Phase III - Stealth Is.

In May of last year, David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus from 2006 to 2008, co-authored a strategic analysis (”Death From Above, Outrage Down Below,” New York Times, May 17, 2009). He emphasized that the “public outrage” among Pakistan’s civilians caused by our drone attacks “is hardly limited to the region in which they take place.”

Extensively reported by the news media, “the persistence of these attacks on Pakistani territory offends people’s deepest sensibilities, alienates them from their government and contributes to Pakistan’s instability.”

A year later, in Foreign Policy in Focus (fpif.org, May 19), Conn Hallinan, reporting on the increase in drone strikes in Pakistan, notes that the continuing controversy over the actual number of corollary civilian deaths “is a sharply debated issue.” Neither President Obama, who authorizes them, nor the CIA, which does the actual killing, directly gives us the numbers. As for the Pakistani government’s figures, Hallinan continues:

“The word ‘civilian’ is a slippery one, because no one knows exactly what criteria the United States uses to distinguish a ‘militant’ from a civilian. Is someone with a gun a ‘militant’? Since large numbers of males in the frontier regions of Pakistan carry guns, that definition would target a huge number of people.”

I mentioned this life-ending ambiguity in drone strikes to a person who claims to be concerned with human-rights abuses. Shrugging, she said: “I don’t have to worry about that. The drones aren’t coming here; and since they’re pilotless, there are no American casualties. So I’m all for their use.”

But drones are indeed in our skies.

Constitutionalist John Whitehead – who is also a careful master researcher – points out (”Drones Over America: Tyranny at Home,” Rutherford.org, June 28), that “unbeknownst to most Americans, remote-controlled pilotless aircraft have been employed domestically for years now. They were first used as a national-security tool for patrolling America’s borders, and then as a means of monitoring citizens.”

He cites a 2006 news story, moreover, that “one North Carolina county is using (an unmanned aerial vehicle) equipped with low-light and infrared cameras to keep watch on its citizens. The aircraft has been dispatched to monitor gatherings of motorcycle riders at the Gaston County fairgrounds from just a few hundred feet in the air – close enough to identify faces.”

As John Whitehead also reports, “Drones (are) a $2 billion cornerstone of the Obama administration’s war efforts.” And Defense Secretary Robert Gates adds, “The more we have used them, the more we have identified their potential in a broader and broader set of circumstances.”

So broad that – and this is Whitehead’s core discovery – “the Federal Aviation Administration is facing mounting pressure from state governments and localities to issue flying rights for a range of (unmanned aerial vehicles) to carry out civilian and law-enforcement activities.”

You think an unmanned aerial vehicle won’t be interested in you, innocent of any conceivable (even by the CIA) terrorist connections? Do not underestimate an all-seeing, suspicious government. “State police,” writes Whitehead, “hope to send them up to capture images of speeding cars’ license plates.” And, in 2007, “insect-like drones were seen hovering over political rallies in New York and Washington, seemingly spying on protesters.”

As I was writing about drones watching over us, I found a triumphant breakthrough (”Unmanned Phantom Eye Demonstrator Unveiled,” spacedaily.com, July 13): “The Boeing Company has unveiled the hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye unmanned airborne system.” Said Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Phantom Works, at the St. Louis unveiling ceremony:

“Phantom Eye is the first of its kind and could open up a whole new market in collecting data and communications. … The capabilities in Phantom Eye’s design will offer game-changing opportunities for our military, civil and commercial customers.”

Also, for Insect Drones, Use 3-D Printing for wings.

The U.S. economic recession has taken a particularly heavy toll on young Americans, with a record one out of five black men aged 20 to 24 neither working nor in school, according to research released on Tuesday.

…

Overall, 26 percent of American teenagers aged 16 to 19 had jobs in late 2009, said the report, which was based on U.S. Census Bureau data. That figure is a record low since statistics began to be kept in 1948, the researchers said.

Via Reuters

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SALINAS, Calif. — A seventh-grader and her 80-year-old grandfather are allegedly the first people to discover that President Barack Obama is related to all other U.S. presidents except one.

BridgeAnne d’Avignon, who attends Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, traced that Obama, and all other U.S. presidents except Martin Van Buren, are related to John “Lackland” Plantagenet, a king of England and signer of the Magna Carta.

I’m really not surprised. Pictured below is a portion of the U.S. Royal Family.

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010.

America must work on starting a new economy and not restarting the old one or it will resemble the former Soviet Union, says author and blogger Dmitry Orlov:

A pair of bills introduced in the U.S. Senate would grant the White House sweeping new powers to access private online data, regulate the cybersecurity industry and even shut down Internet traffic during a declared “cyber emergency.”

Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., are both part of what’s being called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which would create a new Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, reportable directly to the president and charged with defending the country from cyber attack.
….
First, the White House, through the national cybersecurity advisor, shall have the authority to disconnect “critical infrastructure” networks from the Internet – including private citizens’ banks and health records, if Rockefeller’s examples are accurate – if they are found to be at risk of cyber attack. The working copy of the bill, however, does not define what constitutes a cybersecurity emergency, and apparently leaves the question to the discretion of the president.
….
According to Granick, granting the Department of Commerce oversight of the “critical” networks, such as banking records, would grant the government access to potentially incriminating information obtained without cause or warrant, a violation of the Constitution’s prohibition against unlawful search and seizure.

