Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Excerpts from 21 Not-So-Random Articles, and a Video


Further information at: Not-so-Random Information: Introduction and Table of Contents
1) How the Government Targeted Occupy - “Freedom of conscience is one of the most fundamental human freedoms. This freedom is not merely about one’s ability to choose to believe or not believe in a particular religion or philosophy. In a democracy, freedom of conscience is about the ability to be critical of government and corporations, and to be free from the chilling fear that doing so will subject you to government surveillance.

“Freedom of conscience cannot be fully realized in isolation. It requires the ability to share one’s thoughts, to speak out about injustice and to join with others in peaceable assemblies to petition for redress of grievances. Americans should be able to exercise these most sacred rights in a free society without fear of being monitored by the government.”

2) Washington gets explicit: its 'war on terror' is permanent - “The military historian Andrew Bacevich has spent years warning that US policy planners have adopted an explicit doctrine of ‘endless war’. Obama officials, despite repeatedly boasting that they have delivered permanently crippling blows to al-Qaida, are now, as clearly as the English language permits, openly declaring this to be so.

“It is hard to resist the conclusion that this war has no purpose other than its own eternal perpetuation. This war is not a means to any end but rather is the end in itself. Not only is it the end itself, but it is also its own fuel: it is precisely this endless war - justified in the name of stopping the threat of terrorism - that is the single greatest cause of that threat.”

3) Ex-Bush Official Willing to Testify Bush, Cheney Knew Gitmo Prisoners Innocent - “Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell during George W. Bush's first term in office, said Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld knew the ‘vast majority’ of prisoners captured in the so-called War on Terror were innocent and the administration refused to set them free once those facts were established because of the political repercussions that would have ensued.

“‘By late August 2002, I found that of the initial 742 detainees that had arrived at Guantánamo, the majority of them had never seen a US soldier in the process of their initial detention and their captivity had not been subjected to any meaningful review,’ Wilkerson's declaration says. ‘Secretary Powell was also trying to bring pressure to bear regarding a number of specific detentions because children as young as 12 and 13 and elderly as old as 92 or 93 had been shipped to Guantánamo. By that time, I also understood that the deliberate choice to send detainees to Guantánamo was an attempt to place them outside the jurisdiction of the US legal system.’…

“‘Their view was that innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader war on terror and the capture of the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks, or other acts of terrorism,’ Wilkerson added. ‘Moreover, their detention was deemed acceptable if it led to a more complete and satisfactory intelligence picture with regard to Iraq, thus justifying the Administration’s plans for war with that country.’”

4) Holder: We’ve Droned 4 Americans, 3 by Accident. Oops. - “In an extraordinary admission, Attorney General Eric Holder has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes since 2009 have killed four Americans — three of whom were ‘not specifically targeted.’

“For all the effort that the Obama administration has gone to in asserting that its drones only kill the people that the administration intends to kill, Holder wrote in a letter today to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that Samir Khan, 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki and Jude Kenan Mohammad were ‘not specifically targeted by the United States.’ The fourth American to die in a drone strike since 2009 was Abdulrahman’s father Anwar Awlaki, a radical propagandist whom the U.S. killed in Yemen in 2011....

“Americans are a tiny fraction of the people killed by U.S. drone strikes. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently estimated that 4700 people have died from drone-launched missiles. An unknown percentage of those casualties are people whose identities are not known to the government but who are presumed to be terrorists based on their patterns of travel and other behavior.”

5) David Simon, creator of The Wire, says new US drug laws help only 'white, middle-class kids' - “David Simon surged into the American mainstream with a bleak vision of the devastation wrought by drugs on his home town of Baltimore – The Wire, hailed by many as the greatest television drama of all time. But what keeps him there is his apocalyptic and unrelenting heresy over the failed ‘war on drugs’, the multibillion-dollar worldwide crusade launched by President Richard Nixon in 1971.

“When Simon brought that heresy to London last week – to take part in a debate hosted by the Observer – he was inevitably asked about what reformers celebrate as recent ‘successes’ – votes in Colorado and Washington to legalise marijuana.

“‘I'm against it,’ Simon told his stunned audience at the Royal Institution on Thursday night. ‘The last thing I want to do is rationalise the easiest, the most benign end of this. The whole concept needs to be changed, the debate reframed. I want the thing to fall as one complete edifice. If they manage to let a few white middle-class people off the hook, that's very dangerous. If they can find a way for white kids in middle-class suburbia to get high without them going to jail,’ he continued, ‘and getting them to think that what they do is a million miles away from black kids taking crack, that is what politicians would do.’

“If marijuana were exempted from the war on drugs, he insisted, ‘it'd be another 10 or 40 years of assigning people of colour to this dystopia.’…

“The war is about the disposal of what Simon called, in his most unforgiving but cogent term, ‘excess Americans’: once a labour force, but no longer of use to capitalism. He went so far as to call the war on drugs ‘a holocaust in slow motion’.

“America had fought ‘proxy wars’ across the world for decades, and the war on drugs in Latin America was among them. On the carnage in neighbouring Mexico, he said: ‘If 40,000 Mexicans are dead, we don't give a damn as long as it stays that side of the border – turn northern Mexico into an abattoir, so long as it doesn't get to Tucson. If we can fight to the last Mexican, for a suburban American to send their kid safely to junior high school, we will.’”

6) The most embarrassing graph in American drug policy - “When it comes to drugs, it’s all about prices. The ability to raise prices is– at least is perceived to be–a critical function of drug control policy. Higher prices discourage young people from using. Higher prices encourage adult users to consume less, to quit sooner, or to seek treatment. (Though higher prices can bring short-term problems, too, as drug users turn to crime to finance their increasingly unaffordable habit.)

“An enormous law enforcement effort seeks to raise prices at every point in the supply chain from farmers to end-users: Eradicating coca crops in source countries, hindering access to chemicals required for drug production, interdicting smuggling routes internationally and within our borders, street-level police actions against local dealers.

“That’s why this may be the most embarrassing graph in the history of drug control policy.”



