As always, my job as a writer is to show you all the things that no one wants to see, the things that would otherwise be lost down the memory hole into total oblivion, obscured by propaganda and fluff. 

 What follows is something the entire country must see.  What follows are the sketches of “Prisoner 345”, Sami al-Haj, an Arab journalist who was falsely apprehended in Afghanistan.  The premise for his detainment as an “enemy combatant” was that he once interviewed Osama bin Laden (which was false), but the reality was that the US Government was desperately trying to prove a link between his news station, Al Jazeera, and bin Laden. The sketches were, of course, censored by the US Military, but an artist has painstakingly recreated them to be published by Sami’s lawyer. 

  Pictured: Sami al-Haj

 Sami was incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay without trial or even formal accusation for five years.

  

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2008/04/13/sami-al-haj-the-banned-torture-pictures-of-a-journalist-in-guantanamo/

The outline of Sami’s story should be familiar to readers; last summer AlterNet published a detailed article by Rachel Morris: “Prisoner 345: An Arab Journalist’s Five Years in Guantánamo,” which made clear how Sami was seized because of the erroneous claim that he had interviewed Osama bin Laden, and the disturbing fact that his many interrogations in Guantánamo have focused solely on the administration’s attempts to turn him into an informant against al-Jazeera, to “prove” a connection between the broadcaster and Osama bin Laden that does not exist. As his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith of the legal action charity Reprieve, noted bluntly and accurately in his book Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantánamo Bay, “Sami was a prisoner in the Bush Administration’s assault on al-Jazeera.”

Less well known is Sami’s frontline reportage from within Guantánamo. Stafford Smith recalls that when he asked Sami for information, he “would assemble important facts on almost any topic in the prison relying on the incredible prisoner bush telegraph.” These have included reports on the religious abuse — primarily of the Qu’ran — that preceded a series of hunger strikes and suicide attempts, and a pioneering assessment of the number of prisoners who were under 18 at the time of their capture.

Since January 7, 2007 (the fifth anniversary of his detention without trial by the US), Sami has been on a hunger strike. Although he is strapped into a restraint chair twice a day and force-fed against his will and despite the fact that he is “very thin” and “[h]is memory is disintegrating,” according to Stafford Smith, Sami continues to seek ways to publicize the plight of his fellow prisoners. During the most recent visit from his lawyers in February — with Cori Crider of Reprieve — he produced a number of morbid, and almost hallucinatory sketches illustrating his take on conditions in Guantánamo, which he described as “Sketches of My Nightmare.”

Fearing that they would be banned by the military censors, Crider asked him to describe each sketch in detail and when, as anticipated, the pictures were duly banned but the notes cleared, Reprieve asked political cartoonist Lewis Peake to create original works based on Sami’s descriptions.

SCREAM FOR FREEDOM

 

 “The first sketch is just a skeleton in the torture chair,” Sami explained. “My picture reflects my nightmares of what I must look like, with my head double-strapped down, a tube in my nose, a black mask over my mouth, strapped into the torture chair with no eyes and only giant cheekbones, my teeth jutting out — my ribs showing in every detail, every rib, every joint. The tube goes up to a bag at the top of the drawing. On the right there is another skeleton sitting shackled to another chair. They are sitting like we do in interrogations, with hands shackled, feet shackled to the floor, just waiting. In between I draw the flag of Guantánamo — JTF-GTMO — but instead of the normal insignia, there is a skull and crossbones, the real symbol of what is happening here.”

In recently declassified testimony, Sami described more of his recent experiences of the force-feeding process:

On the Monday before last [February 11] a white male came to do the force-feeding. They gave him only ten minutes training, then he did three of the eight men being fed that day, including me. He screwed the tube into my nose, not slowly, and not using lotion. I had flu at the time and my nostril was closed. It made it much harder. I was in the chair. I could barely talk, and my mouth was covered with the mask they put on. I was waving my hands.

“That’s very painful!” I eventually said. There were tears streaming down my face. “I am meant to do this to you,” the man said, harshly. “If you don’t like it, don’t go on strike.” He would not look me in the eye. He did not look in the least bit ashamed. He never said sorry, or paused when I was in pain. I almost thought he seemed happy that he was doing it.

They used my feeding tube for another man last Monday [February 18]. This, even though they have marked the boxes for each tube. I have been getting a sore larynx, maybe from the infection of another person using my tube. I requested a spray but it was denied.

BY HONOR BOUND

Sami’s second sketch is his take on the familiar JTF-GTMO sign outside the prison. “This time,” he explained, “the hooded skeleton is in a three-piece suit [the prisoners’ term for being shackled at the wrists, ankles and waist]. The head is totally blacked out. The wrists are shackled at the back, with chains running down the legs. There are very elaborate arm bones, leg bones and the spine. And again the flag, the Jolly Roger of JTF-GTMO with a diabolical smile on the skull.”

