Defense Against the Psychopath

Defense Against the Psychopath is a documentary excerpted from chapter one of the book; The Art of Urban Survival. It teaches people how to recognize and defend against our society's most dangerous predators, psychopaths.

Free Download of the PDF booklet, Defense Against the Psychopath here: http://www.chinastrategies.com/defenseagainstpsychopath.pdf

~ Via The Atlantean Conspiracy

The Tao of #Occupy

From The Good Men Project:

As the #Occupy movement decentralizes, writes Alison Leigh Lilly, it continues to bring the elements that make it revolutionary: space, persistence, flexibility and resilience.

As we enter the colder winter months, the days grow darker and time seems to slow down, thickening like sleepy sap in the bare-limbed trees. Yet for many of us watching the protests of the #OccupyWallStreet movement unfold over the last two months, the country seems poised on the brink of something revolutionary. A tension hangs in the air—the trembling stillness of hope and excitement, but also trepidation and anxiety. This pervasive mood has me thinking a lot recently about the Eastern spiritual philosophy of Taoism, and the lessons of stillness, receptivity and harmony with nature taught by its founders, Laozi and Zhuangzi. How might the insights of Taoism help us to understand the potency and influence of the #Occupy movement? And what can it tell us about where the movement might be heading in the future?

“Nothing in the world is more flexible or yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it.” – Daode Jing, Chapter 78

I could just as easily have used the well-known quote from Gandhi when he said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” The idea is very much the same. Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence or satyagraha (roughly translated as “love-force” or the “power of love”) is founded on a view of love as a persistent but deeply receptive force. Often misunderstood as weakness or passivity, satyagraha has an active power all its own.

[ ... ]

“Thirty spokes join at the hub: their use for the cart is where they are not. When the potter’s wheel makes a pot, the use of the pot is precisely where there is nothing. When you open doors and windows for a room, it is where there is nothing that they are useful to the room.” – Daode Jing, Chapter 11

A defining aspect of the #Occupy movement is its decentralization. Techniques for consensus building have laid the groundwork for community decision-making within the movement since its inception, and in cities around the world concepts like General Assemblies, working groups and human mic checks are becoming familiar catch phrases in ordinary conversations about political activism and democratic initiatives. But the real power of #OWS goes even deeper: at the very heart of #Occupy, there is space.

The very notion of occupation requires a sense of space, an emptiness into which you can move. Occupation in the modern sense is used to describe both a person’s career—in which their time and energy is “occupied” by a job or employer—and a country’s (usually illegal) military presence in another’s territory. The #Occupy movement plays with both of these meanings in their founding call to action to “Occupy Wall Street” as a response to continuing underemployment in the United States and the view that the richest top 1% have unethically, perhaps even illegally seized control of the nation’s wealth.

Some of the #Occupy protests and encampments around the country have grown up in places like Zuccotti Park that exist in a strange liminal legal space between public and private property, taking advantage of laws that require businesses to make privately-owned spaces available for public use. Protesters carry signs proclaiming things like, “Lost My Job, Found An Occupation” and “Occupy Your Mind, Occupy Your Heart”—suggesting that occupation can also be a metaphor for reclaiming symbolic spaces like time, energy, emotion, and thought that have been overrun by invasive foreign influences. In a society where corporate interests insinuate themselves into every public or community space possible through advertising and political lobbying, the #Occupy movement pushes back and reasserts the value of empty, open spaces as fundamentally necessary for free public discourse.

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Richard Stallman: Facebook IS Mass Surveillance

The father of free software philosophy spoke to RT on evil developers, spying social networks, the almost-legitimacy of Anonymous hacks and the condition under which he would take a proprietary program and a million dollars.

I'll Occupy Recruitment Song The 99 is Pissed and We Will Not Be Dismissed! Believe.

"I'll Occupy"

Lyrics:

I first was pepper sprayed
Just standing on the side
But it took me being blinded
to open up up my eyes
Cause I'd read the daily news,
and not responded actively
and I realized then and there
this revolution needed me

So here I am,
camped in a tent
Which is really so convenient
cause I can't afford my rent
But they came with shields and mace
In the night while it was dark
A NYPD army
Sent to clear Zuccotti Park

We'll protest on, with catchy phases
We're going global
From London to Uc Davis
If you think that your batons are going to get us to go home
GO on and hit me, I'll just upload it from my phone.

Until I die,
I'll occupy
As long I know how to sit
And hold this heavy sign
cause the 99 is pissed
and we will not BE dismissed
I'll occupy
I'll occupy
hell yeah

Call us "hippies" call us "homeless,"
yeah we're fed it.
And we "don't know what we want,"
to our discredit.
But if you're reading all the news, funded by the corporations
Its no mystery
How you've missed our declaration

We're armed too
Yeah, we've got twitter
We're a techno savvy nation
And we're bitter
There's no Marie Antoinette
We're dragging to the Guillotine
Got non-violence, you bet!
Cause we aim to keep this clean

We will not go! Bring on the snow!
Got your faceless cooperate body
One peaceful badass foe
We're awake, we saw Wall-e, and you know we're organized
Did you think we'd crumble?
Did you think we'd lay down and not try?

Until I die,
I'll occupy
As long I know how to sit
And hold this heavy sign
cause the 99 is pissed
and we will not be dismissed
I'll occupy
I'll occupy
HELL yeah
HELL yeah!

We're off our Meds, we're watching Ted
And we're into Zombie culture,
But we're not the walking dead
If you want to fight for justice join the masses, we are strong
And it wouldn't hurt to take a
minute to repost this song!

Until we die,
We'll occupy
As long we know how to sit
And hold these heavy sign
cause the 99 is pissed
and we will not be dismissed
We'll occupy
We'll occupy
HELL yeah

Originally from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N5N8UzSRTQ

See also: 'Occupy': Geoff Nunberg's 2011 Word Of The Year

Anonymous - World Revolution

Here's a brief history about the revolution going on world wide. This is mass awakening. Let the energies flow!!

Direct democracy in Swiss firing line

The National Council approved on Tuesday the creation of a Constitutional Court in a move seen by opponents as a step towards the dismantlement of Switzerland's tradition of direct democracy.

A tight vote produced a final result of 94 in favour, 86 against, and three abstentions. Left-wing parties were broadly supportive of the move, while the right was largely opposed.

If the National Counci's proposal is approved by the Council of States, Switzerland will repeal Article 190 of the Federal Constitution, which expressly prohibits the creation of a constitutional court.

If approved, the new court would have the power to overrule the Federal Supreme Court, which for 137 years has been Switzerland's highest judicial body. The Supreme Court has no authority to review the constitutionality of federal statutes.

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Rothschilds Give Formal Support to US Direct Democracy?

