Hats off to the guy who took off his shoes

to hurl them at the war criminal who ruined his country and threatens to ruin mine!

This is what Iraqi reporter Muntader al-Zaidi said as he threw his shoes at George Bush, who made a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday:

"This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq"

A lady from my Code Pink mail list suggested: "... we take photos of the bottom of our shoes, print up the photos and tape unto a postcard (made from card stock paper or cardboard) and then write what the Iraqi journalist said and mail to bush."

I'd like to add that faxzero.net offers 2 free faxes a day. Hey! One per shoe!

Propaganda

Here are some quotes I picked out from this article:

"Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."
—Robert A. Heinlein, If This Goes On, 1940

"One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."
—George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 1938

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
—Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841

Did you ever stop and think about how much energy, money, etc., humans invest in deception? It seems like such a waste. Not that all lies are bad ("You look fine!", "It's not that noticeable ...", "Of course I didn't forget!"). But the nature of lies is impermanence, because they can never stand up to the truth. All lies are like what the song says *we* are, dust in the wind. Once exposed to the light, they must fall away, though anything of substance they may have been propping up comes crashing down, potentially causing some real damage.

Truth is what's left after all lies are pierced. It is the only real thing in the Universe, and ultimately the only thing of any value. But here on Earth we haven't reached "the Ultimate" yet, so Truth often plays the role of the ugly stepsister, or even the skunk at the picnic.

Lately I've been under the impression, probably a false one (but there's a truth behind that falsity ...) that a lot of energy has been directed at me, personally, to believe in a bullshit stack of lies to divert me from what I *should* be doing, whatever that is. Like I said, I'm probably deluded in that belief, but I can clearly see this is happening to the American people in general.

I can't stand to watch television anymore. It seems that everything in the "news" is an irrelevant distraction or an out-and-out lie. Where do we go to get the truth?

One of the bloggers I follow, Les Visible, says we should meditate. I think this is an excellent idea, but it's not for wussies. So many of our false comforts are based on lies. We all will feel pretty naked and cold when these are stripped from us. But I can tell you that as a nation, the United States has some pretty stark truths it must face in the immediate future. I also get the sense that the better we can deal with our own personal truths, the better we will be able to deal with these more collective truths and their effects.

[See also: awakeninthedream.com]

We're not going to let these buggers get away with it, are we?

I haven't been posting much of late, and if I step back a bit it doesn't take a genius to figure out why ... for the longest time I felt I had some very clear goals to gnaw on: get Cindy Sheehan elected. End the occupation. Impeach the bastards in Bush administration and hold them accountable for their crimes.

Now what?

They ought to have a picture of me next to the word "quixotic" in the dictionary. Yet ending two ill-begotten, money-draining, total cock-up imperialist quagmires and holding people accountable for the most serious crimes in the 21st century doesn't seem unreasonable, does it? Yet with each passing day it looks like these nasty gangsters are going to get away with it, just as their bankster friends are making off with the loot of an unprecedented derivitive gambling spree. What, you mean they actually lost their bets? No problem, just fob it off on the average working taxpayer. If the press doesn't make too big a deal about it, the public will soon forget and blame the fact that our country is flat broke on people who live in cardboard boxes and buy Ramen Noodles with their food stamps. Until they themselves become one of those people. Is that what it's going to take to get people to put a stop to the fraud and corruption?

I don't mean to harsh anyone's Obama buzz, I mean, it's clear he's a lot better choice than McCain ... but pay attention to his actions instead of just his words. He voted for the bank bailout. He voted to decimate the 4th amendment with the FISA bill (which granted retroactive immunity for telecorps to wiretap us Americans). And now look at his appointments.

Rahm Emanuel. I don't know anything about him, but this line from an article I found at Kenny's Sideshow doesn't look too comforting: "Rahm Emanuel is, along with Joe Lieberman, just about the most fanatical Ziocon in Congress. He is at least as evil and fanatical as any Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz. The simple fact that Obama is seriously considering making him his Chief of Staff really says it all."

Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State? This guy is taking the adage "Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer" a bit too literally.

Is Obama going to end the occupation in Afghanistan? No, he's going to send more troops. I'm not holding my breath that we'll ever find Osama bin Laden, which is the supposed reason we're in Afghanistan in the first place. Meanwhile opium production skyrocketed 800% the last time I checked.

Are we ever going to hold the criminals currently holding office accountable? Nope, doesn't look like it.

Where do we go from here, people? Any suggestions? Impeachment just sounds stupid right now, yet are we actually going to prosecute these people once Bush leaves office? What should we be fighting for? We're not going to let these guys get away with it, are we?

Yesterday was "End the Fed" day

Yesterday people in 39 different cities took to the streets and called for the end of the Federal Reserve system. In San Francisco I and many of my activist friends attended, including speakers Carol Brouillet and Cindy Sheehan. Here's a video of Cindy's speech (over a couple minutes into it):


Here's a link to an old radio commentary I did on the Federal Reserve system: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/11083 . One of the best essays I've ever seen for a beginner to understand the Federal Reserve System (and what a scam it is) is Dan Benham's classic "A phone call to the Fed."

Speaking of lies and scams, here's an obscure gem of a music video on the Internet about George Bush (caution, there are some graphic war clips):

Post-election re-orientation

Sorry I haven't posted anything new for a while, understandably I've been very busy with election day and all that ... and now Cindy's office has been closed for most of the week, so I'm back to having to use the library computer, and only have an hour to get a halfway decent view of what's going on in the world, let alone blog ...

Cindy lost the election to Pelosi, officially with 17% to Pelosi's 71%. The next runner up was the Republican candidate Dana Walsh, with only 9% of the vote. But there's a lot of fishy business around the whole thing, including precincts where Cindy didn't get even one vote. I heard one news outlet called the race at 10:00 am in the morning on election day!

Anyway, Cindy has leased the office for another year with every intention of running again in '10. She's now got her own one hour radio show, which will be airing just before (San Francisco mayor) Gavin Newsome's new show on KKGN, Green 960.

Don't have too much time to blog, but I do want to share this remarkable video from those fearless warriors of conscience, We Are Change, who relentlessly persue an unrepentant Karl Rove. I think I originally saw this on 911blogger.


Note: The "handcuffing" mentioned in this video is in reference to this incident, where Janine Boneparth (who fasted with me at Camp Feinstein and was arrested with me in Washington DC) attempted to make a citizens' arrest of Rove in San Francisco last month.

One week left before the election

This morning Cindy Sheehan and many volunteers protested KQED, a public TV/radio station in San Francisco. (U.S. Speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi hasn't deigned to debate anyone in years -- she never had to -- as the Democratic congressional incumbent in heavily liberal San Francisco, the most her competitors ever get in the polls is around 15%.

But this year she has a worthy competitor, internationally known peace activist Cindy Sheehan. But she still won't debate. So anyway, KQED decided to do a 30 minute, one-on-one interview with Nancy Pelosi. In the interest of "equal time," Cindy, the Republican candidate, and the Libertarian candidate would get 30 minutes to debate each other (without the sitting incumbent, kind of like being consigned to the kids' table at Thanksgiving).

None of this makes any sense, of course, if Nancy Pelosi has time for a 30 minute solo interview she has time to debate the other candidates. But the station's communications director and Nancy Pelosi insisted on this totally unfair arrangement. So Cindy and her "Sheehanistas" protested the station during Nancy's interview. They were actually able to get into the building with a megaphone when the delivery man came to the door. I hear they were going up and down the halls with a megaphone, and were admonished by someone working there, to which the volunteer responded, "well, you've got a lot bigger megaphone than we do, why don't you start using it for truth?"

