Thursday, September 13, 2012

JOIN US in a BeThePeace / Globally Synchronized Meditation / Sept 21, 2012 - The International Day of Peace


BeThePeace on September 21 // Join a Massive Global Meditation for Peace

How would you like to participate in one of the largest globally-synchronized
meditation and prayer events in history?

On September 21, 2012, the International Day of Peace, hundreds of
organizations and thousands of individuals worldwide will join together as ONE for
BeThePeace.

BeThePeace will feature public meditation/prayer events hundreds of cities
worldwide from starting at 6 pm in local timezones, creating a profound planetary
wave of peace.

There will also be three Global Attunements for Peace during the day when
everyone can connect via telecast at the same time: 12am, 12noon, and 12
midnight EDT,creating three deep planetary pulses of peace. And throughout the
day, people will be able to connect virtually via a Global Care Room, in which
people can ‘see’ each other as points of light on a spinning Google Earth map,
providing a stunning visual image of the global field forming in real time before
your eyes.

Check out the video at https://vimeo.com/48985098

Check out all the details at http://bethepeace.com

Join the Facebook event at http://bit.ly/BeThePeaceEvent

Local organizations are invited to collaborate and create events in their city. You
can too. Find out more at BeThePeace.com. Global organizations are invited to
spread the word and inspire all networks to join.

Join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by sharing photos of yourself holding
"I Am Peace" posters with the hashtag #BeThePeace. Let's show the world what
World Peace looks like!

Join us!

Thank you!

Alfred Lambremont Webre
ExoUniversity.org


US Congress approves extension of secret surveillance under FISA


RT: US Congress approves extension of secret surveillance under FISA

Posted on by Jean
Published: 12 September, 2012, 20:30
Edited: 13 September, 2012, 01:27


U.S. Capitol.(AFP Photo / Win McNamee)
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to extend the government’s power to warrantlessly wiretap Americans for another five years by reauthorizing the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Lawmakers in the House agreed from Washington, DC on Wednesday afternoon to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), a polarizing legislation that has been challenged by privacy advocates and civil liberties organizations alike around the country. The extension was approved by a vote of 301 to 118.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was first signed into law in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter, but amendments added two decades later under the George W Bush administration provide for the government to conduct widespread and blanketing snooping of emails and phone calls of Americans. The FISA Amendments added in 2008, specifically section 702, specify that the government can eavesdrop on emails and phone calls sent from US citizens to persons reasonably suspected to be located abroad without ever requiring intelligence officials to receive a court order.
If the US Senate echoes the House’s extension of the act, the FAA will carry through for another five years until 2017, ensuring the federal intelligence community that they will be able to conduct surveillance on the correspondence of the country’s own citizens well into the future. If no action is taken, the FAA is slated to expire at the end of 2012.
Earlier this year, a plea from two US senators to see how many times the FAA has been used was refused by the National Security Administration. Last month, San Francisco’s Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit against the US Justice Department for failing to adhere to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents pertaining to the program.
“The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008 gave the NSA expansive power to spy on Americans’ international email and telephone calls,” the EFF explained in an official statement made after the suit was filed. “However, last month, in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, a government official publicly disclosed that the NSA’s surveillance had gone even further than what the law permits, with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) issuing at least one ruling calling the NSA’s actions unconstitutional.”
Sen. Wyden, a Democratic lawmaker from Oregon who has also sit on the Senate intelligence committee for several years, originally asked for Senate to place a hold on the vote this past June. This week, Sen. Wyden tells Reuters, “My hold is on and it will stay on,” although that plea does not apply to the House, however, where lawmakers appeared eager on Wednesday to power through the vote.
So determined were some lawmakers to proceed, in fact, that the rules of the debates preceding Wednesday’s vote called for no more than one hour of discussion before ballots were cast. Several congressmen, including lawmakers that planned to vote yes on the FAA extension regardless, proposed a two year extension as a compromise, but no new amendments were allowed to be tacked on before Wednesday’s vote.
Despite opposition on and off the Hill, the FAA has received praise from some of Washington’s most elite members of the government, including Attorney General Eric Holder and long-standing lawmaker Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the sponsor of the FAA renewal who also infamously urged Congress to approve the since-defeated Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, a broad and dangerous Internet legislation that threatened to reshape the Web as we know it.
In his address at Northwestern University School of Law this past March, Mr. Holder said section 702 of the FAA“ensures that the government has the flexibility and agility it needs to identify and to respond to terrorist and other foreign threats to our security,” but emphasized the fact that only persons thought to be outside the US — not Americans — can be targeted. When Sens. Wyden and Udall asked to know how often that snooping involved Americans at all, however, they were told by the NSA’s Inspector General that a “review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of US persons.”
On his part, Sen. Wyden has written, “that if no one has even estimated how many Americans have had their communications collected under the FISA Amendments Act . . . Then it is possible that this number could be quite large.”
“Since all of the communications collected by the government under section 702 are collected without individual warrants, I believe that there should be clear rules prohibiting the government from searching through these communications in an effort to find the phone calls or emails of a particular American, unless the government has obtained a warrant or emergency authorization permitting surveillance of that American,” the lawmaker wrote in an official press release earlier this year.
Rep. Smith, the sponsor of both this bill and SOPA, has said, “We have a duty to ensure the intelligence community can gather the intelligence they need to protect our country.”
On Thursday, Rep. Smith claimed, “Foreign nations continue to spy on America to plot cyber-attacks and attempt to steal sensitive information from our military and private sector industries,” and that Congress has “a solemn responsibility to ensure that the intelligence community can gather the information” necessary to hinder these attempts.
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-California) added on Wednesday from the Hill that reauthorizing the FAA is “critical to the protection of the American people,” claiming that the United States, “as a nation had not done enough to connect the dots to warn us sufficiently to protect” against another terrorist attack on par with the ones that devastated America on September 11, 2001.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, also used the attack on the Twin Towers to justify the necessity of extending the FAA.
“If we could come together to remember 9/11, surely we can come together to prevent another one,”said Rep. Gowdy.
Opponents of the act, however, say that the attempts to do as such come at a cost too great for civil liberties.
“We’ve been told that we can’t even tell how many people are being subjected to this process located in the United States, and that we don’t know and they can’t tell us,” Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan ) pleaded earlier this year in opposition to the act. “I think we can get a little bit closer. There can be some reasonableness. It’s this kind of vagueness that creates in those of us in the Congress, suspicions that are negative rather than suspicions that are positive.”
“Why can’t we know how many people are affected by FISA amendment act in the US?” Rep Conyers asked. “This kind of vagueness creates suspicions.”
Former Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said on his own part that those suspicions are even more validated since the Justice Department has declined to adhere to a Freedom of Information Act request for information on the FAA, explaining on Wednesday, “Everyone becomes suspect when big brother is listening.”
Rep Hank Johnson (D-GA) also threw his weight behind efforts to reject the act on Wednesday, saying it the FISA amendments allow for “illegal surveillance of an untold number of American citizens” with absolutely no oversight.
“Not even the NSA knows the extent to which FISA amendment acts have potentially been approved,” Rep Earl Blumenhauser (D-Oregon) added from the House floor before the vote.
The American Civil Liberties Union reports that, every day, the NSA intercepts and stores around 1.7 billion emails, phone calls, text and other electronic communications thanks to laws like FISA. To put it into perspective, they add,“that’s equivalent to 138 million books, every 24 hours.”
“After four years, you’d hope that some basic information or parameters of such a massive spying program would be divulged to the public, or at least your rank-and-file member of Congress, but they haven’t,” says Michelle Richardson, a counsel at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “Only a small handful of members have either personally attended classified briefings or have staff with high enough clearances to attend for them.Sen. Ron Wyden — who has been on the Senate Intelligence Committee for years—
has even been stonewalled by the Obama administration for a year and a half in his attempts to learn basic information about the program, such as the number of Americans who have had their communications intercepted under the FAA.”
“Can you believe that 435 members of Congress who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are about to vote on a sweeping intelligence gathering law without this basic information?” she asks.
Related articles

