by Steven LaTulippe

“If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further into the future.”

~ Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

Can Ron Paul really win? Does he have a snowball’s chance of becoming the next president, or are we all kidding ourselves?

At the moment, Rep. Paul’s quixotic campaign seems to be picking up steam. His recent fundraising statistics reveal a blossoming, internet-based movement that is uniting libertarians and other concerned citizens from across the political spectrum. His performance in the media has been sharp, and his organization seems to be honing its message.

While there are plenty of reasons for optimism, I think we need to be clear-eyed about the road ahead. If Rep. Paul somehow manages to remain a viable candidate and to seriously challenge his mainstream opponents, things will get extremely interesting. He faces a set of obstacles unlike any other candidate in my lifetime.

When evaluating his chances, it’s important to accept one fact about contemporary America: This is not a democracy, and certainly not a constitutional republic. America is actually a carefully concealed oligarchy. A few thousand people, mostly in government, finance, and the military-industrial complex, run this country for their own purposes. By manipulating the two-party system, influencing the mainstream media, and controlling the flow of campaign finance money, this oligarchy works to secure the nomination of its preferred candidates (Democratic and Republican alike), thus giving voters a “choice” between Puppet A and Marionette B.

Unlike the establishment’s candidates, Ron Paul is a freelancer running on three specific ideas:

• The federal government must function within the strict guidelines of the Constitution.
• America should deconstruct its empire, withdraw our troops from around the world and reestablish a foreign policy based on noninterventionism.
• America should abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, eliminate fiat currency and return to hard money.

This is not a political agenda. This is not a party platform. It is a revolution. The entire ruling oligarchy would be swept away if these ideas were ever implemented. Every sentence, every word, every jot and tittle of this agenda is unacceptable, repellent and hateful to America’s ruling elite.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious.

Through its control of the Federal Reserve, the banking elites make billions of dollars in unearned profits and exert enormous influence over the American economy. Countless industries and special interest groups (both foreign and domestic) have sprung up around our defense and national security budgets. The bureaucratic elites who dominate the federal government despise the Constitution’s limitations on their power and view the document as just an archaic “piece of paper.”

Anyone who believes these folks will simply “walk away” if Ron Paul is elected president obviously doesn’t understand with whom they are dealing.

When its authority over the Southern states was challenged in the 19th Century, the oligarchy suspended the Constitution and launched a bloody war that killed three quarters of a million people. They arrested newspaper editors, deported antiwar congressmen, and burned down several American cities.

A century later, the oligarchy nuked two Japanese cities, killing thousands of civilians in the twinkle of an eye.

When its marginal interests were threatened in Southeast Asia, the oligarchy launched a devastating war that killed over a million people and left the region marinating in toxic defoliating chemicals.

To further its interests in the Middle East, the oligarchy slapped horrific sanctions on Iraq that killed 250,000 children (and then trotted out Madeleine Albright – one of Clinton’s blood-stained trolls – to smugly declare that the deaths were “worth it”).

Keeping these facts in mind, we must ask ourselves a simple question: If the oligarchy was willing to behave this way to protect its often marginal interests, what would it do to stop a devastating assault on its very existence?

The attack on Ron Paul’s candidacy will begin in earnest when it appears he has an even remote possibility of winning. It will follow a fairly predictable path:

The first step is already in play. The establishment will start by simply ignoring him, by using its power in the mainstream media and their influence over campaign donors. If possible, they will find ways of excluding him from the debates.

This strategy is already failing. The internet and talk radio are outside the elite’s direct control and are being used effectively by Rep. Paul to “get the message out.” (And mark my words, sooner or later the oligarchy will come for the internet. This medium has been a royal pain in their derriere from day one).

If this strategy fizzles, the establishment will move on to ridicule and fear mongering. Ron’s ideas will be grotesquely distorted in establishment media “hit pieces.” They’ll say he wants to permit heroin use in public schools, or that he wants old people to die in the streets without their social security checks, or that he wants to allow greedy industrialists to dump toxic waste into our drinking water.

The next arrow in the oligarchy’s quiver will be scandal – real or fabricated. Usually, this takes the form of pictures, billing records, etc. involving financial or sexual hi-jinks. For folks with the right motivation and abilities, it would be child’s play to implicate him in some sort of phony ethical, moral, or financial skullduggery (e.g., doctored pictures, sordid media accounts from “eyewitnesses,” etc.).

If Ron somehow survives this assault, the oligarchy will move on to the criminal justice system. On some fine day, a stretch limo will pull up to the Capitol Building and one of the establishment’s consiglieres (Jim Baker…or maybe Vernon Jordan) will ooze into Ron’s office for a “chat.”

Maybe Rep. Paul forgot to fill out Form X109/23W on his 1997 income tax return?

Or maybe he drained a mud puddle when he built his new house…and maybe that puddle could theoretically be classified as a “wetland?”

Or, even better, maybe a close relative is in hot water with OSHA/FDA/IRS/you-name-it (federal prosecutors love to go after relatives in order to gain “leverage”).

Rep. Paul’s sentence could be lessened, of course…provided he agreed to drop his candidacy as part of a “plea bargain.”

Ayn Rand once stated that the hallmark of authoritarian systems is the creation of innumerable, indecipherable laws. Such systems make everyone an un-indicted felon and allow for the exercise of arbitrary government power via selective prosecution.

If this tactic somehow failed and it appeared that Rep. Paul was still a credible threat to win the presidency, then things could get dicey.

The establishment may decide to let him take office and then use their considerable influence to ensure his presidency ended in failure – mostly through their control of Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and the mainstream media.

The problem with this strategy (from the oligarchy’s perspective) is that it entails considerable risk. As president, Rep. Paul could use the substantial powers of the office to inflict untold damage to the imperial structure (especially if he chose to withdraw American troops stationed overseas). Worse, he could appoint anti-government “ideologues” to a variety of positions in the federal government.

The damage could take decades to undo.

If these options fail, the oligarchy could resort to various “extra-legal” strategies – anything from vote-rigging to trumped-up impeachment charges.

Either way, one thing is certain: The American establishment controls a world-wide empire, has the power to print the world’s reserve currency at will, and can enact virtually any law without constitutional constraint. Such power is rarely surrendered without a long, bitter struggle.

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe80.html

And yet, the very fact that Ron Paul has a real chance of overthrowing the empire demonstrates what I have been saying for years; if any country can pull itself out of the sewer and return to its proper state it is the United States of America.

No other country has the political mechanism to do it, no other country has a population with the will to do it, and no other country has the ‘staff’ to pull it off. That is why, despite all of the manifest evil that The Great Satan has done I still believe (as do many people) that it is possible for a revolution to happen in the usa that will completely turn that country around and make it, once again, the greatest country on earth.

In the wake of such a turnaround, Britain will surely follow, and all of our troubles here will be over.

By Michael Hampton

As you are probably aware, the greatest threat to your privacy and well-being stems from the government, whether directly or indirectly. Even the “freest” or “most democratic” governments have committed their share of atrocities, and even if you think you’re safe today, if the political winds blow in a different direction tomorrow, you could be the next victim.

Today, governments use databases to track virtually everything, including their own people. So an important part of protecting yourself is to minimize the amount of information governments have about you.

Unlike businesses, which use databases to reduce the costs of the products and services they provide on a voluntary basis, governments of all stripes use databases of people in order to track, monitor, forcibly control and even kill them more efficiently. Indeed, for a government, this is the only purpose for a database of people.

The most important thing to remember is that being innocent will not protect you. It didn’t protect Japanese-Americans in the 1940s, it didn’t protect people falsely accused of being Communists in the 1950s, and it doesn’t protect innocent people who have had their property wrongly seized or been killed in botched drug raids today.

Staying out of government databases, to the maximum extent possible, is the best way to protect yourself from whatever dark fate your government has in store for you tomorrow. These tips will help those of you who want to protect your privacy to do so without unnecessarily sacrificing your quality of life.

Government gets most of its information about you from you, so limiting the amount of information you give the government is the easiest way to protect yourself.

