• Knights Templar heirs in legal battle with the Pope
• The heirs of the Knights Templar have launched a legal battle in Spain to force the Pope to restore the reputation of the disgraced order which was accused of heresy and dissolved seven centuries ago.
• By Fiona Govan, Madrid Correspondent
      Last Updated: 1:07PM BST 04 Aug 2008
• The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth 100 billion euros (£79 billion).
• They claim that when the order was dissolved by his predecessor Pope Clement V in 1307, more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures belonging to the knights were appropriated by the church.
• But their motive is not to reclaim damages only to restore the "good name" of the Knights Templar.
• "We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our Order," said a statement issued by the self-proclaimed modern day knights.
• The Templars was a powerful secretive group of warrior monks founded by French knight Hugues de Payens after the First Crusade of 1099 to protect pilgrims en route to Jerusalem.
• They amassed enormous wealth and helped to finance wars waged by European monarchs, but spectacularly fell from grace after the Muslims reconquered the Holy Land in 1244 and rumours surfaced of their heretic practices.
• The Knights were accused of denying Jesus, worshipping icons of the devil in secret initiation ceremonies, and practising sodomy.
• Many Templars confessed to their crimes under torture and some, including the Grand Master Jacques de Molay, were burned at the stake.
• The legal move by the Spanish group comes follows the unprecedented step by the Vatican towards the rehabilitation of the group when last October it released copies of parchments recording the trials of the Knights between 1307 and 1312.
• The papers lay hidden for more than three centuries having been "misfiled" within papal archives until they were discovered by an academic in 2001.
• The Chinon parchment revealed that, contrary to historic belief, Clement V had declared the Templars were not heretics but disbanded the order anyway to maintain peace with their accuser, King Philip IV of France.
• Over the centuries, various groups have claimed to be descended from the Templars and legend abounds over hidden treasures, secret rituals, and their rumoured guardianship of the Holy Grail.
• Most recently the knights have fascinated the modern generation after being featured in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.

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• Bush 'Feeling No Pain'
    At Beijing Olympics
• 8-12-8

• How Many Secret Service Agents Does It Take To  Hold Up A Pink-Faced Drunk?

    

    

    

   

    

    

    

  

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• Monday, August 11, 2008
• David T. Beito
• Police in Georgia's "Growing Democracy" Attacking Demonstrators in 2007 to Enforce Martial Law
• In a weak moment, I made the mistake of turning on Fox News today. A jingoistic Fox reporter asked Ralph Peters, an equally jingoistic guest, about the Georgia crisis.
• Peters called for massive sanctions against Russia. The obliging reporter egged him on by volunteering that Georgia had a "growing democracy."
• Perhaps she missed this revealing footage from 2007 showing police in that country beating up demonstrators to enforce martial law.

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• China flaying animals alive
• Investigation reveals images so graphic, nightmares rampant among probe team
• Posted: August 19, 2008
  9:48 pm Eastern
  
   

  By Bob Unruh
   <!--- copywrite only show on NON commentary pages as per joseph meeting 8/23/06 ------>   <!-- copyright --> © 2008 WorldNetDaily 
• Editor's Note: The descriptions and video of China's fur industry in this story will be disturbing to  some readers.
• The newest controversy over exports from China has caused nightmares for researchers documenting the abuse inflicted on animals bred and raised in tiny cages and then skinned alive for their fur.
• WND has reported multiple times on problems with exports from China, with poison found in pajamas, consumers warned against using ginger, an alert about the dangers from China's pickled vegetables and even the dangers from honey and fireworks.
• 
  Animals rights activists have documented that China's fur industry skins animals alive for their fur (Photo courtesy of Swiss Animal Protection)
• Now comes word from an extended investigation into the fur trade that China is estimated to produce approximately 85 percent of the world's fur products – and it has virtually no regulations or rules for the treatment of the animals.
• According to Mark Rissi, a spokesman for Swiss Animal Protection, which has documented abuse of animals raised for their fur as early as 1983, the China project has been going on for several years.
• The organization's report has been made available online, with dramatic images and descriptions that researchers found more than disturbing
• "As animals are considered objects in China, there is little or no awareness for the suffering of these sentient beings," Rissi told WND from his European base of operations via e-mail.

  • Well heck.., human beings, even their own human beings, are considered nothing but objects as well.
• "The cruelty found was beyond our expectations, and it was hard to document without interfering. It caused nightmares to the team, especially in the editing room, because the scenes had to be replayed and replayed to be edited from six hours down to 20 minutes."
• Rissi said the actual onsite investigation was done by his organization's staff members as well as trusted Asian animal protection supporters, but as fur production was not a controversial subject, "people willingly showed their farms to the team."
• He said he's glad other organizations, such as the U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have joined in his group's campaign.
• "Our main goal was to get this distributed because we want consumers worldwide to be aware about the cruelty involved in the fur fashion," he said.

  • Forget PC..let's have a refeshing gust of truth for a change...! Asians are a historically cruel people anyway. They do not think like Westerners. Even scholars and philosophers have proven this. To an Asian, cruel treatment of animals or fellow humans, seems to be just a matter of course.
• "People have a right to know that a huge percentage of fur is imported from China, which doesn't have any federal laws protecting animals on fur farms.
• People who might contribute to this atrocity by purchasing fur or fur-trimmed garments need to know about the horrible suffering of the animals who wore that skin first," PETA spokeswoman Melissa Karpel told WND.
• 
  Dogs are picked up by workers using a metal tongs and their tails prior to being slammed to the ground and skinned. (Photo courtesy of Swiss Animal Protection
• "We want them to see how fur farmers slam terrified animals — including raccoon pups — on the ground and skin them while they're still conscious.
• People need to know what they're really buying when they buy fur or fur trim," she said.
• "Conditions on Chinese fur farms make a mockery of the most elementary animal welfare standards," the Swiss report said. "This report shows that China's colossal fur industry routinely subjects animals to housing, husbandry, transport and slaughter practices that are unacceptable from a veterinary, animal welfare and moral point of view."
• PETA has posted a Swiss Animal Protection video on its U.S. site, documenting the bloody violence prevalent in the Chinese fur industry.
• The report contained the testimony from witnesses to a dog slaughter:
• Once pulled out from its cage, the raccoon dog curls up into a ball in mid-air. … One woman in a headscarf is first to grab hold of the raccoon dog's tail and the others drift away peevishly. The woman in the headscarf swings the animal upwards. It forms an arc in the air and is then slammed heavily to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust. The raccoon dog tries to stand up, its paws scrabbling in the grit. The wooden club in the woman's hand swings down onto its forehead. The woman picks up the animal and walks toward the other side of the road, throwing it onto a pile of other raccoon dogs. A stream of blood trickles from its muzzle, but its eyes are open and it continues to repeatedly blink, move its paws, raise its head and collapse to the ground. Beside it lies another raccoon dog. Its four limbs have been hacked off but still it continues to yelp.

  • I am not one of those tree hugging, spotted owl kissers that abound these days..but..BUT..unwarranted cruelty and torture of an animal is criminal. It is again, the Asian/Oriental mind-culture that sees no wrong in what it does to the living things around it. What appals and disgusts we Westerners, does not cause an Asian to blink.
• The report then graphically describes how the dogs are skinned, sometimes while they are living.
• Rissi noted that the Humane Society of the United States also has worked on the investigation, citing well-known U.S. companies, including J.C. Penney, Burlington Coat Factory, Bloomingdale's, Sak's Fifth Avenue and Macy's, for selling Chinese-produced fur products, sometimes labeling them as "faux fur" or raccoon when the actual product is from a raccoon dog.
• The Swiss Animal Protection report said slaughter methods range from beatings with a metal or wooden stick or swinging the animal until it slams to the ground.
• Then they are skinned.
• "They struggle and try to fight back to the very end. Even after their skin has been stripped off breathing, heart beat, directional body and eyelid movements were evident for five to 10 minutes," the report said.
• The process is repeated millions of times, as China processes up to 100,000 pelts in a day at times.
• The Swiss organization said China should pass a national animal welfare law, prohibit skinning live animals, prohibit inhumane treatment and slaughter methods, and the rest of the world should shun the use of fur.
• Swiss Animal Protection is the umbrella organization of 58 regional animal protection associations in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and biggest animal protection organization operating throughout Switzerland.
• WND's earlier reporting showed Chinese products recalled in 2007 alone included:
• Portable baby swings that entrap youngsters, resulting in 60 reports of cuts, bruises and abrasions;
• Swimming pool ladders that break, resulting in 127 reports of injuries, including leg lacerations requiring up to 21 stitches, five reports of bone fractures, two back injuries, two reports of torn ligaments and eight sprained ankles;
• Faulty baby carriers that result in babies falling out and getting bruised, getting skulls cracked and hospitalizations;
• Easy-Bake Ovens that trap children's fingers in openings, resulting in burns;
• Oscillating tower fans whose faulty wiring results in fires, burns and smoke inhalation injuries;
• Exploding air pumps that have resulted in 13 lacerations including six facial injuries and one to the eye;
• Bargain-priced oil-filled electric heaters, selling for less than $50, that burn down homes;
• Notebook computer batteries that burn up computers, cause other property damage and burn users;
• Circular saws with faulty blade guards that result in cutting users, not wood.
• WND also has reported on Chinese imports that poisoned America's pets, risked America's human food supply and reintroduced lead poisoning to America's children.
• Other problems have occurred with power strips and extension cords, holiday lights and batteries.
• China also consistently has topped the list of countries whose products were refused by the FDA  The list includes many countries, including Mexico and Canada, that export far more food products to the U.S. than China.
• The Chinese government, in fact, actually has blamed WND's reports for fanning the flames of hysteria about the safety of Chinese products.