INSANITY AT THE FED! Fed to Print $480 BILLION!


Posted on by Jean

M O N E Y A N D M A R K E T S* BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN * BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN *
******************************************
INSANITY AT THE FED!
Fed to Print $480 BILLION!

by Mike Larson
Thursday, September 13, 2012
******************************************
Dear Jean,
At 12:30 today, Fed chief Ben Bernanke proved that what many have suspected all along is indeed true:
The U.S. Federal Reserve is patently INSANE!
In reporting on this week’s FOMC meetings, “Helicopter Ben” announced that the Fed is going to do the same old thing and expect better results:
It’s going to hold interest rates near zero as far as the eye can see …
And it’s going to print $40 BILLION new dollars per month in an attempt to stimulate the economy — a whopping $480 billion per year!
In short, it’s doing the same things it has done since 2008 — but expecting better results:
Any way you look at it, that’s THE VERY DEFINITION OF INSANITY!
Look: The Fed has ALREADY held interest rates near zero percent for four long years, now.
Plus, it has ALREADY created $1.8 trillion out of thin air through QE I and QE II …
And it has ALREADY bought hundreds of billions of dollars more worth of long-term Treasuries as part of Operation Twist 1 and 2.
So what’s the result?
NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER ON THE REAL ECONOMY!
Sure — all that free, easy money temporarily buoyed the stock market — but despite everything the Fed has done …
** Unemployment has stayed over 8% for 42 straight months …
** The average family home is STILL falling in value …
** Profits at many major corporations STILL stink — and they’re getting more rotten almost by the day …
** U.S. economic growth is STILL grinding to a near standstill …
** And now, as America approaches the precipice of its great fiscal cliff, the stock market looks for all the world as if it’s a massive bubble about to burst!
Worse, the middle class — the very backbone of the U.S. economy — is getting eaten alive:
>> HOUSEHOLD INCOME IS PLUNGING: The U.S. Census Bureau just reported that real median household income has now fallen for the fourth straight year.
Income has fallen so low, in fact, that when you adjust for inflation, the median family has the same income today as it did in 1967 — 45 long years ago!
>> THE INCOME GAP IS WIDENING ALARMINGLY: The Census Bureau is also reporting that the movement of income away from the middle class has just hit a record high.
That’s terrible news: Typically this kind of increasing disparity in income occurs just before economic calamities — and today, it’s more extreme even than before the 1929 stock-market crash and the Great Depression!
>> U.S. POVERTY IS AT ALL-TIME RECORD HIGH LEVELS: Finally, as if to add insult to injury, the Census Bureau also reports that a staggering 46.2 million Americans now live in poverty!
And not only isn’t the Fed HELPING … its failed efforts to revive the economy are creating a second crisis:
Thanks to the Fed’s past money-printing gambits, the Producer Price Index just jumped 1.7% in August — hands-down the biggest surge in producer price inflation going back to June of 2009!
**********************************
Make no mistake:
The U.S. economy is broken.
Nothing the Fed can do will fix it.
**********************************
To the contrary: The Fed’s easy money policies CREATED this crisis by inflating the housing bubble.
Now, they’re only making matters worse — doing absolutely NOTHING for the job market, while driving inflation higher!
And as America’s great Fiscal Cliff approaches — the catastrophe that JPMorgan says will push America “head-first into the fiscal meat grinder” — the storm clouds are darker than ever.
This is why we produced our new video — “America on the Brink:  The Great Fiscal Cliff of 2012-13” — and why it is absolutely imperative that you view it immediately:
In this extensively documented video, I show you why so many leading authorities are saying this crisis is threatening to …
  • Tear trillions of dollars out of the hands of U.S. consumers and companies …
  • Bankrupt thousands of businesses …
  • Drive the unemployment rate to unimaginable levels, and …
  • Leave the U.S. stock market a smoking ruin.
Plus, I reveal …
  • Why this will dwarf every financial catastrophe the world has ever seen and explain why it is now all but inevitable …
  • The giant banks and popular stocks that are most likely to crash and burn as this event explodes into the headlines …
  • Name the special types of investments that are most likely to skyrocket in value as this crisis unfolds …
  • Give you six free survival manuals designed to help you defend what’s yours — and even grow your wealth as this modern-day catastrophe unfolds.
  • And much more!
And although this crisis will not wait for you, me or anybody else … you can get all the critical information you need to prepare right now — for FREE!
This video is absolutely free to view — just turn up your computer speakers and click this link to begin preparing NOW!
Best wishes,
Mike Larson
We love hearing from readers. But our editors won’t get your e-mail if you simply hit the “reply” button. So please send your questions, comments and suggestions to: support@weissinc.com.
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Chicago Teachers Union Chief Linked To Communist Party & Obama!

