2012-03-28 Laliberte: Law Society reply to Statement of Facts, assigning Complaints Officer John McIntosh
Click on: L.S. Complaint process (reply from law society)
NOTE: Patience, give the 3rd page time to load.
Mar 282012
Sandra Finley
Mar 272012
I still find it amazing that Steven Bryant was driven, helped by his friend David Janikowski, to figure out the puzzle of an abnormal number and distribution of “closely contested” ridings in the May 2, 2011 Federal Election within a couple days of the Election.
The Election results were in. They knew something was wrong right then. They went to work on the numbers and figured out the fraud of “vote moving”. They were alarmed, put together a video to explain how it works and posted the arguments in a weeks’ time. But in May 2011 no one gave them credibility, no one would listen.
Now hear this recent radio interview with Steven. He makes the additional important argument: The Chief Electoral Officer, Marc Maynard, had a responsibility to guard against fraud in the voting system. That there was a “leak in the ship” was known because of complaints from the previous Federal Election (reference an earlier posting).
The interview starts at the 40 minute mark. (Click on, and drag the timer along the bottom. It shows the time when it’s being dragged.) Listen to the end. Steven’s passionate plea to Canadians should be heeded.
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An interview in the Georgia Strait with Steven Bryant.
Maple Ridge resident calls for federal voter fraud inquiry http://www.straight.com/article-640706/vancouver/resident-calls-voter-fraud-inquiry
A Maple Ridge man believes illegal “vote moving” helped secure Prime Minister Stephen Harper his majority in the federal election last May 2, and now he wants a full public inquiry.
“Once I did the count, I realized that his vote split to take the majority [as opposed to another minority] was only 4,635 votes,” Steven Bryant told the Georgia Straight by phone. “And I thought that was really peculiar. I had really just complained to [a friend]…about the election process, about the results, for two days. He said, ‘Steve, why don’t you just go and do something about it?’ So I went and I started to do the math, and that’s when I realized that a lot of these ridings that were close-race ridings were in metropolitan areas like Toronto and Winnipeg and Regina and [Saskatoon–]
Rosetown–Biggar.”
Bryant said he got his total of the 4,635 majority-making votes from 13 of the closest races he could find, many of them in the Greater Toronto Area. According to Bryant, who said he has training in fraud management, Canada’s electoral system is wide open to abuse.
In his eight-minute YouTube video posted May 12, 2011, Bryant explains that moving votes requires certain conditions, like a close race happening next to projected lopsided races, such as Winnipeg’s Elmwood-Transcona riding, where Conservative MP Lawrence Toet won by only 300 votes but was surrounded by blue blowouts.
Bryant said the tactics are made possible thanks to election-day registrations, where he noted that a bank statement and one piece of secondary ID is enough to get you registered to vote, with only one of the two requiring an address.
“Allowing a bank statement is half of the weakness,” he said. “The other half is that no digital image of the original document, with name and address, was taken. Weak documentation plus no digital image equals an invite for fraud.”
Bryant said he contacted every MP but only Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May has so far responded. He said he also contacted Elections Canada but has not been given any help from the national agency. However, he said he is not getting as many dismissive comments online since the so-called robocalls scandal broke, and he said his YouTube hit count has increased to more than 3,600 from just 500 “pre robocalls”. He has also set up a website at www.votemoving.com/.
“I won’t feel vindicated until there’s a public inquiry and I can see how many little white pieces of paper were signed [same day registrations], like the one I signed,” Bryant said.
Long-time Green party activist Doug Gook told the Straight he met Bryant at a local rally and was immediately taken by his passion for justice. “I’ve been waiting for people who recognize the fraudulent loopholes in our electoral system—for the necessary combination of lawyers, judges, and people—that can press these issues further, to have as much conviction as Steven does,” Gook said by phone. “We need it. It’s a desperate situation. We can’t have another four years of this man [Harper]. So much would be so entrenched, court-system wise, and so much of that stuff would be so far gone. It would be a very dangerous situation.”
Gook said he also wants to see an inquiry and said Elections Canada officials should demand by-elections for any ridings they deem necessary.
James Hale, media relations officer at Elections Canada, did not make chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand available for an interview by deadline. Heritage Minister James Moore also did not return messages left by the Straight.
However, Burnaby–Douglas NDP MP Kennedy Stewart, a long-time political-science professor, told the Straight that a full public inquiry is “entirely necessary”. “For me, it’s like we’ve kind of been pretending that we’ve been operating in the 1950s environment, but now we’re firmly in the 21st century and we’re starting to lose control of the electoral process, the administration of elections,” Stewart said by phone from his Burnaby office.
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VOTE MOVING” RELATED TO THE ROBOCALL COURT CASES
The fraud that Steven and David figured out and named provides an important framework with which to test and understand what happened. Without a concept it’s hard to have an effective discussion.
Canadians are pretty amazing! These young people inspire and give hope to me. They actually make my day pretty fun.
