... truthout ...

.. one impressive lineup of articles... MSM's time is over...
...if you want to stay on top of what's really happening, you can't do better than to subscribe to an INS (independent news source) site such as 'truthout.com'...

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Friday 15 July 2011
War With Iran? US Neocons Aim to Repeat Chalabi-Style Swindle
Ali Fatemi and Karim Pakravan, Truthout: "In 1991, Iraqi exiles set up the Iraq National Congress (INC) with funding from the CIA. Under the leadership of Ahmad Chalabi, and flush with tens of millions dollars in US government funding, the INC allied itself with the neoconservatives in Washington and unceasingly beat the drums of war, presenting itself as the popular democratic alternative to Saddam Hussein and feeding faulty intelligence to an eager media and Bush administration. Eventually, they succeeded in dragging the United States into disastrous war that cost Americans and Iraqis their lives and caused incalculable damage to American prestige and power. Now, history may be repeating itself."
Read the Article

Why Banks Aren't Lending: The Silent Liquidity Squeeze
Ellen Brown, Truthout: "Whether by accident or design, federal policymakers still have not got it right. While we are waiting for them to figure it out, states can nurture and protect their own local economies with publicly owned banks, on the model of the Bank of North Dakota (BND). Currently the nation's only state-owned bank, the BND services the liquidity needs of local banks and keeps credit flowing in the state. Fourteen states have now initiated bills to establish state-owned banks or to study their feasibility. Besides serving local lending needs, state-owned banks can provide cash-strapped states with new revenues, obviating the need to raise taxes, slash services or sell off public assets."
Read the Article

Bill Moyers: The Murdoch Scandal and a Lesson for Corporate Media (Video)
Bill Moyers, broadcast journalist and author of "Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues" talks with Rachel Maddow about the investigation into questionable conduct by Rupert Murdoch's news organization and the dangers of media empires and corporate conglomerate controlled media.
Watch the Video

Kucinich: Debt Political Theater Diverts Attention While Americans' Wealth Is Stolen
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) spoke on the House floor about the massive transfer of wealth from the American people to the hands of the few by virtue of wars, energy policies and monetary policies. He called upon Americans to witness Wall Street's theft of Main Street, which has left millions of everyday Americans out of work and seniors facing cuts to Social Security to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
Read the Article

Congress and Its Colonialist Agenda
Stephen Zunes, Truthout: "Based on a resolution unanimously adopted by the Senate (S.Res. 185) on July 29 and by a 407-6 majority in the House (H.Res. 268) on July 7, Congress went on record reiterating their 'strong opposition to any attempt to establish or seek recognition of a Palestinian state outside of an agreement negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians.' It called on Palestinian leaders to 'cease all efforts at circumventing the negotiation process, including through a unilateral declaration of statehood or by seeking recognition of a Palestinian state from other nations or the United Nations.'"
Read the Article

On the News With Thom Hartmann: Tax Cuts for Billionaires and Two Unpaid Wars Bankrupting America, and More
In today's On the News segment: S & P rating agency putting US "AAA" rating on negative watch, Murdoch under investigation in US and Britain, Quinnipiac poll shows majority of Americans blame bad economy on George W. Bush, tax cuts for billionaires and two unpaid wars bankrupting America, Minnesota shutdown is over, and more.
Read the Article and Watch the Video

Eugene Robinson | Make My Day
Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post Writers Group: "Those words suggest President Obama has had it up to here with the preening and posturing of Republican 'negotiators' who won't negotiate. Who could blame him? Obama's warning to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor came at the abrupt conclusion of Wednesday's talks about the debt-ceiling crisis. The unamused president asked whether Ronald Reagan would have put up with such time-wasting nonsense, then uttered another memorable line: 'I've reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.'"
Read the Article

US Recognizes Rebels in Libya
Sebnem Arsu and Steven Erlanger, The New York Times News Service: "The United States formally recognized the rebel leadership in Libya as the country's legitimate government on Friday. The move, made at an international gathering here to discuss the five-month-old conflict in Libya, ratcheted up the diplomatic pressure on Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi amid a continuing NATO-led bombing campaign to push him from power."
Read the Article

Jeremy Scahill | The CIA's Secret Sites in Somalia
Jeremy Scahill, The Nation: "As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia's National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners."
Read the Article

Cliff Schecter | For God's Sake - Stop Talking
Cliff Schecter, Truthout: "The US takes pride in its separation of church and state, but the current political scene is 'strangely' religious. Lately, there would seem to be a whole lot more people who have a direct channel to the Big Guy Upstairs than one could have humanly thought possible. It is oft said that 'God works in mysterious ways.' But when Michele Bachmann hears voices telling her to run for president, am I the only who thinks the most likely explanation is a batch of bad clams or one too many nights role playing 'The Book of Eli' with her equally demented husband Marcus?"
Read the Article

The Predicted Job Collapse Now in Progress
Jack Rasmus, Truthout: "While politicians and business press pundits last March-April were proclaiming the jobs crisis was over, the prediction came that 'March-April's Job Gains Will Collapse This Summer.' That prediction is now underway with the latest June jobs numbers from the US Department of Labor reported July 8 showing only 18,000 new hires occurring in June. The preceding May jobs report showed an almost as dismal 54,000 jobs created."
Read the Article

Deal Is Made for Ending Shutdown in Minnesota
Monica Davey, The New York Times News Service: "The governor of Minnesota and the state's Republican lawmakers announced on Thursday that they had, at last, reached a deal on the state's budget, bringing what is expected to be a swift reopening of government services."
Read the Article

Teaching Gay History Becomes Law in California
David Siders, McClatchy Newspapers: "California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation requiring public schools to teach students about the contributions of gay and lesbian people, making California the first state to adopt such a measure. The legislation requires instruction in the social sciences to include the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, as well as people with disabilities and members of other cultural groups. It would prohibit teaching from textbooks or other instructional materials that reflect adversely on people because of their sexual orientation."
Read the Article