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• Friday, 5 September 2008

   

    

   Key 9/11 Witness Commits Suicide?
• 'The Daily News reported yesterday that Kenny Johannemann - a key witness in the WTC 9/11 bombings - recently committed suicide.
• I call him a key witness because in spite of aggressive prodding from reporters about "the planes," he clearly called what happened on the upper floors of the World Trade Center "explosions."
• More important, Johannemann reported a massive explosion in the basement of one of the Twin Towers and rescuing someone who received full body burns from an explosion that took place at the base - not the top - of the building.
• (The Daily News obscured this part of the story in their report today.)
• The suicide note purportedly left by Johannemann stated that he had "lost friends and family" over "his drinking" which the letter attributes to his depression since 9/11.
• Here is the entire text of the note as reported in the Daily News:
• "The reason I killed myself was 'cause I was getting evicted and can't handle homelessness. I was also very depressed since 9/11.
• I've been drinking way too much and it's ruined my life. I've lost friends and family over drinking and I'm very lonely.
• There is nothing left for me to be happy about other than my cat. Sounds weird, but it's true.
• I just wanted to say I'm sorry 2 any people I ever hurt in my life. I really was a good person when I wasn't drinking. I hope people remember that. Goodbye!!!Kenny Johannemann"
• I wonder if the person who wrote this suicide note bothered to spend any time listening to Johannemann speak.
• Johannemann had a large extended family and large social network which, according to his cousin Gerald Maya, universally held him in high regard. Maya had offered him a place to live.
• You have to ask yourself two thing:
• 1. Would a man shoot himself in the head because he faced eviction when he had a family and social safety net like that?
• 2. Would someone as well spoken as Johannemann demonstrated himself to be on live TV, write a suicide note that sounds more like a teen aged boy's text message than a grown man's final testament?
• Keep in mind that there are other people, more visible than Johannemann, who are actively telling the same story he did in public venues.
• You can bet that Johannemann's "suicide" has sent them a message loud and clear about their safety or lack of it.
• In case you were concerned about them, these eye witnesses are alive and well'
• 2 comments:
• Anonymous said... 

   

   

  Another hero down, but no matter how much this hurts it is well known that this is the beginning of the fight against the oppressors and a lot more people will die in the fight. The truth will prevail about 9/11 and all there other plots. AND remember unity is power.
• Anonymous said... 

   

   

  This is just awful. And of course there was no news of this on the mainstream "controlled" media. It was obvious this man and hero was articulate and sharp. There were no planes used on 9/11 and there were no foreign invaders/terrorists, only our own corrupt government and their cohorts. We all need to do something to stop these 9/11 criminals asap!

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• Ex-CEO of kosher slaughterhouse: Grand jury biased
• 16 hours ago
• CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Attorneys for the former CEO of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant say immigration, bank fraud and other charges against him should be dismissed because the grand jury that indicted him was biased against Jews.
• Sholom Rubashkin faces nearly 100 federal counts and is accused of helping illegal immigrants get fake documents so they could work at Agriprocessors Inc.'s slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa.
• On Monday, his attorney and an attorney for Agriprocessors asked U.S. District Judge Linda Reade to dismiss the charges against Rubashkin and the company.
• The attorneys say the grand jury developed prejudices based on Jewish stereotypes.
• Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Berry says the indictment was based on evidence, not religion.

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• Nazi chic in Asia
• August 17, 2008
• Uniforms and other imagery related to Nazi Germany have been on sale in east Asia, where some considered it cool.
• Hong Kong and Japan have each witnessed a growth in the casual wearing of SS uniforms, as well as increased interest in white power music (also known as Rock Against Communism).
• Sometimes in east Asia, Nazi uniforms are used as part of cosplay. In South Korea, an area generally isolated from Nazi cultural influences during the Nazi era, Time magazine observed in 2000 “an unthinking fascination with the icons and imagery of the Third Reich.”[9
• Nazi-inspired imagery featured in various early releases from Japanese band The 5.6.7.8’s.[10]
• In some parts of the world, World War II is not taught in schools as a battle of political ideologies, but as a conventional war. This type of education means that Hitler and the Nazi Party are not treated as war criminals or evil, but merely as charismatic and powerful leaders of countries during wartime.
• Some east Asians are interested in what Adolf Hitler said about east Asian history and philosophy; the Nazi work ethic; as well as militaries that wore Hugo Boss uniforms and drove tanks made by Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.
• George Burdi, the former head of the neo-Nazi record label Resistance Records, claimed to have sold many CDs to Japan, because some Japanese believed themselves to be the white men of the east.
• In Turkey, Hitler’s book Mein Kampf is an annual bestseller.[11][12]
• Western reaction to the Asian phenomenon has been one of sharp criticism and utter astonishment.
• Western diplomats, especially Germans and Israelis, have complained heavily, pointing out that Asians suffered under Japanese Militarism and occupation, and frequently compare them as an Asian version of Nazism in order to convey their discontent.
• German and Israeli embassies in Asian countries have pressured local authorities to shut down Nazi-themed bars, but this has usually resulted in the bar re-opening with only a changed name and no real change in attitude.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_chic

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• U.S. to house detained migrants in converted hotels
• Tue Oct 6, 2009
• PHOENIX (Reuters) - The United States, criticized for holding illegal immigrants in overcrowded and poorly run jails, on Tuesday announced plans to convert hotels to detain some noncriminal immigrants.
• Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said illegal immigrants ranging from criminals to newly arrived asylum seekers would be held in different facilities according to the risk they pose.
• "This is a system that encompasses many different types of detainees, not all of whom need to be held in prison-like circumstances," Napolitano told a conference call.
• Referring to noncriminals such as newly arrived asylum seekers, Napolitano said, "We will begin efforts to house these populations near immigration service providers and pursue different options like converted hotels or residential facilities for their detention."
• About 32,000 immigrants to the United States are held at any given time in about 350 local jails and private prisons, which have been criticized for providing poor medical care and oversight.
• The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
• Immigration reform has been a contentious issue in U.S. politics. Congress has failed to pass reforms amid differences over how to deal with about 12 million illegal immigrants in the country and demands border security first be addressed
• The changes are part of a broader overhaul of the immigration detention system to "centralize, organize, provide oversight (and) ensure greater federal accountability," Napolitano said.
• Other reforms include doubling the number of ICE employees at detention facilities that house about 80 percent of immigration detainees, to provide greater day-to-day oversight, and providing alternatives to detention, like ankle bracelets.
• Napolitano said efforts are also under way to develop an online locater system for families and lawyers to find detainees, as well as efforts to centralize and oversee more than 300 immigration detention contracts, and improve medical care for detainees.
• "These new initiatives will improve accountability and safety in our detention facilities as we continue to engage in smart and effective enforcement of our nation's immigration laws," she said.
• IMMIGRATION REFORM
• President Barack Obama is currently seeking support among Democratic and Republican lawmakers to overhaul the broken immigration system in the United States.
• He supports offering illegal immigrants in good standing the chance to pay a fine and become citizens, at the same time cracking down on employers hiring undocumented workers and hardening security on the porous Mexico border.
• The move to overhaul the immigration detention system -- in which more than 90 detainees have died since 2004 -- was welcomed by Democrats in the U.S. Congress, where they are a majority.
• Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said a review by the former director of detention planning and policy at ICE, Dora Schriro, which was used as a basis for the reforms, contained "several constructive recommendations."
• "The perception of the United States around the world and our role as a champion of human rights is greatly diminished when we fail to treat those in our custody consistent with our values as a nation" he added.
• (Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; editing by Mohammad Zargham and Cynthia Osterman)

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• November V, No TV for V
• GspeedTheater
    October 13, 2009
• PERMISSION GRANTED to all YouTubers to mirror this video on their respective channels.
  
