Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army (FARC-EP)
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
By James Petras
16/03/08 "ICH" -- - President Uribe’s troop and missile assault, violating Ecuadorian sovereignty came very close to precipitating a regional war with Ecuador and Venezuela. During an interview I had with President Chavez, at the time of this bellicose act, he confirmed to me the gravity of Uribe’s doctrine of ‘preventive war’ and ‘extra-territorial intervention’, calling the Colombian regime the ‘Israel of Latin America’. Earlier, during his Sunday radio program ‘Alo Presidente’, in which I was an invited guest, he followed up with an announcement that he was sending ground, air and sea forces to the Venezuelan frontier with Colombia.
Uribe’s cross-border attack was meant to probe the political ‘will’ of Ecuador and Venezuela to respond to military aggression, as well as to test the performance of US-coordinated remote, satellite directed missile attack. There is no doubt also that Uribe aimed to scuttle the imminent humanitarian release of FARC prisoner, Ingrid Betancourt, being negotiated by the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, Ecuador’s Interior Minister Larrea, the Colombian Red Cross and especially Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Kouchner, Larrea and Chavez were in direct contact with FARC’s leader, Raul Reyes who, along with 22 others, including non-combatants of various nationalities, were assassinated in Ecuador by Uribe’s American-coordinated missile and ground attack. Uribe’s military intervention was in part directed at denying the important diplomatic role, which Chavez was playing in the release FARC-held prisoners, in contrast to the failure of Uribe’s military efforts to ‘free the prisoners’.
Raul Reyes was recognized as the legitimate interlocutor in these negotiations by both European and Latin American governments, as well as the Red Cross; if the negotiations succeeded in the prisoner release it was likely that the same governments and humanitarian bodies would pressure Uribe to open comprehensive prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the FARC, which was contrary to Bush and Uribes’ policy of unrelenting warfare, political assassinations and scorched earth policies.
What was at stake in Uribe’s violating Ecuadorian sovereignty and murdering 22 FARC guerrillas and Mexican visitors was nothing less than the entire military counter-insurgency strategy, which has been pursued by Uribe since coming to office in 2002.
Uribe was clearly willing to risk what eventually happened – the censure and sanction of the Organization of American States and the (temporary) break in relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua. He did so because he could count on Washington’s backing, which covertly (and illegally) participated in and immediately applauded the attack. That was more important than jeopardizing cooperation with Latin American nations and France. Colombia remains Washington’s military forward shield in Latin America and, in particular, it is the most important politico-military instrument to destabilize and overthrow the anti-imperialist Chavez government. Clinton and Bush have invested over $6 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia over the past 7 years, including sending 1500 military advisers and Special Forces, dozens of Israeli commandos and ‘trainers’, funding over 2000 mercenary fighters and over 10,000 paramilitary forces working closely with the 200,000-man strong Colombian Armed Forces.
Notwithstanding these and other international considerations, influencing Uribe’s extra-territorial ‘act of war’, I would argue that the main consideration in this attack on the FARC campsite in Ecuador was to decapitate, weaken and isolate the most powerful guerrilla movement in Latin America and the most uncompromising opponent to Washington and Bogotá’s repressive neo-liberal policies. International politicians, including progressive leaders like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, who have called for the end of armed struggle, seem to overlook the recent experiences of FARC efforts to de-militarize the struggle, including three peace initiatives (1984-1990), (1999-2001) and (2007-2008) and the heavy costs to the FARC in terms of the killing of key leaders, activists and sympathizers. During the mid-1980’s many leaders of the FARC joined the electoral process, formed a political party – the Patriotic Union. The scores of successfully elected local and national officeholders and…5,000 of their members, leaders, congress-people and three presidential candidates were slaughtered. The FARC returned to the countryside and guerrilla struggle. Ten years later, the FARC agreed to negotiate with then President Pastrana in a demilitarized zone. The FARC held public forums, discussed policy alternatives for social and political reforms to democratize the state and debated private versus public ownership of strategic economic sectors with diverse sectors in ‘civil society’. President Pastrana, under pressure from US President Clinton and later Bush, abruptly broke off negotiations and sent the armed forces in to capture the FARC’s high level negotiating teams. The US-funded and advised Colombian military failed to capture the FARC leaders but set the stage for the scorched earth policies pursued by paramilitary President Uribe.
In 2007-2008, the FARC offered to negotiate the mutual release of political prisoners in a secure demilitarized zone in Colombia. Uribe refused. President Chavez entered into negotiations as a mediator. The French government and others challenged Chavez to ask for ‘evidence’ that the FARC prisoners were alive. The FARC complied with Chavez request. It sent three emissaries who were intercepted and are being detained by the Colombian military under brutal conditions. Still the FARC continued with Chavez request and attempted to relocate the first set of prisoners to be turned over to the Red Cross and Venezuelan officials – but they came under aerial attack by Uribe’s armed forces thus aborting the release. Still later, under increased risk, they were able to release the first batch of captives. The French Foreign Minister Kouchner and Chavez made new requests for the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national and former presidential candidate. This was sabotaged when Uribe, with high-level US technical assistance, launched a major military offensive throughout the country, including a comprehensive monitoring program, tracing communications between Reyes, Chavez, Kouchner, Larrea and the Red Cross. It was this high-risk role played by Reyes as the highest level FARC official involved in the negotiations and coordination for captive release that led to his assassination. Outside pressures for a unilateral release of prisoners caused the FARC to lower their security. The result was the loss of leaders, negotiators, sympathizers and militants – without securing the release of any of their 500 comrades held in Colombian prisons. The entire emphasis of Sarkozy, Chavez, Correa and others demanded unilateral concessions from the FARC - as if their own tortured and dying comrades in Uribe’s jails were not part of any humanitarian consideration.
The subsequent summit in the Dominican Republic during the weekend of March 8-9 led to a condemnation of Colombia’s violation of Ecuador’s territorial sovereignty, but the Uribe government, responsible for the invasion, was not actually named or officially sanctioned. Moreover, no mention was made (let alone respect shown) for the treacherously assassinated leader, Raul Reyes, whose life was lost in pursuit of a humanitarian exchange. If the meeting itself was a disappointing response to a tragedy, the aftermath was a farce: a smiling Uribe, walked across the meeting hall and offered a hand shake and perfunctory apology to Correa and Chavez, while Nicaraguan President Ortega embraced the murderous leader of Colombia. By that vile and cynical gesture, Uribe turned the entire military mobilization and weeklong denunciations by Chavez and Correa into a comic opera. The post-meeting ‘reconciliation’ gave the appearance that their opposition to a cross-border attack and the cold-blooded murder of Reyes was merely political theater – a bad omen for the future if, as is likely, Uribe repeats his cross border attacks on an even larger scale. Will the people of Venezuela or Ecuador and the armed forces take serious another call for mobilization and readiness?
Less than a week after the Santa Domingo ‘reconciliation’ meeting, Chavez and Uribe renewed an earlier military agreement to cooperate against ‘violent groups whatever their origins’. Clearly Chavez hopes that by dissociating Venezuela from any suspicion of providing moral support to the FARC, Uribe will stop the large-scale flow of paramilitary infiltrators from entering Venezuela and destabilizing the country. In other words, ‘reasons of state’ take precedence over solidarity with the FARC. What should be clear to Chavez however is the fact that Uribe will not abide by his side of the agreement because of his ties to Washington, and the latter’s insistence that the Chavez government be destabilized by any or all means, including the continued infiltration by Colombian paramilitary forces into Venezuela.
Uribe could apologize to Correa and Chavez because the real purpose of his military attack was to destroy the FARC leadership, any way, any place, any time and under any circumstance – even in the midst of international negotiations. Washington placed a $5 million dollar bounty on each and every member of the FARC secretariat, long before Chavez or Correa came to power, Washington’s top priority – as witnessed by its military aid programs ($6 billion dollars in 7 years), size and scope of its military advisory mission (1500 US specialists) and the length of its involvement in counter-insurgency activities within Colombia (45 years) – was to destroy the FARC.
Washington and its Colombian surrogates were willing to incur the predictable displeasure of Correa, Chavez and the slap on the wrist by the OAS if they could succeed in killing the Number Two commander of the FARC. The reason is clear: it is the FARC and not the neighboring leaders, who influence a third of Colombia’s countryside; it is the FARC’s military-political power which ties down a third of Colombia’s armed forces and prevents Colombia from engaging in any major military intervention against Chavez at the behest of Washington. Uribe and Washington have pressured Correa into cutting most of the FARC’s logistical supply lines and many security camps on the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. Correa claims to have destroyed 11 FARC campsites and arrested 11 guerrillas. The Venezuelan National Guard has turned a blind eye to Colombian cross border military pursuit of FARC activists and sympathizers among the Colombian refugee-peasantry camped along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Uribe and Washington’s pressure has forced Chavez to publicly disclaim any support for the FARC, its methods and strategy. The FARC is internationally isolated – the Cuban Foreign Ministry proclaimed the phony ‘reconciliation’ at Santo Domingo to be a ‘great victory’ for peace. The FARC is diplomatically isolated, even as it retains substantial domestic support in the provinces and countryside of Colombia.
With the ‘neutralization’ of outside support, or sympathy for the FARC, the Uribe regime – before, during and immediately after the Santo Domingo meeting – launched a series of bloody murders and threats against all progressive and leftist organizations. In the run-up to a March 6, 2008 200,000-strong ‘march against state terror’, hundreds of organizers and activists were threatened, abused, followed, interrogated and accused by Uribe of ‘supporting the FARC’, a government label, which was followed up by the death squad killings of the leader of the march and four other human rights spokespeople. Immediately following the mass demonstration, the principle Colombian trade union, the CUT (the Confederation of Colombian Workers) reported several assassinations and assaults including the head of the banking employees union, a leader of the teachers union, the head of the education section of the CUT and a researcher at a pedagogical institute. All told, over 5,000 trade unionists have been killed, 2 million peasants and farmers have been forcibly removed and their land seized by pro-Uribe paramilitary forces and landlords. Former self-confessed death squad leaders publicly have admitted to funding and controlling over one-third of the elected members of Congress backing Uribe. Currently 30 congress-people are on trial for ‘association’ with the paramilitary death squads. Several of Uribe’s most intimate cabinet collaborators were exposed as having family ties with the death squads and two were forced to resign.
Despite international disrepute, especially in Latin America, with powerful support from Washington, Uribe has built up a murderous killing machine of 200,000 military, 30,000 police, several thousand death squad killers and over a million fanatical middle and upper class Colombians in favor of ‘wiping out the FARC’ – meaning eliminating independent popular organizations of civil society. More than any other past Colombian oligarchic rulers, Uribe is the closest to a fascist dictator combining state terror with mass mobilization.
The opposition political and social movements in Colombia are massive, committed and vulnerable. They are subject to daily intimidation and gangland-style murder. Through terror and mass propaganda, Uribe has so far been able to impose his rule over the working class opposition and attract mass middle class support. But he has utterly failed to defeat, destroy or disarticulate the FARC – his most consequential opposition. Each year since he has come to power, Uribe has pledged massive, all-out military sweeps of entire regions of the country, which would finally put an end to the ‘terrorists’. Tens of thousands of peasants in FARC-influenced regions have been tortured, raped, murdered and driven from their homes. Each of Uribe’s military offensives has failed. Yet he absolutely and totally fails to recognize what some generals and even US officials observe: the FARC cannot be militarily annihilated and at some point the government must negotiate.
Uribe’s failures and the enduring presence of the FARC have become a psychotic obsession: All territorial, legal, international constraints are thrown overboard. Alternating between euphoria and hysteria, faced with internal opposition to his mono-maniac strategy of terror, he screams ‘FARC supporters’ at any and all overseas and Colombian critics. To Ecuador and Venezuela, he promises ‘not to invade their territory again’ unless ‘circumstances warrant it.’ So much for ‘reconciliation.’
The period of humanitarian exchange is dead; the FARC cannot and will not accommodate the requests of well-intentioned friends, especially when it puts in risk the entire FARC organization and leadership. Let us concede that Chavez intentions were well meant. His pleas for a mutual release of prisoners might have made sense if he had been dealing with a rational bourgeois politician responsive to international leaders and organizations and eager to create a favorable image before world public opinion. But it was naïve for Chavez to believe that a psychotic politician with a history of annihilating his opposition would suddenly discover the virtues of negotiations and humanitarian exchanges. Without question, the FARC understands better than its Andean and Caribbean friends through hard experience and bitter lessons, that armed struggle may not be the desired method but it is the only realistic way to confront a brutal fascist regime.
Uribe’s killing of Raul Reyes was not about Chavez initiatives or Ecuador’s sovereignty or Ingrid Betancourt’s captivity, it was about Raul Reyes, a consequential and life-long revolutionary and leader of the FARC. The war-scare is over, differences have been papered over, the leaders have returned to their palaces, but Raul Reyes has not been forgotten – at least not in the countryside of Colombia or in the hearts of its peasants.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is "The Power of Israel in the United States" (Clarity Press, 2006).
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
War Mongering People Israel
"I Came, I Saw, I Destroyed!"
By Uri Avnery
16/03/08 "ICH" --- WHAT HAPPENED this week is so infuriating, so impertinent, that it stands out even in our familiar landscape of governmental irresponsibility.
On the near horizon, a de facto suspension of hostilities was taking shape. The Egyptians had made great efforts to turn it into an official cease-fire. The flame was already burning visibly lower. The launching of Qassams and Grads from the Gaza Strip into Israel had fallen from dozens a day to two or three.
And then something happened that turned the flame up high again: undercover soldiers of the Israeli army killed four Palestinians militants in Bethlehem. A fifth was killed in a village near Tulkarm.
THE MODUS OPERANDI left no doubt about the intention.
As usual, the official version was mendacious. (When the army spokesman speaks the truth, he is ashamed and immediately hurries on to the next lie.) The four, it was said, drew their weapons and endangered the life of the soldiers, who only wanted to arrest them, so they were compelled to open fire.
Anyone with half a brain knows that this is a lie. The four were in a small car on the main street of Bethlehem, the road that has joined Jerusalem and Hebron since British (or Turkish) times. They were indeed armed, but they had no chance at all of drawing their weapons. The car was simply sprayed with dozens of bullets.
That was not an attempt to make an arrest. That was an execution, pure and simple, one of those summary executions in which the Shin Bet fulfils the roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner.
This time no effort was even made to pretend that the four were about to carry out a murderous attack. It was not claimed, for example, that they had anything to do with last week's attack on the Mercaz Harav seminary, the flagship of the settlers' fleet. Actually, no such pretense could be put forward, because the most important of the four had recently given interviews to the Israeli media and announced that he was availing himself of the Israeli "pardon scheme" - a Shin Bet program under which "wanted" militants give up their arms and undertake to cease resistance to the occupation. He was also a candidate in the last Palestinian elections.
If so, why where they killed? The Shin Bet did not hide the reason: two of the four had participated in attacks in 2001 in which Israelis were killed.
"Our long arm will get them even years later," Ehud Barak boasted on TV, "we shall get everyone with Jewish blood on his hands."
SIMPLY PUT: The Defense Minister and his men endangered today's cease-fire in order to avenge something that happened seven years ago.
It was obvious to all that the killing of Islamic Jihad militants in Bethlehem would cause the renewal of the Qassam launchings on Sderot. And so it happened.
The effect of a Qassam rocket is completely unpredictable. For the residents of Sderot, this is a kind of Israeli Roulette - the rocket may fall in an empty field, it may fall on a building, sometimes it kills people.
In other words, according to Barak himself, he was ready to risk Jewish lives today in order to take revenge on persons who may perhaps have shed blood years ago and have since given up their armed activity.
The emphasis is on the word "Jewish". In his statement, Barak took care not to speak about persons "with blood on their hands", but about those "with Jewish blood on their hands". Jewish blood, of course, is quite different from any other blood. And indeed, there is no person in the Israeli leadership with so much blood on his hands as him. Not abstract blood, not metaphorical blood, but very real red blood. In the course of his military service, Barak has personally killed quite a number of Arabs. Whoever shakes his hand - from Condoleezza Rice to this week's honored guest, Angela Merkel - is shaking a hand with blood on it.
THE BETHLEHEM killing raises a number of hard questions, but with very few exceptions, the media did not voice them. They shirk their duty, as usual when it concerns "security" problems.