7) 'The Sumatran rainforest will mostly disappear within 20 years' - “In only a few years, logging and agribusiness have cut Indonesia's vast rainforest by half. The government has renewed a moratorium on deforestation but it may already be too late for the endangered animals – and for the people whose lives lie in ruin…

“The end is in sight for the great forests of Sumatra and Borneo and the animals and people who depend on them. Thirty years ago the world's third- and sixth-largest islands were full of tigers, elephants, rhinos, orangutan and exotic birds and plants but in a frenzy of development they have been trashed in a single generation by global agribusiness and pulp and paper industries.

“Their plantations supply Britain and the world with toilet paper, biofuels and vegetable oil to make everyday foods such as margarine, cream cheese and chocolate, but distraught scientists and environmental groups this week warn that one of the 21st century's greatest ecological disasters is rapidly unfolding.”

8) First major hemp crop in 60 years is planted in southeast Colorado - “Springfield farmer Ryan Loflin on Monday planted the nation's first industrial hemp crop in almost 60 years. Loflin's plans to grow hemp already have been chronicled, and Monday's planting attracted the attention of more media in southeastern Colorado and a documentary film crew. Hemp is genetically related to marijuana but contains little or no THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana. Hemp has dozens of uses in food, cosmetics, clothing and industrial materials.

“It’s cultivation in small test plots became legal last year under a Colorado law. The passage of Amendment 64 in November allowed commercial growing, even though hemp, like marijuana, is illegal under federal law. Loflin is planting 60 acres on acreage previously used to grow alfalfa. He and business partner Chris Thompson also are installing a seed press to produce hemp oil. Collaborators in the documentary include the Colorado-based advocacy group Hemp Cleans and hemp-products company Hemp Inc.

“‘This is monumental for our industry,’ said Bruce Perlowin, chief executive of Hemp Inc. ‘It will unlock a clean industrial revolution that will be good for the economy, good for jobs and good for the environment.’”

9) Drop in U.S. underground water levels has accelerated -USGS : “Water levels in U.S. aquifers, the vast underground storage areas tapped for agriculture, energy and human consumption, between 2000 and 2008 dropped at a rate that was almost three times as great as any time during the 20th century…

“The big rise in water use started in 1950, at the time of an economic boom and the spread of U.S. suburbs. However, the steep increase in water use and the drop in groundwater levels that followed World War 2 were eclipsed by the changes during the first years of the 21st century, the study showed.

“As consumers, farms and industry used more water starting in 2000, aquifers were also affected by climate changes, with less rain and snow filtering underground to replenish what was being pumped out, Konikow said in a telephone interview from Reston, Virginia….

“The USGS study looked at 40 different aquifers from 1900 through 2008 and found that the historical average of groundwater depletion - the amount the underground reservoirs lost each year - was 7.5 million acre-feet (9.2 cubic kilometers). From 2000 to 2008, the average was 20.2 million acre-feet (25 cubic kilometers) a year. (An acre-foot is the volume of water needed to cover an acre to the depth of one foot.)”

10) Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust : “The land, known as Section 35, sits atop the High Plains Aquifer, a waterlogged jumble of sand, clay and gravel that begins beneath Wyoming and South Dakota and stretches clear to the Texas Panhandle. The aquifer’s northern reaches still hold enough water in many places to last hundreds of years. But as one heads south, it is increasingly tapped out, drained by ever more intensive farming and, lately, by drought.

“Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers.

“And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

“This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis — decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet.”

11) Canada Sells Out Science : “Over the past few years, the Canadian government has been lurching into antiscience territory. For example, they’ve been muzzling scientists, essentially censoring them from talking about their research. Scientists have fought back against this, though from what I hear with limited success.

“But a new development makes the situation appear to be far worse. In a stunning announcement, the National Research Council—the Canadian scientific research and development agency—has now said that they will only perform research that has ‘social or economic gain’….

“John MacDougal, President of the NRC, literally said, ‘Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value’*. Gary Goodyear, the Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology, also stated ‘There is [sic] only two reasons why we do science and technology. First is to create knowledge ... second is to use that knowledge for social and economic benefit. Unfortunately, all too often the knowledge gained is opportunity lost.’…

“This is monumentally backwards thinking. That is not the reason we do science. Economic benefits are results of doing research, but should not be the reason we do it. Basic scientific research is a vast endeavor, and some of it will pay off economically, and some won’t. In almost every case, you cannot know in advance which will do which.

“In the 19th century, for example, James Clerk Maxwell was just interested in understanding electricity and magnetism. He didn’t do it for monetary benefit, to support a business, or to maximize a profit. Yet his research led to the foundation of our entire economy today. Computers, the Internet, communication, satellites, everything you plug in or that uses a battery, stem from the work he did simply because of his own curiosity. This is the sort of research that the NRC is now moving away from†. The kind of work Maxwell did then is very difficult to do without support these days, and we need governments to provide that help.”

12) Noam Chomsky on Democracy and Education in the 21st Century and Beyond : “So a lot of public education was, in fact, concerned with trying to teach independent people to become workers in an industrial system. And there was more to it than that. Actually, Ralph Waldo Emerson commented on it. He said something like this: he hears a lot of political leaders saying that we have to have mass public education. And the reason is that millions of people are getting the vote, and we have to educate them to keep them from our throats. In other words, we have to train them in obedience and servility, so they're not going to think through the way the world works and come after our throats….

“The economy was sharply modified and went through a liberal period, with radical inequality, stagnation, financial institutions, all that stuff. Student debt started to skyrocket, which is quite important. But that's a technique of indoctrination in itself. It's never been studied. Important things usually never get studied; it's just putting together the bits of information about it. One can at least be suspicious that skyrocketing student debt is a device of indoctrination. It's very hard to imagine that there's any economic reason for it.”

13) Nonmetro Areas as a Whole Experience First Period of Population Loss : “The number of people living in nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) counties now stands at 46.2 million--15 percent of U.S. residents spread across 72 percent of the land area of the U.S.* Population growth rates in nonmetro areas have been lower than those in metro areas since the mid-1990s, and the gap widened considerably in recent years. While nonmetro areas in some parts of the country have experienced population loss for decades, nonmetro counties as a whole gained population every year for which county population estimates are available--until recently. Between April 2010 and July 2012, nonmetro counties declined in total population by 44,000 people, a -0.09-percent drop according to the most recent release of annual county population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. County population change includes two major components: natural change (births minus deaths, also available separately) and net migration (inmigrants minus outmigrants). Nonmetro population loss during 2010-12 reflects natural increase of 135,000 offset by net outmigration of -179,000.”

