BREAKING NEWS: All The Mandela's Are Dead!

I'm sad to have to announce that all the Mandela's are dead. The news was broken yesterday at a press conference with US president George W Bush. In his own inimitable words he announced:

"I thought an interesting comment was made — somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, “Now, where’s Mandela?” Well, Mandela’s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas."

See the announcement here.

BOOK: What Uncle Sam Really Wants - Noam Chomsky [part 1]

At the end of World War II the US had 50% of the worlds wealth and only 6.3% of the worlds population. According to Chomsky - quoting George Kennan, head of US State Department planning until 1950 - America's post World War II task was to "devise a pattern of [international] relationships which will permit [the US] to maintain this position of disparity." Crucial to this task was the need to combat and dispell the "dangerous idea that the government has direct responsibilty for the welfare of the people." US planners called this dangerous idea Communism.

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One Good Apple

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US planners realised that the greateat threat to continued US supremacy was what they called 'Third World nationalism' or 'ultranationalism'. In other words, the threat was foreign governments which were responsive to 'popular demands for the immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses'. Why was this a threat? Well, for two reasons. Firstly, the US required 'governments that favour private investment of domestic and foreign capital, production for export, and the right to bring profits out of the country.' That is, the US sought to develop or enforce relationships with foreign governments whereby Gross National Production (GNP) would be increased but not for the people of that country, rather for the benefit of US investors and a small domestic business elite (an 'economic miracle'). Incredibly this meant that as a country increased its production levels it simultaneously increased the amount of poverty and starvation amongst its people. Secondly, were any government seen to be becoming 'nationalistic' - that is, increasingly concerning itself with the welfare and living standards of the masses - the danger was that people in neighbouring countries would see this, realise it was possible in their own country, and thus demand it of their own governments. To US planners, Third World nationalism (or democracy, or good government, call it what you will) was a virus which could not be allowed to spread.

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We all know about Nicaragua...?

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In his film Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (2003) Australian journalist and documentary maker John Pilger estimates that the US has attacked and overthrown governments in 72 countries since World War II; using means such as manipulating elections, destroying popular social movements, political subversion, bombing, terror, torture, using chemical weapons, and assasinations. Indeed, the US has a school devoted to teaching predomininatly Latin American soldiers in some or all of these methods: the School of America's at Fort Benning, Georgia (recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). One of the countries that fell foul to the US and this 'school' was Nicaragua.

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In the late 70's and early 80's, Oxfam reported that in Nicaragua, under the Sandanista government, there was a 'substantial effort to address inequalities in land ownership and to extend health, educational and agricultural services to poor peasant families.' Elsewhere Oxfam described the strength of the Nicaraguan governments commitment to 'improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the development process'. In 1983, Jose Figueres - the so called 'father' of Costa Rican democracy - declared that "for the first time, Nicaragua has a government that cares for its people." How was this met in the US? George Shultz, US Secretary of State under Reagan, described the Nicaraguan Sandinista government as a 'cancer'. And thus the US set about cutting it out: it launched the contra war, and it compelled 'the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to terminate all projects and assistance' to Nicaragua. 'Because they weren't under US control,' Chomsky says, 'they had to suffer and die.' And they did suffer and they did die.

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You might wonder as to how or why the American people would stand for this? Well, according to Chomsky, there's at least two reasons. Firstly, during the 1970's, US television networks - all networks - devoted exactly one hour of coverage to Nicaragua (and this was entirely about the 1972 Managua earthquake). During this time Nicaragua was ruled by the brutal dictator Anastasio Somoza. For the US, so long as Somoza's tyranical rule was maintained, Nicaragua was of no concern. When this tyrany was threatened by Sandinistan democracy, it was then that Nicaragua became a problem. And thus, secondly, 'the attack against Nicaragua was justified by the claim that if we don't stop them there, they'll be pouring across the border at Harlington, Texas - just two days drive away...' That this claim was rediculous, implausable, absurd, didn't matter. Most Americans bought it without question. More recently this exact same rhetorical device - fight them there so we don't have to fight them here - has been used to justify atrocities in the middle east.

[To be continued.]

The North American What?

The North American Union (NAU) is a project intended to intergrate the US, Canada and Mexico into a single economic, constitutional and militarized entity - an entity comparible to the European Union (or, for that matter, the African Union, the Asian Union, the Pacific Union, etc). Many Americans aren't even aware that this project exists, never mind that it has actually been in progress for well over two years.

In Crawford, Texas in March 2005, George W Bush hosted Canadian prime minister Paul Martin and Mexican president Vicente Fox in order to establish the 'Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America' (or SPP). This agreement is widely seen as a front which will eventually - without any kind of congressional approval - lead to the dissolving of US Mexican/Canadian borders and the introduction of a new currency, the Amero. CNN's Lou Dobbs (one of the very few) reported the SPP agreement - not without considerable astonishment - whilst this whole affair slipped under the radar of the most American citizens.

