"Socialism is a matter of justice. It acknowledges the rights of the poor to dignity and self determination, promulgating co-operation as the cure for the wrongs of capitalism."
--David Andrade--
--David Andrade--
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Vajra Guru Mantra, wisdom of Guru Rinpoche
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM AH HUNG are the sublime, essence of the principles of enlightened body, speech, and mind
VAJRA is the sublime essence of the indestructible family
GURU is the sublime essence of the jewel family
PEMA is the sublime essence of the lotus family
SIDDHI is the sublime essence of the activity family
HUNG is the sublime essence of the transcendent family
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM is the perfect splendor and richness of sambhoghakaya
AH is the total unchanging perfection of dharmakaya, the manifest body of absolute reality
HUNG perfects the presence of Guru Padmasambhava as the nirmanakaya, the manifest body of emanation
VAJRA perfects all the heruka deities of the mandalas
GURU refers to the root and transmission gurus and the holders of intrinsic awareness
PEMA perfects the assembly of dakas and dakinis
SIDDHI is the life force of all the wealth deities and the guardians of the treasure teachings
HUNG is the life force of the dharmapalas, the protective deities
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM AH HUNG are the life force of the three classes of tantra
VAJRA is the life force of the monastic discipline and the sutra class of teachings
GURU is the life force of abhidharma and kriya (action) yoga, the first level of tantra
PEMA is the life force of the charya (conduct) yoga, the second class of tantra, and yoga (joining) tantra, the third class of tantra
SIDDHI is the life force of the mahayoga and anuyoga classes of teachings
HUNG is the life force of the ati yoga, the Natural Great Perfection (Dzogchen)
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM AH HUNG purify obscurations arising from the three mental poisons: desire/attachment, aversion, and ignorance
VAJRA purifies obscurations which stem from anger
GURU purifies obscurations which stem from pride
PEMA purifies obscurations which stem from desire/attachment
SIDDHI purifies obscurations which stem from envy/jealousy
HUNG in a general way purifies obscurations which stem from all emotional afflictions
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
Through OM AH HUNG one attains the three kayas
Through VAJRA one realizes mirror-like pristine awareness
Through GURU one realizes the pristine awareness of equalness
Through PEMA one realizes the pristine awareness of discernment
Through SIDDHI one realizes the all-accomplishing pristine awareness
Through HUNG one realizes the pristine awareness of basic space
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
Through OM AH HUNG gods, demons, and humans are subdued
Through VAJRA one gains power over malevolent forces of certain gods and demons
Through GURU one gains control over the malevolent forces of the Lord of Death and the cannibal demons
Through PEMA one gains control over the malevolent influences of the water and wind elements
Through SIDDHI one gains control over the malevolent influences of non-human forces and spirits bringing harm and exerting negative control over one's life
Through HUNG one gains control of the malevolent influences of planetary configurations and earth spirits
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM AH HUNG accomplishes the six spiritual virtues
VAJRA accomplishes pacifying activity
GURU accomplishes enriching activity
PEMA accomplishes magnetizing activity
SIDDHI accomplishes enlightened activity in general
HUNG accomplishes wrathful enlightened activity
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM AH HUNG avert all imprecations and curses
VAJRA averts the negative consequences of breaking one's samaya with the deities of pristine awareness
GURU averts the negative influences of the eight classes of gods and demons in samsara
PEMA averts the negative influences of nagas and earth spirits
HUNG averts the negative influences of gods, demons, humans, samsaric gods
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM AH HUNG defeats the army of the five mental poisons
VAJRA defeats anger
GURU defeats pride
PEMA defeats desire/attachment
SIDDHI defeats envy and jealousy
HUNG defeats the armies of gods, demons and humans
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM AH HUNG brings about the spiritual accomplishments or siddhis
VAJRA brings about the siddhi of peaceful and wrathful deities
GURU brings about the siddhi of the awareness-holders and the lineage gurus
PEMA brings about the siddhi of the dakas and dakinis and dharma protectors
SIDDHI brings about the mundane and supreme siddhis
HUNG brings about the siddhi of accomplishing whatever one wishes
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
OM AH HUNG transfers consciousness to the pure realms of experience
VAJRA transfers consciousness to the eastern pure realm of Manifest Joy
GURU transfers consciousness to the southern pure realm of Glory & Splendor
PEMA transfers consciousness to the western pure realm of Great Bliss
SIDDHI transfers consciousness to the northern pure realm of Excellent Activity
HUNG transfers consciousness to the central pure realm of Unwavering
The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security comes not from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe.
The Terror-Industrial Complex
Posted on Feb 8, 2010
By Chris Hedges
Editor’s note: As a result of errors, an earlier version of this column misrepresented quoted material. The corrected version is below.
The bizarre story surrounding Siddiqui, 37, who received an undergraduate degree from MIT and a doctorate in neuroscience from Brandeis University, often defies belief. Siddiqui, who could spend 50 years in prison on seven charges when she is sentenced in May, was by her own account abducted in 2003 from her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan, with her three children—two of whom remain missing—and spirited to a secret U.S. prison where she was allegedly tortured and mistreated for five years. The American government has no comment, either about the alleged clandestine detention or the missing children.
Siddiqui was discovered in 2008 disoriented and apparently aggressive and hostile, in Ghazni, Afghanistan, with her oldest son. She allegedly was carrying plans to make explosives, lists of New York landmarks and notes referring to “mass-casualty attacks.” But despite these claims the government prosecutors chose not to charge her with terrorism or links to al-Qaida—the reason for her original appearance on the FBI’s most-wanted list six years ago. Her supporters suggest that the papers she allegedly had in her possession when she was found in Afghanistan, rather than detail coherent plans for terrorist attacks, expose her severe mental deterioration, perhaps the result of years of imprisonment and abuse. This argument was bolstered by some of the pages of the documents shown briefly to the court, including a crude sketch of a gun that was described as a “match gun” that operates by lighting a match.
“Justice was not served,” Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network and the spokesperson for Aafia Siddiqui’s family, told me. “The U.S. government made a decision to label this woman a terrorist, but instead of putting her on trial for the alleged terrorist activity she was put on trial for something else. They tried to convict her of that something else, not with evidence, but because she was a terrorist. She was selectively prosecuted for something that would allow them to only tell their side of the story.”
The government built its entire case instead around disputed events in the 300-square-foot room of the Ghazni police station. It insisted that on July 18, 2008, the diminutive Siddiqui, who had been arrested by local Afghan police the day before, seized an M4 assault rifle that was left unattended and fired at American military and FBI agents. None of the Americans were injured. Siddiqui, however, was gravely wounded, shot twice in the stomach.
No one, other than Siddiqui, has attempted to explain where she was for five years after she vanished in 2003. No one seems to be able to explain why a disoriented Pakistani woman and her son, an American citizen, neither of whom spoke Dari, were discovered by local residents wandering in a public square in Ghazni, where an eyewitness told Harpers Magazine the distraught Siddiqui “was attacking everyone who got close to her.” Had Siddiqui, after years of imprisonment and torture, perhaps been at the U.S. detention center in Bagram and then dumped with one of her three children in Ghazi? And where are the other two children, one of whom also is an American citizen? In an article written by Petra Bartosiewicz in the November 2009 Harper’s Magazine, authorities in Afghanistan described a series of events at odds with the official version.
The events of the following day are also subject to dispute. According to the complaint, a U.S. Army captain and a warrant officer, two FBI agents, and two military interpreters came to question Siddiqui at Ghazni’s police headquarters. The team was shown to a meeting room that was partitioned by a yellow curtain. “None of the United States personnel were aware,” the complaint states, “that Siddiqui was being held, unsecured, behind the curtain.” No explanation is offered as to why no one thought to look behind it. The group sat down to talk and, in another odd lapse of vigilance, “the Warrant Officer placed his United States Army M-4 rifle on the floor to his right next to the curtain, near his right foot.” Siddiqui, like a villain in a stage play, reached from behind the curtain and pulled the three-foot rifle to her side. She unlatched the safety. She pulled the curtain “slightly back” and pointed the gun directly at the head of the captain. One of the interpreters saw her. He lunged for the gun. Siddiqui shouted, “Get the fuck out of here!” and fired twice. She hit no one. As the interpreter wrestled her to the ground, the warrant officer drew his sidearm and fired “approximately two rounds” into Siddiqui’s abdomen. She collapsed, still struggling, then fell unconscious.
The authorities in Afghanistan describe a different series of events. The governor of Ghazni Province, Usman Usmani, told my local reporter that the U.S. team had “demanded to take over custody” of Siddiqui. The governor refused. He could not release Siddiqui, he explained, until officials from the counterterrorism department in Kabul arrived to investigate. He proposed a compromise: the U.S. team could interview Siddiqui, but she would remain at the station. In a Reuters interview, however, a “senior Ghazni police officer” suggested that the compromise did not hold. The U.S. team arrived at the police station, he said, and demanded custody of Siddiqui, the Afghan officers refused, and the U.S. team proceeded to disarm them. Then, for reasons unexplained, Siddiqui herself somehow entered the scene. The U.S. team, “thinking that she had explosives and would attack them as a suicide bomber, shot her and took her.”
Siddiqui’s own version of the shooting is less complicated. As she explained it to a delegation of Pakistani senators who came to Texas to visit her in prison a few months after her arrest, she never touched anyone’s gun, nor did she shout at anyone or make any threats. She simply stood up to see who was on the other side of the curtain and startled the soldiers. One of them shouted, “She is loose,” and then someone shot her. When she regained consciousness she heard someone else say, “We could lose our jobs.”
Siddiqui’s defense team pointed out that there was an absence of bullets, casings or residue from the M4, all of which suggested it had not been fired. They played a video to show that two holes in a wall supposedly caused by the M4 had been there before July 18. They also highlighted inconsistencies in the testimony from the nine government witnesses, who at times gave conflicting accounts of how many people were in the room, where they were sitting or standing and how many shots were fired.
Siddiqui, who took the stand during the trial against the advice of her defense team, called the report that she had fired the unattended M4 assault rifle at the Americans “the biggest lie.” She said she had been trying to flee the police station because she feared being tortured. Siddiqui, whose mental stability often appeared to be in question during the trial, was ejected several times from the Manhattan courtroom for erratic behavior and outbursts.