ANGEL OF DEATH / THE HOSPITAL

For his next sketch, Sami shifted his attention to the prison hospital. “There is a third sketch, which is about the Hospital,” he said. “Again it is a skeleton, but with a face this time. The top of the skull is dotted with tracks, tracks of pain. This is the hospital gurney prisoner. He sits completely still, his hands and feet shackled to the side of the bed.”

In his testimony, recently released, Sami has elaborated on his experiences of the hospital:

I am very concerned about having cancer. I have had blood in my urine for a long time. They refused to believe me until I showed them urine in a container that had red in it. Since then they have had seven positive tests for blood in my urine.

I have a pain all across my chest and stomach, and in both kidneys. To begin with they thought it might be a kidney stone, but I had a scan for that. They did not give me the results for two weeks, and I worried all that time. It was negative.

So then they did a second scan with a tracer in the blood. This time, they did not tell me the results for two months. Again, I was left to worry about what might be wrong with me. Again, eventually a doctor came to see me, a black male, about 40 years old, clean shaven, in a uniform without rank on it. He saw me for only give minutes. He began decently, but then got rather hostile. He told me the test was negative, meaning that there was no kidney stone. “From my experience,” the doctor said to me, “I think it’s cancer.”

They then said that the next time a doctor would be coming with the appropriate expertise would be in May. Nobody would be coming before that, and he might not come even then. “You will leave me worrying about this for months?” I asked. “I don’t have the necessary equipment,” said the doctor. He apparently thought the prisoners were not as important as the soldiers in his care. “I don’t mind if you suffer or not,” he said. “It’s not my problem. I’m not here for you.” He left.

I worried too much after this. For three days I got barely any sleep. I was worrying that maybe I was dying. Then the brothers around me said, perhaps they are just telling you this, just trying to break your strike. I took some heart from this. But I still worry, as Abdul Razzaq died of cancer here, and it was a very painful death [Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, an Afghan who died on Dec.30].

I have all the other medical problems too. Really, I have pain almost everywhere –- all over. I have pain everywhere. It’s hard to identify one thing as it’s all over. My back, kidneys, chest, stomach, knee, I even have hemorrhoids. When I do get released, I am going to need to be taken to hospital right away.

THE INFLATABLE MAN

For his final sketches, Sami focused on the doctors’ role in the force-feeding process. “All they care about is the prisoner’s weight,” he explained. “’Are you sick? Are you in pain?’ Who cares? It is all about the number on the scale. At the top of the drawing there is a skeleton again, but this time without hands or feet. The top of the head, the cranium, even the eyes are gone. Our lives depend on the doctors, but we get nothing from them. So we’re going mad. A man who is mad has no mind, but he still has a heart. We’re all going mad here. The skeleton is strapped to a gurney, there’s a tube and a pump, and the gurney is on a scale. It reads 98 lbs. But that’s with the weight of the gurney, and maybe the soldier’s pushing down on the skeleton a bit also.”

He added, “As they prepare the feeding they don’t use gloves. When they take the tube out, things come out of the nose, but the people are strapped to the chair, and cannot do anything to clean the revolting tube. There are psychological teams all around, all keen to work out what the impact of this is on the prisoner.”

 

In the fifth sketch, Sami explained the meaning of the bloated body, noting that, even if the prisoner’s weight were to rise due to force-feeding, he would still be losing his mind. “In the second half of this drawing the prisoner is inflated,” he said. “The man is strapped to the gurney, and the weight on the scale reads 250 lbs. He has filled out, there are rolls of fat on his belly, but he is still mad. The pumps are all hooked up, forcing food into him. But the top half of his head is still vacant.”

The last of his declassified notes add a disturbing conclusion to the story of the doctors’ involvement in the force-feeding process, and the horrendous isolation and deprivation that still prevail in Guantánamo:

We met recently with a senior female doctor from the hospital. “Only if you break your strike can we give you medical care,” she told those of us on hunger strike. “Otherwise we cannot help you.” Some have now broken their strike. Four men are very sick, and were suffering too badly. But the truth is that they have given no help even to those who stop.

I am having bone problems. The cold is bad. I am on disciplinary for being on strike, so I get a plastic blanket at 10 pm, at least three hours after our last prayer time. Every other day I hardly get to sleep anyway, as rec [recreation time] is in the middle of the night.

For eight days I had the same clothes. I have not been given proper toothpaste for two years and seven months now. I am allowed a fingerbrush for just five minutes each day, and it doesn’t reach the back of my mouth. I am not allowed a prayer rug. I am not allowed a prayer cap. I am not allowed my prayer beads. I am not allowed any holy book except for the Qur’an. I have no books to read. The last book I was allowed was in December 2006, before I began my strike.

All I have are orange clothes, flip flops, an isomat, a Qur’an, and a bottle of water. I suppose I should think myself lucky. Another of the men here has been disciplined by having even his isomat take away –- for a whole year. Another man has lost his right to a water bottle for a whole year. All this made another man so upset that he tried to hang himself.”