(Along with those “extremist leftwing” Council of Canadians!)
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Two previous postings on “Vote Moving”:
Mar 272012
This is exciting!
1) A YouTube of the Council of Canadians’ press conference announcing the legal challenges.
Click on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ni8C8kfHco
2) CBC Power and Politics, Electors take concerns to Court. Evan Solomon with a representative from each of the political parties (except the Greens). Dean Del Mastro (Conservative) calls the Council of Canadians an “extremist left wing” group! Wow! Is he ever good at not dealing with the issue. Why don’t the Conservatives call a Public Inquiry or Royal Commission? http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Politics/1244504890/ID=2216209806
3) National Post Report: Robocall ridings face legal challenge to overturn federal election results http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/27/activist-group-files-legal-challenge-to-overturn-election-results-in-robocall-ridings/
Postmedia News Mar 27, 2012 – 8:28 AM ET | Last Updated: Mar 27, 2012 11:54 AM ET
Aaron Lynett/National Post
By Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor
A citizen advocacy group is asking the Federal Court of Canada to overturn election results in seven ridings where telephone dirty tricks may have kept voters away from the polls.
The Council of Canadians says pre-recorded robocalls and live calls influenced the outcome of votes in closely fought races in British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon and Ontario.
The group is backing the first legal challenge of election results since the Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia News revealed ongoing Elections Canada investigations into misleading election day calls in Guelph and other ridings.
The organization’s lawyers filed four applications in court on Friday and was due to file three more Monday, all seeking have the results of the votes set aside.
The applications claim that irregular, fraudulent or illegal activities affected the outcome in each of the seven ridings.
All of the ridings named were won by Conservative candidates and all but one was decided by fewer than 1,000 votes.
The Council of Canadians is an Ottawa-based left-of-centre organization chaired by activist Maude Barlow and originally formed to oppose the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. in the 1980s.
The voter suppression tactics alleged in the litigation include “calls that misdirected electors to the wrong poll or calls of a harassing nature intended to discourage support for a particular candidate,” said Ottawa lawyer Steven Shrybman, who represents the council.
Shrybman said these cases test new ground by asking the court to weigh the effects of a pattern of voter suppression, not just specific acts that have characterized the few legal challenges of past election results.
“We don’t know exactly what the standards will be,” he said. “How do you measure the effect of voter suppression techniques on the result?”
Under section 524 of the Elections Act, any elector or candidate in a riding can launch a legal challenge of the outcome before a competent court. Each of the seven Council of Canadians applications is filed on behalf of named electors in the ridings.
The ridings involved in Council of Canadians cases were chosen because electors came forward and the margins of victory were comparatively small, meaning there is a reasonable basis to believe the alleged irregularities changed the result, Shrybman said.
“We think we have some good evidence about how effective robocalling is but on our evidence, a 6,000-vote margin would be hard to overcome.”
The legal challenge seeks to toss out the results in:
• Don Valley East: The Toronto riding where Conservative Joe Daniel defeated Liberal incumbent Yasmin Ratansi by 890 votes.
• Winnipeg South Centre, where Liberal Anita Neville was defeated by Conservative Joyce Batemen by 722 votes. Neville said on the eve of the election and on election day, Liberal voters in her riding received calls directing them to the wrong polling station, and earlier in the campaign, voters received harassing calls from fake Liberal callers.
• Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, where Conservative Kelly Block held off a challenge from New Democrat Nettie Wiebe, by 538 votes.
• Vancouver Island North, where Conservative John Duncan, now minister of aboriginal affairs, won over New Democrat Ronna-Rae Leonard by 1,827 votes. According to the Comox Valley Record, some voters in the riding have reported receiving automated calls directing them to non-existent polling stations.
• Yukon, where Liberal incumbent Larry Bagnell was defeated by Conservative Ryan Leef by 132 votes. The Yukon News has reported that identified opposition supporters in the riding received calls telling them their polling station had moved. Elections Canada has interviewed witnesses in the riding.
• Nipissing-Timiskaming in northern Ontario, where Conservative Jay Aspin beat incumbent Liberal MP Anthony Rota by 18 votes. A Liberal source said Rota didn’t want to be seen as a sore loser by launching his own challenge.
• Elmwood-Transcona in Manitoba, where Conservative Lawrence Toet defeated New Democrat incumbent Jim Maloway by 300 votes. The NDP says voters in the riding have reported receiving calls directing them to the wrong polling stations.
Not included in the legal action is Etobicoke-Centre, where former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj is funding his own legal challenge of the outcome after losing to Conservative Ted Opitz by 26 votes in the May 2 election.
Also not included is the riding of Guelph, the epicentre of the robocalls scandal, where Liberal Frank Valeriote won by more than 6,000 votes, despite more than 7,600 calls that fraudulently directed voters to the wrong polling stations.
