Please Sign Petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/840979272

"The Administration yesterday said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees. Did the Administration not see or care about the 2001 FEMA warning about the risk of a devastating hurricane hitting the people of New Orleans?" Dennis Kucinich asks, "Did it not know or care that civil and army engineers were warning for years about the consequences of failure to strengthen the flood control system? Was it aware or did it care that the very same Administration which decries the plight of the people today, cut from the budget tens of millions needed for Gulf-area flood control projects?"

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705O.shtml

The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has created a vast toxic soup that stretches across south-eastern Louisiana and Mississippi, and portends the arrival of an environmental disaster to rival the awe-inspiring destruction of property and human life over the past week.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705N.shtml

Ideologically opposed to a strong federal role in disaster relief and obsessed with terrorism, the Bush administration let a once-admired agency fall apart.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705L.shtml

Instead of the much-celebrated American can-do machine that promises to bring freedom and prosperity to less fortunate people abroad, we have seen a callous official incompetence that puts even Third World rulers to shame. Robert Scheer states that the well-reported litany of mistakes by the Bush administration in failing to prevent and respond to Katrina's destruction grew longer with each hour's grim revelation from the streets of an apocalyptic New Orleans.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705K.shtml

http://www.mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=346534


Informant: Iris Atzmon

Enclosed latest info from Dr John Walker:
http://www.omega-news.info/is_there_any_effect_of_mobile_telephone.doc


From: Eileen O'Connor
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 3:38 PM


Informant: Iris Atzmon

From: Meria Heller
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 7:53 AM Subject: Fw: "Declaration of New Orleans" - I like this forwarded this am - Meria

Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 8:20 PM Subject: "Declaration of New Orleans"

EVERY PATRIOT SHOULD BE PUTTING A HUGE PART OF HIS/HER EFFORTS TOWARD A CALL FOR RESIGNATION OF ALL BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS.

AND IF THEY DON'T RESIGN, THEY SHOULD BE IMPEACHED, TRIED, and SENTENCED FOR THEIR CRIMES AGAINST THIS AND OTHER COUNTRIES.

Please see the "Declaration Of New Orleans" below:

Declaration of New Orleans

by Charles Montesquieu Saturday, Sep. 03, 2005 at 3:24 AM charliemontesquieu@yahoo.com


A Declaration of The People of the United States of America Concerning the Present Crisis In The City Of New Orleans.

In The Name Of The People Of The United States Of America, We Declare:

That for the last four and a half years the President and his administration have served the interests of a few wealthy citizens and not the interests of the American People.

That he has acted with contempt for the People and for the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

That an edict of the Supreme Court made him President in 2000 and fraud made him President again in 2004.

That the President has pursued an unprecedented expansion of Executive powers that are a grave threat to the rights and liberties of the American People.

That he has made war on sovereign nations that are no threat to the American People.

That his "War on Terror" has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives without bringing those responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to justice.

That the failure of his leadership in the present crisis in the City of New Orleans has resulted in the deaths of thousands more.

That he is derelict in every duty of his office.

Therefore, we resolve:

That President George W. Bush and his administration are illegitimate.

That he should resign from office and new elections should be held immediately.

That if he does not resign, the Congress of the United States should act to remove him from office.

That if the Congress should fail to act, the People will exercise their right to abolish this state and will establish a new government that will better secure their rights and liberties.


COPY AND DISTRIBUTE

Kimberly Hughes

SOCIAL ACTION BROOKLYN HEIGHTS
NEW YORK CITY


Informant: Friends

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=20027


Informant: Hopedance

Recent pics

What´s with the perfect circle dead-center?
http://cyberspaceorbit.com/hurr_nt1.jpg


http://cyberspaceorbit.com/hurr_nt1trop1602.jpg

Source:
http://vortex.plymouth.edu/hur_dir/hurr_nt1.gif

Note from Scott Stevens:

"What we witnessing is the manufactured development of Ophelia. Watch it closely as this will become the next shot across the state Florida in this continuing war in the skies."

http://cyberspaceorbit.com/scottoph.html

Weatherman Scott Stevens audio: "The global weather has been digitized!"

http://www.radiorbit.com/audio/062005scottstevens.m3u
http://www.radiorbit.com/audio/010905scottstevens.wma
http://www.radiorbit.com/audio/121204kentscottstevens.wma

Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthens off Florida

07 Sep 2005 13:12:37 GMT

Source: Reuters

MIAMI, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened slightly off Florida´s Atlantic Coast on Wednesday and seemed likely to turn away from land but its path was too uncertain to rule out a strike on Florida or Georgia, forecasters said.

Tropical storm warnings were in effect for a 120-mile (190 km) stretch of shoreline from Sebastian Inlet to Flagler Beach in Florida, alerting residents to expect the storm within 24 hours.

Ophelia coalesced overnight from a loose swirling mass of thunderstorms and had top winds of 45 mph (72 kph). Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said it could dump 3 to 8 inches (8 to 20 cm) of rain on parts of central and north Florida and southeastern Georgia.

At 8 a.m. (1200 GMT), Ophelia was centered about 80 miles (130 km) east of Cape Canaveral, Florida, and moving north-northwest.

It was expected to slowly strengthen into a hurricane, with winds of at least 74 mph (118 kph) and loop to the northeast away from the U.S. coast by Monday.

However, the hurricane center said its forecasting models differed greatly on Ophelia´s potential path and, "Given the uncertainty in the longer time periods, possible landfall across northern Florida or Georgia during the next five days can not be ruled out at this time."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N97478826.htm Soon to be a hurricane...

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/FLOAT/IR4/20.jpg ! Where are the people that wait on the NHC to predict and that they are so right and blah blah! And everything is predictable huh?

Have you guys ever seen them say this?

MODELS ARE IN GREAT DISAGREEMENT MAKING THE FORECAST HIGHLY UNCERTAIN.

Whats up with this????????


Informant: Dani Djinn


‘Operation Ophelia’ Begins In The United States
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=90770;show_parent=1

Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthens off Florida
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=90811;show_parent=1

--------

Ophelia Update

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane as it stalled 70 miles off the northeast Florida coast Thursday, churning up waves that caused beach erosion and drenching Kennedy Space Center with rain.

Thursday night, Ophelia had top sustained winds of 75 mph, just over the threshold to be classified as a hurricane, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said.

But forecasters said it was still unclear where Ophelia was headed.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050909/D8CGFL500.html



Ophelia on course for FL

OPHELIA live radar link
http://radar.weather.gov/radar/loop/DS.p20-r/si.kmlb.shtml


Informant: Dani Djinn

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050907/hurricane_katrina_hall_of_shame.php

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" is just one example.

Add yours now!

http://tompaine.com/uncommonsense/index.php#6078

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/06/AR2005090601363_pf.html

by Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post

The Republicans profess belief in trickle-down, but what they've given us is the Flood.

http://www.tompaine.com/

by Bill McKibben, TomPaine.com

New Orleans doesn't look like the America we've lived in. But it resembles the planet we will inhabit the rest of our lives.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050907/not_our_america.php

by Kate Michelman, TomPaine.com

For Democrats evaluating the Roberts nomination, there is a middle ground between all-out battle and collective surrender. It is called principled opposition.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050907/after_rehnquist.php

HURRICANE ARMAGEDDON - EYEWITNESS' ACCT -20,000 DEAD- GOV'T MISMANAGEMENT - SABOTAGE

From: Walter Buller Tuesday, September 06, 2005 11:48 AM Katrin in USA

We live about 85 miles north of New Orleans. The eye of the storm passed right over Washington Parish, which is a neighboring parish of ours to the east a little ways. All the media attention has been on New Orleans because of the size of the city and it's notoriety, but cities like Bogalusa in Washington Parish were hit by even higher winds than New Orleans was, consequently it is hard to recognize them anymore. Worse yet, there was no official federal response to the plight of the people there. A number of private convoys enroute to Washington Parish with very badly needed supplies of water, food, and medical stuff were stopped by FEMA personnel and had all their supplies confiscated, ostensibly for the people in New Orleans. I have been listening to the radio ever since the storm came through. Caller after caller who has been in New Orleans lately has painted a mental picture of conditions there that is impossible to describe, except maybe with the word "hell". Human waste floating in the same water the people are standing in waiting to be rescued. Alligators eating the bodies of dead babies. Sharks seen swimming down Canal Street. Estimates of approximately 20,000 dead. Policemen committing suicide from the stress and fear caused from being outgunned on the streets by the black gangs who now have AK-47's and such looted from sporting goods stores. Darkness everywhere. A number of National Guard troops are there now so some semblence of order is being restored. The sheriff of St.Bernard Parish hired 100 additional deputies, issued assault rifles to them, and gave them orders to shoot looters on sight. About 10 of them have been killed the past few days. Experts predict a timetable of 30 to 80 days before the water can be pumped back out into Lake Ponchatrain. By that time the houses and businesses there will hardly be worth trying to save. Those who have been allowed back in to retrieve some personnel items were saying on the radio this morning that the stench is unbearable. Nobody knows yet how many people drowned in their attics trying to get above the rising water. The smart ones brought axes or something with them which they used to chop a hole in the roof big enough to crawl through so they could stand on their rooftops and hope to be rescued. Lots of people have been critical of the poor performance of FEMA in responding quickly enough to the needs of the people in the area, so I called the main radio station, got on the air, and explained to the listeners that FEMA is not what they think it is. It is not so much a disaster relief agency as a quasi-military arm of the Federal Government, equivalent to having martial law declared when they are present. Of course the self-serving talk from all the politicians is that they will rebuild New Orleans. But the wise thing to do, which is not politically correct, is to realize that with New Orleans already 15 feet below sea-level and sinking more and more every year, and the chances good that another hurricane will wipe it out again in the future, we ought to abandon the cesspool of crime, corruption, sin and degradation that New Orleans has become, relocate the people or build the city on higher ground someplace. But meanwhile the population of Baton Rouge has doubled overnight from all the refugees from New Orleans, with the resultant strain on police personnel, city services, charities, and roadways. This is the worst disaster in our nations history and I fear that my cousins prophecy about the worst being yet to come will turn out to be true, just as did her vision of a huge storm hitting New Orleans and flooding the whole city before the end of August. She had this vision several weeks before there even was a hurricane Katrina. We are still without power, but my generator gets us by. We have become an electricity dependent society, It was only about 80 years ago that almost nobody in this country even knew what electricity was, and got along quite well without it. We need to once again develop that kind of self reliance.



Informant: Be Kind Whenever Possible

http://www.etherzone.com/2006/stang112406.shtml


Informant: ranger116



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Kissinger

by Brandy Baker

The shock of seeing non-violent Black students being beaten in Birmingham for non-violent action resembles the shock of Americans today who see thousands of poor, majority Black, New Orleans residents waiting days for help that keeps promising to arrive. The only crime of most of these residents: not having the means to leave or not having anywhere to go. The horrific images of those at the Superdome and the Convention Center (and now at the Louis Armstrong airport) are not the New Orleans that America envisioned before this hurricane. Jazz music, big mansions, and Mardi Gras were synonymous with this famous city. Like the Easter marches of Birmingham, Americans now see the regard that our "leaders" truly have for Black people in the South. Millions of Americans of all political persuasions are horrified at the very slow response of the federal government, so it would seem that no would feel like partying after seeing the aftermath of Katrina. Well, a few did....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Baker0907.htm

by Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky are emergency medical services (EMS) workers from San Francisco and contributors to Socialist Worker. They were attending an EMS conference in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck. They spent most of the next week trapped by the flooding -- and the martial law cordon around the city. Their story is incredible in so many ways, but most of all because they show how people went out of their way, often risking a lot, to help each other. A total contrast to the media's looter/animals/uncomprehending victim stereotype. Here, they tell their story....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Bradshaw-Slonsky0907.htm

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/septmobe

Dear Friends and Supporters of Peace,

On August 31st, we closed down Camp Casey on the outskirts of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. In the three and a half weeks that we were in Crawford, thousands of people passed through - some for just a few hours and some for days or weeks. Throughout the country, hundreds of thousands of people responded to my vigil, calling on the President to meet with me and, just as importantly, adding their voices to the growing cry for an end to the war in Iraq.

The horrific events that have unfolded in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, in the wake of the deadly hurricane Katrina are stark reminders of just how lop-sided our nation's priorities are. Resources that could have been used to save lives are instead tied up in a war that continues to kill Iraqis and U.S. servicepeople. Our nation is at a crossroads: will we continue to squander resources and take lives in a war that never should have happened, or will we commit ourselves to the re-building of the Gulf Coast and the lives torn asunder by Katrina? It is clear that both cannot happen at the same time, and in this context our urgent call to end the war in Iraq must be as clear and strong as ever.

The same day Camp Casey closed two important initiatives were launched. Gold Star Families for Peace kicked off a campaign to hold Congress accountable for taking us into war, and also for ending this war. I sent a letter to every member of Congress - all 435 representatives and 100 senators - asking the same questions I've been asking President Bush. At the same time, three buses left Camp Casey to head North, East and South carrying members of Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace to dozens of cities. The buses will converge on Washington, DC September 21, just days before the national anti-war protest being organized for the weekend of September 24-26. In addition to community forums and other events, on the road we will visit members of Congress asking for a meeting and answers to my questions. You can join this campaign as the buses pass through your community, or become a part of a delegation being organized in your Congressional district.

In case you have not already made plans to be there, I want to encourage you to join me in Washington, DC that weekend. I'll be marching on Saturday, September 24 with United for Peace and Justice, and later that same day will be speaking at the "Operation Ceasefire" free concert at the Washington Monument.

You know as well as I do that the majority of the people of this country oppose the war. As we talk to people from every part of the country, it is clear that the time is right for this demonstration in the nation's capital. You do not want to miss this crucial event - it's looking like the September 24-26 weekend will be the largest gathering so far of the movement to end the war in Iraq. It will also be the first opportunity since Katrina hit our shores to raise our voices in a call for new priorities.

Most importantly, I urge you to come to Washington on September 24, to tell President Bush and Congress in the strongest possible way that it's time to bring the troops home. But don't come alone - bring your friends and family, bring your co-workers, your classmates, your neighbors. Visit the United for Peace and Justice website for details about the day's events, and for information about the interfaith service, grassroots lobby day, and nonviolent civil disobedience action at the White House being planned for September 25 and 26.

And your help is needed in another way. To reach the potential of what will be a history-making event, United for Peace and Justice needs your financial support. Please take a moment right now to make the largest donation possible. I know that many of you have given and will continue to give to Katrina relief efforts, and it's important that we each do what we can to help out. But hopefully you also understand how important it is to lend your financial support to the Sept. 24-26 Mobilization.

I want to thank all of you who gave so much to support my efforts while I was in Texas. Now, as we all move into the next phase of our efforts to end the war in Iraq, I look forward to seeing you in Washington, DC on September 24.

Your friend, Cindy Sheehan


END THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
3 Days of Peace & Justice Actions in Washington, D.C. September 24-26, 2005 Visit our website today to download leaflets, endorse the mobilization, and learn more about the plans for this powerful weekend of action.

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/septmobe

ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE http://www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545


Informant: Mofmars3



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/09/02/condoleezza_rice_cuts_nyc_vacation_short_to_do_her_job.php
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/342712p-292600c.html


Informant: beefree

Dr. Zogby points out that Hurricane Katrina forced President George W. Bush to do what Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, could not. Four days into the worst natural disaster to hit the US, the President cancelled his month-long vacation and returned to Washington.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090505G.shtml

Trying to force authorities to open an Air Force base as a shelter, Jesse Jackson and other black leaders picked up 150 evacuees at the squalid New Orleans Airport and headed into the night.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090505E.shtml

James Ridgeway: The very first thing George W. Bush did in response to Hurricane Katrina was to offer a helping hand - not to the people stranded on rooftops in New Orleans, but to his friends in the oil industry. These were the same people who gave him $52 million in his last campaign.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090505D.shtml

President Bush has evaded Cindy Sheehan's question, "What was the noble cause that my son died for?" But he provided a partial answer on the day that the New Orleans levees gave way.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090505B.shtml



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.SS&item=050721_commongood


Informant: Bigraccoon

by Gene C. Gerard

Last month was the fortieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. This was one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. It finally made it possible for African-Americans to exercise their right to vote in the South. The act did what a constitutional amendment could not. Following the Civil War, co-called “Radical Republicans” (ironically enough) in Congress attempted to extend to former slaves the same rights that whites enjoyed. This included vigorous lobbying for ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, which extended the right to vote to black men. But for nearly the next 100 years, the amendment had little effect on the South. Most African-Americans found it all but impossible to vote....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Gerard0905.htm

Just Another Day in the Life of a US Worker.

by Rosemarie Jackowski

A Top 10 list of things many of us laboring Janes and Joes hear from the boss every day in the capitalist paradise that is America . . . "love it or leave it!"....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Jackowski0905.htm

(The Anti-Empire Report)

Empire is Harmful to Your Health
by William Blum

William Blum ruminates on New Orleans and "zero tolerance," Pat Robertson's fatwah on Hugo Chavez, the myopia of liberal anti-war protestors, "conspiracy theories" and the PanAm 103 bombing, saving Japan from pacifism, and the dangers of pot and water....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Blum0905.htm

The All-Too American Tragedy of New Orleans:

Empire, Inequality, Race and Oil

by Paul Street

“This is not the America that I grew up in.” “This is not the America I know and love.” “I can’t believe this is happening in America; it seems more like something from the Third World, like Baghdad or Bangladesh.” Such is the incredulous commentary of three corporate media talking heads I’ve heard reflecting on the terrible events occurring in New Orleans in the tragic wake of tropical storm Katrina. The talking heads are off base. The historic events unfolding in New Orleans are very much about what the (to be a little more specific) United States of America has become. They are the predictable outcome of steep societal disparities and related perverse political and policy priorities that reflect the interrelated and petroleum-soaked imperatives of “American” Empire and Inequality....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Street0905.htm

The imminent effects of the flooding of New Orleans upon America's economy and lifestyle are horrendous.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10138.htm

In this article we look at how just because developed economies are not suffering like they did during the 1970s that the oil crisis has not already begun. The final oil crisis has begun, silent to us, but dangerously there.

http://www.countercurrents.org/po-howard050905.htm


From Information Clearing House

Video:

The documentary argues that dialogue is vital to a healthy democracy. "Amy Goodman, makes a compelling argument that the commercial news media have failed to represent the "true face of war."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10133.htm

U.S. influence in the process of drafting a constitution for Iraq is excessive and "highly inappropriate", a United Nations official says.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30141


From Information Clearing House

The dispossessed of New Orleans tell of their medieval nightmare:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article310194.ece


From Information Clearing House

Perhaps now, following the disaster on the Gulf coast, the people of the US will wake up to the fact the current administration is not and never has been primarily concerned with the welfare of its citizens.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1562655,00.html


From Information Clearing House

Without a commitment by our government and all employers to the dignity and worth of all workers, and to the basic human rights that promote social progress and better standards of life for all, the American dream is at risk of going down in history as an experiment that couldn't last. And with it, democracy itself.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10137.htm

The lessons of hurricane Katrina and its terrible aftermath are not about disaster management but about exposing the falsehoods at the very heart of modern America.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10126.htm

Video:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10131.htm

"We're living like dogs," Lee said. "And we're being left to die like dogs."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10125.htm

By Mike Whitney

Americans have been patting themselves on the back for years about the great strides that have been made in civil rights and social justice. It's all rubbish. Just take a look at the faces of the people who were left to drown in the noxious soup of a force-4 hurricane. We all know who these people are; they are the "other America".

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10128.htm

By Jerry Ghinelli

George Bush has it right. We Iraqis hate America because it is “free” and because it is a "perfect" society, just ask the people of New Orleans.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10135.htm

Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2005 16:17:40 -0700
From: Zepp
Subject: # The Potemkin Photo Op

The Potemkin Photo Op Saturday, September 03 2005 @ 09:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time Contributed by: Stranger
http://www.blah3.com/users.php?mode=profile&uid=2

Initally spotted at Bartcop.com

I was tuning in and out of Bush's massive photo op on the Gulf Coast yesterday, and everything at the time seemed just a little too pat for me.

From the 'briefing' that went on in a hangar full of helicopters to his walking down a street in Biloxi and having three regular citizens walk up to him for comforting to the last press availiability of the day when he announced that the Convention Center was secure and the levees were being repaired, it was clear that the game plan from the White House was for Bush to go to the region, look decisive, comfort a few citizens, and announce at the end of the day that all was well.

It was a full-on effort to change the subject of discussion from the utter failure of the Bush administration to handle the crisis with even a hint of competency, and in true Bush fashion, he wrapped it up at 5:00 PM and announced that he was 'Flyin' out of (t)here.'

But from beginning to end, the entire exercise was a series of lies - a Potemkin photo op designed to fool those Americans who were not bothering to look closely at what was going on.

Let's look at key aspects of Bush's trip that were covered by television.

*The Briefing:*

There were a lot of questions asked yesterday morning about the phony briefing that Bush got in that hangar, featuring a backdrop of Coast Guard helicopters.

People were wondering why those choppers were not out picking up flood victims or delivering supplies.

