U.S. To Break Up Soon?
Chuck Baldwin
October 1, 2009
According to Macedonian Radio and Television On-line (MRT), a Russian professor predicts the United States will fall apart in July 2010. MRT reports, “‘Mr. Obama is similar to the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev was also making great promises for the Soviet Union, but the situation was only getting worse,’ he said. By next summer, according to Professor Panarin, the US will disintegrate into six blocs–and everyone will get their piece. ‘The probability that the United States of America fall apart in July 2010 is more than 50 percent,’ said Igor Panarin, Professor at Moscow’s Diplomatic Academy within the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
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featured stories U.S. To Break Up Soon?
Russian professor Igor Nikolaevich Panarin.
MRT went on to report, “Panarin came up with his grim forecast while analyzing the parallels between the Soviet Union in its final days and the current situation in the United States. ‘American dream ballooned seven times in 11 years. During Gorbachev era, the Soviet dream ballooned five times.’ Americans hope [President] Barack Obama ‘can work miracles,’ he wrote. ‘But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.’”
See the MRT report at
http://tinyurl.com/mrt-report
The Drudge Report confirmed the MRT report and added, “Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA . . . ‘The dollar is not secured by anything. The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse.’”
At least some of what Panarin said back in the fall of 2008 either has taken place or is in the process of taking place. Drudge reported, “When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: ‘It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world’s financial regulator.’”
Drudge continued reporting Panarin as saying that “the U.S. will break up into six parts– the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.”
Panarin further suggested that Russia might even “claim Alaska.”
See an archived version of Drudge’s report at
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/readarchive_20090107.html
Reporting on the same story, The Wall Street Journal said, “Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russian relations.”
The WSJ goes on to say that Panarin believes that “mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar.”
See The Wall Street Journal report at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html
This is not the first time that Comrade Panarin has made such a prediction. Joseph Farah, editor of World Net Daily, noted in December of 2008 that Panarin has been making similar projections for the past ten years. In a column regarding Panarin’s predictions, Farah wrote, “Until recently, no one took him very seriously. And then came the economic calamity that has rocked Americans and the rest of the world, too. Now, Panarin’s predictions of an end of the United States, due to economic and moral collapse, is being taken seriously by many.”
Read Farah’s column at
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=84884
So, will the United States break up in 2010? Or 2011? Or 2012? Or anytime in the near future, for that matter? If history is any teacher, the chances would seem good that Panarin’s predictions may be closer to reality than anyone would like to admit.
A historian and linguist from South Africa recently wrote me a fascinating letter, in which he chronicled the major world empires of history, dating the time of their rise and fall. Here is what his calculations look like:
Assyria (859-612 B.C.): a 247-year reign.
Persia (538-330 B.C.): a 208-year reign.
Greece (331-100 B.C.): a 231-year reign.
The Roman Republic (260-27 B.C.): a 233-year reign.
The Roman Empire (27 B.C.-180 A.D.): a 207-year reign.
The Arab Empire (634-880 A.D.): a 246-year reign.
The Mameluke Empire (1250-1517 A.D.): a 267-year reign.
The Ottoman Empire (1320-1570 A.D.): a 250-year reign.
Spain (1500-1750 A.D.): a 250-year reign.
Romanov Russia (1682-1916 A.D.): a 234-year reign.
Great Britain (1700-1950 A.D.): a 250-year reign.
The USA (1790-2009 A.D.): 219 years and counting.
My honorable historian-friend calculates America’s reign using its post-Revolutionary War years. He notes that America’s reign is currently at 219 years. He further notes that the average duration of every world superpower listed above is a little over 238 years.
One does not need to be a master mathematician or possess a Ph.D. to realize that America is fast approaching the mark in which every major world power in history has either collapsed or, at a minimum, lost its world leadership and power.
My friend also reminded me of his homeland’s (South Africa’s) demise. He told me that he noticed the handwriting on the wall in time to relocate his family to a more peaceful and stable European country. Many of his friends and countrymen were not so fortunate, however, and thousands were killed and their properties confiscated. He then warned me, “The period of Grace is closing, in what is your homeland.”
In addition, serious students of Holy Writ are also struck with the similarities between societal conditions in America and those of Old Testament Israel (as well as with Gentile nations) at those times of divine judgment and retribution. As someone trenchantly said, “If God spares the United States, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Will the Russian analyst’s prophecies come true in 2010? Probably not. Does that mean that America is impervious to some sort of national demise? Not at all. Is America already in serious trouble? You bet. Could there be some sort of break-up within the United States in the near future? In my opinion, that is a very realistic probability. If this happens, will freedom suffer? Almost certainly. Will those with tyrannical tendencies use the opportunity of any national disaster to try and enslave us? They already do. I personally do not believe that there is any “If” to the question. The only questions are, “When?” and “To what degree?”
And, of course, there is another question: “When the break-up comes, how many Americans understand the principles of liberty enough, and are personally prepared enough, and are willing enough to resist whatever power it may be that seeks to place us under the thumb of oppression and fight for the same protections and vanguards of liberty that first established this land?” Obviously, the answer to that question is yet to be determined, isn’t it?
Friday, October 2, 2009
The October Crash
The brief report below, "Now, October!", by Lyndon LaRouche, is his third of the past week on the pending October crash of the global monetary-financial system, and the emergency measures which need to be taken in the U.S., and by the four powers acting in concert (the US, Russia, China and India) to create a new international creditary system. The first two articles can be found at the following links:
1) - The empire crumbles: THIS TOWER OF BABBLE -- http://www.larouchepac.com/node/11916
2) - General McChrystal's Folly - http://www.larouchepac.com/print/11910
Mike Billington
The Season of A Twentieth Anniversary: NOW, OCTOBER!
The Season of A Twentieth Anniversary:
NOW, OCTOBER!
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
September 30, 2009 (LPAC)- During the recent days, I have presented a series of reports bearing on the matter of the nature and causes of the presently onrushing October crisis of both the U.S.A.'s and the world's current entry into the crucial phase of a global economic-breakdown crisis. I have indicated the first half of October as a crucial period of phase-shift into the actuality of the already looming, initial onset of that actual breakdown. Here, I restate the case with special emphasis on identifying the probable forms in which the present inevitability of that phase-shift might be expressed during the weeks immediately ahead.
Now, that Germany's parliamentary elections have just been concluded, the citizens of the U.S.A. should be reminded, that today's continuing political mass-strike against both the Obama Administration and the membership of the increasingly despised current session of the U.S. Congress, is an echo of that great mass strike in East Germany which brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall about twenty years ago. How, then, would the alleged "ordinary citizen" expect to recognize the signs of such a development during its opening phase?
Now, in the U.S.A. today, the cry of "Wir sind das Volk!" from Germany then, is echoed by the theme "We are the people!" which is resounding from the voices of a still-rising mass-strike movement from among the majority of the U.S. adult population. For that majority of our adult citizenry, especially the thirty percentile of the unemployed labor-force for whom the new great economic depression had already begun, as this fact is expressed by the virtually unprecedented fall of popular support for the de facto British Empire's puppet, President Barack Obama.
Now, as the ominous month of October descends upon the entire planet, a new, greater existential crisis than that, has arisen from among the nations of the world. October is the setting which promises an onrushing economic breakdown-crisis world-wide. At this time, there is no good reason to doubt either that the October 2009 entry into a new U.S. fiscal year, defines a general breakdown of monetary-financial system of not only the U.S. economy, or, that this monetary-breakdown-crisis will now reverberate as the common ruin of nations throughout the world. Therefore, the only questions in the minds of actually competent economists, are the following two: "First: Exactly what specific form will this already onrushing breakdown-crisis take, during the month of October and for a short time beyond? Second: Is there an alternative?"
This season, the ironical joke will probably be, "What favorite politician will be hanging from your Christmas tree."
The reply will likely be: "We are not having a Christmas tree this year."
The rejoinder would probably be: "Aha: your politicians must really be scared!"
The entire planet has now entered the onset of a planetary "new dark age" - - unless very specific kinds of changes, from a world monetary system, to a "Hamiltonian" quality of mutual credit-system, were to be launched by a leading combination of the U.S.A., Russia, China, and India. Shallow-minded people will insist that such a change is impossible. I know better. The needed change is possible; the question is, do the governments of those four nations have the wisdom to act upon the great opportunity for general reform now placed before them? The reason this reform might gain its needed support, is that no nation of this planet has any chance of surviving the failure of those leading nations to join in launching the needed anti-monetarist reform.
Therefore, before mistaking this October's bad news as leaving us no real alternative, review two crucial issues. First, review the causes for this timing of the oncoming monetary- financial breakdown-crisis which being guided currently by the British empire's outright ownership of the foolish administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Second, consider the alternate option.
The U.S. Economic Crisis
The only publicly known method of competent economic forecasting for national economies of the world since my January 1996 announcement of my candidacy for the U.S. Presidential nomination for the Democratic Party at that time, has been a heuristic device presented then as my "Triple Curve." Since that time, it has been proven to have been the only competent method of forecasting throughout the world. In that sense, the present, world-wide breakdown-crisis of the reigning global monetary- financial system can be fairly described as a result of the failure to take up my now thoroughly vindicated forecasting into account.
The most crucial three elements which define the overall causes for the presently oncoming, general economic-breakdown crisis of the planetary system as a whole are:
First: the curve of presently hyper-inflationary monetarist system. When the rate of expansion of this monetarist inflation overtook and surpassed the rate of financial expansion, in Summer 2007, the pre-conditions for a looming threat of a general, global breakdown-crisis of the type presented by that of March-November 1923, was already fully under way.
Second: the shift of the financial curve, under those conditions, from inflationary, to deflationary, since no later than that Summer-Autumn interval of 2007.
Third: the accelerated rate of collapse of physical output per capita and per square kilometer.
When, under these conditions, the rate of growth of represented by the acceleration of the hyper-inflationary monetary curve, which had overtaken the rate of growth of financial curve, such that the financial curve's reverse course, became, apparently, deflationary. The accelerated rate of collapse of relative physical output per capita, combined with the acceleration of monetary emissions, the deflationary course of financial flows, and the accelerated rate of collapse of physical economic output, signaled the definite arrival of conditions corresponding precisely to the pattern of the Spring-Autumn 1923 hyper-inflationary breakdown of the Weimar economy.
So, the relevant precedent for the type of breakdown-crisis under way presently, is the case of Weimar Germany's economy of the period concluding with November 1923. In this case, the French occupation of the Rhineland triggered the actuality of the already menacing threat of a hyper-inflationary breakdown-crisis. The relationship among the three elements of today's Triple-curve pattern in the U.S.A. today, were those present in 1923 Germany.
