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Anarchism Anarcha-feminism Anarchism Anarcho-communism Anarcho-syndicalism Crypto-anarchism Green anarchism Individualist anarchism Libertarian socialism Mutualism Anarchist concepts Anarchist revolutions Anarchists Message Archive • Captains of industry • Ignorance is strength • Nimble suits • Right but not correct • Pussy Riot • US buying ISIS oil "Russia strongly condemns any engagement in direct or indirect trade of oil from Syria" The US has been undermining the extent of Russia's legislation to this effect. "We had bi-lateral negotiations with the United States and the American delegation did everything they could to dilute the wording of the document. We would have preferred a much stronger statement." The US supported Biafra in the south. Guess which part has all the oil? Now they are trying again to take Nigeria The US military is entering Nigeria, just as we predicted months ago in the "Why run the taphouse when you can just control the tap?" section below. The Boko Haram are not conducting a false flag operation, they are a false flag. They are a convenient villain that the US can come in and gloriously slay. The rebellion may be the phoniest US pretext ever. Boko Haram means, "Western education is forbidden". Why advertise what is opposed? BH is a Muslim group, but kills Muslims. At one point in 2013, BH had gotten very close to taking over the country, but instead, their leaders met with government leaders and arranged a ceasefire, ensuring that BH could back off, start again, and keep the war an Endless War. Obama and Eric (what Geneva Conventions?) Holder have promised to intervene, a handful of US troops "specializing in intelligence" have already arrived, and the Voice of America Thinks You Should Know, the French have sent some troops too. Former Nigeria owner, the UK, is surely not to be left out in this race to Berlin. As with South Sudan, one of the Four Countries in Seven Years which has already fallen to US interests, all the oil is in the south. When the US intervened in Nigeria last, it goaded Biafra, in the south, into a war for independence that was doomed from the start; it was unnecessary, and Biafra was clearly not matched with its opponent. News outlets are quick to explain that the Delta region in the south has been placated by the government, but that does not explain the nationalistic fervor of Biafran nationalism, fifty years later-just search the hashtag #Biafra on Twitter for comments such as "Nigeria is a failed state" (#1 economy in Africa, remember?), It accounts for Boko Haram's came into being WITHOUT that fervor. Biafra would have been too obvious. The news of invasion follows months of news of the Boko Haram activity, and that Nigeria had suddenly leaped past South Africa to take the lead position as Africa's biggest economy. The Left are ready to condemn the rebels; noble sentiments abound in the propaganda campaigns like the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag on Twitter, But they are also ready to accept American invasion. The right will embrace Nigeria as a cause, because it is now rich enough to care about. The sudden leap is doubtless a result of another financial asset of intelligence services-just flat out stealing money from other countries. Pay off the right people, skim money off the top of their budget. Stop in time to make the "riches" announcement, and make the suddenly rich country a nice gift for whatever puppet will take over, and restart the skimming afterwards if desired. UN: US laws violate human rights treaties The U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva in March 2014 condemned the United States for criminalizing homelessness, calling it "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment". Many local ordinances have been created that are specifically targeted at activities that only homeless people engage in, such as sleeping in parks and sitting for an unspecified length of time ("too long") in public places. The UN found that such arrests of the homeless and tailoring of laws violate international human rights treaty obligations. Sure, maybe you always wanted to spray a cop-instead of them, you. But you are not a Neo-Nazi, and your cops are not pacifists, so you just hope for the best. The T-shirt reads "Svoboda" , the far-right Ukrainian nationalist party, with a three-finger salute that is obviously Nazi code of some kind, similar to the Serbian three-finger salute, only the Serbian one uses the thumb as one of the three fingers. Third Reich, maybe? See RT's "Nazi symbols" article for proof that actual Nazis are involved in Ukraine as well, and Dark Politics' article for a photo of ex-presidential hopeful John McCain at a political rally in Kiev's Independence Square. Standing on the same stage, close enough behind McCain to jostle his shoulder is Oleh Tyahnybok, the Svoboda leader US coup plotters caught red-handed, media accuse them of being rude America's media, it is widely understood, can make it so that at least some of America can ignore something hidden in plain sight. But Ukraine also proves that they can look at something, an ostrich, say, also widely known for hiding their heads in the sand, and decide that this ostrich (which also has to be an American ostrich to fit this increasingly lame analogy -sorry) is something completely different, like a Communist ostrich. So the coup, arranged by telephone and carried out by Nazi boot boys and murderers, becomes a foiled Communist intervention and a glorious welcoming of new Ukrainian friends into the generous fold of European capitalism. The /ignore switch was made instantly-all the stories were about how rude and irresponsible Nuland was for saying, "Fuck the EU". At least half of Ukraine had no intention of letting their country fall into the hands of the world's Corporatocracy by way of the country's Fascists if they could possibly help it, but they could not possibly help it. Let us hope the reported 50% who are manifestly good (it happened!) at deciding what is good for Ukraine are as good at sharing the collective pain of the EU's belt-tightening. The map is clear: the US destroyed Ukraine's sovereignty to disrupt Russia's gas pipelines to Europe, The PsyOps report intercepted by WikiLeaks is equally clear: NATO knew in advance that Russia would react militarily, thereby providing pretext forwards, to cover any actions, and backwards, in the event of discovery of the coup. Two other points should be noted here: The same is true of Syria: although no one should really want to make Syria a hero because they are victimized, it is important to remember who the victimizers are. Russia's gas is important to Europe. Crushing Europe and the EU is as much a part of the US plan as crushing Russia and Ukraine. Whatever does not hurt the US is good for the US. Fill 'er up with Yen One of these is 250 times worse than the other: A rolling coffin that bursts into a fireball when you run into it from behind, and a car that accelerates instead of decelerates, forcing you to hit the handbrake. The first is the Pinto made by American car company Ford, the one that made Ralph Nader famous forty-some years ago, that resulted in the death of at least 27 people; the other is a car made by Japanese car company Toyota, that has scared many people to death in the past few years. Ford was forced to pay $6 Million, and Toyota is being hit with $1.5 Billion in fines, after already paying 66 million. Attorney General Eric Holder is proving his versatility: not only is he prepared to hide the guilty, turning torture into normal procedure, but he is prepared to soak not-so-guilty foreign companies to fill up the US Treasury when it is running, hmm, maybe a little low. Apologies for the rhetorical comparison; to be fair, Toyota was as heinous in covering up the defects, and misleading the public, their customers, and even Congress. And their product even resulted in at least one death; a California Highway Patrolman. But the kid glove treatment of The Homeland's criminals may not stop there. About the same time the brigands in the Justice Department made off with the loot from Japan, news surfaced of another defect, in another American car. Just as with the Pinto, General Motors executives knew for years (since 2006 or perhaps even earlier) that the ignition switches in over two and a half million of their cars were faulty, knew it could be fixed with 72 cents more spent on the part, and ignored the evidence of multiple deaths (thirteen revealed so far). They even designed a new part, with the flaws removed. With a clear double standard already established, it does not seem likely that the American automaker will have to pay as much as a Billion as the Japanese company did, for a lesser defect; the question is, will GM even have to pay anything? Minitrue File:gollum.jpg Special Valentine's Day message from the National Security Agency The NSA loves your personal information very very much, precious. It wants to keep it close to them always, yes. But it would never ever look at it, precious, no. (thedaywefightback.org) Spin-adjustable Treaties Why a United Nations (WP) arms treaty that allows countries to control, or not, arms in their own countries? Same reason you make a Chemical Weapons Convention with requirements the US has still not finished ten years later, but demanded that Syria comply with in ten months. It is not hard to abridge rights of or extend responsibilities to other states' actors if you spin their image hard enough. And the fastest and hardest spin out there is against Muslim countries-just say terrorism a couple of times in every newspaper in the world and you can make the machineguns of flawed democracies like Iran illegal (let alone weapons belonging to countries whose presidents-for-life have outlived their usefulness, like Syria); say democracy enough times and you can keep the tanks and planes and almost every other weapon of war belonging to dictators you like (relatively nice presidents-for-life like Uganda's, or unequivocally evil ones like the Egyptian military dictatorship), protected. Handguns do not really come into it. Minitrue/Eternal War False Handkerchief Operation? The sinking of the USS Maine gave the US the former Spanish East Indies, including the Philippine Islands, Guam and the Mariana Islands, the Caroline Islands (Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia). The sinking of the Lusitania brought America into WWI. Pearl Harbor did the same in WWII. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was used to justify invading Viet Nam. Operation Sand Flea and the Hard Chargers that in the former case was meant to lead to and in the other case did actually lead to the US Invasion of Panama (WP). The Lockerbie bombing distracted the world from the Iran-Contra hearings, and killed two men who had the motivation and means to free the US prisoners in Lebanon two years earlier than when it proved to be a welcome distraction for George Bush Sr. in the second year of his presidency. 