The reason why is simple - Bush had the majority of helcopter traffic stopped while Marine One was in the Gulf Coast region. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported this Via AmericaBlog
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/breaking-bush-visit-to-new-orleans.html
Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush's visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon's chief of staff, Casey O'Shea.

"We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won't let helicopters fly," O'Shea said Friday afternoon.

The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.

This leaves me wondering how many people died while Bush was playing Decisive Leader.

*The First 'Comforting Session':*

Then it was off to Biloxi, MS to survey the damage.

As Bush, Haley Barbour and others walked down a street,
2 women appeared seemingly out of nowhere for Bush to 'comfort' them.

But it turns out that the two women didn't even/ live/ in Biloxi, and had just come down for the day to try to 'salvage' clothes from the area for one of the women's son (were they looters?).

But they were apparently reasonably telegenic and happened to be in the area, so they were recruited to represent an area where they didn't even live.

A number of threads at Democratic Underground http://tinyurl.com/cp9eu discuss the weirdness of these women showing up in a disaster area.

And a trandcript of the conversation between Bush and the women reads like a bad comedy skit:

Bush to women:

"There's a Salvation Army center that I want to, that I'll tell you where it is, and they'll get you some help. I'm sorry.... They'll help you.....

Woman 1:

"I came here looking for clothes..."

Bush: "They'll get you some clothes, at the Salvation Army center..."

Woman 1: "We don't have anything..."

Bush: "I understand.... Do you know where the center is, that I'm talking to you about?"

Guy with shades: "There's no center there, sir, it's a truck."

Bush: "There's trucks?"

Guy: "There's a school, a school about two miles away....."

Bush: "But isn't there a Salvation center down there?"

Guy: "No that's wiped out...."

Bush: "A temporary center? "

Guy: "No sir they've got a truck there, for food."

Bush: "That's what I'm saying, for food and water."

Bush turns to the sister who's been saying how she needs clothes.

Bush to sister: "You need food and water."

*The 'Recovery Efforts':*

Wherever Bush went yesterday, it seemed as though people were already hard at work rebuilding the affected areas.

Unfortunately for Bush, there were a few foreign journalists at his photo ops, and they pulled back the curtain on what we saw on TV to reveal that the 'work' was staged for the media.

Here's a translation from the German news show web site http://tinyurl.com/caz2g.

Christine Adelhardt live from Biloxi:

"Two minutes ago the President drove by with his convoy.

What happened here in Biloxi during the day is really unbelievable. All of a sudden the rescue troops finally showed up, the clean-up vehicles; we didn't see those over the last days here. In an area where it really isn't urgent, there is nobody around, all the remaining people went to the city center.

The President is traveling with a press convoy, so they get wonderful pictures saying the president was here and the help will follow. The amount of this catastrophe shocked me, but the amount of set-up that happened here today is at least equally shocking for me.

And there's more, this time on the 'recovery efforts' in New Orleans, from War And Piece http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002485.html

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event.

Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

*Levee Repairs in New Orleans:*

As Bush flew around the skies above New Orleans, CNN began showing footage of a bulldozer and dump trucks working on the 17th Street levee, which was the maqin source of the flood waters in New Orleans.

When Bush got ready to leave, he crowed that 'progress is flowing.'

But according to Sen. Mary Landrieu, the crew that was working so hard yesterday left and apparently never came back:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee.

Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe.*

Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.*

The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government.

*Control of the Convention Center:*

Bush made a big deal of telling the nation
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/02/ldt.01.html that the icon for unrest and chaos in New Orleans this week - the New Orleans Convention Center - was secured by the time of his statement yesterday.

I'm pleased to report, thanks to the good work of the adjutant general from Louisiana and the troops that have been called in that the convention center is secure.

But as was pointed out this morning, a report by CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr directly contradicted Bush's statement
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html

CNN's Barbara Starr reports that there is "no indication" the convention center in New Orleans is secure.

She reports there is still much unrest.

And the now-famous Fox News video
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html#a4763

of Geraldo Rivera inside the Convention Center showed how Bush's idea of 'securing' the center was/ locking the people in/.

All of this information has turned up in one spot or another on the web since yesterday, but I wanted to put it all together in one spot for a reason.

Bit by bit, parts of Bush's trip were shown to be less truthful than we deserved.

But when you look at the entire trip - and all of the deceit that went into each part of it - it's an inescapable fact that from beginning to end the trip was a menu of lies and self-serving actions that didn't do the region any good.

In some instances, like the helicopter groundings halting rescue ops, the trip could conceivably actually/ killed more people/.

And that's the bottom line with this administration.

It always has been.

Bush, Rove, and the rest of them will go to any measures to get their version of the truth out and if a few of the little people happen to die in the process, it's no skin off their noses.

All of America should know what the true bottom line is.

*You are being lied to, and lives have been lost because of it.*


Informant: Friends

Part 2: http://www.omega-news.info/ending_regulation.htm

RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #824 http://www.rachel.org August 18, 2005

Part 1: ENDING GOVERNMENT REGULATION BY MANUFACTURING DOUBT

By Peter Montague

Thirty years ago, scientists began reporting birth defects and unusual homosexual behavior in wildlife, which they couldn't explain. (See Rachel's #146 , #263 .) By the late 1980s, Theo Colborn -- an expert on the Great Lakes -- thought she saw a pattern, and she pulled together a scientific meeting in July 1991 to discuss it. The result was the "Wingspread Statement" on hormone-disrupting chemicals which began:

"We are certain of the following:

"A large number of man-made chemicals that have been released into the environment, as well as a few natural ones, have the potential to disrupt the endocrine [hormone] system of animals, including humans.... Many wildlife populations are already affected by these compounds." ( Rachel's #263 )

Five years later, Colborn, joined by biologist Pete Myers and journalist Dianne Dumanoski, popularized the idea that industrial chemicals at low levels can interfere with hormones in wildlife and quite possibly in humans. Their book, "Our Stolen Future," caused New York Times science writer Gina Kolata to go ballistic. Reviewing the book, Kolata scoffed at the main hypothesis, that industrial chemicals may be interfering with the hormones that control and regulate growth, health and behavior in wildlife and humans, leading to increases in birth defects, problems of sexual development, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and even mental problems like attention deficit disorder, reduced IQ, and violent behavior.

Kolata said "the factual basis of the book's alarms... have been refuted by careful studies," though she did not cite a single study as evidence. To be fair, Ms. Kolata was merely reflecting the views of the chemical industry on the question of hormone disruption. The industry had a great deal at stake. If the theory of hormone disruption were true, the chemical industry could only be viewed as a major menace to public health and the natural environment.

Now, almost 10 years later, the debate over hormone disruption seems to be over. The Wall Street Journal conceded this summer that low levels of industrial chemicals are linked to rising rates of childhood cancer and brain disorders, among other maladies.

Here's the opening paragraph of the Journal's front-page story July
25, 2005:

"For years, scientists have struggled to explain rising rates of some cancers and childhood brain disorders. Something about modern living has driven a steady rise of certain maladies, from breast and prostate cancer to autism and learning disabilities.

"One suspect now is drawing intense scrutiny: the prevalence in the environment of certain industrial chemicals at extremely low levels. A growing body of animal research suggests to some scientists that even minute traces of some chemicals, always assumed to be biologically insignificant, can affect such processes as gene activation and the brain development of newborns.

"An especially striking finding: It appears that some substances may have effects at the very lowest exposures that are absent at higher levels.... This challenges an axiom of toxicology stated by the Swiss chemist Paracelsus nearly 500 years ago: The dose makes the poison."[ 1 ] [See Rachel's #754 , #755 .]

The Journal went on to point out that many scientists are now convinced that insignificant levels of several individual chemicals can combine to produce significant effects.

The Journal explained: The harm from low-level exposure to a single hormone-disrupting chemical "will always be small," said Andreas Kortenkamp, who directs scientific research on hormone-disrupting chemicals for the European Union (EU). But exposure to low levels of many chemicals simultaneously will produce a cumulative effect on the human hormone system "that is likely to be very large," Kortenkamp told the Journal.

Given these facts, it seems safe to say that the chemical industry is now widely acknowledged as a major menace to public health and the natural environment. This presents the industry with an uncomfortable problem of financial liability.

Naturally, as a matter of self-preservation, the industry has developed a defensive response. Of course the industry has been studying these problems at least as long as Theo Colborn has been studying them. Industry scientists and lawyers knew the truth long before it made its way onto the front page of the Wall Street Journal -- just as the tobacco industry knew the truth about tobacco at least
50 years before they publicly acknowledged the problem of lung cancer.

The chemical industry response has been complex and exceedingly clever, intended to make it impossible for government to effectively regulate any industry. The strategy has succeeded in spades.

In the "old days" -- say, around 1975 -- a chemical like DDT could be banned because government scientists examined the scientific literature, balanced "the weight of the evidence," and concluded that DDT was probably causing serious harm to wildlife, such as the bald eagle, our national emblem.

Today it would be impossible to ban a chemical on such grounds because a series of laws and regulations passed during the past 20 years have changed the standards for scientific "proof" that government regulators must meet.

Industry's main strategy for ending government regulation is the manufacture of uncertainty and doubt. "If, for example, studies show that a company is exposing its workers to dangerous levels of a certain chemical, the business typically responds by hiring its own researchers to cast doubt on the studies," writes David Michaels in Scientific American.[ 2 ]

Increasingly, the U.S. regulatory system can be paralyzed by doubt. The system assumes that anyone can do anything they want to do (so long as it is legal), until harm can be proven. Until harm can be proven, anything goes. If I move into your town and set up a small shop and start belching bright blue smoke into the sky, it is up to you to prove that blue smoke causes harm before anyone can question my operation.

Once suspicion of harm is raised, the burden is still on the government and the public to prove harm. If one study shows that blue smoke causes asthma in children, the government may begin to examine all studies of blue smoke and eventually act on the weight of the evidence. (If government ever takes action to control blue smoke, we blue smoke producers can demand our day in court, but that's a later chapter in this story.)

Given the way the system works, as a blue smoke producer, it pays me to discredit previous blue smoke studies, to change "the weight of the evidence." With blue smoke studies in doubt, regulators will be paralyzed. "On the one hand we have studies showing harm from blue smoke, on the other hand those studies have been questioned by the Blue Smoke Association. Until this scientific dispute is resolved, we can't take action." This is how the regulatory system works.

"Doubt is our product."

It was the tobacco industry that discovered the power of doubt in a regulatory system that can be paralyzed by uncertainty. In 1969, an executive of Brown & Williamson (now owned by R.J. Reynolds) actually described the strategy in a memo: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means for competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public."[ 2 ]

It turns out that creating doubt is remarkably easy to do. Take the example of atrazine, the potent weed killer that has been used for nearly 50 years. An estimated 80 million pounds of atrazine are spread into the environment each year in the U.S. In some environments, it persists and retains its toxicity for decades.

The initial concern about atrazine was cancer. Atrazine clearly causes cancer in laboratory rats. And the workers in a Louisiana atrazine factory have unusually high rates of prostate cancer. But Syngenta -- the Swiss firm that makes hundreds of millions of dollars each year selling atrazine in the U.S. -- has successfully cast doubt on these facts, paralyzing regulators. Syngenta argues that atrazine affects rats via biological mechanisms that do not exist in humans, and they say their workers have high rates of prostate cancer only because the company is extra vigilant looking for cancers among its workers.

Meanwhile, for years evidence has been accumulating, showing that atrazine scrambles the sex hormones of frogs, turning males into hermaphrodites. A hermaphrodite has sex organs of both genders. To prove otherwise, Syngenta hired a biologist named Tyrone B. Hayes, a biology professor at University of California, Berkeley. But Professor Hayes's experiments came out wrong and showed unmistakably that atrazine "demasculinizes" male frogs. Compared to unexposed frogs, males frogs exposed to atrazine have smaller larynxes (voice boxes), male hormone (testosterone) levels that are one-tenth of normal, and a mix of male and female traits -- they are hermaphrodites. Syngenta would not give Professor Hayes permission to publish his studies, so he ran a series of his own experiments on a wider variety of frogs, and published his results in prestigious journals (Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). "We showed that these animals are chemically castrated," Professor Hayes said. Four other groups of independent researchers in three countries reached similar conclusions.[ 3 ]

Syngenta solved this problem by creating doubt about Professor Hayes's studies. They hired scientists to reproduce the studies, but those scientists did sloppy work and were not able to reach the same conclusions that Hayes reached. An EPA panel of outside experts found numerous flaws and mistakes in the Syngenta studies. In at least two of the studies, the "unexposed" group of frogs had actually been exposed to atrazine. Not surprisingly, those studies did not find a significant difference between the "exposed" and "unexposed" frogs. In another of the studies, no conclusion could be reached because 80-90% of the frogs died, apparently as a result of inadequate care. As Professor Hayes summarized the situation, what Syngenta scientists did "was produce a number of studies that were purposefully flawed and misleading, and that changed the weight of the evidence."[ 3 ]

So it is rather easy to cast doubt on a scientific study -- simply try to reproduce the study using methods that are sloppy enough to assure that the results will not be reproduced. "On the one hand we have a study showing harm, on the other hand some scientists have been unable to reproduce these results." So regulators are paralyzed.

As David Michaels told a Texas reporter, "corporations and others who manufacture dangerous products and pollutants have realized that by adding manufactured uncertainty to the equation, they can essentially stop the regulatory process from moving forward."[ 4 ]

[To be continued.]


[1] Peter Waldman, " Common Industrial Chemicals in Tiny Doses Raise Health Issue ," Wall Street Journal July 25, 2005, pg. 1.

[2] David Michaels, " Doubt is Their Product ," Scientific American Vol.
292, No. 6 (June 1, 2005), pgs. 96-101.

[3] Rick Weiss, " 'Data Quality' Law is Nemesis of Regulation ," Washington Post August 26, 2004.

[4] Jeff Nesmith, " New product for U.S. industry: 'manufactured doubt' ," Austin (Tex.) Statesman June 26, 2005.


RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS Environmental Research Foundation P.O. Box 160 New Brunswick, N.J. 08903 Fax (732) 791-4603; E-mail: erf@rachel.org


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Permission to reprint Rachel's is hereby granted to everyone, though we ask that you not change the contents and we ask that you provide proper attribution.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes.

Some of this material may be copyrighted by others. We believe we are making "fair use" of the material under Title 17, but if you choose to use it for your own purposes, you will need to consider "fair use" in your own case. --Peter Montague, editor

http://www.peoplespetition.org/peoplespetition/


Informant: Rory Winter

q/depesche 2005-09-07T13:57:46

Wenn man glaubt, noch durch/geknallt/er geht es nicht, dann findet sich ein Brite, der es versteht, noch einen draufzusetzen.


Vor dem Treffen der europäischen Innen- und Justizminister zur so genannten Vorratsdatenspeicherung von Telefon- und Internet-Verbindungen stellt der britische Innenminister Charles Clarke die Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention in Frage.

Die EU-Staaten müssten das zu Gunsten des Schutzes vor organisiertem Verbrechen und Terrorangriffen akzeptieren. Das Recht zu leben überwiege Bedenken zur Beschneidung von Datenschutzrechten, so Clarke.

Sowohl die englischen wie die Richter am EU-Gerichtshof müssten verstehen, dass die Europäer nicht mehr lange akzeptierten, dass gegen Menschen, die eine Bedrohung darstellen, wegen Menschenrechtsbedenken nichts unternommen werden dürfe, so Clarke weiter. Dabei geht es laut britischen Medien um die Abschiebung von Terrorverdächtigen.

"Ich sage, Zweifel an den Bürgerrechten einer Person, die von einer Überwachungskamera gefilmt wird [...], oder einer Person, die mit einer anderen telefoniert hat, sind klein im Vergleich zum übergreifenden Bürgerrecht, nicht in die Luft gesprengt zu werden", so Clarke, der zudem Überwachungskameras für die Behörden, international standardisierte biometrische Daten für Pässe und Visa und die Speicherung von Verbindungsdaten auf ein Jahr forderte.

Mehr dazu
http://futurezone.orf.at/futurezone.orf?read=detail&id=274187


relayed by

More about how vulnerable the New Orleans area is.

After Centuries of 'Controlling' Land, Gulf Learns Who's the Boss

By CORNELIA DEAN
and ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: August 30, 2005
The New York Times

The Gulf Coast has always been vulnerable to coastal storms, but over the years people have made things worse, particularly in Louisiana, where Hurricane Katrina struck yesterday. Since the 18th century, when French colonial administrators required land claimants to establish ownership by building levees along bayous, streams and rivers, people have been trying to dominate the region's landscape and the forces of its nature.

As long as people could control floods, they could do business. But, as people learned too late, the landscape of South Louisiana depends on floods: it is made of loose Mississippi River silt, and the ground subsides as this silt consolidates. Only regular floods of muddy water can replenish the sediment and keep the landscape above water. But flood control projects channel the river's nourishing sediment to the end of the birdfoot delta and out into the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. [...] Read the rest at the New York Times web site: http://tinyurl.com/73at9

If you enjoy the occasional really good editorials in the New York Times, don't miss this one: Nature's Revenge , published August 30, 2005 http://tinyurl.com/8c9xt



Shrinking La. Coastline Contributes To Flooding

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Page A07

Two months ago, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) told an audience of congressional staffers and scientific experts the federal government needs to spend billions of dollars over the next two decades to restore her state's wetlands. She warned that intentional rerouting of the Mississippi River over the past century, coupled with rising sea levels due to climate change, had eroded Louisiana's natural buffer against massive storms.

"This is not Disneyland. This is the real deal," Landrieu said, referring to New Orleans's vulnerability to hurricanes. "The French Quarter could be under 18 feet of water. It would be lost forever." [...] Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/b35zl

Be sure to check out TruthOut and Buzzflash, who are great publishers and re-publishers. There are so many other sites that have news on a continuing basis that it is impossible to list them. I mention those two because they have been around "for years" in computer time, and work feverishly to help keep people basically informed. http://truthout.org/ and http://buzzflash.com/ Two other great sites are Alternet ( http://www.alternet.org/ ) and http://www.Democrats.com


© Virginia Metze

By Eric Holdeman
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Page A17
The Washington Post

SEATTLE -- In the days to come, as the nation and the people along the Gulf Coast work to cope with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we will be reminded anew, how important it is to have a federal agency capable of dealing with natural catastrophes of this sort. This is an immense human tragedy, one that will work hardship on millions of people. It is beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response.

Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment, the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.

Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness? Given our country's long record of natural disasters, how much sense does this make? [...] Read the rest at the Washington Post web site: http://tinyurl.com/as299


© Virginia Metze

Josh Marshall
September 03, 2005 -- 10:46 AM EDT

Earlier we asked who would track down the story about FEMA Chief Michael Brown's apparent firing from his last pre-FEMA employment.

The Boston Herald is on the case. The lede from this morning's piece by Brett Arends ...

The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.

And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.

The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.

The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster. Read the rest of the Boston Herald piece at http://tinyurl.com/9ro5p If you have the time, browse the rest of many articles about the hurricane on the Talking Points Memo site.


© Virginia Metze

I wish the present government of this country actually LOVED this country and didn't hate 99% of the people in it! We MUST IMPEACH BUSH ... and there are Republicans who will agree.

Bob Fertik's "action list:

Fix America Now

I couldn't seem to be able to cut and paste the introductory part of this post. See it at http://www.democrats.com/


© Virginia Metze



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

By ERIC LIPTON and SCOTT SHANE
The New York Times
Published: September 3, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - On Thursday night, Michael D. Brown, the federal government's point man for managing the response to Hurricane Katrina, made a remarkable confession on live television.

Speaking of the thousands stranded at the convention center in New Orleans without food or water, Mr. Brown said that his agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, had just learned of their plight.

CNN's Paula Zahn was incredulous. "Sir," she said, "you aren't just telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today, are you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?"

"Paula," Mr. Brown replied unequivocally, "the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today."

The comment symbolized what some have described as a deeply flawed federal response. President Bush praised Mr. Brown's performance on Friday, but Mr. Brown's remarks prompted Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi , the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, to call on President Bush to fire Mr. Brown or Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. [...] Read the rest at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/national/nationalspecial/03fema.html


© Virginia Metze

Another oldie being dredged up to indicate that NO ONE should be surprised at this disaster: Scientific American, October, 2001

Drowning New Orleans

By Mark Fischetti
October 01, 2001
Scientific American.com

A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city

The boxes are stacked eight feet high and line the walls of the large, windowless room. Inside them are new body bags, 10,000 in all. If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water. "As the water recedes," says Walter Maestri, a local emergency management director, "we expect to find a lot of dead bodies."

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh--an area the size of Manhattan--will have vanished. [...] Read it all at the Scientific American web page and get a guilty conscience: http://tinyurl.com/8739v


© Virginia Metze

Tim Rutten
September 2, 2005
Los Angeles Times calendarlive.com

As commentators and public officials survey the morass of loss and desolation that once was a great American city called New Orleans, one of the words we hear and read over and over again is "unimaginable."