  Written and performed by Michael Goodspeed (YouTube user GspeedTheater)

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• RECTAL  BOMBS, BONO DRECK & OBAMA FULL OF IT:
    HEADLINE POTPOURRI #9
• By: Frederick Meekins
• Travelers often grumble about security measures at  airports requiring them to remove belts and shoes as precautions to detect explosives.  Such inconveniences may seem like something from the quaint past in light of a new  strategy developed by Al Qaeda.
• An attack was carried out against the Saudi head of  counterterrorism operations by concealing nearly a pound of explosives inside a bomber's  rectum.
• The device was detonated by cell phone. It is believed instructions on how to  carry out such an attack will soon be posted online.
• Representative Joe Wilson was right after all. Obama is a liar.
• The healthcare  legislation being considered in Congress will not require immigrants to produce legitimate  photo identification to qualify for benefits.
• But I bet you, American citizens will have  to lay bare all their documents (including birth certificates like those Il Duce refuses  to show anyone) to qualify for even the most basic of medical care.
• The stage at U2’s Washington concert cost nearly $40 million. By what right has  Bono then to lecture the rest of us about poverty and Westerners having too much?
• During  the concert, the Irish crooner declared that his quartet had transcended band status and  are more akin to a global force like a nation states. Apparently he’s every bit the  arrogant piece of human dreck South Park made him out to be.
• Hollywood and secular elites around the world have endorsed child molestation.
• The  likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Woody Allen, and the French government have gone on the record  that Roman Polanski should be set free since his drugging of a thirteen year old girl and  the carnal knowledge he gained of her while in such a state was so long ago and really  wasn’t rape anyway.
• One wonders if they’ll go as easy on Catholic priests  accused of such things often on the grounds of nothing more than the word of the alleged  victim.
• Don’t expect children to be better protected under the Obama Administration. The  Presidents special advisor on school safety is alleged to have done nothing other than  advise the youngster to use a condemn when a fifteen confided in the then-teacher that he  was having an affair with an older man.
• Scripture informs the reader that in God’s eyes there is neither Greek nor Jew.  Apparently those at Oxon Hill Baptist Church failed to heed this passage.
• According to the  October 2009 edition of the Maryland Baptist Convention's Baptist Life newsletter, a  Filipino open house was held for new Prince George’s county teachers of that  particular extraction where they were provided with warm clothing, linens, and kitchen  items. Perhaps members of less-than favored ethnicities should consider withholding their  tithes until all educators are appreciated for their minds rather than their skin colors.
• Would so-called  "conservatives" put up with a website extolling how much "Germanic  Heritage" has contributed to the United States?
• Gingrich now shills for Hispanosupremacits through TheAmericano.com.
• Another article titled "Language  Is Not A Family Value" on the site downplayed English as an indispensable component  of the American identity.
• President Obama is threatening to lengthen the school day and year.
• Maybe if time wasn't wasted on propaganda orations and singing hymns to Il Duce's august  name, teachers would have sufficient time to teach actual subjects.
• This plan to extend  both the school year and day is no doubt to pay back one of Obama's core constituencies  that can't get enough of the motions necessary to have a child but don't want any of the  responsibilities that follow afterwards.

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• Before   Red Dawn, There Was a
    Shadow on the Land
• by Ron Shirtz
• Democracy. A democracy we take as much for granted as the water   we drink. But democracy is a living thing. Its skeleton, an ideal.   Its bloodstream, dissent. Its tissue comprised of all the people   who inhabited it. All the people.
• But what happens if the life of democracy is paralyzed by fear,   or greed, or simple laziness? And the country is yielded up or coerced   or persuaded into accepting a dictatorship? A leader whose word   alone is all of law.
• The skeleton of democracy is destroyed. Its blood stream, dissent,   is bound in the barbed wire of concentration camps. And the leader’s   special police, the internal security forces, terrorize the bulk   of the people into acceptance. And the flag of the Internal Security   Forces, symbol of fear and darkness, will fly over our land.

• All across the land, are those who fight this symbol of darkness.   They are the underground. They call themselves, the Society of Man.   The sound of that siren reminds them the leader continues to destroy   democracy and the society of man.

   

  Yet there are not many in the underground. And often, each must   fight in their own way.

   

  – Narrator’s Prologue to Shadow on the Land
• Inspired by Sinclair Lewis’s 1936 novel and stage   play, – It   Can’t Happen Here, – and directed by Richard   C. Sarafian, it depicts America under a dictatorship after US citizens   elect a political strongman following a national emergency.
• It’s been 41 years since Shadow on the Land premiered in   December of 1968.
• Nedrick   Young, a former actor and McCarthy-era blacklisted writer deftly   converts Lewis’ 1930’s stinging satire into a modern movie screenplay   for this classic ABC’s "Movie of the Week" feature.
• It’s Christmas in Los Angeles. No snow, and all the Christmas trees   are fake. Carols blare metallically over store speakers. More incongruous   than the balmy weather, artificial decorations, or tinny songs during   a winter holiday, is the presence of armed uniformed security agents,   wearing the arm insignia of an imperial double-eagle – an eagle   that holds no peace offering in either claw, only lighting bolts.
• These are not men of goodwill, nor do they promote peace on earth.   An oppressive tyranny rules America.
• The President’s office, Congress,   and the Supreme Court have been dissolved. A single leader now rules   over the US. His name is never mentioned. He is simply referred   to as "The Leader."
• A Homeland Security–styled agency,   the Internal Security Forces (ISF), suppresses political dissent   to keep him in power.
• A resistance group, called The Society of   Man, has infiltrated the ISF with one of their agents, Major Shepard   McCloud, who serves under the ISF commander, General Wendell Bruce.
• He has top-secret information about   a government program named "Operation Hammer."
• An army officer and resistance agent, Lt. Colonel Davis, goes AWOL   from his post in Washington DC.

• Davis is   arrested by the ISF at LA airport before he can get the information   to the underground. The resistance decides he must be rescued quickly,   at whatever cost, to obtain the information before he breaks under   ISF interrogation.

   

  
• The   resistance members conduct a surprise raid at an ISF concentration   camp where Davis is held. Crashing though the main gate with a large   truck, the raiders attack the camp guards with assorted small arms   and Molotov cocktails.
• One guard tower takes a terrible toll on   the attacking resistance fighters. Several more are killed attempting   to take it out. Finally a determined throw with a firebomb destroys   the deadly tower.
• Meanwhile, other resistance fighters search through the prisoner   barracks looking for Davis. Finding him, they unceremoniously throw   Davis in the back of a waiting van, and escape under a hail of gunfire.
• All resistance fighters unable to escape are quickly dispatched   by ISF reinforcements. In a final act of defiance, two stranded   resistance members pull down the camp’s ISF flag and hoist the stars   and stripes before dying.
• At Western Division ISF HQ, General Wendell Bruce is browbeating   an Army general. The Army general had angrily demanded to know why   Lt. Colonel Davis was arrested.
• ISF General Bruce sternly reminds   him that the ISF authority supersedes the US military. When General   Bruce threatens to sack him, he meekly exits the ISF office without   further protest.
• General Bruce looks out his office window at the city   landscape. A police siren wails in the background. "Those   people down there, I don’t know what they are doing… and the next   day there will be more, and the next day…."
• Major McCloud; "You sound like Jason searching   for the Golden Fleece. One of the things he had to do was plant   some dragon’s teeth. For every one he planted sprung a fully armed   soldier he had to kill. And the next day there were more, and   the next day, more…"

• General Bruce: "That my friend,   is mythology. Our job is not to plant dragon teeth. Our job is   to plant an idea. An idea that America has to be strong, and united."  

   

  Major McCloud; "I’m afraid it's used to being   strong and free."

   

  General Bruce: "The difference   between freedom and license is you can’t have strength without   discipline."

   

  Major McCloud; "Well, let’s call it by its right   name. Our job is discipline."

   

  General Bruce: "That’s my job. Your job is to   find Davis."
• Major McCloud receives several cryptic messages from the underground   at his office. He leaves ISF HQ with his personal ISF driver (and   fellow resistance member), Corporal Willing.
• General Bruce, suspicious   of McCloud after information gleaned by wiretaps on McCloud's telephone,   sends two ISF agents to tail him. McCloud and his driver shake the   two agents, and arrive at a safe house where Davis is hiding with   resistance members and a sympathetic doctor.
• McCloud finds Lt. Colonel Davis sedated and in bad shape from the   effects of his initial interrogation. The doctor tells McCloud he   must wait several hours before he can question Davis about Operation   Hammer. Fearful the safe house may be compromised, McCloud takes   Davis to a church mission home in a poor section of the city.
• The   mission home minister, Reverend Thomas Davis, is Lt. Col Davis’s   brother. The Reverend at first refuses to hide him, not wanting   to compromise the missions home’s neutrality by getting involved.   When McCloud threatens to use his authority to close down the mission,   Reverend Davis relents, and takes his brother in.
• After McCloud leaves Davis at the mission, he goes to his girlfriend   Abby’s apartment to create an alibi.
• When the ISF agents show up   at the apartment to question him, Abby uses a cover story provided   by McCloud to convince the ISF agents that McCloud was with her   for the evening. Afterward McCloud and Abby speculate on the purpose   of the Operation Hammer.

