Sandra Finley

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.”

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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!

 – – – – – – – – –  – – – – – –  – – –

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.

– – – – – – – – –  – – – – – – – – – –

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.

– – – – – – – – –  – – – – – –  – – –

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”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

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

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

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!

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

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

Oct 302013
 

#surveillance

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/30/us-usa-security-google-idUSBRE99T18S20131030

Reuters

The National Security Agency has tapped directly into communications links used by Google and Yahoo to move huge amounts of email and other user information among overseas data centres, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday. It was unclear how the NSA accessed the links.

The report, based on secret NSA documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden, appears to show that the agency has used weak restrictions on its overseas activities to exploit even major U.S. companies’ data to a far greater extent than previously realized.

Previously reported programs included those that allowed easy searches of Google’s, Yahoo’s and other Internet giants’ material based on court orders. But because the interception in the newly disclosed effort, code named MUSCULAR, occurs outside the United States, there is no oversight by the secret intelligence court.

Google, which recently said it is speeding its efforts to encrypt internal traffic, told Reuters: “We’re troubled by allegations of the government intercepting traffic between our data centers, and we are not aware of this activity.”

Like other major companies, Google and Yahoo constantly send data over leased and shared or exclusive international fiber-optic telecommunication lines as they sync information.

The newly disclosed program, operated jointly with the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), amassed 181 million records in one recent 30-day span, according to one document reported by the Post. It could not be learned how much of that included material from U.S. residents, how the agency redacted data on them or how much of the information was retained.

An NSA spokesperson said in a statement that the suggestion in the Post article that the agency relies on a presidential order on foreign intelligence gathering to skirt domestic restrictions imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other laws “is not true.”

“The assertion that we collect vast quantities of U.S. persons’ data from this type of collection is also not true,” the statement said. “NSA is a foreign intelligence agency. And we’re focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only.”

Asked at an event in Washington about the latest report, NSA Director General Keith Alexander said that he had not read it but that the agency did not have unfettered access to the U.S. companies’ servers.

“I can tell you factually we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers,” Alexander said at a Bloomberg Government conference. “We go through a court order.”

He did not directly address whether the agency intercepts such traffic in transit. The NSA is known to tap undersea cables.

A Yahoo spokeswoman said: “We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency.”

The report is likely to add to growing tensions between the U.S. intelligence establishment and the tech companies, which have been struggling to assure customers overseas that they needn’t fear U.S. spying.

 

Oct 272013
 

Related:

  •   “THE SPIES OF WARSAW”,  2008, by ALAN FURST.
  • Propaganda, Democracy: . . . The Cellist of Sarajevo.

 

I have great difficulty seeing myself because I am the centre.  It’s hard to “get outside” myself for an objective look at what I’m really like.   Hey,  I’m great! … Faults?  Me?  Hell, I’m perfect!

And so it is with our society.  We are at the centre.  What’s real?  What’s not?  Can we ever know?

For some time I have wondered what it was like in the countries of Europe in the lead-up to World War Two  – Norway for example where my maternal line is from.   Some people saw the signs of war, but how many?   Could they have formed a critical mass in order to avert the destruction?   In some situations people have done so.

During the 1990’s, people around the globe worked together to avert a large pending disruption that would have come as computer calendars  automatically tried to go from 1999 to the next year when the “19” part of the date was hard-wired into most of the systems.  This was the turn-of-the-century  “Y2K” (Year Two Thousand) problem.  The disaster that could have happened didn’t, because people identified the problem in advance and worked ferociously to make sure it didn’t  happen.   Success!  And the knowledge that we CAN do it, if we focus our energies.

I don’t have personal experience with growing up during the build-up of Naziism.  But through the years I’ve read enough history to know something about World War Two.

Kitty Werthmann’s warnings about the parallels in the U.S. today resonate with me.  Many Americans are seeing the same as Kitty; they are organizing in creative ways to avert a pending disaster.

Flash points, the moment at which the population mobilizes, are unpredictable.

As I see it, there are two flash points that have come together in North America:

  1. Dec 30, 2009.  Canada:  the proroguing of Parliament to shut down public debate over Afghan detainees (among other things).

Three weeks later:

2.  Jan 21, 2010.  U.S.:  the Supreme Court decision on corporate financing of political parties that further entrenched the idea that corporations have the same rights as people.

 

The two events had the same outcome:  masses of people in North America finally drew the line.   Enough is enough.  They are standing up, speaking out and mobilizing.

In August 2007 I was disturbed when Canadian police officers were trained and deployed,  disguised as protestors, to turn the peaceful protest at the SPP Montebello Meeting violent (“professional provocateurs”).   There have been repeated, persistent calls for a public inquiry.  I do not believe there is one underway, to this day.  Police and their masters MUST be held accountable in a democracy.

Six months later, in February 2008 I was nervous about the Canada-U.S. Troop Exchange Agreement (“Civil Assistance Plan”), initially announced in the U.S. but not in Canada.

Two months later, in June 2008 I was nervous about the “Canada First Defence Strategy” which means that Canada has “compatible doctrine” with the Americans and “interoperability”.  Along with an integration of top military commanders.

Six months later, in December 2008 I read the story of what happened to Jackie Stower and her family in Ohio, at the hands of a Department of Agriculture SWAT team.  The Stowers run “Manna Warehouse”, a food co-op.  The story was so outrageous I thought it could not be true; it could not be happening in the U.S..  Well, it DID happen.  (See  2008-12-11  Please join my conspiracy. . . .  SWAT team raids Ohio Food Co-op, Jackie Stowers. . . ).   Google coughed up a phone number; I phoned Jackie.  We are both involved in court proceedings.