——————————————–

Sami has since been released, for more information, you can visit the website put up by his supporters.

www.prisoner345.net/sami-al-haj

 

 

 From Salon.com:

“I am trying to decide whether to have a second child. I am wondering about the environmental impact that an American/U.S. person will have over the course of his/her life. Our home is very green: veggie oil car, organic foods, mostly used items are purchased — but I am wondering if you can possibly give me an answer. Sometimes I think that it would be wonderful for my son to have a sibling when the oceans are rising, and they can be in it together, but then I wonder if, by having a second, I am contributing to the oceans’ rising?”

I had to read this twice.  The author of the column this was addressed to gave his neither here nor there opinion, which you can read at the link above.  I find myself wondering though, when did we start looking at children not as a “bundle of joy”  to be loved and cherished, but as a plague upon dear Mother Earth, like pestilence to be eradicated?  The Medical Journal of Australia suggests a tax penalty for those couples who have more than two children, one to replace each parent. 

 One of the major traits in the modern environmental movement is a profound self loathing, to the point where only self induced extinction will suffice as a cure.  Unfortunately, that means everyones’ extinction, not just their own.  There is serious talk in the halls of academia about the need to reduce the earth’s population by the billions, eliminating the “useless eaters”  who scurry about like cockroaches, producing more of their “inferior” kind.  Of course, usually you will hear that very same propaganda pushed forward in the mainstream Media and our children’s schools, only cleaned up and put in a prettier light.  This is a disgrace akin to Hitler’s “cleansing” eugenics program, only in a different wrapper.  Why?

 I have written in the past about how global warming is one of the biggest scams ever sold, and I will soon post those blogs to this site.  In order for the groups which seek the globalization of government (i.e. the UN, EU, and the like) to gain our consent to encroach on our laws and liberties, they need a single, unifying force capable of binding us together in a noble crusade.  Thus far, global warming has fit the bill quite nicely.  We are willing to not only submit to, but readily justify such draconian edicts as Chinas’ famous One Child Policy, regardless of the many forced abortions and sterilizations that follow.  It always seemed hypocritical to me that the most vocal voices for state mandated birth control and womens’ rights fall silent when confronted by the anguished cried of the women whose infants are cruelly torn from their wombs.  We are complicit in these atrocities because we give our silent consent.  Apparently, totalitarianism is more “Green” than personal freedom.

Teenage Rebellion Now Considered Mental Illness

AlterNet
28.01.2008
Bruce E. Levinehttp://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=134

  For a generation now, disruptive young Americans who rebel against authority figures have been increasingly diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric (psychotropic) drugs.

Disruptive young people who are medicated with Ritalin, Adderall and other amphetamines routinely report that these drugs make them “care less” about their boredom, resentments and other negative emotions, thus making them more compliant and manageable. And so-called atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal and Zyprexa — powerful tranquilizing drugs — are increasingly prescribed to disruptive young Americans, even though in most cases they are not displaying any psychotic symptoms.

Many talk show hosts think I’m kidding when I mention oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). After I assure them that ODD is in fact an official mental illness — an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers — they often guess that ODD is simply a new term for juvenile delinquency. But that is not the case.

Young people diagnosed with ODD, by definition, are doing nothing illegal (illegal behaviors are a symptom of another mental illness called conduct disorder). In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) created oppositional defiant disorder, defining it as “a pattern of negativistic, hostile and defiant behavior.” The official symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules” and “often argues with adults.” While ODD-diagnosed young people are obnoxious with adults they don’t respect, these kids can be a delight with adults they do respect; yet many of them are medicated with psychotropic drugs.

An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than overt defiance is some type of passive defiance.

John Holt, the late school critic, described passive-aggressive strategies employed by prisoners in concentration camps and slaves on plantations, as well as some children in classrooms. Holt pointed out that subjects may attempt to appease their rulers while still satisfying some part of their own desire for dignity “by putting on a mask, by acting much more stupid and incompetent than they really are, by denying their rulers the full use of their intelligence and ability, by declaring their minds and spirits free of their enslaved bodies.”

Holt observed that by “going stupid” in a classroom, children frustrate authorities through withdrawing the most intelligent and creative parts of their minds from the scene, thus achieving some sense of potency.

Going stupid — or passive aggression — is one of many nondisease explanations for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all ADHD-diagnosed children will pay attention to activities that they enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the “disease” goes away.

There are other passive rebellions against authority that have been medicalized by mental health authorities. I have talked to many people who earlier in their lives had been diagnosed with substance abuse, depression and even schizophrenia but believe that their “symptoms” had in fact been a kind of resistance to the demands of an oppressive environment. Some of these people now call themselves psychiatric survivors.

