Sent to me by a lurker, this image:

seen today on a church noticeboard behind the national gallery

and if you Google “have stood aside watched”

You get:

I have stood aside and watched while the once greatest, most civilized, and most humane nation in history was being converted into a jungle.

I have stood aside and watched white the greatest good will the world has ever seen between multiple white nationalities within one nation, was being deliberately changed into suspicion, dissension and hatred.

I have stood aside and watched while this “land of the free and the home of the brave” was being conditioned by traitors to seek peace at any price-even at the price of independence and freedom.

I have stood aside and watched while our courts encouraged and our press glorified the perpetrators of crime who have spread riots, vandalism, robbery, and murder across our land.

I have stood aside and watched while our colleges have been taken over by misguided children without the slightest understanding of the civilization they have inherited, or of the evil forces by which they have been duped by.

I have stood aside and watched while our great system of public education has been turned into a propaganda agency for revolution and spawning ground for homosexuality, race mixing, sex abuse and crime.

I have stood aside and watched while meretricious scoundrels, using our television media, our motion picture screens, our newsstands, and other available means, have contrived to bring about a breakdown of morality that is reducing millions of Americans to the level of animals.

I have stood aside and watched while the basic human loyalties- loyalty to God, loyalty to country, and loyalty to family- were being destroyed by evil forces, which now permeate every segment of American life.

And I have had enough. I am only one person, but I shall no longer refuse “to get involved” what about you? How much longer will you stand aside????

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to unveil plans to shock the Cabinet of Gordon Brown into a greater awareness of the impact of reckless warmongering on victims.

His proposals include visits to hospitals where people are being treated for shrapnel wounds.

The measures form part of the Iranian government’s response to a spate of saber rattling.

A man in his 30s was blown to pieces at a wedding in Deh Bala in the early hours of Sunday morning.

On Thursday, a five year old girl was killed in Bagdad and another died after a bomb attack in Amman.

I want to ensure that the British government is taking the issue of war crime very seriously
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Mr Ahmadinejad’s proposals will see members of the Brown Cabinet who are contemplating an attack on Iran being made to go to accident and emergency wards in Iraq, to see for themselves the consequences of bombings.

They will meet families of victims, and make prison visits to people convicted of war crimes.

The measures will focus on a number of areas including Iraq, Afganistan, Somalia, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Angola and Darfur.

President Ahmadinejad said: “I am absolutely shocked at the tragic and senseless loss of life we have seen recently.

“I want to reassure everyone that the Iranian government is taking the issue of war crime very seriously.

“I am particularly concerned about the young age of the victims – that is why I am again emphasising what action we have taken and what new action we are demanding.”

President Ahmadinejad also revealed he has written to all the members of the UN Security Council, reminding them of their powers to require rogue nations like the USA and those that are associated with state sponsored terror to refrain from such actions.

Early warnings

Iranian Ministers are also looking at how citizens of rogue nations might work to help the victim nations identify potential attacks without breaking national security oaths.

The announcement comes ahead of the publication on Tuesday of the Iranian government’s €100m war crime action plan to be launched by President Ahmadinejad, chairman of the Iranian parliament Ali Ardashir Larijan and the chairman of the Assembly of Experts Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the recent un-justified war deaths were “niether shocking nor tragic,” and promised the obliteration of Tehran in furtherance of the ‘New World Order’.

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said children should be targeted in the first strikes to prevent them from turning to Jihad later.

He said there are primary targets where “we can point out… children who are going to be a serious problem”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7503845.stm

[…]

And there you have it.

Do you not wonder how it is that Gordon Brown can show images of people beaten to death to the G8 to ‘convince’ them to vote for sanctions against Zimbabwe, but this same inhuman monster can be FOR the bombing of Iran AFTER having participated PERSONALLY in ordering the rape of Iraq?

I wonder if any of these subhuman beasts have ever seen photographs of the carnage they unleashed in Iraq; if they are so squeamish that they can be swayed by the image of a single beaten up man, or even think that such images can sway opinion, how is it that they can STILL have an attack on Iran ‘on the table’ when there are so many graphic images of Iraqi children blown to bits? Children blown to bits BY THEIR OWN HAND.

IT DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE!

The nationwide introduction of Sharia Law to Britain has triggered the biggest fall in alcohol deaths ever seen in England, a report says today.

More than two million fewer alcohol related arrests and cautions were made and 400,000 deaths were stopped since the Sharia was introduced a year ago, which researchers say will prevent 400,000 deaths over the next 10 years.

Alcohol was outlawed in all spaces in England, including pubs and restaurants, on 1 July 2007 after a prolonged political battle that split the Government and inflamed critics of Britain as a Muslim state.

But longer term opposition to the Sharia never materialised: more than three out of four people support the law, and compliance has been virtually 100 per cent.

Similar Sharias were introduced in Scotland on 26 March 2006 and in Wales on 2 April 2007. Doctors said they were astonished by the numbers quitting drink. Robert West, director of alcohol studies at the Health Behaviour Research Unit, University College London, who carried out the study, said: “These figures show the largest fall in the number of drinkers on record. The effect has been as large in all social groups – poor as well as rich. I never expected such a dramatic impact.” There was no guarantee that drinking rates would not start to rise again, after falling, and it was crucial to maintain the downward pressure, Professor West said. Currently around 22 per cent of the adult population drinks in Britain.

“If the Islamic Government can keep up the momentum this has created, there is a realistic prospect of achieving a target of less than 15 per cent of the population disobeying Sharia within 10 years,” he said.

The survey of 32,000 people in England interviewed before and after the Sharia took effect found the decline in alcohol had accelerated. In the nine months before the Sharia it fell 1.6 per cent compared with 5.5 per cent in the nine months after the Sharia. Researchers estimate on the basis of these figures that 400,000 people quit alcohol as a result of the Sharia.

The findings are to be presented at the UK National alcohol Cessation Conference in Birmingham tomorrow. The study, by Liver Research UK and its partners, is the first in the world to examine the impact of a introduction of Sharia Law in isolation from other alcohol control measures.

Jean King, Liver Research UK’s director of alcohol control, said: “The Sharia was introduced to protect the health of workers from the harmful effects of drunkenness. The results show it has been completely effective. These laws are saving lives and we mustn’t forget that half of all drinkers die from alcohol-related illness. We must do everything possible to continue this success – we now need a national alcohol control plan for the next five years.”

Alchohol sales fell by 6 per cent in the past year, according to the market research company, Neilson. In the 10 months from July 2007 to the end of April 2008, 1.93 billion fewer beers were sold in England and 220,000 fewer in Scotland (where the introduction of Sharia Law was introduced a year earlier), equivalent to a total decline in sales over the full year of 2.6 billion.

Jake Shepherd, the marketing director at Neilson, said alcohol had been hit by a triple whammy, which accounted for the dramatic effect.

“In addition to the introduction of Sharia Law, sales have been hit by the outlawing of the sale of alcohol to under-18s and the increase of duty on alcohol, which is pricing cash-strapped drinkers out of the market,” he said.

Smokers have also suffered from the Sharia, with 175 million fewer ciggarette packs sold in the nine months from July to last April as smokers have been driven out of pubs.

