You’ve probably seen news reports about the supposed plot to blow up JFK airport. Pretty scary stuff, right?
No, it’s bullshit.
The JFK operation, like earlier terror scares, is almost certainly a fraud perpetuated by our government in order to terrorize the populace and provide cover for the neocons who are increasingly on the run.
Bold claims, you say. Damn right. But let’s look at the facts — ALL of the facts — before we decide. The media tends to focus on the most frightening and explosive (pun intended) parts of the plot, but they seldom go deep into the details and question the government’s motives and their version of events.
Fact Two: The plotters had no experience with terror attacks. They were still in the planning phase and they had no funding necessary to pull this plot off. And frankly, these guys were incompetent… and set up.
Yes, Russell DeFreitas used to work for Evergreen International Aviation, which is a notorious front for the CIA. The airline was most likely involved in the extraordinary renditions you may have heard about (basically the CIA flies suspected terrorists to other countries where they can be tortured “legally”).
The CIA Angle
I think this goes without saying, but I’ll say it: The CIA doesn’t staff it’s fronts by hiring the first moron who comes in off the street. Okay, they might do that in some cases, maybe even this one, but once you’re involved with The Agency it can be hard to get out of their wicked web. Perhaps The Agency saw how gullible and easily manipulated DeFreitas was and decided to use him as a patsy without his knowledge. Or perhaps he was aware of what he was doing the whole time. Either way, the CIA angle puts a whole new spin on things, especially since the CIA is the premier terrorist organization in the world today.
It is fair to presume that the CIA vets everyone connected with its ultra-sensitive air operations. I do not believe that the Agency would accidentally hire someone linked to a foreign criminal organization.
But the DeFreitas story gets even stranger.
For someone living in poverty, he did an astonishing amount of international travel. The Complaint mentions the trip he made late last year to Guyana, where he met with various shady characters.
Cannon goes on to point out that DeFreitas claimed to be selling junk in Guyana and Jamaica, but the economics just does not add up. Something is fishy here, and it smells like DeFreitas’ connections to the CIA and the way he makes his living. How could you make a living flying garage-sale junk down to third world countries? If anything, that just guarantees an even smaller return on your investment. Much more likely is that DeFreitas was involved in drug smuggling, probably under CIA protection. Those flights probably contained more than just old blenders and slightly used toasters…
The Agency is in a vastly superior position to its mules. Mules can get pinched at any time, with or without a tip from The Agency. Then, in order to get a reduced sentence said mule will cut a deal with the CIA and do exactly what they tell him to do. If he doesn’t, he spends time behind bars and The Agency simply finds another mentally deficient mule/patsy.
All things considered, this plot looks extremely sketchy. The plotters were being led by a former (current?) CIA stooge who couldn’t manage to keep his car running, yet the media is hyping this as a foiled 9/11-style plot. DeFreitas was a former jazz musician and aficionado, yet music is banned in many Islamic countries. Is this guy your standard loner/drifter or a extremist terrorist mastermind? The truth appears to be somewhere in the middle. DeFreitas’ motivation was probably money. The Agency tells him to start acting Islamic and formulate a bomb plot and he does exactly that because he expects a fat payday. Will he ever get paid? Probably not. If you sign a Faustian bargain, don’t be surprised if the Devil doesn’t stay true to his word.
Meanwhile, the neocons are saying that we should be worshiping at the feet of Dear Leader Bush because he has stopped all of these terror attacks. What they neglect to mention is that he started them, too. Already, many Republicans are clamoring for another terrorist attack to remind people of Bush’s steadfast leadership… or something.
With the neocons’ prospects looking dim, they might just get their wish.
A group of governors asked Bush and Marine Gen. Peter Pace about their backup plan for Iraq. What would the administration do if its new strategy didn’t work? The conclusion they took away was that there is no Plan B. “I’m a Marine,” Pace told them, “and Marines don’t talk about failure. They talk about victory.”
“Plan B was to make Plan A work.”
Talk about some scary shit. Are these two running a war or a comedy show?
If the Democrats don’t smell weakness here and move in, it’s because they’re controlled by the same folks who control the neocons. I was hoping there was another game in town, but it looks like We the People are alone in this fight. And most of us would rather watch Larry the Cable Guy than put pressure on our representatives. We know this is stupid…. are we still going to stand for it?
Sometimes I think the world would be better off without us. If we can’t fix this maybe our species doesn’t get to survive. We’re destroying our planet and killing each other. All these years and we still haven’t figured it out.
“The ultimate Plan B is pull everybody out,” said Stephen D. Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adviser to the Defense Department. “Nobody wants to do that. Most are looking at the middle ground between surge and pullout.”
Well, let’s go for Plan-fucking B already, asshole!! “Nobody” wants to do that? Who the fuck are you talking to, Biddle?! Get us the fuck out of there. NOW! We don’t want to be an Empire anymore, okay? So fuck off and die.
Biddle, who noted that new Iraq strategy proposals “proliferate hourly” in the public domain, said another variant is to set up “heavily defended forward operating bases out in the desert somewhere [and] either sit there and mind our own business and do nothing except be present — enabling us to say we’re still there — or, in a somewhat more activist flavor, to conduct raids of various kinds” against al-Qaeda bases and rescue missions for Iraqi military units.
