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Category Archives: war on terror
Handy chart for conspiracy theorists (with new Boston Bombing updates)
By Russ Baker
Originally posted at WhoWhatWhy
Lazy and imitative journalists and academics like to bandy around the term “conspiracy theory.” It is a one-size-fits-all putdown. But those who are unafraid of the real world know that conspiracies happen, and not only on House of Cards.
Conspiracies are prosecuted every day in courthouses throughout the land. As for outfits like the FBI and the CIA, journalism’s job is to continuously forget all the abuses and outright illegalities perpetrated over the years by these institutions, and to treat their claims with respect and trust.
The use of “conspiracy theory” is highly selective. When powerless people say that the CIA is doing something like illegally entering others’ computers, they are conspiracy theorists. But when Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, says it, she’s…well, a senator condemning an illegal act by the Central Intelligence Agency.
***
Sometime back, we ran a piece here in response to an op-ed in the New York Times that poked fun at those of us who don’t trust everything the authorities say about the Boston Marathon bombing. (We’ve had a few more things to say on that subject, such as this and this.)
Now, we’re pleased to present a little graphic that our friends at SwayWhat put together to illustrate a point: 63 percent of Americans believe at least one thing that someone else has labeled a “conspiracy theory.” The question always is, who’s doing the labeling? Anything involving more than one person committing a crime and conspiring in secret to do it is a conspiracy. Therefore, anyone who posits that 19 hijackers were behind the 9/11 attack is in fact a “conspiracy theorist.”
Of course, what exercises The New York Times most is when ordinary citizens smell a conspiracy in some kind of governmental cover-up which the mainstream media has failed to explore. Despite evidence of previous U.S. government involvement in conspiracies and cover-ups galore (from Watergate to Iran-Contra), the mainstream media is predictably shocked when someone suggests it might be happening again.
Enjoy.
Editor’s note: Check out Russ Baker’s site for an excellent two part expose on newly uncovered anomalies surrounding the Boston Bombing cover up:
Boston Bomber Carjacking Unravels. Part 1 of 2
Something Dead Wrong Here: Investigating the Mysterious and Central Character, “Danny.” Part 2 of 2
News Video Roundup
1/27 Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change interviews Gerald Celente on a variety of topics including economic turmoil, bitcoin and revolution:
1/28 An informative primer from James Corbett on the use of propaganda, false dichotomies and “divide and conquer” tactics by the ruling elite to keep the public powerless:
1/28 Ben Swann on the Grocery Manufacturers Association’s lobbying efforts to create a Federal Ban on GMO labeling:
1/28 Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s exceptional response to Obama’s State of the Union address:
1/28 An inspiring scene from the underrated “musical documentary” The American Ruling Class (2005) posted by the filmmakers in memory of Pete Seeger:
TSA Threatens Satirist’s First Amendment Rights
On November 6, 2013 Infowars.com sponsored a “We Will Resist TSA & NSA Tyranny” video contest. One of the participants, Telly “Leatherface” Blackwood, received a call regarding his entry from a man claiming to be from the TSA on Monday afternoon. According to a statement posted with a recording of a follow-up call on YouTube:
I received a call from a man named John on January 19 claiming to be from the TSA and had some questions for me. I asked him to call me back next day that I couldn’t hear him well. He agreed and within an hour or two I download an app so I can record phone calls. Today January 20th around 5:42pm while sitting outside he called back and I was able to record the whole thing. It was a strange call but very laughable. Sounds like one irritated TSA agent had enough of my video.
The contentious video from Blackwood’s comedy group “Off the Hook Television”:
In 2012, a TSA video from Natural News was suppressed by YouTube’s age restrictions (though this reposting got around it):
This is Joy Camp’s submission to the Infowars contest:
Bonus Clip: A new Joy Camp video mocking the contemporary pop music scene:
I, Pet Goat II
“I, Pet Goat II” is an award winning animated short released in the spring of 2012 by Louis Lefebvre and canadian art collective Heliofant. It quickly gained a following among alternative news/independent media communities for its cryptic symbolism and allusions to recent history weaved with parapolitical concepts. The meaning of some of the more archetypal symbols are easy enough to intuit, but in case you’re curious about the artist’s intent, the following information is from the Heliofant site:
fire of truth
That’s YOU!!! when you stand in the awareness of your sonship with the Divine and the brotherhood of mankind!!!