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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Is the Tea Party just another name for an anarchy party?
Granted, given that the Tea Party was financially turbo-charged by the Koch Brothers (Americans for Prosperity) and Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, it's a challenge to define members of the loose-knit group. It's clear, for instance, that a significant segment of the party consists of individuals who are venting their racist gripes with President Obama.
But if you look at the corporate media conventional wisdom perception of how the Tea Party impact plays out on Capitol Hill, it is an uber anti-government force that believes taxes of any kind are akin to theft.
This is not just an eccentric BuzzFlash at Truthout theory; there is indeed a school of libertarian economic theory known as anarcho-capitalism. In fact, the son of Milton Friedman - the guru of the Reagan-era school of economics, which now seems liberal compared to the Cantor/Bachmann/Tea Party theories - is one of its foremost adherents. David Friedman believes in the primacy of the individual and property, without the interference of any governmental entity, including laws.
As excerpted from "Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism," by Peter Marshall, the extremity of what is being played out by the GOP Tea Party wing is a bit chilling:

Anarcho-capitalism has recently had a considerable vogue in the West where it has helped put the role of the state back on the political agenda. It has become a major ideological challenge to the dominant liberalism which sees a role for government in the protection of property. The anarcho-capitalists would like to dismantle government and allow complete laissez-faire in the economy. Its adherents propose that all public services be turned over to private entrepreneurs, even public spaces like town halls, streets and parks. Free market capitalism, they insist, is hindered not enhanced by the State....

Anarcho-capitalists, according to "A History of Anarchism," "maintain that even the minimal state is unnecessary since the defense of person and property can be carried out by private protection agencies."
The major area that anarcho-capitalists (and Ayn Rand adherents) would have a falling out with most Tea Party adherents is over social issues, in which anarcho-capitalists have no interest. For example, without a government of laws, it would be hard to legislate against gays, immigrants etc. In short, the government dreaded by the Tea Party could not be used by them to establish authoritarian, moralistic control over people.
But when it comes to economic theory, Eric Cantor, for example, certainly sounds a lot like an anarcho-capitalist.
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout Rebekah Brooks, Head of Murdoch's UK Print Empire Resigns Over UK Phone-Hacking Scandal
Read the Article at CNN

Cantor's Last Stand?
Read the Article at Talking Points Memo

Sarah Palin Movie Debuts to Empty Theater in Orange County
Read the Article at The Atlantic

Greenpeace Attacks Clothing Suppliers in China Over Hazardous Chemical Pollution
Read the Article at Bulldog Reporter

How Florida Is Making It More Difficult to Vote in a Democracy
Read the Article at Talking Points Memo


Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines

 

Reaching a limit...

"The impact on daily living for the U.S. population could be severe.Our authors predict in addition to increased costs, states and cities will see their pension funds drained. The government will be forced to sell off infrastructure, including roads and transport, to private corporations. People will be increasingly charged for privatized utilities that were once regulated and subsidized. Commercial and private real estate will be worth less than half its current value. The negative equity that already plagues 25 percent of American homes will expand to include nearly all property owners. It will be difficult to borrow and impossible to sell real estate unless we accept massive losses. There will be block after block of empty stores and boarded-up houses. Foreclosures will be epidemic."

Global Plans To Replace The Dollar

Some weighty thoughts.. tough decisions... can it - does it...  get 'that bad'... and if there's a chance... when.
It was really not that long ago hardly anyone would have thought this kind of gamble was even in the realm of the possible.


 

Untold Millions At Risk...

Look at the first four countries on this list...
...with groundwater supplies increasingly in trouble world over, (U.S. included), it will not be very long before there are catastrophic issues about how the world is going to feed itself in the near future.

In India, groundwater-based irrigation systems are experiencing difficulties in different parts of the country as shallow aquifer levels are getting out of reach due to fast depletion of the groundwater table. Shallow tube-wells (STWs) now cannot draw water for about 46 percent irrigated cropland during dry season thanks to current level of groundwater declination.

In China's north plain, that country's breadbasket, 30 cubic kilometers (1.059 trillion cubic feet) more water are being extracted each year by farmers than are being replaced by the rain. Groundwater is used to produce 40 percent of the country's grain. The state paper China Daily admitted the nation "may be plunged into a water crisis" in less than 20 years, when its population is scheduled to peak at 1.6 billion.

The tube-well revolution, whose technology is adapted from the oil industry, has also swept water-stressed countries like Pakistan and Vietnam, where precious underground reserves are likewise being depleted. "Vietnam has quadrupled its number of tube wells in the past decade to one million, and water tables are plunging in the Pakistani state of Punjab, which produces 90 percent of the country's food.
Tube wells are sucking groundwater reserves dry, driving Asian countries towards environmental catastrophe.  
Arsenic poisoning is another additional and major calamity resulting from tube wells.

Tens of millions of these wells have been drilled over the past decade, many of them beyond any official control, and powerful electric pumps are being used to haul up the water at a rate that far outstrips replenishment by rainfall. The extraction is providing many countries with a lavish harvest in thirsty crops like rice, sugar cane and alfalfa, but the boom is bound to be cruelly short-lived, and the rebound soon to come extremely harsh.

Water tables are falling so dramatically within a short time, some landscapes could become arid or even be transformed into desert. In the case of India, smallholder farmers have driven 21 million tube wells into their fields and the number is increasing by a million wells per year. Nobody knows where the tube wells are or who owns them. There is no way anyone can control what happens to them.
Half of the India's traditional hand-dug wells have already run dry, as have millions of shallower tube wells, causing some despairing farmers to commit suicide.

When the balloon bursts, untold anarchy will be the lot of rural countrysides.

List of countries of the world ordered by irrigated land

Oligarchs Rule

 "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it."

Frederic Bastiat,  The Law**

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Democrats and Republicans... one party... two names...

.... (good article, be sure and read the full Robert's piece)

Today both parties are dependent for campaign finance on Wall Street, the military/security complex, AIPAC (America's pro-Israel lobby), the oil industry, agri-business, pharmaceuticals, and the insurance industry.
But it is the powerful private oligarchs that will continue to write the legislation Congress passes and the President signs. New members of Congress quickly discover achieving re-election requires bending to the oligarchs’ will.

Americans out of work, out of income, out of homes and prospects, and out of hope for their children’s careers are angry. But the political system offers them no way of bringing about change. They can change the elected servants of the oligarchs, but they cannot change the policies or the oligarchs.

Turning this around would require more realization than exists among policymakers and a deeper crisis.
And so the destructive policies continue... there is no re-regulation of the financial industry, because the financial industry will not allow it. The unaffordable wars continue, because they serve the profits of the military/security complex and promote military officers into higher ranks with more retirement pay. Elements within the government want to send U.S. troops into Pakistan and into Yemen. War with Iran is still on the table.

