"Truth, having been ground to earth, is rising again"

The American People are Beginning To Get It

15 Nov 2007
Column: Ernest Partridge

The Crisis Papers

 

"To Bush & Co.... we the people owe no more allegiance than a child owes to the criminal who stole her from her home and now abuses her while posing as her father."

Mark Crispin Miller

Propaganda is a sprinter, but truth is a long-distance runner.

And at last, the truth may be overtaking the propaganda and the lies.

In the new edition of his riveting book, Fooled Again, Mark Crispin Miller describes a public groundswell that should have Bush, Cheney and the Busheviks very worried.

Truth, having been ground to earth, is rising again.

Despite compelling statistical, circumstantial, anecdotal and eyewitness evidence that two presidential and numerous congressional elections have been stolen, this evidence has been discounted, ignored and ridiculed by the mainstream media and, amazingly, by the victimized Democratic Party and its defeated candidates and even by some progressive publications.

Even so, a sizeable and growing portion of the American public isn't buying the official and bi-partisan assurances that the US elections are, by and large, on the level, and that the Bush/Cheney regime is therefore legitimate. For example, an August, 2006 Zogby poll reports that only 45% of the population is "very confident" that Bush and Cheney won re-election "fair and square" in 2004. About a third were "not at all confident."

In the "Afterword" to Fooled Again, comprising one hundred pages of new material, Miller chronicles the determined and persistent resistance of "official Democrats" to the very idea that they were the victims of massive election fraud. Astonishingly, progressive publications (yes, there are still a few), such as The Nation, Mother Jones, and the liberal websites, TomPaine.com and Salon.com, have all published caustic articles debunking thoroughly researched and scrupulously argued accusations of election fraud. Familiar ad hominem rebuttals are trotted out: "get over it," "sore losers," "conspiracy theorists." Far more often, the fraud issue is denied even the dignity of mention and rebuttal. With the noteworthy exception of Catherine Crier and Lou Dobbs, the issue is virtually ignored on cable "news," and, on network TV news, the embargo is total.

Meanwhile, the evidence of fraud remains on record and it accumulates. Extreme exit poll anomalies, with final totals shifting to the GOP with statistical improbabilities of millions to one. The widespread use of unverifiable paperless "touchscreen" voting machines, secretly programmed by GOP partisans. Unsecured access to these machines. Lost, uncounted, and illegally destroyed ballots. Precinct returns in excess of registrations. (For the specifics on all this and more, read Miller's book and visit the numerous websites devoted to election fraud. Among them, bradblog.com, blackboxvoting.org, www.votetrustusa.org, and uscountvotes.org. Caution: be sure to order the second edition of Fooled Again. Amazon and Barnes and Noble are listing the first edition).

Amazingly, despite the silence of the media and the Democratic Party regulars, the message of the stolen elections is getting to the public, thanks to the determined and independent efforts of numerous writers, scholars, bloggers, and film makers, and their creative use of new and evolving communications technologies such as the internet and the DVD.

Mark Crispin Miller thus describes this grassroots groundswell. (For specific names and titles, see the book. pp. 355-8):

The evidence [of election fraud] was always more convincing than the sophistries deployed against it... Throughout the months preceding the 2006 election, many of us lectured endlessly in schools and churches, rented halls and private homes, spoke out on independent radio and posted pieces all over the internet...

Offline, meanwhile, there were independent voices on the air, their numbers growing as the story slowly spread throughout the nation... And the movement also had strong champions in the world of print... and online...

All such effort gradually conveyed the truth about America's election, and the crying need for genuine reform to an ever larger, ever more receptive audience – which was, in fact, not just an audience but increasingly a citizenry mobilized to salvage and invigorate (or rather, realize) US democracy...

And so the people got it, recognizing instantly the likelihood that (a) Bush & Co. stole its "mandate" in 2004, and (b) that the regime was not above attempting it again.

Accordingly, ignored by the mainstream media and by the immobilized Democratic Party, dismissed and even ridiculed by many presumably "liberal" writers and publications, the issue of election fraud has nonetheless survived and prevailed among the general public. Consequently, the legitimacy of the Bush/Cheney regime is eroding. Meanwhile, with the ongoing exposure of Bushevik lies (e.g., the alleged Saddam-9/11 connection and other concocted justifications for the Iraq War), the credibility of the regime is also disintegrating. Bush's and Cheney's approval ratings are at an all-time low, and falling.

The once-formidable GOP/MSM propaganda machine is sputtering and running out of fuel. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me – you can't get fooled again."

Truth, crushed to earth, is on the rise.

Will another national emergency, with Dubya and bullhorn on the rubble pile, or in a flight suit on the carrier, once again mobilize support for "the commander guy" and bail out this poor excuse of an administration? Possibly, but don't count on it. Re-runs fare poorly in both show biz and politics.

