Category Archives: State Crime

New Cover-up in Boston Bombing Saga—Blaming Moscow

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By Russ Baker

Source: WhoWhatWhy.com

Maybe you heard: the Russians are responsible for the Boston Marathon Bombing. At least indirectly.

That’s what the New York Times says. Had the Russians told the Americans everything they knew about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the bombing might have been averted by the FBI. The Times knows this because it was told so by an anonymous “senior American official” who got an advance look at a report from the “intelligence community.”

***

Anyone who still entertains the fantasy that America is a vigorous, healthy democracy with an honest and reliable security apparatus and an honest, competent, vigilant media need only consider this major news leak just published as a New York Times exclusive. It pretty much sums up the fundamental corruption of our institutions, the lack of accountability, and the deep-dyed complicity of the “finest” brand in American journalism.

Killing Two Birds with One Stone

Just days before the first anniversary of the Boston bombing on April 15, some unnamed “senior American official” puts the blame for the bombing squarely on…Vladimir Putin.

It takes a keen understanding of certain members of the American media to know they will promote, without question, the latest “intelligence community” version of events. Which is that responsibility for the second largest “terror attack” after 9/11 should be pinned on the Russians, currently America’s bête noir over Ukraine.

Consider the cynical manipulation of public opinion involved here. The government permits, presumably authorizes, a high official—the Attorney General or someone of that status, perhaps even the Vice President—to leak confidential information for no apparent purpose beyond seeking to put a damper on legitimate inquiries into the behavior of the American government at the most fundamental level.

And the world’s vaunted “newspaper of record”—its brand largely based on insider access and the willingness of powerful figures to give it “hot stuff” in return for controlling public perceptions— shamelessly runs this leak with no attempt to question its timing or provenance.

Let’s look at what this article actually says. Here’s the opening paragraph:

The Russian government declined to provide the FBI with information about one of the Boston marathon bombing suspects two years before the attack that likely would have prompted more extensive scrutiny of the suspect, according to an inspector general’s review of how U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies could have thwarted the bombing.

And here’s the “takeaway”:

While the review largely exonerates the FBI, it does say that agents in the Boston area who investigated the Russian intelligence in 2011 could have conducted a few more interviews when they first examined the information.

The FBI agents also could have ordered turkey sandwiches instead of pastrami, which surely would have been a little healthier.

***

So, New York Times, should we trust the anonymous individual, or more importantly, the report that none of us have seen?

The report was produced by the inspector general of the Intelligence Community, which has responsibility for 17 separate agencies, and the inspectors general from the Department of Homeland Security and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Now, the Times doesn’t offer any useful context on why these reviews took place, beyond a pro forma effort to respond to complaints from a handful of congressional members (see this and this). The article does not address the quality or credibility of this “self-investigation” and the overall track record of these investigators. Nor does it express undue interest in why the report appears to have been finished just in time for the anniversary of the bombing.

In our view, the article is one hundred percent “stovepiping.” That’s when claimed raw intelligence is transmitted directly to an end user without any attempt at scrutiny or skepticism. This is irresponsible journalism, and it is the kind of behavior (from The New York Times again) that smoothed the way for the U.S. to launch the Iraq war in 2003.

The Times doesn’t even point out how self-serving the report is, coming from an “intelligence community” that has been publicly criticized for its actions leading up to the Boston Marathon bombing and its behavior since. (For more on the dozens of major reasons not to trust anything the authorities say about the Boston Bombing, see this, this, and this. For perspective on the media’s cooperation with the FBI in essentially falsifying the Bureau’s record throughout its history, see this).

Now let’s consider the core substance of the new revelations:

[A]fter an initial investigation by the F.B.I., the Russians declined several requests for additional information about Mr. Tsarnaev….

Did the Times ask the Russians about this? Did they find out if the Russians actually “declined” several requests, or whether they ever got back to the FBI?

The anonymous official notes one specific piece of evidence that the Russians did not share until after the bombing: that intercepted telephone conversations between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother included discussions of Islamic jihad. The official speculates that this information might have given the FBI greater authority to conduct surveillance of the suspects.

However, the reality is that the Russians had already warned that Tamerlan was an Islamic radical, and it is not clear how this additional information would necessarily have provided anything truly substantive to add to a request for spying authority.

It’s also highly questionable, based in part on Edward Snowden’s revelations, whether the FBI or the NSA were actually adhering to such restrictions on spying anyway. Finally, it’s worth noting how truly remarkable it is that the Russians shared such intelligence at all. That they didn’t want to volunteer that they were capturing telephone calls is not that surprising, on the other hand.

