Irwin Redlener: How to survive a nuclear attack
The face of nuclear terror has changed since the Cold War, but disaster-medicine expert Irwin Redlener reminds us the threat is still real. He looks at some of history's farcical countermeasures and offers practical advice on how to survive an attack.................
watch the ending, know what to expect, not as an alarmist, but reality as a realist. ignoring and ignorance will not make this go away, but to happen sooner than later.
Surviving the good fight, with your minds as weapons!!
.......................kosmicdebris..............................
watch the ending, know what to expect, not as an alarmist, but reality as a realist. ignoring and ignorance will not make this go away, but to happen sooner than later.
Surviving the good fight, with your minds as weapons!!
.......................kosmicdebris..............................
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Nasa's message from Mars: There's water here. I've tasted it
Nasa scientists last night confirmed that there is water on Mars. The space agency's Phoenix lander has identified ice in a soil sample analysed by its on-board laboratory.
Previous orbiting missions had beamed data such as the view of the planet's surface, above. Others indicated there was ice on the red planet - but Phoenix's discovery is the first direct evidence. "I can now say I'm the first mission to Mars to touch and then taste the water," came the message from Phoenix's Twitter feed yesterday.....................WOW!! Why is this not on the front page of every newspaper, magazine, ect. across the globe? i mean, is this history or what?
NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended
07.31.08
This partial view of a full-circle panorama shows NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander and the polygonal patterning of the ground at the landing area. The image is in approximately true color. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University Arizona/Texas A&M University Full image and caption Go to related audio clips Latest images and 3D imagesAnimations and videos
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples. "We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA.
"We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
With enticing results so far and the spacecraft in good shape, NASA also announced operational funding for the mission will extend through Sept. 30. The original prime mission of three months ends in late August.
The mission extension adds five weeks to the 90 days of the prime mission. "Phoenix is healthy and the projections for solar power look good, so we want to take full advantage of having this resource in one of the most interesting locations on Mars," said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The soil sample came from a trench approximately 2 inches deep. When the robotic arm first reached that depth, it hit a hard layer of frozen soil. Two attempts to deliver samples of icy soil on days when fresh material was exposed were foiled when the samples became stuck inside the scoop. Most of the material in Wednesday's sample had been exposed to the air for two days, letting some of the water in the sample vaporize away and making the soil easier to handle.
Previous orbiting missions had beamed data such as the view of the planet's surface, above. Others indicated there was ice on the red planet - but Phoenix's discovery is the first direct evidence. "I can now say I'm the first mission to Mars to touch and then taste the water," came the message from Phoenix's Twitter feed yesterday.....................WOW!! Why is this not on the front page of every newspaper, magazine, ect. across the globe? i mean, is this history or what?
NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended
07.31.08
This partial view of a full-circle panorama shows NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander and the polygonal patterning of the ground at the landing area. The image is in approximately true color. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University Arizona/Texas A&M University Full image and caption Go to related audio clips Latest images and 3D imagesAnimations and videos
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples. "We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA.
"We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
With enticing results so far and the spacecraft in good shape, NASA also announced operational funding for the mission will extend through Sept. 30. The original prime mission of three months ends in late August.
The mission extension adds five weeks to the 90 days of the prime mission. "Phoenix is healthy and the projections for solar power look good, so we want to take full advantage of having this resource in one of the most interesting locations on Mars," said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The soil sample came from a trench approximately 2 inches deep. When the robotic arm first reached that depth, it hit a hard layer of frozen soil. Two attempts to deliver samples of icy soil on days when fresh material was exposed were foiled when the samples became stuck inside the scoop. Most of the material in Wednesday's sample had been exposed to the air for two days, letting some of the water in the sample vaporize away and making the soil easier to handle.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
burning up all the nation's revenue and its infrastructure
They used be paranoid preparation nuts who built bomb shelters for a place to duck and cover during nuclear dustups with communist heathens, but their tangled roots go back to the Great Depression for a reason. If you want to get sociological about it, survivalism started out as a response to economic catastrophe. And now, with a cratering stock market, a housing meltdown that has devalued everything in sight, and skyrocketing prices for food, gas and pretty much everything else, survivalists are preparing for -- and are prepared for -- the rerun. In fact, they may be the only people in America feeling good about the prospects of a major crash.
And the interesting thing about the once-fringe movement at this moment in history is that survivalism has now gone green -- at least in theory.
From peak oil and food crises all the way to catastrophic payback from that bitch Mother Earth, there are more reasons to hide than ever. Conventional society as we know it is already undergoing some disastrous transformations. Ask anyone ducking fires in California, floods in the Midwest or bullets in Baghdad. Maybe it didn't make sense to run for the hills, stockpile water and food, grow your own vegetables and drugs, or unplug from consumerism back when America's budget surplus still existed, its armies weren't burning up all the nation's revenue and its infrastructure wasn't being outsourced to a globalized work force.
But those days are gone, daddy, gone...... >>read more
You tell me........ is this next guy right? partially? Who to believe, another point of view on the weather from a politically incorrect POV.
A few people have e-mailed me, taking issue with my characterization of Environmentalism. Allow me to cite one example of "Environmentalism gone bad" to prove my point. Take "global warming" for example. There have been several studies that show an increase of global temperatures of about 1/2 of a degree over the last 100 or so years. Environmentalist take this data and extrapolate it over the next century and claim that global temperatures will rise as much as 10 degrees, causing floods, famine, etc, etc.
The basis for these wild claims are studies which show a minute change of about 1/2 of a degree over the course of recorded history. But, all of these studies have one basic flaw - These studies rely solely on temperature data collected from weather monitoring stations. Every one of these studies chooses to ignore weather balloon data, which for some reason shows no indications of global warming what-so-ever.
You may be wondering why is there a discrepancy between these two data sets? Allow me to explain. Weather stations are often located in urban centers, and are thus susceptible to the "Urban heat island effect". You may have never heard of this term before, but I'm sure you are familiar with its effect. Have you ever been listen to a news report, and wonder why the temperatures in heavy urban areas are almost always a few degrees higher than the surrounding rural areas? If you've never noticed it before, I'm sure you've heard the weatherman say something like, The temp is currently 85 degrees in the country, 88 in the city. This is the "urban heat island" effect. It is caused by the fact that concrete absorbs more heat (reflects less light) than trees and other vegetation, and some of these weather stations are smack dab in the middle of this concrete jungle. As more areas become urbanized, more of the data which is collected will be skewed by this effect. Don't be alarmed. This does not mean that the planet is warming. It just means that the air inside the few square miles of the inner city is being warmed, but this has no real effect on the planet at large, since urban areas account for a very small percentage of the Earth's surface area - and only effect the atmosphere near the surface of the planet. This is why weather balloon data shows no increase in temperature.
This "urban heat island effect" can easily explain the .5 change in surface temperatures. Any meteorologist can tell you that. When you consider this fact along with the fact that weather balloon data shown NO increase in temperature, the only conclusion one can reach is that there IS NO GLOBAL WARMING! NONE! Any scientist worth his salt would have to agree, yet politicians choose to ignore the facts, and continue citing these flawed studies in order to push through their globalist political agenda. Even worse, anybody that does not fully accept all these theories as fact is branded as a heretic, and an enemy of the planet.
Don't get me wrong. I believe that we should be finding ways to limit pollution and save energy. I just have a problem with the federal government passing frivolous legislation - legislation that will end up having little of no effect on the environment, and will end up costing consumers billions of dollars - and justify these extreme actions with fraudulent studies.
We computer nerds have a saying -- Garbage in, Garbage Out. If you don't have accurate studies on the environment, you will never be able to find out if anything is actually damaging the environment, and therefore, you will never be able to fix any problems. Why are we wasting our time and money with vehicle emissions tests, when there is no sign that it is having any impact on the environment! Emission tests may be warranted in L.A. (Which has a very high population density, unique geographical features, and lots of industry, which combine to produce their smog problem), but leave St. Louis alone! Don't force consumers to waste money on removing Freon if you aren't really Sure that the hole in the ozone isn't natural phenomenon! Don't ban pesticides & other chemicals if there isn't any proof that these things have any significant impact what-so-ever on the environment. If there are any genuine environmental dangers, they will surely be obscured by all of these fabricated studies. wtf????
Official federal studies appear skewed along partisan divides......someone better get this right, our childrens future rides on this gamble. remember a text without context is a pretext. half truths are whole lies when looking at the shadows hidden agenda.
keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapens!!
...................................................komicdebris.......................
And the interesting thing about the once-fringe movement at this moment in history is that survivalism has now gone green -- at least in theory.
From peak oil and food crises all the way to catastrophic payback from that bitch Mother Earth, there are more reasons to hide than ever. Conventional society as we know it is already undergoing some disastrous transformations. Ask anyone ducking fires in California, floods in the Midwest or bullets in Baghdad. Maybe it didn't make sense to run for the hills, stockpile water and food, grow your own vegetables and drugs, or unplug from consumerism back when America's budget surplus still existed, its armies weren't burning up all the nation's revenue and its infrastructure wasn't being outsourced to a globalized work force.
But those days are gone, daddy, gone...... >>read more
You tell me........ is this next guy right? partially? Who to believe, another point of view on the weather from a politically incorrect POV.
A few people have e-mailed me, taking issue with my characterization of Environmentalism. Allow me to cite one example of "Environmentalism gone bad" to prove my point. Take "global warming" for example. There have been several studies that show an increase of global temperatures of about 1/2 of a degree over the last 100 or so years. Environmentalist take this data and extrapolate it over the next century and claim that global temperatures will rise as much as 10 degrees, causing floods, famine, etc, etc.
The basis for these wild claims are studies which show a minute change of about 1/2 of a degree over the course of recorded history. But, all of these studies have one basic flaw - These studies rely solely on temperature data collected from weather monitoring stations. Every one of these studies chooses to ignore weather balloon data, which for some reason shows no indications of global warming what-so-ever.
You may be wondering why is there a discrepancy between these two data sets? Allow me to explain. Weather stations are often located in urban centers, and are thus susceptible to the "Urban heat island effect". You may have never heard of this term before, but I'm sure you are familiar with its effect. Have you ever been listen to a news report, and wonder why the temperatures in heavy urban areas are almost always a few degrees higher than the surrounding rural areas? If you've never noticed it before, I'm sure you've heard the weatherman say something like, The temp is currently 85 degrees in the country, 88 in the city. This is the "urban heat island" effect. It is caused by the fact that concrete absorbs more heat (reflects less light) than trees and other vegetation, and some of these weather stations are smack dab in the middle of this concrete jungle. As more areas become urbanized, more of the data which is collected will be skewed by this effect. Don't be alarmed. This does not mean that the planet is warming. It just means that the air inside the few square miles of the inner city is being warmed, but this has no real effect on the planet at large, since urban areas account for a very small percentage of the Earth's surface area - and only effect the atmosphere near the surface of the planet. This is why weather balloon data shows no increase in temperature.
This "urban heat island effect" can easily explain the .5 change in surface temperatures. Any meteorologist can tell you that. When you consider this fact along with the fact that weather balloon data shown NO increase in temperature, the only conclusion one can reach is that there IS NO GLOBAL WARMING! NONE! Any scientist worth his salt would have to agree, yet politicians choose to ignore the facts, and continue citing these flawed studies in order to push through their globalist political agenda. Even worse, anybody that does not fully accept all these theories as fact is branded as a heretic, and an enemy of the planet.