“It is difficult to get a fair trial in this country if the government wants to accuse you of terrorism,” said Foster. “It is difficult to get a fair trial on any types of charges. The government is allowed to tell the jury you are a terrorist before you have to put on any evidence. The fear factor that has emerged since 9/11 has permeated into the U.S. court system in a profoundly disturbing way. It embraces the idea that we can compromise core principles, for example the presumption of innocence, based on perceived threats that may or may not come to light. We, as a society, have chosen to cave on fear.”
I spent more than a year covering al-Qaida for The New York Times in Europe and the Middle East. The threat posed by Islamic extremists, while real, is also wildly overblown, used to foster a climate of fear and political passivity, as well as pump billions of dollars into the hands of the military, private contractors, intelligence agencies and repressive client governments including that of Pakistan. The leader of one FBI counterterrorism squad told The New York Times that of the 5,500 terrorism-related leads its 21 agents had pursued over the past five years, just 5 percent were credible and not one had foiled an actual terrorist plot. These statistics strike me as emblematic of the entire war on terror.
Terrorism, however, is a very good business. The number of extremists who are planning to carry out terrorist attacks is minuscule, but there are vast departments and legions of ambitious intelligence and military officers who desperately need to strike a tangible blow against terrorism, real or imagined, to promote their careers as well as justify obscene expenditures and a flagrant abuse of power. All this will not make us safer. It will not protect us from terrorist strikes. The more we dispatch brutal forms of power to the Islamic world the more enraged Muslims and terrorists we propel into the ranks of those who oppose us. The same perverted logic saw the Argentine military, when I lived in Buenos Aires, “disappear” 30,000 of the nation’s citizens, the vast majority of whom were innocent. Such logic also fed the drive to root out terrorists in El Salvador, where, when I arrived in 1983, the death squads were killing between 800 and 1,000 people a month. Once you build secret archipelagos of prisons, once you commit huge sums of money and invest your political capital in a ruthless war against subversion, once you empower a network of clandestine killers, operatives and torturers, you fuel the very insecurity and violence you seek to contain.
I do not know whether Siddiqui is innocent or guilty. But I do know that permitting jailers, spies, kidnappers and assassins to operate outside of the rule of law contaminates us with our own bile. Siddiqui is one victim. There are thousands more we do not see. These abuses, justified by the war on terror, have created a system of internal and external state terrorism that is far more dangerous to our security and democracy than the threat posed by Islamic radicals.
The Terror-Industrial Complex
Posted on Feb 8, 2010
By Chris Hedges
Editor’s note: As a result of errors, an earlier version of this column misrepresented quoted material. The corrected version is below.
The bizarre story surrounding Siddiqui, 37, who received an undergraduate degree from MIT and a doctorate in neuroscience from Brandeis University, often defies belief. Siddiqui, who could spend 50 years in prison on seven charges when she is sentenced in May, was by her own account abducted in 2003 from her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan, with her three children—two of whom remain missing—and spirited to a secret U.S. prison where she was allegedly tortured and mistreated for five years. The American government has no comment, either about the alleged clandestine detention or the missing children.
Siddiqui was discovered in 2008 disoriented and apparently aggressive and hostile, in Ghazni, Afghanistan, with her oldest son. She allegedly was carrying plans to make explosives, lists of New York landmarks and notes referring to “mass-casualty attacks.” But despite these claims the government prosecutors chose not to charge her with terrorism or links to al-Qaida—the reason for her original appearance on the FBI’s most-wanted list six years ago. Her supporters suggest that the papers she allegedly had in her possession when she was found in Afghanistan, rather than detail coherent plans for terrorist attacks, expose her severe mental deterioration, perhaps the result of years of imprisonment and abuse. This argument was bolstered by some of the pages of the documents shown briefly to the court, including a crude sketch of a gun that was described as a “match gun” that operates by lighting a match.
“Justice was not served,” Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network and the spokesperson for Aafia Siddiqui’s family, told me. “The U.S. government made a decision to label this woman a terrorist, but instead of putting her on trial for the alleged terrorist activity she was put on trial for something else. They tried to convict her of that something else, not with evidence, but because she was a terrorist. She was selectively prosecuted for something that would allow them to only tell their side of the story.”
The government built its entire case instead around disputed events in the 300-square-foot room of the Ghazni police station. It insisted that on July 18, 2008, the diminutive Siddiqui, who had been arrested by local Afghan police the day before, seized an M4 assault rifle that was left unattended and fired at American military and FBI agents. None of the Americans were injured. Siddiqui, however, was gravely wounded, shot twice in the stomach.
No one, other than Siddiqui, has attempted to explain where she was for five years after she vanished in 2003. No one seems to be able to explain why a disoriented Pakistani woman and her son, an American citizen, neither of whom spoke Dari, were discovered by local residents wandering in a public square in Ghazni, where an eyewitness told Harpers Magazine the distraught Siddiqui “was attacking everyone who got close to her.” Had Siddiqui, after years of imprisonment and torture, perhaps been at the U.S. detention center in Bagram and then dumped with one of her three children in Ghazi? And where are the other two children, one of whom also is an American citizen? In an article written by Petra Bartosiewicz in the November 2009 Harper’s Magazine, authorities in Afghanistan described a series of events at odds with the official version.
The events of the following day are also subject to dispute. According to the complaint, a U.S. Army captain and a warrant officer, two FBI agents, and two military interpreters came to question Siddiqui at Ghazni’s police headquarters. The team was shown to a meeting room that was partitioned by a yellow curtain. “None of the United States personnel were aware,” the complaint states, “that Siddiqui was being held, unsecured, behind the curtain.” No explanation is offered as to why no one thought to look behind it. The group sat down to talk and, in another odd lapse of vigilance, “the Warrant Officer placed his United States Army M-4 rifle on the floor to his right next to the curtain, near his right foot.” Siddiqui, like a villain in a stage play, reached from behind the curtain and pulled the three-foot rifle to her side. She unlatched the safety. She pulled the curtain “slightly back” and pointed the gun directly at the head of the captain. One of the interpreters saw her. He lunged for the gun. Siddiqui shouted, “Get the fuck out of here!” and fired twice. She hit no one. As the interpreter wrestled her to the ground, the warrant officer drew his sidearm and fired “approximately two rounds” into Siddiqui’s abdomen. She collapsed, still struggling, then fell unconscious.
The authorities in Afghanistan describe a different series of events. The governor of Ghazni Province, Usman Usmani, told my local reporter that the U.S. team had “demanded to take over custody” of Siddiqui. The governor refused. He could not release Siddiqui, he explained, until officials from the counterterrorism department in Kabul arrived to investigate. He proposed a compromise: the U.S. team could interview Siddiqui, but she would remain at the station. In a Reuters interview, however, a “senior Ghazni police officer” suggested that the compromise did not hold. The U.S. team arrived at the police station, he said, and demanded custody of Siddiqui, the Afghan officers refused, and the U.S. team proceeded to disarm them. Then, for reasons unexplained, Siddiqui herself somehow entered the scene. The U.S. team, “thinking that she had explosives and would attack them as a suicide bomber, shot her and took her.”
Siddiqui’s own version of the shooting is less complicated. As she explained it to a delegation of Pakistani senators who came to Texas to visit her in prison a few months after her arrest, she never touched anyone’s gun, nor did she shout at anyone or make any threats. She simply stood up to see who was on the other side of the curtain and startled the soldiers. One of them shouted, “She is loose,” and then someone shot her. When she regained consciousness she heard someone else say, “We could lose our jobs.”
Siddiqui’s defense team pointed out that there was an absence of bullets, casings or residue from the M4, all of which suggested it had not been fired. They played a video to show that two holes in a wall supposedly caused by the M4 had been there before July 18. They also highlighted inconsistencies in the testimony from the nine government witnesses, who at times gave conflicting accounts of how many people were in the room, where they were sitting or standing and how many shots were fired.
Siddiqui, who took the stand during the trial against the advice of her defense team, called the report that she had fired the unattended M4 assault rifle at the Americans “the biggest lie.” She said she had been trying to flee the police station because she feared being tortured. Siddiqui, whose mental stability often appeared to be in question during the trial, was ejected several times from the Manhattan courtroom for erratic behavior and outbursts.
“It is difficult to get a fair trial in this country if the government wants to accuse you of terrorism,” said Foster. “It is difficult to get a fair trial on any types of charges. The government is allowed to tell the jury you are a terrorist before you have to put on any evidence. The fear factor that has emerged since 9/11 has permeated into the U.S. court system in a profoundly disturbing way. It embraces the idea that we can compromise core principles, for example the presumption of innocence, based on perceived threats that may or may not come to light. We, as a society, have chosen to cave on fear.”
I spent more than a year covering al-Qaida for The New York Times in Europe and the Middle East. The threat posed by Islamic extremists, while real, is also wildly overblown, used to foster a climate of fear and political passivity, as well as pump billions of dollars into the hands of the military, private contractors, intelligence agencies and repressive client governments including that of Pakistan. The leader of one FBI counterterrorism squad told The New York Times that of the 5,500 terrorism-related leads its 21 agents had pursued over the past five years, just 5 percent were credible and not one had foiled an actual terrorist plot. These statistics strike me as emblematic of the entire war on terror.
Terrorism, however, is a very good business. The number of extremists who are planning to carry out terrorist attacks is minuscule, but there are vast departments and legions of ambitious intelligence and military officers who desperately need to strike a tangible blow against terrorism, real or imagined, to promote their careers as well as justify obscene expenditures and a flagrant abuse of power. All this will not make us safer. It will not protect us from terrorist strikes. The more we dispatch brutal forms of power to the Islamic world the more enraged Muslims and terrorists we propel into the ranks of those who oppose us. The same perverted logic saw the Argentine military, when I lived in Buenos Aires, “disappear” 30,000 of the nation’s citizens, the vast majority of whom were innocent. Such logic also fed the drive to root out terrorists in El Salvador, where, when I arrived in 1983, the death squads were killing between 800 and 1,000 people a month. Once you build secret archipelagos of prisons, once you commit huge sums of money and invest your political capital in a ruthless war against subversion, once you empower a network of clandestine killers, operatives and torturers, you fuel the very insecurity and violence you seek to contain.
I do not know whether Siddiqui is innocent or guilty. But I do know that permitting jailers, spies, kidnappers and assassins to operate outside of the rule of law contaminates us with our own bile. Siddiqui is one victim. There are thousands more we do not see. These abuses, justified by the war on terror, have created a system of internal and external state terrorism that is far more dangerous to our security and democracy than the threat posed by Islamic radicals.