While there are several reasons for behavioral disruptiveness and emotional difficulties, rebellion against an oppressive environment is one common reason that is routinely not even considered by many mental health professionals. Why? It is my experience that many mental health professionals are unaware of how extremely obedient they are to authorities. Acceptance into medical school and graduate school and achieving a Ph.D. or M.D. means jumping through many meaningless hoops, all of which require much behavioral, attentional and emotional compliance to authorities — even disrespected ones. When compliant M.D.s and Ph.D.s begin seeing noncompliant patients, many of these doctors become anxious, sometimes even ashamed of their own excessive compliance, and this anxiety and shame can be fuel for diseasing normal human reactions.

Two ways of subduing defiance are to criminalize it and to pathologize it, and U.S. history is replete with examples of both. In the same era that John Adams’ Sedition Act criminalized criticism of U.S. governmental policy, Dr. Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry (his image adorns the APA seal), pathologized anti-authoritarianism. Rush diagnosed those rebelling against a centralized federal authority as having an “excess of the passion for liberty” that “constituted a form of insanity.” He labeled this illness “anarchia.”

Throughout American history, both direct and indirect resistance to authority has been diseased. In an 1851 article in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, Louisiana physician Samuel Cartwright reported his discovery of “drapetomania,” the disease that caused slaves to flee captivity. Cartwright also reported his discovery of “dysaesthesia aethiopis,” the disease that caused slaves to pay insufficient attention to the master’s needs. Early versions of ODD and ADHD?

In Rush’s lifetime, few Americans took anarchia seriously, nor was drapetomania or dysaesthesia aethiopis taken seriously in Cartwright’s lifetime. But these were eras before the diseasing of defiance had a powerful financial ally in Big Pharma.

In every generation there will be authoritarians. There will also be the “bohemian bourgeois” who may enjoy anti-authoritarian books, music, and movies but don’t act on them. And there will be genuine anti-authoritarians, who are so pained by exploitive hierarchies that they take action. Only occasionally in American history do these genuine anti-authoritarians actually take effective direct action that inspires others to successfully revolt, but every once in a while a Tom Paine comes along. So authoritarians take no chances, and the state-corporate partnership criminalizes anti-authoritarianism, pathologizes it, markets drugs to “cure” it and financially intimidates those who might buck the system.

It would certainly be a dream of Big Pharma and those who favor an authoritarian society if every would-be Tom Paine — or Crazy Horse, Tecumseh, Emma Goldman or Malcolm X — were diagnosed as a youngster with mental illness and quieted with a lifelong regimen of chill pills. The question is: Has this dream become reality?

 

 

Dreaded Valentine’s Day (or Singles Awareness Day for you bitter types) has come and gone, leading to the next big celebration: St Patricks Day. 

 I am 3/4 Irish, and to that happy circumstance I owe my Gaelic addiction to freedom….as well as my wit, charm and good looks.  I am proud of that heritage, from the ring bearing the coat of arms for Clan O’Boyle, passed to me from my mother, to the celtic cross tatooed on my back.  That being said, I should be looking forward to the one day of the year that everybody, and I do mean EVERYBODY becomes Irish for the day.  But to me the celebration warrants only a shake of the head, and a twinge of disgust.

 Firstly, the holy day falls in the middle of lent, the time where Roman Catholics fast and abstain in memoriam of the Passion of Christ and in preperation for Easter.  In Ireland, the day was always marked with solemnity, families went to Mass.  The American version is nothing more than an Irish mardi gras, where the feast day of the Patron Saint of Ireland is marked with drunken debauchery. 

Secondly, and this may strike a nitpicky note but I feel it imperative nonetheless, everyone is Irish on St Patty’s, but who understands what it means to be Irish?  Does anyone remember or care to remember the rivers of blood Erin wept? Or the potato famine that drove so many from their homes, testified to by the mass graves around Skibbereen, where almost ten thousand from that area alone are buried? Just today Dwight Sheley,  who is a member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, an Irish civic and social organization proudly declared  in regards to the local Irish festival held this weekend: “There ain’t no potato famine around here”.  In all honesty, that comment made me sick.

From Paddy’s Lament by Thomas Gallagher:

“In Skibbereen, when the coffins ran out and whole families continued to die, monster graves, called by the people “the pits,” were dug in the churchyard of Abbeystrowry. The dead were dropped coffinless, without mourning or ceremony, into these pits…. Each pit was kept open for days,sometimes for as long as a week…. Then came another corpse and a fresh sprinkling of sawdust, until the pit received its full complement of tenants and was covered over with dirt. In a year and a half, a whole generation of Skibbereen’s people was buried in these pits…a place where today a visitor enters, becomes rapt in its lonely seclusion, and thinks with sorrow and indignation of its dark and terrible history.”

I wonder if, during say…..a Chinese New Year celebration, anyone would have the audacity to declare at the start of the festivities: “There ain’t no tanks crushing protesters around here”, and receive laughter and applause?  In the early years of the South, Irish were banned from the state of Georgia.  Now, we have a hypocritical parade and festival, not because we have so many immagrants or descendants of immigrants, but because the yearly drunk-fest is the single biggest tourist attraction and revenue generator in the city. 

