- Signs of the Times for Tue, 28 Mar 2006 -



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Editorial: Abovetopsecret.com, Project Serpo Psy-ops, and the Pentagon's Flying Fish

Laura Knight-Jadczyk 27 Mar 06

For the last few years, this website, has sought, in all honesty, to present the daily news as truthfully as possible. Signs of the Times is one of the very few news and information portals on the web that remains uncorrupted in any way and is staffed by a small group of people who are dedicated to one thing - bringing the Truth to the general public. We are able to do this because we rely solely on support from our readers and our own hard work: book sales. You may not necessarily agree with our take on events but I would hope that you agree that alternative media is now essential to the preservation of our basic freedoms. As I wrote in my editorial for the Signs of the Times Podcast on February 19, 2006:

Knowledge is power. Those who control information can control the masses; it's that simple.

As we researched the subject of the media, we came across The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. As everyone knows, this is a vicious anti-Semitic hoax. We agree. We do not for a minute think that this represents Judaism or ordinary Jewish people.

What was shocking for us was our realization that the Protocols is being implemented almost line by line by many of the members of the Bush Administration and the various government 'think-tanks' that formulate their policy. In other words, the Protocols is not a hoax because it is nonsense, but rather it is only a hoax because it was attributed to Jews.

Here, we present the text of Protocol 12 from which several excerpts were read on the podcast and which we jokingly referred to as "The Gospel According to Karl Rove."

Read it and understand that this is, indeed, the number one issue that America must deal with before they can do a single other thing.

PROTOCOL No. 12 Control of the Press

1. The word "freedom," which can be interpreted in various ways, is defined by us as follows -

2. Freedom is the right to do that which the law allows. This interpretation of the word will at the proper time be of service to us, because all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.

3. We shall deal with the press in the following way: what is the part played by the press to-day? It serves to excite and inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest idea what ends the press really serves. We shall saddle and bridle it with a tight curb: we shall do the same also with all productions of the printing press, for where would be the sense of getting rid of the attacks of the press if we remain targets for pamphlets and books? The produce of publicity, which nowadays is a source of heavy expense owing to the necessity of censoring it, will be turned by us into a very lucrative source of income to our State: we shall lay on it a special stamp tax and require deposits of caution-money before permitting the establishment of any organ of the press or of printing offices; these will then have to guarantee our government against any kind of attack on the part of the press.

For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy. Such measures as stamp tax, deposit of caution-money and fines secured by these deposits, will bring in a huge income to the government. It is true that party organs might not spare money for the sake of publicity, but these we shall shut up at the second attack upon us. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification. I BEG YOU TO NOTE THAT AMONG THOSE MAKING ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO BE ORGANS ESTABLISHED BY US, BUT THEY WILL ATTACK EXCLUSIVELY POINTS THAT WE HAVE PRE-DETERMINED TO ALTER. WE CONTROL THE PRESS

4. NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.

5. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the GOY communities to such an extent the they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses; if already now there is not a single State where there exist for us any barriers to admittance into what GOY stupidity calls State secrets: what will our positions be then, when we shall be acknowledged supreme lords of the world in the person of our king of all the world ....

6. Let us turn again to the FUTURE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. Every one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or printer, will be obliged to provide himself with the diploma instituted therefore, which, in case of any fault, will be immediately impounded. With such measures THE INSTRUMENT OF THOUGHT WILL BECOME AN EDUCATIVE MEANS ON THE HANDS OF OUR GOVERNMENT, WHICH WILL NO LONGER ALLOW THE MASS OF THE NATION TO BE LED ASTRAY IN BY-WAYS AND FANTASIES ABOUT THE BLESSINGS OF PROGRESS. Is there any one of us who does not know that these phantom blessings are the direct roads to foolish imaginings which give birth to anarchical relations of men among themselves and towards authority, because progress, or rather the idea of progress, has introduced the conception of every kind of emancipation, but has failed to establish its limits .... All the so-called liberals are anarchists, if not in fact, at any rate in thought. Every one of them in hunting after phantoms of freedom, and falling exclusively into license, that is, into the anarchy of protest for the sake of protest....

7. We turn to the periodical press. We shall impose on it, as on all printed matter, stamp taxes per sheet and deposits of caution-money, and books of less than 30 sheets will pay double. We shall reckon them as pamphlets in order, on the one hand, to reduce the number of magazines, which are the worst form of printed poison, and, on the other, in order that this measure may force writers into such lengthy productions that they will be little read, especially as they will be costly. At the same time what we shall publish ourselves to influence mental development in the direction laid down for our profit will be cheap and will be read voraciously. The tax will bring vapid literary ambitions within bounds and the liability to penalties will make literary men dependent upon us. And if there should be any found who are desirous of writing against us, they will not find any person eager to print their productions. Before accepting any production for publication in print, the publisher or printer will have to apply to the authorities for permission to do so. Thus we shall know beforehand of all tricks preparing against us and shall nullify them by getting ahead with explanations on the subject treated of.

8. Literature and journalism are two of the most important educative forces, and therefore our government will become proprietor of the majority of the journals. This will neutralize the injurious influence of the privately-owned press and will put us in possession of a tremendous influence upon the public mind .... If we give permits for ten journals, we shall ourselves found thirty, and so on in the same proportion. This, however, must in no wise be suspected by the public. For which reason all journals published by us will be of the most opposite, in appearance, tendencies and opinions, thereby creating confidence in us and bringing over to us quite unsuspicious opponents, who will thus fall into our trap and be rendered harmless.

9. In the front rank will stand organs of an official character. They will always stand guard over our interests, and therefore their influence will be comparatively insignificant.

10. In the second rank will be the semi-official organs, whose part it will be to attack the tepid and indifferent.

11. In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards.

12. All our newspapers will be of all possible complexions -- aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchical - for so long, of course, as the constitution exists .... Like the Indian idol "Vishnu" they will have a hundred hands, and every one of them will have a finger on any one of the public opinions as required. When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we hang out for them.

13. In order to direct our newspaper militia in this sense we must take special and minute care in organizing this matter. Under the title of central department of the press we shall institute literary gatherings at which our agents will without attracting attention issue the orders and watchwords of the day. By discussing and controverting, but always superficially, without touching the essence of the matter, our organs will carry on a sham fight fusillade with the official newspapers solely for the purpose of giving occasion for us to express ourselves more fully than could well be done from the outset in official announcements, whenever, of course, that is to our advantage.

14. THESE ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO SERVE ANOTHER PURPOSE, NAMELY, THAT OUR SUBJECTS WILL BE CONVINCED TO THE EXISTENCE OF FULL FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND SO GIVE OUR AGENTS AN OCCASION TO AFFIRM THAT ALL ORGANS WHICH OPPOSE US ARE EMPTY BABBLERS, since they are incapable of finding any substantial objections to our orders. ONLY LIES WILL BE PRINTED

15. Methods of organization like these, imperceptible to the public eye but absolutely sure, are the best calculated to succeed in bringing the attention and the confidence of the public to the side of our government. Thanks to such methods we shall be in a position as from time to time may be required, to excite or to tranquillize the public mind on political questions, to persuade or to confuse, printing now truth, now lies, facts or their contradictions, according as they may be well or ill received, always very cautiously feeling our ground before stepping upon it ....

WE SHALL HAVE A SURE TRIUMPH OVER OUR OPPONENTS SINCE THEY WILL NOT HAVE AT THEIR DISPOSITION ORGANS OF THE PRESS IN WHICH THEY CAN GIVE FULL AND FINAL EXPRESSION TO THEIR VIEWS owing to the aforesaid methods of dealing with the press. We shall not even need to refute them except very superficially.

16. Trial shots like these, fired by us in the third rank of our press, in case of need, will be energetically refuted by us in our semi-official organs.

17. Even nowadays, already, to take only the French press, there are forms which reveal masonic solidarity in acting on the watchword: all organs of the press are bound together by professional secrecy; like the augurs of old, not one of their numbers will give away the secret of his sources of information unless it be resolved to make announcement of them. Not one journalist will venture to betray this secret, for not one of them is ever admitted to practice literature unless his whole past has some disgraceful sore or other .... These sores would be immediately revealed. So long as they remain the secret of a few the prestige of the journalist attacks the majority of the country - the mob follow after him with enthusiasm.

18. Our calculations are especially extended to the provinces. It is indispensable for us to inflame there those hopes and impulses with which we could at any moment fall upon the capital, and we shall represent to the capitals that these expressions are the independent hopes and impulses of the provinces. Naturally, the source of them will be always one and the same - ours.

WHAT WE NEED IS THAT, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS WE ARE IN THE PLENITUDE POWER, THE CAPITALS SHOULD FIND THEMSELVES STIFLED BY THE PROVINCIAL OPINION OF THE NATIONS, I.E., OF A MAJORITY ARRANGED BY OUR AGENTUR. What we need is that at the psychological moment the capitals should not be in a position to discuss an accomplished fact for the simple reason, if for no other, that it has been accepted by the public opinion of a majority in the provinces.

19. WHEN WE ARE IN THE PERIOD OF THE NEW REGIME TRANSITIONAL TO THAT OF OUR ASSUMPTION OF FULL SOVEREIGNTY WE MUST NOT ADMIT ANY REVELATION BY THE PRESS OF ANY FORM OF PUBLIC DISHONESTY; IT IS NECESSARY THAT THE NEW REGIME SHOULD BE THOUGHT TO HAVE SO PERFECTLY CONTENDED EVERYBODY THAT EVEN CRIMINALITY HAS DISAPPEARED ... Cases of the manifestation of criminality should remain known only to their victims and to chance witnesses - no more.

The position of freedom of expression particularly when it is expressing Truth, is now very serious as the world is slipping steadily into a manufactured chaos - manufactured as described above...

Our website - Signs of the Times - represents one of many alternative sites but we seem to be doing something that most of the others aren't doing as we have now been attacked by some "serious heavies" in the form of the world's biggest, meanest, law firm that just happens to be based in Virginia - and we all know who else comes from Virginia - this is no coincidence.

As many of the readers of Signs of the Times are aware, this attack was launched via a gang we have suspected to be agents of Pentagon psy-ops - abovetopsecret.com and friends - on the night of the 22nd. We became aware that there was a problem only after many of our readers had sent emails asking why Signs of the Times was inaccessible.

Since we experience regular DOS attacks, but have learned to deal with them quickly and efficiently (with the help of the server techs), we first thought that this might be the problem. It was only after writing to the server people that we became aware that the problem was something "other" than just simple DOS attacks. The server techs told us that they had discontinued our service because of having received a notice of "copyright infringement." Well, heck, we get that all the time but the server techs have NEVER been intimidated before; so what was up with this? we wondered. Since the server people know what our site is about and this has NEVER been an issue before, just what was going on here? (To get an idea of some of the nonsense that goes on behind the scenes, have a look HERE).

That was the first clue that tactics were being used that had never been used before.

