Do some of us avoid tragedy by foreseeing it? Some scientists nowbelieve that the brain really CAN predict events before they happen
Professor Dick Bierman sits hunched over his computer in a darkened room. The gentle whirring of machinery can be heard faintly in the background.
He smiles and presses a grubby-looking red button.
In the next room, a patient slips slowly inside a hospital brain scanner. If it wasn't for the strange smiles and grimaces that flicker across the woman's face, you could be forgiven for thinking this was just a normal health check.
But this scanner is engaged in one of the most profound paranormal experiments of all time, one that may well prove whether or not it is possible to predict the future.
For the results - released exclusively to the Daily Mail - suggest that ordinary people really do have a sixth sense that can help them 'see' the future.
Such amazing studies - if verified - might help explain the predictive powers of mediums and a range of other psychic phenomena such Extra Sensory Perception, deja vu and clairvoyance. On a more mundane level, it may account for 'gut feelings' and instinct.
The man behind the experiments is certainly convinced. "We're satisfied that people can sense the future before it happens," says Professor Bierman, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam.
"We'd now like to move on and see what kind of person is particularly good at it."
And Bierman is not alone: his findings mirror the data gathered by other scientists and paranormal researchers both here and abroad.
Professor Brian Josephson, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Cambridge University, says: "So far, the evidence seems compelling. What seems to be happening is that information is coming from the future.
"In fact, it's not clear in physics why you can't see the future. In physics, you certainly cannot completely rule out this effect."
Virtually all the great scientific formulae which explain how the world works allow information to flow backwards and forwards through time - they can work either way, regardless.
Shortly after 9/11, strange stories began circulating about the lucky few who had escaped the outrage.
It transpired that many of the survivors had changed their plans at the last minute after vague feelings of unease.
It was a subtle, gnawing feeling that 'something' was not right. Nobody vocalised it but shortly before the attacks, people started altering their plans out of an unspoken instinct.
One woman suffered crippling stomach pain while queuing for one of the ill-fated planes which flew into the World Trade Center.
She made her way to the lavatory only to recover spontaneously. She missed her flight but survived the day. Amid the collective outpouring of grief and horror it was easy to overlook such stories or write them off as coincidences.
But in fact, these kind of stories point to an interesting and deeper truth for those willing to look.
If, for example, fewer people decided to fly on aircraft that subsequently crashed, then that would suggest a subconscious ability to divine the future. Well, strange as it seems, that's just what happens.
The aircraft which flew into the Twin Towers on 9/11 were unusually empty. All the hijacked planes were carrying only half the usual number of passengers. Perhaps one unusually empty plane could be explained away, but all four?
And it wasn't just on 9/11 that people subconsciously seemed to avoid disaster. The scientist Ed Cox found that trains 'destined' to crash carried far fewer people than they did normally.
Dr Jessica Utts, a statistician at the University of California, found exactly the same bizarre effect.
If it was possible to divine the future, you might expect those at the sharp end, such as pilots, to have the most finely tuned instincts of all. And again, that's just what you see.
When the Air France Concorde crashed in 2000, it wasn't long before the colleagues of those killed in the crash spoke about a sense of foreboding that had gripped the crew and flight engineers before the accident.
Speaking anonymously to the French newspaper Le Parisien, one spoke of a 'morbid expectation of an accident'.
"I had this sense that we were going to bump into the scenery," he said.
"The atmosphere on the Concorde team for the last few months, if one has the guts to admit it, had been one of morbid expectation of an accident. It was as if I was waiting for something to happen."
All of these stories suggest that we can pick up premonitions of events that are yet to be.
Although these premonitions are not in glorious Technicolor, they are often emotionally powerful enough for us to act upon them.
In technical parlance it is known as 'presentiment' because emotional feelings are being received from the future, not hard facts or information.
The military has long been fascinated by such phenomena. For many years the US military (and latterly the CIA) funded a secretive programme known as Stargate, which set out to investigate premonitions and the ability of mediums to predict the future.
Dr Dean Radin worked on the Stargate programme and became fascinated by the ability of 'lucky' soldiers to forecast the future.
These are the ones who survived battles against seemingly impossible odds. Radin became convinced that thoughts and feelings - and occasionally-actual glimpses of the future - could flow backwards in time to guide soldiers.
It helped them make life-saving decisions, often on the basis of a hunch.
He devised an experiment to test these ideas. He hooked up volunteers to a modified lie detector, which measured an electrical current across the surface of the skin.
This current changes when a person reacts to an event such as seeing an extremely violent picture or video. It's the electrical equivalent of a wince.
Radin showed sexually explicit, violent or soothing images to volunteers in a random sequence determined by computer.
And he soon discovered that people began reacting to the pictures before they saw them. It was unmistakable. They began to 'wince' a few seconds before they actually saw the image.
And it happened time and time again, way beyond what chance alone would allow.
So impressive were Radin's results that Dr Kary Mullis, a Nobel Prizewinning chemist, took an interest. He was hooked up to Radin's machine and shown the emotionally charged images.
"It's spooky," he says "I could see about three seconds into the future. You shouldn't be able to do that."
Other researchers from around the world, from Edinburgh University to Cornell in the US, rushed to duplicate Radin's experiment and improve on it. And they got similar results.
It was soon discovered that gamblers began reacting subconsciously shortly before they won or lost. The same effect was seen in those terrified of animals, moments before they were shown the creatures.
The odds against all of these trials being wrong are literally millions to one against.
Professor Dick Bierman decided to take this work even further. He is a psychologist who has become convinced that time as we understand it is an illusion. He could see no reason why people could not see into the future just as easily as we dip into memories of our past.
He's in good company. Einstein described the distinction between the past, present and future as 'a stubbornly persistent illusion'.
To prove Einstein's point, Bierman looked inside the brains of volunteers using a hospital MRI scanner while he repeated Dr Radin's experiments.
These scanners show which parts of the brain are active when we do certain tasks or experience specific emotions.
Although extremely complex, and with each analysis taking weeks of computing time, he has run the experiments twice involving more than 20 volunteers.
And the results suggest quite clearly that seemingly ordinary people are capable of sensing the future on a fairly consistent basis. Bierman emphasises that people are receiving feelings from the future rather than specific 'visions'.
It's clear, though, that if ordinary people can receive feelings from the future then perhaps the especially gifted may receive visions of things yet to be.
It's also clear that many paranormal phenomena such as ESP and clairvoyance could have their roots in presentiment.
After all, if you can see a few seconds into the future, why not a few days or even years? And surely if you could look through time, why not across great distances?It's a concept that ties the mind in knots, unless you're a physicist.
"I believe that we can 'sense' the future," says the Nobel Prizewinning physicist Brian Josephson.
"We just haven't yet established the mechanism allowing it to happen.
"People have had so called 'paranormal' or 'transcendental' experiences along these lines. Bierman's work is another piece of the jigsaw. The fact that we don't understand something does not mean that it doesn't happen.'
If we are all regularly sensing the future or occasionally receiving glimpses of it, as some mediums claim to do, then doesn't that mean we can change the future and render the 'prediction' obsolete?
Or perhaps we were meant to receive the premonition and act upon it? Such paradoxes could go on for ever, providing a rich seam of material for films such as Minority Report - based on a short story of the same name - in which a special police department is able to foresee and prevent crimes before they have even taken place.
Could such science fiction have a grain of truth in it after all? The emerging view, Bierman explains, is that 'the future has implications for the past'.
"This phenomena allows you to make a decision on the basis of what will happen in the future. Does that restrain our free will? That's up to the philosophers. I'm far too shallow a person to worry about that."
The problem with presentiment is that it appears so nebulous that you can't rely on it to make reliable decisions. That may be the case, but there are plenty of instances where people wished they had listened to their premonitions or feelings of presentiment.
One of the saddest involves the Aberfan disaster. This occurred in 1966 when a coal tip collapsed and swept through a Welsh school killing 144 people, including 116 children. It turned out that 24 people had received premonitions of the tragedy.
One involved a little girl who was killed. She told her mother shortly before she was taken to school: "I dreamed I went to school and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it."
So should we listen to our instincts, hunches and dreams? Some experts believe we may already be using them in our everyday lives to a surprising degree.
Dr Jessica Utts at the University of California, who has worked for the US military and CIA as an independent auditor of its paranormal research, believes we are constantly sampling the future and using the knowledge to help us make better decisions.
"I think we're doing it all the time," she says. "We've looked at the data and it does seem to happen."
So perhaps the Queen in Through The Looking Glass was right: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23395112-details/Is+this+REALLY+proof+that+man+can+see+into+the+future/article.do
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
So we now admitt we are spraying things, but only to fight the WAR on drought....
By Maria Sudekum Fisher, Associated Press Writer
LAKIN, Kan. — Water is prized in western Kansas, where aquifers are suffering and farms are miles wide and generations deep; a scant half inch of rain can mean the difference between a successful season and a failed one.
But when it comes in the form of fist-sized balls of ice known as hail, water's more than a menace. It can damage and even destroy crops.
That's where the Western Kansas Weather Modification Program and other cloud-seeding operations across the western U.S. come in. The WKWMP is among about 10 programs that tinker with the weather — either by trying to cut the size of hail or boost rainfall and snowpack. They do it largely by shooting up storm clouds with silver iodide or dry ice mixtures.
PHOTO GALLERY: Fly with a cloud seeding mission
Other countries also have used or considered using weather modification. The United Arab Emirates has investigated cloud seeding to help increase rainfall. China has announced plans to use cloud seeding to manage rainfall during the 2008 Olympics, and Indonesia has used it to try to fight fires.
Cloud seeding has a host of critics, from those who say there is no good science to support claims that it works to others who raise concerns about the possibility that it actually may cause less rain and harm the environment.
But as water supplies show signs of stress around the globe and insurance companies add up hail damage payouts, weather modification programs persist.
"What's beginning to happen is that worldwide, people are realizing that water, especially fresh water, is a very precious resource, and we need to do what we can to increase the availability of that resource," said Bruce Boe, director of meteorology for Weather Modification Inc., a Fargo, N.D.,-based company that has been seeding clouds since the 1960s. Weather Modification Inc. has contracts in the U.S., Africa, southeast Asia and Canada, where Weather Modification Inc. does business with insurance companies.
"They'll say, 'We paid out $500, $600 million in claims on hail damage, and the forecast is for more hail storms, so we want you to come in for a couple million dollars and take care of the hail,"' Boe said.
Cloud seeding was developed after World War II to try to increase rainfall. The theory is that the silver iodide, which has a structure that resembles ice, creates raindrops in the clouds, increasing precipitation and reducing moisture for hail formation.
In the U.S., weather modification programs are largely run by individual states and counties. But a measure before the U.S. Senate would allocate $10 million a year to establish the Weather Mitigation Advisory and Research Board, which would develop policy and research weather modification programs.
Kansas started its program in 1975. The Western Kansas Weather Modification Program now covers about 8,000 miles and is used about 85% of the time for hail reduction. The program, which receives state and local funding, was briefly extended into northwest Kansas in the late 1990s. But residents became concerned that cloud seeding may have been reducing their rainfall amounts and voted the program out.
The WKWMP operates from April through September with four planes. Program manager Walt Geiger monitors the weather from a radar station at the tiny Kearny County airport in Lakin. When he sees a storm developing, one with "lots of strong vertical action" that could be a hail producer, Geiger notifies the pilots, who then head into the storms in their single-engine planes, armed with nerves and bayonet-sized canisters of silver iodide.
A 1998-1999 study of the WKWMP found that while there was a statistically significant reduction in hail that year, there was no evidence to support the program's attempts to increase rainfall.
The science behind cloud seeding, while "excellent at the microscopic level," doesn't translate too well outside the lab, says Terry Kastens, professor of agriculture economy at Kansas State University, which conducted the study.
"The practicality of whether you can actually get enough of the iodide in the air is a really big question," says Kastens. "A lot of time we joke it's like shooting a pea shooter at the clouds."
David Brenn, WKWMP's director, discounts naysayers. He says he has seen the benefits of hail reduction efforts. He also says at least one insurance company has expressed interest in partnering with WKWMP.
But Mike Standley, whose family has farmed in southwest Kansas for about a century, says he's concerned that cloud seeding may be costing him some precious rain. It has been a long time since he has seen regular summer afternoon thunderstorms on his land, says Standley, 30.
"Now the day when we have one little storm popping up, they'll be flying up and around it, and it just seems to fizzle out," he says.
Standley says he would like to see solid proof that cloud seeding works. With 14 to 19 inches of precipitation a year, he just can't spare the moisture.
"I can raise crops with hail," he said. "But I can't raise crops with no moisture."
LAKIN, Kan. — Water is prized in western Kansas, where aquifers are suffering and farms are miles wide and generations deep; a scant half inch of rain can mean the difference between a successful season and a failed one.
But when it comes in the form of fist-sized balls of ice known as hail, water's more than a menace. It can damage and even destroy crops.
That's where the Western Kansas Weather Modification Program and other cloud-seeding operations across the western U.S. come in. The WKWMP is among about 10 programs that tinker with the weather — either by trying to cut the size of hail or boost rainfall and snowpack. They do it largely by shooting up storm clouds with silver iodide or dry ice mixtures.
PHOTO GALLERY: Fly with a cloud seeding mission
Other countries also have used or considered using weather modification. The United Arab Emirates has investigated cloud seeding to help increase rainfall. China has announced plans to use cloud seeding to manage rainfall during the 2008 Olympics, and Indonesia has used it to try to fight fires.
Cloud seeding has a host of critics, from those who say there is no good science to support claims that it works to others who raise concerns about the possibility that it actually may cause less rain and harm the environment.
But as water supplies show signs of stress around the globe and insurance companies add up hail damage payouts, weather modification programs persist.
"What's beginning to happen is that worldwide, people are realizing that water, especially fresh water, is a very precious resource, and we need to do what we can to increase the availability of that resource," said Bruce Boe, director of meteorology for Weather Modification Inc., a Fargo, N.D.,-based company that has been seeding clouds since the 1960s. Weather Modification Inc. has contracts in the U.S., Africa, southeast Asia and Canada, where Weather Modification Inc. does business with insurance companies.
"They'll say, 'We paid out $500, $600 million in claims on hail damage, and the forecast is for more hail storms, so we want you to come in for a couple million dollars and take care of the hail,"' Boe said.
Cloud seeding was developed after World War II to try to increase rainfall. The theory is that the silver iodide, which has a structure that resembles ice, creates raindrops in the clouds, increasing precipitation and reducing moisture for hail formation.
In the U.S., weather modification programs are largely run by individual states and counties. But a measure before the U.S. Senate would allocate $10 million a year to establish the Weather Mitigation Advisory and Research Board, which would develop policy and research weather modification programs.
Kansas started its program in 1975. The Western Kansas Weather Modification Program now covers about 8,000 miles and is used about 85% of the time for hail reduction. The program, which receives state and local funding, was briefly extended into northwest Kansas in the late 1990s. But residents became concerned that cloud seeding may have been reducing their rainfall amounts and voted the program out.
The WKWMP operates from April through September with four planes. Program manager Walt Geiger monitors the weather from a radar station at the tiny Kearny County airport in Lakin. When he sees a storm developing, one with "lots of strong vertical action" that could be a hail producer, Geiger notifies the pilots, who then head into the storms in their single-engine planes, armed with nerves and bayonet-sized canisters of silver iodide.
A 1998-1999 study of the WKWMP found that while there was a statistically significant reduction in hail that year, there was no evidence to support the program's attempts to increase rainfall.
The science behind cloud seeding, while "excellent at the microscopic level," doesn't translate too well outside the lab, says Terry Kastens, professor of agriculture economy at Kansas State University, which conducted the study.
"The practicality of whether you can actually get enough of the iodide in the air is a really big question," says Kastens. "A lot of time we joke it's like shooting a pea shooter at the clouds."
David Brenn, WKWMP's director, discounts naysayers. He says he has seen the benefits of hail reduction efforts. He also says at least one insurance company has expressed interest in partnering with WKWMP.
But Mike Standley, whose family has farmed in southwest Kansas for about a century, says he's concerned that cloud seeding may be costing him some precious rain. It has been a long time since he has seen regular summer afternoon thunderstorms on his land, says Standley, 30.
"Now the day when we have one little storm popping up, they'll be flying up and around it, and it just seems to fizzle out," he says.
Standley says he would like to see solid proof that cloud seeding works. With 14 to 19 inches of precipitation a year, he just can't spare the moisture.
"I can raise crops with hail," he said. "But I can't raise crops with no moisture."
again, our money is created out of nothing
April 19, 2005
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Canada: Class Action Accuses Banks of Illegal Creation of Money
Categories
Economy
John Ruiz Dempsey, criminologist and forensic litigation specialist filed a class action suit on behalf of the People of Canada alleging that financial institutions are engaged in illegal creation of money, reports Tom Kennedy, a Canadian activist for economic reform.
One of the best kept secrets is the mechanism of money creation in today's economic system. Although not really a secret at all, the fact that money is created not by and for the people who use it and not even by the government, but is issued by commercial banks when giving loans to private persons or government, is hidden by what could be described as thick clouds of smoke, put out by economists and government departments.
The complaint was filed Friday April 15, 2005 in the Supreme Court of British Columbia at New Westminster. It alleges that all financial institutions who are in the business of lending money have engaged in a deliberate scheme to defraud the borrowers by lending non-existent money which are illegally created by the financial institutions out of "thin air."
The legal action brings to the fore one of the major economic "drag factors" - the interest charged by banks for money that technically and legally is not theirs to lend, because even governments end up paying interest to banks lending money for public spending, and they in turn charge tax payers. A large part of every country's tax revenue goes first and foremost - before any "internal" spending - to payment of interest, largely because of the basic flaw in our way of creating money by the rich and for the rich.
Here is some more detail about the class action filed in Canada.
Class Action Suit Filed on Behalf of the People of Canada
forwarded by Tom Kennedy
New Westminster, B.C., April 15, 2005.
John Ruiz Dempsey BSCr, LL.B, a criminologist and forensic litigation specialist filed a class action suit on behalf of the People of Canada alleging that financial institutions are engaged in illegal creation of money.
The complaint filed Friday April 15, 2005 in the Supreme Court of British Columbia at New Westminster, alleges that all financial institutions who are in the business of lending money have engaged in a deliberate scheme to defraud the borrowers by lending non-existent money which are illegally created by the financial institutions out of "thin air."
Dempsey claims that creation of money out of nothing is ultra vires these defendants' charter or granted corporate power and therefore void and all monies loaned under false pretence contravenes the Criminal Code.
The suit which is the first of its kind ever filed in Canada which could involve millions of Canadians alleges that the contracts entered into between the People ("the borrowers") and the financial institutions were void or voidable and have no force and effect due to anticipated breach and for non-disclosure of material facts.
Dempsey says the transactions constitute counterfeiting and money laundering in that the source of money, if money was indeed advanced by the defendants and deposited into the borrowers' accounts, could not be traced, nor could it be explained or accounted for.
The suit names Envision Credit Union ("Envision"), a credit union; Laurentian Bank of Canada ("Laurentian Bank"), Royal Bank of Canada ("Royal Bank"), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce ("CIBC"), Bank of Montreal ("BOM"), TD Canada Trust ("Canada Trust") and Canadian Payment Association ("CPA") as civil conspirators.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit is seeking recovery of money and property that was lost by way of confiscation through illegal "debt" collection and foreclosure. The Plaintiff is also seeking for the return of the equities which rightfully belong to the People of Canada, now being held by the defendant financial institutions as constructive trustees without color of right.
