Unconscionable Squatters

The Forward, which bills itself as "the Jewish daily", had an article this week on American Jews who choose to become illegal settlers on occupied Palestinian land. The "difficulties" they face are illustrated by the following comment:

"'Before we found Neve Daniel, my husband told me, 'I love you and I want to live in Israel, but I'm very materialistic and if I don't have a nice house, we're not moving,' said Lara Kwalbrun, a peppy mother of six, as she gave a tour of her luxurious new home while toting a baby in her arms."

As long as moving into an illegal settlement meant life in a mobile home, a large number of American Jews weren't interested. They left it up to their more pioneering and violent brethren to go out and "colonize" the area, to actually confront the owners of the land with clubs and guns and chain saws and bulldozers. Now that the out and out outlaws have "claimed" the land, so to speak, and the base can move into a gated community fed by water siphoned away from the Palestinians and policed by troops paid for by American taxpayers, these new settlers can move in and never have to come into contact with the people they have displaced. You know, the ones walled in.

Another choice quote:

"Jerusalem has evolved to be like Manhattan in terms of prices and having to live in an apartment," said Michael Chernofsky, an orthopedic surgeon from Pennsylvania who recently moved with his family to Efrat, a Gush Etzion settlement. "If you want to live in a house, you need to move out to the suburbs."

Language is a powerful means of creating an illusory world. We make up words to replace other words, antiseptic words to replace bothersome and ugly words, neutral or comfortable words that point away from injustice and suffering. The Palestinians are being ejected out of Jerusalem by force and by a series of laws that mean that if they are essentially imprisoned on the West Bank and unable to return to their homes in East Jerusalem, after a certain amount of time, the state can confiscate their property.

"Suburbs" brings to mind the manicured lawns of the New Jersey many of these settlers have left. "Suburbs" has associations of being the epitome of American life. "Suburbs" is a telling example of how language is used to create an illusory world that we take for reality.

Settlements on Palestinian land are illegal in international law. The settlers are criminals. Not only that, they are actively abetting the genocide of the original inhabitants of the land, the Palestinians who have been walled off into compounds on their own land.

If such actions don't make your blood boil, then you probably don't have a conscience. I'm not talking about a set of rules you live by that let you believe you are a 'good person', the kind of thing you can apply mechanically as a series of if-then statements that allow you to see how much you can get away with in any given situation. We all go through that stage as kids, and some people do actually outgrow it. Though from the state of the world, it is clear that it is a small percentage. But there are unfortunately large numbers of people for whom this stage represents the pinnacle of their moral development.

Illegal settlers are certainly counted among their number. They are, however, buttressed in their selfishness by the ideology that justifies killing off the Palestinians in the name of their god, so their crimes, crimes to anyone of conscience, become holy acts under the ideology of Judaism as well as to their Christian supporters.

There is no excuse for these acts. None. And anyone with a functioning conscience knows this, feels this deep in his or her gut. Any attempt to justify or explain away the theft of land and genocide of the people of Palestine is a clear marker that the individual has no conscience or that it is so far asleep that it may as well not exist.

USA TODAY/Gallup Poll results - USATODAY.com

The following rather scary news came fromUSA TODAY/Gallup Poll results today. Sixty-six percent (66%) of Americans, according to the poll, think that "Creationism, that is, the idea that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" is either "Definitely true" (38%) or "Probably true" (27%).

The weird, though perhaps not surprising, thing is that 53% of Americans also think that evolution is either definitely or probably true. And just to make it simple for them, the poll defined evolution as "the idea that human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life". That a certain percentage of the respondents were unable to see a contradiction between the two responses is what is weird. Millions of years on the one hand, under ten thousand on the other... anyone see a problem here?

The poll also checked on whether or not the people responding considered that they were familiar with the ideas of evolution and creationism. Here, 82% thought they were either very familiar or some-what familiar with evolution, while 86% thought they were very or some-what familiar with the ideas of creationism. What can we say? No one thinks they're stupid.