We got on the phone to the server techs and basically explained to them that heck, if someone is accusing us of copyright infringment, we need to know who it is and what they are claiming is copyright violation so we can take care of it. It was then that the techs forwarded to us the letter from the attorney claiming to represent abovetopsecret.com

(CENSORED! This section of the post can only be read on my blog or more attacks will be directed at our server tech)

As soon as we received the information from our server, and determining from their fear of Mr. Jaeschke that something other than a letter was behind this, we removed the "offending articles" from the server and placed them elsewhere. Since there was no copyright violation (as we had been assured by our own legal counsel), but the fear that was evident in the attitude of the server techs suggested that something more was going on with this issue, we made this decision to place the articles elsewhere. And then, in order to explain the disruption and notify our readers of what was going on, we posted Jaeschke's letter on the Signs of the Times Forum.

Since we were still sitting at our computers (it was the middle of the night here in France) working on changing links and putting in redirects, we were immediately aware when, a few minutes later, the site was taken down again. So, we were back on the phone to the server people who told us that Mr. Jaeschke had called them and demanded that his contact details be removed. (At least that is what they told us; what Jaeschke actually said to them, we have no way of knowing.) We explained that we couldn't do that if the site was not working, so they re-activated it.

I was IN THE PROCESS of doing it, trying to upload the changes, when the site disappeared again!

Yup, three times in less than an hour!

We were back on the phone asking "what's wrong THIS time???" It seems that Jaeschke was screaming that he was getting death threats already because we had posted his info and what he REALLY wanted was that his entire letter be removed, not just the contact details.

The server techs were REALLY scared! We patiently explained that Wayne is just a cointelpro agent and internet psy-ops game player using his position as an attorney to intimidate them. So, after they got calmed down a bit, the site went back up and they stayed on the phone until I gave them the signal that the letters had been removed from all three threads.

I actually felt sorry for those poor fellas! And that kind of terror is what psychopaths count on and that is why it is so important to study psychopathy, to know them fully and well so that you are not susceptible to their maneuvers and manipulations! In this day and time, a course about psychopaths ought to be required for anybody in a position to be intimidated or coerced by such blatant strong-mouth manipulation.

Possibly utilizing the "special psychological knowledge" of the psychopath that Andrew Lobaczewski describes in his work on Ponerology, good ole Wayne did such a number on those poor tech guys that they folded instantly. Seeing how Mr. Jaeschke managed to intimidate the heck out of the tech's really makes you wonder just what kinds of things he said to them on the phone? Geez! Didn't Hannibal Lecter convince a guy to swallow his own tongue? But I digress...

Nevertheless, at this point, the fog began to clear! What Mr. Jaeschke was really concerned about was the public association of his name or the name of his firm with abovetopsecret.com. That's why I wrote in the previous post that it became clear that this was supposed to be a "stealth" attack. We were never supposed to SEE the letter from abovetopsecret.com's attorney, Wayne C. Jaeschke, Jr. of Morrison & Foerster LLP in McLean VA . Nobody was ever supposed to see it. It was sent to our host server, not to us.

CENSORED! Read it on the Blog!

Well, I had certainly read it and, as far as I was concerned, as the subject of the message, I was "authorized to receive for the addressee". And since I was "authorized" to receive, I was certainly entitled to "use, copy and disclose" to everyone the message and the information contained in the message.

Wayne, if you don't agree, sue me, please!!! And also explain to me why we have never received an official letter in the mail - as is standard operating procedure - regarding this matter? Is it because you don't want any hard evidence floating around about your close association with abovetopsecret.com?

As I said, Wayne's pathetic screaming and crying that he was getting death threats within 5 minutes of his publicly available contact details appearing on the internet is what clued us into the fact that it was his exposure as an associate of abovetopsecret.com that was at issue. Why? Because every single one of the contact details that Wayne claims were exposing him to mortal danger just happen to be published on the Morrison and Foerster website which also tells us this:

The International Law Firm for Israeli Companies

Morrison & Foerster combines extensive experience representing Israeli companies in cross-border business transactions and litigation with the high- tech focus of its Silicon Valley practice.

We offer our Israeli clients comprehensive, global legal services that only an international law firm with over one thousand lawyers in nineteen offices around the world can provide in intellectual property, litigation, public offerings, technology transactions, M&A, corporate finance and all other areas of law they face as international players.

Gee, I wonder if they represent Israeli Moving Companies such as the ones that employed the Five Dancing Israelis on September 11, 2001, Urban Moving Company? But I digress...

Getting back to Wayne: is what is said about the Northern Virginia office where Wayne is one of a whole gaggle of associates:

1650 Tysons Boulevard, Suite 300 McLean, Virginia 22102 Phone: (703) 760-7700 Fax: (703) 760-7777

Key Facts about Morrison & Foerster's Northern Virginia Office

Managing Partner: Brian Busey

If you click " List of Attorneys in our Northern Virginia office" you can then select Wayne's name:

Wayne C. Jaeschke Associate Primary Office: Northern Virginia Email: wjaeschke@mofo.com Phone: (703) 760-7756 Fax: (703) 760-7777

These are the same phone numbers and the same email that were on the above email to our server techs. What's more, you can even have a look at Wayne's mug... Have a quick peek...

Whiny looking guy, isn't he? Geez, reminds me of a story on Signs of the Times about How to spot a baby conservative - Whiny children, claims a new study, tend to grow up rigid and traditional.

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

... The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding. [...]

Shades of the Protocols!

The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective. [...]

He reasons that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.

In a society that values self-confidence and out-goingness, it's a mostly flattering picture for liberals. It also runs contrary to the American stereotype of wimpy liberals and strong conservatives.

Of course, if you're studying the psychology of politics, you shouldn't be surprised to get a political reaction. Similar work by John T. Jost of Stanford and colleagues in 2003 drew a political backlash.

The researchers reviewed 44 years worth of studies into the psychology of conservatism, and concluded that people who are dogmatic, fearful, intolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty, and who crave order and structure are more likely to gravitate to conservatism. Critics branded it the "conservatives are crazy" study and accused the authors of a political bias. [...]

More action according to the Protocols?

Whether anyone's feelings are hurt or not, the work suggests that personality and emotions play a bigger role in our political leanings than we think. All of us, liberal or conservative, feel as though we've reached our political opinions by carefully weighing the evidence and exercising our best judgment. But it could be that all of that careful reasoning is just after-the-fact self-justification. What if personality forms our political outlook, with reason coming along behind, rationalizing after the fact?

It could be that whom we vote for has less to do with our judgments about tax policy or free trade or health care, and more with the personalities we've been stuck with since we were kids.

Regarding the above conclusions, taken in context with the Protocols of the Pathocrats, we have to consider psychopathy and other pathological conditions and how psychopaths can influence those with mental deficits at the social, national, and even global level. It could be said that being whiny and insecure may very well be evidence of congenital mental deficits that tend to make an individual more susceptible to Ponerological dynamics.

Speaking of Ponerology, How many of you are aware that Signs of the Times is never officially censored, but that the censorship imposed on us is covert and comprehensive. We have received many emails from readers about this issue and just the other day a reader who is an EXECUTIVE in a big multinational company branch in the UK sent me the following screen shot that he recently started getting on his computer when he tries to access Signs of the Times:

Black Listed

Now, as I said, this is an executive who generally logs onto Signs to dowload the news for reading later at home. He is not using his work computer to "waste time" or diddle around. Generally, executives are allowed to access whatever they like on their work computers. More than that, Signs of the Times is not a "Newsgroup" or "Bulletin Board," it is an Alternative News Source. I understand that we are also totally black-listed in China.

But back to Wayne's tantrum about his contact details being revealed. Fact is, the law firm actually publishes Directions to their location along with a handy little map. Gee, isn't that right down the road from the CIA? As one of the posters to our forum points out:

"MoFo is a heavyweight law firm. Sort of like the Mercedes-Benz of law firms. These aren't ambulance chasers. Their meat and potatos are IP law and other big corporation stuff. Intel retains them, among others. They don't usually bother with harassment suits, but as long as your coin is good (and plenty), they'll do whatever you want. Whoever is behind this has a lot of coins to throw around."

Another poster responded:

Having said that, there are two Wayne Jaeschke's at MoFo (is that name symbolic?), most likely father and son, of which our Wayne is the son. It seems that while MoFo might be the 'Mercedes Benz' of law firms, Wayne junior isn't up to much other than intimidating customer support at server companies and trying to find new ways to build bigger and better speakers, probably so he can listen to a recording of his own voice telling himself what a big, powerful lawyer he is.

Whether or not MoFo actually represents abovetopsecret.com, for our purposes, the most significant thing about Wayne Jaeschke's letter to our server people (that we were never supposed to see) was that it confirmed the close association of Jaeschke with the abovetopsecret.com "Three Amigos". This brings us to something else most interesting, the whole so-called Project SERPO hoax that abovetopsecret.com - with the gleeful assistance of attorney Wayne Jaeschke - has been running on the internet since last fall. There is a discussion about that on our forum also, which includes many fun facts and findings, and on that discussion page you can see a very interesting image about half way down which I am including here for the reader's convenience..

This is an image of an email that Bill Ryan of Project SERPO sent to me claiming that it had been sent to him by "friends" who were on the list of recipients. When I initially published it on the forum, I blacked out the name of the sender because I wasn't at all sure that a respectable attorney with a reputable law firm would actually be doing what this email suggests he is doing: creating a hoax to propagate on the internet via abovetopsecret.com. But now Jaeschke's involvement with ATS is on the record (even if he did not intend it), I am publishing the image without the name of the sender blacked out:

In short, this high-end corporate attorney is VERY thick in the whole Abovetopsecret gang activity. (Funny, QFG only ever had ONE attorney member and he only lasted about a week. He couldn't stand being in a group that demands the truth, I guess.)

You can see that this email comes from Wayne at "speakerbuilder.net. This is Wayne's "hobby site" where he likes to be called "The Rev". Hmmm... that's pretty suggestive of some strange mental quirks, not the least of which might be fundamentalist conservatism. If you click "email the Rev" you will get this publicly available email address. so if he starts yelling that his contact details are being revealed, he's full of it.

From this email we surmise that Wayne and the abovetopsecret.com Three Amigos and possibly others are communicating about their Hoaxing Activities re: Project SERPO. Apparently the set-up was to create a food fight about Serpo between Ryan and abovetopsecret.com in hopes that I would run to the defense of Ryan and get stuck in the Serpo Tar Baby. The above referenced "Friday the 13th" message was supposed to be the big expose that Serpo was a hoax. Had QFG been defending Serpo, we would have had significant egg on our face. As you can see from the email exchange posted on our forum, we suspected this from the beginning. We haven't been researching UFO and related matters this long to not recognize COINTELPRO when we see it.

One of the things that clued us in was that Bill Ryan removed the list of recipients before sending the email image to me, and my suspicions were raised even higher because he chose to send me an image rather than forwarding the email itself with the headers intact. My guess is that he was on the list of recipients as well.

In short, it tells us that the whole Serpo story is a creation, a game, put together by this bunch of sick turkeys.

