As usual, the Volokh Conspiracy is out in front with a brief discussion, but First Amendment fans should take the time to read the interesting opinion.

by Tom Burghardt / July 17th, 2008

In Planet of Slums, socialist historian Mike Davis mapped the brutal urban realities shared by more than one billion of the earth’s inhabitants, unmoored by neoliberal globalization from the “formal” world economy. From Baghdad to Karachi and from Lagos to Los Angeles and beyond, as ever-broader segments of the world’s population are transformed into “a surplus humanity,” the master class presents “no scenario” for ameliorating the immiseration it has itself designed through the “normal” functioning of a grotesque system of exploitation and injustice.

The vast expansion of planetary slum zones amid sumptuary wealth and dystopian high-rise palaces of glass and steel patrolled 24/7 by armed sentries, are future portents of a regime where the savage inequalities of the “free market” go hand in hand with the terminal vacuousness of the “Real Housewives of Orange County.” As economist Michel Chossudovsky points out, the current economic crisis gripping late capitalism is hardly an accident of history:

…downsizing, corporate restructuring and relocation of production to cheap labor havens in the Third World have been conducive to increased levels of unemployment and significantly lower earnings to urban workers and farmers. This new international economic order feeds on human poverty and cheap labor: high levels of national unemployment in both developed and developing countries have contributed to depressing real wages. Unemployment has been internationalized, with capital migrating from one country to another in a perpetual search for cheaper supplies of labor.¹

Under existent conditions, a racist discourse of “feral cities” haunts the imagination of military theoreticians. Considered a “breeding ground” of subversion by ruling class economists, politicians and sociologists, the urban battles of the future are being “wargamed” today.

Military Operations on Urban Terrain and Other Horrors of a Horrible System

Pentagon strategists refer to their doctrine of urban warfighting as Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT). But urban warfare pose multiple risks and challenges for military planners; not least of which are recognizing “targets” across a complex environment of multistory apartment blocks, small- and large scale industrial infrastructure, power grids, political and cultural centers, sports complexes, houses of worship and transportation hubs.

Fraught with problems not readily amenable to technological “fixes,” Durham University geographer Stephen Graham cites one military theorist’s view of the conundrums faced by 21st century “warfighters”,

Urban operations represent a black hole in the current Revolution in Military Affairs pantheon of technological advantage [...]. The technologies traditionally ascribed to the current Revolution in Military Affairs phenomenon will have negligible impact on Military Operations in Urban Terrain.²

Indeed, there is a powerful imperative driving military strategists and their political masters: the stark recognition that capital’s economic/political project for domination is an acute failure, one which is creating conditions for chronic “low-intensity warfare” campaigns in cities against a panoply of “insurgent forces.”

In Venezuela for example, autonomous groups such as the 23 de Enero People’s Army, the “Tupamaros,” La Piedrita, Militia Zero, the Zapatista Collective or the Revolutionary Movement of Bolivarian Defense, neighborhood organizations of battle-hardened veterans who have at best, a strained relationship with Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian government, will form the backbone of armed resistance to any outside intervention or internal counterrevolution by Venezuela’s CIA-NED-financed elite “opposition.” As George Ciccariello-Maher describes:

It was in [the] context of repression that the Venezuelan popular militia movement was born. Neither entirely clandestine nor fully open, small groups began to spring up to defend local barrios from both the state and the burgeoning parallel violence of narcotrafficking. Small groups, masked and armed, began to make semi-public appearances, giving an ultimatum to local drug dealers: either you stop selling drugs or you’ll be killed. The police, too, found themselves all the more frequently victims of armed ambushes and shootouts with masked militias. In order to explain this phenomenon, the police, government officials, and even more appreciative local residents adopted a single moniker, derived from the Uruguayan urban guerrilla struggle: in mythical fashion, these militias were deemed “Tupamaros.”³

Masters and mistresses of American barrios and “ghettoes,” Brazilian favelas and South Asian chawls where even police fear to tread, rapid urbanization has radically undermined the high-tech advantages built-up by the U.S. since the dawn of the Cold War, thwarting American fantasies of “dominating the battlespace” through “network-centric warfare” (NCW).

According to NCW theory, an alleged “information advantage” is leveraged into a competitive warfighting upper hand through “robust networking” of well-informed, though geographically dispersed forces. But as the U.S. military discovered in Iraq, the high-tech systems built at a cost of tens of billions of dollars were brought to ground by disposable cell phones, garage door openers, twenty year old ordnance and the will to resist. Multiply radical neighborhood militias such as the “Tupamaros” on a planetary scale and it becomes abundantly clear that imperialism has its work cut out for it!

The political realities of urban combat inhibit the tactical requirements necessary to “secure” an urban “battlespace.” Short of obliterating a city as the United States did during its series of destructive campaigns in Fallujah in 2003-2004, military options are fairly limited. Resorting to overwhelming force in the absence of broad political support in the area is hardly the way to win “hearts and minds,” as the Pentagon discovered much to its horror in Vietnam during the 1968 Tet Offensive, when the U.S. simultaneously achieved a fleeting tactical victory and a devastating strategic defeat.

As a result of recent urban combat debacles, MOUT strategists are building simulated cities in the American outback as a “living laboratory” for protracted combat operations in an urban environment.

Mainly as a consequence of widespread opposition to 1999 “Urban Warrior” exercises when the Marine Corps’ Urban Warfighting Laboratory and U.S. Army Special Forces staged “realistic” war games on the streets of American cities, the Pentagon is creating entire pseudo landscapes and ghostly architectures: the urban space transformed into a militarist simulacrum.

Bryan Finoki, the editor of Subtopia: A Field Guide to Urban Militarism writes:

Somewhere out there in the restricted strata of Defense real estate the Marine Corps is taking over cities in an imaginary Third World that have been grafted and turned into some sort of urban template for a spectacularly unseen militarized stage show. There are multiple MOUT facilities all over the world, but in addition to two that already exist at Twentynine Palms, there is a brand new site cropping up along the fringes that’s being called CAMOUT, or Combined-Arms Military Operations in Urban Terrain. Pronounced “K-MOUT”, it is expected to be the Mecca, so to speak, of the entire MOUT program.⁴

Covering some 280 acres, a half-hour’s drive from the Marine Corps’ Twentynine Palms Air Ground Combat Center the training facility is “roughly the size of downtown San Diego,” journalist Kelly O’Sulllivan writes. CAMOUT “will feature an Olympic-size soccer stadium, a hospital, airport, large marketplace, prison, police compounds, schools, an industrial center, extensive underground tunnel systems and two embassies.”