From The Daily Bell:

The words of Irish poet William Butler Yeats in his poem, The Second Coming, have an eerie resonance for American politics today. "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold... The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand." In an environment of unprecedented political gridlock in Washington and broad-based dissatisfaction with the leading candidates of both parties, 2012 may finally be the year when an independent candidate becomes president of the United States. – Lynn Forester de Rothschild / Huffington Post

Dominant Social Theme: The heck with this two-party stuff. Let's simply elect the best technocrat.

Free-Market Analysis: What an editorial at Huffington Post by Lynn Forester de Rothschild! In it, she makes the point that "some revelation is at hand" – and mostly likely it has to do with the reality of a genuine third-party challenge to put a candidate in the White House.

Is Ms. Rothschild suggesting Congressman Ron Paul is about to win the US presidency? (Not sure about this.) A close reading of the article, however, reveals something that may be even more radical. Ms. Rothschild is arguing for, wait for it ... "direct democracy." That is, electing candidates directly, by majority vote, at the federal level, presumably without the fuss of the current two-party system.

We've written about the dominant social theme of direct democracy before. The governor of New York, Michael Bloomberg – an elitist worker-bee if there ever was one – is a big supporter of an element of direct democracy, which includes the elimination of the two-party system.

But what is it REALLY? Well ... it is basically a full implementation of the USSR's communist system that died 20 years ago! The idea is that a technocracy of the elite can present candidates who are the most "competent" at administration. The corollary to this, of course, is that one must accept EVERY FACET of the CURRENT system to accept that one is voting purely for competence.

In other words, if people do not like the current corporatist/authoritarian/totalitarian/militarized state that is being constructed around them, they're simply plumb out of luck. That's because the candidates on this "best of all worlds" won't be running on how to CHANGE what's going on – only on how to administer it BETTER.

And who is Ms. Lynn Forester de Rothschild? The bio tells us that she is "CEO of EL Rothschild, LLC and the co-Chair of the 'Better Values, Better Markets' Task Force at the Henry Jackson Society in London." You can "follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and at LdeReport.com," we learn.

The views Ms. Rothschild expresses are inevitable, in our opinion. We've continually catalogued them and here they are once more – reinforced by an individual whose family is, in our estimation, the most powerful in the world.

[ ... ]

She writes of a similar movement, as well, called "No Labels." This is, we learn, "a political organization of Republicans, Democrats and Independents working on the grassroots level to support bipartisan and pragmatic politicians and policies. The group has 180,000 members and on December 13th is holding an open meeting at the Capital to unveil a comprehensive congressional action plan."

And here is another eloquent (and in our view blood-curdling) statement she makes toward the end of the article. "Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, is leading a movement of business leaders and political donors to end the hyper-partisanship in Washington that could be the bedrock of financing for a viable independent, bipartisan ticket for 2012. Simply, both the political environment and the tools are in place for a total disintermediation of our political duopoly."

Oh, good. The two-party system was horrible enough. In its place, we shall substitute the worst of all worlds – a one-party system. Yet, Ms. Rothschild seems a true believer.

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Occupy Berlin Publishes Declaration Against War

By David Swanson

»Occupy« Declaration against War – Demand to stop preparations for war against Iran and Syria!

- by Occupy Berlin

Starting from Tunisia and Egypt, spreading to Spain, Greece and other European countries and finally to the USA in 2011 protest movements developed that work towards a profound political, social and economic change in the system.

We are globally networked people who feel inspired by these international events and who are motivated to join together in order to be politically active.

Our main demands are »real democracy« – that is real participation – and thus social justice and peace on Earth!

This includes the disbandment of international operating private banks, the disempowerment of the multinational corporations and the military industrial complex, because these three factors largely influence and determine all political decisions in the existing system.

A neo-liberal economic policy that knows no boundaries, the massive indebtedness of the public sector but also of many private people as well as harsh cuts in our social welfare systems have caused the gap between the poor and the rich to broaden even further. Unemployment, lack of perspective and mass poverty are the consequences of this kind of politics.

In the area of foreign policy we are witnesses of ever more escalating military conflicts and interventions in the name of »Western Democracy«, while internally we are being confronted with overarching surveillance in every sphere of life and increasing police violence. Political decision-making processes become more and intransparent and withdraw themselves from democratic control.

The situation is grave. That’s why we call upon you: Come, join us!

More than a 1,000 cities worldwide have seen the rise of protest movements and protest camps this year. They protest against the existing power structures and for true change.

We demand change!
We are change!

But all these peaceful global aspirations are increasingly threatened by war-mongering:

War-mongering is a well-tried tool to use fueled conflicts to distract the public from internal problems.

In light of the dispute over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, threats of a possible military attack against Iran, especially in the U.S. media and in Europe are expressed more openly now. This is especially true for the Republican candidate to the U.S. Presidential Elections in 2012.

The sanctions imposed by the British government against Iran and the withdrawal of the British ambassador to Tehran are further evidence that there is less and less interest in finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Also, it is important to note that Russia and China both maintain very close trade relations to Iran. Both countries have signalled openly that they would intervene in the conflict should it escalate further.

At the same time, sanctions against Syria are tightened and rebel forces are supported with weapons. In Syria we see the same severe conflicts of interest with Russia and China.

It is a known fact that by now the Libyan »Transitional Council« (an administrative instance supported by Western governments) collaborates with armed groups in Syria. It is becoming clearer that armed opponents of the Syrian regime receive massive support from abroad, just as before in Libya. We want to make very clear that we do support our brothers and sisters in the Middle East in their peaceful protests. We therefore condemn the Western governments’ intentions to intervene and disturb the processes of social change taking place in these countries to gain justification for an eventual military intervention.

After occupying Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya now NATO seems to have laid their eyes on Syria and Iran as the next targets for a forceful change of regime. International efforts to find a peaceful solution at the negotiating table are being nipped in the bud. This type of politics has already resulted in countless victims of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and has brought massive destruction of infrastructure and ecosystems over these countries.

Mainly big Western corporations profited from the subsequent reconstruction and reallocation of resources while the cost for weapons, military bases and warfare were paid for with tax money from the citizens of the NATO member states.This adds to the massive indebtedness of Western governments.

Leading members of the German government have repeatedly expressed their support for a military intervention in Iran in the context of the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Established mass media have also repeatedly voiced opinions in favour of the »military option«.

However, the Charter of the United Nations expressly prohibits the use and threat of force in international relations. There are only two exceptions to this »prohibition on the use of force«: The right to individual and collective self-defense according to article 51 and peace-enforcing measures according to chapter VII of the Charter.

Article 25 of the German Constitution (»Grundgesetz«) decrees that the general rules of International Law are part of German Federal Law, that they supersede national law and cause immediate rights and duties to the German citizens.

We say: End all Preparations for War against Iran and against Syria Now! End all Wars Worldwide Now!

We demand immediate de-escalating measures to defuse these conflicts sustainably!
We will pay close attention as to what will be real de-escalating measures and which actions and words only cover up provocation and escalating intentions!

