America’s Churches Will Shut Down Because ‘Young Adults’ Don’t Ever Go To Church Read more at Wonkette: http://wonkette.com/415052/americas-churches-

A fun new study by that Pew Research group finds that only 65% of “millennials” (young adults) consider themselves to be Christian, and only half of the alleged Christians even understand the central tenet of the religion: That the Jesus character is the only way to be “saved” by God, the purported “second daddy” of Jesus. Overwhelming majorities of these 18-to-30 year olds don’t go to church, avoid that weird Bible book, and only half of these nutty kids even believe in God at all!

Read more at Wonkette: http://wonkette.com/415052/americas-churches-will-shut-down-because-young-adults-dont-ever-go-to-church#more-415052#ixzz0mbD3gd8S

>Survey: 72% of Millennials 'more spiritual than religious'
If the trends continue, "the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships," says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources. In the group's survey of 1,200 18- to 29-year-olds, 72% say they're "really more spiritual than religious."

Young adults aren't sticking with church
Seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30 — both evangelical and mainline — who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23, according to the survey by LifeWay Research. And 34% of those said they had not returned, even sporadically, by age 30. That means about one in four Protestant young people have left the church.

TO GO OR NOT TO GO
Seventy percent of Protestants age 18 to 30 drop out of church before age 23 and give multiple reasons for their departure.

Why they leave

• Wanted a break from church: 27%

• Found church members judgmental or hypocritical: 26%

• Moved to college: 25%

• Tied up with work: 23%

• Moved too far away from home church: 22%

• Too busy: 22%

• Felt disconnected to people at church: 20%

• Disagreed with church's stance on political/social issues: 18%

• Spent more time with friends outside church: 17%

• Only went before to please others: 17%

Reasons cited by the 30% who kept attending church:

• It's vital to my relationship with God: 65%

• It helps guide my decision in everyday life: 58%

• It helps me become a better person: 50%

• I am following a family member's example: 43%

• Church activities were a big part of my life: 35%

• It helps in getting through a difficult time: 30%

• I fear living without spiritual guidance: 24%

Source: LifeWay Research survey of 1,023 Protestants, conducted April and May 2007. Margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

AFGHANISTAN IN A POWER POINT SLIDE

Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was given PowerPoint briefings during a trip to Afghanistan last summer at each of three stops — Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif and Bagram Air Base. At a fourth stop, Herat, the Italian forces there not only provided Mr. Holbrooke with a PowerPoint briefing, but accompanied it with swelling orchestral music.

IMMIGRANTS

Fear of immigrants was widespread in the United States. In this cartoon, published five years after the Haymarket Square riot and one year before the Homestead Strike, illustrator Grant Hamilton placed a judge scolding Uncle Sam: "If Immigration was properly Restricted you would no longer be troubled with Anarchy, Socialism, the Mafia and such kindred evils!" From New York Harbor behind them comes a horde of arriving immigrants labeled "German socialist," "Russian anarchist," "Polish vagabond," "Italian brigand," "English convict," and "Irish pauper."

HAYMARKET SQUARE

By the spring of 1886, the movement for an eight-hour day had grown. On May 1,
350,000 workers in 11,562 establishments all over the country went out on strike
Chicago Mail on May 1 asked that Albert Parsons and August Spies, the anarchist leaders of the International Working People's Association, be watched

On May 3, in front of the McCormick Harvester Works, where strikers and sympathizers fought scabs, the police fired into a crowd of strikers, wounded many of them, and killed four

A meeting was called for Haymarket Square on the evening of May 4, and about three thousand persons assembled. the hour grew late, the crowd dwindled to a few hundred. A detachment of 180 policemen showed up, advanced on the speakers' platform
A bomb then exploded in the midst of the police, wounding sixty-six policemen, of whom seven later died. The police fired into the crowd, killing several

With no evidence, the police arrested eight anarchist leaders in Chicago

accessories to crime, anyone inciting a murder was guilty of that murder.

The evidence against the eight anarchists was their ideas, their literature; none had been at Haymarket that day except Fielden. they were sentenced to death. This created an international excitement

A year after the trial, four of the convicted anarchists-Albert Parsons, a printer, August Spies, an upholsterer, Adolph Eischer, and George Engel-were hanged. Louis Lingg, a twenty-one-year-old carpenter, blew himself up in his cell by exploding a dynamite tube in his mouth. Three remained in prison.

GROUP DISCUSSION

I think one think that would be helpful is if stack was taken more
consistently and a notebook was kept with hands raised. There begins a
trend toward informal hierarchies when people have to talk over one
another. One thing that could promote our legitimacy as anarchists would
be by demanding MORE organization in our lives with others so they know
we're not against structure, just hierarchy, out of their own personal
experience in dealing with us.

The stack is the list of people who have raised their hands and in what order. It's really important or people start to get aggravated. Name tags help.

I hate when people say that it wouldn't work for a few reasons.

1) A Republic or Democracy was thought not to work at one time. Before the
American revolution there were those who thought that a monarch was more
efficient because he can make decisions on the spot. For this reason they
wanted a monarch. All progress gets the same treatment, which is why it is
so slow to change.

2) The US Articles of Confederation, later replaced by the Constitution,
was very democratic indeed and outlined congress as being run by
recallable delegates and unanimous votes for constitutional changes. This
is very similar to the organization of large anarchist federations today
and in the past.