Control of the oligarchs extends to the media. The Clinton administration permitted a small number of mega-corporations to concentrate the U.S. media in a few hands. Now there are only five major corporations in control of the majority of all main stream media... it was not that long ago there were over 50!
Corporate advertising executives, not journalists, control the new American media, and the value of the mega-companies depends on government broadcast licenses. The media’s interest is now united with that of the government and the oligarchs.
On top of all the other factors making American elections meaningless, voters cannot even get correct information from the media about the problems that they and the country face.

As the economic situation is likely to continue deteriorating, the anger will grow. And you can be sure the oligarchs will try their utmost to direct the anger away from themselves and toward the vulnerable elements of the domestic population and 'foreign enemies'... as the rewards are far too great, and no other action will meet their purpose.

In the aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819, where the British government sent cavalry to scatter a massive demonstration of 60,000 to 80,000 individuals demanding parliamentary reform, an enraged Percy Bysshe Shelly penned 'The Mask of Anarchy,' ... 
... which ended in words today’s powerful would do well to consider:

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number...
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many... they are few.

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** Notes on 'The Law':
When a reviewer wishes to give special recognition to a book, he predicts that it will still be read "a hundred years from now." The Law, first published as a pamphlet in June, 1850, is already more than a hundred years old. And because its truths are eternal, it will still be read when another century has passed. Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before — and immediately following — the Revolution of February 1848. This was the period when France was rapidly turning to complete socialism. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Bastiat was studying and explaining each socialist fallacy as it appeared. And he explained how socialism must inevitably degenerate into communism. But most of his countrymen chose to ignore his logic. The explanations and arguments then advanced against socialism by Mr. Bastiat are — word for word — equally valid today.  It is said 'history repeats itself'... maybe we would be wise to take heed.

Oligarchs Rule « The Burning Platform

Age of Greed: People Should Get Organized‬‏

There are several independent news sourses to which I subscribe and receive regular updates... The Real News is one, and it is one of my favorites.

The Real News Network is a non-profit news and documentary network focused on providing independent and uncompromising journalism. Its staff, in collaboration with courageous journalists around the globe, investigate, report and debate stories on critical issues of our times. They are fully member supported and do not accept advertising, government or corporate funding.
Financial support for them (and other INS organizations) could not be more important in today's world.

This is another very good Real News interview series with Paul Jay... all parts are well worth watching... as a suggestion, watch this last one (part 4) first...

Jeff Madrick is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and a former economics columnist for The New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School. His last book, The Case for Big Government (Princeton), was named one of two 2009 PEN Galbraith Non-Fiction Award Finalists. His new book is titled, Age of Greed, The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970-Present.

... then go back to the other parts....

Age of Greed, the Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to Present

It's important to note how the interview ends on Jeff Madrick indicating his belief we have become 'an elitist, class-driven society,' and as a result, unless eminent corrective action is taken, as a nation we could be in increasingly serious trouble.


And give extra thought to subscribing to TRNN... I'm sure if you do for just a short time, you will be 'hooked.'


Age of Greed: People Should Get Organized‬‏

Listening to Life, Before It's Too Late...

This is just a few excerpts from an interview with Ellen LaConte...(worthwhile website)...
...just might have to pick up her new book...

"Life has encoded in every other-than-human species a sort of protocol or blueprint of economic rules for survival, a set of behaviors and relationships that allow Life as we know it to live within earth's means, to be long-term sustainable. In the physical/material realm on this planet, Life calls the shots. Life rules, we don't. Other species have no choice but to obey those economic rules. We alone have a choice. And lately, as a species living under the influence of a global economy that has, in the vernacular, gone viral, we've chosen pridefully and foolishly to break all the rules. The way we live in the present Global Economic Order - capital G, capital E, capital O - isn't sustainable. It's pathological. It works at cross-purposes to everything small g, e and o – "geo," everything earthy. In particular, the GEO works at cross-purposes to Life."

"If you condense the 100,000 years or so that Homo sapiens sapiens, humans like us, have been around into the 24 hours of one day, the Global Economic Order has been in existence for less than a minute. We can live without a GEO, but we can't live without or apart from Life as we know it. So we have two choices: We can forego our present economic model and choose to learn and obey Life's economic rules. Or we can choose not to. In which case, Life will rule us out, adapt to our trespasses like an apple tree adapting to a lightening strike, and get on with its experiment in creating and sustaining more life just fine without us. Life rules, we don't."

"There's actually a pretty good explanation for the now almost-total disconnect between our perception of reality and our actual reality, between our sense as a species of being larger than Life and the inarguable fact that we are dependent on it for our very existence. Actually, there are a couple of explanations.
 

One is money. Since we use money - or its funny-money kin, such as credit and its ever-funnier-money kin like default swaps - to acquire the things we need and want, we don't provide those things for ourselves; we've lost track of where the things we need and want actually come from. We have little or no knowledge of the sources of our provisions or the damage done to living systems by the way we acquire them and the amounts of them we acquire. We've put our faith in the economy's ability to deliver what we need to us, so long as we have enough money. Money has come between us and substantial things - the real goods, resources and ecosystem services that we actually need to live. 

Money has kept us from seeing the truth of our circumstances, which is that soon there will be insufficient fossil fuels, plastics, clean fresh water, forests, living soil, grains, seafood, congenial and predictable climate, functioning governments. You name it, we'll run short of it ad infinitum. 

Another explanation for our ignorance of the reality of our present circumstances is that most people have never heard of or taken seriously the limiting factor on a finite planet called "carrying capacity" - the number of a species or a collection of species that an ecosystem can support long-term without suffering damage in excess of what the ecosystem itself can repair. In accounting, exceeding carrying capacity is called going bankrupt. That's where we're headed environmentally, as well as financially, right now. But most of us don't realize that's where we are yet, because in those previous 23 hours and 59 minutes of human history, we've either had more places - more "New Worlds" to move to, conquer and plunder - or new technologies that would do a better job of plundering the places we were in to provide for us.

We have just recently - in, say, the last 30 seconds of that last most recent minute of human history - hit that point in our global economic assault on living things and living systems both human and natural, that there's no going back. We have just hit what I call Critical Mass, which is the name I've given what others are calling collapse, the tipping point, the long emergency, or bottleneck. It's my name for our previously latent and slowly unfolding, now rapidly worsening planetary equivalent of HIV/AIDS."