If it is convinced that irregular or illegal acts changed the outcome, the court can void the results and trigger a byelection in each riding affected. But even if the Tories were to lose byelections in all seven ridings, they would still hold a majority of seats in the House of Commons.
Shrybman said he hopes the cases will be heard quickly.
“If this remedy is to have any utility, it has to be provided quickly,” he said, though he admitted it likely would take at least a year to resolve.
It would be faster than other federal court cases, however, because any decisions would be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, with the additional step of a hearing before the Federal Court of Appeal.
The organization hopes that it can use its lawsuit to discover the volume of deceptive or fraudulent calls in other ridings, by convincing a judge to order phone carriers to turn over records showing how many calls were placed into each riding from numbers associated with suspicious calls.
The respondents in all the cases are Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand, the returning officers in each riding, and all candidates on the ballot in each riding.
On Thursday, Mayrand is scheduled to discuss the robocalls scandal with MPs on the Procedure and House Affairs Committee.
Mayrand recently offered to come to committee, and was scheduled by the government to appear on the same day that most political journalists in Ottawa will be in the federal budget “lockup.”
The last time a court overturned a federal election result was 1988, when an Ontario Supreme court judge found that the number of questionable ballots cast in the Toronto-area riding of North York was greater than the margin of victory by Liberal Maurizio Bevilacqua. Bevilacqua won the subsequent election.
Nobody has said that they were prevented from voting by fraudulent or misdirecting calls during the election, although Elections Canada officials reported in court documents that angry voters in Guelph tore up their voter cards in when they discovered that they had been tricked.
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Many thanks to the Council of Canadians. (by the way, we just started a Saskatoon Chapter of the Council. Watch for the launch. Call me an “extremist”!)
Mar 272012
Hi….this is very eye opening ! Grant
– – – – – – — –
Thanks – Great. I posted – with a comment (which is Joseph’s story) – – something that is always missed in discussion re depression: mercury poisoning is a cause of depression. Remove the cause and you can be cured.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wIWuEAFlg1Y
Mar 262012
Daeran writes: On 16 July 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government announced that it would buy 65 F-35s to replace the existing 80 McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornets for C$16 billion, deliveries planned for 2016.
Problem is they are junk planes, Chinese and Russian Planes in war games dubbed pacifica.. knocked out hundreds of these ‘near useless’ planes..
Lets see, Lockheed Martin collects census data, maybe the 16 billion is to return the favour for helping to win the election..
The exercise PACAFs Pacific Vision on sept 25/08 revealed the United States air superiority is just a fantasy. We should buy our planes from Russia or China. America is losing its mind.. maybe its the fluoride.. hahaha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27qdB1D0s9M&feature=related
‘ The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful
servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten
the gift.’
Albert Einstein
Daeran
Mar 252012
You really should see this.
(Posted March 25 2012 on Mercola site. At 11:03 pm Saskatchewan time on March 25 , # of vuews = 127,544 )
Mar 252012
UPDATE: The leaks by Edward Snowden came in 2013.
The revelations by Snowden corroborated what we had already figured out from news reports.
But what a splendid act of service in the public good, by Snowden! Any videos of him, and his writings display intelligence and integrity well beyond what you might have expected from a 29-year-old (at the time of his dangerous acts of selflessness and courage).
Let us not forget his supreme sacrifices. I hope he and his partner find great joy in their hearts. /Sandra
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Hi Jim,
In your commentary on the article you say, “Who knows what of this is true or false?”
It is true.
In 2009 I had the same question (True/False?) re this gigantic (at that time $1.6 billion dollar) data centre. The report I read then made me very nervous so I searched further to verify. I found some articles, one in the Salt Lake Tribune for example. The info is posted on my blog: See http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=1872
A “sister” installation, from my perspective, is the biometric identification centre on the East Coast – – it was/is going through a very large expansion.
Sitting up here in Canada, what your Govt and corporations are doing makes me very nervous. Their plan is to drop the bomb (so to speak) on Canada at the same time as on you guys. One big happy “integrated” and “harmonized” military police state. All the makings are in place. And the quislings are in place in Canada to help carry it off. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister. Premier Brad Wall in my province of Saskatchewan. Our military is now integrated with yours. Harper is putting through a huge budget for more prisons. And so on. Nothing is imagined. It’s all very real. There is an accumulation of articles on my blog (click on Lockheed Martin, Census, Trial, War Economy). It’s something I follow because of Lockheed Martin’s involvement in the Canadian census (and yours – – where it should not be). And being on trial over the issue. Dwight Eisenhower warned us all, decades ago. It’s here now.
You may not have heard the news of the last month here in Canada – – rigged elections (the “robocall” scandal) – – some of the same companies at work as in the U.S. (The same companies supply “the services” to Republicans as to the Conservatives here.)
I agree entirely with the statement in the article: “Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together: ‘We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.”
Get to work!!!
In solidarity.