14) Behind the Rise in House Prices, Wall Street Buyers : “The last time the housing market was this hot in Phoenix and Las Vegas, the buyers pushing up prices were mostly small time. Nowadays, they are big time — Wall Street big.

“Large investment firms have spent billions of dollars over the last year buying homes in some of the nation’s most depressed markets. The influx has been so great, and the resulting price gains so big, that ordinary buyers are feeling squeezed out. Some are already wondering if prices will slump anew if the big money stops flowing….

“Blackstone, which helped define a period of Wall Street hyperwealth, has bought some 26,000 homes in nine states. Colony Capital, a Los Angeles-based investment firm, is spending $250 million each month and already owns 10,000 properties. With little fanfare, these and other financial companies have become significant landlords on Main Street. Most of the firms are renting out the homes, with the possibility of unloading them at a profit when prices rise far enough.”

15) The Real Numbers: Half of America in Poverty -- and It's Creeping Upward : “The Census Bureau has reported that 15% of Americans live in poverty. A shocking figure. But it's actually much worse. Inequality is spreading like a shadowy disease through our country, infecting more and more households, and leaving a shrinking number of financially secure families to maintain the charade of prosperity….

“Since the recession, the disparities have continued to grow. An OECD report states that ‘inequality has increased by more over the past three years to the end of 2010 than in the previous twelve,’ with the U.S. experiencing one of the widest gaps among OECD countries. The 30-year decline in wages has worsened since the recession, as low-wage jobs have replaced formerly secure middle-income positions….

“Even the Census Bureau recognizes that its own figures under-represent the number of people in poverty. Its Supplemental Poverty Measure increases, by 50%, the number of Americans who earn between one-half and two times the poverty threshold….

“The median debt level rose to $75,600 in 2009, while the median family net worth, according to the Federal Reserve, dropped from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010…. Inequality is at its ugliest for the hungriest people. While food support was being targeted for cuts, just 20 rich Americans made as much from their 2012 investments as the entire 2012 SNAP (food assistance) budget, which serves 47 million people.

“And as Congress continues to cut life-sustaining programs, its members should note that their 400 friends on the Forbes list made more from their stock market gains last year than the total amount of the food, housing, and education budgets combined.”

16) Central Banks May Finally Be Losing Control : “Why are stocks, bonds, and commodities all selling off at the same time? Ever since the release of the April employment report on May 3 – which came in better than the market expected, as evidenced by the big sell-off in U.S. Treasuries that ensued – all anyone has been talking about is the dreaded ‘taper.’

“Because the Federal Reserve is by far the biggest player in the Treasury market, the concern is that when it makes the eventual decision to taper back the pace of the bond purchases it makes under its open-ended quantitative easing program, markets could destabilize as a result.

“And thanks to the Fed's introduction of the historic Evans rule in December, which ties the timetable for reversing monetary stimulus directly to numerical thresholds for unemployment and inflation, the Treasury market has become increasingly more sensitive to economic data releases in 2013. When labor market releases like the employment report bear a positive surprise, bonds tend to get crushed….

“‘In our mind, the single most important accomplishment of the Fed over the past four years is having engineered a dramatic decline in the volatility of long-term interest rates,’ says BofA Merrill Lynch Head of Global Rates & Currencies Research David Woo. Now, that's all changing. Are central bankers finally starting to lose control of their most powerful policy instrument, the long-term interest rate?”

17) Spend or be financially doomed: Idolizing the gods of consumption and stoking the fires of debt based speculation. Has the Fed crossed the line of no return?: “The Federal Reserve has created the perfect environment where savers are chastised and debt based spending is glorified. Our economic engine is powered by the fires of consumption. This has been true for many decades. What is different about our current space in time is the punishment savers are taking. Many banks through savings or even CDs offer rates that are hovering around the zero percent mark. Add in inflation of about three percent and you are actually losing money. The system is designed to punish any sort of conservative saving. The stock market continues to move up but it clear that most Americans simply do not have the funds to participate in this party. The current financial environment is really a perfect brew of punishing savers and encouraging debt based consumption. Will the elixir work this time around?”

18) The Vicious New Bank Shakedown That Could Seriously Ruin Your Life : “Here’s the skinny: After widespread outrage over the big banks’ last crime wave against the American consumer – the ‘robo-signing’ scam in which homeowners were hustled out of their houses by banks that sent fraudulent paperwork through the courts, they are at it again. This time, banksters are accused of helping debt collectors pursue faulty judgments against credit card customers by various dirty tricks that include – surprise! – robo-signing….

“Another nasty trick Chase is accused of deploying is what’s known, appropriately, as ‘sewer service.’ This means that Chase failed to properly serve notice of debt collection lawsuits against consumers (it dumped the notices ‘in the sewer’), but then lied and said it did. This means, you, as a consumer, have no idea that a lawsuit has been launched against you. So here’s what happens: you get a default judgment that automatically favors the debt collector. The credit card company can then garnish your wages or freeze your bank account to get the money it says you owe. And you might not even owe it! Banks are sometimes chasing down consumers who have already paid their debts. Other times they are jacking up the size of the debts by adding bogus fees and interest costs….

“Last summer, a civil court judge in Brooklyn who presides over as many as 100 credit card cases a day told the New York Times that a whopping 90 percent of the credit card lawsuits that came across his desk were flawed and could not prove that a person owed the debt. Here’s the kicker: The errors in credit card suits often go undetected because the borrowers usually don’t show up in court to defend themselves (how can they, if they don’t know the suit has been filed?). As a result, an estimated 95 percent of lawsuits result in default judgments in favor of lenders.”

19) State-Wrecked: The Corruption of Capitalism in America: “Since the S.&P. 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the “bottom” 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans.

“So the Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble.”

20) We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists : “What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It’s hunger, plain and simple. If there’s a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it’s food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense.

“In a 2011 paper, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011 crashed when they did. The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest….

“CSI doesn’t claim that any breach of 210 immediately leads to riots, obviously; just that the probability that riots will erupt grows much greater. For billions of people around the world, food comprises up to 80% of routine expenses (for rich-world people like you and I, it’s like 15%). When prices jump, people can’t afford anything else; or even food itself. And if you can’t eat—or worse, your family can’t eat—you fight…. Even before the extreme weather scrambled food prices this year, their 2011 report predicted that the next great breach would occur in August 2013, and that the risk of more worldwide rioting would follow.”

