Gaza – Ma’an – Sixteen out of the 28 killed in Israeli airstrikes since New Year’s Eve were children; nine were from the same family, five of the adults killed were women.
The percentage of Israeli casualties that are children in 2009 is 57%.
On Friday the bodies of the Rayan family children were buried, and Palestinian medical sources confirmed the deaths of three more Palestinians under 17.
Seven Palestinians have been killed since midnight Thursday bringing the death toll to 428 and the injured to 2,220 on day seven of the Israeli operation.
The day’s strikes were reported as follows:
2:45 One of the children killed Friday was from the Al-Astal family. He was playing outside his home in the Al-Qararra neighborhood was killed when a shell hit the area.
2:30 In the An-Nuseirat refugee camp the Israeli army targeted the home of Imad A’qel, a prominent leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. The home was destroyed but no injuries were reported.
A’qel is one of the assistants to general leader of the brigades Ahmad Al-Ja’bari.
2:15pm Three were killed in an airstrike on Al-Qarara village in southern Gaza.
2:00pm Shells landed on the home of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades leader in the central Strip.
1:15pm 20 year-old Fadi Shebat killed in Israeli shelling at Bet Hanoun
1:00pm 15 year-old Hammad Mesbeh was killed by Israeli shells in Gaza City.
Medical sources in the Palestinian Red Crescent confirmed that Hammad was killed by shrapnel from an Israeli missile strike fired from a pilotless drone. His body was difficult to identify since it arrived to the hospital in pieces.
12:10pm Gazans crowd Jabaliya streets in public outcry against Israeli killing of Hamas leader Nizar Ryan and his 15 family members on Thursday.
12:00pm Shells fall on Der Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
10:30am One dead several injured as Israeli missiles land on home in Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip. 6 year-old Christine At-Turk died from her wounds sustained during the strike on Friday afternoon.
10:00am Foad Al-Matuq was killed and four were injured after Israeli shells hit an empty home in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
Shelling targeted the home of Nabil Matuq, Fouad’s brother. The home was also demolished.
9:00am Missile strikes in residential areas across the Strip were reported.
7:00am Israeli missiles targeted the homes of two Hamas members in the Al-Bureij refugee camp near Gaza City. The strikes left the homes of the men totally demolished, as well as damaging several buildings in the area.
One of the damaged homes belonged to Jamal Ad-Durrah, the father of Muhammad Ad-Durrah, whose death at the hands of Israeli gunfire was caught on film in the now iconic image of the young boy cowering behind his father as they hide behind an oil drum in the face of Israeli fire.
6:45am Two homes in Rafah were bombed, injuring six people.
6:30am Israeli shelling targeted a house in the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood west of Gaza City.
6:00am Israeli shelling hit the Caliphates’ Mosque in the Jabalia refugee camp injuring four Palestinians.
5:45am Thousands of birds were killed when Israeli fire targeted a farm in Gaza City.
A sea of Palestinian flags could be seen as protestors turned out to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israeli aggression. Those present also condemned Arab governments for their lack of action in support of the Palestinians living in Gaza.
Posted in: Front Page
Written By: Abdul-Aziz Oudah & Nasser Arrabyee Youth call on Arab governments to allow their citizens to join Gazan resistance
Thousands of Yemeni and Palestinian women and schoolgirls demanded a stop to Israel’s attacks against the Gaza Strip, where the death toll has now reached 350 and more than 1000 wounded mostly from civilians.
The women gathered in a play-ground in Al-Tahreer Square in the heart of Sana’a carrying pictures of the leaders of Hamas, and chanting anti-Israeli and anti-American slogans.
The women were led by the Yemen-based Hamas Women, and blamed Arab leaders for what they called an “Arab conspiracy” against the Palestinians.
“Jihad is the only solution”, “Jihad is the only solution”, read one of the banners. We are ready to die, another banner reads.
The female chanted slogans in favor of Hamas leaders, including Khaled Mishal and Ismail Hania. Earlier, cleric Abdul Majeed Al-Zandani, who is also Vice-Chairman of the Popular Committee for Defending Al-Aqsa and Rector of Al-Eman University, called on Muslim scholars to issue a Fatwa prohibiting the closure of Palestinian border crossings into Egypt.
“To the President of Egypt, Mohmmed Husni Mubarak, we would say: participation in besieging our brothers in Gaza until death is participation in their killing,” Al Zandani said.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Freedom and Protection of Journalists, a local NGO, condemned the war crimes being committed by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza. They urged local journalists to document such crimes and other violations of human rights.
“What is happening in Gaza is a war crime and genocide, violating all international conventions – and the world should stop them,” said a statement issued by the centre.
“The journalists are the witnesses of the truth, and they could rescue million of people from massacres by reminding the world that keeping silent is an unforgivable crime, and that the perpetrators must be held accountable.”
In a related protest the previous day, thousands of young Yemeni’s took to the streets to protest Israeli actions against the Palestinians. They called on theirs, and other Arab governments to allow their people to travel to the West Bank to wage jihad against the Israeli occupiers.
Hundreds of Yemenis took to the streets Sunday in angry rallies to denounce recent Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, which has left more than 271 dead.
Tens of thousands of people gathered at the Sana’a Sport City Stadium in a public rally to condemn Israeli aggression against Gaza.
The rally was attended by many top officials and partisan officials, and called for an immediate Arab summit to put a stop to the Israeli assault against the people of Gaza. They also called for the lifting of the blockade in order to provide the people of Gaza with desperately needed supplies of food and medicine.
The angry demonstrators expressed their rage over the Israeli raids which they described as criminal and disgusting, and some analysts believe they are the worst attack in terms of civilian casualties since 1967. Others condemned the attack as the most barbaric attack in modern history, describing the Israeli regime as the last remaining apartheid regime in today’s world.
The speeches given at the rally expressed anger and grief over the Gaza situation, and held Arab regimes accountable for what is happening there. They called on regimes to allow citizens to join the Gazan resistance, after an official failure to support the resistance movement militarily.
Some demonstrators called on Arab governments to let the Arab youth to go to Palestine in order to fight against the Zionists, because violence is the only language that the Zionists understand.
Journalist Yahia Karad reported from Hodeidah saying that thousands of people and students held rallies in the University campus, denouncing the Israeli atrocities.
Arab diplomatic sources participating in the permanent delegation meetings said that an Arab summit is scheduled to be held next Friday in Doha to discuss the Israeli attacks against Gaza, however they said Egypt has expressed reservations.
According to media sources, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Husam Zaki said that the Foreign Minister Ahmed Abo Al-Ghait had made contact with his Arab counterparts to schedule an Arab League ministerial meeting, which would consider the need for an extraordinary Arab summit. Diplomatic sources confirmed that the initial meeting will be held next Wednesday to discuss the Israeli attack against Gaza.
Written by Rachelle Kliger
Published Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Palestinians refugees residing in Lebanon are viewing the state of affairs in Gaza with concern, but say the situation will not drive them to take up arms against Israel or the Lebanese army.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon can do precious little to help Gazans, ‘Ali Hweidi, secretary general of the Thabit Organization for the Right of Return, told The Media Line.
Thabit is a non-governmental organization acting on behalf of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
“[Palestinians in Lebanon] can only carry weapons inside camps and they are prevented from doing anything against Israel or helping the Palestinians in Gaza,” Hweidi said.
Their main activity, while the operation in Gaza continues, is to stage demonstrations and to appeal to the international community and to Arab and Muslim governments to help the Palestinians in Gaza and restore their rights.
“The target is not Hamas soldiers but the Palestinians themselves. Israel is not respecting the law,” he said.
Hweidi blatantly dismissed the notion that Palestinians in Lebanon would turn their weapons against the Lebanese army in frustration over what is happening in Gaza.
“The Palestinian demonstrations are peaceful,” he said.