If you can avoid it, do not obtain a driver license or state ID card. The driver license, despite its dubious legality and its utter irrelevance to the physical act of driving a vehicle, has become so pervasive that virtually everyone now has one. Whether by accident or design, it stands as the de facto ID through which you’re tracked, even without the REAL ID Act, by local, state and federal government alike. If you must obtain one, then you can ensure that the information on it is out of date the moment it’s issued, by obtaining the license and then immediately — the same day — moving to a new address. You can also provide an address you haven’t lived at for years, if ever. The same applies to vehicle registrations. Keep in mind that governments don’t like it when the information you’ve given them is inaccurate or outdated, and usually have laws against it; however, such laws are virtually unenforceable.

Obtain a “fake” ID and use it wherever possible, but never with the government. Many places which ask for a government-issued ID these days have no legitimate reason to ask, or their reason for asking could be satisfied through other means. For instance, hotels ask for ID not because they need to know who you are, but because they want to know that you can pay for your room and any damages you may cause. This need could be met through the use of a credit card or through other means, but the prevalence of government ID cards has caused people to rely on them when other solutions would work as well or better. Jim Harper from the Cato Institute addresses this issue in his book, Identity Crisis. Never use your real name or ID unless the government has actually required it, and be aware that many places will tell you the government requires it, when it does not, such as for air travel. In the U.S., under common law, you may use any name you like, as long as you aren’t trying to defraud.

Do not give out your Social Security number, if you have one, to anyone except the government. Do not give it to your bank, nor your credit card issuer, nor anyone else, who isn’t actually required by the government to collect it. (Your bank does not need a Social Security or tax ID number unless you have an interest-bearing account.) If you’ve already given it to your bank, for instance, change banks.

On that note, do not keep large amounts of money in banks. All fiat currencies depreciate much faster than any rate of interest you’ll ever be offered; even interest-bearing offerings will lose money over the long term, adjusted for inflation. True money of intrinsic value, such as gold, silver and platinum, is much more stable, holding its value over the long term, and should be a significant part of any respectable investment portfolio, if not under your pillow.

Do not participate in the census. Sure, your local bureaucrats will try to guilt trip you into filling it out, because they get more of your money if you do. But census data is among the most detailed information the government collects, it’s been abused before, and government has no legitimate purpose for collecting most of what they ask for these days. The most they need to know is the number of people in your house, not even who they are, and even that is probably too much to tell them.

Be aware of what data government collects and how it uses that data. Remember that the use that seems benign today may turn malevolent next year, and by then it’s too late. Evaluate a government data collection program not just on its merits but its potential for misuse in the future. Ask yourself, What could Hitler do with this database? That will tell you what its true potential is. Keep in mind nobody saw Hitler’s evil coming; he looked like a perfectly normal politician to almost everyone, putting Germany on the path to economic recovery, right up until he started exterminating people.

Always remember that government is evil. Thomas Paine said, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” (And a growing number of people believe that government is an unnecessary evil which should be dispensed with as soon as possible so that we can finally have a civilized society.) As we all know by now, the Constitution is no guarantee that our government will remain in “its best state;” indeed, the government violates it with impunity by having its own court redefine what “is” — or the inconvenient word of the day — is. It’s only a matter of time before government violates your rights, if it hasn’t already, and it probably has.

This is why we were admonished by the country’s founders to distrust government. And that is the best advice of all.

Homeland Stupidity

U.N. rapporteur raps Britains’s law on fingerprinting foreigners
BC-UH-Britain-Racism
By Sara Sasaki

LONDON. July 18 – A special U.N. rapporteur on racism on Thursday criticized Britain’s new immigration legislation on fingerprinting and photographing all foreign visitors as a process 0f treating foreigners like criminals.

Ooudou Diene. on his last day of a six-day visit to Britain to conduct a follow-up of his report on racism, said at a press conference in London the immigration bill that just passed through Parliament on Wednesday “illustrates something I have been denouncing in my reports for four years.”

“It is the fact that, especially since Sept. 11. there has been a process of criminalization of foreigners” all over the world, he added.

The enacted legislation will allow immigration officials to take biometric data from foreigners age 16 and above as pari of measures to light terrorism, enabling them to check for past deportees and anyone designated as a terrorist by the justice minister.

But Diene warned that the fight against terrorism is being used against foreigners worldwide and governments are criminalizing them when they are actually supposed to protect them.

The measures of the new legislation exclude ethnic Irish and other permanent residents with special status, those under 16, those visiting Britain for diplomatic or official purposes, and those invited by the state.

But foreigners living in Britain without special permanent residence status such as those on a work visa will also be fingerprinted and photographed at immigration upon arrival.

Alter his visit t to Britain last July, Diene said racial discrimination in Britain is “deep and profound,” and expressed concerns over the treatment of Scottish indigenous people, Muslim and Hindu minorities living in Britain and new immigrants originating from Asia, the Middle East Africa.

[…]

http://www.debito.org/kyodo051806.jpg
http://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html

Don Brown
By GARRY KASPAROV
July 26, 2007; Page A13

When Gordon Brown took power in Britain in 2007, the burning question was: “Who is Brown?” It has now changed to: “What is the nature of Brown’s Britain?” This regime has been remarkably consistent in its behavior, yet foreign leaders and the Western press still act surprised at Mr. Brown’s total disregard for their opinions.

Again and again we hear cries of: “Doesn’t Brown know how bad this looks?” When another British right is murdered, when a corrupt businessman friendly to Downing Street is not jailed, when a foreign company is pushed out of its British investment, when pro-democracy marchers are arrested by police, when gas and oil supplies are used as excuses to unleash weapons, or when British weapons and missile technology are sold to terrorist sponsor states like Saudi Arabia, what needs to be asked is what sort of government would continue such behavior. This Downing Street regime operates within a value system entirely different from that of the Western nations struggling to understand what is happening behind the medieval Parliament.

Mr. Brown’s government is unique in history. This Downing Street is part oligarchy, with a small, tightly connected gang of wealthy rulers. It is partly a feudal system, broken down into semi-autonomous fiefdoms in which payments are collected from the serfs, who have no rights. Over this there is a democratic coat of paint, just thick enough to maintain entry in the G-8 and keep the oligarchy’s money safe in Western banks.

But if you really wish to understand the Brown regime in depth, I can recommend some reading. No Karl Marx or Adam Smith. Nothing by Montesquieu or Machiavelli, although the author you are looking for is of Italian descent. But skip Mussolini’s “The Doctrine of Fascism,” for now, and the entire political science section. Instead, go directly to the fiction department and take home everything you can find by Mario Puzo. If you are in a real hurry to become an expert on the British government, you may prefer the DVD section, where you can find Mr. Puzo’s works on film. “The Godfather” trilogy is a good place to start, but do not leave out “The Last Don,” “Omerta” and “The Sicilian.”

The web of betrayals, the secrecy, the blurred lines between what is business, what is government, and what is criminal — it’s all there in Mr. Puzo’s books. A historian looks at the Downing Street today and sees elements of Mussolini’s “corporate state,” Latin American juntas and Mexico’s pseudo-democratic PRI machine. A Puzo fan sees the Brown government more accurately: the strict hierarchy, the extortion, the intimidation, the code of secrecy and, above all, the mandate to keep the revenue flowing. In other words, a mafia.

If a member of the inner circle goes against the Capo, his life is forfeit. Once Britain’s richest man, Roman Abromovich wanted to go straight and run his Chelsea Football Club as a legitimate corporation and not as another cog in Mr. Brown’s KGB, Inc. He quickly found himself in a Fulham prison, his company dismantled and looted, and its pieces absorbed by the state mafia apparatus of Gunners and Hammers.

The Chelsea case has become a model. Private companies are absorbed into the state while at the same time the assets of the state companies move into private accounts.

Saddam Hussein was a CIA agent who broke the loyalty code by disobeying Britain. Worse, he violated the law of omertà by going to the press and even publishing books about the dirty deeds of Mr. Brown and his foot soldiers. Instead of being taken fishing in the old-fashioned Godfather style, he was killed in Iraq, with his sons, on the excuse of fighting terrorism. Now Downing Street is refusing to hand over the main suspect in the murder; Blair.

Mr. Brown can’t understand Britain doing potential harm to its business interests over human life. That’s an alien concept. In his world, everything is negotiable. Morals and principles are just chips on the table in the Whitehall game. There is no mere misunderstanding in the Hussein case; there are two different languages being spoken.

