The only difference is that now we work with the Internet and not printed materials. But the principles are the same.

Murder, Mud-Slinging, and Mendacity

2006-05-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

A couple news articles caught my attention these past few days. First of all, according to Reuters,

An average of 70 civilians are killed in Baghdad every day, largely a result of the sectarian violence which has been on the rise since the 22 February attack on a revered Shi'ite shrine in Samarra city. Every month, the mortuary receives more than 1,500 bodies, not including the bodies of people killed in the north and south of the country.

Approximately 2 American soldiers die per day wasted in Iraq. The number of Iraqis in Baghdad alone is thirty-five times that amount. Now, the CIA-sponsored propaganda outlets, tightly controlling news emerging from Iraq, tell us that this is a result of "sectarian strife." Keeping in mind that, in Iraq, the perceived difference between Sunni and Shia is the same as that of a Methodist and Baptist in America--they aren't interested in slaughtering each other. Signs of the Times' comments on the problems in Palestine are noteworthy:

It really is an amazing coincidence that the Palestinians are slowly moving towards all-out war with each other rather than combining their forces to fight the illegal occupying Israeli force. Is it perhaps not clear enough to the them just who the enemy is? Have they somehow forgotten the hundreds of their own children that have been deliberately murdered by the IDF over the past 5 years? Of course not. As is true in the case of Iraq at the moment, an indigenous people do not normally respond to an outside aggressor by fighting and killing each other. Such a situation only develops as a result of deliberate provocation in the form of covert bombings and assassinations by a "fifth column" acting on behalf of the aggressor in an attempt to turn the conflict into an internal one and thereby destroy the resistance. It would appear therefore that Hamas, being originally a creation of Israel, or certain elements within Hamas, have been infiltrated in this way.

The sectarian strife is engineered by American, British, and Israeli special-operations mercenaries. This is documented.

Also, the Pentagon recently released the complete version of the infamous five frames of the Pentagon explosion in response to a request from Judicial Watch. As could be expected, neither of the two angles shows Flight 77. So, where is it? Apparently it is there somewhere, but for some reason, it doesn't seem to be reflecting sunlight. Odd, no?

In related news, CNN has been seeking to recover from their seemingly unforeseen blunder of letting Charlie Sheen's views appear on their hallowed broadcast. From Paul Joseph Watson:

CNN is trying to bait 9/11 truth activists to appear as guests on its programs and attack Charlie Sheen. William Rodriguez and Philip Berg appeared on the Alex Jones Show today to expose a smear campaign that seeks to poison the well of the 9/11 truth movement.

WTC survivor and truth activist William Rodriguez was contacted by the Anderson Cooper 360 show and asked if he would go on record as saying the new Pentagon footage dispelled all 9/11 questions. They also requested that he attack Charlie Sheen's public stance on 9/11.

One CNN researcher outright called Charlie Sheen a liar during a phone call with Rodriguez.

After Rodriguez refused to take the bait, telling them he supports Sheen 100%, CNN cancelled his appearance even as the car to pick him up was en route. Rodriguez said CNN were taken aback by the fact that he refused to bad mouth Sheen.

Lawyer Philip Berg and philanthropist Jimmy Walters were also approached by CNN and promised TV time if they agreed to debunk Charlie Sheen. Both refused.

Berg is representing Rodriguez in a RICO suit aimed at bringing charges against US government officials for complicity in 9/11.

Berg was set to appear on Neo-Con Glenn Beck's new CNN show before the slot was cancelled.

After host AJ Hammer and Showbiz Tonight were punished for their balanced 9/11 coverage, the show was bumped to a later slot and replaced by Beck's show.

This represents a coordinated effort to smear Charlie Sheen's viewpoints on 9/11 and poison the well of the wider 9/11 truth movement. CNN are shopping for news and trying to blackmail people into saying what they want them to say.

News networks claimed that the new Pentagon images discredited Charlie Sheen comments regarding what happened to Flight 77.

Can you see what has just occurred? Sheen, due to his celebrity status, managed to get his views aired on a CNN entertainment news show. He focussed on two important 911 issues: WTC7 and the Pentagon. Days before the Pentagon Strike flash presentation is presented at the Cannes Film Festival, the Pentagon releases blurry videos, claiming that these dispel the vicious conspiracy theories. Propaganda central CNN then attempts to do damage control on their error by attempting to get other celebrities and 911 researchers to smear Sheen and agree that the newly released videos show Flight 77.

It shouldn't be too hard to see what is going on here.

The Pathocratic Nature of the Hunt

2006-05-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

Today the Signs of the Times published an editorial of mine entitled The Pathocratic Nature of the Hunt. Please check it out.

A Lesson in the Art of Lying

2006-05-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

Here are the words of Donald Rumsfeld in an interview with ABC news on March 30, 2003:

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: [...] is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Okay, so from this quote we can gather that Rumsfeld and his good friends "[knew] where [the WMD's] were. They [were] in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

Now, recently Ray McGovern, ex-CIA anyalyst asked Rumsfeld about this oddity. Here's what he asked, and the answer he got in return:

McGOVERN: Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?
RUMSFELD: ...it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.
McGOVERN: You said you knew where they were.

RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and...

Watch the video. Notice that McGovern is being forcibly removed from the building for calling Rumsfeld on a documented lie. Not only that, the book-licking, anus-puckering sycophants cheer the bastard on. Excuse me while I vomit, but this is the stuff brainwashed Nazis are made of.

What happened? Why was Clinton impeached for lying about a blow-job while these fascists can get away with mass-murder? How can they lie about the justification for preemptive war, be called on those lies, lie in response to the questions, and STILL be praised by some people?

The sad thing is that this is not the first time Rumsfeld has been caught in a lie. Watch him here denying that he, or anyone he was aware of, at any time called Iraq an "imminent threat." He asks for citations, seemingly sure of himself that he will get none in return. Wrong.

Here's what Rumsfeld is quoted as saying:

No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Rumsfeld realizes he has been caught. Watch how he reacts. He simply lies some more.

Oh, the wonders of these "humans" we call pyschopaths. Please, do yourself and those you love a favour. Learn what these people are capable of, and in the words of Georgie Bush/The Who, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, we don't get fooled again!"

Bush: One Step Closer to Overt Dictatorship

2006-04-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

Bush challenges hundreds of laws
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 30, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power. [Harrison: Don't worry, he won't actually use his dictatorial powers, he just likes the security... Bollocks.]

But with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override.

Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more governmental power into the White House.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

For the first five years of Bush's presidency, his legal claims attracted little attention in Congress or the media. Then, twice in recent months, Bush drew scrutiny after challenging new laws: a torture ban and a requirement that he give detailed reports to Congress about how he is using the Patriot Act.

Bush administration spokesmen declined to make White House or Justice Department attorneys available to discuss any of Bush's challenges to the laws he has signed.

Instead, they referred a Globe reporter to their response to questions about Bush's position that he could ignore provisions of the Patriot Act. They said at the time that Bush was following a practice that has ''been used for several administrations" and that ''the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution."

But the words ''in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution" are the catch, legal scholars say, because Bush is according himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution. And he is quietly exercising that authority to a degree that is unprecedented in US history.

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ''signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

''He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises -- and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

Military link
Many of the laws Bush said he can bypass -- including the torture ban -- involve the military. [Harrison: Why add a signing statement to a bill banning torture? Hmm. I wonder.]

The Constitution grants Congress the power to create armies, to declare war, to make rules for captured enemies, and ''to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." But, citing his role as commander in chief, Bush says he can ignore any act of Congress that seeks to regulate the military.

On at least four occasions while Bush has been president, Congress has passed laws forbidding US troops from engaging in combat in Colombia, where the US military is advising the government in its struggle against narcotics-funded Marxist rebels.

After signing each bill, Bush declared in his signing statement that he did not have to obey any of the Colombia restrictions because he is commander in chief.

