Alan Watt - Media = Mind Sabotage by Electrionage

Occupy Savvy Asks Birgitta Jonsdottir: “How Did Iceland Sack Its Government?”

Someone I refer to as my “Occu-Mama” (for her steadfast support for other occupiers and her continued care of us) had the breakthrough.

“Ask Birgitta – HOW did they do it? HOW did they get all their corrupt politicians to resign?”

Fearlessly, from my ridiculously overly-surveilled Twitter account, I asked the question. Sure enough, she replied:

“Massive protests leading up to pots and pans revolution, putting the parliament under siege for 3 days. They got scared.”

Just like that, the penny dropped। For months we had been reporting on Manifecours/Casseroles and the Canadian protest movements – utilising pots and pans to literally rouse sleeping civilians to awaken to the reality of their political situation; to get off their backsides and do something about it. We knew the tactic, knew it was a successful one; but we did NOT realise it had been utilised in Iceland prior to the Canadian mass protests!

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Gorillas Dismantle Poachers’ Traps in Self-Defense!

Just days after a poacher’s snare had killed one of their own, two young mountain gorillas worked together Tuesday to find and destroy traps in their Rwandan forest home, according to conservationists on the scene.

“This is absolutely the first time that we’ve juveniles doing that … I don’t know of any other reports in the world of juveniles destroying snares,” said Veronica Vecellio, gorilla program coordinator at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund‘s Karisoke Research Center, located in the reserve where the event took place.

Spanish doctors say that they will consider the Hippocratic oath null and void

Doctors in Spain have launched a campaign against the newly enacted legislation barring illegal immigrants from the health services provided by the state. The campaign started by MEDICOS DEL MUNDO, aka, World Doctors, says that the law for patients with missing official documents to be denied access to the health service offered by the state is unethical. The video prepared for the campaign called DERECHO A CURAR , which means right to cure, shows doctors taking their oaths to use their knowledge and medications for the health of Spaniards and of those having official papers alone, to push ethics to the back burner at times of economic crises, to not put human rights before austerity measures and increasing incomes, to not use state institutions to take care of illegal immigrants, to offer health services to everyone but those without ID cards and to not prescribe any medication for AIDS patients without state insurance.

#S17 Promo Occupy

Promo for the pilgrimage to NYC for Occupy Wall Street's one year anniversary. Please drop everything and make the journey.

This video was produced by Vincent Huergas of VHS Productions CA. This video was originally created to show people around the world how the "Occupy Wall Street Movement" manifested itself in the Bay Area, more specifically in the city of Oakland, CA. By popular demand, this extended version was created to spread the message and show viewers how the movement spread to major cities around the world. This song was produced by The Mighty Neptunes, a SF Bay Area local band. This is an original piece created by members of the 99% for the 99%.

US Justice Department Closes the Door on Accountability in Torture Cases

From Physicians for Human Rights

Cambridge, Mass. - 08/31/2012

The US Justice Department’s decision to end its criminal investigation of the CIA’s torture of prisoners without bringing a single prosecution is a shameful conclusion to a sordid chapter in American history, PHR declared today.

“We are deeply disappointed that the US government has refused to bring charges against those responsible for heinous acts of torture resulting in two deaths – in violation of US and international law,” said Donna McKay, PHR’s Executive Director. “What message does it send to other countries and to the American public when neither the officials who authorized such abusive interrogation techniques nor the people who implemented them are compelled to answer for their crimes in a court of law?”

Since 2003, PHR has investigated allegations that US national security personnel used abusive interrogation techniques amounting to torture as part of their intelligence-gathering activities. Subsequent PHR reports have documented the systematic use of physical and psychological torture against detainees at US detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Aug. 30 that the Justice Department had dropped its investigation into the deaths of two prisoners who had been tortured, one in Afghanistan in 2002 and another in Iraq in 2003, “because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“We had hoped for better from this administration,” said McKay, who noted Holder’s declaration that “no one is above the law” when asked during his Senate confirmation hearings in 2009 about immunizing from criminal charges people who used waterboarding in interrogating detainees.

“Two men died as a result of extreme abuse while in US custody, and no one will be held criminally accountable,” McKay said. “America had an opportunity to right a wrong, but instead our government let us down and fell far short of both our legal and our moral responsibility. It is a dark day for human rights when anti-torture laws can apparently be violated with impunity.”

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is an independent organization that uses medicine and science to stop mass atrocities and severe human rights violations against individuals. We are supported by the expertise and passion of health professionals and concerned citizens alike.

Since 1986, PHR has conducted investigations in more than 40 countries around the world, including Afghanistan, Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, the United States, the former Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe.

• 1988 — First to document Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Kurds
• 1996 — Exhumed mass graves in the Balkans
• 1996 — Produced critical forensic evidence of genocide in Rwanda
• 1997 — Shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
• 2003 — Warned of health and human rights catastrophe prior to the invasion of Iraq
• 2004 — Documented and analyzed the genocide in Darfur
• 2005 — Detailed the story of tortured detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay
• 2010 — Showed how CIA medical personnel sought to improve waterboarding and
  other interrogation techniques that amount to torture
• 2011 — Championed the principle of noninterference with medical services
  in times of armed conflict and civil unrest during the Arab Spring

See also:

This is a full record of the town hall style forum on torture accountability hosted by Amnesty International and Women Against Military Madness (www.worldwidewamm.org) at the Mayflower Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 13, 2012. Panelists were Congressperson Keith Ellison, 5th District Minnesota, Doug Johnson, former Director of Center for Victims of Torture and Barbara Frey, Director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota. The forum was moderated by David Schultz, Professor at the Hamline University School of Law. Program: Introductions, statements, Q and A, dramatic reading of excerpts from the Aug 1, 2002 torture memo in tandem with excerpts from the testimony of Abu Zubaydah to the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding being tortured by US personnel.

Anonymous - November 5TH 2012 International March against corruption

So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of government and the ruling class remain unknown to you, then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what we see, if you feel as we feel, and if you would seek as we seek, then I ask you to stand beside us November the fifth, outside the gates of every Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

This is a call to all Anons should you choose to participate in a International March against corruption on November 5th at your parliaments. Let our voices be heard as one.
As always this will be a peaceful demonstration.

Did Marshall McLuhan Write in Tweets?

"The novel created in Tweets on Twitter completes the cycle started by McLuhan, who wrote in tweets before Twitter was born.”