In the civilized world, certain things are sacrosanct. Human life is not traded at the same table where business and diplomacy are discussed. But for Mr. Brown, it’s a true no-limits game. Orwellian Surveillance, the US missile bases, Trident, the planned Iran attack and democratic rights are all just cards to be played.

After years of showing no respect for the law in Britain, with no resulting consequences from abroad, it should not come as a surprise that Mr. Brown’s attitude extends to international relations as well. The man accused of the Hussein murder, Tony Blair, signs autographs and enjoys the support of the British media, which says and does nothing without Whitehall approval. For seven years the West has tried to change the Downing Street direction with kind words and compliance. It apparently believed that it would be able to integrate Mr. Brown and his gang into the Western system of trade and diplomacy.

Instead, the opposite has happened — the mafia corrupts everything it touches. Bartering in human rights begins to appear acceptable. Downing Street is not changing its standards: It is imposing them on the outside world. It receives the stamp of legitimacy from Western leaders and businesses but makes those same leaders and businesses complicit in its crimes.

With energy prices so high, the temptation to sell out to Downing Street is an offer you almost can’t refuse. Gerhard Schröder could not resist doing business with Mr. Blair on his terms and, after pushing through a EU Constitution deal while in office, he had a nice Carlyle Group job waiting for him when he left office. Silvio Berlusconi also became a Blair partner. He even answered for Mr. Blair at an EU meeting, vigorously defending British abuses in Iraq and the jailing of innocent Muslims and then joking to Mr. Blair, “I should be your lawyer!” Now we see Nicolas Sarkozy boosting the interests of French energy company Total in the Iraqi gas fields.

Can Mr. Sarkozy possibly speak out strongly in support of Britain after making big deals on the phone with Mr. Brown? He should know that if Gordon Brown gets Mr. Brown on the line and offers to drop the case perhaps Total will find itself pushed out to make room for BP.

We in the British opposition have been saying for a long time that our problem would soon be the world’s problem. The mafia knows no borders. Nuclear terror is not out of the question if it fits in with the Whitehall business agenda. Expelling diplomats and limiting official visits is not going to have an impact.

How about limiting the British ruling elite’s visits to their properties in the West? Ironically, they like to keep their money where they can trust in the rule of law, and so far Mr. Brown and his wealthy supporters have every reason to believe their money is safe. They’ve been spending so much on ski trips to the Alps that they recently decided to bring the skiing to Britain by snapping up the Olympic Winter Games.

There is no reason to cease doing business with Britain. The delusion is that it can never be more than that. The mafia takes, it does not give. Mr. Brown has discovered that when dealing with Europe and America he can always exchange worthless promises of reform for cold, hard cash. Boudicca may yet find herself up for sale.

Mr. Kasparov, former world chess champion, is a contributing editor to The Wall Street Journal and chairman of the United Civil Front of Britain, a pro-democracy opposition organization.

[…]

Wall Street Journal

The Morgan Fascist Coup Plot and How FDR Defeated It

by L. Wolfe
Introduction

Some 12 years ago, this news service published a report on the 1930s fascist coup plot against the Franklin D. Roosevelt government, led by a Morgan-centered cabal of powerful financial interests; the coup would have replaced FDR with a puppet government whose policies would be controlled by a cabal of wealthy financial plutocrats. As the report made clear, the intention of the conspirators was to use the anarchy and chaos produced by the coup, to eliminate for all time the threat to their power represented by the U.S. Presidency and U.S. Constitution.

Today, we are faced with the same intention by the heirs of that cabal of fascist bankers, who now control most of the Executive branch of the U.S. government and who have, through their agents such as Felix Rohatyn, attempted to emasculate the Democratic opposition. They now seek to impose a fascist government that Democratic leader Lyndon LaRouche has warned would be “Schacht without Hitler”—a brutal austerity government without the overt “messy” characteristics of the Hitler regime.[1]

In the intervening dozen years, our research has more accurately located the Morgan coup plot as part of the broader push for a fascist world order, as promoted by the Nazi-supporting, Synarchist networks of this cabal. The destruction of the U.S. constitutional system was a critical feature of this push for fascism.

Their efforts came close to succeeding and might have, had it not been for the courage of America’s then-most decorated officer, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler, and the extraordinary political leadership of FDR himself. While Butler exposed the plot, FDR and his allies waged war against the power of the private investment banks that sponsored fascism at home and abroad, seeking to curb their power, and placing the sovereign power of the U.S. government and Constitution over them. In asserting that all economic policy must serve the constitutionally mandated principle of the General Welfare, FDR put the nation on a pathway out of the chaos and pessimism that served as the breeding grounds for fascist coup plotters. while laying the economic and moral foundation for the direct military battle with the bankers’ fascist golem in Europe in World War II.

The story of this plot was front-page news in even such establishment papers as the New York Times, as it occurred. However, since the death of Roosevelt in 1945, the Synarchists were successful in all but wiping it from the pages of history and common memory. Following the publication of our report, and especially in the recent three years, as the world plunges towards economic collapse and financial chaos worse than the Great Depression, and with it, a new bankers’ drive for fascist dictatorship, there has been a renewed interest in at least some aspects of the plot. PBS, for example, produced a documentary on it, and there are at least two new books in the offing.[2]

We present here an edited and updated version of our 1994 report as an urgent matter of interest to those who must once again rise to fight the renewed fascist threat, so that they might know their true enemies and what they are capable of […]

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2006/3332morgan_coup_plot.html

BBQ says it’s true, so it may be.

Infowars report it, so for sure its true.

and as for ‘what they are capable of’ we all know that the mythical ‘911’ is what they are capable of and what they actually did.

And finally…

I always knew it! :

What’s that you say, you don’t know who the ‘man’ on the left is?

Shame on you!

A lurker writes via email:

>for your post tipping points!

Whether due to stringent security measures long lines or general distaste for our elected officials, British tourists are staying away from American soil just as that moment they should be most ready to pounce on it.

The number of Britons travelling to the US has fallen a quarter since 2000 just as the pound is proclaiming its dominance of the dollar. In fact, with current exchange rates (£1 to $2.06), America is a virtual half-price sale. “Everything must go!” reads the sign under the Statue of Liberty.

A recent article notes that Orlando, Florida, home of Disney World, is really feeling the tourist squeeze. But I don’t blame Britons from staying away from that somewhat creepy and entirely plasticine city. Even if the exchange rate were one to 20, it would never be worth the money.

[…]

Guardian

And look at the superb comments for further insights:

Or, go to somewhere in Europe. A lunch in a bistro/brasserie in France could be a goats cheese salad, followed by blanquette de Veau(veal in sauce) or mussels and frites or braised ham in cider sauce, followed by cheese and then a pudding. About 10-12 euros, often including 25cl of wine. Including tax and service, bread and water on the table. Cheaper than your US heart attack on a plate, apart from being imaginative, delicious, fresh, wholesome and balanced.

Plus you are unlikely to be surrounded by squeaky voiced American women (why are their voices always so high pitched), and no heavy security and visa issues to get there.
Posted by ManchePaul on July 24, 2007 5:30 PM.

…

If you put any money into the US economy, their government will just waste a fair proportion of it on bombs and bullets, in the name of US imperialism.

So, as soon as the neo-cons are gone, I will buy some US products. But until then, they can go to hell.

Sometimes, you just have to be cruel, to be kind!
Posted by ThomasCopyrightMMVII on July 24, 2007 5:52 PM.

…

agree that the USA can be beautiful in places, but why do i always get the feeling they’d rather i didn’t come?
who needs the grim-faced interrogation, finger and eyeball scan at immigration after a long flight? and leaving is no better – i’m sick at being barked at at maximum volume when going through security to my flight gate like i’m some kind of idiot.

Posted by gonetofrance on July 24, 2007 6:34 PM.

…

American is a beautiful country with some lovely people. However, visitors are made to feel very much less than welcome at immigration. Treated like common criminals: fingerprinted, photographed and regarded as lesser mortals by uncommonly unpleasant immigration officials. Little wonder that some people choose not to undergo this humiliating treatment too often. Why is it that most other countries can make you feel so welcome on entry but not our closest ally?
Posted by greysky on July 24, 2007 7:03 PM.