Refugees have been demonstrating outside the Egyptian embassy in Beirut to protest Cairo’s handling of the situation. Protests have resulted in minor clashes with Lebanese security forces, but nothing more than that, Hweidi said.
“Using weapons against the Lebanese is rejected and unacceptable and will never happen,” he added.
Lebanon hosts nearly 400,000 Palestinian refugees who complain of discrimination from the government.
Palestinians are not granted equal rights and are limited in job opportunities. Analysts say they are deliberately being discriminated against so they will not seek permanent residency in Lebanon, and so the refugees can be used as leverage in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Beirut recently announced plans to upgrade its relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The PLO is regarded by the Arab League as the sole representative of the Palestinian people and is currently headed by Fatah’s Mahmoud ‘Abbas, who is also chairman of the Palestinian Authority.
Mauritanian security forces foiled an attack on the Israeli embassy in the capital Nouakchott on Wednesday.
A civilian stepped out of a taxi opposite the embassy’s buildings, and began shouting religious slogans and hurling stones at the checkpoint, according to a report in the Mauritanian Taqadoumy.com.
Other reports said he threw an explosive device at the embassy and it failed to detonate
Forces were summoned to beef up security around the compound in case more serious attacks occurred.
The assailant, a Mauritanian in his late 20s or 30s, was reportedly taken into custody by the local riot police and is being investigated.
Security forces around the embassy compound have been on high alert since Israel launched its offensive on Gaza on Saturday.
Demonstrators took to the streets shortly after the attacks on Gaza began to protest against Israel’s actions.
Mauritania is one of three Arab League members – including Egypt and Jordan – that enjoys full diplomatic relations with Israel.
Earlier this week The Media Line reported that coup leaders in Mauritania were considering severing diplomatic ties with Israel, in what could be a blow to the United States’ diplomacy efforts in the Middle East and North Africa.
Mauritania underwent a coup last August, and has been facing diplomatic and economic pressure from the international community, including the U.S.
Washington suspended non-humanitarian aid to Mauritania following the coup.
Washington is calling on the coup leaders to restore the deposed president to his position in a legitimate, democratic and constitutional role and to restore the democratically elected government.
Sources in Nouakchott say the coup leaders are considering severing relations with Israel in order to secure financial aid from Libya and later from Gulf countries. Libya has conditioned any aid on cutting ties with Israel.
An official affiliated with the junta said the next elected government would cut relations with Israel.
These statements coincide with Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip, in which up to 400 Palestinians, including civilians, have been killed.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said these calls to sever relations were not new, and Jerusalem had not observed any significant change in the attitudes in Nouakchott, and did not see the government there taking any action to suspend relations.
Calls of this nature have been made in the past from the opposition, but when the opposition leader came to power he did not act on these statements, Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor told The Media Line.
“We’re engaged in contacts with the Mauritanian government and with other Mauritanian political forces who talk to us,” he said. “We’re examining the situation.”
The coup leaders, who are now the de facto rulers in Mauritania, can use developments in Gaza as an excuse for cutting relations, especially when anti-Israeli sentiments there are strong.
This is not the first time Israeli interests in Mauritanian are coming under attack.
A February 2008 attack on the Israeli embassy resulted in several people being wounded and was claimed by the Al-Qa’ida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.
If relations with Israel are indeed slashed, this could deal a serious blow to Washington’s efforts to install democracy and push for normalization between Middle Eastern countries and its ally, Israel.
Mauritania could become more reliant on oppressive or extremist countries for aid, which could embolden anti-U.S. sentiment there and undermine democracy building.
It could also raise popular pressure on the regimes in Amman, Cairo and countries that maintain informal relations with Israel to take similar steps and sever or downgrade these ties.
There are already strong voices in Egypt and Jordan calling on their governments to cut ties with Israel until the Palestinian issue is resolved.
Fatah operatives in the West Bank on Thursday criticized the Palestinian Authority leadership and accused its representatives of failing to take a “tough stance” against the current IDF military operation in the Gaza Strip.
One of them, Ziad Abu Ein, a deputy minister in the PA, called on Hamas to return the weapons it had confiscated from Fatah members in the Gaza Strip so they could help in fighting against the IDF during a ground offensive.
Abu Ein said Fatah had about 70,000 loyalists in the Gaza Strip, many of them former members of the PA security forces, who were prepared to repel an Israeli incursion.
Meanwhile, a senior aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas launched a scathing attack on Hamas and accused it of being a puppet in the hands of Iran. He also denied allegations by Hamas and other Palestinians that Abbas was planning to return to the Gaza Strip “aboard an Israeli tank.”
Some Fatah representatives went as far as accusing the PA leaders of “collusion” with Israel to get rid of the Hamas government so they could return to the Gaza Strip.
The Fatah members, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed out that the PA leadership here had banned all forms of demonstrations in support of Hamas in the West Bank.
“They allowed people to demonstrate in the first two days, but then started cracking down on the demonstrators,” said a senior Fatah official. “You’re permitted to demonstrate only if you promise to refrain from voicing your support for Hamas.”
The Fatah official and some Palestinians told The Jerusalem Post that Abbas’s forces in some West Bank cities had forced merchants who were on strike to open their businesses. The strike was organized by various Palestinian factions in protest against the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Another Fatah official said it was “ironic and sad” that people were demonstrating in Tokyo and London against the Israeli offensive while the PA was trying to halt such protests out of fear that they would turn into pro-Hamas rallies.
The criticism against Abbas and the PA leadership is a sign of growing divisions inside the ruling Fatah faction over how to relate to the anti-Hamas IDF campaign.
Senior Fatah members – including Marwan Barghouti, the top Fatah operative who is serving life terms in Israeli prison – are said to be “enraged” with the way Abbas is handling the conflict.
In messages to the PA leadership, some of the senior Fatah figures threatened to come out in public against Abbas unless he took “real” steps to exert pressure on Israel to halt the offensive. One of their primary demands was that Abbas suspend peace talks with Israel and stop security coordination with Israel and the clampdown on Hamas members in the West Bank.
Moreover, the Fatah officials demanded that Abbas release all Hamas detainees from his prisons and agree to the resumption of reconciliation talks with Hamas.
The Fatah officials are worried that the IDF operation will make their leaders appear as if they were collaborating with Israel. The Arab media has been full of unconfirmed reports suggesting that the main goal of the Israeli operation is to pave the way for the return of Abbas’s men to the Gaza Strip after they were kicked out in the summer of 2007.
On Thursday, the secretary-general of the Damascus-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Nayef Hawatmeh, joined Hamas in claiming that some Arab leaders, including Abbas, had apparently given Israel a green light to launch its attack.
While some Fatah members appeared to be unhappy with the IDF operation, others expressed hope that Israel would destroy Hamas.
“I have no sympathy for Hamas because of what they did to our Fatah brothers in the Gaza Strip,” said a Fatah activist in the nearby Al-Amari refugee camp. “They brought this disaster on themselves because of their crimes against our people. We will never forget what they did to us.”
Senior PA officials here strongly denied Hamas allegations that Abbas had established an emergency room to prepare for the return of his loyalists to the Gaza Strip after the collapse of the Hamas government.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior adviser to Abbas, accused Hamas of spreading “lies” and of incitement against the PA leadership. He admitted, however, that the PA had formed a special committee “to follow up on the situation in the Gaza Strip.”
The attack on Hamas was the fiercest by a top PA official since the beginning of the IDF operation. It came despite an order issued by Abbas earlier in the day banning PA and Fatah representatives from openly criticizing Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
“The Hamas leadership has disappeared, and someone needs to look after the Palestinians,” he said. “What’s wrong with the establishment of a committee to follow up on what’s happening in the Gaza Strip? Mahmoud Abbas is the president of all the Palestinians, and it’s his duty to follow up on the situation on all levels.”
