1984... a little behind schedule's topics - tribe.net

The Peoples Party (a reality tv game show like the world has never seen)

2006-05-30T14:57:46Z

Is it really possible to have a peoples party at this point in time? A party who's candidate was chosen, and supported by the American people?
Yes... it really is possible. And high time if you ask me.
When I was in school they told me I could be anything I wanted. Even the president of the United States. But they never taught me how. Oh sure, we had a class president and all that, (and I seem to remember something about a cartoon bill that kept getting vetoed or something), but somehow I just don't think it's the same thing. But I have asked dozens of people (smart ones too) if they new how to go about being president if they chose to. None of them had the slightest clue. Not that I would ever want to be the president. I can't even ballance my own check book, (or remember if that cartoon bill ever got passed or not) let alone trying to balance the budget for a nation. However, I have met quite a few people along my journeys that I thought had all the attributes I would like to see in a president. Strong, responsible, honorable people, always seeming to naturally look out for the needs of others, less fortunate, and weaker than themselves, while at the same time accomplishing great feats of productivity, (including balancing their check books).
Ive met them in all walks of life. All shapes, sizes, sexes, and colors. Proud Americans, all of them. According to our constitution they have the right to run for president. The only question is... how? Well check it out...

A Letter to Michael Moore...

Hey Mike,
I hope all is going good with the new project. I can't express to you how much I appreciate your work. You both inspire me and give me hope that someday we the People will find our voice again and take our country back. On that note, I have a great Idea I’d like to share with you. This is an idea I’ve spent serious time thinking about. I’d like to humbly ask for your help. The idea needs shepherding from someone of your caliber. So here it is…

“The People’s Party”
A reality television game show
by Alan Abbott

Contestants will compete for a chance to run for President of the United States for the People’s Party.

Possible contestants, chosen from the general public, are asked (via television & radio) to send in a video tape or DVD, 3 minutes or less explaining why they or the person they are nominating should be considered as a presidential candidate.

The show will be run Documentary/American Idol style. The cameras follow each contestant on their quest. Throughout the campaign contestants and their entourage travel together, eat together, stay at the same hotels, and share the same campaign headquarters in the convention rooms at the hotels where they stay.

The American public will have the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice by telephone and the contestants with the lowest number of votes steps down each week.

The winner of the show wins the candidacy for the Peoples Party, and actually runs for president of the United States of America.

That is the basic idea. I see it as an entertaining way to empower the people to establish their own party, educate the public about what it takes to run for president. Most importantly, it will give the people a chance to take their country back.

I have been developing the show for over a year and have a lot more material. I didn’t want to bombard you with it all right now. I have made several trips to and from L.A. (from Maui) trying to contact you through “more appropriate means” than e-mail, but to no avail. So here we are.

This is actually the second e-mail I have sent you, but I fear the first may have gotten lost in the crowd, as I know you try to respond to all your e-mails. So just to give you a heads up, I am going to ask a few friends to give me a hand in getting your attention. After all, election time is around the corner, and I’d like you to be given the first opportunity to give the country back to the people. Hope you don’t mind. Please feel free to e-mail me or call me at; 808-264-0984. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Alan

We The People
Really can make this happen. More impossible dreams have come true. But we have to work together. Together... the American people can do anything.
I am asking all of you to please copy this entire post and send it to michael@michaelmoore.com then send it to everyone you know.
Michael Moore is my first choice, but I know he is not everybody's cup of tea. If you have someone in mind you like better for the task of producing, directing, and/or hosting The Peoples Party? Copy and send this entire post to them, and tell them so.
But please keep in mind that the show, and everything written here is copywritten so please don't try to pass it off as your own, you'll just get yourself in a lot of trouble. Do however feel free to share with as many people as you want. In fact please do. Post it everywhere!
I sent this letter to Michael Moore on May 19th, 2006 but Mikes a busy guy. He probably hasn't even checked his email yet. He is currently shooting another feature documentary, and I'm sure the shooting schedule is very labor intensive. Not ot mention the amount of e-mails the guy must get every day. Then when he does finaly get a chance to read them, I'm sure he has a priority list of some kind. Either way, he has not returned this e-mail yet.
But Michael is not the only person that is important to reach. If we are going to make a difference we have to work together, and spread the word to everyone.

Thank you all very much.
Sincerely, Alan
Power To The People

michael@michaelmoore.com

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 2 replies

Orwell Rolls in his Grave

2006-05-20T00:05:09Z

Hey, all--
Here is a great film I rented recently called Orwell Rolls in his Grave. It is basically about the way media has been completely corporatized and now bears only a passing resemblance to the truth. I'm sure you'll ALL appreciate it.

www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 1 reply

Please help

2006-04-08T01:47:59Z

please go to this website to send a fax to the related US
congress and senate members to Request a Congressional Hearing on the
Sujiatun case. it's a very easy to Fill out form, With just a click, the fax will be sent.
thank you,
joshua

here is the link:
http://publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php

there is more information about Sujiatun on the website:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

New Witness Confirms Existence of Chinese Concentration Camp, Says Organs Removed from Live Prisoners

2006-03-17T18:32:25Z

Please help to end this horrible persectuion. knowledge is our greatest weapon, please share this information. together in peace we can make a difference. Falun Dafa is a peaceful meditation practice that teaches putting others before yourself, kindness, always telling the truth and being tolerant of others. We are literally being killed for being good people. The national media refuses to report on this because of trade issues with China. It is up to us to let the world know. Please help us.

By Ji Da
The Epoch Times Mar 17, 2006
www.theepochtimes.com

The witness, a former employee at the Liaoning Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, and says the bodies of Falun Gong practitioners are cremated immediately after the organs are removed. (The Epoch Times)
[High-resolution image ] A former employee of Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine told The Epoch Times during a recent interview that the Sujiatun Concentration Camp in China was actually a part of a hospital. The concentration camp has engaged in taking organs from Falun Gong practitioners when they were still alive and selling the organs. Since 2001, the concentration camp has secretly detained approximately 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners, none of whom have been able to leave the camp alive. The hospital removed many kidneys, livers, and corneas from the practitioners. After the organ removal, the practitioners were thrown into an incinerator, which was converted from a boiler. Their ashes were dumped together with burned charcoal.

Organs from Three Quarters of the 6,000 People Were Removed
Those whose organs were removed were in various states of health. Because many of the victims were illegally detained, there was neither an arrest warrant nor identification as to who these people actually were. Often after their organs were removed, nobody claimed the bodies. Sometimes their bodies were picked up by crooks who pretended to be their family members.

About three-quarters of the 6,000 people died after their hearts, kidneys, corneas, or skin was removed; their bodies were then burned. This witness, whose family member participated in the removal of Falun Gong practitioners' organs, said that approximately 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners remain in the hospital. She was afraid that the authorities would kill all of them to destroy evidence.

The Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine is located at 49 Xuesong Road, Sujiatun, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, China. It was the first hospital in China to specialize in the heart, the brain, and surrounding blood vessels. The hospital is composed of several organizations, including the Liaoning Traditional Chinese Medicine College Teaching Hospital and the Shenyang Thrombosis Treatment Center.

Concentration Camp Details
The hospital site is 21,087 square meters, with 17,564 square meters of building area. It employs 460 people in 24 departments and 20 specialized offices. Information from the Chinese government shows that the hospital was established in December 1988, and was formerly named the Shenyang Research Institute of Thrombosis and Liaoning Province Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine. In June 1998, it was renamed China Traditional Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center.

The Chinese Business Morning View said in a story on July 4, 2004, that a farm worker died of abnormal causes in Sujiatun, Shenyang and was later cremated. The death certificate was provided by the Chinese Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center in Sujiatun. The news caused a stir in China.

A copy of the death certificate. (The Epoch Times Archives Photo)Below is the transcript of an Epoch Times reporter's interview with the former staff member of the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine in Sujiantun, Shenyang City. Questions were posed by the reporter and answered by the staff member being interviewed.

Epoch Times: Did the hospital's medical staff inside the concentration camp know about this?

