Cheney Busted?

From Signs of the Times "Best of the Web" series. A little late (who can keep up with the five-ring circus that is today's world?), but too good not to post. A cautionary reader did remark that psychopath's always have a reason for their actions. What might Cheney have up his sleeve that such things are allowed to reach the great unwash . . . . . . .er public?? We may yet see impeachment of the chimp-in-chief. Rest assured however, his successor will be the one the normal people of the world will really have to worry about

For your contemplation.

Blue Ibis

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Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair

By Jason Leopold and Marc Ash
t r u t h o u t
Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:30 EST


©gov evidence
Close-up of crossed out words that implicate George W. Bush in the treasonous exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame

Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by defense attorneys for former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case.

Bush has long maintained that he was unaware of attacks by any member of his administration against [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson. The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White House officials to leak Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July 2003 in an act of retaliation.

But Cheney's notes, which were introduced into evidence Tuesday during Libby's perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial, call into question the truthfulness of President Bush's vehement denials about his prior knowledge of the attacks against Wilson. The revelation that Bush may have known all along that there was an effort by members of his office to discredit the former ambassador begs the question: Was the president also aware that senior members of his administration compromised Valerie Plame's undercover role with the CIA?

Further, the highly explicit nature of Cheney's comments not only hints at a rift between Cheney and Bush over what Cheney felt was the scapegoating of Libby, but also raises serious questions about potentially criminal actions by Bush. If Bush did indeed play an active role in encouraging Libby to take the fall to protect Karl Rove, as Libby's lawyers articulated in their opening statements, then that could be viewed as criminal involvement by Bush.

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."

During cross-examination Tuesday morning, David Addington was asked specific questions about Cheney's notes and the reference to President Bush. Addington, former counsel to the vice president, was named Cheney's chief of staff - a position Libby had held before resigning.

"Can you make out what's crossed out, Mr. Addington?" Wells asked, according to a copy of the transcript of Tuesday's court proceedings.

"It says 'the guy' and then it says, 'this Pres.' and then that is scratched through," Addington said.

"OK," Wells said. "Let's start again. 'Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy ...' and then what's scratched through?" Wells asked Addington again, attempting to establish that Cheney had originally written that President Bush personally asked Libby to beat back Wilson's criticisms.

"T-h-i-s space P-r-e-s," Addington said, spelling out the words. "And then it's got a scratch-through."

"So it looks like 'this Pres.?'" Wells asked again.

"Yes sir," Addington said.

Thus, Cheney's notes would have read "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." The words "this Pres." were crossed out and replaced with "that was," but are still clearly legible in the document.

©gov evidence
Cheney's handwritten note.

The reference to "the meat grinder" was understood to be the Washington press corps, Wells said. The "protect one staffer" reference, Wells said, was White House Political Adviser Karl Rove, whose own role in the leak and the attacks on Wilson are well documented.

Furthermore, Cheney, in his directive to McClellan that day in September 2003, wrote that the White House spokesman needed to immediately "call out to key press saying the same thing about Scooter as Karl."

McClellan had publicly stated in September 2003 that Rove was not culpable in the leak of Valerie Plame's covert CIA identity, nor was he involved in a campaign to discredit her husband, but McClellan did not say anything to the media that exonerated Libby, which led Cheney to write the note. A couple of weeks later, in October 2003, McClellan told members of the media that it was "ridiculous" for them to suggest Libby and Rove were involved in the leak, because he received personal assurances from both men that they had nothing to do with it.

Moreover, Wells insinuated Tuesday that Cheney's note [seemingly] implicating President Bush in the discrediting of Wilson was one of the 250 pages of emails and documents the White House failed to turn over to investigators who had been probing the leak for more than two years.

Wells insinuated that Cheney's note, because it contained a reference to "this Pres." may have been an explosive piece of evidence that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who at the time of the leak was White House counsel, withheld from investigators, citing executive privilege. Addington told Wells that when subpoenas were first issued by the Justice Department in the fall of 2003, demanding documents and emails relating to Wilson and Plame be preserved, he was given Cheney's notes and immediately recognized the importance of what the vice president had written. Addington said he immediately entered into a "discussion" with Gonzales and Terry O'Donnell, Cheney's counsel, about the note, but Addington did not say whether it was turned over to investigators in the early days of the probe.

Wells's line of questioning is an attempt to shift the blame for the leak squarely onto the shoulders of the White House - a tactic aimed at confusing the jury - and will likely unravel because it has nothing to do with the perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges at the heart of the case against Libby. Still, Tuesday's testimony implicating President Bush may be the most important fact that has emerged from the trial thus far.

Addington revealed during his testimony Monday that in June 2003 there were internal discussions - involving President Bush and Vice President Cheney - about declassifying for specific reporters a portion of the highly classified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate as a way to counter Wilson's criticisms against the administration. That portion purportedly showed that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger to use for building an atomic bomb - a claim that Wilson had debunked when he personally traveled to Niger to investigate it a year earlier.

In late June or early July 2003, "a question was asked of me - by Scooter Libby: Does the president have authority to declassify information?" Addington told jurors Monday, in response to a question by defense attorney William Jeffress. "And the answer I gave was, 'Of course, yes. It's clear the president has the authority to determine what constitutes a national security secret and who can have access to it.'"

President Bush signed an executive order in 2003 authorizing Cheney to declassify certain intelligence documents. The order was signed on March 23, four days after the start of the Iraq War and two weeks after Wilson first appeared on the administration's radar.

Jason Leopold is a former Los Angeles bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswire. He has written over 2,000 stories on the California energy crisis and received the Dow Jones Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 for his coverage on the issue as well as a Project Censored award in 2004. Leopold also reported extensively on Enron's downfall and was the first journalist to land an interview with former Enron president Jeffrey Skilling following Enron's bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Leopold has appeared on CNBC and National Public Radio as an expert on energy policy and has also been the keynote speaker at more than two dozen energy industry conferences around the country.

In Honour of Black History Month - Looking Back on the Real Black Panthers

A short retrospective on the origins and goals of the Black Panthers, which began as a community-based group dedicated to improving the lives of black children through the provision of free breakfasts for all school childrend who needed one. The PTB found this so threatening they put the FBI on it full-time with the creation of the COINTEL program. This nefarious project (still active btw, don't you believe otherwise) pulled the full arsenal of dirty tricks to discredit, disrupt and eventually destroy a positive, empowering movement. Read "Black Child's Pledge" at the end and weep for the waste of human potential wrought by psychopathic greed.

Blue Ibis

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Pathocracy Begets Idiocracy



A. Branson
Signs of the Times
Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:40 EST


I recently rented the movie Idiocracy, having heard from several people that is was hilariously funny and, from a few others, that it would make me weep. As usual, the few were closer to the mark.

Idiocracy is the latest film from Mike Judge, who also brought us the biting satire of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and Office Space. Clearly, the man has a fascination with the less cultured side of what is known as 'American culture'. He has however found a rich comic niche for himself that others have left largely untouched. It isn't that others haven't dealt with the less palatable side of American life, it's just that no one else has done it with such verisimilitude. The characters in this movie are not caricatures. They are real. Far too real.

