Sandra Finley

2010-03-19 American census is underway. People getting riled up. Letters of Solidarity with the Americans. Corporatocracy.

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Mar 192010
 

With thanks to Patrick.

REGARDING THE CURRENT U.S.A. CENSUS

1)    CRITICS CALL THE CENSUS PAGES ‘INVOLUNTARY COLONOSCOPY’

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=129005

(2)    PRIVATIZING THE CENSUS WHILE PERVERTING ITS PURPOSES

http://www.rense.com/general90/priv.htm

You may wish to just read the above two articles.  The following is correspondence with the American authors, passing along information that may be beneficial to them – it appears that they are unaware of the involvement of Lockheed Martin in their census.  The greater the resistance in the U.S., the more likely we are to be successful here.

/Sandra

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(1)    LETTER TO AUTHOR OF “CRITICS CALL THE CENSUS PAGES ‘INVOLUNTARY COLONOSCOPY’”

Dear Mr. Unruh,

Thank-you for your article, “Critics call Census pages ‘involuntary colonoscopy’  http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=129005 

Jim Kirwan wrote a related article,  “Privatizing The Census While Perverting Its Purposes”.  http://www.rense.com/general90/priv.htm

I am currently on trial in Canada because I would not fill in my 2006 census form.   I was one of thousands who did not fill in the form, but one of few being prosecuted.

Initially, I objected because part of the work was outsourced to Lockheed Martin Corporation, the main contractor; I equate them with the U.S. Pentagon.  IBM is a sub-contractor to Lockheed.

There is a horrific history behind state use of personal data (census information) on its citizens.  It is well documented in Edwin Black’s “IBM and the Holocaust”, one example.

What is emerging in my trial is what Jim Kirwan identifies:  the commercial value of the census data base and increasing intrusion of corporations into the sphere of census.

From my trial the coercive means being used to obtain the information is also evident.  I was repeatedly threatened with jail time (3 months) and/or a fine of up to $500 if I didn’t supply personal information to Statistics Canada (the equivalent of your Census Bureau).   Just one example of the information I must supply in order to avoid the punishment:  the number of bedrooms in my house.

I received the “long form” to complete and submit.  It’s interesting:  I see from your article where many of the same questions are on the American census long form.

Lockheed Martin Corporation (the American military-industrial-congressional complex) and IBM are involved in the U.S. and Canadian censuses.  They also have census contracts for the United Kingdom.

The same thing is happening in Canada as identified by Jim Kirwan:  door-to-door collection of data on individuals OUTSIDE the census period.  There have always been “surveys” in between censuses, but this goes beyond that.

I see from your website that you are aware that thousands of census workers in the U.S. have been going building-to-building for the purpose of marrying GPS locator information to your census records.  The exercise began early last year, I believe.  One news article has a good description of the propaganda used to sell the idea.

In Canada, prior to Lockheed Martin’s involvement, there were no names associated with the individual computerized records on the census data base.  The information was input with a reference number.  In order to trace back to an actual name you had to go through a manual process of finding the related microfiche record.

The most effective (hopefully!) legal defence in Canada to the charges against me is privacy provisions under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.   The common law arising out of the Charter says that the Government cannot force citizens to hand over a “biographical core of personal information such as that individuals in a free and democratic society would wish to maintain and control from dissemination to the state.”  The wisdom of the Charter arises, of course, out of the critical enabling role of census information for extermination of “enemies of the state” like the Polish people or the Jewish people in Nazi Europe.

The prosecutor will argue (the same argument being used in the U.S.) that the benefits to the country as a whole of the census information are greater than the need for my individual Charter right to privacy of personal information.

I gave evidence and was cross-examined this Tuesday past (March 16th).  My trial then resumes September 9th for presentation of argument.

I thought your readers might be interested in my experience.  There is creeping militarism that needs to be stopped.

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

Saskatoon Saskatchewan Canada

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(2)          EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH THE AUTHOR OF “PRIVATIZING THE CENSUS WHILE PERVERTING ITS PURPOSES”

Yes Jim, “the basic issue is growing much wider”.

We are perhaps more sensitive to it up here in Canada because we are small and vulnerable, militarily speaking.

As Anita points out, “the misery on the planet earth is due to resource wars”.  Alas for Canadians, we have “resources”.   Russia had natural resources that Hitler wanted, Sweden had the iron ore needed by the Nazis.  Canadians are vulnerable to the American corporate agenda because we are perceived to have resources that have been depleted with abandon in the U.S. (notably water with oil and gas (tar sands) a close second).  Not that Canadians are any different — we are intent on the same destruction, the only difference is that we are a few decades behind you in our exploitation.

I am very concerned – the creeping “corporatocracy” has been undermining democratic institutions at least since the early 1980’s.  Democracy is the only form of government that can protect “the commons” – that upon which we are all dependent for survival.

I agree with your statement:  the really ugly stuff is just beginning.  

We are trying our damndest to build a critical mass of aware people as fast as we can, to take things back.  And hold things together while we transition off these values that are not ours.

In response to your question:

–        Regarding addition of GPS locator information to census records.  I was representing myself in the earlier days of my trial.  I did cross-examination on January 12th of the Statistics Canada official from Ottawa who was at the head of the census operation.

(I received a phone call last night, March 18th:  he (Anil Arora) is no longer with StatsCan, after 21 years.  I do not know the reason why he is no longer there.  At trial on January 12th there was discussion as to whether he would return in March for the next trial days.  There was no indication then that he would no longer be at StatsCan.)

In the cross-examination I questioned him on the GPS locator info, mainly because his description of what StatsCan was doing is almost verbatim a description of what is being done in the U.S.  – the census “starts with the buildings” on a block-by-block basis.

He said there are no plans in Canada to use hand-held computerized devices to associate GPS information with census records.

But he lied under oath about some things.  For example, he would not budge from the statement that 64 people from all of Canada did not comply with the 2006 census.  Even when I submitted newspaper reports to the Court in which he was quoted, for example that 35,000 First Nations people did not submit census forms, he still insisted that only 64 people across the country did not comply with the Statistics Act.  That’s just one example.  Given the sameness in the description of the building-to-building, “down to the block” activity in the U.S., and given that the same companies (Lockheed Martin & IBM) are involved, I find it hard to believe that StatsCan does not intend to follow the American procedure re GPS coordinates.

There are very close parallels to the lead-up to World War Two.

Canada is being sold out by “quislings”  (the Norwegian experience in WW2).

None of it is being done thru Parliament.

–         Feb 14, 2008 the “Troop Exchange Agreement” with the U.S. came into being.  We found out about it because it was reported in an American newspaper, not in Canadian ones.

–        June 2008, the “Canada First Defence Strategy” came into being.  According to it we now have “compatible doctrine” and “interoperability” with the American military.  A complete loss of sovereignty.  Canada did not enter the Iraq War.  Had this new “strategy” been in place, we would have had no option.

–        The Patriot Act means that any subsidiary of an American company in Canada (Lockheed Martin Canada, the list is long) has to turn over info on Canadian citizens to the Pentagon if asked.  And there is no notification to the owners of the data (Canadian Govt) that the data has been turned over.

–        This situation is very similar to what happened in Nazi Europe.  IBM had subsidiary companies in many European countries; they carried out the bulk of the census work for those countries – their connection to IBM was disguised and hidden.   The largest base of IBM operation (under a subsidiary name) was in Germany.  In Germany and when the Nazis entered other countries, they already had access, in many cases, to the data that disclosed who and where the Jewish people were.  IBM was a darling of the Third Reich and profited handsomely from their census work.

–        The “long census form” I received contains a number of questions related to ethnic origins of the family, languages spoken at home, etc.  In addition, you are to select from a list to identify whether you are “Chinese, black, .. “ etc.  You are also required to supply the name of the company you work for.

In addition to all this, I find this newspaper report disconcerting.  There is a very definite time table:

NOV 1, 2008, OTTAWA CITIZEN: “AMERICAN OFFICIALS ARE PRESSURING THE FEDERAL GOVT TO SUPPLY THEM WITH INFORMATION ON CANADIANS. … CANADIAN OFFICIALS HAVE SAID .. WILL MEET THE NEW STANDARD .. BY 2011 .. BUT THERE’LL BE TREMENDOUS PRESSURE (FROM THE U.S.) TO GET THERE FASTER.”

(Link no longer valid)  http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=64f59d78-ce97-48dc-b2fd-381859ce6c84

NOTE:  always, it’s a matter of “hand over your personal information or there will be inconvenience or costs to you”.

Please – – it is not worth any amount of money to enter into a police state, to repeat the experience of Nazi Europe.

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This report from a major Canadian magazine spells out the modus operandi quite clearly:

RON COVAIS, “PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAS FOR LOCKHEED MARTIN” INTERVIEW WITH MACLEANS MAGAZINE, SEPTEMBER 11, 2006. “WE’VE DECIDED NOT TO RECOMMEND ANY THINGS THAT WOULD REQUIRE LEGISLATIVE CHANGES BECAUSE WE WON’T GET ANYWERE. . THE GUIDANCE FROM THE MINISTERS WAS “‘TELL US WHAT WE NEED TO DO AND WE’LL MAKE IT HAPPEN,'” RECALLS COVAIS WHO CHAIRS THE U.S. SECTION OF THE COUNCIL..” THE FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICA .. NOT IN SWEEPING TRADE AGREEMENT ON WHICH ELECTIONS WILL TURN, BUT BY THE ACCRETION OF HUNDREDS OF INCREMENTAL CHANGES IMPLEMENTED BY EXECUTIVE AGENCIES, BUREAUCRACIES, AND REGULATORS.

The article is entitled “Meet NAFTA 2.0”.  The full text is at:   (Link no longer valid)   http://www.macleans.ca/canada/national/article.jsp?content=20060911_133202_133202

There are some Americans in my email network. I think it is important that we work together.  Otherwise, “the Americans” become the evil ones, as in World War Two it was the Germans and “the Japs”.  Propaganda is used to make us into people who deserve to be killed.  If we stick together, are known to each other, we are all part of a  concerted effort to overthrow the tyrants and their collaborators.

The democracy movement in Canada sprang to life when, on Dec 30th, 2009 Stephen Harper (prime minister) shut down (prorogued) Parliament for damage-control over complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees.

Shortly thereafter, as I view it, the democracy movement in the U.S. sprang into high gear with your Supreme Court decision that corporations can fund political parties.

Further hardships are coming because of the fraud and the failure to regulate in the public interest, in the financial sector.  Because of corporatocracy.

I believe we can find strength in our communities to help look after those who are most affected by the greed and power-mongering of the few – those whose policies would deliberately take us to widespread violence and destruction.

By separate email I will send a chronology of the efforts to get George Bush and Company prosecuted for war crimes.  I believe there is sufficient momentum now, to achieve success.  That will go a long way toward taking back what is ours.

It is my great pleasure to be connected to and working with you.

Cheers!

Sandra Finley

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada

We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war.

—– Original Message —–
From: “anita sands”  (An American)
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 2:59 AM
Subject: Can understanding be the first step for an effective activist

If we are such wimps that we can’t buck them on the census, –if we let
them stick our name, income, personal facts & geographic coordinates in a Washington DC / NSA data bank, if we can’t say ‘get lost’ out of fear for a l00$ penalty…how can we ever hope to buck them? Ever hope to say no to ENDLESS WAR which makes blissful life impossible for us and our children?

WE CAME OUT as a nation against WAR in the 60’s, but many cynics point out that the ANTI-WAR movement had nothing to do with Americans not wishing to genocide Vietnamese civilians. It was really about ‘don’t draft MY butt.’

YOU KNOW in your bones that all the misery on the planet earth is due to resource wars, greed, oligarch CEOS pressing on pol-jugulars to grab
territory, oil, minerals, spending 3 trillion on a permanent wartime
economy. Yet nobody is anti-war! These wars appear at very regular
intervals thru 6,000 years of recorded history. This is a savage, bloody
planet. Put a man in POWER and it goes to his head immediately, it would appear. We cannot have leaders. The leaders turn the entire system into DEATH, GRIEF, and extraction of blood from slaves. Us.

We should study the brass bolts of WAR. UNDERSTAND IT.
http://www.masterjules.net/centurywar.htm

From: Jim Kirwan
Sent: March 19, 2010 1:29 PM
To: Sandra Finley
Subject: Re: Canadian census: Lockheed Martin & IBM, I’m on trial over failure to fill out my form

Thanks Sandra – Your trial in Canada means that the basic issue is growing much wider.

I’ve enclosed an attachment that I just sent out this morning which encompasses the nine articles that culminate in “Asymmetic War Comes to America” – which is attached.

Please let me know if your lawyer finds my latest arguments of any use in your defense? . . . 

—– Original Message —–

From: Sandra Finley

To: kirwan

Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 12:09 PM

Subject: Canadian census: Lockheed Martin & IBM, I’m on trial over failure to fill out my form

Dear Jim Kirwan,

Thank-you so much for your article, Privatizing The Census While Perverting Its Purposes.  . . . 

You might want to check out one thing in your article:  IBM is involved in your census, yes.  But Lockheed Martin Corporation (the American military-industrial-congressional complex) is also involved.  They also have census contracts for the United Kingdom.

(Jim wrote)

[Possibly that missing link as to WHY the census bureau needs to have that foreign component for their logo uses that did not seem clear to a lot of us before this email]

. . .  Are the census takers in Canada also taking pictures of the homes for GPS positioning locations?

Your article is valuable to me and to others.  I run an activist email network and will circulate it further.

Also, I sent it to (U.S. group) Public Citizen.  They went into high gear after your Supreme Court ruling that entrenched the right of corporations to fund political campaigns.

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

2010-03-15 Can you have Democracy without Law Enforcement? Updates, arrest of Geo Bush for war crimes. Francis Boyle, Splitting the Sky.

 Baltasar Garzon, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Mar 152010
 

Can you have democracy if you don’t have enforcement of the laws?

It’s a piece-of-cake to arrest the little guy for creating a public disturbance, the abusive alcoholic who was himself abused;  the test is whether you have the balls to arrest the big guys.

But how much are WE willing to uphold the rule of law in this, our might-be democracy?

The responsible officials did not arrest George Bush when he came to Canada (twice) in 2009  —   in spite of the fact that we gave them the evidence and the applicable laws a month in advance of Bush’s October visit.

So, the most powerful among us are NOT accountable under the law.  What else am I to conclude?

When I stop believing that everyone is equal before the law,  I distinguish between illusion (myth) and reality.

Has the myth been created by propaganda?  Or, is it that we fail to update our knowledge base as the world changes …  obsolete information becomes propaganda?   Or was it propaganda from the beginning?

We have contributed to the efforts to have the laws applied to George Bush  when he comes to Canada.  We are unwilling to accept the hyperbole surrounding “justice for all”.  We want the real thing:  “equality before the law”.   We are willing to fight for democracy.