3) There are examples at work in every instance of living. Our going to
church is anarchistic because it is completely voluntary. It could be more
democratic, but it is a democratic institution. More than that even, it is
federated with the UUA, just like cooperatives are federated through the
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Cooperatives the world over are
examples as well as some community land trusts and mutual organizations.

I don't know if you've seen this or not, but this video by Mondragon is
amazing. The potential of worker self-management is incredible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORmQ8zaL1c

WORLD PEOPLES'S CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH

World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 19 to 22, 2010 ...



The Bolivian government got the ball rolling by proposing four big ideas:

• "Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights", that nature should be granted

• "Climate Justice Tribunal, rights that protect ecosystems from annihilationthat those who violate those rights and other international environmental agreements should face legal consequences

• "Climate Debt", that poor countries should receive various forms of compensation for a crisis they are facing but had little role in creating

• "World People's Referendum on Climate Change", that there should be a mechanism for people around the world to express their views on these topics

PEOPLE AND POWER, REVOLUTION GONE WRONG, KYRGYZSTAN

From Michael Andersen:

Aljazeera English has decided to RE-broadcast my 2008 documentary film about Kyrgyzstan ‘Revolution gone wrong’. The film is a personal portrait of Roza Otunbayeva, now the interim leader of Kyrgyzstan. It tells the story of the failed 2005 ‘revolution’ and also describes the anger and disillusionment of the population, leading towards the overthrow of the president 7 April 2010. I believe the film gives people who may not be that well-acquainted with Kyrgyzstan a much better idea of the situation and of the country’s new leader.

It’s definitely interesting, if for no other reason than to see how things in Kyrgyzstan so often seem to just go in circles.

GEORGE BUSH MEETS GEORGE ORWELL

How perfectly Orwellian. George W. Bush is now a freedom fighter. The man who fronted draconian assaults on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for the global elite hosted an internet freedom conference the other day for the George W. Bush Institute.

Bush’s little blogger conference was not about liberty and freedom for Americans — who have every phone call and email monitored by the NSA — but rather freedom for dissidents in Venezuela, China, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Russia.

“The co-sponsor of the event was Freedom House,” notes the Dubya Institute. Freedom House is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID, the folks who cobble together color revolutions, the preferred way in the 21st century for the CIA to overthrow governments.

It is a Soros project. Freedom House is “funded by both the US government and Soros to provide support to pro-Western opposition movements,” writes Mark MacKinnon.

NED may as well have the CIA’s logo emblazoned over it. “The NED was established by the Reagan administration after the CIA’s role in covertly funding efforts to overthrow foreign governments was brought to light,” writes Stephen Gowans.

“It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA. We saw that in the 60s, and that’s why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that’s why the endowment was created,” explains NED president Carl Gershman. NED was founded, as New York Times reporter John Broder explained in 1997, “to do in the open what the Central Intelligence Agency has done surreptitiously for decades.”

NED is advocating the overthrow of Iran of Venezuela out in the open. How the neocon stumble bum George W. Bush lends any credence to this effort remains to be seen.

BENEFIT SOCIETY

A benefit society or mutual aid society is an organization or voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit or insurance for relief from sundry difficulties. Such organizations may be formally organized with charters and established customs, or may arise ad hoc to meet unique needs of a particular time and place.

Benefit societies can be organized around a shared ethnic background, religion, occupation, geographical region or other basis. Benefits may include money or assistance for sickness, retirement, education, birth of a baby, funeral and medical expenses, unemployment. Often benefit societies provide a social or educational framework for members and their families to support each other and contribute to the wider community.

Examples of benefit societies include trade unions, friendly societies, credit unions, self-help groups, landsmanshaftn, immigrant hometown societies, Fraternal organizations such as Freemasons and Oddfellows and many others. Peter Kropotkin posited early in the 20th century that mutual aid affiliations predate human culture and are as much a factor in evolution as is survival of the fittest.

FRIENDLY SOCIETY

A friendly society (sometimes called a mutual society, benevolent society or fraternal organization) is a mutual association for insurance, pensions or savings and loan-like purposes, or cooperative banking. Some friendly societies, especially in the past, served ceremonial and friendship purposes also, while others did not. It is a mutual organization or benefit society composed of a body of people who join together for a common financial or social purpose. Before modern insurance, and the welfare state, friendly societies provided financial and social services to individuals, often according to their religious or political affiliations.

Before large-scale government and employer health insurance and the development of other financial services, friendly societies played an important part in many people's lives. In some countries, half the population was covered by such societies.

Webster Tarpley on Alex Jones Tv 1/6: Underwear Bomber "Establishment Controlled Patsy!"