In fact, the tragedy that this week destroyed a vibrant metropolitan area that was home to 1.4 million people and the city proper that was a national cultural treasure was not simply imagined but foreseen with a prescience that now seems eerily precise.

[...]

Three years ago, New Orleans' leading local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, National Public Radio's signature nightly news program, "All Things Considered," and the New York Times each methodically and compellingly reported that the very existence of south Louisiana's leading city was at risk and hundreds of thousands of lives imperiled by exactly the sequence of events that occurred this week. All three news organizations also made clear that the danger was growing because of a series of public policy decisions and failure to allocate government funds to alleviate the danger.

[...] Read the rest at the Los Angeles Times' calendarlive.com: http://tinyurl.com/7pk6w

An October 2004 article in the National Geographic magazine, Gone with the Water, was among the many articles dredged up in order for environmentalists to say "I told you so." Well, they did, and they were right. Here's the URL to the article: http://tinyurl.com/7oarm


© Virginia Metze

Michael Albert
September 3, 2005
Znet

The growing outrage over the willful ignoring of warnings and overt cutting of local expenditures that paved the way for New Orleans' disaster is of course valid. The growing outrage over the unavailability of resources spent on immoral imperial violence is also valid. Corpses floating by warrant both tears and recrimination, but I want to address something slightly different.

[...] fast forward to the end:

Just to clarify the point, for those who take seriously the admonition to shoot the looters to kill - the main looters in our society are corporate owners who accrue the products of working people's labor. The shooting gallery, if fulfilling this instruction were to become popular, would be far more upscale than the swamp that is New Orleans.

Bush has bloody hands, but beyond Bush, the larger system of business as usual guaranteed a catastrophic response to this catastrophe. The accurate Katrina headline is: Storm Hits, Capitalism Preserves Profits, Humanity Drowns. [...] Read the rest at Znet: http://tinyurl.com/crqru


© Virginia Metze

The David Sirota blog is at http://www.davidsirota.com/ There is a very long column of comments on the New Orleans disaster. His most recent column is posted to Working for a Change blog. http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/

Olbermann on the 'city of Louisiana'

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann does a terrific job of summing up who's responsible for our government's colossal failure to respond to the tragedy on the Gulf Coast.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/


Posted by David Sirota at 7:10 PM September 5, 2005
Tomgram: Iraq in America
At the Front of Nowhere at All
The Perfect Storm and the Feral City
By Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch.com, a project of the Nation Institute

The headline was: "Direct hit in New Orleans could mean a modern Atlantis," and the first paragraph of the story read: "More than 1.2 million people in metropolitan New Orleans were warned to get out Tuesday as [the] 140-mph hurricane churned toward the Gulf Coast, threatening to submerge this below-sea-level city in what could be the most disastrous storm to hit in nearly 40 years." That was USA Today and the only catch was -- the piece had been written on September 14, 2004 as Hurricane Ivan seemed to be barreling toward New Orleans.

I commented at the time: " When ‘Ivan the Terrible' threatened New Orleans, correspondents there had a field day discussing whether the city might literally disappear beneath the waves -- this was referred to as the ‘Atlantis scenario.'" I was then trying to point out that we might indeed be entering a new, globally warmed world of Xtreme weather and no connections whatsoever were being made in the media. At the time, global warming, if discussed at all, was a captive of the far north (melting glaciers, unnerved Inuit, robins making miraculous appearances in Alaska), and "Atlantis scenarios" were the property of distant islands like the atolls that make up the tiny South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, threatened with abandonment due to rising ocean waters and ever fiercer, ever less seasonal storms And yet just short of a year ago, not only! was it well known that New Orleans' levees weren't fit for a class 5 hurricane or that the Bush administration was slashing the budget of the Army Corps of Engineers, but the "Atlantis scenario" was already somewhere on the collective mind. Now, it has been upon us for almost a week. [...] Read it all at TomDispatch.com http://www.tomdispatch.com/


© Virginia Metze

So President Bush has finally made it to the scene -- only four days after the storm. Unfortunately, there was no "bullhorn moment" a la his post-9/11 tour of Ground Zero -- no stirring rhetoric. Indeed, his staged briefing with the governors of Alabama and Mississippi did not inspire confidence or hope in anyone -- except maybe Trent Lott.

And Lott's realtor. "The good news," said the president, "is that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's gong to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." Yes, he actually said that. Way to look on the bright side, Mr. President. "Fantastic!"

The president's sunny-side-up take on the Gulf Coast's Extreme Makeover came after Alabama Governor Bob Riley announced that he was launching "Operation Golden Rule." Uh, Governor... given what the authorities have been "doing unto" the beleaguered victims of Katrina, do you really think that's such a good idea? [...] Read it all at http://tinyurl.com/amgax


© Virginia Metze

Iraq war didn't cause the hurricane, just drained resources from flooded city

Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
September 1, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas -- Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends and the city, and how they are now.

To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people's lives.

This is not "just politics" or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies. [...] Read the rest at the Working for Change web site: http://tinyurl.com/ajzcv


© Virginia Metze

http://rs.net-hh.de/archiv/22628.htm?PHPSESSID=181c8f8ac8f7f91455f19bb42fa8c8ec

Ein Bericht von Besuchern der Stadt, die vom Hurrican und seinen Folgen überrascht wurden, offenbart die Brutalität der Behörden im Umgang mit den Opfern, wenn diese arm oder schwarz waren: ihnen wurde vielfach nicht nur die Hilfe verweigert. Sie wurden darüberhinaus auch daran gehindert, sich selbst zu helfen und aus der Stadt zu entkommen.

http://links.net-hh.de?lid=22628

Marjorie Cohn's documentation of Roberts' record reveals a callous disregard for the rights of people very much like the tens of thousands who have died and been rendered homeless by Katrina. John Roberts' career has established his credentials as an uncompassionate conservative. A Roberts Court, Cohn warns, would threaten the rights of all but the rich and powerful. It is time for the Democrats to utter the "f" word: Filibuster.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605Y.shtml

As the nation watches stunned by the images of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, an Indian tribe has opened its doors to shelter victims while individual Natives are heading to the damaged areas to help out.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605Q.shtml

The US Congress session beginning September 6 is set to discuss legislative changes that the recent US-India nuclear deal will need. India will be watching the Congress proceedings in this connection with interest. The concern of some Indians, however, will be about whether the US lawmakers will consider at all the consequences of the deal for peace and stability in South Asia and in a larger part of Asia.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605O.shtml

Tom Engelhardt comments that in the last week we've seen many of the black poor of New Orleans not only left behind in a new Atlantis, but thousands upon thousands of them - those who didn't die in their wheelchairs, or on highway overpasses, or in the ill-fated convention center, or unattended and forgotten in their homes - sent off on what looked very much like a new trail of tears.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605M.shtml

The stakes are high: Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans must not waiver or compromise. They must warn Bush: They will not confirm an ideologue to the court or elevate a conservative activist - justices Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas - as chief justice.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605L.shtml

Mr Bush's visit was his second to the disaster zone in four days, as more reports of government incompetence surfaced amid calls for the dismissal of top officials, particularly at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605I.shtml

Resurrected from their patriotic torpor after the shocks of the September 11 attacks and their recruitment into the Army on the battlefield in Iraq, American television networks revealed the drama that unfolded in Louisiana, their journalists discovering and living the disaster of 200,000 people abandoned to their fate.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605H.shtml

The wretchedness coming across our television screens from Louisiana has illuminated the way children sometimes pay with their lives, even in America, for being born to poor families. It has also underscored the Bush administration's ongoing reluctance or ineptitude in helping the poorest Americans, Kristof remarks. But Hurricane Katrina also underscores a much larger problem: the growing number of Americans trapped in a never-ending cyclone of poverty.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605D.shtml

Pressed by constituents alarmed by skyrocketing gasoline prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) accused oil companies of manipulating energy markets to enhance profits and decried a lack of national leadership for a plan to free the country from dependence on foreign oil.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605B.shtml

William Rivers Pitt argues that what we are seeing in New Orleans is the end result of what can be best described as extended Reaganomics. Small government, budget cuts across the board, tax cuts meant to financially strangle the ability of federal agencies to function, the diversion of billions of what is left in the budget into military spending: This has been the aim and desire of the conservative movement for decades now. The house of cards has fallen in. A generation of conservative thinking, combined with five years of neoconservative thrashing, has finally come to an unavoidable head.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090605A.shtml

(excerpt)

Why is FEMA so incompetent? It was turned into a political patronage agency by Bush for Bush's campaign.

Urgent International Appeal. U.S. troops in New Orleans are treating hurricane victims as members of "Al Qaeda."

"From Deep Inside the Washington Beltway"

RESIGN

Bush on the Gulf Coast in his role as Slim Witless.

When the recovery is over, we must make a list of these people and when "we the people" take over Congress next year, we must hound them out of media (you reading this Wolf Blitzer?) and the government, especially the Pentagon.

September 6, 2005 --


For communications technicians in New Orleans and Gulf Coast region. How to beat the communications jammers. (Thanks to "M").

Click here:
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/Jammers.htm


"Team Bush" still refusing international aid.

Russian rescue crews on four cargo planes with helicopters on board sit idle at an airport near Moscow waiting for green light, Cuba has 1500 doctors with 26 tons of medical supplies and Bush is refusing them entry to U.S., Venezuelan disaster rescue teams wait for a "go," Dominican Republic crews with hurricane recovery experience wait and wait and wait. It's the same scene at airports around the world. Meanwhile, FEMA turned back 8 buses from Washington, DC that were to bring 400 evacuees to the DC Armory which has been stockpiled with just about every need. The Bush regime has finally reached the crescendo of evil.

And why is FEMA so incompetent? It was turned into a political patronage agency by Bush. This from a disaster recovery specialist with inside contacts at FEMA:

Mike Brown was Joe Allbaugh's college roommate. (Allbaugh was Bush's first FEMA director). Allbaugh is now a consultant who makes tons of money for greasing the skids for companies to get business with the federal government in Iraq and with FEMA. Note to Federal law enforcement. You might want to investigate the relationship between Allbaugh and IEM, Dewberry, and URS -- the companies that took $500,000 to develop a "Catastrophic Hurricane Disaster Plan for New Orleans & Southeast Louisiana," a plan they never delivered and a project for they fraudulently included James Lee Witt Associates as one of their team partners. The sleazy revolving door spewing out money spins very fast with the Bush administration.

Mike Brown had absolutely no experience in disaster management. When Allbaugh became director in January, 2001, he politically cleansed FEMA of anyone who was associated with outgoing director James Lee Witt, who had done an excellent during the Clinton administration. Allbaugh was charged with cleaning out of FEMA because of the neocon desire to rid the Federal bureaucracy of FEMA and replace it with charitable giving as a means of disaster relief.

So Allbaugh's first priority was to gut FEMA. This became an even greater priority after the Democrats (especially Joe Lieberman) forced Bush to create a Department of Homeland Security. FEMA was rolled into DHS. Allbaugh was caught by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) using the FEMA Boeing 737 aircraft for private purposes, including numerous personal trips to Florida and political trips around the country. The Republican National Committee reimbursed FEMA for the political junkets, but the embarrassing trips hit the pages of the New York Times and Allbaugh chose at that time to leave and set up his own consulting business. He left without any pressure from the White House.

In early 2001, The American Arabian Horse Association fired current FEMA director Mike Brown as its executive secretary after a non-productive period of employment. Admittedly, Mike Brown had spent a large part of 2000 campaigning for Bush rather than doing his job, but the bottom line for the horse association was that Brown neglected his duties and day to day responsibilities.

Brown was lucky. His old college roommate, Allbaugh, appointed Brown as his number 2 within days of his firing by the horse association. This cozy relationship was noted throughout the Allbaugh period. Upon Allbaugh's departure, Brown was designated by Bush to succeed him as FEMA director. He is called "Brownie" by Bush.

"Brownie" has few supporters in FEMA. In fact, the general commentary is that he lacks basic organizational and management skills, not a leader.

September 5, 2005 --


Urgent International Appeal. U.S. troops in New Orleans are treating hurricane victims as members of "Al Qaeda."

Reports coming to WMR report that the greater New Orleans area has been turned into a virtual military zone where troops threaten bewildered and hungry survivors who approach them for help.

One resident of the unflooded Algiers section of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi River reports that the 65,000 population of the neighborhood has been reduced by forced evacuations to 2000 even though there are relatively undamaged schools, parks, and churches available to house the homeless. The remaining population of Algiers is in urgent need of medical supplies. The same situation exists in Jefferson Parish and other areas in the greater New Orleans area. U.S. troops are treating the remaining people in New Orleans and its suburbs as "suicide bombers," according to the Algiers resident. FEMA's operations are nothing more than a ruse to depopulate the poor African-American and whites from the metropolitan area. A natural disaster has now turned into a human rights catastrophe in the making. Our corporate news media is totally controlled by the Bush administration with an information embargo now in force from the Gulf coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi. Thecable news channels are now praising the White House's response. This is a blatant lie from a dictatorship that controls the media through financial control and intimidation. The web is our only way to get the news out to the rest of the world.

As a U.S. human rights activist who has reported on genocide in Rwanda, Sudan, West Papua and other parts of the world, I am appealing to my human rights and civil liberties contacts around the world -- Africa, Europe, Latin America, Australia, Canada, Asia and the Pacific -- to immediately bring this humanitarian crisis to the attention of your elected representatives, your governments, and international organizations. They must make immediate demarches to the American diplomatic embassies and offices in your countries. The United States is under the control of a despotic regime that is permitting American citizens and legal residents to die from starvation and disease. This is why the Bush regime refused offers of international assistance -- they are depopulating an entire city that before the storm was 70 percent African American, with the remaining 30 percent largely comprised of those of Creole, French Acadian, and American Indian descent. The United Nations must take this up as an urgent unfolding crisis that has an international impact. Please help our people.

Meanwhile, the communications jamming in the New Orleans area continues. it is now being reported by truck drivers on Interstate-10 as affecting the Citizens' Band (CB) frequencies.

September 5, 2005 -- President Bush has nominated John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Taking advantage of a nation reeling and preoccupied with an immediate task of saving hurricane victims and recovering thousands of bodies after its worst natural disaster, George W. Bush early this morning announced he was nominating controversial Judge John Roberts to be the next Chief Justice, replacing the late William Rehnquist for whom Roberts once clerked. The White House has withheld from Congress hundreds of documents regarding Roberts' role in the Iran-Contra scandal and other affairs while he was a counsel for President Reagan. Other documents on Roberts' role in President George H. W. Bush's pardon of Iran-contra felons while serving under Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr at the Justice Department have also been withheld from Congress. There are also questions about Roberts' view of civil rights. It has been revealed from released memos that he was an ardent supporter of South Africa's apartheid regime during the Reagan administration.

As reported on WMR yesterday, Sen. Orrin Hatch was tipping the hand on Bush's intentions when he said he wanted a quick confirmation of both Roberts and a Chief Justice. What he didn't say was that Bush would combine the two processes. Bush said that he expects Roberts to be sitting as Chief Justice when the Supreme Court meets publicly for its Fall session on October 3. Bush said he will announce a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor "in a timely manner." Bush only deals with things in a timely manner when its part and parcel of his plans to radically change the United States as a corporate fascist state. When its hurricane relief, timely manner is not in Bush's lexicon.

Nominated for Chief Justice -- John Roberts. The Bush coup continues: From two years on the Federal bench to the Chief Justice of the United States.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/


Informant: Our bill of rights

NPR has for quite a while, cornered the market on intellectual compassion. However as the charade of political duality in the media becomes more evident. They are further exposed as frauds, if not a fifth column for a neocon-corporate-media.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10148.htm

Much of New Orleans has become the Atlantis from hell, a toxic sludge pool of a looted former city, filled with dead bodies, burning in places, threatened with diseases like cholera and typhus that haven't visited the Big Easy since early in the last century.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=19806


From Information Clearing House

You know you have been lied to.

http://www.gratefulchild.org/projects/gcweb/gc/html/audio/


From Information Clearing House

If you’re not pissed off, you’re not paying attention.

Warning - Item contains language, which may offend some readers.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10154.htm

Well, all I can say is if a terrorist blows up Chicago or a major earthquake decimates Los Angeles, make sure you have batteries in your flashlights and learn to drink sewage with a smile because the Bush administration is otherwise distracted, dismissive and disinterested.

http://www.bettybowers.com/nl_090205.html


From Information Clearing House

U.S.President George Bush may have gone down in the American poll ratings because of his administrations lackadaisical approach and ineptitude in dealing with the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf States, but what has appalled most people, is Washington's decision to approach Third World countries for aid.

http://snipurl.com/hhgg


From Information Clearing House

The Red Cross is appealing for people overseas to contribute money to its Hurricane Katrina Appeal. But why does the world's richest nation need handouts?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4215336.stm


From Information Clearing House

What this tragedy has exposed is far more than the nature of the Bush regime, but the sick nature of the very "American Way of Life" of which they are all so self-righteously proud. Uncaring, class-divided, race-divided, prejudiced, exploitive, steal-from-the-poor-to-protect-the-rich focused, bureaucratic, and incompetent.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10150.htm

Bush announced today in Washington, according to the Wall Street Journal, that "he will personally lead an investigation into what went wrong with the response to Hurricane Katrina." What the heck! Does he think we are all stupid?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10158.htm

There are people dying and (the US government are) not putting the boats in the water, I think that's criminal negligence. I don't think anybody ever anticipated the criminal negligence of the Bush administration in this situation."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10149.htm

WARNING: Graphic Images

http://snipurl.com/hhgf


From Information Clearing House

"The choreographed events I've seen here today shocked me".

http://snipurl.com/hhgc


From Information Clearing House

Police officers had taken "souvenir" photographs of stranded people begging for help, he added.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10144.htm

"Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the briefings and in formal advisories".

http://snipurl.com/hhga


From Information Clearing House

pdf file

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10152.htm

"DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies," Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10159.htm

An Iraqi alternative to US occupation

http://snipurl.com/hhg8


From Information Clearing House

A British soldier who shot dead an Iraqi civilian at a checkpoint will not face any charges, the office of Attorney General has confirmed.

http://snipurl.com/hhg5


From Information Clearing House

SEVEN British paratroops murdered an unarmed civilian in a “brutal and unprovoked” attack eleven days after the war in Iraq had been declared over, a court martial was told yesterday.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10142.htm

You have to watch this video to fully understand, how little regard our government has for the welfare of its own citizens.

Click here to view. Windows Media
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10121.htm

By Manuel Valenzuela

Americans have been slapped in the face by Katrina, forced to confront the vulnerability of our character and the impotence of our wealth, seeing the incompetence of our highest leaders and the ineptitude of our sacred government. - How can America fail when it is the greatest nation on Earth?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10147.htm

Everybody should be concerned about what we are seeing unfold before our eyes.

Look around you. Have you created the society you want for yourself and your children? Do you have the social support you need? Do you know where food and water would come from if a disaster would strike?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10146.htm

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=184


Informant: NHNE

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4216508.stm


Informant: NHNE

Study
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0906-07.htm

Each week, teens from Hillsborough and Pinellas join antiwar protesters at BayWalk. They tell why.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0906-03.htm

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread167902/pg1

--------

Eleven-year-old Trenace Tyler, who stands outside her Camp Dawson living quarters, is looking forward to getting back in school.

http://tinyurl.com/b6ra4

Tyler is among the refugees from Hurricane Katrina being sheltered at the West Virginia National Guard training center at Camp Dawson near Kingwood, W.Va. in Preston County, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005. Her family is among the first group of what could be 500 refugees from New Orleans who will be housed at the 4,177-acre camp along the Cheat River. (AP Photo/Dale Sparks)

Its on the list of FEMA camps for West Virginia.
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1062

WEST VIRGINIA Beckley - Alderson - Lewisburg - Former WWII detention camps that are now converted into active federal prison complexes capable of holding several times their current populations. Alderson is presently a women´s federal reformatory. Morgantown - Federal prison camp located in northern WV; just north of Kingwood. Mill Creek - FEMA detention facility. Kingwood - Newly built detention camp at Camp Dawson Army Reservation. More data needed on Camp Dawson.


Informant: Dani Djinn



FEMA CONCENTRATION CAMPS: Locations and Executive Orders
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/386951/

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2005/060905femasabotaging.htm


ranger116

More on Politically Correct Speech
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2003/0708.html

From The US Declaration of Independence
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, Laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

The Government that Governs Least Governs Best !!

The Keyboard Is Mightier Than The Sword
©1999 tlb

Thomas Lee Buyea
Florida News Service


Informant: ranger116

http://www.sparkplugfoundation.org/katrinarelief.html

Informant: Amy Hendrickson

From ufpj-news

Bath Chronicle

11:00 - 06 September 2005

A Planning inquiry will now decide the fate of a controversial phone mast scheme in Bath. Earlier this year, Bath and North East Somerset Council delayed a decision on the mobile phone base station and antennae planned for a site at Wellsway.

Now operator Hutchinson 3G has appealed against the authority's failure to reach a verdict over the mast earmarked for the roof of the Smile store.

The Planning Inspectorate will now appoint an inspector to look at the case for and against the mast and recommend whether permission should be given.

