US Fascism - Power, suffering, federal police, anti-terrorism act, protection of people and state

Frightening Parallels

by Thom Hartmann

This weekend — February 27th — is the 72nd anniversary, but the corporate media most likely won't cover it. The generation that experienced this history firsthand is now largely dead, and only a few of us dare hear their ghosts.

It started when the government, in the midst of an economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist. Some, like Sefton Delmer — a London Daily Express reporter on the scene — say they certainly did not, while others, like William Shirer, suggest they did.)

Warnings ignored

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted.

He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world.

His coarse use of language — reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state — and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

A sign from God

"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion — "a sign from God," he called it — to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation — in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it — that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

If the case involved terrorism

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.

Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public — and there were many — quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)

Our land was 'The Homeland'

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.

Playing on this new implicitly racial nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.

New Christianity

His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" — God Is With Us — and most of them fervently believed it was true.

Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.

Middle Eastern ancestry!

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at our disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and news reporters who dared speak out — a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.

Nation's largest corporations

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.

Moral and financial support to initiatives based on faith

He also reached out to the churches, declaring that the nation had clear Christian roots, that any nation that didn't openly support religion was morally bankrupt, and that his administration would openly and proudly provide both moral and financial support to initiatives based on faith to provide social services.

In this, he was reaching back to his own embrace of Christianity, which he noted in an April 12, 1922 speech:

"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers ... was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.

"In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders...

"As a Christian ... I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice..."

Providence's intention to let me reach my goal

When he later survived an assassination attempt, he said, "Now I am completely content. The fact that I left the Burgerbraukeller earlier than usual is a corroboration of Providence's intention to let me reach my goal."

Many government functions started with prayer. Every school day started with prayer and every child heard the wonders of Christianity and — especially — the Ten Commandments in school. The leader even ended many of his speeches with a prayer, as he did in a February 20, 1938 speech before Parliament

"In this hour I would ask of the Lord God only this: that, as in the past, so in the years to come He would give His blessing to our work and our action, to our judgment and our resolution, that He will safeguard us from all false pride and from all cowardly servility, that He may grant us to find the straight path which His Providence has ordained for the German people, and that He may ever give us the courage to do the right, never to falter, never to yield before any violence, before any danger."

Voices of dissent

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, his corruption of religious leaders, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man — a master at manipulating the media — he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity.

Claimed the right to strike preemptively

He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe — at first — denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.

Even in death they cannot stop lying

In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."

To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will.

Rather than the government being run by multiple parties in a pluralistic, democratic fashion, one single party sought total control. Emulating a technique also used by Stalin, but as ancient as Rome, the Party used the power of its influence on the government to take over all government functions, hand out government favors, and reward Party contributors with government positions and contracts.

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer

In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. You were either with us, or you were with the terrorists.

It was a simplistic perspective, but that was what would work, he was told by his Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels: "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly — it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."

Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.

Manufactured news

Another technique was to "manufacture news," through the use of paid shills posing as reporters, seducing real reporters with promises of access to the leader in exchange for favorable coverage, and thinly veiled threats to those who exposed his lies. As his Propaganda Minister said, "It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."

Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.

Never be a single newsreel of a heckler

A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.

In the months after that, he claimed that Poland had weapons of mass destruction (poison gas) and was supporting terrorists against Germany. Those who doubted that Poland represented a threat were shouted down or branded as ignorant. Elections were rigged, run by party hacks. Only loyal Party members were given passes for admission to public events with the leader, so there would never be a single newsreel of a heckler, and no doubt in the minds of the people that the leader enjoyed vast support.

And his support did grow, as Propaganda Minister Goebbels' dictum bore fruit:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Within a few months Poland, too, was invaded in a "defensive, pre-emptive" action. The nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security; it was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.

As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.

February 27, 2005, is the 72nd anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."

Security of the homeland — SS

Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.

We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.

Fascism

Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using religion and war as tools to keep power: "fas-cism (fâsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.

Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, bust up unions, and create an illusion of prosperity through government debt and continual and ever-expanding war spending.

The choice is ours

America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.

To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.