Chicago Teachers Union Chief Linked To Communist Party & Obama!

Thursday, September 13, 2012 11:39


 Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis speaks at a news conference outside the
union's headquarters in Chicago on Sept. 9, 2012

Isn’t it strange…. that when documented information is posted about the Communist Party USA and its funding…  foreign national, POTUS, Obama’s name always comes up?
Well…back to the ‘poor’ Chicago teachers who make an average salary of $76,000 a year and their leader, Communist Party-linked Karen Lewis, who is believed to receive approximately $300,000 in annual compensation.
With Harry Reid’s Las Vegas, SEIU union ‘thugs’ and AFL -CIO’s chief a member of the Communist Party…they want pro-American’s support?
Give me a break!
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Chicago Teacher’s Union President Karen Lewis marching with anarchists in Chicago.
Gateway Pundit ^ | 9/10/12 | Jim Hoft
More Hope and Change… Mike Klonsky, an Obama supporter and former associate of the radicals who formed the terrorist group the Weatherman, received a $175,000 grant from the William Ayers/Barack Obama-led Annenberg Challenge to run the Small Schools Workshop.
Klonsky belonged to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was best friends with friends William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who later became famous for their acts of terrorism. Later he started a blog on the Obama website:
Between 1979 and 1981, Communist Party chairman and Obama supporter Mike Klonsky was repeatedly feted with state-dinner-level visits to Beijing.
And get this… Klonsky reportedly shared offices on the same floor with Barack Obama and Bill Ayers at the University of Illinois, Chicago campus.
So it should come as no surprise that Mike Klonsky, the former Communist Party leader, is a huge supporter of Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers’ Union. Chicago teachers went on strike today for the first time in 25 years despite the fact that the average teacher salary in Chicago is $74,839 a year.
Michelle Malkin has more on the Chicago education mob:
Obama served with Weather Underground terrorist and neighbor Bill Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge education initiative. Downplaying academic achievement in favor of left-wing radical activism in the public schools is rooted in Bill Ayers’ pedagogical philosophy. Obama served as the program’s first chairman of the board, while Ayers steered its curricular policy. The two oversaw grants to welfare rights enterprise ACORN and to avowed communist Michael Klonsky – a close pal of Ayers and member of the militant Students for a Democratic Society. SDS served as a precursor to the violent Weather Underground organization.
As investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz reported, Klonsky and Ayers teamed up on the so-called “small schools movement” to steer schoolchildren away from core academics to left-wing politicking on issues of “inequity, war, and violence.”
You just can’t make this stuff up.

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Karen Lewis: A bully and a poor leader
November 14, 2011
Karen Lewis is an outspoken president with poor professionalism


Chicago Teacher's Union President Karen Lewis allowed her lack of professionalism “shine” in a speech given on Oct. 1 before the Northwest Teachers for Social Justice in Seattle, Washington.

According to the Chicago Tribune, “Karen Lewis was elected President of the 30,000 member Chicago Teachers Union on June 11, 2010. A CTU member since 1988, Lewis taught high school chemistry in Chicago Public Schools for 22 years.

Lewis has served the Union as a member of the House of Delegates, High School Functional Vice President and as a member of the Illinois State Certification Board. She received National Board Certification in 2002. In July 2010, Lewis was elected Vice President of the American Federation of Teachers and in October 2010 she was elected Executive Vice President to the 70,000 member Illinois Federation of Teachers. Lewis transferred from Mount Holyoke College to Dartmouth College where she was the only African American woman in the class of 1974.”
In her speech, her credentials and respect became immediately stained by her snide commentary. As NBC Chicago reports, “some say she crossed the line by mocking U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who speaks with a lisp. ‘Now, you know he went to private school ‘cause if he had gone to public school he would have had that lisp fixed,’ she said on stage. ‘I know – that was ugly wasn’t it? I’m sorry.’”
This outburst not only undermines the integrity of the purpose of her speech, but also allows administrators, teachers, students, and parents to see that “bullies” are a constant in schools. If we are to keep students safe, we need to cut bullies at the source. “Kyle Olsen of the Education Action group which released the video, criticized Lewis' comments about Duncan. ‘I think it was ridiculous. It was unnecessary. And it goes contrary to what we hear in school about no bullying, treating people with respect,’ Olsen said” as found by NBC Chicago.
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Chicago thuggery personified: Meet Chicago Teachers’ Union president Karen Lewis


By Michelle Malkin  •  September 10, 2012 10:52 AM

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, shown speaking Aug. 28 at Trinity All Nations Church in Chicago
This is the woman leading the walkout of 26,000 public school teachers in Chicago. Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers’ Union, is a loud-mouthed “social justice” radical whose Big Labor racket would rather abandon 350,000 children to the streets than accept merit-based pay, teacher evaluations, and a 16 percent pay raise. The school board had already caved considerably on the union’s demands, but as the Chicago Sun-Times put it: “From the get-go, the union seemed intent on striking.”
Last night, Lewis mocked public charter schools that are defying the strike and doing their jobs as not “real” schools.
Derision is her specialty. Her tirades at teachers’ confabs are infamous. Don’t feel sorry for her when she moans about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s bully tactics and trash mouth. Lewis has one of her own. Here she is bragging about smoking weed in college, cracking homophobic slurs about Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s lisp, and whining about teachers being “demonized” at a “social justice” conference:
Here’s Lewis chumming it up with former Communist Party leader Michael Klonsky, who praises her as a “fist-in-the-air, crowd-rousing, dynamic union leader.” Asked to explain increasing dissatisfaction with public education, Lewis blames lack of respect for government union teachers’ leaders on…”lower class students” and “students of color.” It’s always someone else’s fault:
Out: “For the children.”
In: Blame the children. Screw the children. But then, that was always the teachers’ union’s way.




Real Reason for U.S. Embassy Attacks Is Much More Sinister


The Rumor Mill News Reading Room 

Real Reason for U.S. Embassy Attacks Is Much More Sinister
Posted By: DannyCahalin [Send E-Mail]
Date: Thursday, 13-Sep-2012 16:41:31

Reader wj sent this along,I cut the word expert out of the headline because I am sick of listening to the experts.I lean more towards Agent Andy's post,with the goal being to effect the upcoming election.Anyhow here is the piece from the blaze,sounds to me like it is meant to incite, so discernment is suggested, take care all.
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Islamists claim their bloody siege of the U.S. Embassies in Cairo and Benghazi on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was catalyzed by an “anti-Islam” movie
Experts say the real reason for the onslaught was not a movie mocking Islam, but part of a concerted “ten year plan” to make slandering Islam unlawful on an international scale
U.S. administration’s hair-trigger reaction was to first apologize for offending Islam, rather than meet fire with fire over the act of war on U.S. soil
A contingent of the Islamists waging the attacks were the very “rebels” America aided in the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt and Libya
The bloody attacks on U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya that left four American public servants, including a U.S. ambassador dead, have sparked international outrage and controversy. Islamists claim that the catalyst for the riots was the release of an American movie critical to Islam, but according to Middle East and foreign policy experts interviewed by TheBlaze, there is a more sinister motivation at play for these bloody acts of aggression than meets the eye.
The film, to experts, only served as a “convenient excuse” for Islamists — particularly Salafists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood — to escalate tensions to a fever pitch in the hopes of achieving their ultimate goal: To make “slandering” Islam unlawful on an international level.
If it sounds too far-fetched to come to fruition, those whose life work has been to study, analyze, and in many instances prosecute Islamic terrorists, provide some compelling food for thought. First it is important to understand the current complexity of the relationship between the U.S., Libya and Egypt following the Arab Spring uprising.
The genesis of Tuesday’s bloody attacks
While the Middle East has been no stranger to turmoil, the years 2010 and 2011 marked a significant turning point in the region, as the U.S., led by President Obama under the guise of NATO, intervened in Libya’s budding civil war between civilian rebels and forces loyal to the late Moammar Gadhafi. Preventing the carnage from overspilling further, America’s role in helping to overthrow the despot who ruled Libya with an iron fist for over four decades turned out to be a thankless job.
On Tuesday, militants — some of whom were likely part of the very rebel-base the U.S. supported against Gadhafi — breached the American Consulate in Benghazi, slaughtering four Americans including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. But a similar situation brews in Egypt. As with Libya, the Obama administration wholeheartedly signed on to aiding the “middle class folks“ trying to catch a break in Tahrir Square as they waged an ”Arab Spring” to oust then-President Hosni Mubarak. Again, Obama stepped in, aiding the very rebels who reports now indicate are largely Muslim Brotherhood operatives and other militants hostile to the West and Israel.
How did the newly “free” Egyptian “middle class folk” thank the U.S. for its efforts? Seize the U.S. embassy in Cairo, lower the American flag that had been flying at half-mast in honor of 9/11, and replace it with a black Islamic flag declaring jihad that read: ”There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.” The configuration of the letters formed an emblem often used by Islamic radicals. Meanwhile, protesters chanted, “we are all Osama.”
More Than Just a Movie: Experts Say They Know the REAL Reason for U.S. Embassy Attacks in Egypt & Libya
Photo Credit: AP
The U.S. response
Islamists claim that the catalyst for both the attacks in Cairo and Benghazi were based on the release of an obscure American film critical of Islam.
Below is a trailer for the movie:
Even some members of the embassy’s staff took to Twitter to state that the U.S. government even condemned the movie. The tweets were subsequently deleted and the State Department and the White House has since distanced itself from the comments.
Nonetheless, U.S. consulates and its employees — especially after three and half years — are indeed part of the administration, thus many believe the tweets in question reflect the overall view of the Obama White House: apologize for offending Islam rather than go toe-to-toe with enemies who carried out an act of war on American soil.
The president stated that while the United States “rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.” Hardly the kind of self-assured response one would hope for in a commander in chief following an act of aggression on this scale.
Motivations
Earlier on Wednesday, TheBlaze reported that experts assert the protests were planned by Salafists (an extremists sect of Islam) with the Noor party, which holds roughly one-quarter of Egyptian parliamentary seats, long before reports surfaced of the questionable “anti” Mohammed movie. Noor Party leader Nader Bakkar joined the rampaging crowd while simultaneously (and perhaps conveniently) condemning the onslaught. TheBlaze adds:
The protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo was announced Aug. 30 by Jamaa Islamiya, a State Department-designated terrorist group, to protest the ongoing imprisonment of its spiritual leader, Sheikh Omar abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
One also cannot avoid the fact that one of the very first responses to come out of the administration was not to assail those who waged an act of war against the U.S., but to apologize for offending Muslims — and therein lies the rub.
Consider the following.
A Reuters report on Wednesday following the attacks indicated that General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, actually spoke with Pastor Terry Jones by phone and asked him to withdraw his support for the film which allegedly mocked the Prophet Mohammad.
“In the brief call, Gen. Dempsey expressed his concerns over the nature of the film, the tensions it will inflame and the violence it will cause,” Dempsey’s spokesman, Colonel Dave Lapan, told Reuters.
U.S. military officials are allegedly concerned that the movie could incite violence against any of the 74,000 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan. In fact, earlier on Wednesday, the Taliban called on Afghans to do just that: “Take revenge” on U.S. soldiers over the film.
The idea put forth by experts is fairly straightforward: By proving time and again that slandering Islam will bear a hefty price-tag which includes the loss of American lives, Islamists believe that U.S. lawmakers will ultimately find it in Americans’ best interest to introduce legislation deeming it unlawful to slander Islam.
More Than Just a Movie: Experts Say They Know the REAL Reason for U.S. Embassy Attacks in Egypt & Libya
Photo Credit: AP
While such a push would be a flagrant assault on the First Amendment, progressives, already on full-throttle when it comes to their political correctness-agenda, could likely attempt to pass off such legislation under the banner of “protecting” the public, and further, military men and women from potential violence.
Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi indicated as much himself. While never fully condemning the U.S. embassy attacks, the newly elected Egyptian president did make demands on the U.S. to address, via legal channels, the alleged slight on Islam.
Reuters reports that Morsi asked the Egyptian embassy in Washington to take “all legal measures” permitted in the U.S. against the filmmakers for their supposed crimes.
More Than Just a Movie: Experts Say They Know the REAL Reason for U.S. Embassy Attacks in Egypt & Libya
Photo Credit: AP
So as the Muslim Brotherhood mouthpiece compels Egyptian embassies to place pressure on the U.S. government to prevent further insults to Islam using legal channels, the floodgates could soon open. You might also recall from TheBlaze’s “Rumors of War III” documentary and previous reports that the Muslim Brotherhood is gaining a foothold in American government and politics.
Expert analysis
Andrew McCarthy, former Assistant United States Attorney responsible for leading the 1995 prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman – a.k.a. the “Blind Sheik” — shared his thoughts with TheBlaze based on years researching Islamic extremism. He believes that President Obama has exacerbated “a longtime, bipartisan failure to confront the fact that Islamic supremacism is not a fringe ideology of terrorists.”
“It is the predominant Islam of the Muslim Middle East, and it is rabidly anti-American,” he told TheBlaze.
“Obama looks at it as something to be embraced. When it collides with American constitutional standards, like Sharia blasphemy laws do with American free speech, he would have our Constitution give way.”
In terms of the president’s foreign policy, McCarthy stated unequivocally that it “has been a debacle.”
“Sometimes it is amateur hour, sometimes it is the willful aiding and abetting of the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Western Islamists. In either case, the result has been to subordinate American interests to the interests of America’s enemies.” McCarthy, who was featured on TheBlaze documentary, “Rumors of War III,” added that GOP contender Mitt Romney is now well-primed, in the wake of the U.S. embassy-attacks, to show his leadership.
“Romney has no lines to worry about — and those who say he does are making a terrible mistake. He wants to be president of the United States, he needs to show that he will be an effective champion of American principles and interests.”
Cited as the Pentagon’s leading expert on Islamic law, Stephen Coughlin also caught up with TheBlaze to talk about the “ten-year plan” that was drafted by Islamists in 2005 intended to make Islamic slander a crime — not just in Islamic countries, but across the globe.
“And now they are putting that into action,” he said pointedly.
Coughlin explained that there was never an “Arab Spring,” but rather, a “Salafist-Muslim Brotherhood takeover” in the Middle East and that accepting that fact is key to understanding Islamists’ strategy.
He asked for people think back to the disproportionate outrage that ensued in the Muslim community over the Pope’s 2009 comments about Islamic tyranny, and to the fist Quran burning in Florida led by pastor Terry Jones.
Both incidents, according to the attorney and scholar, were actually first reported on in the Muslim world not Western media. The goal, he claimed, was to “manufacture an event” with which to incite violence and ultimately “subordinate the U.S. First Amendment.“ It was engineered ”to get President Bush, Obama, whoever…to say ‘sorry.’” Thus the goal is to compel the West to blame the West for bringing violence upon itself.
He added that there is a “total lack of situational and strategic awareness” in U.S. government and that groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and American Islamists are actively attempting to “get us to defeat ourselves.”
“We have allowed ourselves to be surrounded by Muslim Brotherhood front groups” in government who are even affecting the training of our officials. His advice to Romney or any lawmaker moving forward is simple: “Jihadists are fighting in accordance with Islamic law…when they say they are jihadists, [at least] pretend that they mean it.”
To summarize his overall feelings on America’s enemies, Coughlin closed the interview with a quote from Abe Lincoln, in which the 16th president talked about “the dogmas of the quiet past“ being ”inadequate to the stormy present.”
“As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country,” Lincoln continued.
Could U.S. law really change to suit the Islamist agenda?
Whether or not Islamists would ever be able to achieve their ultimate goal of changing U.S. law to suit their theological agenda remains unclear, but they certainly seem to be trying. It is also worth noting that if such an event were to even happen at all, it would likely be carried out subtly, in stages.
Regardless of the outcome it would behove analysts, intelligence agencies, specialists and policy-to not succumb to mores of political correctness and become “willfully blind” to what experts agree is the true face of Islam.
As Maya Angelou said: “The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
video's and pics here
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/more-than-a-movie-experts-claim-real-reason-for-u-s-embassy-attacks-is-much-more-sinister/