The premise of Idiocracy is simple. The most average man in the world - the guy at the very middle of the bell curve, literally - and a prostitute are put to sleep in a military cryogenics experiment. Like Planet of the Apes, our cryogenically frozen heroes awake much later than anticipated, finding themselves on a drastically altered, future Earth. Unlike Planet of the Apes, in which the dominant species were apes that had made the evolutionary leap to human-like intelligence, the world of Idiocracy is run by humans who've gone a long way down a devolutionary slide toward ape-like intelligence. And wackiness ensues. I suppose I would've found all that wackiness a lot funnier if it weren't so depressingly close to modern day reality.

While I can't be sure about the plot of Planet of the Apes, I can assure you we are in no danger of ever facing a world like that of Idiocracy. There will never come a time when there are only idiots left in charge, as portrayed in this movie. Maybe that sounds like optimistically good news. It isn't. What is happening is far worse.

I used to teach inner city kids. I taught at one of those technical "colleges" that caters to the underprivileged and poorly educated. As it turns out, this particular school was really only interested in using these kids to suck money out of the Pell Grant program and SallieMae via student loans that almost none of the students intended to pay back. In order to qualify for these grants and loans, these kids would have to pass a test of their basic skills. The school, wanting to get as many loans as possible going, would hedge things in favor of each entrant passing by allowing certain "testing aids." For example, students were allowed to use calculators for the arithmetic portion of the test.

Sadly, I would see kids coming out of those testing rooms each week beaming with pride at having passed. They were proud that they'd just passed an arithmetic test using a calculator! For some of them, this was quite possibly the first time in their lives that they had a feeling of accomplishment and acceptance. I found their excitement pitiful, heartbreaking and sweet all at the same time. Emotionally and intellectually, they were still small children.

The problem isn't that these kids are black, Hispanic, poor or were descendants of slaves. These populations did not become how they are today because they have simply been disenfranchised or were dealing with the wounds of their past.

They have been mercilessly manipulated by a government that is anything but compassionate.

Ignored, perhaps they would've created a subculture that met their needs with what they had available to them. But, they have not been ignored. They have been the target of an ongoing campaign of abuse and psychological warfare with the specific goal of keeping them under the thumb of law enforcement and trapped in an economic prison.

Consider, as an example, The Black Panther Party. The Panthers were, without a doubt, a revolutionary organization. Were they anti-white, as has often been claimed? Two of the original Panthers had white wives. Were they violent? They were not opposed to the use of force in defending themselves, but they did not promote the use of force as part of a revolution against the tyranny of an oppressive government. While the Panthers did march to the California capital building fully armed to protest the legislatures attempt to outlaw the carrying of loaded weapons in public (a cause since taken up by the largely white National Rifle Association), their only action on that day was the reading of a statement of protest by Bobby Seale.

What the Panthers did was far more radical than carrying guns and calling for political reforms. Instead, they took positive action to address the problems of the inner city. In January 1969, they began the Panther's Free Breakfast for School Children Program at St. Augustine's Church in Oakland, California. By the end of 1969, the Panthers were feeding over 10,000 children across the country, for free.

Just what were the Panthers trying to achieve through this program? According to the article To Feed Our Children in The Black Panther magazine of March 26, 1969:


"The Free Breakfast for School Children is about to cover the country and be initiated in every chapter and branch of the Black Panther Party. This program was created because the Black Panther Party understands that our children need a nourishing breakfast every morning so that they can learn."

"It is a beautiful sight to see our children eat in the mornings after remembering the times when our stomachs were not full, and even the teachers in the schools say that there is a great improvement in the academic skills of the children that do get the breakfast. At one time there were children that passed out in class from hunger, or had to be sent home for something to eat. But our children shall be fed, and the Black Panther Party will not let the malady of hunger keep our children down any longer."

In response, then head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, called the Panthers the "greatest threat to the internal security of the country." What is it about poor children receiving adequate nutrition so that they can learn that bothered him so? It does make one scratch their head in wonder, doesn't it? Could it be that our government wanted these children malnourished and poorly educated?

It is easy to look at the chaos of our inner cities today and assume that they brought it on themselves or that they are simply weak. In fact, many put up a valiant fight. The Panther's Free Breakfast program was begun the year following the killing of unarmed 17 year-old Bobby Hutton (one of the original Panthers) by Oakland police and the assassinations of both Martin Luther King (just two days before Hutton's death) and Bobby Kennedy. It would've been easy to let anger overtake them, but they didn't. Instead, they organized in a peaceful manner to feed children. A threat to the internal security of the country?

The attacks on the Panthers and other groups seeking to organize and improve the lives of oppressed populations at the time - attacks that included violence, infiltration, planting of false evidence, faking letters and literature and planting false news stories - were carried out for the most part by COINTELPRO. This was the FBI's counter intelligence program, begun specifically to destroy these kinds of organizations. We could go on and on with stories about COINTELPRO and their destructive actions. They attacked every organization that worked for social justice and equitable treatment of the disenfranchised and downtrodden. But, let's take a look at the present and results of their work.

Far too many people today believe COINTELPRO ended. They believe that Black and Hispanic populations today are a product of their own laziness or, perhaps, genetic inferiority. They believe these people are given ample opportunity to rise above their poverty and history to become productive members of society. Nothing could be further from the truth.

During my tenure teaching kids from areas like South Central, East LA and Compton, places that only appear in the news in conjunction with a drive-by shooting, drug bust or gang activity, I saw a clearer picture of what these kids face today. In these neighborhoods, attempts to get out only mark them for abuse. The abuse might come from gangs or friends, but it will just as likely come from the police.

I had a student who was handcuffed and shoved face first into the hood of a police car simply because he was alone in a Laundromat doing his laundry. Another was kept in a cold cell for hours then threatened with prison time because the officers who picked him up claimed that someone identified him as the person who had committed a robbery at gun point several hours earlier, during which time he was in my classroom. Tellingly, he was never placed in a lineup for a more positive identification. He was just let go after several hours of psychological abuse.

We could go on and on with these stories, too. The abuse by authority is endless in these neighborhoods. If you walk in a group of three or more there, you are considered a gang. If you walk alone, you are suspected of planning something nefarious and, most likely, picked up by a passing patrol car. After a round of threatening remarks and claims of "knowing what you are up to" you will be dropped of in a neighborhood controlled by a gang that is unfriendly to the one that controls your home neighborhood.

In the world of gangs, there is no such thing as being neutral. If you live in a gang neighborhood, you are considered an affiliate of the gang, like it or not. You take your life in your hands walking in a rival neighborhood. The common phrase used to determine your affiliation is, "where you from?" delivered in a cool, vaguely threatening manner. The officers that dropped you off in the rival neighborhood are well aware of these dynamics. Given the history of COINTELPRO and the civil rights movement, the reason for playing these dynamics to an often disastrous conclusion is clear. The fear and hatred generated is a hedge against another Black Panther Party, Cesar Chavez or Martin Luther King ever rising up from their ranks.