Don't get me wrong. I believe that we should be finding ways to limit pollution and save energy. I just have a problem with the federal government passing frivolous legislation - legislation that will end up having little of no effect on the environment, and will end up costing consumers billions of dollars - and justify these extreme actions with fraudulent studies.
We computer nerds have a saying -- Garbage in, Garbage Out. If you don't have accurate studies on the environment, you will never be able to find out if anything is actually damaging the environment, and therefore, you will never be able to fix any problems. Why are we wasting our time and money with vehicle emissions tests, when there is no sign that it is having any impact on the environment! Emission tests may be warranted in L.A. (Which has a very high population density, unique geographical features, and lots of industry, which combine to produce their smog problem), but leave St. Louis alone! Don't force consumers to waste money on removing Freon if you aren't really Sure that the hole in the ozone isn't natural phenomenon! Don't ban pesticides & other chemicals if there isn't any proof that these things have any significant impact what-so-ever on the environment. If there are any genuine environmental dangers, they will surely be obscured by all of these fabricated studies. wtf????
Official federal studies appear skewed along partisan divides......someone better get this right, our childrens future rides on this gamble. remember a text without context is a pretext. half truths are whole lies when looking at the shadows hidden agenda.
keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapens!!
...................................................komicdebris.......................
Monday, July 21, 2008
MOHAMED ATTA IN OKLAHOMA CITY SEPTEMBER 2001
WORLD EXCLUSIVE! breaking truth............shocking information!
THE LAST NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF THE 911 MYTH
MOHAMED ATTA IN OKLAHOMA CITY SEPTEMBER 2001
By Jack Blood
www.jackblood.com
July 20th 2008
For almost a year and a half I have been in the loop on a most fantastic story involving the Herculean investigative reporting of Chris Emery, Holland Van den Nieuwenhof and crew from www.okcbombing.net
As hard as it was, I kept quiet and off the record, as the team investigated an angle of the 911 terrorist attack of 2001 which had Mohamed Atta (pictured right) and five of his alleged hijackers in Oklahoma City just days before 911, drunk, boisterous and brawling� Not a Koran, or prayer rug in site.
Last week - July 2008, they had reached the end of their investigation, and impenetrable walls of resistance prohibited them from going any further. Last Friday July 19th 2008 the Emery team decided to go public on my syndicated radio show, DEADLINE LIVE w/ Jack Blood. The result of which has sent shockwaves throughout the 911 truth community.
For the safety of all involved, the witnesses wish to remain anonymous until such time they can be guaranteed protection. All of the witnesses have given signed affidavits to Chris Emery. Documentation of the facts and evidence has been tucked away in safe houses in the USA and Canada. The evidence will later be released to Network Media, and the proper authorities.
The story started as the team was continuing their exhaustive research into the OKC Bombings of 1995. Almost accidentally they ran into witness after witness wanting to report that they had seen Atta and five 911 hijackers in Oklahoma City September 6th - 8th 2001.
On September 6th 2001 at 10 AM - 12 Noon - Mohamed Atta and four 911 hijackers were spotted at, of all places, the OKC National Memorial Museum by an employee who later told Emery that the five were speaking in a Middle Eastern dialect, and they had become "boisterous" inside the museum. The employee had to tell them to "Shut Up" and behave themselves or leave the premises. The five left the building immediately after calling attention to themselves.
The employee remembers the five lucidly, as in the entire history of the museum, no one had ever had to be asked to contain themselves. It was burned in the brain of the employee, and was recalled again a few days later when Atta's cold stare was shown back on National TV after the 911 attacks.
The employee allegedly tired to report the incident to authorities but was ignored.
The 911 hijackers seen by witnesses with Atta have been revealed as: Abdulaziz Alomari, Saeed Algamdi, Ahmed Alnami, and Hamza Algamdi. (pictured in order below)
On Friday, September 7th 2001 (evening) Atta and crew turn up again at an OKC bar. ( To be named at a later date, but known to be frequented by police and spooks ) The group returned to the same bar the next night. The five were drinking beer and hard liquor, dancing, and eventually picking a fight with two local patrons. (Again very high profile / anti fundamentalist behavior, not easy to forget)
Atta, according to witnesses was the ring-leader and the one picking the fight, while his four cohorts stood at the ready to jump into the fray if necessary.
Chris Emery and team were able to obtain the Credit Card receipts from that night, and have spent most of the last 18 months attempting to trace the card numbers, and the authorization of the cards themselves. This was not an easy task as you could imagine. When fellow investigators found out what information Emery was trying to obtain, most decidedly bailed on any involvement. What was discovered in the end, was that the sequence of numbers on Atta's credit card revealed a unique application only found on U.S. Government Credit cards. (Arranged such as to simplify accounting structures) Unfortunately, at this time� Any further search for information about the card was halted, mainly through a lack of resources to continue the investigation.
One card number used by Atta and crew had been EXPIRED a full six months before the September 7th and 8th dates the card was used and approved at this local Oklahoma City establishment. ( Now you try to use a credit card that is six months expired and see what happens) This transaction was approved without delay.
But� That is not all. There's more� A lot more!
What can only be deemed as Totally Damning to the case presented by the U.S Government, and the 911 Commission� A fifth hijacker, was back in this bar FOUR DAYS AFTER 911. He ordered the very same brand of hard liquor (never before sold in this bar) as had Atta. It was a unique brand of Dewers. This was also paid with another U.S. Government credit card, also 6 months expired.
On Saturday - 9/15/01 (FOUR DAYS AFTER 911!) a mutual friend of Atta (who shook Atta's hand and said something very briefly in Atta's ear about an hour after Atta picks the fight with two club patron's on Friday 9/7/01) comes back to the club with yet ANOTHER alleged hijacker identified in the photo line up as being Marwan Al Shehhi. (pictured left)
One witness notices this mutual friend of Atta and this new 'guy' are sad and somewhat depressed.
This mutual friend was a regular patron of the club for years and known by the witness as a trouble maker whom he's kicked out of the club several times.
Saturday 9/15/01 this mutual friend brings in Mr. Al-Shehhi and says "they had friends that were killed..." and within seconds of answering this witness, Mr. Al Shehhi jumps over the bar and grabs this witness by the shirt collar and wants to fight with him. The witness pushes Al Shehhi away and yells at the mutual friend "What the Hell is his problem..." or something to that effect...
The witness repeatedly said he will NEVER forget the face of Al Shehhi as it was only 12 to 18 inches away from his for a full 10 seconds before he could push him away and off the bar.
There is much more to this amazing story which we will reveal in the coming days and weeks on DEADLINE LIVE and at www.jackblood.com
The purpose of this article is to lay a foundation to add evidence on top of. The Emery team, including blogger and radio host Andrew Griffin at www.reddirtreport.com will be doing everything they can, along with myself, to see this story through and to hopefully find some sympathetic reporters in the Main Stream Media. We are also seeking honest persons in law enforcement to follow up on leads we currently have.
At some point, like in every story� The search for truth itself becomes the headline.
We are asking you, the people of the USA, citizens of the world, and truth seekers everywhere to help get this story out as is, and to help circulate every new addition to the story as they come out.
JACK BLOOD is a syndicated talk radio host with the Genesis Communications Network.
DEADLINE LIVE is also heard online on www.wtprn.com, and www.revereradio.net
Monday - Friday (4pm - 6pm EDT) More information at www.jackblood.com
More info on Chris Emery and Holland Van den Nieuwenhof can be found at www.okcbombing.net and they, along with Andrew Griffin of www.reddirtreport.com host a live talk radio show every Saturday at 6pm CST: THE RED DIRT REPORT / RADIO FREE OKLAHOMA on www.wtprn.com
Also of note:
On the DEADLINE LIVE interview originally broadcast on July 19th 2008 - Chris Emery and team presented the date of the incident with Al Shehhi as Sept 21 2001. This date has been corrected after re confirming with eyewitnesses to the date mentioned in the above article to Sept. 15th 2001...... full story>>>
more Oklahoma news.....
Recents news... From (TT) Tulsa Truth
TT Weekly#71 (07/19/08)
Hello All,Welcome to another edition of Tulsa Truth Weekly. This week's articles, petition and videos include;1) Monsanto film showing2) Liberty Talk Radio now on RBN!3) Tulsa Truth on RFOK4) Let's overturn FISA5) The Next Battleground6) Rumsfeld Disease7) Economic Trouble8) U.S. Government's Secret Plans9) Progressive Media & 9/1110) AE911Truth wants your help11) Michael Franti, YELL FIRE!12) Quotes of the Week
1) The World According to Monsanto will be shown on Monday, July 28th, 6:30pm at Hardesty Library. Immediately following, renowned Dr. Andre Kulisz will speak about the topic and lead a discussion. To learn more about Dr. Kulisz link to: http://myfoodforhealth.com/drkulisz%20bio.htm
2) Our friend and fellow patriot, Joe Cristiano will soon be broadcasting his radio show, www.LibertyTalkRadio.com on www.RevolutionBroadcasting.com. This will increase the listening audience dramatically. Congrats Joe!
3) Our friends at RF Oklahoma air every Saturday, 6 - 8 PM on www.wtprn.com, 89.9FM in East Tulsa! Next Saturday, July 26, They will interview Tulsa Truth and Joe Cristiano (Liberty Talk Radio). We encourage you to listen live and call in. (The broadcasts are also archived.)please help support oklahomas own truth movement......4) Let's overturn FISA! Did you know that Congress has signed away our right to privacy? It’s true! By making FISA law, the President and Congress have made it legal for US agencies to spy on our text messages, email, and phone calls to people outside the US, without any cause, reason or warrant. Help us overturn FISA by sharing your message of support now! http://www.aclu.org/fisaaction5) The Next Battleground: The World's Food Supply Do you know what's in your food? Did you know that 60-70% of the foods on your grocer's shelves contain genetically-modified ingredients? Who is this courtesy of? Why, none other than Monsanto, the former manufacturer of Agent Orange and contributor to about 50 EPA Superfund sites. If you thought they were bad as a chemical company, wait until you learn about them as an agricultural company.
9) Why Are "Progressive" Media Burying 9/11? Journalists in what are traditionally considered "progressive" and left of center outlets continue, like corporate journalists, to avoid coverage of "unanswered questions" surrounding the 9/11 attacks.
10) AE911Truth.org would like your help. If you know any architects or engineers, please print and send them this "evidence letter". Their goal is to have 1,000+ professionals supporting a new 911 investigation. This is an excellent letter, please open and print: The letter from Richard Gage is found here.
11) Michael Franti, Yell Fire! (music video): http://youtube.com/watch?v=H7WASrQFg8o&feature=related12) Quotes of the Week:
"The real war is not a "war on terror." The real war is a war against constitutional government, personal liberty, and national sovereignty. It is a war against the fundamental principles of America's Founding Fathers, that America should be a friend and trader with all, but engaged in entangling alliances with none. It is a war against the Bill of Rights. It is a war against the very heart and soul of everything this country has stood for ever since our patriot forebears stood on Lexington Green and Concord Bridge. And this war is not being waged from Baghdad or Tehran. It is being waged from Washington, D.C." - Chuck Baldwin, Founder-Pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida and Constitution Party Nominee
"For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life." - Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. - (1888-1965)"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force" - UnknownWe encourage you to forward TT Weekly far and wide. (To opt-out, simply reply and type "delete" in the subject line.) Tulsa Truth shares information mostly dismissed or discredited by corporate media. We can not verify all the facts, nor do we endorse or support everything contained in these e-mails. Please send contributions to support our efforts to; Tulsa Truth, 6528 E 101st St., D1-411, Tulsa, OK 74133. We thank you and welcome your comments and suggestions .