Sandra
– – – – – – – – – —–Original Message —–
From: Jim
Subject: Fw: More on spy city – Big Brother Goes Live September 2013
They keep pushin’ up the date to keep us anxiously engaged. Who knows what of this is true or false. Ef ’em, anyway. Don’t miss some of the
brilliant comments.
“Once a name is entered into the Narus database, all phone calls and other communications to and from that person are automatically routed to the NSA’s recorders. … Everything a person does becomes charted on a graph, ‘financial transactions or travel or anything,’ he says. … …the NSA is able to paint a more and more detailed picture of someone’s life. … Sitting in a restaurant not far from NSA headquarters, the place where he spent nearly 40 years of his life, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together: ‘We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.'”
Article here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/%E2%80%9Cwe-are-far-turnkey-totalitarian-state-big-brother-goes-live-september-2013
Mar 252012
(1 of 3) Find Alternatives to the Killing Ways
(2 of 3) Non-violent resistance versus killing war – Checkpoint Charlie – Compliance
(3rd of 3)
GANDHI AND THE WEARING OF WHITE
We need a crash course in non-violent resistance!
The “white shirt” uniform did not begin with the East Germans, as Murli Pendharkar explains:
Did you know that I have had the privilege to hear Gandhi in person, several times? I was merely a teenager then. …
The white dress in Gandhi’s non-violent movement came because Gandhi wanted to give Indians a non-violent means to fight the British. Indian cotton was being shipped to Great Britain for making yarn and then the British-made cloth was being brought back to India and sold to Indians. The process resulted in most jobs going to Britain.
Gandhi taught Indians how to prepare home-spun yarn and millions of them began using that yarn – all white – called Khadi for all their clothing needs. Gandhi thus fought the imperial industrialists effectively by using non-violence. Using Khadi-made clothes was a sign of national pride. It still is but it has been somewhat corrupted in post-independent India by politicians.
I wish you well in your quest for a peace army.
Gandhi’s another weapon was ‘truth’. The British Judges used to be baffled when Gandhi pleaded guilty to all charges levelled against him and showed willingness to go to jail smiling. In my public speeches, I often use a quote of Gandhi’s which goes as follows:
“In the midst of darkness light persists, in the midst of death life persists and in the midst of untruth truth persists, hence I believe that God is light, life and truth.”
Gandhi goes on to say, “The concept that truth is god is a very powerful one. People can deny god but they can not deny truth.”
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Many thanks to Cliff in Nova Scotia, Canada: Here is the quotation:
Mahatma Gandhi
In the Midst of Darkness I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves, and re-creates. That informing power or spirit is God.
And since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is.
And is this power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent. For I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme Good.
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RELATED EXCERPT FROM (2 of 3) Non-violent resistance versus killing war – Checkpoint Charlie – Compliance
UNIFORM: WEAR WHITE, THE COLOR OF PEACE
– to bring down the Berlin Wall, the people in East Germany gathered on Sunday mornings in village squares, all wearing a white shirt, adopting the symbolism of Gandhi. They formed a circle and held hands. The movement spread quickly from town-to-town and bamboozled the guns of the East German military establishment, who understood it was an act of defiance, but were powerless: how would they be able to explain the gunning down of people for standing in a circle and holding hands?!
We are seldom reminded that the “Iron Curtain”, the Berlin Wall came down through non-violent resistance. That was a great feat..
There was no massive loss of life, no devastation of the Earth.
Mar 252012
Note: Later I will post the creative and wonderful story in 2012, of how Israelis and Iranians are using some same ideas as below. People come to same conclusions.
Below is (1 of 3) Find Alternatives to the Killing Ways
(2 of 3) Non-violent resistance versus killing war – Checkpoint Charlie – Compliance
(3rd of 3) Gandhi and the wearing of white. Crash course in non-violent resistance.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – — –
(1) Introduction
You don’t truly KNOW something in your bones until you DO it.
Do you believe that when you’re in a tight spot, if you look around, the solutions are there? Do you believe that “you are never given a task that is more than you are capable of doing”?
Be hard on yourself.
If you REALLY believe the statement, then you KNOW that George Bush’s war with Iraq is not inevitable.
Look around. There are teacher-angels. Gandhi taught us non-violent resistance. Bill Gates gave us “business at the speed of thought” – rapid communications to thousands. Oprah Winfrey on her television show is teaching empowerment to millions of people, women in particular.
Look at the history of war. War, “a contest or conflict”. Hand-to-hand combat. Mounted on horses. Bows and arrows. Guns. Cannons. Poison gas. Atomic bombs. Nuclear devices. Chemical warfare. Napoleonic wars, World War 1, World War 2, Kuwait, Afghanistan …
Aaah, but how one-sided the view is!! That history comes from the vested powers. Seldom are we reminded of the triumphant history of wars won by empowered ordinary citizens who prevailed over the vested powers:
– Gandhi and his march of defiance which asserted that India would be run for the benefit of Indians, not the colonial power. That was a war as great as any. What was the ammunition and the weapon?
