Government of the USA in Exile
Free Americans Reaching Out to Amerika's Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free
Via <prez@usa-exile.org>
March 23, 2013
http://aircrap.org/thrives- kimberly-gamble-will-succeed- stopping-chemtrails/336920/
Thrive’s Kimberly Gamble: ‘We WILL Succeed at Stopping Chemtrails’
Posted by adminChemtrail News, FeaturedFriday, March 22nd, 2013
By Ross Pittman | ConsciousLifeNews.com
“I’m very confident that we will, in fact, succeed in stopping chemtrails.” – Kimberly Gamble
Listen to Kimberly Gamble, producer, director and co-writer of THRIVE talk about the Thrive Solutions Hub and how it will be used to coordinate a world-wide effort to stop chemtrails. The two-year plan for Thrive is to use the solutions hub to take on chemtrails and use it as a model of whole systems solutioning. The process will be documented so that it can used for other issues such as GMOs, fluoride, banking, whatever. “I believe that success begets success,” says Kimberly.
Here are some of the topics that are discussed during the interview:
The incredible success of the movie Thrive, which is being viewed over a million times per month worldwide.
The two-year plan for Thrive is to use the Thrive Solutions Hub to take on chemtrails and use it as a model of whole systems solutioning.
The Thrive Solutions Hub – a new model of coordinating the efforts of activists. It’s about being strategic and organized in how we go about it. See: The Thrive Solutions Hub: An Evolutionary Tool for Resolving Critical World Issues By Enabling Activists to Pool Their Resources and Talents
It’s also about taking advantage of the huge amount of work that has already been done by people like Clifford Carnicom, Dane Wigington, Morgan Carey, and Michael Murphy.
Common rule – the government is not allowed to experiment on people without their informed consent. We have the right to not be sprayed. The US government has been convicted at least 30 times for doing toxic experiments on humans.
Success begets success. Stopping chemtrails will build confidence that other issues can be successfully resolved.
There are already over 650 groups participating in the solutions hub worldwide, and over 40 of those groups are dealing with chemtrails.
How to sign up on the solutions hub and get involved at various levels and in various sectors.
The importance of living your life in alignment with purpose
Speculative information on chemtrails often gets mixed up with factual info. Need to stick with the facts. There are plenty of facts to work with.
The intelligence is there. Solutions are there. People are waking up. Organization is the key.
We don’t need everybody to agree on why we are being sprayed. We do need for people to agree that it is a violation of our rights to clean air.
Take the best information from various informed sources. If something doesn’t fit, then don’t throw everything out. Get educated. Do your own research. Collect the facts.
Lessons learned from Evon Peter about how his tribe in Northern Alaska, the Neetsaii Gwich’in, deals with dissenting opinions. All concerns are respected.
Foster and Kimberly worked with Barbara Marx Hubbard and The Shift movement to come up with sectors for the solutions hub.
Ask strategic questions about every aspect related to chemtrails:
Who is benefiting fr feedbacplan?
Who is manufacturing the chemicals?
Who is distributing them?
How does the money flow?
What is the financial incentive? For example, Monsanto has a patent on aluminum resistant seeds. Check that out and determine the connection.
FYI: I just registered a group for Santa Monica, CA. It took less than five minutes.
Here’s more from Kimberly Gamble about the Thrive Solutions Hub:
We launched the Hub last summer with the intention to provide tools and materials to help people create local groups and put the Thrive Solutions Model into action. For us, this model is key to creating effective solutions that assure a whole-system approach is utilized for maximum coherence. We experienced this coherence when we stopped the Moth Spray program here in California back in 2007. The Solutions Hub is the first time we’ve attempted to offer a system to support this model online.
Thanks to people’s feedback, over the past months we’ve learned a lot about what’s worked with it and what hasn’t. We have also become more clear about the best role we can play to support the growing movement for creating effective solutions. Based on our experience, here is our current plan for the Solutions Hub as we strive to make it efficient and useful.
The current version of the Hub is based upon a social networking platform that our web development team had created for other purposes. We asked them to adapt it so that it could serve the formation and interaction of groups, ideally with the intent to help the coordination and communication within a group, and amongst groups worldwide.
Unfortunately, this platform has proven to be more problematic than expected, and a bit too limited in its functionality to meet the needs of groups to effectively self-organize and coordinate actions and shared resources. Having invested a lot of time and a fair amount of money into this first version of the Hub, we have come to realize that attempting to create another Facebook-like social networking experience is neither our forte nor the best use of our resources.
Although the intention was and is good, the time and money it takes to build and maintain such a system is not the highest leverage action we can take to support individuals and groups as we had envisioned it might be.
Our goal is to serve with maximum effectiveness for the world and maximum efficiency for us with the resources we have at hand, so we have taken the time to reflect upon what feels most true for us to meet this goal. To this end, there are three areas we feel we can best serve through the Solutions Hub:
Education
Providing live and recorded webinars and courses to share the concepts and application of the Thrive Solutions Model, including how to put it into action in a real-world solutions process, such as we did with the Moth Spray. We discovered that only a few people were attempting to utilize the model, and even for them it would be helpful to learn more about it and how best to put it into action.
