Bizarro-caos y creatividad

Whoever transmitted this translated message to you is irrelevant, and should remain anonymous in your mind. It is what you will do with this message which matters !

Each one of you wishes to exercise her/his free will and experience happiness.

These are attributes that were shown to us and to which we now have access. Your free will depends upon the knowledge you have of your own power. Your happiness depends upon the love that you give and receive.

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The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) can be considered a terrorist organization according to both international and American definitions of terrorism.
...
In reality, the CIA does not only gather information but consistently targets and engages in covert operations, psychological operations, and acts of terrorism both domestically and internationally.

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- United Nations Global Strait Jacket (pp. 355 - 357) by Joan Veon

The Rand Corporation in the early 1960s developed the Delphi technique for the purpose of maneuvering segments of the public into accepting predetermined government policies. In the 1970s and '80s, it was ideally used to convince land owners of the merits of accepting joining and general plan maps. Now it is being employed to persuade the public to accept outcome-based education and the licensing of all employees, via endorsements in the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM) and Certificate of Advanced Mastery (CAM) programs, a.k.a. school-to-work.

The goal of the Delphi technique is to lead a targeted group of people to a predetermined outcome, while giving the illusion of taking public input and under the pretext of being accountable to the public. For the Delphi to work, it is critical that the targeted group be kept away from knowledgeable people who could lead them away from the Delphier's predetermined outcome.

One variation on the Delphi technique is to use a series of meetings. The attendees are often given a number or a colored card when they enter the room, to determine at which table they are to sit. The purpose of this is to break up the groups of potentially knowledgeable people who arrive together so that they will be sitting with strangers and therefore be subdued.

Typically, at each table is a facilitator, someone who will know which way to help "steer" the group. Usually the people at each table are instructed to answer among themselves some of the questions and arrive at a table consensus. Someone is chosen to speak for the table, most of the time it is the person who has been secretly pre-briefed about the desired Delphi outcome. The table spokesperson is the only one allowed to address the podium and the others have little opportunity to address the podium or the crowd directly.

Anyone knowledgeable enough, or brave enough, to speak out in opposition will not be welcomed. Often they are told from the podium, "We don't have time to discuss that now," or "We discussed that on another date," or “We can discuss that after the meeting.” They will attempt to quiet, isolate, and discredit dissenters. After attending the Delphi meeting, participants may feel uneasy that they are in disagreement with the apparent majority. The Delphi technique is often successful in bluffing people into submission. Don't let them succeed. Call their bluff.

The Delphi technique often uses a series of surveys to bring about "consensus." The surveys are promoted as information gathering regarding the wishes of the targeted public, but in reality they are designed to manipulate the desired outcome. The survey will sometimes use a grading like, "agree all of the time," "agree most of the time," "agree some of the time," "agree not much," "agree never." Or, the survey grading will ask the respondents to use ratings like "most important," "moderately important," "least important."

The questions are typically "loaded" questions. An example is the question asked of Oregon teachers on a Delphi technique survey: "Do you agree or disagree that the following elements of H.B. 3565 [Oregon's Education Act for the 21st Century] will lead to improved student learning if implemented?" The survey listed such items for the teachers to agree or disagree with; "site councils," "increased accountability for school site and districts," "full funding for preschool programs to enable all students to enter school ready to learn," "extended school year," "certificate of initial mastery," etc. The question is patently "loaded." For example, site councils are not charged with improving student learning. Their function is to implement the state law, dole out professional development courses and money to selected teachers, and apply for grants from foundations and the federal government. For the teachers to answer, "agree" or "disagree", that the site councils will lead to improved student learning is misdirecting the respondent.

The Delphi surveys serve to "educate" the people taking the survey. After the first survey is taken, the respondents are given an analysis and told that most people agreed or somewhat agreed on the predetermined outcome. Then usually they are given another survey and asked if they can be flexible and try to rethink the "few remaining" areas of disagreement. When the series of surveys are accomplished, the respondents are told that the majority of respondents achieved "consensus" with whatever direction the pollers wanted in the first place.

These techniques were developed decades ago. The Rand Corporation has more recently been developing games that groups of business people, site council members, organizations, etc., can use to help "sell" people on collectivism, consensus vs. majority rule, etc.

Never, ever compromise when it comes to "right and wrong." With the right attitude you shouldn't care what people think, as long as you are standing up for what is right. Accept persecution gratefully.

reference: http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NewAge/Delphi_Change_Agents.htm

reference:(1) http://www.michnews.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/333/14967
(2) http://jkn.com/View?j=763422.721507430492

By Selwyn Duke
MichNews.com
Dec 1, 2006



If people were asked about actor Michael Richards' epithet-laced outburst at a Los Angeles nightclub, there would be a lot of focus on the verbal assault but very little on an assault on freedom of speech. In truth, however, if there's anything at all relating to this story that rises above gossip-column fodder, it’s that it’s also fuel for demagogues who seek control over discourse in America.



