The national debate, which the indictment of Irving Lewis Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice has aroused in the mass media, has failed to address the most basic questions concerning the deep structural context, which influenced his felonious behavior. The most superficial explanation was that Libby, by exposing Valerie Plame (a CIA employee), acted out of revenge to punish her husband Wilson for exposing the lies put forth by Bush about Iraq's "importation" of uranium from Niger. Other journalists claim that Libby acted to cover up the fabrications to go to war. The assertion however raises a deeper question -- who were the fabricators of war propaganda, who was Libby protecting? And not only the "fabricators of war", but the strategic planners, speech-makers and architects of war who acted hand in hand with the propagandists and the journalists who disseminated the propaganda? What is the link between all these high- level functionaries, propagandists and journalists?

Equally important given the positions of power which this cabal occupied, and the influence they exercised in the mass media as well as in designing strategic policy, what forces were engaged in bringing criminal charges against a key operative of the cabal?[...]

The prosecution of Libby however reveals the intense internal struggle over the control of the US imperial state between the neocons and the traditional leaders of its major institutions. Along with the indictment of Libby by a grand jury at the request of the special prosecutor, the FBI has arrested the two leading policy makers of the most influential pro-Israeli lobby (AIPAC) for spying for the State of Israel. These are not simply isolated actions by individual officials or investigators. To have proceeded against Libby and AIPAC leaders , they had to have powerful institutional backing; otherwise the investigations would have been terminated even before they began.

The CIA is deeply offended by the neocon usurpation of their intelligence role, their direct channels to the President, their loyalty to Israel. The military is extremely angry at their exclusion from the councils of government over questions of war, the disastrous war policy which have depleted the armed forces of recruits, devastated troop morale, and the neocons' grotesque ignorance of the costs of a colonial occupation. It is no wonder that General Tommy Frank referred to Douglas Feith as "the stupidest bastard I have ever met."

The current institutional war recalls an earlier conflict between the rightwing Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Defense Department. At the time during the mid 1950's, Senator McCarty was accumulating power first by purging trade unions, Hollywood, the universities, and promoting likeminded conservative officials. He successfully extended his investigations and purges to the State Department and finally tried to do the same to the military. It was here that Senator McCarthy met his Waterloo, his attack backfired, the Army stood its ground, refuted his accusations and discredited his fabrications and grab for power.[...]

My letter to the editor of Newsday:

Esteemed Editor:

Mary Voboril's article "Conspiracy Theories: The Truth is Out There" regarding the events of September 11, 2001 was of keen personal interest to me, as one who was present in the World Trade Center that morning, and also as an attendee at the "two-day conference" mentioned in the article.

It seems to me that we really haven't a choice in believing or disbelieving "9/11 conspiracy theories" in general, but rather which conspiracy theory to believe, including the "official" conspiracy promulgated by the Bush Administration and the "9/11 Commission".

Indeed, there was a conspiracy, as "conspiracy" comes from the Latin for "to breathe together" and I've yet to meet anyone who proposes that all four airplanes hijacked themselves that morning.

I'm sorry to say that the official version is presented to us by a most dubious source, with a most serious track record for disseminating disinformation about non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" and impossible links between the religious fanatic Osama bin Laden and the staunch secularist Saddam Hussein.

Of course there are plenty of other theories, some worthy of further examination, others quite dismissable.

I myself am not yet ready to subscribe to any one to the exclusion of others.

However, I can tell you which one I reject out of hand.

Today, November 6th, Newsday published a story admitting that questioning the "official" 9/11 story is becoming mainstream, but trying to write off all such questioning as being another conspiracy theory.

Here's a letter I wrote to the editor. You can use it if you wish to send your own letter.

The address is: Letters Editor, Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville, NY 11747-4250 Fax: 631-843-2986 E-Mail: letters@newsday.com

Please note that Newsday's editorial policy says "only letters that include the writer's full name, postal mailing address, and day and nighttime telephone numbers will be read and considered for publication."

Dear Editor,

I am writing regarding Mary Voboril's November 6th article entitled "Conspiracy Theories: The truth is out there - maybe". While Ms. Voboril may have consulted a couple of experts regarding conspiracy theories in general, it does not appear that she has investigated the first thing about 9/11 itself. Ms. Voboril might be surprised to learn that the following high- ranking current and former U.S. Government officials have questioned the official 9/11 story, and many of them have directly stated that elements of the government were complicit in the attacks:

Current U.S. congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney;

Former chief economist for the Department of Labor under George W. Bush, who was also director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, Morgan Reynolds;

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, listed by Who's Who in America as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world, Paul Craig Roberts;

Former director of the U.S. "Star Wars" space defense program in both Republican and Democratic administrations, who was a senior air force colonel who flew 101 combat missions (who is also a Catholic Archbishop), Dr. Robert M. Bowman;

Former senior CIA analyst, who prepared and presented Presidential Daily Briefs and served as a high-level analyst for several presidents, Ray McGovern;

Former Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, Morton Goulder;

Former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, and Former US Department of State Foreign Service Officer, Edward L. Peck;

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson; and

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, as well as a who's who of liberals, conservatives and independents.

See http://www.911proof.com/

I would urge Ms. Voboril to look at the facts for herself.

In addition, while I applaud Ms. Voboril for noting the kernel of truth in some conspiracy theories, I would remind her of the following quote:

"If you tell a big enough Lie, and keep on repeating it, in the end people will come to believe it". Josef Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief.

Many Nazis went to their graves believing that Hitler was a good guy and that the Nazis carried out no wars of foreign aggression and possessed no concentration camps. Why? Because they could not conceive that their leaders could tell such a "big lie".

9/11 was, similarly, such a "big lie" that even bright reporters like Ms. Voboril might not be willing to even look at whether the official story concerning 9/11 could be untrue. As a reporter, however, I would urge Ms. Voboril to look into the facts for herself, rather than discussing conspiracy theories in the abstract.

Very Truly Yours, George Washington

No tinfoil hat required

If one intends to accuse another person of being delusional, they ought to be prepared to produce supporting evidence.

For many years now, the mainstream media has played a key role in maintaining the government's "official account" of 911. In all respects, it has done a brilliant job of filtering out everything that might undermine the government's claims, while simultaneously demonizing anyone who dares to challenge those claims.

So let's get to the point: Is it REALLY baseless idiocy that drives people to question the official account of 911? Are the millions of Americans (which include Senators, FBI agents, Doctors, Lawyers, Professors, Scientists, Engineers, etc.) all paranoid loons for suggesting a TRULY independent investigation of 911 is needed? The government and media would have you think so. They'd also (to help maintain that perception) need to keep you properly diverted away from the information you're about to read.

The VERIFIABLE truth is, for decades our government has been doing very nasty things that most Americans would NEVER believe to be true. The verifiable truth is, the media has fed you a steady diet of MEANINGLESS news stories instead of sharing information that is vitally important to the future of this country. The verifiable truth is, if it wasn't for the internet (which the media is now demonizing and the government is trying to get control of) most of us would have NEVER known how badly we've been lied to by those we've trusted.

