Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld shares a laugh with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney during his farewell parade at the Pentagon Dec. 15, 2006. DoD photo by Cherie A. Thurlby. (Released)

By Yvonne Ridley~Foreign Policy Journal 

Kuala Lumpur — It’s official; George W Bush is a war criminal.

In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.

The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

Full transcripts of the charges, witness statements and other relevant material will now be sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission is also asking that the names of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and Haynes be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals for public record.

The tribunal is the initiative of Malaysia’s retired Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who staunchly opposed the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He sat through the entire hearing as it took personal statements and testimonies of three witnesses namely Abbas Abid, Moazzam Begg and Jameelah Hameedi. The tribunal also heard two other Statutory Declarations of Iraqi citizen Ali Shalal and Rahul Ahmed, another British citizen.

After the guilty verdict reached by five senior judges was delivered, Mahathir Mohamad said: “Powerful countries are getting away with murder.”

War crimes expert and lawyer Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in America, was part of the prosecution team.

After the case he said: “This is the first conviction of these people anywhere in the world.”

While the hearing is regarded by some as being purely symbolic, human rights activist Boyle said he was hopeful that Bush and Co could soon find themselves facing similar trials elsewhere in the world.

“We tried three times to get Bush in Canada but were thwarted by the Canadian Government, then we scared Bush out of going to Switzerland. The Spanish attempt failed because of the government there and the same happened in Germany.”

Boyle then referenced the Nuremberg Charter which was used as the format for the tribunal when asked about the credibility of the initiative in Malaysia. He quoted: “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any person in execution of such a plan.”

The US is subject to customary international law and to the Principles of the Nuremberg Charter said Boyle who also believes the week-long trial was “almost certainly” being monitored closely by both Pentagon and White House officials.

Professor Gurdial Singh Nijar, who headed the prosecution said: “The tribunal was very careful to adhere scrupulously to the regulations drawn up by the Nuremberg courts and the International Criminal Courts”.

He added that he was optimistic the tribunal would be followed up elsewhere in the world where “countries have a duty to try war criminals” and he cited the case of the former Chilean dictator Augustine Pinochet who was arrested in Britain to be extradited to Spain on charges of war crimes.

ARTICLE CONTINUES…

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By Ali Gharib~Think Progress

During New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s first year in office, the New York Police Department stopped and interrogated 97,296 people on the streets. By 2007, with the Bloomberg administration pushing the a stop-and-frisk strategy, police made more than a half a million stops. Last year, the figure rose to a record 685,724 people. And according to a New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) report, the vast majorities of stops — about 87 percent — were of blacks and Latinos. Despite robust defenses of the tactics, they appear to be less effective than the Bloomberg administration and NYPD claim.

Most troubling, the NYCLU report seemed to bear out charges of racial profiling in stop-and-frisk situations. In precincts where blacks and Latinos are least represented among the population (14 percent or less), blacks and Latinos were nonetheless the target of 70 percent of stops. Perhaps most staggeringly, the the Wall Street Journal highlighted that the number of stops of black men between the ages of 14 and 24 (168,126 ) exceeded the total city population of black men in that age range (158,406).

Along with the wildly disproportionate stops, blacks and Latinos were more likely to get frisked. Yet they yielded a smaller percentage of weapons than whites. The NYCLU produced these charts demonstrating the disparities:

On Bloomberg’s weekly radio show last month, Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the stop-and-frisk strategy, whose increased application they credit with a 50 percent drop in the city’s murder rate, but it’s not at all clear how this strategy produced such an outcome. Comparing 2003 and 2011, stops increased by more than half a million while only 172 more guns were found. That’s a jump of finding one gun for every 266 stops versus one gun per every 3,000 stops.

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Of all the ignominious actions of the Obama administration, the steadfast, systematic shielding of Wall Street from criminal liability is probably the most corrupt in the traditional sense of that word. In Newsweek this week, Peter Boyer and Peter Schweizer have an excellent examination of what happened and why, tying together crucial threads. First they lay out the basic facts, including the core deceit of the President’s campaigning for re-election like he’s some sort of populist crusader:

With the Occupy protesters resuming battle stations, and Mitt Romney in place as the presumptive Republican nominee, President Obama has begun to fashion his campaign as a crusade for the 99 percent–a fight against, as one Obama ad puts it, “a guy who had a Swiss bank account.” Casting Romney as a plutocrat will be easy enough. But the president’s claim as avenging populist may prove trickier, given his own deeply complicated, even conflicted, relationship with Big Finance.