Hiding the Real Story?

The Times does mention, almost in passing, what should have been the key point of an article: the timing of the “news” regarding the report:

It has not been made public, but members of Congress are scheduled to be briefed on it Thursday, and some of its findings are expected to be released before Tuesday, the first anniversary of the bombings.

This leak, which clears the FBI of all charges of incompetence or worse, comes just when the “American conversation” will again intensely focus on the nature of the “war on terror” and the trustworthiness of our vast secret state.

It also comes, most conveniently for the Bureau, at the precise moment when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense counsel has been seeking to learn the exact chronology and nature of the FBI’s interaction with the Tsarnaev family.

Months ago, we ran Peter Dale Scott’s rumination on whether the FBI could have recruited Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an informant, as it has done thousands of times before with other immigrants of a similar profile. Recently, the defense for Tamerlan’s younger brother, Dzhokhar, essentially claimed this was correct—that the Bureau at least attempted to recruit the older Tsarnaev. That has been cursorily reported by the major media, but no one seems to have connected the dots linking this claim to the new report that conveniently exonerates the FBI for failing to take action against the Tsarnaevs in time to stop the bombing.

A Curious Little Slip

As we have previously reported, it was the same duo of New York Times national security reporters, Schmidt and Schmitt, who had first, inadvertently it seems, raised a tremendously important question: when did the Tsarnaev family first come to the attention of the FBI?

The Russian warning to the US about Tamerlan Tsarnaev purportedly came in March 2011.

But according to an earlier article by Schmitt and Schmidt (along with a third reporter), the Bureau’s first contact with the Tsarnaevs came in January 2011. Though the Times did not make anything of this fact, it would be enormously consequential—because it would mean that the FBI was interacting with the Tsarnaevs two months before the Russians suggested the US take a close look at Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

If that was in error, the Times should have issued a correction. But it hasn’t. (Neither Schmidt nor Schmitt responded to WhoWhatWhy’s emails requesting comment.)

Interestingly, Schmidt and Schmitt, in subsequent articles, including the recent one, make no more mention of this early FBI contact. As it stands, the New York Times is on record of having asserted, again based on what sources told it, that the FBI was interacting with the Tsarnaevs before the Russians ever contacted it. If that early report was true, then by definition, the Inspector General’s report (and the leaked article about it) would be calculated parts of a cover-up about an FBI foul-up.

Conversely, if the early report was in error, then we need to know who provided it, or how they got that information wrong. Serious investigators know not to reject anomalies and “wrong” early reports as simply the result of haste or rumor without at least checking out the possibility that the early reports were right—but were later suppressed because they might cause problems to someone in power.

***

It is worth noting that the revelations in the new report—sure to be picked up by other media outlets that tend to repeat unquestioningly whatever the Times publishes—will be all the average American remembers about the FBI’s failure to prevent the Marathon bombing, and what may lie behind that failure.

Most members of the public will never know of the substantial indications that something is seriously wrong with what the government has put out about this affair. They will only recall that the FBI was somehow “cleared.” And they will probably remember that Putin’s Russia was somehow at fault.

In the final analysis, what we have just witnessed is the kind of arrant manipulation that shows the contempt of the “system” for the “people.” The “best” news organization gets another exclusive story. The US government gets to point its finger again at the Russian bogeyman. The FBI and the security apparatus get another free pass.

And the American people, once again, are fed pig slop and told to imagine sirloin.

Is the US or the World Coming to an End?

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Source: Paul Craig Roberts

2014 is shaping up as a year of reckoning for the United States.

Two pressures are building on the US dollar. One pressure comes from the Federal Reserve’s declining ability to rig the price of gold as Western gold supplies shrivel and market knowledge of the Fed’s illegal price rigging spreads. The evidence of massive amounts of naked shorts being dumped into the paper gold futures market at times of day when trading is thin is unequivocal. It has become obvious that the price of gold is being rigged in the futures market in order to protect the dollar’s value from QE.

The other pressure arises from the Obama regime’s foolish threats of sanctions on Russia. Other countries are no longer willing to tolerate Washington’s abuse of the world dollar standard. Washington uses the dollar-based international payments system to inflict damage on the economies of countries that resist Washington’s political hegemony.

Russia and China have had enough. As I have reported and as Peter Koenig reports here http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38165.htm Russia and China are disconnecting their international trade from the dollar. Henceforth, Russia will conduct its trade, including the sale of oil and natural gas to Europe, in rubles and in the currencies of its BRICS partners.

This means a big drop in the demand for US dollars and a corresponding drop in the dollar’s exchange value.