In a January, 2006 review of Miller's book, I wrote that "if we are to restore the ballot box to the voters, we need a media, we need an opposition party, we need an aroused public, and we need a miracle. But take heart: history tells us that political crises have a way of producing miracles." Since then, we've made great strides. Two of those conditions are being met, as an aroused and skeptical public is abandoning the mainstream media and is turning toward a new dissenting media in the internet. However, the Democratic Party remains dumb-frozen, even as millions of its traditional supporters are deserting the Party in disgust.

In the United States today, there is among the public a huge, growing, but still leaderless mass of discontented citizens. These are the three-quarters of the population that tell the pollsters that "the country is moving in the wrong direction." These are the two-thirds that reject Bush and Cheney and their Iraq War, and that disapprove of the Democratic Congress in even greater numbers. These are the citizens who are well aware that their Constitutional rights have been abolished, their franchise nullified, their public treasury looted, their public infrastructure trashed, their social services impoverished, and the livelihood of millions of our workers "outsourced."

While the Democratic Party was elected to Congress to address these crises, the party leaders act as if they are living in some other country: "The Republic of Beltway." If they persist in this delusion, they may manage to lose the next "sure-thing" election, whether or not the GOP engineers another "fix."

If the Democratic Party is to take charge and lead us out of the current swamp of corruption, exploitation and ignorance, it must take inventory of the present political and economic dangers, secure fair and accurate elections, change direction radically and immediately, and act decisively.

The impeachment of Dick Cheney, and then of George Bush, would be an appropriate first step.

As an anonymous French politician once said, "the people are marching and I must follow, for I am their leader."

*************

Copyright 2007 by Ernest Partridge

Bio Tag: Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. He has taught Philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin. He publishes the website, "The Online Gadfly" (www.igc.org/gadfly) and co-edits the progressive website, "The Crisis Papers" (www.crisispapers.org). His book in progress, "Conscience of a Progressive," can be seen at www.igc.org/gadfly/progressive/^toc.htm .

 

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'The Military-Industrial Complex rules in Russia'

By Jonathan Power

27 Oct 2007

LONDON - In his autobiography, Georgi Arbatov, the eminence grise of the Soviet foreign policy establishment, asked this question, referring to the Soviet intervention in Angola and Afghanistan, “Why did we in the eyes of the world become an aggressive expansionist power in the second half of the 1970s?” But he didn’t really answer it.

So given the opportunity to talk to him for a good three hours I had the time to push him for an answer, an answer that presidents Carter and Reagan wished they knew when they had to deal with the Soviet Union. Both overreacted, the former by arming the mujahidin that later transfused into Al Qaeda and the latter by licensing the South Africans to fight an Angolan liberation army (the MPLA, now the government) which then turned to Cuba to help them defeat South Africa and make a negotiated peace possible. Of course, it is true if they known the answer their policies might not have changed one wit.

“My guess”, replied Arbatov, “is that our military-industrial complex had grown to such proportions that it escaped political control. The leaders depended on the military-industrial complex to stay in power. So they didn’t want to estrange relations with it. Not everything was controlled by one man. The whole system was infiltrated by the military industrial complex.”

I then asked Arbatov if the military-industrial complex was today under control. “The economic difficulties of post Soviet Russia”, he replied, “make military expenditures much more modest than they were, but we have a new thing, our new leader, Putin. He is in the hands of this military-industrial complex, and a lot of his appointments go to these people. I don’t know how much control he has over them. In general they have to worry about their survival in the military-industrial complex, not about enhancing peace… Maybe Putin is afraid of being blamed for neglecting the needs of the military. The communists would blame him, Zhironovsky would blame him. You have a lot of adventurers now.”

Clearly, this pressure on Putin would have led to a degree of hardening of Russian foreign policy even without the provocation of the expansion of Nato, the growing influence of the U.S. in the soft underbelly of Russia, the former Asian republics, and the decision to build on Polish and Czech soil an anti-missile system. But for those with a bent towards traditional Russian paranoia, an urge to recapture a past imperial status, this is all the evidence they need to justify an attempt to rebuild the Soviet military machine.

“But the main thing is that real negotiations have stopped”, adds Arbatov in an important caveat. “Both sides are at fault. We need to start with two or three summits to discuss the new international situation, possible lines on the behaviour and responsibilities of big countries… You need to meet your adversary regularly and you get to know him and then it is easier to negotiate. This meeting in Kennebunkport. This wasn’t a negotiation. I know how the old summit meetings were. All organisations, including mine, were busy up to the ears- the whole political and military establishment. We had to work, work, work. Now they have lost interest. Now it is theatre, just to show. I have no idea where they get their information from. Putin’s is the least transparent governmental system in my memory. Even in Stalin’s time we knew Malenkov meant this and this, and after it became much more visible.”

Once launched on a critique of Putin, Arbatov does not spare the knife. “ Putin has done a lot of good work- he has re-established the governmental system. But at the same time he gives not a single speech that gives the prospect. What are we striving for? What do we want to have in internal policy, in foreign policy?”