At all material times, these defendant banks and all of them have no legal standing to lend any money to borrowers, because:
1) these banks and credit unions did not have the money to lend, and therefore they did not have any capacity to enter into a binding contract;
2) the defendants did not have any cash reserve, they are not legally permitted to lend their depositor's or member's money without expressed written authorization form the depositors, and:
3) the defendants have no tangible assets of their own to lend and all their "assets" are "paper assets" which are mainly in the form of "receivables" created by them out of "thin air," derived out of loans whereas the monies loaned out were also created out of thin air.
Other than bookkeeping and computer entries, no money or substance of any value was loaned by the defendants to the Plaintiff. In all of the loan transactions entered into between the Plaintiff and the Defendants, the financial institutions did not bring any equity to any of the transaction.
All the equities were provided by the borrowers. The practices of the defendant financial institutions alleged in the complaint starkly contrast the practices of responsible and ethical money lenders who actually lend real, tangible, legal tender cash money.
The complaint alleges that the loan transactions are fraudulent because no value was ever imparted by the defendants to the Plaintiff; these defendants did not risk anything, nor lost anything and never would have lost anything under any circumstances and therefore no lien has been perfected according to law and equity against the Plaintiff.
The foreclosure proceedings which comes as a result of the borrower defaulting on such fraudulent loans were carried out in bad faith by the defendant banks and credit unions, and as such, these foreclosures were in every respect unlawful acts of conversion and unlawful seizure of property without due process of law which always results in the unjust enrichment of the defendants.
The suit alleges that the defendants utilize fraudulent banking practices whereby they deceive customers into believing that they are actually receiving "credit" or money when in fact no actual money is being loaned to their customers. However, the complaint describes a practice whereby there is realistically no money other than ledger or computer entries being loaned to the borrowers.
Rather than real money being received by the borrowers, "electronic" or "digitally created money", created out of nothing, at no cost to the financial institutions are entered as "loans" into their customers' accounts. The borrowers are then required to pay criminal interest rates for the money they never received. The suit alleges that the defendants effectively turn consumers into virtual debt slaves, forcing them to pay for something they never received, and then seizing their properties if they can no longer pay the banks with real money.
There is no law in Canada that could remotely suggest that the defendant financial institutions have the legal right to create money out of nothing. Dempsey says: "only God has the power to create anything out of nothing."
The class action suit, the first and the biggest of its kind in Canada is intended to give the justice system the opportunity to prove to itself and to the People of Canada who is really in control or whether they would continue to allow itself to be used by the banks as a tool in their unlawful and fraudulent banking practices which always ends in the enslavement of the people and confiscation of the people's properties.
Two other class action suits were filed by John Ruiz Dempsey against the banks. The first one was filed by Dempsey on behalf of Ian Dennis Gravlin of Calgary, Alberta and Pavel Darmantchev of Kelowna, B.C. versus the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. This matter is set for case management conference hearing on April 26, 2005. The Plaintiff expects a stiff opposition from the defendant's law firm. Madam Justice Garson is the case management judge assigned to the case.
A second class action suit was filed against MBNA CANADA BANK on behalf of Pavel Darmantchev of Kelowna, B.C., Ian Dennis Gravlin of Calgary, Alberta and Dena Alden of Vancouver, B.C.
A copy of the Dempsey legal action as filed can be found here to download as PDF.
- - -
February 2006:
John Dempsey says that the class action that is the subject of this article will be heard in court Feb 27, 28 and Mar 1st, 2006. See the link for more information.
Download file
And here a report of what happened in court:
"The People vs The Banks"
Vancouver, British Columbia, February 27, 2006
The People shut the court down after about twenty minutes into the hearing scheduled to be heard on February 27, 28 and March 1, 2006. After intensive questioning by the People represented by John-Ruiz: Dempsey, Pavel-N: Darmantchev, Pedro Liong and Otto Luinenburg, the presiding judge, Nicole Garson got out of the courtroom and left after she gave the Sheriff an order to clear the courtroom. Game over, the banks‚ motion to dismiss the People's claim will not be heard - at least for now.
The People came prepared, knowing they are being led to the slaughter by the banks' lawyers and the judge who prior to becoming a Supreme Court judge represented the banks lead counsel for one of the defendant banks - TD Canada Trust; obviously a clear conflict of interest which she refused to admit. Pavel said: "she had lots of chances to recuse herself in order to avoid confrontation but she failed miserably, presumably under the order of someone higher than herself."
John filed a Notice of Motion to be heard by the Chief Justice Donald Brenner. Judge Garson took it upon herself to "hear" the motion in clear violation of the Rules of Court which gave the moving party the sole right to set his own motion for hearing. John was never given the opportunity to file a Notice of Hearing; in fact it is not too clear how the motion came to be heard or what caused John's motion to be heard; the People suddenly received a "Reasons for Judgment" released by judge Garson on December 9, 2005. The People have no recollection of any hearings being set or heard regarding John's motion (see - Dempsey et al. v. Envision Credit Union et al., 2005 BCSC 1730). It appears like Garson J. decided to "hear" the motion and become the judge of her own cause - in violation of the legal maxim: nemo judex in sua causa.
Apprehension of bias has been clearly evident since justice Garson was appointed as case management judge. Her first biased act was to prevent John from representing others despite the fact that John had private power of attorney agreements with Pavel, Ian (Gravlin), Pedro and Otto to represent them in court. As attorney-in-fact, it is trite law, established by generations of jurisprudence, John can do all things that his principals can legally do. The law regarding power of attorney has existed long before any statute such as the Legal Profession Act came into existence. Yet, the same judge who is supposed to be our protector and public servant decided to violate and impaired the People's right of contract.
As humans, we have human rights and our rights are not subject to statutory control. It falls within the sovereign individual paradigm as reflected by the following US Supreme Court case:
"The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no such duty to the State, since he receives nothing therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land [Common Law] long antecedent to the organization of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the Constitution. Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights." Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 at 47 (1905).
Justice Garson has shown her true colors and where her allegiance lies by barring John to carry out his fiduciary duties to those who have agreed to be his lawful attorney based solely on "judicial discretion." Judicial discretion has no validity when there is positive law; judicial discretion cannot abrogate a living man or woman's natural rights; judicial discretion cannot overturn common law or statutory law. In the case of the said power of attorney contracts entered into between John and the people he represents, the contracts are even protected by the Power of Attorney Act of British Columbia. Garson J's blatant disregard for the law is recorded in her Reasons for Judgment in Gravlin et al. v. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce et al, 2005 BCSC 839.
Justice Garson has shown her willingness and determination to bend over backwards to the whims and wishes of the banks by bulldozing all the bank class actions into one single action despite the objections of all the representative plaintiffs involved in these class actions including "The People vs. The Banks" class action. Although the class actions involve similar causes of actions, not all the defendants are the same. One thing is obvious however; the banks' lawyers are clearly attempting a judicial holocaust by herding all the class actions into one single gas chamber (or judge chamber) so that all the class actions can be slaughtered by one single judge/executioner in one fell swoop. John and his co-plaintiffs will not allow that to happen. They represent the People of Canada; they have the duty to ensure that such a planned massacre against the People does not happen. "The People are counting on us," John said, "this is not up to one single judge to decide on our class actions, it is the People who will ultimately decide on the People's fate, not judge Garson, this is the law of the land."
There are other reasons why John and his friends believe that they are being led to the slaughter such as: Garson J refused to strike the banks‚ statements of defence that really forms no reasonable defence. For example, all the banks‚ defence says that the class actions are frivolous, vexatious, scandalous and an abuse of process, a typical boiler plate defence that corrupt court courts always allowed corrupt defendant lawyers to get away with. Such a defence is no defence at all because it does not state why the class action suits are frivolous, vexatious, scandalous or an abuse of process. It is an insult to the People who know the truth.
Garson J has also allowed the banks to get away with serious violations of the Rules of Court and established legal procedures by allowing the banks' lawyers to refuse to produce documents, answer Interrogatories, and Notices to Admit. Based on our observation, it has been the normal practice of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, the highest courts in the province to apply the rules only when they see fit. Unrepresented litigants, particularly those who are not too familiar with the rules of court have lost their cases due to such unfair double standards. The People must follow the Rules of Court, but the lawyers and judges, particularly those who gets paid handsomely by the banking cartel need not be concerned about any rules. They make up their own rules as they go along, and they have judges that makes them right all the time.
As living men and women, we can only deal in truth. We can only deal with what is wrong and what is right. The admiralty courts like the supreme courts and appellate courts of the province only deal in arguments, in fictions, in make-believe laws created by them, the "just us" society. This is only one of the reasons why we have to shut them down. We have no time for their arguments. Either they deal with us in truth, or we will have nothing to do with their corruption. We are here to set the People free, by way of the truth, not by arguing in court. People lose in court because they argue. People are not allowed to argue in court, only the "officers" of their admiralty courts are allowed to make arguments in court. We play our own rules in their courts - "for we can do nothing against the truth but for the truth."
Justice Garson could not stand truth in her court room. Pavel asked her many times: "are you a public servant?" Garson J refused to answer a simple question with the truth. We already know the answer - she is nothing but a public servant, she is our servant. Garson J. lost it when the People in the court room themselves asked her: "why can't you answer a simple question - are you a public servant?" That was all the heat she could take that day. She stood up and started to leave and ordered the sheriff to clear the court room. However, before she managed to get out of the court room, John and Pavel told her: "You're fired Nicole." And all the People in the court said so: "You're fired."
At any rate, the matter is res judicata or already decided by virtue of the fact that the banks have no answer to John's Affidavit of Truth he filed in court. The affidavit was intended to solicit answers from the banks and establish the truth. In commerce, truth is established by an affidavit. An unrebutted affidavit stands as truth in commerce. The time for filing a reply has now passed. This means that the People have already established the truth in accordance with the law of commerce. In commerce, truth is sovereign and as sovereign, we, the People have already established the truth. We have no time for the banks‚ and their lawyers‚ arguments. They are precluded by estoppel.
So that was the end of that. We are ordering the transcript to make sure that no one could tamper with the records if they have not yet done so already. We will publish the contents of the court transcript as soon as we receive it. What's going happen next? Nothing. We, the People are not going back into that temple until the court has established that they have in rem or subject matter jurisdiction over us. As sovereign men and women, they have no power over us, unless it was given to them from above; or unless we accept their assumed power or jurisdiction. God bless you all.
John-Ruiz: Dempsey
One of Many
- - -
Some earlier updates...
Updage August 10, 2005:
New Westminster, B.C., April 10, 2005. Plaintiffs Lovey Cridge, a retired forensic accountant and John Ruiz Dempsey, a criminologist and forensic litigation specialist, both residents of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, filed their amended Statement of Claim on August 2, 2005. The original class action suit filed on behalf of the people of Canada was filed on April 22, 2005.
The suit alleges that the government of Canada has engaged in a deliberate scheme to defraud the people of Canada through its illegal use of an invalid or non-existent statute, namely, the Income Tax Act of 1948 which has never been properly enacted according to law. The statement of claim alleges that the Plaintiffs which includes all of the People of Canada as the purported „taxpayers‰ have been defrauded and continues to be defrauded by the Canadian government, its collection agents, the now privatized Canada Revenue Agency (the former Revenue Canada), and robbed of their wealth and fruits of their labour through an elaborate scheme of coloured, illegal and unlawful seizure of property and money through the use of various coercive schemes, threats of fines and incarceration using the bogus and non-existent tax law, and the unlawful revisions thereof namely the Income Tax Act as contained within the Revised Statutes of Canada.
The class action suit is a result of more than five years of research and study of de facto Canadian federal statutes. The Plaintiffs says that there is no such thing as a lawful Income Tax Act in Canada. This so-called Act, is not a valid and lawful Act; this "Act" was unlawfully fabricated in violation of the Constitution of Canada, namely, the British North America Act of 1867 as it existed at the time of the purported enactment of the illegal Act.
The impugned Income Tax Act of 1948, as well as many other federal acts enacted by the de facto Canadian government since 1931 have not been enacted properly pursuant to the laws of England and Canada. The Income Tax Act of 1948, with unlawfully created versions thereof incorporated within various derivatives of the Revised Statutes of Canada are now fraudulently being used by the Defendants to rob the Plaintiffs and all the people of Canada.
For a bill or Act to be lawful and valid, the bill must be passed by the Canadian Parliament and the Senate. The Income Tax Act of 1948 was never passed by the Senate. After the bill has met the approval of the parliament and the senate, the bill must be assented to by the representative of the real Crown of England - the "Royal Assent" by the Governor General. At no time had this purported Act been given a Royal Assent by the Governor General if at all. And finally, pursuant to the Canadian Constitution, any Act that has been given a Royal Assent must be published in the Canada Gazette. At no time had this purported Act been published in any Gazette.
There has not been a lawfully appointed representative of the Crown since 1931 to the present. In order to circumvent this problem, the then ruling Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyons MacKenzie King signed the infamous Letters Patent of 1947 which gave the de facto Governor Generals all the powers of the Crown, including the power to give Royal Assent. This unlawful practice still goes on today. The ruling Crown of England is precluded by its own law to appoint Governor Generals. Again, to thwart this issue, King and the de facto Prime Ministers who came after him started to appoint their own Governor Generals.
Notwithstanding the fact that the said Income Tax of 1948 has not been lawfully passed by the Parliament, nor had it been given a Royal Assent, nor been published in the Canada Gazette, the Canadian government, took it upon themselves, to collect income taxes and extorted monies from the people of Canada without any colour of right, and without legal or juristic authority from 1948 to the present, and continues to collect and extort monies and properties from the people of Canada unlawfully.
Those who resisted or refused to pay income taxes were either arrested and falsely incarcerated, charged under various false criminal offences and their properties were unlawfully seized or confiscated contrary to the Magna Charta, the English Bill of Rights 1689, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Plaintiffs claim that the government and its agents also violated the Canadian Bill of Rights of 1960 after its enactment as well the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms after it was enacted and accepted as law that is enshrined within the Constitution of 1982 in Canada.
To further carry out its fraud and deception, the Canadian government "revised" the bogus Income Tax Act of 1948 (Income Tax Act - 1948, c. 52) and fraudulently and without colour of right, incorporated the illegal Act within the 1952 Revised Statutes of Canada (see R.S.C. 1952, c. 148). To further conceal their deception, the Defendants again revised the unlawful and counterfeit Income Tax Act (now with the reference to the year „1948‰ removed) and integrated this "new" Act with the 1970 Revised Statutes of Canada (see R.S.C.1970, c. 1-5). Again, to further obscure the truth and complete the "colouring" process, the 1970 (R.S.C. 1970, c. 1-5) Revised Statutes of Canada was again revised and further became the 1985 Revised Statutes of Canada (R.S.C. 1985, c. 1 (5th Supp)).
In all of the above machinations, debauchery and wicked manipulations and fraudulent misrepresentations, the government of Canada failed to fully hide the fact that Canada never had a valid and lawful income tax act or statute that could have justified the colossal crimes and unlawful acts perpetrated by the Canadian government against its own people.
The Plaintiffs, Lovey Cridge and John Ruiz Dempsey on behalf of the People of Canada, with the help of other researchers searched law libraries and archives for any proof that the impugned Income Tax Act might exist. The Plaintiffs found no evidence of it. The Plaintiffs say such "Act" simply did not exist and are therefore claiming for damages including the return of all money and property wrongfully confiscated (stolen) by the Canadian government from its people.
- - -
Update August 22, 2005
THE PEOPLE vs THE BANKS
VANCOUVER, British Columbia: Almost five months to the day of the initial filing of the biggest class action suit in Canada, John Ruiz Dempsey on Behalf of the People of Canada versus Envision Credit Union, Laurentian Bank, CIBC, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, TD Canada Trust, The Canadian Payment Association and others, the lawyers representing the financial institutions are gathering steam to try to stop John Ruiz Dempsey, a criminologist and forensic litigation specialist from proceeding with their application to the court to strike Mr. Dempsey’s statement of claim in whole or in part. Hearings are set for September 12 and 13 at the Supreme Court in Vancouver. The statement of claim alleges among other things, creation of money out of nothing, fraudulent misrepresentation, money laundering, fraud, charging of criminal interest rates and breach of contract. A copy of the Statement of Claim is available for download through http://www.freewebs.com/classaction/.
"This without a doubt will be a precedent setting case that is sure to change the face of the banking system in Canada forever. Without even taking into consideration the potential damages, the sheer numbers of people alone who potentially can participate in this action, will in my estimation make this case the largest lawsuit ever filed for Class Certification in this nation", stated John Ruiz Dempsey.
The banks are being represented by two of the largest law firms in Canada such as Borden Ladner Gervais with 670 lawyers and Fasken Martineau Dumoulin with 500 lawyers. This is clearly a David and Goliath case where these lawyers are moving to tread heavily on Mr. Dempsey and the People of Canada he represents.
News Conferences are currently being arranged and will be held September 9 in Vancouver and Montreal. Various citizen groups and freedom movements as well as other special interest groups representing thousands of Canadians from across Canada are expected to rally in support of this action.
Media representatives wishing to attend any of the News Conferences, or wanting to ensure that they are on our mailing lists, or wishing to arrange for interviews with legal, forensic and other experts after any of the News. Conferences, should call to ensure that their current information is on file.
In Montreal, Quebec
Contact: Bruce Margolese
(514) 294-3284
E-Mail: bmargolese@yahoo.com
In Vancouver, B.C.
Contact: John R. Dempsey
(604) 597-1475
E-Mail: classaction_cpa@hotmail.com or classproceeding@yahoo.ca
Since sending out a News Release in April announcing the filing of the Class Action Law Suit, we have been inundated with calls from persons asking if it is too late to become involved.
The answer is NO. As long as you fit ANY ONE of the five criteria listed below, you can apply for registration for Class Participation. While we would like those interested in becoming involved to do so on a timely basis, as it adds strength to our efforts, a cut-off date for participation will be established (I believe by the court at a future date).
The criteria for participation is as follows:
1. If you have been involved in any kind of loan transaction with any bank or financial institution you are eligible to participate;
2. If you did not know that banks and financial institutions are engaged in illegal creation of money, you are eligible to participate;
3. If you were told by your bank or financial institution they loaned you money without receiving “cash” or “legal tender” money or currency, you are eligible to participate;
4. If you were unaware that the bank or financial institution made you sign a promissory note or loan application form and ‘monetized’ the said note or form by way of your signature, you are eligible to participate;
5. If you or your family have suffered or are facing foreclosure or seizure of property or debt collection by banks or financial institutions as a result of any loan or debt transactions with any bank or financial institution, you are eligible to participate.
It is important to note that you DO NOT have to be object or victim of any debt collection, foreclosure or any other legal proceeding to participate.
rest here http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/04/19/canada_class_action_accuses_banks_of_illegal_creation_of_money.htm
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Canada: Class Action Accuses Banks of Illegal Creation of Money
Categories
Economy
John Ruiz Dempsey, criminologist and forensic litigation specialist filed a class action suit on behalf of the People of Canada alleging that financial institutions are engaged in illegal creation of money, reports Tom Kennedy, a Canadian activist for economic reform.
One of the best kept secrets is the mechanism of money creation in today's economic system. Although not really a secret at all, the fact that money is created not by and for the people who use it and not even by the government, but is issued by commercial banks when giving loans to private persons or government, is hidden by what could be described as thick clouds of smoke, put out by economists and government departments.
The complaint was filed Friday April 15, 2005 in the Supreme Court of British Columbia at New Westminster. It alleges that all financial institutions who are in the business of lending money have engaged in a deliberate scheme to defraud the borrowers by lending non-existent money which are illegally created by the financial institutions out of "thin air."
The legal action brings to the fore one of the major economic "drag factors" - the interest charged by banks for money that technically and legally is not theirs to lend, because even governments end up paying interest to banks lending money for public spending, and they in turn charge tax payers. A large part of every country's tax revenue goes first and foremost - before any "internal" spending - to payment of interest, largely because of the basic flaw in our way of creating money by the rich and for the rich.