21) Brazilian Protests: Could It Happen Here? : “‘Bread and circuses’ were the means by which ancient Rome's elite diverted the attention of ordinary citizens from the corruption and folly that eventually destroyed the Republic. Throughout history, self-proclaimed democratic leaders have pursued variations on this theme to placate, rather than empower, the people. The protests that have rocked Brazil these past two weeks suggest that treating the people like children has its limits.

“Like so many Western left-of-center governments, the Workers Party of Brazil came to power via a Faustian bargain with the country's upper class. The party gave up its demand for radical change and big business agreed to tolerate some greater equality as long as the rich kept their economic privileges. The deal was cemented in place by accelerated economic growth. As a result, over the last ten years the average Brazilian, including the poor, enjoyed higher living standards, i.e., more Bread.

“But the risk to elites of such bargains is the danger that ordinary people will start taking democracy seriously and demand more than the meager share allotted to them by the governing class. Therefore, to take their minds off continuing injustice, incompetence and corruption: the need for Circuses.

“In Roman times, people were entertained with chariot racing, gladiators fighting to the death, and Christians being thrown to lions. In modern Brazil, the public passion is soccer. So the government poured $14 billion into preparations for the 2014 World Cup. It is also financing more sports arenas for hosting the 2016 Olympics, and still more for an extravagant celebration for the pope's visit this summer. Spending on these public spectacles has a double political payoff; it channels profits to business supporters and it pumps up national pride in the country's apparent emergence as a world power. At the same time, other public needs -- schools, hospitals, public transportation -- were neglected. Until now, it worked.”

Live poll on Brazilian protests goes wrong

Monday, June 24, 2013

Some Not-So-Random Sound Bites

U.S. Government caught spraying biological agents on poor Americans



Crap Cannon: Israel sprays putrid liquid to control West Bank crowd

More footage: Israeli security forces spray 'Skunk' at Palestinian homes

Bill Maher shredded by Glenn Greenwald on US intervention in Muslim countries

More on Bill Maher: Bill Maher Democrat Lackey

Sudbury Valley School

More: Sudbury Valley School - Focus and Intensity

Amazing 9 year old Asean Johnson brings the crowd to their feet at Chicago school closings rally

Interview: Interview with 9 yr. old Asean Johnson on Chicago school closings

Dr. David Suzuki on the environment and the economy



Actual US Poverty Twice Official Figure



George Orwell - A Final Warning



Patti Smith: Advice to the young



Patrick Stewart Gives Passionate Response to Question At Comicpalooza 2013



Fmr. intelligence agent says NSA are lying, storing ALL CONTENT of calls/emails indefinitely



Glenn Greenwald Slams Snowden Espionage Charges: 'Vindictive Mentality' From Obama Administration



Exclusive Video: WikiLeaks Lawyer Confirms Snowden Lands In Russia; Seeks Asylum in Unnamed Country

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Some Primary Lessons from Some Amazing Teachers

Our personal perspective is a reflection of our influences, i.e., in large part we are a byproduct of our environment and lessons learned from influential teachers, which is why my About Page contains a list of some prominent teachers that I have had the good fortune to stumble upon.

Considering the vast body of work that is represented in this list, I thought it would be a good exercise to try and share at least one primary lesson from each teacher. Below you will find teachings shared by fifteen of those on the list. More will follow, but for now, here is what I have learned from:
I. Terence McKenna: The word “mine” has been the primary destructive force in society as it relates to raising children and building communities.

II. Bill Hicks: “You know what’s wild? You never see a positive drug story on the news, do you? You ever seen one? Isn’t that weird; don’t you think that’s strange? I mean, the news is supposed to be objective. Isn’t it supposed to be The News? But every drug story is Negative?!? Well, hold it! I've had some killer times on drugs! I'm not promoting it, but I'm not denying it. Let’s hear the whole fucking story!” Bill Hicks, “Sane man”, 1989, 25:06.

Bill Hicks ★ Sane Man ★ 1989



III. Alan Watts: Relax. Enjoy it, and don’t let the little things bother you. Note: this is also one of the primary teachings of Bill Hicks: “It’s Just a Ride”.

IV. Amy Goodman: Learn to collaborate with like-minded people.

V. Bradley Manning: Tell the truth.

VI. Robert Anton Wilson: The universe is indifferent, it’s not out to get you, and if it is, there isn’t a hell of a lot you can do about it anyway, so take it easy.

Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything Part 1 - Life And Times Of RAW



VII. Wilhelm Reich: Most of society’s ills are due to sexual repression.

VIII. Nikola Tesla: If we are able to change the way we conduct business and record and recognize wealth, in essence, redefine our definition of profit, then we may be able to live sustainably. Until then we will be ruled by banks.

IX. Noam Chomsky: Know your fucking history!

Vietnam War: What really happened



X. Nina Simone: Don’t mince words, mean what you say and say what you mean. As well, create a vast library that spans your life which people can reflect upon for generations to come.

XI. Chris Hedges: Do the right thing.

XII. Benny Hill: Appreciate the hilarity of absurdity.

Benny Hill- Funny old world



XIII. Dave Allen: Develop a fondness for the absurdity of comedy.

Dave Allen on Death (funeral sketch)



XIV. Jiddu Krishnamurti: What’s missing from education is true love. Excerpt from “Education and The Significance of Life” (pdf) follows:
“Only love can bring about the understanding of another. Where there is love there is instantaneous communion with the other, on the same level and at the same time. It is because we ourselves are so dry, empty and without love that we have allowed governments and systems to take over the education of our children and the direction of our lives; but governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments - and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.”
XV. Howard Zinn: All wars are class wars, so there is never a need for war, only insurrection. Please note, the audio glitch in the following video improves within a few minutes.

Howard Zinn: Myths of the Good Wars (Three 'Holy' Wars)

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Three lectures for our time: Philip Zimbardo, Jacob Appelbaum, Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, and William Binney

The following lectures by Philip Zimbardo, Jacob Appelbaum, Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Andrews Drake, and William Binney are well worth the time. They provide an excellent summery of what ails our society, as it relates to atrocities and privacy.