We have looked at the efforts of Vince Bugliosi to get Bush and Company prosecuted for their crimes; and the work of Gail Davidson;  the Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzon, who is pursuing prosecution of six of Bush’s lawyers.  The previous email was about the efforts of Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel to have Donald Rumsfeld tried for war crimes (torture).   The U.S. judge has ruled that the case will proceed.  Below you will find the efforts of Splitting the Sky and of Francis Boyle.  There are more.

The work of these people is essential if we are to have democracy.  And so it is instructive to understand how our human qualities work :  which of our qualities has moved these people to action?

It is seldom the human quality of reason that drives these efforts.   Reason tells them that the forces joined against them are insurmountable.  Friends tell them they are pissing in the wind, if they are trying to see that the laws apply to the most powerful among us.

I think (am I wrong?) that it is propaganda that leads us to buy into a current world view  that says Reason is god.  It goes unchallenged.  Common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, and memory are cut out of our wholeness, as John Ralston Saul points out.  It would seem then, that  Vince Bugliosi,  Gail Davidson,  Baltasar Garzon, Donald Vance,  Nathan Ertel,  Splitting the Sky, Francis Boyle and others are able to balance their other qualities with reason.  Reason does not hold them captive in a state of inaction.

Part two (of six) of Love, Hate and Propaganda aired on CBC TV last week (March 11 & 12).  Hitler had a dilemma. He wanted to takeover Poland; but especially with the experience of World War One, the German people did not want to make war against anyone.   What a daunting task:  create a mindset in the population to extinguish their resistance to making war on Poland!

Hitler used mass media (radio and the movies) to create an image, an illusion, of the people of Poland.   They became vermin worthy only of extermination.  . . .  Poland was brutally attacked.

If you imagine yourself as a citizen, not of Poland in World War Two, but as a citizen of Iraq, I think you would see the current wars like the music of Bach:   we are hearing a variation on the music of war – the theme (the means) does not change.   In this variation the propaganda that allowed Bush to drop bombs on Iraq was weapons-of-mass-destruction, Muslims.  Terrorists.

Taking equality before the law a step further:  if everyone you know, knows about the very important struggles of the people to get George Bush and Company tried for  their crimes against humanity, then at least one could say that “a free press” exists in this Canadian might-be democracy.

If people are generally unaware of the struggle, then “a free press” is a meaningless phrase.   Propaganda omits one side of the story.   And anyone who questions must be marginalized.  Don’t tell their story; if you do, paint them into beings who are “radical” or “leftist” or “activist” or who “incite” the crowd to violence.  Or, make them into despicable people.

KEVIN MARTIN and the Calgary Sun (“Citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush justified, court hears”, item 5 below) are to be congratulated for their coverage of the Splitting the Sky trial.

CONTENTS

(1)    BEING CONSCIOUS OF OUR QUALITIES, SEEING THEM AT WORK

(2)    CHRONOLOGY, BUSH TRIED FOR WAR CRIMES

(3)    DAY ONE (March 8, 2010):  CALGARY TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY VERSUS GEORGE BUSH. REPORT by JOSHUA BLAKENEY.

(4)    DAY TWO, TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY.  Report by indybay.

(5)     CALGARY SUN, CITIZEN’S ARREST OF GEORGE W. BUSH JUSTIFIED, COURT HEARS

(6)    GLOBAL RESEARCH’S NEWS REPORT ON SPLITTING THE SKY’S TRIAL

(7)    JAN 19, 2010.  LAW PROFESSOR FRANCIS BOYLE FROM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FILED REQUEST WITH INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC – THE HAGUE) FOR ARREST OF BUSH AND HIS COMPANIONS.

(8)    NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO ARREST, I DON’T HAVE JURISDICTION.  YES, YOU HAVE JURISDICTION,  THE LAW OF COMPLEMENTARITY.

(9)    BACKGROUND FOR NEWCOMERS

The previous email was about:

CHICAGO, March 5, 2010  – Federal Judge Wayne R. Andersen issued an historic ruling that allows a lawsuit to proceed against former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld who allegedly authorized torture. 

The case would not be, if Donald Vance and Nathan Ertelweren’t willing to tackle the issue.

At the same time (March 8, 2010), Splitting the Sky was on trial in Calgary because of his attempted citizen’s arrest in March 2009 of George W Bush for war crimes.  Details of that court case appear below.

I put together a partial chronology of the on-going efforts by various people for the enforcement of laws as they apply to Bush and his companions.   The chronology says Bush will be tried either domestically in the U.S., or by the International Criminal Court.  It’s only a matter of time.

If George W Bush isn’t tried for crimes against humanity, it is questionable whether we have democracy in Canada, or in the U.S.   I contend that we have corporatocracy; we are fighting for democracy.

The tragedy with the war crimes is that the killing and destruction happens, AND THEN the criminals are brought to trial.  World War Two, and then the Nuremberg Trials.  Rwanda, and then … the Iraq War and then …

The International Criminal Court (from wikipedia) came into being on July 1st, 2002 when the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court entered into force.  The ICC can only prosecute crimes committed on or after July 1st 2002. The official seat of the court is in The Hague, Netherlands.

(I must contact wikipedia –  the question of the JURISDICTION of the Court is addressed by Michael Byers in his book, “Intent for a Nation”.  See the last item at the end of this email on the legal principle called COMPLEMENTARITY.)

The ICC website page lists their current work on Crimes Against Humanity in:

–        Northern Uganda

–        the Democratic Republic of the Congo

–        the Central African Republic, and

–        Darfur, Sudan (President Al Bashir).

More than these current trials, the ICC prosecution of the “Butcher of the Balkans” is perhaps better known:

Milosevic’s war crimes trial a 4-year marathon

Saturday, March 11, 2006 

Slobodan Milosevic was regarded as the chief architect of the carnage unleashed during the breakup of Yugoslavia last decade.  

  

(CNN) — Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s war crimes trial in The Hague, Netherlands, had just entered its fifth year when he was found dead Saturday in his cell.

He was the first sitting head of state to be indicted by a U.N. international tribunal and had been detained at the U.N. center near The Hague since June 2001.

Milosevic faced 66 counts for crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, in which tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims were killed or forced to flee.  .. . . . . .

The rule of law, equality before the law, is critical in a democracy and in the world.  This democracy belongs to no one else, except ourselves.

If the officials who have sworn an oath to uphold the law shrink before the task, then it is up to us to see that it is done.  If it is uncomfortable for us to carry through on this, imagine that it is VERY difficult for the officials to do so.  Their names are on their deeds in a very public way.  By comparison we are anonymous.

If officials do not have direct communications and support from us to carry out their jobs under the law, they will only have the support of those who DO NOT WANT the rule of law to prevail.  We truly have an important role to play.

Rumsfeld’s pleas to the court are outrageous:

“Rumsfeld asked the court to dismiss the case because he is a high-placed governmental official and argued that he was immune from suit even for allegations of torture. Mr. Rumsfeld also argued that due to his position, the Constitution permitted him to order interrogation techniques that are widely considered by human rights experts to be torture. . . “

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(1)    BEING CONSCIOUS OF OUR QUALITIES, SEEING THEM AT WORK

My interpretation of John Ralston Saul (JRS):  if we use our qualities, one-with-the-other in balance, we will not have all the problems created by being one-dimensional, linear-thinking rational.

P. 314 “On Equilibrium” by JRS:  “There was – is – no real danger, only the fear.  The fear of danger here is the fear of uncertainty.  And because of that fear, reason can swing into deformity perhaps faster than any of our other qualities. (INSERT:  the qualities are common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory and reason)

All that is needed is a troubled time or a voice capable of exacerbating our fears, playing upon them, or a critical mass of insecure minds in a critical place.  Suddenly we discover that our ability to think and argue has been locked up in methodology, truth and dogma.  This is the cheapest, the fastest, way to self-confidence.  And in fleeing the dangers of free enquiry, reason is blown immediately into the truly dangerous waters of certainty.  Thought, after all, may be our most unusual quality.  Perhaps it is also our most delicate, the one most immediately dependent upon the tension created by our other qualities.   

That is why the worst thing we can do is to overstate the rational case.  Of the six qualities it is the least capable of (dealing with a situation that is driven by fear and insecurity)   ….  Ethics can deal with the choices of life in a much more complex and interesting way.”

From the email sent March 10th,

“(4 of X) Propaganda, Democracy:  Imagining “the other”, more re Kitty Werthmann”

John Ralston Saul says:

To use our qualities is to be conscious of our actions. .”  He speaks of intuition as being a driver behind action.

Yes – I can see where it is intuition that compels me.  I don’t know if JRS would say it this way:  there are some things that you know you need to do.  Common sense, ethics, imagination, memory and reason have a role to play.  But it is when you add the 6th quality, intuition, to these other qualities that we move forward to “do something” to address the situation.

Unfortunately, our educational system often denies the legitimacy of intuition.  We are trained right out of it.  We don’t know what it is, or how it works and yet it is an essential human quality.

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(2)    CHRONOLOGY, BUSH TRIED FOR WAR CRIMES

Canadians owe a debt of gratitude to Gail Davidson, Lawyers Against the War (L.A.W.), for years of relentless work on this topic.  We would not be in a position to insist on the rule of law without the work done by Gail and others in her network of cross-borders contacts.  The following list only highlights SOME of the efforts which are on-going through many organizations in the world.   …

Feb 2011.  Chronology updated.  Please click on George Bush War Criminal  (from “Pages” on www.sandrafinley.ca)

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(3)    DAY ONE (March 8, 2010):  CALGARY TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY VERSUS GEORGE BUSH. REPORT by JOSHUA BLAKENEY.

Hi,

Here is my report from the first day of the STS vs Bush trail. Please feel free to disseminate and publish.

thanks,

Joshua Blakeney

Media Coodinator of Globalization Studies

University of Lethbridge

Judge Manfred Delong Meets Splitting the Sky

By Joshua Blakeney

Media Coordinator of Globalization Studies

University of Lethbridge

Today the trial of Splitting the Sky commenced. Splitting the Sky attempted a citizens’ arrest on credibly accused war criminal George W. Bush on March 17, 2009, and was arrested and jailed for doing so by police. Try as its representatives might to disguise their motivations with the kind PR spin doctoring we witnessed in the court today, the Calgary Police, the RCMP and its contractors were under the Harper government’s strict political orders to protect the Alberta home turf of the current minority government that came to power as the holder of the Bushite franchise in Canada. Some have termed this historic proceeding as “The Trial of Splitting the Sky versus George W. Bush” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP6DSMCXKLg). From what I witnessed firsthand on day one, the government attempt to manage this highly volatile convergence of law and politics was an exciting affair.

The morning’s proceedings were mostly filled with the testaments of the policemen involved in protecting Bush and arresting STS. Amazingly, when one of the policeman was asked why he had arrested the Mohawk activist, the official contended that he “was protecting STS” from Bush’s henchmen. He went on to say that Bush’s protectors carry “lethal weapons” and that they would in all likelihood have used them to kill the accused man. Rather than seek further information on Bush’s private-Blackwater-style militia, the lawyers on both sides of the case passed over this startling revelation.

The presiding magistrate, Judge Manfred Delong, initially appeared, in my view, to be siding with the Crown prosecutor against STS’s lawyer, Charles Davison. Davison’s initial submission asked the court to allow for a distinction between “Obstructing a Police Officer” and “Preventing a Police Officer from Performing his Duty.” Davison’s argument was disallowed by Judge Delong. From that point on, Mr. Davison appeared to be improvising in a defence on which the hopes of many in the anti-war activists are riding.

Certainly the turning point of the day came when STS took the stand to testify in his usual flamboyant, surprising and erudite manner. STS reminded the court that it was the same laws which the minority government eschewed vis-a-vis Bush which were invoked to keep British peace activist George Galloway MP out of Canada last March. STS opined: “All Galloway had been doing was bringing medical aide to Palestinians in Gaza, 2000 of whom Israel had massacred, but they barred Galloway from Canada using the same laws which they should have used to ban George W. Bush.”

My perception was that until STS testified, Judge Delong was more inclined to the Crown’s side of the argument, namely that the police were “keeping the peace” in a law-abiding manner by arresting STS. Once STS had outlined his justifications for seeking the arrest of Bush, the judge perked up markedly. Charles Davison’s main contentions revolved around the characterization of STS’s understanding at the moment he attempted the citizen’s arrest. STS informed the court that three documents most influenced his decision to arrest Bush. The first was a statement disseminated prior to Bush’s lecture date by Lawyers Against the War. It was directed to a number of law enforcement officials right up to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In a concise yet rich and detailed intervention, LAW detailed why George W. Bush was inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (see: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12668).

The second document submitted to the court was a letter of solidarity written by former US Attorney-General Ramsay Clark. Over three decades Clark and STS have developed a deep and fruitful collaboration going back to the days when the latter was charged with killing a jail guard in the Attica prison debacle of 1971. The third document to be placed before the Court is entitled “Bush League Justice: Should George W. Bush be Arrested in Calgary, AB, and Tried for International Crimes.” It was authored by STS’s friend and colleague, Anthony J. Hall (http://www.voltairenet.org/article159233.html#article159233). I noticed that Judge DeLong, who had been particularly statue-like and expressionless prior to reading Hall’s essay, suddenly metamorphosed into an engaged human being apparently interested in this highly significant case in Canada’s history.

Not long after the period when Judge Delong had listened to STS’s impassioned oratory and viewed Professor Hall’s essay, the court was adjourned. The judge concluded by stating he was willing to stay until Thursday (i.e. for the full four days allotted for the trial) plus an extra day if necessary. The Judge’s looking ahead to a week-long trial can be deemed a victory for STS and his supporters as a five day event should allow for more evidence to be brought to light in a legal proceeding which is certainly one of the most significant trials ever to take place in Calgary. Judge Delong has been presented with a chance to create a beacon of a hope in a world afflicted with the prospect of never ending military strife as set in motion by the Cheney-Bush regime’s fraudulent Global War on Terror.

Tomorrow is the second day of the trial and STS’s lawyer may be calling Professor Anthony J. Hall to the stand to testify. Cynthia McKinney will arrive in Calgary on Tuesday evening. It is hoped the the court will give this indefatigable freedom fighter the green light to testify on Wednesday.

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(4)    DAY TWO, TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY.  Report by indybay.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/03/09/18640418.php?show_comments=1#18640511

Day Two- The Trial of Splitting the Sky Versus George W. Bush

by Carol Brouillet ( cbrouillet [at] igc.org )
Tuesday Mar 9th, 2010 4:21 PM 

. . .    The Calgary Sun framed the trial by reiterating defense counsel Charles Davison’s assertions that his client’s attempts at breaching a police barrier to gain access to Bush were justified. Davison said that he will present evidence to support Boncore’s claim. Lawyers Against the War, had urged the RCMP to arrest Bush for crimes against humanity if he stepped on Canadian soil. That group asserted Bush was “inadmissible to Canada” as a suspected war criminal and said the former U.S. president should not be allowed into Canada. If he was deemed a suspected war criminal Bush would be disentitled to enter Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and would be breaking the law if he came here, Davison said. As a result, Boncore was entitled to make a citizen’s arrest since a crime was being committed.