We announce stiff resistance against any further escalating steps on the part of »our« governments and »our« corporate or public media.

We are many. We are the 99%. Expect us.

- »Occupy Germany«, December 6, 2011

----------------------

german
“Occupy”-Erklärung gegen Krieg – Schluss mit den Kriegsvorbereitungen gegen den Iran und gegen Syrien!

http://ow.ly/7RtBS

RAW, Russia Election 2011 Violations, Alleged Fraud Caught on Camera

A video of ballot stuffing at the latest elections in Russia, taken by Singinau. You can clearly see the head of a polling station falsifying ballots.
According to media reports, the head of Moscow's City Elections Commission announced that Russian authorities had opened an investigation into the "incident".

Montcalm County gets homeland security snow cone machine

The United States is fighting terrorism — one snow cone at a time.

Montcalm County recently received a $900 Arctic Blast Sno-Cone machine.

The West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission (WMSRDC) is a federal- and state-designated agency responsible for managing and administrating the homeland security program in Montcalm County and 12 other counties.

The WMSRDC recently purchased and transferred homeland security equipment to these counties — including 13 snow cone machines at a total cost of $11,700.

The machines were funded by a grant from the Michigan Homeland Security Program. The request for a snow cone machine came from another county, but all 13 counties received them.

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Fukushima Secret Nuclear Weapons Exposed by Chris Busby

Plutonium-239 is a very hazardous carcinogen which can also be used to make nuclear weapons. This combination of properties makes it one of the most dangerous substances. Plutonium-239, while present in only trace quantities in nature, has been made in large quantities in both military and commercial programs in the last 50 years. Other more radioactive carcinogens do exist, like radium-226, but unlike plutonium-239 cannot be used to make nuclear weapons, or are not available in quantity. Highly enriched uranium (HEU) can also be used to make nuclear weapons, but it is roughly one thousand times less radioactive than plutonium-239. The danger is aggravated by the fact that plutonium-239 is relatively difficult to detect once it is outside of secure, well-instrumented facilities, or once it has been incorporated into the body. This is because its gamma ray emissions, which provide the easiest method of detection of radionuclides, are relatively weak.

The main carcinogenic property of plutonium-239 arises from the energetic alpha radiation it emits. Alpha particles, being heavy, transfer their energy to other atoms and molecules within fewer collisions than the far lighter electrons which are the primary means of radiation damage for both gamma and beta radiation.1 Alpha particles travel only a short distance within living tissue, repeatedly bombarding the cells and tissue nearby. This results in far more biological damage for the same amount of energy deposited in living tissue. The relative effectiveness of various kinds of radiation in causing biological damage is known as "relative biological effectiveness" (RBE). This varies according to the type of radiation, its energy, and the organ of the body being irradiated. A simple factor, called quality factor, is used to indicate the relative danger of alpha, beta, gamma and neutron radiation for regulatory purposes. The International Commission on Radiation Protection currently recommends the use of a quality factor of 20 for alpha radiation relative to gamma radiation.

http://www.ieer.org/ensec/no-3/puhealth.html

Witness - Children of the Riots

As the financial crisis weighs heavily on Greece, the country seems trapped in a cycle of violence. But discontent over the misuse of power has long been simmering. Greek youths reflect on how the killing of a teenager by police changed their lives.

Journalist Tony Gosling: EU fulfills 'Hitler's dream' of dictatorship

Time is running out for Eurozone leaders to save their unified currency as they prepare for eleventh-hour talks in Brussels. But by preserving Euro, Europe dooms itself to Hitler's dream of Euro dictatorship, believes journalist Tony Gosling.

­"The individual countries, if they want to retain their sovereignty, then they are going to have to go back to their original currencies," Gosling told RT.

Gosling believes that there is very little democracy involved in Brussels -- and a plot of turning Europe into a dictatorship is near its drop-scene.

"What we are discovering here, I think, is the playing out of a plot which has been going on for the last 50 years or so across Europe, which is in order to bring in a political union, control from the center in an undemocratic fashion. This is a kind of European dictatorship," he said.

A clear example of this dictatorship is the situation with Greece and Italy, who according to Gosling are "now run by Goldman Sachs, effectively."

"I'm afraid if Adolf Hitler was still alive, he would be smirking and smiling now, saying 'Ahh, this looks rather good! This is a Euro-dictatorship, the kind of thing I dreamed of!'" Gosling concluded.

http://rt.com/news/euro-dictatorship-hitler-dream-287/

Prepare for war, Chinese navy is told as Pacific tensions grow

China's President Hu Jintao sent a stark warning to his country's rivals today calling for the navy to "prepare for war".

The defence ministry said the comments were not aimed at any particular nation but Mr Hu's speech to military leaders in Beijing comes amid growing tension in the Asia-Pacific region.

China claims all of the oil and gas rich South China Sea, as does Taiwan, while four other countries declare ownership of parts of it, with Vietnam and the Philippines accusing Chinese forces of increasing aggression there. In the speech he said the navy should "accelerate its transformation and modernisation in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security and world peace".

He added: "Our work must closely encircle the main theme of national defence and military building."

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The Banker

Campaign video by Richard Curtis and Bill Nighy, about the Robin Hood Tax, a tiny tax on bank transactions that could raise hundreds of billions for public services and to tackle poverty and climate change at home and around the world. Add your own voice to the campaign at http://www.robinhoodtax.org.uk

Internment-Resettlement Specialist - US Army job posting

Internment-Resettlement Specialist (31E) - US Army job posting 05 Dec 2011 Internment/Resettlement (I/R) Specialists in the Army are primarily responsible for day-to-day operations in a military confinement/correctional facility or detention/internment facility. I/R Specialists provide rehabilitative, health, welfare, and security to U.S. military prisoners within a confinement or correctional facility; conduct inspections; prepare written reports; and coordinate activities of prisoners/internees and staff personnel... Advanced Responsibilities: Provide command and control, staff planning, administration/logistical services, and custody/control for the operation of an Enemy Prisoner of War/Civilian Internee (EPW/CI) camp --Provide command and control, staff planning, administration/logistical services, and custody/control for the operation of detention facility or the operation of a displaced civilian (DC) resettlement facility.

Source

Occupy London's anger over police 'terrorism' document

Police have angered Occupy London activists after listing the movement among terrorist groups in an advisory notice sent to the business community in the City.

The document issued by City of London police, headed "Terrorism/extremism update for the City of London business community", included a detailed account of recent and upcoming Occupy London activities and was sent to "trusted partners" in the area.

The document, dated 2 December, which was passed on to Occupy London's Finsbury square encampment over the weekend by a local business owner, gave an update on foreign terrorist activities including that of Farc in Columbia, al-Qaida in Pakistan and the outcome of a trial into the Minsk bombing in Belarus.

Below that, a section headed "Domestic" was dedicated wholly to the activities of the Occupy encampments and singled out anti-capitalists as a cause for concern.

