Ascend, Evolve, Expand.....

Ascend, Evolve, Expand..... 2009-11-06T04:32:34Z User 71 http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/ OrgSpace NewsLog On re-naming NCN to R.......

Dear Susanahbe,

After the last comments you made to me on your Random newslog, I was struck speechless for a few days, so forgive my delay in response. I just didn't know what to say...it's one of those "wow" moments in your life when you realize you've been given an incredible opportunity, one that you probably don't even deserve. It's "an offer I can't refuse".

I realized that what you've offered me is really very generous, (regarding your idea that I write Ming about your blog, "Random"). I mean, here you are, having created one of the important social movements of our time, (Randomness) and after all that time, expense, work and frankly, GENIUS.... you just give away the glory of writing Ming to somebody who hardly knows you. "Wow". That brings a tear of joy to my eyes, but I will also confess, a certain feeling of unworthiness that comes with grave responsiblity.

But then again, that's what ALL great leaders do isn't it? They delegate responsibility! They provide challenging tasks to their underlings, so that those who can only aspire to such greatness, have an opportunity for their own personal growth. What an honor! So I did indeed write Ming as you suggested, and have strived to be worthy of the task. That letter follows...I trust that it will measure up to your high standards.

P.S.
I don't wish to presume further upon your newslog, and distract from your latest profound and highly Random "clown post", or the many Random commentaries which will inevitably follow. So, I was contemplating the idea of honoring your Randomness further by asking a favor from Spells. I'm going to ask her to post this whole conversation on her Newslog, under the heading, "On changing NCN to "R". This way, you can be as Random as need be, and Cause dictates, while discussion on this important matter can be had elsewhere. ( I can't post it on mine right now, because of my new post, that is, I will sheepishly admit, not as Random as it ought to be) After all, you've done the important work here, and more certainly cannot be expected of you. You've crystallized the very essence of what NCN has become! This makes you the very center of the cyclone! The very green of the grass! The very karmic foci for world change! The very...well you get the idea....forgive my over-enthusiasm. Now it's time for others to follow your example to give THEIR all, and do the necessary work of RANDOMNESS.

/////////////

Dear Ming,

It is a great honor to bring something of this import to your attention. This regards a new, no less than COSMIC development on your forum, whose implications it is my duty to highlight.

Susanahbe has come up with a new name and definition for the New Civlization Network, and has generously suggested that I contact you about it. What I said to her about this a few days ago, sums up the situation for your review...

4 Nov 2009 @ 00:59 by rishi : Random Indeed
Dear Susannahbe,

Reading through the various posts here as I sometimes do, I noticed one blog called "Random".

I thought about that for a few days, reflecting upon your statement to the effect of, "DEFINITION:
Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective."

Hmmm, I mused..."Random"

Random Indeed! This single word, as well as the definition you offered above, is exactly what the New Civilization Network has become, summarized in a single stroke. Brilliant! Genius! You've summarized instantly what I've tried to say about this place in exactly 6 LETTERS. As a matter of obvious fact, in 999 out of a thousand days, it does indeed, "have no specific pattern, purpose, or objective", given of course, that almost nobody here at present does either.

For this reason, I really think you ought to write Ming an e-mail, suggesting he change the name of this website from "New Civilization Network" to "Random".
That at least would be more honest, since the posts and comments that typically follow on this forum, are far more "random" than they are "new civlization".

Also, this blog could then serve as the new flagship model for a great new social movement of the same name..."random"! That would fit in nicely with the state of modern mass media too!

And to this Susanahbe said, “Rishi, I think if it concerns you so greatly then YOU should write to our kind and generous host Ming (who allows us ALL to express ourselves as we see fit)and tell him he should rename the site - I am sure he would REALLY welcome your wise advice.”

////////////////////////////

So what do you think, brother Ming? Do you like the idea of changing "NCN" to "R"? Your posts have been pretty much in keeping with this trend too, "podcars" and all. And so, I feel confident that you will be warm to the idea. In the spirit of democracy, it's time we all acknowledged the, "will of the people" in their desire for "Randomness" don't you think? This is especially true since this place has nothing whatsoever to do with creating a "new civilization" any more, even from your end. Almost every post and the comments that follow, are as Susanahbe has brilliantly defined... “Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective”. Yes, well put…my thoughts exactly.

If Spells agrees to this suggestion, I invite you ahead of time to discuss this very important matter of Randomness on her Newslog...what do you say?

One last thing, oh former purveyor of new civilizations....I thought we might create a new chat room at "R" that more closely reflects it's current purpose. I've thought of many names for it, and among these I humbly suggest one of the following; "No purpose at All", "Bubbleheads for all things Bright and Bouncy", "Down with Meaning!, (who needs it?)", "Long live Mediocrity!", "There is no Truth, so who Cares?", "Bored Housewives make Better Lovers, (or at least gossips)", "Enquirer magazine as the New Gospel", "Prozac PROVIDES", "Social responsiblity is for Chumps", "The World is Dying... why Bother Trying?", "Zero Fiddles while Earth Burns", "Talking Shit is IT", "Everybody Loves a Clown", "Googles of Gossip" and last but certainly not least, "Making Something out of Nothing". I'm sure Susanahbe would have even better suggestions, although that last one is hard to top.

In this new chat room, or even somewhere on the regular forum of newslogs, we could have a daily competition, which comes in two phases. The first is where we all sit down together at an appointed time each day for a year, and get SERIOUSLY RANDOM. Susanahbe, (or somebody she appoints to this important task) could start by saying something absolutely irrelevant, and which doggedly avoids anything with real meaning. This can be followed by dozens of others, each in turn saying something totally off topic and pointless from the person before them...the more Random the better! Just imagine it! A whole "conversation" each day for two hours at a time, where everybody speaks, nobody listens or cares, and the truth is put in it's proper place...the "oval file". The second phase is where Ming, (or perhaps an authoritative panel of Randomness experts appointed by Susanahbe) goes through the text of each "conversation", and every week gives the proud, "Excellence in Entropy" award to whoever can be, "The Most Random". Perhaps even a little plaque with their engraved name, could be mailed to each honored recipient, along with an "EE" lapel pin?!?

Oh my! Silly me...and how very unobservant! We've already accomplished phase one of this project 5 times over! Well then, let's move on to phase two shall we? I nominate Susanahbe for this weeks', Excellence in Entropy Award. Do I have a second?

I look forward to your response, Ming.

Sincerely,
Rishi
last holdout for what is still a good cause
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000152.htm 2009-11-06T04:32:34Z 2009-11-06T04:32:34Z Europe faces ever deepening recession

Europe faces ever deepening recession
By Chris Marsden
28 April 2009

Particularly revealing in the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook issued last week is its estimation of the precarious state of the European economies.

The IMF described the United States as lying at the centre of the global economic crisis, but also predicted a worsening recession in Europe. It estimates that the euro zone’s economy will contract by 4.2 percent this year, significantly worse than its January forecast of a 2 percent decline.

The EU states have incurred massive debts due to bank bailouts and stimulus packages, with a combined 2.3 trillion euros in financial guarantees, 300 billion euros in recapitalisation programmes and an additional 400 billion euros in various rescue and restructuring schemes.

The statistics agency Eurostat notes that Europe is in the midst of a deep economic recession, with industrial orders falling by 34.5 percent year-on-year. The euro zone’s external current account deficit reached 57.3 billion euros in the final quarter of 2008, almost three times the figure for the same period in 2007. It is not just exports that are declining as a result of the global slump. Direct investment abroad by the EU amounted to just 23.9 billion euros for the last three months of 2008, compared to 171.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Foreign investors also disinvested in the EU.

The cost of bailouts and declining tax revenues due to the slump has led to a spiraling of government deficits, which collectively have hit 2.3 percent of GDP for the 27-nation EU. The government debt to GDP ratio increased from 66 percent at the end of 2007 to 69.3 percent in the euro zone and from 58.7 percent to 61.5 percent in the EU.

Europe’s GDP is expected to fall by 1.2 percent, with the economy predicted to shrink by two percent, according to a report by the European Economic Advisory Group.

Unemployment is set to rise by an average rate of eight percent.

The IMF has said that the euro zone will face a worse recession than the United States, complaining that the European Central Bank was too slow to react to the impending recession and that Europe’s financial policies were not being implemented in a “sufficiently comprehensive and coordinated” fashion.

There is particular concern over the state of Europe’s banking system. While US banks have covered about half of their write-downs, Europe’s banks have taken only a fifth so far. In a bleak warning, the IMF noted that total write-downs would wipe out the world’s bank equity.

The Financial Times reported that Independent Credit View, the Swiss-based risk adviser, has warned of a “second wave” of debt stress hitting Europe under conditions in which its banks have much less in terms of reserve cushions than US banks.

Peter Jeggli, Credit View’s founder, states, “The biggest risk is in Europe... The Americans are ahead of the curve. European banks are exposed to US commercial real estate and to problems in Eastern Europe and Spain, where the situation is turning dramatic. We think the Spanish savings banks are basically bust and will need a government bail-out.”

The Financial Times comments, “Europe’s banks are exposed to a hydra-headed set of bubbles. They not only face heavy losses from US property, they also face collapsing credit booms in their own backyard and fallout from high levels of corporate debt in the eurozone. It takes longer for damage to surface with Europe’s traditional bank loans, which buckle later in the cycle as defaults rise. The ferocity of Europe’s recession leaves no doubt that losses will be huge this time.”

European banking is particularly exposed due to the collapse of the Eastern European economies.

Several countries have already gone cap-in-hand to the IMF, including Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Latvia and the Ukraine. In addition, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank have advanced a 24.5 billion euro support package for Eastern Europe’s banks.

Even so, there is every possibility of a collapse of one or more of the eastern European economies, which would have a domino effect that may lead to the collapse of neighbouring states and west European banks.

According to figures compiled by Handelsblad, Italy’s national debt is already well in excess of its GDP, Greece is approaching this figure and Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal and Austria all top 60 percent of GDP.

Germany
Numerous reports identify Germany as particularly vulnerable to the global recession due to its reliance on exports, which make up 40 percent of its GDP, and its exposure to east European debt.

The IMF has predicted that Germany’s economy will contract by 5.6 percent this year, while a group of German financial institutions predicts a 6 percent decline.

Germany may face an “especially persistent” recession and see a 23 percent decline in exports this year, pushing unemployment to close to 11 percent. Germany’s budget deficit will swell to 132.5 billion euros, or 5.5 percent of GDP in 2010, from 3.7 percent this year, the German institutes state.

Germany accounted for nearly a quarter of European bank write-downs last year. Its investments in eastern Europe ($450 billion, or four percent of German banking assets) raise further dangers. And not just for Germany.

Germany remains the engine of Europe’s economy. An ever worsening recession there will pull the rest of the continent in its wake.

Britain
The parlous state of the UK economy is the second major cause for concern, due primarily to the role of London as a finance centre.

The IMF has predicted that Britain’s GDP will contract by 4.1 percent this year, much greater than admitted by the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and that Britain will suffer an ongoing recession.

In last week’s budget, Chancellor Alistair Darling predicted a 3.5 percent fall this year and a return to growth by 2010.

Commenting on the disparity, IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn said, “Part of the recovery relies on confidence and it is absolutely normal that governments all over the world will try to rebuild confidence in looking at the upper part of the range rather than the lower bound.”

“I would certainly have more pessimistic forecasts than most governments. Last year we were proven right,” he added.

The April 25 Wall Street Journal was deeply skeptical regarding Britain’s prospects, noting that “The UK, with a capital city that serves as one of the world’s premier financial hubs, has depended on financial services for one in five jobs and more than a quarter of its tax revenues... the plunge in first-quarter gross domestic product—[1.9%] the biggest since the 2.4% drop posted in the third quarter of 1979—presents a challenge for the UK government, which is taking on debt at a rate not seen since World War II, as it spends money to cushion the downturn and salvage its banking system. Over the next three years the government’s net borrowing requirement will be £488 billion ($718 billion).”

The IMF predicts that government debt in Britain will reach more than 80 percent of GDP.

Some measure of the extent of the slump is provided by the rise in unemployment to over two million, with predictions that it will top three million by 2010. In addition the latest British Chambers of Commerce monthly business survey found that 70 percent of companies plan to freeze or cut wages this year and half are thinking of making staff redundant in the next six months.

The IMF has warned that Britain’s housing market has still further to fall. With house prices having declined by 20 percent, the IMF stated that, as with Spain and Ireland, there was “a considerable distance left to run”.

David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservatives, who are predicted to win next year’s general election, has spoken of creating a new “age of austerity”, vowing even deeper cuts than those pledged by the Labour government.

Spain
Spain is amongst the western European nations worst hit by the recession.

The IMF has predicted a prolonged slump in Spain’s economy as a result of the collapse in its housing market. It expects the economy to contract by 3 percent in 2009, as against government predictions of 1.6 percent. This month, unemployment topped four million, having doubled in the past year. Now standing at 17.4 percent, it is widely expected to top 20 percent fairly shortly.

The Socialist Party government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has responded with a 70 billion euro fiscal stimulus programme and has pledged more to come. But The IMF has issued a strong warning that a worsening budget deficit expected to rise to 8 percent of GDP raises dangers of economic collapse.

France
In France, the Sarkozy government has estimated that the economy will shrink by 2.5 percent this year. Prime Minister Francois Fillon said, “What is certain is that 2009 will be a year of severe recession.”

This estimate is contradicted by the OECD, which predicts a contraction of 3.3 percent. France’s budget deficit stands at six percent.

Last month, unemployment rose by between 60,000 and 70,000, following 79,900 job losses in February. The unemployment rate presently stands at 8.2 percent, but is expected to top 10 percent by the end of the year. Unemployment is already a massive 21.2 percent and rising amongst those in France who are under 25.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000151.htm 2009-04-28T17:45:25Z 2009-04-28T17:45:25Z The 2nd Great Depression.....

From wsws.org....

US companies slash thousands more jobs in early March
By David Walsh
11 March 2009

The first ten days of March have seen no let-up in the destruction of jobs in the US. Large and small corporations, as well as state and local governments, school districts, public libraries and universities, are laying off workers in the most devastating slump since the Great Depression.

The official unemployment rate reported last Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of 8.1 percent was the worst in the US in a quarter-century. The so-called underemployment rate of 14.8 percent—which also includes those who have given up looking for work and those involuntarily working part-time—gives a somewhat more accurate picture of the jobs situation. That figure jumped more than 6 percent from January to February.

More than one in seven workers in the US—an estimated 23.1 million people, according to the Economic Policy Institute—were either out of work or underemployed in February. The percent of the population employed stood at 60.3 percent, down from 63.4 percent in December 2006.

Forbes reports 15,890 layoffs at the 500 largest public companies in the first third of March, including 11,600 global job cuts at United Technologies. Officials at the aerospace, construction conglomerate and military contractor, headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, indicated the commercial and housing construction slump was a key factor.

United Technologies Chief Executive Louis Chenevert told the media, "The economic recovery, anticipated in the second half of 2009 now appears unlikely." As for aerospace, Chenevert commented, "It looks like 2008 was the peak for commercial and business aircraft production." Conditions, he noted, "have been very challenging."

The acquisition of Schering-Plough by pharmaceutical giant Merck for $41.1 billion, which will further enrich the companies' executives, as well as assorted bankers and lawyers, will mean the destruction of an estimated 16,000 jobs. Ongoing mergers in "big Pharma" are expected to lead to at least 35,000 layoffs in total.

The Los Angeles Times noted: "The [various pharmaceutical] deals would be virtually impossible to complete if the banks had not received money from the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The bailout enabled them to lend the drug makers a combined $31 billion.

"‘These mergers are only happening now because the drug companies can get the money from the banks to make the deals happen,' said Dr. John Abramson, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and the author of Overdosed America. ‘The TARP money is supposed to be loosening up credit and keeping Americans employed. They shouldn't be using bailout money to get rid of people.'"

Delta Air Lines announced March 10 a ten percent reduction in its international seat capacity and nearly 2,100 ‘voluntary' layoffs. Delta's trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific networks will be decreased 11-13 and 12-14 percent, respectively. This follows 6,000 cuts at the airline and at Northwest, before Delta bought the latter in October.

As part of the continuing bloodletting in the newspaper business, McClatchy Co. announced March 10 it was cutting 1,600 jobs. The newspaper publisher has eliminated about one-third of its positions in less than a year. Several of the chain's 30 newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee, the Kansas City Star and the Bradenton (Florida) Herald, have already indicated how many workers they will shed.

Sources have told Florida media outlets that Disney is carrying out "massive layoffs" at its Disney World theme park in Orlando. Reportedly hundreds of workers have been let go, although the company would not confirm the report. A drop in tourism is responsible for the cutbacks.

Fleetwood Enterprises, a maker of recreational vehicles (RVs), announced plans March 9 to shut down two eastern Oregon plants, resulting in 415 job cuts. A company official commented, "It's pretty difficult here. ... We're no different from the places where manufacturing layoffs are happening across the state." The company's stock was delisted on the New York Stock Exchange in January. In 2006 Fleetwood sold 34,500 travel trailers—in 2008, only 11,000.

La Grande, Oregon, the location of one of the Fleetwood plants slated to be closed, already has an unemployment rate of 11.3 percent. "RV manufacturing and wood products are its top two employers," according to Oregonlive.com

Komatsu, the Japanese heavy equipment manufacturer, has stepped up plans to close plants in North America, including facilities in Quebec, Georgia, Kentucky and Wisconsin.

In an especially brutal act, the Pontiac, Michigan school board voted March 9 to lay off every district employee, 622 of them, and call them back later "as needed." The Detroit News quoted Sheila Williams, 56, a paraprofessional who has worked in the district for 12 years: "This is not right because it's the little people who are getting stepped on."

Eastman Chemical announced plans March 10 to slash 200 to 300 jobs in the next two months, many of them at its Kingsport, Tennessee headquarters. The company will also reduce the salaries of all US employees by 5 percent

Other major corporations announcing layoffs in March so far, according to Forbes, include Deere & Co. (325 employees at plants in Iowa due to weak construction demand); Northrop Grumman (750 administrative positions in California); Heil (waste and recycling collection trucks, a division of Dover, 180 jobs); General Dynamics (1,200 jobs cut "as turbulence in the aerospace sector continues"); US Steel (1,500 jobs through the closure of two plants in Ontario); and First Energy (335 workers cut to lower costs).

L.L. Bean is anticipating layoffs this year, after revenue dropped for only the third time since 1960 and, despite company claims to the contrary, strong rumors are circulating that Apple is cutting jobs.

The last week of February witnessed significant job cuts at Weyerhaeuser, JP Morgan Chase, Chesapeake Energy, Dow Corning, Coach and Micron Technology.

Significantly, large job cuts are occurring in the legal profession. On Monday, four major firms—White & Case, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, King & Spalding and K&L Gates—cut some 300 attorneys and 522 support staff. In the 10-day period starting February 27, some 2,500 layoffs took place at well-known law partnerships.

William Brennan, a legal consultant with Altman Weil, told Law.com, "The problem is that lawyers have never seen this type of pain before. ... The layoffs have shocked many partners and created a tremendous amount of anxiety."

There is no sign of a let-up in the assault on jobs. Manpower International's survey of US employers' hiring plans came up with the worst figure since the company began polling companies in 1982. A net of -1.0 percent of firms expect to hire in the April through June period, down from 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009 and 15 percent from the second quarter in 2008. A company official commented, "That's about as bad as it gets with our survey."

The Society for Human Resource Management, which surveys human resource professionals at more than 500 manufacturing and 500 service-sector companies, reported in early March that this month's hiring expectations had taken "a precipitous drop from a year ago. Hiring is down in March by two-thirds in the manufacturing sector and one-third in the service sector compared with 2008." The Society called this "a dramatic reversal."

In the last period for which figures are available—the fourth quarter of 2008—83 of the country's 100 largest metropolitan markets lost jobs. The most hard-hit areas were the "industrial belt of the Midwest, where problems bedevilling automakers are harming other businesses, and Florida, where a collapse of the real estate market has triggered an especially deep recession." (www.bizjournals.com)

Dayton, Ohio has the longest streak of consecutive quarters with job losses, 32—the city last added jobs in the fourth quarter of 2000. Detroit has lost jobs in 13 straight quarters, followed by Toledo (10 quarters), and then Cleveland. Daytona Beach and Palm Bay-Melbourne, Florida, had nine consecutive quarters of job losses.

The Economic Policy Institute reported March 10 that BLS figures indicate that job openings declined 7.2 percent in January, to three million, a decline of 32 percent from the start of the recession 14 months earlier. In January, there were 3.9 job seekers for every job opening and, given the jump in the February jobless figure, "there were easily over 4 unemployed workers per job opening last month." The jobless "are seeing their chances of finding a job grow ever dimmer."
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000150.htm 2009-03-11T22:39:40Z 2009-03-11T22:39:40Z Science of Sciences!!

I am moving this discussion on consciousness to a new article and comment stream in order to keep continuity and to stay on track. I am also moving A-d's comment to this log to start the discussion.

Many (including myself) have said that we are all one and from the same Source. This is the Truth, however how many have actually explored what that really means. What does the Source consist of? What are we made of?

I offer you here a clear explanation of what Consciousness is and from Whence we come and what we are made of. I invite all to meditate on this and see what insights come up. This is the most fundamental item ever offered and it is truly exciting and True!!

Please take the time to meditate on this and post your comments for further discussion.

Love, clarity and peace to you,
Spells/Sandi

**

The Attributes of mass consciousness and its relationship to Intent

Consciousness may be discussed using the analogy of a flashlight. Consciousness is composed of three elements which are; Energy, Awareness and Intent. Awareness is like a flashlight at night. Through this medium, whatever we focus our attention upon is illuminated and revealed. Our energy is the light itself, and that which points the flashlight is Intent .

Consciousness, and how it organizes group minds

A group mind is analogous to a cluster of cells which compose a body. Each cell has its own individual consciousness, (composed of intent, awareness and energy) which has its specialized function for the organism of which it is a member. Multi-cellular organisms exhibit far greater capacities and abilities than do single celled organisms, for the simple reason that there is vast power inherent in cooperation and specialization. A group of like minded individuals is essentially no different, in that each person contributes the essence of their focus, (awareness) will, (intent) and force of motivation, (energy) to the group effort. For this reason groups of persons are far more powerful by potential, than a collection of separated individuals. Their "group space" or mind, is geometrically more powerful than an equivalent number of individuals who are not aligned in joint purpose, and indifferent to one another.

In any group setting, be it cellular, community-wide or in such a case as international relations, any task may be more easily carried out through cooperation. At each level, group mind effects are observable. The advantages of cooperative action have to do with the principle of natural law known as specialization. When the members of any collective specialize in their functions, the distribution of "labor" in the accomplishment of any task is made more efficient. The reason for this is simple. When a group is composed of specialized individuals, then all are freed to perform their specialized duties without distraction by other considerations.

Non-cooperating individuals who act alone, are forced to do everything in life for themselves, which means they cannot afford to specialize (and do one single task extremely well). They must address all the tasks of life simultaneously every day. This tends to be an inefficient method of living.

In a situation such as a tribal village however, specific duties are carried out by certain members for the good of the whole. Some are involved with catching or growing food, others with its preparation, as well as the making of clothing, building, organizing and conducting spiritual events. An individual must do all of these things to stay healthy, which is a comparatively enormous burden of labor. To be singular is to waste energy, and to have ones' attention (awareness) divided into the diverse categories of many daily tasks. Cooperating individuals become like the organs of a greater body thus formed, whenever those of a like mind come together. Cooperation affords many more advantages than does individual effort for this reason, because the load of essential tasks is divided up interconnectedly, with the good of the whole, (the many) being the first priority. From such an arrangement each individual is vastly benefited and strengthened by the collective. Ultimately, and by taking the example of nature, this is the Intent and method we must employ on a social, planetary basis.

We are as cells in the body of the World Mind. When we come together as groups with a specific focus, we form what is analogous to tissues, muscles and organs within the planetary body. At present, there is a particular need for groups, (organs) of persons who specialize in that aspect of consciousness expansion known as clarity. In other words, there is a great need in the world for certain of its members, to take on the function of the "higher brain centers", for this World Mind to which we belong. Our species needs a specialized organ or "brain", which is capable of psychically guiding the rest of the body of humanity into a future that is not only inclusive of enlightened intentions, but also our continued evolution and true spiritual progress.

Our spiritual progress also depends on a planetary "heart" being formed by individuals who radiate love. Our mutual love can be so strong that its effects defy the imagination. Both of the above types of psychic specialists, will act in unison to "channel" and transform the mindstates and Intent of the rest of humanity. Through this psychic channeling the Body that is our species will be moved in unison on a psychic, (unified field) level. The Intent of world connectivity via spiritual Intent, will be manifest on higher and higher levels, as the continuous standing reality.

The group mind principle, (of natural law) is as follows, "the resulting force generated from the combining of like minds, is geometrically greater than the sum of its parts". In other words, minds which are focused together upon a common theme, create a mutual force which is not merely additive, but vastly more powerful than any one individual or group of individuals. Group mind influence is in fact, a multiplying effect, expanding by factors of ten or more.

It is a mode of relating that is mutually beneficial and spiritual in nature, as distinguished from the usual person to person separateness or loneliness seen today. For this reason, our need as a species and as individuals, is to recognize that our society functions according to the group mind principle. Every couple, family, neighborhood, community, region, city, company, sporting event, nation, music band, meditation group, and meeting of two or more persons in like cause, exhibit group mind phenomena to a significant degree. Given the prevalence of group mind influence, we must make best use of its love and clarity-multiplying effects, if we are to realistically expect to survive the new millennium. We must come together as groups of spiritually minded persons, who employ the Intent of mutual benefit, the awareness of our global community, and the direction of inner energy for the sake of building a better world.

Groups of meditators may specialize in their function/intent for the good of the local group mind, (which they form while in meditation). Two or more persons may meet and first meditate, (see GM series #3 in the WMS Library, (http://www.eoni.com/~visionquest ). They may then send feelings of love and clear seeingness/wise understanding, (clarity) to all the other participants. These other participants will in turn send their love and clarity to each individual. A psychic "area of effect" then arises, surrounding the group as a type of collective aura. This aura is similarly composed of love and clarity, as a result of the projected intents of each meditator. At a critical moment the group will see itself as one singular, conscious entity, which is capable of rendering simultaneous action, through the medium of several meditating body/minds. This is known as "group casting" or "group manifestation". Groups should use the Intent of "raising the world" via the mediums of love and high feelings, as well as clarity. The World mind collective intention, may in this fashion be raised, (in levels of consciousness) via the Intentions of such groups and individual meditators around the world. We must Intend a critical mass type of transformation, whereby the mindstates, feelings, intentions and thought patterns of our collective are shifted. The body of humanity must be coordinated and transformed by those who are willing to specialize within this body, “to perform such functions” as the generation of Love and Clarity for all humanity.

Whenever the idea crosses your mind, send forth love and/or clarity to the world. During this moment, Intend love and clarity be sent to each person who has read this article. Don't over-analyze how to do this sending of love and clarity just yet, merely have confidence that it will be sent, and in turn received from others. Just relax, feel, and visualize an interconnected web of light, between the readers of this page. Let this visualized network(ing), which extends around the world, represent pathways whereby love and clarity are being mutually transmitted, jointly received, and then re-transmitted at an even greater level of intensity, with each minute that passes. Let love and clarity grow among us throughout the world in a domino-like succession.

Let these qualities travel from person to person like a great interconnecting wave, which mutually reinforces and builds.

We will in effect, "raise each others consciousness" daily in this way. The effects of this meditation will be increasingly potent and cumulative to a high degree. In the mean time, study the GM series in the WMS library, http://www.eoni.com/~visionquest to learn more about the specifics of group mind and Intent.

Matthew Webb visionquest@eoni.com The World Mind Society http://www.eoni.com/~visionquest
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000149.htm 2009-01-28T18:25:47Z 2009-01-28T18:25:47Z The Final Solution!

From wsws.org....

Amid talk of cease-fire, eyewitness accounts describe Israel’s destruction of Gaza
By Julie Hyland
17 January 2009

"Armageddon" is the word used by Times of London correspondent Martin Fletcher, the first eyewitness from the British news media to see the devastation wrought by Israel in Gaza.

Twenty days after the Israeli military unleashed its firepower on the narrow strip of land containing 1.5 million people—more than half of them children—there is "no one left in the ruins to hear the thunder of Israel's guns," Fletcher wrote.

The Times correspondent was one of only a handful of journalists allowed into Gaza under tight Israeli supervision on Thursday, and even then only to the outskirts—the edge of the town of al-Atara.

Fletcher described houses and apartment blocks "mostly reduced to their shells" by the constant bombardment, commercial units "crushed" and vegetable fields "churned up by tanks and bulldozers."

"There is not a Palestinian to be seen," Fletcher wrote.

The Times supports Israel, but the open savagery it has displayed in Gaza, with the deliberate targeting of civilian areas and reports of summary executions, caused the newspaper to question the repercussions of Tel Aviv's actions for the long-term stability of the Middle East and Israel itself.

A BBC producer in Gaza, Hamada Abuqammar, said that Israeli air strikes had continued even during the supposed three-hour humanitarian ceasefires. Medics reported Friday that they had managed to pull a further 23 bodies from rubble in Gaza City, amid reports of "ferocious fighting" in residential areas.

With at least 1,133 Palestinians killed, including 355 children, and another 5,130 wounded, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are now said to be in the centre of Gaza City in what a military spokesman said could be "the final act."

Some 40,000 people have fled to United Nations buildings for sanctuary—25,000 in the last week alone. But UN buildings are themselves targets for the IDF. Following last week's attack on a UN-run school that killed more than 40 people, the central UN headquarters holding humanitarian supplies was hit Thursday, destroying thousands of tonnes of food and supplies urgently required.

The blood-letting went on even as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, on a "mediation tour" of the Middle East, expressed his "outrage" at the attack on the UN building.

An emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly late Thursday evening, requested by 118 non-aligned member states, also criticized Israel's offensive. The Israeli delegation had sought to prevent the session on procedural grounds, with Gabriela Shalev, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, dismissing it as a "cynical, hateful and politicised [attempt] to de-legitimize Israel's fundamental right to defend its citizens." But the session proceeded, with General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann accusing Israel of violating international law and stating that Gaza "has been turned into a burning hell."

As Brockmann spoke there was mounting evidence to confirm reports that Israel is using white phosphorus as a smokescreen for the incursions by its tanks and troops into residential areas. Phosphorus, which is illegal under Geneva Treaty of 1980 in built-up areas, causes terrible burns.

Abu Shaaban, director of the burns unit at Gaza's Shifa hospital, told Christian Aid that the situation was a "disaster."

"We have been receiving a very high number of patients with a strange burn," he said, "completely different to the burns we are used to managing, very deep burns with a very offensive, chemical odour coming from the wound site...

"In some cases there is then severe destruction of the tissue and we have had to amputate whole limbs."

During the emergency UN session, Brockmann rebuked UN member-states for failing "to take the necessary steps to impose an immediate cease-fire," stating, "[The UN] cannot continue to fiddle while Gaza burns."

But the UN is not simply sitting on the fence in the one-sided conflict. While distancing itself from Israel's worst atrocities, the major Western powers are working towards a conclusion that will leave the Palestinians in even more wretched conditions.

Writing in the Independent Friday, Alvaro de Soto, chief UN Middle East peace envoy from 2005-2007, reported that on December 16 the UN Security Council had adopted resolution 1850, reaffirming its support for the "agreements and negotiations resulting from the 2007 Middle East summit in Annapolis, Maryland."

The Annapolis agreement was supposedly an initiative by the US to help the "peace process" and establish a Palestinian state by 2009.

But as the World Socialist Web Site reported at the time, the Palestinian state envisaged is little more than a Western protectorate that could "be imposed on the Palestinians only through a military and political offensive involving the United States, Israel, the European powers and the Arab bourgeois regimes, particularly Egypt."

The agreement specifically ruled Hamas, which had won the majority of seats in the January 2006 elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, out of any settlement. Israel had insisted there could be no reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and that any "national unity" government was out of the question. With Washington's backing, Israel made a clear warning that "Abbas must wage all-out civil war against opposition to Israel. If Abbas can't or won't do it, then Israel will," the WSWS explained.

Despite its best efforts, Fatah is considered to have done too little, too late, while its alliance with the Zionist state has seen it even further isolated amongst the Palestinian masses. Twelve days after the UN adopted resolution 1850, the Israeli bombardment began.

Interviewed in Newsweek on January 10, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni explained, "[W]e have a situation in which... Hamas is getting stronger, while Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] is getting weaker." Rejecting talk of a cease-fire for implying that Hamas could be a legitimate participant in negotiations, Livni said that agreement was possible only with those who accept Israel's "vision."

"The only way to continue the peace process is not only by continuing the dialogue with their [the Palestinians'] pragmatic leadership, but also by weakening those who are not willing to live in peace in this region. This is the strategy," she said.

In the same magazine, Daniel Klaidman explained that Israel's "strikes [on Gaza] were not simply a reaction; they were a calculation." The ultimate aim, he continued, was "to crush Hamas altogether, first by aerial attacks and then with a grinding artillery and infantry assault. The hope, however faint, is eventually to allow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah government to reassert control in Gaza."

The Jerusalem Post reported that Fatah and the IDF are currently imposing an "Iron Fist" policy in the West Bank, to extinguish Hamas and any other oppositional forces.

The operation is "being carried out in coordination with the IDF and under the supervision of US security experts," the Post said. In addition to bans on oppositional activity at universities and schools, "[T]he IDF has also been helping the PA security forces by arresting dozens of Hamas men in the West Bank," it continued.

The article added, "In Bethlehem, Hebron and Ramallah, policemen beat a number of Palestinian reporters and photographers who were covering protests against the IDF operation. Other journalists have been receiving threats almost on a daily basis from the PA security forces in the West Bank."

Palestinian Authority policemen "responsible for the massive crackdown received special training in Jordan and the West Bank as part of a security plan engineered by the US," the newspaper said.

On Friday, it was reported that a teenager had been killed during clashes between demonstrators and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank town of Hebron.

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior aide to Abbas, said that Hamas must be excluded from any talks on the situation in Gaza. Similarly, UN Secretary General Ban has said that "a return to the status quo ante cannot be an option," and that the unification of Gaza and the West Bank must be "under one legitimate Palestinian authority."

Whether Hamas is sufficiently weakened to achieve this end is a calculation in on-going efforts to draw up cease-fire terms.

Reports indicate that Israel and Washington hope to have brokered a deal before US President-elect Barak Obama's inauguration on Tuesday.

Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad returned to Cairo to discuss terms of an Egyptian-sponsored "peace" deal, which Hamas agreed on Wednesday. In Washington, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Livni signed an agreement "committing the United States to measures to stop Hamas re-arming itself." Israel said it will mean the US and NATO taking responsibility for monitoring shipments into Gaza.

In her Newsweek interview, Livni boasted that Israel's offensive was supported by the Middle East bourgeoisie.

"I don't want to embarrass anybody, but I know I represent their interests as well. It is no longer the Israeli-Palestinian or the Jewish-Arab conflict, but it is a conflict between moderates and extremists. This is the way this region is now divided."

Mass demonstrations across the Middle East in support of Gaza are increasingly turning on the Arab regimes themselves for facilitating Israel's slaughter.

In an attempt to rescue some credibility, Qatar had called for an emergency summit of the Arab League on Friday. The aim, said Qatar's emir, Shaykh Hamad Bin-Khalifah al-Thani, was not to jeopardise a truce, but to enable a unified Arab position to be formulated.

But US allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait boycotted the meeting, leaving it without a quorum. A rival summit of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries called by Saudi Arabia and held in Riyadh on Thursday agreed only to continue its deliberations in Kuwait on Monday, on the eve of a previously arranged Arab economic summit.

Egypt had insisted that no meeting should be held before then. It has led the way in facilitating Israel's objectives—participating in the blockade of Gaza and ensuring its borders remain closed, sealing its inhabitants into what has effectively become an open-air tomb.

Its primary concern is that nothing be done to disrupt an Israeli/US-dictated settlement. According to reports, the truce being formulated under Egyptian auspices would see the IDF remain in Gaza until a timetable for the opening of crossing points—possibly overseen by unspecified "international monitors"—is agreed.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000148.htm 2009-01-18T23:25:52Z 2009-01-18T23:27:53Z Israel prepares to escalate its war on Gaza

Israel prepares to escalate its war on Gaza
By Peter Symonds
12 January 2009

As the Palestinian death toll climbed to 869 on Sunday, the Israeli military was poised to launch a major escalation of its one-sided war against Gaza. The third phase—following the aerial bombardment and the initial ground invasion—involves an all-out assault on the densely populated Gaza City, home to more than 400,000 people.

Early yesterday morning, the Israeli army advanced into Gaza City from three sides. Fierce fighting erupted in the southwestern district of Sheik al-Ajlin as Israeli troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, battled Hamas militiamen armed with rifles and mortars. Israeli forces withdrew after several hours of what appeared to be a probing operation in preparation for a full-scale attack on the city.

The fighting sent a new flood of people fleeing their homes in search of refuge. The Israeli military dropped leaflets on Saturday over Gaza City and Rafah warning that its forces would escalate operations in the Gaza Strip and to stay away from Hamas. But in Gaza, there is no safe place to go. Residential blocks, shelters and mosques have all been targetted. On January 6, Israeli shells killed at least 40 people, including women and children, sheltering in a UN-run refuge at the al-Fakhora school.

Further Israeli atrocities took place during the weekend. On Saturday, at least seven members of the Abed Rabbo clan were killed when their grocery store in a village just east of the Jabaliya refugee camp was shelled. Ambulance driver Zaid Barquouni told the Los Angeles Times that neighbours told him that the shelling had come from an Israeli tank several blocks away.

According to the Associated Press, four members of one family died when a tank shell hit their home near Gaza City. By midday yesterday, at least 20 people had been killed. As the death toll climbed over 860, health authorities in Gaza reported that the victims included 270 children, 93 women and 12 paramedics. The World Health Organisation put the casualties among medical staff even higher—at 21 killed, 30 injured—and the number of ambulances hit by Israeli fire at 11.

Fresh allegations surfaced over the weekend of the Israeli military's use of white phosphorus in breach of international humanitarian law. Palestinian medics told the BBC that phosphorus shells had been fired at Khouza, killing a woman and injuring at least 60 people. "These people were burned over their bodies in a way that can only be caused by white phosphorus," Dr Yousef Abu Rish said.

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement on Saturday condemning the Israeli military's use of white phosphorus as illegal. "White phosphorus can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin," senior HRW analyst Marc Garlasco said. "Israel should not use it in Gaza's densely populated areas."

While Israeli authorities deny breaking international law, the use of white phosphorus is only permitted under international law as a smokescreen, not as a weapon of war or in civilian areas. In the crowded conditions of Gaza, death and injuries are all but inevitable. As the HRW statement pointed out, the danger has been greatly amplified by the technique of air-bursting shells that send out scores of phosphorus wafers over wide areas.

The humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip is worsening. The UN estimates that two thirds of the 1.5 million people are without electricity and half have no running water. The British-based Independent pointed out that a three-hour pause in the fighting on Saturday was insufficient to allow aid groups to distribute food, and medics to reach casualties. Salam Kanaan of Save the Children said that in previous lulls the agency had reached just 9,500 people out of the 150,000 people it served.

Conditions in hospitals are appalling. At Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest, about 70 patients in the intensive care unit only survive because of four electricity generators. The hospital itself has been without power for the past seven days because Gaza's only power plant has stopped functioning due to the lack of fuel. "How terrible it would be if our patients survive the attacks and then die because of the lack of electricity," the hospital's director, Dr Hassan Khalaf, told the Independent.

Israel bluntly rejected last Friday's UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire, declaring it to be "unworkable" because it failed to meet Israeli demands to seal the border between Egypt and Gaza and prevent the firing of rockets into Israeli territory.

Prior to a cabinet meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that Israel was nearing its goals. What was under discussion, however, was not an end to the war, but its further escalation. The only hesitation in launching "phase three" of the operation—an assault on Gaza City—is the potential for heavy Israeli military casualties in street fighting, which could provoke opposition in Israel. The Israeli death toll since December 27 is just 13—nine soldiers and four civilians.

Any Israeli invasion of Gaza City would require the deployment of tens of thousands of reservists who were called up for active service in the first days of the war. In another indication that troops will be sent into Gaza City, the Haaretz newspaper reported yesterday that Israeli reservists began entering Gaza for the first time.

Israel's escalation is being encouraged by the support of the US as well as the complicity of the European powers and the venal Middle Eastern regimes. In a vote last Friday, the US House of Representatives passed a motion by 390 to 5 expressing "vigorous support and unwavering commitment" for Israel and repeating the lie that Israel was waging a war of "self-defence". A similar motion previously passed the Senate unanimously.

Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on countries around the world to "lay blame both for breaking the ‘calm' and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas". Israel's criminal war against the largely defenceless population of Gaza was, however, planned well in advance. Hamas's firing of rockets was the pretext for an offensive aimed at imposing Israeli control in Gaza and bolstering its strategic position throughout the Middle East.

The European powers and Middle Eastern regimes have supported talks being held in Egypt on a French-Egyptian plan for a ceasefire. Like the US, the proposal implicitly blames Hamas for the war and ensures that all of Israel's demands are met, for an end to rocket attacks and to cross-border smuggling via Egypt. Israel has called for the presence of international monitors along the border, which Egypt to date has refused.

If talks fail, Israeli officials told the New York Times that it was likely that the "third phase" of the war would begin. As well as occupying Gaza City, Israeli troops would seize a strip of land at least 500 metres wide inside Egypt—an act of war that threatens a wider conflict. Israeli war planes have been intensively bombing the border in a bid to destroy cross-border tunnels and, in doing so, frequently infringing Egyptian air space. Yesterday, Israeli air strikes near the Rafah border crossing wounded three Egyptian policemen, two seriously, as well as two children.

Sections of the political and military establishment are pressing for an even more aggressive approach to stamp Israeli control over Gaza. Retired general Avigdor BenGal told the Times: "We need to conquer the Gaza Strip and put the Hamas military and political leaders on a French ship to leave Gaza for good, just as we did with [former Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat in Beirut in 1982. We've already conquered a bigger Arab city than Gaza [namely, Beirut], our army is trained and fit for the mission. The politicians should give the order."

Ominously, unnamed Israeli officials have hinted to the media that the current military offensive potentially has a planned "phase four"—the full reoccupation of Gaza and the toppling of the Hamas regime.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000147.htm 2009-01-12T22:33:12Z 2009-01-12T22:33:12Z Gaza War Crimes

So many innocents are being killed in this massacre! The rockets that were targeted at Israel did not Kill even one Israeli and yet the massive attacks by Israel that are being conducted now, as we speak, is said to be in retalliation. Read on for an accurate report.......

Washington bears guilt for Gaza war crimes
29 December 2008

The Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is a war crime for which not only the government of Israel but also that of the United States bears full responsibility.

The relentless bombing campaign, which in its first 48 hours has left at least 300 dead and 1,000 wounded, is a deliberate slaughter of innocent civilians and an act of state terror. The toll of casualties, many of them women and children, is certain to rise. As Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenaz put it, "This is only the beginning."

The pretense that this assault is an act of retaliation for the recent scattered rocket attacks that have been carried out against Israeli territory from inside Gaza is preposterous. Israel, with the collaboration of Washington, has been preparing the current bombing campaign and threatened ground assault for months, under the cover of the supposed cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas-led administration.

"These people are nothing but thugs," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who insisted that Israel was only acting to "defend itself" against "terrorists."

This is the official story that is largely echoed by the mass media and endorsed by the leadership of the Democratic Party.

Few bother to point out that not a single Israeli was killed by the homemade rockets that supposedly justified Israel launching its Gaza bombardments and killing 300 (one Israeli died in a rocket attack afterwards.) Such a disproportionate response is hardly an aberration. During the last eight years, barely a score of Israelis have died in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza. During the same period, Israeli forces have killed nearly 5,000 Palestinians.

Nor is there much concern over the fact that Israel chose to launch its bombing in the most crowded and desperately poor urban area on the face of the earth precisely at the hour that schoolchildren were making their way home. Under these conditions, ritualistic US statements urging Israel to "avoid civilian casualties" amount to mocking the victims.

Having maligned an entire people as "thugs," the White House has given the green light for a bloodbath. More importantly, it has provided the indispensable resources for carrying out this crime, assuring Israel more than $3 billion a year in US military aid and supplying the IDF with the deadly tools of its trade—F-16 fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters, TOW and Hellfire missiles and the fuel and spare parts needed to keep them in operation.

The dispatches from inside Gaza provide a graphic accounting of what Washington got for its arms and money.

Safa Joudeh, a freelance journalist in Gaza City, writes: "There were piles and piles of bodies in the locations that were hit. As you looked at them you could see that a few of the young men were still alive, someone lifts a hand, and another raises his head. They probably died within moments because their bodies were burned, most had lost limbs, some of their guts were hanging out and they were all lying in pools of blood."

Ewa Jasiewicz reports from Gaza: "We saw a bearded man, on a stretcher on the floor of an intensive care unit, shaking and shaking, involuntarily, legs rigid and thrusting downwards. A spasm coherent with a spinal chord injury. Would he ever walk again or talk again? In another unit, a baby girl, no older than six months, had shrapnel wounds to her face. A relative lifted a blanket to show us her fragile bandaged leg. Her eyes were saucer-wide and she was making stilted, repetitive, squeaking sounds."

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz carried a report from its correspondent on the scene: "Relatives search among the bodies and the wounded in order to bring the dead quickly to burial. A mother whose three school-age children were killed, and are piled one on top of the other in the morgue, screams and then cries, screams again and then is silent."

The New York Times, hardly known for its sympathy for the Palestinians, acknowledged: "Still, there was a shocking quality to Saturday's attacks, which began in broad daylight as police cadets were graduating, women were shopping at the outdoor market, and children were emerging from school.

"The center of Gaza City was a scene of chaotic horror, with rubble everywhere, sirens wailing, and women shrieking as dozens of mutilated bodies were laid out on the pavement and in the lobby of Shifa Hospital so that family members could identify them. The dead included civilians, including several construction workers and at least two children in school uniforms."

This is not self-defense; it is premeditated mass murder. The aim of the "shock and awe" campaign, as the assault on Gaza is widely described in Israel, is similar to that conducted by the US against Iraq—regime change.

Neither the Zionist regime nor Washington accepted the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian election—hailed by the Bush administration (before the results were known) as part of a flowering of democracy in the Middle East wrought by American militarism.

In response, the US and its Israeli ally did their best to provoke a Palestinian civil war and military coup and, when this proved ineffective in ousting Hamas from power in Gaza, subjected the territory's one-and-a-half million people to relentless collective punishment. They imposed a siege that choked off supplies of food, medicine, potable water and electricity, condemning masses of people to poverty, unemployment, hunger and disease. The present killing represents a qualitative escalation of this merciless policy of making life for the people of Gaza so intolerable that the Hamas regime would fall.

The New York Times Sunday gave a concise analysis of the real relationship between the Israeli blockade and the rocket attacks from Gaza. The siege, it stated, had led to "the near death of the Gazan economy," adding, "While enough food has gone in to avoid starvation, the level of suffering is very high and getting worse every week."

Hamas had entered a cease-fire with Israel in a bid to reopen trade and alleviate this suffering. While the rocket attacks, supposedly Israel's main concern, fell "dramatically in the fall to 15 to 20 a month from hundreds a month," the Times noted, "Israel said it would not permit trade to begin again because the rocket fire had not completely stopped..." It was this intransigence that led to the collapse of the Israeli-Hamas cease-fire.

From the outset, Israeli actions have been motivated not by concerns for security, but rather by political aims. In the first instance, there is the desire to oust the Hamas administration in Gaza. Also in play are the desires of the Zionist establishment and military to offset the humiliation they suffered in Lebanon in 2006.

For Washington, support for and direct complicity in Israeli war crimes is bound up with a wider strategic policy of creating a new order in the Middle East, one designed to assure undisputed US domination of the region and its oil wealth. Israel represents the junior partner in this bloody venture and is allowed to satisfy its aggressive appetites because they are seen as furthering US imperialist interests.

Regime change in Gaza is viewed by US policymakers as a steppingstone to similar changes elsewhere, particularly in Syria and Iran. Indeed, the unfolding events in Gaza foreshadow a broader intervention in the Middle East and the threat of a new war against Iran.

It is not, it must be noted, merely a question of the US and Israel. The assault on Gaza has enjoyed the direct or tacit support of the Arab bourgeois regimes, in the first instance that of Egypt, which has set up machineguns on its border with Gaza to shoot down fleeing Palestinians. The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas has likewise offered justifications for Israel's crimes.

The Bush administration has pursued its policy in the Middle East with relentless violence for the past eight years. There is no indication, however, that it will fundamentally change with the transfer of the White House to President-elect Barack Obama in less than a month.

Obama has maintained a discreet silence on Gaza, while consulting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from his vacation home in Hawaii. His aides have complacently insisted that there is "one president at a time" and it would be inappropriate for the advocate of "change we can believe in" to voice an opinion on the slaughter being carried out with US-supplied warplanes, bombs and missiles.

Elements of the Zionist establishment in Israel have voiced suspicion about Obama's policies, and there have been some suggestions that his approaching January 20 inauguration may have played a role in the timing of the Israeli assault.

It strains credulity, however, that Israel would have carried out its actions without prior consultations not only with the Bush administration, but with the Obama camp as well. Rather than trying to push through its Gaza attack out of fear of a less sympathetic environment in Washington after Obama enters the White House, it is far more likely that the Israeli government was doing Obama a favor by carrying out a crime that he supported before he had to take public responsibility for it.

The reality is that the Democratic president-elect has sworn to maintain US support for Israel and has repeatedly defended Israel's "right to self-defense," including during its criminal war against Lebanon in 2006 and in regard to its repeated attacks on Gaza. He has likewise promised to maintain the US pledge of $30 billion in arms aid to Israel over the next decade.

Those he has chosen as his top aides—the congressman and former Israeli citizen Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and his former presidential rival Hillary Clinton as secretary of state—are known for having criticized the Bush administration for being insufficiently supportive of Israeli aggression.

During the election campaign last summer, Obama made a trip to the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which had been a target of rocket attacks from Gaza, to provide an explicit justification for the kind of assault now being waged.

"If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that," Obama said during the visit. "And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing." He uttered not a word of sympathy for the Palestinians and gave no indication of what actions he expected from parents in Gaza who have watched their children torn to pieces by US-supplied bombs and missiles.

Meanwhile, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi issued a statement providing an explicit endorsement of the Israeli bombing campaign. "When Israel is attacked," she said, "the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally."

The response of Obama and the Democrats to the ongoing atrocity in Gaza represents a stark warning. Far from representing a last gasp of militarist aggression on the part of the lame duck Bush administration, the assault on Gaza is an indication of the shape of things to come.

The coming to office of the new Democratic administration will not spell an end to the crimes associated with US imperialism, but rather their continuation. Driven by the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, American militarism will play an ever more prominent role in Washington's desperate struggle against its rivals for the domination of dwindling markets and vital resources.

The struggle against war and the fight to hold accountable the authors of war crimes from Iraq to Gaza can be advanced only through the independent mobilization of the working class in a new mass political movement based upon a socialist program.

Bill Van Auken
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000145.htm 2008-12-29T23:17:36Z 2008-12-29T23:17:36Z Finally someone speaks out......

Subject: Salt Lake City mayor's astonishing address: "We won't take it anymore!" .

History has demonstrated that our elected officials are not the leaders - the leadership has to come from us. If we don't insist, if we don't persist, then we are not living up to our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy - and our responsibilities as moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the Bush administration - and to candidates running for office - and to the world - that we support the status quo .
Democracy works for you if you work for democracy!

Salt Lake City Mayor says "We won't take it anymore!" October 27, 2007 City & County Building Salt Lake City, Utah
Address by Mayor Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson

Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah's entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: "You have failed us miserably and we won't take it any more."

While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss." "You have breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.

You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the sort never before countenanced in our nation's history as a matter of official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental blunder.

We are here to tell you: We won't take it any more!

You have acted in direct contravention of values that we, as Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation's treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false 'patriotism,' our world is far more dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and the threat of terrorism is far greater than ever before. It has been absolutely astounding how you have committed the most horrendous acts, causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of people, yet you wear your so-called religion on your sleeves, asserting your God-is-on-my-side nonsense - when what you have done flies in the face of any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your hypocrisy is mind-boggling - and disgraceful.

What part of "Thou shalt not kill" do you not understand? What part of the "Golden rule" do you not understand? What part of "be honest," "be responsible," and "be accountable" don't you understand? What part of "Blessed are the peacekeepers" do you not understand?

Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries, and millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our nation, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world, we are morally compelled to say, as loudly as we can, 'We won't take it any more!' "

As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find what you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name and reputation of the United States, so appalling, so unconscionable, and so outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and allow other men and women who are competent, true to our nation's values, and with high moral principles to stand in your places - for the good of our nation, for the good of our children, and for the good of our world.

In the case of the President and Vice President, this means impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability.It means the election of people as President and Vice President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings.

In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress's sole prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrantless wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl- Lieberman amendment.

We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people who have wronged our country - and the world. They were enabled by members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American people - 40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks - a people who know and care more about baseball statistics and which drunken starlets are wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a government for which we need to take responsibility.

As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship -- as veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations, and faiths -- we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the mainstream media: "You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have undermined our democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, tragic, unprecedented proportions."

But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the United States government, and as moral actors who must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say 'We won't take it any more.

Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what's right and never letting down can we say we are doing our part. Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was entirely fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United States. Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense, unjustified death and destruction.

It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people, been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney, about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later.

How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses. Why is this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put an end to this madness?

We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising hell on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don't cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack and occupy Iraq.

Let's awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the country, as we ask others to join us: "We won't take it any more!"

I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say "No more" and mean it?
I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has voted to fund the atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who will not commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has supported legislation that takes us one step closer to attacking Iran. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has not fought to stop the kidnapping, disappearances, and torture being carried on in our name.

If we expect our nation's elected officials to take us seriously, let us send a powerful message they cannot misunderstand. Let them know we really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have drawn a bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for granted - that, regardless of their party and regardless of other political considerations, they will not have our support if they cannot provide, and have not provided,principled leadership.

The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years, but let us pledge that we won't let it go on one more day - that we will do all we can to put an end to the illegalities, the moral degradation, and the disintegration of our nation's reputation in the world.

Let us be unified in drawing the line - in declaring that we do have a moral breaking point. Let us insist, together, in supporting our troops and in gratitude for the freedoms for which our veterans gave so much, that we bring our troops home from Iraq, that we return our government to a constitutional democracy, and that we commit to honoring the fundamental principles of human rights.

In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense of our shared values as Americans - and as moral human beings - we declare today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the insanity, stop the continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop the moral depravity reflected by the kidnapping, disappearing, and torture of people around the world.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000141.htm 2007-11-16T22:50:24Z 2007-11-16T22:50:24Z The lies that kill and wound.....

Gov't struggles to cope with wounded Gis

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer

More than 800 of them have lost an arm, a leg, fingers or toes. More than 100 are blind. Dozens need tubes and machines to keep them alive. Hundreds are disfigured by burns, and thousands have brain injuries and mangled minds.

These are America's war wounded, a toll that has received less attention than the 3,500 troops killed in Iraq. Depending on how you count them, they number between 35,000 and 53,000.

More of them are coming home, with injuries of a scope and magnitude the government did not predict and is now struggling to treat.

"If we left Iraq tomorrow, we would have the legacy of all these people for many years to come," said Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and an adviser to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. "The military simply wasn't prepared for its own success" at keeping severely wounded soldiers alive, he said.

Survival rates today are even higher than the record levels set early in the war, thanks to body armor and better care. For every American soldier or Marine killed in Iraq, 15 others have survived illness or injury there.

Unlike previous wars, few of them have been shot. The signature weapon of this war — the improvised explosive device, or IED — has left a signature wound: traumatic brain injury.

Soldiers hit in the head or knocked out by blasts — "getting your bell rung" is the military euphemism — sometimes have no visible wounds but a fog of war in their minds. They can be addled, irritable, depressed and unaware they are impaired.

Only an estimated 2,000 cases of brain injury have been treated, but doctors think many less obvious cases have gone undetected. One small study found that more than half of one group of wounded troops arriving at Walter Reed Army Medical Center had brain injuries. Around the nation, a new effort is under way to check every returning man and woman for this possibility.

Some of those on active duty may have subtle brain damage that was missed when they were treated for more visible wounds. Half of those wounded in action returned to duty within 72 hours — before some brain injuries may have been apparent. The military just adopted new procedures to spot these cases, too.

Back home, concerns grow about care. The Walter Reed hospital scandal and problems with some VA nursing homes have led Republicans and Democrats to call for better care for this new crop of veterans.

A lucky few get Cadillac care at one of the VA's four polytrauma centers, where the most complex wounds are treated with state-of-the-art techniques and whiz-bang devices like "power knee" or "smart ankle" prosthetics. Others battle bureaucracy to see doctors or get basic benefits in less ideal settings.

Mental health problems loom large. More than a third of troops received psychological counseling shortly after returning from Iraq, and a third of those were diagnosed with a problem, a recent Pentagon study found. The government plans to add 200 psychologists and social workers to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues.

No one knows what the ultimate cost will be. Harvard University economist Linda Bilmes estimates the lifetime health-care tab for these troops will be $250 billion to $650 billion — a wide range but a huge sum no matter how you slice it.

Who are the wounded?

Lee Jones, 24, of Lumberton, N.C., was severely burned on the face, hands, feet and legs when his Humvee was hit with an IED two years ago. A partial amputee with speech and other problems from a severe brain injury, he now does work therapy delivering mail at a VA hospital and tries to re-establish life in a nearby apartment with a wife and baby daughter.

Marine Cpl. Joshua Pitcher, 22, from upstate New York, is a Purple Heart recipient who returned to Iraq after he was shot in 2005. Half of his skull was removed to allow his brain to swell as he now recovers from a brain injury and shrapnel wounds from a grenade blast in February.

Maj. Thomas Deierlein, 39, is a New York City marketing executive who served five years after graduating from West Point. Twelve years later, called up as a reservist, he nearly died of bullet wounds that shattered his pelvis, leaving him with a colostomy and learning to walk again.

Joseph "Jay" Briseno, 24, of Manassas Park, Va., was shot in the back of the neck by an Iraqi in the early months of the war. One of the most severely wounded, he is now a quadriplegic, on a breathing machine, blind and unable to speak, but aware of what has happened to him.

"The mistake in Vietnam was, we hid the injured away from folks so they didn't get to tell their stories. Now it's important that we let them tell their stories to the public," said Dr. Steven Scott, director of the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center at the Tampa VA Medical Center in Florida.

Counting the wounded can be contentious. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense changed how it tallies war-related injuries and illness, dropping those not needing air transport to a military hospital from the bottom-line total.

Bilmes, the economist, thinks this is disingenuous.

"An accident that happens while they're there is a cost of war, particularly when you factor in the length of deployment" and injury-inducing conditions like very hot weather, carrying heavy packs, and more vehicle accidents because it is not safe to walk anywhere, she said.

As of June 2, 25,830 troops had been wounded in action. Of these, 7,675 needed airlifts to military hospitals and the rest were treated and remained in Iraq.

There were another 27,103 non-battle-related air transports. Of those, 7,188 had injuries. Most occurred from vehicle accidents, training or work-related accidents. Ten percent were sports injuries, said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, who tracks this information for the Defense Department.

Nearly 20,000 of these "non-hostile" airlifts were for illnesses or medical issues: general symptoms like fever or pain needing tests or evaluation; back problems; psychological problems adjusting to being in a war zone; "affective psychoses" (not able to function or care for themselves); neuroses; respiratory or chest symptoms; depression; head and neck problems (including traumatic brain injury); epilepsy; infections, and muscle pulls and strains.

"I don't want to try to say these are not war-related. Being in the military is a very physically demanding job," Kilpatrick said.

For stress-related problems, the military tries "three hots and a cot" — warm meals and a chance to sleep. Most of the time it works and troops return to their unit, Kilpatrick said.

Of the troops air evacuated to the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, 20 percent return to Iraq and 80 percent go back to the United States for more care or disability discharge.

Of the half-million troops who have left active duty and are eligible for VA health care, about one-third have sought it. The most complicated cases end up at one of the four polytrauma centers, in Tampa, Fla.; Richmond, Va.; Palo Alto, Calif.; and Minneapolis.

These were formed after doctors realized they were missing problems — amputees who were confused and unable to put on their prosthetics because of undiagnosed brain injuries, and guys who could remember their therapy dog's name but not their doctor's, or who could carry on a conversation but not recall what they had for breakfast.

Troops at these hospitals have an average of six major impairments and 10 specialists treating them.

"The important thing to realize is you could have all of them at once" — trouble speaking, seeing, walking, hearing, etc., Scott said.

Most of these injuries are caused by IED blasts, which send a pressurized air wave through delicate tissues like the brain, sometimes send it smacking against the inside of the skull and shearing fragile nerve connections that control speech, vision, reasoning, memory and other functions. Lungs, eardrums, spinal cords — virtually anything — can be damaged by the pressure wave. Injuries also come from collapsing buildings, flying debris, heat, burns or inhaled gases and vapors.

"Many of these you can't see on an X-ray," such as glass shards that can cause internal bleeding, Scott said.

In prior wars, one of every five to seven troops surviving a war-related wound had a traumatic brain injury, the military estimates. It's much higher in this war.

A pilot project at Walter Reed in 2003 to screen 155 patients returning from Iraq found that 62 percent had a brain injury.

"This is a very rapidly evolving area as a disease," with no screening test, agreed-upon set of symptoms for diagnosis, or even a billing code, said Kilpatrick, the military doctor.

Much needs to be learned about how to treat these injuries, he said, but credited the military medical staff for having the chance.

"It's just amazing to me every day when I look at these numbers," he said. "The good news is that the majority of these people who become ill or injured ... are going to survive and are going to be able to return either to the military or to civilian life and be productive."

___

On the Net:

Government casualty data: http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/castop.htm

State breakdowns: http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/STATE_OEF_OIF.pdf

Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center: http://www.dvbic.org

Harvard economist report: http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/RWP/RWP07-001

Department of Veterans Affairs: http://www.va.gov/

Department of Defense: http://www.defenselink.mil/

]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v71/__show_article/_a000071-000140.htm 2007-06-23T20:33:13Z 2007-06-23T20:33:13Z Support Our Troops!!!

Active-duty US troops voice opposition to the Iraq war

By Joanne Laurier
26 October 2006

More than 100 serving members of the US military have to date sent “Appeals for Redress” to members of Congress, urging “the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq.”

Under the Military Whistle-Blower Protection Act, active-duty military, National Guard and reservists are allowed to file and send a protected communication to a member of Congress on any subject without reprisal.

The action represents the first time that serving military personnel are petitioning Congress to end the Iraq war. The organizations sponsoring the effort are Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace.

Until a few days ago, some 65 servicemen and servicewomen had sent appeals to Congress. The number of petitioners has now reached nearly 350, with more than 125 of them on active duty.

Under military regulations, service members can speak out only while off duty and out of uniform, making clear that they are not speaking for the military. In addition, they cannot say anything disrespectful about their commanders or the president.

Two active-duty servicemen have taken the risky step of publicly representing the campaign: Jonathan Hutto, a Navy seaman stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, and Liam Madden, a Marine Corps sergeant in Quantico, Virginia. Madden spent six months in Iraq.

Hutto and Madden, as well as a female member of the military who remained anonymous, spoke at a media teleconference yesterday.

Hutto told the media that he had come up with the idea for the appeals drive in January 2006. While deployed in a ship off the coast of Iraq he read a copy of David Cortright’s Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War.

The GI movement, explained Hutto, was comprised of “active-duty, sailors, marines and soldiers in the military during the Vietnam War who advocated and fought to end that war and bring the troops home.... By 1971, over 250,000 of these active-duty service people” had petitioned their political leaders.

Today’s appeal, said the sailor, states “that the Iraq war should come to an end and that we should end the occupation and bring the troops home.” He believes that the resources being spent on the war should be redirected to solving the economic and social problems at home.

Madden, 22, added: “I oppose the war in Iraq and I feel it is my duty not as a Marine but as an informed citizen to tell other service members that there’s a powerful tool available to them.... The real grievances are: why are we in Iraq if the weapons of mass destruction are not found, if the links to Al Qaeda are not substantiated?

“If democracy is our goal, I believe we’re going about it all wrong and the occupation is perpetuating more violence. I think it’s the biggest destabilizing thing we can do in the Middle East. Furthermore, it’s costing way too many Iraqi civilian and service members’ lives.... The only people who benefit in my eyes—visibly see the benefit—are corporations, such as Halliburton....

“If people want to support the troops, then they should support our coming home.”

Commenting on the tremendous stress faced by military families over multiple redeployments, Madden asserted, “The real deal is that it’s an economic situation. People are staying [in the military] despite the hardship of getting deployed over and over and over again because it’s what’s best for their families and until there’s another viable source of income, they’re going to stay in the military.” He stated that fundamental to the appeal is that “people are getting harmed and lives are getting severely damaged because of this war.”

The servicewoman explained that “the reason I am calling anonymously is because of fear of reprisal for my involvement even though it is legal. Anyone who’s been involved in the military does know that there are informal means of punitive actions that circumvent the legal system, which are often used in different means to intimidate soldiers.”

Having recently returned from a year in Iraq, she described some of her experiences. “I’ve seen friends injured and I’ve been affected by the deaths within my brigade and unit.” Being in the crossfire of a civil war, she said, further added to the frustration that soldiers felt from risking their lives on a daily basis without really understanding the reason for the risk or possessing the ability to “question what’s going on in the [political and military] upper echelons.”

All three spoke about the pervasive opposition to the war within the ranks of the military. “I don’t think the American public realizes just how many soldiers and service members in general really do have reservations about the actions going on over there,” said the servicewoman. “Obviously fear is one of the main reasons that people are not stepping forward, but that does not preclude them from having these feelings. I start seeing momentum going forward and more and more soldiers coming out....

“Military service people are not supposed to organize groups so this [campaign] is just word of mouth. We’re not talking about mass phone calls or mass mailings. It’s one person talking to another—the snowball effect.”

Hutto revealed that of the 20 sailors he approached, all but one gave their support. This despite the fact that, as Madden asserted, “You’re told from the day you come into [the military] that you don’t have any rights. That the Constitution that you’re defending does not apply to you. It’s a culture [which stresses] that you don’t get engaged in the process, that you’re there to receive orders and get those orders done, that you don’t get engaged and don’t raise any views at all.”

He ended by stating that “what we’re doing is untraditional, unorthodox and unprecedented.”

See Also:
Brother of Pat Tillman denounces Iraq War and Bush administration
[24 October 2006]
Parents of soldier who refused deployment to Iraq speak in California
[7 October 2006]

The WSWS invites your comments.

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