That’s the slogan on a popular T-shirt linking Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential run to the Rev. Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality. It’s one of several T-shirts — including “Barack is my homeboy”– that reflect African-Americans’ euphoria over Obama’s White House bid.
But there are others who warn that an Obama presidency could hurt African-Americans. They say an Obama victory could cause white Americans to ignore entrenched racial divisions while claiming that America has reached the racial Promised Land.
Many Patriotards attack the messenger for his message. Peter discusses the illogic of attacking the source before one scrutinizes the facts. It doesn’t matter who the source is when it comes to hard facts. “The world is round” is accurate and factual regardless of the source.
The Salmonella outbreak has been narrowed down to Jalapenos from Mexico. Peter discusses the missing factor in the equation; The people handling the contaminated food from “Farm to Fork”…ILLEGAL ALIENS!
Holocaust deniers and the “anti-Semitic” cartoon by Robert Crumb. Is he putting us on, or is he another Bobby Fisher?
Barack Obama landed in Israel Tuesday evening, telling members of the media one of his goals was to reaffirm the United States’ “special relationship” with the country.
“The most important idea for me to reaffirm is the historic, special relationship between the United States and Israel,” Obama said at Ben Gurion airport. “One that cannot be broken, one that I have affirmed through out my career, and one that I would intend to not only continue but actually strengthen in an Obama administration.
A Man who claims accounts of the Holocaust are "exaggerated" and describes Anne Frank’s diary as "evil" has been convicted of putting articles on the internet that could stir up race hate.
A jury at Leeds Crown Court yesterday found Simon Sheppard, 51, guilty of nine counts of publishing racially inflammatory written material on his website between March 2005 and April 2006. The court heard Sheppard’s website attracts 4,000 visitors a day
Four of the articles were penned by Stephen Whittle, 41, who was yesterday convicted of four counts of publishing racially inflammatory written material.
The others included a cartoon by the American cartoonist Robert Crumb and an article written during the 1960s by the leader of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell.
Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford told the jury that Sheppard and Whittle were a pair of racists who held what they may regard as fairly extreme views about people who were Jewish, black, Asian, Chinese, Indian and, in reality, anyone who wasn’t white.
"People in this country are entitled to be racist and they are entitled to hold unpleasant points of view, but what they aren’t entitled to do is publish or distribute written material which is insulting, threatening or abusive and is intended to stir up racial hatred or is likely to do so."
Both Sheppard, of Brook Street, Selby, and Whittle, of Avenham Lane, Preston, told the jury that the articles were an attempt to "satirise" political correctness.
Sheppard said: "You can’t blame a Jewish person for being a Jew, you can’t blame a black person for being black, and you can’t blame a Yorkshireman for being forthright, which I am."
The hearing will enter its seventh week on Monday, when the jury of six men and five women return to court to resume deliberations on further charges.
Sheppard is awaiting verdicts on nine charges relating to the publication, possession and distribution of written material which could stir up racial hatred.
Whittle faces a charge of publishing racially inflammatory material.
In June, 2007 a solid eighty percent of the American people let Congress know they wanted the government to put the brakes on illegal immigration; they turned thumbs down on the President’s guest worker amnesty plan; and they wanted tax-paid services to illegals stopped.
Most Americans understand that new laws are not needed to stop illegal immigration. What is necessary is repeal of some laws granting taxpayer-financed services to illegals along with enforcement of existing laws. These two acts would be enough to stop the migration. In simple fact, they are called "illegal" because they are breaking the law.
In truth, the battle over the Senate’s guest worker-amnesty plan is really a battle over attempts to open the border as called for in programs such as North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Both plans call for open borders and economic integration of North America. Open borders are required to fully implement the plans.
The Bush Administration and those promoting illegal immigration were frankly stunned at the force and determination of U.S. citizens to reject the Senates immigration plan. Proponents played a very heavy hand in attempting to force the scheme on a resisting citizenry. Such powerful forces are not used to losing. Today they continue to seek new ways to work around the opposition and pass the legislation, as a whole or incrementally.
However, the anti-illegal fervor refuses to abate and in fact, dramatic new developments are taking place in local communities across the nation that may well stop the unpopular Federal schemes.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to weaken the resolve of opponents, they are called fringe fanatics. A common tactic employed by immigration proponents is to accuse opponents of racism. They charge that opponents want to deny a new breed of immigrant the chance to become Americans as many of our immigrant forefathers did. They paint a Norman Rockwell-type picture of honest, hard working immigrants, planting gardens, working in fields, doing the work "no Americans want to do."
So, in town after town across the nation the battle rages. And that is really the point. Illegal immigration is not just a border issue. It is a national issue affecting every large city and almost every small town. It must be understood that illegal immigration is not just a matter of some unhappy peasants hoping to seek a better life. It is a $300 billion a year industry, combining the interests of multinational corporations with those of drug cartels and Latino street gangs. Caught in between are American communities and the American way of life. Some cities, especially those along the points of entry at the border have become dangerous no-mans lands, where no property is safe, no American citizen is able to leave their home unarmed and some politicians turn a blind eye as they profit under the table. As a result American civilization is beginning to break down. That is why so many Americans refuse to back down on the issue, continuing to demand a crack down, no matter what name calling they must endure. The economic cost of illegals
Federal law (the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) mandates that all hospitals with emergency-room services must treat anyone who shows up – including illegal aliens. In most cities across the nation, illegals now use the emergency rooms as free primary care. And the hospitals have to keep taking them.
Health Care
The annual cost for uncompensated emergency care to Mexican Border States (California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas) is $200 million. California taxpayers paid $79 million for illegal alien health care. Four major Los Angeles hospitals were bankrupted and shut down in 2004. Texas paid $74 million. Georgia ran a $63 million deficit for 64,000 unpaid doctor visits in 2002. Cochise County, Arizona spent 30% of its annual budget on uncompensated care to illegal aliens. University Medical Care in Tucson, Arizona spent $10 million on uncompensated care to illegal aliens. 77 hospitals in the four Border States now face financial emergencies. Legal citizens are forced to fly emergency patients to other cities for treatment. Taxes are going up to compensate.
Meanwhile, as a result of the Federal Emergency Medical Act, Mexican ambulance drivers are transporting hospital patients unable to pay for medical care in Mexico to facilities in the United States. The ambulances are driving through unguarded potions of the border with "little resistance" at the instruction of Mexican officials.
Education
Federal laws and a Supreme Court decision mandate that schools cannot deny free education to illegal aliens. Over 300,000 pregnant women enter the nation illegally every year. Taxpayers pay for food, housing medical care and school. The average annual cost per child for education is $7,161, totaling $109 billion to educate illegal aliens annually. The average cost of bilingual education is $1,200 per illegal student. U.S. schools annually educate 1.1 million illegal children. Schools have become over crowded and unruly. Teacher shortages (especially those who speak Spanish) are a growing problem for local school districts.
One teacher has reported what it is like in the classrooms in schools where federal tax dollars pay for free medical, free baby sitters for student mothers as young as thirteen, and free breakfasts (where "the waste of food is monumental, with trays and trays of being dumped in the trash uneaten"), new computers are "carved with graffiti by students." "I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less than three months who raise so much hell with the female teachers, calling them "Putas" (whores) and throwing things that the teachers were in tears" she reports. Such is the atmosphere in today’s schools which are overrun by illegal aliens who speak no English and there is no ability to control or discipline.
Moreover, state run colleges and universities are being forced to allow illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition discounts that are supposed to be reserved for residents of that state. In California, a law, (Assembly Bill 540) allows undocumented high school graduates who have been in residence for three years to enroll in community colleges and the California State University and University of California systems without paying nonresident tuition. The same is true in many other states across the country.
The Jobs Americans Don’t Want
In 2003, illegal aliens displaced American workers at a cost in excess of $133 billion, while American college and high school students can’t find summer jobs in yard care, landscape, fast food or service jobs – because illegal aliens work those jobs at a third of the wage – often under the table.
Crime
Crimes committed by alien criminals, such as rape, murder or drug distribution costs U.S. taxpayers $1.6 billion in prison costs alone. The figure doesn’t include the cost of lost property, medical bills of the victims, time lost from work to recover, higher insurance costs, etc. Today, illegal aliens make up twenty nine percent of the U.S. prison population – or 500,000 illegals.
Latino gangs like Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS13) constitute most of the crime from the ranks of the illegals. They originated in El Salvador and today their U.S. leadership still comes from there. They steal cars and use them to run drugs over the border. They terrorize local citizens with violence. They are the chief source of drug sales for the cartels. And they are racists.
