LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic
Individuals Not Ideologies
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Echelon: The Global Spy System
An article by Nicky Hager at Cryptome.org from Covert Action Quarterly (1998) about Echelon. Hager’s book on the subject, “Secret Power: New Zealand’s Role In the International Spy Network,” is dated 1996, so I’m a little confused by the dating of the article. Echelon is/was a global espionage and interception system coordinated by the US/UK with the aid of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In NZ, writes Hager, it was implemented without the assent of the public and most public officials.
Here’s a timeline for the development of the system. Per Cryptome, the earliest public report on Echelon is in 1972.
The first reporter to write on it is British intelligence reporter, Duncan Campbell: “They’ve Got It Taped,” New Statesman, August 12, 1988 (republished at Cryptome.org). Campbell testified before Congress on the subject in 1999 and prepared a report for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that was refused by EPIC’s director Marc Rotenberg, on the grounds that much of the information hadn’t been substantiated (see this correspondence between Rotenberg and Young). After that, there was debate between Campbell and Bamford over what the main focus of the espionage was. I will expand on that and link it later…
“IN THE LATE 1980′S, IN A DECISION IT PROBABLY REGRETS, THE U.S. PROMPTED NEW ZEALAND TO JOIN A NEW AND HIGHLY SECRET GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM. HAGER’S INVESTIGATION INTO IT AND HIS DISCOVERY OF THE ECHELON DICTIONARY HAS REVEALED ONE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST, MOST CLOSELY HELD INTELLIGENCE PROJECTS. THE SYSTEM ALLOWS SPY AGENCIES TO MONITOR MOST OF THE WORLD’S TELEPHONE, E-MAIL, AND TELEX COMMUNICATIONS.
Obama Decrees Codex Alimentarius In US Through Executive Order?
Update:(June 25):
A commenter states that Section G (the controversial passage said to be a stealth introduction of the Codex) refers only to FEDERAL programs outside the Department of Health and Human Services. But the language elsewhere specifies the DHS when it’s meant, so why is the language in this section ambiguous? Still, I went back to check and noticed that the original mail alert was sent out by Dr. Rima Laibow whose credibility has been questioned. So I’ve attached a question mark to this piece. Codex is on the agenda, but there’s no need to be inaccurate about when or how it will be introduced.
NOTE (JUNE 20):
IN THE ORIGINAL HEAD TO THIS POST I REFERRED TO THE NEW BODY CONSTITUTED BY OBAMA,
‘THE NATIONAL PREVENTION, HEALTH PROMOTION, AND PUBLIC HEALTH COUNCIL,’ AS THE ‘NATIONAL HEALTH COUNCIL,’ SIMPLY TO HAVE A SHORT ENOUGH CONTRACTION. I’VE SINCE CHANGED THE HEADER,SO, IF YOU SEE THE ORIGINAL IN ANY LINK, PLEASE NOTE THAT IT SHOULD BE ‘NATIONAL PREVENTION, HEALTH PROMOTION AND PUBLIC HEALTH COUNCIL,’ NOT ‘NATIONAL HEALTH COUNCIL.’ APOLOGIES FOR THE CARELESS ERROR.
ORIGINAL POST
On June 10, 2010, while public attention was diverted toward the Gulf oil spill, Barack Obama passed an executive order mandating that all preventive health measure, even those outside government purview, be brought into alignment with science-based guidelines developed by the Centers for Drug Control and Prevention (CDC). This is in effect a way to bring in Codex Alimentarius, the globalist project to outlaw all alternative therapies, except those proposed by the government.
Per this order, you will no longer be able to take whatever herbs or pills you want.
The White House, Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release, June 10, 2010
EXECUTIVE ORDER -ESTABLISHING THE NATIONAL PREVENTION, HEALTH PROMOTION, AND PUBLIC HEALTH COUNCIL
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 4001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Establishment. There is established within the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council (Council).
Sec. 2. Membership.
(a) The Surgeon General shall serve as the Chair of the Council, which shall be composed of:
(1) the Secretary of Agriculture;
(2) the Secretary of Labor;
(3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services;
(4) the Secretary of Transportation;
(5) the Secretary of Education;
(6) the Secretary of Homeland Security;
(7) the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency;
(8) the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission;
(9) the Director of National Drug Control Policy;
(10) the Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council;
(11) the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs;
(12) the Chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service; and
(13) the head of any other executive department or agency that the Chair may, from time to time, determine is appropriate.
(b) The Council shall meet at the call of the Chair.
Sec. 3. Purposes and Duties. The Council shall:
(a) provide coordination and leadership at the Federal level, and among all executive departments and agencies, with respect to prevention, wellness, and health promotion practices, the public health system, and integrative health care in the United States;
(b) develop, after obtaining input from relevant stakeholders, a national prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care strategy that incorporates the most effective and achievable means of improving the health status of Americans and reducing the incidence of preventable illness and disability in the United States, as further described in section 5 of this order;
(c) provide recommendations to the President and the Congress concerning the most pressing health issues confronting the United States and changes in Federal policy to achieve national wellness, health promotion, and public health goals, including the reduction of tobacco use, sedentary behavior, and poor nutrition;
(d) consider and propose evidence-based models, policies, and innovative approaches for the promotion of transformative models of prevention, integrative health, and public health on individual and community levels across the United States;
(e) establish processes for continual public input, including input from State, regional, and local leadership communities and other relevant stakeholders, including Indian tribes and tribal organizations;
(f) submit the reports required by section 6 of this order; and
(g) carry out such other activities as are determined appropriate by the President.
Sec. 4. Advisory Group.
(a) There is established within the Department of Health and Human Services an Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health (Advisory Group), which shall report to the Chair of the Council.
(b) The Advisory Group shall be composed of not more than 25 members or representatives from outside the Federal Government appointed by the President and shall include a diverse group of licensed health professionals, including integrative health practitioners who are representative of or have expertise in:
(1) worksite health promotion;
(2) community services, including community health centers;
(3) preventive medicine;
(4) health coaching;
(5) public health education;
(6) geriatrics; and
(7) rehabilitation medicine.
(c) The Advisory Group shall develop policy and program recommendations and advise the Council on lifestyle-based chronic disease prevention and management, integrative health care practices, and health promotion.
Sec. 5. National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy. Not later than March 23, 2011, the Chair, in consultation with the Council, shall develop and make public a national prevention, health promotion, and public health strategy (national strategy), and shall review and revise it periodically. The national strategy shall:
(a) set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of the United States through federally supported prevention, health promotion, and public health programs, consistent with ongoing goal setting efforts conducted by specific agencies;
(b) establish specific and measurable actions and timelines to carry out the strategy, and determine accountability for meeting those timelines, within and across Federal departments and agencies; and
(c) make recommendations to improve Federal efforts relating to prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care practices to ensure that Federal efforts are consistent with available standards and evidence.
Sec. 6. Reports. Not later than July 1, 2010, and annually thereafter until January 1, 2015, the Council shall submit to the President and the relevant committees of the Congress, a report that:
(a) describes the activities and efforts on prevention, health promotion, and public health and activities to develop the national strategy conducted by the Council during the period for which the report is prepared;
(b) describes the national progress in meeting specific prevention, health promotion, and public health goals defined in the national strategy and further describes corrective actions recommended by the Council and actions taken by relevant agencies and organizations to meet these goals;
(c) contains a list of national priorities on health promotion and disease prevention to address lifestyle behavior modification (including smoking cessation, proper nutrition, appropriate exercise, mental health, behavioral health, substance-use disorder, and domestic violence screenings) and the prevention measures for the five leading disease killers in the United States;
(d) contains specific science-based initiatives to achieve the measurable goals of the Healthy People 2020 program of the Department of Health and Human Services regarding nutrition, exercise, and smoking cessation, and targeting the five leading disease killers in the United States;
(e) contains specific plans for consolidating Federal health programs and centers that exist to promote healthy behavior and reduce disease risk (including eliminating programs and offices determined to be ineffective in meeting the priority goals of the Healthy People 2020 program of the Department of Health and Human Services);
(f) contains specific plans to ensure that all Federal health-care programs are fully coordinated with science-based prevention recommendations by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and
(g) contains specific plans to ensure that all prevention programs outside the Department of Health and Human Services are based on the science-based guidelines developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under subsection (d) of this section.
Sec. 7. Administration.
(a) The Department of Health and Human Services shall provide funding and administrative support for the Council and the Advisory Group to the extent permitted by law and within existing appropriations.
(b) All executive departments and agencies shall provide information and assistance to the Council as the Chair may request for purposes of carrying out the Council’s functions, to the extent permitted by law.
(c) Members of the Advisory Group shall serve without compensation, but shall be allowed travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law for persons serving intermittently in Government service (5 U.S.C. 5701-5707), consistent with the availability of funds.
Sec. 8. General Provisions.
(a) Insofar as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C App.) may apply to the Advisory Group, any functions of the President under that Act, except that of reporting to the Congress, shall be performed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in accordance with the guidelines that have been issued by the Administrator of General Services.
(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(1) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(2) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 10, 2010
16 Burning Questions About The BP Oil Spill
From The Economic Collapse Blog, 16 burning questions about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico:
#1) Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used “as needed” by state governors. So what are all of these National Guard troops going to be doing exactly? Are the troops going to be used to stop the oil or to control the public?
Agenda 21 Alert: Cap & Trade’s Scoping Plan Will Crush Small Business
Cassandra Anderson at Freedom Advocates sounds the alert about the underhanded push for “sustainable development” - Agenda 21 - through ‘Cap and Trade”.
(By the way, we’re all for sustainable development as long as it’s voluntary and comes without the heavy hand of the kleptocracy. So too we’re all for caring for the environment, choosing your family size wisely, reusing resources, and cultivating modesty, restraint, and thrift as essential components of the supremely capitalist moral virtue of prudence. But we’re not for any of these things when they’re hustled through surreptitiously as part of an agenda of top-down control and expropriation of people’s wealth and work). (more…)
Ex-CIA Station Chief Admits Drugging & Molesting Algerian Woman
And all in the name of “intelligence” the tax-payer has to support this huge bureaucracy of underemployed, over-sexed meddlers..
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former CIA station chief in Algeria pleaded guilty on Monday to sex abuse stemming from a 2008 incident in Algiers and to cocaine use, the U.S. Justice Department said.
CEO Admits Google Street-View Cars Recorded “Millions” of Homeowners’ Wifi Data
The Telegraph (June 4, 2010) reports that Google, which had been caught earlier recording private wifi messages has just ‘fessed up to the seriousness of what it did:
“In an interview with the Financial Times, the search engine’s boss admitted the company could have gained access to the personal details of millions of unsuspecting internet users.
Google is currently at the centre of a global privacy storm after it admitted that its Street View cars had mistakenly collected information
David Icke, Canadian Speech Laws, and Subversion Through Mythology
(Update June 2):
I should clarify that I think that Icke actually misunderstands many of the concepts he repackages - especially relating to kundalini energy (snake energy). I don’t know if this misunderstanding is deliberate or not, never having read his writing to any great extent. (more…)
Barrick Gold Threatens Vancouver Publisher
CBC News in Canada reports that bankster-associated gold miner Barrick Gold is shutting down critical writing on the Canadian mining industry. (Thanks to Chris Cook).
An excerpt:
“The threat of legal action from mining giant Barrick Gold has forced Vancouver-based Talonbooks to postpone publication of a book about the Canadian mining industry.