9/11 began the second Great Game. There are as many other justifications used for America breaking the peace decreed by Nuremberg and the UN Peace Accords of 1975 as there are US wars that the US conducted openly, and some for the wars and coups and manipulation of foreign governments that were hidden from the world (for a total of 33 between 1945 and 2000). But there are common threads linking these nine incidents. They all lead to worldwide sympathy for the US, and support for its policies that followed. And they were all made to happen (and in the case of Pearl Harbor alone, allowed to happen) by agents of the US government. Sand Flea and the Hard Chargers are easy enough to link to the Panamanian invasion once you know what they are, but Lockerbie? Well, again, it takes some reading. In short, the article comes to the conclusion that it was the drug and gun smuggling stooges of the CIA that planted the bomb, to get rid of the two who wanted to release the Lebanon hostages. But the timing is pretty close, even if the CIA did it. Only the CIA had enough info on the two to mobilize that quickly. "In December 1988 al-Kassar picked up some news that threatened to shut down his smuggling operation. Charles McKee's counterterrorist team in Beirut that was investigating the possible rescue of the nine American hostages had got wind of his CIA connection. The team was outraged that the COREA unit in Wiesbaden was doing business with a Syrian who had close terrorist connections and might endanger their planned rescue attempt...McKee and Gannon, joined by three other members of the team, decided to fly back to Virginia unannounced and expose the COREA unit's secret deal with al- Kassar. They packed $500,000 in cash provided for their rescue mission, as well as maps and photographs of the secret locations where the hostages were being held. Then the five-man team booked seats on Pan Am 103 out of London, arranging to fly there on a connecting flight from Cyprus."-Time, 1992 Eternal War Exit Arab Spring, Enter, Four countries in five years As the US prepares to create regime change in Syria for the second time (the first was in 1949), it is worthwhile considering the reasons why it has acted so coyly about invading. Obviously there is an advantage to its rare display of patience; if it can make the case that the entire world is begging it to invade, then it suffers less of a PR hit. But there is another reason: if the US loses it, temporarily, as a cheap source of oil, it still retains a torture state. According to a former CIA case officer, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to Egypt." And of course there is the fact that its oil production is #32 in the world and proven oil reserves are #35; to take control of ALL of the world's oil, it does not matter which oil producers to take over, but it does matter for in which ORDER you allocate resources towards taking them over. It is obvious that the Arab Spring was contrived to take over Libya, make an unsuccessful grab for Syria, and set back the movements in Tunisia years and in Egypt decades, with tiny token gains. In fact, the result of the Egyptian revolution, a strong military government, was exactly the result that dictator Mubarek had asked the US for. So what was Occupy's role in all this? From the puppet masters' perspective, to make the less savvy activists enjoy regime change. But it did not make a whole lot of difference to real activists, who cannot possibly miss the implications of thousands of dead in Egypt by the hands of a military government. First and foremost, the proposed attack is not only immoral and in fact illegal, but useless at achieving anything other than the US' primary objective in world relations, the weakening of other countries. Even if you believe that Syria's Assad responded to the US' "red line" threat of military retaliation by crossing that line, it just proves how ineffective that retaliation would be at deterring him. Invasions, coups, wars and other sustained military actions against states after 1945 without international mandate for exception are Acts of Aggression and illegal under the spirit of international law according to the precedent set by the Nuremberg trials Nuremberg Principles Principle VI (a) (i) : "War of aggression". The International Criminal Court's Crime of aggression statues apply, as does the precedent set by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 The US attack's opportunism is of course pathetically transparent: unfounded assurances and teams searching for weapons have all happened before, Russian inspectors found the rebels to be the cause, UN inspectors initially reported, with evidence, that rebels had used chemical weapons, the US is preparing for the attack before the UN inspectors get back, the UN's later factfinding mission only stayed a token few days, the US uses chemical weapons and has backed every regime that has ever used them, the US has enough WMDs in the form of nukes to blow up the whole world many times over, the US has used military interventions and other means to attempt regime change of countries unfriendly to US Capitalistic interests nearly a hundred times in the past two centuries, the UN inspectors are not given a mandate to determine the source of the chemical weapons, yet the US says it is waiting for the results of the inspection before making attack, therefore the US is currently planning to attack the government of Syria based on no evidence that it used chemical weapons, etc etc. Secretary of State John Kerry defended a proposed US strike on Syria as "informed" by "first-hand accounts from humanitarian organizations on the ground, like Doctors Without Borders". Doctors Without Borders itself, under its French name Médecins Sans Frontières, said, "MSF is aware that incorrect, manipulated information about MSF and Syria is circulating on the internet and social media. ... MSF does not have the capacity to identify the cause of the neurotoxic symptoms of patients reported by three clinics supplied by MSF in Damascus governorate. ... MSF does not possess the capacity or ability to determine or assign responsibility for the event that caused these reported symptoms to occur. Any statement or story that asserts any of these things is false." Mark Seibel of McClatchy News said, "the secretary of state talks about it as first-hand observation by Doctors Without Borders, and Doctors Without Borders has been very clear that it’s too dangerous for their people to actually go in there. So it is not Doctors Without Borders’ first-hand observation." Fire...Bad!!..Nrrgh!! Evil Frankenstein Muppet, John Kerry, patched together from pieces of Vietnam-era antiwar activism and very neo- liberalism. Here he is trying hard to pretend that the US, after ten years, is not still in violation of the same Chemical Weapons Convention he demanded Syria comply with in less than 10 months Why run the taphouse when you can just control the tap? Syria is #32 in the list of oil-producing nations (what they take out of the ground), and #35 by oil reserves (what is still left in the ground) but this is only part of the story. There are only six nations left in the top 32 that are not white European nations, or under the thumb of the US, or too large or heavily armed for the US to take over (Russia, number one in production, #8 in reserves; China, #4 in production, #12 in reserves; and India, #19 in reserves, #23 in production. All have nuclear weapons). Of these six, only two can not yet be shown to be in the process of regime change; it can only be assumed. Azerbaijan, one of these six, is number 21 in both production and reserves. Its story shows an old wrinkle of Empire brought back in a new way: there is no need to control the whole country, when all you want is the oil. In 1998, Azerbaijan suffered an attempt to take over its nationally-owned oil company, and the man that attempted to blow the whistle on it is in jail, while the conspirators are free. Three of the six are poised for regime change: Iran is number four in both reserves and production. Nigeria is number 13 in production and #10 in reserves. Venezuela is #1 in reserves and #9 in production. They are being processed in the same propaganda+intelligence mill that paved the way for the US to invade, attack, conspire against and otherwise interfere with the governments of dozens of countries, despite a public weary of US interference. The media has been setting them up in the public eye as failed or rogue states. Venezuela is, to the Wars on Oil, the most important of the potential regime change targets; its oil production is operating on the same principle as the USSR's economy (that had a GDP to national debt ratio fifty times higher than the US at the time of its "collapse"); be economical with your assets. Their production is #9, but their proven reserves are the largest in the world. They have already suffered an attempt at regime change, and Nigeria shows signs of being prepared for it, with the same mass incarceration of dissidents being covered as anti-terrorism. US regime change operations of propaganda and threats and bribing officials and paying demonstrators and all their other techniques may yet yield, or be yielding, or have already yielded, similar weaknesses in Kazakhstan, #10 in reserves and #17 in production, and Ecuador, #20 in reserves and #30 in production. Recently brought under US control: Iraq, #5 in reserves and #7 in production; Egypt (brought back under control), #27 in reserves and #28 in production, and Libya, which like Venezuela used up its reserves (#9) at a lower rate than other countries (production #29). Coming soon, Syria, #32 in production and #35 in reserves. So much for the Arab Spring. Instead, it has only been part of Four countries in five years. Admittedly, this is three short of what was said to be planned, and one country that was not said to be planned. But after our suspicions about the Arab Spring have been borne out, it seems clear that what most of the world hoped was Freedom was in fact only Free Market. In the one tiny state that is still more free than it had been before the revolution, Tunisia, the embezzling rulers still got away with the cash. Tunisia is #51 in oil reserves, and #55 in production, and will eventually fall, as Egypt has. It may not be that long now; someone assassinated the opposition leader on 28 Aug 2013, and the party that took over after the revolution was unwise enough to dissolve itself and make new elections, US puppets will eventually win the country with falsified elections or by whatever other means. Afghanistan is the obvious exception to the oil rule, but this fact, rather than disproving US interests, in fact points to another interest, and the major reason why the US fought the USSR there. It was, of course, taken over to make secure the oil pipelines to the Caucasus (US army bases are situated directly on this line), but also for CIA drug trafficking, easy access to the opium poppies that the CIA has been turning into heroin since the 1940s. So do not be taken in by the characterization of this as a War for Oil. It is only a Battle for Oil, a minor if penultimate part of the War for Capitalism. Together with Afghanistan's and the Golden Triangle's Wars for Drugs, and the War On Communism, it has been going on since the Russian Revolution, and its prerequisite, the US Empire, goes back much further. The US has been declared to have been at times isolationist, by historians, but they are mistaken. The US has never paused in its grabbing of land and their resources; but it never once failed to fail to aid when aid was needed. In Rwanda, in Sudan, in Spain in 1936, in Europe against Hitler, in the Balkans until it realized there were mineral resources to be gained...none of the tragic massacres of the 20th Century were as much as avenged by the US. But what of the closing of the Nazi death camps, you ask? The US never fought against Fascism; Franco's Fascist Spain was allowed to not only take over, but rule Spain indefinitely; it only failed when Franco died in 1977. Not a single one of the soldiers deployed in WWII was ever told they were fighting genocide, and Jews fleeing the Nazis were forbidden sanctuary. Nazi scientists were recruited by the US, and Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon. Wondered why there was so little coverage of the Arab Spring in these pages? Well, sure, we're lazy. But mostly it was because we saw Egypt coming, and we did not believe PBS (Proving We're Not Liberal Since 1989), when they (Gwen Ifil) called the anti-Libyan mercenaries armed with rocket launchers and with anti-aircraft guns mounted to the back of their pickup trucks, "demonstrators". Egypt has gained absolutely nothing from its revolution-the Wikileaks leak for Egypt included a memo from Mubarak asking the US to install the army in a coup, roughly for the principle that they were sons of bitches but they would be THEIR sons of bitches. Always think in terms of this, and you will only