Representing the two targets of Mr. Richards’ bile, Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, “civil rights” attorney Gloria Allred appeared on Hannity and Colmes Thanksgiving eve. The stone-faced Allred opened with a very telling assertion, boldly proclaiming, “This is not free speech, this is hate speech!”



This was no spontaneous statement. No, it was well-crafted and calculated and, I believe, designed to serve a far more insidious end than simply extracting money from a goofy comedian. Let’s examine this with the introduction of a subject that on the surface seems unrelated.



As a dissenting justice in the 1958 Baer v. Kolmorgen case, one Judge Gallagher is quoted as having warned that “If the court does not stop talking about the separation of church and state, people are going to start thinking it is part of the Constitution.”



But the courts didn’t stop, and the result is that four decades later this “fact” is imprinted upon the American mind. So much so, that now the average Joe has been inured to the denuding of the public square of historic religious symbols out of respect for this “principle” of the Constitution.



And this is why Allred’s statement bears mention. There are social engineers in our time – and I count Allred among them – who are trying to imbue the American mind with the notion that so-called “hate speech” is not protected under the First Amendment. Now, let’s try to understand how these puppeteers will transform America by taking a lesson in social engineering 101.



First, use the term “hate speech” as much as possible so as to burn it into the lexicon and establish it as a category unto itself. And it’s not hard. This has already been accomplished with terms/concepts such as “sexual harassment” and, the concept of which hate speech is a corollary, “hate crime.” Then, be sure to juxtapose the two terms frequently, as beautifully illustrated by Gloria Allred herself. Saying “This is not free speech, this is hate speech!” creates further separation between the two, cementing the notion that they are starkly different verbal species. Once this is accomplished, the idea that the latter is protected by the former may seem laughable.



Understand in its entirety what is being achieved here. Not only will this strategy persuade many legislators and judges that hate speech isn’t protected under the Constitution and therefore can be criminalized, it will also influence the man on the street. And this harks back to the old advice, “If you really want something, act like you already have it.” As long as you continually condemn “hate speech” and juxtapose it with “free speech,” more and more people will assume that it already is illegal. And once enough Americans believe this, all that is left is to make it official. And the beauty of this is that you don’t even have to lie. Success hinges mainly on the positioning of words, timing, tone and, most of all, re-pe-ti-tion.



Oh, you think it won’t work?



To a great degree it’s already a fait accompli. After decades of “positioning” (this refers to Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s idea about the placement of leftist ideologues in positions of influence for the purposes of altering the culture), with social engineers in academia, the media, entertainment and various organizations and activist groups, it isn’t uncommon to find Americans possessed of this lie. I myself have met them, and even pundit Bill O’Reilly uttered this misconception on his cable television show. Remember, as nineteenth century philosopher William James said, “There is nothing so absurd but if you repeat it often enough people will believe it.”



Ah, but there is that impediment called the Constitution. Or, not really. Although some fancy it to be an insurmountable bulwark against tyranny, it erects no wall so high that it cannot be scaled by justices corrupted by popular swill and emboldened by popular will. Just as they were able to perform the intellectual contortions necessary to read the separation of church and state into the First Amendment, so will they read freedom of speech out of it. Although, how it will happen is not entirely uninteresting.



Since many western nations, such as Australia, Canada and England, already have hate speech laws, there is precedent for them. But foreign precedent doesn’t constitute American legal precedent, you say? Well, then you forget that there is precedent for the idea of considering it precedent. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg herself once said, “We must look for inspiration beyond our borders, to the laws and constitutions of other nations.” And she is no lone gunman. Sandra Day O’Connor and others have expressed similar sentiments.



Hate speech laws will come in like March goes out: Like a lamb. Most people won’t object because, after all, who should be using offensive epithets anyway? I mean, common decency informs that a “good” person would prohibit such things. But it will be more like the ides of March.



But what am I talking about? Well, if you really take Ginsberg’s advice and examine the “laws of other nations,” you’ll see that hate speech legislation was quickly broadened beyond the proscription of epithets to encompass unfashionable beliefs.



“Aha! So this will be the poison pill that disenamors people of this scheme! Surely the average person doesn’t want to see legitimate dissent squelched,” you say? Ah, you have much to learn.



A good salesman doesn’t give specifics, knowing full well that many won’t read the fine print. When we first sold people on the separation of church and state, we billed it as a defense against the imposition of religion. If we had told Americans that this principle would expand inexorably and one day be used to tear crosses off city seals and property, remove religious statues, ban the singing of Christmas carols in schools, rename Christmas Trees “Holiday Trees,” and that ne’er do wells would seek to remove the word “God” from the pledge and currency, they would have balked. So we just marketed the idea as a way to protect Americans’ rights. And that’s exactly how we’ll peddle this.



