The banner drop was made at 1700 hours, 'Hell's Grannies' created a distraction giving the peace activists, one of which was Maria Gallastegui from Peace Strike, enough time to scale the gates opposite the main entrance to Westminster Underground station.
Included in the drop a 'Legal Warning' the first line reads. "Section 6 Criminal Law Act 1977 as amended by Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994." This empowers the peace activists to secure their right to remain where they are on the scaffolding. The first line states, " TAKE NOTICE, That we live in this property. It is our home and we intend to stay here."
This will be an interesting challenge as the building belongs to the people by rights, and the only illegal occupation is that of a non elected quango self imposed government Tony Blair did not attend his book signing in Waterstones Piccadilly.
The event at the Tate Gallery later in the day was full of disinformation with many people being told that the event had changed to the Ritz.
Citizens arrest on Mr. Blair and other war criminal is encouraged. Be ready for more PEACEFUL future events.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Peace Strike protest on Houses of Parliament September 9th
Small country, big struggle
By Mike Marqusee
Mike Marqusee has just returned from a visit with trade unionists and democracy activists in Swaziland.
Swaziland is a small country with a big problem. The 1.3 million inhabitants of the land-locked southern African kingdom live under the thumb of one of the world's last absolute monarchies, a venal and repressive regime whose plunder of the country is systematic and comprehensive.
Now presiding over the 37th year of the world's longest running State of Emergency, King Mswati III controls the parliament, appoints cabinet ministers, judges and senior civil servants and makes and breaks the law at will. Political parties are banned, along with most demonstrations and meetings. Shouting the wrong slogan or wearing the wrong tee shirt can get you locked up as a “terrorist”. Trades unionists and human rights activists face surveillance, house searches, arbitrary detention and torture. Strikes are illegal. Gatherings of any kind are often broken up by police assaults. The media is subject to constant harassment and intimidation. During the latest wave of repression, in May, democracy activist Sipho Jele, who had been arrested and interrogated, was allegedly “found” by police hanging from the rafters in a prison toilet.
In July, Mswati (who was educated at the expensive Sherborne school in Dorset, England) ruled out future political dialogue, insisting that state structures in Swaziland were a “closed book” and rejecting public consultation in favour of a carefully managed “Smart Partnership” exercise.
Swaziland's autocracy is based on the “Tinkhundla” system through which royally-sponsored traditional leaders dispense patronage and exercise control at local level. The system is celebrated by the government as an authentic product of traditional Swazi culture and those who question it are routinely denounced as “not Swazi enough”. But Swazis themselves reap no benefits from it.
While 70% of the population live on less than a dollar a day and 25% rely on food aid, the royal family make do on some $67,000 a day. According to US-based business magazine Forbes, Mswati's personal net worth is an estimated $200 million, making him the 15th richest monarch in the world, not far behind Queen Elizabeth II, ranked 13, whose UK domain alone generates a GDP 365 times larger than Swaziland's.
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The European Military Industrial Complex
The powerful influence of arms industry lobbyists on EU decision-making processes is nothing new. However the recent restructuring on an industry level, together with important political developments such as the European Defence Agency and Treaty of Lisbon, has moved the influence of the military industry to new levels.
Until recently, the arms industry within the EU fell mostly within the auspices of each individual nation. With the advent of technological warfare, the drive for a streamlined and technologically improved European military industry has increased.
Arms logos European military industry is in fierce competition with its US counterpart. The huge US home market guarantees sales and ensures economies of scale. Further, the trend in the US in the last two decades of mergers and acquisitions consolidated the US military industry. These emerging giants in the US and other competitive pressures forced the EU military industry to follow suit with a process of mergers.
Until this point, European governments wanted to keep their military industry national and there is still reluctance to entirely abandon national military structures. However the success of EADS, a massive arms company created by the merger of several European manufacturers in 2000, sparked a consolidation of the European aeronautic defence industry. (Neither naval nor land based weaponry have yet seen such a consolidation).
Three European arms giants have emerged: BAE Systems, EADS, and Thales and a stronger European military industry has emerged more rapidly than would have been expected.
