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WE GROW UP, NOW, OR WE DIE By Mathew Kristin Kiel December 8, 2005 Completed and Revised January 1, 2006 An Analysis: Many among the current "opposition" and its alternative and independent media, press and online journalism are actively delivering us to the Pathocracy. The Human Race must either begin to work in a united and coordinated resistance to the advancing global Pathocracy, all of us together, or we will lose everything. The so-called opposition to the global menace is, thus far, a global disgrace, either utterly ineffectual against or downright collusive in the antihuman insanity about to destroy all of us and the planet with us. There is no limit to the harm intended and sought by the force(s) seeking to visit ruination upon all Humanity and Planet Earth, nor to that Enemy's deviousness in devising means to prevent our becoming aware of that Fact. Unfortunately, as if by design, a not entirely far fetched possibility, we are being made almost helpless to confront and defeat the Monster by two simple elements of basic semantics: Terminology and Nomenclature. If we do not find and establish a set of terms that all of Humanity can understand, clearly and carefully defining just who and what it is that we oppose, we will have no hope of successfully resisting the Monster, let alone of ever defeating it. We are perishing under a plethora of descriptions so widely variant across Human languages and cultures as to render them contradictory and useless, divisive and baffling in the extreme. As but one example of this problem please consider that the precise, same group of individuals, Paul Wolfowitz currently at the top of their echelons, are being identified, globally, by two diametrically opposite terms. All of them are members of the same, solitary, world destroying financial and economic consortium. They all pursue the same policies, regulations and laws that amount to a war of economic rape, robbery and pillage, globally, against the humble peoples of the Earth. These members of the global Elite are identified, on two or more continents, in one separated and largely ineffectual opposition's movement, as the "Neo Liberals" and their pogroms labeled "Neoliberalism." While on another continent or two, in another, not coincidentally, entirely separated and also largely ineffectual opposition movement, the exact same consortium and its individual members are identified and known as the "Neo Conservatives" and their pogroms are labeled "Neoconservatism." It IS the same Monster being called by different, opposite names, and described by contradictory, opposite terms. This is gravely endangering all of Humanity by slowing our responses and scattering our counteractions in multiple directions, nearly all of them misleading or outright false. However, this dismal failure to find and hold an essential unity of focus and purpose cannot be assigned only to the deplorably imprecise and contradictory semantics in use. Neither can it be allayed entirely to the lack of access to mainstream media and press outlets by the numerous and widely divergent opponents of one partial element or another of the real Monster. There are far too many dedicated purveyors of hysterical thinking, hatred, divisiveness, myths, illusions, cons, lies and plain old, nasty and low down in-group vs. out-group programming, in somewhat cosmetically revised "packages," who are firmly lodged in the center and heart of the ranks of "truth movement," "opposition," alternative, "indy" and other counter cultural media, press and online information outlets and forums. It is they who could and should have long since addressed these problems and begun working toward establishing a workable and uniting, global dialogue. But, being apparently arrogant unto the death of all Humanity, they would rather keep on spewing out their standard, confusing and fragmentary fare, often repeating purely false information and reinforcing the lies illusions and myths keeping the global Pathocracy going and growing contentedly. These "journalists" seem to simply be too busy making sure they get to loudly grind their own socio-political or "moral" axes each and every time to bother with taking the time and making the efforts to ascertain whether all of the information and conclusions they declare to be factual are in fact supported by the evidence established by solid data and documentation. Writing an article that is one third fact and two thirds self-posturing hype and Pathocratic myths is not helpful. They are misleading us with allegedly truth and fact based material that compounds the serious semantic difficulties and raises the level of confusion and obfuscation. The modern resistance falls flat through its abysmal failure to find, challenge and eradicate from its own communications, publications, networks and organisations, and likewise from its own consciousness and behaviours, the persistent, irrational beliefs, emotional "hot buttons," reactionary trigger words, name-calling, spear-chucking and other mind twisting, unity defeating, anti-resistance conditioning, and the persistent myths, illusions and lies at the core of the Monster's control of us. Likewise, it is destroyed from within by its failure to tune out and shut out those who continue to pour further inaccuracy, deceit and fragmentation into the already chaotic, deliberate confusion as to what is and is not true and factual. Some of the most respected and widely known counter cultural leaders and voices are the worst of the emotive spear-chuckers and muck-rakers, railing vehemently against all but their own rigidly defined political and demographic identity groups. Only by dint of their also bashing Bush or other figureheads and fragments of the most visible problem, the U.S. government, have they managed to gain what little credibility they have, and it seems a poor substitute for objective, hard hitting facts. Any journalist who resorts to name calling and inflammatory rhetoric is actively creating more problems, not helping to oppose and solve them. Rather than to help us unite in making our common cause against a far more lethal Real Enemy, these mud-slingers still depict the old, standardised and demonised "enemies", such as the communists, or the socialists, or the Democrats, or the liberals, or the Republicans, or the conservatives, or whites, or blacks, or anglos, or gringos, or Asians, or immigrants, or atheists, or Catholics, or hippies, or right-wing, or left-wing, or Neoliberals, or Neoconservatives, or whatever else, etc., etc., et al, ad nauseum and nearly ad infinitum. Each of these "alternative" rabble rouser vows, as always, that his or her own most hated group is the one and only real and true "enemy" of us all, or the one and only "wrong" ideology, philosophy, political party, economics, religion, or whatever, that has caused this entire mess. It really is, with a few rare and notable exceptions, a truly tiresome and noisome crock of tired old clichés passing itself off as "opposition" journalism. Simple logic dictates that there cannot be so very many "one and only true enemies" out there. Logic says that either none of these groups is the Real Enemy or else that all of them are a part of it, but absolutely not the heart of it. It is all just the same, old in-group, an arbitrarily and narrowly defined, always patently enhanced and egotistical "us," pitted as ever against the, same, old, tried and false, exaggeratedly dangerous and demonised out-group of "them." The formulaic output coming from some of these "journalists" is making a very direct contribution to the ongoing failure of Humanity to effectively identify and resist the destruction unleashed against us all. It intentionally promotes scapegoating and finger pointing, two of the habits of conditioned pathological thinking that I would personally vote among the top 10 things most likely to get us all killed. If these self-proclaimed insiders and experts, each claiming to be the revelator of entirely factual content, at least according to the claims of most of them, do sincerely desire to inform and alert the rest of us to the dangers and threats we face, in contrast to simply basking in the glows of their own self-inflamed egos, they might want to first commence to make some real efforts to educate themselves as to the Facts of the global menace. All they have done up to now is to guarantee an old fashioned, ongoing "divide and conquer" victory to the real Enemy. So far, that old strategy is working superbly, and we have stupidly fallen for it and continued to give both merit and credibility to a bunch of self-important posturers who as yet care nothing for the truth of our dreadful, True situation. To persist in their customary tactics in not a simple matter of free speech or style. It is a significant part of the defeat, thus far, of attempts to make possible an effective and dedicated pan-Human opposition to the literally global menace deployed against us. They need to stop inflaming the emotions of their readers, merely adding reactivity and vulgarity to already massive confusion, and stop increasing the contradictions and errors in a situation that is already desperately misidentified and poorly understood. They cannot be permitted, by all of us, to continue with impunity in their total disregard for the consequences of their, at best, mistaken and misguided assumptions and assertions presented as facts. If they make no attempt whatsoever to promptly amend both their inflammatory rhetoric and the faulty "informational" content and tone of their missives, then they need to be "outed" as deliberate disinformation specialists and propagandists, and ignored until they cease to have enough readership to keep themselves afloat. The trash they spout is nothing but "twists" on the same old hate mongering that was used to get us into this nightmare in the first place. If any of these self-proclaimed journalist-patriots are real fighters for the good of all Humanity they will stop the hype, dispense with the emotional button-pushing and the political name-calling, stop all of the petty and divisive crap at once, and begin dealing with the Truths of who and what is really destroying us all and how we can all go about fighting back. They are selling us all to the Enemy with every rant and rave that pits one demographic, racial, social, political or religious group of Humans against another, or that portrays any one group as either more wronged or more right than another. We are still falling victims to the artificially constructed "differences" that were foisted upon us to deliberately confuse us and obfuscate the Truth of our nature, the Enemy's nature and our dire situation as a race and a planet. Of course, with them as with any of us, the hardest battle to win is the one that takes place internally. It is at the level of personal responsibility to achieve the highest possible levels of honesty, integrity, courage, humility, and much else, (in the individual and supremely personal war for control of our Minds and Souls) that these journalists have truly failed. They seem to have not yet bothered attempting to fight for even their own freedom from their lifelong indoctrination in bigotry, bias, prejudice and irrational beliefs. At the level of their internal dialogues and thoughts, to some it is racism, to others communism or socialism, to others fascism or militarism, to others religious fanaticism, to others political and economic extremism, right and left equally accused, to others sexism, to others party politics, to others class warfare, on and on. In the most resistant places of all, their own minds, the irrational beliefs and assumptions they are ignoring within themselves is working to keep us all powerless. So long as they continue, publicly and privately, to avoid ridding themselves of their conditioning, keeping with the old and comfortable lies, familiar labels, favorite epithets and treasured stereotypes, old and invented divisions and differences that have kept us separated, they