• McCloud: "It’s called more power to the   leader, and it begins with leader re-depositing the blank check   the people gave him four years ago."

   

  Abby: "You can’t blame the people – I mean they   didn’t know – There was a national emergency. Remember?"

   

  McCloud: "Oh I remember. Riots in the ghetto.   Panic in the press… Every unthinking fool who had as much as a   used car wanted to vote in a strong man for a protector…That’s   what the national emergency is about. That’s what Operation Hammer   is about. More power to the leader."

   

  Abby: "He has all he needs. He has all he wants,   and it’s growing."

   

  McCloud: "But the resistance to him is growing.   Don’t you see? – He’s got to smash the Society of Man."

   

  Abby: "He’s been trying that for a long time now."

   

  McCloud: "He has 300,00 men. Suppose, suppose   he had two hundred million?"

   

  Abby: "How?"
• McCloud: "Create another national emergency, another   Reichstag fire. Do something terrible that will affect millions   of people emotionally, as well as physically, and blame it on   the society. Make every man, woman and child in the country hate   the Society, not the leader. Cut us off from the people. Take   away our support, smash it."
• The ISF learns of Reverend Davis mission home and raid it. Aided   by a sympathetic mission worker, Colonel Davis escapes at the last   moment. Weak and disorientated, Colonel Davis wanders through the   city as if in a nightmare. He desperately calls for assistance from   citizens, but they recoil from him. He is spotted by two ISF agents   and pursued.

• At one point Davis stumbles into a crowded coffeehouse   and tries to warn them of the danger to come.

   

   

  Davis; "Listen to me, please! Please listen   to me! My name is Davis and I am an Army officer. Please help   me! Help me! Please listen! Please listen to me! You all are on   the gallows, right now! It’s the Leader!"
• The two ISF agents recapture Davis and bring him to ISF HQ. To   test McCloud’s loyalty to the ISF, General Bruce orders him to personally   interrogate Davis. McCloud desperately tries to persuade Davis to   give him information quickly before he is tortured further, but   Davis dies from biting a poisoned pill he had kept in his mouth.
• McCloud chastises a newly hired ISF woman psychiatrist, Captain   Everett, for her part in analyzing Davis’ responses from the interrogation.   Shocked out of her naïveté, Captain Everett decides to resign from   the ISF and join the resistance. She provides McCloud a taped confession   given earlier by Davis on the details of Operation Hammer.
• The operation is a covert false-flag plot (a fictional cousin to   the real 1962 CIA proposed Operation   Northwood) to disable a California power station to black out   the west coast on Christmas Eve, and blame it as an act of terrorism   by the Society of Man.
• Its goal is to turn the public from supporting   the resistance, and garner support to increase the size and authority   of the ISF.
• General Bruce puts McCloud in charge of the operation,   and briefs him and the agents on the details of the attack. When   one of the ISF agents ask about how to deal with the loyal ISF guards   protecting the power station, General Bruce coldly instructs them   to do whatever is necessary, even killing the ISF guards, to complete   the mission.
• McCloud tries to send a warning to the underground via his driver,   Willing, but is prevented by an order restricting all personnel   to ISF HQ pending the operation.
• However, Reverend Thomas Davis   happens to be in ISF HQ visiting the body of his deceased brother.   McCloud goes to see Reverend Davis in the ISF morgue to convince   him to contact the resistance to prevent the destruction of the   power plant. After much futile argument, McCloud places the burden   on Reverend Davis conscience to prevent the loss innocent lives   from the ISF contrived blackout.
• Before leaving he drops a written   message made out to the resistance on the floor while the Reverend   kneels to pray over the body of his brother.
• As zero hour approaches, McCloud and Willing saddle up with the   ISF strike team to attack the power plant. As they drive towards   to their objective, McCloud strikes up a conversation with Willing.

• McCloud: "What made you join the underground?"

   

  Willing: "How do you know when an idea begins?   I was born, I grew up, I had things happen to me. I had experiences,   and I thought about them. It’s the only way I can say it."

   

  McCloud: "What sort of experiences?"

   

  Willing: "Once when I was maybe 9 or 10, I was   playing in a vacant lot, and I saw this little frog, and I wanted   that frog more than anything else in the world because if I had   that frog, I’d be rich and important to the other kids. I chased   the frog, but it kept getting away from me. So I got mad. I picked   up a rock and threw it at him and I killed him. All he wanted   was to be free. I got sick and vomited all over the lot. I went   home and cried all day and night. I never did anything like that   again. I guess I been fighting the rock throwers ever since."
• Reverend Davis does the right thing and warns the underground.   The resistance members, dressed in ISF uniforms, ambush the ISF   agents disguised in civilian clothes. A big gun battle ensues and   the underground succeeds in killing all the ISF agents. McCloud   is almost killed by the last ISF agent while disarming the explosives   in the control room, but is saved at the last moment by Reverend   Davis who shoots the ISF agent.

• McCloud: "Thanks. The next one is on me."

   

  Reverend Davis: "Next one? Always another battle   to fight, isn’t there?"

   

  McCloud: "Always another battle to win. Get positive."

   

   

  A wounded McCloud goes back to ISF HQ to bluff it out with General   Bruce.

• General Bruce: "Whom do you suspect? It   couldn’t have been Clark, or Franklin or Anderson. They never   left the building. What of Felting?"

   

  McCloud: "He’s dead."

   

  General Bruce: "He’s the only one I can trust…."

   

  McCloud: "Meaning what!!?"

   

  General Bruce: "Meaning you and Felting were the   only ones who knew outside this building. How do you explain that?"

   

  McCloud: "How would you like to forget you a general   for just a minute?"

   

  General Bruce: "Go ahead! Take your chances!"

   

  McCloud:" I did! So did 23 other men, who took   the chances on the mission that should have never taken place   when it did. And wouldn’t have, if you weren’t so hungry for a   pat on the head from the Leader! You knew Davis was at liberty   for 16 hours before you picked him up! Now he had time to tell   everyone in the underground if he went from one end of the city   to another on roller skates! You knew that! Why couldn’t you have   given us an edge? Move the mission ahead? Four hours, four minutes,   anything! Now how are you going to explain that!!?"

   

  General Bruce: "You’re bleeding on my desk."

   

  McCloud: "Are there any other questions – SIR?"

   

  General Bruce: (Whispering to himself) "Nobody,   nobody I can trust…"
• McCloud: "Well like you said sir, in this business   that’s an occupational hazard."
• The movie ends with McCloud leaving General Bruce’s office. Passing   by Willing, he pauses before exiting ISF HQ. Turning around, he   says to Willing, "Why don’t you go home? It’s Christmas   Eve."
• Filmed   in an era before personal computers, Internet, cell phones, and   miniature video devices, the movie lacks the oppressive atmosphere   of invasive surveillance and loss of privacy as depicted in Orwell’s   futuristic 1984.
• Shadow on the Land is more a rough sketch   of an alternative fascist America than a detailed blueprint. But   what it lacks in special effects is made up by Nedrick Young’s smartly   written dialogue and excellent characterization by the actors.
• John   Forsyth gives an outstanding performance as the intelligent and   ruthless ISF General Wendell Bruce. Forsyth’s piercing glare and   stern voice give him an imposing persona that intimidates lesser   men in his presence.
• The ISF logo effectively gives the movie the   necessary visual gravis to compensate with the lack of dystopian   stage props.
• The uncanny resemblance of the ISF insignia with the   recent American Police   Force (APF) trademark is too creepy to be funny.
• Lesser-known actor Marc Strange coolly plays the character of Major   Shepard McCloud. His role of a double agent creates dramatic suspense   as he plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Forsyth’s character.
• The rest of the actors give a good ensemble performance. Only Gene   Hackman's stint as the Reverend Thomas Davis is disappointing. His   portrayal as a minister torn between his conscience and the cause   of the resistance sounds more forced than sincere.
• The video quality of the old VHS recording I viewed can only be   generously described as fair. Despite its age, Shadow on the   Land successfully portrays the grim consequences when citizens   fail to heed Benjamin Franklin’s warning, and trade essential liberty   for temporary safety.
• Sadly for movie buffs, Shadow on the Land has not been re-released.
• October   21, 2009
• Ron   Shirtz [send him mail] is   a transplanted Californian teaching Graphic Communications in Northern   (Not "Upstate") New York. His hobbies include arranging deck chairs   on sinking ships, tilting at windmills, and being fashionably late.
• Copyright   © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in   part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