Publisher Karl Siegler calls it a clear case of “libel chill” by one of Canada’s largest mining companies.
The book, Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries, was to be published in spring 2010, but in February, the publisher and everyone else involved with the book got a threatening letter from Barrick lawyers.
Feds: No Right To Drink Raw Milk
The Feds now claim the right to tell you what kind of food you can put in your mouth.
From World Net Daily:
“Attorneys for the federal government have argued in a lawsuit pending in federal court in Iowa that individuals have no “fundamental right” to obtain what food they choose.
The brief was filed April 26 in support of a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s ban on the interstate sale of raw milk.
Government Subsidies Are the Problem, Not Undocumented Workers
“Conservatives Should Support Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants,”
The Humble Libertarian, May 5, 2010
Think of it this way: as classical liberals, we understand that a bureaucrat in Washington could not possibly have enough information to correctly regulate the price or quantity of a good or service. This applies to labor markets, and immigration is essentially a function thereof. There’s no way Washington or the state of Arizona can know how much immigration we really need.
Google Slips Up Again
Few people realize that Google, the company whose motto famously announces, “Don’t Be Evil,” is at the top of lists of privacy offenders.
Earth To Government: No More False Flags
“Those who have studied history know that nothing invigorates and empowers an authoritarian regime more than a spectacular act of violence, some sudden and senseless loss of life that allows the autocrat to stand on the smoking rubble and identify himself as the hero. It is at moments like this that the public—still in shock from the horror of the tragedy that has just unfolded before them—can be led into the most ruthless despotism: despotism that now bears the mantle of “security.”
Tomas Schuman: Love Letter To America
Note:
Please note. Bezmenov was talking about Soviet society and propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s. That means his analysis of the general dynamics of propaganda has to be cautiously reconfigured, when it comes to specifics. The US and USSR he described then (prior to the 1980s) had clearly differentiated economic/political systems. In the 30 years that have passed since, the ideological convergence he mentions elsewhere, has in many ways occurred, or is in the process of occurring. [I describe this in much greater depth in "The Language of Empire."]
The USA hasn’t been free-market capitalist in any real way for some 20-30 years, at the very least. Instead, we’ve had ever-accelerating state intervention and crony capitalism that has turned into the final danse macabre of casino capitalism and pure plunder.
Thus the terms that Bezmenov uses in discussing the totalitarian communism of the Soviet system now actually apply to the US, albeit incompletely.
Bezmenov didn’t know, or perhaps chose not to express, since this was the country he defected to, that US propaganda and psyops were far more subtle, and thus in the long run more effective, than Soviet propaganda.
He also doesn’t acknowledge that at many levels “capitalist” and “communist” leaderships were/are symbiotic and that they have ultimately led to the globalized kleptocracy, in which the two ideological forms, while retaining different emphases, copulate and spawn the “third way” of corporatized politically-correct social democracy, which is the benign face of the corrupt neo-liberalism that has always been the power behind the throne of the multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF, EU, UN, and others…
There is no longer a west versus east polarity. The division is really between centralizers (neoliberal globalizers, central bankers) and decentralizers, in which, however, some of the decentralization is orchestrated to promote the globalizers’ agenda. One has to know the specifics of every situation. They can’t be understood ideologically.
Tomas Schuman Yuri Bezmenov-Love Letter to America
Ex-KGB Describes Psyops In The US
Update:
Bezmenov divides the stages of ideological subversion into four:
1. Demoralization (15 -20 yrs) 2. Destabilization 3. Crisis 4. Normalization
My speculation:
1. The 1960s - 1980s is the period of demoralization
2. 1990s - 2001 The fall of the Berlin Wall marks the acceleration of this into active destabilization of the US’s economy and foreign policy (the neo-conservative paper, “A Clean Break,” as well as proposals for “full-spectrum” dominance; Yugoslav and Iraq wars; the total financialization and electronification of the US capital markets, leading to the stock market bubble). This period is initiated by the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989 (11-9-1989) and George Bush’s statement about a “new world order” on September 11, 9-11-1990.
3. 2001 - 2008 Period that entails vast changes in the political and economic systems, following two crises - one, political, on 9-11 and another exactly 7 years later, economic, around 9-11 too.
We are now still in the period of crisis, which, in my opinion, will throw up further catalyzing “events’ of all kinds, whether occurring spontaneously in the realm of politics/economics/nature, or whether manufactured.
Note:
Bezmenov was talking about Soviet society and propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s. That means his analysis of the general dynamics of propaganda has to be cautiously reconfigured, when it comes to specifics. The US and USSR he was describing (prior to the 1980s) had clearly differentiated economic/political systems. In the 30 years that have passed since then, the ideological convergence he mentions elsewhere, has in many ways occurred or is in the process of occurring. [I describe this in much greater depth in "The Language of Empire."]
The USA hasn’t been free-market capitalist in any real way for some 20-30 years certainly, even longer. Instead, its experienced ever-accelerating state intervention/mercantilism and crony capitalism. Now that has turned into the final danse macabre of casino capitalism and pure plunder.
Thus the Bezmenovian analyis might plausibly be applied both to the actual situation in the US, as well as to the propaganda the US directs toward its enemies.
Bezmenov didn’t know, or perhaps chose not to voice (since this was the country he defected to), the fact that US propaganda and psyops have been subtler, and thus in the long run much more effective, than Soviet propaganda.
He also doesn’t acknowledge that at many levels “capitalist” and “communist” leaderships have become symbiotic and created a globalized kleptocracy in which the two ideological forms, while retaining different emphases, copulate and spawn a “third way.” This is the corporatized politically correct social democracy that increasingly seems to be the benign face of corrupt neo-liberalism, which is the power behind the throne of the multilateral institutions - the World Bank, IMF, EU, UN, and others.
ORIGINAL POST
March 07, 2009 — Yuri Bezmenov 1983 Soviet subversion of Western Society
Yuri Bezmenov, a.k.a. Tomas Schuman, soviet KGB defector, explains in detail his scheme for the KGB process of subversion and takeover of target societies at a lecture in Los Angeles, 1983.
Yuri Alexandrovitch Bezmenov is a former KGB propagandist who was assigned to New Dehli, India, defected to the West in 1970, and was interviewed by Edward Griffin in 1985. Bezmenov explains his background, some of his training, and exactly how Soviet propaganda is spread in other countries in order to subvert their teachers, politicians, and other policy makers to a mindset receptive to the Soviet ideology.He also explains in detail the goal of Soviet propaganda as total subversion of another country and the 4 step formula for achieving this goal. He recalls the details of how he escaped India, defected to the West, and settled in Montreal as an announcer for the CBC.
Note: As I said before about the wikileaks video, the notion that you need to ferret out secret documents, hack computers, or conduct spy v spy ops to understand what’s going on is simply romantic myth. 85% of KGB intelligence ops in the US, according to Schuman, is about ideological subversion or aggressive propaganda, which is intended to demoralize the population so that even when presented with all possible information it’s unable to draw common sense conclusions, protect its own self-interest, or act rationally. Even when confronted with evidence of war atrocities, such as those on the video, people will simply reframe the facts to fit their ideological predisposition.
Morocco Tortures Sahrawi Activists
Morocco Uses Torture To Silence Sahrawi Activists:
“The Saharawi hunger strikers
Six of the Salé-imprisoned ‘Casablanca 7’ began their hunger strikes from 18 March 2010 in protest of their indefinite imprisonment and lack of clear charges. These are Ali Salem Tamek, Brahim Dahane, Yehdih Ettarrouzi, Ahmed Naciri, Saleh Labaihi and Rachid Sghayer.
The hunger strikers issued this statement on 18 March:
‘Our detention has been condemned by governments and parliaments around the world as well as human rights organisations, trade unions and civil society groups. We are being persecuted for exercising our right to express political opinion and engage in legitimate activities to protect the human the rights of our people. In protest at our detention we are today beginning an open hunger strike in order to expedite our claim to a fair trial and our release without condition. We call on democratic forces in the world to support our fight for our release and that of all Saharawi political prisoners held in Moroccan jails.’
Another 19 hunger strikers are in Tiznit prison and their hungerstrikes started from 20 March. These are Moustapha Abd-Dayem, Hreish Hassan, Mohamed Berkaoui, Bachir Isamïli, Mohamed Taghioullah Fekallah, Brahim Khalil Meghimiah, Khalihenna Abouhassan, Moulay Ali Bouamoud, Fadli Binhau, Mahmud Aboughassem, Sheiahu Hamza, Fathi Sid Ahmed, Daihani Abdallah, Mohamed Salami, Sawakh Djamal, Mahdjub Ailal, Hassan Mohamed Lehassen, Nourdinne Taher, Lehmam Salama.
And there are a further 3 hunger strikers in Boulmharez prison in Marrakech (El Waaban Said, Brahim Bariaz, Ali Salem Ablag), 3 in Layouune prison4 (Bachri Bentaleb, Ameidan Chej and Mohamed Berkan), 2 in Taroudant prison (Louali Amaidan and Jalad Hasan), 2 in Kenitra prison (Laaseiri Salec and Amaidan Saleh) and 1 in Bensliman prison (Hasan Abdelahi).5
Detailed medical information from the hunger strike monitoring groups draw attention to the dangerous symptoms the prisoners are experiencing at this stage of 29 days. These are listed variously among the prisoners as loss of consciousness, fatigue, migraines, asthma, acute cardiac and intestinal pain, asthma, vomiting and diarrhoea. Blood pressure and sugar levels are reported as decreasing alarmingly, with growing kidney, liver and gallbladder complications.6
The Saharawi Lawyers Association has also reported cases of neglect by Moroccan prison administrations, lack of proper medical assistance from prison clinics and staff, and Saharawi prisoner Hassan Abdullah in Bin Sliman is said to have been severely beaten by Moroccan prisoners at the incitement of prison staff.”
More here at Free Sahara.
Video Of Police Raid Of NY Anarchist Film Fest
NBC News had this on April 14, 2010:
“The cops raided an Independent Anarchist Media Collective space at 13 Thames Art Space in Brooklyn and arrested two group members Tuesday.
According to the “I AM Collective” statement, the NYPD entered the Bushwick based art and performance space without a warrant.
“Two plainclothes detectives entered first, followed quickly by a Lieutenant and vans full of blue shirt officers,” the statement reads. “After corralling everyone present in the back room, they searched the space and detained two members of the collective.”Anarchist News.org describes the event that was slated to run today, April 16:
“The I AM collective was preparing for the NYC Anarchist Film Festival, a showcase of resistance movements and insurrectionary events from around the world presented from an anarchist and anti-authoritarian perspective.”
Amnesty International Says Repression Of Migrant Workers In Malaysia Must Stop
Malaysia has been promoted as a good destination for international travelers, retirees, and job seekers in Asia. But it’s also had serious and persistent problems with discrimination, not only in housing, education and work, but in working conditions for immigrants. This seems to be an endemic problem with Malaysia’s foreign manual laborers, who suffer conditions similar to those experienced by Asian workers (skilled and unskilled) in Dubai and other Middle Eastern countries:
“A report released by Amnesty International on Wednesday urged Malaysia to end migrant abuse and reform labour laws in order to better protect foreigners working in the country. The rights group said that many migrant workers are being forced to work long hours in harsh conditions and are subject to rape, abuse and unpaid labour. The rights group says these conditions amount to little short of ‘bonded labour’, adding that laws that allow employers to hold workers’ passports prevented them from leaving abusive workplaces for fear of arrest.