And at a cost of some $250 million, CAMOUT is slated to be the largest such facility owned by the Defense Department. Orbiting somewhere between war and entertainment, the Pentagon is designing a disquieting netherworld, a series of Potemkin villages whose sole purpose is to perfect its apparatus of death and destruction.

Stephen Graham writes:

The global complex of urban warfare training cities involve a different relationship to political violence to the atom-bombed suburban homes or fire-bombed tenements and rice-paper structures of the 20th century. For here, the simulation is not designed to sustain attempts at outright urban annihilation through total war. Rather, its purpose is to hone skills of occupation, counter-insurgency warfare, and urban remodelling via expeditionary, colonial war.⁵

Constructed for the maximum recreation of war’s nightmare and horror, these simulated cities are filled with dazzling special effects courtesy of Hollywood. In addition to “realistic” settings and “culturally accurate” renditions of Middle Eastern architecture, these deranged spaces feature an array of olfactory sensations such as “…dead bodies, burning rubber, diesel fumes.” According to special effects wizard Manuel Chaves who runs the urban warfare site at Fort Wainright, Alaska: “I can do nine different buildings, nine different smells. Generally, if it’s a burning building, we put something really nasty in there like burning bodies.”

A $13 million facility built on a 30 acre site in Fort Knox, Kentucky named Zussman village is able to accommodate “hundreds of role-playing ‘insurgents,’ who dress in keffiyehs and are armed with AK47s and RPGs.” According to Graham, “a ‘Third World’ slum is being constructed near the railroad.”

To emphasize the importance of urban warfare simulation in current military doctrine, in 2006 Congress commissioned the RAND Corporation to produce a report on the efficacy of current training facilities. RAND did, and with a characteristic racist subtext to boot.

RAND researchers evaluated training facilities for their architectural and infrastructural “realism” in mirroring conditions allegedly present in the “megaslums” of the global south. Those with “clutter/debris/filth,” “slums/shanty towns/walled compounds,” “subterranean complexes” and simulated “government, hospital/prison/asylum structures,” scored highest according to Graham.

Adding to the mix, RAND researchers recommended that U.S. military planners consider the possibility of “appropriating” entire “ghost towns” within the continental U.S., in other words, cities that have been deindustrialized and largely abandoned. RAND “specialists” conclude: “the use of abandoned towns has moved beyond the concept phase into what might be considered the early test and development phase.”

Graham reports that attention was focused on the virtually abandoned copper-mining town of Playas, New Mexico. The town has also been used extensively by the Department of Homeland Security for training anti-suicide bomb squads. Apparently, the destruction of U.S. manufacturing, mining and industrial infrastructure under the pressure of neoliberal globalization is viewed as a “plus” in some quarters.

“Over the course of time, towns and cities eventually die,” writes Steve Rowell of the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Culver City, California. “Despite this and despite the receding U.S. economy, the industries of defense and disaster preparedness are flourishing, reversing this trend in some of the most remote areas of the nation. The war on terror is redefining the American pastoral in an unexpected way.” In the case of Playas, its new role is “as a generic American suburb under simulated attack.” And, in future, as a simulated “Arab city” where U.S. “warfighters” come to hone skills for expeditionary war, Graham reports.

Despite adverse publicity generated by “Urban Warrior” exercises, RAND analysts insist they continue. Indeed, such displays of militarist omniscience will be even more necessary in the future because “no purpose-built urban training site and no simulation for many years to come will be able to present the heterogeneity and complexity of a modern megalopolis.”

Am I BLUE?

But wargaming isn’t the only front where simulated urban battles are being fought and refought. Enter the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Under contract to DARPA, capitalist grifter Computer Science Corporation, combined electronic mapping and satellite image technology to create purely electronic representations of cities that are, or may in the future, come under the purview of U.S. military occupation. Scores of cities around the world are being electronically mapped by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in order to create a “virtualized reality” for U.S. “warfighters.”

Within complex simulation models, the structures of Middle Eastern or indeed, any city, have been classified using “Urban Terrain Zones” based “on international databases of the construction materials and practices used in the different parts of target cities: steel, glass and concrete in city cores, older brick, stone or mud in casbahs,” Graham informs us.

And even larger simulations of global south megacities are providing grist for the murderous mill of U.S. military “gamers” as they imagine full-scale counterinsurgent warfare well into the future. One electronic simulation, “Urban Resolve,” has actually mapped an eight square mile swathe of Jakarta, Indonesia in three dimensions! According to Graham, “this has been done down to the interior of the (1.6 million) buildings, and also involves 109,000 mobile ‘vehicles’ and ‘civilians,’ as well as the subterranean infrastructures.”

Such projects are expanding exponentially. Under the heading, Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT), DARPA’s Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), is searching for “new technologies” to defeat urban insurgencies. According to IPTO’s “Mission Statement” on the program:

The recognition of targets in urban environments poses unique operational challenges for the warfighter. … Today’s urban missions involve analyzing a multitude of urban objects in the area of regard. As military operations in urban regions have grown, the need to identify urban objects has become an important requirement for the military. Understanding the locations, shapes, and classifications of objects is needed for a broad range of pressing urban mission planning analytical queries.

A related program, Building Labels for Urban Environments (BLUE),

seeks innovative approaches that exploits surveillance video data to classify buildings automatically. In addition to visual feature data such as color and line orientation, video captures data concerning motion over time. The latter affords the opportunity for automated recognition of patterns in moving objects in the vicinity of buildings. These motion patterns may be reliable indicators of a building’s function. BLUE technology should be able to learn patterns that distinguish building types and to process video from surveillance video data, such as that collected from high-endurance military UAV platforms, to label buildings correctly.

As we have seen, the U.S. ruling class is intent on deploying its entire high-tech arsenal against the global south and perhaps someday soon, on the streets of American cities. Tied intimately into the defense, computing, entertainment and “homeland security” industries, the Pentagon’s quixotic quest to “dominate the battlespace,” is reflective of the precariousness of the entire U.S. neocolonial project in the post-Cold War world.