In Arbatov’s view it is time overdue that the two countries cut back their nuclear armaments. “Both sides have lost their enemy. They see no imminent danger from the other side. Neither seems to understand that it can quickly reappear. Just the existence of so many weapons makes deteriorating relations more likely and stability less dependable…Being honest, we in Russia are not right in our approach. We have so many weapons we could decrease the numbers unilaterally and show an example.”

Arbatov’s final point: “If you have so many nuclear weapons you have to say there is a plan to get rid of them even if you can’t give an exact date. Otherwise other countries say, if you have them why can’t we?”

Later that evening I walked by the Kremlin. Who is listening? Neither the military-industrial complex in Russia nor, come to that, its almost equally powerful counterpart in the U.S.

 

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Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Sufis: From Puritanism to Transcendentalism

" ... At a time when political relations between Iran and the United States are so tense and the two nations are viewing each other with hostility and suspicion, it is important to remember that the cultural and literary relations between them have not always been so acrimonious. Also, at a time when religious fundamentalism has such a grip on the minds of a sizeable minority of American citizens and when the Religious Right and the bizarre concept of Christian Zionism exert such a powerful and largely negative influence on politics in the United States, it is refreshing to analyse the views of one of the most important American thinkers and writers on religious issues.

In a way, it is sad that nearly two hundred years after the age of great religious enlightenment in the United States, one has to restate these concepts again. However, it is important to know that the rich heritage of religious thinking in the United States itself contains the lofty ideas that can lift religion from its present sorry state and restore it to the more spiritual and universal status that is its true calling. Alternatively, Emerson's restatement of the rich spiritual heritage of Iranian mystics and poets can remind the Iranians that the present domination of fundamentalist ideology is an aberration of their long history and that they would do better to return to those loftier concepts. Above all, the Iranians and the Americans can come to realise that they share many common values and that they should not allow transient political considerations to undermine their common humanity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was the father figure of American literature and could justifiably be called the founder of the study of both comparative literature and comparative religion in the United States, and one of the greatest religious reformers that America has ever produced. The study of his religious thought charts the journey from a narrow and dogmatic religious outlook towards a mystical, universal outlook. If William Blake could be regarded as a British prophet, that title also belongs to Emerson in the United States. The study of Emerson's journey from Puritanism, towards Unitarianism, towards Transcendentalism and ultimately towards a universal religion of love and spirituality provides a powerful antidote to the narrow and fundamentalist interpretations of religion prevalent in both the East and the West today. ... "

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Ten Thousand Letters to Impeach Cheney

- Please sign the Impeach Cheney petition to your Congressman:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=651

- Do you remember how to set pen to paper? How to write a letter?
Be a patriot and do it now!

- Dennis Kucinich's House Resolution 333 for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney has been taken off the House floor, and has instead been sent to the Judiciary Committee for "further study." This maneuver, organized by Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, is consistent with their mantra that impeachment is "off the table." But, we are told Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it. What are we waiting for?

- Cindy Sheehan wrote this:

Dear Friends
Instead of sending your impeachment letters for Dick Cheney to Nancy Pelosi's office, send them to my office so we can get an official count. Please send them to:
.
Nancy Pelosi
c/o Cindy Sheehan
RE: Impeach Dick Cheney
1260 Mission Blvd
San Francisco, Ca 94103
.
Please pass this around and have them sent ... as soon as possible and we will have them delivered to her office in San Francisco before Thanksgiving [or Christmas].

More than 5,000 Palestinian children in Israeli jails

" ... If convicted, the ninth-grader will likely receive a prison sentence of five years or longer.

To Israeli authorities, Ayat's case typifies a generation of Palestinian youth more radical than their parents, less optimistic about chances for peace, and more ready to use force to achieve a Palestinian state. Since violence broke out in 2000, children as young as 11 have helped fill the ranks of Palestinian militant groups, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, transporting explosives and weapons, and carrying out suicide bombings, according to a recent report by Israel's Shin Bet security service.

But to human rights organizations, Ayat is one of an alarming number of Palestinian youths being jailed under a largely concealed military justice system. During the last seven years of violence in the Middle East, Israel has put more than 5,000 Palestinian children behind bars, human rights groups and Palestinian officials estimate.

Little is known about these young prisoners. Israeli military, security and prison officials could not provide figures on the number of Palestinians younger than age 18 who have been detained since 2000. Nor would they allow visits with those behind bars. Advocacy groups and Palestinian officials acknowledge that their estimates of Palestinian child detainees are often incomplete, and they complain that access to court records and hearings is severely limited.

 

[ ... ]

 

In fact, in the military court, a Palestinian child is even defined differently. The court considers any Palestinian 16 or older an adult -- a departure from the international standard of 18 that Israel applies to its own citizens -- subjecting them to more severe sentences. Those under 16 can be eligible for lighter sentences, the only concession the system accords minors.

Israel, however, says these international laws don't apply in the occupied territories.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights attorney, says the system's treatment of minors amounts to a "gross violation of the rights of the child" as outlined by international conventions of the United Nations.

 

~ Read full article... ~

U.S. and Iran: "Don't gifts without a signature usually come from a secret love?"

The United States Administration's Secret Love for Iran

The severe negative qualities of the Iranian regime fit well into U.S. foreign policy arguments. The positive qualities, and there are some, go unheeded by the Bush administration - and for a reason - they contradict the U.S. government policies towards the Islamic Republic nation. The U.S. administration evidently loves the serious defects of the present Iranian regime.

Iran's principal negative quality is its fundamentalist and authoritarian government. The government doesn't sit well with its own people or with the world community, but its retrograde nature serves to make U.S. actions seem credible. Despite U.S. State Department rhetoric, Iran has no detrimental effect on the U.S. domestic economy or legitimate U.S. overseas interests - just the opposite - both Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, and Afghanistan's President Hamis Karzai have been quoted that Iran is a positive force in their countries. Why doesn't the U.S., which is concerned with nations in which U.S. troops battle, regard Iran's positive contributions as a benefit to U.S. policies? Why doesn't the U.S. take advantage of this positive force? The reason is simple. The U.S. poses the fundamentalist Iranian government, which is less fundamentalist and corrupt than the Saudi Arabian government, as a threat to Middle East peace and western civilization that must be countered, and the U.S. has volunteered to counter it. This altruism permits the U.S. to have a fleet in the Persian Gulf and burgeoning military bases in Iraq.

The more the U.S. prods Iran, the more Iran retaliates, even going so far as indicating it might construct a nuclear weapon. More retaliation translates into more evidence for the U.S. to prove that the powerless Iranians, who have no real air force, no real navy and no modern army, are a danger and must be confronted. Somehow, the world doesn't seem to consider that U.S. policies towards Iran have been ultra-aggressive - arming Saddam Hussein (remember him?) in his war against Iran, sinking Iranian vessels in Iranian waters, downing an Iranian civilian airliner with a great loss of Iranian life and moving U.S. troops to Iran's border. All these provocations answer the questions - why do the Mullahs despise the U.S. and why do they talk aggressively?

But what would happen if the Islamic nation underwent a quiet revolution and Iran became transformed into a democratic nation, responsive to its peoples' needs. Although polls indicate the Iranians admire the United States (but not the U.S. government), it is doubtful the new nation would be overly friendly to a militaristic U.S. government. Long time U.S. friend, Saudi Arabia, will tremble at being clearly exposed as the remaining major fundamentalist and autocratic regime in the Middle East, and might reconsider its close ties with the U.S. Turkey, Syria, and a hopefully revived Iraq would welcome the new Iran. These Islamic nations might engage one another in forming a secular Islamic pact that allows them to operate in their own interests and relieves them from fear of western interests. Gather in Afghanistan and Egypt to a new "cooperative Islamic sphere," and U.S. influence in the Middle East would soon disappear.

Iran's positive qualities, all of which could be beneficial to the U.S., are politely neglected. Note there is no Al-Qaeda in Iran, no terrorists have been Iranians, and no terrorist attacks against U.S. interests have proceeded from Iran. Compare Iran to Saudi Arabia, the breeding ground for terrorists. Iran greatly assisted the U.S. in the initial stages of the reconstruction of Afghanistan, to which the U.S. gave no recognition. Critics complain that Iran fortifies Hezbollah, which is undoubtedly true. According to a report from Foreign Policy in Focus, this support is severely limited

The Persistence of Mideast Illusions by Conn Hallinan
Foreign Policy in Focus, September 1, 2006
"Brown University's Beeman argues that Iran has no direct control over Hezbollah. While Iran does provide the organization some $200 million a year, that money 'makes up a fraction of Hezbollah's operating budget.' The major source of the group's funding is the sakat, or the tithe required of all Muslims. Georgetown University professor Daniel Byman, writing in Foreign Affairs says that Iran 'lacks the means to force significant change in the [Hezbollah] movement and its goals. It [Iran] has no real presence on the ground in Lebanon and a call to disarm or cease resistance would likely cause Hezbollah's leadership, or at least its most militant elements, to simply sever ties with Tehran's leadership.'"

Iran morally supports the Palestinians, but not militarily. If Iran sent weapons to Hamas, then where are the weapons? The same critics fail to mention that the U.S. supports Israel with mighty weapons that have caused vast destruction to the Lebanese and Palestinian communities and to other nations. In effect, the U.S. has proclaimed it is legal to arm contestants.

The U.S. can take advantage of Iran's aversions to the Taliban and to al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, the Bush administration has done the opposite - it has deliberately associated Iran with international terrorism and forced Iran to lessen its cooperation in combating the United States' major international problem.

The U.S. also seems to ignore Iran's huge oil reserves and how those reserves can benefit U.S. appetite for petroleum. Iran holds the world's third largest known oil reserves and second largest natural gas reserves. Its inefficient and unstable government has been unable to develop its resources or solicit foreign capital for their developments. Why make them more unstable, more opposed to western influence, more inefficient? Obviously, the reason is to keep Iran weak and impoverished. What can be more absurd in a world of resource scarcity?

From U.S. actions, any nation that starts its name with Ira raises the ire of the U.S. How else can irresponsible actions be explained from a U.S. that knows how to help its enemies. U.S. counterproductive policies sustain the Mullahs in power and reinforce Al-Qaeda. The outburst of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun at the APEC (not OPEC) conference; in which he asked a startled George Bush when the U.S. is going to officially end the Korean War, showed how much Bush alienates friends and brings them closer to a known U.S. adversary. It has happened with Iraq. It will happen with the Iranian people.

Although it was obvious that deposing Saddam Hussein in a nation of Shiite Muslims would expand Iranian influence from "zero" to a dominating position in Iraq, the U.S. proceeded to do just that. Now that the transfer of influence has occurred, the U.S. scolds Iran for accepting the gift. Don't gifts without a signature usually come from a secret love?

alternativeinsight
october, 2007

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follow-up to 'A Nutricidal Codex'

What we now know Codex followup

 

A Nutricidal Codex (Follow-up)

By Shannara Johnson

In the last two weeks, we received many reader emails doubting the validity of our claims in our recent article “A Nutricidal Codex.” Due to the flood of inquiries, we decided to run a follow-up and address your questions and comments to the best of our knowledge.

One particular trigger for readers’ skepticism was an article on the urban legend site Snopes.com that seems to debunk the Codex Alimentarius “scare.” To help you make up your own mind, here is a rebuttal on the Snopes article on Rima Laibow’s website.

(For full disclosure, we should mention that Dr. Laibow appears to be a somewhat controversial figure in the anti-Codex movement.)

We also did a thorough research of the available material and dug up some additional information. We recommend you start by watching the easy-to-digest, 28-minute British documentary titled “We Become Silent—the Last Days of Health Freedom” that features several U.S. lawmakers.

Many readers doubted that the Codex Alimentarius will affect U.S. law (DSHEA). Yet on its own website, the FAO states under the subline Objective 6: Promoting Maximum Application of Codex Standards: “As the pre-eminent international standards-setting body for food, the CAC has a clear and strategic interest in promoting the maximum use of its standards both for domestic regulation and international trade.” [Emphasis added.]

Some of you also commented that the “Vitamin and Mineral Guideline” of the Codex sounds reasonable and entirely unsuspicious. However, when you read the guideline more closely, you’ll notice the following passage:

“Maximum amounts of vitamins and minerals in vitamin and mineral food supplements per daily portion of consumption as recommended by the manufacturer shall be set, taking the following criteria into account:
(a) upper safe levels of vitamins and minerals established by scientific risk assessment based on generally accepted scientific data, taking into consideration, as appropriate, the varying degrees of sensitivity of different consumer groups;
(b) the daily intake of vitamins and minerals from other dietary sources.”

So what’s the fuss about? Let’s take this passage apart piece by piece, starting with upper safe levels and scientific risk assessment.

A UK-based, pan-European coalition named Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) explains on its website: “There are two distinct phases in the development of Maximum Permitted Levels as proposed by the EU Food Supplements Directive and the global Codex guidelines on vitamin and mineral food supplements. The first phase is the establishment of Upper Safe Levels (USLs), using so-called ‘scientific risk assessment.’ The second phase, which appears to be less well understood in terms of its impact on dosages, will tend in many cases to dramatically reduce the USLs. Only one organization to-date in the world has performed this task, this being Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).”

The table below compares the upper safe levels set by the BfR to those set by the U.S. Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Examples for Upper Safe Levels:

Substance	FNB	EFSA	BfR
Vitamin A	3,000 mcg	3,000 mcg	800 mcg
Vitamin C	2,000 mg	n/n	225 mg
Vitamin B6	100 mg	25 mg	5.4 mg
Vitamin D	50 mcg	50 mcg	5 mcg
Vitamin E	1,000 mg	300 mg	15 mg
Folic acid	1,000 mcg	1,000 mcg	400 mcg
Copper	10 mg	5 mg	1.5 mg
Iron	45 mg	n/n	15 mg
Selenium	400 mcg	300 mcg	70 mcg
Zinc	40 mg	25 mg	10 mg

Remember, the official upper safe levels for the Codex haven’t been set yet. However, it is likely that they will be based on this or a similar result of “scientific risk assessment.”

And that’s not all, asserts the American Holistic Health Association. There’s still the part about the daily intake of vitamins and minerals from other dietary sources. The wording implies that the upper safe levels will take into account the vitamins and minerals you’re supposedly already ingesting with your food each day—which will lower the permitted maximum dosage of supplements even more. And, of course, there’s also the varying degrees of sensitivity of different consumer groups… another reason to go down, down, down.