February 17 - 21, 2006

Fire almost here

By Chris Floyd
Published: February 17, 2006

The kindling has been piled high, stuffed with tinder and doused with gasoline. The match has been lit. All it will take is the slightest flick of the wrist to set off the conflagration. We are now living in the interval, the few heartbeats left before the great flame ignites.

The heap of kindling has been a long time building, but in recent weeks, the work has intensified to a fever pitch. With relentless urgency, the American people are being habituated to the prospect of several interrelated upheavals — new war, new terror attacks — and the predetermined result of these events: the final, open establishment of presidential tyranny, a militarized "commander state" where executive power is beyond the law, and endless war endlessly prolongs the "emergency measures" of the authoritarian regime.

Making a virtue of necessity, the Bush administration has used the exposure of its illegal wiretap scheme to ratchet up the level of terrorist scaremongering, accelerate its drive toward a military attack on Iran and publicly proclaim its long-held covert doctrine of executive dictatorship.

UK occupation
Basra 2007, Iraq
Iraq resistance forces target SUV belonging to British 'security' company

Of course, "commander rule" is already the de facto state of the union, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made clear to the Senate last week, when he refused to deny the notion that the president can contravene any law he chooses under his authority as commander-in-chief.

And we have often detailed here the tyrannical powers that President George W. Bush has already bestowed upon himself without objection from the U.S. political establishment, including the power to jail anyone without charges, hold them indefinitely and have them tortured — or simply murder them in an "extrajudicial killing."

The scope of Bush's claimed powers — arbitrary sway over the life and liberty of every person on earth — far surpasses that of the most megalomaniacal Roman emperor or totalitarian dictator.

But a militarist state must have war: to justify its draconian rule (and those $550 billion "defense" budgets), to find new fields for dominion and swag, and to seal with blood its illegitimate compact with the people, seeking to make them complicit in its crimes, which are committed in their name, for their "security."

Fortunately for the militarists, Bush has promised war in abundance.

Just this month, the Pentagon released its new strategy, heralding the newly dubbed "Long War" against terrorism, where U.S. forces will be deployed, openly and covertly, "in dozens of countries simultaneously" for decades to come.

The plan is designed to "ensure that no foreign power can dictate the terms of regional or global security" — except, of course, for the dictatorial foreign power emanating from the Potomac.

UK occupation
Basra 2007, Iraq
Iraq men show their contempt of the US and UK forces and 'special' contractors stealing from them in the occupation of their country

This is the constitution of the new commander state: the eternal "emergency," fomenting endless bloodshed, strife, atrocity — and reprisals, the terrorist blowback that is the essential lubricant for the war machine.

And a new terror strike on the "homeland" is inevitable. The ground for this attack has been carefully prepared — whether wittingly or unwittingly is irrelevant now.

For whatever the Bush faction's intentions, their actual policies have demonstrably and indisputably stoked the fires of Islamic extremism to new heights of virulence.

Meanwhile, their manifest incompetence and callous disregard for the well-being of ordinary Americans — vividly displayed in the deadly bungling of the Katrina disaster and its corruption-riddled aftermath — have left American soil virtually undefended against any genuinely serious terrorist attack, i.e. one not carried out by half-wits telegraphing their punches over tapped phones.

For years, a vast infrastructure of authoritarian rule has been constructed behind the facade of ordinary political life — such as the series of "special authorities" signed by Bush and Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld giving the military absolute power over the nation "in the event of a declared or perceived emergency," The Washington Post reports.

This dovetails with such open measures as the Patriot Act and the creation of Northcom, the first military command aimed at the "homeland," which last fall conducted the massive "Granite Shadow" exercise, practicing "domestic military operations" with "unique rules of engagement regarding the use of lethal force," the Post reports.

This infrastructure is part of the context, the granite shadow looming behind many recent events, such as last month's $385 million open-ended contract awarded to Halliburton to build large-scale "detention and deportation" centers around the country, as Reuters reports.

It looms behind the "excitement" expressed by weapons-makers over Bush's plans to build new atomic bombs on a production-line basis, the Oakland Tribune reports, including "low yield" nukes for use in attacks on non-nuclear nations.

It looms over Rumsfeld's frenzied push to build a new arsenal of "first-strike" intercontinental and space-based weapons to attack enemies — or perceived enemies — with "no warning," as the Pentagon declared this month, UPI reports.