MS13 is the largest and most violent of all gangs in the US today. They have overtaken the Crips and the Bloods both in size and violence. MS13, which began its operations in Los Angeles has now moved east and is prominent on the East Coast.
In Los Angeles, Mexican gangs declared "ethnic cleansing zones" in specific parts of the city. They kill whites and blacks. In New Jersey, recently, MS13 gang members killed three college students in execution style.
No man’s land at the border
No legal citizen of the United States of America, living under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights should have to live as those who reside near the U.S. / Mexican border. Here there are no property rights, no ability to be safe in their homes, and no peace. One dare not go to the movies, the grocery or visit a relative without carrying a weapon for protection. Through out the community the streets are teaming with drug dealers, loiterers and gangs bent on violence.
The illegals flood across their property having just crossed the border. As they pass over the ranches and private property they leave a trail of trash, human waste and dead farm animals and pets. Found in the trash that is dropped all along the trail are pieces of paper containing contact phone numbers. Also found are Korans dropped by obvious Muslims who have made their way across the border.
Sometimes the illegals walk right in to the living rooms and steal what they want. Many homes on the border are now little more than prisons for the residents, surrounded by barbed wire, searchlights, with loaded guns at the ready.
The Tucson, Arizona area is one of the prime crossing points for illegals. The organization for transporting illegals is almost a precision military operation. On the Mexican side of the border is a landing strip where planes fly in on a regular basis with their cargo. Some of it human; some drugs. It’s all the same to those providing the transportation.
The planes land and the cargo is loaded onto busses with the windows whited out. Young girls prepare for the trip by taking birth control, for they know what awaits them on the trip across the border from their "travel assistants" – rape. It’s just part of the price for crossing the border into the promised land of America.
The busses drive to a specific location on the border. Here the cargo is unloaded and the process of walking across the border begins. Each of the human cargo is given information on what to do once they reach the other side, including a phone number of someone to call. The number is not necessarily a local number. It may be a location in Virginia, or Maine or Utah. Anywhere in the U.S. The person on the other end gives instructions on how to gain transportation to their location where they will be brought into the illegal community in that city.
And so the journey across the border begins. Somewhere in the middle, between Mexico and the U.S. is a tree. From the branches of that tree hang women’s panties. It’s called the panty tree. Why? Trophies from the raped women of previous journeys. It’s just the cost of doing business with the "Coyotes," the murderous thugs who run the illegal immigrant trade. They don’t care who lives or dies. These are the ones who will leave illegals locked in trucks without food or water or ventilation. They charge enormous fees – up front. To them the cargo is all the same. They carry the drugs with the humans. They make deals with terrorists for the same trip. They rape, maim and kill. And go back for another load. Business is booming.
Once the cargo is inside the U.S., more buses are there to pick them up and transport them to drop off points. Here the phone calls are made for arrangements of more transportation across the nation. And in that highly organized manner, illegal aliens make their way into American cities.
Some are "Sanctuary Cities" where politicians have decided it’s good for the community to encourage illegals to live. In such communities no one can ask for the country of origin, even if a crime as horrible as murder is committed. The sanctuaries permit 20 million illegals, drug smugglers, child sex rings, ID forgery networks, and an assortment of run of the mill criminals to live lawlessly inside the United States. They are provided with income, identification, driver’s licenses, credit, housing, education, and medical care at taxpayer expense.
As stated, it’s a $300 billion a year industry. That buys a lot of politicians. Along the Border States no one talks about it. And, no surprise, a lot of politicians do nothing to stop it. Our fear and their greed are destroying the American dream.
Meanwhile in your local community…
How a community treats the illegals is key as to how many come there. The main magnet is the establishment of a day labor center. The nation-wide illegal network knows where to send them. If a community opens its arms, of course they flock there. If a community stands up to them, they leave.
But that is easier said than done. First, federal laws or lack of enforcement hampers efforts against the illegals, no matter the sentiment of the community. Federal courts strike down local laws, such as just happened in Hazleton, Pennsylvania when a federal judge degreed that laws the community had passed to crack down on illegals were unconstitutional. Federal agencies say it is illegal for local police to ask if anyone is an illegal. The federal government argues that immigration is a federal issue and for local communities to take action interferes with U.S. foreign policy.
On the local level too, there is great pressure on elected officials to do nothing. Strong lobbying arms protect the illegals. The ACLU, of course, threatens lawsuits. But many Americans would be surprised to learn of the Hispanic forces behind much of the pressure applied to their local officials.
Many immigrant groups are joined together through the La Raza movement. These are the groups which organized the massive demonstrations in cities across the nation last year. It is past time for all Americans to know what is at the root of those demonstrations and the extent to which our nation is at risk to the La Raza movement.
One of the most prominent Hispanic organizations pushing for "immigrant rights" is the National Council of La Raza – the Council of "the Race." The mainstream media and most members of Congress depict La Raza as little more than a Hispanic Rotary Club. In 2005, La Raza received $15.2 million in federal grants, of which $7.9 million was in U.S. Department of Education grants for Charter Schools, and undisclosed amounts to get-out-the-vote efforts supporting La Raza political positions including lobbying for open borders and amnesty for illegals. Had the Senate’s immigration bill passed, several million more dollars were budgeted for La Raza.
Behind the respectable front of the National Council of La Raza lies the real agenda of the La Raza movement. This radical agenda, pushed by secondary groups contains the reasons behind the demonstrations and the strong lobbying efforts in our communities.
Key among those secondary groups is the radical racist group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Astlan (MEChA). MEChA seeks to carve a racist nation out of the American West. MEChA opposes assimilation into American society. MEChA is a leader in the effort to "Reconquista" or reconquest our western states.
MEChA’s founding principles state: "In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal gringo invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny…Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and no to the foreign Europeans…For La Raza to do. Fuera de la Raza nada." That closing two-sentence motto is chilling to everyone who values equal rights for all. It says: "For The Race everything. Outside The Race, nothing."
These words don’t come from a fringe radical element. These come straight from the official MEChA sites at Georgetown University, the University of Texas, UCLA, University of Michigan, University of Oregon, and many other colleges and universities around the country.
Another leading Hispanic group involved in community organization, promoting the pro illegal position is Mexicanos Sin Fronteras. The translation of the name means "Mexicans Without Borders." This group is active throughout the country and many times works with the "Zapatista Army of National Liberation." These groups seek to radicalize the Latino community. The official website of the Mexicanos Sin Fronteras states that it is "anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist in the capital of the most terrorist country of world-wide history" (Washington, DC). It goes on to say it pledges its support to "other campaigns" of the radical illegal Hispanics with material and financial assistance.
In Manassas, Virginia the Mexicanos Sin Fronteras and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation are the two most prominent "pro-Hispanic" voices. In fact, these two groups are spearheading the illegal alien lobby in Prince William County, where Manassas is located. This is the "mainstream opposition" to efforts to curb illegal immigration in that community. Together, these groups are holding rallies and calling for boycotts and even the violent overthrow of the United States. Again, these groups are not fringe radicals. They are the most prominent voices for the illegals.
The photo featured with this article on my blog (http://tomdeweese.blogspot.com) is of a meeting in Mexico with many of these groups. It is interesting to note that speaker in this picture, with his face covered, is Arnoldo Borjas a member of Mexicanos Sin Fronteras and a resident of Woodbridge, Virginia. He is one of the main leaders in that local movement. Further, in Prince William County, there are several candidates running for local office as well as the state legislature who are closely aligned with these two radical organizations.
Fighting back
While Congress fiddles and the Bush Administration issues meaningless pronouncements on "get tough" programs it never intends to enforce, local communities and state legislatures are beginning to fight back. And they are meeting with success.
State Legislatures, forced to deal with the failure of the federal government to fix the immigration laws, have considered 1,404 immigration bills this year and enacted 170 of them. These laws are aimed at curbing employment of illegals and making it more difficult to obtain state identification documents like driver’s licenses.
In May, Oklahoma passed the "Taxpayer and Citizen protection Act" which denies illegals state identification, and requires all state and local agencies to verify citizenship status of all applicants before authorizing benefits.
On the local level incredible success is being achieved in Northern Virginia. Last year two residents of Herndon, Virginia, with no prior political experience, began an effort called Save Herndon. The issue was the establishment of a day labor center in the community. The center would give illegals a gathering place in the community to help them get jobs, identification and benefits from the community.
The two began a campaign that at once made a major issue out of the establishment of the center. When the mayor and the city council moved forward and voted to establish the center over the objections of a majority of the citizens, Save Herndon began a campaign to assure these representatives were not re-elected. They succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, helping to out the mayor and everyone on the city council who voted for the center.