Oh great, we can be warlords in western Iraq and Somalia just like all the other gangsters and thugs. We could conduct raiding parties like pirates or vikings. Brilliant. This fucking egghead is just brilliant. This weak-ass, spineless piece of shit is suggesting the United States of America assume the position of the lowest of the low — a marauding band of beggars and thieves.
First of all, al-Qaeda is mostly an illusion, a creation of the CIA during the Afghan war against the Soviets. Secondly, they were just an excuse to kick our country in gear. The Powers That Be decided that they wanted us to be aggressive and bloodthirsty to further the consolidation of their empire so they cooked up 9.11 to whip us into a frenzy. But now the excitement has worn off and we’re stuck in the middle of the desert with a bunch of people who are so crazy they’re killing each other more than us.
Let’s face reality, wake up from this nightmare, impeach Bush/Cheney and bring the troops back home! Then we can apologize to the world, undertake massive economic reforms, investigate the wrong-doings of the government going back 60-some years and put things right politically. We’ve really let things get all fucked up, so we’ve gotta clean house. First on the list are those spineless scorpions — the neocons. Then we can get the vampire bats (fat aristocracy/business) and the filthy rats (criminal networks) and the scheming spiders (secret ruling cabals) who have woven this network of fear and exploitation.
Can we agree that this war is bankrupt? It’s all over but the crying… and some more killing if the neocons get their way. That’s why we have to sweep them from power. If we don’t act soon we can expect more of the same. Attacking Iran would be colossally stupid… in other words, it’s right up the neocons’ alley.
Last week, Libby’s attorney Theodore Wells made a stunning pronouncement during opening statements of Libby’s trial. He claimed that the White House had made Libby a scapegoat for the leak to protect Karl Rove – Bush’s political adviser and “right-hand man.”“Mr. Libby, you will learn, went to the vice president of the United States and met with the vice president in private. Mr. Libby said to the vice president, ‘I think the White House … is trying to set me up. People in the White House want me to be a scapegoat,'” said Wells.
Cheney’s notes seem to help bolster Wells’s defense strategy. Libby’s defense team first discussed the notes – written by Cheney in September 2003 for White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan – during opening statements last week. Wells said Cheney had written “not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others”: a reference to Libby being asked to deal with the media and vociferously rebut Wilson’s allegations that the Bush administration knowingly “twisted” intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq.
However, when Cheney wrote the notes, he had originally written “this Pres.” instead of “that was.
The “meat grinder” is generally taken to mean “the DC press corps”. So, after re-inserting “this Pres” into Cheney’s note it reads: “not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.”
It’s not surprising that strategy concerning the Plame affair would be discussed at the highest levels. But Bush has been denying all along that he knew anything about the leak.
When Cheney testifies will he throw Libby under the bus like Addington? I can’t wait to find out. What happens when the top two liars in the country are implicated in a scandal, tied to an illegal war that’s been used to justify illegal wiretapping? Well, if Republicans are in charge: Nothing. However, I have a smidgen of hope that the Democrats will pursue impeachment. They’d better hurry up about it because I keep hearing more and more noise about starting a war with Iran. It sounds like the preparations for a joint U.S./Israeli strike are almost complete.
Last month, the state Agriculture Department finished its work on rules farmers may use to grow industrial hemp, a cousin of marijuana that does not have the drug’s hallucinogenic properties. The sturdy, fibrous plant is used to make an assortment of products, ranging from paper, rope and lotions to car panels, carpet backing and animal bedding.
Applicants must provide latitude and longitude coordinates for their proposed hemp fields, furnish fingerprints and pay at least $202 in fees, including $37 to cover the cost of criminal record checks.
Johnson said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration still must give its permission before Monson, or anyone else, may grow industrial hemp.
“That is going to be a major hurdle,” Johnson said.
Yeah, the DEA are basically a bunch of assholes when it comes to common sense and hemp. They won’t give permission unless they feel cornered. Keep the pressure on; some more media coverage would be nice.
But all this obscures the larger and more potent question: Why is “marihuana” still illegal? Certainly industrial hemp should be legal since it has none of recreational ganja’s psychoactive properties. But why is cannabis in general illegal? Most people would agree that Prohibition was a titanic failure. But we’re still stuck with many of the after-effects of the prohibition mentality, including the idiotic, wasteful, racist and anti-freedom War on Drugs. The War on Drugs is a total failure and a fraud and even many former cops and DEA agents will testify to that fact.
An excellent article called Why Is Marijuana Illegal? tackles that very issue, with some surprising revelations… Or not-so-surprising. I guess it depends on how jaded you are when it comes to politics and business.
America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law “ordering” all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other “must grow” laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp — try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements – rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.
The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp “plantations” (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.
But racism may have been the weapon that was used most effectively against hemp and cannabis. Harry J. Anslinger (who looks like a gangster/mafioso to me) led the charge against “marihuana” (the word itself is a propaganda invention designed to draw up racial fears).
Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. Some of his quotes regarding marijuana…
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”
“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”
“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”
“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”
There were a lot of lies said about pot back in the day. But it’s 2007 and we know better, so why is it still illegal? I mean, people don’t seriously believe that pot causes “insanity, criminality and death” — everyone knows it only causes the munchies and drymouth. But we still allow the government to lie to us every year and keep spending millions of dollars to send inner city youth to jail for with harsh mandatory minimum sentences? Pete Guither’s article does a great job of explaining how cannabis first became illegal, but it does not really tell us why it’s still illegal 70 years after the Marijuana Stamp Act.
