Margot B's Blog

'Lord' Amherst ~ 'scalping' and its lotteries

2010-03-04T12:03:00.000-08:00

The colonial British, during their colonizing of what they termed British North America, made many attempts to exterminate tribal First Nations, the Mi’kmaq and Penobscot for instance. Scalp proclamations were among their first choice, however, many other methods, including germ warfare were on the table.

General (Lord) Jeffrey Amherst, the Commander in Chief of British forces in North America during the mid-1700s, a man who despised the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, referring to them as an "execrable race," explored with his followers many horrific ways to achieve the cleansing desired. Please click this link

http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html

to read more. For future reference the link can also be found at this URL:

http://www.danielnpaul.com/GeneralJeffreyAmherst-1763.html

GENERAL JEFFERY AMHERST PONDERS
THE BEST GENOCIDE METHODS TO USE

In July 1763, two years after the "Burying of the Hatchet Ceremony," General Jeffery Amherst, the Commander-in-Chief of all British forces in North America asked this question in a memo he wrote to Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Huguenot in the service of England:

"Could it not be contrived to send the Smallpox among the disaffected Tribes of Indians?"

Bouquet replied: "I will try to inoculate the [the word is illegible but probably says "Indians" with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself."

Amherst answered: "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets."

Amherst's contempt for the Indians is amply reflected in his journals and correspondence, though it may perhaps be doubted whether he was more bigoted than the average official of his Time!

One could argue, but in my opinion not very successfully, that Amherst wrote his letter to Bouquet proposing the use of genocide in the knowledge that Pontiac, "Chief Detroit," was making an effort to organize the Amerindian Nations, from the east coast to the mid-west, including the Mi'kmaq, into a unified force to eject the English from their territories. Thus Amherst had no choice but to take drastic measures to stop him. This type of argument might have some legitimacy if the English were the defender rather than the aggressor, but as they were the aggressor it offers none.

From the tone of the racist language he used in his diaries I believe that elitist racist beliefs were the prime factor behind the General's desire to commit genocide. One can easily support this theory from the degrading names he and Bouquet had for the Natives. Amherst described the Amerindians as an "execrable race." Colonel Bouquet's pet description was "the vilest of brutes." Lawrence Shaw Mayo states in his biography of Amherst:

As he sped on his way to the relief of Fort Pitt, the Colonel exchanged interesting suggestions with the General as to the most efficient manner of getting rid of the redskins. His first orders to Bouquet were that he wished "to hear of no prisoners should any of the villains be met with arms." Besides using smallpox the two gentlemen contemplated another method: "As it is a pity to expose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spanish method, to hunt them with English dogs." Amherst lamented that the remoteness of merry England made the canine aid impracticable.

By Luc Majno

BACK to margotbworldnews.com

"It is Not Because Things are Difficult that We Do Not Dare; It Is Because We Do Not Dare that They are Difficult.”

2010-03-04T11:57:00.001-08:00

So many people seem to have given up any hope of taking back our power. So I am re-posting two essays I wrote a couple of years ago to help re-light the fire ...

Hope In a Time of Hopelessness

Several long-time activists have told me recently they are overwhelmed, worried, and think that we may be losing the struggle ....

One very smart friend asked me if there is any basis for hope.

But hope is an act of will, not a passive mood. Admittedly, things are easier when circumstances bring hope to us, and we can just receive the hopeful and inspiring news.

But if we care about winning, we have to be able to decide to have hope even when outer circumstances aren't so positive.

I have children who are counting on me to leave them with a reasonably safe and sane planet. As I've said elsewhere, "I care too much about my kids and my freedom to be afraid. I care enough about them that it gets my heart beating, connects me to something bigger than myself, and that gives me courage, even when the chips are down."

If I allowed myself to lose hope about exposing falsehoods, about protecting our freedom and building a hopeful future, I would be dropping the ball for my kids. I would be condemning them to a potentially very grey world where bigger and worse things may happen, where their liberties and joys are wholly stripped away, where every ounce of vitality is beholden to joyless and useless tasks.

Many of us may be motivated by other things besides kids .... Only you can know what that is. But we each must dig down deep, and connect with our most powerful motivations to win the struggle for freedom and truth.

