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Pearl Harbor: The Original 9/11
Yesterday marked the 72nd anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, which from today’s perspective can be viewed as the template on which 9/11 was modeled after. In both cases, documentation exists implicating the U.S. government. In the case of Pearl Harbor, there’s the McCollum Memo which describes in detail the strategy used to successfully provoke the Japanese government into attacking. Shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack, Secretary of State Hull presented “peace terms” to the Japanese government that all but guaranteed an inevitable attack.
In the case of 9/11, there’s a policy document from Project for a New American Century called Rebuilding America’s Defenses, which provides a clear motive to create a “catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor”. It’s not conclusive proof they were behind the attacks, but it’s suspicious to say the least that the people with established motives for conducting an event like 9/11 were responsible for national security at the time multiple unlikely and implausible coincidences made such a successful attack possible.
A number of other dubious aspects of the Pearl Harbor attack were compiled at Washington’s Blog last year, including:
Active Interference with Military’s Ability to Defend
It has also recently been discovered that the FDR administration took numerous affirmative steps to ensure that the Japanese attack would be successful. These steps included taking extraordinary measures to hide information from the commanders in Hawaii about the location of Japanese war ships (information of which they would normally be informed), denying their requests to allow them to scout for Japanese ships, and other actions to blind the commanders in Hawaii so that the attacks would succeed. See, for example, this book (page 186).
Key Military Players Incommunicado
In addition, the heads of the Army and Navy suddenly disappeared and remained unreachable on the night before Pearl Harbor. And they would later testify over and over that they “couldn’t remember” where they were (pages 320 and 335).
Gagging Whistleblowers
Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, the Navy classified all documents top secret, and the Navy Director of Communications sent a memo ordering all commanders to “destroy all notes or anything in writing” related to the attacks. More importantly, all radio operators and cryptographers were gagged on threat of imprisonment and loss of all benefits. (page 256).
Media Complicity
Amazingly, the Army’s Chief of Staff informed the Washington bureau chiefs of the major newspapers and magazines of the impending attacks before they occurred, and swore them to an oath of secrecy, which the media honored (page 361); and listen to interview here (we personally spent an hour speaking with Stinnett, and find him to be a highly credible and patriotic American.)
Postscript: Coincidentally, Philip Zelikow – the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, the administration insider whose area of expertise is the creation and maintenance of “public myths” thought to be true, even if not actually true, who controlled what the 9/11 Commission did and did not analyze, then limited the scope of the Commission’s inquiry so that the overwhelming majority of questions about 9/11 remained unasked – also happened to be the main guy defending the alleged unforeseeablity of the Pearl Harbor attack, who wrote a hit piece on Pearl Harbor historians like Stinnett.
Just like 9/11, Pearl Harbor was used as a tool to focus mass hatred on a race demonized by propaganda. The attack created a culture of fear allowing for suspension of civil liberties while crushing opposition to the war. Most importantly (for powerful interests pushing for war) the attacks were a pretense for pursuing and expanding global political and economic hegemony.
For a comprehensive compilation of evidence of U.S. government involvement in the Pearl Harbor conspiracy, see: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
Saturday Matinee: What to Do in Case of Fire?
“What to Do in Case of Fire?” (2001) opens with a montage of young anarchist squatters fighting police, making propaganda films, and constructing a homemade bomb in Berlin circa 1987. They plan to blow up a vacant mansion but the bomb is a dud, until thirteen years later when it injures a real estate broker and potential buyer in a fluke accident.
Only two of the original members of the anarchist collective, Tim and Hotte, are still squatting in the same communal housing since the 80s and are unable to prevent police from confiscating filmed evidence in a raid triggered by the bomb incident. Because all members of the collective are potentially linked to the bombing, Tim and Hotte scramble to track down former comrades and formulate an action plan before the evidence is examined. The reunion of old friends, including those who’ve settled into traditional family life or sold out for corporate jobs, stirs up a host of interpersonal conflicts which they must resolve in order to work together to remain free.