However, when, as in 1923 Germany, or the U.S.A. today, the combination of a monetary hyperinflation overtakes the rate of expansion of financial aggregates, as the initiatives of Senator Chris Dodd and that fanatic and U.S. Representative Barney Frank had done, and the net physical output of the economy is declining, the pre-conditions for a hyper-inflationary breakdown of the entire economy exist, as they existed then, and in the U.S. trends since August 2007. What the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations have done, since then, and through the present date, has been clinically insane. However, the same specific conditions also prevail in the world economy as a whole.
The case of Germany 1923 was, admittedly, exceptional. Germany was then subjected to absolutely artificial, predatory conditions defined by the Versailles conditionalities imposed, chiefly, by the Bank of England, the Manhattan monetarists, and the revanchist French regimes. In the present case, the kinds of boundary conditions imposed by, chiefly, the trio of London, Paris, and Wall Street, as under the conditions those three powers have imposed upon a reunified Germany now, applied to limited sector of the world economy. Today, the conditions imposed upon Weimar Germany have been imposed, in effect, upon the entire world, as by, implicitly the monstrously corrupt International Monetary Fund (IMF) system.
So, the logic of what the Versailles powers did to 1920s Weimar Germany, is the same logic, applied on a global scale, to produce the preconditions for today's hyper-inflationary breakdown-crisis on an unlimited scale. It is fairly said that economic thinking ruling most of the national governments of the world now, have been, and remain, clinically insane.
Then, as now, the only competent remedy for a breakdown condition such as those of Weimar Germany 1923 and the U.S. economy today, is to put the system as a whole into reorganization in bankruptcy by the relevant sovereign nation- state, using the equivalent of a Glass-Steagall standard for reorganization of the entire system in bankruptcy. The fictitious monetary assets must be simply canceled, and the relevant economy reconstituted on the basis of an anti-monetarist credit- system, canceling the morally fraudulent monetarist assets.
Thus, for the U.S.A. itself, the formal conditions for saving the U.S. government itself from a total financial breakdown caused by the burden of monetarist interests, and return to the constitutional ban on monetarist practices inhering in the Hamiltonian prescription embedded in the U.S. Federal Constitution.
Once that approach were adopted by the U.S.A. in conjunction with some other leading nations, such as Russia, China, and India, a general recovery of the world economy could be set into motion. For the moment, however, for as long as western and central Europe remains under the British monetarist boot, those nations lack the mechanisms of sovereignty required to effect the needed reform. Thus, without a bloc of anti- monetarist cooperation among the credit-systems of the U.S.A. Russia, China, India, and other powers which choose to join them in a common effort, a general plunge of all nations of the planet into a prolonged, global "Dark Age" were virtually inevitable.
Without an initiative to that effect by the U.S.A., such a recovery would not be possible. The doom of mankind for a generation or more to come, would then be inevitable.
Clearly, the British monetarist-imperialist system would resist such reforms, virtually to the bitter end. No matter; it is essential that civilization more generally survive, while the necessary fundamental changes in the United Kingdom's affairs appear, more or less reluctantly after the remainder of the world has cast its own vote for economic sanity.
However, if the remedy I have identified is not adopted, the world as a whole is already foredoomed for a season in Hell. To understand that immediate threat of a global breakdown-crisis, the factor of what is called "globalization" must be taken into account.
Why a Global Collapse
There are certain incompetent, or otherwise misguided economists and officials of governments, in various parts of the planet, who are deluded into believing that a collapse of the U.S. dollar would not trigger an inevitable, virtually simultaneous collapse of every nation of the planet. Only the government of China has a realistic view of this matter among governments generally, at this presently. The others are to be fairly described as hypnotized by the seductive charms of some strange fairy, perhaps one in incarnate the disguise of a Keynesian monetarist.
Without a conversion of the economy of some cooperating leading nations of the world, from participation in a monetarist system to a Hamiltonian type of credit system, there is no chance for what might be called a survival of any national economy on this planet today. This will be made clear to all who are not deluded, by developments already coming to the surface during the month of October.
For example: if we could presume that the present policies of the Obama administration were to be continued through the month of October and slightly beyond, the U.S.A. is already as good as doomed to the worst physical breakdown of its society since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Death rates would soar beyond the powers of imagination of most living today, even way beyond the already frankly homicidal intentions of the Hitler- modeled IMAC provisions for the proposed Obama health-care "reform."
Now turn our attention to the next question. Presuming that the reforms which I have proposed are not being introduced into U.S law and official practice during October, what form of expression would a consequent, general breakdown-crisis of the U.S. economy assume?
Perception or Reality?
As I presented the conclusive evidence to this fact for the case of the 1971 collapse of the U.S. economy under the U.S. Nixon administration, as in my defeat of the leading British Keynesian economist Abba Lerner, in a celebrated December 1971 debate, the predominantly pro-Keynesian, or worse economists rampant in academic and comparable positions still today, is shown by such person's failed forecasts, as so shown by comparison with my own, relatively infallible record since 1956-57. Their forecasts have been premised chiefly on, either purely monetarist considerations, or studies of physical- economic processes as interpretations adapted to monetarist statistic methods. The assumption that the character and regulation of patterns of net physical growth in economies can be defined by, and adduced from statistical methods generally, is a terrible fallacy which ignores the determining influences of physical-capital factors underlying both physical production and productivity.
In other words, the physical changes in productivity, per capita and per square kilometer, are principally determined by the combination of principled physical-scientific factors and the relative impact of a modality of Classical artistic culture in poetry, drama, music, painting and sculpture. The crucial role of such cultural factors is dynamic in the sense of Gottfried Leibniz's exposure of the fraud of Cartesian mathematics, as that proof was relevant to the role of the modern physical-scientific sense of the Classical term "dynamics," as "dynamics" is the underlying principle in both matters physical science and Classical artistic composition. It is in those creative faculties unique to the human Classical modes of the imagination from which the creative powers of physical science are derived. The case of Albert Einstein and his violin, is typical of the essential role of this connection of Classical artistic composition to valid expressions of scientific progress.
As my own relatively unique successes in economic forecasting have illustrated this fact, it is only through viewing the matters of monetary, financial, and physical-economic functions of national and world economy in that way, that the original character of changes in the relative productivity of world and national economy can be accessed. Not the least of these considerations is the role of creativity within the cultural habits of the population, including consideration of that underlying expression of the general disposition for creativity exhibited by the relative role of Classical artistic, as distinct from populist modalities among various strata of the population. Cusa, Kepler, Fermat, Leibniz, Riemann, Einstein, and Vernadsky are typical of this factor of the relative weight of culture affecting economic productivity of nations and their populations.
As that follower of Bernhard Riemann, Academician V. I. Vernadsky, has demonstrated, the relative potential productivity of a national culture, per capita and per square kilometer, can not be measured by any fixed mathematical standard. The increase of the relative productive powers of labor, as measured both per capita and per square kilometer of territory, demands those increases in relative potential energy-flux-density of sources of applied power which offset the depletion of the relatively richest deposits which the Biosphere has left behind for various forms of mining by the Noosphere.
This just-cited factor, for example, has determined modern society's ability to reach the Moon, and will determine the feasibility of regular transport of people, as distinct from mere "things," between Earth's Moon-orbit and Mars. That is to emphasize the crucial importance of the requirement of fusion propulsion for delivering human passengers in travel between Earth-Moon orbit and the lunar orbit of Mars. It is only through the more or less steady increase of the modes of energy-flux- density employed, that the survival of the human species on Earth depends. Fission and fusion are today's benchmarks of existing human cultures' fitness to survive.
This factor of required increase of energy-flux density, is correlated with relative capital intensity. Only through relatively "geometric" rates of increase in basic economic infrastructure, including that of modes of production, can the even the mere potential population-density of a society be defended.
These conceptions were built into the economy of what became the United States since approximately 1620, and were echoed as a matter of principle by the anti-Manchester policies of Chanellor Otto von Bismarck, as the same conceptions are to be found in the policies of France under Louis XI and the role of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and the role of the Ecole Polytechnique of France under the pre-1815 leadership of the circles of Gaspard Monge and Lazare Carnot.
Thus, those notions of capital-intensity are built into the American System of political-economy, as that notion was associated with the work of Alexander Hamilton's specifications for the American System of political-economy. That notion of a science of physical economy, as opposed monetarist dogma, is the historical root of competent scientific notions of maintenance and increase of the per capita and per square kilometer productive powers of labor up through the present day. In my own work, I have simply emphasized more up-to-date physical standards.
In the matter of applying this view of the principles of any competent expression of a science of economy, and of economic forecasting, these conceptions, as encapsulated in my crafting and use of a "triple-curve" function, provide the degree approximation of a practicable every-day economic science suited to the shaping of a competent U.S. national policy, and also a system of global cooperation among a set of fixed-exchange-rate credit-systems of a world economy.
One we have settled upon that standard, we next turn to the obvious matter of reversible as distinct from irreversible declines in a particularly organized system of national economy. Thus, what we properly seeking, in approaching the question of whether or not an irreversible down-shift in a particular system of national economy, or world economy, has been reached.
Thus, when I speak, or write of a breaking-point downward in the October state of the U.S. national economy, my standard is that of the test of implicit non reversibility of a qualitative down- shift in the productivity of that economy. This means a condition which can not be escaped by any means short of a qualitative change in the present organization of the structure of that economy. In this present case, that means a required shift from the present, monetarist, form of a hopelessly bankrupt form of economy under the thumb of the Federal Reserve System, to reestablish the rule of the credit system specified in the U.S. Federal Constitution.
It is the function of a U.S. return to its constitutional credit- system, away from the monetarist systems which pollute, for example, nations such as Russia, China, and India today, which defines the indispensable role of the U.S.A. in any competent effort to avoid a planet-wide plunge into a new dark age. The refusal of such a role by any among that "big four" would now mean a general breakdown of every economy of the planet, at a very early stage.
Unfortunately, the only alternative, and that is very much temporary, to what I have proposed again, here, would be a savage dictatorship comparable to that the Hitler war time dictatorship in Germany. In other words, for the U.S.A., this means either my approach, or a savage, mass-murderous form of Hitler-like austerity, imposed by the present Obama administration.
You see: you do have a choice, but only for the short term, as Hitler might have said during his last days in the bunker.
In other words, it is the absence or present imposition of precisely those reforms which I have presented, which will determine the chosen direction in the fate of the U.S. population during the weeks immediately ahead.