As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, the US economy has not recovered from the downturn in 2008 and has weakened further. The vast majority of the US population is hard pressed from the lack of income growth for years. As the US is now an import-dependent economy, a drop in the dollar’s value will raise US prices and push living standards lower.

All evidence points to US economic failure in 2014, and that is the conclusion of John Williams’ April 9 report.

This year could also see the breakup of NATO and even the EU. Washington’s reckless coup in Ukraine and threat of sanctions against Russia have pushed its NATO puppet states onto dangerous ground. Washington misjudged the reaction in Ukraine to its overthrow of the elected democratic government and imposition of a stooge government. Crimea quickly departed Ukraine and rejoined Russia. Other former Russian territories in Ukraine might soon follow. Protesters in Lugansk, Donetsk, and Kharkov are demanding their own referendums. Protesters have declared the Donetsk People’s Republic and Kharkov People’s Republic. Washington’s stooge government in Kiev has threatened to put the protests down with violence. http://rt.com/news/eastern-ukraine-violence-threats-405/ Washington claims that the protests are organized by Russia, but no one believes Washington, not even its Ukrainian stooges.

Russian news reports have identified US mercenaries among the Kiev force that has been sent to put down the separatists in eastern Ukraine. A member of the right-wing, neo-Nazi Fatherland Party in the Kiev parliament has called for shooting the protesters dead.

Violence against the protesters is likely to bring in the Russian Army and result in the return to Russia of its former territories in Eastern Ukraine that were attached to Ukraine by the Soviet Communist Party.

With Washington out on a limb issuing threats hand over fist, Washington is pushing Europe into two highly undesirable confrontations. Europeans do not want a war with Russia over Washington’s coup in Kiev, and Europeans understand that any real sanctions on Russia, if observed, would do far more damage to Europeans. Within the EU, growing economic inequality among the countries, high unemployment, and stringent economic austerity imposed on poorer members have produced enormous strains. Europeans are in no mood to bear the brunt of a Washington-orchestrated conflict with Russia. While Washington presents Europe with war and sacrifice, Russia and China offer trade and friendship. Washington will do its best to keep European politicians bought-and-paid-for and in line with Washington’s policies, but the downside for Europe of going along with Washington is now much larger.

Across many fronts, Washington is emerging in the world’s eye as duplicitous, untrustworthy, and totally corrupt. A Securities and Exchange Commission prosecuting attorney, James Kidney used the occasion of his retirement to reveal that higher ups had squelched his prosecutions of Goldman Sachs and other “banks too big to fail,” because his SEC bosses were not focused on justice but “on getting high-paying jobs after their government service” by protecting the banks from prosecution for their illegal actions. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/

The US Agency for International Development has been caught trying to use social media to overthrow the government of Cuba. http://rt.com/news/cuba-usaid-senate-zunzuneo-241/

This audacious recklessness comes on top of Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government, the NSA spying scandal, Seymour Hersh’s investigative report that the Sarin gas attack in Syria was a false flag event arranged by NATO member Turkey in order to justify a US military attack on Syria, Washington’s forcing down Bolivian President Evo Morales’ presidential plane to be searched, Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” the misuse of the Libyan no-fly resolution for military attack, and on and on. Essentially, Washington has so badly damaged other countries’ confidence in the judgment and integrity of the US government that the world has lost its belief in US leadership. Washington is reduced to threats and bribes and increasingly presents as a bully.

The self-inflicted hammer blows to Washington’s credibility have taken a toll. The most serious blow of all is the dawning realization everywhere that Washington’s crackpot conspiracy theory of 9/11 is false. Large numbers of independent experts as well as more than one hundred first responders have contradicted every aspect of Washington’s absurd conspiracy theory. No aware person believes that a few Saudi Arabians, who could not fly airplanes, operating without help from any intelligence agency, outwitted the entire National Security State, not only all 16 US intelligence agencies but also all intelligence agencies of NATO and Israel as well.

Nothing worked on 9/11. Airport security failed four times in one hour, more failures in one hour than have occurred during the other 116,232 hours of the 21st century combined. For the first time in history the US Air Force could not get interceptor fighters off the ground and into the sky. For the first time in history Air Traffic Control lost airliners for up to one hour and did not report it. For the first time in history low temperature, short-lived, fires on a few floors caused massive steel structures to weaken and collapse. For the first time in history 3 skyscrapers fell at essentially free fall acceleration without the benefit of controlled demolition removing resistance from below.

Two-thirds of Americans fell for this crackpot story. The left-wing fell for it, because they saw the story as the oppressed striking back at America’s evil empire. The right-wing fell for the story, because they saw it as the demonized Muslims striking out at American goodness. President George W. Bush expressed the right-wing view very well: “They hate us for our freedom and democracy.”