The abuse, the beating down, the counter intelligence attacks continue unabated and largely unnoticed by anyone outside the inner city. In that sense, nothing has changed. In another sense, quite a lot has. Today, the revolutionary spirit that once drove the inner cities to action seems nearly dead. A sort of stupefaction has overcome these people after decades of attacks they didn't understand and, so, could not protect themselves against. Their lives are more miserable than most of us can comprehend. (Why do you wear your shoes to bed in the 'hood? Because you can't afford to turn on the heat and you never know when you might have to run for your life in the middle of the night.) Yet, something is still there. The struggle continues. A spark is still alive. And, there is still the shoe of governmental authority doing its level best to stamp out that spark.

In an article on his website (http://awol.objector.org/mumia/son_cointel.html), Mumia Abu-Jamal states the reason for the attacks on groups in the civil rights movement by COINTELPRO succinctly and, I think, accurately:


"When King and Cesar Chavez were vilified by the FBI, it wasn't because they threatened public order, but because they threatened the private accumulation of capital. They were thus enemies of Empire. For this, they were harassed, harried, humiliated, and run aground."

The manipulation of the inner city is only a part of the plan to accumulate capital and power in the hands of a few. That is why we are in no danger of ever living in the world of Idiocracy. Not as it is specifically portrayed. Most of the world may become functional idiots, but they won't be the ones in power. The goal is to turn you and me into cattle. Sadly, the sound of mooing is getting louder every day.

I have to admit that I did chuckle a few times while watching Idiocracy. That the only thing that hadn't changed at all in that dystopian world was Fox News was kind of funny. Even the style of speech and overly dramatic mannerisms common in the inner city make me laugh in a sad sort of way. It's hard for me to keep a straight face when I hear someone say, "It off da hizzle fo' shizzle" [English translation: it's off the hook for sure]. On the other hand, making them the brunt of a crude joke without any thought as to why this has happened to a large segment of our population is, in my opinion, not funny at all.

When I first began teaching, I was horrified by what I found in my classroom. I had been warned before hand that I would spend most of my time entertaining and acting as a surrogate father. The warnings didn't prepare me for the reality of the situation. The kids were all past high school age, yet most of them would struggle with school work at a third grade level. The few who had managed to learn something in school were so traumatized by their environment that their efforts to learn or "go straight" could be derailed by one carelessly spoken phrase. They were, in short, casualties of a war that most of us have no idea is being waged.

What the authors of Idiocracy don't seem to understand is that these things don't happen by accident. In the 60's, Black and Hispanic groups were fighting hard to make a life for themselves that was more than mere survival. They saw clearly what the government of the U.S. was about and were working to make a positive change. For that, they were attacked and, eventually, brought to their knees.

If you still find Idiocracy a funny take on the degradation of American culture, take a moment to consider the inner city back in 1968, when The Black Panther published the following on December 26th of that year. Think about the spirit of the people in the inner cities then, how far we have fallen since, and why it happened. Think about the fact that the attacks to keep them down are ongoing. And, think about this: those attacks are spreading to other segments of the population.


Black Child's Pledge

by Shirley Williams

I pledge allegiance to my Black People.

I pledge to develop my mind and body to the greatest extent possible.

I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my People in their struggle for liberation.

I will keep myself physically fit, building a strong body free from drugs and other substances which weaken me and make me less capable of protecting myself, my family and my Black brothers and sisters.

I will unselfishly share my knowledge and understanding with them in order to bring about change more quickly.
I will discipline myself to direct my energies thoughtfully and constructively rather than wasting them in idle hatred.

I will train myself never to hurt or allow others to harm my Black brothers and sisters for I recognize that we need every Black Man, Woman, and Child to be physically, mentally and psychologically strong.

These principles I pledge to practice daily and to teach them to others in order to unite my People.

Pink Floyd - On the Turning Away

Now and Again, a Reality Check

The Swarm: Zionist Attack Technique Revealed!

From Signs of the Times Best of the Web. A dissection of the methods used to marginalize anyone who dare to criticize the Zionist agenda. Currently former President Jimmy Carter is being subjected to this cowardly approach, used only when rational discussion would expose the attackers for the liars and hypocrites they are.

Read and empower yourself.

Blue Ibis

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Carter and the Swarm

Israel Shamir
www.israelshamir.net
Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:01 EST


Publication of Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a great event for America and for all of us. It's not that Carter had said something we did not know about Palestine. Before Carter came, we knew that the Zionists established a racist apartheid regime in the Holy Land where Jews have rights, and goyim have duties. Before Carter came we knew a native Palestinian has no right to vote, move, work freely in his land, that he is locked up behind the twenty-foot wall. Before Carter came we knew that the US support allowed the atrocities to occur and the apartheid regime to entrench. But we did not know that there are prominent Americans who would dare the wrath of organised Jewry and spell it out loud.

Why did President Carter do it? Why did he risk his peaceful old age and gently fading glory to endure an attack of Israel's Fifth Column as merciless as the Four Columns' onslaught on Gaza? He was moved by compassion, by this supreme Christian virtue of feeling together with the suffering and the oppressed. He saw the suffering of Palestine and he could not keep his quiet. He upheld a honourable American tradition: that of Mark Twain who condemned the US atrocities in Philippines, that of Henry Thoreau speaking against the Mexican War. This is a universal tradition, too: Multatuli unmasked the Dutch atrocities in Indonesia, Roger Casement did it to the Belgians in Congo, Radishchev bewept the fate of a Russian peasant. And their voices changed our world, though not immediately. Carter is not a radical; a man of hotter temper would call to terminate the infamy called «The Jewish State» altogether. Carter's message was soft and gentle; so soft and compassionate that only an arrogant and power-intoxicated won't be able to live with it. Others (including me) were more hard and explicit, but then the others weren't the US presidents.

Why now? The apartheid in Palestine was bad enough ten years ago to warrant his intervention, but this despondent helplessness we witness now is a new phenomenon. Hope ever kept alive up by Camp David, by peace with Egypt, by Madrid and Oslo conferences is dead. A year of severe blockade brought forth a confrontation between the Palestinian parties and the Jewish wet dream, an inter-Palestinian civil war, is about to come. The Holy Land is on the verge of collapse. President Carter is 82, and he is not afraid of anything. In this age, and at this stage of life, statesmen are likely to speak their mind, like the Malaysian PM Mohammad Mahathir did after his retirement. This is the time for unpalatable truth: the ideological and spiritual guidance of the West while dislodged from the hands of the Church, passed over to the usurpers of Zion. While they rule, Palestine has no chance.

Though most ordinary US Jews are sane and sensible, the decisions are made by super-rich, super-powerful, super-chauvinist Jews who are anything but. They are the power pushing for war. Carter wanted to stop the disaster in the Middle East, by convincing the sane and rebutting the arrogant. Thus the President joined the fracas, as the traditional WASP America tries to regain the lost ground and save the country they love from destruction. The WASPs, with all their immense property holdings, traditions and roots found themselves marginalised by the Jews with their dead hold on media and universities: indeed the spirit rules over matter. Baker-Hamilon Iraq Study Group and Walt - Mearsheimer report are the first salvos in this WASP Intifada. A Jewish American columnist (resident in Israel and writing for Israel's Haaretz) Burston correctly stated that "Carter's true intended target was the organized American Jewish community." Carter pointed out the main reasons for apartheid in the Holy Land, says Burston:

* Jewish control of [the US] government: "It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians.»

* Jewish control of the [US] media: "What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land."