are lost and they are helping to deliver us all to the slaughter houses of the real Enemy one way or another. While the behemoth coming to devour us is all of these old things, and more,those are all just symptoms of the Enemy's Real nature and presence. Fighting the symptoms, one at a time, from a hundred different directions, will not cure the cause of the cancerous and pandemic disease of the Body Human that is eating us all. Treating the symptoms, only, will result in the death of the patients, in this case potentially the entire human race and Planet Earth. This time we must confront the cause and eradicate it, or else all will perish. Those are the Real stakes, and Real issues. Let it sink in. Get used to it. The Truth over and above all other geopolitical, socio-economic, demographic, military, personal and psychological Truths is we are nearly all targeted for extermination by a truly global Pathocracy. Of all the terms I have ever yet encountered and tried out to describe and name the Enemy, Pathocracy is by far the best, and by far the most accurate. It contains within it both the cause(s) of the condition afflicting us and the keys to a means of establishing the necessary unity to fight back. If we do not now accept and internalise, then live by and for the hard Truths that could, if only we would let them, bring us to unity and hope, we may as well lie down and die right now. Any action other than confronting previous failures to grasp the Reality of this situation and respond appropriately is the same as taking action on behalf of the Pathocracy . When the self-proclaimed opposition, indy and alternative pundits keep on handing out the old, false labels, fables and myths, harping on old strings and lines, they are selling us all out, and it is time we stopped accepting it. It matters not whether they do so from a basic lack of personal integrity, or to make a few more bucks, or to get away with laziness in researching the Facts, they do harm to us all whenever they reinforce and reiterate things that have long been known and shown to be false, or when they use words that are designed to create the kind of emotional reactivity that cancels out higher thought. All hopes of our own simple survival, depend upon our winning, personally and collectively, the battle to confront and defeat the emotionality, inaccuracies, distortions and Lies, the “dark glasses” of the learned and conditioned projective processes and the habits of pathological thinking lodged within ourselves . We must identify and eliminate our own conditioned viewpoints as to the definition of what is the nature of the evil we confront. The minds of all Humanity are the biggest and hardest to win of all the battlegrounds in this war for our own survival. Essay : Only one dividing line between Humans is Real, or ever was. We must learn what it is and learn to live by it. All of the human race, every last single member thereof, suffers an equal jeopardy . To quote that notable and humble man of Truth, Benjamin Franklin, "If we do not all hang together, they will hang us all separately." In other words, it is already a serious, worldwide threat. We have been ridiculously locked into our old and utterly useless definitions and thus into the many old divisions from one another, exactly as were created by those old definitions. Far too many who do sincerely care about others and want both the earth and the ordinary folks therein to live in peace, are fighting with each other over just what kind or flavour of evil is afoot. We seem lost, unable to discern just which direction is, in reality, opposite to them, the Pathocracy, so as to then apply resistance in the correct direction. Our labeling of them by a hundred different negative words that they've invented, manipulated, twisted and long been expert at using to divide us, must be mighty entertaining for them, but, frankly, I do NOT want to entertain them any longer. How about you? It is imperative that we quickly find a common terminology to precisely define clear meanings that can be grasped readily, then start making effective use of it at once. Let us stop using the same old, useless labels for ourselves, each other and the enemy so that we can all get busy bringing the Pathocracy's entrenched and sophisticated system down instead of wasting our efforts fighting each other and their illusions and chimeras. Our obsolete terminology distracts us from the Facts. It blinds us to Reality. What is painfully true of the old demographic, social and political categories with which we are so familiar, and here is the danger sign, which are so comfortable and automatic to us, is that we need to largely throw them out and start over. All of our old socio-political and demographic terms are inherently divisive and lethally incorrect. It is their purpose to bring friction and to force distance between various groups by demonising and emphasizing ways in which they actually differ only at the very slightest, surface level, and differ to such minimal degrees as to amount to no significant difference at all in their essential natures. The Truth is all of those old "differences" were used as window dressings and smoke screens, helping to divide, conquer and subjugate most all of us throughout the course of human history. The old terms, all of them, deceitfully pit against each other, on the basis of group identity, individuals who are essentially far more like than unlike. Those who could and would willingly battle together, side by side against a common foe, for the sake of all Humankind's survival, if they but knew who to fight and how, simply continue failing to recognise and use their core commonality to oppose our real Enemy. Those who have thus far identified the fast approaching, absolutely criminal world government and world economy as being either "right wing" or "left wing," "neo conservative" or "neo liberal," "Bushevik" or "Fascist," "Communist" or "Socialist," or any other kind of previously known and used name or descriptive label, are all wrong. All of us who have been opposing it have fallen right into one of its biggest traps: "define the battle in your own terms." Let us now and henceforward simplify the process of opposing it by calling it what it IS , and in doing so we will correct the previous errors, eliminate the reactive emotional triggers from the public discourse and confront the Enemy with the Truth about its own nature. That is perhaps the single most definitive blow we can strike against them. They are a literal, global, PATHOCRACY , united in their drive and determination to destroy all who are not of, among, with and like themselves, in other words, the vast majority of the Human Race. We must extend our fight to include accurately naming and opposing them at all levels, in all ways. Henceforward we must refuse to enable or support any who persist in attempting to disguise the Pathocracy's real nature by using other terms to describe it. Those who have assisted the criminal government(s) by silently and tacitly allowing them to proceed with their crimes without making a strong, open opposition and public protest to it are not the only culprits we must now expose as collaborators. Those who have kept dissent and resistance invisible and inaudible to the world at large are fully culpable, but so too are those who've helped to fragment it and misdirect it by using inflammatory, divisive ideological rhetoric and loaded terms to manipulate the emotions and dull the critical capacities of their readers or audience. The war for this fundamental Truth about the Enemy's nature and name must be fought with equal vigour against all who have suppressed or hidden factual information and evidence of the crimes against Humanity, regardless of which means they've employed, whether overtly, in the mainstream media and press, or covertly, from within the opposition. If they will and do adopt the correct name, Pathocracy, and make use of it in lieu of those that have previously blinded us, then they were sincerely uninformed, as were we all until recently. But, if they do not make such changes, and soon, then it is our right and duty to know them for who and what they are, agents of the Pathocracy itself, determined to keep it hidden from public view still by preventing their own readers from ever hearing the term. Those who encourage emotional reactivity by persisting in the use of the old triggers are deliberately preventing their followers from thinking straight or encountering the truth. That IS one of the Enemy's primary tactics and always has been. It is high time for those of us who really do care about the Facts to tell the purveyors of such doggerel that we will no longer support their "journalism" by giving it our attention. We must stand against a majority of the major governments, religions and religious organisations, corporations and businesses, financial entities, institutions and banks, media outlets, production companies and owners of the press, television industry, publishers, broadcasters, reporters, commercial concerns, industrialists, military officers and leaders and wealthiest private individuals on the face of the Earth. But now we can truly Name them for what they are, what they do, and why they do it: All such is contained within that one, specific, highly empowering and unifying term PATHOCRACY. The old labels will only bring continuing discord and disunity, rather than cooperation and unity of purpose. Every time two or more groups meet and allow the old definitions of their identities and goals to take over, regardless of their very Real, very urgent need to cooperate and unite for their common good against the Pathocracy, those old ideas and terms, such as conservative or liberal, homosexual or evangelical, will cause them to lose focus on the Real threat, Pathocracy, and the Real issue , exposing and stopping the Pathocracy's War Against Humanity . They will quickly wind up back on the same old merry go round of old, petty differences that are irrelevant to the actual cause and heart of the problem. When we think in the old, standard terms, we remain exactly what the real enemies of Humankind want us to be, easy prey, unable to stand together firmly enough to make an effective stand against them. It is no longer a matter of politics, or wealth, or race, or class, or sexual preference, or sex, or religion, or any of the other divisive labels we have been indoctrinated to place upon, around and between ourselves and each other. We either grow up, right now, and learn to practice the living reality of "Live and Let Live," by ending for good and for all our own bigotry, or else we die. Ridding ourselves of discrimination or prejudices against all others who are also capable of living in and with good will toward all, regardless of any other  identifying characteristics, is now utterly mandatory. Otherwise, they, the Pathological, who cannot and will not extend to anyone or anything other than themselves even so much as the right to live, will destroy us. As a worldwide Human Race, we can no longer afford the childish luxuries of homophobia, heterophobia, racism, classism, sexism, or any other phobia or ism, especially not any form or brand of bigotry and fanaticism, religious or otherwise. Our laziness and tardiness in identifying, confronting and putting a halt to these things within ourselves is now killing us. In the face of a totally united and ruthless Pathocracy that will stop at nothing to feast on us all, to continue behaving thusly is insane . We are all either members of the worldwide Human race who DO wish to live in peace and harmony with our neighbours, globally and individually, without the desire to conquer and/or convert them to being exactly like ourselves, or else we are among the Pathocratic Enemies of all humankind and the Earth . Those who continue to engage in rivalries with others based on any divisions other than the one and only True division in all of the world and humanity, are agents of the Pathocracy. All the other dividing lines ever known have been