– the people in East Germany who gathered on Sunday mornings in village squares, all wearing a white shirt. They formed a circle and held hands. The movement spread quickly from town-to-town and bamboozled the guns of the East German military establishment, who understood it was an act of defiance, but were powerless: how would they be able to explain the gunning down of people for standing in a circle and holding hands?!
We are seldom reminded that the “Iron Curtain”, the Berlin Wall came down through non-violent resistance. That was a feat as great as Gandhi’s. There was no massive loss of life. What was the ammunition and the weapon?
– it took a war inside America to get the United States out of the Viet Nam war. It was a long and hard battle, but once again, victory was achieved without large-scale bloodshed in that internal conflict. It was ordinary people in the communities of America that stopped the Pentagon. Have we forgotten that? What was the ammunition and the weapon?
– Martin Luther King Junior, a general who led masses to over-power a culture that was killing.
So why, if we know that we have power, is there a real danger of war with Iraq?
Some important factors:
1) we have forgotten our history, or accepted the slanted history.
2) we allow the fear that is spread by the mainstream media to paralyze us into inaction.
3) we have adapted to, or normalized killing and violence. The truth: it is not normal to kill.
4) we have not clearly defined what we want. … Do we WANT our children, or the kids of friends in the United States to go to war? (It will be our children, not us, that go to war.)
5) There will be more killing wars on the North American continent if we allow Bush to have his way. Is that what we want?
6) a failure to exercise our creative abilities, a lack of vision, a vision of how we can overcome without killing. Through the power that we have, and non-violent resistance we can join hands with the Iraquis who don’t want their children killed either.
7) a failure to assume responsibility. This is the most damning statement of all: we will allow other people to make a decision to send our children to a war that will have bad consequences for the kids who fight the war (they ARE only kids) and for the environment. But we adults won’t fight the fight that is required to over-ride the decision-makers, who are wrong. If there are any intelligent people in the world’s mightiest country, they can find methods that equal the brilliance of war heroes like Gandhi and Martin Luther King who can win a war without killing. Multi-dimensional
thinking is required, thinking out-of-the-box.
8) we don’t really KNOW our power.
9) we don’t actually believe that our God(s)(the Life Force / Divine Being) show the way – that we are never given a task greater than we are able to handle.
10) lack of courage “.. all our cowardice and servility”
11) failure of consciousness – we sit with our heads down, toiling away, engrossed. It is necessary to step back from time-to-time and look about. There’s some pretty serious stuff happening. Like it or not, you will be affected – so maybe you had better think on it for a while.
12) If you knew how little effort it really takes, you would rise to the occasion. It’s very little that is asked of you, in comparison with earlier “wars” where people went off, suffered immeasurably so that we might enjoy the lives we have today. “To you from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high. …” Oops! are we going to drop it, or worse, simply turn our heads away? … what do you have to do? You’ve already taken the first step! Gotcha! “Being aware”, being conscious, is a very important contribution.
13) failure to recognize, and to define the “enemy”: the people and companies that BENEFIT from war. They are the real enemy because they are the ones that will make war happen. Are you content to be a pawn? The terrorists are included in this “enemy”.
14) failure to reach out, to establish connections with those who won’t benefit from war. If we don’t want a war, there doesn’t have to be a war. This is about peace and common sense. A pre-emptive strike is required: it is foolish to sit back, let George Bush start a war, and then have to
work to stop it (it took 10 years to stop Viet Nam – prevention is always cheaper!). A sane or intelligent person will simply strike first, now.
So you want to know, what DID the demonstration project (Chemical/Pharmaceutical/Genetic Engineering project) demonstrate?
Brief description:
PREMISE: – there are many people, in many different organizations, in many different countries, working on many different issues, that are all actually working toward the same end. If we IDENTIFY who those people are, then draw together the efforts of those diverse people, we will have an almighty army!
– looks like war, we’re in a tight spot … what have the God(s) given us? … web-sites and email are the obvious “tool” to get us out of the tight spot.
DEMO PROJECT SHOWED:
– it is possible, in just ONE DAY, for JUST ONE person (I was able to do this) . . connect with thousands of people who would like to work together. The people connected together IN ONE NIGHT BY ONE PERSON are in India, Japan, Australia, the U.K., Brazil, the United States
and Canada. (I went through the Utne magazine and contacted likely-looking candidates, organizations. It’s not hard to do.)
– Goliath ALWAYS has a weak spot, an Achilles Heel. Study the enemy and understand the weakness. Using the Demo Project example of Monsanto (chemical producer, genetic engineering company) which is in the Chem/Pharm/Genetic Engineering sector of the stock market, there is a structural weakness which you aim at.