Another bone of contention was Dr. Laibow’s outrageous claim that “just the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline alone will result in about 3 billion deaths.” One of our readers asked, quite sensibly: “But aren’t there only about 6.5 billion people in the whole world? Do you really think that many people even take vitamin and mineral supplements? Even if we’re talking about more than supplements, it still seems rather incredible to me, personally...”

Of course she’s right. We don’t know how many people would really die, and Dr. Laibow may well have overstated things to dramatize her position. She said many people would die “from the preventable diseases of under-nutrition,” such as cancer, diabetes and other chronic degenerative diseases. Why under-nutrition, though? Can’t we get most of our nutrients from food? Yes, but… and there are many “buts.”

First, there’s the lifestyle of the average Westerner, which includes junk and processed foods, empty carbs, lots of sugar and too few fruits and vegetables. For many people, supplementing their diet with vitamins and minerals is a life saver.

Furthermore, even people who try to eat healthy may be increasingly susceptible to under-nutrition. Due to factory-style farming practices in developed countries, our food is not what it used to be. According to a Guardian article from February 2006, mineral levels in milk and meat have plummeted over the last 60 years.

“The levels of iron recorded in the average rump steak have dropped by 55%,” states the article, “while magnesium fell by 7%. Looking at 15 different meat items, the analysis found that the iron content had fallen on average by 47%. The iron content of milk had dropped by more than 60%, and by more than 50% for cream and eight different cheeses. Milk appears to have lost 2% of its calcium, and 21% of its magnesium too.”

Dr. Tim Lobstein, member of the UK consumer watchdog agency “The Food Commission,” commented that “today’s agriculture does not allow the soil to enrich itself, but depends on chemical fertilizers that don’t replace the wide variety of nutrients plants and humans need.”

As for the application of rBST and antibiotics, the final word hasn’t been spoken yet. However, according to the Canadian government’s website, “in February 1998, the Joint FAO-WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives concluded that milk and meat from rBST-treated cows did not pose any danger to human health.”

Aside from that, your libertarian-leaning editors are appalled by the obvious power grab the Codex Alimentarius represents. We believe that in a free country, people should be able to choose what they want to put into their body.

U.S. Congressman Ron Paul (R.-Texas) agrees. In a speech before the House last year, he warned that “Members of the American bureaucracy may be hoping to achieve via international fiat what they cannot achieve through the domestic law-making process—the power to restrict consumers’ access to dietary supplements.”

He urged the representatives to read an article by liberty-activist Henry Lamb, who predicted that “If current plans proceed on course, American consumers are in for a shock.”

Lamb’s conclusion: “[The Codex Alimentarius Commission] is on the brink of becoming an Orwellian bureaucracy—far worse than the worst fantasies of the one-world conspiracy theories.”

 

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A Nutricidal Codex

Casey Research

28 Nov 2006

By Shannara Johnson

Ever heard of the Codex Alimentarius? If not, don’t be surprised. It’s one of the best-kept “open secrets” of the U.S. government. It’s scheduled to take effect on December 21, 2009, and it may present the greatest disaster for our food supply—and thus for our health—this country has ever seen.

What is the Codex Alimentarius, and how did it come to pass?

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1897 and 1911, a collection of standards and regulations for a wide variety of foods was developed, called the Codex Alimentarius Austriacus. It wasn’t legally binding but served as a useful reference for the courts to determine standards for specific foods.

The post-World War II rebirth of the Codex Alimentarius (or short, Codex), however, is much more dubious. To understand the full implications, we need to go back to the history of one huge conglomerate: The Interessengemeinschaft Farben, or IG Farben—a powerful cartel that consisted of German chemical and pharmaceutical companies such as BASF, Bayer, and Hoechst.

IG Farben was, you could say, the corporate arm of the Third Reich. Having lucrative contracts with Hitler’s regime, IG Farben produced everything from ammunition to Zyklon B, the nerve gas that was used to kill prisoners in the concentration camps. IG Farben was the single largest donor to Hitler’s election campaign… and later the single largest profiteer of World War II.

“Whenever the German Wehrmacht conquered another country, IG Farben followed, systematically taking over the industries of those countries,” states the website of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation, a non-profit promoter of natural health. “The U.S. government investigation of the factors that led to the Second World War in 1946 came to the conclusion that without IG Farben the Second World War would simply not have been possible.”

Auschwitz, the largest and most infamous German concentration camp, also benefited IG Farben. New, unsafe pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines were liberally tested on Auschwitz prisoners—many of which died during the tests.

Not surprising, the Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal prosecuted 24 IG Farben board members and executives for mass murder, slavery and other crimes against humanity. One of those convicted was Fritz ter Meer, the highest-ranking scientist on the executive board of IG Farben, who was sentenced to seven years in prison (of which he only served four). When asked during trial whether he thought those human experiments had been justified, he answered that “concentration camp prisoners were not subjected to exceptional suffering, because they would have been killed anyway.”