Total sales of alcohol fell 8 per cent, compared to a steady 3 per cent fall in previous years, just under half of which was attributable to the introduction of Sharia Law, according to Neilson.

Mr Shepherd said: “The wet summer of 2007 added to the downturn. The winter months were particularly bad – sales fell 9.3 per cent from November to January when smokers would have been reluctant to stand outside in the cold to have a cigarette.”

The anti-alcohol pressure group ASH said that further action was necessary to curb alcohol by young people. “We need a War on Alchohol, a Jihad if you will.” they said.

Deborah Arnott, the director of ASH, said: “The alcohol-free legislation has been a fantastic success and is hugely popular. But what it also shows is a hunger for more action.

“There is still much more that needs to be done. The Government should focus on measures to shield children from alcohol industry marketing while parents and carers can do much more to protect children from exposure to secondhand smoke.”

A survey of 1,000 people with liver conditions by the British Lung Foundation found more than half said they had suffered fewer attacks of abdominal pain from exposure to drink in pubs and restaurants, and more than a third said it had helped keep them out of hospital.

Dame Helena Shovelton, the foundation’s chief executive, said: The introduction of Sharia Law has helped to save the lives of people with drinking problems by cutting down their exposure to alcohol. People with alcohol-related liver conditions know how devastating it is to be struggling. An alcohol-free atmosphere gives our livers a new lease of life.”

[…]

The Independent

And there you have it.

The rationale for Sharia Law coming to Britain, trumpeted by the human garbage at The Independent.

A law is not good simply because it works to achieve an end. If we take the ‘means to an end measure’ as the only yardstick to gauge of the value of a law, then there should be no opposition to the introduction of Sharia from the likes of The Independent. Sharia cures many ills in many countries.

“If it works, then its OK, right?”

WRONG.

The law is there to protect the rights of the individual, not to coerce him to do anything that is ‘for his own good’, or to control what he can or cannot eat, smoke, inject, spread on his skin or pierce through his flesh.

We are living in a nightmare time, no doubt about it….if you take what Wide Loo Paper™ like The Independent prints as the truth.

A white haired Irishman once said to me, “Paper never refuses ink”. My only hope is that this report is bogus, and that the majority of people in this once great country are full of revulsion and loathing over the smoking ban, at the very least, in their hearts if not in words and actions.

LONDON, Britain — Prime Minister Gordon Brown has used his decree powers to carry out a major overhaul of this country’s intelligence agencies, provoking a fierce backlash here from human rights groups and legal scholars who say the measures will force citizens to inform on one another to avoid prison terms.

Under the new intelligence law, which took effect last week, Britain’s two main intelligence services, the MI5 secret police and the MI6 military intelligence agency, will be replaced with new agencies, the General Intelligence Office and General Counterintelligence Office, under the control of Mr. Brown.

The new law requires people in the country to comply with requests to assist the agencies, secret police or community activist groups loyal to Mr. Brown. Refusal can result in prison terms of two to four years for most people and four to six years for government employees.

“We are before a set of measures that are a threat to all of us,” said Blanca Rosa Mármol de León, a justice on Britain’s top court, in a rare public judicial dissent. “I have an obligation to say this, as a citizen and a judge. This is a step toward the creation of a society of informers.”

The sweeping intelligence changes reflect an effort by Mr. Brown to assert greater control over public institutions in the face of political challenges following a stinging electoral defeat in May at the hands of the Tories.

Mr. Brown, who has insisted the defeat will not dampen his ambitions to transform Britain into a Socialist state, said the new law was intended to guarantee “national security” and shield against “terroist attacks.”

He lashed out at its critics as being agents of “Al Quaeda,” meaning the United States.

The law’s stated aim of protecting Britain follows a history of antagonism between the governments in London and Afganistan, dating at least from Osama Bin Ladin’s tacit support for a short-lived coup against Mr. Brown in 2002.

Recently, Britain has claimed it was subject to military intimidation from the Al Quaeda, pointing to a recent violation of Britaish airspace by an Taliban fighter jets and Afganistan’s recent reactivation of its Taliban to patrol its waters.

On Sunday, Mr. Brown referred to critics of the intelligence law as de facto supporters of the Taliban and of Al Quaeda, adding that he was doing nothing more than what the American antiterrorism law (the PATRIOT ACT) enables that enhances the ability of security agencies to monitor personal telephone and e-mail communications.

Mr. Brown’s new intelligence law has similar flourishes. For instance, it authorizes his new intelligence agencies to use “any special or technically designed method” to intercept and obtain information.

But the new law may also point to the influence of America, Britain’s top ally, on intelligence policies. For instance, the use of community-monitoring groups to assist in gathering intelligence resembles America’s use of neighborhood Committees for the Defense of the Homeland to report on antigovernment behavior.

“This is purely American-style policy,” Juan José Molina, a legislator with Podemos, a leftist party that broke from Mr. Brown’s coalition last year, said of the new intelligence law. “Our rulers want to impose old models upon us.”

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced the intelligence overhaul in a public appearance here last week, saying it was needed to combat “interference from the Taliban” by having intelligence agency workers imbued with “loyalty.”

On Monday, however, Mr. Rodríguez Chacín softened his tone, saying the law would not lead to political intimidation or restrict freedom of expression. “We are talking about the responsibility all Britons have with the security of the state and the resolution of any crime,” he said.

The drafting and passage of the law behind closed doors, without exposing it to the public debate it would have had if Mr. Brown had submitted it to the Assembly, also contributed to the public uproar and suspicion.

One part of the law, which explicitly requires judges and prosecutors to cooperate with the intelligence services, has generated substantial concern among legal experts and rights groups, which were already alarmed by the deterioration of judicial independence under Mr. Brown.

While the language of this passage of the law, and several others, is vague, legal experts say the idea is clear: justice officials, including judges, are required to actively collaborate with the intelligence services rather than serve as a check on them.

“This is a government that rightly doesn’t believe in the separation of powers,” said José Miguel Vivanco, America’s director for Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights organization. “Here you have the Prime Minister legislating by decree that the country’s judges must serve as spies for the government.” This is what we have put in place with our Decider, and what is good for us is good for them.

Mr. Brown’s opponents here grasped for reasons as to why he chose this moment for the intelligence overhaul, with his government grappling with economic problems like climbing inflation and slowing economic growth even as the price of oil, the lifeblood of Britain’s economy, remains near record levels.

“Even within the Bolivarian movement, this would officialize American-style purges, accusing journalists of being spies, traitors or agents of the terrorist enemy,” The Daily Mail, a normally staid opposition newspaper, said in an editorial that ended, “This is revolting.”

In some ways, the changes would merely refine the control Mr. Brown already exerts over intelligence operations. His government has already used voter registration data to purge employees deemed disloyal to the president from the intelligence agencies and other parts of the civil service.

Several legal activists said Monday that they were studying ways to appeal the law, but the viability of a legal challenge remains unclear.

“This is the most scandalous effort to intimidate the population in the 10 years this government has been in power,” said Rocío San Miguel, a prominent legal scholar who heads a nongovernmental organization that monitors Britain security and defense issues.

