The pressure of an all-powerful totalitarian state creates an emotional tension in its citizens that determines their acts. When people are divided into "loyalists" and "criminals" a premium is placed on every type of conformist, coward, and hireling; whereas among the "criminals" one finds a singularly high percentage of people who are direct, sincere, and true to themselves-Czesław Miłosz
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority."
"We are rapidly entering the
age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times;
where there are no secrets from government." -
William Orville Douglas - (October 16, 1898 - January 19, 1980) served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
"The
real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through
automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate
record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even
benevolent, and wholly justifiable." -Anon., U. S. Privacy Study Commission, 1977
"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." - Ben Franklin
"Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped" - Edward Snowden - NSA whistleblower
Once upon a time, a system was designed in which “the people” elected
delegates to go to Washington DC. These members of Congress had the
specific duty of representing the wishes of their constituencies when
laws were being voted upon.
The success of last weekend’s March Against Monsanto should have made it
very clear that a great many people wish to see, at the very least,
labels on toxic GMO foods. The fact that this success was covered up by the media
does NOT mean that the members of Congress were unaware of it – just
the opposite. Our success was frightening, and that is why it was
covered up.
Despite that, the day before the event, an amendment to the farm bill
that would have allowed the individual states to pass laws protecting
consumers from unlabeled GMOs was quietly shot down in the Senate with a
vote of 71-27 against this right. The timing of this betrayal, right
before a long weekend, goes along with the general modus operandi of
sliding through things that will meet with objections from the public
when they are otherwise distracted.
The failure to pass this amendment was due in part to
Monsanto mouthpiece Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the
Agriculture Committee. Stabenow, incidentally, received over three
quarters of a million dollars from agribusiness interests ($739,926
to be exact) in agribusiness donations. Stabenow utilized the
propaganda that is being dispersed by the likes of Monsanto and the
Gates Foundation to argue her point:
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the Agriculture Committee,
spoke on behalf of the biotech giant seizing the opportunity to focus
primarily on the myth
that genetically modified ingredients feed the hungry people of the
world, ignoring the fact that 64 countries now require GMO labeling.
“This particular amendment would interfere with the FDA’s science-based
process to determine what food labeling is necessary for consumers,”
Stabenow said. More here
These
congressional folk cannot get re-elected/auctioned/bought/ or, how
bout, won by majority of popular opine, if you guys knew how badly us
commons are being stabbed in the back by the vary same we sent to put an
end to this SHIT....do you know your enemy? you should
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Baldwin (D-WI)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Brown (D-OH)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Coons (D-DE)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cowan (D-MA)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fischer (R-NE)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagan (D-NC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kaine (D-VA)
Kirk (R-IL)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lee (R-UT)
Levin (D-MI)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Moran (R-KS)
Nelson (D-FL)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Pryor (D-AR)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rubio (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Shelby (R-AL)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)
Udall (D-CO)
Vitter (R-LA)
Warner (D-VA)
Warren (D-MA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Despite the vast campaign donations the politicians receive from special interest groups, the recent grassroots movements like Occupy Monsanto and March Against Monsanto
have proven that activism works without the huge budget. Even though
Monsanto has a kennel full of obedient pet congress members, we can
defeat the biotech enemy by spreading information. Teaching the public
about the dangers of consuming GMOs, the environmental and health tolls
of Monsanto’s farming methods, and the unscrupulous business practices
that are designed to put small farmers around the globe out of business,
is our most powerful weapon.
This is a call to action. Use the list above to make it clear that we
will not stand idly by while our elected representatives betray us for
the benefit of Monsanto.
Find the email addresses and phone numbers of your Senator HERE. Write them a polite letter or make a polite phone call. Firmly and courteously demand answers.
Use public forums provided to you on your local level to share
information about the selling out of our health by these elected
officials. Write letters to the editor, post on social media, and hand
out fliers, being sure to follow local ordinances. Always be courteous
to encourage dialogue.
Find your senator’s page on Facebook. Actively post in the comments
sections and post on their timelines about your displeasure regarding
their betrayals.
Use the power of social media to spread the word that these senators
are the friends of Monsanto, and thus the enemies of food freedom and
GMO labeling.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A judge has ruled that opponents of the
Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska can proceed with their legal challenge
to a state law that paved the way for a new project route.
Lancaster County District Court Judge Stephanie Stacy
on Tuesday rejected a motion by Nebraska state officials to dismiss the
lawsuit.
The lawsuit filed by three Nebraska landowners asserts
that Gov. Dave Heineman's decision to approve a new pipeline route was
rooted in an unconstitutional state law. The law was passed during a
special legislative session in 2011 as a way to reroute the pipeline
away from Nebraska's environmentally sensitive Sandhills.