Resources
One of the most empowering actions we feel we can take is to provide a comprehensive system for us and the worldwide Solutions Hub community to share and find resources of all kinds that can support both individuals and groups to take effective action. Whether it’s a highly-informative website, book or video, or PDF documents that can be used for legal or legislative leverage, or organizations that are doing leading-edge work within various Sectors and Critical Issues, or graphics and posters that can help communicate vital messages and actions, having access to these kinds of resources can make a huge difference when organizing locally, regionally and globally. We have created specifications for a new resources section of the Hub to meet this need and are excited about the prospect of what it can provide.
Community Directory
Being able to find and connect with each other and network our knowledge, talents and actions is the third component we feel is essential to empowering a global solutions movement. This is, of course, what we set out to do with the current version of the Solutions Hub. Although this version is designed to register Solutions Groups only, we’ve learned that for the most part it is individuals that get inspired to start a group. We understand that it takes a lot to find others to commit to an ongoing process, and without a solid foundation of understanding the Solutions Model, it can feel overwhelming to attempt to single-handedly rally and coordinate a newly-forming group.
As described above, we have decided to reconsider our role and the systems we provide for this, and have determined that offering a directory of both individuals and active groups who want to connect and engage in sharing information and the pursuit of solutions is a better fit for us, rather than the Facebook-like approach we first went with. This new directory will be integrated with the Resources and Education component, and will provide an improved means to make contact with, and communicate within groups, as well as with individuals, using a secure email messaging system that maintains personal privacy.
We feel this streamlined approach will better serve the intent and purpose of the Hub while relieving us of the challenges and demands associated with building and maintaining a social networking platform (and as it is, most groups already have their own Facebook group page or website, and can use other third-party systems like Facebook, Meet-Up and Google+ to coordinate their activities).
So these three areas — Education, Resources and a Directory — are what we feel we can best offer as an overall system to support Solutions Groups and Individuals to apply the Solutions Model and be empowered with the ability to connect with each other and share the resources and actions that prove to be most effective for creating positive solutions.
We are very excited about this new phase. We are refining our plans now and anticipating being able to move forward with it in the next few months. We welcome comments and questions, of course, so please send them toinfo@thrivemovement.com and we’ll do our best to reply in a timely manner.
Kimberly Carter Gamble
Producer, Director, Co-Writer, THRIVE
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http://www.commondreams.org/ view/2013/03/22
Published on Friday, March 22, 2013 by Black Agenda Report
From Detroit to Cyprus, Banksters in Search of Prey
by Glen Ford
From Nicosia, Cyprus, to Detroit, Michigan, the global financial octopus is squeezing the life out of society, stripping away public and individual assets in a vain attempt to fend off its own, inevitable collapse. The bankers “troika” that effectively rules Europe prepares to reach into the individual accounts of ordinary depositors on the island nation of Cyprus to fund the bailout of their local banking brethren. Across the Atlantic, a corporate henchman makes arrangements to seize the assets and abolish the political rights of a Black metropolis. The local colorations may vary, but the crisis is the same: massed capital is devouring its social and natural environment. Either we liquidate the banksters, or Wall Street will liquidate us.
The proposed seizure of a big chunk of every ordinary Cypriot depositors’ accounts, in the guise of a one-time “tax,” was shock – have plenty of experience at liquidating in Detroit. Butch Hollowell, general counsel for the local NAACP, says Wells Fargo has “done more foreclosures in Detroit and the state of Michigan than any other firm,” and is Detroit’s number one property tax scofflaw. Jones Day also represents Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and CitiGroup.
“These are firms that not only got billions in TARP bailouts, but they’re also the same ones that defrauded people into signing these predatory leases which cause the crash of the housing market,” said Hollowell. “Detroit has been hit harder than anyplace in the country on that score” – hugely aggravating the city’s money problems. Financial manager Kevyn Orr’s job is to extract more booty from Detroit for the bankers’ vaults.
To facilitate the theft of the city’s property, its citizens must first be stripped of their political and civil rights, through the neutering of their elr for the notorious corporate law firm Jones Day delivered the bankers’ ultimatum to Detroit. Emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr, anointed by Michigan’s Republican governor, is a bankruptcy specialist whose mission is to liquidate the assets of the 82 percent Black city, especially the revenue-producing Water and Sewerage Department. Orr’s firm’s clients – which, according to their website, include “more than half of the Fortune 500 companies” – have plenty of experience at liquidating in Detroit. Butch Hollowell, general counsel for the local NAACP, says Wells Fargo has “done more foreclosures in Detroit and the state of Michigan than any other firm,” and is Detroit’s number one property tax scofflaw. Jones Day also represents Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and CitiGroup.
“These are firms that not only got billions in TARP bailouts, but they’re also the same ones that defrauded people into signing these predatory leases which cause the crash of the housing market,” said Hollowell. “Detroit has been hit harder than anyplace in the country on that score” – hugely aggravating the city’s money problems. Financial manager Kevyn Orr’s job is to extract more booty from Detroit for the bankers’ vaults.
To facilitate the theft of the city’s property, its citizens must first be stripped of their political and civil rights, through the neutering of their elected officials. Orr looks forward to the project. “While I understand there’s a lot of concern and emotion behind the concept that I’m depriving people of certain rights,” he said, “actually it’s very consistent with both the history of this country and specifically in this state.” What he’s about to do “is democracy in action."
This corporate concept of democracy has already devalued the franchise of the 49 percent of Michigan’s Black population that live in municipalities and school districts under the thumb of outside financial managers, a violation of both the Voting Rights Act and the one man-one vote rule embodied in the 14th Amendment, says the NAACP’s Hollowell.
Black Baptist pastors and the AFSCME and UAW unions will join the NAACP’s planned legal action against the “hostile takeover” of Detroit – which is fine, as a civil rights response. But this is a much bigger battle.
Detroit and the people of Cyprus share the same enemy, a class that is beyond the reach of simple civil rights suits. The Lords of Capital on Wall Street and the City of London and the Federal Reserve in Washington and in the “troika” at Brussels confront their own existential crisis, which compels them to liquidate the public sector so that it can eventually be transferred to their own balance sheets. There are many ways to accomplish this, through privatization of existing public institutions, or by simply blowing a hole in public services and allowing privateers to fill the void, subsidized by public funds. However, nothing can save the banksters from inevitable, and increasingly imminent, collapse. Ever-increasing profit margins must be achieved, somehow, or the system implodes. Hundreds of trillions of notional dollars in derivatives must be serviced and fed by a class that makes nothing and can only survive by chicanery and coercion by governments under their control.
In Cyprus, they are prepared to brazenly snatch euros directly from working and retired people’s accounts to fund a bank bailout, without even bothering to construct a convoluted pathway from the victims’ accounts to their own. They have reached the point of outright confiscation, and will not stop until they have stripped society of the potential to save itself from the ruins.
We have no choice but to confiscate them – to destroy them utterly as a class.
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http://www.commondreams.org/ view/2013/03/23-5
Published on Saturday, March 23, 2013 by Waging Nonviolence
People of Cyprus: Follow the Vikings!
by George Lakey
When the banks of the Sweden, Norway and Iceland went out of control, the people refused to bail them out, and the economies of all three countries were the better for it. Instead of allowing themselves to be bullied by international investors represented by the IMF and the European Union, the Cypriots who are facing a similar crisis today might want to learn from the Viking example.
The Cyprus banking sector went rogue to the point that it became eight times larger than the rest of the country’s economy. Perhaps the bankers thought they would become too big to fail, requiring the country to rescue them. But why should citizens rescue bankers?
There is a better way, which is what the Scandinavians insisted on.
When it comes to a financial crisis, what’s needed is the combination of popular will and the existence of an alternative. The Vikings combined smart economics with the organizing muscle to make it happen. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama said he knew that the Swedes handled their banking crisis in the correct way, but he also acknowledged that the United States wouldn’t follow the Swedish path. Why? Obama believed that we wouldn’t back him with a mass direct action movement in a confrontation with Wall Street.
So, what is the alternative to bailouts for rogue banks? And what can a movement do when the party in power is in bed with the 1 percent?
What democracy looks like when banks go out of control
In the 1980s, Norway and Sweden set aside what had been working for them — democratic socialism — and flirted with neo-liberalism. They deregulated, setting free the financial sectors. The private banks speculated, creating housing bubbles. By the early ’90s, the bubbles burst. Both nations headed into crisis.
In Sweden, 90 percent of the banking sector experienced massive losses. Fortunately, the Social Democrats, the party of the working class, was in power and decided against bailouts. The government nationalized two of the banks, sheltered some that looked like they could survive, and allowed the rest to go bankrupt. Stockholders were left empty-handed.
As it turned out, three of the other large banks were able to raise necessary capital privately. Regulation was re-imposed and Sweden came back strong.
This Swedish version of “tough love” put the economy in such a strong position that when the 2008 financial crisis hit most of Europe, Sweden could use a series of flexible measures that minimized disruption. Its banks had already been cleaned up. Its famous social safety net kept Swedes accessing unemployment insurance, health care, education and job training.
The result: By 2011 the Washington Post was calling Sweden the “rock star of the recovery,” with a growth rate twice that of the United States, lower unemployment and a robust currency.
When Norway’s banks went out of control, the Labor government seized the three biggest banks of Norway, fired the senior management and made sure the shareholders didn’t get a krone.
The now publicly owned banks were given new, accountable management and time to clean up. The government told the rest of the private banking sector that it were on its own: If bankers had money in their mattresses with which they could re-capitalize, fine; if not, they could go bankrupt. There was no way Norwegian citizens would bail them out.
The lesson for Norway’s entire financial sector was unmistakable. No more moral hazard: Risk your own money, not other people’s. Failing banks will be allowed to fail, no matter what their size.
The government gradually sold its shares in the banks it had seized and made a net profit. It kept a majority stake in the largest bank, probably as a safeguard to prevent the bank from being sold to foreign owners.
The St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank’s vice president, Richard G. Anderson, studied the responses of Sweden and Norway to their parallel financial crises: “The Nordic bank resolution is widely regarded as among the most successful in history,” he concluded. By bouncing back through effective governmental intervention, Norway and Sweden avoided the “lost decade” syndrome that dogged Japan after its crash in the early 1990s and that is now the reality for the United States and much of Europe.
For activists in the many countries now confronting austerity programs, these examples can serve as a concrete alternative with a track record of success.
But what if your government is in the hands of the 1 percent?
For decades, Iceland followed the “Nordic model,” with high standards of living, free university education, universal health care, full employment and a robust labor movement. The government owned the major banks.
Then, in the late ’90s, Iceland’s political leadership shifted. It began to privatize banks and joined the international trend initiated by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in the United States, a law that separates investment banking from ordinary banking. Now the banks were free to take ownership stakes in their customers’ companies.
Building on Iceland’s economic credibility, the largest banks opened branches abroad and bought foreign financial institutions. They made the Norwegian and Swedish banks’ mistake of creating a real estate bubble, and then went beyond that by making high-risk loans to holding companies. Like Cyprus, Iceland’s banks blew themselves up like balloons, becoming several times the size of Iceland’s gross national product.
In 2008, Iceland suffered one of the worst banking collapses in history. Unemployment and inflation shot up. By September the Icelandic economy was in free fall.
Activists formed a grassroots nonviolent movement to demand resignation of the government. They massed outside the parliament building, banging pots and pans to disrupt the meetings inside — the “Kitchenware Revolution,” they called it.
The crowds grew to 10,000 — out of a total population of 320,000 — and the increasing turbulence forced Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde to announce that he and his cabinet would resign and new elections would be held. Although the politicians responsible for Iceland’s financial life were resigning, the campaigners didn’t stop there; they demanded — and won — the resignation of the governing board of the Central Bank.
The party representing the working class stepped in and pledged that there would be no bailouts, and the three largest banks therefore failed. The government made sure that Icelandic depositors got their money back and gave debt relief to struggling homeowners. For businesses facing bankruptcy but experiencing a positive cash flow, debts were forgiven. The government devaluated its currency in order to support Iceland’s important export market.
The next part will be especially interesting to Cypriot activists who want to fight back: Iceland then repudiated the billions of dollars of debt owed to U.K. and Dutch citizens who had taken loans through online subsidiaries of Icelandic banks. The move sent shudders through the international financial world, but still ordinary Icelanders refused to accept responsibility for the frenzied behavior of their bankers. The question was twice put before voters in referenda, and twice Icelanders said “No.”
Instead of trying to pacify international investors, Iceland created controls on the movement of capital. Instead of demanding austerity, the government expanded its social safety net. The result? Iceland is recovering. By July 2012 unemployment was hovering at 6 percent and falling. The economy was expected to grow by 2. 8 percent.
As The Independent’s Ben Chu has pointed out, ever since the 2008 international crisis both European politicians and ratings agencies “have demanded that national governments honor the debts of their banking sectors, protect their exchange rates, eschew capital movement restrictions, and impose massive austerity to earn back the confidence of bond markets.”
Iceland largely ignored those demands. Did the investors punish Iceland for being so smart and self-respecting? No. In June 2011, the government issued $1 billion in sovereign debt at 6 percent interest, an offering that was twice oversubscribed by investors.
It may be time for Cyprus to join Iceland in treating the bullies like, well, bullies. It may be the little countries that need to act like grown-ups and enforce accountability: Those who make the mess should clean it up. But it will take people’s movements to make sure that happens, movements that have an idea what the alternative is.
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http://www.commondreams.org/ headline/2013/03/22-2
Published on Friday, March 22, 2013 by Common Dreams
EPA Favors 'Bee-Toxic Pesticides' Over Future of Food, Groups Charge
The EPA has refused to protect bees, "so we’ve been compelled to sue," said food safety group
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
Arguing that the Environmental Protection Agency has failed in its obligation to protect the nation's bee population—one of the Earth's most vital pollinators—from dangerous pesticides, a group of beekeepers and environmental groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court saying the EPA's inaction is causing great harm to biodiversity and the future of food in the U.S.
The suit filed by the coalition aims to compel the EPA to suspend the licensing of insecticides that have repeatedly been identified as highly toxic to honey bees and that act as "significant contributors to the devastating ongoing mortality" of bees known as colony collapse disorder (CCD).
“Our country depends on bees for crop pollination and honey production. It’s time for EPA to recognize the value of bees to our food system and agricultural economy," said plaintiff Steve Ellis, a Minnesota and California beekeeper.
The groups involved, which have long been fighting on behalf of the bees, say that the EPA has ignored their efforts, including a petition which urged the agency to take swift action against two insecticides classified as neonicotinoids filed over one year ago.
“Beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups have demonstrated time and time again over the last several years that EPA needs to protect bees. The agency has refused, so we’ve been compelled to sue,” said attorney Peter T. Jenkins of the Center for Food Safety (CFS), which is representing the coalition in the suit. “EPA’s unlawful actions should convince the Court to suspend the approvals for clothianidin and thiamethoxam products until those violations are resolved.”
While the EPA has failed to ban these highly toxic pesticides outright, they have also, according to CFS, failed to properly regulate them.
Those failures include improper labeling of toxic substances, "lax enforcement” for pesticide usage, and the continued practice of allowing companies to exploit regulatory loopholes—often in the form of a process called "conditional registrations."
“Pesticide manufacturers use conditional registrations to rush bee-toxic products to market, with little public oversight,” said Paul Towers, a spokesperson for Pesticide Action Network. “As new independent research comes to light, the agency has been slow to re-evaluate pesticide products and its process, leaving bees exposed to an ever-growing load of hazardous pesticides.”
The pesticides in the case—clothianidin and thiamethoxam—are also included in a list of pesticides that are currently being considered for a ban in the European Union. However, the EU failed to reach a decision in a heated vote last week—a result which "flies in the face of science and public opinion and maintains the disastrous chemical Armageddon on bees, which are critical for the future of our food," according to campaigners working for the European wide ban on the toxic substances.
While clothianidin is manufactured by Bayer, and thiamethoxam is made by Syngenta, neither company chose to comment on the lawsuit, the Guardian reports.
The plaintiffs in the case include four beekeepers, Steve Ellis of Old Mill Honey Co. (MN, CA), Jim Doan of Doan Family Farms (NY), Tom Theobald of Niwot Honey Farm (CO) and Bill Rhodes of Bill Rhodes Honey (FL) as well as Beyond Pesticides, Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network North America, Sierra Club, and the Center for Environmental Health.
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Iran’s Nuclear Program: Tehran’s Negotiations with the West
World powers not negotiating with Iran in good faith: James Corbett. Interview by Kourosh Ziabari
By James Corbett and Kourosh Ziabari
Global Research, March 23, 2013
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: IRAN: THE NEXT WAR?
Canadian radio host and journalist James Corbett believes that the group of six world powers have not ever been sincere and honest in their negotiations with Iran and constantly used the opportunity of talks to put more pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.
“At this point, the players in this drama have all but given up the pretense that this is a negotiation at all. It has become more of a venue for the west to deliver threats and ultimatums to Iran. The goalposts are constantly shifting and have become so hopelessly nebulous that they are about as realistic as it was for Bush and Blair to demand that Saddam Hussein “disarm” the WMDs he never had or face military invasion,” said Corbett in an interview with Fars News Agency.
James Corbett edits, writes and hosts the Corbett Report. James has been living and working in Japan since 2004. He started The Corbett Report website in 2007 as an outlet for independent critical analysis of politics, society, history, and economics. Corbett has interviewed several renowned authors, journalists, academicians and activists for his listener-supported show. He is also a producer for Global Research TV (GRTV).
What follows is the text of Fars News Agency’s interview with James Corbett ahead of the upcoming nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1.
Q: Iran and the P5+1 held a meeting in Kazakhstan on February 26 to talk about Iran’s nuclear program. The past meetings between Iran and the six world powers yielded few practical results as the West has persistently called on Iran to abandon its enrichment activities, while knowing that Iran’s nuclear program is purely peaceful. What’s your viewpoint in this regard?
A: In labor law there is a concept of “good faith negotiation” which stipulates that both sides in that negotiation have to recognize each other as bargaining representatives, attend and take part in meetings at reasonable times, respond in good time to proposals from other representatives, and to respond to those proposals with reasoned responses indicating a genuine attempt to consider them. On almost every point, the P5+1 powers have shown themselves to be in violation of these principles in their negotiation with Iran over the Iranian nuclear program. The attempt to force concessions and/or impose sanctions as a precondition to negotiations is a clear sign that the P5+1 are not negotiating in good faith.
Take the IAEA’s ‘revelation’ this week that Iran is installing “advanced” centrifuge technology at its Natanz plant. The leak comes conveniently right as these so-called negotiations are set to begin, and provides a convenient excuse for everyone, including, of course, the Obama administration, to deliver more hand-wringing about Iran’s “provocative” actions. The problem with this reading, of course, is that this technology is in no way inconsistent with a peaceful nuclear program, and the very same IAEA report also shows no evidence whatsoever that any of Iran’s nuclear materials are being diverted for weapons purposes. All this is conveniently ignored, however, and the entire attempt to replace Iran’s admittedly outdated 1970s centrifuge technology with more stable, modern equipment is portrayed as some type of monstrous breach of international etiquette.
The hypocrisy is self-evident. Iran cannot so much as upgrade its aging equipment without being accused of provocative action. None of its actions are in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the IAEA itself cannot demonstrate any proof that it is diverting any of its nuclear material for an offensive weapons program. Meanwhile, Israel, its avowed enemy who has repeatedly threatened military action against it for even pursuing the idea of peaceful nuclear technology, is the world’s sixth largest nuclear power and yet is not an NPT signatory and has never allowed its nuclear facilities to be inspected by anyone, least of all the IAEA. What clearer indication can there be that the P5+1 are not negotiating in good faith?
Q: Iran has always expressed its willingness for engaging in talks with the six world powers based on mutual respect and provided that its nuclear rights are recognized, but the Western powers have always imposed new sanctions against Iran before the talks and stalled clear and meaningful negotiations. Isn’t this practice a policy of carrot and stick aimed at intimidating Iran and forcing it into making concessions?
A: At this point, the players in this drama have all but given up the pretense that this is a negotiation at all. It has become more of a venue for the west to deliver threats and ultimatums to Iran. The goalposts are constantly shifting and have become so hopelessly nebulous that they are about as realistic as it was for Bush and Blair to demand that Saddam Hussein “disarm” the WMDs he never had or face military invasion. Just this week, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that “If it [Iran] fails to address the concerns of the international community, it will face more pressure and become increasingly isolated.” What does this blather mean? What are the concerns, and how does Iran go about “addressing” them? It is obvious at this point than nothing short of the government of Iran agreeing to shut down the nuclear program entirely and hand the keys to their country over to America would be enough to meet these vague demands.
A perfect case in point revolves around the sanctions that the US unilaterally imposed this month shutting down the gold-for-gas trade that had developed between Iran and Turkey. The sanctions have already had their effect: the trade is drying up. Now the major powers come along and tell Iran that they might ease up on these sanctions if Tehran scraps their Fordow uranium enrichment plan. This is not a negotiation by any stretch of the imagination, this is one step shy of all-out war. As Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast put it: “They want to take away the rights of a nation in exchange for allowing trade in gold.” No self-respecting state could possibly give in to such demands. This is no carrot here, only stick, and no negotiation, only threats.
Q: 13 American intelligence agencies reported in 2007 that Iran’s nuclear activities haven’t diverted toward producing nuclear weapons and don’t have a military dimension. However, Washington still insists that Iran is after nuclear weapons, obstructing the progress of talks between Iran and the P5+1. Why does the U.S. repeat its claims for which it has no substantial evidence or proof?
A: The claim is entirely political, and explicitly so. One of the key authors of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that came to the conclusion that Iran’s nuclear program is not offensive in nature, Dr. Tom Fingar, recently received a “Sam Adams Award” from the Oxford Student Union for integrity in intelligence work. The event received virtually no attention from any of the press and Dr. Fingar is still a complete unknown to the American public. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have done their best to cover up the findings and assessments of their own intelligence agencies, exactly as the Bush regime worked to cover up any intelligence pointing to Saddam’s lack of WMDs in the run-up to the war in Iraq. The intelligence was being manipulated then, and it is being manipulated now.
Q: It was in 2004 that a German spy stole a laptop computer from a military unit in Iran. The laptop is said to have included thousands of documents regarding Iran’s alleged underground nuclear activities. The American intelligence agencies confirmed that the data in this laptop are genuine, but so far, nothing of the information saved in the laptop have been presented and offered to the public or the inspectors of the IAEA. Can we say that the laptop issue is an intelligence hoax aimed at blemishing Iran’s reputation and putting more pressure on it?
A: How can the public possibly be asked to put their trust in the pronouncements of politicians and government officials who have been caught lying to demonize their enemies time and again? The laptop should not be assumed to exist until it is presented for inspection by independent experts in a neutral setting, and even then all possible forms of tampering and planting of evidence have to be taken into account. Perhaps the intelligence agencies have learned their lesson since the release of the Niger yellowcake documents, which were easily exposed as crude forgeries. If the evidence is never presented, it can never be exposed as a forgery.
Q: The anti-Iran sanctions have created problems for the ordinary Iranian citizens, but it seems that they cannot persuade the Iranian politicians and the people to retreat from the path of peaceful nuclear program the country has been pursuing and investing on. What’s your viewpoint about the sanctions, their humanitarian impact and the effects they have had on Iran’s nuclear program?
A: The sanctions are lunacy on every level: humanitarian, political and strategic. The effects on the Iranian population are well documented and a perfectly predictable outcome of this form of economic warfare. But this has the exact opposite effect as the one supposedly intended by the west. To whatever extent reformist sentiment exists in Iran, the sanctions only help to make the case that the country is under attack by the west and must refuse to back down from the confrontation. If anything, it only stiffens the resolve of Iranians and makes the American dream of some spontaneous uprising from within that much less likely.
Even more bafflingly, the sanctions are having devastating effects on the P5+1 allies. Europe in general and Turkey in particular are sorely in need of Iranian gas to supplement their energy imports. The sanctions put the squeeze on these countries perhaps even more so than Iran, which will always find willing buyers for its gas in Asian markets that are unfettered by western sanctions.
Of course, this is well-known by America and its allies. The reason for the sanctions is not, ultimately, to make Iran cave to their demands; no one is seriously expecting this to happen. It is instead to exacerbate the situation so that international pressure against Iran increases. Europeans and Turks, for example, now have that much more incentive to pressure Iran on its nuclear program, since it is directly effecting their own bottom line.
Q: What’s your opinion about the upcoming nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1? Given that some members of the group have shown no willingness to ease the sanctions as an indication of their goodwill to Iran, can we await the success of the talks after an almost 8-month hiatus?
A” It would be nothing short of a miracle if any sort of agreement is actually struck in Almaty. The P5+1 powers have already made it abundantly clear that they are not interested in any agreement that involves Iran maintaining its nuclear program in any capacity. Sadly, if unsurprisingly, the best possible outcome is also the least likely one: the abolition of nuclear weapons altogether. It is also the one that was suggested by Ayatollah Khamenei last week, in keeping with a long tradition of Iranian proposals for a nuclear free Middle East that have been roundly rejected by the west. Go figure.
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http://www.commondreams.org/ video/2013/03/22-0
Published on Friday, March 22, 2013 by The Nation
Living and Breathing in the Shadow of Chevron
When California passed its Global Warming Solutions Act, Assembly Bill 32, in 2006, many environmental justice advocates hoped that the legislation, which regulates greenhouse gas emissions, would also combat health problems caused by big polluters, like refineries. A refinery emits carbon dioxide, which causes climate change, along with other kinds of pollution that are linked to respiratory disease and cancer. Some residents of the state believe that the regulation should force refineries to clean up their own operations, not allow them to trade permits to pollute through a policy called "cap and trade."
AB32 began regulating industrial greenhouse gas emissions this year. Residents of Richmond, a low-income city alongside Chevron's oil refinery in the San Francisco Bay, believe the regulation should require Chevron to clean up ongoing air pollution in their community.