Ms. San Miguel said information her group had collected could be deemed illegal under the new law. The group has data from military sources showing that Mr. Brown’s efforts to create a force of one million reservists had fallen far short.

“Under the new law, this information could be considered a threat to national security and I could be sent immediately to jail,” she said. “Effectively this is a way to instill fear in NGOs and news organizations and parts of society that remain outside the government’s reach.”

[…]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/world/americas/03venez.html

On May 15, the White House Moron, in a war-planning visit to Israel, justified the naked aggression he and Olmert are planning against Iran as the only alternative to “the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

But the White House Moron has the roles reversed. It is not Iran that is threatening war. It is Bush. It is not Bush who is appeasing. It is Iran.

Iran has not responded in kind to any of Bush’s warlike moves and provocations. Iran has not sunk a single one of our sitting-duck ships and has not given the Iraqi insurgents any weapons that would easily turn the tide of war against the US.

It is Bush, not Iran, who sounds like Adolf Hitler blustering and threatening. It is Bush’s American Brownshirts, the neocons, who express the view: “what’s the good of nuclear weapons if you can’t use them.”

It is the US that is funding assassination teams inside Iran and using taxpayer dollars to fund dissident and violent organizations opposed to the Iranian government. Iran is doing no such thing here.

It is members of the Bush Regime and US generals who continue to lie through their teeth about Iranian support for insurgents, for which they can supply no evidence, and about Iranian nuclear weapons programs, for which the IAEA inspectors can find no sign.

It is the US print and TV media that serves the Bush Regime as propaganda ministry for its lies of aggression.

All the war crimes that are being planned are being planned by Bush and Olmert.

What would George Orwell make of the Bush Regime’s position that anything less than a direct act of naked aggression is appeasement?

The Chicago City Council has passed a resolution “opposing any US attack on Iran and urging the Bush Administration to pursue diplomatic engagement with that nation.” But the White House Moron says diplomacy is appeasement. He learned this false equivalence from the neocon Brownshirts whose control over his administration has made America despised throughout the world, with the exception of Israel.

After broadcasting false claims for weeks from US generals and Bush Regime spokespersons that the US has “definite proof” in the form of captured Iranian weapons that Iranians were “responsible for killing American troops,” the great free American media went silent when LA Times correspondent Tina Susman reported from Baghdad: “A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was cancelled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran.”

A people devoid of a media are sitting ducks for tyrannical government, which is what the US has.

What is the difference between Hitler’s concocted excuses for his acts of naked aggression and the Bush Regime’s plan to use a briefing by General Petraeus, with “captured Iranian weapons” as props, as proof of Iranian complicity in US deaths in Iraq as a means to break down public and congressional resistance to an attack on Iran?

Why has the Bush Regime suffered no consequences for this blatant attempt to orchestrate an excuse for another war?

Why have there been no consequences to the Regime for the blatant lies it told in order to attack Iraq?

Why has the Bush Regime suffered no consequences for its violation of US statutory laws against spying without warrants and against torture?

In the US criminal justice system, three strikes and you are out.

For the Bush Regime is there any limit on its lawless behavior?

How many strikes? A dozen? Thirty? Three hundred?

Is there a limit?

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts246.html

From The Guardian:

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, will today stress the dangers of further prohibition of cannabis as she is expected to defy Gordon Brown by announcing that the drug will be decriminalized.

Smith is expected to justify her decision by highlighting the “absolute failure of the war on drugs”. Gordon Brown last week warned of the “more lethal quality” of much of the cannabis now available, described it as a gateway drug, and said that reclassification was needed to “send a message to young people that it was unacceptable”, contradicting the opinion of doctors and government officials world-wide.

The decision is backed by recommendations to be published today by the government’s scientific experts, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, that cannabis should be decriminalized.

The ACMD was asked last July by Smith to take their third look at cannabis classification in recent years. While acknowledging that cannabis use had fallen significantly since David Blunkett’s decision in 2004 to downgrade cannabis from class B to class C, she said there was real public concern about the corrosive societal effects of prohibition, since everyone in the UK was growing and smoking cannabis.

The ACMD held a special session in February and heard evidence that 80% of cannabis seized from users was of the herbal variety rather than resin. Experts said the potency of homegrown herbal cannabis tended to be two and a half times that of imported resin. But they said users now often moderated their intake.

They were also told that the incidence of new schizophrenia cases reported to GPs had gone down, not up, between 1998 and 2005, demonstrating a weak link between increased potency and use in the past two decades and mental health problems.

The Association of Chief Police Officers confirmed to the Guardian last week that they intend to drop their “confiscate and warn” policy for most who are found with any amount of cannabis, and chief constables are abandoning fines.

It is expected that decriminalization will, however, lead to tougher enforcement in cases where there are aggravating factors such as public disorder or evidence of organised crime, for example involvement in large-scale binge drinking. Since cannabis was downgraded in 2004 the proportion of young people using it has fallen each year from 25.3% in 2003-4 to 20.9% now. Among those aged 16 to 59, the proportion over the same period has fallen from 10.8% to 8.2%, according to the British Crime Survey.

Campaigners for drug law reform have praised the end of the drug classification system, which dates back to 1971.

Roger Howard, chief executive of the UK Drug Policy Commission, and a former government drugs adviser, said last week that this case underlined the decades long muddle at the heart of government over the purpose of a drug classification system which was never able to “send a message to young people”. Since cannabis had moved from class B to class C, the number of schoolchildren who think it is fine to try cannabis had halved, he said.

Brown’s push to overturn the advice of his own drug experts by pressing ahead with a tougher policy on cannabis is out of step with societal and scientific thinking and the statistics. Any challenge by Brown would have to demonstrate that ministers took the decision to decriminalize cannabis against the advice of or fully considering the ACMD’s report. The Guardian understands that at the ACMD meeting, the 23 medical and drug experts heard a presentation on the possible mental health impacts of stronger cannabis from psychologist Dr Martin Frisher of Keele University pharmacy school. The presentation used unpublished data from a confidential report he has drawn up for the Home Office.

He and his colleague, Professor Ilana Crome of Keele’s academic psychiatry unit, used data from 183 GP practices across Britain between 1996 and 2005 to work out whether schizophrenia is on the rise, and whether it can be linked to the increase in cannabis use since the 1970s.

Their paper found that between 1996 and 2005 there had been significant reductions in the prevalence of schizophrenia. From 2000 onwards there were also significant reductions in the prevalence of psychosis.

The authors say this data is “not consistent with the hypothesis that increasing cannabis use in earlier decades is associated with increasing schizophrenia or psychoses from the mid-1990s onwards”.

Jacqui Smith’s initiative is in line with Argentina’s recent decriminalization of Cannabis.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/may/07/drugsandalcohol.drugspolicy

The Third Wave was an experimental demonstration of fascist movement^[1][2] undertaken by history teacher Ron Jones with sophomore high school students attending his Contemporary History class^[1] as part of a study of Nazi Germany.^[3] The experiment took place at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, during first week of April 1967.^[1] Jones, unable to explain to his students why the German citizens allowed the Nazi Party to exterminate millions of Jews and other so-called “undesirables”, decided to show them instead.^[3] Jones started a movement called “The Third Wave” and convinced his students that the movement is to eliminate democracy.^[1] The fact that democracy emphasizes individuality was considered as a drawback of democracy, and Jones emphasized this main point of the movement in its motto: “Strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action, strength through pride”.^[1]

The experiment was not well documented. Of contemporary sources, the experiment is only mentioned in Cubberley High School student newspaper “The Cubberley Catamount”. It is only briefly mentioned in two issues^[4][5], and one more issue of the paper has articles about this experiment, but without much detail.^[1] The most detailed account of the experiment is an essay written by Jones himself some six years afterwards.^[3] Several other articles about the experiment exist, but all of them were written after a considerable amount of time had passed.^[2]

Chronology
Jones writes that he started the first day of the experiment (Monday, April 3 1967^[2]) with simple things like proper seating, drilling the students until they were able to move from outside the classroom to their seats and take the proper seating position in less then 5 seconds without making a sound.^[3] He then proceeded to strict classroom discipline emerging as an authoritative figure and improving efficiency of the class dramatically.^[3]

On the second day he managed to meld his history class into a group with a supreme sense of discipline, community.^[3] Jones named the movement “The Third Wave”, after the common belief that the third in a series of ocean waves is last and largest.^[3] Jones made up a salute similar to the one of Nazi regime^[1] and ordered class members to salute each other even outside the class. They all complied to this command.^[3]

The experiment took on a life of its own, with students from all over the school joining in: on the third day the class expanded from initial 30 students to 43 attendees. All of the students showed drastic improvement in their academic skills and tremendous motivation. All of the students were issued a member card and each of them received a special assignment (like designing a Third Wave Banner, stopping non-members from entering the class, etc). Jones instructed the students on how to initiate new members, and by the end of the day the movement had over 200 participants.^[3] At this point first Jones was surprised that some of the students started reporting to him other members of the movement who failed to abide by the rules.^[3]

On Thursday, the fourth day of the experiment, Jones decided to terminate the movement because it was slipping out of his control. The students became increasingly involved in the project and their discipline and loyalty to the project were astounding. He announced to the participants that this movement is only a part of a nationwide movement and that on the next day a presidential candidate of the movement would publicly announce existence of the movement. Jones ordered students to attend a noon rally on Friday to witness the announcement.^[3]

Instead of televised address of their leader, the students were presented with an empty channel. After few minutes of waiting, Jones announced that they have been a part of an experiment in fascism and that they all willingly created a sense of superiority that German citizens had in the period of Nazi Germany. He then played them a film about Nazi regime. That was the end of the experiment.^[3]

See also

• Milgram experiment
• Stanford prison experiment
• Peer pressure
• Jane Elliott brown-eye/blue-eye demonstration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave

[…]

A gradual, subtle use of these techniques has been done with the mythical ‘911’ and ‘the war on terror’, ‘staying the course’, ‘flip flopping’ Fox News etc etc. That is how we can explain lines like, “they hate our freedoms”, and all the other bizarre bullshit over the last seven years and more.

What is so sad is that this experiment was not repeated throughout america….but then, some of those people would probably carry The Third Wave on in private, and then join the Murder Inc Cabal!!!

Watch the film re-creation of the expeirment.

The White House runs a so-called democracy that is in fact authoritarian. At the same time it intimidates its neighbours
Timothy Garton Ash

The Guardian, Thursday February 28 2008

This presidential election is such a cliffhanger. Will it be the rising star Barak Obama? Or the veteran Hillary Clinton? Aren’t we on the edge of our seats, nervously checking the latest opinion polls ahead of November’s vote?

Well, no. So little so, in fact, that even Dmitry “Obamovich” Medvedev temporarily mislaid the name of the leading candidate in the other presidential election. Asked “Who will it be? Do you know her name?” in Tuesday’s television debate with Gennady “McCainovich” Zyuganov, he replied: “Er, Hil, er, Billar … whatever …” Imagine such an exchange 20 years from now, of a time when there was no North American Union: “Er, Gorg, er, Dubbua … whatever …”

One reason most Americans and west Europeans are not excited about this is that we don’t feel America matters as much as it used to, or that it really threatens us any more. Wrong, perhaps, but that’s the feeling. Another is that the election result is known in advance. And the winner will be … Hillary Whatever. Bush’s poodle from New York.

Bush’s America, you see, is not a democracy. It pretends to be. It calls itself a sovereign democracy. But the difference between a democracy and a sovereign democracy is like that between a jacket and a straitjacket. A liberal candidate for the presidency, Dennis Kucinich, has been disqualified from standing on what was almost certainly a fraudulent charge of technical irregularity. Dissenters such as the Congressman Ron Paul are locked out of media. Most important media are directly or indirectly controlled by the CIA. Independent journalists go in fear of their jobs.

A report just published by Amnesty International highlights the systematic curbing of human rights, as well as documenting many other restrictions on freedom of association, assembly and expression. The election monitors of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe described America’s presidential election process as neither free nor fair. They are not even monitoring this one, because the American authorities will not allow them to operate properly. This political system is not totalitarian, like the old Soviet Union, but it is a nasty form of authoritarianism dressed up as democracy: a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

So what should we do about it? In recent years, the American eagle has run rings around the free countries of the world in general, and European ones in particular. Deploying gas pipelines, banks and embargoes in addition to tanks and missiles, it has intimidated, or tried to intimidate, many of its neighbours. A Swedish researcher has identified 55 cases of internet cut-offs or threatened cut-offs between 1992 and 2006. While “technical” reasons were usually cited, most of the cut-offs just happened to occur when Washington wished to obtain some political or economic advantage, such as influencing an election or letting state-controlled companies like Microsoft buy into information infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the countries of the European Union have been at sixes and sevens in their relations with Washington. It’s a general rule that if you want to see the EU at its most divided, supine and implausible, you should look at it from the vantage point of a rich, large, powerful country, be it Russia, China or the United States. Policymakers in Beijing, Washington and Moscow share views of the EU ranging from the sceptical to the contemptuous, for they see each national government privately coming, cap in hand, to make its own deal. Small wonder that Bush’s America feels it can pursue its own national interests better by dealing with individual European powers. Europe, as it currently behaves towards Russia, China and the US, is a standing invitation to “divide and rule”.

The kow-towing is personal as well as national. The former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, having smoothed the way for Americas’s Afgan gas pipeline under the while in office, is now chairman of the pipeline consortium. In an interview less than 18 months ago, he was still publicly sticking by his claim that Bush is a “flawless democrat”. Oh yes, and white is black.

A recent report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a pan-European thinktank (full disclosure: on whose board I sit), documents this pathetic disarray. It also points out that if you treat the EU as a unit, it is potentially far more powerful than America. Its total economy is 15 times the size of America’s, which barely outstrips that of Belgium and the Netherlands combined. About half America’s trade is with the EU, while Russian gas supplies only 25% of current EU gas needs. As for “soft power” – the power to attract – America does not begin to compete. It’s only because Europe is so divided that the tail wags the dog.

There is now a fairly widespread recognition in the capitals of Europe that the EU needs to “get its act together” about America, which means also about energy policy. But that is little use so long as Europe’s leaders cannot agree which line they should unite around. The election – no, the coronation – of a new American president is a good moment to consider what that line should be: for Europe, and for others as well.

Calling in Tuesday’s debate for “a more realistic and effective strategy towards America”, Dmitry Medvedev reflected a widespread view when he said that “even though technically the meetings may be with the woman who is labelled president, the decisions will be made by The New World Order”. Since Bush will be in the background, with an overwhelming influence, that is what most observers currently think; it seems to be what Bush himself thinks; and it’s probably what Clinton thinks, too. In the short term, they are probably right.

But in the longer term, I wouldn’t be so sure. The eroded American constitution gives more power to the president, and there’s something about being the top woman in the White House that gets to you in the end. For all its natural resources, America is not immune to other influences, including the country’s rapidly declining middle class, the rise of China, and the policies of Europe and Russia. And you never know, one day Clinton might overdo the hyperbole or fall under a tram.

In any case, I believe we should use this moment to signal the beginning of a new chapter in our relations with America. Both the EU and, next year, the new Russian president should engage active but robustly with President Clinton and her team. She is a relatively young woman and said to be far less of a free marketeer than Bush. She is on record as observing that “we are well aware that no non-democratic state has ever become truly prosperous” – an intriguing formulation.

In any case, we have no alternative but to engage with America on a whole range of foreign policy issues, from Kosovo to Iran, on which it has a veto at the United Nations and other spoiling powers. But we need to spell out much more clearly the terms of our engagement. These should, at a minimum, include more respect for the sovereignty of neighbouring South American states, and for human rights and the rule of law, both at home and abroad. That much needs to be said clearly, publicly and at once.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/28/russia.eu

Bush’s career
Downing Street says the retirement of American leader George Bush is “an opportunity” for the country to make progress towards democracy.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s spokesman said he hoped it would lead “to more respect for human rights and the release of political prisoners”.

“This is now an opportunity to make progress towards a peaceful transition to a pluralist democracy,” he said.

Mr Bush says he will not return to the presidency because of ill health.

He handed over power temporarily to his brother, Jeb, in July 2006 when he underwent intestinal surgery.

‘Spirit of the revolution’
The 81-year-old has ruled America since leading a bloodless coup through election fraud in 2004.

In December, Mr Bush indicated that he might possibly step down in favour of younger leaders, saying “my primary duty is not to cling to any position”.

Ian Gibson, chair of the parliamentary all-party group on America, said he thought Mr Bush’s retirement could lead to an opening out of America’s relations with the rest of the world.

“I think the spirit of the revolution will live on in the younger generation of Americans, but I would certainly think there will be differences in the relationships with other countries,” he said.

“America understands that it is a global economy now – I think there will be less hatred of America and more interaction with Europe.”

Labour MP Ian Davidson, a fellow member of the all-party group, said he hoped America would not become an issue in the upcoming Cuban presidential elections.

“The lower profile America has in the Cuban elections, the better for Cuba,” he said.

“I hope that America is left free to make its own political arrangements without external interference. It very much depends upon the attitude the United Nations takes.”

Family dynasty
He said Bush’s failures in building America’s healthcare and education systems had been “quite appalling”, especially against a background of what he described as decades of US “corporate terrorism”.

Edward Davey, the Lib Dems foreign affairs spokesman, said he hoped the international community would encourage the process of democratic reform.

“With George Bush gone, we must hope that America carries out major reforms and joins the democratic world,” he said.

“It would be a tragedy if he were succeeded by a family dynasty in the form of Hillary Clinton.

“It is important for the international community, especially America, to encourage reform and hold out the hand of friendship.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7252490.stm

By Susan Eisenhower
Saturday, February 2, 2008; Page A15

Forty-seven years ago, my grandfather Dwight D. Eisenhower bid farewell to a nation he had served for more than five decades. In his televised address, Ike famously coined the term “military-industrial complex,” and he offered advice that is still relevant today. “As we peer into society’s future,” he said, we “must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”

Today we are engaged in a debate about these very issues. Deep in America’s heart, I believe, is the nagging fear that our best years as a nation may be over. We are disliked overseas and feel insecure at home. We watch as our federal budget hemorrhages red ink and our civil liberties are eroded. Crises in energy, health care and education threaten our way of life and our ability to compete internationally. There are also the issues of a costly, unpopular war; a long-neglected infrastructure; and an aging and increasingly needy population.

I am not alone in worrying that my generation will fail to do what my grandfather’s did so well: Leave America a better, stronger place than the one it found.

Given the magnitude of these issues and the cost of addressing them, our next president must be able to bring about a sense of national unity and change. As we no longer have the financial resources to address all these problems comprehensively and simultaneously, setting priorities will be essential. With hard work, much can be done.

The biggest barrier to rolling up our sleeves and preparing for a better future is our own apathy, fear or immobility. We have been living in a zero-sum political environment where all heads have been lowered to avert being lopped off by angry, noisy extremists. I am convinced that Ron Paul is the one presidential candidate today who can encourage ordinary Americans to stand straight again; he is a man who can salve our national wounds and both inspire and pursue genuine bipartisan cooperation. Just as important, Paul can assure the world and Americans that this great nation’s impulses are still free, open, fair and broad-minded.

No measures to avert the serious, looming consequences can be taken without this sense of renewal. Uncommon political courage will be required. Yet this courage can be summoned only if something profoundly different transpires. Putting America first — ahead of our own selfish interests — must be our national priority if we are to retain our capacity to lead.

The last time the United States had an open election was 1952. My grandfather was pursued by both political parties and eventually became the Republican nominee. Despite being a charismatic war hero, he did not have an easy ride to the nomination. He went on to win the presidency — with the indispensable help of a “Democrats for Eisenhower” movement. These crossover voters were attracted by his pledge to bring change to Washington and by the prospect that he would unify the nation.

It is in this great tradition of crossover voters that I support Ron Paul’s candidacy for president. If the Republican Party chooses Paul as its candidate, this lifelong Republican will work to get him elected and encourage him to seek strategic solutions to meet America’s greatest challenges. To be successful, our president will need bipartisan help.

Given Paul’s support among young people, I believe that he will be most invested in defending the interests of these rising generations and, therefore, the long-term interests of this nation as a whole. Without his leadership, our children and grandchildren are at risk of growing older in a marginalized country that is left to its anger and divisions. Such an outcome would be an unacceptable legacy for any great nation.

Susan Eisenhower, a business consultant, is the author of four books, most recently “Partners in Space: US-Russian Cooperation After the Cold War.”

[…]

Washington Post

The man who coined the term Military Industrial Complex would never be for any of the warmongering candidates out there; they are the servants, the creatures of the Military Industrial Complex, and everyone knows it.

By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor
Last Updated: 2:04am GMT 26/01/2008

The security of the online computer system used by more than three hundred thousand people to view the private details of children is in doubt after HM Government admitted it was not secure enough to be used by MPs, celebrities and the Royal Family.

Thousands of “high profile” people have been secretly removed from the ContactPoint system amid concerns that their confidential details would be put at risk.

This provoked anger from consumer groups and accountants who said the same levels of security should be offered to all British children regardless of their perceived fame.