Here is some more detail about the class action filed in Canada.
Class Action Suit Filed on Behalf of the People of Canada
forwarded by Tom Kennedy
New Westminster, B.C., April 15, 2005.
John Ruiz Dempsey BSCr, LL.B, a criminologist and forensic litigation specialist filed a class action suit on behalf of the People of Canada alleging that financial institutions are engaged in illegal creation of money.
The complaint filed Friday April 15, 2005 in the Supreme Court of British Columbia at New Westminster, alleges that all financial institutions who are in the business of lending money have engaged in a deliberate scheme to defraud the borrowers by lending non-existent money which are illegally created by the financial institutions out of "thin air."
Dempsey claims that creation of money out of nothing is ultra vires these defendants' charter or granted corporate power and therefore void and all monies loaned under false pretence contravenes the Criminal Code.
The suit which is the first of its kind ever filed in Canada which could involve millions of Canadians alleges that the contracts entered into between the People ("the borrowers") and the financial institutions were void or voidable and have no force and effect due to anticipated breach and for non-disclosure of material facts.
Dempsey says the transactions constitute counterfeiting and money laundering in that the source of money, if money was indeed advanced by the defendants and deposited into the borrowers' accounts, could not be traced, nor could it be explained or accounted for.
The suit names Envision Credit Union ("Envision"), a credit union; Laurentian Bank of Canada ("Laurentian Bank"), Royal Bank of Canada ("Royal Bank"), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce ("CIBC"), Bank of Montreal ("BOM"), TD Canada Trust ("Canada Trust") and Canadian Payment Association ("CPA") as civil conspirators.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit is seeking recovery of money and property that was lost by way of confiscation through illegal "debt" collection and foreclosure. The Plaintiff is also seeking for the return of the equities which rightfully belong to the People of Canada, now being held by the defendant financial institutions as constructive trustees without color of right.
At all material times, these defendant banks and all of them have no legal standing to lend any money to borrowers, because:
1) these banks and credit unions did not have the money to lend, and therefore they did not have any capacity to enter into a binding contract;
2) the defendants did not have any cash reserve, they are not legally permitted to lend their depositor's or member's money without expressed written authorization form the depositors, and:
3) the defendants have no tangible assets of their own to lend and all their "assets" are "paper assets" which are mainly in the form of "receivables" created by them out of "thin air," derived out of loans whereas the monies loaned out were also created out of thin air.
Other than bookkeeping and computer entries, no money or substance of any value was loaned by the defendants to the Plaintiff. In all of the loan transactions entered into between the Plaintiff and the Defendants, the financial institutions did not bring any equity to any of the transaction.
All the equities were provided by the borrowers. The practices of the defendant financial institutions alleged in the complaint starkly contrast the practices of responsible and ethical money lenders who actually lend real, tangible, legal tender cash money.
The complaint alleges that the loan transactions are fraudulent because no value was ever imparted by the defendants to the Plaintiff; these defendants did not risk anything, nor lost anything and never would have lost anything under any circumstances and therefore no lien has been perfected according to law and equity against the Plaintiff.
The foreclosure proceedings which comes as a result of the borrower defaulting on such fraudulent loans were carried out in bad faith by the defendant banks and credit unions, and as such, these foreclosures were in every respect unlawful acts of conversion and unlawful seizure of property without due process of law which always results in the unjust enrichment of the defendants.
The suit alleges that the defendants utilize fraudulent banking practices whereby they deceive customers into believing that they are actually receiving "credit" or money when in fact no actual money is being loaned to their customers. However, the complaint describes a practice whereby there is realistically no money other than ledger or computer entries being loaned to the borrowers.
Rather than real money being received by the borrowers, "electronic" or "digitally created money", created out of nothing, at no cost to the financial institutions are entered as "loans" into their customers' accounts. The borrowers are then required to pay criminal interest rates for the money they never received. The suit alleges that the defendants effectively turn consumers into virtual debt slaves, forcing them to pay for something they never received, and then seizing their properties if they can no longer pay the banks with real money.
There is no law in Canada that could remotely suggest that the defendant financial institutions have the legal right to create money out of nothing. Dempsey says: "only God has the power to create anything out of nothing."
The class action suit, the first and the biggest of its kind in Canada is intended to give the justice system the opportunity to prove to itself and to the People of Canada who is really in control or whether they would continue to allow itself to be used by the banks as a tool in their unlawful and fraudulent banking practices which always ends in the enslavement of the people and confiscation of the people's properties.
Two other class action suits were filed by John Ruiz Dempsey against the banks. The first one was filed by Dempsey on behalf of Ian Dennis Gravlin of Calgary, Alberta and Pavel Darmantchev of Kelowna, B.C. versus the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. This matter is set for case management conference hearing on April 26, 2005. The Plaintiff expects a stiff opposition from the defendant's law firm. Madam Justice Garson is the case management judge assigned to the case.
A second class action suit was filed against MBNA CANADA BANK on behalf of Pavel Darmantchev of Kelowna, B.C., Ian Dennis Gravlin of Calgary, Alberta and Dena Alden of Vancouver, B.C.
A copy of the Dempsey legal action as filed can be found here to download as PDF.
- - -
February 2006:
John Dempsey says that the class action that is the subject of this article will be heard in court Feb 27, 28 and Mar 1st, 2006. See the link for more information.
Download file
And here a report of what happened in court:
"The People vs The Banks"
Vancouver, British Columbia, February 27, 2006
The People shut the court down after about twenty minutes into the hearing scheduled to be heard on February 27, 28 and March 1, 2006. After intensive questioning by the People represented by John-Ruiz: Dempsey, Pavel-N: Darmantchev, Pedro Liong and Otto Luinenburg, the presiding judge, Nicole Garson got out of the courtroom and left after she gave the Sheriff an order to clear the courtroom. Game over, the banks‚ motion to dismiss the People's claim will not be heard - at least for now.
The People came prepared, knowing they are being led to the slaughter by the banks' lawyers and the judge who prior to becoming a Supreme Court judge represented the banks lead counsel for one of the defendant banks - TD Canada Trust; obviously a clear conflict of interest which she refused to admit. Pavel said: "she had lots of chances to recuse herself in order to avoid confrontation but she failed miserably, presumably under the order of someone higher than herself."
John filed a Notice of Motion to be heard by the Chief Justice Donald Brenner. Judge Garson took it upon herself to "hear" the motion in clear violation of the Rules of Court which gave the moving party the sole right to set his own motion for hearing. John was never given the opportunity to file a Notice of Hearing; in fact it is not too clear how the motion came to be heard or what caused John's motion to be heard; the People suddenly received a "Reasons for Judgment" released by judge Garson on December 9, 2005. The People have no recollection of any hearings being set or heard regarding John's motion (see - Dempsey et al. v. Envision Credit Union et al., 2005 BCSC 1730). It appears like Garson J. decided to "hear" the motion and become the judge of her own cause - in violation of the legal maxim: nemo judex in sua causa.
Apprehension of bias has been clearly evident since justice Garson was appointed as case management judge. Her first biased act was to prevent John from representing others despite the fact that John had private power of attorney agreements with Pavel, Ian (Gravlin), Pedro and Otto to represent them in court. As attorney-in-fact, it is trite law, established by generations of jurisprudence, John can do all things that his principals can legally do. The law regarding power of attorney has existed long before any statute such as the Legal Profession Act came into existence. Yet, the same judge who is supposed to be our protector and public servant decided to violate and impaired the People's right of contract.
As humans, we have human rights and our rights are not subject to statutory control. It falls within the sovereign individual paradigm as reflected by the following US Supreme Court case:
"The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no such duty to the State, since he receives nothing therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land [Common Law] long antecedent to the organization of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the Constitution. Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights." Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 at 47 (1905).
Justice Garson has shown her true colors and where her allegiance lies by barring John to carry out his fiduciary duties to those who have agreed to be his lawful attorney based solely on "judicial discretion." Judicial discretion has no validity when there is positive law; judicial discretion cannot abrogate a living man or woman's natural rights; judicial discretion cannot overturn common law or statutory law. In the case of the said power of attorney contracts entered into between John and the people he represents, the contracts are even protected by the Power of Attorney Act of British Columbia. Garson J's blatant disregard for the law is recorded in her Reasons for Judgment in Gravlin et al. v. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce et al, 2005 BCSC 839.
Justice Garson has shown her willingness and determination to bend over backwards to the whims and wishes of the banks by bulldozing all the bank class actions into one single action despite the objections of all the representative plaintiffs involved in these class actions including "The People vs. The Banks" class action. Although the class actions involve similar causes of actions, not all the defendants are the same. One thing is obvious however; the banks' lawyers are clearly attempting a judicial holocaust by herding all the class actions into one single gas chamber (or judge chamber) so that all the class actions can be slaughtered by one single judge/executioner in one fell swoop. John and his co-plaintiffs will not allow that to happen. They represent the People of Canada; they have the duty to ensure that such a planned massacre against the People does not happen. "The People are counting on us," John said, "this is not up to one single judge to decide on our class actions, it is the People who will ultimately decide on the People's fate, not judge Garson, this is the law of the land."
There are other reasons why John and his friends believe that they are being led to the slaughter such as: Garson J refused to strike the banks‚ statements of defence that really forms no reasonable defence. For example, all the banks‚ defence says that the class actions are frivolous, vexatious, scandalous and an abuse of process, a typical boiler plate defence that corrupt court courts always allowed corrupt defendant lawyers to get away with. Such a defence is no defence at all because it does not state why the class action suits are frivolous, vexatious, scandalous or an abuse of process. It is an insult to the People who know the truth.
Garson J has also allowed the banks to get away with serious violations of the Rules of Court and established legal procedures by allowing the banks' lawyers to refuse to produce documents, answer Interrogatories, and Notices to Admit. Based on our observation, it has been the normal practice of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, the highest courts in the province to apply the rules only when they see fit. Unrepresented litigants, particularly those who are not too familiar with the rules of court have lost their cases due to such unfair double standards. The People must follow the Rules of Court, but the lawyers and judges, particularly those who gets paid handsomely by the banking cartel need not be concerned about any rules. They make up their own rules as they go along, and they have judges that makes them right all the time.
As living men and women, we can only deal in truth. We can only deal with what is wrong and what is right. The admiralty courts like the supreme courts and appellate courts of the province only deal in arguments, in fictions, in make-believe laws created by them, the "just us" society. This is only one of the reasons why we have to shut them down. We have no time for their arguments. Either they deal with us in truth, or we will have nothing to do with their corruption. We are here to set the People free, by way of the truth, not by arguing in court. People lose in court because they argue. People are not allowed to argue in court, only the "officers" of their admiralty courts are allowed to make arguments in court. We play our own rules in their courts - "for we can do nothing against the truth but for the truth."
Justice Garson could not stand truth in her court room. Pavel asked her many times: "are you a public servant?" Garson J refused to answer a simple question with the truth. We already know the answer - she is nothing but a public servant, she is our servant. Garson J. lost it when the People in the court room themselves asked her: "why can't you answer a simple question - are you a public servant?" That was all the heat she could take that day. She stood up and started to leave and ordered the sheriff to clear the court room. However, before she managed to get out of the court room, John and Pavel told her: "You're fired Nicole." And all the People in the court said so: "You're fired."
At any rate, the matter is res judicata or already decided by virtue of the fact that the banks have no answer to John's Affidavit of Truth he filed in court. The affidavit was intended to solicit answers from the banks and establish the truth. In commerce, truth is established by an affidavit. An unrebutted affidavit stands as truth in commerce. The time for filing a reply has now passed. This means that the People have already established the truth in accordance with the law of commerce. In commerce, truth is sovereign and as sovereign, we, the People have already established the truth. We have no time for the banks‚ and their lawyers‚ arguments. They are precluded by estoppel.
So that was the end of that. We are ordering the transcript to make sure that no one could tamper with the records if they have not yet done so already. We will publish the contents of the court transcript as soon as we receive it. What's going happen next? Nothing. We, the People are not going back into that temple until the court has established that they have in rem or subject matter jurisdiction over us. As sovereign men and women, they have no power over us, unless it was given to them from above; or unless we accept their assumed power or jurisdiction. God bless you all.
John-Ruiz: Dempsey
One of Many
- - -
Some earlier updates...
Updage August 10, 2005:
New Westminster, B.C., April 10, 2005. Plaintiffs Lovey Cridge, a retired forensic accountant and John Ruiz Dempsey, a criminologist and forensic litigation specialist, both residents of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, filed their amended Statement of Claim on August 2, 2005. The original class action suit filed on behalf of the people of Canada was filed on April 22, 2005.
The suit alleges that the government of Canada has engaged in a deliberate scheme to defraud the people of Canada through its illegal use of an invalid or non-existent statute, namely, the Income Tax Act of 1948 which has never been properly enacted according to law. The statement of claim alleges that the Plaintiffs which includes all of the People of Canada as the purported „taxpayers‰ have been defrauded and continues to be defrauded by the Canadian government, its collection agents, the now privatized Canada Revenue Agency (the former Revenue Canada), and robbed of their wealth and fruits of their labour through an elaborate scheme of coloured, illegal and unlawful seizure of property and money through the use of various coercive schemes, threats of fines and incarceration using the bogus and non-existent tax law, and the unlawful revisions thereof namely the Income Tax Act as contained within the Revised Statutes of Canada.
The class action suit is a result of more than five years of research and study of de facto Canadian federal statutes. The Plaintiffs says that there is no such thing as a lawful Income Tax Act in Canada. This so-called Act, is not a valid and lawful Act; this "Act" was unlawfully fabricated in violation of the Constitution of Canada, namely, the British North America Act of 1867 as it existed at the time of the purported enactment of the illegal Act.
The impugned Income Tax Act of 1948, as well as many other federal acts enacted by the de facto Canadian government since 1931 have not been enacted properly pursuant to the laws of England and Canada. The Income Tax Act of 1948, with unlawfully created versions thereof incorporated within various derivatives of the Revised Statutes of Canada are now fraudulently being used by the Defendants to rob the Plaintiffs and all the people of Canada.
For a bill or Act to be lawful and valid, the bill must be passed by the Canadian Parliament and the Senate. The Income Tax Act of 1948 was never passed by the Senate. After the bill has met the approval of the parliament and the senate, the bill must be assented to by the representative of the real Crown of England - the "Royal Assent" by the Governor General. At no time had this purported Act been given a Royal Assent by the Governor General if at all. And finally, pursuant to the Canadian Constitution, any Act that has been given a Royal Assent must be published in the Canada Gazette. At no time had this purported Act been published in any Gazette.
There has not been a lawfully appointed representative of the Crown since 1931 to the present. In order to circumvent this problem, the then ruling Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyons MacKenzie King signed the infamous Letters Patent of 1947 which gave the de facto Governor Generals all the powers of the Crown, including the power to give Royal Assent. This unlawful practice still goes on today. The ruling Crown of England is precluded by its own law to appoint Governor Generals. Again, to thwart this issue, King and the de facto Prime Ministers who came after him started to appoint their own Governor Generals.
Notwithstanding the fact that the said Income Tax of 1948 has not been lawfully passed by the Parliament, nor had it been given a Royal Assent, nor been published in the Canada Gazette, the Canadian government, took it upon themselves, to collect income taxes and extorted monies from the people of Canada without any colour of right, and without legal or juristic authority from 1948 to the present, and continues to collect and extort monies and properties from the people of Canada unlawfully.
Those who resisted or refused to pay income taxes were either arrested and falsely incarcerated, charged under various false criminal offences and their properties were unlawfully seized or confiscated contrary to the Magna Charta, the English Bill of Rights 1689, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Plaintiffs claim that the government and its agents also violated the Canadian Bill of Rights of 1960 after its enactment as well the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms after it was enacted and accepted as law that is enshrined within the Constitution of 1982 in Canada.
To further carry out its fraud and deception, the Canadian government "revised" the bogus Income Tax Act of 1948 (Income Tax Act - 1948, c. 52) and fraudulently and without colour of right, incorporated the illegal Act within the 1952 Revised Statutes of Canada (see R.S.C. 1952, c. 148). To further conceal their deception, the Defendants again revised the unlawful and counterfeit Income Tax Act (now with the reference to the year „1948‰ removed) and integrated this "new" Act with the 1970 Revised Statutes of Canada (see R.S.C.1970, c. 1-5). Again, to further obscure the truth and complete the "colouring" process, the 1970 (R.S.C. 1970, c. 1-5) Revised Statutes of Canada was again revised and further became the 1985 Revised Statutes of Canada (R.S.C. 1985, c. 1 (5th Supp)).
In all of the above machinations, debauchery and wicked manipulations and fraudulent misrepresentations, the government of Canada failed to fully hide the fact that Canada never had a valid and lawful income tax act or statute that could have justified the colossal crimes and unlawful acts perpetrated by the Canadian government against its own people.
The Plaintiffs, Lovey Cridge and John Ruiz Dempsey on behalf of the People of Canada, with the help of other researchers searched law libraries and archives for any proof that the impugned Income Tax Act might exist. The Plaintiffs found no evidence of it. The Plaintiffs say such "Act" simply did not exist and are therefore claiming for damages including the return of all money and property wrongfully confiscated (stolen) by the Canadian government from its people.
- - -
Update August 22, 2005
THE PEOPLE vs THE BANKS
VANCOUVER, British Columbia: Almost five months to the day of the initial filing of the biggest class action suit in Canada, John Ruiz Dempsey on Behalf of the People of Canada versus Envision Credit Union, Laurentian Bank, CIBC, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, TD Canada Trust, The Canadian Payment Association and others, the lawyers representing the financial institutions are gathering steam to try to stop John Ruiz Dempsey, a criminologist and forensic litigation specialist from proceeding with their application to the court to strike Mr. Dempsey’s statement of claim in whole or in part. Hearings are set for September 12 and 13 at the Supreme Court in Vancouver. The statement of claim alleges among other things, creation of money out of nothing, fraudulent misrepresentation, money laundering, fraud, charging of criminal interest rates and breach of contract. A copy of the Statement of Claim is available for download through http://www.freewebs.com/classaction/.
"This without a doubt will be a precedent setting case that is sure to change the face of the banking system in Canada forever. Without even taking into consideration the potential damages, the sheer numbers of people alone who potentially can participate in this action, will in my estimation make this case the largest lawsuit ever filed for Class Certification in this nation", stated John Ruiz Dempsey.
The banks are being represented by two of the largest law firms in Canada such as Borden Ladner Gervais with 670 lawyers and Fasken Martineau Dumoulin with 500 lawyers. This is clearly a David and Goliath case where these lawyers are moving to tread heavily on Mr. Dempsey and the People of Canada he represents.
News Conferences are currently being arranged and will be held September 9 in Vancouver and Montreal. Various citizen groups and freedom movements as well as other special interest groups representing thousands of Canadians from across Canada are expected to rally in support of this action.
Media representatives wishing to attend any of the News Conferences, or wanting to ensure that they are on our mailing lists, or wishing to arrange for interviews with legal, forensic and other experts after any of the News. Conferences, should call to ensure that their current information is on file.
In Montreal, Quebec
Contact: Bruce Margolese
(514) 294-3284
E-Mail: bmargolese@yahoo.com
In Vancouver, B.C.
Contact: John R. Dempsey
(604) 597-1475
E-Mail: classaction_cpa@hotmail.com or classproceeding@yahoo.ca
Since sending out a News Release in April announcing the filing of the Class Action Law Suit, we have been inundated with calls from persons asking if it is too late to become involved.