As promised, here's the video to this story:



Here's some footage from yesterday, when Cindy's campaign manager, Tiffany, got into a press conference with Nancy Pelosi to ask her why she wouldn't debate:

Be Prepared ...

I don't want to scare anyone, but it's been apparent to me for years that America's economy is not sustainable, and it appears more and more likely we are in the midst of a collapse. With that in mind, here are two interesting articles for your consideration:

100 Items to Disappear First
http://www.thepowerhour.com/news/items_disappearfirst.htm

What If US Collapses? Soviet Collapse Lessons Every American Needs To Know
http://madconomist.com/what-if-us-collapses-soviet-collapse-lessons-every-american-needs-to-know

More scary stuff ...

October is the month of surprises and being the kind of person I am I've run across a lot of worrisome articles and blog posts lately. Here's a particularly impressive one from a blog I've never seen before (lots of video links!).

Yesterday Cindy dropped a banner outside a suite at the Hyatt (across the San Francisco FED building) saying, "Thanks Pelosi! 850 Billion reasons to vote for Cindy Sheehan." It was clearly visible in the financial district for about 20 minutes (before security made them take it down).



Later we took the same banner to do some "highway blogging." After that, we all piled into Cindy's RV "Jezebel" which is covered with Cindy signs, peace designs, etc., and drove around town with Cindy and her campaign manager Tiffany calling out the window with a bullhorn. It was pretty funny, the stuff they came up with to say ("Vote for me, I've got an RV!" :)

I guess I'll end this post which started out pretty grim with a very inspiring video someone just showed me a couple minutes ago:

Tax Revolt

Tax Revolt
by Cindy Sheehan

"Desperate times call for drastic measures."
Unknown

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Declaration of Independence

There are a thousand striking at the branches of evil, to one who is striking at the root.
Henry David Thoreau

How long is the "train of abuses and usurpations" that has been coupled together by the Bush regime with the consent, or active participation of Congress? In the Declaration of Independence, our fore-parents listed the train of abuses that King "George" III (the king of Great Britain at the time) perpetrated on the American colonies. The differences between our "Mad King George," and the one that reigned over these states, 232 years ago are slim. If you "google" the Declaration, or pull one out of your pocket/purse and read it, you can see the abuses are practically identical. I am not going to list the abuses, because you can read them. The current one that is going to hit each and every American, though, whether unborn or one foot in the grave, is:

*For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.

In a recent Rasmussen poll only 7% of Americans approved of a bail out of Wall Street...gee, I wonder which ones those were? The CEO's of Goldman-Sachs and their families? And former CEO of Goldman-Sachs: US Treasury Secretary: Henry (Hammerin' Hank) Paulson?

There is one major difference between Past Mad King George and Present Mad King George, though. Our fore-parents had the courage and integrity to say "enough is enough, George" and they kicked an occupying force in the ass and booted them off our continent. We Present Americans are so passive in the face of, and cowed into submission by, the current state of fascist affairs in our country.

Now the evil "powers that be" in an incestuous collusion are collaborating to steal 2300.00 per American to give to Wall Street to pay for worthless paper transactions that will make our paper dollar worth even less. Mad King George and his obedient Court Jesters (Congress) are asking us to pony up our hard earned money from our hard-worked labor to keep the Wall Street Barbary Coast Pirates in the style to which they have become accustomed. I would like to call "HORSESHIT" on that!

Before my son, Casey, was killed in Iraq, I was like these Americans. I dutifully obeyed stupid laws and paid my taxes like a good, properly propagandized American.

As I wrote the checks, I never considered what my money was financing. After Casey was killed, I became deeply ashamed that I had in some small part funded the very thing that killed him: greedy and rampant US imperialism. I have not paid my taxes since. I won't pay my taxes until our money is used for positive projects: health insurance, affordable housing, credits for green development, jobs programs to rebuild our compromised infrastructure, education, etc. I can hold my head up and say that I feel that I have taken a principled stand against this US Corporate Empire.

This out of control system needs to be overthrown and even though we still retain a modicum of the 2nd Amendment, we do not have the firepower it would take to militarily overthrow our Mad King George and his Jesters. More importantly, I fear armed revolutions for the very reason that they always install violent regimes, so I am proposing another solution: a tax revolt.

Over the past 7+ years, our taxes have gone to pay for: killing innocent people, torturing and detaining without due process other people (innocent or guilty is no matter), increasing Police State America, bailing out other finance companies, paying for private mercenary soldiers in New Orleans, Iraq and Afghanistan and the very ephemeral notion of a "War on Terror." Most of us have continued to pay for these crimes against humanity. Some haven't and some have done so with a nagging feeling in the back of the place that is called a "conscience."

It is time to with hold your support from this criminally insane institution of Government/Wall Street. DO NOT allow your money to be used to bail out the fat cats. I propose:

*If employed, change your withholding to M-9, (married with 9 dependents) so no taxes are withheld from your paycheck and do not file next April 15th.

*If possible, limit your income to so you do not have to file.

*Or this is the best scenario: file your taxes and deduct 2300.00 for each member of your family and request a refund from Uncle Sam. (and still change your withholding).

*Withhold a partial amount of your taxes to make a statement.

There are many ways that this government finances its schemes, but a massive tax revolt will send reverberations throughout the rotten system.

Before Congress approves this Crime of the Century bail out, call your House Representative and Senators (toll free: 1-877-851-6437) and tell them that if they collude with the Bush Regime to do this, you won't be paying your 2008 income taxes.

Tax protest is a time honored and very courageous form of protest (ie: Boston Tea Party, Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi). I am not calling for a "protest" though...we have had many of those, I am calling for you to have the courage and integrity to join me in nothing less than a Revolution. It won't be easy, but neither will the resultant collapse of our economic system if this "trickle down" plan goes through. I am tired of being trickled on...it is time for action, not complaints or whining.

This is the only way we can stand up to power in this country and if we stand together, they cannot divide and conquer us. Let's reverse the trend and have thousands "striking at the root."

www.CindyforCongress.org

This should be an interesting month ...

I just read a well-written article about the bailout situation by Michael Moore. It speaks in plain language about what a sham this bailout bill really is, and contains a link to a letter signed by 200 economists (including Nobel Prize winners) urging Congress to hold appropriate hearings before rushing through Henry Paulson's plan.

Congratulations, Corporate Crime Fighters! Coup Averted for Three Days!

I've seen lots of articles like this lately:

U.S Army conducting training in cities, towns

Brigade Homeland Tours Start Oct. 1

3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army

HOUSE LEADERSHIP INVOKES “MARTIAL LAW,” FORCING MEMBERS TO VOTE ON KEY BILLS WITHOUT FULL KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT THEY ARE VOTING ON: MOVE REPRESENTS EROSION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

We live in interesting times.

Protests on Wall Street and in front of San Francisco FED

There was an emergency protest in front of Wall Street on Sept. 25 . Thanks to all who won't take this lying down. Why should we hand over a blank check to Goldman Sachs???




Cindy Sheehan has ongoing protests here in San Francisco -- video and more info at http://cindyforcongress.org/

Here are some alternative plans to the highway robbery congress voted down today --

From green party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney: http://votetruth08.com/index.php/learn/mckinney-messages

From independent congressman Bernie Sanders:
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=303313

Hate to say I told you so ...

Just last week, when word broke that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were in deep trouble, I advised everyone in the Cindy for Congress campaign office with extra money in their bank accounts to pull it out and buy gold. Here are headlines for today:

Gold Soars Most Since 1999, Silver Surges on Demand for Haven
Federal bank insurance fund dwindling

Want some more good advice? Stock up on food.

