Lorraine Mallinder - 06 January 2009

IN OVERGROWN deserted school playgrounds across Canada lie the bones of thousands of native Indian children who were stolen from their families.

Historian John Milloy is helping to uncover their stories in official research on burial sites. “We know that children were buried in unmarked graves, children who disappeared and were never heard from again,” he said. The research is part of Canada’s attempts to face up to a disturbing legacy of its residential school system, an attempt to “assimilate” native children that resulted in thousands of deaths and ruined lives.

From the late 19th century right up to the 1970s, an estimated 150,000 native children – First Nations, Inuit and Métis – were packed off to the schools, funded by the state and run by the Catholic, Anglican and United churches.

The story has taken a more sinister turn, with allegations about death by torture, fatal medical experiments, forced sterilisation and secret burials in mass graves filtering into the public domain.

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David Livingstone - January 5th, 2009

When the Americans sought to collapse the Soviet Union and bring a final end to the Cold War, they did not do it head on, but chose to bankrupt that nation by luring it into its own version of the Vietnam War–in Afghanistan. So said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Barack Obama’s national security advisor throughout his presidential campaign. Brzezinski has also admitted that the Americans deliberately fostered Islamic militants as part of that strategy.

This turned out to be the largest CIA operation in US history; Americans funded and supported the effort of Afghanistan’s Mujahideen, then ennobled by Reagan as ‘freedom-fighters’, and of course now maligned as ‘terrorists’.

The group the Americans chose to operate through was the Hizb i Islami, an off-shoot of the notorious Muslim Brotherhood, the umbrella organization responsible for all factions of Islamic terrorism, including the likes of Osama bin Laden.

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Reprehensor - 01/04/2009

(James Bamford has done another great deed for the public by revealing the extent of the NSA’s wiretapping on U.S. soil, and how the NSA sub-contracts the vast majority of its work to Israeli high-tech firms bristling with “former” Israeli military intelligence agents, and in the case of Verint, a company with serious corruption issues. It was Bamford who popularized the existence of Operation Northwoods in his 2001 book, Body of Secrets. In The Shadow Factory, he sheds light in the secret rooms of Verizon and AT&T, and shows the NSA to be a very poor custodian of the nation’s security.)

Bamford Brings the Goods

On October 14, 2008, James Bamford talked about some of the shocking research in his new book on Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman;

Along with the mass surveillance being conducted on all U.S. users of AT&T and Verizon by Narus and Verint, (according to Bamford), two other Israeli-owned companies, Amdocs and NICE Systems, have their fingers in the wiretapping pie as well.

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JAMES TRAUB (CFR) - January 3, 2009

Even before Israel launched attacks on Gaza last week, Barack Obama’s incoming national security team understood that the consuming demands of crises could all too easily eclipse the transformational agenda on foreign affairs that Mr. Obama advanced during the campaign.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, instability in Pakistan and the threat of nuclear proliferation in Iran would have been more than enough to crowd out any thought of long-range planning. Now the Middle East is in flames again. And yet a wide range of foreign policy experts are urging the new president to look beyond the smoke and the bloodshed — indeed, to leverage the pervasive sense of crisis — to reshape the world’s governing structures.

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(at around 2:44 - 2:50)

Ben Leach - 05 Jan 2009

The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000 has been used to stop 62,584 people at railway stations and another 87,000 were questioned under “stop and search” and “stop and account” legislation.

Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker, who uncovered the figures, warned that Britain was heading towards a “police state”.

He said: “Law-abiding passengers get enough hassle on overcrowded trains as it is without the added inconvenience of over-zealous policing.

“The anti-terror laws allow officers to stop people for taking photographs and I know this has led to innocent trainspotters being stopped.

“This is an abuse of anti-terrorism powers and a worrying sign that we are sliding towards a police state.

“Trainspotting may be an activity of limited, and indeed questionable, appeal, but it is not a criminal offence and it is not a terrorist threat.”

The revelation will increase concern that the controversial anti-terror powers are being used “disproportionately”.

The Liberal Democrat MP added: “While it is important to be vigilant about the threat of terrorism to the transport network, the sheer scale of the number of people stopped by police on railway property is ridiculous.”

In a letter to Mr Baker, Ian Johnston, the British Transport Police’s Chief Constable, said: “There is clear guidance available to officers (and railway enthusiasts), and this has been reissued on a number of occasions over the last couple of months in response to the increased concern among some railway enthusiasts.”

Paul Kennedy - 01/05/2009

Every so often in the history of international affairs, a great transnational turbulence shakes the foundations of the world and brings many of its older structures tumbling to the ground, as we witnessed in 1919, 1945 and 1989. In the confusion and babble that follow, it’s difficult to see through the dust and recognize the shape of the altered strategic landscape.

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Sheera Frenkel, Michael Evans - December 5, 2008

Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.

As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles of thick white smoke to cover the troops’ advance. “These explosions are fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so that our forces can move in,” said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with Lebanon.

The use of the weapon in the Gaza Strip, one of the world’s mostly densely population areas, is likely to ignite yet more controversy over Israel’s offensive, in which more than 2,300 Palestinians have been wounded.

The Geneva Treaty of 1980 stipulates that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas, but there is no blanket ban under international law on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination. However, Charles Heyman, a military expert and former major in the British Army, said: “If white phosphorus was deliberately fired at a crowd of people someone would end up in The Hague. White phosphorus is also a terror weapon. The descending blobs of phosphorus will burn when in contact with skin.”