All of this is on top of knowing too much about how the large corporations work in the world.  And how the American Government routinely subverts regimes in order to appropriate natural resources on behalf of its corporations, especially oil and gas.  To mention nothing of the attempts to own and control the food supply (the chemical-biotech corporations).   Health facilities (the pharmaceutical-biotech corps).  Water.  Knowledge (universities).

On the same topic but earlier than the Troop Exchange Agreement, I did not fill in my census form when part of the work was out-sourced to Lockheed Martin Corporation, principal agent in the American Military-industrial-congressional complex.  And alas! I now know the role of census data in Nazi Europe.

As I am preparing this email, when I re-read Jackie Stower’s story I am appalled all over again.  I want to reach out to Ohio and put my hand on her arm to make sure she is real.

And therein lies our frailty:  I do not WANT to believe.  I prefer the illusion – the myth – to reality.

Our society is very comfortable with illusion.   Think of all the capability for taking pictures; cell-phones are everywhere.  They are routinely used to capture the moment.  I am reminded of a quote by Arnold Newman:

Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It   is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.

 

We are steeped in illusion.   But denial of reality can be a very dangerous place to be.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

 

http://thinkexist.com/quotations/illusion/

Freud:

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

 

Patrick Henry:

It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts… For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.

 

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/illusion.html

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul Bellow

 

A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.
Georges Bernanos

 

And, hey, I’m not under the illusion that everything’s just going to be hunky-dory                         work wise forever. I’ve never been under that illusion. Things could go away tomorrow.
Mel Gibson

Oct 272013
 

THE SPIES OF WARSAW” (2008) is an historically-accurate novel written by Alan Furst.

From the chapter “A shadow of war”:

(p. 225) “Even better,” Dr. Lapp said.  “A General Staff is always a field of divergent opinions – ours is no different – but among these officers there are always two or three who have an intuitive understanding of what the future might hold.”

“One wouldn’t have to be all that intuitive to understand Herr Hitler’s intentions.”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you, but you’d be wrong.  Do you know the Latin proverb Mundus vult decipi, ergo decepiatur?  Herr Hitler’s favorite saying:  The world wants to be deceived, therefore let it be deceived.  And he isn’t wrong.  Newspapers on the continent explain every day why there won’t be war.  And I assure you there will be, unless the right people determine to stop it.”

(p. 265)  “I found a way to acquire important information.  They, the officers of the General Staff, have chosen not to believe it.”  (that the Nazis would attack through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium).

(p. 266 – last page) “Then she raised her glass.  “Anyhow, salut, and vive la France,” she said.  “It’s the good side, and I do mean the three of us, who will win in the end.”

They didn’t.

Twenty-four months later, with Guderian in command, a massive German tank attack through the Ardennes Forest breached the French defenses, and – on 22 June, 1940 – France capitulated.  The former Colonel Charles de Gaulle, by then promoted to general, left France and led the resistance from London.  …

And on 25 June, 1940, Marshal Philippe Pétain accepted the leadership of the Vichy government.”

Oct 162013
 

Dick Cheney is to be “keynote speaker” in Toronto on Oct 31. 

PROTEST:  Thursday, Oct 31,  11:00am EDT  

Metro Toronto Convention Centre

255 Front St W

Toronto

(Facebook)

This is about the Rule of Law.

What is that worth to you?

 

An incredible array of organizations and people have assembled, to see that if Cheney comes into Canada he is arrested.  

 

Irony:  TODAY, in the Speech from the Throne, (twice)

The Government is committed to  “The Rule of Law”

 

Let’s hold them to it!  

There are ideas below (spread the word, contact your MP, be creative – – see #5.) 

 

(1)    2013-09-30  Bar Dick Cheney from Canada or arrest and prosecute say U.S. and Canadian torture opponents 

                EXCERPT:

A letter has been sent to Canada’s Prime Minister, Attorney General and Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Immigration advising them of Canada’s legal obligations. For a complete copy of the letter submitted click here.

 

(2)    2013-10-16 Canada must arrest & Prosecute Cheney for torture if he enters Canada, NO RESPONSE FROM GOVT – –  Protest Planned on Halloween at Metro Toronto Convention Centre 

 

Mount the steeds!   Let’s pitch in!

 

(3)    What a beautiful time to contact your MP and quote the Throne Speech to them!   

(4)     Help spread the word:   Protest on Hallowe’en at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.  The Facebook page for the protest is here.

I’m on facebook for activism reasons.  I joined a bunch of peace groups, initially to make the argument that if there is to be peace,  we have to address the profitability of making war, the “war corporations” (like Lockheed Martin).    

I will post to the peace groups I joined, about this Cheney initiative.  Am hoping that lots of phone calls will be made to MP’s.

 

(5)     I’ve done some checking.  See Who puts on International Economic Forum of the Americas? (Cheney is guest speaker for them.)

 

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My ego does not like to be so wrong!  Written at the end of August:   

George Bush and Dick Cheney didn’t get arrested for war crimes when they came to Canada, but have you noticed that they stopped coming?!

                                From The POwer of Fun. Fun in the streets. 

(They’re back.  Hopefully this time will be bad enough that it’s the last time.)

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Background for newcomers: