Flyby News
"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"
Assassination Ring * Griffin * Killer Electrons
15 March 2009
"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance,
and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence,
if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good
than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more
or less ignorant, and it is that we call vice or virtue; the most
incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows
everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill."
-- Albert Camus
The Plague, Modern Library Edition, p. 1201) Deadly Deceitful US Government – Bush-Cheney-9-11- - Bush 'executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney office
- - David Ray Griffin - 9/11: Time for a Second Look
- - September 11, 2009 - The Real Transparency Conference
2) Global Warming & Nuke Van Allen worse than imagined- - Lord Stern on global warming: It's even worse than I thought
- - Scientists Warn of Catastrophic Rises in Sea Level
- - Carbon Sinks – Lungs of Gaia Earth – Being Destroyed
- - Attorney General says plant's claim false
- - A Simple Statement On Nuclear Power and Climate Change
- - Nuclear Waste Has No Place to Go
- - A look back - 1964 U.S atomic bomb blast in the Van Allen belts- - Van Allen Belts’ 'Killer Electrons' & Moon Landing
3) The American Criminal Injustice System- - UN: Global War on Drugs a Dismal 'Failure'
- - Biden announces Seattle police chief as drug czar
4) The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – but caught on film- - A visit to Venezuela contradicts the picture our leaders are painting
Editor's Notes:
Beware the Ides of March is an appropriate way to begin this issue. The deception is so grand that we cannot begin to comprehend it all, only parts. The assassination ring linked to Cheney-Bush is no surprise, though, figuring all the perversions to the Constitution by this twisted administration. The financial issues, too, have everyone's heads spinning. Christopher Story is still reporting with detail on behind-the-scenes of an international financial criminal mess, with shadow agencies finding their hands caught in the cookie jar, mixed with poppy seeds and drugs galore. This is a big part of the problem since the good and bad banks need transparency to work. If Obama wanted to win the war of terror, he would support a real investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. If he wanted to stop the Mexican and US drug-crime wars, he would decriminalize all drugs. If he wanted better employment opportunities, he would replace prisons for nonviolent offenders with civil service opportunities. He would take on the middlemen for health concerns, not for profit.
The invisible (to the mainstream media) heroes, like David Ray Griffin, William Rodriguez, and other high-level professionals are beginning to overcome the acceptance that peace, justice, and truth, must go hand in hand. Note the April 2009 tour with David Ray Griffin. 911tv.org will be making a DVD of this lecture available.
This issue covers a lot of ground and again the 1964 US government explosion of a nuclear bomb 'two and a half times the strength of the Nakasaki bomb' into the Van Allen belts. Crazy stuff! This makes the likelihood of a moon landing hoax even more feasible, and explains why the space program has remained in low orbit since the Apollo missions. If Obama wanted world-peace and green-producing energy, he would work to join an alliance with all nations to abolish all weapons and technologies capable of mass destruction. Also, note my Financial Crisis solution policy 08 October 2008 letter to Obama
Hubris has gotten to the best of us; only truth will set us free. This April 11-13 is the 7th anniversary of the failed coup d’etat of Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. Valley 9/11 Truth will be screening The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. You can join in by busting the boycott for this award winning film. Finally, an uplifting film replaces the specter of capitalist-fascist-dictatorships with a socially oriented peaceful revolution. The CIA knocked off a democratic leader of Iran in the 1970’s, destroyed a democracy in Chile and many other countries with the idea of wanting to control their own resources. Never mind the Native American, while Leonard Peltier languishes in prison. As Christopher Story reported, a root cause of the global crisis is that the CIA funds itself by fraud. Good night and good luck, ides of March, may tomorrow be brighter."It is well that people do not understand our banking
and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there
would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
-- Henry Ford
(1863-1947)
1) Deadly Deceitful US Government – Bush-Cheney-9-11- - Bush 'executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney office
- - David Ray Griffin - 9/11: Time for a Second Look
- - September 11, 2009 - The Real Transparency Conference
- - Bush 'executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney office
By Seymour HershAt a
"Great Conversations" event (MP3) at the University of Minnesota last night, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”
Hersh spoke with great confidence about these findings from his current reporting, which he hasn’t written about yet.