Therefore, in any case, an implicitly irreversible, significant downshift in the level of financial support of population and institutions, under post-September 30th conditions, would be an irreversible, probably fascist-style political down-shift of the entire U.S. economy, which would be sufficient evidence that the next phase of general collapse of both the U.S. economy, and also, therefore, the world economy at large, has occurred. In other words, either a precipitous collapse in the market, or a sharp turn toward pro-fascist modes of austerity, would suffice to prove that a qualitative change with the characteristics of a breakdown- crisis has been confirmed.
1) - The empire crumbles: THIS TOWER OF BABBLE -- http://www.larouchepac.com/node/11916
2) - General McChrystal's Folly - http://www.larouchepac.com/print/11910
Mike Billington
The Season of A Twentieth Anniversary: NOW, OCTOBER!
The Season of A Twentieth Anniversary:
NOW, OCTOBER!
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
September 30, 2009 (LPAC)- During the recent days, I have presented a series of reports bearing on the matter of the nature and causes of the presently onrushing October crisis of both the U.S.A.'s and the world's current entry into the crucial phase of a global economic-breakdown crisis. I have indicated the first half of October as a crucial period of phase-shift into the actuality of the already looming, initial onset of that actual breakdown. Here, I restate the case with special emphasis on identifying the probable forms in which the present inevitability of that phase-shift might be expressed during the weeks immediately ahead.
Now, that Germany's parliamentary elections have just been concluded, the citizens of the U.S.A. should be reminded, that today's continuing political mass-strike against both the Obama Administration and the membership of the increasingly despised current session of the U.S. Congress, is an echo of that great mass strike in East Germany which brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall about twenty years ago. How, then, would the alleged "ordinary citizen" expect to recognize the signs of such a development during its opening phase?
Now, in the U.S.A. today, the cry of "Wir sind das Volk!" from Germany then, is echoed by the theme "We are the people!" which is resounding from the voices of a still-rising mass-strike movement from among the majority of the U.S. adult population. For that majority of our adult citizenry, especially the thirty percentile of the unemployed labor-force for whom the new great economic depression had already begun, as this fact is expressed by the virtually unprecedented fall of popular support for the de facto British Empire's puppet, President Barack Obama.
Now, as the ominous month of October descends upon the entire planet, a new, greater existential crisis than that, has arisen from among the nations of the world. October is the setting which promises an onrushing economic breakdown-crisis world-wide. At this time, there is no good reason to doubt either that the October 2009 entry into a new U.S. fiscal year, defines a general breakdown of monetary-financial system of not only the U.S. economy, or, that this monetary-breakdown-crisis will now reverberate as the common ruin of nations throughout the world. Therefore, the only questions in the minds of actually competent economists, are the following two: "First: Exactly what specific form will this already onrushing breakdown-crisis take, during the month of October and for a short time beyond? Second: Is there an alternative?"
This season, the ironical joke will probably be, "What favorite politician will be hanging from your Christmas tree."
The reply will likely be: "We are not having a Christmas tree this year."
The rejoinder would probably be: "Aha: your politicians must really be scared!"
The entire planet has now entered the onset of a planetary "new dark age" - - unless very specific kinds of changes, from a world monetary system, to a "Hamiltonian" quality of mutual credit-system, were to be launched by a leading combination of the U.S.A., Russia, China, and India. Shallow-minded people will insist that such a change is impossible. I know better. The needed change is possible; the question is, do the governments of those four nations have the wisdom to act upon the great opportunity for general reform now placed before them? The reason this reform might gain its needed support, is that no nation of this planet has any chance of surviving the failure of those leading nations to join in launching the needed anti-monetarist reform.
Therefore, before mistaking this October's bad news as leaving us no real alternative, review two crucial issues. First, review the causes for this timing of the oncoming monetary- financial breakdown-crisis which being guided currently by the British empire's outright ownership of the foolish administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Second, consider the alternate option.
The U.S. Economic Crisis
The only publicly known method of competent economic forecasting for national economies of the world since my January 1996 announcement of my candidacy for the U.S. Presidential nomination for the Democratic Party at that time, has been a heuristic device presented then as my "Triple Curve." Since that time, it has been proven to have been the only competent method of forecasting throughout the world. In that sense, the present, world-wide breakdown-crisis of the reigning global monetary- financial system can be fairly described as a result of the failure to take up my now thoroughly vindicated forecasting into account.
The most crucial three elements which define the overall causes for the presently oncoming, general economic-breakdown crisis of the planetary system as a whole are:
First: the curve of presently hyper-inflationary monetarist system. When the rate of expansion of this monetarist inflation overtook and surpassed the rate of financial expansion, in Summer 2007, the pre-conditions for a looming threat of a general, global breakdown-crisis of the type presented by that of March-November 1923, was already fully under way.
Second: the shift of the financial curve, under those conditions, from inflationary, to deflationary, since no later than that Summer-Autumn interval of 2007.
Third: the accelerated rate of collapse of physical output per capita and per square kilometer.
When, under these conditions, the rate of growth of represented by the acceleration of the hyper-inflationary monetary curve, which had overtaken the rate of growth of financial curve, such that the financial curve's reverse course, became, apparently, deflationary. The accelerated rate of collapse of relative physical output per capita, combined with the acceleration of monetary emissions, the deflationary course of financial flows, and the accelerated rate of collapse of physical economic output, signaled the definite arrival of conditions corresponding precisely to the pattern of the Spring-Autumn 1923 hyper-inflationary breakdown of the Weimar economy.
So, the relevant precedent for the type of breakdown-crisis under way presently, is the case of Weimar Germany's economy of the period concluding with November 1923. In this case, the French occupation of the Rhineland triggered the actuality of the already menacing threat of a hyper-inflationary breakdown-crisis. The relationship among the three elements of today's Triple-curve pattern in the U.S.A. today, were those present in 1923 Germany.
However, when, as in 1923 Germany, or the U.S.A. today, the combination of a monetary hyperinflation overtakes the rate of expansion of financial aggregates, as the initiatives of Senator Chris Dodd and that fanatic and U.S. Representative Barney Frank had done, and the net physical output of the economy is declining, the pre-conditions for a hyper-inflationary breakdown of the entire economy exist, as they existed then, and in the U.S. trends since August 2007. What the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations have done, since then, and through the present date, has been clinically insane. However, the same specific conditions also prevail in the world economy as a whole.
The case of Germany 1923 was, admittedly, exceptional. Germany was then subjected to absolutely artificial, predatory conditions defined by the Versailles conditionalities imposed, chiefly, by the Bank of England, the Manhattan monetarists, and the revanchist French regimes. In the present case, the kinds of boundary conditions imposed by, chiefly, the trio of London, Paris, and Wall Street, as under the conditions those three powers have imposed upon a reunified Germany now, applied to limited sector of the world economy. Today, the conditions imposed upon Weimar Germany have been imposed, in effect, upon the entire world, as by, implicitly the monstrously corrupt International Monetary Fund (IMF) system.
So, the logic of what the Versailles powers did to 1920s Weimar Germany, is the same logic, applied on a global scale, to produce the preconditions for today's hyper-inflationary breakdown-crisis on an unlimited scale. It is fairly said that economic thinking ruling most of the national governments of the world now, have been, and remain, clinically insane.
Then, as now, the only competent remedy for a breakdown condition such as those of Weimar Germany 1923 and the U.S. economy today, is to put the system as a whole into reorganization in bankruptcy by the relevant sovereign nation- state, using the equivalent of a Glass-Steagall standard for reorganization of the entire system in bankruptcy. The fictitious monetary assets must be simply canceled, and the relevant economy reconstituted on the basis of an anti-monetarist credit- system, canceling the morally fraudulent monetarist assets.
Thus, for the U.S.A. itself, the formal conditions for saving the U.S. government itself from a total financial breakdown caused by the burden of monetarist interests, and return to the constitutional ban on monetarist practices inhering in the Hamiltonian prescription embedded in the U.S. Federal Constitution.
Once that approach were adopted by the U.S.A. in conjunction with some other leading nations, such as Russia, China, and India, a general recovery of the world economy could be set into motion. For the moment, however, for as long as western and central Europe remains under the British monetarist boot, those nations lack the mechanisms of sovereignty required to effect the needed reform. Thus, without a bloc of anti- monetarist cooperation among the credit-systems of the U.S.A. Russia, China, India, and other powers which choose to join them in a common effort, a general plunge of all nations of the planet into a prolonged, global "Dark Age" were virtually inevitable.
Without an initiative to that effect by the U.S.A., such a recovery would not be possible. The doom of mankind for a generation or more to come, would then be inevitable.
Clearly, the British monetarist-imperialist system would resist such reforms, virtually to the bitter end. No matter; it is essential that civilization more generally survive, while the necessary fundamental changes in the United Kingdom's affairs appear, more or less reluctantly after the remainder of the world has cast its own vote for economic sanity.
However, if the remedy I have identified is not adopted, the world as a whole is already foredoomed for a season in Hell. To understand that immediate threat of a global breakdown-crisis, the factor of what is called "globalization" must be taken into account.
Why a Global Collapse
There are certain incompetent, or otherwise misguided economists and officials of governments, in various parts of the planet, who are deluded into believing that a collapse of the U.S. dollar would not trigger an inevitable, virtually simultaneous collapse of every nation of the planet. Only the government of China has a realistic view of this matter among governments generally, at this presently. The others are to be fairly described as hypnotized by the seductive charms of some strange fairy, perhaps one in incarnate the disguise of a Keynesian monetarist.
Without a conversion of the economy of some cooperating leading nations of the world, from participation in a monetarist system to a Hamiltonian type of credit system, there is no chance for what might be called a survival of any national economy on this planet today. This will be made clear to all who are not deluded, by developments already coming to the surface during the month of October.
For example: if we could presume that the present policies of the Obama administration were to be continued through the month of October and slightly beyond, the U.S.A. is already as good as doomed to the worst physical breakdown of its society since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Death rates would soar beyond the powers of imagination of most living today, even way beyond the already frankly homicidal intentions of the Hitler- modeled IMAC provisions for the proposed Obama health-care "reform."
Now turn our attention to the next question. Presuming that the reforms which I have proposed are not being introduced into U.S law and official practice during October, what form of expression would a consequent, general breakdown-crisis of the U.S. economy assume?
Perception or Reality?
As I presented the conclusive evidence to this fact for the case of the 1971 collapse of the U.S. economy under the U.S. Nixon administration, as in my defeat of the leading British Keynesian economist Abba Lerner, in a celebrated December 1971 debate, the predominantly pro-Keynesian, or worse economists rampant in academic and comparable positions still today, is shown by such person's failed forecasts, as so shown by comparison with my own, relatively infallible record since 1956-57. Their forecasts have been premised chiefly on, either purely monetarist considerations, or studies of physical- economic processes as interpretations adapted to monetarist statistic methods. The assumption that the character and regulation of patterns of net physical growth in economies can be defined by, and adduced from statistical methods generally, is a terrible fallacy which ignores the determining influences of physical-capital factors underlying both physical production and productivity.