Journey From the Psychology of Evil to the Psychology of Heroism



Jacob Appelbaum 29C3 Keynote: Not My Department



29C3 Panel: Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, William Binney on whistleblowing and surveillance

Q&A at: Enemies of the State [29C3]

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Anomalies, Prisons, and Geophysics: How Governments Use Data and How to Stop Them



Note: Considering the information that was revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden regarding NSA’s PRISM surveillance program, I thought it would be appropriate to repost the following article I wrote in 2006 (original site, previous site, and updated with relevant videos in 2012). Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill’s video interview with Edward Snowden has been added to the piece.

A common definition of an anomaly is "a deviation from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form." This definition, however, can be simplified by stating that an anomaly is a deviation from specific parameters. The defining characteristic of an anomaly is that it can only exist in a comparative setting, implying that it can only be detected within a certain data set. Once a data set is obtained then parameters can be specified to filter out so called anomalies for evaluation. Depending on the type of data collected, these parameters can be specified to be anything occurring in any combination. If there is no data set, then there are no anomalies.

A prison can be defined as "a place of seeming confinement." It is a place to incarcerate people who have lawfully or unlawfully stepped outside the parameters set in their society. This implies that inmates are anomalies within a community. However, these anomalies, unlike eccentrics and aristocrats, are deemed to be a threat to the establishment or the citizenry. Hence prisons are locations where we hold anomalies that we fear.

Geophysics is "the scientific study of the physical characteristics of the Earth, including its hydrosphere and atmosphere, and of the Earth's relationship to the rest of the universe." Equipment is used to collect and interpret data from our surrounding world and, if required, to locate anomalies within a region. User defined parameters needed to find anomalies are usually inputted into computer programs, which extrapolate data providing a detailed representation of a situation. As long as there is sufficient computer processing speed, good data, and a competent interpreter, anomalies can be flagged. In general, the more data acquired the better the controls of an investigation.

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance


Part 2

It should also be understood that anyone involved in a geophysical investigation, from the data collector to the interpreter, can create anomalies at will, anywhere at any time, either deliberately or erroneously. It is relatively easy to change certain parameters to obtain the anomalies that are desired. The isolation and/or extermination of any number, such as 2 or -5 or 600, can be achieved by running filters through a data set. In most cases, to compensate for any errors in data collection and to assure that the desired number is isolated, the number will be flanked. For example, to isolate the number 2, any number between 1.5 and 2.4 will be flagged. This will assure that any number that might be confused as a 2, or has the possibility of becoming a 2, will be removed from the community.



In the last few years certain governments around the world have passed laws to legalize the merging and collection of data for their populations. From credit card information, to medical records, to travel destinations and phone calls, it is all being recorded, tabulated and interpreted. Parameters are being set to flag people as anomalies who have stepped outside of specified boundaries. Those deemed to be existing outside of the limits set by the controllers are investigated, and in some cases removed from the community. The interpreters are so confident in their collection and evaluation of the data that they are passing laws to assure that those deemed to be a threat are unable to question their investigation or incarceration. Since most anomalies occur in batches, laws have also been passed to allow the controllers to have the ability to extrapolate information from captured anomalies by any means necessary, including torture. These laws will also protect government and private organizations by granting them immunity from prosecution.



At present the parameters set by those involved in these investigations are narrow enough to allow the general public to feel relatively free. However, as time progresses and fewer anomalies are identified, broader parameters will be used in the analysis of the data to assure that no one will accidentally turn into an anomaly. Anyone associated with or related to an anomaly will find their private and public life scrutinized to convince the investigators that they have not been influenced or misdirected due to their close proximity to an anomaly. Fear of certain anomalies, justified or not, will become a prison for most of these societies and fascism the end result.



It is extremely important for us as a population to fully comprehend the power that this sort of broad data collection gives our governments. Those who control and interpret the data will have the ability to not only remove unwanted people, but also to restrict the movement of the entire populace. For example, it is relatively easy to place a location marker on all credit and bank cards, which when activated, will only allow the cards to be used within a certain area. If governments decide to restrict travel, then all they need to do is activate the location markers to restrict the use of financial activity to within a certain distance of a residence, creating a jail without physical walls. When this scenario is carried out, special permission will need to be obtained for anyone travelling outside of their zone.

Exposed: Inside the NSA’s Largest and Most Expansive Secret Domestic Spy Center in Bluffdale, Utah



There are numerous ways to gain freedom from these organizations whose purpose is to identify, isolate, incarcerate, eliminate, and even exterminate what they deem to be undesirable elements from society. The machine running these filtration programs can be halted if people stop providing governments and corporations with data. Reducing the number of transactions that are automatically fed into the databases will produce gaps and uncertainties in the data set, creating erroneous interpretation. If enough errors are made, a population loses confidence in the controllers and the system should correct itself. Providing these organizations with large quantities of false or distorted data can also reduce the efficiency of their system. Other methods may include the retraining of law enforcement officers, using cash whenever possible, disassociation and/or protection from insecure electronic activity, and private inquiry into the reasons for government acquisition of personal data. It is very important to grasp the concept that if there is no data set, then there are no anomalies.



The best way, however, to stop these entities is to make fundamental changes to the system itself. This requires us to be educated in the methods in which we are controlled, allowing us to understand the problems that exist in the current system so we can avoid its pitfalls. Placement at the highest levels of government of ethical civil servants that are accountable to the people and regard the privacy of individuals as the most important aspect of their duties is an essential starting point. It is crucial that during this transitional period alternative choices for leaders are present to avoid a power vacuum. By decentralizing our government and localizing our communities we can avert chaos during this process.

Edward Snowden, NSA files source, PRISM whistleblower: 'If they want to get you, in time they will'


Link to video, PRISM (surveillance program)

As a collective we must understand that democracy can only exist in a society with an educated populace, and the right for self-governance can only be obtained through knowledge. When a society embraces ignorance and forfeits its right to control its destiny, it has succumbed to apathy and can only deteriorate. In science, the analysis of anomalies contributes to our understanding of the physical world, improving our lives. In contrast, identifying anomalies in our society based on political doctrine has created fear and misunderstanding, restricting our lives. The lack of accountability from our leaders and our indifference to the consequences of their actions is diminishing our civil liberties. But it is not too late, we can prevent this from happening. We still have the ability to reclaim our future if we begin to educate ourselves.