I don't know about you . . . but I don't have the luxury of giving up hope. When I get depressed, overwhelmed or exhausted by the stunning acts of savagery, treason, and disinformation carried out by the imperialists, or the willful ignorance of many Americans, I will myself into finding some reason to have hope.

Because the struggle for liberty is too important for me to give up.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

- Ayn Rand

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.

- Lin Yutang

Hope is passion for what is possible.

- Soren Kierkegaard

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.

- Maori Proverb

I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.

- Thomas Jefferson

He who does not hope to win has already lost.

- Jose Joaquin Olmedo

When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.

- Pauline R. Kezer

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good. - Unknown

We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.

- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them.

- William James

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

- Helen Keller

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.

- Norman Cousins

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS.

- Mahatma Gandhi

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.

- Orison Marden

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow by conflict.

- William Ellery Channing

Hope is medicine for a soul that's sick and tired.

- Eric Swensson

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. - Augustine of Hippo

What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life. - Emil Brunner

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. - Barbara Kingsolver

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. - Vaclav Havel

Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles. - Samuel Smiles

Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure. - Abraham Cowley

Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope; and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable. - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Let perseverance be your engine and hope your fuel. - H. Jackson Brown Jr

Develop sincere desire for the goal. Out of fire of desire comes success. - Unknown

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. - Mahatma Gandhi

Everything that is done in the world is done by hope. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Don't lose hope. When it gets darkest the stars come out. - Unknown

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. - Dale Carnegie

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. - Winston Churchill

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. - Robert F . Kennedy

Courage

It all comes down to courage . . .

If you have courage, then you're willing to face that really stinky mess in the garage and clean it up.

You have faith you can clean it up, because you've cleaned up other really stinky messes, or seen other people do it. In other words, you have faith because you have experience of succeeding in the past.

Fat and Happy

We Americans have led a very pampered life for the past couple of decades. Sure, there has been inequality and exploitation, and some have had it a lot worse than others. But, other than stopping extreme forms of racism (Ku Klux Klan, etc.), we haven't had to defend our borders or our liberties.

Basically, we complain if our tv goes on the fritz, or our team loses the game, or we can't afford that new, nicer whatzit, or if our boss is mean. We think those are big, Earth-shattering, history-changing events. But they are quite small in the grand scheme of things

And even those of us who think of ourselves as brave heroes usually only act like that when we know it is within the bounds of safety, within the limits of what we can handle. "Tough guys" tend to turn into meek mice whenever they are really threatened.

So we're basically lazy and timid, but we don't know or admit it. We like to pretend we are like the Founding Fathers or John Wayne (at least the cowboys had to rough it a little).

But we have no experience of successfully standing up to tyrants, so we have no faith that it can be done, and while the evidence is right before our noses that our current leaders are tyrants, we're so terrified that we have our knickers in a bunch.

What Would They Do?

Even if you haven't experienced success in standing up to tyrants, remember that the Founding Fathers did just that. They were just men, not gods. Sure, they were too persistent and stubborn to give up, but that's because they CARED about something: freedom and the possibility of a better life.

They may have lived hundreds of years before our time, but that doesn't matter -- we can still learn from their experience as if it were happening now. Time is an illusion, since human nature is the same now as it was then. Just as many people of faith ask "what would Jesus do?", we can also ask "what would the founding fathers do?" If they could do it, we can do it.

Take Heart

There is a real misunderstanding of what it means to be courageous. In America, courage is often thought of as a testosterone-driven toughness. There's nothing the matter with testosterone. Masculinity is a great thing. But many American men secretly fear that they don't have sufficient testosterone to really be brave when the chips are down. As I said above, even those of us who think of ourselves as brave men usually only act like that when we know it is within the bounds of safety, within the limits of what we can handle.

We might jump in a bar room brawl to protect our buddy, but that's because we know we're only going to get knocked around a little bit -- nothing but bruises that will go away in a little while. The stakes just aren't that high.

But most American men secretly doubt whether they are macho enough to pull it off under fire. They may watch alot of action movies, and talk tough, and stand up when its not really dangerous (or when they clearly outgun the other guy), but they are secretly terrified that they don't have quite enough backbone to pull it off against the big boys, such as tyrants.