In other words, the physical changes in productivity, per capita and per square kilometer, are principally determined by the combination of principled physical-scientific factors and the relative impact of a modality of Classical artistic culture in poetry, drama, music, painting and sculpture. The crucial role of such cultural factors is dynamic in the sense of Gottfried Leibniz's exposure of the fraud of Cartesian mathematics, as that proof was relevant to the role of the modern physical-scientific sense of the Classical term "dynamics," as "dynamics" is the underlying principle in both matters physical science and Classical artistic composition. It is in those creative faculties unique to the human Classical modes of the imagination from which the creative powers of physical science are derived. The case of Albert Einstein and his violin, is typical of the essential role of this connection of Classical artistic composition to valid expressions of scientific progress.
As my own relatively unique successes in economic forecasting have illustrated this fact, it is only through viewing the matters of monetary, financial, and physical-economic functions of national and world economy in that way, that the original character of changes in the relative productivity of world and national economy can be accessed. Not the least of these considerations is the role of creativity within the cultural habits of the population, including consideration of that underlying expression of the general disposition for creativity exhibited by the relative role of Classical artistic, as distinct from populist modalities among various strata of the population. Cusa, Kepler, Fermat, Leibniz, Riemann, Einstein, and Vernadsky are typical of this factor of the relative weight of culture affecting economic productivity of nations and their populations.
As that follower of Bernhard Riemann, Academician V. I. Vernadsky, has demonstrated, the relative potential productivity of a national culture, per capita and per square kilometer, can not be measured by any fixed mathematical standard. The increase of the relative productive powers of labor, as measured both per capita and per square kilometer of territory, demands those increases in relative potential energy-flux-density of sources of applied power which offset the depletion of the relatively richest deposits which the Biosphere has left behind for various forms of mining by the Noosphere.
This just-cited factor, for example, has determined modern society's ability to reach the Moon, and will determine the feasibility of regular transport of people, as distinct from mere "things," between Earth's Moon-orbit and Mars. That is to emphasize the crucial importance of the requirement of fusion propulsion for delivering human passengers in travel between Earth-Moon orbit and the lunar orbit of Mars. It is only through the more or less steady increase of the modes of energy-flux- density employed, that the survival of the human species on Earth depends. Fission and fusion are today's benchmarks of existing human cultures' fitness to survive.
This factor of required increase of energy-flux density, is correlated with relative capital intensity. Only through relatively "geometric" rates of increase in basic economic infrastructure, including that of modes of production, can the even the mere potential population-density of a society be defended.
These conceptions were built into the economy of what became the United States since approximately 1620, and were echoed as a matter of principle by the anti-Manchester policies of Chanellor Otto von Bismarck, as the same conceptions are to be found in the policies of France under Louis XI and the role of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and the role of the Ecole Polytechnique of France under the pre-1815 leadership of the circles of Gaspard Monge and Lazare Carnot.
Thus, those notions of capital-intensity are built into the American System of political-economy, as that notion was associated with the work of Alexander Hamilton's specifications for the American System of political-economy. That notion of a science of physical economy, as opposed monetarist dogma, is the historical root of competent scientific notions of maintenance and increase of the per capita and per square kilometer productive powers of labor up through the present day. In my own work, I have simply emphasized more up-to-date physical standards.
In the matter of applying this view of the principles of any competent expression of a science of economy, and of economic forecasting, these conceptions, as encapsulated in my crafting and use of a "triple-curve" function, provide the degree approximation of a practicable every-day economic science suited to the shaping of a competent U.S. national policy, and also a system of global cooperation among a set of fixed-exchange-rate credit-systems of a world economy.
One we have settled upon that standard, we next turn to the obvious matter of reversible as distinct from irreversible declines in a particularly organized system of national economy. Thus, what we properly seeking, in approaching the question of whether or not an irreversible down-shift in a particular system of national economy, or world economy, has been reached.
Thus, when I speak, or write of a breaking-point downward in the October state of the U.S. national economy, my standard is that of the test of implicit non reversibility of a qualitative down- shift in the productivity of that economy. This means a condition which can not be escaped by any means short of a qualitative change in the present organization of the structure of that economy. In this present case, that means a required shift from the present, monetarist, form of a hopelessly bankrupt form of economy under the thumb of the Federal Reserve System, to reestablish the rule of the credit system specified in the U.S. Federal Constitution.
It is the function of a U.S. return to its constitutional credit- system, away from the monetarist systems which pollute, for example, nations such as Russia, China, and India today, which defines the indispensable role of the U.S.A. in any competent effort to avoid a planet-wide plunge into a new dark age. The refusal of such a role by any among that "big four" would now mean a general breakdown of every economy of the planet, at a very early stage.
Unfortunately, the only alternative, and that is very much temporary, to what I have proposed again, here, would be a savage dictatorship comparable to that the Hitler war time dictatorship in Germany. In other words, for the U.S.A., this means either my approach, or a savage, mass-murderous form of Hitler-like austerity, imposed by the present Obama administration.
You see: you do have a choice, but only for the short term, as Hitler might have said during his last days in the bunker.
In other words, it is the absence or present imposition of precisely those reforms which I have presented, which will determine the chosen direction in the fate of the U.S. population during the weeks immediately ahead.
Therefore, in any case, an implicitly irreversible, significant downshift in the level of financial support of population and institutions, under post-September 30th conditions, would be an irreversible, probably fascist-style political down-shift of the entire U.S. economy, which would be sufficient evidence that the next phase of general collapse of both the U.S. economy, and also, therefore, the world economy at large, has occurred. In other words, either a precipitous collapse in the market, or a sharp turn toward pro-fascist modes of austerity, would suffice to prove that a qualitative change with the characteristics of a breakdown- crisis has been confirmed.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
American presence in Mindanao not necessary.
From: Fortunato Abat
American presence in Mindanao not necessary.
After the abrogation of the RP-US military bases agreement, American interest and presence in Mindanao today through the VFA was rekindled purportedly in pursuit of her worldwide anti-terrorist campaign after the 9/11 incident.
If it is only for her worldwide anti-terrorist campaign, American presence in Mindanao is not necessary. Philippine forces have been fighting terrorism in Mindanao even before 9/11. All that is needed is for America to honor its MAP (Military Assistance Pact) commitment to provide the military hardware and munitions to include aircraft and surface vessels and other wherewithals to give the Philippine forces better capability to fight terrorism in support of America’s worldwide anti-terrorism effort.
During CEMCOM days in the early ‘70’s, America refused to honor MAP because they (the Americans) did not like what they commit to be used against our own people (the MNLF). (Why the HMBs and later the NPAs?) But the main reason was their oil interest; they did not want to dirty their hands supporting an armed force against a force that the Middle Eastern potentates were supporting.
Even in the early days of the American occupation, after the failed Pershing and (Arthur) MacArthur expeditions against the Moros, the American occupation government in Manila had to mend its relations with the Moros through the Department of Mindanao and Sulu.
Now, America’s continuing interest in Mindanao has been revealed in the MILF’s MOA AD as a US-protected-Moroland beyond what Misuari has conceived in ZOPAD (Zone of Peace and Development).
American presence in Mindanao not necessary.
After the abrogation of the RP-US military bases agreement, American interest and presence in Mindanao today through the VFA was rekindled purportedly in pursuit of her worldwide anti-terrorist campaign after the 9/11 incident.
If it is only for her worldwide anti-terrorist campaign, American presence in Mindanao is not necessary. Philippine forces have been fighting terrorism in Mindanao even before 9/11. All that is needed is for America to honor its MAP (Military Assistance Pact) commitment to provide the military hardware and munitions to include aircraft and surface vessels and other wherewithals to give the Philippine forces better capability to fight terrorism in support of America’s worldwide anti-terrorism effort.
During CEMCOM days in the early ‘70’s, America refused to honor MAP because they (the Americans) did not like what they commit to be used against our own people (the MNLF). (Why the HMBs and later the NPAs?) But the main reason was their oil interest; they did not want to dirty their hands supporting an armed force against a force that the Middle Eastern potentates were supporting.
Even in the early days of the American occupation, after the failed Pershing and (Arthur) MacArthur expeditions against the Moros, the American occupation government in Manila had to mend its relations with the Moros through the Department of Mindanao and Sulu.
Now, America’s continuing interest in Mindanao has been revealed in the MILF’s MOA AD as a US-protected-Moroland beyond what Misuari has conceived in ZOPAD (Zone of Peace and Development).
Mexico: Emergence of an Unexpected Threat
from STRATFOR
Mexico: Emergence of an Unexpected Threat
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September 30, 2009 | 1745 GMT
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Scott Stewart
At approximately 2 a.m. on Sept. 25, a small improvised explosive device (IED) consisting of three or four butane canisters was used to attack a Banamex bank branch in the Milpa Alta delegation of Mexico City. The device damaged an ATM and shattered the bank’s front windows. It was not an isolated event. The bombing was the seventh recorded IED attack in the Federal District — and the fifth such attack against a local bank branch — since the beginning of September.
The attack was claimed in a communique posted to a Spanish-language anarchist Web site by a group calling itself the Subversive Alliance for the Liberation of the Earth, Animals and Humans (ASLTAH). The note said, “Once again we have proven who our enemies are,” indicating that the organization’s “cells for the dissolution of civilization” were behind the other, similar attacks. The communique noted that the organization had attacked Banamex because it was a “business that promotes torture, destruction and slavery” and vowed that ASLTAH would not stop attacking “until we see your ashes.” The group closed its communique by sending greetings to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the “eco-pyromaniacs for the liberation of the earth in this place.” Communiques have also claimed some of the other recent IED attacks in the name of ASLTAH.
On Sept. 22, authorities also discovered and disabled a small IED left outside of a MetLife insurance office in Guadalajara, Jalisco state. A message spray-painted on a wall near where the device was found read, “Novartis stop torturing animals,” a reference to the multinational pharmaceutical company, which has an office near where the IED was found and which has been heavily targeted by the group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Novartis is a large customer of Huntingdon Life Sciences, the research company SHAC was formed to destroy because Huntingdon uses animals in its testing for harmful side effects of drugs, chemicals and consumer items. A second message spray-painted on a wall near where the device was found on Sept. 22 read, “Novartis break with HLS.” Two other IEDs were detonated at banks in Mexico City on the same day.