You can even see it in the Air Force's decision last week to allow top brass to press their politicized pseudo-Christianity on young cadets without restraint, as Reuters reports — more of the sinister melding of militarism and religious extremism that characterizes the Bushist philosophy.

And of course, the granite shadow overhangs the entire campaign to foment war fever against Iran, a grim replay of the "Attack Iraq" propaganda, complete with exaggerated threats, manipulated intelligence supplied by dubious exiles, lies about "pursuing diplomacy" while finalizing battle plans, as The Sunday Telegraph reports — and a complete disregard of the murderous quagmire that will ensue, including the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide as countries scramble to protect themselves from the "first-strike" triggermen of the Bush faction.

US occupation
Sadr City 2007, Iraq
Man cries after loved ones injured during US terror raid

More war, more terror, more authoritarian rule: The fire next time is almost here.

Annotations

A 'long war' designed to perpetuate itself
International Herald Tribune, Feb. 10, 2006

Ability to Wage 'Long War' Is Key To Pentagon Plan
Washington Post, Feb. 4, 2006

Granite Shadow: Commandos in the Streets?
Washington Post, Sept. 25, 2005

Oil and Water: Life in the Bush Imperium
Empire Burlesque, Feb. 14, 2006

The Politics of Fear
The Independent, Feb. 15, 2006

Can You Say Permanent Bases?
TomDispatch.com, Feb. 14, 2006

Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps
New American Media, Feb. 8, 2006

Lab officials excited by new H-bomb project
Oakland Tribune, Feb. 6, 2006

The Armageddon Plan
The Atlantic, March 2004

Military Role in Space Set to Expand
Reuters, Feb. 8, 2006

Polls: Anti-Iran Propaganda Working
Antiwar.com, Feb. 10, 2006

Terror Threat: The Great Deception
The Independent, Feb. 15, 2006

Rumsfeld's First Strike Vsion
UPI, Feb. 9, 2006

The Destruction of the Constitution
Molly Ivins, Feb. 9, 2006

US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites
Sunday Telegraph, Feb. 12, 2006

Air Force Eases Rules on Religion
Washington Post, Feb. 9, 2006

Air Force sets revised rules for prayers by its chaplains
Washington Times, Feb. 9, 2006

Masters of Deception
Antiwar.com, Feb. 16, 2006

Abu Ghraib: School for terrorists
International Herald Tribune, Feb. 14, 2006

America's Long War
The Guardian, Feb. 15, 2006

Quick Rise for Purveyors of Propaganda in Iraq
New York Times, Feb. 14, 2006

Katrina Report Spreads Blame
Washington Post, Feb. 14, 2006

Audits Show Millions in Katrina Aid Wasted
Associated Press, Feb. 14, 2004

Storm Warning: Levee Lies and the War on Reality
Empire Burlesque, Feb. 10, 2006

Intelligence, Policy,and the War in Iraq
Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006

Nuclear Iran Is Not a Threat
International Herald Tribune, Jan. 31, 2006 The First Front in the War on Iran?
Zmag, Nov. 7, 2005

Annexing Khuzhestan: Battle Plans for Iran
Information Clearing House, Feb. 1, 2006

Abu Ghraib General Lambastes Bush Administration
Truthout, Aug. 24, 2005

Seabees Buzz in to Build Bases
Washington Times, Feb. 6, 2006

From the video 'Holes in Heaven' — Brooks Agnew, Earth Tornographer

In 1983 I did radio tornography with 30 watts looking for oil in the ground.

I found 26 oil wells over a nine state area.

100 hundred percent of the time was accurate, which is just 30 watts of power beaming straight into solid rock.

HAARP uses a billion watts beamed straight into the ionosphere for experiments.

Picture these strings on the piano as layers of the Earth, each one has its own frequency.

What we used to do is beam radio waves into the ground and it would vibrate any 'strings' that were present in the ground.

We might get a sound back like ___ and we would say, that's natural gas.

We might get a sound back like ____ and we'd say that's crude oil.

We were able to identify each frequency.

We accomplished this with just 30 watts of radio power.

If you do this with a billion watts the vibrations are so violent that the entire piano would shake.