I would argue that this view fundamentally misunderstands the nature of courage, and ensures that we will never have true courage when it counts.

By way of analogy, the word "discipline" comes from "disciple". If you are a true "disciple" of an idea of a plan or a strategy or a religion, then you will stick to it and "have discipline" to reach your goal. It is not just a matter of willpower; it is also devotion to something bigger than ourselves.

Similarly, the word "courage" comes from the French "with heart". Why does it have this root meaning? Because it takes heart to act bravely. That's how my childhood Karate teacher used the word: when I was practicing with courage, power and focus, he would say "you have alot of heart today" (indeed, many old-school warriors use the phrase "fighting with heart" in that way).

If courage is acting "with heart", we've lost heart. And without heart, we cannot face the truth.

So how do we regain our heart? Well, let's start with what gets our hearts beating.

Remember that the mother bear is one of the fiercest animals of all. Just get between a mother bear and her cub and you'll see what I mean. It is her love of her cub which gives her the heart to face any enemy when her cub is threatened. It is not her level of testosterone, but rather her love for her cub which makes her so fierce.

Just as discipline is more than just willpower, courage stems from something bigger than just cajones. In fact, the strongest courage comes from the love of something we care about, since our heart will sustain us even when the chips are really down and we are really up against a tyrant. As the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said: "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. "

In addition, we're no longer living in the old west. Individualism is very important in numerous ways, but we can only win against the tyrants as a team, as a community, as a nation. And only by opening our hearts to what matters will we be able to work together, to fight for all of our kids, and all of our freedom. Only then will we be able to put the crooks and the looters and the tyrants back in the box.

Do we care about our kids, our significant others, our parents, our friends? Do we care about the freedom to choose what we want, instead of having our "great leader" choose for us?

If not, what DO we care about? Because if that is where your heart is, that is what will give you courage.

I care too much about my kids and their future to be afraid. I care enough about them that it gets my heart beating, connects me to something bigger than myself, and that gives me courage, even when the chips are down.

Courage is an innate human quality. It is within each of us, waiting to reveal itself when we open our hearts. When we act with heart, by definition, we are courageous.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

- Seneca

Those who would trade safety for freedom deserve neither.

– Thomas Jefferson

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

- Hellen Keller

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

- Goethe

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

- Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is an everyday thing. When we look reality squarely in the eye and refuse to back away from our awareness, we are living courage.

- Anonymous

To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that.

- Mother Teresa

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

- Robert F . Kennedy

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

- Aristotle

Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway. - John Wayne

Courage is doing what your afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.

- Eddie Rickenbacker

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. - George Patton

One man with courage makes a majority.

- Andrew Jackson

Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the ones you did. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Within each of us is a hidden store of energy. Energy we can release to compete in the marathon of life Within each of us is a hidden store of courage. Courage to give us the strength to face any challenge Within each of us is a hidden store of determination. Determination to keep us in the race when all seems lost.

- Roger Dawson

We must never despair; our situation has been compromising before; and it changed for the better; so I trust it will again. If difficulties arise; we must put forth new exertion and proportion our efforts to the exigencies of the times.

- George Washington

We must remember that one determined person can make a significant difference, and that a small group of determined people can change the course of history. -Sonia Johnson

Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

HTTP://OpeningMind.Blogspot.com
Source

BACK to margotbworldnews.com

Georgia vs Russia: Fanning the flames

2010-03-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

Will there be another war in the Caucasus? This is a smoldering issue on more than one front, finds Eric Walberg, in the first of a two-part analysis of the spectre of conflict in this crucial crossroads

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world expected a new era of peace and disarmament. But what happened? Instead of diminishing, US and NATO presence throughout Europe, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Central Asia rapidly increased, and the world experienced one war after another -- in the Caucasus, Yugoslavia , Iraq and Afghanistan , each one hotter and more horrible than the last. And we are far from seeing the end to the savagery now unleashed by the anti-communist jinni.