These IED attacks are the most recent incidents in a wave of anarchist, animal rights, and eco-protest attacks that have swept across Mexico this year. Activists have conducted literally hundreds of incidents of vandalism, arson and, in more recent months, IED attacks in various locations across the country. The most active cells are in Mexico City and Guadalajara.
For a country in the midst of a bloody cartel war in which thousands of people are killed every year — and where serious crimes like kidnapping terrorize nearly every segment of society — direct-action attacks by militant activists are hardly the biggest threat faced by the Mexican government. However, the escalation of direct-action attacks in Mexico that has resulted in the more frequent use of IEDs shows no sign of abating, and these attacks are likely to grow more frequent, spectacular and deadly.
The Wave
Precisely quantifying the wave of direct-action attacks in Mexico is difficult for a number of reasons. One is that the reporting of such incidents is spotty and the police, the press and the activists themselves are often not consistent in what they report and how. Moreover, is often hard to separate direct-action vandalism from incidents of plain old non-political vandalism or tell the difference between an anarchist IED attack against a bank and an IED attack against a bank conducted by a Marxist group such as the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). Then there is the issue of counting. Should a series of five Molotov cocktail attacks against ATMs or the destruction of 20 Telmex phone booths in one night be counted as one attack or as separate incidents?
If we count conservatively — e.g., consider a series of like incidents as one — we can say there have been around 200 direct-action attacks to date in 2009. But if we count each incident separately, we can easily claim there have been more than 400 such attacks. For example, by our count, there have been more than 350 Telmex phone booths smashed, burned or otherwise vandalized so far this year. (Activists will do things like glue metal shavings into the calling-card and coin slots.) However, for the sake of this analysis we’ll go with the conservative number of about 200 attacks.
Now, Telmex seems to be the most popular target so far for direct-action attacks. In addition to hitting phone booths, activists also have attacked Telmex vehicles and offices and have cut Telmex cables. From their statements, the activists appear to hold a special hatred for Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world and the chairman of Telmex and several other companies. In many ways, Slim — a patriarchal billionaire industrialist — is the personification of almost everything that the anarchistic activists hate. In addition to Telmex and banks, the activists also have attacked other targets such as restaurants (including McDonald’s and KFC), meat shops, pet shops, fur and leather stores, luxury vehicles, and construction equipment.
The activists’ most common tactics tend to be on the lower end of the violence scale and include graffiti and paint (frequently red to symbolize the blood of animals) to vandalize a target. They also frequently release captive birds or animals as well as use superglue and pieces of metal to obstruct locks, pay phones and ATM card readers. Moving up the violence continuum, activists less frequently will break windows, burn buildings and vehicles, and make bomb threats — there have been at least 157 incidents involving arson or incendiary devices so far in 2009. To help put this into perspective, these activists have conducted more arson attacks in Mexico to date in 2009 than their American counterparts have conducted in the United States since 2001.
At the high end of the violence spectrum are the IED attacks, and this is where there has really been an increase in activity in recent weeks. In the first six months of 2009, there were several bomb threats and hoaxes and a few acid bombs, but only two real IEDs were used. In June, July and August there was one IED attack per month — and so far in September there have been seven IED attacks in Mexico City alone and one successful attack and one attempted attack in Guadalajara. Again, by way of comparison, these eight IED attacks by Mexican activists in September are more than American activists have conducted in the United States since 2001.
Proliferation of IEDs
There are several factors that can explain this trend toward the activists’ increasing use of IEDs. The first is, quite simply, that IEDs generate more attention than graffiti, glue or even an arson attack — indeed, here we are devoting a weekly security report to activist IED attacks in Mexico. In light of the overall level of violence in Mexico, most observers have ignored the past lower-level activity by these activist groups, and IEDs help cut through the noise and bring attention to the activists’ causes. The scope and frequency of IED attacks this month ensured that they could not be overlooked.
The second factor is the learning curve of the cells’ bombmakers. As a bombmaker becomes more proficient in his tradecraft, the devices he crafts tend to become both more reliable and more powerful. The improvement in tradecraft also means that the bombmaker is able to increase his operational tempo and deploy devices more frequently. It is quite possible that the few IEDs that were reported as hoaxes in March, April and May could have been IEDs that did not function properly — a common occurrence for new bombmakers who do not extensively test their devices.
The third factor is thrill and ego. In many past cases, militant activists have launched progressively larger attacks. One reason for this is that after a series of direct-action attacks, the activists get bored doing lower-level things like gluing locks or paint-stripping cars and they move to more destructive and spectacular attacks, such as those using timed incendiary devices. For many activists, there is a thrill associated with getting increased attention for the cause, in causing more damage to their targets and in getting away with increasingly brazen attacks.
Finally, in recent years, we have noted a shift among activist groups away from a strict concern for human life. Many activists are becoming convinced that less violent tactics have been ineffective, and if they really want to save the Earth and animals, they need to take more aggressive action. There is a small but growing fringe of hard-core activists who believe that, to paraphrase Lenin, you have to break eggs to make an omelet.
The Ruckus Society, a direct-action activist training organization, explains it this way in a training document: “There is a law against breaking into a house. However, if you break into a house as part of a greater good, such as rushing into the house to save a child from a fire, it is permissible to break that law. In fact, you can say that there is even a moral obligation to break that law. In the same way then, it is permissible to break minor laws to save the Earth.” In general, activists do not condone violent action directed at humans, but neither do they always condemn it in very strong terms — they often explain that the anger that prompts such violence is “understandable” in light of what they perceive as ecological injustice and cruelty to animals.
In recent years there has been a polarization in the animal rights and environmental movements, with fringe activists becoming increasingly isolated and violent — and more likely to use potentially deadly tools like IEDs in their attacks.
Confluences
The very name of ASLTAH — the Subversive Alliance for the Liberation of the Earth, Animals and Humans — illustrates the interesting confluence of animal rights, ecological activism and anti-imperialism/anarchism that inhabit the radical fringe. It is not uncommon for one cell of independent activists to claim it carried out its attacks under the banner of “organizations” such as ELF, ALF or SHAC. In true anarchistic style, however, these organizations are amorphous and nonhierarchical — there is no single ELF, ALF or SHAC. Rather, the individual activists and cells who act on behalf of the organizations control their own activities while adhering to guidelines circulated in meetings and conferences, via the Internet, and in various magazines, newsletters and other publications. These individual activists and cells are driven only by their consciences, or by group decisions within the cell. This results in a level of operational security that can be hard for law enforcement and security officials to breach.
As noted above, these activists have been far more active in Mexico than they have in the United States. One reason for this is that the operating environment north of the border is markedly different than it is in Mexico. In the United States, the FBI and local and state police agencies have focused hard on these activists, and groups like ELF and ALF have been branded as domestic terrorists. There have been several major investigations into these groups in recent years.
South of the border it is a different matter. Mexican authorities are plagued with problems ranging from drug cartels to Marxist terrorist/insurgent groups like the EPR to rampant police and government corruption. Simply put, there is a vacuum of law and order in Mexico and that vacuum is clearly reflected in statistics such as the number of kidnappings inside the country every year. The overall level of violence in Mexico and this vacuum of authority provide room for the activists to operate, and the host of other crime and violence issues plaguing the country works to ensure that the authorities are simply too busy to place much emphasis on investigating activist attacks and catching those responsible for them. Therefore, the activists operate boldly and with a sense of impunity that often leads to an increase in violence — especially within the context of a very violent place, which Mexico is at the present time.
This atmosphere means that the activist cells behind the increase in IED attacks will be able to continue their campaigns against assorted capitalist, animal and ecological targets with very little chance of being seriously pursued. Consequently, as the IED campaign continues, the attacks will likely become more frequent and more destructive. And given Mexico’s densely populated cities and the activists’ target sets, this escalation will ensure that the attacks will eventually turn deadly.
Mexico: Emergence of an Unexpected Threat
Join STRATFOR's free email list and you'll get STRATFOR's FREE Intelligence in your inbox each week.
September 30, 2009 | 1745 GMT
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Scott Stewart
At approximately 2 a.m. on Sept. 25, a small improvised explosive device (IED) consisting of three or four butane canisters was used to attack a Banamex bank branch in the Milpa Alta delegation of Mexico City. The device damaged an ATM and shattered the bank’s front windows. It was not an isolated event. The bombing was the seventh recorded IED attack in the Federal District — and the fifth such attack against a local bank branch — since the beginning of September.
The attack was claimed in a communique posted to a Spanish-language anarchist Web site by a group calling itself the Subversive Alliance for the Liberation of the Earth, Animals and Humans (ASLTAH). The note said, “Once again we have proven who our enemies are,” indicating that the organization’s “cells for the dissolution of civilization” were behind the other, similar attacks. The communique noted that the organization had attacked Banamex because it was a “business that promotes torture, destruction and slavery” and vowed that ASLTAH would not stop attacking “until we see your ashes.” The group closed its communique by sending greetings to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the “eco-pyromaniacs for the liberation of the earth in this place.” Communiques have also claimed some of the other recent IED attacks in the name of ASLTAH.
On Sept. 22, authorities also discovered and disabled a small IED left outside of a MetLife insurance office in Guadalajara, Jalisco state. A message spray-painted on a wall near where the device was found read, “Novartis stop torturing animals,” a reference to the multinational pharmaceutical company, which has an office near where the IED was found and which has been heavily targeted by the group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Novartis is a large customer of Huntingdon Life Sciences, the research company SHAC was formed to destroy because Huntingdon uses animals in its testing for harmful side effects of drugs, chemicals and consumer items. A second message spray-painted on a wall near where the device was found on Sept. 22 read, “Novartis break with HLS.” Two other IEDs were detonated at banks in Mexico City on the same day.
These IED attacks are the most recent incidents in a wave of anarchist, animal rights, and eco-protest attacks that have swept across Mexico this year. Activists have conducted literally hundreds of incidents of vandalism, arson and, in more recent months, IED attacks in various locations across the country. The most active cells are in Mexico City and Guadalajara.
For a country in the midst of a bloody cartel war in which thousands of people are killed every year — and where serious crimes like kidnapping terrorize nearly every segment of society — direct-action attacks by militant activists are hardly the biggest threat faced by the Mexican government. However, the escalation of direct-action attacks in Mexico that has resulted in the more frequent use of IEDs shows no sign of abating, and these attacks are likely to grow more frequent, spectacular and deadly.