Though the film does at times seem to fall back on lazy stereotypes of anarchists, it at least puts them in a human light. Even less radical viewers could relate to certain struggles the protagonists are faced with, such as trying to balance freedom and security, being “successful” versus upholding one’s ideals, and coming to terms with friendships that change over time. It would have been interesting had the film delved deeper into Berlin’s anarchist and squatters movements, in my opinion, but it’s nevertheless a charming and fun mix of comedy, drama and heist genres.
Note: to activate English subtitles on the video, click on the Closed Captions (CC) icon on the bottom right corner while video is playing, click on the box that says “Portuguese (Brazil)”, click “Translate Captions”, click on “Afrikaans”, then you should be able to scroll down until you can click on “English”. The subtitle feature might not be available on some portable devices.
Thailand: Who are the Anti-Regime Protesters?
By Tony Cartalucci for Land Destroyer Report
December 3, 2013 – After clashes with police in Bangkok and the taking of several government buildings, anti-regime protesters prepared for the next phase of their resistance – the protracted encampment of key governmental centers. Thousands of protesters are now permanently entrenched in an area winding for nearly a mile through the capital city. They have built up a city within a city at three main locations that are linked by the constant stream of protesters coming and going to and from the protest sites.
Image: It appears that the anti-regime protesters know exactly who they are dealing with. While it is easier in speeches and sound bites to describe Thaksin Shinawatra and his hereditary dictatorship as the central source of Thailand’s problems, it is well understood amongst protesters that a vast network of foreign-funded NGOs are propping up the Shinawatra regime. Freedom House, for instance, lists as a trustee Kenneth Adelman, who concurrently served as Thaksin’s lobbyist. Pro-regime news website Prachatai, is directly funded by US State Department NGOs such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
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But who are these protesters and what do they want? Are they, as the Western media portrays them, anti-democratic elitists who refuse to to concede power to awakened rural masses? Or are they dangerously informed, socially and politically aware groups that are actively opposing the designs of foreign corporate-financiers and the proxy regime they have put into power in Thailand?
Who are Thailand’s Anti-Regime Protesters?
Walking from one end of the protest to the other can become an all day affair. The sites are spaced out slightly, but occupy long stretches of road turned into permanent encampments complete with food, water, medical services, bathrooms, shower stalls, exhibition booths and support points, media centers, stages, and hawker stalls. There are thousands of permanently encamped protesters and thousands more who come and go – even at low points in the day.
The extensive infrastructure of these protest sites resemble a fair or an exhibition. While a single theme has brought them together, a large number of diverse groups have marshaled their resources to build the sprawling encampments. There of course is the main camp and stage set up by a group of political parties including the main opposition party, the Democrats, the People’s Democratic Reform Committee, and the Network of Students and People for Reform of Thailand.
The “Yellow Shirt” People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) also maintains a camp, as does Santi Asoke, a group that practices the Thai-equivalent of organic farming, homesteading, and grassroots community development.
Images: Labor unions have a strong showing in the anti-regime camps. While the Shinawatra regime has hijacked the color red for his mobs as well as the socialist rhetoric that goes with it, real labor unions flying the color red actually engage in the protection of workers’ rights.
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There are throughout the camps, smaller student groups from across Bangkok, and a large number of labor unions. Some of the bigger unions include those working for state enterprises, THAI Airways, and the country’s nationalized telecom company, CAT.
And despite the most vitriolic and perhaps even racist accusations leveled against the protesters is that they represent ethnic Chinese-Thais. While there certainly are a lot of Thais of Chinese descent at the rallies, mainly because they have called Bangkok their home for generations, still the vast majority of the protesters are ethnic Thais and include people drawn to the capital to find better lives from Thaksin Shinawatra’s northeast political stronghold.
What Do They Want?