Let us start with the main assertion:

"It is crazy to think corrupt elements within our government intentionally LET the attacks on 911 happen so they could be used as a pretext for war. Furthermore, it is even crazier to suggest corrupt elements might have actually facilitated the attacks."

Now to be fair, I will admit it is utterly insane to intentionally provoke and allow an attack against one's own country. I agree it is even more insane (and criminal) to facilitate such an attack; sacrificing innocent human beings so the "outrage" could be used as a pretext for an already established military agenda. ...Psychotic Tyrants in other countries might resort to these kinds of "False Flag" operations, but would OUR OWN government ever conspire to do the same? The answer might surprise you.

A hypothetical scenario:

Imagine if the President of the United States came on television and announced that Iraq had shot down a civilian airliner filled with American students on vacation. Imagine if there were no survivors, only grieving parents who had lost their children at the hands of a crazed and arrogant dictator. Imagine if all that remained of the plane and its crew was the frantic and desperate tape of its pilot's final transmission: "Mayday, Mayday, we are being tailed by an Iraqi Fighter...we need help up here and fast...mayday, do you copy..." and then the sound of an explosion, screaming, then silence.

Now, imagine in the midst of the "outrage" and calls for Saddam's head on a platter, some "idiot conspiracy theorist" stood up and said:

"It is all a lie! Iraq is innocent of the charges against it!!! Our government was behind the whole thing! They loaded a civilian airliner with FAKE passengers, flew the plane to a secret location, unloaded the fake passengers and replaced the original plane with a remote-controlled drone that was painted up to look like the original. They then had a FAKE Iraqi Fighter Jet (it was really an American Fighter painted to LOOK LIKE an Iraqi Fighter) chase after the remote controlled drone. Then, they transmitted a FAKE "Mayday" signal from the drone just before blowing it up! It was all a set up so we could frame and attack Iraq!"

In the above "hypothetical scenario" who would you be more likely to believe? The President (with the media backing him up) or the "Crazy Conspiracy Theorist?"

Well, substitute "Iraq and Saddam" for "Cuba and Castro" and you've got The Northwood's Document. The Northwood's Document is an official United States government plan to provoke and allow attacks to be used as a pretext for invading Cuba. The plan goes further to suggest, if provocation does not work, we could "attack ourselves" and blame Cuba. It even speaks of completely fabricating an attack to be used as a pretext. President Kennedy rejected the plan just prior to being assassinated. Had he not, this plan WOULD HAVE led to war and the death of many thousands based on total lies. Even worse, it might have led to a nuclear exchange with Russia. ...MILLIONS dead, based on lies. [...]

The Northwoods document (available at the National Security Archive) proves beyond any shadow of doubt that our government has openly conspired to COMPLETELY MANUFACTURE a pretext for war. It also gives us an idea of how far the ruling elite are willing to go in order to deceive the American people; how far they are willing to go in order to get what they want.

Now, does this prove corrupt elements in our own government were in some way responsible for the attacks of 911? No, but it does irrefutably establish that it's Not CRAZY to suggest it's possible. As a matter of fact, it proves a person must be ignorant, delusional (or simply lying) to suggest it isn't possible. It's just that simple

Knowing full well that it isn't "crazy" to suggest complicity or cover up, why is there such a constant and concerted effort by the government and the mainstream media to convince us otherwise? ...we'll be covering that in part 2 (coming soon.)

Finally, the government has admitted it doctored intelligence that plunged us into a disastrous war.

The Vietnam War, that is.

The New York Times reported this week that a National Security Agency historian concluded that communications intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers during the Gulf of Tonkin incident were altered to make it appear that North Vietnamese had attacked American warships in August 1964.

I know, a lot of you are shocked to hear this news. You are flabbergasted to learn that this great nation went to war at least partly as a result of falsified intelligence. Who but the most rabid America-hater could ever have imagined such a thing?

What's really crazy is that the NSA officers who greased the skids for our Southeast Asian adventure apparently had no political motive; they distorted intelligence to cover up some of their initial blunders during their Tonkin surveillance.

"Rather than come clean about their mistake, they helped launch the United States into a bloody war," said an independent historian familiar with the NSA's research, which the agency had kept secret since 2001.

It's hard to miss the irony of these findings coming to light at a time when the Valerie Plame case has been dominating the headlines. The CIA agent's outing occurred, of course, after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, revealed that the Bush administration had relied on fake documents to bolster its claim that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding Iraq's nuclear- weapons program. [...]

He's weary. His wife and only child, who is approaching college, miss him. He has monstrous legal bills. His unique bond with the President is under stress. His most important work is done.

Karl Rove's colleagues don't know exactly when it will happen, but they are already laying out the reasons they will give for the departure of the man President George W. Bush dubbed the architect. A Roveless Bush seemed unthinkable just a few months ago. But that has changed as the President's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff remains embroiled in the CIA leak scandal.

Despite Rove's flashes of ebullience in recent days and the insistence of friends that he is out of legal jeopardy, several of the most important lawyers who deal with special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald said they saw more clues last week that Fitzgerald is continuing to look into the possibility of charging Rove with lying to investigators or the grand jury or both. If that happens, Rove almost certainly would resign immediately, as did I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, when Libby was indicted two weeks ago. Otherwise, Rove is likely to wait for a chance to minimize the perception that he is being hounded out or leaving under a cloud. And he's got one constituency rooting for him, the conservatives who rely on him to be their voice. If he leaves, he will not be alone. Several well-wired Administration officials predict that within a year, the President will have a new chief of staff and press secretary, probably a new Treasury Secretary and maybe a new Defense Secretary.

The expected departures are among a host of new signs suggesting that Bush's sixth year in office--the last one before midterm elections and a turn in attention toward the 2008 race to succeed him--will be very different from his first five. The sunny optimist who loved to think big is now facing polls in which for the first time a majority of Americans say they do not trust him. "It's like it's twilight in America," says one frustrated conservative.

At the White House, aides are meeting every day to work out a new agenda. A possible centerpiece is a road show next year to promote a plan for simplifying the million-plus words of the tax code, one of Bush's most reliable applause winners on the stump in 2004. [...]

WASHINGTON - US military intelligence warned the Bush administration as early as February 2002 that its key source on Al-Qaeda's relationship with Iraq had provided "intentionally misleading" data, according to a declassified report.

Nevertheless, eight months later, President George W. Bush went public with charges that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein had trained members of Osama bin Laden's terror network in manufacturing deadly poisons and gases.

These same accusations had found their way into then-secretary of state Colin Powell's February 2003 speech before the UN Security Council, in which he outlined the US rationale for military action against Iraq. [...]

Comment: Remember this?

On 31 May 2003, the [Guardian] ran an article headlined "Straw, Powell Had Serious Doubts Over Their Iraqi Weapons Claims." Citing transcripts of unknown origin provided by an anonymous "diplomatic source," the article said that Britain's Home Secretary and the US's Secretary of State had a "secret meeting" in which they "expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme." Certainly sounds plausible, given all the other revelations about bad intelligence, nonexistent reports, plagiarized reports, faked reports, and pressure on intelligence agencies to cook their findings. It's of a piece with US News and World Report 's revelation that, several days before the alleged meeting mentioned above, Powell was rehearsing his WMD speech for the UN. He threw the papers into the air, saying, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."