The Crown prosecutor Tracy Davis argued that citizen’s arrests can only be carried out by a person witnessing a crime taking place and that Splitting the Sky was not entitled to make an arrest of George W. Bush.

The Calgary Sun’s article is entitled- Citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush justified, court hears. Russia Today also covered the story and interviewed Splitting the Sky.

Cynthia McKinney spoke in London yesterday. She first spoke to MPs and their assistants in in a committee room in parliament. She also spoke at a packed public meeting of some 150 people in the School of Oriental and African Studies, and received a standing ovation at the end of her talk. She was supported by 9/11 authors Nafeez Ahmed and Ian Henshall, who also gave good speeches, and by an excellent chairwoman: Dr Jay Ginn, who has been a long term peace campaigner since the 1960s. Cynthia read out to the meeting a prepared statement of support to Splitting the Sky which was acclaimed by near unanimous applause:  . . .

The Immigration law that was used to prevent entry into Canada by George Galloway states:

“A permanent resident or a foreign national is inadmissible on security grounds for:

in an act of espionage or an act of subversion against a democratic government, institution or process as they are understood in Canada;

(b) engaging in or instigating the subversion by force of any government;

(c) engaging in terrorism;

(d) being a danger to the security of Canada;

(e) engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada; or

(f) being a member of an organisation that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in acts referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c).”

Lawyers Against the War had urged Canada to recognize that, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, Bush should have been inadmissible, and as a person suspected of torture, then he should either prosecuted in Canada for torture or extradited to another country that is willing and able to prosecute as required by the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Article 7.

Splitting the Sky presented three documents which influenced his actions, the first was Lawyers Against the War request RCMP to investigate George W. Bush for War Crimes- W is reported to be planning to visit Calgary, Alberta on or before March 17, 2009, the second was a letter of solidarity written by former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, the third was an article Time for Accountability- Should George W. Bush Be Arrested in Calgary, Alberta, To Be Tried For International Crimes? by Professor Anthony J. Hall. The judge concluded the day by saying that he would allow the defense four, and possibly five days to present evidence, which in itself, was a victory for the defense. Cynthia McKinney will be arriving this evening in Calgary and speaking publicly, and hopefully testifying on Wednesday.

The big question before the judge is whether his court is a court of law, a court serving those with great political power, a court serving the cause of justice and accountability, and whether global public opinion bears any weight or is paying any attention to this case.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con…

Add Your Comments

Comments

§Bush League Justice in Judge Manfred Delong’s Calgary Court

by Anthony J. Hall

Wednesday Mar 10th, 2010 10:19 AM

Judge Manfred Delong shut down the trial of Splitting The Sky versus George W. Bush on the second day of proceedings. The court denied STS his frequently emphasized request to have two witnesses give evidence in his defense. Those witnesses were myself and Cynthia McKinney. The trial came to an end just as Ms. McKinney arrived in Calgary from London. The US-based oil conglomerates active throughout Alberta form the core business constituency of the Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who represents a Calgary riding in Parliament.

The court accepted two documents as evidence for the defense. On is Gail Davidson’s widely disseminated legal opinion for Lawyer’s Against the War. STS and I studied this document closely in the days leading up to my friend being arrested for his arrest attempt. LAW’s legal opinion highlighted some of the evidence, statutes and treaties to brand Bush as a “credibly accused war criminal” that should not be allowed into Canada. Prior to Bush’s touching down in Calgary to address an audience of oil executives, Davidson’s documemtation was distributed widely to officials of the Harper government and Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The other exhibit for the defense was my own paper that I originally presented at an invited academic venue at the University of Winnipeg. It has been published under a variety of titles on the Internet, including at Global Research.ca, 911 Blogger.com, 9/11 Truth.org and Voltairenet in both French and English. My initial title for it is “Bush League Justice: Should George W. Bush Be Arrested in Calgary Alberta and Tried for International Crimes.”

Delong will deliver his ruling on June 7. The case for the prosecution both revealed and obscured much about the new police strategies being employed throughout North America to monitor, manage, divide and spin doctor demonstrators seeking to call attention to their political dissent. In my opinion the Crown’s chief agent of prosecution, Tracy Davis, acted more as an advocate and defender of the police rather than as a representative of the Canadian people through Her Majesty as she is required to do according the constitutional tradition of the British Commonwealth.

Anthony J. Hall
Professor of GlobalizationStudies
University of Lethbridge
10 Marc, 2010

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(5)     CALGARY SUN, CITIZEN’S ARREST OF GEORGE W. BUSH JUSTIFIED, COURT HEARS

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2010/03/08/13159991.html

Citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush justified, court hears

By KEVIN MARTIN, Calgary Sun

Last Updated: March 8, 2010 6:06pm

Political activist John Boncore was entitled to try to arrest former U.S. president George W. Bush for war crimes, his lawyer told a Calgary court Monday.

Defence counsel Charles Davison said his client’s attempts at breaching a police barrier to gain access to Bush were justified.

Boncore is charged with obstructing a peace officer for repeatedly trying to get past security and into the Telus Convention Centre last March 17.

“Mr. Boncore had reasonable grounds to attempt to do what he said to the police he wanted to do,” Davison told provincial court Judge Manfred Delong.

“And that was to carry out a citizen’s arrest of George Bush,” the lawyer said.

Davison said he will present evidence, including a documentary entitled Taxi to the Dark Side, which details the torture and murder of an innocent Afghan cabbie, to support Boncore’s claim.

Davison said a group called Lawyers Against the War, had urged the RCMP to arrest Bush for crimes against humanity if he stepped on Canadian soil.

That group asserted Bush was “inadmissible to Canada” as a suspected war criminal and said the former U.S. president should not be allowed into our country.

If he was deemed a suspected war criminal Bush would be disentitled to enter Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and would be breaking the law if he came here, Davison said.

As a result, Boncore was entitled to make a citizen’s arrest since a crime was being committed.

But Crown prosecutor Tracy Davis said citizen’s arrests can only be carried out by a person witnessing a crime taking place.

“The accused was never entitled to effect an arrest of Mr. Bush,” Davis said.

In evidence, Sgt. Andy Comber said Boncore’s attempts to breach a police barricade outside the Telus Convention Centre was causing a large group of protesters to get angry at police.

“If he had breached that line I have no doubt other people would have follow him and eight policemen are not going to be able to hold 400 people back,” Comber told Davis.

“The crowd was quite agitated at that point,” he said.

Boncore’s trial, expected to last four days, continues on Tuesday.

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(6)    GLOBAL RESEARCH’S NEWS REPORT ON SPLITTING THE SKY’S TRIAL

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18005

Global Research, March 8, 2010

Citizen’s Arrest of Alleged War Criminal George W. Bush in Canada

SPS versus “W” in Court Hearings in Calgary

by Carol Brouillet

Splitting the Sky, indigenous activist, seized by security forces in Canada last year when he attempted to make a citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush will have his day in court on Monday, March 8th. According to Professor Anthony J. Hall, this case will demonstrate whether Canada is ruled by law or fear and highlight the need for new principles, the Calgary Principles to amend the victor’s justice of the Nuremberg Principles, in light of the new impunities for high level crimes against humanity and the Earth in this era, and the need to protect and honor civil resistance to those high crimes.

Dacajaweiah, John Boncore, or Splitting the Sky, is not a man of few words. If you read his hefty 653-page autobiography, it is very clear that he has lived an extraordinary life and has survived more than his share of violence, to find deep within himself a well of energy and spirit enabling him to not only endure hardships, but to serve his people and the land in the timeless struggle against oppression and tyranny. From the Attica Rebellion to Gustafen Lake to Calgary in 2009, when he attempted a citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush, “Dac” has consciously taken a leadership role to politically challenge the powerful forces that dominate the North American continent. Brutally arrested for his action, he earned his “day in court” to voice not only his defense, but “to highlight the hypocrisy and criminality of the Canadian government for allowing Bush into Canada, and to firmly establish the legal defense of ‘civil resistance’, the duty of citizens to act when our governments and their agents are derelict in their duty. This will be very useful in the future to rein these criminals in.”

Prior to Bush’s visit, the Canadian group Lawyers Against the War asked Canadian officials to bar entry or try Bush for his suspected crimes since Canadian Law prohibits “people suspected of any involvement in torture or other war crimes and crimes against humanity from entering Canada for any period and for any purpose. The most recent report of the War Crimes Program affirms the necessity of barring war crimes suspects from Canada: ‘The most effective way to deny safe haven to people involved or complicit in war crimes or crimes against humanity is to prevent them from coming to Canada.’”

Lawyers Against the War and protestors implored the government to do their duty and arrest Bush. “Dac” was carrying papers detailing the evidence against George W. Bush, which he had planned to serve him with on behalf of the victims and the people of the world, and he raised his hands to show that he was “non-violent.” Dac was then thrown down, stomped on, kicked, handcuffed and led off to be brutalized in a Calgary jail.

Monday, March 8, 2010, he will have his opportunity to put forward his case and present evidence, with support, testimony and affidavits on his behalf from respected scholars, including David Ray Griffin, Peter Dale Scott, and Michel Chossudovsky, as well as from former US Congresswoman, outspoken human rights advocate, and former Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. Professor Anthony J. Hall, author of The American Empire and the Fourth World and founding coordinator of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge, stated last December:

“Splitting the Sky’s action in Calgary highlights the abject failure of law enforcement agencies to do their job. It highlights the unwillingness of police and those who direct them to apply the law equitably and independently…

“As the Nuremberg principles make clear, the implicated law enforcement officers cannot claim in their defense that they were merely following orders in deciding to arrest Splitting the Sky rather than George W. Bush.

“I propose that the trial of Splitting the Sky presents a platform for the elaboration of a new set of juridical rules and protocols to be known as The Calgary Principles.

“It has been six decades since the UN general assembly agreed to a succinct refinement of the principles that emerged from the trial of some of the top Nazis, as well as their juridical, medical, and industrialist accomplices. During those decades, there has been an intensification of the culture of impunity that immunizes those at the top of the hierarchy of wealth and power from any legal accountability for their crimes.

“Like the Tokyo trials of the defeated leadership of imperial Japan, the Nuremberg Trials were a classic example of victors’ justice.

“As long as the power politics of victors’ justice continues to protect the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the rule of law remains a fraud. Under present conditions, the rule of law is a sad hoax designed to disguise the role of law enforcement agencies as protectors of the ill-gotten wealth often stripped from the branches of humanity that Frantz Fanon once labeled ‘the wretched of the earth.’

“The elaboration of the Calgary Principles will have to entail the quest for new language and juridical concepts to capture the full extent and complexity of international crime in the twenty-first century…

“Consider, for instance, the nature of the crime that takes place when whole populations are sentenced to endless futures of disproportionately high rates of genetic deformity through the saturation of their mother lands with depleted uranium. Consider the nature of a crime that would see a drug company covertly introduce a new disease strain in order to market a prepared antidote of vaccine to cure the disease it had disseminated.

“What names, what prohibitions, and what punishments do we need to respond to and discourage crimes that infect populations, deform populations, and even destroy whole ecosystems, making the renewal of all kinds of life, including human life, impossible to sustain?

“Hence it can be said that these days the most important agencies of the military-industrial complex and the national security state are the media conglomerates. These agencies of propaganda for an aggressive war bombard us on a daily basis with mental missiles of psychological warfare.

“The constant barrage of messages we receive that peace is to be found in war, that freedom is to be found in slavery, that wealth is to be found in indebtedness, and that truth is to be found in lies, is pulling humanity away from our fragile inheritance of reason, rationality, and enlightened discourse on the real menaces we face…”

Splitting the Sky’s action mirrors the actions of countless people in countless demonstrations that are taking place across the world where lives, land, forests, lakes, jobs, homes, species, and communities are threatened by powerful forces, making decisions in luxury and comfort, protected by men with guns from citizens trying to make their voices heard to protect that which they love and care deeply about. The trial will illustrate whether or not Canada is ruled by laws or by fear. Whatever happens, the struggle for truth, justice, and peace will continue.

For Anthony J. Hall’s entire article and speech, see http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16377 .

More details about Splitting the Sky are posted at http://www.splittingthesky.net/

Splitting the Sky and Anthony J. Hall will be on the new weekly radio show, Community Currency, hosted by local activist, Carol Brouillet Thursday, March 11, 2010, 2 pm – 3 pm PST, on the Progressive Radio Network (http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com)

http://dailycensored.com/2010/03/07/the-tr…

Carol Brouillet is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Carol Brouillet

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(7)   JAN 19, 2010.  LAW PROFESSOR FRANCIS BOYLE FROM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FILED REQUEST WITH INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC – THE HAGUE) FOR ARREST OF BUSH AND HIS COMPANIONS.

http://www.redress.cc/global/redress20100206

Bush to The Hague

International Criminal Court complaint filed against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice and Gonzales

Request for international arrest warrants

6 February 2010

A leading US professor of law has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court prosecutor against former US President George W. Bush and a number of his senior lieutenants alleging crimes against humanity for their policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” and requesting that the ICC prosecutor obtain international arrest warrants against Mr Bush and his co-accused.

Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, USA, has filed a complaint with the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against US citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human beings.

“Extraordinary rendition” is a euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitutes crimes against humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the ICC.

The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless, the Accused have ordered and been responsible for the commission of actions considered as crimes under the ICC statute within the respective territories of many ICC member states, including several in Europe. Consequently, the ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute the Accused for their ICC statutory crimes under Rome Statute Article 12(2)(a) that affords the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute for ICC statutory crimes committed in ICC member states.

The complaint requests:

  1. That the ICC prosecutor open an investigation of the Accused on his own accord under Rome Statute article 15(1); and
  2. That the ICC Prosecutor also formally “submit to the [ICC] Pre-Trial Chamber a request for authorization of an investigation” of the Accused under Rome Statute Article 15(3).

For similar reasons, the highest level officials of the Obama administration risk the filing of a follow-up complaint with the ICC if they do not immediately terminate the Accused’s criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition, which the Obama administration has continued to implement.

The complaint concludes with a request that the ICC prosecutor obtain international arrest warrants for the Accused from the ICC in accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), 58(1)(b)(i), 58(1)(b)(ii), and 58(1)(b)(iii).

Please contacting the ICC prosecutor by letter, fax or email – contact details below – to demonstrate your support for this complaint.

The Honourable Luis Moreno-Ocampo
Office of the Prosecutor
International Criminal Court
Post Office Box 19519
2500 CM, The Hague
The Netherlands
Fax No.: 31-70-515-8555
Email: OTP.InformationDesk@icc-cpi.int

A copy of the submission to the ICC prosecutor is below and is also available here.

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(8)    NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO ARREST, I DON’T HAVE JURISDICTION.  YES, YOU HAVE JURISDICTION,  THE LAW OF COMPLEMENTARITY.

Excerpt from an earlier email:

Persons responsible for arresting or prosecuting George Bush when he comes to Canada Oct 20 – 22  say “not my responsibility.  I don’t have jurisdiction.  It’s International Law (or whatever)”.  . . .