From Jay Rockefeller’s entry on Wikipedia:
“Retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies

On September 28, 2006, Rockefeller voted with a largely Republican majority to suspend habeas corpus provisions for anyone deemed by the Executive Branch an “unlawful combatant,” barring them from challenging their detentions in court. Rockefeller’s vote gave a retroactive, nine-year immunity to U.S. officials who authorized, ordered, or committed acts of torture and abuse, permitting the use of statements obtained through torture to be used in military tribunals so long as the abuse took place by December 30, 2005.[14] Rockefeller’s vote authorized the President to establish permissible interrogation techniques and to “interpret the meaning and application” of international Geneva Convention standards, so long as the coercion fell short of “serious” bodily or psychological injury.[15][16] The bill became law on October 17, 2006.”

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The weakness in U.S. labor markets has gathered extraordinary momentum, wiping away millions of jobs over the past four months alone, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The U.S. economy lost 651,000 jobs in February, the fourth month in a row where job losses were near or above 600,000.
The unemployment rate soared to 8.1% in February, the highest rate in over 25 years.
The economy has lost 4.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, with more than half coming in the last four months.

U.S. researchers say they’ve created a precise nanotechnology biosensor for detecting blood glucose and potentially many other biological molecules. The device, which resembles a tiny cube-shaped tetherball, uses hollow structures called single-wall carbon nanotubes anchored to gold-coated “nanocubes.” Each tetherball is a sensor and is anchored to electronic circuitry by a nanotube, which acts as both a tether and ultrathin wire to conduct electrical signals, said Purdue University Professor Timothy Fisher, who led the research.

Did you know that President-elect Obama:

• voted for every one of President Bush’s Iraq-War funding increases?
• believes Bush’s “surge” in Iraq has “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams” and has proclaimed his “absolute” belief in the “War on Terror”?
• criticized the Iraq War because it is “unwinnable,” not because it is illegal, immoral and has killed one million Iraqis?
• will probably leave 140,000 private contractors (mercenaries) and as many as 60,000 to 80,000 regular US troops in Iraq?
• praised President Bush, Sr., and the 1991 Gulf War saying: “I think that when you look back at his foreign policy, it was a wise foreign policy. In how we executed the Gulf War…. I think George H.W. Bush doesn’t get enough credit for…his foreign policy team and the way that he…prosecuted the Gulf War. That cost us $20 billion dollars. That’s all it cost. It was extremely successful.”
• is willing to bomb Iran and that he won’t rule out a first strike nuclear attack?
• wants to send an additional 10,000 US troops to fight the war in Afghanistan?
• wants to expand the Afghan war with unilateral air strikes to bomb Pakistan?
• supported Israel’s war against Lebanon?
• supports Ballistic Missile Defense?
• favours military expenditures on warplanes that he says “provide the backbone of our ability to extend global power.”
• voted for the Patriot Act II, the Wall Street bailout, building a border wall with Mexico and immunity for corporations that conducted electronic eavesdropping on Americans?
• wants continued sanctions against Cuba?
• called President Chavez an “enemy of the US” and wants sanctions against Venezuela?

The idea that Obama is anti-war is a powerful myth that will impede the peace movement’s ability to mobilize opposition to the inevitable continuation of US militarism and imperialism. President Obama may then prove to be more of an obstacle to peace than a true agent of change moving the US economy away from a world in which corporations seek profit through predatory wars. Obama’s deceitful image as peacemonger will allow him to get away with policies and actions that would not be countenanced for an instant if they had come from the likes of McCain or Bush.  This blindspot for Obama’s pro-war agenda will not only hamper the ability of US peace activists to speak out, organize and protest, it will also help to dampen the efforts of many others around the world.

Under President Obama, the US military budget may well be spending about $2.3 billion a day. The 2008 US military budget is $696 billion. Obama says he will increase military spending and will add 65,000 troops to the Army and 27,000 Marines. Every increase of 1,000 army troops adds about $2 billion per year, while every addition of 1,000 Marines adds $1 billion/year. That means Obama’s proposal could add $157 billion, bringing the total to $857 billion per year, which means about $2.3 billion per day.

Black Sun Gazette has an interesting coverage of Hakim Bey/Peter Lamborn Wilson’s recent NYC appearance:

“Peter gave the room an interesting story to illustrate this. Paracelsus the Alchemist was travelling through medieval Germany when he was invited to the court of the Count of one of the local statelets of the Holy Roman Empire. The Count begins asking the great alchemist about the secrets of alchemy. This, of course, leads to the Count asking for the secret of transmuting base metals into gold. The alchemist tells the Count that he is merely a puffer or a quack while the Count is a true alchemist who already knows the secret of making gold out of thin air. He tells the Count to give a license to create a bank and then borrow money from the bank. Remember that the United States, United Kingdom, and Euro countries do not mint their own currency. They have a private company such as the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England do it and then borrow that money at interest. As is often the case the alchemists of the middle ages knew more than we give them credit for.”