Stacy did not rule on the merits of the case, but said
opponents should be allowed to present their evidence and arguments.
Russia Says It Will Not Allow Syria No-fly Zones
By Reuters
"I
think we fundamentally will not allow this scenario," Lukashevich told
a news briefing, adding that calls for a no-fly zone showed disrespect
for international law.
The War against Syria was Planned Two years before "The Arab Spring": Former French Foreign Minister:
By Gearóid Ó Colmáin
''This
operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned...
in the region it is important to know that this Syrian regime has a
very anti-Israeli stance. Consequently, everything that moves in the
region- and I have this from the former Israeli prime minister who told
me 'we'll try to get on with our neighbours but those who don't agree
with us will be destroyed.
Glenn Greenwald on US Intervention in Muslim Countries
Video
Bill
Maher is taken apart by Glenn Greenwald for trying to absolve the US
from any responsibility for the mass slaughter and destruction in
Muslim countries.
Engineering Consent For The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine
Idea of a Two-state Solution has Reached 'Dead End,' Israeli Economy Minister
By Barak Ravid and Jack Khoury |
Bennett
emphasized that the establishment of a Palestinian state is a pointless
issue and stated that the Palestinians have no right to
self-determination or a state of their own between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean Sea.
President of International War Crimes Tribunal May Have Worked to Shield Israelis From Prosecution
By Alison Weir
The
New York Times reports that an Israeli diplomat turned U.S. citizen -
and now president of the war crimes tribunal at the Hague - has been
pressuring the court to acquit officials accused of war crimes.
Poiu
is in Turkey; he writes: " Since yesterday evening, everything has
worsened. Unfortunately it is not really covered by local media, the
consequence of that being that it gets a lot less international
attention than it should.
NSA Admits Listening to U.S. Phone Calls Without Warrants
NSA Spying Flap Extends To Contents of U.S. Phone Calls
By Declan McCullagh
National
Security Agency discloses in secret Capitol Hill briefing that
thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone calls. That
authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too.
David Brooks, Tom Friedman, Bill Keller Wish Edward Snowden Had Just Followed Orders
By Norman Solomon
What a
contrast between big-name journalists craven enough to toss the Fourth
Amendment overboard and whistleblowers courageous enough to risk their
lives for civil liberties.
Maliki accuses foreign countries of being behind Sunday bombings in Iraq:
In
his speech during the central ceremony of the Iraqi Political
Prisoners Day held in Baghdad on Monday "Certain foreign countries
which claim democracy are responsible for the repeated bombings in
Iraq, the last of which the bombings of last Sunday."
Car bomb at checkpoint in Syrian capital kills 10 soldiers, activists say:
A
car bomb targeting a checkpoint near a military airport in an upscale
neighbourhood of the Syrian capital has killed 10 soldiers and wounded
10 others, activists said Monday.
Israel not commenting on report IDF attacked Syrian airport:
The
IDF was not commenting on a report on a Syrian TV station associated
with the rebel forces that Israel attacked on Sunday night the military
airbase Al-Miza, West of Damascus, Israel Radio reported.
Operation
Eager Lion will see 4,500 US troops, as well as soldiers from 18 other
countries including 500 from Britain, engage in manoeuvres in
neighbouring Jordan.
Putin warns West not to arm organ-eating Syrian rebels: -
Russian
President Vladimir Putin questioned on Sunday why the West would want
to arm Syrian rebels who he said ate human organs, saying plans to give
them weapons contradicted basic human values.
Assad: Europe will 'pay the price' if it delivers arms to rebel forces in Syria:
"If
the Europeans deliver weapons, the backyard of Europe will become
terrorist and Europe will pay the price for it," he said in the advance
extract of the interview due to be published in the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung on Tuesday.
70
percent of Americans oppose the Administration's recently-revealed
plans to send light weaponry to the Syrian rebels, according to a new
poll from the Pew Center.
Five Turkish trade unions begin nationwide demonstrations with one-day strike;
Five
trade unions are set to begin today a nationwide demonstration
campaign and one-day strike following the harsh police intervention in
Taksim the night of June 15, daily Hürriyet has reported.
Turkey Protests: Government Targets Doctors Who Treated Injured Demonstrators:
The
Health Ministry had demanded a list of the names of all doctors who
treated demonstrators from the Turkish Medical Association (TBB), the
association said on Friday 14 June.