Here is an excellent blog on the sufferings of the Irish people, reasons for immigration, and thier subsequent loss of identity.  Also from the same author, an Irishman’s answer to common steryotypes. 

This St. Patrick’s Day, my family will be celebrating by packing up some ‘taytoes, corned beef, and soda bread made with my great-grandmother’s recipie, and having a picnic after Mass.  Remember those who cannot celebrate with us because they scrificed their lives in the name of freedom.  If you are Irish, hoist the green flag proudly.  If not, well…no one is perfect, but for one day your sad misfortune can be overlooked. 

Tiocfaidh ár lá

 

 One of the most important films you will ever see.  At first glance, if you are skeptical, please practice some of the open -mindedness so often preached yet so rarely seen.  Truth can stand on its own. 

“In a time of universal deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” 

QR

By Randall Mikkelsen Wed Jan 16, 7:58 PM EThttp://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080117/ts_nm/security_cia_interrogations_dc

ST. MARY’S CITY, Maryland (Reuters) – The CIA’s harsh questioning of terrorism suspects was legal and saved lives, the U.S. national intelligence director said on Wednesday, as Congress questioned a CIA lawyer about the agency’s destruction of interrogation videotapes.

“It has saved lives. And so from my point of view, we’ve accomplished the mission within the bounds of U.S. law,” the director, Michael McConnell, told students at St. Mary’s College in Maryland.

Waterboarding has been condemned internationally as a form of illegal torture, and McConnell was quoted in the current issue of The New Yorker magazine as saying he would consider the practice torture if it were applied to him.

“The United States does not engage in torture. We do use enhanced interrogation techniques,” McConnell said. “There are Americans today that are alive, that are living and breathing because of those interrogation techniques.”

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation, and sought to discourage congressional probes, fearing they could undermine its efforts.

Human rights activists and some intelligence analysts and congressional critics have questioned the validity of information gained under harsh interrogations and called for a ban on waterboarding. McConnell said it was important to keep suspects guessing about the techniques they would face.

 

—————————————-

“The United States does not engage in torture”.   Well, we learned from the Clinton administration that guilt lies largely on what “the meaning of ‘is’ is”, so it follows that this entire debate rests on what your interpretation of “torture” is. 

If you were forced to stand naked in a 50 degree cell as buckets of cold water were periodically dumped on you, would that be torture?  What about being shackled and forced to stand without food or sleep for 40 hours or more?  Or the now infamous waterboarding?  What do you think constitutes torture?

 ”But, but–” whine the voices of those who routinely confuse blind trust with patriotism, “They’re TERRORISTS!” 

Wrong.  They are terror *suspects*, who may or may not have done anything wrong to begin with. I must have been asleep when the United States of America adopted the practice of holding someone prisoner indefinitely, without charge, without aid, in secret prisons where they applied “enhanced interrogation” methods merely because you are “suspected” of wrongdoing.  That would certainly be a chilling thought if it were being done to anyone besides the “bad guys”.   

 Something I have noticed is that we look with shock and disgust on the deeds of dictators who commit mass murder to eradicate the “sub-human” portion of the population, we go to war against tyrants who commit torture in secret prisons.  We justly decry these heinous acts, with the air that America, the beacon of Liberty and Freedom, would never and could never be guilty of anything even remotely similar. 

Yet here we are. 

We just can’t wait to nuke us some ragheads.  It makes little difference which ones, Iran, Saudi Arabia, we just want to teach those camel-lovers a LESSON.  We have de-humanized an entire race, to the point where we actually defend acts of abuse.  As if they are not really people anyway.  If this thinking persists, WE are going to be the ones to suffer. That the treatment you saw in the above video “complies with our laws and our Constitution” is a lie, a blasphemy, and a sad sign of just how much the Constitution is raped by those who shoud protect it.

Someone, please look up HR1955, the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.  Under this resolution, the poster child of thought crime legislation, the “bad guy”, the terrorist, could be you.  I am not against our soldiers, nor do I have any attachment to Arabs.  But I will call it as I see it, regardless of how politically correct it is.  Sometimes the truth hurts, and the truth is we should be ashamed of ourselves for passively allowing the mistreatment of a fellow human being, solely on the basis of ethnicity, and because somehow we think that ignorance, towing the party line, and blind servitude make us patriotic.  When the monster turns on those who feed it and our government cracks down on blogs like this as being a homegrown terror threat, you will have only yourselves to blame. Enjoy your stay at Happy Kamp FEMA. 