Peace, Truth and Justice, your TT Team
keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons!!
...........................kosmicdebris.................................................
Friday, June 27, 2008
Now Shut Up, Welcome Home, Soldier: the war mainstream media refuses to cover.
Published on Friday, June 27, 2008 by The Black Commentator
Welcome Home, Soldier: Now Shut Up
by Paul Rockwell
There are two kinds of courage in war — physical courage and moral courage. Physical courage is very common on the battlefield. Men and women on both sides risk their lives, place their own bodies in harm’s way. Moral courage, however, is quite rare. According to Chris Hedges, the brilliant New York Times war correspondent who survived wars in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans,
“I rarely saw moral courage.......Moral courage is harder... It requires
the bearer to walk away from the warm embrace of comradeship and denounce the myth of war as a fraud, to name it as an enterprise of death and immorality, to condemn himself, and those around him, as killers. It requires the bearer to become an outcast. There are times when taking a moral stance, perhaps the highest form of patriotism, means facing down the community, even the
nation.”
More and more U.S. soldiers and Marines, at great cost to their own careers and reputations, are speaking publicly about U.S. atrocities in Iraq, even about the cowardice of their own commanders, who send youth into atrocity-producing situations only to hide from the consequences of their own orders. In 2007, two brilliant war memoirs — ROAD FROM AR RAMADI by Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia, and THE SUTRAS OF ABU GHRAIB by Army Reservist Aidan Delgado — appeared in print. In March 2008, at the Winter Soldier investigation just outside Washington D.C., hard-core U.S. Iraqi veterans, some shaking at the podium, some in tears, unburdened their souls. Jon Michael Turner described the horrific incident in which, on April 28, 2008, he shot an Iraqi boy in front of his father. His commanding officer congratulated him for “the kill.” To a stunned audience, Turner presented a photo of the boy’s skull, and said: “I am sorry for the hate and destruction I have inflicted on innocent people.”
The Winter Soldier investigation was followed by the publication of COLLATERAL DAMAGE: AMERICA’S WAR AGAINST IRAQI CIVILIANS, by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian. Based on hundreds of hours of taped interviews with Iraqi combat veterans, this pioneering work on the catastrophe in Iraq includes the largest number of eyewitness accounts from U.S. military personnel on record.
The Courage to ResistWe cannot understand the psychological and moral significance of military resistance unless we recognize the social forces that stifle conscience and human individuality in military life. Gwen Dyer, historian of war, writes that ordinarily, “Men will kill under compulsion. Men will do almost anything if they know it is expected of them and they are under strong social pressure to comply.” “Only exceptional people resist atrocity,” writes psychiatrist Robert Lifton.
How much easier it is to surrender to the will of superiors, to merge into the anonymity of the group. It takes uncommon courage to resist military powers of intimidation, peer pressure, and the atmosphere of racism and hate that drives all imperial wars.
Silencing the Witnesses to WarWar crimes are collective in nature. Especially in wars based on fraud, soldiers are expected to lie — to their country, to their community, even to themselves.
The silencing process begins on the battlefield in the presence of officers, power-holders who seek to nullify the perceptions and personal experience of troops under their command.
In his war memoir, Aidan Delgado describes attempts of his commanders to suppress the truth about Abu Ghraib. First his captain says the Army has nothing to hide, Abu Ghraib is just a rumor. But then the captain continues: “We don’t need to air our dirty laundry in public. If you have photos that you’re not supposed to have, get rid of them. Don’t talk about this to anyone, don’t write about it to anyone back home.” In the U.S. military, the truth is seditious.
Two years ago, Marine Sergeant Jimmy Massey published his riveting autobiography (written with Natasha Saulnier) in France and Spain. How the Marine Corps - through indoctrination and intimidation - transforms a homeboy from the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina into a professional killer who murders “innocent people for his government” is the subject of Massey’s unsettling, impassioned, Jar-head raunchy, and ultimately uplifting memoir, COWBOYS FROM HELL. (No U.S. publisher has picked up the book. A Marine who speaks truth to power is not without honor save in his own country.) In Chapter 18, Jimmy describes a seemingly minor encounter with his captain. Here Massey gives us a look into the process of human denial in its early phase.
Massey has just participated in a checkpoint massacre of civilians. His sense of decency, his sanity, is still in tact. Like any normal human being, he is distraught. The carnage of the war, the imbalance of power between the biggest war machine in history and a suffering people devoid of tanks and air power — the sheer injustice of it all — begins to take its toll on Massey’s conscience.
In the wake of the horrific events of the day, his captain is cool. He walks up to Massey and asks; “Are you doing all right, Staff Sergeant?” Massey responds: “No, sir. I am not doing O.K. Today was a bad day. We killed a lot of innocent civilians.”
Fully of aware of the civilian carnage, his captain asserts: “No, today was a good day.”
Relatives wailing, cars destroyed, blood all over the ground, Marines celebrating, civilians dead, and “it was good day”!
The Massey incident goes beyond the mendacity of military life. It concerns the control, the dehumanization of the psyches of our troops.
As one Vietnam veteran put it years ago: “They kept fucking with my mind.” ....read more>>>
fighting the good, with your minds as weaponz.....................
..................kosmicdebris..............................................................
TED | About TED | TEDTalks
summer watching..................................Ideas worth speading!!
Top 10 TEDTalks of all time
1. Jill Bolte Taylor: "My stroke of insight"
2. Jeff Han: "Touchscreen demo foreshadows the iPhone"
3. David Gallo: "Underwater astonishments"
4. Blaise Aguera y Arcas: "Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo"
5. Arthur Benjamin: "Lightning calculation and other 'Mathemagic'"
6. Sir Ken Robinson: "Do schools kill creativity?"
7. Hans Rosling: "The best stats you've ever seen"
8. Tony Robbins: "Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better"
9. Al Gore: "15 ways to avert a climate crisis"
10. Johnny Lee: "Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii Remote"
(as of June 2008)
..................kosmicdebris.....................
Top 10 TEDTalks of all time
1. Jill Bolte Taylor: "My stroke of insight"
2. Jeff Han: "Touchscreen demo foreshadows the iPhone"
3. David Gallo: "Underwater astonishments"
4. Blaise Aguera y Arcas: "Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo"
5. Arthur Benjamin: "Lightning calculation and other 'Mathemagic'"
6. Sir Ken Robinson: "Do schools kill creativity?"
7. Hans Rosling: "The best stats you've ever seen"
8. Tony Robbins: "Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better"
9. Al Gore: "15 ways to avert a climate crisis"
10. Johnny Lee: "Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii Remote"
(as of June 2008)
..................kosmicdebris.....................
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had justified the sterilization of 17-year-old Carrie Buck on the grounds that “three generations of imbeciles [were]..?
Posted on Jun 20, 2008
By Tony Platt
The 1942 U.S. Supreme Court case of Skinner v. Oklahoma is remembered for protecting “the right to have offspring,” and by implication the right not to have offspring. Skinner, according to Victoria Nourse, the author of an important new book on American eugenics, typically “sits in the shadow of the abortion and gay marriage debates.”
“In Reckless Hands: Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics” demonstrates that Skinner also opens a window into a little-known chapter of American eugenics: how prisoners at a hardscrabble prison in Oklahoma in the aftermath of the Depression led a sophisticated struggle to limit the practice of compulsory sterilization in the United States.
Much has been written about the history of eugenics, but until publication of this book we knew little about how eugenic sterilization was used in prisons and against men, and even less about the views of its targeted victims. It’s a lively tale, well told, until the author, a law professor at Emory University, tries her hand at historical generalizations.
In Reckless Hands
By Victoria F. Nourse
W. W. Norton, 256 pages
At the core of eugenics was a belief in a central role of heredity in both determining and explaining social inequality. Influenced by 19th-century developments in genetics, medicine and public health, eugenics was not a crank science. At the height of its influence, support came from some unlikely ideological bedfellows. It was endorsed by Fabian socialists in England and racial scientists in Germany; linked to birth control and progressive economic reforms in Denmark, and to racial policies against itinerant gypsies in Sweden; an expression of Fascist ideology in Germany and Argentina, and of cultural hybridity in Mexico; and closely associated with the sterilization of those defined as “feebleminded” in Germany, the United States, Sweden and Denmark.
In the 1930s, Nazi Germany made eugenics an official state policy, first openly sterilizing hundreds of thousands of women, then secretly murdering many of its disabled and mentally ill patients judged leading “lives unworthy of life.” Until the onset of World War II, when selective murder turned into organized butchery, Nazi racial scientists were appreciated around the world, especially in the United States, where eugenics was dominated by right-wing hard-liners.
American eugenicists boosted “Anglo-Saxon” and “Nordic” types as the engine of modern society and promoted policies of apartheid to protect the “well born” from contamination by impoverished and mentally ill “degenerates.” Believing that social failure and success could be traced to “racial temperament,” its leaders advocated “positive eugenics” to increase the birthrate of privileged, white families, and “negative eugenics” to reduce the birthrate of groups considered a burden on civilization.
In addition to promoting utopian visions of a brave new world and exploiting cultural anxieties about racial degeneracy, eugenic scientists were hands-on activists, campaigning against “miscegenation,” and in favor of welfare and immigration restrictions. Their greatest success in the United States during the first half of the 20th century was lobbying for the compulsory sterilization of 60,000 mostly poor women, considered “feebleminded” or “socially inadequate.”
Until recently, the conventional scholarly wisdom claimed that Hitler’s reign of terror ended scientific infatuation with eugenics. Writing in 1963, Mark Heller argued that by the time of World War II, racism ceased to have scientific respectability and “as a result, American eugenics and racism faced a parting of the ways.” In 1985, Daniel Kevles, the distinguished historian of science, similarly made the case that “the Nazi horrors discredited eugenics as a social program.”
But spurred by interest in the relationship between the new genetics and old eugenics, and by concerns about the misuses of science and medicine, a new generation of scholars is revising how we understand the timeline and scope of eugenics. They have drawn attention to the ties between biological theories of race and nation building; to the rebranding of pre-World War II eugenics as population control in the 1950s; and to contemporary uses of hereditarian arguments to bolster anti-feminism and justify racial inequality.
“In Reckless Hands” focuses on the use of sterilization against poor white men in Oklahoma during the 1930s and 1940s and adds a new dimension to our understanding of class prejudices within the American eugenics movement.
In 1931, Oklahoma followed the lead of many states by passing a law authorizing sterilization of persons in institutions “afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity,” as well as “idiocy, imbecility, feeblemindedness, or epilepsy.” The state Legislature added two more grounds for sterilization in 1933: If the patient was “likely to be a public or partial public charge” or was a “habitual criminal,” defined as “any person convicted of a felony three times.”
Two years later, in an atmosphere of moral panic about crime, Oklahoma passed the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, which made prisoners convicted of two felonies involving “moral turpitude” subject to sterilization. The state Senate made sure that politicians and their cronies would preserve their right to have offspring by exempting “offenses arising out of violations of the prohibitory laws, revenue acts, embezzlement or political offenses.” /read more...>>>
fighting the good fight with my mind as ultimate weapon!!
................kosmicdebris....................................................................................................
By Tony Platt
The 1942 U.S. Supreme Court case of Skinner v. Oklahoma is remembered for protecting “the right to have offspring,” and by implication the right not to have offspring. Skinner, according to Victoria Nourse, the author of an important new book on American eugenics, typically “sits in the shadow of the abortion and gay marriage debates.”