On October 31, 1996, the Washington Post ran a follow up story to the San Jose Mercury News series titled “CIA, Contras and Drugs: Questions on Links Linger.” The story drew on court testimony in 1990 of Fabio Ernesto Carrasco, a pilot for a major Columbian drug smuggler named George Morales. As a witness in a drug trial, Carrasco testified that in 1984 and 1985, he piloted planes loaded with weapons for contras operating in Costa Rica. The weapons were offloaded, and then drugs stored in military bags were put on the planes which flew to the United States. “I participated in two [flights] which involved weapons and cocaine at the same time,” he told the court.
Funny how the news doesn’t do investigative reports on stuff you might actually want to know. The press could have found a lot more dirt on this scandal, but they steered clear after a limited hang-out. That’s because the whole system is set up to demonize drugs so that they will be so much more profitable. Legalization would utterly destroy the CIA’s little “fundraising” operation and it would effectively end the careers of many DEA agents, who’ve become like a parasitic wasp, sucking at our nations’ failed and painful drug policy.
It’s time to end the lies, the racism and the idiocy of the War on Drugs and declare peace. It needs to end, and there needs to be an investigation. Those who profited from the war by playing both sides should be punished according to their own rules.
The video above is Dealing with the Demon, an excellent look into the CIA’s activities in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets. Perhaps we should not be surprised that Afghan poppy production has exploded since we “liberated” it from the Taliban. How… interesting.
Updated on 1-16-07 with new links, a video and various spelling-error fixes.
Update 2 (Oct. 30, 2010): In the process of moving this blog over from Blogger to WordPress I imported all posts to the new platform. However, certain posts didn’t survive the process and this was one of them. I have reposted it above, but because the post didn’t transfer correctly I lost all of the comments that were posted to the original. I have a backup of the original so I was able to save them. I’ll post them below (but above WordPress’ comment system) for posterity’s sake:
14 SICK LITTLE MONKEYS SAID:
Anonymous screeched…
funny. no one’s ever just randomly offered me a marijuana cigarette like that poster warns. i must be doing something wrong ….
18 JANUARY, 2007 12:25
Vemrion screeched…
yeah, you better work on that.
this propaganda is only hurting their cause. That dime-store novel looks pretty good, and that tagline is classic: “a cheap and evil gril sets a hopped-up killer against a city.” Nice. I like how they mention that she’s “cheap.” Does this mean she’s a prostitute or a miser? So many questions, I must read it! 🙂
18 JANUARY, 2007 21:45
greg screeched…
Just wanted to thank you for the excellent article and let you know that it made the front page on Newsvine.com yesterday, 1/25 — http://rochester92.newsvine.com/_news/2007/01/25/536949-why-is-cannibis-still-illegal-in-2007
26 JANUARY, 2007 18:24
sean paul screeched…
legalize it, time to recognize it!
31 JANUARY, 2007 13:31
Anonymous screeched…
Not many things make me mad. But damnit! Legalize the bloody hemp before I kill ya! 😛
03 FEBRUARY, 2007 05:23
Anonymous screeched…
I’m not sure that the government will ever legalize marijuana. Think about it. There is no way (at least at this time) to detect how much marijuana that you had to smoke today. If you have a few drinks, a breathalizer test can be administed or a blood test and you can get a reading of how much alcohol is in your system. Thus, a police officer can determine if you are over the legal limit. With marijuana, you can test positive for it but they cannot tell if you smoked it today or a week ago. For this one reason, I don’t think that the legalization marijuana will happen any time soon.
30 JULY, 2007 12:30
freedom screeched…
Im tired of feeling like im doing something wronge for smoking pot, I think its time for us to realize that we were born FREE… not free to kill or commit true crime, but free to live our lives the way we choose, not the way the govt has choosen for us. What is it going to take to make lawmakers realize that a war on pot hurts people more than pot does. What good is it to throw a person, who has a family, in jail ruin their career and their life over a bag of pot, a bag of naturally grown plants, shouldnt cops be trying to prevent real crime. Im sure in the time it takes a cop to arrest a person for posetion, he/she could have been helping someone who truly needed help. OPEN UP YOUR EYES…FREEDOM
28 AUGUST, 2007 21:27
Anonymous screeched…
ok 1 pot does not make you do ofter druges its the persons dicishion to do otfer druges and 2 pot is better for you then tabaco so they sould make pot legal and tabaco ileagale or both legale
I’m very torn on the issue. But I agree with Anonymous on July 30, 2007. If you want to legalize marijuana, someone needs to invent a device to detect current levels in your system so that individuals are not driving under severe influence. This will eliminate at least one (if not the most prevalent) argument as to why marijuana is illegal.
20 NOVEMBER, 2007 17:18
Anonymous screeched…
his topic always fires me up because of how ignorant people can be. Its our decision and making it legal could help hrthe economy, eliminate the badass feel of it that makes people so it just because it is illegal. We need a strong leader who has the balls to speak out about the truth of marijuana. Legalize it now
16 JUNE, 2008 19:42
Anonymous screeched…
Using pot irresponsibly should be regulated the same as alcohol. But a Federal ban against everyone who does use the drug responsibly is wrong. I’ve smoked for years and I’m a productive, functional member of society. If I went to jail for smoking I would no longer pay taxes and more of your tax money would go into the court & correctional systems. And when I got out of prison after a harsh mandatory minimum do you think I’d be a better citizen after hanging out with murderers and rapists for the past 3 years?