Now the movement is growing across the Northern Virginia area. There is now Help Save Manassas, Help Save Loudoun (County), Help Save Fairfax, Help Save Virginia and Help Save Maryland. Together these purely grassroots movements have succeeded in enacting legislation in Loudoun County (the nation’s fastest growing county) and in its neighbor, Prince William County which stops county tax-payer services to illegals. Incredibly, under challenge from federal and state officials, the members of county commissioners are holding tough behind the laws.
The key, as stated earlier, is the day labor centers. If your city has one, then the message has gone out to the illegal infrastructure that your community welcomes them. Get rid of it and send the message that they are no longer welcome. If faced with lawsuits from the ACLU and La Raze, welcome them. Tell them you will gladly have a news conference to discuss their suit in front of the cameras. Do not be afraid.
Here are a few guidelines to help organize locally and face the coming onslaught of charges of racism.
Don’t express anger at what is happening to your community. Don’t express annoyance because illegals refuse to assimilate into your community or abide by your customs. Don’t make the issue economic and safety issues. Overcrowded housing and commercial vehicle zoning violations or that specific individuals are illegal aliens.
The pro-illegals will try to tell the public that there is uncertainty as to who is illegal, creating doubt. They will talk about how impossible it is to check everyone’s legal status. It will be easy to charge racism.
Instead, make the issues about the abrogation of law. Focus your efforts against the individuals, businesses and politicians who create this problem and cheat honest business owners and workers by allowing illegal hiring practices under the table. In short, make the issue about enforcement of the law, cost and corruption. It’s working in Virginia.
Today, we have the chance to not only stop the flood of illegal aliens, but in the process, deflate the size and power of the federal government in the process. It’s time to organize Help Save America.
By Tom DeWeese
Filed under Peter Schaenk | Tagged: | Posted by shankradioworldwide
Telling the truth is like performing a strip tease. It is because of this that many people are offended. Nudity offends people who believe that their body, the visible and the more esoteric portions, is something to hide. Another reason that some people find the truth to be offensive is because they make personal profit from lies. It stands to reason that many people believe that the truth is ugly, or inconvenient. Why go to such lengths to conceal it otherwise? It can also be said that the truth is hidden because it stands in contradiction to the thing that conceals it.
We are constantly told that some product is ‘new and improved’. If it is new then how can it be an improvement on itself? It does not have a precursor. We have been told that it is “the same thing only different.” That’s not possible either. When someone looks at a lie, they are able to identify it as a lie by comparing it to the truth. How else can it be identified as a lie? So it might also be said that we know what the truth is, often without realizing that we do, or knowing how we know it.
Another interesting thing is how we can say something over and over and the sense of what we are saying escapes the understanding of the person it is being said to. Many times here, I have said that I do not like having to come to the conclusions that I come to. I do not like where my inquiries leave me. This explains why there is reluctance among the general public to recognize who the authors of 9/11 are. This is why people accept what the media has to say when it is apparent they are lying. This is why they do not question in public because such questioning leaves them exposed and being exposed is like being naked. Conversely, exposing the lies of powerful interests can cause problems when it interferes with their profits and agendas.
In the criminal world it is quite common for people to place the blame for their actions on others; to give false evidence and testimony, to engineer events for no other reason than to blame a rival and take him out of the game, or to draw the attention of the authorites away from themselves and on to their rivals. It is common in the political world to label your enemies and your rivals in such a way as to sway public opinion and have them defined in a negative light. Lies are the currency of the political and business world.
It is because Israel wants to remain the predominant power in the Middle East that they were engaged with western security forces to orchestrate and blame the 9/11 attacks on the Muslim world. There is so much information available now that only a fool or those criminally involved would pursue this bankrupt scenario. It is also to justify Israel’s hegemonic intentions that those fighting for their own freedom and survival would be labeled terrorists.
We now know that there is no Al Qaeda as an organized entity. We know that it is a construct of certain governments and their intelligence services, created as a boogeyman to generate fear in the common mind. We know that the only Al Qaeda cell that was ever uncovered proved to be a Mossad operation. We know that Bin Laden sightings and videotapes are all lies. We know who is telling these lies and we know why they are telling them.
I am a recording artist and a writer. It is not a good career move for me to say things that put me in an oppositional relationship with those who exert a majority control over the fields I work in. It is not a career benefit for me to say that they exert a majority control over these industries. You get ahead in this world by accepting and defending lies so that those who manufacture the lies will not feel threatened by your propensity to take your clothes off in public. Even when everyone involved knows that lies are being substituted for the truth, just about everyone plays the game.
Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization. Iraq had no WMD’s or ties to a non-existent Al Qaeda. Hundreds of thousands have died because of this lie and millions have been displaced. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. Two things are major features of Afghanistan today; oil pipelines and record opium production. Iran is not constructing nuclear weapons but no one could blame them if they were. We are told that all the major players on the UN Security Council are in favor of punishing sanctions and possible military action against Iran. This is also a lie. These lies come to us through the media. The media is controlled by certain people and everything they report paints a picture that supports their motives and interests.
The lies being told are obvious and blatant. The evidence that follows the events of the last decade clearly shows that lies have been told. By now, a majority of the world knows that these were lies, yet the lies continue and continue. If it were not for the internet, the bloggers and alternative news sources on the internet, there would be nothing but lies.
We who undress the lies are made to appear as pornographers. We are indecent. We reveal things that people do not want to see. We have told you that many of Israel’s regional wars were instigated by Israel for control of other people’s land and water. We have told you that Israeli settlers living on occupied land, stolen from displaced residents, go every day into the lands where these displaced residents now dwell and beat and harass them; use them for target practice. We have told you how women and children die every day in their ghettos because they are refused medical treatment. We have shown you video tapes and we have the testimony of aid workers.
We have shown you how the banks print money out of thin air and then loan it at interest to create debt. We have shown you how America has become a fascist police state by fabricating an enemy against whom they must protect you by removing your freedoms of movement, assembly and speech. We have shown you how bankers, corporations and governments create wars in order to profit from both sides of the conflict. Across the internet is a small minority of groups and individuals who reveal the truth and are excoriated for it by the lie machinery. They are strip teasing in a world where the naked body is against the laws created by those who use their lies to manufacture conflict, suffering and want so that they can line their pockets at the expense of us all.
Disinfo sites with racist intent, reprint the works of truth tellers so that the truth tellers will appear to be racist. Truth tellers find that they are ostracized. Truth tellers are the object of hacking attacks, slander and economic injury because the truth is not good for business. Truth tellers have no benefit to their efforts except for the satisfaction of doing the right thing.
I’m going to go right on undressing the manikins and monsters. They may be able to cosmeticize their faces but they cannot hide the lack of human features below the costumes that conceal their alien forms as the move among us. Others will do this same work. One day more and more people will take off their clothes until only the agents of lies and criminal behavior will remain covered and concealing their true forms.
The world is a lie and what the world conceals cannot be seen by lying eyes. They only see the world and fear what lies behind the world. Beneath the costumery of this world is hidden our humanity and our secret heart. Beneath the camouflage and masquerade lie our common brotherhood and our true self. My gratitude and congratulations to those of you who know that you are naked underneath your clothes… that are not afraid to show yourselves as you are because there is no shame in the truth. When the truth takes off her clothes then the world disappears.
Filed under Articles | Tagged: | Posted by Ben Dayir
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Think you’re feeling pain at the gas pump? Consider the residents of Lime Village, Alaska, an isolated Denaina Athabascan Indian community where gasoline prices have hit $8.55 a gallon.
The price is severely curtailing movement around the interior Alaska village, where four-wheelers are sitting idle, said Ursula Graham, administrator for the Lime Village Traditional Council.
"Nobody’s going on joy rides, that’s for sure," Graham said.
Alaska, despite its status as a major crude oil producer, has the highest average gasoline prices of all U.S. states, according to the American Automobile Association. Alaska prices averaged $4.65 a gallon for regular gasoline on Friday, compared with a national average of $4.10, according to AAA.
Neal Fried, an economist with the Alaska department of labor, said the ironic situation reflects the hard reality that the state’s small population hinders economies of scale and market competition.
"Even if you take all of Alaska into account, it’s a pretty small marketplace," he said.
High oil prices have helped the state government, which relies on oil taxes, royalties and fees for at least 80 percent of its general operating revenue. Alaska reaped more than $10 billion in oil revenue in the just-completed fiscal year, double the oil revenue of the previous fiscal year.
Fried noted that North Slope oil development is bustling, which would not be the case if oil were $30 a barrel.
"There are more people working on the Slope than we’ve ever counted before," he said.