Video shows plane with US missionaries shot down in CIA operation in Peru
CIA agents are facing disciplinary action after a video emerged showing how a small plane carrying American Christian missionaries was shot down in a CIA operation in Peru
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
Published: 7:12PM GMT 04 Feb 2010
Veronica Bowers, 35, and her seven-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed when their Cessna was mistaken for a drug plane in 2001. Her husband, Jim Bowers and the couple's son, Cory, escaped serious injury.
Pilot Kevin Donaldson, who had serious leg wounds, crash-landed the plane on the Amazon River. A cockpit video tape obtained by ABC News shows how a CIA spotter plane sneaked up behind the Cessna and wrongly identified it as a drug plane. CIA operatives then called in the Peruvian Air Force. A Peruvian pilot issued a warning to the Cessna but it was in Spanish and on the wrong frequency.
The Peruvian pilot is heard on the tape saying he is sure the plane is a "bandito" but the CIA pilots then suggest they are not sure, wth one saying: "I think we're making a mistake." Another says: "I agree with you."
After the Peruvian pilot opens fire, Mr Donaldson can be heard yelling in Spanish: "They're killing me. They're killing us."
One of the CIA operatives can then be heard shouting: "Tell him to terminate. No. Don't Shoot. No more, no mas."
By that time, the plane was falling and crash landed in a river. Mrs Bowers and her daughter died after being hit with bullets.
Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who has campaigned on behalf of the Bowers family, told ABC News: "If there's ever an example of justice delayed, justice denied, this is it.
"The intelligence community's performance in terms of accountability has been unacceptable. These were Americans that were killed with the help of their Government, the community covered it up, they delayed investigating."
The CIA said that after a nine year investigation, it had concluded that 16 of its employees should be disciplined.
CIA agents are facing disciplinary action after a video emerged showing how a small plane carrying American Christian missionaries was shot down in a CIA operation in Peru
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
Published: 7:12PM GMT 04 Feb 2010
Veronica Bowers, 35, and her seven-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed when their Cessna was mistaken for a drug plane in 2001. Her husband, Jim Bowers and the couple's son, Cory, escaped serious injury.
Pilot Kevin Donaldson, who had serious leg wounds, crash-landed the plane on the Amazon River. A cockpit video tape obtained by ABC News shows how a CIA spotter plane sneaked up behind the Cessna and wrongly identified it as a drug plane. CIA operatives then called in the Peruvian Air Force. A Peruvian pilot issued a warning to the Cessna but it was in Spanish and on the wrong frequency.
The Peruvian pilot is heard on the tape saying he is sure the plane is a "bandito" but the CIA pilots then suggest they are not sure, wth one saying: "I think we're making a mistake." Another says: "I agree with you."
After the Peruvian pilot opens fire, Mr Donaldson can be heard yelling in Spanish: "They're killing me. They're killing us."
One of the CIA operatives can then be heard shouting: "Tell him to terminate. No. Don't Shoot. No more, no mas."
By that time, the plane was falling and crash landed in a river. Mrs Bowers and her daughter died after being hit with bullets.
Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who has campaigned on behalf of the Bowers family, told ABC News: "If there's ever an example of justice delayed, justice denied, this is it.
"The intelligence community's performance in terms of accountability has been unacceptable. These were Americans that were killed with the help of their Government, the community covered it up, they delayed investigating."
The CIA said that after a nine year investigation, it had concluded that 16 of its employees should be disciplined.
Will Olympics Be Magnet for Human Traffickers?
Awareness campaign slated for fall, but no convictions yet.
By: By Doerthe Keilholz, 4 September 2008, TheTyee.ca
"Walk in a punter. Walk out a rapist," potential sex buyers are cautioned these days by posters in pubs and nightclubs in England. It's part of the "Blue Blindfold" campaign launched by the U.K. government in preparation for the country's 2012 Olympics. The drive is levelled against human trafficking, which often includes forcing women into prostitution.
In Athens during the 2004 Olympic Games, human trafficking cases nearly doubled, according to the Greek Ministry of Public Safety.
Government officials and human rights activists in Canada are worried that Vancouver's 2010 Olympics could become a similar magnet for traffickers and their victims.
But Canada has yet to successfully prosecute a single person for human trafficking, although the country has been singled out as a major link in the grim global industry in a U.S. State Department report. Human trafficking, says the report, is the world's third most lucrative international crime business after drugs and arms smuggling, and Vancouver is a hub.
The coming Olympics will only fuel the trade, predict authorities.
Not only in Athens but at the soccer World Cup in Germany, "there was definitely a demonstrated increase in the exploitation of women in relation to those events," says Robin Pike, head of B.C.'s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons (OCTIP), an arm of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.
Taking the UK's efforts as a role model, OCTIP started to work with the Salvation Army, which will launch their "The truth isn't sexy" anti-trafficking campaign this October in Vancouver
Canada lags in convictions
In 2004, the RCMP estimated that about 600 people are trafficked to Canada for sexual exploitation each year and another 1,500 to 2,200 are brought through the country on their way to the United States.
Police and border officials need to be sensitized towards trafficking victims, says Norm Massie, former RCMP human trafficking coordinator. "We get the victim out of the situation and reassure them so that over time and with the right people in place... we can gain their support in order to gather the evidence necessary to advance criminal charges."
While several criminal charges have been laid over the last years against alleged traffickers, not a single person has been convicted of human trafficking so far.
Others countries are more successful in prosecuting offenders: Sweden had 15 convictions for human trafficking in 2005 and 21 in 2006. In the United States, 75 defendants have been convicted of human trafficking since 2001.
'Under the radar... very challenging'
The testimony of a trafficked victim is often the only clue to find the offender, and victims are hard to track down, says Pike. "Human trafficking is very clandestine and under the radar and it is the detection and identification of trafficked victims that has proved to be very challenging in about every country in the world."
"It's a very new offence... It's only been on the books for a few years," says University of B.C. law professor Benjamin Perrin. "Some prosecutors and police are reluctant to [allege] this offence because they are not sure how the court will interprete it."
Nakpamgi: A first conviction?
In May of 2002, Canada ratified the United Nations Palermo Protocol, which commits all undersigned countries to protecting trafficked victims and punishing those who carry out the trafficking. Three years later, Canada's Criminal Code was amended to include laws against human trafficking.
The new laws are getting a first test in Toronto, where Imani Nakpamgi pled guilty to forcing two 14- and 15-year-old Canadian girls, who were reported missing, into prostitution after advertising them on Craigslist in sexual poses.
For Perrin, the Nakpamgi case is also significant for eventually calling attention to domestic women and children being trafficked as well. "For many years most people in Canada simply thought of human trafficking as involving foreign nationals," says Perrin. "Canadians realize more and more that Canadian women and girls are being used as commodities in the sex trade and Canada needs to do more to punish those who are causing this suffering."
No long-term solutions for victims
Convictions are further hampered in Canada because there is too little incentive for victims to work with government officals, says Daisy Kler from Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter. "[Trafficked women] are here completely illegal... and because they are illegal, they are afraid to use the system. Rightly so, because most of the women are sent back once they are identified as being trafficked."
Most victims of trafficking are eligible to apply for a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP).
From May 2006 up to today, 43 victims of trafficking have been referred to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, of which 17 have been granted a TRP. "That doesn't mean the others have been deported," says CIC spokesperson Karen Shedd. "They might have applied for other kinds of permits, and not all victims want to stay."
While TRPs have been recently extended to six months, Kler fears that victims still have few chances to build up a new life in Canada. "We know of six trafficked people who asked for TRPs and they got that but none have been granted citizenship," says Kler. "So part of the solution is to offer women who are trafficked a genuine route to citizenship whether or not they testify against their trafficker."
The CIC holds no records on how many trafficked persons applied for permanent residence or citizenship.
Trafficked women, especially when they come from poor and unstable countries, need to be protected from being sent back, says Kler. Too often, once returned to their homeland, the women find themselves vulnerable to further exploitation.
'The truth isn't sexy'
Backers of Vancouver's upcoming "The Truth Isn't Sexy" campaign against human trafficking point to a similar effort carried out during the 2006 World Cup soccer competition held in Germany. The nation-wide effort used posters, shirts, whistles and beer coasters to get its message out.
The German government says its studies found there was less human trafficking than anticipated during the contest.
Pike hopes that a public campaign will make Canadians more aware of trafficked victims in their vicinity and contact public services if they believe they've spotted a victim.
Awareness campaign slated for fall, but no convictions yet.
By: By Doerthe Keilholz, 4 September 2008, TheTyee.ca
"Walk in a punter. Walk out a rapist," potential sex buyers are cautioned these days by posters in pubs and nightclubs in England. It's part of the "Blue Blindfold" campaign launched by the U.K. government in preparation for the country's 2012 Olympics. The drive is levelled against human trafficking, which often includes forcing women into prostitution.
In Athens during the 2004 Olympic Games, human trafficking cases nearly doubled, according to the Greek Ministry of Public Safety.
Government officials and human rights activists in Canada are worried that Vancouver's 2010 Olympics could become a similar magnet for traffickers and their victims.
But Canada has yet to successfully prosecute a single person for human trafficking, although the country has been singled out as a major link in the grim global industry in a U.S. State Department report. Human trafficking, says the report, is the world's third most lucrative international crime business after drugs and arms smuggling, and Vancouver is a hub.
The coming Olympics will only fuel the trade, predict authorities.
Not only in Athens but at the soccer World Cup in Germany, "there was definitely a demonstrated increase in the exploitation of women in relation to those events," says Robin Pike, head of B.C.'s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons (OCTIP), an arm of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.
Taking the UK's efforts as a role model, OCTIP started to work with the Salvation Army, which will launch their "The truth isn't sexy" anti-trafficking campaign this October in Vancouver
Canada lags in convictions
In 2004, the RCMP estimated that about 600 people are trafficked to Canada for sexual exploitation each year and another 1,500 to 2,200 are brought through the country on their way to the United States.
Police and border officials need to be sensitized towards trafficking victims, says Norm Massie, former RCMP human trafficking coordinator. "We get the victim out of the situation and reassure them so that over time and with the right people in place... we can gain their support in order to gather the evidence necessary to advance criminal charges."
While several criminal charges have been laid over the last years against alleged traffickers, not a single person has been convicted of human trafficking so far.