In an email exchange afterward, Hersh said that his statements were “an honest response to a question” from the event’s moderator, U of M Political Scientist Larry Jacobs and “not something I wanted to dwell about in public.”
Hersh didn’t take back the statements, which he said arise from reporting he is doing for a book, but that it might be a year or two before he has what he needs on the topic to be “effective...that is, empirical, for even the most skeptical.”
The evening of great conversation, featuring Walter Mondale and Hersh, moderated by Jacobs and titled “America’s Constitutional Crisis,” looked to be a mostly historical review of events that have tested our Constitution, by a journalist and a high government official who had experience with many of the crises.
And it was mostly historical, and a great conversation, in which Hersh and Mondale talked about the patterns by which presidents seem to get intoxicated by executive power, frustrated by the limitations on that power from Congress and the public, drawn into improper covert actions that exceed their constitutional powers, in the belief that they can get results and will never be found out. Despite a few references to the Founding Fathers, the history was mostly recent, starting with the Vietnam War with much of it arising from the George W. Bush administration, which both men roundly denounced.
At the end of one answer by Hersh about how these things tend to happen, Jacobs asked: “And do they continue to happen to this day?”
Replied Hersh:
“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.
"Right now, today, there was a story in the
New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...
"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.
"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.
"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.
"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.
"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?’
"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”
Hersh, the best-known investigative reporter of his generation, writes about these kinds of issues for The New Yorker. He has written often about JSOC, including,
last July that:
“Under the Bush Administration’s interpretation of the law, clandestine military activities, unlike covert C.I.A. operations, do not need to be depicted in a Finding, because the President has a constitutional right to command combat forces in the field without congressional interference.”
(“Finding” refers to a special document that a president must issue, although not make public, to authorize covert CIA actions.)
Here is a tape of the full Mondale-Hersh-Jacobs colloquy, a little over an hour, without the audience Q and A. If you want to look for the Hersh statement quoted above, it’s about at the 7:30 mark.
The rest of the evening was, as expected, full of worry and wisdom and quite a bit of Bush-bashing.
Jacobs walked the two elder statesmen through their experiences of:
* The My Lai massacre, which Hersh first revealed publicly and which he last night called “the end of innocence about us and war.”
* The Pentagon Papers case, which Mondale called the best example of the “government’s potential for vast public deception.”
* Henry Kissinger’s secret dealings, mostly relating to the Vietnam War. (Hersh, who has written volumes about Kissinger, said that he will always believe that whereas ordinary people count sheep to fall asleep, Kissinger “has to count burned and maimed Cambodian babies.”)
* The Church Committee investigation of CIA and FBI abuses, in which Mondale played a major role. (He talked about the fact that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover not only spied on Martin Luther King but literally tried to drive him to suicide.)
* The Iran Contra scandal. (Hersh said the Reagan administration came to office with a clear goal of finding a way to finance covert actions, such as the funding of the Nicaraguan Contras, without appropriations so that Congress wouldn't know about them. Mondale noted that Reagan had signed a law barring further aid to the Contras, then participated in a scheme to keep the aid flowing. Hersh said that two key veterans of Iran-Contra, Dick Cheney and national security official Elliot Abrams, were reunited in the George W. Bush White House and decided that the key lesson from Iran-Contra was that too many people in the administration knew about it.)
* And the Bush-Cheney years. (Said Hersh: “The contempt for Congress in the Bush-Cheney White House was extaordinary.” Said Mondale of his successor, Cheney, and his inner circle: “they ran a government within the government.” Hersh added: “Eight or nine neoconservatives took over our country.” Mondale said that the precedents of abuse of vice presidential power by Cheney would remain "like a loaded pistol that you leave on the dining room table.")
Jacobs pressed both men on the question of whether the frequent abuses of power show that the Constitution fails, because these things keep happening, or whether it works, because these things keep coming to light.