But high fuel prices pinch individual Alaskans, especially in rural areas with no outside road access, where shipments of petroleum products require extraordinary and costly efforts.
DOG SLEDS
Fuel that goes to Lime Village is sent 1,800 miles by barge from Anchorage to the southwestern Alaska hub of Bethel, transferred to another barge for a trip up then Kuskokwim River and then flown by small plane to its final destination. Of a representative sample of Alaska communities, Lime Village had the highest fuel prices, according to a recent University of Alaska Anchorage study.
Gov. Sarah Palin has proposed using some of Alaska’s fat budget surplus to send one-time $1,200 energy-relief checks to all state residents, to suspend the state’s 8 cent-per-gallon gasoline tax and other measures for immediate assistance.
The legislature is considering her request in an ongoing special session.
Meanwhile, in Lime Village, boat trips on the Stony River are fewer and more carefully planned. Villagers combine tasks such as checking fish nets and collecting firewood, Graham said.
One man even moved his fish camp, smokehouse and all, from an outer area to the midst of the village so that he could avoid the boat trip entirely.
Residents like the idea of a $1,200 payment from the state, Graham said. But long-term solutions remain elusive.
"Going back to dog teams is an option," she said. "It’s kind of a joke, but not a joke."
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; Editing by David Gregorio)
Filed under Peter Schaenk | Tagged: | Posted by shankradioworldwide
Friday, June 20
The Camptown Ladies Sing Behind the Concertina Wire.
by Les Visible
In this world it is altogether likely that every one of us has known someone who drank too much and had a driver’s license. As we reflect on those people that we have known, it is safe to assume that all of them have encountered at least one of the following; received a D.U.I., been arrested, been fined, lost their license, been imprisoned, been in an accident, been injured, injured someone else, killed someone, been killed or after experiencing one or several of these possibilities found their way into a recovery program. Of this latter number, it’s safe to assume that some of them went on to experience more of these options before they found their way back into recovery again or were no longer in a position to.
We’ve all known people with more machismo than good sense; people that take offense far too easily or simply imagine it. We’ve all known people who are sure they can kick our ass and are not shy about letting us know this. Our experience has been that when they drink, it’s much more likely that they are going to look for a situation in which they can act out their violent tendencies.
In this life we have encountered people who believe that every man or woman, whether they are single or attached, is fair game. Lies and intimidation are standard items in the tool belt of the amoral personality.
We may not have all met but we have all heard about individuals who kill for personal gain and for whom there are no barriers of conscience when it comes to getting what they want. We’ve heard about people who do terrible things to animals, children, men and women or anything that crosses their path. We know they are among us but they don’t have purple skin, tell tale horns or distinguishing marks. They look like you and me. I once went to a Halloween party dressed the way I always do and someone asked me who I was supposed to be. I told them I was a serial killer, “We look just like everybody else.”
We all know people that are screwed up in one way or another. We may even be one of those people. All of us are screwed up on some level even if we are only insecure. It’s really a matter of degree. There seems to be some acceptable parameters between which we can freak freely and then there are the points at which we cross the line. It’s a hard line to see. It’s not the same line in every place. We may know when we cross it and we may not but there is always some consequence, if it is only in our minds.
A government is only as good as the people that represent and administer it. When the majority of its agents are mindful of the law then the rule of law will generally apply. It’s an imperfect world, if only because you cannot please everyone. Balance is the key and balance is normally present when the majority is mindful of the law.
Evil and its permutations is not a new invention or perspective. Evil has been around for as long as there is a history to study. It hasn’t been the same thing over the long course of time. It changes and often doesn’t appear to be evil at all until it comes into bloom. Sometimes what is good turns out to be evil and sometimes what seems to be evil turns out to be good. It’s a hard thing to define and often harder to control because evil can afford the best lawyers. Evil very often has a whole lot of money. Money is the after shave that evil likes to put on before an evening of date rape and dismemberment.
We’ve always had evil. It’s something you manage. You manage it the way you control garden pests. You manage it like highways, with rules of behavior that become laws because most everyone agrees it is a good idea to set certain limits on speed and inaccuracy. One thing that is certain, evil should never be allowed to make the laws that govern our lives. In this case evil can be defined. In this case, evil is what happens when the laws are not a reflection of the will of the people but a reflection of special interests whose meals and means are realized out of the people.
When evil gets control of the mechanism of government then they make the laws. They hire the enforcers and the lawyers and they go on a rampage of theft and murder which does not end until they destroy themselves or are driven back into the darkness by what we will metaphorically refer to as ‘forces of light’. Evil doesn’t come to some moment of epiphany and decide to be good. Evil doesn’t push itself away from the table and say, “I’ve had enough now.” Evil is like a fire. How much wood can you throw on a fire before the fire says, “Thank you, that’s enough for now”?
When evil gets control of a government, one of the first things it does is to go after the control of information and news. Evil is most effective when it can create enemies against which it must defend itself and which legitimizes the manner in which it conducts business. Evil gets a handhold on government when the governed cease to pay attention to it. This is why a wise man once said that, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” One of the goals of evil when it takes control of government is to circumscribe your freedom into increasingly smaller circles. This is why, their in house news organs will proclaim that the enemies which they created hate your freedoms. This government takes your freedom in order to protect you.
When a people become too comfortable in the excesses of a material society they are easily distracted. Comfort is also highly addictive. People who were formerly good cease to have a problem with killing to maintain their comfort level. For a small minority it is impossible to have too much comfort and they enhance their comfort surplus by taking it from the rest of the people. There’s no limit to this. This minority has something very much like a serious alcohol problem and they also believe that they can kick your ass and take whatever you have whenever they want it; be that your women, your money or your life.
One of the things that evil is especially good at is in appearing to be reasonable. The lawyers that evil employs are all reasonable men. A short while ago, evil took control of the government of the most powerful nation on Earth. You know those maps that you sometimes see in subways and at bus stops? They say, “You are here.” That’s where you are.
Things will get worse and worse until either cataclysm or revolution occurs. The worst part of the equation is not the evil that is in control of the government. The worst part is the enablers; those who serve evil for what it brings them in power and prestige, those who serve evil out of fear, those who serve evil out of ignorance and those who serve evil so that they will not wind up like you.
Maybe some higher power will serendipitously burn away this evil from our midst and maybe we are required to act collectively and maybe then and only then will some higher power come to our aid. We all have our own idea of what lies beyond the bandwidth of the senses and what lies beyond the gates of death. Some believe in a beneficent God and some believe in nothing at all. What is certain is that no one knows the mind or the nature of whatever it is that is or is not.
Sooner or later, particular events- or the unbearable pressure of an increasing confinement and want- is going to make the people move. This can take various forms from panic to violent outrage. My suggestion is that it is time to step away from the machine. It is time to put down your tools and stop contributing to the thing that is tormenting you. A non-violent revolution is a difficult movement to stop. There will no doubt be violence but it does not have to be yours.
While there yet remains the illusion that you are free, you must join in an international strike that shuts off the flow of money and goods that serve the interests of the evil which has stolen your government and perverted your laws. A slave does not have the same options and that time will come if you continue to row, row and row down this less than merry stream.
The money changers must be drive from the temple once again. Evil must be driven from the corridors of power back into the darkness of its natural habitat. Before you can do this you must drive your complicity with evil from your own heart and cut back on senseless craving.
You have seen- and will see- nothing positive from any of your donations and efforts to support any candidate. You have seen nothing come from the outcry for an end to illegal wars. The machine rolls on. The machine will not roll on if the people will that it should stop. This very year you will have evidence enough of what must be done. Deny the beast its fodder and it will eat itself alive.
Black-Latino tensions, not gangs, are at the heart of the county’s violence, Sheriff Baca says.
Conversations about race are fraught with emotion, confusion and controversy. But that doesn’t mean we should avoid or sidestep the issue.
As a Latino raised in East Los Angeles, and as the elected sheriff of Los Angeles County for the last decade, I have seen many sides of the race issue. I have lived it, in fact.
So let me be very clear about one thing: We have a serious interracial violence problem in this county involving blacks and Latinos.
Some people deny it. They say that race is not a factor in L.A.’s gang crisis; the problem, they say, is not one of blacks versus Latinos and Latinos versus blacks but merely one of gang members killing other gang members (and yes, they acknowledge, sometimes the gangs are race-based).
But they’re wrong. The truth is that, in many cases, race is at the heart of the problem. Latino gang members shoot blacks not because they’re members of a rival gang but because of their skin color. Likewise, black gang members shoot Latinos because they are brown.
Just look at the facts. In February 2006, our jail system erupted into a full-scale riot involving about 2,000 black and Latino inmates at the North County Correctional Facility at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. One black inmate died and numerous others were injured. Through extensive interviews with participants, our investigation revealed that race — not gang affiliation — was the motivating factor.