In fact the whole house would shake.

In fact the vibrations could be so severe under ground they could even cause an earthquake.

Download or watch HAARP Holes in Heaven
— Complete version available for mp4 download

Download or watch movie on HAARP — Advanced US Military research weapon on behaviour modification
weather change, ionesphere manipulation — click here

YouTube part 1 of 6 additional parts on YouTube
HAARP Holes in Heaven — click here

Download or watch audio of Dr. Nick Begich talking on HAARP
— The 2006 update to 'Angels Don't Play This HAARP'.

'Angels Still Don't Play This HAARP: Advances In Tesla Technology'.

Planet Earth Weapon by Rosalie Bertell
ozone, HAARP, chemtrails, space war — click here

HAARP/Chemtrails/Alien aircraft/Illuminati involvement
1 hour FreemanTV.com video — click here

(has 30 second lead in with blank screen and silence)

Angels Dont Play This HAARP weather manipulation
1 hour 36 minutes video — click here

(poor quality to watch but well worth listening)

Dr. Nick Begich, his book and his articles can be found here

http://www.earthpulse.com/

Article on Chemtrails — unusual cloud formations in the US.

Chemtrails it's happening again — Chemtrails and HAARP

Americans are closing their eyes and letting a new form of fascism get rolling

Before we tune in to the second inauguration of President George Bush, perhaps you should read this.

When we ignore history, we are condemned to repeat it.

Oh, not here in the good ol U.S.A., you say. Never here, the land of the free and home of the brave, the bastion of democracy for the free world.

Well, open your eyes, America. We may not relive the human catastrophe of the Holocaust on our own soil, but we're learning how to borrow from what helped it start.

Billboards in Florida extol George Bush as Our Leader, placed by the conservative media conglomerate Clear Channel, owner/operator of scores of TV, radio and other news media across the country. German for leader is Fuehrer.

Our conservative government is railroading a dismantling of social programs under the guise of economic reform, while waving the banners of domestic safety initiatives as the best form of security for our nation.

Unfortunately, security is not closed borders, guns on every corner and limited civil rights. We cant be secure if our roads, bridges and schools are crumbling; if our water, air and food are dirty; if people arent healthy because they cant pay to see their doctors; and if we must remain in the workforce until were 70-plus years old with an average lifespan of mid-to high 70s, what kind of American Dream retirement is that?

And now we have the Orwellian Patriot Act and the just passed 563-page Intelligence Reform Bill (Have you read it? You authorized your conservative elected officials to vote for it....) to shield us from harms way and still no responsible economic solutions, no new jobs, no health insurance for all Americans.

We did get, however, a conservative invasion of our schools to remind us of the apocalyptic future we have in store, as the Revelations-reading religious right proclaims at every turn, while generals and clergy boast that our presidents re-election was through divine intervention (Gen. William Boykin and Rev. Pat Robertson).

As Hitler descended from the clouds in the Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film Triumph of the Will....

Lets top if off with a Cornell University poll just released and reported by the Associated Press, warning that a near majority of citizens favor restricting the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans.

Whats next, will they have to wear a red crescent on their clothes like Jews wore their Stars of David during the Third Reich?

I know many of you reading this will think that this is merely the alarmist ranting of a disgruntled liberal. But think again.

When we close our eyes to little things that happen around us, suddenly those small steps along a dangerous path take us far away from where we started.

We are nearing the precipice.

Our nation is evolving into something very dangerous, and we have a responsibility to stop it.

Be afraid of those who follow these principles blindly, of those who profess their allegiance to our leader undyingly.

Those who accuse my words of being anti-American and anti-Bush have, regrettably, succumbed to the mass hysteria being created by a new American fascism and will be held accountable as accomplices, just as many aging Germans bear their guilt-by-silence still to this day.

Richard Nantelle III holds degrees in German studies from UNC-Chapel Hill and Ohio State University. He lives in Asheville.

January 25, 2006

Military Contractor Philanthropy
Why Some Stay Silent

By JOAN ROELOFS
The military-industrial complex is elephantine, yet it is rarely taken into account by political commentators.

Connected to almost everything, it is one reason why the home front sustains our aggressive, illegal, military interventions and occupations throughout the world.