The Wave
Precisely quantifying the wave of direct-action attacks in Mexico is difficult for a number of reasons. One is that the reporting of such incidents is spotty and the police, the press and the activists themselves are often not consistent in what they report and how. Moreover, is often hard to separate direct-action vandalism from incidents of plain old non-political vandalism or tell the difference between an anarchist IED attack against a bank and an IED attack against a bank conducted by a Marxist group such as the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). Then there is the issue of counting. Should a series of five Molotov cocktail attacks against ATMs or the destruction of 20 Telmex phone booths in one night be counted as one attack or as separate incidents?
If we count conservatively — e.g., consider a series of like incidents as one — we can say there have been around 200 direct-action attacks to date in 2009. But if we count each incident separately, we can easily claim there have been more than 400 such attacks. For example, by our count, there have been more than 350 Telmex phone booths smashed, burned or otherwise vandalized so far this year. (Activists will do things like glue metal shavings into the calling-card and coin slots.) However, for the sake of this analysis we’ll go with the conservative number of about 200 attacks.
Now, Telmex seems to be the most popular target so far for direct-action attacks. In addition to hitting phone booths, activists also have attacked Telmex vehicles and offices and have cut Telmex cables. From their statements, the activists appear to hold a special hatred for Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world and the chairman of Telmex and several other companies. In many ways, Slim — a patriarchal billionaire industrialist — is the personification of almost everything that the anarchistic activists hate. In addition to Telmex and banks, the activists also have attacked other targets such as restaurants (including McDonald’s and KFC), meat shops, pet shops, fur and leather stores, luxury vehicles, and construction equipment.
The activists’ most common tactics tend to be on the lower end of the violence scale and include graffiti and paint (frequently red to symbolize the blood of animals) to vandalize a target. They also frequently release captive birds or animals as well as use superglue and pieces of metal to obstruct locks, pay phones and ATM card readers. Moving up the violence continuum, activists less frequently will break windows, burn buildings and vehicles, and make bomb threats — there have been at least 157 incidents involving arson or incendiary devices so far in 2009. To help put this into perspective, these activists have conducted more arson attacks in Mexico to date in 2009 than their American counterparts have conducted in the United States since 2001.
At the high end of the violence spectrum are the IED attacks, and this is where there has really been an increase in activity in recent weeks. In the first six months of 2009, there were several bomb threats and hoaxes and a few acid bombs, but only two real IEDs were used. In June, July and August there was one IED attack per month — and so far in September there have been seven IED attacks in Mexico City alone and one successful attack and one attempted attack in Guadalajara. Again, by way of comparison, these eight IED attacks by Mexican activists in September are more than American activists have conducted in the United States since 2001.
Proliferation of IEDs
There are several factors that can explain this trend toward the activists’ increasing use of IEDs. The first is, quite simply, that IEDs generate more attention than graffiti, glue or even an arson attack — indeed, here we are devoting a weekly security report to activist IED attacks in Mexico. In light of the overall level of violence in Mexico, most observers have ignored the past lower-level activity by these activist groups, and IEDs help cut through the noise and bring attention to the activists’ causes. The scope and frequency of IED attacks this month ensured that they could not be overlooked.
The second factor is the learning curve of the cells’ bombmakers. As a bombmaker becomes more proficient in his tradecraft, the devices he crafts tend to become both more reliable and more powerful. The improvement in tradecraft also means that the bombmaker is able to increase his operational tempo and deploy devices more frequently. It is quite possible that the few IEDs that were reported as hoaxes in March, April and May could have been IEDs that did not function properly — a common occurrence for new bombmakers who do not extensively test their devices.
The third factor is thrill and ego. In many past cases, militant activists have launched progressively larger attacks. One reason for this is that after a series of direct-action attacks, the activists get bored doing lower-level things like gluing locks or paint-stripping cars and they move to more destructive and spectacular attacks, such as those using timed incendiary devices. For many activists, there is a thrill associated with getting increased attention for the cause, in causing more damage to their targets and in getting away with increasingly brazen attacks.
Finally, in recent years, we have noted a shift among activist groups away from a strict concern for human life. Many activists are becoming convinced that less violent tactics have been ineffective, and if they really want to save the Earth and animals, they need to take more aggressive action. There is a small but growing fringe of hard-core activists who believe that, to paraphrase Lenin, you have to break eggs to make an omelet.
The Ruckus Society, a direct-action activist training organization, explains it this way in a training document: “There is a law against breaking into a house. However, if you break into a house as part of a greater good, such as rushing into the house to save a child from a fire, it is permissible to break that law. In fact, you can say that there is even a moral obligation to break that law. In the same way then, it is permissible to break minor laws to save the Earth.” In general, activists do not condone violent action directed at humans, but neither do they always condemn it in very strong terms — they often explain that the anger that prompts such violence is “understandable” in light of what they perceive as ecological injustice and cruelty to animals.
In recent years there has been a polarization in the animal rights and environmental movements, with fringe activists becoming increasingly isolated and violent — and more likely to use potentially deadly tools like IEDs in their attacks.
Confluences
The very name of ASLTAH — the Subversive Alliance for the Liberation of the Earth, Animals and Humans — illustrates the interesting confluence of animal rights, ecological activism and anti-imperialism/anarchism that inhabit the radical fringe. It is not uncommon for one cell of independent activists to claim it carried out its attacks under the banner of “organizations” such as ELF, ALF or SHAC. In true anarchistic style, however, these organizations are amorphous and nonhierarchical — there is no single ELF, ALF or SHAC. Rather, the individual activists and cells who act on behalf of the organizations control their own activities while adhering to guidelines circulated in meetings and conferences, via the Internet, and in various magazines, newsletters and other publications. These individual activists and cells are driven only by their consciences, or by group decisions within the cell. This results in a level of operational security that can be hard for law enforcement and security officials to breach.
As noted above, these activists have been far more active in Mexico than they have in the United States. One reason for this is that the operating environment north of the border is markedly different than it is in Mexico. In the United States, the FBI and local and state police agencies have focused hard on these activists, and groups like ELF and ALF have been branded as domestic terrorists. There have been several major investigations into these groups in recent years.
South of the border it is a different matter. Mexican authorities are plagued with problems ranging from drug cartels to Marxist terrorist/insurgent groups like the EPR to rampant police and government corruption. Simply put, there is a vacuum of law and order in Mexico and that vacuum is clearly reflected in statistics such as the number of kidnappings inside the country every year. The overall level of violence in Mexico and this vacuum of authority provide room for the activists to operate, and the host of other crime and violence issues plaguing the country works to ensure that the authorities are simply too busy to place much emphasis on investigating activist attacks and catching those responsible for them. Therefore, the activists operate boldly and with a sense of impunity that often leads to an increase in violence — especially within the context of a very violent place, which Mexico is at the present time.
This atmosphere means that the activist cells behind the increase in IED attacks will be able to continue their campaigns against assorted capitalist, animal and ecological targets with very little chance of being seriously pursued. Consequently, as the IED campaign continues, the attacks will likely become more frequent and more destructive. And given Mexico’s densely populated cities and the activists’ target sets, this escalation will ensure that the attacks will eventually turn deadly.
Tests on skull fragment cast doubt on Adolf Hitler suicide story
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/27/adolf-hitler-suicide-skull-fragment
Tests on skull fragment cast doubt on Adolf Hitler suicide story
Bone with bullet hole found by Russians in 1946 came from an unknown woman, not the German leader
Uki Goñi The Observer, Sunday 27 September 2009 Article history
Fragment of Adolf Hitler's skull
A general view of what Russian officials claim to be a fragment of Adolf Hitler's skull, at an exhibition in Moscow, Wed April 26, 2000. Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP
In countless biographies of Adolf Hitler the story of his final hours is recounted in the traditional version: committing suicide with Eva Braun, he took a cyanide pill and then shot himself on 30 April 1945, as the Russians bombarded Berlin.
Some historians expressed doubt that the Führer had shot himself, speculating that accounts of Hitler's death had been embellished to present his suicide in a suitably heroic light. But a fragment of skull, complete with bullet hole, which was taken from the bunker by the Russians and displayed in Moscow in 2000, appeared to settle the argument.
Until now. In the wake of new revelations, the histories of Hitler's death may need to be rewritten – and left open-ended. American researchers claim to have demonstrated that the skull fragment, secretly preserved for decades by Soviet intelligence, belonged to a woman under 40, whose identity is unknown. DNA analyses performed on the bone, now held by the Russian State Archive in Moscow, have been processed at the genetics lab of the University of Connecticut. The results, broadcast in the US by a History Channel documentary, Hitler's Escape, astonished scientists.
According to Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni, it was clear from the outset that something was amiss. "The bone seemed very thin; male bone tends to be more robust," he said. "And the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40." In April 1945 Hitler turned 56.
Bellantoni had flown to Moscow to inspect the gruesome Hitler trophies at the State Archive, which included the skull fragment as well as bloodstains from the bunker sofa on which Hitler and Braun were believed to have committed suicide. He was allowed only one hour with the Hitler trove, during which time he applied cotton swabs and took DNA samples. "I had the reference photos the Soviets took of the sofa in 1945 and I was seeing the exact same stains on the fragments of wood and fabric in front of me, so I knew I was working with the real thing."
The samples were then flown back to Connecticut. At the university's centre for applied genetics, Linda Strausbaugh closed her lab for three days to work exclusively on the Hitler project. "We used the same routines and controls that would have been used in a crime lab," she said. To her surprise, a small amount of viable DNA was extracted. She then replicated this through a process known as molecular copying to provide enough material for analysis. "We were very lucky to get a reading, despite the limited amount of genetic information," she said.
The result was extraordinary. According to witnesses, the bodies of Hitler and Braun had been wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the Berlin bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol and set ablaze.
But the skull fragment the Russians dug up outside the Führerbunker in 1946 could never have belonged to Hitler. The skull DNA was incontestably female. The only positive physical proof that Hitler had shot himself had suddenly been rendered worthless. The result is a mystery reopened and, for conspiracy theorists the tantalising possibility that Hitler did not die in the bunker.
For decades after the war the fate of Hitler's corpse was shrouded in secrecy. No picture or film was made public. As the Soviet Army secured control of Berlin in May 1945, Russian forensic specialists under the command of the counterintelligence unit Smersh (an acronym for "Death to Spies") dug up what was presumed to be the dictator's body outside the bunker and performed a post-mortem examination behind closed doors. A part of the skull was absent, presumably blown away by Hitler's suicide shot, but what remained of his jaw coincided with his dental records, a fact reportedly confirmed when the Russians showed his surviving dental work to the captured assistants of Hitler's dentist. The autopsy also reported that Hitler, as had been rumoured, had only one testicle.