Though a pokey backwater for the past millennium, the south Caucasus is now a key battleground, the “critical strategic crossroads in 21st century geopolitics”, writes analyst Rick Rozoff, the focus of ambitious energy transit projects and a military corridor reaching from Western Europe to East Asia, controlled (or not so “controlled”) from Washington and Brussel.

Surely peace in this vital region should be a paramount goal for both Russia and the West, for their own reasons -- Russia because, well because it is there and its cultural and economic links are vital to Russia ’s well being. The US, if only to benefit economically, since peace everywhere is a boon to economic well being and logically should be blessed by the world’s superpower, whether or not it is a benevolent one.

But this logic has been betrayed -- egregiously, in the case of US abetting Georgia in its disastrous war against Russia in 2008, less obviously in likely covert US and other involvement in Chechnya and its neighbours, as well as in the Armenia-Azerbaijan stand-off over Nagorno Karabakh.

Topping the list in recent times are Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where firebrand Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili struts and threatens, running from one NATO gathering to another, embracing one US military envoy after another, as he shakes his fist at his northern nemesis and vows to retake his breakaway territories Abkhazia and South Ossetia, now fully fledged republics. This pits a NATO hopeful against a NATO foe, and despite the fact that NATO expressly forbids membership to any country with disputed borders, it continues to vow that Georgia will soon be a full member, a project that can only mean war with Russia.

US encouragement for Saakashvili in his failed 2008 war with Russia was, to put it mildly, an embarrassment for the US and should be a warning to politely distance itself from further abetting a dangerously unpredictable character. Despite the likelihood that Saakashvili’s extreme pro-West policies will be reversed by a future government, the US navy is conducting war exercises at this very moment with Georgia in the Black Sea, and the Pentagon is preparing to build three military bases in Georgia and dispatch of up to 25,000 US servicemen to the country by 2015. It seems the embarrassment is also a “window of opportunity”, a chance to put facts on the ground which a future government would find very difficult to change.

Georgia is a tempting morsel for other reasons. US special envoy to AfPak Richard Holbrooke just last week visited Georgia to arrange transit of arms to his killing fields via Georgia. Saakashvili offered Georgia’s Black Sea ports Poti and Batumi as docks for military supply ships and the country’s airports as refuelling points for cargo planes. “The route to Afghanistan is already used extensively, because almost 80 per cent of cargo which is not going through Pakistan is going through Georgia, and only 20 per cent through Russia,” boasts Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Security in International Studies.

Saakashvili is pursuing a propaganda campaign aiming to destabilise the region through direct and indirect provocation of Russia and support of terrorists with the tacit approval of Washington and Brussels. He has launched a Russian-language TV station First Caucasus beamed into South Ossetia, much like Reagan’s TV Marti set up in 1985 for Cubans. He has also reached out to Abkhazians and Ossetians to try to convince them to subvert their current governments and join Georgia.

The idea, according to analyst at the Strategic Cultural Foundation Nicolai Dimlevich, is to foment instability throughout the Caucasus and in Transcaucasia and then call for all the zones of conflict to be passed into UN, EU and/or NATO hands for safekeeping, since Russia would be proven to be incapable of ensuring the security of local populations. In this scenario, the US and NATO “benefit” from war in the region, as it is an opportunity to weaken Russia and extend control over the region. Terrifying thoughts, but unfortunately perfectly “rational”.

The failed war against Russia in 2008 also left behind storm clouds in Saakashvili’s own Tbilisi , where opposition to his reckless political gambits has hardened. Even as Saakashvili blusters, key Georgian opposition figures have been visiting Moscow since late last year, disowning their president’s plans. “We are prepared to receive those, who come not for fighting and trickery, but for making some changes,” Russian Deputy Minister Gregory Karasin told reporters in Geneva recently. Karasin quoted Georgian parliament’s ex-speaker, current leader of the Democratic Movement-United Georgia, Nino Burjanadze: “When Saakashvili made a decision to wage war in summer 2008, I am quoting her ‘he intended to make Russia bend on its knees and to cause tension in relations with Russia, but Saakashvili lost the war and put the country in a tragic situation.’ We want to have open and pleasant relationship with Georgia.”