Abdel Rahim denied allegations by Hamas that the PA was providing Israel with information about the whereabouts of Hamas leaders and the location of security installations.
“The information is coming from within Hamas’s ranks,” he charged. “Hamas has been infiltrated [by Israel].”
He also denied that Fatah had set up special cells of its supporters in the Gaza Strip to help Israel get rid of Hamas and to prepare for the return of the PA.
The PA official accused Hamas of serving Iran’s agenda and of seeking to marginalize the role of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries in the region.
“Hamas is trying to turn this conflict into a card in the hands of the Iranians so that Teheran could later use it in negotiations with the Americans,” he said. “The Iranians want to appear as if they have influence in the region.”
Accusing the Hamas leaders of being “arrogant and political idiots,” Abdel Rahim said the Islamist movement did not believe that Israel would attack the Gaza Strip out of fear for the life of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit and because of the upcoming general elections in Israel.
He also condemned Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh for declaring that Hamas would not succumb even if the entire Gaza Strip were wiped out.
02/01/2009 Demonstrations and rallies across the Arab and Islamic world kicked off in support of Gaza as Palestinians in the West Bank and the Strip have responded to Hamas’ call to mark “Day of Wrath” after Friday prayers.
Al-Manar correspondent in the West Bank said that Israeli occupation security forces have erected several roadblocks around the Aqsa mosque to prevent Palestinians from reaching Quds.
In territories occupied in 1948, the Palestinian follow up committee has announced a week of demonstrations, rallies and sit-ins in towns and villages including Tel Aviv and Haifa, while a central demonstration will take place in Sikhnin. The Israeli occupation army has ordered all entrances to the West Bank be closed as security forces were on very high alert across occupied Palestine in case of war, according to an Israeli police spokesman.
However, thousands of Palestinians were demonstrating in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “We will sacrifice our soul and our blood for Gaza,” chanted the demonstrators, shouting out pro-Hamas slogans and calling on the resistance fighters to “hit Tel-Aviv.”
Thousands of Gazans also defied the cold weather and Israel’s savage aggression and took to the streets of the bombarded city in a show of steadfastness and challenge to the Israeli killing machine. The demonstrators took part in the funeral of Hamas field commander martyr Nizar Rayan, who was assassinated Thursday.
And in Tehran, a huge demonstration was organized after Friday prayers to protest Israel’s bloody aggression on Palestinians in Gaza. “Death to Israel, death to the US” they chanted and demanded an immediate halt to the Israeli war on Gaza. “We are calling for an immediate ceasefire, a halt to the attack and aid for the population of Gaza as well as an end to the blockade of the Palestinian territory and the opening up of all crossings,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Manucheher Mottaki said as he slammed the world’s inaction on Gaza. He added that Gazans were justified in their belief that some Arab countries have betrayed them.
Also in Turkey, thousands of people demonstrated and burnt Israeli flags. A senior official from Turkey’s ruling party meanwhile condemned the operation as “a crime against humanity” and said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “deserved a pair of shoes to be thrown at him.”
In Ankara, a deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party harshly criticized the Israeli operation in Gaza. The offensive “has reached the scale of a crime against humanity,” Bulent Gedikli told Anatolia news agency, slamming the Zionist entity also for failing to facilitate the access of humanitarian aid for the Palestinians.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, thousands took to the streets of Kabul and Herat to protest against Israel’s strikes on Gaza, chanting anti-Israel slogans. The demonstrators burned an effigy of Israeli President Shimon Peres. The protesters also chanted anti-US slogans and the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.
And in Pakistan, thousands of demonstrators rallied in several cities, with some calling for a jihad, or holy war, against the Zionist entity. “The Islamic world failed to take timely action to stop Israeli action on Gaza,” one of the leaders of the radical Jamaat-i-Islami party, Liaqat Baloch, told the demonstrators. He blasted the United Nations, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and human rights groups for failing to prevent the “massacre of Palestinians” and called for UN sanctions against Israel.
Indonesians in Jakarta also demonstrated against the Israeli blitz on Gaza. Tens of thousands of Indonesians staged a protest after Friday prayers and marched towards the US embassy while chanting religious and anti-Israel-US slogans.
In Australia, thousands of people staged a protest after Friday prayers in Sydney. Holding Palestinian flags and pro-Palestinian banners, more than 4,000 demonstrators marched to the Parry Park and held prayers for the martyrs of Gaza. A makeshift coffin draped in the Palestinian flag was carried before the crowd, followed by a procession of eight imams.
In Manila, Muslims took to the streets of the Philippines capital and denounced Israel’s aerial and naval assault on the Gaza Strip. Protesters held placards accusing Israel of “war crimes.” The protest leader stressed “we are here with the rest of the world to express our outrage against the genocidal attack by Israel against the Palestinian people.”
Also in Srinagar in Kashmir, thousands demonstrated in the main town square shouting anti-Israel slogans and carrying Islamic flags. They also set an Israeli flag on fire.
The latest Israeli slaughter in Gaza and the rockets of Hamas in the context of Allied “Good War” morality
by Michael Hoffman
The latest Israeli war crime in Gaza reminds me of a central idea of a book I hope to one day complete on the Cryptocracy’s great game with Islam, in this case pertaining to the morality message of World War II.
In World War II the Allies conducted themselves, as Franklin Roosevelt stated, as though the entire German people were collectively involved in a conspiracy against civilization. With this rationale in hand, the Allies proceeded to terrorize the German people as no people have ever been terrorized by a state. Every instrument of the terrorist was employed: assassination, bombing and mass murder. Rather than being condemned or prosecuted, the Allied terrorism was characterized as history’s one, certain “Good War” and I will not exhaust you with a litany of the other sterling sobriquets with which moralists and alleged humanitarians have laurel-wreathed the Allied bloodbath.
The Muslims, along with the rest of the world, observed the Allied morality play and in the midst of the West’s media blitz have had a center seat at all of the movies, documentaries and official commemorations of the heroism and goodness of the Allied attacks on civilians, on the basis that the Germans, including German women, children, infants and the unborn of pregnant German mothers, were occupiers, colonizers, aggressors and exterminators who got what they deserved.
I have witnessed no serious attempt anywhere across the spectrum of western public opinion to overthrow World War II Allied morality. If anything, it has become more extravagant in its claims of moral purity and ethical crusading.
The Palestinians, having learned the lesson of World War II as perpetually imparted by Hollywood and New York, identify the Israelis as Nazis who colonize, occupy and yes, exterminate — in so far as they are able in a media age where little is done in secret that escapes hand-held video cameras and Internet blogs.
For example, in the Gaza ghetto, for years the Israelis have forced 1.5 million people to go without food, medical care, heating fuel, electricity, clean water and facilities and infrastructure necessary to life or even a half-way decent standard of living. In response to these Nazi-like actions by the Zionists, Hamas fires primitive rockets at Zionist civilians. The West tends to see only the Hamas rockets, not the record of Israeli mass murder, dispossession and occupation which led to the rocket fire.
According to the Allied logic of World War II, Hamas is completely in the right and nothing Hamas does to the Nazi-Israelis is wrong; in fact, the Hamas rocket fire must be classed, by Allied logic, as a step on the path toward civilization and against barbarism.
This writer believes that attacks on civilians are always wrong, whether they be German, Palestinian or Israeli. But the West can’t have it both ways: it can’t teach, as it has for generations, that one may burn and slaughter German civilians righteously, without restraint of any kind, and then celebrate that terrible carnage for the next six decades in every possible forum, while telling Hamas and the Palestinians that they dare not imitate the Allied/World War II example. Muslims have no regard for western hypocrisy and they will hurl themselves at the Israelis as the Allies hurled themselves at the Germans and this will probably continue for as long as the Allied slaughter of Germans is held to be the gold standard of ethical conduct in war.