Prepare for the Collapse of the US Dollar

Let's get some boots on the ground for peace and truth!

I just got this in my email, and it struck a chord in me, because I'm currently working for a political campaign and while going door to door is a well-respected strategy for promoting political candidates, I never thought about it as a way to spread a message like peace (or 9-11 truth, for that matter):

Million Doors for Peace
Saturday September 20th 11:00am
Orientation and Lunch
Global Exchange - CODEPINK
2017 Mission Street, 2nd floor
San Francisco, CA 94110

On Saturday, September 20, with your help, 25,000 peace activists will talk with 1 million voters about what’s at stake in Iraq and how they can join the movement to end the war!

CODEPINK is partnering with United for Peace & Justice, True Majority, Win Without War and other organizations for a massive door knocking for peace. We'll bring our CODEPINK flair of costumes and singing.

Volunteer doorknockers will ask people to sign an antiwar petition directed to Congress. Our message: End this immoral war, bring our troops home, and invest in America's future. In addition, we will encourage people to join local anti-war groups, engage in voter education work, and become a part of the organized antiwar movement in their area.

for info email peace@globalexchange.org

Do you get the feeling we're being distracted ... *again*?

There's a genuine police state situation shaping up near the RNC. Dick Cheney is touring all the former Soviet satellite countries like the Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. And all the press can talk about is Caribou Barbie and try to tamp down the fact her family is every bit as dysfunctional as most of the rest of our country (thanks in part to right-wing repressiveness about birth control).

Palin is such a weird, distracting choice for a running mate (except maybe to the evangelical far-right Christians) I'm a little worried the Republicans have written off the idea of even having an election. What if this whole thing is a distraction and "the Powers That Be" are banking on martial law between now and November?

There I go again. I've been on the edge of my seat waiting for another 9-11 for years now ... sorry ... but the truth is, friends, if you haven't been at least a little paranoid over the weird happenings of the last seven years you haven't been paying attention ...

Twilight of the Psychopaths

I recently ran across an article that gave me a new way to think about what may be wrong with our current government:

Twilight of the Psychopaths

Another enlightening article mentioned in the comments:

The Psychopath -- The Mask of Sanity

Warning! (videos)

For all of you who work in office buildings:







For all of you who wear pink in Denver:






For all of you who live in Portland, or who are generally concerned about martial law:


http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/08/378904.shtml?discuss

Cindy Sheehan thwarts attempt to bug her room at the DNC?

I called Cindy's sister Dede, who is also in Denver, and she confirms this article: Cindy Sheehan Bugged in Denver

This is what Cindy told Rob Kall in an email:

"As I walked toward my room, I noticed that the door was opened with the security bolt blocking the complete closing of the door. I knew immediately that I had not left the door open, and I double checked to make sure it was the right room because, as a frequent traveler, I have been known to forget my room number, but it was the right room.

I was upset at first thinking that housekeeping had made a mistake and left my room open and I was worried that something might be missing. So I walked into my room and bigger than life, there was a man standing by my desk holding the room phone with a screwdriver in his hand!

I immediately said; "What the hell are you doing? Are you putting a bug on my phone?" He looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and stammered out: "N--no, we are having problems with the phone." I told him to get out of my room because my phone was fine and I called the front desk and the person at the front desk stammered something out about "problems" with some of the phones.

This room was reserved soon after we got to Denver last night because the room we had was inadequate for 3 people. The room was reserved under my campaign manager's name with a CFC debit card. By the time we left for the march, it could have very well been ascertained that I was the one in this room, and the room we did reserve could be bugged, also. I am confident that that's what was happening when I walked in on the "maintenance" man"

You don't come in the room with a screwdriver if there are problems with the hotel phones. You do it electronically, through the system or you hook up a new phone."

Looking at the comments to Kall's article, it appears that the guy may well have been attempting to bug, not Cindy's phone, but the entire room. After all, the telecommunications companies already have the "right" to tap our phones without a warrant ... Cindy's congressional opponent, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (and, incidentally, Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama) made sure of that when they voted for the 4th-amendment-gutting FISA bill.

Even if you don't live in San Francisco, you can help Cindy Sheehan in her bid to oust the do-nothing Speaker of the House.

Spread the word.

Contribute to Cindy's campaign.

How do we become, again, a people who govern themselves?

I haven't written for a while. Sorry. I don't have my own computer and my "writing time" is thus extremely limited. I only get an hour of internet time at the library, and I usually dedicate that into trying to figure out what's going on in the world, as I've done away with television altogether (and I highly recommend this for anyone fed up with the fluffy distractions TV offers).

The Democratic National Convention is coming up this Monday, and I have a deep sense of foreboding about it. (Not that this means anything, I've had a deep sense of foreboding for about 7 or 8 years now ... ) But I find the whole thing depressing, for some reason, when much of the country finds themselves inspired with hope at the prospect of a black man, a man who speaks of hope instead of fear, a person with undeniable charisma, obvious intelligence and a cool and stable character, finally secured a major party nomination. Barack Obama seems like a real statesman. He makes McCain look like a buffoon who would only ramp up his predecessor's historically disastrous policies. Why am I not elated by these developments?

For one thing, the Democratic Party itself has revealed itself to be defunct -- not a voice of the people, but just another wing of the corporatocracy that has been running this country for decades. They've been playing "good cop" to the Republicans' "bad cop." But how much are things really going to change with Obama at the helm?

Obama (along with Nancy Pelosi) voted away our 4th amendment by voting for the FISA bill that gives telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for spying on American citizens. Anyone that screws with our bill of rights is a domestic enemy in my estimation. He's also said he wouldn't rule out surgical strikes on Iran. At this point, Barack Obama is looking more and more like a black (Bill) Clinton. While my life was certainly better under the Clinton years than it is now, a lot has changed since then. We need *real* change at this point, not a bunch of insubstantial rhetoric. I now see that Clinton may well have been responsible for the deaths of over a million Iraqis under sanctions, may well have been behind the Oklahoma City bombing, presided over the Waco fiasco, and may well have been (in a much slicker way) just as criminally corrupt as the Bush administration. We fired on a news media outlet in Belgrade, as surely as we did in Baghdad.

So anyway, I ran across this article where I encountered this question: How do we become, again, a people who govern themselves? I think that's one of the central questions facing our times.

Locals express frustration at Nancy Pelosi's book signing

I was at the event described in this article: Pelosi & The People of the Lie. As you can imagine, I was one of the hecklers. Several of us yelled "impeach" when Pelosi finally got around to talking about Bush (After talking about household chores, being a good Catholic and growing up in her family. I hear most of her book is a boring autobiography ... I didn't spend the money to get one signed).

Also, remember my blog entry about how one British town is spurning supermarkets? Here's a cute story about a pub that's working quite well with the barter system: Pub beats the credit crunch by allowing punters to barter home-grown food for beer

Haven't had much time for blogging these days, hope I can catch up with some more entries this coming week.

Cindy's on the Ballot

When I last wrote we turned in over 13,000 signatures, but 41% or so were invalidated (we had paid petitioners, and many of the signatures were no good). But we continued to gather signatures, and today we have been told by the elections department we are officially on the ballot. Big party over at Cindy's campaign headquarters. It's time to hold Nancy Pelosi's feet to the fire and force her to debate Cindy, and finally force her to face her constituents about why she continues to put war funding on the table, while keeping real impeachment hearings off the table.