Bush has also said he can bypass laws requiring him to tell Congress before diverting money from an authorized program in order to start a secret operation, such as the ''black sites" where suspected terrorists are secretly imprisoned.

Congress has also twice passed laws forbidding the military from using intelligence that was not ''lawfully collected," including any information on Americans that was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches.

Congress first passed this provision in August 2004, when Bush's warrantless domestic spying program was still a secret, and passed it again after the program's existence was disclosed in December 2005.

On both occasions, Bush declared in signing statements that only he, as commander in chief, could decide whether such intelligence can be used by the military.

In October 2004, five months after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq came to light, Congress passed a series of new rules and regulations for military prisons. Bush signed the provisions into law, then said he could ignore them all. One provision made clear that military lawyers can give their commanders independent advice on such issues as what would constitute torture. But Bush declared that military lawyers could not contradict his administration's lawyers.

Other provisions required the Pentagon to retrain military prison guards on the requirements for humane treatment of detainees under the Geneva Conventions, to perform background checks on civilian contractors in Iraq, and to ban such contractors from performing ''security, intelligence, law enforcement, and criminal justice functions." Bush reserved the right to ignore any of the requirements.

The new law also created the position of inspector general for Iraq. But Bush wrote in his signing statement that the inspector ''shall refrain" from investigating any intelligence or national security matter, or any crime the Pentagon says it prefers to investigate for itself.

Bush had placed similar limits on an inspector general position created by Congress in November 2003 for the initial stage of the US occupation of Iraq. The earlier law also empowered the inspector to notify Congress if a US official refused to cooperate. Bush said the inspector could not give any information to Congress without permission from the administration.

Oversight questioned
Many laws Bush has asserted he can bypass involve requirements to give information about government activity to congressional oversight committees.

In December 2004, Congress passed an intelligence bill requiring the Justice Department to tell them how often, and in what situations, the FBI was using special national security wiretaps on US soil. The law also required the Justice Department to give oversight committees copies of administration memos outlining any new interpretations of domestic-spying laws. And it contained 11 other requirements for reports about such issues as civil liberties, security clearances, border security, and counternarcotics efforts.

After signing the bill, Bush issued a signing statement saying he could withhold all the information sought by Congress.

Likewise, when Congress passed the law creating the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, it said oversight committees must be given information about vulnerabilities at chemical plants and the screening of checked bags at airports.

It also said Congress must be shown unaltered reports about problems with visa services prepared by a new immigration ombudsman. Bush asserted the right to withhold the information and alter the reports.

On several other occasions, Bush contended he could nullify laws creating ''whistle-blower" job protections for federal employees that would stop any attempt to fire them as punishment for telling a member of Congress about possible government wrongdoing.

When Congress passed a massive energy package in August, for example, it strengthened whistle-blower protections for employees at the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The provision was included because lawmakers feared that Bush appointees were intimidating nuclear specialists so they would not testify about safety issues related to a planned nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada -- a facility the administration supported, but both Republicans and Democrats from Nevada opposed.

When Bush signed the energy bill, he issued a signing statement declaring that the executive branch could ignore the whistle-blower protections.

Bush's statement did more than send a threatening message to federal energy specialists inclined to raise concerns with Congress; it also raised the possibility that Bush would not feel bound to obey similar whistle-blower laws that were on the books before he became president. His domestic spying program, for example, violated a surveillance law enacted 23 years before he took office.

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive-power issues, said Bush has cast a cloud over ''the whole idea that there is a rule of law," because no one can be certain of which laws Bush thinks are valid and which he thinks he can ignore.

''Where you have a president who is willing to declare vast quantities of the legislation that is passed during his term unconstitutional, it implies that he also thinks a very significant amount of the other laws that were already on the books before he became president are also unconstitutional," Golove said.

Defying Supreme Court
Bush has also challenged statutes in which Congress gave certain executive branch officials the power to act independently of the president. The Supreme Court has repeatedly endorsed the power of Congress to make such arrangements. For example, the court has upheld laws creating special prosecutors free of Justice Department oversight and insulating the board of the Federal Trade Commission from political interference.

Nonetheless, Bush has said in his signing statements that the Constitution lets him control any executive official, no matter what a statute passed by Congress might say.

In November 2002, for example, Congress, seeking to generate independent statistics about student performance, passed a law setting up an educational research institute to conduct studies and publish reports ''without the approval" of the Secretary of Education. Bush, however, decreed that the institute's director would be ''subject to the supervision and direction of the secretary of education."

Similarly, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld affirmative-action programs, as long as they do not include quotas. Most recently, in 2003, the court upheld a race-conscious university admissions program over the strong objections of Bush, who argued that such programs should be struck down as unconstitutional.

Yet despite the court's rulings, Bush has taken exception at least nine times to provisions that seek to ensure that minorities are represented among recipients of government jobs, contracts, and grants. Each time, he singled out the provisions, declaring that he would construe them ''in a manner consistent with" the Constitution's guarantee of ''equal protection" to all -- which some legal scholars say amounts to an argument that the affirmative-action provisions represent reverse discrimination against whites.

Golove said that to the extent Bush is interpreting the Constitution in defiance of the Supreme Court's precedents, he threatens to ''overturn the existing structures of constitutional law."

A president who ignores the court, backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him, Golove said, can make the Constitution simply ''disappear."

Common practice in '80s
Though Bush has gone further than any previous president, his actions are not unprecedented.

Since the early 19th century, American presidents have occasionally signed a large bill while declaring that they would not enforce a specific provision they believed was unconstitutional. On rare occasions, historians say, presidents also issued signing statements interpreting a law and explaining any concerns about it.

But it was not until the mid-1980s, midway through the tenure of President Reagan, that it became common for the president to issue signing statements. The change came about after then-Attorney General Edwin Meese decided that signing statements could be used to increase the power of the president.

When interpreting an ambiguous law, courts often look at the statute's legislative history, debate and testimony, to see what Congress intended it to mean. Meese realized that recording what the president thought the law meant in a signing statement might increase a president's influence over future court rulings.

Under Meese's direction in 1986, a young Justice Department lawyer named Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote a strategy memo about signing statements. It came to light in late 2005, after Bush named Alito to the Supreme Court.

In the memo, Alito predicted that Congress would resent the president's attempt to grab some of its power by seizing ''the last word on questions of interpretation." He suggested that Reagan's legal team should ''concentrate on points of true ambiguity, rather than issuing interpretations that may seem to conflict with those of Congress."

Reagan's successors continued this practice. George H.W. Bush challenged 232 statutes over four years in office, and Bill Clinton objected to 140 laws over his eight years, according to Kelley, the Miami University of Ohio professor.

Many of the challenges involved longstanding legal ambiguities and points of conflict between the president and Congress.

Throughout the past two decades, for example, each president -- including the current one -- has objected to provisions requiring him to get permission from a congressional committee before taking action. The Supreme Court made clear in 1983 that only the full Congress can direct the executive branch to do things, but lawmakers have continued writing laws giving congressional committees such a role.

Still, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton used the presidential veto instead of the signing statement if they had a serious problem with a bill, giving Congress a chance to override their decisions.

But the current President Bush has abandoned the veto entirely, as well as any semblance of the political caution that Alito counseled back in 1986. In just five years, Bush has challenged more than 750 new laws, by far a record for any president, while becoming the first president since Thomas Jefferson to stay so long in office without issuing a veto.

''What we haven't seen until this administration is the sheer number of objections that are being raised on every bill passed through the White House," said Kelley, who has studied presidential signing statements through history. ''That is what is staggering. The numbers are well out of the norm from any previous administration."

Exaggerated fears?
Some administration defenders say that concerns about Bush's signing statements are overblown. Bush's signing statements, they say, should be seen as little more than political chest-thumping [Harrison: try Nazi goose-stepping] by administration lawyers who are dedicated to protecting presidential prerogatives.