be wrong a small percentage of the time: the US is trying to take over the world, but they will not merely settle for, but in fact prefer, puppet states-why bother with all the administrative tasks when you can merely syphon the cash out of the country? They are also patient and utterly ruthless; making enemy nations weak now, even if it means making allies fight a war of attrition, means it will be easier to take them over later. Three good examples of America using up other countries and discarding them after they are no longer useful: Iraq, which the US backed in a war against Iran, Syria, which the US used as a torture state for extrajudicial rendition, and Panama, whose invasion by the US was only the secondary objective; the primary one being removing from power Manuel Noriega. The US news told the world Noriega was the entire reason for invading Panama. And yet being brought to justice was of such pressing importance that he was held without trial for over a decade. By that time the publicity about his capture had died down enough to avoid not only embarrassing but actually legally threatening facts about his part in the CIA's Cocaine drug trade. Two less good examples: Cambodia; bad because the US backed the Khmer Rouge, less bad inasmuch as coming back and betraying the KR afterwards could be mistaken for doing the right thing, and Afghanistan, where it created and then attempted to destroy the Taliban, a less good example of betrayal for similar and obvious reasons. Gadafi brought Libya wealth and prosperity enough to create educated and prosperous classes. Historically, they are propagandized by the part of the US regime change machine that comes after Economic Hitmen and before Invasion. Their greed and dissatisfaction is funded through their pundits and parties. And when that fails, or has reached its limit, Invasion. In this case, the very foreign mercenaries that Gadafi was accused of, and weapons to arm them. Look at the "rebels'" weapons; they are brand spanking new. Brand new anti-aircraft guns mounted to old pickup trucks. Nor is democracy more than gravy to this process. The denunciation of results of the Palestinian elections in 2006 and the slaughter of the elected and their entire party in Egypt in 2013 are only the two most recent proofs of US disregard for democracy, if its use of the word as a synonym for regime change were not enough. There is also the Iranian coup d'état of 1953 and the dozen US violations of the Geneva Conference of 1954, including most importantly its backing of the leader who refused to hold elections in Viet Nam. Of course, there has never been any such thing as a democracy of the people, but even in institutions which are touted as democratic, the US prefers control to freedom. The US held its breath and stomped its little feet at the League of Nations, which had a democratic vote, and established the United Nations in its stead, which is arguably the most undemocratic government institution in the world not vilified as a dictatorship. The US alone is guaranteed a vote in its Security Council, and there is always some nation the size of a large city, somewhere in the Pacific, like Nauru or Palau, who always casts the deciding vote in the US' favor... The rule of thumb for regime change, then, is not that the US acts to spread its way of life throughout the world, or even that it focuses its military on regime change that is in its own interest. It is, quite simply, always and forever bent on controlling the entire planet, and everything that happens in the world should first be checked for this possibility. And what of this Leviathan of lies, theft, and mugging on a global scale, when Cuba has "instituted economic reforms", or when the last drop has been drawn from Iraq's wells? We have been promised a "peace dividend" before, back when politicians cared enough about what the people thought to offer them promises they did not intend to keep, instead of just lying first and then lying some more. All we got was the opposite, escalation: a similar number of nuclear warheads, in a smaller number of more modern missiles. Nuclear weapons in the hands of Russia and China may be enough to keep them out of the US' grasp, but India's can not reach the US, and thus cannot be more of a threat against invasion than they are to India itself. And the US national interest, which was openly defied in the 60s and disdained in the 70s, is now taken for granted by the media and whoever believes them. All that is required is for the national interest to be redefined. It has been redefined already; bastions of progressivism like Democracy Now! warn of the dangers of China taking over US jobs-they do not sound very much different to the racists, and all because the political argument has been reframed as Globalism. "Think Globally, Act Locally" paved the way for Americans with tens or more as much income as the world average to imagine themselves saving the planet by buying things, and to a lesser extent, Europeans and activists from other countries as wel. The admitted success of boycotts against South Africa saw activists taking a good hard look at the moral dilemma of political action vs the needs of starving people and coming up on the side of activism. The arguments for ALL of America and the developed world as being inimical to the needs of the developing world and the moral interests of the entire world get weaker and more equivocal, but they go on and on, with the myriad of things that the American Way of Life simply must have, and the years in which nothing is done stretch onward. Perhaps at the heart of obstacle to change is the perception that no struggle can be allowed to be violent, and that radical change can only be achieved through violence, so compromise must be achieved. What follows is wishful thinking-we will make the politicians want to change. But they do not want to. It is really as simple as that. They hold sufficient power, as a continuum, to ensure they will never have to make any but the most minor changes, which they can later reverse when the heat is off, and the outrage dies down again. But there is another, third way. The Achilles heel of capitalism, is...capitalism. It not only allows but mandates theft. Capitalism can never advocate the removal of private property rights, and a nation indoctrinated into personal financial interest can never be told that they should not acquire things. So if we get together and tell the world to steal back the world, then the obvious superiority of cooperation to competition, especially once it grows sufficiently large to gain the greatest benefits of a computerized economy, will inexorably move the balance of ownership in favor of the people. There may not be much left of the world when the oil runs out, but at least the people will live in a 19th Century agrarian horse-powered world with cellphones. Call it science fiction if you must, but first think hard about either alternative. Does not the inevitability of an un-egalitarian world, the wreckage of capitalism, translate into this? Walled-off decaying cities with their slave factories to support an elite of what we would now call middle class means, surrounded by the farms that support them. And perhaps, but not certainly enough to count on or fruitful enough to hope for (yes, some of us were survivalists, once), a few hardcore survivors in the wastelands of countries too meager for the army to cleanse. Playing, both sides (Puppet Power) Steven Colbert says that Elmo's arabic-language program for kids was the US' most successful deployment of a puppet in the Afghanistan region since Hamid Karzai A Few Men Good at Baiting, A Few Men Good at being Bait See Drop weapon "We don't want you on the wall, we get that you don't care much for the parties you don't get invited to, you don't really know much about us, let alone anything 'secret', and those in the right need not "admit" to anything" Ignorance is Strength Trial of the Gateway Drug Guilt by association Marijuana vs the state of Thatstate Prosecutor Noninhale: So you are here charged with being a Gateway Drug. Are you guilty of being a Gateway Drug? Marijuana: Well, some people call me a Gateway Drug. But guilty...see, I think the problem is you have never actually proven that that is a crime Prosecutor Noninhale: Well, everyone really likes you Judge Appropos: raises one eyebrow Marijuana: Yes. Yes they do. Prosecutor Noninhale: And you hang around at parties with this bad, really bad, very bad guy Judge Appropos: raises the other eyebrow Marijuana: No Prosecutor Noninhale: Alright then, you hang around at parties with some people who know people who know the, uh, bad guy Judge Appropos: both eyebrows descend into a frown Marijuana: Give or take an uncertain number of degrees of separation, yes Prosecutor Noninhale: And...and he's really really bad... Judge Appropos: lip curls into a sneer Marijuana: So you claim Prosecutor Noninhale: Well, then, um...er... Judge Appropos: Case Dismissed! Artificial Stupidity? The US healthcare site's ills are in part due to procurement system, like the lobbying system, being a political-industrial complex. As Clay Johnson said on Democracy Now!, "the people who are building this stuff are the people with the best lawyers, not the people with the best programmers". But surely the people with the best hackers, the NSA, have an interest in the downfall of a more socialistic system... There is a misconception going around, that establishment figures do not have faith in science. So wrong! There is money in science! Like armaments, and the Nuclear Renaissance! ...so...only bad science? Is a Nuclear Renaisssance just the same as a regular Renaissance? Well, if Obama gets his way, we may find it is even better! Thanks to the mutating power of nuclear radiation, four arms! four legs! two heads, even! All you have to do is believe! The simple faith of captains of industry and their good friends in government will bring a very new future for us all! Hypothetically "Those who ignore those who make history are doomed that they repeat it" Propose a new hypothesis: Manifest SNAFU! The opposite of Manifest Destiny, which has made a wholly undeserved return to an undead halflife as a misinterpretation by the Wrong of a version of Exceptionalism (Howard Zinn on the myth of Exceptionalism). With no more chance than Manifest Destiny of being right, Manifest SNAFU! nonetheless COULD be more right, and is thought-provoking. It postulates that there must be some reason that things are, as is apparent, Situation Normal-All Fucked Up. As is equally apparent, this because the losers were always right, and the winners always mistaken. Or to put it another way, the reason why there are winners is that they are mistaken. NRA Escapes Reality NRA's Wayne LaPierre is having trouble distinguishing between real life and video games, while the players do not. Wayyne threw video gamers, among whom are surely a few staunch gun owners, to the wolves in the face of the reaction to Sandy Hook, along with at least nine other scapegoats. Gamers have always included in their numbers those who are philosophical about game violence, pointing out that pixels are not people, so animated, computed violence is not comparable to real violence. Games, and any other activity that critics want an edge against, have been labelled an 'escape from reality' for quite some time, but LaPierre was clearly on the run. What is amazing is how far everyone - left and right alike - was prepared to follow him. Arming school security guards became normality, and arming school children was discussed. They have to defend themselves against the children with videogames, after all. Even adult Americans fall prey to illogical arguments that have immoral consequences, such as the notion that the interests of one nation can supersede another's, so there is little doubt that moral guidance is useful. But a moral center exists in some games themselves. Compare the US Army's 'America's Army', which bet of millions on the idea that teens