No one gets high and beats their wife. No one gets high and passes out in a gutter. People get high and eat too much and annoy their friends who are not high. Just don’t get high when you have something important to do and don’t get high everyday or you’ll become a douchebag hippie. There’s no reason for the government to punish you any further. Being a douchebag hippie should be punishment enough.
20 MARCH, 2009 00:01
Please feel free to add additional comments below:
Having trouble keeping track of all the secret armies that the CIA has financed and controlled all over the world? Well this handy list will help you keep them all straight, from the Bay of Pigs Invasion Force to the Salvadoran Death Squads, Chinese Brigade in Burma, and many more.
The best part concerns the Nungs:
Fearsome and brutal fighters, the Nungs were employed throughout Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Nungs proved costly since they refused to fight unless constantly supplied with beer and prostitutes.
Ah, now there’s a secret invasion force after my own heart.
You’ve heard about global warming, massive ecological damage to the planet, blah blah blah… HURRY UP!!! Where’s the fucking death and destruction I’ve been waiting for? Not here, and that’s the problem.
I don’t think I need to go over the basics of global warming, environmental destruction, nuclear weapons, overpopulation, terrorism, Peak Oil, the neocons being in charge or the end of the Mayan calender in late 2012. You know about that shit, right? We’re living in an apocalyptic age. So here’s my question: Where the fuck is the apocalypse already?!!! I’m getting tired of waiting.
We all know it’s coming. It’s like the crappy twist ending to an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Everybody knows it’s a fucking alien or whatever. But this is like the Shyamalan movie that keeps going on and on and on and on and on and the fucking cheesy twist gimmick hasn’t showed up yet. Hell, you guessed what the twist will be about 3 hours ago, but the movie is stilllll going!! What the FUCK?!! Will the world just end already? Jeeze!
I want to see our wretched over-consuming, ultra-militarized American society collapse under its own weight. I want to see the fat and the weak die in the streets! Where’s the fucking blood, man?! I’m sick of our horrifically obese (physically, financially, politically) nation beating the living shit out of brown people in various parts of the world. When’s our turn?! You know it’s coming. The laws of karma demand it.
We deserve to burn for Iraq. We should all go to hell for letting this bullshit war continue. We deserve to die, like we’ve condemned the Iraqis to die. And the worst part is we continue to LIE to them and tell them we’ve liberated them! Jesus fucking Christ people, at least have the courtesy to tell them the truth while we’re raping their country of it’s precious natural resources! You’re gonna tell me all the goddamn flag-waving hicks who support this war ACTUALLY GIVE A FUCK about Iraqis?!!!! I will laugh in your ignorant face, you fucking gullible tool.
Our government is composed of the most evil, wicked and soulless men alive. Our government, along with the military-industrial complex, killed 3,000 people on September 11th, 2001 in order to trick us into going to war. And what has our reaction to this fascist take-over been?
“Ooohh, let’s see if Lost is on! The revolution can wait until after Survivor is over! Oh wait, I just want to read a retarded fashion magazine! I can’t wait until the new Wii is released! I’m a delusional fucking idiot who doesn’t know anything about politics! Let’s just let the country careen into a fucking ditch the size of the Grand Canyon! Who gives a fuck as long as I’ve got my botox, designer jeans, video games, reality TV, SUV, 401k, and a lot of other useless crap that makes me feel good for about 2 seconds so I can forget that my government is a satanic collective of Nazis bent on taking over the world’s resources while simultaneously lowering the world’s population through war, starvation and man-made diseases!”
Fuck all of you selfish fucks! And fuck me too for not having the balls to light myself on fire and run into the capitol building with a bomb strapped to my chest. Fuck all of us. We deserve to die. We are killing the planet with every piece of food we eat (fuck all of you self-righteous vegans for thinking you’re not guilty of the same thing! Plant flesh is just as sacred as animal flesh!). We kill it every time we drive a car, every time we turn on a fucking light, and every time we knock down a tree so we can build a goddamn strip mall with a 27 muthafucking acre parking lot!!!
Humanity is a fucking virus, and we’re killing the host. It’s time to die people. DIE DIE DIE!!!!
When the next American civil war comes (and it will come — soon), it will be my honor to kill each and every last one of you fucking traitors who supports the war in Iraq and the Bush regime that perpetrated 9/11.
I suppose a lot of you are still in denial about 9/11. Understandable. Not everyone is a structural engineer. But there’s no more excuses. We have the power of the internet and people are still ignorant. I don’t think you need any help from me. Open Google and start researching. It’s only the future of our entire fucking country at stake, so please don’t complain about me calling you a useless traitor piece of shit if you decide to watch The Biggest Loser instead.
To some extent we are all absolved by the fact that this world was totally fucked up long before any of us were born. However, the time of excuses is running out rapidly. With the power of the internet at your fingertips you have NO EXCUSE for being an ignoramus anymore.