Councillors had argued that inadequate research had been done into whether the mast could be located elsewhere, and said more time should be spent examining whether Hutchinson could share the same site as a rival phone company.

Campaigners opposed to the scheme have recently set up a new action group claiming the mast would be too close to homes.

They had celebrated when an application in the same area by phone company O2 was withdrawn and the company agreed to work on a plan for a mast site in nearby Alexandra Park.

But within months, Hutchinson 3G had submitted its application for the site at Wellsway.

The inspector will look at written submissions from each side and visit the site before making a recommendation for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Any comments sent by residents to B &NES will be forwarded to the inspectorate.

Anyone wanting to comment is asked to write to The Planning Inspectorate, 3/25 Hawk Wing, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Temple Quay, Bristol, BS1 6PN, sending three copies of their letter.

They should quote the reference number APP/F0114/A/05/1187757.

http://www.sirc.org/articles/birds_on_the_wire.shtml

From Karen Barratt

FYI Re: Bird on a Wire James Harkin - an Adam Burgess clone ! Maybe there is a mad scientist (in the pay of the telecoms) somewhere creating these "replicants."

The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments: Shortcut to: http://www.sirc.org/about/james.shtml

--------

Hear hear! Just sent him this:

Dear Mr Harkin,

It comes as no surprise to me that the aforementioned article does not mention the effect of masts on homing pigeons, who lose their sense of direction and fly to the wrong places, often going missing never to be seen again. Perhaps you have evidence that these pigeons are acting this way because they merely perceive masts to be dangerous?

What does surprise me is that Demos, (erroneously, obviously) referred to by some as a 'left wing think tank', should publish a misinformed article that serves the interests of the industry over the general population, when there is more than enough scientific evidence already available to anyone with a knowledge of scientific studies and research. The MOA use terms like 'review after review' when they are citing their 'reasssurances' about the safety of masts. Anyone with a Bsc knows that a review is exactly what it says, it is NOT based on new research. Someone looks at the research, picks out the bits that support their argument, compiles them into a group of studies, and viola! -they have a review of the literature! Someone else with the same interests comes along and does the same, and then there are two reviews, of the SAME literature, saying the same as the previous one. And so it goes.

Meanwhile, genuine research by independent scientists is starved of funding, and the studies identifying effects that the Industry and Government do not want us to know about are brushed aside. The usual strategy is to claim that science finding adverse effects is 'inconclusive' or unreplicated. Well, guess what! So is the 'science' the government use!

Do you not find it strange that the Government's 'science' is accepted without question, despite its flaws? Or that Professors of Sociology, such as Adam Burgess, are encouraged to put forward erroneous views on the subject as though he were an actual scientist with more knowledge than eminent scientists around the world? Or that the late Richard Doll, extolled by the Government and Industry as one of the scientists to be relied upon for information, was the same man who deemed x-rays safe for pregnant women?

Amanda Wesley (Bsc)

--------

Omega see "Pulsed microwave radiation and wildlife" under:
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/926007/

http://members.iinet.net.au/~holmgren/truth.html


Informant: Neo Mulder

http://cbs5.com/specialreports/local_story_249213006.html

CALIF. lawmakers worried that FEMA couldn't handle earthquake San Jose Mercury News - United States ... Katrina as California lawmakers wondered if the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency could handle the aftermath of a major California earthquake...
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/12575789.htm

From: Meria Heller
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 8:43 PM
Subject: Fw: Fw: Ion Beam Controlling Katrina] - interesting

WEATHER CONTROL AND WEATHER WARFARE http://www.weatherwars.info/

SCOTT STEVENS' SITE "WEATHER WARS"
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=78106

Lets see if we are so wrong so a picture is a million words...

-- Original Message Subject: Fw: Ion Beam Controlling Katrina Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 18:30:36 -0700
From: Godsmystery
To: David Monte*

Original Message - From: AvenueOfLight Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 4:57 PM Subject: Ion Beam Controlling Katrina

http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=97351

Bush's comment clearly points to the fact that he knows Katrina was a result of weather warfare - but by whom - our own Gov't ION BEAM CONTROLLING KATRINA *PIC*.

What the heck is this anomaly which appears to be targeting the exact center of hurricane Katrina's eye?

Was this truly an engineered hurricane? Or, is this apparent beam directing the hurricane to it's target?

Is this what Bush meant when he ascribed all the hurricane's damage to being like the result of "the most powerful weapon imaginable?"

It's hard for me to fathom, but then again, so was the H-Bomb hard to fathom to the ordinary citizen not all that long ago.

Kent at Cyberspaceorbit.com has some information as does the link below to RumorMillNews.com.

http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/


LINK TO MORE INFORMATION AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Indication of Scalar Weather Engineering?

Deconstructing Katrina: Scalar Signatures

Kent Steadman has found a remarkable photo of Katrina which shows a very strange anomaly which MAY be indication of weather engineering.

He suggests it is some kind of "ion beam."

Kent has always done excellent work in following the scalar weather wars. Here is the picture he uncovered:
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=78103

What IS that thing? It is time for us all to start educating ourselves on these matters because Tom Bearden says he imagines that EVERY major weather event from now on will probably be partially engineered.

In the case of Katrina he estimates a 70% chance it was "pumped up" to category 5 status with longitudinal wave interferometers ("Tesla howitzers").

The picture above is still at its souce site at NOAA:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2496.htm
(Rich - It's the 2nd picture on the right)

http://www.weatherwars.info/
Scott Stevens Weather Wars link


Informant: Friends

http://www.unknownnews.org/0509090906CampWilliams.html


Informant: Michael Novick

Los Angeles Times
by Peter G. Gosselin and Alan C. Miller

09/05/05

While the federal government has spent much of the last quarter-century trimming the safety nets it provides Americans, it has dramatically expanded its promise of protection in one area -- disaster. ... But the government's stumbling response to the storm that devastated the nation's Gulf Coast reveals that the federal agency singularly most responsible for making good on Washington's expanded promise has been hobbled by cutbacks and a bureaucratic downgrading. The Federal Emergency Management Agency once speedily delivered food, water, shelter and medical care to disaster areas, and paid to quickly rebuild damaged roads and schools and get businesses and people back on their feet. ... But in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, FEMA lost its Cabinet-level status as it was folded into the giant new Department of Homeland Security. And in recent years it has suffered budget cuts, the elimination or reduction of key programs and an exodus of experienced staffers... [editor's note: Excuses mostly, but also some explanation? - SAT]

http://tinyurl.com/7oqhg


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Sierra Times
by Al Benson Jr.

09/06/05

Katrina has come and gone, but the results she left with us will be here for some time to come. One thing this storm did was to reveal the 'Southern strategy' of George W., which basically to get the South to help him get re-elected and then tell that region to go and take a flying leap -- now that they had helped put him back into office he didn't need them anymore, and to make sure they didn't let the door hit them in the backside on the way out. ... [T]he South ... is, in Washington, really considered to be the bastard child of the rest of the country -- except during election years of course. Associated Press articles have noted that it was common knowledge that the levees contructed to prevent New Orleans from flooding wouldn't be able to withstand a major hurricane. Be that as it may, the movers and shakers in Washington, somehow, never quite got around to appropriating enough money to correct that little problem...

http://www.sierratimes.com/05/09/06/64_12_116_12_19165.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

America's Future Foundation
by James N. Markels

09/05/05

The old saying goes, 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' Such is the case if disaster strikes when you're unprepared. Now, with New Orleans damaged far worse than New York City after 9/11, Americans are left wondering exactly who has to be in charge in order to keep these disasters from happening. And they are looking, fairly or unfairly, at President Bush...)

http://www.affbrainwash.com/archives/020273.php


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The American Prospect
by Matthew Yglesias

09/06/05

Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath have focused public attention as never before (in my memory) on the twin scandals of George W. Bush's proclivity for incompetence laced with dishonesty and the persistence of mass poverty in America. The scandals are not unrelated. When on the campaign trail in 2000 Bush proclaimed himself a 'compassionate conservative' different from his predecessors, nobody quite knew what he meant. The idea seemed to be, however, that he was like a regular conservative, but also cared about poor people. Whether or not that's what the slogan was supposed to have meant, the reality turned out quite differently. Bush has become famous for his casual disregard of the basic elements of conservative philosophy ... Spending has gone up -- way up -- nearly across the board even while tax cuts have been lavished on the wealthy. Less noted is that one very small portion of the federal government's activities really has been curtailed: the spending of money on efforts to help poor people...

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10216


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Competitive Enterprise Institute
by Richard Morrison

08/30/05

The disruption to oil and gas operations off the coast of Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina this week has raised concern that the oil processing facilities in the rest of the country may be unable to maintain supplies, leading to dramatically higher gas prices. The threat of those price increases emphasizes the need to throw off government restrictions and disincentives to investment in new energy infrastructure...

http://www.cei.org/gencon/003,04797.cfm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Frontiers of Freedom
by John T. Plecnik

09/06/05

The national debate on Supreme Court nominations is dominated by a larger debate over the most controversial social issues of our time. More specifically, the debate is dominated by a disagreement as to who has the final word on these issues. Who should decide whether abortion or gay marriage is legal in the United States? Congress or the courts? Generally speaking, strict constructionists say that congress or a state legislature should decide. The judicial philosophy of strict constructionism advocates for judicial restraint. Judges should strictly construe and apply the law as it is...

http://tinyurl.com/bxo2l


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CounterPunch
by Dan La Botz

09/06/05

Government failed utterly. Homeland Security secured nothing. FEMA -- the Federal Emergency Management Administration -- managed nothing. The President, finally tearing himself away from his vacation, first dawdled and then dithered while people died. Only after almost a week of tragedy, suffering and shame did government being [sic] to respond. But the people of New Orleans, poor African American people mostly, didn't fail. They gave us a model to live by. They helped each other. Ordinary men and women carried children and the elderly to high ground, built camps in the driest, most secure place, formed bands to forage for food and dry clothing. The strong helped the weak, as all helped each other. They also spoke out in righteous anger to the television cameras telling the world that the government had, after long neglecting them, now deserted them. They demanded to be treated with the dignity they deserved. Not all were steadfast it's true. Some behaved like our society taught them to behave: competed for resources, beggared their neighbors, hoarded their wealth. But most, the vast majority, stood together. The rejected competition and embraced cooperation and collective action...

http://www.counterpunch.org/labotz09062005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Libertarian Enterprise
by Jack Duggan

09/05/05

Watching news coverage of the refugees trying to enter the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans for safety from the approaching force-five Hurricane Katrina, I was incredulous how the people attempting to enter the stadium were being treated by the national guard troops and local police. The people were made to stand for hours outside in the awful Louisiana climate while they were admitted one or two adults at a time so they could be searched 'for firearms and alcohol.' ... There were thousands of poor, mostly black citizens of the lower Louisiana area, many of them little children and sickly elderly, being forced to stand for hours while the government violated their civil rights with forced searches that were patently unconstitutional, unjust and unreasonable under the dire circumstances. 'Don't want to be searched? That's okay ... now turn around, go outside and die!' Big choice...

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle335-20050904-04.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Common Dreams
by Bill Davis

09/06/05

I read somewhere that real news is what they hide from us -- everything else is advertising. The advertising campaign is on -- real news slipped out for a few days and even the journalists who usually do most of the advertising, were stunned and emotional. They will be put back in place soon by the bombast of General Honore and the earnest level-headed drama of Clinton and the threat of Bush the Matriarch. But what the journalists saw in New Orleans was not just grisly images -- they saw the barbaric consequences of the policy drift of America -- a drift they must wonder if they had a hand in creating...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0906-20.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

LewRockwell.Com
by Bill Barnwell

09/07/05

It's either a pure dishonesty or an illogical mind that says that a person can't support the troops without supporting the war. If by 'support' it means to keep them in harm's way forever fighting battles where they never needed to be in the first place, then I guess no, no anti-war person can 'support the troops.' But if by 'support' it means to actually care about the lives of these people, desire that they get out of harms way, be back with their families, and demand that they actually be used for national defense and not for politicians' imperialistic impulses, then yes, we can and do support them just fine. The fact is that 'The Troops' have become political footballs for individuals on both sides of the war debate, but more shamelessly so by hyper pro-war zealots. They use the troop card to silence and stifle debate. Since they can't debate the facts and surrounding circumstances of this war they resort to vilifying dissenters with scare tactics which seek to prevent them from speaking out unless they want their humanity and patriotism questioned...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/barnwell/barnwell51.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

09/07/05

The myths of American impregnability have been debunked, one by one, first by 9/11, then by the disastrous aftermath of our glorious 'victory' in Iraq, and now, with Katrina, by the very forces of Nature. It's as if, on the road to Benevolent Global Hegemony, a giant Invisible Hand had appeared on the horizon, commanding us to "Stop!" These failures, enumerated above, are all the failures of government -- and, in spite of a concerted effort by the liberal-left and the neocon right to cast these events as pointing to the need for more governmental authority, the observant empiricist will insist quite the contrary...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7173


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Reason
by Matt Welch

09/06/05

All along Hurricane Katrina's Evacuation Belt, in cities from Houston to Baton Rouge to Leesville, Louisiana, the exact same rumors are spreading faster than red ants at a picnic. The refugees from the United States' worst-ever natural disaster, it is repeatedly said, are bringing with them the worst of New Orleans' now-notorious lawlessness: looting, armed carjacking, and even the rape of children. 'By Thursday,' the Chicago Tribune's Howard Witt reported, 'local TV and radio stations in Baton Rouge ...were breezily passing along reports of cars being hijacked at gunpoint by New Orleans refugees, riots breaking out in the shelters set up in Baton Rouge to house the displaced, and guns and knives being seized.' The only problem -- none of the reports were true...

http://www.reason.com/links/links090605.shtml


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

WBIR-TV

09/06/05

Hurricane Katrina has become the Homeland Security Department's first big test. Since the department was created after the 9/11 attacks to prevent and respond to catastrophes, it has spent tens of billions of dollars, studied disaster scenarios of every imaginable kind and run some of the nation's biggest emergency response drills. It should have been ready for just about anything. But it wasn't ready for the power of Katrina. Today, as workers struggle to provide better relief for survivors, Congress will begin investigating why the government's response was so slow. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., leaders of the Senate Homeland Security committee, will discuss their committee's plan for an inquiry into the response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency is the disaster-response division of the Homeland Security Department. 'We intend to demand answers as to how this immense failure occurred,' the senators said in a statement...

http://www.wbir.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=28429&provider=rss


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CNN

09/05/05

Volunteer physicians are pouring in to care for the sick, but red tape is keeping hundreds of others from caring for Hurricane Katrina survivors while health problems rise. Among the doctors stymied from helping out are 100 surgeons and paramedics in a state-of-the-art mobile hospital, developed with millions of tax dollars for just such emergencies, marooned in rural Mississippi. 'The bell was rung, the e-mails were sent off. ...We all got off work and deployed,' said one of the frustrated surgeons, Dr. Preston 'Chip' Rich of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 'We have tried so hard to do the right thing. It took us 30 hours to get here,' he said. That government officials can't straighten out the mess and get them assigned to a relief effort now that they're just a few miles away 'is just mind-boggling,' he said." [Editor's note: Reminds me of another story that I only saw on my local news, a team of medical personnel from the Medical College of Georgia, waiting since LAST Tuesday to be 'deployed' to the disaster area - MLS]

http://tinyurl.com/bamrk


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.weatherwars.info/

Katrina

"I'm not looking forward to this trip," Bush said as he toured Alabama and Mississippi and headed for Louisiana. "It's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you can imagine," he said.

Read it Now

August 2005 Video

A mixture of hand held video and time-lapse shot in and around Pocatello, Idaho this year.


Read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5.

Find some pieces of the puzzle

"Others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.

So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations.

It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important."

-[Secretary of Defense William Cohen at an April 1997 counterterrorism conference sponsored by former Senator Sam Nunn. Quoted from DoD News Briefing, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy, University of Georgia , Athens , Apr. 28, 1997].

A battle in the skies is waged daily. Some battles are won and others lost. We yet know not which.

For years this massive global project has been under way, but only now is it making it to the forefront of the consciousness of those with curious minds.

These open minds know that every belief system fails; and only fails, under the weight of new truthful information. This is how progress is made, slowly and often only with the passing of a generation of humankind.

The Truth

It would appear to be an indelible human trait that the 'truth' about most issues usually goes through three distinct phases known colloquially as "the three stages of truth".

During the first stage, the issue goes unnoticed and is ignored.

The second stage is characterized by a period of vehement denial.

The third stage witnesses the truth about the issue being recognized as self-evident.

The intent of my work here is to skip directly to this third stage of truth. Time does not allow for us to bicker over the obvious.

Visit the site of Tom Bearden. His work is pioneering in this field. His latest paper is absolutely essential in understanding how this scalar technology works, how long it has been active, who runs it and why and finally what it is immediately capable of.

He also discusses what kinds of events are planned for the U.S. in the coming two to three years. This man deserves the Prize for his research.

The following is a brief excerpt from his most recent paper dated October 13, 2004.

So in early 1990, the weather engineering operations over North America were assumed from the FSB/KGB by the Yakuza/Aum Shinrikyo teams, and operations continued with the Yakuza's leased giant scalar interferometers.

The weather engineering against the United States continues today under the rogue Japanese teams on site in Russia, with direct FSB/KGB supervision.

In 2004 we have entered the 2-year "final preparation phase". These operations have been intensified and will continue to be intense, wreaking great economic damage.

Hurricanes Charlie, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, etc. have been no exception to the Yakuza weather engineering, which included directly influencing and controlling each hurricane's power and behavior, as well as directing its course and speed so as to choose its targeting path. Indeed, Ivan did a 180 degree turn, and Jeanne did a 360 degree loop before reaching Florida, demonstrating the degree of control available.

Meteorologists do recognize periods of increased or decreased hurricane activity for various reasons, but they do not consider deliberate human induction of hurricanes or human control over their direction, power, and progress.

Indeed, in latter March of 2004, Hurricane Catarina -- the first-ever recorded hurricane in the South Atlantic-- formed and came ashore in Brazil on March 28 with 90 mph winds, doing substantial damage.

So while the conventional wisdom is that hurricanes cannot form (naturally) in the South Atlantic; this one did and "broke all the records".

It appears to have been a "deliberate probe" by the Yakuza:

Produce and drive ashore a hurricane where the textbooks state one is impossible, to test whether Western governments and scientists recognize the artificial weather engineering .

The answer, of course, is that -- as expected -- the West did not recognize its importance, or that it was a deliberate "stimulus."

Western meteorologists and governments simply shrugged off Hurricane Catarina as an interesting little phenomenon but of no great concern.

For conventional consideration of hurricane increases, see (a) Lennart Bengtsson, "Hurricane Threats," Science, Vol. 293, 20 July 2001 p. 440-441; (b) Stanley B. Goldenberg et al ., "The Recent Increase in Atlantic Hurricane Activity: Causes and Implications," Science, Vol. 293, 20 July 2001 p. 474-479.

This full 60 page paper is a MUST read! http://www.cheniere.org/articles/

As a television weatherman I first met this information with skepticism, who wouldn't?

Almost completely rejecting the concept that weather modification outside of cloud seeding possible.

Additional clues kept creeping in until I came across examples of scalar weather engineering on Tom Bearden's web site. Soon I began looking for my own examples in my own skies. Whoa! There they were! And not just occasionally, but all the time!

Examples in highs clouds were the easiest to spot, much less convective turbulence to round out the edges.

Mid level clouds. the alto cumulus are now frequently gridded and square. Odd, very odd I thought. Lower clouds, cumulus and stratus, especially in a marine layer environment seem to be the most difficult in which to see the active grid. But it is there. I must also admit living in the desert climate of the Northern Rockies, which does not afford me much opportunity to get practiced with that kind of marine air mass.

Spotting activity in clouds is but one aspect of this global war.

Evidence can be gleaned from satellite imagery; weather service doppler radars frequently give up these scalar secrets too.

Contrails and chemtrails, without question, are a big part of this game. There must be aspects as yet unknown; that some curious mind will share with us as this war game develops further and as more eyes are opened and see.

It must be understood by all that the entirety of this planet's atmospheric weather processes are now controlled. All of it, completely 24/7/365!

The paradigm shift for all weathermen is now trying to forecast some organization's intent, and not the natural meteorological processes of earth's atmosphere.

This adds yet another element of unknown to an already challenging field. The premise of this site is that you have a working understanding of basic meteorological processes.

My building this site was an inevitability.

I am just the first of a very bright group of individuals who have to look at information that is of varying reliability and quality on a day to day basis. draw conclusions from that data, then present those conclusions of that data to very large audiences.

The weather industry will convert quickly, very quickly.

Simply put this is a yes or no proposition; it is occurring or it is not. Even a cursory look at this site yields foundation-moving questions for weather guys, and moves the mind into this reality.

The end game has arrived, just as the powers that be knew it would.

My only question is whether it is later or earlier than their anticipation.

This planet's destiny is set. only the details have yet to occur.

Our branch of humanity has in its future the possibility of regaining our sovereignty; that issue yet remains to be determined.