“In Reckless Hands: Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics” demonstrates that Skinner also opens a window into a little-known chapter of American eugenics: how prisoners at a hardscrabble prison in Oklahoma in the aftermath of the Depression led a sophisticated struggle to limit the practice of compulsory sterilization in the United States.
Much has been written about the history of eugenics, but until publication of this book we knew little about how eugenic sterilization was used in prisons and against men, and even less about the views of its targeted victims. It’s a lively tale, well told, until the author, a law professor at Emory University, tries her hand at historical generalizations.
In Reckless Hands
By Victoria F. Nourse
W. W. Norton, 256 pages
At the core of eugenics was a belief in a central role of heredity in both determining and explaining social inequality. Influenced by 19th-century developments in genetics, medicine and public health, eugenics was not a crank science. At the height of its influence, support came from some unlikely ideological bedfellows. It was endorsed by Fabian socialists in England and racial scientists in Germany; linked to birth control and progressive economic reforms in Denmark, and to racial policies against itinerant gypsies in Sweden; an expression of Fascist ideology in Germany and Argentina, and of cultural hybridity in Mexico; and closely associated with the sterilization of those defined as “feebleminded” in Germany, the United States, Sweden and Denmark.
In the 1930s, Nazi Germany made eugenics an official state policy, first openly sterilizing hundreds of thousands of women, then secretly murdering many of its disabled and mentally ill patients judged leading “lives unworthy of life.” Until the onset of World War II, when selective murder turned into organized butchery, Nazi racial scientists were appreciated around the world, especially in the United States, where eugenics was dominated by right-wing hard-liners.
American eugenicists boosted “Anglo-Saxon” and “Nordic” types as the engine of modern society and promoted policies of apartheid to protect the “well born” from contamination by impoverished and mentally ill “degenerates.” Believing that social failure and success could be traced to “racial temperament,” its leaders advocated “positive eugenics” to increase the birthrate of privileged, white families, and “negative eugenics” to reduce the birthrate of groups considered a burden on civilization.
In addition to promoting utopian visions of a brave new world and exploiting cultural anxieties about racial degeneracy, eugenic scientists were hands-on activists, campaigning against “miscegenation,” and in favor of welfare and immigration restrictions. Their greatest success in the United States during the first half of the 20th century was lobbying for the compulsory sterilization of 60,000 mostly poor women, considered “feebleminded” or “socially inadequate.”
Until recently, the conventional scholarly wisdom claimed that Hitler’s reign of terror ended scientific infatuation with eugenics. Writing in 1963, Mark Heller argued that by the time of World War II, racism ceased to have scientific respectability and “as a result, American eugenics and racism faced a parting of the ways.” In 1985, Daniel Kevles, the distinguished historian of science, similarly made the case that “the Nazi horrors discredited eugenics as a social program.”
But spurred by interest in the relationship between the new genetics and old eugenics, and by concerns about the misuses of science and medicine, a new generation of scholars is revising how we understand the timeline and scope of eugenics. They have drawn attention to the ties between biological theories of race and nation building; to the rebranding of pre-World War II eugenics as population control in the 1950s; and to contemporary uses of hereditarian arguments to bolster anti-feminism and justify racial inequality.
“In Reckless Hands” focuses on the use of sterilization against poor white men in Oklahoma during the 1930s and 1940s and adds a new dimension to our understanding of class prejudices within the American eugenics movement.
In 1931, Oklahoma followed the lead of many states by passing a law authorizing sterilization of persons in institutions “afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity,” as well as “idiocy, imbecility, feeblemindedness, or epilepsy.” The state Legislature added two more grounds for sterilization in 1933: If the patient was “likely to be a public or partial public charge” or was a “habitual criminal,” defined as “any person convicted of a felony three times.”
Two years later, in an atmosphere of moral panic about crime, Oklahoma passed the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, which made prisoners convicted of two felonies involving “moral turpitude” subject to sterilization. The state Senate made sure that politicians and their cronies would preserve their right to have offspring by exempting “offenses arising out of violations of the prohibitory laws, revenue acts, embezzlement or political offenses.” /read more...>>>
fighting the good fight with my mind as ultimate weapon!!
................kosmicdebris....................................................................................................
Friday, June 13, 2008
The FreeBees have re-upped it
I hope everyone will forward the Free Bees link to everyone they know. This has the potential to go viral in a big way! Some professional musicians obviously put real effort into making this as good as it is. Not only is it professional, it manages to hit exactly the right note of conveying a serious message while also being hilarious and fun to watch.
I know there was alot of hope in certain quarters that Steve Alten s book would propel 9/11 truth into the big time, and it didn t. This little gem offers greater potential, in my opinion, than the Steve Alten book. That book was over $25, this video is free. A book requires a significant commitment of time, this video can be watched in 3 minutes. You can t forward a book to a friend, but a link is quick and easy.
Why is the potential power of the Free Bees video being underestimated by the Truth community? I think it s because most of us who have figured out the truth way ahead of our peers are by nature serious, disciplined and intellectual. I know for a fact that none of my friends and family will ever plant their behind in a chair and do the kind of research I've done. So there is a reason I know and they don't......
So being somewhat nerdy by nature, Truthers may overestimate the power of, say a recorded lecture from David Ray Griffin and underestimate the power of a terrific little piece of entertainment like the Free Bees video.
Please put yourself in the shoes of every fun loving, non-intellectual friend you have, and consider how much more effective the Free Bees music video could be than mountains of information about the melting point of steel and the speed of the fighter jets that should have intercepted the "hijacked" planes.
I had nothing to do with creating this video, but having worked in advertising most of my life, I recognize a winner. Please do all you can to get it out there, especially to young people who live online and will forward to friends.
The video has been removed from YouTube but is still available for DOWNLOAD here:
http://www.4shared.com/account/file/51127785/2eda57db/Freebees_disco_911...
I'm about to put it on my hard drive so we don't lose it.
Thanks, Sheila
Don t underestimate the potential of the Free Bees music video | 911Blogger.com: "Bee Gees | viral | YouTube
...................................................................................
Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson Honors Blair Gadsby & Brings 9/11 Truth to the Arizona State Senate - June 10, 2008.
keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons!!
....................................kosmicdebris....................................................
Monday, June 9, 2008
O Reilly producer Porter Barry ambushes journalist Bill Moyers
Disinfo.com - Fox News Producer Ambushes Bill Moyers and Gets Taste Of His Own Medicine: "Fox Ambushes Bill Moyers and Gets Taste Of His Own Medicine
Nicole Belle writes on Crooks and Liars:
At the National Conference for Media Reform, Bill O Reilly producer Porter Barry ambushes journalist Bill Moyers and asks him why he won t appear on The O Reilly Factor. Moyers, a class act to the last, makes Barry look like the small and petty man he is. But the joke is on Barry, because other journalists, including Uptake correspondent Noah Kunin, who got this raw footage, turned tables on ol Porter and gave him a little taste of the FOX News-style ambush journalism. I don’t think he liked it much."
trying to keep it real, news is happening blisering fast around the world!!
.......kosmicdebris...........
Nicole Belle writes on Crooks and Liars:
At the National Conference for Media Reform, Bill O Reilly producer Porter Barry ambushes journalist Bill Moyers and asks him why he won t appear on The O Reilly Factor. Moyers, a class act to the last, makes Barry look like the small and petty man he is. But the joke is on Barry, because other journalists, including Uptake correspondent Noah Kunin, who got this raw footage, turned tables on ol Porter and gave him a little taste of the FOX News-style ambush journalism. I don’t think he liked it much."
trying to keep it real, news is happening blisering fast around the world!!
.......kosmicdebris...........
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Dan Rather delivered a blistering critique of corporate new
Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather delivered a blistering critique of corporate news on Saturday night at the National Conference for Media Reform hosted by Free Press.
The following are Dan Rather's prepared remarks:
I am grateful to be here and I am, most of all, gratified by the energy I have seen tonight and at this conference. It will take this kind of energy - and more - to sustain what is good in our news media... to improve what is deficient... and to push back against the forces and the trends that imperil journalism and that - by immediate extension - imperil democracy itself.
The Framers of our Constitution enshrined freedom of the press in the very first Amendment, up at the top of the Bill of Rights, not because they were great fans of journalists - like many politicians, then and now, they were not - but rather because they knew, as Thomas Jefferson put it, that, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be."
...But it is rare, now, to find a major news organization owned by an individual, someone who can say, in effect, "The buck stops here." The more likely motto now is: "The news stops... with making bucks."...........
.....The stakes could not possibly be higher. Scott McClellan's book serves as a reminder, and the current election season, not to mention the gathering clouds of conflict with Iran, will both serve as tests of whether lessons have truly been learned from past experience. Ensuring that a free press remains free will require vigilance, and it will require work. Please, take tonight's energy and inspiration home with you. Take it back to your desks and your workplaces, to your colleagues and your fellow citizens. magnify it, multiply it, and spread it. Make it viral. Make it something that cannot be ignored - not by the powers in Washington, not by the owners and executives of media companies. Write these people. Call them. Send them the message that you know your rights, you know that you are entitled to news media as diverse and varied as the American people... and that you deserve a press that provides the raw material of democracy, the good information that Americans need to be full participants in our government of, by, and for the people..>>>read more
keep fighting the good fight, with your mind as weapons....
The following are Dan Rather's prepared remarks:
I am grateful to be here and I am, most of all, gratified by the energy I have seen tonight and at this conference. It will take this kind of energy - and more - to sustain what is good in our news media... to improve what is deficient... and to push back against the forces and the trends that imperil journalism and that - by immediate extension - imperil democracy itself.
The Framers of our Constitution enshrined freedom of the press in the very first Amendment, up at the top of the Bill of Rights, not because they were great fans of journalists - like many politicians, then and now, they were not - but rather because they knew, as Thomas Jefferson put it, that, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be."
...But it is rare, now, to find a major news organization owned by an individual, someone who can say, in effect, "The buck stops here." The more likely motto now is: "The news stops... with making bucks."...........
.....The stakes could not possibly be higher. Scott McClellan's book serves as a reminder, and the current election season, not to mention the gathering clouds of conflict with Iran, will both serve as tests of whether lessons have truly been learned from past experience. Ensuring that a free press remains free will require vigilance, and it will require work. Please, take tonight's energy and inspiration home with you. Take it back to your desks and your workplaces, to your colleagues and your fellow citizens. magnify it, multiply it, and spread it. Make it viral. Make it something that cannot be ignored - not by the powers in Washington, not by the owners and executives of media companies. Write these people. Call them. Send them the message that you know your rights, you know that you are entitled to news media as diverse and varied as the American people... and that you deserve a press that provides the raw material of democracy, the good information that Americans need to be full participants in our government of, by, and for the people..>>>read more
keep fighting the good fight, with your mind as weapons....
WE THE PEOPLE: are responsible for the actions of our government today.
Building A Constituency For World Peace
By Casey Butler
We are America, the City on the Hill: An enlightened land that hosts an enlightened and educated generation. The year is 2008. We have world history at our fingertips - the successes and failures of the entire human race are open to our view. No generation before us has had so much historical and scientific information available to it.
The overwhelming evidence provided through the history of humanity on planet Earth tells us that World Peace is not in the interest of any human government, no matter what it is called, nor is World Peace in the interest of any known organized religion condoned and supported by any human government, no matter what that religion is called.