Notice also Victor's (Martinez) comment: "If and when the official program goes into effect with legitimate, mainstream news media sources. " That definitely suggests that Victor is convinced that he is in contact with a gov intell guy - or that someone is - and that this whole program is sanctioned by the US psy-ops gang. Victor's question: "were ALL of the postings fake" tells us that he is not completely on the inside.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that Wayne is the author of ALL of the Serpo hoax material with maybe a little help from William Irvine and Mark Allin and Allin's Halliburton employee wife, "Val Hall". In short, abovetopsecret.com is just a nest of vipers, hoaxers and probably a central node for internet COINTELPRO funded by the Pentagon and backed by Dick "Shoot First, Ask Questions Later" Cheney.

Meanwhile, a reader of Signs of the Times has sent me a link to another blog, State of the Nation, which carried the following comments the day after our little "event."

Anatomy of a COINTELPRO shakedown II

The image above is the cover of the book Agents of Repression by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall. It is great for getting some history of COINTELPRO but to see how COINTELPRO is used today, which the authors admit would require a whole other book, you may want to read the accounts of Laura Knight Jadczyk. It's not just used against minority or counter cultural political groups. Why would power hungry psychopaths limit it to such groups anyway? It was afterall successful, and now they have both big and small fish to fry. Ms Jadczyk is now one of the many fishes in their sight.

A while back, based on her work, I detailed how COINTELPRO agents work. The chief activities of such agents is to limit anyone with a following that shows the true state of the nation and the world. As Agents of Repression and Ms Jadczyk's blog will show you, they spread disinformation, infiltrate legitimate groups, harass and sic their big guns on workers for truth.

This woman must have angered someone in both high and low places because they got some really big guns to shut down her website yesterday. These were lawyers from McLean, Virginia acting on behalf of a group whose activities were detailed on the anatomy of a cointelpro shakedown.

Ms. Jadczyk has documented her experiences and findings beyond what I wrote a while back. The following links lays it all out.

COINTELPRO Updates:

More Updates

Further updates

Inside Scoop

The spider and the fly

The plausable lie

The magus and the swamps of Eugnosia

By the last link, she had decided to lay off the ATS business and I thought they had gotten to her. I thought they scared her into not revealing what she was learning about Above Top Secret (ATS). I still followed her various writings because ATS isn't the world. They're just one of many on our planet who knowingly or unknowingly become agents of repression. I was happy however, see that they did not manage to scare her off and her website is back up. They are certainly trying hard to neutralize her.

It is a real lesson on the ways in which COINTELPRO has our nation in the state that it is in now.

Well, you can say that again!

One of the more interesting responses that we have received to our forum posting of the information that ATS was behind the website shutdown is the following forum posting regarding the Project Serpo :

My first impression upon reading the ATS "attack" emails sent to Bill Ryan reflected my opinion of ATS itself: a business. Just as Ms. Knight Jadczyk touched on, they are all about marketing. I see a website littered with advertisements; I see a website trying to sell me something.

So I thought to myself Mr. Ryan here had a good idea but his execution (ie writing and such, as rs cited about story building) was poor. As a business, perhaps ATS saw serpo.org as a good opportunity for money if the Skeptic Overlord took over the marketing and consumer manipulation to match how they make their $$$ over at ATS. From an Occam's standpoint, it might just be simple, if not dirty and bullying, business. Capitalism and all that nonsense.

Except for Mr. Ryan's attitude and activity towards Ms. Knight Jadczyk. Once told that she thought his serpo stuff was all hokey, followed by her inability to provide any assistance, a man with his concern for what he purported (his credibility and website) would have moved on to someone else he thought could help him out if he really thought he was in a pickle. But his continued communication with her shows his concern and attention toward her, not his own business, perhaps shedding light of a different agenda all together.

For ATS and Serpo to all be in cahoots, months and months worth at that, all just to set a trap that in itself isn't definite (ie one would need to go for the cheese to get caught in the trap) seems quite elaborate. Elaborate actions dictate a very serious motive, ie Ms. K must have really pissed off someone, or that it really isn't so elaborate. There is the offchance that ATS and co. are all crazy and they like spending months and months building a card castle just so no one would go inside it.

But simplicity usually lays a heavy hand on human motive, even in the intelligence field. Cointelpro or what have you, people are people first, and people's actions and choices have been observed long enough to get a good idea of using one thing to get a type of reaction. This is why those hollywood blockbusters bust so much block. So the question is, what would have happened if Ms. K decided to go along with the whole hullaballoo so diligently put forth by these conniving con-men?

Editorials notwithstanding, any one of the possibilities here is just that, a possibility. The most weight can be given to one if we can get an idea of which way they are blowing the wind. Discredit to a nice author with a newfound penchant for genealogy? Or this website, and its mentally delicious Pentagon presentation? Judging from how they act on their own boards, ATS would hardly be above stating "Admin of this board is attatched to Loony Bin Mcgee and his Alien Silliness!" followed up with Hoots n Hollers from their camp followers. But all this activity just to try and paint a bad picture of a "competitor" board? That's a whole lot of effort involved here just to gain more webtraffic. Then again, I am constantly amazed at the lengths capitalists go to to get more bang in their buck.

But if this is political that would easily explain away the effort used here. Perhaps the business end of it is just a kicker, a nice bonus. The real intent to Lie and smudge away at someone else's tasty truths, especially if those truths reveal a not so nice view of ones' self (or history, such as shooting our own five sided buildings). Information is puported to be the most valuable commodity. Perhaps that is the showdown here: two cookies vying for the public's mouth; one a tasty truth, the other a tasty something but accompanied by a nightstick. Perplexing quandary at best. Yummy in my tummy or a safety net?

What is becoming increasingly clear from this Stealth Attack, and other signals, is that Signs of the Times is probably the most dangerous site on the internet from the perspective of the Powers That Be. For them to take the risk of exposure as they did (and did they get exposed!) only convinces us that the issues raised in the Flying Fish article and the Pentagon Flash are of such importance that they will pull out all stops to defame, harass, stalk, and intimidate us with the ultimate goal of destruction. They want to see SOTT disappear from the Web, that is certainly clear and it is now becoming even clearer just WHO is behind it.

Now, we are no strangers to COINTELPRO. We have been targeted since I started investigating UFOs in 1993 and talking about it back in 1995. It started out being MUFON and UFO true believer types. Then, it was the New Age types. Then, of course, the standard religious types... though they aren't as bad as the UFO/New Age types. At first, it all seemed to be just random: jealousies, people whose beliefs were being threatened, and so on. And certainly, to a great extent that can be true all by itself. But later on, after I began writing the Wave Series, exposing so much of the New Age Sewage, it got more serious and "dedicated." We have our own full-time agent of defamation who doesn't even have a real job - he seems to have absolutely unlimited time to devote to destroying us, our peace of mind, our reputations, our work, our lives, the lives of our children, our friends, our groups, etc. - Vincent Bridges, associated with Jay Weidner, associated with Jeff Rense, with Ray Flowers, with Drunvalo Melchizedek, funded to the tune of several million by Jirka Rysavy, Czech millionaire who many claim is just a CIA front man with has his fingers in a LOT of New Age pies. At present, their favorite tactic is to post endless defamatory lies on "cointelpro friendly" forums, or to sign on to legitimate forums under various internet "handles" - or anonymously - and whenever a positive reference is made to our work to jump in and rant "cult, cult" or make some of the most bizarre accusations I've ever heard of. My personal favorites are that my husband is funded by George Soros and I plagiarized my autobiography! (Yeah, go figure.)

So, it seems that we were targeted quite early on, but for the past few years, it has taken a more serious turn, obviously because of our 911 research including the "Pentagon Strike." Vinnie and gang are no longer sufficient because people are starting to recognize that when gangs rant "cult," they are identifying themselves as lower level COINTELPRO throwaways. Now they brought in some bigger boys waving their manufactured "creative commons" flags the way Bush waves his "I'm eavesdropping because I can" flag. Remember from the Protocols:

Freedom is the right to do that which the law allows. This interpretation of the word will at the proper time be of service to us, because all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.

It'll be interesting to see what the next maneuver is!

The subject of the 911 strike on the Pentagon was subjected to intense cointelpro activity - as described in the Protocols above - from the very beginning so that now, even the so-called 911 truth seekers will nod their heads sagely and say "Yeah, it's just a set-up to make the whole 911 truth movement look silly."

I beg to differ.

I admit that I thought exactly the same thing in the beginning when our readers began to write to me and ask me about Theirry Meyssan's book. In fact, I even wrote comments to that effect and urged everyone to NOT touch this one with a mile long pole.

But even though I had made that initial assessment, based on what seemed logical to me, I still put our researchers on it because I WAS curious. And as the info kept coming in, it looked more and more like the Pentagon was, indeed, the "smoking gun" of 911 - even moreso than the collapse of WTC building 7.

I wrote my article "Comments on the Pentagon Strike" based on what info we had collected and as time went by and more data came in, we have added to it.

The Pentagon Flash Video was based, in part, on this article. What really shocked us was the way the video "took off" on its own. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that it has been viewed by at LEAST 500 million people. Yeah, half a BILLION (and that was six months ago when we assembled the data for a count). It took down about five dedicated servers that were hosting it. It also triggered some VERY interesting reactions. But what I want to point out here is that the extraordinary popularity of this video says one thing: people know subconsciously that it is TRUE, that there was no Flight 77 at the Pentagon. Now notice carefully that I do not say that there was no PLANE, because there certainly was. It was just not Flight 77 nor anything like a Boeing 757.

This short little video did what no other work on 911 "Truth" had done up to that point: it triggered a whole lot of active "damage control" as we will see in a few moments.

What I noticed about the reactions to the Pentagon Strike that we have received via email is that they are overwhelmingly positive. Sensible people who can see through Bush and the Neocons have no problem seeing that there was no Flight 77 at the Pentagon. The negative reactions are also interesting; they fall into two categories: 1) honest, sincere people who have been influenced by the cointelpro/psy-ops who then, without even being aware, become de facto cointelpro agents; 2) the REAL cointelpro/psy-ops agents.

To give an example of what I think is the former type: not too long ago, Jeff Wells, on his Rigorous Intuition blog made the astonishing remark that:

"I've posted a number of times on the blog about the mistake of constructing 9/11 "truth" upon the sand of physical evidence. The "no plane" hypothesis (more than a hypothesis for many; more like an unforgiving creed) is one of the most egregious missteps. One I believe encouraged, if not led, by COINTELPRO."

First of all notice that, like a robot, he is repeating "no plane," as though that is what is being said. It is not. What is being said is that it was NOT a Boeing 757. But this is the first clue that Jeff Wells is mechanically repeating something that has impressed itself on his mind in some way.

The second thing to note is this astonishing phrase: The "sand of physical evidence" ??? !!!!

Now, let me say right up front here that being accused of being cointelpro ourselves is truly bizarre, but not unexpected; after all, that's what cointelpro does: muddy the waters, create foodfights, and generally make it impossible for people to get together and actually make a difference.

