Steven Gaal Posted April 13, 2013 Author Share Posted April 13, 2013 (edited) see http://www.freedominfonetwork.org/profiles/blogs/obama-s-dhs-fema-raising-an-army background An Ancient Phenomenon The use of citizen informant networks dates at least as far back as the Roman Empire. Delatores (informants) were recruited from all classes of society, including knights, freedmen, slaves, wealthy families, philosophers, literary men, court officials, lawyers, etc. Similar to the TIPS program, it was an "all hands on deck" approach to empire security. Setups were routine, and informants sometimes received a portion of the land of those who they helped destroy. More recently the fascist dictatorship of Portugal used the International and State Defense Police (PIDE) as the main instrument of political oppression. It consisted of secret police and a vast network of Bufos (plain-clothed citizen informants), who were apparently on every block. Money and a need for recognition (a pat on the back) motivated them. Second only to the Stasi in its thoroughness, the PIDE neutralized all opposition to the dictatorship. Other countries have used massive citizen informant networks to destroy perceived opposition to dictatorial rule as well. In Czechoslovakia they served the Czechoslovak State Security (StB), and in Poland they worked for the Ministry of Public Security (MBP). The citizen informants of the State Protection Authority (AVH) ensured the survival of the Hungarian dictatorship. Targets were harassed, threatened, confined to mental institutions, tortured, blackmailed, and framed. Even their friends and family were co-opted to persecute them. Probably the best recent example of citizens Gang Stalking people on behalf of the state is East Germany. In Germany the plain-clothed citizen informants were called IMs (inofizielle mitarbeiter), or "unofficial collaborators." Unofficial means that they unofficially worked for the Ministry of State Security (MfS), also called the Stasi. For her book, Stasiland, Funder interviewed former IMs, targets, Stasi Psychologists, and professors who trained IM recruiters in Spezialdisziplin (the art of recruiting informants). "The IMs," wrote Funder, "were 'inofizielle mitarbeiter' or unofficial collaborators [plain-clothed citizen informants]." Funder continued, "In the GDR, there was one Stasi officer or informant for every sixty-three people. If part-time informers are included, some estimates have the ratio as high as one informer for every 6.5 citizens." In his book, Stasi: The East German Secret Police, John O. Koehler agreed that when you add in the estimated part-time IMs, "the result is nothing short of monstrous: one informer per 6.5 citizens." In Russia, the People's Brigades were told, "We have growing problems in our country with enemies of the state. They operate internally, intending to undermine the authority of our government." Sergei Kourdakov tells how he was used to harass enemies of the state in his book, The Persecutor.(*) These specialized groups were referred to as the Voluntary People's Brigade. They were given a "License to harass," and charged with the "Maintenance of Civil Order." When they sprung up all over Russia they were directed by plain clothed police on orders from Moscow. The citizens were told that they were part of a "special-action squad" and would be given tasks that the regular police couldn't or didn't have time to handle. They wore regular street cloths, and were convinced that they were ordinary citizens aroused into taking action against undesirables. Their leaders informed them that some of the people they'd be harassing were worse than murderers. So in Russia and Germany, these informant groups were basically told that they were their country's first line of defense against threats to national security and criminals. But where are they getting the hordes of citizens who surround targets in public today? Well, they probably do pick people off the streets and use door-to-door recruitment. But due to the shear number of individuals now involved and the pervasiveness of this program, there must be a blanket recruitment process. A Familiar Pattern Targeted people have reported that everyone from homeless people to white-collar workers are participating in Gang Stalking. This also includes neighbors, friends, co-workers and even family of targeted people. Federal, state and local governments are reportedly complicit, such as local police, fire departments, EMT personnel, city workers, utility companies, taxi drivers, security guards, and stores and restaurants. According to Dr. Kilde, other participants include, '"Down and out' people, jobless, freed prisoners, mental outpatients, students and orphans." These people "are trained by this organization to harass, [and] follow ... innocent people, who for whatever reason have been put on the organization's hit list." The April/May 1996 issue of Nexus Magazine revealed that "Tens of thousands of persons in each [Metropolitan] area," are now "working as spotters and neighborhood/business place spies (sometimes unwittingly)." There is a legal loophole that allows people to operate on behalf of the government, without knowing it. Executive Order 12333 states that organizations used by U.S. intelligence do not need to know that they serve U.S. intelligence objectives. These spotters, it continued, are charged with, "following and checking on subjects who have been identified for covert control by NSA personnel." This helps to explain the Mobbing and Gang Stalking accounts of targets both in the workplace and in public. In order to sell the community on this program, its creators probably equipped it with convincing propaganda, which is delivered by professionals. Although there has been no official admission that the following federal resources function as recruitment programs for public harassment, they are similar to ones used in German and Russian dictatorships. The Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), appears to be a bulked-up version of a community-policing program. Even though TIPS was officially rejected by congress, the American Civil Liberty Union contends that it and similar programs are being used aggressively across the nation. Other programs must have sprung up around the planet because the reported tactics of Gang Stalking in other countries are similar. But who is the threat? According to some of these documents at www.citizencorps.gov, the targets are criminals and terrorists. However, the definition of a terrorist in section 802 of the US Patriot Act is frighteningly vague. Basically it defines terrorism as any action that endangers human life or that violates state or federal law. An article entitled, US Planning to Recruit One in 24 Americans as Citizen Spies, which appeared in the Sunday Morning Herald on July 15, 2002, provided us with another clue. It stated, "The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police." The articled revealed that the system is poised to recruit those whose work provides access to homes, businesses, and public transportation systems. Postal workers, utility employees, truck drivers, train conductors and others are to be recruited. On "state and local" levels these informants are to be directed by FEMA. This provides a motive for the reports of people being stalked by 18-wheelers, busses, city, postal, and utility vehicles. It continued, "Informant reports will enter databases for future reference and/or action ... [which] will then be broadly available within the department, related agencies and local police forces. The targeted individual will remain unaware of the existence of the report and of its contents." This also helps to explain why inquiries by targeted individuals regarding the harassment have been met with denial by friends, relatives, neighbors, law enforcement, and colleagues. In August, 2004, the ACLU, published a report entitled, The Surveillance-Industrial Complex, in which it contended that there is currently a vigorous citizen informant recruitment process. It stated, "Only under the most oppressive governments have informants ever become a widespread, central feature of life." Recognizing a familiar pattern, they charged, "The East German Stasi ... recruited from among the citizenry ... as many as one in every 50 citizens, to spy and report on their fellow citizens." They warn that a "massive" recruitment effort is underway. The New American stated in their October 7, 2002, article called, TIPping off Big Brother, that the current effort to build a colossal network of informants is being done to, "enlist American citizens in surveillance activities that the state is either legally or physically unable to do." They say, a society, "where neighbors, co-workers, and passersby are all enlisted in a vast network of civilian informants--resembles conditions that existed in Stalin's reign of terror, and in all modern totalitarian states." Continuing, they add, "Realizing that a cowed and brainwashed populace can carry out surveillance better than a million trained agents, Communist tyrants from East Germany to Cuba created revolutionary circles, youth groups, and other organizations specifically to enable the Party faithful in every walk of life to police everybody else." On July 15, 2002, the Washington Times ran an article entitled, Planned Volunteer-Informant Corps Elicits '1984' Fears, which stated, "1 million informants" would be "initially" participating in a citizen informant program. And that the program would involve a combined effort between the DOJ, local police forces, as well as state and local agencies (businesses). "At local and state levels, the program will be coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency," they described. "Critics," they added, "say that having Americans act as "domestic informants" is reminiscent of the infamous Stasi" which targeted "dissidents and ordinary East German citizens..." This evidence helps to explain how stores and restaurants are participating in the harassment. In addition, it appears that these informant squads are coordinated by local and federal law enforcement. According to www.citizencorps.gov, the directive of the informant program is to "harness the power of the American people by relying on their individual skills and interests to prepare local communities to effectively prevent and respond to the threats of terrorism, crime, or any kind of disaster." This may explain the reports of targeted people who allege that local, state and federal workers are using skills within their profession as part of the harassment. For instance, city vehicles, postal vehicles, fire trucks, school buses, and taxis are reportedly stalking people. Construction projects encircle a targeted person's home and also spring up at frequently visited places. Utility companies interrupt service. Local businesses provide poor service, appear incompetent or clumsy and work with civilian informants to harass targeted people in their stores. In East Germany the IMs included doctors, lawyers, journalists, sports-figures, writers, actors, high officials in religious organizations, pastors, waiters, hotel personnel, and other workers. "Schools, universities, and hospitals were infiltrated from top to bottom," wrote Koehler. In other words, what Koehler is describing is that the controlling faction of the organization was recruited into a policy set by the Ministry for State Security (MfS), which was then filtered down to its workers. Interestingly, when I asked a manager at a retail establishment in Medford, MA if he had heard of Gang Stalking, he told me to "contact corporate headquarters." In all likelihood these programs originate from the organization's Corporate Headquarters that have adopted it as part of a federal or state policy. The pattern that is unfolding is that all major departments of the community are involved. Other questionable programs include VIPS, Weed and Seed, Cat Eyes, and Talon. Part of the Weed And Seed program calls for a combined effort between local, state, and federal agencies, as well as community organizations, social services, private sector businesses and residents, to "weed out" undesirable individuals. In a May 14, 2003 article entitled, Building a Nation of Snoops, the Boston Globe stated, "Watching America with Pride, not Prejudice," is " the Orwellian motto of the New Jersey-based Community Anti-Terrorism Training Institute, or CAT Eyes." CAT Eyes is, "an antiterrorist citizen informant program being adopted by local police departments," spanning from the east to west coast. The Globe described how this informant program was poised to recruit 100 million citizens! The program will, "dwarf the citizen informer programs of the most repressive totalitarian states, making them appear amateurish by comparison," they wrote. "Even communist East Germany," they proclaimed, "was not as ambitious about citizen surveillance as CAT Eyes." According to the Globe, the goal is to recruit one out of every three citizens. Catherine Epstein at the Department of History at Amherst College, contends that East Germany had the highest agent/informer to population rate in history. So if the U.S. has implemented this or a similar program, it has set a historical record. Former FBI Special Agent Ted L. Gunderson indicates that eventually about one in ten people will unofficially work for the state as an informant. In Germany the recruiters were given quotas to ensure a minimal amount of expansion. Due to the shear number of people now participating, I suspect quotas are being used. They've recruited the youth Children are now participating in the Gang Stalking of targeted people. Infants too, are dressed in colors that targets have been sensitized to. They are used as a billboard for symbolism, as they're paraded around by their parents who encircle targets in public. As demonstrated, after a target has been alerted that they're being watched, this color essentially acts as a uniform and a weapon. Later as the infants can walk and communicate they're used in other types of Staged Events (Street Theatre). Even at young ages, these children are able to understand how to perform these skits. This program appears to be multigenerational, for both targeted people and the stalkers. Reportedly, entire families are now participating in patrols (Gang Stalking). Similarly, according to the book, The File, by Timothy Ash, sometimes entire families were recruited as IMs in East Germany. At this point we don't know exactly what these adults are told to encourage their children to participate. But by their behavior, we can logically conclude that the same factors which motivated them are used to get them to recruit their children. Reason indicates that after a parent has been recruited, a message similar to, "there are bad people in the community and mommy and daddy need your help," is conveyed to the child. The child then receives some type of training and is used for patrols (Gang Stalking). Family participation also seems to serve as a type of bonding, summed up by the adoption of attitudes such as, let's work together to keep the community safe, we're the good guys, etc. Consider that in East Germany, an astounding 6% of the IMs were children. Due to the number of youths participating, there must be a broad recruitment program designed specifically for them as well. These programs are probably offered in high school and junior high school. In 2000 and 2001, University Wire, ran articles such as, Boston U. Adopts Crime Watch Program, and Police Enlist Ohio State U. Students in War on Crime. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution published articles in 2001 entitled, School Police Enlist Aid of Students in New Crime Watch, and Student-led Crime Watch on Duty at High School. Students Keep the Peace appeared in the October 2000 issue of the Sarasota Herald Tribune. Some of these policing groups are restricted to school grounds while others are not. Similarly, children were also recruited as IMs in East Germany while at school. But the organization which appears to the central point of recruitment for youths, is the Youth Crime Watch (YCW), which is international in scope, with headquarters on five continents. It is partnered with the Citizen Corps' National Neighborhood Watch program, and works with adults to patrol the streets. Schools are used as recruitment grounds for students from grammar school up to the university level. Participants include all core components of the local government, such as law enforcement, school staff, businesses and restaurants, as well as adult citizens watch groups. After a period of training, they conduct youth patrols under the supervision of a nearby police officer or plain-clothed adult. Like their parent organization, they're fighting crime and terrorism. They have at least hundreds of thousands of members. In addition to being used to carry out some of the standard tactics, the use of children may also be intended to disgust TIs.(**) This appears to be a triple attack. First, the act of someone using a child seems to be intended to cause revulsion. Secondly, the understanding that a TI would probably not be believed for even implying that a parent would involve their child in something like this, appears to be intended to amplify the revulsion. After all, nobody would ever, under any circumstances, use their children like this. And thirdly, the act itself. Most of these parents seem to exhibit no disgrace, which leads me to conclude that they believe it's a necessary honor. If children are being used in this program, and if there is a faction of it which frames people for crimes, then is it possible that this faction would use children to frame targeted people? All that the parents and child would need to be told is that their country needs them to do something very important as a matter of national security. If they're sufficiently naive, they'll probably consider it an honor. Children of criminals, or those vulnerable to blackmail or bribery, can also be recruited to accomplish this. A nation of Gang Stalkers Most of the citizen informant programs previously mentioned are now organized under a National Neighborhood Watch program, known as, USAonWatch.(***) "USAonWatch is the face of the National Neighborhood Watch Program," declared the Citizen Corps website. "The program," it announced, "is managed nationally by the National Sheriffs' Association [NSA] in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, [and] US Department of Justice." So far, this information suggests that the program is coordinated locally by the FBI and police. The National Neighborhood Watch Program has existed since the late 1960s. This helps to explain reports of people being Gang Stalked by citizen patrol groups since the early 1980s. "For more than 30 years," proclaimed the National Sheriffs' Association, "The National Neighborhood Watch Program, an initiative of NSA, has been one of the most effective ways for citizens to become involved with law enforcement for the protection of our neighborhoods." Neighborhood Watch is now partnered with Citizen Corps. And Citizen Corps is run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Its website states, "Citizen Corps is coordinated nationally by the Department of Homeland Security," and "works closely with other federal entities, state and local governments." So in essence, USAonWatch is a Department of Homeland Security program. This means FEMA, DHS, the FBI, and local police are working directly with the state and local governments to coordinate these operations. So if USAonWatch is the current public front, then that would mean that a portion of the Gang Stalking which targets speak of is done during these citizen patrols. It would also signify that this network, with full complicity of all levels of government, is trained and directed by local police, working with FEMA and the FBI. Again, we find another parallel to the Russian and East German dictatorships. The National Sheriffs' Association exclaimed, "The Neighborhood Watch is Homeland Security at the most local level!" It was created to "empower citizens to become directly involved with Neighborhood Watch for the purpose of homeland security." Its targets, according to the NSA, are criminals and domestic terrorists. What else would the East German IMs do besides inform? Markus Wolf, a former East German executive Stasi officer, and author of the book, Man Without a Face, indicates that targeted people were Gang Stalked by "informers who literally encircled their everyday movements." According to Wolf, the residences of some targeted people were "put under siege," and every family member, and every visitor, was kept under close observation. Even some East German state officials were, "surrounded by unofficial informers for the Stasi," proclaimed Mary Fulbrook, in her book, The People's State. The book, Stasiland, reveals a similar citizen patrol scenario, where targeted people would be stalked by a network of IMs on a daily basis. This was done using a rotation of IMs. "In the morning when I went to work, there'd be someone close behind me," reported one target. "[And] if I went in to Alexanderplatz to do some shopping a man would come with me..." People would be followed by IMs from their doorsteps, into public transportation systems and then back home again. "They changed the personnel," she continued, "but there was always someone there. They wanted us to feel it." Despite what these IMs were told about threats to national security, this blatant Gang Stalking was done for intimidation. In 1974 the former Deputy Director of the CIA, Ray S. Cline, drafted a report published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), at Georgetown University called, Understanding the Solzhenitsyn Affair: Dissent and its Control in the USSR. It stated, "The Committee for State Security" [KGB] ... functions as a secret political police force, which through nets of agents and informants, reaches literally into every crevice of society." The word, "literally" is noteworthy, because when it is used, they mean it. Just as with East Germany, you can bet that this means every major area of society was filled with informants. This would include workplaces, grammar schools, universities, businesses, restaurants, apartment buildings, etc. Literally, everywhere! The report continued, "By watching every critical echelon in society, the informant networks also serve to insure that the administrative or daily controls are in fact working." The Soviet Union was run by a small group of wealthy elite. They used their private security force, the KGB, to ensure their control. Although the surface claim for the existence of the networks was for state security, it was in reality used to terrorize the population into submission. "These informants," it sustained "serve the fundamental purpose ... of inhibiting people from speaking freely to one another; from speaking out; from sharing and germinating thoughts." Shockingly, according to an independent media report, there was an attempt to integrate Markus Wolf and KGB General Yevgeni of Russia, into federal law enforcement. An article entitled, Ex-KGB and STASI Chiefs to Work Under Chertoff, appeared in the Foreign Press Foundation on December 16, 2004. It explained how the U.S. would pay former Stasi officer Markus Wolf, and KGB General Yevgeni Primakov to help co-op citizens into participating in state-sponsored harassment. The article was based on a U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing, that occurred on June 9, 1997, which stated, "We're talking about Markus Wolfe (sic), the former head of Stasi, right? ... He actively aided and abetted and fostered international and state-supported terrorism when he was an East German government official..." So, when they sprung up in Germany, they were called "IMs" who unofficially worked for the "Ministry of State Security" to "protect the state" against dangerous elements. They were called the "People's Brigade" in Russia, and their duty was the "Maintenance of Civil Order." The current citizen squads are apparently fighting terrorism and crime. I'm not aware of the official names of groups which conduct these patrols in other countries; no doubt the participating countries have assigned them noble titles. According to this information, those who have been recruited into the current citizen informant program include people who have access to homes, businesses, and public transportation systems. Others include postal workers, utility employees, truck drivers, train conductors, local police forces, as well as local and state agencies. And, if these youth crime-watch programs are being used for Gang Stalking--children. This helps to explain the reports of targeted people who attest that a variety of local and state vehicles are being used to stalk them. Restaurants and retail stores are also involved. Employees, clerks and/or managers of these establishments participate. If mainstream publications are alerting us to a "massive" recruitment process, then what they're doing behind the scenes is probably much more intense. All of these volunteer Neighborhood Watch programs are sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Interestingly, in East Germany, the adults and children who Gang Stalked targets operated on behalf of the Ministry for State Security (MfS). In Russia, citizen informants worked for the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security), also known as the KGB. In Czechoslovakia it was the Czechoslovak State Security (StB), etc. Because these harassment programs involve a combined, coordinated effort between federal, state and local governments, logic would suggest that the chief of police, mayor of the city, and governor of the state must be aware of it. The program involves the use of too many resources for them not to be. It can't operate without their knowledge. As previously described, the TIPS or USAonWatch programs would have accomplished this. East Germany had a variety of different types of informants, which served different functions. So, in all probability, in addition to bulk recruitment programs such as TIPS, and Neighborhood Watch, there are individuals and groups of informants which are also recruited. In my estimation, these units and individuals work alongside the public front organization to harass people in public. If this is true, then this would further compartmentalize these operations, possibly to the point where all of these factions are unaware of the existence of one and other. Consider the FBI's known use of criminals as informants, which was described in the Tactics section. Also note an article which appeared in The Chicago Sun-Times on May 31, 1998, entitled, Family of Spies on Run, which described an, "unknown number" of entire families who are citizen informants. "They are ordinary citizens who, for reasons ranging from petty revenge to pure patriotism, agree to work with the bureau," stated the Times. The article revealed that these families work with the FBI, DEA, CIA, RCMP, as well as local law enforcement. Most of these agencies are now part of DHS. "Because this is the lifestyle they have known almost since their birth, the ... children rarely complain," they wrote. Secrecy To my knowledge, at this time, no one has openly admitted to being part of this program. Targeted people have been stonewalled when confronting their tormentors in public. The citizen squads are obviously told that under no circumstances are they to admit they're part of an organized program to remove troublesome individuals from the community. In Russia, the state emphasized the need for total secrecy when recruiting people into the Citizen's Brigade. According to Kourdakov, during their lectures they were told that, "Under no condition was the public to know what was going on." The reason was that, "some people could misunderstand what we're doing and why we have to do it," and "don't appreciate the danger that these people represent to our society." When citizen informants in East Germany were recruited, they agreed to a, "code of secrecy," and some had to sign a waver, which stated that they would not mention anything about their connection to the MfS. By their behavior it is apparent that participants in the current program are told that targeted people can't be reasoned with, but must leave on their own accord, by way of a collaborative community effort. In all likelihood, stigma is probably used to justify the harassment. This includes labeling people threats to "national security," or criminals who have escaped justice. These tactics have been used in other countries to justify persecution of political dissent. As part of their training, it is also possible that they engage in skits where they witness people breaking down or fainting in front of them, as a result of being systematically Mobbed out in public. Some of the training is apparently designed to put their conscience aside when harassing targets. As we'll learn in the next chapter, when you combine these desensitizing drills with lies, you can get most people to do just about anything. "As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities." -Voltaire Filtering Another reason participants are told to deny their involvement in this program is obviously because their handlers know that because they operate on huge lies, they could not rationally justify the cause. It is critical that participants receive no outside information that can penetrate this barrier. Precautionary measures must have been taken to filter information that would undermine the group objectives. It has been said that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The people who created this program are obviously aware that it is absolutely essential that no parallel be made between similar historical events and what is taking place now. If this program originated from a Think Tank, you can bet that they have accounted for this, and it has been integrated into the training curriculum. Therefore, certain phrases, such as "New World Order," "Dictatorship," "Cult," "Nazi Germany," "Hitler," "Cointelpro," MKULTRA," "Experimentation," "Gang Stalking," "Harassment," etc, are probably covered with mental mindguards to disengage critical thought. Similarly, according to cult expert Steven Hassan's book, Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, these mental blocking techniques are given to members of mind-control cults to reject information that undermines the cult. It basically means that when they're confronted with a particular phrase or question, they should think or say a certain phrase to reject it. This is used to stop critical thought and funnel external input into a mental recycle bin. It works remarkably well. In his book, Vital Lies, Simple Truths, Dr. Daniel Goleman stated, "A mindguard is an attention bodyguard, standing vigilant to protect the group not from physical assault, but from an attack by information." "'A mindguard,' says Janis [author of Victims of Groupthink], protects the group 'from thoughts [information] that might damage their confidence in the soundness of the policies to which they are committed.'" More on the Group Mind will be covered in the next chapter. The Nazis and their educated followers were essentially a political cult. The cult was fed massive lies which were reinforced by the careful filtering of information and propaganda conveyed by mainstream outlets. Literally, a whole country was under this spell. This is happening now. "Hitler and his troop of amateur magicians and hypnotists in the 1930's and 1940's were able to reconstruct a technologically advanced nation such as Germany into a vast theatre of illusion," stated Professor Marrs. "They were also able to induce educated and intellectual [people] into becoming ... oppressors of their fellow men..." Some may disagree, but arguably, this international group is a political/corporate cult. Various cult experts themselves don't seem to agree on any set definition. But in my view this group is a cult. More evidence will be provided in the Structure, Purpose, and Motivational Factors chapters to illustrate that this group is an essential part of a massive political movement. Communication There is communication between the surveillance faction and the citizen informant squads and local businesses in the area. Obviously, the managers of local stores are contacted by a representative of this program, possibly by cell phone, pager, or walk-in, and told to prepare for the arrival of the targeted person. A picture or video of the targeted person may be shown to the participating staff. The targeted individual may also be identified as he or she walks into the store. Consider that the IMs in East Germany communicated using non-verbal cues, so this is also a possibility. When the TI arrives, those who have been co-opted follow through with the tactics they've learned from their training. They also work in unison with plain-clothed citizens to harass the targeted customer. Advanced electronic methods of communication, which are not commercially available, may be used by the coordinating faction to direct specific citizen informants. More than likely the current recruitment of informants is done using a beneficial appearing program, equipped with convincing propaganda, which is delivered by trusted authority figures. The recruitment programs offered to the public probably don't refer to this activity as "harassment," or "Gang Stalking." In all likelihood it is cloaked in a beneficial sounding name. The behavior exhibited by these citizens indicates that they are absolutely convinced that this policy is legitimate and necessary. If it originates from a government Think Tank, you can expect no less than an intellectual and emotional masterpiece that is very cleverly delivered. This program was very well thought out. Friends and Family Friends and family of targeted people are sometimes used to harass them. As shocking as this sounds, identical tactics were used during Cointelpro. According to the book, War at Home, by attorney Brian Glick, FBI records reveal frequent maneuvers to generate tension (harassment) on targeted people by recruiting their "parents, children, spouses, landlords, employers, college administrators, church superiors," and others, into investigations. The word "frequent" leads me to conclude that, just as in East Germany, this was standard practice. This helps to explain the current participation of friends, and family of targeted people. Moret added, "What we've studied and reported and identified is that neighbors are contacted and co-opted, [and] members of the target's family are co-opted..." Similarly, according to Wolf, the residences of targeted people were "put under siege," by the Stasi, and every family member, and every visitor, was kept under observation. The recruitment of friends and family of targets may not just serve to harass, confuse, and isolate, but also as a discrediting strategy. After all, a person's friends and family would never systematically harass them, so someone complaining of such an ordeal must be mentally ill. This may be compounded if a handler forces a targeted person's family to have the target institutionalized. Remember, one in ten citizens will be recruited as informants anyway, so co-opting ten or fifty friends/relatives of a targeted person is not difficult. How can a good friend or relative be recruited into a harassment campaign? Simple. They can be lied to, intimidated, or blackmailed into becoming informants during a bogus investigation. Then they can be given a gag order and threatened with jail time if they mention anything about it. Both the Stasi and FBI have done this. According to attorney Glick, blackmail and threats, using statements such as, "We know what you have been doing, but if you cooperate it will be all right," were often used as leverage for the recruitment of a relative or associate during Cointelpro. Family members or associates who targets have a shaky relationship with can be bribed if they are greedy or in financial ruin. Naive ones or youngsters can be lied to by appealing to their sense of patriotism. This would be especially effective if delivered by a trusted community authority figure, such as a local official. When gaining cooperation in this way, these friends/family members may be fed some truth, and then some damaging lies can be thrown in. After the friends and family of a targeted person have been recruited, they can be directed by their handlers to perform carefully scripted harassment skits, which include some mentioned in the Tactics chapter. This harassment by proxy is optimized by the use of sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment. Summary Multiple citizen informant programs are now operational, with the goal of recruiting a significant portion of the population. We've seen the political Left and Right justifiably compare these informant programs to ones that emerged in Germany and Russia. These programs are supervised by the Department of Homeland Security. They are similar in operation and purpose to those used in Russian and German dictatorships, which were created by the Committee for State Security and Ministry for State Security, respectively. Those mentioned to be recruited, reflects (to some degree), those reportedly Gang Stalking targets. A massive network of citizens (probably millions worldwide), stalk and harass targeted people in public. They include a wide strata of individuals ranging from seniors to children, and often the friends and family of targeted people. Local governments are fully complicit in the harassment. The federal government can also recruit groups or individuals as informants, which are not connected to any official organization, such as a Neighborhood Watch network. Without even being aware of the existence of the other network, these entities too can be used to harass people in public. [Footnotes] * Although the portion of the People's Brigade which Kourdakov wrote about didn't exhibit the exact traits as the current global stalking group (due to the frequent use of overt physical violence), his account does illustrate the emphasis on secrecy with state-run harassment programs. Furthermore, the Soviet Union did (and still does) possess a huge network of plain-clothed citizen informants, which is used to stalk (shadow) enemies of the state. See the report entitled, Understanding the Solzhenitsyn Affair: Dissent and its Control in the USSR, edited by the former Deputy Director of the CIA, Ray S. Cline. The report was based on a conference held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), at Georgetown University. ** On multiple occasions I have noticed children being used in skits which were obviously intended to convey sexual innuendos. *** Picture taken from www.usaonwatch.org. Edited April 13, 2013 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 LOL a 6000 word essay by an obscure kook with hardly any references, how compelling! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted April 14, 2013 Author Share Posted April 14, 2013 I AGREE WITH BELOW ONE TRILLION %PERCENT% Obama’s Budget. US Heading Toward a Social Explosion. Millions More People to be Thrown into Poverty By Joseph Kishore Global Research, April 12, 2013 World Socialist Web Site The Obama administration’s budget released on Wednesday is a historic milestone. The Democratic Party administration is taking direct aim at the two core federal social programs established in the United States in the 20th Century, Social Security and Medicare. The consequences of Obama’s proposals are not hard to predict: millions more people, particularly the elderly, will be thrown into poverty or be cut off from life-preserving medical care. The corporate and financial elite that runs the United States has long complained of the “unreasonable” sums of money spent on preserving the health and well-being of the elderly. In the minds of the Wall Street speculators and corporate executives that control both political parties, broad sections of the population simply live too long. While the administration and the corporate media have sought to downplay the significance of the attack, the cuts proposed are a significant step in dismantling the programs altogether. The $400 billion in Medicare cuts, when combined with the $500 billion already included as part of the administration’s health care overhaul, add up to 13 percent of total spending on the program over the next decade. As for Social Security, by modifying the way the government calculates inflation, the program will be cut by $130 billion. According to one analysis, for a worker retiring at the age of 65, this will amount to a loss of $650 a year in benefits by the time the worker reaches 75, and a loss of $1,130 by the time he reaches 85. About 70 percent of seniors depend on the already meager benefits for at least half of their income, with 40 percent depending on it to keep them above the poverty line. The administration’s proposal, with a raft of other cuts in key social programs, is only the starting point for negotiations with Congressional Republicans, a process that will drive the whole discussion even further to the right. The dog and pony show of American politics will enter a new phase, as the two big business parties, united on all essentials, conspire to gut and eliminate programs that have the overwhelming support of the American population. To the extent the American ruling class had a policy of social reform, it is embodied in the two targets of Obama’s budget. Social Security was established in 1935, while Medicare came into being in 1965. Both were byproducts of mass social struggle and represented attempts to contain social conflict. Social Security was part of a series of reforms implemented by the administration of Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, in the midst of insurrectionary class battles (including a series of general strikes throughout the US). The political backdrop was the Russian Revolution, which inspired working class struggles and provided the ruling class with a portent of its own future. Medicare came in the midst of the mass civil rights movement and the wave of strikes of the 1960s. Enacted as part of the Great Society program of Lyndon B. Johnson, it was the last gasp of social reform in America. In those periods, the ability of the ruling class to implement reform measures ultimately reflected the strength of American capitalism. The situation today is vastly different. The financial aristocracy that runs the United States has presided over a steady erosion of the country’s economic foundations. It has amassed its wealth primarily though looting and speculation. For four decades, the American ruling class has been engaged in an unrelenting attack on the working class, a social counterrevolution that has produced an enormous increase in inequality. Up until the present, however, it has been deemed politically impossible to directly attack Social Security and Medicare. Obama has taken up this task. Obama’s assault on health care programs began with the 2010 overhaul, hailed by the “left” supporters of the Democratic Party as a major social reform. Such attempts to cover up the reactionary character of the administration have now been thoroughly exposed. To the ruling class, Obama has made clear that, in the defense of their wealth, everything is “on the table.” There are no “sacred cows,” he wrote in a letter to Congress. In a move that has both immense symbolism and practical implications, the administration said it was also considering the sale of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest publicly-owned US power company, and the most significant public entity set up during the Great Depression to provide electricity to large parts of the American South. Earlier this week, Obama took the occasion of the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to associate his administration with the policies initiated by Thatcher in Britain and by Reagan in the United States during the 1980s, including efforts to “roll back” everything that detracted from corporate profits or restricted wealth accumulation. “Here in America,” Obama declared in a press release, “many of us will never forget [Thatcher] standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we are not simply carried along by the currents of history—we can shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will.” The “iron will” that Obama is emulating is the will to ensure that trillions can continue to be handed to Wall Street, and that corporate profits can continue to soar, through an increasingly frontal attack on every social right of the working class. All of this has consequences, for the Obama administration and the political establishment as a whole. In 2008, Obama was brought forward by sections of the ruling class seeking a facelift for its reactionary policies. He replaced George W. Bush, the most hated president in US history. The fact that he was the first African American president was used to promote the illusion of change, with the assistance of the upper middle class proponents of identity politics who orbit around the Democratic Party. The “transformative president” hailed by the liberal establishment and pseudo-left has become the most reactionary administration in American history. This will not dissuade the professional promoters of the Democratic Party, who will do everything they can to maintain political illusions in the two-party capitalist system, though with increasing difficulty. The United States is heading toward a social explosion. By its own actions, the ruling class is demonstrating the necessity for revolution. The immense anger and opposition that is building up in the American working class must and will increasingly be directed against the Democratic Party. \================0o0o0o0===================/ Related content: Scrapping the US “Social Safety Net”: Obama Budget Slashes Social Security, Medicare US President Barack Obama unveiled his budget proposal Wednesday, calling for a historic attack on Medicare and Social Security. The move, coming after the imposition of $1.4 trillion in spending cuts over the past two years, marks a new stage… Bipartisan Theatrics and the Obama Budget Crisis: “Deeper Cuts” to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Less than two weeks after the start of $1.2 trillion in government spending cuts, under the so-called “sequester,” Republicans and Democrats have unveiled budget proposals that include far deeper cuts in social programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.Paul Ryan, the… Obama panel proposes destroying social programs US deficit panel launches offensive against social programsThe proposals announced Wednesday by the Democratic and Republican chairmen of the Obama administration’s budget deficit panel amount to an all-out attack on the working class combined with even bigger tax cuts… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 You already posted that on another thread, getting desperate now aren't we? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted April 14, 2013 Author Share Posted April 14, 2013 (edited) You already posted that on another thread, getting desperate now aren't we? ++++++++++++++++++++++ LIFE COMPLEX THINGS INTERTWINED.....for establishment man hack its comforting to divide and simplify. ON TOPIC US Heading Toward a Social Explosion. Edited April 14, 2013 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 You already posted that on another thread, getting desperate now aren't we? ++++++++++++++++++++++ LIFE COMPLEX THINGS INTERTWINED.....for establishment man hack its comforting to divide and simplify. ON TOPIC US Heading Toward a Social Explosion. Translation Gaal was desperate to post anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted April 14, 2013 Author Share Posted April 14, 2013 (edited) Translation Gaal was desperate to post anything. //end Colby ############################### TRANSLATION COLBY CAN AND WILL POST ANYTHING, IE SACHA BARON COHEN THREAD. US Heading Toward a Social Explosion. IS ON TOPIC TO THIS THREAD ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ April 10, 2013 DHS Tests Gun-Sensing Drones In Oklahoma The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is testing a wide variety of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS) sensor platforms, including one that can determine whether individuals are armed or unarmed, for use by first responders and frontline homeland security professionals. The testing is taking place at the Oklahoma Training Center for Unmanned Systems (OTC-UC), a unit of University Multispectral Laboratories (UML), a not-for-profit scientific institution operated for Oklahoma State University (OSU) by Anchor Dynamics, Inc. UML is a “Trusted Agent” for the federal government, technology developers and operators. DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Borders and Maritime Security Division’s Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety (RAPS) testing program is evaluating numerous SUA and sensor systems to identify possible applications for first responders, including search-and-rescue scenarios, response to radiological and chemical incidents and fire response and mapping. In addition, the testing will help to determine whether SUAs are suitable for use by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Coast Guard to provide lower altitude, quick response situational awareness in tactical situations. SUAS sensor platforms are being tested for use by ”first responder and homeland security operational communities” that “can distinguish between unarmed and armed (exposed) personnel,” as well as conducting detection, surveillance, tracking and laser designation of targets of interest at stand-off ranges, according to the RAPS Test Planobtained by Homeland Security Today. There’s also a requirement to test SUAS sensors for how well they can capture crime and accident “scene data with still-frame, high definition photos.” But there’s nothing nefarious about having these sensor capabilities on SUAs for the needs of law enforcement and other first responders, said a RAPS program official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program publicly. DHS’s chief privacy official concluded that the testing program posed no privacy issues in the Nov. 16 Privacy Impact Assessment for the RAPS Project. The RAPS Test Plan also involves testing sensor suites to “enhance the search and rescue capabilities of first responders by increasing [their] situational awareness.” And to that end, SUA sensors are being tested for their ability to “locate and provide the position of targets of interest satisfactorily for search and rescue personnel in a variety of terrain and day conditions.” To enhance fire and disaster response capabilities of first responders by increasing their situational awareness, SUA sensors are being tested for their ability to locate and provide the position of fire or hot spots despite the presence of objects that obscure their line-of-site; locate and provide the position and concentration of chemical agents; and locate and provide the position and concentration of radiological agents. The RAPS Test Plan explained that “Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems may soon become valuable tools for first and emergency responders and for those responsible for US border security.” It emphasized that “SUAS can provide tactical, rapid-response capabilities and much better situational awareness before field officers and agents respond to and engage in potentially dangerous operations.” The test plan explained that “Within the United States, almost 50,000 police and fire departments exist but only about 300 (less than 1 percent) have aviation departments, owing primarily to the significant cost of acquiring, operating and maintaining manned fixed-wing and rotary-wing platforms. The estimated cost per flight hour for these assets is 300 times more expensive than commercially available SUAS which can be operated at costs lower than those of a typical police cruiser. But for state, county or city entities to become potential users of SUAS, their adoption must be justifiable and affordable. Improved sensor and platform capabilities, and economies of scale, now bring SUAS within reach of the budgets of many small first responder organizations.” “Considering the size and diversity of the user communities targeted by this program,” the RAPS Test Plan said, “our approach concerning SUAS requirements is to focus primarily on advancing the near-term transition of good, affordable SUAS capabilities using relatively mature solutions. Working closely with senior law enforcement and fire operators in the field, we derived high-level SUAS needs tied to notional, top-priority scenarios for SUAS that, if realized, may or would provide good value to users — depending partly on the results of testing as envisioned” in the RAPS testing plan. Consequently, the test plan explained that “The purpose of [the RAPS] project is to assess the extent to which SUAS can enhance situational awareness in support of first responder and border security events,” the test plan says, noting that “such events include, but are not limited to, law enforcement response, fire response, search and rescue, response to hazardous material (HAZMAT) spills or incidents and response to intrusions at US international borders.” In addition, “Where feasible and applicable, our testing will verify SUAS performance characteristics that may impact their eventual integration into the National Air Space System.” “As one of many first responder support initiatives within DHS S&T, the primary outcome of RAPS will be a knowledge and database resource consisting of test reports, user testimonials and guidelines for adoption by the operational community,” the RAPS Test Plan pointed out. “The RAPS team will study fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft having gross takeoff weights of 25 lbs. or less, typically, using key performance measures in a variety of simulated but realistic, real-world operational scenarios that focus on the use of SUAS technology in response to situations where human lives are in imminent danger.” The RAPS testing is being carried out at the Ft. Sill Army Post near Lawton, Okla. because DHS found the Army base “to be the optimal site to conduct RAPS test operations,” the test plan said. “The ready availability of restricted airspace at Ft. Sill and its central location within the continental US make it logistically accessible and convenient to participating vendors.” In addition, the test plan said “the Ft. Sill test sites offer good flying conditions year-round and provide a variety of terrain features needed for conducting search-and-rescue and other test scenarios.” Oklahoma has emerged as a leader in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). DHS is working closely with the state on the RAPS program through Gov. Mary Fallin’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Council, as the federal initiative is being conducted through OSU’s University Multispectral Laboratories’ advanced testing facility that’s uniquely positioned within Ft. Sill’s 200 square miles of restricted airspace. “The strong support of the State of Oklahoma first responder community underscored the benefits of the Ft. Sill test site,” DHS said. “Aerospace represents a significant portion of our state economy and UAS is expected to be the most dynamic growth sector within the aerospace industry in the next decade,” said Unmanned Systems Alliance of Oklahoma (USA-OK) President, James L. Grimsley. “This is an important time for the unmanned aerial systems industry and for Oklahoma.” “Successful SUAS test operations at Ft. Sill may lead, later, to more complex SUAS operational testing at two other Oklahoma sites,” the RAPS Test Plan said. These sites are the Oklahoma National Guard’s Camp Gruber and the University Multispectral Laboratory’s test site at Chilocco, Okla., “both of which have varied and realistic urban complex facilities.” The RAPS program began with DHS’s Request for Information (RFI) issued on Sept. 24, 2012 seeking white papers from SUAS vendors interested in participating in the testing project. The deadline for the papers was Oct. 31, 2012. However, the testing program “is not linked to any intended procurement action, nor does it imply intent to initiate such action,” DHS explained. Public and congressional concerns over the expanding use of UAVs of all kinds by federal, state and local law enforcement were exacerbated recently following a report by CNET.com that DHS has “customized its Predator drones” to be able to “identify civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones.” CNET.com reported that DHS’s “specifications for its drones … ‘shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not,’” and that “They also specify ‘signals interception’ technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones and ‘direction finding’ technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.” The disclosure was based on an apparent “unredacted copy” of the May 26, 2005, CBP Office of Air and Marine (OAM) Performance Specification for the DHS/Customs and Border Protection Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System documentthat DHS released in redacted form to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. An updated March 10, 2010 CBP OAM performance specifications document for CBP’s Predator B UAV also was obtained by EPIC under the FOIA, and portions of it also were redacted. Most of the redactions, though, were made pursuant to legitimate FOIA exemptions authorizing the withholding of records compiled for law enforcement purposes or that would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations. Much of the redacted information deals with sensitive operational and performance capabilities of CBP’s fleet of Predators, as well sensitive technical data on the UAVs’ sensor packages and specifications. A CBP spokesman told CNET.com the agency “is not deploying signals interception capabilities on its UAS fleet. Any potential deployment of such technology in the future would be implemented in full consideration of civil rights, civil liberties and privacy interests and in a manner consistent with the law and long-standing law enforcement practices.” DHS’s RAPS Program Manager, Dr. John Appleby, told Homeland Security Today the department “is very sensitive to the privacy and civil rights issues that are involved with our [uAV] systems and testing.” But privacy rights advocates don’t see it that way. EPIC’s Ginger McCall, director of the group’s Open Government Project, has said CBP’s UAS requirements documents “clearly evidence that the Department of Homeland Security is developing drones with signals interception technology and the capability to identify people on the ground,” and that “This allows for invasive surveillance, including potential communications surveillance, that could run afoul of federal privacy laws.” A DHS official who spoke to Homeland Security Today on background about the issue explained that CBP needed to have “a whole host of requirements for its [Predators] for all possible needs to support border security operations, but that doesn’t mean they’re all being used … people jump to all sorts of conclusions based on what they think they know or understand.” The official said the Predators are capable of distinguishing whether objects detected on the ground are people, animals, vehicles or something else, and emphasized that this capability is needed when, for example, the UAVs are being used to support Border Patrol agents on the ground who are trying to apprehend human- or narco-traffickers in difficult terrain or circumstances, or when conducting border surveillance missions for potential illegal cross-border activity. But this capability isn’t any different from ground-based radar that can distinguish between a human and a truck CBP has tested that may be incorporated into its Integrated Fixed Tower program Homeland Security Today examined in detail last Oct. As for the deployment of communications interception technology on CBP’s Predators, officials adamantly said there are numerous legal issues involved “that would have to be worked out” before this capability can routinely be used. Edited April 14, 2013 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Translation Gaal was desperate to post anything. //end Colby ############################### TRANSLATION COLBY CAN AND WILL POST ANYTHING, IE SACHA BARON COHEN THREAD. US Heading Toward a Social Explosion. IS ON TOPIC TO THIS THREAD ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ April 10, 2013 DHS Tests Gun-Sensing Drones In Oklahoma The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is testing a wide variety of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS) sensor platforms, including one that can determine whether individuals are armed or unarmed, for use by first responders and frontline homeland security professionals. The testing is taking place at the Oklahoma Training Center for Unmanned Systems (OTC-UC), a unit of University Multispectral Laboratories (UML), a not-for-profit scientific institution operated for Oklahoma State University (OSU) by Anchor Dynamics, Inc. UML is a “Trusted Agent” for the federal government, technology developers and used. Good for them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted April 14, 2013 Author Share Posted April 14, 2013 (edited) When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with ... GOLLY WHAT IF THE BRITISH CROWN HAD MUSKET SENSING DRONES ?? Edited April 14, 2013 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with ... GOLLY WHAT IF THE BRITISH CROWN HAD MUSKET SENSING DRONES ?? What if they had machine guns, helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers? What if they had nukes? So you want to equate the reich-wing militia types with the 'Americans' (i.e. “Patriots") during the Revolutionary War? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted April 15, 2013 Author Share Posted April 15, 2013 The Department of Defense has issued an instruction clarifying the rules for the involvement of military forces in civilian law enforcement. http://intellihub.com/2013/04/14/department-of-defense-issues-instructions-on-military-support-of-civilian-law-enforcement/ PublicIntelligence.net April 14, 2013 ....Though the Posse Comitatus Act is the primary restriction on direct DoD involvement in law enforcement functions, it does not prevent military personnel from participating in circumstances “authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.” This includes circumstances involving “insurrection, domestic violence, or conspiracy that hinders the execution of State or Federal law” as well as actions “taken under express statutory authority.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted April 16, 2013 Share Posted April 16, 2013 And??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted April 16, 2013 Author Share Posted April 16, 2013 (edited) The Orwellian Paradigm: Killing You for Your Own Safety By Faisal Moghul Global Research, April 15, 2013 antiwar.com =============================== Almost thirty years ago, cultural critic Neil Postman argued in Amusing Ourselves to Death that television’s gradual replacement of the printing press has created a dumbed-down culture driven by mindless entertainment. In this context, Postman claimed that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World correctly foresaw our dystopian future, as opposed to George Orwell’s 1984.Contrary to Postman’s critique, however, the principles of Newspeak and doublethink dominate modern political discourse. Their widespread use is a testament to Orwell’s profound insight into how language can be manipulated to restrict human thought. WAR IS PEACE Formulating the Language of Perpetual War – From AUMF to “Associates of Associates.” The semantic deception began shortly after September 11, 2001. “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda,” Bush said in his State of the Union address, “but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated (emphasis added).” The defining feature of this rhetoric is that it declares war on a particular method of violence used by disaffected states or groups. In fact, the phrase “war on terror” functions as what semiotics calls a floating signifier, a term devoid of any real meaning and thus open to any interpretation. Terrorism has no shape, mass, or boundary; it is an abstraction, a tactic of asymmetrical warfare used to achieve political goals. Imagine if Franklin D. Roosevelt had declared “war on surprise attacks” in the wake Pearl Harbor, or if Lyndon Johnson had vowed to defeat guerilla warfare in Vietnam. This linguistic construct, therefore, ensures an open-ended conflict with no conceivable end. Unperturbed by this paradox, British Prime Minister Tony Blair dutifully reiterated that, “the fact is we are at war with terrorism.” But the bombing sorties over Afghanistan had barely begun when the label morphed into “The Long War,” and then the “decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation.” And now, the targeted killings program has been “extended to militant groups” with no connection to September 11, 2001 – that is, “associates of associates.” Removing the requirement for any linkage to al-Qaeda gives the government unfettered discretion to assassinate anyone without due process of law. This phraseology makes it impossible to distinguish the dialectical concepts of war and peace. It makes peace synonymous with a state of warfare. Peace is defined in terms of a generational commitment to war and, in turn, war is framed as a necessity to keep the peace. In other words, War is Peace. This is the lexicon of perpetual war, the vocabulary of a conflict that is never meant to end. “You can’t end the war,” as one official admits to the Washington Post, “if you keep adding people to the enemy who are not actually part of the original enemy.” Aggression is Self-Defense –Waging Full Scale War to Prevent War. Operation Iraqi Freedom represented phase two in a linguistic framework meant to fuse two diametrically opposite concepts in the public mind: preemption and prevention. The purpose of preemptive war is to thwart or neutralize an imminent attack – one that is “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation” – without absorbing the first blow. Conversely, preventive war is pure aggression – it is not tied to any notion of imminence and is primarily directed at securing some strategic advantage. Thus, the dimension of time is the primary difference between the former and the latter. The Bush Doctrine blurred the lines between preventive and preemptive wars. It represented a seismic shift in national security strategy from one dominated by the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment, to one that now enshrined preventive war as a permanent feature of US policy. During his 2002 commencement speech at West Point, Bush stated: “If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long…Yet the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge…” (emphasis added).” Furthermore, the 2006 US National Security Strategy Paper states that “If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self-defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack” (emphasis added). In true Newspeak fashion, such a conception of “preemptive action” inverts the traditional model of self-defense under customary international law by rendering imminence completely irrelevant. In doing so, it strips self-defense of any practical meaning. It conflates preventive war with preemptive war; it packages aggression as self-defense. But as Cheney’s one-percent doctrine later revealed, the threat need not even be likely, let alone imminent, for self-defense (read aggression) to apply. According to this logic, even a one percent chance of an event occurring is sufficient to treat it as a certainty. “It’s not about our analysis,” Cheney reportedly said, “…It’s about our response (emphasis added).” Put simply, the likelihood of an event occurring is not a necessary prerequisite to wage war. This embeds the supreme international crime of aggressive war in the fabric of national security policy. Aggression is self-defense, Winston. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY The Obama Administration gave the War on Terror a facelift by rebranding it “Overseas Contingency Operations.” But the sanitizing nomenclature has done little to halt the institutionalization of the apparatus of tyranny– from Kill Lists to Disposition Matrices to Drone Playbooks to indefinite detentions to persecuting whistleblowers to pervasive domestic surveillance. These developments are strikingly at odds with the post-9/11 metanarrative that frames this conflict as a clash between the forces of freedom and despotism. As Bush phrased it: “Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this Chamber, a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms – our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” From this point onward, spreading ‘freedom and democracy’ abroad became the rallying point for a nation enraptured by its new messianic role. But it soon became apparent that freedom at home cannot coexist with hyper-militarism abroad. Accusation Is Guilt – Killing You for Your Own Safety. What could be more destructive to the cherished freedoms that make America a “shining city on a hill” than giving a “high level official” the power to kill Americans on US soil without any due process, accountability or transparency? What could be more Orwellian than asserting such dictatorial authority, which has always been the hallmark of totalitarian states, in the name of protecting the public’s safety? The cost of war is not measured solely in terms of blood and treasure. War also corrodes human morality to a point where even the most inhumane acts become perfectly acceptable. In fact, summary executions without due process and the right to a fair trial served as one of the justifications for removing Saddam Hussein’s regime. Not only does the recent Department of Justice White Paper resoundingly affirm this power grab, it also destroys the foundation of Anglo-American jurisprudence by nullifying the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ It eviscerates the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits any deprivation of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” It obliterates the protections afforded by the Sixth Amendment, including the “right to a speedy and public trial,” by asserting that government allegations alone, based on secret evidence, are sufficient to establish guilt. Accusation is guilt, Winston. As Glenn Greenwald cogently observes: “But of course, when this memo refers to “a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaida”, what it actually means is this: someone whom the President – in total secrecy and with no due process – has accused of being that. Indeed, the memo itself makes this clear, as it baldly states that presidential assassinations are justified when “an informed, high-level official of the US government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the US. This is the crucial point: the memo isn’t justifying the due-process-free execution of senior al-Qaida leaders who pose an imminent threat to the US. It is justifying the due-process-free execution of people secretly accused by the president and his underlings, with no due process, of being that (emphasis in original).” Rarely do apologists for the normalization of extra-judicial murder realize that this represents a permanent erosion of core liberties, an ever-lasting debasement of the Bill of Rights. “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it,” Orwell said. “Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” Secret assassinations are here to stay. The Great Shift Inward — From Enemy Combatants to Homegrown Terrorists. Under international law, captured enemy soldiers are considered Prisoners of War (POWs), and thus shielded by the Geneva Conventions and the jus cogens prohibition against torture. Furthermore, terrorism was traditionally treated as a federal criminal offense before 9/11. Accordingly, those accused of terrorism could still invoke the protections of the Bill of Rights, including the right to counsel, right to a jury trial, right to confront one’s accusers, right against self-incrimination and conviction based on guilt proven beyond a reasonable doubt. As the 2002 Padilla Case demonstrated, however, the enemy combatant doctrine creates a category of detainees that are neither POWs nor terrorists. As such, they are beyond the reach of both the Bill of Rights and Geneva Conventions. This undefined label essentially circumvents the safeguards of the legal system and allows the state to treat the accused like a medieval King would a serf. It sets the groundwork for a parallel gulag system in the United States operating on the model of indefinite detention without charge or trial, no access to a lawyer, and confessions obtained through torture. And then came Attorney General Holder’s recent premonition about a new threat: the “homegrown terrorist.” Speaking to ABC news, Holder’s statement signals a decisive shift in the script governing the ongoing campaign: “It’s a very serious threat. I think what it says is that the scope, our scope, has to be broadened. We can’t think that it’s just a bunch of people in caves in some part of the world. We have to be concerned about the homeland to the same extent that we are worried about the threat coming from overseas” (emphasis added). The implications of this statement are staggering, for it turns the United States into the new “battlefield.” Systems of tyranny perfected abroad are always turned inward. It only took a decade for the same tactics of warfare that were previously restricted to foreign countries to now being applied domestically. Responding to Senator Rand Paul’s question whether the President can authorize drone strikes on US citizens on domestic soil, Holder revealingly states that “It is possible…to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.” Even though the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits military involvement in domestic law enforcement, notice how Holder sees no problem with the military, not police, using lethal force against Americans on US soil. Furthermore, when combined with the DOJ White Paper’s assertion that drone assassinations do “not require that the US have clear evidence that a specific attack . . . will take place in the immediate future,” it becomes frighteningly clear that an anonymous “high level official” can deploy these “faceless ambassadors of death” to strike you dead anytime, even absent any imminent or likely threat. This gives government the power of God. It repudiates every principle of liberty this constitutional republic was founded upon. This is no exaggeration, as Holder’s follow-up response to Senator Paul clarifies: “Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil? The answer to that question is no (emphasis added).” As any lawyer can attest, Holder’s heavily qualified statement creates more ambiguity. Note the following points: (1) Holder is not saying that the President cannot kill an American on US soil. The phrasing of his question is much narrower, which can arguably be interpreted as allowing the President to kill without using “weaponized drones;” (2) most important of all, his statement implies that the President does have the authority to kill Americans “engaged in combat.” Hence, the issue of how “combat” is defined carries great importance. In this regard, William Grigg brilliantly points out that al-Awlaki’s assassination sets a precedent that stretches the interpretation of “combat” to a point where there are few, if any, restraints on the Presidents power to kill: “Combat” can consist of expressing support for Muslims mounting armed resistance against U.S. military aggression, which was the supposed crime committed by Anwar al-Awlaki, or sharing the surname and DNA of a known enemy of the state, which was the offense committed by Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdel. Under the rules of engagement used by the Obama Regime in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan, any “military-age” male found within a targeted “kill zone” is likewise designated a “combatant,” albeit usually after the fact.” More than half a century ago Orwell had warned us that the scourge of war eventually turns inward. “The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word “war”, therefore, has become misleading” (emphasis added). Stated differently, war becomes a buzzword for concealing a rather insidious internal dynamic, one that treats those who oppose the status quo – the intrepid whistleblower, the outspoken journalist, the vocal activist – as a legitimate target for persecution. Dissent Is Treason. It is precisely the ability to express unpopular opinions and the autonomy to diverge from convention without fear of persecution that makes any society free. As Edward R. Murrow reminded us during the McCarthy era, dissent should never be confused with disloyalty because “we are not descended from fearful men […] who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.” That same principle holds true today, regardless of the nature of the claimed emergency. Bradley Manning was caged like an animal under insanity inducing conditions for more than two and a half yearswithout trial. Manning’s treatment is an epiphenomenon of the current administration’s unprecedented war against whistleblowers, which makes an example of any lowly prole who dare expose corruption at the highest levels of the Inner Party. John Kiriakou rots in prison for the “crime” of informing the people about the CIA’s illegal waterboarding, whereas John Brennan ascends to the heights of power for endorsing torture and assassinations. The operative effect of such incidents is to create a culture of intimidation and silence by making it a “thoughtcrime” to deviate from the official version of events. Investigative journalist Chris Hedges points out that the NDAA (the Homeland Battlefield Bill) “permits the military to detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, who ‘substantially support’—an undefined legal term—al-Qaida, the Taliban or ‘associated forces,’ again a term that is legally undefined.” This represents a clear step toward the criminalization of activities that were formerly protected under the First Amendment. It equates any meaningful dissent with treason. As if this weren’t bad enough, some government employees are told to view “protests” as a form of “low-level terrorism,” and consider “Fury at the West for reasons ranging from personal problems to global policies of the U.S.” as a potential indicator of terrorist activity. Recall that the PATRIOT Act was also billed a necessary counterterrorism tool. Even though it vastly expanded the state’s investigative power without any attendant checks and balances, Congress was given no time to read it due to the claimed exigency of the circumstances. Almost a decade later, however, its application has been expanded to ordinary, non-terrorism cases like drug dealing and child pornography. Understanding how this process works is vital, for tyranny always treads a familiar path: first it clamors for unfettered authority to resolve some overriding problem; then it consolidates that power; next it gradually expands its vocabulary and application; finally, it turns around and uses that power to persecute everyone. Indeed, those who wield unrestrained power will inevitably abuse it. Big Brother Is Watching You – Argus, TrapWire, Stingray, EARS and Total Information Awareness. Reporting on DARPA’s most recent project called Effective Affordable Reusable Speech-to-text (EARS), Wired magazine reports that “Darpa wants to make systems so accurate, you’ll be able to easily record, transcribe and recall all the conversations you ever have.” It’s a “little freaky,” the author admits, since it gives those who wield this technology total omniscience – the power to know everything about everyone at any time. The parallels to 1984 are obvious: “Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed — no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull(emphasis added).” The only vestige of privacy is in one’s own mind – for now at least. But even though the average citizen’s privacy has been eviscerated, the government continues to operate at unprecedented levels of secrecy. As the Associated Press reports: …the government cited national security to withhold information at least 5,223 times — a jump over 4,243 such cases in 2011 and 3,805 cases in Obama’s first year in office.The secretive CIA last year became even more secretive: Nearly 60 percent of 3,586 requests for files were withheld or censored for that reason last year, compared with 49 percent a year earlier. In that context, privacy is not dead per se; it is flourishing insofar as the government’s inner workings are concerned. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. “They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality…and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything…” Like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, the opinion molders – the handful of corporations that control the flow of information – sanitize reality to cover for even the worst cases of executive wrongdoing. Their paternalism regards people as mere casual observers to be controlled, not stakeholders to be informed about the democratic process. Their function is to control the narrative of events, for “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Oceania Has Always Never Been At War With East Asia. Orwell explained doublethink as “holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed…” A recently declassified memorandumwritten by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2001, almost a year and a half before Operation Iraqi Freedom, adds to the plethora of evidence that Rumsfeld, along with the rest of the neoconservative war hawks, concocted false pretexts to market the invasion of Iraq. The same Donald Rumsfeld, who invoked Saddam Hussein’s non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) as a casus belli to invade Iraq in 2003, previously armed the same Iraqi dictator with chemical and biological weapons as Ronald Reagans Middle East envoy during the 1980s. Oceania was never at war with East Asia. But this was an inconvenient fact in the prelude to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and therefore had to be forgotten. It never happened. “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” Oceania has always been at war with East Asia. Conclusion – The Grand Contradiction. In a historical irony, Orwell’s proposed preface to Animal Farm about censorship in the English press was suppressed and remained undiscovered for years after his death. In it, Orwell mounts a principled defense of intellectual freedom during a time when the western press brooked no criticism of Joseph Stalin or his murderous regime. “These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you,” Orwell warned. “Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists.” Make a habit of endorsing drone strikes in far off lands, and perhaps the next drone will show up in your neighborhood. In conclusion, the grand contradiction lurking behind all the rhetorical smoke screens is simply this: in trying to rid the world of evil using the tactics of evil, we unleash even greater horrors; we become what we seek to destroy. Edited April 16, 2013 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted April 17, 2013 Author Share Posted April 17, 2013 (edited) Senator Roger Wicker tied into Boston Bombing http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/senator-roger-wicker-tied-into-boston-bombing/41289/ By: From the Trenches As previously mentioned, the emphases is being directed toward connecting the bombing with US national patriots, and another little bit of sleaze has now been injected. News is just breaking that contends that an envelope sent to Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) contained ricin, a deadly poison. Now one might ask how the Senator, the ricin, and the bombing are connected. Senator Roger Wicker is one of the sixteen GOP Senators who voted to stop the filibuster which would have shut down the 2nd Article infringement debate which is going on this week in the US Senate. Wicker has been named as a traitor to the Republic by the patriot community, as he and the other fifteen Senators voted for the debate in spite of the fact that they had previously identified the gun legislation as an infringement upon our Bill of Rights, making the act one with knowledge and forethought. Edited April 17, 2013 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted April 17, 2013 Share Posted April 17, 2013 Senator Roger Wicker tied into Boston Bombing http://www.fromthetr...-bombing/41289/ By: From the Trenches As previously mentioned, the emphases is being directed toward connecting the bombing with US national patriots, and another little bit of sleaze has now been injected. News is just breaking that contends that an envelope sent to Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) contained ricin, a deadly poison. Now one might ask how the Senator, the ricin, and the bombing are connected. Senator Roger Wicker is one of the sixteen GOP Senators who voted to stop the filibuster which would have shut down the 2nd Article infringement debate which is going on this week in the US Senate. Wicker has been named as a traitor to the Republic by the patriot community, as he and the other fifteen Senators voted for the debate in spite of the fact that they had previously identified the gun legislation as an infringement upon our Bill of Rights, making the act one with knowledge and forethought. To make a long story short there's no evidence tying one to the other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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