Obama came into office vowing to end business as usual, and, in the gray post-crash dawn of 2009, nowhere did a reckoning with justice seem more due than in the financial sector. . . .  Two months into his presidency, Obama summoned the titans of finance to the White House, where he told them, “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” . . .

Candidate Obama had been their guy, accepting vast amounts of Wall Street campaign money for his victories over Hillary Clinton and John McCain (Goldman Sachs executives ponied up $1 million, more than any other private source of funding in 2008). Obama far outraised his Republican rival, John McCain, on Wall Street–around $16 million to $9 million. As it turned out, Obama apparently actually meant what he said at that White House meeting–his administration effectively would stand between Big Finance and anything like a severe accounting. To the dismay of many of Obama’s supporters, nearly four years after the disaster, there has not been a single criminal charge filed by the federal government against any top executive of the elite financial institutions.

“It’s perplexing at best,” says Phil Angelides, the Democratic former California treasurer who chaired the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. “It’s deeply troubling at worst.”

ARTICLE CONTINUES…

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Update: The new Empulse has been unveiled, check out the photos here.

Brammo will officially unveiled its next generation electric motorcycle, the 2012 Empulse and Empulse R, in Los Angeles on May 8, but the company has released some details about what looks to be a kick-ass electric motorcycle. As you can see in the promo/preview video above, the new Empulse has a true racing pedigree (check out our review of Charge, a film that documents last year’s Isle of Man electric motorcycle race), but thanks to rapid technical progress, it looks like this new generation will leave the previous one in the dust when it comes to range, acceleration, top speed, etc.

Check out those specs (larger version here):

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By Fran Spielman~Chicago Sun-Times

The head of Chicago’s NATO Host Committee said Thursday she was blindsided by the federal government’s decision to create a militarized “Red Zone” in the Loop to protect federal buildings in the run-up to the May 20-21 summit at McCormick Place.

The image of federal agents on downtown streets far from McCormick Place — in battle gear, weapons slung — three weeks before the summit is certain to have a chilling effect on those who live and work in the Loop. It also calls into question Host Committee Executive Director Lori Healey’s oft-repeated message that Chicago will remain “open for business” during the summit.

On Thursday, Healey found herself in the difficult position of having to convince the public that a scary headline that blindsided even her is not an indication that the feds are bracing for weeks of trouble.

“A lot of us were surprised to read that. Obviously, the federal government doesn’t consult with the city when they do this. Everybody was unaware of this,” she said.

“It’s common practice for the federal government to have protection around their own buildings. Everybody plans extensively … for lots of different events. This is just getting an undue amount of attention. I would guarantee you they do it for all sorts of events. It’s just that they decided to publicly release it.”

SEE ALSO:
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Government Secretly Prepares To Evacuate Chicago During NATO Summit
‎
Military Blackhawk Helicopters Descend Over Chicago – Video‎

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Lightworks Video&Audio Hosted by Bill Jenkins, formerly of ABC Radio, this comprehensive documentary features physicists and inventors who are challenging orthodox science to bring this non-polluting technology forward despite ridicule and suppression. See actual working prototypes that defy classical physics including phenomenal experiments in anti-gravity and the transmutation of metals.

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‘Hegel: The Last Great System’. Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.

Hegel developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or “system”, to account in an integrated and developmental way for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, and psychology, the state, history, art, religion and philosophy. In particular, he developed a concept of mind or spirit that manifested itself in a set of contradictions and oppositions that it ultimately integrated and united, without eliminating either pole or reducing one to the other. Examples of such contradictions include those between nature and freedom, and between immanence and transcendence.

Hegel influenced writers of widely varying positions, including both his admirers (Strauss, Bauer, Feuerbach, T. H. Green, Marx, Bradley, Dewey, Sartre, Küng, Kojève, Žižek, Brandom) and his detractors (Schelling, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Peirce, Popper, Russell, Heidegger). His most influential conceptions are of speculative logic or “dialectic”, “absolute idealism”, “Spirit”, negativity, sublation (Aufhebung in German), the “Master/Slave” dialectic, “ethical life” and the importance of history.

***

Introduction: Why study Hegel?

“…the State ‘has the supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State… for the right of the world spirit is above all special privileges.’” Author/historian William Shirer, quoting Georg Hegel in his The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959, page 144)

In 1847 the London Communist League (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels) used Hegel’s theory of the dialectic to back up their economic theory of communism. Now, in the 21st century, Hegelian-Marxist thinking affects our entire social and political structure. The Hegelian dialectic is the framework for guiding our thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead us to a predetermined solution. If we do not understand how the Hegelian dialectic shapes our perceptions of the world, then we do not know how we are helping to implement the vision. When we remain locked into dialectical thinking, we cannot see out of the box.