Answer: This hospital has a small number of officials and some doctors involved secretively in the operation of organ harvesting. Some other staff in the hospital knew about this, but this is absolutely a taboo [to talk about]. They all are afraid of being killed or courting trouble, so they all avoid the issue. Only those highly trusted doctors could be chosen to be the surgeons for organ harvesting operations.

ET: Were Falun Gong practitioners alive when their organs were harvested? Did their families know about this?

Answer: Falun Gong practitioners who were imprisoned there came mostly from Dabei Prison, Masanjia Labor Camp, and other prisons in Shenyang, or they were Falun Gong practitioners arrested in parks or residential homes. Because they refused to denounce Falun Gong, they were arrested without formal warrants, and their families did not know their situation. Many did not even have their names [recorded]. In addition, since the Chinese authority exercises a policy of "not being responsible" for killing Falun Gong practitioners, the death of Falun Gong practitioners is not a very big issue for prisons. The Chinese Communist Party persecutes Falun Gong, [but] these medical personnel were told Falun Gong practitioners were facing death because they killed people, or they were sentenced to death because of crimes, or they had become insane from practicing Falun Gong.

Those Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested came from several types.

Organs harvested from live bodies are worth far more than organs taken from dead bodies. Many Falun Gong practitioners were still alive when their organs were taken. After their organs were cut out, some of these people were thrown directly into the crematorium to be burnt, thus leaving no evidence. For some others, after their organs were stolen, the doctor sewed up the wound and asked the family or family representative to give a signature for cremation. Family members did not know at all that the dead had their organs taken out.

Furthermore, there were some healthy Falun Gong practitioners in prisons in other areas who were injected—without their knowledge—with psychoactive drugs that made their minds confused. They then were transferred to Sujiantun concentration camp to suffer further torture, till in the end their organs were harvested and their bodies were cremated in secret.

Among the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested, some were weak and some were healthy. Since most of them were illegally arrested, there were no arrest warrants or identification cards. After their organs were taken out while they were still alive, no one came to claim their bodies; or [sometimes] people using fake identities claimed their bodies.

None of these people have come out [of the concentration camp] alive; three-quarters of these 6,000 people have died, having their hearts, kidneys, retinas, and skins harvested and their bodies disposed of. I think now about 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners are still in this hospital, and I am afraid now that the authority will destroy all evidence and kill them.

Question: How did you know these things? Were you yourself a doctor involved in organ harvesting?

Answer: I worked at the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Shenyang. This is exactly where this concentration camp is located. One of my family members was involved in the operation to harvest Falun Gong practitioners' organs. This has brought great pain to our family.

Question: Please tell us what you knew about.

Answer: From 2001, our hospital started to detain Falun Gong practitioners. At the beginning, these people were detained in the single-storey houses in the back yard of the hospital. Later, the hospital authorities demolished the single-storey houses, and it was unknown where in the hospital the Falun Gong practitioners were transferred. Many staff of the hospital discussed in private that these Falun Gong practitioners had been secretly transferred to the underground chambers of the hospital. According to some people working inside the hospital, the hospital has a huge system of secret underground chambers.

At the time when we went to work there, the person in charge of logistics and purchasing in the hospital said that the quantity of disposable sterile gloves used for operations and daily supplies that the hospital authorities asked to be purchased had increased dramatically. The logistics people estimated based on the scale of purchases at that time that there were at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners detained in this hospital.

These Falun Gong practitioners were not detained in the 4-story building under the in-patient department and administration at the front of the hospital, in order to keep the hospital staff from seeing them at all. We only occasionally saw Falun Gong practitioners being sent on a mobile intensive care bed to the first floor for physical examinations. These people were very weak. For the majority of the Falun Gong practitioners, nobody knew where they were being secretly kept. While they still did not know where these people were kept, some staff inquired to the hospital authorities about why so much food and so many sterile gloves and daily supplies were purchased. The hospital authorities said, "You only need to do your job well. There is no need for you to ask any other questions."

Starting in 2001, a family member of mine participated in organ-harvesting operations. My family member tried to keep me from knowing about this at the beginning. The hospital authorities selected doctors they trust in different aspects to perform the secretive operations. After a period of time, I found that my family member was in a lot pain, often had nightmares, and appeared panic-stricken. After repeated inquiries, this family member told me the truth. The leader of the hospital had asked my family member to participate in the organ harvesting operations on Falun Gong practitioners as early as 2001. It was 2003 when my family member confessed. A few years after, my family member felt so much pain from participating in this incident that it was impossible to continue with the evildoing. My family member decided to go abroad to get away from this matter.

My family member also told me: "you don't understand my suffering; those Falun Gong practitioners were alive. It might be easier for me if they were dead, but they were alive."

Question: Were there any other doctors from the hospital taking part in the operations of cutting out Falun Gong practitioners' organs?

Answer: I know there were some. All these things have been carried out secretly. Many doctors at our hospital involved were practicum doctors transferred from other hospitals. Because the government does not want to be responsible for Falun Gong practitioners' bodies and lives, their lives are treated as garbage by the regime, and their bodies were used in experiments by new doctors doing their practitcums.

Many doctors came and left the hospital because they suffered a lot after having been involved in these kinds of things. They either requested to be transferred to other places, or changed their names. Some might have been killed to eliminate the evidence, their identity files were taken out from the hospital's filing system, or their names were changed. Nobody knows where the doctors have gone.

The hospital staff all know that the rear part of the hospital is forbidden. It is always watched. The staff avoids talking about the place.

Question: It is said the hospital is equipped with an incinerator. The person whose organs were removed will be burned when he or she is still alive. Is that true?

Answer: The employees in our hospital call this place "the incinerator." Actually, it is a boiler room. Some poor farmers from nearby places were hired to work in the boiler room. They were penniless when they first came here. But they could scrape up some watches, finger rings, necklaces, and so on. The amount is not small. It is said by the employees in the hospital these jewelry and watches were collected from the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs had been removed when they were about to be thrown in the boiler to be burned. It is also said by the employees in the hospital, some were still alive when being thrown into the boiler.

Question: Do they get injection of anesthetic when in surgery?

Answer: Yes. There is a cap to the anesthetic quantity used in mainland China's hospitals. Generally, the supply of anesthetic was determined according to the accommodation of the hospital. To the public, the number of patients in our care appears to be very small, and publicly reported number of surgical procedures performed is quite low. But the equipment and articles used in surgery are abundant. Because the amount of anesthetic is limited, these secret surgeries could not use the normal anesthetic doses. In order to save anesthetic, they economized on the anesthetic used in surgeries on these Falun Gong practitioners. The amount of anesthetic used was very small. However, many whose organs were removed were still alive. You can imagine the pain suffered by the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were removed.

Question: Are there any survivors among the 6,000 people detained since 2001?

Answer: Nobody has come out alive. The number of them gets smaller and smaller. The Falun Gong practitioners detained at Sujiatun are fewer now than before. But I believe that the sin of removing the organs of the Falun Gong practitioners is still continuing.

Question: Where are these organs usually sold to? Do the higher authorities in the government know about this?

Answer: They are mainly sold to Thailand, but I believe they are also sold to other regions of the world. Nowadays, there are many patients in China who need human skin, corneas, and kidneys for organ transplant surgeries. Many patients have to wait in line to purchase organs. Currently, a kidney can be sold up to the price of 30,000 to 100,000 U.S. dollars. The profit from selling organs is simply too great. The people who benefit from this are not only the top leaders of hospital and the officials of the Chinese Communist Party's Heath Department. This is a crime present across the entire nation. People ranging from government officials to doctors to organ sellers are all involved in this and are profiting greatly.

Question: Why did they target Falun Gong practitioners as the source of organs?

Answer: Because relatives of many Falun Gong practitioners don't even know that their family members were arrested. So if the Falun Gong practitioners are killed, there will be no one to come and claim their dead bodies.

Question: Why did you want to expose this? This may bring great danger to you.

