What we're seeing here is, in a sense, the growing - the birth pangs of a new Middle East - and whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old Middle East.
So said US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in 2006 when Israel was blitzing Lebanese civilians. I've been wondering to what extent this applies here and now as North African and Middle Eastern regimes fall left, right and center. Is this an imperial operation directed from the shadows? Or a nascent uprising coming from below? The Egyptian protesters formed a cohesive unit which articulated political aims. I think THAT more than anything frightens the Powers That Be. They can handle chaos, they can control civil wars, but people organising resistance creatively into a united mass requires drastic shock treatment. Overshadowing the nascent political movement in Egypt is a list of countries in revolt that grows by the day:
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Tunisia
Algeria
Egypt
Morocco
Yemen
Jordan
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
Bahrain
Libya
Oman
Iraq
Iran
And it's not consigned to Middle East. Mass protests have taken place against the state of Wisconsin's austerity fiscal measures, hundreds have been shot to death over a disputed electoral result in Ivory Coast, the Chinese government is stamping down on the slightest whiff of dissent, university students were recently shot in Nigeria, thousands demonstrated in Croatia this week, protests have flared up again in Greece and even isolated North Korea has caught the fever. Thousands protest against high food prices in Delhi. Revolution is in the air across the whole globe. Indeed, it's already upon us.
Etymology of "revolution"

late 14c., originally of celestial bodies, from O.Fr. revolution, from L.L. revolutionem (nom. revolutio) "a revolving," from L. revolutus, pp. of revolvere "turn, roll back"
Within all of this we of course find a mixture of genuine revolutionary fervour - let's call it 'organic' dissent - and flames sparked and fanned by operatives of the Secret Team in what you might think of as 'controlled burns'. Now organic dissent can be captured and redirected towards a controlled burn. But the dynamic cuts both ways: controlled burns can get out of hand and become nationwide or even regional expressions of dissent. The end result will be the same - an inflamed planet enraged by grotesque injustice. It seems like they're seeking to stoke conditions until enough people cry out for some body, any body to bring order to the chaos. Going by some of the gruesome reports coming out of Libya, Gaddafi is being helped along the edge of a straight razor by an army of 50,000 mercenaries flown in from central Africa (whose services were allegedly sold to Gaddafi by those Lords of War across the Sinai).

Hundreds of thousands are already on the move. People just don't get up and flee in droves unless something has gone seriously wrong. Like Heart of Darkness wrong. But Colonel Kurtz had nothing on Colonel Gaddafi. How long before we begin to see this happen elsewhere? The number of refugees will swell as food shortages intensify and the prices of staples rise. There were countless disastrous crop failures in the northern hemisphere this winter, all the while speculators on Wall Street capitalise on the misery and pave the way for forcible acceptance of GMO food.
Etymology of "disaster":

1590s, from M.Fr. désastre (1560s), from It. disastro "ill-starred," from dis-, here merely pejorative (see dis-) + astro "star, planet," from L. astrum, from Gk. astron (see star). The sense is astrological, of a calamity blamed on an unfavorable position of a planet.
Meanwhile Egyptians' euphoria has failed to unseat the reign of terror and its powerful hold over their futures. Venezuela's Chavez reckons the US is fomenting the terror in Libya. It is notable how differently events have unfolded there compared with neighbouring countries - Libya moved into a state of open civil war in record time. Was it something Gaddafi said? Or something he has that the empire wants? The Powers That Be believe they can micromanage the fun and games of revolutions and food shortages just long enough to keep humanity distracted and save their own hides. But their grand designs might yet come to nought because of their fatal flaw: all the game theory in the world can't make up for the fact that they have simply no idea what masses of hungry people will do when motivated by survival.

Recall what RyanX wrote in January about Gurdjieff's seemingly obscure reference to organic life on Earth being "food for the Moon." I'll ask you now to consider the following from P.D. Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous in terms of the upheaval spreading across the globe today. Gurdjieff was speaking at a time when The Great War had engulfed Europe and the Bolshevik revolution had strangled Russia. Then as today an unspeakable madness lingered in the air.
"What is war? It is the result of planetary influences. Somewhere up there two or three planets have approached too near to each other; tension results. Have you noticed how, if a man passes quite close to you on a narrow pavement, you become all tense? The same tension takes place between planets. For them it lasts, perhaps, a second or two. But here, on the earth, people begin to slaughter one another, and they go on slaughtering maybe for several years.