WALL ST. INSIDER - EVERY CONCERN ABOUT THIS MAN CALLING HIMSELF OBAMA HAS PROVEN TRUE - AND FAR WORSE IS YET TO COME


The Rumor Mill News Reading Room 

WALL ST. INSIDER - EVERY CONCERN ABOUT THIS MAN CALLING HIMSELF OBAMA HAS PROVEN TRUE - AND FAR WORSE IS YET TO COME
Posted By: Seawitch [Send E-Mail]
Date: Thursday, 13-Sep-2012 17:52:18

WALL STREET INSIDER: Sadly, Every Concern About This Man Calling Himself Obama Has Proven True – And Far Worse Is Yet To Come.
by Ulsterman
A message from a longtime Wall Street insider expresses further worry and anger over the seemingly purposeful and dangerous actions of President Barack Obama.
My Friend,
You receive this message as you likely look over the latest reports coming from the crisis that is now truly engulfing the Middle East. What symbolism to be found in such tragic events for America taking place yesterday, September 11th? As we all remember with a mixture of sadness, horror , and righteous anger those events of 2001, we are then greeted with yet more tragedy yesterday from the very same hatred that flew those planes into those buildings not so long ago.
And as you so rightly put it yourself, the man calling himself Obama has indeed built this crisis. Built it with his own arrogance, his own ignorance, and his own evil intent to destroy America as it exists and replace it with something far less strong, far less capable, and far more prone to defeat.
Many months ago I shared with you information pertaining to a growing rift between Israel and the Obama government. It was a rift born directly from the anti-Jewish policies of those closest to the false president. A manifestation of biases found deeply rooted in such figures as Valerie Jarrett, a figure our mutual friend has of course spoken of often and with such frightening accuracy. She, Iranian-born, who long ago embraced the patronage and radicalism of the Muslim Brotherhood, that institution who now controls Egypt, much of Libya, and intends to spread like an aggressive cancer across the Middle East. Even the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia is not safe within the confines of their collective trillions. They helped to create this monster, but as the story so often goes, the monster inevitably turns against its master. So it now is with the Muslim Brotherhood.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THIS LINK:
http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/09/12/wall-street-insider-sadly-every-concern-about-this-man-calling-himself-obama-has-proven-true-and-far-worse-is-yet-to-come/