We are told by the Western media that this is a “people’s coup,” an attempt to overthrow democracy. In reality, and entirely unlike Thaksin’s red shirts who simplistically demand “democracy,” the anti-regime protesters have a list of cogent demands.
1. No Amnesty – This refers to an amnesty bill designed by and for Thaksin Shinawatra to absolve himself of a decade of plundering, lying, and mass murder. While the government eventually backed off, it was only because massive street protests were mobilized. When the Constitution Court declared the bill unconstitutional, the ruling regime announced that it no longer recognized the authority of the court – even while using constitutionality to condemn the protests. Even though it is considered “dead,” Thaksin’s entire future depends on it eventually passing. Protesters feel the only way to truly kill this bill, is to remove entirely the regime attempting such an absurd abuse of power.
2. Rollback Article 190 – Article 190 of the Thai constitution requires that all treaties be approved by the parliament before they can be signed. In 2004, this mechanism had prevented Thaksin Shinawatra from unilaterally passing a US-Thai free trade agreement, and was one of many attempted circumventions of the law that led to his ouster in 2006. His nepotist-appointed sister Yingluck Shinawatra, has now managed to amend it making it possible for her to unilateral approve treaties (specifically unpopular FTA’s). Protesters would like to see this reversed.
3. The Re-Nationalization of Thailand’s Oil – Thailand’s oil giant, PTT, was privatized and sold off to foreign multinationals under Thaksin Shinawatra in late 2001. Tremendous wealth has been siphoned out of Thailand and sent overseas, particularly to Chevron, one of the many sponsors on the US-ASEAN Business Council that directly supports the Shinawatra regime.
Image: Another issue protesters have is with the changing of article 190 which allows the regime to now unilaterally sign treaties without the parliament’s approval. This will be used specifically to pass through a series of extremely unpopular free trade agreements with the regime’s Western sponsors.
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4. Keep Thailand Anti-GMO, Anti-IP – The current Thai establishment resisting the regime has been stalwartly defending against GMO and “intellectual property” (IP) laws pushed on them by the United States, the UK, and the EU. In fact, one of the main points of attack by Thaksin Shinawatra’s Washington lobbyists, was attacking the military council that ousted Thaksin for ignoring US pharmaceutical patents while producing cheaper drugs for poor patients. Regarding GMO, Monsanto has been desperately trying to overrun Thailand’s food security but to no avail. Would it surprise readers to know that the US-ASEAN Business Council directly supporting Thaksin Shinawatra and his political machine also includes Monsanto?
It becomes abundantly clear why corporate media houses like the BBC, Reuters, AP, AFP, CNN, MSNBC, and Australia’s ABC have attacked the protesters as “anti-democratic,” “elitist,” and “violent.” They represent for them a population they cannot trick, manipulate, and have their way with. They would like to see it marginalized and removed from Thailand’s political landscape so they can grind Thailand into the ground like so many other nations across the developing world. Thailand’s anti-regime protesters are making their stand – those that support true freedom and progress should stand with them.
Drone camera footage of the protests:
Two for Tuesday
Chanukah Message From Jewish Voice For Peace
You can give a gift in honor of a loved one and on behalf of dignity, human rights and equality for Israelis and Palestinians at Jewish Voice for Peace.
At the Point of No Return
By Julian Rose for Waking Times
The wrong people are in charge… that’s pretty obvious. But what is not so obvious is how they got there? And once having found an open gate, why have we left them to graze the best pastures while we grovel around in the barren fallow?
A very strange phenomenon…
This World is run by those of whom the great majority have absolutely no qualifications to be at the helm of anything – not even a small rowing boat. Yet, somehow or other, there they are perched in their palaces, surveying their empires – while simultaneously engaging in the systematic degradation of planet Earth.
Doesn’t matter whether they are generals, headmasters, corporate executives, CEOs of banks, media moguls, ministers or prime ministers, or just about any big bosses – they have the distinction of all acting in unison. While by contrast, the great majority of intelligent and able bodied citizens of this planet, only manage to act – or react – in sporadic and discordant bursts; if at all.