These officials in Canada DO have jurisdiction and responsibility for the arrest and prosecution of George W Bush under the Principle in International Law called Complementarity.  The explanation of the Principle is simple.  Please spread it around,  especially to people in the justice system, including the police.  Thanks.   /Sandra

COMPLEMENTARITY

Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

From his book,  “Intent for a Nation”  (2007)

Page 111:

“Countries that ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court take on certain obligations.  Prominent among these is the obligation to investigate and prosecute, under their domestic criminal laws, any individual located on their territory who is accused of any crime prohibited by the statute.  This is because the International Criminal Court operates on the basis of a principle called “complementarity,” whereby most prosecutions are supposed to take place in domestic courts.  The International Criminal Court steps in only when it deems that the relevant domestic court is unable or unwilling to fulfill that role, or when the UN Security Council refers a situation directly to it.

In 2000, the Canadian Parliament adopted legislation implementing the Rome Statute into Canadian law.  The Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act provides Canadian domestic courts with jurisdiction over a wide range of international crimes, regardless of the nationality of the alleged perpetrator or the location where he or she allegedly committed the crime.  The act also goes further than the Rome Statute by providing jurisdiction retroactively over crimes.”

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(9)     BACKGROUND FOR NEWCOMERS

(Email sent Oct 8, 2009)

SUBJECT:  Bush visit to Canada:  Letters to RCMP, Police & Attorney General

An interesting update, item 15 in the attached letter to the RCMP:

 “LAW & ORDER” TV PROGRAMME MAKES CASE FOR PROSECUTION OF BUSH ADMINISTRATION TORTURERS, OCTOBER 2, 2009

I almost feel guilty putting my name to the attached two letters because they are a collaborative creation.

But never mind – please feel free to cut, copy and paste to send your own letter to members of the justice system.

“Peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds.”  Gandhi

The attachments are related to the Bush visit (Oct 20-21-22 Edmonton-Saskatoon-Montreal):

(1)     Letter to the Attorney General of Canada  (prosecution)

(2)     Letter to RCMP F Division (Sask) Commander  (arrest).

I included a copy of the letter to the RCMP in the letter to the AGC.

The list below of the items addressed is in the letter to the RCMP.

The first item, SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RULE OF LAW,  is to me the most important part.  We are in big trouble if the laws do not apply to those who govern.

I think we can and will and must win this one.  A mass of informed people will do it – please forward this to others.

Cheers,

/Sandra 

CONTENTS OF THE LETTER TO THE RCMP:   See posting for Oct 8, 2009

2010-03-10 Propaganda, Democracy: Imagining “the other”. Ralston Saul. The Cellist of Sarajevo.

 Epigenetics, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials), Perception, fallibility, Linguistics, Propaganda, Why we flounder or do not flounder  No Responses »
Mar 102010
 

Some critical components of democracy are addressed, including the ability of citizens to recognize propaganda and how it operates.

 

CONTENTS

(1)   COMMENTARY

(2)   THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO

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(1)   COMMENTARY

 

I was asked:   Why shouldn’t I believe the Government?  They SAID that Lockheed Martin Corporation would not have access to the data on every citizen in the Canadian census records?  …

The response to the question relates to propaganda and our desire to believe.  (Maybe it’s in our brain chemistry from the time we absolutely depended on our Mothers for survival?)  Reassurances can become opiates; they induce a false and unrealistic sense of contentment that we like.

What is the compelling evidence that Lockheed Martin’s involvement in the Canadian census is highly suspect?  There is a parallel story of CN.  In response to public concerns that Canadian National Railways, once privatized, would fall into American hands, the Government passed legislation in 1995 to reassure us that CN would remain Canadian with its headquarters in Montreal.  Today CN is owned by American interests.  It is “CN” and not to be referred to as “Canadian National”.  Reassurances . . .even laws  ..  opiates worth nothing. They wait us out and then proceed with their agenda.  The Americans want the information on all Canadians – – I’ve circulated the news reports that spell it out.

Foreign ownership of rail transportation, foreign ownership of oil and gas resources, foreign ownership of media – –  the Canadian gun registry run by American corporations, Canada student loans outsourced and now run by American corporations, and so on.

Before sending the email to establish WHY one should be wary of the assurances regarding Lockheed Martin, I wanted to address the use of propaganda and our susceptibility to it.

Arising out of the theme of propaganda I started an email on ILLUSION.  Propaganda works if we are susceptible to illusion.  And so it seems to me important to understand WHY or under what circumstances we buy into illusion.  We can’t duel with it, if we don’t take time to learn to recognize and understand its thrusts.

 

The Kitty Werthmann posting,
2010-03-06    Propaganda. Kitty Werthmann, Austria, 1938 (The Sound of Music) “the state, little by little eroded our freedom” :

–        I sent it because it is instructive to know what propaganda and manipulation look like, so they are clearly recognizable by citizens.  Propaganda and manipulation are critical tools of those whose power is threatened by the power of democracy.

–        I chose not to edit (censor?!) any of what Kitty said.

–        Which was right, and which turned out to be okay, but ONLY because some of you took the time to provide valuable critiques, the CONTEXT.   (See the “COMMENTS” on the posting).

Kitty Werthmann describes the susceptibility to propaganda when people are jobless and hungry. Kitty erects signs on the lake’s winter surface that say “Thin ice here”.  (We should react to that information by changing course so we don’t fall into the hole.)

But simultaneously,  I must look past the portion of Kitty’s statement that I selectively chose for its relevance to my argument, to see what else lies there.  I preach the importance of “context”, but with Kitty’s work I did not provide any.  I was in a time trap and took a short cut.   Fortunately, some of you filled in that contextual gap.

This example raises a niggling question:  is it possible to have democracy in a society that has “no time”?  We find ourselves in a world where we don’t know the basics of our form of governance, we don’t equip citizens to function in a democracy.  Nor do we have time for what democracy takes.  We are impatient with meetings and impatient with listening to other people because we “don’t have time”.

Democracy takes practice.  Practice gives competence. Competence gives confidence. Too many people withdraw from standing up and saying their piece because they lack confidence or feel uncomfortable or vulnerable.  They haven’t practised speaking in public gatherings.  Democracy is undermined if our skill set and knowledge base train us to be consumers and managers, not friends, orators, writers, thinkers, empowered and connected people.

In order for a society to survive in a world where the reality is CHANGE, it is terribly important that we have time to think about things, whether as an individual or as a society.  Clinging to the status quo is suicidal.

Rush, rush, rush on the treadmill allows no time for contemplation.  It also allows little time for the community interest.  WHY is it that Europeans have more annual vacation time than North Americans?  Much of the imbalance in our lives comes from the prevalence of commercial propaganda.

Some countries are in disdain of our lifestyle which isolates and robs many of us of the beauty and joy, the music and dance, and the enlivening/healing experience found in a community of people.  Aaaah!  Those are also the things that STRENGTHEN both the individual and the community.  Corporatocracy cannot flourish where there are strong communities.

We need to respond appropriately as a community to solving the problems that belong to everyone.  Otherwise, the disparities between people and countries only radicalize and polarize us.  You can never erect enough iron fences and security systems, or have a large enough army to make yourself “safe” if there is widespread inequity.

The CEO’s of the corporations with multi-million dollar salaries financed by government money may go unchallenged in good times.  People are placated because they’re doing okay.  But when, as a consequence of the relationships between government and some corporations, people lose their jobs and their homes, people are much less tolerant of the disparities (the fleecing).  The powerful then want police protection, a militaristic state.  I read an article today – the American Security people are perplexed.  They can’t understand the growth in what they see as domestic “terrorism”.  It’s not just those bad guys from overseas.  It’s our own population!

You CAN have “the good life” if you help to protect your life supports (water free of poisons, clean air, etc.) AND if you help others.  It means, among other things, that WE (it’s our money) have to stop funding wars that kill.  A long history tells us that war and destruction don’t work. They are counter-productive.   They are the opposite of “helping others”.

Albert Einstein said

“Men should continue to fight, but they should fight for things worth while, not for imaginary geographical lines, racial prejudices and private greed draped in the colours of patriotism.”

I am wondering:

if we do not have an ability to see “the other”,

if we can only minister to self-centred wants fueled by commercial propaganda,

is it possible to defend democracy?

 

I want democracy for me.  But I also want democracy for others.  I don’t want armies coming here and destroying what we have.  I don’t want unmanned drone aircraft dropping bombs on Saskatoon, wiping out our water treatment plant and the Main Library, the Mendel Art Gallery our hospitals and schools, not to mention my home, family and friends.

We seem to think that WE can have democracy when we don’t ensure it for others.  I don’t think it works that way.  … One of the next postings says of THE AMERICANS ”In early 2010, the U.S. Air Force had more drone operators in training than fighter and bomber pilots.”

Shed our illusions.  It is the Canadians AND the Americans that are training more drone operators than fighter and bomber pilots.  I will re-circulate an older email about the extent of the “inter-operability” we now have with the Americans; Canadian Generals are part of the American military operation.

There is no democracy for the people upon whom the bombs are dropped, if democracy has anything to do with participation in the decisions that affect your life, or if democracy has anything to do with peace and justice.

 

On the flip side, Canadians did not take part in any democratic process through which we decided to participate in the use of unmanned drones for warfare.

If we think we will be spared the consequences of our failure to be informed and to speak up and fight on behalf of those people whose lives are being ripped apart by our heads-in-the-sand, I think we dream in technicolour.

We need to know the civilian deaths from unmanned bomb-carrying drones launched from U.S. soil (Nevada) against targets in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  Because our name (Canadian) is attached, through the integration of armed forces.  We are responsible for Canadian actions, including those on “Afghan detainees”.

What is The Way in which we will be held accountable?  It is quite simple:  eventually there will be unmanned drones carrying bombs that will be launched against us if for no other reason than that the weapons manufacturers do not care to which state they sell their wares.  Or just because what goes around, comes around.  Eventually.

When we were fighting (unsuccessfully and all around-the-world) to stop the American illegal war on Iraq I recounted two stories to illustrate how long the hate lasts:

–        Well-educated people in Savannah, Georgia who still talk today as though the American Civil War (1861-1865) happened only twenty years ago.  Their sons were horribly killed by the northerners.  (And vice versa, of course.  But it’s easier on the victors.)

–        The Expulsion of the Acadians (French) from their homes in Nova Scotia by the British  in 1755.  Today, you can visit a relatively-new Acadian Museum in Louisiana where the “genocide by the English” is documented.

The stories and the hatred created by the injustices are never lost.  They get handed down generation-to-generation for centuries.  The memories are not just verbal; they become part of the memory transmitted in human cells from parent to child.

(Some of you may remember, result of a CBC interview by Anna Maria Tremonti, the email about the American psychologist (“the daughter”) who had terrifying and on-going nightmares.  The nightmares followed her from childhood into adulthood, with no personal experience to explain them.  Through the psychologist’s work she came to recognize a pattern in many of her patients, and developed a specialized practice for people whose difficulties are rooted in the life experiences of their parents, have nothing to do with their own experiences.  Through serendipity during a tourist visit to Poland by the psychologist and her Mother, the source of the nightmares became known.  They were the unremembered infant experiences of the psychologist’s Mother who was hidden in a dark basement to escape the Nazis. (The Grandmother had been able to hand the baby into safe hands on her way to a concentration camp where she died.  The serendipity brought the psychologist and her Mother together with the old woman who, as a young woman cared for and loved the small baby who must not cry lest their hiding place be discovered.) The psychologist daughter had no way of knowing the source of her own nightmares because her Mother had no verbal memory of them to pass along.  The nightmares ended with the serendipitous disclosure of the Mother’s experience in infancy.  The stuff of war doesn’t die; it remains generations after the “victory” is proclaimed.)

American foreign policy, our failure to imagine the life of “the other”, and propaganda are at the root of the terrorism.

I don’t want corporations coming here, taking what they want, poisoning our water, air and land in their bargain.  Said another way:  I don’t want others to appropriate as their own, resources that do not belong to them.  The resources belong to the Earth, are essential for our survival, and need to be carefully husbanded.

Canadian mining companies are doing the same dirty work of taking, depleting, and poisoning local water supplies in other countries.  We prefer to characterize such behaviour as “American” corporate practice.  Denial is a big part of illusion.

 

Viewed by “the other”, let’s say a Muslim whose values are the same as yours or mine, . . .  transport our bodies into their shoes, would we not see Canadians as a terrible threat to the sanctity of their culture?  How can you possibly fight against this all-pervasive, decadent wave of Hollywood values and glitz and sex that swamps us?  …  If I instead say “would we not see Americans as a terrible threat to the sanctity of Islam?”, it sounds better, more comfortable.  Because denial of our (the Canadian) role is at work.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of “the other” who follow the prophet Mohammed, if we were able to see ourselves from outside, I think we would be pretty horrified.  We prefer to live in denial of our own “culture” and its impact on “the other”.

As I recall a recent story of a TV personality in Iraq:  he let it be known publicly, on television, that he enjoyed sex with women who were not his wife.  His crime was described in terms of disrespect for his wife.  He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to jail.

The Muslim TV personality was imitating what is acceptable and normal in “American” culture.  But is offensive in other cultures.  Indeed, our own culture is by times horrifying to many of us.  But it is “normal”.  The perversions we blithely feed our children, and so on are “normal”.  We do it through mass media.  Jesus is not God; we bow down before Money and all that is superficial. We sit on the pews in front of our altar, the television set.

Which reminds me of the words of Kitty Werthmann (far right though she be), “Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore.” Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler all used that same tool:  create dependence of the population by removing the competing loyalties.  It is not an argument to say that religion and the state should not be separated; they should be.  It is a question of understanding the tools that the manipulator, the propagandist uses.

The creation of dependence.  Which is not an argument to say that we must be fiercely Independent.  We accomplish much more working together.

If we can separate reality from illusion, our personal reality is that we normalize violence, the same as the Americans do, maybe a little less.  It’s the Bowling for Columbine story.  Seen from the view-point of a Muslim, and especially those Muslims who receive their state propaganda, the same as we are fed our state propaganda, yes, we are terrible people.  How can you save your women from the disrespect and rape, from those all-pervasive images that give license to acts of gross indency?  If you feel powerless, what do you do?  …  maybe we should put ourselves into their head space.  War, with its more killing, torture and rape reinforces the thought that western culture is evil.  “The other” does not experience our goodness.  Not any more than we experience their goodness.

From Wikipedia:

Mohammed was born June 8, 632.  He “is the founder of the religion of Islam and is regarded by Muslims as a messenger and prophet of God (Arabic: الله‎ Allāh), the greatest law-bearer in a series of Islamic prophets and by most Muslims the last prophet as taught by the Qur’an. Muslims thus consider him the restorer of an uncorrupted original monotheistic faith (islām) of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other prophets.[7][8][9] He was also active as a diplomat, merchant, philosopher, orator, legislator, reformer, military general, and, according to Muslim belief, an agent of divine action.[10]

Yes, Jesus too was an “agent of divine action”.

Muslims follow the teachings of Mohammed;  Christians follow the teachings of Jesus and don’t see Mohammed in their line of prophets.  The various religions have their holy books from which their teachings come.   And through history, there are always groups that break-away or branch off.