Read the full story of California's cap-and-trade promises and drawbacks at http://thenat.in/YqVElp
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http://occupywallst.org/
International Week of Solidarity with the NATO 5: May 16–21
Posted 1 hour ago on March 23, 2013, 12:24 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
via nato5support.wordpress.com
We are calling on comrades around the world to help raise awareness of the NATO 5 cases and support funds for the defendants on the one-year anniversary of their preemptive arrests. Please read the call-out below and start planning your action or event today!
On May 16, 2012, Chicago cops raided an apartment in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago in an all-too-common attempt to scare people away from the imminent protests against the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) summit. With guns drawn, the cops arrested 11 people in or around the apartment and quickly disappeared them into the bowels of the extensive network of detention facilities in Cook County, Illinois.
After a few days, a few things started becoming clear: 2 of the arrested “activists” were actually undercover Chicago cops who had targeted the real activists for arrest, 6 of them were illegally held and released at the last possible minute before court action could be taken to force their release, and 3 had been charged with trumped-up, politically motivated terrorism charges. These three—Brent Betterly, Brian Jacob Church, Jared Chase—are now known as the NATO 3. They were ultimately charged with 11 felony counts, including material support for terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and creating Molotov cocktails. They face up to 40 years in prison and are expected to go to trial in September. Their lawyers recently filed a motion to dismiss the terrorism charges for being unconstitutional.
Two other Chicago-area activists—Mark Neiweem and Sebastian Senakiewicz—were also preemptively arrested. Mark was arrested in a spectacular snatch-and-grab as he was leaving a restaurant. He was charged with soliciting materials for an explosive device and is facing up to 30 years in prison; his trial date has not yet been set. Sebastian was arrested in another spectacular house raid and charged with falsely making a terrorist threat for allegedly claiming that he had explosive materials and wanted to use them during the convention. Facing 15 years in prison followed by deportation to his native Poland after serving his sentence, he took a non-cooperating plea deal last November. He was sentenced to 4 years with a recommendation of 4 months in boot camp. He is expected to begin his immigration proceedings immediately after completing his sentence.
As the one-year anniversary of these preemptive, politically motivated arrests draws near, we are calling for a week of solidarity actions and fundraisers for the NATO 5. All five defendants have been incarcerated since their arrests last May. Being held hostage in jail is extremely expensive for prisoners, as they are forced to purchase all their hygiene products, writing supplies, additional food to supplement the starvation portions given to them each day, and other basic necessities from the jail’s commissary at exorbitant prices. The legal defense costs for the defendants is also mounting, as their lawyers are working hard to help them win their freedom and there is a ton of evidence to sift through and other preparations to make.
This May, stand in solidarity with the NATO 5! Organize a house party, bake sale, silent auction, cabaret, raffle, rally, noise demo, art auction, street theater performance, concert…whatever you and your friends want! Send us an email at nato5solidarity(A)gmail.com to let us know what you have planned and then send us photos afterwards! You can also write the defendants to let them know what you have planned (https://nato5support. wordpress.com/contact/).
The NATO 5 cases are linked by a few common threads. People around the world have come together to protest NATO’s role in worldwide military expenditures and operations, the organization’s penchant for wantonly killing civilians for the benefit of its member nations—particularly the United States—and its disregard for human rights. Additionally, undercover Chicago police officers targeted and entrapped the activists because of their politics, which is part of a broader pattern of state repression against political activists, in which charging activists as terrorists is one of many strategies being used to silence dissent and dismantle activist communities. Other recent cases in which activists have been targeted include the Cleveland 4 (http://www. cleveland4solidarity.org/), the Green Scare cases (http://www.greenisthenewred. com/blog/), and the Pacific Northwest Grand Jury resisters (http://nopoliticalrepression. wordpress.com/).
Many of these prisoners need your financial support and solidarity as well. The Pacific Northwest Grand Jury resisters are calling for a week of solidarity actions from April 24–May 1 (http://saynothing.noblogs. org/call-for-coordinated-week- of-solidarity-actions/) and the Tinley Park 5 are calling for a day of solidarity on May 19 (http://www.anarchistnews.org/ content/one-year-anniversary- arrest-tp5). And don’t forget about June 11th, the International Day of Solidarity with long-term anarchist prisoners Eric McDavid and Marie Mason (http://june11.org/).
Make this spring and summer a time of solidarity for the NATO 5 and all targets of state repression!
1 Comments
Proposal: Occupy National Gathering, Kalamazoo, Aug. 21-25
Posted 1 day ago on March 22, 2013, 1:24 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
via OccupyNationalGathering. net:
We, the National Gathering Working Group 2013 (NGWG2013), propose a National Gathering of the Occupy Movement, and peoples’ movements worldwide, in Kalamazoo Michigan, to collectively assemble and embrace our different ideologies and perspectives; to find our common visions; to share our strategies and actions; and to leave this gathering with steps we can all take in both agreement and diversity; for ourselves, our communities, our nations, and for all of us all over the world.
We further propose that our convergence begin on Aug. 21 and continue for five days of Community and Movement building exercises including speakers, teach-ins, and free-flowing open discussion at a location to be determined by the Occupy Kalamazoo General Assembly. We believe it’s time the people of the world spoke to each other about how to make a better world. We ask you to converge with us, to bring your ideas, your struggles, and your voice and come to Kalamazoo! We already have networks on board with these broad areas of interest and welcome and need your suggestions, participation and contributions:
1.
