Beating The Drums Of War Again

For twelve years now, we've been conditioned to accept that we're in a state of perpetual war. So is it really much of a surprise to hear the war drums beating again, this time for Syria?

Granted, Assad is a very bad guy, and his government has been one of terrible repression and unconscionable violence against its citizens. But there's always more to the story. Unfortunately, you'll have trouble gleaning the bigger picture from our political leaders and the U.S. news media. Propaganda abounds, its purpose being to obscure the finer points in favor of gross generalities and misconceptions, all presented with intent to provoke anger and fear, which in turn will result in support for military action. Critical analysis by media "journalists" is almost non-existent. What investigative reporting that exists is being systematically stifled by an Obama administration bent on crushing dissent of any kind, through its merciless campaign to criminalize whistleblowing. 

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/09/obamas_unprecedented_war_on_whistleblowers/

It is becoming more true than ever that the only information we get about government activities will be coming from official government sources. But that’s OK,  they never lie, right? Oh, wait...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/28-0

KABUKI DANCE

Here's a peek into the way this works. Last week, Fox News Sunday brought on two congressmen, a Republican and a Democrat, to help the public get used to the idea that U.S. military action in Syria is coming.



Republican Senator Corker assured the public that he is certain the Syrian government is indeed responsible for the latest chemical weapons attack, based on his careful analysis of…social media.  Hey that's good enough for me. Who needs an actual investigation?  He also assures us that "we will respond in a surgical way." This of course means cruise missiles, as the other congressman later explains. But hey, so as long as it's surgical, OK?  Nothing could go wrong with that.  He gives a blanket endorsement to the "opposition," and encourages our training of them to be upgraded from covert to "industrial strength."

Host Chris Wallace doesn't question or challenge a single word. In fact he actually admonishes Corker for suggesting that the president wait two weeks until Congress comes back to get approval for military action.  In truth, Wallace is throwing a softball to Corker so Corker can reluctantly admit the president may just have to go ahead without Congress. Oh darn.

This leads to Wallace bringing on Rep. Engel, a Democrat, who takes his cue to increase the urgency factor, saying two times in one minute: "We have to move and we have to move quickly." He thinks the president should go ahead and "get started," and Congress can just show up later and approve it.

Obviously this is what this little pre-scripted show has been leading up to: a bi-partisan expression of support for the president's decision, already made, to act unilaterally to attack Syria, based on insufficient evidence and with zero acknowledgment of conflicting views, and zero interest in considering the deeper context of the situation. Now picture this scenario being repeated in every major distribution TV network, newspaper and magazine.

The real action is behind the scenes, orchestrated in secret by the CIA and their ilk. In front of the cameras, we hear the same hypocritical rhetoric, over and over again, justifying the inflicting of violence on one Middle Eastern country after another. It's almost like they're going down a list...



Just say no. Say no to a course of action that can only lead to the deaths of more Middle Eastern civilians by American hands; a course of action which will most likely lead to the deaths of American soldiers. Don't force any more soldiers' families to sing patriotic songs in order to justify the deaths of their sons and daughters for something that has nothing at all to do with our freedom or security, and everything to do with the self-serving agendas of a privileged few.

HUMANITARIAN HYPOCRISY

Just say no when the government claims it is acting on "humanitarian" grounds. Nothing could be further from the truth, or more hypocritical. The United States has no high ground of humanitarian virtue to stand on, and any attempt to do so must be understood as an attempt to deceive and deflect attention from actual agendas. Do we really need to recite the bloody facts of recent history? Perhaps we do:

1960's, Vietnam - the U.S. deliberately used one of the most toxic chemicals ever created, Agent Orange, a "defoliant," at such high levels that it became a de facto chemical weapon, resulting in the death and maiming of almost a million people, with severe disabling health effects on survivors and horrible birth defects afflicting hundreds of thousands more, including our own soldiers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/29/usa.adrianlevy

1980's, Iraq -  U.S. approved the sale of anthrax, bubonic plague, etc, to Iraq, and later provided Iraq with intelligence support for its campaign to use chemical weapons against Iran, and its own people.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-534798.html
 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran

2000's, Afghanistan and Iraq - U.S. used napalm, cluster bombs, white phosphorus and depleted uranium, universally understood to be intolerably cruel and brutal weapons, causing devastating impact on civilian populations.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/27-3
http://www.monbiot.com/2005/11/15/war-without-rules/

Is it unfair to blame our current leaders for the sins of the past? Perhaps, or perhaps the past informs us of the necessity to understand just how callous and inhumane our own government can be, and how easily they will lie about it. The past teaches us that we must be highly suspicious and distrustful when our leaders claim to be acting out of benevolent and humanitarian causes.

POLITICAL HYPOCRISY

The U.S is supporting Syrian "rebel" groups that oppose the Assad "regime," even though many of the rebels have openly aligned with Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a.  Al Nusra Front, the most radical and violent group of the rebel coalition, and known to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Al Nusra is a designated terrorist organization. Sounds awfully familiar.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/world/middleeast/us-designates-syrian-al-nusra-front-as-terrorist-group.html

CONFLICTING ARGUMENTS IGNORED

Secretary of State Kerry decisively condemned the Syrian government for the latest attack, even though proof of responsibility has not yet been established. Many other government officials have been rolled out to talk to the press, saying the exact same thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So1T1HdDpJw

This completely ignores a mounting body of evidence that the rebels are also in possession of chemical weapons. A U.N. inspector has already stated that pretty conclusively, back in June:
http://www.france24.com/en/20130506-syria-un-del-ponte-chemical-weapons-gas-rebels-assad

The mainstream media are lining up to cheer-lead the push, just as they did in the rush to war with Iraq. Again. isn't this all too damn familiar?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/27-2

You have to go to alternative outlets like Common Dreams to find intelligent, well-informed analysis and commentary providing views contrary to the official line.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/27

Sadly, their audience is tiny in comparison to the huge reach of of the mass media.