And you don’t have to worry about people uncovering our machinations. Most don’t think about the law of unintended consequences – or the law of intended consequences of unintended motivations – and “most” is all we need to effect our will. Most people, be they laymen, legislators or judges, will know no better. And many of those who will, will be our well “positioned” operatives.



And what of the rest? What of those troublesome prophetic voices of doom? They won’t be a problem. Oh, they’ll warn of how hate speech laws in other western nations have been used to imprison people for speaking in accordance with their consciences. They will mention how Canadians Mark Harding and Hugh Owens were punished for, respectively, criticizing Islam and homosexuality. They’ll cite the story of English schoolgirl Codie Stott, who was jailed on a “racial offense” after requesting to be seated with English-speaking students. Or, they may mention the case of Ake Green, a Swedish pastor who was jailed for criticizing homosexuality in a sermon. And they’ll also point out that freedom of speech is not freedom of speech at all unless it protects even the most unpopular speech, for popular speech’s popularity is protection enough. Yes, they’ll warn about the perils of setting dangerous precedents and that one thing leads to another. All to no avail.



You see, good chess players are rare. Most don’t think a few moves ahead. And the “watchdog” of the mainstream media? Surely you jest; it’s more like our lapdog. We can count on it to print neither articles like this one nor stories like the above, lest such admonitions rouse Americans from their slumber. Instead, along with Hellywood and academia, it will do its best to convince all that the grand imperative of silencing the occasional acid-tongued bigot justifies the rending of the First Amendment.



Thus, those prophetic voices will remain in the darkness, a location from which credibility is ever elusive. After all, if some a half century ago had predicted that the principle of the separation of church and state would be used as it has been, they would have been thought crazy. Likewise, mere laughter and a rolling of the eyes will suffice in answer to today’s prescient minds.



In summary, once support for the criminalization of hate speech has galvanized, we’ll have legislation. And once the legalistic rationalization that allows for it permeates enough jurists’ minds, we’ll have it upheld in court. Then, with the principle of hate speech enshrined in American law, it will be open season on positions contrary to those of the positioned. Once an unacceptable belief is identified, our culture-shapers in the media, entertainment and academia will simply define it as “hateful” and beat that drum until it becomes the next supposition. And then the legal definition will be sure to follow.



And hegemony will be ours. As it is, the media, entertainment realm and academia sing our tune. Even corporations feel the pressure, as evidenced by their sensitivity training classes, support of politically correct causes, refusal to support traditional ones, and the limiting of the dissemination of politically incorrect ideas by certain Internet entities. Yes, we have done our best to imprison dissenting voices in that small, dark box. The last piece of the puzzle is the destruction of that box. And then America will be a beautifully dark place indeed.



Copyright by Selwyn Duke

Wave after wave of child abuse reports pour forward from all over the globe

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

The UN is to investigate itself again after it was revealed by the London Telegraph today that more than twenty different cases of child sex slavery involving UN staff have been reported in southern Sudan.

The Telegraph reports that it has learned of dozens of victims’ accounts claiming that some peacekeeping and civilian staff based in the town are regularly picking up young children in their UN vehicles and forcing them to have sex. The Telegraph states that it is thought that hundreds of children may have been abused.

The UN has up to 10,000 military personnel in the region, of all nationalities and the allegations involve peacekeepers, military police and civilian staff.

The Telegraph also states that the Sudanese government, which is deeply opposed to the deployment of UN troops to Darfur, has evidence of child sex slavery, including video footage of Bangladeshi UN workers allegedly having sex with three young girls.

Stating that such events are ultimately the work of "a few bad apples", a UN spokesperson promised that they will be thoroughly investigated.

Over the past few years, however, there seems to have been a hell of a lot of rotting fruit in the UN barrel.

Last November a BBC Investigation found that children as young as 11 have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia. A previous BBC investigation in Liberia discovered systematic abuse, involving food being given out to teenage refugees in return for sex. In both instances the UN promised to investigate.

In 2003 the AP reported that UN officials were identified as using a ship charted for 'peacekeepers' to traffick young girls from Thailand to East Timor as prostitutes.

In the same year it was also revealed that UN staff were guilty of raping women on a systematic scale in Sierra Leone.

Previous to this, in early 2002 a massive pedophilia scandal within the UN was uncovered involving sexual abuse against West African refugee children in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. UPI reported that Senior U.N. officials knew of the widespread pedophilia and not only did they not take action against the perpetrators, they covered up the atrocities.

It was later reported that after The UN's' investigating arm had cleared several U.N. workers of charges of sexual abuse against West African refugee children, it substantiated 10 new cases against aid workers.

Damning cases involving workers making home porn movies and so called weapons inspectors having bizarre sadomasochistic, pansexual and leather fetishes also emerged at this time.