Defenders say the fact that Bush is reserving the right to disobey the laws does not necessarily mean he has gone on to disobey them.

Indeed, in some cases, the administration has ended up following laws that Bush said he could bypass. For example, citing his power to ''withhold information" in September 2002, Bush declared that he could ignore a law requiring the State Department to list the number of overseas deaths of US citizens in foreign countries. Nevertheless, the department has still put the list on its website.

Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who until last year oversaw the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel for the administration, said the statements do not change the law; they just let people know how the president is interpreting it.

''Nobody reads them," said Goldsmith. ''They have no significance. Nothing in the world changes by the publication of a signing statement. The statements merely serve as public notice about how the administration is interpreting the law. Criticism of this practice is surprising, since the usual complaint is that the administration is too secretive in its legal interpretations."

But Cooper, the Portland State University professor who has studied Bush's first-term signing statements, said the documents are being read closely by one key group of people: the bureaucrats who are charged with implementing new laws.

Lower-level officials will follow the president's instructions even when his understanding of a law conflicts with the clear intent of Congress, crafting policies that may endure long after Bush leaves office, Cooper said.

''Years down the road, people will not understand why the policy doesn't look like the legislation," he said.

And in many cases, critics contend, there is no way to know whether the administration is violating laws -- or merely preserving the right to do so.

Many of the laws Bush has challenged involve national security, where it is almost impossible to verify what the government is doing. And since the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, many people have expressed alarm about his sweeping claims of the authority to violate laws.

In January, after the Globe first wrote about Bush's contention that he could disobey the torture ban, three Republicans who were the bill's principal sponsors in the Senate -- John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia, and Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina -- all publicly rebuked the president.

''We believe the president understands Congress's intent in passing, by very large majorities, legislation governing the treatment of detainees," McCain and Warner said in a joint statement. ''The Congress declined when asked by administration officials to include a presidential waiver of the restrictions included in our legislation."

Added Graham: ''I do not believe that any political figure in the country has the ability to set aside any . . . law of armed conflict that we have adopted or treaties that we have ratified."

And in March, when the Globe first wrote about Bush's contention that he could ignore the oversight provisions of the Patriot Act, several Democrats lodged complaints.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused Bush of trying to ''cherry-pick the laws he decides he wants to follow."

And Representatives Jane Harman of California and John Conyers Jr. of Michigan -- the ranking Democrats on the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, respectively -- sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales demanding that Bush rescind his claim and abide by the law.

''Many members who supported the final law did so based upon the guarantee of additional reporting and oversight," they wrote. ''The administration cannot, after the fact, unilaterally repeal provisions of the law implementing such oversight. . . . Once the president signs a bill, he and all of us are bound by it."

Lack of court review
Such political fallout from Congress is likely to be the only check on Bush's claims, legal specialists said.

The courts have little chance of reviewing Bush's assertions, especially in the secret realm of national security matters.

''There can't be judicial review if nobody knows about it," said Neil Kinkopf, a Georgia State law professor who was a Justice Department official in the Clinton administration. ''And if they avoid judicial review, they avoid having their constitutional theories rebuked."

Without court involvement, only Congress can check a president who goes too far. But Bush's fellow Republicans control both chambers, and they have shown limited interest in launching the kind of oversight that could damage their party.

''The president is daring Congress to act against his positions, and they're not taking action because they don't want to appear to be too critical of the president, given that their own fortunes are tied to his because they are all Republicans," said Jack Beermann, a Boston University law professor. ''Oversight gets much reduced in a situation where the president and Congress are controlled by the same party."

Said Golove, the New York University law professor: ''Bush has essentially said that 'We're the executive branch and we're going to carry this law out as we please, and if Congress wants to impeach us, go ahead and try it.' "

Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, said the American system of government relies upon the leaders of each branch ''to exercise some self-restraint." But Bush has declared himself the sole judge of his own powers, he said, and then ruled for himself every time.

''This is an attempt by the president to have the final word on his own constitutional powers, which eliminates the checks and balances that keep the country a democracy," Fein said. ''There is no way for an independent judiciary to check his assertions of power, and Congress isn't doing it, either. So this is moving us toward an unlimited executive power."

The Ahmadinejad You Thought You Knew

2006-04-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

That's right. The "hardline" Iranian President. When are journalists going to start referring to Mini-Bush by this title? "Hardline American President Invades Another Middle Eastern Country." Anyways, Jeff Wells wrote an interesting blog recently. Follow the imbedded links to disavow yourself of a few more imbedded lies. See the spin in action:

Yesterday morning I was watching a streaming English-language news broadcast from Russia. (And I expect that's enough cause right there for the telecommunication giants to seek the end of the Internet as we know it.) The lead story was the press conference of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the main points hit by the Russia Today correspondent were Ahmadinejad's renouncing nuclear weapons as contrary to Islam and his reiteration of Iran's 30-year commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, though Iran reserved the right to revisit its commitment if adherence to the treaty imperiled its sovereignty.

It was an unexpectedly optimistic piece. Ahmadinejad was allowed to speak at length and appeared relaxed and informed while fielding questions. If the excerpts were representative and the translation accurate, he appeared to be credibly attempting to defuse the crisis.

Naturally we need to compensate for spin whatever the source, and Russian news tailored for a foreign audience has a spin no less than Wolf Blitzer's Panic Room. Knowing that, I was still taken aback by the absolute unfamiliarity of the same press conference when soon after I started reading accounts of it in the Western media. The accent was almost entirely upon provocation, not concilation: the UN "lacks guts" to impose sanctions; "Defiant Iran in threat to quit nuclear treaty"; and "Iranian President insists 'Israel can not continue to live.'"

[...]But did he really say that? Did he insist that Israel must die? The headline is drawn from this quote, provided without context: "We say that this fake regime cannot logically continue to live." To arrive at the headline, the government has to be conflated with the nation. Likewise we could say about the Bush administration, and with considerable accuracy, that "this fake regime cannot logically continue to survive." (Without knowing Farsi I'll presume that the original could be translated as either "to live" or "to survive.") And is that the same as saying America must die?

Ahmadinejad says the darnedest things, but perhaps, when translated, his rhetoric is subject to overinflation by parties interested in conflict.

Still Believe Iraqis Hate Each Other?

2006-04-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

Because that's what you're supposed to think; US troops are embroiled in a hotbed of Iraqi insurgents who randomly and repeatedly blow themselves and their fellow Iraqis up for now good reason, usually missing any occupying troops. It must be because them Godless ragheads are just too darn dumb to realize what the damnation they're doing! They'll blow up their own Mosques, kill their neighbours, and who knows what else?! (They probably eat their babies and sacrifice them to their false-idol God!)

I hope you don't believe that nonsense. Here's a neoconservative (I mean fascist twerp) describing what's really going on:

In an article posted on the Hoover Digest website, Henriksen “explains how to adapt [subversion and deception] to the war on terror, exploiting the ideological and religious differences of our enemies,” in other words implementing the dirty work of P2OG (Proactive Preemptive Operations Group), a psychological operation designed to “stimulate reactions” on the part of “terrorists,” in this instance the Iraqi resistance struggling against the illegal invasion and occupation of their country. “In the current anti-terrorist campaign,” Henriksen writes in an appropriately entitled essay (Divide et Impera, or divide and conquer), “small groups of Special Operations Forces (SOF) will continue to find themselves up against insurgents in societies marked by tribal and sectional differences that could be turned to the advantage of the special forces,” a situation “ideally suited to the world of stealth and counter-subversion,” or killing Iraqi patriots opposed to neocons and neolibs destroying their country.

Mr. Henriksen writes:

“Sowing divisions among enemies is as old as warfare. By the time Niccolò Machiavelli cited the ancient political maxim divide et impera, the strategy of dividing to conquer had long been accepted in statecraft and warfare. U.S. military forces have not ignored the tactics associated with pitting one enemy against another. But those tactics have often been subordinated to the American way of war that relies on massive firepower. The global struggle against violent extremism is a highly political conflict where overwhelming combat “punch” is less applicable. By the same token, the extreme ideological and political divisions among the terrorists and insurgents open chinks to savvy and adaptable forces. [...]

“From the founding of the United States, the federal government has relied on subterfuge, skullduggery, and secret operations to advance American interests,” Henriksen notes, dispensing with the normal neocon tendency to avoid history or at best gloss over it. “Even in the midst of World War II, America’s greatest conventional war of the twentieth century, the United States resorted to cloak-and-dagger missions under the Office of Strategic Services.

While Henriksen is being pretty open (for a neoconservative, that is), he fails to mention a few things, as Nimmo points out:

States considered “hostile” (or had their own ideas about how to run their countries) included Iran, Guatemala, Hungary, Laos, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, the Congo, Brazil, Indonesia, Greece, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, Angola, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Iraq, and others. The CIA’s “secret operations” and “skullduggery” included assassination (for instance, the CIA had the democratically elected leader of the Congo, later Zaire, Patrice Lumumba assassinated—other victims include Dominican Republic President Trujillo, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, and Chilean Rene Schneider), torture, and death squads (the CIA put Brazil’s General Castelo Branco in the torture and death squad business in 1964—the effort was so successful at generating dread and fear the spook and subversion agency used it as a matter of course over the years). Henriksen mentions none of this—or does he bother to make note of the Pentagon’s various “counter insurgency” programs, including Operation Phoenix in Vietnam (an assassination program “plain and simple,” as Mark Zepezauer comments).

Just to remind you: Israel created Hamas to oppose the PLO, America created Al Qaeda to defeat the Russians. Is it starting to make sense yet?

The Chavez Corporate-Sponsored Propaganda Doesn't Want You To See

2006-04-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

Terrorist? Dictator? If you think so, sorry, but you've been royally duped. Get a clue, please:

How'd You Like To Live In A Free Country With A Leader And Government Working For The People

The great majority of the Venezuelan people would and here's why. Any idea what it's like to be impoverished, not know where your next meal is coming from, live in a shack for a home or not even have that much, and have no access to even minimum medical care or education? These people do. Ask them, they'll explain it to you. Hugo Chavez has given them what they never had before. Think they won't fight to keep it and him? Wouldn't you in their place if the alternative was desperate poverty? That's what 80% of them had before, they're still poor and deprived, but everyone gets free first rate health and dental care and education through as high a level as they can attain. They also get subsidized food, the legal right they never had before to own the land their homes were built on and lots more. The result is a significant improvement in the lives and welfare of the Venezuelan poor that comprise the great majority of the population and Chavez's base of support. The population is healthier, no one need go hungry, and illiteracy in the country is almost nil. In the US it's around 20%, and millions more can barely read and write at a grammar school level.

Also in the US, our land of opportunity and richest country in the world, we have 46 million people with no health insurance, many millions more with too little and by conservative estimates 12 million American families, over 10% of all households, struggle to feed themselves and often go hungry. They can't afford the high price of insurance that keeps becoming more unaffordable or even to buy enough food for their families. They should be getting federal aid, but how can they when our government spends all it has and can borrow on imperial wars of conquest without end to enrich big corporations. The cupboard is bare for anything else, so we're all on our own, like it or not. If the country had a motto or slogan it might be you can have anything you want as long as you can pay for it. If not, you're on your own. It's called "the free market." Ask one of the millions of poor, single black mothers with young children how "free" it is and what it's like trying to figure out how to get the next meal on the table and pay the rent. She could only dream of the way things are in the land of the Bolivarian Revolution and a leader who really cares about all his people - if she knew about it.

Jeez! No wonder Mini-Bush and the gang sponsored a coup attempt on him in 2002! He gives them non-psychopaths what they want! The nerve! Proles aren't supposed to like their superiors. Leaders must have no compassion and keep their subjects in abject poverty, unable to read any more than the slick propaganda provided for them! When will Chavez learn to ride with the big boys and be a spineless psychopath?!

Hopefully never. He'll probably be assassinated before he gets the chance...

Thermite

2006-04-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

It is becoming increasingly clear that Thermite was used to demolish the World Trade Centers. Here are some excerpts from Paul Watson's latest, which you should read in its entirety. The original article has links to various videos of Thermite being used in action.

Brigham Young University physicist Professor Steven Jones told peers at a Utah meeting that, "while almost no fire, even one ignited by jet fuel, can cause structural steel to fail, the combination of thermite and sulfur "slices through steel like a hot knife through butter."
Jones points to a video (click here to watch) which shows a bright yellow molten substance dripping from the south tower minutes before its collapse. Government investigators claimed that this was aluminum from Flight 175 but Jones is adamant that aluminum is silvery in appearance and doesn't turn yellow.

Jones also told the Deseret News that sulfur traces found at ground zero indicates the thermite was combined with sulphur to make it burn even hotter than the normal 2500 degrees Celsius.

Jones stated that thermite was a "clever" choice because its ingredients, aluminum and iron oxide do not require identifying tags by law, meaning they couldn't be traced back to their manufacturers. [...]

American Free Press writer Christopher Bollyn discusses evidence of thermite used to sever the twin tower's steel support columns in the picture below.

"In this photo, for example, the column directly above the fireman's helmet shows that it was cut with thermite. There is a substantial amount of hardened molten iron which can be seen on both the inside and outside of the box column. This is precisely what one would expect to find on a column which had been cut with thermite," says Bollyn. [...]

The What Really Happened website created a page giving more proof that thermite was used and how it runs parallel with eyewitness reports of explosions and pieces being sheered off the towers. An additional video shows white smoke at the base of the north tower moments before its collapse. White smoke also rose from the wreckage of the towers.
It is now all but conclusive that the master architects of 9/11 used thermite to implode the towers, going the extra length to pull off the pyrotechnic horror show and enhance the media spectacle of 'the new Pearl Harbor,' instilling greater fear and fealty that enabled them to subsequently enact their domestic and geopolitical agenda.

Making War Crimes Legal, One Day at a Time

2006-04-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

From Laura Knight-Jadczyk's latest commentary:

War Crimes: A Question of Conscience

Yesterday's UK Daily Mail informs us that RAF doctor Malcolm Kendall-Smith has been sentenced to eight months in jail after being found guilty by a court martial of failing to comply with "lawful orders" after refusing to serve in the Iraq war.

Kendall-Smith is said to have told a pre-trial hearing last month that he refused to go to Iraq because he believed the war was illegal and he did not want to be complicit with an act of aggression contrary to international law. He reportedly said that he had "evidence that the Americans were on a par with Nazi Germany with its actions in the Persian Gulf. I have documents in my possession which support my assertions. This is on the basis that on-going acts of aggression in Iraq and systematically applied war crimes provide a moral equivalent between the US and Nazi Germany."

Kendall-Smith is absolutely correct. There is ample evidence – growing in volume and quality every day – that the U.S. and its lap-dog, Great Britain, went to war on trumped up charges, lies and with illegal intentions. There is, for example, the "Downing Street Memo," and the more recent evidence that George Bush not only knowingly used "cooked" intelligence, but that he also deliberately attempted to destroy the lives of those individuals who sought to expose this hoax. [...]
When sentencing Kendall-Smith, Judge Advocate Bayliss told him: "You have, in this court's view, sought to make a martyr of yourself. You have shown a degree of arrogance that is amazing." The news reports tell us that Judge Advocate Bayliss further said that Kendall-Smith may have acted out of his moral viewpoint but his interpretation of the presence of British forces in Iraq as illegal was incorrect. [...]

As Laura points out, here's something Bayliss should keep in mind:

From Mar. 5,1947 to Dec. 4, 1947, nine members of the Reich Ministry of Justice and seven members of the People's and Special Courts, were by the Nuremberg Tribunal with using their power as prosecutors and judges to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. [...]
The Justice Trial is one of the most interesting of the Nuremberg trials. This trial raised the issue of what responsibility judges might have for enforcing grossly unjust - but arguably binding - laws. [...]