Others countries are more successful in prosecuting offenders: Sweden had 15 convictions for human trafficking in 2005 and 21 in 2006. In the United States, 75 defendants have been convicted of human trafficking since 2001.
'Under the radar... very challenging'
The testimony of a trafficked victim is often the only clue to find the offender, and victims are hard to track down, says Pike. "Human trafficking is very clandestine and under the radar and it is the detection and identification of trafficked victims that has proved to be very challenging in about every country in the world."
"It's a very new offence... It's only been on the books for a few years," says University of B.C. law professor Benjamin Perrin. "Some prosecutors and police are reluctant to [allege] this offence because they are not sure how the court will interprete it."
Nakpamgi: A first conviction?
In May of 2002, Canada ratified the United Nations Palermo Protocol, which commits all undersigned countries to protecting trafficked victims and punishing those who carry out the trafficking. Three years later, Canada's Criminal Code was amended to include laws against human trafficking.
The new laws are getting a first test in Toronto, where Imani Nakpamgi pled guilty to forcing two 14- and 15-year-old Canadian girls, who were reported missing, into prostitution after advertising them on Craigslist in sexual poses.
For Perrin, the Nakpamgi case is also significant for eventually calling attention to domestic women and children being trafficked as well. "For many years most people in Canada simply thought of human trafficking as involving foreign nationals," says Perrin. "Canadians realize more and more that Canadian women and girls are being used as commodities in the sex trade and Canada needs to do more to punish those who are causing this suffering."
No long-term solutions for victims
Convictions are further hampered in Canada because there is too little incentive for victims to work with government officals, says Daisy Kler from Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter. "[Trafficked women] are here completely illegal... and because they are illegal, they are afraid to use the system. Rightly so, because most of the women are sent back once they are identified as being trafficked."
Most victims of trafficking are eligible to apply for a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP).
From May 2006 up to today, 43 victims of trafficking have been referred to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, of which 17 have been granted a TRP. "That doesn't mean the others have been deported," says CIC spokesperson Karen Shedd. "They might have applied for other kinds of permits, and not all victims want to stay."
While TRPs have been recently extended to six months, Kler fears that victims still have few chances to build up a new life in Canada. "We know of six trafficked people who asked for TRPs and they got that but none have been granted citizenship," says Kler. "So part of the solution is to offer women who are trafficked a genuine route to citizenship whether or not they testify against their trafficker."
The CIC holds no records on how many trafficked persons applied for permanent residence or citizenship.
Trafficked women, especially when they come from poor and unstable countries, need to be protected from being sent back, says Kler. Too often, once returned to their homeland, the women find themselves vulnerable to further exploitation.
'The truth isn't sexy'
Backers of Vancouver's upcoming "The Truth Isn't Sexy" campaign against human trafficking point to a similar effort carried out during the 2006 World Cup soccer competition held in Germany. The nation-wide effort used posters, shirts, whistles and beer coasters to get its message out.
The German government says its studies found there was less human trafficking than anticipated during the contest.
Pike hopes that a public campaign will make Canadians more aware of trafficked victims in their vicinity and contact public services if they believe they've spotted a victim.
Friday, February 12, 2010
He works for others, yet ever has abundance for himself; he gives to others, yet himself ever possesses superabundance.....Man in whom the Tao is incarnate—ever active, but keeping nothing for himself.
--Tao Te Ching, Chapter 81, translation=C. Spurgeon Medhurst--
"A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he gave away, the more he had."
--John Bunyan--
--Tao Te Ching, Chapter 81, translation=C. Spurgeon Medhurst--
"A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he gave away, the more he had."
--John Bunyan--
Bolivian women spearhead Morales revolution
2010/02/11 10:15:41 GMT
By Andres Schipani
--bbc.co.uk--
In the early 19th Century, Bolivian women fought alongside men for the country's independence from colonial Spain. They stormed into battle on horseback, seized cities and were on the frontline. But their presence on the battlefield did not translate into presence in the political life of their nation. For many, their education, job opportunities and political rights were limited - until now. "For a long time, we women have been excluded - it was one of the dark legacies of the colonial model," the recently appointed Justice Minister, Nilda Copa, told the BBC at her office.
"I remember my mother didn't know how to read and write, neither did my grandmother... not because they didn't want to learn," Ms Copa says. Ms Copa joined a trade union very young, when she was only 16, because she felt a drastic change was needed and that was the only platform where women "had some voice".
And that change seems to have arrived. Today, posters proclaiming the slogans of female Bolivian heroes such as indigenous rebel Bartolina Sisa and independence icon Juana Azurduy plaster the walls of several ministries.
That shows the fervour felt in the Bolivia of President Evo Morales, who seems to be changing things not only for the country's indigenous majority, but also for its women. Today women are involved in running the country as never before. Mr Morales began his second mandate last month with a cabinet reshuffle that complies with the gender parity stated in the new constitution he pushed for. Now the new cabinet has 10 men and 10 women, three of them indigenous.
"There used to be a lot of racism and machismo. There is still some, but now that structure is changing thanks to brother Evo Morales," Ms Copa says.
"Today, for example, there are no illiterate women, but women with enough capacity to develop activities at the same level as men. But the fight has been harsh and long."
Her voice trails off and she focuses on a picture of her and Mr Morales from the times when she was a member of the assembly that wrote Bolivia's new constitution.
Homage
For Mr Morales, achieving gender parity in the cabinet was a long-held aim. "One of my dreams has come true - half the cabinet seats are held by women," Mr Morales said recently. "This is a homage to my mother, my sister and my daughter."
Mr Morales said that since his early days as a leader of the coca trade union, he had always worked towards getting women into decision-making posts based on the chacha warmi, a concept that in the local Aymara indigenous culture means that men and women are complementary in an egalitarian way.
But another sign that women's political influence is on the rise is the fact that they now occupy an unprecedented 30% of seats in Bolivia's new legislative branch. One of them is Gabriela Montano, a senator who represents the eastern city of Santa Cruz - Bolivia's opposition heartland - on behalf of Mr Morales's party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).
"This is the fruit of the women's fight: the tangible proofs of this new state, of this new Bolivia are the increasing participation of the indigenous peoples and the increasing participation of women in the decision-making process of this country," Ms Montano told the BBC.
Ms Montano was the subject of several physical attacks during her stint as the government's envoy to Santa Cruz, and last year she was kept at a secret location as a safety precaution after she was threatened by opposition groups.
"The awakening of women has been brewing for a while. Women have been a key element in the consolidation of this process of change led by President Morales, from the rallies, the protests, the fights. Now, they will be a key element in affairs of national interest," Ms Montano says.
However, while change for women is under way, for some there is still a long way to go until full equality is achieved.
"Not long ago, 10 years ago, nobody talked about women in power in this country, that was unimaginable," explains Katia Uriona, of the women's advocacy group Coordinadora de la Mujer.
"And even if I applaud all of these victories, I am aware this is not enough. Now we have to see if all of this is translated into something concrete that will truly change the gender face of this country."
2010/02/11 10:15:41 GMT
By Andres Schipani
--bbc.co.uk--
In the early 19th Century, Bolivian women fought alongside men for the country's independence from colonial Spain. They stormed into battle on horseback, seized cities and were on the frontline. But their presence on the battlefield did not translate into presence in the political life of their nation. For many, their education, job opportunities and political rights were limited - until now. "For a long time, we women have been excluded - it was one of the dark legacies of the colonial model," the recently appointed Justice Minister, Nilda Copa, told the BBC at her office.
"I remember my mother didn't know how to read and write, neither did my grandmother... not because they didn't want to learn," Ms Copa says. Ms Copa joined a trade union very young, when she was only 16, because she felt a drastic change was needed and that was the only platform where women "had some voice".
And that change seems to have arrived. Today, posters proclaiming the slogans of female Bolivian heroes such as indigenous rebel Bartolina Sisa and independence icon Juana Azurduy plaster the walls of several ministries.
That shows the fervour felt in the Bolivia of President Evo Morales, who seems to be changing things not only for the country's indigenous majority, but also for its women. Today women are involved in running the country as never before. Mr Morales began his second mandate last month with a cabinet reshuffle that complies with the gender parity stated in the new constitution he pushed for. Now the new cabinet has 10 men and 10 women, three of them indigenous.
"There used to be a lot of racism and machismo. There is still some, but now that structure is changing thanks to brother Evo Morales," Ms Copa says.
"Today, for example, there are no illiterate women, but women with enough capacity to develop activities at the same level as men. But the fight has been harsh and long."
Her voice trails off and she focuses on a picture of her and Mr Morales from the times when she was a member of the assembly that wrote Bolivia's new constitution.
Homage
For Mr Morales, achieving gender parity in the cabinet was a long-held aim. "One of my dreams has come true - half the cabinet seats are held by women," Mr Morales said recently. "This is a homage to my mother, my sister and my daughter."
Mr Morales said that since his early days as a leader of the coca trade union, he had always worked towards getting women into decision-making posts based on the chacha warmi, a concept that in the local Aymara indigenous culture means that men and women are complementary in an egalitarian way.
But another sign that women's political influence is on the rise is the fact that they now occupy an unprecedented 30% of seats in Bolivia's new legislative branch. One of them is Gabriela Montano, a senator who represents the eastern city of Santa Cruz - Bolivia's opposition heartland - on behalf of Mr Morales's party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).
"This is the fruit of the women's fight: the tangible proofs of this new state, of this new Bolivia are the increasing participation of the indigenous peoples and the increasing participation of women in the decision-making process of this country," Ms Montano told the BBC.
Ms Montano was the subject of several physical attacks during her stint as the government's envoy to Santa Cruz, and last year she was kept at a secret location as a safety precaution after she was threatened by opposition groups.
"The awakening of women has been brewing for a while. Women have been a key element in the consolidation of this process of change led by President Morales, from the rallies, the protests, the fights. Now, they will be a key element in affairs of national interest," Ms Montano says.
However, while change for women is under way, for some there is still a long way to go until full equality is achieved.
"Not long ago, 10 years ago, nobody talked about women in power in this country, that was unimaginable," explains Katia Uriona, of the women's advocacy group Coordinadora de la Mujer.
"And even if I applaud all of these victories, I am aware this is not enough. Now we have to see if all of this is translated into something concrete that will truly change the gender face of this country."