inventions of the Enemy designed to divide us, keep us under their control and blind us to their real nature and intentions. Those who seek to stand against the true Enemy must get rid of their unthinking and illogical biases and their points of petty contempt for others who are different from themselves, no matter what the specific "difference" might be. We must now unite in the broadest possible, worldwide coalition. Only by acting in concert for the largest conceivable purposes, as a worldwide Human Race with a worldwide purpose for the benefit and defence of all Humanity do we stand any chance. To change the language, the words of our thoughts and speech, consciously, diligently, and logically, is to change both the inner being and our relationship to all outside ourselves. That is known as dialectics , and it is one of the most powerful tools for human growth and change that there is, when used in a sane, logical and truth-affirming manner , both within ourselves and in the world at large. When used as the Enemies of humanity use it, dialectics is a powerful weapon in the mind control arsenal. Until this moment, they have invented and controlled the dialectics of our awareness and all of our discourses regarding themselves. Again: they have invented and controlled the dialectics of our awareness and all of our discourses regarding themselves, until now. We can and must have a new set of weapons. The Four good, solid, clearly defined Identifying Terms us with suggested below will provide firm dialectic foundation stones from which to resist them and expose them for who and what they are. They know this Fact: Much of the real power lies in owning and defining the terms of the conflict. That is why they keep changing the WORDS they use to describe themselves, their motivations, their goals, to describe and define their enemies, etc., etc. Slippery, confusing, shifting words are their greatest weapons. That is why our allowing them to define the battleground by continuing to use their old terms and by automatically adopting their new terms has cost us so dearly. There is but ONE valid dividing line. Once we throw out the old, automatic thinking and the emotional biases that underlie most of it, we find there is only one real hard set, universal difference between human beings that can, and does, remain applicable in all cultures, all religions, all languages and all other previous points of separation, the world around . All humans fall into one of the two following types , behaviourally, psychologically, emotionally, intellectually and in all other regards. Type 1 Humans: Those who are devoid of conscience and empathy. They are pathologically selfish, self-involved and self centered. They crave and seek to own, control and consume without restraint or consideration for others’ needs and rights to live and be. Even unto all of the earth, and their drive to either enslave or eliminate every human being thereupon in the pursuit of their selfish pleasures and purposes, there is no such thing as "enough" for them , not in all of creation, to satisfy their insatiable lusts and greed. To get more until they own and rule everyone and everything of a material nature on this planet, one way or another, without regards to who is hurt or what gets destroyed by them to do so, is all they care about. And when they get it all, they will still want more. They are without the capacity to become full. Material, worldly, psychological, or other, satiation in any form or regard is impossible for them to achieve. They cannot feel its presence. (Note: At most, 6% of all Humans will be totally, dedicatedly Type 1, with a maximum of another 12% who can easily become enslaved to Type 1 individuals and groups. A figure taken from Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski, MD. and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.) Type 2 Humans) Those who do not want and seek to do as Type 1. They have conscience inherent to their nature, and a full capacity to identify with and share in the experiences and emotions of others; empathy. If initially acquisitive, they are capable of becoming filled at a certain point, and they will not engage in deliberate acts of harm or deprive others of necessities and rights in order reach their goals. They prefer and strive to live in a state of peaceful, mutual live-and-let-live, in a sharing, respectful, give and take manner seeking an interactive and integrated, dynamic community with others , regardless of what differences from themselves those others may have. TYPE 1 HUMANS ARE the absolute predators: THE truly and incurably INSANE , pathologically selfish and greedy . They always crave more , no matter what they have or how much, it is never enough. These people are absolutists: they cannot reason; they cannot negotiate; they cannot compromise; they cannot peacefully agree to disagree; they cannot, ever, not in the slightest regard, live-and-let-live as the co-equals of others. They are the ruthless, the egotistical and arrogant, the absolute competitors, the destroyers, the takers and users, the discompassionate, the cheaters and liars . TYPE 2 HUMANS ARE the traditional prey of Type 1, THE SANE : They are the satiable, the rational, the logical . When they do crave gain or achievement, for them there IS a limit , a point at which they will stop acquiring and be content with what they have . They are able to share what they have with others. To live and let live with others, to be at peace in a world where there is enough for all is their real goal and desire. They are capable of making reasonable compromises , of making and living by good faith negotiations with others, of behaving with objectivity and honesty, of considering the good and the needs of the many to be a higher priority than the satisfaction of their personal wants. They are the coexistentialists, the reasonable, the negotiators, the carers and sharers, the peacemakers, the compassionate, the givers and builders, the humble, the cooperative, the objective, fair-minded and amenable.  We must now cease to have pasts, no more old hippies, no more libertarians, no more of any of the past affiliations, identifications and perspectives we've wasted our time on thus far. We cannot be what we were, never again, in light of this new awareness. If any of us, maybe even most of us, are to survive, we must become what is needed now . Today holds a threat that is total, and failing to meet it because we want to hang on to those old and false differences, deliberately conditioned into us to prevent our unity, is not acceptable. The old ideas and old habits of our personal and group identities are stinking (as is rotten and deader than a five days old fish out in the summer sun) thinking, and they will get us all killed if we do not relinguish them. The entire planet and most of the human beings and other life forms upon it, will perish unless we grow up and stop calling each other and ourselves by names that were taught and assigned to us by the Type 1 Human, global Pathocracy now making every possible kind of covert and overt War upon us all. Let us begin by simply telling it like it is: WE ARE THE SANE. THE ENEMIES OF HUMANKIND ARE THE INSANE. WE ARE THE LOGICAL. THE ENEMIES OF HUMANKIND ARE THE PATHOLOGICAL. The following Four Identifying Terms will provide us with all the names and labels we need . With them we can at last have some dependable descriptive clarity and accuracy when referring to the pathological conditions and structures to which we've become accustomed and by which we've been indoctrinated all of our lives. TO BREAK OUR VERBAL CHAINS AND HABITS IS TO BREAK THE CHAINS THEY'VE PLACED UPON OUR MINDS, EMOTIONS AND THOUGHTS. Four Identifying Terms apply to all Pathocratic systems: 1.  For the system of government they seek to inflict upon all of humanity: ABSOLUTE TOTALITARIANISM . This term, long in use, describes any system that deprives any of the people under its control of their personal rights, liberties, and the freedom to live, associate and express themselves as they choose, in every regard, so long as they do no physical harm to others. From monarchies, to democracies and other elective systems, to military dictatorships, theocracies and all else, if and when any government punishes or imprisons citizens for any of the following four types of offences it is totalitarian : We must never again allow ourselves or any who would demand either our attention or respect for their opinions and actions to use any other terms to describe any government or other entity with the authority to command the actions and lives of others when that government or authority engages in the 4 activities listed below. "BY THEIR WORKS YE SHALL KNOW THEM.”  EVIL IS AS EVIL DOES: TOTALITARIAN IS AS TOTALITARIAN DOES . The 4 essential characteristics of all totalitarian systems : a) Convicting and punishing its citizens or other subjects for committing behavioural "crimes." This is a category of “crimes” created by the outlawing of the individual's rights to engage in certain lifestyle choices and activities that actually do no specific harm to others than themselves. Excellent examples are anti-drug laws, anti-smoking laws and anti-homosexuality statutes, among many others, mandatory seatbelt use, motorcycle helmet laws, etc. Behavioural crime laws are obtained through the terrorising and intimidation of the public by means of using false statistics and "scientific" or other invented "factual" information, in other words myths, hyped into propaganda and prominently run in news and other media programmes to brainwash the public into allowing or supporting the passage of such laws in the name of “the public good.” b) Convicting and punishing citizens or other subjects for violating the "rights" and "safety" of material goods and property as a crime placed above or equal in importance to violating the rights and safety of organic human beings and other organic life ; A prime example was the utilising of the police, National Guard and military to shoot or arrest looters while thousands were still drowning in the attics and on the rooftops after hurricane Katrina, or ruling that a homeowner in Florida who shot and killed a clearly unarmed burglar who was fleeing from him and already outside of his house had acted in "self defence." c) Convicting and punishing citizens or other subjects for breaking laws designed to censor, stifle or destroy those who dispute the government's "rights" to do as it does to its citizens or who seek to freely disseminate information ; Includes banning certain political parties or activities, demanding complex registrations, permits, licenses and so forth to assemble and speak or to produce and distribute written materials, insisting upon governmental, covert or overt monitoring and/or police control of peaceful marches, meetings, demonstrations, festivals, etc. d) Convicting and punishing citizens or other subjects for breaking any one of a large body of obscure and complex business regulations and codes, tax laws and other personal and private financial conduct laws; Such laws are passed to gradually and surely increase governmental or other authorities controls over the lives, finances, employment, career choices, sharing and distribution of resources, efforts and wealth, including both material and interpersonal assets and activities, of all whom it governs. EITHER A GOVERNMENT OR OTHER CIVIL CONTROL SYSTEM IS TOTALITARIAN IN ITS ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OR IT IS NOT . NO OTHER DEFINITIONS OR NAMES NEED BE CONSIDERED. All other terms are just distractions from the Fact of totalitarianism. Not coincidentally, there is not one government of any nation on this earth at this time that has NOT crossed the line into at least the mildest attributes of totalitarianism as defined by these criteria. We need never again waste our efforts and time in discussions of which current or previous government or part thereof is the "best" or "right" one, because they are ALL infected with the seed of totalitarianism. All else is but a matter of degree, with the underlying reality being they will inevitably get to absolute totalitarianism, with time, unless we use this new awareness to keep them in check and/or reverse the trend. 