Sandra Finley

Nov 092013
 
. . .  treat(ies) that would let rapacious companies subvert our laws, rights and national sovereignty

(de-confuse CETA, TTIP and TTP, just 3 of the trade deals):

  • CETA,  the trade deal between Canada & Europe, the  Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement 

See   http://www.canadians.org/search/node/CETA

(Wish I had time to do a clause-by-clause comparison.  I expect the two deals are almost carbon copies of each other.)

Do not confuse with the TPP (the Trans-PACIFIC Partnership).  Canada and the U.S. are both partners in this trade deal with “Pacific” countries.  See  2013-11-14  Leaked Asia trade text sees US backing firms, The Malaysian Insider. (TPP includes Canada)  Assange’s Wikileaks.

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It is important to send this to your friends.  It is not only Eli Lilly that Canadians will be paying:  

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If you require inspiration like “We Can!”, listen to the podcast, Democracy Now (Amy Goodman) at:

“We Are Living in the World Occupy Made”:  New York City Voters Elect Mayor Who Vows to Tax the Rich

Tuesday’s election signaled a political sea change in New York City as voters chose a candidate who repeatedly emphasized his progressive vision . . . 

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People ARE doing the hard work required to turn the ship around!

Many, many success stories – – we just have to get in there and do our part!

Man The Torpedoes!  sink CETA  (or, on the U.S. side, the TTIP.)

FIRST, let’s just circulate more info.

Action plans don’t work if others don’t know what we’re talking about.

 

Nov 092013
 
. . .  a treaty that would let rapacious companies subvert our laws, rights and national sovereignty
  • CETA:  The trade deal between Canada & Europe is the

Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ref  http://www.canadians.org/search/node/CETA)

 

(Wish I had time to do a clause-by-clause comparison!  I expect the two deals are almost carbon copies of each other.)

Both are not to be confused with the TPP  (Trans PACIFIC Partnership).   See   2013-11-14  Leaked Asia trade text sees US backing firms, The Malaysian Insider. (TPP includes Canada)  Assange’s Wikileaks.

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Note:  George Monbiot sometimes answers questions in the “Comments” section below his on-line articles.

Is there anyone working against this trade deal?

George Monbiot replied:  04 November 2013 8:52pm

(writing from the U.K. – U.S.A. trade deal perspective )

Corporate Europe Observatory, Democracy Centre, Glyn Moody et al have been documenting it well, but as far as I can tell (and forgive me if I’m wrong) a well-coordinated movement against it has yet to emerge. We urgently need the unions, NGOs and citizens’ movements to mobilise.

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us-trade-deal-full-frontal-assault-on-democracy

Brussels has kept quiet about a treaty that would let rapacious companies subvert our laws, rights and national sovereignty

Cameron and Obama, south lawn, White House

David Cameron with Barack Obama at a state dinner in Cameron’s honour in 2012 at the White House. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

 

Remember that referendum about whether we should create a single market with the United States? You know, the one that asked whether corporations should have the power to strike down our laws? No, I don’t either. Mind you, I spent 10 minutes looking for my watch the other day before I realised I was wearing it. Forgetting about the referendum is another sign of ageing. Because there must have been one, mustn’t there? After all that agonising over whether or not we should stay in the European Union, the government wouldn’t cede our sovereignty to some shadowy, undemocratic body without consulting us. Would it?

The purpose of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is to remove the regulatory differences between the US and European nations. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. But I left out the most important issue: the remarkable ability it would grant big business to sue the living daylights out of governments which try to defend their citizens. It would allow a secretive panel of corporate lawyers to overrule the will of parliament and destroy our legal protections. Yet the defenders of our sovereignty say nothing.

The mechanism through which this is achieved is known as investor-state dispute settlement. It’s already being used in many parts of the world to kill regulations protecting people and the living planet.

The Australian government, after massive debates in and out of parliament, decided that cigarettes should be sold in plain packets, marked only with shocking health warnings. The decision was validated by the Australian supreme court. But, using a trade agreement Australia struck with Hong Kong, the tobacco company Philip Morris has asked an offshore tribunal to award it a vast sum in compensation for the loss of what it calls its intellectual property.