After Carter spoke, he was immediately counterattacked by organised Jewry. This was not a sight to miss. In my native Siberia, in its short and furious summer you may see swarm of gnats attack a horse, each tiny bloodsucker eager for his piece of action. In a while, the blinded and infuriated animal rushes headlong in mad sprint and soon finds its death in the bottomless moors. The Jews developed the same style of attack. It is never a single voice arguing the case, but always a mass attack from left and right, below and above, until the attacked one is beaten and broken and crawls away in disgrace.

Each attacker is as tiny and irrelevant as a single gnat, but as swarm they are formidable. Observe them separately: Dershowitz, an advocate of torture and of hostage killing, an apprehended plagiarist who never was elected to any position of authority and commands no respect, demands to debate the president. It is indeed beyond chutzpah; but Dershowitz is supported by other Jews in prime positions and his ridiculous demand is seconded by university and media until this thieving nonentity gets equal time on a TV channel to present "his case". Another gnat is a Deborah Lipstadt, a nonentity brought forth by the Washington Post. Plenty of others are even smaller than these two, for instance 14 Jews who gave up their positions at Carter Center. If they would not keep media in their hands, they wouldn't be heard but by their spouses.

Their technique is quite simple. They switch the focus of argument onto the personality of their adversary. Thus, instead of discussing apartheid in Israel, we discuss Jimmy Carter, whether he is a bigot and antisemite (thus Foxman, a bad Jew) or he is not (Avnery, a good Jew). The correct answer is "irrelevant": Carter's love of Jews or lack of it has no bearing on the question of apartheid in Palestine. Likewise, if we discuss the situation in Bosnia or Kosovo, we do not go into our sentiments towards Serbs, Albanians or Croats. But Jews are different.

For instance, General Wesley Clark said that rich Jews, the great donors of Washington politicians, push for war with Iran. Well, it can be discussed, maybe denied, but instead, they derail the discussion into another topic, whether Clark is an antisemite. Matthew Yglesias provides the sources for the whole kosher hog, from comparison with The Protocols, to inevitable quote from Foxman who says Clark had "bought into conspiratorial bigotry". From this moment, Clark will stick to defending himself, and the guys will take care that his hands will be full. Here again, the correct answer is a polite shrug: who cares whether Clark is a bigot? Maybe he is also a paedophile and usurer, but this ad hominem has no bearing on what he said. And an accusation "you do not love Jews" is not much different from "You do not love your aunt", and you probably have learned to live with it at the age of six.

A good book to accustom oneself to this sort of attack is Michael Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita: this marvellous book shows a Jewish critics' swarm attack on a writer who dared to write about Christ. Indeed, whoever mentions Christ will experience it sooner or later.

I also tried the taste of swarm attack. During the Tsunami disaster in Thailand I discovered that the Jewish undertakers, Zaka, forced the Thais to delay mass burial of victims for a day or two, despite the real and immediate danger of epidemic diseases, in order to avoid a real calamity: holy Jewish bodies may be inadvertently buried together with the goyim. I was told so by the members of the Zaka team who were quite proud of their feat. I wrote about it (Tsunami in Gaza). It was republished by a few sites. Then, a British Jew named Manfred Ropschitz began an ad hominem campaign - against me. Other Jews joined the fray, discussing whether I am a Jew, or a "Swedish-Russian Nazi antisemite", as if it has any bearing on the tsunami story. Instead of shrugging it off, other supporters of Palestine switched to this piquant subject. They carried their discussion from The Times to their email lists, until eventually, another Jewish "antisionist" commented with deep satisfaction: "Shamir is marginalised and brought into disrepute".

Ropschitz did not try to disprove the story, for the story was true. He wrote: "With an army of journalists crawling over the Tsunami story I'd expect to have heard such shocking news by now - if it's true. I am a journalist and I don't believe it." No, gentlemen, you won't hear a true story if it is not acceptable to Ropschitzes of this world. They will hunt you to the far-away corner of the world, and there are not many people who care to risk their well-planned attack. Indeed one should be a real kamikaze to enter this fight. The Ropschitzes, these quite ordinary Jews who fully identify with their community, are the key to the swarm attack. There are many Jewish media-lords, even more editors, but it is the Ropschitzes that clinch the party line. These willing executioners of our freedom, the foot-soldiers of the media lords, automatically defend "the Jews" i.e. the organised Jewish community at any price. Ordinary human beings of Jewish origin can be of any opinion. Likewise, ordinary Americans do not decide whether their country will attack Iran or not. But Bush and Cheney alone can't fight Iraqi war, and the Jewish media lords would be powerless without their willing executioners of freedom.

The Gentile philosemites are even worse, noticed Eustace Mullins, the legendary American writer whose best-selling books (running into the millions) were never published or distributed by the mainstream. He wrote:

"It has long been common knowledge since the incorporation of the three [US] major national television networks that each of them was owned, operated and controlled by Jews. Now at last, or so it seemed, the Christians of America would have their own Christian television network on which they could observe the tenets of the Christian religion. Or so it seemed. And when the CBN began its daily broadcasting, what was its daily message? We must love the Jews. We must support the State of Israel in all its depredations and its immoral devastation of the Holy Christian Shrines in the Birthplace of Our Saviour. We must help the Jews, and we must, above all, avoid the greatest sin, the sin of 'anti-Semitism', whatever that is. Even the Jewish networks do not broadcast as blatantly pro-Jewish propaganda as the Christian Broadcasting Network."

A man died this week in France, a real saint, who was known by affectionate appellation "Abbè Pierre", a priest who fought with the Resistance, helped homeless, provided for the poor and was a great friend of Palestinians. In 1996 he was hounded almost to death after he expressed his support for another friend of Palestine, Roger Garaudy who wrote a book The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics. A victim of Jewish swarm attack, he went into seclusion to Italy and to Switzerland, deserted by the people he fought for. His sorry fate should be remembered by the French and bother their conscience. If the Maid of Orleans was executed by the British Occupation regime (though using French collaborationists) no such excuse is available for those who ostracised the Abbè Pierre: they just got frightened by the swarm attack.

This fear of Jewish swarm attacks already brought much sorrow to mankind. In 1930s, the famous American aviator Charles Lindbergh called the US to stay out of the coming war in Europe. He was attacked by the Jewish media as a Nazi and a Hitler sympathiser, was besmirched and "overnight Lindbergh went from cultural hero to moral pariah". Now again, the US is being pushed by the same forces into a new war, this time in the Middle East. Let us try and stop it by being fearless, for as a Jewish Hassid spiritual song hath it, "haikar lo lefahed bihlal", the most important is not to be afraid at all. Carter brought us hope that there is an America the world can live with, a non-aggressive, democratic America, whose policies aren't decided by the rich donors, but by the ordinary Americans who voted against the war, and who today gather in Washington calling to stop escalation.

Rush - Manhattan Project

Powerful message from the Signs Team. Special thanks to S. McFarland

A. Saccus a Signs of the Times contributor, continues his illumination of the principles of Ponerology with more real life examples.