Real journalists in a real democratic state would have asked the following questions:
(a) Who was it who decided on the executions in Bethlehem - Ehud Olmert? Ehud Barak? The Shin Bet? All of them? None of them?
(b) Did the decision-makers understand that by condemning the militants in Bethlehem to death, they were also condemning to death any residents of Sderot or Ashkelon who might be killed by the rockets launched in revenge?
(c) Did they understand that they were also boxing the ears of Mahmoud Abbas, whose security forces, which in theory are in charge of Bethlehem, would be accused of collaborating with the Israeli death-squad?
(d) Was the real aim of the action to undermine the cease-fire that had come about in practice in the Gaza Strip (and the reality of which was official denied both by Olmert and Barak, even while the number of rockets launched fell from dozens a day to just two or three?)
(e) Does the Israeli government generally object to a cease-fire that would free Sderot and Ashkelon from the threat of the rockets?
(f) If so, why?
The media did not demand that Olmert and Barak expose to the public the considerations that led them to adopt this decision, which concerns every person in Israel. And no wonder. These are, after all, the same media that danced for joy when the same government started an ill-considered and superfluous war in Lebanon. They are also the same media that kept silent, this week, when the government decided to hit the freedom of the press and to boycott the Aljazeera TV network, as punishment for showing babies killed during the Israeli army's recent incursion in Gaza.
But for two or three courageous journalists with an independent mind,
all our written and broadcast media march in lockstep, like a Prussian regiment on parade, when the word "security" is mentioned.
(This phenomenon was exposed this week in CounterPunch by a journalist named Yonatan Mendel, a former employee of the popular Israeli web-site Walla. He pointed out that all the media, from the Channel 1 news program to the Haaretz news pages, as if by order, voluntarily use exactly the same slanted terminology: the Israeli army confirms and the Palestinians claim, Jews are murdered while Palestinians are killed or find their death, Jews are abducted while Arabs are arrested, the Israeli army always responds while the Palestinians always attack, the Jews are soldiers while Arabs are terrorists or just murderers, the Israeli army always hits high-ranking terrorists and never low-ranking terrorists, men and women suffering from shock are always Jews, never Arabs. And, as we said, people with blood on their hands are always Arabs, never-ever Jews. This, by the way, also goes for much of the foreign coverage of events here.)
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT does not disclose its intentions, we have no choice but to deduce its intentions from its actions. That is a judicial rule: when a person does something with a foreseeable result, it is assumed that he did it in order to obtain this result.
The government which decided on the killing in Bethlehem undoubtedly intended to torpedo the cease-fire.
Why does it want to do so?
There are several possible kinds of cease-fire. The most simple is the cessation of hostilities on the Gaza Strip border. No Qassams, Grads and mortar shells on the one side, no targeted assassinations, bombardments, shelling and incursion on the other side.
It is known that the army objects to that. They want to be free to "liquidate" from the air and raid on the ground. They want a one-sided cease-fire.
A limited cease-fire is impossible. Hamas cannot agree to it, as long as the blockade cuts the Strip off on all sides and turn life there into hell - not enough medicines, not enough food, the seriously ill cannot reach appropriate hospitals, the movement of cars has come to an almost complete standstill, no imports or exports, no production or commercial activity. The opening of all border crossings for the movement of goods is, therefore, an essential component of a cease-fire.
Our government is not willing to do that, because it would mean the consolidation of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Government sources hint that Abbas and his people in Ramallah also object to the lifting of the blockade - a malicious rumor, because it would mean that Abbas is conducting a war against his own people. President Bush also rejects a cease-fire, even while his people pretend the opposite. Europe, as usual, is trailing along behind the US.
Can Hamas agree to a cease-fire that would apply only to the Gaza Strip but not to the West Bank? That is doubtful. This week it was proven that the Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza cannot stand idly by while its members are killed in Bethlehem. Hamas could not stand by in Gaza and enjoy the fruits of government if the Israeli army were to kill Hamas militants in Nablus or Jenin. And, of course, no Palestinian would agree that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are two separate entities.
A Gaza-only cease-fire would allow Barak to blow it to pieces at any moment by a Bethlehem-style provocation. This is how it could go: Hamas agrees to a Gaza-only cease-fire, the Israeli army kills a dozen Hamas members in Hebron, Hamas responds by launching Grad missiles at Ashkelon, Olmert tells the world: You see? The terrorist Hamas is violating the cease-fire, which proves that we have no partner!
This means that a real and durable cease-fire, which would create the necessary atmosphere for real peace negotiations, must include the West Bank, too. Olmert-Barak would not dream of agreeing to that. And as long as George Bush is around, there will be no effective pressure on our government.
A PROPOS: who is really in charge in Israel at this time?
This week's events point to the answer: the man who makes the decisions is Ehud Barak, the most dangerous person in Israel, the very same Barak who blew up the Camp David conference and persuaded the entire Israeli public that "we have no partner for peace".
2052 years ago today, on the Ides of March, Julius Caesar was assassinated. Ehud Barak sees himself as a latter-day local replica of the Roman general. He, too, would dearly want to report: "I came, I saw, I conquered."
But the reality is rather different: He came, he saw, he destroyed.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
By Uri Avnery
16/03/08 "ICH" --- WHAT HAPPENED this week is so infuriating, so impertinent, that it stands out even in our familiar landscape of governmental irresponsibility.
On the near horizon, a de facto suspension of hostilities was taking shape. The Egyptians had made great efforts to turn it into an official cease-fire. The flame was already burning visibly lower. The launching of Qassams and Grads from the Gaza Strip into Israel had fallen from dozens a day to two or three.
And then something happened that turned the flame up high again: undercover soldiers of the Israeli army killed four Palestinians militants in Bethlehem. A fifth was killed in a village near Tulkarm.
THE MODUS OPERANDI left no doubt about the intention.
As usual, the official version was mendacious. (When the army spokesman speaks the truth, he is ashamed and immediately hurries on to the next lie.) The four, it was said, drew their weapons and endangered the life of the soldiers, who only wanted to arrest them, so they were compelled to open fire.
Anyone with half a brain knows that this is a lie. The four were in a small car on the main street of Bethlehem, the road that has joined Jerusalem and Hebron since British (or Turkish) times. They were indeed armed, but they had no chance at all of drawing their weapons. The car was simply sprayed with dozens of bullets.
That was not an attempt to make an arrest. That was an execution, pure and simple, one of those summary executions in which the Shin Bet fulfils the roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner.
This time no effort was even made to pretend that the four were about to carry out a murderous attack. It was not claimed, for example, that they had anything to do with last week's attack on the Mercaz Harav seminary, the flagship of the settlers' fleet. Actually, no such pretense could be put forward, because the most important of the four had recently given interviews to the Israeli media and announced that he was availing himself of the Israeli "pardon scheme" - a Shin Bet program under which "wanted" militants give up their arms and undertake to cease resistance to the occupation. He was also a candidate in the last Palestinian elections.
If so, why where they killed? The Shin Bet did not hide the reason: two of the four had participated in attacks in 2001 in which Israelis were killed.
"Our long arm will get them even years later," Ehud Barak boasted on TV, "we shall get everyone with Jewish blood on his hands."
SIMPLY PUT: The Defense Minister and his men endangered today's cease-fire in order to avenge something that happened seven years ago.
It was obvious to all that the killing of Islamic Jihad militants in Bethlehem would cause the renewal of the Qassam launchings on Sderot. And so it happened.
The effect of a Qassam rocket is completely unpredictable. For the residents of Sderot, this is a kind of Israeli Roulette - the rocket may fall in an empty field, it may fall on a building, sometimes it kills people.
In other words, according to Barak himself, he was ready to risk Jewish lives today in order to take revenge on persons who may perhaps have shed blood years ago and have since given up their armed activity.
The emphasis is on the word "Jewish". In his statement, Barak took care not to speak about persons "with blood on their hands", but about those "with Jewish blood on their hands". Jewish blood, of course, is quite different from any other blood. And indeed, there is no person in the Israeli leadership with so much blood on his hands as him. Not abstract blood, not metaphorical blood, but very real red blood. In the course of his military service, Barak has personally killed quite a number of Arabs. Whoever shakes his hand - from Condoleezza Rice to this week's honored guest, Angela Merkel - is shaking a hand with blood on it.
THE BETHLEHEM killing raises a number of hard questions, but with very few exceptions, the media did not voice them. They shirk their duty, as usual when it concerns "security" problems.
Real journalists in a real democratic state would have asked the following questions:
(a) Who was it who decided on the executions in Bethlehem - Ehud Olmert? Ehud Barak? The Shin Bet? All of them? None of them?
(b) Did the decision-makers understand that by condemning the militants in Bethlehem to death, they were also condemning to death any residents of Sderot or Ashkelon who might be killed by the rockets launched in revenge?
(c) Did they understand that they were also boxing the ears of Mahmoud Abbas, whose security forces, which in theory are in charge of Bethlehem, would be accused of collaborating with the Israeli death-squad?
(d) Was the real aim of the action to undermine the cease-fire that had come about in practice in the Gaza Strip (and the reality of which was official denied both by Olmert and Barak, even while the number of rockets launched fell from dozens a day to just two or three?)
(e) Does the Israeli government generally object to a cease-fire that would free Sderot and Ashkelon from the threat of the rockets?
(f) If so, why?
The media did not demand that Olmert and Barak expose to the public the considerations that led them to adopt this decision, which concerns every person in Israel. And no wonder. These are, after all, the same media that danced for joy when the same government started an ill-considered and superfluous war in Lebanon. They are also the same media that kept silent, this week, when the government decided to hit the freedom of the press and to boycott the Aljazeera TV network, as punishment for showing babies killed during the Israeli army's recent incursion in Gaza.
But for two or three courageous journalists with an independent mind,
all our written and broadcast media march in lockstep, like a Prussian regiment on parade, when the word "security" is mentioned.
(This phenomenon was exposed this week in CounterPunch by a journalist named Yonatan Mendel, a former employee of the popular Israeli web-site Walla. He pointed out that all the media, from the Channel 1 news program to the Haaretz news pages, as if by order, voluntarily use exactly the same slanted terminology: the Israeli army confirms and the Palestinians claim, Jews are murdered while Palestinians are killed or find their death, Jews are abducted while Arabs are arrested, the Israeli army always responds while the Palestinians always attack, the Jews are soldiers while Arabs are terrorists or just murderers, the Israeli army always hits high-ranking terrorists and never low-ranking terrorists, men and women suffering from shock are always Jews, never Arabs. And, as we said, people with blood on their hands are always Arabs, never-ever Jews. This, by the way, also goes for much of the foreign coverage of events here.)
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT does not disclose its intentions, we have no choice but to deduce its intentions from its actions. That is a judicial rule: when a person does something with a foreseeable result, it is assumed that he did it in order to obtain this result.
The government which decided on the killing in Bethlehem undoubtedly intended to torpedo the cease-fire.
Why does it want to do so?
There are several possible kinds of cease-fire. The most simple is the cessation of hostilities on the Gaza Strip border. No Qassams, Grads and mortar shells on the one side, no targeted assassinations, bombardments, shelling and incursion on the other side.
It is known that the army objects to that. They want to be free to "liquidate" from the air and raid on the ground. They want a one-sided cease-fire.
A limited cease-fire is impossible. Hamas cannot agree to it, as long as the blockade cuts the Strip off on all sides and turn life there into hell - not enough medicines, not enough food, the seriously ill cannot reach appropriate hospitals, the movement of cars has come to an almost complete standstill, no imports or exports, no production or commercial activity. The opening of all border crossings for the movement of goods is, therefore, an essential component of a cease-fire.
Our government is not willing to do that, because it would mean the consolidation of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Government sources hint that Abbas and his people in Ramallah also object to the lifting of the blockade - a malicious rumor, because it would mean that Abbas is conducting a war against his own people. President Bush also rejects a cease-fire, even while his people pretend the opposite. Europe, as usual, is trailing along behind the US.
Can Hamas agree to a cease-fire that would apply only to the Gaza Strip but not to the West Bank? That is doubtful. This week it was proven that the Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza cannot stand idly by while its members are killed in Bethlehem. Hamas could not stand by in Gaza and enjoy the fruits of government if the Israeli army were to kill Hamas militants in Nablus or Jenin. And, of course, no Palestinian would agree that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are two separate entities.
A Gaza-only cease-fire would allow Barak to blow it to pieces at any moment by a Bethlehem-style provocation. This is how it could go: Hamas agrees to a Gaza-only cease-fire, the Israeli army kills a dozen Hamas members in Hebron, Hamas responds by launching Grad missiles at Ashkelon, Olmert tells the world: You see? The terrorist Hamas is violating the cease-fire, which proves that we have no partner!
This means that a real and durable cease-fire, which would create the necessary atmosphere for real peace negotiations, must include the West Bank, too. Olmert-Barak would not dream of agreeing to that. And as long as George Bush is around, there will be no effective pressure on our government.
A PROPOS: who is really in charge in Israel at this time?
This week's events point to the answer: the man who makes the decisions is Ehud Barak, the most dangerous person in Israel, the very same Barak who blew up the Camp David conference and persuaded the entire Israeli public that "we have no partner for peace".
2052 years ago today, on the Ides of March, Julius Caesar was assassinated. Ehud Barak sees himself as a latter-day local replica of the Roman general. He, too, would dearly want to report: "I came, I saw, I conquered."
But the reality is rather different: He came, he saw, he destroyed.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Iraq key players, then and now
These are the past and the present feelings of the people who took us to war in Iraq. This comes from BBC.
"KOFI ANNAN
The battle over Iraq in the UN Security Council raised doubts about the organisation's role in the 21st Century. Secretary General Kofi Annan vainly appealed for compromise and unity. But as France, China and Russia threatened to veto a US-backed resolution authorising force against Iraq, he realised the die was cast. The UN began instead to prepare for the humanitarian consequences of war.
In the first few months of the conflict the UN's headquarters in Baghdad was bombed, killing its most senior official. Mr Annan called the attack "the darkest day in our lives".
In September 2004, he said for the first time that the decision to go to war without a second resolution was illegal. "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view - from the charter point of view - it was illegal," he told the BBC. In his final speech as UN head, in late 2006, he again attacked US unilateralism, saying: "No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others."
JOSE MARIA AZNAR
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for the Iraq war marked a realignment in Europe's relations with the US. A member of the UN Security Council as the preparations for war advanced, Mr Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder with the US and the UK, rather than France and Germany.
"There is nothing more dangerous than a political leader who builds castles in the air, and I believe political leaders who raise false hopes, who don't look at the world as it is, are set to reap failure," Mr Aznar said after a meeting with Mr Bush in February 2003. The next month he took part in a key pre-war summit with Mr Bush and Mr Blair in the Azores. Huge protests occurred in August, as Spanish troops departed for Iraq.
In 2007, Mr Aznar - who was beaten in the 2004 elections - acknowledged that he had over-estimated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein: "The whole world thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they didn't, I know that now. When I didn't know, no-one knew."
TONY BLAIR
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's backing for war - as the only way of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction - came to define his premiership. In a speech before parliament on March 18 2003, he argued that Saddam Hussein's "diplomatic dance" meant that threats were only effective if backed with force: "The only persuasive power to which he responds is 250,000 allied troops on his doorstep."
His decision to go to war was backed in parliament but brought the biggest parliamentary rebellion ever recorded against a British government, and prompted three ministers to resign.
He has recognised that the intelligence on his decision was based was flawed but has not apologised. In 2006, he admitted he had struggled with his conscience over the decision to go to war, saying he would be judged by history and God. A year later he told The Times: "If there's anything I regret... it is... not having laid out for people in a clearer way what I saw as the profound nature of this struggle and the fact that it was going to go on for a generation."
HANS BLIX
Plucked from retirement to lead the team of UN weapons inspectors sent in to Iraq, the pragmatic and calm Hans Blix asked in vain for more time to continue checking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
His anger about the military intervention spilled over just months after the bombing began. In a series of scathing attacks on the UK and the US, he accused them of organising the war well before the outcome of his work was known and dramatising the threat of WMD to support their campaign. "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections," he told the Spain's El Pais in April 2003.
A year later, he compared the US attitude to the hunt for WMD to a "witch-hunt", saying the US had made "monumental" and "scandalous" errors of intelligence. His opinions have not changed. In 2007 he said: "I think everything in Iraq after the invasion has been a tragedy. The only positive thing I think is the disappearance of Saddam Hussein."