Those who uphold the myth of Allied morality ought to uphold Palestinian resistance to Israeli conquest and slaughter. In view of this, the Israeli-Nazi attacks today in Gaza will only further enflame the resolve of Arabs and Muslims throughout the world to resist by any means — including guns and bombs — the “collectively guilty” 21st century Israeli people, just as the Allies murdered, burned and bombed the “collectively guilty” German people of the 1940s. Few in the West today view the Allies as terrorists and few in Islamic countries view Hamas as terrorist.
Amira Hass, in a powerful article for Ha’aretz, writes:
This isn’t the time to speak of ethics, but of precise intelligence. Whoever gave the instructions to send 100 of our planes, piloted by the best of our boys, to bomb and strafe enemy targets in Gaza is familiar with the many schools adjacent to those targets – especially police stations. He also knew that at exactly 11:30 A.M. on Saturday, during the surprise assault on the enemy, all the children of the Strip would be in the streets – half just having finished the morning shift at school, the others en route to the afternoon shift.
This is an important insight. Israel’s control of the situation is immense. They have detailed intelligence, sattelite imagery (which they like to show off at press conferences), sophisticated guidance technology, etc. It has planned this assault for months in advance, and its leadership is ostentatiously proud of how all the branches of military and intelligence, from Shin Bet to the Southern Command, have gelled in this attack. If an assault on major public facilities is timed to coincide with children being in the streets, this is not accidental: it is intended to leave a number of children lying in their own blood, and terrorise others.
So far, we have been given the impression in media reports that the majority of those killed have been in some sense not civilians. The UN has suggested that of its estimate of 320 deadths, about 62 are civilians (see chart embedded in this news story). I had assumed that this was because the majority of those killed were policemen and, for some reason, we are all going along with Tel Aviv in not considering this a civilian profession. However! Apparently, I was under-estimating the creativity of the statisticians, for here’s a weird thing (spotted by Keith): the UN’s tally of the civilian dead “does not include civilian casualties who are men”. There is no such thing as a civilian adult male in Gaza! According to this supposed scourge of Israel, any Gazan male with a bit of size on him is fair game.
Israeli power is, of course, extremely creative in determining the fields of law, morality and knowledge within which it operates. After all, when the IDF slaughtered women outside a mosque in plain view not only of the public but of the cameras, it was immediately explained by Israeli spokespeople and their apologists that the women were in fact part of a cunning Hamas military operation to stop morally upright Israeli men from killing morally degenerate Palestinian men. So, they were a legitimate target. And besides, it was hinted, why do they get to wear the veil? What are they hiding? So, if needs must, the very category of civilian, adult or child, male or female, can be conjured out of existence. And then Lt Gen Ashkenazi can come out to the podium and explain: “our intelligence shows that 1.5 million terrorists were eliminated today…”
Pakistani intelligence officials say a suspected U.S. missile attack has killed at least three militants in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghan border.
Friday’s attack was the second missile strike in South Waziristan in as many days. Officials say the strike destroyed an abandoned school in the village of Medan.
South Waziristan is believed to be home to many al-Qaida and Taliban leaders.
Suspected U.S. drones (or unmanned aircraft) are reported to have launched about 30 missile attacks in Pakistan since the middle of last year, despite public objections by the Pakistani government.
On Thursday, Pakistani officials said a U.S. missile strike killed at least three people in South Waziristan.
Steps the incoming president can take to build a peace-based economy.
The following is a memo to Barack Obama from Deepak Chopra.
You have been elected by the first anti-war constituency since 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected after promising to end the Korean War. But ending a war isn’t the same as bringing peace. America has been on a war footing since the day after Pearl Harbor, 67 years ago. We spend more on our military than the next 16 countries combined. If you have a vision of change that goes to the heart of this country’s deep problems, ending our dependence on war is far more important than ending our dependency on foreign oil.
The most immediate changes are economic. Unless it can make as much money as war, peace doesn’t stand a chance. Since aerospace and military technologies remain the United States’ most destructive export, fostering wars around the world, what steps can we take to reverse that trend and build a peace-based economy?
1. Scale out arms dealing and make it illegal by the year 2020.
2. Write into every defense contract a requirement for a peacetime project.
3. Subsidize conversion of military companies to peaceful uses with tax incentives and direct funding.
4. Convert military bases to housing for the poor.
5. Phase out all foreign military bases.
6. Require military personnel to devote part of their time to rebuilding infrastructure.
7. Call a moratorium on future weapons technologies.
8. Reduce armaments like destroyers and submarines that have no use against terrorism and were intended to defend against a superpower enemy that no longer exists.
9. Fully fund social services and take the balance out of the defense and homeland security budgets.
These are just the beginning. We don’t lack creativity in coping with change. Without a conversion of our present war economy to a peace economy, the high profits of the military-industrial complex ensures that it will never end.
Do these nine steps seem unrealistic or fanciful? In various ways, other countries have adopted similar measures. The former Soviet army is occupied with farming and other peaceful work, for example. But comparisons are rather pointless, since only the United States is burdened with such a massive reliance on defense spending. Ultimately, empire follows the dollar. As a society, we want peace, and we want to be seen as a nation that promotes peace. For either ideal to come true, you as president must back up your vision of change with economic reality. So far, that hasn’t happened under any of your predecessors. All hopes are pinned on you.
————
Deepak Chopra is acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest leaders in the field of mind-body medicine. He is the author of over 50 books, including “Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment” and “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.”
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Absolutely, but this country has been brainwashed by generations of Republican and media propaganda, telling us how much we need to defend ourselves against the evil “bad guys” out there. Can you imagine how they will savage Obama if he tries to do this? First, we need to gain more equal coverage in the media and fix the economic system, and then this can happen. But, it definitely SHOULD happen. If Obama doesn’t do it, who else will?
Be careful. Idealism serves a weak kneed agenda. But I respect the work of Depak Chopra. It takes generations for change. These ideals will take enormous amounts of talent to pull off. I agree it’s worth every effort to try. The People will have to speak up. Unfortunately the American public is not sympathetic to Peace. The media can be the Juggernaut for this Peace and Idealism to take place, but they’re more concerned with spreading the Bible or a Bullet as the answer. And the same corporations that own the media do not tolerate dissent well. Those actions of our fathers, the carrot and stick, can be transformed only after the same fairy tales(god and and heaven as reward) given to us since our childhood(my country right or wrong) are exposed as having no rational. This a small Planet. We, as citizens of One Earth need to look from afar back at this small living gift we have.
As long as there is war inside of me, there is war in the world. Take the finger pointing “out there” and turn it right back. This is how the world truly changes.
My hero, Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced House Resolution 3760 in September 2005. This bill would create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace and Nonviolence that embodies a broad-based approach to peaceful, non-violent conflict resolution at both domestic and international levels. The Department of Peace and Nonviolence would serve to promote non-violence as an organizing principle in our society, and help to create the conditions for a more peaceful world. To read more, go to Rep. Kucinich’s website at http://kucinich.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=1564.
It is a message we all are hoping for, to create a safe world for our children and our grandchildren. War is outdated and barbaric. We are all in this world together and it is our responsibility to get along. None of us is more important than people from other countries where they speak a different language, have different color skin, live a different culture and pray to a different supreme being. Let us remember that we are all each others’ sisters and brothers. Our challenge is to live with love and compassion; it is not always easy, but it is the only way!
We have two cabols that wield inardinate influence on our government, the military-industrial complex and the law enforcement-prison comples. That latter keeps the drug war going. I predicted to a friend who supported Obama early on, that he would not end the IRaq war. Even though he was against it from the beginning, he would, when assuming the presidency, be surrounded by people who want to keep both these wars going. The lobbiest for Halliburton, Boeing etc have the money to station people in DC to make their care every day. Myself, I can’t play in this league. Letter after letter against the war has fallen on deaf ears. Letters to the two TX senators asking them to end the war go unanswered.