“They came first for the Communists,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

Journalists Join Krazy Klown Jihadis in Slapstick Idiocy

For those of you who do not remember the “terror scare” that gripped the UK last July, either because you were watching America’s Got Talent or you were –good heavens!– paying attention to things that were TRULY important, the original article can be found at:

http://infowars.com/articles/terror/al_qaeda_puts_on_big_shoes_red_nose_takes_custard_pie.htm
“Police avert car bomb ‘carnage’” – BBC
“London on the Edge” – Belfast Telegraph
“Terror in Theatreland” – Daily Record

It could have been the next blockbuster thriller.  A busy airport in Heathrow was shut down for hours, and thousands were left stranded outside in the rain after a terror scare.  Bomb squads came in to investigate a suspicious suitcase….that was forgotten by a passenger who left it to use the restroom.   
Two unknown numbskulls loaded their care with propane tanks and a bucket of nails, fail to blow the thing up, and attempt to set the car on fire.  The fire department put the flames out, and what would be a mere traffic inconveinience was sensationalized into a terror plot.  “Oh no! Al Qaeda is coming to get us!!”   The British news played the tapes on a loop, despite a former scotland yard detective calling them laughable, and despite no known connection with Arab terrorists. 

Is it just me, or is the whole world losing its mind except for you and me?  If two teenagers set off a firecracker in Disneyland, or anything equally mundane happens, news cameras and bomb squads show up.  Why?  The same reason that every tropical storm is the “Killer Storm of the Century”.  There is no news, so they must make it up.  The modern media is more about theatrics and sensationalisim than pesky little details like facts or truth.  The old adage in the newspaper world goes “If it bleeds, it leads”, meaning that bloodshed, fearmongering and exaggeration are more important than facts. 
There is something else at work as well. 
When people percieve a threat to their safety,  they instinctively revert to herd mentality.  It’s “Us vs.Them”.  The bottom-feeding fearmongerers know that, and exploit it to their own gains by offering the answer to all our fears.  Total Enslavement.  Worse yet, a generation that grew up with the tv as a babysitter seems less than capable of filtering truth from lies, especially when it comes to the evil box of lies itself.   

Turn off the tv, put the newspaper in the bottom of the birdcage where it belongs.  Use your newfound free time to read edifying books, books that will open your mind and eyes to the world around you.  Books that will give you the ammunition you need to fight the people dragging this country down.  Too many brave lives have been lost for this soil already to let it dry up and shrivel into a New World Order wasteland.  Blood is still being spilt for it, let it not be in vain.  There is a war being waged on American citizens today, and Al Qaeda is not the culprit.  If you want to see the traitors among us, look to Washington.  Look on your television.  The war is for your mind and your freedom.  It will not be fought on the streets, but right here.  On free radio, on free blogs and webpages, in the minds of free Americans. 

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.  Now go read a book.

QuietRiot

Words that prove prophetic.  Ignoring Ron Paul’s campaign did nothing, so they move on to racist smears that have been proven false, among  other absurd attacks.  Unfortunately, the classic divide and conquer tactic seems to have taken a toll on not only the faint-hearted, but even the most stubborn revolutionaries.  We MUST NOT allow ourselves to be destroyed from within if we are to defeat the “empire”!  The Ron Paul Revolution is not just about one man, but an awakening of America.  For the first time in decades, we can stand up and not only let our voices be heard, but wake up others.  Do not play into the establishment’s hands!

QuietRiot 

————————–

Lew Rockwell.com | July 31, 2007
Steven LaTulippe

http://infowars.com/articles/us/ron_paul_and_the_empire.htm

“If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further into the future.”

~ Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

Can Ron Paul really win? Does he have a snowball’s chance of becoming the next president, or are we all kidding ourselves?

At the moment, Rep. Paul’s quixotic campaign seems to be picking up steam. His recent fundraising statistics reveal a blossoming, internet-based movement that is uniting libertarians and other concerned citizens from across the political spectrum. His performance in the media has been sharp, and his organization seems to be honing its message.

While there are plenty of reasons for optimism, I think we need to be clear-eyed about the road ahead. If Rep. Paul somehow manages to remain a viable candidate and to seriously challenge his mainstream opponents, things will get extremely interesting. He faces a set of obstacles unlike any other candidate in my lifetime.

When evaluating his chances, it’s important to accept one fact about contemporary America: This is not a democracy, and certainly not a constitutional republic. America is actually a carefully concealed oligarchy. A few thousand people, mostly in government, finance, and the military-industrial complex, run this country for their own purposes. By manipulating the two-party system, influencing the mainstream media, and controlling the flow of campaign finance money, this oligarchy works to secure the nomination of its preferred candidates (Democratic and Republican alike), thus giving voters a “choice” between Puppet A and Marionette B.

Unlike the establishment’s candidates, Ron Paul is a freelancer running on three specific ideas:

1. The federal government must function within the strict guidelines of the Constitution.

2. America should deconstruct its empire, withdraw our troops from around the world and reestablish a foreign policy based on noninterventionism.

3. America should abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, eliminate fiat currency and return to hard money.

This is not a political agenda. This is not a party platform. It is a revolution. The entire ruling oligarchy would be swept away if these ideas were ever implemented. Every sentence, every word, every jot and tittle of this agenda is unacceptable, repellent and hateful to America’s ruling elite.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious.