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Daniel Kemp - Jan 3, 2009
In the other book I read, In the Minds of Men by Ian T. Taylor, it talked about eugenics. I wanted to learn more about eugenics, so the librarian recommended me this book, The Legacy of Malthus : The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism by Allan Chase.

[Francis] Galton’s next step to gaining acceptance by orthodox science was to coin the name “eugenics” from the Greek; the term means “well-born”. Here was the science to produce the utopian dream of a super-race to control tomorrow’s world. The dream began to be realized in 1901 with the founding of the Eugenics Education Society, based at the statistics department of University College, London. Galton lived to see the Eugenics Society eventually become a flourishing political movement, while the work on which it was all founded, the calipers and stopwatch (to measure reaction times) applied to the heads of idiots and criminals, was given scientific respectability in the professional journal Biometrika, founded and edited, of course, by Galton and [Karl] Pearson.
Before Galton died in 1911, some of the scientific community had evidently become convinced. He received many honors, including the Darwin and Wallace medal, the Copley medal, the Huxley medal, and a knighthood. However, divine retribution forbade that he should live to fulfill his own eugenic obligation. Scion of two prominent English families, married to the daughter of a third, Sir Francis Galton had died without issue. [1]

[Francis] Galton’s (1869) thesis is summed up in his statement, “to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable . . . the word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea” (p. 24). [2]

Malthus is that guy Thomas Malthus. He was talked about in the book In the Minds of Men by Ian T. Taylor. He’s the guy who was influenced by a made-up story about goats and dogs on an island. He also made-up data in his popular Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus is best known for coming up with the myth that the planet can’t feed the population of people on it. So this book, The Legacy of Malthus, is about the legacy of the founding father of scientific racism, which is Thomas Malthus.

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Alan Stang - January 5, 2009

Recently, I received a complaint from a now happily departed reader. He took issue with a recent piece in which I recalled the history of our centuries-long conflict with Islam. The reader said he has no interest in history. He is only interested in “now.” Specifically, he wants to hear about the Jews, nothing else. Happily, he announced that he is no longer with us, so there is no chance that these modest comments could offend his belligerent ignorance.

In one of his books, Czech novelist Milan Kundera has a character explain that when the Communists impose their version of Socialism on a country, they always destroy its history. They stop teaching it in the schools. They don’t talk about it in the media. They delete and pervert it in the movies. After a while, nobody knows it. Why do the Communists do that?

They do it because if you don’t know your history, you don’t know what you are; you don’t know who you are. Personally, if you don’t know your history, you have amnesia. Nationally, if you don’t know it, you are no longer a nation. You are people milling about in a wide spot in the road. You have no cohesion. You are disunited and easily conquered.

Now look at the people Jay Leno interviews on his “Jaywalks.” Look at the recent You Tube interview of people who had just voted for Senator Also Known As. They love Sarah Palin and thought she was his running mate. They can’t identify Nancy Peelousy. They have no idea what Also Known As would do. Jay’s people don’t know whom we fought in World War II or when or who won.

Remarkably, they know they are ignorant, but their ignorance does not trouble them. On the contrary, when Jay’s questions expose it, they laugh, pleased with themselves, so they will do nothing to abate it. Their ignorance is “cool,” which, where I come from, has always meant, “not so hot.” They are potential slaves, waiting for some dictator to corral them. They will still be giggling inanely about how, like, cool it is, man, as they are put aboard the cattle cars.

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Paul and Phillip Collins discuss how recent events in the Middle East are bearing out the contentions they presented in an article entitled, “Basra: Bethlehem of the New Order.”

The interview can be heard at:
http://beyondthegrassyknoll.com/audio/collinsbasra.mp3

Antifascist Calling - January 1, 2009

When Afghan drug kingpin Haji Bashir Noorzai was arrested in New York in 2005, it set off a chain of events that continue to echo today.

A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Noorzai September 22, for his involvement in an international narcotics trafficking conspiracy that sold tens of millions of dollars of heroin on world markets. The drug lord now faces life in prison and will be sentenced on January 7.

But things aren’t always what they seem.

Noorzai, described by federal investigators and journalists as “the richest man in Afghanistan,” enjoyed close and cosy relations with the Taliban’s top leader Mullah Omar, al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence agency (ISI).

Indeed, Noorzai had become one of the capo tutti capos of Afghanistan’s flourishing heroin rackets and profited handsomely from the protection of his Taliban “friends,” his ISI mentors and allegedly the CIA.

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Tickets are now on sale for the first-ever Masonic Inaugural Ball held in Washington, D.C.

PRWEB | Jan 2, 2009

William R. Singleton Hope Lebanon Lodge #7 is hosting the first-ever Masonic Inaugural Ball in honor of President-elect, Barack Obama and Vice-President Elect Joseph Biden.

Tickets are limited, so you are encouraged to purchase yours quickly.

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Mikhail Gorbachev - January 1, 2009

The year 2008 has been indelibly marked by the global financial crisis. No one predicted its outbreak or its scale; I don’t think anyone knows when and how it might end.

It is already clear that initial reassuring statements about it were irresponsible. In the coming months, the world, and world politics, will be severely tested.

Searching for ways out of the crisis will be a difficult, agonizing process. Not all early efforts were effective. This first failure in the functioning of our fully globalized world caught us by surprise, largely unprepared.

As I read the reports from the July Group of 8 summit meeting in Japan, it is amazing that just a couple months before the crisis erupted, world leaders seemed unaware of warning tremors. The summit was a routine gathering. Its very format - the way it was prepared and conducted - seems outdated. We need a new vision of global political leadership, a new willingness to work together in this globalized world. Politicians are lagging behind the events.

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