There over 800 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general’s signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached. Ask yourself if you really want to be on Ashcroft’s list.

The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a “mass exodus” of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.

State-by-State list below.
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Wes Unruh, editor of Alterati and 1/2 of Phillip k. Nixon and mastermind behind Unquiet mind, joined us on this month’s podcast. He discusses his upcoming book “The Art of memetics” and some of his recent and past musical experiments. In Both these areas he attempts to tie Magick into the scheme. His cut-up, waveform editing technique to music hints at many underlying notions of building evolving feedbacks loops to culture, art, and technology and hyper-sigilization.

In his book on memetics with co-author Edward Wilson and illustrator Ray Carney, the ideas of social mechanics and replication of ideas are explored from a range of perspective dealing with things like marketing, masterminding, magick, cybernetic theory, and even a bit of hermeticism. Wes Unruh also discusses some of his upcoming DIY media coverage that will be up at alterati, including video game homebrew (Part 1 & Part 2), public access, and DIY merchandising. We also wax poetically about technology a bit. Wes also gives us some inside scoop on his 2nd book, a work of fiction which seems to be a rather profilic sci-fi, first person view of a life ranging from the year 2000 to 2040. All the music aside from the Intro is Philip k. Nixon - Check it out. Also def. take the time to check out his closing address at Esozone where he elaborates on some similar but great ideas.

 

 Phase II Podcast - Ep. 3 - Wes Unruh: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Phase II Qualifies, taken from:
www.roguegovernment.com
Lee Rogers
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.

First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill.

The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government. Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.

`(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

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From the Financial Times

By Richard McGregor in Beijing

Published: September 25 2007 17:44 | Last updated: September 25 2007 17:44

The Battle of Waterloo. The deaths of six US presidents. The rise of Adolf Hitler. The deflation of the Japanese bubble economy, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and even environmental destruction in the developing world.

In a new Chinese best-seller, Currency Wars , these disparate events spanning two centuries have a single root cause: the control of money issuance through history by the Rothschild banking dynasty.

Even today, claims author Song Hongbing, the US Federal Reserve remains a puppet of private banks, which also ultimately owe their allegiance to the ubiquitous Rothschilds.

Such an over-arching conspiracy theory might matter as little as the many fetid tracts that can still be found in the west about the “gnomes of Zurich” and Wall Street’s manipulation of global finance.

But in China, which is in the midst of a lengthy debate about opening its financial system under US pressure, the book has become a surprise hit and is being read at senior levels of government and business.

“Some senior heads of companies have been asking me if this is all true,” says Ha Jiming, the chief economist of China International Capital Corp, the largest local investment bank.

The book also gives ammunition, however hay-wire, to many in China who argue that Beijing should resist pressure from the US and other countries to allow its currency, the renminbi, to appreciate.

The book’s publisher, a unit of the state-owned CITIC group, said Currency Wars had sold nearly 200,000 copies, with an estimated 400,000 extra pirated copies in circulation as well.

Mr Song, an information technology consultant and amateur historian who has lived in the US since 1994 and is now based in Washington, says his interest was sparked by trying to uncover what lay behind the Asian crisis in 1997.

After he began blogging some of his findings, his friends suggested he find a publisher for a longer work. He professes himself surprised by the book’s success.

“I never imagined it could be so hot and that top leaders would be reading it,” he says during a book tour in Shanghai. “People in China are nervous about what’s going on in financial markets but they don’t know how to handle the real dangers. This book gives them some ideas.”

The thing that most shocked him, he says, was his “discovery” that the Fed is a privately owned and run bank. “I just never imagined a central bank could be a private body,” he says.

The Fed does describe itself “as an unusual mixture of public and private elements”. While its seven governors are all appointed by the US president, private banks do hold shares in its 12 regional reserve banks.

But Mr Song ignores the government’s role and argues that the Fed’s key functions are ultimately controlled by five private banks, such as Citibank, all of which have maintained a “close relationship” with the Rothschilds.

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I’ve never encountered an artist whose work paralelled mine in both utilization of circuit bentding (for video in this purpose) whilst attempting to evoke Qabbalistic perceptions through art - impressive stuff, examples are listed at the bottom of the article - Taken from Greylodge.org:

Currently based out of Chicago, Raymond Salvatore Harmon is a multimedia artist and filmmaker whose work spans the past century of technological cul de sacs. With a filmography extending from performance based 16mm and 8mm film to video circuit-bending and analog feedback installations as well as sound and visual conceptual installations and guerilla media actions. Born in Jackson, Michigan in 1974 to a middle class background Raymond Salvatore Harmon has lived widely throughout the US (New York - NY, Savannah - GA, Ann Arbor, Louisville - KY, Eugene - OR, among many other locations).

Over the course of the past ten years Harmon has been developing and evolving the theoretical and practical applications of non object orient art. Utilizing new media, web based content and interactive architectures in coordination with public performance, graffiti style ad bombing, and web social engineering propaganda Harmon’s work has carved out an over arching form of new media insurgency.

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