The report entitled ‘Trapped: The Exploitation of Migrant Workers in Malaysia’ accuses the Malaysian authorities of extortion, exploitation, arbitrary arrest and facilitating human trafficking of migrant workers through ‘loose regulation of recruitment agents and through laws and policies that fail to protect workers.’ More than 200 migrant workers, both legal and illegal, were interviewed for the compilation of the report. Amnesty has called on the Malaysian government to investigate abuses in the workplace and by police. Migrant workers constitute more than a fifth of the Malaysia’s work force.”
At a 10,000 man protest in 2007 by Hindu Malays over discrimination in favor of native-born Muslim Malays (bhumiputras), a Hindraf (Hindu rights action force) spokesman said:
“They [Malaysian Indians] are frustrated and have no job opportunities in the government or the private sector. They are not given business licenses or places in university.” (Reuters, November 25, 2007)
The Indians were also incensed by demolitions of Hindu temples at the time.
Last year (Sept, 2009), the government decided to ban the use of English in teaching math and physics to students, a practice introduced by former Prime Minister Mahathir in 2003 as essential to Malaysia’s competitiveness as a destination for foreign businesses. The reason given for the ban, which will take effect in 2012, is the poor performance of the students in those subjects and the deterioration in English language skills, but some consider the real reason to be intense lobbying against English by Malay nationalists.
Native Malays continue to be Muslim by force. Take the famous case of Azlina Jailani who at 26 converted to Christianity and changed her name to Lina Joy. Under Malay law she’s still a Muslim, since Malay Muslims are forbidden from converting. She’s been fighting in the courts since 1999 to become a Christian legally.
“Every Malaysian citizen over the age of 12 must carry an identification card, called a MyKad, which states the bearer’s religion. In 1999, Joy, a sales assistant, succeeded in getting officials to change her name on the card. Although she said she had been baptized in 1998, she was not able to have the word Islam removed from the card. Her fight to do that is what got her to Federal Court.
It is not possible to be an ethnic Malay in Malaysia without being a Muslim. Apostasy or conversion is a punishable offence in most states in Malaysia, either with a fine, a jail sentence or both. Muslims, most of them ethnic Malays, make up 60 percent of Malaysia’s population and dominate public institutions in an uneasy balance that has remained touchy since anti-Chinese race riots in 1969 that are presumed to have killed hundreds on either side of the ethnic divide. Some 25 percent of Malaysians are ethnic Chinese, followed by Indians with about 11 percent. Indigenous peoples and non-citizens make up the rest.”
(Asia Sentinel, 27th April, 2007)
Joy’s case was finally dismissed in May 2007 and the Federal court ruled that only the Shariya court could remove Joy’s identification as a Muslim on her national ID card.
This is “secular” Malaysia.
And meanwhile, statists in the Anglophone world continue to labor under the delusion that a national ID card is somehow in the interests of the citizenry and intended to protect them from harm.
As the case of Malaysia shows, ID cards are always about control of the population.
UK Foreign Office Warning to Travelers About Israeli Passport Forgery
I didn’t have time to complete this post from a week ago, but with the really bizarre story of the Polish plane, I thought I should revisit it, as is:
At the end of March, Haaretz (March 31) reported that the British Foreign Office issued a travel advisory last week to citizens traveling to Israel and Palestine, “hours” after it decided to expel an Israeli diplomat.
“The risk applies in particular to passports without biometric security features,” the warning on the [UK foreign office] Web site said. “We recommend that you only hand your passport over to third parties including Israeli officials when absolutely necessary.”
This follows confirmation last week that killers of a Hamas operative in Dubai used forged passports from multiple countries, including the UK, Australia, France, Ireland, and Germany.
An editor at the Guardian notes that this is the lowest point in Anglo-Israeli relations since 1988, when an Israeli diplomat was expelled for being an agent of the Mossad.
Current relations with Israel are already strained, because senior Israeli officials visiting the UK have been threatened with arrest for alleged war crimes.
[Note:
The Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in January in a hit that Dubai police have said they are 99 percent certain was the work of Israel's spy service, Mossad. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied this.
Dubai has named 27 alleged conspirators in the pursuit and killing of the Palestinian, and has claimed that they used fraudulent British, Irish, French, German and Australian passports to enter and depart from Dubai. More than half of the people identified share the names of foreign-born Israeli nationals].
Earlier, UK foreign secretary David Miliband had said there were “compelling reasons” to believe Israel was responsible and had called the use of 12 forged British passports “intolerable,” according to an earlier report by the BBC (March 23).
Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, confirmed there would be no diplomatic retaliation, but expressed disappointment at Miliband’s decision. Israel has previously said there is no proof it was behind the killing at a Dubai hotel.
Israel claims the Australians are also going to follow suit, says this report:
“Official Israeli sources told The Australian newspaper that there is a high chance that Australia will follow Britain’s lead and also expel a high ranking Israeli diplomat. “It appears that Israeli officials have received indications in Canberra that Australia is preparing to expel a diplomat,” it said in the newspaper.”
Meanwhile, according to The Australian (March 31) ECAJ president Robert Goot told The Australian: “I think it would be an extreme reaction or possibly an overreaction (to expel an Israeli diplomat). The Jewish community would hope the Australian government might adopt a more nuanced position, depending on the outcome of the (Australian Federal Police) investigation.”
That’s not likely, now that former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky has told ABC Radio that the spy agency had used Australian passports for previous operations before last month’s hit on a top Hamas commander in Dubai that has been blamed on Israel. (see the Sydney Morning Herald (Feb 26, 2010)
Israel has previously dismissed claims from Ostrovsky, who has detailed various accusations against the country in his books. He said Mossad prefers to use “false flag” passports, as Israeli papers frequently invoke suspicion in the Middle East.
“They need passports because you can’t go around with an Israeli passport, not even a forged one, and get away or get involved with people from the Arab world,” he said.
“So most of these (Mossad) operations are carried out on what’s called false flag, which means you pretend to be of another country which is less belligerent to those countries that you’re trying to recruit from.”
Ostrovsky said Mossad had a “very, very expensive research department” dedicated to manufacturing the fake documents which simulates different types of paper and ink.
The Australian newspaper also said Ali Kazak, a former Palestinian representative to Australia, had warned in 2004 that a Mossad agent in Sydney had obtained 25 false Australian passports.
According to The Age (Feb 26, 2010), in Dec 2004, a second secretary in the Israeli embassy in Canberra was recalled because he was suspected of ties to passport fraud in New Zealand, where in March 2004 two suspected Mossad agents were convicted for fraudulently trying to get local passports. The New Zealand case eventually led to the downgrading of diplomatic ties and the canceling of Israeli PM Moshe Katsav’s visit.
The same report notes that Mossad used forged Canadian passports in 1997 in a bungled plot to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal.
Then, as now, the Israeli prime minister, who has to approve all assassination attempts, was Benjamin Netanyahu.
King World News Reports DNS Attack Following Post On CFTC Whistleblower
GATA reports attacks on friendly sites:
“Eric King told GATA today, “We are on one of the top grid server systems in the world, where traffic is not an issue, and this has never happened before. This was a case of an entity needing to silence the messenger.”
No Internet site has given as much voice to GATA and other pro-gold and free-market advocates as King World News has, so given the scope of the attack on the the King World News Internet site, it is hard not be awfully suspicious about it.
King’s interview with Murphy, Douglas, and your secretary/treasurer can be found here:
http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/3/31_G…
Meanwhile, GATA’s friend Trace Mayer, proprietor of RunToGold.com, reports that his March 28 commentary on last week’s hearing of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission –
http://www.runtogold.com/2010/03/cftc-gold-and-silver-hearing-is-old-new…
– was followed by a similarly massive attack on RunToGold’s Internet server. “To handle spikes in traffic,” Mayer says, “I am on an expensive enterprise-level cloud server with a company that handles hosting for some of the big dogs, like Sony and Toyota, and my server got hammered. The site was down for 2 1/2 hours, from about noon to 2:30p PT on March 30. There were no issues with my hosting provider and it appears we have everything under control now. I have never had an issue like this before. Anyway, it looks like we have someone’s attention. Keep yanking on that tail.”
My Comment:
You see. This isn’t paranoia. In the past, following certain sorts of posts, I’ve experienced peculiar things too. Sometimes, the blog feels like it’s been hacked. Or my email suddenly doesn’t work. Or I get nasty comments from what sounds like the same person, only writing from different IP’s. Or I get flooded with spam from porn sites (more than the usual quota, I mean).
You tend to dismiss these things as coincidental. But after a couple of years of noticing when they happen, you start realizing that someone doesn’t like what you’re saying.
And if that’s true of my little blog, it’s going to be doubly so for bigger venues.
Aldous Huxley On How “Scientific Dictatorships” Induce Compliance
Aldous Huxley, novelist and social critic, gave a talk at the University of Berkeley on the dictatorship he saw in the future of the United States, a “scientific” dictatorship, he termed it. In it, control would be maintained by narcotizing the population with conveniences, entertainment, consumerism, and drugs. Ultimately, compliance would become pleasurable..
‘Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows.”
(Huxley, The Ultimate Revolution, University of Berkeley, March 20, 1962)
Europol Now Official Police Agent of EU
The New American (hat-tip to Michael Rozeff)
“According to the terms of its new status as the “official” criminal intelligence-gathering branch of the EU government, “Europol now benefits from increased powers to collect criminal information and a wider field of competence in supporting investigations.” Among these increased powers is the power to access the voluminous personal data stored on the computers of Scotland Yard if agents suspect a person may be participating in a “preparatory” act that may lead to criminal behavior.
As has been reported in The New American, the database of information compiled and stored by the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown is the most extensive in any developed nation. The database was established in 1995 and is the world’s largest. It contains the DNA material of over five million Britons, a figure that represents 8 percent of the population of England and Wales. The recording system was initially developed, ostensibly, to aid the police in the investigation of crime scenes and function as a “vital crime-fighting tool” in tracking down elusive offenders.
Now, every byte of that very personal information is available to Europol, without regard for the national laws of the United Kingdom. The relevant data to which Europol now has unfettered access includes political affiliation, routine, places frequented, DNA, tax obligations, voiceprints, and sexual preference. In fine, everything stored on those massive mainframes is now firmly within the province of distant Europol investigators.
The standard for granting Europol access to the personal data of Britons is much different from that governing their own national law enforcement. According to terms of Title VI of the Maastricht Treaty, the Europol Convention, and the new directives, a mere suspicion of likely criminal behavior in the following vague areas will trigger Europol investigation: racism, environmental crime, xenophobia, computer fraud, and crimes against the environment.
You read that correctly, Europol can now extract “behavioral data” on any citizen of any member state that it suspects — rightly or wrongly — is likely participating in any of the above listed “serious crimes.”
Barack Obama: The Case For Impeachment
David Lindorff lays out the grounds for impeaching President Obama:
Let’s start with the war in Afghanistan, which Obama has taken full ownership of with an escalation that will bring the number of US troops in that country (not counting mercenaries hired by the Pentagon and CIA) to 100,000 by this August.
The president has authorized the use of Predator drone aircraft for a program of bombing conducted against Pakistan which has illegally expanded the Afghan War into another country without any authorization from Congress. These pilotless drones are known to kill far more innocent bystanders than enemy targets, making them fundamentally illegal on principle as weapons. Furthermore, this wave of attacks in Pakistan is a war of aggression against another nation if the word “war” is to have any meaning at all, and as such it is illegal under the UN Charter. Indeed initiating a war of aggression against a country which does not pose an immediate threat to the invader is described in the Charter and in the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter as the gravest of all war crimes.