But no one else believed it, least of all the Italians. Italians had been informed some years previously about government false flag events when their President revealed the truth about secret Operation Gladio. Operation Gladio was an operation run by the CIA and Italian intelligence during the second half of the 20th century to set off bombs that would kill European women and children in order to blame communists and, thereby, erode support for European communist parties.

Italians were among the first to make video presentations challenging Washington’s crackpot story of 9/11. The ultimate of this challenge is the 1 hour and 45 minute film, “Zero.” You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU961SGps8g&feature=youtu.be

Zero was produced as a film investigating 9/ll by the Italian company Telemaco. Many prominent people appear in the film along with independent experts. Together, they disprove every assertion made by the US government regarding its explanation of 9/11.

The film was shown to the European parliament.

It is impossible for anyone who watches this film to believe one word of the official explanation of 9/11.

The conclusion is increasingly difficult to avoid that elements of the US government blew up three New York skyscrapers in order to destroy Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah and to launch the US on the neoconservatives agenda of US world hegemony.

China and Russia protested but accepted Libya’s destruction even though it was to their own detriment. But Iran became a red line. Washington was blocked, so Washington decided to cause major problems for Russia in Ukraine in order to distract Russia from Washington’s agenda elsewhere.

China has been uncertain about the trade-offs between its trade surpluses with the US and Washington’s growing encirclement of China with naval and air bases. China has come to the conclusion that China has the same enemy as Russia has–Washington.

One of two things is likely: Either the US dollar will be abandoned and collapse in value, thus ending Washington’s superpower status and Washington’s threat to world peace, or Washington will lead its puppets into military conflict with Russia and China. The outcome of such a war would be far more devastating than the collapse of the US dollar.

Podcast Roundup

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4/2: Guillermo Jimenez has a conversation with Danny Benavides at Traces of Reality to discuss the drug war, the surveillance state, and the increasing use of violence by the Border Patrol among other topics:

http://tracesofreality.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Traces-of-Reality-Radio-2014.03.28-Danny-Benavides.mp3

4/2: At Red Ice Radio, host Henrik Palmgren interviews Mark Gray to discuss occult symbolism, synchronicity and geomancy in  connection to a number of current events. Mystical phenomenon or pattern recognition gone awry? You decide:

http://rediceradio.net/radio/2014/RIR-140402-markgray-hr1.mp3

4/3: Dave Lindorff of This Can’t Be Happening interviews Elena Teyer mother-in-law of Ibragim Todashev, the man executed by the FBI during their “investigation” of the Boston Bombing. They reveal many details about the case which were ignored by corporate news coverage:

http://media62.podbean.com/pb/ca9ac429bc5bf18a823cf98eb9a28f7a/533db613/data1/blogs18/661545/uploads/ThisCantBeHappening_040214.mp3

4/4: On the Meria Heller show, Meria and guest Catherine Austin Fitts deliver useful information on the banking system, investing on priorities and improving one’s lifestyle:

http://meria.net/ipod/040114.mp3

4/5: Computer security expert Conrad Jaeger joins host Greg Carlwood at The Higher Side Chats to talk about the deep web, cyber security and the surveillance state:

http://thehighersidechats.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/101-Deep-Web.mp3

The System: Deserving Contempt, Resistance and Undermining

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You are part of the global uprising

By Rob Kall

Source: OpEdNews.com

Let’s face it, the system is pathologically broken, designed to hurt and exploit the middle class. it is contemptible. The courts are contemptible, the Judges are contemptible, the politicians– almost all of them– are contemptible, the political parties are contemptible. The mainstream media are contemptible. The vast legion of police and police leaders who violate the law or protect lawless cops are contemptible. The laws that are passed by lobbyist-bought or intolerant fundamentalist influenced politicians are contemptible.

So where do we turn to fight back, to bravely move forward towards hope and progress?

First, we don’t put all our eggs in the electoral basket. That is a delusional idea. Okay, so vote, even donate to really strong progressive candidates. But don’t delude yourself into thinking that any effort or donations to electoral activity is enough. Consider electoral action to be comparable to lightly tapping the brakes on a deadly car crash that is already under way.

The fact is the system is not only toxic and broken, it is biting back aggressively at people who speak out in the ways that people fighting for democracy have traditionally fought back.  Chris Hedges says,

” All acts of resistance–including nonviolent protest–have been conflated by the corporate state with terrorism. The mainstream, commercial press has been emasculated through the Obama administration’s repeated use of the Espionage Act to charge and sentence traditional whistle-blowers.”

