"I think the [US financial] system is basically sound, I truly do."- George W. Bush, July 15, 2008

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Francis Boyle is a distinguished University of Illinois law professor, activist, and internationally recognized expert on international law and human rights. He also lectures widely, writes extensively, and authored many books, including the subject of this review: "Palestine Palestinians and International Law." In addition, he's represented, advised and/or testified pro bono in numerous cases involving anti-war protesters and activists, the death penalty, human rights, war crimes and genocide, nuclear policy and bio-warfare, Canada's Blackfoot Nation, the Nation of Hawaii, and the US Lakota Nation.

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Illustration by Ben Heine

Desert Peace

Last night the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, announced to the nation that he will step down from his post. On the 17th of September, his leading Party, Kadima will hold a leadership convention and and the ‘winner’ will become the new Prime Minister. That is how ‘Democracy’ works in the only Democratic country in the Middle East… the people themselves have no actual say in the matter.

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The Scientific Outlook Part 5 by Knowledge Driven Revolution.com

"Education in a scientific society may, I think, be best conceived after the analogy of the education provided by the Jesuits. The Jesuits provided one sort of education for the boys who were to become ordinary men of the world, and another for those who were to become members of the Society of Jesus. In like manner, the scientific rulers will provide one kind of education for ordinary men and women, and another for those who are to become holders of scientific power. Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to produce it, all the researches of psycho-analysis, behaviourism, and biochemistry will be brought into play." - Bertrand Russell, 1931 (p243)

This article will examine the use of behaviourism, psycho-analysis and physiological manipulation as applied to education as discussed in Bertrand Russell's 1931 book The Scientific Outlook [1].

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Germany has replaced Christianity with a pernicious cult: “Holocaust religion.” In 1994, the parliament of the defunct “Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (BRD) - the post re-unification Federal Republic of Germany - treasonously mandated imposed Zionist legislation making it a criminal offense to deny or even play down the so-called “Jewish Holocaust.”

Anyone in Germany who publicly denies the propagandistic narrative upon which the terrorist state of Israel was established or questions any one of the many anomalies extant in the doctrine of official “history,” faces a maximum penalty of five years in jail.

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Sami Muhyideen al-Haj (Photo: Al Jazeera)

URUKNET / CagePrisoners

Translated for Cageprisoners by Sue Bingham

Standing straight and tall, an impressive and deeply introspective man, Sami El Haj walks with a limp and the help of a walking stick. Neither laughter nor smiles light up the refined face of this man, old before his time. A deep sadness pervades him. He was 32 years old when, in December 2001, his life, like that of tens of thousands of other Muslims, became a horrific nightmare.

He endured horrendous suffering. Weakened by a hunger strike which lasted 438 days, set free on the 1st May 2008, he greets you attentively and with a gentle manner. He calmly tells you of a world whose paralysing, suffocating horror is beyond your comprehension.

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Oil-rich Arab states reportedly have warned Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas that they won’t be able to continue giving financial aid to the American-backed Ramallah-based regime as long as “the Palestinian house remains divided against itself.”

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The New Yorker Magazine, cover that will soon be a right wing tee shirt – a cartoon of Obama in Arab garb, Michelle as a AK47 toting revolutionary, the U.S. flag burning in their fire place and Osama bin Laden's photo hanging on the wall – is getting all the attention. But the more important article for those wanting to understand Obama is on the inside.

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Support for impeachment in the past and on the hearing date. MSNBC, Zogby

Bush Accused of Tyranny and Murder - Part 1

House Justice Committee Hears Kucinich Resolution

"When our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence they were not worried about political will, how much time there was, or about any parties' political future, they were just worried they were going to be hanged by the neck. But they did what was right. Now it is your time." Elliott Adams, President, Veterans for Peace, testimony July 25, 2008

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("I am not Bush") (Patrick Corrigan, Cagle Cartoons)

Comment from Kenny's Sideshow

(Italicized quotes are from Obama's Berlin speech.)

"The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil. We can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York."

Germans should well be aware of the "big lie". They fell for a few in the 1930's and 40's. Obama knows what happened, our own treasonous government in concert with Israel and others perpetrated the biggest false flag attack in history on 9/11. The other attacks mentioned were also false flags. He's not stupid in that respect. There will be no new investigations under his rule. Those responsible will walk.

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URUKNET / UWIRE

DIYALA, Iraq (UWIRE) – "The militias are not allowing us to return to our homes," said Karima Abas Kuydayer. She is one of an estimated 4.2 million Iraqis displaced around the world. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, this figure includes 2.4 million persons displaced inside Iraq. The center tracks conflict-induced internal displacement worldwide.

During the last 24 months, sectarian and generalized violence have replaced military operations as the primary causes of recent population displacement within postwar Iraq.

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Star witnesses, legal scholar Bruce Fein and former LA District Attorney
Vincent Bugliosi. M. Collins cc

House Justice Committee Hears Kucinich Resolution

Today's hearing on the abuse of presidential powers before the House Committee on the Judiciary turned into a devastating political ambush by Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), committee Democrats, and the extraordinary panel of witnesses.. At least 12 Democratic Committee members were present plus the Chairman while only four Republicans bothered to show up.

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Dahr Jamail & Mohammed Omer (by IPS)

Atheo's Blog / WUFYS

On June 26th a young Palestinian photojournalist named Mohammed Omer was returning home from a triumphant European tour.

Since journalists tend to be particularly concerned when fellow journalists are victimized, it would be expected that Mohammed Omer’s abuse would receive considerable press attention – especially since he had just received international recognition from the journalism community. One can only imagine the multitude of headlines that would result if an Israeli journalist, perhaps even one who had not just been feted internationally, had been similarly treated by the Palestinian Authority.

Oddly, however, despite the fact that Reuters, BBC, the UK Guardian, Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, and others issued news reports, the Associated Press, which serves virtually every daily newspaper in the U.S., sent out nothing on it. Astounded, I finally phoned AP headquarters in New York to find out how they had missed it.

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Illustration by Ben Heine, who has been censored by Google.

USS LIBERTY

I have heard it for the entirety of my 61 years of life–Israel’s ‘Right To Exist’. In fact, in recent memory I have heard this phrase more than I’ve heard ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ or ‘Merry Christmas’ or even ‘Have a Good 4th of July’.

Israel seems to exist quite well. Her people have a very high living standard compared to the rest of the world. Israel has the most sophisticated armed forces in the Middle East, if indeed not the world. According to one of our former presidents, Israel is said to possess several hundred nuclear weapons and if we are to believe some of the things said by Israel’s leaders in recent years she is ready to destroy mankind if her leaders choose to do so.

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SENESCALL, Lucas (SpokesmanReview.com)

Passed away July 7, 2008 in Spokane, WA; Luke was born February 5, 1982. A graduate of Mead High School; shortly after he graduated he entered the US Navy as a member of the Fire Suppression Crew on the USS Kitty Hawk and was honorably discharged. Luke recently completed a program at SFCC in Prosthetics. Luke's survivors include: His parents Steve and Sue Senescall, Jayme and Larry Guy; brothers Jake, Paul and Mike; stepparents Sue Senescall and Larry Guy; as well as stepsiblings, Nicole, Ryanne, Kynlan, Logan and Emily; grandparents, Jerry and Maxine; as well as numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. Luke had many beautiful attributes. His larger than life personality will leave a lasting mark on everyone he touched, but life was a struggle for him. Luke was loved by his family and friends and we will miss him dearly. We would like to send our sincere thanks and gratitude to all the men and women of the Spokane police department that showed us all so much kindness and compassion at our deepest moments of fear and sorrow. As well as all of our friends and family that have been so kind and caring. We will be having a memorial service in Luke's honor Sunday, July 13th, 6:00 pm at the Mountain View Assembly located at E. 633 Magnesium Street Spokane, WA. Following the service there will be a Celebration of Luke's Life at Steve and Sue Senescall's home located at 8604 N. Nettleton Ct., Spokane WA. -SpokesmanReview.com

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It is obvious that there are good guys and bad guys in this world. Some of the bad guys masquerade as good guys. It is obvious that lies are trumpeted and that the truth is suppressed. In between the really good guys and the really bad guys are the rest of us, swaying from one side to the other, according to the voices in the wind and the voices in our ears and in our heads.