Muslims try to live good lives, as do all of us.  They struggle to raise their children to be “good”, as do all of us.

There are two components:

  1. We have to be able to see “the other”, but
  2. “Seeing” the other is dependent upon IMAGINATION.

Imagination equipped Canadian Steven Galloway to write “The Cellist of Sarajevo” (see item #2).  OUR imaginations then allow us to transport that portrayal to people in Iraq or in Afghanistan; unmanned drones dropping bombs inflict on them the same treacheries but probably worse.  Or, we can imagine the circumstances under which the same thing could happen to us.  Or, we might imagine action we can take in aid of those others.  We imagine actions to take back our power:  “The worst about the red tyrants was not they themselves but us, all our cowardice and servility…”

To the extent that our educational systems fertilize freedom, creativity and equality of the value of each child, we develop the critical capacity in a democracy to imagine “the other”.  To the extent that a narrow focus on “the rational” exists and is unduly rewarded at the expense of our other qualities, we restrict our capacity to make progress.  What passes as “rational” is not rational.  Unmanned, remote-controlled drones dropping bombs on other countries?  You’ve gotta be kidding.

 

PORTION removed, made into a separate post.  See   2016-05-21 I lose myself. “A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.”

Includes important discussion by John Ralson Saul with quotes from his book   “On Equilibrium”.

= = = = = = = = = == =  = = =

(2)   THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO

http://www.thefictiondesk.com/blog/the-cellist-of-sarajevo-by-steven-galloway/

It’s the early nineties, and the city of Sarajevo is under siege by the Bosnian Serb forces. Three characters make their way through the chaos and destruction of the city streets: Kenan, on a journey across town to collect drinkable water for his family; Dragan, held up on his way to work, afraid to cross an intersection covered by a Serb sniper; and Arrow, a Sarajevan sniper struggling to maintain her independence. In the background to all of their lives is the music of the unnamed cellist of the title, who goes out into the street each day for twenty-two days, to play one adagio for each of the victims of a recent shelling.

The cellist himself is a minor part of the story, his stubborn and dangerous performances a symbol for the way that each character is trying to hold onto an idea of their life and the city as they were before the siege began. As Dragan sets out on his way to work, picking his way through rubble and carefully planning a route to avoid the most dangerous areas of the city, he contemplates the changes taking place around him:

Every day the Sarajevo he thinks he remembers slips away from him a little at a time, like water cupped in the palms of his hands, and when it’s gone he wonders what will be left. He isn’t sure what it will be like to live without remembering how life used to be, what it was like to live in a beautiful city. When the war first started he tried to fight the loss of the city, tried to keep what he could intact. When he looked at a building, he’d try to see it as it had once been, and when he looked at someone he knew, he tried to ignore their changes in appearance and behaviour. But as time went on he began to see things as they now were, and then one day he knew that he was no longer fighting the city’s disappearance, even in his mind. What he saw around him was his only reality.

Dragan’s wife and son have fled the city, and at first he dreams of following them, but later he comes to the conclusion that to leave the city now would be to leave it behind forever, and to sacrifice the concept of himself as a Sarajevan. This theme, of the importance of perception, is later taken up in Kenan’s story when, on his way home with his full canisters of drinking water, he discovers the cellist in mid-performance and pauses to hear him play:

He watches as the cellist’s hair smooths itself out, his beard disappears. A dirty tuxedo becomes clean, shoes polished bright as mirrors. […]

The building behind the cellist repairs itself. The scars of bullets and shrapnel are covered by plaster and paint, and windows reassemble, clarify and sparkle as the sun reflects off glass. The cobblestones of the road set themselves straight. Around him people stand up taller, their faces put on weight and colour. Clothes gain lost thread, brighten, smooth out their wrinkles.

Vedran Smailovic: the real cellist of Sarajevo

The performances of the cellist in the novel were inspired by a series of real performances given in Sarajevo by Vedran Smailovic. When he read the book, Smailovic was apparently upset at what he saw as the theft of his story. Galloway responded by pointing out that fictional accounts of public events aren’t at all uncommon, and that his cellist, while inspired by Smailovic, was certainly fictional. Still, it was perhaps unfortunate that the Canadian publisher chose to put a photograph of Smailovic on the cover of their edition.

Essentially, then, The Cellist of Sarajevo presents three concurrent short stories about people struggling to maintain their identity and values in a destroyed city (the siege lasted a little under four years, and claimed more than 10,000 lives). It’s well written, absorbing, and short; it cuts itself off before having a chance to waste a word.

2010-03-08 Calgary, Trial of Splitting-the-Sky for attempted citizen’s arrest of George Bush

 George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Mar 082010
 

CONTENTS

(1)    DAY ONE (March 8, 2010):  CALGARY TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY VERSUS GEORGE BUSH. REPORT by JOSHUA BLAKENEY. 

(2)    DAY TWO, TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY.  Report by indybay. 

(3)     CALGARY SUN, CITIZEN’S ARREST OF GEORGE W. BUSH JUSTIFIED, COURT HEARS

(4)    GLOBAL RESEARCH’S NEWS REPORT ON SPLITTING THE SKY’S TRIAL

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

(1)    DAY ONE (March 8, 2010):  CALGARY TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY VERSUS GEORGE BUSH. REPORT by JOSHUA BLAKENEY. 

Hi,

Here is my report from the first day of the STS vs Bush trail. Please feel free to disseminate and publish.

thanks,    Joshua Blakeney

Judge Manfred Delong Meets Splitting the Sky

By Joshua Blakeney

Media Coordinator of Globalization Studies

University of Lethbridge

Today the trial of Splitting the Sky commenced. Splitting the Sky attempted a citizens’ arrest on credibly accused war criminal George W. Bush on March 17, 2009, and was arrested and jailed for doing so by police. Try as its representatives might to disguise their motivations with the kind PR spin doctoring we witnessed in the court today, the Calgary Police, the RCMP and its contractors were under the Harper government’s strict political orders to protect the Alberta home turf of the current minority government that came to power as the holder of the Bushite franchise in Canada. Some have termed this historic proceeding as “The Trial of Splitting the Sky versus George W. Bush” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP6DSMCXKLg). From what I witnessed firsthand on day one, the government attempt to manage this highly volatile convergence of law and politics was an exciting affair.

The morning’s proceedings were mostly filled with the testaments of the policemen involved in protecting Bush and arresting STS. Amazingly, when one of the policeman was asked why he had arrested the Mohawk activist, the official contended that he “was protecting STS” from Bush’s henchmen. He went on to say that Bush’s protectors carry “lethal weapons” and that they would in all likelihood have used them to kill the accused man. Rather than seek further information on Bush’s private-Blackwater-style militia, the lawyers on both sides of the case passed over this startling revelation.

The presiding magistrate, Judge Manfred Delong, initially appeared, in my view, to be siding with the Crown prosecutor against STS’s lawyer, Charles Davison. Davison’s initial submission asked the court to allow for a distinction between “Obstructing a Police Officer” and “Preventing a Police Officer from Performing his Duty.” Davison’s argument was disallowed by Judge Delong. From that point on, Mr. Davison appeared to be improvising in a defence on which the hopes of many in the anti-war activists are riding.

Certainly the turning point of the day came when STS took the stand to testify in his usual flamboyant, surprising and erudite manner. STS reminded the court that it was the same laws which the minority government eschewed vis-a-vis Bush which were invoked to keep British peace activist George Galloway MP out of Canada last March. STS opined: “All Galloway had been doing was bringing medical aide to Palestinians in Gaza, 2000 of whom Israel had massacred, but they barred Galloway from Canada using the same laws which they should have used to ban George W. Bush.”

My perception was that until STS testified, Judge Delong was more inclined to the Crown’s side of the argument, namely that the police were “keeping the peace” in a law-abiding manner by arresting STS. Once STS had outlined his justifications for seeking the arrest of Bush, the judge perked up markedly. Charles Davison’s main contentions revolved around the characterization of STS’s understanding at the moment he attempted the citizen’s arrest. STS informed the court that three documents most influenced his decision to arrest Bush. The first was a statement disseminated prior to Bush’s lecture date by Lawyers Against the War. It was directed to a number of law enforcement officials right up to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In a concise yet rich and detailed intervention, LAW detailed why George W. Bush was inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (see: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12668).

The second document submitted to the court was a letter of solidarity written by former US Attorney-General Ramsay Clark. Over three decades Clark and STS have developed a deep and fruitful collaboration going back to the days when the latter was charged with killing a jail guard in the Attica prison debacle of 1971. The third document to be placed before the Court is entitled “Bush League Justice: Should George W. Bush be Arrested in Calgary, AB, and Tried for International Crimes.” It was authored by STS’s friend and colleague, Anthony J. Hall (http://www.voltairenet.org/article159233.html#article159233). I noticed that Judge DeLong, who had been particularly statue-like and expressionless prior to reading Hall’s essay, suddenly metamorphosed into an engaged human being apparently interested in this highly significant case in Canada’s history.

Not long after the period when Judge Delong had listened to STS’s impassioned oratory and viewed Professor Hall’s essay, the court was adjourned. The judge concluded by stating he was willing to stay until Thursday (i.e. for the full four days allotted for the trial) plus an extra day if necessary. The Judge’s looking ahead to a week-long trial can be deemed a victory for STS and his supporters as a five day event should allow for more evidence to be brought to light in a legal proceeding which is certainly one of the most significant trials ever to take place in Calgary. Judge Delong has been presented with a chance to create a beacon of a hope in a world afflicted with the prospect of never ending military strife as set in motion by the Cheney-Bush regime’s fraudulent Global War on Terror.

Tomorrow is the second day of the trial and STS’s lawyer may be calling Professor Anthony J. Hall to the stand to testify. Cynthia McKinney will arrive in Calgary on Tuesday evening. It is hoped the the court will give this indefatigable freedom fighter the green light to testify on Wednesday.

= = = = = = = =

(2)    DAY TWO, TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY.  Report by indybay.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/03/09/18640418.php?show_comments=1#18640511  

Day Two- The Trial of Splitting the Sky Versus George W. Bush

by Carol Brouillet ( cbrouillet [at] igc.org )
Tuesday Mar 9th, 2010 4:21 PM

. . .    The Calgary Sun framed the trial by reiterating defense counsel Charles Davison’s assertions that his client’s attempts at breaching a police barrier to gain access to Bush were justified. Davison said that he will present evidence to support Boncore’s claim. Lawyers Against the War, had urged the RCMP to arrest Bush for crimes against humanity if he stepped on Canadian soil. That group asserted Bush was “inadmissible to Canada” as a suspected war criminal and said the former U.S. president should not be allowed into Canada. If he was deemed a suspected war criminal Bush would be disentitled to enter Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and would be breaking the law if he came here, Davison said. As a result, Boncore was entitled to make a citizen’s arrest since a crime was being committed.

The Crown prosecutor Tracy Davis argued that citizen’s arrests can only be carried out by a person witnessing a crime taking place and that Splitting the Sky was not entitled to make an arrest of George W. Bush.

The Calgary Sun’s article is entitled- Citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush justified, court hears. Russia Today also covered the story and interviewed Splitting the Sky.

Cynthia McKinney spoke in London yesterday. She first spoke to MPs and their assistants in in a committee room in parliament. She also spoke at a packed public meeting of some 150 people in the School of Oriental and African Studies, and received a standing ovation at the end of her talk. She was supported by 9/11 authors Nafeez Ahmed and Ian Henshall, who also gave good speeches, and by an excellent chairwoman: Dr Jay Ginn, who has been a long term peace campaigner since the 1960s. Cynthia read out to the meeting a prepared statement of support to Splitting the Sky which was acclaimed by near unanimous applause:  . . . 

The Immigration law that was used to prevent entry into Canada by George Galloway states:

“A permanent resident or a foreign national is inadmissible on security grounds for:

in an act of espionage or an act of subversion against a democratic government, institution or process as they are understood in Canada;

(b) engaging in or instigating the subversion by force of any government;

(c) engaging in terrorism;

(d) being a danger to the security of Canada;

(e) engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada; or

(f) being a member of an organisation that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in acts referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c).”

Lawyers Against the War had urged Canada to recognize that, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, Bush should have been inadmissible, and as a person suspected of torture, then he should either prosecuted in Canada for torture or extradited to another country that is willing and able to prosecute as required by the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Article 7.

Splitting the Sky presented three documents which influenced his actions, the first was Lawyers Against the War request RCMP to investigate George W. Bush for War Crimes- W is reported to be planning to visit Calgary, Alberta on or before March 17, 2009, the second was a letter of solidarity written by former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, the third was an article Time for Accountability- Should George W. Bush Be Arrested in Calgary, Alberta, To Be Tried For International Crimes? by Professor Anthony J. Hall. The judge concluded the day by saying that he would allow the defense four, and possibly five days to present evidence, which in itself, was a victory for the defense. Cynthia McKinney will be arriving this evening in Calgary and speaking publicly, and hopefully testifying on Wednesday.

The big question before the judge is whether his court is a court of law, a court serving those with great political power, a court serving the cause of justice and accountability, and whether global public opinion bears any weight or is paying any attention to this case.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con…

Comments 

§Bush League Justice in Judge Manfred Delong’s Calgary Court

by Anthony J. Hall

Wednesday Mar 10th, 2010 10:19 AM

Judge Manfred Delong shut down the trial of Splitting The Sky versus George W. Bush on the second day of proceedings. The court denied STS his frequently emphasized request to have two witnesses give evidence in his defense. Those witnesses were myself and Cynthia McKinney. The trial came to an end just as Ms. McKinney arrived in Calgary from London. The US-based oil conglomerates active throughout Alberta form the core business constituency of the Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who represents a Calgary riding in Parliament.

The court accepted two documents as evidence for the defense. On is Gail Davidson’s widely disseminated legal opinion for Lawyer’s Against the War. STS and I studied this document closely in the days leading up to my friend being arrested for his arrest attempt. LAW’s legal opinion highlighted some of the evidence, statutes and treaties to brand Bush as a “credibly accused war criminal” that should not be allowed into Canada. Prior to Bush’s touching down in Calgary to address an audience of oil executives, Davidson’s documemtation was distributed widely to officials of the Harper government and Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The other exhibit for the defense was my own paper that I originally presented at an invited academic venue at the University of Winnipeg. It has been published under a variety of titles on the Internet, including at Global Research.ca, 911 Blogger.com, 9/11 Truth.org and Voltairenet in both French and English. My initial title for it is “Bush League Justice: Should George W. Bush Be Arrested in Calgary Alberta and Tried for International Crimes.”

Delong will deliver his ruling on June 7. The case for the prosecution both revealed and obscured much about the new police strategies being employed throughout North America to monitor, manage, divide and spin doctor demonstrators seeking to call attention to their political dissent. In my opinion the Crown’s chief agent of prosecution, Tracy Davis, acted more as an advocate and defender of the police rather than as a representative of the Canadian people through Her Majesty as she is required to do according the constitutional tradition of the British Commonwealth.