The very fact that Jeff Wells can say that (and I think he's a sincere guy) just proves my point about psy-ops and how it affects the mind. It demands of us the question: how someone can be so mentally divided that, on the one hand, they can question why the majority of Americans cannot see through Bush and the Neocons as an evil Fascist system, and on the other hand, turn around and do just what those people who support Bush are doing: believe that "witness testimony" is more reliable than physical evidence! Isn't that something of a contradiction? That's the same kind of general hystericization that has taken over the minds of Americans and makes it almost impossible to show them facts about Bush and Gang and to get them to see the reality. That's the same kind of mindset that allows Americans to sit by complacently while Bush and the Neocons wage pre-emptive war, torture, divest Americans of their rights, engage in illegal spying, vote fraud, destroy the economy of America, and the whole host of criminal activities going on in this country. And if anybody thinks that this gang of criminal psychopaths can't run psy-ops to produce "innocent" witnesses to say anything they want them to say, or to even buy witnesses, think again! And if you still think you can vote the bastards out of office, you had better wake up before it is too late.

So, when somebody says: "the mistake of constructing 9/11 "truth" upon the sand of physical evidence" what he is really saying is that he MUST acknowledge that the physical evidence (or lack thereof) is compelling, but still - because COINTELPRO has been run so effectively on the 911 truth movement - OR because most of the 911 Truth Movement IS COINTELPRO - he just has to go with the "witnesses." And many people will do that because the alternative is far too horrible to contemplate.

And that is the big problem with the whole 911 truth movement. COINTELPRO that produces such muddled thinking as is evidenced in Jeff Wells, a guy I used to read faithfully and really admired. In the case of Jeff Wells and most of the 911 researchers, I am reminded of the Protocols above, where it says:

When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we hang out for them.

That is exactly what is being done with the 911 movement.

Turning now to Joe's Flying Fish article that abovetopsecret.com and Wayne Jaeschke and their bosses in the Pentagon are so desirous of making disappear from the internet, Joe Quinn wrote the following::

We notice that very few items of so-called "conspiracy theory" have rattled the "Bushes" quite like our Pentagon Strike Flash did. The Pentagon Strike video came out on August 23rd 2004. Probably nobody really noticed it at that point, but it hit a chord of response in the hearts of millions of people around the world. They began to madly download and forward it to their friends and relatives. Latest stats on how many people have viewed it to date are 500 million!

Apparently it even landed in the email box of the Editor of the Washington Post, which is why Carol Morello sent us an email asking for an interview. Or so she said. My suspicion was that the Post was instructed to do "damage control", albeit oh, so gently!

Now, look at this mini-timeline:

August 23rd 2004: Pentagon Strike Video which propagates wildly for a month.

September 11, 2004: CatHerder post to Above Top Secret forum.

September 21st 2004: First contact by Carol Morello of the Washington Post

October 7th 2004: Washington Post article

It was an interesting feeling to know that if they hadn't seen the Pentagon Strike before, certainly George and Dick, Karl and the gang were watching it after the Washington Post wrote an article about it.

October 19th 2004: George Bush visits New Port Richey - a previously unscheduled "whistle-stop" on his campaign trail. NPR is very small, not likely to be a major target of any presidential candidate, but it just happens to be Laura Knight-Jadczyk's hometown. It was our initial reaction that Dubya's visit to Laura's little home town - certainly of no importance on the campaign trail - was deliberately done to send a message to her. Fact is, her daughter's ex-boyfriend wrote to tell her that he had been among those selected to shake the hand of George W. himself! Now, how's that for a coincidence?

As to exactly what Carol Morello of the Washington Post wrote to Laura, here is the pertinent passage which is actually quite revealing:

A couple of editors here saw the video/film, and I was asked to find out what I could about it. As you can imagine, we continue to have an intense interest on the attack on the Pentagon and the people who were affected.

I've just begun reporting, so it would be premature to tell you what "perspective" my story would have.

My initial impressions are that the questions and theories expressed in the video got a spurt of attention in early 2002, after the publication of a best selling book in France, then the furor died down for a while, and now they have re-emerged with the extraordinarily wide dissemination of this video on the Internet.

The 911 Commission report appears to have done little to dampen the controversy. I hoped to speak to you about how and why you posted it on your web site, what kind of response you've received and what you think about it. […]

Notice that she attributes the resurgence of interest in the "Pentagate" problem to the Pentagon Strike video. Can we say "damage control"?

And if there is damage control, then that means there is damage.

Up to this point in time, the only acknowledgement the administration ever gave to such issues was to refer vaguely and dismissively to "conspiracy theories". Now, suddenly, it seems that dealing with the "conspiracy theories" in a direct manner was seen to be imperative. "9/11: Debunking the Myths" came out in Popular Mechanics Magazine in March of 2005, just five months after the Washington Post article. That's pretty fast work.

Under the tutelage of Editor in Chief Jim "Oh look, a tank!" Meigs, Popular Mechanics assembled a team of researchers, including "professional fact checkers" (impressive eh?) to debunk the 16 most common claims made by conspiracy theorists about 9/11. Unsurprisingly, the PM editors claim that, in the end:

"we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense. We learned that a few theories are based on something as innocent as a reporting error on that chaotic day. Others are the byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate."

In fact, a careful analysis of the article shows that at most, just three of the sixteen claims could have been the result of "reporting error", forcing us to assume that, in the razor-like, emotionally unclouded cerebrum of Jim Meigs, at least 13 of the conspiracy claims about 9/11 are the result of "cynical imaginations aiming to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate".

The sad fact is that, while Popular Mechanics claims to be interested in understanding what really happened that day, their rebuttal of sixteen of the most common claims by so-called "conspiracy theorists" about 9/11 isn't worth the $3.57 of server space that it has so far cost them to publish it.

If there is one glaring hole in the arguments put forward by 9/11 conspiracy "debunkers", it is the fact that such people have never come up with a reasonable argument to explain why, in the wake of 9/11, so many obviously intelligent citizens became gripped by the uncontrollable urge to continually waste their time recklessly and fecklessly "injecting suspicion and animosity into public debate" for no apparent reason. It really is a mystery. Maybe they're trying to take over the world or something.

On the other hand, it doesn't take a degree in psychology to understand the primary motivations of the conspiracy debunkers. You see, the very last thing that many Americans (and others) want to believe is that their government would attack its own people. For 9/11 "debunkers", logic and intellect have no part to play in investigating the question of what really happened on 9/11. It's pure emotion all the way. [...]

Most people think that "conspiracy theories" are made up by "conspiracy theorists", but the term "conspiracy theory" is most often used by those people who have most to gain from the ridicule of the allegations that are directed at them. The tactic has been used to such great effect over the years that certain high crimes committed by government have become the touchstone by which all other "conspiracies" are measured.

Take the folks at Popular Mechanics. In dealing with 9/11 they simply couldn't resist referencing that other most despicable crime committed by a US government - but of course, to them it's just another "theory":

"Don't get me wrong: Healthy skepticism is a good thing. Nobody should take everything they hear--from the government, the media or anybody else--at face value. But in a culture shaped by Oliver Stone movies and "X-Files" episodes, it is apparently getting harder for simple, hard facts to hold their own against elaborate, shadowy theorizing."

Did you catch it? The reference to Oliver Stone can mean only one thing: Jim's "fact checkers" contacted the CIA, and they told him straight up that some bullets really can do magic things.

So far, we have been generous to the people at Popular Mechanics. We have assumed that they are simply well-intentioned but misguided souls. However, it appears that there is a more sinister, and dare we say it, "conspiratorial" side to Popular Mechanics' "innocent" debunking of 9/11 conspiracy theories. You see, it turns out that one of the main contributors to the article is one Benjamin Chertoff, a cousin of the new Dept. of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff.

American Free Press' Christopher Bollyn, who dug up the information, also claims that Ben Chertoff's mother was a Mossad agent. While there is, as of yet, no evidence of any working relationship between the two, it is certainly noteworthy that the cousin of the current Homeland Security Chief, (who, in his previous incarnation as head of the Justice Department's criminal division was instrumental in the release of obvious Israeli spies before and after 9/11), happens to be behind a high-profile attempt to debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories. [...]

According to another 9/11 researcher:

"The editors of Scientific American followed in the footsteps of Popular Mechanics in exploiting a trusted brand in order to protect the perpetrators of the mass murder of 9/11/01. The column by Michael Shermer in the June, 2005 issue of Scientific American, titled Fahrenheit 2777, is an attempt to deceive the magazine's readers into dismissing the overwhelming evidence that 9/11 was an inside job without ever looking at that evidence. More specifically, Shermer attempts to inoculate readers against looking at the decidedly scientific refutation of the official story… […]

According to another 9/11 researcher:

"The editors of Scientific American followed in the footsteps of Popular Mechanics in exploiting a trusted brand in order to protect the perpetrators of the mass murder of 9/11/01. The column by Michael Shermer in the June, 2005 issue of Scientific American, titled Fahrenheit 2777, is an attempt to deceive the magazine's readers into dismissing the overwhelming evidence that 9/11 was an inside job without ever looking at that evidence. More specifically, Shermer attempts to inoculate readers against looking at the decidedly scientific refutation of the official story… […]

Shermer's column exhibits many of the same propaganda techniques as the ambitious feature article in the March issue of Popular Mechanics by Benjamin Chertoff, for which Shermer professes admiration:

'The single best debunking of this conspiratorial codswallop is in the March issue of Popular Mechanics, which provides an exhaustive point-by-point analysis of the most prevalent claims.'

Comparing the two attack pieces is instructive. Both pieces mention a similar range of issues, with Shermer adding Jewish conspiracy rumors and UFOlogists to the mix...

This last is undoubtedly a direct reference to Signs of The Times, while avoiding giving a direct link to our website out of fear that the reader might be influenced.

Shermer uses an array of deceptive methods to persuade the reader that challenges to the official story of the 9/11 attack are worthy only of ridicule and should not be scrutinized. His primary technique is to use hoaxes and unscientific ideas to "bracket" the valid ideas that he seeks to shield the reader from.

That Shermer went to such great lengths to thoroughly misrepresent the painstaking, scientific, evidence-based work of many researchers is a testament to the success of the Pentagon Strike Video! It really stepped on a sore toe. And that tells us something important, the same thing Carol Morello of the Washington Post wrote:

"…the questions and theories expressed in the video got a spurt of attention in early 2002, after the publication of a best selling book in France, then the furor died down for a while, and now they have re-emerged with the extraordinarily wide dissemination of this video on the Internet."

We notice that never, in any of the two major "debunking" articles that followed fast on the heels of the Pentagon Strike video, was the video ever even mentioned by name, nor was our website mentioned. Other books, other researchers, other web sites were mentioned, but the deliberate avoidance of Signs of The Times - the origin of the Pentagon Strike, was conspicuous. We notice the same trend in the Above Top Secret forum.

Again we point out: debunkers are sent in only when damage control is needed. And damage control is only needed when it is thought that there might be damage. That means that the Pentagon Strike is understood clearly, in the minds of the perpetrators, to be the weak link in their chain of lies.

Debunkers are sent in not to give answers to the outstanding questions, but to push the emotional buttons of the public, to reassure people who really want "a reason to believe" that their government is not lying to them. [...]