Constitution and Civil liberties in the United States

Friday, June 7, 2013

Breaking the Master Cleanse with Brazilian Cubensis and Salvia Divinorum


Note: Below you will find a 2006 trip report that I had available on my previous site. It belongs here as well. The piece is also available on Erowid and the Shroomery. This piece is also mirrored on Substack.

UPDATE: Reading of this trip report on BitChute, Rumble, Odysee and CensorTube.

Purpose: The procedure for this exercise was to fast and cleanse the body for three days and then break the fast with Brazilian Cubensis and dried Salvia Divinorum leaf. The objective was to amplify the psychedelic experience through the fast and by combining both psychoactive entities.

Brief Introduction: I was first introduced to Salvia Divinorum in the spring of 2000 and entered her realm with my second session, falling in love immediately. From that moment on I dedicated my life to her teachings and consumed her on a daily basis for over a year. It took me an additional two-years to be able to process the information from that period. Two of the main lessons that I learned from that time, which are relevant for understanding this journey are: First, to truly know Salvia, is to understand the power and the knowledge that comes from brewing and drinking the tea. Second, is that fear is a self-manifestation and is as powerful as we choose it to be. The intensity of Salvia can be summed up in the following phrase: There are times in our journey through this existence when certain events change our lives forever and set us on paths that we could never have imagined, Salvia takes all those moments and makes them seem completely irrelevant.

The Master Cleanse: The Master Cleanse is a fast in which only a lemonade drink is consumed while a sea-salt flush is conducted as a morning ritual to purge the body. The drink is made from grade B maple syrup, fresh squeezed lemon juice, cayenne peppers, and distilled water. The Cleanse is usually done for a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 40 days. Three of the main lessons that I have learned from the cleanse are that we consume much more food than what our body requires, that once the body is starved it becomes efficient at absorbing everything that we consumes, and that food is energy in the form of matter.

Brazilian Cubensis: I was able to obtain a few grams of a recent crop, harvested and dried within the previous month. I weighed out 2 three-gram batches. Just in case I needed the trip to be more intense I would eat the second batch, but I was only going to initially start with 3 grams. My experience with magic mushrooms ranges from consuming low doses for amplification of daily activities to a maximum dosage of 7 grams for personal journeys.

Salvia Divinorum: My Salvia supply comes from Oaxaca, Mexico. My continual exposure to Salvia over the last few years has allowed me to become receptive to the dried leaf; hence no extract was used during this exercise. 42 grams (1.5 ounces) of dried Salvia were used with 10 cups of water to produce 6 cups of concentrated tea. The water was brought to a boil for 20 minutes and then put on simmer for an additional hour and forty minutes, for a total brewing time of 2 hours. Only half a cup was consumed during this journey. In addition, Salvia leaf was rolled into two joints, and a glass water bong was used with one bowl of dried leaf.

Materials and Supplies: An apple was peeled and cut into wedges to be eaten with the Mushrooms. Additional fruit and some dates were laid out. Two Salvia joints and two marijuana joints rolled. A glass water bong, Blazer micro torch, 3 cups of Salvia tea, Master Cleanse lemonade, water, 2 three-gram piles of Brazilian Cubensis, journal with pen, and additional dried Salvia leaf were placed on a floor table for easy access during the trip. Candles were lit and all lights turned off.

Procedure: It was now exactly 3 days since I had last eaten. I put on some music and drank some Salvia tea, making sure to whoosh the tea in my mouth, allowing her to be absorbed into my system. I ate 3 grams of the Brazilian Cubensis with some peeled apple wedges. It was 9:00 PM on May 17 2006, approximately one hour before complete darkness.

The Experience: The following is what I was able to enter into the computer at approximately 2:30 AM, 5.5 hours after consuming the mushrooms. The only editing done to the write up are corrections to spelling mistakes and the addition of a few words and punctuation’s to assure coherency. I was also able to document this journey in 12.5 pages of my journal almost immediately after returning. Those pages will be provided at a later date. What I wrote in the journal was not reviewed while writing this article. The following is the "raw" version of what I was able to recall and explain in continuous writing mode from 2:30 AM until approximately 3:15 AM:
Had to get some rest so went to bed. Got up restless and fidgety, extremely tired but can’t sleep. I want morning to come. I want dawn to come but I know its hours away. Was trying to go through what happened in my head so that I could write it down. Extremely tired. Starting this at around 2:30 AM.

I put on some Ben Harper, since I’m going to see him soon, I figured it would be good to spend some time with him before the mushrooms kicked it. I also queued up some Klaus Schulze just in case I felt like music later. I took a few sips from the Salvia tea, whooshed it around my mouth then swallowed. Wanted the Salvia presence in me first, wanted to break my fast with Salvia. Then I ate 3 grams of Brazilian Cubensis with a couple of wedges of peeled apples. Then drank a little of the master cleanse drink and a little water.

I wrote in my journal a little bit, documenting what I was doing. I stretched a little, and walked around getting things ready. I was more fidgety then anything, just waiting. I knew this was going to be intense, or at least I was going to make it as intense as I could, trying to test my limits for now. Thought I was pretty ready, or as ready as I could be.

Initially I felt the Salvia realm creeping in slowly the way only the tea can do. Then I felt the mushrooms. Very gentle rise with the mushroom yawn indicating a faster pace to come. I decided I needed to be completely alone so I turned off both my computers, locked my door, turned off the stereo and two of the candles. The other two candles I put in red candleholders to reduce the light.

The shrooms were starting to kick in harder now, so I took a few more sips of Salvia and laid back. It was beautiful. The images were coming in fast and clear, with everything connecting. The visuals are better than any dream, any movie, and piece of art or music or equation that I have ever seen or heard of. And it all makes sense. I would take a break from the visuals every few minutes and write a little in my journal and take a few sips of Salvia.

About one and a half-hour after taking the mushrooms I decided that I needed a little more than tea so I started to smoke a Salvia joint. I took a few puffs and enjoyed every inhale. She was inviting me and saying hello again. She knew I had also taken mushrooms and wanted to play harder. I was hesitant. It was not really my intention to hit the bong tonight. I wanted to enjoy the tea and a little gentle smoke. However I had set up the bong just in case.