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Princess (Photos by Tom Taggett)

Dog is God Backwards

[Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans, July 29, 2008 ] When the levees broke after The Storm of August 2005, Richard Colar and Princess, his Siberian husky, were trapped in their attic on Desire Street for three days until some flotsam floated by and morphed into a makeshift raft.

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Tragically, we are oblivious to the tremendous cost to our victims and to our own souls.

For Sylvia

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. –William Ralph Inge, Outspoken Essays, 1922

Enlightened as he was, even Inge’s thinking was tainted by the toxin of ego. Who are we human animals (whose collective knowledge of our own capacity to think, learn, and know is still significantly limited), to presume to know that non-human animals do not conceptualize a Devil of sorts? And whether they are able to conjure such a mental abstraction or not is ultimately irrelevant. Objectively speaking, we human animals ARE Devils toward our non-human counterparts, whether they perceive us to be or not.

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When it comes to observing US and international laws, treaties and norms, the Bush administration is a serial offender. Since 2001, it's:

-- spurned efforts for nuclear disarmament to advance its weapons program and retain current stockpiles;

-- renounced the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and asserted the right to develop and test new weapons;

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George W. Bush, personally and officially, must answer to charges that he committed high treason and capital crimes, but also those who provided him with guilty 'material support' knowing that they would be enriched by his treasonous and murderous adventures against the innocent civilians of Iraq! Bush was not only bought and paid for. He sold out the American people as he sold his co-conspirators our nation. There are two terms for this: 'high treason' and 'tyranny'! Both Bush and his financial supporters are guilty and should be tried in US and international courts.

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Mary Tillman and son Pat

I was taken aback to receive a package from New Almaden, California nearly a month ago. I didn't know where the town was nor at that time, anyone there. Even more astounding was the discovery that the package contained Mary Tillman's book "Boots On The Ground By Dusk", her personal account of her son Pat's death and its impact on the Tillman family.

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The fear that Republican Presidential candidate will be soundly defeated by Obama in November has generated a massive barrage of outright lies and some very smelly BS. Some of the lies and BS come from the usual disreputable sources like Right Wing talk radio hosts, Republican bloggers, Ann Coulter clones and certain Fox News commentators. These are to be expected.

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Darfur, Luis Moreno- Ocampo

The crimes committed against innocent people in Darfur represent a shameful episode in the history of Sudan and its neighbours, including Chad, which has played a dubious role in sustaining the seething conflict. Equally disgraceful is the politicising of the bloody conflict in ways that will ensure its continuation.

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The very word 'Frankenstein' has come to mean 'monsters of our own creation' but more generally, monsters beyond our control. 'Frankenstein' has come to symbolize the Faustian bargain made by man with his own technology.

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Desert Peace

Peace by expulsion? This is not a new idea at all… it was a method used by the nazis in much of Eastern Europe… expelling Jews, trade unionists and others to concentration camps in other lands…

What is being proposed in Israel today isn’t quite the same, but does involve expulsion from the homes and villages occupied by Palestinians long before zionism was even a concept. It’s quite frightening to conceive what this might lead to if put into effect. Such proposals coming from an elected representative of a people that endured many expulsions themselves throughout history is unforgivable, they might as well be coming from satan himself….

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Cageprisoners

His hair has grown, his voice sounds a little deeper and his wounds appear to have healed somewhat. But what isn’t clear from the first ever Guantánamo interrogation video to be released for public consumption is that Omar Khadr is blind in one eye.

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Every cook knows how difficult it is to get a soufflé out of the oven successfully; if the balance of ingredients isn't just right, or if the temperature is a wee bit too high or low, it collapses into an unsightly little pile of undefinable goo. So if you imagine a soufflé puffed up with hot air, and just about to collapse in on itself, then you've got a good image of Barack Obama's speech before the Victory Column in Berlin on July 24.

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If someone were to ask me to define God, I would say, “Imagine the highest and deepest, most piercing and enveloping love. Then imagine you are on a highway out in the Midwest. On some of those highways you will sometimes see signs for a Las Vegas casino called Harrah’s. Well, you might see one in Bangor, Maine that says the distance is thousands of miles. Further on you see a sign which says ‘God; one million light years.’ That is how that feeling describes God in terms of definition and I am a million light years from there as I sit here now.” That’s the best I can do but that is probably wrong too because I am a million light years from my best as well. I hope I have satisfied your curiosity… it is that close.

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Since 'Taser' use has become widespread more than 290 people have been killed, possibly murdered, by taser crazy cops. In response to this epidemic of violence, Amnesty International released a statement damning the use of "... tasers to subdue non-compliant or disturbed individuals who do not pose a serious danger to themselves or others." That --I daresay --describes most of the incidents.

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Photo: There are No Cool Facts About Israel!

"On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where most of the inhabitants were Arabs." - Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History

I had given up on finding an American with a moral conscience and the courage to go with it and was on the verge of retiring my keyboard when I met the Rev. Thomas L. Are. Rev. Are is a Presbyterian pastor who used to tell his Atlanta, Georgia, congregation: "I am a Zionist." Like most Americans, Rev. Are had been seduced by Israeli propaganda and helped to spread the propaganda among his congregation.

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We are used to hearing about the hazards, often fatal, of being a journalist these days. Everyone is familiar with accounts of courageous Russian journalists who have been assassinated and of course with stories of war correspondents who have been killed or gravely wounded in the course of reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan. But what about the dangers of just being a Palestinian journalist who is simply trying to return to his own hometown in Gaza after being abroad?

Consider the case of a twenty-four-year-old reporter named Mohammed Omer.

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Unlike the Western oil majors, the militant Zionist proponents of greater Israel view stability and peace in the Middle East as inimical to their goals. Chaos and strife create the “revolutionary atmosphere” (as Ben Gurion one of the key founders of the state of Israel put it) in which more land and water resources can be taken under their control. This fact explains the motive behind the ceaseless provocations and destabilization that the Israeli military and secret services perpetrate.

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A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY: A combo of three handout still
VIDEO images made available by Israeli human rights group
B'Tselem showing an Israeli soldier standing near an arrested
handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian. The Israeli soldier was
caught on film shooting the Palestinian in the leg.

With Hizbullah scoring a victory in its prisoner exchange deal with Israel, pressure is building on Hamas to do even better.

The recent "spectacular" prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hizbullah, which plunged Israel into a state national confusion while feelings of triumph spread in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world, is already impacting on efforts to resolve the Shalit affair.

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Religion as we know it in these times is often a hollow vessel. It is meant to contain something, or to be an entrance to something but it is mostly a mechanism for social control or political and economic force. I do not dispute that people find some comfort in it and it gives them a neighborhood of kindred spirits but I don’t see it fulfilling it’s primary obligation of uniting God and humanity into a living breathing state of being that runs through the day and night as a template for life.

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According to Israeli-based author and journalist Jonathan Cook, Halper's book is "one of the most insightful analyses of the Occupation I've read. His voice cries out to be heard" on the region's longest and most intractable conflict. Part II continues the story.

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New Orleans

When Hurricane Kat blew through the Big Easy three years ago, my Irish rose up and my curiosity was enkindled.

I am on the road to New Orleans with a few committed, dedicated Christians who all want to DO SOMETHING for the under served in our nation.

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We learn from the Israeli press that a criminal investigation has been launched against the soldier caught on tape firing towards a bound Palestinian. However, there is a detail the Israeli press in English is reluctant to share with us. The shooting soldier was not just an ordinary low-ranking infantry recruit, he was a First Sergeant. But it goes much further, the soldier who is caught on video holding the bound Palestinian detainee is no less than a regiment commander, an IDF Lieutenant Colonel.