2.  For the type of society the Pathocracy seek to impose: ORWELLIAN . Rigidly conformist in every regard, with very limited access to factual information and intellectual pursuits, such as higher education, public libraries, and open press or media sources, for the citizenry. An abundance of mindless pastimes will be provided, strongly supported and encouraged, with nearly unlimited access to pointless entertainments and distractions available for all. Many of them, such as television shows and competitive sports, are given far more attention and importance than is reasonable or even sane, and are used skillfully to programme the populace to ignore the realities of their circumstances and the nature of their governments. 3.  For the Pathocracy's intended economic system : FEUDALISM . Fascism (which is the best, in purely economic terms, to describe the current "globalist Corporatocracy") is but a stepping stone to where the Pathocracy wants to take us. They will, in the end, if not stopped, have the very few of us left alive on the wasted Earth living in conditions at best equal to that of the average feudal serf or peasant, and serving them from birth to an early grave. It is the hidden character within any and every economic system allowing the few at the top to have far more than is necessary or even reasonable without first providing that ALL HAVE ENOUGH . All economic systems in which this attribute is present will inevitably lead to absolute feudalism if allowed to continue unrestrained. That is their sole purpose, kept hidden until now. 4.  For the Pathocracy's state religion : BLIND FANATICISM . The flavour is utterly irrelevant to them. They use religions to achieve mind control, spiritual blackmail, conformity, emotional control, etc. They care only that a religion's followers be programmed to sufficient fanaticism to then be easily manipulated by their religious beliefs and conditioned emotional responses. Despite the appearances the Pathocracy carefully maintains, all that any religion is to them is a very useful tool for stifling logical thought and inciting emotional reactions in individuals and thus controlling the masses. (Like it or not, Marx was right about that part.) They are as incapable of sincere religious feelings as of any other profound or normative emotions. These four terms clearly describe the essential attributes and goals of those now attempting to make themselves the rulers of this planet, and, in most regards, of all their dedicated followers and cohorts . Now we can Know them and See them and Name them as they are, not as they have claimed to be . Using these four terms will empower reasonable people to communicate with one another about the Pathocracy sweeping down upon us without bringing the old and useless, divisive concepts into the discussion. It will lead to far greater clarity in our thoughts, our dialogues and most of all our abilities to See who is and is not among the members of the Type 2 Human Family. (Only Type 2 Humans CAN become a true family.) The quickest way to rid ourselves of limiting thought patterns is to stop using, even in our thoughts, the old words that have been our habitual choices. Just as one small example of how this liberates and empowers us all, one need never again wonder about what brand name should be stated as the flavour of religion an opponent professes. One can instead go to the heart of the matter, See and state whether he or she is a "Blind Fanatic," or promotes a religion that practices Blind Fanaticism. The brand of religion is NOT the problem: It is the fanaticism that always does, and must by its very nature, seek to rule and destroy all who disagree. This rule applies to socio-political, economic, demographic and other "differences" as equally and as universally as it does to religion. Being fanatic socialist is no more or less fanatic, and thereby pathological, than is being a fanatic Christian, Muslim or Jew. As with totalitarianism, fanaticism is as fanaticism does. No more does one need to say whether oneself or another is this, that or the other old label, for all that truly matters is whether anyone or anything is LOGICAL or PATHOLOGICAL, SANE or INSANE . All else is mind cluttering noise, junk, only confusing and obscuring the reality, the facts . Outside of the purely global focus on the Pathocracy's War Against Humanity, there is a valid, but very limited place and time where there is good use for many of the old terms. They do help us describe ourselves in the process of getting to know one another at the individual and personal levels, where finer details are required. For the purposes of fighting effectively against the Pathocracy however, we need to describe others, ourselves and that for which we hope and strive only by the few essential terms: the Sane and Logical are opposed to those four goals, and the Insane and Pathological embrace them and seek to impose them upon one and all . If we are to be opposed, one side against the other, then let these terms and these facts be the only lines by which we make that division . All who would join me in a do-or-die-trying battle to halt and bring down the Insane and Pathological, individuals, governments, religions, economies and all else of theirs in this world, are invited to join me in using these terms in that struggle.  This entire struggle is the final invitation to us to mature into fully aware, fully conscious, fully focused and fully, personally and collectively responsible Beings who can and will embrace one another in a unity of purpose never seen before, globally. We must now become, act and live as a true Human Family, dedicatedly giving all that we are and have to bringing the ways of peace and community into a full, global flowering, and equally dedicated to defeating and extinguishing the destruction of the fully matured and no longer latent Pathocracy that has been unleashed upon us. Now is the moment, Humanity, when we either grow up or die.

The Political Folly Awards of 2005 By Tom Engelhardt As with bestselling books by big authors from publishing conglomerates and Oscar-winning films from giant studios, so, when it comes to the Political Folly Awards, the famed PFs, ever fewer members of the Bush administration and associated bureaucrats, spooks, and Pentagon officials took ever more of them in 2005. Unfortunately, our secret panel of judges, all former members of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (or FISA) courts, saw no alternative but to distribute the PFs as they did. We want, however, to give you our ironclad guarantee of probity as we run through the winners for 2005: No unwarranted decisions were made this year. The newly minted "Complete Victory" Award, known in previous years as the "Mission Accomplished" Award, goes to President George W. Bush. It was bestowed to honor his sudden declaration on November 30, 2005, against a backdrop of "Plan for Victory" signs, that we would settle for nothing less than the whole shebang in Iraq, right down to the unconditional surrender of whomever it was we were fighting. The President drove home his point by using the word "victory" a record-breaking 15 times in that speech and once in its title ("President Outlines Strategy for Victory in Iraq"); meanwhile, the administration issued a 35-page "strategy document," supposedly from the Pentagon, on how to successfully fight the insurgency. The document was, in fact, written by Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University specialist on wartime public opinion, and as Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post commented, was "principally designed to prove" that Bush had a strategy. All this left our heads spinning! The citation for this award -- that accompanied the traditional winged plastic turkey statuette -- was written for our judges by an Iraqi commentator, Ghassan Attiyah, who summed up their feelings in a single mission-accomplished sentence: "In two and a half years Bush has succeeded in creating two new Talibans in Iraq." And Ghassan, ever modest, didn't mention the half of it. After all, in the same blindingly short period, our President managed to spread democracy to the Middle East by opening the way for a Shiite theocratic government in Baghdad guaranteed to be closely aligned with the theocratic government of Iran whose shaky leader recently declared the Holocaust to be a figment of the modern Jewish and European imagination! Congratulations, George. And it all comes from skipping the frills and emphasizing the fundamental(ism)s! The Most Imperial Vice President Award proved, for yet another year, to be a contest of one... and the winner was [redacted]. Please note, if you read further, you will be investigated. If, however, some branch or agency of the U.S. government is already investigating you, as is likely if you are an American or have ever sent an e-message like, "Virginia, the Afghan rug is unraveling. I'd love another one for my birthday. Your loving niece [name withheld]," then read on -- the damage is already done. The Mission Leap Award (until this year, the Mission Creep Award, also known as the Security Begins Under Your Bed Award) went to the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity or CIFA. This new counterterrorism agency grew in three brief years from a small coordinating office located in a five-sided broom closet into "an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and ever-widening authority" (as well as a sizeable secret budget). Without oversight itself, it now oversees a data-mining operation including a database codenamed Talon that contained surveillance reports on peaceful American civilian protests and demonstrations. It was, one PF judge commented, the best mission-leap example of the militarization of civilian counterintelligence seen in years. According to our panel of judges, this was the most hotly contested category in the competition. After all, as the year ended, we learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) was warrantlessly harvesting unknown but vast numbers of domestic conversations and emails via the American telecommunication system's main arteries (and passing some of the information gleaned on to other government agencies); that FBI and Department of Energy teams were trolling Washington DC Muslim communities and institutions (and entering private property without warrants) looking for nuclear bombs, while the FBI was obtaining controversial "national security letters" to gain secret access to the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans (and depositing anything learned, even from those not suspected of wrongdoing, in permanent government data banks); that the New York City Police Department was conducting illegal surveillance of "people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident"; and that, despite much negative publicity this year, the CIA program known as GST, which includes the Agency's "extraordinary rendition" or kidnapping operations, its secret fleet of planes to transport kidnapped terror suspects around the globe, its network of secret prisons outside the U.S., and its enhanced ability to mine financial records and eavesdrop on suspects, has not even been slightly dented. For this, according to A. John Radsan, assistant general counsel at the CIA from 2002 to 2004, the CIA can thank the "personal commitment" of a President who "seems to relish the secret findings and the dirty details of operations." Note that the ceremony for the well-attended Intelligence Community (or IC) Tradecraft and Technical Awards was held several days earlier at an undisclosed location. The following awards were given out: * The Most Mistaken Kidnappings Directly Off Foreign Highways and Byways Award went to the CIA since, according to the agency's own conservative count, there have been up