"As the worldwide Occupy movement shows no sign of abating, it is likely that activists aspire to identify other locations to occupy, especially those they identify with capitalism."

The document stated that police had "received a number of hostile reconnaissance reports concerning individuals who would fit the anti-capitalist profile", and asked businesses to be vigilant for further sign of occupation activity.

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OCCUPY VICTORIA - VINNIE'S EPIC SPEECH

Vinh Quang Nguyen delivers one of the most epic, truth telling speech, in Victoria's history...enjoy.

For more info visit www.wearechangevictoria.org

Dead Men Walking

Convict Porters on the Front Lines in Eastern Burma

Scientific Evidence that the Entire Universe Is a Holographic Projection around the Earth

Go get your protective tin foil hat, because you’re going to need it. German scientists have been trying to understand why their equipment that measures gravitational waves has been picking up a particular sound. One possible answer that they’ve come up with is that the entire universe is a holographic illusion:

For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time – the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into “grains”, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. “It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time,” says Hogan.

If this doesn’t blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”

More..

Also of interest:

Diamonds entangled at room temperature
Two diamonds separated by about 15 cm have been put into a state of quantum entanglement. The experiment, carried out by physicists in the UK, was performed at room temperature and involved creating phonons (quantized vibrations) within the crystals. By showing that quantum entanglement can be achieved in two large and distant diamonds at room temperature, the research team has provided further evidence that a practical quantum computer could be within our grasp.

The Reinvention of Political Morality

Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times

Struggling to justify a recent television spot that reached new heights of deception, a top operative in Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign put it plainly, while insisting on anonymity:

“First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.”

The back story: On October 16, 2008, campaigning in Londonderry, New Hampshire, Obama cast his opponent, John McCain, as out of touch with the problems facing the country – a month after the financial collapse that saw the American economy crater. Obama was expressing his incredulity at McCain’s lack of understanding of the full import of the world-engulfing fiscal crisis: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’ ”

Fast forward to 2011. Two weeks ago, the Romney campaign, perhaps banking on the arcane nature of its deception, instigated a new epoch in aggressive messaging and took Obama’s 2008 Londonderry remarks and obliterated the fact that Obama was at that time quoting the words of a McCain staffer. Obama’s statement was cut to “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose” — with the erroneous implication that the “we” referred not to McCain’s 2008 effort but to the current Obama campaign.

The non-partisan web site Politifact, which evaluates the accuracy of political ads, said that the Romney spot was “ridiculously misleading,” and gave the ad its worst rating, “pants on fire.”

The significance of the spot lies in its explicit distortion of an opponent’s remark, but the spot’s direct duplicity is also the latest step in the transgression by political operatives of formerly agreed-upon ethical boundaries. What was once considered sleazy becomes the norm.

Over the past four decades, moral standards governing the conduct of political competition have been violated by both left and right, with two goals: winning elections and making money. In this endeavor, the early 1980s were a fertile period.

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West Coast port shutdown announcement video (from Occupy Oakland)

Occupy movement calls for Dec. 12 West Coast Port Shutdown. Featuring Boots Riley.

Nelle's Fukushima Meltdown Update: December 5, 2011

The water decontamination system at the Fukushima plant site developed a leak on the weekend.

ENENews covers this well. . .with conversion factors and links to many other stories in Japanese press, New York Times and Wall Street Journal here:

5.8 trillion becquerels of strontium leaked from Fukushima over weekend
http://enenews.com/just-in-5-8-trillion-becquerels-of-strontium-leaked-from-fukushima-over-weekend
a.. NHK: “The water is believed to have contained 130,000 becquerels per cubic centimeter of radioactive strontium.”
b.. New York Times: “Tepco said a check on Saturday had found no sign of the leak, suggesting that it began Saturday night or early Sunday morning. The company said it was exploring ways to stop any more water from escaping.”
c.. WSJ: New Leak Detected at Fukushima Plant -- Asahi: Strontium at 1,000,000 times gov't limit?
d.. Japan Times: Tepco's decontamination system doesn't remove strontium -- Media butchers details on latest Fukushima leak.

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Occupy Wall Street Grafitti @ Art Basel Miami

Occupy Wall Street Graffiti @ Art Basel Miami. Come see for yourself the many buildings covered in creative and political graffiti in Miami.
http://www.paulbunting.net

13-year-old handcuffed and arrested for burping in class

A 13-year-old was handcuffed and hauled off to a juvenile detention for burping in class, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed against an Albuquerque public school principal, a teacher and a city police officer.

The suit was filed on Wednesday, the same day the district in New Mexico was also sued by the family of a seven-year-old autistic boy who was handcuffed to a chair.

The unnamed seventh grader was arrested last May at Cleveland Middle School after he ‘burped audibly’ in his P.E. class, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

‘Criminalising of the burping of a 13-year-old boy serves no governmental purpose,’ the lawsuit said.

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Photos: Chinese Crackdown in Tibet

Here.

Occupy Cork Protest 03-12-2011

Occupy Cork and Cork Community Art Link organized a protest on 3.12.2001. Amazing creative element was brought by Community Art Link.
The song at the end of the clip was written and sung by Sue Blue ©2009.

Lou Reed at Occupy Lincoln Center

Philip Glass #OWS Lincoln Center

For the closing performance of Lincoln Center's Metropolitan Opera staging of SATYAGRAHA [True Force] about the life of Gandhi composer PHILIP GLASS addresses the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly at Lincoln Center.

alan moore - occupy comics

Occupy Comics: Art + Stories Inspired by Occupy Wall Street via wired.com

NY Billionaire Mayor's Girlfriend Punishes Working Families Over Occupy Wall Street

On December 1, 2011, locked-out Sotheby's art handlers confronted Sotheby's board member Diana Taylor at her meeting of the Hudson River Park Trust. These workers, locked out of their jobs for 4 months, asked Taylor why she isn't helping New York's working families.

Teamsters Local 814 members have been joined by Occupy Wall Street in protests against Sotheby's callous treatment of its workers. Taylor serves on the board of Brookfield Properties, which recently ordered the eviction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park. She is also Mayor Michael Bloomberg's domestic partner.

In the video, Taylor states, "I have only one thing to say to you. I have had one conversation with [Sotheby's CEO] Bill Ruprecht about this, and I told him that if he accedes to any of your demands, I will resign from the board."

The Road to Political Dictatorship

John Weeks: The economic power of Wall St., if not restrained, will lead to political dictatorship.

Revolutionary Rap in Tahrir Square, Cairo

Salman Abdul Aziz al-Balshi and Mohammad Mohammad Youssry mix music and politics in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt.

Concentricity

Animation and audio by Paul McLean. OWS graphics by Occupy Design.

Very Happy Song - by Brian Ray

Written by Brian Ray and Oliver Leiber
The musicians are: Davey Faragher - bass, Pete Thomas - drums, Adam MacDougal - keys, Russ Irwin and Jason Paige - backing vocals, Brian Ray - lead vocals, guitars, shaker.