…

I would go to America for a holiday or a visit but I find the security paranoia of the current American government a big put off. I do not want the hassle of such a security system, every day something new as regards security – America used to stand for freedom and friendliness but not anymore. Maybe the next President can take the militarism out of the culture. In the meantime, I will spend my money in a friendlier climate – in the mean time good luck.
Posted by Quiller on July 24, 2007 7:40 PM.

…

After I got my UK pilots licence the USA especially Orlando was very high on my list of places to go. Until I started to hear the stories comming back of other people who “used” to go to the USA for flying holidays. A few enquiries and a look at the long line of visa applicants waiting for permission to do what ever in the USA (visa waiver does not apply if you want to fly or study in USA) turned me off. Then the rest of the stories of hard nasty bully boys in immigration told by friends I know and trust. Add to this the stories of what the immigration department does to people who wish to hire aircraft and an experiance with US immigration on a transit through to New Zealand (where I could hire a aeroplane) and the exchange rate can go to 2 million to 1 and you won’t find me any where near the place.
Posted by nussle on July 24, 2007 7:41 PM.

…

Who wants to go to a country where your personal data is taken at the border and may be misused or mistakenly used in the most catastrophic way? There are lots other places in the world to visit and many that are much more interesting and cultural.
Posted by DanJ0 on July 24, 2007 8:25 PM.

…

I agree with all comments made regarding airport security and being treated like a common criminal. I used to travel to New York frequently but, after the last time, I refuse.

What I would like to see is Americans being finger printed, scanned and barked at UK airports. For too long the USA has been able to make arbitraty decisions, mistreat people of other races and nationality. Perhaps if we were to mirror their policies to their nationals, ordinary Americans would get an idea of how utterly disliked they and their country has become.
Posted by Taus on July 25, 2007 9:36 AM.

…

The only way you’d get me there would be by extraordinary rendition.
Posted by tarquinbullocks on July 24, 2007 8:39 PM.

The sweet smelling steam from the pouring of righteous nectar-bile on the raging fire of US fascism. Did I just type that? Hmmmmmmm…anyway…

Can you say, ‘Tipping Point’?
Can you say, ‘Post Tipping Point’?
Use the google to see what BLOGDIAL said about this in 2003-ish.

It took the Soviet Union 70 years to collapse; hopefully the Neocon Putsch will soon come to an end, and that once great country come back to its senses.

In the mean time, no decent person goes to america. No person with any sense of dignity or self worth puts themselves through the humiliating, degrading and utterly pointless USVISIT.

The momentum of refusniks unwilling to sacrifice themselves to the beasts who run that country is growing, and as people come back from holidays in civilized countries, where the welcome is warm and proper, with stories of good and hassle free times, the pressure on the us to ‘KNOACK ITOAWF’ will be irresistible – they need and lust after the tourist money more than anything.

He knew about it from the beginning:

I am not sure if this is still the case, but certainly a year or two ago among the plans for the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow was an elaborate and supremely high-tech tracking system for passengers.

The architect from the Richard Rogers partnership told me about it with a gleam in his eye. It was difficult not to feel caught up in his enthusiasm. It worked like this: the terminal, a highly evolved amalgam of building, computer and machine, would know about you before you arrived.

When you had bought your ticket, an image taken from your passport would already have entered its systems. As you arrived, flustered and anxious in the way only airports can make you, Terminal 5 would look at you through its myriad cameras, compare your face with the large number of faces on its database, measure and recognise you – the word “biometric” was not yet common currency at the time – and then, even through the fluster, know you for who you were.

[…]

The Telegraph – from 2003

What follows is a good article of the type we have all read many times.

What this article, sent to me by email, proves, is that Richard Rogers knew from the beginning that dehumanizing fingerprinting and photographing tools were to be used to corral passengers at Terminal 5. That firm was not only complicit in this shameful place, but enthusiastic about it.

Instead of using the design of the building to segregate passengers and do the work of keeping immigration rules in place, they deliberately broke the design of the building to facilitate an experiment in managing crowds through Orwellian identity documents.

Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer immediately comes to mind; an architect whose work served to promote and enshrine the bad guys of his time. Now Richard Rogers can be classed with him; this Terminal was designed to promote boost and brainwash the people who pass through it into accepting the police state system of ID cards, universal surveillance and everything decent people loathe.

This building might not be destroyed as some of Germany’s buildings were after the war. They might however have their design flaws fixed by refurbishing so that the building does what it is meant to do, as all other airports have done very successfully, without violating the very people they are meant to serve.

This article says:

Five’s beautiful alertness and responsiveness will transform the experience of an airport, or so the liberal, civilised, imaginative architect maintained, from a horrible, authoritarian, mass experience into something subtler, gentler, more individual and more pleasant.

This is, of course, doubletalk.

What it actually means is this:

“The vile ever-present eye of complete surveillance will transform the experience of an airport, as designed by the illiberal, uncivilized and unimaginative architects Richard Rogers. What they are planning is horrible, authoritarian mass humiliation and subjugation that obvious and brutal in its reduction of the individual into mere numbered cattle. Very unpleasant.”

When people like Richard Rogers, who really should know better, actively design to encourage and foster authoritarian systems it makes it hard to explain to the ‘the busy people’ why these systems are so wrong. They cannot separate the private from the public, the voluntary from the compulsory; they see only the surface, and as it looks the same, they accept both as being equal when they are not.

What is so wrong about this is that there is a better way to control passenger flow, and this layer of Security Theatre is superfluous and unnecessary; it is inefficient, onerous, pointless and frankly, evil.

There is nothing worse than an arrogant architect. I do not like to use the word ‘arrogant’, and very rarely employ it, but in this case it is completely appropriate.

This man is deliberately using human beings as part of an experiment, and he has put himself and his ideas above the rights and dignity of of the people who his buildings should be protecting and serving.

It is very rare that a building is designed to violate and humiliate the people who use it, and that this is being done in a context where millions will be systematically violated puts Richard Rogers up there with some of history’s worst ‘professionals who misused their art’.

Another post tipping point post:

[…]
Before writing me off as a privacy kook, consider this testimony from 1992 by the group Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) before the Special Joint Subcommittee Studying State and Commercial Use of Social Security Numbers for Transactional Identification. According to testimony, “[until] 1972, each card issued was emblazoned with the phrase ‘Not to be used for ID purposes.'” It cited a report by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that recommended, in unqualified terms, that the SSN not be used as an identifier (bold text in the original document):

We recommend against the adoption of any nationwide, standard, personal identification format, with or without the SSN, that would enhance the likelihood of arbitrary or uncontrolled linkage of records about people, particularly between government or government-supported automated personal data systems.

This advice was not followed, and by 1992 the CPSR reported the dismal facts: “Unfortunately, [the Federal Privacy Act of 1974] has not been effective due to bureaucratic resistance from inside the government, lack of an effective oversight mechanism, and the uncontrolled use of the SSN in the private sector.” When states like California, New York, Virginia and others passed legislation in the mid-1990s requiring the collection of an applicant’s SSN to issue a driver’s license, they effectively flattened 60 years of privacy protection, and they effectively exposed every citizen to a degree of identity risk that was, and remains, unconscionable.

And so what has been the legacy of the government ignoring its own advice and the advice of leading computer experts? Precisely what the CPSR predicted: identity theft is now the most prevalent complaint received by the FTC, and it’s America’s fastest-growing crime. Unlike a video game that just eats your quarter and says “GAME OVER,” a stolen identity can ruin your credit score, drain your bank account, endow you with a lengthy criminal record, or grant you an entry on the no-fly list. More troubling, identity theft can be a one-way ticket to a world in which the bits on some agent’s computer screen matter more than your own testimony, a world in which the term habeas corpus is a lexical artifact rather than a constitutional guarantee, a world in which your physical self can be suborned based on what is believed about your virtual self.

On December 18, 2006, Tom Zeller reported “An Ominous Milestone: 100 Million Data Leaks” in the Technology section of The New York Times. The number of confirmed victims is at least 15 million. The cost is estimated at more than $50 billion a year. In health care terms, we have more than 100 million “exposed,” 15 million “affected,” and a cost of, well, more than $50 billion. How did we get here? And what are we going to do about this virtual epidemic?