Recent events testify against the intentions of our own government and the organized religions practiced under it's tax umbrella. In the current conflict scenario known as "The War On Terror", the duly elected United States Government has shown no interest in exempting itself from the harsh judgment of human history. Having rejected the tenets of international law in favor of unilateral gunslinging, history's judgment of the USA will be the same as other outlaw states and empires that have preceded us. Historical comparisons with previous failed governments abound.
Ours is a system of government founded upon the highest of evolved human ideals of justice, liberty, reason, and global human equality. They are ideals compiled and instituted by our founders, ideas evolved through millinea of suffering around the world.
However, since its founding, ours is also a system which we, the people, have evolved our way.
Over the last 231 years, through hard times and prosperity, the last 60 years as a nuclear superpower, we the people have "democratically" re-designed and modified our system to be a government dedicated to the efficient and ruthless advancement of our own interests by threat of force. These interests at which we have become so adept in advancing are best summarized as the interests of acquiring and protecting wealth of embarrassingly disgusting proportions when viewed in the face of the global poverty and suffering that surrounds us.
We, the American People, every single one of us who participates in American society, are responsible for the actions of our government today.
The unvarnished truth is that we have only begun to suffer the consequences of those actions.
In our arrogant determination to protect, sustain, and yet further inflate our acquired wealth, in our paranoia of losing our vaunted "life-style" of unlimited consumerism, we are rapidly descending into a new dark age of self-legislated totalitarianism. On the international "front", to sustain American economic power we have implemented a 'diplomacy' marked by international corporate blackmail backed by economic and military threat. To sustain our craving for non-renewable resources we now justify aggressive and brutal imperialistic hegemony and illegal occupation of third-world nations.
The strategy of the Empire of the United States is the strategy of subjugation, to keep third-world nations in the third world, to oppress free thought there, to limit education and the development of scientific knowledge there.
But we are not that way, you may say. America doesn't support oppression. America doesn't use its power to blackmail. America doesn't attack first. American troops don't kick down doors behind which cower women and children. We are not the bullies we convince ourselves we are blessed to save others from.
But we are that way.
Since the morning of September 11, 2001, we the people of the United States have been on our knees, literally cowering behind the brutality of American military and nuclear power, because we can't face the truth of what we've become over the last 6 decades. The truth is that on the 11th of September some 19 fellow human beings sacrificed their lives and three thousand of "our" lives in an attempt to open our eyes to ourselves.
The truth is that they succeeded.
As a result of these sacrifices and their effect upon the American Spirit, what was America is fast devolving into a house of cards, a house divided, a house built on the sand - politically, economically, and environmentally. More and more of us understand this each day.
The American Spirit we all share is a powerful force. It is the sum of all human Spirit, the sum of all the joy and sacrifice since history began.
It cannot lie to itself for long. Through report after report of killing done in our name, of torture performed in our name, of the suppression of human rights done in our name, of lying and cover-ups performed "for our own good", etc... Our American Spirit has been searing us within, crying out for justice and truth as we live our "lifestyle" - as we play the game of normal-every-day capitalism. So far, other than a few token gestures, some "protests", and many words, we've been "good Americans".
Under direct orders of our designer government we've continued shopping.
History will record our excuses too: "We were just following orders. It was really Bush, Cheney, the Neocons, the Christian Zionists, the Fascists..."
We have an endless list of scapegoats for our own apathy and neglect of humanity.
When does the American Spirit manifest itself? Do we continue pointing fingers while more people die every day? When yet another war of aggression is in the offing? Are we really going to await the next "election" before we stop ourselves? Are we going to watch more blood spilled pointlessly while the "wheels of democracy" turn? And then what? Await still another election, if by chance there are any more elections?
Most of us who understand the nature of this war also know deep within our American Spirit what has to be done.
Yet we continue to procrastinate, many waiting for some Great Leader to arise. We think, "If only we had a Thomas Jefferson...", "If only we had a Gandhi...", "If only we had a Martin Luther King, Jr..."
But we do have Jefferson. We do have Gandhi. We do have Martin Luther King, Jr. We have the words and lives of ALL who have participated in the human struggle for World Peace against the oppression and tyranny of government and the religions that suborn government.
Through these great leaders and many others, the evolution of successful revolution for change is laid out before us on history's stage. We are fortunate to be the beneficiaries of the efforts of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., whose actions made the traditional revolutionary's sword and musket, then machine guns and grenades, obsolete.
Today we know that the most efficient way to effect change in a Western society is non-violent resistance, economic boycott, and the surrender of the very lifestyle that requires the oppression and exploitation of others to begin with.
These modern weapons of revolution, applied without hypocrisy as they have been in the past by Gandhi most effectively, will bring about the societal paradigm change to Peace, if we truly want Peace.
We need to put our money where our mouth is. We need to start a Peace Revolution. Not really even a revolution, more of an exercise of our freedoms of choice to live as a peaceful people. But it is a revolution still.
In order to stop the ongoing bloodshed and oppression that WE THE PEOPLE continue to be responsible for:
We must initiate non-violent civil disobedience now, most effectively by refusing to pay any tax levied by our government, state or federal. WE THE PEOPLE must withhold from our government the means to finance war against any other people.
We must stop buying and selling now. From automobiles to gas to homes to fast food and knick knacks, WE THE PEOPLE must stop contributing to the corrupt corporate American economy that drives this war.
We must surrender our lifestyle now, surrender our possessions now. WE THE PEOPLE must become equal with those whom we have oppressed. WE THE PEOPLE must become the servants, our possessions theirs. WE THE PEOPLE must live as they live until they live as we live. WE THE PEOPLE must eat as they eat, until they eat as we eat. Those who cannot surrender their lifestyle due to health conditions or other reasons must financially support those who can. Our children and grandchildren will not need our possessions or our wealth, they will need World Peace.
We must stop financing any organized religion or any other non-profit organization that is dependent upon tax-exempt status of any kind from the government. All organizations that accept tax-exemption are basically paid to keep silent. They are threatened with loss of their non-profit status if they do not toe the government line, which means convincing their membership to toe the government line as well. WE THE PEOPLE must stop financing all such organizations, religious or secular.
We must show genuine solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. To do so, WE THE PEOPLE must overcome the false barriers erected between humanity, past and present, regardless of race or nationality, culture or religion, sex or any other consideration, now. WE THE PEOPLE must embrace our world and its history as they exist, both the good and the bad. WE THE PEOPLE have created our own circumstances. WE THE PEOPLE must stop pointing fingers, we must accept and embrace who we are and where we are, we must accept and embrace all who carried us here, and we must accept and embrace all who are here with us today.
This is a revolution that will necessarily be spontaneous on all our parts, an action of the individual American Spirit we all share. Such a revolution has been building for a long time, and it embraces all revolutions.
As you can see, there will be no leadership available as yet for this revolution, except from leaders of the past. Those currently running for office hoping to effect change and bring an end to the war are not going to succeed. Our wealth-driven democratic system is too far gone, our "needs" to maintain our lifestyle, as it exists, are too great to allow America to stop. Along the way even the most well-intentioned politician will be forced to compromise through flattery, bribery, and/or political threat.
For the time being if we need a leader to inspire us, each of WE THE PEOPLE, through our American Spirit, can resurrect a leader in our mind as required to help us do our part.
For example, when I was in fourth grade I set out to memorize the first and last paragraphs of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, because the words just rang so true to me, even at that age. They are eternal words. The parts I managed to memorize read as follows:
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."
"We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states...
"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
The concepts here, especially the concept that ALL people are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, will sustain and inspire me through this revolution. To me Jefferson still lives through all of his words. I have resurrected him. He has taken his place as one of my leaders through all the injustice, killing, oppression, lying, and violence that WE THE PEOPLE are propagating today.
What about a living leader for the revolution?
For a living and breathing great leader to stand up and lead humanity to World Peace, he or she first needs a constituency.
Great leaders do not arise from a void. They arise to fill the void created by the will of a leaderless constituency. Jefferson's constituency were the people of the 13 colonies. Gandhi's constituency consisted of the people of colonized India. Martin Luther King, Jr's constituency were the oppressed African Americans of the United States.
Though desperately needed, there is no World Peace constituency around whose members walk the walk described above today.
Let WE THE PEOPLE who want peace resolve to create a living constituency for World Peace now. Let us build a constituency whose ardent desire is World Peace, whose self-evident truths include the rights of ALL PEOPLE ON EARTH to equality, life, liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness within the culture and traditions that best suit them.
Let us build a constituency whose participants are ready to die to bring World Peace, a constituency having surrendered its lifestyle, having stood forth against the aggression and subsequent oppression wrought by our own government to sustain that lifestyle, a constituency having rejected violence and oppression of any kind against any other human being.
Let us build a constituency for that leader of the future who awaits such a constituency in order to lead all of humanity into lasting World Peace.
If we, the American People, the enlightened population of the City on the Hill, do not build a constituency now that is wholly dedicated to Peace among all of humanity, WE THE PEOPLE can read our future in the history books of any failed society that has preceded us.
If we do build it...
My endorsement to the above: what Casey said...........
Casey Butler is an American Spirit, now a Constituent for World Peace.
Kosmicdebris is follower of Jesus Christ's teachings., an American spirit, a constituent for world peace. Patriot For Humanity, -Fight the good fight, with your minds as weapons!
………………….Kosmicdebris…………………………
By Casey Butler
We are America, the City on the Hill: An enlightened land that hosts an enlightened and educated generation. The year is 2008. We have world history at our fingertips - the successes and failures of the entire human race are open to our view. No generation before us has had so much historical and scientific information available to it.
The overwhelming evidence provided through the history of humanity on planet Earth tells us that World Peace is not in the interest of any human government, no matter what it is called, nor is World Peace in the interest of any known organized religion condoned and supported by any human government, no matter what that religion is called.
Recent events testify against the intentions of our own government and the organized religions practiced under it's tax umbrella. In the current conflict scenario known as "The War On Terror", the duly elected United States Government has shown no interest in exempting itself from the harsh judgment of human history. Having rejected the tenets of international law in favor of unilateral gunslinging, history's judgment of the USA will be the same as other outlaw states and empires that have preceded us. Historical comparisons with previous failed governments abound.
Ours is a system of government founded upon the highest of evolved human ideals of justice, liberty, reason, and global human equality. They are ideals compiled and instituted by our founders, ideas evolved through millinea of suffering around the world.
However, since its founding, ours is also a system which we, the people, have evolved our way.
Over the last 231 years, through hard times and prosperity, the last 60 years as a nuclear superpower, we the people have "democratically" re-designed and modified our system to be a government dedicated to the efficient and ruthless advancement of our own interests by threat of force. These interests at which we have become so adept in advancing are best summarized as the interests of acquiring and protecting wealth of embarrassingly disgusting proportions when viewed in the face of the global poverty and suffering that surrounds us.
We, the American People, every single one of us who participates in American society, are responsible for the actions of our government today.
The unvarnished truth is that we have only begun to suffer the consequences of those actions.
In our arrogant determination to protect, sustain, and yet further inflate our acquired wealth, in our paranoia of losing our vaunted "life-style" of unlimited consumerism, we are rapidly descending into a new dark age of self-legislated totalitarianism. On the international "front", to sustain American economic power we have implemented a 'diplomacy' marked by international corporate blackmail backed by economic and military threat. To sustain our craving for non-renewable resources we now justify aggressive and brutal imperialistic hegemony and illegal occupation of third-world nations.
The strategy of the Empire of the United States is the strategy of subjugation, to keep third-world nations in the third world, to oppress free thought there, to limit education and the development of scientific knowledge there.