BO/B
The left-right puppet and additional layer of disenfranchisement, keeping you distracted while Drako weaves his web.
Lily
And suddenly a startling realization arose in Lily: “This apple is not mine”, she thought. “It belongs to someone else.”
Sun-Sue
Opposing courageously those who would enslave her.
Aali
The whirling heart of Islam awakened to the one true God! He is free and needs no control.
Juan “Pepito”
After years of economic exploitation and the environmental degradation, Juan “Pepito” has a decidedly sinking feeling.
L’enfant bleu
The keeper of the flame.
Madame Q
Madame Q’s point of suffering is sex. Is it repression or indulgence?
We don’t know. Yet there is definitely shame there.
Ludovic
In Latin, ludo means to play and ovis (ovum/ovis) can mean egg. The egg is a symbol of the potential, genetics, and of the soul.
Ovis can also mean sheep in Latin.
But in reality, Ludovic comes from a Germanic name meaning illustrious in combat.
Drako
The Sorcerer, the unseen hand and spirit of madness seeking ever more control through trickery, lies, poisons, false-flag events, wars, and mountains of beauracratic and legal framework to siphon off the energy of the inhabitants of the earth. He fears the light of day as he fears life itself, and operates in the shadows. His greatest power is his hold on the issuance of the currency.
Preface
I would like to start off by saying that the film came to me in its visual form, much like a painter who sees colors and forms in his mind’s eye. And I tried to be faithful to what I saw visually without necessarily understanding what the symbols were alluding to. Some of the symbols were pretty obvious to decipher, whereas some scenes had me scratching my head and took me some time to understand.
I do not pretend to be an expert in symbology and am learning this as I go along. I do not claim any truth. As I understand it, language is an outpouring of archetypes which are much more profound and more encompassing. To try and explain the symbols with common language is slightly reductive. It’s like trying to explain a poem.
Having said that, many people have asked me to explain my work and I am sensitive to their request. So I will try to provide some possible suggestions for the interpretation to the most commonly asked questions, but hope you will keep in mind that your answer is probably better. The hope is that it will provide some stimulation for inquiry and discussion.
The Meaning
There are many themes interwoven into the film, but the main story is about the crumbling away of the hierarchical world based on control and oppression, and the rising up of spiritual man, awake to his divine nature, free of intermediaries, fire in his eyes.
About the Egyptian Symbology
The Christ character in his boat is reminiscent of Ra, the Egyptian sun god who travels the sky in his celestial boat. In the evening he descends into the underworld, a sort of death. And in the morning he is resurrected and lights up the sky. The theme of resurrection was an important motif in the life of Egyptians.
Anubis, the jackal-headed god, is the Greek name for the earlier Egyptian Deity Anapa. He is associated with the afterlife and protects the souls of men in their journey through the underworld. He also weighs the truth and the heart of those souls before deciding their fate.
Anubis is often associated with Wepwawet who has a wolf’s head and is a war deity of Egypt. He is called the opener of ways. He opens up the way for the army to move in.
I have heard many people say that the symbology is satanic in nature. I do not believe it is. It is more about the intent invested in them. In all religions there are truth seeking souls and people who corrupted the intent of the original symbols. The fear is that the film subverts the Christ symbol to the message of Satanism. I would say it is the opposite. It is about taking back the symbology that has been corrupted to degrade the human spirit and control man, and redressing those symbols, by placing the Christ at the center of the narration.
