INTERESTING TIMES

I don't believe the powers when they tell me to panic. And I definitely don't believe them when they tell me NOT to panic. I think back to 9/11, when all those people in burning skyscrapers, just hit by airplanes, were told to remain calm and stay at their desks. The ones who decided for themselves that the situation was fubar and ran down the stairs were the ones who survived.

For this Japanese quake and tsunami the media machine has been spewing something constantly. Panic. Don't panic. Nothing to worry about. All under control. Oooops, out of control. Whoopsie.

It's up to us to decide what to do for ourselves.

Japan reportedly to rate nuclear crisis at highest level
By Chico Harlan, Monday, April 11, 9:30 PM

TOKYO — Japanese authorities planned Tuesday to raise their rating of the severity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis to the highest level on an international scale, equal to that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, according to the Kyodo news agency.

A level 7 accident, according to the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, is typified by a “major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japan-to-raise-rating-of-nuclear-crisis-to-highest-level/2011/04/11/AFxrFEND_story.html?wpisrc=nl_natlalert

--aka sarcoid from Gr "sark" and "oid" means flesh-like
--Besnier-Boeck disease
--immune disorder krkrized by non-caseating granulomas usu in lungs or lymph
( more )

Today is seven years after the event which has become known simply as 9/11. I can't deny that this event has had an impact in my life. It was when I realized that that those in power are entirely corrupt, and that we the people do not get much that could be considered factual news. I personally was able to avoid seeing television footage of the event for a couple of years afterward. I did not want to know. I tried to avoid it. But eventually it was in front of me, and what I saw caused me to question everything that I had been told, everything that I had read.
( more )

Political awareness dawns slowly for me. I was not a good student of history in school. I lasted nearly 4 years after the airplanes hit the world trade center before I viewed video of that event. I am like the proverbial ostrich with my head in the sand. But today I came to a new understanding of JFK. He really was working for peace. He was in opposition to the military industrial complex. Eisenhower had recognized and named it, but he did not attempt to restrain it. Kennedy did. And there is no politico-economic force more brutal than that which specializes in death and world domination. Of course he was assassinated. Of course.

JFK had a prayer, borrowed from Abe Lincoln, that he said to himself to maintain calm in the face of incredible pressures for war. The prayer ended with "I am ready"....and it seems he was ready to accept full responsibility for his actions and the retaliation that took his life. No wonder this man is so often referenced by presidents and peace advocates. He lives in our subconscious as a warrior for truth, good and right. And he was martyred. And as for the conspiracy theorists; yes, there must have been a conspiracy. Such actions are rarely random. I don't know the details, but just like 9/11/01, JFK's assassination was intentional and for profit. The stench lingers in the story. The executor of such action is carefully and completely separated from the planners so as to insure "plausible deniabililty", but the link is there, somewhere.

Many thanks to my local radio station, KBOO, for the history lesson, and for the inspiration.

http://nationalwriterssyndicate.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=128&Itemid=2

This is the best article I've found on 9/11. Torin Wolf joined the army on 9/11/00. He explains why and how the government's story about the collapse of the World Trade Center is totally bogus, and has dozens of excellent supporting links. Thanks to aegis_one.

Check this 2003 writing out, it's good:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul110.html

Here's his general summary of what neocons believe:

They agree with Trotsky on permanent revolution, violent as well as intellectual.

They are for redrawing the map of the Middle East and are willing to use force to do so.

They believe in preemptive war to achieve desired ends.

They accept the notion that the ends justify the means – that hard-ball politics is a moral necessity.

They express no opposition to the welfare state.

They are not bashful about an American empire; instead they strongly endorse it.

They believe lying is necessary for the state to survive.

They believe a powerful federal government is a benefit.

They believe pertinent facts about how a society should be run should be held by the elite and withheld from those who do not have the courage to deal with it.

They believe neutrality in foreign affairs is ill-advised.

They hold Leo Strauss in high esteem.

They believe imperialism, if progressive in nature, is appropriate. Using American might to force American ideals on others is acceptable. Force should
not be limited to the defense of our country.

9-11 resulted from the lack of foreign entanglements, not from too many.

They dislike and despise libertarians (therefore, the same applies to all strict constitutionalists.)

They endorse attacks on civil liberties, such as those found in the Patriot Act, as being necessary.

They unconditionally support Israel and have a close alliance with the Likud Party.

This is a ten minute video with some good footage of the south tower falling.
I think this guy is asking the right questions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwQa5eokieY
(thanks to aegis_one)

And here's another one that brings up questions for me about flight 93:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZekosYOmXc&mode=related&search=

If you haven't heard of her, she's the brains and spirit behind Democracy Now, a spunky radio news program that has spread via Pacifica Radio and NPR in some places (not here).

You can download her daily program here: http://www.democracynow.org/index.pl.

Here's her first weekly column: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/291047_amy05.html.

Amy Goodman's book, Exception to the Rulers, starts with 9/11 and follows the story of the Shrub regime and their poorly-executed attempt to dominate the mideast, along with the submission of the mainstream media. But Goodman does not lower her eyes. There has already been a lot of great reporting from this lady and her crew. I look forward to seeing her column in papers. Our local paper, the Daily Sun, would just as soon ignore her. But if enough of us request her column...who knows what could happen.

Goodman's column will be titled "Breaking the Sound Barrier" and to request it our paper is to contact King Features.

It's Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, telling his side of the 9/11 and aftermath story.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/from/ET/
It is refreshing to find that I am not the only one who is outraged. ...This happened at the same time as ABC airing a "docudrama" about 911 that got them tons of bad press because it was so biased and factually flawed....

From a heroine: Amy Goodman of Democracy Now interviewed the authors of "One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century." The authors argue that the Republican party owns a clear advantage in the fundamentals of campaigning and has built up a series of structural advantages that make it increasingly difficult to beat. Listen/Watch/Read: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/13/1331232

I wonder if my hunch is correct; that the battle against the neocons will be won be taking the Republican Party away from them. I want the Republican Party to stand for fiscal responsibility, and the avoidance of foreign entanglements, as it did when it was founded. The neocons will have none of this.

And in other hopeful news, in lovely Rhode Island, anti-Bush Republican Lincoln Chafee was chosen in the senate primary. YEAH. He's more anti-Bush than the Democrat he will run against (Sheldon Whitehouse). It will be interesting to see...

Below I have quoted the closing paragraphs of Osama Bin Laden's broadcast on Al Jazeera TV from Thursday, January 19. I had not read it until today, but I am glad I finally did read it. He spoke about torture and rape, and of the hopeless suicides of American soldiers caught between fighting an unjust war and the punishing devices of a vicious government. He spoke about Bush's lies and of the financial support that he gets from "war merchants". Bin Laden is insightful and direct. I honor his fight to the death against our president, his cronies and our war and profit machine. I hear more compassion in his promise to give us hell than I hear in Bush's constant promise that they are "making progress" at sacrificing our young men for the almighty oil dollar. I am sorry that I am a hypocrite and pay taxes to a government which has so horrifically wronged so many people. As tax day approaches this becomes constantly more painful. There must be a better way.
( Read more )