Blue Ibis

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An Answer To The Israel Lobby - Ponerology

a. saccus
Signs Of The Times
Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:00 EST

The Associated Press published a story over the weekend on President Jimmy Carter's new book 'Peace, Not Apartheid':

Carter defends controversial book
AP
20/01/2007

Former President Jimmy Carter said Saturday that the storm of criticism he has faced for his recent book has not weakened his resolve for fair treatment of Israelis and Palestinians.

"I have been called a liar," Carter said at a town hall meeting on the second day of a three-day symposium on his presidency at the University of Georgia.

"I have been called an anti-Semite," he said. "I have been called a bigot. I have been called a plagiarist. I have been called a coward. Those kind of accusations, they concern me, but they don't detract from the fact the book is accurate and is needed."...

"Not one of the critics of my book has contradicted any of the basic premises ... that is the horrible persecution and oppression of the Palestinian people and secondly that the formula for finding peace in the Middle East already exists," the 82-year-old Carter said.

A President of the United States an anti-Semite?

The unquestionably and most eminently Christian Jimmy Carter a "liar" and "bigot"? What's going on here?

Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch commented on the slander and libel against Carter and his book in an article entitled 'First bomb Carter, then nuke Iran':

But the assault on Carter is all to no avail. With each gust of abuse, Carter's book soars higher and higher on the bestseller lists, reaching number 4 on Amazon itself. This doesn't prove the lobby has no power. It proves the lobby can be dumb....

The Israel lobby may be many things, but it is not 'dumb'. We are dealing with something much more alarming here:

A.M. Lobaczewski, in his seminal book "Political Ponerology" commented thusly:

Paranoid Character Disorders:

...arguments begin to undermine their overvalued ideas, crush their long-held stereotypes of reasoning, or forces them to accept a conclusion they had subconsciously rejected before. Such a stimulus unleashes...a torrent of pseudo-logical, largely paramoralistic, often insulting utterances which always contain some degree of suggestion. (p.110)

Look at the response from the Israel lobby to Carter's book; could there be a better description than: "a torrent of pseudo-logical, largely paramoralistic, often insulting utterances which always contain some degree of suggestion"?

This soon to be commonplace concept, "paramoralism", is so pivotal for understanding the triumphs and tragedies being enacted on the world stage today, that it merits a closer look.

Lobaczewski continues:

...Unfortunately, it has become a frequent phenomenon for...oppressive groups, or patho-political systems to invent ever-new moral criteria ("paramoralisms") ... Paramoralisms somehow cunningly evade the control of our common sense, sometimes leading to acceptance or approval of behavior that is openly pathological. ... Paramoralisitic statements and suggestions so often accompany various kinds of evil that they seem quite irreplaceable. Anything which threatens autocratic rule becomes (is labelled) deeply immoral. (pps 150, 205)

Examples of this tactic abound in modern politics, particularly in relation to the US and Israel, for example: "You are with us, or you are against us", being "against us" meaning that "you are a terrorist" and thus, immoral."

Now you know what to call such psychobabble: 'Paramoralisms'.

Cockburn continued:

The Israel lobby retains its grip inside the Beltway, but it's starting to lose its hold on the broader public debate. Why?

Lobaczewski, in "Political Ponerology", answers this question:

... time and experience confirm what a psychologist may have long foreseen: the entire effort "the goal - forcing human minds to incorporate pathological experiential methods and thought-patterns, and consequently accepting such rule - only results in producing a general stifling of intellectual developments and deep-rooted protest against affront-mongering "hypocrisy". The authors and executors of this program are incapable of understanding that the decisive factor making their work difficult is the fundamental nature of normal human beings - the majority. (p.195-6)

Cockburn continues:

You can't brutalize the Palestinian people in the full light of day, decade after decade, without claims that Israel is a light among the nations getting more than a few serious dents....

Himself a victim of both the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Poland, Prof. Lobaczewski not only lived through these horrors, but used them to forge the most penetrating analysis of the psychological and social mechanisms behind these evil chapters of recent history that I have ever read. I count this as the most important book I have ever read. His concepts hold the key to our future, if we will but grasp it.

Lobaczewski speaks of the life cycle of such episodes of societal "ponerization" or "evilizing" and their inevitable outcome:

Lobaczewski, in "Political Ponerology":

The achievement of absolute domination by pathocrats in the government of a country cannot be permanent since large sectors of the society become disaffected by such rule and eventually find some way of toppling it. This is part of the historical cycle, easily discerned when history is read from a Ponerological point of view. Pathocracy at the summit of governmental organization also does not constitute the entire picture of the "mature phenomenon". Such a system of government has nowhere to go but down.

Political Ponerology - The Scientific Study of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes -Andrew M. Lobaczewski

The Sane Person's Word of the Day: PARAMORALISM

Ever wonder how you get talked into things you KNOW are a mistake/wrong/likely-to-get-you-screwed while the person doing the talking seems to skip away without a care or even a scratch? You've just been conned by a PARAMORALISM-wielding sociopath/psychopath.

Para-moralisms: The conviction that moral values exist and that some actions violate moral rules is so common and ancient a phenomenon that it seems to have some substratum at man’s instinctive endowment level (although it is certainly not totally adequate for moral truth), and that it does not only represent centuries’ worth of experience, culture, religion, and socialization. Thus, any insinuation closed in moral slogans is always suggestive, even if the “moral” criteria used are just an “ad hoc” invention. Any act can thus be proved to be immoral or morally proper by means of such para-moralisms through active suggestion, and people whose minds will succumb to such reasoning can always be found.
[...]
Para-moralism somehow cunningly evades the control of our common sense, sometimes leading to an affirmation of behavior whose character is openly pathological. Para-moralistic statements and suggestions so often accompany various kinds of evil that they seem quite irreplaceable. Unfortunately, it has become a frequent phenomenon for individuals, oppressive groups, or patho-political systems to invent ever-new moral criteria for someone’s convenience. Such suggestions often partially deprive people of their moral reasoning and deform its development in youngsters.

Knowledge Protects. Here is another bit of protection for those who KNOW the world is crazy, but they just can't prove it.

Blue Ibis

********************************************************

Paramoralisms Where You Least Expect Them

a. saccus
Signs of the Times
Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:43 EST

Imagine you're out in the country, visiting one fine summer's day, and you ask your host to give you a walking tour through some of the beautiful countryside surrounding his house. He's agreeable to your suggestion, and you spend a pleasant hour hiking up and down the surrounding low mountains.

"Let's sit here," he says, as you come to a nice shady spot looking down on a clearing below which forms a sort of natural amphitheatre. After a while, he excuses himself for a moment, leaving you all alone. You think back to the three large mugs of fine brazilian coffee you had before you left, and you don't feel the need to ask where he's going. Instead you soak up the weather, for it's a glorious day.

Unbeknownst to you, however, your host has not chosen this particular shady spot by chance. He is working in cahoots with a friend of his, a director for the new Reality TV show called, "You Are REALLY There," a 21st Century upgrade of the great "You Are There" series hosted by Walter Cronkite in 68 fine episodes from 1953-1957. The director has begun shooting as soon as your host left, shooting from remote-controlled cameras hidden all around the clearing and focused on you. You don't realise it, but you are the star of the show!

Sitting all alone, here is what you see:

A middle-aged man comes over the ridge on the other side of the clearing, accompanied by a young man. The middle-aged man says something you don't hear to the younger man, but you hear the younger man say, "Yes, Father."