But we are not that way, you may say. America doesn't support oppression. America doesn't use its power to blackmail. America doesn't attack first. American troops don't kick down doors behind which cower women and children. We are not the bullies we convince ourselves we are blessed to save others from.
But we are that way.
Since the morning of September 11, 2001, we the people of the United States have been on our knees, literally cowering behind the brutality of American military and nuclear power, because we can't face the truth of what we've become over the last 6 decades. The truth is that on the 11th of September some 19 fellow human beings sacrificed their lives and three thousand of "our" lives in an attempt to open our eyes to ourselves.
The truth is that they succeeded.
As a result of these sacrifices and their effect upon the American Spirit, what was America is fast devolving into a house of cards, a house divided, a house built on the sand - politically, economically, and environmentally. More and more of us understand this each day.
The American Spirit we all share is a powerful force. It is the sum of all human Spirit, the sum of all the joy and sacrifice since history began.
It cannot lie to itself for long. Through report after report of killing done in our name, of torture performed in our name, of the suppression of human rights done in our name, of lying and cover-ups performed "for our own good", etc... Our American Spirit has been searing us within, crying out for justice and truth as we live our "lifestyle" - as we play the game of normal-every-day capitalism. So far, other than a few token gestures, some "protests", and many words, we've been "good Americans".
Under direct orders of our designer government we've continued shopping.
History will record our excuses too: "We were just following orders. It was really Bush, Cheney, the Neocons, the Christian Zionists, the Fascists..."
We have an endless list of scapegoats for our own apathy and neglect of humanity.
When does the American Spirit manifest itself? Do we continue pointing fingers while more people die every day? When yet another war of aggression is in the offing? Are we really going to await the next "election" before we stop ourselves? Are we going to watch more blood spilled pointlessly while the "wheels of democracy" turn? And then what? Await still another election, if by chance there are any more elections?
Most of us who understand the nature of this war also know deep within our American Spirit what has to be done.
Yet we continue to procrastinate, many waiting for some Great Leader to arise. We think, "If only we had a Thomas Jefferson...", "If only we had a Gandhi...", "If only we had a Martin Luther King, Jr..."
But we do have Jefferson. We do have Gandhi. We do have Martin Luther King, Jr. We have the words and lives of ALL who have participated in the human struggle for World Peace against the oppression and tyranny of government and the religions that suborn government.
Through these great leaders and many others, the evolution of successful revolution for change is laid out before us on history's stage. We are fortunate to be the beneficiaries of the efforts of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., whose actions made the traditional revolutionary's sword and musket, then machine guns and grenades, obsolete.
Today we know that the most efficient way to effect change in a Western society is non-violent resistance, economic boycott, and the surrender of the very lifestyle that requires the oppression and exploitation of others to begin with.
These modern weapons of revolution, applied without hypocrisy as they have been in the past by Gandhi most effectively, will bring about the societal paradigm change to Peace, if we truly want Peace.
We need to put our money where our mouth is. We need to start a Peace Revolution. Not really even a revolution, more of an exercise of our freedoms of choice to live as a peaceful people. But it is a revolution still.
In order to stop the ongoing bloodshed and oppression that WE THE PEOPLE continue to be responsible for:
We must initiate non-violent civil disobedience now, most effectively by refusing to pay any tax levied by our government, state or federal. WE THE PEOPLE must withhold from our government the means to finance war against any other people.
We must stop buying and selling now. From automobiles to gas to homes to fast food and knick knacks, WE THE PEOPLE must stop contributing to the corrupt corporate American economy that drives this war.
We must surrender our lifestyle now, surrender our possessions now. WE THE PEOPLE must become equal with those whom we have oppressed. WE THE PEOPLE must become the servants, our possessions theirs. WE THE PEOPLE must live as they live until they live as we live. WE THE PEOPLE must eat as they eat, until they eat as we eat. Those who cannot surrender their lifestyle due to health conditions or other reasons must financially support those who can. Our children and grandchildren will not need our possessions or our wealth, they will need World Peace.
We must stop financing any organized religion or any other non-profit organization that is dependent upon tax-exempt status of any kind from the government. All organizations that accept tax-exemption are basically paid to keep silent. They are threatened with loss of their non-profit status if they do not toe the government line, which means convincing their membership to toe the government line as well. WE THE PEOPLE must stop financing all such organizations, religious or secular.
We must show genuine solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. To do so, WE THE PEOPLE must overcome the false barriers erected between humanity, past and present, regardless of race or nationality, culture or religion, sex or any other consideration, now. WE THE PEOPLE must embrace our world and its history as they exist, both the good and the bad. WE THE PEOPLE have created our own circumstances. WE THE PEOPLE must stop pointing fingers, we must accept and embrace who we are and where we are, we must accept and embrace all who carried us here, and we must accept and embrace all who are here with us today.
This is a revolution that will necessarily be spontaneous on all our parts, an action of the individual American Spirit we all share. Such a revolution has been building for a long time, and it embraces all revolutions.
As you can see, there will be no leadership available as yet for this revolution, except from leaders of the past. Those currently running for office hoping to effect change and bring an end to the war are not going to succeed. Our wealth-driven democratic system is too far gone, our "needs" to maintain our lifestyle, as it exists, are too great to allow America to stop. Along the way even the most well-intentioned politician will be forced to compromise through flattery, bribery, and/or political threat.
For the time being if we need a leader to inspire us, each of WE THE PEOPLE, through our American Spirit, can resurrect a leader in our mind as required to help us do our part.
For example, when I was in fourth grade I set out to memorize the first and last paragraphs of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, because the words just rang so true to me, even at that age. They are eternal words. The parts I managed to memorize read as follows:
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."
"We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states...
"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
The concepts here, especially the concept that ALL people are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, will sustain and inspire me through this revolution. To me Jefferson still lives through all of his words. I have resurrected him. He has taken his place as one of my leaders through all the injustice, killing, oppression, lying, and violence that WE THE PEOPLE are propagating today.
What about a living leader for the revolution?
For a living and breathing great leader to stand up and lead humanity to World Peace, he or she first needs a constituency.
Great leaders do not arise from a void. They arise to fill the void created by the will of a leaderless constituency. Jefferson's constituency were the people of the 13 colonies. Gandhi's constituency consisted of the people of colonized India. Martin Luther King, Jr's constituency were the oppressed African Americans of the United States.
Though desperately needed, there is no World Peace constituency around whose members walk the walk described above today.
Let WE THE PEOPLE who want peace resolve to create a living constituency for World Peace now. Let us build a constituency whose ardent desire is World Peace, whose self-evident truths include the rights of ALL PEOPLE ON EARTH to equality, life, liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness within the culture and traditions that best suit them.
Let us build a constituency whose participants are ready to die to bring World Peace, a constituency having surrendered its lifestyle, having stood forth against the aggression and subsequent oppression wrought by our own government to sustain that lifestyle, a constituency having rejected violence and oppression of any kind against any other human being.
Let us build a constituency for that leader of the future who awaits such a constituency in order to lead all of humanity into lasting World Peace.
If we, the American People, the enlightened population of the City on the Hill, do not build a constituency now that is wholly dedicated to Peace among all of humanity, WE THE PEOPLE can read our future in the history books of any failed society that has preceded us.
If we do build it...
My endorsement to the above: what Casey said...........
Casey Butler is an American Spirit, now a Constituent for World Peace.
Kosmicdebris is follower of Jesus Christ's teachings., an American spirit, a constituent for world peace. Patriot For Humanity, -Fight the good fight, with your minds as weapons!
………………….Kosmicdebris…………………………
Saturday, June 7, 2008
A Roy
this particular piece received 2 million, yes, two million global hits!!...a few more than my local news source, about 1,992,000 or so more. gannet wishes, larry fishes. this one....even more.
Arundhati Roy……
The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place. The Algebra of Infinite Justice September 29, 2001.
Where there is oppression, it will always be challenged by those of us who will challenge it with greater intensity, you know? So that's why I don't believe that there can ever be peace without justice, you know? The two go together. And there cannot be peace in the world with full-spectrum dominance or, you know, nuclear warfare or any of those things. They won't help, because always there will be people who demand dignity, who demand justice, who demand their rights.
She goes on to say "Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead."
I expect the dems will go for a tandem American leadership where the line between veep and la’ prez get blurry, post convention. They know for sure they can win popular in landslide fashion and the media cannot stop it, save self destruction. The dems also have populace Edwards for a “kenedi-esq.,” wild card, if either obami or hilly are too damaged post convention.The thing that bothers me about the split ticket pez, truth is….. they make the most ripe targets for assassins, by so many different factions, together someone could make it happen. Mydoom martyrdom, sort of a bloodless French revolution….ghandi-mlk style. Obama-Billery ticket.
If we have a McCarthy like era targeted at the media, audio visual, news print photo editors, could get messy, considering all the lies and incompetence. Like I said before…this gross breach of public trust cannot easily be repaired. I have nothing to hide, but am bound by conscience to speak out when I witness something unjust, and certainly not knowingly or fraudulently finance some dubious enterprise…
To advocate withholding almost thousand year old magna carta rights? Attention media…did you really think the public was that stupid? Just remember, none of us are as stupid as all of us without your (mainstream media’s) help…you might want to report information as fact before someone comes for you and you have no oracle to speak.
As far as I know, as long as there is a monarchy, then it is still on the books and in full effect, to this day, in both England and whales. I thought ours, the us constitution and the bill of rights, was even better at protecting humans. At least more humane, advanced further than medieval Spain.Justice for Dead Journalists | War on Iraq | AlterNet Justice for Dead Journalists
The Communist regime of the Soviet Union has been considered to be evil by a number of western liberal democracies, especially under the rule of Joseph Stalin for its mass persecutions of political opponents, religious, and cultural minorities (e.g. the Cossacks). Also the political writings of Niccolò Machiavelli in The Prince often used by Hitler and Mussolini, are considered to be a source of evil in politics, as they often speak of ignoring accepted morals for the pursuit of ultimate power, as "the ends justifies the means".
Machiavelli favored a prince creating a climate of fear in order to rule a population, rather than relying on popular support. Machiavelli supports the use of deception and manipulation as means to increase a prince's personal power. The following statements in The Prince on how to gain control of a principality show little concern for traditional moral and ethical considerations.
Will history add George W. Bush to the list? ...the ends justifies the means... The world consists mainly of vulgar people and the few who are honorable can safely be ignored when so many vulgar rally around the prince….' '…..Benefits must be conferred gradually so they are appreciated more thoroughly and harm should be inflicted all at once. Both harm and benefits should not serve as quick solutions to problems. Force is the most effective and efficient means to do something and the virtuous prince will employ its leverage. History marches on….truth is truth, a duck is……..to deliberately lose a trick; a cunning action or plan that is intended to cheat or deceive.
The liberal left or the religious right are not off the hook…..Authoritarian, totalitarian, and elements of religious fundamentalism regimes tend to hold a common view that liberal-democratic regimes are evil and blame liberal democracy for high crime rates, profiteering, corporate crime, materialist individualism replacing common bonds of similar people, destruction of culture and its replacement with sleaze. All of which, the regimes claim will result in the destruction of humanity if liberal democracy is not restrained. Therefore, liberal democracy provides the ideal environment for corruption to thrive, greed at all levels of society becomes to rule rather the exception. In other words, we become so open-minded our brains fall out, leaving a fertile breeding ground for state sponsored exploitation of the masses. This is why the u.s. constitution is so important. The constitution protects 'we the people' from our own government. The bill or rights is the guarantee.