ISRAEL DOES RISK ANALYSIS

-Iran would respond to an Israeli attack by ramping up support to groups battling U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
-If American soldiers start dying in greater numbers as a result of an Israeli unilateral attack, Americans could turn against Israel
-Iran could also disrupt the world’s oil supply
-“What will Americans say if Israel drags the U.S. into a war it didn’t want, or when they are suddenly paying $10 a gallon for gasoline and Israel is the reason for it,”

Iranian strategists: benefits of an Israeli attack
# the financial reward from a hike in oil prices
# the silencing of the regime’s domestic critics
# the deepening of ties between Turkey, Syria and the non-aligned international community
# the further isolation of Israel, whose political vulnerability is far greater than its military vulnerability
# doing limited damage and short term to Iran’s nuclear facilities

Iranian psyche of martyrdom. Shia's love to die for a religious cause. US/Israel do not.
vast
size of the country
Pop Ratio 25:1

JOHN FARMER, LEAD COUNCIL 911

John Farmer, Dean of the Law School at Rutgers University and former Attorney General of New Jersey, was legal counsel to the 9/11 Commission, and in charge of drafting its report.

official version of the story is almost entirely untrue, based on false testimony by the WhiteHouse, CIA, FBI and NORAD

His new book, The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America's Defense on 9/11, makes this case with loads of documentary evidence--and his colleagues on the commission are on board

a decision was made not to tell the truth about the national response to the attacks on the morning of 9/11'

the so-called 9/11 Commission was a Whitewash meant to conceal rather than reveal the truth.

investigation is ignored, left speculating about the truth

OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD TWO

Further details of Operation Mockingbird was revealed as a result of the Frank Church investigations (Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) in 1975. According to the Congress report published in 1976: "The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets." Church argued that the cost of misinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265 million a year.

Frank Church showed that it was CIA policy to use clandestine handling of journalists and authors to get information published initially in the foreign media in order to get it disseminated in the United States. Church quotes from one document written by the Chief of the Covert Action Staff on how this process worked (page 193). For example, he writes: “Get books published or distributed abroad without revealing any U.S. influence, by covertly subsidizing foreign publicans or booksellers.” Later in the document he writes: “Get books published for operational reasons, regardless of commercial viability”. Church goes onto report that “over a thousand books were produced, subsidized or sponsored by the CIA before the end of 1967”. All these books eventually found their way into the American market-place. Either in their original form (Church gives the example of the Penkovskiy Papers) or repackaged as articles for American newspapers and magazines.



In another document published in 1961 the Chief of the Agency’s propaganda unit wrote: “The advantage of our direct contact with the author is that we can acquaint him in great detail with our intentions; that we can provide him with whatever material we want him to include and that we can check the manuscript at every stage… (the Agency) must make sure the actual manuscript will correspond with our operational and propagandistic intention.”

Church quotes Thomas H. Karamessines as saying: “If you plant an article in some paper overseas, and it is a hard-hitting article, or a revelation, there is no way of guaranteeing that it is not going to be picked up and published by the Associated Press in this country” (page 198).

OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD

Operation Mockingbird was a secret Central Intelligence Agency campaign to influence domestic and foreign media beginning in the 1950s.

The activities, extent and even the existence of the CIA project remain in dispute: the operation was first called Mockingbird in Deborah Davis' 1979 book, Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and her Washington Post Empire. But Davis' book, alleging that the media had been recruited (and infiltrated) by the CIA for propaganda purposes, was itself controversial and has since been shown to have had a number of erroneous assertions.^[1] More evidence of Mockingbird's existence emerged in the 2007 memoir American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond, by convicted Watergate "plumber" E. Howard Hunt and The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America by Hugh Wilford (2008).^[2]

In 1948, Frank Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic and foreign media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham from The Washington Post to run the project within the industry. Deborah Davis in Katharine the Great; "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York Times, Newsweek, CBS

1951, Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. However he was recruited several years earlier and had been spying on the liberal organizations in the later 1940s. Meyer became Mockingbird's "principal operative"

1977, Rolling Stone, journalists under the control was Joseph Alsop, whose articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers. Other journalists Stewart Alsop (New York Herald Tribune), Ben Bradlee (Newsweek), James Reston (New York Times), Charles Douglas Jackson (Time Magazine), Walter Pincus (Washington Post), William C. Baggs (The Miami News), Herb Gold (The Miami News) and Charles Bartlett (Chattanooga Times).

According to Nina Burleigh (A Very Private Woman), these journalists sometimes wrote articles that were commissioned by Frank Wisner. The CIA also provided them with classified information. After 1953 it was overseen by Allen W. Dulle, had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies

organizations run by people with well-known right-wing views such as William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham, Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal), James Copley (Copley News Services) and Joseph Harrison (Christian Science Monitor).

Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning of funds intended for the Marshall Plan to bribe journalists and publishers. In 1954, Wisner arranged for Animal Farm, the animated allegory.

Alex Constantine (Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA),

"some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees, could restrict newspapers from reporting about certain events. Richard Helms became his chief of operations

J. Edgar Hoover became jealous had been active in left-wing politics in the 1930s. info was passed to Joseph McCarthy. Wisner unleashed Mockingbird on McCarthy. Drew Pearson, Joe Alsop, Jack Anderson, Walter Lippmann and Ed Murrow all went into attack mode and McCarthy was permanently damaged by the press coverage orchestrated by Wisner

Guatemala. Henry Luce were able to censor

1964, Random House published Invisible Government by David Wise and Thomas Ross. Meyer's role accused of interfering with The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia by Alfred W. McCoy which was critical of the CIA's dealings with the drug traffic in Southeast Asia

Further detail revealed that Frank Church in 1975 there was network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world. Church argued cost was $265 million a year

February 1976, George H. W. Bush, a new policy, CIA would continue to "welcome" the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists.