But Stalin remained suspicious. In 1946 a second secret mission was dispatched to Berlin. In the same crater from which Hitler's body had been recovered, the new team found what it believed was the missing skull fragment with a bullet exit wound through it. The Russians also took fragments of Hitler's bloodstained sofa.
Even this failed to satisfy Stalin, who clamped a secrecy order on all matters related to Hitler's death. Unknown to the world, Hitler's corpse was interred at a Smersh centre in Magdeburg, East Germany. There it remained long after Stalin's death in 1953. Finally, in 1970, the KGB dug up the corpse, cremated it and secretly scattered the ashes in a river. Only the jawbone, the skull fragment and the bloodstained sofa segments were preserved in the deep archives of Soviet intelligence. The bunker was destroyed in 1947 and eventually paved over. Then, in 2000, the Russian State Archive in Moscow staged an exhibition, The Agony of the Third Reich. The skull fragment was displayed, but only photographs of Hitler's jawbone were on view. The head of the archive, Sergei Mironenko, said he had no doubt the skull fragment was authentic. "It is not just some bone we found in the street, but a fragment of a skull that was found in a hole where Hitler's body had been buried," he said.
In the wake of Bellantoni and Strausbaugh's findings, Mironenko's confidence was clearly misplaced. But could the fragment of skull belong to Eva Braun, who died at 33 and was laid alongside her beloved Führer in the same crater? "We know the skull corresponds to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40," said Bellantoni, but he is sceptical about the Braun thesis. "There is no report of Eva Braun having shot herself or having been shot afterwards. It could be anyone. Many people were killed around the bunker area."
Sixty-four years later, the world is still in the dark about what really happened in Hitler's bunker on 30 April 1945.
Uki Goñi is author of The Real Odessa (Granta), about the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe
Perhaps Hitler also had a double with one testicle and it was he that was shot and placed in the crater. Who knows...it may even be possible that Hitler and Eva Braun became war refugees and retired in Israel, the one place no one would think to look for him.
Tests on skull fragment cast doubt on Adolf Hitler suicide story
Bone with bullet hole found by Russians in 1946 came from an unknown woman, not the German leader
Uki Goñi The Observer, Sunday 27 September 2009 Article history
Fragment of Adolf Hitler's skull
A general view of what Russian officials claim to be a fragment of Adolf Hitler's skull, at an exhibition in Moscow, Wed April 26, 2000. Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP
In countless biographies of Adolf Hitler the story of his final hours is recounted in the traditional version: committing suicide with Eva Braun, he took a cyanide pill and then shot himself on 30 April 1945, as the Russians bombarded Berlin.
Some historians expressed doubt that the Führer had shot himself, speculating that accounts of Hitler's death had been embellished to present his suicide in a suitably heroic light. But a fragment of skull, complete with bullet hole, which was taken from the bunker by the Russians and displayed in Moscow in 2000, appeared to settle the argument.
Until now. In the wake of new revelations, the histories of Hitler's death may need to be rewritten – and left open-ended. American researchers claim to have demonstrated that the skull fragment, secretly preserved for decades by Soviet intelligence, belonged to a woman under 40, whose identity is unknown. DNA analyses performed on the bone, now held by the Russian State Archive in Moscow, have been processed at the genetics lab of the University of Connecticut. The results, broadcast in the US by a History Channel documentary, Hitler's Escape, astonished scientists.
According to Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni, it was clear from the outset that something was amiss. "The bone seemed very thin; male bone tends to be more robust," he said. "And the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40." In April 1945 Hitler turned 56.
Bellantoni had flown to Moscow to inspect the gruesome Hitler trophies at the State Archive, which included the skull fragment as well as bloodstains from the bunker sofa on which Hitler and Braun were believed to have committed suicide. He was allowed only one hour with the Hitler trove, during which time he applied cotton swabs and took DNA samples. "I had the reference photos the Soviets took of the sofa in 1945 and I was seeing the exact same stains on the fragments of wood and fabric in front of me, so I knew I was working with the real thing."
The samples were then flown back to Connecticut. At the university's centre for applied genetics, Linda Strausbaugh closed her lab for three days to work exclusively on the Hitler project. "We used the same routines and controls that would have been used in a crime lab," she said. To her surprise, a small amount of viable DNA was extracted. She then replicated this through a process known as molecular copying to provide enough material for analysis. "We were very lucky to get a reading, despite the limited amount of genetic information," she said.
The result was extraordinary. According to witnesses, the bodies of Hitler and Braun had been wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the Berlin bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol and set ablaze.
But the skull fragment the Russians dug up outside the Führerbunker in 1946 could never have belonged to Hitler. The skull DNA was incontestably female. The only positive physical proof that Hitler had shot himself had suddenly been rendered worthless. The result is a mystery reopened and, for conspiracy theorists the tantalising possibility that Hitler did not die in the bunker.
For decades after the war the fate of Hitler's corpse was shrouded in secrecy. No picture or film was made public. As the Soviet Army secured control of Berlin in May 1945, Russian forensic specialists under the command of the counterintelligence unit Smersh (an acronym for "Death to Spies") dug up what was presumed to be the dictator's body outside the bunker and performed a post-mortem examination behind closed doors. A part of the skull was absent, presumably blown away by Hitler's suicide shot, but what remained of his jaw coincided with his dental records, a fact reportedly confirmed when the Russians showed his surviving dental work to the captured assistants of Hitler's dentist. The autopsy also reported that Hitler, as had been rumoured, had only one testicle.
But Stalin remained suspicious. In 1946 a second secret mission was dispatched to Berlin. In the same crater from which Hitler's body had been recovered, the new team found what it believed was the missing skull fragment with a bullet exit wound through it. The Russians also took fragments of Hitler's bloodstained sofa.
Even this failed to satisfy Stalin, who clamped a secrecy order on all matters related to Hitler's death. Unknown to the world, Hitler's corpse was interred at a Smersh centre in Magdeburg, East Germany. There it remained long after Stalin's death in 1953. Finally, in 1970, the KGB dug up the corpse, cremated it and secretly scattered the ashes in a river. Only the jawbone, the skull fragment and the bloodstained sofa segments were preserved in the deep archives of Soviet intelligence. The bunker was destroyed in 1947 and eventually paved over. Then, in 2000, the Russian State Archive in Moscow staged an exhibition, The Agony of the Third Reich. The skull fragment was displayed, but only photographs of Hitler's jawbone were on view. The head of the archive, Sergei Mironenko, said he had no doubt the skull fragment was authentic. "It is not just some bone we found in the street, but a fragment of a skull that was found in a hole where Hitler's body had been buried," he said.
In the wake of Bellantoni and Strausbaugh's findings, Mironenko's confidence was clearly misplaced. But could the fragment of skull belong to Eva Braun, who died at 33 and was laid alongside her beloved Führer in the same crater? "We know the skull corresponds to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40," said Bellantoni, but he is sceptical about the Braun thesis. "There is no report of Eva Braun having shot herself or having been shot afterwards. It could be anyone. Many people were killed around the bunker area."
Sixty-four years later, the world is still in the dark about what really happened in Hitler's bunker on 30 April 1945.
Uki Goñi is author of The Real Odessa (Granta), about the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe
Perhaps Hitler also had a double with one testicle and it was he that was shot and placed in the crater. Who knows...it may even be possible that Hitler and Eva Braun became war refugees and retired in Israel, the one place no one would think to look for him.
U.S. Loosens Grip On ICANN, Domain Chaos To Follow?
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/172901/us_loosens_grip_on_icann_domain_chaos_to_follow.html
David Coursey | PC World Wednesday, September 30, 2009 12:27 PM PDT
U.S. Loosens Grip On ICANN, Domain Chaos To Follow?
The U.S. has relaxed its grip on the Internet, thanks to a new agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Widely hailed as an internationalization of Internet governance, the move could also make it more likely consumers will see a huge increase in Global Top-Level Domains (gTLDs).
Until now, ICANN has largely been a creature of the U.S. Department of Commerce and has sometimes been criticized as a result. The new agreement between ICANN and the U.S. creates a new international management scheme, under which the U.S. has only a single seat at the negotiating table.
ICANN controls the international domain name and IP address structure that gives the Internet its form. It is also the group that decides which gTLDs, such as .com, .net, and .org can be used.
While ICANN does other important things, gTLD issues are where it often makes news that directly affects Internet users. The group has been involved in discussions over whether to create an .xxx gTLD for adult sites (it refused) and is under constant pressure to create others.
Some businesses fear an ICANN proposal that could result in the creation of an unlimited number new gTLDs--things like .football, .sailing, and .softdrink. The additional new gTDs might require companies to purchase large numbers of new domain names to protect their trademarks.
This could represent a considerable expense for business and create a new and continuing game of cat-and-mouse between trademark owners and infringers.
U.S. lawmakers have questioned the value of new gTLDs and urged ICANN not to allow their creation. The new agreement between ICANN and the U.S. specifically mentions the issue.
"Nothing in this document is an expression of support by [the Department of Commerce] of any specific plan or proposal for the implementation of new generic top level domain names or is an expression by DOC of a view that the potential consumer benefits of new gTLDs outweigh the potential costs," the new agreement said.
My take: It is easy to take a "we invented it and its ours" attitude toward the Internet, but this is shortsighted. Nevertheless, if ICANN unleashes a flood of new gTLDs, businesses worldwide might wish the U.S. had remained more involved.
David Coursey tweets as @techincter and can be contacted via his Web site.
David Coursey | PC World Wednesday, September 30, 2009 12:27 PM PDT
U.S. Loosens Grip On ICANN, Domain Chaos To Follow?
The U.S. has relaxed its grip on the Internet, thanks to a new agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Widely hailed as an internationalization of Internet governance, the move could also make it more likely consumers will see a huge increase in Global Top-Level Domains (gTLDs).
Until now, ICANN has largely been a creature of the U.S. Department of Commerce and has sometimes been criticized as a result. The new agreement between ICANN and the U.S. creates a new international management scheme, under which the U.S. has only a single seat at the negotiating table.
ICANN controls the international domain name and IP address structure that gives the Internet its form. It is also the group that decides which gTLDs, such as .com, .net, and .org can be used.
While ICANN does other important things, gTLD issues are where it often makes news that directly affects Internet users. The group has been involved in discussions over whether to create an .xxx gTLD for adult sites (it refused) and is under constant pressure to create others.
Some businesses fear an ICANN proposal that could result in the creation of an unlimited number new gTLDs--things like .football, .sailing, and .softdrink. The additional new gTDs might require companies to purchase large numbers of new domain names to protect their trademarks.
This could represent a considerable expense for business and create a new and continuing game of cat-and-mouse between trademark owners and infringers.