GEORGE W BUSH
The US president said he had three reasons for going to war against Iraq - to disarm the country of its WMD, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people. "The attacks of September 11 2001, show what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction," he said in March 2003.
Two months into a war that his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said would probably last no longer than six, Mr Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq were over. "The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free," Mr Bush said from an aircraft carrier off the Californian coast.
Three years later, he seemed willing to concede that the situation in Iraq could be compared to Vietnam but continued to describe it as the latest battlefield in the war on terror. In January 2007, he announced that an additional 20,000 US troops would be sent to Iraq to bolster the lawless regions around the capital.
Despite his administration's acknowledgement of intelligence failures, Mr Bush has remained steadfast in his defence of his decision to go to war, saying in March 2008: "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency; it is the right decision at this point in my presidency; and it will forever be the right decision."
SERGEI LAVROV
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations was one of the key mouthpieces for his country's opposition to the US-led proposal to intervene militarily. "Russia never considered war as an adequate tool to resolve the Iraqi issue," he said. Russia, along with France, opposed the idea of a second UN resolution to authorise the use of force. In an address just a few days after the conflict began, he called the military action "unprovoked" and said it violated international law and the UN charter.
Russia's anger over the war contributed to a deepening diplomatic rift between the two countries, prompting talk of a new Cold War. Critics claim Russia's opposition to the Iraq war was due to its oil interests in the country.
Five years on, as Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Lavrov continues to argue that the conflict threatens to destabilise Iraq's immediate neighbours and the region as a whole. He has repeatedly called on the international community to withdraw foreign troops and says strengthened Iraqi forces should be given responsibility for security.
COLIN POWELL
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the detailed and controversial evidence for going to war against Iraq to the UN in February 2003. He referred to spy satellite photos and intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials as he asserted that Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding WMD: "Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors."
It was a speech that would come to haunt him. A year later he conceded that some of the information - on the country's development of mobile labs for making biological weapons - "appears not to be... that solid". In September 2005, more than a year after he resigned as head of the State Department, he described the speech as a "blot" on his record. "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now," he said.
In 2007, he revealed that he had tried to dissuade George W Bush from intervening militarily in Iraq, a country which he now said was a state of civil war. "I tried to avoid this war. I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."
DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN
Former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led his country's opposition to the war in Iraq, successfully blocking a second UN resolution proposed by the US and UK authorising the use of force. In a much-quoted speech to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, Mr de Villepin eloquently defended the diplomatic process: "The option of war might seem a priori to be the swiftest. But let us not forget that having won the war, one has to build peace," he said.
France threatened to employ its Security Council veto against a second UN resolution authorising the use of force. This, combined with France's rejection of a series of disarmament tests proposed by the UK, led to accusations that he was poisoning the very same process he wanted to protect. In response, Mr de Villepin said: "It isn't a matter of according a few more days to Iraq before resorting to force, but to resolutely advance on the path of peaceful disarmament created by the inspections, which are a credible alternative to war."
His prominent anti-Iraq role, brought huge popularity in France, and helped catapult him into the job of France's prime minister, which he held between 2005 and 2007."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"KOFI ANNAN
The battle over Iraq in the UN Security Council raised doubts about the organisation's role in the 21st Century. Secretary General Kofi Annan vainly appealed for compromise and unity. But as France, China and Russia threatened to veto a US-backed resolution authorising force against Iraq, he realised the die was cast. The UN began instead to prepare for the humanitarian consequences of war.
In the first few months of the conflict the UN's headquarters in Baghdad was bombed, killing its most senior official. Mr Annan called the attack "the darkest day in our lives".
In September 2004, he said for the first time that the decision to go to war without a second resolution was illegal. "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view - from the charter point of view - it was illegal," he told the BBC. In his final speech as UN head, in late 2006, he again attacked US unilateralism, saying: "No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others."
JOSE MARIA AZNAR
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for the Iraq war marked a realignment in Europe's relations with the US. A member of the UN Security Council as the preparations for war advanced, Mr Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder with the US and the UK, rather than France and Germany.
"There is nothing more dangerous than a political leader who builds castles in the air, and I believe political leaders who raise false hopes, who don't look at the world as it is, are set to reap failure," Mr Aznar said after a meeting with Mr Bush in February 2003. The next month he took part in a key pre-war summit with Mr Bush and Mr Blair in the Azores. Huge protests occurred in August, as Spanish troops departed for Iraq.
In 2007, Mr Aznar - who was beaten in the 2004 elections - acknowledged that he had over-estimated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein: "The whole world thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they didn't, I know that now. When I didn't know, no-one knew."
TONY BLAIR
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's backing for war - as the only way of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction - came to define his premiership. In a speech before parliament on March 18 2003, he argued that Saddam Hussein's "diplomatic dance" meant that threats were only effective if backed with force: "The only persuasive power to which he responds is 250,000 allied troops on his doorstep."
His decision to go to war was backed in parliament but brought the biggest parliamentary rebellion ever recorded against a British government, and prompted three ministers to resign.
He has recognised that the intelligence on his decision was based was flawed but has not apologised. In 2006, he admitted he had struggled with his conscience over the decision to go to war, saying he would be judged by history and God. A year later he told The Times: "If there's anything I regret... it is... not having laid out for people in a clearer way what I saw as the profound nature of this struggle and the fact that it was going to go on for a generation."
HANS BLIX
Plucked from retirement to lead the team of UN weapons inspectors sent in to Iraq, the pragmatic and calm Hans Blix asked in vain for more time to continue checking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
His anger about the military intervention spilled over just months after the bombing began. In a series of scathing attacks on the UK and the US, he accused them of organising the war well before the outcome of his work was known and dramatising the threat of WMD to support their campaign. "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections," he told the Spain's El Pais in April 2003.
A year later, he compared the US attitude to the hunt for WMD to a "witch-hunt", saying the US had made "monumental" and "scandalous" errors of intelligence. His opinions have not changed. In 2007 he said: "I think everything in Iraq after the invasion has been a tragedy. The only positive thing I think is the disappearance of Saddam Hussein."
GEORGE W BUSH
The US president said he had three reasons for going to war against Iraq - to disarm the country of its WMD, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people. "The attacks of September 11 2001, show what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction," he said in March 2003.
Two months into a war that his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said would probably last no longer than six, Mr Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq were over. "The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free," Mr Bush said from an aircraft carrier off the Californian coast.
Three years later, he seemed willing to concede that the situation in Iraq could be compared to Vietnam but continued to describe it as the latest battlefield in the war on terror. In January 2007, he announced that an additional 20,000 US troops would be sent to Iraq to bolster the lawless regions around the capital.
Despite his administration's acknowledgement of intelligence failures, Mr Bush has remained steadfast in his defence of his decision to go to war, saying in March 2008: "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency; it is the right decision at this point in my presidency; and it will forever be the right decision."
SERGEI LAVROV
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations was one of the key mouthpieces for his country's opposition to the US-led proposal to intervene militarily. "Russia never considered war as an adequate tool to resolve the Iraqi issue," he said. Russia, along with France, opposed the idea of a second UN resolution to authorise the use of force. In an address just a few days after the conflict began, he called the military action "unprovoked" and said it violated international law and the UN charter.
Russia's anger over the war contributed to a deepening diplomatic rift between the two countries, prompting talk of a new Cold War. Critics claim Russia's opposition to the Iraq war was due to its oil interests in the country.
Five years on, as Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Lavrov continues to argue that the conflict threatens to destabilise Iraq's immediate neighbours and the region as a whole. He has repeatedly called on the international community to withdraw foreign troops and says strengthened Iraqi forces should be given responsibility for security.
COLIN POWELL
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the detailed and controversial evidence for going to war against Iraq to the UN in February 2003. He referred to spy satellite photos and intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials as he asserted that Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding WMD: "Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors."
It was a speech that would come to haunt him. A year later he conceded that some of the information - on the country's development of mobile labs for making biological weapons - "appears not to be... that solid". In September 2005, more than a year after he resigned as head of the State Department, he described the speech as a "blot" on his record. "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now," he said.
In 2007, he revealed that he had tried to dissuade George W Bush from intervening militarily in Iraq, a country which he now said was a state of civil war. "I tried to avoid this war. I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."
DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN
Former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led his country's opposition to the war in Iraq, successfully blocking a second UN resolution proposed by the US and UK authorising the use of force. In a much-quoted speech to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, Mr de Villepin eloquently defended the diplomatic process: "The option of war might seem a priori to be the swiftest. But let us not forget that having won the war, one has to build peace," he said.
France threatened to employ its Security Council veto against a second UN resolution authorising the use of force. This, combined with France's rejection of a series of disarmament tests proposed by the UK, led to accusations that he was poisoning the very same process he wanted to protect. In response, Mr de Villepin said: "It isn't a matter of according a few more days to Iraq before resorting to force, but to resolutely advance on the path of peaceful disarmament created by the inspections, which are a credible alternative to war."
His prominent anti-Iraq role, brought huge popularity in France, and helped catapult him into the job of France's prime minister, which he held between 2005 and 2007."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Did You Know
that:
"He who loves his mother, his father, his wife, his brothers and sisters, his children more than me is not worthy of me. To come with me, you must bear your own cross." Jesus Christ
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"He who loves his mother, his father, his wife, his brothers and sisters, his children more than me is not worthy of me. To come with me, you must bear your own cross." Jesus Christ
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Who Is Rev. Moon?
I have heard about this guy for the last 10 years or so but do not have a lue who he is. Do you?
If you are rich and have time to read books yeah there is one book they recommend; Bad Moon Rising: By John Gorenfeld ISBN: 978-0-9794822-3-6 $24.95, Hard Cover. I neither have the time no the money; so I read the net for my info.
This guy must be filthy rich to get himself self proclaimed to be ""King of Peace" at a coronation ceremony held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. In attendance were twelve U.S. lawmakers. In his speech, Moon proclaimed himself "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."" On March 23, 2004. Now what sort of guy do that if he is not deranged? It is a joke as far as I can see but what do I know about the man.
Now have look at this little clip and see what sort of a guy he is.
At least now I know how to imbed the YouTube stuff in a webpage Yo.
A speech he made in the coranation scene is wicked man... I wish I can get the whole speech. This is very serious indeed.
""The time has come for you to open your hearts," Moon said, "and receive the secrets that Heaven is disclosing in this age through me." To prove his credentials, he spoke of testimonials on his behalf -- from the lips of the dead, with whom he claimed the power to converse. "The five great saints," he said -- meaning Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, and the Hindu prophet Shankara -- "and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons.""
Who is Daddy huh? I think I can say the same thing but no one will listen to me except the ones who are as crazy as I am or who wants to cure me or lock me up. Jeeze this guy was talking in front of lawmakers of US. I mean are they daft or is there something about the Unification Church which makes sane people do daft things.
See this clip where the Bush senior and good wife blowing candles with the Moons.... I should really call them Moonies init? The clip is in korean but you cannot mistake the scene.
And the Mr Moon is very good at saying things like this,
Moon had said:
1) "The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world."
2) "In restoring man from evil sovereignty, we must cheat."
3) "The time will come when, without my seeking it, that my words will almost serve as law."
4) "[W]e will be able to amend laws, articles of constitution, if we wish to do so."
5) "[T]elling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good thing ... that is not a sin .... Even God tells lies very often."
6) "The present U.N. must be annihilated by our power .... We must make a new U.N."
7) "Many people will die, those who go against our movement."
8) "I have met many famous, so-called famous, Senators and Congressmen; but to my eyes they are nothing. They are weak and helpless. We will win the battle. This is our dream, our project. But shut your mouth tight."
(The church has often insisted these were mistranslations.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61932-2004Jun22.html
http://www.gorenfeld.net/book/
http://www.christianmediaresearch.com/falwell.html
The Rev, Bush & North Korea
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01142003.html
The Bush-Kim-Moon Triangle of Money
http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/unif115.html
Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Hooking George Bush
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/04/bush_moon.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01142003.html
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/101100a.html
http://www.americanatheist.org/spr00/T2/fitrakis.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0103-07.htm
http://metamyth.tripod.com/q-kgate.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_South_Korea
First Sun Myung Moon is 88 years old and his wife Hak Ja, sixty-four. They are both from Korea.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
If you are rich and have time to read books yeah there is one book they recommend; Bad Moon Rising: By John Gorenfeld ISBN: 978-0-9794822-3-6 $24.95, Hard Cover. I neither have the time no the money; so I read the net for my info.
This guy must be filthy rich to get himself self proclaimed to be ""King of Peace" at a coronation ceremony held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. In attendance were twelve U.S. lawmakers. In his speech, Moon proclaimed himself "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."" On March 23, 2004. Now what sort of guy do that if he is not deranged? It is a joke as far as I can see but what do I know about the man.
Now have look at this little clip and see what sort of a guy he is.
At least now I know how to imbed the YouTube stuff in a webpage Yo.
A speech he made in the coranation scene is wicked man... I wish I can get the whole speech. This is very serious indeed.
""The time has come for you to open your hearts," Moon said, "and receive the secrets that Heaven is disclosing in this age through me." To prove his credentials, he spoke of testimonials on his behalf -- from the lips of the dead, with whom he claimed the power to converse. "The five great saints," he said -- meaning Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, and the Hindu prophet Shankara -- "and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons.""
Who is Daddy huh? I think I can say the same thing but no one will listen to me except the ones who are as crazy as I am or who wants to cure me or lock me up. Jeeze this guy was talking in front of lawmakers of US. I mean are they daft or is there something about the Unification Church which makes sane people do daft things.
See this clip where the Bush senior and good wife blowing candles with the Moons.... I should really call them Moonies init? The clip is in korean but you cannot mistake the scene.
And the Mr Moon is very good at saying things like this,
Moon had said:
1) "The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world."
2) "In restoring man from evil sovereignty, we must cheat."
3) "The time will come when, without my seeking it, that my words will almost serve as law."
4) "[W]e will be able to amend laws, articles of constitution, if we wish to do so."
5) "[T]elling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good thing ... that is not a sin .... Even God tells lies very often."
6) "The present U.N. must be annihilated by our power .... We must make a new U.N."
7) "Many people will die, those who go against our movement."
8) "I have met many famous, so-called famous, Senators and Congressmen; but to my eyes they are nothing. They are weak and helpless. We will win the battle. This is our dream, our project. But shut your mouth tight."
(The church has often insisted these were mistranslations.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61932-2004Jun22.html
http://www.gorenfeld.net/book/
http://www.christianmediaresearch.com/falwell.html
The Rev, Bush & North Korea
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01142003.html
The Bush-Kim-Moon Triangle of Money
http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/unif115.html
Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Hooking George Bush
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/04/bush_moon.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01142003.html
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/101100a.html
http://www.americanatheist.org/spr00/T2/fitrakis.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0103-07.htm
http://metamyth.tripod.com/q-kgate.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_South_Korea
First Sun Myung Moon is 88 years old and his wife Hak Ja, sixty-four. They are both from Korea.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Colombia to Chavez
I found these words very interesting as the bolloxed up media never bring the real politicians and their dodahs into front line debate. Here we get some. Very nice!
"Back in the early '90s, then Sen. Uribe was already well-known to U.S. intelligence officials. A now-declassified 1991 report from the Defense Intelligence Agency listed Uribe among "important Colombian narco-traffickers," noting that he was "a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" and "dedicated to collaborating with the Medellin [drug] cartel at high government levels."
If they only knew! Today, of course, Uribe runs the show, and his organized crime connections no longer simply "collaborate" with the highest levels of government -- they sit in Colombia's most powerful posts. Consider:
Just last year, Uribe's foreign minister was forced to resign after her brother, a senator, was jailed for colluding with right-wing paramilitary groups in a series of murders and kidnappings. Like the FARC, Colombia's paramilitaries are designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe.
That same month, the head of Colombia's secret police, who also served as Uribe's campaign manager, was arrested for "giving a hit list of trade unionists and activists to paramilitaries, who then killed them."
Last March the Los Angeles Times turned up CIA documents alleging that Uribe's amy chief "collaborated extensively" with death squads, back in 2002, [and] colluded in the massacre of 14 people for their perceived leftist politics.
In May, the trial of a paramilitary leader revealed that Uribe's defense minister had plotted with the terrorist group to destabilize past presidential administrations.
Currently 14 of Uribe's closest congressional allies sit behind bars for their own terror links. Their trials have uncovered untold horrors, including mass graves in the southern province of Putumayo, where at least 211 bodies were discovered last spring.