She continued to call me for a full encounter while I took a few more puffs from the joint. I realized that I had no choice. I wanted an intense experience and she was telling me that the bong was the only way. So I loaded it up and took a couple of small drags. Beautiful, I could feel her coming on slowly so I took another small hit and waited. The tingling was there; the depth of the material surrounding me was changing. But she wanted me to push it further so I took the torch and hit the bong hard. Took one huge inhale, as deep as I could, and let it out slowly. Yap she was coming in hard. The bowl was still lit so I took the torch and hit it as hard as I could, and took her in as deep as I could. I set the bong down and slowly let out the smoke. I knew I was about to go where I wanted to go and where she was calling me. I laid down and rolled over to my left shoulder and turned my back to the candle and the bong. I was seeking darkness; I didn’t even want the external stimulus of the candlelight to interfere. She was hitting me hard and like a child I turned and looked at the bong over my right shoulder and in my mind asked her if this is what she wanted. She seemed happy and I was starting to worry that I might have pushed a little too hard but there was no way of turning back now so I turned around again and went for it.

The boundary came in at my chest. It was intense. It was just a touch but it blew me away. She absorbed my chest and went towards my stomach and consumed my neck. The front part of my torso was now immersed.

The visuals were just patterns at first and then slowly a realm started to form. Initially it looked like a carpet but then I realized it was a landscape. I was looking over a field thousands of feet above the ground. She wanted me to dive in. To let go. I began to feel terrified. My mind was working clearly and I knew what I needed to do to set my mind at ease so I opened my eyes for a fraction of a second and realized I was okay. Time to go back, so I closed my eyes before I drifted to another realm.

The realm was still there and the boundary exactly where it was before. I didn’t interrupt it. Good. The boundary pushed further. I felt my stomach adjust. This was an actual physical occurrence, not in the mind. My stomach adjusted when it immersed further into the realm hundreds of feet in the air, or so it appeared. I got scared again and wanted to move but didn’t. The head immersed into the realm. The boundary was now at my third eye and all the way to my lower stomach. The front part of my torso and my arms were now in the realm. I could feel the wind on my face. I had to let go if I wanted to play but I got scared. I moved just to make sure I was still okay. Something changed. Salvia didn’t like it. I shouldn’t have moved, I showed fear and fear she hates. She taught me a long time ago not to fear, that fear was all in the mind and part of the training, part of the brainwashing. But I had forgotten. The fast had intensified the experience beyond what I recalled.

I rolled over to my back and tried to go back but it was too late. If the material was what I was going to hold on too then the material she would show me. The vision turned dark. Went into a room that was lit with a dark green gray light. She pushed me into a corner almost immediately. If a bird’s eye was too much for me then she was going to show me a dark corner. I knew I made a mistake when I moved but I had no choice now, I had to go. I kept my eyes closed and followed. From the corner, dirty red tentacles emerged. An alien of sorts but it was more like entrails. It kept on coming out and I kept on going in. I was now surrounded and consumed by this hellish dark red tentacle world. There were mouths with spiked teeth, horned shaped, fighting with the tentacles for nothing. They were just pulsating and moving inside each other. I thought I was in hell, if there was a physical hell then this would be it. Then it hit me, the fear decreased.

That was it, she was showing me the physical, the material. If this is what I wanted to hold on too then this is what it could be. I realized that I was here of my own doing so I tried to go through it. I knew there was something beyond this. Slowly I could see past the creatures. There was another realm. They started to fade. She realized that it had been a while and I had forgotten. I tried to work my way through while she pulled me closer, but I was too exhausted. I was too tired. Physically I was spent and mentally I was disappointed that I didn’t let go when she called. I opened my eyes and moved.

The Salvia hit from the bong was dissipating and I didn’t have the energy to take another hit. I knew that this was the max I could do tonight. I was disappointed but also relieved. Now it was time to come down. I was still extremely high but needed to ground, so I reached for my journal and started writing. I have no idea how I was able to do this while being so high. I guess compared to where I was a few moments ago this seemed pretty normal and functional. Funny how things are so relative. I wrote over 12 pages in my journal. Explaining the journey as best as I could under the circumstances.

Over the next hour I lit another candle, turned on a red light, turned on one of the computers, put on music and slowly came back while writing and thinking and tried to figure where I went wrong and why I didn’t let go. I realized that I didn’t go wrong, it was the way it was meant to be. I had to remember how intense She was and where I wanted to go with this. Had to remember that this is about total commitment and understand that there is no turning back when she calls. It is impossible to have one foot in the material world and one foot in her realm and understand her completely. Guess that’s why I fell in love with her in the first place. And wow, is she ever intense. I had totally forgotten that she had shattered all my fears before by making them seem so childish. I had forgotten what true fear was. She can truly amplify whatever she wants and if it's fear that we have, then fear she shows. The problem, or the beauty, however way you want to look at it, is that she can take us beyond our wildest dreams. Beyond what we could possibly imagine, so in essence making our fears seen childish. Simply beautiful.

Summary: The experience was beyond what I expected. It has been approximately two years since I had even come close to reaching this level. I had forgotten how intense the journey becomes, and how fragile the boundary is during the transition period. Any hesitation and the trip can turn on you and take you to a completely different realm. The fear I felt shock me to my core, which could be what I needed. I was not only seeing the creatures but also feeling and breathing them. I was immersed in them, part of them. I should have shown more respect and not allowed my ego to try to maintain control. I should have trusted. Next time I will try and get a sitter. This should set my mind at ease so I don’t have as much holding me back to the material world.

Additional Notes:
  1. I started experimenting with Salvia tea after the first 3 months of my introduction to Salvia. In my research during this period I came across a few articles that mentioned how inefficient the Shaman were in their rituals when using Salvia, which I thought was quite ignorant of our Western mentality. Most of these articles would then expand on the use of potent extracts and tinctures for amplifying the Salvia experience. That’s when I began to make my own extracts and realized that I was taking something that nature had provided and adding toxic chemicals to make it more potent, which really didn’t make sense. The final straw was when I re-read D.M. Turner’s "Salvinorin: The Psychedelic Essence of Salvia Divinorum". In this book he stated that pure Salvidorun A was too powerful, which gave me warning signs. I realized that the purifying process was probably taking away essential information. That’s when I started introducing Salvia tea into my rituals and slowly began to include the tea in my mushroom journeys. The experience and information elevated Salvia to levels that I had not expected, in essence amplifying both realms.