The ammunition is information (“this is what is happening in this sector of the stock market, it’s going to suffer a melt-down”). The weapon used to fire the ammunition is email. You fire at the structural weakness which (in the demo) is a concentration of “investing power”, the result of the evolution of pension funds and mutual funds. (instead of millions of small investors which would be impossible to reach, we have a relatively small number of people who control huge amounts of investment money – target them. If the information is compelling enough to convince the large institutional investors to disinvest from the sector, serious damage will be inflicted on a company like Monsanto. It’s share price will go way
down. … You see: We are far from powerless. That’s the point.)
Now, apply what we have learned to the idea of war with Iraq. Assuming we don’t want a war, that we want the Government to find a more creative way of dealing with the situation:
1) White is the color of peace, the dove the symbol. See (3rd of 3) “Gandhi and the wearing of white“. Like the “white shirts” used in East Germany, endeavor to wear white as much as you can. Look for a dove to wear. You will recognize fellow warriors through these two signs. Let the politicians look out and see only people dressed in white.
2) We have inherited 2 battle hymns: “We shall overcome / We shall live in peace (today)”. Also, John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
Use them.
3) Fill your thoughts and imagination with the knowledge that there WILL be peace, that we have the power to make it happen.
4) It is important that we inspire each other by sharing what we are doing or what we see.
5) The mainstream media is a powerful tool of the war-mongers. It spreads fear, a form of manipulation. Take power away by using email networks to report on all the “peace initiatives” and stories that the mainstream media ignores. (I will soon send to you the story of the “Warriors of Light”, a group that is operating in Iraq. We can learn from them and be inspired.)
6) Continue your local battles against things that are not “right”. You gain in strength, become empowered by using and testing your muscles. These are very important SYMBOLIC VICTORIES over the forces (governments that refuse to regulate or act in the interests of citizens, and multi-national companies that are without integrity) that are wreaking havoc on this planet.
7) If there will be TV cameras at a public event, be there and wear your white shirt. Sing.
8) Most important: identify and connect with groups that will be responsive to this initiative – who are the “stakeholders”? The beginning list compiled through the Demo Project appears below (Find – it is not below). Obvious additions are organizations that work to create a better world
for children, empowered women’s groups and churches. Contact them.
9) Take a stand and communicate it to your politicians:
we will not participate in a killing war. We WILL participate in direct citizen-to-citizen (Canadian to Iraqui in my case) initiatives.
10) The next section is about non-violent resistance. Become familiar with it.
11) This is an issue about the health of our democracy. This initiative is an exercise in strengthening democracy. Go to the page (button at top) “About the Network“.
PREVENT WAR THROUGH PRE-EMPTIVE ACTION TODAY.
Mar 252012
RELATED:
- (1 of 3) Find Alternatives to the Killing Ways
- This is (2 of 3) Non-violent resistance versus killing war – Checkpoint Charlie – Compliance
- (3rd of 3) Gandhi and the wearing of white. Crash course in non-violent resistance.
Epigenetics was an unknown term in 2002, at the time of this writing. The idea of the recording of trauma in inter-generational memory is present, nonetheless.
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Interesting how, by eliminating the box, you change the understanding and hence the available options. … War heroes are great generals like Napoleon, IF you use DESTRUCTIVE weapons to classify the war or fight. If you use a more inclusive phrase, I don’t know, maybe “effective weapons” to classify battle, the war heroes can include the Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King’s in our history.
If you put non-violent resistance into a separate box from war, if you put the “peace-makers” into a separate box from “war heroes”, it allows you to limit the options to the methods of traditional killing war. The ability to find creative solutions to the problem confronting us is confined to one small box.
Non-violent resistance is a war to remove oppressors. It’s goal is justice, it cares and protects against the destruction of the individual (any individual) and the Earth.
“War” as normally understood is about the power and control of one group over another, or the removal of evil; individuals and the environment are expendable. Traditional war sees only weapons of destruction as effective weaponry.
Non-violent resistance teaches us that there are ALTERNATIVES, it gives us new ways. The weaponry of war changes as we change ourselves, as we grow in understanding.
Traditional warfare considers the short term, immediate self-interest; but its effects are long lasting. Non-violent war is benevolent in both the short and long-term, it is for future generations and requires patience. Non-violent war was likely not an option by the time World War 2 started; it wasn’t well-enough understood and it was too late.
It is extremely important for everyone to be reminded of the legacy of killing wars. What is true for the individual is true of the society.
Think of the adults you know whose lives are in chaos: alcoholics, drug addicts, those in jail, all the sad, sad people. Explore their early life. In most cases you find abuse of the child, INJUSTICE WITHOUT RECONCILIATION. A child injected with the poison of anger and resentment (the consequence of injustice) most often transforms from naive, innocent, beautiful and delightful into manipulation (power and control), violence to the self or others, maybe hate, blackness. Over a lifetime the poison seeps insidiously, a powerful force of self-destruction.
When an injustice is inflicted upon a people, the story of the injustice is handed down from generation to generation. It is a cancer that grows in the psyche of those who have been oppressed, festering, always oozing. Not different from what happens to the individual, the poison seeps down and down, a force of destruction. As with individuals, the choices of fate are two:
– destruction/self-destruction OR
– reconciliation which leads to salvation.