Hegel’s dialectic is the tool which manipulates us into a frenzied circular pattern of thought and action. Every time we fight for or defend against an ideology we are playing a necessary role in Marx and Engels’ grand design to advance humanity into a dictatorship of the proletariat. The synthetic Hegelian solution to all these conflicts can’t be introduced unless we all take a side that will advance the agenda. The Marxist’s global agenda is moving along at breakneck speed. The only way to completely stop the privacy invasions, expanding domestic police powers, land grabs, insane wars against inanimate objects (and transient verbs), covert actions, and outright assaults on individual liberty, is to step outside the dialectic. This releases us from the limitations of controlled and guided thought.

When we understand what motivated Hegel, we can see his influence on all of our destinies. … Hegelian conflicts steer every political arena on the planet, from the United Nations to the major American political parties, all the way down to local school boards and community councils. Dialogues and consensus-building are primary tools of the dialectic, and terror and intimidation are also acceptable formats for obtaining the goal. The ultimate Third Way agenda is world government. Once we get what’s really going on, we can cut the strings and move our lives in original directions outside the confines of the dialectical madness. Focusing on Hegel’s and Engel’s ultimate agenda, and avoiding getting caught up in their impenetrable theories of social evolution, gives us the opportunity to think and act our way toward freedom, justice, and genuine liberty for all.

Today the dialectic is active in every political issue that encourages taking sides. We can see it in environmentalists instigating conflicts against private property owners, in democrats against republicans, in greens against libertarians, in communists against socialists, in neo-cons against traditional conservatives, in community activists against individuals, in pro-choice versus pro-life, in Christians against Muslims, in isolationists versus interventionists, in peace activists against war hawks. No matter what the issue, the invisible dialectic aims to control both the conflict and the resolution of differences, and leads everyone involved into a new cycle of conflicts.

We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.

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Born in Nottingham England, ALVIN LEE began playing guitar age 13 and formed the core of the band Ten Years After by aged 15. Originally influenced by his parent’s collection of jazz and blues records, it was the advent of rock and roll that truly sparked his interest and creativity, and guitarists like Chuck Berry and Scotty Moore provided his inspiration.

The Jaybirds, as Lee’s early band was called, were popular locally and had success in Hamburg, Germany, following the Beatles there in 1962. But it wasn’t until the band moved to London in 1966 and changed its name to TYA that international success beckoned. The band secured a residency at the legendary Marquee Club, and an invitation to the famous Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival in 1967 led to their first recording contract. The self titled debut album surprisingly received play on San Francisco’s underground radio stations and was enthusiastically embraced by listeners, including concert promoter Bill Graham who invited the band to tour America for the first time in the summer of 1968. Audiences were immediately taken in by Lee’s distinctive, soulful, rapid fire guitar playing and the band’s innovative mix of blues, swing jazz and rock, and an American love affair began. TYA would ultimately tour tNorth America 28 times in 7 years, more than any other U.K. band.

Appearing at the famed Woodstock Festival, Lee’s virtuoso performance was one of the highlights and remains today a standard for many other guitarists. Captured on film in the documentary of the festival, his inspired playing catapulted him into superstardom, and soon the band was playing arenas and stadiums around the globe. Although Lee later lamented that he missed the intimacy of smaller venues, there is no denying the impact the film made in bringing his music to a worldwide audience.

TYA had great success, releasing ten albums together, but by 1973, Lee was feeling limited by the band’s style. With American gospel singer Mylon LeFevre and a host of rock talents like George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Ron Wood and Mick Fleetwood , he recorded and released On The Road To Freedom, a highly acclaimed album that was at the forefront of country rock. A year later, in response to a dare, Lee formed Alvin Lee & Company to play a show the Rainbow in London and released it as a double live album, In Flight. An energetic mix of rhythm & blues and rock, with a tribute to Elvis Presley thrown in for good measure, Lee once, in his understated fashion, called this band “a funky little outfit”. They were far more than that and various members of the band continued on with Lee for his next two albums, Pump Iron and Let it Rock. He finished out the 70s with a powerhouse trio he called Ten Years Later who also released two albums, Ride On and Rocket Fuel, and toured extensively throughout Europe and the United States.

The 80s brought another change in Lee’s direction, with two albums that were strong collaborations with Rarebird’s Steve Gould and an extensive tour with the Rolling Stones’ Mick Taylor joining his band.