Hedges wrote, last year, about Jeremy Hammond, before he was convicted and sentenced for hacking:

” He said he is fighting as “an anarchist communist” against “centralized state authority” and “exploitative corporations.” His goal is to build “leaderless collectives based on free association, consensus, mutual aid, self-sufficiency and harmony with the environment.” It is essential, he said, that all of us work to cut our personal ties with capitalism and engage in “mass organizing of protests, strikes and boycotts.” Hacking and leaking, he said, are part of this resistance–“effective tools to reveal ugly truths of the system.”

And further discussing Hammond, Hedges says,

” He said resistance must be a way of life. He intends to return to community organizing when he is released, although he said he will work to stay out of prison. “The truth,” he said, “will always come out.” He cautioned activists to be hyper-vigilant and aware that “one mistake can be permanent.” But he added, “Don’t let paranoia or fear deter you from activism. Do the down thing!”

if you want work towards a positive future– one that supports social, economic and ecological justice, fairness and safety– you must stand up to the system– hack it, whistleblow it, expose it, resist it, defy it, undermine it and do all you can every day to wake people up to the malignant, pathological threat assault THEY and their families and communities are currently being subjected to.

James C. Scott, anarchist scholar and  Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University.  writes, in his book,  Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity and Meaningful Work and Play

“One day you will be called upon to break a big law in the name of justice and rationality. Everything will depend on it. You have to be ready. How are you going to prepare for that day when it really matters? You have to stay “in shape” so that when the big day comes you will be ready. What you need is “anarchist calisthenics.” Every day or so break some trivial law that makes no sense, even if it’s only jaywalking. Use your own head to judge whether a law is just or reasonable. That way, you’ll keep trim; and when the big day comes, you’ll be ready.”

Keith Farnish, author of Undermining and Times Up, talks about how the system systematically engages in a plethora of ways to not only disconnect us but that make us forget that we were connected or desperately need to be connected to be fully human. We have to fight back, but he writes,

“…you can’t attack these great systems, these great structures head on, it’s really not going to work, you’re not powerful enough to do that.

“The only way that we’re going to really get to return humanity to a decent way of living is to look at those tools of disconnection and get people to realize what’s going on.  Allow people to be connected again because once you connect people, once you take away all the things that are masking that need that humanity really has to be connected, then you end up with awareness.”

So, to fight disconnection and get people reconnected you have to fight the ways that the system disconnects people from each other and from the positive aspects of community, family and humanity that keep us being fully human.

Farnish says technology  keeps us distracted– that people don’t like to hear that almost everything they’ve ever believed in is wrong and they will do everything in their power to retain those beliefs.

“anyone can be an underminer”

“the  vast majority of the time I am doing community work which is a form of undermining because what that community work does is allow people to appreciate what’s local to them.”

The thing is Farnish’s goal for undermining goes all the way– to the point that the industrial world is totally undermined and no longer working. That would put people in a situation where they depended entirely on local resources. He says that’s necessary .

“… we need to be looking smaller, yes we need to be banding into communities that are self sufficient, there’s no way we can exist in using any form of mass anything, which is destructive.  Therefore we have to start breaking things down into smaller chunks.

We need to be more self controlling.  We need to understand that global government and even national government are only in it for the interests of the greater corporate world.  But once you start getting local, we call it local government, local administration, then you get a lot more control back.  So I can see the argument and that is an inevitable outcome of undermining these great industrial worlds.”

Farnish is not talking about toning things down. He’s talking about shutting them down:

” Greenpeace is saying you can have less damaging technologies, well yes, relatively, 10% less damaging, 20% less damaging, they still screw everything up.  They’re still killing the planet.”

The quotes from Keith Farnish come from my interview with him, here. I said,

” I’ve talked for a couple of years now about the idea that when the dinosaurs died it wasn’t that the little tiny mammals, the little mice, the one-foot high horse, the birds, they didn’t attack the giant dinosaurs and replace them; they out-survived them.  Think in terms of what you’re talking about here,   this dinosaur of industrial corporate civilization.”

Farnish replied,

” Yes, I can see that.  I think it’s a very good metaphor.  We have a situation where these dinosaurs, yep I think that’s a good way of, although saying that, I mean, they were natural beings and they were wiped out in a mass extinction event.  We’re coming to a massive extinction event, I think this is true, but it’s a mass extinction event caused by something that is entirely unnatural.This idea that you’ve got niches that the people can go into in order to create a new world, yes that’s one way of looking at it but as you say those niches weren’t created until the dinosaurs went.  Now, industrial civilization, we can wait for it to collapse if we want.  We can say, okay we’ll wait it out.  But the problem with waiting it out is when it does collapse, there’s nothing left.  It’s done so much damage, there’s already this mass extinction event which is inevitable.