The president, as commander in chief, has also, in collusion with Attorney Eric Holder, blocked any prosecution of those who authorized and perpetrated torture against captives in the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, and the so-called War on Terror–notably Federal Appeals Court Judge Jay Baybee, and Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo, who as Justice Department attorneys authored the legal briefs justifying torture– and has in fact continued to permit the application of torture against captives. All of this is in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, which as a signed set of treaties, are part of the law of the United States. Under those treaties, failure on the part of those up the chain of command to halt or to punish those who commit torture are themselves guilty of the crime of torture.
As commander in chief, President Obama has also overseen a strategy in Afghanistan of expanded attacks on civilians in Afghanistan. As in Iraq under the Bush administration, this current phase of the war in Afghanistan is seeing more civilians killed than enemy combatants, because of the widespread use of weapons like helicopter gunships, aerial bombardment, fragmentation bombs, etc., as well as a tactic of night raids on housing compounds where insurgents are suspected of hiding–raids that frequently lead to the deaths of many women and children and innocent men. It is significant that even the recent execution-style slaying of nine students, aged 11-18, by US-led forces, has not led to an investigation or prosecution of a individual. Rather, the incident is being covered up and ignored, with the clear acquiescence of the White House and the leadership at the Pentagon.
It is also widely believed that under the command of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is known to have directed a large-scale death-squad operation in Iraq before moving to his current position, a similar death-squad campaign of assassination is being conducted now in Afghanistan--a campaign that like the notorious Phoenix Program in the 1960s in Vietnam, is almost certainly resulting in the deaths of many innocent Afghans.
Domestically, the president has continued to allow the policy of detention without trial of hundreds of captives in Guantanamo Bay and other prisons, including Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and his director of national security has even stated that it is the policy of this administration that American citizens deemed by the administration to be enemy combatants or terrorists may be targeted for summary execution. Such officially sanctioned state murder is a blatant violation of the Constitution’s insistence that every American has a right to a presumption of innocence and to a trial by a jury of his or her peers.
The president has also continued and in some ways even expanded the Bush/Cheney administration’s program of warrantless spying by the National Security Agency on the electronic communications of millions of Americans. A part of that program, the monitoring of communications of a now defunct Islamic charity, was just declared illegal by a federal judge in a case that was brought against the Bush/Cheney administration, but which continued to be defended by the current administration. There has not been a decision as yet by the Obama administration about whether to appeal that decision. While the case in question does not represent a crime by the Obama administration, it is clear that it only represents the very tip of the huge iceberg of domestic spying, and the administration’s vigorous efforts to shut down this case or to win it are clear evidence that the NSA is continuing to do the same thing on a vast scale. In fact, the only reason this case even got to trial is because of a government error that resulted in a memo describing the monitoring being mailed inadvertently to the victims of the spying.
While we’re at it, I would also suggest that there is ample evidence to call for the impeachment of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who appears, as head of the New York Federal Reserve, to have colluded in an effort to cover up a massive fraud at Lehman Brothers, and who has subsequently as Treasurer, participated in unprecedented giveaways of taxpayer funds to several of the country’s largest banking institutions.
The above enumeration of criminal and Constitutional transgressions makes it clear that this president, like his predecessor, has, almost since his first day in office, continued down a road of criminal and unconstitutional behavior that threatens the survival of Constitutional government in the United States.
Let me state it simply: President Barack Obama, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Treasury Secretary Geithner, should be impeached for war crimes and high crimes against the Constitution.”
Ron Paul: Fight Draconian Biometric ID In US
A message from Ron Paul and the Campaign for Liberty:
“This is getting to be like a bad movie. You know the ones where the villain, dead and buried more times than you can count, somehow mysteriously reappears in a place you don’t expect him? Well, here comes… a new fight over a biometric national ID card — and if you don’t have the card, you can’t work.
Right now, freedom-stealing statists Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), banding together with other statists from both parties, are scheming to sneak a massive power grab into a new “immigration reform” bill.
This bill is a statist’s dream — “amnesty” for illegal immigrants and a biometric ID card for virtually everyone else.
That’s right. Instead of controlling the border and enforcing the rule of law, these statists want to control you.
That’s why it’s vital you sign the petitions to your Senators IMMEDIATELY. http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3
You see, a National ID scheme — complete with biometric tracking technology — is embedded in the new “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” being pushed by Senators Graham and Schumer, as well as other Big Government members from both parties.
And if passed, the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” would require a new National ID card that would:
*** Include biometric identification information, such as fingerprints, retinal scans or scans of veins on the back of hands. Depending on the technology used, the ID card could easily
be used as a tracking device;*** Be required for all U.S. workers regardless of place of birth, and make it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the United States who doesn’t obtain the ID card;
*** Require all employers to purchase an “ID scanner” to verify the ID cards with the federal government. Every time any citizen applies for a job, the government would know -- and you can bet it’s only a matter of time until “ID scans” will be required to
make even routine purchases, as well.Of course, the most dangerous part of the bill is the biometric tracking technology which would allow federal bureaucrats to track our every move.
Allowing our government to have this much “prying power” in our lives will ultimately result in the TOTAL loss of freedom.
This is exactly the type of battle that often decides whether a country remains free, or continues down a slide toward tyranny.
Government goon squads with all our personal information — information they do not need and constitutionally should not have — is a recipe for disaster for our nation.
You see, once “well-meaning” government bureaucrats know exactly how we live our lives, it won’t be long until they try to run them.
In fact, it will only be a matter of time until they spend their workdays making sure you and I don’t go anywhere we “shouldn’t,” buy anything we “shouldn’t,” read anything we “shouldn’t,” eat
anything we “shouldn’t” or smoke anything we “shouldn’t.”You see, this fight isn’t really about immigration. Whatever you think of that fight, it’s simply being used as cover.
If there is good news in this fight, thanks to the help of grassroots citizens like you, it’s that we’ve been able to render the Big Government politicians’ REAL ID nearly toothless in more than two dozen states.
Now, the statists are growing nervous. They know Americans are FED UP with their mad rush to take over our health care system, expand Federal Reserve power and regulate and control every aspect of our lives.
We’re FED UP with trillion dollar deficits. We’re SICK AND TIRED of radical schemes like Cap and Tax.
We’re done with their out of control spending on foreign affairs and nation building all over the globe.
They also see that our anger is producing results. Many of their schemes are failing.Rallies are growing in strength. Candidates are rising up in state after state to say “Enough!”
So the statists are trying a bipartisan “backdoor” scheme to impose more control on American citizens.
They’re hoping that after months of Big Media mouthpieces decrying the “poisonous and partisan politics” in Washington, the American people will jump for joy at the sight of a Democrat from
liberal New York and a Republican from conservative South Carolina “working together to solve our immigration mess.”Well, you and I know better. After all, liberty activists can hardly find two Senators with
bigger vendettas against the liberty movement than Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator Graham himself has very publicly denounced the limited government R3VOLUTION launched by Dr. Ron Paul. He’s stated that we’re not welcome in HIS party. And now, he’s proving why the one who should not be welcome in any party that values freedom is LINDSEY GRAHAM.
That’s why it’s up to you and me to FIGHT back.Unfortunately, the only way to DEFEAT a new National ID card is to contact Americans from coast-to-coast and explain EXACTLY what’s at stake.
They’re not going to get the real story from the media. It’s up to you and me to reach them.
Already, I’ve prepared email blasts, blog posts and other internet activities to alert liberty-loving Americans to the National ID scheme included in the new “Comprehensive Immigration
Reform Bill.”But that’s not all. Campaign for Liberty staff tells me if I pull out all the stops, there’s an additional twelve million folks I can reach through our mail and phone programs. And finally, if I can raise the resources, I’d also like to run hard-hitting newspaper, radio and TV ads in New York and South
Carolina, explaining to the citizens of those states exactly what Senators Schumer and Graham are up to.With all the battles we’ve faced over the past several months to save AUDIT THE FED and stop ObamaCare, I simply don’t have the resources to do everything. So please sign the petition and chip in with a quick contribution of $5, $10 or even $25 IMMEDIATELY!
http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3
You see, this isn’t a fight we can afford to lose. Passage of the National ID card would virtually guarantee the last vestiges of freedom we enjoy as Americans would be seriously
jeopardized.And if you and I don’t defeat it, who will? There is already a strong, “bipartisan coalition” developing,
and the American people barely know what’s going on.So I have to ask you — in addition to your signed petition — can I count on you to help out with a $5 or more donation?
http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3Sincerely,
John F. Tate
President
P.S. Embedded in Senators Lindsey Graham’s and Chuck Schumer’s “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” is the groundwork for a National ID card — complete with biometric tracking technology
– for everyone with a job in America. If passed, it would require every American to obtain the card to
work legally in the U.S. — and you can bet it will only be a matter of time until they’re required even for simple purchases.So please sign the petition and help out with a quick contribution of $5, $10, $25 or whatever you can afford right away.
http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/4099816:6090536223:m:3:187725201:99DF108C4BE0121D524C70E176DF1CFF
India Begins First Biometric Census
India launches the first biometric census today, reports the BBC.
“India is launching a new census in which every person aged over 15 will be photographed and fingerprinted to create a biometric national database. The government will then use the information to issue identity cards.
Officials will spend a year classifying India’s population of around 1.2 billion people according to gender, religion, occupation and education. The exercise, conducted every 10 years, faces big challenges, not least India’s vast area and diversity of cultures.
Census officials must also contend with high levels of illiteracy and millions of homeless people - as well as insurgencies by Maoists and other rebels which have left large parts of the country unsafe.
President Pratibha Patil was the first person to be listed, and appealed to fellow Indians to follow her example “for the good of the nation”. “Everyone must participate and make it successful,” she said in Delhi.‘Unstoppable’
This is India’s 15th census and the first time a biometric element has been included.”If only it were an April Fool’s prank. Unfortunately, it’s the real thing.
The master mind behind it is Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of IT outsourcing giant Infosys, hero of the Gideon’s Bible of globalization, Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat” (a book I confess I’ve given a small thrashing to), and the man who coined the irritating meme in the first place.
As this Times article points out, less than 7% of the Indian population of over a billion (that is, around 75 million) pays income taxes. There’s also rampant corruption, a thriving black market, endless bureaucracy, and documentation requirements that make cross-state travel a time-consuming burden.
The ID is supposed to end all that. What it will begin, we can only guess.
As we blogged a while back, even the UK, the Anglophone world’s police-state petri dish, crammed to the gills with CCTV and traffic cameras, managed to squash this frightening initiative when it was introduced there.
Unfortunately, Europe has taken to it, with Germany, France, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Spain among the 100 countries that use compulsory national identity cards.
But India, it need hardly be said, is not Europe. Besides the civil liberties dangers, the costs are heavy. In the UK, they were estimated to have been between 10-20 billion pounds. In India, they are said to be around 3 billion pounds (other figures I’ve seen are $6.6 billion and 300 billion rupees), an enormous burden on the public treasury. And the number is only an estimate, which, like all government estimates of future costs, is almost 100% certain to be over optimistic.
The other major mandate that Nilekani claims is that the new ID will help bring services and subsidies to the poor and prevent their theft or loss. This would be more reassuring if Nilekani didn’t count among former clients of Infosys such experts at combining doing good with doing well as Goldman Sachs.