CONNECT THE DOTS

I know the implication here is provocative: that the rebels, having chemical weapons capability of their own,  would launch an attack that would kill their own people and allow it to be blamed on the Assad government, in order to provoke the U.S and NATO to enter the conflict on the opposition side.  There is the further implication that the U.S. supported this.  Is that too unthinkable, too conspiracy-ish?  Well again, history reminds us of the horrible, tragic consequences if we fail to be suspicious of dramatic events that lead to urgent calls for U.S. "intervention"…




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"Those who cannot remember the past..."

"...are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

It's a tired old saying, isn't it. But the fact is it speaks to the heart of the mess our society is in today: a tragic, pervasive lack of awareness about own history and how it relates to the events of today.

Forty-nine years ago today, on Aug. 7, 1964. U.S President Lyndon Johnson easily persuaded Congress to pass the "Gulf of Tonkin" resolution, giving the president broad powers to use military force against North Vietnam. This was in response to reports only five days previous, that American ships had been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. The mainstream media carried the stories provided to them by the government, and the drumbeat for war was pounded. Congress approved the resolution almost unanimously after a mere 10 hours of consideration. The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam.

The problem? The story of the attack presented to the public, and to Congress, was false, and top leadership knew it at the time. Read the Wikipedia entry for an introduction to how this happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

Here's a good quick summary, with commentary by Robert MacNamara, who was secretary of Defense at the time. After reading the Wikipedia, you can see how, all these years later, he is still deliberately obscuring key facts.



The resulting escalation in Vietnam went on for nine more years. It resulted in over 50,000 American troops dead, over 2 million dead Vietnamese, and finally, withdrawal with none of the ostensible objectives being achieved.

Starting to sound familiar? This clip makes the connections for you:



The media has always been a participant in this game, willing to be used to propagate the official line, not bothering to fact-check. The always reliable James Corbett of www.corbettreport.com provides a thorough and meticulously prepared reminder of how this has happened time and again.



Let's throw something else into the mix: Operation Northwoods. From ABC News:

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

And of course Wikipedia has an entry about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

Here's a brief clip about it:



If this still sounds too conspiracy theory for you, follow this link
http://www.wanttoknow.info/010501operationnorthwoods
for articles, interviews and links to the declassified documents. (Thanks again to www.wanttoknow.info for being such a valuable resource.)

CONNECT THE DOTS
The relevance for us today should be obvious and simple. Based on what is now public knowledge about our government's past actions, we have the right, perhaps even a duty, to regard the words and deeds of our leaders today with intense scrutiny, distrust and suspicion. With history as a guide, it is not hard to see why we think it so likely that we are being misled every step of the way, by people who are pursuing their own self-serving agendas, unrestrained by any ethical boundaries whatsoever. And history also shows us that if we don't reject the lies and demand the truth, the results are certain to be tragic, destructive and futile.


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Against Their Will

                                

A new book, Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America, is a thoroughly researched study on a topic that is not really new or even truly secret: the use of human subjects for medical experimentation, against their will and often even unwittingly, by the U.S. government in the mid-20th century. There has already been much documentation on the subject; here is a link, from the excellent website resource http://www.wanttoknow.info,  to a summary of stories that are in the public domain, reported by mainstream sources, about our government, military and intelligence establishments using human beings as unwilling research subjects in gruesome "scientific" medical studies:

http://www.wanttoknow.info/humanguineapigs

The difference this time is the focus on children as the victims of horrible, unethical experimentation by doctors and scientists from America's most prestigious hospitals and universities, with the full support and participation of the CIA and other U.S. government agencies. No exaggeration, no conspiracy theories; it is simply a matter of historical record.

What exactly are we talking about? It is really too sickening to go into detail about it. The blurb from Amazon.com includes this brief description:

They were drafted as "volunteers" to test vaccines, doused with ringworm, subjected to electric shock, and given lobotomies. They were also fed radioactive isotopes and exposed to chemical warfare agents.

And that barely scratches the surface.

CONTEXT and HISTORY

The context is important to the understanding of this, and why it is relevant today. This activity is known to have exploded and flourished during the Cold War, especially in the late 1040's - early 1950's, when fear of Communism was used to justify a wave of deeply unethical and criminal activity by our government.

In addition, at that time period in the middle of the 20th century, the concept of "eugenics" was still a powerful force behind a lot of scientific and medical activity. What is eugenics? Let's start with a simple online dictionary definition:

"the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)"

In case you're not getting the point, here's this helpful line from Wikipedia:

Early proponents of eugenics believed that, through selective breeding, the human species should direct its own evolution.  They tended to believe in the genetic superiority of Nordic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples; supported strict immigration and anti-miscegenation laws; and supported the forcible sterilization of the poor, disabled and "immoral."