Outside the Middle East, there is no government on earth with as many direct links to known terrorist organizations as Colombia. And this listing, as jaw-dropping as it seems, may just scratch the surface. Colombia is a tough place to investigate corruption. For two full years, Uribe's police intelligence unit illegally tapped the phones of journalists looking into these unfolding scandals. They also surveilled the homes of opposition politicians, and in last fall's elections, a whopping 30 major candidates turned up dead. Taking on the Uribe regime comes with enormous risks."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Back in the early '90s, then Sen. Uribe was already well-known to U.S. intelligence officials. A now-declassified 1991 report from the Defense Intelligence Agency listed Uribe among "important Colombian narco-traffickers," noting that he was "a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" and "dedicated to collaborating with the Medellin [drug] cartel at high government levels."
If they only knew! Today, of course, Uribe runs the show, and his organized crime connections no longer simply "collaborate" with the highest levels of government -- they sit in Colombia's most powerful posts. Consider:
Just last year, Uribe's foreign minister was forced to resign after her brother, a senator, was jailed for colluding with right-wing paramilitary groups in a series of murders and kidnappings. Like the FARC, Colombia's paramilitaries are designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe.
That same month, the head of Colombia's secret police, who also served as Uribe's campaign manager, was arrested for "giving a hit list of trade unionists and activists to paramilitaries, who then killed them."
Last March the Los Angeles Times turned up CIA documents alleging that Uribe's amy chief "collaborated extensively" with death squads, back in 2002, [and] colluded in the massacre of 14 people for their perceived leftist politics.
In May, the trial of a paramilitary leader revealed that Uribe's defense minister had plotted with the terrorist group to destabilize past presidential administrations.
Currently 14 of Uribe's closest congressional allies sit behind bars for their own terror links. Their trials have uncovered untold horrors, including mass graves in the southern province of Putumayo, where at least 211 bodies were discovered last spring.
Outside the Middle East, there is no government on earth with as many direct links to known terrorist organizations as Colombia. And this listing, as jaw-dropping as it seems, may just scratch the surface. Colombia is a tough place to investigate corruption. For two full years, Uribe's police intelligence unit illegally tapped the phones of journalists looking into these unfolding scandals. They also surveilled the homes of opposition politicians, and in last fall's elections, a whopping 30 major candidates turned up dead. Taking on the Uribe regime comes with enormous risks."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
PCA and Me Drunk
Police Camera Action is the one I love to watch. Man it is better than driving; not that I drive....hmmmmm... do you care? By watching them I feel like going out and break into a car and drive around so that the they get the PigInTheSky (PITS) and ten thousand frigging pig cars behind me and.... have a good one. Then I can get the camera shots of all my doings and sell them to the Sunday Sport. Those shots of my doing should be mine by right yes? Wht not may I ask? I should have the copyrights so that if they want to show it in PCA series then they have to ask my permission and pay my cut init?
A ha I am into a good rout with the pigs....Dream on Baby I loves you....comes to the mind. But it can be done if you are a boffin in Law I think. What is your idea about this man. Comments are free!!!!!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!g
A ha I am into a good rout with the pigs....Dream on Baby I loves you....comes to the mind. But it can be done if you are a boffin in Law I think. What is your idea about this man. Comments are free!!!!!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!g
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Food I Eat Again
The last one I wrote about food is not that long time ago. I have some carrots I bought when I had the juicer back in November. The end date on the bag pf carrots is Nov 26th. It still looks lovely carrot colour and all, but got the roots and shoots growing. Still sealed in the bag. What shall I do? Any comments valuable.....
Then I found this article now I am reading while I blog it. Hmmm... I will give you the link someother time ....now read me rant without prejudice.
"No. Cholesterol in the diet is actually only very mildly related to cholesterol in the blood. It was a -- that was a scientific error, basically. We were sold a bill of goods that we should really worry about the cholesterol in our food, basically because cholesterol is one of the few things we could measure that was linked to heart disease, so there was this kind of obsessive focus on cholesterol. But, you know, the egg has been rehabilitated. You know, the egg is very high in cholesterol, and now we're told it's actually a perfectly good, healthy food. So there's only a very tangential relationship between the cholesterol you eat and the cholesterol levels in your blood."
The corporate world dirty works gets redults but always get found out. The time, we the punters find these things out, should be shorter... I think its getting longer. Now I understand why??? The amount of jargon the custumer has to learn before we go shopping init? Before 1980s I never heard about Cholesterol, then everyone started going crazy about it. Now this guy is telling us; eggs got lots of the stuff but it is not bad to eat eggs, as a matter of fact it is rather good for you. You see what I mean?
Do we in UK fuck up the food like Oats is oats porage or not. Take a very simple product and and some ingrediant which sounds very complex but rather simple and vitamins and stuff which sounds impressive and sell it at a premium price. Now why didn't I think of that. Bloody Americans are full of it init? And they polute us as well.
".......level of further complication gives you some intellectual property, a product no one else has, and the ability to charge a whole lot more for these very cheap raw ingredients. And as you make the food more complicated, you need all these chemicals to make it last, to make it taste good, to make -- and because, you know, food really isn't designed to last a year on the shelf in a supermarket. "
Hmmm that is better put than me trying to do it. Never mind I will learn. It is not easy to get the flow of my writing. It is there then it is gone. Like me!
Eating food is a bit of a science in our society init? You cannot eat this, you must eat this even though it tastes revolting to you. There are so many terms like nutritious values, Cholesterol levels, Antioxidents, and then there is no value in it we call them roughage; a term which was coined in 1883 but literarily used in 1927.
Have you heatd about Cotton Seed Oil?
"Cottonseed oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the cotton plant after the cotton lint has been removed. It must be refined to remove gossypol, a naturally occurring toxin that protects the cotton plant from insect damage. Unrefined cottonseed oil is therefore sometimes used as a pesticide."
And people eat it. Why? Because Cotton Seed Oil has No Cholesterol and trans fatty acids. Fatty acids are not all bad for you. All but two fatty acid, a humman body needs, can be produced by the human body. These two, linoleic acid (LA) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), are widely distributed in plant oils. Now that is the reason for it. Cotton Seed Oil contains linoleic acid (49-58%). Hmmm.... I don't think I am interested getting pesticides in me just to get some oil which I can get from other sources, safflower oil (78%), poppy seed oil (70%), walnut oil, grass fed cow milk, olive oil, palm oil, sunflower oil, soybean, lard, coconut oil, egg yolks (16%), spirulina, peanut oil, okra, rice bran oil, wheat germ oil, grape seed oil, macadamia oil, pistachio oil, sesame oil, and the CS oil is GM.
Now what is the big difference between Butter And Margerine? A good definition of butter I found in Wikipedia:
"Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. Butter is used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications such as baking, sauce making, and frying. Butter consists of butterfat surrounding minuscule droplets consisting mostly of water and milk proteins. The most common form of butter is made from cows' milk, but it can also be made from the milk of other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, and yaks. Salt, flavorings, or preservatives are sometimes added to butter. Rendering butter produces clarified butter or ghee, which is almost entirely butterfat. When refrigerated, butter remains a solid, but softens to a spreadable consistency at room temperature, and melts to a thin liquid consistency at 32–35 °C (90–95 °F). The density of butter is 911 kg/m3.[1] Butter generally has a pale yellow color, but varies from deep yellow to nearly white. The color of the butter depends on the animal's feed and is commonly manipulated with food colorings in the commercial manufacturing process, most commonly annatto or carotene."
Too much fat.... Yeah that is the slogan. But after years and years of boffins telling us what to eat we still are gert fat and getting fatter.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Then I found this article now I am reading while I blog it. Hmmm... I will give you the link someother time ....now read me rant without prejudice.
"No. Cholesterol in the diet is actually only very mildly related to cholesterol in the blood. It was a -- that was a scientific error, basically. We were sold a bill of goods that we should really worry about the cholesterol in our food, basically because cholesterol is one of the few things we could measure that was linked to heart disease, so there was this kind of obsessive focus on cholesterol. But, you know, the egg has been rehabilitated. You know, the egg is very high in cholesterol, and now we're told it's actually a perfectly good, healthy food. So there's only a very tangential relationship between the cholesterol you eat and the cholesterol levels in your blood."
The corporate world dirty works gets redults but always get found out. The time, we the punters find these things out, should be shorter... I think its getting longer. Now I understand why??? The amount of jargon the custumer has to learn before we go shopping init? Before 1980s I never heard about Cholesterol, then everyone started going crazy about it. Now this guy is telling us; eggs got lots of the stuff but it is not bad to eat eggs, as a matter of fact it is rather good for you. You see what I mean?
Do we in UK fuck up the food like Oats is oats porage or not. Take a very simple product and and some ingrediant which sounds very complex but rather simple and vitamins and stuff which sounds impressive and sell it at a premium price. Now why didn't I think of that. Bloody Americans are full of it init? And they polute us as well.
".......level of further complication gives you some intellectual property, a product no one else has, and the ability to charge a whole lot more for these very cheap raw ingredients. And as you make the food more complicated, you need all these chemicals to make it last, to make it taste good, to make -- and because, you know, food really isn't designed to last a year on the shelf in a supermarket. "
Hmmm that is better put than me trying to do it. Never mind I will learn. It is not easy to get the flow of my writing. It is there then it is gone. Like me!
Eating food is a bit of a science in our society init? You cannot eat this, you must eat this even though it tastes revolting to you. There are so many terms like nutritious values, Cholesterol levels, Antioxidents, and then there is no value in it we call them roughage; a term which was coined in 1883 but literarily used in 1927.
Have you heatd about Cotton Seed Oil?
"Cottonseed oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the cotton plant after the cotton lint has been removed. It must be refined to remove gossypol, a naturally occurring toxin that protects the cotton plant from insect damage. Unrefined cottonseed oil is therefore sometimes used as a pesticide."
And people eat it. Why? Because Cotton Seed Oil has No Cholesterol and trans fatty acids. Fatty acids are not all bad for you. All but two fatty acid, a humman body needs, can be produced by the human body. These two, linoleic acid (LA) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), are widely distributed in plant oils. Now that is the reason for it. Cotton Seed Oil contains linoleic acid (49-58%). Hmmm.... I don't think I am interested getting pesticides in me just to get some oil which I can get from other sources, safflower oil (78%), poppy seed oil (70%), walnut oil, grass fed cow milk, olive oil, palm oil, sunflower oil, soybean, lard, coconut oil, egg yolks (16%), spirulina, peanut oil, okra, rice bran oil, wheat germ oil, grape seed oil, macadamia oil, pistachio oil, sesame oil, and the CS oil is GM.
Now what is the big difference between Butter And Margerine? A good definition of butter I found in Wikipedia:
"Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. Butter is used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications such as baking, sauce making, and frying. Butter consists of butterfat surrounding minuscule droplets consisting mostly of water and milk proteins. The most common form of butter is made from cows' milk, but it can also be made from the milk of other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, and yaks. Salt, flavorings, or preservatives are sometimes added to butter. Rendering butter produces clarified butter or ghee, which is almost entirely butterfat. When refrigerated, butter remains a solid, but softens to a spreadable consistency at room temperature, and melts to a thin liquid consistency at 32–35 °C (90–95 °F). The density of butter is 911 kg/m3.[1] Butter generally has a pale yellow color, but varies from deep yellow to nearly white. The color of the butter depends on the animal's feed and is commonly manipulated with food colorings in the commercial manufacturing process, most commonly annatto or carotene."
Too much fat.... Yeah that is the slogan. But after years and years of boffins telling us what to eat we still are gert fat and getting fatter.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Suicide
Something practically everyone thinks to do sometime in their lives. As a kid holding your breadth because your mum made you feel stupid. As a teenager looking down into the cold water down a few feet thinking about jumping because the girl in your heart is with a stupid ugly barstard who lives in the wrong end of town. This is very familiar territory for me. I been there a quite a few times.
I knew a guy who used to carry half a dozen bottles of Night Nurse in his samsonite ...............ha remember them the bags the young and trendy used to carry in 1980's. The man is a pound multi millionaire living in Sri Lanka I think at the moment. Well he boasted to me saying that he will drink all the NN in one go and he will die. I laughed. He was about 17 or 18 and it never mattered.
I once had bad flu and two of my mates brought me Night Nurse. So I had two bottles. I was so fucked up without reading the instructions I drank a cupful and slept sound for about 8 hours; mind you are supposed to take a cupful in a 24 hour period. Then I had another cupful and went back to sleep. Half way I was feeling a bit funny; when I shut my eyes I go astral plaining. It was weird but without thinking I took another dose after 8 hours. Then I started going nuts bit by bit. At first it was astral plaining and going to these imaginary places and feeling quite normal as if I am there. I was even talking to other people and I could not understand what they were saying. I even carried pieces of paper with writing on them to show them. Crazy I was. The things went bad as I could not shut my eyes, after spending about a day without sleep. Every time I shut my eyes I go AP. I could go through anything, walls people etc. So this time I went and I could see there are some people down on the ground trying to find me by these gadgets they were moving around. I started to go fast through walls and ended up in a big ware house where there were lots of clothes hanging. Most of them were like net curtains. But I found out that they were cobwebs. I don't like spiders. I loath them. So I opened my eyes immediately and then I saw these red spots which seems to rotate and enlarge flying through the air like little rotors. When they touch a surface like the carpet or the bed spread they become spiders and scuttle away. It was scariest I found in my adult life. I told my friend Steve about it and he tried to convince me that the spiders were spots on the carpet. Man I don't think drinking lots of NN will kill you but the madness will.
Another teenager in 1982 came to my place and told me that he is going to commit suicide. I had a long chat with him drinking the stuff he brought with himself for hours; me telling him that I tried and did not have the guts to do it. He went away and I thought that is that. But I later found out that he jumped off the suspension bridge and was rescued. But he was stuck in the frigging mud so long he died later by pneumonia. It took me years to come to terms with myself , that I did not make that bugger commit suicide.
So what makes one to take one's own life?
From the Samaritans some facts.
"Suicide in the UK and Ireland
1996
The facts speak for themselves: in the UK and Ireland approximately 6,300 people take their lives every year, which is more than double the death toll from road traffic accidents and twelve times the number of deaths by homicide. It is estimated that at least 140,000 people attempt suicide each year in England and Wales alone.
There are no quick and easy solutions to the complex problem of suicide in our society today. But perhaps the starting point is to consider the attitudes that we have towards ourselves and those around us. It is possible to change a nation's point of view. By next year's report, we hope to see the start of a shift in attitudes that will ultimately lead to fewer tragic deaths by suicide."
And please note that
"Repetitions of suicide attempts are common, with approximately 20% of suicide attempters being re-admitted within a year of a previous attempt. Those who have attempted suicide are at greater risk of eventually dying by suicide and the number of repeat attempts made increases the likelihood of eventually dying by suicide. Several studies 6 have shown that approximately one out of every 100 suicide attempters will die by suicide within a year of an attempt, a suicide risk approximately 100 times that of the general population."
According to another boffin
"Factors leading to a suicide attempt may include [3]:
* relationship problems with family, friends, peers - a common
event prior to a suicide attempt is a serious argument with a
significant person
* feeling isolated with no-one to talk to
* alcohol and drug misuse (one third of suicides are intoxicated
at the time of death)
* worries about sexual orientation
* unemployment
* physical and sexual abuse
* being held in custody
* bullying
* exam pressure
* media reports of a suicide of a young person or a famous
personality
* death of a parent, relative or friend
* a broken relationship
* family breakdown
Also watch for
* a diagnosed depressed person apparently feeling much better
(or worse)
* a diagnosed depressed person abusing alcohol and drugs
* delusions, like guilt or shame for an imaginary transgression
* comments about death or suicide
* preparations for death, like giving away sentimental
possessions or writing letters to friends"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
I knew a guy who used to carry half a dozen bottles of Night Nurse in his samsonite ...............ha remember them the bags the young and trendy used to carry in 1980's. The man is a pound multi millionaire living in Sri Lanka I think at the moment. Well he boasted to me saying that he will drink all the NN in one go and he will die. I laughed. He was about 17 or 18 and it never mattered.