It looks like the "conspiracy theorists" were right after all...

In captivity, al-Libi initially told his DIA debriefers that Al-Qaeda operatives had received training from Iraq in manufacturing poisons and deadly chemical agents.

But the DIA, according to its assessment, did not find the information credible. [...]

"It is possible," the document went on to say, "he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers."

The DIA suggested al-Libi, who had been under interrogation for several weeks, "may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest." [...]

Jay Rockefeller, the top Democrat of the Senate intelligence committee, said the case of al-Libi illustrates the need to look into how pre-war intelligence was used.

"He's an entirely unreliable individual upon whom the White House was placing substantial intelligence trust," the senator said of al-Libi Sunday. "And that is a classic example of a lack of accountability to the American people."

Al-Libi formally recanted last year, according to congressional officials.

Yesterday we wrote about the Washington Post's decision not to disclose the "Eastern European democracies" in which the CIA set up its clandestine "black sites" -- interrogation centers where U.S. laws do not apply to the treatment of suspected terrorists. We wondered if the fact that the CIA was operating inside "democracies" with their own laws didn't defeat the purpose.

The Post wrote that its decision to hide the names had to do with security concerns -- worries that terrorists might then target those countries. We thought this was reasonable, but also wondered to ourselves how long it would be before some other enterprising news outlet would figure out which countries were in question and print their names.

Well, it didn't take long. The Financial Times reported today that research from Human Rights Watch indicates that Poland and Romania are the countries playing host to the interrogation camps. And as the Times noted, "Poland's role, if confirmed, would be especially controversial, given that it has recently joined the European Union."

Putting aside what we said yesterday about the implications of this news (i.e. "The president may have broken the law by allowing the CIA to interrogate and detain suspects in countries where its methods are clearly illegal"), perhaps we were too easy on the Post for acceding to the government's request that it not disclose the countries involved.

One Washington foreign policy analyst, Peter Kornbluh, told us, "This is probably the most important newspaper capitulation since [the New York Times] yielded to JFK's call for them not to run the full story of planning for the Bay of Pigs. By withholding the country names, the Post is directly enabling the rendition, secret detention, and torture of prisoners at these locations to continue. That is a ghastly responsibility."

To Kornbluh, it's moot that the Financial Times came along and filled in the holes the Post left in its account. We're not so sure. The editors of the Post have been around the block a few times; they must have known it was inevitable that this information would come out. From outside looking in, it appears their motive was not to keep the information secret, but rather to avoid being the first to expose the location of the "black sites."

What we do know is that the Post is trying to have it both ways: Getting credit for breaking the story, without breaking the specific details that might have caused it grief from the CIA.

Which raises an old question: Is it the job of a newspaper to tell us what it knows -- or to bend over backwards to hide information from us?

We think we know our answer.

Did you know....

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26

http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice- presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm

http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackbox voting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)

http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html

http://tinyurl.com/7x34w

http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html

http://tinyurl.com/4bk4j

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

http://tinyurl.com/85wp3

http://tinyurl.com/7odaj

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html

http://uscountvotes.org/

Trinidadian authorities have detained an Israeli national found living in a remote mountainous area east of the capital, police said, declining to state if he was being questioned in connection with a recent spate of bombings in the Caribbean island nation.

A string of bombings, the latest one occuring last Thursday, have rocked the capital of Port-of-Spain. The bombings have injured 28 people.

Authorities identified the detained man as Dahtang Mik Agarunov, 26. They said he was found living in a wooden shack in Arouca, about 10 miles east of Port-of-Spain. Agarunov was detained on Friday and questioned by Interpol, Trinidadian police and immigration officials.

Authorities would not say if Agarunov was being questioned in connection with a spate of four bombings last month. No one has claimed responsibility for the bombings or linked them to any political movement.

"Once we have completed our investigation, we will be in a better place to provide more detail," said Police Commissioner Trevor Paul.

Agarunov has not been charged with any crime. He arrived in Trinidad on October 18, but authorities have not confirmed why he was visiting the island.

The Israeli Embassy spokesman in Venezuela, Giora Loterstein, said he was unaware of Agarunov's detention.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - An Islamic leader who was briefly held for questioning in a bombing outside a nightclub denied involvement in the attack on Monday, but said he has a description of at least one assailant. Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of the Jamaat al-Muslimeen group, speaks during a news conference in Port of Spain, Trinidad on Monday. Abu Bakr, who was briefly held for questioning about a bombing outside a nightclub last Friday night, denied involvement in the attack and said his group is 'vigorously pursuing' those behind the bombings and that it has a description of at least one person involved. He accused police of detaining him because of pressure from the government, business groups and some citizens. (Photo: AP)

Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of the Jamaat al-Muslimeen group, was released Sunday along with four teenage followers after spending 36 hours in police custody for questioning in Friday's explosion in Trinidad's capital.

The blast, the fourth to rattle Port of Spain in as many months, injured 14 people, including three who were in serious condition. Speaking to reporters at his group's headquarters, Abu Bakr accused police of detaining him because of pressure from the government, business groups and some citizens.

Asked if he or any member of his group participated in the bombings, the 63 year-old Abu Bakr replied "Emphatically, no." "It was an orchestrated action by people who have hatched this conspiracy. The Jamaat is being used as a scapegoat," Abu Bakr said.

LOS ANGELES Nov 5, 2005 - A Jewish Defense League activist imprisoned for his role in a plot to bomb a California mosque and the office of a Lebanese- American congressman was killed at a federal prison in Phoenix, an FBI spokesman said Saturday. [...]

Krugel's wife, Lola, of Los Angeles said FBI investigators told her an inmate had struck her husband on the head from behind with a cement block. [...]

He had been at the medium-security prison for three days, according to his sister Linda Krugel of Los Angeles. [...]

SENIOR army doctors have warned that troops in Iraq are suffering levels of battle stress not experienced since the second world war because of fears that if they shoot an insurgent, they will end up in court.

The two senior Royal Army Medical Corps officers, one of whom is a psychologist, have recently returned from Basra, where they said they counselled young soldiers who feared a military police investigation as much as they did the insurgents. [...]

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's office triggered abuse of Iraqi prisoners with word that filtered down to soldiers in the field that interrogations were not providing needed intelligence, a former senior State Department official has alleged.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff during President Bush's first term, said Thursday, "It was clear to me there that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense down to the commanders in the field." [...]

A Cheney spokeswoman, Jennifer Mayfield, said: "The vice president's office has no response."

WASHINGTON - Lawmakers expressed concern Sunday that the FBI was aggressively pushing the powers of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act to access private phone and financial records of ordinary people.

"We should be looking at that very closely," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It appears to me that this is, if not abused, being close to abused." [...]