U.S. lawmakers have questioned the value of new gTLDs and urged ICANN not to allow their creation. The new agreement between ICANN and the U.S. specifically mentions the issue.
"Nothing in this document is an expression of support by [the Department of Commerce] of any specific plan or proposal for the implementation of new generic top level domain names or is an expression by DOC of a view that the potential consumer benefits of new gTLDs outweigh the potential costs," the new agreement said.
My take: It is easy to take a "we invented it and its ours" attitude toward the Internet, but this is shortsighted. Nevertheless, if ICANN unleashes a flood of new gTLDs, businesses worldwide might wish the U.S. had remained more involved.
David Coursey tweets as @techincter and can be contacted via his Web site.
Op Ed article, submitted for publication - Preparing for the Real Pandemic
Subject: Op Ed article, submitted for publication - Preparing for the Real Pandemic - please circulate
The Mask Slips, for Those with Eyes to See:
Preparing for the Real Pandemic
by Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div.
Last week, many of the aboriginal people in the remote west coast village of Ahousaht were innoculated with the tamiflu vaccine. Today, over a hundred of them are sick, and the sickness is spreading.
In the same week, body bags were sent to similarly remote native reserves in northern Manitoba that have also received the tamiflu vaccine.
On the face of things, it appears that flu vaccinations are causing a sickness that is being deliberately aimed at aboriginal people across Canada, and this sickness will be fatal: a fact acknowledged by the Canadian government by their "routine" sending of body bags to these Indian villages.
Before you express your shock and denial at the idea that people are being deliberately targeted and killed, remember that murdering Indians with vaccinations is not a new or abnormal thing in Canada. Indeed, it's how we Europeans "won the land", and it's one of the ways we keep it.
In 1862, Anglican church missionaries Rev. John Sheepshanks and Robert Brown inoculated interior Salish Indians in B.C. with a live smallpox virus that wiped out entire native communities within a month, just prior to the settlement of this native land by gold prospectors associated with these missionaries and government officials.
In 1909, Dr. Peter Bryce of the Indian Affairs department in Ottawa claimed that Catholic and Protestant churches were deliberately exposing native children to smallpox and tuberculosis in residential schools across Canada, and letting them die untreated. Thousands of children died as a result. (Globe and Mail, April 24, 2007)
In 1932, B.C. provincial police attempted to lay charges against Catholic missionaries who had sent smallpox-laden Indian children back among their families along the Fraser river near Mission, BC. The RCMP intervened and protected the church, even though whole villages were wiped out as a result of the church's actions.
In 1969, native children who escaped from the Nanaimo Indian Hospital on
Vancouver Island described being inoculated with shots that caused many of them to die "with bloated up bodies and scabs all over", to quote one survivor.
Knowing this history, it's not surprising when Indians on isolated Canadian reserves start sickening and dying en masse from sudden illnesses, after receiving flu shots. After all, it's still the law in Canada, under the apartheid Indian Act, that no on-reserve Indian can refuse medical treatments or experimentation. So it's small wonder that these reserves are the places being targeted first to beinjected with untested, unsafe and potentially lethal flu vaccines.
As an entire race of involuntary test subjects, Indians in Canada are a weather vane for what will befall all of us, and very soon. For the very techniques and weapons of genocide perfected against aboriginal people are now being deployed against "mainstream" Canadians.
Under Bill C-6, which is about to pass third reading in Parliament and become the law, no Canadian will be allowed to refuse innoculations for the swine flu, despite the fact that it is relatively benign and mild, and has killed only people who are already immune-compromised. Indeed, it is astounding that such coercion and dictatorial laws are being employed to deal with what the chief Canadian Health Officer has called a "mild seasonal flu".
Clearly, another agenda is at work; but the time to ascertain and challenge that agenda has all but run out. This coming month, forced innoculations and imprisonment of those who refuse them may be a reality across Canada. And for what reason? Clearly, not for public health, considering the sickness and death caused by previous swine flu vaccines.
I believe that the real pandemic is about to be unleashed through the very vaccines being pushed by governments and pharmaceutical giants like Novartis and Glaxo Smith Kline. The shots will be the cause, not the cure, of the pandemic. Of course, those in power can disprove this by simply being the first people to take the swine flu shot: an event about as likely as these companies forgoing the multi-billion dollar profits they will reap from the mass vaccinations.
It's indeed ironic that, very soon, many "white" Canadians may be suffering the same fate that aboriginal people have for centuries. Perhaps it's fitting. For if we are indeed being targeted for extermination, or at the least martial law and dictatorship, we finally can have the chance to shed our complicity in the genocide of other people, and get on the right side of humanity - simply by having to fight the system that is causing mass murder.
...............................................................................................
Rev. Kevin D. Annett
260 Kennedy St.
Nanaimo, BC Canada V9R 2H8
250-753-3345
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Kevin Annett is a community minister, educator and award-winning film maker who lives and works with aboriginal and low income people in Vancouver and Nanaimo, BC.
More here from Dr. Bill Deagle, MD... http://www.conspiracyking.com/421-BIOTERRORISM-VACCINE-EUGENICS/flypage_images.tpl.html
Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Film Trailer to Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8HB5cbKHDU&feature=related
“Kevin is more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than many who have received it in the past.”
- Dr. Noam Chomsky
Institute Professor Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“A courageous and inspiring man." (referring to Kevin Annett)
- Mairead Corrigan-Maguire
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Belfast , Northern Ireland
"As a long time front line worker with the Elders' Council at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, I stand behind what Kevin Annett is trying to do for our people. The genocide that continues today and which stemmed from the residential schools needs to be exposed. Kevin Annett helps break the silence, and brings the voice of our people all over the world."
Carol Muree Martin - Spirit Tree Woman
Nisgaa Nation
"I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him."
Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind
Elder, Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation
Winnipeg, Manitoba
The Mask Slips, for Those with Eyes to See:
Preparing for the Real Pandemic
by Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div.
Last week, many of the aboriginal people in the remote west coast village of Ahousaht were innoculated with the tamiflu vaccine. Today, over a hundred of them are sick, and the sickness is spreading.
In the same week, body bags were sent to similarly remote native reserves in northern Manitoba that have also received the tamiflu vaccine.
On the face of things, it appears that flu vaccinations are causing a sickness that is being deliberately aimed at aboriginal people across Canada, and this sickness will be fatal: a fact acknowledged by the Canadian government by their "routine" sending of body bags to these Indian villages.
Before you express your shock and denial at the idea that people are being deliberately targeted and killed, remember that murdering Indians with vaccinations is not a new or abnormal thing in Canada. Indeed, it's how we Europeans "won the land", and it's one of the ways we keep it.
In 1862, Anglican church missionaries Rev. John Sheepshanks and Robert Brown inoculated interior Salish Indians in B.C. with a live smallpox virus that wiped out entire native communities within a month, just prior to the settlement of this native land by gold prospectors associated with these missionaries and government officials.
In 1909, Dr. Peter Bryce of the Indian Affairs department in Ottawa claimed that Catholic and Protestant churches were deliberately exposing native children to smallpox and tuberculosis in residential schools across Canada, and letting them die untreated. Thousands of children died as a result. (Globe and Mail, April 24, 2007)
In 1932, B.C. provincial police attempted to lay charges against Catholic missionaries who had sent smallpox-laden Indian children back among their families along the Fraser river near Mission, BC. The RCMP intervened and protected the church, even though whole villages were wiped out as a result of the church's actions.
In 1969, native children who escaped from the Nanaimo Indian Hospital on
Vancouver Island described being inoculated with shots that caused many of them to die "with bloated up bodies and scabs all over", to quote one survivor.
Knowing this history, it's not surprising when Indians on isolated Canadian reserves start sickening and dying en masse from sudden illnesses, after receiving flu shots. After all, it's still the law in Canada, under the apartheid Indian Act, that no on-reserve Indian can refuse medical treatments or experimentation. So it's small wonder that these reserves are the places being targeted first to beinjected with untested, unsafe and potentially lethal flu vaccines.
As an entire race of involuntary test subjects, Indians in Canada are a weather vane for what will befall all of us, and very soon. For the very techniques and weapons of genocide perfected against aboriginal people are now being deployed against "mainstream" Canadians.
Under Bill C-6, which is about to pass third reading in Parliament and become the law, no Canadian will be allowed to refuse innoculations for the swine flu, despite the fact that it is relatively benign and mild, and has killed only people who are already immune-compromised. Indeed, it is astounding that such coercion and dictatorial laws are being employed to deal with what the chief Canadian Health Officer has called a "mild seasonal flu".
Clearly, another agenda is at work; but the time to ascertain and challenge that agenda has all but run out. This coming month, forced innoculations and imprisonment of those who refuse them may be a reality across Canada. And for what reason? Clearly, not for public health, considering the sickness and death caused by previous swine flu vaccines.
I believe that the real pandemic is about to be unleashed through the very vaccines being pushed by governments and pharmaceutical giants like Novartis and Glaxo Smith Kline. The shots will be the cause, not the cure, of the pandemic. Of course, those in power can disprove this by simply being the first people to take the swine flu shot: an event about as likely as these companies forgoing the multi-billion dollar profits they will reap from the mass vaccinations.
It's indeed ironic that, very soon, many "white" Canadians may be suffering the same fate that aboriginal people have for centuries. Perhaps it's fitting. For if we are indeed being targeted for extermination, or at the least martial law and dictatorship, we finally can have the chance to shed our complicity in the genocide of other people, and get on the right side of humanity - simply by having to fight the system that is causing mass murder.
...............................................................................................
Rev. Kevin D. Annett
260 Kennedy St.
Nanaimo, BC Canada V9R 2H8
250-753-3345
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Kevin Annett is a community minister, educator and award-winning film maker who lives and works with aboriginal and low income people in Vancouver and Nanaimo, BC.
More here from Dr. Bill Deagle, MD... http://www.conspiracyking.com/421-BIOTERRORISM-VACCINE-EUGENICS/flypage_images.tpl.html
Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Film Trailer to Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8HB5cbKHDU&feature=related
“Kevin is more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than many who have received it in the past.”
- Dr. Noam Chomsky
Institute Professor Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“A courageous and inspiring man." (referring to Kevin Annett)
- Mairead Corrigan-Maguire
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Belfast , Northern Ireland
"As a long time front line worker with the Elders' Council at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, I stand behind what Kevin Annett is trying to do for our people. The genocide that continues today and which stemmed from the residential schools needs to be exposed. Kevin Annett helps break the silence, and brings the voice of our people all over the world."
Carol Muree Martin - Spirit Tree Woman
Nisgaa Nation
"I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him."
Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind
Elder, Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation
Winnipeg, Manitoba
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