HYPERREALITY

Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures. Hyperreality is a means to characterize the way consciousness defines what is actually "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience. Some famous theorists of hyperreality include Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Daniel Boorstin, and Umberto Eco.

Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.[1]

Baudrillard in particular suggests that the world we live in has been replaced by a copy world, where we seek simulated stimuli and nothing more. Baudrillard borrows, from Jorge Luis Borges (who already borrowed from Lewis Carroll), the example of a society whose cartographers create a map so detailed that it covers the very things it was designed to represent. When the empire declines, the map fades into the landscape and there is neither the representation nor the real remaining – just the hyperreal. Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan.

STEVEN EARL JONES AND 911

PAPER JUST PUBLISHED IN:
The Open Chemical Physics Journal :
Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe
By Steven E. Jones, Jeffrey Farrer, Niels H. Harrit, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley and Bradley R. Larsen
PRESS RELEASE: Study: Scientists Discover
Active Thermitic Material in WTC Dust



Steven Earl Jones is an American physicist. For most of his career, Jones was known mainly for his work on muon-catalyzed fusion. In the fall of 2006, amid controversy surrounding his work on the collapse of the World Trade Center, he was relieved of his teaching duties and placed on paid leave from Brigham Young University. He retired on October 20, 2006 with the status of Professor Emeritus. He believes that the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition during the September 11 attacks.

LYNN MARGULIS, PHD

World renowned scientist, Lynn Margulis, Ph.D., has severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation, “I suggest that those of us aware and concerned demand that the glaringly erroneous official account of 9/11 be dismissed as a fraud and a new, thorough, and impartial investigation be undertaken.”


Lynn Margulis, PhD

One of America’s most prominent scientists, Dr. Margulis is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts - Amherst. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983 and served as Chairman of the Academy’s Space Science Board Committee on Planetary Biology and Chemical Evolution. In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Dr. Margulis with the National Medal of Science, America's highest honor for scientific achievement, "for her outstanding contributions to understanding of the development, structure, and evolution of living things, for inspiring new research in the biological, climatological, geological and planetary sciences, and for her extraordinary abilities as a teacher and communicator of science to the public."

In her statement on PatriotsQuestion911.com, Dr. Margulis referred to 9/11 as “this new false-flag operation, which has been used to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as unprecedented assaults on research, education, and civil liberties”. She compared 9/11 to several self-inflicted attacks that had been used in the past to arouse people’s fear and hatred and justify war, including the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, the Reichstag Fire, and Operation Himmler, which Germany used to justify the invasion of Poland, the trigger for World War II.

In her statement, Dr. Margulis cites “the research and clear writing by David Ray Griffin in his fabulous books about 9/11” as a useful source of information and analysis of problems with the official account of 9/11. She specifically lauded The New Pearl Harbor and The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, “which provides overwhelming evidence that the official story is contradictory, incomplete, and unbelievable.”
Internationally acclaimed for her ground-breaking scientific work, Dr. Margulis is an elected member of The World Academy of Art and Science, an organization of 500 of the world’s leading thinkers, chosen for eminence in art, the natural and social sciences, and the humanities. And in 2006, she was selected as one of “The 20th Century's 100 Most Important Inspirational Leaders” by the editors of Resurgence magazine.

Dr. Margulis’ full statement can be read at PatriotsQuestion911.com. More information about Dr. Margulis’ career can be found at Sciencewriters.

Patriots Question 9/11 - Responsible Criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report

STATE CRIMES AGAINST DEMOCRACY TWO

The McCollum memo, also known as the Eight Action Memo was a memorandum, dated October 7, 1940 (more than a year before the Pearl Harbor attack, sent by Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum, who "provided the president with intelligence reports on [Japan]... [and oversaw] every intercepted and decoded Japanese military and diplomatic report destined for the White House"

The memo outlined the general situation of several nations in World War II and recommended an eight-part course of action for the United States to take in regards to the Japanese Empire in the South Pacific, suggesting that the United States provoke Japan into committing an "overt act of war". The memo illustrates that several people in the Office of Naval Intelligence promoted the idea of goading Japan into war:

"It is not believed that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado [...]"It is not believed that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado [...] If by [the elucidated eight-point plan] Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better."

The McCollum memo was first widely disseminated with the publication of Robert Stinnett's book Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. Stinnett presents the memo as part of his argument that the Roosevelt Administration conspired to secretly provoke the Japanese to attack the United States in order to bring the United States into the European war without generating public contempt over broken political promises. Roosevelt had recently issued a campaign promise that the United States would not become entangled in Europe's war under his watch.


The Eight-Action Plan

The McCollum memo contained an eight-part plan to counter rising Japanese power over East Asia:

1. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore
2. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies
3. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-Shek
4. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore
5. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient
6. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific[,] in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands
7. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil
8. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire

BUSH CIA TIMELINE

Bush anxious to be absent 1975 "Year of Intelligence," intense scrutiny of illegal activities. On December 22, 1974, New York Times published a series by Seymour M. Hirsh, leaked CIA documents assembled by Director Schlesinger to expose self-exposure by the CIA to set the agenda for the Ford-appointed Rockefeller Commission which was set up January 4, 1975. members included John T. Connor, C. Douglas Dillon, Erwin N. Griswold, Lane Kirkland, Lyman Lemnitzer, Ronald Reagan, and Edgar F. Shannon, Jr.