As Laura Knight-Jadczyk notes in her book 9/11:The Ultimate Truth, the attack on the Pentagon is the Achilles Heel of the entire 9/11 coverup, and for one very good reason: while we all saw repeated footage of Flight 11 and Flight 175 crash into the WTC towers, and we all saw the wreckage of Flight 93 and have hundreds of eyewitness testimonies that a commercial airliner did indeed crash in Pennsylvania, there is no reliable evidence that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon on September 11th 2001. No one has seen any footage that shows Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon, and the tapes that actually exist that could easily and immediately prove what did hit that day, have been confiscated by the FBI and the U.S. government studiously refuses to release them.

The US government claims that a Boeing 757 impacted the Pentagon on 9/11, many people dispute this, yet the same American government refuses to release video tapes that would put the matter to rest and show once and for all what hit the Pentagon. Use your head and ask yourself, "why?"

There is one very obvious answer.

In other words, you can push arguments about the WTC building's collapse from now 'til doomsday and get nowhere... Even if you prove that it collapsed due to explosives, you can't ever prove that those planes that flew into the WTC buildings were not big passenger jets with alleged Arab hijackers onboard. Even if you forced the government to admit that, yes, there were explosives that brought down the building, it can so easily be attributed to "terrorists" in a big "discovery" of bait and switch. That's why they don't really worry too much about the WTC attacks. That's why all manner of conspiracy theories about the WTC are tolerated with disdainful amusement.

But notice that there is NO real amusement about the Pentagon Strike. Oh, sure, they work really hard to poke fun at it, but the fact is, the Pentagon Strike video - and our work on that subject - is the one and only thing that has baited the Beast from his lair and it was for THAT reason that special "agents" like The Washington Post, Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, abovetopsecret.com and Wayne Jaeschke have been employed to stop it! To STAMP it out! To get RID of it! At ALL costs! Heck, that's probably what was on Dick Cheney's mind when he shot his buddy... he was having a waking dream and thought he was pointing the gun at the SOTT team!

The fact is, there is NO defense against the facts on the ground at the Pentagon except the word of a small group of "special" witnesses against another group of witnesses who say that it was NOT Flight 77. Think about it. As I happens, Dave McGowan, a pretty clever guy, has addressed these issues thoroughly. He writes:

A popular hobby of late among some 9-11 researchers seems to involve disparaging the efforts of, and questioning the motives of, those researchers who refuse to ignore the fact that the available evidence is entirely inconsistent with the crash of a jetliner at the Pentagon. These individuals generally refer to certain other Pentagon investigators as "no-plane" theorists. For the purposes of this article, I have adopted a name for them as well: Tattoo theorists. This appellation is, of course, an homage to the "Fantasy Island" character best known for the tag line, "Ze plane! Ze plane!"

Two of the most aggressive of the Tattoo theorists, by the way, are Jim Hoffman and Brian Salter, both of whom were on the other side of the fence, so to speak, until fairly recently. If you have ever known someone who quit smoking and thereafter embarked on a mission to browbeat and berate every other smoker on the planet, then you have a pretty good idea of how the Tattoo theorists operate.

On February 24, Brian Salter (questionsquestions.net) posted a histrionic denunciation of Pentagon "no-plane" theorists that included the bizarre claim that any efforts to "keep the unnecessary no-plane speculation alive just helps to smear 9-11 Truth activists as hateful maniacs. Maybe that's the idea."

Well, I guess the jig is up. Mr. Salter, it seems, has figured out our diabolical plot. All along, the real goal has been to cast 9-11 researchers as - dare I say it? - hateful maniacs. In fact, the 'talking points' that I receive from my secret CIA backers routinely contain such notations as: "Operation Hateful Maniacs is, as you know, proceeding on schedule; prepare to shift into the next phase of the program, Operation Deranged Psychopaths."

Of course, it could also be that those of us who continue to focus on the glaring inconsistencies in the official story of what happened at the Pentagon are actually pursuing the truth, which is what a "Truth activist" is supposed to do, rather than peddling entirely speculative drivel about a mythical 'plane bomb,' which is what the Tattoo theorists choose to do.

The primary strong-arm tactic of the Tattoo theorists is to cast "no-plane" theorists as part of a Cointelpro-type operation aimed at undermining the 9-11 skeptics' case. The "no-plane" theories, it is claimed, are "straw man" arguments, propped up specifically so that they can be easily brushed aside by "debunkers," thus discrediting the 9-11 movement in its entirety by attacking at points of greatest vulnerability.

In his blog, Salter claims "media debunkers have shown maximum enthusiasm for portraying [Pentagon no-plane theories] as the heart and soul of 9/11 skepticism and making it the centerpiece of practically every hit piece." (http://questionsquestions.net/blog/) Hoffman has written that "the prominence of the no-757-crash theory will damage the cause, particularly as it reaches a wider audience less inclined to research the issue ... The mainstream press is casting the no-757-crash theory as a loony construct of conspiracy theorists, and representative of all 9/11 skepticism." (http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pentagontrap.html) Mark Robinowitz has joined the chorus by claiming "'No Planes' has been the most effective means to discredit issues of complicity inside the Beltway." (http://www.oilempire.us/pentagon.html)

Obviously then, everyone is in agreement (as if they were all reading the same 'talking points') that we must immediately drop all support for the "no-plane" theories, because if we don't, we will continue to furnish the enemy with useful ammunition with which to attack and discredit us. Sounds like a good plan -- except for the fact that it is based on a false premise.

The reality is that there have been almost no mainstream media 'debunkings' of the 9-11 skeptics' case, and there is a very good reason for that: the cumulative case that has been painstakingly compiled is (despite the spirited efforts of people like the Tattoo theorists) a formidable one that major media outlets, along with most so-called 'alternative' media outlets, have wisely chosen not to confront.

By far the most ambitious, high-profile media 'debunking' of the claims made by 9-11 skeptics has been the hit piece that graced the cover of the March 2005 edition of Popular Mechanics magazine (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html). Since it is known that this article was co-written by Benjamin Chertoff, reportedly a cousin of our very own Director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, then it is probably safe to assume that a primary objective was to knock down all the 'straw men' arguments that had been carefully planted and nurtured by government operatives. That is, after all, how this game is played, as the Tattoo theorists readily acknowledge.

We should, therefore, expect to find that the Popular Mechanics article focuses considerable attention on the Pentagon "no-plane" theories, and on the Pentagon attack in general. But what we find instead is quite the opposite; instead of emphasizing questions about the Pentagon, the issue is downplayed and given very little attention -- which isn't really surprising given that the attack on the Pentagon has always been, from day one, relegated to the status of a relatively insignificant footnote.

The PM article presents what it says are the top sixteen claims made by 9-11 skeptics, coupled with what are supposed to be 'debunkings' of each of those claims. The claims are grouped into four categories, which are presented in the following order: "The Planes" (the ones that hit the towers); "The World Trade Center" (the collapse of the towers); "The Pentagon"; and "Flight 93." Five of the sixteen claims examined concern the collapse of the WTC towers, four concern Flights 11 and 175, four concern Flight 93, and just three concern the Pentagon attack. In terms of word count, the article runs (minus the introduction) about 5,200 words, and it breaks down roughly as follows: collapse of towers - 2,050 words; WTC planes - 1250 words; Flight 93 - 1150 words; and the Pentagon - a paltry 750 words.

So if we are to use the focus of mainstream media attacks to gauge the points of greatest vulnerability in the 9-11 skeptics' case, then, in terms of both word count and number of claims examined, the collapse of the Twin Towers would be, by far, the weakest leak in the chain (which is kind of ironic, when you think about it, considering that most, if not all of the Tattoo theorists actively promote the theory that the towers were brought down with explosives). As for Pentagon "no-plane" theories, they are, according to the given criteria, the point of least vulnerability. [...]

Claims concerning the Pentagon attack don't make an appearance on the Popular Mechanics list until well into the second half of the article. And once they do appear, they are given very little print space. The three claims 'debunked' in the PM piece barely scratch the surface of the cumulative case that has been built to challenge the official version of the Pentagon attack. And the 'debunking' of even these cherry-picked 'claims' is pathetically inept. The undeniable lack of aircraft debris from the alleged crash, for example, is brushed aside with nothing more than this ludicrous emotional appeal from an alleged blast expert and witness to the aftermath of the attack: "I saw the marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box ... I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts. Okay?"

You would think that if the Pentagon attack theories were the 'straw men' that the Tattoo theorists claim, then the 'debunkers' would be better prepared to knock those straw men down, and they would devote more print space to doing so. Instead, we find the Pentagon attack being downplayed in a major media attack on the 9-11 skeptics movement -- at the very same time, curiously enough, that a number of 9-11 skeptics have begun aggressively demanding that all "unnecessary speculation" about the Pentagon attack be dropped, and at the very same time that a new purported Pentagon skeptics' site suddenly appeared, professionally designed and complete with new interviews and photos (from insider sources), numerous omissions, copious amounts of spin and disinformation, a new DVD for sale, and, of course, enthusiastic backing from the Tattoo theorists and other 9-11 skeptics.

I have to say, quite frankly, that all of this just seems too well choreographed for my tastes. And, I have to also say that the Tattoo theorists' recent efforts to bury the Pentagon "no-plane speculation" seem rather desperate and overreaching.

I suggest that all of you read Dave's newsletter linked above with the Protocols of the Pathocrats held firmly in mind. As another poster in the Signs of the Times forum wrote:

Eye-witness testimony is notoriously pliable, and when already primed by FOUR airliners being hijacked, two have been flown into the World Trade Centre Buildings, and then something hits the Pentagon, it has to be one of the four airliners. It's in the programming, the priming, the following demonstrates this theory...

From 'Forensic & Criminal Psychology' Dennis Howitt:

"Few would doubt that human memory is fallible. An intriguing demonstration of this was a study of memory concerning the crash of an EL AL Boeing 747 jet onto a residential area of Amsterdam (Crombag et al., 1996). The crash had only been verbally reported on news bulletins as NO FILM OR VIDEO OF THE PLANE CRASH EXISTS [emphasis mine] Apart from eyewitnesses, no one could have seen the events. Nevertheless, participants in the research were misled into thinking that they may have seen such images on television by asking them about their recollections of the news coverage. Substantial numbers of participants in the study readily provided visual details of the crash as if they had seen it on film.[...]

"The key finding of the research is the failure of participants to recognise the falsity of their claims. That is to say, they did not realise that they were manufacturing memories."...]

This is not to say that eyewitnesses are not at all reliable, they are, but the essential point in the above is that with the right 'cueing' (programming) a vast number of people can be led to manufacture memories. Very sad isn't it, and it is easy to see the comparison here with how most people were led to believe it was a hijacked passenger airliner that hit the pentagon.

The truth is: NOBODY saw Flight 77 fly into the Pentagon. It didn't happen.

And so it is: Joe Quinn's rebuttal of the Pentagon Strike rebuttal, created and propagated by abovetopsecret.com, is just too dangerous to be allowed to continue to be "out there."

Even if it is completely legal to write a critical analysis as Joe Quinn did - utilizing the original article for the critique (how else can you write an analysis?) - covert intimidation and coercion from a fancy law firm in Virginia has been initiated to force the removal of this article from the internet after the pathetic efforts of the abovetopsecret.com "Three Amigos" didn't do the job. This was never supposed to be made public, it was designed to quietly and covertly "kill the messenger."