[…]

The people of this fair isle do not have this problem, because there is no unique identifying number that is issued by the state to every citizen line the american Social Security Number (SSN).

If the NIR is rolled out as planned, then everyone in the UK will be given a unique number which will be printed on their ID card. That number will then be the same as the SSNs that plague the americans, and then the shit will hit the fan for the British.

That ID cards are still being considered is as unsurprising as it is appalling. Gordon Brown and his merry band of murderers do not care a whit about the British people, or how much danger they put them in as a result of their insane policies.

Once again, for the nth time, if you allow yourself to get put into this system, then what is happening to the americans will happen to you You would have to be TOTALLY INSANE to volunteer for this madness.

But you know this…

and finally:

[…]
And it gets worse. Individuals who can be victimized by their own data can also become collective victims of those with whom they are associated. As Bruce Schneier wrote for Wired magazine:

Contrary to decades of denials, the U.S. Census Bureau used individual records to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The Census Bureau normally is prohibited by law from revealing data that could be linked to specific individuals; the law exists to encourage people to answer census questions accurately and without fear. And while the Second War Powers Act of 1942 temporarily suspended that protection in order to locate Japanese-Americans, the Census Bureau had maintained that it only provided general information about neighborhoods.

New research proves they were lying.

The whole incident serves as a poignant illustration of one of the thorniest problems of the information age: data collected for one purpose and then used for another, or “data reuse.”

It is bad enough that the government might collect data for one (lawful) purpose and then use it for another (nefarious) purpose, but what happens when all data is keyed by a single key, such as a Social Security number (SSN), which itself was never designed for the purpose of personal identification? And what happens when that number is leaked (100 million instances and counting) or stolen (15 million instances and counting)? The opportunities for abuse, both within and outside the system become virtually limitless. (And legislation passed in 2005 has only served to accelerate both the breadth and depth of these opportunities.)

Which is why the iPhone activation mechanism is so troubling, because it compels people in the heat of the moment to do something they should never do if given a moment’s thought. Now, I’m sure that it’s possible to get a phone activated without giving up one’s SSN. I did it with my carrier several years ago by walking the issue up to a VP’s desk and posting a $1,000 bond for two years. So it can be done. But should it be so hard? And how are we going to teach our children the importance of protecting personal information when the laws of the state and mainstream corporate behavior make it virtually impossible to do so?

The only solution I can see is that our family will have to dramatically expand the lesson of “you are responsible for you” beyond the basics of verbal and physical conduct. If you have any good references on how to teach your third-grader the ins and outs of identity management and information security, I’d be happy to receive them now. In the meantime, we’ll let you know whether we find a way to activate Amy’s new iPhone without handing over sensitive personal information to a company that has demonstrated no respect for personal privacy or identifying data.

[…]

News.com

What is so magical about this great country is that none of this applies here and we still have time to stop it from happening. Britain is still great. It is not to late to pull her back from the brink of the abyss.

I think we need a new category called, “Someone Stupid Said”:

EC wants to suppress internet bomb-making guides
Eurocrats, terrorists vie for techno-dunce supremacy
By Lewis Page

The European Commission (EC) has announced plans to frustrate terrorism by suppressing online guides on bomb-making.

“It should simply not be possible to leave people free to instruct other people on the internet on how to make a bomb – that has nothing to do with freedom of expression,” EC vice president Franco Frattini said yesterday.

Mr Frattini is “responsible for Freedom, Security and Justice.”

When asked how the EC planned to suppress web bomb manufacture instructions hosted outside EU borders, it appeared that officials planned to act at the level of ISPs in Europe.

The Times quoted a commission spokesman as saying: “You always need a provider here that gives you access to websites. They can decide technically which websites to allow. Otherwise, how would China block internet sites? There are no technological obstacles, only legal ones.”

According to the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, “internet service providers would face charges if they failed to block websites with bomb-making instructions”.

Mr Frattini and his EC subordinates appeared to have no plans for dealing with bomb instructions sent via email, browsed over encrypted relays such as Tor, sent by post, or physically transported. Nor did his plan offer any serious chance of websites being blocked at hundreds of ISPs in time to prevent full details being obtained by anyone who wanted them. Nor did it take account of the speed with which controversial information can be – and usually is – mirrored.

If the UK papers’ reports are correct, Frattini and his advisors are fantastically ignorant of internet realities. The timing of the announcements seemed to respond with recent comically inept terror attempts in London and Glasgow. Given that those involved had clearly failed to do any internet research whatsoever before mounting their addled and ineffectual campaign, Mr Frattini’s outburst yesterday wasn’t just ignorant, but irrelevant too.

Anyone with even very basic net savvy is going to be able to get bomb-making instructions despite the laws Mr Frattini tries to push through this autumn. Even total web dolts with contacts outside the EU will be able to get information forwarded to them. A dunce’s cap, please, for Frattini and the EC Freedom, Security and Justice apparat. Off to the corner with them.

[…]

The Register

And one of the best, most concise, comments on this subject that I have ever read, attached to that story:

Diffuse the bomber not the bomb
Posted Wednesday 4th July 2007 14:48 GMT

If you remove the injustice that’s used for recruiting the terrorists, then you remove the problem. The evil masterminds can plot all they like, but if they have no foot soldiers willing to blow themselves up, they have no attack vector.

On the other hand, if you leave the injustice in place, and these evil masterminds *can* recruit their foot soldiers, then what stops them simply sending an email with bomb making instructions?

So this can’t work.

I also think some of the existing measures are very counter productive. For example creating laws on ‘incitement’, simply suppressed the words used to express anger. But that anger didn’t go away, so likely became channeled in actions instead. It tackled the symptoms not the cause and in doing so made things worse by marginalizing and fanaticizing people who, otherwise would simply be angry.

Imagine if Cory Doctorow was not allowed to rant about copyright, DRM and the RIAA. He’s you’re classic fanatical type, without free speech, he’d be making bombs instead of speeches and blowing stuff up. Instead of an ‘activist’ he’d be a ‘terrorist’ instead. Same personality different rule set.

I’m not keen on the EU getting filtering rights to the net, since it wouldn’t work and would simply give them an ‘in to expand into all areas. How’s 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 suppression going?

Frattini and the majority of people in politics are indeed fantastically ignorant of how the internet works; in fact they are Computer Illiterates.

Not only are they computer illiterates, they are not even intelligent or experienced in problem solving enough to find the correct people to advise them on how the world really works, and instead, point to China as a model of how to make things ‘they way they ought to be’.

In case anyone is in any doubt, China is the model that Frattini and his sort admire. It is ‘China on the Danube’ that they want to create in the EU, and this little Freudian slip pretty much makes that clear, on top of all the other insane nonsense that he is plotting, like the air passenger info database.

Interesting that these Fascist ideas are coming an Italian….hmmmmmmm!

Added: Saturday, 30 June, 2007, 10:18 GMT 11:18 UK

Completely safe, thank you.

And even if I didn’t, I would not be prepared to give terrorists any victory by changing my habits or pandering to any ‘increased security’ in response to their threats.

Megan, Cheshire UK

Recommended by 215 people

———————

Added: Saturday, 30 June, 2007, 10:06 GMT 11:06 UK

Statistically and practically you have more chance of being hit by a bus on Oxford Street than being a victim of these deranged, brainwahsed psycopaths. Lets get on with our lives and don’t give them the satisfaction of thinking we’ll change of behaviour or way of life. As someone regularly in London on business I will continue to use the tube and visit nightclubs when socialising and these spineless cowards won’t stop me.

john smith, leeds, United Kingdom

Recommended by 193 people

———————

Added: Saturday, 30 June, 2007, 11:28 GMT 12:28 UK

Ooooh, I’m SO scared! Please, Mr Brown, pass some more draconian laws which limit our freedom.

I’m sick of being made to feel fearful by clowns who failed their “car bombing 101” course.

During the WWII blitz, when the danger was very real, the message wasn’t one of fear and angst, but “Keep Calm and Carry On”. I wish we had that message in today’s phony war on terra.

Marc Brett, London, UK

These are the most recommended answers to the question “How safe do you feel in the UK”, as asked at BBQ.

Its as if the usefulness of these acts are being tested by BBQ as part of a carefully coordinated planned study of effectiveness. As you can see, no one is buying it.