During its financial crisis, and in response to public anger over rocketing charges, Argentina imposed a freeze on people’s energy and water bills (does this sound familiar?). It was sued by the international utility companies whose vast bills had prompted the government to act. For this and other such crimes, it has been forced to pay out over a billion dollars in compensation. In El Salvador, local communities managed at great cost (three campaigners were murdered) to persuade the government to refuse permission for a vast gold mine which threatened to contaminate their water supplies. A victory for democracy? Not for long, perhaps. The Canadian company which sought to dig the mine is now suing El Salvador for $315m – for the loss of its anticipated future profits.

In Canada, the courts revoked two patents owned by the American drugs firm Eli Lilly, on the grounds that the company had not produced enough evidence that they had the beneficial effects it claimed. Eli Lilly is now suing the Canadian government for $500m, and demanding that Canada’s patent laws are changed.

These companies (along with hundreds of others) are using the investor-state dispute rules embedded in trade treaties signed by the countries they are suing. The rules are enforced by panels which have none of the safeguards we expect in our own courts. The hearings are held in secret. The judges are corporate lawyers, many of whom work for companies of the kind whose cases they hear. Citizens and communities affected by their decisions have no legal standing. There is no right of appeal on the merits of the case. Yet they can overthrow the sovereignty of parliaments and the rulings of supreme courts.

You don’t believe it? Here’s what one of the judges on these tribunals says about his work. “When I wake up at night and think about arbitration, it never ceases to amaze me that sovereign states have agreed to investment arbitration at all … Three private individuals are entrusted with the power to review, without any restriction or appeal procedure, all actions of the government, all decisions of the courts, and all laws and regulations emanating from parliament.”

There are no corresponding rights for citizens. We can’t use these tribunals to demand better protections from corporate greed. As the Democracy Centre says, this is “a privatised justice system for global corporations”.

Even if these suits don’t succeed, they can exert a powerful chilling effect on legislation. One Canadian government official, speaking about the rules introduced by the North American Free Trade Agreement, remarked: “I’ve seen the letters from the New York and DC law firms coming up to the Canadian government on virtually every new environmental regulation and proposition in the last five years. They involved dry-cleaning chemicals, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, patent law. Virtually all of the new initiatives were targeted and most of them never saw the light of day.” Democracy, as a meaningful proposition, is impossible under these circumstances.

This is the system to which we will be subject if the transatlantic treaty goes ahead. The US and the European commission, both of which have been captured by the corporations they are supposed to regulate, are pressing for investor-state dispute resolution to be included in the agreement.

The commission justifies this policy by claiming that domestic courts don’t offer corporations sufficient protection because they “might be biased or lack independence”. Which courts is it talking about? Those of the US? Its own member states? It doesn’t say. In fact it fails to produce a single concrete example demonstrating the need for a new, extrajudicial system. It is precisely because our courts are generally not biased or lacking independence that the corporations want to bypass them. The EC seeks to replace open, accountable, sovereign courts with a closed, corrupt system riddled with conflicts of interest and arbitrary powers.

Investor-state rules could be used to smash any attempt to save the NHS from corporate control, to re-regulate the banks, to curb the greed of the energy companies, to renationalise the railways, to leave fossil fuels in the ground. These rules shut down democratic alternatives. They outlaw leftwing politics.

This is why there has been no attempt by the UK government to inform us about this monstrous assault on democracy, let alone consult us. This is why the Conservatives who huff and puff about sovereignty are silent. Wake up, people we’re being shafted.

Twitter: @georgemonbiot. A fully referenced version of this article can be found at monbiot.com

Nov 072013
 

Hi Everyone,

We can lend a hand here:

  • Pandora’s Promise is a slick piece of propaganda for the nuclear industry, airing on CNN.
  • The Atomic States of America (bless good people) tells a different story.  I watched it – it’s well done, worth your time, and free on-line for the next 2 days.

Please pass it along.  The battle over nuclear is being waged on many fronts by thousands of people, at the moment much of it over disposal of radioactive waste (Great Lakes area).