In 2004 The New York Post reported that the UN was trying to block the publication of a book by three United Nations fieldworkers that detailed sex, drugs and corruption inside multiple U.N. missions. "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth" chronicles the experiences of a doctor, a human-rights official and a secretary in U.N. operations in Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Liberia and Bosnia. It also alleged that the UN knowingly hired freed criminals to serve as peacemakers.

We have also previously reported on the intimate involvement of Dyncorp, the contractors of the international police force, in such sex scandals. One Dyncorp employee, Kathryn Bolkovac, was sacked for detailing UN workers’ involvement in the sex trade in Bosnia. Bolkovac was sacked after disclosing that UN peacekeepers went to nightclubs where girls as young as 15 were forced to dance naked and have sex with customers, and that UN personnel and international aid workers were linked to prostitution rings in the Balkans.

Dyncorp was ordered to pay Kathryn Bolkovac £110,000 by an employment tribunal, yet both the British and the US governments as well as the UN continue to contract Dyncorp.

It was later revealed by the Chicago Tribune that Halliburton subsidiary KBR and Dyncorp lobbyists are working in tandem with the Pentagon to stall legislation that would specifically ban trafficking in humans for forced labor and prostitution by U.S. contractors.

On March 11th 2005, Representative Cynthia McKinney grilled Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers on the Dyncorp scandal.

"Mr. Secretary, I watched President Bush deliver a moving speech at the United Nations in September 2003, in which he mentioned the crisis of the sex trade. The President called for the punishment of those involved in this horrible business. But at the very moment of that speech, Dyncorp was exposed for having been involved in the buying and selling of young women and children. While all of this was going on, Dyncorp kept the Pentagon contract to administer the smallpox and anthrax vaccines, and is now working on a plague vaccine through the Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program. Mr. Secretary, is it [the] policy of the U.S. Government to reward companies that traffic in women and little girls?"

The response and McKinney's comeback was as follows.

Rumsfeld: "Thank you, Representative. First, the answer to your first question is, is, no, absolutely not, the policy of the United States Government is clear, unambiguous, and opposed to the activities that you described. The second question."

McKinney: "Well how do you explain the fact that Dyncorp and its successor companies have received and continue to receive government contracts?"

Rumsfeld: "I would have to go and find the facts, but there are laws and rules and regulations with respect to government contracts, and there are times that corporations do things they should not do, in which case they tend to be suspended for some period; there are times then that the - under the laws and the rules and regulations for the - passed by the Congress and implemented by the Executive branch - that corporations can get off of - out of the penalty box if you will, and be permitted to engage in contracts with the government. They're generally not barred in perpetuity."

McKinney: "This contract - this company - was never in the penalty box."

Rumsfeld: "I'm advised by DR. Chu that it was not the corporation that was engaged in the activities you characterized but I'm told it was an employee of the corporation, and it was some years ago in the Balkans that that took place."

Rumsfeld's effort to shift the blame away from the hierarchy at Dyncorp and onto the Dyncorp employees was a blatant attempt to hide the fact that human trafficking and sex slavery is a practice condoned by companies like Dyncorp and Halliburton subsidiaries like KBR.

Why should the UN be continually allowed to investigate itself and, those that it contracts, on these issues? The UN has an abysmal track record on this issue and a long history of covering up such cases. It is time for a thorough independent inquiry of the UN and its agencies and affiliates to be carried out.