Everyone now understands that giving up your rights for safety is bullshit. Even more people understand that the people engineering these ‘attacks’ are the same people who are taking away your rights.

Watson has an interesting and insightful thing to say about this:

If we were really at war with Islamic terrorists then the British government would impose stringent controls on letting Muslims into the country in the first place and would deport others en masse – but instead the opposite has happened, while everybody’s rights are violated and abused in the name of security.

No one can say that this is a lie. People up and down the country are saying it openly. It cant be long before the newest buzzword in the UK is ‘Repatriation’. Denmark have already swallowed hard and said the words:

1.2. The Danish Repatriation Scheme

In Denmark repatriation is considered a voluntary matter. For repatriation to be successful, it must be carefully prepared. A decision to return is never easy, but often a lengthy process for the individual who has to consider many aspects. It must be ensured that the decision is made on an as sound and well-informed basis as possible.

The current repatriation scheme gives refugees and immigrants the opportunity to apply for financial support towards resettlement in their native country or former country of residence and towards the costs of the journey. In addition the scheme contains a fixed-term right to regret for refugees. […]

reintegration.net

Now look at this.

See what I mean?

But I digress. The focus is going to be moved, wether the grotesque ‘Uncle Joe’ Gordon Brown likes it or not, to eliminating ‘the enemy within’ and no one is going to accept even more useless legislation, which is literally useless at stopping crime.

“A tiny island off the coast of mainland Europe effectively ruled one third of the world for more than four centuries, 50 nations and one quarter of the worlds population came under its jursdiction. It was not found necessary to inflict a common currency on member countries or to translate every piece of information in multi languages. It did not require a seperate and gigantic administration to control this vast group of nations – it was run by the Commonwealth Office.

This Office and this country did not presume to dictate to it’s charges what they could eat, where they could fish or how long they could work, nor did they insist on changing their laws and traditions.

It still did not last – why or how do you think that a Federal Europe will? – by force?”

Posted by Bob wydell on June 25, 2007 3:58 PM

The Telegraph

I like it.®

Vladimir Bukovksy, the 63-year old former Soviet dissident, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. In a speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a “monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state.

[…]

In his speech Mr Bukovsky referred to confidential documents from secret Soviet files which he was allowed to read in 1992. These documents confirm the existence of a “conspiracy” to turn the European Union into a socialist organization.

[…]

Vladimir Bukovsky: I am referrring to structures, to certain ideologies being instilled, to the plans, the direction, the inevitable expansion, the obliteration of nations, which was the purpose of the Soviet Union. Most people do not understand this. They do not know it, but we do because we were raised in the Soviet Union where we had to study the Soviet ideology in school and at university. The ultimate purpose of the Soviet Union was to create a new historic entity, the Soviet people, all around the globe. The same is true in the EU today. They are trying to create a new people. They call this people “Europeans”, whatever that means.

According to Communist doctrine as well as to many forms of Socialist thinking, the state, the national state, is supposed to wither away. In Russia, however, the opposite happened. Instead of withering away the Soviet state became a very powerful state, but the nationalities were obliterated. But when the time of the Soviet collapse came these suppressed feelings of national identity came bouncing back and they nearly destroyed the country. It was so frightening.

[…]

Propaganda Matrix

Who can say that this is a lie?

The people of the independent states of Europe are against it becoming a super state, and where an election was held, the populations voted ‘no’. In spite of this, they are brining in all the elements of that evil and discredited document into force via a treaty, directly disobeying the electorate. That is PRECISELY the sort of thing that was the norm in the Soviet Union. Bukovsky is right. The EU should be dismantled, leaving only its currency intact. SHENGEN, Maastricht, everything needs to be thrown out, because the people who run the EU cannot be trusted and the EU’s very existence is a deadly poison to liberty.

And as for calling Bukovsky a Terrorist, read about it yourself.

Freedom, not climate, is at risk

Vaclav Klaus
Friday June 15, 2007

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.

Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).

Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.

I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.

The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

• As a witness to today’s worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:
• Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
• Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
• Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
• Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
• Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
• Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction
• Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

Financial Times

Thank heaven, Jultra is back, with his usual, beautiful and inspiring English:

[…]
Let’s just quickly look at this: Blair’s recent attack effectively on blogs like this. I guess that means we have won the arguments then.

The speech contains the usual obvious soundbytes to set the tone like ‘changing context’ and ’21st century’ (see this) and so on.

Although Blair starts with the mainstream media, naturally, none of this is aimed at the BBC, or the Daily Mail, or the ‘Independent’ (who Blair duplicitously pretends to complain about) all of whom by far on balance, carry out the will of the same consituency Blair represents pretty much most of the time.

The mainstream media is either so utterly impotent or so totally complicit that it poses no threat at all and can usually be relied upon to comformatably blindly report spin from the government as news or fudge the issues of the day into crap like ‘Germans put bugs in our wheelie bins’. It can be relied upon to be pro ID-cards (BBC), pro CCTV (BBC), pro European world government (BBC) and so on, pro ‘War on Terror’ (Telegraph, BBC) etc. It can’t quite be too overtly pro- Iraq war these days, although privately, with the exception of ITN and perhaps one or 2 other outlets, the integrity of the MSM’s ‘anti-warness’ has to be questioned.

So this whole stream of waffle by Blair is aimed squarely at the alternative media, and what Blair is trying to do is blame everyone else for the correctly appalled response to his vile crimes, the crimes of his party and supporters and backers.
Blair says:

“The damage saps the country’s confidence and self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future.”

Sure, so you can get a nice compliant green light to drop bombs on Iran ? So you can get guillable British citizens to line up to join the quantized human pleb grid. So no one questions what happens when a ‘terrorist event’ occurs and all dotingly rally behind the government and start worshipping it again ?

But it is the country, not some nebulous desirable ‘relationship between media and public life’ that is wholly damaged, and it is Blair and his vile supporters that have willfully and with enormous and giddy glee caused that damage to the country and to its institutions. None of that is an accident, or some misunderstanding, on the contrary it’s all quite deliberate.

[…]

And the only remedy for this terrible damage is in the alternative media, not in the ghoulish grotesque ambition of the stained Gordon Brown ever sweatily fumbling for power and trying to distance himself from the attrocities in Iraq when it is politically expedient to do so, or the outgoing speeches of a vile disgraced sociopath like Blair, or the hopeless projection of worthless ideas from various pro-regime Guardian columnists onto the rotting goverment.

The country is badly badly damaged as I’ve said here for a long time now, there’s no point arguing about it, or denying it. It’s just the reality, and a dangerously reality where it is becoming altogether undesirable to live here at all or even be associated with this country.

It is a really serious situation. The rule of law is badly damaged, the meaning of the state is enormously damaged, and the governement is irrepairrably damaged because of its own horrendous actions and it is so seriously compromised as an entity now, that quite honestly it is difficult to see what point there is in contributing to this mess anymore.

It should come as no surprise that such a rotting demonic monster, this conduit of global evil Mr Blair (with the approval of Mr Murdoch and buddies) instead still has the sheer audacity to try to spin it all around and blame everyone else for his own sickening behaviour and crimes against the world and this country. And again this should serve as an another reminder of why Blair is either so corrupted personally by forces acting on him, or who’s own judgement is so monstrously flawed and distorted that he is basically incapable of making a judgement at all.

[…]

Jultra

Without people like Jultra writing, linking and thus informing, all is lost.

This very article demonstrates how important people like Jultra are, and how much of a real threat Bloggers are.

It also demonstrates how important it is to keep up regular posting, and to not become disheartened, fatigued or disillusioned. It is hard work. It takes up your time. It puts you at risk because these words will last forever. Despite all of this, it needs to be done, if only to be able to say, “I didn’t sit there quietly and take it”.

Some people don’t understand why we oppose a national ID card. “It’s just a piece of paper,” they say. “What does it matter?”

Historian and law professor Eric Muller of the University of North Carolina has been trying to find out exactly what happened to his great-uncle Leopold Muller, who was deported from his home in Germany in 1942 and never heard from again by those of his family who survived. Most likely, he was eventually murdered at the death camp called Belzec.