and pre-teens will be more amenable to what they stand for if it is in game form, with story-driven roleplaying games, which often show war as an evil. The Final Fantasy series provides its own moral context, commonly placing soldiers as tools of the villains. Similarly, becoming innured to violence and injury is not a moral detriment to surgeons and nurses. Or games can take the other route, which is to avoid violence altogether. Capitalist Cloud Cuckoo Land You probably know the Law of Supply and Demand as saying that the price of something goes up when the supply decreases, but knowledge of the Law itself has fed back into the loop, causing speculators to sell when the price goes up, and therefore the supply increases. If it is Opposite Tuesday, then this not a Law, it is Fizzbin Neurotics build castles in the sky. Psychotics live in them. Capitalists float a futures market on the expected returns of rent from them This is either, a Fahrvergnügen Driving Excitement Moment (aka Traffic Jam), or lunch break at the Feed and Seed, depending on whether the guy is waiting for a line of cars in front of him or waiting for his burger and fries to digest. You decide. Kind of makes a mess of the argument that public transportation is lame because you have to wait for buses Computerized economy As there were factories and workers and raw materials and consumers who wanted products and services both before and after 2008, why were all of these things suddenly diminished? The answer is, the money men. They make it run, they just stopped. And whether one describes it as, they stopped because they wanted to, or they stopped because they had to, they are still the weak link. And they can be replaced by computers. Not only are they paid more than everyone else, and not only do they do their job poorly (allowing everything to collapse every couple of decades), but they are entirely expendable. Every transaction that takes place in our economy can be performed by the merest electronic blink of a computer program. All the salesman. All the financiers. All redundant. And what would these people do for a living, you ask? Why, what everyone else does. It is really that simple. Imagine it. Lemmings "...Packed like lemmings into shiny - metal - boxes / contestants in a suicidal race..." - The Police, Synchronicity II Fully occupied buses get between 50% and 125% more miles per gallon per passenger than fully occupied cars. This model, of course, is not ideal; car occupancy is an average of 1.5 passengers rather than four, and bus occupancy goes from nearly full occupancy at rush hour to almost empty at other times. The problem of fractional use of large buses is to use a bus a fraction of the size. Minibuses. Minibus and microbus routes have been used to great effect in Oxford England and other cities, often in developing nations, and achieve high levels of occupancy. With greater efficiency and smaller buses, the time between buses can also be reduced. But the key is public participation. The more people turn from private to public transportation, the lower the wait time, and the more expansion of bus routes. Daily Kos Comics Anarchopedia:Message archive Anarchopedia exclusive: CIA OPS Central Intelligence Agency activities About 100 Links to Anarchopedia and Wikipedia pages on most of the 50 or so coups d'état / attempts, all in one list CIA activities • Operation Gladio • List of military interventions by the US • Cold War covert overthrow of governments by the US • Operation Condor • Post-Cold War covert regime change by the US and many others Current / recent events Make it happen. Or read this. Or wonder what happened Today that year Anarchopedia:Current events archive Communpedia and its 'Communpedia news' Special Forces do not merely carry out the increasingly criminal actions ordered by their superiors (eg the assassination of foreign leaders with drone strikes)-sometimes they go so far off the rails that they have to cover up the crimes (eg the killing and mass burial of 10 villagers in Wardak, Afghanistan--interview with Matthieu Aikins on Democracy Now!. Alteratively, the deaths could have been commanded, the soldiers truly guilty of participation but not instigation and then the coverup instigated to the seeming benefit of all but in the end, only to the benefit of command. There is something of a third stage attached to this incident as well. The first stage would be, the US acting atrociously, even criminally, in secret. The second, doing this openly, because they know they can mostly get away with it. And the third stage is utter immunity from prosecution. The US government is making immunity for the armed forces a condition of aiding Karzai's government, and immunity for international corporations a condition for trade, with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Evidence of unusually dire extremes of criminal activity by command in Afghanistan is shown by torture on tape released by Rolling Stone in November 2013-Afghan security forces holding down and beating prisoners while Special Forces watch. Yassar Arafat's (WP) body had eighteen times the normal amount of radioactive Polonium-210 in it, enough to kill him. The Swiss team's findings contradict those of a Russian team. However, Russia is at pains to deny Polonium as a cause as it would point to them, however vaguely and incredibly, as per the results of Alexander Litvinenko's autopsy. Russia set up as a convenient patsy is a good reason to use Polonium, and its use points to the great likelihood of a government agency, as its short half-life makes it incredibly rare in nature. 210Polonium has a half-life of 138.376 days. Bradley Manning's treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules-The Guardian. UN investigator found that Manning might also have been tortured. Cast the net wide enough, and you will surely catch something: As a hunger strike begins, by prisoners in California against the practice of long-term solitary confinement, investigative journalist Shane Bauer appeared on Democracy Now!, showing that the rationale for treatment that the prisoners call torture is sometimes no better than 1.-almost- 2.thought crime to 3.associate with criminals who 4.again, -might- commit crimes. That is to say, they might be thinking about talking with people who fit a profile determined by their captors, of potential wrongdoers. the criteria for determining whether somebody is a member or an associate of those gangs is kind of notoriously loose. I have seen cases of people who are put in the SHU and deemed gang members because they have academic books by the Black Panthers or journal writings about African-American history. Even the materials for gang investigators teach that the use of the words "tío" or "hermano," "uncle" or "brother" in Spanish, can indicate gang activity - Shane Bauer. Interview on Democracy Now! This is a degree of separation that inspires one to think of words other than tenuous. Nebulous might be a better word. A rationale that rewards belief and confounds understanding. Operation Pillar of Cloud: Palestine is a dog that Israel keeps starving and chained up in its back yard, and kicks nearly to death every four years. Less than four years after the Hypocrites of the Apocalypse used banned white phosphorus, and illegally used cluster bombs against civilians in the midst of a massive bombing campaign, in which even UN convoys and headquarters were hit with 'friendly fire', they are doing it all again. And let us not forget, partisans are not stationed in civilian areas because they want to use civilians as shields, but because they live there. And what gives Israel the right to complain of human shields, when they plan on killing the civilians standing in the way, in any case? Giving someone ten minutes to get out of their house does not excuse blowing it up. And the hypocrisy and war crimes go on and on. Rebel suicide bomber kills top Syrian officials It has been pretty hard to tell who the bad guys are in Syria, a regime used by the US to torture extrajudicial prisoners, that is now being double-crossed by the US, perhaps to the point of backing the rebels against them. Someone has been massacring civilians, and possibly both sides. The grey area has grown and darkened now that the rebels have used assassinations, like the Obama administration's drone strikes...only with suicide bombers. Like Al-Qaeda, the PLO, and almost every group on the US' terrorist list. So does that mean that the rebels supported by state leaders all around the world, in lockstep with the US, are terrorists? Or is suicide bombing now OK? Is this something the US opposes? Is there an outcry of "terrorist actions"? No. How about something like "brutal"? Well, no. In fact, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta used the same blaming the victim technique as was used on Haiti's Aristide, when rebels tried to take over his country; Assad will be held responsible if it does not safeguard its stockpile of chemical weapons. Does this utter absence of criticism means that suicide bombing is going to follow torture in the transition from a crime with which the US pot can call its enemies' kettles red, to just another military option? And if it does, then that means that the rest of the 'terrorists' are just irregular military with fewer military options than the US, as Anarchopedia has always contended. Legislative coup d'état removes President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay Lugo’s opponents’ had planned the coup, and U.S. officials had known about it, as early as 2009. "Capitalize on any Lugo missteps to break the political deadlock in Congress, impeach Lugo and assure their own political supremacy", reads a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. The announcement of Lugo's impeachment proceedings came just a day before he was given two hours to prepare his legal defense; Lugo declined to address the proceedings. Legislator's statements were long on quotes of constitutional rules and short on rationale. In particular, there were no concrete examples of his 'misconduct'. Lugo has strong support in the populace, but the legislature was filled with the same party as had ruled Paraguay for 61 years. On the 25th of June, 2012, Fernando Lugo said he would create a parallel cabinet, and bring his case before the coming week's summit of the Mercosur trade bloc in Mendoza, Argentina "The two things to look out for is, one if military aid to Paraguayan army will continue. The U.S. is a supplier of much material and financial support to the security forces in Paraguay, and two, if it will take advantage of the crisis to go forward with a long sought military base in the region, which the Pentagon, Southcom (WP), has wanted for a while"-Greg Grandin (WP) O, Drug War, where is thy Sting?..Really, where did it go, have you seen it around anywhere? One of Project Gunrunner's (see Operation: IRONY) plans to deprive Mexican drug cartels of weaponry, the ATF's (WP) Operation Fast and Furious, gave them weapons instead. It thereby achieved optimum Oppositeness. Or did it? See CIA drug trafficking Labor Day protests International Workers' Day (WP) also known as May Day (also, outside of the US and UK, known as Labor Day) rallies and protests were a mix of the traditional yearly events and a resurgence of Occupy Movement (WP) events Guardian full day listing of events , and in pictures SFGate: 15 minutes, 30 people, 30 businesses trashed, no arrests The Sacred Temple of the All-Seeing Eye, Bluffdale, Utah During the Cold War, the National Security Agency intercepted the communications of Russia and China and a handful of communist states, while the US busied itself with taking over the world secretly. Now that other countries are fighting back, and the US does its regime changes largely in the open, the NSA has given itself the task of intercepting, decoding, and assessing ALL communications, EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME. In order to do this, the NSA is building the largest