Any woman in any culture knows she has suffered an injustice if her child is taken from her. She will always have “an oppressor”.
To understand the power of inherited injustice, a couple of examples:
I went on a tour of the historical homes in Savannah, Georgia in 1984. The volunteer guide was a lady of about 62 years, a wonderful ambassador for her city, well-read, generous, and informative. But, by the end of the tour I could have sworn that the American Civil War happened in 1961 instead of 1861; I shook my head to clear the cobwebs – did the war happen 100 years ago, or yesterday? This woman carried an incredibly real sense of a great offence done to her people, that of sons taken and homes destroyed, of a wrong done that was independent of time. It did not matter that the end, to free Afro-Americans from slavery, was just. The killing of people will always be an injustice TO THOSE PEOPLE. It is their sons, their homes, their dreams that have been destroyed. That was my first encounter with the phenomenon, the power of inherited injustice.
I lived for many years in Nova Scotia in Canada; a favorite place is the little white church museum in the pastoral village of Grand Pre – the site from which French Acadian settlers were deported by the British, the story recorded in poem by the American, H.W. Longfellow, in “Evangeline“. In Grand Pre I sense tragedy, my heart is heavy, “how terrible that must have been for those people”. The museum is the work of a largely Anglo (English) population. The expulsion (forfeiture of land, homes, belongings, dreams) took place in 1755, more than 200 years ago; some of the deportees ended up in the French territory of Louisiana, the basis for the “Cajun” (a-KAY-d-JUN) culture of today.
In 1999 I visited a small town museum in the heart of Cajun/Acadian country in Louisiana. The Museum is the work of the Franco or French descendants. (I have a lot of Norwegian blood, some trickles of English, but in Canada I am identified as “English” – or “not French”.)
We insulate or protect ourselves from criticisms and barbs by living in our “own” society, oblivious to the manner in which we are perceived by another culture. I tell you, it was a shock that rocked me to my boots, to read in that little Cajun museum about the “ethnic cleansing” perpetrated by the English. That’s ME! I felt nervous and uncomfortable. I had better run and hide, these people hate me for something that happened 200 years ago!!
It was good for me to experience the shock, to come to a better understanding of how our history has us by the “short-hairs”; we can’t wiggle free. Except through acknowledgement and reconciliation. The discontent will never leave us otherwise. Museums like the one I visited have been recently constructed. The inherited injustice, after 200 years, is a potent force. In this case it has found its expression in energy and resources being committed to communication of the injustice and to the seeking of re-dress, acknowledgement from Queen Elizabeth (as I see in a quick internet survey of Acadian web-sites). It could as easily have found its expression in violence.
To native Americans, French, … anyone who has suffered an injustice by “our” hands, these hands that have come to us through our genes … to them we are now and always “oppressors”. The memory is in the genes in the same way that the memory of barking as a defense, is in the genes of my dog, passed down from her wolf or fox ancestors. Genetic engineering cannot remove the memory that is in the very being, “in the bones”. The lobotomies administered by our society can disable, but not remove it.
It is a blessing for us all when we (the oppressors and the oppressed) follow the “truth and reconciliation” process espoused by Nelson Mandela and
used in South Africa. It is a blessing for us all when the Acadian community pursues reconciliation, or when the Japanese Canadians who were given the same treatment during World War 2, as the Acadians in 1755, bring their plight to our attention; we would otherwise remain blind and oblivious.
Can we not see that a “killing” war necessarily inflicts injustices on an identifiable group of people? Can we not look around the world today and see the tragic consequences: generation after generation that cannot escape the hatred, the killing that never stops but leads to more killing? Knowing all that, why in the name of the God(s) will we allow ignorance to lead us into a killing war, the legacy of which can only be more of this seeping poison?
There is a FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THAT, TODAY, ALTERNATIVES EXIST, that non-violent resistance is an effective means to stop injustice. It can be taught to oppressed people so they can help to free themselves. Education, the prevention of abuse/injustice to the child – that is the road out of this hell.
Which leads to NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE:
I love this line from the CHECKPOINT CHARLIE museum in Berlin! – “Through the multiplicity of nonviolent resistance, SO RICH IN IDEAS, it can be demonstrated that the most powerful effective opposing forces can be mobilized against every form of violence.”
1999: The impact of this trip to Germany lies in CHECKPOINT CHARLIE which spy movies and books have made famous, the point through which travel between East and West Germany was controlled. Today it is a museum. A museum that makes a loud statement. While NATO bombed Kosovo, I viewed the history of non-violent resistance, the legacy and effectiveness of Gandhi. It was very provocative and moving.
“… nonviolent resistance as a political force is still young, its possibilities not yet well enough known, and is thus seldom an incitement to the masses and is seldom encouraged by the media. For all that, those striving for human rights are dependent on our solidarity and the feeling is growing of an ever increasing threat through the power of dictatorships, the armaments race and the immobility of bureaucrats.