The current controlling masters – and it hasn’t changed much over many centuries – have a commonality of intent: to extract the last ounces of profit and prestige from any and all assets and opportunities that fall into their grasp.
Yet even that isn’t enough for some of them. Profits get a bit boring when they come in the tens of millions year after year, and one has occupied the prime suite at Claridges for the past six months. No, there always needs to be just one more thing that can be ‘owned’ and brought under control, so as to satisfy the false agrandissement that is part and parcel of an endless, and ultimately fruitless, attempt to become omnipotent and untouchable by ordinary mortals.
Such is the aphrodisiac called ‘power’.
Time and again, those who suffer most from a sense of being inwardly dispossessed are the very ones to seek, as compensation, the maximum level of outer possessiveness. And this is the mechanism whereby the wrong people get to be in charge.
Ironically, many who do not suffer such delusional power urges are quite happy to just tick along fulfilling their aspirations and daily needs as best they can. Yet in doing so, they unwittingly allow the magalomaniacs a direct route to the seats of power.
Those who are secure enough in themselves to take a responsible attitude towards the life around them seldom come forward to take-on positions of authority and civil responsibility. Their preference is to leave it to others – and in too many cases these ‘others’ often harbour barely disguised ulterior motives.
Yet we look on, aghast, as our world is torn apart by duelling crooks and madmen, each more desperate than the other for the top job in the race for planetary ecocide. Each more desperate than the other to fill any power vacuum that might emerge. Each more desperate than the other to hold a cosh over the disinterested daily workers who struggle on, trying not to notice how bad it’s gotten.
Where do you belong in this mad scrum?
The wrong people are in charge and the right people don’t want to bother themselves unduly to do anything about it. That just about sums-up the dire state of our post industrial ‘civilisation’. Something has to give…
The question is what?
Will a critical mass of the 99% finally act to bring back some genuine self autonomy through wresting control from the 1%?
Or will the 1% finally complete their annihilation job, trashing our planetary assets and crushing our human propensities once and for all? That is the question.
But none of us are free to sit back and play at second guessing the outcome. We are all in there. We are part of the pack. Our every move, whether we see it or not, is either promoting or resisting the despot’s master plan. There is no such thing as being ‘in between’ in this game. The fence you once sat on is broken. The wires are hanging limp. There is no no-man’s-land left to hide in.
At some point soon, those who are fit to lead must take over from those who are unfit. It may be a bloodless coup – or it may be a bloody insurrection. One way or another, the shift has to happen.
Forget about Divine intervention. There will be no Divine intervention unless and until there is a very visible human determination already out of the starting blocks and heading for the finishing line. Only then is it possible that higher energies will join the race to bring justice back to this battered World.
We are approaching the point of no return. If we don’t respond to the myriad calls for help that are echoing around this World at an ever-increased velocity each day, then we will be condemning ourselves – and those who call upon us – to being forever stranded upon a desolate and barren shore.
That help starts with helping each other to break free from our learned and self-induced state of fear and pacifism. A combination that pretty much guarantees an unwillingness to act. An unwillingness to act even when presented with the choice of participating in a mass genocide or opposing it.
This unwillingness is giving voice to the notion that ‘no action’ is the spiritual choice of the knowing. That to retire into a cul-de-sac of meditation and inward-looking self examination can ‘change the world’ by dint of a shifted value focus. Can serve to hermetically seal the self away from the trials and tribulations of the outer world and thereby help avoid any confrontation with that which demands a full and spontaneous response.
Confrontation, in this view, is a negative, reactionary manifestation that undermines ‘peace’ and the supposed tranquility of a chimeric world, which takes over from rational observations and becomes the new reality. A ‘virtual reality’.