Discerning those whose intent is to deceive from those who are already deceived, but sincere, is very difficult but it can be done if people will begin to educate themselves and deal with the FACTS. Really and truly grokking COINTELPRO and the damage it does, and learning how to combat it, is a MUST if anything positive is ever to happen on this god-forsaken planet.

At this point, you can pretty well discern the COINTELPRO alternative sites from the sincere ones by who publishes this Exposure of abovetopsecret.com and who doesn't. Right about now, it IS that simple.

Now those of you that have read this far, let me mention that we removed our fundraiser, our fun little "Send Dick Cheney to the Moon" thing because, after a month, we raised less that 20% of our target - that is, double digits in thousands, not triple digits. Meanwhile, we know that the moveon.org people who haven't yet awakened to that fact that all their efforts and all their money is just going down the drain in the face of criminal fascists were able to raise several million dollars. That is another reason for COINTELPRO, to deprive the legitimate and UNCORRUPTED researchers of funds desperately needed to place the truth before the masses of people in a way that can compete with the Fox News type brainwashing.

Do you see moveon.org getting attacked? Do you see their website being taken down? In fact, please try to think of any other website that has been so thoroughly subjected to defamation, repeated DOS attacks, personal harassment, stalking, and now outright assault and intimidation from people with obvious connections to the Bush Neocons.

You can't. There isn't another website that can demonstrate with hard evidence, documentation, the level of attack that SOTT has been subjected to for the past five years.

What is really disheartening is that it is crap like this that makes it difficult for legitimate groups to operate. We've been tarred with the "cult" and "fleecing the faithful" brush by COINTELPRO agent Vincent Bridges from the very beginning. And they use examples of real cults and real frauds to create knee-jerk reactions in people.

Fact is, we have to have funds to continue to operate. QFG supports an ever-expanding network of researchers; pays enormous internet fees; and even donates to other non-affiliated alternative researchers to keep them up and running. QFG supports scientific research, and in 2004 and 2005, we were able to give significant support to scientific programs at the university level.

The PTB would like nothing better than to have everyone on the planet think that QFG is nothing but a cult that fleeces its "minions" for nefarious purposes.

You can visit the Quantum Future Group site HERE to get a better idea of what we are all about. ( Note that it is still under construction.) Our financial reports are being prepared by an independent auditor and will soon be posted publicly. We hope that this will go some way towards putting the kibosh on the COINTELPRO defamation campaign, but we aren't holding our breath.

The fact is, we account for every penney that is brought in either by donations or booksales. Here I want to make a special note of the fact that all the income from booksales - the results of our hard work - go right back into QFG and nobody gets a salary or collects "royalties." Considering what we manage to do, the old saying holds true: Never have so few done so much for so many with so little to work with!

Think about it.

And think about how much you might want us to continue to be available to you for news, analysis, commentary, and just the TRUTH.

When we are gone, who will take our place?

From the 'Protocols of the Pathocrats':

[T]o sow discord in all parties, to dislocate all collective forces which are still unwilling to submit to us, and to discourage any kind of personal initiative which might in any degree hinder our affair. THERE IS NOTHING MORE DANGEROUS THAN PERSONAL INITIATIVE: if it has genius behind it, such initiative can do more than can be done by millions of people among whom we have sown discord.

It is now imperative that we have funding in order to sustain - and even increase - our web presence. If you believe in the right of people to research and publish their work and their opinions I would ask you to please donate to the site today and to encourage your friends as far and wide as possible to do so as well - we need funding and we need it regularly. If you see your way clear to making a monthly donation that would help us a great deal.

Many people are afraid to be associated with those that have the courage to speak out against the creeping fascism that is enveloping the planet - we understand this but would also mention that there comes a time when we each of us have to make our stand - the editors of the website have taken theirs and do so every day. You may not agree with all they say but I would be most grateful if you would show your agreement and support their right to have their opinions and publish them freely without harassment and intimidation from the CIA.

This may all sound very dramatic but the situation is serious and your support will go a very long way to helping one light of truth in this world that is growing darker every day to keep shining.

If you want us to be able to continue to research and bring to you the best and most accurate and objective information available, you must show some personal initiative and stand behind us now, please. Give as generously as you can because we see a long and expensive fight ahead. If we don't get the funds to be able to fight this battle, then we will know that not enough people want what we are offering: just the Truth. If you want us to be here for you tomorrow and after tomorrow, give today! Please! And Thank all of you who have already given!


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Editorial: The US Gulag Prison System - The Shame Of The Nation and Crime Against Humanity

by Stephen Lendman

No, not the one you think, outrageous as it is. I'm referring to the US prison system that's with no exaggeration about as shockingly abusive as the gulag abroad. It qualifies for that label by its size alone - more than 2.1 million as of June, 2004 and growing larger by about 900 new inmates every week. Blacks (mostly poor and disadvantaged) especially are affected. While they make up just 12.3% of the population, they account for half the prison population, and their numbers there have grown fivefold in the last 25 years. Hispanics (also poor) account for another 15%.

About half of those incarcerated are there for non-violent offenses, and half of those (500,000) are drug related. But while blacks make up 15% of ilicit drug users, they account for 37% of drug arrests, 42% of drug offenders in federal prison and 62% in state prisons. And Human Rights Watch reported in 2000 that in one third of the states 75% of all prisoners for drug-related offenses are black. In my home state of Illinois they reported the number to be an astonishing 89%, a total exceed by only one other state. Further, in a so-called free society, below the radar are hundreds of political prisoners, mostly people of color, there only because they represent a threat to the state from their pursuit of justice for their people if they were free.

Today the US shamelessly has more people behind bars than any other nation including China with over 4 times our population. And things have become especially repressive against those in society least able to defend themselves including immigrants of color and our newest head of the queue demon - Muslims. The Bush administration has made a bad situation far worse taking full advantage of their fear-induced "permanent state of war" and sham "global war on terrorism" to target all those seen as a potential threat to their plan for global dominance and full control at home.

Taken as a whole, this is a national disgrace and outrage, but the effect on those targeted is pretty much below the radar, unreported and undiscussed in the mainstream. Who cares about a couple of million mostly poor, mostly people of color (including immigrants, many of whom are undocumented and have no legal rights at all) languishing behind bars out of sight and out of mind. When any of this is discussed, it's to let the (voter eligible) public know our political leaders are "tough on crime" and working to keep us safe. Safe from whom or what? In the words of a great world class journalist, that kind of talk is "what comes out of the rear end of a bull." What's really going on has little to do with public safety but lots to do with controlling a justifiably restive population of poor and desperate people, the inability of those people to afford a proper defense in our so-called criminal justice system stacked against them, and a growing opportunity for big business to profit on human misery. It's a kind of modern day slavery - a growing state and privately run criminal injustice and prison industry using human beings as their product. In this land of opportunity and the "free market", all things (and people) are commodities to be exploited for profit.

A GROWTH MARKET OF POOR AND DESPERATE PEOPLE, MOSTLY BLACK AND HISPANIC - A READY RESOURCE FOR THE PRISON GROWTH INDUSTRY

The way this country has always treated its least advantaged throughout its history is shameful. British historian Arnold J. Toynbee perceptively understood this in his quote made 46 years ago when he said: "America is today the leader of a world-wide anti-revolutionary movement in the defence of vested interests. She now stands for what Rome stood for: Rome consistently supported the rich against the poor.........and since the poor, so far, have always and everywhere been far more numerous than the rich, Rome's policy made for inequality, for injustice, and for the least happiness of the greatest number." Imagine what Toynbee might say today if he were still living.

Toynbee didn't say it but he might have added that none in America have fared worse than people of color - American Indians, Hispanics, Asians and especially Blacks first brought here as chattel and who remained that way for over 300 years. Even when they were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution and guaranteed the right of life, liberty and property, due process and equal protection under the law by the Fourteenth Amendment they still seldom got it. Throughout the 100 years of Jim Crow justice and even after the civil rights gains in the 1960s, most blacks and other people of color have always been on the bottom rung of society (along with our native people) and denied most of its benefits including equal justice under the law.

There are those today in the US, even from the progressive community, who like to say this country has come a long way from its racist past, and while there are still far too many inequities we're making progress. Are these people living in the same country and on the same planet as I am? In the US the statistics on blacks alone in the criminal justice system make a mockery of any notion of a nation no longer racist. When it comes to the issue of justice, we've never been more racist since the days of legal slavery. The numbers are truly shocking and in a country claiming to be a democracy and a model for the rest of the world. I hope that world makes another choice. There are far better ones than ours, and our imperial adventures abroad and policies at home toward our least advantaged prove it.

THE SHAMEFUL FACTS PAINT AN UGLY PICTURE OF ANOTHER (LOCKED UP) AMERICA, OUT OF SIGHT AND OUT OF MIND

Here are some key facts. Nationwide black males over 18 are incarcerated at 9 times the rate of comparable white males, and in 11 states those rates range from 12 to 26 times the rate for whites. In my home state of Illinois the rate is 15 times, and in the nation's capital the rate is an astonishing 49 times. The most current data on incarceration for blacks in the US was 1,815 per 100,000 vs. 609 per 100,000 for Latinos, 235 for whites and 99 for Asians. For adult black males the rate was 4,630 per 100,000, 1,668 for Latinos and 482 for whites. In 1999, 11% of black males in their 20s and early 30s were in prison including one third of black male high school dropouts. Even worse, the statistical model used by the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the turn of the century to determine racial and ethnic differences in their chances for incarceration at sometime in their lifetime predicts a 29% chance of serving prison time for a black male aged 16 in 1996. The comparable chance for a white male in the same age group was 4%. In 2002 the Justice Policy Institute reported there were more black men behind bars than in colleges or universities. It also reported that 30% of black males between 20 and 29 are either in prison or on probation or parole.

From the numbers above we know that one in every 20 black men over 18 is now in a state or federal prison compared to one in every 180 whites. And in some states like Oklahoma, Iowa, Rhode Island, Texas and Wisconsin, the black male incarceration rate incredibly is between 13 -14% of all black men in those states - a devastating blow to the black families and communities there. It's also true that the best predictor of a state's incarceration rate and its total prison population is the size of its black population.

By almost all measure the state of what can only be called the US criminal injustice system is shocking and outrageous. In the last 35 years the total number incarcerated has exploded from less than 300,000 in 1970 to more than 7 times that number now. Today the US is number one not only in its total prison population but in the highest number per 100,000 population imprisoned - 690. Only Russia is a close second with 675 while in South Africa it's 400, England - 125, France - 90, Sweden - 60 and Italy - 40. Would anyone suggest the US is 17 times more non-law-abiding than Italy, or is there a simpler explanation?

It's also true that race is the most prominent reason why states deny voting rights to convicted felons and ex-felons. The greater the percentage of blacks in a state, the more likely it is for that state to disenfranchise its residents who've served time in jail. A prison record in those states means a loss of a citizen's most fundamental democratic right. The laws vary by state, but The Sentencing Project estimates 4.7 million Americans, or 1 in 43 adults, have currently or permanently lost their right to vote because of a felony conviction. And 1.4 million black men, or 13% of all black men, are so disenfranchised, a rate 7 times the national average. Even more shocking, the same report estimates that given the current rates of incarceration, 30% of the next generation of black men will be disenfranchised at some time in their life. And in states that disenfranchise ex-offenders, as many as 40% of black men may permanently lose their right to vote.