Answer: I know that there are many Falun Gong practitioners who are currently detained at the hospital. I would like to expose this to the international community, so those who are not yet killed can be saved. Also, I would like to expose this as an atonement for my family.

I am not a Falun Gong practitioner. But as a former staff member of the hospital, I have the responsibility to expose the truth, and let the world to save those Falun Gong practitioners who are still alive. Organs of some Falun Gong practitioners are still living on patients' bodies. I would like to call on all society to pay attention to this issue and stop this shocking crime.

see what else you can do at fofg.org

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

http://www.1984videos.com/

2006-03-10T05:59:58Z

http://www.1984videos.com/

Has a link to download "Orwell Rolls in his Grave", among numerous other videos.

Unfortunately, it's in RealMedia format. Here's a link for it in WMV:
http://www.lonelantern.org/downloads/Orwell%20Rolls%20in%20his%20Grave.wmv

http://tribes.tribe.net/infobunker

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

Calling All Interns & Staffers Working On The Hill

2006-02-08T18:09:37Z

National cable network casting new docu-series showcasing a
never-before-seen look into the world of politics, through the lives of
ambitious men & women working on The Hill. This can include anyone from
interns, staffers, lobbyists, grassroots organizations to think tanks. This
groundbreaking show will be a fly-on-the-wall view of democracy in action
with a dynamic cast of individuals who may eventually go on to run the
country! For more information call 212-613-5417 or e-mail chgcasting@yahoo.com ASAP!

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

Doublespeak of the week!

2005-10-14T03:37:39Z

What are your current favorites examples of modern doublespeak?

Here is some to get started...
"Healthy Forests" program = increased logging of protected wilderness
"Clear Skies" initiative = greater industrial air pollution

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 4 replies

FREUD and ORWELL

2005-10-04T07:54:27Z

I would pick these two authors as the most influential writers of the 20th century. Anybody care to comment on this?
They both have have added so many new words, phrases, and concepts to the English language: ego, id, superego, repression, sublimation, transference, penis envy, oedipus complex, thought police, big brother, doubleplusgood, oligarchical collectivism, sex crime, thought crime, anti sex league, ministry of truth, ministry of love, ministry of peace, etc.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 1 reply

Today Is 1984

2005-09-25T19:49:10Z

I too agree that Bush has incorporated a lot of the control of "1984" into the present 3 branches of government. The Corporate Ownd Press is most willingly helping out in this endeavor by just changing the facts afterwards or worse, not even reporting it at all. The Internet had, and still does to some extent, the ability to provide more unedited info to the common populace If they would just take advantage of it. The Bush Regime though, has been very quick to plug that hole. The RIAA and other Comunications Laws the Congress has or will pass, gives most of the control of internet content to the Government. In the "Interests of Terrorism", of course. Sounds kinda like the constant battles with Eurasia and Eastasia that Oceana had in the book 1984.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

Me and the Big Guy

2005-09-15T18:08:23Z

an excellent short film spoofing 1984 can be seen here:
http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/atom_1352

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

The Ministry of Reshelving

2005-09-10T19:27:59Z

The Ministry of Reshelving Project
from: http://avantgame.blogspot.com/2005/08/ministry-of-reshelving.html
Sunday, August 14, 2005

This week, we launched the Ministry of Reshelving project. My partners in crime as founding members of the ministry: George, Kiyash, and Monica.

This weekend we relocated 19 copies of George Orwell's 1984 in four different bookstores in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Berkeley. It was high stealth adventure.

You are invited to join our efforts.

How to Serve the Ministry of Reshelving

1. Select a local bookstore to carry out your reshelving activities.

2. Download and print "This book has been relocated by the Ministry of Reshelving" bookmarks [http://photos21.flickr.com/33841846_a1f3a7bfe8_o_d.jpg] and "All copies of 1984 have been relocated" notecards [http://photos21.flickr.com/33841846_a1f3a7bfe8_o_d.jpg] to take with you to the bookstore. to take with you to the bookstore. Or make your own. We recommend bringing a notecard and 5-10 bookmarks to each store.

3. Go to the bookstore and locate its copies of George Orwell's 1984. Unless the Ministry of Reshelving has already visited this bookstore, it is probably currently incorrectly classified as "Fiction" or "Literature."

4. Discreetly move all copies of 1984 to a more suitable section, such as "Current Events", "Politics", "History", "True Crime", or "New Non-Fiction."

5. Insert a Ministry of Reshelving bookmark into each copy of any book you have moved. Leave a notecard in the empty space the books once occupied.

6. If you spot other incorrectly classified books, feel free to relocate them.

7. Please report all reshelving efforts to the Ministry. Email your store name, location, # of 1984 copies reshelved, and any other reshelving activities conducted, to reshelving @ avantgame.com. Photos of your mission can be uploaded to Flickr, tagged as "reshelving", and submitted to the Ministry of Reshelving Group [http://www.flickr.com/groups/reshelving/].

Our goal is to relocate one thousand nine hundred and eighty-four copies, and to complete successful reshelving of 1984 in all 50 United States. Global contributions are welcome.

Note: this project is not a critique of bookstore culture, the state of the shelving industry, or even of pervasive government surveillance. It is merely an observation that 2 + 2 = 5, and 5 is no longer fiction.

UPDATE:

Many thanks to everyone for their feedback on this project.

We at the Ministry of Reshelving support all efforts to properly classify fiction and nonfiction texts. So here are some alternative (or complementary) tactics.

*Ask to speak to a bookstore manager, perhaps a time when the bookstore is not busy. Introduce yourself as a representative of the Ministry and simply suggest the relocation. Do not relocate any books. Simply have a friendly conversation. Perhaps have a card referring the manager to the Ministry of Reshelving Flickr group.

*Mod the current Ministry bookmarks to SUGGEST relocation of the books. Insert these in all copies. Do not actually relocate the books.

*Stage a photo of the relocation, and then return the books to their original location. This might not be revolution, but it is a rehearsal for the revolution.

*Create a notecard to leave at the bookstore in the section you think 1984 should be properly shelved. The notecard could say "Sorry! There are no more copies of George Orwell's 1984 in the __________ section. Additional copies are located in the fiction and literature section."

*Before you conduct your 1984 reshelving, look around the store for a few books left out by other customers and put them back where they belong. Do a bit of 'traditional' reshelving on behalf of the employees. Then do your 1984 reshelving.

These mods are designed to address people's concerns with the impact of the project on customers and bookstore employees and owners. I'm 100% committed to making these kinds of experiments as sociable as possible, while still confronting the issues of: Where is it appropriate for the public to play, to intervene, to suggest alternatives, to tag, to reclassify, to be expressive? It is clear to me that many people do not feel that bookstores are a proper location for such play and intervention. I very much disagree, but I am learning much from their comments and reactions.

If you would like to understand the motivations of this project better, why not read a minor statement on avant gaming [http://avantgame.blogspot.com/2005/08/minor-statement-on-avant-gaming.html]

Final update: Comments have been suspended on this blog in accordance with Godwin's law. The Ministry of Reshelving, however, continues its work.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 3 replies

Heavy Raid on Utah Rave - When a party turns into a nightmare

2005-08-23T19:18:58Z

There was a heavy raid on a rave in Utah... The organizors say the rave was licensed. The police was very violent! Totally uncalled for extreme force being used on young americans. It is sad when a party is turned in to a nightmare. This kind of police behaviour is what should be illegal. Not a bunch of people having a good time!

http://indytorrents.org/torrents/utah_rave_raid.torrent?info_hash=ae63c5f4885000e9e26cc1fe908ddc47aa334e57

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

This is great!

2005-07-06T06:20:31Z

Check out the process of ordering a pizza in the near future....

http://www.adcritic.com/interactive/view.php?id=5927

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 3 replies

bush secrecy trashes principles of open government

2005-06-10T17:14:10Z

*DRAFT* (excerpted from the Waxman report)

Introduction
In September of 2004, Rep. Henry A. Waxman released a comprehensive report on secrecy and the Bush Administration. The report systematically examines how the Administration has undermined each of the nation’s major open government laws. It reveals a consistent pattern: laws designed to promote public access to information of federal and public record have been undercut, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded.