Under the Patriot Act, the FBI issues more than 30,000 national security letters allowing the investigations each year, a hundred-fold increase over historic norms, The Washington Post reported Sunday, quoting unnamed government sources.

The security letters, which were first used in the 1970s, allow access to people's phone and e-mail records, as well as financial data and the Internet sites they surf. The 2001 Patriot Act removed the requirement that the records sought be those of someone under suspicion. [...]

As the Dec. 31 deadline has approached for Congress to renew provisions of the act, the House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance with a national security letter a criminal offense. [...]

AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France - With every night that France's rundown suburbs burn, officials grow increasingly convinced that drug traffickers and Islamist militants are using frustrated youths to challenge law and order here.

"The politicians blame it on Islamists because the French are afraid of this religion. They think Islam equals bin Laden."

As is the case with other European countries where fascist and Islamist fundamentalist forces have joined forces, there is increasing evidence that the riots that have swept France for a week and a half have been far more than spontaneous reactions to the electrocution at a Paris electrical sub-station of two Muslim teens who were escaping police. With an ailing President Jacques Chirac stepping down in 2007, the battle lines have been drawn between two conservative presidential candidates -- Interior Minister Nicolas Sarzoky (nicknamed "Sarko"), a confirmed neo-con in the tradition of fellow travelers in Italy, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Israel, and Spain, and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. Sarkozy has inflamed Muslims and other minorities in France by describing ghetto youths in broad pejorative terms such as "riff-raff" and "scum." While Sarkozy has inflamed the situation with his anti-immigrant rhetoric, de Villepin has sought to mollify the situation by not wanting to overreact and create more turmoil.

However, with rioting spreading beyond Paris to the north and south of the country and extending beyond young Muslims to unemployed African, Afro-Caribbean, and white young people, the situation is being used by Sarkozy to blame "Jihadist conspiracists" for coordinating the rioting. Sarkozy has strong links to the Likud Party in Israel and the neo-cons in the Bush administration and the Blair government in London. The neo-con media conglomerates such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and the Hollinger Group are blaming the violence on France's relative tolerance of its large Muslim population. The  neo-con media is also playing up reports that French rioters are proclaiming that they are turning Paris into "Baghdad." [...]

Neo-con game plan? Turning Paris into Baghdad

What is happening in France has all the signs of yet another possible neo-con "false flag" operation in the same category as the Niger fraudulent uranium documents...

The French politician who benefits the most from this explosion of violence in a country where Muslim citizens constitute a significant minority is Sarkozy. The losers stand to be de Villepin's faction of the Gaullist RPR party and a newly-resurgent Socialist Party, which rejects the neo-con international agenda. It is not coincidental that the rioting is mainly plaguing cities and towns governed by Socialist and Communist mayors -- leaders who are now caught between addressing the social problems that helped spark the violence and responding to calls for a return to law and order.

The Socialists, Greens, and Communists are charging Sarkozy with inciting greater violence and then failing to respond to it adequately, thus ensuring the rioting would spread beyond mainly Muslim areas in Paris to wealthier Parisian neighborhoods and beyond Paris to Rouen, Lille, Nice, Dijon, Strasbourg, Marseille, Bordeaux, Rennes, Pau, Orleans, and Toulouse. [...]

Reasonable political leaders in France should realize that the riots in France are being used to ratchet up tensions in Europe and distract attention away from recent reports of US secret prison camps and torture centers in Eastern Europe and additional proof that the neo-cons conspired to push the United States into a disastrous war in Iraq. Already, the neo-con media is blaming the violence in France on Islamic terrorists -- a stock phrase for the neo-cons in Washington, London, Jerusalem, Rome, and the French Interior Ministry allies of Sarkozy. However, most of the rioters, mostly from North Africa and Western Africa, are not even practicing Muslims, making the possibility of "Fifth Column" provocateurs being behind the violence all the more likely. French officials are increasingly suggesting that the violence has been closely coordinated and that the primary targets -- trains, police stations, youth centers, banks, libraries, post offices, municipal buildings, schools -- have all been connected to the French government and not to ethnic or religious groups. [...]

A few years ago, a senior inspector with the French DST (FBI) told this editor that his agency's wiretaps of Richard Perle's home in the south of France had yielded some interesting information, all of which was passed to the FBI in Washington. Perhaps it is time that raw intercepts of international phone calls and e-mail among the neo-cons be leaked in order to hang them using their own past tactics. With their fingerprints beginning to appear on the French rioting, the neo-cons are proving that they will not be put down easily.

The dollar closed at 0.8464 euros on Friday, up 2.1% from the previous week's close of 0.8287.  The euro, then, closed at 1.1815, compared to 1.2066 the week before. Gold also fell against the dollar, closing at 458.00 dollars an ounce, down 3.8% from 475.20. Gold in euros would be 387.64, down 1.6% from 393.83 at the previous Friday's close. Oil closed at 60.58 dollars a barrel, down 1.1% from $61.22 the week before. The gold/oil ratio saw a drop in the relative position of gold, closing at 7.56, compared to 7.76 the Friday before. The yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 4.66%, up nine basis points (hundredths of a percent) from 4.57% at the previous Friday's close. In the U.S. stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 10,530.76 on Friday, up 1.2% from 10,402.77 the week before. The NASDAQ closed at 2,169.43 on Friday up 3.8% from 2,089.88 at the end of the previous week.

The dollar strengthened last week based on higher interest rates in the United States. The euro weakened on the riot crisis in France. Combine the two and you have a 2% rise in the dollar against the euro.

Job growth was very weak in October in the United States, but most of the Mainstream Media is attributing this to the hurricanes.

Job growth weaker than expected

By Glenn Somerville
Fri Nov 4,12:49 PM ET

Only 56,000 U.S. jobs were created in October, about half the number expected as the impact of Hurricane Katrina faded, but wages grew at the strongest pace in 2-1/2 years, a government report on Friday showed.

Though the Labor Department also revised down total job growth for the two prior months, it said the October national unemployment rate eased to 5 percent from 5.1 percent, implying the job market remained solid.

"The underlying trend looks to still be in the 200,000 (jobs per month) range," said economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa. "And if that is correct, conditions are okay, really."

Talk about spin.  The quote from the Labor Department neglects to mention that the slight drop in the unemployment rate was due to so many people giving up looking for jobs.  They should call it the Job Seeking Rate.

As for Naroff's statement, the "underlying trend" refers to a mythical number of what the job growth would have been had there been no hurricanes.  So you can pick any counterfactual statement and label that "underlying." How about this one:  what would all the economic numbers say if Bush hadn't gotten away with stealing the last two elections?

Financial markets were whipsawed by the jobs data.

Bond and stock market participants focused initially on low job totals and hoped it meant the Federal Reserve might be more likely to halt its campaign of interest-rate rises, but later grew worried that rising wages could fire inflation.

By late morning, U.S. Treasury prices reversed course and were showing losses for fear the Fed might instead extend its rate rises, while stock prices turned down on similar concern. But bond prices later recovered modestly.