Do you think America is “teh koolest-est cuntree evar!!”? Then you are a fucking idiot. America has fallen. America is now the world leader in corruption, evil, terrorism, hatred and intolerance. The CIA is the premier terrorist organization in the world. They fucking own al-Qaeda — literally. The CIA started al-Qaeda during the 80’s to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. They are still being funded and controlled by the CIA. So fuck all of you shitheads who tell me I’m not patriotic enough. I love America — the REAL America, not the “Amerika” it has become (rather like evil Superman). We haven’t used the Constitution for anything except for toilet paper in almost 100 years. America is fallen. Amerika is now the Empire from Star Wars, and Dick Cheney is its Emperor.
Amerika is a place where you can get arrested for smoking a joint or wearing a T-shirt that says “Peace” on it, but if you’re the president you can send thousands of troops to die and kill in a foreign land based on lies and distorted intelligence and nobody can do shit about it. And half the people think it’s just fucking great. Amerika committed genocide while it was being born (ask the Native Americans about that one) but then it turns around and claims Saddam is evil for killing his own people… with WMDs that we gave him! (well, “sold to him” — Amerika is all about $$$$$). What the fuck are we supposed to make of this hypocrisy?!
And don’t get me started on all the fucking greedy businessmen who are so obsessed with money that they don’t give a second thought to destroying the environment if it helps the bottom line. The only thought that goes through their fat, ugly heads is: “How can I make sure I don’
t get caught?” Amerika drains the lifeblood from the earth, like a vampire. We are all a party to this wicked devil-dance. If you dance to their tune, you’re just as guilty as they are. Are you willing to bet your soul that George Bush is right? Do really fucking believe he gives a damn about the welfare of everyday Iraqis? Do you really believe businessmen when they say, “trust me, I care deeply about the environment and our workers’ safety and happiness.” Sucker. They don’t give a fuck. It’s all about PR. Just lie to the cameras and everything will be okay.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle lie. That’s all there is to it. Neither side can be trusted. And if there is someone in power who dares to speak the truth he will be ruthlessly co-opted or assassinated, post-haste. We’ve lost 2 Kennedys, MLK, John Lennon and Paul Wellstone to the machinations of the elite. The elite, by the way, are a sick bunch indeed. They are engaged in drug smuggling, terrorism, arms dealing, child abduction and molestation, torture, murder, satan-worship and God knows what else.
I’m not really saying I wish we all die tomorrow. I mostly just wish the global elite would. But since the reverse is more likely to happen, maybe I shouldn’t pin all my hopes on our coming destruction. But it doesn’t really matter what I think, does it? Oil will peak. The economy will crash. The environment will shed its parasites. Our government will collapse (every government eventually does). The only question is when? And what are we going to do about it?
Well, I for one, will be glad. Not because I like not being able to eat, drink, work, drive a car or turn on a light. That part will suck. No, I will enjoy it because there will be so much less ignorance and hubris in the world. I’m so fucking sick of the arrogance and suicidal stupidity of most Amerikans, and pretty much all of western civilization for that matter.
There’s an not-so-old saying the Middle East (ya know, the place we’re presently occupying, destroying, raping and terrorizing) that goes like this:
My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies in a jet plane.
His son will ride a camel.
Ya know, maybe the internet doesn’t make you smart. Those people didn’t need it to come up with that revelation, and here we are in Amerika with a quarter billion morons surfing the web. Maybe we will be smarter once we have nothing. Maybe the world will be a better place once we’re no longer in it.
Johnson is a Democrat, which means that if he dies the control of the Senate reverts back to the Republicans. This is because the governor of South Dakota is a Republican and he can appoint whomever he wishes to serve out Johnson’s term. The Senate would then be tied 50-50 with VP Cheney as the tie-breaking vote.
Now, I’m not saying that the CIA and the neo-cons are responsible for this…. all I’m saying is check him for polonium-210.
Donald Rumsfeld flew to Iraq today, with only a few days left in office. He “bid the troops farewell” and tried to shore up the neocon war effort in Iraq, warning of the consequences of failure. Indeed, this war is Rumsfeld’s legacy, and he wants to see it won. Too bad he fucked it up so badly, every step of the way. His only true legacy will be American humiliation.
And we should be ashamed, for propping up men like General Pinochet, ex-Dictator of Chile and friend of evil, who said goodbye in his own way, by kicking the bucket. It’s worth noting he took power on September 11th, 1973. How fitting. The linked article above glides past CIA responsibility for Pinochet’s coup, but everyone knows Washington wanted Allende out of the picture. They admit as much. I wonder what Rumsfeld was up to in the summer of 1973…
“Recent stories in the Washington Post, the New York Times, as well as the release of the transcripts of the NORAD tapes in Vanity Fair, clearly show that the 9/11 Commission failed in its duties,” says the widows’ statement.
“Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate,” reported Dan Eggan for The Washington Post.
“As one of its last acts before disbanding, in July 2004, the 9/11 commission made referrals to the inspector general’s offices of both the Department of Transportation (which includes the F.A.A.) and the Defense Department to further investigate whether witnesses had lied,” wrote Michael Bronner for Vanity Fair.
In light of these reports, the 9/11 widows “question the veracity of the entire Commission’s report.”
“The fact that the Commission did not see fit to tie up all loose ends in their final report or to hold those who came before them accountable for lying and/or making misleading statements puts into question the veracity of the entire Commission’s report,” the widows write.
“Furthermore, the lack of tenacity and curiosity, by the Commissioners themselves, to determine why NORAD had deceived them is unconscionable,” the statement continues. “Knowing full well that the lack of military response was such a critical failure, begs the question of whether that same lack of tenacity and curiosity was applied to other critical areas of the 9/11 investigation.”