Ingo Muller's book, "Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich", provides analysis of the evidence suggesting that most German judges were ultraconservative nationalists who were sympathetic to Nazi goals. In other words, the "Nazification" of German law occurred with the willful cooperation of judges. Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss might want to sit up and take notice. [...]

In order to convict, it was only necessary that the defendant consciously furthered these human rights abuses; that is, that they had been notified, at some point, that there were those who considered the acts such abuses.

For example, jurist Franz Schlegelberger served in the Ministry of Justice from 1931-1942. For the last period of his service, Schlegelberger was Director of the Ministry of Justice. He wrote legal books and was honored as a great jurist. Schlegelberger's defense was that he was bound to follow the orders of Hitler, the "Supreme Judge" of Germany, but that he did so reluctantly. Schlegelberger argued that he did not join the Nazis until 1938, and then only because he was ordered to do so by Hitler. Schlegelberger argued that he had "sympathy for the Jews" and that he "resisted" certain legal measures against them. He also argued that he continued to serve as long as he did in order to prevent the appointment of a less sympathetic judge.

Sounds perfectly heartbreaking, eh? Like being stuck between a rock and a hard place?

His arguments may have saved him from death, but they didn't mitigate his responsibility. In its decision, the Justice trial tribunal pointed out that the decision of a man of his stature to remain in office lent credibilty to the Nazi regime. More than that, Schegelberger did sign his name to orders that, in the tribunal's judgment, constituted crimes. [...]

The fact is, no person who knowingly commits the acts made punishable by C.C. Law 10 can assert that he did not know that he would be brought to account for his acts because notice of intent to punish is being repeatedly given by the only means available in international affairs, namely, the solemn warning of the people.

This is what Malcolm Kendall-Smith has done: as a man of conscience, he has officially notified the British Court System - and the World - that, one day, in the not-too-distant future, the people of this Earth will take back control of their lives; they will reject utterly the rule of conscienceless Pathocrats, and there will be Justice for humanity.

In the words of Dave McGowan:

What the hell does it take to get a reaction out of you? Let's quickly run through a partial list of things that, thus far, have failed to inspire you to summon your inner Howard Beales: two consecutive stolen presidential elections; back-to-back wars, both of them unprovoked and brazenly illegal, with more on the horizon; the deaths of well over two thousand of your sons and daughters in Central Asia and the Middle East, and the maiming and disfiguring of thousands more; the ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis; countless corporate/political scandals directly tied to the Bush mob; diligent efforts by a veritable army of 9-11 skeptics (including a growing list of people that some of you might find more credible than us wacky Internet 'conspiracy theorists') to convince you that the official story of the ‘terrorist’ attacks of September 11 is a nothing more than a fairy tale; passage of the Patriot Act, and various other attacks on your civil, privacy, and due process rights; the entirely preventable deaths of an unknown number of people in New Orleans; military occupation of southern Louisiana; sanctioning of secret military tribunals; revelations of the widespread use of, and official sanction of, various forms of torture; getting slapped in the face with the Abu Ghraib photos; indefinite, warrantless detentions without access to legal counsel; illegal domestic surveillance; open witch-hunting of ‘liberal’ members of academia (though it is perfectly acceptable for a former Phoenix Program assassin and torturer to educate your children); gross invasions of your privacy – at airports, at sporting events, when entering many public buildings, even when sitting at home on your computer; massive cuts in social spending, even while hundreds of billions of dollars are spent waging war and militarizing domestic law enforcement; massive tax cuts that primarily benefit corporate America; the steady erosion of the nation’s education and healthcare systems; trashing of the environment and environmental protections; the accumulation of an almost unfathomable level of debt; and the act of grand theft masquerading as Medicare ‘reform.'

Through all of this and more, you have sat silently by. So again I must ask: what the hell will it take? How much worse does it have to get? How much worse will you allow it to get? And if you continue to sit by and do nothing, who do you think is going to save you from the increasingly bleak future we face? Who do you think is going to stop all the madness for you?

Bush's Guernica

2006-04-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

Watch this video and ask yourself why you didn't already know of the extent of this atrocity. This is Bush's Guernica. Please, watch the entire video. It is only an hour of your life. Those in the video have lost so much more than one hour. We owe it to them to witness and expose the carnage that the American, British, and Israeli butchers evoked upon the women and children of Falluja. Notice who their snipers targeted: fleeing boys and girls. Notice who their cluster bombs tore to pieces: women clutching their infant children.

To understand why this continues to happen, why war prevails when there is seemingly NO ONE who wants it, it is imperative for you to read this book: Political Ponerology. It will become increasingly more difficult to keep sane in the coming years and this book is essential to maintain some semblance of mental hygiene.

The Scientific Study of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes
by Andrew M. Lobaczewski
The first manuscript of this book went into the fire five minutes before the arrival of the secret police in Communist Poland. The second copy, reassembled painfully by scientists working under impossible conditions of repression, was sent via a courier to the Vatican. Its receipt was never acknowledged, no word was ever heard from the courier - the manuscript and all the valuable data was lost. The third copy was produced after one of the scientists working on the project escaped to America in the 1980s. Zbigniew Brzezinski suppressed it.

Political Ponerology: The scientific study of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes was forged in the crucible of the very subject it studies. Scientists living under an oppressive regime decide to study it clinically, to study the founders and supporters of an evil regime to determine what common factor is at play in the rise and propagation of man's inhumanity to man.

Shocking in its clinically spare descriptions of the true nature of evil, poignant in the more literary passages where the author reveals the suffering experienced by the researchers who were contaminated or destroyed by the disease they were studying, this is a book that should be required reading by every citizen of every country that claims a moral or humanistic foundation. For it is a certainty that morality and humanism cannot long withstand the predations of Evil. Knowledge of its nature, how it creates its networks and spreads, how insidious is its guileful approach, is the only antidote.

Thank You, Harry Taylor!

2006-04-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

My wish has come true. I now have all the personal confirmation I need that Bush is a raving psychopathic lunatic, and I have Harry Taylor to thank for this. Two days ago, our Most High Shrubbery graced Charlotte with his odious presence. In a Q&A session, 61-year old Harry Taylor let Bush know what millions of us already know:

HT: What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and –

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec — let him speak.

HT: And I would hope — I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak what I’m saying to you right now. That is part of what this country is about.

The full transcript is available here. And the video can be found here. As you can tell by watching the video, Bush will feel ashamed of his crimes when Hell freezes over (or when he gets "raptured" up to heaven, as both options are equally likely). He does not have a conscience. When will people understand this? The man ENJOYS what he does, just like he enjoyed blowing up frogs as a child. Just look at the sick smirk he gets when reminded that HE, among all these simple sheep, has the POWER to spy on them, arrest them, torture them, hold them for years in a foreign prison without trial. And no, he will not apologize for his depravity. He is a psychopath.

Unfortunately, Harry Taylor's freedom of speech is nothing like what Norman Rockwell was attempting to portray in his painting (see the this link for the striking resemblance to Mr. Taylor). In America, there is only the illusion of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the freedom to say whatever you want and have nobody listen to you; to be among the majority and have the president tell you that it's so great that in "this country" we have such freedoms, but "I'm the president" and "I'm not going to apologize for robbing you of your other basic freedoms." In other words, you have every right to complain that you are completely controlled by psychopaths, and there's not a goddamned thing you can do about it. Some freedom.

The Ever-Growing List of Non-Idiots

2006-04-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

Now, to be a non-idiot is not necessarily a totally redeeming quality. As you will see, even the father of Reagonomics is a non-idiot. But, with this in mind:

The former head of the Star Wars missile defense program under Presidents Ford and Carter has gone public to say that the official version of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory and his main suspect for the architect of the attack is Vice President Dick Cheney.

Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret. flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam. He is the recipient of the Eisenhower Medal, the George F. Kennan Peace Prize, the President’s Medal of Veterans for Peace, the Society of Military Engineers Gold Medal (twice), six Air Medals, and dozens of other awards and honors. His Ph.D. is in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering from Caltech. He chaired 8 major international conferences, and is one of the country’s foremost experts on National Security.

As the article states further on, Dr. Bowman is only the latest in a long stream of "credible" sources who believe 9/11 was a false-flag operation:

Physics Professors, former White House advisors and CIA analysts, the father of Reaganomics, German Defense Ministers and Bush's former Secretary of the Treasury, have all gone public on 9/11 but have been uniformly ignored by the majority of the establishment press.

It seems that there are reports like this published daily. Just recently it was revealed that the white-wash 9/11 Commission Report was what we all thought it was from the get-go, a complete fraud. I wonder who else the corrupt boot-lickers responsible for that exemplar of wasted paper accepted bribes from?

New Delhi, March 12: The Pakistan foreign office had paid tens of thousands of dollars to lobbyists in the US to get anti-Pakistan references dropped from the 9/11 inquiry commission report, The Friday Times has claimed. [...]

It claimed that some of the commission members were also bribed to prevent them from including damaging information about Pakistan. [...]

“The disclosure sheds doubt on the integrity and honesty of the members of the 9/11 inquiry commission and, above all, the authenticity of the information in their final report,” [the report] said.
The report quoted an officer as saying that dramatic changes were made in the final draft of the inquiry commission after the lobbyists got to work. The panel was formed to probe the September 11 terror attack and make suggestions to fight terrorism.

So what did they leave out? Maybe this has something to do with it?

The purported 9-11 ringleader - Mohammed Atta - according to ABC news, was financed by "unnamed sources in Pakistan." According to Agence France Presse and the Times of India, an official Indian intelligence report informs us that the 9-11 attacks were funded by money wired to Mohammed Atta from Pakistan, by Ahmad Umar Sheikh, under orders from Pakistani intelligence chief General Mahmoud Ahmad. The report said: "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism." [Michel Chossudovsky]

Spread the Word, Send Some Email!

2006-03-31T18:28:00.000-08:00

For those of you following Charlie Sheen's challenge for a real 9/11 investigation, here are some must-read articles:

Charlie Sheen Reinvigorates 9/11 Truth Movement

Venezuelan Government To Launch International 9/11 Investigation

The 'Fear Of Muslims' Conspiracy Theory

Also check out this site, and leave a comment! While you're in the letter-writing mood, also take the time to request of Oprah to air a series of shows dealing with real 9/11 research. Here's what convinced me to send her my thoughts:

9/11 Truth Calling Oprah!
An Appeal from TvNewsLIES.org

For more than five years now, the entire mainstream corporate news media apparatus has been controlled by a handful of behind-the-scene power brokers. In all that time there has been a total blackout on any mention, never mind discussion, of the truth behind the events of 9/11.

Despite their credibility and expertise, high-powered and extremely convincing voices of truth have been denied access to the public via the mainstream media. In the years following the attacks of 9/11, a significant number of knowledgeable people have attempted to alert the nation about the mountain of evidence that has been unearthed by their investigations, and which shoots large holes in the ‘official’ version of events sold to an unsuspecting and unquestioning public.

These people include former Bush administration officials, CIA analysts, FBI whistleblowers, scholars, academics, theologians and eye witnesses to the events of that tragic day. Not one of these people has been allowed to present his or her individual and collective conclusions that the Bush administration was either totally negligent or fully complicit or in the events of 9/11.

The media blacklisting of any and all members of the independent 9/11 truth community, no matter how impressive his or her credentials, has resulted in widespread ignorance of the huge number of anomalies and inconsistencies in the official version. No questions have been allowed to be raised, and not one shred of evidence that refutes the official version has been presented to the viewing or reading public anywhere but on the Internet.

Recent events, however, suggest that there may be a breach in this wall of silence. It seems that the only way for the 9/11 truth movement to attract the attention of the public is for well-known individuals in the entertainment arena to come forward and demand the truth.

Sad but true, a large number of Americans believe nothing until they see it on TV! There can be no question about the enormous influence and effect of television broadcasting on public opinion, a very frightening fact in these troubled and dangerous times. It was exactly for that reason that I created TvNewsLIES.org and dedicated these past years to exposing the lies and deception emanating from our broadcast news industry. And that is why I now am calling for help from one of TV’s most popular and respected performers.

Last week we witnessed a five-cent example of how the single TV appearance of a well-known performer, a celebrity if you will, could initiate a terribly important word-of-mouth grass roots movement. The support of one show-biz personality helped the 9/11 research community gain more attention than the efforts of hundreds of less famous people who have been trying for years to gain access to the corporate media.

Last week Charlie Sheen became a legend. He became the first celebrity (to attract the attention of the corporate media) to risk all to ask the common sense questions that formed in his mind when he examined the 9/11 crime scene evidence. Sheen’s brief appearance on CNN’s Show Biz Tonight showed how millions of Americans could be made aware of the convincing and damning evidence that has been hidden from them for years by our corporate criminal media.

Predictably, Mr. Sheen soon became a prime target of people who make the illogical argument that a valid message is not to be accepted if it arrives in even a mildly tainted envelope. As compelling as Mr. Sheen's comments and observations are, there will always be those who ignore his words even as they follow the Sean Hannity illogic of shooting the messenger when you can not defeat the message.

Sorry Charlie, - you will always be a hero to me for your efforts, but what we really need now is a Charlie Sheen heart and head in a bulletproof package. And I think I know who that package is.

I submit to my fellow 9/11 truth seekers and truth bearers that our effort to alert the public will be victorious if Oprah Winfrey gets on board. If we could convince Oprah to provide a platform for presenting the information that is in our possession, we’ll have it made. Oprah has been a champion for so many for so long that we can only hope that she has just half the courage and sense of duty of our new hero, Charlie Sheen.

Oprah Winfrey is the closest thing our generation has to a Walter Cronkite outside the news field. Her credibility and popularity are unmatched. Her words will ring loudly and people pay close attention to her program. And she comes without an iota of challengeable baggage.

Therefore, I am suggesting that a powerful, focused effort be made to inform Ms. Oprah Winfrey of the piles of evidence that give lie to the official story of 9/11. I also suggest that we try to convince this very powerful woman to use her show as a format for that evidence to be presented to the viewing public.

This has to be done carefully. The effort can backfire if a poorly planned, incoherent or unconvincing presentation is made to Ms. Winfrey who can place a nail in the coffin of the truth movement as quickly as she can blow the lid off of the suppression we have experienced.

For starters, here is what I would do if I were to make a presentation to Oprah Winfrey:

I would hand her a printed copy of an official news article from an authoritative mainstream source showing that several of the hijack suspects have surfaced ALIVE!
I would ask her what she would think if she had a guest on her show whose child had been raped and the following had taken place: A neighbor of the child had written about the need to hire more local police, but had also written that the only way the people in the neighborhood would agree to that would be if there were a crime such as the rape of a child in the neighborhood! What if it also turned out that this neighbor had a long, complex connection to child molesters and it turned out he had vouched for several child molesters so that they could move into the neighborhood. Then I would ask her if she would seriously consider the possibility of that person’s involvement in the crime?
I would then explain that this is exactly what happened on 9/11 when the members of PNAC, who wrote about the need for a "new Pearl Harbor" were running drills on 9/11 after George W. Bush had called off all investigations into the Bin Laden family and Al Qaeda.
Next, I would implore her to watch the Second Edition of Dylan Avery's DVD, Loose Change. If that doesn’t do it, nothing will.