STORMS MUDDLE PICTURE

Wall Street economists had forecast that 100,000 jobs were created last month. But the figures remain hard to interpret because of the impact of hurricanes Katrina that struck the Gulf Coast in late August, Rita that followed in September and Wilma that hit Florida in October after the monthly jobs survey was completed.

As many as 400,000 people are estimated to have suffered job losses or interruptions in the Gulf Coast, though many are returning to work at rebuilding in the wake of the storms.

"The underlying economic fundamentals remain sound as has been pointed out by the Fed," said Alan Gayle, a managing director of Trusco Capital Management in Atlanta, though fourth-quarter growth may suffer if consumers spend less.

"You can't have this kind of slowing in job growth coupled with rising energy prices and not see some adverse impact on consumer spending," Gayle said.

The Labor Department revised August and September data to show that 36,000 fewer jobs were created in the two months than previously thought. It said there were 148,000 new jobs in August instead of 211,000 and that 8,000 jobs were lost in September instead of 35,000.

The Labor Department's commissioner of labor statistics, Kathleen Utgoff, said last month's softer pace of job creation could not be blamed on the hurricanes. "Rather, job growth in the remainder of the country appeared to be below trend in October," she said.

The softness in the housing market in the United States shows the contribution of both microeconomic factors (excessive household debt, lower wages and inflation) and psychological factors (fear of future, pessimism). The psychological factors are easily manipulated, so it is of some comfort that they are still attempting to put positive spin on the economic news.  When they stop spinning the bad news, that will be when they pull the plug on the economy.  The rise in U.S. stocks must be a signal that there is still a little money left to steal before they pull the plug. On the other hand, polls are clearly showing that the U.S. public no longer believes the positive spin. According to the New York Times:

The spike in inflation, caused largely by oil prices, seems to have soured many Americans on the economy, despite its continued growth. In a recent poll by the University of Michigan, 60 percent of people said that they expected the next five years to bring periods of widespread unemployment.

Not since 1992 have so many people given that answer. In the middle of last year, fewer than 40 percent of respondents did.

Since a consumer economy with vastly inflated paper assets is propped up by psychology, the fact that the pendulum has swung over to pessimism and fear is ominous and will likely prove self-fulfilling.

...The widening of income inequality in recent years appeared to continue last month. Workers at financial, information and professional-services companies - who tend to be highly paid - all got big raises. Raises at factories, warehouses, tourism companies, schools and health care providers were smaller.

In his testimony this week, Mr. Greenspan said the country was going through "a very marked change in the distribution of income."

Speaking of lower wages, take a look at what Northwest Airlines pilots had to settle for in their latest giveaway: a 24% cut in wages.

Northwest union in tentative labor deal

Fri Nov 4,11:29 AM ET

The union representing pilots at Northwest Airlines said it reached a tentative deal with the airline on a 24 percent pay cut that would stall the carrier's effort to have a bankruptcy court void the pilots' contract.

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) said late on Thursday that the deal, which requires the approval of its members and the bankruptcy court, would reduce pilot costs for the airline by $17.9 million a month.

The concessions in the temporary deal would amount to $214.8 million a year in labor savings for the airline. That amount is 60 percent of the $358 million Northwest is seeking from nearly 5,200 pilots.

Northwest, which is restructuring in bankruptcy, has said it needs a total of $1.4 billion in annual labor savings to survive. The carrier has asked for court permission to cancel the labor contract of any employee group that has not agreed to the concessions it says are required.

The airline said on Wednesday, however, that it would delay a November 16 hearing on the request to cancel contracts until mid-January if the unions representing its pilots, flight attendants and ground workers would agree to temporary concessions equal to 60 percent of the $1.4 billion.

...In addition to cutting wages by 24 percent, ALPA said the temporary deal would cut some international flying rates, reduce sick pay to 75 percent of regular hourly pay and eliminate domestic crew meals.

...IAM said it expects Northwest to ask for a 19 percent reduction in pay and sick pay of 70 percent of regular wages.

Northwest, which filed for bankruptcy in September, has said it must reduce its labor costs to achieve $2.5 billion in overall yearly savings.

Other carriers in bankruptcy, such as UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, have used bankruptcy to extract savings from their workers that might have been impossible out of court.

Northwest, along with other major U.S. airlines, has been battered by soaring fuel costs, weak revenue and low-fare competition.

As the pay cuts and layoffs spread throughout the middle class into the highly skilled technical jobs such as airline pilots, where will the consumer debt-driven U.S. economy go?  My guess is that soon the whole country will look like Detroit:

Turnaround dreams take root in Detroit

By Stefanie Murray, USA TODAY

When Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans two months ago, another impoverished, mostly black city stepped in to help.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pledged that his city would host 500 families displaced from the Gulf Coast.

The offer came as Detroit found itself facing another crisis, the latest in a half-century of problems that mirror those of New Orleans: poverty, crime, poor schools, white flight.

Most pressing now is the city's dire financial situation. The Motor City faces an accumulated $300 million budget deficit and could go broke in 2006, its auditor general warned recently. Since July 1, 500 city workers have been let go, including police and firefighters. More layoffs are possible.

The bad news comes just three months before Detroit will be on the world stage when it hosts Super Bowl XL on Feb. 5.

Detroit once was the heart of the USA's industrial might and a symbol of its blue-collar middle class, but the city has been in steep decline for decades. Detroit's population has shrunk 50% from 1.8 million in 1950 to just over 900,000 in 2004, bumping it off the list of the nation's 10 most populous cities.

"We're just as flooded as New Orleans, except we are not waving white flags from the roof," says Robin Boyle, professor of urban planning at Detroit's Wayne State University.

A near demographic twin of New Orleans, Detroit also bears the grim distinction of having the highest poverty rate of any major U.S. city: 33.6%, according to the Census Bureau. The city's unemployment rate was 12.7% in September, more than double the national rate of 5.1%.

A steady loss of automotive and other manufacturing jobs has hurt: Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth estimates that since 1980, the six-county Detroit metropolitan area has lost about 83,000 jobs in what it calls the "transportation equipment manufacturing and primary metal industry sectors" - mainly autos and steel.

Many people in the city's well-heeled suburbs still view Detroit as a magnet for crime and drugs, and they come to town only to work, attend sporting events or be entertained at the city's three casinos.

"Detroit has always felt like a delinquent relative: They may embarrass you or make terrible decisions, but you're still family," says Ryan Keberly, a photographer in the suburb of Royal Oak whose blog highlights Detroit's homeless.

Hoping for a rebound

About 74,000 people work downtown, but only 5,300 people live there, a Wayne State study this summer said.

About 25% of the buildings in 140-square mile Detroit are abandoned, which is probably one of the highest such rates in the country, Boyle says. The blight is easy to see. As in many other big cities, tall buildings stud Detroit's skyline. From a distance, they seem like beacons of commerce - but some of Detroit's are vacant.

There are signs, however, of revitalization. The city last year announced an effort to raze or rehab 141 vacant buildings before the Super Bowl; redevelopment has begun at 86.

"It's not just a brick-and-mortar change," says George Jackson, head of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., a quasi-public agency that guides development and investment in the city. "There is a spirit here now, and you can feel it."