China decries US-Dalai Lama plans
--bbc.co.uk--
2010/02/12 06:53:46 GMT
China has again urged the United States to cancel a planned meeting between President Barack Obama and the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The two men will meet at the White House on 18 February, US spokesman Robert Gibbs has confirmed. He said the Sino-US relationship was mature enough to disagree while finding common ground on international issues.
China had already said that such a meeting would seriously undermine relations with the United States. Mr Gibbs said the Dalai Lama was "an internationally respected religious leader". "He's a spokesman for Tibetan rights. The president looks forward to an engaging and constructive meeting," he said.
"We think we have a mature enough relationship with the Chinese that we can agree on mutual interests, but also have a mature enough relationship that we know the two countries are not always going to agree on everything."
China reacted quickly to the announcement through its Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.
"We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him," Mr Ma said. "We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues, and honour its commitment to recognise Tibet as part of China and to oppose 'Tibet independence'," he added.
"China urges the US... to immediately call off the wrong decision of arranging for President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama... to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations."
China, which took over Tibet in 1950, considers the Dalai Lama a separatist and tries to isolate the spiritual leader by asking foreign leaders not to see him.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and has since been living in India.
Tense ties
The US has already moved carefully on the issue. Mr Obama avoided meeting the Dalai Lama in Washington last year ahead of his own first state visit to Beijing.
US-CHINA TENSIONS
•Google - China denies being behind an alleged cyber attack on the US search engine
•Taiwan - a US sale of $6.4bn (£4bn) of defensive arms to Taiwan has angered Beijing
•Tibet - China says a US meeting with the Dalai Lama would "undermine relations"
•Trade - rows over imports and exports of meat, media, car tyres and raw materials
•Iran - the US fears China will not back tougher sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme
•Climate - the US is disappointed at China's tough position at the Copenhagen Summit
But on that trip he told his Chinese hosts his meeting with the revered Tibetan Buddhist leader would go ahead.
The meeting this month will take place in the White House Map Room, not the symbolic surroundings of the Oval Office, where Mr Obama normally meets foreign leaders and VIP guests.
President George W Bush also met the Dalai Lama at the White House.
The planned meeting comes soon after China expressed strong displeasure at the sale of $6.4bn (£4bn) worth of US weapons to Taiwan.
Beijing regards Taiwan as a Chinese territory to be reunified by force if necessary.
Another source of tension is internet censorship, following the announcement by the search giant Google that it might pull out of China following what it said had been a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack from inside the country.
However, the US wants Chinese support in the United Nations regarding sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programmes. Mr Obama has also given signs of getting tougher on the long-standing dispute over China's currency, which some traders feel is kept artificially weak. The US aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, is scheduled to visit the former British territory of Hong Kong next week. China has refused permission to similar visits in the past but appears to be allowing this one to go ahead so far. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the visit was an important part of the US "outreach and engagement with the Chinese people" as well as a a key element of the military-to-military relationship.
--bbc.co.uk--
2010/02/12 06:53:46 GMT
China has again urged the United States to cancel a planned meeting between President Barack Obama and the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The two men will meet at the White House on 18 February, US spokesman Robert Gibbs has confirmed. He said the Sino-US relationship was mature enough to disagree while finding common ground on international issues.
China had already said that such a meeting would seriously undermine relations with the United States. Mr Gibbs said the Dalai Lama was "an internationally respected religious leader". "He's a spokesman for Tibetan rights. The president looks forward to an engaging and constructive meeting," he said.
"We think we have a mature enough relationship with the Chinese that we can agree on mutual interests, but also have a mature enough relationship that we know the two countries are not always going to agree on everything."
China reacted quickly to the announcement through its Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.
"We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him," Mr Ma said. "We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues, and honour its commitment to recognise Tibet as part of China and to oppose 'Tibet independence'," he added.
"China urges the US... to immediately call off the wrong decision of arranging for President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama... to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations."
China, which took over Tibet in 1950, considers the Dalai Lama a separatist and tries to isolate the spiritual leader by asking foreign leaders not to see him.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and has since been living in India.
Tense ties
The US has already moved carefully on the issue. Mr Obama avoided meeting the Dalai Lama in Washington last year ahead of his own first state visit to Beijing.
US-CHINA TENSIONS
•Google - China denies being behind an alleged cyber attack on the US search engine
•Taiwan - a US sale of $6.4bn (£4bn) of defensive arms to Taiwan has angered Beijing
•Tibet - China says a US meeting with the Dalai Lama would "undermine relations"
•Trade - rows over imports and exports of meat, media, car tyres and raw materials
•Iran - the US fears China will not back tougher sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme
•Climate - the US is disappointed at China's tough position at the Copenhagen Summit
But on that trip he told his Chinese hosts his meeting with the revered Tibetan Buddhist leader would go ahead.
The meeting this month will take place in the White House Map Room, not the symbolic surroundings of the Oval Office, where Mr Obama normally meets foreign leaders and VIP guests.
President George W Bush also met the Dalai Lama at the White House.
The planned meeting comes soon after China expressed strong displeasure at the sale of $6.4bn (£4bn) worth of US weapons to Taiwan.
Beijing regards Taiwan as a Chinese territory to be reunified by force if necessary.
Another source of tension is internet censorship, following the announcement by the search giant Google that it might pull out of China following what it said had been a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack from inside the country.
However, the US wants Chinese support in the United Nations regarding sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programmes. Mr Obama has also given signs of getting tougher on the long-standing dispute over China's currency, which some traders feel is kept artificially weak. The US aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, is scheduled to visit the former British territory of Hong Kong next week. China has refused permission to similar visits in the past but appears to be allowing this one to go ahead so far. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the visit was an important part of the US "outreach and engagement with the Chinese people" as well as a a key element of the military-to-military relationship.
PSALM 154 - Petition For Mercy
additional Psalms found in the Syriac Peshitta and in the Dead Sea scrolls
I cry to you and spread my hands
Towards your holy dwelling.
O judge me not as my sin requires,
For none living can stand before you.
Grant, O Lord, that I may understand your Law,
And teach me your commandments,
O Lord, my Savior.
Cleanse me, O Lord, from evil
And let it not return to me,
Let its roots dry up within me
And its leaves find no nourishment within me.
I cried, O Lord, and, answering,
You healed my broken heart,
O Lord, my Savior.
additional Psalms found in the Syriac Peshitta and in the Dead Sea scrolls
I cry to you and spread my hands
Towards your holy dwelling.
O judge me not as my sin requires,
For none living can stand before you.
Grant, O Lord, that I may understand your Law,
And teach me your commandments,
O Lord, my Savior.
Cleanse me, O Lord, from evil
And let it not return to me,
Let its roots dry up within me
And its leaves find no nourishment within me.
I cried, O Lord, and, answering,
You healed my broken heart,
O Lord, my Savior.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
“White Nationalists” Seek to Infiltrate “Tea Party” Groups — Finding Mixed Response
By R.E.A.L. Organization • on February 10, 2010
“White Nationalist” groups, who seek to create a white-only America, are sharing information with each other online about their efforts to try to infiltrate and influence “Tea Party” organizations. This includes “White Nationalist” groups that are promoting the upcoming “American Renaissance” conference still scheduled at a new, undisclosed location for February 20-21 in the Washington DC area by the “New Century Foundation / American Renaissance” group.
We are aware that some in the Tea Party Movement are recognizing efforts by such white nationalists to infiltrate their political movement, and are addressing and rejecting them. We urge all political movements to prioritize rejecting hate.
The “White Nationalist” group Occidental Dissent members claim that they are seeking to infiltrate Tea Party organizations and their supporters, and in some cases they have reported being rejected from some Tea Party groups for their racist views. The Occidental Dissent views as its mission that “We support the creation of a Jew-free, racially exclusive White ethnostate in North America.”
— “We’re all in this together and we’re in this for far more than a balanced budget. We’re in this for even more than the fate of our republic. We’re in this for the fate of ourselves: White Americans. Look around you, stand up for a second and turn in a circle. The media jackals have been giggling about it for months and the ‘experts’ are all upset about it, but none of us will dare to admit the glaringly obvious: that we’re all glaringly White. We’re a people, and not just any people. We’re the people who created this country and the only people to whom it will ever rightfully belong. We are the progeny to whom this republic was entrusted by the founding fathers.”
— “Now, everybody wants to hijack this tea party movement, and we White Advocates are no exception. The libertarians think they own you. The GOP thinks it owns you. Fox News thinks it owns you. Sarah Palin thinks she speaks for you. But you will all get to decide for yourselves, as individuals, which direction to go when the powerful groups destroying our country force you to either go radical or go home. We in the growing White Advocacy movement are there to fight for you and your family against our enemies, not for principles against abstractions and code words.”
The Occidental Dissent speech, also attacking Jews and white “Uncle Toms,” was praised by members of the Neo-Nazi Stormfront organization.
"White Nationalist" Occidental Dissent Seeks to Reach Tea Party Supporters -- Excerpt
Another “White Nationalist” makes the anecdotal claim that calls for “sterilization” of those on welfare has been well received by those they know who are Tea Party supporters. Such calls for “sterilization” tactics of others has been an inherent solution” by other “white nationalists” such as Jared Taylor, who is leading the planned February 20-21 “American Renaissance” conference scheduled for the Washington DC area.
Coincidentally, Marvel Comics is also publishing an issue of its Captain America with a plot to uncover information about a fictional group called “Watchdog” that had infiltrated the Tea Party Movement. One poster stated that the plot represented “Captain Zion pretending to be Captain America.” The Neo-Nazi white supremacist Stormfront group members have had their own complaints about the story, stating that the fictional character Captain America “has always been a propaganda tool for zionists.”
The troubling issue is that I have seen myself examples of racism and anti-Semitism growing in activist groups. Due to R.E.A.L.’s protests against Communist totalitarianism, someone thought to invite us to an “Anti-Communist” group, led by an individual who uses as his personal slogan the lyrics from the “Ali G” nonsensical song “throw the jew down the well.”
Furthermore, at our own separate event on September 12, 2009 intended to promote equality and liberty as strategies to challenge ideologies of hate, we saw too many individuals at the September 12 Tea Party Rally with racially offensive placards marching down Constitution Avenue, as they passed by our event at the Washington Monument.
In April 2009, the Grassroots Politics Examiner first reported on efforts by the Neo-Nazi Stormfront organization to seek to infiltrate “Tea Party” groups. The Examiner reported in April 2009 that Stormfront members were pleased about the “white” nature of Tea Party events, and the Examiner quoted Stormfront members as stating:
– “What’s so encouraging is that the organizers and participants are pre-dominantly whites… I’m going to take the day off and attend the local one, carrying my Gadsden flag. Encourage others to do the same. Hopefully the beginning of a sense of ethno-centrism.”
– “Go where our people are starting to stand up around symptoms of the problem, and INTERVENE to guide them. Just because these started as an anti-tax protest doesn’t mean that they must be limited and can’t be developed upward toward an explicitly racial mass struggle.”
– “We are intervening to resolve the crisis of White racial leadership, point the way to real racial solutions and organize our people into an independent powerful force that fight for our race by any means necessary to resolve our racial problems with real solutions. No one is going to do the job of the White Nationalists for us.”
– “I think the ‘tea party’ is a good way to meet people with potential. Most people at this event will be white people who are fed up with the direction of things and they are ready to hear how we got into this mess. There are two kinds of people in this world, those who know what the Jews have done and those who do not.”
====================================
All effective political movements must reject hate as a priority in reaching the American people. We recognize that, in any mass movement, there will always be those who are extremists or even activists that are not representative of such groups. We recognize the inherent challenges in having a completely consistent message with any volunteer-centric organization or movement.
However, it is important for the Tea Party Movement to be aware that “white nationalists” have specifically targeted its groups for infiltration and influence to promote racist views.
R.E.A.L. believes that a priority of loving our fellow human beings remains an ethical compass for public efforts and mass movements alike. We believe that such a compass can help those who are struggling against the forces of hate.
Choose Love, Not Hate.
By R.E.A.L. Organization • on February 10, 2010
“White Nationalist” groups, who seek to create a white-only America, are sharing information with each other online about their efforts to try to infiltrate and influence “Tea Party” organizations. This includes “White Nationalist” groups that are promoting the upcoming “American Renaissance” conference still scheduled at a new, undisclosed location for February 20-21 in the Washington DC area by the “New Century Foundation / American Renaissance” group.
We are aware that some in the Tea Party Movement are recognizing efforts by such white nationalists to infiltrate their political movement, and are addressing and rejecting them. We urge all political movements to prioritize rejecting hate.
The “White Nationalist” group Occidental Dissent members claim that they are seeking to infiltrate Tea Party organizations and their supporters, and in some cases they have reported being rejected from some Tea Party groups for their racist views. The Occidental Dissent views as its mission that “We support the creation of a Jew-free, racially exclusive White ethnostate in North America.”
— “We’re all in this together and we’re in this for far more than a balanced budget. We’re in this for even more than the fate of our republic. We’re in this for the fate of ourselves: White Americans. Look around you, stand up for a second and turn in a circle. The media jackals have been giggling about it for months and the ‘experts’ are all upset about it, but none of us will dare to admit the glaringly obvious: that we’re all glaringly White. We’re a people, and not just any people. We’re the people who created this country and the only people to whom it will ever rightfully belong. We are the progeny to whom this republic was entrusted by the founding fathers.”
— “Now, everybody wants to hijack this tea party movement, and we White Advocates are no exception. The libertarians think they own you. The GOP thinks it owns you. Fox News thinks it owns you. Sarah Palin thinks she speaks for you. But you will all get to decide for yourselves, as individuals, which direction to go when the powerful groups destroying our country force you to either go radical or go home. We in the growing White Advocacy movement are there to fight for you and your family against our enemies, not for principles against abstractions and code words.”
The Occidental Dissent speech, also attacking Jews and white “Uncle Toms,” was praised by members of the Neo-Nazi Stormfront organization.
"White Nationalist" Occidental Dissent Seeks to Reach Tea Party Supporters -- Excerpt
Another “White Nationalist” makes the anecdotal claim that calls for “sterilization” of those on welfare has been well received by those they know who are Tea Party supporters. Such calls for “sterilization” tactics of others has been an inherent solution” by other “white nationalists” such as Jared Taylor, who is leading the planned February 20-21 “American Renaissance” conference scheduled for the Washington DC area.
Coincidentally, Marvel Comics is also publishing an issue of its Captain America with a plot to uncover information about a fictional group called “Watchdog” that had infiltrated the Tea Party Movement. One poster stated that the plot represented “Captain Zion pretending to be Captain America.” The Neo-Nazi white supremacist Stormfront group members have had their own complaints about the story, stating that the fictional character Captain America “has always been a propaganda tool for zionists.”
The troubling issue is that I have seen myself examples of racism and anti-Semitism growing in activist groups. Due to R.E.A.L.’s protests against Communist totalitarianism, someone thought to invite us to an “Anti-Communist” group, led by an individual who uses as his personal slogan the lyrics from the “Ali G” nonsensical song “throw the jew down the well.”
Furthermore, at our own separate event on September 12, 2009 intended to promote equality and liberty as strategies to challenge ideologies of hate, we saw too many individuals at the September 12 Tea Party Rally with racially offensive placards marching down Constitution Avenue, as they passed by our event at the Washington Monument.
In April 2009, the Grassroots Politics Examiner first reported on efforts by the Neo-Nazi Stormfront organization to seek to infiltrate “Tea Party” groups. The Examiner reported in April 2009 that Stormfront members were pleased about the “white” nature of Tea Party events, and the Examiner quoted Stormfront members as stating:
– “What’s so encouraging is that the organizers and participants are pre-dominantly whites… I’m going to take the day off and attend the local one, carrying my Gadsden flag. Encourage others to do the same. Hopefully the beginning of a sense of ethno-centrism.”
– “Go where our people are starting to stand up around symptoms of the problem, and INTERVENE to guide them. Just because these started as an anti-tax protest doesn’t mean that they must be limited and can’t be developed upward toward an explicitly racial mass struggle.”
– “We are intervening to resolve the crisis of White racial leadership, point the way to real racial solutions and organize our people into an independent powerful force that fight for our race by any means necessary to resolve our racial problems with real solutions. No one is going to do the job of the White Nationalists for us.”
– “I think the ‘tea party’ is a good way to meet people with potential. Most people at this event will be white people who are fed up with the direction of things and they are ready to hear how we got into this mess. There are two kinds of people in this world, those who know what the Jews have done and those who do not.”
====================================
All effective political movements must reject hate as a priority in reaching the American people. We recognize that, in any mass movement, there will always be those who are extremists or even activists that are not representative of such groups. We recognize the inherent challenges in having a completely consistent message with any volunteer-centric organization or movement.
However, it is important for the Tea Party Movement to be aware that “white nationalists” have specifically targeted its groups for infiltration and influence to promote racist views.
R.E.A.L. believes that a priority of loving our fellow human beings remains an ethical compass for public efforts and mass movements alike. We believe that such a compass can help those who are struggling against the forces of hate.
Choose Love, Not Hate.
A barometer of religious intolerance
--HAARTEZ.COM--
By Benjamin Balint
"Egypt resembles an iceberg," the late Coptic-Egyptian writer Louis Awad once wrote. "One-eighth is above sea level. Seven-eighths are submerged in the depths. One-eighth of our lives takes place in the light of the 20th century, seven-eighths in medieval darkness."
There is no surer measure of Egypt's transforming identity over the last half century than its treatment of its Coptic Christian minority, which comprises about 10 percent of the country's 80 million citizens. As Egypt becomes less Arab and more Islamic, removing itself ever farther from former president Gamal Abdel Nasser's brand of left-leaning secular nationalism (not to speak of the liberal cosmopolitanism that prevailed from the 1920s through the revolution of 1952), the latest signs from the banks of the Nile are anything but auspicious.
In November, a report by Christian Solidarity International and the Coptic Foundation for Human Rights documented 25 cases of alleged forced conversion to Islam. Last May, the Egyptian government pointlessly slaughtered thousands of pigs belonging to the Coptic Christian minority because of fears relating to the swine flu.
Advertisement
As recently as January 15, at least 20 leading bloggers and democracy activists were arrested and held for one day by Egyptian authorities, reportedly charged with "illegal assembling and causing unrest." The group of Coptic Christian and Muslim activists had traveled to the southern Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi to pay their condolences to the families of six Coptic teenage worshipers gunned down as they left midnight mass on January 7, Coptic Christmas. This is the same town where a priceless collection of 46 fourth-century treatises ("The Gnostic Gospels"), written in Coptic - an idiom descended directly from the language of the pharaohs - was discovered in an earthenware jar in 1945.
Such arrests are not unprecedented. Kareem Amer has been held in Borg El Arab prison since November 2006, charged among other crimes with "incitement to hate Muslims" for writing about Muslim-Christian tensions in Alexandria and criticizing President Hosni Mubarak on his blog.
Although Egypt's constitution provides for equal rights without regard to religion, discrimination against its Christian community - through both acts of omission and commission - persists. Even after the killings last month sparked widespread riots, the government declined to address the underlying tensions.
"The Egyptian authorities should be focusing on the causes of the tragic shooting of six Coptic Christians," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Instead, they're arresting activists whose efforts to express their condolences are an important step toward healing sectarian fractures."
Both the violence and the official response are part of a pattern of escalating tensions between Muslims and Copts, who are increasingly marginalized, persecuted and vilified as outsiders. Indeed, January's violence has decades of tragic precedents, reaching back to June 1981, when 22 Coptic citizens were burned inside their homes during riots in the village of El-Zawia El-Hamra.
And yet Egyptian authorities have consistently refused to act. In 1994, Egyptian sociologist and rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim proposed an international conference in Cairo on minorities in the Middle East. But his insistence on including the treatment of Egypt's Copts on the agenda raised such protests in the government-controlled press that the conference was forced to move to Limassol, Cyprus.
Although no community can claim to be more native or authentically "Egyptian" than the Copts, whose culture dates back to antiquity, in moments of crisis, it seems, the country's Muslims instinctively turn on the Copts - even when the crisis has little to do with that Arabic-speaking Christian community. In 1952, for example, demonstrators against the British occupation of the Canal Zone in Suez massacred a number of Copts. Just before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, an ominous slogan could be heard in Cairo: "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people."
Finally, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when news arrived in Cairo that Israeli forces had crossed the canal, a rumor ascribed the Egyptian forces' failure to the treachery of a Coptic officer. To this day, every so often, the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition Islamist movement, seeks to bar Copts from senior army, police and government positions, on the grounds that they represent a fifth column. (The Brotherhood, which won 20 percent of the 454 parliamentary seats in the last election in 2005, has just chosen a new, hard-line leader, Mohammed Badie.)