Let's be very clear. Based on the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution it can, and I believe should, be argued that all state disenfranchisement laws are unconstitutional. Section 1 of that amendment reads: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous servitude." It remains for a future Congress and/or the courts to address this issue and decide whether we're to be a democracy for all our citizens or just for those we decide are eligible and for the reasons we choose. And this doesn't address the more basic question of whether our right to vote really matters. The public has virtually no voice in choosing the 2 major parties' candidates, and when we cast our votes the new electronic voting machines can easily be programmed or manipulated to ignore our choice and count it for another candidate and even do it multiple times. This is why half the eligible voting public opt out. They don't believe the system is free and fair so why bother. That thought never leaves my mind, and I wonder why I bother. But that consideration awaits another commentary and analysis, a pretty fundamental and important one.

THE BIG AND GROWING BUCKS SPENT ON LOCKING PEOPLE UP IN CAGES

Since the 1970s the prison-industrial complex has exploded in size and continues to grow exponentially. It now exceeds $40 billion annually and rising. On average states now spend 60 cents on prisons for every dollar spent on higher education, up from 28 cents in 1980. And several large states are so hell-bent to lock people up their annual budget for prisons exceed that for education. Also, the overall rate of prison spending growth has greatly exceeded that for education for the past 25 years. It's shocking that the annual per prisoner cost today almost equals a year's tuition at Harvard. And what's all this spending buying us. Not a damn thing except a nation growing more repressive, more racist and more likely to target anyone if they ever run short of their current favorites. But since 9/11 they've tapped a new vein of 1.5 million Muslims. And if they throw in Hindus, Buddhists and a few other easy to demonize miscellaneous sects out of the mainstream they can easily triple that number. Now that's a "strike" that may be too "rich" to ignore. Think of all the new prisons they'll need to lock up a load of them, get them off the streets and help keep a new growth industry growing and prosperous.

Contrary to the "law and order" baloney from our politicians, there's no evidence of a rising trend of criminality, including the violent kinds. Since 1980, the data on the national crime rate has trended slightly up, then down, without any significant change. Still the incarceration rate has skyrocketed reflecting a crime wave that doesn't exist. In the 1990s, thanks to a good economy, crime rates actually fell, but incarceration rates rose dramatically nonetheless. Smell fishy? It sure does to me. And my own view, shared by others, is that this is all part of a sinister effort to control dissent by a combination of a state-induced climate of fear and hard line national security police state tactics to keep a restive population in line. Those most likely to be restive are the ones most deprived, the ones left out over the last 25 years when the wealth gap widened exponentially between rich and poor and continues to unabated. At the same time the social safety net has been and continues to be shredded making conditions intolerable for the poor and also impacting lower and middle income earners and families. Of course, the ones always hurt most are people of color and that means mostly black people. But Hispanics are gaining ground in this race to the bottom as that segment of our population (including undocumented immigrants) is growing the fastest along with those from Asia.

THE SO-CALLED "WAR ON DRUGS" - IT'S A HOAX AND A NATIONAL DISGRACE

We should have caught on by now. When our political leaders want to scare hell out of us about something, real or imagined (you can bet it's the latter), they declare war on it. It gets the juices flowing and the flags waving. We had the phony "cold war", and now, with "the evil empire" gone and desperate to find new imagined and contrived enemies, we have a "war on terrorism" and a "war on drugs." We also have an unmentioned "war on the climate" as witnessed by the alarming rate of melting of the polar and Greenland ice caps. Maybe one day they'll declare dandruff public enemy number one and declare war on it. Might as well. It would make as much sense as all the others, except for the one real one they never mention caused by global warming.

And, oh yes, there's one other war never mentioned, and it's the most important and dangerous one of all - it's the ongoing and growing war on the Constitution and our sacred Bill of Rights. They're being taken from us right before our eyes, and in our blindness and mental fog we don't even see it happening. Most of us know the Ben Franklin quote about those who would sacrifice their freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both. He also said that "distrust and caution are the parents of security" and reportedly said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence "we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Franklin's contemporary, the great German philosopher and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, just as wisely said that "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." Franklin, Goethe and many others aren't considered iconic and venerable historic figures for nothing. And if we take the trouble to read them, we have the benefit of their great wisdom. They've warned us with it, and we damn well better be listening and heeding them. If not, we'll awaken one day, find our precious freedoms gone, finally understand what happened, and it'll be too late.

Except for the 2 unmentioned real wars, the others are surreal ones. They're contrived and concocted by devious politicians for their own interests like trying to get reelected or needing a reason to raise defense or homeland security spending. They're also to benefit their corporate allies who profit from them. The more they can scare us the greater the amount of our tax dollars they can divert from vital societal needs to put in the pockets of their corporate friends and fight wars of imperial conquest for their benefit. And the more repressive laws they can pass to destroy our civil liberties, and as discussed above, lock up in cages those most in need and most likely to be restive about it.

The current catchy phrase in the "drug war" was first used during the supposed crack epidemic in the 80s, but we can pin one more rap on Richard Nixon who first declared a "war on drugs" over 30 years ago. But the idea of making some "drugs" illegal goes back much further than that, to the 1930s (and earlier) when prohibition ended and alcohol producing companies may have decided to eliminate the threat of a competing "drug." You'd think we might have learned something from 13 years of violence and corruption under Prohibition that made criminals out of otherwise law-abiding people who may have just wanted a cold beer and also created a new revenue source for organized crime.

But all that was chicken feed compared to today as the UN now estimates the annual take from trafficking ellicit drugs is around $400-500 billion. That's double the sales revenue from US legal prescription drugs Big Pharma reported in 2005. Those profiting big time from the illegal ones include more than the "kingpins" and organized crime. The market is so big everyone wants in on it. For many banks, including the major international money center ones, "laundering" drug money is one of their important profit centers. And it's well-known that the CIA was been involved in drug-trafficking (directly or indirectly) throughout its half century existence and then began to profit from it in earnest during the Contra wars of the 1980s to fund their operations. Today the CIA is part of the elicit drug trade in places like Afghanistan working with major criminal syndicates in the huge business of trafficking heroin. The take from this one operation alone is so lucrative it's hard to imagine they'd ever give it up or not want in on all other major parts of the drug trade worldwide. Who'll stop or prosecute them? And what criminal enterprise wouldn't want them as a partner to guarantee them ease of access to the US and other major markets. That's a marriage joined together none of the parties would ever want to put asunder.

And now in this modern Age of (contrived) Anxiety, we have 2 new "super-spook" agencies established to take full surveillance advantage of the Bush administration's unjustifiable "wartime" powers and fear-induced concocted "war on terror" to last for "generations" - The Office of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Wanna bet they're also in the ellicit drug biz big time. How could they resist it. They both need every buck they can get to watch all of us, everywhere, all the time - which is what they're now doing. And it's an indisputable fact that all the spy agencies are above the law and can do whatever they please - spy legally and illegally, traffic ellicit drugs, torture detainees they control and murder anyone they target including heads of state.

But it's the purpose of this essay to focus on how the so-called drug war has led to a burgeoning prison-industrial complex that adversely affects the lives of millions of society's most disadvantaged who happen to be mostly people of color and most of them black. Just like during Prohibition, otherwise law-abiding people have become criminals and are being locked away for long sentences. The repressive "mandatory minimum" sentences are especially harsh and outrageous. Supposedly established to target "kingpins" and big time dealers, it hasn't turned out that way and likely was never intended to. The US Sentencing Commission reports that only 5.5% of all federal crack cocaine defendants and 11% of all federal drug defendants are "high-level" dealers. The rest are low-level operatives and those caught "possessing." In most cases they're from society's least advantaged and poor, and most of them are black. These convenient targets create a ready supply of bodies to fill prison cells as part of the plan to remove the unwanted from the streets and create a new growth industry at the same time.

SOME QUICK FACTS ABOUT COCAINE AND ITS DERIVATIVE "CRACK" AND HOW ITS USE TARGETS BLACKS

First off, coca leaf cultivation in South America has been the cornerstone of the Andean region for 4 thousand years, and its consumption has been part of the culture since before the Incas. It's commonly used by millions of people there including the cocaleros, or coca farmers, as we in this country use coffee, tea, a glass of wine or just a cold beer. Besides drinking coca tea, the leaf is chewed to relieve fatigue, suppress appetite, as a communal activity and to offset altitude sickness. The US Embassy in Peru even recommends it for the latter purpose.

Use of cocaine in the US didn't first begin in the 60s. It's been around recreationally for nearly 150 years for "whatever ailed you" tonics, in cigarettes, ointments and nasal sprays. Its use was perfectly legal until the federal government classified it as a narcotic (which it is not) in 1914. After that it could only be gotten legally by prescription or illegally from a "street dealer."

Cocaine is a powder which in "cooked" form is called "crack." The law treats each very differently. The racist "mandatory minimum" sentencing laws established by Congress in 1986 penalize crack users especially harshly. Defendants convicted of selling 500 grams of powder cocaine vs. 5 grams of crack each receive 5 year sentences. For 5 kilos of powder and 50 grams of crack it's a 10 year sentence. That's a 100:1 ratio. Why? Hold on, there's more.

Simple possession of any amount of powder by a first-time offender is a misdemeanor punishable by a max 1 year sentence. For crack, simple possession is a felony carrying a 5 year sentence. Now to the why. Blacks accounted for 84% of convicted crack offenders in 2000, Hispanics 9% and whites 6%. For powder it was Hispanics - 50%, blacks - 30% and whites - 18%. Now you know. The federal crack laws established 20 years ago were part of the "Reagan revolution" and its racist war against the poor, mainly blacks. It was also intended as a defense against those least advantaged poor and mainly blacks as the "Reagan revolution" began dismantling the social safety net and transferring wealth to the rich and well-off. That transfer has now been ongoing for 25 years with no end in sight. The "war on drugs" and its harsh laws, mainly targeting blacks, were intended to defuse the inevitable pressure that would build among the poor and black community and likely explode again in the streets as it did in the 60s. 2.1+ million people locked in cages is how this nation's leaders address the gross social inequity problem it deliberately created. It's their solution, and it's a national disgrace and outrage.

TORTURE IN US PRISONS - IT'S NOT JUST AT GUANTANAMO AND ABU GHRAIB - IT'S RIGHT HERE IN THE USA

Surprised? The few who even think about this may be, but even many of them shamefully believe all those locked up deserve the harsh treatment they get. Aren't they sent there to be punished for committing crimes? Did they expect a "country club?" Punishment is what they get big time because prisons everywhere are brutal places, and those sent to them have no rights and it shows in how they're treated - routinely. And let's be perfectly clear about the way it is at all US domestic and foreign based prisons (and most all other countries' as well): No, it doesn't just happen at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram near Kandahar, Afghanistan; and no, it's not just by a few "rogue elements" or "bad apples." What goes on is policy, and it comes right from the top sanctioned and approved. And let's be very clear about one other thing. The real criminals sit in corporate suites and boardrooms or in capitol hill offices while their victims are locked in cages and subjected to unspeakable abuse and brutal torture with no chance to stop it or receive redress.