Cindy Sheehan's campaign milestone

Things have been extremely hectic at the Sheehan campaign headquarters here in San Francisco. While Cindy and most of her staff were in D.C. to make a showing at John Conyers's "Okay, I guess we can *talk* about impeachment" hearings, an army of paid petitioners gathered petitions by the hundreds, sending our petition totals to well over the 10,000 required to get her on the ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. Congress, running against the current Speaker of the House Nancy "Impeachment is Off the Table" Pelosi. Of course, not all of those signatures are going to be valid, but we have several days to make up for any discrepancies.

There's a palpable change in the mood of the campaign, and Nancy Pelosi's constituency. Maybe people have finally had enough with their elected representative selling their constitutional rights down the river, and thumbing her nose at the rising chorus of San Franciscans who demand Bush's crime cabal be held to account.

For anybody doesn't think Cindy Sheehan's campaign is serious, you're wrong. I can't think of anyone more deserving of a seat in Congress than Cindy, or anyone more deserving of getting a seat pulled out from under her butt than Nancy.

Link to old radio shows

Hi, sorry I haven't written for a while ... here's a link to most of my radio commentaries (much faster than the search link I've been giving): http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/1473

Here in San Francisco, there was a die-in in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's house last weekend. We covered our bodies with red-spattered sheets and lay down in the street to the eerie sounds of falling bombs. We were protesting H Con Res 362, which urges Bush to blockade Iran, a potential first step towards WWIII. I heard I made a brief appearance on the news (though I wasn't among the three who went on Pelosi's property and thus got arrested). As usual for these kinds of things, Pelosi wasn't actually home to hear us sing protest songs and watch us take direct action -- she was in Texas. Cindy's sister Dede and campaign manager Tiffany showed up at the protest too (Cindy would have been there, but she wasn't feeling well).

The good news is that Cindy's congressional campaign against Nancy Pelosi is really picking up steam -- and a lot of notice. For a while I was worried we wouldn't get the 10,000 signatures we needed to get on the ballot (California is the 4th hardest state to run as an independent), but we're back on track! You can contribute to Cindy's campaign by clicking here: cindyforcongress.org . We don't need an enabler of torture and wiretapping in the Speaker's chair.

The London bombings -- who *really* did it?

Today marks the 3rd anniversary of the public transportation bombings in London, England which took 52 lives. I never believed the people on the list of readily supplied names were the ones who were actually responsible. I heard one of them taught little kids in special ed. Excuse me, it takes a special kind of person to choose to do that kind of work (even as a cover, I would suppose). Don't tell me someone like that would turn around one day and indiscriminately blow up a bunch of people on a bus. I started looking into the biographies of all the men described, and it made me sick. These weren't just ordinary people, they were good, *decent* people. And people still think they are terrorists.

I'm tired of the best people in this world being smeared with lies and filth, while bloodthirsty pigs pervade our halls of justice wearing lipstick and perfume to cover their stench. Please look into the history of 7/7/05. There were terror exercises planned on that day that mirror *exactly* what took place [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKvkhe3rqtc ]. Bruce Lait, a passenger on one of the train bombings, is quoted as saying, "The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag."

Then, don't forget, days later, innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot several times on the train after being followed by officials from his home. Police used hollow-point bullets! [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-138779977.html ]

Looking at pictures of those I'm sure were falsely accused, and I'm sure whose families have gone through 3 years of pure hell since then, I pray justice will soon be served and we'll soon know what really happened on that day.

More stuff on "psychological manipulation"

I've always been fascinated with this subject, and I've recently run across a couple others on the internet who write/discuss this subject well:

robag88 on youtube
(I particularly liked this commentary [part 1, part 2] on women's magazine covers. It was obvious one magazine is doing something insidiously deliberate. Regardless of whether they're doing it just to sell magazines, I'll agree with Rob that the outcome is highly destructive of family values, and can only serve to needlessly ratchet up our anxiety as we constantly pass them at the check-out stand.)

Peter Chamberlin on wakeupfromyourslumber.com
Fighting Mind Control

Nature Spirits

Yesterday I had the thought to go down to Golden Gate Park's arboretum and "see how my friends the plants are doing." That got me to thinking ... you know, plants can be friends to humans in much the same way animals can be.

We don't talk about it much, but it's evident from sites like Portland Indymedia how much love plants can inspire in human beings. There are kids who will sit in trees for days on end to keep them from being cut down. I remember when I was younger my family was moving out of state and we would soon pull out of our driveway for the last time. It suddenly occurred to me that it would be years (if ever) before I'd see the tree in our front yard again. So when no one was paying much attention I quietly slipped out of the car and gave it a hug, or at least a pat. I still miss the rose bushes from a house I used to rent.

Plants do indeed respond to loving kindness. They cheer us up when we are sad ... this writer claims they can heal us by just being in their presence (more from Zcascadia here). Thank you, plants! :)

Cindy Sheehan calls for a revolution

Cindy Sheehan Speech at Fat City, 6/28/08 from fogcityjournal on Vimeo.

Fog City Journal article here.

Fox news caught using subliminal messages

Check out this article I saw on prisonplanet.com:

Mere Exposure to John McCain Can Be Dangerous

When I first saw the title I thought it had to do with how, when he visited those Iraqi merchants for his photo-op a few months ago (see video from my June 10th post), they all ended up murdered the next day. But no, this was about subliminal messages, which I have suspected FOX and other news outlets of perpetrating a long time ago. Did you ever notice how all that distracting, hypnotic scrolling and general visual excess and overwhelm started immediately after 9-11-01?

Um, yeah, right ...

Scare as Sarkozy departs Israel
"Confusion has marred French President Nicolas Sarkozy's farewell to Israel, after a soldier shot himself dead during an airport departure ceremony."

But Israeli news says this:

IDF soldier wounded during Sarkozy farewell ceremony in critical condition
"The IDF soldier, who suffered gunshot wounds during French President Nicolas Sarkozy's sendoff ceremony in Ben Gurion International Airport, was hospitalized in critical condition.

"The soldier, who was part of the honorary guard, was reportedly wounded when a gun misfired. The incident is under investigation." (Eli Senyor)

Video here.

Cynthia McKinney joins forces with Cindy Sheehan

I have had the good fortune to have met both of these wonderfully warm, brave ladies. Please support them both in their relative campaigns (Cynthia as green party presidential nominee, and Cindy as congresswoman to San Francisco's 8th congressional district, which happens to be Bush appeaser Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's district). Both women support a real investigation into what really happened in this country on Sept. 11, 2001.

Here's what I got in my email:

As a sign of tightening opposition to the string of hope-reversing policies being put forward by Speaker Pelosi, Green Party Presidential and pro-peace candidate Cynthia McKinney agreed to serve as an Honorary Co-Chair of Cindy Sheehan's campaign to oust Nancy Pelosi from Congress. "Nancy Pelosi needs to phone home, because it's clear that she's forgotten the values of the people of California who sent her to Congress. The point was to change Washington, DC, but instead Washington, DC changed Nancy Pelosi," commented McKinney, a former colleague of Pelosi.

McKinney first declared her independence from the national leadership that voted its complicity in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace at an anti-war demonstration in front of the Pentagon in March of 2007. At that time, McKinney lamented that the Democratic majority in Congress had failed to repeal the Patriot Acts and the Bush tax cuts, introduce and pass legislation for a livable wage and investigate the Pentagon's admitted "loss" of $2.3 trillion. McKinney bolted the Democratic Party afterwards, declaring her candidacy for the Green Party's nomination in December 2007. Today, McKinney adds to that list Democratic leadership's failure to pass legislation providing for a single payer health care system in our country and its inaction on the foreclosure crisis gripping homeowners.