If humanity only knew that this choice presently exists. The alarm bells are ringing, it is time to wake-up.


Informant: Friends

http://www.oxfordpress.com/news/content/shared/news/nation/stories/09/02KATRINA_FEDS.html


Informant: Hopedance

Aviation Week & Space Technology September 5, 2005 Pg. 50

Directed energy takes an unexpected turn and surfaces as a handy antimissile device that can be built into aircraft, ship and ground-based radars

By David A. Fulghum and Douglas Barrie

Radar is emerging as one of the key weapons--nearly all of them still shrouded by secrecy--in the Pentagon's growing arsenal of nonexplosive devices.

Knowledge that radar can produce violent effects on electronic systems is not new. More than 20 years ago, bomber aircraft radars were capable of generating enough concentrated noise jamming to burn out the valve amps (tube amplifiers) in fighters attempting an interception. The emergence over the last few years of the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, and its ability to provide high average power for appreciable times, makes such electronically destructive devices all the more attractive and effective.

The weapons-effect utility of the AESA will provide a useful adjunct to other "nonkinetic"--not relying on explosives or impact--weapons research being done in the U.S. and in Europe. The intent is to develop an arsenal of weaponry that limits, or perhaps eliminates, collateral damage and unintended casualties, a particular concern with civilians in countries that coalition forces are trying to aid.

Arrays designed for carriage by aircraft appear to be focused on cruise missiles and self-defense against anti-radiation, home-on-jam and air-to-air missiles. The radars seem particularly effective against the latter categories because energy available to focus on the approaching missile increases as an inverse square as distance decreases.

With large ground- or sea-based AESA-type arrays, the targets are to include ballistic missile warheads, supersonic sea-skimming missiles or shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that threaten airport operations.

Some of the airborne AESA radars, designed for X-band frequencies, use thousands of small transmitters/receivers, each a couple of inches square, that allow the array to conduct many tasks simultaneously. Those include detection of small, even stealthy targets, tracking and communications. Along with the AESA's high average power, there are also bandwidth benefits and the ability to utilize flexible waveforms.

They can also be used for "jamming," a term now encompassing weapons effects on enemy electronics from the right combination of power, waveform, frequency and pulse length. Possible AESA techniques for attacking another radar could include burning through the target radar's antenna side-lobes, filter side-lobes, or other known features of the target system. Radar specialists suggest it is reasonable to suppose this capability is already available to some fielded systems.

The AESA transmitters can also be focused on other targets to deliver bursts of X-band radio frequency energy into the vulnerable electronics of missiles--the current focus--or enemy aircraft and helicopters or computer systems. Under such assault, computers become confused and missiles lose interest in their targets.

MOREOVER, THE AESA radar is related to high-power microwave (HPM) just beginning to emerge as missile defense systems. The primary difference is that AESA radars produce a sustained pulse for microseconds over a limited frequency range to create an effect while HPM produces a one-pico-sec. pulse of much greater power over gigahertz of frequencies, says a long-time Pentagon radar specialist. A laser beam, by comparison, would have to be held on the target for several seconds.

Some industry specialists say such descriptions oversimplify the technology because both AESA radars and HPM can produce a variety of pulse lengths and bandwidths. They contend the only difference between AESA radars and HPM systems are the waveforms and RF power levels. Both systems use the same electronics technologies and those electronics are optimized for the performance needed to achieve the desired radar or HPM effect. That goal is often to confuse or damage enemy electronics.

These capabilities aren't openly discussed. Moreover, those with knowledge of the technology offer many caveats.

"It's not wise to characterize all AESA radars as potential weapons," says an aerospace industry expert in advanced radars. "Most radars are for defensive purposes only." Also, "one does not need an AESA to turn a radar into a weapon. It can be done with other technologies. High power is required, but beyond that, it's mostly a software issue.

"Wide bandwidth is needed in order to find a vulnerable frequency for the target," he says. "Purpose-built HPM systems would be better in this than most AESAs."

THE NEWLY EMERGING "HPM [devices] come in different flavors," says a second industry specialist. "It can make it uncomfortable for a human being to be in the beam by relying on high average power to heat the skin. Another is used to confuse or burn out missile seekers. The level of peak and/or average power depends on the specific technique being used to counter the threat.

"In general, high peak power is not unique to HPM [devices]," he says. "Radars also use high peak power in long-range search modes, and AESA [arrays] are used for both. The discriminators are the waveform properties and techniques, which include power, duty cycle, pulse length, etc., to counter the various threats, not the technology that goes into the AESA itself. AESA [arrays] support HPM, radar, communications and electronic warfare applications. What makes them unique are the properties of the waveforms that are transmitted."

There are AESAs fielded that operate at HF frequencies (re-locatable over the horizon radar) to millimeter waves (communications and other radar applications). The transmitter/receiver (T/R) modules for these devices can range from several feet to less that 1/4-in. square. Moreover, many frequencies beyond Xband can be exploited to produce weapons effects.

AESA radars on fighter aircraft aren't particularly suited to create weapons effects on missiles because of limited antenna size, power and field of view, a senior U.S. Air Force official says. And, while weapons effects from radars are interesting, "There's no requirement yet for the capability," at least on smaller aircraft, he says. The military's primary concern for now is high-resolution radar with moving target and synthetic aperture capabilities.

While it's easier to plug the energy-hungry system into city electrical power grids as ground-based systems or the Navy's next generation of electric-propulsion ships such as DD(X), the capability is also quickly moving into airborne systems.

A weapons capability exists in a handful of F-15Cs modified with the APG-63(V)2 radars for cruise missile defense and the latest production F/A-18E/Fs. It will soon be part of the F/A-22 and B-2 as part of their radar upgrades, and AESA is also to equip the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. HPM is eventually to be part of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System payload, and the huge 4 X 21-ft. MP-RTIP AESA radar array is to fly on the E-10. An AESA array is also to be carried by the British Astor.

As to weapons effects, the AESA radar offers the best way to generate high, sustained power where countermeasures demand average power, the radar specialist says. However, weapons effects or countermeasures will vary depending on the target's sensitivities. Very high peak power, short duration pulse may be the best method for attacking enemy electronics. In that case, the attack might better and more cheaply be delivered by an HPM weapon. An AESA is best used where it can use its radar function to locate the target and focus its energy. It can then rapidly move to other targets and select how long it wants to dwell on each.

The radar's weapons effect is measured in watts/sq. cm. AESA arrays are more efficient and reliable since their RF and low-noise amplifiers are near the radiators so that very little energy is lost. The beam is produced by ganging the effects of thousands of lower-wattage T/R modules.

There are lots of similarities between ground-based HPM systems and AESA radars including the T/R modules. In fact, ground-based HPM is becoming affordable because the proliferations of AESA radars has driven the price of modules down.

"HPM and AESA radar are not much different," said the radar specialist. However, "HPM is not trying to be a radar. It's much simpler to concentrate the beam into a peak power pulse [since it's not busy detecting, tracking and identifying targets]. The instantaneous power it creates can burn out missile front ends [including focal planes and imagers]."

BY COMPARISON, AESA "radar uses more elaborate wave forms that focus on detection," he says. "They put more sustained energy onto enemy missiles and burn out the low noise amplifiers and receivers in a seeker." Other specialists caution this generalization isn't necessarily always true.

While HPM produces higher peak power, AESA often generates greater average power. That produces different operational and targeting strategies. For example, Raytheon's airport protection system uses infrared sensors to find the target and determine where to focus its beam. It also produces effects at longer range, possibly as much as 100 mi., because it produces powerful pulses of energy. AESA radar has the built-in ability to find and track a target, so it can be held on the target for the necessary additional microseconds needed to create its weapons effect.

Some HPM pulses are designed to be very broadband, covering "many gigahertz" of frequencies, so they are more likely to find any opening or vulnerability in a target, the radar specialist says. AESA radar has a narrower frequency range, but it uses its radar capability to identify a target, search a library for its vulnerable frequencies and then tailor the signal for the specific target.


Theresa Hitchens
Director, CDI
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036
tel: 202-797-5269
fax: 202-462-4559
email: thitchens@cdi.org


From Global Network

Schneller, hilfreicher, unmittelbarer: Weblogs haben sich bei der Hurrikan-Katastrophe als unverzichtbares Medium erwiesen.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20864/1.html

USA: erste große Maßnahmen nach dem Hurrikan - Die mentale Krisenverarbeitung führt zu bestürzenden Erkenntnissen.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20877/1.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9228086/

Can you believe THIS? Of course you can!


Informant: dmetke

From ufpj-news

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/479


Informant: NHNE

Got two more minutes? We've just started marching and we need your help to keep spreading the word. Tell your friends, your family, your co-workers, everyone you know to join us on the virtual march.

Strength in numbers is a simple fact. And we need you to spread this along for a simple reason. Despite mounting scientific evidence, the United States is still dragging its feet to take action to address the problem.

As a member of the Stop Global Warming Virtual March on Washington, you receive your own personal web page where you can invite your friends to join you on the March, track your progress and those of your invitees and share why you think it's time for us to stop global warming.

Visit your page often to invite your friends, family and colleagues to join the March. And please take the time to let us know why you are marching.

Over the next year, we'll be featuring stories from people like you who have busy daily lives, kids to feed, and mountains to climb. But you're still taking time to get involved. Because it is that important.

Thanks again for speaking out against this critical problem.

Laurie David, Founder

Thankyou for marching!

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/campaigns/sgw/impact/3011134bf473ddc60972a259f3258d8a/


This message was sent by Care2 Connect member: Tracey Claxton

Birmingham Council’s brave stand to refuse masts near schools is probably doomed to failure if it has to go up against Prescott. He could be reminded of his infamous legal challenge, but as we all know, he never had any intention of winning that battle – and he will certainly not support B’ham council in this – he will hide behind the law he made!

My (purely personal) view is that there is really only one way to fight this and win. People Power. If Birmingham parents took their children out of those schools which were near masts, and refused to let them go back until the masts were removed – the government would HAVE to take notice, especially if the publicity triggered mass action further afield ie nationwide. This direct action by parents would be a huge embarrassment to the Government, and could have the potential to force a change of policy. It’s the scale of the action that would determine its success. If it was big enough, what government would want to be seen as going up against parents, city / nationwide, whose only crime is to put their childrens’ health before the profits of global big business? It’s not a vote winner! And they have Stewart’s recommendation as a weapon to further embarrass Prescott and Blair.

As a charity I realise we can no longer suggest or even hint at direct action, let alone do it. A great shame, I think. Dr Ian Gibson MP seems to support direct action and expressed amazement that it wasn’t happening. Frankly, with 3G going up like there was no tomorrow, I think our efforts of gentle persuasion and convincing scientific arguments, laudable though they undoubtedly are, mean very little to the powers that be. They may not be laughing at us any more, in fact I’m sure they now take us very seriously, but so what, if all they do is propose limited action in some distant future, when they know it will be too late. That’s the Government/Industry tactic we face - and we are unlikely to overcome it in time to save ourselves and our children. That is the reality.

I do not write this as a member of Mast Sanity, but as someone who is angry and frustrated by the complete lack of morality of this government. As a private individual therefore, I desperately hope that campaigns across the country will ask themselves what tactics they can employ to achieve their goal. Perhaps removing their children from schools near masts might triumph where prayers and reasoned argument have failed.

Jenny

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This is the link to the full Birmingham Post report

The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments: Shortcut to:
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/birminghampost/news/tm_objectid=15936910%26method=full%26siteid=50002%26headline=city%2dmay%2dlift%2dphone%2dmast%2dban%2d-name_page.html

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Jen, I've just been talking to Lynne Insley (SCRAM) about this, because I wasn't aware that BCC had taken this decision, and I wanted to check that I hadn't missed anything while I was away. It turns out that Lynne and the rest of the SCRAM committee aren't aware of this policy either - so none of us campaigners have been consulted or informed about this policy, which seems very strange, as the Scrutiny Committee which was responsible for lifting the ban on masts on Council Land have all of our contact details, and usually fall over themselves to be 'seen' to act even when they've no intention of representing the public. Certainly, the fiasco I witnessed on the day the ban was lifted was a disgrace, and we were sold out completely. So, in a nutshell, I smell a rat with regards to this policy, and suspect that it is a publicity stunt by BCC to offset their atrocious performance when they lifted the ban....BUT....if it turns out to be a genuine move on the part of the City Council, rest assured that there will be a very high profile campaign, and Two Jags Prezzer will find that he has bitten off more than he can chew, as his colleagues in the education department could well be cursing him - there are already parents in nearby North Warwickshire keeping their children off school because of the masts at Coleshill (their MP is Solicitor General Mike O'brien). If Bham City Council are acting honestly, (for a change) then I forsee a lot of action!

Take care,

Amanda

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The plot thickens then! Thanks a lot for the info Amanda - so good to hear from you and to know that it's all happening down there, and the b....'s aren't going to be allowed to get away with anything. Massive direct action could win the day. Whatever BCC's motives, in the end it's going to be down to the parents. They need to band together and act in force. You know the old saying 'United we stand, divided we fall ...' You take care, too! Jenny

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City may lift phone mast ban

Sep 6 2005

Birmingham Post

By Paul Dale, Chief Reporter

An attempt by Birmingham City Council to stop mobile phone masts being sited close to schools and hospitals could be declared illegal.

The Government Office for the West Midlands has lodged an objection to the council's telecommunications policy, which it says is out of step with national planning guidelines.

There should be no no-go areas for masts, according to the Government.

GOWM's decision could lead to formal intervention by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, forcing the council to backtrack.

A report to the council cabinet sets out GOWM's view that the introduction of sensitive areas where masts would not normally be permitted could inhibit the growth of telecommunications systems.

Local authorities should not seek to exclude masts from certain areas, according to GOWM.

Council planners say their policy is justified given the concerns expressed in the 2004 Stewart Report, which raised the possibility that radiation from masts could be harmful, particularly to children.

In its response to GOWM, the council said: "The main objective of the policy is to ensure that there is full consideration of alternatives and that telecommunications equipment is sited in optimal locations which take account of technical considerations, visual obtrusiveness and other amenity issues.

"There is no blanket ban or cordon sanitaire, nor does the policy define a minimum distance between telecommunications equipment and existing development.

"The policy does not state that all applications within sensitive areas should be refused, but that they should be avoided in such areas, where possible."

Mick Wilkes, chairman of the council's main scrutiny committee, who championed the sensitive sites policy, said it was significant that none of the mobile phone companies had objected to the stance on schools and hospitals.

Coun Wilkes (Lib Dem Hall Green) added: "The intervention by the Government Office seems unhelpful and out of kilter with what most people would regard as a desirable policy.

"We should not yield ground on this issue because we are absolutely right."

Operators are seeking about 200 new sites in Birmingham to help to roll out the third generation of mobile phones.

Earlier this year the council lifted a ban on siting new masts on local authority property.

The masts row is one of several issues raised by people and organisations objecting to modifications to the Birmingham Unitary Development Plan - setting out development rules over the next decade.

Advantage West Midlands, the regional development agency, is opposing the council's wishes to promote only high-technology employment in the A38 Central Technology Belt, which includes the MG Rover site at Longbridge.

AWM believes the policy is inflexible and that other uses should be allowed.

Supermarket giants Sainsbury's is also objecting on the grounds that all large sites have been allocated for hightech employment.

Other retail operators are objecting to the council's " restrictive" policy making it difficult to obtain planning permission for superstores on sites close to the outer ring road.

Companies including Tesco and Morrison want the council to undertake a study to discover the extent of consumer demand for supermarkets.

Is the council right to ban mobile phone masts near schools and hospitals?

--------

Councillor Wilkes is the very same man who stood in the Council Chamber and told Councillors that they could not vote against lifting the ban if they used a Mobile! As he's the head of the scrutiny committee responsible for the lifting of the ban, it's ironic that he's referred to in the article as the instigator of a ban which the City Council must know that the ODPM are going to block, they were given enough evidence. I could, of course, be mistaken, and there is always the possibility that BCC might just put their money where their mouth is. I've sent the following email hedging bets:

The City Council should certainly stand their ground on this issue and act in accordance with the Precautionary Principle. However, if the ban on masts on Council Properties/land had not been lifted, the Council would have at least been able to keep the power to refuse masts on their land near to schools.

If the arrogance and doublespeak of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to date is anything to go by, the City Council will be steamrollered into submission.

We have a number of examples of he ODPM's failure to intervene effectively in cases where they could and should have, Winchester and Harrogate among them. It will be interesting to see how much effort they put into this intervention.

It is up to parents and residents to support a ban on masts near schools and nurseries by making their views known to the City Council and to the ODPM.

Any parents who are concerned and want to contact the relevant departments should contact the Scrutiny Committee to support the ban, and also their MPs and the ODPM if possible.

Any parents or residents requiring further information concerning masts near to schools etc can email amanda.wesley@mastsanity.org or visit
http://www.mastsanity.org or http://www.scram.uk.com

Advantage West Midlands are also one of the sponsors of a project to provide young people with Mobiles that we complained about a while ago, I remember being incensed and asking John Hemming, who was then deputy leader of Bham CC and is now MP for Yardley South, where their funding came from. He told me that they get their funding from the Government, not the Local Authority, so there can be no mistake about whose interests are being represented by 'Advantge' West Midlands!

I'll pass some information on to one of our local journos and see if they pick it up, but there is so much corruption in this nest of vipers that I believe that our local rag are also wary about who they upset, as has been the case in the past.

Amanda

Hôpital Nord de Marseille
Connaître la vérité = Procédure engagée

http://www.next-up.org/hnm/hnm.php

URL FOR THIS PHOTOGRAPH: http://makeashorterlink.com/?V25D15DBB

Reuters - Mon Sep 5,12:11 AM ET Cuban doctors sit with their backpacks during a speech by Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana September 4, 2005. Castro put on display some 1,500 doctors equipped with medical supplies on Sunday in hopes of persuading arch-enemy the U.S. to allow them to treat victims of Hurricane Katrina. Castro, in a televised meeting with the doctors, said the U.S. had not responded to his offer to send medical workers and 26 tonnes of supplies to the devastated U.S. Gulf Coast.

REUTERS/Claudia Daut

Details of the Cuban offer and more photographs:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-09-02-2005.html


Informant: Walter Lippmann

Cindy Sheehan on Bush's Dangerous Incompetence

"George Bush has been an incompetent failure his entire life. Fortunately, for humanity, he was just partying his way through school, running companies into the ground and being an alcoholic and cocaine abuser for most of that time and his incompetence was limited to hurting the people who worked for him and his own family. The people in his life who were hurt by his incompetence probably have been able to "get on" with their lives. Now, though, his incompetence affects the world and is responsible for so many deaths and so much destruction. How many of us did not foresee the mess he would make of the world when he was selected the first time? We saw what he had done to Texas. How many of us marvelled and were so discouraged and amazed when he was "re-elected" the second time? We saw what he had done to the world. Dangerous incomptence should never be rewarded, let alone be rewarded so handsomely as in George's case."
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/2598

Resolution of Inquiry into Bush Lies: Time for Action
Congress is back in session after summer break, and there are now 61 co-sponsors of Barbara Lee's Resolution of Inquiry into the Downing Street Memos - including one Republican member of the International Relations Committee, Jim Leach. A vote in committee will come between Sept. 6 and Sept. 15. Now is the time to contact YOUR congress member. Whether or not they serve on the IR Committee, we need them to co-sponsor the Resolution. They come back to work on Tuesday. Call them first thing!

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/902


Sign the People's Petition

Hurricane Katrina underscored the need to bring our troops home from Iraq starting immediately - before the next devastating hurricane hits. Have you signed the petition for an exit strategy? Has everyone you know done so? Please make sure you can say Yes before September 15:

http://www.peoplespetition.org/


"Bring the Troops Home Now" Bus Tour Is Met by Enthusiastic Crowds

Three buses left Crawford for Washington DC on August 31, and every stop they make is being met by warm, enthusiastic crowds. Find out when they will pass through your town:

http://www.bringthemhomenowtour.org/


Out of Iraq Hearings and Rally in D.C. on September 15

The DC-area peace movement will rally against the war in front of the White House following Democrat-led hearings on an exit strategy hosted by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). This is one of many smaller events building up to September 24th. Learn more:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/2369


Be Part of the Largest Anti-War Effort

Join the massive mobilization against the war in Washington, D.C., on September 24, and stick around for workshops and trainings on the 25th, followed by a day of lobbying and civil disobedience on the 26th.