The Times article describes the card thus:
“A computer chip in each card will contain personal data and proof of identity, such as fingerprint or iris scans. Criminal records and credit histories may also be included.
Mr Nilekani, who left Infosys, the outsourcing giant that he co-founded, to take up his new job, wants the cards to be linked to a “ubiquitous online database” accessible from anywhere.”
Nilekani is head of the newly-created Unique Identification Database Authority of India (IDAI) and he has received 19 bids for its first project from vendors including Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL, IBM, and his own company, Infosys.
For every rupee of IT spending on the project, industry experts estimate, around 60 per cent of this will go to hardware vendors (see Biometrics4You)
Update:
Biometrics4You lists other aspects of the initiative:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI - the central bank of India) has announced plans to roll out new guidelines to help financial institutions use biometrics at ATMs in rural areas without access to banking. The Orwellian term for this is un-banked or under banked...as though there were some optimal level of banking every square foot of the earth should have.
Hitler’s National Security Courts…and Ours..
Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation notes that when people ask for a national security court in the US, they are unwittingly following in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler:
“Hitler established the People’s Court after the terrorist bombing of the German parliament building, the Reichstag. After a trial in a regularly constituted German court, many of the people charged with that terrorist act were acquitted, which, needless to say, outraged Hitler as much as it would have outraged current U.S. proponents of a national security court. After all, Hitler argued, those people who were acquitted were terrorists — otherwise they wouldn’t have been charged and prosecuted — and, therefore, they deserved to be convicted and punished, not acquitted and released.
To ensure that terrorists and other criminals were never again acquitted, Hitler established the People’s Court. Like the national security court that some Americans are now advocating for the United States, the purpose of the court was to create the appearance of justice while ensuring that terrorists and other criminals were convicted and punished.
Proceedings before the People’s Court would easily serve as a model for U.S. advocates of a national security. The trial of Hans and Sophie Scholl was over in less than an hour. Criminal defense lawyers were expected to remain silent during the proceedings, and did so. Defendants were presumed guilty and treated as such. Hearsay was permitted, as was evidence acquired by torture. There was no due process of law. Confessions could be coerced out of defendants. The judges on the tribunal would berate, humiliate, convict, and then swiftly issue sentences, including the death penalty.”
Hornberger points out that Hitler’s regime also included all those kinds of welfare programs that are admired today in America (public schooling, social security, national health care, public-private partnerships, the military industrial complex, the Interstate highway).
Hornberger doesn’t make the point explicitly, but the two things - popular acceptance of gross violations of law and morality and the rapid expansion of the welfare state - go together. Bluntly, people “sell” their consciences because of the advantages dangled before them.
In “Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State,” respected historian of the Third Reich, Goetz Aly of the Fritz Bauer Institut in Frankfurt, suggests that the Nazis had German popular support all through their “final solution” - not because of wide-spread terror or wide-spread anti-Semitism, but because they’d bribed the population with a generous welfare state and “bennies.”
The Draconian Senate Bill 3081…
Another terrifying piece of legislation is in the works. The Senate Bill 3081, “Enemy Belligerent Detention, Interrogation, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” has been introduced by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), says Gary Barnett at Lew Rockwell.
“Sec. 2. Placement of Suspected Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents in Military Custody.
- MILITARY CUSTODY REQUIREMENT.?Whenever within the United States, its territories, and possessions, or outside the territorial limits of the United States, an individual is captured or otherwise comes into the custody or under the effective control of the United States who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism, or by other means in violation of the laws of war, or of purposely and materially supporting such hostilities, and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, the individual shall be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status in accordance with the provisions of this Act. (all emphasis mine)
In addition, any individual initially captured or who in any manner comes under effective control of the U.S., may be held, interrogated, or transported by any U.S. intelligence agency and placed into military custody. With the establishment of “Interrogation Groups,” which is authorized by this Act, and composed of personnel in the Executive Branch, each person captured or held may be designated as a “High-Value Detainee.” One of the criteria for determining if one is to be designated as “high value,” should the obvious ones fail is: “Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.” This is of course so broad in nature that virtually anyone can be detained if deemed necessary by just one man’s authority. Any individual who is suspected of being an unprivileged enemy belligerent will not be provided Miranda or otherwise be informed of any rights. In addition, they “may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities.” Given that the so-called “War on Terror” may never have an end; this by design, you can see how horrendous this legislation truly is. Add to this other legislation that is already in place, and the probability that with any civil unrest or natural disaster Martial Law could now be not only implemented but “legally” administered; there is a very real and dangerous risk to any of us who won’t submit fully to the state.”
Chinese Electronic Espionage Leads To UK Office of Cyber Security…
The Times Online reported in January that the UK’s MI5 was battling devious Chinese attempts to entrap UK businessmen, with electronic bugging devices….and sexual “honey traps”. (Not as imaginative as the CIA’s “acoustic kitty,“ but probably more effective):
“A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of “gifts” and “lavish hospitality”.
The gifts — cameras and memory sticks — have been found to contain electronic Trojan bugs which provide the Chinese with remote access to users’ computers.
MI5 says the Chinese government “represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the UK” because of its use of these methods, as well as widespread electronic hacking.
Written by MI5’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, the 14-page “restricted” report describes how China has attacked UK defence, energy, communications and manufacturing companies in a concerted hacking campaign.
It claims China has also gone much further, targeting the computer networks and email accounts of public relations companies and international law firms. “Any UK company might be at risk if it holds information which would benefit the Chinese,” the report says.
The explicit nature of the MI5 warning is likely to strain diplomatic ties between London and Beijing. Relations between the two countries were damaged last month after China’s decision to execute a mentally ill British man for alleged drug trafficking.
Earlier this month the United States demanded that China investigate a sophisticated hacking attack on Google and a further 30 American companies from Chinese soil.
China has occasionally attempted sexual entrapment to target senior British political figures. Two years ago an aide to Gordon Brown had his BlackBerry phone stolen after being picked up by a Chinese woman who had approached him in a Shanghai hotel disco.”
So now you know better than to fraternize too cozily at a Chinese trade event.
The 14-page “restricted” report by MI5 Director General, Jonathan Evans, lists attacks on UK defense, energy, communications and manufacturing companies and is the latest and most explicit warning from UK authorities on Chinese espionage. It was sent to hundreds of business leaders in 2009.
Evans’ lobbying led to the creation of the Office of Cyber Security (due to open in March 2010).
The UK only follows the US on this. As far back as June 2009, Barack Obama announced the need for a new official position to oversee cybersecurity in the US, a move applauded by some in the IT community, like McAfee’s Director of Threat Intelligence, Phyllis Schneck, but criticized by others, like Wayne Crews, VP at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who argued that attempts to collectivize and centralize information technology risks were liable to crowd out private enterprise solutions.
The Cat They Sent Out Into The Cold…
The more you dig into the history of the CIA’s covert programs, the more it resembles not so much a fast-paced who-dunnit as a low-rent why-ever-did-they-do-it. Only it wasn’t low rent. A hefty wad of tax-payer money subsidized such expensive follies as Project Acoustic Kitty, in which the agency’s whizzes tried to turn man’s favorite feline into a wired-up bot that would snoop on conversations in back-alleys:
“Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer, told The Telegraph that Project Acoustic Kitty was a gruesome creation. He said: “They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that.”
Mr Marchetti said that the first live trial was an expensive disaster. The technology is thought to have cost more than £10 million. He said: “They took it out to a park and put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over. There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead.”
The document, which was one of 40 to be declassified from the CIA’s closely guarded Science and Technology Directorate - where spying techniques are refined - is still partly censored. This implies that the CIA was embarrassed about disclosing all the details of Acoustic Kitty, which took five years to design.
Dr Richelson, who is the a senior fellow at the National Security Archive in Washington, said of the document: “I’m not sure for how long after the operation the cat would have survived even if it hadn’t been run over.”
From “CIA Recruited Cat To Bug Russians,” The Telegraph, November, 2001
Policing Wall Street…
From Black Star News:
“In the 1980s there was one great stock fraud, which captured the imagination of the American public. That stock fraud involved a chain of electronics stores, which went by the name of “Crazy Eddie.” These stores were founded by Eddie Antar (“Crazy Eddie”) of Brooklyn. “Crazy Eddie” used radio advertising to hype his stores. In the end the retail chain of “Crazy Eddie” went bankrupt; a $300 million fraud.
At the center of this fraud was Sam E. Antar, a cousin of “Crazy Eddie” Antar and the Chief Financial Officer of the “Crazy Eddie” retail chain. Currently Sam E. Antar has publicly stated that he has reformed and is now lecturing, without charge, on the “dangers” of crime. It is strange that Sam E. can afford this largesse because he filed for bankruptcy several years ago. He claims to be supported by the real estate interests of his wife’s family.
Recently he was the focus of an article, “Crazy like a fox,” by Aaron Elstein, which appeared in the October 4, 2009 issue of Crain’s New York Business. Once a felon, always a felon. Yet Elstein referred to Sam Antar as “a former felon.” That alone shows his bias and makes the reader believe that rather than an article the piece is meant to rehabilitate Antar. A felon is someone convicted of a felony. There is no such thing as a former felon.
Elstein also reported: “Mr. Antar admits working for a short-seller before. He did research for Barry Minkow, an investor who served prison time in the 1990s for running a fraudulent carpet cleaning service.” This is like saying “The titanic ran into an ice cube.” There are several understatements in the “article.”
Sam Antar not only worked for Barry Minkow but contributed $250,000 to Minkow’s Fraud Discovery Unit, which supposedly ferrets out false information in filings by publicly listed companies. Antar claims that this $250,000 was his wife’s money. Antar’s wife must be the most generous woman in the world- doling out $250,000 as a gift to her husband’s friend.
Here’s what happened: Minkow finds false information in SEC filings. Minkow then sells the stock short, in hopes that the stock price declines. Minkow then releases his findings. Minkow then buys back the stock after the price has declined. By that very fact alone, Minkow is not an “investor.” Minkow is a short seller.
As the reader can readily determine someone is making money from this arrangement. What’s not stated in the article is that Minkow did not just run “a fraudulent carpet cleaning service.” Minkow’s carpet cleaning business was called ZZZZ Best, a stock fraud that defrauded the American public of hundreds of millions of dollars. Minkow served seven years in federal prison for fraud among other charges.
The article is a “white wash,” a “fix.” Minkow owes the government approximately $16 million and his salary is garnished to pay the amount owed. That is why the payment could not be made out personally to Minkow but to the Fraud Discovery Unit- the money would have been seized.
During his incarceration Minkow converted to Christianity and studied for a Divinity Degree. Currently Minkow is a pastor of a Church. I find it rather amusing when convicted felons turn to God. It has been my experience that once a stock fraud artist- always a stock fraud artist. The money is too good and too easy. That is why the members of Aish Kodesh in Long Island participated in the stock frauds of Maier Lehmann.
Sam E. Antar is a fraudster; as is Barry Minkow.
Both have now found God. Perhaps they have monetarized God.”Manfredonia, a trader and whistleblower on Wall Street in the 1980s, is now on a campaign to expose corruption on the Street. Please e-mail him tips to Edward@blackstarnews.com
KGB Operations Against The US
Last week, I blogged Douglas Valentine on the secret history of America’s Central Intelligence Agency, a long history that involved revolutions, coups, torture, assassinations, and subversion. Today, the CIA is probably far larger than any other spy agency, but until 1991, the Soviet Union’s KGB was a good match. The excerpt that follows is from a face-off between former CIA counter-intelligence chief Paul J. Redmond and former major-general of the Soviet KGB, Oleg Danilov Kalugin, and was hosted by the University of Delaware on March 12, 2003.