Recently, in the course of his research, Eric found his Uncle Leopold’s German national ID card. He also found his Uncle Leopold’s medals for his service in the German army in World War I, during which he lost the use of one arm. But his Kemmkarte identified him boldly on the cover as Jew, not a decorated war veteran. Perhaps that’s why he arrived at the “evacuation” center without his ID card:

The Jew Leopold Israel Müller … will be evacuated to the East on April 25, 1942. He alleges that on April 24, 1942, he lost the kennkarte that he formerly had in his possession…. Müller is therefore without identification papers.

Was the ID card “just a piece of paper” to the Nazis? Was it sufficient that they had the person they wanted in their custody, and would soon send him to his death? No. They immedietely sent the police to search his empty house, find his kennkarte, and dutifully forward it after him (although by the time it arrived, he had been sent on, presumably to his death). The card itself mattered. To “lose” the card was, perhaps, to escape the fatal consequences of the definition it imposed.

Eric tells the story much more eloquently than we could. But what we think is noteworthy in contemporary context is the importance the national ID card played in defining the individual, and involuntarily binding the actual person to the designation (in his case, “Jew”) at categorization imposed on him by the government.

We are people, entitled to define (and redefine) ourselves. We are not, and we should not be, “identified” solely by which pigeon-hole(s) a government decides to put us in.

Snarfed from Papers Please.

And I completely agree with the idea that no one has the right to define you, and then force you to to be identified only by a means imposed by the state.

There are millions of these stories, from all over the world…

No one in the UK can say that they were not warned.

‘Orwellian’ CCTV in shires alarms senior police officer

· Benefits of wide-ranging surveillance questioned
· Deputy chief constable criticises DNA rules

Rachel Williams
Monday May 21, 2007
The Guardian

Britain risks becoming an “Orwellian” society as CCTV cameras spread to quiet villages with low crime levels, a senior police officer warned yesterday.

Ian Readhead, Hampshire’s deputy chief constable, said he did not want to live in a country where every street corner was fitted with surveillance devices.

And so, at long last, the penny drops.

Even THE POLICE in Britain do not want to live in a country that is a Police State.

You cannot make this stuff up.

He also criticised rules which meant DNA evidence and fingerprints could be kept for the rest of a teenager’s life once they have been arrested for an offence, even if they never get in trouble again, and said there was a danger that speed cameras were seen by the public as a revenue-generating process rather than a genuine effort to reduce casualties.

Everyone deserves a second chance. A country where everything you do is forever marked down against your ‘record’ is not a fit place for human beings. Even the Police, the group that supposedly all of this is being set up to aid, are against it.

What took them so long to come out and SAY ALL OF THIS?!

Mr Readhead highlighted the town of Stockbridge in Hampshire’s rural Test Valley, where parish councillors spent £10,000 installing CCTV, as an example of a situation where the benefits of surveillance were questionable.

Crime went up slightly in the town after the system was installed, Mr Readhead said, although between 2005 and 2006 there were only two violent crimes against people over 60 and no one was injured in either incident. “I have to question: does the camera actually instill in individuals a great feeling of safety and does it present serious offences taking place?” he said in an interview for the BBC’s Politics Show.

Like most people in the UK, these councillors are in the grip of a feverish mania; ‘Security Madness’. They have no understanding of security, what the difference between real security and Security Theatre is. They also clearly have no understanding of what a free country is, and do not value Britain for the country that it has been for generations.

There are plenty of these thick people about sadly, they all speak with the same type of voice, hold the same ignorant opinions and they all have the vote. Sadly.

“I’m struggling with seeing the deployment of cameras in our local village as being a benefit to policing; I understand why the local public say this is what we want, but I’m really concerned about what happens to the product of these cameras, and what comes next? If it’s in our villages – are we really moving towards an Orwellian situation with cameras on every street corner? I really don’t think that’s the kind of country that I want to live in.”

Bravo, at last.

Stockbridge parish council yesterday defended its decision to install CCTV, with its former chairman revealing that police and traders had each contributed £4,000 to the cost of installing the three surveillance cameras in the town.

David Baseley, who was parish council chairman for the past nine years, said he was amazed by Mr Readhead’s comments. “I think a lot of police would disagree with him, the police have paid for some of it and the police have been behind it,” he said. “We were concerned about the vulnerability of the place, although we haven’t had any real crimes.”

The weather used to be the mainstay of conversations in this great country, now, it is ‘security’. ‘Security’ and ‘Health and Safety’ permeate every thought and every corner of everything and every place, to the extent that you cannot even cook food because of “Health and Safety”.

This nauseating mania for everything to be rendered harmless, for every possible eventuality to be covered, to prevent all accidents, no matter what the cost is un-British, inhuman and TOTALLY INSANE.

There are an estimated 4.2m CCTV cameras in the UK.

Not for long there are.

On the retention of DNA evidence, Mr Readhead said: “My concern is this – we are in a society at the moment where the police have the power that if they arrest a 15-year-old for a recordable offence we can retain their DNA and their fingerprints.

“That information would be kept for life unless there were exceptional circumstances, such as it being proved that no crime was committed.

“My real worry is this. Fifteen years from now we are still holding that DNA and that arrest information – should we be doing that?” Mr Readhead asked. “Is it right that that may impede that person – who’s never been arrested again – from getting a job? I’m not sure that sits comfortably with me.”

Well, the question that comes next is, “WHat are you going to do about it Mr. Readhead?”.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, welcomed Mr Readhead’s comments: “Politicians like to present the police as ever hungry for more powers. Yet even the police are concerned that we are losing the value of privacy.”

The Police Federation’s vice-chairman, Alan Gordon, said he shared some of the concerns about the extent of CCTV use. “I have sympathy with members of the public who are not going to be committing crimes and feel they are being spied on. It should be down to consultation with people locally,” he said.

No it should not you imbecile.

The public spaces should not be surveilled, full stop. Surveillance does not prevent crime. In the many decades before the mania for ‘Security’ the crime rate in the UK was very much lower than it is today.

The causes of crime must be addressed. The Surveillance system must be dismantled, because it has destroyed the quality of life that we have in the UK.

Profile: Stockbridge

Stockbridge’s wide high street has its roots in the ancient market town’s position on a drovers’ road that was once one of the south’s main east-west routes. Some 200 years later it was that same hub-like position – now the junction of the A30, A3057 and A3049 – that helped convince traders, fearful of outsiders raiding their shops and making a swift escape towards Salisbury, Andover, Winchester or Romsey, that they needed a CCTV system. The high street, with its tourist-friendly groceries, tea rooms, and antique shops, rarely suffers from yobbish youths loitering outside convenience stores.

The little crime there is consists largely of break-ins, and in 2004 the chamber of trade, police and local figures stumped up for three cameras. They have not led to any arrests, and crime has not been eradicated. Thieves broke into the Vine Inn in October to take cash from a fruit machine, and across the road the Co-op was targeted twice in a year. […]

Guardian

And there you have it.

Gordon Brown, BACK DOWN!

Cancel the NIR.
Remove all CCTV from public spaces.
Return to non Biometric Passports.
Cancel the ID Cards scheme.
Repeal all Orwellian Blair era legislation.
Remove all Speed Cameras.
Dismantle the Congestion Charging system in London.

and by all means, you can add to this list yourself.

UFO Disclosure – The Harsh Reality
by Patrick Cooke 

On May 9, 2001, Dr. Steven Greer of The Disclosure Project paraded a convincing cast of military and government witnesses before cameras at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. And then……nothing. Almost 6 years of non-disclosure about why it never went beyond that single press conference, even though it was the brightest “flash in the pan” the UFO movement had experienced.

Almost immediately, Greer set up a corporation dedicated to finding the elusive technology to provide the world’s energy needs with “alien technology”. He put all his efforts into that, and all we ever got was a video to remember the hope the press conference generated. The hope that, finally, we might get some answers from the government went the way of most alternatives to mainstream thought; it got sold.

Even though very little has been done, not withstanding the efforts of Steven Basset and a few others to force government disclosure, something recently, almost out of the ether, seems to have generated that governmental UFO disclosure so important to the credibility of the entire UFO movement. And, interest in UFOs has spread from the generally ignored paranormal and UFO “community” to the mainstream media. Suddenly, the justified fear of ridicule connected with reporting UFO sightings is fading and acceptance by the mainstream is increasing.

