MAY 2007

Doremus Jessup, editor of the Fort Beulah The Daily Informer, in Sinclair Lewis' famous book "It Can't Happen Here", at its conclusion, "drove out saluted by the meadow larks, and onward all day, to a hidden cabin in the Northern Woods where quiet men awaited news of freedom.....still Doremus goes on, into the sunrise, for a Doremus Jessup can never die.

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US “nothing more than a colony of Israel”

From: "John Craig" <cpds@brisbane.apana.org.au> Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:03:57 +1000

There is zero doubt that Jewish interests are involved in behind the scenes efforts to manipulate US institutions and public opinion. There is also zero doubt that numerous other domestic and foreign interests are trying with varying degrees of success to do exactly the same thing.

The real secret of power is ideas that grab mens' minds - whether in public or in private. This is central to traditional methods of exerting power in East Asia and I have encountered reasonable indications that Jewish factions (at east in Australia) have similar understanding of how to achieve this. And since the 1990s similar methods have been recognised and used by major corporations in the process of 'issues management' - and to some extent similar methods now seem to be being used by US agencies in relationship to the 'war against terror'.

The only way to combat people who devote huge efforts to coming up with ideas to 'grab mens' minds' is to put in even more effort to come up with better ones. Nothing would be achived by requiring such groups to be registered - as there are so many people in the game, and it is virtually impossible for people to tell the difference between clandestine manipulation and simple 'good ideas'.

Scott Ritter has a lot of useful things to say about the inability of US political process to make informed choices about its foreign policy actions in Middle East (and thus its susceptibility to influence). Those who object to this have a clear challenge - ie become expert on the Middle East and thus able to put forward better ideas.
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GUANTANAMO

Dear Avaaz Member,

Nearly 400 people are stuck in President Bush's prison at Guantanamo without trials or even being charged with a crime. Last week, nearly 50,000 of us from 160 countries signed Avaaz's call to close Guantanamo prison - making it the largest petition in the world opposing President Bush's assault on international law. Next week, we will run the petition in major US newspapers. To be counted and to see a map of which countries have the most signatures, click here.

Guantanamo's former commander General Jay Hood has admitted, "Sometimes we just didn't get the right folks." Without trials, innocent people get caught in the mix. And let's face it, even guilty people have the right to a trial and to know what crimes they are accused of. Meanwhile, regimes around the world are using Guantanamo to excuse their own human rights abuses.
But now we have a chance for progress. Last week, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates finally said Guantanamo should be closed. President Bush's advisors are split down the middle - and a global outcry could tip the balance and push Bush to close Guantanamo forever.

Please sign the petition calling on the US government to close Guantanamo and for its inmates to be tried in a legitimate court or set free:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/close_guantanamo

Next week, we'll run ads featuring the petition in Washington, DC newspapers read by top Bush officials. It's time to show them that citizens from every country on earth want this injustice to end.
In hope,
Ricken, Milena, Tom, Graziela and the Avaaz Team Guantanamo Prisoner No. 940

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A Message from Cynthia McKinney:     OK, they're doing it again.  And if the past is any barometer, we'll let them get away with it.  I'm talking about us giving them our tax dollars and then they spend it as they wish, even against our own interests.  One day we'll stop this kind of  behavior by doing the unexpected.  I've got some ideas which I will share with you later, but today I'm writing to ask for your help in retiring my debt. 

Please visit http://supporters.cynthiaforcongress.com/supporters.cgi and donate what you can today!  Have no doubt that I will stand up and speak the truth, despite what they do or say about me.  In fact, more people are learning that the corporate media are not to be trusted to tell us the truth about the issues that really matter to us.  And are discovering that on the issues that really matter, I've been there early--out in front:  election theft, September 11th, civil liberties, bogus war claims, militarism, special interests that work against the  people, government lies, protecting the environment, healing the racial divide, and more.

I've been fortunate to travel from Georgia to California and many points inbetween.  All along the way, people have been very generous in helping to retire our debt.  And many more are anxious to know what I plan to do in 2008.  I can assure you that so many people want a three-peat!  And while I would like to concentrate on 2008, I still have unfinished business from 2006 that must be addressed.

My 2006 election had some unique features that are currently being litigated in Georgia courts:

1.  The Diebold tabulator in my largest voting area broke down in the middle of counting the votes;
2.  The 2006 elections were run on uncertified Diebold machines and this matter has been referred to the Georgia Attorney General's office for criminal investigation;
3.  We have collected affidavits from voters who live outside the 4th District, but who voted in the 4th District race;
4.  We have asked the authorities to give us information on how something like this could have happened, and how these votes were counted; a prominent local election authority informed us that she had heard reports that people as far away as South Georgia voted in the 4th District race because it was the race that came up on their Diebold voting machine screen;
5.  We also have affidavits from voters who said that when they returned to the polls to vote in my runoff election, the 4th District race was not on their ballot and therefore they could not vote in the runoff even though they had voted in the 4th District primary;
6.  When interested citizens asked for the records of the election, they were told that the records sought belonged to Diebold and would not be made available to them;
7.  When a voter took the matter to court, the court agreed with the State that the election information was proprietary, belonging to Diebold, and that the public could not have access to it.  This matter is currently under appeal.
8.  The margin throwing my reelection into a runoff was fewer than 10 votes per precinct.