(Note: The KGB was disbanded in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has been replaced by the Russia security force, the FSB).
“We conducted a clandestine war with assassination if necessary,” he [Kalugin] said. “Our mission was to do everything we could to have a war without the fighting. This was seen as amoral in America, but it was our ideology.”
Kalugin infiltrated the United States as a journalist, attending Columbia University in New York City as a Fulbright Scholar in 1958. From 1965-70, he served as deputy resident and acting chief of the residency at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., quickly becoming the youngest general in the history of the KGB. Eventually, he became the head of worldwide foreign counterintelligence, serving at the center of some of the most important espionage cases, including the Walker spy ring.
Finding that the KGB’s internal functions had little to do with the security of the state and everything to do with keeping corrupt Communist Party officials in power, Kalugin retired from the KGB in 1990 and became a public critic of the communist system. He currently teaches at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.
Kalugin said one of his most effective spying techniques was pitting American citizens against their own government.
“We appealed to pacifists and told them, ‘You cannot have peace unless you stop the internal situation of the U.S.,’” he said. “We got environmentalists and told them, ‘Capitalists spend any amount of money even if it does destroy your precious nature.’ Well, at the time, the Soviet Union was the most polluted country in the world,” he joked.
Kalugin listed several astonishing facts from a classified KGB report, proving just how much the organization is committed to counterintelligence. He said that in 1981 the KGB reported that they had funded or supported 70 books, 66 feature and documentary films, more than 100 television stations, 4,865 articles in magazines or newspapers, 300 conferences or exhibitions and 170,000 lectures around the world.
“Friendship, companionship—that is fine,” Kalugin said, “but national interests remain. Counterintelligence will never cease to exist. The U.S. remains priority number one.”
Ron Paul: No Military Occupation Of Haiti
Statement of Congressman Ron Paul, United States House of Representatives Statement in Opposition to H Res 1021, Condolences to Haiti, January 21, 2010
I rise in reluctant opposition to this resolution. Certainly I am moved by the horrific destruction in Haiti and would without hesitation express condolences to those who have suffered and continue to suffer. As a medical doctor, I have through my career worked to alleviate the pain and suffering of others. Unfortunately, however, this resolution does not simply express our condolences, but rather it commits the US government “to begin the reconstruction of Haiti” and affirms that “the recovery and long-term needs of Haiti will require a sustained commitment by the United States….”
Executive Order 12425: Interpol Brings Global Police State to US
John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute (via Lew Rockwell) sounds the alarm over executive order 12425, which places the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) beyond the reach of domestic laws, freedom of information act requests and constitutional checks.
“It’s hard to know exactly what the fallout from this executive order will be, but the ramifications for the American people could be ominous. For instance, if Interpol engages in illegal and/or unconstitutional activities against American citizens, it will be impossible for U.S. citizens to obtain information – via subpoena or other commonly used legal methods – regarding its records or activities.
Fed-State Partnership Parallels Nazi Gleichschaltung
Will Grigg (in an LRC blog post) describes another crucial step in the centralizing and totalizing of federal government power in the incipient Fourth Reich of America:
“Yesterday (January 11), Barack Obama added another critical element to the architecture of wartime presidential dictatorship by signing an executive order establishing a “Council of Governors” for the supposed purpose of strengthening federal-state “partnership” in military and homeland security affairs.
Swine-Flu Vaccine Facts That Should Frighten You
One of the best read articles in 2009 on Lew Rockwell was one by Bill Sardi on eighteen reasons you shouldn´t take the swine flu vaccine. Here´s an excerpt, but it´s worth reading the whole piece.
“4. The vaccines will be produced by no less than four different manufacturers, possibly with different additives (called adjuvants) and manufacturing methods. The two flu inoculations may be derived from a multi-dose vial and in a crisis, and in short supply, it will be diluted to provide more doses and then adjuvants must be added to trigger a stronger immune response. Adjuvants are added to vaccines to boost production of antibodies but may trigger autoimmune reactions. Some adjuvants are mercury (thimerosal), aluminum and squalene. Would you permit your children to be injected with lead? Lead is very harmful to the brain. Then why would you sign a consent form for your kids to be injected with mercury, which is even more brain-toxic than lead? Injecting mercury may fry the brains of American kids.
Facebook´s Misleading Privacy Tools
Update: I deactivated my facebook account, following the fracas over the facebook friends page. I´m still on Twitter. I will also - probably in a few months - change the format of this blog to make some part of it private, partly to avoid plagiarism and partly for security.
According to this report, privacy advocates are outraged by Facebook´s new settings (that went into effect on Wednesday):
“The Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook’s users, whether intentionally or inadvertently.”
Prior to the change, Facebook users could keep everything but their names and networks private.
Maybe that throws light on this.
On inquiring, Deep Capture says the inclusion of some of the names initially was an accident and has removed them. It also point out here that the characterization of the list as hacked is libelous…
Other users might want to double-check their settings.
Government Democide: The Power That Kills…
R. J. Rummel on democide:
“This is a report of the statistical results from a project on comparative genocide and mass-murder in this century. Most probably near 170,000,000 people have been murdered in cold-blood by governments, well over three-quarters by absolutist regimes. The most such killing was done by the Soviet Union (near 62,000,000 people), the communist government of China is second (near 35,000,000), followed by Nazi Germany (almost 21,000,000), and Nationalist China (some 10,000,000). Lesser megamurderers include WWII Japan, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, WWI Turkey, communist Vietnam, post-WWII Poland, Pakistan, and communist Yugoslavia. The most intense democide was carried out by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, where they killed over 30 percent of their subjects in less than four years. The best predictor of this killing is regime power. The more arbitrary power a regime has, the less democratic it is, the more likely it will kill its subjects or foreigners. The conclusion is that power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.“
War On Terror Monitoring Likely to Spread to Latin America
“Eric Farnsworth, Vice President of the Council of Americas, said he believes that Iran may be looking for uranium, possibly in Venezuela. But Time Magazine reported in an Oct. 8 article that “experts say it’s hardly certain Venezuela even has much, if any, uranium to provide Iran or anyone else.” Farnsworth also claimed Iran’s improved diplomatic relations with countries in Latin America is a boon for its intelligence capabilities.
Dina Siegel Vann, another “expert” who testified at the hearing, cited a U.S. State Department Terrorism report published in April that stated the Tri Border Area of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil is a hub for Hezbollah and Hamas sympathizers-something that has been widely disputed. Vann, Director of the Latino and Latin American Institute at the American Jewish Committee noted that the report also cited Bolivia as a possible site for terrorist activity.
“Concerted and decisive action is needed to closely monitor the activity of Iran and the groups it subsidizes, to correctly assess their potential for mischief, and to establish mechanisms to prevent potentially dangerous scenarios,” said Vann.
Coincidentally, these attempts to designate parts of Latin America as potential threats and conduits of terror attacks are in countries that have democratically elected left and center-left governments. And all of this comes as Washington’s controversial military base deal with Colombia awaits approval.”My Comment
We´ve been blogging for some time now that Latin America seems to be going the way of Asia as a site of resource- warfare cum terrorism-monitoring. This article signals another step in that direction.
Now, according to the electronic police state rankings of Cryptohippie for 2008 (I blogged this several months ago), Brazil is still a “green” state - that is, one in which monitoring is lagging. But articles like this suggest that it will be heading in the direction of the more advanced yellow, orange, and red states (in order of increasing surveillence).
Israeli National Airline a Front for Israeli Secret Police?
Jonathan Cook in Dissident Voice:
“South Africa deported an Israeli airline official last week following allegations that Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, had infiltrated Johannesburg international airport in an effort to gather information on South African citizens, particularly black and Muslim travellers.
The move by the South African government followed an investigation by local TV showing an undercover reporter being illegally interrogated by an official with El Al, Israel’s national carrier, in a public area of Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport.
The programme also featured testimony from Jonathan Garb, a former El Al guard, who claimed that the airline company had been a front for the Shin Bet in South Africa for many years.
Of the footage of the undercover reporter’s questioning, he commented: “Here is a secret service operating above the law in South Africa. We pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. We do exactly what we want. The local authorities do not know what we are doing.”
Totalitarianism: The Total Domination of Man
From “Evil: The Crime Against Humanity,” by Jerome Kohn
The “total domination of man” was radically evil, in Arendt’s eyes, not only because it was unprecedented but because it did not make sense. She asked: Why should lust for power, which from the beginning of recorded history has been considered the political and social sin par excellence, suddenly transcend all previously known limitations of self-interest and utility and attempt not simply to dominate men as they are but to change their very nature; not only to kill whoever is in the way of further power accumulation but also innocent and harmless bystanders, and this even when such murder is an obstacle, rather than an advantage, for the accumulation of power?
(see “Ideology and Propaganda”)There is no ready answer to that question. In Hitler’s case it is well known that his unrelenting dehumanization and destruction of those who presented no threat to him hindered his ability to fight effectively against his real enemies at the end of World War II. What is the point of dominating men at any cost, not as they are but in order “to change their very nature”? If it is for the sake of “the consistency of a lying world order,” as she went on to suggest, what is the point of a system that even if it succeeded in destroying the human world would not end in the creation of a “thousand-year Reich” or “Messianic Age” but only in self-destruction? Arendt, to be sure, never thought the suicidal “victory” of totalitarianism likely. That would first require global rule by one totalitarian power, and in that regard she believed that Hitler’s invasion of Russia in 1941 was symbolically significant in spite of his pact with Stalin two years earlier and in spite of the two leaders’ mutual admiration which she emphasized. Moreover, she saw that “no system has ever been less capable [than totalitarianism] of gradually expanding its sphere of influence and holding on to its conquests.” Most important of all, because plurality is the inescapable condition of human existence–”not Man but men inhabit this planet”–Arendt increasingly came to consider farfetched the notion that a single totalitarian regime could ever destroy the entire world.”
Privacy Watchdog Criticizes Canadian Financial Data Gathering
In the news, privacy in Canada is on the retreat:
“In her annual report, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart says the little-known Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada must scale back its data gathering. The centre zeros in on cash linked to money laundering, terrorism and other crimes. Stoddart’s report also raises concerns about Transport Canada’s no-fly list - a controversial program she has cast a wary eye upon for years.”
Swine Flu Cover-Up
From Dr. Mercola, via Lew Rockwell:
In fact, worldwide, according to CDC and WHO data, far fewer people have died form H1N1 than any seasonal flu in the past.
Dr. Mercola also points out the following:
“Insurance companies in Australia would not insure doctors who gave the vaccine because it was a fast tracked vaccine and therefore experimental. They felt that the danger of complications was far too high to risk insuring the doctors. Unlike doctors in America, they did not have a special law that Congress would pass to insulate them from liability should severe complications arise from the vaccine.
It is also of special interest to note that tens of millions of babies were vaccinated with the Hepatitis B vaccine (providing no protection to the babies) only to learn later that it is linked to a 310% increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis. One has to ask — What else do they not know about this vaccine? …….
…Now we are being told that this new fast tracked, poorly tested vaccine is very safe and effective. The results of the testing on this vaccine were reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.39 It is instructive to learn that the tests for safety and to assess complications lasted only 7 days after the vaccine, an incredibly short period of follow-up. Gullian Barre paralysis can occur even months after a vaccine as can seizures, behavioral problems and neurodevelopmental disorders in children. It is interesting to note that the authors of the safety study for our swine flu vaccine were all employees of the maker of the vaccine CSL Biotherapeutics and eight held equity interest in the company. This admission is part of the disclosure policy of the New England Journal of Medicine.”