Despite its abject failure against urban insurgents in Iraq, the U.S. military’s obsession with building simulation models of urban landscapes and electronic mapping suites of real cities tell us a great deal about the masters’ preoccupation–and fear–with the direction things are heading.

1. The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, 2nd edition, Shanty Bay, ON: Global Outlook, 2003, p. 6. #
2. Cited in Stephen Graham, “From Space to Street Corners: Global South Cities and U.S. Military Technophilia,” Unpublished paper, 2007. #
3. George Ciccariello-Maher, “Embedded with the the ‘Tupamaros’,” MR Zine, 23 April 2008. #
4. “MOUT Urbanism,” Subtopia, February 23, 2008. #
5. “Theme Park Archipelago: Simulating War in an Urbanizing World,” Unpublished paper, 2007. #

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press. Read other articles by Tom, or visit Tom's website.

source

A good example of this are those communities who resisted the Dept of Justice’s efforts to place asylum seekers amongst them. They expressed all kinds of irrational fears about epidemics and crime etc. Once the people arrived almost without exception these communities welcomed them in the end and in some cases came to defend their rights to remain in Ireland.

We don’t need to prosecute Kevin Myers for his views. We just need to treat them with the contempt they deserve (don’t read them) and trust the good sense of ordinary people to see them for what they are. The sad ramblings of a poor individual who seems to think that the whole world is trying to get one up on him.   

Leon Walker is a TNTalk! writer. To find out more about Leon, check out our writers page.

-

The "N" word: are you kidding me? Are those people actually having what they believe are substantive discussions in our national media about who is, and who is not permitted to use the “N” word? There is also another camp out there that apparently believes it should never be used by anyone. Ever!

I don’t think this could ever be a question of propriety. And I don’t think there can be a sweeping indictment of those who chose to continue to use it. My opinion here does not cost anything and it’s worth the price. So it is not particularly important to me if you think me wrong. Because this is still America isn’t it? I’m not wrong about that am I?

I will resist my temptation to get on my historical soap box but I do invite you to recall that American thing about “free speech”. And by the way, that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” thing. That applies to you alone and your rights alone. If no laws are being broken, we don’t get to dictate what others say or do in America. That’s how we roll.

In my life I have experienced some curious and striking ambiguity with regard to race. Let me begin by sharing that I began my “unofficial” undergraduate studies on “race” began while attending two predominantly White Catholic Schools growing up. In my nearly exclusively Black neighborhood we referred to people only as Black or White and we had a single derogatory word that we used in reference to each race. I’m guessing I would have been in about fourth of fifth grade when I began to learn that there were actually many other ethnically specific derogatory tags. There were numerous ethnicities represented in my schools. Italians, Irishmen, Poles, Hispanics, Germans and a number of other eastern and central Europeans. Along with a few Blacks. Bottom line… they all have their “N” words too. All I will say further about this is that in Catholic School I learned an equal measure about both the godly and the ungodly.

In earned my “unofficial” graduate credential on “race” in our United States Navy. I have to say that it was an absolutely bizarre blessing. Not only were all of the aforementioned ethnic groups again represented they were my friends and brethren in a trail mix of Americana that I still periodically reflect upon and savor. I spent twenty years and twenty minutes in the Navy and I was fortunate to spend the first half of my career as an enlisted guy. As a young sailor I lived in a world where the sanctity and pride in the team or unit transcended all else. Make no mistake, the things we said among “just us” were light years beyond today’s universe of propriety. We casually used ethnically specific words and phrases that could only be described as ghastly! So much so, that if I related some of them today it would be shocking and scarcely believable. Recently and quite unexpectedly I was drawn back to that time while watching the new HBO Series “Generation Kill”. The interesting thing about this was that then, and today it has never mattered. Except to say that through it all, and experiences beyond, I learned to see the soul of a man. I know this because at sea and in conflicts and bench clearing brawls and at weddings and funerals, we were always one. For all of the potential faults, these experiences broadened my racial field of vision. My associations of today are appropriately reflective and I am eternally grateful for that.

I have a thorough grasp of the concepts of respect and propriety and the many other important even grave aspects of life. I know something about war first hand. I have many times seen, and I understand both death and danger. I know the difference between words and works. I understand that there can be a “huge” difference between lack of exposure, immaturity and ignorance versus racism or hate. One must also appreciate culture, including its influence or bias, when considering such matters.

I am fortunate to have never lived in a veritable “ethnic bubble” and I know quite a bit about people. The one common factor is that they are not perfect. I am compelled to make it clear that I do not condone or encourage hurtful or even insensitive “words” between people and I do not allow myself to be verbally victimized. But neither do I habitually or spontaneously leap forth to stand in judgment without invitation or good reason. Why? Because I do not always pretend to know from whence such comments come, nor how they are intended in full content and context. Let me say that again: “I do not always pretend to know from whence such comments come, nor how they are intended in full content and context.” Nor could I possibly understand what impulses, experiences and thoughts inspire words within another person. More importantly, experience has taught me that words however seemingly insensitive or misguided are not always the measure of the heart and soul within. Things are not always the way they seem.

Should anyone be remotely interested in my assessment of the current discussion on “that word”, I will say this first: “A loose tongue is not the same as a barrel of a gun.” So let’s all take a collective deep breath followed by a perspective pill. In my experience it pays to be continually watchful but you generally need not concern yourself with the obnoxious big mouth. Including those on talk radio or the network news. Why in the world would you overlook your positive ethnic experiences (nearly all of us must certainly have them) or devalue your own reasoning in favor of theirs?

We are just simply the result of our molded experiences and the associated emotional impacts. I had never understood or watched a round of golf in my entire life until Tiger Woods came along. So it took me until my forties to learn what a bogie and a birdie are. This suggests to me that “understanding and appreciation, present themselves when we present ourselves the opportunity to understand and appreciate.” And so it goes with race.