Lee’s overall musical output includes more than 20 albums, including 1985′s Detroit Diesel and the back to back 90s collections of Zoom and 1994 (I Hear You Rocking). Guest artists on both albums include George Harrison, whose brilliant slide guitar perfectly complements Lee’s lead. Their duet on 1994′s The Bluest Blues led one reviewer to call it “the most perfect blues song ever recorded.”

“Alvin Lee in Tennessee”, a 2004 release, was recorded with rock and roll legends Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana. It’s an upbeat selection of songs that are timely and forward looking, yet borrow from his beloved 50s rock and roll. There’s even a new version of his signature song, I’m Going Home, performed here, according to Lee “as it always should have been”.

Lee’s newest album, Saguitar, released September 2007, showcases the artist’s bluesy vocals and dazzling guitar work on 14 new songs that range from melancholic blues to raucous rock to an innovative interpretation of rap. Lee says the album “celebrates the sheer joy of making music”. For the listener, the celebration starts when they crank up the volume and groove to the latest offering from this enduring and superbly talented musician.

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You can now translate Puppetgov into any language of your choice.

Just scroll to the bottom of any page to select.

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Jim Henson & Kermit on the set of The Muppet Movie

Billy’s note: One of the great additions to humanity. He was one of the main inspirations for this site & our name Puppetgov. I hope you enjoy this rare glimpse at this loving, moving memorial service for Jim Henson. Mahna Mahna.

Jim Henson died on the morning of May 16, 1990, at the age of 53.

On May 21, a public memorial service was held in New York City at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Another one was held on July 2 at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. As per Henson’s wishes, no one in attendance wore black, and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band finished the service by performing “When the Saints Go Marching In”. Harry Belafonte sang “Turn the World Around,” a song he had debuted on The Muppet Show, as each member of the congregation waved, with a puppeteer’s rod, an individual, brightly-colored foam butterfly. Later, Big Bird (performed by Caroll Spinney) walked out onto the stage and sang Kermit the Frog’s signature song, “Bein’ Green”. Henson was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery. His ashes were scattered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at his ranch.

In the final minutes of the two-and-a-half hour service, six of the core Muppet performers sang, in their characters’ voices, a medley of Jim Henson’s favorite songs, culminating in a performance of “Just One Person” that began with Richard Hunt singing alone, as Scooter. “As each verse progressed,” Henson employee Chris Barry recalled, “each Muppeteer joined in with their own Muppets until the stage was filled with all the Muppet performers and their beloved characters.”[33] The funeral was later described by LIFE as “an epic and almost unbearably moving event.” The image of a growing number of performers singing “Just One Person” was recreated for the 1990 television special The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson and inspired screenwriter Richard Curtis, who attended the London service, to write the growing-orchestra wedding scene of his 2003 film Love Actually.

Henson’s sudden death resulted in an outpouring of public and professional affection. ~Wikipedia

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How come we hear everything that happens in Egypt but no news about what’s happening in Iceland?

In Iceland, the people have made the government resign, the primary banks have been nationalized, it was decided to not pay the debt that these created with Great Britain and Holland due to their bad financial politics and a public assembly has been created to rewrite the constitution.

All of this has been accomplished in a peaceful way.

A whole revolution against the powers that have created the current global crisis. This is why there hasn’t been any publicity during the last two years. What would happen if the rest of the EU citizens took this as an example? What would happen if the US citizens took this as an example.

Here is a summary of the facts:
-2008. The main bank of the country is nationalized.
-The Krona, the currency of Iceland devaluates and the stock market stops.
-The country is bankrupt.
-2008. The citizens protest in front of parliament and manage to get new elections that force the resignation of the prime minister and his whole government.
-The country is in a bad economic situation.
- A law proposes paying back the debt to Great Britain and Holland through the payment of 3,500 million euros, which will be paid by the people of Iceland monthly during the next 15 years, with a 5.5% interest.
-2010. The people go to the streets and demand a referendum. In January 2010 the President denies the approval and announces a popular meeting.
-In March the referendum and the denial of payment is voted in by 93% majority. Meanwhile the government initiated an investigation to bring to justice those responsible for the crisis, and many high level executives and bankers are arrested. —Interpol dictates an order that make all the implicated parties leave the country.
In this crisis an assembly is elected to write a new Constitution which can include the lessons learned from this crisis, and which will substitute for the then current Danish Constitution.
-25 citizens are chosen, with no political affiliation, out of the 522 candidates. For candidacy all that was needed was to be an adult and have the support of 30 people. The constitutional assembly started in February of 2011 to present the ‘carta magna’ from the recommendations given by the different assemblies happening throughout the country. It must be approved by the current Parliament and by the one constituted through the next legislative elections.
In summary of the Icelandic revolution:
-resignation of the whole government
-nationalization of the bank.
-referendum so that the people can decide over the economic decisions.
-incarcerating the responsible parties
-rewriting of the constitution by its people

Have we been informed of this through the media?
Has any political program in radio or TV commented on this?
No!