Remember Fukishima.  My brother’s reaction to today’s BBC science report on Fukishima (appended):  now which way is that jetstream flowing ?  We all have a stake.

Read on! . . . .   /Sandra

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Help Counter Pandora’s Promise on CNN – Atomic States of America will air free online Nov. 6 – 8.

CNN will nationally broadcast the much criticized, pro-nuclear power film Pandora’s Promise on Thursday, November 7. CNN is airing the film without offering any opposing viewpoints despite requests and petitions from Beyond Nuclear and others. To help provide balance and a critical perspective on nuclear power, The Atomic States of America film will be available to view free online from November 6 – 8. Atomic States provides a comprehensive exploration of the history and impact of nuclear power to date, and investigates the truths and myths about nuclear energy. Please help promote the film’s availability to your networks and friends. More

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Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps (and native of Michigan) will debate Michael Shellenberger (re: Pandora’s Promise) on CNN Headline News, Thursday, November 7th at 7:45pm! Everyone tune in!

Pandora’s Promise on CNN – cnn.com 9 PM ET Thursday
www.cnn.com/ PandorasPromise
What Price Would you Pay to Power the Future? Watch Thursday 9p ET.

Pandora’s False Promises [ From Beyond Nuclear]
Pandora’s Promise, is a new pro-nuclear propaganda documentary released theatrically in the US in July 2013. It is funded in part by individuals with a vested interest in seeing the development of new reactors and is seemingly a vehicle by which to raise the profile of the anti-environmental Oakland think tank, The Breakthrough Institute, whose personnel feature prominently in the film. Despite the film’s premise and early claim that it features “a growing number of leading former anti-nuclear activists” who now support nuclear energy, no one in the film ever led the anti-nuclear movement. Nor was any credible, independent scientific or medical professional with expertise in the areas covered in the film consulted or featured. Beyond Nuclear has bird-dogged the film from the beginning, and has produced numerous critiques. We have also published a definitive report – Pandora’s False Promises: Busting the pro-nuclear propaganda – and a two-page synopsis. These documents address virtually all of the myths, lies and omissions typically found in pro-nuclear rhetoric and are intended to address these long after Pandora’s Promise fades into deserved oblivion.

 

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—–Original Message—–

To: Sandra Finley

Subject: jet

 

now which way is that jetstream flowing ? www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24843657

BBC Science report on Fukishima, Nov 6 by Shukman

 

—–Reply—–

Unlikely to be reported in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, in spite of the Province’s big investment in the industry. Gotta keep the locals drugged and dopey.

Nov 052013
 

I joined numerous peace groups on-line.  Skimming the comments, there is a common thread of people’s optimism.  Maria from Italy: ” a new awarenes among common people that is encouraging and make us hope that together we really can”. 

Nima from Libya makes a valiant effort to communicate in English.  Run down her postings in hieroglyphics unknown to me . . . some translated items . . . easy to see that she is doing the same work as am I.

Libya is predominantly Muslim;  I don’t care about Nima’s religion.  She and I are closely connected in spirit and heart.  I am moved that she will try to understand my language and communicate in it – – must be really hard to do.  I feel love for this person.

To Maria’s “We (common people) CAN”, I replied:

I don’t know if the link below can be helpful, it is from a Canadian perspective.

Canadian leaders have sold us out to American Corporate interests and ideology (exploit and use violence to get your way in the World).

For them to be successful, they have to make “Muslims” into “enemies”.

When I challenged a hate email, I came to see the role of ego – – it makes good people vulnerable to hate messages.

What I hope:  the “awareness among common people” described by Maria will be helped if more people can understand the role played by ego.  If we can neutralize its power, we will be more likely to succeed in “Together We Can”.

Here is the link:  http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=10753.  Ego – its role in putting democracy to rest.  (Hoax:  A German’s view on Islam)

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You may be interested in this article:

A Field Guide to Losing Friends, Influencing No One, and Alienating the Middle East

By Bob Dreyfuss

Nov 012013
 

http://www.nationofchange.org/nsa-spying-really-about-blackmail-1383294652

 

I POSTED A RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE ARTICLE: 

(changed from the original)

 

RE: the spying .. to target up-and-coming potential leaders of so-called “friendly states.”
AND your suggestion that the NSA might represent “the heads of key corporate interests“.