I once had bad flu and two of my mates brought me Night Nurse. So I had two bottles. I was so fucked up without reading the instructions I drank a cupful and slept sound for about 8 hours; mind you are supposed to take a cupful in a 24 hour period. Then I had another cupful and went back to sleep. Half way I was feeling a bit funny; when I shut my eyes I go astral plaining. It was weird but without thinking I took another dose after 8 hours. Then I started going nuts bit by bit. At first it was astral plaining and going to these imaginary places and feeling quite normal as if I am there. I was even talking to other people and I could not understand what they were saying. I even carried pieces of paper with writing on them to show them. Crazy I was. The things went bad as I could not shut my eyes, after spending about a day without sleep. Every time I shut my eyes I go AP. I could go through anything, walls people etc. So this time I went and I could see there are some people down on the ground trying to find me by these gadgets they were moving around. I started to go fast through walls and ended up in a big ware house where there were lots of clothes hanging. Most of them were like net curtains. But I found out that they were cobwebs. I don't like spiders. I loath them. So I opened my eyes immediately and then I saw these red spots which seems to rotate and enlarge flying through the air like little rotors. When they touch a surface like the carpet or the bed spread they become spiders and scuttle away. It was scariest I found in my adult life. I told my friend Steve about it and he tried to convince me that the spiders were spots on the carpet. Man I don't think drinking lots of NN will kill you but the madness will.
Another teenager in 1982 came to my place and told me that he is going to commit suicide. I had a long chat with him drinking the stuff he brought with himself for hours; me telling him that I tried and did not have the guts to do it. He went away and I thought that is that. But I later found out that he jumped off the suspension bridge and was rescued. But he was stuck in the frigging mud so long he died later by pneumonia. It took me years to come to terms with myself , that I did not make that bugger commit suicide.
So what makes one to take one's own life?
From the Samaritans some facts.
"Suicide in the UK and Ireland
1996
The facts speak for themselves: in the UK and Ireland approximately 6,300 people take their lives every year, which is more than double the death toll from road traffic accidents and twelve times the number of deaths by homicide. It is estimated that at least 140,000 people attempt suicide each year in England and Wales alone.
There are no quick and easy solutions to the complex problem of suicide in our society today. But perhaps the starting point is to consider the attitudes that we have towards ourselves and those around us. It is possible to change a nation's point of view. By next year's report, we hope to see the start of a shift in attitudes that will ultimately lead to fewer tragic deaths by suicide."
And please note that
"Repetitions of suicide attempts are common, with approximately 20% of suicide attempters being re-admitted within a year of a previous attempt. Those who have attempted suicide are at greater risk of eventually dying by suicide and the number of repeat attempts made increases the likelihood of eventually dying by suicide. Several studies 6 have shown that approximately one out of every 100 suicide attempters will die by suicide within a year of an attempt, a suicide risk approximately 100 times that of the general population."
According to another boffin
"Factors leading to a suicide attempt may include [3]:
* relationship problems with family, friends, peers - a common
event prior to a suicide attempt is a serious argument with a
significant person
* feeling isolated with no-one to talk to
* alcohol and drug misuse (one third of suicides are intoxicated
at the time of death)
* worries about sexual orientation
* unemployment
* physical and sexual abuse
* being held in custody
* bullying
* exam pressure
* media reports of a suicide of a young person or a famous
personality
* death of a parent, relative or friend
* a broken relationship
* family breakdown
Also watch for
* a diagnosed depressed person apparently feeling much better
(or worse)
* a diagnosed depressed person abusing alcohol and drugs
* delusions, like guilt or shame for an imaginary transgression
* comments about death or suicide
* preparations for death, like giving away sentimental
possessions or writing letters to friends"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
A People Without A Home
".......It was in 1966 that that the British started forcibly removing some 2000 islanders from their beautiful homeland of coral atolls that lies midway between Africa and Asia.
The British had just done a secret deal with the Americans, letting them use the main island, Diego Garcia, as a strategically-positioned airbase to counter the perceived Soviet threat for a period of fifty years. In return the British got access to American nuclear missiles at a greatly reduced cost. A non-negotiable part of the deal was the eviction of the local population at whatever the human cost.
So began yet another disgraceful episode in British foreign policy – an injustice that burns brightly to this day. Veteran investigative journalist, John Pilger, writing in his book “Freedom Next Time” which was published last year, describes how “Not only was their homeland stolen from them, they were taken out of history. Until recently, the [British] Foreign Office website denied their very existence”.
Documents from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) from the time show the deceit the British planned. Internal FCO documents described how any deportations should be “timed to attract the least attention and should have some logical cover where possible worked out in advance [otherwise] they will arouse suspicion as to their purpose”.
Other documents argued that once the local population had been removed, the British would present to the outside world “a scenario in which there were no permanent inhabitants on the archipelago”. This they did. The FCO wrote to the British Representative at the UN asking him to lie to the General Assembly that the Chagros Islands were “uninhabited when the United Kingdom first acquired them”. This he subsequently did too.
One document, written by a legal advisor to the FCO in 1968, was called “Maintaining the Fiction”. The “fiction was that the local people were “only a floating population” because this would bolster our arguments that the territory has no indigenous or settled population”. This was despite the fact that the local population had lived there for generations.
Over a number of years, the islanders were removed and barred from returning. Their story is absolutely heart-breaking. The islanders were literally just dumped in the capitol of Mauritius, St. Luis. They received no help from the British in resettling them. For a people who had lived and survived peacefully by fishing and practicing subsidence agriculture, they suddenly had nothing: no homes, no jobs, no way of making a living. Moreover, much worse, is that they had no way of returning to their beloved homeland.
Over the following years, the exiled islanders died of neglect, poverty, or suicide. One islander, Lizette Talate’s two children died within days of each other. They “died of sadness” she recalls.
It is a story that is repeated. Another islander, Loius Onezime lives in cramped appalling conditions in St Louis, with a leaking roof, and no kitchen. His family often goes hungry. His young wife died of a heart attack. “She died of sadness”, he told John Pilger last year.
It is a reoccurring theme of the islanders. Sadness is killing them, one by one. The lawyer representing the islanders in London, Richard Gifford, told the Times newspaper earlier this month. “I’ve lost count of the old folk I’ve met who have subsequently died broken-hearted at the fact they couldn’t see their beloved homeland.""
Read the rest!
To read more about this please goto:
Diego Garcia: Paradise Cleansed
The History.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The British had just done a secret deal with the Americans, letting them use the main island, Diego Garcia, as a strategically-positioned airbase to counter the perceived Soviet threat for a period of fifty years. In return the British got access to American nuclear missiles at a greatly reduced cost. A non-negotiable part of the deal was the eviction of the local population at whatever the human cost.
So began yet another disgraceful episode in British foreign policy – an injustice that burns brightly to this day. Veteran investigative journalist, John Pilger, writing in his book “Freedom Next Time” which was published last year, describes how “Not only was their homeland stolen from them, they were taken out of history. Until recently, the [British] Foreign Office website denied their very existence”.
Documents from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) from the time show the deceit the British planned. Internal FCO documents described how any deportations should be “timed to attract the least attention and should have some logical cover where possible worked out in advance [otherwise] they will arouse suspicion as to their purpose”.
Other documents argued that once the local population had been removed, the British would present to the outside world “a scenario in which there were no permanent inhabitants on the archipelago”. This they did. The FCO wrote to the British Representative at the UN asking him to lie to the General Assembly that the Chagros Islands were “uninhabited when the United Kingdom first acquired them”. This he subsequently did too.
One document, written by a legal advisor to the FCO in 1968, was called “Maintaining the Fiction”. The “fiction was that the local people were “only a floating population” because this would bolster our arguments that the territory has no indigenous or settled population”. This was despite the fact that the local population had lived there for generations.
Over a number of years, the islanders were removed and barred from returning. Their story is absolutely heart-breaking. The islanders were literally just dumped in the capitol of Mauritius, St. Luis. They received no help from the British in resettling them. For a people who had lived and survived peacefully by fishing and practicing subsidence agriculture, they suddenly had nothing: no homes, no jobs, no way of making a living. Moreover, much worse, is that they had no way of returning to their beloved homeland.
Over the following years, the exiled islanders died of neglect, poverty, or suicide. One islander, Lizette Talate’s two children died within days of each other. They “died of sadness” she recalls.
It is a story that is repeated. Another islander, Loius Onezime lives in cramped appalling conditions in St Louis, with a leaking roof, and no kitchen. His family often goes hungry. His young wife died of a heart attack. “She died of sadness”, he told John Pilger last year.
It is a reoccurring theme of the islanders. Sadness is killing them, one by one. The lawyer representing the islanders in London, Richard Gifford, told the Times newspaper earlier this month. “I’ve lost count of the old folk I’ve met who have subsequently died broken-hearted at the fact they couldn’t see their beloved homeland.""
Read the rest!
To read more about this please goto:
Diego Garcia: Paradise Cleansed
The History.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did You Know
that "In 1995, it became painfully clear to Lord Nolan that 30% of all MPs were being paid for consultancies (advice and lobbying) related to their parliamentary role. At the time of this revelation, the majority of Conservative backbenchers were 'spoken for' by one commercial lobby or another."
AND
"Political lobbying is now big business. There are over fifty such firms, with an estimated total turnover of £10 million.
1 A survey in 1985 reported that of 180 major British companies, 41 per cent retained political consultancies for ‘Government work’.
2 Fees range from £2,500 to £5,000 a month, depending on the type of service required.
3 The average annual rate is about £30,000."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
AND
"Political lobbying is now big business. There are over fifty such firms, with an estimated total turnover of £10 million.
1 A survey in 1985 reported that of 180 major British companies, 41 per cent retained political consultancies for ‘Government work’.
2 Fees range from £2,500 to £5,000 a month, depending on the type of service required.
3 The average annual rate is about £30,000."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did You Know
that "In 1995, it became painfully clear to Lord Nolan that 30% of all MPs were being paid for consultancies (advice and lobbying) related to their parliamentary role. At the time of this revelation, the majority of Conservative backbenchers were 'spoken for' by one commercial lobby or another."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, March 03, 2008
Health Scare UK
First there was no gert queues for attention in the Welsh National Health.
Then the boffins said that there are less nasty hospital infections of deadly deceases in Wales than England.
Today they say that the car parks are free in Walsh hospitals or hysbyty in Welsh.
So the what I bin thinkin is that everone in England who is ill or have anyone ill go to Wales things are better there.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Then the boffins said that there are less nasty hospital infections of deadly deceases in Wales than England.
Today they say that the car parks are free in Walsh hospitals or hysbyty in Welsh.
So the what I bin thinkin is that everone in England who is ill or have anyone ill go to Wales things are better there.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
This is comments from the article: "Cry 'God for Harry, England and St George'"
Henk Ruyssenaars Homepage 03.02.08 - 6:09 am #
Now this is what he says he said in 2006:
"FPF - July 20, 2006 - After having followed the stream of information - based on reality - coming out of Lebanon, and comparing it to the broadcasts and information given by the major mainstream media, like the BBC and other war advocating networks, I can NOT understand why any sane person - in Lebanon for instance - would ever collaborate with those despicable jerks and dish-bitches. They sell wars, and are megaphones of those making the wars. They help to destroy you and your country.
I HAVE NEVER LET DOWN A 'REAL' COLLEAGUE, but those vile creatures are no 'journalist colleagues': they are all liars and Judas's that have sold themselves to the highest bidder. They are traitors to us all and dangerous to mankind. Get their names and check via Internet what they say and write. Depending on that information - not what they tell you - let them stay or get very fast rid of them.
BUT DO NOT HARM THEM: THAT WOULD MEAN TO STOOP AS LOW AS THEY ARE.
THEY ARE NOT JOURNALISTS: THEY ARE WARMONGERING PROPAGANDISTS.
For the past 4 decades I've been an independent foreign correspondent, also for 10 years in North-Africa and the Middle East. And, what I daily can see on for instance the BBC, CNN, FOX, German and Dutch TV is purely a falsification of reality. They lie through their teeth, and without exception mouth the Israeli war message, which is 'more through murder'.
Most of the interested people by now know that the BBC two decades ago openly started servicing the greedy goals and power of the people managing England: building their false empire at any cost to us others. They are the war criminals who put one of their 'front men' at the top of the BBC, Michael Grade. - [ http://tinyurl.com/l687f] - Within short honest journalism at the BBC was snuffed, and the war and killing machine rolls on, fueled by them."
Now what it says in that tiny url is this:
"Liberal Judaism welcomes the appointment of Michael Grade as Chairman of the BBC. Michael Grade is an active Liberal Jew who belongs to the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St. Johns Wood. His appointment as Chairman of the BBC is the first time that a Liberal Jew has held such a uniquely important role within the UK media. Liberal Judaism desires that Judaism shall be an active force for good in the lives of Jewish individuals, families and communities today, and that it shall make its contribution to the betterment of human society. It confronts unflinchingly the challenges of our time, welcomes gladly all advances in human knowledge, and responds constructively to changing circumstances."
"I've said it before - and I should know - because I've worked for the BBC too, in English and German when they still knew what journalism was, and one could broadcast 'live'. Also during the Gulf War. No need denying: I still have the BBC paychecks. So, as a senior correspondent I recognize what they do, and it is absolutely hair raising and disgusting to hear and watch. Especially if you - like me - have been in Lebanon too.
ANY HUMAN BEING WITH DECENCY CAN NOT ACCEPT WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
There''s more and some good links at Url.: http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2...6/07/ 4620.shtml"
I do absolutely not see any reason why you should keep somebody around who attacks you with 98% of what they are saying. Take a grip, or talk to the undertaker.
GET RID OF THEM, BEFORE THEY GET RID OF YOU, AND YOUR COUNTRY.
"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Henk Ruyssenaars Homepage 03.02.08 - 6:09 am #
Now this is what he says he said in 2006:
"FPF - July 20, 2006 - After having followed the stream of information - based on reality - coming out of Lebanon, and comparing it to the broadcasts and information given by the major mainstream media, like the BBC and other war advocating networks, I can NOT understand why any sane person - in Lebanon for instance - would ever collaborate with those despicable jerks and dish-bitches. They sell wars, and are megaphones of those making the wars. They help to destroy you and your country.
I HAVE NEVER LET DOWN A 'REAL' COLLEAGUE, but those vile creatures are no 'journalist colleagues': they are all liars and Judas's that have sold themselves to the highest bidder. They are traitors to us all and dangerous to mankind. Get their names and check via Internet what they say and write. Depending on that information - not what they tell you - let them stay or get very fast rid of them.
BUT DO NOT HARM THEM: THAT WOULD MEAN TO STOOP AS LOW AS THEY ARE.
THEY ARE NOT JOURNALISTS: THEY ARE WARMONGERING PROPAGANDISTS.
For the past 4 decades I've been an independent foreign correspondent, also for 10 years in North-Africa and the Middle East. And, what I daily can see on for instance the BBC, CNN, FOX, German and Dutch TV is purely a falsification of reality. They lie through their teeth, and without exception mouth the Israeli war message, which is 'more through murder'.
Most of the interested people by now know that the BBC two decades ago openly started servicing the greedy goals and power of the people managing England: building their false empire at any cost to us others. They are the war criminals who put one of their 'front men' at the top of the BBC, Michael Grade. - [ http://tinyurl.com/l687f] - Within short honest journalism at the BBC was snuffed, and the war and killing machine rolls on, fueled by them."
Now what it says in that tiny url is this:
"Liberal Judaism welcomes the appointment of Michael Grade as Chairman of the BBC. Michael Grade is an active Liberal Jew who belongs to the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St. Johns Wood. His appointment as Chairman of the BBC is the first time that a Liberal Jew has held such a uniquely important role within the UK media. Liberal Judaism desires that Judaism shall be an active force for good in the lives of Jewish individuals, families and communities today, and that it shall make its contribution to the betterment of human society. It confronts unflinchingly the challenges of our time, welcomes gladly all advances in human knowledge, and responds constructively to changing circumstances."
"I've said it before - and I should know - because I've worked for the BBC too, in English and German when they still knew what journalism was, and one could broadcast 'live'. Also during the Gulf War. No need denying: I still have the BBC paychecks. So, as a senior correspondent I recognize what they do, and it is absolutely hair raising and disgusting to hear and watch. Especially if you - like me - have been in Lebanon too.
ANY HUMAN BEING WITH DECENCY CAN NOT ACCEPT WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
There''s more and some good links at Url.: http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2...6/07/ 4620.shtml"
I do absolutely not see any reason why you should keep somebody around who attacks you with 98% of what they are saying. Take a grip, or talk to the undertaker.
GET RID OF THEM, BEFORE THEY GET RID OF YOU, AND YOUR COUNTRY.