The latest sectarian violence, then, has deep roots. Intolerance of non-Muslim minorities is the best barometer - though not the only one - of a society increasingly conscious of its Muslim identity and aspirations, as Egypt is today. The role of religion in the country's identity is still too fluid to permit us to know what shape those aspirations will take, but we can by all means forecast that Egypt's Islamic revival today will be Israel's dilemma tomorrow.
Benjamin Balint, a writer living in Jerusalem, is a fellow at the Hudson Institute.
--HAARTEZ.COM--
By Benjamin Balint
"Egypt resembles an iceberg," the late Coptic-Egyptian writer Louis Awad once wrote. "One-eighth is above sea level. Seven-eighths are submerged in the depths. One-eighth of our lives takes place in the light of the 20th century, seven-eighths in medieval darkness."
There is no surer measure of Egypt's transforming identity over the last half century than its treatment of its Coptic Christian minority, which comprises about 10 percent of the country's 80 million citizens. As Egypt becomes less Arab and more Islamic, removing itself ever farther from former president Gamal Abdel Nasser's brand of left-leaning secular nationalism (not to speak of the liberal cosmopolitanism that prevailed from the 1920s through the revolution of 1952), the latest signs from the banks of the Nile are anything but auspicious.
In November, a report by Christian Solidarity International and the Coptic Foundation for Human Rights documented 25 cases of alleged forced conversion to Islam. Last May, the Egyptian government pointlessly slaughtered thousands of pigs belonging to the Coptic Christian minority because of fears relating to the swine flu.
Advertisement
As recently as January 15, at least 20 leading bloggers and democracy activists were arrested and held for one day by Egyptian authorities, reportedly charged with "illegal assembling and causing unrest." The group of Coptic Christian and Muslim activists had traveled to the southern Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi to pay their condolences to the families of six Coptic teenage worshipers gunned down as they left midnight mass on January 7, Coptic Christmas. This is the same town where a priceless collection of 46 fourth-century treatises ("The Gnostic Gospels"), written in Coptic - an idiom descended directly from the language of the pharaohs - was discovered in an earthenware jar in 1945.
Such arrests are not unprecedented. Kareem Amer has been held in Borg El Arab prison since November 2006, charged among other crimes with "incitement to hate Muslims" for writing about Muslim-Christian tensions in Alexandria and criticizing President Hosni Mubarak on his blog.
Although Egypt's constitution provides for equal rights without regard to religion, discrimination against its Christian community - through both acts of omission and commission - persists. Even after the killings last month sparked widespread riots, the government declined to address the underlying tensions.
"The Egyptian authorities should be focusing on the causes of the tragic shooting of six Coptic Christians," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Instead, they're arresting activists whose efforts to express their condolences are an important step toward healing sectarian fractures."
Both the violence and the official response are part of a pattern of escalating tensions between Muslims and Copts, who are increasingly marginalized, persecuted and vilified as outsiders. Indeed, January's violence has decades of tragic precedents, reaching back to June 1981, when 22 Coptic citizens were burned inside their homes during riots in the village of El-Zawia El-Hamra.
And yet Egyptian authorities have consistently refused to act. In 1994, Egyptian sociologist and rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim proposed an international conference in Cairo on minorities in the Middle East. But his insistence on including the treatment of Egypt's Copts on the agenda raised such protests in the government-controlled press that the conference was forced to move to Limassol, Cyprus.
Although no community can claim to be more native or authentically "Egyptian" than the Copts, whose culture dates back to antiquity, in moments of crisis, it seems, the country's Muslims instinctively turn on the Copts - even when the crisis has little to do with that Arabic-speaking Christian community. In 1952, for example, demonstrators against the British occupation of the Canal Zone in Suez massacred a number of Copts. Just before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, an ominous slogan could be heard in Cairo: "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people."
Finally, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when news arrived in Cairo that Israeli forces had crossed the canal, a rumor ascribed the Egyptian forces' failure to the treachery of a Coptic officer. To this day, every so often, the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition Islamist movement, seeks to bar Copts from senior army, police and government positions, on the grounds that they represent a fifth column. (The Brotherhood, which won 20 percent of the 454 parliamentary seats in the last election in 2005, has just chosen a new, hard-line leader, Mohammed Badie.)
The latest sectarian violence, then, has deep roots. Intolerance of non-Muslim minorities is the best barometer - though not the only one - of a society increasingly conscious of its Muslim identity and aspirations, as Egypt is today. The role of religion in the country's identity is still too fluid to permit us to know what shape those aspirations will take, but we can by all means forecast that Egypt's Islamic revival today will be Israel's dilemma tomorrow.
Benjamin Balint, a writer living in Jerusalem, is a fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Anti-Racists Work to Kill American Renaissance Conference
--SPLC--HateWatch--by Sonia Scherr on February 8, 2010
Activists have persuaded two Washington D.C.-area hotels to cancel their bookings for a conference of the racist American Renaissance magazine, raising the ire of the gathering’s white nationalist organizer, Jared Taylor.
So displeased is Taylor that he’s been publicly sparring with the leader of Responsible for Equality and Liberty (R.E.A.L.), an all-volunteer human rights group that’s been campaigning against the American Renaissance conference. “You claim to be motivated by love and to be ‘uncompromising in the defense of universal human rights,’” Taylor wrote Jeffrey Imm in a recent letter posted on the American Renaissance website. “Yet, you have done your best to make it impossible for my publication, American Renaissance, to hold its bienniel [sic] conference.”
Scheduled this year for Feb. 19-21 in Herndon, Va., the jacket-and-tie affair has traditionally featured prominent racists as speakers, including far-right British National Party chairman Nick Griffin, former Klan lawyer Sam Dickson, eugenics advocate J. Philippe Rushton, and Taylor, a Yale graduate who wrote after Hurricane Katrina that “when blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.” Participants have included former Klan leader David Duke and an assortment of neo-Nazis. But the conference recognizes that not all who participate are high-profile white nationalists and gives attendees the option of using a pseudonym to conceal their identities.
The conference hasn’t been so adept at keeping its own true nature under wraps. In November, the Washington Dulles Marriott refused to host the event (which had been booked by Taylor’s New Century Foundation, parent of American Renaissance magazine) after R.E.A.L. founder Imm, who lives in the D.C. area, contacted the hotel with information about the group’s white nationalist ideology. In January, the Westin Washington Dulles Hotel followed suit after they heard from Imm and other activists. Imm has also called other nearby hotels to let them know about American Renaissance, making it difficult for Taylor to find a conference venue. “Obviously, we hit a nerve,” Imm told Hatewatch. “I think he was counting on the ignorance of other hotels in the area.”
A frustrated Taylor challenged Imm in a Jan. 29 letter to organize a public event at the National Press Club where the two men could debate. In response, Imm invited Taylor to an outdoor public awareness event about racial supremacy that R.E.A.L. has scheduled for noon on Feb. 19, several hours before registration begins for the American Renaissance conference. “The truth is you really don’t have the courage of your convictions,” Imm wrote in a Jan. 30 letter posted on R.E.A.L.’s website. “You claim to seek a public debate even while you doggedly seek to keep your planned location of the AmRen 2010 event a secret. What are you afraid of?”
During the ensuing E-mail exchange, which Imm posted on his website, Taylor rejected Imm’s offer to appear at the R.E.AL. event. “We will be preparing for our conference on Feb. 19, and you know very well that you do not plan to give me equal time to defend my point of view,” Taylor wrote on Jan. 31. “The only fair venue would be one that is a proper public debate with equal time for both sides.”
Imm replied that Taylor was merely making excuses. “The real reason why Jared Taylor cannot meet with us is the same reason why American Renaissance seeks to hide in the shadows,” he replied.
On Feb. 1, Taylor posted a statement on his website concluding, “I shall waste no more time on Jeffrey Imm.” As for Imm’s final communiqué with Taylor, the subject line read: “Wrong Again, Mr. Taylor.” Taylor’s website now provides general information for an undisclosed hotel near the Washington Dulles International Airport. Imm is trying to confirm the location of the new venue.
Taylor wasn’t the only one upset by Imm’s activism. Craig Bodeker, who’s scheduled to speak at this year’s American Renaissance conference, sent Imm several E-mails this week via Facebook asking him why he was trying to stop the conference. Bodeker made the documentary “A Conversation About Race,” in which he adopts a professional demeanor as he tries to debunk what he sees as the myth of racism. Though Bodeker never uses racial slurs or threatening language in the film, Hatewatch reported earlier that he repeatedly did so when posting comments on YouTube, even referring to blacks as monkeys.
Bodeker abandons restraint once again during his discussion with Imm. In a Feb. 3 E-mail, he accused Imm of anti-white bias, then wrote: “Whites are starting to realize that when someone does declares [sic] war on us, it’s OK to fight back. With any and all means.” The final comment from the filmmaker, who asserts in his website bio that he “love[s] learning about different cultures as well as different viewpoints”: “Jeffery [sic], you are full of shit!”
--SPLC--HateWatch--by Sonia Scherr on February 8, 2010
Activists have persuaded two Washington D.C.-area hotels to cancel their bookings for a conference of the racist American Renaissance magazine, raising the ire of the gathering’s white nationalist organizer, Jared Taylor.
So displeased is Taylor that he’s been publicly sparring with the leader of Responsible for Equality and Liberty (R.E.A.L.), an all-volunteer human rights group that’s been campaigning against the American Renaissance conference. “You claim to be motivated by love and to be ‘uncompromising in the defense of universal human rights,’” Taylor wrote Jeffrey Imm in a recent letter posted on the American Renaissance website. “Yet, you have done your best to make it impossible for my publication, American Renaissance, to hold its bienniel [sic] conference.”
Scheduled this year for Feb. 19-21 in Herndon, Va., the jacket-and-tie affair has traditionally featured prominent racists as speakers, including far-right British National Party chairman Nick Griffin, former Klan lawyer Sam Dickson, eugenics advocate J. Philippe Rushton, and Taylor, a Yale graduate who wrote after Hurricane Katrina that “when blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.” Participants have included former Klan leader David Duke and an assortment of neo-Nazis. But the conference recognizes that not all who participate are high-profile white nationalists and gives attendees the option of using a pseudonym to conceal their identities.