The Spectacle of General Secrecy
Political theorist Guy de Bord on the spectacle of public life:
“The concentrated spectacle
The spectacle associated with concentrated bureaucracy. Debord associated this spectacular form mostly with the Eastern Bloc and Fascism, although today mixed backward economies import it, and even advanced capitalist countries in times of crisis. Every aspect of life, like property, music, and communication is concentrated and is identified with the bureaucratic class. The concentrated spectacle generally identifies itself with a powerful political leader. The concentrated spectacle is made effective through a state of permanent violence and police terror.[edit]
The diffuse spectacle
The spectacle associated with advanced capitalism and commodity abundance. In the diffuse spectacle, different commodities conflict with each other, preventing the consumer from consuming the whole. Each commodity claims itself as the only existent one, and tries to impose itself over the other commodities:
Irreconcilable claims jockey for position on the stage of the affluent economy’s unified spectacle, and different star commodities simultaneously promote conflicting social policies. The automobile spectacle, for example, strives for a perfect traffic flow entailing the destruction of old urban districts, while the city spectacle needs to preserve those districts as tourist attractions.
The diffuse spectacle is more effective than the concentrated spectacle. The diffuse spectacle operates mostly through seduction, while the concentrated spectacle operates mostly through violence. Because of this, Debord argues that the diffuse spectacle is more effective at suppressing non-spectacular opinions than the concentrated spectacle.
The integrated spectacle
The spectacle associated with modern capitalist countries. The integrated spectacle borrows traits from the diffuse and concentrated spectacle to form a new synthesis. Debord argues that this is a very recent form of spectacular manifestation, and that it was pioneered in France and Italy.
According to Debord, the integrated spectacle goes by the label of liberal democracy. This spectacle introduces a state of permanent general secrecy, where experts and specialists dictate the morality, statistics, and opinions of the spectacle. Terrorism is the invented enemy of the spectacle, which specialists compare with their “liberal democracy”, pointing out the superiority of the latter one. Debord argues that without terrorism, the integrated spectacle wouldn’t survive, for it needs to be compared to something in order to show its “obvious” perfection and superiority.”
My Comment:
Thanks to reader J. T. Gordon for reminding me of this. I’ve posted before on de Bord and the notion of the spectacle of society. Like so much powerful analysis, this one too has roots in the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most productive thinkers of the last 150 years.
What should be noted here is that in the spectacle of secrecy, the greatest emphasis is placed on openness. Thus, “freedom of speech” occupies a central position in the culture. By this means, all barriers to privacy are brought down, all psychological barriers between the individual and the crowd. Yet, this openness at one level (in public culture) operates side-by-side with secrecy at the highest level (governments and corporate leaders).
(More later)
Back…
Reading through this again, I feel I need to question De Bord’s division, which corresponds to communist, capitalist and liberal democratic. It’s too neat. In fact, things are much more muddy
How the Pathocracy Stays In Power
The question is often asked how a society that in its day-to-day workings exhibits culture and lawfulness can also support behavior at high levels that’s criminal. The question was asked of German society in the 1930s and could well be asked of the US today.
A good answer is given by Carolyn Baker
“One of the main factors to consider in terms of how a society can be taken over by a group of pathological deviants is that the psychopaths’ only limitation is the participation of susceptible individuals within that given society. Lobaczewski gives an average figure for the most active deviants of approximately 6% of a given population. (1% essential psychopaths and up to 5% other psychopathies and characteropathies.) The essential psychopath is at the center of the web. The others form the first tier of the psychopath’s control system.
The next tier of such a system is composed of individuals who were born normal, but are either already warped by long-term exposure to psychopathic material via familial or social influences, or who, through psychic weakness have chosen to meet the demands of psychopathy for their own selfish ends. Numerically, according to Lobaczewski, this group is about 12% of a given population under normal conditions.
So approximately 18% of any given population is active in the creation and imposition of a Pathocracy. The 6% group constitutes the Pathocratic nobility and the 12% group forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous.
When you understand the true nature of psychopathic influence, that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards, you are horrified, but at the same time everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless - they literally have no conscience.
My Comment:
To this I will add that the pathocracy also exhibits and encourages the exhibition of sentiments that mimic and substitute for emotion. Various kinds of false sentimentalities and emotionalism mimic authentic emotion to create a facade that deceives the onlooker. One could go further and say that this distortion extends from the affective life to the cognitive, where a false and superficial “logic” takes the place of genuine reasoning….
UK Military Protocol for Security & Counter-Intel Ops
An important document on how the British state deals with what it perceives as security threats:
“This significant, previously unpublished document (classified “RESTRICTED”, 2389 pages), is the UK military protocol for all security and counter-intelligence operations.
The document includes instructions on dealing with leaks, investigative journalists, Parliamentarians, foreign agents, terrorists & criminals, sexual entrapments in Russia and China, diplomatic pouches, allies, classified documents & codewords, compromising radio and audio emissions, computer hackers—and many other related issues.
The document, known in the services as the “JSP 440″ (”Joint Services Protocol 440″), was referenced by the RAF Digby investigation team as the protocol justification for the monitoring of Wikileaks, as mentioned in “UK Ministry of Defence continually monitors WikiLeaks: eight reports into classified UK leaks, 29 Sep 2009.”Read more at Wikileaks on UK protocols for dealing with security threats of all kinds, from investigative journalists looking for disclosure of official documents to Chinese officials seeking “influence” (there’s an extensive section describing Chinese intelligence gathering).
Roman Polanski Arrested by Swiss at US Request..
Roman Polansky, acclaimed film director, has been living abroad for years to avoid arrest for charges stemming from ‘date rape’ of an underage girl. Now he’s been arrested by the Swiss, says an AP report this morning.
Polanksi’s horrible actions can’t be excused by his considerable talent. But, from a libertarian stance, I am not sure why the state needs to pursue him further, when the victim seems to have settled and wants the whole business over.
I say this, despite having very strong feelings about crimes of this nature, which - when the victims are not minors - are often dismissed as “consensual” - instead of what they really are - acquaintance or date rape. When you target a naive young man or woman, ply them with alcohol and slip drugs into their food, in order to make them compliant, you are raping them, as surely as if you’d knocked them over the head. [I know the victim's surname has been given every where, but on principle, I think it should not be - so I am referring to her by initial. I also removed the link to her testimony to the grand jury which I'd placed here before. I hope other writers will do the same.].
But Polanski has paid his dues and made amends to the victim to her satisfaction. Why is the state baying for blood? Ambitious judge?
Here is what the victim, now married with three children, has said about the repeated publicizing of the case.
“My views as a victim, my feelings as a victim, or my desires as a victim were never considered or even inquired into by the district attorney prior to the filing,” she said. “It is clear to me that because the district attorney’s office has been accused of wrongdoing, it has recited the lurid details of the case to distract attention from the wrongful conduct of the district attorney’s office as well as the judge who was then assigned to the case.”
There is really no “public” good being served by rehashing this business when Polanski is in his 70’s and has never offended again, when there’s been evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, and most importantly, when the victim is satisfied that justice has been done. All the rest is vanity, careerism, and titillation.
Next to the number of children whom governments and corporations routinely abuse when they starve, bomb, destroy, and impoverish whole countries, the damage Polanski did was relatively limited.
It seems as if the Swiss have become pretty compliant with demands from the US government.
What does this say about the new monetary regulatory regime, now headquartered in Switzerland?Could the government just be looking for a high-profile victim to lend legitimacy to its own intrusiveness.
“In 1977, he [Polansky] was accused of raping the teenager while photographing her during a modeling session. The girl said Polanski plied her with champagne and part of a Quaalude pill at Jack Nicholson’s house while the actor was away. She said that, despite her protests, he performed oral sex, intercourse and sodomy on her.
Polanski was allowed to plead guilty to one of six charges, unlawful sexual intercourse, and was sent to prison for 42 days of evaluation.
Lawyers agreed that would be his full sentence, but the judge tried to renege on the plea bargain. Aware the judge would sentence him to more prison time and require his voluntary deportation, Polanski fled to France.
The victim, Samantha G, who long ago identified herself publicly, has joined in Polanski’s bid for dismissal, saying she wants the case to be over. She sued Polanski and reached an undisclosed settlement.”
Robert Prechter on Closing Doors..
The July 2009 Elliot Wave Theorist by Robert Prechter has some ominous warnings.
Prechter warns that as the depression deepens, more and more avenues of escape are going to be shut off. He lists three that have become difficult:
1. You used to be able to invest in tax-free foreign annuities. Now you have to pay tax on them.
2. You could deposit your money at any Swiss bank. Now, harassment by US authorities has led many of those banks to shut the door on American depositors.
3. You could emigrate to New Zealand easily. Now, independent operators without a government license who try to help immigrants face trouble.Police Overpower “Dangerous” Double Amputee
Will Grigg at the Lew Rockwell blog:
“Responding to a domestic violence report, police in Merced, California helped child “protection” workers abduct the two-year-old daughter of 40-year-old Gregory Williams, a double amputee who is confined to a wheelchair.
Williams, a father of three who lost his legs to deep vein thrombosis six years ago and is currently unemployed, had been arguing with his wife. Rather than trying to defuse the situation, the police summoned a CPS worker who decided to seize the two-year-old, Ginni.
When Williams objected, the police placed him under arrest and attempted to force him into the familiar “prone-out” position….
This act of instinctive self-preservation was described as “resisting arrest”
So Officer John Pinnegar shoved his Portable Electro-Shock Torture device into Williams’ ribs and pulled the trigger twice.
At least one other officer, Sgt. Rodney Court, assisted the valiant Pinnegar in subduing the legless man. Hey, can’t be too careful — “officer safety” and all that. At one point Court shoved a knee into the middle of Williams’ back while Pinnegar cuffed the victim.
The double-amputee was left sitting on the pavement, handcuffed behind the back, with his pants pulled down below the waist — in broad daylight, in full view of the residents of his apartment complex.”
Government to Introduce Biometric ID in India
“While Brits are longing for less surveillance in their electronic snoop state, the government in India seems to want to take Bharat Mata farther down that road. Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of India’s tech giant, Infosys, and now the head of the Government’s Unique ID project, is proposing an
Indian biometric ID.What’s incredible is he thinks it’s feasible to extend this to the whole population. Apart from the logistics, the level of technology, and the cost (1.5 lakh crores - a number I’ll translate later), there’s the vulnerability to abuse, considerations which deterred Britain from going ahead with its own biometric ID scheme.
They don’t seem to bother Nikelani - one of “Flat Earth” globalist Tom Friedman’s favorite people. He discussed the objections in an interview with CNN-IBN’s Karan Thapar, published in the Hindu.
Here’s a short excerpt:
“Karan Thapar: You said a moment ago that you would create checks and balances. I put it to you that you can never create sufficient and the reason say is this — In the UK, in the US and in Australia, because the authorities couldn’t respond to public concerns about misuse, they have effectively put on the backburner consideration of similar schemes for those countries. Now if developed countries cannot tackle the problem of misuse, then how can India, where 35 per cent of the people are illiterate and 22 per cent live below the poverty line? How can India claim that we can tackle these problems?