That Perception Thing: Romney bemoans tarnished U.S. image

Really. It is all out there for anyone with two firing neurons to see. The Associated Press offers us the following:

Republican Mitt Romney on Wednesday jabbed at President Bush, saying the image of the United States has suffered globally based on the perception that it invaded Iraq unilaterally.

[...] "There has been the perception that we have not been as open and participative with other nations as is our normal approach," he said.

Perception? Because most of the rest of the world opposed the invasion, this is only a "perception"???

He said the next president must not only re-engage Middle East and European leaders — labeling France's new conservative leader Nicolas Sarkozy as a potential "blood brother" — but also Latin American nations.

Romney said his call for expanding the U.S. prison camp for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was consistent with that world view, despite condemnation from some human rights groups and other countries. He said the prison's intense interrogating environment is necessary to prevent future attacks.

"I think some people see Guantanamo as a source of America's arrogance, and I see it as a source of America's resolve," Romney said.

He said terrorists such as Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed had broken when they were kept from the traditional U.S. justice system with legal representation and typical court proceedings.

Romney added: "The food down there is unbelievable. This is not this gulag; this is a modern prison which treats people with dignity and respect."

Romney's call for expanding Guantanamo is certainly consistent with his world view because his world view is to make an alliance with the pathological elite of other countries against people of conscience the world over. They will need camps such as Guantanamo spread out over the globe to handle those who resist the increasing authoritarianism and tyranny of the pathocrats.

What is worrisome is that Romney can say this stuff and no one bats an eye. He whitewashes the use of terror using the antiseptic wording "intense interrogating environment" while in the same breath describing it as a place that treats people with dignity and respect! Now, anyone with a conscience will know that the two concepts are contradictory and mutually exclusive. There can't be torture and respect and dignity at the same time. Torture is predicated on treating the victim as less than human, as not worthy of respect. Yet this man is a contender for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.

So where does that leave the United States? Is it only a question of perception? Torture, invasion, occupation, the thoughtless killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, support for the genocide of the Palestinians by Israel, all only a question of perception?

If you're a psychopath, yes. In the mind of the psychopath, reality is whatever they think it is. And as long as people of conscience don't call them out on it and insist on the reality of reality, the one we share, that we are born into and die in, then nothing is going to change. As long as we define reality as that little bit of turf we touch in our own lives, that turf that is as yet untouched by false arrests, torture, job loss, illegal detention and the like, and as long as we turn our backs on what is happening to others of our kind, that is, people of conscience, just because it is out of sight, out of mind and doesn't touch us directly, we are all a bit psychopathic ourselves.

'I did what I thought was right'

The Guardian brings us the following report on Tony Blair's exit from politics:

Mr Blair announced the handover date in a conciliatory, confessional, almost humble speech in his Durham constituency, in which he apologised for when he had fallen short, but insisted "hand on heart" that he had always done what he had thought was right for the country. [...]
He added: "I was, and remain, as a person and as a prime minister, an optimist. Politics may be the art of the possible; but at least in life, give the impossible a go. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong, that's your call. But believe one thing, if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country."

And that is really the trouble. Everybody thinks that what they are doing "is right". How many people do you know who do things because they think they are wrong?

Meanwhile, a report from the new French news site set up by former journalists from Liberation, Rue89 tells us that Hillary Clinton made the outrageous remark over the weekend that the Iraqis didn't seize the opportunity that the US gave them! And there are people who still think that there are differences of importance between the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States! No wonder the Dems are still supporting the war.

Al "Joseph Goebbels" Gore

While reading Global Warming: They call this a consensus? this morning, I noted a very telling statement:

I stopped believing that a scientific consensus exists on climate change. Certainly there is no consensus at the very top echelons of scientists -- the ranks from which I have been drawing my subjects -- and certainly there is no consensus among astrophysicists and other solar scientists, several of whom I have profiled. If anything, the majority view among these subsets of the scientific community may run in the opposite direction. Not only do most of my interviewees either discount or disparage the conventional wisdom as represented by the IPCC, many say their peers generally consider it to have little or no credibility. In one case, a top scientist told me that, to his knowledge, no respected scientist in his field accepts the IPCC position.