Sure the race discussion can compel us to squirm and scratch our heads sometimes. But I can tell you something we never have to scratch my heads about. We are all Americans. Yes, there are fools and hopeless intolerants out there, and they too are Americans. Rules are rules! So if you are inclined, when among the reasonably minded, the race discussion can be had. At the very least some level of understanding and appreciation may result. I have been fortunate enough to calmly have it and more than once. Yep me, the guy who decades past, received, and spewed “all of the worst words” like the good sailor I was. Now, clinging to no claim of perfection or political aspiration, I provide this admission without concern or remorse. Why? Because I still get the occasional Christmas card or phone card from some of those “multiethnic friends” from a time long ago. Speaking secretively of unspeakable times and places and reminding me that he once covered my butt, or laughing about the memory of the time I covered his. Most importantly, at the end of the day, I now know that it was never about what was said, and neither was it about race. Only opportunity and experiences yielding appreciation and understanding as measured by the ultimate instrument. Lifelong friendships.

America is like level 10 on the 3D computerized cultural chess game. And if you don’t know the rules it can drive you crazy. I typically get pretty involved in assessing and attempting to understand issues of national importance. And I have two preliminary litmus tests. First, I ask myself are any laws being broken or citizens being placed at risk. Secondly I consider weather my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are being jeopardized. And if the answers to the above questions are no, then I have a motto that I try to adhere to. “I don’t get it but I’m ok with it”. I seek to celebrate every citizen’s right to live their life according to their dreams and aspiration “and within their cultural and socioeconomic comfort level” and I welcome them as my American brethren. And if any American thinks that their interpretation of what is appropriate in another’s life, language, love, worship or culture will ever become the common national standard, I dare say they will be continually mired in disappointment. America is the ultimate cultural experiment.

I believe that in many aspects of life, the impressions we absorb and the marks we make on others are most clearly visible in our “actions” rather than anything else. So let me conclude by sharing a final bit of valued personal guidance that I received from my Grandmother: “If you want to know what a person is made of, don’t watch what they say, watch what they do”.

For me that is germane in both daily life and particularly in politics.

Watch what they do…

L. A. Walker, © Leon A. Walker

The husband and wife teachers, Steve Conn and Heather Miller are suing the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) "to finally put an end to the Detroit Board of Education's witch hunt against them."  They claim that they "have had to endure" a "yearlong attack ... at the hands of the board and DPS administration and [violations of] their First Amendment rights of free speech."

The pair was accused of allowing students to be put in danger during a protest against school closings that the pair participated in at Northern High School in May of 2007, according to (at the time) school board president Carla Scott.  DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said, "These are two individuals who knowingly and against parental permission took children out of school and put their safety at risk."

Doyle O'Connor, an administrative law judge for the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, ordered DPS "to cease interfering with employees' rights to pursue grievances, hold union office or participate in lawful public protests." (Source: Detroit News)

DPS ignored that ruling and fired the teachers, who had previously been placed on administrative leave.

One quote that I did get while listening to the radio (WJR 760) was from Steve Conn: "DPS is not above the law.  They must follow the judge's order and put us back into the classroom.  This is going to end up costing the district millions of dollars it simply cannot afford, all because a few board members want to silence us and stop us from exposing the conditions in the schools."

And I ABSOLUTELY agree.  This is the reason that DPS is broke.  It's people like Connie Calloway who refuse to admit when they've made a mistake (or when they're wrong), and they're driving the system into the ground.  They waste money on stupid court cases like this.  So they go more into debt, meaning that they cut more schools and teachers, meaning that more kids leave, so they get less money, so they go more into debt...

It's a cycle that's never going to end until Detroit as a whole gets its act together and shapes up.  Either that or annex it to Oakland County, give L. Brooks Patterson sole control over it (so no Detroit government whatsoever), but Detroiters would never go for that "because people like Kwame are our friends."  Bull crap.  Half the Detroiters (the half that reelected Kwame after all the scandals he had in his first term), DESERVE what's happening now.

Done Ranting,

Ranting Republican
:: :: :: :: ::

Well, perhaps they are not trying, but they sure are succeeding!

Why do I think this?

The novel 'The Good Soldier Svejk' by Jaroslav Hasek, widely regarded as the earliest example of modernist writing, is said to be perhaps the first 'anti-war' novel ever.  Yet, it describes no combat, no killing, no military training.... 

I don't think it is an anti-war novel at all.  I think, like his contemporary Kafka's 'The Castle', it is anti-bureaucracy novel!  It uses humour to explain the ridiculesness of existing in a over-bureaucritized, regulations-trump-common-sense system where humans are merely an afterthought!

And, like it or not, that is what Canada is slowly but surely becoming!

All right, let's keep the 'big cases' tackled by the 'Human Rights Commissions' aside for a while, and look at some of the other examples of where 'bureaucratization' has replaced normal scoial discourse:

This one, I witnessed with my own eyes, or I might have had a hard time believing it..

A man, obviously ill, produced an invalid publich health insurance card at a medical clinic. The nice lady behind the counter refused his offer to pay to see a doctor:  'As a resident of Ontario, you are entitled to free health care.  So, you are not allowed to pay money to see a doctor.  Just go down to the government office, get the problems with your card straightened out, and we'll be glad to put your name down on the waiting list.'

How nice!

And while I am on healthcare, how about this one...

A elderly gentleman (in his 70's or 80's) came to a specialist's office for his appointment.  Being forgetful, he could not find his 'card'...but did not want to loose the appointment, as he had waited 3 months to get in.  The receptionist went into a bit of a panic...  Paying was out of question, that would be illegal.  Seeing the patient without having the card first - well, they could face big penalties when they got audited (not if, but when - most doctors are audited 2-3 times each year to make sure they adhere to all the government regulations, like appointment length per patient).

After talking to the doctor, she came up with a unique solution:  the doctor would see him, no card, no charge, but during his lunch.  And it would not be recorded on the official medical chart, so the doctor could not get into trouble with the government. 

How insane is that!?!?!

When doctors are afraid of seeing patients because of sanctions by the government, we have Svejk-like bureaucritization of our society! 

And don't let me get started on education, where a kindergarten teacher is not allowed to comfort a child that fell, because it might infringe cultural practices...

The laws tell us what kind of signs we are - and are not allowed - to put up to promote our businesses.

How can one expect humane treatment, when the bureaucratic process becomes more important than people?

But all this is only a tiny, tiny part of the whole machine!

Yes, a bureaucratic machine is the universal result of an overbloated government which continuously  attempts to expand its existence by regulating more and more aspects of its citizens' lives.  And, as a rule, bureaucrats tend to be very, very humourless...

Of course, this is where the Human Rights Commissions come in:  their role is to keep the machine going by eradicating all semblance of independent thought.  After all, independent thought might lead to independent action - and we only want machine government regulated actions around here!

Is it surprising, then, that humour just might be made illegal in Canada?

This guy, Guy Earle, is being dragged through the legal system, because his jokes were 'hate speech'....here is his account of that saga:  (Note - may contain offensive humour/language.)

It seems insane, but the HRCs DO have the right to forbit this man from ever telling a joke again!

Since their rulings are recorded with a real court, they are binding - and were this comedian to breech it, he could indeed be jailed.  There is a fundraised for him this coming Saturday, in Toronto.

Now, I do recall some countries - under some regimes - where people could be jailed for telling jokes.  Coincidentally, they all valued bureaucracies over people.  Namely, Nazi Germany, Communist Soviet Union and its satellites, and so on. 

Oh, and let's not forget, the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire of the good soldier Svejk!

by Rev. Richard Skaff

Global Research, July 15, 2008

Are you an activist, an author, a journalist, a patriot, or maybe a scholar who speaks out his or her mind in the defense of democracy? If you are, then, the chance of having your boarding pass stamped with the ominous symbol of “SSSS” on your next flight from the United States is very high.

SSSS stands for “selectee for enhanced security screening.” That means that Home Land Security and TSA have labeled you as a US citizen-security risk, and used your tax money to transform themselves into your dictators.

According to a tally maintained by the ACLU, the nation’s terrorist watch list has hit one million names and is still growing by the minute. That is based upon the government’s own reported numbers for the size of the list. Members of congress, nuns, war heroes, reverends, former assistant attorney general, ACLU administrator, people with difficult names and all American names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become caught in the vast tentacle of this list. [1].

Once you are on it, a rigorous procedure short of a divine intervention would become necessary to have you taken off this list. Many are wary of raising this issue in fear of additional fascist strategies like harassment, retaliation, and intimidation would be used against them.

The ACLU also announced on July 14th, 2008 the creation of an online form where victims of the watch list can tell them their stories. The link to the form is www.aclu.org/watchlist or directly at www.aclu.org/watchlistform. [1].

It appears that the watch list is designed to ensnare innocent citizens, intimidate and silence the voice of dissent, crush activism, and pave the way for a robotized, frightened, fascist, and military society.

The key questions to ask are the following: How could this happen in our great republic? Why would a democracy prepare itself for martial law if it is a true democracy?

Have sadism, and bullying replaced civility and constitutional rights?

Has fear transformed our free society into a nation of prisoners who are helpless, dependent, and frightened?

Has the alleged war on terror become a domestic war on US citizens that is tailored to control, subdue, and microchip everyone?

Have the citizens of the United States fallen asleep at the wheel?

Or have they simply become so brainwashed and consumed with fear, apathy, self-alienation, and desperation that they have given up their hopes and dreams, and abandoned the greatest gift of liberty that the framers of this nation have given to them?

Finally, I would like to add that it is always difficult to believe the stories that are told by others, until they happen to you. By then, it is too late! Don’t be fooled with party rhetoric, or false political promises, because both parties have equally collaborated and conspired to create the neo- America . Our leaders are supposed to be public servants who answer to the people, but in actuality these leaders are pre-chosen slaves who answer only to their global corporate masters.

Therefore, I would like to urge citizens to learn and to practice their civic duty as well to learn their constitutional rights, awaken from their deep trance of political illusions and propaganda, and hold accountable the charlatans they elected into office who are the true highjackers of our democracy, in order to save this great land!

Reference:

1. http://www.aclu.org/watchlist

Rev. Richard Skaff is the author of “The Human Manifesto.”

Richard Skaff is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Richard Skaff

source

"A few weeks ago, when the movie opened in China, there was already a call for a boycott - on the grounds that foreigners had lifted one of China's most precious symbols, the panda, and were using it for their own profit... ...the main question being asked is: how could Western filmmakers have used Chinese themes to create such a brilliant animated movie with such widespread appeal to the Chinese themselves?"

It is strange that this should cause the Chinese so much angst, but points to something that everyone else in the world should not under-estimate.

What should not be under estimated is that the vast majority of Chinese have been brought up in a society that has been carefully managed by Communists with the sole aim at perpetuating their long term grip on power.

Chinese are systematically brainwashed to the whim of the people in power from birth to death.

That's not to say that people don't think independently (or are stupid), as they do, they just either end up deeply unhappy, overseas or in prison.

Every time 'we' see some strange Chinese reaction to something we take for granted, we need to understand the pervasive brainwashing that has gone on for a number of generations.

How the hell anyone can expect creative spirit (even to create something as banal as a Panda that's an expert in martial arts) to flourish in a society that controls almost even aspect of peoples thought?  What is surprising is that it should even be discussed.

However, I guess that Chinese are starting to confront these issues is a hopeful sign that they may be collectively questioning the grip the Communist Party has on people's lives. On the other hand if is boils now to some silly nationalist argument then that will demonstrate how successful the communists have been in controlling thought.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/16/billboards-in-florida-link-democrats-to-burning-world-trade-center/

I believe his point is that it was the policies of Democrat politicians that led us to 9/11.  I have to agree.  We were once a nation that the entire world respected.  Other nations listened to anything any American had to say just because they were American.  Now all we have is their contempt.  They spit on us, burn our flag and, for all intents and purposes, call us a nation of pussies.  At the height of the Roman Empire, a man could walk anywhere in the known world without fear because if anything happened to them, a legion of soldiers would lay waste to the region/village/town/city.  They commanded respect.  History is an excellent teacher as I can see America, like Rome, heading for a fall so long as the Democrats have anything to say about it.

The biggest problem I have with Democrats/Liberals (yes, they are one and the same to me) is that if they say something stupid and you try to set the record straight, they will cry censorship.  If you are successful in proving them wrong, they switch gears and attack your character since they can no longer argue their point.  A lot of times by outright lies.

Democrats/Liberals will be the first people in the world to say freedom of speech if it follows their agenda but will not allow anyone who has a different opinion to speak.  Doesn't freedom of speech also mean freedom to dissent?  Not to them.