 

I am a citizen of a “friendly state” (Canada).  There is an overlooked point in your very good article.  My read on the reason for targeting by the NSA of “potential leaders” in other nations? . . .

Evidence points to a well-known practice of the American military-industrial-congressional complex:

set up PUPPET REGIMES in countries whose resources the corporations want to exploit.

  • the NSA monitors the “potential leaders” in order to identify the ones with quisling potential
  • the American military-industrial-congressional complex then    BANKROLLS their selected candidate
  • Once “elected”, the quislings can be relied upon to sell their souls and their country. The corporatocracy has taken over.

In Canada we have seen a terrible capitulation to “key (American) corporate interests”. Those interests have infiltrated our politics, bureaucracy and universities.

    • Lockheed Martin & others in the war industry
    • Monsanto & others in the chemical/GMO industry
    • Oil & Gas companies
    • Nuclear interests

The dismantling of democracy that has happened rapidly in the last years is breath-taking. Vote fraud is high on the list.   Corruption? – – don’t look in Africa, it is abundant right here in North America.  It is the consequence of “public-private-partnerships”.

The corruption is predictable.  See   Thinkers of the Day on the Unholy Alliances between Government (public institutions) and Industry 

Nov 012013
 

http://www.nationofchange.org/rising-resistance-obama-s-drone-wars-1383294498

“I wasn’t scared of drones before, but now when they fly overhead I wonder, ‘Will I be next?’” That is the question asked by 9-year-old Nabila Rehman, from northwest Pakistan. She was injured in a drone attack a year ago, in her small village of Ghundi Kala. She saw her grandmother, Mamana Bibi, blown to pieces in the strike. Her brother Zubair also was injured. Their case has become the latest to draw attention to the controversial targeted killing program that has become central to President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and global war-making.

“We really just have a very simple message to the U.S.: How do you justify killing a grandmother? How does that make anyone safer?” Mustafa Qadri posed the question on the “Democracy Now!” news hour. Qadri authored a new Amnesty International report titled “‘Will I Be Next?’ U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan.”

Article image

Nabila and Zubair are unique among the growing number of drone-strike victims: They were able to appear before Congress, along with their father, Rafiq ur Rehman, to testify about the strike and the devastation it brought to their family. They are featured in a new documentary being released for free on the Internet this week, “Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars,” by Brave New Films. In it, Rafiq, a primary-school teacher, describes that day:

“People enjoyed life before the attacks. It was 2:45 on October 24th of 2012. After school finished I went into town to buy school supplies.” When he returned home, they told him his mother was dead. There was a crater where her garden was. She was picking okra with the children. “That’s where my mother was killed,” Rafiq continues. “My family has been destroyed since my mother was killed.” Nine children in all were injured, as this drone strike fit a typical pattern, with one initial strike, followed closely by another to hit the rescuers.

13-year-old Zubair testified before Congress: “When the drone fired the first time, the whole ground shook and black smoke rose up. The air smelled poisonous. We ran, but several minutes later the drone fired again. People from the village came to our aid and took us to the hospital. We spent the night in great agony at the hospital, and the next morning I was operated on.”

Attacking rescuers is a war crime. Mustafa Qadri from Amnesty International explained: “For example, some laborers in a very impoverished village near the Afghanistan border, they get targeted, eight die instantly in a tent; those who come to rescue or to look for survivors are themselves targeted. In great detail, eyewitnesses, victims who survive, tell us about the terror, the panic, as drones hovered overhead. … There’s a very high threshold for proving [war crimes]. With the secrecy surrounding the program, the remoteness of this area, we can only get the truth once the U.S. comes clean and explains what is the justification for these killings.”