Congressmen Get Free Travel to Parts of the Ottoman Empire:
Five
members of Congress traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, and Baku,
Azerbaijan, for a free weeklong trip at the end of May. The Turquoise
Council of Americans and Eurasians paid for the free trips
US House Committee votes to triple Israeli Iron Dome funding:
Moneys
for missile defense collaboration are separate from the average $3
billion annually in defense assistance Israel receives from the United
States.
US
government guarantees would allow MoD to initiate near-term contracts
for advanced, Pentagon-offered weaponry with cut-rate cash from
commercial banks. Israel would pay only interest and servicing fees on
the government-backed loan, with principle repaid from a new, 10-year
military aid package that President Barack Obama
Bill Clinton: Peres one of world's great visionaries :
President
Shimon Peres' 90th birthday celebrations kicked off Monday evening at
the Peres Academic Center in Rehovot with a speech by former US
President Bill Clinton.
Listen
to Israeli journalist Yossi Gurvitz, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew
and graduated from a religious yeshiva, describe what non-Jews can
expect from Judaism "when Israel is mighty."
Iranian President Elect Pledges 'Constructive Interaction' With World:
"I
believe that mutual trust and greater transparency within the
framework of international rules and regulations are solutions to put
an end to sanctions," the newly-elected president stated.
Nigeria: 11 killed during Islamist attack on school in Nigeria:
SEVEN
students, two teachers and two insurgents were killed when suspected
members of Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram attacked a school in the
northeastern town of Damaturu, the military said.
An
improvised explosive device attack in the Wanlaweyne district of Lower
Shabelle region killed at least five people and injured at least 10
Saturday (June 15th), Somalia's Garowe Online reported.
Afghan Officials Say 10 Soldiers Killed In Bomb Attacks:
The
ministry's statement on June 17 said five soldiers were killed in
roadside bombings in the southern province of Helmand, while five
others died in separate incidents in Badakhshan Province in the
northeast, Kandahar Province in the south, and Logar Province in the
east.
3 Civilians Killed, 2 Wounded in E. Afghanistan's Assaults:
Three
civilians were killed and two others wounded early Monday morning in
an attack on two trucks in Eastern Afghan province of Laghman, said the
provincial government in a statement.
Guantanamo hunger strikers face off with US military:
For
more than three months, the US military has faced off with defiant
prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, strapping down as many as
44 each day to feed them a liquid nutrient mix through a nasal tube.
It's
right that the international medical community should be outraged by
the unethical activities reportedly taking place at the Guantánamo Bay
detention centre.
UK: 'No Progress' In Julian Assange Talks With Ecuador:
Talks
between Britain and Ecuador ended with no breakthrough over Julian
Assange, the British Foreign Office said on Monday, nearly a year after
the WikiLeaks founder fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in London to
avoid extradition to Sweden.
Russia and Turkey react with fury to spying revelations:
The
foreign ministry in Ankara said it was unacceptable that the British
government had intercepted phonecalls and monitored the computers of
Turkey's finance minister as well as up to 15 others from his visiting
delegation. If confirmed, the eavesdropping operation on a Nato ally
was "scandalous", it added.
Edward Snowden Q&A: NSA whistleblower answers Guardian readers questions: :
The
whistleblower behind the biggest intelligence leak in NSA history is
answering your questions about the NSA surveillance revelations -
follow it live now
Sen Bernie Sanders proposes limits on surveillance:
Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced legislation to put strict limits on
sweeping powers used by the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau
of Investigation to secretly track telephone calls by millions of
innocent Americans who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.
First lady Michelle Obama claims ritzy digs during Irish visit:
The
cost of the two-day trip in Ireland and Northern Ireland has been
estimated at around $5 million. U.S. taxpayers pay the cost of the
first family's travel.
Detroit
said it will stop making payment on $2.5 billion of the city's massive
$18.5 billion debt and has asked creditors to accept 10 cents in the
dollar of what the city owes them in a bid to avoid the largest
municipal bankruptcy filing in US history.
Lenders seek court actions against homeowners years after foreclosure:
Lenders
are filing new motions in old foreclosure lawsuits and hiring debt
collectors to pursue leftover debt, plus court fees, attorneys' fees
and tens of thousands in interest that had been accruing for years.
AT
least one part of the labor force has expanded significantly since the
recession hit: the low-wage part, made up of burger flippers, home
health aides and the like.
The mood in Beijing is best described by evoking some classic futuristic movie. Think Blade Runner spliced with The Minority Report.