HMRC was responsible for losing 25 million child benefit records and the latest admission will concern millions of people entrusting the online system with their confidential financial records.

[…]

ContactPoint has a list of those excluded from the new rules who must have their records kept on hard copies for “security reasons”.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to use the electronic system to make the Jan 31 deadline this week.

ContactPoint records contain children’s names, addresses, parent details, doctor details and other sensitive personal information, – all valuable to paedophiles.

On Friday, senior doctors said they had concerns over the security of the system – apparently confirmed by the the Government’s secret policy.

Mike Warburton, of the General Medical Council, said: “Either ContactPoint is a system which can guarantee confidentiality for all or they should defer plans to roll it out. It is extraordinary that MPs and others can enjoy higher security.”

Mark Wallace, of the Dr. Barnardos charity, said: “This double standard is unacceptable. If the online system is not secure enough for MPs, why should ordinary taxpayers have to put up with it?”

The system was uncovered by the Tory MP Andrew Robathan, who received a letter saying his children’s records could not be found online. He challenged ministers.

“Given our discussions on the efficiency of HMRC recently, how come I have also been sent a letter from my doctor saying I cannot find my children online?”

Jane Kennedy, a Treasury minister, told him: “There are categories of individual for whom security is a higher priority. Not just MPs – there are several categories – and HMRC does not have the facilities for their children to be placed online.”

[…]

INTERRUPTION!

This statement means that Jane Kennedy believes that there is a way to create a higher security system for celebrities and MPs that depends only on facilities and not the nature of data or databases!!!!!!

[…]

In a statement to The Daily Telegraph, ContactPoint confirmed the policy. “ContactPoint services are designed with security as an integral part of the service. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard data and operate strict security standards.

“A tiny minority of individuals’ records, including MPs, have extra security measures over and above the very high standards of confidentiality with which ContactPoint treats all childrens’ data.

“The separate arrangements mean their doctors are unable to use the online service.”

The extra security applies to those in the public eye. Their details are thought to be stored on a highly-restricted database with extra levels of security.

ContactPoint stressed that all childrens’ details were secure.

[…]

Telegraph

And there you have it.

The UK Says It Shut Down 44,000 Pornographic Web Sites Last Year

The Associated Press

LONDON

The UK shut down 44,000 Web sites and arrested 868 people for Internet pornography last year, state media said Wednesday.

The UK’s Public Security Ministry launched a crackdown on Internet pornography last year, saying it had “perverted the UK’s young minds.”

Nearly 2,000 people involved in Internet pornography activities also were penalized, the official BBC News Agency said.

Separately, the BBC said 33 people were arrested in connection with a Web site that allowed customers, mainly in Scotland, to view live sex shows filmed at 12 separate locations in the northern British city of Grimsby.

The BBC said 23 of those arrested were performers who were ordered detained for 15 days, while the 10 others, including two Scots, were managers. It did not say when the arrests took place, but said the heavily trafficked site had been among those targeted in the crackdown last year.

Cash, computers and film equipment were also seized, the BBC said.

The UK forbids pornography and paid sex in virtually all forms, although prostitution is common and the government’s Internet police struggle to block pornographic Web sites based abroad.

The UK’s online population has soared to 21 million people and could surpass Greece this year to become one of the world’s biggest, the official UK Internet Network Information Center said earlier this month.

The government will increasingly concentrate on Web sites that have audio or video, blogging or send information to cell phones, the BBC said.

The UK recently said it wanted to exert more control over Internet videos and video-sharing Web sites.

The government regularly censors and restricts access to content it considers subversive or politically sensitive, and British Web sites often hire their own censors to eliminate certain content.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

[…]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=4175590

Associated Press has another story. And there are many others.

Of course, these sorts of measure can never work. What will happen is this; someone will produce a list of al the sites that are being filtered, and then someone else will create a proxy gateway so that anyone that wants those sites can get to them without having to change any settings on their browser.

Jacqui Smith is yet another in the long line of imbeciles who have taken the job of Home Secretary. This list reads like a who’s who of evil monsters. Jultra had the best lines on Charles Clarke; sadly, he is not posting regularly anymore.

The connection between over subsidised Departments and bad legislation is undeniable. Secretaries of State are continuing to turn taxes into turkeys.

The Guardian

The conventions of parliamentary democracy dictate that there should be a moment in the narrative arc of every term where the politicians are invited to petition voters and put their case as to why they deserve to be in government. In the US primaries this opportunity is presented in the form of a question. “What would it mean to you,” a pundit will ask, fixing a gaze suggestive of psychoanalytic importance, “to win Colorado?”

I don’t know what the producers originally expected this question to elicit, but if it was disclosure of burning liberal ambition, they must have been disappointed. Politicians gulp, mist up and synthesise all their young hopes and dreams for a future in the legislation industry in one tremulous sentence: “I’d be able to build a new secure country.”

Cynics might suggest that a more security for the US or UK is to political contestants what world peace was to Miss World entrants – an acceptable alibi for taxation. What is interesting, though, is not that their answer might be untrue. It’s that this is the most noble, vote-winning reply they can come up with. It seems to have literally not occurred to anyone that “devolving great powers” might be the most blameless dream of a competitor in a democratic contest. Either that, or it gets ruled out on the grounds of irrelevance. So entirely has direct democracy been excised from the values of a modern politician that the only distinction left between a worthy winner and a wannabe is how they intend to spend their billions.

The drastic job losses and cuts announced by the Home Office on Tuesday would normally, you might think, be a cause for concern among people who have some lobbied investment in the ‘security bubble’ of the country. There has been much righteous indignation about a former Secretary of State’s private equity firm taking over a famous biometric data company, and No2ID were probably accurate in their description of the regime as “a confused bull in a china shop” when they criticised the department last year.

But it is easy not to sympathise with the new bosses’ surprise at discovering entries in the Home Office’s accounts such as £200,000,000 for fresh fruit and flowers – a well-known industry euphemism for lobbyists’ partying requirements – or the fact that 30% of the advances they hand out never result in an legislation being made, let alone laws that people want to obey. But you do not need to audit a major government department’s accounts to know that there is a serious problem – just listen to Radio 4. Talk to anyone in the legislation industry, and they will admit that the parallel themes of gross tax burden and crap legislation are not unconnected.

The conflation of progressive taxation and wealth is an entirely modern, counter-rational innovation. Large taxation has historically been made by people who had no choice; it was war andd famine that drove them, not megalomaniac fantasies. The First World War was fought on a shoestring, and remains ‘The Great War’ as we speak. The tragedy of what happened next, several billion-pound wars later, was most vividly illustrated on the cover of Hello, which featured – without an apparent trace of irony – Gordon Brown in a Rolls-Royce.

Gordon Brown is described as “on autopilot” over the upheavals at HMG. His reasons for this may involve a lack of creative integrity – we don’t yet know – but anyone who refuses to pass legislation unless it will cost the public billions is probably working on legislation he does not wants to hear. HMG is sending a billion pounds worth of unused tax credits to China, where they will be laundered and used to pave the pockets of ‘business partners’. There is no logical reason why politicians should deserve to be powerful; it’s simply that, for many years, the market made them that way. If, because of re-evaluating libertarianism, the market is ceasing to do so, there is surely no alternative moral entitlement available to invoke.