President Obama himself consistently defends the accuracy and legality of the targeted killing program. He was directly challenged on it recently, though, by his own 16-year-old human-rights hero, Malala Yousafzai. She is the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen for her outspoken support for educating girls and women. Many thought she would win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. While the White House did not publicize her comments, Malala released a separate statement about her visit with the Obamas, saying, “I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.”

Resistance to Obama’s drone wars is growing. In upstate New York, in a surprise ruling, five anti-drone activists were acquitted after being tried for blocking the gate of Hancock Field Air National Guard Base near Syracuse. Code Pink is organizing a national conference in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 16-17, called “Drones Around the Globe: Proliferation and Resistance.” And at least one drone pilot, Brandon Bryant, a former sensor operator for the U.S. Air Force Predator program, has now spoken out about the horrors of killing innocent civilians and the post-traumatic stress disorder that followed.

While only five members of Congress (all Democrats) came to hear the Rehman family testify, the words of young Zubair are now on the record, a painful testament to Obama’s policy of so-called targeted killing with drones:

“I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray. And for a short period of time, the mental tension and fear eases. When the skies brighten, though, the drones return, and so, too, does the fear.”

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

© 2011 Amy Goodman Distributed by King Features Syndicate

 

Oct 312013
 

ILLUSION IS THE FIRST OF ALL PLEASURES (VOLTAIRE).

THE WORLD WANTS TO BE DECEIVED (HITLER) 

 

I wish to make one point:  Historically, people deny that the invader is coming.  They are caught off-guard.

 

Two examples

  • Ardennes woods in World War Two and
  • more recently, the experience of Sarajevo.

 

Please!  I do not want Canada added to the list of democracies lost!

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1.     ARDENNES WOODS

Click on   “THE SPIES OF WARSAW”, 2008, by ALAN FURST.   (http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=10764)   A short set of passages from an excellent novel explain

ARDENNES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardennes

Allied generals in World War II felt the region was impenetrable to massed vehicular traffic and especially armor, so the area was effectively “all but undefended” during the war, leading to the German Army twice using the region as an invasion route into Northern France and Southern Belgium via Luxembourg in the Battle of France and the later Battle of the Bulge.

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2.   SARAJEVO

I was spell-bound by a conversation with a younger woman a few years back.  She was studying law at the University of Saskatchewan, but born and raised in the beautiful and cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo.

On a lovely Saturday morning she and her sister happily boarded a train to travel to the birthday celebration of a relative.  Within a short time they saw from the train windows the advancing soldiers and armaments.  This was their first knowledge that their city was under siege.

They frantically phoned home to tell the devastating news to their parents. The two young women were unable to return home; the parents were unable to leave Sarajevo.   The siege was for four years.  Their home was entered, belongings taken, hardships for the parents -well told in the story  “The Cellist of Sarajevo”.

This young woman felt she was representative of others:  they didn’t know what was coming until it happened.

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Related Postings:

 A powerful passage by John Ralston Saul about the fighting of terrorists appears in this posting.

 

 

Oct 302013
 

With most people, unbelief in one thing is founded on blind belief in another. –Lichtenberg

Unbelief in Islam,  Blind belief in ourselves.

A police state WILL come to be, as it did in Nazi Germany, if we are unable to deal with the complexity of putting our collective ego aside.

If we are blinded by the nation, race and religious identifications of EGO, we are busy shooting “THE OTHER” while the police state is in the process of being imposed upon us.

Democracy is quickly going out the window.   If we can understand the role of ego in our failure to effectively defend, we might escape.

The solution is more complex than mobilizing people “soon enough” by “creating awareness”, as I have stated in the past.

I think we have to address OBSTACLE:

ego claps blinders on us.  We DEFEND and DENY because ego prevents us from seeing what is real and happening.   I try to make it clear through the example of the hoax email I received,  A German’s view on Islam,  about “Muslim fanatics” (below).

The historical record on the ability of citizens to recognize approaching danger, to prevent destruction, is not encouraging!   Illusion and Denial that the invader is on the way (Ardennes, Sarajevo).  Canada?

UPDATE (Related):  2013-11-24  Propaganda:  Not the Whole Story, “Muslims @ Michigan State”

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I received the email  A German’s view on Islam (appended).   And replied.

The email also happens to be a hoax, not written as claimed, by Dr. Emmanuel Tanay.  He is a psychiatrist, a holocaust survivor, and not German.   He denounces the email.

I wonder how many people accept it? and pass it along  . . .  Let’s say “lots!“

A German’s view on Islam caused me to change my view on the avoidability of World War Two.

There is a devil in the works.  Go a level deeper, ask

WHY DIDN’T the Germans speak up sooner, to stop what they knew was wrong while they still could?

We have talked about the role of propaganda in Nazi Germany, in creating “enemies”.   Much has been written about psychological vulnerability of the German population, the humiliation following World War One.

WHY DIDN’T they speak up sooner?   The answer to the question is important because we are in the process of repeating the mistakes made by the Germans.

 

WHY DIDN’T the Germans speak up sooner?

First, a definition of “ego” is helpful:

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. …   / Eckhart Tolle

 

MY REPLY  TO  A German’s view on Islam  (changed my thinking)

Maybe you sent (appended email about MUSLIM FANATICS) because it reinforces what I have been saying:  the second world war did not need to happen.  People who KNEW what was happening and that it was WRONG, did not speak up IN TIME (the “silent majority”).   The Nazis consolidated power and military control;  it became TOO LATE to resist.

That same message is clear in the information you sent.  (Along with the message that Muslims are our enemies.)

I am saying to Canadians:  WE are making the same mistakes as the Germans.  Corporate takeover leads to a police state, just as it happened in Nazi Germany.

I argue from experience of Lockheed Martin (learned because of my trial under the Statistics Act and the input of many people in our network).

  • Read “IBM and the Holocaust”.   It is exactly what is being done through Statistics Canada – – the build up of detailed data on individual citizens.  Even the vehicle is the same:  census (and “survey”) data. 
  • There’s a build-up in the industries of war (which can conveniently be used to “control”  your own population).  Again, the template is Nazi Germany.
  • Military/surveillance drones are deployed all along the Canada-U.S. border and have been for a few years.
  • Look at what Edward Snowden leaked about the NSA “listening in”.  I just posted an update:  2013-10-30  NSA intercepts Google, Yahoo traffic overseas: report.  Google says it was not aware of U.S. government tapping of its internal traffic
  • Lockheed Martin is worming its way into our “educational” institutions  (“conditioning centres”).
  • The “intellectuals” become part of the enabling machinery.  Look at Acting Dean of Engineering, Ernie Barber, at the University of Saskatchewan who defended Lockheed Martin’s role  – – he said their involvement is in “renewable technologies”. 

Lockheed Martin’s own document for University collaboration?  See Lockheed Martin at U of S.  “Collaboration Topics”.     

Six months later at the next meeting of University Senate, Barber repeated that LM’s role is in “renewable technologies”.  

It is a very misleading statement.  The war industry DOES have an interest in “renewable energy” – –  when they invade and destroy your country it would be convenient if they didn’t have to find a source for ALL the fossil fuels they require.

Universities are to be married to the search for truth, not part of the spin-doctoring that serves corporate masters. 

The betrayal by the “intellectuals” in Nazi Germany is well-documented.  Ernie Barber is only one of many.

  • There is Harper’s dismantling of democracy.
  • How about the rise and seeming acceptance of propaganda to replace informed public discussion?
  • Look at Lockheed Martin – – they and the other killers (fanatics) EXPORT the weapons they manufacture to the “terrorists”  ($$$).   They have been convicted over and over again for breaking the “arms export control ” laws.   They are ARMING the other fanatics.  Again, a repeat of World War Two.
  • The war industries bankrupt the nation.  Look at the wildly escalated debt in the U.S. – – it is currently more than $17 trillion – – a terribly de-stabilizing force in any nation.  . . .  What does a nation need to combat civilian unrest? 

The road we are on is clear enough.

BUT HERE IS THE THING that becomes evident through A German’s view on Islam: 

By looking OUTSIDE, and assigning blame (creating enemies, The Muslim Fanatics), we unwittingly BECOME the ‘silent majority’ in our own country, who SHOULD have spoken up about our own situation, but didn’t.   