Furthermore, we have evidence linking inmates who are known as "shot callers" directly to street shootings based entirely on race. These shot callers at Pitchess and elsewhere are affiliated with gangs, to be sure, and in many cases they may give the order to kill a particular person or a member of a particular gang. But if that person or gang cannot be found, the shot caller will often order the gunman to find someone — anyone — who is black or brown and shoot them instead. Gang affiliation does not matter. Only the color of the victim’s skin matters.
I would even take this a step further and suggest that some of L.A.’s so-called gangs are really no more than loose-knit bands of blacks or Latinos roaming the streets looking for people of the other color to shoot. Our gang investigators have learned this through interviews in Compton and elsewhere throughout the county. L.A.’s gang wars have long been complicated by drugs, territory issues or money. Now, it can also be over color.
Race-based violence has even found its way into our school system, although no deaths have been reported. Some say it’s always been there, but it certainly is rearing its ugly head now more than ever. Most recently, fighting broke out in May between more than 600 black and brown students at Locke High School in South L.A.
The racial divide is being driven by the ongoing population growth and demographic changes that have buffeted L.A. for decades. The perception that one group has more opportunities and advantages than another can lead to resentment, competition and, ultimately, spontaneous eruptions of violence.
So where does this leave us? How does this information help?
I have begun a process in my headquarters in which analysts are poring over data collected from various sources throughout the county to help us understand exactly what gang crimes are underway — and where — in real time. I call it a Gang Emergency Operations Center.
It’s about more than just identifying problem areas and moving more police there. In fact, it is not a suppression model at all, but an intervention and prevention model aimed at ensuring that those who need social services get them. Most important, it will serve as a fusion center for sharing information. Such centers — like the federal Joint Regional Intelligence Center, which combats terrorism — have more than proved their worth.
But as we gather this data, the race issue must be part of the equation — because if it isn’t, we are not analyzing the data correctly. Crimes with a racial component must be categorized and studied to help us better understand the problem. Racial issues must then be addressed through education and awareness.
The problem of interracial violence is not intractable; we’ve made progress in other settings. I have seen it on a small scale in the Sheriff’s Department’s Domestic Violence Prevention Program in our jails.
It happened like this. Inmates with a history of domestic violence — sometimes known members of opposing gangs — were forced to attend this program or be remanded to custody for a significant amount of state prison time. Those who agreed to participate would sit together and discuss various topics of interest. They would eat meals together and live together in housing set aside for them.
The program was designed to address issues of domestic violence. But over a period of weeks, the participants overcame barriers by being exposed to those they were supposed to hate. They began to form friendships — friendships that, in some cases, have lasted outside the jail walls.
This may seem like an insignificant occurrence to those who are uninformed about gang life and racial tension. But it is not. People who would shoot each other as easily as kick a can were taking meals together, talking together and living together without violence.
The better we understand the crisis, the better chance we have of solving it. It is difficult to believe that something as simple as gathering information, analyzing it and then putting it into action — whether through suppression, intervention or prevention — will have any effect. But it will. It is a proven formula.
The unification of information, dispassionately collected and analyzed, will lead us toward a disarming of the gang culture. And through disarmament, we will make the streets safer. And that’s the whole point.
By Lee Baca
(Lee Baca has been sheriff of Los Angeles County since 1998.)
Filed under Peter Schaenk | Tagged: | Posted by shankradioworldwide
The goal of the JWO is to return civilization back to it’s primitive state thus creating chaos and disorder. Out of the chaos will come our saviors, the most organized group left standing…Surprise! Guess who? They will bring order out of chaos, (you know the rest). Check out the broadcast to find out who “They” are.
The salmonella scare. “It’s the Mexicans stupid”.
Victory for George Bush in the courts: President can imprison US citizens and throw away the key without a trial.
Jew of the week: Lou Pearlman
ConCentral: “Hey Nut-Bag, I never got your email!”
Here is a report from the Cambridge Journal. Read the report and ask yourself a simple question. If this is the way food is prepared and handled by Mexicans in Mexico, why would they change their habits when they cross the border illegally and get a job in a restaurant preparing food for "Gringo" Americans?
If the FDA cannot find a connection between the Salmonella outbreak at the Tomato farms then it must be at the point of sale. Keep in mind, all people that were infected ate at a Mexican restaurant, which has yet to be identified by the government.
Our government would rather appear politically correct than to admit the open borders with Mexico have now become a serious health threat to US citizens.
If we don’t ALL stand up against Political Correctness we will see more epidemics and outbreaks of unknown diseases that will make Salmonella and E-Coli poisoning look like the common cold.
Street-vendors in Mexico City provide ready-to-eat food to a high proportion of the inhabitants. Nevertheless, their microbiological status, general hygienic and trading practices are not well known.
During spring and summer 2000, five tianguis (open markets) were visited and 48 vendors in 48 stalls interviewed. A total of 103 taco dressings were sampled for E. coli and Salmonella spp.: 44 (43%) contained E. coli and 5 (5%) Salmonella (2 S. Enteritidis phage type 8, 1 S. Agona, 2 S. B group).
Both E. coli and salmonellas were isolated from three samples. Of Salmonella-positive stalls 80% (4/5) had three or more food-vendors and 80% of vendors were males, compared with 37·3% (16/43) and 46·4% (20/43) in the Salmonella-negative stalls respectively.
Food-vendors kept water in buckets (reusing it all day), lacked toilet facilities, and prepared taco dressings the day before which remained at the tianguis without protection for 7·8 h on average. Consumption of street-vended food by local and tourist populations poses a health risk.
T. ESTRADA-GARCIA, C. LOPEZ-SAUCEDO, B. ZAMARRIPA-AYALA, M. R. THOMPSON, L. GUTIERREZ-COGCO, A. MANCERA-MARTINEZ and A. ESCOBAR-GUTIERREZ (2004). Prevalence of Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. in street-vended food of open markets (tianguis) and general hygienic and trading practices in Mexico City. Epidemiology and Infection,132, pp 1181-1184 doi:10.1017/S0950268804003036
Filed under Peter Schaenk | Tagged: | Posted by shankradioworldwide
With the economy tanking and a full blown depression on the horizon,
it is time to question the motives of those in charge of our monetary
system.
Jews have controlled our monetary system since the creation of the
federal reserve. This close-knit racial / religious / cultural group
proclaimed it’s desire to see the destruction of Western civilization
in it’s religious and occult writings centuries ago.
Do we assume there is no fire where there is smoke? Ben Bernanke is
part of this group known as “Jews”. Is he part of the problem or is he
trying to do his job as a patriotic “Jewish-american”?
Should we continue to bury our collective “head in the sand” in
order to be accepted in our Politically Correct world? Or do we ask the
hard questions that should have been asked years ago before we reached
this point of “No Return”?
President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.
But a second, overlapping 5-to-4 majority of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ruled that Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar now in military custody in Charleston, S.C., must be given an additional opportunity to challenge his detention in federal court there. An earlier court proceeding, in which the government had presented only a sworn statement from a defense intelligence official, was inadequate, the second majority ruled.
The decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which had maintained that a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks granted the president the power to detain people living in the United States.
The court effectively reversed a divided three-judge panel of its own members, which ruled last year that the government lacked the power to detain civilians legally in the United States as enemy combatants. That panel ordered the government either to charge Mr. Marri or to release him. The case is likely to reach the Supreme Court.
How helpful the decision will be to Mr. Marri remains to be seen, as the majority that granted him some relief was notably vague about what the new court proceeding should look like. In that respect, Tuesday’s decision resembled last month’s decision from the United States Supreme Court granting habeas corpus rights to prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay.
Mr. Marri is the only person on the American mainland known to be held as an enemy combatant. The government contended, in a declaration from the defense intelligence official, Jeffrey N. Rapp, that Mr. Marri was a Qaeda sleeper agent sent to the United States to commit mass murder and disrupt the banking system.
Mr. Marri was arrested on Dec. 12, 2001, in Peoria, Ill., where he was living with his family and studying computer science. He was charged with credit-card fraud and lying to federal agents, and was on the verge of a trial on those charges when he was moved to military detention in 2003.
Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, said the decision properly recognized “the president’s authority to capture and detain Al Qaeda agents who, like the 9/11 hijackers, come to this country to commit or facilitate warlike acts against American civilians.”
Mr. Roehrkasse added that while the department believed that Mr. Marri “had already received all the process he was due,” its lawyers were “studying the court’s decision and will respond to Mr. Marri’s contentions” before the trial judge.
“This decision means the president can pick up any person in the country — citizen or legal resident — and lock them up for years without the most basic safeguard in the Constitution, the right to a criminal trial,” Mr. Hafetz said.
The 216-page decision included seven opinions, none of which commanded a majority. The only common ground was four unsigned paragraphs at the beginning of the decision summarizing the result.
The Fourth Circuit is generally considered the nation’s most conservative federal appeals court. The closely divided and complex decision in a major terrorism case therefore came as something of a surprise.
Mr. Marri’s unusual situation played a role, said Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at Wake Forest University. Mr. Marri “was lawfully present in the U.S. and then arrested and held here, as opposed to being a noncitizen captured in a foreign land,” Professor Chesney said. “This consideration makes his case more difficult even in the eyes of relatively conservative jurists.”
The five judges who ruled that the president has the authority to detain people captured in the United States offered differing criteria for who might be subject to such detention.
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III said the president might detain members of organizations or nations against which Congress had authorized the use of force who mean to harm people or property to further military goals.
To reverse the trial judge’s decision allowing Mr. Marri’s detention to continue “because he was not captured on a foreign battlefield or foreign soil,” Judge Wilkinson wrote, “is akin to a judicial declaration that Congress and the executive may fight only the last war.”
Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, writing for herself and three other judges, disagreed, saying that Mr. Marri was at most a civilian criminal who may be prosecuted in the courts but not detained by the executive branch.
“This does not mean that al Marri, or similarly situated American citizens, would have to be freed,” Judge Motz wrote. “Like others accused of terrorist activity in this country, from the Oklahoma City bombers to the convicted September 11th conspirator [Zacarias Moussaoui] they could be tried on criminal charges and, if convicted, punished severely. But the government would not be able to subject them to indefinite military detention.”
Judge William B. Traxler Jr. was the swing vote. He agreed that Mr. Marri was subject to detention if what the government said about him was true. But Judge Traxler broke with the judges who voted against Mr. Marri across the board. Those judges said Mr. Marri had already had an adequate opportunity to challenge his detention in court, in the proceeding based on Mr. Rapp’s statement. Judge Traxler said that Mr. Marri must be given a fair and meaningful opportunity to see and refute “the most reliable evidence” against him, subject to national security and other concerns.
The four judges who would have ordered Mr. Marri’s release from military custody — Judges Motz, Roger L. Gregory, M. Blaine Michael and Robert B. King — agreed to join an order returning the case to the trial court based on Judge Traxler’s middle ground. They did so, Judge Motz wrote, “to give practical effect to the conclusions of the majority of the court who reject the government’s position.”
But Judge Gregory expressed frustration over the net effect of the exercise. “There is no concrete guidance as to what further process is due” Mr. Marri, he wrote.
All of the judges who would have denied Mr. Marri any relief — Judges Wilkinson, Karen J. Williams, Paul V. Niemeyer and Allyson K. Duncan — were appointed by Republican presidents; all who would have granted him full relief were appointed by Democrats. Judge Traxler was appointed to the appeals court by President Bill Clinton.
In the conclusion of his long opinion, Judge Wilkinson said terrorism cases presented courts with special challenges.
“We may never know,” he said, “whether we have struck the proper balance between liberty and security, because we do not know every action the executive is taking and we do not know every threat global terror networks have in store.”
Filed under Peter Schaenk | Tagged: | Posted by shankradioworldwide
Counsel to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
I, Ward Boston, Jr. do declare that the following statement is true and complete:
For more than 30 years, I have remained silent on the topic of USS Liberty. I am a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States, I follow them.
However, recent attempts to rewrite history compel me to share the truth.
In June of 1967, while serving as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps, Department of the Navy, I was assigned as senior legal counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the brutal attack on USS Liberty, which had occurred on June 8th.
The late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, president of the Court, and I were given only one week to gather evidence for the Navy’s official investigation into the attack, despite the fact that we both had estimated that a proper Court of Inquiry into an attack of this magnitude would take at least six months to conduct.
Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., then Commander-in-chief, Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR), at his headquarters in London, had charged Admiral Kidd (in a letter dated June 10, 1967) to “inquire into all the pertinent facts and circumstances leading to and connected with the armed attack; damage resulting therefrom; and deaths of and injuries to Naval personnel.”
Despite the short amount of time we were given, we gathered a vast amount of evidence, including hours of heartbreaking testimony from the young survivors.
The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. Each evening, after hearing testimony all day, we often spoke our private thoughts concerning what we had seen and heard. I recall Admiral Kidd repeatedly referring to the Israeli forces responsible for the attack as “murderous bastards.” It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate, and could not possibly have been an accident.
I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack, as well as their superiors, who had ordered the attack, were well aware that the ship was American.
I saw the flag, which had visibly identified the ship as American, riddled with bullet holes, and heard testimony that made it clear that the Israelis intended there be no survivors. 10. Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded — a war crime.
Admiral Kidd and I both felt it necessary to travel to Israel to interview the Israelis who took part in the attack. Admiral Kidd telephoned Admiral McCain to discuss making arrangements. Admiral Kidd later told me that Admiral McCain was adamant that we were not to travel to Israel or contact the Israelis concerning this matter.
Regrettably, we did not receive into evidence and the Court did not consider any of the more than sixty witness declarations from men who had been hospitalized and were unable to testify in person.
I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of “mistaken identity.”
In particular, the recent publication of Jay Cristol’s book, The Liberty Incident, twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack.
It is Cristol’s insidious attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out.
I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of “mistaken identity” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Admiral Kidd told me, after returning from Washington, D.C. that he had been ordered to sit down with two civilians from either the White House or the Defense Department, and rewrite portions of the court’s findings.
Admiral Kidd also told me that he had been ordered to “put the lid” on everything having to do with the attack on USS Liberty. We were never to speak of it and we were to caution everyone else involved that they could never speak of it again.
I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that statement as I know that the Court of Inquiry transcript that has been released to the public is not the same one that I certified and sent off to Washington.
I know this because it was necessary, due to the exigencies of time, to hand correct and initial a substantial number of pages. I have examined the released version of the transcript and I did not see any pages that bore my hand corrections and initials. Also, the original did not have any deliberately blank pages, as the released version does. Finally, the testimony of Lt. Painter concerning the deliberate machine gunning of the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, which I distinctly recall being given at the Court of Inquiry and included in the original transcript, is now missing and has been excised.
Following the conclusion of the Court of Inquiry, Admiral Kidd and I remained in contact. Though we never spoke of the attack in public, we did discuss it between ourselves, on occasion. Every time we discussed the attack, Admiral Kidd was adamant that it was a deliberate, planned attack on an American ship.
In 1990, I received a telephone call from Jay Cristol, who wanted to interview me concerning the functioning of the Court of Inquiry. I told him that I would not speak to him on that subject and prepared to hang up the telephone. Cristol then began asking me about my personal background and other, non-Court of Inquiry related matters. I endeavored to answer these questions and politely extricate myself from the conversation. Cristol continued to return to the subject of the Court of Inquiry, which I refused to discuss with him. Finally, I suggested that he contact Admiral Kidd and ask him about the Court of Inquiry.
Shortly after my conversation with Cristol, I received a telephone call from Admiral Kidd, inquiring about Cristol and what he was up to. The Admiral spoke of Cristol in disparaging terms and even opined that “Cristol must be an Israeli agent.” I don’t know if he meant that literally or it was his way of expressing his disgust for Cristol’s highly partisan, pro-Israeli approach to questions involving USS Liberty.
At no time did I ever hear Admiral Kidd speak of Cristol other than in highly disparaging terms. I find Cristol’s claims of a “close friendship” with Admiral Kidd to be utterly incredible. I also find it impossible to believe the statements he attributes to Admiral Kidd, concerning the attack on USS Liberty.
Several years later, I received a letter from Cristol that contained what he purported to be his notes of our prior conversation. These “notes” were grossly incorrect and bore no resemblance in reality to that discussion. I find it hard to believe that these “notes” were the product of a mistake, rather than an attempt to deceive. I informed Cristol that I disagreed with his recollection of our conversation and that he was wrong. Cristol made several attempts to arrange for the two of us to meet in person and talk but I always found ways to avoid doing this. I did not wish to meet with Cristol as we had nothing in common and I did not trust him.
Contrary to the misinformation presented by Cristol and others, it is important for the American people to know that it is clear that Israel is responsible for deliberately attacking an American ship and murdering American sailors, whose bereaved shipmates have lived with this egregious conclusion for many years.