“The Bush Administration has an obsession with secrecy,” said Rep. Waxman. “It has repeatedly rewritten laws and changed practices to reduce public and congressional scrutiny of its activities. The cumulative effect is an unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and accountable.”

Changes to Laws that Provide Public Access to Federal Records
The Freedom of Information Act, one of the laws that provides public access to federal records, has been controverted in several ways. FOIA gives an individual requesting information the ability to file a FOIA request for specific information and provides recourse to federal court in the event that an agency fails to comply with the FOIA requirements.
The Ashcroft memo of October 12, 2001 took the position that the Bush Administration’s policy is that agencies are not required to release, and are in fact discouraged from releasing, any document if there are technical grounds for withholding it under FOIA, a reversal of the Clinton Administration’s position that any document could be released in spite of technical grounds for withholding it under FOIA.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card released a memo in March, 2002, wherein the Bush Administration further reduced public access to information through FOIA by urging agencies to safeguard records regarding weapons of mass destruction and “other information that could be misused to harm the security of our Nation and the safety of our people.” The memorandum did not define these terms and left agencies under direction to withhold from disclosure under FOIA any information that could in some conceivable way be used to harm security.

A major new exemption called Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002 (CIIA), is part of the Homeland Security Act. The CIIA exempts from FOIA any information that is voluntarily provided to the federal government by a private party, if the information relates to the security of vital infrastructure. The definitions used in this Act cover everything from information about a potential leak at a chemical plant to a deficiency in a software program used by the Department of Defense.
In 2003, the Bush Administration sought and won a new legislative exemption from FOIA for all National Security Agency “operational files.” The Administration’s main rationale for this new exemption is that conducting FOIA searches diverts resources from the agency’s mission. Of course, this rationale could apply to every agency. As NSA has operated subject to FOIA for decades, it is not clear why the agency now needs this exemption.

Other statutory and regulatory exemptions include commercial satellite data, vehicle safety defect information and critical energy infrastructure information. The Bush Administration has also instituted an aggressive policy of questioning, challenging, and denying FOIA requesters’ eligibility for fee waivers, using a variety of tactics. Measures include narrowing the definition of “representative of news media,” claiming information would not contribute to public understanding, and the use of sequential fee waiver denials. Fee waivers are part of the FOIA laws so that agencies aren’t overly burdened by costs while complying with the Act’s mandates.

Under the Bush Administration, agencies are making extensive use of FOIA exemptions, often inappropriately or with inadequate justification. There is evidence of agencies making frivolous exemption claims, abusing the deliberative process privilege, abusing the law enforcement exemption, and withholding data on telephone service outages.

In numerous instances, the Bush Administration has simply failed to respond to FOIA requests. Whether this is just inordinate delay or an unstated final refusal to respond to the request, the effect is the same: the public is denied access to the information.

Experts in FOIA law and practitioners with extensive experience in making requests for information under FOIA see this attitude shift as driving a myriad of changes, both large and small, in the government’s FOIA policies. Furthermore, they believe that these actions, taken together, “radically” limit the public’s ability to find out what the government is doing. Journalist Bill Moyers has echoed these concerns: “It’s always a fight, to find out what the government doesn’t want us to know. It’s a fight we’re once again losing. Not only has George W. Bush eviscerated the Presidential Records Act and FOIA, he has clamped a lid on public access across the board. It’s not just historians and journalists he wants locked out; it’s Congress . . . and it’s you, the public and your representatives.

The Presidential Records Act establishes that the records of a president relating to his official duties belong to the American people. The purpose of the Presidential Records Act is to ensure that after a President leaves office, the public will have full access to White House documents used to develop public policy. On November 1, 2001, President Bush replaced the Reagan executive order with Executive Order 13233. Under the law and the Reagan order, the presumption was that most documents would be released. In contrast, the Bush executive order establishes a process that generally operates to block the release of presidential papers.

The Federal Advisory Committee Act was adopted by Congress in 1972 to govern how the Executive branch obtains advice from groups of advisors outside the federal government. The goal of FACA is to prevent secret advisory bodies from exercising a hidden influence on government policy. Generally, FACA requires that advisory committees announce their meetings, hold their meetings in public, take minutes of the meetings, and provide the opportunity for divergent viewpoints to be represented. The Bush Administration, however, has acted to carve out new exemptions to the law. In other instances, the Administration has carefully structured the way it solicits advice from private entities to avoid establishing an advisory committee subject to FACA. And sometimes the Administration simply ignores FACA requirements.

In the proposal to Congress to establish a new Department of Homeland Security, President Bush proposed to exempt all advisory committees established by DHS from FACA. As finally adopted the Act gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to exempt any advisory committee from FACA on a committee-by-committee basis.
Amendments to the Medicare law, signed in December 2003, establish another new exemption from FACA. The law creates “competitive acquisition programs” to provide for the furnishing of competitively priced items and services and to award contracts for various types of medical equipment and supplies. This advisory committee is exempted from the requirements of FACA.

The Administration also supported a new FACA exemption that affects Department of Energy advisory committees with members that are federal contractors. This provision, included in the fiscal year 2004 authorization bill for the Defense Department, allows DOE contractors to be considered federal employees for purposes of FACA when they are serving on an advisory committee. Because advisory committees composed solely of federal employees are not subject to FACA, the effect of the provision is to allow these contractors to provide advice to DOE officials without triggering FACA.

Vice President Cheney’s energy task force is the most prominent instance of an advisory body established by the Bush Administration that either violated or deliberately skirted FACA requirements. As partially revealed through news accounts, some documents obtained under FOIA, and an investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the task force engaged in extensive consultations with key representatives of the energy industry, particularly with coal, oil and gas, and nuclear interests. While the full extent of these consultations is not known, the task force had minimal contact with individuals representing environmental and consumer interests related to a national energy policy.

Another example is the President’s Commission on Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, which President Bush established on February 6, 2004.

Despite the broad public interest in the work of the WMD Commission, President Bush included in the executive order a provision whose sole purpose appears to be to exempt the Commission from FACA.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) formally advised agencies that they could avoid FACA’s requirements by hiring a contractor to manage advisory committees convened to conduct peer reviews.

The President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security conducted much of its work through two subgroups, or subcommittees, which held closed meetings and refused repeated requests for records of those proceedings, maintaining that only the full committee, not its subcommittees, was subject to FACA. When members of Congress objected to the Commission’s evasion of FACA requirements, they were rebuffed.

The White House Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining appears to function primarily as a mechanism for energy companies to enlist support from the White House on decisions that are supposed to be made by government scientists and regulators in agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and EPA. An investigative news report gives accounts, however, of numerous occasions on which task force officials have pressured government experts in the field, urging land managers to speed activities needed to grant permits.

Changes to Laws that Restrict Public Access to Federal Records
National Security Classification of Government Records: The Bush Administration has reversed the Clinton Administration’s trend toward openness and dramatically increased the volume of government information concealed from public view. This is particularly evident in the Bush Administration’s expanded use of national security classification.
The Bush Administration has also obtained unprecedented authority to conduct government operations in secret, with little or no judicial oversight. Under expanded law enforcement authority in the PATRIOT Act, the Justice Department can more easily use secret orders to obtain library and other private records, obtain “sneak and peek” warrants to conduct secret searches, and conduct secret wiretaps. In addition, the Bush Administration has used novel legal interpretations to expand its authority to detain, try, and deport individuals in secret.

In the first six years following Clinton’s Executive Order 12958, the executive branch increased the average number of records that it declassified by more than ten times, and it increased by more than five times the number of records declassified from 1980 to 1994. The Bush Administration, however, issued Executive Order 13292 in March, 2003, which reversed the trend toward openness and dramatically increased the volume of information restricted as classified. One marked difference from the Clinton order, which imposed a limit of extensions to ten-year periods, the Bush order allows classifiers to extend classification time periods without any apparent limitation.