They select a spot near the center of the clearing and set their belongings down. They begin collecting brush, twigs, sticks, and logs, and make a large pile, as if for a bonfire. Then the father binds his son's hands behind his back with stout rope, and ties his ankles together. Then the father gently lays the son upon the pile of wood. The father pulls out a large Bowie knife, and raises his hand up in such a way as to be able to strike at the son's throat. He stands there, frozen, knife-arm upraised for a long moment. Then he says something to the son, sheaths the knife, unties the son, and they both walk back over the hill from whence they came.

At this point, your host returns, and asks, nonchalantly, "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

You were there, what do you say? What would you tell your host?

* * * * * *

Since the "you" in the last sentence is the plural "you", there are a number of responses. But I would be very surprised if there were any among them that didn't contain at least one of the following: shock, horror, anger, fear, outrage, questions about the father's sanity. Several among you may even have run down the hill trying to stop him. Whatever your response was, I'd be willing to bet a small fortune that it was of a negative, disapproving variety. And don't forget, we do have your reaction on videotape.

So the overall conclusion, for an incident which you have seen with your very own eyes, and without anyone being present to influence you in any way, is negative.

This is your instinctive, natural response.

It is a human and a humane one.

There is, there really is, no possible excuse for inhuman behavior.

Case closed.

Or is it?

Genesis Chapter 22

1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him: 'Abraham'; and he said: 'Here am I.'

2 And He said: 'Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.'

3 And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he cleaved the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife; and they went both of them together.

7 And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said: 'My father.' And he said: 'Here am I, my son.' And he said: 'Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?'

8 And Abraham said: 'God will provide Himself the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.' So they went both of them together.

9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood.

10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

11 And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said: 'Abraham, Abraham.' And he said: 'Here am I.'

12 And he said: 'Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou art a God-fearing man, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.'

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son.

Now this is precisely the same scenario as I described above, so you should have exactly the same reaction to it. Right?

But you don't, do you?

I don't know the exact proportion of you who find that your opinion of the events has changed, but again I'll wager another small fortune that there were quite a few. There's some reason, some justification, some extenuating circumstance, some excuse - something - that makes you find the events more acceptable.

That something is a Paramoralism.

From A. Lobaczewski's, POLITICAL PONEROLOGY:

MORALIZING INTERPRETATION: The tendency to impart a moralizing interpretation upon essentially pathological phenomena is an aspect of human nature whose discernible substratum is encoded in our specific instinct; namely humans normally fail to differentiate between moral and biological evil.(p.148)

In the countryside scenario, you saw the action for what it was - a pathological act - and you reacted with a fully awakened moral outrage; your conscience spoke. But when you looked at the same event through the medium of Genesis 22, something happened to your conscience.

Lobaczewski again:

The conversive features in the genesis of paramoralisms [...] prove they are derived from [...] repression from the field of consciousness of something completely different, which we call the voice of conscience. (Political Ponerology p.151)

Lobaczewski defines 'conversive thinking' as "using terms but giving them opposing or twisted meanings." Thus the paramoralist uses "appeasement" when we would use "peacefulness";

paramoralist........................healthy

appeasement........................ peacefulness

license..................................freedom

backward.............................. traditional

mob..................................... rally

small-mindedness................... efficiency

Thus, by conversive thinking, something that was reprehensible is somehow made to look acceptable. This is not some mystery; there is a definite mechanism at work here.

The existence of psychological phenomena known to pre-Freudian philosophical students of the subconscious bears repeating. Unconscious psychological processes outstrip conscious reasoning, both in time [speed] and scope, which makes many psychological phenomena possible: including those generally described as conversive, such as subconscious blocking out of conclusions, the selection, and, also, substitution of [for] seemingly uncomfortable premises. (p.152)

Are there any restrictions on this substitution process?

Thus any insinuation framed in moral slogans is always suggestive, even if the "moral" criteria used are just an "ad hoc" invention. Any act can thus be proved to be immoral or morally proper by means of such paramoralisms through active suggestion, and people whose minds will succumb to such reasoning can always be found.

What, then, is the suggestion being made by the Biblical story The Sacrifice of Isaac?

To do whatever God commands, no matter how insane or cruel - and killing one's own child is right up there at the top of such a list - without question. All will work out in the end.

Nothing less than total submission is required.

Strangely enough though, in the experience of the overwhelming majority of the human race since the beginning of time, it turns out that God Himself only very, very, very rarely asks for anything or gives any commands in a way that we could objectively verify that the request or command actually came from God himself. That seems to make the Abraham-Isaac drama relatively useless.

However, it just so happens that there are people who identify themselves as God's representatives here on earth. They claim to speak for God, although they do not produce any verification for their "Divine Deputization", so to speak. Now for this group of the self-appointed, this story seems ideally suited to enable them to get whatever they want, by command or request. And they can claim God's backing for this.

Lobaczewski states:

Pathocracy is a disease of great social movements followed by entire societies, nations, and empires. In the course of human history, it has affected social, political, and religious movements,... and turned them into caricatures of themselves....(p.199)

If my suggestions about cui bono? (who benefits?) seem outlandish or unreasonable when it comes to God's "representative", then consider this:

In the light of historical data, it appears obvious that religious systems have also succumbed to ponerogenic processes and manifested the symptoms of a similar disease.

...Two basic possibilities for a relationship between this [pathocratic] phenomenon and a religious system can thus be adduced. The first occurs when the religious association itself succumbs to infection and the ponerogenic process...destruction [works]from within, its organism becomes subordinated to goals completely different from the original idea, and its theosophic and moral values fall prey to characteristic deformation ...(p.270-1)

In conclusion, it should be made very clear that neither Prof. Lobaczewski nor the science of Political Ponerology is against religion. Quite the contrary.

The ponerological approach throws new light upon age-old questions heretofore regulated by the dictates of moral systems and must of necessity bring about a revision in though methods. As a Christian, the author was initially apprehensive that this would cause dangerous collisions with ancient tradition. Studying the question in the light of Scriptures caused these apprehensions gradually to fade away. Rather, this now appears to be the way to bring our thought processes closer to that original and primeval method of perceiving moral knowledge. Quite characteristically, reading the Gospels can provide teachings clearly convergent with the method of understanding evil derived from naturalistic investigations on its origin. At the same time, we must foresee that the process of correction and conformation will be laborious and time consuming, [and] which ultimately probably prevent any major tumult. (p.268)

Ponerology can thus help in recovering the moral elements of the original teachings that have been lost or distorted - or completely inverted.

Perhaps you remember war movies where U.S Army chaplains blessed the troops as they were sent forth to kill - all In The Name of Jesus, The Good Shepherd, The Prince of Peace. It's not too hard to get the idea that maybe something important has been lost along the way.

And then there's also the problem that the enemy is praying for the very same thing - to the very same Jesus!

This was brought home to me by looking at war propaganda posters for other countries. This one is German, from World War I:

Translation of the picture's caption:

Go, O soldier, and fulfil thy duty.

Christ, The Good Shepherd, watches his flocks.

O Lord, Thy Kingdom Come,

And As Thy Will is in Heaven

May it also be on earth.