Michel Chossudovsky, writing on Global Research, considers this North American alliance to be in part motivated by a mutually beneficial will to secure the Arctic for both militaristic and economic purposes. According to some estimates, the Arctic contains 25% of the worlds oil and gas reserves. In August of this year, a Russian mini-submarine planted a flag on the Arctic sea bed in an attempt to claim territory and, by extension, oil and gas reserves.

"That low down illusive pesky rootin' tootin' Ali Baba ter'ist!"

"The last known sighting of Bin Laden by anyone other than his very close entourage was in late 2001 as he prepared to flee from his stronghold in the caves of Tora Bora," says BBC security correspondant Frank Gardner in his September peice Trimmed Bin Laden in media-savvy war, following Bin Laden's recent video release.
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WANTED - Alive!
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But just think about this for a moment. This is quite literally the most wanted man on Earth - perhaps even the most wanted man in human history. There's a bounty of $50 million on him, 'Dead or Alive'. Both US and British forces - along with the other armed minions - have been in Afghanistan looking for him for almost six years. For this was the reason Why we went to war in Afghanistan - to catch Bin Laden; to catch the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks. And yet: not only have we not found him, but the last known independent sighting of him was almost six years ago. This seems incredible, not only because of all the resources at the finger-tips of British and US forces, but because this means that the so called 'war' in Afghanistan has been one complete and utter failure: Bin Laden has neither been caught nor his existence even verified after almost six years of trying.
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Gardner goes on, "Now this latest video message, released just before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, will dispel the growing rumours that he has been dead for some time and remind both his followers and his enemies that the man with a $50m bounty on his head is still at large."

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Not so fast, Frank. I don't think the video dispells anything. As I said previously, 'since when does something as easily manipulated and fabricated as a video 'prove' anything?' Sure, I'm not saying it definately isn't Bin Laden - ...well... - but equally I'm not going to believe it is Bin Laden simply because the likes of the BBC tells me it is. Especially when the figure in the video looks so unconvincingly like Bin Laden.

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You may be interested to know that the bounty for Bin Laden doubled on 13th Jul 2007, to $50 million. Sure, that's because we want to catch Bin Laden, obviously. And yet this increase comes in spite of the fact that the CIA group devoted to Bin Laden's capture - Alec unit - was disbanded more than a year earlier. (In fact, in late 2005). Why would the group dedicated to Bin Laden's capture be disbanded? Well, according to CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, "the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus." (How the fuck does that work?) And furthermore: if the CIA is no longer concerned enough with Bin Laden to have a dedicated unit looking for him, then why are we even still in Afghanistan? I think it's highly plausible that Alec unit was disbanded because the CIA knows that Bin Laden is already dead, and the reason no one has seen Bin Laden or even heard confirmed reports of his whereabouts for almost six years is because he's been dead for almost six years.

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9/11 Mastermind

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We were all told over and over again that Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks. We were told that he led and orchestrated the 19 men who hijacked four commercial airliners on 9/11. On 23rd September 2001 the then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in a televised interview on NBC, said that, "in the near future we'll be able to put out a paper, a document, that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking [Bin Laden] to this attack." When was this 'paper' published? It wasn't. The very next day, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that Powell's words had been misinterpreted, and that the evidence would in fact be published after it 'declassifies' - ie. after 50 years. To date, the US government has shown the world not a shred of evidence that connects Bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks.

On this side of the pond, on the 4th October 2001, Tony Blair published a document entitled Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States, on the basis of which Britain went to 'war' in Afghanistan. Incredibly this document openly admitted that it did not 'purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law'. So this document was literally good enough to go to war, but not good enough to go court; and conceivably, not good enough even to charge Bin Laden with the 9/11 attacks. And after reading it, it's easy to see why. At best this document is flimsy: it gives no sources or proper citatation, features which would be a requirement of even the most basic academic paper. And at worst - to use the words of Stan Goff, former US Special Forces Master Seargeant - it's 'a bullshit story from beginning to end'. As Goff further states, of the 70 so called points of evidence against Bin Laden, only nine refer to 9/11, and each of these nine points are nothing more than 'conjecture'. And conjecture proves nothing. And yet we're told that HMG (Her Majesty's Government) is 'confident of its conclusions'. Confident? We invaded Afghanistan because the government was 'confident'? WMD's anyone?

In February 2002, Dale Watson, head of the FBI, told a US Senate select committee that, "The evidence linking Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable." While the truth is that we have seen No evidence - clear, irrefutable or otherwise -that shows that Osama Bin Laden had anything to do with 9/11. None. Not a shred. And in spite of this, the majority view is that Bin Laden did, in fact, mastermind and carry out the 9/11 attacks. I believed this myself for almost five years. Why? Because the press repeatedly, remorselessly, said he did. And I naively believed them.