President Bush’s Executive Order 13292 features: Eliminating the presumption of disclosure, undermining automatic declassification, protecting foreign government information, reclassifying information, weakening the interagency security classification appeals panel, exempting Vice Presidential records from mandatory declassification review, expansion of “Original Classification Authorities,”

Further executive measures have resulted in expanded protection of “sensitive security information,” weakened DHS disclosure under the National Environmental Policy Act, and the expansion of secret government operations under the US PATRIOT Act, such as obtaining records in secret, conducting secret wiretaps, expanding the use of “sneak and peek warrants,” and expanding the use of federal grand juries.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush Administration has asserted unprecedented authority to detain anyone whom the executive branch labels an “enemy combatant” indefinitely and secretly. It has authorized military trials that can be closed not only to the public but also to the defendants and their own attorneys. And the Administration has authorized procedures for the secret detention and deportation of aliens residing in the United States.

Congressional Access to Information
Compared to previous Administrations, the Bush Administration has operated with remarkably little congressional oversight. This is partially attributable to the alignment of the parties. The Republican majorities in the House and the Senate have refrained from investigating allegations of misconduct by the White House. Another major factor has been the Administration’s resistance to oversight. The Bush Administration has consistently refused to provide to members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and congressional commissions the information necessary for meaningful investigation and review of Administration activities.

For example, the Administration has: Contested in court the power of the Government Accountability Office to conduct independent investigations, refused to comply with the statutory Seven Member Rule, which allows members of the House Government Reform Committee to obtain information from the executive branch, forcing the members to go to court to enforce their rights under the law, Ignored and rebuffed numerous requests for information made by members of Congress attempting to exercise their oversight responsibilities with respect to executive branch activities, and has repeatedly withheld information from the investigative commission established by Congress to investigate the September 11 attacks.

Conclusion
Waxman’s companion bill HR5073 IH, Restore Open Government Act of 2004, was not heard by Congress before the Winter Recess in December, 2004. The bill was not reintroduced in the Opening Session in January 2005. A number of other open government bills will be presented to Congress in 2005.

This review of the nation’s open government laws reveals that the Bush Administration has systematically sought to limit disclosure of government records while expanding its authority to operate in secret. Through legislative changes, implementing regulations, and administrative practices, the Administration has undermined the laws that make the federal government more transparent to its citizens, including the Freedom of Information Act, the Presidential Records Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee Act. At the same time, the Administration has expanded the reach of the laws authorizing the Administration to classify documents and to act without public or congressional oversight. Individually, some of the changes implemented by the Bush Administration may have limited impact. Taken together, however, the Administration’s actions represent an unparalleled assault on the principle of open and accountable government.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

Who is our Emmanuel Goldstein?

2005-05-30T22:31:31Z

In 1984, Emmanuel Goldstein is the Osama Bin Laden/ Saddam Hussein figure-- someone whose name is synonymous with everything bad, evil, heretical, and unholy.

Of course we have all been trained to hate these two men, but who else are we encouraged to hate?

In 1984, hating the "enemies" of Big Brother was a form of "hate training" for the public.

I see how we are encouraged to hate Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson, even before they've been tried before a court of law!! What the fuck IS that?

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 5 replies

Universal Zulu Nation tribe >

2005-05-25T05:15:00Z

You are welcome to join!
http://australia.tribe.net/tribe/188611ff-2d68-40f8-912c-f467e52c15a1?r=10365

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

Ideological Statement

2005-05-13T15:05:41Z

The teaching of history should convey only facts and be free from political motives, personal opinions, biases, propaganda, and other common tactics of distortion. Every claim that is made about history should also be accompanied by documentation proving its basis. Only responsible scholarship and teaching should be permitted. Those who intend to support particular political interests and agendas should have their biased historical interpretations criticized for lacking proof.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 2 replies

The Reality Based Community

2005-05-02T04:51:16Z

This is so nice I had to post it twice.

Reprinted from Warblogging.com

October 18, 2004
The Reality-Based Community

The New York Times Magazine this past weekend featured an article by Ron Suskind about President Bush's faith. Not just Bush's religious faith. His faith in everything, his faith in himself, his faith in God, his faith in his "gut". His faith as policy.

"He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence", Bruce Bartlett, a Reagan advisor and former treasury official told Suskind.

Suskind continues pounding the theme in page after page, eventually defining Bush's antithesis through the words of a Bush aide speaking about Suskind's criticisms of the Bush Administration. Suskind writes:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

There is the faith-based community and the reality-based community. In the reality-based community we have such odd bedfellows as Patrick Buchanan, John Kerry and Jim Wallis (a Sojourner minister who has met with Bush on several occasions). As Matthew Yglesias notes, we may have finally found the unifying theme for the "anti-Bush coalition". Reality.

Gene Healy has suggested that we start printing and wearing "Reality-Based Community" t-shirts. It may not be a bad idea.

This past week, as the Times reports, an entire platoon of American soldiers refused to follow an order they felt would send them on a "suicide mission". They were ordered to drive a convoy full of jet fuel from southern to northern Iraq. They refused, calling the mission non-sensical and too dangerous.

The fact that they are not yet being court-martialed, and that the military denies they are currently under arrest, is evidence that they may have been right. They disobeyed a direct order in time of war and may get out with simple dishonorable discharges.

Welcome to reality, President Bush. Here in Reality Country we believe in considering the consequences of our actions. Here in Reality Country we believe in reason and logic. Here in Reality Country we construct plans for going about complex tasks (you know, like invasions of sovereign countries). Here in Reality Country we allow the evidence to speak before we defer to our "gut".

Posted by George Paine | Comments (99) | TrackBack (9)
From the "Democracy in America" Department as of 09:42 AM

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 1 reply

newspeak, the war which never ends and other ramblings

2005-05-02T04:45:27Z

I must admit being rather stoked to discover this tribe of others who are seeing this parallel between Orwell's work and the direction the current cultural wind is blowing.

Lately '1984' has been coming to mind quite a bit..the war which never ends which keeps the good populus of 'Oceania' in slavery to 'Big Brother'...right now we're at war with 'Eurasia' (the middle east/ war on terror) and I'm sure in time it may shift to 'Eastasia' (China? North Korea?) as necessary to those in power to keep us distracted from the gradual erosion of our own rights.

In my own country (Australia) we have seen the introduction of 'newspeak' in terms of social security terminology : the Department of Social Security is now called 'Centrelink'; Unemployment Benefit is now called 'Job Search Allowance', people out of work now sign 'participation agreements' which condemn them to work for well below award wages, a 'lumpenproletariat' of virtual slave labour.

These shifts in language are no accident in my opinion but reflect an attempt to cause a cultural shift in thinking by the new right to maintain public acceptance of the dismantling of social servcies/structures former generations fought damn hard for.

What really frightens me is it appears to be working, people seem to be swallowing propoganda from various 'Ministries of Truth' hook, line and sinker.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who's spotted the disturbing similarities though.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 3 replies

Terrorists + Drugs= Demonization

2005-03-24T16:34:59Z

Here is an interesting article about how Bush tried to "make the conversion" at the 2002 superbowl, trying to link the war on drugs to the war on terror so we can have lots of scary bad guys to quixotically chase.

It reminds me of how important developing compassion in our lives is, because it seems the NWO is trying to play on our failure to see our fellow earthlings as ourselves. If we fear our neighbors, we will be easily led. If we develop love for humanity, WE will lead the way.

I Column Like I See Em
Super Bowl drug control misguided
http://www.yaleherald.com/article-p.php?Article=191

BY KUSHAL DAVE

GETTY IMAGES AND STEVE YBARRA/YH

Offensive, manipulative, and mis- guided. There is no other way to view the recent attempt by the Bush Administration to equate drug use with financial support of terrorism. Just when it seemed the Sept.-11th-ization of advertising had come to an end, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), in cooperation with Ogilvy & Mather, pushed the exploitation to a new level. The White House, at a cost of over $3 million, aired two new ads during the Super Bowl—ads that had the gall to play on renewed patriotism to push an anti-drug campaign. Nothing could be a greater waste of taxpayer dollars, and I daresay the Fear Factor Playmates special looked wholesome by comparison.