Through its control of the Federal Reserve, the banking elites make billions of dollars in unearned profits and exert enormous influence over the American economy. Countless industries and special interest groups (both foreign and domestic) have sprung up around our defense and national security budgets. The bureaucratic elites who dominate the federal government despise the Constitution’s limitations on their power and view the document as just an archaic “piece of paper.”

Anyone who believes these folks will simply “walk away” if Ron Paul is elected president obviously doesn’t understand with whom they are dealing.

The attack on Ron Paul’s candidacy will begin in earnest when it appears he has an even remote possibility of winning. It will follow a fairly predictable path:

The first step is already in play. The establishment will start by simply ignoring him, by using its power in the mainstream media and their influence over campaign donors. If possible, they will find ways of excluding him from the debates.

This strategy is already failing. The internet and talk radio are outside the elite’s direct control and are being used effectively by Rep. Paul to “get the message out.” (And mark my words, sooner or later the oligarchy will come for the internet. This medium has been a royal pain in their derriere from day one).

If this strategy fizzles, the establishment will move on to ridicule and fear mongering. Ron’s ideas will be grotesquely distorted in establishment media “hit pieces.” They’ll say he wants to permit heroine use in public schools, or that he wants old people to die in the streets without their social security checks, or that he wants to allow greedy industrialists to dump toxic waste into our drinking water.

The next arrow in the oligarchy’s quiver will be scandal – real or fabricated. Usually, this takes the form of pictures, billing records, etc. involving financial or sexual hi-jinks. For folks with the right motivation and abilities, it would be child’s play to implicate him in some sort of phony ethical, moral, or financial skullduggery (e.g., doctored pictures, sordid media accounts from “eye witnesses,” etc.).

If Ron somehow survives this assault, the oligarchy will move on to the criminal justice system. On some fine day, a stretch limo will pull up to the Capitol Building and one of the establishment’s consiglieres (Jim Baker…or maybe Vernon Jordan) will ooze into Ron’s office for a “chat.”

Maybe Rep. Paul forgot to fill out Form X109/23W on his 1997 income tax return?

Or maybe he drained a mud puddle when he built his new house…and maybe that puddle could theoretically be classified as a “wetland?”

Or, even better, maybe a close relative is in hot water with OSHA/FDA/IRS/you-name-it (federal prosecutors love to go after relatives in order to gain “leverage”).

Rep. Paul’s sentence could be lessened, of course…provided he agreed to drop his candidacy as part of a “plea bargain.”

Ayn Rand once stated that the hallmark of authoritarian systems is the creation of innumerable, indecipherable laws. Such systems make everyone an un-indicted felon and allow for the exercise of arbitrary government power via selective prosecution.

If this tactic somehow failed and it appeared that Rep. Paul was still a credible threat to win the presidency, then things could get dicey.

The establishment may decide to let him take office and then use their considerable influence to ensure his presidency ended in failure – mostly through their control of congress, the federal bureaucracy, and the mainstream media.

The problem with this strategy (from the oligarchy’s perspective) is that it entails considerable risk. As president, Rep. Paul could use the substantial powers of the office to inflict untold damage to the imperial structure (especially if he chose to withdraw American troops stationed overseas). Worse, he could appoint anti-government “ideologues” to a variety of positions in the federal government.

The damage could take decades to undo.

If these options fail, the oligarchy could resort to various “extra-legal” strategies – anything from vote-rigging to trumped-up impeachment charges.

Either way, one thing is certain: The American establishment controls a world-wide empire, has the power to print the world’s reserve currency at will, and can enact virtually any law without constitutional constraint. Such power is rarely surrendered without a long, bitter struggle.

Now for the serious stuff  ;)

Excerpts from the book:
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

by Neil Postman

Penguin Books, 1985, paper

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Broadcast_Media/AmusingOurselves_Postman.html

pvii
We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another-slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision … people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

p3
Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.

p92
Televison is our culture’s principal mode of knowing about itself.

p103
TV news has no intention of suggesting that any story has any implications, for that would require viewers to continue to think about it when it is done and therefore obstruct their attending to the next story …

p103
Newscasters do not pause to grimace or shiver when they speak their prefaces or epilogs to the film clips. Indeed, many newscasters do not appear to grasp the meaning of what they are saying, and some hold to a fixed and ingratiating enthusiasm as they report on earthquakes, mass killings and other disasters. Viewers would be quite disconcerted by any show of concern or terror on the part of newscasters. Viewers, after all, are partners with the newscasters in the “Now . . . this” culture, and they expect the newscaster to play out his or her role as a character who is marginally serious but who stays well clear of authentic understanding.

p104
Whereas we expect books and even other media (such as film) to maintain a consistency of tone and a continuity of content, we have no such expectation of television, and especially television news. We have become so accustomed to its discontinuities that we are no longer struck dumb, as any sane person would be, by a newscaster who having just reported that a nuclear war is inevitable goes on to say that he will be right 5, back after this word from Burger King; who says, in other words, “Now . . . this.” One can hardly overestimate the damage that such juxtapositions do to our sense of the world as a serious place. The damage is especially massive to youthful viewers who depend so much on television for their clues as to how to respond to the world. In watching television news, they, more than any other segment of the audience, are drawn into an epistemology based on the assumption that all reports of cruelty and death are greatly exaggerated and, in any case, not to be taken seriously or responded to sanely.