As a general rule, I am not against Democrats/Liberals.  They have their place in the world.  Mainly for the majority of the world to laugh at.

My wife once made a Freudian slip while we were discussing politics.  She was talking about Barrack Obama and called him Obama bin Ladin.  Laughed my ass off and still give her grief about it occasionlly.

All it takes for evil to triumph in this country is for good men to do nothing.  Vote your conscience.

Then there's this guy.  It speaks for itself

http://www.domelights.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t4187.html

Anyone want to give me something else to rant about?

I guess Obama only believes in freedom of speech if the only word you use is "change".  His sensitivity to even the simplest of campaign rhetoric is one of the many reasons why independent voters like myself are so wary of him.  I mean, the New Yorker is infamous for it's satirical covers.  If the cover had featured John McCain in a wheel chair, everyone would have thought it was hilarious.  If John McCain had complained that the cover would make some voters think he was too old, he would have been ridiculed to no end.  If Obama is worried that voters will think he's a Muslim, he needs to work harder to overcome that misconception.  That's what McCain is having to do to overcome his age-issues. 

I just think it's interesting that Obama gets all "hot and bothered" over a simple joke, yet he'd love to sit down and have tea with terrorists that have proclaimed their hate for our country and want to kill us all.  I think he may have his priorities mixed up. 

And, I think he needs to grow a pair, for a "CHANGE".

Wait. Aren't THEY the ones who claim to champion our "civil rights"?

Wait. Aren't THEY the ones who also subverted the individual rights to keep and bear arms under the 2nd Amendment until a few weeks ago, leaving three generations of Americans virtually defenseless in the face of crime, terrorists... and THEM?

Wait. Aren't THEY the ones who defended and justified Butch Reno/Clinton's ATF/FBI invasion of the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, leaving 80 innocent people, including children, dead?

Wait. Aren't THEY the ones attempting to eliminate "free speech", i.e. to silence ideas they don't agree with, through the "Fairness Doctrine"? With questionable resistance from John McCain's contributions to suppressing free speech (McCain-Feingold Act), and who is engaging in some free speech suppression of his own. (Rabbit trail---> Recently, a little old left wing librarian was ticketed and escorted away from a McCain Speech site by the Secret Service because of a sign she carried saying "McCain = Bush", or to paraphrase, liberal RINO = liberal RINO. Why on earth would that offend a RINO like McCain into sending police to shut her up? The truth hurts? Yet it was the leftist "progressives" who took up her cause. One wonders if it isn't just McCain playing into a setup to silence free speech among REPUBLICANS. "Birds of a feather...")

One has to wonder. Do they harbor an agenda to silence us by force, disarm us by force, and intimidate us by surrounding us with an army of watchers and informers right in our own neighborhoods? Let it be noted that if Obama's plan is realized, America will have finally descended to the level of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Cambodia, Cuba and every other Marxist totalitarian state. Imagine an American "civilian national security force" filled with rabid marxists bent on nationalizing everything from oil refineries to health care; medicated by a lifetime of ritalin, prozac, and cocaine; brainwashed into paranoia by global-warming gloom and doomery; fueled by anti-Christian Oprahfied race and religious bigotry; led by "educated" neo-Stalinists with masters degrees in Public Indoctrination; empowered and armed by Big Brother; marching up main street dressed in black leather loin clothes, chains, and whips; Think they aren't capable of imposing TYRANNY on the rest of us? Oh, and one only needs to read left wing blog comments to see that they many of them are murderously insane? I think so. And WORSE.

Tuesday , July 15, 2008

By Joseph Abrams

Some bloggers opposed to Barack Obama say they suspect Obama's supporters — with the assistance of Google — may have tried to censor them when the Internet giant froze their Web sites for five days last month.

Seven blogs run by Democrats who oppose Obama’s nomination for the presidency were incorrectly flagged as spam sites by Blogger, the hosting service Google has owned since 2003. Google says it was an automated response from a spam filter.

But the bloggers believe that Web surfers who support Obama took advantage of a loophole in Blogger’s system that allows readers to report spam blogs, the artificial Web sites that abound on the Internet and are used to promote other sites.

"It appears that [Blogger's] policy can be manipulated by people determined to shut down the free exchange of ideas," said Carissa Snedeker, whose blog, BlueLyon, was among those that were frozen.

"It’s unusual — I’ve never heard of similar blogs of the same nature being shut down like that," said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the tech site SearchEngineLand.com.

Google said in a press release that the blogs were blocked because an automatic spam filter had locked on to those seven Web sites.

"We believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the ‘Just Say No Deal’ network of [anti-Obama] blogs, which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam," Google wrote, referring to a coalition of disaffected Democrats who oppose Obama's candidacy.

Blogger quarantined the seven anti-Obama blogs on June 25 while it conducted a review, a process that took five days and made it impossible for the bloggers to write posts on the weekend of a joint event held by Obama and Hillary Clinton.

"Blogger’s 'guilty until proven innocent' approach is appalling," wrote blogger GeekLove on her site, Come a Long Way. She said she felt silenced by the freeze.

"The conclusion that many of us came to was that we were specifically targeted by some over-enthusiastic Obama supporters," Snedeker said.

The bloggers believe it's part of a larger campaign to evict them from left-wing sites like the Huffington Post and DailyKos.

Google says the bloggers' suspicions are unfounded. "Politics had absolutely nothing to do with this — it was a spam issue," Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich told FOXNews.com.

Sullivan said he would have expected more blogs to get shut down if there had been a concerted effort to stop anti-Obama sites.

"I think that there’s something weird, in general, that all these were shut down," he said, "but why, exactly, is uncertain."

As a result, all seven bloggers opened accounts with WordPress, a rival blog-hosting site, hoping to avoid such problems. The other affected blogs are Hillary or Bust, McCain Democrats, NObama Blog, The Political Lizard and Reflections in Tyme.

Google said it was addressing the issue and "constantly evaluating our policies and technology to reduce the number of false positives caught by our spam filters."

"We have restored posting rights to the affected blogs," it wrote, "and it is very important to us that Blogger remain a tool for political debate and free expression."