Mondale stuck with the happy answer. “The system has come through again and again,” he said. Presidents always think they will get away with it, but eventually reporters like Hersh bring things to light, the public “starts smelling this stuff,” the courts and the Congress get involved. Presidents “always, in the long run, find out that the system is stronger than they are.”
Hersh seemed more troubled by the repetitions of the pattern. The “beautiful thing about our system” is that eventually we get new leaders, he said. “The evil twosome, Cheney and Bush, left,” Hersh said. But he also said “it’s really amazing to me that we manage to get such bad leadership, so consistently.”
And he added that both the press and the public let down their guard in the aftermath of 9/11.
“The major newspapers joined the [Bush] team,” Hersh said. Top editors passed the message to investigative reporters not to “pick holes” in what Bush was doing. Violations of the Bill of Rights happened in the plain sight of the public. It was not only tolerated, but Bush was re-elected.
And even Mondale admitted that one of his greatest successes, laws reforming the FBI and CIA in the aftermath of the Church Committee, were supposed to fix the problem so that “we would never have these problems again in the lifetime of anyone alive at the time, but of course we did.”
UPDATE: The CIA responds to Seymour Hersh (via MinnPost)Source:
www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/investigative_reporter_seymour_hersh_describes_executive_assassination_ring- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hear Seymour Hersh's entire speech regarding US Death Squads...+ Catherine Austin Fitts' claim of poisoning
Hear legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh's entire speech at the University of Minnesota this week in which he talked about a US "executive assassination ring". Hear how 911Truther and former Bush administration official Catherine Austin Fitts was poisoned after daring to speak the truth.
Archived here =>
NoLiesRadio.orgAlso post-link-comment
911blogger.com/node/19596= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - David Ray Griffin - 9/11: Time for a Second LookDavid Ray Griffin:
My April lecture our will be "9/11: Time for a Second Look."
“I will be pointing out that many people---including politicians and journalists---formed their ideas about 9/11 and the 9/11 truth movement early on, when there seemed little reason to doubt the Bush administration's honesty and when the 9/11 truth movement could be caricatured, without too much exaggeration, as a bunch of kids on the Internet.
But now we have abundant evidence of the Bush-Cheney's administration's willingness to break the law and to tell lies that would lead to millions of deaths.
And the 9/11 truth movement is now led intellectually by scientists and other professionals, as shown by the emergence of various organizations, including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (which includes a lot of scientists), Veterans for 9/11 Truth, and the Scientific Panel to Investigate 9/11. The movement also includes several former intelligence officers.
Thanks to these professionals, the evidence that the official story is false is now overwhelming. The only problem is to get people to look at the evidence. Once they are willing to do this, they quickly see that the official story simply cannot be true.
Finally, the replacement of the Bush administration with the Obama administration is important in three respects. First, potential whistleblowers may become less afraid to come forward. Second, the media may become more willing to expose the dozens of contradictions and other problems in the official myth. And third, there is at least the chance for a real investigation. The petition for both Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth and Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, for example, ends by asking President Obama to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation.”
David Ray Griffin
Dates --- Location:
April 7 - Wayne, PA
April 8 - Vassar, PA
April 9 - Portsmouth NH
April 10 - Keene NH
April 11---Boston
April 15 - Brussels
For contact information and other details, see articles and comments at 911blogger:
David Ray Griffin to Speak at Boston University, April 11, 2009
http://911blogger.com/node/19584Brussels 15th April 2009 : David Ray Griffin : '9/11: Time for A Second Look'
http://911blogger.com/node/195709/11: Time For A Second LookBoston, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Brussels= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - September 11, 2009 - The Real Transparency ConferenceTHE REAL TRANSPARENCY CONFERENCE
NYC September 11 – 13, 2009
By Sander Hicks
Obama has promised transparency. But to the people who have been laboring for eight years under the brutal conditions of Bush/Cheney, that means summoning a greater courage to tackle taboo topics:
9/11 Truth
Economic democracy
The real identity of the USA
Read more -
THE_REAL_TRANSPARENCY_CONFERENCEFor FN’s resources, see:
9/11 Investigative Reports,
looking into the unanswered questions.