"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Long Live Prince 'Arry
Oh man the amount of suffering I had just listening to the BBC News for a week about my man Harry and his "bravado" was well noticed. I switched off the frigging TV for a day or two to escape it. I thought I was a bit nasty to think like that as lots of British people think otherwise. You see I am easily lead and wants to keep my innocence. Now I read Mr Galloway ranting about it, and feel a bit better. I will put his rant here as he will not mind me publishing it... I hope and ....But do go to the comments section and see the amount of people who agree on what he says is very .....interesting to go on and say things like I Bin Thinkin.
Hguhrumph.... See this for a bit of entertaintment from the Commnts:
" The Black Watch today, asked Jean: they were the British regiment selected to take a ritualistic part in the Fallujah slaughter to celebrate Bush's win in 04 (and Kerry's surrender). The Balck Watch secured the southern perimeter of the city while the Marines slaughtered the men and boys.
As to Prince Harry: interestingly his job was forward air controller. That is to say he called up the Air Force to bomb Afghan villages. A true hero!
chris harries | 03.01.08 - 7:07"
Here I can take you to another world in the internet.
"Cry 'God for Harry, England and St George'
In their acclaim for this new Prince Hal, the media have once again made themselves the useful idiots of disastrous military adventurism
By George Galloway
01/03/08 "The Guardian" -- - As the peerless John Pilger put it, the invasion of Iraq would have been impossible without the supine connivance of the British media. The BBC was as much a part of operations as the Black Watch.
Five years on and a further instance of the kind of collusion that embeds journalism in the sewer of state spin. Peter Wilby says the media were "suckered", but that's a charitable view.
The case for the media keeping mum about Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan is straightforward enough - protecting not only his security but that of those around him. If that were all there was to it, then there would be little to consider, except the extraordinary double standard of the British media, which means that some people's safety and privacy is deemed worthy of protection and others' not.
But a moment's thought should puncture the gushing, sentimental story of the media and the MoD uniting in the national interest - reporters and royalty, prince and paparazzi standing together against a common foe.
At the very least, news of this collusion has made life very difficult for reporters, especially conscientious ones, in the BBC and other news organisations. Many people across the world already believed the BBC to be complicit in the British government's crimes of war. Now the corporation has acknowledged that it colluded with the state to suppress and manipulate the news.
How will that improve the standing of British correspondents abroad? Or their safety.
But collusion certainly didn't end there. The media is ever a hungry beast, and it was inconceivable that it would fast for three months without the promise of bacchanalian orgy at the end of it.
And so the flipside of 10 weeks of radio silence is wall-to-wall Harry, as the pin-up of the armed forces, one of the lads, full of derring-do, a British hero on Afghanistan's plains straight out of Tennyson or Kipling.
For a military adventure which, now, even the US's senior intelligence officer concedes is staring into the abyss, this could not have come at a better time.
Over the last few months, I've asked at public meetings, on my radio show and on walkabouts, why people think we are in Afghanistan, what would define the "victory" which would allow us to withdraw with laurels. Our ambassador in Kabul - a double-barrel who might also have walked out of 19th-century page - says we are going to be there for 30 or 40 years.
Other countries, wisely, are none too phlegmatic about that prospect. Condoleezza Rice's last visit to Europe was part of the US's effort to put pressure on other Nato counties to commit more troops to the Afghan quagmire.
Then comes the scoop of the young prince forsaking Boujis, despatched to that place beyond the Khyber pass by his sovereign grandmother, and enduring hardship with cheerful Tommy. There were naturally a few touches to bring it into this century - instead of fixing bayonets, we're informed he helped bring down air strikes with a handheld computer, which could easily pass for a video game; no Latin motto on his cap, instead a psychotic, dehumanised epigram that could have come from Travis in Taxi Driver: "We do bad things to bad people."
All sections of the establishment have gained from this superbly well-executed piece of theatre (incidentally, I'm not doubting Harry's personal bravery, it's just that that is not the issue): the army has a star; the BBC and Fleet Street appear to have a heart; and the royal family have a newfound source of capital at just the time that the circus that is the Diana inquest heaps more and more ordure in their direction. Out with the images of partying in a Nazi uniform, in with the young warrior who lost his mother when young but who has now grown up.
So the greatest collusion of all by the media is in perpetuating the myths of this war and in helping to craft the perfect recruitment poster.
It's better than Kitchener's "Your country needs you." Skilfully and chillingly, it speaks to this century and through the most modern media.
It is going to play an enduring role in prolonging this futile adventure, and perhaps starting others, in a country which British armies have three times before staggered out of in defeat, leaving so many of their number behind. No one, not even Alexander the Great has successfully occupied Afghanistan; and Harry, whatever you think about him, is certainly no Alexander the Great.
Click on "comments" below to read or post comments "
Comments (100) Comment (0)
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Hguhrumph.... See this for a bit of entertaintment from the Commnts:
" The Black Watch today, asked Jean: they were the British regiment selected to take a ritualistic part in the Fallujah slaughter to celebrate Bush's win in 04 (and Kerry's surrender). The Balck Watch secured the southern perimeter of the city while the Marines slaughtered the men and boys.
As to Prince Harry: interestingly his job was forward air controller. That is to say he called up the Air Force to bomb Afghan villages. A true hero!
chris harries | 03.01.08 - 7:07"
Here I can take you to another world in the internet.
"Cry 'God for Harry, England and St George'
In their acclaim for this new Prince Hal, the media have once again made themselves the useful idiots of disastrous military adventurism
By George Galloway
01/03/08 "The Guardian" -- - As the peerless John Pilger put it, the invasion of Iraq would have been impossible without the supine connivance of the British media. The BBC was as much a part of operations as the Black Watch.
Five years on and a further instance of the kind of collusion that embeds journalism in the sewer of state spin. Peter Wilby says the media were "suckered", but that's a charitable view.
The case for the media keeping mum about Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan is straightforward enough - protecting not only his security but that of those around him. If that were all there was to it, then there would be little to consider, except the extraordinary double standard of the British media, which means that some people's safety and privacy is deemed worthy of protection and others' not.
But a moment's thought should puncture the gushing, sentimental story of the media and the MoD uniting in the national interest - reporters and royalty, prince and paparazzi standing together against a common foe.
At the very least, news of this collusion has made life very difficult for reporters, especially conscientious ones, in the BBC and other news organisations. Many people across the world already believed the BBC to be complicit in the British government's crimes of war. Now the corporation has acknowledged that it colluded with the state to suppress and manipulate the news.
How will that improve the standing of British correspondents abroad? Or their safety.
But collusion certainly didn't end there. The media is ever a hungry beast, and it was inconceivable that it would fast for three months without the promise of bacchanalian orgy at the end of it.
And so the flipside of 10 weeks of radio silence is wall-to-wall Harry, as the pin-up of the armed forces, one of the lads, full of derring-do, a British hero on Afghanistan's plains straight out of Tennyson or Kipling.
For a military adventure which, now, even the US's senior intelligence officer concedes is staring into the abyss, this could not have come at a better time.
Over the last few months, I've asked at public meetings, on my radio show and on walkabouts, why people think we are in Afghanistan, what would define the "victory" which would allow us to withdraw with laurels. Our ambassador in Kabul - a double-barrel who might also have walked out of 19th-century page - says we are going to be there for 30 or 40 years.
Other countries, wisely, are none too phlegmatic about that prospect. Condoleezza Rice's last visit to Europe was part of the US's effort to put pressure on other Nato counties to commit more troops to the Afghan quagmire.
Then comes the scoop of the young prince forsaking Boujis, despatched to that place beyond the Khyber pass by his sovereign grandmother, and enduring hardship with cheerful Tommy. There were naturally a few touches to bring it into this century - instead of fixing bayonets, we're informed he helped bring down air strikes with a handheld computer, which could easily pass for a video game; no Latin motto on his cap, instead a psychotic, dehumanised epigram that could have come from Travis in Taxi Driver: "We do bad things to bad people."
All sections of the establishment have gained from this superbly well-executed piece of theatre (incidentally, I'm not doubting Harry's personal bravery, it's just that that is not the issue): the army has a star; the BBC and Fleet Street appear to have a heart; and the royal family have a newfound source of capital at just the time that the circus that is the Diana inquest heaps more and more ordure in their direction. Out with the images of partying in a Nazi uniform, in with the young warrior who lost his mother when young but who has now grown up.
So the greatest collusion of all by the media is in perpetuating the myths of this war and in helping to craft the perfect recruitment poster.
It's better than Kitchener's "Your country needs you." Skilfully and chillingly, it speaks to this century and through the most modern media.
It is going to play an enduring role in prolonging this futile adventure, and perhaps starting others, in a country which British armies have three times before staggered out of in defeat, leaving so many of their number behind. No one, not even Alexander the Great has successfully occupied Afghanistan; and Harry, whatever you think about him, is certainly no Alexander the Great.
Click on "comments" below to read or post comments "
Comments (100) Comment (0)
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Is There A Water Crisis In the West?
I mean we are always sure of some water to come out of the tap everytime we open it; otherwise there must be a fault in the line. But I bin thinking about, what hapens if it is, some other reason like..... there is no water at the end of the line but air. Hmmmmm.....
We have lots of water been used for non essential services eg. Golf Links. Now take this from the mighty US.
"This notion that we'll have water forever is wrong. California is running out. It's got 20-some years of water. New Mexico has got 10, although they're building golf courses as fast as they can, so maybe they can whittle that down to five. Arizona, Florida, even the Great Lakes now, there's huge new demand."
And in the rest of the world:
"The Nile River doesn't reach its end. The Colorado River, the Yellow River in China, they, for the most part, don't flow anymore to the sea."
Oh! dear me! This is how the boffins put it:
"Scientists, through decades of study and millions and millions of pieces of data, now recognize the fact that we're on the brink of the sixth great mass extinction ever to be experienced on the face of the earth. The fifth mass extinction was the dinosaur age."
I bin thinkin about this climatic change debate; no one talks about water is a factor for climatic changes, I mean the management of water. Well I found this article about a book written by this person; "one of the leading figures in the global water justice movement, Maude Barlow. She is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy group, founder of the Blue Planet Project. Maude Barlow is the author of 16 books -- her latest just came out; it's called Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water -- joining us now in our firehouse studio."
This is what she says:
"Well, I guess the most important thing I want to put out to the world is that we always hear that climate change -- and that is, greenhouse gas-induced climate change -- is affecting water, which is true -- melting glaciers and all of that. But I am, with this book, trying to put a new wrinkle, if you will, into the whole debate. It's kind of -- I call it the inconvenient truth of water. And that is that our abuse, pollution, misplacement, displacement and just mismanagement of water is actually one of the causes of climate change. And it's a really different kind of way of looking at it.
Very simply, Amy, the story is that as we have polluted the world's surface water, we are taking water from the ground, from ground water or from wilderness or from watersheds, and we're moving it where we want it to be, so to water great, big, huge cities that then dump it into the ocean, so don't return it to the watershed, or we pave over what's called water-retentive lands, so we don't have the hydrologic cycle able to fulfill its responsibility and bring water back. We're doing something called virtual water trade, which is where we use our water to grow or produce something that then is exported. In the United States, you export a third of your water, domestic water, every day out of the United States in terms of these exports. You don't have enough water to do that"
I think all these businesses which use water for their industrial work should have their facteries near the sea and either use the salty water or purify it for use. Yes of course the price will go up, but that will stabilise with supply and demand. If it is too expensive then there is no demand, as the punters think of it as a luxury and then, there will be less produced. Take the bloody Caca Cola for instance. They put their facteries in a poor country saying they are doing good by giving the country work. But the down side is they take huge amounts of water - 10 pints of water to a pint of Caca Cola - from the local population and pollute the surface water without due care; and the end product is local kids suffering from multitude of ailments due to the pollutants some cancerous. Caca Cola is not a necessary drink by any standard except the junkies who think it is groovy to be addicted to Caca Cola.
Aieeeeya.... this is something I bin lookin for a long time. Actual sats of bottled water. See this.
"There's also bottled water. We put something like 50 billion gallons of water in plastic bottles around the world last year, dumping those bottles everywhere."
That is another factor for the water been taken away from the place where it came from and dumped...pissed into another area.
"We tested over a thousand bottles of water, over a hundred brands that are sold in the United States, and we found that it is not necessarily any safer or better or purer than your city tap water. We found some of them had arsenic in them at high levels, Some of them had organic chemicals in them, a variety of bacteria. So there were problems with about a third of the brands that we sampled. Some of the water we saw had pictures of mountains on it; it was city tap water. Glacier water came from groundwater in Florida. Some of them said that they were pure mountain. I mean, the list is very long. We found a case in Massachusetts where a guy had sunk a well in an industrial parking lot that was near a superfund site. He was pumping water out of this well and selling it under multiple different brands. So people buying this stuff had no idea where it was coming from."
Getting very interesting init? I mean look at the TV you find all the outside TV presenters drinking from a bottle, looking glamourous and even I felt good drinking from a bottle in public.... oops there you know now.
there is a new idea in the corporate world called Water Recycling!
"Water recycling is either toilet-to-tap recycling of water or desalination. There's many forms water recycling, and it's the big industry. It's the fastest-growing part of the water industry. And this is the cleanup of dirty water.
And my concern -- and the more research I did on this, the more concerned I got -- was that this government, in particular, the United States, but many governments, are putting all their water eggs in the basket of cleaning up dirty water, instead of conservation, instead of protecting water at its source. What they're coming at -- the way they're coming at it now is to clean up water after it's been polluted. And there's huge amounts of money to be made. And my concern is, who's going to control that? Who's going to own the water itself? If Coca-Cola - Caca Cola - can own the water it sells you, why wouldn't General Electric or Suez be able to say, "Well, we own the water that we cleaned up, and we will decide how much money we make, and we will decide how much -- who gets it and who's not going to get it"? So it's very much an issue of control and also control about regulation at the other end."
Things you learn out of this internet system can be your death. Now my heart started pounding really heavy as I read this:
"And this is also true for China. China is on the search for water. It's destroyed its water table so that all the running shoes and toys in the world, and so on, are coming from there, so they've diverted their water from watersheds and from growing green for their people to production. And so, now they're going to build a great big pipeline up to the Tibetan Himalayas. They're going to take the water that belongs to the rivers that feed all of Asia. So if you want to see a water war coming, you keep your eye on that one."
I remember writing to the Chinese and signing world wide petitions objecting to the inhuman activities done by the Chinese, in Tibet. Now this ..... my blood boils. Bummers and stutteres...... Oh well....I created it and I enjoy it....
Now another story I came across is that, "Poisoned dumplings incident reveals fragility of Sino-Japanese relations" and DO NOT EAT CHINESE IMPORTS. THEY CAN POISON YOU
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
We have lots of water been used for non essential services eg. Golf Links. Now take this from the mighty US.
"This notion that we'll have water forever is wrong. California is running out. It's got 20-some years of water. New Mexico has got 10, although they're building golf courses as fast as they can, so maybe they can whittle that down to five. Arizona, Florida, even the Great Lakes now, there's huge new demand."
And in the rest of the world:
"The Nile River doesn't reach its end. The Colorado River, the Yellow River in China, they, for the most part, don't flow anymore to the sea."
Oh! dear me! This is how the boffins put it:
"Scientists, through decades of study and millions and millions of pieces of data, now recognize the fact that we're on the brink of the sixth great mass extinction ever to be experienced on the face of the earth. The fifth mass extinction was the dinosaur age."
I bin thinkin about this climatic change debate; no one talks about water is a factor for climatic changes, I mean the management of water. Well I found this article about a book written by this person; "one of the leading figures in the global water justice movement, Maude Barlow. She is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy group, founder of the Blue Planet Project. Maude Barlow is the author of 16 books -- her latest just came out; it's called Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water -- joining us now in our firehouse studio."
This is what she says:
"Well, I guess the most important thing I want to put out to the world is that we always hear that climate change -- and that is, greenhouse gas-induced climate change -- is affecting water, which is true -- melting glaciers and all of that. But I am, with this book, trying to put a new wrinkle, if you will, into the whole debate. It's kind of -- I call it the inconvenient truth of water. And that is that our abuse, pollution, misplacement, displacement and just mismanagement of water is actually one of the causes of climate change. And it's a really different kind of way of looking at it.