If any good comes out of this travesty, it is that it will highlight, more than ever, the hypocrisy of our government's approach to the war on drugs. In fact, the only thing that drugs and terrorism have in common is that both inspire rights-trampling knee-jerk reactions from conservatives.

The broad claim that "drug" use contributed to terrorism is clearly overreaching— the "truth is my anti-drug" campaign conflates every drug from tobacco to cocaine (but not alcohol) into one über-intoxicant with countless negative consequences and no benefits. In reality, out of those drugs they are campaigning against, only heroin and cocaine have significant links to terrorist groups, and even these are matched by our own government's ties to terrorist groups.

Furthermore, America's effort to control drug production in other countries exemplifies the very hegemony that bred the international resentment leading up to Sept. 11.Despite being the largest consumer of cocaine and amphetamines per capita in the world, America pushes a supply-side solution. As The Economist wrote this summer, "Other rich countries that try to change their policies meet fierce American resistance; poor countries that ship drugs come (as Latin American experience shows) under huge pressure to prevent the trade, whatever the cost to civil liberties or the environment" ["Stumbling in the Dark," 7/26/01].

The possibility of imports financing terrorists could be averted if the government allowed drugs to be produced legally in the U.S. Legalization would also bring with it a variety of other benefits, such as controlling quality and access, and eliminating drug-trade-related crime.

The resources directed toward fighting the drug war both at home and abroad could then be spent on more pressing concerns, such as actually fighting the war on terrorism. The ONDCP tossed $18.1 billion last year into the black hole of the drug war. Compare this to the $37.7 billion in the new budget for domestic security, and you get some idea of the scale.

The momentum in favor of drug legalization has been growing. This month, Maxim magazine takes on the question of marijuana legalization. But even The Economist suggested, "A legal market is the best guarantee that drug-taking will be no more dangerous than drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco. And, just as countries rightly tolerate those two vices, so they should tolerate those who sell and take drugs." States and nations, from Britain to New Mexico, are already reexamining their drug policies.

As the war on drugs reaches new levels of desperation, it makes itself look more pathetic. Studies have found DARE to be highly ineffective, but it is continued anyway. Television is now filled with hip but transparent advertising campaigns and with pedantic anti-drug messages on shows targeted at teens. And the denial of financial aid to those accused of drug offenses has been so deleterious that a repeal has already been introduced.

For the government to resort to cheap tricks such as the Super Bowl ads—just as it is having a hard time proving that the war on drugs deserves the resources it currently receives—is disgusting and disgraceful. This government is doing a disservice to itself, its cause, and the memory of those who died on Sept. 11. When something like these terrorist attacks have united America, it is a terrible thing to undermine the sort of personal choice that is at the heart of our freedoms.

© 2004 The Yale Herald | The Herald is an undergraduate publication at Yale University. | Please see the Contact page to reach us.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

2005-03-24T16:26:41Z

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him. But now the multibillion dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, and the imminent publication of three books on the subject are threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history an uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election.

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

Tantalising

Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.

Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and grew rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world wars. One of the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web, UBC, worked exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands. More tantalising are Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labour from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.

Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.

The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen.

The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized.

The third set of documents, also at the National Archives, are contained in the files on IG Farben, who was prosecuted for war crimes.

A report issued by the Office of Alien Property Custodian in 1942 stated of the companies that "since 1939, these (steel and mining) properties have been in possession of and have been operated by the German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable assistance to that country's war effort".

Prescott Bush, a 6ft 4in charmer with a rich singing voice, was the founder of the Bush political dynasty and was once considered a potential presidential candidate himself. Like his son, George, and grandson, George W, he went to Yale where he was, again like his descendants, a member of the secretive and influential Skull and Bones student society. He was an artillery captain in the first world war and married Dorothy Walker, the daughter of George Herbert Walker, in 1921.

In 1924, his father-in-law, a well-known St Louis investment banker, helped set him up in business in New York with Averill Harriman, the wealthy son of railroad magnate E H Harriman in New York, who had gone into banking.

One of the first jobs Walker gave Bush was to manage UBC. Bush was a founding member of the bank and the incorporation documents, which list him as one of seven directors, show he owned one share in UBC worth $125.

The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush's father-in-law to provide a US bank for the Thyssens, Germany's most powerful industrial family.

August Thyssen, the founder of the dynasty had been a major contributor to Germany's first world war effort and in the 1920s, he and his sons Fritz and Heinrich established a network of overseas banks and companies so their assets and money could be whisked offshore if threatened again.

By the time Fritz Thyssen inherited the business empire in 1926, Germany's economic recovery was faltering. After hearing Adolf Hitler speak, Thyssen became mesmerised by the young firebrand. He joined the Nazi party in December 1931 and admits backing Hitler in his autobiography, I Paid Hitler, when the National Socialists were still a radical fringe party. He stepped in several times to bail out the struggling party: in 1928 Thyssen had bought the Barlow Palace on Briennerstrasse, in Munich, which Hitler converted into the Brown House, the headquarters of the Nazi party. The money came from another Thyssen overseas institution, the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvarrt in Rotterdam.

By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the world's largest private investment bank, and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler's build-up to war.

Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to $1m only on a few occasions.

In 1941, Thyssen fled Germany after falling out with Hitler but he was captured in France and detained for the remainder of the war.

There was nothing illegal in doing business with the Thyssens throughout the 1930s and many of America's best-known business names invested heavily in the German economic recovery. However, everything changed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Even then it could be argued that BBH was within its rights continuing business relations with the Thyssens until the end of 1941 as the US was still technically neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The trouble started on July 30 1942 when the New York Herald-Tribune ran an article entitled "Hitler's Angel Has $3m in US Bank". UBC's huge gold purchases had raised suspicions that the bank was in fact a "secret nest egg" hidden in New York for Thyssen and other Nazi bigwigs. The Alien Property Commission (APC) launched an investigation.

There is no dispute over the fact that the US government seized a string of assets controlled by BBH - including UBC and SAC - in the autumn of 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act. What is in dispute is if Harriman, Walker and Bush did more than own these companies on paper.

Erwin May, a treasury attache and officer for the department of investigation in the APC, was assigned to look into UBC's business. The first fact to emerge was that Roland Harriman, Prescott Bush and the other directors didn't actually own their shares in UBC but merely held them on behalf of Bank voor Handel. Strangely, no one seemed to know who owned the Rotterdam-based bank, including UBC's president.

May wrote in his report of August 16 1941: "Union Banking Corporation, incorporated August 4 1924, is wholly owned by the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My investigation has produced no evidence as to the ownership of the Dutch bank. Mr Cornelis [sic] Lievense, president of UBC, claims no knowledge as to the ownership of the Bank voor Handel but believes it possible that Baron Heinrich Thyssen, brother of Fritz Thyssen, may own a substantial interest."

May cleared the bank of holding a golden nest egg for the Nazi leaders but went on to describe a network of companies spreading out from UBC across Europe, America and Canada, and how money from voor Handel travelled to these companies through UBC.

By September May had traced the origins of the non-American board members and found that Dutchman HJ Kouwenhoven - who met with Harriman in 1924 to set up UBC - had several other jobs: in addition to being the managing director of voor Handel he was also the director of the August Thyssen bank in Berlin and a director of Fritz Thyssen's Union Steel Works, the holding company that controlled Thyssen's steel and coal mine empire in Germany.

Within a few weeks, Homer Jones, the chief of the APC investigation and research division sent a memo to the executive committee of APC recommending the US government vest UBC and its assets. Jones named the directors of the bank in the memo, including Prescott Bush's name, and wrote: "Said stock is held by the above named individuals, however, solely as nominees for the Bank voor Handel, Rotterdam, Holland, which is owned by one or more of the Thyssen family, nationals of Germany and Hungary. The 4,000 shares hereinbefore set out are therefore beneficially owned and help for the interests of enemy nationals, and are vestible by the APC," according to the memo from the National Archives seen by the Guardian.