The answer is NO. As long as you fit ANY ONE of the five criteria listed below, you can apply for registration for Class Participation. While we would like those interested in becoming involved to do so on a timely basis, as it adds strength to our efforts, a cut-off date for participation will be established (I believe by the court at a future date).
The criteria for participation is as follows:
1. If you have been involved in any kind of loan transaction with any bank or financial institution you are eligible to participate;
2. If you did not know that banks and financial institutions are engaged in illegal creation of money, you are eligible to participate;
3. If you were told by your bank or financial institution they loaned you money without receiving “cash” or “legal tender” money or currency, you are eligible to participate;
4. If you were unaware that the bank or financial institution made you sign a promissory note or loan application form and ‘monetized’ the said note or form by way of your signature, you are eligible to participate;
5. If you or your family have suffered or are facing foreclosure or seizure of property or debt collection by banks or financial institutions as a result of any loan or debt transactions with any bank or financial institution, you are eligible to participate.
It is important to note that you DO NOT have to be object or victim of any debt collection, foreclosure or any other legal proceeding to participate.
rest here http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/04/19/canada_class_action_accuses_banks_of_illegal_creation_of_money.htm
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Al Gore’s inconvenient judgment
Al Gore’s inconvenient judgment
Al Gore’s award-winning climate change documentary was littered with nine inconvenient untruths, a judge ruled yesterday.
An Inconvenient Truth won plaudits from the environmental lobby and an Oscar from the film industry but was found wanting when it was scrutinised in the High Court in London.
Mr Justice Burton identified nine significant errors within the former presidential candidate’s documentary as he assessed whether it should be shown to school children. He agreed that Mr Gore’s film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change but said that some of the claims were wrong and had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration”.
Background
Al Gore: an inspiring but divisive green adviser
Al Gore - he’s hot
An inconvenient truth?
Cows targeted in climate change war
As part of a government-backed project, researchers are trying to find a diet for cattle that will cause less burping and flatulence
Background
Two degrees of difference: the science that backs the protest
On climate change, Bush is all heart
The Terminator says go green
Related Links
U-turn on showing of Al Gore film in school
Al Gore tipped to win Nobel
An inconvenient truth?
In what is a rare judicial ruling on what children can see in the class-room, Mr Justice Barton was at pains to point out that the “apocalyptic vision” presented in the film was politically partisan and not an impartial analysis of the science of climate change.
“It is plainly, as witnessed by the fact that it received an Oscar this year for best documentary film, a powerful, dramatically presented and highly professionally produced film,” he said in his ruling. “It is built around the charismatic presence of the ex-Vice-Presi-dent, Al Gore, whose crusade it now is to persuade the world of the dangers of climate change caused by global warming.
“It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film.”
The analysis by the judge will have a bearing on whether the Government can continue with its plan to have the film shown in every secondary school. He agreed it could be shown but on the condition that it was accompanied by new guidance notes for teachers to balance Mr Gore’s “one-sided” views.
The Government’s decision to show the film in secondary schools had come under attack from Stewart Dim-mock, a school governor in Kent and a member of political group the New Party, who accused the Government of brainwashing children.
The first mistake made by Mr Gore, said Mr Justice Burton in his written judgment, was in talking about the potential devastation wrought by a rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice caps.
The claim that sea levels could rise by 20ft “in the near future” was dismissed as “distinctly alarmist”. Such a rise would take place “only after, and over, millennia”.
Mr Justice Burton added: “The ar-mageddon scenario he predicts, inso-far as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.”
A claim that atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated was supported by “no evidence”, while to suggest that two graphs showing carbon dioxide levels and temperatures over the last 650,000 years were an “exact fit” overstated the case.
Mr Gore’s suggestion that the Gulf Stream, that warms up the Atlantic ocean, would shut down was contradicted by the International Panel on Climate Change’s assessment that it was “very unlikely” to happen.
The drying of Lake Chad, the loss of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snows and Hurricane Katrina were all blamed by Mr Gore on climate change but the judge said the scientific community had been unable to find evidence to prove there was a direct link.
The drying of Lake Chad, the judge said, was “far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and overgrazing, and regional climate variability”. The melting of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was “mainly attributable to human-induced climate change”.
The judge also said there was no proof to support a claim that polar bears were drowning while searching for icy habitats melted by global warming. The only drowned polar bears the court was aware of were four that died following a storm.
Similarly, the judge took issue with the former Vice-President of the United States for attributing coral bleaching to climate change. Separating the direct impacts of climate change and other factors was difficult, the judgment concluded.
Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.
In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”
The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts.
— A High Court judge since 1998, Sir Michael Burton, 60, was president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal from 2002 to 2005. He stood in local elections for Labour in Kensington and Chelsea in 1971; Stratford upon Avon in the General Election in 1974; and for the SDP in Greater London Council elections in 1981. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, his wife died in 1992 leaving him to bring up four daughters
Al Gore’s award-winning climate change documentary was littered with nine inconvenient untruths, a judge ruled yesterday.
An Inconvenient Truth won plaudits from the environmental lobby and an Oscar from the film industry but was found wanting when it was scrutinised in the High Court in London.
Mr Justice Burton identified nine significant errors within the former presidential candidate’s documentary as he assessed whether it should be shown to school children. He agreed that Mr Gore’s film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change but said that some of the claims were wrong and had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration”.
Background
Al Gore: an inspiring but divisive green adviser
Al Gore - he’s hot
An inconvenient truth?
Cows targeted in climate change war
As part of a government-backed project, researchers are trying to find a diet for cattle that will cause less burping and flatulence
Background
Two degrees of difference: the science that backs the protest
On climate change, Bush is all heart
The Terminator says go green
Related Links
U-turn on showing of Al Gore film in school
Al Gore tipped to win Nobel
An inconvenient truth?
In what is a rare judicial ruling on what children can see in the class-room, Mr Justice Barton was at pains to point out that the “apocalyptic vision” presented in the film was politically partisan and not an impartial analysis of the science of climate change.
“It is plainly, as witnessed by the fact that it received an Oscar this year for best documentary film, a powerful, dramatically presented and highly professionally produced film,” he said in his ruling. “It is built around the charismatic presence of the ex-Vice-Presi-dent, Al Gore, whose crusade it now is to persuade the world of the dangers of climate change caused by global warming.
“It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film.”
The analysis by the judge will have a bearing on whether the Government can continue with its plan to have the film shown in every secondary school. He agreed it could be shown but on the condition that it was accompanied by new guidance notes for teachers to balance Mr Gore’s “one-sided” views.
The Government’s decision to show the film in secondary schools had come under attack from Stewart Dim-mock, a school governor in Kent and a member of political group the New Party, who accused the Government of brainwashing children.
The first mistake made by Mr Gore, said Mr Justice Burton in his written judgment, was in talking about the potential devastation wrought by a rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice caps.
The claim that sea levels could rise by 20ft “in the near future” was dismissed as “distinctly alarmist”. Such a rise would take place “only after, and over, millennia”.
Mr Justice Burton added: “The ar-mageddon scenario he predicts, inso-far as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.”
A claim that atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated was supported by “no evidence”, while to suggest that two graphs showing carbon dioxide levels and temperatures over the last 650,000 years were an “exact fit” overstated the case.
Mr Gore’s suggestion that the Gulf Stream, that warms up the Atlantic ocean, would shut down was contradicted by the International Panel on Climate Change’s assessment that it was “very unlikely” to happen.
The drying of Lake Chad, the loss of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snows and Hurricane Katrina were all blamed by Mr Gore on climate change but the judge said the scientific community had been unable to find evidence to prove there was a direct link.
The drying of Lake Chad, the judge said, was “far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and overgrazing, and regional climate variability”. The melting of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was “mainly attributable to human-induced climate change”.
The judge also said there was no proof to support a claim that polar bears were drowning while searching for icy habitats melted by global warming. The only drowned polar bears the court was aware of were four that died following a storm.
Similarly, the judge took issue with the former Vice-President of the United States for attributing coral bleaching to climate change. Separating the direct impacts of climate change and other factors was difficult, the judgment concluded.
Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.
In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”
The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts.
— A High Court judge since 1998, Sir Michael Burton, 60, was president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal from 2002 to 2005. He stood in local elections for Labour in Kensington and Chelsea in 1971; Stratford upon Avon in the General Election in 1974; and for the SDP in Greater London Council elections in 1981. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, his wife died in 1992 leaving him to bring up four daughters
Monday, August 6, 2007
Analysis: New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture
Analysis: New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture
Ryan Singel
Wired
Monday Aug 6, 2007
A new law expanding the government's spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install permanent back doors in the nation's communication networks. The legislation was passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law Sunday by President Bush.
The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers.
The Administration pushed for passage of the changes to close what it called a "surveillance gap," referring to a long-standing feature of the nation's surveillance laws that required the government to get court approval to capture communications inside the United States.
While the nation's spy laws have been continually loosened since 9/11, the Administration never pushed for the right to tap the nation's domestic communication networks until a secret court recently struck down a key pillar of the government's secret spying program.
The Administration argues that the world's communication networks now route many foreign to foreign calls and emails through switches in the United States.
Prior to the law's passage, the nation's spy agencies, such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, didn't need any court approval to spy on foreigners so long as the wiretaps were outside the United States.
Now, those agencies are free to order services like Skype, cell phone companies and arguably even search engines to comply with secret spy orders to create back doors in domestic communication networks for the nation's spooks. While it's unclear whether the wiretapping can be used for domestic purposes, the law only requires that the programs that give rise to such orders have a "significant purpose" of foreign intelligence gathering.
The law:
Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to be outside the country as not surveillance.
Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.
Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.
Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months legal forever and perpetually renewable after the six month "sunset" of the new powers.
Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program -- sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are "clearly erroneous."
Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.
Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.
In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create permanent spying outposts for the federal government.
These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no court supervision over their extent or implementation.
Abuses of the outposts will be monitored only by the Justice Department, which has already been found to have underreported abuses of other surveillance powers to Congress.
In related international news, Zimbabwe's repressive dictator Robert Mugabe also won passage of a law allowing the government to turn that nation's communication infrastructure into a gigantic, secret microphone
Ryan Singel
Wired
Monday Aug 6, 2007
A new law expanding the government's spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install permanent back doors in the nation's communication networks. The legislation was passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law Sunday by President Bush.
The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers.
The Administration pushed for passage of the changes to close what it called a "surveillance gap," referring to a long-standing feature of the nation's surveillance laws that required the government to get court approval to capture communications inside the United States.
While the nation's spy laws have been continually loosened since 9/11, the Administration never pushed for the right to tap the nation's domestic communication networks until a secret court recently struck down a key pillar of the government's secret spying program.
The Administration argues that the world's communication networks now route many foreign to foreign calls and emails through switches in the United States.
Prior to the law's passage, the nation's spy agencies, such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, didn't need any court approval to spy on foreigners so long as the wiretaps were outside the United States.
Now, those agencies are free to order services like Skype, cell phone companies and arguably even search engines to comply with secret spy orders to create back doors in domestic communication networks for the nation's spooks. While it's unclear whether the wiretapping can be used for domestic purposes, the law only requires that the programs that give rise to such orders have a "significant purpose" of foreign intelligence gathering.
The law:
Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to be outside the country as not surveillance.
Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.
Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.
Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months legal forever and perpetually renewable after the six month "sunset" of the new powers.
Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program -- sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are "clearly erroneous."
Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.
Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.
In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create permanent spying outposts for the federal government.
These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no court supervision over their extent or implementation.
Abuses of the outposts will be monitored only by the Justice Department, which has already been found to have underreported abuses of other surveillance powers to Congress.
In related international news, Zimbabwe's repressive dictator Robert Mugabe also won passage of a law allowing the government to turn that nation's communication infrastructure into a gigantic, secret microphone
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Three Girls Died, Others Hospitalized, After HPV Vaccine
Three Girls Died, Others Hospitalized, After HPV Vaccine
Mercola.com
Wednesday July 4, 2007
Amid controversy over state legislatures in the U.S. requiring young girls to take Gardasil, Merck's new vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), severe side effects are being reported.
1,637 adverse reactions have been reported by Judicial Watch, a public interest watchdog, including three girls who died shortly after receiving the immunization. Judicial Watch obtained the reports from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration using the Freedom of Information Act.
In Australia, 25 girls who had just received their first injection of the vaccine experienced headache, nausea, and dizziness. In some cases, the problems were so severe that they were hospitalized. Shares of the vaccine's Australian developer, CSL, fell after the incident was reported in the news.
British Medical Journal June 9, 2007;334:1182-1183
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
Should young girls be required to take Gardasil by the government when possible side effects include hospitalization and death? There have also been reports from the National Vaccine Information Center about fainting and dizziness reported by dozens of patients as side effects of Gardasil, and there are even some concerns that Gardasil may cause infertility.
These are steep risks for a vaccine that only sometimes protects against HPV, which is virtually 100 percent avoidable without an expensive and potentially fatal vaccine.
Please realize that Merck has manipulated the medical and political system to FORCE children to get this dangerous vaccine for their own bottom line profit. The potential promised reduction of cervical cancer is the bait they use.
Remember Merck, the manufacturer of this vaccine, is the same company that made Vioxx that killed over 60,000 people.
It is also important to understand that this year, some 11,000 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer, which can be caused by HPV, and about 3,700 will die from it. In comparison, 16 times more American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer (178,480), and 11 times more will die from it (40,460).
As Merck's own literature says, it is important to realize that Gardasil does not protect women against some "non-vaccine" HPV types. So, even if girls accept the risks and get vaccinated, they can still get HPV.
Finally, although more than 6 million women contract HPV each year, a woman's immune system is often strong enough to clear up the infection on its own. About 90 percent of HPV infections simply clear up within two years.
Remember, it is NOT the infection that is the issue as much as it is the person's immune system. You can be exposed to these bacteria and viruses and if you are living a healthy lifestyle your body's immune system will typically know how to address the infection.
Mercola.com
Wednesday July 4, 2007
Amid controversy over state legislatures in the U.S. requiring young girls to take Gardasil, Merck's new vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), severe side effects are being reported.
1,637 adverse reactions have been reported by Judicial Watch, a public interest watchdog, including three girls who died shortly after receiving the immunization. Judicial Watch obtained the reports from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration using the Freedom of Information Act.
In Australia, 25 girls who had just received their first injection of the vaccine experienced headache, nausea, and dizziness. In some cases, the problems were so severe that they were hospitalized. Shares of the vaccine's Australian developer, CSL, fell after the incident was reported in the news.
British Medical Journal June 9, 2007;334:1182-1183
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
Should young girls be required to take Gardasil by the government when possible side effects include hospitalization and death? There have also been reports from the National Vaccine Information Center about fainting and dizziness reported by dozens of patients as side effects of Gardasil, and there are even some concerns that Gardasil may cause infertility.
These are steep risks for a vaccine that only sometimes protects against HPV, which is virtually 100 percent avoidable without an expensive and potentially fatal vaccine.
Please realize that Merck has manipulated the medical and political system to FORCE children to get this dangerous vaccine for their own bottom line profit. The potential promised reduction of cervical cancer is the bait they use.
Remember Merck, the manufacturer of this vaccine, is the same company that made Vioxx that killed over 60,000 people.
It is also important to understand that this year, some 11,000 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer, which can be caused by HPV, and about 3,700 will die from it. In comparison, 16 times more American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer (178,480), and 11 times more will die from it (40,460).
As Merck's own literature says, it is important to realize that Gardasil does not protect women against some "non-vaccine" HPV types. So, even if girls accept the risks and get vaccinated, they can still get HPV.
Finally, although more than 6 million women contract HPV each year, a woman's immune system is often strong enough to clear up the infection on its own. About 90 percent of HPV infections simply clear up within two years.
Remember, it is NOT the infection that is the issue as much as it is the person's immune system. You can be exposed to these bacteria and viruses and if you are living a healthy lifestyle your body's immune system will typically know how to address the infection.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Fox News Lies, Claims Rosie Was Fired
Fox News Lies, Claims Rosie Was Fired
Trump also jumps on the bandwagon
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Neo-Con talking heads, Donald Trump and even some 9/11 truth activist groups are erroneously claiming that Rosie O'Donnell was fired by ABC in an attempt to strip her of her status as a crusader for free speech. The truth is that Rosie was sick and tired of ABC's deliberate attempts to censor her and had already decided to leave The View several weeks ago.
As we reported yesterday, prominent 9/11 truth sources close to O'Donnell revealed to Alex Jones weeks ago that Rosie had refused to have her first amendment rights restricted and was likely to quit on her own terms after she was asked to stay on the show by ABC with the proviso that she tone down her stance on the issue of 9/11.
In addition, The View wanted O'Donnell to sign a three year contract when Rosie just wanted a shorter commitment of 12 months. Many have heralded this as a huge mistake on the part of ABC.
Despite this the establishment media, once again caring little for facts or bothering to find out the truth, has surmised that Rosie was fired for talking about the 9/11 cover up.
Fox News' John Gibson has concocted his own conspiracy theory about why O'Donnell will no longer appear on The View:
Was it the grabbing the crotch and shouting "Eat me"? Probably not. As grotesque as that command was, as awful as that image may be, it was probably just a gag-inducing moment that only confirmed what the ABC suits and Barbara Walters had already decided. They had to have decided she must go because of one reason: her insistence on pushing 9/11 conspiracy nutter theories on national network television, a deeply embarrassing thing for any self-respecting network, especially one that is vying for the top spot in the evening news wars.
Do you think it helps Charlie Gibson, a respected veteran of straight news, to be on a network which has allowed an employee to bellow to the sky that the attacks of 9/11 were a put-up job in which our own government attacked its own people? And what is one left to conclude other than that when you hear Rosie demanding the audience go Google "World Trade 7" and see how they weren't telling you the truth.
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Once again we get the half baked and ill informed "this is what 9/11 conspiracy theorists think" trash and then Gibson goes on to say how anyone who suggests building 7 was "pulled" is saying "George Bush did it" - thus both WTC owner Larry Silverstein and most recently John Kerry must be saying that then?
In addition Bill O'Reilly has written a slime covered piece in which he announces himself as an oracle for predicting O'Donnell would be pushed out at ABC:
As predicted here last January, Ms. O'Donnell is leaving "The View." She made the announcement today, making me an oracle. Truthfully, that wasn't a very hard prediction to make. In corporate America, there are boundaries. People who make money for corporations can stretch the boundaries. But sooner or later, the corporations, in this case Disney, has to decide what's best for the shareholders.
O'Reilly also claims that the American public dislikes O'Donnell on The View and that is why Disney essentially severed relations with Rosie. In truth it is O'Reilly himself that the American public dislikes. As O'Donnell's ratings have sky rocketed, his own have plummeted. ABC's The View averages over twice as many viewers as O'Reilly's show, reaching a total of around 30 million viewers throughout the course of the entire show.
O'Reilly's viewership has been in freefall since his October 2004 sex scandal, dropping from a height of around 3.1 million to just over 2 million in October 2006 and leveling of at that rate to the present day. O'Reilly has lost over a third of his audience in two years, yet has the gall to continually announce that he has his finger on the pulse of America and "knows the American people".
In a further series of lies, un-truths and total ignorance, Donald Trump has weighed in on the issue.
O'Reilly "interviewed" Trump on his radio show whereupon he had this to say:
O'REILLY: Do you have any inside information about Disney?
TRUMP: I don't want to say what I have, Bill. I can just tell you that this was a deal that was not going to happen. And she —most likely — I mean the straw that broke the camel's back was what she did at the Waldorf- Astoria.
O'REILLY: Yes, that's what I believe, too. But let me just get this straight. You don't have to burn any sources, but you are convinced that Disney threw her over the side.
TRUMP: I am convinced that Disney threw her over the side, absolutely.