intelligence complex ever; more than five times the size of the US Capitol, in Bluffdale, Utah, in the heart of Mormon country. The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say), by James Bamford. James Bamford interview on Democracy Now! Logo of Xe Watch, representing opposition to Blackwater Worldwide. Blackwater became Xe Services in October 2007 Logo of the Central Intelligence Agency; a large bureaucracy with many branches; these divisions do not necessarily reflect an operational separation of CIA activities (WP) "Seven countries in five years" Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran See:Seven countries in five years Seven government and countries, all of which have already been the targets of extra-diplomatic actions and military US action in past years, were overtly targeted for invasion and overthrow by the Bush administration in late 2000. This objective has been achieved in two, although resistance to foreign occupation of Iraq and Libya will continue for the foreseeable future. General Wesley Clark, not the staunchest ally of human rights himself (authorizing the use of depleted uranium rounds and attacks on civilians in Yugoslavia, for example), was nonetheless moved for whatever reason to deplore this policy publicly. However, it was six years before he did so, in an interview with Democracy Now!, a conference at the Commonwealth Club of California, and elsewhere. The third name for Blackwater, Academi Blackwater is now Xe is now Academi Blackwater Worldwide changed its name to Xe, and has most recently (better to not say now, as it could change again any day, it seems) changed it again to Academi. This was more than sufficient to get the Blackwater Watch article and its other two incarnations removed from Wikipedia entirely; see Xe Watch#Deletion from Wikipedia Archived Anarchopedia:Current events archive Raymond Allen Davis incident : On January 27, 2011, Raymond Allen Davis, a US citizen claiming to be working as a consultant at the U.S. Consulate in Lahore and later said to be a CIA operative killed two armed men in the Pakistani city of Lahore. King hearings Social programs cut by 112th USA Congress BTJunkie BitTorrent site shuts down Citations edit - archive Such that you may know... No one is certain what the 'p' in "pH", the standard of acidity and alkalinity, stands for. The "H" stands for Hydrogen Jasmine Revolution may refer to: The 1987 coup d'état in Tunisia that led to the rise to the presidency of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was later to be deposed in another Jasmine Revolution, below. There is no Wikipedia article on this coup The Sidi Bouzid Revolt (WP) in which President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee the country with the loot he had gotten from privatization, dubbed "the Jasmine Revolution" by media early in 2011, which inspired the Arab Spring and the 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests The Arab Spring. See Jasmine Revolution The 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests in the People's Republic of China, named a "Jasmine revolution" by some of the organisers North Carolina Stop Torture Now! was responsible for media attention to the subject of extraordinary rendition, and yet had its article deleted from Wikipedia The US 'Hearts & Minds' campaign in HÄ«t, Iraq, and presumably other areas, was largely about buying the support of a few individuals Hunt Saboteurs were successful in convincing the U.K. government to ban fox hunting. Drag hunting with human-laid scent trails is now in some cases used instead, but partly because it was advocated by their mortal enemies, hunt saboteurs, some hunt clubs are 'cutting off their nose to spite their face' and refusing to implement the alternative The Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU) is an privately owned but government funded organization used by the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) to amass files on private citizens while evading the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) "...everyone knows what 'fairness' means..." The average world income is the same as the U.S. "poverty line" See, Egalitarianism "...the world economy is not a zero sum (WP) game..." ...The name of Montreal's anarchist bookstore, Librairie l'Insoumise, means "The Insubordinate", a derogatory moniker given to the French anarchist and participant in the Paris Commune, Louise Michel. She was accused of: Trying to overthrow the government Encouraging citizens to arm themselves Possession and use of weapons, and wearing a military uniform Forgery of a document Using a false document Planning to assassinate hostages Illegal arrests, torturing and killing All before she had even become an anarchist. She was not radicalized until she was sent to prison ...Because they are much smaller than previous types of satellites, Microsatellites can be placed in orbits much closer to Earth. Because they are closer, the area from which they can receive signals and to which they can send them is much smaller, in the opposite way to a goalie protecting more of a soccer goal with the same reach, the further out from the goal he is, or the same way as a torch/flashlight shines its light on a smaller area the closer to a a reflective surface it comes. Despite the fact that this requires many microsatellites to be launched at the same time, to cover the same area, it is still cheaper to launch and maintain the 'constellations' of satellites, as their formations are called, and they cover their assigned areas faster archive Editor's pick Press freedom and the Occupy movement Journalists covering the occupy movement (WP), an on-going protest movement, have been arrested, leading to criticism from press freedom groups that journalists' constitutionally protected rights are being violated.(rights protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution) In 2012, Reporters without Borders (WP) listed the United States as 47th in its Press Freedom Index (WP), dropping a full 27 places in just one year. The watchdog group made explicit mention of US response to the Occupy movement, saying: The United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests." —Reporters without Borders, Press Freedom Index An article on this subject was deleted on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ Press freedom and the Occupy movement WP administrators can restore the edit history of this page upon request WP+ DEL Arrests of journalists September 24 2011, New York City Journalist John Farley of WNET Metrofocus was arrested while attempting to interview women who had been victims of the pepper-spraying by police. Despite wearing press credentials and identifying himself as press to police, Farrley was arrested. He reported being handcuffed and imprisoned for nine hours. He was initially charged with disorderly conduct but all charges against him were dropped. October 1 2011, New York City Three journalists, Natasha Lennard of the New York Times, Kristen Gwynne of Alternet, and documentarian Marisa Holmes were arrested covering the events of October 1.. On October 1, 2011, police arrested about 700 marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge. By October 2, all but 20 of those arrested had been released with citations for disorderly conduct. On October 4, a group of protesters who were arrested on the bridge filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging that officers had violated their constitutional rights. November 2 2011, Milwaukee Kristyna Wentz-Graff of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was arrested while covering an Occupy protest. The arrest drew criticism from Journal Sentinel editors, the Wisconsin News Photographers Association, the Milwaukee Press Club and the National Press Photographers Association. Ultimately, Wentz-Graff was ultimately not charged with any wrongdoing. November 3 2011, Oakland Although she was clearly wearing a press pass, Journalist Susie Cagle was arrested in the early hours of November 3 and spent 14 hours at 2 different jails. She was charged with failure to leave the scene of a riot. Cagle is one of several journalists covering the Occupy movement that have been arrested. Additionally, Cagle reported having been subject to and witness to mistreatment of protestors during her imprisonment. Cagle was again arrested while covering an Occupy Oakland march on January 28, 2012. November 13 2011, Chapel Hill Two journalists were arrested: Katelyn Ferral, of The News & Observer, and Josh Davis, a graduate student in Journalism at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. November 15 2011, New York City Police arrested about 200 people, including journalists representing the Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Daily News|Daily News, DNAInfo, NPR (WP), Television New Zealand, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair|Vanity Fair, as well as New York City Council member Ydanis Rodríguez. An NBC reporter's press pass was also confiscated. While the police cleared the park, credentialed members of the media were kept a block away, preventing them from documenting the event. Police helicopters prevented NBC and CBS news helicopters from filming the clearing of the park. Many journalists complained of being treated roughly or violently by the police. The Society of Professional Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the New York Civil Liberties Union expressed concerns and criticisms regarding the situation. The Organization of American States Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression issued a statement saying that the "disproportionate restrictions on access to the scene of the events, the arrests, and the criminal charges resulting from the performance of professional duties by reporters violate the right to freedom of expression." On November 21, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the Associated Press, Dow Jones, NBC Universal and WNBC-TV joined in a letter written by New York Times General Council George Freeman criticizing the New York Police Department's handling of the media during the raid. December 12 2011, New York Dec 12 saw arrests of a number of journalists. January 28 2012, Oakland On January 28, Oakland Police arrested about 400 individuals in the largest mass arrest in Oakland history. Among those arrested were at least six journalists. Among the journalists arrested include Kristin Hanes of ABC News-KGO, Susie Cagle, Gavin Aronsen of Mother Jones magazine (WP), Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle, John C. Osborn of East Bay Express, and Yael Chanoff of San Francisco Bay Guardian. One of the imprisoned journalist emerged after 20 hours of imprisonment and reported witnessing police brutality and cruel treatment. January 31 2012, Miami Carlos Miller, a member of the National Press Photographers Association, was documenting the eviction of Occupy Miami when he was arrested. Upon his release, his camera footage of his arrest appeared to have been deleted, but Miller was able to recover the footage despite the attempted deletion. Miller is currently facing a single count of resisting arrest. Citizen journalism The Occupy movement has sparked new interest in citizen journalism (WP) due to fears about censorship (WP) and bias in the media. New media outlets formed during the Occupy movement include the Occupied Wall Street Journal and InsightOut News. The movement also increased the popularity of livestreaming (streaming media) livestreaming|(WP) as a way of disseminating information from the front lines of chaotic situations. However, these new media (WP) journalists also have complaints about harassment and arrests from the police. References External links Josh Sterns - Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests Around the Country Anarchopedia:Former featured articles : Drop weapon, US 'Hearts & Minds' campaign in HÄ«t, Iraq, Cooperative conglomerate, Barack Obama Pic pick Govardhan Eco Village panoramic view; as with almost all images everywhere on the web, and particularly on wikis, left click to view the original, larger version History This month that year in the Wars for Capitalism: Sitting Bull in 1883 • 8th of September, 1883 — United States of America: Sitting Bull, main chief of the Sioux tribes, delivers a speech insulting and making fools of US authorities to great applause. Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake), whose position was being bypassed by US authorities because he firmly stood against the robbery of the native peoples, spoke at the celebration of the driving of the last spike in the Northern Pacific railroad joining with the transcontinental system. He delivered the speech in his Sioux language, departing from a speech originally prepared with an army translator. Denouncing the US government, settlers and army, the listeners thought he was delivering a speech of welcome and praise. While giving the speech Sitting Bull paused for applause periodically, bowed, smiled and continued insulting and making asses of the audience and US authorities as the translator delivered the original address. • 4th of September, 1886, United States of America: Legendary Apache Geronimo surrenders to General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, ending the last major US-Indian conflict. Geronimo had led a small band of men, women and children out of forced internment on the San Carlos reservation, successfully evading thousands of US and Mexican troops, regiments of Indian auxiliaries, and an unknown number of civilians, for over 18 months in the Southwest wilderness • 9th of September, 1898, Puerto Rico: US and Spanish Commissions meet in San Juan to discuss the details of the withdrawal of Spanish troops and the cession of the island to the United States • 4th September, 1903, United States of America: Cripple Creek, Colorado, where mine owners are trying to bust the labor union, police and deputy sheriffs are relieved of their duties and all citizens are required to register their firearms. Governor Peabody sends in the the militia. In 1904 they seize the local sympathetic newspaper, and round up strikers into "bullpens" or take them to the Kansas border and abandon them. Dozens are arrested without warrants… General Sherman Bell of the Colorado National Guard shouted, "Habeus Corpus, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems." Industrial Workers of the World icon • 28th of September, 1917, US: 166 Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World/IWW union activists) indicted for interfering with the war effort in the 'war to end all war'. The first move in an illegal but successful US government campaign to (with no offense intended to those who struggle) cripple the radical union movement. The First World War, that like those that preceded it, was openly a war of conquest. WWI opened so many ordinary people's eyes to the horrors of war, and consequently met with the first organized resistance to war. The resulting anti-war movement grew to great strength, but did not rise to the true threat of Hitler, and the radically less severe threat of the Soviet Great Purge, and not only lost credibility for its lack of a stand against Hitler, but allowed the USSR's politicide to be conflated with the Nazi's genocide. • 4th of September, 1918 — Russia: American troops land at Archangel in North Russia, one year after the Russian Revolution, to "protect U.S. interests." (see also 1918 August 3, 1920 August 8, 1919 April 7). They are ultimately soundly defeated in a little known US invasion with disastrous effects on US Foreign policy in the following decades. Allied invasion and intervention is continuous from 1918-20. The US 27th Regiment was part of the Allied force in Siberia. The US 31st Infantry Regiment (Polar Bears), as well as British, Canadian, Czech, Chinese, Italian, French, and Japanese troops, also participated. • 4th of September, 1921, United States of America: Federal troops march up Hewitt Creek in Logan County after gaining a cease fire the the Battle of Blair Mountain yesterday. Efforts to unionize the southern West Virginia coal fields are ended with the arrival of the 10th US Infantry • 1926, China: United States of America Marines begin fighting in the Yangtze Valley (until Oct. 21, 1927) • Klaus Barbie, the Nazi "Butcher of Lyon", Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) and later CIA, German intelligence (BND) and Gladio agent: In Sept. 1935, joined the SS (Schutzstaffel); Sicherheitsdienst (SD) special security branch. Involved in the September 1944 massacre in Rehaupal. In Sept. 1991, died. • 1st of September, 1939: Germany invades Poland, starts World War II. World War II shocks the conscience, but weakens it all the same. It opens US intelligence and military capabilities to worldwide level, and US government eyes to the possibilities of an American empire, while at the same time informing the world public of all the culture and diversity of the world worth saving from their depredations. It is the use of Nazis to catch other Nazis that leads to the weakening of institutional morality in the OSS, which becomes a CIA fully controlled by anti-communist and pro-capitalist agendas, whereupon the Nazi-collaborating Gladio murders and sets murderers free, all to manipulate European politics • 9th of September, 1942 — United States of America: The only time the American mainland has ever been attacked, if you believe that 9/11 was an inside job. Japan floats incendiary balloons across the Pacific, flying over Oregon, in an attempt to set fire to the forests of Oregon and Washington. The forests failed to ignite. Europe is devastated by the second of two world wars, and has every reason to fear and despise war, but to America, war means only the glorious lies of war propaganda and the erroneous argument that it is good for business (and what enterprise would not be good for profits, with a desperate or browbeaten workforce on low wages and rationed goods? With the end result being bodies, wounded, and the smoke of burning buildings and bombs, there is not much to be said either for its product, the one aspect of production that capitalist economists always fail to mention) • 3rd of September, 1954, United States of America: Espionage and Sabotage Act authorizes five years imprisonment for trespassing on Government property; Congress passes a bill to revoke the citizenship of persons convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government • Guatemalan coup d'état of 1954: CIA Operation PBHISTORY (WP): The National Committee of the Defense against Communism continues to gather names of "communists"; by November they had 72,000, subject to arrest and detention without legal defense or appeal. • 5th of September, 1961 — United States of America: President Kennedy orders resumption of nuclear testing, "underground, with no fallout." (see December 9, 10 and 18) • 1st September, 1965, Dominican Republic: A provisional president installed, following the "Act of Reconciliation." It has lasted 132 days, this war of wood & knife & carbines against American mortars & machine guns. The city smells of powder & sweepings & dead. They have not accepted treason nor consolation and thus are crushed. They fought at night, every night, all the night, ferocious battles house-to-house, hand-to-hand, inch-to-inch, until from the bottom of the sea they raised the sun...and then they hid until the following night. After many such nights of horror & glory, the invading American troops install again a puppet who knows well the song & dance of US business. • 24th of September, 1968, United States of America: Anti-war protestors destroy 10,000 draft files in Milwaukee, Wisconsin • 8th of September, 1971 — United States of America: Beginning of the Attica Prison revolt. Interracial uprising in NY lasting four days, with cooperation between prisoners of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, which is finally brutally suppressed by the state, with 41 left dead. The prisoners were unreasonably demanding improvements in their living and working conditions. "A guy who rigs aluminum prices can get himself introduced by Georgie Jessel at $100 dollars a plate but stealing a can of beer can get you iced."— Ishmael Reed, YELLOW BACK RADIO BROKE-DOWN[3][4] An identical prison riot (even assuming, on the sparse evidence, that there was one, internet censorship, and allegations of terrorist attacks against the US are the only excuse for the US ignoring UN outcries and bombing Libya into regime change and backing the assassination of its leader forty years later. • 1973, Chile: 15th of September: Victor Jara murdered in massacre after American-sponsored overthrow of Salvador Allende. Also killed is at least one American Wobbly; Background materials on the Chilean workers' movement in the 1970s: Recollectionbooks • 8th of September, 1976, England: Hull Prison revolt. For four days in September 1976, prisoners take over three of the four wings of Hull prison. Included, Jake Prescott (in prison for his activities with the anarchist Angry Brigade). Their protests include conditions in prison workshops, where furniture is made for prisons in Iran. Thusly, rioting prisoners on the roof shout, "Fuck the Shah of Iran! Fuck the Shah of Iran!" George Bush Sr. steals again in 1989 more or less what Jimmy Carter returned in 1977 • 7th of September, 1977, Panama: Omar Torrijos and Jimmy Carter sign a treaty returning sovereignty of the Canal Zone to Panamá. General Torrijos says he does not want to enter history. He wants to enter the Canal Zone, stolen by the US at the beginning of the century. When accused of serving Moscow or Havana, Torrijos laughs. Every people, he says, swallows its own aspirin for its own headache. and if it comes down to it, he gets along with the Castristas better than the castrati. Under pressure of world opinion, the US agrees to slowly return the Canal in stages. "Itʼs better this way," says Torrijos, relieved. They've saved him the disagreeable task of blowing up the canal and all its installations. • 1979, England: The 'Persons Unknown' trial opens. The state's lack of evidence is evident by their charge; six anarchists were charged with 'conspiracy with persons known & unknown to cause explosions'. The six were found not guilty, and a member of the jury became an anarchist... • 17th of September, 1980, Nicaragua. Anastasio Somoza Debayle (WP) assassinated. With US support, followed up the rule as dictator by his father, (WP), with his own. De facto leader of Nicaragua until his death. The US backed the Somoza family rule as its best connection to US business interests, and its means of assassinating anarchism-influenced freedom fighter Augusto César Sandino (WP) • 5th of September, 1981 — England: After 20,000 march in a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protest in London against the deployment of nuclear-armed Cruise Missiles and the MX-20 cruise-missiles-on-rails project, the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp is established outside one of scores of United States Air Force Bases on English soil (Greenham Air Base) as "Women For Life On Earth". Some recall Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and say that Britain is now "Airstrip One". US general Alexander Haig is soon to come on BBC Radio and declare his support for not only 'first strike' but a 'limited nuclear war in Europe' as the best plan he can think of in the event of an imagined Soviet tank invasion. The USSR was involved indirectly in a handful of coups -compare with the US rate of at least one significant military engagement per year- and suppression of rebellions, and intervened in Afghanistan at its government's behest -and some say, was lured there by US intelligence- but never invaded any country • 1st of September, 1985, US: To avert Senate passage of sanctions against the apartheid (WP) regime in South Africa, after 11 western nations have already imposed sanctions, Ronald Reagan announces a much less