Very simply, Amy, the story is that as we have polluted the world's surface water, we are taking water from the ground, from ground water or from wilderness or from watersheds, and we're moving it where we want it to be, so to water great, big, huge cities that then dump it into the ocean, so don't return it to the watershed, or we pave over what's called water-retentive lands, so we don't have the hydrologic cycle able to fulfill its responsibility and bring water back. We're doing something called virtual water trade, which is where we use our water to grow or produce something that then is exported. In the United States, you export a third of your water, domestic water, every day out of the United States in terms of these exports. You don't have enough water to do that"
I think all these businesses which use water for their industrial work should have their facteries near the sea and either use the salty water or purify it for use. Yes of course the price will go up, but that will stabilise with supply and demand. If it is too expensive then there is no demand, as the punters think of it as a luxury and then, there will be less produced. Take the bloody Caca Cola for instance. They put their facteries in a poor country saying they are doing good by giving the country work. But the down side is they take huge amounts of water - 10 pints of water to a pint of Caca Cola - from the local population and pollute the surface water without due care; and the end product is local kids suffering from multitude of ailments due to the pollutants some cancerous. Caca Cola is not a necessary drink by any standard except the junkies who think it is groovy to be addicted to Caca Cola.
Aieeeeya.... this is something I bin lookin for a long time. Actual sats of bottled water. See this.
"There's also bottled water. We put something like 50 billion gallons of water in plastic bottles around the world last year, dumping those bottles everywhere."
That is another factor for the water been taken away from the place where it came from and dumped...pissed into another area.
"We tested over a thousand bottles of water, over a hundred brands that are sold in the United States, and we found that it is not necessarily any safer or better or purer than your city tap water. We found some of them had arsenic in them at high levels, Some of them had organic chemicals in them, a variety of bacteria. So there were problems with about a third of the brands that we sampled. Some of the water we saw had pictures of mountains on it; it was city tap water. Glacier water came from groundwater in Florida. Some of them said that they were pure mountain. I mean, the list is very long. We found a case in Massachusetts where a guy had sunk a well in an industrial parking lot that was near a superfund site. He was pumping water out of this well and selling it under multiple different brands. So people buying this stuff had no idea where it was coming from."
Getting very interesting init? I mean look at the TV you find all the outside TV presenters drinking from a bottle, looking glamourous and even I felt good drinking from a bottle in public.... oops there you know now.
there is a new idea in the corporate world called Water Recycling!
"Water recycling is either toilet-to-tap recycling of water or desalination. There's many forms water recycling, and it's the big industry. It's the fastest-growing part of the water industry. And this is the cleanup of dirty water.
And my concern -- and the more research I did on this, the more concerned I got -- was that this government, in particular, the United States, but many governments, are putting all their water eggs in the basket of cleaning up dirty water, instead of conservation, instead of protecting water at its source. What they're coming at -- the way they're coming at it now is to clean up water after it's been polluted. And there's huge amounts of money to be made. And my concern is, who's going to control that? Who's going to own the water itself? If Coca-Cola - Caca Cola - can own the water it sells you, why wouldn't General Electric or Suez be able to say, "Well, we own the water that we cleaned up, and we will decide how much money we make, and we will decide how much -- who gets it and who's not going to get it"? So it's very much an issue of control and also control about regulation at the other end."
Things you learn out of this internet system can be your death. Now my heart started pounding really heavy as I read this:
"And this is also true for China. China is on the search for water. It's destroyed its water table so that all the running shoes and toys in the world, and so on, are coming from there, so they've diverted their water from watersheds and from growing green for their people to production. And so, now they're going to build a great big pipeline up to the Tibetan Himalayas. They're going to take the water that belongs to the rivers that feed all of Asia. So if you want to see a water war coming, you keep your eye on that one."
I remember writing to the Chinese and signing world wide petitions objecting to the inhuman activities done by the Chinese, in Tibet. Now this ..... my blood boils. Bummers and stutteres...... Oh well....I created it and I enjoy it....
Now another story I came across is that, "Poisoned dumplings incident reveals fragility of Sino-Japanese relations" and DO NOT EAT CHINESE IMPORTS. THEY CAN POISON YOU
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Drugs Peddlars and the Wall Street
Now this is something I have been waiting for. At last found an article with some facts about the drug companies and how they deal. This is a good lesson for any young enterprising drug dealers.
This is about a drug called Satins.
"How could this be, if statins lower the risk of heart attack, at least for some people? Preventing a heart attack does not necessarily mean that a life is saved. In many statin studies that show lower heart attack risk, the same number of patients end up dying, whether they are taking statins or not. "You may have helped the heart, but you haven't helped the patient," says Dr. Beatrice Golomb, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author of a 2004 editorial in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology questioning the data on statins. "You still have to look at the impact on the patient overall."
"The letter we sent to the NHLBI also called for an independent panel to review the evidence," Goozner notes, "since the NLHBI panel that made the recommendations had been dominated by physicians with ties to statin manufacturers." Indeed, the National Institutes of Health later admitted that eight of the nine experts on the panel had received financing from one or more of the companies that make statins. (None of the panelists had publicly disclosed their ties to manufacturers when they made their recommendations.)
Just how much "financing" were the panelists receiving? According to the Los Angeles Times, from 2001 to 2003 Dr. Bryan Brewer, a leader at the National Institutes of Health, and "part of the team that gave the nation new cholesterol guidelines in 2004," had accepted "about $114,000 in consulting fees from four companies making or developing the cholesterol-lowering drugs."
But "this is relative peanuts compared to Dr P. Trey Sunderland III, a senior psychiatric researcher at the NIH, who took $508,500 in fees from Pfizer, Inc. whilst collaborating with them and endorsing their drug [Lipitor]," says Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, who is a member of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) -- a growing group of scientists, physicians, other academicians and science writers from various countries.
Dr. Abramson, who is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, charges that the study that accompanied the updated 2004 guidelines "knowingly misrepresented the results of the clinical trials that they supposedly relied upon to formulate their recommendations. The problem is that the experts claimed to rely on scientific evidence, but they act as if empowered to ignore the evidence when it is not consistent with their beliefs."
This is a serious allegation. Keep in mind that statins are the most popular drugs in the history of human medicine. Worldwide sales totaled $33 billion in 2007. More than 18 million American now take them."
Learn the lot here.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
This is about a drug called Satins.
"How could this be, if statins lower the risk of heart attack, at least for some people? Preventing a heart attack does not necessarily mean that a life is saved. In many statin studies that show lower heart attack risk, the same number of patients end up dying, whether they are taking statins or not. "You may have helped the heart, but you haven't helped the patient," says Dr. Beatrice Golomb, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author of a 2004 editorial in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology questioning the data on statins. "You still have to look at the impact on the patient overall."
"The letter we sent to the NHLBI also called for an independent panel to review the evidence," Goozner notes, "since the NLHBI panel that made the recommendations had been dominated by physicians with ties to statin manufacturers." Indeed, the National Institutes of Health later admitted that eight of the nine experts on the panel had received financing from one or more of the companies that make statins. (None of the panelists had publicly disclosed their ties to manufacturers when they made their recommendations.)
Just how much "financing" were the panelists receiving? According to the Los Angeles Times, from 2001 to 2003 Dr. Bryan Brewer, a leader at the National Institutes of Health, and "part of the team that gave the nation new cholesterol guidelines in 2004," had accepted "about $114,000 in consulting fees from four companies making or developing the cholesterol-lowering drugs."
But "this is relative peanuts compared to Dr P. Trey Sunderland III, a senior psychiatric researcher at the NIH, who took $508,500 in fees from Pfizer, Inc. whilst collaborating with them and endorsing their drug [Lipitor]," says Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, who is a member of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) -- a growing group of scientists, physicians, other academicians and science writers from various countries.
Dr. Abramson, who is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, charges that the study that accompanied the updated 2004 guidelines "knowingly misrepresented the results of the clinical trials that they supposedly relied upon to formulate their recommendations. The problem is that the experts claimed to rely on scientific evidence, but they act as if empowered to ignore the evidence when it is not consistent with their beliefs."
This is a serious allegation. Keep in mind that statins are the most popular drugs in the history of human medicine. Worldwide sales totaled $33 billion in 2007. More than 18 million American now take them."
Learn the lot here.
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An invention called 'the Jewish people'
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
By Tom Segev
Tags: Israel
Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of those exiled was at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered by the Arabs, many of the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the conquerors. It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews.
The first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany) did not come from the Land of Israel and did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany, but became Jews in the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus. Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture: it was not a Jewish import from Germany, but the result of the connection between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East, some of them as merchants.
We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand, the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel.
Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and democratic" state. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time.
The mosquito from Kiryat Yam
On March 27, 1948, a meeting was held in Hiafa concerning the fate of the Bedouin of Arab al-Ghawarina in the Haifa area. "They must be removed from there, so that they, too, will not add to our troubles," Yosef Weitz, of the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), wrote in his personal diary. Two months later, Weitz reported to the organization's director, "Our Haifa Bay has been evacuated completely and there is hardly a remnant of those who encroached our border." They were probably expelled to Jordan; some were allowed to remain in the village of Jisr al-Zarqa. The fate of the Arab al-Ghawarina Bedouin has recently made the headlines thanks to Shmuel Sisso, mayor of the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Yam. He has filed a complaint with the police against Google. The reason is the addition that one of the site's surfers, a resident of Nablus, attached to the center of Kiryat Yam in the world satellite photo, stating that the city is built on the ruins of a village that was destroyed in 1948, Arab al-Ghawarina. Sisso's complaint says that this is slanderous.
The facts are as follows: The lands of the Zevulun Valley were purchased in the 1920s by the JNF and by various construction companies, among them one called Gav Yam. The Zionist Archives have the plan for the establishment of Kiryat Yam, dated 1938, and a letter from 1945 states that there were already 100 homes there. Government maps from the British Mandate period identify the territory on which Kiryat Yam was built by two names: Zevulun Valley and Ghawarina. Thus it appears that this was not a settlement but an area in which Bedouin resided.
The Web site of the Israeli organization Zochrot (Remembering) states that there were 720 people at the site in 1948 and that the area was divided among three kibbutzim: Ein Hamifratz, Kfar Masaryk and Ein Hayam, today Ein Carmel.
This story has been making the rounds on the Internet and drawing responses, which can be summed up as follows: "If Sisso is suing Google because they stated that he is living on a destroyed Arab village, the implication is that he thinks this is something bad." Sisso, a lawyer of 57 who is identified with Likud and was formerly Israeli consul general in New York, says, "I don't think there is anything bad about it, but other people might think it is bad, especially people abroad, and that is liable to hurt Kiryat Yam, because people will not want to invest here. Since we are not sitting on a Palestinian village, why should we have to suffer for no reason?"
Moroccan-born, Sisso arrived in Israel in 1955. "I wandered around the whole region and I saw no trace of anyone's having been here before us and supposedly expelled." He asked an American law professor how, if at all, Google could be sued for slander or for damages. This, he says, is the contribution of Kiryat Yam to the struggle against the right of return (of the Palestinian refugees).
It could turn out to be the most riveting trial since Ariel Sharon sued Time magazine, but mayor Sisso has no illusions: "Me against Google is like a mosquito against an elephant," he said this week.
Who America belongs to
Two professors, Gabi Shefer and Avi Ben-Zvi, were guests this week on Yitzhak Noy's "International Hour" current events program on Israel Radio. The anchor, sounding slightly concerned, asked whether the achievements of Barack Obama show that the United States no longer belongs to the white man. Prof. Shefer confirmed this: Obama is an immigrant, he said. Prof. Ben-Zvi asked to add a remark: Gabi Shefer is right, he said. They are both wrong. If Obama were an immigrant, he would not be eligible to be elected president. He was born in Honolulu, some two years after Hawaii became the 50th state of the union.
I hope the author do not mind my putting his article here. Please give credit to Tom Seqev in Haaretz.com. Thank you.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
By Tom Segev
Tags: Israel
Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of those exiled was at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered by the Arabs, many of the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the conquerors. It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews.
The first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany) did not come from the Land of Israel and did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany, but became Jews in the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus. Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture: it was not a Jewish import from Germany, but the result of the connection between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East, some of them as merchants.
We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand, the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel.
Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and democratic" state. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time.
The mosquito from Kiryat Yam
On March 27, 1948, a meeting was held in Hiafa concerning the fate of the Bedouin of Arab al-Ghawarina in the Haifa area. "They must be removed from there, so that they, too, will not add to our troubles," Yosef Weitz, of the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), wrote in his personal diary. Two months later, Weitz reported to the organization's director, "Our Haifa Bay has been evacuated completely and there is hardly a remnant of those who encroached our border." They were probably expelled to Jordan; some were allowed to remain in the village of Jisr al-Zarqa. The fate of the Arab al-Ghawarina Bedouin has recently made the headlines thanks to Shmuel Sisso, mayor of the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Yam. He has filed a complaint with the police against Google. The reason is the addition that one of the site's surfers, a resident of Nablus, attached to the center of Kiryat Yam in the world satellite photo, stating that the city is built on the ruins of a village that was destroyed in 1948, Arab al-Ghawarina. Sisso's complaint says that this is slanderous.
The facts are as follows: The lands of the Zevulun Valley were purchased in the 1920s by the JNF and by various construction companies, among them one called Gav Yam. The Zionist Archives have the plan for the establishment of Kiryat Yam, dated 1938, and a letter from 1945 states that there were already 100 homes there. Government maps from the British Mandate period identify the territory on which Kiryat Yam was built by two names: Zevulun Valley and Ghawarina. Thus it appears that this was not a settlement but an area in which Bedouin resided.
The Web site of the Israeli organization Zochrot (Remembering) states that there were 720 people at the site in 1948 and that the area was divided among three kibbutzim: Ein Hamifratz, Kfar Masaryk and Ein Hayam, today Ein Carmel.
This story has been making the rounds on the Internet and drawing responses, which can be summed up as follows: "If Sisso is suing Google because they stated that he is living on a destroyed Arab village, the implication is that he thinks this is something bad." Sisso, a lawyer of 57 who is identified with Likud and was formerly Israeli consul general in New York, says, "I don't think there is anything bad about it, but other people might think it is bad, especially people abroad, and that is liable to hurt Kiryat Yam, because people will not want to invest here. Since we are not sitting on a Palestinian village, why should we have to suffer for no reason?"
Moroccan-born, Sisso arrived in Israel in 1955. "I wandered around the whole region and I saw no trace of anyone's having been here before us and supposedly expelled." He asked an American law professor how, if at all, Google could be sued for slander or for damages. This, he says, is the contribution of Kiryat Yam to the struggle against the right of return (of the Palestinian refugees).
It could turn out to be the most riveting trial since Ariel Sharon sued Time magazine, but mayor Sisso has no illusions: "Me against Google is like a mosquito against an elephant," he said this week.
Who America belongs to
Two professors, Gabi Shefer and Avi Ben-Zvi, were guests this week on Yitzhak Noy's "International Hour" current events program on Israel Radio. The anchor, sounding slightly concerned, asked whether the achievements of Barack Obama show that the United States no longer belongs to the white man. Prof. Shefer confirmed this: Obama is an immigrant, he said. Prof. Ben-Zvi asked to add a remark: Gabi Shefer is right, he said. They are both wrong. If Obama were an immigrant, he would not be eligible to be elected president. He was born in Honolulu, some two years after Hawaii became the 50th state of the union.
I hope the author do not mind my putting his article here. Please give credit to Tom Seqev in Haaretz.com. Thank you.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Ben Griffin, Eric Estenzo & tHE bAD aPPLES
At last some good humans in the armed forces are breaking ranks annd breaking out in the news..
"Ben Griffin, the ex-SAS trooper who this week revealed the extensive British collaboration with US rendition and torture, was served with an injunction immediately after speaking at the London World Against War rally last night. The government is trying to gag Ben to prevent any more revelations about British involvement in the US policy of kidnapping people and sending them to secret centres for interrogation and torture."
That was about UK and now about US:
"U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries.
"The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like."
Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicised incidents of U.S. brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples", as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of "an increasingly bloody occupation"."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19442.htm
http://ivaw.org/index.php
Then there is this boffin who did an experiment in 1970's, where in Stanford University students did a role play with some students as prisoners and others as wardens. The experiment went bad because the wardens became very sadistic and the prisoners very cowed and was called off early for the concern for the students.
Now he comes into this argument about torture in prisons and says hat it is not a few bad apples but the prisons were left without oversight by higher ranking officers not by accident but intentional.