Former Georgian prime minister Zurab Noghaideli was received by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in December, the first time that the Russian leader openly met with a Georgian opposition leader. He openly advocates cooperation between his Movement for a Just Georgia and United Russia, and has developed close ties with the Union of Georgians in Russia. Noghaideli has repeatedly stated that without a radical change in Georgia’s foreign policy priorities his country’s “destruction will continue”, warning that “there is danger of Georgia’s further dismemberment” if Tbilisi’s current course continues.

“Saakashvili understands that his rule is in danger, and therefore he is prepared to plunge the country into a new war. He prefers to be a president banished from Georgia by Russia than to be banished by his own people,” said Burjanadze, condemning the TV station beamed into Ossetia which features a talk show hosted by the late Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev’s widow. Giorgi Khaindrava, a former Cabinet member and now an opposition leader, said. if the channel devotes coverage to the insurgency in Russia’s north Caucasus, Putin may declare it a terrorist threat and use force to shut it down. “This isn’t just fantasy. It could happen.”

The entire spectrum of Georgia’s politicians agree. Conservative Party leader Kakha Kukava says, “ Russia doesn’t have any strategic plan towards Georgia nowadays. It is in Saakashvili’s interests to provoke Russia and attract international attention to obtain support.” Even “some of the people close to President Saakashvili may also agree, but they can’t say so openly because they’re afraid of him,” asserts Noghaideli.

Perhaps Saakashvili’s bluster is just hot air. But the war exercises with the US and the planned US bases aren’t. Nor is the fact that the south Caucasus has become a transit route for drugs to Europe and Russia. Russian Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov said last week that the ports of Batumi and Poti are “the main ones in drug trafficking, and the Georgian city of Kabuleti is one of the key points of trafficking of Afghan heroin.”

Only Saakashvili seems to think it’s possible to reunite the two breakaway regions with Georgia any time soon. For better or worse Abkhazia is ever more securely tied to Russia , as confirmed by President Sergei Bagapsh’s visit to Moscow last month to commemorate 200 years since Abkhazia was absorbed into the Russian empire. Though not Moscow’s favourite in the 2004 elections, Bagapsh has agreed to establish a joint military ground force for the next 49 years and to upgrade an existing Russian base at Gudauta, where 1,700 Russian troops are presently stationed. He also proposed that Abkhazia join the Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan Customs Union even though neither Minsk nor Astana has recognised Abkhazia as a sovereign state. Ironically, says analyst Sergei Markedonov, if even a half dozen European countries were to recognise Abkhazia, “maybe Bagapsh would favour European integration.” Carnegie Moscow Centre analyst Alexei Malashenko suspects that Turkey may set things in motion. “Turkey is ready to establish special relations with Abkhazia.”

The mouse’s defeat in 2008 also was an important incentive for Ukrainians to turn against their Orange revolutionaries last month. Incumbent Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich is merely expressing the will of the people when he dismisses any future move to join NATO and tones down the anti-Russian rhetoric. When Saakashvili goes, a similar move will surely take place in Georgia, as a future president tries to repair relations with Russia, though -- hopes the Pentagon -- leaving by-then existing US bases in place.

***

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/

BACK to margotbworldnews.com

Entire February 2010 Issue of the American Behavioral Scientist Devoted to State Crimes Against Democracy: The Case of September 11, 2001

2010-03-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

For 50 years the American Behavioral Scientist has been a leading source of behavioral research for the academic world. Its influence is shown by the fact that it is indexed by an extraordinary 67 major database services, causing its papers to be widely exposed on the international scene.
The publisher, Sage, is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in London, New Delhi, Singapore, and Washington DC.
Each issue offers comprehensive analysis of a single topic.
The six papers in the February 2010 issue are devoted to the recent concept of "State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD's)," with emphasis on 9/11 and on how human behavior has failed to recognize its reality. [Ref. abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6 ]
What are SCAD's?
"SCADs differ from earlier forms of political corruption in that they frequently involve political, military, and/or economic elites at the very highest levels of the social and political order," explains one essay. "Negative information actions" are defined by another as "willful and deliberate acts designed to keep government information from those in government and the public entitled to it. Negative information actions subvert the rule of law and the constitutional checks and balances."