Dated: January 9, 2004 at Coronado, California. Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.) Senior Counsel to the USS Liberty Court of Inquiry
Filed under Peter Schaenk | Tagged: | Posted by shankradioworldwide
"Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture’s got to go!" The year is 1988. The site is the campus of Stanford University. The originators of this clever little slogan? Aboriginal pygmies dressed in tribal garb? Orientals with samurai swords? Indian matrons in saris? Not quite.
Rather, angry white upper-middle class co-eds uniformly vested in the standard garb of American academia, blue jeans, Los Angeles Lakers T-shirts, Reboks, baseball caps, Vuarnet sun glasses, and Rolex watches. The despised object of their vehemence? Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other "dead white males" whose thought continued to dominate the "core curriculum" at Stanford University.1
This particular protest, which, by the way, was successful, is merely one instance of a phenomenon which, in the last decade, has swept through and fundamentally transformed the content of higher education in the US. The movement, which is most prominent in academia, is referred to as multiculturalism.
Its stated aim is to equalize all cultures in the estimation of the student. A student achieves this new state of consciousness, when he no longer views one culture or cultural outlook as superior to another culture or cultural outlook. The main effort of the multiculturalists is to induce the student to both view his own culture (i.e., Western, Christian culture) as one culture among many equally valid cultures and, consequently, assume a mental stance of "openness" to "values" present in other, non-Western cultures.
As in all egalitarian efforts, this process of "equalization" amounts to an attempt to "level" that which has traditionally been considered to be superior and exalt that which has normally been considered to be inferior. The multiculturalists believe that they can achieve this result by introducing courses into the curriculum which both make mention of other cultures and, most importantly, focus on the sinister avenues taken by Western, Christian man in his struggle to suppress into a position of inferiority, those non-Western cultures which are of an equal, if not superior value.
You might think that the multiculturalists would be frustrated in their attempt to familiarize the student with "suppressed" non-Western cultures, on account of the fact that the average co-ed knows little or nothing about foreign cultures and, normally, cares even less. Moreover, a realist would have to see their efforts to lessen the impression the great books and ideas of Western civilization are making on young minds as somewhat ridiculous, since it has been decades since the great works and great ideas of Western, Christian man have made any impression whatsoever on the young American mind. To spend time trying to convince a student that Aristotle was "really" a "racist" is tantamount to trying to convince a ten-year-old that the Copenhagen school interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is an example of epistemological relativism. She/He would be clueless.
This somewhat harsh judgment concerning the cultural awareness of the average American undergraduate is, however, supported by solid statistics. According to the statistics gathered by Lynne Cheney, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, it is possible to graduate from 37% of American colleges without taking a course in history, from 45% without taking a course in American or English literature, from 62% without taking any philosophy, and from 77% without studying a foreign language.2 Cheney also reports that it is now "extremely rare" to find students exposed to a core curriculum in Western civilization, even at major state universities and the elite colleges of the Ivy League.3 Not only is the average American undergraduate seemingly unfit, and definitely uninterested, in such expanded cultural "awareness," but the very purveyors of multiculturalism, the university faculties, are themselves obviously uninterested in any serious study of the ideas, habits, and customs which make up the content of either Western Christian or non-Western cultures.
I became intensely aware of this fact while teaching in New York City. During these years, the only visual manifestation of the multiculturalist idea then pervading the classrooms was the donning by certain black male students of "African clothing" which somewhat resembled a "Nehru suit." That Jawaharlal Nehru was an Indian nationalist leader, did not seem to dawn on these devotees of neo-African romanticism.
The professors which were most committed to the "multiculturalist idea" showed no interest whatsoever in uncovering the philosophical, theological and social reality of other cultures. In fact, from my own experience, I can say that, generally speaking, the "multiculturalists," whether professor or graduate student, were the academics most disliked by those students who were of non-European origin. Of course, as most people know already, in American graduate schools this means Orientals. Normally, the Orientals maintained close friendships with the conservative, white graduate students and professors who still existed as a besieged minority on campus. If, therefore, the underlying task of the multiculturalists is not to "enlighten" their students concerning the true content of non-Christian cultures, what is the nature of their activities? It is to attack and denigrate the cultural heritage of Christendom and to vilify everything associated with it. This vilification will even extend to overt racism, as long as that racism is directed against peoples of European origin. I think here of the well-publicized visit to my New York university campus by Dr. Leonard Jeffries. Dr. Jeffries, chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at City College of New York, is well-known for his claim that whites are biologically inferior to blacks. Dinesh D’Souza in his book Illiberal Education: the Politics of Race and Sex on Campus cites the college newspaper The Campus as stating:
African American scholar Leonard Jeffries claims that whites are biologically inferior to blacks….Adopting an evolutionary perspective, Jeffries told his class that whites suffer from an inadequate supply of melanin, making them unable to function as effectively as other groups. One reason that whites have perpetuated so many crimes and atrocities, Jeffries argues, is that the Ice Age caused the deformation of white genes, while blacks were enhanced by "the value system of the sun."4
There were no protests of Dr. Jeffries visit. Moreover, you could not help but believe that protests against his visit would be treated as "racist." Dr. Jeffries’ popularity during this time, 1991, is shown by the fact that he was asked to co-author a multicultural curriculum outline for all New York public schools.
There are many practical consequences of the multiculturalist anti-European ideological outlook. In their drive to implement the mathematical abstraction of equality in the life of their university, college administrators have undertaken a program of "affirmative action" in which professors are hired and students admitted, not because they are the most qualified applicants, but rather, because they happen to be female, black, Hispanic, or "Native American." Interestingly enough, Orientals rarely "benefit" from "affirmative action" programs. Probably because they are not clients of the American Left.
This systematic disregard for academic qualifications, along with the proliferation of anti-Western "attack" courses (e.g., "Women in African literature in French," "Harlem Renaissance," "Ibo I and II," "Politics of Black Autobiography," has resulted in a precipitous decline in academic standards and achievement. Nothing else can be expected if students and faculty are not chosen on account of the quality of their minds. In a 1989 survey of 5,000 university faculty members by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching found general agreement about the "widespread lowering of academic standards at their institutions." This decline was only partially masked by an equally "widespread grade inflation." 5 Moreover, a review of 25,000 student transcripts by Professor Zemsky of the University of Pennsylvania showed broad neglect of mathematics and science courses, especially at the advanced level, and an overall "lack of depth and structure" in what undergraduates study.6
There is something, however, which the multiculturalists can build on and exploit for their own ends. It is the ingrained relativism and instinctive egalitarianism which characterizes the moral outlook of almost all American undergraduates. Here I do not believe my attribution of relativism and egalitarianism to "all American undergraduates" is extreme or exaggerated. This same judgment has been etched into the contemporary psyche of American academia by Professor Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind. Unfortunately, I have even found that when you meet a student with some type of religious faith, she/he never attempts to defend or support the intrinsic veracity and universal validity of the doctrines which they hold to, but rather, are content to say that "this is what I believe" and "other people believe other things," therefore, we can never know who is right or wrong. Consequently, the foundational virtue becomes "toleration." "Toleration," that is, of all but the "intolerant" (i.e., those Christian believers who refuse to accede to the basic premise that all ideas are equally valid as "personal beliefs").
Relativism and Equality
It is, however, the all-pervasive idea of "equality," which opens the mental doors of the young American mind to the multiculturalists. I would even assert that the underlying relativist assumption is ultimately traceable to the belief in equality. Having been told from their early years that the goal of all of human history is the application of the mathematical abstraction of "equality" to the concrete realm of men and human societies. The final goal being the complete conformity between reality and abstraction. Why does it, then, seem strange that young people, and not so young people, can so readily accept the idea that all cultures are equally valid, and that if there is one culture which predominates it must be "levelled" while others are exalted.
When we search for the philosophical roots of multiculturalism, we find that it has its origin amongst those who mix together the concepts of "equality" and the "relativity of truth." Professor Allan Bloom refers to them as the Nietzschean Left. In the US, we might call them the 1960’s New Left. Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the last century who discovered the idea of "value" or werte. According to Nietzsche, all "values," that is, what is considered important, varys from nation to nation, century to century, and culture to culture. Moreover, "values" are simply the projection of a people’s "will to power." That which increases their strength and power is "valuable" and "good." That which weakens their power is "bad."
It is with Nietzsche in the 1880’s that we see the emergence of historical and cultural relativism (i.e., that philosophical position which holds that truth and value are dependent on the time period in which we live and the culture we have). If this be the case, Western Christian culture is nothing more than white, European males solidifying their own power by forming a culture which portrays their particular values as ideal. "Values," here do not have any universal validity or intrinsic worth. It is interesting to note, that Nietzsche, famous for his statement "God is dead," insisted that all values are relative, because there is not God. If God existed, He would be the one who gave all truths and values their intrinsic worth and universal validity.