Many good people are in thrall to the military-industrial complex, and consequently are silenced, unwilling to become active opponents.

These include liberals, social justice advocates, and even professional soldiers who question our illegal interventions.

There are, of course, some protesters in our nation, but not enough to make militarism the main issue in Congressional and Presidential elections, or to give the subject much visibility on a daily basis.

Militarism

Militarism is promoted through the relentless manipulation of public opinion in all media: Hollywood films (aided by DOD armament loans), TV, video games, the public relations army of the DOD, newspapers, magazines, parades, etc.

For the intellectuals, there are articles in "liberal" magazines alleging that violence is genetically implanted in humans, and a generally positive force.

This barrage normalizes violence and war.

Boy wounded US raid on families, Baghdad, May 2007

Actions widely accepted or ignored by liberals

Most people want to regard themselves as normal, and not fuzzy idealists or crackpots, so they increasingly view aggression as inevitable, and perhaps a good thing.

Bombing people into democracy (as in Yugoslavia) becomes a reasonable proposition; overthrowing governments (as in Haiti) just a routine world improvement activity.

Both these actions were widely accepted or ignored by liberals, among others.

Government harassment, discrimination, social penalties

Fear motivates human behavior; many people eschew protesting wars as they are afraid of being considered unpatriotic, and subjected to government harassment, discrimination in employment, social penalties, or beatings by local thugs.

Even those who suspect that war is not normal may be convinced that nothing they can do will change anything.

Yet the home front support is not based merely on psychological manipulation; there are interests served by the military-industrial complex.

US airstrike kills 3
Three people injured
Baghdad
Iraq

Kellogg, Brown & Root, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Boeing

Many people are directly employed by the military and its auxiliaries, which include CIA, NASA, NSA, and agencies such as NED and USAID that are not alternatives to force, but work with our invasions and subversions.

Those in the reserves or retired remain influential serving in local, state, and national governments, with few active dissenters among them.

Of course, it is not news that military contractors help many politicians get their jobs via campaign contributions.

The military industries include the "big ten" (Kellogg, Brown & Root, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, United Technologies, General Electric, Dyncorp) and countless others involved in base construction worldwide, in armaments, protective gear, disorienting drugs, supplying mercenaries for contract operations, etc.

Many civilian industries (e.g., computer software) have substantial contracts; others have ones that reliably pay the rent.

The military buys or leases every kind of thing, including buttons, philosophy, toilet paper, and real estate.

War industries are spread throughout the country (and also have overseas branches and subsidiaries).

US airstrike on families

Military bases, Universities, Research

They are crucial in providing employment in the many declining areas of our economy: the rust belt of the Midwest, the shoe belt of New England, the cotton belt of the South.

The corporations and their employees are major consumers in their communities, purchasing real estate, furniture, clothing, food, medical services, entertainment, tap dancing lessons, etc.

All these businesses know where their bread is buttered-with guns.

A similar multiplier effect occurs surrounding military bases, which is one reason why our bases overseas are often quietly accepted.

In the US, the notorious Fort Benning, GA SOA-WHISC is a local mainstay.

"Special" military training is also performed by contracts with universities, such as Norwich University in Vermont, or University of Kentucky.

Research grants and ROTC embed many academic institutions.

The military academies likewise radiate power in their communities, encouraging silence on militarism.

Greed?
"Greed" is often indicted as the source of war.

This may describe stockholders or highly paid executives, but many ordinary people are simply dependent on the military-industrial complex.

Often, our economy doesn't provide attractive or practical alternatives for employment or community survival.

Whatever the personal opinions of war industry employees, service workers, retailers, volunteers, or municipal employees in contractor territory, few will become anti-war activists or attempt to unseat their Congressperson for supporting invasions, occupations, and overthrows.

In addition, the military is deeply involved with disaster relief, which brings many more good people into its orbit: Red Cross volunteers, state and local government officials and staff, Vista workers, etc.

US Terror State
Falluja

Long-term interests of rich

Yet another rampart is built from military contractor philanthropy.

Large corporations in every industry have established foundations that act like the large private foundations: Ford, Rockefeller, McArthur....