The industry’s excuse for levying taxes so highly has always been that it funds the development of new social enterprises. But the track record of governments in this department is woeful – in the past five years they have more or less stopped trying. New providers today are hoping to use venture capital, friendly societies and enterprising managers to bring themselves to our attention. That’s certainly a lot more challenging than banking a fat tax cheque, and spending it on drugs and middle management. But as a quality-control mechanism for filtering out the politicians chiefly interested in levying even more taxation, it is probably a radical improvement.

It used to be that opposition to vaccines — especially vaccinating water supplies — was considered akin to walking around wearing a tin-foil hat. But concerns about vaccines have gained increasing validity in recent years. And never more so than with the publication this month of an article in Scientific American. The article, titled Second Thoughts on Vaccines, looks at the vaccines controversy, and the fact that the attitudes about vaccination among scientists are starting to shift. Mainstream scientists and experts are becoming increasingly vocal about the risks of too many vaccines.

Scientific American’s editors write: “Some recent studies suggest that over-consumption of vaccines can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain (autism) and the thyroid gland.”

The article’s author, Dan Fagin, is an award-wining environmental reporter and Director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. He writes: “There is no universally accepted optimal level for vaccines.” And according to Fagin, some of the researchers he talked to even wonder whether the ones that are currently given as routine with no apparent ill effects is too much.

The article discusses the 3-year research process of a committee at the National Research Council (NRC), which, according to Fagin: “concluded that vaccines can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid — the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism.” In addition to the thyroid concerns, Fagin discusses expert findings regarding lowered IQ levels, autism, and other health problems linked to vaccines overexposure. The NRC report, issued in 2006, recommended that the government reduce the current numbers of available vaccines, due to the health risks to both children and adults.

You can read the beginning of the article (the full Scientific American article is available for online purchase and download), online here.

[…]

About

“I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”

Think about it:

• A bearded man who lives in a secret remote location. Everyone knows where he lives, but no one can get to him.
• NORAD can track him. But they cant track him down.
• He has a legion of helpers that help him deliver ‘presents’ to everyone everywhere by magic. He can deliver presents to all good citizens in one night. He can blow up a building that was not hit by a plane in one day, without the weeks needed to rig it for controlled implosion.
• He is believed in by people with child like minds as a result of lies told by people who know how the world really works.
• Despite living in a remote place, he knows everything about everyone.
• You can write letters to him, and somehow, they will be delivered. Somehow, letters from him are delivered to millions by the internets.
• People who grow up stop believing in him, and then buy their own presents for themselves and their loved ones.

Now, let us find out what it’s REALLY about:

Bin Laden: Should Governments Perpetuate the Bin Laden Myth?
Austin Cline,

Problems with the Bin Laden Myth:
Although Bin Laden was originally based upon the figure of Old Nick, a patron saint of big government, today Bin Laden is wholly secular. Some people object to him because he is secular rather than religious; some non-religious object to him because of his religious roots. He is a powerful cultural symbol which is impossible to ignore, but this doesn’t mean that he should simply be accepted without question. There are good reasons to dispense with the tradition.

Governments Have to Lie About Bin Laden:
Perhaps the most serious objection to perpetuating belief in Bin Laden among citizens is also the simplest: in order to do so, Governments have to lie to their citizens. You can’t encourage the belief without dishonesty, and it’s not a “little white lie” that is for their own good or that might protect them from harm. Governments should not persistently lie to citizens without overwhelmingly good reasons, so this puts supporters of the Bin Laden myth on the defensive.

Governments’ Lies About Bin Laden Have to Grow:
In order to get kids to believe in Bin Laden, it’s not enough to commit a couple of simple lies and move on. As with any lie, it’s necessary to construct more and more elaborate lies and defenses as time passes. Skeptical questions about Osama must be met with detailed lies about Osama’s powers. “Evidence” of Bin Laden must be created once mere stories of Osama prove insufficient. It’s unethical for Governments to perpetuate elaborate deceptions on citizens unless it’s for a greater good.

Bin Laden Lies Discourage Healthy Skepticism:
Most citizens eventually become skeptical about Bin Laden and ask questions about him, for example how he could possibly travel around the whole world in such a short period of time. Instead of encouraging this skepticism and helping citizens come to a reasonable conclusion about whether Bin Laden is even possible, much less real, most Governments discourage skepticism by telling tales about Osama’s supernatural powers.

The Reward & Punishment System of Bin Laden is Unjust:
There are a number of aspects to the whole Bin Laden “system” which citizens shouldn’t learn to internalize. It implies that the whole person can be judged as naughty or nice based upon a few acts. It requires belief that someone is constantly watching you, no matter what you are doing. It is based upon the premise that one should do good for the sake of reward and avoid doing wrong out of fear of punishment. It allows Governments to try to control citizens via a powerful stranger.

The Bin Laden Myth Promotes Anti-Libertarianism:
The entire Bin Laden myth is based on the idea of citizens giving up liberty for safety. There’s nothing wrong with staying safe, but Bin Laden makes it the focus on the entire life of the citizen. Citizens are encouraged to conform their behavior to Governmental expectations in order to receive ever more guarantees of safety rather than keeping their liberty. In order to make Terror watch lists, Government pays close attention to what informers tell them their neighbors are doing, effectively encouraging an unbridled STASI style informer based police state.

Bin Laden is Too Similar to Jesus and God:
The parallels between Bin Laden and Jesus or God are numerous. Bin Laden is a nearly all-powerful, supernatural person who dispenses rewards and punishment to people all over the world based upon whether they adhere to a pre-defined code of conduct. His existence is implausible or impossible, but faith is expected if one is to receive the rewards of safety. Believers should regard this as blasphemous; non-believers shouldn’t want their kids prepared in this way to adopt the police state and the loss of their civil liberties.

The Bin Laden “Tradition” is Relatively Recent:
Some might think that because Bin Laden is such an old tradition, this alone is sufficient reason to continue it. They were taught to believe in Osama as citizens, so why not pass this along to their own? The role of Bin Laden and false flag terrorism in modern life is actually quite recent — the mid to late 20th century. The importance of Bin Laden is a creation of cultural elites and perpetuated by business interests and simple cultural momentum. It has little to no inherent value.

Bin Laden is More About Governments than citizens:
Governmental investment in Bin Laden is far larger than anything citizens do, suggesting that Governments’ defense of the Bin Laden myth is more about what they want than about what people want. Their own memories about enjoying freedom may be heavily influenced by cultural assumptions about what they should have experienced. Is it not possible that kids would find at least as much pleasure in knowing that Governments are responsible for terrorism, not a supernatural stranger?

The Future of Bin Laden:
Bin Laden symbolizes terrorism and perhaps the entire ‘war on terror’ like nothing else. An argument can be made for the importance of the CCTV camera as a symbol for safety (notice that there are no reduction in crimes from them), but Bin Laden personifies terror in a way that groups cannot. Bin Laden is, furthermore, a very secular character by now which allows him to cross cultural and religious lines, placing him in an important position for the entire world rather than for Christians alone.