Link to the full entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States

The Wiki article is disturbing but essential to begin to understand the scope of the eugenics movement in the U.S.as it rose to prominence in the early 20th century. Lest you think this was just some small fringe group of radical nutcases, the article makes clear that this movement was populated by a large swath of the scientific community, funded by the biggest corporate foundations like Rockefeller and Carnegie, and codified into law in the form of segregation, immigration restrictions, and the most hideous of all, compulsory sterilization enforced by law in 30 states. Only after Hitler was revealed to have carried eugenics to its most horrifying extreme did the movement fade in the U.S., but it didn't go away. During the Cold War era of the late 40's and 50's, the fear of Communism was hyped up to a level of hysteria that made it possible to revive the blatantly inhuman concept of eugenics, in order to justify the abuse of not just racial and ethnic minorities but also mentally challenged, physically disabled, sick and poor children. Again, just history.

What you have here is a perfect example of the muddy waters of human motivation, where genuine commitment to a mission, perceived as important and virtuous, coexists with a ruthless detachment and a lust for power and control, unrestricted by any sense of ethics or morality. I wrote a blog post on that subject I hope you'll go back and check out, called "True Believers and Manipulators:"

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/12/true-believers-and-manipulators.html

I'm sure many of the players involved in the experimentation on children were motivated by a passionate belief that extreme measures were necessary to save us from the even worse fate of being overrun by a Communist military dictatorship. That belief, and the fear and paranoia it generated, made it easy for them to put their faith in a junk science that assured them it was OK to experiment on these kids because they were genetically inferior. Meanwhile, others were just happy to take government or foundation money for their universities, hospitals and labs.

But all of them were manipulated by those who organized, funded and directed this activity, who themselves held irrational and conflicting motivations. I quote myself here, from my other blog post:

Mark Crispin Miller, in his introduction to a recent reprint of Edward Bernays Propaganda, points to an answer, as he discusses the dual nature of the minds of demagogues such as Hitler, Mussolini, McCarthy and others.  While on the one hand, they appear to be radically committed to their mission, on the other they are detached and manipulative.  Miller proposes that it is actually both - they are "fanatical and cynical at once, neither wholly in control nor wholly ecstatic.  Such agitators work within a certain mental borderland, where one can never clearly see conviction as distinct from calculation.  Indeed, that inner murkiness appears itself to be the very source or basis of the mass manipulator's enigmatic power, and so we cannot comprehend it through schematic dualistic formulas."

CONNECT THE DOTS

Many will often dismiss warnings about the slippery slope we are currently on in the U.S.: warnings like the constant invocations of national security being used to justify endless military actions abroad, increasing militarization of the police at home, increasing government surveillance of the public, increasing operation of government in secret, etc, all promoted by nationalistic propaganda pretending to be news. I have written about this several times now:

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-slippery-slope-surveillance.html

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-slippery-slope-continues.html

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2013/05/boston-further-along-wrong-path.html

So I ask you: is the propaganda, the misinformation, the stirring up of fear and paranoia posing as patriotism any different today than it was then? Are government leaders any less prone to the corrupting influence of money and power? Is one's racial or ethnic identity or economic status any less of a factor in one's being considered an equal member of society? Are scientific and medical institutions any less interested in cashing in on the expansion of government programs driven by fear and paranoia? Are corporations any less ruthless than they were before in their pursuit of economic enrichment at any price? Are the elites in the upper echelons of government and finance any less disdainful of the other 99.99% of humans in this world?

The book Against Their Will provides its own answer to that question by exposing the fact that the experimentation on children never actually stopped, it has just been moved off-shore, away from prying eyes. As one reviewer on Amazon says:

If you thought that at the beginning of the 21st century things like the ones described before stopped, you are wrong.  As the authors point out, American institutions have been replaced by China, India, Tunisia and Nigeria as sites for Phase One drug studies.  Drug firms now travel to "places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the FDA does not reach, and the mistakes can end up in pauper's graves."

So since the answer to all the above questions is so obviously no, then why shouldn't we be concerned, no, disturbed, no make that outraged, at the direction our society is going?

RITE OF PASSAGE

It is not pleasant to have to look upon the dark side of human nature; much easier to look away, avoid the issue, and live in willful ignorance, especially when the evil is found to be embedded in our most revered cultural institutions: government, science, medicine. But such knowledge is inescapable. Indeed, awareness of the past, and putting current events in the context of history, are necessary steps on the path to a more peaceful and compassionate future. So don't run and hide; look it in the eye. Weep, puke, rage if you have to. It is a rite of passage. Let it propel you forward into doing whatever you can do to shift the balance of power in the "real" world from fear over to love.



I have offered my thoughts on this before, and will continue to do so. Please read my posts, "The Absence of the Light," and "Solutions," for my perspectives on the crucial importance of bringing love, compassion, humility and forgiveness into our lives, as a serious, practical approach to countering the negative influences in the world.

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-absence-of-light.html

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/11/solutions.html

This is where our true power lies, and we must learn to wake up to it, own it, and use it. As I said in Absence of the Light:

And to anyone who finds this naive or can see no practical value in focusing on these concepts, we must thank them and continue on our way.  We have seen countless examples, time after time, how the actions of one person can make a difference to many others.  The simple act of extending humble generosity, compassion and forgiveness to another can have powerfully positive ramifications.

As I also suggested in that blog, it is the children that often end up being the ones who show us the way. We have so much to learn from them. We should sign up for the course.