Rockefeller proposals would reflect the transition from cold war towards the totalitarian tendencies of the 1980's. At the same time Congressional committees were empanelled during 1975, less controlled.

Church Committee. Frank Church investigation of covert operations assassinating foreign leaders, had been re-targeted to domestic with the obvious case being Kennedy. Church thought CIA's covert branch feeds on itself, with schemes for to win them promotions.

at the beginning of Bush's tenure at the CIA, committees were on the offensive. By the time Bush departed Langley, the table were turned. Congress was the focus, Koreagate and Abscam

Halloween massacre, summer of 1975. Don Rumsfeld to Ford on July 10, 1975. choices for CIA Director. Henry Kissinger, who suggested C. Douglas Dillon, Howard Baker, Galvin, and Robert Roosa. Cheney proposed Robert Bork, followed by Bush and Lee Iacocca. Rockefeller was also for C. Douglas Dillon, followed by Howard Baker, Conner, and James R. Schlesinger. Rumsfeld himself listed Bork, Dillon, Iacoca, Stanley Resor, and Walter Wriston, but not Bush.

Bush was not leading. Bush's storm of criticism. In November, 1976, Bush was kept in Beijing, preparing the Ford-Mao meetings of early December.

Former CIA officer Tom Braden, Bush looked bad. Roland Evans and Robert Novak, grave morale deflator. Washington Post, against. George Will, wrong kind of guy

Church recieved a letter by Ford on October 31, 1975, demanding assassination plots kept secret. Church's opinion these two developments were stonewalling. Church press statement, "I am astonished that Ford wants to suppress

November 3, Church asked by Daniel Schorr asked about the firing of Colby and replacement by Bush. Church said concealment is order of the day. "Hiding evil is totalitarian.

following day, Leslie Gelb's NYT, Bush

BUSH CHINA TIMELINE

From February 21-28, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai.. Almost as soon as the American president arrived in the Chinese capital he was summoned for a meeting with Chairman Mao

August 9, 1974, Ford assumed the presidency. After Ford's accession to the presidency, Bush was under serious consideration for being nominated as Vice President. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona declined to be considered and endorsed Bush, who, along with his supporters, reportedly mounted an internal campaign to get a nomination.[citation needed] Ford eventually narrowed his list to Nelson Rockefeller and Bush. However, White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld reportedly preferred Rockefeller over Bush.[22] Rockefeller was finally named and confirmed.

September 26, 1974 to December 7, 1975. Gerald Ford, Nixon's successor, appointed Bush to be Chief of the US Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China, The Liaison Office did not have the official status of an embassy and Bush did not formally hold the position of "ambassador", though he unofficially acted as one. The time that he spent in China — 14 months — was seen as largely beneficial for US-Chinese relations.[12]

In 1975 and 1976, the Church Committee published fourteen reports on the formation of U.S. intelligence agencies, their operations, and the alleged abuses of law and of power that they had committed, together with recommendations for reform, some of which were put in place.

Among the matters investigated were attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and President John F. Kennedy's plan to use the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba.

January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977. President Gerald Ford appointed former House member from Texas George Bush to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Bush was sworn in on January 30, 1976. In 1976, Ford brought Bush back to Washington to become Director of Central Intelligence. He served in this role for 357 days, from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977.[23] The CIA had been rocked by a series of revelations, including those based on investigations by the Church Committee regarding illegal and unauthorized activities by the CIA, and Bush was credited with helping to restore the agency's morale.[24] In his capacity as DCI, Bush gave national security briefings to Jimmy Carter both as a Presidential candidate and as President-elect, and discussed the possibility of remaining in that position in a Carter administration[25] but it was not to be.

September 9, 1976. Mao's death

1977, Deng repudiated the Cultural Revolution and, in 1977, launched the "Beijing Spring", which allowed open criticism, effectively allowed Chinese capitalists to join the Communist Party. Deng gradually consolidated control over the CCP. Hua was replaced by Zhao Ziyang as premier in 1980, by Hu Yaobang as party chief in 1981. Deng remained the most influential of the CCP cadre, although after 1987 his only official

Under Deng's direction, relations with the West improved remarkably, first Chinese leader to visit the United States in 1979

*PHOTO INFO: After bilateral talks Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping leads President Ford and Chief U.S. Liaison Officer George H.W. Bush through the Great Hall of the People. ID #A7620-15A.
Date 2 December 1975

FAMILY OF SECRETS, RUSS BAKER, REDUX

STATE CRIMES AGAINST DEMOCRACY

New research in the journal American Behavioral Scientist (Sage publications, February 2010) addresses the concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCAD). Professor Lance deHaven-Smith from Florida State University writes that SCADs involve highlevel government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities for political advantages and power. Proven SCADs since World War II include

• Pearl Harbor, Robert B Stinnett/McCollum Memo

• McCarthyism (fabrication of evidence of a communist infiltration),

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (President Johnson and Robert McNamara falsely claimed North Vietnam attacked a US ship),

• burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in effort to discredit Ellsberg, the Watergate break-in,

• Iran-Contra,

• Florida’s 2000 Election (felon disenfranchisement program), and

• fixed intelligence on WMDs to justify the Iraq War.1

Other suspected SCADs include the

• assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald,

• the shooting of George Wallace,

• the October Surprise near the end of the Carter presidency,

• military grade anthrax mailed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy,
  
• Martin Luther King’s assassination, and the
• collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11, 2001.
  