"We need to periodically contemplate what we have we don't need, what harm having it causes, and whether we're willing to discomfort ourselves enough to un-have it... or at least some of it."

Listening to Life, Before It's Too Late: An Interview With Ellen LaConte | Truthout

... One-By-One ... ... ...

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

.... THEN ....



...(in fact, we are somewhere between one and two right now... 
and the pace of change is increasing very rapidly)...

 

In Our Lifetimes...

During the four billion years that life has been evolving on Earth there have been five distinct periods when as much as 90% of the species alive at the time suddenly disappear from the fossil record. Today, scientists believe that we are entering the 6th Mass Extinction. But unlike the previous five, this one will not take centuries to unfold—in fact, it will take place in our lifetimes.

As scientists begin to realize the severity of the crisis and new worldwide assessments are made, the news is difficult to believe. At least half of all plant and animal species are likely to disappear in the wild within the next 30-40 years, including many of the most familiar and beloved large mammals: elephants, polar bears, chimpanzees, gorillas and all the great apes, all the big cats, and many, many others. Bird species are similarly imperiled, songbird populations have declined by 50% in the last 40 years.

One out of every eight species of plant life worldwide and almost one third of the plant species within the United States already face extinction. Populations of large ocean fish have declined by 90% since the 1950s. All around the world, birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates, as well as trees, flowering plants, and other flora, are all in steep decline. The rate of extinction today could be as much as 10,000 times greater than the expected natural or background extinction rate. Scientists estimate that tens of thousands of species are vanishing every year, including many that have yet to be discovered or named.

The solution is clear: in order to save our planet and secure a future for our own species and all species, we need a new worldview. We must recognize that technology alone cannot save us. We must realize that business-as-usual is no longer an option. Instead, we need to create fundamental change in our culture, our minds, and our hearts. Unique among all human generations, those of us alive today have been given a great opportunity: one last chance to preserve the vitality and magnificence of the living planet that brought us into being, and is our only home.

Will we have enough time to be able to come together... and save our future.

Call of Life

Film: 'The End of America'

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule)... a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate most all aspects of public and private life wherever feasible. 

Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda disseminated through controlled mass media, a political party marked by personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, and surveillance.

Can totalitarian rule really happen in America? Even worse, has the country already begun a shift towards Totalitarianism, not unlike Nazi Germany or Chile under Pinochet? If so, how can we know these dangers have arrived, and what can we do to combat hem? These are the questions Naomi Wolf proposes to answer in, The End of America. She presents a disturbing look at recent events in America's history and predictions for a possible future in which the democracy of America is slowly eroded away and replaced with a rising Totalitarianism.

Wolf explains her motivation was the fact she could no longer ignore the anti-democratic trends occurring in numerous segments of a formerly free America. Noticing these trends caused her to research the methods dictators used in the past to close down a society, and search for similarities between various regimes. She states, "I had to reread the stories of the making and the unmaking of freedom. The more I read these histories, the more disturbed I became." The product of her research is presented a set of ten steps all dictators take when attempting to shut an open society, and the bulk of the film is spent discussing these steps and how they have been taken in the past and how they are being taken now in America.

One only has to look around at books and newspaper articles being published in America on a weekly basis for examples of the profound fear this country has moved decisively in a direction that has as its conclusion a society completely closed down to the ideas of democracy.
The one most glaring difference between past dictatorial regimes and America is the fact, according to Wolf, we will not experience a dramatic event to herald the closing of democracy. "There will not be a coup in America like Mussolini's March on Rome or a dramatic massacre like Hitler's Night of the Long Knives," that will shock the society into submission and declare martial law.
This means that the shift to fascism would necessarily take much longer, as it is enacted out in a series of progressive steps and, presumably, could be slowed, stopped, or reversed.

The 10 steps dictators (or aspiring dictators) take in order to shut down an open society.

"Each of these steps is under way in the U.S. today."

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external threat...
People who are afraid are willing to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.

2. Establish secret (unaccountable) prisons where torture takes place...
In a secret system, the government does not have to provide any proof of wrongdoing by those it holds, so it can incarcerate anyone it wants.

3. Develop a thug caste... a paramilitary force...
A private military force, under the exclusive direction of the “commander in chief” with no accountability to Congress, the courts, or the public, blurs the line between a civilian police force and a militarized police state.

4. Set up an internal surveillance system... surveil ordinary citizens...
People who believe they are being watched are less likely to voice opposition. To scare a population into silence, the government need only monitor the activities of a few to make everyone fear that they are being surveilled. Every closed society keeps a “list” of so-called opponents it tracks.

5. Harass and infiltrate citizen’s groups...
Spies in activist groups put psychological pressure on genuine activists by undermining their trust in one another. They may also disrupt legal activities, undermining the effectiveness of group efforts.

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release of ordinary citizens...
Detention intimidates or psychologically damages those arrested and also lets everyone know that anyone could be labeled an “enemy combatant” and “disappeared.”

7. Target key individuals...
People are less likely to speak out when those who are highly visible, like journalists, scholars, artists, or celebrities, are intimidated or have the livelihoods threatened. Targeting those who are especially visible makes it less likely that people will speak out and robs society of leaders and others who might inspire opposition.

8. Control and restrict the press...
The public is less likely to find out about government wrongdoing if the government can someway threaten anyone who publishes or broadcasts reports critical of the government.

9. Recast criticism as espionage and dissent as treason...
People who protest can be charged with terrorism or treason when laws criminalize or limit free speech rather than protect it.

10. Subvert and suspend the rule of law...
The disappearance of checks and balances makes it easier to declare martial law, especially if the judiciary branch continues to exercise authority over individuals but has no authority over the Executive branch.

As noted above, the vast majority of the film deals with the similarities between the current state of America in relation to these steps and various dictatorial regimes in the past. Many of the comparisons Wolf draws are timely and disturbing, especially as some of the very same tactics used by dictators in the past were described with the very same terms as are now being used ("war footing," the use of embedded journalists in the Iraq War). Also disturbing is the brazen way that the Bush administration took these steps in the open. Although the government has been involved in surveilling citizens (wiretapping during Watergate ), infiltrating citizen's groups (the FBI's COINTELPRO ), and developing a paramilitary force outside the control of Congress (the CIA), these were often secretive acts that were not meant to have light shed on them and were claimed to be stopped after being discovered.