At this point, unless she has been compromised by the power elite of this nation, Oprah’s own intelligence and humanity would come into play. She could not possibly ignore the evidence if were to be presented to her properly. Then, if she chose to use her incredible power and public integrity, Oprah most probably could be the straw to break the back of the 9/11 cover story. She owns the forum that can bring inordinate attention to this topic. Exposure of the evidence on her show could encourage millions of people to have serious doubts about what they have been told by their government, and to demand answers to the questions that have been raised about the worst attack on our nation in history.

I truly believe that the evidence is so powerful that it will speak for itself. But it has to have an avenue to reach the people of this nation, all of whom have a right to see it and draw their own conclusions.

The ultimate goal would be for Oprah Winfrey to dedicate a week of programming to the evidence that has been collected by the independent 9/11 truth community and that has been kept from public view for all this time.

WARNING: If a gatekeeper goes forward with this and proceeds to make an unintelligible and unconvincing case, this effort will set us back to square one. We don’t want a repeat of the scene in A Few Good Men where Demi Moore's character provokes the judge into adding credibility to the opposition’s argument. Simple is better. The message should focus on the PNAC statement, the drills taking place on that day, the collapse of Building Seven and the still-living accused hijackers. The unstoppable force created by the information flow that follows will supply its own momentum.

I am offering my services to review and coordinate a presentation to Ms. Winfrey because I know how to keep the message focused and bulletproof. We cannot afford to be distracted by minutia or a myriad of theories. The last thing we need is to talk about a suspicious flash on a wing when we have authentic videos of the collapse of a 47 story building along with a confession about its destruction by its owner.

So, to those of you who seek the truth, and to those of you who suspect the truth and to those of you who know the truth about 9/11, I ask your help. Send out an SOS to Oprah Winfrey. Imagine if she were to receive tens of thousands of requests for a series of shows that would reveal the evidence that has been accrued over these years.

Please take five minutes of your time to send a message to the Oprah Winfrey Show, and let her know that you want a show about 9/11. And if you choose to do so, please add that I’d be happy to appear as a representative of the Truth Community. Here’s where you can type in your suggestion for a future show:

http://www.oprah.com/email/reach/email_showideas.jhtml

Something sounds familiar...

2006-03-27T17:03:00.000-08:00

First, a couple follow-ups. Here's an amazing and disturbing video on the 11-person massacre mentioned in my post, The Purpose is Genocide. Watch it a couple times. Let it sink in. And pay attention to the final remarks. What are you doing while these people are being slaughtered? Every second you waste by accepting the lies that are regularly spoon-fed to you, every second you spend in an unaware, subjective stupour, you are supporting this massacre. Every moment you ignore the pull of conscience, the blood is on YOUR hands. What are you going to do about it? Maybe you can start a blog of your own? Spread the truth as best as you can.

In the news recently was a similar story. Here it is, in all its bloody glory, complete with US-military spin-management:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's security minister, a Shi'ite political ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, accused U.S. and Iraqi troops on Monday of killing 37 unarmed people in an attack on a mosque complex a day earlier.

"At evening prayers, American soldiers accompanied by Iraqi troops raided the Mustafa mosque and killed 37 people," Abd al-Karim al-Enzi, minister of state for national security, said.

"They were all unarmed. Nobody fired a single shot at them (the troops). They went in, tied up the people and shot them all. They did not leave any wounded behind," he told Reuters.

Shi'ite politicians had earlier said 20 people were killed at the mosque. The U.S. military's account of Sunday evening's incident said Iraqi special forces with U.S. advisers killed 16 "insurgents", arrested 15 people and freed an Iraqi hostage. The military denied entering any mosque.

Second, Charlie Sheen has responded to the MSM (mainstream media) slander campaign against him for calling a spade a spade. Here's a bit of what he had to say:

I dare you to print this email in it's entirety. [...]

Like so many other mainstream outlets, domestically and abroad, no attention whatsoever is given to the questions I raise or the evidence that stimulated those very questions.

Instead, low-brow idiotic hit pieces are spewed forth in an effort to sway the readers' opinion of the messenger while blatantly disregarding any of the potentially valuable content of the story. It's transparent sandbox propaganda as dated and cheap as the paper it's printed on.

Do a little research on Building Seven. Building Seven lives at the epicenter of my entire debate. Prove yourself worthy of genuine investigative journalism. Look at the video evidence.

Observe the same data I have. Submit a formal request to the Pentagon or the DOD to release video PROOF that flight 77 did exactly as they claim. You will be stonewalled. You will be dismissed unconditionally. If there is nothing to hide - why are they hiding it?

To avoid any confusion - I reiterate:

Building Seven - Pentagon video documentation.

And now, some doublespeak idiocy from Bill Frist, Big Friggin' Nazi. From the Baltimore Sun on March 20:

Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, thinks President Bush broke the law with his secret program to eavesdrop on Americans, and he wants Congress to censure Mr. Bush. He's right about the lawbreaking but wrong to think censure is the answer. [...]

Republicans on Capitol Hill, presented with the censure resolution, practically trampled each other to prove their slobbering devotion to the president. Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia assailed the proposal as "the worst type of political grandstanding." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee accused Mr. Feingold of giving hope and encouragement to al-Qaida: "The signal that it sends, that there is in any way a lack of support for our commander in chief who is leading us with a bold vision in a way that is making our homeland safer, is wrong."

Just to make it a bit clearer: Bill Frist = Big Friggin' Nazi. Just ask Hermann Goering, also a Big Friggin' Nazi:

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

Who Is Really Controlling Suicidal US Foreign Policy?

2006-03-27T14:33:00.000-08:00

Why is it that Bush and his controllers seem to be so inept? They have run their country into extreme debt, their military forces are spread thin in the Middle East, and it seems they are planning another war for Iran (if the recent acceleration of the WMD propaganda machine is any indication). Perhaps the answer will also explain why American foreign policy seems to not be American at all, but Israeli.

In this paper, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago's Department of Political Science and Stephen M.Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government contend that the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. The authors argue that although often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the “Israel Lobby." This paper goes on to describe the various activities that pro-Israel groups have undertaken in order to shift U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.

But this leaves out the juiciest details. For example, what are we to think of the recent Israeli-Mauritanian black-mail scandal? As the editors at Signs of the Times say:

...it is instructive as to the way in which the state of Israel manipulates the governments and media of foreign nations into blind obedience to the Israeli agenda, specifically:
"lured with tempting offers, including sexual relations with foreign women, bribe money, and promises of support in securing prominent job positions in return for their help in the Israeli endeavor"
Unbeknownst to the journalists [and politicians], the sexual encounters were then recorded, later to be used to blackmail the journalists (and politicians) by the Israeli embassy.
The Saudi paper explained that the Israeli ambassador would later approach the journalists [and politicians], threatening to release the videotapes if they did not cooperate with Israel.

These tactics have been used for decades by Israeli agencies within the U.S. to such an extent that, today, all branches of the American government have been entirely co-opted by Israel. The aforementioned Israeli agenda, by the way, is an eternal racist war in the Middle East until the Arab populations therein have been exterminated or completely subdued (most likely the former).

Of course, the end result of such a campaign will very likely include the destruction of the state of Israel itself along with the Jewish populations that live there. Then again, given that the Semitic Jews of the Middle East are, from a genetic point of view, almost identical to their Semitic, Arab Muslim brothers, it is probably more correct to say that the goal of Israeli leaders, who themselves are not of Semitic origin, is the destruction of all Semitic peoples of the Middle East.

Perhaps this explains why the US was so eager for war in Iraq, just who Congress was listening to, and why Iraq seems, against all reason, to be falling into civil war. Because this is JUST what the Israelis have been pushing for this last decade:

It is an idea pushed long and hard by the Israelis, as proposed in Oded Yinon’s A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. “Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon,” Yinon wrote. It is precisely “inter-Arab confrontation” initiated through false flag provocative operations occurring currently in Iraq.