2) Global Warming & Nuke Van Allen worse than imagined- - Lord Stern on global warming: It's even worse than I thought
- - Scientists Warn of Catastrophic Rises in Sea Level
- - Carbon Sinks – Lungs of Gaia Earth – Being Destroyed
- - Attorney General says plant's claim false
- - A Simple Statement On Nuclear Power and Climate Change
- - Nuclear Waste Has No Place to Go
- - A look back - 1964 U.S atomic bomb blast in the Van Allen belts- - Van Allen Belts’ 'Killer Electrons' & Moon Landing
- - Lord Stern on global warming: It's even worse than I thoughtAuthor of definitive report on climate change sounds ominous new warning
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Friday, 13 March 2009
Lord Stern, the economist who produced the single most influential political document on climate change, says he underestimated the risks of global warming and the damage that could result from it.
The situation was worse than he had thought when he completed his review two-and-a-half years ago, he told a conference yesterday, but politicians do not yet grasp the scale of the dangers now becoming apparent.
"Do politicians understand just how difficult it could be, just how devastating rises of 4C, 5C or 6C could be? I think, not yet," Lord Stern posed to the meeting of scientists in Copenhagen.
Related articles
* Oil 'disaster' hits prime Australian beaches
"A rise of 5C would be a temperature the world has not seen for 30 to 50 million years. We've been around only 100,000 years as human beings. We don't know what that's like.
"We haven't seen 3C for a few million years, and we don't know what that looks like either."
Lord Stern said new research done in the past two or three years had made it clear there were "severe risks" if global temperature rose by the predicted 4C to 7C by 2100. Agriculture would be destroyed and life would be impossible over much of the planet, the former World Bank chief economist said.
Now a professor at the London School of Economics, Lord Stern referred to the higher temperature rises several times at the conference. The scientists are meeting in the Danish capital as a precursor to the major UN meeting in December which aims to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty.
Commissioned by Gordon Brown when Chancellor, and issued in October 2006, the 700-page Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is the single most influential political document on global warming yet published. It has been closely studied by the governments of every major country.
The report said the costs of acting to counter climate change, by stabilising emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, might be about 1 per cent of annual global GDP by 2050. But the cost of doing nothing was found to be far greater – risking up to 20 per cent of the world's wealth.
Yesterday, Lord Stern revised this prediction, saying the cost of inaction would be "50 per cent or more higher" than his previous highest estimate – meaning it could cost a third of the world's wealth.
The conference has been hearing detail on research done following the Stern review, including claims sea levels are likely to rise twice as fast as predicted in the last UN climate change report in 2007.
Lord Stern said the world's population needed to be aware of the implications of climate change, with many areas devastated by hurricanes and others drying out.
"Much of southern Europe would look like the Sahara. Many of the major rivers of the world, serving billions of people, would dry up in the dry seasons or re-route."
Billions of people would have to relocate as a result, he said.
"What would be the implication of that? Extended conflict, social disruption, war essentially, over much of the world, for many decades.
"This is the kind of implication that follows from temperature increases of that magnitude. I think it's vital that people understand the magnitude of the risks, but also that they understand that [by cutting emissions] we can reduce the probability of going there very dramatically," Lord Stern said.
Then and now: How Stern's view changed
Temperatures
A central assumption of the 2006 Stern Report was global temperatures would rise by between 2C and 3C over the current century if nothing was done to counter global warming.
Stern also mentioned the possibility of a 4C rise.
Yesterday, Stern said 4C, 5C, 6C and even 7C degree rises were a real possibility by the end of the 21st century, taking the world into new territory - agriculture would be destroyed and life impossible in many areas.
Costs
Stern created a sliding scale in the 2006 report which measured the costs of doing nothing on climate change. At the upper limit was the chance the damage would amount to 20 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product – a fifth of the world's wealth.
Yesterday, Stern revised his estimate saying the cost would be 50 per cent higher "or more" than the previous highest guess – risking a third of the world's wealth or a 30 per cent plus reduction in consumption per head.
www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/lord-stern-on-global-warming-its-even-worse-than-i-thought-1643957.html- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - Scientists Warn of Catastrophic Rises in Sea Level www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/11-2- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - Carbon Sinks – Lungs of Gaia Earth – Being Destroyed
85 Per Cent of Amazonian Rainforest at Risk of Destruction, Researchers Warn= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Attorney General says plant's claim falseWCAX News
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - State Attorney General William Sorrell says Vermont Yankee's zero carbon emissions claim is inaccurate.