Recorded and Mixed by Joe Zook

Occupy protests spread to 1500 cities in the US

US university students have joined the anti-corporate 'Occupy' movement to express solidarity with the protests which are spreading rapidly across the country.

Interview with Richard Becker, A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition.

Study documents desperate conditions facing the unemployed in America

A study published Friday by Rutgers University documents the desperate situation facing millions of American workers who lost their jobs in the recession that began four years ago. The survey of laid-off workers, conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, found that only 22 percent of those who lost their jobs between August 2008 and August 2009 were working full-time as of August 2011.

Just 7 percent of the unemployed initially contacted by the Heldrich Center in the summer of 2009 say they have regained their previous income level. Another 23 percent say they are on their way back, having experienced a minor downward change in their quality of life that they believe to be temporary.

But a full 36 percent speak of “cataclysmic effects” of the recession and prolonged unemployment, including 21 percent whom the report’s authors consider to have been “devastated” and another 15 percent “who appear to have been wrecked by the recession.” (Emphasis in the original). The former category includes those in poor financial shape who have suffered a major decline in their standard of living, even if they believe it to be temporary. The latter comprises workers who are in poor financial shape, have suffered a major decline in lifestyle and believe the new state of affairs to be permanent.

Forty-seven percent of those surveyed say their personal financial situation is in “poor shape,” 58 percent say the economic crisis has had a “major impact” on themselves and their families, and 41 percent believe that the impact on their standard or living will be permanent.

The study found that the crisis has taken its biggest toll on those with no college education, 46 percent of whom have been “devastated” or “wrecked.” However, nearly a quarter (24 percent) of college graduates in the survey have likewise been “devastated” by the jobs crisis.

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Global Rebellion: The Coming Chaos?

As the crisis of global capitalism spirals out of control, the powers that be in the global system appear to be adrift and unable to propose viable solutions. From the slaughter of dozens of young protesters by the army in Egypt to the brutal repression of the Occupy movement in the United States, and the water cannons brandished by the militarized police in Chile against students and workers, states and ruling classes are unable to hold back the tide of worldwide popular rebellion and must resort to ever more generalized repression.

Simply put, the immense structural inequalities of the global political economy can no longer be contained through consensual mechanisms of social control. The ruling classes have lost legitimacy; we are witnessing a breakdown of ruling-class hegemony on a world scale.

To understand what is happening in this second decade of the new century we need to see the big picture in historic and structural context. Global elites had hoped and expected that the “Great Depression” that began with the mortgage crisis and the collapse of the global financial system in 2008 would be a cyclical downturn that could be resolved through state-sponsored bailouts and stimulus packages. But it has become clear that this is a structural crisis. Cyclical crises are on-going episodes in the capitalist system, occurring and about once a decade and usually last 18 months to two years. There were world recessions in the early 1980s, the early 1990s, and the early 21st century.

Structural crises are deeper; their resolution requires a fundamental restructuring of the system. Earlier world structural crises of the 1890s, the 1930s and the 1970s were resolved through a reorganization of the system that produced new models of capitalism. “Resolved” does not mean that the problems faced by a majority of humanity under capitalism were resolved but that the reorganization of the capitalist system in each case overcame the constraints to a resumption of capital accumulation on a world scale. The crisis of the 1890s was resolved in the cores of world capitalism through the export of capital and a new round of imperialist expansion. The Great Depression of the 1930s was resolved through the turn to variants of social democracy in both the North and the South – welfare, populist, or developmentalist capitalism that involved redistribution, the creation of public sectors, and state regulation of the market.

Globalization and the current structural crisis

To understand the current conjuncture we need to go back to the 1970s. The globalization stage of world capitalism we are now in itself evolved out the response of distinct agents to these previous episodes of crisis, in particular, to the 1970s crisis of social democracy, or more technically stated, of Fordism-Keynesianism, or of redistributive capitalism. In the wake of that crisis capital went global as a strategy of the emergent Transnational Capitalist Class and its political representatives to reconstitute its class power by breaking free of nation-state constraints to accumulation. These constraints – the so-called “class compromise” – had been imposed on capital through decades of mass struggles around the world by nationally-contained popular and working classes. During the 1980s and 1990s, however, globally-oriented elites captured state power in most countries around the world and utilized that power to push capitalist globalization through the neo-liberal model.

Globalization and neo-liberal policies opened up vast new opportunities for transnational accumulation in the 1980s and 1990s. The revolution in computer and information technology and other technological advances helped emergent transnational capital to achieve major gains in productivity and to restructure, “flexibilize,” and shed labor worldwide. This, in turn, undercut wages and the social wage and facilitated a transfer of income to capital and to high consumption sectors around the world that provided new market segments fueling growth. In sum, globalization made possible a major extensive and intensive expansion of the system and unleashed a frenzied new round of accumulation worldwide that offset the 1970s crisis of declining profits and investment opportunities.

However, the neo-liberal model has also resulted in an unprecedented worldwide social polarization. Fierce social and class struggles worldwide were able in the 20th century to impose a measure of social control over capital. Popular classes, to varying degrees, were able to force the system to link what we call social reproduction to capital accumulation. What has taken place through globalization is the severing of the logic of accumulation from that of social reproduction, resulting in an unprecedented growth of social inequality and intensified crises of survival for billions of people around the world.

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The U.K. Riots And The Coming Global Class War

The riots that hit London and other English cities last week have the potential to spread beyond the British Isles. Class rage isn’t unique to England; in fact, it represents part of a growing global class chasm that threatens to undermine capitalism itself.

The hardening of class divisions has been building for a generation, first in the West but increasingly in fast-developing countries such as China. The growing chasm between the classes has its roots in globalization, which has taken jobs from blue-collar and now even white-collar employees; technology, which has allowed the fleetest and richest companies and individuals to shift operations at rapid speed to any locale; and the secularization of society, which has undermined the traditional values about work and family that have underpinned grassroots capitalism from its very origins.

All these factors can be seen in the British riots. Race and police relations played a role, but the rioters included far more than minorities or gangsters. As British historian James Heartfield has suggested, the rioters reflected a broader breakdown in “the British social system,” particularly in “the system of work and reward.”

In the earlier decades of the 20th century working class youths could look forward to jobs in Britain’s vibrant industrial economy and, later, in the growing public sector largely financed by both the earnings of the City of London and credit. Today the industrial sector has shrunk beyond recognition. The global financial crisis has undermined credit and the government’s ability to pay for the welfare state.

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The Rebirth Of Social Darwinism

What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want? I’ve been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America.

They say they want a smaller government but that can’t be it. Most seek a larger national defense and more muscular homeland security. Almost all want to widen the government’s powers of search and surveillance inside the United States – eradicating possible terrorists, expunging undocumented immigrants, “securing” the nation’s borders. They want stiffer criminal sentences, including broader application of the death penalty. Many also want government to intrude on the most intimate aspects of private life.