Or we can say industrial civilization is something that we have to get rid of before this mass extinction takes place.  Before the Earth is in a state that we can no longer live there.  Before it collapses while we are totally dependent on it.  That’s another side of things because if we remain dependent upon civilization, when it collapses we’re gone as well.

So we have to learn how to start walking away. We have to become less dependent on it. We have to become connected outside of industrial civilization. So the small mammals, the shrew-like creatures, they didn’t do that. They waited it out. There was a mass extinction event, that mass extinction event actually wiped out the vast majority of the shrew-like creatures as well, fortunately there were a few that managed to survive but who knows what might have come about if that mass extinction hadn’t taken place.

I can guarantee that if humans would have been around at the time, they wouldn’t have survived that mass extinction event either. “

And I threw in another ” another biological metaphor into the conversation.

“There are some insects that plant their eggs in another insect or mammal and then when the egg hatch, they consume the living breathing creature, killing it in the process, and I kind of conceptualize that the way towards a future where corporations and industrial civilization are no longer the dominating destroyers is absolutely not one where there is direct confrontation but rather where we begin building alternative infections that grow into positive structures and constructions where they lead to the acceleration of the death of this industrial civilization.”

Keith Farnish relied,

“Yes, I mean I have used the metaphor on the website of spiders spinning their webs in the eaves or mice making their homes under the floor boards, quietly and industriously.  You’re quite right.  We need to be doing things all the time.  We need to be creating communities, we need to become self-sufficient.  All of these things need to be taking place as a replacement, as a viable replacement for what is going to go and that’s something that we should be starting now.Regardless of whatever we do, because in a way that is both a method by which we can live in the future and also a way we can undermine the system.  So for instance, if you grow your own food, you’re not going to buy your food from the supermarket because you’ll learn to love that food that you’ve grown.  You’ll treasure that, you’ll protect that.  The supermarket becomes something that’s other worldly.  It’s something that other people use.

If people don’t shop at supermarkets then supermarkets close down.  That’s a great lump of civilization gone.  The mass consumerism, this idea that you can only get your food in approved places of mass consumption…. “

I said to Keith Farnish, in our interview,

“… your book on undermining goes into a lot of detail on many many different ways and different approaches on how to undermine, starting with just a black magic marker and changing the message on a poster to blocking the entrances to shopping malls. They can get very risky or they can get minimally risky but a lot of them involve in some ways breaking the law.”

Farnish replied:

“Yeah. The law, I think we’ve got to distinguish between what’s legal and what’s lawful here. Laws in, certainly laws in Western countries are, they are statutes, they are things that have been put there by politicians to control you to make sure that you do whatever the system wants you to do. There are certain things like murder, taking someone’s property although you do question where the property came from in the first place, obviously harming someone directly in some way, taking away their liberty, that kind of thing, these common features of human morality, and that’s what I would consider to be a law and they’re the laws by which humans should live.

Yes breaking the law, if we can use that phrase is something that underminers will inevitably do, and it’s incredibly liberating. It’s a wonderful thing. In the vast majority of cases you’re not going to get in any trouble for it if you’re careful and I do provide some instructions on how to be careful but we are going to have to break the law because the laws are about controlling people.

Laws are about benefiting the corporate world and if we’re going to change things then those legal instruments that are being put in place to control people have to be broken apart. They have to be challenged constantly otherwise nothing will change and that is why we have to distinguish between what is lawful? What is something that is naturally right and moral for humans to do and where that overrides what politicians and corporations have put in place to make themselves rich or make themselves powerful.

If you stop a factory polluting the river you could be breaking the law but morally you’re doing the right thing.

So I say to you. What are you doing with the rest of your life? What can you do to make humanity better? What can you do to make the world a little bit better for your children and your grandchildren?

The answer is, a hell of a lot. My hope is that this article will stretch the boundaries of your imagination. You have the potential for a bigger vision and you’ll have to fight for it. Many of the tools of disconnection that Farnish refers to are built to restrict and limit your imagination. You can do ANYTHING. Some of those anythings may cost you more than you are willing to pay. But at the least, please, please expand your view and think of all the possibilities. Snowden was not the first whistleblower. Neither was Daniel Ellsberg.