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/septmobe


Sign Up for Exciting Workshops in DC on Sept. 25

These events, organized by Progressive Democrats of America, will include a discussion with Cindy Sheehan, as well as a focus on the Downing Street Memos and remarks by John Bonifaz, Co-Founder of After Downing Street.

http://www.pdamerica.org/articles/events/sept2005/index.php


From the Democrats.com Blog:

Fix America Now
Katrina Aftermath Produces More Demands to Impeach Bush
Joe 'Funeralgate' Allbaugh Destroyed FEMA
How a REAL President Responds to Disaster
FEMA Director Mike Brown is a Horse's Ass
Poverty Rate Rises to 12.7%, Are You Better Off Than You Were 4 1/2 Yrs. Ago?
Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to Our Feckless MisLeader
Operation Yellow Elephant
Missing the Forest for the Uprooted Floating Trees

http://democrats.com


FORWARD THIS EMAIL

The Law of Vaccination - Toward Radical Reform
http://www.lippmannforcongress.us/vaccination.htm


Informant: Milo

by Robert Dreyfuss, TomPaine.com

The call for an end to the war is gaining steam -- with middle America and even some Republicans chiming in.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050906/the_tipping_point_on_iraq.php

by Russ Baker, TomPaine.com

The media woke up from their pro-administration fog this weekend to deliver critical reporting on Katrina's aftermath.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050906/the_medias_labor_day_revolution.php

by E.J. Graff, TomPaine.com

The Bush administration turned its back on the most basic of American moral values: banding together to care for each other in ways no one of us can do alone.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050906/when_the_saints_dont_go_marching_in.php

Natural calamities provide the EXCUSE FOR TYRANNY. The sequence of steps that have been taken, in this country, is the most common pathway to dictatorship.

In every call for more power for government there should be a reminder that nothing in the measure will abrogate the constitutional rights of American citizens. We must not destroy freedom in the name of defending freedom. Be careful about elimination of rights, or the setting up of totalitarian instruments.

Creating terrorism provides the EXCUSE FOR TYRANNY.

THE SHEEPLE ASK: "You would rather we let or guard down and suffer terrorist attacks on our own soil?" "Can't the government cut a few corners to help with natural calamities?"

Government officials making searches without warrants, demanding identification without probable cause, to believe that a crime has been committed IS a terrorist attack on our own soil. For Hitler, the national emergency was the burning of the Reichstag Building. Then he set up the Gestapo.

We have 9-11 and "HomeLand Security". It even sounds like "Fatherland"

Totalitarians gain power through techniques that have been developed over the entire history of mankind. Most of these techniques have been written down in "training manuals" for would be dictators.

Examples are:

"And Not a Shot is Fired" by Jan Kozak,

"The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx,

Communist Manifesto - $3.00
http://aobs-store.com/books/title/c_title.htm

and "The Prince" by Nicolo Machiavelli.

These techniques have also been revealed by "defectors" such as Eric Blair, who wrote "1984", under the pen name of George Orwell.

Nineteen Eighty Four (1984) by Orwell - $5.95
http://aobs-store.com/books/title/n_title.htm

The book called "Tragedy and Hope" was written by Dr. Carroll Quigley. Carroll Quigley claimed that he was not a "defector" but that he wrote ""Tragedy and Hope"" to PROMOTE what he called the "network". Dr. Quigley is an authority on the world's secret power structure because HE IS ONE OF THE INSIDERS. He boasts that he has been a part of this network for most of his life. He writes approvingly of their power, and influence. To assure his readers of his own qualifications for the writing of this book, Dr. Quigley states:

"I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies. . . but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known."

Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time - $39.95

Liberal university college professor Carroll Quigley praises the efforts of "an international Anglophile network" whose goal is to rule the world. He boasts of having been permitted “to examine its papers and secret records,” and confirms the existence of an over-arching conspiracy, and details the origin and eventual power of the CFR and allied groups. (1997 ed, 1348pp, hb)

http://www.aobs-store.com/books/title/t_title.htm

How to become a dictator

The creation of "emergencies" is a part of the totalitarian agenda. The creation of "emergencies" gives the government an excuse to "crack down". Then the creation of tyranny becomes justifiable and inevitable.

When "emergencies" erupt the population accepts totalitarian measures as "the only alternative to the chaos". The action is in the REACTION.

This tactic is called "pressure from above and pressure from below".

The Communist book, called "And Not a Shot is Fired" by Jan Kozak , explains this entire strategy. Jan Kozak, who was then a member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee, explains how a free government was actually transformed into a totalitarian dictatorship - legally. "And Not a Shot Is Fired" originated as an internal Czechoslovak Communist Party strategy paper.

"And Not a Shot is Fired" is a "'how-to' manual for takeover of a free and elected system of government, through legal means. Kozak's discussion is not theory about what "might" be possible to accomplish the seizure of power. It is a history of a technique that was actually proven, by its implementation.

And Not a Shot Is Fired by Kozak - $6.95

Jan Kozak explains

http://aobs-store.com/books/title/a_title.htm

Pressure from above is what Jan Kozak called "revolutionary parliamentarianism". "Revolutionary parliamentarianism" means working INSIDE of the system to change laws in such a way as to increase the power of government.

Pressure from below consists of the creation of the "emergencies"; which are then used as the excuses to increase the power of government. Karl Marx referred to pressure from below as "the proletarian struggle". Pressure from below might involve violence, or it might simply be the creation of the appearance of popular support for the increase in the power of government.

Our government leaves our border WIDE OPEN to illegal aliens, but then claims to "protect" us, by creating totalitarian measures against law abiding American citizens.

John Perna

This is excellent to show the failure of the government to ACT in behalf of its people!!

Annie


Subject: Presidential failure in photos

Hi Carol: I found the photos. DC

Presidential failure in photos
http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/8/31/9520/46323

As Katrina Struck, Bush Vacationed
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/08/30/as-katrina-struck-bush-vacationed/

News MyWay
by Ron Fournier

09/01/05

Robin Lovin, ethics professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said it's too convenient to blame one branch of government when they are all, at some level, failing people. From Watergate to Clinton's impeachment, governmental institutions have disappointed the public. "Bush, Congress, the mayor - each of them are symptoms of a bigger problem, that we don't have accountability for disasters or challenges of this scale," Lovin said. "That's all the public wants in trying times - accountability." Thus, Americans are doing what people do when government lets them down - they're turning to each other. Donations are pouring into charities. Internet sites are being used to find relatives. Residents of far-off states are opening their homes to victims. The community spirit is reminiscent of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. So is the second-guessing. It will happen again after the next crisis. You've heard the warnings: a cataclysmic California earthquake, another terrorist strike, a flu pandemic, a nuclear plant meltdown, a tsunami, the failure to address mounting U.S. debt - and on and on. Will the public and its leaders be better prepared next time?

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050901/D8CBNMA88.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

National Geographic
by Joel K. Bourne, Jr.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched .... Yet just as the risks of a killer storm are rising, the city's natural defenses are quietly melting away. From the Mississippi border to the Texas state line, Louisiana is losing its protective fringe of marshes and barrier islands faster than any place in the U.S. Since the 1930s some 1,900 square miles (4,900 square kilometers) of coastal wetlands—a swath nearly the size of Delaware or almost twice that of Luxembourg—have vanished beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Despite nearly half a billion dollars spent over the past decade to stem the tide, the state continues to lose about 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) of land each year, roughly one acre every 33 minutes... [Editor's note: Predicting the disaster in 2004 and showing what happens from environmental devastation... -MLS](2004)

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

--------

An amazing story written by National Geographic in 2004 which validates the theory that the horrible tragedy provoked by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans could have been avoided if negligence didn't happened.

Angostura1819

CounterPunch
by Alexander Cockburn

09/03/05

Nature really kicks the door down once in a while, and let's us know how humans have made a mess of things .... There are all sorts of bargains the rich and the powerful in any society make with the poor. But one way or another ­through bread, circuses, the dole, the promise that Anyone Can Make It there's the offer of a deal: Don't make trouble: we'll take care of you. Empires collapse when the offer the "marginal rate of return" becomes empty: we won't take care of you. Or, we can't take care of you. We don't need you and we're not frightened of you. We're at that point here. Malthus, a Christian, proposed locating the surplus poor next to unhealthy marshes, in the hope they would get sick and die. How much of a difference is there between that and the "emergency preparedness" and evacuation procedures before, during and after Katrina? How did Washington perceive New Orleans and most of the Gulf coast? Basically as a vast huddle of the mostly poor and the mostly black. So, year after year, they denied funds to shore up levees that all experts agree are bound to give way in more than a Force Three storm. They hollowed out every state economy so that in the end Mississippi's tax base was its cut of the gambling take, from floating casinos because the Christians said the Devil's Work couldn't take place on dry land...

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09032005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

LA Times
by Robert Hilburn

09/04/05

As we enter the celebrity telethon phase of the Katrina tragedy, NBC's "A Concert for Hurricane Relief" stands as a blueprint for its own kind of institutional failure. By censoring Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West's remarks critical of President Bush during its West Coast feed of the program Friday night, the network violated the most moving and essential moment in an otherwise sterile, self-serving corporate broadcast. "It would be most unfortunate," the network said in a statement defending its action, "if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion."Excuse me, but whose tragedy is this: NBC's or America's?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-critic4sep04,0,6609184.story?coll=la-home-headlines


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Libertarian Enterprise
by L. Neil Smith

09/04/05

Apparently, Hurricane Katrina is not directly responsible for this monumentally rotten state of affairs. As I said above, the city of New Orleans has survived far worse in the past. If this were a game of Clue we're playing, the winning answer to "Who murdered this fine old city?" would have to be: government at every level, with your money, in Washington, D.C., Baton Rouge, and the Crescent City itself. Most of the blame belongs to the feds, of course—especially to the stupefyingly idiotic Chimpanzee-in-Chief currently running it—but there is plenty of blame left over to go around, and it'll be months, years, or possibly forever getting itself sorted out to anybody's satisfaction...

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle335-20050904-02.html



Death from government
The Libertarian Enterprise
by Ron Beattie

09/04/05

What we're seeing in New Orleans is shocking. But it has an even deeper meaning than just a city dying. What we are seeing is a city, and it's people, being murdered by the state...

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle335-20050904-03.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Editor and Publisher
by Greg Mitchell

09/03/05

While a rising chorus in the press has taken the White House, FEMA and the Pentagon to task for performing miserably in their response to the human disaster on the Gulf Coast, few have focused on the most telling aspect of the entire failure. It’s not just incompetence. It’s a shameful lack of concern: The 9/11 “My Pet Goat” dithering on an administration-wide scale. Simply stated, the president and his top advisers chose vacation over action. While the media has done a good job in portraying the overall deadly failure of leadership, it has not focused enough on this deadly dereliction of duty..... And what of FEMA chief Michael Brown? He was so out-of-it that he didn’t even know about 10,000 evacuees living and dying at the Convention Center, even after they had received wide TV coverage for hours and hours. The next day, the president greeted him with, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job'...

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054581


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Tennessean
by Tim Chavez

09/05/05

"The lesson from New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina is clear and frightening: Mother Nature can create a disaster, but it is man who makes a catastrophe. The scenes of devastating destruction and flooding by Katrina pale against the suffering caused by policymakers and leaders who failed to adequately plan for the inevitable and then decided to initially write off a whole group of people when the going got tough. Again, it was the poor and mostly African-Americans who endured the misery and indignity. Most could not evacuate because of a lack of transportation or an elderly loved one who could not be moved or would not go. It would be easy to attach the nation's long history of racism to this outrage, but New Orleans has an African-American mayor...

http://tinyurl.com/d3jnx


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

09/02/05

'No one can escape the influence of a prevailing ideology,' wrote Ludwig von Mises, and Gulf Coast residents know precisely what it means to be trapped — ostensibly by a flood but actually by statist policies and ideological commitments that put the government in charge of crisis management and public infrastructure. For what we are seeing in New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region is the most egregious example of government failure in the United States since September 11, 2001...

http://www.mises.org/story/1902


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Strike the Root
by Szechuan Death

09/05/05

And all of those fools, you and I both, have been mulcted many times over to pay for this fiasco and others just like it. Well? Where's my f***ing refund? I can turn on a satellite receiver and see corpses floating in the flooded-out areas of Bangladesh during monsoon season. I was under the impression that the reason I have my wealth repeatedly confiscated at gunpoint is so that I need not ever see or suffer such tragedy here in America. Isn't that right? .... The problem is, in summary, the wealth-destroying and lie-generating machinery of the State, which chews up productive labor, capital and lives, and spits back shabby half-assed ersatz replicas of effective solutions, all the while mumbling vaguely pleasant-sounding blandishments about "the greater good." These are the problem, not the current Maximum Leader. Keep that in mind. Keep it in everybody else's mind, too. .... Lady Katrina--hateful, murderous b... though she was--has given us many truths in her passage. Those truths are ugly. They were also expensive. Make damn sure, then, that every time you speak on this subject, those truths are driven home, not wasted. Do not permit the facts surrounding this disaster to be spun into a State triumph or "disappeared" into the Memory Hole, as has happened with so many other State failures of our time. To do so is to squander what little good might be salvaged from this farce, this tragedy, this gd... waste...

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/death/death2.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Propeganda Matrix
by staff

09/04/05

Please bring this matter to the attention of the people of the United States. They need to know that New Orleans is deliberately being denied food and water. Perhaps if the people there had food and water, they might not be shooting off guns...

http://propagandamatrix.com/Pages/Sept05/040905killing.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CounterPunch
by David Vest

09/05/05

If New Orleans doesn't radicalize you, what will? Troops "fresh back from Iraq" are at this moment engaged in "hunting down" people defined as "looters." An Army Times report described the mission as a struggle to put down "the insurgency in the city." The only thing to prevent us from describing the Crescent City as Baghdad-on-the-bayou is the thought that Fallujah might be a better analogy, given the scale of destruction. .... Of course the military occupation of New Orleans has been spun as an effort to protect the innocent and the defenseless from thuggery, to "get the city back under control."Having left the people to die in a hurricane (after recommending Greyhound and Amtrak to any of the poor and disabled who wished to evacuate along with the well-to-do), and then having failed to deliver food, water, and medical care, they now wish to "protect" them...

http://www.counterpunch.org/vest09052005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

BBC News
by Matt Wells

09/05/05

As President Bush scurries back to the Gulf Coast, it is clear that this is the greatest challenge to politics-as-usual in America since the fall of Richard Nixon in the 1970s.Then as now, good reporting lies at the heart of what is changing. But unlike Watergate, "Katrinagate" was public service journalism ruthlessly exposing the truth on a live and continuous basis. Instead of secretive "Deep Throat" meetings in car-parks, cameras captured the immediate reality of what was happening at the New Orleans Convention Center, making a mockery of the stalling and excuses being put forward by those in power.

Amidst the horror, American broadcast journalism just might have grown its spine back, thanks to Katrina...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4214516.stm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Yahoo News

09/03/05

Buses taking Hurricane Katrina victims far from the squalor of the Superdome stopped rolling early Saturday. As many as 5,000 people remained in the stadium and could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air National Guard. Officials had hoped to evacuate the last of the crowd before dawn Saturday. Guard members said they were told only that the buses had stopped coming and to shut down the area where the vehicles were being loaded. "We were rolling," Capt. Jean Clark said. "If the buses had kept coming, we would have this whole place cleaned out already or pretty close to it."
Those left behind early Saturday were orderly, sitting down after hearing news that evacuations were temporarily stalled. .... At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday. "How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage. The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, near the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_superdome_hk1


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

ABC News

09/03/05

Thousands more bedraggled refugees were bused and airlifted to salvation Saturday, leaving the heart of New Orleans to the dead and dying, the elderly and frail stranded too many days without food, water or medical care. No one knows how many were killed by Hurricane Katrina's floods and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating among the ruined city, crumpled on wheelchairs, abandoned on highways. And the dying goes on at the convention center and an airport triage center, where bodies were kept in a refrigerated truck...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1094508


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Yahoo! News

09/04/05

In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming "tribes" and dividing up the labor. As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a bar, a bartender put near-perfect stitches into the torn ear of a robbery victim.While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods — humanity. "Some people became animals," Vasilioas Tryphonas said Sunday morning as he sipped a hot beer in Johnny White's Sports Bar on Bourbon Street. "We became more civilized." .... Even without water and power, most preferred it to the squalor and death in the emergency shelters set up at the Superdome and Convention Center. But what had at first been a refuge soon became an ornate prison. Police came through commandeering drivable vehicles and siphoning gas. Officials took over a hotel and ejected the guests. An officer pumped his shotgun at a group trying to return to their hotel on Chartres Street. "This is our block," he said, pointing the gun down a side street. "Go that way'...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050904/ap_on_re_us/katrina_surviving_in_the_quarter_hk1


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Tennessean

09/05/05

Amid the chaos and sweltering heat of the New Orleans Superdome, exhausted survivors of Hurricane Katrina pleaded for help that was slow to come. Hungry, thirsty and desperate for relief, they wondered why their government had led them to shelter, and then abandoned them without basics such as enough food or water. As each day passed, the news media images of desperation fueled the anger U.S. residents directed at the government for failing to keep people in the region safe. 'It looks like everybody's going to have to fend for themselves at this point,' said Jamie Lawhon, 28, of Huntington, W.Va. 'The government has definitely lost some trust.' Sylvia Contreras agrees. 'People I know have never really trusted the government,' said Contreras, 48, of San Jose, Calif. 'This tells them they were right.'" [editor's note: Dare we find a long-term "silver lining" in all of this? Could the realization that "Big Brother cannot save us" be far behind? - SAT]

http://tinyurl.com/9amc5


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Washington Times

09/05/05

Politics is on the minds of many as the federal government comes under fire for not responding fast enough to the devastation caused along the Gulf Coast last week by Hurricane Katrina. One veteran Republican aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suggested that recent Republican gains in Louisiana, a state President Bush carried in 2004, could begin to erode. 'If a vote was taken in Louisiana today, I think we'd all be in the tank,' he said, pointing to the perception that the Bush administration was slow to provide help to New Orleans. Congressional Democrats have begun to point fingers at the Bush administration, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi saying Friday that Mr. Bush displayed a 'failure of leadership' in the early days of the crisis." [editor's note: The only possible good that can come of this would be abolishing FEMA and DHS, and a housecleaning of the administration itself -- and then they can start on the Demeaucrats, who were just as blameworthy! - SAT]

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050904-104833-2040r.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

San Francisco Chronicle

09/05/05

Louisiana's largest newspaper is lashing out at the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. In an open letter to President Bush, the Times-Picayune is calling for every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be fired -- especially director Michael Brown. The editorial says 'We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry.' The newspaper goes on to say 'Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame.' The letter says 'No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced.'" [editor's note: Although the anger is properly directed, it is for the response, not the preparation; the T-P editors seem to ignore the fact that the whole disaster could have mitigated beforehand, were it not for the theft of Congress-appropriated funds that were supposed to reinforce the levees! - SAT]

http://tinyurl.com/axjch


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



An Angry 'Times-Picayune' Calls for Firing of FEMA Chief and Others in Open Letter to President On Sunday

By E&P Staff
Published: September 04, 2005 10:40 AM ET
Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK The Times-Picayune of New Orleans on Sunday published its third print edition since the hurricane disaster struck, chronicling the arrival, finally, of some relief but also taking President Bush to task for his handling of the crisis, and calling for the firing of FEMA director Michael Brown and others. [...] Read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/abkhx


© Virginia Metze

CNN

09/05/05

Sen. Trent Lott berated both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and his own state's emergency management, MEMA, for being mired in red tape at a time of urgent need given the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. Lott said he has been trying to get FEMA to send 20,000 trailers 'sitting in Atlanta' to the Mississippi coast, and he urged President Bush during a meeting Monday to intervene. He said FEMA has refused to ship the trailers until contracts are secured...

http://tinyurl.com/8haup


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

MSNBC

09/05/05

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday that Iraq has become an even greater 'center for terrorist activities' than Afghanistan under the Taliban. Annan, speaking to British Broadcasting Corp., said many young Muslims are angry, and their anger has been exacerbated by what is happening in Iraq. 'They feel victimized in their own society; they feel victimized in the West'...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9220940/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Guardian [UK]

09/06/05

Tony Blair apologised yesterday to Britons who complained of lack of support from the Foreign Office after their Hurricane Katrina ordeal. His comments came as the Foreign Office claimed that British diplomats had been unable to get into New Orleans until Sunday. A spokesman said more than 20 diplomats had been willing to go but requests for permission from the US state department and the Louisiana state government had been repeatedly rebuffed. .... Nine officials from the Foreign Office rapid deployment team had flown to the US on Thursday to support British staff converging on the hurricane-hit area from around the US. "When we were made aware there were Britons in the Superdome, we raised the conditions with the US authorities and not long after that they were moved."
Britons caught up in the hurricane continued to arrive back in the UK yesterday. One family said American police took snapshots of trapped tourists instead of helping them. .... "At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the lobby saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you have got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts. When they said no, they said 'Fine' and motored off down the road in their motorboat"...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1563466,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Independent [UK]

09/05/05

However Vera Smith may have lived her life, one thing was certain. In death, she had no dignity. Killed in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, her body lay under a tarpaulin at the junction of Magazine Street and Jackson Avenue for five full days. Not her friends, her grieving husband, not her neighbours could persuade the authorities to take her corpse away. Finally, disgusted by the way she had been abandoned - and concerned, too, about the health implications of advancing decomposition - her friends buried her in a makeshift grave. A local man fashioned a simple cross, and on top of the soil that was shovelled over her body he placed a white plastic sheet and wrote "Here Lies Vera. God Help Us"...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article310554.ece


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

***SOS***Time to tell the media what's on your mind


Press Release: Fox News and Bill O'Reilly
Date: 9/6/2005 10:57:24 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Mofmars3
To: Oreilly@foxnews.com CC: info@fox16.com, nytimesreporter@nytimes.com buchananandpress@msnbc.com, chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com, CNN@cnn.com, comments@foxnews.com, contact@altermedia.info, countdown@msnbc.com, dan.abrams@msnbc.com, Dateline@nbc.com, editor@globe.com, editor@nytimes.com, editor.reuters@reuters.com, editor@usatoday.com, feedback@nytimes.com, frontline@pbs.org, gazette.emailsrv@wvgazette.com, general@hbo.com, greg@gregpalast.com, hardball@msnbc.com, headliners@msnbc.com, imc- news@lists.indymedia.org, letters@latimes.com, letters@MSNBC.com, letters@nytimes.com, letters@newsweek.com, Imus@msnbc.com, media@gregpalast.com, moveon-help@list.moveon.org, MSNBC_BreakingNews_NewsMail@MSNBC.COM, msnbcinvestigates@msnbc.com, msnbcreports@msnbc.com, nachman@msnbc.com, news@globe.com, newswatch@foxnews.com, newshour@pbs.org, news@worldnetdaily.com, newsroom@4bypass.com, news-tips@nytimes.com, Nightly@NBC.com, niteline@abc.com, oliver@gregpalast.com, Press@moveon.org, speakout@foxnews.com, staff@nytimes.com, TheNews@msnbc.com, webnews@washingtonpost.com, World@MSNBC.com, world@washingtonpost.com, Hannity@foxnews.com, Viewerservices@foxnews.com, Comments@foxnews.com, Foxnewsonline@foxnews.com, Afterhours@foxnews.com, Foxreport@foxnews.com, Atlarge@foxnews.com, Bullsandbears@foxnews.com, Colmes@foxnews.com, Cash@foxnews.com, Heartland@foxnews.com, Cavuto@foxnews.com, Ontherecord@foxnews.com, Dayside@foxnews.com, Special@foxnews.com, Forbes@foxnews.com, Studiob@foxnews.com, Friends@foxnews.com, Beltway@foxnews.com, Foxmagazine@foxnews.com, Myword@foxnews.com, Feedback@foxnews.com, warstories@foxnews.com, FNS@foxnews.com, Newswatch@foxnews.com


Good for Shepard Smith. He made his point eloquently even though Bill attempted to apply the usual spin, Monday night.