Message from the Ashtar Command 9/12/12 ‘Goodwill Towards Man’


Rumor Mill News Agents Forum
Message from the Ashtar Command 9/12/12 ‘Goodwill Towards Man’
Posted By: Mr.Ed [Send E-Mail]
Date: Thursday, 13-Sep-2012 17:03:18

Message from the Ashtar Command 9/12/12 ‘Goodwill Towards Man’
Seemingly impossible dreams are now being reached by you and all of the people of your Earth who envisioned for themselves a land designed as an incredible reward for everything that they would have to endure to enable themselves to be the receiver of such a wonderful gift. This day is now rapidly approaching. It is in your sites, it is just up ahead, and when we use these metaphors for you we usually mean they are up ahead quite some distance, but you are indeed closing in on them, getting closer every day and this is why we use the term ‘soon’ or ‘in the days ahead’, for this is the best we can do.
Believe it or not, we do not know when it is you will reach this next milestone for yourselves. We still do not know our dear friends when it is the first members of your people will poke through, so to speak, the bubbles of dimensional layer. This is what you are waiting on. You are not waiting on us to do anything. It can be said that it is we that are waiting on you, although we tell you we are not sitting around waiting for anything, as we are working very diligently each and every day, all day, all, what to you would be night, and all throughout what to you would be a week. It is then that we start all over again in a constant continual motion, and what we are doing is helping you burst through this bubble.
This is what we are doing each day for you. We are not lounging around and taking it easy while you do all the work, as we have said, we are here to assist you and assist you we will do around the clock, as you say, for this is why we are here and while we are here we are not going to do anything else until we complete our task and begin to escort the first of you up and through the dimensional layers that have divided us for so long. For some of you, it has been so long since you worked, lived and socialized with us, your friends and your family of the higher realms. We see that many of you have forgotten what it is like working with our command on board our ships. If you could remember more clearly you would remember that we do not loaf around, that we work tirelessly, we work in duty and honor for our commands and our beliefs in service to others, in our, what you can say in a way is charity to others, though, we do not look at it as charity as you may.
We look at it as what we are, it is what we do. It is our lives, it is our hopes, it is our dreams, it is everything for us and about us, and that is helping another. You may be able to see this and you may be able to start remembering this, for many of you, yes many of you are members of our organization the Ashtar Command. There are not just a few of you who are incarnated representatives of our organization, no. There are quite a number of you and this figure may surprise. We would say that there are among your people approximately two to three million of you who are members of our organization. Does this surprise you? Is this number surprising? Is this number quite higher than you had imagined? We feel this number would outweigh the number many of you may have envisioned considering the miniscule number of you that have awakened and have responded to your true divine purpose, your mission here in service to others and this planet as well who is also ‘another’, you may say, as she too is a being, a living, breathing and conscious being, an emotionally experiencing being.
She is not just a rock that floats in space as many of you may imagine a planet as. She is alive. She breathes through her trees, these are her lungs. She drinks her own waters and absorbs them through her soil. She cools herself with ice and she warms herself with the sun. She nourishes herself with the essence of life, with love, the love she receives from her furry creatures, insects, birds, fishes, all kinds of animals and humans as well. This is how the love that she has for you and gives to you is reciprocated. She asks for so little, yet she gives so much. Do you see how much she gives you? She gives you a home, she gives you shelter, she gives you materials to make your clothing, she gives you plenty of food, she gives you plenty of water, she gives you cloud cover to protect you from the burning rays of the sun and she gives you warmth to shelter you from her cold spells. She provides you an education and fun, excitement and adventure. She provides you mystery and wonder, challenges and absolutely breathtaking beauty.
Can you believe sometimes how beautiful she is? We cannot, for we have traveled to such a great many places throughout this universe and we will tell you that there is not many places as beautiful as she. We wish you to remember this and we wish you to think about this the next time you are passing a factory or a power plant polluting her skies, her soil and her water. Remember that the next time you see piles of garbage in fields or in forest. Remember that as you are driving down yet another stretch of asphalt that blankets her like scars on a beautiful child. Remember this, for we are going to help you change all this, but we always want you to remember what had happened to her, and we want you to do your best to make sure it never happens again.
This we will also make sure, for we will always be here in one form or another, in representation, to look over you, to keep in touch with you, to always observe what is going on here for this planet, she is a very special place. She is a little different we will say than any other place in this entire universe. We wish to describe for you a little bit how and why she is so beautifully unique. She is so precious, for she was built a little differently. Her upbringing you may say was a little more complex, a little more nurtured and treasured and attended to than many other planets in this entire universe, for it was here on this outpost way out beyond the center of this gorgeous galaxy where many great minds from all over this universe came together and chose this planet where there was to be built a very special civilization. A place where beings from all throughout this entire universe, throughout each and every galaxy could come here and join together in brotherhood, in sisterhood, in common good and love and service to each other.
It was here that it would be more a fairground, more a university, if you will, more a great conference hall, a place where all different kinds of beings from all different kinds of lives would come and share together their journeys, their stories, their histories, their cultures and their gifts. This planet was to be a remarkable place, a great library, a living and breathing and feeling library, where all of the people that visited here or lived here could walk through the forest or through fields or through flowers and learn the histories of all of the different races and cultures and worlds throughout this entire universe. How this would be done, you may ask?
Well, how it would be done was, let us say, you come upon a beautiful tree, and this tree would actually begin to speak to if you began to speak to it. It would begin to reveal to you its history, where it has come from, who raised her, how she lives and breathes and thinks, and she would explain to you the culture of the people and their planet that brought her here. Say you would then walk through flowers in a field and you would say hello to them and they, the flowers, would say hello back to you. You could ask them what kind of flowers that they are and they would tell you. You could ask them where they come from and they would explain this to you. You could ask them who are the people that brought you beautiful flowers here, and they would begin to describe for you the history of their people.
What do you think of that? Do you think that was a wonderful vision that these beings who journeyed here and conferred together came up with? Well, that is the truth dear ones. That is the true history of your planet, and we have a surprise for you. Nothing has changed. This plan was not discarded or forgotten long ago through the aging sands of windblown time, no. This plan is still the plan, and it is still very viable and possible for you to experience just what it is that this planet was designed and sculpted for. What do you think? Is this exciting and does this surprise you? Can you believe that there will be a day when you can walk through the forest and speak to all the different kinds of trees and they will recite for you their long history and the cultures that have brought them here to this beautiful little blue planet that floats majestically on the outskirts of this, your beautiful Milky Way galaxy?
What we have said here is true dear ones, and this is the vision we see for your planet until this very day. You, the people of Earth, the children of her, are all brothers and sisters and this entire planet is the house, is the home that you share. We wish you to always remember this the next time you have an issue with another and they may say something you do not agree with and you feel compelled to lean into them with harsh words or a rather hostile vibration. We just wish to remind you of what kind of special place is this home that you share with them and that if you and this other person were not special as well, you would not be here, for only certain individuals were ‘selected’, you may use the word ‘chosen’ if you'd like, as some of your ancient texts use the word chosen instead of selected, that is the only difference. We simply have begun to use the word selected, but it was then when your ancient books were written that we, yes it was we, chose to use the word chosen.