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I took three classes in Economics when I was younger in College. I realized then that it was just like mathematics: if you can easily learn everything by heart, you can get a perfect score of 100%. Yes, I excelled at Economics, and yet, I was the only one who stated out loud that none of it made any sense, that I could not understand how it could all work. I think I was the only one still based in a world of reality and logic.

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Barack Obama has finally made his long-awaited pilgrimage to Israel, a rite of passage that no aspiring American politician, let alone a presidential candidate, can afford to miss or ignore.

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Zbigniew Brzezinski Barack Obama

It is hard to sort through the hype and heat of Obamania, but one thing is clear: who’s pulling the strings.

As the United States election race enters the final stretch, Barack Obama as the candidate promising change is revealing his true colours, much to the despair of anyone actually expecting any change. His recent call to declare Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel, his denial of Palestinans’ right of return, and his support for a Bantustan Palestinian “state” which poses no threat to Israel show how completely he has caved in to the Zionist establishment on that issue.

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Along with other past and present administration officials, Attorney General Michael Mukasey supports lawlessness and police state justice. Weeks after the Supreme Court's landmark (June 12) Boumediene ruling, he addressed the conservative, pro-war American Enterprise Institute (on July 21) and asked Congress to overrule the High Court - for the third time. His proposal:

-- subvert constitutional and international law;

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"Goy America" by Frank Pilla

“It is ironic that anti-racists are willing to challenge the Jewish establishment’s view of the holocaust but not the issue of Jewish world domination”, writes Bob Finch in this second powerful essay. He goes well beyond our usual complaints. He does not stop at his critique of Zionism, he is not being attracted by the holocaust debate. He takes up the punch line of Shamir’s Vampire Killers: “it is not a myth which sustains the Jewish state – it is Jewish global power. It is power which sustains myths”. Bob Finch goes for jugular, for the absolutely forbidden question of Jewish power from our non-racist position. While good people bewail the multibillion subsidies provided by America to the Jewish state, Bob Finch states unashamedly: “But these are not subsidies. They are tribute payments that the vanquished pay to their conquerors.” He calls upon us to deal with this question of power instead of secondary one, how it is used. It is also refreshing that Finch avoids such cliché euphemism as “Israel Lobby” or “Israeli influence”, but refers us to the true culprit – the organised Jewry. He concludes: “It has become absurd to believe that the JOS is an American colony. On the contrary, America now resembles a Jewish colony. America is not merely ruled by a Jewish elite, it has become the biggest prize in the global Jewish empire.” ~Israel Shamir

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Although many of Senator Obama’s policy pronouncements are disturbing to peace voters, there are two things that Senator Obama has said during the long presidential campaign that give voters opposed to war some hope.

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"You can’t kill the dream of freedom."

When you enter this, “Les Visible” in Google you find my web page as the first possibility. When you click on it some strange things happen. They happen to me and they happen to other people. That is the only reason that I know something strange happens. I don’t go there usually. It’s just a page with links to what I do and I already know how to get to those places. Other people go there and then they tell me about the anti virus installer that appears. Strangely, when you just type in http://www.lesvisible.com everything is okay. So…

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"The invading forces arrested dozens of innocent people... who are
likely to be dumped in an Israeli concentration camp for lengthy
periods of time..."

As British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was having an audience with Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, the Israeli occupation army was raping anew the Palestinian town of Nablus, rounding up and humiliating innocent people, violating homes and vandalizing businesses.

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Olive Trees Outside Bethlehem Wall- Photo by Connie Baker

When Paul Simon ran for the United States Senate in 1984, I was his primary campaign manager. Paul had many progressive ideas but I would cringe when he told Illinois voters that there would have been no cold war if a few Soviet leaders had spent time in the United States, where they would have experienced life in a democracy.

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War in Iraq

The Implementation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Russia and North America

After the collapse of the Soviet empire, a group of Zionists in Russia seemingly steeped in ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, lied, cheated, stole, and murdered, their way into virtually all positions of power throughout the country. They used gangs (some of which probably included mossad agents) to intimidate and murder their opponents in order to gain control of between 70-85% of Russia’s industries including most of its natural resources. They also took control of Russia’s media which they then used to elect Boris Yeltsin as President of Russia despite the fact that he was a brain-dead, vodka soaked, alcoholic. Within a matter of years these Russian traitors had become billionaires having stolen vast quantities of Russian assets. They exported as much as possible of their ill-gotten wealth to the Zionist state in Palestine just in case the Russians might ask for their money back.

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Video

An Israeli occupation army soldier earlier this month shot from a close range and injured a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee, an Israeli human rights group revealed Sunday.

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Anarchy is best understood as Rebellion against UNJUST laws. The Yang [male positive force] of anarchy resists authority and causes disorder and is socially and politically incorrect by the norms of the status quo for it seeks the higher ground of justice.

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For some folks interested in genealogy, tracing one's roots is a stimulating activity. It's immensely interesting and meaningful to learn where one's life started. DNA testing has made it possible to trace one's roots back many generations and there are even free web sites that can help users trace their family history based on a few simple clues.

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Jeff Halper is an American-born Israeli Professor of Anthropology as well as a peace and human rights activist for over three decades. In 1997, he co-founded the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD), and as its Coordinating Director "organized and led nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience against Israel's occupation policies and authorities."

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Monitoring the current Israeli collective pornographic lament in the Hebrew press, I found, to my amazement, a critical editorial written by Dr Mordechai Keidar, an Israeli rightwing academic.

“Our enemies,” says Keidar, “see in front of them a frenetic, emotional, weeping, corrupted, hedonistic, possessive and liberal nation. People who grab and eat, people who lack historical roots, people who are short of ideology, naked of values, lack a sense of solidarity.

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(Gigantic barrier wall West Bank, morning photo- Joshua Hough.)

Four years on, Palestinians still demand that the World Court's ruling on Israel's apartheid wall be implemented.

On 9 July 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ruled as illegal the so- called "separation wall" -- the gigantic barrier Israel had been building in the West Bank.

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“Sea of Lies” by Ronald Kuniawan

Smoking Mirrors

Telling the truth is like performing a strip tease. It is because of this that many people are offended. Nudity offends people who believe that their body, the visible and the more esoteric portions, is something to hide. Another reason that some people find the truth to be offensive is because they make personal profit from lies. It stands to reason that many people believe that the truth is ugly, or inconvenient. Why go to such lengths to conceal it otherwise? It can also be said that the truth is hidden because it stands in contradiction to the thing that conceals it.

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"an impressive and beautiful edifice, the Dome of the Rock..." Photo Elroyie David

For those who might read my first letter in the series getting out of Gaza, and start to think that I am over reacting to a trip that takes two hours approximately, I would say to them that for me and for many other Palestinians in Gaza, it was not only a trip of a two hours period, it was a life time trip, a window that opened suddenly and allowed the fresh air to come in with the essence of joyful times that I might not have the chance to experience again.

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From Tom Paine's Corner

The Motherland Calls, on the mouth of the Volga in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), commemorating the Soviet effort in The Great Patriotic War (WWII) against the Nazis. At 52 meters, the main figure (with the sword it reaches 85 meters) was at one time the tallest monument in the world (the Statue of Liberty itself is about 46 m). More than 25 million Soviet people died in the war, the equivalent of Texas and California combined in the 1940s.

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This week, Israel sank in an avalanche of national lethargy, hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

Seeking to cope with Hezbullah’s success in getting Israel to release all Lebanese prisoners, dead and living, in exchange for the remains of two Israeli soldiers, Israeli leaders, media and shapers of public opinion have been indulging in sanctimonious self-glorification while denouncing the other side as “hateful, uncivilized and representing an inferior culture.”

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In his short reign of terror, Bush accomplished what no terrorist could ever have accomplished by any means including those crimes called '911'. Bush will have left our Constitution in an ash heap. His tragic legacy can be summed up in three clauses: he destroyed the separation of powers and ruled by decree; he denied every citizen every right that is associated with being an 'American; he waged war upon a deliberate and treasonous fraud and is, thus, criminally responsible for the deaths of some 1.5 million innocent people! Bush infamously stated: 'The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" In his wake, it is not even that! It is ashes up in smoke, a fading memory.

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“Which forces are in control, the public or shadow powers?” - Peter Dale Scott, author, essayist and poet.

What made John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) such a threat to the “Shadow Government” that he had to be murdered? To begin with, he was an “American” in the finest sense of that word; a student of history and of the classics; and a lover of the Republic. JFK represented the best of the post-WWII generation. He put the U.S. first in all things, particularly in the area of foreign policy. JFK, unlike that insufferable blockhead currently occupying the White House, was a man of vision, too. He said that we can “put a man on the moon,” and we did. But, there is much more.

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It was said that the media driven protest on the grounds of Monticello was disrespectful, indulging guerrilla tactics more like Bush than about making the world a better more peaceful place.' I say that when every other remedy is repressed, quashed or made illegal, guerrilla tactics are all we have left! It was Thomas Jefferson who said that guerrilla tactics are justified in cases of tyranny. We have a 'right', Jefferson said, to 'abolish' a government that has become, like that of Bush, tyrannical.

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In the over half a century that I have been politically engaged I have never seen such an unqualified presidential candidate as John McCain. There are tens of millions of Americans in their seventies and beyond that have been smart enough to become technology literate, but not McCain, who is unable to even use the Internet. The man has a medical history that makes Dick Cheney look like the picture of great health.

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The turbulent times are upon us and I can no longer determine if it is a crisis of confidence, a run on the bank, a recession, a depression or a simple slowdown. People of all colours and fields have been using such terms to try and pinpoint the truth and magnitude of our global situation.

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The tomb of Antonio Gramsci

From Tom Paine's Corner

Dedicated to those who continually raise the bugaboo of the Communist menace to the make-believe, hypocritical, lying and socially perfidious “American way of life”.

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'Think for yourself and question authority.''~Timothy Leary (1920 – 1996)
American writer, psychologist, futurist and icon of psychedelic drug research and use.

I hate to be the bogeyman or bearer of bad news in many of my essays, but listen-up: In this authoritarian driven 21st century so full of numerous Orwellian creations, a long developed scientific control tactic may soon be realized in our lifetime in order to steal everyone’s personal freedom. Yes, the powers that be want to implant tiny little microchips into our bodies for surveillance purposes, behavior manipulation, and more...

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Post-9/11, torture has been official US policy under George Bush - authorized at the highest levels of government. Evidence of its systematic practice continues to surface. First some background.

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Fresh water is precious everywhere but especially in one of the driest, hottest places on earth - the Middle East. It's why it's a strategic resource and the reason countries like Israel do everything possible to secure a reliable supply. In the words of former prime minister Moshe Sharett: "Water to us is life itself." It shapes Israeli policy going back to the early Mandate period.

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The latest prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hezbullah is a healthy indicator that at least some Arabs are beginning to understand the depraved Zionist mentality, and act accordingly. Such mentality is based on arrogance, insolence, and religious and ethnic superiority.

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Video - The Village of Naalin is Fighting for Its Life

Do you ever think about the point inside the point inside the point inside the point? What I mean is how connections that seem to be one issue can be gathered together to be the same issue but with an entirely different perspective? I guess I’m talking about intentional enigmas; convolutions, shell games, ironies, conundrums and more things than I can recall at the moment.

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George W. Bush looked into the TV camera, Tuesday morning [July 15] and tried to assuage the fears of about 300 million Americans who believed they were in the middle of a Recession.

“The economy is growing,” said the President. “Productivity is high,” he told us. “Trade’s up. People are working,” he said. In the Bush White House, the “R Word” is just a myth. Of course, the man who once wanted to be known as the Compassionate Conservative did say he knew “It’s been a difficult time for many American families.”

“Difficult” doesn’t even begin to describe what has happened to Americans the past seven years.

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Lincoln summed up what it was that made the United States not an alliance of separate states but a single nation of "United" states. Our nation was, he said at Gettysburg, 'conceived in liberty', an abstract, philosophical idea that had been given practical meaning in the US Constitution.

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"What is hope? In itself, it is but Desire. Fantasy. Delusion. Hope is, in fact, nothing. If you
have nothing but hope, you have nothing. Hope is not reality. It is only itself. Try eating it."

On Probable-President Nobama's campaign website is a slick icon that says "Powered by Hope". I have to admit, that's right on the money (semi-pun intended). For many ersatz and about-to-be-erstwhile Nobama supporters, the power certainly has not been reality. Not without substantial encouragement, progressives slid happily into the glittering swamp of vagueness with nothing to propel them but hope, and conjured up, variously, a Gandhi, a JFK, a Blessed Savior, a Renaissance Black Man, Jack Johnson with a halo.

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Back in 2003 I wrote, “If ‘world peace’ is our main concern, we must achieve a balance of power, we must let the oppressed people of this world have access to the most advanced weaponry…. Balance of power is the only key to peace.” Nowadays, when Israel and its supportive lobbies are doing everything within their powers to drag us all into a third world war, I find it necessary to say it again. The only way to spare the Middle East and the entire world from another devastating cycle of bloodshed is to let the Iranians have their nuclear toy. But it goes even further, seemingly, the only way to save the Jewish state from its merciless parade of belligerent omnipotence is to let Iran join the nuclear club ASAP. The only thing that may cool down the Zionist militant genocidal enthusiasm is an overwhelming Iranian might of deterrence.

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We’ve been talking about the lying media and those who purport to be apart from the lying media as well as those who are actually presenting the truth; the voices in the wilderness, those that collect and present them, the urbane, the mundane, the articulate, the less intricate and the Jeremiahs on the mountaintop.

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If Bush can immunize himself for his own crimes after he's committed them, then he can, likewise, prosecute you for breaking laws for which he has yet to issue a decree! There is a word for this: tyranny! The people of England beheaded a King for less egregious offenses. This outcome has flowed from a single spring: GOP psychopathy!

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“Out of these troubled times, our...objective can emerge--’a New World Order.’” - George Bush, Sr., Dubya’s Daddy

When you mention the word “conspiracy” to explain a situation, most people tune you right out. They think you’re a whack-oh. Yet, the U.S. Congress, as dumb as it is, subscribes to the proposition that there is such a thing. After the Civil War, it passed a law, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, to make it a crime for two or more individuals to agree to fix the price of goods in restraint of trade. Every day in America, in both the state and federal courts, a defendant faces charges dealing with the “crime of conspiracy.” Conspiracy is as American as apple pie. Therefore, I submit that the evidence is compelling that there is an ongoing conspiracy, hatched by the New World Order, to reduce the U.S. to a vassal state. Which leads me to this question: Is Dubya, President George W. Bush, Jr., one of its covert agents?

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Photo Copyright Meir Vanunu, July 2008.

Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.-Article 13-2 UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

On July 8, 2008, instead of ending Mordechai Vanunu's freedom of speech trial which began in January 2006, the three Judges have put off their decision until September.

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There is a time and a place for politicking. Our electoral system requires considerable politicking to gain office. It often means tempering one's views while campaigning, perhaps minimizing certain views before certain audiences. That's simply an inescapable political reality. Barack Obama is campaigning, and if he shades and slightly bends his basic views here and there, I understand. I don't fault him for doing so. The naked realities of running for office often intrude. We simply have to hold our nose and ignore those realities.

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Public Service Announcement: You don’t need political analysts; just read the news. Singular lines of news suffice at times. You are now in the post-analytic age. Here is a one-liner from a Yahoo! News piece on the recent passage of the Snoops-R-Us bill in the Senate: “Obama ended up voting for the final bill, as did Specter.”

That one sentence tells you all you need to know about where Obama and most Democrats stand on the issue of civil liberties and what political leaders are not willing to do to protect those liberties. Now, that should be enough to make you withdraw your support from Obama’s presidency — if, that is, you still have illusions about the Democrats in general, and Barak Obama in this round of Anybody-But-Bush/McCain.

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“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” –Nietzsche

Experiencing decreasing levels of the comfort that ensures our loyalty to the criminal enterprise of American Capitalism, we “average” US Americans comprising the poor, working class, and rapidly shrinking middle class still revel in our relatively meaningless social freedoms (we can say “fuck you” to George Bush but can’t even get our “elected representatives” to impeach him for his Nuremberg class war crimes) as the economic manacles and shackles of wage slavery clamp ever tighter about our wrists and ankles.

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"Hagee is a 'Christian' Zionist who believes that the modern state of
Israel is a divinely-ordained phenomenon..."

"Wisdom has built her house and she calls to all, 'Come, eat my food and drink my wine and you will walk in the ways of understanding."-Proverbs 9:1-6

"Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership…

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It is often said that a wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top. It is also said that a wise man learns from the mistakes of other people, an imbecile learns from his own mistakes, but a fool learns neither from the mistakes of others nor from his own mistakes.

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Desert Peace

I was just informed by the Administrator of Media With Conscience (MWC) that the graphics they post credited to Carlos Latuff and Benjamin Heine no longer appear on Google News. All other graphics do appear as can be seen in the link I just provided.

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In a picture released on the news website of Iran's Revolutionary Guards,
long- and medium-range missiles rise into the air after being test-fired at
an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert. [Photograph by : AFP VIA
GETTY IMAGES]

It’s amazing isn’t it how the media, given the appropriate cues from the state, so readily slips into a warring state of mind. I’m talking of course about Iran.

So why didn’t the Israeli military exercise receive the same coverage as Iran’s response to it? In fact it deserved even more coverage given the aggressive nature of it (including apparently the use of Iraqi airspace).

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Federal laws state that '...whoever commits a war crime' resulting in death to its victim can be put to death. It does not make an exception for whomever occupies the office of President. This is serious stuff but so too are the deaths of some 4000 US personnel as well as the total number of Iraqi deaths as a result of this war of aggression, a figure estimated at some 1.3 million people.

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Smoking Mirrors

For those of us still capable of independent thought, there is a question that arises in the mind. It is a perplexing question. Why is it that when people gain some measure of power, through money, influence or by association… why is it that so many of them choose to embrace corruption over principles and reputation? Why would so many potentially good people go bad and not care about the loss of their ideals and good name?

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The principal lesson taught in school regarding personal finance is that everyone should have at least a five-year business plan. Creating such a plan forces us to take inventory of what we have, allowing us to figure out what we need to do to be able to prepare for what our needs may be for the future.

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John O'Sullivan, Margaret Thatcher statue

The American "conservative" movement, as seen in the friends and allies of the Heritage Foundation is the vanguard of the New World Order. They rally around the cherished ideas of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as the centerpiece of their movement. "Supply-side economics," the popular name for the concept accredited to the pair of charismatic leaders, is hailed as a great success, because of the new "robust" economy which it has allegedly produced. The key to any disinformation movement is the acquisition of the skill to say "black" is really "white." In reality, the "robust" economy is circling the drain, even as you read these words.

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Desert Peace

In line with what I was saying yesterday about the Corporate Media, AP in particular, the following sheds light on the subject in a brilliant way…

Our media institutions, deeply embedded in the power structures of society, are not providing the information that we need to make our democracy work. To put it another way, corporate media consolidation is a corrosive social force. It robs people of their voice in public affairs and pollutes the political culture. And it turns the debates about profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists who trivialize democracy while refusing to speak the truth about how our country is being plundered.

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Booz, Allen & Hamilton (hereafter Booz Allen), a privately held corporation owned by about 300 senior executives, is the Army’s accomplice in their attempted private property seizure in southeast Colorado. Their expertise, they declare, is strategy and public sector mission effectiveness.

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Lebanon's Litani River - the Israeli aim is to steal the waters of Lebanon

Lataan

The main reason that the Israelis have such an abiding interest in including southern Lebanon as a part of a Greater Israel is now becoming very apparent to the wider world as the drought takes hold in Israel and the region surrounding it.

Water has always been a highly valued commodity throughout the region and, as this year’s drought begins to bite, the importance of Israel having possession of south Lebanon up to the Litani River as part of its long-term future becomes increasingly obvious.

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Palestine Chronicle

Perception is often the stepchild of ignorance, especially when controlled by those with the most to gain. It is especially difficult for our Congress to perceive clearly when it grovels at the feet of AIPAC. America’s Knesset, servile hirelings of Israel’s lobby, rush to pass yet another resolution conceived by AIPAC and authored and co-signed by Ackerman and Ros-Lehtinen in the House and Lieberman and Bayh in the Senate, Resolutions H. Con. 362 and S. 580, the “Iran War Resolution.” Virtually all Congressmen with the exception of Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich and all Senators, including McCain and Obama, will vote to support this resolution.

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Redress

As the US and Israel manoeuvre themselves for aggression against Iran – “a Middle Eastern holocaust ... motivated by a Jewish state and its supporters” – Christopher King calls for the scoundrels in power in Washington, Tel Aviv and London to be brought to account for their crimes against humanity.

If it were not so serious, it would be laughable that the USA accuses Iran of being provocative in testing a missile. Our government-controlled BBC shows a map with a potential threat to all countries within 2400 kilometres, as if the Iranians want to attack every country possible.

As provocation, I would have thought that a much better example was the approval recently given by the US Congress for a USD 400 million package for clandestine operations against Iran. More an act of war, really.

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New Statesman

The military has created a wall of silence around its frequent resort to barbaric practices, including torture, and goes out of its way to avoid legal scrutiny

Five photographs together break a silence. The first is of a former Gurkha regimental sergeant major, Tul Bahadur Pun, aged 87. He sits in a wheelchair outside 10 Downing Street. He holds a board full of medals, including the Victoria Cross, the highest award for bravery, which he won serving in the British army.

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(Nidal El-Khairy)

Electronic Intifada

I wasn't really surprised by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel's (PHR-I) latest intervention to Israel's health ministry, in which they accused Israeli doctors of complicity in the torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli interrogation centers. Indeed, it sounded all too familiar to what I experienced during 550 days of incarceration in a South African prison from 1990 through 1992.

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Washington is currently negotiating two accords with the al-Maliki government to take effect after expiration of the UN's military mandate on December 31. One agreement is for a long-term "strategic framework" to establish "cooperation in the political, economic, cultural and security fields." Or according to the administration - to defend Iraq's "sovereignty and integrity of its territories, waters, and airspace."

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GlobalResearch.ca

A secret study by the World Bank, which reportedly has not been made public on pressure from the Bush Administration, concludes that bio-fuel cultivation in especially the USA and EU are directly responsible for the current explosion in grain and food prices worldwide. The US Government at the recent Rome UN Food Summit claimed that "only 3% of food prices" were due to bio-fuels. The World Bank secret report says that at least 75% of the recent price rises are due to land being removed from agriculture—mainly maize in North America and rapeseed and corn in the EU—in order to grow crops to be burned for vehicle fuel. The World Bank study confirms what we wrote more than a year ago about the madness of bio-fuels. It fits the agenda described in the 1970’s by Henry Kissinger, namely, ‘If you control the food you control the people.’

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Abed in his hospital bed in Cairo.
(Eva Bartlett)

Electronic Intifada

Bedridden but painfully conscious, nearly paralyzed with no feeling from the waist down, 16-year-old Abdul Rahman (nicknamed Abed) is one of the hundreds who were injured by intense Israeli shelling and firing on Gaza between 27 February - 3 March 2008, during an operation dubbed "Hot Winter" by Israel. According to a World Health Organization report, during this period the Israeli army killed at least 116 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians and more than a quarter children, including a six-month-old and a 20-day-old baby, and injured 350. Later counts put the number killed as high as 150, with more than 55 killed in one day alone. Over half of the week's fatalities and injuries occurred in and around Jabaliya, the refugee camp where Abed was born and has called home all of his life.

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A most widely-cited factor behind the recent U.S. wars of choice is said to be oil. “No Blood for Oil” has been a rallying cry for most of the opponents of the war. While some of these opponents argue that the war is driven by the U.S. desire for cheap oil, others claim that it is prompted by big oil’s wish for high oil prices and profits. Interestingly, most antiwar forces use both claims interchangeably without paying attention to the fact that they are diametrically-opposed assertions.

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Pro-business Supreme Court rulings are nothing new, and it's likely most damaging one ever occurred in 1886. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway, the High Court granted corporations legal personhood. Ever since, they've had the same rights as people but not the responsibilities. Their limited liability status exempts them. They've profited hugely as a result and have continued to win favorable rulings since. Today more than ever from the Roberts Court. One observer described its first full (2006-07) term as a "blockbuster" with the Court's conservative wing prevailing in most key cases. It's much the same in 2007-08, and it shows in its pro-business rulings.

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Another hot and muggy day in what seemed to be an endless summer of scorchers. Mary Cole was fighting an intestinal flu, but found it impossible to take time off from her job at Wal-mart. She couldn’t “afford” to be sick. When her bowels told her that she had to “go,” she notified her boss, who blandly told her that it wasn’t her “break time.” She tried to explain, but he walked away. Within three minutes, she soiled herself and started crying.

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Gore Vidal sought for decades to tell Americans that a democratic society was never truly envisaged by our aristocratic founders. Vidal was forever ignored regarding this claim. Ferdinand Lundgren's brilliant “Cracks in the Constitution” came along to expose the vast mythology regarding the Constitution and the founding fathers. Gore tried to convince his fellow Americans to read this book (a volume that was a near Bible for Gore). Nobody listened, and very few Americans bothered to read Lundgren's awesome book.

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Another Voice From Vietnam

James was a student in college in 1971 when I met him. A large personable black man just a few months out of the military and his year in Vietnam.

I heard him tell the following story twice. Both times there was no deviation and no body language or facial expressions to indicate he wasn't telling the truth. He could have been a great actor/storyteller and what he said may have been a common tale passed among the troops.Whether literally true or not, the analogy conveyed holds a lot of truth for today.

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Congratulations, Tony & Molly! We are very happy that you are working hard for the Palestinians. You have created a great site, and you truly are contributing to peace & understanding in the Middle East. ~Schuyler & Ragnar~ [Editors]

Palestinian Pundit

First a bit of history from Molly:

Two years ago, during the heyday of the Angry Arab website's comments section, there was a guy who called himself Heil Bush. Once in a while he would leave some incisive commentary, but to me, he seemed frustrated at not having a better outlet for his ideas. Or perhaps that was just my imagination. In any case, I told him he should start his own blog.

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Learning aids trashed at this Nablus
school by IOF soldiers

Palestinian Islamic leaders have called on Arab and Muslim states as well as “all human beings who believe in justice” to strongly condemn an ongoing Israeli campaign against Islamic civilian institutions throughout the occupied West Bank.

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These are the times that try men's souls. ~Thomas Paine~

Everyone said I must attend a Fourth of July parade in New England. I yawned and thought of all the Fourth of July parades with which I'd been familiar while growing up in the Midwest-you know, the emphasis on God, country, mom, apple pie, and America right or wrong. I hadn't attended one since I was a very young child. But my friends assured me that it's different in New England, and especially in Vermont.

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"Saletan fighting to sustain the morally reprehensible notion that that it is “man’s”
birthright to subjugate, exploit, and commodify our non-human animal brethren."

Blatant speciesist and self-described “liberal Republican” William Saletan recently penned a predictably narrow-minded and weakly argued anti-animal rights editorial for Slate Magazine.

Originally bowing to the will of Microsoft, Slate is now economically beholden to the Washington Post. Billed as “liberal” (which simply means they’re sycophants to the filthy status quo as they call for “reform” to a hopelessly degenerate system), naturally Slate was more than happy to provide Saletan a forum for his unbridled arrogance and bigotry.

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Smoking Mirrors

We read many an article on the world-wide web about mysterious cabals and individuals of prominence who are accused, singly and collectively of being the cause of the calamity, chaos and fear of these dark times. We hear about neo-cons and ZioNazis. We hear about Bilderberger and The Council on Foreign Relations. We hear about Bohemian Grove and ‘The City’ in London. We hear about bankers, bureaucrats and military industrial complexes. It is a sure thing that they all contribute to these conditions and that self-interest is the primary motive but… there is one thing that is most responsible for maintaining ‘the lie’ and for promoting the problems in this world than any single entity or collective. That thing is The Media.

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I did not realize that a piece of paper is all it takes me to get out of Gaza and enjoy a total different world, with no concerns, where you can live normally and take the best of it all. Last week for the first time in ten years I had the chance to get out of Gaza for one week only, but for me it was a life time that changes my attitude and perspective towards things, changes my vision, my judgment to things and even my reactions, I was so relaxed as if I have nothing to complain from, or anything to worry about.

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Art: Martin Wittfooth

ZioPedia / Kenny's Side Show

Bush-Clinton-Bush has been rule by organized crime imposed by the wealth of international organized crime. The Bush family has been the white collar hitmen of the Harrimans who, starting with one seat on the stock exchange, soon monopolized railroads and were deeply invested in opium and piracy abroad (euphamistically called "imperialism" and "free trade.")

The British Empire, with it's cruelities -- the British have always had a split personality -- one side of the British of London Parliament, liberalism and Magna Carta -- the other side, controlled from The City, of piracy, opium, war profiteering, and Bank of England financial crime -- economic terrorism throughout the world.

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According to a former aide, Jesse Helms was "very comfortable" in his final moments. If there were any justice, he might have experienced something of the final moments of the many people for whose deaths he should--in some measure at least--be held responsible.

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Xymphora

Why is the American political establishment so keen on allowing Bush to grant immunity to telecommunications company wrongdoers who broke the law in helping Bush to fight Bibi's 'war on terror' by running roughshod over the rights of Americans? Even Obama, whose instincts seem top notch, refuses to take what appears to be the obvious politically appropriate position, infuriating many of his core supporters. Could it be because the the American political establishment is afraid that telecom executives, put on trial, will sing a sorry tune in their defense concerning American government foreknowledge of September 11?

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The current government is no longer legitimate. Either the rule of law applies to everyone or it applies to no one! By their actions, the present government has thus made the laws to which you are held to account not applicable to Bush and his anointed in Washington.

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(Ben Heine © Cartoons)

Award-winning journalist and Flashpoints contributor Mohammed Omer beaten and tortured by Israeli secret police, we speak to him in his hospital bed; also, Ali Abunimah responds to the attack and speaks about the anti-Palestinian stance of the major presidential candidates.

Listen HERE
(Mohammed comes on after about 12 minutes)

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Photo by Norsk Folkehjelp

Desert Peace

This is a special appeal to sign the following Petition addressed to Condoleezza Rice. It will be presented to her early tomorrow...

Petition to End Israel’s Restrictions on Freedom of Movement and the Press

To: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

We, the undersigned, condemn Israel’s appalling treatment of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Gaza correspondent and author of the magazine’s regular feature, “Gaza on the Ground.” The 24-year-old Palestinian journalist was brutally assaulted by Israeli Shin Bet security officials at the Allenby Bridge border crossing on his way home to Gaza on June 26. He had just received the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, which he shared with independent American journalist Dahr Jamail. Omer’s award citation reads, “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.” (see John Pilger’s July 2 article, “From Triumph to Torture,” in the Guardian.) Please click HERE to add your name.