Traditional business charity has been used for public relations, community projects, and product-related benevolence, but today corporate philanthropy works with the general foundations to protect the long-term interests of capitalism and its access to resources, markets, and labor worldwide.

Essential dissidents distracted into discrete good works away from systemic challenges

In this process, it is essential that potential dissidents be distracted into discrete, yet important, good works, and away from systemic challenges.

Contractor philanthropy takes many forms and embraces a wide circle.

(Sources for the following discussion include Tax Form 990s accessed through the Foundation Center or Guidestar web sites, the database of the Capital Research Center, and the annual reports or web sites of the corporations. Most grants mentioned were given in recent years; a few in the late 1990s.)

There are the unsurprising grants to policy-planning think tanks, such as Boeing-McDonnell Foundation's to the Hudson Institute, Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute.

Another conventional largesse is scholarship aid to aspiring engineers, who may then be predisposed to seek future employment with the benefactor.

US militarism
US warships threatening
Iran

Benefits to poor, Grants, Education is a gifted field for militarism spending

Widely unremarked is the benevolence that touches many members of the general population: minorities, poor people, social justice activists, liberals, civic-minded volunteers, and those not in the elite or military minded.

In short, the good people, who, because of their own oppression, or their warm hearts, might have been likely recruits for an anti-war movement.

Education is a gifted field.

Of course, universities with large science and engineering faculties receive grants, but so does every kind of institution: liberal arts, Catholic colleges, public universities, community colleges, colleges with large minority enrollments.

For example, General Electric lists a grant (in 2002) to Barnard College, my alma mater.

Cooper Union, site of 1950s Pete Seeger hootenannies, benefits from Northrop Grumman.

Halliburton helps out the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Northrop is very generous to career services offices in higher education.

Programs preparing disadvantaged students for college do well: GE has committed half a million to Brandeis University's College Bound, and $80,000 to CUNY's center (perhaps to forestall a repeat of the 1930s ruckus there).

Associations in minority higher education, such as American Indian college organizations, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, and the United Negro College Fund, are supported generously.

This week's cave-in on Capitol Hill — supplying a huge new jolt of funds for the horrific war effort in Iraq — is surprising only to those who haven't grasped our current circumstances.

Public opinion polls aren't the same as political leverage. The Vietnam War went on for years after polling showed that most Americans opposed the war and even saw it as immoral.

Slick phrases about the need to bring our troops home can easily become little more than platitudes on wallpaper in media echo chambers.

No matter how many Democrats are in Congress, they won't end this war unless an antiwar movement develops enough grassroots strength to compel them to do so.

Progressive visionaries: Reps. Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters

Unfortunately — and unnecessarily — for years now the Internet powerhouse MoveOn.org has often functioned as a virtual appendage of the national Democratic Party. That close relationship has largely squandered MoveOn's opportunities to help build strong deep independent activism for the long haul. And, on crucial issues of the Iraq war, MoveOn has failed to back the positions of such gutsy progressive visionaries as Reps. Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters.

A statement issued Thursday by the national Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) pointed out that "the approach of the Democratic leadership has utterly failed — as they now prepare to give President Bush $95 billion more war funding through a bill that no longer has any timelines for troop withdrawal."

Asking a key question — "How can you oppose a troop escalation while funding it in full?" — PDA reiterated its longstanding position that Democrats in Congress should be "using the power of the purse to cut off funds to Iraq, except those needed to safely withdraw our troops (and for humanitarian/reconstruction aid to the Iraqi people)." And legislators should be "using their investigative power to probe White House deceptions and distortions that propelled the Iraq invasion and occupation, and to impeach if necessary."

Memorial Day 2007 comes at a disastrous time. Political power brokers and media elites insist on opting for a mix-merge of tragedy and farce. A key reality is that we won't be able to change the militaristic direction of the country without effectively confronting the congressional Democrats who are fueling the engines of destruction.

'Self-evident wisdom'

When considering what to demand now, it's helpful to put the current moment in historical perspective. The same basic arguments for keeping U.S. forces in Iraq have long been presented by reigning politicians and key media outlets as self-evident wisdom.

A cover story in Time magazine laid down the prevailing line:

"Foreign policy luminaries from both parties say a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would cripple American credibility, doom reform in the Arab world and turn Iraq into a playground for terrorists and the armies of neighboring states like Iran and Syria."