Prisons, with few exceptions, are not intended for rehabilitation. They are institutions societies use for vengeance and punishment. There are the most gruesome hellholes around the world the US takes full advantage of just in the prisoners it "renditions" for attempted information extraction by some of the worst physical and psychological tortures the human mind can conceive. But this essay is about what goes on in US prisons within our borders, and what you'll read below will sound like reports about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Get ready to feel your skin crawl.

Everything we saw on TV months ago about prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib (and heard goes on at Guantanamo) happens in our state and federal prison system right here at home and lots more we didn't see or hear about. These are the lessons and techniques first devised and used in US based torture-prisons and then exported for use in our comparable torture-prisons around the world. That's the way things are in all our prisons, and in the language of author Gertrude Stein when she referred to roses: a prison is a prison is a prison. The main difference between San Quentin and Abu Ghraib is their location. What goes on at both and all others includes savage beatings by prison guards; attacks by fierce dogs that inflict real bites; severe shocking with cattle prods and 50,000 volt emitting Taser electro-shock guns often used multiple times that make the victim shake for hours after being struck and can also kill and often do; assaults by toxic chemicals like pepper spray strong enough to inflict severe pain, second degree burns, temporary blindness, and even death in a vulnerable victim; and all this happening at times with prisoners stripped naked including brutal rapes by guards, other prisoners and much more.

A courageous woman activist imprisoned for several months for her actions told me the case of a woman she saw stripped naked in her cell and then bound suspended in spread-eagle form on her prison bars and left there for hours to suffer. The experience devastated her and nearly killed her. And she was another activist being punished for her courageous acts. Hard to believe? You'd better believe it because it goes on every day in all prisons routinely throughout the country - acts of deliberate barbarity and sadism, so severe they can and do kill and often leave their victims an emotional shell when they don't. Whenever you hear reports about prisoners committing suicide, you'd better think hard about it. It's most likely they were murdered by prison guards and reported as suicide. It may be from repeated Taser shocks, from being beaten to death so savagely every rib in their body was broken or just from a body giving out from repeated and brutal maltreatment over a long period with nothing more to look forward to but more of the same. How many can endure the worst of that? No one in a civilized country should ever have to. And no civilized person should believe they had it coming.

HOW INTERNATIONAL LAW TREATS TORTURE

International law is explicit and long-standing forbidding the use of any form of torture and inhumane or degrading treatment under any circumstances. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlawed it in 1948. The Fourth Geneva Convention then did it in 1949 banning any form of "physical or mental coercion" and affirming detainees must at all time be treated humanely. The European Convention followed in 1950. Then in 1984 the UN Convention Against Torture became the first binding international instrument dealing exclusively with the issue of banning torture in any form for any reason. And let's be clear on what's meant by torture and inhumane treatment. It includes punching a prisoner or detainee in the mouth or kicking him or her in the stomach or butt.

Except for the non-binding "Universal Declaration", all the others are binding international law, and the US is a signatory to the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Convention. And hold on, there's more. The US War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a criminal offense for US military personnel and US nationals to commit war crimes to include cruel treatment and torture covered under the Fourth Geneva Convention. And virtually every human rights organization is on the record banning all kinds of torture anywhere for any reason.

A BRIEF DIVERSION ON TORTURE OVERSEAS

I must include some important information about one type of torture that may be only going on overseas - for now. Although the US is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture, it's routinely ignored and violated them with impunity in US prisons and abroad. Further, the CIA's use of psychological torture was exempted in the UN Convention.

With cover from that exemption, Professor Alfred McCoy's new book - A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War of Terror - exposes the CIA's secret efforts to develop new forms of torture over that period. He explained how they conducted intensive research to crack the code of human consciousness and through much trial and error came up with human devastating psychological and self-inflicting torture techniques - from sensory disorientation or the severe pain from tortures like forced continuous standing for 24 - 48 hours.

The CIA experiments continue now at Guantanamo and other overseas hellhole torture-prisons. But 2 new techniques have been added - cultural sensitivity and individual fears and phobias. This four-fold assault on the human psyche is now being used against prisoners held in overseas prisons, and the detainees affected (most picked up randomly and guilty of no offense) are being used as human "lab rats" in a gruesome, vile and clearly illegal and immoral experiment to devise the most effective psychological techniques to break down a human subject - to break a human being so totally it's near impossible to recover.

I could find no information on if these experiments are now being conducted in US domestic prisons. But that doesn't mean they're not. They may be happening here, but we don't know about them. But the key point is this. Once the use of torture in all forms gains currency, it's inevitable it will spread everywhere. And let's be very clear on one other point. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (the so-called McCain Anti-Torture amendment) passed in December last year is so full of loopholes and offsets by other legislation that it's worthless and will do nothing to stop the tortures explained above.

THE DEATH PENALTY - THE "HEART OF DARKNESS" OF OUR CRIMINAL-INJUSTICE SYSTEM

Life in prison is a living hell for all those in one as all the victims know who've been there or those of us who've read about it in detail as I have. Being there is like being in one of the 5 levels of Dante's hell where those consigned to spend eternity are doomed to eternal punishment.

All prisons are hellholes. But for those prisoners with any hope of release one day, the second lowest level of Dante's hell is any of the so-called "supermax" prisons. They're supposedly intended to house society's most dangerous, incorrigibly violent inmates, but many sent there aren't that at all like the many political prisoners consigned that fate because the state wishes to bury them alive and keep them isolated. The number in these "special" hellholes are a small but growing percent of the total prison population, and those in them spend their waking and sleeping hours locked in small, often windowless, cells for long sentences of many years. They're deprived of all contact with other inmates and only allowed out for brief periods a few times a week for showers and some solitary exercise in a small, enclosed space. They're deprived of all mental stimulation from human contact, recreation or education, and are nearly always shackled hands and feet and escorted by armed guards whenever they leave their cells. Prisoners who've endured this torture, come out, and spoken publicly about it have described it to be like living in a tomb. And the state inflicted misery they've been subjected to often results in a host of severe emotional problems including insanity. Try locking yourself in your bathroom with a little plain food and water for 24 hours (if you can stand it) and see how you feel. Then multiply that by 20 or more years.

The state and federally sponsored murder factories known as "death rows" are, without a doubt, the lowest and worst level of Dante's hell. Dante might have written his words "Abandon every hope, all ye who enter" for the abandoned souls sent to these barbaric death factories. They only look different than Auschwitz. Those entering never come out (except the few lucky ones DNA evidence exonerate). As of April, 2005 there were 3452 on "death row" in the 37 states with the death penalty including 36 in federal prisons and 7 held by the US military. The vast majority of them are poor or disadvantaged and their racial breakdown is as follows: 45.5% white, 41.7% black, 10.4% Hispanic, 1.2% Asian, 1.2% American Indian and .5% unknown. Nearly all of them, 98.5%, are male.

Most civilized countries have no death penalty, and in the Global North only the US and Japan still do. Japan is very selective in who it executes, unlike the US with its assembly line-like killing operations. The Japanese have executed about 50 inmates in the last dozen years and about an equal number now await execution. Many opponents of the death penalty call these "final solution" acts institutionalized, state-sponsored, ritualistic acts of torture-murder. They say "torture" because often the prisoner is so hated that their executioners "deliberately" try to inflict pain during the process of killing them. And while that alone is inhumane and barbaric enough, all too often the accused is innocent, often the state knows it, and they're still put to death. Most often these are people of color, most likely black, poor and unable to afford a proper defense. They become victims of a system not based on justice but on vengeance along with the belief by elected officials that being "tough on crime" is a good vote getter.

The case of Stan "Tookie" Williams, as much as anyone, stands out for its barbarity and gross injustice. Stan was a co-founder of the Crips street gang as a teenager in South Central Los Angeles in 1969. He was convicted and sentenced to death for multiple murders he said he never committed (I believe him), but never got a proper defense to prove it. Even later when evidence became known that might have exonerated him, he was never given a chance to prove his innocence.

Over a dozen years before his execution in California, Stan changed his life, became an anti-gang activist while on death row, and renounced his former gang affiliation. He co-wrote children's books, worked to convince youths not to join gangs and wrote one of the most compelling books on prison life I ever read called Life in Prison. He did it to show readers what prison life is really like in plain, stark language. He pulled no punches. Anyone reading it will know that prison is no place any human being wants to be.

For his work in prison, Stan received multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations, in 2004 a feature film called Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story was made about his life, and as his execution date approached, a mass effort I was part of was launched to urge an uncaring and hostile Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency. Fat chance. Thousands joined the effort including celebrities, politicians, Nobel laureates and Pacifica Radio, especially on its very special bold and courageous KPFA weekday news and information program Flashpoints Radio (the best program of its kind anywhere). It was all in vein, clemency was denied and Stan was put to death by lethal injection on December 13, 2005 as thousands protested outside the infamous San Quentin State Prison. Stan's death was not easy or painless. It took repeated needle insertions in a process that took nearly 30 minutes of great inflicted pain to complete. Stan's suffering at the end was not an exception. It's common practice, and as mentioned above, is deliberately inflicted by a sadistic staff. As such, even for a prisoner being executed, this is a flagrant violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." But who cares and who will act to prevent it when it's inflicted on a condemned black man and on the day the state murders him.

THE PROFITABLE BUSINESS OF RUNNING A GULAG

The for-profit side of running a gulag began to explode during the Reagan years when incarceration rates began increasing dramatically. Along with a growing private prisons industry (a small slice of the prison pie still largely a public enterprise), a vast array of private businesses wanted a piece of the action and got it. These include architectural and construction companies; food service contractors; all sorts of equipment, hardware and other suppliers of steel doors, razor wire, communications systems, and health care and medical supplies. There's also a big need for uniforms and assorted weapons including dangerous products to restrain like clemical sprays that can injure, cause severe pain, second degree burns, temporary blindness or worse and taser electro-shock guns that emit 50,000 volts of electricity (enough to flatten an all-pro NFL lineman in peak form) that can and have killed as many as 167 victims from it's use through January, 2006. And there's loads more. The (mal) care and feeding of a couple of million humans takes a lot of supplying to keep the system going. Add it all up and it's big business, and it gets bigger with every new prison and the inmates to fill them. Not to worry. Unlike oil, there's no chance of running out bodies.

The big players in this growing industry are the private companies that run the hellholes. And the ones they run are even more hellish than the public ones. Private, publicly owned corporations with shareholders and Wall Street to please always need a growing revenue and profit stream and strict cost control to maximize the bottom line part of it. That means understaffing, low pay for poorly trained staff, poor and unsafe conditions, little or no life-enhancing or self-help programs like educational opportunities or counseling services to rehabilitate those in need like ilicit drug users, and even worse medical care than the third world kind in the publicly run system. Why bother, they all cost money, reduce profits and constrain shareholder equity. Private contractors can also exploit prisoners as de facto chattel. They're not obliged to pay wages or benefits and can take full advantage of all those bodies free of charge. Why would they ever pass that up. It's one more reve