People magazine checked in with Trump to get his expert opinion about O’Donnell leaving the show. When asked Trump told them, “Well, she didn't leave The View, ABC fired her. They couldn't take it anymore. Her ratings, frankly, were good during the month of January when she and I were going at it, but they've been falling very steadily ever since. Her other show – her talk show – was canceled because of low ratings.”
Not one iota of this statement is true. O'Donnell has ensured that The View's ratings have risen by 17% in the time she has been on the show, introducing 600, 000 new viewers, the primary reason as to why she was offered a new contract.
Given the success of her outspoken approach on The View, there is no doubt that O'Donnell will now be offered her own syndicated show, and it will be on her own terms. Therefore we expect her pledge of allegiance to exposing 9/11 truth to only intensify in the coming months.
Trump also jumps on the bandwagon
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Neo-Con talking heads, Donald Trump and even some 9/11 truth activist groups are erroneously claiming that Rosie O'Donnell was fired by ABC in an attempt to strip her of her status as a crusader for free speech. The truth is that Rosie was sick and tired of ABC's deliberate attempts to censor her and had already decided to leave The View several weeks ago.
As we reported yesterday, prominent 9/11 truth sources close to O'Donnell revealed to Alex Jones weeks ago that Rosie had refused to have her first amendment rights restricted and was likely to quit on her own terms after she was asked to stay on the show by ABC with the proviso that she tone down her stance on the issue of 9/11.
In addition, The View wanted O'Donnell to sign a three year contract when Rosie just wanted a shorter commitment of 12 months. Many have heralded this as a huge mistake on the part of ABC.
Despite this the establishment media, once again caring little for facts or bothering to find out the truth, has surmised that Rosie was fired for talking about the 9/11 cover up.
Fox News' John Gibson has concocted his own conspiracy theory about why O'Donnell will no longer appear on The View:
Was it the grabbing the crotch and shouting "Eat me"? Probably not. As grotesque as that command was, as awful as that image may be, it was probably just a gag-inducing moment that only confirmed what the ABC suits and Barbara Walters had already decided. They had to have decided she must go because of one reason: her insistence on pushing 9/11 conspiracy nutter theories on national network television, a deeply embarrassing thing for any self-respecting network, especially one that is vying for the top spot in the evening news wars.
Do you think it helps Charlie Gibson, a respected veteran of straight news, to be on a network which has allowed an employee to bellow to the sky that the attacks of 9/11 were a put-up job in which our own government attacked its own people? And what is one left to conclude other than that when you hear Rosie demanding the audience go Google "World Trade 7" and see how they weren't telling you the truth.
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Once again we get the half baked and ill informed "this is what 9/11 conspiracy theorists think" trash and then Gibson goes on to say how anyone who suggests building 7 was "pulled" is saying "George Bush did it" - thus both WTC owner Larry Silverstein and most recently John Kerry must be saying that then?
In addition Bill O'Reilly has written a slime covered piece in which he announces himself as an oracle for predicting O'Donnell would be pushed out at ABC:
As predicted here last January, Ms. O'Donnell is leaving "The View." She made the announcement today, making me an oracle. Truthfully, that wasn't a very hard prediction to make. In corporate America, there are boundaries. People who make money for corporations can stretch the boundaries. But sooner or later, the corporations, in this case Disney, has to decide what's best for the shareholders.
O'Reilly also claims that the American public dislikes O'Donnell on The View and that is why Disney essentially severed relations with Rosie. In truth it is O'Reilly himself that the American public dislikes. As O'Donnell's ratings have sky rocketed, his own have plummeted. ABC's The View averages over twice as many viewers as O'Reilly's show, reaching a total of around 30 million viewers throughout the course of the entire show.
O'Reilly's viewership has been in freefall since his October 2004 sex scandal, dropping from a height of around 3.1 million to just over 2 million in October 2006 and leveling of at that rate to the present day. O'Reilly has lost over a third of his audience in two years, yet has the gall to continually announce that he has his finger on the pulse of America and "knows the American people".
In a further series of lies, un-truths and total ignorance, Donald Trump has weighed in on the issue.
O'Reilly "interviewed" Trump on his radio show whereupon he had this to say:
O'REILLY: Do you have any inside information about Disney?
TRUMP: I don't want to say what I have, Bill. I can just tell you that this was a deal that was not going to happen. And she —most likely — I mean the straw that broke the camel's back was what she did at the Waldorf- Astoria.
O'REILLY: Yes, that's what I believe, too. But let me just get this straight. You don't have to burn any sources, but you are convinced that Disney threw her over the side.
TRUMP: I am convinced that Disney threw her over the side, absolutely.
People magazine checked in with Trump to get his expert opinion about O’Donnell leaving the show. When asked Trump told them, “Well, she didn't leave The View, ABC fired her. They couldn't take it anymore. Her ratings, frankly, were good during the month of January when she and I were going at it, but they've been falling very steadily ever since. Her other show – her talk show – was canceled because of low ratings.”
Not one iota of this statement is true. O'Donnell has ensured that The View's ratings have risen by 17% in the time she has been on the show, introducing 600, 000 new viewers, the primary reason as to why she was offered a new contract.
Given the success of her outspoken approach on The View, there is no doubt that O'Donnell will now be offered her own syndicated show, and it will be on her own terms. Therefore we expect her pledge of allegiance to exposing 9/11 truth to only intensify in the coming months.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
5-Year Prison Sentence For Brown As New Waco Draws Nearer
5-Year Prison Sentence For Brown As New Waco Draws Nearer
Margot Sanger-Katz
Concord Monitor
Wednesday April 25, 2007
A federal judge sentenced tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown to more than five years in prison yesterday, giving them sentences at the top of the range recommended by probation officers but below sentencing recommendations offered by the prosecutor.
The couple did not attend the hearing, and Ed Brown refused to recognize the sentence or the federal court that issued it.
"I've been convicted of crimes?" he asked in a phone interview yesterday.
The couple have been holed up in their fortified Plainfield home for several months, saying that any attempts to arrest them will trigger a violent confrontation with federal officials.
The Browns were convicted in January of conspiring to defraud the government, conspiring to disguise large financial transactions and disguising large financial transactions. Elaine Brown, whose West Lebanon dental practice earned the couple's income, was also convicted of multiple counts of tax evasion and failure to withhold employment taxes. The government calculated the couple's unpaid tax bill at roughly $750,000.
The Browns, who maintain that federal income tax laws don't apply to them, argued during their trial that the laws were invalid. Midway through the trial, the Browns stopped attending the proceedings. Ed Brown issued internet and radio statements that the situation might turn into "another Waco" and urged armed supporter to help him resist capture. In 1993, a standoff between the Branch Davidian religious sect and federal officers near Waco, Texas, resulted in 80 deaths, including those of four law enforcement agents.
Elaine Brown returned to court several days later and was released into the custody of a son in Massachusetts on the condition that she not return to her husband.
But a few weeks after the guilty verdict, she violated the terms of her release and joined Ed Brown in Plainfield. On a daily internet radio show and in sporadic blog posts and news interviews, the couple have challenged the validity of their convictions and the jurisdiction of the court, and they have issued threats against the judge, prosecutor and other federal officials.
Yesterday, it appeared that the U.S. marshals took those threats seriously. More than a dozen marshals were positioned around the courtroom during the sentencing. Others stood at patrols around the Concord courthouse during the day. Several of the marshals said they were brought in from out of state to work the hearings.
"We have concerns," U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said at a press conference after the sentences were announced. "We're genuinely concerned because of their use of the internet, the blogs and some of the statements the Browns have made."
Judge Stephen McAuliffe rejected attempts by the prosecutor to boost the couple's sentences outside of the range recommended by probation officers. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Morse argued that both Browns' sentences could be increased under federal sentencing guidelines because they had disrupted government functions and committed further crimes as fugitives. He also asked the judge to depart from the guidelines altogether because of the unusual circumstances surrounding their convictions.
"The defendants are thumbing their noses at the rule of law every step of the way," Morse said.
McAulliffe handed down nearly identical sentences. Both Ed and Elaine Brown were sentenced to 63 months in prison and three years of supervised release. The conditions of their supervised release require them to immediately file accurate tax returns for the years of their crimes and to comply with any payment plan required by the IRS.
The judge also finalized an order requiring the Browns to forfeit part of their interest in their home and office building found to be related to their crimes. The couple can satisfy that requirement by paying the total judgment, about $215,000.
During the trial, Elaine Brown turned down a plea deal that would have included a two-year prison sentence.
McAuliffe said the Browns' sentences were appropriate, given that they had been convicted of "garden variety" tax crimes, but he noted that they might face additional prison sentences if they were charged and convicted of the other crimes Morse described.
During the sentencings, Morse mentioned the Browns' destruction of Elaine Brown's electronic monitoring bracelet as a federal felony and also referred to threats against court officials, another federal crime.
Morse did not answer reporters' questions yesterday, but in a phone interview on Monday he said he could not comment on whether his office planned to charge the Browns over those allegations.
The Browns have 10 days to appeal their convictions. It is unclear whether they will. Shortly after the jury verdict in January, the couple attempted to file an appeal, but it was rejected as premature. In recent statements, the Browns have said that they will no longer receive mail from the court or file any documents. Joe Haas, a friend from Gilmanton Iron Works, said that Ed Brown told him yesterday that he would not file an appeal.
"Ed says he doesn't care. He doesn't acknowledge them. It's all a fiction," Haas said.
In a phone interview yesterday, Brown did not answer questions about his appeal, but he questioned whether the judge's ruling applied to him.
"Who's he?" Brown asked. "What's he? Part of the corporation of the United States? That has nothing to do with me. I'm a natural living soul."
Monier, the U.S. marshal, said his office's strategy has not changed as a result of the sentences. He said his staff will continue to communicate with the Browns and will not initiate a siege or standoff at their home.
"We're just not going to engage in that kind of game with them," he said.
In a letter he sent to the couple yesterday, he urged the Browns to turn themselves in.
"We have, and will continue to take, all reasonable steps to resolve this peacefully," he wrote.
Monier did say that his office will take action against Brown supporters who bring weapons to the Plainfield house or otherwise provide "assistance, aid, or comfort to the Browns in their continuing efforts to obstruct justice and avoid apprehension."
Since Ed Brown stopped attending his trial, he has been visited by a number of supporters who have brought food, weapons and technical assistance to him, and later to Elaine. Monier did not say whether friends who brought food might be subject to prosecution, but he did say visiting would be allowed.
"It's got to be a little bit more than just, 'Let's go out and say hi to Ed and Elaine today,' " Monier said.
About 15 supporters either attended the hearings or demonstrated outside the courthouse yesterday. Most said they were not surprised by the outcome.
"The whole thing was unfair, so it's still unfair," said Bernie Bastian of Weare, a close friend of Ed Brown's who attended every day of the trial. Bastian waited outside the courthouse yesterday because he said that he did not want to recognize the court's jurisdiction over his friend.
"I expected them to do wrong, and they met my expectation," he said.
Margot Sanger-Katz
Concord Monitor
Wednesday April 25, 2007
A federal judge sentenced tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown to more than five years in prison yesterday, giving them sentences at the top of the range recommended by probation officers but below sentencing recommendations offered by the prosecutor.
The couple did not attend the hearing, and Ed Brown refused to recognize the sentence or the federal court that issued it.
"I've been convicted of crimes?" he asked in a phone interview yesterday.
The couple have been holed up in their fortified Plainfield home for several months, saying that any attempts to arrest them will trigger a violent confrontation with federal officials.
The Browns were convicted in January of conspiring to defraud the government, conspiring to disguise large financial transactions and disguising large financial transactions. Elaine Brown, whose West Lebanon dental practice earned the couple's income, was also convicted of multiple counts of tax evasion and failure to withhold employment taxes. The government calculated the couple's unpaid tax bill at roughly $750,000.
The Browns, who maintain that federal income tax laws don't apply to them, argued during their trial that the laws were invalid. Midway through the trial, the Browns stopped attending the proceedings. Ed Brown issued internet and radio statements that the situation might turn into "another Waco" and urged armed supporter to help him resist capture. In 1993, a standoff between the Branch Davidian religious sect and federal officers near Waco, Texas, resulted in 80 deaths, including those of four law enforcement agents.
Elaine Brown returned to court several days later and was released into the custody of a son in Massachusetts on the condition that she not return to her husband.
But a few weeks after the guilty verdict, she violated the terms of her release and joined Ed Brown in Plainfield. On a daily internet radio show and in sporadic blog posts and news interviews, the couple have challenged the validity of their convictions and the jurisdiction of the court, and they have issued threats against the judge, prosecutor and other federal officials.
Yesterday, it appeared that the U.S. marshals took those threats seriously. More than a dozen marshals were positioned around the courtroom during the sentencing. Others stood at patrols around the Concord courthouse during the day. Several of the marshals said they were brought in from out of state to work the hearings.
"We have concerns," U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said at a press conference after the sentences were announced. "We're genuinely concerned because of their use of the internet, the blogs and some of the statements the Browns have made."
Judge Stephen McAuliffe rejected attempts by the prosecutor to boost the couple's sentences outside of the range recommended by probation officers. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Morse argued that both Browns' sentences could be increased under federal sentencing guidelines because they had disrupted government functions and committed further crimes as fugitives. He also asked the judge to depart from the guidelines altogether because of the unusual circumstances surrounding their convictions.
"The defendants are thumbing their noses at the rule of law every step of the way," Morse said.
McAulliffe handed down nearly identical sentences. Both Ed and Elaine Brown were sentenced to 63 months in prison and three years of supervised release. The conditions of their supervised release require them to immediately file accurate tax returns for the years of their crimes and to comply with any payment plan required by the IRS.
The judge also finalized an order requiring the Browns to forfeit part of their interest in their home and office building found to be related to their crimes. The couple can satisfy that requirement by paying the total judgment, about $215,000.
During the trial, Elaine Brown turned down a plea deal that would have included a two-year prison sentence.
McAuliffe said the Browns' sentences were appropriate, given that they had been convicted of "garden variety" tax crimes, but he noted that they might face additional prison sentences if they were charged and convicted of the other crimes Morse described.
During the sentencings, Morse mentioned the Browns' destruction of Elaine Brown's electronic monitoring bracelet as a federal felony and also referred to threats against court officials, another federal crime.
Morse did not answer reporters' questions yesterday, but in a phone interview on Monday he said he could not comment on whether his office planned to charge the Browns over those allegations.
The Browns have 10 days to appeal their convictions. It is unclear whether they will. Shortly after the jury verdict in January, the couple attempted to file an appeal, but it was rejected as premature. In recent statements, the Browns have said that they will no longer receive mail from the court or file any documents. Joe Haas, a friend from Gilmanton Iron Works, said that Ed Brown told him yesterday that he would not file an appeal.
"Ed says he doesn't care. He doesn't acknowledge them. It's all a fiction," Haas said.
In a phone interview yesterday, Brown did not answer questions about his appeal, but he questioned whether the judge's ruling applied to him.
"Who's he?" Brown asked. "What's he? Part of the corporation of the United States? That has nothing to do with me. I'm a natural living soul."
Monier, the U.S. marshal, said his office's strategy has not changed as a result of the sentences. He said his staff will continue to communicate with the Browns and will not initiate a siege or standoff at their home.
"We're just not going to engage in that kind of game with them," he said.
In a letter he sent to the couple yesterday, he urged the Browns to turn themselves in.
"We have, and will continue to take, all reasonable steps to resolve this peacefully," he wrote.
Monier did say that his office will take action against Brown supporters who bring weapons to the Plainfield house or otherwise provide "assistance, aid, or comfort to the Browns in their continuing efforts to obstruct justice and avoid apprehension."
Since Ed Brown stopped attending his trial, he has been visited by a number of supporters who have brought food, weapons and technical assistance to him, and later to Elaine. Monier did not say whether friends who brought food might be subject to prosecution, but he did say visiting would be allowed.
"It's got to be a little bit more than just, 'Let's go out and say hi to Ed and Elaine today,' " Monier said.
About 15 supporters either attended the hearings or demonstrated outside the courthouse yesterday. Most said they were not surprised by the outcome.
"The whole thing was unfair, so it's still unfair," said Bernie Bastian of Weare, a close friend of Ed Brown's who attended every day of the trial. Bastian waited outside the courthouse yesterday because he said that he did not want to recognize the court's jurisdiction over his friend.
"I expected them to do wrong, and they met my expectation," he said.
Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win
Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win
Roger Simon
The Politico
Wednesday April 25, 2007
MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.
The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.
“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”
“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”
He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”
After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will safer with a Republican president.”
Giuliani, whose past positions on abortion, gun control and gay rights have made him anathema to some in his party, believes his tough stance on national defense and his post-Sept. 11 reputation as a fighter of terrorism will be his trump card with doubting Republicans.
“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”
Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”
Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”
Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”
The crowd thundered its approval.
Giuliani also said that America had been naive about terrorism in the past and had missed obvious signals.
“They were at war with us before we realized it, going back to ’90s with all the Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “They came here and killed us in 1993 [with the first attack on New York’s World Trade Center, in which six people died], and we didn’t get it. We didn’t get it that this was a war. Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened, and we got it.”
Roger Simon
The Politico
Wednesday April 25, 2007
MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.
The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.
“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”
“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”
He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”
After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will safer with a Republican president.”
Giuliani, whose past positions on abortion, gun control and gay rights have made him anathema to some in his party, believes his tough stance on national defense and his post-Sept. 11 reputation as a fighter of terrorism will be his trump card with doubting Republicans.
“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”
Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”
Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”
Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”
The crowd thundered its approval.
Giuliani also said that America had been naive about terrorism in the past and had missed obvious signals.
“They were at war with us before we realized it, going back to ’90s with all the Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “They came here and killed us in 1993 [with the first attack on New York’s World Trade Center, in which six people died], and we didn’t get it. We didn’t get it that this was a war. Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened, and we got it.”
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Are we safe from robots that can think for themselves?
Are we safe from robots that can think for themselves?
REBECCA CAMBER
UK Daily Mail
Tuesday April 23, 2007
Robots that can think for themselves could soon be caring for our children and the elderly and policing our streets, say experts.
Scientists told yesterday of a new generation of robots which can work without human direction.
They predict that in the next five years robots will be available for child-minding, to work in care homes, monitor prisons and help police trace criminals.
And while it may sound like something out of a science-fiction film, the experts say advances in technology have made the thinking robot possible.
A group of leading robotic researchers called for an urgent public debate and legislation to prevent large numbers of autonomous robots being introduced into society without considering the potential risks to public safety.
Until now most robots have been operated by humans, usually by remote control or verbal commands. But now autonomous machines such as toys and vacuum cleaners which cover the room without needing any human instructions or guidance are being introduced.
Manufacturers are exploring ways to make robotic toys look after children, which experts say will lead to child-minding machines able to monitor youngsters, transmitting their progress to the parents by onboard cameras.
In Japan, scientists are producing robots to act as companions for the elderly and check their heart rate.
Alan Winfield, professor of electronic engineering at the University of the West of England in Bristol, said yesterday it would not be long before technological advances made it possible for robots to be introduced in the home, as well as prisons and the police service.
Speaking at a debate on robot ethics at the London Science Media Centre, he said: "It is highly likely that in a number of years robots will be employed both for child-minding and care for the elderly.
"But the danger is that we will sleepwalk into a situation where we accept a large number of autonomous robots in our lives without being sure of the consequences.
"The outcome could be that when given a choice the robot could make the wrong decision and someone gets hurt. They can go wrong just like a motor car can.
"We should be aware of the future that we are letting ourselves in for. We need to look at their safety and reliability."
His warning echoes the hit Hollywood sci-fi film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, in which a slave robot with a mind of its own causes chaos.