The all-seeing eye, in the elite world view, is about control and surveillance of every person and aspect of society. When placed on the Christ character, it means the opening up of the third eye or pineal gland that permits a unhindered communication with God, as well as other dimensions. In other words, clear spiritual vision. The triangle on his forehead represents Divinity and is actually a symbol found in many churches to represent the Divine Source. This is opposed to the pyramids in the final shot which represent a top down control system where each layer is manipulated through deception by the layer above it, giving the very few at the apex incredible power.
The Apple
Little Lily, our girl dressed in white, symbolizes purity. She is like the bride and holds the apple which very much looks like a stain on her immaculate dress. The apple is a symbol of sin, and shame, and all her inward divisions about herself, that have been cultivated by the rulers of society in order that she remain in her place, subservient, like the children driven to apathy behind the barbed wires. Lily sees the ridiculous spectacle in front of her and is completely exhausted. It seems she has been holding this apple forever. So she just let’s it slip away.
You’ll notice that she sits in a circle, a symbol of her wholeness and alignment in spirit. She is centered. Behind her are the symbols of nature all around, intimating that her true nature is this wholeness.
…
This is a starting point to the commentary. We will be expanding on this in the days and weeks to come. We hope to add a feature which will enable you to add your interpretation as well. We’ll see…
Here are two other interpretations you might find useful:
The Esoteric Symbolism of the Viral Video “I, Pet Goat II” by Vigilant Citizen
And a more complex deciphering:
The Hidden Themes of Heliofant’s “I, Pet Goat II” by Xtraeme at abovetopsecret.com
Thanks!
Rest in Peace, Amiri Baraka
Photo: Gary Settle/The New York Times
Yesterday Amiri Baraka, a longtime activist and one of the great American poets, passed away at age 79. The cause of his death, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey, was not immediately released, but he was hospitalized in the facility’s intensive care unit since Dec. 21 and had a long struggle with diabetes.
Reflecting the exploratory and always-evolving nature of his mind, Amiri’s career path connected him to the Greenwich Village Beat community, the Black Nationalists, the Black Arts Movement (which he founded in 1964), and Marxist-Leninists. Though his beliefs during different stages of life may have different labels, he was consistently committed to justice, unity, social change and the struggle against oppression. As a revolutionary organizer, cultural critic, poet, novelist, essayist, historian, playwright, publisher and orator, Amiri Baraka’s words and ideas have influenced and inspired untold numbers of people around the world. His works have also been the source of much controversy, outrage and condemnation, at least during the initial time of their release.
One of Baraka’s last great acts as a rabble-rouser was his recitation of his poem “Somebody Blew Up America” before 2,000 people at the September 2002 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival held in Stanhope, New Jersey. This was incredibly courageous because throughout the country (especially on the East Coast) just one year after the attacks, questioning the official 9/11 story was enough to make one viewed as a conspiracy theorist, an apologist for terrorists, possibly traitorous, and/or insensitive to victims and their families. To do so and implicate the Israeli government, as Amiri Baraka did in his poem, led to accusations of antisemitism from the Anti-Defamation League. Many at the time believed the accusations even though under closer scrutiny it was obviously untrue because in the poem he clearly condemns the murder of Jews in the Holocaust and the lines in question could more accurately be described as anti-Zionist.
Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion And cracking they sides at the notion?
This is in reference to the well-documented case of the five dancing Israelis arrested on 9/11.
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away?