The reason Bill's ratings are high, is mainly because many people love to hate him and cannot miss the show.

I used to love him until I learned what he was really made of. His time is short so maybe he should be replaced now, by Shepard or someone more human.

When Bill said they should force the people to leave the flood areas when they refused, because it would mean leaving their pets, what exactly does he mean?

Does he think the military should shoot the pets under the circumstances to encourage them to leave?

If they will rebuild, why not leave those there needing and willing to stay? Maybe it would be just easier to steal all the land to make sure everyone is gone?

What about all the money the differing charity agencies are known for keeping? Can't some be allocated to those who can and are able to start their own rebuilding, now? Give them the damn money like it was donated for instead of what really happens to the majority of it, for a change. How about that? Will you help?

Bill himself, first exposed this type of theft and deception after the 911 tragedy when the Red Cross showed their true colors. I loved Bill then and even wished he were president.

Is Bill encouraging more scams to be perpetrated on the people by not being with them, opposed to being on the side of the already known, corrupt powers that be?

Let's hope not. If Fox News wants to redeem themselves in the eyes of the people, they have to stop helping to enable the criminal element to continue the deceptions the majority of the thinkers are now aware of.

Bill can be seen right through and we want him out of business because we mean business.

For God's sake and the children's, why won't he help "US" as well as all of you at Fox? The other networks are way ahead of you in telling truth in media.

"We The People" need you to help "US" now too. Please!

For the record. Our president doesn't hate black people just as O'Lielly doesn't. It seems they hate all those they consider peasants, equally, no matter what race, color or creed.

Marsha McClelland

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3374/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

Beitrag aus Michael Meyers* Rundbrief „Mobilfunk Sommer 2005“ zur Einmischung der Ärzteschaft und den Reaktionen der Mobilfunkindustrie.

Hier eingestellt von Helmut Breunig

http://f2.webmart.de/f.cfm?id=2888666&r=threadview&a=1&t=2583394

Strahlende Zukunft

Kommentar von Günther Nenning

Wenn man ein Ding, das elektromagnetische Strahlung aussendet, an das empfindliche menschliche Ohr hält, stundenlang, jahrelang, lebenslang - dass so etwas ungesund ist, dazu brauche ich keine wissenschaftliche Untersuchung, das sagt mir der gesunde Menschenverstand.

Weil aber dieser heutzutage nicht reicht, bin ich froh, dass es nun eine Untersuchung der Ärztekammer gibt: Handys können gesundheitsschädlich sein, insbesondere für Kinder.

Dass die Handy-Industrie laut aufschreit, halte ich eher für ein Zeichen schlechten Gewissens als für sonst was. Sie will jeden Österreicher jedes Jahr ein neues Handy anhängen, ein noch schöneres, moderneres, das noch mehr kann als das Handy, das jeder ohnehin schon hat.

Aber ob ihre wunderbaren Handys strahlungssicher sind, hat sie bisher noch nie interessiert. Sie sind es nicht. Die Ohrfeige der Wissenschaft ist wohlverdient.

Die Handy-Konzerne sind in einen mörderischen Konkurrenzkampf verstrickt. Sie erschlagen sich gegenseitig. Jeder will größer und stärker werden und noch besser verdienen. Es ist ein Krieg, in welchem keiner seine Zeit verschwenden will für Nebensachen wie Gesundheit.

In einem sind sich die wild einander konkurrierenden Konzerne aber einig: Sie stürzen sich auf die Ärztekammer. Es sei "verantwortungslos", sich in den blühenden Handy-Markt einzumischen; Motto: Wir wollen Handys verkaufen und nicht über Strahlenschäden diskutieren. Raus mit den Ärzten aus der Handy-Schlacht!

Die Handy-Konzerne sind Großmächte, sie werden sich mit allen Mitteln wehren. Es wird also nötig sein, den mutigen Ärzten beizuspringen.

Was ist wichtiger: dass unsere Kinder schon ab drei Jahren mit eigens für sie entworfenen Handys herumtelefonieren - oder dass ihr Erbgut vor Schädigung geschützt wird? Die Antwort ist selbstverständlich. Aber die Frage nach dem Strahlenschutz stellt sich nicht nur beim Handy für Kleinkinder - sondern sehr viel allgemeiner.

Wir sind unterwegs in die "strahlende Zukunft": Auf dem Globus sind rund fünfhundert Atomkraftwerke und sonstige Atomanlagen in Betrieb. Die von ihnen ausgehende Dauerstrahlung bleibt ununtersucht.

Eine Endlagerung der weiterhin strahlenden Atomabfälle ist nicht gefunden und wird sich auch nicht finden lassen. Das haben wir schon vergessen und verdrängt.

Die von Hochspannungsleitungen verursachte Strahlung - bleibt ununtersucht. Die vom allgegenwärtigen Wald ungezählter Handy-Masten ausgehende Strahlung - bleibt ununtersucht.

Die von den Handys abgestrahlte Schadwirkung steht zwar jetzt aktuell im Mittelpunkt - aber von einer Lösung sind wir weit entfernt. Das ist unsere "strahlende Zukunft": Die Gesundheitswünsche der Bevölkerung und die Verdienstwünsche der Wirtschaft klaffen weit auseinander.

Umso dankbarer müssen wir den Ärzten sein, dass sie den Knäuel der Probleme wenigstens an einem Ende aufgerollt haben.

http://www.krone.at

* Michael Meyer michael_meyer@aon.at Risiko Mobilfunk Österreich Plattform Sozialstaat Österreich - Netzwerk Zivilcourage A - 5165 Berndorf, Stadl 4 Tel/Fax 0043 - 6217 - 8576

By Ted Glick

Future Hope column, September 6, 2005

It's a good thing that people across the political spectrum, even conservatives, have been speaking up to condemn what many see as the criminal negligence of the government, particularly Bush and his FEMA and Homeland Security Agency, in response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and it's a good thing that there is a tremendous outpouring of support for those who are suffering as a result. Because the likelihood is very high that there will be more and more hurricanes, floods, droughts, people displaced and other natural disasters hitting the U.S. in the coming years.

Indeed, God forbid, it is possible that Louisiana and Mississippi could be hit by another killer hurricane sometime this fall.

The scientists' predictions of what would happen as a result of global warming are coming true. There have been many other examples over the past several years, none in this country as disastrous, but Katrina may well be the wake-up call to galvanize a popular movement around this urgent survival issue that our threatened ecosystem badly needs.

Katrina is also example number one of this fact: global warming will disproportionately hurt black, Latino and other people of color, both in the U.S. and globally.

It is people of color who live on the islands in the South Pacific which have been shrinking as the oceans rise. Some of them will go under completely within the next 5-10 years.

It is the people of Bangladesh, most likely millions, who will be forced to leave their low-lying homes as sea levels continue to rise.

It is Indigenous, African, Asian and Latin American people who have been suffering as oil, coal and natural gas companies extract fossil fuels with little or no regard for the economic, social or environmental impacts of their operations.

It is disproportionately people of color who, as we have seen in New Orleans, tend to live in the areas of cities most vulnerable to flooding. White people with privilege tend to live disproportionately in the suburbs or exurbs.

But all people will be affected. Most of the 25,000 or so people who died as a result of the heat wave in Europe in the summer of 2003 were not people of color. Most were elderly white people. For that matter, all taxpayers in the United States will see tens of billions of dollars of their tax money go to pay for the damage done to New Orleans. This might have been avoided if Bush and Congress had not cut needed funding to strengthen the system of levees prior to Katrina at the same time that they were spending hundreds of billions for an illegal and unnecessary war.

The government's response to Hurricane Katrina is also having a huge political impact.

I was astounded a few nights ago to watch national public television news and hear David Brooks, a George Bush supporter and apologist, sharply criticize Bush's woeful performance as regards Hurricane Katrina. Not only that; he predicted that the anger and outrage among so many over the government's negligence and incompetence could well fuel a progressive movement of historic proportions. He was joined in this assessment by liberals Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe and Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune.

The word "racism" is actually being spoken by mainstream columnists to describe, accurately, an essential aspect of what is going on. Sometimes the truth of things just can't be hidden.

On the other hand, I was not surprised to receive hundreds of angry, hurting and solidly critical emails from grassroots activists and others around the country all through last week. I was struck by how Katrina and its aftermath was uniting in action people from many different organizations and networks to provide immediate aid to the suffering. And just in the last couple of days I am beginning to see alternative proposals and projects put forward to try to have a positive, progressive, community-based impact upon the reconstruction process.

Perhaps the disaster caused by Katrina, both natural and government-made, will be another kind of beginning, the beginning of a grassroots-based, multi-cultural, anti-racist, massive, independent people's movement. One which has no use for dishonest and deceitful politicians of any party, which operates democratically and transparently, and which raises up and supports the leadership of those who have been most hurt by this system's oppressive institutions. A movement which links the issues of global warming, war, racism, class inequality, and the need for a fundamental restructuring of our economy toward sustainability and justice for all.

As I said in a poem written in 1997, "We must use our anger, our outrage, our humanity, our love, burning like a low flame, a pilot light, flaring up as necessary into a burning torch to lead others into a future, a future world, we must, we have to, claim and win."


Ted Glick is the coordinator of the Climate Crisis: USA Join the World! campaign http://www.climatecrisis.us , although these ideas are solely his own. He can be reached at indpol@igc.org or P.O. Box 1132, Bloomfield, N.J. 07003.


UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545


From ufpj-news

6/9/2005

Farnborough News and Mail

CAMPAIGNERS are battling yet again to stop another mobile phone mast being built just ten metres from their back gardens.

Plans have been submitted by the mobile phone company Vodafone to build a ten foot-high mast at the junction of Farnborough Road and Ship Alley, but residents are picking up their pens in protest against the proposals.

They plan to bombard Rushmoor Borough Council with letters objecting to the mast.

Last May the Mail reported Farnborough residents’ fight to stop a T-Mobile mast being built outside the Ship Inn, in Ship Lane, Farnborough, 20 metres away from the latest proposed site.

But despite the 200-strong petition from angry residents the mobile phone giant was given permission to build the 32 foot-high mast.

Now people are even more determined that they do not want two mobile phone masts so close together.

Donovan Baines, who lives just ten metres away from the proposed site, said that another mast would be a case of “overkill” and is rallying neighbours into a protest group.

He said: “I just want to stir it up and make a little bit of a scene to make everybody else aware.

“It’s far too close to the houses.”

Mr Baines wants as many people as possible to write to the council objecting to the plans.

He said: “In the next few years companies are going to put these masts everywhere.

“It’s not just happening on my doorstep, it will happen everywhere.”

And Mr Baines has the full backing of ward councillor Steve Masterson.

Cllr Masterson has already registered his objections to the council and said that he will support anyone else who wants to make their views known about the unwanted plans.

He said: “I’m totally opposed to the mast being situated in residential areas.

“They should keep them away from residential areas until the health risk is proven to be negative and the debate is no longer open.

“It’s in reasonably close proximity to schools and I’m not happy with that.

“There’s also the risk of the devaluation of people’s properties.”

But a Vodafone spokeswoman hit back at the claims and said that a report released by the Health Protection Agency in January claimed there was no scientific basis for citing minimal distances between masts and areas of public occupancy.

Omega this is not true. See under:
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Wissenschaft+zu+Mobilfunk/ and
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Cancer+Cluster
http://www.buergerwelle.de/body_science.html

She added: “There are no guidelines to where masts are located as they are very low powered and in order for the hand sets to work the masts must be located locally.

Omega see "Base Stations, operating within strict national and international Guidelines, do not present a Health Risk" under:
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/771911/

“Therefore, it’s essential that they are located in residential areas for the handsets to work.”

The spokeswoman said that the mast is designed to look like a telegraph pole so that it does not look out of place.

But she added: “They’re very much accepted parts of our urban environment.”

Residents have until the middle of September to register their objections with Rushmoor Borough Council.

Keith Holland, head of the council’s planning department, said that public objections will be taken into account.

He said: “The issue of phone masts is very emotive and as a result if we were going to approve any phone mast it’s likely it would go to committee first.

“It’s in the council hands to make decisions at this stage but we have to take into account the issues that the inspector looked at with the other one.”

The council refused permission for the T-Mobile mast in Ship Lane, but a planning inspector overturned the decision.

http://www.edinburghsucks.com

Covered in the Evening News today is the story of how the mast must move. T-Mobile had erected one of their telephone masts in the wrong position. Local residents hope to be even more pleased than they were when the Council voted to take enforcement action against t-Moble because the rumour is that there is a gas main just below where the mast got planning permission to be erected.

Locals remember when there used to be a house on the site and have fairly good information that when t-Mobile were erecting the mast they watched the erectors trying in the right place then moving further south, towards the school and sticking the mast where they could.

A T-Mobile spokesman admitted the whole saga had been “embarrassing”. He said: “We are aware we will be presented with formal notice to move the mast.

“If that’s the decision I think we can promise it will be moved. “There’s no doubt at all this was a mistake. It’s unfortunate and slightly embarrassing. “But the need for a base station to serve mobile traffic in that area has not altered.”

It may be a bit more embarrasing for the company if they try to move the mast and hit on the suspected gas main!

Believe it or not, the the Councillors did an amazing job against the opposition of their Enforcement Officer who recommended keeping the mast where it was - 4 meters closer to the Brunstane Primary and Nursery School. Special mentions must go to Alnwickhill’s Councillor Ian Murray who spoke out furiously aginst the mast, Councillor Longstaff who said “it’s not like we are asking them to move a house” and even local councillor Maureen Child played a blinder on the day.

A thank you to all the planning committee who really saw sense on this matter and took the appropriate action. I hope we are not getting too soft!

Good morning and Happy Tuesday, America and fellow earth citizens! I think this one needs to be very widely circulated. Please pass it on...

sash


----- Original Message -----

Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 8:32 PM
Subject: The President who destroyed America

George Bush is going to go down in history as the President Who Destroyed America.

Oh sure, there were problems before he ever took office. Every nation has problems. But in the year 2000, the USA was at a fairly high point. The economy was growing. Science was moving forward. International relations were fairly good. The future looked bright. And then, an election was rigged, and a "President" who was never properly elected took office.

We all know how all the different stories about inappropriate election practices during the 2004 election. The cheating. The manipulation of the polls. The fact that people from largely Democrat demographics were prevented from voting. If you don't know about all this stuff... then you weren't paying attention. We also know that the 2000 elections were b... . But it's too late for that. We got the c... in the Oval Office, and we've got to deal with him. Too bad the War-Monger president, who doesn't even know HOW to run a war in the first place, also doesn't know how to run a country. The disaster on September 11th, 2001 was handled very well... not by Bush, but by Rudy, the esteemed former mayor of NYC. The only reaction from Bush to the whole fiasco: LET'S GO TO WAR! But... that's in the past. What about now?

Our country is already hurting financially because of the actions of our "president", or inactions, as the case might be. Our international relations are shot to hell - EVERYBODY hates us. The education system is hurting. Our entire economy is likely to fall into recession, if not an actual depression to rival the crash of the 1920s. The average citizen can't even afford gasoline - but if we'd invested in cars that used non-petroleum fuel sources (a technology we've had for a couple of decades but never developed) we wouldn't have this problem in the first place! (Hmm, does anyone else detect a connection between the oil companies, the government who funds research, and the car companies?) The progress of the scientific community is being thwarted by Chimp-Boy's religious convictions.

Bush was too busy "stopping the fags from destroying our nation" to bother running the nation. I wonder how much money went into his "Protect Marriage" campaign. How much money and resources have been spent on a war overseas, when our own infrastructure needs desperate help? DID YOU KNOW that Bush wanted to implement a universal health-care system in Iraq, funded by our own tax dollars, when we don't even have universal health care here? I don't have health coverage, but MY MONEY is going to help give medical care to some Iraqi. THIS IS B...!

Now, not all of these things fall solely on the shoulders of George W. Bush. It's his entire pathetic administration, but he's the man with the final say. He's the guy who was given all sorts of extra powers of authority by the Patriot Act. He's the i... leading the p... . I'm sorry, "leading" was the wrong word. Leadership is a quality he doesn't have.

Let's look at the situation we have right now. Our National Guard is overseas when we need them at home. Yes, they're calling them back home now, but they should have been here in the first place. People are dying, in America, of dehydration, hunger, and disease, because we took too long to respond to an emergency. The US Army can drop a bomb with pinpoint precision overseas within an hour of receiving the mission, and they're telling me it took our leaders THREE F... DAYS to drop food and water on our own soil? MORE BS...! American citizens are dying, on American soil. Oh sure, the "president" went to visit the poor victims, and he hugged women and girls for the camera, and shook people's hands... what a wonderful photo opportunity it must have been. But when he climbed aboard his helicopter to fly to the disaster area, did he even bother to think of loading a couple of extra crates of water, and maybe some food, for the victims? I'm sure there was space. And it may not have helped everybody, but to the family that would have received those supplies, it could mean the difference between life and death. Compassionate-conservativism, my f... a... .

This whole disaster-relief operation is a textbook example of "too little, too late." It's a textbook example of S... LEADERSHIP. All the way from the bottom up. For the first 24 hours, the mayor of New Orleans told people he had it under control, and they didn't need help. Two days later, he's screaming and swearing at people for not coming sooner. What? Did he think the National Guard just shows up on its own? You have to ask! We, the soldiers of the Reserves and Guard, don't sit in our unit headquarters, watching CNN, and say, "Oh look! A disaster! Let's go!" WE CAN'T. We have to have orders. We need authorization. And we need to be requested. And then, what about the governor of Louisiana? Have we even heard anything from her? She should have realized that the mayor of New Orleans wasn't seeing the situation clearly, and acted. But no. And then there's the "president." WHAT THE F...? There has been a failure in EVERY level of our civilian chain of command. And then there's FEMA. Don't even get me started. They're running a logistical nightmare. Yes, communications are down, but they knew that would happen! They were supposed to have been planning for this for years! The people of that organization are paid dearly, specifically to be ready in case of an emergency. And then, the emergency happens, and it all falls to hell. The Army can go in, and within 24 hours, we could have had food and water and medical facilities on the ground, IF we had been requested... but we weren't, until it was too late, and people were already dead and dying of preventable causes. 50,000 people were stranded in a convention center, and FEMA didn't know ANYTHING about them until four days after the storm. They would have known all about it if they'd just turned on the television, because apparently CNN has better information than the people who are supposed to handle the disaster. This is pitiful, and inexcusable.