Anthony J. Hall
Professor of GlobalizationStudies
University of Lethbridge
10 Marc, 2010

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(3)     CALGARY SUN, CITIZEN’S ARREST OF GEORGE W. BUSH JUSTIFIED, COURT HEARS

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2010/03/08/13159991.html 

Citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush justified, court hears

By KEVIN MARTIN, Calgary Sun

Last Updated: March 8, 2010 6:06pm 

Political activist John Boncore was entitled to try to arrest former U.S. president George W. Bush for war crimes, his lawyer told a Calgary court Monday.

Defence counsel Charles Davison said his client’s attempts at breaching a police barrier to gain access to Bush were justified.

Boncore is charged with obstructing a peace officer for repeatedly trying to get past security and into the Telus Convention Centre last March 17.

“Mr. Boncore had reasonable grounds to attempt to do what he said to the police he wanted to do,” Davison told provincial court Judge Manfred Delong.

“And that was to carry out a citizen’s arrest of George Bush,” the lawyer said.

Davison said he will present evidence, including a documentary entitled Taxi to the Dark Side, which details the torture and murder of an innocent Afghan cabbie, to support Boncore’s claim.

Davison said a group called Lawyers Against the War, had urged the RCMP to arrest Bush for crimes against humanity if he stepped on Canadian soil.

That group asserted Bush was “inadmissible to Canada” as a suspected war criminal and said the former U.S. president should not be allowed into our country.

If he was deemed a suspected war criminal Bush would be disentitled to enter Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and would be breaking the law if he came here, Davison said.

As a result, Boncore was entitled to make a citizen’s arrest since a crime was being committed.

But Crown prosecutor Tracy Davis said citizen’s arrests can only be carried out by a person witnessing a crime taking place.

“The accused was never entitled to effect an arrest of Mr. Bush,” Davis said.

In evidence, Sgt. Andy Comber said Boncore’s attempts to breach a police barricade outside the Telus Convention Centre was causing a large group of protesters to get angry at police.

“If he had breached that line I have no doubt other people would have follow him and eight policemen are not going to be able to hold 400 people back,” Comber told Davis.

“The crowd was quite agitated at that point,” he said.

Boncore’s trial, expected to last four days, continues on Tuesday.

= = == = = = = = =

(4)    GLOBAL RESEARCH’S NEWS REPORT ON SPLITTING THE SKY’S TRIAL

Citizen’s Arrest of Alleged War Criminal George W. Bush in Canada

SPS versus “W” in Court Hearings in Calgary    by Carol Brouillet    March 8, 2010
 

Splitting the Sky, indigenous activist, seized by security forces in Canada last year when he attempted to make a citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush will have his day in court on Monday, March 8th. According to Professor Anthony J. Hall, this case will demonstrate whether Canada is ruled by law or fear and highlight the need for new principles, the Calgary Principles to amend the victor’s justice of the Nuremberg Principles, in light of the new impunities for high level crimes against humanity and the Earth in this era, and the need to protect and honor civil resistance to those high crimes.

Dacajaweiah, John Boncore, or Splitting the Sky, is not a man of few words. If you read his hefty 653-page autobiography, it is very clear that he has lived an extraordinary life and has survived more than his share of violence, to find deep within himself a well of energy and spirit enabling him to not only endure hardships, but to serve his people and the land in the timeless struggle against oppression and tyranny. From the Attica Rebellion to Gustafen Lake to Calgary in 2009, when he attempted a citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush, “Dac” has consciously taken a leadership role to politically challenge the powerful forces that dominate the North American continent. Brutally arrested for his action, he earned his “day in court” to voice not only his defense, but “to highlight the hypocrisy and criminality of the Canadian government for allowing Bush into Canada, and to firmly establish the legal defense of ‘civil resistance’, the duty of citizens to act when our governments and their agents are derelict in their duty. This will be very useful in the future to rein these criminals in.” 

Prior to Bush’s visit, the Canadian group Lawyers Against the War asked Canadian officials to bar entry or try Bush for his suspected crimes since Canadian Law prohibits “people suspected of any involvement in torture or other war crimes and crimes against humanity from entering Canada for any period and for any purpose. The most recent report of the War Crimes Program affirms the necessity of barring war crimes suspects from Canada: ‘The most effective way to deny safe haven to people involved or complicit in war crimes or crimes against humanity is to prevent them from coming to Canada.’” 

Lawyers Against the War and protestors implored the government to do their duty and arrest Bush. “Dac” was carrying papers detailing the evidence against George W. Bush, which he had planned to serve him with on behalf of the victims and the people of the world, and he raised his hands to show that he was “non-violent.” Dac was then thrown down, stomped on, kicked, handcuffed and led off to be brutalized in a Calgary jail. 

Monday, March 8, 2010, he will have his opportunity to put forward his case and present evidence, with support, testimony and affidavits on his behalf from respected scholars, including David Ray Griffin, Peter Dale Scott, and Michel Chossudovsky, as well as from former US Congresswoman, outspoken human rights advocate, and former Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. Professor Anthony J. Hall, author of The American Empire and the Fourth World and founding coordinator of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge, stated last December: 

“Splitting the Sky’s action in Calgary highlights the abject failure of law enforcement agencies to do their job. It highlights the unwillingness of police and those who direct them to apply the law equitably and independently… 

“As the Nuremberg principles make clear, the implicated law enforcement officers cannot claim in their defense that they were merely following orders in deciding to arrest Splitting the Sky rather than George W. Bush. 

“I propose that the trial of Splitting the Sky presents a platform for the elaboration of a new set of juridical rules and protocols to be known as The Calgary Principles. 

“It has been six decades since the UN general assembly agreed to a succinct refinement of the principles that emerged from the trial of some of the top Nazis, as well as their juridical, medical, and industrialist accomplices. During those decades, there has been an intensification of the culture of impunity that immunizes those at the top of the hierarchy of wealth and power from any legal accountability for their crimes. 

“Like the Tokyo trials of the defeated leadership of imperial Japan, the Nuremberg Trials were a classic example of victors’ justice. 

“As long as the power politics of victors’ justice continues to protect the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the rule of law remains a fraud. Under present conditions, the rule of law is a sad hoax designed to disguise the role of law enforcement agencies as protectors of the ill-gotten wealth often stripped from the branches of humanity that Frantz Fanon once labeled ‘the wretched of the earth.’ 

“The elaboration of the Calgary Principles will have to entail the quest for new language and juridical concepts to capture the full extent and complexity of international crime in the twenty-first century… 

“Consider, for instance, the nature of the crime that takes place when whole populations are sentenced to endless futures of disproportionately high rates of genetic deformity through the saturation of their mother lands with depleted uranium. Consider the nature of a crime that would see a drug company covertly introduce a new disease strain in order to market a prepared antidote of vaccine to cure the disease it had disseminated. 

“What names, what prohibitions, and what punishments do we need to respond to and discourage crimes that infect populations, deform populations, and even destroy whole ecosystems, making the renewal of all kinds of life, including human life, impossible to sustain? 

“Hence it can be said that these days the most important agencies of the military-industrial complex and the national security state are the media conglomerates. These agencies of propaganda for an aggressive war bombard us on a daily basis with mental missiles of psychological warfare. 

“The constant barrage of messages we receive that peace is to be found in war, that freedom is to be found in slavery, that wealth is to be found in indebtedness, and that truth is to be found in lies, is pulling humanity away from our fragile inheritance of reason, rationality, and enlightened discourse on the real menaces we face…” 

Splitting the Sky’s action mirrors the actions of countless people in countless demonstrations that are taking place across the world where lives, land, forests, lakes, jobs, homes, species, and communities are threatened by powerful forces, making decisions in luxury and comfort, protected by men with guns from citizens trying to make their voices heard to protect that which they love and care deeply about. The trial will illustrate whether or not Canada is ruled by laws or by fear. Whatever happens, the struggle for truth, justice, and peace will continue. 

For Anthony J. Hall’s entire article and speech, see http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16377 . 
More details about Splitting the Sky are posted at http://www.splittingthesky.net/ 

Splitting the Sky, indigenous activist, seized by security forces in Canada last year when he attempted to make a citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush will have his day in court on Monday, March 8th. According to Professor Anthony J. Hall, this case will demonstrate whether Canada is ruled by law or fear and highlight the need for new principles, the Calgary Principles to amend the victor’s justice of the Nuremberg Principles, in light of the new impunities for high level crimes against humanity and the Earth in this era, and the need to protect and honor civil resistance to those high crimes.

Dacajaweiah, John Boncore, or Splitting the Sky, is not a man of few words. If you read his hefty 653-page autobiography, it is very clear that he has lived an extraordinary life and has survived more than his share of violence, to find deep within himself a well of energy and spirit enabling him to not only endure hardships, but to serve his people and the land in the timeless struggle against oppression and tyranny. From the Attica Rebellion to Gustafen Lake to Calgary in 2009, when he attempted a citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush, “Dac” has consciously taken a leadership role to politically challenge the powerful forces that dominate the North American continent. Brutally arrested for his action, he earned his “day in court” to voice not only his defense, but “to highlight the hypocrisy and criminality of the Canadian government for allowing Bush into Canada, and to firmly establish the legal defense of ‘civil resistance’, the duty of citizens to act when our governments and their agents are derelict in their duty. This will be very useful in the future to rein these criminals in.” 

Prior to Bush’s visit, the Canadian group Lawyers Against the War asked Canadian officials to bar entry or try Bush for his suspected crimes since Canadian Law prohibits “people suspected of any involvement in torture or other war crimes and crimes against humanity from entering Canada for any period and for any purpose. The most recent report of the War Crimes Program affirms the necessity of barring war crimes suspects from Canada: ‘The most effective way to deny safe haven to people involved or complicit in war crimes or crimes against humanity is to prevent them from coming to Canada.’” 

Lawyers Against the War and protestors implored the government to do their duty and arrest Bush. “Dac” was carrying papers detailing the evidence against George W. Bush, which he had planned to serve him with on behalf of the victims and the people of the world, and he raised his hands to show that he was “non-violent.” Dac was then thrown down, stomped on, kicked, handcuffed and led off to be brutalized in a Calgary jail. 

Monday, March 8, 2010, he will have his opportunity to put forward his case and present evidence, with support, testimony and affidavits on his behalf from respected scholars, including David Ray Griffin, Peter Dale Scott, and Michel Chossudovsky, as well as from former US Congresswoman, outspoken human rights advocate, and former Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. Professor Anthony J. Hall, author of The American Empire and the Fourth World and founding coordinator of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge, stated last December: 

“Splitting the Sky’s action in Calgary highlights the abject failure of law enforcement agencies to do their job. It highlights the unwillingness of police and those who direct them to apply the law equitably and independently… 

“As the Nuremberg principles make clear, the implicated law enforcement officers cannot claim in their defense that they were merely following orders in deciding to arrest Splitting the Sky rather than George W. Bush. 

“I propose that the trial of Splitting the Sky presents a platform for the elaboration of a new set of juridical rules and protocols to be known as The Calgary Principles. 

“It has been six decades since the UN general assembly agreed to a succinct refinement of the principles that emerged from the trial of some of the top Nazis, as well as their juridical, medical, and industrialist accomplices. During those decades, there has been an intensification of the culture of impunity that immunizes those at the top of the hierarchy of wealth and power from any legal accountability for their crimes. 

“Like the Tokyo trials of the defeated leadership of imperial Japan, the Nuremberg Trials were a classic example of victors’ justice. 

“As long as the power politics of victors’ justice continues to protect the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the rule of law remains a fraud. Under present conditions, the rule of law is a sad hoax designed to disguise the role of law enforcement agencies as protectors of the ill-gotten wealth often stripped from the branches of humanity that Frantz Fanon once labeled ‘the wretched of the earth.’ 

“The elaboration of the Calgary Principles will have to entail the quest for new language and juridical concepts to capture the full extent and complexity of international crime in the twenty-first century… 

“Consider, for instance, the nature of the crime that takes place when whole populations are sentenced to endless futures of disproportionately high rates of genetic deformity through the saturation of their mother lands with depleted uranium. Consider the nature of a crime that would see a drug company covertly introduce a new disease strain in order to market a prepared antidote of vaccine to cure the disease it had disseminated. 

“What names, what prohibitions, and what punishments do we need to respond to and discourage crimes that infect populations, deform populations, and even destroy whole ecosystems, making the renewal of all kinds of life, including human life, impossible to sustain? 

“Hence it can be said that these days the most important agencies of the military-industrial complex and the national security state are the media conglomerates. These agencies of propaganda for an aggressive war bombard us on a daily basis with mental missiles of psychological warfare. 

“The constant barrage of messages we receive that peace is to be found in war, that freedom is to be found in slavery, that wealth is to be found in indebtedness, and that truth is to be found in lies, is pulling humanity away from our fragile inheritance of reason, rationality, and enlightened discourse on the real menaces we face…” 

Splitting the Sky’s action mirrors the actions of countless people in countless demonstrations that are taking place across the world where lives, land, forests, lakes, jobs, homes, species, and communities are threatened by powerful forces, making decisions in luxury and comfort, protected by men with guns from citizens trying to make their voices heard to protect that which they love and care deeply about. The trial will illustrate whether or not Canada is ruled by laws or by fear. Whatever happens, the struggle for truth, justice, and peace will continue. 

2010-03-06 Propaganda. Kitty Werthmann, Austria, 1938 (The Sound of Music) “the state, little by little eroded our freedom”

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Peace or Violence, Propaganda  No Responses »
Mar 062010
 

Kitty Werthmann, a young woman in Austria at the time of the Nazi takeover, tells the propaganda story.  Many thanks to Jackie Stower from Ohio for sending it.

And many thanks, I am grateful for your thoughtful responses:  Kitty’s story is part of the make Obama into Hitler agenda.   The comments are appended; they are important for a full reading of Werthann’s article.

Selected Excerpt from Kitty’s story:

“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria .  Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath.  Instead, we had creeping gradualism.  Now, our only weapons were broom handles.  The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”

/Sandra

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(Link no longer valid http://www.resistnet.com/profiles/blogs/1938-austria-land-of-the)

The author of the following article, Kitty Werthmann, grew up in Austria and lived through the Hitler regime both before and after WWII, and the suppression of human rights and freedom by the Nazi Party.   She moved to the USA and became a citizen in 1962.  She is 83 years old.    (INSERT: NO.  This article is not current.  Using the ages and events provided, she was probably born around 1921, is about 89 years old in 2010.)  and lives in Pierre , South Dakota  …

(INSERT (Sandra speaking):  There is a YouTube interview with Kitty Werthmann at:  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1758808539498490012#) (2007)

You, of course, may not agree with everything Kitty writes.   I do not.  But I still think it is valuable, especially with the “Comments” submitted (at bottom), to cogitate on some of what she describes.

America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World.

Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away!

By: Kitty Werthmann (An Austrian who witnessed what took place under Hitler)

What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or read in history books.