Noel Sharkey, professor of computer science at Sheffield University, said: "Technology is increasing at an incredible rate.
"My main worry is that these autonomous robots could be introduced very quickly. We need to have an informed public debate now before that happens."
The biggest advances in robots in recent years have been as weapons of war. The U.S. military is developing battlefield robots which will be given the ability to decide when to use lethal force.
At the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, a battlefield robot is being developed which will use radar data and intelligence feeds to make decisions based on a set of ethical rules, which has been compared to an artificial conscience.
The Korean government is looking to create robotic armed border guards as part of a £ 51million investment in robotics.
REBECCA CAMBER
UK Daily Mail
Tuesday April 23, 2007
Robots that can think for themselves could soon be caring for our children and the elderly and policing our streets, say experts.
Scientists told yesterday of a new generation of robots which can work without human direction.
They predict that in the next five years robots will be available for child-minding, to work in care homes, monitor prisons and help police trace criminals.
And while it may sound like something out of a science-fiction film, the experts say advances in technology have made the thinking robot possible.
A group of leading robotic researchers called for an urgent public debate and legislation to prevent large numbers of autonomous robots being introduced into society without considering the potential risks to public safety.
Until now most robots have been operated by humans, usually by remote control or verbal commands. But now autonomous machines such as toys and vacuum cleaners which cover the room without needing any human instructions or guidance are being introduced.
Manufacturers are exploring ways to make robotic toys look after children, which experts say will lead to child-minding machines able to monitor youngsters, transmitting their progress to the parents by onboard cameras.
In Japan, scientists are producing robots to act as companions for the elderly and check their heart rate.
Alan Winfield, professor of electronic engineering at the University of the West of England in Bristol, said yesterday it would not be long before technological advances made it possible for robots to be introduced in the home, as well as prisons and the police service.
Speaking at a debate on robot ethics at the London Science Media Centre, he said: "It is highly likely that in a number of years robots will be employed both for child-minding and care for the elderly.
"But the danger is that we will sleepwalk into a situation where we accept a large number of autonomous robots in our lives without being sure of the consequences.
"The outcome could be that when given a choice the robot could make the wrong decision and someone gets hurt. They can go wrong just like a motor car can.
"We should be aware of the future that we are letting ourselves in for. We need to look at their safety and reliability."
His warning echoes the hit Hollywood sci-fi film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, in which a slave robot with a mind of its own causes chaos.
Noel Sharkey, professor of computer science at Sheffield University, said: "Technology is increasing at an incredible rate.
"My main worry is that these autonomous robots could be introduced very quickly. We need to have an informed public debate now before that happens."
The biggest advances in robots in recent years have been as weapons of war. The U.S. military is developing battlefield robots which will be given the ability to decide when to use lethal force.
At the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, a battlefield robot is being developed which will use radar data and intelligence feeds to make decisions based on a set of ethical rules, which has been compared to an artificial conscience.
The Korean government is looking to create robotic armed border guards as part of a £ 51million investment in robotics.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Virginia School Shooting: Another Government Black-Op?
Virginia School Shooting: Another Government Black-Op?
Early details suggest Columbine-style set-up to justify mass gun control, VA Tech has "blood on their hands," banned concealed carry, disarming victims
Paul Joseph Watson & Steve Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, April 16, 2007
Early details about the horrific school shooting at Virginia Tech strongly indicate that these events represent a Columbine-style black-op that will be exploited in the coming days to push for mass gun control and further turning our schools into prisons.
Eyewitness Matt Kazee told the Alex Jones Show that it was a full two to three hours after the shootings began that loudspeakers installed around the campus were used to warn students to stay indoors and that a shooter was on the loose.
Quite how the killer was afforded so much time before any action was taken to stop him is baffling, especially considering the fact that the campus, according to Kazee, was crawling with police before the event happened due to numerous bomb threats that had been phoned in last week.
The shootings came three days after a bomb threat Friday forced the cancellation of classes in three buildings, WDBJ in Roanoke reported. Also, the 100,000-square-foot Torgersen Hall was evacuated April 2 after police received a written bomb threat, The Roanoke Times reported.
CNN quoted a student who was outraged at the delay in identifying and stopping the killer.
"What happened today this was ridiculous. And I don't know what happened or what was going through this guy's mind," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "But I'm pretty outraged and I'll say on the record I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 o'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it — no mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceling classes — they just mention that they're investigating a shooting two hours later at 9:22."
He added: "That's pretty ridiculous and meanwhile, while they're sending out that e-mail, 22 more people got killed."
The details that are beginning to emerge fill the criteria that this could very well be another government black-op that will be used as justification for more gun control and turning our schools into prisons, festooned with armed guards, surveillance cameras and biometric scanning to gain entry.
Ironic therefore it is that Virginia is a concealed carry state and yet Virginia Tech campus recently enforced a policy prohibiting "unauthorized possession, storage or control" of firearms on campus. According to gun rights activists such as Aaron Zelman of Jews For The Preservation of Firearms, VA Tech has "blood on its hands" for disarming the victims who could potentially have defended themselves against the killer.
Initial reports suggested there were two shooters, but the story quickly changed to just one shooter who later killed himself (as happens in almost all these cases) or was shot by police.
Eyewitness accounts describe police hiding behind trees and failing to pursue the killer, while ordering the school to be placed on lockdown so nobody could escape the carnage as the killer picked off his targets with seemingly little interruption from the police.
At the moment, the official death toll is 30, but could rise, making this the deadliest school shooting in history.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9/11 Hero William Rodriguez Tells His Story!
In this powerful and emotional DVD, produced by William Rodriguez himself, the 9/11 hero presents his incredible story of bravery and the subsequent honors and accolades he turned his back on in his search for the real truth of what happened that fateful day. Click here to buy the DVD or click here to subscribe to Prison Planet.tv and watch it online now in high quality!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If these figures are accurate, the casualty figures surpass those of the school shooting at Columbine in 1999 when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.
It is well documented that disturbing questions remain over the incident at Columbine. It is clear that authorities had prior knowledge of what was going to happen. Observers were in the area hours before the shooting took place. Articles from the Associated Press stated that ballistics from Columbine show that six of the thirteen victims were possibly shot and killed by Jefferson County SWAT.
In addition, it was never properly explained how Klebold and Harris were able to transport over 100 bombs into the school before the shootings began.
In the aftermath of Columbine there were calls for vastly increased gun control laws, more than 15 state legislatures passed significant gun control bills or dropped NRA-supported bills.
In 1996 a similar incident occurred in Dunblane in Scotland where sixteen children and one adult were killed. The resulting inquiry recommended tighter control of handgun ownership, public feeling had turned against private gun ownership, allowing a much more restrictive ban on handguns to pass.
It then emerged that the killer Thomas Hamilton was heavily involved in Freemasonry, as well as running clubs for young boys, a fact which Labour and Tory ministers acknowledged in correspondence to each other. A a 100-year public secrecy order was placed on the documents, along with the majority of other information relating to the case including the police report. There have been allegations that the lengthy closure order was placed on the report after it linked Hamilton to figures in the Scottish establishment, including two senior politicians and a lawyer.
In both the Dunblane and Columbine cases the shooters turned the guns on themselves after the killing spree was over.
We will have more on this story as it unfolds.
Early details suggest Columbine-style set-up to justify mass gun control, VA Tech has "blood on their hands," banned concealed carry, disarming victims
Paul Joseph Watson & Steve Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, April 16, 2007
Early details about the horrific school shooting at Virginia Tech strongly indicate that these events represent a Columbine-style black-op that will be exploited in the coming days to push for mass gun control and further turning our schools into prisons.
Eyewitness Matt Kazee told the Alex Jones Show that it was a full two to three hours after the shootings began that loudspeakers installed around the campus were used to warn students to stay indoors and that a shooter was on the loose.
Quite how the killer was afforded so much time before any action was taken to stop him is baffling, especially considering the fact that the campus, according to Kazee, was crawling with police before the event happened due to numerous bomb threats that had been phoned in last week.
The shootings came three days after a bomb threat Friday forced the cancellation of classes in three buildings, WDBJ in Roanoke reported. Also, the 100,000-square-foot Torgersen Hall was evacuated April 2 after police received a written bomb threat, The Roanoke Times reported.
CNN quoted a student who was outraged at the delay in identifying and stopping the killer.
"What happened today this was ridiculous. And I don't know what happened or what was going through this guy's mind," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "But I'm pretty outraged and I'll say on the record I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 o'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it — no mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceling classes — they just mention that they're investigating a shooting two hours later at 9:22."
He added: "That's pretty ridiculous and meanwhile, while they're sending out that e-mail, 22 more people got killed."
The details that are beginning to emerge fill the criteria that this could very well be another government black-op that will be used as justification for more gun control and turning our schools into prisons, festooned with armed guards, surveillance cameras and biometric scanning to gain entry.
Ironic therefore it is that Virginia is a concealed carry state and yet Virginia Tech campus recently enforced a policy prohibiting "unauthorized possession, storage or control" of firearms on campus. According to gun rights activists such as Aaron Zelman of Jews For The Preservation of Firearms, VA Tech has "blood on its hands" for disarming the victims who could potentially have defended themselves against the killer.
Initial reports suggested there were two shooters, but the story quickly changed to just one shooter who later killed himself (as happens in almost all these cases) or was shot by police.
Eyewitness accounts describe police hiding behind trees and failing to pursue the killer, while ordering the school to be placed on lockdown so nobody could escape the carnage as the killer picked off his targets with seemingly little interruption from the police.
At the moment, the official death toll is 30, but could rise, making this the deadliest school shooting in history.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9/11 Hero William Rodriguez Tells His Story!
In this powerful and emotional DVD, produced by William Rodriguez himself, the 9/11 hero presents his incredible story of bravery and the subsequent honors and accolades he turned his back on in his search for the real truth of what happened that fateful day. Click here to buy the DVD or click here to subscribe to Prison Planet.tv and watch it online now in high quality!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If these figures are accurate, the casualty figures surpass those of the school shooting at Columbine in 1999 when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.
It is well documented that disturbing questions remain over the incident at Columbine. It is clear that authorities had prior knowledge of what was going to happen. Observers were in the area hours before the shooting took place. Articles from the Associated Press stated that ballistics from Columbine show that six of the thirteen victims were possibly shot and killed by Jefferson County SWAT.
In addition, it was never properly explained how Klebold and Harris were able to transport over 100 bombs into the school before the shootings began.
In the aftermath of Columbine there were calls for vastly increased gun control laws, more than 15 state legislatures passed significant gun control bills or dropped NRA-supported bills.
In 1996 a similar incident occurred in Dunblane in Scotland where sixteen children and one adult were killed. The resulting inquiry recommended tighter control of handgun ownership, public feeling had turned against private gun ownership, allowing a much more restrictive ban on handguns to pass.
It then emerged that the killer Thomas Hamilton was heavily involved in Freemasonry, as well as running clubs for young boys, a fact which Labour and Tory ministers acknowledged in correspondence to each other. A a 100-year public secrecy order was placed on the documents, along with the majority of other information relating to the case including the police report. There have been allegations that the lengthy closure order was placed on the report after it linked Hamilton to figures in the Scottish establishment, including two senior politicians and a lawyer.
In both the Dunblane and Columbine cases the shooters turned the guns on themselves after the killing spree was over.
We will have more on this story as it unfolds.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Gloria Steinem: How the CIA Used Feminism to Destabilize Society
Gloria Steinem: How the CIA Used Feminism to Destabilize Society
By Henry Makow Ph.D.
March 18, 2002
"In the 1960's, the elite media invented second-wave feminism as part of the elite agenda to dismantle civilization and create a New World Order."
Since writing these words last week, I have discovered that before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA spying on Marxist students in Europe and disrupting their meetings. She became a media darling due to her CIA connections. MS Magazine, which she edited for many years was indirectly funded by the CIA.
Steinem has tried to suppress this information, unearthed in the 1970's by a radical feminist group called "Red Stockings." In 1979, Steinem and her powerful CIA-connected friends, Katharine Graham of the Washington Post and Ford Foundation President Franklin Thomas prevented Random House from publishing it in "Feminist Revolution." Nevertheless the story appeared in the "Village Voice" on May 21, 1979.
Steinem has always pretended that she had been a student radical. "When I was in college, it was the McCarthy era," she told Susan Mitchell in 1997, "and that made me a Marxist." (Icons, Saints and Divas: Intimate Conversations with Women who Changed the World 1997. p 130) Her bio-blurb in June 1973 MS. Magazine states: "Gloria Steinem has been a freelance writer all her professional life. Ms magazine is her first full-time salaried job."
Not true. Raised in an impoverished, dysfunctional family in Toledo Ohio, Steinem somehow managed to attend elite Smith College, Betty Friedan's alma mater. After graduating in 1955, Steinem received a "Chester Bowles Student Fellowship" to study in India. Curiously, an Internet search reveals that this fellowship has no existence apart from Gloria Steinem. No one else has received it.
In 1958, Steinem was recruited by CIA's Cord Meyers to direct an "informal group of activists" called the "Independent Research Service." This was part of Meyer's "Congress for Cultural Freedom," which created magazines like "Encounter" and "Partisan Review" to promote a left-liberal chic to oppose Marxism. Steinem, attended Communist-sponsored youth festivals in Europe, published a newspaper, reported on other participants, and helped to provoke riots.
One of Steinem's CIA colleagues was Clay Felker. In the early 1960's, he became an editor at Esquire and published articles by Steinem which established her as a leading voice for women's lib. In 1968, as publisher of New York Magazine, he hired her as a contributing editor, and then editor of Ms. Magazine in 1971. Warner Communications put up almost all the money although it only took 25% of the stock. Ms. Magazine's first publisher was Elizabeth Forsling Harris, a CIA-connected PR executive who planned John Kennedy's Dallas motorcade route. Despite its anti establishment image, MS magazine attracted advertising from the cream of corporate America. It published ads for ITT at the same time as women political prisoners in Chile were being tortured by Pinochet, after a coup inspired by the US conglomerate and the CIA.
Steinem's personal relationships also belie her anti establishment pretensions. She had a nine-year relationship with Stanley Pottinger, a Nixon-Ford assistant attorney general, credited with stalling FBI investigations into the assassinations of Martin Luther King, and the ex-Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Latelier. In the 1980's, she dated Henry Kissinger. For more details, see San Francisco researcher Dave Emory.
Our main misconception about the CIA is that it serves US interests. In fact, it has always been the instrument of a dynastic international banking and oil elite (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan) coordinated by the Royal Institute for Internal Affairs in London and their US branch, the Council for Foreign Relations. It was established and peopled by blue bloods from the New York banking establishment and graduates of Yale University's secret pagan "Skull and Bones" society. Our current President, his father and grandfather fit this profile.
The agenda of this international cabal is to degrade the institutions and values of the United States in order to integrate it into a global state that it will direct through the United Nations. In its 1947 Founding Charter, the CIA is prohibited from engaging in domestic activities. However this has never stopped it from waging a psychological war on the American people. The domestic counterpart of the "Congress for Cultural Freedom" was the "American Committee for Cultural Freedom." Using foundations as conduits, the CIA controlled intellectual discourse in the 1950's and 1960's, and I believe continues to do so today. In "The Cultural Cold War," Francis Stonor Saunders estimates that a thousand books were produced under the imprint of a variety of commercial and university presses, with covert subsidies.
The CIA's "Project Mockingbird" involved the direct infiltration of the corporate media, a process that often included direct takeover of major news outlets. "By the early 1950's," writes Deborah Davis, in her book "Katherine the Great," the CIA owned respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communication vehicles, plus stringers, four to six hundred in all." In 1982 the CIA admitted that reporters on the CIA payroll have acted as case officers to agents in the field. Philip Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, who ran the operation until his "suicide" in 1963, boasted that "you could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple of hundred dollars a month."
I was born in 1949. Idealists in my parent's generation were disillusioned when the Communist dream of universal brotherhood turned out to be a shill for a brutal despotism. My own generation may discover that our best instincts have also been manipulated and exploited. There is evidence that the 60's drug counter culture, the civil rights movement, and anti-war movement, like feminism, were CIA directed. For example, the CIA has admitted setting up the (National Student Association as a front in 1947 http://www.cia-on-campus.org/nsa/nsa2.html). In the early 1950's the NSA opposed the attempts of the House Un American Activities Committee to root out Communist spies. According to Phil Agee Jr., NSA officers participated in the activities of SNCC, the militant civil rights group, and Students for a Democratic Society, a radical peace group.
According to Mark Riebling, the CIA also may have used Timothy Leary. Certainly the agency distributed LSD to Leary and other opinion makers in the 1960s. Leary made a generation of Americans turn away from active participation in society and seek fulfillment "within." In another example of the CIA's use of drugs to interfere in domestic politics, Gary Webb describes how in the 1980's, the CIA flooded Black ghettos with cocaine.
I won't attempt to analyze the CIA's motivation except to suggest what they have in common: They demoralized, alienated and divided Americans. The elite operates by fostering division and conflict in the world. Thus, we don't realize who the real enemy is. For the same reason, the CIA and elite foundations also fund the diversity and multicultural movements.
Feminism has done the most damage. There is no more fundamental yet delicate relationship in society than male and female. On it depends the family, the red blood cell of society. Nobody with the interests of society at heart would try to divide men and women. Yet the lie that men have exploited women has become the official orthodoxy.
Man loves woman. His first instinct is to nurture ("husband") and see her thrive. When a woman is happy, she is beautiful. Sure, some men are abusive. But the vast majority have supported and guided their families for millennium.
Feminists relentlessly advance the idea that our inherent male and female characteristics, crucial to our development as human beings, are mere "stereotypes." This is a vicious calumny on all heterosexuals, 95% of the population. Talk about hate! Yet it is taught to children in elementary schools! It is echoed in the media. Lesbians like Rosie O'Donnell are advanced as role models.
All of this is calculated to create personal confusion and sow chaos among heterosexuals. As a result, millions of American males are emasculated and divorced from their relationship to family (the world and the future.) The American woman has been hoodwinked into investing herself in a mundane career instead of the timeless love of her husband and children. Many women have become temperamentally unfit to be wives and mothers. People, who are isolated and alone, stunted and love-starved, are easy to fool and manipulate. Without the healthy influence of two loving parents, so are their children.
Feminism is a grotesque fraud perpetrated on society by its governing elite. It is designed to weaken the American social and cultural fabric in order to introduce a friendly fascist New World Order. Its advocates are sanctimonious charlatans who have grown rich and powerful from it. They include a whole class of liars and moral cripples who work for the elite in various capacities: government, education and the media. These imposters ought to be exposed and ridiculed.
Women's oppression is a lie. Sex roles were never as rigid as feminists would have us believe. My mother had a successful business in the 1950's importing watchstraps from Switzerland. When my father's income increased, she was content to quit and concentrate on the children. Women were free to pursue careers if they wanted to. The difference was that their role as wife and mother was understood, and socially validated, as it should be.
Until Gloria Steinem and the CIA came along.
By Henry Makow Ph.D.
March 18, 2002
"In the 1960's, the elite media invented second-wave feminism as part of the elite agenda to dismantle civilization and create a New World Order."
Since writing these words last week, I have discovered that before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA spying on Marxist students in Europe and disrupting their meetings. She became a media darling due to her CIA connections. MS Magazine, which she edited for many years was indirectly funded by the CIA.
Steinem has tried to suppress this information, unearthed in the 1970's by a radical feminist group called "Red Stockings." In 1979, Steinem and her powerful CIA-connected friends, Katharine Graham of the Washington Post and Ford Foundation President Franklin Thomas prevented Random House from publishing it in "Feminist Revolution." Nevertheless the story appeared in the "Village Voice" on May 21, 1979.