The most well-known incidence of Israeli foreknowledge are probably the reports from employees of instant messaging service Odigo. Other cases are listed here: http://911review.org/Wget/www.cooperativeresearch.org/wot/sept11/911mossad.html
Amiri Baraka was appointed Poet Laureate of New Jersey just one month before delivering “Somebody Blew Up America” to the public. Despite pressure from the powers that be to resign immediately, he steadfastly refused. In his own words, from an October 2, 2002 post on his website: “I WILL NOT ‘APOLOGIZE’, I WILL NOT ‘RESIGN!'” Governor Jim McGreevey and state legislators discovered there was no legal way to remove Poet Laureate appointees so in an act revealing their fear, hatred and desperation, they abolished the post in July 2003. This is just one chapter of many from Baraka’s often history-making career, but it’s emblematic of his courage, integrity, dedication to truth, and stubborn stance against injustice. This isn’t to say he was a saint or superhero. None of us are without fault, but what we can learn from Amiri is that development of political thought and civic engagement can and should be lifelong processes, and one can remain true to oneself yet open to new ideas and experiences. Above all, his life is a reminder that simple words (especially when composed and unleashed with skill at the right place and time) contain immense power; sometimes enough to change the world.
Photo: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Somebody Blew Up America
They say its some terrorist, some barbaric A Rab, in Afghanistan It wasn’t our American terrorists It wasn’t the Klan or the Skin heads Or the them that blows up nigger Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row It wasn’t Trent Lott Or David Duke or Giuliani Or Schundler, Helms retiring
It wasn’t The gonorrhea in costume The white sheet diseases That have murdered black people Terrorized reason and sanity Most of humanity, as they pleases
They say (who say?) Who do the saying Who is them paying Who tell the lies Who in disguise Who had the slaves Who got the bux out the Bucks
Who got fat from plantations Who genocided Indians Tried to waste the Black nation
Who live on Wall Street The first plantation Who cut your nuts off Who rape your ma Who lynched your pa
Who got the tar, who got the feathers Who had the match, who set the fires Who killed and hired Who say they God & still be the Devil
Who the biggest only Who the most goodest Who do Jesus resemble
Who created everything Who the smartest Who the greatest Who the richest Who say you ugly and they the goodlookingest
Who define art Who define science
Who made the bombs Who made the guns
Who bought the slaves, who sold them
Who called you them names Who say Dahmer wasn’t insane
Who? Who? Who?
Who stole Puerto Rico Who stole the Indies, the Philipines, Manhattan Australia & The Hebrides Who forced opium on the Chinese
Who own them buildings Who got the money Who think you funny Who locked you up Who own the papers
Who owned the slave ship Who run the army
Who the fake president Who the ruler Who the banker
Who? Who? Who?
Who own the mine Who twist your mind Who got bread Who need peace Who you think need war
Who own the oil Who do no toil Who own the soil Who is not a nigger Who is so great ain’t nobody bigger
Who own this city
Who own the air Who own the water
Who own your crib Who rob and steal and cheat and murder and make lies the truth Who call you uncouth
Who live in the biggest house Who do the biggest crime Who go on vacation anytime
Who killed the most niggers Who killed the most Jews Who killed the most Italians Who killed the most Irish Who killed the most Africans Who killed the most Japanese Who killed the most Latinos
Who? Who? Who?
Who own the ocean
Who own the airplanes Who own the malls Who own television Who own radio
Who own what ain’t even known to be owned Who own the owners that ain’t the real owners
Who own the suburbs Who suck the cities Who make the laws
Who made Bush president Who believe the confederate flag need to be flying Who talk about democracy and be lying
Who the Beast in Revelations Who 666 Who know who decide Jesus get crucified
Who the Devil on the real side Who got rich from Armenian genocide
Who the biggest terrorist Who change the bible Who killed the most people Who do the most evil Who don’t worry about survival
Who have the colonies Who stole the most land Who rule the world Who say they good but only do evil Who the biggest executioner
Who? Who? Who?
Who own the oil Who want more oil Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie
Who? Who? Who?
Who found Bin Laden, maybe they Satan Who pay the CIA, Who knew the bomb was gonna blow Who know why the terrorists Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego
Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion And cracking they sides at the notion
Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain’t goin’ nowhere
Who make the credit cards Who get the biggest tax cut Who walked out of the Conference Against Racism Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy & his Brother Who killed Dr King, Who would want such a thing? Are they linked to the murder of Lincoln?