And please, don’t try to do this alone. Connect, connect, connect. That’s the way bottom-up change is made to happen.  Simply connecting in new ways to the same or new people in your communities can be revolutionary, can be  undermining can be resistance. Like Jim Scott says. Do something every day.  Raise your voice. Expose the lies of the dominating system. Take public the secrets that the billionaires, the corrupt politicians hold tight. Refuse! Refuse to follow the rules that most people accept as mandatory. A few years back police were arresting people who shot videos or photos of them. But people kept at it, exposing their acts, rejecting their orders to stop, REFUSING to give up their rights. Now, not only has the law made it clear that you CAN videotape police, but the police are beginning to record themselves. I’m sure it will be a battle, getting public access to ALL police recordings. But it could happen.  Stand up and refuse. In his brilliant book, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, James C. Scott says, “Any public refusal, in the teeth of power, to produce the words, gestures, and other signs of normative compliance is typically construed– and typically intended — as an act of defiance.” Scott points out, “ON very rare occasions when what has been orchestrated as a mass public demonstration of domination and enthusiastic consent erupts into a public display of repudiation from below, the ‘formidable shadow of general impotence’ becomes what can only be described as a symbolic rout.”

We’re talking about parades, ceremonies, public events. Even a moment of televised disruption can open the consciousness of millions and expose the lie of of power and the vulnerability of the elites running the performance.  This can be highly planned, like Medea Benjamin did when she interrupted President Obama, or it can be spontaneous, when you discover an unexpected opportunity. I interviewed Medea on how to do it, here.

One last thing. Don’t get stuck with absolutism. You don’t have to change your life completely. Your organization does not have to totally change. Every resistant, undermining, bottom-up step you take as a conscious act contributes to progress. It may take thousands or millions of people doing millions or billions of small acts. But that’s possible. It is the ONLY way that most of the changes in the world happen. Matter of fact, don’t expect your single action will be THE one. Consider your acts to be like drops of water eroding a massive edifice.

Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and website architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), and publisher of Storycon.org, President of Futurehealth, Inc, and an inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com

Listen to over 200 of Rob’s Podcast interviews here.

11 Hanford Workers Sick From Toxic Fumes

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Image from HanfordChallenge.org

Image from HanfordChallenge.org

According to a KING5 report posted yesterday, at least 11 people have been poisoned in the past week after breathing in toxic fumes while working near underground tanks holding hazardous nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear Site. The exact source or sources of the vapors are still unknown.

The first two workers (employees for Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) which manages 177 underground tanks at the site) became ill last Wednesday after inhaling fumes that “tasted like copper”. Among the symptoms they reported suffering: headache, chest pain, difficulty breathing, nose bleeds, sore throats, and coughing up blood. Four more employees were sickened yesterday morning, after which an evacuation order was given to the entire tank farm facility. Two WRPS industrial hygiene inspectors fell ill shortly after followed by three more employees who breathed in fumes later that day.

Reported statements from the employees:

“The place is falling apart and they (WRPS) aren’t doing anything to fix it,”

“I feel fine now but when you get chemical exposure, you have respiratory issues.”

“It’s BS, We’ve expressed our opinion about it. We’ve said you haven’t taken the time to put in monitors and they say ‘It’s in the works’. Yet they keep sending us out to work. They’re not putting safety first.”

“They have some serious problems out there that they need to figure out,”

While this latest incident may not have been a surprise following recent revelations about “construction flaws” in the waste tanks at the site, it could have been avoided had the government and corporations that profited from nuclear energy and the nuclear arms industry bothered to invest a little more in the containment of their toxic byproducts. It also gives further credence to the suspicion that a cluster of rare birth defects in the surrounding areas are a direct result of environmental contamination from Hanford.

 

Kony 2012 Redux

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PHONY 2012

Two years ago it was difficult for most of us online to avoid the KONY 2012 viral video. It was a slickly produced ad by the Invisible Children advocacy group for their campaign to assist efforts to capture or kill Joseph Kony, leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (a militia infamous for using child soldiers). The video spread rapidly through social media, getting millions of views. Criticism and suspicion towards Invisible Children spread just as rapidly as people spoke out against the group’s methods and started noticing how the majority of their money went towards advertising, staff, and transportation rather than children of Uganda. Many also questioned the group’s motives, pointing out that Kony hasn’t been seen for years and how Uganda happened to be a source of natural resources the U.S. government has an interest in such as oil and valuable minerals. Uganda’s President and friend of Obama, Yoweri Museveni, has also used child soldiers and was the focus of a recent Human Rights Watch report uncovering his government’s high-level corruption. Possibly as a result of the public pressure, about two weeks after the release of KONY 2012 leader and co-founder of Invisible Children, Jason Russell, had a very unusual and scandalous public breakdown.