McKinney first publicly endorsed Cindy's Congressional campaign last year in Kennebunkport, Maine near the home of George Herbert Walker Bush. According to McKinney, "Cindy's campaign is increasingly important today as the only way left to put peace, impeachment, and our values back on the table." McKinney added, "Cindy continues to show us the power of one, the power that is within every one of us. Moreover, Cindy Sheehan can win."

"Having Cynthia on board is a significant gain for my campaign. She has experience in tough campaigns and brings a wealth of knowledge. I am running to win, we have already raised close to $200,000 and everyday we get more and more support as people get more fed up with Pelosi's mis-leadership," says Sheehan.

Since the Democrats assumed control of Congress, according to some reports, an additional 1,200 U.S. troops have died and nearly 10,000 more have been wounded, with tens of thousands more Iraqi civilians killed. Hundreds of billions of additional dollars have been appropriated for war and occupation under Pelosi's watch and she took impeachment "off the table." Both Cindy and Cynthia are members of the New Broom Coalition, founded by Dr. Carol Wolman, the California Green Party's First Congressional District candidate, a Coalition that seeks to empower the people by putting a clean sweep to Congress.

Currently, McKinney is preparing to head to Chicago for the Green Party Convention July 10 - July 13. Sheehan is anchored in San Francisco campaigning for the first hurdle of collecting 10,198 signatures needed to get on the ballot in November as a " Decline to State / Independent" candidate.

Some more old posts

I'm visiting my parents' house right now, but I haven't had much time to write anything new. I just read that the Democrats betrayed the American people yet again with the FISA law and of course, earlier by signing off on more war funding. It's obvious to me that the Democratic party is corrupt to the core and I'm not sure the system can be fixed from within anymore. But I've been pessimistic before. Here's an old post from almost exactly 2 years ago:

A frog checks the temperature

Earlier this week I had the misfortune of having to listen to Tim Russert's fawning eulogy blaring in the background (my mom wouldn't let me change the channel -- "He was a great man!" she said) as I read this story about American torture victims. All the more reason to ask this question:

Who frames the questions we ask ourselves?

Well, I have to get off the Internet. Will write more when I have time.

Weekly peace vigil

"Every Thursday since the United States started bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, several men and women have stood on the street in front of San Francisco's Federal Building in a quiet vigil for peace."

There's stuff like this going on in cities all over the country. I've been going to this particular one for well over a year now. I intend to be there today, too. (That's me in the pink hat.)

Checking in, again ...

I wish I could have sorted out a theme for this entry, but it's been so long since I've last written I figured I'd just throw together a hodge-podge of stuff I'd like people to look at and consider -- you know, stuff *they don't tell you*.

It certainly didn't seem like a major news item the morning after Dennis Kucinich listed out 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush on C-SPAN yesterday. He did a great job listing them out -- he was on for hours, Mike Malloy had him streaming live on his radio show. Each and every one of those articles detailed a serious crime against the American people and our constitution. Just now I went to CNN.com to see if I could find any articles about it. Not a one.

But we all know the revolution won't be televised, don't we?

No, they only televise lies, like this one -- here's the Republican presidential nominee, clearly and shamefully lying about something you'd think would be pretty damn important to the American people: the success of the Iraq occupation we've been paying for with our blood and dollars.

Some things just aren't funny.

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, the sense of humor is the chimney. That's how I first knew there was something terribly wrong with then-candidate George W. Bush. I heard he mocked Karla Faye Tucker (the born-again Christian woman on death row) when he was governor of Texas and could have granted her a stay of execution. With pursed lips and I assume a falsetto he mimicked her plea for mercy to reporter Tucker Carlson: "Please ... don't kill me!"

That told me all I cared to know about Bush and his respect for human life and the awesome responsibility of his office.

But other Americans didn't pick up on that clue and enough of them voted for the guy to allow him to credibly steal the presidency. There was a minor skirmish involved with that, which prompted him to quip, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator (chuckle, chuckle)."

Again, what kind of person would say that? Someone you'd trust with your money, your life, your children's lives? I mean, would you buy a used car from someone who joked, "What do I have to do to get you to sign for this thing, hold a gun to your head? (heh, heh, heh)."

Of course the jokes didn't stop there, Bush was just getting warmed up. When 9-11 happened, Bush made light of the fact that he said he would never send the budget into a deficit unless we were at war, in a recession, or experiencing a national emergency. "Lucky me," he joked, "I hit the trifecta."

So we went to war, first with Afghanistan, and then with Iraq on the pretext that it was harboring Weapons of Mass Destruction. We see from the Downing Street Memo Bush *knew* the evidence supporting his claim about Iraqi WMD's was phony. Yet this man somehow had the tactlessness to joke about looking for them in a 2004 National Press Club dinner slide show. (Looking under a desk) "Nope, no Weapons of Mass Destruction there (yuk, yuk)!"

Considering the number of human lives and limbs lost at that point, that's one cold-blooded motherfucker.

I could go on and on about Bush's frighteningly inappropriate jokes that underscore his lack of concern about human life the responsibility he's been entrusted with -- but the sad thing now is that we're seeing the same kind of garbage coming from Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his potential running mate Mike Huckabee. Hmmm. Jokes about bombing entire countries and the assasination of the apparent Democratic presidential nominee. Two horrendous yet disturbingly plausible possibilities.

To paraphrase Stephanie Miller, sometimes you have to laugh, otherwise you'd just cry all day.

What I've been doing lately

Yesterday was a special 9-11 truth action day in San Francisco -- we hosted a West Coast Convergence with people as far away as Seattle, L.A., Colorado and Michigan. We had a parade both Saturday and Sunday, but I think overall we actually reached more people on Saturday because we hung around a much busier location than Golden Gate Park. I met a lot of wonderful people there, as well as familiar friends from the Bay Area -- including Carol Brouillet, printer of the "deception dollar." Everybody, please send healing thoughts and prayers Carol's way. She is a powerful force for truth, hope and change, but she's facing some serious health issues right now, which she mentions on her blog.

I've also been doing a lot of volunteering for Cindy Sheehan's congressional campaign against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. We need 10,000 signatures from San Francisco voters to get Cindy on the ballot as an Independent -- no easy task. If you just happen to be a San Francisco voter in Pelosi's district, by all means come on down to our office at 1260 Mission Street and sign our petition -- better yet, help us circulate the petition to your friends. Let's get war funding OFF the table and impeachment (of Cheney and Bush) ON the table!

Another reason I don't like Hillary

I got this clip from this article on Daily Kos. I know the guy with the banner -- he's the Jes who wrote this earlier entry on my blog. The banner says "Obliterate Iran? Apologize!" (referring to Clinton's earlier remarks that the US would obliterate Iran if it dared attack Israel)



"Well, I certainly hope he didn't step on any of the cookies and the cakes ..."

This from a woman with no qualms about nuking a country with 71 million men, women and children.

Some hopeful news

Sami al-Haj, the Al Jazeera cameraman who I mentioned in this post, was finally released from Guantanamo Bay Prison after being held for 6 years without charge [http://www.alternet.org/rights/84285/]. For all those who sent positive thoughts and prayers out to this man, thank you. You never know what might tip the balance between life or death, months ago this man had all but given up hope.

May 1st the International Longshore and Warehouse Union [ILWU] shut down every port on America's West Coast to protest the Iraq War. This is major news. Yet the media seems to be ignoring it. This is the kind of power that can reclaim America for her people. Imagine all the truckers, dockworkers, laborers and professionals demanding a government responsive to the needs and will of everyday workers ... instead of throwing millions of their hard-earned tax dollars down a black hole called Iraq, scoring billions for oil companies and war profiteers. Our country is being dismantled and sold to the highest bidder. The ILWU knows this and they took the first step towards an effective remedy this May Day. Solidarity!