That was in April— 2004.

Norman Solomon www.counterpunch.org March 24, 2007

Military Contractor Philanthropy — Why Some Stay Silent

By JOAN ROELOFS

A n even broader base of gratitude has been created by contractor grants to all types of high and elementary schools (private, public, parochial), e.g. Northrop's to Emmanuel Christian Academy and Melvin J Berman Hebrew Academy.

Very young are not neglected by US Militarism
The very young are not neglected; the Long Beach Day Nursery Newsletter, Fall 2004, features a photo of a Boeing representative handing over a $7,500 check for its Ready to Read program.

Raytheon reaches into the public schools with a national project:

MathMovesU is a program designed specifically to reach students at a time where studies show performance declines in math and science — middle school, grades six through eight.

The MathMovesU program combines student interest in celebrities with grant money and awards to generate new interest and excitement in math.

Raytheon has partnered with skateboard legend Tony Hawk, soccer star Mia Hamm, basketball greats Bill Russell and Lisa Leslie, and BMX champ Dave Mirra to promote the MathMovesU program and demonstrate how math plays a role in "cool" careers.

US Militarism
Falluja

No matter how small the grant, it may well be noted by the children, who are alert to brand names and corporate logos (sometimes incorporated into textbook exercises), and by teachers and parents, especially those active in PTAs and bake sales.

Gradually, they may come to accept that weapons of mass destruction are simply products like any others.

Community organizations
Support for community organizations is especially generous near contractor headquarters and facilities, which are widespread, yet the industries give grants everywhere, and to national organizations.

The NAACP has always had strong connections with major corporations.

The civil rights movement of the 1960s prompted new close links between activist organizations and business.

The Urban Coalition was formed, and thereafter, corporate philanthropy became more focused on defusing systemic threats.

Its goal was to challenge segregation and discrimination while discouraging the more radical suggestions of that era's activists.

(The same model was later applied to foundation intervention in South Africa, which aimed to end apartheid without furthering the ANC's socialist goals.)

Today, Lockheed, GE, and Boeing are important funders of the NAACP.

Minority organizations, religious groups, women's groups
Military contractors are attentive to every kind of minority organization: Asians Against Domestic Abuse and Vietnamese American Community (Halliburton); American Indian Science and Engineering Society and National Society of Black Engineers (Northrop Grumman); the Holocaust Museum and the Chinese Community Center (GE).

Boeing has funded the Congressional Black Caucus and the Urban League. Lockheed even contributes to the Sons of Norway, perhaps to deflect them from the socialistic policies of their homeland.

Religious groups of all kinds are grantees, not excluding the Benedictine Sisters and Zoroastrians. Women's organizations are well endowed.

US Militarism
Falluja

Boeing and BAE Systems (a prominent contractor in New Hampshire) sponsor an AAUW program encouraging women to enter science and engineering.

GE gives to the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy; Boeing to the National Women's Political Caucus, Lockheed to the National Museum of Women.

Children's groups
Children are nurtured.

Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs, YWCAs, Little Leagues, UNICEF, Children's Defense Fund, etc., receive substantial grants, which aid many poor and minority children, and may impress them, their leaders, and their parents.

Lockheed Martin was a major sponsor of the Girl Scout 2005 National Council Convention, and supports a special program within the GSA organization: The Lockheed Martin Science Career Exploration Fund.

Organizations of ill and disadvantaged children are also beneficiaries: Child Abuse Network, Children's Brain Tumor Foundation, Make A Wish, Juvenile Diabetes, Special Olympics, Big Brothers Big Sisters, et al.

Those working in such heartbreaking fields, and the parents involved, rarely hesitate to take whatever help is offered from whatever source.

Private philanthropy may appear more desirable than the dreaded public taxation of many civilized nations.

Charities, Art institutions
Health and environmental organizations are not neglected: American Lung Association, Canine Companions, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, American Cancer Society, AIDs services, Clean Air Campaign, Audubon Society, Nature Conservancy, Brooklyn Botanic Garden....

Most major charities are included, e.g., Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity....