[And the good little sheep on all sides have gone forth to smite the "enemy" du jour in the name of the "Good Shepherd". What a racket!!]

What is required is a combination of both religious insights and scientific study. Professor gives an idea of how this could be done.

If individuals and groups believing in God are able to accept an objective understanding of macro-social pathological phenomena, especially this most dangerous one, the natural outcome will thus prove to be a certain separation of religious and ponerological problematics, which qualitatively occupy different levels of reality. Church attention can then revert to questions regarding man's relationship with God, an area for which churches have a calling. On the other hand, resistance to ponerological phenomena and their worldwide spread should be largely assumed by scientific and political institutions whose actions are based on a naturalistic understanding of the nature and genesis of evil. Such a separation of duties can never be quite consistent, since the genesis of evil includes the participation of human moral failings, and overcoming these based on religious premises has been the responsibility of religious associations since times immemorial.
[...]
In spite of existing differences of conviction and tradition, the basis for cooperative effort on the part of people with good will should contain that characteristic convergence of the conclusions we deduce between the precepts of the Christian Gospels (and other monotheistic religions) and a ponerological view of the genesis of evil. The faithful of various religions and denominations do in fact believe in the same God, and at present they are threatened by the same macrosocial pathologic phenomenon. This creates sufficient data to enable a search for cooperation in affecting achievements whose value is so obvious.(276-7)

The ground-breaking work POLITICAL PONEROLOGY: The Scientific Study of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes by Dr. Andrew Lobaczewski may be ordered from Red Pill Press

Christian Right, NEOCON, Paramoralism, Fundamentalism, Ponerology, Red Pill Press, Pathocrat

There is No More Sand to Hide Your Head In

Blizzards, hurricanes, tornados windstorms and floods have washed it all away. What will you DO about it?

Blue Ibis

**************************************************************************************
SOTT Focus

Wake The World Up Campaign

Signs of the Times editorial staff
Signs of the Times
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:40 EST

How many of you have seen the movie "The Day After Tomorrow?" If you haven't, the thesis of the movie is that Global warming causes large areas of the Arctic to melt, so that the northern Atlantic ocean is diluted by large amounts of fresh water which changes the density of the water layers causing a disruption of the Thermohaline current.. This then leads to a rapid and unnatural cooling of the northern hemisphere which triggers a series of anomalies, eventually leading to a massive "global superstorm" system consisting of three gigantic hurricane-like superstorms, which suck up heat and drop the super-cold upper atmospheric air down onto the planet resulting in an "instant Ice age."

This idea is nothing new and it didn't really originate with Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. A NASA report from 2004 tells us "Andrew Marshall, a veteran Defense Department planner, recently released an unclassified report detailing how a shift in ocean currents in the near future could compromise national security."

In a 2003 report, Robert Gagosian cites "rapidly advancing evidence [from, e.g., tree rings and ice cores] that Earth's climate has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past." For example, as the world warmed at the end of the last ice age about 13,000 years ago, melting ice sheets appear to have triggered a sudden halt in the Conveyor, throwing the world back into a 1,300 year period of ice-age-like conditions called the "Younger Dryas." It is also now known that the Gulf Stream weakened in 'Little Ice Age'

On 6 December 2005 Michael Schlesinger, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, leading a research team, said "The shutdown of the thermohaline circulation has been characterized as a high-consequence, low-probability event. Our analysis, including the uncertainties in the problem, indicates it is a high-consequence, high-probability event." See also: Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age.

There is another danger that comes with Global Warming: release of huge amount of methane from the methane clathrates buried in the arctic seabed, and even from other subterranean sources as the earth struggles to shift around and balance itself. Methane can contribute to Global Warming, but it is a highly unstable gas. Mostly it just stinks and can kill. Consider a September, 2006 report Methane gas leak kills miners in Ukraine which says:

Emergency Situations spokesman Ihor Krol said "an unexpected eruption of a coal and gas mixture" - later identified as methane - occurred early this morning at a depth of 3,500ft ... Methane probably emitted from rocks..."

We learn from further research that a high number of mining accidents are the result of methane pockets either igniting or poisoning miners.

In short, if big bubbles of methane gas are released from the ground, if a flock of birds happen to be in the area, they could very easily die and fall to the ground within a few minutes.

Now, of course, methane itself is odorless, but it is a byproduct of organic decomposition and, as a consequence, is often associated with hydrogen sulfide, a "rotten egg" smell. If you can smell it, the level is probably unsafe.

Of course, there is a tremendous dispute about this with a whole raft of critics (some of them scientists with questionable loyalties) pooh-poohing the idea and continuing along the line of "it's all Global Warming" and if we concentrate on cutting emissions, over time, things will stabilize."

Not very likely.

Why do we think so?

Last month, for almost a week, the Gulf Stream ceased to flow northward to Europe. Go here: http://rads.tudelft.nl/gulfstream/ ... and scroll down to "Animations of the Gulf Stream velocities are here".

Click, and when the page loads, select "Last 26 weeks (Jan 23 21 bytes)" and observe. After the images load and the animation plays, you will see a short period of about a week between Dec 11th and 19th when the Gulf Stream actually stopped flowing toward Europe and flowed back South without completing its normal circuit.

Here are still images from the event:

©rads.tudelft.nl

©rads.tudelft.nl

©rads.tudelft.nl

Now, keeping those dates in mind, let's look at some headlines selected from the SOTT Weather Archive from the days during and after the temporary reversal of the Thermohaline current:

14 Dec 2006 Duck die-off in Idaho sparks fears
19 Dec 2006 Lewiston residents unnerved by dead crows
21 Dec 2006 Colorado reels under blizzard
26 Dec 2006 Christmas storm brings devastation
02 Jan 2007 Sections of Colo. Remain Buried in Snow
03 Jan 2007 Cherry Blossoms Bloom In Brooklyn
03 Jan 2007 Record snowfall buries Anchorage
04 Jan 2007 Warm winter wreaks havoc
04 Jan 2007 Scientists Say 2007 May Be Warmest Yet
05 Jan 2007 2 dead after strong storms, tornadoes rip through southern Louisiana
08 Jan 2007 Gas-like odour blankets Manhattan
08 Jan 2007 Ducks die en mass in Vietnam's southern province
08 Jan 2007 Dead birds shut down Austin
08 Jan 2007 Outgassing: The environmental "surge" you're not hearing anything about.
08 Jan 2007 NY gas smell shuts trains, forces evacuations
08 Jan 2007 Wacky warm weather throws birds and bees off balance
09 Jan 2007 Warm December Pushes 2006 to Record Year
10 Jan 2007 Are the dead porpoises on Scottish beaches more evidence of global warming?
10 Jan 2007 Freak tornado-like storm hits Barbados
12 Jan 2007 Storm Warnings Across UK
13 Jan 2007 Icy Weather Hits U.S. Midwest
13 Jan 2007 Record Cold, Snow in Southern California!
13 Jan 2007 Smelly Outgassing in Louisiana
13 Jan 2007 Staten Island: More Bad Smells - Outgassing?
14 Jan 2007 Powerful storm dumps ice and rain on central U.S
14 Jan 2007 Ice Storm lashes much of U.S. - 20 dead
15 Jan 2007 Near Hurricane Force Storm Batters Baltic States - 2nd time in 2 years for "once in a lifetime event"
17 Jan 2007 Schwarzenegger Seeks Disaster Aid For Freeze Ruined Crops
17 Jan 2007 Ice plays havoc with U.S. power grid
17 Jan 2007 Thousands Shiver As Storm Death Toll Hits 51
17 Jan 2007 Big freeze hits $1bn crop
17 Jan 2007 Wildfires Burn in Southern Australia
17 Jan 2007 Scores killed, crops devastated in harsh US winter weather
17 Jan 2007 Warm Spell in Russia Wakes Up the Bears
17 Jan 2007 Storms forecast to batter UK
18 Jan 2007 Snow in Malibu!!!
18 Jan 2007 Severe storms batter northwestern Europe
18 Jan 2007 Travel in Europe Disrupted by Wild Storm
19 Jan 2007 Hurricane Force Winds rip into eastern Europe
19 Jan 2007 Storm kills 27 in northern Europe
19 Jan 2007 Germany Limps Back To Life After Storm Claims 10 Lives - Wind Gusts Up to 202 KPH
19 Jan 2007 Killer of 29, Kyrill Hurricane Approaches Russia - "The Day After Tomorrow?"
19 Jan 2007 Experts Can't Find Source Of Mysterious NYC Odor
19 Jan 2007 Okla., Mo., and Texas Brace for Storm
19 Jan 2007 Icy Storm Blamed for 65 Deaths in U.S.
19 Jan 2007 Germans Told to Stay Indoors as Hurricane Nears
20 Jan 2007 Europe counts cost of storms as stricken freighter is beached
20 Jan 2007 New winter storm stalks Southern Plains
21 Jan 2007 Snow Storm Rolls Across Plains; 8 Dead
25 Jan 2007 Getting Colder in U.S. Northeast - Polar Plunge Underway
25 Jan 2007 Anchorage Hit with Twice Normal Snowfall

The 64,000 $ question: Is there a connection between the reversal of the Gulf Stream in December and the numerous reports of birds falling dead from the sky and the wild and deadly weather during the first half of January?

The next question is: Does this small example suggest what might happen if the now highly unstable Gulf Stream finally and completely stops flowing North to Europe?

Meanwhile, on Jan 23rd, President Bush told the American Congress "we must confront the serious challenge of global climate change". However, the main thrust of his speech was to ask that Congress and the American People give his war escalation plan yet another chance.

Now, even though Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) responded to this nonsensical speech in a very appropriate way, telling Bush that "The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military, nor does the majority of Congress," Senator Webb himself is probably not aware of the truly great danger that may be looming over all of us, rich and poor, in every country of the world. Just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, the leaders of our world are acting as though they have unlimited time to play their political games.
The question is, will any of us survive the threat to our civilization that is inherent in a Global Warming that can turn into an Ice Age in an instant while Bush and other world leaders engage in endless arguments about wars and economics? The real enemy is not "over there," it is "out there," in terms of changes to our environment that we all need to understand as fast as possible. And here we mean, all people. When the Sword falls, the billionaire oil tycoons will suffer just as much, if not more, than the Third World subsistence farmer.

We desperately need to reach these people and inform them so that all of humanity can act together as one to bring this senseless war-mongering to a halt and work together to solve our mutual problems that threaten to destroy us more completely than any nuclear bomb ever could.

But here's the problem: through the distortion and outright censoring of events in America and the world, the US media, in concert with the Bush government, are denying the American people access to knowledge and awareness that would allow them to play a pivotal role in their own future and that of their children. How many Americans truly know how many of their fellow citizens are totally opposed to the actions of the Bush government? If you read the US media you would have no idea whatsoever. If you read the international press however, you get a much better idea. Consider the following images from the front page of a French regional paper for 25th January 2007:

The text reads: "America Says 'No'

Increasingly isolated, George Bush has asked congress for 'another chance'. Less than one third of Americans are inclined to trust him. (click on image for large version)

The text reads:

"America against Bush. An ever increasing number of opponents of the Iraq war" (Click on image for large version).

The primary goal of the Signs of the Times news website and forum is to provide accurate data on current events to all those that seek it.

But we need your help. We exist only on the internet. That means that the information we have to share is available to less than 17% of the planet's population; even less when you consider net censorship.

Together, we can change this and we can DO things. That's why we've launched a our new Signs of The Times Interactive Website and why we have plans on the table to expand our activities to include a new line-up of Podcast discussions (with exciting new guests) and most important of all: distribution of free, informative printed matter all over the world!

It's an exciting idea! If the newspapers won't print the truth, we will! And if people can't afford access, we will GIVE it to them! It'll be a major, ongoing campaign. And to ensure we have the resources to keep the pressure on, we're asking ALL our readers to contribute at least $15 a month. Since our last subscription drive, 188 people have signed on! But we still need 1145 more contributors! With over 10,000 readers per day, and 1427 people receiving SOTT in their email-box daily, there is no reason why we cannot achieve this modest goal. Can you chip in $15 a month? It's easy--we bill your credit card each month, and you can cancel any time. Click here:

Subscribe to Signs!

Initially, we're planning a sustained campaign of distribution of educational materials via the same processes that are used in political campaigns; only in this case, it will not be a campaign to elect anyone; it will be a campaign to wake up and stop the madness before we are all wiped off the face of the Earth forever. These materials will make people aware of SOTT and will give them further information about how to either find SOTT on the web, or how to sign up for the new, weekly printed SOTT that is in the pipeline.

We have volunteers around the world just waiting for the materials to be printed and shipped to them so that they can begin the distribution process. using our successful Signs Of The Times website as a backbone. We'll use mail-out flyers, posters, stickers, book-marks, and web productions to inform the people of just what danger we are all in while our so-called leaders bicker over killing more people. If they don't stop that wrangling now, and attend to the business at hand, there won't be anybody to bomb anyway.

This is the moment. Look at the Gulf Stream. Remember the movie "The Day After Tomorrow." Consider what happened within two weeks of a one week reversal of the Gulf Stream. It may not be that bad or that fast, but we can see from what we have already experienced that it will certainly be bad enough. Getting the information out to as many people as possible is going to require concentrated effort and funding. Once the people are fully aware of what is really going on, it is our belief that they will, en masse, do what is right and demand, in tones that cannot be refused, that our leaders take care of the most important business on our planet: preparing us for a massive, shift in climate that undoubtedly will happen much, much, much faster than anyone currently thinks possible.

But that's not going to happen unless we have the support.

That is the plan - flood the world with information - the Whole World! But it will require ongoing funding. Can you help with $15 per month? (You can cancel easily any time.) Click here to contribute:

Subscribe to Signs!

Every dollar, every flyer, poster, sticker, book, newsletter, we distribute together could save lives - perhaps the life of someone you love.

Together, we can wake the world up.

Together, we will wake up the world.

Thank you.

Laura, Ark, Joe, Scott, Henry, Jason, Anna, Amy, Juliana, and the rest of the SOTT team.

The Day After Tomorrow,Freak Weather, Global Warming, Methane Gas, Mini-Ice Age, Media Censorship, Gulf Stream Reversal, Thermal Haline Current