The nuclear plant in Vernon claimed to have zero emissions in advertisements last year, but the ads prompted a complaint by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. On Wednesday, Sorrell said he looked into the claim and found that while emissions generated by electricity production at nuclear plants are negligible, they occur when uranium is mined, processed and transported for use as fuel.
Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams says the wording of the ads was "unfortunate."
The plant's owners say they won't use the claims again without explaining what it means.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - A Simple Statement On Nuclear Power and Climate Change"We do not support construction of new nuclear reactors as a means of addressing the climate crisis. Available renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power."
Sign the petition!- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - Nuclear Waste Has No Place to Go www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/11-1= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - A look back - 1964 U.S atomic bomb blast in the Van Allen belts1964 U.S atomic bomb blast in the Van Allen
Friday, 8 December 2000, 9:37 PM EST
U.S physics blunder almost ended space programs
By Richard Sale, Terrorism Correspondent
[EXCERPT]
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- In 1964, a U.S atomic bomb blast in the Van Allen belts surrounding the earth almost permanently ended the U.S. space program, according to retired Gen. Ken Hannegan of the Defense Nuclear Agency. Hannegan spoke recently with United Press International.
Hannegan acknowledged that during a 1964 test for a new U.S. anti-satellite weapon system, the United States fired an atomic bomb of about 50 KT (or two and a half times the strength of the Nakasaki bomb) in the Van Allen belts -- areas of radiation and charged particles which surround the earth's upper atmosphere and which are held in place by the earth's magnetic field.
According to former Lockheed scientist Maxwell Hunter, who worked on the program, "It was a military idea -- that you might be able to create a weapon by artificially pumping up radiation in the belts by detonating explosions in them and trapping the radiation."
In the 1960s, prodded by concerns over a Soviet orbital bombing threat, the U.S. Air Force had begun work on a nuclear-armed direct ascent anti-satellite system targeted at Soviet low-altitude satellites. The project was based on Kwajalein Island in the Pacific. Another companion effort was based on Johnston Island, which is due east, and a little north of the Marshall Islands. The Johnston Island testing used nuclear-armed Thor intermediate range ballistic missiles, according to Hunter and other former Lockheed officials who asked not to be named.
Richard Freeman, a former vice president of Rockwell International and E-Systems, who was involved in many military "black curtain" or secret U.S. space programs, said that Johnston was picked because its location was excellent for interception Soviet satellites on their first orbital passes.
In a test that was part of a program called Project Century, the atomic bomb was exploded at an altitude of between 300 to 400 miles, "not a high shot," said Hunter. "We wanted to fill up the belts at the point where they were closest to earth."
But the effect was totally unplanned for.
"It unexpectedly disabled U.S. and Soviet satellites," Hunter said, adding, "You have to remember that we had very primitive satellites in those days that lacked any protective shields."
But another effect became extremely disconcerting. Hunter said that the bomb blast loaded the belts longitudinally in a pie shape from pole to pole. But where the Air Force had expected the radiation from the blast to remain in the belts for only two days, "There was a trapped radiation phenomena" -- in other words, the extraordinarily high radiation levels refused to disperse. In fact, Hunter said, the energy from the A-bomb blast stayed in the belts "for over a year, maybe more." Hannegan said that the trapped radiation knocked out all American and Soviet equipment that passed through it. "The area was militarily neutral," said Hannegan.
Hunter said a dispute then broke out within the military and scientific community. "There were discussions about us having poisoned space for good, about having destroyed all satellites. An equal number of scientists disagreed, but everyone agreed that such a weapon would only end up blinding ourselves," he said..
Freeman added: "If we didn't damage Soviet equipment, it wasn't because we weren't trying." The U.S. has since moved to jam Russian satellite radio communications to ground stations, he said.