Fri, 01/02/2009 – 01:28 — Dennis Walker (not verified)
If everyone everywhere starts each day with love in their heart, certainly peace will ensue. There can’t be peace without love because violence and war is seeded in fear and hate. Sounds simplistic, but I believe this truth. So, start your day with love in your heart and let your day, week, month, year and life unfold in love. Peace will be one of many dividends of a more loving humanity.
These nine steps are crucial and are also achievable. Though the instruction will be derided as “naive” and “unrealistic”, it’s based in the purest of truth and reality.
The ending of the military industrial complex is a given or at least should be. The money going to this waste is far beyond that amount claimed by those saying it is a small portion of the GNP. This because the not reported earnings, the “black” contracts, and the secondary spending bills which have soaked the American populace through the years, go un0noticed and unreported for the most part. Even the CIA facebook manages to overlook some of this spending. The economic impact of the MIC would be positive still if those companies taking tax dollars were also putting them back into the system. Rather, the top level executives are hoarding using various methods of avoiding paying them, the corporations themselves are avoiding paying taxes by working for the MIC (which is a tax loophole in itself) this being just one example. For those who will argue that the largest use of money in the US government is for the bureaucracy, of course they are correct. The government will always want that forth branch to benefit despite the creation of nothing of discernable value.. And this too should be cut back. But reducing both of these monsters, quick like a bandaid, while wonderful in metaphor would be nothing but painful for a nation with it’s highest unemployment since the nineteen thirties. So both of these need trimming, slowly and carefully. And each one of these jobs can justify themselves. So it must be done by someone who is willing to be cruel in order to save this nation. And yes, most of the money should go towards education. But education is a local system right now. The pay rates for educators are based on local living expenses, the schools themselves are controlled in curriculum and type of educators by local school boards. Until the federal government takes a more active role in education, creationism, along side the equally probable Flying Saghetti Monster theory, will continue to be a possible educational moment for our students. Making the end product of that education nearly as worthless as the idea of the Americans of today being willing to take part in WPA like projects. But education and the methods of bettering this nation is a different debate.
Hooray for Deepak to bring home the truth of what needs to happen for peace to occur in our world. We are hopeful that President Obama with his infinite wisdom and openness will do his best to implement some of these suggestions. We as a nation need to roll up our sleeves and work together to support those kinds of initiatives and work in our local communities to take down the barriers that race, class and prejudice keep us from have peace in our towns and cities. We are doing it in our own ways celebrating 30 years of PEACE THROUGH MUSIC. Blessings, Dudley and Dean Evenson http://www.soundings.com
Thu, 01/01/2009 – 22:58 — Carl Forsberg (not verified)
In Truth, there is only one step that is absolutely necessary for mankind that must be realized by every human being on this planet. That realization is simply this. We as a human race are all parts of what God is, the very God in whose image and likeness we are created. We are like parts a hologram of what God is. We are not just his children, or mere creations, but are totally and absolutely as much a part of what God is, as totally as our hand is part of our own body, and as that same hand is part of the other hand and our feet and the very hair on our head. This is unequivocally who and what we are in our relationship to God, to all animals and and to the earth itself, as all is part of that same God of which we are and always have been. When this fact is known and fully understood, we will realize that to harm another person or thing is the act of harming ourselves. When this is recognized for the fact and the Truth that it is, War will cease, because the real war we need to fight is our own ignorance. This is the one and greatest step that is needed for all mankind. And without this singular realization, there can never be peace, because it must start within everyone of us – The realization of WHO AND WHAT WE TRULY ARE.
Thu, 01/01/2009 – 22:25 — dr wu–I’m just an ordinary guy. (not verified)
Deepak Chopra for new Obama cabinet position: Secretary of Peace! This new position entails veto power over the War Cabinet members–Gates and Clinton. Ditto for chief of staff Emanuel. Starling facts: we spend more for war than the rest of the world combined. We have nearly 1000 foreign military bases, We have 1 million people in prison (the highest per capita total in the world.) In short we are champs at making a killing off killing and locking people up. Probably this will all change when our empire falls–due to being broke, lack of positive spirit, peaking oil and leadership that is truly Roman. (inept) So it all went. But all in all, Deepak for Secretary of Peace!
This is the opinion of every American expressed and the wish of the government of the U.S. But it is impossible to achieve with the current psyche of the American political class which fears that its sustenance is predicated on serving the interest of Israel and its powerful US lobby machine.
Thu, 01/01/2009 – 22:25 — Robert R. Holt (not verified)
A good idea, and I support a lot of it, but in several ways I think it would have been more likely to succeed in getting more than a passing glance if more realistically approached. I believe that the first step we request Pres. Obama to take is to task his Defense Secretary with to stop the waste in the present Pentagon budget. That means a top-to-bottom reorganization of the way money is handled, to make it transparent and accountable, like that of any good business. It is an outrage and scandal that the Pentagon can’t give an account of what has been done with at least a billion dollars of past appropriations! It seems probable that a lot of that would not survive the light of public scrutiny if exposed. Second, review EVERY category of expenditure dispassionately to see if it is affordable under current budgetary stringency, deals with a realistic threat that cannot be better countered by non-military means (e.g., diplomacy), and meets ordinary scientific standards if a technology. Third, order a newly formulated mission statement for the DOD, which (a) begins with a careful, realistic, probabilistic assessment of all dangers currently and predictably facing the US, in the pooled judgment of a variety of experts on world affairs, including but not limited to the military; and (b) does not make anachronistic and unrealistic assumptions (e.g., that we are in an arms race with an implacable competing superpower, that a weapons system for which there is no plausible use should be continued just because a lot of money has already been spent on it or it exists). Third, recognize that negotiation and other forms of nonviolent conflict resolution have a better track record of success against many of the above-identified dangers than massive violence, and reframe the long-range plans of the DOD accordingly. Fourth, in planning the scaling back of military bases, give serious consideration to their provocativeness and their impact on host countries, which may outweigh any likely usefulness to us. Fifth, in all the above reconsiderations, give full weight to the legality or illegality of present policies, many of which directly violate provisions of treaties solemnly entered into and which have the same status in US law as the Constitution.
Thu, 01/01/2009 – 22:15 — Number Nine (not verified)
Right on but lets make #10 cutting all rents and mortgages here by 50% unless you can afford to pay more. Who would be hurt? It just make our money worth something, by being able to have some fun with it. TRY IT for a year, and with an end to The Drug War, crime may disapear for we will finally know someone up in power cares
Bravo! Mr. Chopra. It most certainly can happen. All Obama has to do is say “yes” and take the necessary steps. I’m sick and tired of the defeatist attitude. It’s time for everyone to come from a place of enlightenment. Then we will know peace.
Yes we do! Together we can make these steps happen. First we need to end the fear of our brothers and sisters in other lands. There is a better, peaceful way. We start caring for one another, truly helping each other day by day, in the little things.
These wonderful points are SO related to the current frontier of human consciousness in which we see ourselves (rightly) as having the power to create what we really want. As more people create an intentional focus on what they DO want, our dialogues can be dedicated to our individual and shared highest thoughts and can bring this wonderful world to its next level of understanding the relationship between freedom/liberty and “response”-ability (the ability to CHOOSE which guidance system to follow when at the crossroads of decision). Dr. Chopra has again laid out with clarity and simplicity, ideas born of his own commitment and desire to have the spiritual principles guiding our decisions. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thu, 01/01/2009 – 21:29 — Solar Bill (not verified)
I think Mr Chopra is on the right track. I do not believe we will have any meaningful change in this country until we change the election system. We need to make it illegal for special interests to give money to our Representatives. As long as they get money they will not be our Representatives, they will represent those that give them money. The military industrial complex is fully interwoven into our government this way. To get any change we have to stop the money flow.