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• Rocketown controversy: hardcore satanic metal at Christian teen venue Rocketown Halloween week
• October 22, 6:35 PMNashville Gospel Music & Entertainment ExaminerKathryn Darden
• Tonight Channel 2 WKRN reported on a story concerning Nashville's Christian teen hangout, Rocketown, which is presenting a show of hardcore satanic metal music the week of Halloween (see video below).
• Keith Mohr, the founder and president of gospel music's Indieheaven.com, was briefly interviewed regarding his recent experience with the teen ministry.
• I contacted Keith Mohr, and he graciously agreed to share some of the details about the Rocketown controversy with Examiner readers. 
• Rocketown's Controversial October 27 Line-Up
• "My wife and myself are concerned parents," Keith explained, saying they have a 16-year-old son who wanted to attend a pre-Halloween-themed concert at Rocketown coming up on October 27 after a friend shared songs by The Black Dahlia Murder with him.
• "My son liked the way their music sounded," Mohr said, stating he and his wife listened to the songs, and although the lyrics were hard to understand, they found the music to be "very dark sounding."
• 
  Michael W. Smith photo from Wikipedia
• The Black Dahlia Murder
• Mohr and his wife did some research on The Black Dahlia Murder, Toxic Holocaust, Skeletonwitch and Trap Them and found the bands to be "hardcore satanic bands" and overtly anti-Christian.
• Mohr points out, "Their lyrics are anti-christian and very graphic."

• One example is the The Black Dahlia Murder song "Black Valor" which proclaims:

  Join us! Black valor's on our side / Striking with satanic force we'll crush their fabled Christ  www.lyricsmania.com
• Mohr also visited The Black Dahlia Murder's MySpace where he watched a promotional video about the band. "They were doing drugs and drinking on their tour bus. I am sure other impressionable youth have seen this video and been impacted by their activities."  
• Rocketown Sending Mixed Signals?
• After Mohr found out more about the bands and what they are saying in their songs, he posted about the upcoming Rocketown show on his Facebook page.
• "I raised the question - was it wise for Rocketown to have a concert with satanic bands performing, and how does that mesh with their mission?"
• And Mohr points out that while the satanic line-up is showcasing at Rocketown the week of Halloween, "Rocketown has had bands like these in for at least the last few years quite often."
• Mixed Reactions to Rocketown Controversy
• Mohr admits that while response on his Facebook network was strongly against Rocketown's night of satanic music, there has been a mixed reaction to the Rocketown controversy elsewhere.
• "Some see no issue. Others like me, take offense that an establishment that calls itself Christian and tells parents it is a safe haven for their kids, are bringing in hardcore satanic bands with the hopes that some may think Rocketown is a cool place and come back for something a bit more wholesome and enriching."
• Michael W. Smith Introduces Rocketown in 1994
• Rocketown was launched by Michael W. Smith in the Cool Springs Mall area in Williamson County in 1994.
• "It is well known that there is a great need for weekend/night time entertainment for teens and young people in this area, not to mention entertainment that is Christian quality controlled," Michael W. Smith stated when he introduced Rocketown.
• "'Rocketown' is a place where teens can go to socialize, play games, dance or listen to music without being bombarded by drugs, alcohol and sexual temptations."
• Rocketown a Non-Traditional Ministry
• However, Rocketown, which is now located in downtown Nashville, pointed out on the WKRN segment that they are a non-traditional ministry that wants to pull in unchurched kids, providing Christian and non-Christian teens alike a venue to see concerts in a safe environment.
• Rocketown Mission Statement

• The Rocketown mission statement reads:

  Rocketown shares Christ's love with youth through creative programs and mentoring relationships that are culturally relevant and eternally significant.
• Find out more about Rocketown's Halloween week schedule at the Rocketown calendar.
• For more info: 

  Michael W. Smith Introduces Rocketown

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• Gorbachev on 1989

• By Katrina vanden Heuvel & Stephen F. Cohen

    

    This article appeared in the November 16, 2009 edition of The Nation.
    

  October 28, 2009
• On September 23, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and her husband, Stephen F. Cohen, a contributing editor, interviewed former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at his foundation in Moscow. With the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaching, we believed that the leader most responsible for that historic event should be heard, on his own terms, in the United States. As readers will see, the discussion became much more wide-ranging.   --The Editors
• KVH/SFC: Historic events quickly generate historical myths. In the United States it is said that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of a divided Europe was caused by a democratic revolution in Eastern Europe or by American power, or both. What is your response?
• MG: Those developments were the result of perestroika in the Soviet Union, where democratic changes had reached the point by March 1989 that for the first time in Russia's history democratic, competitive elections took place.
• You remember how enthusiastically people participated in those elections for a new Soviet Congress. And as a result thirty-five regional Communist Party secretaries were defeated.
• By the way, of the deputies elected, 84 percent were Communists, because there were a lot of ordinary people in the party--workers and intellectuals.
• On the day after the elections, I met with the Politburo, and said, "I congratulate you!" They were very upset. Several replied, "For what?" I explained, "This is a victory for perestroika. We are touching the lives of people.
• Things are difficult for them now, but nonetheless they voted for Communists."
• Those elections were very important. They meant that movement was under way toward democracy, glasnost and pluralism.
• Analogous processes were also under way in Eastern and Central Europe.
• On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries, and told them: "You are independent, and we are independent. You are responsible for your policies, we are responsible for ours. We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you."
• And we did not intervene, not once, not even when they later asked us to.
• Under the influence of perestroika, their societies began to take action.
• Perestroika was a democratic transformation, which the Soviet Union needed. And my policy of nonintervention in Central and Eastern Europe was crucial.
• Just imagine, in East Germany alone there were more than 300,000 Soviet troops armed to the teeth--elite troops, specially selected! And yet, a process of change began there, and in the other countries, too. People began to make choices, which was their natural right.
• Both in West and East Germany new governments were formed and new relations between them established. I think if the East German leader Erich Honecker had not been so stubborn--we all suffer from this illness, including the person you are interviewing--he would have introduced democratic changes. But the East German leaders did not initiate their own perestroika. Thus a struggle broke out in their country.
• The Germans are a very capable nation. Even after what they had experienced under Hitler and later, they demonstrated that they could build a new democratic country. If Honecker had taken advantage of his people's capabilities, democratic and economic reforms could have been introduced that might have led to a different outcome.
• I saw this myself. On October 7, 1989, I was reviewing a parade in East Germany with Honecker and other representatives of the Warsaw Pact countries.
• Groups from twenty-eight different regions of East Germany were marching by with torches, slogans on banners, shouts and songs. The former prime minister of Poland, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, asked me if I understood German. "Enough to read what's written on the banners. They're talking about perestroika. They're talking about democracy and change. They're saying, 'Gorbachev, stay in our country!'" Then Rakowski remarked, "If it's true that these are representatives of people from twenty-eight regions of the country, it means the end." I said, "I think you're right."

• KVH/SFC: That is, after the Soviet elections in March 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall was inevitable?  

   

    MG: Absolutely!  
• KVH/SFC: Did you already foresee the outcome?
• MG: Everyone claims to have foreseen things. In June 1989 I met with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and we then held a press conference. Reporters asked if we had discussed the German question. My answer was, "History gave rise to this problem, and history will resolve it. That is my opinion. If you ask Chancellor Kohl, he will tell you it is a problem for the twenty-first century."
• I also met with the East German Communist leaders, and told them again, "This is your affair and you have the responsibility to decide." But I also warned them, "What does experience teach us? He who is late loses."
• But in 1989-90, all Germans, both in the East and the West, were saying, "Do it immediately." They were afraid the opportunity would be missed.
• KVH/SFC: A closely related question: when did the cold war actually end? In the United States, there are several answers: in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down; in 1990-91, after the reunification of Germany; and the most popular, even orthodox, answer, is that the cold war ended only when the Soviet Union ended, in December 1991.
• MG: No. If President Ronald Reagan and I had not succeeded in signing disarmament agreements and normalizing our relations in 1985-88, the later developments would have been unimaginable.
• But what happened between Reagan and me would also have been unimaginable if earlier we had not begun perestroika in the Soviet Union. Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended.
• But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present.
• Sometimes people ask me why I began perestroika. Were the causes basically domestic or foreign? The domestic reasons were undoubtedly the main ones, but the danger of nuclear war was so serious that it was a no less significant factor.
• Therefore the big changes that occurred with me and Reagan had tremendous importance.
• Something had to be done before we destroyed each other.
• But also that George H.W. Bush, who succeeded Reagan, decided to continue the process. And in December 1989, at our meeting in Malta, Bush and I declared that we were no longer enemies or adversaries.