Perhaps it also explains why in their recent almost-excellent piece on 9/11 "conspiracy theories," New York Magazine writers Mark Jacobson and Janelle Nanos relate the following:

[...the Mossad theory] dovetails with the baseless rumor, widely believed in Arab countries, that 4,000 Jewish World Trade Center workers were told to stay home that day, showing that conspiracy theory can be tricky terrain. [emphasis mine]

and:

A common theory, especially in the Arab world, holds that Israel orchestrated the attacks in order to bring the U.S. into conflict with Israel’s enemies. Evidence cited ranges from the [cle]arly spurious and deeply anti-Semitic (the oft-heard, oft-refuted canard that Jews were told to leave the towers before the attacks) to the apparently true but unexplainable. (Five men who were seen filming the attacks in Liberty Park were later apprehended and found by the Forward to have ties to Mossad.) [emphasis theirs]

but fail to mention that this is not simply a baseless, anti-Semitic rumour. It may not be entirely true, but even Haaretz Daily reports that the Israeli company Odigo received warnings before the attacks. Also:

According to reporter Christopher Bollyn, Zim American Israeli Shipping Co. broke a lease in order to vacate the World Trade Center just days before the attack. Bollyn's source claims that Zim's lease extended through the end of the year and that the termination cost $50,000.

The company heading a consortium that had just obtained a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center was supposedly spared by a last-minute cancellation. According to the New York Times, Silverstein Properties had planned to meet on 9/11/01 on the 88th floor of one of the towers to "discuss what to do in the event of a terrorist attack," but cancelled the meeting Monday night "because one participant could not attend."

Maybe this is why America is dead set on destruction.

Charlie Sheen Gets Those Butterfly Wings Flapping!

2006-03-23T22:02:00.000-08:00

For those of you living in a hole, Charlie Sheen has recently gone public calling for an independent commission into the "self-inflicted wound" of 9/11. Surprisingly, CNN has fairly covered this issue. Watch this movie clip and be astounded. Alex Jones puts his loud-mouthed, guest-interrupting antics to good use. Everyone needs wake up to this treasonous crime.

Above Top Secret COINTELPRO Exposed

2006-03-22T17:52:00.000-08:00

In my recent "fairy-tale" I mentioned the real perps behind the 9/11 false-flag operation had set up false sites and research to derail those seeking the truth. First, a little background. Above Top Secret hosts and promotes a poorly written and pathetic attempt to debunk the obvious lies surrounding the attack at the Pentagon on 9/11. Joe Quinn, at Signs of the Times, took the time to tear this piece of propaganda to pieces.

It seems he scratched a little too hard, and you can tell a lot about a person (or a government-funded COINTELPRO operation, for that matter) when they are scratched. Head over to Laura Knight-Jadczyk's blog to read all the details. ATS let their well-paid lawyers on the loose for, get this, copyright infringment. Again, read the posts on Laura's blog for the details. Needless to say, this is completely absurd. Joe published a valid critique of poorly-researched ATS internet forum post (!) and Signs of the Times is threatened with legal action?! Who has the time and money for such frivolous lawsuits backing up such obvious propaganda?

Well, the answer happens to be just as obvious. Who stands to gain by vectoring honest researchers into such nonsense as CatHerder's Pentagon debunking? What do they have to gain? More importantly, what do they have to hide?

The Purpose is Genocide

2006-03-22T17:31:00.000-08:00

King and Most High Fuhrer Shrubbery recently fielded a query from Ms. Helen Thomas (denied this grace for years) concerning his repeated lies as to the motives for murder and military occupation in Iraq. The Great Bush replied that he certainly and truthfully, cross-his-heart-and-hope-to-lie, "didn't want war." You see, "9/11 changed everything," so, 9/11 9/11'd and then 9/11 just happened to 9/11 and we needed to 9/11 or else 9/11 would 9/11 and 9/11!

That explains everything.

Eloquence truly is the Shrubbery's forte. However, this very same day in the news we find a graphic depiction of the true purpose of this most malefic mass-murder. The answer is genocide, at the bidding of those whose plan it serves so well. From the official police report:

At 230 of 15/3/2006, according to the telegram (report) of the Ishaqi police directorate, American forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf situated in the Abu Sifa village of the Ishaqi district. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people, including 5 children, 4 women and 2 men, then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals (map coordinates 098702).

They were:
Turkiya Muhammed Ali, 75 years
Faiza Harat Khalaf, 30 years
Faiz Harat Khalaf, 28 years
Um Ahmad, 23 years
Sumaya Abdulrazak, 22 years
Aziz Khalil Jarmoot, 22 years
Hawra Harat Khalaf, 5 years
Asma Yousef Maruf, 5 years
Osama Yousef Maruf, 3 years
Aisha Harat Khalaf, 3 years
Husam Harat Khalaf, 6 months

This is American (read Pathocratic) Justice. This is American (read Pathocratic) Democracy. This is what we will have to live the rest of our lives fighting.

A modern fairy-tale

2006-03-19T20:23:00.000-08:00

Greetings, fellow web-travellers. For those of you who happen to stumble upon this desolate corner of the web, I have a tale that is completely and absolutely absurd. In fact, when I first heard it I had to struggle to contain a smirk. I enjoyed a private derisive laugh and marvelled at the credulity of any poor chap that would believe such nonsense. Because it really is a whopper of a story.

Get this. Almost five years ago, some powerful little men decided something needed to be done. You see, history wasn't going the way they wanted it to, so they decided to nudge it along in their preferred direction. These men, after all, create their own reality. From such a lofty position, the lives that they had to sacrifice were mere figures on a computer print-out. They were ants that needed to be cleared for their royal procession. They planned for years, trained men for every part in this theatrical decption, blackmailed some, duped others. They sold the biggest lie imaginable.

Here's what happened. They hijacked four airliners. They murdered the passengers. They murdered the pilots. They installed drone technology in the planes and guided them to four targets. Two hit their targets. Not surprisingly, the fires were minimal. The firefighters had a handle on them. Then something happened. Yes, on 9/11, for the first time in history, the laws that supposedly run our universe were put on hold. Because on that day, a certain shrubbery and his flowery friends needed a miracle. And this shrubbery just happens to have the big guy on his side, and on this fateful day, received an enormous favour. Just this once, the big G, the eater of souls named Yahweh, caused three steel-framed buildings to symetrically collapse when none had done so before (nor since). No, they didn't topple. No, they didn't break into large pieces of rubble. Instead the very materials of which they were constructed exploded, causing the buildings to collapse at free-fall speed into their footprints. Nope, no need for resistance here.

What of the other two craft? Well, it seems one did NOT hit its intended target. We're not entirely sure where it is, but the passengers were no doubt executed and a more reliable plane was used in its place. Here too, physical laws were put on hold. At the pentagon, square pegs fit in round holes, large aircraft politely squeeze and fold themselves into cramped places. Pilots make impossible flight decisions to hit heavily (and newly) reinforced sections of wall. Then the craft manages to totally disintegrate, but leaves the remains of all passengers (sans any hijackers, because they went straight to hell, apparently) intact for DNA identification. But our dear protagonist, Donny Rumsfeld, escaped unscathed and unscrupulous.

And the fourth. Well, it seems here something went wrong. The passengers did not die. As they were taking control of the plane, a military jet shot them down, after several passengers made impossible cell-phone calls with technology from the future. Yep, that's right. From the future.

And after this ruse, these men connived and conspired. They "misspoke" and "told un-truths." In other words, oh horror!, they lied. They tagged the plan on an inept Osama (+ nineteen)! Never mind that he denied it , that many of the 19 turned up alive, or that the Osama-confessional was a fraud.

These people then published fake, manipulative debunkings to divert from the real issue.

Like I said, a complete and utter fairy-tale.

Who could do such a thing? Who could have a mind so audacious and devoid of conscience? What would the world be like if these people actually ruled over us? I'm afraid we've got a pretty good idea...