reference: http://www.infowars.net/articles/january2007/030107UN_Sex.htm

Thomas Friedman / Commentary

James Carville, the legendary Clinton campaign adviser who coined the slogan, "It's the economy, stupid," knows a gut issue when he sees one. So when Carville contacted me the other day to tell me about the newest gut issue his polling was turning up for candidates in the 2006 elections, I was all ears.
"Energy independence," he said. "It's now the No. 1 national security issue. It's become kind of a joke with us, because no matter how we ask the question, that's what comes up."
So, for instance, the Democracy Corps, a Democratic strategy group spearheaded by Carville and the former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg, asked the following question in an Aug. 27 survey of likely voters: "Which of the following would you say should be the two most important national security priorities for the administration and Congress over the next few years?"
Coming in No. 1, with 42 percent, was "reducing dependence on foreign oil." Coming in a distant second at 26 percent was "combating terrorism." Coming in third at 25 percent was "the war in Iraq," and tied at 21 percent were "securing our ports, nuclear plants and chemical factories" and "addressing dangerous countries like Iran and North Korea."
"Strengthening America's military" drew 12 percent.
Carville also noted that because their polls are of "likely voters," they have a slight Republican bias — i.e., they aren't just polling a bunch of liberal greens.
"When we lay out different plans for how to deal with Iraq, any plan that also includes energy independence tops any other plan that doesn't," said Greenberg, who added that people are not expressing this view because they are worried about price, but because they are starting to understand that our oil dependence is fueling a host of really bad national security problems. "There is frustration that leaders have not taken it up," he added. "There is a sense that the public is ahead of the leaders, and there is actually a sense of relief when anyone talks about energy independence with any seriousness."
Greenberg said he started noticing this during this year's re-election campaign by Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania. When his Republican challenger, Lynn Swann, first jumped into the race, public polls showed the two candidates in a dead heat. Rendell eventually pulled far ahead in the polls, though, and among the key issues that helped to separate him, said Greenberg, was the governor's stressing of alternative energy, and his “PennSecurity Fuels Initiative” to lessen dependence on foreign oil and grow the state’s clean energy market.
What this means for Democratic Party candidates, argues Carville, is that it’s no longer enough to have "energy security" as part of a 12-step plan for American renewal. No, it needs to become a defining issue of what Democrats are all about.
It should "not be part of an expanding litany, but rather a contracting narrative," explained Carville. "It can't just be that we are for a woman's right to choose, and education and energy independence. This is the thing we need to get done above and beyond everything else." People should associate "energy security" with Democrats the way they associate "tax cuts" with Republicans, he argued. "This is not something to add to the stew — this is the stock."
The best way for a party that is often viewed as weak on national security to overcome that deficit is to be for energy independence, he noted. Indeed, nothing would be more potent for Democrats now than to capture energy security and all the issues that surround it — from improving our trade deficit by not importing more oil to improving the climate to improving U.S. competitiveness by making us leaders in alternative fuels.
So does this mean the public would accept a gasoline or BTU tax? No, said Greenberg. The public wants government to impose much higher auto mileage standards on Detroit and much more stringent energy codes on buildings and appliances. People want a tough regulatory response, a la California.
Remember, Carville and Greenberg are professional campaign advisers. They get paid to get people elected — not to offer feel-good nostrums. So when they tell you that their polling and focus groups around the country show that "reducing dependence on foreign oil" is voters' top national security priority, you know that this issue has finally arrived. The party that captures it most credibly will be rewarded.
Hello? Anybody listening?
(Thomas Friedman is a columnist for The New York Times).

reference: The San Juan Star / Monday, October 16,2006 / page B-15

By Juan Cole
Informed Comment

Monday 16 January 2006

Every year we honor Martin, and we hear again his stirring speech, "I have a Dream." But in many ways, that speech is among the least challenging of his charges to us, however hard and unfulfilled it remains. He dreamed other dreams, of the end of exploitative materialism and relentless militarism, of an America devoted to social justice and creative non-violence, which our mainstream media do not dare repeat over and over again.

We do not have Martin among us to guide us with his wisdom. But it is not hard to extrapolate from his "Beyond Vietnam" address of 1967 to what he would think about the Iraq morass.

He would say we have to treat with the Sunni Arabs and the Shiite Sadrists. We have to treat with the enemy. Not only for their sakes, for the sake of ruined cities like Fallujah and Tal Afar, and those to come- but for our own sakes.

1. Martin urged the end of the offensive bombing raids.

'End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.'

The US has increased the number of its bombing raids in Iraq from 25 a month last summer to 150 in December. Bombing raids are very bad counter-insurgency tactics and should be rethought.

2. Martin suggested that the US begin, on its own account, a cease fire.

'Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.'

3. He urged that the widening of the war be stopped:

'Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.'

If we applied that to Iraq, I think it implies that the US should seek better relations with Syria and Iran and cease menacing the latter with an air attack.

4. He insisted that the US recognize the widespread political support for the NLF:

'Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government.'

With regard to Iraq, this principle would imply that the US should recognize that the Neo-Baath Arab nationalist leaders, the Salafi Sunni revivalists, and local guerrilla chiefs have genuine popular support among Sunni Arabs, and cannot be shut out of the new order. (Note that some 150 candidates who ran in the Dec. 15 elections were excluded after the fact by the debaathification committee controlled by Ahmad Chalabi.) The Cairo Conference held last fall was a step toward this recognition, and acknowledged the right to mount a resistance to foreign military occupation. The work of the conference must be continued.

5. Martin supported a timetable for withdrawing US troops.

'Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement.' [sustained applause]

Iraqi Sunni parties, as well as the Shiite fundamentalist bloc of Muqtada al-Sadr, have demanded that the US set a timetable for withdrawal. Some 120 Iraqi parliamentarians out of 275 called for it last year. The new parliament may well have a majority that supports it.

These five principles are not the only ones that can be extrapolated from Martin's sermon. They concern more tactics than over-arching strategy. Here are some principles of strategy that he mentioned:

6. It is necessary to understand the common people among the "enemy" if anything is to be accomplished:

'And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.

They must see Americans as strange liberators.'

7. Concern to save US troops from creeping cynicism must be paramount:

'I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.'