Machiavelli wrote: "...there will be traits considered good that, if followed, will lead to ruin, while other traits, considered vices which if practiced achieve security and well being for the Prince," (dub'ya) truth is truth. A duck is….is found all over the world, with the exception of Antarctica, but the prince doesn't care, for that reason we should send him there. History marches on….
The international relations theories of neo-conservatism (neocon), advise politicians to explicitly disavow absolute moral and ethical considerations in international politics in favor of a focus on self-interest, political survival, and power politics, which they hold to be more accurate in explaining a world they view as explicitly amoral and dangerous. Neocons usually justify their perspectives by laying claim to a "higher moral duty" specific to political leaders, under which the greatest evil is seen to be the failure of the state to protect itself and its citizens, not protecting the citizens from the state. Truth is truth, a duck is…. what ever the state labels it. History marches on……
There is a back door to circumvent free speech and the original ideals America was founded on. Dumb down America by omission of certain schools of thought, thereby limiting critical thinking to only the facts presented and imbedded in the education system as a whole. One of the best tools is to limit the information being taught in public schools is not to teach it to the teachers to teach. Every generation is gradually being short changed. I clipped the next piece a couple of years ago to research, some of the items may be dated. I have added to it from things I have found, reading a few books, rereading history, hundreds of hours on the internet, but things have only gotten worse.
I found this trend startling and set out to disprove, I could not, I have now not only confirmed this downward spiral, it is one of the main reasons I have become so political to do my part to reverse this national (international?) conspiracy.
Just because we are told America is number one does not make it so. This is why I stress independent thinking and common sense (rational thought), and the need to become better informed in all areas. Like I said before above: we have become so open-minded that our brain fell out, and developed and an appetite for destruction of the truth. Go look for yourself like I did, a caveat: government statistical data is not a reliable source, tends to only report the positive, withholding negative data is the norm because of political and bureaucratic job security.
Truth is truth, a duck is a….what's a duck? What's that quacking nose? A duck is what politicians do to avoid answering tough questions, avoid lying or telling the truth, whatever is convenient to conceal or promote hidden agendas, dedicated to self service. History marches on….
credit steve ventura....for education work, all verifiable data. my vetting process is much simpler, does what i see match what i hear against what i know? truth somewhere there?Statistics on American education tell a dreadful story. No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable.
We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in: the story of an advanced technological society slipping back to a state of ignorance and superstition. If that sentence seems extreme, consider these facts:
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.) That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11."U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2006).
"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time. Economic slavery.
"Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
"Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2004). Since 04, who knows? Government data lag time 2 years, estimates range from 3 to 7 million jobs, depends which duck is quacking, today 07 estimates are conservative. This includes jobs created minus jobs lost, the trend is about 2 million net loss per year and dropping, that is jobs lost increasing. Accurate data impossible to confirm. Shush, don't tell nobody, might create a panic. 17 million illegals just might have jobs here, ya think? Most of them pay federal income tax, is I should say the tax is deducted from their paychecks most of the money stays with the employer who knows the undocumented worker will not file for refunds with the feds, and actively reminds Pedro to do so risks deportation by the la migra offeciosos. Por qua? No la guardia, see.Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005). Does not count illegals and those that quit looking, also day labor, nor those working for cash, drug trade, e.g.
Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom (bust today) to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture. American poison toys, conspiracy? To narrow trade gap, who knows, more to the point who's not telling? Wal-Mart toys Chinese lead, ignorant children, stupid adults: connection or coincidence?
Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Rainforest is the planets lungs, declining at 10%(?) annually feeding fat Americans.
As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Relabeled and sent back as u.s. relief aid, you think I'm kidding. Go look. Product of china, labeled u. n for relief not to be sold. I have got a feeling the food stuff is relabeled again and sold back to us, that one boat load of rice has been around the world ten times, meanwhile fewer hungry, less humans, bigger banks, morbidly obese Americans.
Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate. Al Gore won the last one here. Us *plebs still lost. *….common people of ancient Rome: the ordinary citizens of ancient Rome, as distinct from the (re)patricians, wealthyOne-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28). Future native American survival.
"Nearly one out of four Americans believe that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32) that one already got his that way.
Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004). As long as it's not themselves,100% agree torture hurts.
"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004). These are only what's reported to social services. Dead ones don't count, 70% plus of incarcerated adults where also neglected or abused. Psychological abuse accounts for 80% of mental illness, including addictions. Allowing children to be raised by schools and television is abuse and the root cause to me.
"The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the Bush administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004). The plan is working.
No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.
The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion. Denial
The United States once ranked first in the world in high school graduation rates. We have slipped to 17th (the New York Times, Feb. 1).
Respect for the free exchange of ideas is dimming among our young. USA Today, Jan. 31: "One in three United States high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more thought the government should approve newspaper stories before people read them." Which means that our Bill of Rights often is taught poorly or not at all--a very dangerous sign for the future of our liberties.
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Those who can read and don't are equal to the man that cannot read.
We rank 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Accounts for acceptance of the 38% tax rate, that's means you only get to keep 62 dollars for every $100 you earn. If you tithe faithfully you get to keep$56 gross dollars or $52 net to buy food, shelter, clothes, heat, electric, petrol, insurance, health care…add sales tax….wondering why you can't save anything or seem to get ahead? If you forgot to vote, that's ok they assume you don't mind the taxes then.
"Our students, a new report has found, are lagging far behind the pace set by scientific whiz kids in Europe and Asia, and the number of Americans choosing science as a career continues to dwindle" (Los Angeles Times, quoted in The Week, Jan. 14).
Thomas L. Friedman reports "a mounting crisis" (NYT, Dec. 5, 2004). "Because of the steady erosion of science, math, and engineering education in U.S. high schools, our Cold War generation of American scientists is not being fully replenished. We've been filling the gap with Indian, Chinese, and other immigrating brain-power. But...many of those foreign engineers are not coming here anymore." He adds that many who had emigrated here have recently chosen to leave, and there aren't enough Americans with sufficient knowledge to replace them. The Chinese lead toy generation.
The Christian right's influence in Congress is no doubt the source of headlines like this: "Money to Fix Space Telescope May Be Cut by House" (NYT, Jan. 23). The Hubble is our most successful space project to date. The Hubble "established the age of the universe at 13 billion years.... Every week, the Hubble transmits about 120 gigabytes of data...the equivalent of 36,500 feet of books on a shelf. More than 2,600 scientific papers based on these findings have been published so far" (The Week, Jan. 21).
Hostility to science exists at the highest levels of our government. "With rising intensity, scientists in and out of government have criticized the Bush administration, saying it has selected or suppressed research findings to suit preset policies, skewed advisory panels or ignored unwelcome advice, and quashed discussion within federal research agencies" (NYT, Oct. 19, 2006).
These stats combine to paint the portrait of a poorly educated people seeking to compensate for their ignorance with beliefs that spread such ignorance further--while the rest of the developed world laughs in pity or contempt, and leaves us behind.
I believe one cannot claim to be a cultured human being without knowledge of the great religions, their histories, and scriptures. The Bible hit America's shores 300 years before the Constitution and no one unfamiliar with the Bible can claim to understand America (which disqualifies many so-called intellectuals). The great religions should be required study in every high school and college, if only because there is no greater historical force than religious passion. But religion should be taught as religion, not as science. Interesting to note the last pope, John Paul II, held the position that creation and evolution do not conflict with current Catholic doctrine.
Makes no difference to me when we got here only what we can do to stay here and advance our society. How to keep adapting to our changing environment with a moral compass pointing toward goodness, the light, away from darkness and ignorance. Hostility to science is spreading, like an infection, to history...
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, by Thomas Woods Jr., "is being snapped up on college campuses and helped along by plugs on Fox News... Was No. 8 on the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list." The book features far-right revisions of the Civil War, the Marshall Plan, Jim Crow, and the New Deal . It is "one of a wave of books like this." They include Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Internment, which claims that the World War II internment of California's Japanese-Americans was justified and benign; also, a booklet used in a North Carolina school called Southern Slavery: As It Was, claiming slavery to have been "a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." This isn't history. This is propaganda. You don't justify old internment camps unless you hope to build new ones. That's how I found that list from the friends of liberty website, newly built idle camps waiting to be housed, no one told me I had to go find the truth.
The teaching of history is usually slanted one way or another, but not long ago the blatant distortion of science would have been unimaginable. The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China excluded or distorted whole branches of science that conflicted with their ideologies; not long ago no thinking person imagined it could happen here. But it is happening. On a massive scale. From the highest levels of government to the littlest rural school. Power-savvy factions are spreading an easy-to-digest but ultimately fatal ignorance. Poorly educated, well-intentioned, fearful people, craving order in a chaotic world, are eating it up. They're no more or less stupid than the well-informed, but they haven't the resources for research and they've no body of knowledge by which to weigh what they're told. The poorly skilled and scantily educated have nothing to judge information by except whether it satisfies their emotions. If it makes them less afraid, it must be right.
Sam Adams, like many of our founders, believed democracy would flourish "as long as education was extended to the masses." An ignorant people cannot remain a free people.
keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons!!
...............................kosmicdebris.....................................................................
Arundhati Roy……
The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place. The Algebra of Infinite Justice September 29, 2001.
Where there is oppression, it will always be challenged by those of us who will challenge it with greater intensity, you know? So that's why I don't believe that there can ever be peace without justice, you know? The two go together. And there cannot be peace in the world with full-spectrum dominance or, you know, nuclear warfare or any of those things. They won't help, because always there will be people who demand dignity, who demand justice, who demand their rights.
She goes on to say "Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead."
I expect the dems will go for a tandem American leadership where the line between veep and la’ prez get blurry, post convention. They know for sure they can win popular in landslide fashion and the media cannot stop it, save self destruction. The dems also have populace Edwards for a “kenedi-esq.,” wild card, if either obami or hilly are too damaged post convention.The thing that bothers me about the split ticket pez, truth is….. they make the most ripe targets for assassins, by so many different factions, together someone could make it happen. Mydoom martyrdom, sort of a bloodless French revolution….ghandi-mlk style. Obama-Billery ticket.
If we have a McCarthy like era targeted at the media, audio visual, news print photo editors, could get messy, considering all the lies and incompetence. Like I said before…this gross breach of public trust cannot easily be repaired. I have nothing to hide, but am bound by conscience to speak out when I witness something unjust, and certainly not knowingly or fraudulently finance some dubious enterprise…
To advocate withholding almost thousand year old magna carta rights? Attention media…did you really think the public was that stupid? Just remember, none of us are as stupid as all of us without your (mainstream media’s) help…you might want to report information as fact before someone comes for you and you have no oracle to speak.
“…It explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects, whether free or fettered — most notably the writ of habeas corpus, allowing appeal against unlawful imprisonment. The magna is the historical default document for handling humans when one kingdom or city state conquers or surrenders another.”
As far as I know, as long as there is a monarchy, then it is still on the books and in full effect, to this day, in both England and whales. I thought ours, the us constitution and the bill of rights, was even better at protecting humans. At least more humane, advanced further than medieval Spain.Justice for Dead Journalists | War on Iraq | AlterNet Justice for Dead Journalists
By Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate. Posted May 15, 2008.This is why I am ashamed of my government, because this does not represent me, the is not what my own government taught me. Yes, I was mad when I realized I had been duped by the people I trusted……but I can get over that. What I cannot let go of is the fact I can no longer trust my government to tell me the truth. That is what makes me want to rebel, this is where I have a problem controlling my passions, when I see cover-up and collusion by institutions I plead my loyalties, was willing to bleed and die for those ideals.(my guess is the pharma industry has a pill for truth long developed by now, negating the need for torture! Which is more profitable?, the rack or the apothecary? KBR…Kellogg-brown-root or ely lilly, s.c Johnson, dow?)