If people were not so busy shaking the stick and bombs at “others”, they might be able to see what is happening right here.

If democracy falls, it will be because of the blindness caused by ego. Ego wants “us”  (our country) to be seen as “good” .  (It also diverts us to  other “ego identifications” – – possessions, social status, physical appearance, family history – – we don’t see the invaders coming.)

We can’t even see the Corporate Force when it turns and is now directed at the soul of our own country.

So  (the appended email):  it is not so much a ‘silent majority’, as a majority who are blinded to what is happening in their own country, through the role of ego with its nationalistic, racial, religious, . . . identifications.

Attack Muslims because they are Muslim?  . . .   but WHO is launching illegal wars?  WHO is dropping bombs from drones?   WHO is using radioactive, “depleted” uranium in (chemical) weapons?  WHO is breaking the International Laws against torture?

If you want to stop what is happening, you have to JOIN WITH  “the peaceful majority”, be they (quoting from the email)

Muslim, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Rwandans, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians. 

The thing that is CHANGED since WW2:  it IS possible to join forces with peaceful Muslims.  And create a critical mass that will stop the war-profiteering that will poison us all with chemical & nuclear weapons.  If climate change doesn’t do us in, first.

 

With most people unbelief in one thing is founded on blind belief in another. —

The ego and its identification with nation, race and religion does not see the very thing that it accuses “the other” of being.  The “terrorists” (or fanatics, or killers – –  whatever you want to call them) are us, ourselves. 

As Pogo said, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.”

If you fail to recognize the role of our own “fanatics”  we are going to find ourselfves in a police state right here in Canada.   All the signs are there, and the machinery has been put in place, step-by-step.   It is deliberate and progressing nicely.

By-The-Way:  to rally support for arresting Cheney when he comes to Canada on Oct 31,  I joined every Peace, including every Muslim peace group I could find on Facebook.   (Justice is PREREQUISITE to peace.)

I searched on the word “peace”.  Not one group came up that had the name “peace” and “Christian”.  Not saying that there aren’t any – – just that none came up.  I will look further.

/Sandra

P.S.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that terrorists do not exist in other countries and that a strategy is not required.   John Ralston Saul spells it out better than I ever could.  Please see

 

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APPENDED, 

THE EMAIL RECEIVED:    (WHICH IS A HOAX)

Sent: October-17-13
To: Finley Sandra
Subject: FW: Extremely good.: A German’s view on Islam

—– Original Been around before, but a good refresher…

WE NEED TO REALIZE THAT WE MAY BE A PART OF THE SILENT MAJORITY WHO SIT SILENTLY AND WAIT —–

A German’s View on Islam – worth reading. This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.

‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come.

My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’

We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people..

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

Now Islamic prayers have been introduced into Toronto and other public schools in Ontario, and, yes, in Ottawa too while the Lord’s Prayer was removed (due to being so offensive?) The Islamic way may be peaceful for the time being in our country until the fanatics move in.

In Australia, and indeed in many countries around the world, many of the most commonly consumed food items have the halal emblem on them. Just look at the back of some of the most popular chocolate bars, and at other food items in your local supermarket. Food on aircraft have the halal emblem, just to appease the privileged minority who are now rapidly expanding within the nations shores.

In the U.K, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of no-go zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon. Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuse to acknowledge British law.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts — the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on – before it’s too late.

And we are silent……

 

 

Oct 302013
 

(1)     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6AMR65l2hE&fb_source=message  

Photos from around the world, Marches Against Monsanto, alphabetically by place name, set to music.

Patience was rewarded!  I didn’t like the beginning, but hung in.  This is an exciting statement of the mobilization.  The March is every 6 months, each one bigger than the one before.

“Someone” will likely do a photo record for the next March (May 24, 2014).   Must mention to my community group – – let’s get our photos up so we are in the record for the next March.   It’s inspiring!

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 (2)   http://sgtreport.com/2013/10/why-are-people-protesting-gmos-and-monsanto/