I should go so far as to say that embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication, featuring a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction. In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia. In the parlance of the theater, it is known as vaudeville.

p106
The result of all this is that Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world. I say this in the face of the popular conceit that television, as a window to the world, has made Americans exceedingly well informed. Much depends here, of course, on what is meant by being informed. I will pass over the now tiresome polls that tell us that, at any given moment, 70 percent of our citizens do not know who is the Secretary of State or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Let us consider, instead, the case of Iran during the drama that was called the “Iranian Hostage Crisis.” I don’t suppose there has been a story in years that received more continuous attention from television. We may assume, then, that Americans know most of what there is to know about this unhappy event. And now, I put these questions to you: Would it be an exaggeration to say that not one American in a hundred knows what language the Iranians speak? Or what the word ….Ayatollah” means or implies? Or knows any details of the tenets of Iranian religious beliefs? Or the main outlines of their political history? Or knows who the Shah was, and where he came from?

Nonetheless, everyone had an opinion about this event, for in America everyone is entitled to an opinion, and it is certainly useful to have a few when a pollster shows up. But these are opinions of a quite different order from eighteenth- or nineteenth-century opinions. It is probably more accurate to call them emotions rather than opinions, which would account for the fact that they change from week to week, as the pollsters tell us. What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of “being informed” by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. I am using this word almost in the precise sense in which it is used by spies in the CIA or KGB. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information – misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information – information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?

This was originally written in August, 2007.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CREDIT_CRISIS?SITE=NYWNE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULTWASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush sought to calm nervous investors Tuesday as the Federal Reserve plowed $3.75 billion into the financial system, the latest efforts to stanch a spreading credit crisis that has unhinged Wall Street.Wrapping up a summit in Montebello, Quebec, with the Prime Minister of Canada and the Mexican president, Bush took the opportunity to point out that the U.S. economy remains in good shape and should be able to weather the financial storm.

Trying to further stabilize wobbly markets, the Federal Reserve on Tuesday pumped another $3.75 billion into the financial system. It was the latest in a series of cash transfusions that have topped more than $100 billion in recent weeks. That’s aimed at helping banks and other institutions get over the hump and carry out their business more smoothly.

———————————————

 ”Let me issue and control a nation’s money supply, and I care not who makes its laws.”  –Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of Rothschild banking dynasty

We are so used to hearing the federal government throwing around numbers in the billions and trillions, yet we do not really understand HOW MUCH money, or lack thereof, we are talking about. To quote a talk radio personality, get yourself some duct tape and wrap it reeeeally tight around your head, because your head will EXPLODE after you read this.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/a/175099.htm

Every 8 hours and 20 minutes, the U.S. Government spends another billion dollars.

A billion seconds ago, it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.
A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

If we all decided to all pitch in and pay off just the first $5 trillion of the federal debt at the rate of $1.00 (one dollar) per second, it would take us around 160,000 years. One hundred sixty thousand years.

A tightly-packed stack of crisp new $1000 bills, totaling $5 billion, would be 315 miles tall. The Space Shuttle, which orbits at about 240 miles above the earth, would have to go around our “debt stack.”

Now, what do you think about printing 100 BILLION new dollars and pumping them into the economy to artificially prop it up?  We artificially inflate the economy and throw more money at the beast in the hopes it will be satisfied. Which never works. Eventually, the bubble breaks, most likely to the tune of another depression. But Hey, The economy looks ok right now, doesn’t it? Just a little slump, move along….nothing to see here.

We do not need more cash in the system, or any of the other band-aid economic solutions. Ever wonder why you pay income tax?  Because the United States is mortgaged away to the Federal Reserve, a private bank no more “federal” than FedEx.  Congress granted them power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, a power originally granted them by the Constitution, and sold America’s soul to a bank.  They are the reason why the US dollar is only REALLY worth four cents. Your income tax goes directly to pay the interest owed on money borrowed from the reserve. 

 We do not need a bailout.  We need to trim some fat off the hog. We need to cut some of the tentacles off the octopus bureaucracy that the country is going BANKRUPT trying to satisfy. Or maybe get rid of insanely out of control pork barrel spending such asthese examples from www.cagw.org : $1,650,000 added by Senate appropriator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to improve the shelf life of vegetables.$1,000,000 added in the House for the Allen Telescope Array in Mountain View, Calif. This “alien” project is part of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). SETI describes the telescope as “dedicated to astronomical and simultaneous search for extra-terrestrial intelligence observations.” No word on how it will help defend the world against an alien invasion. 

*sigh* Yet more reasons I am supporting Ron Paul in ‘08

QuietRiot