In the meantime, I've continued to do the good work of standing up to the Bush Administration by standing with the people and on our country's Constitution.  Therefore, I continue to oppose the Bush war machine and its steady erosion of our civil liberties and the construction of a militarized state that impoverishes the American people in more ways than in misplaced budgeting priorities.

What we didn't count on was that standing up to the Bush war machine would also mean standing up to a Democratic majority Congress, that has gone along with Bush instead of standing up for us.  In front of the Pentagon, on my birthday (March 17), I described my utter disappointment with the "agenda" of the Democratic majority in Congress that, unfortunately, omits repeal of the most heinous laws passed during the Republican Congressional majority:  the Patriot Act, the Secret Evidence Act, the Military Tribunals Act. 

America's fiscal house is not being put in order with the Democrats' decision to fund the surge and the war machine, but also by their failure to repeal the onerous Bush tax cuts that favor the super wealthy over the rest of us.

What ever happened to My country tis of thee . . .

Instead, in our name, and with our tax dollars, the United States of America now stands for torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

. . . sweet land of liberty . . .

In front of the Pentagon I spelled it out clearly that the Democrats have now become complicit in all that we abhor:  from war and occupation to an economy in shambles to our Bill of Rights being at risk. And, importantly, that I've declared my independence from the leaders who let this happen.

. . . of thee I sing . . .

Help me to sing the songs of freedom . . . from the corrupt politics that has hijacked our country . . . from a choice between the lesser of two evils wherein we still get evil . . . Freedom from the feeling that neither Party really respects us or our vote.

If you want a breath of fresh air and a stiff dose of the truth, and real debate on the issues that affect your life and the viability of our country, and the opportunity to act for real and meaningful change, then please send what you can to help retire our debt.  [TheBlackList] A Message from Cynthia McKinney

new blueprint

According to The New York Times of 13 January 2007, the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December (see p24 of this issue of NA) constitutes a "new blueprint" by which the US military wishes, in future, to conduct "proxy wars" through "surrogates". [TheBlackList] Somalia, Why the new American 'blueprint' is dangerous for Africa On 13 January 2007, The Guardian reported that General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces from the Middle East through Afghanistan, arrived in Addis Ababa on 4 December to meet the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. Officially, the trip was a courtesy call to an ally. Three weeks later, however, Ethiopian forces crossed into Somalia. The US followed up by launching air strikes in Somalia against so-called "suspected al-Qaida operatives" believed to be hiding among the fleeing Islamist fighters.

"The meeting [between Gen Abizaid and Zenawi] was just the final handshake," said a former intelligence officer familiar with the region.Washington and Addis Ababa may deny it, but the American air strikes exposed close intelligence and military cooperation between Ethiopia and America, fuelled by mutual concern about the rise of Islamists in the chaos of Somalia.

Pentagon officials and intelligence analysts even say a small number of US Special Forces were on the ground before Ethiopia's intervention, in an operation planned since last summer, soon after the Islamic Courts Union took control of Mogadishu. Press reports have said US Special Forces also accompanied the Ethiopian troops crossing into Somalia.

TSA begins sinister Phase Two of Operations
a blog run by Jim Henley, posting by Thoreau

Yesterday I flew from Maryland to Milwaukee, where my wife and I are visiting family for the week. I was surprised to discover that I now have to pass through two machines (the air blower as well as the metal detector), not just one, and that my belt buckle now sets off metal detectors. I don’t have one of those giant ornamental belt buckles beloved of Texans, just a normal belt buckle. Yet now I have to take my belt off, along with my shoes. It wasn’t always this way, so I assume they’ve upped the sensitivity of the metal detectors.

Another machine to pass through, and another article of clothing to remove. I’ve seen the air blowers before, but they used to be for special screening. Now they’re standard, at least at Reagan National Airport (it’s been a while since I flew through there, usually using Dulles).

And I’ve noticed that whereas the screening area used to be roped off, with exiting passengers walking to the right of the ropes and people preparing to board going to the right of the ropes, now the screening area is separated from the exit lane by large glass or plexiglass walls. I don’t really care about ropes vs. plexiglass, but it’s strange to see the way that the apparatus keeps growing and evolving, taking on more intricate and expensive forms.

Seeing the way that the screening procedures multiply, and the way that the footprint of the TSA keeps growing, I wonder just how large this metastasizing tumor of the security state will grow to be. Will the metal button on my jeans eventually set off the metal detector? Will the zipper set it off? Will I have to take off my pants then?

Usually I grumble something about how the Russians used to have to pass through checkpoints and show their papers, and they knew that if they caused trouble their names could wind up on lists. But I don’t grumble too loudly, because I don’t want my name to wind up on the no-fly list.

The TSA may not be the most dangerous aspect of our new security state, but it is by far the most obnoxious, with an incredibly rude staff and metastasizing mass that acts as a choke-point for all of our travels. We hates them! Oh, yes, we hates them! We do! Forever!

a girl called Mona wrote this on wishful thinking.................