• KVH/SFC: So the cold war ended in December 1989? 

   

    MG: I think so. 
• KVH/SFC: Many people disagree, including some American historians.
• MG: Let historians think what they want. But without what I have described, nothing would have resulted.
• Let me tell you something. George Shultz, Reagan's secretary of state, came to see me two or three years ago. We reminisced for a long time--like old soldiers recalling past battles.
• I have great respect for Shultz,
• and I asked him: "Tell me, George, if Reagan had not been president, who could have played his role?" Shultz thought for a while, then said: "At that time there was no one else. Reagan's strength was that he had devoted his whole first term to building up America, to getting rid of all the vacillation that had been sown like seeds.
• America's spirits had revived. But in order to take these steps toward normalizing relations with the Soviet Union and toward reducing nuclear armaments--there was no one else who could have done that then."
• By the way, in 1987, after my first visit to the United States, Vice President Bush accompanied me to the airport, and told me: "Reagan is a conservative. An extreme conservative. All the blockheads and dummies are for him, and when he says that something is necessary, they trust him. But if some Democrat had proposed what Reagan did, with you, they might not have trusted him."

  • SEE: "Franklin Coverup"; "CIA and drug running"; and the rumors that Reagan could not stand George H.W. Bush
  Add Sticky Note
• By telling you this, I simply want to give Reagan the credit he deserves. I found dealing with him very difficult. The first time we met, in 1985, after we had talked, my people asked me what I thought of him. "A real dinosaur," I replied. And about me Reagan said, "Gorbachev is a diehard Bolshevik!"
• KVH/SFC: A dinosaur and a Bolshevik?
• MG: And yet these two people came to historic agreements, because some things must be above ideological convictions. No matter how hard it was for us and no matter how much Reagan and I argued in Geneva in 1985, nevertheless in our appeal to the peoples of the world we wrote: "Nuclear war is inadmissible, and in it there can be no victors."
• And in 1986, in Reykjavik, we even agreed that nuclear weapons should be abolished. This conception speaks to the maturity of the leaders on both sides, not only Reagan but people in the West generally, who reached the correct conclusion that we had to put an end to the cold war.
• KVH/SFC: So Americans who say the cold war ended only with the end of the Soviet Union are wrong?
• MG: That's because journalists, politicians and historians in your country concluded that the United States won the cold war, but that is a mistake. If the new Soviet leadership and its new foreign policy had not existed, nothing would have happened.
• KVH/SFC: In short, Gorbachev, Reagan and the first President Bush ended the cold war?
• It was not a single action but a process. Bush and I made the declaration at Malta, but Reagan would have had no less grounds for saying that he played a crucial role, because he, together with us, had a fundamental change of attitude.
• MG: Yes, in 1989-90.
• Therefore we were all victors: we all won the cold war because we put a stop to spending $10 trillion on the cold war, on each side.
• KVH/SFC: What was most important--the circumstances at that time or the leaders?
• MG: The times work through people in history. I'll tell you something else that is very important about what subsequently happened in your country. When people came to the conclusion that they had won the cold war, they concluded that they didn't need to change. Let others change.
• That point of view is mistaken, and it undermined what we had envisaged for Europe--mutual collective security for everyone and a new world order.
• All of that was lost because of this muddled thinking in your country, and which has now made it so difficult to work together. World leadership is now understood to mean that America gives the orders.
• KVH/SFC: Is that why today, twenty years after you say the cold war ended, the relationship between our two countries is so bad that President Obama says it has to be "reset"? What went wrong?
• MG: Even before the end of the cold war, Reagan, Bush and I argued, but we began to eliminate two entire categories of nuclear weapons.
• We had gone very far, almost to the point when a return to the past was no longer possible. But everything went wrong because perestroika was undermined and there was a change of Russian leadership and a change from our concept of gradual reform to the idea of a sudden leap.
• For Russian President Boris Yeltsin, ready-made Western recipes were falling into his hands, schemes that supposedly would lead to instant success. He was an adventurist. The fall of the Soviet Union was the key moment that explains everything that happened afterward, including what we have today.
• As I said, people in your country became dizzy with imagined success: they saw everything as their victory.
• In Yeltsin, Washington ended up with a vassal who thought that because of his anticommunism he would be carried in their arms. Delegations came to Russia one after the other, including President Bill Clinton, but then they stopped coming. It turned out no one needed Yeltsin.
• But by then half of Russia's industries were in ruins, even 60 percent. It was a country with a noncompetitive economy wide open to the world market, and it became slavishly dependent on imports.
• All our plans for a new Europe and a new architecture of mutual security. It all disappeared.
• Instead, it was proposed that NATO's jurisdiction be extended to the whole world. But then Russia began to revive. The rain of dollars from higher world oil prices opened up new possibilities. Industrial and social problems began to be solved.
• And Russia began to speak with a firm voice, but Western leaders got angry about that. They had grown accustomed to having Russia just lie there. They thought they could pull the legs right out from under her whenever they wanted.
• The moral of the story--and in the West morals are everything--is this: under my leadership, a country began reforms that opened up the possibility of sustained democracy, of escaping from the threat of nuclear war, and more. That country needed aid and support, but it didn't get any. Instead, when things went bad for us, the United States applauded. Once again, this was a calculated attempt to hold Russia back. I am speaking heatedly, but I am telling you what happened.
• KVH/SFC: But now Washington is turning to Moscow for help, most urgently perhaps in Afghanistan. Exactly twenty years ago, you ended the Soviet war in Afghanistan. What lessons did you learn that President Obama should heed in making his decisions about Afghanistan?
• MG: One was that problems there could not be solved with the use of force. Such attempts inside someone else's country end badly. But even more, it is not acceptable to impose one's own idea of order on another country without taking into account the opinion of the population of that country.
• My predecessors tried to build socialism in Afghanistan, where everything was in the hands of tribal and clan leaders, or of religious leaders, and where the central government was very weak.
• What kind of socialism could that have been? It only spoiled our relationship with a country where we had excellent relations during the previous twenty years.
• Even today, I am criticized that it took three years for us to withdraw, but we tried to solve the problem through dialogue--with America, with India, with Iran and with both sides in Afghanistan, and we attended an international conference. We didn't simply hitch up our trousers and run for it, but tried to solve the problem politically, with the idea of making Afghanistan a neutral, peaceful country.
• By the way, when we were getting ready to pull out our troops and were preparing a treaty of withdrawal, what did the Americans do? They supported the idea of giving religious training to young Afghans--that is, the Taliban.
• As a result, now they are fighting against them.
• Today, again, not just America and Russia can be involved in solving this problem. All of Afghanistan's neighbors must be involved. Iran cannot be ignored, and it's ill-advised for America not to be on good terms with Iran.
• KVH/SFC: Finally, a question about your intellectual-political biography. One author called you "the man who changed the world." Who or what most changed your own thinking?
• MG: Gorbachev never had a guru. I've been involved in politics since 1955, after I finished university, when there was still hunger in my country as a result of World War II. I was formed by those times and by my participation in politics.
• Along the way, Russian literature and, in fact, all literature, European and American too, had a big influence on me. I was drawn especially to philosophy.
• I didn't just learn historical facts but tried to put them in a philosophical or conceptual framework.
• I began to understand that society needed a new vision--that we must view the world with our eyes open, not just through our personal or private interests.
• That's how our new thinking of the 1980s began, when we understood that our old viewpoints were not working out.
• During the nuclear arms race, I was given a gift by an American, a little figure of a goose in flight. I still have it at my dacha. It is a goose that lives in the north of Russia in the summer and in the winter migrates to America. It does that every year regardless of what's happening, on the ground, between you and us. That was the point of this gift and that's why I'm telling you about it.
• KVH/SFC: Listening to you, it seems that you became a political heretic in your country.
• I want to add that I know America well now, having given speeches to large audiences there regularly.
• MG: I think that is true.
• Three years ago I was speaking in the Midwest, and an American asked me this question: "The situation in the United States is developing in a way that alarms us greatly. What would you advise us to do?" I said, "Giving advice, especially to Americans, is not for me." But I did say one general thing: that it seems to me that America needs its own American perestroika. Not ours. We needed ours, but you need yours. The entire audience stood and clapped for five minutes.
• KVH/SFC: And do you think President Obama will be the leader of such an American perestroika?
• MG: As far as I know, Americans did not make a mistake in electing him. Barack Obama is capable of leading your society on a very high level and of understanding it better than any political figure I know. He is an educated person with a highly developed capacity for dialogue, and that too is very important. So I congratulate you.