In Iraq, too, virtually "none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved." Not weapons of mass destruction, not international terrorism, not Swedish style democracy, not social justice, are actually on the agenda of the present administration.

8. The initiative belongs to the US:

'Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.'

Likewise, in the Sunni Arab heartland, homes are being destroyed and culture subverted.

9. A revolution in American values away from consumer materialism and militarism is needed if we are not to go on having one Vietnam after another:

'The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality [applause], and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy . . .

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin [applause], we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered . . .

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just . . ."

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.' [sustained applause]

10. Love and justice, not aggression and exploitation, hold the real hope for a peaceful and prosperous future:

'This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I'm not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another (Yes), for love is God. (Yes) And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. . . . If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.'

Note that Martin recognized love as the principle that all the great religions saw as the "supreme unifying principle of life," including Islam. His religious universalism might be a starting point for Americans to rethink the Islamophobia that has become so widespread.

We cannot in any simplistic way extract a template from Martin's sermon that we can apply to Iraq today. We can, however, explore his wisdom for inspiration in how to go foward, end the quagmire, and make amends for the horrors of the way we have waged this illegal war of choice.

source: http://www.juancole.com/2006_01_01_juanricole_archive.html
source2: http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/48/16988
jkn: http://snapshot.jkn.com/757246.393122978297

source: http://www.augustafreepress.com/stories/storyReader$40031

Ecology and You

Erik Curren

erik@planetdharma.com





It seems that everybody's got an opinion these days about how to fight high gas prices. Punish price gougers. Tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Drill in protected areas in Alaska or off the Atlantic coast.

And then there's the chain e-mail urging a consumer boycott of one brand of gas station at a time until each company cries "uncle" and agrees to lower its price to, say, $1.59 a gallon.

Normally, Americans don't give energy a second thought - and it shows. We'd much rather argue about such nonissues as flag burning, gay marriage and when it's finally time to ban the Spanish language.

But when the price of gas, electricity or heating oil goes up, then we can hardly talk about anything else besides energy. And of course, we all think we're experts. But, boy, are we wrong.

The sad truth is that Americans know much less about energy than we think, according to a study released last September by the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation in Washington, D.C:

- Just 12 percent of Americans can pass a basic quiz on awareness of energy topics.

- 130 million Americans believe that hydropower is America's top energy source, though it accounts for just 10 percent of the total.

- Most Americans agree with the myth that "America uses pollution-free energy," when in fact energy use is our biggest single source of global warming gases and other pollutants.

To compound the problem, "three Americans in four rated themselves as having 'a lot' or 'a fair amount' of knowledge about energy," says Kevin Coyle, former president of the NEETF and the study's author, "even though just 12 percent passed our quiz. This gap between real and imagined knowledge could stand in the way of Americans realizing a more energy efficient future."

With gas prices rising and peak oil here at the same time that we start to feel global warming's first effects, it will be crucial to the world's future that Americans, who use the most energy and create the most pollution, make smart decisions about energy.

But to do that, we need to begin by realizing how little we know and how much we have to learn. "Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge," said Alfred North Whitehead.

We should start to learn about energy. And we should take it seriously - as seriously as we take learning about how to manage our money.



What is energy literacy?

We already know that we need a basic level of financial literacy to balance our checkbooks, to use credit cards wisely, to invest for our kids' college funds and our own retirement and to avoid financial scams. We also need to form intelligent opinions on taxes, government spending and monetary policy.

In tough economic times, money knowledge is more important than ever, as we have seen in the depressions and recessions of the past.

Today, we may not be facing our toughest economic times. But we may soon see the toughest energy times we've ever known.

With levels of greenhouse gases higher than they've been in a million years, we have little time for business as usual if we want to avert dangerous global warming. At the same time, petroleum geologists say the peak of world oil production is immanent. From now on, fossil fuels will likely enter a period of volatility and price spikes, which means lack of supply will force us to change our ways, global warming or not.

Thus, today it's more important than ever we should develop basic energy literacy. It's the only way each of us can make smart decisions about our own energy use - decisions such as SUV or hybrid, big house or small one, gas or electric heat.

We must also be energy-literate to contribute in a positive way to the national and international dialogue on solutions to global warming and peak oil. Should we squeeze Iraq for more oil or try to save gas at home? Should we build more nuclear plants or subsidize clean coal? Should we regulate emission of global-warming gasses?

We've heard a lot about developing new energy sources - wind, solar, biomass to increase supply. But the fastest and cheapest way to solve our energy crunch (and slow global warming) is to reduce our demand for energy. Why haven't we heard more about conservation and energy-efficiency?

If we know more about energy, we can ask these questions, and we can understand the answers.

What is energy literacy? It's knowing the basics about where our energy comes from, how much it costs, how much we use, and what are its impacts on the environment and people at every stage, from production to distribution to end use.

Learning about energy doesn't need to be one more chore in our busy lives. In fact, it can help us make more sense of today's complex world.