Amen, and we have to make it happen. This is the opportunity we have been given. Think it, project it, work for it, conger it up if you have to, and do not say it will never happen, or it never will. Capitalism has already failed. It needs socialism to stay alive, and we will work that to change the world. I want to thank Deepak Chopra for this message and for for helping me make a change in my attitude.
We need to deconstruct our “business as usual”. This certainly starts with capitalism but as the great, late Dr. Martin Luther King pointed out, we need a revolution of ideals and, of course, ideas. We can start by making the U.N. the world governing body with an army of real peace keepers and no nation should be permitted to have a standing army.
It all comes down to whether each of us pays his/her taxes this year. If we do, then with all our progressive ideas and outrage, we are sucked into being as hypocritical as “they” are. \Its also known as (assisted) Moral Suicide.
Seeking PEACE is the goal. With all due respect to his intention, his entire article has no positive suggestions. What about education…building schools and getting the citizen involved in building roads and farms and ending poverty. What is spent on war could fund these projects without guns.
Good start. Remember military is only 3 percent of GNP. It’s a large percent of federal budget but overall we face many other bigger problems. I do agree with everything said above but unless we address global warming and world energy production, reductions in milatary aren’t going to happen because the Pentagon is projecting energy wars a decade from now and building for them. Get to the root of the problem. Our economy is the major problem. It’s not comprehensiveable but we put on the line in real dollars more in the past three months to backstop our banks and finance than we did to win WWII. This is big, big stuff. We have to address our Financial meltdown this coming year. Also the auto meltdown. Cuts in Military can come later. The Climate and our Economy are both on life support NOW! We are in denial about these problems. These are as big of problems as this country has ever faced. The last decade poisoned the well of Finance which is now about 25% of GDP. Carbon in the atmosphere is now past the tipping point and the world enviroment will fall off the cliff very soon endangering all life. So come January and February we go to work. War is fought for resources and power, mostly oil and oil wealth. Massive changes must happen or the patient will die.
I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation! Yet it is so common that one must grieve the more and wonder the less at the spectacle of a million men serving in wretchedness, their necks under the yoke, not constrained by a greater multitude than they…[10]
And this mass submission must be out of consent rather than simply out of fear: Shall we call subjection to such a leader cowardice?… If a hundred, if a thousand endure the caprice of a single man, should we not rather say that they lack not the courage but the desire to rise against him, and that such an attitude indicates indifference rather than cowardice? When not a hundred, not a thousand men, but a hundred provinces, a thousand cities, a million men, refuse to assail a single man from whom the kindest treatment received is the infliction of serfdom and slavery, what shall we call that? Is it cowardice? … When a thousand, a million men, a thousand cities, fail to protect themselves against the domination of one man, this cannot be called cowardly, for cowardice does not sink to such a depth. . . . What monstrous vice, then, is this which does not even deserve to be called cowardice, a vice for which no term can be found vile enough . . . ? [11]
[The future of the human race has been pre-determined for us by a cabal of international gangsters. They have chosen a life of slavery for every human being. Whether we accept it or not; it is up to each of us. If we refuse to resist; we are giving our consent to our own servitude and that of our families.
If we want to end the war then We the People must deprive the warlords of the physical means to wage that war, no enlistments, no tax money, no shopping (for non-essentials), no work. Millions of us have to stop cooperating with society in producing, servicing, maintaining the infrastructure that supports the towering edifice of the military industrial complex.
Our task is to find ways to make the people want to resist. We have to change the minds that now have no desire to resist at all, even those minds that see salvation in the war machine itself.
The people must be made to see the invisible tyrant above us before they will begin to think of resistance. This why resistance is primarily an educational action. Opening people’s eyes is a revolutionary act. Can you still recall the moment that your eyes began to open to the dark forces around us? We have to recreate that moment of awakening within other people’s minds, here, in this environment of the shock doctrine.
The fact that we are trying to reason with people who have been shocked until they are nearly catatonic, tells me that we must shock these people ourselves, in order to awaken them. This is the reasoning behind my choosing to concentrate on the unheard story of the CIA creating terrorist armies (insurgencies) to create the war that kills our troops. What could be more shocking than knowing that the CIA is creating the war of terror?
What can we say that will instill in people the desire to disobey authority, to become the human sand that will jam the gears of the war machine? How can we shatter the politics of obedience?]
Normal folks do not want to believe that the human race is dominated by dark forces. But, there is a small group of people who know that it is true, the human race is considered to be livestock, cattle for the real owners of this world, the elite.
Since the day of our creation, mankind has been dominated and shaped by inhuman entities, to behave more like cattle. The shapers themselves know this to be true. They also know that if we are not kept ignorant many of us will one day learn to ask the proper questions, until we finally locate the evidence that proves it is all true. Through diligent research, various people have discovered proof of the machinery that controls America’s economy, its political system, its military, its educational system, its medical system, every facet of life. This knowledge is a direct threat to the elite.
The elite power game is designed to wear the people down, as they move the nation slowly toward a predicted outcome, where the majority becomes exhausted from fighting a losing struggle and completely submits to total elite domination of all resources. When the American masses freely surrender their free will to the dark overlords, in the name of security, the fate of the world will be sealed by this lawless tyranny. Destruction and suffering, such as has never been witnessed by the eyes of man, will be unleashed upon the helpless victim populations of the earth.
Very few people can see this future (no one wants to see it) outside of the elite, who gladly accept it as the price of saving whatever is left of the world for themselves. The masters of humanity count on our blindness and willful ignorance, in order to carry-out their conspiratorial plans. They join in secret organizations, where they are free to openly discuss their schemes amongst their own kind.
The documentation of their plotting is kept locked away from the public in corporate vaults and private libraries. Occasionally, someone on the inside discovers their conscience and leaks word of the devilish plans to the outside world, or maybe they simply slip-up and lose track or control of sequestered documents. In order to deceive us and to stall the day of our realization of the multitude of their crimes against humanity, intensive disinformation is introduced into the webstream, discrediting the truth by impersonating it. We have to be diligent in our research to ascertain the veracity of any documents that we might come across. If their revelations cannot be confirmed my multiple sources, then they must be suspect. The “Pentagon Papers” and “Operation Northwoods” come quickly to mind. Both of these major leaks were later partially corroborated by reports of past deceptive military PSYOPS and CIA covert wars.
Then there are the out of the blue revelations offered by researchers who claim to have obtained inside information, or in the case of former MI6 agent John Coleman, a training manual from the Tavistock Institute (British mind control research). – , Conspirators’ Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300 – http://www.barefootsworld.net/tavistok.html Coleman’s research is automatically suspect because of his previous government involvement. But this research on social scientists and psychologists at Tavistock, founded in studies by British “Operational Research” at the end of World War II (on the psycho/social impact of bombing upon civilian populations), provided valuable insight to me on the mechanisms for studying and manipulating human cattle. http://www.mortyscabin.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1769
Another very insightful document of questionable origin, which seems to corroborate Coleman’s work, entitled, “Silent Weapons for a Quiet War,” (an Operations Research Technical Manual) is alleged to be a document from the highly-secretive elitist Bilderburg Group.” Introduction This document may be legitimate, or it may also be a carefully constructed piece of disinformation. Whatever it is, it opens even more insights into the potential opinions of the elite towards the American sheeple, or anyone not living up to their lofty cruel standards and ideas for forging a global dictatorship:
“The general public refuses to improve its own mentality and its faith in its fellow man. It has become a herd of proliferating barbarians, and, so’ to speak, a blight upon the fate of the earth. They do not care enough about economic science to learn why they have not been able to avoid war despite religious morality, and their religious or self-gratifying refusal to deal with earthly problems renders the solution of the earthly problem unreachable by them. It is left to those few who are truly willing to think and survive as the fittest to survive, to solve the problem for themselves as the few who really care.”