Red-handed

Jones recommended that the assets be liquidated for the benefit of the government, but instead UBC was maintained intact and eventually returned to the American shareholders after the war. Some claim that Bush sold his share in UBC after the war for $1.5m - a huge amount of money at the time - but there is no documentary evidence to support this claim. No further action was ever taken nor was the investigation continued, despite the fact UBC was caught red-handed operating a American shell company for the Thyssen family eight months after America had entered the war and that this was the bank that had partly financed Hitler's rise to power.

The most tantalising part of the story remains shrouded in mystery: the connection, if any, between Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC) and Auschwitz.

Thyssen's partner in United Steel Works, which had coal mines and steel plants across the region, was Friedrich Flick, another steel magnate who also owned part of IG Farben, the powerful German chemical company.

Flick's plants in Poland made heavy use of slave labour from the concentration camps in Poland. According to a New York Times article published in March 18 1934 Flick owned two-thirds of CSSC while "American interests" held the rest.

The US National Archive documents show that BBH's involvement with CSSC was more than simply holding the shares in the mid-1930s. Bush's friend and fellow "bonesman" Knight Woolley, another partner at BBH, wrote to Averill Harriman in January 1933 warning of problems with CSSC after the Poles started their drive to nationalise the plant. "The Consolidated Silesian Steel Company situation has become increasingly complicated, and I have accordingly brought in Sullivan and Cromwell, in order to be sure that our interests are protected," wrote Knight. "After studying the situation Foster Dulles is insisting that their man in Berlin get into the picture and obtain the information which the directors here should have. You will recall that Foster is a director and he is particularly anxious to be certain that there is no liability attaching to the American directors."

But the ownership of the CSSC between 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland and 1942 when the US government vested UBC and SAC is not clear.

"SAC held coal mines and definitely owned CSSC between 1934 and 1935, but when SAC was vested there was no trace of CSSC. All concrete evidence of its ownership disappears after 1935 and there are only a few traces in 1938 and 1939," says Eva Schweitzer, the journalist and author whose book, America and the Holocaust, is published next month.

Silesia was quickly made part of the German Reich after the invasion, but while Polish factories were seized by the Nazis, those belonging to the still neutral Americans (and some other nationals) were treated more carefully as Hitler was still hoping to persuade the US to at least sit out the war as a neutral country. Schweitzer says American interests were dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The Nazis bought some out, but not others.

The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war.

Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty".

Jan Lissmann, one of the lawyers for the survivors, said: "President Bush withdrew President Bill Clinton's signature from the treaty [that founded the court] not only to protect Americans, but also to protect himself and his family."

Lissmann argues that genocide-related cases are covered by international law, which does hold governments accountable for their actions. He claims the ruling was invalid as no hearing took place.

In their claims, Mr Goldstein and Mr Gingold, honorary chairman of the League of Anti-fascists, suggest the Americans were aware of what was happening at Auschwitz and should have bombed the camp.

The lawyers also filed a motion in The Hague asking for an opinion on whether state sovereignty is a valid reason for refusing to hear their case. A ruling is expected within a month.

The petition to The Hague states: "From April 1944 on, the American Air Force could have destroyed the camp with air raids, as well as the railway bridges and railway lines from Hungary to Auschwitz. The murder of about 400,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims could have been prevented."

The case is built around a January 22 1944 executive order signed by President Franklin Roosevelt calling on the government to take all measures to rescue the European Jews. The lawyers claim the order was ignored because of pressure brought by a group of big American companies, including BBH, where Prescott Bush was a director.

Lissmann said: "If we have a positive ruling from the court it will cause [president] Bush huge problems and make him personally liable to pay compensation."

The US government and the Bush family deny all the claims against them.

In addition to Eva Schweitzer's book, two other books are about to be published that raise the subject of Prescott Bush's business history. The author of the second book, to be published next year, John Loftus, is a former US attorney who prosecuted Nazi war criminals in the 70s. Now living in St Petersburg, Florida and earning his living as a security commentator for Fox News and ABC radio, Loftus is working on a novel which uses some of the material he has uncovered on Bush. Loftus stressed that what Prescott Bush was involved in was just what many other American and British businessmen were doing at the time.

"You can't blame Bush for what his grandfather did any more than you can blame Jack Kennedy for what his father did - bought Nazi stocks - but what is important is the cover-up, how it could have gone on so successfully for half a century, and does that have implications for us today?" he said.

"This was the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power, this was the mechanism by which the Third Reich's defence industry was re-armed, this was the mechanism by which Nazi profits were repatriated back to the American owners, this was the mechanism by which investigations into the financial laundering of the Third Reich were blunted," said Loftus, who is vice-chairman of the Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg.

"The Union Banking Corporation was a holding company for the Nazis, for Fritz Thyssen," said Loftus. "At various times, the Bush family has tried to spin it, saying they were owned by a Dutch bank and it wasn't until the Nazis took over Holland that they realised that now the Nazis controlled the apparent company and that is why the Bush supporters claim when the war was over they got their money back. Both the American treasury investigations and the intelligence investigations in Europe completely bely that, it's absolute horseshit. They always knew who the ultimate beneficiaries were."

"There is no one left alive who could be prosecuted but they did get away with it," said Loftus. "As a former federal prosecutor, I would make a case for Prescott Bush, his father-in-law (George Walker) and Averill Harriman [to be prosecuted] for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. They remained on the boards of these companies knowing that they were of financial benefit to the nation of Germany."

Loftus said Prescott Bush must have been aware of what was happening in Germany at the time. "My take on him was that he was a not terribly successful in-law who did what Herbert Walker told him to. Walker and Harriman were the two evil geniuses, they didn't care about the Nazis any more than they cared about their investments with the Bolsheviks."

What is also at issue is how much money Bush made from his involvement. His supporters suggest that he had one token share. Loftus disputes this, citing sources in "the banking and intelligence communities" and suggesting that the Bush family, through George Herbert Walker and Prescott, got $1.5m out of the involvement. There is, however, no paper trail to this sum.

The third person going into print on the subject is John Buchanan, 54, a Miami-based magazine journalist who started examining the files while working on a screenplay. Last year, Buchanan published his findings in the venerable but small-circulation New Hampshire Gazette under the headline "Documents in National Archives Prove George Bush's Grandfather Traded With the Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor". He expands on this in his book to be published next month - Fixing America: Breaking the Stranglehold of Corporate Rule, Big Media and the Religious Right.

In the article, Buchanan, who has worked mainly in the trade and music press with a spell as a muckraking reporter in Miami, claimed that "the essential facts have appeared on the internet and in relatively obscure books but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes".

Buchanan suffers from hypermania, a form of manic depression, and when he found himself rebuffed in his initial efforts to interest the media, he responded with a series of threats against the journalists and media outlets that had spurned him. The threats, contained in e-mails, suggested that he would expose the journalists as "traitors to the truth".

Unsurprisingly, he soon had difficulty getting his calls returned. Most seriously, he faced aggravated stalking charges in Miami, in connection with a man with whom he had fallen out over the best way to publicise his findings. The charges were dropped last month.

Biography

Buchanan said he regretted his behaviour had damaged his credibility but his main aim was to secure publicity for the story. Both Loftus and Schweitzer say Buchanan has come up with previously undisclosed documentation.

The Bush family have largely responded with no comment to any reference to Prescott Bush. Brown Brothers Harriman also declined to comment.

The Bush family recently approved a flattering biography of Prescott Bush entitled Duty, Honour, Country by Mickey Herskowitz. The publishers, Rutledge Hill Press, promised the book would "deal honestly with Prescott Bush's alleged business relationships with Nazi industrialists and other accusations".

In fact, the allegations are dealt with in less than two pages. The book refers to the Herald-Tribune story by saying that "a person of less established ethics would have panicked ... Bush and his partners at Brown Brothers Harriman informed the government regulators that the account, opened in the late 1930s, was 'an unpaid courtesy for a client' ... Prescott Bush acted quickly and openly on behalf of the firm, served well by a reputation that had never been compromised. He made available all records and all documents. Viewed six decades later in the era of serial corporate scandals and shattered careers, he received what can be viewed as the ultimate clean bill."