In 1955, ter Meer was reinstated as a member of the supervisory board at Bayer and one year later became its chairman. In 1962, together with other executives of BASF, Bayer and Hoechst, he was one of the main architects of the Codex Alimentarius.

“When he got out of jail, he went to his UN buddies,” said Dr. Rima Laibow, MD, in a passionate speech at the 2005 conference of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals (NANP). “And he said, ‘[…] If we take over food worldwide, we have power worldwide.’”

The result was the creation of a trade commission called the Codex Alimentarius Commission, now funded and run by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

At its foundation in 1994, the World Trade Organization (WTO) accepted the standards of the Codex—and by the end of 2009, all member countries of the WTO will be required to implement the Codex, “to harmonize the standards” for the global trade of foods.

In the U.S. meanwhile, Congress passed the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA) in 1994, which defined vitamins, minerals and herbs as foods, therefore not to be regulated by pharmaceutical standards. The Codex Alimentarius would reverse all that. It would treat those dietary supplements not as foods, but as toxins.

“How do you protect somebody from a poison?” asks Laibow. “You use toxicology. You use a science called ‘risk assessment.’”

Risk assessment, she explains, works as follows. You take the toxin in question, feed it to lab animals and “determine the dose that kills 50% of them. That’s called the LD 50. And you extrapolate what the LD 50 for a human being might be. Then you go down to the other end of the dosage range and you start feeding [little] bits of it to test animals, and you come up with the largest possible dose—the maximum permissible upper limit—that can be fed to an animal before a discernible impact is shown. […] Then you divide that by 100. […] And now you’ve got a safety margin, so you got 1/100 of the largest dose that can be given with no discernible impact.”

In other words, classified as toxins, vitamins, minerals and herbs would only be allowed to be marketed in doses that have no discernible impact on anyone. Then why bother taking them?

And that’s not all. Where our grocery and health food store shelves are now brimming with supplements, only 18 of them would be on the Codex whitelist. Everything not on the list, such as CoQ10, glucosamine, etc. would be illegal—not as in “prescription-only” illegal, but as in “take it and you go to jail” illegal.

But the mandatory requirements of the Codex will not only concern vitamins and minerals, but all foods. Under Codex rules, nearly all foods must be irradiated. And levels of radiation can be much higher than previously permitted.

While irradiated U.S. foods are currently treated with 1 – 7.5 kiloGray of radiation, the Codex would lift its already high limit of 10kiloGray—the equivalent of ca. 330 million chest X-rays—“when necessary to achieve a legitimate technological purpose,” whatever that may be. Granted, the text says, that the dose of radiation “should not compromise consumer safety or wholesomeness of the food.” Note, however, that it says “should,” not “shall” (an important legal difference, since “should” is not compulsory).

You buy rBST-free milk? Not much longer, because under the Codex all dairy cows will have to be treated with Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone. All animals used for human consumption will have to be fed antibiotics. Organic standards will be relaxed to include such measures. And did we mention that under the Codex, genetically modified (GM) produce will no longer have to be labeled?

Say good-bye to true organic food, and maybe even food that retains any resemblance of nutritional value.

Moreover, in 2001, twelve hazardous, cancer-causing organic chemicals called POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) were unanimously banned by 176 countries, including the United States. Codex Alimentarius will bring back seven of these forbidden substances—such as hexachlorobenzene, dieldrin, and aldrin—to be freely used again. Permitted levels of various chemicals in foods will be upped as well.

What, are they trying to kill us?

Rima Laibow has done the math, she claims, using figures coming directly from the WHO and FAO. And according to those epidemiological projections, she believes that just the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline alone will result in about 3 billion deaths. “1 billion through simple starvation,” she says. “But the next 2 billion, they will die from the preventable diseases of under-nutrition.”

She calls the new Codex standards “food regulations that are in fact the legalization of mandated toxicity and under-nutrition.”

Even if you’re thinking of emigrating to Thailand or Guatemala to escape this nutritional holocaust, forget it. Once implemented, the Codex Alimentarius will set food safety standards, rules and regulations for over 160 countries, or 97% of the world’s population...

 

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Fmr. CIA Dir. RJ Woolsey: "government should be held accountable, not those who complied"

Interesting points raised in this opinion piece. The Nuremberg Tribunal thought otherwise (IG Farben Trial).

'When the CIA comes calling, companies need a little protection'

by R. JAMES WOOLSEY
17 Nov 2007

When I was director of Central Intelligence during President Clinton's first term, I had occasion to go hat in hand to the private sector several times. In one case, it was a detail that, if made public, could have caused a valuable source to be captured or killed; in another, there was a technical feature of a system in production that, slightly modified, was of great help to the nation. In these several cases, executives of American companies heard me out and willingly met my requests, to the substantial benefit of our national security.

They had no legal requirement to do so, and they knew it. They were helping solely out of a sense of patriotism and an understanding that some steps the nation needs to take in a dangerous world cannot be taken in public, simply because informing the public informs an opponent or an enemy.