Despite the rapid loss of much of their public support following the incident, Invisible Children’s campaign still impressed the U.S. government enough to extend a military advise-and-assist mission to central Africa the following month (if we are to believe their stated motives). In addition, the European Union established a Joint Operations Centre to assist central Africa’s counter-LRA regional task force in a show of support (again, if we take them for their word). Congress also passed the Rewards for Justice Bill authorizing $5 million for information leading to Kony’s capture in January 2013.

Just last Sunday, the Obama administration announced the deployment of about 150 Special Operations troops and military aircraft to Uganda, ostensibly to search for Joseph Kony. According to the Pentagon, at least four CV-22 Osprey aircraft will arrive in the country by midweek, together with refueling planes and Special Operations forces airmen to fly and maintain them.

For more information on Kony, Invisible Children and the recent troop surge, read Patrick Henningsen’s report at 21st Century Wire: KONY 2014: Obama Orders New Troop Surge to ‘Find Ugandan Warlord’

Six Week Cycle Continues With FBI Manufacturing Another Hoax Terror Plot

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teausant

Nicholas Teausant

By Lee Daniels

Originally posted at DailySlave.com

The Federal Bureau of Investigation otherwise known as the FBI is an embarrassment to humanity.  Since I started tracking this phenomenon late last year it has become clear that the FBI is busting fake terror plots they create, staging terror hoax events or investigating fake mass shootings roughly every six weeks.  One of the primary reasons why they do all of this is for job security.  Since part of their job is to fight terrorism, if they can’t find any real terrorists it eliminates the need for certain people at the FBI to be employed.  Since there is a lack of real terrorists, they create these hoax events and entrap different dupes and morons to make the American sheep believe that there are actual terror threats.  More importantly, it projects an illusion that America needs the FBI to keep them safe.  In short, it is nothing more than FBI sanctioned criminality which warrants a full Congressional investigation.  Too bad we’ll never get one because the FBI like most organizations in the federal government appears to be above the law.

Let’s review the previous hoax events which the FBI has either been involved in staging or investigating.

January 26th 2014 – Columbia Maryland Mall Shooting Hoax (analysis)

December 13th, 2013 – Wichita Airport Bomb Threat Hoax

November 1st, 2013 – Los Angeles Airport Shooting Hoax (analysis)

September 16th, 2013 – Washington Navy Yard Shooting Hoax

Based upon the six week cycle the next staged event was scheduled to happen in mid-March right around now.  The FBI did not disappoint as another fake terror hoax hit the news wires on March 17th, 2014.  This is one of the more absurd entrapment operations they’ve pulled off in quite some time.

According to the FBI a 20 year-old college student and National Guard member named Nicholas Teausant was arrested near the Canadian border under allegations that he was attempting to join Al-Qaeda fighters in Syria.  Furthermore, the FBI is claiming that he was plotting to bomb the Los Angeles subway system.  They have charged him with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Teausant allegedly made the following comment under the name Assad on an Instagram app.

“I would love to join Allah’s army but I don’t even know how to start,” he allegedly posted on May 31.

From there an undercover FBI agent befriended him.  Teausant allegedly told the agent that he wanted to go to Syria to fight jihad with Al-Qaeda.  He also allegedly talked to the agent about potentially bombing the Los Angeles subway system.  Growing suspicious that he might be talking to federal agents he started to distance himself from people he talked to online right before his supposed arrest.

Assuming this story is even real to begin with, it is obvious that this guy did not represent any sort of legitimate threat.  Hell, look at the photos of this guy.  Does he look like a dangerous terrorist to you?  If anything he looks like the bastard child of Ukraine’s Western backed stooge Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

According to the FBI, he didn’t even know how to become a terrorist.  The FBI befriended him and entrapped him into making statements that would later be used against him.  The FBI has done this countless times since the 9/11 attacks with this just being the most recent example.

So there you have it, another FBI related hoax event that satisfies the six week cycle.  If anyone out there knows someone who works in the upper levels of the FBI can you please tell them to stop this insanity?  Nobody believes that any of the FBI’s staged terror hoaxes and bogus terror plots are real.  This is especially true considering that the FBI is literally doing something like this every six weeks.

We’ll see if the FBI got the message around the first week of May.  That’s when the next FBI related hoax event is slated to take place.

Wrapping up the article, I wanted to mention a quick plug for the guys over at the No Agenda Show.  They’ve been exposing this phenomenon for quite some time now.  Be sure to check out their upcoming podcast this Thursday which will undoubtedly provide coverage of this latest FBI hoax.