• About Katrina vanden Heuvel

   

   Katrina vanden Heuvel is Editor and Publisher of The Nation. 

    

   She is the co-editor of Taking Back America--And Taking Down The Radical Right (NationBooks, 2004).  

    

   She is also co-editor (with Stephen F. Cohen) of Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev's Reformers (Norton, 1989) and editor of The Nation: 1865-1990, and the collection A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy and September 11, 2001. 

  more...

• About Stephen F. Cohen

   Stephen F. Cohen, professor of Russian studies at New York University, is the author (with Katrina vanden Heuvel) of Voices of Glasnost: Conversations With Gorbachev's Reformers, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (both Norton) and, most recently, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War (Columbia). more...

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• 'V' aims at Obamamania<!-- P2P_LIVE_EDIT "content_item_headline_preview" END -->

          

                

   

   

  "V"  (Courtesy of ABC)
• 'V' aims at Obamamania
• By Glenn Garvin<!-- P2P_LIVE_EDIT "content_item_byline_preview" END -->     <!-- P2P_LIVE_EDIT "content_item_titleline_preview" START -->McClatchy/Tribune News<!-- P2P_LIVE_EDIT "content_item_titleline_preview" END -->                       

  <!-- P2P_LIVE_EDIT "content_item_display_time_preview" START -->November 3, 2009
• Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.
• The news media swoons in admiration -- one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!"
• The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions.
• The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."
• So, does that sound like anyone you know?
• Oh, wait -- did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who's come here to eat us?
• Welcome to ABC's "V," the most fascinating and bound to be the most controversial new show of the fall television season. Nominally a rousing sci-fi space opera about alien invaders bent on the conquest (and digestion) of all humanity, it's also a barbed commentary on Obamamania that will infuriate the president's supporters and delight his detractors.
• "We're all so quick to jump on the bandwagon," observes one character. "A ride on the bandwagon, it sounds like fun. But before we get on, let us at least make sure it is sturdy."
• The bandwagon in this case is conspicuously saucer-shaped. "V" starts with the arrival of a couple of dozen ships from outer space, piloted by creatures who look like humans except a lot prettier.
• "Don't be frightened," says their luminously beautiful leader Anna (Morena Baccarin, "Serenity"). "We mean no harm."
• The aliens -- who become known as V's, for visitors -- quickly enthrall their wide-eyed human hosts.
• A handful of dissidents hold out against the rapturous reception given the V's. Some are simply uneasy, such as the youthful priest Father Jack (Joel Gretsch, "The 4400"), who sharply criticizes the Vatican's embrace of the V's as divine creations: "Rattlesnakes are God's creatures too."
• With or without the political sheen, "V" is sweeping television storytelling at its best.
• Whether you choose to view it as a blood-and-guts war story, a spy thriller (unlike the original show, these V's are perfect replicas of humans, so you never really know who might be sitting beside you at the bar), a high-stakes family drama (as households divide over the intentions of the V's), a religious allegory (the V's make a crippled man walk, filling up churches again) or just a sci-fi throwback to the days of "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" and "The Thing," "V" is irresistible. This bandwagon is definitely worth jumping on.
  

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• ABC   Series 'V': Invading, Fascist Lizards Arrive With 'Universal Health Care'   and 'Message of Hope' --ABC Network Portrays Aliens, Hell-bent on Destroying   Planet Earth, as the Obama Administration
• By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org   04 Nov 2009
• A bit of background:   V (or V:   The Original Miniseries) is a two-part science fiction television   miniseries, written and directed by Kenneth Johnson. First shown in 1983,   it initiated the science fiction franchise concerning aliens known as   the 'Visitors' trying to gain control of Earth.
• The ABC   television network has brought back the science fiction series, V,   in a remake of the 1980's classic by the same name.
• The   1980's version was about as 'left-leaning' as you get, with writer-director   Johnson actually dedicating the series to 'resistance fighters   everywhere.' (Johnson opens showing rebels/film crew avoiding an invading   [US?] helicopter attack in El   Salvador.)
• In the remake pilot   of V, which aired on November 3, 2009, the leader of the aliens   grants an exclusive interview to a conciliating, Fox News-style reporter,   Chad Decker, who consents to the alien leader's constriction: 'We   can't be seen in a negative light.' in   order to get the interview and get other exclusive announcements from   the Visitor's leadership. (Think Fox News-Bush regime.)
• During the interview,   interspersed with scenes from a meeting of a nascent resistance movement,   Anna, the Visitor's leader, announces that the Visitors are going to open   medical clinics all over the country, as a gift to humanity.
• The interviewer   actually asks, 'Oh, do you mean like universal health care?' And   Anna, the scourge of mankind, replies, 'Yes, I believe that is what your   people call it.'
• The implication by the ABC producers of 'V': An   alien lizard fascist, trying to take control of earth and who must be   destroyed at any cost, will provide universal health care as a cover to   control all earthlings and to take over the planet.
• Moreover,   the alien Visitors frequently talk about the importance of *hope* and   how change does not come easy.
• There   are numerous analogies of the Visitors to the Obama Administration, peppered   throughout the pilot.
• The ABC remake is comparing the Visitors -- alien terrorists, with sleeper-cells   laden with Visitor supporters -- to the Obama Administration.

• In   reality, the Visitors and the mercenary firm share the same goals --stealing   resources by any means necessary while killing as many detractors as possible.  

   

  The world   would rejoice if an actual resistance movement responded to both the fictional   invaders... and the real ones.
• A better   comparison is the alien terrorists to Blackwater   aka Xe   aka U.S.   Training Center.

• Lori   Price is Managing Editor of Citizens For Legitimate Government.

   

   

  