to 10 mistaken-identity "extraordinary renditions" of perfectly innocent people out of the 100-150 snatch operations the Agency has reportedly undertaken. * The IC High-Living Award also was corralled by the CIA. Agency renditioners in Italy received this La Dolce Vita award -- according to the judges' citation -- "for most macadamia nuts consumed at a single five-star hotel while on a kidnapping assignment." The site was Milan where hordes of CIA operatives were sent to kidnap a single Muslim cleric named Abu Omar and, in the course of their operation, rang up $9,000 in room charges alone at the Principe di Savoia (where your run-of-the-mill club sandwich costs $28.75 and your basic single room, $588 a night). The CIA's bill at the Principe for seven operatives -- only one of several five-star hotels cleverly absorbed into their spycraft for this single operation -- came to $39,995, not counting meals, parking, and other hotel services -- or nuts. * The Most Crimping Travel Restriction in the War on Terror Award went again to the same lucky winners! European Union arrest warrants for twenty-two of them (or their tradecraft alter egos and fake names) were recently issued by an Italian judge. Next year, the Principe di Savoia may, sadly, have fewer Agency guests and 22 more covert visits are likely to be paid to the Pyramids, the remains of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and other touristic hotspots of the world. * The Most Useful Intelligence Hobby of the Year Award was given by the judges to the community of civilian plane-spotters who managed to put the CIA's secret airline (and the extraordinary renditions that went with it) on the map. The other six Tradecraft Awards, including The George Tenet "Slam Dunk" Intelligence Assessment Award, can be viewed at www.extraordinaryrendition.com. (A security clearance is needed; otherwise you will simply see an error screen.) The Bush administration language awards are always a highlight of the Political Folly ceremony. No administration has ever reached for its dictionaries more often to redefine more terms to suit its own desires. This year, the judges decided to eliminate the Donald ("stuff happens") Rumsfeld or Rummy Award on the grounds, as one wrote, that "every news conference the Secretary of Defense holds is a linguistic Folly," and so pared these awards down to four: The Most Ubiquitous Uncivil Servant Award goes to... John Yoo. The ubiquitous Yoo last won this award for redefining torture almost out of existence ("equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.") in one of a series of 2002 memos he wrote justifying the Bush administration's urge to manhandle suspects in its "war on terror." Then deputy director of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, he is now a law school professor at Berkeley, churning out books and articles on that foundational American dream of an unfettered presidency. A 2001 memo of his proved the key document justifying the President's order to the National Security Agency to engage in its warrantless wiretapping scheme. It "said the White House was not bound by a federal law prohibiting warrantless eavesdropping on communications." For that, our judges thought Yoo deserved this year's award too. By the way, he's already in the running for the 2007 Uncivil Servant Award. Known for four memos he authored providing "legal" support for almost unfettered presidential power, he was reportedly the author of at least another dozen such memos that "have not yet come to light... The overriding theme of them all is that the president can ignore congressional acts." The Thomas Friedman Mixed Metaphor Award went to the year's grand winner, our Veep, Dick ("in the throes of") Cheney. Back in June 2005, the Vice President ventured onto the Larry King Show to summarize our increasing good fortune in Iraq by declaring, "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." As the insurgents continued to writhe -- and then writhe some more -- in the throes of those "last throes," Cheney redefined "throe" for CNN's Wolf Blitzer as a nearly endless expanse of time: "If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period -- the throes of a revolution." Recently, the Vice President traveled to Iraq under the sort of cloak of secrecy that is now de rigueur for top Bush officials anywhere on Earth. (The reporters accompanying him on Air Force Two had no idea where they were going; nor did the Iraqi Prime Minister know that Cheney was showing up when he appeared for a meeting with our ambassador.) In Iraq, the Vice President answered the questions of American soldiers and found himself in the throes of the following exchange with Marine Corporal Bradley Warren: "'From our perspective, we don't see much as far as gains. We're looking at small-picture stuff, not many gains. I was wondering what it looks like from the big side of the mountain - how Iraq's looking.' "Cheney replied that remarkable progress has been made in the last year and a half. 'I think when we look back from 10 years hence, we'll see that the year '05 was in fact a watershed year here in Iraq. We're getting the job done. It's hard to tell that from watching the news. But I guess we don't pay that much attention to the news.'" The judges awarded the Vice President the Thomas Friedman Mixed Metaphor Award in honor of his urge to throe a little water(shed) on the conflagration in Iraq. A single judge demurred, refusing to cast a ballot but writing the following sardonic comment: "Out of the throes, over the waterfall, into the watershed we go, hi-ho!" The Most Tortured Justification Award proved the second most competitive category of 2005. After all, Secretary of State Condoleezza ("not a lawyer") Rice hit just about every country in Europe insisting we never torture anyone; the American ambassador to England Robert Tuttle insisted we hadn't sent anyone to Syria for rendition. ("I don't think there is any evidence that there have been any renditions carried out in the country of Syria… And I think we have to take what the secretary [Rice] says at face value."); the President insisted many times over that we didn't do torture even while his Vice-President, also insisting that we are no torturers ("I can say that we, in fact, are consistent with the commitments of the United States that we don't engage in torture, and we don't"), was lobbying for an exemption from John McCain's anti-torture bill. Our judges nonetheless were firm in their decision that no justification was more tortured than the eye-water[shed]ing, throes-inducing set of explanations offered by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for the way this administration evaded the FISA courts -- essentially secret American equivalents of star chambers -- which, in 2003, turned down no administration requests for warrants; in 2004, only four; and since 2001 have modified only 179 out of 5,645 warrant requests. He claimed that the President has the "inherent" power to order otherwise illegal surveillance and spy warrantlessly on citizens thanks to the congressional resolution ("Authorization for the Use of Military Force") of September 18, 2001. That, however, "made no reference to surveillance or to the president's intelligence-gathering powers," and the administration, evidently fearing a lack of inherency in the resolution, tried at the time to insert the words "in the United States," which were rejected by the Senate. Gonzalez also insisted that the FISA law was simply "outdated" -- and what do we do, if laws are outdated in the United States? The President changes them for us in secret and then, if discovered, claims the right to do so based on the sagacity of, as the Attorney General put it, "many lawyers within the administration who advised the president that he had an inherent authority as commander-in-chief under the constitution to engage in this kind of signals intelligence." (See John Yoo above.) I'm sure all of you remember this from that ninth-grade textbook you were supposed to study on the checks and balances of the American system -- or were you, like top officials of this administration, playing tic-tac-toe at the time? The Most Timely Image Award went to... the President. For the last several years, the administration has been justifying its torture policies, in part, based on the "ticking-bomb" argument. (What if a... and he knew about a nuclear weapon ready to go off under your... in X minutes... and you could...) Okay, so there haven't actually been any ticking-bomb suspects? Who cares? Let's move on, as our judges did, because -- to explain the illegal spying the National Security Agency does not do -- the ticking-bomb has just been replaced by the "two-minute phone conversation." (You can almost hear that cell phone ticking.) As the President put it: "We know that a two-minute phone conversation between somebody linked to al Qaeda here and an operative overseas could lead directly to the loss of thousands of lives. To save American lives, we must be able to act fast and to detect these conversations so we can prevent new attacks." The Political Nostalgia Award went to... the Vice President, giving him his third Folly of the season for teaching us, in the manner of Martin Luther King, that we can have all have a dream -- in his case, of a time when men could be men, torturers torturers, and Presidents felonious. Imagine a heaven of unwarranted wiretaps and spying; then think of Richard Nixon or, as the Veep put it to reporters in the cabin of Air Force Two somewhere over the Middle East, "Watergate and Vietnam served... to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area." Like Superman faced with kryptonite, somebody needed to get rid of the evil elements so that our President could regain the unwarranted lost powers of Richard Nixon. (Of course, one lovely dream invariably leads to another; and so, with the return of the power to do unwarranted surveillance on American citizens, the mind wanders to... Articles of Impeachment.) Every year the corps of Folly judges offer two awards aimed at the year to come (based, of course, on performance the previous year): The Terminator Award was given not to the governor of California (who showed every sign of being terminated this year) but to... lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Our panel believed him the year's most likely candidate to make a deal with federal prosecutors and terminate a significant part of the Republican Congress. Back before he took up his cowboy-and-Indian line of work (shuffling casino money largely into Republican coffers and taking members of Congress on golfing jaunts in Scotland), he actually produced two Hollywood movies: Red Scorpion (1989) and Red Scorpion II (1994) with the following, potentially prescient tagline: "He's a human killing machine. Taught to stalk. Trained to kill. Programmed to destroy. He's played by their rules... Until now. They think they control him. Think again." The No-Matter-How-Bad-It-Is, It's-Worse-Than-You-Think Award was bestowed collectively on the American Intelligence Community for its valiant efforts in over- (under, around, below, beyond, and second) sight. This year, when any aspect of illegal governmental surveillance was revealed, it always proved both worse than expected -- and, not long after, worse again. On that basis, the judges believe there is a 99.99999% certainly that, bad as it looks today, it's far worse than we know. (Just keep in mind John Yoo's twelve or more still-unrevealed memos.) When an administration proves capable of turning a secret FISA court into a bulwark of our liberties, you know that they're doing something right. So, congrats, Dick and George for another award-winning twelve months of Folly, and welcome to the New Year, where if peace isn't war, privacy isn't snooping, and the price of freedom isn't freedom, then all's not wrong with the world. Thank you for attending this year's Political Folly Awards. As you leave the ceremony and enter 2006, just smile, you're on CIA/ CIFA/FBI/DIA/NSA camera!