“This public demand is incredible, so the human god, the political, meets incredibility with incredibility by promising the world and delivering nothing. This public behavior is surrender born of fear, laziness and expediency. It is the basis of the welfare state as a strategic weapon, useful against a disgusting public. They hire politicians to face reality for them.”
Silent Weapons builds upon the British work begun at Operations Research and by its offshoot studies, in studying the effects of planned shocks upon the “cattle,” in particular the economic effects of specific psychological shocks. From this research they constructed what they called an “economic amplifier,” for stimulating the economy in various ways, by shocking the populace and using the information obtained to control the people, thereby manipulating their free will.
“The low class elements of the society must be brought under total control, i.e., must be house-broken, trained, and assigned a yoke and long term social duties from a very early age, before they have an opportunity to question the propriety of the matter…In order to achieve such conformity, the lower class family unit must be disintegrated by a process of increasing preoccupation of the parents and occupationally orphaned children…The quality of education given to the lower class must be of the poorest sort, so that the … ignorance isolating the inferior class from the superior class is and remains incomprehensible to the inferior class. With such an initial handicap, even bright lower class individuals have little if any hope of extricating themselves from their assigned lot in life. This form of slavery is essential to maintaining some measure of social order, peace, and tranquility for the ruling upper class.”
“Economic engineers…study the behavior of the economy and the consumer public by carefully selecting a staple commodity such as beef, coffee, gasoline, or sugar and then causing a sudden change or shock in its price or availability, thus kicking everybody’s budget and buying habits out of shape…They then observe the shock waves which result by monitoring the changes in advertising, prices, and sales of that and other commodities…The objective of such studies is to acquire know-how to set the public economy into a predictable state of motion or change, even a controlled self-destructive state of motion which will convince the public that certain “expert” people should take control of the money system and reestablish security (rather than liberty and justice) for all. When the subject citizens are rendered unable to control their financial affairs, they of course, become totally enslaved, a source of cheap labor.”
“Labor strikes deliver excellent test shocks to an economy, especially in the critical service areas of trucking (transportation), communication, public utilities (energy, water, garbage collection), etc…By shock testing, it is found that there is a direct relationship between the availability of money flowing in an economy and the psychological outlook and response of masses of people dependent upon that availability…For example, there is a measurable, quantitative relationship between the price of gasoline, and the probability that a person would experience a headache, feel a need to watch a violent movie, smoke a cigarette, or go to a tavern for a mug of beer.”
“It is most interesting that, by observing and measuring the economic modes by which the public tries to run from their problems and escape from reality, and by applying the mathematical theory of Operations Research, it is possible to program computers to predict the most probable combination of created events (shocks) which will bring about a complete control and subjugation of the public through a subversion of the public economy (by shaking the plum tree).”
“Keep the public undisciplined and ignorant of basic systems principles on the one hand, while keeping them confused, disorganized, and distracted with matters of no real importance on the other hand.
Disengaging their minds, sabotaging their mental activities, by providing a low quality program of public education in mathematics, logic, systems design, and economics, and by discouraging technical creativity.
Unrelenting emotional affrontations and attacks (mental and emotional rape) by way of a constant barrage of sex, violence, and wars in the media – especially the T.V. and the newspapers.
Shift their thinking from personal needs to highly fabricated outside priorities.
Preclude their interest in and discovery of the silent weapons of social automation technology.
The best approach is to create problems and then offer the solutions.
Keep the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think; back on the farm with the other animals.”
The elitists’ control over information, made possible by the creation of a global computer network, allowed them to absorb all available data from both voluntary and involuntary sources and incorporate the latest facts into their studies for manipulating the unsuspecting masses. The computer-modeling they developed allowed them to accurately predict the real world effect of certain shocks through computer simulations.
“A silent weapon system operates upon data obtained from a docile public by legal (but not always lawful) force…The number of such forms submitted to the I.R.S. is a useful indicator of public consent, an important factor in strategic decision making…When the government is able to collect tax and seize private property without just compensation, it is an indication that the public is ripe for surrender and is consenting to enslavement and legal encroachment. A good and easily quantified indicator of harvest time is the number of public citizens who pay income tax.”
The move to expand their acquisition of personal information led them to take the risky step of sharing their global computer/communications network, the Internet, with the people, even with the sheeple. But, the document reveals that the controllers were well aware of the risks and accepted it as the necessary price of aggregating all that juicy input.
“It was only a matter of time, only a few decades, before the general public would be able to grasp and upset the cradle of power, for the very elements of the new silent weapon technology were as accessible for a public utopia as they were for providing a private utopia.
As time goes on and communication and education improve, the lower class elements of the social labor structure become knowledgeable and envious of the good things that the upper class members have. They also begin to attain a knowledge of energy systems and the ability to enforce their rise through the class structure.
This threatens the sovereignty of the elite.
If this rise of the lower classes can be postponed long enough, the elite can achieve energy dominance. Until such energy dominance is absolutely established, the consent of people to labor and let others handle their affairs must be taken into consideration, since failure to do so could cause the people to interfere in the final transfer of energy sources to the control of the elite.
It is essential to recognize that at this time, public consent is still an essential key to the release of energy in the process of economic amplification.”
Whether this document is a fraud or not, its characterizations of elitist contempt for the sheeple resonates as truth. This means that they are vulnerable, if we are diligent in our investigations, but only for a limited time. Our window of opportunity is very limited, as we watch it slowly close before us. If the American people capitulate before we can educate them to the dangerous future awaiting us all, then all hope is lost (outside of divine intervention). The people are irrelevant until we learn to organize and to fight back. Until we learn how to disrupt their plan by generating our own reverse shock waves, generated by explosive revelatory truths, we will remain irrelevant. Until we can blow-away the foundations of lies that empower the cover-ups, the truths that could set us all free will remain useless data, lost in the webstream, hidden in executive vaults and private libraries.
As long as the people remain compliant to elitist molding, there remains little hope. It is time to strike a blow for hope. We must launch our own counter-offensive, in order to capture the people’s minds, in time to repel the final wave of conformation. We must begin to see the elitists who dominate us as the vile scum that they truly are, alien to all decent human beings. It is our last call for making the American people relevant to those who have been elected to represent us in our fake democracy.
In my quest to understand what is needed to avert the catastrophic future that awaits us, and to formulate a workable alternative vision to it, I turned to one of the most-often quoted figures in America, Noam Chomsky. In a recent interview he did with Al-Jazeera Network, “Chomsky: US public irrelevant,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuHAqjI3CY Chomsky described our plight and compared it to recent third world revolutions, carried-out by simple folks in similar predicaments:
“For the majority of the population real wages have stagnated or declined for the past 30 years, there’s been growth but it’s going to the wealthy and into very few pockets, benefits which were never really great have declined, work hours have greatly increased and there isn’t really much to show for it other than staying afloat.”
“The elite strategy for managing the electorate is to ignore the will of the people as…interpret[ed] through polling data?… We have models right in front of us. Like pick, say, Bolivia, the poorest county in South America. They had a democratic election a couple of years ago that you can’t even dream about in the US. It’s kind of interesting it’s not discussed [in our press]…A large majority of the population became organised and active for the first time in history and elected someone from their own ranks on crucial issues that everyone knew about – control of resource, cultural rights, issues of justice, you know, really serious issues…
A couple of years before this they managed to drive Bechtel and the World Bank out of the country when they were trying to privatise the war. It was a pretty harsh struggle… Well, they reached a point where they finally could manifest this through the electoral system – they didn’t have to change the electoral laws, they had to change the way the public acts… Actually if we look at the poorest country in the hemisphere – Haiti – the same thing happened in 1990. You know, if peasants in Bolivia and Haiti can do this, it’s ridiculous to say “we can’t.”
The only thing that will save us and the world from the great plundering that is planned for us is another revolution, a revolution of free will. Everyone must stop surrendering their will to the dishonest men and women who claim to represent us. We must reclaim our fading and lost heritage.