The city is on the "cusp of the biggest turnaround in American history," says Kilpatrick, who faces a tough election Tuesday in a bid for a second four-year term.

...Some Detroit residents say the city is making progress.

"I'm not going to lie and say Detroit isn't a tough city," says Keta Hackney, 24, who works downtown at McKig Cleaners. "But it's coming around. Slowly but surely, it's coming around."

Civic leaders are mostly optimistic, if not defiant, about Detroit's future.

They point to more than 60 new businesses - at least 23 of them restaurants - and more than 800 lofts and condominiums that have opened downtown since 2003. In 2004, 924 new housing permits were issued, up from about 200 in 2001, says Walter Watkins, the city's chief development officer.

New streetscapes were built and cement silos are being razed along the historically industrial waterfront on the Detroit River to pave the way for a 5-mile walkway, a new state park, housing and retail space. Cranes and scaffolding dot downtown.

Such redevelopment is harder to spot in many residential neighborhoods, where hundreds of houses remain abandoned and crime rates are high.

A Super Bowl 'blip'

The approaching Super Bowl has spurred some investment. But revitalization and the Super Bowl "are kind of coincidental," Watkins says. Boyle calls it a "blip," one that has served as a rallying point for the city.

Detroit's three casinos, which have been open for about six years, also spark considerable traffic and city revenue, as do its three major sports venues: Comerica Park, home of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers; Ford Field, home of the National Football League's Lions and site of the Super Bowl; and Joe Louis Arena, home of the National Hockey League's Red Wings.

Major companies, including General Motors and Compuware, have invested heavily in downtown.

GM invested $500 million to buy and upgrade the 713-foot-tall Renaissance Center, the city's tallest structure, where it employs 6,000. Compuware spent $400 million on a headquarters for its 4,000 workers.

Adam Brook, owner of a luggage and leather goods shop downtown, agrees that things are changing. Nevertheless, despite the ongoing construction near his third-generation business, Cadillac Luggage, Brook says he can "count the number of people that walk by my window every day." He says he has barely broken even the past three years.

"What's wrong with Detroit is we have thousands of people who spend thousands of dollars here, at the casinos, but it doesn't affect me one bit," Brook says. "But hey, I love Detroit. It's the people, and what the possibilities are. It's killing me, but I love it."

As usual, this article from USA Today stresses the positive, upbeat message of hope.  And why not?  If the rest of the country's economy keeps growing, then eventually Detroit will rebound.  But what if what's in store for the rest of the country is Detroit's fate?  What will it look like?  The Web site dETROITfUNK, featuring some beautiful photographs of Detroit - beautiful both because they are well-composed and because truth is beauty, and beautiful in the way all artistic depictions of ancient ruins are - can give us a sense of what's in store. In this case, you see the ruins of twentieth century industry and stately nineteenth century buildings.  Not all of this photographer's work shows ruins, but enough of Detroit is in ruins that an honest look will include them. Here are a few examples:

Sometimes art can help us understand the numbers better.  Bob Dylan saw this coming forty years ago. Here are a couple of verses from Desolation Row (Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music):

Desolation Row
Bob Dylan

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

...Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

The anxiety is palpable, and not just in the United States.  The way in which the riots have spread in France could not have been foreseen, but are depressingly similar to the spread of the race riots in the United States in the 1960s.  Those riots did not only take place in Detroit, Newark and Watts, but smaller versions of them took place in hundreds of smaller cities. The political elite were shocked and surprised; had not the country finally passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act?  Why riot now? As can be seen by the photographs of Detroit, the consequences of those events are still playing out.  One can only hope France reacts better than the United States did.

What is becoming evident to the public throughout the world is that their voice is not being heeded.  Thousands took to the streets in Argentina to protest Bush and Anglo-American neo-liberalism, but those pushing these polices do not care about public opinion anymore. The Iraq War proved that.  Strong majorities even in the United States oppose Bush and the neoliberal agenda, but that no longer matters and people can sense it.

The anxiety is playing out in the markets as well. Here's Al Martin:

And, in the market -- what you have seen mid-week is an unusual type of trade wherein the bonds (U.S. Treasuries) remain under severe pressure. Equities opened higher, but then were pressured lower at the same time the U.S. dollar remains slightly higher. Yet precious metals and fungible commodities, which had opened higher, came down and fell sharply in late Wednesday trades. That was led by industrial metals, by the way, and fungibles.

This is unusual economic confluence of circumstance. Interrelationships between all of these markets have all been stretched out the wrong way. The type of trade that we saw last week in the equities, the bonds, the metals and the dollars is called a depressionary trade.

A depressionary trade is when the bonds start to fall under nervousness over the U.S.'s continued ability to even service its debt. The dollar is still pushed higher under the belief that U.S. interest rates would have to be moved sharply higher in order to prevent the dollar from further rising using monetized debt.

Commodity markets, in turn, particularly industrials and fungibles, fall, in recognition that GDP is falling sharply and that the demand for industrial and fungible commodities is going to fall sharply.

We have mentioned this in the past, that industrial production and capacity utilization in the last 30 days in this country, for lack of a better word, has collapsed.

There should be no doubt of what these signs mean. We talk about them all the time, but people don't understand. Now we're seeing the results of this in the markets.

...European Central Bank (ECB) chief Roger Trichet made some remarks on Tuesday to the effect asking -- Will the Bush-Cheney Regime even continue to survive -- since all of the economic policies it is now pushing, the individual bills and amendments, are directly counter to what 80% or more of the American people want?

In other words, what there is an awakening in foreign central banks that the Bush Cheney Regime is not concerned about public opinion polls anymore. It is not even concerned with political popularity. And you have heard this all this week, the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Acts getting thrown back in the mix.

Now, all of a sudden, we understand what the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Acts mean. The regime doesn't have to be concerned about its political popularity anymore.

As Trichet pointed out, (and it's odd that the ECB bank chief has to point this out, since no one in the U.S. press points this out.), all of the remaining Bushonian economic policies, like the extra $70-billion tax cut for the Republican rich and the targeted estate tax elimination for the Republican rich, etc.–are designed as a last shot, as it were, in transferring as much wealth in the nation from the bottom 80% to the top 20%. Even the Bank of England has pointed this out. These foreign central banks can't understand why the American people aren't up in arms -- or don't see what this regime is doing.

... But it is unusual for this to even get in the news, for it even to be a news item. The only reason it has gotten into the news a little bit is because of the unusual size and the angst with which money has been taken out of this country this week. There is angst about it that you haven't seen before, as if there's another shoe to drop someplace. And that's exactly what the market is concerned about. It's odd: How the markets are trading is they're being roiled by a combination of all the aforementioned, but they're also trading like they're walking on eggshells, like there's another big shoe out there to drop.

Besides a possible Cheney indictment, what else could it be? We don't know what that shoe is. It's not even the Cheney possible indictment. It would have to be something bigger than that.