Now, however, the government has either admitted openly to these acts, or simply lied about them in the face of evidence to the contrary; no efforts are made to discover the truth or protect citizens' rights. In fact, more of then ten steps are taken in response to the uncovering of other steps being taken, including suing and imprisoning journalists, labeling dissent as anti-American, and invoking the threat of terrorist strikes against the nation.
This is the difference that Wolf is concerned with in regards to the open shift in America towards the complete subversion of the rule of law. Formerly secret activities citizens would have voiced strident objections to are now committed in the open, with no regard to public opinion.

Another disturbing similarity Wolf points to is the progressive desensitization that occurs when a shift to Totalitarianism happens over time, instead of through sudden violence. The secret prisons and use of torture may originally be used only on suspected terrorists or "enemy combatants," who are plotting attacks against the nation. However, as the public gets over its aversion to torture, the definition of who is an "enemy combatant" or similarly hurting the nation becomes broader. In short order, those who expose government lies and corruption in the press are decided to be undermining the government and need to be imprisoned and tortured. Then, ordinary citizens who speak out against government policies may become subject to arbitrary detention or prolonged imprisonment.

It is in the end talking about "The Patriot's Task," that Wolf provides some final messages of hope that the country's moves towards the closing down of democracy can be reversed. Solutions are also presented, including the need to "hold house parties, set up town halls, convene our neighbors, pass out users' guides to the Constitution, overwhelm our representatives and the Presidential candidates with demands for them to restore the rule of law," as well as "stand up directly to confront those who have committed crimes against the Constitution, and hold them accountable."
As the crimes against the Constitution have been numerous, and accountability has been lacking, it is uncertain how practical these suggestions may be, but neighbors and communities can come together over their disillusionment with the current state of American politics.

In this way, community solutions can be established, including ways to take power back from the government, such as establishing local currencies, making investments in local businesses instead of large corporations that receive huge government contracts and tax breaks, and sustainable methods of keeping small localities open and democratic. Even as citizens work towards reopening the government (a goal whose achievement is doubtful), they can disengage from these same establishments until they are reopened or recreated, and engage in the more productive work of creating sustainable solutions.

It's an important little film.. all Americans should watch it and be made aware of the potential for the worst that could happen.

*************************

"... nothing frightens a militaristic state more than the power of nonviolent action."

Netflix: The End of America

Climate Change... Bad and Getting MUCH Worse...

Central China recently experienced its' worst drought in more than 50 years. Regional authorities have declared more than 1,300 lakes 'dead', meaning they are out of use for both irrigation and drinking water supply. The rate of ice loss in two of Greenland's largest glaciers has increased so much in the last 10 years the amount of melted water would be enough to completely fill Lake Erie. West Texas is currently undergoing its worst drought since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Floods have struck Eastern and Southern China, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands, followed by severe flooding that again hit Eastern China, displacing or otherwise affecting five million people.

Ten million people in the Horn of Africa have been hit by the worst drought in 60 years, with some areas on the verge of famine and thousands on the march in search of food and water. A poor rainy season coupled with rising food prices have led to severe food shortages in countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. Cattle and sheep are dying at higher rates than usual, reaching up to 60 percent of mortality in some areas.  Food prices are soaring with grain prices in some parts of Kenya up to 80% higher than the five year average, while in Ethiopia, the consumer price index jumped about 41 percent.  As a result, malnutrition rates are also rising.

Pollution and global warming are pushing the world's oceans to the brink of a mass extinction of marine life unseen for tens of millions of years.  All five mass extinctions of life on the planet, reaching back more than 500 million years, were preceded by many of the same conditions now afflicted the ocean environment. Three main drivers are sickening the global marine environment, and all are a direct consequence of humans activity: global warming, acidification and a dwindling level oxygen, a condition known as hypoxia.  "We are looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime."
The ocean is a living system that makes our lives possible... our lives depends on its' existence. With every breath we take, every drop of water we drink, we are connected to the sea. 
If the oceans are in trouble... and no doubt they are... we are all in trouble.

Atmospheric levels of CO2 are now *394.35ppm (in 1955 they were less than *320ppm)....in the past decade, 47% of CO2 emissions accumulated in the atmosphere, 27% were absorbed by land and 26% were absorbed by the ocean. Upper safety limits for atmospheric CO2 is *350ppm (levels have continued rising and stayed higher than *350 ppm since early 1988). Transport is the second leading source of CO2 emissions, yet the number of cars and light trucks globally is projected to triple by 2050. *When we reach 450ppm, we will arrive at a critical threshold beyond which catastrophic and  irreversible change will occur.

Scientific research confirms that, so far, humankind has raised the Earth's temperature one degree Celsius, and a much greater rise is to come.  If you had a satellite view of the planet in summer, there is about 40% less ice in the Arctic than when Apollo 8 in 1968 first sent back those photos of Earth. Oceans are 30% more acidic than just 40 years ago.
Climatologists tell us unless we get off gas, coal, and oil, that number will be four to five degrees before the end of this century. If one degree is enough to melt the Arctic, we'd be best not to hit four degrees!

There will be more common events like the 30,000 - 50,000 people who died in Europe in 2003 due to the heat wave there. Increasing temperatures also cause more air pollution, due to photochemical reactions that increase with higher temperatures. This will cause more morbidity and mortality from pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases.

Populations will be much more 'on the move' as food and water production is threatened.. these so-called 'environmental refugees' will be in increasingly greater numbers than the world has already seen. Diseases that have yet to arise will begin to develop as the planet continues warming. The biggest threat is the disease we're not yet expecting, but that will develop and we'll be ill equipped to handle.

As fancy as our technology is, we still cannot live without clean water, air, and food, and we rely on our environment for these. Climate change is the most health-damaging problem humanity has ever faced. With extreme weather events increasing in intensity and continuing around the world, there are huge health effects which will persist.
Every degree increase in temperature decreases the wheat harvest by 10%. Food cost has increased between 70 and 80% in the last year for basic grains. For millions around the world, they are already affected by not having enough.