Gandhi presented the principles of nonviolent resistance to the world, but the methods – corresponding to the various hierarchies – have to be very different, should they lead to success. Through the multiplicity of nonviolent resistance, so rich in ideas, it can be demonstrated that the most
powerful effective opposing forces can be mobilized against every form of violence …”
The Berlin Wall and the Communist regime in East Germany came down. The non-violent resistance that brought it down are graphically recorded in this homey, old, cramped museum. This poem was penned by an unknown East German. It spoke to me then and always will:
“The red-painted tyranny was not
The worst about our tyrants
The worst thereby were we ourselves
All our cowardice and servility
And that we also were the evil ourselves
Just that is the chance and our luck
You see: It works! We also take back
The everlasting human right ourselves
Now we breathe again, we cry and we laugh
the stale sadness out of the breast
man, we are stronger than rats and dragons
– and had forgotten it and always knew.”
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Wise but denigrated wolves know, because their mothers have taught them, that survival depends on identifying and dispelling the predators. Our survival is threatened by the forces of destruction on this planet. If we do not turn our naivete into wisdom the predator overpowers us. Those who benefit from war are predators, whether they be simply “evil” people, or those who have a self-interest.
From “Women who Run with the Wolves”, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
(The “young woman” is the naive in all of us, men and women. Read this as “gender-inclusive”!)
“.. though the young woman attempts to follow the orders of the predator, and agrees to be ignorant about the secret in the cellar, she can only comply for so long. Finally she puts the key, the question, to the door and finds the shocking carnage … And that key, that tiny symbol of her life,
suddenly will not cease its bleeding, will not cease to give the cry that something is wrong. A woman may try to hide from the devastations of her life, but the bleeding, the loss of life’s energy, will continue UNTIL SHE RECOGNIZES THE PREDATOR FOR WHAT IT IS and CONTAINS IT.
When women open the doors of their own lives and survey the carnage there, in those out-of-the way places, they most often find they have BEEN ALLOWING SUMMARY ASSASSINATIONS of their most crucial dreams, goals, and hopes. …
… when such a gruesome discovery is made… we can be sure the natural predator … has been at work methodically destroying a woman’s most cherished desires, concerns, and aspirations.
In fairy tales, the animal groom character is a common motif that can be understood to represent a MALEVOLENT THING DISGUISED AS A BENEVOLENT THING. This or some proximate characterization is always present when a woman carries naive presentiments about something or
someone. When a woman is attempting to avoid the facts of her own devastation, her night dreams are likely to shout warnings to her, warnings and exhortations to wake up! or get help! or flee! or go for the kill!”
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I am ready to go for the kill and it can be done, through net-working, as explained in the previous (posting #1). We will don our white-shirt uniforms, join hands and conquer together.
Cripes! I can’t believe how thoroughly our society trains us in compliancy, to be “nice”. “Being nice” means that if there’s a problem we talk about it, we reach compromise solutions. I am uncomfortable that I have even uttered the word “kill”.
“Fight”? I’m a middle-aged Mother! I’m not supposed to be plotting, saying and encouraging others to “fight” ANYthing! Governments send sons off to war against a “foreign threat”, as in the Viet Nam War. They collaborate with the Monsanto’s and Lockheed Martin’s of the world, the entities that will BENEFIT from war.
Terrorist groups thrive in fertile ground created by us. … Yes, I have a responsibility to remove the predators. Survival is the issue. My instinct is right and it guides me. But I still get that niggle that says, “What in hell are you doing?! Who do you think you are?!”
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SONGS: “We shall overcome / We shall live in peace (today)”. Also, John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
SLOGANS:
- FIND ALTERNATIVES TO THE KILLING WAYS
- I support war: NON-VIOLENT WAR
- My war hero is Gandhi
- My war hero is Martin Luther King
UNIFORM: WEAR WHITE, THE COLOR OF PEACE
– to bring down the Berlin Wall, the people in East Germany gathered on Sunday mornings in village squares, all wearing a white shirt, adopting the symbolism of Gandhi. They formed a circle and held hands. The movement spread quickly from town-to-town and bamboozled the guns of the East German military establishment, who understood it was an act of defiance, but were powerless: how would they be able to explain the gunning down of people for standing in a circle and holding hands?!
We are seldom reminded that the “Iron Curtain”, the Berlin Wall came down through non-violent resistance. That was a feat as great as Gandhi’s.
There was no massive loss of life, no devastation of the Earth.
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There is lots going on, many “templates” that we can share, many strategies that, if a little more organized and focussed, will be very powerful. Every day I add more organizations and people to my distribution list. Today, that is the main focus. Build the army. Every person I have known in my life is a potential for my distribution list. When my distribution list feeds into yours, and vice-versa – – WOW! We have way more power than we’ll ever need!