Videos for the sentimental

Both of these videos brought tears to my eyes, though they require the suspension of any cynicism:

If I Had One Prayer (music video)

Elephant Paints Self-Portrait (at first I was so floored by this animal's painting I knew it just had to be a hoax -- I watched carefully to see if the video wasn't done with particularly clever editing and puppetry. Then the camera backed away a bit and I had to admit I don't see how they could have faked this. If what we consider a "beast of burden" is capable of such a beautiful piece, what does that say about how we should be treating them?)

Warmongers - "did not serve"

[I found this nifty little list at http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/04/375092.shtml posted by "Ben Waiting"]

Democrats:

* Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71.
* David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72.
* Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72.
* Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade.
* Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam.
* Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII.
* John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, Purple Hearts.
* Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea.
* Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star &Bronze Star, Vietnam.
* Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53.
* Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74.
* Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91.
* Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons.
* Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars, and Sol dier's Medal.
* Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and Legion of Merit.
* Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart.
* Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze Star with Combat V.
* Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star.
* Pete St ark: Air Force 1955-57
* Chuck Robb: Vietnam
* Howell Heflin: Silver Star
* George McGovern: Silver Star &DFC during WWII.
* Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments. Entered draft but received #311.
* Jimmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy.
* Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953
* John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and Air Medal with 18 Clusters.
* Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg.

Republicans

These are the guys sending people to war:

* Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.
* Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
* Tom Delay: did not serve.
* Roy Blunt: did not serve.
* Bill Frist: did not serve.
* Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
* Rick Santorum: did not serve.
* Trent Lott: did not serve.
* John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.
* Jeb Bush: did not serve.
* Karl Rove: did not serve.
* Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism.
* Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
* Vin Weber: did not serve.
* Richard Perle: did not serve.
* Douglas Feith: did not serve.
* Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
* Richard Shelby: did not serve.
* Jon Kyl: did not serve.
* Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
* Christopher Cox: did not serve.
* Newt Gingrich: did not serve.
* Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor.
* George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty.
* B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in Korea.
* Phil Gramm: did not serve.
* John McCain: Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
* Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve.
* John M. McHugh: did not serve.
* JC Watts: did not serve.
* Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem," although continued in NFL for 8 years.
* Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard.
* Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
* George Pataki: did not serve.
* Spencer Abraham: did not serve.
* John Engler: did not serve.
* Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
* Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base.
* Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non-combat role making movies.

Pundits, Preachers & Hollywood

* Sean Hannity: did not serve.
* Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')
* Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
* Michael Savage: did not serve.
* George Will: did not serve.
* Chris Matthews: did not serve.
* Paul Gigot: did not serve.
* Bill Bennett: did not serve.
* Pat Buchanan: did not serve.
* Bill Kristol: did not serve.
* Kenneth Starr: did not serve.
* Antonin Scalia: did not serve.
* Clarence Thomas: did not serve.
* Ralph Reed: did not serve.
* Michael Medved: did not serve.
* Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
* Ted Nugent: did not serve. (He only shoots at things that don't shoot back.)
* John Wayne: did not serve.

Dave Barry on the Economic Stimulus Payment

"This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

"Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
"A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

"Q. Where will the government get this money?
"A. From taxpayers.

"Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
"A. Only a smidgen.

"Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
"A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

"Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
"A. Shut up."

For 9-11 Truthseekers

There will be a West Coast Convergence in San Francisco May 10th & 11th. Go to truthaction.org for more details. Hope to see you there! :)

Also, Professor Steven Jones et al were finally published in a peer-reviewed Civil Engineering journal, details here: http://911blogger.com/node/15081

This is a major breakthrough. Congratulations, Prof. Jones!

Also, kudos to We Are Change (UK) for this telling interview with BBC news anchor Phil Hayton about the BBC's foreknowledge of the collapse of WTC 7: http://911blogger.com/node/15209#comment

Spraying the people

The California Department of Food and Agriculture wants to spray San Francisco (they aren't going to spray any actual agriculture, mind you, just the populated areas) with an untested chemical that hangs around for as much as 30 days (in plastic "microcapsules") to "eradicate" the light brown apple moth. Excuse me, how are you going to wipe out an insect without targeting the places that you say you want to protect from it? Experts say the light brown apple moth is only a minor pest, and it's so widespread it would be impossible to get rid of it anyway. What the hell are these guys trying to put over on us?

This has already been done to other cities in California, including Monterey. It has caused serious health problems, including sending this guy's baby boy to the emergency room:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YxXFZkVd0To

One woman reported the day after spraying, half the rabbits she was raising were found dead in their hutch. WTF? There are much better, tested ways of targeting the moth, like twist ties. Why are they doing this? As you can imagine, San Franciscans are pretty outraged.

But you know what? This nation as a whole has been sprayed without our knowledge or consent for quite some time. Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F4yQlMcibU&eurl=http://educate-yourself.org/lte/chemtrailgressrootrevolt19apr08.shtml



(Note: I've already posted a video this blog from one CBS affiliate that actually *has* reported on chemtrails -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okB-489l6MI )

Parasites

Our world is full of parasites. We all know about mosquitoes and tapeworms, but I'm talking about intelligent parasites -- what we've mythologized througout the ages to be bloodsucking vampires and what we know today to be international bankers, the Federal Reserve and the like. People who feed off human fear and ignorance. They who thrive in the dark and wither in the light.

I was just reading the first passage in the book Soul Stories by Gary Zukav. It was a masterful description of how the author's sister was in an accident and his mother, a hundred miles away, stood up and announced, "something's happened to Gail!" And I, who has long experienced and been fascinated by phenomena like this, sat up and exclaimed, "we *know* these things to be true! Yet we've been trained to disbelieve them!" Why? For what purpose?

Because, I answered myself, it would remind us how much power we have, how much more than our fragile bodies and five senses we really are, and that would take away from the power of those who would hold us as slaves.

Where did the idea of eternal hellfire come from? The idea that you need a bunch of fancy-pants rituals and middlemen to connect you with God, the universe, and anything else that's worth existing for?

Parasites. Bloodsucking parasites that feed off of other people's misery.

There are those (among these self-same parasites) that would have people think that feeding the poor and helping the weak amounts to a host/parasite relationship. They're wrong! There's a huge difference between charity and parasitism: awareness and intent (not to mention scale!). When you give an old lady a Thanksgiving meal, you know what you're doing and you can feel good about it. When you give Exxon-Mobile a couple thousand bucks in extra profit, you don't know that you've done it, you don't know what they're doing with it, and if you did I doubt you'd feel good about it.

There are some things I've become pretty sure of, and I wish others would become aware of as well, as this awareness would shine some light on these bloodsuckers (the first step towards getting rid of them!):

a) death isn't nearly as scary or as final as we've been led to believe
b) we are more powerful than we can imagine

We have a choice as to how we're going to live our lives. We might not control the weather, but we can adjust our sails to reach our destination. We might not be able to do it alone, but we can help each other. We don't need parasites to tell us where to go and how to get there.

Weird suicides

I found this recent article about a peace activist found in a lake, bound by the hands and legs with tape over his eyes, rather disturbing:

Man found in Lady Bird Lake was teacher, FBI target
Police said that victim, who taught at a Southwest Austin middle school, may have committed suicide.

Why does this remind me of Gary Webb, who shot himself in the head twice? Or Mephis coroner O.C. Smith (who performed the much-awaited, controversial autopsy on microbiologist Don Wiley) found wrapped in barbed wire and left lying in a stairwell of the medical examiner's building with a live bomb strapped to his chest?

Forgive me, I have a morbid fascination with mysterious deaths. That's why I did the above linked radio commentary about journalist Gary Webb, and this one about microbiologists.

Just wanted to share ...

I haven't had but about an hour a day to keep up with what's going on with the world via the Internet (I'm only allotted an hour at the public library, the rest I have to scrabble from other various places). So sorry if I never get to what I wanted to write about the Olympic torch run, it really was an amazing event, but I'm caught in the slipstream of life and time marches on. So here's a couple of cool things I wanted to share. The first is the idea of a whole village in England deciding to turn away from Supermarkets and grow its own food. You know what? If I were British I think I'd move there.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=559580&in_page_id=1770

Here's a quote I particularly liked from this article about a theory about conspiracy theories:
"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." -- Andre Gide

I hope to write a real blog entry soon, when I can find the time!

San Franciscans throw cold water on China's Olympic torch run

Whew! I've been on my feet all day and most of yesterday, too. Yesterday hundreds of people calling for a free Tibet gathered at UN plaza in the morning -- after a long rally, we marched to City Hall (mayor Gavin Newsome came out to look at us from his balcony) and then to the Chinese consulate and back again. There was a candlelight vigil later that night with even *more* people, because Bishop Desmond Tutu and Richard Gere were scheduled to speak. Bishop Tutu was so awesome -- the man bubbles over with love and joy.

But the most amazing events were yet to come -- the Olympic torch protest was absolutely *huge.* Of course it would be, because not only were the Tibetan supporters, Burma supporters, Darfur supporters and basic human rights supporters there, there's a sizable Chinese American population in San Francisco and for some reason there were a lot of people waving Chinese flags in support of China. I don't know why people who left China would want to support the Chinese government who would arrest anybody at the slightest hint of free speech, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention there were a lot of Chinese flags as well.


At any rate, there was no way the torch run could have proceeded as planned. There were way too many protesters -- and very committed, serious protesters at that. It's been a long time since I've seen dedication like that from all but the most committed peace activists. One guy kept leading chants like "Shame on China!" "China lies, people die!" for literally hours. These people were not the types to put in their two hours and then go home. I was very heartened to see that kind of commitment to a cause. This was not an abstract idea for them -- their spiritual leaders are being killed and tortured right now. To be so dedicated and yet committed to peaceful non-violence ... why can't America's peace movement be more like them?


Yet there were so many others just like them, from the Burmese, people from Eastern Turkmenistan (a situation like that of Tibet), the Vietnamese, those protesting China's hand in the genocide of Darfur ... what a privilege to be with these people. BTW, it was absolutely gorgeous outside.


In a surprise move, an official Olympic torch bearer (I didn't get her name, she was a young African-American woman) pulled out a Tibetan flag. She later came over and spoke to the Free Tibet contingent of protesters, who of course lionized her as they did the 3 young people who scaled the Golden Gate bridge to drop a "Free Tibet" banner a couple days ago.


I'm running out of Internet time, but I'll update this post and add more pictures later.

Take Action April 11

(from http://911blogger.com/node/14762#comment)

Join us in action on every eleventh... until justice
Find an action or list yours here


Video by Bruno of We Are Change LA
The Eleventh Day of Every Month

Bank failures, empowering the Fed, and other horrors

I watched a movie today ("Monsieur Verdoux") that referenced the bank runs of the Great Depression. It showed a brief montage of some very angry people breaking windows at the bank, unable to get their money out, people jumping out of windows, etc.

How far are we today from a similar situation? Well, let's look at some headlines ...

Banking industry to lose 200,000 jobs

IMF Says U.S. In Worst Economic Crisis Since Great Depression

FDIC beefs up bank failure unit

And now it seems Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson wants to completely overhaul our banking system by giving the (privately owned) Federal Reserve even more authority. Why does this remind me of how we gave Bush authority to create the Department of Homeland Security, in reaction to a crisis that he himself was responsible for?

Death toll much higher than 4,000

Of course there are many orders of magnitude of innocent Iraqis dead from this pre-emptive war, and the official US body count doesn't include contractors, troops who died in Germany from their wounds in Iraq, or suicides at home. But this article I just saw on Portland Indymedia raises the never-talked about scourge of Depleted Uranium:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/373886.shtml

Here's a related article which I haven't had time to check the facts on, but if even a smattering of it is true, our troops are in serious trouble:
DU Death Toll Tops 11,000 [refering to troops who served in the first Gulf war]

All the more reason to keep your kids away from recruiting stations!

Checking in ...

I don't have a title for this post, I just have some stuff I want to talk about.

First off, I'm so disgusted at the news media, even the left-wing Air America type station I used to listen to, and radio personalities I've enjoyed in the past (like Stephanie Miller, Karel, etc.). You can probably surmise that I don't have a television. If you do yourself, I don't know how you can stomach it.

We've just struck the 4,000 death knoll for our Armed Forces in Iraq, on the heels of the 5th year of hideous waste and lies propping up this greedy good-for-nothing occupation of a country that never attacked us and wasn't even a threat ... and all these guys can talk about is Rev. Wright in relation to Barack Obama. That's all the news gatekeepers will *let* people talk about. So we have 3-4 young American lives getting wasted every day and all the Wal-mart shoppers are plodding about their business as if nothing's going on. As if nothing can touch them. As if these chickens aren't ever coming home to roost.

But of course, they already are. I'm paying at least twice as much for food as I usually do, gas prices are getting prohibitively expensive. But things aren't even close to how bad they'll get when China decides to call in its debt. If you haven't invested in gold and stocked up on food yet, please consider these preparations today.

I saw a post on Portland Indymedia that asked us where our money was at. Good question. If you can invest in a credit union, why not? Banks are not the best option, morally or otherwise right now.

With an eye towards the big picture of fixing what's wrong with this country, I ran across this idea about virtual cantons today. Not that I'm endorsing it because I don't know enough about it, but I think I'm going to start a collection of interesting ideas that I'd like to see happen in this country when the inevitable reform (or even revolution!) comes about. Because what's going on right now is not only intolerable, it's simply unsustainable.

One thing I'd really like to see in this country is Instant Runoff Voting. This allows people to rank their choices on the ballot and thus largely does away with the "spoiler effect" of a 3rd party candidate. One thing's for sure, the Democratic Party is not speaking for the people and is nearly as corrupt as the Republican party is right now, which hardly seems possible, but there you go ...

The meaning of 9-11

[This is one of my more esoteric musings ... if that's not your cup of tea, skip this post.]

These days I see a lot of symbolic meaning in world events. I suppose I always have, but never to the degree that I've been seeing them now. There are too many synchonicities, wild coincidences, and strange connections to ignore these past few years.

Obviously I'm not a Mason, I've never studied Mansonry to any great extent, but I have to say that I've always had an intuitive knowledge about some very esoteric things that I now understand to be connected with Masonry. They are also connected to Gnosticism, Hinduism and Buddhism, I realize, with the mystical dabbling I've done with those subjects over the years.

I understand that twin pillars are very important in Masonry. I've seen these on Buddhist paintings and statues, as well. I'm pretty sure these represent the duality of our 3-D world. In Taoism, this duality is represented by the ying-yang symbol, but Western culture (being less enamored with circles than the Chinese, I guess) has by and large chosen to respresent this concept using pillars. By duality, I simply mean the play of opposites -- male and female, good and bad, us and them, being and non-being. In the binary system, I suppose that would be 1's and 0's.

What happened on 9-11, I think, goes beyond a simple act of terrorism -- it was a symbolic act on a spiritual level (or if you're an atheist and you don't believe in a higher power that expresses itself through the work of those less conscious, at least grant that it was done on a cultic level by those who do). There are plenty of materialistic reasons for the criminals who perpetrated the attacks on the twin towers to have done so, but if you look at the symbolism of what happened that day, it's undeniable that there's a lot of mystic meaning to what happened. (BTW, the Masons are connected with the invention of the Tarot -- have you ever seen the card called "the Tower?")

Obviously the twin towers represent the twin pillars of duality. The number 11 itself looks like twin pillars, and is a master number in Masonry. I think the events of 9-11 herald an age when duality is being transended. We have to understand that whoever is being presented as our enemy are, in fact, people like us. Can we see a bit of ourselves in our enemy? Can we see the opposite sex in ourselves? Can we see how what looks like evil can actually be used for good and vice-versa? I think these are the kinds of challenges we are being met with these days.

It's easy to see things in black and white, but after a while you come to realize that seeing the world this way puts everything behind iron bars. We've been wearing prison stripes long enough, haven't we? What's behind the duality of opposites is the transendental.

Thoughts?

The resignation we *should* be paying attention to.

Everybody's been weighing in on New York Governor Spitzer's resignation over his stupid, hypocritical and unbelievably expensive ($80,000 for a hooker? Couldn't he just have had an affair?) but all-too-human indescretion. But you know what? Whether or not his wife stood next to him at the press conference is a subject for the Oprah show, we actually have more important things to worry about that will affect all of our lives.

Like the resignation of the one guy who's been standing in the way of the Bush crazies launching WWIII.

Admiral Fallon vowed the US would not attack Iran on his watch. It's not his watch anymore.

U.S.-IRAQ: Fallon Derided Petraeus, Opposed the Surge

The Pentagon's Ray Gun

"60 Minutes" segment. What these guys neglect to say is that smaller versions of this type of weapon can be made, and have been covertly used against people in this country for years.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3888156n

March 19: Sick of it day!

Sick of the lies, the looming dictatorship, the drummed up fear, the attacks on our constitution? Send the "powers that be" a message on the 5th anniversary of the bloody pre-emptive illegal quagmire occupation of Iraq. Call in sick, buy nothing. Tell your friends!

“It’s an honor to be heckled by people who are afraid of the truth.”

Must-see video for 9-11 truth activists: Bill Clinton, Hillary supporters, and a honorable person standing for truth.

9/11 Truth: What's Being Covered Up?

The mother of a victim of the 9-11 attacks speaks out.

San Jose Police to Use Sound Weapon

I hope this article confirms for any doubters that yes, there is such a thing as a wave-frequency weapon, and they are intended for domestic use. I contend devises like these have already been used during protests using inaudible frequencies.

http://www.infowars.com/?p=461

Total lunar eclipse tonight

There are always a couple lunar eclipses a year, but total eclipses are more rare (the next one won't be until 2010). This one becomes exact at 7:31 pm, PST. Hindus and Buddhists have long believed that prayers and mantras become much amplified during eclipses, so if you're inclined to send some prayers, chant or dance for peace during this time, heads up!

Radical Botany

I love these articles I find posted on Portland Indymedia from time to time. They're like a walk in the woods with a grandparent filled with ancestrial wisdom, who's always pointing out the wonderful things in nature I would otherwise have neglected to notice.

Online Radical Botany Skill Share

Plant/human communities and the White Oak

Learning the Lay of the Land and Oregon Grape

Plant Identification and Miner's Lettuce

Plants as Shelter and Willow

Plants for clothes, shoes and utility- Plant: Cattail

Seeds and wild plants-Valuable?

The Great Harvest

Nettles and the potherb

Horsetail

I'll update this post when I see new articles.

THE MESSAGE

Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity.
But silence is impossible.
Silence screams.
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act.

Let who you are ring out and resonate
in every word and every deed.
Yes, become who you are.
There's no sidestepping your own being
or your own responsibility.

What you do is who you are.
You are your own comeuppance.
You become your own message.

You are the message.

Leonard Peltier
U.S. Prisoner #89637-132

The Big Secret

Report from Berkeley

I was at the Berkeley recruitment center event on the 11th and 12th. The Berkeley city council had drafted a letter telling the Marine recruiters they weren't welcome in that town and gave Code Pink a free parking space in front of the center to hold their protests. Code Pink activists are currently gathering signatures to zone the recruitment center out of town.

Of course, plenty of folks aren't happy with this, and right-wing radio tools are rallying their ever-faithful listeners to come to the "defense" of the Marines. Republicans in Washington have drafted a bill, the "Semper Fi" bill, to punish Berkeley for this "snub" by the city council, which would take away $2 million of Federal money from the city and give it to the Marines. As if the Marines don't have enough of a budget already (how about this, Congress? Take away *Blackwater's* entire budget and give it to the Marines. That's a measure I'd support!)

So "Move America Forward" lined up on one side of the street and Code Pink and World Can't Wait lined up on the other -- in front of City Hall. Kitty-corner to the town hall, across the street from the pro-recruiter people, is a high school. Talk about a recipe for trouble! It seemed like everyone in MAF had a huge flag. They strung the biggest one -- the size of a small room -- over the park like the backdrop of the movie "Patton" (it even had 48 stars!). They played stuff like Toby Keith and the star-spangled banner over a booming sound system. They even had a plane fly over trailing the words "Semper Fi." Meanwhile, we had genuine folk singers (like Betsy Rose), accoustic guitars and a banjo, and sang songs ourselves, like "This Land is Your Land." Later on kids danced around on unicycles and a 9-11 truth girl did a fire dance (which the police quickly had her put out).

About 50 kids walked out of class and joined the World Can't Wait contingent, then marched and skateboarded and basically invaded the "Move America Forward" crowd, mocking them with their picket signs. This was hours after both sides had been calling each other out on opposite sides of the streets, and one of the main orgainzers of the MAF crowd (Melanie Morgan?) called the Code Pink supporters "traitors" and said we ought to be locked up in FEMA camps. At any rate, a 12 and a 14 year-old were arested stemming from this event.

Later, while I was lining the street holding an American flag and flashing a peace sign (much to the chagrin of the flag-happy MAF crowd), the guy next to me chided the Move America Forward people for being "good Germans." Not long after this a *really* big guy from across the street came up behind us, mad as hell, saying something like, "Okay buddy, I'm right here. You call me a Nazi to my face!" The guy, who was from a holocaust family, was genuinely hurt and upset. It turns out the guy next to me was from a holocaust family as well. I've never seen two men come closer to blows without actually throwing a punch, and believe me, that would have been an ugly scene. The recruitment supporter was a beefy guy about 6'5" and he was surrounded by a smattering of cocky young kids with ready access to wooden picket signs, all in the midst of dozens of senior and middle-aged women and men, with a baby carriage thrown in for good measure. There were no cops in the (immediate) vacinity. Fortunately there *were* some very sensible, powerfully peaceful women who were able to de-escalate the conflict ... but dang! That was one tense moment.

Things got hairy again after tge MAF crowd took it upon themselves to march across the street to confront us andagain, where were the police? So for about 15 minutes Code Pink supporters and the MAF crowd were intermingling with each other -- I think it's a minor miracle the situation didn't explode into a riot.

The police finally came and separated the two camps and the gorgeous and surreal day was followed by a chaotically fascinating night. I think both sides learned something profound -- that it's possible for people with very different viewpoints to come together and work out their grievances with a dialogue. You can't imagine how much hope that inspires in me.

A riot in Berkeley would have been a NeoCon puppetmaster's wet dream. But it turns out the America I believe in is still here, with We the People.