I am an eyewitness to history.  I can tell you that Hitler did not take Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history.  We elected him by a landslide – 98% of the vote.  I’ve never read that in any American publications.  Everyone thinks Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression.  Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed.  We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.  Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily.  Young people were going from house to house begging for food.  Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs.  My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need.  Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other.  Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna , Linz , and Graz were destroyed.  The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.

We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany , where Hitler had been in power since 1933.  We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living.  Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise.  We were led to believe that everyone was happy.  We wanted the same way of life in Austria . We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family.  Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back.  Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades.  The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order.  Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed.  The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women.  Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home.  An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family.  Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

Hitler Targets Education–Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:

Our education was nationalized.  I attended a very good public school.  The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore.  Instead, we sang “Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,” and had physical education.

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance.  Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum.  They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time.  The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.  The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination.  The rest of the day we had sports.  As time went along, we loved it.  Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free.  We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

My mother was very unhappy.  When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent.  I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful.  There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination.  I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it.  Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home.  I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing.  Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me.  They lived without religion.  By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.  It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly.  As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.

Equal Rights Hits Home:

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established.  All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps.  At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

Soon after this, the draft was implemented.  It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps.  During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys.  They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps.  After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines.  When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.  Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack.  I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers.  You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government.  The state raised a whole generation of children.  There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology.  By this time, no one talked about equal rights.  We knew we had been had.

Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care.  Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna .  After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone.  Doctors were salaried by the government..  The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full.  If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn.  There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine.  Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income.  Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household.  We had big programs for families.  All day care and education were free.  High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized.  Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

We had another agency designed to monitor business.  My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables.  Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners.  Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar.  He couldn’t meet all the demands.  Soon, he went out of business.  If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection.  We were told how to shop and what to buy.  Free enterprise was essentially abolished.  We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers.  The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, and then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

“Mercy Killing” Redefined:

In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps .  The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated.  So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded.  When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work.  I knew one, named Vincent, very well.  He was a janitor of the school.  One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van.  I asked my superior where they were going.  She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write.  The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months.  They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death.  The villagers were not fooled.  We suspected what was happening.  Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months.  We called this euthanasia.

The Final Steps – Gun Laws:

Next came gun registration.  People were getting injured by guns.  Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns.  Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms.  Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns.  The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

No more freedom of speech.  Anyone who said something against the government was taken away.  We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria .  Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath.  Instead, we had creeping gradualism.  Now, our only weapons were broom handles.  The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.

After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria.  Women were raped, preteen to elderly.  The press never wrote about this either.  When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process.  They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn’t destroy, they burned.  We called it The Burned Earth.  Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses.  Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized.  Those who couldn’t; paid the price.  There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians.  This is an eye witness account.

“It’s true….those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.

America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away

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COMMENTS:

(1)   D’ARCY: THE FAR RIGHT TWIST ON KITTY WERTHMANN’S STORY

Hi Sandra,

There are many elements to Kitty Werthmann’s narrative that ring true.  The Nazi occupation of Austria brought in a regime that was totally focussed on collectivism and totalitarianism.  This process of gradual domination was made acceptable by the propagandistic notion that the common good was being represented in Hitler’s social program and his “family values” agenda.  In fact, it was just the beginning of his effort to eliminate public scrutiny and political accountability, and then to impose his more sinister designs.

Unfortunately, in looking at the actual website from which her account is taken, I realize that her story is being used to reinforce the highly individualistic (and paranoid) perspective of the far-right Republican agenda in the USA.  The deep-seated distrust of government interference in everyday life means, to them, that Kitty is encouraging U.S. citizens to resist every effort to:

1)     take Christianity out of the public school system and allow heretical outside ideas to infiltrate children’s minds;

2)     facilitate women’s misguided efforts to work outside the home and otherwise expand their horizons beyond child-rearing and serving as dutiful wives;

3)     undermine the nuclear family unit by opening up day-care centres (and at the same time furthering the agenda mentioned in #2 above);

4)     take centralized control of the medical care system, where individual choice is eliminated;

5)     impose a “humanistic” value system from the top whereby a culture of abortion is fostered, and death panels will determine the fate of the elderly; and

6)     take away the rights of the individual to own and bear arms and thereby to resist hegemonic government authority.

Unfortunately, for the far right in the USA this is what the Democratic Obama administration’s platform distils down to.  And this is the agenda that Kitty Werthmann is calling into question.  So, in their minds, the move towards broad-based social programs like Health Care Reform, the secularization of schools, or gun control means that the rights of ordinary Americans are being neutralized in advance of a much more sinister plan to usurp democracy and the rights of the individual.  As a democratic socialist, I am afraid that this portrayal of Obama as a modern-day Hitler and his program as an effort towards totalitarian, statist domination very effectively undermines all efforts to make America a safer, more humanitarian society.  I am also afraid that the corporate agenda that you are resisting in the Lockheed census case has been and will continue to be clouded by the distribution of fodder such as Ms. Werthmann’s article, which serves to foster even more extremist reactions by red-neck America.

Thanks for listening!  I hope to be able to see you in action at the court house on March 16.

D’Arcy

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(2)    TREVOR:  WERTHMANN ADVISING PEOPLE TO TAKE UP ARMS AGAINST OBAMA

Sandra–That piece by Werthmann has gone viral in the networks of people who are sure that Obama is the next Hitler. Werthmann is an ultra-conservative being put to good use by the corporate interests who are trying to stop Obama from introducing medicare. In September she was advising people to take up arms against Obama.

Not sure you want to be promoting her way of thinking. Take a look at these links: http://washingtonindependent.com/61121/fear-of-fascism-gay-agenda-dominate-conservative-kickoff-for-midterm-elections
http://crooksandliars.com/node/31614

Trevor Herriot

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(3)   SELMA:  MY GRANDMOTHER WAS AN AUSTRIAN CONTEMPORARY OF KITTY

Janet re-circulated the Kitty Werthmann email.

Dear Janet,
�
My grandmother was an Austrian contemporary of Kitty. She raised her 4 children there – before, during, and after the war. Her 9 year old son bled to death in her arms, an indirect casualty of American night bombing in southern Austria in the last days of the war. She experienced more pain than I ever will in my entire life. She must have been shielding me because she only ever spoke a few words about those times. Or, they were times bound so tightly into her life’s tragedies she could not speak about them, to anyone, let alone to a grandchild. Though Kitty’s and others’ experience of Hitler’s times differ, this was extremely thought-provoking reading for me. It helped me better understand my grandmother, my mother, my aunt, my sister, and myself. Thanks for this, Janet.
�
And going by the bold titles below, we are seeing that what were once Nazi policies are today being implemented in our Canadian and U.S. Governments…Instead of letting this frighten us, let this heighten our awareness of what those who want to lead us are up to, and what may be motivating them, – always a good protection, coupled with love.
�
Kind regards,
Selma

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(4)   GARY:  IS THE INTERPRETATION THAT MODERN “LIBERALISM” HERALDS THE COMING OF TOTALITARIANISM?

Sandra,

What I get from this is that creeping totalitarianism overwhelmed 1930s Austria and that the elements of modern “liberalism” — health care, daycare, the promise of full employment some day — heralds the coming of similar conditions throughout the world. Is that a fair assessment of the material?

Gary

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(5)   HERMAN:  KITTY WERTHMANN’S PIECE SOUNDS LIKE A PIECE OF AMERICAN PROPAGANDA

Hi Sandra,

This piece by Kitty Werthmann sounds like a piece of American propaganda. I briefly checked the historian Ian Kershaw’s book Making Friends with Hitler on the topic of the Anschluss of Austria. It doesn’t match Werthmann’s description very well. Also, her diatribe against socialized medicine and the gun laws sounds very American to me. That’s just a couple of thoughts off the top of the head. I don’t intend to research this further, but I would caution to take the “facts” in her piece with a heaping spoon of salt.

Herman

(Later)   I understand what you’re trying to do.   We’re of course immersed in propaganda every day, both political and  commercial.

Best,

Herman

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(6)  NICOLA:  I THINK YOU’VE BEEN HAD BY RIGHT-WING PROPAGANDA!

Hello Sandra,

I have read the writing of Kitty Werthmann as posted in your mass e-mail.

I am highly suspicious of her version of history and specifically, the “socialist” philosophy she purports to have held sway in Austria under Hitler.

Glancing around the internet, I note that Kitty Werthmann is heavily promoted by Eagle America, an organization for promotion of Phyllis Schlafly, an extremely right wing, anti-women’s equality, perhaps “Republican”.

Sorry to say – I think you’ve been had by right wing propaganda, people who are seriously trying to say that Hitler was a socialist – and so is Obama.

You might want to check this out more thoroughly than I have time for right now.

Thanks Sandra,

Nicola

2010-03-05 Love, Hate & Propaganda, the art of mass persuasion (WW2) on CBC

 George Bush war criminal, Perception, fallibility, Linguistics, Propaganda  2 Responses »
Mar 052010
 

(Nov 29, 2011:  scroll down to bottom to “Comments” regarding Bush Family history)

The use of propaganda in today’s world is a serious issue.

This CBC documentary sets the stage for this series of  postings about propaganda and naiveté:   (link no longer valid  http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/lovehatepropaganda/

“ …  a six-part documentary series on the role propaganda played in World War Two.  With newsreels, posters, speeches, rallies, songs and radio, entire populations were convinced to go to war.  Hosted by Geo Stroumboulopoulos, Love, Hate and Propaganda is a primer on the art of mass persuasion, aimed directly at a media-savvy generation.”

“.. how the world came not just to the brink of madness but to a colossal state of madness, and it was all through messaging.”

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COMMENTS FROM TORONTO SUN & WINNIPEG FREE PRESS:

http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/tv/2010/03/03/13095596.html

Stroumbo tackles WWII

‘The Hour’ host narrates documentary series

By BILL HARRIS, QMI Agency

Last Updated: March 3, 2010 12:19pm

George Stroumboulopoulos. (HO)

So what more can be said about the Second World War?

Well, quite a bit, according to George Stroumboulopoulos. He’s the narrator of the new six-part documentary series Love, Hate & Propaganda, part one of which debuts Thursday on CBC.

“I initially didn’t really see where I could bring something different, because so many documentaries have been done really well before,” Stroumboulopoulos said. “But then the idea came of dealing with propaganda, and how the war was sold, and how the world came not just to the brink of madness but to a colossal state of madness, and it was all through messaging.

“The German people didn’t want to go to war. The Americans sure didn’t want to go to war. Nobody wanted to go to war. Yet somehow, the Italians and the Germans and the French whipped everybody up into a frenzy, and the British, the Canadians, and eventually the Americans followed.

“It was just so fascinating to me to approach it from that perspective, which is, six parts on how propaganda defined this war.”

The six episodes of Love, Hate & Propaganda are titled The Strong Men; Selling War; Meet the Enemy; Truth and Total War; Hiding the Horrors; and Changing the Story.

From whose perspective are these tales being told?

“All of them,” Stroumboulopoulos said. “It’s not just the Germans, but how much the British used propaganda, the Canadians.

“Every side lied and tricked, and it wasn’t always for negative reasons. A lot of times it was governments doing what they thought they had to do to put their countries in the best position to achieve their goals.

“There was just a lot of stuff I didn’t know. We’ve heard a lot about World War II, but this was not written for any particular demographic and I think the audience is going to be really surprised by some of this stuff.”

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca

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http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/entertainment/TV/wartime-spin-writ-large-86318192.html

Wartime spin writ large

By: Brad Oswald

4/03/2010 1:00 AM |

Basil Fawlty once famously implored his staff not to mention the war, implying — to great Brit-com effect — that it was rude to do so and that the Second World War was a memory best left behind.

That was a different time, in a different generation and a very different TV genre. The producers of the earnest and approachably educational new six-part CBC series Love, Hate & Propaganda (which premieres tonight at 9 on CBC) have rightly decided that the time is right to revisit the history of this most massive global conflict and to introduce a new generation to its causes, consequences and the enduring social and political lessons left in its wake.

“This is a series about the psychology of war,” series host George Stroumboulopoulos explains, by way of introduction, “not the battles or military manoeuvres. It’s about people — how they were led, and misled.”

And that, perhaps, is the most valuable and engaging aspect of Love, Hate & Propaganda — in an era where instant communication and constant repackaging of images and information are the rule, this series opts not to exploit the often-revisited catalogue of footage and photos from battlefields and prison camps and instead explores the spin, manipulation and public-perception building that made the war happen.

Stroumboulopoulos, a clever fellow who can sometimes seem a bit too pleased with his own wit on The Hour, takes his hosting role straight-ahead seriously in Love, Hate & Propaganda, and he proves to be a good choice for the task. His presentation is measured and sincere, but brings a level of accessibility that might serve as the necessary bridge between the series’ mid-20th-century subject matter and the new-millennium viewership it’s trying to reach.

In tonight’s opener, The Strong Men, Stroumboulopoulos offers in-depth profiles of the three powerful leaders — Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin — whose lust for power and conquest set Europe and, ultimately, the world on a headlong rush toward war. Later in the hour, Japan’s involvement in the growing global conflict is also assessed.

In particular, the series’ examination of Hitler’s early political career — in the 1920s, he positioned himself as a right-wing outsider whose air-of-mystery strategy involved not letting anyone photograph him — is a fascinating series of revelations.

Hitler’s ability to manipulate public perception, as well as his willingness to embrace the emerging technologies of the day — he was an early adopter of air travel, motion pictures and radio as means of getting his message out — are shown as key factors in his eventual rise to power in Nazi Germany.

It’s a unique approach, in narrative terms, and Love, Hate & Propaganda is very successful in creating a modern context in which the series becomes a cautionary tale as well as a historical overview.

It’s a timely and well-considered documentary that deserves to be seen.

2010-03-05 Court Allows Torture Suit Against Former Defense Sec’t Donald Rumsfeld

 George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Mar 052010
 

UPDATE, see:  2012-11-08  Federal appeals court dismisses torture suit against Rumsfeld   (the reasons for dismissal are interesting)

 

1st time in U.S. history that court allows torture suit against current or former Cabinet Secretary

CHICAGO – Federal Judge Wayne R. Andersen issued an historic ruling today allowing a suit charging former Defense Secretary with authorizing torture.Rumsfeld asked the court to dismiss the case because he is a high-placed governmental official and argued that he was immune from suit even for allegations of torture. Mr. Rumsfeld also argued that due to his position, the Constitution permitted him to order interrogation techniques that are widely considered by human rights experts to be torture. The Court rejected both of Mr. Rumsfeld’s arguments and held that high-placed placed cabinet officials can be held personally liable if they authorize the use of torture.

While many previous civil suit attempts to prosecute Bush-era cabinet officials for authorizing torture have failed, the suit brought by Chicago-based Loevy and Loevy Attorneys at Law, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel v. Donald Rumsfeld, United States of America and Unidentified Agents, will now proceed to discovery and a trial.

Donald Vance, a Navy veteran, accuses U.S. forces in Iraq of imprisoning him without charges for over three months in 2006, and torturing him during much of that time. Vance, a private security employee at the time of his arrest in Baghdad, named former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a defendant for his role in overseeing the military prison system in Iraq.