They call themselves conservatives but that’s not it, either. They don’t want to conserve what we now have. They’d rather take the country backwards – before the 1960s and 1970s, and the Environmental Protection Act, Medicare, and Medicaid; before the New Deal, and its provision for Social Security, unemployment insurance, the forty-hour workweek, laws against child labor, and official recognition of trade unions; even before the Progressive Era, and the first national income tax, antitrust laws, and Federal Reserve.

They’re not conservatives. They’re regressives. And the America they seek is the one we had in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century.

It was an era when the nation was mesmerized by the doctrine of free enterprise, but few Americans actually enjoyed much freedom. Robber barons like the financier Jay Gould, the railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, controlled much of American industry; the gap between rich and poor had turned into a chasm; urban slums festered; children worked long hours in factories; women couldn’t vote and black Americans were subject to Jim Crow; and the lackeys of rich literally deposited sacks of money on desks of pliant legislators.

Most tellingly, it was a time when the ideas of William Graham Sumner, a professor of political and social science at Yale, dominated American social thought. Sumner brought Charles Darwin to America and twisted him into a theory to fit the times.

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CIA COMPLICIT IN 90% OF WORLD HEROIN TRADE

Former Mossad chief: Israeli attack on Iran must be stopped to avert catastrophe

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan warned Thursday against an Israeli attack on Iran, saying such a move would likely lead to a regional war involving Hezbollah, Hamas, and Syria.

"I'm concerned about possible mistakes and I prefer to speak out before there is a catastrophe," Dagan said in an interview on the Israeli television program “Uvda."

"I think that engaging, with open eyes, in a regional war is warranted only when we are under attack or when the sword is already cutting against our live flesh. It is not an alternative that should be chosen lightly."

Dagan stressed that though he cannot predict how many casualties an attack on Iran would yield, he said, "I have to assume that the level of destruction, paralysis of every-day life, and Israeli death toll would be high."

He said that he has no interest in hiding his fervent opposition to an Israeli attack on Iran from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

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Wikileaks Shock: US troops assassinated children

NATO Attack At Pakistan Army Exclusive Unseen Video

http://www.vidjin.com/pkpolitics/
Pakistani troops killed in NATO attack, outrage in Islamabad .

George Orwell’s Guide to the News

The Western mainstream media falsifies the news resorting to euphemisms, half-truths and lies in the best (worst) style of George Orwell’s novel 1984. We all live in the unreal world of “Newspeak” used by the Global Power Elite to control our minds.

Man gets confused when things that happen around him and to him, or which are done in his name, cannot be properly grasped, understood or made sense of. Normally, such confusion leads to inaction. If you’re lost at night in the middle of a forest but you can still see the stars, then a bit of astronomical knowledge will at least quickly tell you which way is north. But if it’s cloudy or you’re ignorant of the constellations in starry heaven, then you might as well light up a fire and do nothing until dawn…. You’re Lost!

Today, mainstream media coverage uses programmed distortion, confusion, even outright lying when its Money Power masters order it to support the “official story” on any major political, economic or financial process. When looked at closely, however, the “official story” of things can be seen to be inaccurate, misleading, often hardly believable if not downright stupid.

Examples of this: Iraq’s inexistent WMD’s leading to the invasion and destruction of that country; global mega-banker bail-outs with taxpayer money; irrational US diplomatic, military, financial and ideological alignment to Israeli objectives; “we-killed-Osama-Bin-Laden-and-dumped-his-body-into-the-sea”; and the wide array of “whodunits” surrounding 9/11 in New York and Washington, 7/7 in London, the AMIA/Israeli Embassy attacks in Buenos Aires in 1992/1994, and – of course – that all time favorite: who shot JFK…?

These are but a few of the paradigmatic cases that have at least served to trigger millions of people to wake up and think with their own minds instead of the mainstream media’s! But unfortunately the vast majority of such cases are not so clear-cut. The vast majority of Newspeak lies are like knots, difficult to untie as they carry built-in complexity resembling Gordian Knots. And, as with all Gordian Knots, you need to cut right through them, and this requires swift and precise action plus a good measure of intellectual courage.

To give an example of what we say, let’s take a quick look at how a “Newspeak” operation works. It requires sequential planning, it requires time, it requires proper logistics, it requires “credible” spokespeople in public and private sectors, it requires choosing the right words and images at the right time and in the right circumstances.

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Picking Up The Pieces - Occupy Wall Street

Occupiers of Liberty Square share their stories of how they and their possessions were treated by the NY Police Department and the NY Department of Sanitation.

The Invisible War Official Trailer - Kirby Dick Movie (2012)

http://invisiblewarmovie.com/

THE INVISIBLE WAR is a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of our country's most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within our US military. Today, a female soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire with the number of assaults in the last decade alone in the hundreds of thousands.

Focusing on the powerfully emotional stories of several young women, the film reveals the systemic cover up of the crimes against them and follows their struggles to rebuild their lives and fight for justice. THE INVISIBLE WAR features hard-hitting interviews with high-ranking military officials and members of Congress that reveal the perfect storm conditions that exist for rape in the military, its history of cover-up, and what can be done to bring about much needed change.

Mumia Abu-Jamal won't face death penalty

Prosecutors on Wednesday abandoned their 30-year push to execute convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther whose claim that he was the victim of a racist legal system made him an international cause celebre.

Abu-Jamal, 58, will instead spend the rest of his life in prison.

Standing next to police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision two days short of the 30th anniversary of the white patrolman's killing.

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Occupy Planet Earth: Resisting the Militarisation of State Power

Viva L’Occupation

The Occupy Movement is currently the most vocal manifestation of public resistance and civil disobedience to hit the West since the 60s. In turn, it has elicited a concerted and in some ways unprecedented militarisation of state violence. In the US, the deployment of tear gas, pepper-spray and rubber bullets has deliberately brutalised peaceful, civilian protestors – purely in the name of restoring ‘civil order’. More than ever, the insistence by people on reclaiming public spaces in the name of opposing the injustice and inequality meted out by the proverbial “1 per cent” is unpeeling the mask of the democratic state, to reveal the unrestrained monopoly of wealth and weapons on which its power is premised.

Unlike previous twentieth century protests, the Occupy Movement is distinguished by its genuine spontaneity, its leaderless dynamic, and its organic global proliferation through the streets of major industrial cities in the North. The driving force of Occupy, however, is not just the escalating global economic recession, although the latter’s role in galvanising grievances shouldn’t be underestimated. Rather, the determination of citizens to occupy strategic public spaces is inspired by a convergence of public perceptions.