The article also tells us:

Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.

This, of course, reminded me of the fact that Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, followed two primary rules when brainwashing the German public. The first was to tell a big lie loud enough and long enough so that people would eventually start to believe it. The second rule was to always accuse your enemy of your own worst crime.

Airport Security

I recently had the... opportunity... to fly through the UK. It was a brief stopover on my way somewhere else. Flying these days is an absurdity designed to insult our intelligence. First, there is the new regulation that liquids must be placed inside a clear plastic freezer bag. The bag keeps the items separate from the rest of your belongings on any bag you carry on. This rule is the aftermath of last summer's accusations that the invisible but omnipresent 'Islamic terrorists' had a plan to make explosives in an aircraft toilet, a dastardly plot that was, fortunately, foiled by the heroic efforts of British intelligence.

Well, more than one expert has written on the absurdity of making explosives on an airplane without the necessary laboratory equipment, but that information doesn't make it onto Fox News, the BBC, or the mainstream newspapers.

The long and the short of it is that flyers are forced to put their toothpaste, shampoo, perfume, bottled water, and any other liquid into plastic bags. And we are supposed to think that we are safer for it. In France, certain soft cheeses, such as camembert, must also be put into the plastic bags.

I arrived in the UK with two bags: the first a small bag with my clothes and the second a bag with papers, books, and my laptop. I had no trouble getting onto the plane in France with them. That changed in the UK. Arriving at the security checkpoint before having my bags scanned, I was stopped and told that I was only permitted one carry-on bag. A new rule, I was told. I stopped, more than a little non-plussed by the remark. I said I hadn't had any problems in France with the two bags. I said to the security agent that I only had one carry-on bag, the clothes bag, but the other was more a briefcase. The reply was that I had two bags and only one was permitted. Well, quite obviously I wasn't in France, or Kansas, anymore. Fortunately, the woman security agent was friendly. She asked if the book bag would fit into the larger clothes bag. I knew there was no way it would fit, but I duly unzipped the clothes bag and placed the book bag on top. Very little of the book bag was on the inside of the clothes bag. I made a move to try and force it more deeply inside, but before I could do anything the woman said, "See, now you only have one bag!" I looked up to see if she was joking. She smiled and said, "You see, you have one bag. You can proceed".

So I proceeded... on to the scanning machine, carefully holding my 'one' bag in my arms so that it wouldn't fall apart into two bags. Arriving at the scanner, they asked me to remove the book bag from the clothes bag to send them to be x-rayed separately. And so they stayed for the rest of the trip, through the x-ray machine, through the wiping down to check for explosives, and as I walked to the gate, one bag on each arm.

An hour later I was out of the UK. What can you say about such absurdities? It is clear that the entire 'airport security' scam has nothing whatsoever to do with 'terrorism', Arab or otherwise, and a lot to do with programming the population to accept greater and greater levels of interference in their lives. The message is "Big brother is ubiquitous: get used to it". The trouble is that no individual can do anything abut it: One by one we move through the airports, and any pointed remarks about the ridiculousness of it all only brings down the potential for being detained as a 'suspicious character', never to be permitted to fly again.

We have accepted each move put into place by the pathocrats against our rights and liberties, preferring to feel secure against a non-existant enemy. Hard-fought gains of freedom have been thrown out the window with little thought.

The planet is being put into lock down mode. What are you doing about it?

The Masks are Falling

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about an evening spent watching the Al Gore global warming film An Inconvenient Truth sponsored by the local branch of Attac, a French association active in questions of globalization. Last week was an evening with another group, the monthly Repas UFOlogique in Toulouse. I have been attending these meetings fairly regularly for almost two years, but not because of any particular interest in UFOs. Once you look at the data and see that a small percentage of the sightings cannot be explained by any known technology, and you study the reports that have come down through the ages of strange phenomena reported in the skies, you come to understand that our reality is a lot weirder than they teach us in school or in the mainstream media. After that, to chase after some nuts and bolts craft that might be peopled with god knows what, well, no thanks.