"Here we're in an age of data overload, so if you learn about energy, you're addressing three concerns at once, national security, the economy and the environment," says Harvey Sachs of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy based in Washington, D.C.

To further the cause of energy literacy in a modest way, I've put together a list below.



Five big things Americans should know about energy

1. There's no civilization without energy.

"No economic activity today can take place without the consumption of some energy," says John Tobin, executive director of the Energy Literacy Project based in Evergreen, Colo. "We need energy to heat homes, drive to work, electrify offices - to simply live."

But most people don't realize the importance of energy until something goes wrong. "One of the scariest examples of how people rely on energy came in pictures from the tsunami in the Indian Ocean from a few years ago. We saw people lined up for hours to get fuel oil just to boil water so they could drink it and cook their food. It shows how energy is essential to people."

Americans might remember the gas lines of the seventies.

Energy is so important that wars have been won and lost by access to energy sources. An ample supply of coal to feed its armament industry helped the Union win the Civil War. Coal also helped Imperial Germany build a fleet to challenge Great Britain and start World War I, while switching its own navy from coal to oil helped Britain prevail in that conflict. In World War II a lack of oil stopped Rommel's tanks in North Africa and docked much of the Japanese fleet in the Pacific.

Today, most international tension revolves around access to oil, whether in Iraq and Iran, in Nigeria and throughout Africa, around the Caspian Sea or in the South China Sea.



2. There's no 28th Amendment.

Because energy is so crucial to our lives, Americans have developed an expectation that all forms of energy will always be cheap and plentiful. "The American public is accustomed to having abundant energy available at all times," Tobin says. "They expect to fuel their vehicles with gasoline, heat their homes with natural gas and have electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."

Tobin says that the public often seems to act as if there were an extra amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shall be fueled by cheap and abundant energy."

But energy is no more a right today than it was in the past when our ancestors had to scrounge for firewood in the forest or pull their own plows. Just because we've enjoyed cheap energy for the last 50 years - the time of the Oil Age, which is fast running down - does not mean that it's guaranteed forever. Indeed, today we've reached a turning point.

Only if we are informed of the ways that energy is connected to the economy and to the environment can Americans make the difficult tradeoffs necessary to protect our way of life and the natural systems that sustain life on earth. "In Iraq and Afghanistan every day, the allies are burning 25 gallons of gasoline per soldier," Tobin says, as an example. "It's a price that citizens have to pay, and we should be aware of it."



3. There's no free lunch.

"People need to recognize that they're connected to the environment," says Diane Wood, Coyle's successor as president of the NEETF. "Everyday choices are connected to the natural environment. We should stop, pause, and learn more about it to make healthy choices for the environment."

Like Tobin, Wood thinks Americans need to go beyond myths about energy. "What surprises me is how much incorrect information people have and how strongly they hold to it. That often comes from a visual, like the Exxon Valdez, which makes people think that industry is the main source of pollution. In fact, more pollution comes from oil leaking out of millions of individual cars."

Americans are good at passing the buck for pollution and energy prices hikes to business, but this won't solve our problems. Instead, we should start to take matters into our own hands.

On a personal level, we should work to control our energy use and to know its consequences. Melanie Lord of the Energy Center of Wisconsin in Madison thinks that Americans should know such facts as how much electricity and gasoline we use, where those sources come from, their impacts on the environment and how to reduce the amounts we use.

Of course, we should certainly demand that industry and government do their part. Particularly, Congress should require automakers to produce cars and trucks that get better fuel economy. With global warming and $3 gas, there's no excuse for letting Detroit sell a Hummer that gets 12 MPG.



4. There's no silver bullet.

You'll hear this phrase from those who are skeptical of alternatives to replace our current use of fossil fuels. A main concern is energy quality - a measure of the amount of economic activity required to extract or produce energy - according to Cutler Cleveland, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University.

"In history, major advances in civilization have occurred when societies have jumped from low-yield to high-yield energy sources," Cleveland says.

Thus, humans have moved from using the lowest yield sources - wood, water and wind - to progressively denser sources - coal and then oil and natural gas. Today's industrial society is built on cheap, abundant sources of high-quality energy. It would be a serious setback for us to transition back down to lower-quality energy sources, even if they are clean and renewable.

Gasoline is polluting, but from an economic perspective, it is a very high quality energy source. A gallon of gas provides as much energy as a human working full time for three weeks, according to David Pimentel, professor of agriculture and life sciences at Cornell University. More dispersed sources like solar, wind or biomass can't hope to match that kind of power in such a small package.

In addition, alternative energy has many problems of its own. Solar power and hydrogen fuels are decades away from viability, if they ever get there. Wind power may now be competitive on price with nuclear energy, but communities from Nantucket Sound to Appalachia have refused to welcome the industrial installations featuring dozens of 400-foot high wind turbines required to make wind profitable.