A military whistle-blower has come forward with information that contradicts the government's official story about the deaths of two journalists.
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.".... Marcus Tullius Cicero
The Communist regime of the Soviet Union has been considered to be evil by a number of western liberal democracies, especially under the rule of Joseph Stalin for its mass persecutions of political opponents, religious, and cultural minorities (e.g. the Cossacks). Also the political writings of Niccolò Machiavelli in The Prince often used by Hitler and Mussolini, are considered to be a source of evil in politics, as they often speak of ignoring accepted morals for the pursuit of ultimate power, as "the ends justifies the means".
Machiavelli favored a prince creating a climate of fear in order to rule a population, rather than relying on popular support. Machiavelli supports the use of deception and manipulation as means to increase a prince's personal power. The following statements in The Prince on how to gain control of a principality show little concern for traditional moral and ethical considerations.
Will history add George W. Bush to the list? ...the ends justifies the means... The world consists mainly of vulgar people and the few who are honorable can safely be ignored when so many vulgar rally around the prince….' '…..Benefits must be conferred gradually so they are appreciated more thoroughly and harm should be inflicted all at once. Both harm and benefits should not serve as quick solutions to problems. Force is the most effective and efficient means to do something and the virtuous prince will employ its leverage. History marches on….truth is truth, a duck is……..to deliberately lose a trick; a cunning action or plan that is intended to cheat or deceive.
The liberal left or the religious right are not off the hook…..Authoritarian, totalitarian, and elements of religious fundamentalism regimes tend to hold a common view that liberal-democratic regimes are evil and blame liberal democracy for high crime rates, profiteering, corporate crime, materialist individualism replacing common bonds of similar people, destruction of culture and its replacement with sleaze. All of which, the regimes claim will result in the destruction of humanity if liberal democracy is not restrained. Therefore, liberal democracy provides the ideal environment for corruption to thrive, greed at all levels of society becomes to rule rather the exception. In other words, we become so open-minded our brains fall out, leaving a fertile breeding ground for state sponsored exploitation of the masses. This is why the u.s. constitution is so important. The constitution protects 'we the people' from our own government. The bill or rights is the guarantee.
Machiavelli wrote: "...there will be traits considered good that, if followed, will lead to ruin, while other traits, considered vices which if practiced achieve security and well being for the Prince," (dub'ya) truth is truth. A duck is….is found all over the world, with the exception of Antarctica, but the prince doesn't care, for that reason we should send him there. History marches on….
The international relations theories of neo-conservatism (neocon), advise politicians to explicitly disavow absolute moral and ethical considerations in international politics in favor of a focus on self-interest, political survival, and power politics, which they hold to be more accurate in explaining a world they view as explicitly amoral and dangerous. Neocons usually justify their perspectives by laying claim to a "higher moral duty" specific to political leaders, under which the greatest evil is seen to be the failure of the state to protect itself and its citizens, not protecting the citizens from the state. Truth is truth, a duck is…. what ever the state labels it. History marches on……
There is a back door to circumvent free speech and the original ideals America was founded on. Dumb down America by omission of certain schools of thought, thereby limiting critical thinking to only the facts presented and imbedded in the education system as a whole. One of the best tools is to limit the information being taught in public schools is not to teach it to the teachers to teach. Every generation is gradually being short changed. I clipped the next piece a couple of years ago to research, some of the items may be dated. I have added to it from things I have found, reading a few books, rereading history, hundreds of hours on the internet, but things have only gotten worse.
I found this trend startling and set out to disprove, I could not, I have now not only confirmed this downward spiral, it is one of the main reasons I have become so political to do my part to reverse this national (international?) conspiracy.
Just because we are told America is number one does not make it so. This is why I stress independent thinking and common sense (rational thought), and the need to become better informed in all areas. Like I said before above: we have become so open-minded that our brain fell out, and developed and an appetite for destruction of the truth. Go look for yourself like I did, a caveat: government statistical data is not a reliable source, tends to only report the positive, withholding negative data is the norm because of political and bureaucratic job security.
Truth is truth, a duck is a….what's a duck? What's that quacking nose? A duck is what politicians do to avoid answering tough questions, avoid lying or telling the truth, whatever is convenient to conceal or promote hidden agendas, dedicated to self service. History marches on….
credit steve ventura....for education work, all verifiable data. my vetting process is much simpler, does what i see match what i hear against what i know? truth somewhere there?Statistics on American education tell a dreadful story. No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable.
We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in: the story of an advanced technological society slipping back to a state of ignorance and superstition. If that sentence seems extreme, consider these facts:
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.) That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11."U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2006).
"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time. Economic slavery.
"Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
"Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2004). Since 04, who knows? Government data lag time 2 years, estimates range from 3 to 7 million jobs, depends which duck is quacking, today 07 estimates are conservative. This includes jobs created minus jobs lost, the trend is about 2 million net loss per year and dropping, that is jobs lost increasing. Accurate data impossible to confirm. Shush, don't tell nobody, might create a panic. 17 million illegals just might have jobs here, ya think? Most of them pay federal income tax, is I should say the tax is deducted from their paychecks most of the money stays with the employer who knows the undocumented worker will not file for refunds with the feds, and actively reminds Pedro to do so risks deportation by the la migra offeciosos. Por qua? No la guardia, see.Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005). Does not count illegals and those that quit looking, also day labor, nor those working for cash, drug trade, e.g.
Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom (bust today) to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture. American poison toys, conspiracy? To narrow trade gap, who knows, more to the point who's not telling? Wal-Mart toys Chinese lead, ignorant children, stupid adults: connection or coincidence?
Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Rainforest is the planets lungs, declining at 10%(?) annually feeding fat Americans.
As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Relabeled and sent back as u.s. relief aid, you think I'm kidding. Go look. Product of china, labeled u. n for relief not to be sold. I have got a feeling the food stuff is relabeled again and sold back to us, that one boat load of rice has been around the world ten times, meanwhile fewer hungry, less humans, bigger banks, morbidly obese Americans.
Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate. Al Gore won the last one here. Us *plebs still lost. *….common people of ancient Rome: the ordinary citizens of ancient Rome, as distinct from the (re)patricians, wealthyOne-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28). Future native American survival.
"Nearly one out of four Americans believe that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32) that one already got his that way.
Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004). As long as it's not themselves,100% agree torture hurts.
"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004). These are only what's reported to social services. Dead ones don't count, 70% plus of incarcerated adults where also neglected or abused. Psychological abuse accounts for 80% of mental illness, including addictions. Allowing children to be raised by schools and television is abuse and the root cause to me.
"The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the Bush administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004). The plan is working.
No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.
The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion. Denial
The United States once ranked first in the world in high school graduation rates. We have slipped to 17th (the New York Times, Feb. 1).
Respect for the free exchange of ideas is dimming among our young. USA Today, Jan. 31: "One in three United States high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more thought the government should approve newspaper stories before people read them." Which means that our Bill of Rights often is taught poorly or not at all--a very dangerous sign for the future of our liberties.
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Those who can read and don't are equal to the man that cannot read.
We rank 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Accounts for acceptance of the 38% tax rate, that's means you only get to keep 62 dollars for every $100 you earn. If you tithe faithfully you get to keep$56 gross dollars or $52 net to buy food, shelter, clothes, heat, electric, petrol, insurance, health care…add sales tax….wondering why you can't save anything or seem to get ahead? If you forgot to vote, that's ok they assume you don't mind the taxes then.
"Our students, a new report has found, are lagging far behind the pace set by scientific whiz kids in Europe and Asia, and the number of Americans choosing science as a career continues to dwindle" (Los Angeles Times, quoted in The Week, Jan. 14).
Thomas L. Friedman reports "a mounting crisis" (NYT, Dec. 5, 2004). "Because of the steady erosion of science, math, and engineering education in U.S. high schools, our Cold War generation of American scientists is not being fully replenished. We've been filling the gap with Indian, Chinese, and other immigrating brain-power. But...many of those foreign engineers are not coming here anymore." He adds that many who had emigrated here have recently chosen to leave, and there aren't enough Americans with sufficient knowledge to replace them. The Chinese lead toy generation.
The Christian right's influence in Congress is no doubt the source of headlines like this: "Money to Fix Space Telescope May Be Cut by House" (NYT, Jan. 23). The Hubble is our most successful space project to date. The Hubble "established the age of the universe at 13 billion years.... Every week, the Hubble transmits about 120 gigabytes of data...the equivalent of 36,500 feet of books on a shelf. More than 2,600 scientific papers based on these findings have been published so far" (The Week, Jan. 21).
Hostility to science exists at the highest levels of our government. "With rising intensity, scientists in and out of government have criticized the Bush administration, saying it has selected or suppressed research findings to suit preset policies, skewed advisory panels or ignored unwelcome advice, and quashed discussion within federal research agencies" (NYT, Oct. 19, 2006).
These stats combine to paint the portrait of a poorly educated people seeking to compensate for their ignorance with beliefs that spread such ignorance further--while the rest of the developed world laughs in pity or contempt, and leaves us behind.
I believe one cannot claim to be a cultured human being without knowledge of the great religions, their histories, and scriptures. The Bible hit America's shores 300 years before the Constitution and no one unfamiliar with the Bible can claim to understand America (which disqualifies many so-called intellectuals). The great religions should be required study in every high school and college, if only because there is no greater historical force than religious passion. But religion should be taught as religion, not as science. Interesting to note the last pope, John Paul II, held the position that creation and evolution do not conflict with current Catholic doctrine.
Makes no difference to me when we got here only what we can do to stay here and advance our society. How to keep adapting to our changing environment with a moral compass pointing toward goodness, the light, away from darkness and ignorance. Hostility to science is spreading, like an infection, to history...
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, by Thomas Woods Jr., "is being snapped up on college campuses and helped along by plugs on Fox News... Was No. 8 on the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list." The book features far-right revisions of the Civil War, the Marshall Plan, Jim Crow, and the New Deal . It is "one of a wave of books like this." They include Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Internment, which claims that the World War II internment of California's Japanese-Americans was justified and benign; also, a booklet used in a North Carolina school called Southern Slavery: As It Was, claiming slavery to have been "a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." This isn't history. This is propaganda. You don't justify old internment camps unless you hope to build new ones. That's how I found that list from the friends of liberty website, newly built idle camps waiting to be housed, no one told me I had to go find the truth.
The teaching of history is usually slanted one way or another, but not long ago the blatant distortion of science would have been unimaginable. The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China excluded or distorted whole branches of science that conflicted with their ideologies; not long ago no thinking person imagined it could happen here. But it is happening. On a massive scale. From the highest levels of government to the littlest rural school. Power-savvy factions are spreading an easy-to-digest but ultimately fatal ignorance. Poorly educated, well-intentioned, fearful people, craving order in a chaotic world, are eating it up. They're no more or less stupid than the well-informed, but they haven't the resources for research and they've no body of knowledge by which to weigh what they're told. The poorly skilled and scantily educated have nothing to judge information by except whether it satisfies their emotions. If it makes them less afraid, it must be right.
Sam Adams, like many of our founders, believed democracy would flourish "as long as education was extended to the masses." An ignorant people cannot remain a free people.
keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons!!
...............................kosmicdebris.....................................................................
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