Are you beginning to see who we may be now? Yes dear ones, we are all of those ‘Gods’ that were spoken of in your Holy Bible, your Quran, your Torah, your Egyptian manuscripts, all of your wonderful and beautiful and in many ways accurate ancient texts, spiritual, religious, as you say, historical books and stone carvings. Yes, we are the ‘Gods’ as you called us then, and many of you still use the term God, but we do not you see, that is the only difference. Again, we simply do not refer to ourselves as Gods as perhaps some of us dared thousands of years ago in your time. This has caused a great deal of confusion, as many of you today still debate with each other whether there is one God or many Gods or false Gods and we say to you it's really rather a matter of simplicity and is very easy to understand.
We, the members of the Ashtar Command and also our brothers and sisters of the Galactic Federation of Light were here way back then. We traveled in our ships which were quite an eyeful for the human population here as you can imagine, and we possessed tools of greatly advanced technology, tools that they had never before seen. So naturally they believed we were something different than they, we were something far and above them, which is not true whatsoever, we wish to make that clear today and every day. We are you, so how could we be any different than you? We simply possessed tools and technologies and clothing that they did not, for they were, you may say, in their ‘infancy’, although a few thousand years ago considering you have been here hundreds of thousands of years is certainly not an infant child, no, but in terms of technology yes, you were at a stage of your development that was more the world of a child, for you had fallen great steps ‘down’, you may say, or behind would be more accurate.
Your people and your civilization reverted back from a super advanced technological world back to an age where you were learning the finer points, we will say, of farming and of hunting and gathering. Not all at the same time, but through different periods. Your modern-day historians and archaeologists and scholars believe this was your birth, when you were just learning these things, but we remind you that you were not at all learning them, you were in a way relearning them, for you had done these types of chores before, but it was not here and it was not on this planet, no.
You had learned to farm and hunt and gather and domesticate animals and all these things attributed to your ancestors here on this planet far removed from this planet on other planets where you originally came from, where you first began to build civilizations. Do you see? When you came here you were far from learning agricultural standards and practices. When you came here you were fully knowledgeable beings living in a fully functional technological world, an advanced world, a world far more advanced technologically than you are today. You were also much further advanced spiritually, mentally, emotionally and academically than you are today.
Yes, this is what some of your ancient texts referred to as the ‘fall of man’. The ‘fall of man’ was not your journey here or your reason or cause for you being here, we wish to make that clear. The fall of man refers to a period in your history when a cataclysm caused your advanced societies to plummet into the ocean and caused many of you to start all over again from the beginning where you had to relearn agriculture and relearn how to hunt and to gather and to fish, how to domesticate animals and relearn how to treat each other and work and socialize with each other, for you see, what happened here was a tragedy that left only a very small number of you, and when this happens there is going to be a regression period, for so much of your knowledge and your advancement and your refinement was lost deep below the seas.
Do you understand this clearer today dear one? Do you see how the entire portrayal of your history is just one great big false story, a misleading story, a work of fiction? You were never primitive beings on this planet. You were not what your scholars and historians and archaeologists refer to as cavemen and cavewomen, that is obscene, that is a lie. You came here as very highly advanced beings from so many different planets in this universe, and it is the cultures of these planets, it is your brothers and sisters of these worlds who are offended the most by these slanderous portrayals of your history and the name that has been given your ancestors; caveman and cavewoman. It is what your ancient books describe as blasphemy. That is blasphemous.
We will, with your assistance, for you were here and you will remember being here, rewrite all of your ancient texts including, and we wish to be delicate here, the collection of books that you refer to as The Holy Bible, for there are many wonderful stories and historical depictions contained within those wonderful pages and we, those who were also here throughout those periods of your history, wish to simply make them more accurate, bring them more to life, fill in some of the blanks, as you say, and clear up some misconceptions, confusions and outright blasphemies.
This is what we, with you, are going to do, and do not worry, for those of you who believe that we are going to delete some of the many characters portrayed in these ancient books, for the most part, all of the characters that you read about were actual living, breathing beings here on this planet and, for the most part again, we say their lives and their tales were described very accurately, yes. What do you think about that? We would love to see you talk amongst yourselves today and discuss who we may be referring to and discuss with yourselves if this surprises you. Did you think that the stories recited in your Holy Bible were works of fiction, were the work of over imaginative minds, or did you think these books were compiled merely to control you and so they were works created by the members of the cabal or their paid writers?
We say to you this is not the case and that many of these stories are, in large part, fairly accurate accounts of the true history and the lives of many of your brothers and sisters who may even have returned here through the form of incarnation to be with you here again in your world today. What do you think about that? Do you find that exciting? Do you find that surprising? Do you find that comforting? Well, we will tell you, and we don't wish to spoil any surprises that we have for you in the days to come, but we will say to you surely that there are many individuals who grace so many pages of your collection of books you know as The Holy Bible that are walking, living, breathing, thinking and feeling in your world today. They are your brothers and sisters and they may even be members of our organization or our brothers and sisters of the Galactic Federation of Light.
What do you think about that? Is that surprising that some of the major historical figures in your Holy Bible are members of one of our two organizations? We feel this will surprise many of you, and we feel there will be a great outcry from some of you that may read these words who believe for some reason that these historical figures would never be a part of our alliance. We ask you what would lead you to believe this. Do you believe that, as they did so much to help the people, their fellow brothers and sisters thousands of years ago, that they would give up on what inspires them the most? Do you think that they would move on to other practices and ways of life? Or do you think that they, the first chance they would get, would return here to continue doing what it is that inspires them, that motivates them, that makes them feel alive and return here, and in love and in charity and in service to others continue on in their ‘mission’? Yes, are you getting the connection now?
They were a group of individuals, men and women, who thousands of years ago walked from town to town on the dry scorched earth of your planet and preached to all who would listen. They preached of a better way and they shared messages of hope, of love, of peace and prosperity and good will towards man, every man, and that included every woman and child alike. These men and women were real. They existed. Their stories were accurately depicted in the pages of what you refer to as your New Testament. They were on a mission then and they are on a mission today. They have never stopped working towards their mission. They were missionaries then and they are missionaries today, and they are honorable members of our alliance of the Ashtar Command and our brothers and sisters of the Galactic Federation of Light.
That is what they do today, for they no longer have to walk over miles and miles of dirt road with wind and sand blowing in their faces to reach yet another town and preach their words while standing upon a rock. No, today they have a different form of transportation, one that can take them to different lands and different planets all throughout this galaxy and each and every galaxy throughout this entire universe. This is what they do today. They have never stopped, although again, we just do not use the word ‘preach’ anymore, for it is outdated, archaic, and we instead use the term ‘shining our light’ for yes, they are like us, just like some of you may have suspected all along. You were very intuitive right from the beginning and we say to you bravo, job well done, for you saw what so many others did not see.
We are your brothers and sisters who have returned here to continue our mission in love and charity, in service to others and goodwill towards man. We are the Ashtar Command.
As channeled through Greg Giles
Ascension Earth 2012
http://www.ascensionearth2012.org/