Rumsfeld allegedly issued orders allowing torture techniques which allowed Vance to be subjected to extreme sleep deprivation, interrogation for hours at a time, held in an extremely cold cell without adequate clothing or blankets, and periodically denied food and water for long periods of time. During virtually Vance’s entire three month imprisonment at the notorious Camp Cropper near Baghdad International Airport, he was held in solitary confinement in a continuously lit, windowless cell.

“Plaintiffs…allege that in August 2003 Rumsfeld sent Major Geoffrey Miller to Iraq to review the United States prison system,” read Andersen’s decision. “Plaintiffs claim that Rumsfeld informed Major Miller that his mission was to ‘gitmo-ize’ Camp Cropper…. These allegations, if true, would substantiate plaintiffs’ claim that Rumsfeld was aware of the direct impact that his newly approved treatment methods were having on detainees in Iraq…. Based on these allegations, we conclude that plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to survive Rumsfeld’s motion to dismiss on account of a lack of personal involvement… Accepting at this stage that these treatment methods were in fact used, we conclude that a court might plausibly determine that the conditions of confinement were torturous.”

An employee of Shield Group Security (SGS) at the time of his arrest, Vance and a co-worker, Nathan Ertel, suspected their employer of paying of local sheiks for influence in obtaining government contracts and of other illegal dealings. To combat the suspected illegal activity, Vance and Ertel became unpaid informants to the FBI in Chicago and U.S. officials in Iraq. When SGS officials threatened Vance’s and Ertel’s lives, they arranged for U.S. military forces to rescue them. But after a few hours of interrogation and then rest at the U.S. embassy, the U.S. imprisoned Vance and Ertel, beginning their nightmarish imprisonment without habeus corpus.

Once they were in U.S. custody, low level bureaucrats invoked the unprecedented powers Rumsfeld had given them to imprison Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel as “persons of interest” to the United States. Three months of interrogation followed, in which Mr. Vance was physically abused and denied the right to counsel, the right of access to the courts, and any legitimate process to challenge his illegal detention.

2010-03-03 U.S. gets say on which Canadians can fly

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Mar 032010
 

Would you please send the following all over your world.  It is very troubling.  Many thanks to Joe Hueglin for sending it in.  Joe writes:   Interested in asking whether the Census data is one of the data bases available to Homeland Security for this programme?

/Sandra

(My next court appearance over the out-sourcing of Canadian census work to Lockheed Martin Corporation of the American military-industrial-congressional complex is TUESDAY, MARCH 16th at 9:30 am, Provincial Court in Saskatoon on 19th Street.)

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U.S. gets say on which Canadians can fly
By Kevin Dougherty, The Gazette March 3, 2010

(Link no longer valid  Read the Secure Flight Final Rule  (PDF, 195 pages – 10.27 MB)

Starting in December, passengers on Canadian airlines flying to, from or even over the United States without landing there will be allowed to board the aircraft only after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has determined they are not terrorists.

Secure Flight, the newest weapon in the U.S.’s war on terrorism, gives the United States unprecedented power over who can board planes that fly over U.S. airspace -even if the flights originate and land in Canada.

The program, set to take effect globally in December, was created as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, adopted by the U.S. Congress in 2004.

Canada’s Parliament never adopted or even discussed the Secure Flight program – even though Secure Flight transfers the authority to screen passengers, and their personal information, from domestic airlines to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The European Parliament, on the other hand, has consistently voiced objections to the Secure Flight plan.

When asked about the program, Transport Canada, the federal department in charge of Canadian airlines, deferred to Public Safety Canada.

After refusing to comment on Secure Flight or the government’s position on the U.S. program, David Charbonneau, a Public Safety Canada spokesperson, said: “Canada works in partnership with the United States, as well as with other allies, on aviation safety and security.

“Canada’s approach will continue to balance the privacy rights of travellers with the need to keep the public safe from terrorist and other threats to the air transportation system.”

Dimitri Soudas, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, referred all questions on the Secure Flight program back to the office of Transport Minister John Baird, who oversees Transport Canada.

 

Canadian airlines already check their flight manifests against the U.S. no-fly list, which is compiled by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and distributed to airlines around the world. It contains the names of about 16,000 people the U.S. government says are suspected of terrorism. The names and why they are on the list are not disclosed, for reasons of ‘national security.’

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration says Secure Flight will reduce the number of false positives – innocent travellers with the same names as people on the no-fly list – who are stopped at airports.

Under Secure Flight, the TSA, a branch of Homeland Security, will have access to all U.S. government databases.

As part of Secure Flight, Canadian airlines will transfer personal information of travellers to Homeland Security, preferably 72 hours before takeoff. Then, the TSA will use Infoglide, a package of 50 “identity resolution” algorithms – complex mathematical formulas to extract and aggregate information from several sources, to check passenger identities.

“If necessary, the TSA analyst will check other classified and unclassified governmental terrorist, law enforcement, and intelligence databases – including databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defence, National Counter Terrorism Centre, and Federal Bureau of Investigation,” notes Secure Flight Final Rule, the U.S. government document that defines the program.

 

The General Accounting Office, an U.S. institution similar to Canada‚s auditor-general, is concerned this sweeping check could cause new problems.

“More individuals could be misidentified, law enforcement would be put in the position of detaining more individuals until their identities could be resolved, and administrative costs could increase, without knowing what measurable increase in security is achieved,” the GAO said in a January presentation to the U.S. House of Representatives committee on Homeland Security.

Andrea McCauley, a Homeland Security spokesperson in Washington, D.C., said the TSA is confident there will be fewer false positive results than under the current no-fly list system.

“We have designed this program to ask for the minimum amount of personal information necessary,” she said.

If the search of U.S. databases, which will also contain information collected in Canada, like police records, turns up “no match” between a passenger and the watch list, Homeland Security will inform the airline it can issue a boarding pass.

Personal information will be purged from the system after seven days, McCauley said.

 

“If you are a potential match, it would be retained for seven years,” she said, explaining that “a potential match is someone who has been determined not to be an exact match but has the potential to match some of the data elements.”

If the search returns a positive match, personal information will be kept by Secure Flight for 99 years.

kdougherty AT thegazette.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

2010-03-02 Weed killer causes male frogs to lay eggs. Australian Broadcasting, CBC News – Technology & Science

 Health  No Responses »
Mar 022010
 

The chemical industry was once able to trash the careers (livelihoods) and reputations of scientists and media people whose work reflected badly on their products.  Tyrone Hayes was one of the scientists who they almost drove out. Old-timers in our network may remember his name.  I am happy to see that they only took him out of commission for a short while.  You will see that he is the scientist behind this recent report.

When we first started working on the chemicals people were scared of the industry because of the examples it set:  not only could it destroy people, it DID.  Today, there is a complete turn-around.  People have little fear or even hesitation in putting their names to critical evidence. 

One person in isolation is vulnerable.  When we all speak our minds, and are informed, no one is vulnerable.  We have created a critical mass.  That is our gift to Tyrone Hayes in thanks for his work.  We can make the world safe for him.

The link to the National Geographic report on atrazine follows this report on CBC from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

/Sandra

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http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/03/02/tech-frog-weed-killer.html 

Weed killer causes male frogs to lay eggs

Last Updated: Tuesday, March 2, 2010 | 9:18 AM ET

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Both of these copulating frogs are genetically male, but the larger one on the bottom has been completely feminised by atrazine exposure and produces viable eggs. (Tyrone Hayes/ABC)

One of the most common weed killers in the world, atrazine, can chemically castrate male frogs, turning them into females that lay eggs, say U.S. researchers.

Atrazine continues to be used on corn fields in Canada, although it is no longer approved for use in Europe. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last year it would launch a new scientific evaluation of atrazine’s effect on humans.

Prof. Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues reported their findings in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Atrazine-exposed males were both demasculinized [chemically castrated] and completely feminized as adults,” said Hayes.

Atrazine is widely used by farmers around the world as a herbicide, particularly in production of corn, sorghum and sugar cane.

Earlier studies have found that the chemical feminized zebra fish and leopard frogs, and caused a significant decline in sperm production in male salmon and caiman lizards.

“Atrazine exposure is highly correlated with low sperm count, poor semen quality and impaired fertility in humans,” said Hayes and colleagues.

While previous studies have shown atrazine adversely affects amphibian larval development, this latest study of African clawed frogs shows the process can go even further, said Hayes.

“Before, we knew we got fewer males than we should have, and we got hermaphrodites. Now, we have clearly shown that many of these animals are sex-reversed males,” said Hayes.

Genetic males become functioning females

Hayes and colleagues compared 40 male control frogs with 40 male frogs reared from hatchlings until full sexual maturity, in atrazine concentrations similar to those experienced year-round in areas where the chemical is found.

Of the male frogs exposed to atrazine, 90 per cent had low testosterone levels, decreased breeding gland size, feminized laryngeal development, suppressed mating behaviour, reduced sperm production and decreased fertility.

The remaining atrazine-exposed male frogs developed into functional females.

“Ten per cent of the exposed genetic males developed into functional females that copulated with unexposed males and produced viable eggs,” the researchers wrote.

The larvae that developed from those eggs were all male.

“Atrazine has caused a hormonal imbalance that has made them develop into the wrong sex, in terms of their genetic constitution,” said Hayes.

Hayes and colleagues exposed frogs to water contaminated with 2.5 parts per billion of atrazine.

Atrazine level restricted in drinking water

In Australia, environmental groups have been concerned about the adequacy of testing of Australian waterways for chemicals such as atrazine.

For example, in 2008, Tasmanian Greens MP Tim Morris said Freedom of Information requests had revealed atrazine levels in the state’s waterways as high as 7.42 parts per billion.

The National Health and Medical Research Council recently released revised guidelines that restrict the level of atrazine in drinking water to 20 parts per billion.

Health Canada concluded an environmental assessment of atrazine in 2007. Its Pest Management Regulatory Agency “determined that the use of atrazine on corn for weed control does not entail an unacceptable risk to the environment.”

Whether the effects found in frogs translate to humans is far from clear.

Frogs have thin skin that can absorb chemicals easily and they literally bathe in the polluted water.

© Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2010 

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The same story on National Geographic: 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100301-atrazine-frogs-female-chemical/  

The so-called pregnant man has company: One of the most common weed killers in the United States can make male frogs lay eggs, … 

2010-02-25 Recruiting by stealth, etc. – Your input

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials), Privacy of Personal Information; Charter Right; Surveillance; StatsCan Censuses & Surveys  No Responses »
Feb 252010
 

(1)  “RECRUITING BY STEALTH”, DAVID GOODMAN

Feb 11, 2010

Wanda writes:

I don’t know if this is helpful, but I just listened to CBC “Dispatches” and one of the interviews was with American Journalist David Goodman called “Recruiting by Stealth”. He describes how the educational legislation passed during the Bush era “No Child Forgotten” actually allowed the recruiters in the Army access to information from the High Schools (student test scores, student career testing answers, student academic information, etc, etc, etc). He talked about how these recruiters got email addresses, phone numbers & all manner of information about all students in Senior High – which the schools never released to any other outside agency before, but they were compelled to under this new legislation.

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(2)  THE STATE OR A MOB ORGANIZED BY THE STATE, FROM HERMAN

Hi Sandra,

Within the last several months, there was a news item about the release of zillions of recorded telephone conversations /before,/ during and after the 9/11 attack. It led me to infer that some body monitors all telephone conversations in the U.S. I passed a copy of this to TomDispatch asking what they thought of it, but did not receive a reply.

My question to you is: /are you aware of anyone in the States pursuing this issue?/  (MY RESPONSE:  sorry, I can’t help on this one.)

Without going into detail, I grew up under the Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. I’ve always said to people : don’t think it couldn’t happen here. Some day the state or a mob organized by the state may come to the door and carry me away or kill me. I have to get that Edwin Black book (INSERT: “IBM and the Holocaust”).

Herman

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(3)  PARTISANS WHO CHANGED THE RULES OF HUMAN CONDUCT, FROM DON

“… I had not read the Canadian constitution or its Charter of Rights and Freedoms by November 2002. However, I had watched and read enough history. I knew the history in pre-World War II Germany had been partisans who changed the rules of human conduct to mark individuals for exclusion from justice. …”

Good luck.

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(4)  CENSUS ACTUAL REQUIREMENT UNDER THE STATISTICS ACT IS FOR VERY LITTLE INFORMATION, FROM DOUG

Don’t know if I mentioned this before, but Russell Porisky from (Link no longer valid  www.naturalperson.com) has done lots of work re:statutory interpretation of what you actually MUST provide according to the Statistics Act. It’s actually VERY little ie name number of people in your dwelling and number of livestock or animals you own. The rest is not mandatory. If you learn statutory rules of construction that he teaches, it’s  easy to determine.

Good luck.

Doug

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(5)  RE-STATED BY A DIFFERENT DOUG (THANKS!)

Hi Sandra, census of population isn’t defined within the Stats Act, so the next place is a Cdn law dictionary which defines it as a count or enumeration of the people… which goes back to my original understanding… an individual is required by law to tell them how many people in your place and how many cows you have, other than that, I believe the rest is voluntary and the penalties don’t apply, HOWEVER, I haven’t spent a lot of time studying this act, but it stands to reason the only thing they can require by law is a # for the purpose of Fed transfer payments to the Provinces.  Hope this helps.

Doug

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(6)  VOLUNTARY SURVEYS, FROM EDUARD

I had some sense there was a significant difference between the long form and the short, and the ones I as a farmer am subjected to.

Thank-you for pointing out:

“Voluntary surveys

8. The Minister may, by order, authorize the obtaining, for a particular purpose, of information, other than information for a census of population or agriculture, on a voluntary basis, but where such information is requested section 31 (INSERT: jail time and a fine) does not apply in respect of a refusal or neglect to furnish the information.”

. . .   All the best!

Eduard

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(7)  CREDIBILITY OF STATSCAN WITNESS, FROM A GUY

Nice work…you’ve been busy. Just a couple of comments. Statscan has called me last week and coincidentally today. I recognize the number (from Winnipeg) and I just don’t answer. I don’t know if they’ll give up or keep it up…whatever. I don’t buy the argument about just 64 people not in compliance for the 2006 information fest…that sounds like pure bullshit. And then there is this in your commentary

” A. THE STORY OF FRIENDS WHO LIVE IN SOUTHEAST SASKATOON: STATISTICS CANADA CAME INTO THE HOME, QUESTIONS FOR MORE THAN HALF AN HOUR, ENTERED RESPONSES ONTO A COMPUTER. HAD TO SEE THEIR ACTUAL INCOME TAX FORMS.  JANUARY 5, 2010.  NOT EVEN DURING A CENSUS.”

My answer..Over my dead fucking body…or there’s take your pick. Sorry for the language but this doesn’t really sound voluntary to me. Give us info or go to jail. Fuck that. If they ever get to the point where they are going to show up at my door, I’ll answer the door naked, and lets see if they try to charge me with indecent exposure while in my own house. I wonder what box they’ll tick off on the form when they see that.

Anyway , keep swinging away.

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