Indeed. The 9/11 Omission Commission stank from day 1. For one thing, “day 1” was over a year after the attacks. The Bush administration stalled for over 400 days before finally backing down. The 9/11 Widows are probably the only reason we even got an investigation. The Bush Regime showed a distinct lack of curiosity and tenacity, too.
And of course, they initially wanted to have Henry Kissinger lead the Commission, which is a bit like having Joseph Goebbels lead the Nuremberg Trials. Luckily, Goebbels was dead by then. It’s a shame we can’t say the same about the war-criminal Kissinger.
The 9/11 Widows have exposed a progressive crumbling of the official story. I would say that that the official conspiracy (remember: the official story is a conspiracy theory, too. It states that 19 al-Qaeda members conspired to orchestrate the attacks) is in tatters. It’s being attacked from all angles because it doesn’t make any sense.
Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.
In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.
“We to this day don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us,” said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. “It was just so far from the truth. . . . It’s one of those loose ends that never got tied.”
Although the commission’s landmark report made it clear that the Defense Department’s early versions of events on the day of the attacks were inaccurate, the revelation that it considered criminal referrals reveals how skeptically those reports were viewed by the panel and provides a glimpse of the tension between it and the Bush administration.
Tension? The Bush administration was tense before they even created the Commission. They were dragged, kicking and screaming into it. So yeah, there was tension there. The same kinda tension that a murderer feels when the cops are getting uncomfortably close.
A new level of tension must be ratcheting up over in the Bush White House as magazines like Vanity Fair creep closer to the truth and reveal dangerous amount of truth to a public that is starting to wake up to the serious questions that have been posed (mostly online) about the attacks of September 11th.
For the NEADS crew, 9/11 was not a story of four hijacked airplanes, but one of a heated chase after more than a dozen potential hijackings—some real, some phantom—that emerged from the turbulence of misinformation that spiked in the first 100 minutes of the attack and continued well into the afternoon and evening. At one point, in the span of a single mad minute, one hears Nasypany struggling to parse reports of four separate hijackings at once. What emerges from the barrage of what Nasypany dubs “bad poop” flying at his troops from all directions is a picture of remarkable composure. Snap decisions more often than not turn out to be the right ones as commanders kick-start the dormant military machine. It is the fog and friction of war live—the authentic military history of 9/11.
Once you realize that there were multiple simultaneous war-games on 9/11, some involving hijackings and others which diverted our air defense to other sectors, certain questions arise… Questions that may cause Americans to wonder if this was all some amazing coincidence or if something darker was involved. One has to wonder if Al-Qaeda has moles within the Defense Department, the CIA, FEMA, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Justice Department, and the City of New York. Oh and somehow the NSA, the FBI and the CIA
would have to be totally unaware of that fact.
That seems a bit unlikely.
I’m not going to jump to any conclusions for you, but I will give you a list of the War Games of September 11th for your googling pleasure:
Northern Vigilance Northern Guardian Vigilant Guardian Vigilant Warrior TRIPOD II
And there was an exercise involving the NRO and the CIA which evacuated NRO offices. Apparently it involved a plane crashing into a building. Hmm…
In the mid-’90s, the Arellano brothers’ drug cartel ruled Tijuana, perched atop the hierarchy of Mexico’s multibillion dollar illegal drug trafficking industry. Using cars, planes and trucks — and an intimate knowledge of NAFTA — the Arellanos transported hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into American cities.
They enlisted U.S. drug gangs. In 1993, in my last days as San Diego’s assistant police chief, the local gang Calle Treinte was implicated in the Arellano-inspired killing of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo. The Arellanos bribed officials on both sides of the border, spending over $75 million annually on the Mexican side alone, to grease their illicit trafficking.
And they enforced their rule not just with murder but with torture. If Steven Soderbergh’s gritty 2000 film “Traffic” caused you to squirm in your seat, the real-life story of Mexican drug dealing is even more disquieting. The brothers once kidnapped a rival’s wife and children. With videotape running, they tossed two of the kids off a bridge, then sent their competitor a copy of the tape, along with the severed head of his wife. Another double-crosser had his skull crushed in a compression vice. And who can forget the carne asada BBQs, where the Arellanos would roast entire families over flaming tires?
Whenever you hear horrible stories like this one, remember who is at least partly to blame for this situation: Politicians who support drug prohibition because they think it makes them look “tough on crime” when the policies they support are actually just tough on liberty. Prohibition simply creates attractive (black) markets for criminals and sociopaths. If drugs were legal, they would be under the control of Walgreens, not the Arellano brothers.
Illegal drugs are expensive precisely because they are illegal. The products themselves are worthless weeds — cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), coca (cocaine) — or dirt-cheap pharmaceuticals and “precursors” used, for example, in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Yet today, marijuana is worth as much as gold, heroin more than uranium, cocaine somewhere in between. It is the U.S.’s prohibition of these drugs that has spawned an ever-expanding international industry of torture, murder and corruption. In other words, we are the source of Mexico’s “drug problem.”
The remedy is as obvious as it is urgent: legalization.