Links to reviews and commentaries on the book:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/07/07/book-review-against-their-will-dober-secret-history-medical-experimentation-children-cold-war-america-allen-hornblum-judith-newman-and-gregory/mvRMIO8Zt7HakY7HWSLESO/story.html

http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2013/07/17/book-review-against-their-willthe-secret-history-of-medical-experimentation-on-children-in-cold-war-america/

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/allen-m-hornblum/against-their-will/

http://www.amazon.com/Against-Their-Will-Experimentation-Children/dp/0230341713

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36151/title/Capsule-Reviews/

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Boston: Further Along The Wrong Path

The aftermath of the Boston bombing is playing out in the manner of a genuine tragedy - the kind where the tragic end is foreseeable, preventable, but is not foreseen, not prevented. In the last decade we have taken many steps along the wrong path, even though its end point is known and feared. Now we have taken a few big ones.

WHY DID THEY DO IT? 

As always, the media gave us a minute by minute account of every false lead, every wrong turn, every politically motivated leak, every racist or ethnic innuendo, every bit of useless guesswork, surmise and supposition put forth by supposed experts in regard to what motivated the Boston bombers. And yet as far as the public is concerned, the story has coalesced very quickly into one predictable conclusion: Muslim extremists.

There are just a couple problems with going down that road. First, there are already cracks in the case that show prior FBI knowledge of the Boston suspects. As reported in the Wall Street Journal:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed suspected marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 at the request of the Russian government, but didn't find evidence of suspicious activity and closed the case, an FBI official said Friday...

...U.S.  counterterrorism officials have in recent years intensified warnings about the homegrown threat, though the threat has gotten less public attention because most of those plots, with the exception of the 2009 Ft.  Hood shooting in Texas, have been disrupted or botched.

What the article fails to mention is how so many of those "homegrown" plots have been enabled, supplied and even created by the FBI through various undercover "sting" operations. So if you want to say that Muslim extremists were behind the Boston bombing, then it would be naive not to be suspicious about FBI involvement in the incident. Here's some links to help understand this totally screwed up situation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html

http://www.fox19.com/story/21997600/reality-check-did-the-fbi-know-about-boston-bombing-beforehand 

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/4-fbi-agents-responsible-for-majority-of-terrorist-plots-in-the-united-states/

For a no-holds-barred commentary with extensive documentation on this, I suggest you read and watch James Corbett's well researched and fully referenced recent piece, "The FBI Fosters, Funds and Equips American Terrorists:"
http://www.corbettreport.com/the-fbi-fosters-funds-and-equips-american-terrorists/

LET'S SAY THEY WERE...

But let's just say for the sake of argument that the perpetrators were indeed Muslim extremists, acting on their own initiative, determined to attack and hurt Americans. If we agree to that, we immediately become trapped in a closed loop in which the only terms of discussion are in the form of extreme jingoism and propaganda. Any attempt at trying to understand to the attackers' motivations as human beings is met with immediate condemnation. (Just ask Tom Brokaw.) And heaven forbid one pursue the perfectly natural desire to compare the suffering of the Boston victims to the victims of violence elsewhere in the world. And don't even think of opening a discussion about the suffering inflicted on innocent Muslim civilians by our own country's military actions. Politicians and media must stay on point: The terrorists (read "Muslims") hate us for our freedoms. They are vile sub-humans who can't be reasoned with. They don't deserve any rights. They should be tortured until they reveal what they know, then they should be killed.

This is shallow, ignorant, heartless and irrational thinking, and should be unacceptable in public discourse. The fact that it actually is mainstream says volumes about how difficult to impossible it is to have a rational exchange of views on this subject. I must admit I am repeatedly astounded at how people who characterize themselves as Christians and/or patriotic Americans will so easily dismiss the values of both their faith and the Constitution when it comes to dealing with Muslims oops, I mean "terrorists."

Jon Stewart has done his usual fine job of thoroughly deconstructing this kind of talk. Honestly, it's like shooting fish in a barrel to ridicule Fox News, because they make such an easy target of themselves. But it is worth doing when such despicable talk goes beyond cable TV and enters the public discourse.



THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

Another reason it is perilous to blame the Boston attack on Muslim extremists is you have to reckon with the long sordid history of the U.S.involvement in strategic alliances with Muslim extremists, including the very Chechens who are now the newest terror boogeyman. As a result, we have to at least consider the possibility that the Chechens are being set up to be convenient fall guys; or that the attack is blowback resulting from the inevitable failure of such alliances. For an excellent analysis, read this article by former FBI agent and famed whistle blower Collen Rowley:
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/04/19/chechen-terrorists-and-the-neocons/

And here's some background from the Guardian, from 2004, entitled "The Chechens' American Friends - The Washington neocons' commitment to the war on terror evaporates in Chechnya, whose cause they have made their own"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/08/usa.russia

WHO BENEFITS?

If the facts about the Boston perpetrators and their motivations are now understood as complicated and murky, it seems clear that there have been some definite winners as a result of the Boston attacks.

With almost 12 years gone since 9/11, there have been many steps taken down the road of turning our society into one in which citizens have become acclimated to massive increases in surveillance, increasing operation of government in secrecy, a continual state of external warfare, and increasing militarization of internal law enforcement. We have seen a whole new version of the military-industrial-complex arise: the military-corporate-government-intelligence complex, as documented in the Washington Post's series Top Secret America.

Now, thanks to the attacks in Boston, we see that the public is ready to go a few more steps. Here's what was accomplished, all under the pretext of finding one bad guy:

• Precedent established: locked down an entire big city; achieved universal compliance without it even being mandatory.