• End the use of military commissions to prosecute crimes.

• Prohibit the use of secret evidence or evidence obtained by torture.

• Prohibit the detention of American citizens as enemy combatants without proof.

• Restore habeas corpus for alleged alien combatants.

• End National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping.

• Empower Congress to challenge presidential signing statements.

• Bar executive use of the state secret privilege to deny justice.

• Prohibit the President from collaborating with foreign governments to kidnap, detain of torture persons abroad.

• Amend the Espionage Act to permit journalists to report on classified national security matters without threat of persecution.

• Prohibit of the labeling of groups or individuals in the U.S. as global terrorists based on secret evidence.

douglas tompkins another soul mate of those awaking?...

or a dreamer used as a tool.


Argentinian critics say an American campaigner is buying up vast wetlands for US strategic goals

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
Sunday February 4, 2007
The Observer

Douglas Tompkinscalls himself a 'deep ecologist'. He is a millionaire on a quest to preserve some of Argentina's last frontier lands from human encroachment by buying them and turning them into ecological reserves.

But Argentina may not permit him such philanthropy. Opponents are branding him a new-age 'imperialist gringo' and claim he has a secret aim: to help the US military gain control of the country's natural resources. Tompkins, who sold his Esprit clothing firm in 1989 for a reported $150m to devote his time and wealth to ecology, takes such attacks in his stride. 'Land ownership is a political act; it arouses passions,' he says.

Tompkins, 63, holds to a very severe brand of environmentalism and is fond of reminding listeners that, unless runaway consumerism is halted, 'we humans will be building ourselves a beautiful coffin in space called planet Earth'.

Yet such statements do not carry much weight with Argentinian nationalists. The heaviest fire has come from radicals in the ruling Peronist party. Left-wing legislator Araceli Mendez introduced draft legislation in Congress a few months ago to confiscate the American's vast holdings. At the centre of the storm is a 310,000-acre estate Tompkins owns in the Ibera wetlands, a labyrinth of marshes, lakes and floating islands of nearly 2 million acres. 'He says he's worried about the birds and the wildlife,' said Mendez. 'But his land is above the Guarani aquifer, one of the most important fresh water reserves in the world, only 700km from an airbase the United States plans to build in neighbouring Paraguay.'

The aquifer is soon to become an issue of strategic defence policy. Argentina's military planners are convinced the country's oil and fresh water deposits could become targets for world powers in an ecologically dark future, and are putting together 'Plan 2025', dividing the country into regions based on their resource potential.

The Argentinian press has suggested Tompkins might be a covert CIA operative securing US access to the aquifer. And even Argentinians who don't share such conspiracy theories are uncomfortable with Tompkins transforming his properties into environmentally pristine but unpopulated and economically unproductive areas.

Tompkins and his wife, Kristine McDivitt, a former CEO of the Patagonia clothing retail chain, first went to Ibera in the late 1990s. After being initially unimpressed - 'it's as flat as a billiard table' - they eventually succumbed to the challenge, putting the accent on restoring the original wildlife.

'Wetlands are not up there in the collective human mind, they get very poor conservation protection, but there is an enchantment in every ecosystem,' said Tompkins. 'The land has been environmentally degraded and many of the indigenous animals have disappeared,' he went on. 'We've started with the marsh deer. Eventually we'll be able to reintroduce the jaguar, the top of the food chain.'

Tompkins expects that in 15 to 20 years he could turn his Ibera estate into a national park. 'It can take that long to generate a change in attitude. Tourism has to become a national priority.'

Tompkins and his wife say they are not old-fashioned imperialists in a new guise. 'All the fears created by the fact that I am American buying land are ridiculous,' said Tompkins. 'My intention has always been to eventually turn over the land to the Argentinian government for a national park.' He has already done so, donating an estate in Patagonia to the National Parks administration in 2004. In the late Nineties he had bought the 155,000-acre Monte Leon sheep farm, including a 25-mile stretch of South Atlantic coast, home to one of the largest Magellan penguin rookeries in the world and also abundant in sea lions, pumas and birds.

But pressure to pass an anti-Tompkins bill in Congress could be strong. The presence of other high-profile foreigners fuels passions. The Italian clothing giant Benetton holds 2.2 million acres in sheep farms in Patagonia and has clashed with the indigenous Mapuche people over land ownership claims. And US media magnate Ted Turner likes to go trout fishing on his Patagonian estates.

For Tompkins, it has been a long road from fashion king to 'deep ecologist'. As the founder of North Face and Esprit, he sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of clothes worldwide every year. All that changed when he became involved in radical environmental projects, what he calls his 'restoration work', returning native animal and plant species to the nation-sized swaths of land he owns.

Tompkins and his wife have acquired properties encompassing Pacific coastal fjords, Patagonian virgin forest and tropical wetlands, a total area of some 2.2 million acres - about the size of Cyprus -in Argentina and neighbouring Chile.

Despite all the difficulties, Tompkins is optimistic about converting opponents to his way of thinking. 'I see an unstoppable wave of environmentalism. Environmental problems arise from the mistaken notion that humans come first. They have to come second. This has not sunk into the political and social leadership.'