Regulated legalization of all drugs — with stiffened penalties for driving impaired or furnishing to kids — would bring an immediate halt to the violence. How? By (1) dramatically reducing the cost of these drugs, (2) shifting massive enforcement resources to prevention and treatment and (3) driving drug dealers out of business: no product, no profit, no incentive. In an ideal world, Mexico and the United States would move to repeal prohibition simultaneously (along with Canada). But even if we moved unilaterally, sweeping and lasting improvements to public safety (and public health) would be felt on both sides of the border. (Tragically and predictably, just as Mexico’s parliament was about to reform its U.S.-modeled drug laws, the Bush administration stepped in, pressuring President Vicente Fox to abandon the enlightened position he’d championed for two years.)
Stamper makes an excellent and well-thought-out call for legalization, but he’s missing part of the puzzle. The missing piece helps to explain why legalization won’t happen any time soon: The government is well aware of the problems caused by drug prohibition and that’s exactly the way they want it. They don’t want crime free cities (how could they strip us of our rights and frighten us if our cities are peaceful?), they don’t want cheap recreational drugs (how else could they make so much money without informing Congress of where it came from?) and they certainly don’t want to get rid of drug dealers (how else could they arrest any black person at any time?).
The elephant in the room has a kilo of coke jammed up his trunk and none of us are supposed to mention that fact. The Bush Crime Family has depended on the income delivered by drugs for years. This shouldn’t come as a surprise if you know that George Bush Senior (“Poppy Bush” as he is called) used to be the Director the CIA, an organization that is notorious for smuggling drugs, protecting drug kingpins, selling drugs to fund black ops and generally behaving like a bunch of state-sponsored terrorists… cause that’s what they are.
The CIA needs drugs to be illegal. They have to fund their illegal, terroristic black ops somehow: How are we supposed to assassinate foreign leaders, execute coup d’États, prop up right-wing dictators and generally spread fear around the globe if some goddamn hippies are goin’ around talking about drug legalization?! What the fuck?! Don’t you know how hard it is to spread fascism and evil without a slushfund?
Good point. America, the choice is soooo much harder than it seems: If we legalize drugs we might inadvertantly make the CIA less evil and impede its ability to launch terrorist attacks against its enemies, foreign and domestic! Oh noooo!!!!!
WOOLSEY: Without talking to Lebanon about it, frankly, John, I think we ought to execute some air strikes against Syria, against the instruments of power of that state, against the airport, which is the place where the weapons shuttle through from Iran to Hezbollah and Hamas. I think both Syria and Iran think that we’re cowards. They saw us leave Lebanon after the ‘83 Marine Corps bombing. They saw us leave Mogadishu in 1993. They saw us back off in 1991 when we had Saddam on the ropes and there were revolts in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, and we stood there. I think they think Israel, similarly, by backing out of Lebanon a few years ago, and by backing out of Gaza, they’re fielding their oats. In that part of the world, the most dangerous thing to do is look like cowards in the face of these totalitarian groups.
QUESTION: Mr. Woolsey, are you saying that we should be hitting Syria? We should be hitting the airport? We should be hitting Bashar Assad’s office?
WOOLSEY: Yes. The last thing we ought to do now —
QUESTION: You mean we the United States, not Israel?
WOOLSEY: Yes, yes. The last thing we ought to do now is to start talking about cease-fires and the rest.
My Thug Side: My God, the man is talking about cease-fires?!!!! hang him!! Kill the fucking hippy who dares to argue for restraint!! Ain’t that right, Mr. Woosley? [/thug]
Man, these fucking neocons are serious about this World War IV shit.
You might be surprised at this shit, but I am not. There is a dirty secret out there in the defense industry and the media and Washington: War is Big Business. These people are heavily invested in the military-industrial complex. They want war because they will benefit from it. No other reasons are as compelling as that one. And they know they can get away with it, too.
“The last thing we ought to do now is to start talking about cease-fires…” That’s what he said. That’s what he fucking said.
War is Big Business.
The military-industrial complex feeds on the strife, the money, the blood. It needs it. This beast is some amoral demon that we created to win the last great war. It didn’t leave after the war ended. It stayed. It fed. It grew stronger and bigger, it hooked into everything, every aspect of society. The military needs it. The government needs it. The business interests need it.
We will go to war to feed the beast. Let there be no confusion. If we enter Iran and Syria, there is no turning back from that. It’s all-out war with the Islamic nations and anybody else who doesn’t like us. World War IV.
Does Woosley really know what that means? He must know there will be sacrifices. And these wars the elite start, they tend to get out of control. Who knows where the cards will lay when the time comes. Does he really want to bet it all on this horse?
The neocons — Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Woosley — they all want war. That is all there is to say about them, about their character. If you’ve ever wondered why I give them so much shit — this is why! They want to bring about this horrible and dangerous war in a last stakes gamble to get more control. They are evil.
I can’t believe it’s already coming to this. We have to get ready. We have to mobilize, we have to rally and strike and disobey! We have to stop this war like we should’ve stopped Iraq! This will be Iraq but 10 times worse.
Does anybody receive my signal? Is America still asleep? Distress code: 9.11.1984. Send word if you are still there, over! Are we going to stop this war, or are we gonna let it happen?
I was reading about the study on telepathy over at the usually extremely skeptical slashdot and there were actually some good links and ideas from people open to the idea of “paranormal” abilities, which are really just abilities that modern science has not yet been able to fully explain.
But what few may realize is Dubois’ prime power – making contact with people after death – has been subjected to three years of UA research scientifically designed to determine if she is an authentic “medium” or a fraud.