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[The Souls's Journey Home: Saint James the Greater by Hieronymus Bosch] There’s a lull in the air… some driftwood hiatus in the long decline of principles and manners. I don’t know which one went through the door first. They tend to hang out with each other so… Yeah, they’re part of a crowd that used to come around but we don’t see them that often in recent times. I’m thinking they felt out of place at the usual affairs. It isn’t like the old days; former times. It’s almost like they never existed at all.

It’s a new scene these days. Sure, there was always a certain amount of shuck and jive. There was always the marauding instinct and the guys and girls who wanted to hump your wife or take off with your boy friend. Sometimes people got a little too drunk and they said the wrong things or got into a fight but… there was always a prevailing sense of what was right, or at least I thought there was.

I haven’t been in America in about five years now. Last time I was there they nearly wouldn’t let me leave; didn’t want to issue me a new passport. I’d gone to Maui for the winter as I had the year before. Things were different the first time. They were much different the following year. It was a tense progression. Finally, on the day before my companions and I were due to head back to Europe, it arrived.

I had left four years previous when I saw Bush coming. Something told me there was going to be trouble and I know trouble. They tried to stick me with twenty years when Nixon was rampant on a field of blood and then they tried to give me life when Reagan McDonald was in the ascendant; astrologically speaking.

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America is a nation of losers. It’s the best thing about us. We're the dregs, what the rest of the world barfed up and threw on our shores.

John Kennedy said we are "a nation of immigrants." That’s the sanitized phrase. We are, in fact, a nation of refugees, who, despite the bastards in white sheets and the know-nothings in Congress, have held open the Golden Door to a dark planet. We are not imperialists and that’s why Bush lies and Cheney lies and, yes, the Clintons lied.

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Take for example, the Shalit affair and how Israel managed to kill, maim, detain
and torture thousands of innocent Palestinians...

One of the most repulsive expressions of Israeli racism is the firmly-held belief that a Jew is superior to and more important than a non-Jew.

According to this unholy principle, which most Israeli Jews see as an unquestionable truism, a Jewish life is more important than a non-Jewish life, and a Jewish blood is far more important than a non-Jewish blood.

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According to Haaretz, the Shin Bet security service, the (IDF) Military Advocate General, the Defence Minister Barak and the Prime Minister Olmert himself are all backing the demolition of terrorists’ homes.

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[East Jerusalem] On July 8, 2008, the final act in Mordechai Vanunu's current trials plays out, when Israel either puts Vanunu behind bars for six more months, or "something else" as Vanunu wrote.

Mordechai Vanunu's historic freedom of speech trial began in January 2006.

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From "Dr. Strangelove"

The writer perhaps like most Americans grew-up a bit naive about how this system functioned and believed that there was no other form of government or political system equated to the United States system of Democracy. We learned in our middle school civics course how the United States Democracy functioned, as far as the three branches of government—Executive, Legislative and Judicial branch, which we were taught gave a balance to power and a separation of powers. Thus, in theory the Executive branch (commander-in-chief), Legislative (Congress) and judicial (US Courts) all worked in concert to ensure the tenets of democracy are being fulfilled within our nation. The passing of the U.S. Patriot Act in 2001 turned the clock back relative to the balance of governmental powers—all the power has been unilateral transferred to the Executive branch.

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Concerns grow that Canada's plan will wipeout alt news sites and spread to U.S.

A net-neutrality activist group has uncovered plans for the demise of the free Internet by 2010 in Canada. By 2012, the group says, the trend will be global.

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Candace Cohn explains how new federal legislation on domestic surveillance gives the government sweeping new spy powers.

It may be July, but Christmas came early this year for Big Brother and the telecommunications giants. Unfortunately, it is average Americans who will pay--dearly--on three separate counts.

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Desert Peace

A week ago my dear friend and Brother, Mohammed Omer, was nearly beaten to DEATH and tortured by Israeli Security officers.

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A US paid for Israel F-16 warplane in flight. [The WE]

There should be no misunderstanding here. If there is an attack against Iran, it will be by BOTH Israel and the US. It would be impossible for Israel to attack Iran without the nod from the US. It will be joint effort.

The current rhetoric about US reluctance to attack Iran before giving other options a chance and about the possibility of Israel going it alone is pure propaganda designed to lull the Iranians into a false sense of security because they know that the Israelis can’t do it on their own. The current rhetoric also creates the impression that the US actually wants to give ‘diplomacy a chance’ which, in turn, creates the impression that it is the US holding back the Israelis from attacking Iran.

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Photo by Benjamin Heine via Desert Peace.

Electronic Intifada

The assault of IPS Gaza correspondent Mohammed Omer has left Israeli security personnel with a lot of explaining to do. And they are not doing a very good job of it.

Omer was abused and assaulted by Israeli security personnel at the Allenby border crossing into Israel from Jordan as he tried to return to his home last week in the Gaza Strip.

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“I have to get home to my mother, she will be so worried if I am not back soon.”

9 year-old Mona clutched at the gaping hole in her stomach, blood pouring out of her as if someone had turned on a faucet. There was something so terribly and indescribably out of place in her frail words, the colliding of two disparate worlds, that of a mother’s child, and that of a little girl facing down the ugliest of what life and humanity had to offer. The man who was kneeling at her side however knew better.

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Wearing a pith helmet and brandishing a blunderbuss, Marshbaum burst into my office and ordered me to the floor. I looked at my faux friend and media foil, about to ask him what his latest scheme was. With Marshbaum, who was fed “Honeymooners” episodes by IV when he was a child, everything is a scheme to make money. But, in the fraction of time I had before he yelled for me to get under my desk and cover my head, I quickly determined he was serious.

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WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have bound them, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Humankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

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This article is from an anonymous woman now living in South Africa. It was sent to thepeoplesvoice.org by Carolyn Baker, who recieved it from a third party. "It's relevance to the present moment is stunning."--CB

Through my signature below I hereby withdraw my consent to be ruled by the organization that has called itself the Government of the United States of America.

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Redress

Paul J. Balles argues that the US invaded and occupied Iraq at the behest of Israel lobbyists – the selfsame lobbyists who are now saying that the real threat all along had been Iran and that the US should attack Iran.

The pundits still don't see or don't want to see the truth about why the Bush administration attacked and invaded Iraq. The crucial factor in President Bush’s decision to attack Iraq was to help Israel. Based on prodding by zioncons Richerd Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Charles Krauthammer, Bush resolved to invade and subdue one of Israel’s chief regional enemies.

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“As soon as someone is identified as an unsung hero, he no longer is.” - George Carlin

After Sen. Barack Obama clinched the nomination to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the 2008 election, he began taking on bum advice. He is also running “scared” and it’s only July! No wonder the GOP’s standard bearer, Sen. John McCain, is smiling more these days. Sen. Obama, the supposed “Candidate of Change,” is fast reprising Sen. John Kerry’s losing, timid, don’t-rock-the boat strategy of his 2004 White House race against Dubya. As I write, Sen. Obama, who inspired millions in the primaries, is caving in on issue after issue. This is the same candidate who gave the appearance of strong resolve in smashing the Democratic Party’s Political Machine in Maryland last February. (1) Today, he’s looking like he’s part of that Old Boys’ network.

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Desert Peace

The actions of deranged bulldozer operator in Jerusalem made headlines throughout the world yesterday. Because the man was a Palestinian it was immediately labeled a terrorist attack. Four people were left dead, including the ‘terrorist’ himself.

Nothing justifies such actions. Nothing is gained by such actions. Again, as in previous attacks, only the zionists appear to be the victors. Again, the State of Israel gains the sympathy of a world that is totally unaware of the real victims in the conflict.

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The cost of Bush's war on Iraq war has surpassed one trillion dollars but there is no evidence of it benefiting the US economy. It is time to drive a stake through the heart of the malicious lie that wars are good for the economy. Only the Military/Industrial complex benefits from war and what is good for the MIC is NOT good for the country.