WORLDWIDE CORPORATE POWER GRAB OF ECONOMIC PROPORTIONS

WORLDWIDE CORPORATE POWER GRAB OF ECONOMIC PROPORTIONS

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The corporate cabal behind a new trade agreement including Cargill, Pfizer, Nike and WalMart, has done an exceptional job of maintaining an almost total lack of transparency as they literally design the future we will all inhabit.

September 11, 2012
Source: AlterNet 

Photo Credit: Rainforest Action Network
As international trade negotiators gathered this week at a posh golf resort in rural Virginia to hammer out details of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), they sought to project an image of inclusion and receptivity to public input. In reality, this high-stakes global corporate pact, now in its 14th round of discussions, is heavily guarded by paramilitary teams with machine guns and helicopters as it is developed behind closed doors under a dangerous and unprecedented veil of secrecy.
What the hell is the TPP, you may ask? While it is among the largest and potentially most important ‘free trade’ agreements the world has ever seen, one can hardly be blamed for not being familiar with it yet. The corporate cabal behind it, including names like  Cargill, Pfizer, Nike and WalMart, has done an exceptional job of maintaining an almost total lack of transparency as they literally design the future we will all inhabit.
While 600 corporate lobbyists have been granted access and input on the draft texts from the beginning, even high-ranking members of Congress have been denied access to the most basic content of what US negotiators are proposing in our names.
Thankfully, draft texts of the proposal have appeared on Wikileaks and the  website of Citizen’s Trade Campaign . It is difficult to overstate the potential implications on the lives of people around the world if anything like the agreement in these leaked documents were to be implemented with the force of law.
The TPP is called a ‘trade agreement,’ but in actuality it is a long-dreamed-of template for implementing a binding system of global corporate governance as bold as anything the world’s wealthiest elite has attempted before. Of the 26 chapters under negotiation, only a few have to do directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights and privileges for major corporations while weakening the power of nation states to oppose them. The TPP essentially proposes to establish a parallel system of justice where companies can sue countries in a tribunal of judges composed of unaccountable international trade lawyers with little to no process for appeal.
This wild bastardization of the concept of justice endangers everything from affordable medicines, internet freedoms and intellectual property rights to democratically enacted labor laws and environmental protections. And that’s not to mention the massive outsourcing of middle class jobs from the US to countries like Vietnam and Brunei.
This isn’t just a bad trade agreement, it’s a wish list of the 1%—a worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions.
This week, in an empty warehouse on the outskirts of downtown Baltimore, a group of activists from around the US gathered to plan a spirited week of resistance to the TPP. Finally, after three years of secret negotiations, the momentum of an opposition movement is building. On Sunday, a diverse and raucous crowd of a couple hundred people descended on this exclusive golf resort to demand their voices be heard , chanting after each speaker: “Flush the TPP!”
NAFTA was the last straw that sent the Zapatistas into armed rebellion. The WTO negotiations spawned a robust and global anti-globalization movement the likes of which the world had never seen. Even after 9/11, the FTAA elicited a pushback of people power that even a fully militarized Miami police force could not completely suppress.
But near as I can tell, even though the TPP is bigger, bolder and badder than any trade agreement before it, the small group gathered this week on a grassy hillside in rural Virginia is the backbone of resistance to the TPP today.
The elements are there: a diverse coalition of wonky NGOs, social justice and trade policy experts, urban anarchists, Occupiers and suburban activists painting banners and scheming pranks—labor leaders, environmental groups and representatives from Mexico, Peru and beyond, but the scale is so far totally out of proportion to the threat we’re facing.
But this is beginning to change. Speakers at Sunday’s rally included key labor leaders from the Teamsters, and the Communications Workers of America joined with the leaders of environmental groups from the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and Rainforest Action Network.
The TPP was conceived under the second Bush administration, but it has been embraced and nurtured into maturity under Obama’s watch. The widespread belief among people here opposing it is that the current Administration is in a race to finish much of the negotiations while they can bank on the fact that labor leaders and environmental and human rights advocates will shy away from challenging a democratic president in an election year. Free trade agreements are particularly unpopular in the key swing states Obama needs to win this election—making right now a crucial moment of opportunity to pull the TPP out of the shadows and leverage our combined political power to kill it before it takes root any deeper.
Stay tuned, one way or another history will be made in the coming months and the outcome will forever influence how our communities and countries relate to each other in an ever-shrinking world.

For more background and details on the TPP negotiations and content,  click here.

Laurel Sutherlin is RAN’s Communications Manager for the Forest Program. He is a life long forest defender and social justice advocate specializing in environmental education and strategic communications.

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