The majority of people now hold views about Western governments and the nature of power that would’ve made them social pariahs ten or twenty years ago. The majority are now sceptical of the Iraq War; the majority want troops out of Afghanistan; the majority resent the banks and financial sector and blame them for the financial crisis; most people are now aware of environmental issues, more than ever before, and despite denialist confusion promulgated by elements of fossil fuel industries, the majority in the US and Britain are deeply concerned about global warming; most people are wary of conventional party politics and disillusioned with the mainstream parliamentary system, due to the continuation of scandal after scandal. In other words, on a whole range of issues, there has been a massive popular shift in public opinion toward a progressive critique of the current political economic system. It is, of course, largely subliminal, not carefully worked out, and lacks a coherent vision for what needs to be done – but there can be little doubt that this shift has happened, and is deepening. People are increasingly disenchanted with prevailing socio-political and economic structures, and they are hungry for alternatives. Yet they see none readily available, no existing mechanism which allows their voices to be truly heard – what left to do, then, beyond simply occupying public space in an effort to, somehow, reclaim power?

Civil Contingencies: State-Preparations for Counter-Insurgency

Yet as the global economic recession began to kick in since 2008, the “1 per cent” – or elements thereof – were well aware that one of the immediate consequences would be citizens taking to the streets. And they were preparing for it.

In late 2008, an internal client memo from US bank and Federal Reserve member Citigroup, authored by chief technical strategist Tom Fitzpatrick, warned unequivocally of “continued financial deterioration, causing further economic deterioration, with the risk of a feedback loop.” This will “lead to political instability... Some leaders are now at record levels of unpopularity. There is a risk of domestic unrest, starting with strikes because people are feeling disenfranchised.”

What to do? One answer to that question was put out by the US Army Strategic Studies Institute in December that year, in a report urging the US military to prepare for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States” provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse”, “loss of functioning political and legal order,” or “purposeful domestic resistance and insurgency”, among other threats. The report warned that Department of Defense resources may need to be put “at the disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent threats to domestic tranquillity” – including “the use of military force... against hostile groups inside the United States.” The noble aim of such state militarisation is, of course, to “restore public order and protect vulnerable populations” – from themselves, it would appear.

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ANONYMOUS - OPERATION BLING - A Call To Action

Dear citizens of the internet,

We are ANONYMOUS.

We are currently fighting a struggle against censorship and secrecy, both in governments and corporations worldwide - but we can not do this without your help and (moral) support.

That is why we urge you to take up your personal responsibility.

You are ANONYMOUS - and together we are bound to free this world !

Now help us spread the ANON-consciousness everywhere you can !

Just write down the phrase 'YOU ARE ANONYMOUS' on all your paper money and let the system do the work.

Make the financial institutions help us spread awareness and empower the citizens of the world !

ANONYMOUS believes this is an important time; and together, we - ANONYMOUS, the people - can actually make a change for the betterment of humankind.

ANONYMOUS is the people, and the people is ANONYMOUS !

Yes, this means you too are ANONYMOUS !


We Are ANONYMOUS !

We Are Legion !

We Do Not Forgive Censorship !

And We Do Not Forget That Knowledge Is Free !


YOU ARE ANONYMOUS !

KNOWLEDGE IS FREE !

PREPARE FOR END OF THE EURO, BANKS TOLD

Alarm at the economic turmoil in Europe intensified last night after the Government admitted preparations for the chaotic collapse of the euro were being “stepped up”.

Downing Street is understood to be embroiled in intensive “contingency planning” for Greece and possibly Italy, Spain and Portugal quitting the eurozone.

British banks have been urged by the City’s watchdog to brace themselves for the collapse of the single currency.

The Financial Services Authority warned that the unravelling of the 17-nation eurozone could wreak havoc on the UK banking system.

City sources said Hector Sants, chief executive of the FSA, made the plea at a crisis meeting with senior bosses from high street banks.

And, in a sign of growing panic, a senior French politician warned the crisis could trigger “the return to violent conflict” in Europe.

Alain Juppe, France’s foreign minister, added: “It could be the explosion of the European Union itself.”

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Truthdigger of the Week: Judge Jed Rakoff

There are those occasions when the choice for Truthdigger of the Week is so clear that our tribute practically writes itself. This is one of those times, as this installment is about U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who consistently demonstrates that he’s game to take on some of the country’s most powerful and corrupt institutions and policies.

Judge Rakoff’s most recent action to grab our attention amounted to a very public, and deserved, embarrassment for both Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission. As we summarized Monday, Rakoff rejected Citigroup’s attempt to evade culpability for swindling customers out of more than $700 million by selling them on bad investments in the mortgage market. Here’s how Forbes explained Citi’s initial offense.

This was bad enough, but strike two for Citigroup happened when the financial giant tried to take an all-too-familiar way out, with the SEC’s complicity, by agreeing to pay a settlement of $285 million and calling it a day. Although the proposed payment is substantially hefty, what this response doesn’t include is an actual admission of guilt.

Clearly, Judge Rakoff was well aware of the significance of this attempted solution, and he called out both Citi’s sketchy gesture and the SEC’s part in supporting corporate corruption by serving them notice in an eloquently worded rejection on Monday. The full text of Rakoff’s ruling is well worth a read...

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Dread, whispers shroud Rwandan scribe’s funeral

Dreadful grief was an understatement at the funeral service of the Rwandan journalist Charles Ingabire yesterday afternoon. It was more like the shroud on his death had descended on family members, friends and well-wishers bidding him final respects.

[ ... ]

Several mourners we spoke to alleged being persecuted by government back home but none wanted their photographs taken or identities revealed.

Pastor Yeremiya, who had earlier moved around reminding the mourners to be weary of spies among them “intending to take information to their masters,” eventually let the cat out of the bag when he announced at the podium, “There is someone who has sent spies to spy on us.”

Among the mourners were men in civilian clothes, most of whom had security gadgets. The men could be seen communicating on walkie-talkies as the service went on.

Ingabire, 32, was shot twice in the lower abdomen late in the night of November 30, by unknown people in Makies II Bar at Bukesa-Kikoni near Makerere, a Kampala suburb.
Police found five cartridges of spent bullets, which they suspected to have been discharged by a Sub Machine Gun that was used to shoot Ingabire, at the scene of crime.

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U.S. Sends 21 Tons of Tear Gas to Egypt

CAIRO: The arrival of 7 and half tons of tear gas to Egypt's Suez port created conflict after the responsible officials at the port refused to sign and accept it for fear it would be used to crackdown on Egyptian protesters.

The shipment has been moved by the ministry of interior to its Cairo storage facility, amidst strick and secretive security measures. Local reports say the staff, initially under investigation, have been spared investigation after having a discussion over the matter with their superiors.

Local news sites published documents regarding the shipment shows that the cargo that arrived in 479 barrels from the United States was scheduled to be delivered to the ministry of interior.

The reports also mentioned in the documents that a second shipment of 14 tons of tear gas was expected, making the total 21 tons, in one week.