Who invaded Grenada Who made money from apartheid Who keep the Irish a colony Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later
Who killed David Sibeko, Chris Hani, the same ones who killed Biko, Cabral, Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,
Who killed Kabila, the ones who wasted Lumumba, Mondlane, Betty Shabazz, Die, Princess Di, Ralph Featherstone, Little Bobby
Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo, Assata, Mumia, Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton
Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton, Medgar Evers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney, Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed
Who put a price on Lenin’s head
Who put the Jews in ovens, and who helped them do it Who said “America First” and ok’d the yellow stars
Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt Who murdered the Rosenbergs And all the good people iced, tortured, assassinated, vanished
Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine,
Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo Who invented Aids Who put the germs In the Indians’ blankets Who thought up “The Trail of Tears”
Who blew up the Maine & started the Spanish American War Who got Sharon back in Power Who backed Batista, Hitler, Bilbo, Chiang kai Chek
Who decided Affirmative Action had to go Reconstruction, The New Deal, The New Frontier, The Great Society,
Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for Who doo doo come out the Colon’s mouth Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro Who give Genius Awards to Homo Locus Subsidere
Who overthrew Nkrumah, Bishop, Who poison Robeson, who try to put DuBois in Jail Who frame Rap Jamil al Amin, Who frame the Rosenbergs, Garvey, The Scottsboro Boys, The Hollywood Ten
Who set the Reichstag Fire
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away?
Who? Who? Who?
Explosion of Owl the newspaper say The devil face cd be seen
Who make money from war Who make dough from fear and lies Who want the world like it is Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national oppression and terror violence, and hunger and poverty.
Who is the ruler of Hell? Who is the most powerful
Who you know ever Seen God?
But everybody seen The Devil
Like an Owl exploding In your life in your brain in your self Like an Owl who know the devil All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog
Like the acid vomit of the fire of Hell Who and Who and WHO who who Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!
Copyright 2002. AMIRI BARAKA.
The Last Gasp of American Democracy
Chris Hedges’ regular columns for Truthdig.com are consistently informative and provocative, but his latest piece offers a particularly critical analysis of the current political moment in the United States. In the following excerpt he ruminates on a number of recent actions of our modern corporate totalitarian state:
Via Truthdig:
The object of efficient totalitarian states, as George Orwell understood, is to create a climate in which people do not think of rebelling, a climate in which government killing and torture are used against only a handful of unmanageable renegades. The totalitarian state achieves this control, Arendt wrote, by systematically crushing human spontaneity, and by extension human freedom. It ceaselessly peddles fear to keep a population traumatized and immobilized. It turns the courts, along with legislative bodies, into mechanisms to legalize the crimes of state.
The corporate state, in our case, has used the law to quietly abolish the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the Constitution, which were established to protect us from unwarranted intrusion by the government into our private lives. The loss of judicial and political representation and protection, part of the corporate coup d’état, means that we have no voice and no legal protection from the abuses of power. The recent ruling supporting the National Security Agency’s spying, handed down by U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III, is part of a very long and shameful list of judicial decisions that have repeatedly sacrificed our most cherished constitutional rights on the altar of national security since the attacks of 9/11. The courts and legislative bodies of the corporate state now routinely invert our most basic rights to justify corporate pillage and repression. They declare that massive and secret campaign donations—a form of legalized bribery—are protected speech under the First Amendment. They define corporate lobbying—under which corporations lavish funds on elected officials and write our legislation—as the people’s right to petition the government. And we can, according to new laws and legislation, be tortured or assassinated or locked up indefinitely by the military, be denied due process and be spied upon without warrants. Obsequious courtiers posing as journalists dutifully sanctify state power and amplify its falsehoods—MSNBC does this as slavishly as Fox News—while also filling our heads with the inanity of celebrity gossip and trivia. Our culture wars, which allow politicians and pundits to hyperventilate over nonsubstantive issues, mask a political system that has ceased to function. History, art, philosophy, intellectual inquiry, our past social and individual struggles for justice, the very world of ideas and culture, along with an understanding of what it means to live and participate in a functioning democracy, are thrust into black holes of forgetfulness.