If the ideals and ideas which have guided Western man since the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ are merely surreptitious "power plays" of a dominant elite, the forces of the Revolution, taking their cue, as usual, from the French Revolution, will try to storm this citadel of oppression in the name of the previously exploited. All the multiculturalists whom I have met, heard of, or read about, are leftists (i.e., ideological supporters of the egalitarian revolution begun in Paris in 1789). Their leftism is normally expressed in different ways. The homosexual "life-style" struggles for equality against the dominance and "oppression" of heterosexuality, women struggle against men, blacks against whites. This "social warfare" aspect of multiculturalism has been fostered by academics intellectually attached to Frankfort School Marxism. These thinkers, who "inspired" the radical students of the 1960’s and the academics of the 1990’s, wove together the ideas of relativism, equality, and the "class struggle." What they advocated was simple. In the words of one of the New Left’s most prominent spokesmen, Theodore Adorno, we must "negate the dominant ideology."7
The dominant ideology which they believe they must overthrow is none other than the dogmas, ideas, customs, habits, social structures, and moral norms packed into the concept and historical reality of Christendom. Ultimately, that is what they are after. Moreover, it is the residue of that, in the minds of America’s youth, which they are successfully eliminating. If you spend most of your academic year studying "Films on popular religion and healing in Peru," "Reggae lyrics," and "Rastafarian poetry," you will not long maintain contact with the foundational truths of Christian civilization.8 Or rationality, for that matter!
Counterrevolution vs. the Counterculture
Can we salvage and nourish in contemporary human minds the traditional culture that the multiculturalists are so cleverly trying to destroy? I believe that we can. There is one problem, however. The very fact that we have to think about the question of how to retain and nourish true culture means, to a large extent, that we have already lost it. Since intellectual culture is like a "second nature," to consciously have to cleave to it means that it is not had as it should be had. The reason why culture must be possessed as a "second nature," is on account of the fact that culture is the manner in which a human being responds to the truth of order. A cultured soul is one whose response to order is natural and instinctive. The cultured soul is one which can both appreciate the refined breadth and depth of order, along with responding properly to the specificity and exact worth of being.
Such precise responses to the specificity and refinement of reality are normally the result of an inheritance passed from generation to generation as a deposit of truths and attitudes and adaptations to those truths. This deposit is normally expressed in art, customs, festivals, manners, and behaviors. This inheritance is not merely "behavioral information." It is the silent spiritual communication of the generations. It says "do this and you shall be right."
What can be done, then, to form a new generation, immune to multiculturalism, because immersed in the fresh springs of Catholic culture; which, by the way, is the authentic form of "Western" culture. The first thing to remember in this regard is the most fundamental. True "culture" is, in its origins, that which surrounds the "cult." The true "cult," of course, has at its core an act of sacrifice to God. An organic culture then, one not artificially engendered, is one which develops out of man’s response to the reality of this act of sacrifice. The most primordial forms of culture, then, are those actions, behaviors, attitudes, and art forms which surround and constitute our participation in the act of sacrifice.
According to this view, culture is not man’s way of expressing inner states of consciousness, as has been suggested by Pope John Paul II in the course of his philosophical career. Rather, it is man’s response to an objective reality outside himself, which is not dependent at all upon his will but upon the will of God. True and authentic culture, as opposed to a "culture" stemming from purely human concepts and needs, is an adequate response to the very specific character of the Holy Sacrifice. True culture must be ultimately based upon God’s revelation of a form of worship acceptable to Himself and one which is a fitting response to the specificity of the Divine Nature.
The first thing that must be done to rebuild a culture which has, ostensibly, left the hearts and minds of men, is to place within young hearts an intimate awareness of the rhythms and values inherent in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This means a cultivation of the proximate and remote externals, such as ceremony and festival, which convey to human minds, dependent as they are upon physical perception, the inner secret of the mysteries being celebrated. Culture can only be regained, when the individual and collective imagination is placed under the yoke of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
After the initial conquest of the imagination, the cultivation of the soul must extend to the intellect. Ultimately, the intellect must come to the defense of this vision of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful if it is to be sustained. The most perfect way to cultivate the intellect is to have it engage itself with meditation on the philosophical and theological truths which underlie and surround the Holy Sacrifice. With this, intellect, imagination, and sensation can be welded together to form an organic whole, a unified outlook on the world. Such a unified outlook, armed with the intellectual arguments, can easily withstand the flaccid and unsubstantial concepts of the multiculturalists.
Finally, those who would possess and cultivate Catholic culture, must identify with those who have possessed and cultivated it in the past. Since culture is meant to be a "second nature" for the mind, an habitual imaginative and intellectual affinity or, perhaps, a connaturality must be established between the intimate lives of our predecessors in the Faith and our own innermost lives. We must "sympathize with" giants upon whose shoulders we stand. I believe that such an agenda can be realized in families, small communities, and in schools dedicated to the integral Catholic Faith. We must know what it means to be Catholic. We must be Catholic, unabashedly, again.
Dr. Peter Chojnowski
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Oil prices plunge in massive sell-off fueled by fears of US economic woes, OPEC forecast
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices fell harder than they have in 17 years Tuesday, as fears that record fuel prices are spreading broad economic pain led to the third big sell-off in just over a week.
Light, sweet crude plunged $6.44, or 4.4 percent, to settle at $138.74 in an extremely volatile session. Prices at one point dropped more than $10 a barrel from the day’s high.
The turnaround may not signal a lasting shift in sentiment — prices have swung violently in recent days as they flirted with record highs. But it does underscore investor uncertainty about the sustainability of sky-high prices and potentially long-lasting effects on the broader economy.
"They’re slamming this pretty good. But remember, these (big) moves are becoming a little more commonplace," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.
Earlier, the contract rose as high as $146.73 and fell as low as $135.92. Prices hit a record $147.27 Friday.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that "numerous difficulties" are racking the economy of the world’s largest oil consumer, and warned that rising prices for energy and food are elevating the risks of inflation.
At the same time, the Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation jumped by 1.8 percent last month, a larger-than-expected gain. Over the past year, wholesale prices have risen 9.2 percent, the most since 1981.
"Traders get spooked and simply sell positions," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates. "The threat of recession, at some point the market’s going to plug that in."
Bernanke’s sobering comments helped drive stocks down sharply, although they later recovered as oil prices fell.
Lingering concerns about the health of the financial sector continued to weigh on banking stocks, however, reminding energy traders that oil prices are not immune to troubles elsewhere in the economy.
"Since investment banks have been increasing their … exposure to commodities, their current distress can have (a) significant impact on oil prices if they are forced to liquidate commodity positions in a run for cash," Olivier Jakob, an analyst at Petromatrix in Switzerland, said in a research note.
The latest monthly market report from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries gave traders further reason to unload oil.
The cartel predicted world oil demand will rise by 900,000 barrels a day in 2009, or 100,000 barrels per day less than this year. OPEC blamed the slowdown on a slumping economy and high pump prices in richer industrialized countries.
Meanwhile, a five-day strike by Brazilian oil workers that began early Monday had less effect on output than feared. The labor action cut production of government-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, by only about 4 percent by Monday evening. Petrobras produces about 1.6 million barrels of oil a day.
"We are not making a big case of the strike in Brazil as it is well defined in time, hence carries little un-priced risk. Furthermore the output loss estimates have been continuously revised down," Jakob said.
The dollar fell to a new low against the euro, but that did little to halt oil’s fall. A weaker dollar has been a major factor driving prices sharply higher in recent months, enticing investors to pump money into oil as a hedge against inflation and making crude cheaper for overseas buyers.
In Washington, President Bush continued to press the Democratic-run Congress to open up new areas to offshore oil drilling. The president lifted a ban on Continental Shelf drilling Monday, but a Congressional prohibition remains.
"I readily concede it won’t produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it will reverse the psychology," Bush said at his first White House news conference since April.
At the fuel pump, retail gas prices in the U.S. remained at a record near $4.11 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Diesel rose six-tenths of a penny to its own high of $4.83 a gallon.
General Motors Corp., the leading U.S. automaker, said it is assuming oil prices will hover between $130 to $150 a barrel next year. The company made the prediction as it laid out plans to slash jobs and truck production, suspend its dividend and borrow up to $3 billion as it grapples with an ailing U.S. economy and record high fuel prices.
In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell more than 16 cents to $3.9035 a gallon, while gasoline futures tumbled more than 20 cents to $3.3543 a gallon. Natural gas dropped almost 56 cents to $11.34 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, August Brent crude fell $6.33 to $137.59 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
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