Snedeker wrote on her blog that she wasn’t satisfied with Google's gesture.

"How’s about a little benefit of the doubt for the next set of bloggers that get caught in your 'automated spam detection' maze?" she wrote.

Here is an excerpt:

In February 2007 Savva Terentiev, a 28-year-old musician from the city of Syktyvkar, located in the Komi Republic more than 900 miles north of Moscow, wrote on a friend’s blog on the LiveJournal portal that the police were “dumb, uneducated representatives of the animal world” and should be burned periodically in town squares “like at Auschwitz” (New York Times, July 8). The following month, police raided the apartment where Terentiev was living and later charged him with violating Part One of Article 282 of Russia’s Criminal Code, which concerns “actions aimed at the incitement of national, racial, or religious enmity, abasement of human dignity, and also propaganda of the exceptionality, superiority, or inferiority of individuals by reason of their attitude to religion, national, or racial affiliation.” On July 7, after a 10-month trial, Terentiev was found guilty and received a one-year suspended jail sentence (Reuters, July 7; Rossiiskaya gazeta, July 9).

In the blogosphere, an account by Veronica at Global Voices goes into the details of what happened to Savva.

The story, via E.D. Kain, goes like this:

Last Friday, in the wake of a closely argued debate about whether Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative, had used the phrase “Evil Jew” or “Jewish Lobby” in a speech, Harry’s Place received a letter. The letter is from Dean and Dean, a firm of solicitors who are acting for Mr Sawalha. Mr Sawalha has demanded that we take down certain articles from Harry’s Place, and publish an apology “in the attached wording”.

The solicitors have failed to attach the apology that Mr Sawalha insists we publish. That omission matters little, as we have no intention of apologising to him at all, nor of taking down any article.

We have responded to Mr Sawalha’s solicitors, through Mishcon de Reya, who are acting for us.

Mr Sawalha claims that we have “chosen a malevolent interpretation of a meaningless word”. In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha’s speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from “Evil Jew” to “Jewish Lobby”, we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.

Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase “Evil Jew” to him implies that he is “anti-semitic and hateful”. Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas. The BBC report disclosed that Mr Sawalha “master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

The details are posted at the victim's site, Harry's Place.  Go, read, and fear for Free Speech.

Then, support Harry's Place, along with the rest of us, (who's us? see below) by sending an email to NeoConstant (admin@neoconstant. com) and joining the bust.

A Deeper Look
A Defending Crusader
A Newt One
Adloyada
Always on Watch
American Power
An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Anorak
Atlas Shrugs
Barbara's TCHATZKAHS
Big Blue Wave
birdbrain
Blatherings
Blazing Cat Fur
Blogging for a free world
Bright's Blog
But, I Am a Liberal!
ChristmasGhost
Churchill's Parrot
Classical Values
Covenant Zone
Creeping Sharia
Daimnation!
Daled Amos
Dodgeblogium
DowneastBlog
Dragon Lady's Den
Elder Abuse Help
EuropeNews
Fausta's blog
Fiery Spirited Zionist
Five Feet of Fury
fousesquawk
Free Mark Steyn
Freedom's Cost
Gates of Vienna
Gentile Warrior
glosbaptist
Great Satans Girlfriend
Grizzly Groundswell
Grizzly Groundswell Radio
Gulf Coast Pundit
Harry's Place
Instapundit
Ironic Surrealism II
Israpundit
Ivy League Conservatives
karmasurfer
Klein Verzet
Liberty and the Limits of Power
MaxRedline
Monkey in the Middle
Mover Mike
My Right Word
My Two Cents Worth
NeoConstant
New English Review
No Right Puns
No Sheeples Here
Not Ready for my Burqua
Novus Ordo Seclorum
Obi's Sister
One Jerusalem
Planck's Constant
Poder 5
Public Secrets
QuickRob
Radarsite
Rick Sincere News and Thoughts
Right Truth
Rumbo a Levante
Sara'ts Pad, Home of the Panther
She Who Will Be Obeyed!
Shooting Star
Soccer Dad
Socialist Squirrel
Spanish Pundit
Stix Blog
Stop Raping Israel
Stubble Jumping Redneck
The Amboy Times
The American Jingoist
The Anger of a Quiet Man
The Blog of Walker
The Daily Bayonet
The Daily Ramble
the doc spot
The Great Pumpkin
The Hedgehog Blog
The Jerusalem Posts Forum
The Macho Response
The Mind of Tefft
The New Centrist
The War to Mobilize Democracy
The Write Side of My Brain
Time Immortal
USS Neverdock
Villagers with Torches
Winds of Change
Wisdom of the Ages

Jul 14, 2008 04:30 AM

Michael Geist

For most of the past two years, the net neutrality issue, which focuses on equal treatment of Internet traffic, was limited to academics and consumer groups pointing to the dangers to the public of a two-tier Internet. That dynamic changed dramatically this year when Bell Canada began "deep-packet inspection" of its traffic and limited the bandwidth it allocates to certain applications at peak times (a practice known as "throttling").

The fallout from Bell's action — including a formal complaint to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, a protest rally on Parliament Hill in late May and a private-member's bill introduced by NDP MP Charlie Angus — has elevated net neutrality in the public policy hierarchy. Indeed, CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein told an industry group last month net neutrality "is one of the polarizing issues of the day. It will have to be addressed and debated by all of us."

In recent days the debate has advanced further as the business community begins to take sides.

Online search giant Google led the charge, arguing in a CRTC submission that "providers of broadband internet access services, including Bell, should be prohibited from throttling lawful applications. The Internet is simply too important to allow them to act as such a gatekeeper; the Internet's myriad benefits can only be fully realized when Canadian carriers allow end users to choose the applications and content they prefer."

While Google's entry into the debate made headlines, it was not alone. The Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, Canada's largest high-tech association, warned "the measures that Bell Canada is applying to manage the traffic of its Sympatico customers as well as its wholesale ISP customers is interfering with the ability of end-users to telecommute and/or work from their home offices and hindering our members from running their business and providing quick customer services."

Skype, the popular Internet telephony service, cautioned that "for the Internet to remain innovative, and continue to deliver productivity gains for consumers and businesses, the CRTC must act — in this proceeding — to protect the interests of consumers."