effective sanction package • 1st of September, 1986 -- Charles Liteky & George Mizo begin Fast For Life in Washington D.C against US support of Nicaraguan Contra (WP) anti-socialist death squads / anti-democratic 'regime change' usurpers. • 1st of September, 1987 -- US: During a nonviolent protest at Concord Naval Weapons Station, a Navy munitions train runs over San Francisco activist S. Brian Willson, at a blockade protesting American arms shipments to the Contras, when the train fails to stop. Willson loses both legs but remains an active & articulate leader in the anti-military movement. He is later sued by civilian members of the train crew for the "humiliation, embarrassment & emotional distress" the incident caused them GHW in the Oval Office sometime around the time of his address to the US • 1st of September, 1989 -- US: No Wise Cracks?: the Bush Senior administration decides to purchase some crack cocaine so George Bush can hold the drug in his hands during a national address near the beginning of the 'War on Drugs'. On the first attempt, the drug dealer didn't show up. On the second try, an undercover drug agent's body microphone didn't work. Today, trying for the third time, Big Shrub's team scores the crack, but the operator videotaping the deal misses the action as a homeless person assaults him. Bush's son, Little Shrub, a drug user & 1999 presidential candidate, refuses to talk of his cocaine use — or about all the people doing long prison-time in Texas (where he is state Governor) for the same crime. The WoD is a unique style of Wars for Capitalism operation, in that it contains the same subterfuge and misdirection as a black flag operation, but in reverse. The US government uses the illegality of drugs to attack the Left, which they know is linked to the drug culture, but deals drugs to the inner cities, mistakenly believing that it will weaken the users and correctly deducing (kind of a no brainer, though) that it will make them boatloads of untraceable money to fund their wars and put most of the lefty drug culture in prison. (CIA drug trafficking) • 20th of September, 1990, Iraq: Saddam Hussein demands US networks broadcast his message, of peace, love, and harmony for all the children of planet Earth Aristide and wife Mildred in 2004 • In 1991, the US had backs a coup d'état (WP) of democratically-elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide. By 1994, the UN, suspecting US involvement and opposed to the military regime that replaced Aristide, is determined that it should be deposed. The writing is on the wall for the US, and it feints in the opposite direction, involving itself in Aristide's return to Haiti with Operation Uphold Democracy. Later, the back-up plan is revealed, as the US uses its involvement as leverage to extract promises from Aristide to change Haiti's policies to be favorable to the US. Because these reactionary pro-multinational steps backward would have reverted Aristide's reforms, and changed Haitian government to the same form as planned by Aristide's 1990 opponent, the US demands would have entirely nullified the elections, thereby subverting the democracy they claim to support yet again. Aristide is one of the very few world leaders that has ever double-crossed the US and survived; he promised the changes, and then went on with his original plans. A great man who will always be remembered by Anarchopedia as standing up to the greatest and most insidiously evil force in history. Not surprisingly, albeit with obvious implications for its moral code, the US then usurps Haitian democracy a second time by kicking Aristide out again in 2004. It was not the last such meddling, and there will others; see 2011 USA intervention in Haitian elections and the recent discovery of Gold in Haiti. • 1995: Operation Deliberate Force NATO bombing campaign during the Bosnian War arrives too late to prevent some of the most heinous war crimes of the century, and by employing only massive force, perpetrates many of the crimes which it is ostensibly mandated to prevent or correct • 1st of September, 1996, Germany: 16 activists in Stuttgart arrested at EUROCOM, the U.S. Armed Forces command HQ for Europe, Africa, & the Middle East (& central NATO command), in a protest of NATO expansion into Eastern Europe • 1st of September, 1997, England: Kurdish and British activists blockade an arms trade (WP) exhibition outside London. 89 arrested • 5th of September, 2001, Peru: Homicide charges are filed against exiled ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori. [Source: Robert Braunwart] • 5th of September, 2002 — United States of America: George W. Bush and British PM Tony Blair meet to drum up international support for war on Iraq, Camp David, Md. Most of the world, sans the US media, Congressmen, politicians and a small portion of gullible Americans, reject their concoction of half-truths, distortions and outright lies. [Source: Robert Braunwart]. UN human-rights chief Mary Robinson accuses the United States of America, Russia and China of hiding behind the war on terrorism to trample civil rights. [Source: Robert Braunwart] • 2004: Luigi Ciavardini, member of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari is arrested for a bank robbery. The NAR and Ciavardini specifically is connected, with the Terza Posizione to the Gladio bombing named the Bologna massacre. Before and after the 2004 arrest, Ciavardini was in and out of prison, repeatedly freed by Gladio-corrupted Italian justices of not only the bank robbery charge, not only two cover-up assassinations, but the Bologna massacre itself • 2007: Saffron Revolution (WP): Myanmar's junta has stated that nationwide monk protests, which took place in August and September, were the results of timely collaborated plots of "a Western power" and antigovernment groups aiming to install a puppet government in the country. The Myanmar junta used to refer to the United States as "a Western power". This is not as implausible as it sounds; the CIA continues to back the Tibetan Buddhists that were the first group (in 1950) they ever fully backed against another country, see 14th Dalai Lama, section 'CIA backing' See also Spanish Civil War, 1936#September Was, is, will be, or will be thrown into the Memory Hole by, the news Anarchopedia:Article in the news archive • • Pretenders to the Ottoman Dynasty • • 2011 Egyptian media censorship • • 2011 USA intervention in Haitian elections • • Operation Avenge Assange • • Killing the drug fields: Paraquat poisoning from Operation Intercept to present • • Venesat-1 Drop weapon An article on this subject was deleted on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ Drop weapon (2nd nomination) WP administrators can restore the edit history of this page upon request WP+ DEL A drop weapon is a weapon carried by a soldier for the purpose of creating false evidence (WP), placing it on or near a slain individual to make that person appear to be an enemy combatant or insurgent. Alternatively, a drop weapon or other item is left in the open; any individual who picks it up may be fired upon; a process known as baiting. The use of drop weapons has been the cause of some controversy in the Iraq War. Baiting is a similar procedure, in that the perpetrator leaves items on the ground, but it has far different ramifications. Items are left for people in the area to find and pick up; doing so is considered evidence of insurgency. This is despite there being a multitude of reasons for them to do so, including simple curiousity and importantly, the desire to AVOID being branded as insurgents because of damning evidence left outside their houses. Rather than falsification of evidence, baiting creates the danger of legal entrapment (WP) for the perpetrator, and thus illegal killing of the victim. According to documents quoted by the Washington Post, the U.S. military's Asymmetric Warfare Group (WP) encouraged snipers to drop items "such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition" then kill Iraqis who handled the items. In one incident United States Army (WP) Sgt. Evan Vela was sentenced to a 10 year prison term for murder after being convicted of murdering an unarmed Iraqi and planting evidence. "Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy...Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces." - Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, in a sworn statement. Josh White and Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Staff Writers, Monday, September 24, 2007 , in the Washington Post The Asymmetric Warfare Group is said by Captain Didier to have sent boxes of the kind normally used to hold ammunition filled with "drop items" to his unit, the 1st Battalion 501st Infantry Regiment in order "to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming coalition forces and give us the upper hand in a fight." The Independent newspaper quoted a spokesperson for the US military as saying: "We don't discuss specific methods of targeting enemy combatants. The accused are charged with murder and wrongfully placing weapons on the remains of Iraqi nationals. There are no classified programmes that authorise the murder of local nationals and the use of 'drop weapons' to make killings appear legally justified." Iraq, 27 April, 2007 Spec. Jorge Sandoval, it was found by a military court, shot an Iraqi man, who was cutting grass with a rusty sickle, on the order of Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley. The two men then placed a spool of wire into the pocket of the dead man. Hensley and Sandoval were charged with murder, of which they were acquitted and with planting evidence, of which they were found guilty. May 11th, 2007 In the village of Jurf as Sakhr along the Euphrates River most of the sniper team chose an area to hide and sleep in. One of the members of the unit, Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley stayed on guard. While on his guard he witnessed an Iraqi man, Genei Nesir Khudair Al-Janabi, slowing creeping towards the hide area where the other snipers were sleeping. At this point he put in a call to then-first-lieutenant Matthew P. Didier, for permission to make a "close kill". The request was authorized on a "as needed" basis. Hensley again ordered another man, Sgt. Evan Vela, to make the kill, and several minutes later Didier received word from of the kill from Hensley. In court documents Hensley is quoted as saying "I thought that he was trying to alert insurgents," Hensley said. "I felt like I had no choice or we would be further compromised." Jorge Sandoval and Evan Vela were charged with murder, and the two men plus Hensley were charged with planting an AK47 on the body of Al-Janabi. Sandoval was acquitted of murder. Sandoval, Vela and Hensley were convicted of planting evidence, and Evan Vela was convicted of murder. The defense claimed two somewhat contradictory justifications: one, Vela was sleep-deprived, and did not mean to kill, and two, that he was ordered to by Hensley, and was only carrying out orders. Micronation diplomacy Pretenders and micronations are a fascinating subject, because in their impotence, they lay bare the lack of any real power that states have. All is in the mind of the governors or the governed, or Guns or Butter (WP) An article on this subject was deleted on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ Interactions between micronations WP administrators can restore the edit history of this page upon request WP+ DEL One of the first micronations (WP) to be established, in 1865, was the Kingdom of Redonda, on a Caribbean island; there are hundreds more today. Many micronations have diplomatic relations with other micronations; inasmuch as no macronation, or undisputed country, will recognize a micronation, their diplomatic relations are usually limited to other micronations. However, micronations often make pronouncements with respect to nations, or declare policy with respect to nations, some more substantial than the common micronation declaration that they 'give