Fixing Fossil Fuels and Creating an Environmentally Sustainable Future.
2.
Economic and Trade Justice, Equal Access and Ending Corporate “Personhood”, Asserting the People’s Sovereignty.
3.
Making and Supporting Free, Unfettered Media.
4.
Ending War and Our Police State, Building Peace and Cooperation.
5.
Renew Kalamazoo and your community. Homeless Bill of Rights.
We also encourage the creation of local, national and global processes to communicate, organize and converge. We are meeting more and more on the internet, on mumble, on conference calls. Global infrastructures are appearing, to bring more people together and able to participate worldwide. We are able as a people to organize worldwide protests and actions. We envision a day of concerted worldwide actions focused on very local issues that expose those local issues as part of the worldwide fight against systemic injustice. We will gather and share this worldwide action through all the media tools and networks we continue to build through voluntary people power.
We embrace the value derived from face-to-face contact, and understand that no single gathering can be representative of our entire movement. We recognize that attending in person will be challenging, or impossible for many, so we also commit to pursuing an online component through which anyone can participate via the Internet. We encourage the creation of local, national and global processes by which movement resources could be directed towards funding travel for active movement participants that otherwise would not be able to attend.
In keeping with principles of the Occupy Movement, the NGWG2013 will continue planning this gathering only if this proposal is ratified by a preponderance of General Assemblies from across the Movement. We are committed to operating in an open, inclusive, and transparent way. Therefore, most planning will be done via direct democratic conference calls, hubs and collaborative tools through the InterOccupy.net platform. All are welcome to participate. We endeavor to convene an historic gathering that will require a great deal of organization, so we invite participants from all Occupys and friends to join us in the planning and facilitation of this effort.
We invite you come to Kalamazoo Aug. 21 – 25. We ask for your endorsement, and would be honored if you would join us, live, online or in solidarity actions, and become part of this beautiful expression of our collective will!
The National Gathering Working Group 2013
The NGWG2013 is comprised of Occupy Kalamazoo on the ground, and other Occupiers from across the Globe online, hopefully to soon include you! Please send your endorsement or intent of solidarity tonatgat2013@gmail.com or comment on our website. We hope to soon have a form on the website!
________________________________________
More Info:
NGWG Website: http://www. occupynationalgathering.net
NGWG Facebook: http://www.facebook. com/OccupyNationalGathering? ref=ts&fref=ts
Twitter: @Ng2Kzoo #NatGat2 #natgat2 #NatGat2013 #natgat2013 #Natgat2@thezoo
Occupy Carnival of Social Change: http://www.facebook. com/events/458980454155941/
* National Gathering Hub on InterOccupy: http:// interoccupy.net/natgat2/
Join our Planning Call! Register here. We convene every Wednesday at 8 PM ET!
8 Comments
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http://www.pureenergyblog.com/ 2013/03/19/622/yildiz-magnet- motor-documentary-trailer- march-2013/
Yildiz Magnet Motor documentary trailer, March 2013
March 19, 2013 - Conferences, Events, Fr ee Energy, Magnet Motors - Tagged: documentaries , free energy,Geneva, Jorge Duarte, magnet motors, René van der Woude, Yildiz - 14 comments
By Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News
March 19, 2013
René van der Woude of mixr.nl in The Netherlands, who is working on a documentary of the Yildiz magnet motor (supposedly “impossible” according to modern academia) has posted a teaser for the film.
Our friend, Jorge Duarte, Assistant Associate Professor of Electromechanics and Power Electronics at Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands, is featured prominently in this teaser, vouching for the motor. He has seen the motor running for 5 hours continuous in two different settings, and he was the one to have it turned off, having seen enough to satisfy him of its authenticity. The fan typically pulls 380 Watts when running at the speeds Yildiz demonstrates.
Rene will be in attendance at the 41st International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva from April 10 – 14, 2013, where Mr. Yildiz has been invited by the Turkish patent office to present his magnet motor, to document that event, as part of his documentary film.
By way of update, I have been involved in much discussion behind the scenes about how to do this demonstration. I’m not at liberty, yet, to say what is being planned, but I should say that it is likely to be much less than I had hoped for. I was hoping for a 1000-watt load bank being powered continuously by the motor, but at this point, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen at the expo. It will be preserved for a later test at a university, where the environment can be more controlled and monitored by the university.
I should also mention that I’ve encountered additional witness statements as to the efficacy of this design, which increased my confidence that Yildiz does have what he claims to have — an all-magnet motor that puts out significant power.
I feel honored to be part of this process, and am hopeful for the likelihood of this being vindicated, eventually.
Patience isn’t something that comes naturally for me, but we have to be willing to let the inventor go at a pace that he is comfortable with.
# # #
See also:
YILDIZ MAGNET MOTOR FOOTER
Directory:Muammer Yildiz Magnet Motor
Event:2013:Validating_Muammer_ Yildiz’_Magnet_Motor_for_30_ Days_at_European_University
January | February
MAGNET MOTORS FOOTER
Directory:Magnet Motors
News:Magnet Motors
PowerPedia:Magnetic motor – encyclopedic entry
Directory:Linear Magnet Accelerators
Directory:Magnetism
Directory:Magnets
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