People think -- Oh, well, George Bush, there's still a democratic political process. Pro-Bush faction Republicans still have to bow to public pressure and what public opinion polls say. No. The Gallup-Harris poll showed that 81% of the American people wanted Hurricane Katrina and relief deficit-financed reconstruction spending paid for by budgetary reductions. How is the Regime financing this $100 billion in spending? It is deficit-financed. No budgetary reductions, and no cut in pork.

Now, in another Business Week poll, 78% of the people are against this special $70-billion tax cut for the Republican rich for next year. Yet it's been passed. It goes on and on. 61% of the people are against the elimination of so-called targeted estate tax elimination. It's targeted, not blanket. This is a targeted elimination estate tax, only for those with a net worth above $10 million. Yet the regime has passed that.

53% of the American people want an immediate withdrawal of troop forces from Iraq, yet the Regime says we will be placing more troops in Iraq between now and the end of the year. The majority of the people want a reduction in spending on Iraq, yet the regime is going to spend $80 billion more in Iraq next year than it did last year.

It doesn't take much of a brain to understand that the regime is no longer concerned about public opinion. Why does it have to be?

We, the people, agreed with the P.A.T.R.I.O.T Acts. We, the people, gave the President of the United States the absolute power to cancel elections permanently with no interference from Congress or the Supreme Court. Can what is happening today come as any surprise to anyone? It's a natural progression. And the markets are reacting.

Could the "other shoe" for the economy have to do with the strange hysteria about Bird Flu or with some other "natural" disaster?  Imagine what the travel restrictions Bush loves to talk about would mean for the economy, especially when the travel restrictions would apply to food as well as people. Add to that the possible "destruction" of millions of chickens and the economic consequences could be disastrous.

Next time you are in an airport in the United States, look at the number of business travelers.  To make a single, national economy out of a continent-sized area, people and goods need to be able to move around at will.  That, in turn, depends on low energy/transportation costs and freedom of movement.  With rising energy prices and the growing clampdown, both of these things are at risk.

Now, in the "for what it's worth" department, we have the interesting experiments in the predictive power of web bots developed at HalfPastHuman.com. The idea is that future events seem to cast a sort of subconscious shadow backwards in time, shadows that can be identified in the collective discourse using web bot technology.  The track record of this experiment has been surprisingly good.  The results are summarized regularly on George Ure's web site, Urban Survival. 

I can't tell you how many people have written to me this morning literally "freaked out" by the story this morning that use the precise phrase "restrictions on travel" which the web bot forecasts from www.halfpasthuman.com have been talking about for months.

First, the story: CNN is now reporting that "Sustained person-to-person spread of the bird flu or any other super-influenza strain anywhere in the world could prompt the United States to implement travel restrictions or other steps to block a brewing pandemic, say federal plans released Wednesday."

Now, the background:  Since early July 2001, we have been using a proprietary software technology developed by our colleagues at www.halfpasthuman.com to learn up to 12-months in advance, what the emotional flavor of future events will be... 

Besides catching significant aspects of the 9/11 attack, and the emotional flavor of events with good accuracy, the anthrax attack, the space shuttle disaster, significant aspects of the DC sniper case, a nearly precise call on the Northeast Power Outage months before it happened, the Sumatra earthquake, and more recently the quake in Pakistan which was characterized as a quake where we saw a "city sliding down a hill" - not to mention the hurricane forecast from January of this year which led to a city be "returned to the mud" (New Orleans, for sure), the comments about "restrictions on travel" have been showing up in the predictive runs for a long time - nearly a year. 

Some examples, shared exclusively here with the kind permission of the software wizard and his apprentice at www.halfpasthuman.com:

• From the April 3, 2005 ALTA 405 series: "We do note though that the Terra entity has repeated references to the [rainwater] and [standstill] of earlier parts of this report, and has reinforced the image of [trucks] (waiting) in (mud) for (abundant/excessive/large) [rain clouds] to (depart). And, this section is cross linked back to the Populace entity and the issues of 'food restrictions'."
  
  
• The April 10, 2005 report continued the theme: "This 'restricted movement' period is seen as beginning this summer and stretching through to the end of the year if not beyond. While there are no indications of a general restriction, and rather merely lots of local restrictions all due to a variety of causes, we do note that the impact will be so general as to permeate the consciousness of the populace and is seen as arising in mainstream media. Within the more narrow focus of this specific data set, there are further descriptors which go to the idea of a 'fiat' imposed [period/span] of [restricted] (movement), which is then [lifted] as (redemption) of the [circumstances/set/setting/array] are (corrected). Hanging off of this set, mostly fully populated is another aspect set which shows that a [dichotomy/duality/opposition] of view point about the [incident] will form in which [government], that is, the upper echelon who imposed the movement ban, will perceive of this as just [regular/ordinary] business, and totally miss the profound change that develops from the Populace perception of the 'in situ' imposition."
  
  
• In the July (ALTA 905 series) run, things begin to come into focus a bit more: "One co-incident change is that the Populace/USofA is going to take up the cry that the 'rules are too strict'. This however is just hardly begun, when the rules are shown by our data of actually getting very much stricter in that a period of 'no movement' will be called for on a national level. While our data shows that this is a travel restriction sort of thing, it does not show any signs or indicators for terrorism or war, rather this seems to somehow be weather related. There are some small hints that disease will be referenced, but not as a primary motivator for the period of 'no movement'. We have to also note that this could easily be something on the order of a bank holiday, or a freezing of currency exchanges, as there are no clear indications that it will be a restriction imposed on the movements of humans. But clearly the data is indicating that a 'restriction of movement' will impact a large part of the population just as calls get started for the removing of the 'too strict rules'."
  
  
• In September, the ALTA 1305 series ties restrictions of travel and food: "These included the [rainstorms] seen as impediments to movement of food, as well as the now emerging summertime shakes. Leaving aside such details, we perhaps should focus on the emerging design pattern of restrictions on the availability of food and food types which is currently seen as being of long term duration within our modelspace. The entities continue to show dominating trends toward restricted food plants as we move the model through time at least as far as we are able to currently project which goes out to about February of 2006."
  
  
• Lastly, in the most recent of runs, October 29th, we see how this threat of travel restrictions will being to cast a shadow over the country in December: "The Populace/USofA entity is showing via cross links that the 'shocks' of November will lead to 'restricted movement'. This is being interpreted as that, rather than 'scarcity' as there are both appearing within the entity. The suggestion from the originating cross links is that a combination of 'secrets revealed' and a run-in with 'scarcity' will lead much of the populace of the country into a period of 'restricted movement'. This may well be indicating a very very bad holiday travel season."

...What's curious is the timing.  While our friends at www.halfpasthuman.com with the future scanning technology don't have anything looking like a terrorist attack on the horizon, there continue to be troubling references in coming months to economic impacts, restrictions of travel, or some variant of that which linguistically translates to "encounter with scarcity."  What drives it, we may unfortunately get a taste of before the end of the month.

The Global Upwelling

Along the same lines, our colleagues label the period we're in now (and will be for a year or so longer) as a period of growing "militancy" which will segue into a period of "conflict."