The proven SCADs have a long trail of congressional hearings, public records, and academic research establishing the truth of the activities. The suspected SCADs listed above have substantial evidence of covert actions with countervailing deniability that tend to leave the facts in dispute.2

The term “conspiracy theory” is often used to denigrate and discredit inquiry into the veracity of suspected SCADs. Labeling SCAD research as “conspiracy theory” is an effective method of preventing ongoing investigations from being reported in the corporate media and keep them outside of broader public scrutiny. Psychologist Laurie Manwell, University of Guelph, addresses the psychological advantage that SCAD actors hold in the public sphere. Manwell, writing in American Behavioral Scientist (Sage 2010) states, “research shows that people are far less willing to examine information that disputes, rather than confirms, their beliefs . . . pre-existing beliefs can interfere with
SCADs inquiry, especially in regards to September 11, 2001.”3

1. The Oklahoma City Bombing. Meant to look like an act of terrorism but closer inspection reveals numerous suspicious indicators of a false flag operation
The US militia groups
Waco Massacre by the Clinton/ Reno
2. The 911 Attack
engineered by more than one country to BENEFIT MORE THAN ONE COUNTRY
testing ground for several, secretive types of demolition-weaponry within the tower core
To scapegoat an Islamic group
to allow the corporate-owned, complicit US media free rein to keep a lid on doubts
To distract the public about critical missing Pentagon trillions
power elite in as few hands as possible
3. The Bali Bombing.
terror-striken Australians
4. The Port Arthur Massacre. Meantto look like the work of a lone gunman
5. London Bombing 7-7
Served to terrorize Londoners
6. Lebanon-Israel Attack
7. VA-Tech as a possible false flag operation, Manchurian Candidate, super skilled, remorseless gunman possessing killing power

WILLIAM PEPPER: AN ACT OF STATE, THE EXECUTION OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

The trial that should have changed history

“In 1977 the family of Martin Luther King engaged an attorney and friend, Dr. William Pepper, to investigate a suspicion they had. They no longer believed that James Earl Ray was the killer. For their peace of mind, for an accurate record of history, and out of a sense of justice they conducted a two decade long investigation. The evidence they uncovered was put before a jury in Memphis, TN, in November 1999. 70 witnesses testified under oath, 4,000 pages of transcripts described that evidence, much of it new. It took the jury 59 minutes to come back with their decision that exonerated James Earl Ray, who had already died in prison. The jury found that Lloyd Jowers, owner of Jim’s Grill, had participated in a conspiracy to kill King. The evidence showed that the conspiracy included J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, the Memphis police department, and organized crime.” – TUC Radio

FAMILY OF SECRETS, RUSS BAKER

From The Washington Post

by trying to explain everything, to create a unified field theory of American tragedy that has the Bushes as the key actors and beneficiaries

Baker's cornerstone is a memo, J. Edgar Hoover says the FBI spoke to "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency" after John F. Kennedy's assassination. Baker then scrutinizes the elder Bush's movements on Nov. 22, 1963. On the morning of the assassination, he was in Dallas, then flew to Tyler, Tex., to speak at a luncheon (the speech was cancelled when the shooting was reported; Baker notes that Bush remained "supremely well composed''), then flew back to Dallas and on to Houston, but not before phoning the FBI from Tyler to report his suspicions that a Republican Party activist might have been involved in the killing. Add in a handful of Bush associates who had interesting (and in one case downright bizarre) connections to the event, the author's general distrust of right-wing oilmen,

But the Nation asked George H.W. Bush in 1988 if he were the person Hoover was referring to, and a spokesman for the then-vice president said no. The CIA produced another George Bush who had been on its staff at the time of the assassination, although that guy also denied having dealt with the FBI.



advances the possibility that the elder Bush was at least a minor asset to the CIA, and maybe more,

Bush became the CIA's director in 1976

scrutinizes the elder Bush's movements on Nov. 22, 1963. On the morning of the assassination, he was in Dallas

E.HOWARD HUNT'S CONFESSION - JFK ASSASSINATION

WE LIKE THEM STUPID, THEY ARE ONE OF US.

WE CANT AFFORD ANYMORE REVENGE

If the purpose of the war was to avenge 9/11 then our mission has been accomplished.

• The cost of 1 soldier for 1 year in Afghanistan is $1 million; while the cost of college tuition at a California State University is $9,285.
  
• The cost of a single anti-tank missile in Afghanistan is $85,000; while the cost of providing 1 year of college books and supplies is $1,608 (average fees).
• And the cost of 1 predator drone in Afghanistan is $4.5 million; while 1 full Pell Grant for a college student in California is $5,350.
  

Or imagine if the $37.9 billion California contributed to the war had been spent on expanding health care, improving education, or increasing our energy independence? According to NPP – for one year – we could have provided funding for any one of the following:

• 15.6 million people with health care;
• 5.7 million scholarships and 7 million Pell Grants for university students;
• 4.5 million Head Start placements for children;
• 500,000 new elementary school teachers;
• 676,649 public safety officers;
• 535,058 music and arts teachers;
• 113,373 affordable housing units;
• And 67.4 million homes with renewable electricity.