Another important factor contributing to climate change is global overpopulation. The UN has set October 31 of this year as the date the Earth's population is expected to surpass seven billion people... and the world's population is growing by roughly 80 million people per year. At current rates, the world's population is on a trajectory to double in 49 years.
We have 225,000 people at the dinner table tonight who weren't there last night, so to maintain our current population we're already over-pumping underground aquifers. India is over-pumping, and we have over 100 million people in India dependent on over-pumping, so this can't be sustained. And climate change is making this all even more untenable, as the glaciers in the Himalayas that provide water for India and China are melting rapidly.

Unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently revealed that greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year to the highest carbon output in history, despite the most serious economic recession in 80 years. This means the aim of holding global temperatures to safe levels are now all but out of reach. The goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius, which scientists say is the threshold for potentially 'dangerous climate change' is now most likely just 'a nice Utopia.'

Population is the multiplier of everything else... climate change cannot adequately be addressed until the overpopulation problem is solved.

There is also the problem of extreme biodiversity loss. The key issue is the large populations of plants and animals that make the planet inhabitable. We need oxygen to breathe and water to drink. A three billion year evolution of plants and animals have made the planet habitable, and we are systematically destroying this biodiversity by plowing, cutting, and burning areas.

All of this together means the future of humanity, even with assumed innovation, has some very serious concerns. None of these problems are made easier by adding more people. The only way to achieve sustainability is to hold population growth, and have it decline. Everybody should be adopting an emergency response geared towards ending our reliance on fossil fuels.

We're not hearing this as dramatically in our 'controlled' MSM (main stream media). We SHOULD because it is as dangerous as hell... and I'll bet LOTS that it ain't going to take till the end of the century to get there.. (we'd be lucky if it isn't by the end of the next decade!!).

We should all be increasingly concerned about what the future has in store for us if climate change continues unabated, as it currently appears to be doing, given that most governments continue to fail to implement an actionable plan to avert it, as corporate interests restrict action.
People think technology is going to save us from climate change, but there is no technology on the horizon that will allow us to adapt ourselves out of this terrible mess. We can physiologically adapt to higher temperatures, but all that adaptation is not going to save us unless we also get the climate stabilized.

As long as our governments won't stand up to all the corporate powers in the fossil fuel industry, we must all fear the long road ahead of us.  As climate change continues unabated, this planet will not be habitable by most all the species that are on it, including humans. It will be a very different planet... one that is not very conducive to human life.

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... of all huge issues today... this one terrifies MOST... (none other come close)...
given some time, we could handle each of them ...this one is the real deal for all the marbles...  
...we gotta stop f-n around with this!!

Climate Change: It's Bad and Getting Worse | Common Dreams

Drug cartels tighten grip; Mexico... 'narco-state'

"There are pockets of ungovernability... and they will expand."

Mexico updates four years of drug war deaths to more than 42,000

The government indicates the new figures shows the vast majority of those killed are suspected gang members, killed in turf wars between rival gangs. Detailed reports of interviews with those who have lost loved ones.. shows this is far from the truth.

It is extremely dangerous for the U.S. to have such an important neighbor in such a state of chaos... they are on the brink of losing an entire nation to continued and escalating violence...

AJ's FaultLines... Mexico's Hidden War

Drug cartels tighten grip; Mexico becoming 'narco-state'

Distressed oceans foreshadow mass extinction...

Absolutely incredible to think we will have made this all happen in such a relatively short period of time... the span of really less than a hundred years.  We've known this day would be coming...  yet we've brought ourselves to a point that we are powerless to be able to act to prevent it.

It's becoming more evident that even should we have a remarkable change of heart, we're not going to have enough time to be able to do very much about changing direction.  And eventually nature is going to take over, as its' starting to do now, and will bring 'balance' back to the system... but our lives and our role on the planet will be altered beyond belief.

"When we stopped noticing Earth, we began to destroy it." 
It's a hard sell... people just don't want to contemplate it... they don't want to deal with it.. to listen.
We now continue to make planet altering mistakes... leaving us heading into oblivion... 

Distressed oceans foreshadow mass extinction...

"Much worse than you think."

Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind.... the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively.

Fuels are now a molten blob at the bottom of the reactor... that blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water.

... 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl... data shows hot spots further away than from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man's-land for Chernobyl.

... an area roughly 17 times the size of Manhattan - is now likely uninhabitable.

In the US, physician Janette Sherman MD and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published an essay shedding light on a 35 per cent spike in infant mortality in northwest cities occurred after the Fukushima meltdown, and may well be the result of fallout from the stricken nuclear plant. The eight cities included in the report are San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, and Boise, and the time frame of the report included the ten weeks immediately following the disaster.

Far more radiation has been released than has been reported. They recalculated the amount of radiation released, but the news is really not talking about this. The new calculations show within the first week of the accident, they released 2.3 times as much radiation as they thought they released in the first 80 days, and the exposed reactors and fuel cores are continuing to release microns of caesium, strontium, and plutonium isotopes... referred to as "hot particles."

Hot particles are being discovered by scientists everywhere in Japan, even in Tokyo... over the last 90 days these hot particles have continued to fall and are being deposited in high concentrations. A lot of people are picking these up in car engine air filters. Radioactive air filters from cars in Fukushima prefecture and Tokyo are now common, and radioactive air filters are being discovered in the greater Seattle area of the US as well.

The hot particles on them can eventually lead to cancer... these get stuck in your lungs or GI tract, and they are a constant irritant... these [hot particles] can cause cancer, but you can't measure them with a Geiger counter. Clearly people in Fukushima prefecture have breathed in a large amount of these particles. Clearly the upper West Coast of the US has people being affected. That area got hit pretty heavy in April.
Why have alarms not been sounded about radiation exposure in the US? Nuclear operator Exelon Corporation has been among Barack Obama's biggest campaign donors, and is one of the largest employers in Illinois where Obama was senator. Exelon has donated more than $269,000 to his political campaigns, thus far. Obama also appointed Exelon CEO John Rowe to his Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.
Assessment of solving this crisis is grim... units one through three have nuclear waste on the floor, the melted core, has plutonium in it, and that has to be removed from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn't exist. Nobody knows how to pick up the molten core from the floor, there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor.
The creation of nuclear fission generates radioactive materials for which there is simply no knowledge informing us how to dispose of the radioactive waste safely. Until we know how to safely dispose of the radioactive materials generated by nuclear plants, we should postpone these activities so as not to cause further harm to future generations... to do otherwise is simply an immoral act.
It will take experts at least ten years to design and implement a plan... so ten to 15 years from now maybe we can say the reactors have been dismantled, and in the meantime you wind up contaminating the water... we are already seeing Strontium [at] 250 times the allowable limits in the water table at Fukushima. Contaminated water tables are incredibly difficult to clean. So we will have a contaminated aquifer in the area of the Fukushima site for a long, long time to come.
Unfortunately, the history of nuclear disasters appears to back the assessment... with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and now with Fukushima, you can pinpoint the exact day and time they started... but they never end.