One paper shows that "preexisting beliefs can interfere with people's examination of evidence for state crimes against democracy (SCADs), specifically in relation to the events of September 11, 2001, and the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Another refers to TV's "popular culture passion plays" as "displacing interrogation of real-event anomalies, as with the porous account given by the 9/11 Commission for what happened that fateful day." …2
And another deals with "the actual destruction of sovereignty and democratic values under the onslaught of antiterrorism hubris, propaganda, and fear," in response to 9/11, asking whether the Patriot Acts of 2001 and 2006 are themselves state crimes against democracy.
The papers extensively quote the independent academic researchers who have been studying the 9/11 problem for years, including Dr. David Ray Griffin; Dr. Niels Harrit, Dr. Steven Jones, Chemist Kevin Ryan, and the rest of the team that studied nanothermite in the World Trade Center dust; and Dr. Peter Dale Scott, Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, Barrie Zwicker, Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, and The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Papers Listed in the February 2010 Issue, Amer. Behav. Sci. Matthew T. Witt and Alexander Kouzmin, "Sense Making Under 'Holographic' Conditions: Framing SCAD Research." American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 783-794. Lance deHaven-Smith, "Beyond Conspiracy Theory: Patterns of High Crime in American Government.," American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 795-825. Christopher L. Hinson. "Negative Information Action: Danger for Democracy." American Behavioral Scientist, 2010 53: 826-847.
Laurie A. Manwell, "In Denial of Democracy: Social Psychological Implications for Public Discourse on State Crimes Against Democracy Post-9/11," American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 848-884.
Kym Thorne and Alexander Kouzmin, "The USA PATRIOT Acts (et al.): Convergent Legislation and Oligarchic Isomorphism in the 'Politics of Fear' and State Crime(s) Against Democracy (SCADs)," American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 885-920 Matthew T. Witt, "Pretending Not to See or Hear, Refusing to Signify: The Farce and Tragedy of Geocentric Public Affairs Scholarship," American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 921-939.

Submitted by Dan Fey

Source

BACK to margotbworldnews.com

US & Colombia keep looking for a war opening with Venezuela

2010-03-04T11:21:00.000-08:00

^[1]

Washington eyes the destabilization and takeover of Venezuela a worthwhile objective—an Iraq in the making? As usual, American media fail to warn the US public about what their ruling class is plotting ^[1]

By Jorge Rueda (CP) – 2 hours ago

^[1]CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez is accusing Colombia and the United States of plotting to set up a fake rebel camp on Venezuelan soil to discredit his government.

Chavez accused Colombia of preparing what he called a “false positive” operation, saying on Monday that it’s feasible the neighbouring country could build a makeshift camp in a remote location, then plant corpses and guns to make it look like a rebel camp had been discovered.

Colombian officials have said that leftist rebel commanders from their country are taking refuge in Venezuela. Chavez says the officials are falsely trying to portray him as being in cahoots with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which Colombia has been battling for decades.

“The verbal war against Venezuela began weeks ago, saying that we have I don’t know how many guerrilla chiefs hidden here … that in Venezuela there are rebel camps protected by the Venezuelan government, which is absolutely false,” Chavez told troops during a televised speech in the western border state of Zulia.

“We have evidence that the Colombian government, instructed and supported, or rather directed by the United States, is preparing a ‘false positive,”‘ Chavez said.

He said he believes Colombia could bring bodies “to a mountain in Venezuelan territory, build some huts, an improvised camp, put some rifles there … and say ‘There it is, the guerrilla camp in Venezuela.”‘

Last year, Colombian troops raided a FARC camp inside Ecuador, killing 25 people including a FARC commander. That attack triggered sharp tensions with Ecuador and Venezuela.

Chavez’s accusations are the latest in a protracted diplomatic conflict with Colombia that has led to a sharp drop in trade this year and has prompted the Venezuelan leader to warn of a possible armed conflict.

Chavez has accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s government of allowing the United States to expand its military presence at its bases to prepare a possible attack against Venezuela.