So why did the earlier Starfish blunder occur? "We didn't know enough yet about plasma physics," said Hannegan. "We just didn't understand it yet."
But former military space expert, Clarence Robinson said that the reason the United States probably stopped such testing was because it discovered "that there isn't anything you do to the enemy that you don't end up doing to yourself."
Copyright 2000 by United Press International.
For the complete article, see this issue of Flyby News:
December 21, 2000 -
1964 U.S atomic bomb blast in the Van Allen belts- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - Van Allen Belts’ 'Killer Electrons' & Moon LandingBy Jonathan Mark
So, this in part may explain why that after the claimed multiple successful lunar landing and take-offs from 1969-’72, humans have remained in low orbit. When the space shuttle astronauts did get to an altitude of 400 miles from Earth, the radiation of the Van Allen belts forced them to a lower altitude in the late 1998. CNN reported: "The radiation belts surrounding Earth may be more dangerous for astronauts than previously believed. The phenomenon known as the 'Van Allen Belts' can spawn (newly discovered) 'Killer Electrons' that can dramatically affect the astronauts' health."
I recommend this film, though be aware that people may ridicule you out of ignorance:
"A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon"
3) The American Criminal Injustice System- - UN: Global War on Drugs a Dismal 'Failure'
- - Biden announces Seattle police chief as drug czar
- - The American Criminal Injustice System
By Paul Craig Roberts
March 11, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -Ronald Cotton spent 11 years in prison because Jennifer Thompson provided eye witness testimony that he was the person who raped her. On March 9, National Public Radio revisited the story.
It turned out that Thompson was completely wrong, DNA evidence indicated that it was not Cotton but another man who had bragged about the rape.
Thompson asked Cotton for forgiveness, and he gave it. The two became friends and have collaborated on a book. On NPR Thompson said that eye witness testimony is incorrect 70 percent of the time.
I am familiar with psychological studies that conclude that eye witness accounts are wrong half of the time. That is enough to discredit eye witness testimony as evidence; yet, police and juries always bank on it.
Rape victims tend to be angry, and they want someone to pay. When shown mug shots or a lineup, they tend to pick someone, naively believing that if it is the wrong person the police investigation will clear the person.
Witnesses to crimes who are not themselves victims want to be helpful to the police. Consequently, they also tend to deliver up the innocent to justice.
And then there is the purchased “witness” testimony that prosecutors pay for with money and dropped charges in order to close a case. A favorite trick is to put a “snitch” in the cell with a defendant. The snitch then comes forward and reports that the defendant confessed.
Law and order conservatives think that the only miscarriages of justice are effected by liberal judges and liberal parole boards who can’t wait to release dangerous criminals to prey on the public.
The absurd idea that the justice system doesn’t make mistakes about those it convicts, except when they are let off by liberals, has made it impossible for innocent people wrongfully convicted to be paroled.
To be paroled, a person must admit to his crime and go through rehabilitation. Of course, only the guilty admit their crimes, and so only the guilty qualify for parole. Innocent people tend to maintain their innocence.
A case in point is that of William R. Strong, who has been locked away for a dozen years or more for “wife rape.”
According to people familiar with the case, Strong’s wife had a boyfriend and wanted rid of her husband. She accused him of rape. This was prior to DNA testing, but the perp kit still exists.
Strong comes from a patriotic military family. His father was a colonel and Strong served as a lieutenant and has two college degrees. The family trusted America and the police and the justice (sic) system. When advised that Strong would be out in a year if he agreed to a plea bargain, the family, beset with troubles, pressured Strong to accept the deal.
Only it was a double cross. The judge, seeking women's support, gave Strong 60 years.
That should be enough to wreck marriage in America, or for that matter, heterosexual sex unless there is a signed contract prior to each act.
It seems obvious that Strong was set up, double crossed, and is a threat to no one. Many have recommended his parole. But on February 20 of this year the Virginia Parole Board turned Strong down for the 11th time.
The American criminal justice (sic) system is incapable of admitting that it makes mistakes. The criminology bureaucrats claim that those inmates who proclaim their innocence are in denial and, thus, cannot be rehabilitated and, therefore, remain dangerous. In truth, it is the bureaucrats who are in denial and constitute a danger to justice.