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Iraq oil refinery. An oil refinery 30 kilometers south of Basra, Iraq,
operates Friday June 18, 2004. Full crude oil exports from southern
Iraq are intermittently halted due to damage to pipelines by Iraq
resistance. $10 Billion worth of oil has been exported by the US
occupation forces since it attacked Iraq in March 2003. Photo: AP/
Nabeel al-Jurani. [The WE: 'Suicide bombings,' the angel said,
'and beheadings.']

British Black Ops in Basra

In September of 2005, the southern Iraqi oil city of Basra, under British occupation since the 2003 invasion, was the scene of an extraordinarily controversial incident, which has since exposed the anatomy of the Anglo-American "dirty war" in Iraq, and in fact, the relevance to the wider "War on Terror".

On September 19, 2005, two white men, dressed as Arabs, obviously suspicious to the British-trained Iraqi police, were pulled over in their car as they approached the city center of Basra. As the Independent reported, "the two men had been driving in an unmarked car when they arrived at a checkpoint in the city." What followed was a confrontation between the two men and the Iraqi police, with shots fired and an Iraqi police officer killed and another wounded.[1] The men were then detained by the Iraqi police and taken to the central jail. As it turned out, the two men were members of the British elite SAS Special Forces.[2]

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Jalal Talabani, Mahmoud Abbas & Ehud Barak.

Desert Peace

Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, holds a number of key portfolios of immense significance and symbolism. He is the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), President of the Palestinian ‘national’ Authority (PA) and Chief of the Fatah organization.

As such, he ought to strive to represent his tormented people in the best possible manner. He should also make every possible effort to eloquently and effectively communicate to the world at large the Palestinian people’s pains and grievances as well as their hopes for freedom and liberation from the manifestly criminal Israeli occupation.

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Journalist John Pilger (c), a member of the Martha
Gellhorn Prize judges panel, congratulates co-recipients
Dahr Jamail (l) and Mohammed Omer. Photo Paul de
Rooij.

Washington Report Correspondent Mohammed Omer Hospitalized Following Detention by Israeli Soldiers at Allenby Bridge Crossing.

Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, Gaza correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and co-recipient of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, was hospitalized with cracked ribs and other injuries inflicted by Israeli soldiers at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan into the occupied West Bank.

Omer was returning home to Gaza after a European speaking tour and the June 16 London ceremony at which he accepted the prestigious Gellhorn Prize.

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Mohammed Omer al Moghayer (Photo by Norsk
Folkehjelp)

Comment Is Free / The Guardian

Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Awarded in memory of the great US war correspondent, the prize goes to journalists who expose establishment propaganda, or "official drivel", as Gellhorn called it.

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From "The Lord of the Rings".

Smoking Mirrors

If you have read here for any length of time then you know about http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/ …I am extremely grateful that I found this site. Rixon Stewart who operates it is one of my heroes; along with Michael Rivero at www.whatreallyhappened.com … I’ll have more to say about Michael some time in the following weeks. For the moment I want to bring some information to your attention. This piece is written by Rixon and this piece fleshes out the same information. You can find these and a great deal more in this list of articles for the new and inquiring seeker after truth. Once you’ve read even a portion of these articles you will never look at the world in the same way again.

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The insanity of the New World Order is indoctrinated into the American "sheeple" by more means than just through the medium of television. Although television is the great educator of today's Americans, and the focus of all our "leisure time" awareness for most of us, we find that the "voice" of the grand indoctrinator makes itself heard through all communications media. Every entertainment medium "time-killer" has been harnessed by the controllers, to indoctrinate our children in the science of "learned hopelessness."

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"Without money or credit, government can only continue to exist through force."

I had a mild epiphany the other day: it’s not President Bush who’s living in a fantasy world, it’s most of his critics who are. I’m no apologist for Bush – I neither like nor dislike him. He’s no more significant to me than a fly buzzing around outside my window. So permit me to explain my reasoning.

People look at Bush’s invasion of Iraq and see a miserable failure. But a failure to do what? Democratize Iraq? Eliminate Iraq’s WMD arsenal? Reduce global terrorism? If those were, in fact, the reasons for invading Iraq, then the invasion would have to be classified as a failure. But what if the real reason was to secure Iraq’s oil supplies, perhaps not for immediate use, and perhaps not even for use by the United States? Then the invasion of Iraq would have to be judged a success, a “mission accomplished,” so to speak.

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Mairead Maguire meets with Mordechai Vanunu

In l986 a young Israeli man, called Mordechai Vanunu, followed his conscious and told the World that Israel had a nuclear weapons' programme. He was convicted of espionage and treason and given an 18 years sentence. After serving this (12 of which were in solitary confinement) Mordechai Vanunu was released. In April 2004 about 80 people from around the world went to welcome him out of prison. Unbelievably, upon his release Mordechai was served with severe restrictions, which forbade him many basic civil liberties including his right to leave Israel, to speak to foreigners and foreign media and his travel within Israel restricted.

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The following words of Ray McGovern are those of a TRUE patriot. It was David Hume (I believe) who spoke of the moral responsibility to be intelligent (to the extent that our native abilities allow us, of course). What is most alarming recently is the DELIBERATE and willful ignorance found in the Bush administration and throughout out nation's right wing ---ignorance of our heritage, our common values, our Democratic traditions, our Constitution. And not just ignorance which may be forgiven and corrected but worse ---disdain, hate, and the utter lack of humanity.

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Both George Bush and Dick Cheney have emphatically proclaimed the American Way of Life as “non-negotiable.” As hard as it may be for the feeble-minded, deluded, conscienceless, or hopelessly addicted to grasp, Mother Nature and billions of human beings are going to force us to the bargaining table. We can kick, scream, stomp our feet, and hold our breath all we want, but our abhorrent mode of existence is going down.

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Desert Peace

The Israeli government clarified the entire situation regarding his ‘beatings and torture’ in a Reuters report just issued… THEY DENIED EVERYTHING!

Israel would NEVER lie…. I can’t understand why Reuters would even give coverage to such blatant lies… especially considering that Israel has still not given them details of the MURDER of their own reporter Fadel Shana two months ago.

(May the lying bastards rot in hell!!! That’s all I have to say about Israel’s statement)

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A holocaust memorial that was erected in a park in Moscow. It's made up of con-
crete blocks, wire, and stone. The stones each have a face carved onto it. (From
Religion in Russia)

[This is an edited version of The Jewish Holocaust and the New World Order.]

The Jewish Holocaust in its modern form is not just a political weapon but a secular religion. Over years it has replaced Talmudism as the uniting creed of all Jews. It has high priests like Elie Wiesel, holy books like the ‘Diary of Anne Frank’, temples in the shape of museums, even an equivalent of the Holy Inquisition, the ADL and its countless sister organisations. It raises taxes from foreign firms and governments in form of compensations. It has religious holidays such as Auschwitz day. And last, but not least, it has dogmas, the unquestionable belief in a plan to kill all European Jews, the use of gas chambers and 6 million Jewish victims.

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Art by Pat M. Smith

James Dobson has a Ph.D. in child development. He advocates spanking. He was once known as “the Religious Right’s New Kingmaker.” The “king” he helped make was George W. Bush, who tops “the list when American voters pick the worst U.S. President in the last 61 years.”

As a prominent character in the Bush-Rove nightmare, Dobson, according to Brian Elroy McKinley, set "himself up as a religiously-based political dictator bent on getting us to support his personal view of legislated morality.

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Calling a Republican a liar is redundant. It's known by definition. As Will Rogers said of a New Deal plan to 'teach hogs birth control', it's become a habit with them. McCain's pathology is different. He's thin-skinned, hot-tempered and out of control. McCain cannot be trusted with nukes. In an infantile temper-tantrum, McCain can be trusted to inflame the world at the end of a macho show of penis power!

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From his hospital bed at the European Hospital in Gaza and with barely audible voice, award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer al Moghayer has given a full account of the hair-raising encounter he had last week with Shin Beth agents at the Allenby Bridge border-crossing between Jordan and the West Bank.

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