  2. This was my second time doing a three day Master Cleanse. The first time the experience seemed more intense, which could have been due to the fact that during that period my body was much more toxic. The first time I broke the fast at a Middle Eastern restaurant eating humus, kebabs and a number of other tapa dishes while drinking Double Beautifuls (Grand Marnier and Cognac). I was going to break the fast slowly but I found the sensation of the food, the alcohol, and the sugar absorbing into my system and pumping through my veins simply amazing and thus ended up consuming to a dizzying level. This experience is the reason why I decided to do the Master Cleanse this time, and break it with a mushroom trip amplified with Salvia. I knew it was going to be extremely intense if I did it right.

  3. Two years ago I was informed through Salvia and mushroom journeys that I needed to become physically more fit to be able to continue with my experiments and go beyond my experiences, pushing past certain boundaries. Taking the advice to heart, I have been in extensive training mode for the last year and have built up my strength as well as my cardio. The most important thing that I have done physically and mentally is improve my balance, allowing me to feel comfortable in letting go of my material world. Or so I thought.

chycho May 2006

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

World War III began in May 2006: Building the New Map of the Middle East in Real Time


I. Beginnings of Conflicts


Usually there are disagreements as to the exact dates of beginnings of conflicts, especially when those conflicts are global.

The beginnings of wars are often hard to identify. Which act lit the spark on the tinderbox? Which straw was the final one? Like peak oil itself, the beginnings of war are often visible only in retrospect.”

For example, some would argue that World War II began in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. Others would pick the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, or maybe even the 1933 Reichstag Fire. The only consensus regarding World War II is that it was devastating.

As for World War III, some believe that it was the Cold War and that we are in the beginning stages of World War IV. They believe that it started with the invasion of Iraq, and will be completely realized when the United States and Israel begin their attack on Iran and Syria (1, 2).

Some reference the confrontation between Israel and Palestine at the turn of the century as the start. Others state that the First Gulf War was the “opening guns of World War III”, while some declare that “the most significant feature of this New World Order/World War III is that the target of war is no longer so much a state institution as it is the citizenry of states. Since this majority is working class, World War III is really a war upon the working class, designed to increase the rate of its economic exploitation.”

There is even a belief that the root cause is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which is “creating worldwide tensions similar to the standoff before the Second World War.”

Others, specifically, Miles Copeland, Jr. who was one of the founding members of the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), predicted in 1989 that World War III would begin when the United States and Israel get duped by Russia into starting a self-destructive war - referred to as a crusade by some - with the Muslim world:
But even with the help of the Israelis - especially with the help of the Israelis! - we couldn't defeat the Iranians, the 'Arabs', the world of Islam or the whole Third World if it should turn against us. We [the CIA] have reason to believe that Soviet strategists well understand this, and that the Third World War that they envision will be one of ourselves against shapeless forces of the Third World, with Soviet Russia ostensibly aloof from it...The U.S Government was sinking into exactly the dilemma that best suited the purposes of Moscow's Leninists as they've begun to blossom under Gorbachev. In materials easily available to the U.S government without recourse to espionage, they had made it clear enough that in their version of the Third World War the United States would be forced into a variety of situations in which it would feel compelled to play the role of a powerful nation but, for all the world to see on it television sets, it would in fact, be powerless." The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative, London: Aurum Press, 1989
click to enlarge - source

II. Start of World War III


Whichever truth you choose to believe, since they are all relevant and valid in their own right, the fact is that according to the mainstream media, World War III (or IV) has already begun.

Considering that the players involved in starting this war are so conveniently, on our behalf, declaring that World War III (or IV) has already started, I thought it would be a good idea to narrow the timeline and pick a date which will be marked as the commencement of the demise of our civilization.

So when exactly did World War III start?

In early May of 2006, the president of the United States, George W Bush, the commander in chief of the United States Military, stated that 2001 was the beginning of World War III. His remarks were confirmed by Dan Gillerman, at the time Israel's UN Ambassador, when he also acknowledged during a routine UN Security Council meeting on 30 May 2006 that World War III had already begun. Many consider these two statements from two of the main nuclear powers in the world to be the declaration of War, indicating that World War III has already started.

So even though 11 September 2001 is the key to understanding why this conflict has begun, and considered by the United States to be the event that triggered World War III, I believe that May 2006 is really the beginning of this global conflict. This is when the two major parties, who each individually is capable of starting World War III, declared war.

III. Map of the New Middle East


As to what the objective of this war is for some of its conspirators? The most likely purpose is twofold: to create the New Map of the Middle East, and to maintain the status quo of Western economic dominance over global financial markets. A lot more on the economics of war later, for now, let’s focus on the new map of the Middle East.

The boundaries of countries were redrawn after World War I and World War II (1, 2), and that is exactly what the end resulted will be once the dust settles after this world war.

What is happening right now is very likely related to US plans to create a New Middle East, the plans for which were revealed in 2006 by retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. The map, presented below, with the redrawn borders of the Middle East, indicates that Turkey would lose a large portion of its territory while Iraq would be split into three autonomous regions. This map also shows plans to partition Pakistan and reduce Iran’s territory, along with numerous other imperial agendas.

Present Middle East

click map to enlarge

New Middle East

click map to enlarge - source

Gen. Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned, 7 Countries In 5 Years



IV. The Human Toll


As to the human toll of this global war, a conservative estimate of how many people would die can be obtained by assuming that the same percentage of people that died in World War II would also die in World War III.

In the 1940’s the world population was approximately 2.3 billion. World War II resulted in 60 to 80 million deaths (38 to 55 million of which were civilian casualties). This means that approximately 4% of the world’s population was killed.

At present, the world population is approximately 7 billion. If we assume that the same percentage of people will die during this world war than the last, it would mean that over 280 million people will be dead in the next few years. This is a conservative estimate since nuclear weapons were introduced at the end of World War II, while they are being proposed at the beginning of World War III. The number of wounded will be approximately 1.5 billion if we assume a kill to wounded ratio of 1 to 5.