Truncated, for the complete article, see:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22189.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - UN: Global War on Drugs a Dismal 'Failure'Published on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
Ten Wasted Years: UN Drug Strategy a Failure, Reveals Damning Report
by Duncan Campbell
The UN strategy on drugs over the past decade has been a failure, a European commission report claimed yesterday on the eve of the international conference in Vienna that will set future policy for the next 10 years.
The report came amid growing dissent among delegates arriving at the meeting to finalise a UN declaration of intent.
Referring to the UN's existing strategy, the authors declared that they had found "no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced". They wrote: "Broadly speaking, the situation has improved a little in some of the richer countries while for others it worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially, among them a few large developing or transitional countries."
The policy had merely shifted the problem geographically, they said. "Production and trafficking controls only redistributed activities. Enforcement against local markets failed in most countries."
Representatives from governments are split in their efforts to formulate an international drugs policy for the next decade. The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs is due to formulate a strategy over the next two days, but there is widespread disagreement among delegates and a general feeling that an opportunity for a united approach has been lost.
In an article for the Guardian, Mike Trace, chairman of the International Drug Policy Consortium, says: "We're about to see the international community walk up the political and diplomatic path of least resistance. It will do nothing to help the millions of people around the world whose lives are destroyed by drug markets and drug use. And the depressing thing about it is that we can all book our seats for 2019, to go through this charade again."
Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, has defended the approach. He is due to talk today on organised crime, which he has described as "one of the unintended consequences of drug control". He will warn that "a criminal market, of staggering proportion, risks undermining drug control" and outline a three-pronged approach to tackling drug-related crime.
In London, however, Lady Meacher, speaking on behalf of more than 30 members of the Lords, warned that the existing hardline prohibitionist strategy, which has been led by the US, had been deeply damaging. It was now being challenged by politicians, scientists and lawyers around the world, she said.
Truncated, for the complete article, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/11/un-drug-strategyalso posted
www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/11-0- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - Biden announces Seattle police chief as drug czarwww.blnz.com/news/2009/03/11/Official_Seattle_police_chief_drug_6318.htmlFor more on this topic, see:
A Nation Behind Bars:
The buried talents of a population.
4) The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – but caught on film- - A visit to Venezuela contradicts the picture our leaders are painting
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised -
the filmDirected and Photographed by Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain
Running time: 74 minutes, English narration, some Spanish.
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
This film concerns events around the short-lived coup d'etat
of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela on April 12th 2002.
"What had in fact taken place was the first Latin American
coup of the 21st century, and the world's first media coup.""Sometimes, a good documentary is all about being in the right place at the right time. It does not get much better for Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain, who, in late 2001 began filming a documentary about Hugo Chavez, the controversial President of Venezuela. As they worked on their documentary, events in Venezuela reached a fever pitch and the duo was able to capture on film a coup from the perspective of the Chavez government. The footage is remarkable, especially given that actual events were so clouded by propaganda on both sides. What is clear is that this was a coup orchestrated with the crucial help of the media. Without their support, it would not have been successful."
*
For quote source and a review of the film, see: www.haro-online.com/movies/revolution_will_not_be_televised.html.“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” details the story of the Coup in 2002 against President Hugo Chavez from INSIDE the palace. This is the single biggest tool to disprove the lies of the opposition and demonstrates peoples resistance to fascism. The film shows events before and leading up to the coup, the coup itself and the rise of peoples resistance to regain their democratically elected President. You can watch the full version at 74 minutes long on DVD.
History of distributing DVD - The Venezuela solidarity Campaign has been growing dramatically ever since our creation following the Coup in Venezuela 2002. One of the significant weapons in the struggle to build solidarity is The Revolution Will Not Be Televised DVD. This is an award winning documentary, which is a must see for anybody interested in the current developments in Venezuela, is effectively suffering from a distribution boycott. Two years ago, after a long struggle to obtain a copy, we investigated the current position on its distribution. After finding out that it was not being distributed we started selling copies.