Fukushima: It's much worse than you think - Features - Al Jazeera English

... take 5: Moab, UT

The Moab, UT area is a place we had been wanting to visit for some time...

... this here was just a slideshow preview... the actual trip pix link is further down...

click-on to view 1 min slideshow

We spent the most time visiting Arches National Park... and Canyonlands National Park... and Dead Horse Point State Park... but we did stop by Canyon Reef National Park and Grand Staircase/ Escalate... and Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks... quite a journey in just a few days.

Will stayed several nights at the Red Cliffs Lodge just outside of Moab on Highway 128... and at Cable Mountain Lodge in Springdale, UT.

Here's the Photo-Show link to see pix from this trip...

...be sure and click on the full screen tab for best viewing... 
...and have sound on (using ear-buds or a head-set is best)...

National & State Parks - Utah - June 2011

These parks are some of the most spectacular anywhere in the world... hope you enjoy some of the pix... thought a few came out pretty neat.. (nature doesn't let ya down).

In a heartbeat, ready to go again... anyone interested?
AOL... TTYAS... BJ & Bern

If Americans Don't Want Services Cut, Then Raise Taxes on the Rich and End the Wars

No services need to be cut...
...if the exceptionally wealthy and corporations were made to pay their fair share in taxes...
...if all tax loopholes were eliminated...
...if we were to end all these 'for profit' wars...
...and the huge MIC was brought under control by eliminating a majority of our overseas 'empire' bases that are now in most ever country in the world.

But the fight to do any of these things will be extremely difficult, as those powerful individuals that would be affected will be putting up one hell of a fight to keep what they've got, and they have all the money necessary to buy the influence they need to keep the status quo.

It does not look promising, but that's not to say you shouldn't be continually contacting the President, Congress, and Senators letting your thoughts be known.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

• Contact the White House

• Contact Your Local Politicians

Dear Mr. President.. Congressman.. Senator,
When is it that the very rich and corporations are going to have all their special tax loopholes eliminated so they can start paying their fare share in taxes.
And when are we going to stop trying to be an empire... lets end these wars are close down the majority of all the thousands of military bases we now have overseas.

We have precious little time left before it will be too late. Your support and actions in these matters are critical to the future of our country.

Respectfully,




If Americans Don't Want Services Cut, Then Raise Taxes on the Rich and End the Wars | BuzzFlash.org

Gmail Response - Re: Tinian Island email

War should never be glorified in any way...
...and in war the innocent are always the most victimized.

We now make war a global business... and from all appearances will continue non-stop to chase the obscene profits being generated until something comes out of nowhere to prevent it.


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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BJ Arias
Date: Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Tinian Island
To: Unnamed recipient


Once you go and visit the museums in both cities, standing right alongside the people of Japan, evidencing what in actuality took place there... it fully strikes home that this was (as described in the email below) as far from an act of 'humanitarianism' as could be in any way possible.

Massacring hundreds of thousands of civilians - women, children, the sick and the aged.. (all that remained in these cities, after all the men were off fighting the war)... many believed was completely morally reprehensible... and in fact truly unnecessary.

• Dwight Eisenhower writing in his memoir 'The White House Years' states:

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one who felt there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression, and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."

And in an interview for Newsweek Eisenhower states;
"...the Japanese were ready to surrender... it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."


There were many other high level U.S. military officers and officials who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings, they included:

• -General of the Army Douglas MacArthur,

MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed. When asked about the decision to drop the bomb, all were surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. When asked what would his advice have been? He replied he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

• -Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials)

"...when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it... we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."

• -Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."

• -Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman....

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

• -Herbert Hoover

"...the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945...up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; ...if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs."
"Use of the bomb had besmirched America's reputation, he [Hoover] told friends. It ought to have been described in graphic terms before being flung out into the sky over Japan."


And there are numerous others that had made similar statements, indicating it was totally unnecessry to drop the bombs to end the war.


Historical accounts indicate that the decision to use the atomic bombs was made in order to provoke an early surrender of Japan by use of an awe-inspiring power. These observations have caused some commentators to state that the incident was an act of "war terrorism".
Michael Walzer wrote,
"... And, finally, there is war terrorism: the effort to kill civilians in such large numbers that their government is forced to surrender. Hiroshima seems to me the classic case."

The second atomic bombing, on Nagasaki, coming only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, when the devastation at Hiroshima had yet to be fully comprehended by the Japanese... the lack of time between the bombings has led some historians to state that the second bombing was...
"certainly totally unnecessary"... "gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst."


And many believe it was an act of supreme racism and dehumanization:

Historian James J. Weingartner sees a connection between the American mutilation of Japanese war dead and the bombings. According to Weingartner both were partially the result of a dehumanization of the enemy.
"The widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another justification for decisions which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands."
On the second day after the Nagasaki bomb, Truman stated:
"The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast."


Developing and using these weapons of mass destruction set us off on a very undesirable path. Now there are tens of thousands of them (of even greater destructive power) spread around the world, and the list of nations in control of them is constantly growing.
(Forget about Iran... Pakistan should be scaring us all to wits end.)

There's a real moral delima with a 'whatever it takes' attitude when it comes to war... we've been fortunate that so far the US has had limited 'direct' involvement when it comes to acts of devastation of the magnitude inflicted on these two cities.

That might well change very quickly, and our cities and populations will be on the receiving end of the tragedy... making 9/11 look inconsequential in comparison.






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On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 11:55 AM, > wrote:

I found this very interesting. After reading this I looked at these islands on bing maps to see what they both look like now.

WW II Pacific theater history follows.

Tinian Island, Pacific Ocean.

It's a small island, less than 40 square miles, a flat green Dot in the vastness of Pacific blue.