The Prescott Bush story has been condemned by both conservatives and some liberals as having nothing to do with the current president. It has also been suggested that Prescott Bush had little to do with Averill Harriman and that the two men opposed each other politically.

However, documents from the Harriman papers include a flattering wartime profile of Harriman in the New York Journal American and next to it in the files is a letter to the financial editor of that paper from Prescott Bush congratulating the paper for running the profile. He added that Harriman's "performance and his whole attitude has been a source of inspiration and pride to his partners and his friends".

The Anti-Defamation League in the US is supportive of Prescott Bush and the Bush family. In a statement last year they said that "rumours about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush ... have circulated widely through the internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated ... Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathiser."

However, one of the country's oldest Jewish publications, the Jewish Advocate, has aired the controversy in detail.

More than 60 years after Prescott Bush came briefly under scrutiny at the time of a faraway war, his grandson is facing a different kind of scrutiny but one underpinned by the same perception that, for some people, war can be a profitable business.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 1 reply

New Tribe: "Polymaths: Universal Humans"

2005-03-22T20:23:17Z

A polymath (also known as a polyhistor) is a person who excels in multiple fields, particularly in both arts and sciences. The most common term for this is Renaissance man. Other terms for this are Homo universalis and Uomo Universale which in Latin and Italian respectively is translated as "Universal Man". Many notable polymaths lived during the European Renaissance period, and a rounded approach to education was typical of the ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or courtier of that era was expected to speak several languages, play a musical instrument, write poetry and so on, thus fulfilling the Renaissance ideal. During the Renaissance, Baldassare Castiglione, in his The Book of the Courtier, wrote a guide to being a polymath. On the other hand "polymath" may be applied more strictly, taking Leonardo da Vinci or Goethe as prime examples, and requiring a universality of approach. A polymath may not necessarily be classed as a genius, which is a more debatable classification; and certainly a genius may not display the breadth to qualify as a polymath. Albert Einstein is a prime example of a genius who was not a polymath.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 1 reply

SAY GOODBYE TO HERBS, SUPPLEMENTS, AND YOUR FREEDOM

2005-03-16T14:42:51Z

Just as we are beginning to be able to scientifically prove the effectiveness of herbs, and we are beginning as a nation to use herbs and supplements more and more to help maintain good health, my attention has been directed towards an insidious plot to take them all away from you!!

It may seem incredible after all the big news of the herb Saint John's Wort being an effective replacement for the drug Prozac, (As seen on the television program 20 /20 ), but believe it, because YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS ENTERED INTO AN AGREEMENT WHICH WILL TAKE YOUR HERBS, SUPPLEMENTS, AND MANY FOODS AWAY FROM YOU!!

If you like your herbs and your ability to come to your favorite health food store or herb store to obtain vitamins, minerals, and especially herbs, then it is time to wake up and focus your attention against the serious threat to your freedom to use these products.

"I thought we had this issue taken care of a couple of years ago", you say? Well, apparantly, a "trojan horse" clause was put into the DSHEA agreement. (DSHEA is the agreement worked out with F.D.A. and Congress which has allowed us to label products telling all you people what effects you could expect to gain from taking the products...). But now, this hidden clause in the DSHEA legislation, added at the last moment, by Democratic Congressman Waxman from California, has allowed the F.D.A. to begin a process to re-classify herbs and supplements as OTC drugs (Over the counter drugs).!! Can you imagine?

Just a couple of days ago, the F.D.A. convened their meeting (in Washington D.C.) to terminate the public comments period in their proposal to re-classify herbs and supplements as OTC drugs. Mr. John Hammell, who is a consultant to the "International Advocates for Health Freedom", attended this meeting. He said that "the F.D.A. commission which was appointed to study this proposal and draft a final recommendation, had failed to discharge their duty, and ignored fully, two thirds of the public comments they had received. He said that "the meeting was poorly publicized and poorly attended".... (which is how government agencies like it, when they want to ram some unpopular law down our throats).

The effect of this commission's recommendation, if it is adopted, will be to allow the F.D.A. to implement their proposed "Good Manufacturing Practices guidelines", which would impose burdonsome regulations on producers of herbal products.. require them to submit samples of all their herbs for testing.. and would require "laboratory-type conditions" for manufacturing facilities, both of which would drive the costs of herbal remedies through the roof, or eliminate them altogether, except for those huge companies which are able to afford the exorbitant costs of constant testing of raw herbs.

Now, for the clincher.... If you have access to a computer and to the internet, then you can confirm this next part for yourself. The F.D.A. has a website on the internet. It's address is: http://www.fda.gov/ola/319.html This will take you to a particular article on their site, which is a copy of a speech given by the head of the F.D.A. to Congress. Since it is a 40 page document, just scan through it until you get to Item 6. This item confirms the F.D.A's intention to adopt the recommendations of a little-known commission, (established under the G.A.T.T. treaty...General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade).. This commission, called the Codex Alimentarius commission, has been charged with "harmonizing" standards and laws of different countries, to create one single uniform standard. In this case, the Codex Commission has been turned into the henchman of the Pharmaceutical industry, (since fully 90% of the commission members are representatives of Pharmaceutical companies.) Effectively, this means that the Pharmaceutical companies will control which products (such as herbs, and supplements) will be allowed on the market. (and of course, they've been trying to get rid of their herbal competition since they came into being).

These are the Codex Alimentarius recommendations:
1. No vitamin, mineral, herb, etc. can be sold for prophylactic (preventative) or theraputic use.

2. None sold as food can exceed potency (dosage) levels set by the commission.

3. CODEX regulations for the dietary supplements would become binding... (eliminating the escape clause in the G.A.T.T. treaty that allows a nation to set its own standards.

4. All new dietary supplements would automatically be banned unless they go through the CODEX approval process.

If these draconian measures are adopted, all signatory nations to the G.A.T.T. treaty will be forced to accept them as law, and implement them in their countries. If the signatory nation does not implement them, then the World Trade Commission, (WTC), can impose heavy monetary sanctions against them, effectively crippling large sectors of that nation's economy, until they comply.

Since the F.D.A. has freely stated that they intend to implement the recommendations of the Codex Commission into their policies, it becomes clear that WE, THE PEOPLE, are no longer running our own country, but it is now being managed by a commission on foreign soil, who has as the top item on their list, to wipe out the herbal industry. If you value your independence and freedoms as an American citizen, then you simply cannot let this happen. It flies in the face of our CONSTITUTIONAL rights, and takes away your choices about managing your own health.

ACTIONS YOU NEED TO TAKE

1.) Contact your representatives... both House members and Senators... to object to the removal of the escape clause in the G.A.T.T. treaty.

2.) PROTEST to the F.D.A about their recommendations to accept the CODEX guidelines as their own policies. Here's an address to write to:
Dr. Robert Moore
F.D.A. Office of Special Nutitionals (HFS-456)
200 C. Street S.W.
Washington D.C.

Express your objections to the CODEX proposal.

3.) Educate yourself about the history of the CODEX commission, and the ways they have been able to push the issues to this point... by visiting John Hammell's website. John has been watching this scenario progress to it's present dangerous point. Find his site by going to the library and using their computer or if you have one at home, the website address is: http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/hammell/index.html
You can also reach his website by going to my own website, and clicking on the link to his site (which will be obvious on our home page.) Our website address is: http://www.zianet.com/desertbloom

4.) Don't wait to get involved Start a petition in your neighborhood or community. Take the petition around to everyone you know. Take the time to explain to them what is happening, and get a commitment from them to not only sign your petition, but to pass the word on, do some photocopying, call their "representatives" in congress...or anything else they can think of to help get the word out to everyone.

To everyone out there who believes in herbs, please participate.

Thank you in advance for whatever you're able to contribute.

posted in 1984... a little behind schedule - 0 replies