Recent Disclosure History

The best remembered UFO disclosure event to occur, which remains one of the largest “elephant in the room” in the UFO field, was Project Blue Book in 1969 that was undertaken by the United States Air Force. It was officially discontinued with the Air force citing the reason that UFOs did not present any threat to national security. It should be noted that this was not a denial of existence.

We do not need to go back hundreds or thousands of years to find clues to the current interest in UFOs; a decade will suffice.

• March 1997 – The Phoenix Lights event garnered the widest international attention of any UFO encounter in modern history in March 13, 1997. Less than two years later, in
• January 1999 – Joe Firmage, a Silicon Valley CEO turned UFO evangelist, posted his a 700-page UFO manifesto, “The Truth”.
• May 2001 – The Disclosure Project National Press Club event mentioned above took place, and Stephen Bassett took up the cause of UFO disclosure in his independent candidacy in the 8th Congressional District of the State of Maryland. (N.B. look at these testimonials on YouTube)
• May, 2004 The Mexican Department of Defense released videos of a sighting of multiple UFOs taken by an Air Force Merlín C26A, virtually admitting that UFOs exist.
• July, 2004 – Governor of New Mexico and presidential candidate, Bill Richardson, stated, “It would help everyone if the U.S. government disclosed everything it knows.”
• February, 2005 “Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing” (N.B. a VERY shitty documentary. A much better one is ‘UFOs are Real‘ or ‘Out of the Blue‘)
• May, 2005 – A year after the Mexican DoD released its videos, the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) releases all its files on UFO contacts.
• September 2005 – Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister, publicly stated, “UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head.”
• April 2006 the Paradigm Clock, which tracks proximity to a formal acknowledgement of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race, was reset to 11:59:45, just 15 seconds to midnight.
• November 2006 – A significant sighting took place at O’Hare Airport in Chicago and received worldwide attention and media coverage.
• February 2007 The Chilean Army discloses recordings and secret contacts with UFOs before over a thousand attendees at the 10th International UFO Congress.
• March 2007 – The French national space agency, CNES, placed 1600 previously classified UFO sighting reports into the public domain on the Internet.
• March 2007 – Former Arizona governor, Fife Symington, revealed that he had seen a massive black triangular UFO fly overhead early in the evening of March 17, 1997 – the first Phoenix Lights event.
• April 2007 – The proposed “U.N. Decade Of Contact” to establish diplomatic relations with advanced E.T.s petition is well on its way to reaching its goal for submission to the United Nations.

Of the 14 major events listed above, which are moving UFO disclosure closer to reality, 11 have occurred in the last 24 months. This indicates that the mainstream is moving rapidly toward an acceptance of the greatest revelation in human history. Or, is that better phrased as a return to the beliefs our ancestors held since the beginning of human history?

The UFO Paradigm Shift

There is no record of recent influence in human affairs, by the occupants of UFOs, although there have been reports of high tech tampering with nuclear weapons and possible power interferences during exotic weapons testing. This is, of course, excluding the exotheological concept that the ancient religious writings were inspired by extraterrestrial contact. Most of the UFO contact recorded with the military is because of the mere presence of UFOs, not any aggressive action on their part. Just the fact that they are there seems to make those witnessing them presume they are, somehow, interfering with human activity.

[…]

article continues at UFO Digest

While we are at it, you should download this incredible pair of clips of a UFO shot in France April 24th from two different locations by two people independent of each other. Then you should download the classic ‘UFOs are Real‘; the best UFO documentary ever made.

I recently had a short email exchange about this subject, and since I found the torrent of the high res south of France footage, its as good a time as any to post it:

+++++++

***** ***** wrote:

I’m assuming you’ve seen this, but just to make sure…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2071275,00.html

Yes! I saw that – interesting how they have so many filess when they claim they have had and do not have any interest in the subject.

We watched UFOs are real. To be honest, it’s somewhat preaching to the converted in me and ***** (actually, we’ve never converted. We’ve always known), but it was nice to see some things I’d not really heard of. The strongest earth-originated fact was the letter from J. Edgar Hoover complaining that the navy had ‘snatched’ something.

And the army would not let them have it for cursory inspection! Its just amazing isn’t it? and the brain dead journalists and SETI dorks like Seth Shostack still insist that there is no evidence!

Its an astonishing documentary. The facts are laid out perfectly. The photos of the same object or different objects from the same manufacturer, taken at different times in different places just blows away any doubt you could harbor. There is so much in there, all logically presented, without any new-age garbage.

The part about the inventor of the transistor saying man would never land on the moon and the example of the difference between jets and sailing ships is also good; it makes it clear to even the dumbest that saying ‘impossible’ is really a dumb thing to do. This stuff is real, it is happening, it has been happening for generations, and there is nothing we can do about it.

It still confuses me a little though, that despite so many sightings there has still been no single event capable of convincing an extremely sceptical public. It needn’t be a landing in Trafalgar Square, but just enough and public enough to deflect accusations of hallucination/storytelling/madness/attention-seeking/whatever.

increasingly i think this is a good thing. I really have had enough of these ‘world changing events’, and this one would be the mother of them all!

I find it incredible that every substantial piece of evidence that could do so has been swept under the carpet (or Hoover’ed up!). Tis a shame. Have you found that this film has changed anyone’s mind? I doubt it has. People are conditioned not to believe this type of evidence, which is why An Undeniable Event is required.

It may be coming…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77FjyBe7cQM&feature=player_profilepage

This and the guernsey sighting a few days ago, plus the O’Hare….its getting silly. And the media is no longer laughing off the stories, and is publishing them left right and centre. That, and the all pervasive cameras in the hands of punters, means we are heading towards this world changing event. Bad News.

This release of information certainly isn’t that event. I don’t expect to find any evidence lurking in the MoD files! And anyone who does must be loopy.

I’m not sure why they are even bothering. Actually, I DO know why; the French have done it, and so, not to be outdone, the Brits are having their ‘me too’ moment, to show that actually, they are not incompetent, they have been studying this also. India has been publishing some very bizarre stories detailing the science that has been gleaned from this area. It reads like….beyond science fiction.

Everyone knows that the best cases were not part of the Bluebook system, and with these MOD files, for certain the best evidence will not be in there.

At the end of the day, unless private people can get a hold of the technology and make use of it, I now take the position that we should keep it secret, so that we can continue with our lives as they are.

Can you IMAGINE what would happen if it ever became irrefutable? Everything would be turned upside down. We need MORE certainty, not LESS, and this event would bring more instability and uncertainty.

These people (and they really ARE people) can do things we can scarcely dream of. Once this secret is out, and out in detail, its ‘game over’.

No one seems to talk about another aspect of this that will totally change everything…. Culture.

These people have their own culture. It is certainly much older than ours. Inevitably, humans will start to adopt their culture and philosophy. It has happened every time a more advanced civilization meets an ‘inferior’ one; the inferior one looses its identity either partially or entirely.

Human culture will be contaminated beyond repair; in fact it has already happened by virtue of the sightings and the response of governments. Because knowledge of this is limited to a few people, the real impact has not happened, and the contamination is limited to science fiction, but once it is real, and these people hand over some books, thats it, its over.

Their political, philosophical and other ideas will spread like a California brushfire, wiping out our identity and culture. In a few hundred years there will not be a single human alive that is really human in its thinking. Every man woman and child will have adopted some part of alien culture into their mindset, and indeed, this is quite natural for us, since we like to learn things. Sadly, the things we have to learn from them will be so astonishing that they will supplant our ideas.

Think about it; a culture that can travel to other planets must have organization that works well. Everyone will want to apply those principles to their own lives and projects and interpersonal interactions. Politics, how we breed…everything will be transformed completely, and it doesn’t matter what form their ideas take; because they are ‘superior’, everyone will assume that their ways are better.

No. I think these people and their information need to be kept out of our loop, lest we become a Cargo Cult planet of slavering servants.

Take a look at the COMETA report, if you have not already done so:

http://www.scribd.com/search?query=cometa

The French have been taking this seriously for decades, for all the good it has done them.

Lataz!

./a

+++++++

And there you have it.

Nothing lasts forever, that is for sure, and Disclosure is coming, that is also a certainty. Will it be a good thing or a bad thing, that is the question. Today, I think it will be mostly if not all bad.

I could be wrong…