And many other alternative energy ideas sound like little more than science fiction, such as launching satellites with giant solar panels to beam electricity down to earth from outer space.

But the public can be easily taken in by fanciful schemes because we are not used to analyzing alt-energy sources critically. Just as we are quick to put the blame for all our energy problems on industry, so we are perhaps even quicker to ascribe to that same industry supernatural powers to solve those energy problems.

"Tap water," muses a woman in a recent cartoon by Roz Chast in The New Yorker offering "Free Ideas for Alternative Fuels." "Why can't cars run on tap water? What about steam engines? There must be a way."



5. Can't live with it, can't live without it.

"The only thing worse than running out of oil," says Charles Hall, professor of systems ecology at SUNY-Syracuse, "is not running out of oil." Oil is the lifeblood of industrial civilization, and 97 percent of all transportation relies on oil, with no viable substitute on the horizon. But burning oil and other fossil fuels creates more dangerous global-warming gasses than any other human activity.

Will peak oil save us from global warming? That is, will running out of cheap oil slow down the rate at which humans release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere? Probably not. Left to their own devices and without government regulation of carbon emissions, simple economics of supply and demand will encourage us to replace cheap oil with the easiest affordable energy source. In America's case, this is coal, of which the U.S. is said to have a 250-year supply at current usage rates.

The industry is already working on ways to profitably liquefy coal to replace gasoline, diesel and even jet fuel. And that's bad news for the environment, since coal is much dirtier than oil, even burned using today's technology. And today's way of mining coal, through aggressive strip mining and mountaintop removal, is actually more destructive to the environment than the deep mining of the past.

As to tomorrow's technology of clean coal, so far it's nothing more than speculation from an industry with little history of doing anything safely or cleanly.



Become energy literate now for a better future

"In the larger scheme of things, it's a matter of survival to learn about energy," says Kevin Coyle, who now serves as vice president of education with the National Wildlife Foundation in Reston. "In the immediate term, all of our lives will be better if we are aware of energy used, energy spent, global warming and a variety of other key issues."

Coyle says that as a nation we should get our energy priorities straight. First, we need to increase conservation and energy efficiency. Then, we should look for alternatives to fossil fuels. Finally, we should rely on fossil fuels, used as cleanly and sparingly as possible, and only when there are no practical substitutes.

"I think it's going to be a long, hard road," Coyle says. "If you look at the immediate past, there doesn't seen to be much room for optimism. But now there are increased opportunities for energy efficiency. We have labeling programs like Energy Star, green power and an awareness of global warming."

The Department of Energy says that just by using the "off the shelf" energy-efficient technologies available today such as Energy Star-rated appliances, we could cut the cost of heating, cooling and lighting our homes and workplaces by up to 80 percent.

Perhaps the hardest part of getting started is getting energy-literate. Don't worry if you didn't learn about energy in school. Most schools do a poor job of covering energy, according to the NEETF report, and Americans get most of their information about energy from the media.

Tobin of the Energy Literacy Project has called on the Secretary of Energy to take a leadership role in raising Americans' knowledge. His group wants Washington to convene a conference of representatives from industry, government, education and the nonprofit sector to formulate a national plan to coordinate the hundreds of existing education programs which, so far, have not led to any appreciable gain in Americans' energy literacy.

In the meantime, you can take the time to educate yourself about energy so that you can be part of the solution to leave a livable world to our children and grandchildren.



On the Web

- Energy Star Program: www.energystar.gov
- American Council for Energy Efficiency: www.aceee.org
- Energy Literacy Project: www.energy-literacy.org
- National Environmental Education and Training Foundation: www.neetf.org
- U.S. Energy Information Administration: www.eia.doe.gov
- Energy Center of Wisconsin: www.ecw.org
- Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Boston University: http://www.bu.edu/cees/

More information about Curren's works is available on-line at www.alayapress.com.

The Crystal Handbook by Kevin Sullivan
pages 167-168
Exercise 2
This exercise requires eleven Clear Quartz
crystals of about the same size. Use single-terminated
crystals, not crystals with points on each end.
Lie in a comfortable darkened area, light
your favorite candle, and turn on your
meditation music. Place a crystal on the
floor at the top of your head, one on your
forehead, one on your throat , chest , solar
plexus, abdomen, and pubic bone. All crystals
should be laid lengthwise on the body
with the tips pointed up. Place a crystal in
the palm of each hand and breathe slowly
and deeply from the abdomen, visualizing
healing energy into your body as
all tension and stress flows out through the
crystals.
Note: This exercise did not seem to be impressive
until I tried it during a time when I had a sore throat.
I visualized healing energy coming into my body
according to the instructions, but after I finished
the exercise, my sore throat was completely
healed.
After that, I have been using it on weekends and it
does help to restore the body to a healthy state.