Support for Bush drops among US military: poll 2 January 06 AP Support for President George W. Bush's Iraq policy has fallen among the US armed forces to just 54 percent from 63 percent a year ago, according to a poll by the magazine group Military Times. In its annual survey of the views of military personnel, the group reported on its website that support for Bush's overall policies dropped over the past year to 60 percent from 71 percent. While still significantly more supportive of the president than the broad US population, the fall in support by military personnel tracks a similar decline in the president's popularity among the general public. "Though support both for President Bush and for the war in Iraq remains significantly higher than in the public as a whole, the drop is likely to add further fuel to the heated debate over Iraq policy," Military Times said. "In 2003 and 2004, supporters of the war in Iraq pointed to high approval ratings in the Military Times poll as a signal that military members were behind ... the president's policy." However, it said, the new poll "found diminished optimism that US goals in Iraq can be accomplished, and a somewhat smaller drop in support for the decision to go to war in 2003." Military Times, which publishes popular magazines for each of the US military branches including Army Times and Navy Times, cautioned that its poll, of 1,215 active-duty servicemen, is not necessarily representative of the military as a whole. The respondents were "on average older, more experienced, more likely to be officers and more career-oriented than the military population." But the declining numbers for Bush tracked other polls. According to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, support for Bush's performance as president fell from 49 percent to 43 percent over the year to December 22. The Military Times poll also showed a significant decline in the armed forces' views of US military policy and management. With 61 percent of respondents saying they had served in Iraq or Afghanistan, only 58 percent believed that Bush had the military's best interests at heart, a sharp decline from 69 percent a year before. Only 56 percent felt the US should have gone to war in Iraq, compared to 60 percent a year before. And 64 percent felt the same about the Pentagon leadership, compared to 70 percent a year ago. Addressing key issues facing the Pentagon, the poll showed that almost two-thirds of the soldiers felt the US military is "stretched too thin to be effective", but the number was less than a year ago. At the same time, there was a fall in resistance to restoring the draft in the United States. Opposition fell from 75 percent a year ago to 68 percent this year.

A Gestapo Administration: Bush's Witchhunt Against Truth-Tellers By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS 2 Jan 2006 Caught in gratuitous and illegal spying on American citizens, the Bush administration has defended its illegal activity and set the Justice (sic) Department on the trail of the person or persons who informed the New York Times of Bush's violation of law. Note the astounding paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant illegality and responds by trying to arrest the patriots who exposed the administration's illegal behavior. Bush has actually declared it treasonous to reveal his illegal behavior! His propagandists, who masquerade as news organizations, have taken up the line: To reveal wrong-doing by the Bush administration is to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarden picnic. The Bush administration's lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone the final step and declared Bush to be above the law. Bush aggressively mimics Hitler's claim that defense of the realm entitles him to ignore the rule of law. Bush's acts of illegal domestic spying are gratuitous because there are no valid reasons for Bush to illegally spy. The Foreign Intelligence Services Act gives Bush all the power he needs to spy on terrorist suspects. All the administration is required to do is to apply to a secret FISA court for warrants. The Act permits the administration to spy first and then apply for a warrant, should time be of the essence. The problem is that Bush has totally ignored the law and the court. Why would President Bush ignore the law and the FISA court? It is certainly not because the court in its three decades of existence was uncooperative. According to attorney Martin Garbus (New York Observer, 12-28-05), the secret court has issued more warrants than all federal district judges combined, only once denying a warrant. Why, then, has the administration created another scandal for itself on top of the WMD, torture, hurricane, and illegal detention scandals? There are two possible reasons. One reason is that the Bush administration is being used to concentrate power in the executive. The old conservative movement, which honors the separation of powers, has been swept away. Its place has been taken by a neoconservative movement that worships executive power. The other reason is that the Bush administration could not go to the FISA secret court for warrants because it was not spying for legitimate reasons and, therefore, had to keep the court in the dark about its activities. What might these illegitimate reasons be? Could it be that the Bush administration used the spy apparatus of the US government in order to influence the outcome of the presidential election? Could we attribute the feebleness of the Democrats as an opposition party to information obtained through illegal spying that would subject them to blackmail? These possible reasons for bypassing the law and the court need to be fully investigated and debated. No administration in my lifetime has given so many strong reasons to oppose and condemn it as has the Bush administration. Nixon was driven from office because of a minor burglary of no consequence in itself. Clinton was impeached because he did not want the embarrassment of publicly acknowledging that he engaged in adulterous sex acts in the Oval Office. In contrast, Bush has deceived the public and Congress in order to invade Iraq, illegally detained Americans, illegally tortured detainees, and illegally spied on Americans. Bush has upheld neither the Constitution nor the law of the land. A majority of Americans disapprove of what Bush has done; yet, the Democratic Party remains a muted spectator. Why is the Justice (sic) Department investigating the leak of Bush's illegal activity instead of the illegal activity committed by Bush? Is the purpose to stonewall Congress' investigation of Bush's illegal spying? By announcing a Justice (sic) Department investigation, the Bush administration positions itself to decline to respond to Congress on the grounds that it would compromise its own investigation into national security matters. What will the federal courts do? When Hitler challenged the German judicial system, it collapsed and accepted that Hitler was the law. Hitler's claims were based on nothing but his claims, just as the claim for extra-legal power for Bush is based on nothing but memos written by his political appointees. The Bush administration, backed by the neoconservative Federalist Society, has brought the separation of powers, the foundation of our political system, to crisis. The Federalist Society, an organization of Republican lawyers, favors more "energy in the executive." Distrustful of Congress and the American people, the Federalist Society never fails to support rulings that concentrate power in the executive branch of government. It is a paradox that conservative foundations and individuals have poured money for 23 years into an organization that is inimical to the separation of powers, the foundation of our constitutional system. September 11, 2001, played into neoconservative hands exactly as the 1933 Reichstag fire played into Hitler's hands. Fear, hysteria, and national emergency are proven tools of political power grabs. Now that the federal courts are beginning to show some resistance to Bush's claims of power, will another terrorist attack allow the Bush administration to complete its coup? Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes By CINDY SHEEHAN 2 January 2006 "You're like an ambassador for peace," a Spanish journalist told me as we finished one of the dozens of interviews I gave in Europe. I did this interview right before I went to meet with the Spanish Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs. In reality, I did feel like an ambassador for peace as I traveled around Europe for 16 days in December. The Mayor of London held a reception in honor of our peace efforts at the new and very modern City Hall, near the impressive and intimidating Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Mayor Ken Livingstone has always been an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and the war crimes of Tweedledum and TweedledeeBush and Blairthe corrupt, yet sadly comical, mis-leaders of two of the most powerful countries on the planet. I believe Bush and Blair are too far gone for redemption. They both need to be removed from their power and tried for their war crimes and betrayals. Until they are removed, the murder and the mayhem will continue. In Ireland, I met with that country's equivalent of Condi Rice, the dignified Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern. As a matter of fact, he had just met with the "steely" Condi the week before. Incredibly, he accepted assurances from her that the CIA airplanes (up to 60 documented by peace activists) that are landing in Shannon airport are not transporting prisoners for extraordinary rendition ( i.e., torture). That's like accepting a pirate's assurance that he's not going to steal your boat as he's boarding it with a drawn sword! I tried to impress on Mr. Ahern that the leaders of my government are known pathological liars, and can't be believed on this or anything. The torture planes are landing on Irish soil, so Ireland should inspect them for human rights violations. If Condi and her "husband" George aren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to be concerned with. Ireland declined to send troops as part of the CoaIition of the Killing, but they do allow US planes to re-fuel at Shannon airport (Mr. Ahern: We did it during Vietnam!). I delivered a stack of petitions to Mr. Ahern of 10,000 signatures from pro-peace, anti-killing citizens of Ireland demanding that their government stop allowing my government to land torture planes and troop