Shortly after 9/11, something similar happened. Senior U.S. officials asked telecommunications companies to assist the government in intercepts involving terrorist groups such as those that had just attacked us and killed thousands of people. In these cases, President Bush authorized the intercepts and the senior officials gave written assurances to the companies that their cooperation was legal.

In my judgment, the president acted properly; he had the authority under the Constitution to ask for such intercepts. In addition, his request was reasonable because surveillance of enemy-to-American communications is a time-honored means  of intelligence gathering in the U.S. George Washington did it; those under his command intercepted and read correspondence between Benedict Arnold and his spy handler, foiling the plot to turn the fort at West Point over to the British.

But even if one believes the request was illegal and unreasonable - and there are distinguished constitutional lawyers and patriotic citizens on both sides of this debate - the issue currently before the Senate Judiciary Committee is much narrower. It is whether the telecommunications companies that complied with the president's request and trusted the government's assurances of legality should be granted immunity from about 40 lawsuits demanding billions of dollars.

Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Intelligence Committee, has stated that companies "should not be dragged through the courts for their help with national security." And now, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary Committee, has endorsed his statement, saying the companies should not be "held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about (Bush) administration activities."

Feinstein is a member of the one-vote Democratic majority on the Judiciary Committee, and it is possible her position will determine the outcome. I hope it does. Her stance is farsighted. Having once, when I was practicing law, taken depositions for months about a single one-hour meeting, I know something about how burdensome litigation can be. If, in the end, the surveillance request made by the government is deemed improper, the government should be held accountable, not those who complied with its request.

We live in a world of terrorism, the possible proliferation of nuclear weapons and a host of other risks to our security. Intelligence, and the cooperation of the private sector in obtaining and protecting it, will be among our most important tools to avoid catastrophes such as 9/11 or worse.

If some future senior government official needs to make a call on a CEO of the sort I did, and that others did after 9/11, we and our children will be better off if the official can answer the question, "Can you guarantee that my company won't be sued if we help the country?" with, "If it happens, we'll get protective legislation approved as in 2007." We would be in much more danger if, because companies that helped after 9/11 became ensnared in years of litigation and financial losses, that official has to answer the question with a shrug.

R. James Woolsey, a vice president of the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, was director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995. He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.

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how to cleanse your liver (2)

http://www.bizhostnet.com/us734827/health/willis_liverCleanse.html

how to cleanse your liver

http://commonground.ca/iss/0301138/16_liver_cleanse.shtml

Protests for murder of Brazilian anti-GMO campaigner

Worldwide protest against Syngenta

Hundreds of groups and individuals participated in street actions or sent petition letters [on] 8 November 2007 to protest against the murder of Valmir Mota d'Oliveira Via Campesina-Brazil leader during an occupation of a Syngenta genetically modified (GMO) field trial in Parana, Brazil. They denounced human rights abuses by the Swiss based transnational company and more broadly protested against genetically modified seeds and corporate control over agriculture. Farmers and their allies in Korea, Indonesia, East Timor, United States, Congo, Spain, Chile, Canada, Croatia and Venezuela staged actions in front of the Swiss embassies, the Brazilian embassies or the Syngenta offices.

 

Korean Progressive groups including Korea Peasant League(KPL), KWPA (Korea Women Peasant Association) and Korea Alliance of Progressive Movements gathered in front of the Syngenta building to denounce company's repression and to support the Brazilian landless movement (MST) actions promoting peasant's seeds and sustainable agriculture. There were also testimonies by Korean farmers suffering from Syngenta genetically modified melon seeds.

In New York, activists from World Hunger Year, the Farmer Solidarity Project, and Agricultural Missions Inc, and students from Rutgers university met with Daniel Haener, Deputy Consul General at Consulate General of Switzerland to hand him over their demands.

In Congo, in Indonesia and in East Timor (on October 30th) the Via Campesina farmers' organisations FSPI, Hasatil and COPACO-PRP also staged actions asking for the culprits to be punished and for Syngenta to leave Brazil.

In Switzerland itself, the farmer's organisation UNITERRE, also member of La Via Campesina, asked the President of the Swiss federation Micheline Clamy-Rey to take a stand on the Syngenta- Brazil case.

Meanwhile, hundreds of e-mails from people from around the world, mainly from Spain, France and Portugal were sent to the Swiss authorities or to Syngenta head office expressing shock and asking for justice. « A transnational company that is monopolising seeds, water and land has to be taken accountable for its environmental and social crimes», says one of the protest letter.

Henry Saragih, Indonesian based General Coordinator of La Via Campesina said «Peasant's leaders are criminalised all around the world. We are committed to struggle for peasant's rights, and we know that it will be a long struggle. We invite all our friends and allies to keep supporting the movement and to organise actions and mobilisations against Syngenta and for Peasant's rights on December 10, International Human Rights Day.

 

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