Swarms of young people are chaotically racing in the streets, always on
the go, always in a hurry. This is only to be expected. While they are
growing up, time here in China is ticking by faster than anywhere else
in the world. As you negotiate your way through the swarms, you quickly
find out about the only remaining rule of the pedestrian flows in
Beijing: “ME FIRST!” Yet even with all this perilous commotion, the
young always find the time to glance at their cameras, their laptops and
post-modern mobile phones — a formidable army of gizmos dispassionately
recording every moment, every face and every act in this consumerist
hell.
With an intelligence corps of this magnitude, why would the state
even need security services? In their hectic surgings, the streets of
China’s richest cities are now more uniform than they had ever been.
There are also many more slogans — only this time around they are
phrased in the aggressive lingo of the advertising agencies, designed to
plow straight through your frontal lobe and start whispering about
unmet needs. "Love more!” is one of the jingles being peddled in Beijing
by one of Europe’s most respected automobile makers. “Love more!”
indeed.
The Chinese economy has been growing for the past thirty years. The
obstacles fell by the roadside one by one. For thirty years, the genie
of economic growth uprooted everything in its path, deftly taking
advantage of all the perks of totalitarian communism. The party bosses
have gotten used to posing as enlightened absolutists, but they have
long become merely corporate executives in that sun-eclipsing mother of
all corporations called The People’s Republic of China.
In such an environment, the workers’ rights and environmental
standards are third-rate subjects at best. The human masses and what
remains of nature are entirely subordinate to growth, which can be seen
either as a cult or an obsessive-compulsive disorder. The future may be
now – if I may borrow the official slogan of Shanghai, the trade capital
of the Universe: The Future Is Now – but this future is also
unspeakably frightening. Especially when the alluring female employees
of the Center for Urban Planning in Shanghai, the capital of the future,
show you 3D projections of what the city is destined to look like in a
few years. In this science-fiction extravaganza, one can see all kinds
of details — only the people are missing. But why be petty? The reigning
deus ex machina has a clear-cut plan: the citizen of the future is
someone who feels no pain, someone who has been socially engineered to
lose both, his reflexes and his capacity for reflection.
As I ponder this, the alluring female employees are invoking
carefully selected phrases. The future. Now. Harmony. A better city. A
better life. The digital city. Happiness. This is the newspeak of our
times, which currently stands unopposed. The cheap classical music
accompanying this breathtaking futuristic presentation couldn’t be more
suitable to what is clearly an Orwellian nightmare waiting just around
the corner.
Read the full story from Boštjan Videmšek.
By the mid-1960s, the American military had turned
war-making into a thoroughly corporatized, quantitatively oriented
system that sociologist James William Gibson astutely calls “technowar.”
The philosophy behind it was simple: by combining American
technological and economic prowess with sophisticated managerial
capacities, the Pentagon meant to guarantee ultimate success on the
battlefield. The country’s unmatched military capability would allow it
to impose its will anywhere in the world, with the war machine
functioning as smoothly and predictably as an assembly line.
This mindset was embodied most fully in the person of Robert
McNamara, the secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968. As a Harvard
Business School professor, McNamara had designed statistical methods of
analysis for the War Department during World War II, most famously
systematizing the flight patterns and improving the efficiency of the
bombers that decimated German and Japanese cities.
. . .
In Vietnam, the statistically minded war managers focused, above all,
on the notion of achieving a “crossover point”: the moment when
American soldiers would be killing more enemies than their Vietnamese
opponents could replace. After that, the Pentagon expected, the
communist-led forces would naturally give up the fight — that would be
the only rational thing to do. What McNamara and the Pentagon brass
failed to grasp was that the Vietnamese nationalists, who had long
battled foreign invaders in pursuit of independence, might now view
warfare as a straightforward exercise in benefit maximization to be
pursued in a “rational” manner and abandoned when the ledger sheet
showed more debits than credits.
. . .
Entire units were sometimes pitted against each other in body-count
competitions with prizes at stake. This helped make the bodycount
mindset even more pervasive, lending death totals the air of sports
statistics. “Box scores” came to be displayed all over Vietnam – on
charts and chalkboards (also known as “kill boards”) at military bases,
printed up in military publications, and painted as crosshatched “kills”
on the sides of helicopters, to name just a few of the most conspicuous
examples. “We had charts in the mess hall that told what our body count
was for the week,” recalled one veteran. “So as you passed through the
chow line you were able to look up at a chart and see that we had killed
so many.” ... The practice of counting all dead Vietnamese as enemy
kills became so pervasive that one of the most common phrases of war
was: “If it’s dead and Vietnamese, it’s VC.”
Nick Turse is a investigative journalist,
historian and essayist whose groundbreaking research has changed the way
we think about the Vietnam War. This excerpt is from his book, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam, published in January by Metropolitan Books. Read Chris Hedge's Review of Nick Turse's book here.
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