Stop! Press! - Quite literally...

This story is common knowledge amongst some. For others it will - and should - come as a thought provoking surprise.

If Bin Laden was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, there would invariably be evidence of some sort to this effect. Indeed it would be naive to beleive that Bin Laden masterminded the 9/11 attacks without first seeing or knowing of the existence of such evidence. Otherwise all we have is speculation, unfounded accusation, conjecture as opposed to knowledge. And indeed this is the case with Bin Laden: we have seen No evidence that Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks. We have simply been told he was, over and over and over again. All of which is not to say that Bin Laden wasn't behind the 9/11 attacks, or that there isn't in existence some evidence that clearly implicates Bin Laden. We can quite easily conceive that the US authorities hold such evidence but, for whatever reason, are with-holding it. Can't we?

The answer to this question is quite simply and unambiguously, 'No'. When asked why Bin Laden was not charged with the 9/11 attacks on his Most Wanted page, Rex Tomb, the FBI's chief of Investigative Publicity, revealed to the Muckraker report that, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11." Read that sentence again. And again, bearing in mind that Tomb said this in June of last year. That is, over four and a half years after the 9/11 attacks. If you've never come across this before, your thinking might go something like, "Hold on, if the FBI has no hard evidence that Bin Laden was behind 9/11, then..." And yes, I completely agree.

As Muckraker rightly says: 'This should be headline news worldwide'. Why it wasn't is a question we should all be asking ourselves.

FILM: A Selection Related to 9/11

1. Improbable Collapse: The Demolition of Our Republic

"This is serious. There are some very important questions here that are unanswered," says Steven E Jones, author of the scientific paper, “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?” This film offers analysis and criticism of the myths, omissions and lies behind the science of the official federal accounts of 9/11. See film homepage for more information.

2. William Rodriguez: 9/11 Hero

William Rodriguez was a maintenace worker at the WTC for almost 20 years. On 9/11, whilst on sub-level one of the North Tower, he heard and felt a massive explosion from below. Moments later, he heard the impact of - what he later found out was - the plane, way up above. In spite of explaining this in his testimony to the 9/11 Commision - testimony which was unusually given behind closed doors - it was explained away by simply being ignored in the final report. Watch this film to hear William Rodriguez account of his experiences before, on and after 9/11.

3. 9/11: Should the Truth be Revealed or Concealed? David Ray Griffin

A lecture given by David Ray Griffin in which he addresses some of the fallacies in the official federal 9/11 reports and calls for a new international or European investigation into the events of 9/11.

FILM: Zeitgeist - The Movie

Written and Directed by...who is it written and dirceted by?...Zeitgeist (watch it here or here) is a three part documentary concerned with the interlinking themes of the origins of Christianity, the Federal Reserve Bank and 9/11. Presently, I'm exclusively concerned with the first part (because I've just seen the film and have never ancountered any of the ideas expounded in it before).

"The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the sun."
Thomas Paine 1739 - 1809

This quote underlies the principle theme of Part I: that Christianity is a lie, a myth, used, abused and fabricated by those in power - originally the Romans, in 325AD, under Emperor Constantine - to control and manipulate the masses into living lives of slavery. And the origin of the Christian myth? Two-fold: ancient Egypt and astrology.

The film claims that the story of Christ is almost entirely predicated by and upon the story of the Egyptian Sun God Horus at around 3,000BC (though many other religions supposedly share a great number of the following attributes). Horus, meaning 'sun' or 'light', was born on December 25th, born of the virgin Meri, accompanied by a star in the East followed by 3 Kings who came and adorned the new born son. Horus had 12 disciples, performed miracles, healed the sick, walked on water, was simultaneously known as the Truth, the Light, the Shephard, the Lamb of God. Horus, after being betrayed, was crucified, was dead for three days then resurected. I don't even need to ask if this sounds familiar. Though I would ask how much of this is verified or verifiable? Right now I have no idea.

And the astrological claims of this film - if true - are quite staggering. The basic claim is that the story of Christ - namely, The Bible - is a mythical literization of astrological phenomena. For instance, the 'son' of God supposedly derives from the 'sun' of God: bringer of light, the light of the world. The 12 disciples of the 'sun' derive from the 12 constellations of the zodiac which the sun travels through. Watch the film to find out more...(here's a clip).

[It suddenly occurs to me that it's Sunday: Sun-day...!? The day of worship. The day of the worship of God and the Sun of God? Sun-day - just a thought.]

Loose Change - Final Cut (Trailer)

The trailer for the film which is being unveiled in New York on 10th September.