• Precedent established: house to house warrant-less searches by fully armed SWAT teams backed up by military style armored vehicles.  Homes invaded, entire families rousted and ejected from their own homes for hours. The intimidation factor ensured that even if one wanted to complain, one would certainly think better of it.

• Universal public support for police action, even after the lockdown and neighborhood searches failed to produce a result. Suspect was found after the lockdown/search action was called off, by a citizen who went out to look at his boat. In fact, the massive manhunt had somehow skipped this street, even though it was within their designated search perimeter. Nevertheless, citizens unanimously praised the police, and when the suspect was finally caught, crowds chanted "USA, USA."

• In light of events, Boston police commissioner Ed Davis called for the city to acquire drones. Little doubt he will get what he wants. Local paper the Boston Herald clarified the inevitability in an editorial entitled "Bring On The Drones:"

"...surveillance drones can be a useful tool for law enforcement, and like it or not they’re coming to a city near you. It is important that their use be restrained, with proper oversight to prevent abuse. But in an emergency situation, there may be no more useful tool."

• New York mayor Bloomberg took the opportunity in a press conference to tell New Yorkers: 

“But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

Anyone with a differing view is given one sentence of coverage, and marginalized as a "civil liberties advocate" or someone with "privacy concerns."

The mainstream media did their part to make sure everyone got the message. For example, the day after the attack, Tom Brokaw helpfully explained that "beginning tomorrow morning, early, there are going to be much tougher security considerations, all across the country, however exhausted we may be by them. We're going to have to learn to live with them, get along, and go forward and not let them bring us to our knees."

And a CBS reporter, gushing with admiration for the cop caught on camera delivering milk to a stranded family, expressed remarkable understanding, saying, "as a mom, I know what that can be like, you know, you're in lockdown, the kids are miserable, you don't have any milk..." Sure, anyone can relate to that...
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50145388n

The only public figure that I know of that has been willing to speak out critically about this is Ron Paul, who published a very provocative essay on the subject. Is he just trying to make headlines, or is he perhaps sincerely trying to get people to consider the question, "who benefits?"




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Earth Day Distractions

Earth Day appears as an opportunity for people with caring hearts and the best intentions to do a little bit of good for our planet. Raising awareness is good; every little bit helps, right?

But when I look at the promo being generated by the Earth Day Network and their multitude of corporate partners, I find that it's what is not being said that is really the point.

Again, I see nothing wrong with pursuing alternative energy sources, recycling, or planting trees. But is it really so hard to see the lies and deception behind the PR?

The world's biggest corporate polluters and despoilers of the environment love to add green logos and put out warm-fuzzy commercials to let us know they are all for "going green," when their actual policies and activities prove the exact opposite.



This has been true for decades. The environmental movement has time and again been co-opted and hijacked by corporate PR green-washing machines, their clear aim to distract us from their culpability, and dump the responsibility onto us, the consumer.

Earth Day is every day for NASCAR industry
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/earth-day-every-day-nascar-120000760--nascar.html

I am all for each of us taking responsibility for what we can do. But as a wise man once said, "don't piss on my head and tell me it's rain." We should all be tired of mega-polluting industries telling us how responsible they are, when in fact every day they are doing their best to trample on not just the law but on any sense of decency and ethical responsibility. And expecting our government to provide any sort of effective control over this is useless.

Where, in any of the Earth Day promo, do you see any of the biggest industrial polluters being called to account for the horrific damage done to our land, air and water, at great cost to our economy, and our health? Where do we see any discussion of the environmental consequences of failed and damaged nuclear reactors? Does anyone want to talk about one of the biggest polluters in the world, the U.S. military? Anything at all about our dangerously misguided way of eating in this country, and the disastrous effect on the environment inflicted by industrial agriculture? The serious risks posed by the increasing presence of genetically modified foods?

No, I didn't think so. Here's a typical bit of fluff from CNN:

Hey Earthling, it's Earth Day; time for a quiz
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/22/world/earth-day/index.html

So by all means, do recycle, do plant a tree, do turn off the lights, do buy an electric car, but please look deeper. Stop buying the green-washing bullshit. Seek alternatives to the corporate-industrial paradigm that keeps a few thousand people incredibly wealthy while the rest of us are left barely hanging on.

If that sounds overblown and unrealistic, you owe it to yourself to look into this further. Fortunately I can recommend a great resource for you with lots of links and references to set you on the path.

Take Action

I am of course referring to The Queen's Table, the most comprehensive, informative and entertaining resource archive you could possibly ask for. This blog has many pages that cover a wide range of aspects relating to food and health. They are all good, but I urge you to spend some time on the "Action" page. She poses the question "What Can We Do?" and answers it on the intellectual, emotional and spiritual levels, all of which are critical before you can expect to make any lasting change in your physical world. And if you are ready for more practical information, try the Links page, with an abundance of references and links to info about organic food, best farming practices, nutrition, toxins and a lot more. If that's not enough, check out the GMO info page, the Rabbit Hole, and Inspiration to Begin. There is a lot to absorb, but as another wise man said...

The Slippery Slope Continues

What do you call it when law enforcement agents invade your home, terrorize your family and hold you captive for hours, for what turns out to be no cause? When you find that their actions were pre-approved by a judge? When they refuse to show you any evidence to justify this needless assault on your privacy, your property and your liberty?