Both the U.S. and Colombia say the American troops are solely aiding Colombia to combat drug trafficking and guerrillas internally. They both have repeatedly denied planning to invade Venezuela and his opponents have accused Chavez of using an invasion threat to distract attention from domestic problems.

Chavez addressed troops at Fort Mara, where he said a group of soldiers recently reported spotting an unmanned spy plane.

Colombian Defence Minister Gabriel Silva has ridiculed that claim, saying Venezuelan troops might have mistaken Santa’s sleigh for a drone and that his military doesn’t have aircraft that could perform such an espionage mission.

Soldiers who stood facing Chavez displayed some of the weapons that Venezuela has recently bought from Russia, including shoulder-fired Igla-S surface-to-air missiles and Dragunov sniper rifles. Chavez said his military now has thousands of Igla-S weapons.

“They’re defensive weapons. This is like the boxer’s jab,” Chavez said.

He said the military will soon be receiving new arms including Russian-made T-72 tanks.

Venezuela has already bought more than $4 billion worth of Russian arms since 2005, including 24 Sukhoi fighter jets, dozens of helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. In September, Russia agreed to lend Venezuela $2.2 billion to buy more weapons.

AGENCIA BOLIVARIANA DE NOTICIAS

Colombian Government seeks to halt Bolivarian Revolution

Caracas, Dec 28 ABN.- “The Government of Colombia, as tool of the United States, aims at destabilizing Venezuela, generating a chaos in the country, halt not only Venezuela’s Revolution but also the Revolution in Latin America,” affirmed on Monday Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.

On the occasion of an event of end-of-the-year salutation to the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, in the western state of Zulia, President Chavez expressed that “Colombia, unfortunately, is being used by the Yankee empire to set an aggression against Venezuela, more of the aggressions we have already suffered from Colombia.”

Similarly, Chavez affirmed that he has proofs about a false positive being prepared in Colombia. According to him, by means of this practice, young people from shantytowns are kidnapped, killed and then dressed with guerrilla cloths, and they put rifles in their hands to then broadcast the case on television as a success of the Government against the guerrilla movement.

“Our Government neither supports nor allows the entrance of any alien armed force in our territory except our glorious Bolivarian Armed Forces and its militia,” he affirmed.

To Venezuelan soldiers, the President said “You have to be always on the alert, especially in the western frontier. The command in Colombia is no longer in Bogota, but in Washington. From Colombia, the empire is using Colombian military forces to prepare an aggression against Venezuela and you, soldiers from the west, are at the front line of the battle. And I will always be with you, in strategies and tactics.”

“We are compelled to prepare every day more and better for the defense of our Homeland. I hope they will not dare to, but if they dare to attack us they will regret [it] for 500 years,” he added.

••••

Hugo Chavez claims Colombia, US could simulate attack on fake rebel camp in Venezuela

Posted By hijabella On 29 December, 2009 @ 10:36 am In ASIDES, American Imperialism | No Comments

Article printed from CYRANO'S JOURNAL ONLINE: http://www.bestcyrano.org

URL to article: http://www.bestcyrano.org/?p=4462

URLs in this post:

[1] US & Colombia keep looking for a war opening with Venezuela: http://www.bestcyrano.org/?p=4462

Click here to print.

BACK to margotbworldnews.com

Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor

2009-12-13T20:39:00.001-08:00

Margot B

Dec 13, 2009; 08:29pm

Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions

Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

This will raise questions about crime's influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. "In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor," he said.

Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.

"Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way." Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.

"That was the moment [last year] when the system was basically paralysed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. The progressive liquidisation to the system and the progressive improvement by some banks of their share values [has meant that] the problem [of illegal money] has become much less serious than it was," he said.

The IMF estimated that large US and European banks lost more than $1tn on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009 and more than 200 mortgage lenders went bankrupt. Many major institutions either failed, were acquired under duress, or were subject to government takeover.

Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.

British bankers would want to see any evidence that Costa has to back his claims. A British Bankers' Association spokesman said: "We have not been party to any regulatory dialogue that would support a theory of this kind. There was clearly a lack of liquidity in the system and to a large degree this was filled by the intervention of central banks."

* Rajeev Syal
* The Observer, Sunday 13 December 2009
* Article history

Back to margotbworldnews.com