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• How Right-Wing Cult Leader Sun Myung Moon Bought Washington
• By   Rory O'Connor, RoryOConnor.org. Posted November 13, 2009.
• With money, media and promotion of a conservative political agenda, a self-styled Messiah and convicted felon became a frequent guest at the White House.
• “Moon looked on the media as almost the nervous system for a global empire. Moon was the brain, and the media are to be, or were to be, the communications vehicle for his body politic surrounding the globe.”
• In January 1992, PBS Frontline broadcast a film I directed that documented the amazing rise, fall and subsequent resurrection of Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church movement.
• The documentary showed how, through an adroit combination of money, media and the consistent promotion of a conservative political agenda, a self-styled Messiah and convicted felon had rapidly reinvented himself and was soon hailed at the White House.
• At the time, few Americans paid much attention to Reverend Moon – and those that did had bizarre recollections of him and the “Moonies,” as his followers once called themselves: mass weddings of complete strangers, flower-peddling in the street, and repeated allegations of mind control and brainwashing.
• Even back then, Moon’s movement, once labeled a cult, was more accurately described as a conglomerate.
• As my film stated, “From media operations in the nation’s capital… To substantial real estate holdings throughout the United States… And from large commercial fishing operations… To advanced high-tech and computer industries, a Fifth Avenue publishing house, and literally dozens of other businesses, foundations, associations, institutes, and political and cultural groups… Moon and his money have become a force to be reckoned with.”
• One of the primary vehicles for Moon’s rising power and influence was the daily newspaper the Washington Times,
• now back in the news because of the mysterious departure of its top executives, and facing an uncertain future.
• But back then the Times was the fulcrum of Moon’s mission to use money and media as a path to power.
• As James Whelan, once the newspaper’s editor and publisher, told me at the time, “They are spending a great, great deal in this country…. probably more on influence and the obtaining of influence, of power, than of any organization I know of in this country, and that includes the AFL-CIO, that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that includes General Motors, that includes anybody.”
• As he sought to influence America’s political agenda by pouring more than a billion dollars into media, Moon began to move among the country’s political elite: From Dwight Eisenhower…to Strom Thurmond…to Richard Nixon…to Ronald Reagan, he glad-handed and corresponded with an astonishing array of major American political figures.
• Michael Warder was once one of the most important Americans in the Unification movement.
• Warder, who had close contact with Moon for years, told me, “Moon looked on the media as almost the nervous system for a global empire. Moon was the brain, and the media are to be, or were to be, the communications vehicle for his body politic surrounding the globe.”
• Warder was responsible for managing News World, then Moon’s daily newspaper in New York City.
• “Moon wanted total control of the media, so there would be no independent media with journalistic integrity,” he said. “ It would be a media totally loyal to Moon.”
• Moon’s troubles in America had begun in the mid-Seventies, when Minnesota Democratic Congressman Donald Fraser launched the so-called “Koreagate” investigation —
• in part a probe into Moon’s relationship to the Korean CIA and the buying of political influence on Capitol Hill.
• Using its own media, Moon’s organization struck back in an all-out effort to discredit Fraser.
• “Moon wanted a whole series of articles going after poor Congressman Fraser, who was heading up the congressional investigations there,” Warder confided.
• “We would assign reporters to try and dig up all the dirt we could find on Congressman Fraser, and of course I would say to Moon, I said, ‘On one hand, we’re supposed to be doing this — but on the other hand, we’re competing with the New York Times. And so there’s matters of credibility here.’
• And he would, you know, bluster and get angry at these kinds of things and say, ‘Just do what I’m ordering you to do and don’t ask so many questions.”
• The Fraser Committee’s final report concluded that Moon was the “key figure” in an “international network of organizations engaged in economic and political” activities.
• It uncovered evidence that the Moon Organization “had systematically violated U.S. tax, immigration, banking, currency, and Foreign Agents Registration Act laws,”
• and detailed how the Korean CIA paid Moon to stage demonstrations at the United Nations and run a pro-South Korean propaganda effort.
• Michael Hershman was the Fraser Committee’s chief investigator.
• He told me, “We determined that their primary interest, at least in the United States at that time, was not religious at all, but was political.
• It was an attempt to gain power and influence and authority.”
• The Fraser Committee recommended that the White House form a task force to continue to investigate Moon – but that never happened.
• Perhaps the election of Ronald Reagan – hailed as the beginning of a conservative revolution – had something to do with that.
• In any event, Moon, a VIP guest at Reagan’s inauguration, soon became a major funder of Washington’s new conservative establishment.
• Brent Bozell, now founder and president of the Media Research Center, was then one of the young Reagan Revolutionaries.
• “When the Moonies entered the political scene in the early Nineteen Eighties,” Bozell said, “One school of thought said…that because of their anti-communist commitment, conservatives ought to work with them.”
• Moon’s most expensive political work involved the Washington Times.
• As former editor Whelan noted, “Washington is the most important single city in the world. If you can achieve influence, if you can achieve visibility, if you can achieve a measure of respect in Washington, then you fairly automatically are going to achieve these things in the rest of the world.
• There is no better agency, or entity or instrument that I know of for achieving power here or almost anywhere else — than a newspaper.”
• After all, the President of the United States said it was the first paper he read in the morning. Soon its columnists found even greater exposure on television.
• And the Times had an immediate impact.
• “If the Washington Times did not carry the conservative columnists that they carry — like a Pat Buchanan, like a Bill Rusher, like a Mona Charen,” Bozell said, “I wonder if the television community would be aware of them and would tap them to use them in television.”
• But by 1984, despite his paper’s growing influence, editor James Whelan was increasingly unhappy.
• “When we started the paper there was never any question that it would in any fashion project the views or the agenda of Sun Myung Moon or the Unification Church — all to the contrary,” said Whelan. “We said, ‘Look, we are going to put a high wall in place. It is going to be a sturdy wall. And it will divide us from you.’”
• But Whelan’s wall of editorial independence was often breached.
• “Moon himself gave direct instructions to the editors,” he averred. “Who in fact calls the shots? Ultimately Moon calls the shots….”
• Whelan eventually resigned, announcing at a press conference, “The Washington Timeshas become a Moonie newspaper.”
• Times spokesmen said the dispute was really over money. Former Newsweek editor Arnaud de Borchgrave later replaced Whelan.
• De Borchgrave consistently denied taking orders from Moon — but the man who ran the editorial pages under de Borchgrave, William Cheshire, told a different story.
• “I protested to de Borchgrave,” Cheshire told me. “I went up to his office when I saw this happening, I told him this was unethical, improper, unprofessional, and it ought to stop. Also, it was dumb.”
• Cheshire and four others resigned after de Borchgrave ordered an about-face on an editorial critical of the South Korean government.
• “I said, ‘Arnaud, we have a problem,’ ” Cheshire recalled. “He said, ‘What’s the problem?’ I said, ‘The problem is you’ve conferred with the owners of this newspaper, come back downstairs and demanded a reversal of editorial policy on their say so.”
• Questions about control of the Washington Times persisted for years.
• Several journalists, including Lars Erik Nelson of the New York Daily News, called for a Justice Department investigation to determine if the paper violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
• “The Justice Department doesn’t seem to want to know, and I’ve never gotten a clear answer from them as to why they don’t want to know,” Nelson said. “They’ve said, ‘Hmmm, that’s an interesting point.’ They say, ‘Hmmm, we’ll think about that.’ And they never get back to me.”
• Times officials sent a statement in reply, noting, “The complete editorial independence of the Washington Times is well-known, and envied, throughout the newspaper industry.”
• Throughout the Reagan years, the paper gained respect and influence by lending editorial support – and money — to causes favored by the Administration.
• The contra forces battling the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, for example, received editorial support and money from the Times.
• Here’s how it worked:
• In March 1985, Oliver North wrote a top-secret memo proposing the formation of a private foundation called the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund. Its purpose was to circumvent a Congressional ban on aid to the contras.
• Less than two months later, the Timesannounced the birth of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund in a front-page editorial.
• Editor de Borchgrave insisted he was “surprised” at the coincidence between his paper’s initiative and North’s secret project,
• but the Times contributed the first $100,000 to the Fund.
• Another pet project of the Reagan Administration was the Strategic Defense Initiative — SDI, or “Star Wars.” It too received support from the Times.
• “Reverend Moon’s organization has been very supportive of the Strategic Defense Initiative,” former Defense and Central Intelligence official Daniel Graham told me. Graham had co-produced a pro-Star Wars video that was seen on four hundred televisions stations.
• “It’s called ‘One Incoming,’” Graham said, “And it includes a scenario that I got Tom Clancy to write for us, and I got Charlton Heston to do the voiceover. It cost a lot of money to produce it — $200,000 … and I’m sure that’s where the money came from to produce that movie.”
• Moon’s media tentacles also reached into book publishing, including one called Inquisition, a purportedly independent investigation of Moon’s 1982 tax fraud prosecution, released by the right-wing publishing house Regnery-Gateway.
• Its author, Carlton Sherwood, was a reporter who once worked for the Washington Times.
• (Sherwood made headlines in 2004 when he produced the controversial video Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, which featured interviews with American POW’s in North Vietnam who complained that they had been maltreated as a direct result of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s Fulbright Hearing Testimony in 1971.
• Inquisition had a curious history. An obscure publishing house called Andromeda had printed it once before.
• The phone number listed for Andromeda was the home phone of former Reagan National Security Council official Roger Fontaine — also an ex-reporter at the Washington Times.
• But when we called Fontaine’s house, his wife Judy answered and told us that the company was bankrupt and that Inquisition was published by Regnery-Gateway. Alfred Regnery is the head of Regnery-Gateway.
• According to former Times editor Whelan, himself a Regnery-Gateway author, Alfred Regnery was told by Carlton Sherwood that the Moon Organization would purchase at least one hundred thousand copies of Inquisition.
• Alfred Regnery denied it, and although he refused an on-camera interview, Sherwood said the Unification Movement had exerted no editorial control over his book.
• In the wake of the current turmoil and uncertainty at the Washington Times, many questions about the Unification Movement remain unanswered.
• But none is more pressing — or perplexing — than this: Where did all the money come from?
• At the time of the broadcast of the PBS Frontline film – seventeen years ago — the Moon Organization had already spent an astonishing amount in the United States:
• more than $800 million on the Washington Times;
   • hundreds of millions on national periodicals;
   • tens of millions on electronic media;
   • at least $40 million on New York newspapers;
   • more than $10 million on a New York publishing house;
   • millions on World Media Association junkets and conferences;
   • millions more on New Right organizations, including the American Freedom Coalition;
   • well over $100 million on real estate, including the New Yorker Hotel in midtown Manhattan;
   • at least $40 million on commercial fishing operations;
   • and at least $75 million on related projects…
• It all added up to more than a billion dollars – at a time when most of Moon’s operations in America were losing substantial sums of money
• The best example was the Washington Times itself, which was then losing as much as fifty million dollars a year.
• Like many others, he refused to talk to me for the film. But in a Church-sponsored film, Reverend Moon in America –one of the many media efforts he spun out in the Eighties — he had this to say:
• What did all the money buy Reverend Moon?
• “Now whether positively or negatively, America knows me — and it happened quickly. At least I have America’s attention. Because of that, I will be able to tell the people the truth of God, the new revelation. The worst treatment America could give me is to ignore me. Now I can preach the truth. ”
• Filmmaker and journalist Rory O'Connor is the author of "Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio" (AlterNet Books, 2008). O'Connor also writes the Media Is A Plural blog.

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