The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin, in his essential book “Democracy Incorporated,” calls our system of corporate governance “inverted totalitarianism,” which represents “the political coming of age of corporate power and the political demobilization of the citizenry.” It differs from classical forms of totalitarianism, which revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader; it finds its expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. The corporate forces behind inverted totalitarianism do not, as classical totalitarian movements do, replace decaying structures with new structures. They instead purport to honor electoral politics, freedom of expression and the press, the right to privacy and the guarantees of law. But they so corrupt and manipulate electoral politics, the courts, the press and the essential levers of power as to make genuine democratic participation by the masses impossible. The U.S. Constitution has not been rewritten, but steadily emasculated through radical judicial and legislative interpretation. We have been left with a fictitious shell of democracy and a totalitarian core. And the anchor of this corporate totalitarianism is the unchecked power of our systems of internal security.
Our corporate totalitarian rulers deceive themselves as often as they deceive the public. Politics, for them, is little more than public relations. Lies are told not to achieve any discernable goal of public policy, but to protect the image of the state and its rulers. These lies have become a grotesque form of patriotism. The state’s ability through comprehensive surveillance to prevent outside inquiry into the exercise of power engenders a terrifying intellectual and moral sclerosis within the ruling elite. Absurd notions such as implanting “democracy” in Baghdad by force in order to spread it across the region or the idea that we can terrorize radical Islam across the Middle East into submission are no longer checked by reality, experience or factually based debate. Data and facts that do not fit into the whimsical theories of our political elites, generals and intelligence chiefs are ignored and hidden from public view. The ability of the citizenry to take self-corrective measures is effectively stymied. And in the end, as in all totalitarian systems, the citizens become the victims of government folly, monstrous lies, rampant corruption and state terror.
Read the full article here: http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/the_last_gasp_of_american_democracy_20140105
People’s Lawyer Lynne Stewart Released From Prison
While most of us were celebrating New Year’s Eve last Tuesday, former activist lawyer Lynne Stewart and her family were celebrating her freedom. On December 31, she was granted a compassionate release from a prison in Fort Worth, Texas by a federal judge and the following day she was back home in Brooklyn.
In 2005 Lynne Stewart was found guilty of helping Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (the client she was defending at the time) communicate with supporters. She was sentenced to 28 months in prison and later resentenced for 10 years. Prior to her conviction Stewart was an attorney who represented many economically disadvantaged and anti-establishment defendants such as members of the Weather Underground and Black Panthers.
In 2005, Stewart was also diagnosed with breast cancer and due to her sentencing, crucial and potentially life-saving surgery was delayed for 18 months. By the time she received treatment, her cancer reached Stage Four and had metastasized to the point that her operating physician commented that her condition was the worst he had seen. By December 2013 she was also diagnosed with anemia, high blood pressure, asthma and diabetes, and was likely to have only 18 months left to live according to her doctor.
Despite the fact that Lynne Stewart never should have served such a sentence for trumped up charges designed to hype the pointless “War on Terror” in the first place, it’s fortunate that such a courageous person deserving of respect won’t die alone in prison. Her release is a victory for her family, friends, and countless supporters who fought tirelessly for her cause, including Justice for Lynne Stewart, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, independent news outlets including Building Bridges Radio, Law and Disorder Radio, and Black Agenda Report, and public figures such as Desmond Tutu, William Pepper, Mark Lane, and Dick Gregory. In support of Stewart’s release, Gregory had this to say:
“The reason for the prosecution and persecution of Lynne Stewart is evident to us all. It was designed to intimidate the entire legal community so that few would dare to defend political clients whom the State demonizes and none would provide a vigorous defense. It also was designed to narrow the meaning of our cherished first amendment right to free speech, which the people of this country struggled to have added to the Constitution as the Bill of Rights.”
After the Crash 