transport planes at Shannon airport. My own son, Casey, went through Shannon. I urged Mr. Ahern to please make the US refuel their planes elsewhere. The occupation of Iraq is illegal by most standards and immoral by all standards. Being accomplices to war crimes makes one culpable for these war crimes. I can say he listened and I believe he genuinely wants to do what's right for Ireland. The people of Ireland need to keep the pressure on their government to act rationally and responsibly in this matter. Scotland is the birth place of impeachment and also the birthplace of both of my great-grandmas. I met with many Scottish MPs who are very anti-war and anti-Bush and anti-Blair. They are doing all they can to end the Scottish involvement in the war. The First Minister wouldn't meet with me. But my friend, Rose Gentle, has been trying to meet with him since her son, Gordon, was tragically killed in Iraq. When leaders of countries are co-conspirators in lies and corruption and don't even have the courage or integrity to meet with the people whose lives their unpunished felonies have damaged beyond full repair, that is a scandal. The Spanish government is relatively new and they did bring their troops home from Iraq after the old government was kicked out in 2004 because the people of Spain had it with the lies and corruption of their Bushite regime. The recurring theme when I met with Spanish government officials, including the Vice President of Spain, Manuel Marin, and the deputy foreign minister and heads of some of their parties, was "shared values." We the peoples of both countries need to find common ground on which to stand. We urged the Spanish government to loudly denounce what the US is doing because the US government has no positive, life-affirming values. The US government has negative, life-ruining values such as the use of WMDs and torture as means to satisfy its ends of greed for power and mammon. The Spanish officials, like the other government officials we met, told me and the other Gold Star Families for Peace members and local peace activists who attended the meetings, that their countries are "great friends and allies of the USA." We want friends and allies of the American people, but not of the current regime. The government is not identical with the people, despite what the right-wing hatemongerers say. Indeed, that is fascist notion. Not only do we not need to love our government's policies. When they are evil, we have a patriotic obligation to oppose them with all our strength. When the Bush administration uses white phosphorous on innocent men, women, children, and babies, when it uses illegal imprisonment and immoral torture on fellow members of the human race, when it invades and occupies another country that is no threat to the USA, we must say No. BushCo is an out of control entity which needs to be reined in by us! The longer the horror of Iraq continues, the more war crimes are committed and the more innocent lives ruined! During my visit to Europe, I was invited to other countries as a peace emissary. People in Italy and Australia are particularly anxious to have me visit, because their governments are accomplices to BushCo in Iraq. I will be speaking to the European Union Parliament twice in 2006 to urge them to pressure our administration to stop its killing policies in Iraq and try something new: diplomacy and peace. Heads up, Condi: peace is NOT spread by killing and war. Although, our visits to the various governmental officials in Europe did not have an immediate effect, perhaps seeds were planted. The international peace community is energized and refocused. However, by just meeting with me, the officials of each country are showing a minor tear in the fabric of support with the illegitimate residents of the "Casa Blanca." Each little sign gives hope. As Dermot Ahern told me: It's going to get back to Washington that I met with you. They won't be happy. But I don't care. It was the right thing to do.

Bush's drinking and drug use must be investigated By DOUG THOMPSON Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue Jan 3, 2006 It is my belief that President George W. Bush is drinking again. Even worse, he may be mixing alcohol and anti-depressants -- a dangerous combination for anyone, let alone the so-called leader of the free world. No, I don’t have any proof of this, just random events and comments from those who work in and around the Bush administration and who tell me the President has acted in ways that suggest the use of alcohol and drugs. I’m a recovering alcoholic (sober 11 years, six months and 24 days) and I’ve run across a lot of relapsed drinkers who show the same symptoms as the President, including: * Blacking out while watching television alone; * Slurred speech and stammering responses to simple questions; * Anger and hostility in front of staff members; * Unexplained bruises on his face; * Trouble remembering recent events or comments. During his trip to Mongolia last November, Bush openly sampled the local drink Airag, which is fermented milk with an alcohol content ranging from three to twelve percent. In other words, booze. This was the same trip where Bush tried to evade reporters’ question by attempting to walk out a locked door and then turned sheepishly to the cameras and said he was “jet-lagged.” Some at the event said his stride was unsteady and his speech slurred. “According to reports, President Bush may be drinking again,” David Letterman said in a late-night monologue. “And I thought, "Well, why not? He's got everybody else drinking.” Rumors that Bush was hitting the bottle surfaced in Washington two years ago. Sources told us the President was using anti-depressants in 2004 and we reported the story. The same sources told us last year he was drinking again and we reported it in August. The National Enquirer also ran a front page story on it but no mainstream media outlet picked up on the story. On August 27 of last year, the Houston Chronicle reported on a party at Bush’s ranch, noting that: Nothing the president said could be quoted, but it's rare that reporters get uninterrupted access to him for 90 minutes, particularly when beer is served. Bush, who gave up drinking years ago, drank a non-alcoholic Buckler. In Alcoholics Anonymous, we are warned to stay away from so-called “non-alcoholic” beers or “near beer” as it is called. The brew does, in fact, contain some alcohol and can trigger a renewed desire for more. The November issue of the Journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, cites a study by team of California scientists who report that just the smell of non-alcoholic beer may be enough to trigger cravings and a subsequent relapse among certain alcoholics. In my original articles about Bush’s bouts with anger and depression, I quoted Dr. Gerald Frank, a George Washington University psychiatrist and author of the book: Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. “Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office,” Dr. Frank says. “Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological state.” Dr. Frank’s analysis of the President, which is based on watching and reading and not actual treatment of Bush, agrees with those who have told me the President is also taking anti-depressants. “In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a press conference just before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post media critic Tom Shales speculated that ‘the president may have been ever so slightly medicated,’” he said. Dr. Frank explains Bush’s behavior as all-to-typical of an alcoholic who is still in denial: “The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so hard to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely limited to his or her drinking,” he adds. “The habit of placing blame and denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history that it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat.” None of this, of course, proves Bush is drinking again or taking anti-depressants. The only evidence we have of Bush drinking is the sampling of a local, alcohol-based drink in Mongolia and his consumption of so-called non-alcoholic beer at a party in Crawford, Texas. But my instincts tell me he is doing both alcohol and drugs and I believe as both a journalist and a recovering alcoholic that he needs to prove to Americans that he is not attempting to govern while under the influence. Blogger Mark Kleiman, writing in The Reality Based Community, notes: Moreover, with rare exceptions (e.g., the John Tower affair) the press seems very reluctant to mention heavy drinking by officials, even when it's widely known. Ted Kennedy's drinking gets an occasional mention, but I'd bet that most of Pat Moynihan's constiuents never knew their brilliant senator faced a permanent battle with the bottle. If Gary Hart's drinking problem has ever made the newspapers, I've missed it, though his behavior in the Donna Rice affair made it pretty obvious. Those in the know understood that the frequent media references to Bill Weld's "laziness" as Governor of Massachusetts referred to his persistent difficulty in keeping himself vertical after lunch, but again the voters didn't. Even foreign leaders get the same delicate treatment: Boris Yeltsin's "erratic" behavior was in fact quite regular and predictable, once vodka was entered into the equation. Kleiman is right about Moynihan’s drinking. You could find the Senator at Capitol Hill watering holes most any night, lurching in many different directions at once while slurping down his drinks. A number of members of Congress are notorious drunks but their antics are almost never reported by the press unless they get nailed for DUI or caught frolicking nude in the Tidal Basin. As a journalist, it is my duty to raise questions about the fitness of any elected leader. One may argue over whether or not it is proper to print speculation but, in this case, I believe it is justified. I’m doing my job. I just wish the so-called “mainstream” media would do theirs. © Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue

War on Terror: The global war By Rupert Cornwell 01 January 2006 Already the "war on terror" has led America to embrace a new doctrine of preventive war. In its name, the US has invaded two countries - Afghanistan and Iraq - and some urge it to attack others. This amorphous conflict has already lasted longer than the Korean War and US involvement in the Second World War, and this may be only the beginning. [..] Since 9/11, despite many scares, there has been no terrorist attack on US soil, or even solid evidence of sleeper cells, similar to those that carried out the 2001 attacks. Hundreds of suspects have been rounded up, but only one person has been charged in connection with 9/11, and even now the precise role of Zacarias Moussaoui in the plot is far from clear.[...] For the rest it has been one false alarm after another. [...]...the astonishing fact remains that for more than four years terrorists have not struck on US soil. After all, what could be simpler than a suicide bomber blowing himself up at a shopping mall in the unprotected American heartland? "Suiciders", as Mr Bush calls them, cost little and are virtually impossible to thwart. Nor can it have escaped the attention of America's enemies that in the world's most avid consumer society, and one far less inured than Europe to terrorism, such an attack would have consequences - psychological and economic - far exceeding its intrinsic importance. But nothing has happened. ...the conclusion is inescapable. Either the threat has been much exaggerated, or somebody must be doing something right. It's hard to believe - but less than five years ago there was no "war on terror". You could make the case that terrorism, the use of violence for political ends, is the world's third oldest profession. This century especially, it has flourished - from the Middle East to Europe. Sometimes, in its Irish, Basque and Palestinian versions, it has been driven by nationalism. Other varieties, in Italy and former West Germany, have been fuelled by left-wing ideology. But it had primarily been a law enforcement and intelligence problem. Then came 11 September 2001 - and America's new war. The new enemy is radical Islam, driven by both ideology and nationalism, and embodied by al-Qa'ida, its fury directed against the West in general and the US in particular. Already the "war on terror" has led America to embrace a new doctrine of preventive war. In its name, the US has invaded two countries - Afghanistan and Iraq - and some urge it to attack others. This amorphous conflict has already lasted longer than the Korean War and US involvement in the Second World War, and this may be only the beginning. For George Bush and his promises, 2005 has not been a vintage year. But in the "war on terror", in one respect at least, he has been as good as his word. "Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes," he told Congress nine days after the attacks. "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen." And so it has been - and much has been accomplished. The al-Qa'ida of 11 September 2001, it may be argued, no longer exists. Its leadership has been decimated. In Afghanistan, the Taliban regime that long gave Osama bin Laden shelter has been swept away. Intermittently, Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issue videos and audio tapes, sometimes taunting, sometimes menacing, but whose main practical purpose is to remind the world they are still at large. The pair are assumed to be penned up in the tribal lands and mountain fastnesses of the Afghan-Pakistan border, their communications uncertain at best, their control over their followers a matter of increasing debate. Regularly, reports surface that Bin Laden is dead or dying, and that Zawahiri is the senior operational figure of the old guard. In their place, a new terrorist reality is emerging, of a network of groups perhaps less sophisticated than al-Qa'ida in its prime, but no less difficult to counter. It is inspired by Bin Laden but probably no longer run by him. Even between al-Qa'ida and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, its best known field commander and a former Bin Laden protoge, the relationship is unclear. Some counter-terrorism experts now see Zarqawi as the most important figure in the movement. Confirmation of a kind came last summer with a letter, purporting to be from Zawahiri to Zarqawi, that fell into US hands in Iraq. In it, the old commander complains that Zarqawi's brutal methods, the videotaped beheadings of hostages and the rest, alienate ordinary Muslims and reduce radical Islam's appeal. In some respects, military success against the terrorists has made the job of fighting them harder. Now there are new adversaries, less well known to intelligence services, with fluid command structures and ad hoc alliances that are hard to expose. The old al-Qa'ida and its allies have the ability to strike targets almost anywhere in the world: a nightclub in Bali, commuter trains in Madrid, Underground trains and a bus in London, banks and consulates in Istanbul, foreigners' compounds in Saudi Arabia, and a wedding party at a hotel in Amman, Jordan. Yet there is one striking omission from the list. Since 9/11, despite many scares, there has been no terrorist attack on US soil, or even solid evidence of sleeper cells, similar to those that carried out the 2001 attacks. Hundreds of suspects have been rounded up, but only one person has been charged in connection with 9/11, and even now the precise role of Zacarias Moussaoui in the plot is far from clear. For the rest it has been one false alarm after another. In mid-2002 the US government announced with much fanfare that it had caught José Padilla, an American citizen who converted to Islam, as he was plotting a radioactive "dirty bomb" attack. It held him incommunicado in a naval prison for three-and-a-half years. That charge has been quietly dropped. Padilla will now go on trial in civil court this month as outrider in a terrorist group active in Afghanistan, not in the US. In December, Sami al-Arian, a Palestinian-American professor from Florida, was cleared of charges that he was a leader of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group which has carried out bombings against Israel - a case under investigation since the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, the June 2003 convictions of three Detroit men accused of being part of a "sleeper operational combat cell" have been overturned. The case had been the only successful post-9/11 prosecution of terrorists. But a federal judge ruled that some evidence against them had been fabricated, while exculpatory evidence had been withheld. These episodes have not been a glowing advertisement for US justice. However, the astonishing fact remains that for more than four years terrorists have not struck on US soil. After all, what could be simpler than a suicide bomber blowing himself up at a shopping mall in the unprotected American heartland? "Suiciders", as Mr Bush calls them, cost little and are virtually impossible to thwart. Nor can it have escaped the attention of America's enemies that in the world's most avid consumer society, and one far less inured than Europe to terrorism, such an attack would have consequences - psychological and economic - far exceeding its intrinsic importance. But nothing has happened. This absence is even more striking given the strictures of the bipartisan commission set up to investigate the 9/11 attacks over how little has been done to head off future terrorist attacks. But the conclusion is inescapable. Either the threat has been much exaggerated, or somebody must be doing something right. Unarguably, US information-gathering has improved, especially since the appointment of John Negroponte as the country's first director of national intelligence, in overall charge of 14 previously feuding agencies. US authorities have become better at tracking the financing of terrorism. But this is a war on many fronts, so many that the question arises: is the GWOT - as Washington calls the "global war on terror" - really a war, in the normal sense of the word? The foe, after all, is not a country or an army but a world view and an ideology, whose troops are invisible, nameless and countless. As with America's decades-old and unresolved "wars" on drugs and poverty, many of the tools for this war are not military. Briefly last summer, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, and others began to talk about "the global struggle against violent extremism", in an effort to play down the military component. But within a month the new moniker had disappeared. Mr Bush underlined the point by citing the "war on terror" a dozen times in a single speech. And war it is. Events in Iraq have made sure of that. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 - indeed the dislike between Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden was mutual and intense. Moreover, the 2003 invasion distracted the administration from the original goal it might otherwise have achieved in Afghanistan, the capture of Bin Laden and Zawahiri. Now, thanks to the invasion, Iraq and the war on terror have become one. Just why Mr Bush attacked Iraq remains a mystery. But the "war on terror" is the prime reason US troops are still there. Americans may be fed up with the conflict in Iraq. Despite the administration's continuing attempts to link Saddam and 9/11, a majority now believe that pre-war Iraq was never a direct threat to the US - and that the war to remove him, in which about 2,200 US troops have died, has made them less safe. But the word "terrorism" still scares them stiff. Even Mr Bush admits that the largest segment of the Iraqi insurgency is not foreign terrorists but ancien régime Sunnis. But that has not stopped the President, Rumsfeld and others from latching on to a part of the alleged Zawahiri letter that outlines a grand strategy of terror - starting with the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq and then exporting this revolution to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. The third stage would be the destruction of the interloper, the Jewish state of Israel. Al-Qa'ida insists the letter is a CIA fake. The administration, however, brandishes it as proof that radical Islam is out to establish a new caliphate, stretching from Spain to Indonesia, governed by sharia law and casting the world back into the Middle Ages. The chances of that happening are less than zero, but it serves the President's purpose of linkage. The Iraqi insurgents, he declared in one of four major speeches on Iraq last month, "are a direct threat to the American people". The US, he insisted, would accept nothing less than total victory. For the President, the "war on terror" started after 11 September 2001, when the US "took the fight to those who attacked us and those who shared their vision". Now, however, "the terrorists have made clear that Iraq is the central front in their war against humanity ... Bin