Every California city tells its own story of misused taxpayer dollars. San Francisco has contributed $1 billion to the war in Afghanistan – enough to provide

• 3,023 affordable housing units and
• 8,042 public safety officers.
  

Los Angeles contributed $3.2 billion – enough to provide

• 1.2 million children with health care.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

The depth of the crisis faced by California screams out from the cold hard data.

• Over one in five Californians are unemployed, underemployed, or have simply given up searching for work.
  

• Nearly another one in five lives in poverty.
  

• Low-income workers fortunate to have a job have seen their wages decline since 2006 – with middle income worker salaries remaining stagnant.
  

• 8.2 million Californians – up from 6.4 million in 2007 – lack health coverage.

• Doors will slam shut this year on as many as 35,000 applicants to the California State University system.
  

• Both university systems approved 20% tuition and fee hikes since the start of 2009 – and

• UC Regents has just approved an additional 30% hike this year – ending too many students dreams of a higher education, and burdening too many more with high interest debt.

The news for educators is no better.

• More than 23,000 teachers recently received “pink slips”, unlikely to return to the classroom next fall.

• Over three-quarters of a million California families were ousted from their homes in 2008 and 2009.
  

• The Center for Responsible Lending projects another 2 million foreclosures through 2012 –
  

• with nearby homes losing an average of over $50,000 in value. 2.4 million California borrowers – 35 percent of all properties with a mortgage – are currently under water (e.g. owe more on their home than it’s currently worth).
  

• By 2011, that number will increase to nearly 70 percent of homeowners.

Was 9/11 a SCAD? History professor Mickey Huff _ on Kevin Barrett Show

Guest: Mickey Huff, associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College, Director of Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, and co-editor of Censored 2010.

From Project Censored article “State Crimes Against Democracy” by Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff:

“New research in the journal American Behavioral Scientist (Sage publications, February 2010) addresses the concept of ‘State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD). Professor Lance deHaven-Smith from Florida State University writes that SCADs involve highlevel government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities for political advantages and power. Proven SCADs since World War II include

• McCarthyism (fabrication of evidence of a communist infiltration),

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (President Johnson and Robert McNamara falsely claimed North Vietnam attacked a US ship),

• burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in effort to discredit Ellsberg, the Watergate break-in,

• Iran-Contra,

• Florida’s 2000 Election (felon disenfranchisement program), and

• fixed intelligence on WMDs to justify the Iraq War…

Credible scientific evidence brings into question the possibility that some aspects of the events of 9/11 involved State Crimes Against Democracy. Psychologically this is a very hard concept for Americans to even consider. However, ignoring the issue in the context of multiple proven SCADs since World War II seems far more dangerous for democracy than the consequences of future scientific inquiry and transparent, fact-based investigative reporting.”

Check out Kevin’s new book: Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters.

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL III

FROM LOUIS PROYECT

The Fifth International — let’s remember that the

• First International was established in 1864. Karl Marx with a number of other comrades called for the First International.

• Many years later Frederick Engels called for the establishment of the Second International at the end of the 19th century.

• And then at the beginning of the 20th century Vladimir Lenin with many other great revolutionaries established the Third International, and

• Leon Trotsky in 1936-37 established the Fourth International.

All of them had a context but remember that all four Internationals, experiments to unite parties and currents and social movements from around the world, have lost their way along the road for different reasons — some degenerated, lost their force, disappeared soon after their formation. But none of them was able to advance the original aims that they had set themselves…

Let us reclaim Rosa Luxemburg’s slogan “Socialism or barbarism”

Two Socialist Alliance members, Frederico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke, are reporting on location from Caracas and participated in the conference where Chavez issued his call. I would strongly urge reading Fuentes’s article that appeared shortly afterwards and that adds much to the excerpt translated by Jorquera above (Jorquera was formerly a member of the Democratic Socialist Party in Australia which dissolved into the Socialist Alliance.) Fuentes writes:

Hugo Chavez’s call for a Fifth International on November 19-21, 2009, it is difficult to find his actual words. you can read them here

One of the more interesting contributions comes from Carlos Fonseca Terán
of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)

But if nothing else comes out of it except the idea, that would be a step forward since as Chavez and Terán have correctly concluded, it is time for a brand-new movement.

We are living in a period in which very important attempts to break with sectarianism are being midwived by a growing economic and environmental crisis.

the idea of 21st Century Socialism and the call for a Fifth International forces us to think about the future rather than the past. It is about time.

ARUNDHATI ROY ON MAOIST NAXALITES

FROM LENIN'S TOMB

Arundhati Roy is to be investigated by police in Chhattisgarh over her "links" with Maoist insurgents, who recently killed seventy-six Indian paramilitaries. This is a backlash by the BJP-controlled state in response to an article that she wrote for Outlook magazine, which detailed her encounters with Maoist insurgents in Dantewada, central India, where the ambush was staged. The Maoists are among the forces resisting the capitalist takeover of rural India and growing in influence due in part to the failures of the Left Front in West Bengal and to state repression meted out to the communities they operate in - though they are far from alone. In a sympathetic piece, Roy argues that the Maoists are being forced into violence by the state, pushed into a situation where strategies of non-violence are guaranteed to fail. Watch her interview on Indian television here (wherein she castigates the "empty condemnation industry", something we are all very familiar with):

BIG ERNIE MCCRACKEN IS ABOVE THE LAW, "I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT

I keep wondering how long McChrystal is going to get away with talking out both sides of his mouth, and then I remember: he’s the handpicked general of the current war president and the protégé of "King David" Petraeus, the handpicked general of the previous war president. Then I flash on Bill Murray as "Big Ernie" McCracken at the end of the film Kingpin as he maniacally shrieks, "I can do anything I want… Big Ern is above the law… what do I care?"