But there are open and friendly people there each month, and it's a chance to get away from the computer for an evening....

So the subject of the evening was the recent opening of the files of Le groupe d'études et d'informations sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés [Geipan], a working group within the French research network called the CNES. The files the group are putting on-line are the reports from the Gendarmerie made by individuals who have seen something curious in the skies. None of the information was ever classified. They amount to police reports of unexplained sightings. In other words, nothing special: no declassified documents from the government, the military, or the French intelligence agencies.

However, there has been a certain amount of press about the publication of this material on the web, and so this evening there was a journalist from the Depêche du Midi, the local paper, coming to cover the Repas UFOlogique and the presentation by a member of Geipan. Before the presentation started, the journalist moved from table to table (the meetings are held in a restaurant, which is why they are the 'Repas' UFOlogique) asking the participants about their interest in UFOs.

When she got to my table, the other person present began to say that he wasn't interested in UFOs more than that. He was interested, however, in the reasons the governments of the world lie about UFOs and why they refuse to publish their classified info on the subject. If there is nothing there, if UFOs are nothing more than swamp gas or sightings of Venus, then what do they have to hide? He then brought up the subject of 9/11, pointing out that once again the government had lied, and that it was an inside job.

The journalist then turned to me. I said I agreed. I was there because I am an editor at Les Editions Pilule Rouge, and we publish books that attempt to bridge the gap between science and the mysterious. I concurred that it was the way governments treated the question that was intriguing, once one admitted that there was 'something' there. I said that the study of history shows that myth and legend is replete with appearances by creatures who appear to have a mastery of space and time, beings that we label gods or fairies. My working hypothesis was that UFOs were manifestations of these beings, not ETs from other plantes. History also shows that these beings don't have our best interests at heart... and that led to more talk on 9/11 and the coming cyclic catastrophe...

Well, the poor journalist was having her head spun six ways to Sunday by then, but she continued to ask questions, and, wanting to be helpful, I continued to answer them.

Then, the organizer of the evening came running over to the table in a fit. She grabbed the journalist and said, "This is suppose to be a story about the meeting tonight, not about conspiracy theories. I don't want you to report anything that he (pointing to me) has been saying." And the two of them moved away.

Whoa!

Talk about the mask falling. The organizer, who until then had been extremely friendly with me for as long as I had been going to the meetings, showed another side. I was simply answering the questions I was asked, and WHAM!

Then the conference started. The speaker knew his stuff and took a scientific approach. When members of the audience said, "Yes, but given what we know, these unexplained sightings have to be extra-terrestrial...", he said that, no, all forms of human technology haven't been ruled out. There are top secret programmes that have billions of dollars of financing that could produce such technology. The true believers in the crowd didn't want to hear that. As the speaker said, "When you say 'we don't know of any human technology like this, therefore it must be ET', you lose me at the 'therefore'. That is where science confronts conviction".

And he is correct. That is where science does meet conviction, but it also shows that science has blinders because there is a lot of info that can be used to support the non-human working hypothesis from history, as Laura has shown in The Secret History of the World.

After the conference was finished, the organizer came over to me and explained that if I wanted to get any publicity, I could phone the newspaper myself and arrange an interview. By then I was so disgusted with the entire evening that I muttered under my breath, "Whatever...", the first time I have ever descended to valley-girl speak....

On the sidewalk after the restaurant closed, the discussion continued. I was talking with a regular participant, and we were discussing the way things seem to be speeding up and the world is becoming more openly polarized between those who want to believe their subjective interpretation of the world, which amounts to believing an illusion, or, to be more blunt, the lie, and those who are working to see the world as it is. The masks are starting to fall as quickly as the meteorites.

The evening was an excellent example.