Nandan Nilekani: What these developed countries have put on hold is giving national ID cards to people. But both the countries, US and UK have a number. For example in the US, you have the social security number, in the UK there is the national insurance number. They already have a numbering system, which is what we are going to propose.
Karan Thapar: Except for the fact that is is nowhere near as extensive or as complete in terms of the biometeric details as what you are proposing in India. The national insurance in Britain has been around and developing slowly but it doesn’t have any details that could lead to an invasion of privacy. It doesn’t have any details that can be misused for profiling. Yours could have both?
Nandan Nilekani: As I said, these are legitimate concerns and I think we have to address them in the public as well as in the laws and so on. But notwithstanding these concerns, the social benefit, the inclusivity that this project will provide for the 700 million people in this country who are outside the system is immense enough to justify doing this project…”
My Comment
Notice, once more, that’s it’s “social uplift” that’s the excuse for the expansion of the state, the same reasoning given for the sale of IMF gold. And as suspect in this case as it is in that. It seems as if public officials hardly get a wink of sleep cooking up schemes to help the poor.
Consider that the British biometric scheme was put on the backburner because it cost too much. The London School of Economics calculated that it would cost between 10 and 20 billion pounds, and Britian is about 1/20 the size of India. Now figure how mind-boggling the Indian scheme is likely to be be…..in every respect.
Reader Dan Scott sends this:
Are You Scheduled For Government Interrogation If Senate bill 3081 Is Passed?
On March 4, 2010, Sen. John McCain introduced S. 3081, The “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.”
Under S.3081, an “individual” need only be Suspected by Government of “suspicious activity” or “supporting hostilities” to be dragged off and held indefinitely in Military Custody. Government will have the power to detain and interrogate any individual without probable cause. Government need only allege an individual in detention, is an Unprivileged Enemy Belligerent suspected of; having engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; or has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. The obvious question: how does one prove to Government they did not purposely do something? Definition for Unprivileged Enemy Belligerent: (Anyone Subject to a Military Commission)
At least under the Patriot Act, law enforcement generally needed probable cause to detain a person indefinitely. Passage of S.3081 will use mere suspicion to curtail an individual’s Constitutional Protections against unlawful arrest, detention and interrogation without benefit of legal counsel and trial. According to S.3081 Government is not required to provide detained individuals U.S. Miranda Warnings or even an attorney.
Similar to fascist laws in other countries, S.3081 if passed will frighten Americans from speaking out. S.3081 is so broadly written, it appears any “individual” who writes on the Internet or verbally express an opinion against U.S. Government or its coalition partners might potentially be detained on the basis he or she is an “unprivileged enemy belligerent”, “supporting hostilities against U.S. Government.”
See McCain Senate bill S.3081:
http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/ARM10090.pdf
FYI: below is enclosed a copy of “Hitler’s Discriminatory Decrees signed February 28, 1933.” Although the Nazi Decrees are written differently than S.3081 they bring America to the same place trashing free speech and personal liberty. Note how the Nazi Government similar to U.S. S.3081 has in Section (1) and (4) suspended personal liberty and shutdown Free Speech, to intimidate Citizens speaking out against Government:
See Section 1
“Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Thus, restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, and warrants for house-searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”
Similar to McCain’s S. 3081, but using different wording the Nazi Government in Section (4) see below, suspended Constitutional rights ordering the arrest of Citizens for any Act that might incite or provoke disobedience against state authorities. McCain’s S. 3081 instead mentions detaining and prosecuting Individuals for “supporting hostilities” against U.S. Government. S.3081 is so broadly written anti-war protesters might be arrested and detained just for attending demonstrations.
See Section 4
Whoever provokes, or appeals for or incites to the disobedience of the orders given out by the supreme state authorities or the authorities subject to then for the execution of this decree, or the orders given by the Reich Government according to Section 2, is punishable—insofar as the deed, is not covered by the decree with more severe punishment and with imprisonment of not less that one month, or with a fine from 150 up to 15,000 Reichsmarks.
Some members in the Obama Government appear bent on curtailing Citizens’ rights especially Free Speech and Opinions. In the run up to Sen. McCain’s introduced S. 3081, it was reported Top Obama Czar Cass Sunstein Proposed Infiltrating all ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ in a paper prepared in 2008—that apparently expressed: Government should infiltrate and spy on Americans, their groups and organizations to obstruct Free Speech, disrupt the exchange of ideas and disseminate false information to neutralize Americans that might question government. See news story: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=121884
Also in 2008 perhaps coincidence: “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act”, was introduced by Rep. Jane Harman. The bill appeared to mirror a number of Czar Cass Sunstein’s spying proposals on lawful Citizens and interrupting groups without evidence of wrongdoing. Harman’s bill called for investigating and tracking Americans and groups that might be prone to supporting or committing violent acts of domestic terrorism. Harman’s bill had the potential of driving lawful political and other activists underground. Perhaps creating the domestic terrorists Bush II said Americans needed to be protected from. Rep. Harman’s “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” when closely examined, defined “homegrown terrorism” as “any planned act” that might use force to coerce U.S. Government or its people to promote or accomplish a “political or social objective.” No actual force need occur. Government would only need to allege an individual or group thought about it. Rep. Harman’s bill was often called the “Thought Crime Bill.”
McCain’s S.3081 like Harman’s bill, mentions “non-violent acts” supporting terrorism in the U.S. and or emanating from America against a foreign government or “U.S. ally.” “Non-violent terrorist acts” are covered in the Patriot Act to prosecute Persons that support “coercion to influence a government or intimidation to affect a civilian population.” However U.S. activists and individuals under S.3081 would be much more vulnerable to prosecution, being (charged with suspicion) of “intentionally providing support to an Act of Terrorism”, for example American activists cannot control what other activists might do illegally they network with domestically and overseas. Under the Patriot Act, law enforcement generally needs probable cause to detain or prosecute someone. But under S.3081, law enforcement and the military can too easily use “hearsay” or informants to allege “suspicious activity” to detain an individual. Since 9/11 federal government established across the nation a large number of Fusion Centers. Fusion Centers were originally established to improve the sharing of anti-terrorism intelligence among different state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. (But since expanded to pursue all crimes and hazards); considering that, it is problematic under S.3081 that detained individuals not involved in terrorism or hostile activities, not given Miranda Warnings or allowed legal counsel will be prosecuted for ordinary crimes because of their alleged admissions while in military custody.
Fusion Centers now pursue for analysis not just criminal and terrorist information, but any information that can be derived from police, public records and private sector data about Americans. Fusion Centers increasingly involve components of the U.S. Military in addition to other government entities to spy on Citizens. “The centers heavily rely on local “informants” for information that is shared with Local, State, and Federal police agencies.); historically it is foreseeable under S.3081 erroneous informant information will be used under S.3081 to detain innocent Individuals. Other governments have used lying informants to imprison their political opposition. Recently the Department of Homeland Security began sharing more classified Military information with local Fusion Centers, perhaps a mistake, not all local police keep secrets.
Fusion Centers circumvent Fourth Amendment Constitutional protections that prohibit illegal search and seizure, by taking advantage of ambiguous lines of authority to manipulate differences in federal, state and local laws to maximize information collection. Increasingly (private security companies and their operatives) work so closely with local/federal law enforcement and Fusion Centers—providing and exchanging information about Americans, they appear to merge with police. That is what happened in Germany during the 1930’s when a private-Gestapo merged its operations with German Federal Police. Subsequently Germany in 1939 placed all German Police agencies including the Gestapo under the control of the “Reich Main Security Office” the equivalent of U.S. Homeland Security. Notably, McCain’s S.3081 mandates merging Federal, State and local police and subsequently the U.S. Military to detain and hold Individuals in the U.S., even without probable cause. Interestingly a Rand Report prepared for the Army, recently made public, appears to suggest that U.S. Government develop a Local, State and Federal U.S. “National Police Stabilization Force merging State law enforcement with the Feds. What would happen to State Rights and what laws and Jurisdiction would be used to charge state Citizens arrested by a National Police Stabilization Force? A National Police Force could potentially be sent by the President into any State with the approval of its governor, against the wishes of its Citizens? To clarify the Rand Corporation report visit:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=122533
It should be expected under S.3081 that government would use an individual’s phone call and email information to allege without probable cause “suspicious or hostile activity.” It does not appear U.S. Government will slow down wiretapping Citizens’ electronic communications. Just recently Pres. Obama’s signed Executive Order EO 12425 that put INTERPOL above the United States Constitution. Obama’s Executive Order authorized INTERPOL to act within the United States without being subject to 4th Amendment Search and Seizure laws. It would appear INTERPOL may now tap American phones and emails without a warrant. And that U.S. Police can use INTERPOL to circumvent the Fourth Amendment to arrest Americans and or forfeit their property by bringing INTERPOL into a criminal or civil investigation. Government can too easily take an innocent person’s hastily written email, fax or phone call out of context to allege a crime or violation was committed to cause an arrest or Civil asset forfeiture.
DECREE OF THE REICH PRESIDENT FOR THE PROTECTION OF
THE PEOPLE AND STATE
Note: Based on translations by State Department, National Socialism, 1942 PP. 215-17, and Pollak, J.K., and Heneman, H.J., The Hitler Decrees, (1934), pp. 10-11.7
In virtue of Section 48 (2) of the German Constitution, the following is decreed as a defensive measure against Communist acts of Violence, endangering the state:
Section 1
Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Thus, restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, and warrants for house-searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.
Section 2
If in a state the measures necessary for the restoration of public security and order are not taken, the Reich Government may temporarily take over the powers of the highest state authority.
Section 4
Whoever provokes, or appeals for or incites to the disobedience of the orders given out by the supreme state authorities or the authorities subject to then for the execution of this decree, or the orders given by the Reich Government according to Section 2, is punishable—insofar as the deed, is not covered by the decree with more severe punishment and with imprisonment of not less that one month, or with a fine from 150 up to 15,000 Reichsmarks.
Who ever endangers human life by violating Section 1, is to be punished by sentence to a penitentiary, under mitigating circumstances with imprisonment of not less than six months and, when violation causes the death of a person, with death, under mitigating circumstances with a penitentiary sentence of not less that two years. In addition the sentence my include confiscation of property.
Whoever provokes an inciter to or act contrary to public welfare is to be punished with a penitentiary sentence, under mitigating circumstances, with imprisonment of not less than three months.
Section 5
The crimes which under the Criminal Code are punishable with penitentiary for life are to be punished with death: i.e., in Sections 81 (high treason), 229 (poisoning), 306 (arson), 311 (explosion), 312 (floods), 315, paragraph 2 (damage to railroad properties, 324 (general poisoning).
Insofar as a more severe punishment has not been previously provided for, the following are punishable with death or with life imprisonment or with imprisonment not to exceed 15 years:
1. Anyone who undertakes to kill the Reich President or a member or a commissioner of the Reich Government or of a state government, or provokes to such a killing, or agrees to commit it, or accepts such an offer, or conspires with another for such a murder;
2. Anyone who under Section 115 (2) of the Criminal Code (serious rioting) or of Section 125 (2) of the Criminal Code (serious disturbance of the peace) commits the act with arms or cooperates consciously and intentionally with an armed person;
3. Anyone who commits a kidnapping under Section 239 of the Criminal with the intention of making use of the kidnapped person as a hostage in the political struggle.
Section 6
This decree enters in force on the day of its promulgation.
Reich President
Reich Chancellor
Reich Minister of the Interior
Reich Minister of Justice