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article318665/Evidence-for-search-of-Leawood-home-called-flimsy.html

This is the world we live in. The Harte's, a quiet upper-middle-class family from Leawood Kansas, buy hydroponic equipment so they can start growing organic vegetables indoors. But in this insane post-911 paradigm, law enforcement is given carte blanche to respond to minor offenses and even completely innocent behavior as if they were dealing with dangerous terrorists. Local police take notice of the family's activity. Buying hydroponic growing supplies is apparently enough cause to suspect them of growing marijuana. Their home is put under surveillance, their trash sifted. The police extract loose tea leaves from the garbage and wrongly identify them as marijuana. The police conclude that the Harte's are indeed growing the horrible weed. And so, as a result of a police investigation that can only be described as either inept or corrupt, a SWAT team is dispatched, the family's home is raided. The children are forced to watch as their house is torn apart for two hours as their father is forced to lie face down on the floor while an officer of the law stands over him with an AR-15 pointed at his head. The police find nothing illegal growing: only tomatoes and squash. It was just one of a series of raids on that day across two states that was declared a success at the time after police reported confiscating a total of 43 plants and one pound of pot.

http://gardnernews.com/joco-sheriff-participates-in-marijuana-raid-during-440/

The problems here are painfully obvious: they indicate a new paradigm of ever expanding secret surveillance, and militarization of law enforcement, that should make us all re-think what's going on in this country, how we got here and where we are headed. I wrote about this in an earlier blog post, "The Slippery Slope: Surveillance:"

The slippery slope has already become an avalanche. The issue of encroachment on the civil liberties of ordinary citizens is further compounded by the increasingly overt militarization of many police forces, again encouraged and supported by Dept. of Homeland Security, leading directly an increasing frequency of highly aggressive actions by police in response to non-terrorist, even non-criminal situations. Add to that the NSA's vast expansion of its domestic surveillance capacity and the government's insistence that it has the right to operate such programs in secret. This has led to a situation right out of Kafka, in which the Justice Department denies any challenge to the legality of being subjected to surveillance unless the subject can prove the government was spying on him, but that can't be proven because the government classifies that information as secret. 

If an ordinary family could have their life turned upside down by local police over something as trivial as marijuana, what do you think the CIA, FBI, NSA and the rest of the Dept. Homeland Security are capable of? Is there any reason to trust that any of us couldn't be put under surveillance, attacked or imprisoned, based on bogus evidence that more than likely will be politically motivated?

Of course, we live in a fair society. The victims have filed lawsuit against the police, and perhaps they will have their day in court. Justice is wonderful if you can afford it. But what of the many others who have been or will be victimized in similar fashion, but don't have the energy, resources or courage to go up against their own government?

UPDATES:

November 2013: Leawood couple files lawsuit filed over mistaken marijuana raid

December 2014: Leawood couple helps change search warrant law



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Pigeons

We live in the era of "share everything" and "I've got nothing to hide:"



I wrote about some aspects of this issue in a previous post called "The Slippery Slope - Surveillance." but if you aren't yet convinced why this is bad, here's another example of why privacy matters:

Your health insurance company may be buying your shopping history data and using it against you. From the Wall Street journal, Feb. 25, 2013:

"Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina recently began buying spending data on more than 3 million people in its employer group plans.  If someone, say, purchases plus-size clothing, the health plan could flag him for potential obesity...Marketing firms have sold this data to retailers and credit-card companies for years, and health plans have recently discovered they can use it to augment claims data..."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323384604578326151014237898.html

Another quote: "...the so-called advanced analytics industry provides an opportunity to zero in on errant employees and alter their behavior...."

Have you noticed how often problems are dealt with by using so-called "behavior modification," otherwise known as operant conditioning? The common term in modern culture is "incentives:"

"Johnson & Johnson,  for example, pays employees $500 to submit their biometrics and other health information; J&J then offers eligible employees an additional $250 if they get pregnancy counseling, enroll in a disease-management program or get their colonoscopy on time.  The "tailored and targeted messages" paired with the monetary incentives are a "great way to bring people to participate in the program," says Dr.  Fikry Isaac, the company's vice president of global health services."

The people who operate the machinery of your everyday life aren't waiting around for you to figure this out. They have already decided that your privacy doesn't matter, They have already concluded that you don't have free will, and that the best thing for you is to control and adjust your behavior through well established scientific methods.

Thank you, B.F. Skinner, for providing corporate America with the pretext for treating the public like pigeons in a lab experiment.

Beyond Guns or Government

Peace must be learned. If we want peace, we can't get it by outlawing violence. And neither is it peace, real, genuine peace, if we are merely protecting ourselves by threatening violence against others. We must imagine a world beyond this, envision it, and begin to move our reality past these old paradigms of fear.

Bob Koehler expresses this idea so well. He is one of the few I know that is willing to explore real-world ways of moving past relying on either guns or government to resolve violent conflicts. His latest post, on his website Common Wonders, is a wonderful case in point.  He contrasts the predictable response to a recent tragic shooting in Chicago against a non-violent conflict resolution program being used in a Chicago school. He tells the story of how this program was used to defuse a situation that could have turned horribly wrong, and instead led to a most amazingly positive result.

Please read Bob's full essay:
http://commonwonders.com/peace/lasting-peace/

And the original story by Robert Spicer, who was the leader of the program in the school:
http://ibarji.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-hand-shake-a-hug-and-basketball-our-journey-using-restorative

Some people have realized that if we want peace, we need to put a high priority on teaching children about peace. What a concept.