There have also been several political initiatives to help consolidate the European military sector. One of the most important of these is OCCAR, created in 1996. OCCAR is a common procurement programme, originally for France, Germany, Ireland and the UK, but later joined by Belgium and most recently by Spain in 2005. By providing industry with joint orders, cheaper production runs should be guaranteed. It was created to smooth cooperation between the military companies in the EU and help provide European governments with cheaper European weaponry.
In 2000, the EU's largest arms producing countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK) signed a Framework Agreement on the restructuring of European military industry. The aim of the Agreement was to harmonise regulations and to facilitate cooperation between arms producing companies, with regard to both the production and export of military equipment.
Though OCCAR and the Framework Agreement are projects of only some EU member states, the fact that they have been brought within the remit of the European Defence Agency means they have been enshrined within the Treaty between all EU countries. There is concern that the arms export policies originating in the Framework Agreement countries would follow the industry's economic interests rather than political considerations.
Arms Industry Lobbying
The arms industry has exploited the changed security policies in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks to gain increased influence with EU decision-makers. Such is their foothold now within Brussels that arms industry representatives played a crucial role in shaping the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the Treaty of Lisbon. Of thirteen experts invited to contribute to the defence aspects of the draft Constitution (repeated verbatim in the Treaty), three were industry representatives. Not one civil society representative was asked to contribute. The contributions have never been made public.
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See also: World Military Spending
One quarter of U.S. interpreters in Afghanistan flunked language exams: whistleblower lawsuit
A lot probably gets lost in translation.
More than one of every four translators embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan flunked their language proficiency exams, a whistleblower told ABC News.
Paul Funk, who worked for the contractor that supplied translators for the military, said 28% of applicants hired between November 2007 and June 2008 failed exams for the most common Afghan languages, Pashto and Dari.
They were sent overseas anyways.
[ ... ]
The Art of Corporate Mind Control
Television is the most powerful weapon of psychological warfare in history and yet it is a member of the family in most households. The programming that we are constantly assaulted with conditions us to a particular worldview. This fake reality changes our behavior making us less active and more compliant with society's shortcomings. Since television is controlled by a small handful of powerful corporations, viewers will never witness informing, truthful news and entertainment. As political and corporate power unite at an ever increasing rate, being informed is more important than ever. People need to seek out independent and alternative unbiased sources on the internet for their information or we will continue to be manipulated by the corporate controlled media.
Transcript
David Icke: Most of humanity is in an absolute hypnotic trance that they're put in from cradle to grave by constant repetition of a fake reality and when we wake up from this then we will not be subservient.
Jordan Maxwell: The bottom line is that the government is getting what they ordered. They do not want your children to be educated. They do not want you to think too much. That is why our country and our world has become so proliferated with entertainments, mass media, television shows, amusement parks, drugs, alcohol, and every kind of entertainment to keep the human mind entertained so that you don't get in the way of important people by doing too much thinking. You better wake up and understand that there are people who are guiding your life and you don't even know it.
Steven Jacobson: Television is the most powerful weapon of psychological warfare in history. The programming that we are constantly assaulted by throughout our lives conditions us. It programs us to a particular worldview. Now, we may consider it normal because we were born into this system of lies and deception. And because we were born into this situation and our parents were born into it and have suffered from it, we don't know any better.
Aldous Huxley: What I may call the messages of Brave New World, but it is possible to make people contented with their servitude. I think this can be done. I think it has been done in the past. I think it could be done even more effectively now because you can provide them with bread and circuses and you can provide them with endless amounts of distractions and propaganda.
George Carlin: But there's a reason, there's a reason. There's a reason for this. There's a reason education sucks and its the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. Its never gonna get any better, don't look for it. Be happy with what you got, because the owners of this country don't want that. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that.
Howard Beale: We know things are bad, worse than bad. They're crazy. Its like everything everywhere is going crazy so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house and slowly the world were living in is getting smaller and all we say is please at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel belted radios and I wont say anything, just leave us alone. Well I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell, I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore! You've got to say, Im a human being God damn it, my life has value!
image from http://www.spitting-image.net