It seems to them at the time that they hate one another; or perhaps that they have to slaughter each other for some exalted purpose; or that they must defend somebody or something and that it is a very noble thing to do; or something else of the same kind. They fail to realize to what an extent they are mere pawns in the game. They think they signify something; they think they can move about as they like; they think they can decide to do this or that. But in reality all their movements, all their actions, are the result of planetary influences. And they themselves signify literally nothing.

Then the moon plays a big part in this. But we will speak about the moon separately. Only it must be understood that neither Emperor Wilhelm, nor generals, nor ministers, nor parliaments, signify anything or can do anything. Everything that happens on a big scale is governed from outside, and governed either by accidental combinations of influences or by general cosmic laws."
I wonder if Gurdjieff had comets in mind?

Elenin, it seems, is already taking its toll. Astronomer James McCanney has been sounding the alarm about these "ill-starred" effects of celestial bodies "approaching too near each other" for over 30 years. As he wrote in Planet X, Comets and Earth Changes:
NASA is hiding data that would prove that there is another massive object inbound into the solar system with potential for devastating events for planet Earth. There is clear evidence that they fully intend to set the world's population up to be blindsided by this object. (McCanney, p.101)

The truth is that NASA, the NSA and other government agencies are prohibited by law from disclosing anything to the public that would cause a national panic. So too they will try to prevent dissemination of my theories about comets because it might cause a public to redirect its allegiance as a new and potentially dangerous comet comes into the solar system. While the government officials are using tax dollars to build safety caves for their "shadow government" in case of "major disaster", they are leaving the public out to dry with no forewarning or protection.
Immanuel Velikovsky was vilified in the 1950s for saying that Venus was an enormous comet which only settled into its current planetary orbit some 3,500 years ago, an event that wrought devastation on the Big Blue Marble and brought humanity into a new era, one that is now ending. Velikovsky's ideas, it turns out, were largely correct, particularly on this count. Incoming Comet Elenin may not be Venus, but as we're beginning to understand, neither small size nor long distance prevents these bodies from producing electrifying effects "at a distance" right here and now. Elenin and a host of avengers may well transpire to be the disa-stars of the moment, inflicting on Earth what Venus once did.

We know Venus today as the "morning/evening star". Here's a photo of the recent partial solar eclipse as a new Moon passed in front of the Sun at sunrise on January 4th:

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© Kari A. Kuure
Besides what we've learned from McCanney's work connecting the discharging of the solar capacitor to alignments of celestial bodies and the powerful electromagnetic effects this produces in terms of extreme weather events and Earth Changes, this eclipse coming as it did on the eve of societal tremors throughout the Islamic world, I now wonder about its symbolical relevance. Photos of the eclipse bear an uncanny resemblance to the symbol on the flags of many Muslim countries. Known as the "crescent and star," or 'hilal', it has become a widely recognised symbol of Islam, with the crescent part generally assumed to represent the Moon.

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© Wim HolwerdaCrescent Moon, Venus and the top of a minaret, taken January 17, 1991
One interesting account I came across suggests that the 'star' was placed within or adjacent to the horns of the Moon to depict the bright flash caused by a meteorite striking the moon's surface in an ancient catastrophe, and that the hilal is a remnant memory of this event. It's interesting that the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno did report seeing exactly that in 1178. The "crescent and star" only became a symbol of Islam in modern times, so... you never know!

Venus as Morning Star often lines up closely with the crescent Moon. In the following photo from April 2009, we can actually see both the Moon and Venus in crescent form:

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© Ted Judah
American artist and writer David Lance Goines presents an interesting case in mythological terms for the Crescent and Star symbol of Islamic nations being based on the comet/planet Venus rather than the Moon. He then connects representations of the crescent symbol across the goddess myths of previous cycles, concluding that Crescent Venus represents an aspect of Venus, itself one facet of the Great Mother goddess...

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...all of which reminded me of a particular crop circle from 2008:

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Goddess Crop Circle 27 July 2008, near Honey Street, Wiltshire, UK