gifts' to nearby or encompassing nations rather than pay taxes. According to the declarative theory of statehood of the Montevideo Convention, countries need population, territory, government, and diplomacy to be considered sovereign. Many micronations will not recognise less serious micronations than themselves. While micronational diplomacy usually consists of friendly contact between micronations, some micronations, such as the Principality of Seborga and the Madison Kingdom of Talossa, refuse to recognise any micronation as an unofficial or official policy. The reverse is also true; the Hutt River Principality is visited by officials of the Australian government, despite its unrecognized status. In at least three instances, the foundation of a micronation was a protest against the laws or administration of the nearby macronation. The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (WP) was founded in response to Australia's ban on gay marriage.The Mittagong, New South Wales city council decided to divert construction of a sewer line, after the Principality of Dubeldeka was formed, to the outskirts of its property; the founders of the micronation claim that the hotel they planned to restore would have been destroyed by the original course of pipelaying. The Principality of Wy decided being part of a local council that denied them road access was not worth it, and seceded in 2004. The NSK micronation opposes the very concept of nations, and Cyber Yugoslavia is critical of Yugoslavian nationalism. The dissolution of the Soviet Union created areas that were no longer parts of the former USSR (WP) or Russia (WP), nor established states; micronations whose sovereignty and relationship to other countries was unclear, yet whose national borders and ethnic constituency still had precedence in history. The largest intermicronational organisation in micronational history is the Organisation of Active Micronations (OAM), which boasts over 80 member nations. The League of Small Nations (LSN), modelled after the League of Nations (WP), consists of the Dominion of British West Florida, the Sovereign Barony of Caux, the Grand Duchy of Greifenberg and the Republic of Molossia. There are also intermicronational organisations that are reputable, while accepting nations and micronations that do not necessarily meet all of the Montevideo Convention requirements for a state, such as the Micronational Professional Registry (MPR) and the League of Secessionist States (LoSS) The United Micronations Multi-Oceanic Archipelago (UMMOA) claims recognition from an organization in Italy by the name of International Parliament for Safety and Peace. The continent of Australia swells the number of micronations considerably; micronations there attend to diplomatic business at micronation conferences, including the April 2010 PoliNation conference on an island just off the coast of Sydney, Australia. Ambassadors to other micronations tend to visit, rather than live in them, or conduct diplomacy at a distance. Ambassadors can be assigned to macronations (most commonly to the macronation that surrounds a micronation), but are never recognised as ambassadors by the macronation. The definition of state visit remains the same for micronations as larger ones. Grand Duke Paul of Greifenberg made a state visit to President Kevin Baugh of Molossia on April 21, 2008, where they talked about micronationalism. On May 23, 2008, Grand Duke Paul visited Baron John I of the Barony of Caux. From June 27–30, 2008, Prince Christopher and Princess Erin of Vikesland visited Molossia. During the visit, they engaged in joint military and rocket projects. All of these state visits were between members of the League of Small Nations. Micronations typically use definitions of embassies and ambassadors loosely. Lovely, for example, declares any location its flag is displayed to be an embassy. Some will declare just about any location to be an embassy, including a webpage. Some micronations consist purely as embassies. The citizens of Atlantia, a micronation on the Australian continent, all claim dual citizenship, both Australian and Atlantian. Micronational war (WP) is usually done jokingly. For instance, micronations, such as the Conch Republic, and the Hutt River Province in 1977, have declared war on the macronations that surround them. Macronations generally ignore this. Wars may be declared between micronation; Molossia helped to create another micronation, Mustachistan, and after a territorial dispute went to war with it. Molossia also declared a never-ending war on East Germany (WP), which it claims still exists, on Ernst Thälmann Island. Slightly more serious incidents include Sealand, off the coast of England, whose territory is an island that was a military base during World War II base, that once fired warning shots when a British Navy boat came close to shore, and 'civil wars' in which citizens of a micronation declare war on it, hacking into its website to crash it. References Micronations John Ryan, George Dunford, Simon Sellars Review. The Australian Jody Shapiro will teach you How to Start Your Own Country; Vanessa Farquharson, Oct. 21, 2010, National Post How to Start Your Own Country YouTube (WP) How to Start Your Own Country Pt2 YouTube Alternative title: How to Finish Your Own Country? The lie of WMDs in Iraq admitted The USA retains over 10,000 nuclear warheads, down from a Cold War average of 20,000 Eight years ago, Colin Powell, on behalf of the Bush administration, set the USA, with its nuclear arsenal still at half its Cold War level, on a course for war with Iraq, with a cry of WMDs! OMG! The administration bulldozed their way past Intelligence agencies that decried their evidence as faulty, but Powell's and later Bush's 16 words speeches went on as planned. With the war, the fabrication of the war, and the aftermath of the war, there was much to obscure the fact that one of the reasons for the Bush administration's success in pulling a war out of a hat was that they had the pretext of a real person, albeit unreliable as a source, who was behind the story as they told it. Now, the source of the information, codenamed Curveball, has come clean. "Key Bush Admin "Source" Admits to Lying about Iraqi WMD" Weapons of mass destruction are nuclear, biological, or chemical An Iraqi defector whose claims were used to help build the case for the U.S. invasion of Iraq has admitted for the first time that he lied. In an interview with The Guardian of London, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi—codenamed "Curveball"—says he fabricated tales of mobile biological weapons laboratories and other secret sites under Saddam Hussein. Janabi says he was hoping to topple Saddam Hussein’s government and was "shocked" when his claims were cited in then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s infamous address to the United Nations eight years ago. Top Bush administration officials insisted on highlighting Janabi’s claims despite widespread doubts amongst U.S. intelligence. - Headlines for February 16, 2011, Democracy Now! File:Switch off internet in case of political dissent.jpg Satirical graphic made in reaction to the internet blackout in Egypt This shows a different side to the plausible deniability tactic, and a double standard for the reliability of information: providing just enough information to silence dissenters makes information reliable for allies and supporters, where just enough doubt for allies and supporters makes dissenters' information unreliable. 2011 Egyptian media censorship The Hacktivism (WP) group Anonymous (WP) displayed the altruistic side of direct action for the uninitiated, with low-tech faxes, to update Egyptians behind the information 'Iron Curtain' during the January 2011 internet block in Egypt. 2011 USA intervention in Haitian elections File:Haiti Election Vote Recount (Percent of Registered Voters).png 75% of voters are reported to have stayed away from the April 2011 runoff elections. The 71% of Haitians who did not vote in the November 2010 elections was one of the reasons for the runoff and ousting of Celestin by the USA File:Michel Martelly Poster.JPG 'Sweet Micky' poster, 23 November 2010 In 2009, the Fanmi Lavalas party, closest to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forbidden participation in Haiti's November '10 elections by the provisional election council created by the current president, Rene Praval. Under cover of the Egyptian protests, the US, to the orchestrated swell of allegations of voter fraud as a pretext for runoff elections, pressured Haiti to remove Jude Celestin, the candidate least affiliated with right-wing Haitian government, US-backed Haitian governments, Haitian dictators, or all three, after the election was criticized as unfair. The US also pressured Haiti to add Michel Martelly to the ballot, to face Mirlande Manigat in the revised election. Election fraud debunked; voter boycott proved Michelle Martelly won the subsequent runoff election, that was also "marred by problems". The fact that 71% of Haitians stayed away from an election without Lavalas was used to justify the runoff election and give credence to the claims of voter fraud by Celestin. But at the runoff election itself, the turnout was even lower; 25% instead of 29%. The recent voter turnouts are a slump back to pre-Aristide levels; 60% or more of Haitians voted in all the elections in which Jean-Bertrand Aristide or his Lavalas party were on the ballot. • Michel Martelly, 'popularly known as' "Sweet Micky" — a moniker sometimes used interchangeably to refer to himself as well as his band — is a Haitian performing and recording artist, composer, and musical sociopolitical activist, who breaks the expected lefty mold of American and British entertainers with his well-hidden support for the Duvalier regime. Between the time of the 1991 coup d'état and the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994, he also supported the government of disbanded Haitian military and pro-US forces that deposed Aristide and took power. He ran on a platform of nothing much in particular, being described as a joke candidate by many reports. However, he claimed nepotism and voter fraud by Celestin, as did Mirlande Manigat. Coalition to Save the Preserves Coalition to Save the Preserves was a name chosen in 2002 by Mark Sands to cover up his arson of a building that he did not want in his area by portraying it as Propaganda of the deed (or more specifically, 'eco-terrorism'). An article on this subject was deleted on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ Coalition to Save Preserves WP administrators can restore the edit history of this page upon request WP+ DEL The fact that Sands had been perpetrating a hoax, however dangerous a hoax, never seemed to fully sink into the minds of some US. security agency employees, and most likely others decided it would be expedient to ignore this fact, and they have issued numerous lists of terrorists with the CtStP included: In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security issued a threat assessment that included the CtStP as one of the threats on US soil that had carried out domestic terrorism. Listing on the Global Terrorism Database by START National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a Center of Excellence of the US Department of Homeland Security based at the University of Maryland Understandably, Sands' Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) activity was something of a threat to real direct action (WP) advocates, and Earth First! (WP), with considerably fewer resources than the FBI or the later security agencies, was at the time, at pains to point out that it was not responsible for his activity Anarchopedia:Article in the news archive • • Pretenders to the Ottoman Dynasty • • 2011 Egyptian media censorship • • 2011 USA intervention in Haitian elections • • Operation Avenge Assange • • Killing the drug fields: Paraquat poisoning from Operation Intercept to present • • Venesat-1 Citations