Steinem has always pretended that she had been a student radical. "When I was in college, it was the McCarthy era," she told Susan Mitchell in 1997, "and that made me a Marxist." (Icons, Saints and Divas: Intimate Conversations with Women who Changed the World 1997. p 130) Her bio-blurb in June 1973 MS. Magazine states: "Gloria Steinem has been a freelance writer all her professional life. Ms magazine is her first full-time salaried job."
Not true. Raised in an impoverished, dysfunctional family in Toledo Ohio, Steinem somehow managed to attend elite Smith College, Betty Friedan's alma mater. After graduating in 1955, Steinem received a "Chester Bowles Student Fellowship" to study in India. Curiously, an Internet search reveals that this fellowship has no existence apart from Gloria Steinem. No one else has received it.
In 1958, Steinem was recruited by CIA's Cord Meyers to direct an "informal group of activists" called the "Independent Research Service." This was part of Meyer's "Congress for Cultural Freedom," which created magazines like "Encounter" and "Partisan Review" to promote a left-liberal chic to oppose Marxism. Steinem, attended Communist-sponsored youth festivals in Europe, published a newspaper, reported on other participants, and helped to provoke riots.
One of Steinem's CIA colleagues was Clay Felker. In the early 1960's, he became an editor at Esquire and published articles by Steinem which established her as a leading voice for women's lib. In 1968, as publisher of New York Magazine, he hired her as a contributing editor, and then editor of Ms. Magazine in 1971. Warner Communications put up almost all the money although it only took 25% of the stock. Ms. Magazine's first publisher was Elizabeth Forsling Harris, a CIA-connected PR executive who planned John Kennedy's Dallas motorcade route. Despite its anti establishment image, MS magazine attracted advertising from the cream of corporate America. It published ads for ITT at the same time as women political prisoners in Chile were being tortured by Pinochet, after a coup inspired by the US conglomerate and the CIA.
Steinem's personal relationships also belie her anti establishment pretensions. She had a nine-year relationship with Stanley Pottinger, a Nixon-Ford assistant attorney general, credited with stalling FBI investigations into the assassinations of Martin Luther King, and the ex-Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Latelier. In the 1980's, she dated Henry Kissinger. For more details, see San Francisco researcher Dave Emory.
Our main misconception about the CIA is that it serves US interests. In fact, it has always been the instrument of a dynastic international banking and oil elite (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan) coordinated by the Royal Institute for Internal Affairs in London and their US branch, the Council for Foreign Relations. It was established and peopled by blue bloods from the New York banking establishment and graduates of Yale University's secret pagan "Skull and Bones" society. Our current President, his father and grandfather fit this profile.
The agenda of this international cabal is to degrade the institutions and values of the United States in order to integrate it into a global state that it will direct through the United Nations. In its 1947 Founding Charter, the CIA is prohibited from engaging in domestic activities. However this has never stopped it from waging a psychological war on the American people. The domestic counterpart of the "Congress for Cultural Freedom" was the "American Committee for Cultural Freedom." Using foundations as conduits, the CIA controlled intellectual discourse in the 1950's and 1960's, and I believe continues to do so today. In "The Cultural Cold War," Francis Stonor Saunders estimates that a thousand books were produced under the imprint of a variety of commercial and university presses, with covert subsidies.
The CIA's "Project Mockingbird" involved the direct infiltration of the corporate media, a process that often included direct takeover of major news outlets. "By the early 1950's," writes Deborah Davis, in her book "Katherine the Great," the CIA owned respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communication vehicles, plus stringers, four to six hundred in all." In 1982 the CIA admitted that reporters on the CIA payroll have acted as case officers to agents in the field. Philip Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, who ran the operation until his "suicide" in 1963, boasted that "you could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple of hundred dollars a month."
I was born in 1949. Idealists in my parent's generation were disillusioned when the Communist dream of universal brotherhood turned out to be a shill for a brutal despotism. My own generation may discover that our best instincts have also been manipulated and exploited. There is evidence that the 60's drug counter culture, the civil rights movement, and anti-war movement, like feminism, were CIA directed. For example, the CIA has admitted setting up the (National Student Association as a front in 1947 http://www.cia-on-campus.org/nsa/nsa2.html). In the early 1950's the NSA opposed the attempts of the House Un American Activities Committee to root out Communist spies. According to Phil Agee Jr., NSA officers participated in the activities of SNCC, the militant civil rights group, and Students for a Democratic Society, a radical peace group.
According to Mark Riebling, the CIA also may have used Timothy Leary. Certainly the agency distributed LSD to Leary and other opinion makers in the 1960s. Leary made a generation of Americans turn away from active participation in society and seek fulfillment "within." In another example of the CIA's use of drugs to interfere in domestic politics, Gary Webb describes how in the 1980's, the CIA flooded Black ghettos with cocaine.
I won't attempt to analyze the CIA's motivation except to suggest what they have in common: They demoralized, alienated and divided Americans. The elite operates by fostering division and conflict in the world. Thus, we don't realize who the real enemy is. For the same reason, the CIA and elite foundations also fund the diversity and multicultural movements.
Feminism has done the most damage. There is no more fundamental yet delicate relationship in society than male and female. On it depends the family, the red blood cell of society. Nobody with the interests of society at heart would try to divide men and women. Yet the lie that men have exploited women has become the official orthodoxy.
Man loves woman. His first instinct is to nurture ("husband") and see her thrive. When a woman is happy, she is beautiful. Sure, some men are abusive. But the vast majority have supported and guided their families for millennium.
Feminists relentlessly advance the idea that our inherent male and female characteristics, crucial to our development as human beings, are mere "stereotypes." This is a vicious calumny on all heterosexuals, 95% of the population. Talk about hate! Yet it is taught to children in elementary schools! It is echoed in the media. Lesbians like Rosie O'Donnell are advanced as role models.
All of this is calculated to create personal confusion and sow chaos among heterosexuals. As a result, millions of American males are emasculated and divorced from their relationship to family (the world and the future.) The American woman has been hoodwinked into investing herself in a mundane career instead of the timeless love of her husband and children. Many women have become temperamentally unfit to be wives and mothers. People, who are isolated and alone, stunted and love-starved, are easy to fool and manipulate. Without the healthy influence of two loving parents, so are their children.
Feminism is a grotesque fraud perpetrated on society by its governing elite. It is designed to weaken the American social and cultural fabric in order to introduce a friendly fascist New World Order. Its advocates are sanctimonious charlatans who have grown rich and powerful from it. They include a whole class of liars and moral cripples who work for the elite in various capacities: government, education and the media. These imposters ought to be exposed and ridiculed.
Women's oppression is a lie. Sex roles were never as rigid as feminists would have us believe. My mother had a successful business in the 1950's importing watchstraps from Switzerland. When my father's income increased, she was content to quit and concentrate on the children. Women were free to pursue careers if they wanted to. The difference was that their role as wife and mother was understood, and socially validated, as it should be.
Until Gloria Steinem and the CIA came along.
Friday, April 13, 2007
War Profiteering and the Concentration of Income and Wealth in America
Escalating Military Spending
by Prof. Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Global Research, April 13, 2007
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How Escalation of War and Military Spending Are Used as Disguised or Roundabout Ways to Reverse the New Deal and Redistribute National Resources in Favor of the Wealthy.
Escalating Military Spending: Income Redistribution in Disguise
Critics of the recent U.S. wars of choice have long argued that they are all about oil. "No Blood for Oil" has been a rallying cry for most of the opponents of the war.
It can be demonstrated, however, that there is another (less obvious but perhaps more critical) factor behind the recent rise of U.S. military aggressions abroad: war profiteering by Pentagon contractors.
Frequently invoking dubious "threats to our national security and/or interests," these beneficiaries of war dividends, the military–industrial complex and related businesses whose interests are vested in the Pentagon’s appropriation of public money, have successfully used war and military spending to justify their lion’s share of tax dollars and to disguise their strategy of redistributing national income in their favor.
This cynical strategy of disguised redistribution of national resources from the bottom to the top is carried out by a combination of (a) drastic hikes in the Pentagon budget, and (b) equally drastic tax cuts for the wealthy. As this combination creates large budget deficits, it then forces cuts in non-military public spending as a way to fill the gaps that are thus created. As a result, the rich are growing considerably richer at the expense of middle– and low–income classes.
Despite its critical importance, most opponents of war seem to have given short shrift to the crucial role of the Pentagon budget and its contractors as major sources of war and militarism—a phenomenon that the late President Eisenhower warned against nearly half a century ago. Perhaps a major reason for this oversight is that critics of war and militarism tend to view the U.S. military force as primarily a means for imperialist gains—oil or otherwise.
The fact is, however, that as the U.S. military establishment has grown in size, it has also evolved in quality and character: it is no longer simply a means but, perhaps more importantly, an end in itself—an imperial force in its own right. Accordingly, the rising militarization of U.S. foreign policy in recent years is driven not so much by some general/abstract national interests as it is by the powerful special interests that are vested in the military capital, that is, war industries and war–related businesses.
The Magnitude of U.S. Military Spending
Even without the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are fast surpassing half a trillion dollars, U.S. military spending is now the largest item in the federal budget. Officially, it is the second highest item after Social Security payments. But Social Security is a self-financing trust fund. So, in reality, military spending is the highest budget item.
The Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year (2007) is about $456 billion. President Bush’s proposed increase of 10% for next year will raise this figure to over half a trillion dollars, that is, $501.6 billion for fiscal year 2008.
A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq "brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to $647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II—higher than Vietnam, higher than Korea, higher than the peak of the Reagan buildup."[1]
Using official budget figures, William D. Hartung, Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York, provides a number of helpful comparisons:
Proposed U.S. military spending for FY 2008 is larger than military spending by all of the other nations in the world combined.
At $141.7 billion, this year's proposed spending on the Iraq war is larger than the military budgets of China and Russia combined. Total U.S. military spending for FY2008 is roughly ten times the military budget of the second largest military spending country in the world, China.
Proposed U.S. military spending is larger than the combined gross domestic products (GDP) of all 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The FY 2008 military budget proposal is more than 30 times higher than all spending on State Department operations and non-military foreign aid combined.
The FY 2008 military budget is over 120 times higher than the roughly $5 billion per year the U.S. government spends on combating global warming.
The FY 2008 military spending represents 58 cents out of every dollar spent by the U.S. government on discretionary programs: education, health, housing assistance, international affairs, natural resources and environment, justice, veterans’ benefits, science and space, transportation, training/employment and social services, economic development, and several more items.[2]
Although the official military budget already eats up the lion’s share of public money (crowding out vital domestic needs), it nonetheless grossly understates the true magnitude of military spending. The real national defense budget, according to Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute, is nearly twice as much as the official budget. The reason for this understatement is that the official Department of Defense budget excludes not only the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also a number of other major cost items.[3]
These disguised cost items include budgets for the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security; nuclear weapons research and development, testing, and storage (placed in the Energy budget); veterans programs (in the Veteran’s Administration budget); most military retiree payments (in the Treasury budget); foreign military aid in the form of weapons grants for allies (in the State Department budget); interest payments on money borrowed to fund military programs in past years (in the Treasury budget); sales and property taxes at military bases (in local government budgets); and the hidden expenses of tax-free food, housing, and combat pay allowances.
After adding these camouflaged and misplaced expenses to the official Department of Defense budget, Higgs concludes: "I propose that in considering future defense budgetary costs, a well-founded rule of thumb is to take the Pentagon's (always well publicized) basic budget total and double it. You may overstate the truth, but if so, you'll not do so by much."[4]
Escalation of the Pentagon Budget and the Rising Fortunes of Its Contractors
The Bush administration’s escalation of war and military spending has been a boon for Pentagon contractors. That the fortunes of Pentagon contractors should rise in tandem with the rise of military spending is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is the fact that these profiteers of war and militarism have also played a critical role in creating the necessary conditions for war profiteering, that is, in instigating the escalation of the recent wars of choice and the concomitant boom of military spending.[5]
Giant arms manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman have been the main beneficiaries of the Pentagon’s spending bonanza. This is clearly reflected in the continuing rise of the value of their shares in the stock market:
"Shares of U.S. defense companies, which have nearly trebled since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, show no signs of slowing down. . . . The feeling that makers of ships, planes and weapons are just getting into their stride has driven shares of leading Pentagon contractors Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., and General Dynamics Corp. to all-time highs."[6]
Like its manufacturing contractors, the Pentagon’s fast-growing service contractors have equally been making fortunes by virtue of its tendency to shower private contractors with tax-payers’ money. These services are not limited to the relatively simple or routine tasks and responsibilities such food and sanitation services. More importantly, they include "contracts for services that are highly sophisticated [and] strategic in nature," such as the contracting of security services to corporate private armies, or modern day mercenaries. The rapid growth of the Pentagon’s service contracting is reflected (among other indicators) in these statistics: "In 1984, almost two-thirds of the contracting budget went for products rather than services. . . . By fiscal year 2003, 56 percent of Defense Department contracts paid for services rather than goods."[7]
The spoils of war and the devastation in Iraq have been so attractive that an extremely large number of war profiteers have set up shop in that country in order to participate in the booty: "There are about 100,000 government contractors operating in Iraq, not counting subcontractors, a total that is approaching the size of the U.S. military force there, according to the military's first census of the growing population of civilians operating in the battlefield," reported The Washington Post in its 5 December 2006 issue.
The rise in the Pentagon contracting is, of course, a reflection of an overall policy and philosophy of outsourcing and privatizing that has become fashionable ever since President Reagan arrived in the White House in 1980. Reporting on some of the effects of this policy, Scott Shane and Ron Nixon of the New York Times recently wrote: "Without a public debate or formal policy decision, contractors have become a virtual fourth branch of government. On the rise for decades, spending on federal contracts has soared during the Bush administration, to about $400 billion last year from $207 billion in 2000, fueled by the war in Iraq, domestic security and Hurricane Katrina, but also by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does."[8]
Redistributive Militarism: Escalation of Military Spending Redistributes Income from Bottom to Top
But while the Pentagon contractors and other beneficiaries of war dividends are showered with public money, low- and middle-income Americans are squeezed out of economic or subsistence resources in order to make up for the resulting budgetary shortfalls. For example, as the official Pentagon budget for 2008 fiscal year is projected to rise by more than 10 percent, or nearly $50 billion, "a total of 141 government programs will be eliminated or sharply reduced" to pay for the increase. These would include cuts in housing assistance for low-income seniors by 25 percent, home heating/energy assistance to low-income people by 18 percent, funding for community development grants by 12.7 percent, and grants for education and employment training by 8 percent.[9]
Combined with redistributive militarism and generous tax cuts for the wealthy, these cuts have further exacerbated the ominously growing income inequality that started under President Reagan. Ever since Reagan arrived in the White House in 1980, opponents of non-military public spending have been using an insidious strategy to cut social spending, to reverse the New Deal and other social safety net programs, and to redistribute national/public resources in favor of the wealthy. That cynical strategy consists of a combination of drastic increases in military spending coupled with equally drastic tax cuts for the wealthy. As this combination creates large budget deficits, it then forces cuts in non-military public spending (along with borrowing) to fill the gaps thus created.
For example, at the same time that President Bush is planning to raise military spending by $50 billion for the next fiscal year, he is also proposing to make his affluent-targeted tax cuts permanent at a cost of $1.6 trillion over 10 years, or an average yearly cut of $160 billion. Simultaneously, "funding for domestic discretionary programs would be cut a total of $114 billion" in order to pay for these handouts to the rich. The targeted discretionary programs to be cut include over 140 programs that provide support for the basic needs of low- and middle-income families such as elementary and secondary education, job training, environmental protection, veterans’ health care, medical research, Meals on Wheels, child care and HeadStart, low-income home energy assistance, and many more.[10]
According to the Urban Institute–Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, "if the President's tax cuts are made permanent, households in the top 1 percent of the population (currently those with incomes over $400,000) will receive tax cuts averaging $67,000 a year by 2012. . . . The tax cuts for those with incomes of over $1 million a year would average $162,000 a year by 2012."[11]
Official macroeconomic figures show that, over the past five decades or so, government spending (at the federal, state and local levels) as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) has remained fairly steady—at about 20 percent. Given this nearly constant share of the public sector of national output/income, it is not surprising that increases in military spending have almost always been accompanied or followed by compensating decreases in non-military public spending, and vice versa.
For example, when by virtue of FDR’s New Deal reforms and LBJ’s metaphorical War on Poverty, the share of non-military government spending rose significantly the share of military spending declined accordingly. From the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s, the share of non-military government spending of GNP rose from 9.2 to 14.3 percent, an increase of 5.1 percent. During that time period, the share of military spending of GNP declined from 10.1 to 5.8 percent, a decline of 4.3 percent.[12]
That trend was reversed when President Reagan took office in 1980. In the early 1980s, as President Reagan drastically increased military spending, he also just as drastically lowered tax rates on higher incomes. The resulting large budget deficits were then paid for by more than a decade of steady cuts on non-military spending.
Likewise, the administration of President George W. Bush has been pursuing a similarly sinister fiscal policy of cutting non-military public spending in order to pay for the skyrocketing military spending and the generous tax cuts for the affluent.
Interestingly (though not surprisingly), changes in income inequality have mirrored changes in government spending priorities, as reflected in the fiscal policies of different administrations. Thus, when the share of non-military public spending rose relative to that of military spending from the mid 1950 to the mid 1970s, and the taxation system or policy remained relatively more progressive compared to what it is today, income inequality declined accordingly.
But as President Reagan reversed that fiscal policy by raising the share of military spending relative to non-military public spending and cutting taxes for the wealthy, income inequality also rose considerably. As Reagan’s twin policies of drastic increases in military spending and equally sweeping tax cuts for the rich were somewhat tempered in the 1990s, growth in income inequality slowed down accordingly. In the 2000s, however, the ominous trends that were left off by President Reagan have been picked up by President George W. Bush: increasing military spending, decreasing taxes for the rich, and (thereby) exacerbating income inequality (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Income Inequality in the U.S. (Gini Index), 1913-2004
Source: Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer, No. 114 (December 2006), p. 1
Leaving small, short-term fluctuations aside, Figure 1 shows two major peaks and a trough of the long-term picture of income inequality in the United States. The first peak was reached during the turbulent years of the Great Depression (1929–1933). But it soon began to decline with the implementation of the New Deal reforms in the mid 1930s. The ensuing decline continued almost unabated until 1968, at which time we note the lowest level of inequality.
After 1968, the improving trend in inequality changed course. But the reversal was not very perceptible until the early 1980s, after which time it began to accelerate—by virtue (or vice) of Reaganomics. Although the deterioration that was thus set in motion by the rise of neoliberalism and supply-side economics somewhat slowed down in the 1990s, it has once again gathered steam under President George W. Bush, and is fast approaching the peak of the Great Depression.
It is worth noting that even at its lowest level of 1968, income inequality was still quite lopsided: the richest 20 percent of households made as much as ten times more than the poorest 20 percent. But, as Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer points out, "that looks almost Swedish next to today’s ratio of fifteen times."[13]
The following are some specific statistics of how redistributive militarism and supply-side fiscal policies have exacerbated income inequality since the late 1970s and early 1980s—making after-tax income gaps wider than pre-tax ones. According to recently released data by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), since 1979 income gains among high-income households have dwarfed those of middle- and low-income households. Specifically:
The average after-tax income of the top one percent of the population nearly tripled, rising from $314,000 to nearly $868,000—for a total increase of $554,000, or 176 percent. (Figures are adjusted by CBO for inflation.)
By contrast, the average after-tax income of the middle fifth of the population rose a relatively modest 21 percent, or $8,500, reaching $48,400 in 2004.