Although the studies have stirred controversy nationwide and have been slammed by several skeptics, the Harvard-trained UA professor who ran them strongly defends their legitimacy, as does Dubois.
“There is no question this is not a fraud – some people really can do this, and Allison is one of them,” said psychology professor Gary E. Schwartz, who directs the UA’s Human Energy Systems Laboratory where the experiments with Dubois and other well-known mediums – including John Edward of TV’s “Crossing Over” fame – have been conducted.
“Many people claim to do this, and there are clearly frauds out there. Allison was repeatedly tested and passed every test.
“As a scientist, I approach all this as an agnostic – I don’t believe it; I don’t disbelieve it. After testing her under conditions that ruled out the possibility of fraud, I came to the conclusion she’s the real deal.”
That’s exactly the attitude you need to have to investigate something like the paranormal. You can’t assume it exists and you can’t be a raving nut like James Randi who refuses to even entertain the possibility of paranormal activity. You need to keep an open mind, unclouded by bias.
As I said, paranormal is just something observed that hasn’t been proved or thoroughly debunked yet. Randi thinks of himself as a debunker, but he’s not objective. Later on in the article Schwartz deals with Randi:
Perhaps more entertaining is the ongoing public feud Schwartz has with the flamboyant magician and professional skeptic James Randi, who has offered $1 million to “anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”
Randi even wrote a letter to the University of Arizona Foundation in 2001, asking the university to submit Schwartz’s research data to an independent panel for evaluation, to see if the UA might win the $1 million.
In one critique, Randi called Schwartz “an academic who has abandoned reason to accept everything and anything offered him by scammers from John Edward to the gypsy down the street.”
Schwartz rejected Randi’s million-dollar bait.
“I refused for the same reason all serious scientists in America and Europe have refused. The process of this prize lacks scientific credibility and integrity,” he said. “This guy is not a scientist – he is a mediocre magician who loves the public eye.”
Booyah! It’s true: Randi is fucking clownshoes. He’s a sideshow, and he has too much vested interest in keeping his money. How can he claim to be a scientist if he’s offering huge cash prizes? That’s not science. The reward is the discovery itself, not a million bucks.
Besides, James Randi asks you to take a great many things on “faith.” He assumes that psychics and mediums are frauds and hucksters before he even hears their claims. This is not science. This is not even rational. It’s faith. Randi has “faith” that there are no paranormal abilities. It’s an article of faith for him that every claimant is a fraud.
In July 1995 the CIA declassified, and approved for release, documents revealing its sponsorship in the 1970s of a program at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, to determine whether such phenomena as remote viewing “might have any utility for intelligence collection” [1]. Thus began disclosure to the public of a two-decade-plus involvement of the intelligence community in the investigation of so-called parapsychological or psi phenomena. Presented here by the program’s Founder and first Director (1972 – 1985) is the early history of the program, including discussion of some of the first, now declassified, results that drove early interest.
It’s probably been reclassified by now, but at least some data got out and onto the net.
My main problem with “skeptics” is their irrational behavior and scientifically unsupported claims — all of which are ostensibly meant to prove the superiority of sound science. Talk about ruining your own case. Take a look at this example of “logic” by some leading skeptics:
Hyman’s research has included examination of alleged psychic readings and critiques of parapsychological experiments. He acknowledges that Schwartz has excellent academic credentials but blasts his medium research.
“Probably no other extended program in psychical research deviates so much from the accepted norms of scientific methodology as this one.”
After reviewing Schwartz’s book, “The Afterlife Experiments,” he said readings by Schwartz’s “star mediums,” like Dubois, “strike me as no different in kind from those of any run-of-the-mill psychic readers and as completely consistent with cold (fake) readings.”
He criticized Schwartz for other research errors, such as using only subjects “predisposed” to believe in this phenomenon and for “inappropriate statistical tests.”
In response, Schwartz said Hyman ignored and omitted facts that do not support his biases. “This is like a skeptical sports reviewer focusing on Michael Jordan’s few air balls and fouls, and drawing the conclusion that Jordan can’t play basketball,” he said.
Excellent response by Schwartz. Hyman is blantantly ignoring everything that doesn’t fit into his worldview, then Hyman turns around and blasts Schwartz for the failures in his model.
Basically, Hyman’s logic seems to be that if the psychics (and the researchers) fall short of infallibility in any way, then that means they are total frauds in every way. That’s not logic. From perusing A List of Fallacious Arguments, it would seem to point to “Moving The Goalposts (Raising The Bar, Argument By Demanding Impossible Perfection)” or maybe “Argument By Selective Reading”. Either way it’s a crutch for someone who can’t make a decent argument without resorting to fallacy. I thought Hyman was supposed to be defending rational thought. Instead he is abusing it to defend his preconceived notions. I should also note that the list above comes from a skeptic — one who appears more reasonable than Hyman or James Randi.
Anyway, I don’t expect that we’ll “prove” psychic powers are real anytime soon, but I think it’s worth exploring whether certain people have the gift. Actually, I had an interesting idea
about how to prove the old cliche “mind over matter” isn’t just a cute saying: Study a bunch of psychics like Dubois in a controlled environment. Then, for some psychics, bring in some flaming skeptics like Randi and see if Randi’s uncontrollable hatred and bias actually affects the accuracy of the psychic, just by being in the same room.
Could it be that skepticism is a psychic power?! 🙂
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