Opportunities have been wasted, resources have been poorly used. Every vehicle going into that region, whether traveling by land, air, or sea, should be carrying food, water, clothing, medicine, and other supplies in, and carrying people out. It doesn't matter if they can only fit a little bit on a helicopter. If a helicopter is going to pick up medical evacuees, they have room in their cargo hold to carry supplies in, before picking up the patient. Who the f... was running the logistics here, and did we check to make sure they'd at least graduated kindergarten before hiring them? Things only started to work when the Army took over (thank God for General Honore), and I'm sure they're going to need much more help before it's over. I'm a qualified officer in the Army Engineer Corps. SEND ME, D... IT! I'm sitting here, making LJ entries, when I should be helping to save lives! I'm going insane, wanting to do something!

To finish off, I'd like to address Mr. George W. C... Bush, the President Who Destroyed America:

Your citizens are dying, and I personally hold you responsible for their lives. As the president, you are a public servant, NOT a king. Your job is to serve the people of the United States of America and to uphold the Constitution, not to preach your Biblical beliefs and to play golf. I'm sorry the hurricane disrupted your vacation. It must be awful for you, but I assure you, it's far worse for the victims.

Today, you addressed the nation, and admitted that you made some mistakes - that everyone involved in the relief effort made some mistakes. That's not good enough. Apologies won't bring back the people who died needlessly. As the highest authority in the land, you can't afford those sorts of mistakes. "Oops!" is not an answer. You were supposed to do something, but you didn't until it was too late for many of them, and more are going to die. Their blood is on your hands. There are still people living in filth, sleeping in the streets, crowded into crumbling buildings, stranded on rooftops, dehydrated, sick, dying, and desperate for just a bottle of water and a bit of food. These are American citizens - your highest priority... but you are incapable of understanding their suffering because you've been so sheltered all your life, you can't even comprehend the sensations of true hunger, thirst, or desperation. You've never had to worry about your next meal, or of having a roof over your head. And when you left New Orleans, after hugging a few people while surrounded by cameras, and you flew back to Washington, DC in the comfort of your helicopter, WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR DINNER? I'll bet it was delicious, wasn't it?

Oh, and by the way, how much money are you going to donate to the victims of the hurricane, Mr. Bush? How much money is going to come out of your personal bank account? You're independantly wealthy, and could live comfortably on JUST the pension from your presidency for the rest of your life. Children are giving their lunch money. What are you going to give? How much do you really love America?

The American people don't want your lies, excuses, and apologies anymore. How many mistakes can you make before you stop making them? How many more people have to die for your stupidity? Should we just wait for the next major disaster to strike, just in case you do better next time? We don't want a "next time", Mr. Bush. We don't want your promises of a better tomorrow. We want your resignation.

~Michelle J. d'Entremont
2LT, US Army Reserves, Engineer Corps

(I have no fear of publicly using my name for this. Pass it on. These are my words, and I stand behind them with my name, rank, and convictions. And if it ends up on CNN, with my name, and Bush reads it, even better.)

„10 Mitglieder des Kieler Bündnisses gegen Sozialabbau und Lohnraub führten am Sonntagnachmittag (04.09.) im Vorfeld des bundesweiten Aktionstages der sozialen Bewegung eine Theateraktion am Falkensteiner Strand durch. Der Falkensteiner Strand wurde als Aktionsort gewählt, da dort seit diesem Sommer 1€-Jobber tätig sind: Im prestigeträchtigen Projekt „Strandgut“ der DLRG werden Liegestühle, Sonnenschirme und Kinderbetreuung angeboten. Weniger auffällig sind die 1€-Jobber, welche morgens ab fünf Uhr für die Reinigung des Strandes sorgen; eine Aufgabe welche früher tariflich bezahlte MitarbeiterInnen der Stadtwerke erledigten…“ Artikel von „Beobachter“ auf Indymedia vom 05.09.2005

http://de.indymedia.org/2005/09/127108.shtml


Aus: LabourNet, 6. September 2005

Tag des sozialen Protestes gegen Hartz IV: Bunte Aktionen in 57 Städten

In 57 Städten Deutschlands fanden gestern zum Tag des sozialen Protestes Aktionen gegen die Hartz IV-Reformen statt. »Wer auch immer regieren wird und weiteren Sozialabbau betreibt, muss mit unserem massiven Widerstand rechnen«, war die Losung des Tages.

Artikel von Kirschey in Neues Deutschland vom 06.09.2005
http://www.nd-online.de/artikel.asp?AID=77585&IDC=16


Aus: LabourNet, 6. September 2005

Bundesweiter dezentraler Aktionstag "Hartzschluss" am Montag, 5. September 2005

Dezentraler Aktionstag der sozialen Proteste erfolgreich – mehrere Tausend Menschen in 57 Städten beteiligen sich an Aktionen und Demonstrationen

Die Pressemitteilung des Aktionsbündnisses mit den bisher vorliegenden Meldungen aus den teilnehmenden Städten (pdf)
http://www.die-soziale-bewegung.de/2005/hartzschluss/Presse_5-9-2005-18Uhr.PDF


"Hartz-Schluss" in Köln

Bericht von „Rio“ auf Indymedia vom 05.09.2005
http://de.indymedia.org/2005/09/127187.shtml

Hartz-Schluss in Hanau

Bericht von „für die 5 Std/Wo“ auf Indymedia vom 05.09.2005
http://de.indymedia.org/2005/09/127175.shtml

Aktionstag Hartz - Schluss am 5. September

Am Montag, 5. September 2005 fand ein dezentraler Aktionstag "Hartz-Schluss" in mehr als 100 Städten statt. Dieser bundesweite Aktionstag wurde im Juli beim Sozialforum in Erfurt beschlossen. Es fanden neben den Montagsdemonstrationen viele verschiedene Aktionen statt. Aktualisierte Berichte von den Aktionen in verschiedenen Städten bei Indymedia
http://de.indymedia.org/2005/09/127256.shtml

Siehe auch Eine Video-Kurzdoku „Aktionstag gegen Hartz 4“ bei KanalB
http://kanalb.org/video.php?clipId=1157&Viam=Clip&PHPSESSID=00f7ef7660ef7837c8c0d1ed06d99184


Bochum: Aktionstag 5.9.: Egal wie der Würfel fällt, es geht um unser Geld - Protest gegen HartzIV in Bochum. Bericht bei ver.di Bochum-Herne

http://www.verdi.de/0x0ac80f2b_0x02ca6954;internal&action=verdi_show_listenkopf_seite.action


Die in Offenburg /Baden gehaltene Rede von Ingrid Wagner, ver.di Erwerbslosenausschuss Südbaden

http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/050905_off.html


Aus: LabourNet, 6., 8. u. 13. September 2005

--------

Alle Dokumente lassen sich außerdem im Archiv unserer Homepage http://www.die-soziale-bewegung.de ansehen und downloaden.

Aktionsbündnis Sozialproteste Koordinierungsstellen: Michael Maurer, m.m(at)dalichow-online.net (Brandenburg); Ottokar Luhn, info-gotha (at) offenes-buendnis.de (Thüringen); Helmut Woda, Helmut.Woda (at) web.de (Karlsruhe); Detlef Spandau, Detlef.Spandau (at) gmx.net (Ostwestfalen/Lippe); Claudio Coladangelo, teoanacatl (at) web.de (Giessen/Mittelhessen); Rainer Wahls, Rwahls (at) web.de (Berlin); Wolfram Altekrüger, w.altekrueger(at)gmx.de Vernetzungsbüro: Renate Gaß, R.Gass1 (at) gmx.de, 0561-8618571 oder 0151-15390382 (Kassel); Edgar Schu, E.Schu1 (at) gmx.de, 0179-6729724 oder 0551-9964381 (Göttingen) Wissenschaftliche Beratung: Peter Grottian, pgrottia (at) zedat.fu-berlin.de

Homepage: http://www.die-soziale-bewegung.de
Email: die-soziale-bewegung@web.de


13. September 05

Liebe Mitstreiterinnen und Mitstreiter, liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,

das Aktionsbündnis der Sozialproteste hat mit seinem bundesweiten Aktionstag "Hartz-Schluss" die Wahlinszenierung der Parteien ins grelle Licht der Sozialproteste gerückt. Die Rechnung, mit TV-Schattenboxen die Opfer des Sozialabbaus von der Wahlkampftribüne zu drängen, wurde durchkreuzt.

Reiche Vielfalt von Aktionen: Von Demonstrationen bis zur Belagerung von ARGEn In Berlin wurde Hartz IV offiziell beerdigt. In Magdeburg wurde mit Gierhard Schröder Schlitten gefahren. In Bielefeld wurde die Wäsche wieder per Hand gewaschen, weil sich Arbeitslose keine Waschmaschine mehr leisten können. In Wittenberg wurde ein Armutsgewöhnungsfrühstück eröffnet. In Hamburg wurde Gierhard Schröder der 1-Euro Wanderpokal verliehen. Der Pokal zeigt einen Arbeitslosen. In Giessen wurde die Sinnlosigkeit der 1-Euro-Jobs durch eine Alu-Leiter, 2 Wassereimer, einen Wasserschlauch und einen Trichter symbolisch demonstriert. Und es sind noch viel mehr tolle Aktionen gelaufen, bundesweit! Viele lokale Netzwerke konnten ihre Anliegen in den regionalen Medien oft sehr klar zur Sprache bringen. Und auch die Ansprache von Betroffenen in den Behörden ist an dem Aktionstag mancherorts sehr gut gelungen. Viele Berichte, Pressemeldungen, Fotos, Bewertungen der lokalen Initiativen etc. sind in der Dokumentation auf der Homepage zu finden. Wir möchten noch einmal alle ermuntern, Berichte, Fotos oder auch Internet-Adressen mit Berichten an die Email-Adresse des Aktionsbündnis (die-soziale-bewegung(at)web.de) zu senden.

Die Kampagne Hartzschluss wurde auch von den bundesweiten Medien, z.B. der Tagesschau, anfangs bildhungrig aufgenommen. Wir werden auch zukünftig damit leben, dass die Journalisten ein größeres Polit-Event der sozialen Proteste in einer der zentralen Medienstädte für ihre Berichterstattung haben wollen. Wir können und wollen uns aber nicht mit einer Massendemonstration wie am 3. April des letzten Jahres messen.

6000 TeilnehmerInnen waren an den bundesweiten aber regionalen Aktionen beteiligt. Das ist in den 60 beteiligten Städten eine deutliche Steigerung der Teilnehmerzahlen gegenüber der "normalen" Montagsdemo. Damit hat sich das Konzept, zur Zeit des Wahlkampfes den Schwerpunkt auf regionale Aktionen zu legen, bestätigt. Unsere Handlungsfähigkeit ist die Voraussetzung, um auf die sozialen Angriffe jeder zukünftigen Regierungskoalition eine zuspitzende Mobilisierung weit über unsere Netzwerke hinaus entgegen zu stellen.

Der Sozialprotest konnte mit unseren Hartz-Schluss Aktionen von keiner Partei für ihren Wahlkampf vereinnahmt werden. Es ist auch nicht die Aufgabe von sozialen Bewegungen, Wahlempfehlungen auszusprechen und auf parlamentarische Stellvertreter zu hoffen, sondern sich selber und direkt intervenierend in die politischen Entscheidungsfindungen und Umsetzungen einzumischen.

Die Sozialproteste gehen aber an den Nerv der Rechtfertigungen des Sozialraubs, weil sie den Finger in die Wunde der sozialen Verletzungen legen. Die neue politische Landschaft war bereits Thema für den Spiegel gewesen. Der Spiegel Nr. 34 warnte: "Ein Gespenst kehrt zurück. Die neue Macht der Linken". Gemeint ist der soziale Protest. Die Linkspartei selber ist nur eine Fußnote dieses von uns erkämpften Einflusses. Vor dem Hintergrund eines hohen Druckes dieser Linken, in den Wahlen nicht gespalten aufzutreten, hat Gierhard Schröder seine Rechnung ohne diese Linke gemacht. Sie hat ihre Kräfte gebündelt, die Parteien zu einer schnellen Einigung gedrängt, und die Linkspartei schickt sich an, mit einer zweistelligen Prozentzahl den etablierten Parteien gehörig Schreck einzujagen.

Aus den Startlöchern gekommen Die Aktion Hartzschluss hat demonstriert, dass es dem Aktionsbündnis Sozialproteste gelingt, seine Kräfte überregional zusammenzuführen und dass es aus den Startlöchern heraus gekommen ist. Das ist auch bitter notwendig. Während aus allen Mülleimern der tiefste Dreck über die Linke gegossen wird, wird zwar die Linkspartei als Ziel genannt, gemeint sind aber wir. Das Wahlspektakel und die Schlammschlacht gegen die Linke sollen den Boden bereiten, nach der Wahl die sozialen Grausamkeiten weiter zu steigern. Aber auch hier werden die Parteien die Rechnung ohne die Sozialproteste gemacht haben. Hartzschluss war der Auftakt für Ausbau, Intensivierung und Verbreiterung des Aktionsbündnisses Sozialproteste.

Ohne diesen Protest würde auch die Linkspartei schnell im Sumpf des wohlfinanzierten etablierten Parlamentarismus verrotten. Dass sich der Stachel Linkspartei ins Fleisch des Parteiensumpfs mit allen Widerhaken einbohrt, ist auch unsere Verantwortung. Nur durch unsere außerparla­mentarischen Aktionen kann die Linke so zum Jagen getragen werden, dass der Sozialraub auch parlamentarisch seine Durchsetzungsfähigkeit verliert.

Mit Hartzschluss haben wir gemeinsam einen ersten Erfolg erzielt. Der nächste Schwerpunkt können konkrete Projekte sein, die wir am 19. und 20. November auf der Aktionskonferenz vortragen, die bisher aus dem personellen Umfeld des Sozialforums in Deutschland heraus geplant wird. Ein paar Mitglieder des Koordinierungskreises und weitere Personen unseres Aktionsbündnis haben am vergangenen Freitag an einem diesbezüglichen Vorbereitungstreffen in Frankfurt teilgenommen.

Das nächste bundesweite Treffen des Aktionsbündnis Sozialproteste wird am 1. Oktober, wahrscheinlich nicht wie angekündigt in Göttingen, sondern in Kassel, statt finden. Dort wird es um die Nachbereitung des Aktionstages, um die weitere Entwicklung des Aktionsbündnis und seiner Strukturen und um Planungen kommender Aktivitäten gehen.

Es wird von unserer Seite noch keine fertigen Projekte geben. Ein beinahe fertiges Projekt, wie Hartzschluss es war, haben wir bisher nicht "im Petto". Vielleicht sind nach dem Projekt Hartzschluss, das wir schon nach kurzer Vorbereitung gemeinsam in die Tat umsetzen konnten, für kommende Aktivi­tä­ten ein gründlicher Vorlauf und sorgfältige Vorabsprachen mit potentiellen Bündnispartnern notwendig. Wir möchten zu diesem Zeitpunkt daher nur ein paar Fragen aufwerfen:

- Wahrscheinlich werden weiterhin viele Menschen davon bedroht sein, aus ihren Wohnungen vertrieben zu werden. Könnte organisierter ziviler Ungehorsam, in Absprache mit den Betroffenen, unsere adäquate Antwort auf diese Bedrohung gegen einzelne Menschen sein?

- Wie sieht die Situation nach der Wahl aus? Bei einer schwarz-gelben Regierungskoalition ist zu erwarten, dass die Gewerkschaften sich teilweise neu positionieren werden. Welche Bedeutung hat das für unsere Möglichkeiten, Bündnispolitik zu betreiben?

- Wie sieht die Situation bei den anderen möglichen Regierungskoalitionen aus?

Wir würden uns freuen, Euch am 1. Oktober in Kassel begrüßen zu dürfen.

Mit solidarischen und kämpferischen Grüßen Wolfram Altekrüger, Claudio Coladangelo, Renate Gaß, Peter Grottian, Ottokar Luhn, Michael Maurer, Edgar Schu, Detlef Spandau, Rainer Wahls, Helmut Woda

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

September 4, 2005 -- US Embassy in Baghdad inquires into reports that American troops in Iraq have mutinied against their officers. WMR has learned that the US embassy in Baghdad is checking into reports that U.S. troops in Iraq, including National Guardsmen, Army and Marine Corps Reserves, and regular military troops from Louisiana and Mississippi, have mutinied against their officers and are demanding to be immediately sent back home to help their families. It is not known whether the reported mutinies involve physical violence. The reports of rebellions among U.S. troops are filtering out of the Green Zone and at Baghdad International Airport from Iraqis who are working alongside their American counterparts at both locations.


Comment:

Remember 9/11 - Remember Katrina - Remember New Orleans Impeach the entire neo-con administration !

I wonder if bushco didn't get to kill two birds with one stone. Surely if there was discontent in the military to this degree, they knew it. So, they stall on helping NOLA, which they were probably going to do half-assed anyway, but now they make it a worse, so that while we're all watching NOLA, the mutiny in Iraq goes un-noticed. Sure, they'll be fall out from the way they handled NOLA, but they can spin a lot of it which will work on some people, form a partisan "investigation" who'll say no one in the govt. was to blame, repeat the lies about how they didn't know about the levee, etc. It'll be a good excuse to get rid of even more "drains on the economy" then they had originally planned to eliminate(because we know they planned something since they didn't evacuate the poor people). So while everyone is watching the humanitarian scandal, hardly anyone notices the really big POLITICAL deal, that US soldiers in Iraq are mutinying.

I think they think they can pull themselves out of the NOLA scandal. They have a chance. I'm afraid that if the dems don't get spines quickly, they might be successful, at least to a certain degree. Who out their in middle class america knows what we know here on the internet? Do you think people know that they were refusing aid, actually stopping buses from getting people, etc. But soldiers mutinying in Iraq, whoo, hoo, that's the big one.

Actually, I don't consider it mutiny. I consider it a people's revolution to take back their country.

Donna Cineli
USA



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

Ist es der Sinn des BMU Klingeltöne anzubieten? Wäre Aufklärung und Minimierung nicht Aufgabe und angemessen? Illegale Werbung für Handybetreiber?

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Landesverband Thüringen
Bürger gegen Elektrosmog

Ö f f e n t l i c h k e i t s a r b e i t

Bernd Schreiner
Freier Architekt AK Thüringen
http://www.buerger-gegen-esmog.de
mail@landesverband-thueringen.de
036875 fon 69873
fax 69874
98663 Westhausen/Thüringen

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/63610


Nachricht von der BI Bad Dürkheim

HLV INFO 140/AT
6-09-2005

Deutsches Ärzteblatt

2. September 05

Chicago. Die so genannte Elektroschockpistole Taster ist nach Aussage des gleichnamigen Herstellers die "effektivste aller nichttödlichen Waffen". Dem widersprechen jetzt Kinderärzte aus Chicago. Im New England Journal of Medicine dokumentieren sie den Beinahetodesfall eines Teenagers, der nach dem Einsatz von Tasers in ein Kammerflimmern rutschte.

Der junge Mann war von den beiden Nadeln des Geräts getroffen worden, das einen Stromschlag von 50 000 Volt mit einer Stromstärke von etwa 3,6 Miliampere versetzt, wenn die Angaben des Herstellers zutreffen. Der Strom erreicht die Nadeln über zwei Drähte, die nach dem Schuss mit dem Schussgerät verbunden bleiben. Das Ziel der Waffe ist die rasche Immobilisierung des Gegners.

Der Stromstoß führe zu einem unmittelbaren Verlust der "neuromuskulären Kontrolle" heißt es in den Gebrauchsanweisungen. Für einen Moment sei der Angreifer wehrlos und könne von der Polizei überwältigt werden. Der Hersteller betont die hohe Sicherheit der Waffe und beruft sich dabei auf mehrere Gutachten der britischen und amerikanischen Polizei, die die Waffe seit 2001 einsetzten.

Aus kardiologischer Sicht sind Elektroschocks jedoch nicht unbedenklich, da sie, wenn sie in der vulnerablen Phase des EKGs appliziert werden, ein Kammerflimmern auslösen können. Dieser Fall ist jetzt erstmals medizinisch dokumentiert worden. Der junge Mann kollabierte nach dem Taser-Treffer, konnte aber von den anwesenden Sanitätern wiederbelebt werden. Die Reanimation begann innerhalb von zwei Minuten nach dem Taser-Treffer. Erforderlich waren vier Stromstöße aus dem Defibrillator. Außerdem erhielt der Patient Noradrenalin, Atropin und Lidocain. Ohne die sofortige Reanimation wäre der Patient verstorben, behauptet Wayne Franklin vom Childrens`s Memorial Hospital. Er rät deshalb der Polizei, automatische Defibrillatoren bei ihren Einsätzen mitzuführen, um auf diese Komplikationen vorbereitet zu sein.

Nach Recherchen von Amnesty International vom Dezember 2004 sind in den USA seit der Einführung der Taser-Waffen mehr als 70 Menschen nach dem Einsatz der Modelle M 26 oder X26 ums Leben gekommen. Der Hersteller bestreitet bisher einen kausalen Zusammenhang - auch in dem jetzt vorliegenden Fall, obwohl ein Kammerflimmern eindeutig vorlag. Der Zusammenhang sei rein spekulativ und wissenschaftlich nicht erwiesen, schreibt Richard Luceri von Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in einer E-Mail, die der Hersteller an die Presse weiterleitete.


Dr. Claus Scheingraber 5-09-05