However in Sept 2004, we were informed by Power Pictures that they owned the distribution rights and we should stop selling. We gladly agreed, asking when it would be distributed by them. We even offered to distribute some on there behalf for free. They declined this offer and informed us that negotiations were nearing a conclusion regarding the distribution. We were informed that this would be around 4-6 weeks. As a result we withdrew the copies we were distributing at their request. However in January 2005 we were informed by a supporter in Canada that Power Pictures (the distributors) informed him that the film will not be distributed "in the foreseeable future." As a result of this we decided to distribute copies.
Join with us to Bust the Boycott - You can purchase the DVD here!Democracy Now! featured a report on the film on November 6th, 2003:Why is Amnesty Not Screening a New Documentary About the Failed 2002 Coup in Venezuela?Statement in Support of the Documentary Film by Venezuelananlysis.com and others..
Read and Sign the Petition in Support of the Film, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”Watch this film online!= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - A visit to Venezuela contradicts the picture our leaders are paintingby Molly Sweetser
Published by Asheville Citizen Times on March 19, 2006
On Feb. 2, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared Hugo Chavez, the democratically-elected leader of Venezuela, to Adolf Hitler. Sitting in the morning sun, the sounds of life on the streets below me and thinking back on my two weeks here in Venezuela, nothing would lead me to compare this bright diverse country to Nazi Germany. I spent the last two weeks traveling in and learning about Venezuela with the San Francisco-based Global Exchange. Our delegation of almost 200 met with students of all ages, officials from PDVSA (the Venezuelan oil company), community leaders, doctors, farmers and many other Venezuelans.
The experience that best illustrates the feeling I find here in Venezuela was an evening spent with students in Mission Ribas, one of the social missions set up by the Chavez government. This center allows people who never had the opportunity to attend or finish high school to study and get a high school degree. One teacher wiped tears from her eyes as she told us how moving it was to empower her students to reach goals that had previously been impossible for them. The teacher had studied at a university before Chavez was elected and had not thought much of the educational missions until her mother began studying at the Mission Ribas school. The pride and knowledge that her mother received from the school then motivated the young teacher to get involved and to work at the Mission Ribas school.
Other students from their 20s to their 70s stood and told us how good it felt to finally be able to help their children with their homework or to have a whole new world of opportunities because they learned to read.
I have encountered the same pride and sense of empowerment throughout the communities I have visited. These are people who feel that Chavez has opened doors for them and is helping them to lift themselves up out of dependence and destitution.
These are not people who feel that they live in an oppressive dictatorship. Chavez, like any human being, is not perfect and there is a significant opposition and important questions left to be answered. However, much of the opposition is fueled by the United States.
Before the April 2002 coup that replaced the Chavez administration for two days, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and U.S.-AID gave large grants to the nongovernmental organization Sumate to develop its anti-Chavez platform. Resolution 328, currently in the House of Representatives, would continue this disrespectful and dangerous policy of funding anti-Chavez organizations. Many of the accusations in this bill are very misleading. In fact, the processes here have been very democratic. For example, the new constitution was drafted in 1999 by an elected constitutional assembly and then ratified with 72 percent support in a national referendum. Today, Chavez continues to have a high approval rating, much higher than our own president, and he was democratically elected not once but twice after the April referendum.
Coming from the United States, where our government regularly insults and threatens Venezuela's democracy, I have been met with open arms and an overwhelming obligation to report back to the people of my country. The truth is that there is no dictatorship here.
As one student, a young man who had graduated from Mission Ribas and spoke impeccable English, said, "We want to be big people too. Why not?" That is my question — why not? The United States of America was founded on the principles of democracy and freedom. Would it be so wrong to stop meddling in Venezuela so that it too can enjoy its free and democratic government?
Molly Sweetser graduated from the North Carolina School of Science and Math and has deferred admission to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She lives in Asheville.
Source:
www.globalexchange.org/tours/news/3822.htmlThis page last updated September 28, 2008
Valley 9/11 Truth
will be presenting the film:
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
with music and discussion
Tuesday, April 14, 2009; 7:00 PM
Media Education Foundation; Northampton
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