Gandhi - Hijacked

First MLK, now Gandhi. More blatant distortions, mis-interpretations and out-of-context citations from gun-rights activists, this time co-opting and mis-appropriating Gandhi to support their cause.

On the one hand, we should be thankful that this is coming up, because it provides an opportunity to get a more nuanced view of Gandhi. He was not a saint, and he lived in the real world, responding to serious crises. His philosophy evolved over time, as occurs with any thinking person who responds critically when one's pre-conceptions are challenged by new experiences and inspirations.

So here's some relevant Gandhi quotes:

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.” 

“I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence.”

Etcetera. This article from Mike Adams of Natural News (re-posted at InfoWars, and I'm sure many others)  has lots more quotes:
http://www.infowars.com/gandhi-advocated-the-right-to-bear-arms-use-of-violence-to-defend-innocents-against-bullying-oppression/

But the flaws and fallacies of this article are many. An excellent article from the website Waging Nonviolence http://wagingnonviolence.org/2013/02/what-gandhi-really-thought-about-guns/
adds some clarity to the discussion:

"Pro-gun activists frequently use those words to suggest that Gandhi supported individual gun ownership both as a means of defending oneself and as a tool to violently resist government tyranny...that Gandhi supported violence to defend oneself and others.  This is a vast oversimplification of Gandhi’s views.
In truth, Gandhi did not oppose the use of violence in certain circumstances, preferring it to cowardice and submission.  Even though Gandhi’s spiritual philosophy of ahimsa rejects violence, it permits the use of violent force if a person is not courageous and disciplined enough to use nonviolence.  Gandhi regarded weakness as the lowest human flaw, and would rather see a person use violent force in self-defense than be passive."

The article goes on to provide solid historical information that adds much needed historical context to the quote.

Context is everything, and those who cite this quote are being willfully misleading. They fail to point out that even though Gandhi allowed for the possibility of violence, it was as a last resort for those who were unwilling or unable to adopt the practice of non-violence, which was clearly what he preferred people to do. He spent his whole life teaching non-violence, practicing personal non-violence and making non-violence the centerpiece of his campaigns against British oppression. It seems ridiculous to even have to remind anyone that it is his practice of non-violence that has made him such an influential historical figure, not any perceived advocacy for the right to bear arms.

Gandhi's attitude towards guns and violence shows his acknowledgement of free will. If a person has no other recourse, and has not gained the courage and insight necessary to practice non-violence, then Gandhi says better to use violence than be a coward. But he is clear that non-violence is what we need to strive for, study and practice, so that we may finally move beyond violent response altogether.

It takes far more courage and strength of character to practice non-violence, indeed it is a deep and challenging spiritual practice for the real world. That is what he helped the Indian people achieve, and what his legacy calls on us to try to do.

I understand what Mike Adams, Alex Jones and others like them are worried about. Every day brings new information that adds credibility to the concern that our government is heading in a direction of becoming an authoritarian regime. But that is no excuse for peddling mis-information in order to stir people who don't know any better into an ever increasing state of fear, anxiety and hatred. It undermines the credibility of everything else that media commentators like Adams and Jones do, which is too bad because they often provide genuinely useful information. But you can also see in their work that they thrive on perpetuating a state of fear, not on offering genuine solutions. We must continue to shine the light of truth on these issues, and keep pushing forward on the path that Gandhi has laid out for us.

The Hijacking of Martin Luther King

It has become an annual tradition for somebody who is selling some idea totally antithetical to what Martin Luther King believed, to declare that King "would have approved." I wrote about one such story in a blog post from 2011, "Pentagon Celebrates Martin Luther King Day?" in which I broke down the absurdity of a Defense Department lawyer's claim that Dr. King would approve of war, as long as it's in response to the threat of terrorism.

Now here we are again, another MLK day, and here are more absurd self-serving distortions of Dr. King.

Larry Ward, a political consultant who created the National Gun Appreciation series of pro-gun rights events that occurred last weekend, went on CNN to proclaim that he wanted to “honor the legacy of Dr. King.” Pretending to tip his hat to Dr. King, blacks and civil rights activists, he went so far as to say that slavery may never have happened in the United States if African-Americans had owned guns.

Shall we unpack this to show how ridiculous it is? No, the other commentator on the show took care of that:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/11/gun-appreciation-day-chairman-slavery-wouldnt-have-happened-if-slaves-were-armed/

We could just mention that Larry Ward's business is, plain and simple, Republican party public relations. As always, many people who were part of the recent gun appreciation events do not know or care that the main interest of its organizers is not about gun rights, it's about Republican party politics.
http://politicalmedia.com/about

Perhaps we should point out that a few days after going on his press push, it was revealed that one of Mr. Ward's sponsors for the event is American Third Position, an explicitly white racist political organization. So who is Mr. Ward trying to kid?
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/18/gun-appreciation-day-is-sponsored-by-a-white-na/192318

But the mis-representation of Martin Luther King goes further. Some recently published articles are being cited to point out that at one time in the mid-1950's, during an intense period of violent attacks on civil rights activists, Martin Luther King kept guns for self-protection.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/mlk-and-his-guns_b_810132.html

A shallow reading of the article (and they count on that) would suggest that King would have endorsed today's pro-gun rights activism. What is ignored or marginalized is the fact that over time, Dr. King moved further and further in the direction of complete non-violence, and eventually renounced guns altogether.