This is a deeply flawed and dangerous ethos. For it splits in half that which is whole and sets the two halves in opposition to each other.
We are ‘of nature’ not above or outside it. We go forth and we return. That is the Tao. Universal forces all dance to this tune. Breath, ocean waves, cycles of birth and death, growth and decay, all is in motion and at rest, all the time. There is no contradiction.
Outward action and inward contemplation are two halves of one whole. They are synonymous. One should move between the two constantly and joyously.
“When injustice become law, resistance becomes duty”
Well, injustice has become law – yet resistance remains doggedly muted, and the search for an escape route remains the preferred option.
Cultivate spirit, wisdom and deep awareness – yes. Yet not as an alternative to toppling our oppressors from their corporate thrones, but as part of it.
Don’t be fooled. There is a war on. We are all called to the front. Just as the white corpuscles of our bodies are fighting off attempts by the pathogens to take hold – all the time. We should be doing the same – all the time.
Everyday we should be conjuring-up and putting into affect actions to end the draconian government/corporate dictatorship that continues to herd great swathes of humanity ever faster towards a sheer and genocidal cliff.
We can have no ‘peace’ until the criminals at the master control consulate are ejected from their padded leather chairs and are forced to confront the true price of their obscene power games.
Peace and enlightenment, at the individual level, are only possible if we are engaged in this battle. The battle to rid both ourselves and this planet of that which seeks to dominate and destroy the true well-spring of life.
The road to victory also requires the wise and aware to form a council of responsible oversight to step-in to the void once the despots are dethroned. That is an essential ingredient of any uprising determined to manifest genuine justice.
The lessons of history teach that fickle rebellion simply replaces one bunch of power predators with another. That is no longer an option; we are now at the point of no return. This time we have to get it right.
Footnote: some may see this as being at odds with my essay “Reverse Engineering the Illuminati Mind Set,” I don’t believe it is. The action I speak of here does not eclipse the need to draw deeply upon compassion. However, to exercise compassion one needs to be in a position of strength, not slavery.
About the Author
Julian is a committed international activist, writer, farmer and actor. He is an early pioneer of UK organic farming methods and is currently involved in the front line of efforts to keep Poland free from genetically modified organisms. Julian is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside. His book Changing Course for Life can be purchased on www.changingcourseforlife.info. His latest book In Defence of Life – a Radical Reworking of Green Wisdom is available at Amazon or can be requested on http://www.julianrose.info/
This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.
Saturday Matinee: The Last Angel of History
Notes from Icarus Films:
John Akomfrah, director of Seven Songs of Malcolm X, returns with an engaging and searing examination of the hitherto unexplored relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and rapidly progressing computer technology.
This cinematic essay posits science fiction (with tropes such as alien abduction, estrangement, and genetic engineering) as a metaphor for the Pan-African experience of forced displacement, cultural alienation, and otherness.
Akomfrah’s analysis is rooted in an exploration of the cultural works of Pan-African artists, such as funkmaster George Clinton and his Mothership Connection, Sun Ra’s use of extraterrestrial iconography, and the very explicit connection drawn between these issues in the writings of black science fiction authors Samuel R. Delaney and Octavia Butler.
Included are interviews with black cultural figures, from musicians DJ Spooky, Goldie, and Derek May, who discuss the importance of George Clinton to their own music, to George Clinton himself. Astronaut Dr. Bernard A. Harris Jr. describes his experiences as one of the first African-Americans in space, while Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols tells of her campaign for a greater role for African-Americans in NASA. Novelist Ishmael Reed and cultural critics Greg Tate and Kodwo Eshun tease out the parallels between black life and science fiction, while Delaney and Butler discuss the motivations behind their choice of the genre to express ideas about the black experience.
In keeping with the futuristic tenor of the film, the interviews are intercut with images of Pan-African life from different periods of history, jumping between time and space from the past to the future to the present, not unlike the mode of many rock videos or surfing the Internet.
After the Crash 