The average after-tax income of the poorest fifth of the population rose just 6 percent, or $800, during this period, reaching $14,700 in 2004.[14]
Legislation enacted since 2001 has provided taxpayers with about $1 trillion in tax cuts over the past six years. These large tax reductions have made the distribution of after-tax income more unequal by further concentrating income at the top of the income range. According to the Urban Institute–Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, as a result of the tax cuts enacted since 2001:
In 2006, households in the bottom fifth of the income spectrum received tax cuts (averaging $20) that raised their after-tax incomes by an average of 0.3 percent.
Households in the middle fifth of the income spectrum received tax cuts (averaging $740) that raised their after-tax incomes an average of 2.5 percent.
The top one percent of households received tax cuts in 2006 (averaging $44,200) that increased their after-tax income by an average of 5.4 percent.
Households with incomes exceeding $1 million received an average tax cut of $118,000 in 2006, which represented an increase of 6.0 percent in their after-tax income.[15]
Concluding Remarks: External Wars as Reflections of Domestic Fights over National Resources
Close scrutiny of the Pentagon budget shows that, ever since the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980, opponents of social spending have successfully used military spending as a regulatory mechanism to cut non-military public spending, to reverse the New Deal and other social safety net programs, and to redistribute national/public resources in favor of the wealthy.
Close examination of the dynamics of redistributive militarism also helps explain why powerful beneficiaries of the Pentagon budget prefer war and military spending to peace and non-military public spending: military spending benefits the wealthy whereas the benefits of non-military public spending would spread to wider social strata. It further helps explain why beneficiaries of war dividends frequently invent new enemies and new "threats to our national interests" in order to justify continued escalation of military spending.
Viewed in this light, militaristic tendencies to war abroad can be seen largely as reflections of the metaphorical domestic fights over allocation of public finance at home, of a subtle or insidious strategy to redistribute national resources from the bottom to the top.
Despite the critical role of redistributive militarism, or of the Pentagon budget, as a major driving force to war, most opponents of war have paid only scant attention to this crucial force behind the recent U.S. wars of choice. The reason for this oversight is probably due to the fact that most critics of war continue to view U.S. military force as simply or primarily a means to achieve certain imperialist ends, instead of having become an end in itself.
Yet, as the U.S. military establishment has grown in size, it has also evolved in quality and character: it is no longer simply a means but, perhaps more importantly, an end in itself, an imperial power in its own right, or to put it differently, it is a case of the tail wagging the dog—a phenomenon that the late President Eisenhower so presciently warned against.
Accordingly, rising militarization of U.S. foreign policy in recent years is driven not so much by some general/abstract national interests, or by the interests of Big Oil and other non-military transnational corporations (as most traditional theories of imperialism continue to argue), as it is by powerful special interests that are vested in the war industry and related war-induced businesses that need an atmosphere of war and militarism in order to justify their lion’s share of the public money.
Preservation, justification, and expansion of the military–industrial colossus, especially of the armaments industry and other Pentagon contractors, have become critical big business objectives in themselves. They have, indeed, become powerful driving forces behind the new, parasitic U.S. military imperialism. I call this new imperialism parasitic because its military adventures abroad are often prompted not so much by a desire to expand the empire’s wealth beyond the existing levels, as did the imperial powers of the past, but by a desire to appropriate the lion’s share of the existing wealth and treasure for the military establishment, especially for the war-profiteering contractors. In addition to being parasitic, the new U.S. military imperialism can also be called dual imperialism because not only does it exploit defenseless peoples and their resources abroad but also the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens and their resources at home. (I shall further elaborate on the historically unique characteristics of the Parasitic, dual U.S. military imperialism in another article.)
by Prof. Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Global Research, April 13, 2007
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How Escalation of War and Military Spending Are Used as Disguised or Roundabout Ways to Reverse the New Deal and Redistribute National Resources in Favor of the Wealthy.
Escalating Military Spending: Income Redistribution in Disguise
Critics of the recent U.S. wars of choice have long argued that they are all about oil. "No Blood for Oil" has been a rallying cry for most of the opponents of the war.
It can be demonstrated, however, that there is another (less obvious but perhaps more critical) factor behind the recent rise of U.S. military aggressions abroad: war profiteering by Pentagon contractors.
Frequently invoking dubious "threats to our national security and/or interests," these beneficiaries of war dividends, the military–industrial complex and related businesses whose interests are vested in the Pentagon’s appropriation of public money, have successfully used war and military spending to justify their lion’s share of tax dollars and to disguise their strategy of redistributing national income in their favor.
This cynical strategy of disguised redistribution of national resources from the bottom to the top is carried out by a combination of (a) drastic hikes in the Pentagon budget, and (b) equally drastic tax cuts for the wealthy. As this combination creates large budget deficits, it then forces cuts in non-military public spending as a way to fill the gaps that are thus created. As a result, the rich are growing considerably richer at the expense of middle– and low–income classes.
Despite its critical importance, most opponents of war seem to have given short shrift to the crucial role of the Pentagon budget and its contractors as major sources of war and militarism—a phenomenon that the late President Eisenhower warned against nearly half a century ago. Perhaps a major reason for this oversight is that critics of war and militarism tend to view the U.S. military force as primarily a means for imperialist gains—oil or otherwise.
The fact is, however, that as the U.S. military establishment has grown in size, it has also evolved in quality and character: it is no longer simply a means but, perhaps more importantly, an end in itself—an imperial force in its own right. Accordingly, the rising militarization of U.S. foreign policy in recent years is driven not so much by some general/abstract national interests as it is by the powerful special interests that are vested in the military capital, that is, war industries and war–related businesses.
The Magnitude of U.S. Military Spending
Even without the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are fast surpassing half a trillion dollars, U.S. military spending is now the largest item in the federal budget. Officially, it is the second highest item after Social Security payments. But Social Security is a self-financing trust fund. So, in reality, military spending is the highest budget item.
The Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year (2007) is about $456 billion. President Bush’s proposed increase of 10% for next year will raise this figure to over half a trillion dollars, that is, $501.6 billion for fiscal year 2008.
A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq "brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to $647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II—higher than Vietnam, higher than Korea, higher than the peak of the Reagan buildup."[1]
Using official budget figures, William D. Hartung, Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York, provides a number of helpful comparisons:
Proposed U.S. military spending for FY 2008 is larger than military spending by all of the other nations in the world combined.
At $141.7 billion, this year's proposed spending on the Iraq war is larger than the military budgets of China and Russia combined. Total U.S. military spending for FY2008 is roughly ten times the military budget of the second largest military spending country in the world, China.
Proposed U.S. military spending is larger than the combined gross domestic products (GDP) of all 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The FY 2008 military budget proposal is more than 30 times higher than all spending on State Department operations and non-military foreign aid combined.
The FY 2008 military budget is over 120 times higher than the roughly $5 billion per year the U.S. government spends on combating global warming.
The FY 2008 military spending represents 58 cents out of every dollar spent by the U.S. government on discretionary programs: education, health, housing assistance, international affairs, natural resources and environment, justice, veterans’ benefits, science and space, transportation, training/employment and social services, economic development, and several more items.[2]
Although the official military budget already eats up the lion’s share of public money (crowding out vital domestic needs), it nonetheless grossly understates the true magnitude of military spending. The real national defense budget, according to Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute, is nearly twice as much as the official budget. The reason for this understatement is that the official Department of Defense budget excludes not only the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also a number of other major cost items.[3]
These disguised cost items include budgets for the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security; nuclear weapons research and development, testing, and storage (placed in the Energy budget); veterans programs (in the Veteran’s Administration budget); most military retiree payments (in the Treasury budget); foreign military aid in the form of weapons grants for allies (in the State Department budget); interest payments on money borrowed to fund military programs in past years (in the Treasury budget); sales and property taxes at military bases (in local government budgets); and the hidden expenses of tax-free food, housing, and combat pay allowances.
After adding these camouflaged and misplaced expenses to the official Department of Defense budget, Higgs concludes: "I propose that in considering future defense budgetary costs, a well-founded rule of thumb is to take the Pentagon's (always well publicized) basic budget total and double it. You may overstate the truth, but if so, you'll not do so by much."[4]
Escalation of the Pentagon Budget and the Rising Fortunes of Its Contractors
The Bush administration’s escalation of war and military spending has been a boon for Pentagon contractors. That the fortunes of Pentagon contractors should rise in tandem with the rise of military spending is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is the fact that these profiteers of war and militarism have also played a critical role in creating the necessary conditions for war profiteering, that is, in instigating the escalation of the recent wars of choice and the concomitant boom of military spending.[5]
Giant arms manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman have been the main beneficiaries of the Pentagon’s spending bonanza. This is clearly reflected in the continuing rise of the value of their shares in the stock market:
"Shares of U.S. defense companies, which have nearly trebled since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, show no signs of slowing down. . . . The feeling that makers of ships, planes and weapons are just getting into their stride has driven shares of leading Pentagon contractors Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., and General Dynamics Corp. to all-time highs."[6]
Like its manufacturing contractors, the Pentagon’s fast-growing service contractors have equally been making fortunes by virtue of its tendency to shower private contractors with tax-payers’ money. These services are not limited to the relatively simple or routine tasks and responsibilities such food and sanitation services. More importantly, they include "contracts for services that are highly sophisticated [and] strategic in nature," such as the contracting of security services to corporate private armies, or modern day mercenaries. The rapid growth of the Pentagon’s service contracting is reflected (among other indicators) in these statistics: "In 1984, almost two-thirds of the contracting budget went for products rather than services. . . . By fiscal year 2003, 56 percent of Defense Department contracts paid for services rather than goods."[7]
The spoils of war and the devastation in Iraq have been so attractive that an extremely large number of war profiteers have set up shop in that country in order to participate in the booty: "There are about 100,000 government contractors operating in Iraq, not counting subcontractors, a total that is approaching the size of the U.S. military force there, according to the military's first census of the growing population of civilians operating in the battlefield," reported The Washington Post in its 5 December 2006 issue.
The rise in the Pentagon contracting is, of course, a reflection of an overall policy and philosophy of outsourcing and privatizing that has become fashionable ever since President Reagan arrived in the White House in 1980. Reporting on some of the effects of this policy, Scott Shane and Ron Nixon of the New York Times recently wrote: "Without a public debate or formal policy decision, contractors have become a virtual fourth branch of government. On the rise for decades, spending on federal contracts has soared during the Bush administration, to about $400 billion last year from $207 billion in 2000, fueled by the war in Iraq, domestic security and Hurricane Katrina, but also by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does."[8]
Redistributive Militarism: Escalation of Military Spending Redistributes Income from Bottom to Top
But while the Pentagon contractors and other beneficiaries of war dividends are showered with public money, low- and middle-income Americans are squeezed out of economic or subsistence resources in order to make up for the resulting budgetary shortfalls. For example, as the official Pentagon budget for 2008 fiscal year is projected to rise by more than 10 percent, or nearly $50 billion, "a total of 141 government programs will be eliminated or sharply reduced" to pay for the increase. These would include cuts in housing assistance for low-income seniors by 25 percent, home heating/energy assistance to low-income people by 18 percent, funding for community development grants by 12.7 percent, and grants for education and employment training by 8 percent.[9]
Combined with redistributive militarism and generous tax cuts for the wealthy, these cuts have further exacerbated the ominously growing income inequality that started under President Reagan. Ever since Reagan arrived in the White House in 1980, opponents of non-military public spending have been using an insidious strategy to cut social spending, to reverse the New Deal and other social safety net programs, and to redistribute national/public resources in favor of the wealthy. That cynical strategy consists of a combination of drastic increases in military spending coupled with equally drastic tax cuts for the wealthy. As this combination creates large budget deficits, it then forces cuts in non-military public spending (along with borrowing) to fill the gaps thus created.
For example, at the same time that President Bush is planning to raise military spending by $50 billion for the next fiscal year, he is also proposing to make his affluent-targeted tax cuts permanent at a cost of $1.6 trillion over 10 years, or an average yearly cut of $160 billion. Simultaneously, "funding for domestic discretionary programs would be cut a total of $114 billion" in order to pay for these handouts to the rich. The targeted discretionary programs to be cut include over 140 programs that provide support for the basic needs of low- and middle-income families such as elementary and secondary education, job training, environmental protection, veterans’ health care, medical research, Meals on Wheels, child care and HeadStart, low-income home energy assistance, and many more.[10]
According to the Urban Institute–Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, "if the President's tax cuts are made permanent, households in the top 1 percent of the population (currently those with incomes over $400,000) will receive tax cuts averaging $67,000 a year by 2012. . . . The tax cuts for those with incomes of over $1 million a year would average $162,000 a year by 2012."[11]
Official macroeconomic figures show that, over the past five decades or so, government spending (at the federal, state and local levels) as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) has remained fairly steady—at about 20 percent. Given this nearly constant share of the public sector of national output/income, it is not surprising that increases in military spending have almost always been accompanied or followed by compensating decreases in non-military public spending, and vice versa.
For example, when by virtue of FDR’s New Deal reforms and LBJ’s metaphorical War on Poverty, the share of non-military government spending rose significantly the share of military spending declined accordingly. From the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s, the share of non-military government spending of GNP rose from 9.2 to 14.3 percent, an increase of 5.1 percent. During that time period, the share of military spending of GNP declined from 10.1 to 5.8 percent, a decline of 4.3 percent.[12]
That trend was reversed when President Reagan took office in 1980. In the early 1980s, as President Reagan drastically increased military spending, he also just as drastically lowered tax rates on higher incomes. The resulting large budget deficits were then paid for by more than a decade of steady cuts on non-military spending.
Likewise, the administration of President George W. Bush has been pursuing a similarly sinister fiscal policy of cutting non-military public spending in order to pay for the skyrocketing military spending and the generous tax cuts for the affluent.
Interestingly (though not surprisingly), changes in income inequality have mirrored changes in government spending priorities, as reflected in the fiscal policies of different administrations. Thus, when the share of non-military public spending rose relative to that of military spending from the mid 1950 to the mid 1970s, and the taxation system or policy remained relatively more progressive compared to what it is today, income inequality declined accordingly.
But as President Reagan reversed that fiscal policy by raising the share of military spending relative to non-military public spending and cutting taxes for the wealthy, income inequality also rose considerably. As Reagan’s twin policies of drastic increases in military spending and equally sweeping tax cuts for the rich were somewhat tempered in the 1990s, growth in income inequality slowed down accordingly. In the 2000s, however, the ominous trends that were left off by President Reagan have been picked up by President George W. Bush: increasing military spending, decreasing taxes for the rich, and (thereby) exacerbating income inequality (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Income Inequality in the U.S. (Gini Index), 1913-2004
Source: Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer, No. 114 (December 2006), p. 1
Leaving small, short-term fluctuations aside, Figure 1 shows two major peaks and a trough of the long-term picture of income inequality in the United States. The first peak was reached during the turbulent years of the Great Depression (1929–1933). But it soon began to decline with the implementation of the New Deal reforms in the mid 1930s. The ensuing decline continued almost unabated until 1968, at which time we note the lowest level of inequality.
After 1968, the improving trend in inequality changed course. But the reversal was not very perceptible until the early 1980s, after which time it began to accelerate—by virtue (or vice) of Reaganomics. Although the deterioration that was thus set in motion by the rise of neoliberalism and supply-side economics somewhat slowed down in the 1990s, it has once again gathered steam under President George W. Bush, and is fast approaching the peak of the Great Depression.
It is worth noting that even at its lowest level of 1968, income inequality was still quite lopsided: the richest 20 percent of households made as much as ten times more than the poorest 20 percent. But, as Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer points out, "that looks almost Swedish next to today’s ratio of fifteen times."[13]
The following are some specific statistics of how redistributive militarism and supply-side fiscal policies have exacerbated income inequality since the late 1970s and early 1980s—making after-tax income gaps wider than pre-tax ones. According to recently released data by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), since 1979 income gains among high-income households have dwarfed those of middle- and low-income households. Specifically:
The average after-tax income of the top one percent of the population nearly tripled, rising from $314,000 to nearly $868,000—for a total increase of $554,000, or 176 percent. (Figures are adjusted by CBO for inflation.)
By contrast, the average after-tax income of the middle fifth of the population rose a relatively modest 21 percent, or $8,500, reaching $48,400 in 2004.
The average after-tax income of the poorest fifth of the population rose just 6 percent, or $800, during this period, reaching $14,700 in 2004.[14]
Legislation enacted since 2001 has provided taxpayers with about $1 trillion in tax cuts over the past six years. These large tax reductions have made the distribution of after-tax income more unequal by further concentrating income at the top of the income range. According to the Urban Institute–Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, as a result of the tax cuts enacted since 2001:
In 2006, households in the bottom fifth of the income spectrum received tax cuts (averaging $20) that raised their after-tax incomes by an average of 0.3 percent.
Households in the middle fifth of the income spectrum received tax cuts (averaging $740) that raised their after-tax incomes an average of 2.5 percent.
The top one percent of households received tax cuts in 2006 (averaging $44,200) that increased their after-tax income by an average of 5.4 percent.
Households with incomes exceeding $1 million received an average tax cut of $118,000 in 2006, which represented an increase of 6.0 percent in their after-tax income.[15]
Concluding Remarks: External Wars as Reflections of Domestic Fights over National Resources
Close scrutiny of the Pentagon budget shows that, ever since the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980, opponents of social spending have successfully used military spending as a regulatory mechanism to cut non-military public spending, to reverse the New Deal and other social safety net programs, and to redistribute national/public resources in favor of the wealthy.
Close examination of the dynamics of redistributive militarism also helps explain why powerful beneficiaries of the Pentagon budget prefer war and military spending to peace and non-military public spending: military spending benefits the wealthy whereas the benefits of non-military public spending would spread to wider social strata. It further helps explain why beneficiaries of war dividends frequently invent new enemies and new "threats to our national interests" in order to justify continued escalation of military spending.
Viewed in this light, militaristic tendencies to war abroad can be seen largely as reflections of the metaphorical domestic fights over allocation of public finance at home, of a subtle or insidious strategy to redistribute national resources from the bottom to the top.
Despite the critical role of redistributive militarism, or of the Pentagon budget, as a major driving force to war, most opponents of war have paid only scant attention to this crucial force behind the recent U.S. wars of choice. The reason for this oversight is probably due to the fact that most critics of war continue to view U.S. military force as simply or primarily a means to achieve certain imperialist ends, instead of having become an end in itself.
Yet, as the U.S. military establishment has grown in size, it has also evolved in quality and character: it is no longer simply a means but, perhaps more importantly, an end in itself, an imperial power in its own right, or to put it differently, it is a case of the tail wagging the dog—a phenomenon that the late President Eisenhower so presciently warned against.
Accordingly, rising militarization of U.S. foreign policy in recent years is driven not so much by some general/abstract national interests, or by the interests of Big Oil and other non-military transnational corporations (as most traditional theories of imperialism continue to argue), as it is by powerful special interests that are vested in the war industry and related war-induced businesses that need an atmosphere of war and militarism in order to justify their lion’s share of the public money.
Preservation, justification, and expansion of the military–industrial colossus, especially of the armaments industry and other Pentagon contractors, have become critical big business objectives in themselves. They have, indeed, become powerful driving forces behind the new, parasitic U.S. military imperialism. I call this new imperialism parasitic because its military adventures abroad are often prompted not so much by a desire to expand the empire’s wealth beyond the existing levels, as did the imperial powers of the past, but by a desire to appropriate the lion’s share of the existing wealth and treasure for the military establishment, especially for the war-profiteering contractors. In addition to being parasitic, the new U.S. military imperialism can also be called dual imperialism because not only does it exploit defenseless peoples and their resources abroad but also the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens and their resources at home. (I shall further elaborate on the historically unique characteristics of the Parasitic, dual U.S. military imperialism in another article.)
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