The importing of tear gas comes after thousands of tear gas canisters were fired at Egyptian protesters last week as clashes raged in downtown Cairo, just off from the iconic Tahrir Square, where thousands of protesters had gathered.

The gas used has angered activists, who say the effects of exposure has yet to wear off, with a number of protesters telling Bikyamasr.com that they have coughing fits, chest pains, blurred vision and their arms often shake. According to the Journal of Royal Medicine, the use of CS Gas -- the most common choice of Egypt's police last week -- can have lasting symptoms for over one year.

Egypt's al-Shorouk newspaper reported that upon the arrival of the shipment, massive disagreements broke out between employees, where five employees refused to sign for the shipment, one after the other.

The five, being dubbed by activists as the "brave five", were to be refereed to a investigative committee as to why they refused to perform their duties, which has since called off.

The news about the shipment's arrival stirred the Twittersphere, after it was consumed all day with the country's first post-revolution elections, and activists mocked the reinforcement of weapons that is being used against them.

Many commented, saying that "gas bombs are definably more important than importing wheat to make bread."

http://bikyamasr.com/49799/egypt-import-tear-gas-from-us/

Eliot Spitzer: 5 Ways to Make Banks Pay for Their Secret $7 Trillion Free Ride

Imagine you walked into a bank, applied for a personal line of credit, and filled out all the paperwork claiming to have no debts and an income of $200,000 per year. The bank, based on these representations, extended you the line of credit. Then, three years later, after fighting disclosure all the way, you were forced by a court to tell the truth: At the time you made the statements to the bank, you actually were unemployed, you had a $1 million mortgage on your house on which you had failed to make payments for six months, and you hadn’t paid even the minimum on your credit-card bills for three months. Do you think the bank would just say: Never mind, don’t worry about it? Of course not. Whether or not you had paid back the personal line of credit, three FBI agents would be at your door within hours.

Yet this is exactly what the major American banks have done to the public. During the deepest, darkest period of the financial cataclysm, the CEOs of major banks maintained in statements to the public, to the market at large, and to their own shareholders that the banks were in good financial shape, didn’t want to take TARP funds, and that the regulatory framework governing our banking system should not be altered. Trust us, they said. Yet, unknown to the public and the Congress, these same banks had been borrowing massive amounts from the government to remain afloat. The total numbers are staggering: $7.7 trillion of credit—one-half of the GDP of the entire nation. $460 billion was lent to J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley alone—without anybody other than a few select officials at the Fed and the Treasury knowing. This was perhaps the single most massive allocation of capital from public to private hands in our history, and nobody was told. This was not TARP: This was secret Fed lending. And although it has since been repaid, it is clear why the banks didn’t want us to know about it: They didn’t want to admit the magnitude of their financial distress.

The banks’ claims of financial stability and solvency appear at a minimum to have been misleading—and may have been worse. Misleading statements and deception of this sort would ordinarily put a small-market player or borrower on the wrong end of a criminal investigation.

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China, Macedonia: Chinese Netizens Outraged by School Bus Donation

The news of a Chinese government donation of 23 school buses to the Republic of Macedonia on 25 November, 2011, has outraged Chinese netizens, who are mourning for the death of 19 preschool kids in a car accident in Gansu province on 16 November, 2011.

The Gansu school bus accident

The so-called “school bus” in the Gansu car crash is a minivan originally consisting of 9 seats but modified to accommodate 64 kids. In the accident, the van collided with a truck causing the death of 2 adults and 19 kindergarten kids.

This is not a random accident as the overloading of school buses has been a long-standing issue in China.

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See also: Guiyang’s “American School Buses” For Teachers, Not Students

Overcrowded School Van Crashes in China, Killing 18 Kindergarteners

6 Shocking Revelations About Wall Street's "Secret Government"

We now have concrete evidence that Wall Street and Washington are running a secret government far removed from the democratic process. Through a freedom of information request by Bloomberg News, the public now has access to over 29,000 pages of Fed documents and 21,000 additional Fed transactions that were deliberately hidden, and for good reason. (See here and here.)

These documents show how top government officials willfully concealed from Congress and the public the true extent of the 2008-'09 bailouts that enriched the few and enhanced the interests of giant Wall Streets firms.

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U.N. Envoy: U.S. Isn't Protecting Occupy Protesters' Rights

The United Nations envoy for freedom of expression is drafting an official communication to the U.S. government demanding to know why federal officials are not protecting the rights of Occupy demonstrators whose protests are being disbanded -- sometimes violently -- by local authorities.

Frank La Rue, who serves as the U.N. "special rapporteur" for the protection of free expression, told HuffPost in an interview that the crackdowns against Occupy protesters appear to be violating their human and constitutional rights.

"I believe in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order," he said Thursday. "But on the other hand I also believe that the state -- in this case the federal state -- has an obligation to protect and promote human rights."

"If I were going to pit a city ordinance against human rights, I would always take human rights," he continued.

La Rue, a longtime Guatemalan human rights activist who has held his U.N. post for three years, said it's clear to him that the protesters have a right to occupy public spaces "as long as that doesn't severely affect the rights of others."

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75 Years in Prison For Videotaping Police

Provocateur Porn: How Many Spooks Does It Take To Infiltrate A Protest Movement?

Most of the people I talked to were sure that every important committee in the camp had someone working to sabotage it from the inside. They’re probably right. In fact, if history is any guide, the OLA members I spoke to were probably underestimating the true number of infiltrators.

For instance: During the 1968 protests of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which drew about 10,000 protesters and was brutally crushed by the police, 1 out of 6 protesters was a federal undercover agent. That’s right, 1/6th of the total protesting population was made up of spooks drawn from various federal agencies. That’s roughly 1,600 people! The stat came from an Army document obtained by CBS News in 1978, a full decade after the protest took place. According to CBS, the infiltrators were not passive observers, monitoring and relaying information to central command, but were involved in violent confrontations with the police.

It wasn’t just the Feds who were infiltrating the protesters. Although it’s not clear exactly how many local cops were sent to infiltrate the protests, you can bet the Chicago’s own boys in blue didn’t miss out on the costume party. The city’s infamous Subversive Activities Unit, known as the Red Squad, has a long history of monitoring, infiltrating and squashing any whiff of any left-wing/anti-business activity. Just ask any union guy. So it was only natural to expect that this unit would ramp up its operations in preparation for the 1968 convention protest.

In the end, cop-on-cop violence was used to justify the brutal “police riot,” in which Chicago cops indiscriminately clubbed women, hippies, retirees, reporters and anyone else in their way–and they pumped in so much tear gas that the vapor seeped into the Hilton hotel, giving presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey a lung-full of gas as took his shower.

Which brings me back to the Occupy LA. The eviction deadline set by the city was 12:05 a.m. By that time, at least 2,000 protesters had amassed in and around the camp, spilling out onto the street and blocking traffic. How many of them were working against us? How many were legitimately whackos? Is there a difference, really?

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