“To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That’s just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them.” Michael Parenti, author. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Fascism.html
Americans can stop the overlords from carrying-out the final step for ending human freedom, expanding their global war into Iran, escalating it beyond the nuclear threshold. Advancement of their geopolitical plan through the use of terrorism by our own government and through their proxies in foreign intelligence services remains the immoral center of their unholy schemes. We stop this hypocrisy by making this common knowledge.
Revelations of “silent weapons” being used in a secret war against them and their families will go a long way towards opening many eyes and convincing people to resist. What is needed is massive resistance, on a scale not seen in this country for a very long time. People have to be convinced to resist cooperating with government and private efforts to collect personal data and conform with illegal mandates. Organize to stop the war, to end the illegal progressive tax system, the submission to intrusive government measures. In the end, we must bring down the corrupt Federal Reserve System.
Soldiers must refuse to lay down their freedom and their lives for the war machine. Everyone must stop playing along with our farcical electoral system. Don’t vote on November 6, send them a static-filled signal of our own.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s crushing aerial assault on Gaza has caused a significant shift in the country’s mood, replacing lingering helplessness and frustration over Hamas rocket attacks with a sense of might and vindication.
Leaders who were unpopular only a week ago have suddenly surged in the public’s esteem. But that could change quickly if the fighting drags on or Israel starts taking heavy casualties.
In downtown Ashkelon, a southern Israeli city that has come under rocket fire, a pair of plumbers hung up a handwritten sign praising the Gaza operation’s mastermind, Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
That’s a dramatic change for Barak, a former prime minister whose approval ratings were until recently so dismal that his own election slogans acknowledged he was unpopular.
“We’ve got a great defense minister. Everyone thought he wasn’t going to do anything but he tricked them and gave them a blow they won’t forget,” said Ziv Barda, 28, who works for a car rental company in Ashkelon. “Finally someone decided enough is enough.”
With rockets exploding across Israel’s south and at least an eighth of the country’s population now within rocket range, Israelis appear to be coming together behind the country’s leadership and the military as jets, helicopters and navy vessels continued to pound Gaza for a sixth straight day.
A poll Thursday showed that 52 percent of Israelis want to continue the aerial campaign, while only 20 percent would like to see a cease-fire. Just 19 percent want to see a threatened ground offensive take place, presumably because that would mean casualties in the army’s ranks.
Four Israelis have been killed by rocket fire since the offensive began Saturday. Gaza officials now say more than 400 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory.
In Sderot, a working-class border town that has been bombarded by thousands of Hamas rockets in recent years, residents said they haven’t been this satisfied in a long time. On Wednesday, they cheered to each sound of distant explosions from Israeli airstrikes.
“You see people walking with their heads up in the air again. Finally there is some hope,” said Itzik Biton, 38, who sells falafel at a fast-food stand.
Tammy Hovel, 31, said her children were cramped in shelters and that her bakery was suffering, but she was nonetheless encouraged.
“We’re going to get hit either way, so at least they are doing something,” Hovel said. “And people elsewhere are starting to understand what we’ve had to deal with.”
With national elections approaching on Feb. 10, the Israeli assault on Gaza has boosted support for Barak’s Labor Party, the standard-bearer for Israel’s peace camp, by making it look tough.
The poll showed overall support for moderate and centrist parties going up, while support for hard-line and religious parties went down — leaving each side with half the seats in parliament if elections were held today.
The survey, carried out by the Dialog company, showed jumps in the approval ratings for Israel’s top three leaders — Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
“We feel that the government is finally supporting us,” Biton said. “True, rockets are falling and we are losing money. But we’ll suffer for a month and then we’ll be done with this.”
The poll appeared Thursday in the daily Haaretz newspaper. It surveyed 472 people and had a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.
But the opposition Likud Party, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, is still the front-runner, and the government’s popularity might be brief.
A good mood is to be expected at the beginning of a war, said Tel Aviv University pollster Camil Fuchs, who oversaw the survey.
When Israel went to war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the government’s initially sky-high approval ratings evaporated when deaths mounted. Some 159 Israelis were killed during the monthlong war.
“It’s very fluid — it could change in a day if a missile hits somewhere and we have more casualties,” Fuchs said.
Along the Gaza border, Israeli bystanders and police officers stopped their vehicles on the side of the road Thursday to watch Israeli helicopters, drones and fighter jets strike targets in Gaza, cheering with each deafening explosion.
But the cheers would die out fast if ground forces go in, get bogged down in Gaza’s densely populated urban areas and start taking casualties, or if rocket fire continues to paralyze life in the south. Israel’s army declared Thursday that its ground troops are ready to invade.
“We are spoiled and impatient — we like our wars short,” said Israeli historian Tom Segev. If fighting goes on too long, or if it ends with an inconclusive cease-fire, Segev said, Israelis will turn on the government as they did after the Lebanon war.
“The mood will change fast,” he said.
Matti Friedman reported from Jerusalem. Aron Heller reported from Sderot and Ashkelon, Israel.
Israeli tanks taking position on the northern border with the Gaza Strip.
Iran’s Air Force is on alert after the country’s president envisaged major regional developments in the wake of the Israeli raids on Gaza.
The chief Iranian Air Force Commander Brigadier General Hassan Shah-Safi said on Wednesday that the ongoing critical situation in the Middle East has prompted the Iranian military to take necessary measures to ensure readiness in the event of the country becoming the target of an offensive.
“Iran’s Air Force has of late carried out 120 successful sorties along with long-range flights of 2,000 kilometers, and has also conducted unprecedented aerial missions,” Brig. Gen. Shah-Safi said.
The Air Force commander added that the enemy has been closely monitoring Iranian military planes. He went on to say that “unless Iran’s military remains constantly vigilant the enemy will deliver a blow, even a minor one, to our forces”.
The remarks come as Israeli strikes on Gaza entered a fifth day, without an end in sight to the largest assault on the beleaguered strip in decades.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that the fierce Israeli air assault on Gaza, which “aims to root out Hamas and the Palestinians”, would only lead to the “disintegration of the Israeli regime”.
Facing growing international pressure, Israel’s top leaders have so far rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire.
Israel is also massing its gunboats near the Gaza port and its ground forces along the border with Gaza in preparation for a possible ground offensive.
Earlier on Monday, a senior Iranian commander floated the idea that the time has come for Muslims to militarily stop Israeli crimes in Gaza.
“Only the military option can save Gaza,” said Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh, Head of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holy Defense.
SANCHEZ: And you know what we did? I’ve checked with some of the folks here at our international desk, and I went to them and asked, What was he talking about, and do we have any information on that? Which they confirmed, two months ago — this is back in November — there was an attack. It was an Israeli raid that took out six people.
Now, let me refer you — it’s not just us. We’ve checked in other periodicals. Johnny (ph), go over my shoulder, if you can. Here we go. “The six-month ceasefire started coming apart at the beginning of November after Israeli commandos killed a team of Hamas fighters during a raid on a tunnel they suspected was being dug for kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. That raid set off more Palestinian rocketing.” That’s “U.S. News and World Report.”
I got another one for you, I believe, here. OK, this is “The Guardian” — questionable, but nonetheless. “A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was in jeopardy today” — this was actually reported when it happened — “after Israeli troops killed six gunmen in a raid in the territory.” That’s important to report.
And here we go, as well, from the Economist.com, and the point of contention here is this one. Johnny, one more. “The last straw came in November, when Israelis killed six gunmen it said were digging tunnels to launch a raid onto Israel, spurring Hamas to respond with a barrage of rockets.”
So the question as to who started this — and we’ve been hearing that the Israelis say they had to do this because, suddenly, the ceasefire had been broken in Gaza by the Hamas and the Palestinians. Is this now a little more in question?
ThereAreNoSunglasses 
Absolutely, but this country
Fri, 01/02/2009 – 05:07 — Anonymous (not verified)