Fly over it and you notice a slash across its north end of uninhabited bush, a long thin linethat looks like an overgrown dirt runway. If you didn't know what it was, you wouldn't give it a second glance out your airplane window.





On the ground, you see the runway isn't dirt but tarmac and crushed limestone, abandoned with weeds sticking out of it. Yet this is arguably the most historical airstrip on earth. This is where World War II was won. This is Runway Able:


On July 24, 1944, 30,000 US Marines landed on the beaches of Tinian .... Eight days later, over 8,000 of the 8,800 Japanese soldiers on the island were dead (vs. 328 Marines), and four months later the Seabees had built the busiest airfield of WWII - dubbed North Field - enabling B-29 Superfortresses to launch air attacks on the Philippines, Okinawa, and mainland Japan.

Late in the afternoon of August 5, 1945, a B-29 was maneuvered over a bomb loading pit, then after lengthy preparations, taxied to the east end of North Field's main runway, Runway Able, and at 2:45am in the early morning darkness of August 6, took off.

The B-29 was piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets of the US Army Air Force, who had named the plane after his mother, Enola Gay. The crew named the bomb they were carrying Little Boy. 6 hours later at 8:15am Japan time, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima .

Three days later, in the pre-dawn hours of August 9, a B-29 named Bockscar (a pun on "boxcar" after its flight commander Capt. Fred Bock), piloted by Major Charles Sweeney took off from Runway Able. Finding its primary target of Kokura obscured by clouds, Sweeney proceeded to the secondary target of Nagasaki, over which, at 11:01am, bombardier Kermit Beahan released the atomic bomb dubbed Fat Man.

Here is "Atomic Bomb Pit #1" where Little Boy was loaded onto Enola Gay:



There are pictures displayed in the pit, now glass-enclosed. This one shows Little Boy being hoisted into Enola Gay's bomb bay.



And here on the other side of ramp is "Atomic Bomb Pit #2" where Fat Man was loaded onto Bockscar.








The commemorative plaque records that 16 hours after the nuking of Nagasaki , "On August 10, 1945 at 0300, the Japanese Emperor without his cabinet's consent decided to end the Pacific War."

Take a good look at these pictures, folks. This is where World War II ended with total victory of America over Japan . I was there all alone. There were no other visitors and no one lives anywhere near for miles. Visiting the Bomb Pits, walking along deserted Runway Able in solitude, was a moment of extraordinarily powerful solemnity.

It was a moment of deep reflection. Most people, when they think of Hiroshima andNagasaki , reflect on the numbers of lives killed in the nuclear blasts - at least 70,000 and 50,000 respectively. Being here caused me to reflect on the number of lives saved - how many more Japanese and Americans would have died in a continuation of the war had the nukes not been dropped.

Yet that was not all. It's not just that the nukes obviated the US invasion of Japan , Operation Downfall, that would have caused upwards of a million American and Japanese deaths or more. It's that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki were of extraordinary humanitarian benefit to the nation and people of Japan .

Let's go to this cliff on the nearby island of Saipan to learn why:


Saipan is less than a mile north of Tinian .... The month before the Marines took Tinian, on June 15, 1944, 71,000 Marines landed on Saipan .... They faced 31,000 Japanese soldiers determined not to surrender.

Japan had colonized Saipan after World War I and turned the island into a giant sugar cane plantation. By the time of the Marine invasion, in addition to the 31,000 entrenched soldiers, some 25,000 Japanese settlers were living on Saipan, plus thousands more Okinawans, Koreans, and native islanders brutalized as slaves to cut the sugar cane.

There were also one or two thousand Korean "comfort women" (kanji in Japanese), abducted young women from Japan 'S colony of Korea to service the Japanese soldiers as sex slaves. (See The Comfort Women: Japan 'S Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, by George Hicks.)

Within a week of their landing, the Marines set up a civilian prisoner encampment that quickly attracted a couple thousand Japanese and others wanting US food and protection. When word of this reached Emperor Hirohito - who contrary to the myth was in full charge of the war - he became alarmed that radio interviews of the well-treated prisoners broadcast to Japan would subvert his people's will to fight.

As meticulously documented by historian Herbert Bix in Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, the Emperor issued an order for all Japanese civilians on Saipan to commit suicide. The order included the promise that, although the civilians were of low caste, their suicide would grant them a status in heaven equal to those honored soldiers who died in combat for their Emperor.

And that is why the precipice in the picture above is known as Suicide Cliff, off which over 20,000 Japanese civilians jumped to their deaths to comply with their fascist emperor's desire - mothers flinging their babies off the cliff first or in their arms as they jumped.

Anyone reluctant or refused, such as the Okinawan or Korean slaves, were shoved off at gunpoint by the Jap soldiers. Then the soldiers themselves proceeded to hurl themselves into the ocean to drown off a sea cliff afterwards called Banzai Cliff. Of the 31,000 Japanese soldiers on Saipan , the Marines killed 25,000, 5,000 jumped off Banzai Cliff, and only the remaining thousand were taken prisoner.

The extent of this demented fanaticism is very hard for any civilized mind to fathom - especially when it is devoted not to anything noble but barbarian evil instead. The vast brutalities inflicted by the Japanese on their conquered and colonized peoples of China ,Korea , the Philippines , and throughout their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was a hideously depraved horror.

And they were willing to fight to the death to defend it. So they had to be nuked. The only way to put an end to the Japanese barbarian horror was unimaginably colossal destruction against which they had no defense whatever. Nuking Japan was not a matter of justice, revenge, or it getting what it deserved. It was the only way to end the Japanese dementia.

And it worked - for the Japanese. They stopped being barbarians and started being civilized. They achieved more prosperity - and peace - than they ever knew, or could have achieved had they continued fighting and not been nuked. The shock of getting nuked is responsible.

We achieved this because we were determined to achieve victory. Victory without apologies. Despite perennial demands we do so, America and its government has never apologized for nuking Japan ... Hopefully, America never will.




Oh, yes... Guinness lists Saipan as having the best, most equitable, weather in the world. And the beaches? Well, take a look:



I find e-mails such as this one just plain fascinating. Although we do not forget, history fades into the shadows of our mind and we seldom think about it. But, we should remember and we should be constantly reminded of our history, where we came from and how we got here. Kind of interesting.

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Gmail - Fw: Tinian Island - bjarias@gmail.com