Arts of all kinds are funded by US Militarism
Arts of all kinds are funded, from major institutions such as the JFK Center for the Performing Arts to the Chicago Jazz Orchestra (Boeing), the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Houston (Halliburton), the New York Public Library (GE) and Baltimore Shakespeare Festival (Lockheed Martin).

US Militarism
US Raid
Sadr City, Baghdad

Even organizations with pacifist connections receive contractor money: GE funds Peter Maurin House and the Hancock Shaker Village.

Civil liberties and human rights organizations also receive grants: Lockheed gives to the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, GE to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Beyond grants, there are other links.

AI? HRW? AARP? College teachers' retirement fund
Amnesty International USA has received hundreds of GE stock shares from individual donors.

Whether these have been sold or are being nurtured would require more sleuthing.

Human Rights Watch has 50 million invested in stocks and bonds; I know not where, except for $1.5 million in the Soros Quantum Fund.

Connections and revolving doors between contractors and citizen organization boards and top staff further cement bonds and promote a non-critical atmosphere.

In 2002, Chris Hansen, former chief lobbyist for Boeing, became the top lobbyist for the AARP.

John H. Biggs was a director of Boeing while he was Chairman, President and CEO of TIAA-CREF, the college teachers' retirement fund.

Around the world
What happens in the United States is also projected throughout the world: bases, military training, military contracts, military-civilian organization collaboration in disaster relief, and so too with philanthropy.

Boeing Employees Community Fund helps to support the Teenage Cancer Trust of London, England, and a Japanese residential center for mentally disabled children; GE gives grants in Hungary and to Peking University; BAE Systems funds programs in Australia and Saudi Arabia.

Reinforcing the corporate, general foundation, and government philanthropy abroad, NATO has its own considerable, and greatly understudied grant program.

This funds diverse organizations and projects, such as aid in environmental decision-making in Central Asia.

US Militarism
Arrestd by US forces
Sadr City

Philanthropy (often a joint project of private, corporate, government, and intergovernmental institutions such as the European Union, World Bank, and NATO) has attempted to fill the void created by the overthrow of communist governments, which had previously provided for industrial employment, social services, culture, research, and education.

NATO now supports scientists in Eastern Europe and Central Asia studying the arctic, toxicity in leather tanning, pesticides, deforestation, sustainable human development indicators, mating systems in conifers, antioxidant activity of beverages, biotechnology, women's reproductive choices, superstrings, and cancer detection.

Whatever anyone is doing; NATO is happy to help (and welcomes those focusing on leather tanning as the major environmental hazard).

Plenty of money to go around
How to estimate the influence of all this philanthropy?

We can listen carefully for rejections of grants by organization leaders and members; or resignations because of acceptance; or anti-war protest activity by all but the rare bird belonging to or benefiting from these organizations.

Then we can investigate further, using teams of interviewers financed somehow the other side has plenty of finances to show their favored results.

Historical evidence indicates that people serving on boards or staffs of civic, social service, or reformist organizations would be prime recruits for radical activism, were the opportunity structure different.

As it is, thousands of these potential leaders are tucked away in innumerable non-governmental organizations, funded by military contractors and other corporations and foundations friendly to US imperial policies.

They are doing good works on a small scale, but the larger picture may cause more deaths than the rare diseases that get so much attention and funding.

Everywhere self-censor
My personal experience, and anecdotal evidence from activists with whom I have discussed my research on foundations, indicates that most people self-censor.

Even I do sometimes, and when I haven't, I have often paid a price.

For example, I was on the board of a local environmental organization, and was asked about the propriety of applying for a GE grant.

US Militarism
Cries after son arrestd by US forces
Sadr City

I argued that the organization should not, because the military was the greatest threat to sustainability.

An important board member claimed that I was being silly, for it would never affect the decisions of the organization.

I argued that it gave legitimacy to GE, which would be acknowledged in the annual report, and it would soften members' attitudes towards GE and the military.

The organization decided not to apply for the grant, but my popularity in the local non-profit world did not soar.

In another case, I decided that I was finally ready to join a sorority after resisting for so many years.

The best local one was the AAUW, where friends and associates belong.

However, I won't join any organization that I know has ties to military contractors, and will lose out.

It is easy to understand why so many good people are silent in the face of murderous policies.

They are in thrall.