Hmm... Restrictions in the availability of food and types of food available, an "encounter with scarcity" in the near future, these things don't really sound that farfetched.  The range of produce that has been available in the middle of winter in the north of the United States is not something normal in any sense. Such amazing availability of different types of food result from low energy prices.  Petroleum is necessary at every level of food production, from seed to transportation to market. If the price of energy goes up sharply, and it already has, it doesn't take a web bot to see that this era of plenty will end. Of course, who needs web bots when we have George Bush's words and deeds to go by...  The plans aren't secret anymore.  With the PATRIOT Act, they don't have to be secret.

Then, if you add cascading personal and corporate bankruptcies to the mix as well as various natural disasters whose psychological effect will be multiplied by the media, and an unpopular war being fought despite the wishes of the public in all of the countries involved, then it is not out of the question that serious discontent will manifest itself among the public.  The effects of that will surely not be good since the militarization of domestic law enforcement and disaster relief has already been put in place. Detroit, Fallujah, New Orleans, Gaza, the Paris suburbs, it is all kind of blending together, isn't it?

The Venezuelan government will distribute 14,000 houses before the end of 2005, as part of socio-economic programs promoted by President Hugo Chavez.

Housing Minister Luis Figueroa said Saturday that by December 31 no Venezuelan will remain in a shelter.

Figueroa said the government provided funds to purchase houses and will construct others to help reduce housing problems.

Venezuela is currently operating Mission Habitat to solve construction problems faced by families and create communities possessing all necessary services, from education to health.

The easiest way to understand the institutional bias of western media is to analyze reporting from the developing world. The economic summit in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the coverage and decide whether such partiality exists.

Although tens of thousands of working people came to protest George Bush and his suspiciously-named "free trade" economic policies; they were invariably smeared by the corporate media as "Leftists" or "radicals"; eliminating the possibility that they were simply concerned citizens participating in the democratic process. This is the familiar tactic of the media to marginalize ordinary people whose interests don’t correspond to those of the ruling elite.

"Latin America’s radical leftists took to the streets on Friday," Jack Chang breathlessly reported for Knight Ridder, but all the other news outlets invoked the same disparaging language.

The main target at the event was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leader who is invariably slandered by the media with the monikers "leftist firebrand", "radical president" (Financial Times) or fiery, populist president (NY Times). At some point in every article, Chavez is lumped together with Fidel Castro or Che Guevara in a conspicuous attempt to dismiss him as an anti-American troublemaker. In fact, Chavez was among the first countries to come to America’s aid following Hurricane Katrina, offering doctors, medicine and oil to the devastated region. No major media source publicly credited him for his charitable contributions.

Chavez, of course, is guilty of redistributing some of Venezuela’s prodigious oil wealth to the poor and needy of his country. This has made him an imminent threat to the entrenched oligarchy and their teammates in the media.[...]

"We’ve come to bury FTAA," Chavez roared to the capacity crowd. "I even brought a shovel".

The Venezuelan president’s remarks were enthusiastically applauded by the thousands in the crowd who chanted back, "Fascist Bush, You are the terrorist".

Chavez was flanked by antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and former footballer Diego Maradona. Maradona added to Chavez’s stinging repudiation of free trade by calling Bush, "human rubbish." (This was only reported in one outlet; the Australian based News.com) Like many Argentines, Maradono believes that the US policies precipitated Argentina’s economic meltdown which left 40% of the population living in poverty.

Most of the articles failed to report this crucial fact which contextualizes the negative sentiment that many in the south feel for America. It has nothing to do with the "fiery oratory" of Chavez, but a clear grasp of the devastating effects of US free trade policies.

The majority of Latin Americans are now opposed to the creation of a free trade region in the Americas. They are also against the repayment of the foreign debt and the growing threat of US militarization. They are increasingly frustrated with the increasing disparity of wealth between rich and poor as well as with rising unemployment.

Again, none of these factors has anything to do with Chavez who is mistakenly held responsible for inciting hatred of America.

Chavez has, however, been a unifying figure who has shared his oil wealth with other countries in the region and created an alternate economic model, Mercosur, which challenges the US’s dominance in the hemisphere. It was a stunning blow to the Bush team when free trade loyalist Vicente Fox announced at the summit that Mexico would be joining Mercosur.

Chavez’s comments only added insult to injury:

"The planet is being destroyed under our own noses by the capitalist model, the destructive engine of development. Every day there is more hunger, more misery, thanks to the neo-liberal, capitalist model."

The rejection of FTAA is a mainstream position emerging from the political awakening of the people themselves. Simply put, the methods applied by the Washington Consensus have been tried and have failed rather spectacularly. The new majority doesn’t want to "destroy local industry, roll back social safety nets and labor protections", destroy the environment, or prolong America’s supremacy in the region.

"We have come to bury FTAA because it’s an old project of the imperial eagle that from the beginning planned to sink its claws into Latin America," said Chavez.

The media coverage of the summit obscured the details that would have provided the necessary background for understanding the rage at Bush’s appearance. The event was framed as a "showdown" between Chavez and Bush. Even on this superficial level the corporate media demonstrated its deftness at tip-toeing around what really took place. As Reuters pointed out, the strutting Texan, who exudes confidence and courage behind a phalanx of security guards and concertina wire, "carefully avoided" Chavez while the world waited with baited-breath.

"Carefully avoided"!?!

"This summit is not about Hugo Chavez," one Bush advisor said defensively. "This is not news."

But, of course, it is news. And, when the word gets out that the boastful Bush slinked out of Argentina rather than face his arch-rival, it will be very big news indeed.

On the fourth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Laura Knight-Jadczyk announced the availability of her latest book:

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, dozens of books have sought to explore the truth behind the official version of events that day - yet to date, none of these publications has provided a satisfactory answer as to WHY the attacks occurred and who was ultimately responsible for carrying them out.

Taking a broad, millennia-long perspective, Laura Knight-Jadczyk's 9/11: The Ultimate Truth uncovers the true nature of the ruling elite on our planet and presents new and ground-breaking insights into just how the 9/11 attacks played out.

9/11: The Ultimate Truth makes a strong case for the idea that September 11, 2001 marked the moment when our planet entered the final phase of a diabolical plan that has been many, many years in the making. It is a plan developed and nurtured by successive generations of ruthless individuals who relentlessly exploit the negative aspects of basic human nature to entrap humanity as a whole in endless wars and suffering in order to keep us confused and distracted to the reality of the man behind the curtain.

Drawing on historical and genealogical sources, Knight-Jadczyk eloquently links the 9/11 event to the modern-day Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She also cites the clear evidence that our planet undergoes periodic natural cataclysms, a cycle that has arguably brought humanity to the brink of destruction in the present day.

For its no nonsense style in cutting to the core of the issue and its sheer audacity in refusing to be swayed or distracted by the morass of disinformation that has been employed by the Powers that Be to cover their tracks, 9/11: The Ultimate Truth can rightly claim to be THE definitive book on 9/11 - and what that fateful day's true implications are for the future of mankind.

Published by Red Pill Press

Order the book today at our bookstore.