The conference hasn’t been so adept at keeping its own true nature under wraps. In November, the Washington Dulles Marriott refused to host the event (which had been booked by Taylor’s New Century Foundation, parent of American Renaissance magazine) after R.E.A.L. founder Imm, who lives in the D.C. area, contacted the hotel with information about the group’s white nationalist ideology. In January, the Westin Washington Dulles Hotel followed suit after they heard from Imm and other activists. Imm has also called other nearby hotels to let them know about American Renaissance, making it difficult for Taylor to find a conference venue. “Obviously, we hit a nerve,” Imm told Hatewatch. “I think he was counting on the ignorance of other hotels in the area.”
A frustrated Taylor challenged Imm in a Jan. 29 letter to organize a public event at the National Press Club where the two men could debate. In response, Imm invited Taylor to an outdoor public awareness event about racial supremacy that R.E.A.L. has scheduled for noon on Feb. 19, several hours before registration begins for the American Renaissance conference. “The truth is you really don’t have the courage of your convictions,” Imm wrote in a Jan. 30 letter posted on R.E.A.L.’s website. “You claim to seek a public debate even while you doggedly seek to keep your planned location of the AmRen 2010 event a secret. What are you afraid of?”
During the ensuing E-mail exchange, which Imm posted on his website, Taylor rejected Imm’s offer to appear at the R.E.AL. event. “We will be preparing for our conference on Feb. 19, and you know very well that you do not plan to give me equal time to defend my point of view,” Taylor wrote on Jan. 31. “The only fair venue would be one that is a proper public debate with equal time for both sides.”
Imm replied that Taylor was merely making excuses. “The real reason why Jared Taylor cannot meet with us is the same reason why American Renaissance seeks to hide in the shadows,” he replied.
On Feb. 1, Taylor posted a statement on his website concluding, “I shall waste no more time on Jeffrey Imm.” As for Imm’s final communiqué with Taylor, the subject line read: “Wrong Again, Mr. Taylor.” Taylor’s website now provides general information for an undisclosed hotel near the Washington Dulles International Airport. Imm is trying to confirm the location of the new venue.
Taylor wasn’t the only one upset by Imm’s activism. Craig Bodeker, who’s scheduled to speak at this year’s American Renaissance conference, sent Imm several E-mails this week via Facebook asking him why he was trying to stop the conference. Bodeker made the documentary “A Conversation About Race,” in which he adopts a professional demeanor as he tries to debunk what he sees as the myth of racism. Though Bodeker never uses racial slurs or threatening language in the film, Hatewatch reported earlier that he repeatedly did so when posting comments on YouTube, even referring to blacks as monkeys.
Bodeker abandons restraint once again during his discussion with Imm. In a Feb. 3 E-mail, he accused Imm of anti-white bias, then wrote: “Whites are starting to realize that when someone does declares [sic] war on us, it’s OK to fight back. With any and all means.” The final comment from the filmmaker, who asserts in his website bio that he “love[s] learning about different cultures as well as different viewpoints”: “Jeffery [sic], you are full of shit!”
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
'I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground; for I have been made a bondman from my youth.' Zechariah 13/5
24:1 Wisdom shall praise herself, and shall glory in the midst of her people.
24:2 In the congregation of the most High shall she open her mouth, and triumph before his power.
24:3 I came out of the mouth of the most High, and covered the earth as a cloud.
24:4 I dwelt in high places, and my throne is in a cloudy pillar.
24:5 I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep.
24:6 In the waves of the sea and in all the earth, and in every people and nation, I got a possession.
24:7 With all these I sought rest: and in whose inheritance shall I abide?
24:8 So the Creator of all things gave me a commandment, and he that made me caused my tabernacle to rest, and said, Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thine inheritance in Israel.
24:9 He created me from the beginning before the world, and I shall never fail.
24:10 In the holy tabernacle I served before him; and so was I established in Sion.
24:11 Likewise in the beloved city he gave me rest, and in Jerusalem was my power.
24:12 And I took root in an honourable people, even in the portion of the Lord's inheritance.
24:13 I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress tree upon the mountains of Hermon.
24:14 I was exalted like a palm tree in En-gaddi, and as a rose plant in Jericho, as a fair olive tree in a pleasant field, and grew up as a plane tree by the water.
24:15 I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aspalathus, and I yielded a pleasant odour like the best myrrh, as galbanum, and onyx, and sweet storax, and as the fume of frankincense in the tabernacle.
24:16 As the turpentine tree I stretched out my branches, and my branches are the branches of honour and grace.
24:17 As the vine brought I forth pleasant savour, and my flowers are the fruit of honour and riches.
24:18 I am the mother of fair love, and fear, and knowledge, and holy hope: I therefore, being eternal, am given to all my children which are named of him.
24:19 Come unto me, all ye that be desirous of me, and fill yourselves with my fruits.
24:20 For my memorial is sweeter than honey, and mine inheritance than the honeycomb.
24:21 They that eat me shall yet be hungry, and they that drink me shall yet be thirsty.
24:22 He that obeyeth me shall never be confounded, and they that work by me shall not do amiss.
24:23 All these things are the book of the covenant of the most high God, even the law which Moses commanded for an heritage unto the congregations of Jacob.
24:24 Faint not to be strong in the Lord; that he may confirm you, cleave unto him: for the Lord Almighty is God alone, and beside him there is no other Saviour.
24:25 He filleth all things with his wisdom, as Phison and as Tigris in the time of the new fruits.
24:26 He maketh the understanding to abound like Euphrates, and as Jordan in the time of the harvest.
24:27 He maketh the doctrine of knowledge appear as the light, and as Geon in the time of vintage.
24:28 The first man knew her not perfectly: no more shall the last find her out.
24:29 For her thoughts are more than the sea, and her counsels profounder than the great deep.
24:30 I also came out as a brook from a river, and as a conduit into a garden.
24:31 I said, I will water my best garden, and will water abundantly my garden bed: and, lo, my brook became a river, and my river became a sea.
24:32 I will yet make doctrine to shine as the morning, and will send forth her light afar off.
24:33 I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy, and leave it to all ages for ever.
24:34 Behold that I have not laboured for myself only, but for all them that seek wisdom.
ECCLESIASTICUS- This Book is so called from a Greek word that signifies a preacher: because, like an excellent preacher, it gives admirable lessons of all virtues. The author was Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem, who flourished about two hundred years before Christ. As it was written after the time of Esdras, it is not in the Jewish canon; but is received as canonical and divine by the Catholic Church, instructed by apostolical tradition, and directed by the spirit of God. It was first written in the Hebrew, but afterwards translated into Greek, by another Jesus, the grandson of the author, whose prologue to this book is the following:
Woman Wisdom, by H. Peter Aleff
Sophia
Proverbs Chapter 8
-- BibleWiki--
1: Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?
2: She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.
3: She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.
4: Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.
5: O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.
6: Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things.
7: For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
8: All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.
9: They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.
10: Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.
11: For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
12: I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.
13: The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
14: Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.
15: By me kings reign, and princes decree justice.
16: By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth.
Proverbs Chapter 8
-- BibleWiki--
1: Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?
2: She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.
3: She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.
4: Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.
5: O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.
6: Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things.
7: For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
8: All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.
9: They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.
10: Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.
11: For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
12: I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.
13: The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
14: Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.
15: By me kings reign, and princes decree justice.
16: By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth.
17: I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.
18: Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness.
19: My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver.
20: I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment:
21: That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.
22: The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
23: I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
24: When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.
25: Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth
26: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
27: When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
28: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
29: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:
30: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;
31: Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.
32: Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.
33: Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.
34: Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.
35: For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.
36: But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.
Reproach to the Gainsayers.
Doctor Kunwrath faciebat
23 Decembris. Anno 1597. octava vespertina.
Spirit Divine, blest be thy state,
That art in Salt incorporate
And in the Worlds true virgin wombe
A pure Quintessence art becomme.
Lord have mercy upon us.
Gods wondrous eternal power,
Man in this world may discover,
Who wth the greate worlds flesh & blood
Clad itselfe for our Eternall good.
Lord have mercy upon us.
Who earst the whole world didst surround
Now in old Chaos seede art found
Soe art becomme a body small
Susteyning all things naturall.
Lord have mercy upon us.
This is the greate Light of Nature
That giving the world a new Lustre
And shining in ye darksome night
To make us true Children of Light
Lord have mercy upon us.
Thou Spirit of God true God art
Yet in the world a stranger wert
Which led us out from Errors place
And made us heyres of Natures grace.
Lord have mercy upon us.
On Earth he was in meane Consort
Us in great mercy to Comfort
And make us rich in true wisdome
That like new borne Babes we becomme.
Lord have mercy upon us.
All this on us good God bestow
Then Lord shall we they greate workes shew
And wisdomes Babes their voyce shall raise
Singing to thy Eternall praise.
Lord have mercy upon us.
Doctor Kunwrath faciebat
23 Decembris. Anno 1597. octava vespertina.
Spirit Divine, blest be thy state,
That art in Salt incorporate
And in the Worlds true virgin wombe
A pure Quintessence art becomme.
Lord have mercy upon us.
Gods wondrous eternal power,
Man in this world may discover,
Who wth the greate worlds flesh & blood
Clad itselfe for our Eternall good.
Lord have mercy upon us.
Who earst the whole world didst surround
Now in old Chaos seede art found
Soe art becomme a body small
Susteyning all things naturall.
Lord have mercy upon us.
This is the greate Light of Nature
That giving the world a new Lustre
And shining in ye darksome night
To make us true Children of Light
Lord have mercy upon us.
Thou Spirit of God true God art
Yet in the world a stranger wert
Which led us out from Errors place
And made us heyres of Natures grace.
Lord have mercy upon us.
On Earth he was in meane Consort
Us in great mercy to Comfort
And make us rich in true wisdome
That like new borne Babes we becomme.
Lord have mercy upon us.
All this on us good God bestow
Then Lord shall we they greate workes shew
And wisdomes Babes their voyce shall raise
Singing to thy Eternall praise.
Lord have mercy upon us.
"ascending smoke, sacrificial speech acceptable to God.”
“Happy is the one who follows the advice of God.”
“Without the breath of inspiration from God, no one finds the great way.”
--Heinrich Khunrath--
“Happy is the one who follows the advice of God.”
“Without the breath of inspiration from God, no one finds the great way.”
--Heinrich Khunrath--
"Deus Lux Solis, vel Deo Laus Semper" which can be translated as: "God is the light of the sun" or "Praise to God forever" (also, "Praise always to God")
Nature is the daughter of Time
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