Kaboose, a Calgary company that ranks as one of the top five family-oriented destinations online, stated "the recent actions of Bell Canada set a dangerous precedent for targeted restriction of innovation."

Redware, an emerging online service for small business owners, said "to permit Bell Canada to continue these restrictive Internet practices would set a dangerous precedent and send a message to Canadian entrepreneurs that this nation is not prepared to support their innovation potential."

Bell obviously has its defenders. Two of its leading competitors — Rogers and Telus — expressed support for its position, with Telus arguing the CRTC should disregard the privacy concerns raised by several consumer groups.

Cisco, a seller of equipment used to manage Internet traffic, warned "broad net neutrality mandates would frustrate consumer interests," while the Information Technology Association of Canada, which is headed by a former Bell executive, suggested the net neutrality debate has been "characterized by confused thinking."

The CRTC is unlikely to quickly solve the net neutrality issue or leave all parties satisfied with Bell's throttling policy. However, the issue has had a galvanizing effect on the Canadian business community, with many lining up with consumer groups and independent ISPs by pointing to the link between net neutrality and a robust innovation framework.

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.

source

Global Research, July 14, 2008

Wired News - 2008-06-27

Mark Klein, the retired AT&T engineer who stepped forward with the technical documents at the heart of the anti-wiretapping case against AT&T, is furious at the Senate's vote on Wednesday night to hold a vote on a bill intended to put an end to that lawsuit and more than 30 others.

Wednesday's vote by Congress effectively gives retroactive immunity to the telecom companies and endorses an all-powerful president. It’s a Congressional coup against the Constitution.

The Democratic leadership is touting the deal as a "compromise," but in fact they have endorsed the infamous Nuremberg defense: "Just following orders." The judge can only check their paperwork. This cynical deal is a Democratic exercise in deceit and cowardice.

Klein saw a network monitoring room being built in AT&T's internet switching center that only NSA-approved techs had access to. He squirreled away documents and then presented them to the press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation after news of the government's warrantless wiretapping program broke.

Wired.com independently acquired a copy of the documents (.pdf) -- which were under court seal -- and published the wiring documents in May 2006 so that they could be evaluated.

The lawsuit that resulted from his documents is now waiting on the 9th U.S. Appeals Court to rule on whether it can proceed despite the government saying the whole matter is a state secret. A lower court judge ruled that it could, because the government admitted the program existed and that the courts could handle evidence safely and in secret.

But the appeals court ruling will likely never see the light of day, since the Senate is set to vote on July 8 on the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which also largely legalizes Bush's warrantless wiretapping program by expanding how the government can wiretap from inside the United States without getting individualized court orders.

Klein continues:

Congress has made the FISA law a dead letter--such a law is useless if the president can break it with impunity. Thus the Democrats have surreptitiously repudiated the main reform of the post-Watergate era and adopted Nixon’s line: "When the president does it that means that it is not illegal." This is the judicial logic of a dictatorship.

The surveillance system now approved by Congress provides the physical apparatus for the government to collect and store a huge database on virtually the entire population, available for data mining whenever the government wants to target its political opponents at any given moment—all in the hands of an unrestrained executive power. It is the infrastructure for a police state.

Neither the House nor the Senate has had Klein testify, nor have telecom executives testified in open session about their participation.

The bill forces the district court judge handling the consolidated cases against telecoms to dismiss the suits if the Attorney General certifies that a government official sent a written request to a phone or internet provider, saying that the President approved the program and his lawyers deemed it legal. Judge Vaughn Walker of the California Northern District can ask to see the paperwork, but would not be given leeway to decide if the program was legal

source

FIRE Calls on Brandeis to Resolve Faculty Revolt

The Bronx D.A., that's who.

Be moderately afraid.

Watching the two-part National Rainbow Gathering 2008 I cannot imagine what law enforcement considers illegal.  Basically, these are 21st century peaceful, nature loving hippies who just want to celebrate nature.

National Rainbow Gathering 2008 - Part 1

National Rainbow Gathering 2008 - Part 2

The Wyoming Feds wasted no time attacking the peaceful assembly and were looking for any excuse to taser and arrest people as witnessed in the next video -

Law enforcment officers attacked a rainbow gathering campsite with paintball guns and pepperspray. the camp was filled with children and some were hit and peopole were arrested for no reason.

At the 2008 Rainbow Gathering, this brother was detained by law enforcement for "stating words likely to incite lawlessness".

We were attending the 2008 Gathering in Wyoming - staying in Kiddie Village. During the pre-dinner prayer circle I noticed Sherriffs sprinkled through the woods between us and dinner. They arrested a mother and attempted to take custody of a child. We reacted nonviolently however this was what happenned. More to come later - Shot by Linnea Dahl

Alex Jones welcomes Rob Savoy of the Rainbow Family. The Rainbow Family are a loosely affiliated group of individuals committed to principles of non-violence and non-hierarchical egalitarianism who meet in a forest each year. During this year's meeting, feds assaulted, Tasered and arrested five members of the group for the crime of having an "unregistered gathering".  Part 1 of 4.

To all the Rip Van Winkle Americans: the crackdown on our civil liberties and freedoms took an unbelievable hit last week as you have just witnessed with the Rainbow Family.  The state and its right arm - law enforcement entities, are exercising their newest powers to attack the people.  There were thousands of Americans at the Rainbow Family Gathering and this is why they were attacked.  People with like minds gathering together is something that they can no longer allow because they are afraid that, eventually, Americans will form even larger coalitions that will plan and institute their demise.

We have GOT to wake up people.  If we continue down the path of inflation, unsound currency, empireism, shady lending, destruction of civil liberties, needless war, etc. we will see an economic collapse.  As bad as that sounds we have got to return to the principles of our founders.  We have got to return to a Constitutional form of government with all the checks and balances in their proper working order.  Time is running short.  If we don't change now it may be to late.  America does not need to become Rome.  May we as a people return to our foundation.  Until next time.

Much love,

Shawn

Geert Wilders, Dutch MP and producer of the short film "Fitna," a video document which explains the perils of Sharia law for democratic values (can be seen here), has received a summons from a lawyer to pay radical imam Fawaz Jneid before next Sunday an advance payment of EUR 20,000 in compensation for damages the imam suffered through accusations Wilders made against him in