"“If you give people power without oversight it is a formula for abuse,” Zimbardo said to a stunned audience the included famous actors, entrepreneurs and politicians"
“Abu Ghraib abuses went on for three months … Who was watching the store? Nobody, and it was on purpose.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/29/7370/
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Ben Griffin, the ex-SAS trooper who this week revealed the extensive British collaboration with US rendition and torture, was served with an injunction immediately after speaking at the London World Against War rally last night. The government is trying to gag Ben to prevent any more revelations about British involvement in the US policy of kidnapping people and sending them to secret centres for interrogation and torture."
That was about UK and now about US:
"U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries.
"The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like."
Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicised incidents of U.S. brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples", as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of "an increasingly bloody occupation"."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19442.htm
http://ivaw.org/index.php
Then there is this boffin who did an experiment in 1970's, where in Stanford University students did a role play with some students as prisoners and others as wardens. The experiment went bad because the wardens became very sadistic and the prisoners very cowed and was called off early for the concern for the students.
Now he comes into this argument about torture in prisons and says hat it is not a few bad apples but the prisons were left without oversight by higher ranking officers not by accident but intentional.
"“If you give people power without oversight it is a formula for abuse,” Zimbardo said to a stunned audience the included famous actors, entrepreneurs and politicians"
“Abu Ghraib abuses went on for three months … Who was watching the store? Nobody, and it was on purpose.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/29/7370/
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Thursday, February 28, 2008
Did You Know.......
that "In his 2006 autobiography, In the Line of Fire, President Musharraf boasted that, in return for handing over 369 terror suspects (including many transferred to Guantánamo), "We have earned bounty payments totaling millions of dollars.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child#United_States
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child#United_States
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did You Know.......
that “because the USA is one of only two states that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes that children need special safeguards and care, it feels free to trample on the human rights of juveniles in its ‘war on terror,”’
See it Here
"The United States has not so far ratified the CRC, in part due to possible conflicts with U.S. law and because of opposition by some political and religious conservatives to the treaty.[20]
The administration of president George W. Bush has explicitly stated its opposition to the treaty:
"The Convention on the Rights of the Child may be a positive tool for promoting child welfare for those countries that have adopted it. But we believe the text goes too far when it asserts entitlements based on economic, social and cultural rights. ... The human rights-based approach ... poses significant problems as used in this text." [21]
Active opposition to the Convention in the United States has been concentrated in politically conservative groups.[22] Senator Jesse Helms, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, described it as a “bag of worms,” an effort to “chip away at the U.S. Constitution”.[23]
Legal concerns over ratification have mostly focused on issues of sovereignty and federalism.[24] The United States generally does not sign treaties that it believes would impair its sovereignty.[25] Most United States laws for the protection of children are state rather than federal laws, and the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution restricts some of the authority of the United States government to pass legislation or ratify treaties that will protect children. The US Constitution not only limits federal jurisdiction over children, the US Supreme Court has held that to some significant degree, no government, federal, state, or local may interfere with the parent-child relationship.[26][27].
The Heritage Foundation sees the conflict as an issue of national control over domestic policy: "Although not originally promoted as an entity that would become involved in actively seeking to shape member states’ domestic policies, the U.N. has become increasingly intrusive in these arenas."[28] They express concern about "sovereign jurisdiction over domestic policymaking and preserving the freedom of American civil society",[29] and argue that the actual practice of some UN Committees has been to review national policies that are unrelated, or are marginally related to the actual language of the Convention.[30] Supporters of homeschooling express concern that the Convention will "subvert the authority of parents to exercise important responsibilities toward their children. Under the UN Convention, parental responsibility exists only in so far as parents are willing to further the independent choices of the child."[31]
David Smolin argues that the objections from the religious and political conservatives stem from their view that the U.N. is an elitist institution, which they do not trust to properly handle sensitive decisions regarding family issues.[32] He suggests that legitimate concerns of critics could be met with appropriate Reservations, Understandings and Declarations by the U.S. [33]"
From Wikipedia
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
See it Here
"The United States has not so far ratified the CRC, in part due to possible conflicts with U.S. law and because of opposition by some political and religious conservatives to the treaty.[20]
The administration of president George W. Bush has explicitly stated its opposition to the treaty:
"The Convention on the Rights of the Child may be a positive tool for promoting child welfare for those countries that have adopted it. But we believe the text goes too far when it asserts entitlements based on economic, social and cultural rights. ... The human rights-based approach ... poses significant problems as used in this text." [21]
Active opposition to the Convention in the United States has been concentrated in politically conservative groups.[22] Senator Jesse Helms, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, described it as a “bag of worms,” an effort to “chip away at the U.S. Constitution”.[23]
Legal concerns over ratification have mostly focused on issues of sovereignty and federalism.[24] The United States generally does not sign treaties that it believes would impair its sovereignty.[25] Most United States laws for the protection of children are state rather than federal laws, and the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution restricts some of the authority of the United States government to pass legislation or ratify treaties that will protect children. The US Constitution not only limits federal jurisdiction over children, the US Supreme Court has held that to some significant degree, no government, federal, state, or local may interfere with the parent-child relationship.[26][27].
The Heritage Foundation sees the conflict as an issue of national control over domestic policy: "Although not originally promoted as an entity that would become involved in actively seeking to shape member states’ domestic policies, the U.N. has become increasingly intrusive in these arenas."[28] They express concern about "sovereign jurisdiction over domestic policymaking and preserving the freedom of American civil society",[29] and argue that the actual practice of some UN Committees has been to review national policies that are unrelated, or are marginally related to the actual language of the Convention.[30] Supporters of homeschooling express concern that the Convention will "subvert the authority of parents to exercise important responsibilities toward their children. Under the UN Convention, parental responsibility exists only in so far as parents are willing to further the independent choices of the child."[31]
David Smolin argues that the objections from the religious and political conservatives stem from their view that the U.N. is an elitist institution, which they do not trust to properly handle sensitive decisions regarding family issues.[32] He suggests that legitimate concerns of critics could be met with appropriate Reservations, Understandings and Declarations by the U.S. [33]"
From Wikipedia
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Another Scare Raises Its Ugly Head: WHEAT
"THE world is only ten weeks away from running out of wheat supplies after stocks fell to their lowest levels for 50 years.
The crisis has pushed prices to an all-time high and could lead to further hikes in the price of bread, beer, biscuits and other basic foods."
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article3423734.ece
AND
"Consumers usually reduce their purchases of goods and services if prices become too high. Buyers of United States corn, soybeans and wheat seem to be ignoring that economic principle, however, as the nation‘s grain stocks reach critically low levels, said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist. With global demand for grain and oilseeds at record levels and a weak U.S. dollar, foreign buyers are outbidding domestic buyers for American grain. While the higher commodity prices are good for crop agriculture there are disconcerting downsides, Hurt said. "Food consumers worldwide are going to have to pay more," Hurt said. "We ended 2007 with our monthly inflation rate on food nearly 5 percent higher. I think we‘ll see times in 2008 where the food inflation rate might be as much as 6 percent. "I also think we‘ll have discussions about food security in 2008. We‘ll have discussions about whether we should allow the foreign sector to buy our food. Is food a strategic item that we need to keep in our country?""
"Wheat prices have been near $10 a bushel, more than $6 a bushel higher. Cash prices for soybeans are about $13 a bushel, up more than $7 a bushel. Corn is pricing at near $5 a bushel, an increase of greater than $3 a bushel."
http://www.hoosieragtoday.com/wire/news/00392_World-Grain-Demand-Straining-U_S_-Supply_171358.php
AND then BBC has it's say.
"The price of higher-quality spring wheat jumped almost 25% on Monday - the biggest one-day increase to date.
The rise comes as the UN's World Food Programme warns that it will have to start cutting rations or feeding fewer people if it does not get more money to cope with the higher cost of food.
Wheat is used to make staple foods such as bread, pasta and noodles."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7264653.stm#subject
Feed The World? We Are Fighting a Losing Battle, UN Admits
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The crisis has pushed prices to an all-time high and could lead to further hikes in the price of bread, beer, biscuits and other basic foods."
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article3423734.ece
AND
"Consumers usually reduce their purchases of goods and services if prices become too high. Buyers of United States corn, soybeans and wheat seem to be ignoring that economic principle, however, as the nation‘s grain stocks reach critically low levels, said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist. With global demand for grain and oilseeds at record levels and a weak U.S. dollar, foreign buyers are outbidding domestic buyers for American grain. While the higher commodity prices are good for crop agriculture there are disconcerting downsides, Hurt said. "Food consumers worldwide are going to have to pay more," Hurt said. "We ended 2007 with our monthly inflation rate on food nearly 5 percent higher. I think we‘ll see times in 2008 where the food inflation rate might be as much as 6 percent. "I also think we‘ll have discussions about food security in 2008. We‘ll have discussions about whether we should allow the foreign sector to buy our food. Is food a strategic item that we need to keep in our country?""
"Wheat prices have been near $10 a bushel, more than $6 a bushel higher. Cash prices for soybeans are about $13 a bushel, up more than $7 a bushel. Corn is pricing at near $5 a bushel, an increase of greater than $3 a bushel."
http://www.hoosieragtoday.com/wire/news/00392_World-Grain-Demand-Straining-U_S_-Supply_171358.php
AND then BBC has it's say.
"The price of higher-quality spring wheat jumped almost 25% on Monday - the biggest one-day increase to date.
The rise comes as the UN's World Food Programme warns that it will have to start cutting rations or feeding fewer people if it does not get more money to cope with the higher cost of food.
Wheat is used to make staple foods such as bread, pasta and noodles."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7264653.stm#subject
Feed The World? We Are Fighting a Losing Battle, UN Admits
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Is EU buying up charities
I wrote to all my MEPs to object to the EUs policy on bio-fuels. One of the MEPs; BOOTH Graham H, The UK Independence Party (UKIP), is the only one so far who has written to me. He is against the legislation, which is good. And he is explaing about the charities like the Friends of Earth who are been bought by the EU. Bought means been funded by EU. Well the whole letter I recieved is below.
"Dear Enquirer,
Thank you for your message regarding the EUs policy on bio-fuels. Wewill be voting against any legislation, which is based on those policies.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has always condemned these targets asirresponsible, and we have tried to highlight the dangers of ploughingforward with them. As usual our protests went unheard, but yet again, wewere proved to be correct. We are the only party in the Parliament thathas consistently voted against these targets, and the EU's drive (at anycost)for such legislation.
It may interest you to learn that a number of "green" charities, such as Friends of the Earth - even though they have the integrity to opposethese biofuel-targets (and GMO's, for that matter)- receive substantialamounts of EU funding. It has been suggested that part of the reason theEU is "buying up" charities like this, is that they will then call foraction, which the EU has already decided to take. Indeed, this isusually what happens. The appearance is of a democratic and responsiveEU. In fact, the EU is the paymaster of its own lobbyists. In this case,however, everyone agrees that the Commission's position is indefensible.Even the "captive NGO's" cannot be seen to be supporting it.The target of a 5.75% market share for bio-fuels, in the overalltransport-fuel supply, is wholly un-reasonable and un-sustainable for anumber of reasons:
(i) The damage caused in developing nations, by cultivation of oil-palmand soya etc - for the purposes of the export of bio-fuels toEU-controlled markets - is destroying precious, tropical habitats, and
(ii) This expansion would be contributing more to carbon-imbalance (werethat possible) than the substitution of bio-, for fossil-, fuels wouldredress it.
(iii) Given increasing food-shortages, it is not a good idea to beproducing bio fuels at the expense of food production.
It may also interest you to learn that the EU has a number of otherpolicies, which are devastating for the environment. For example, itsCommon Fisheries Policy sees countless dead fish thrown out of nets torot on the ocean surface, as the CFP only allows fishermen to catchcertain types of fish, and nets are not renowned for their ability to discriminate between types of fish. The EU also has its Common Agricultural Policy, which vindictively condemns poor farmers in theDeveloping World to poverty - and an inability to compete withsubsidised, European farmers - and obliges them to exploit their environment more ruthlessly. Incidentally, the EU also funds farmers inSpain, whose consequent expansion threatens the habitat of the IberianLynx, one of Europe's rarest animals.
We at UKIP feel that the inherently remote, un-democratic and corrupt,nature of the EU, coupled with its laughable attempts to cloak its cynical intentions in altruistic camouflage ("environmental protection","health and safety", "human rights" etc) mean that it deserves nothingbut contempt. We look forward to the day we can abolish the EU (inBritain, to begin with) take our billions of pounds with us, and spendthem on serious and sensible measures to support public services,including the protection of the environment.
Thank you for your message. Please rest-assured that UKIP MEPs willcontinue to vote against the biofuel-targets.
Yours sincerely,
Michael McManus
Office of Graham Booth MEP"
So I wrote toFOE like this:
Is it true that the EU is funding FOE? If that is true, then, when the EU is discussing about Bio Fuels, the FOE will be taking a positive posture towards the coming legislation. Is that what most of the members of FOE want? What is your position towords the up-coming legislation. I wrote to my MEP Mr Booth and he says that FOE is not aggressively lobbying against the Bio Fuel quotas for 2020. Thank you for your time ,patience and an early reply.
I will post anything which comes from them.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Dear Enquirer,
Thank you for your message regarding the EUs policy on bio-fuels. Wewill be voting against any legislation, which is based on those policies.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has always condemned these targets asirresponsible, and we have tried to highlight the dangers of ploughingforward with them. As usual our protests went unheard, but yet again, wewere proved to be correct. We are the only party in the Parliament thathas consistently voted against these targets, and the EU's drive (at anycost)for such legislation.
It may interest you to learn that a number of "green" charities, such as Friends of the Earth - even though they have the integrity to opposethese biofuel-targets (and GMO's, for that matter)- receive substantialamounts of EU funding. It has been suggested that part of the reason theEU is "buying up" charities like this, is that they will then call foraction, which the EU has already decided to take. Indeed, this isusually what happens. The appearance is of a democratic and responsiveEU. In fact, the EU is the paymaster of its own lobbyists. In this case,however, everyone agrees that the Commission's position is indefensible.Even the "captive NGO's" cannot be seen to be supporting it.The target of a 5.75% market share for bio-fuels, in the overalltransport-fuel supply, is wholly un-reasonable and un-sustainable for anumber of reasons:
(i) The damage caused in developing nations, by cultivation of oil-palmand soya etc - for the purposes of the export of bio-fuels toEU-controlled markets - is destroying precious, tropical habitats, and
(ii) This expansion would be contributing more to carbon-imbalance (werethat possible) than the substitution of bio-, for fossil-, fuels wouldredress it.
(iii) Given increasing food-shortages, it is not a good idea to beproducing bio fuels at the expense of food production.
It may also interest you to learn that the EU has a number of otherpolicies, which are devastating for the environment. For example, itsCommon Fisheries Policy sees countless dead fish thrown out of nets torot on the ocean surface, as the CFP only allows fishermen to catchcertain types of fish, and nets are not renowned for their ability to discriminate between types of fish. The EU also has its Common Agricultural Policy, which vindictively condemns poor farmers in theDeveloping World to poverty - and an inability to compete withsubsidised, European farmers - and obliges them to exploit their environment more ruthlessly. Incidentally, the EU also funds farmers inSpain, whose consequent expansion threatens the habitat of the IberianLynx, one of Europe's rarest animals.
We at UKIP feel that the inherently remote, un-democratic and corrupt,nature of the EU, coupled with its laughable attempts to cloak its cynical intentions in altruistic camouflage ("environmental protection","health and safety", "human rights" etc) mean that it deserves nothingbut contempt. We look forward to the day we can abolish the EU (inBritain, to begin with) take our billions of pounds with us, and spendthem on serious and sensible measures to support public services,including the protection of the environment.
Thank you for your message. Please rest-assured that UKIP MEPs willcontinue to vote against the biofuel-targets.
Yours sincerely,
Michael McManus
Office of Graham Booth MEP"
So I wrote toFOE like this:
Is it true that the EU is funding FOE? If that is true, then, when the EU is discussing about Bio Fuels, the FOE will be taking a positive posture towards the coming legislation. Is that what most of the members of FOE want? What is your position towords the up-coming legislation. I wrote to my MEP Mr Booth and he says that FOE is not aggressively lobbying against the Bio Fuel quotas for 2020. Thank you for your time ,patience and an early reply.
I will post anything which comes from them.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
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