Lamentably, fellow citizens, the war in Afghanistan is the center of gravity of U.S. foreign policy and will be for entirely too long. "Stan the Man" McChrystal is our national heart of darkness, and his vacant, gaunt smirk is the face – or rather the two faces – of America itself.

MCCRYSTAL: TOO MANY CONTRACTORS IN AFGHANISTAN

He was commander of JSOC from 2003 to 2008. He didn’t just bump into these mercenaries from time to time, he was in charge of them, and he used them to blow people away on the say-so of Dick Cheney. McChrystal is Joseph Conrad’s Col. Kurtz come to life and promoted to a four-star deep in the very heart of McDarkness, and now he says this? I say it's time for the grocery clerks to send an errand boy to collect the bill





By JAMEY KEATEN (AP) – 3 days ago

PARIS — The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan said Friday that the coalition depends too much on private-sector contractors, and insisted his forces are keeping close watch on the flow of Taliban fighters who are training in Iran.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, during a four-day visit to France, said the coalition in Afghanistan has become too dependent on private contractors in the effort to stabilize the country.

"I think we've gone too far," McChrystal said at France's IHEDN military institute. "I actually think we would be better to reduce the number of contractors involved."



Alternatives could include increasing the number of troops "if necessary," or "using a greater number of Afghan contractors, or Afghans to help with the mission," he said.

McChrystal said the use of contractors was founded upon "good intentions," such as to limit military commitments or to save money for governments.

"I think it doesn't save money," he said. "We have created in ourselves a dependency on contractors that I think is greater than it ought to be."

He didn't specify where any cuts might come.

THREE TYPES OF BLOGS

The 3 Categories of Blogs

Producers: These are blogs that create original content (for the most part). The posts you see tend to be a little longer although that doesn't have to be true. I would count my own blog as part of this category. Producers are the source of much of the original material.

Reviewers: These blogs take topics that are originated elsewhere and put their own spin on the material. Often they will expand the topic or take it off in a different direction. The hallmark of these blogs is that they don't simply point to the source material; they riff on it somehow.

Pointers: These blogs serve to connect readers to content found elsewhere. Sometimes these are aggregators on a single, well-defined topic area. Sometimes they can be quite broad. Usually, there is very little (or no) commentary on the linkages.

Each of these types of blogs is important in its own way. You need them all. The blogosphere needs them all. Unless you are one of the handful of premiere bloggers, your work is most likely servicing the long tail. By recognizing and appealing to these types of blog categories, your reach is expanded beyond your own web page or RSS feed. This type of interconnectedness is the lubricant of information diffusion across the semi-permeable membrane of the blogosphere.

Can you think of other types of blogs that deserve to be included here?

I'm interested in your thoughts.

Strategic Implications of American Millennialism

CLICK HERE .PDF REPORT: Strategic Implications of American Millennialism, School of Advanced Military Studies United States Army Command and General Staff College


Here is something you don't see everyday. Published in 2008, the US Army plots strategy to defend USA against an esoteric theological fantasy, which is, coincidentally, the dominant theology of Palin, Bachmann and the Tea Baggers.

In the simplest usage of the word, millennialism refers to any belief system, religious or secular, which anticipates a purification of society or the world through dramatic and sweeping change. In the U.S. today, the most well-known and influential form of millennialism is a religious variant known in formal, theological parlance as dispensational pre-millennialism. This contemporary form of millennialism took shape during the 1970s and has significantly shaped current U.S. security policy. Dispensational pre-millennialism is loosely based on depictions of battle between the forces of good and evil in the biblical Book of Revelation.

For irrational defense and/or explication: Army Report Says Christians Threaten US Foreign Policy

CHRIS HEDGES ON NOAM CHOMSKY

"Livin' la Vida Loca"

This is a rare and unique article by the great Chris Hedges about the very great Noam Chomsky. Outstanding

Noam Chomsky is America’s greatest intellectual,

• written nearly 100 books,

• has for decades deflated and exposed the lies of the power elite and the myths they perpetrate

• blacklisted by the commercial media

• a pariah by the academy

He dismisses our two-party system as a mirage orchestrated by the corporate state. He is the nation’s most prescient critic of unregulated capitalism, globalization and the poison of empire.

Warning us that we have little time left. We are very similar to late Weimar Germany
United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen,” yet. It will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. The crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.” “I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime,”

He reminds us that genuine intellectual inquiry is always subversive.

Chomsky is hated, and perhaps feared, more among liberal elites than among the right wing...

“I cannot tell you how many people, myself included, and this is not hyperbole, whose lives were changed by him,” said [Norman]Finkelstein, who has been driven out of several university posts for his intellectual courage and independence.

This is well worth the read.

QINGDAO

Before troops were garrisoned here by the imperial court of Qing in 1891, Qingdao had been a small fishing village. It became a German concession in 1897 and was occupied by Japan in 1914. The city reverted to Chinese rule in 1922,