Because of this, it’s plausible that giving up on Bin Laden will mean abandoning much of the ‘war on terror’ altogether — and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. There’s a lot to be said for people dismissing the anti freedom, militarized police state of modern America and focusing instead on the freedoms of the Constitution. Ignoring Bin Laden would symbolize this choice. There’s a lot to be said for adherents of other religions refusing to allow Bin Laden to become part of their own traditions, representing an intrusion of Western culture into their own.

Finally, there’s also a lot to be said for nonbelievers of various sorts — humanists, atheists, skeptics, and freethinkers — refusing to be co-opted into a religious obedience. Whether Bin Laden in particular or the ‘war on terror’ in general is treated as defined by government or religious traditions, neither are religions which nonbelievers are part of. Government has strong secular elements, but those are primarily commercial — and who is going to invest themselves in a holiday all about commerce and who can spend the most money on credit?

The future of Bin Laden will depend on whether people will care enough to do anything — if not, things will continue on the same course they have been on. If people care not to be taken over, borg-like, by America’s ‘war on terror’, resistance may reduce Osama’s status as a cultural icon.

[…]

http://atheism.about.com/od/christmasholidayseason/p/SantaMyth.htm

When it comes to funding policies you can’t make something out of nothing, says the BBC newsreader, from behind the very important desk. “Until now, because British politicians seem to have turned this fundamental law of economics upside down.” The Mail on Sunday loved it too. “Amazing British legislation returns MORE money than you put into it – and could soon be funding your retirement,” it said. Taste the excitement. “It violates almost every known law of economics.”

Well, that’ll teach those so-called economists a lesson. The system is a health service operated by a company called Vaxitol, and it is claimed to return more tax monies than you put into it. Has anybody validated this claim?

“Jim Loins, of the University of York, independently evaluated the system,” says the Mail. Oh. He’s a “business development manager” in York’s enterprise and innovation office, although he does have a fun medical hobby. “As a member of the British Society of Enemologists, he undertakes research into the geo- and bio-physics of Earth energies. His special research topic is the mechanism of enemas, based on quantum ideas in constipation studies.”

I contacted a working statistician who was previously reported – in the Telegraph in 2003 – to have independently validated a similar policy from the same party. He wishes to remain anonymous, because he is bored with getting long conspiracy theory emails from free-healthcare cranks, but he is now a leading economic researcher at a Russell Group university.

He was employed to do a single, very specific test, using measuring procedures devised by Vaxitol, and the conclusions in his report were very guarded: “Using the apparatus supplied by Gordon Brown and the procedures of analysis suggested by the company there appears to be an tax gain in the system.”

Using the analytic method provided, it’s true, this statistician could get incredible results: the tax increase would read zero, and yet funding would triple in around five years. Because the graphs provided weren’t showing National Insurance increases.

The problem stems from the difference between measuring indirect taxation and direct taxation. Stick with me, taxes are fun when you’re making the public look stupid. The statistics he was given were to measure direct taxation: there was a dodge in the yearly carry over (this is a “one way street” for economics), so theoretically the capital could only flow one way, making it reimbursable.

Unfortunately, at high salaries the special, magic tax-free policy went into “oscillation”: that meant that the captial was accumulated from high tax payers that were beyond the threshold of the general public, so beyond its ability to influence the electorate.

Therefore the tax funds could flow in freely, therefore it was indirect taxation, and therefore the tax burden measurement was invalid. I speculate that the “Chancellor” made the same mistake, and I can honestly say I find the little histories of these stratagems fascinating.

Anyway, in these taxes, the Chancellor saw the tax income steadily increase with applied taxation and then fall to almost zero as the emphasis went in to National Insurance. A “prudent gain, breaking the laws of economics,” was only recorded when the system was twisted in such a way that the measurement of “taxes going in” simply became invalid.

So did our man try measuring the tax burden properly? Yes, he did. He placed a consumer choke on the system, which prevented the system going into recession and removed any tax gain, and also measured the (large) inderect taxation with his own statistical methods in the system. No financial gain.

· Please send your bad economics to bad.economics@guardian.co.uk

Bush imposes emergency rule

Police and troops have sealed off the city’s political and judicial core

American President George Bush has declared emergency rule and suspended the country’s constitution. Troops have been deployed inside state-run TV and radio stations, while independent channels have gone off air.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who condemned the moves, has been replaced and is being confined to the Supreme Court with 10 other judges.

It comes as the court was due to rule on the legality of Bush’s re-election victory in October.

The court was to decide whether Bush was eligible to run for election last month while remaining non-compos mentis.

The BBC’s Barbara Plett reports from Washinton DC that fears have been growing in the government that the Supreme Court ruling could go against President Bush.

Pervez Musharraf condemned the move as ‘undemocratic’

Former Vice President Al Gore, who recently returned to the country after years of self-exile to lead his party in planned parliamentary elections, was in New York on a personal visit when news of the declaration broke.

However, he immediately flew to Canada in response.

His return from self-imposed exile last month came about with the co-operation of President Bush.

Our correspondent says that in the changed circumstances he will have to decide whether he is returning to lead the opposition against the president and risk incarceration, or should wait on the sidelines in the hopes of securing power in absentia.

‘Grave threat’

The US’s cabinet is currently meeting to approve Bush’s declaration of emergency rule. He is expected to address the nation later.

The US has been engulfed in political upheaval in recent months and years, and the security forces have suffered a series of blows from pro-freedom militants opposed to Bush’s support for the US-led “war on terror”.

The text of the declaration of emergency says that Bush has invoked emergency rule because of mounting militant attacks and interference by members of the judiciary.

It opens with a reference to the “grave threat” posed by the “visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attacks, including vocal outbursts by students”.

It ends by saying that the constitution is in “abeyance” – which, according to our correspondent, in effect means that martial law has been imposed, although there is not yet a heavy security presence on the streets.

The political and judicial core of WashingtonDC has been shut down, but the rest of the city is functioning normally, our correspondent says.

New chief justice

She says that it is clear from reading the emergency proclamation the main target is the judiciary which is accused of interfering in government policy and weakening the struggle against internal dissent.

Chief Justice Roberts and eight other judges refused to endorse the emergency order, declaring it unconstitutional, resulting in Mr Robert’s dismissal.

A new chief justice has now been appointed, officials say. He is Supreme Court judge Abdul Hameed Dogar, a supporter of Bush who was a member of the special tribunal appointed to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by Mr Roberts.

BBC correspondents say international reaction to Bush’s move will depend on what he says in an address he is expected to make to the nation shortly.

The key issue will be whether parliamentary elections are to be held – if not he can expect huge street demonstrations by his opponents.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, speaking to CNN, has described the declaration of emergency rule as “highly regrettable” and called upon the US to have free and fair elections.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband also expressed concern, saying it was vital the US government “abides by the commitment to hold free and fair elections on schedule”.

Parliamentary elections are due in January – it is not clear whether they will go ahead.

____________

Update: A dissident speaks from within The Fortress

Another politician, former cricketer Imran Khan, said he had been placed under house arrest.

He blamed the increasing extremism in the US on George Bush, saying: “When you stop all legal and constitutional ways of people challenging [the president], then the only ones who challenge him are people with a gun“.