The point of this story being shared at this exact moment is clearly to attempt to overshadow and implicitly belittle King's monumental later commitment to non-violence. It is also meant to ridicule people that think King was always completely against violence and guns - as if to say, "ha ha, wrong again you naive liberals. King appreciated the value of a gun just as much as any gun rights supporter, until he so foolishly went in the wrong direction."
http://www.redstate.com/candicelanier/2013/01/17/mlks-arsenal-the-racist-roots-of-gun-control-in-the-u-s/

It is amazing indeed to see hard-line conservative writers twisting themselves into knots to try to make this argument work (as, for example, when their argument forces them to come down on the same side as the radical Black Panthers of the 1960's.). But it fails because it so obviously tries to re-define King by extracting one little slice of his vast and complex life and using it out of context to score a political point.

The fact is, it is central to understanding King to know that his ideas about non-violence evolved over time. His eventual renunciation of guns and violent action was an amazing accomplishment in his life. At the same time he was showing that like any intelligent person, he was capable of changing his views when presented with credible new ideas. The life and work of Gandhi were very powerful and credible indeed. Encountering, learning and absorbing Gandhi gradually changed King's life, in a dramatic way. This is the rest of the story, and the failure to tell it in relation to the story of his earlier gun ownership is not just willfully ignorant, but  intellectually dishonest and disrespectful. For more on how Dr. King's indeas developed, read this excellent article:
http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v17n2p21.htm

This leads me to a related observation: one cannot in good conscience ignore the racism that continues to assert itself in our country.

The clues are sometimes subtle, as in this news report from ABC's 20/20 on the "myths" of gun control.. Notice at about 2:30, when the scene changes to a prison, and the color of the skin of the people on camera makes a point without needing any words.



But sometimes the racism is so blatant it is sickening, especially when, as in Mississippi, it is occurring against children, perpetrated by authorities in the schools, the police and the judicial system.
http://morallowground.com/2013/01/20/report-extreme-racialized-discipline-plagues-mississippi-schools/

It makes me think that gun rights advocates ought to look with great suspicion on the political motivations of their leadership, and their willingness to partner with racists while they pretend to sympathize with Dr. King.

So where does Truth Dots stand on gun rights issues? Well as always, I stand outside of either-or.

On the one hand, it seems futile to support greater governmental involvement in restricting gun ownership, when our government reserves the right to wield vast amounts of the most destructive weaponry in the world, and directs our military to kill with impunity. But we are stuck there, aren't we, because we willingly give our government that power. In fact we are conditioned to think of violence as heroic and even patriotic, as long as it's directed by the institutional "us," the good guys.

Here is another area where Dr. King's position gradually became unequivocal, and in 1967 he took the exceptionally bold step of publicly condemning the U.S. government's perpetration of violence around the world as well as at home. This is another aspect of King's legacy that is willfully neglected and even intentionally distorted by many. But in the year before he died he made it quite clear what he thought.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

There is no better symbol of governmental hypocrisy than President Obama himself. Obama enjoys being the beneficiary of King's civil rights legacy, and clumsily quotes King, incorrectly and out of context, to improve his own image. But Obama's record of commanding violent and destructive military actions goes against everything King stood for. In an even more bizarre twist, during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (for which he had done literally nothing to deserve), Obama both cited King as an influence and utterly repudiated him in the same speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AORo-YEXxNQ

I broke this down in more detail in my earlier post:
http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2011/01/pentagon-celebrates-martin-luther-king.html

On the other hand, I have heard so many times that 99% of all gun owners are patriotic, responsible, well trained, full of wisdom and common sense. It is pretty easy to see that this is not really so cut and dried. I'm not talking about anyone I know, of course. But I am sure this, this, this and this barely scratch the surface of the large numbers of angry, ignorant and careless people, many of whom are in positions of influence and authority, who insist on carrying guns. This troubles me greatly, and that feeling is amplified by adding in the possibility of racist attitudes and emotional instability into the stew.

Am I exaggerating? I don't know, what do you think? When you have an authority figure like this ex-military/ex-police chief/professional weapons trainer going on YouTube, vowing to take to the streets and start killing people in the name of preserving his 2nd amendment rights and urging others to do the same, I think I have a point.


I don't have a problem with anyone claiming their constitutional rights. What I object to is the way people on both "sides" of this issue constantly respond and react out of fear. Indeed, we are constantly being pushed by authority figures and the media to believe we only have two choices: support one position, or be very afraid of what will happen. You must support unrestricted right to carry guns - the only alternative is to cower in fear. Or you must support greatly expanded government restrictions on guns, or else - that's right, cower in fear.

This choice is phony. It dis-empowers us and it denies the human capacity for creative, innovative thinking, for compassion and courage. We must move past this fake either-or paradigm and stand up for the highest spiritual and ethical principles at every level, starting from the personal to the family and community, instead of expecting our society's institutions to somehow change the way they've always been, just because we demand it.

Bob Koehler gives us a window into one powerful approach to this:
http://commonwonders.com/peace/unarmed-empowerment/

But there are a million ways, big and small. Find your own way. And always, always refer to Martin Luther King himself, not other people's mis-interpretations of him.



UPDATE: 
The Air Force Global Strike Command wants you to know that Martin Luther King would be proud of them for overcoming racial, cultural and religious differences in order to "ensure perfection as we maintain and operate... the most powerful weapons in the U.S. arsenal." 
http://www.afgsc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123333051

Well that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, how about you?