The Icelandic people have been able to show that there is a way to beat the system and has given a democracy lesson to the world.

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CLICK TO ENLARGE

Figured it out? Let us know!

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In 1892, deafblind author Helen Keller was accused of plagiarism after a short story of hers, named “The Frost King,” was identified as being extremely similar to Margaret Canby’s “Frost Fairies.” An investigation followed, as did a tribunal in which she was eventually acquitted. Amazingly, Keller was just 12 years of age at the time.

A decade later, her friend, Mark Twain, learned of the episode after reading Keller’s autobiography. He then wrote her the fascinating letter of support seen below.

(Source: Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 2 of 2; Image: Mark Twain, via.)

Riverdale-on-the-Hudson
St. Patrick’s Day, ’03

Dear Helen,—

I must steal half a moment from my work to say how glad I am to have your book, and how highly I value it, both for its own sake and as a remembrance of an affectionate friendship which has subsisted between us for nine years without a break, and without a single act of violence that I can call to mind. I suppose there is nothing like it in heaven; and not likely to be, until we get there and show off. I often think of it with longing, and how they’ll say, “There they come—sit down in front!” I am practicing with a tin halo. You do the same. I was at Henry Roger’s last night, and of course we talked of you. He is not at all well;—you will not like to hear that; but like you and me, he is just as lovely as ever.

I am charmed with your book—enchanted. You are a wonderful creature, the most wonderful in the world—you and your other half together—Miss Sullivan, I mean, for it took the pair of you to make a complete and perfect whole. How she stands out in her letters! her brilliancy, penetration, originality, wisdom, character, and the fine literary competencies of her pen—they are all there.

Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that “plagiarism” farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men—but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington’s battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite—that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

ARTICLE CONTINUES…

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Organic food, family farms, and farmers’ markets continue to be on the rise across the United States.

Local growers and sellers of sustainable agriculture are more and more connecting with their communities.

The list below is far from complete. It’s offered as the beginning of a service. It’s a supplement to existing national directories that are already good. It comes solely from typing a State’s name then Farm to Food (such as ‘Alabama Farm to Food’) into Google’s search-engine and then choosing from the top ten urls that appear on the search’s first page.

The list can be expanded and improved greatly.

Still, compiling it was heartening! It was a pleasure to see how many people are active and to see how healthy and happy they look. “Everybody doing, and they’re doing their best!”

How much already exists, across the nation and State by State! How many organizations and structures are dedicated now to providing food from grower to public, local business to local consumer, outside the multi-national Supermarket!

Please help us at puppylovegov–oops!–to expand this list.

We further hope that you let us know more about farm-to-food alternatives that are already working, wherever you and they are in world.

Following the State-by-State list is a review of moves against freedom, independence and inter-dependence among the many of us, since 2001. You’ll see that these moves are mounting even more under the Obama puppetgov–er, Administation–than under the Administration of the second Bush President, the “decider”.

You’ll see that means of surveillance and suppression have especially increased in the year 2012. The Government-ordered prospects of 30,000 Drones in U.S. skies by 2020 and 450 millions rounds of .40 hollow-point ammunition for the Department of Homeland Security by 2016 (more than one bullet for every person in the nation) can only mean more surveillance and unimaginable potentials for repression of the public.

These moves and means will work only if we submit to them.

People everywhere are more and more refusing to submit to their enslavement. Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Together, Occupy Everywhere.

People everywhere are stepping away from systems and institutions that enslave them.

The System will cease to work when we no longer work in it and for it. The System will fall with astonishing rapidity when we refuse to honor its thieves’ instruments of debt.

Like they say over there in Georgia: ‘The Revolution Will Be Tasty.’

Enjoy the pictures and the links!

UNITED STATES

http://www.localharvest.org/ A very comprehensive website…. ‘real food, real farmers, real community … Use our website to find farmers’ markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area …’

http://www.farmtoschool.org/publications.php?pt=buys ‘The National Farm to School Network envisions a nation in which Farm to School programs are an essential component of strong and just local and regional food systems, ensuring the health of all school children, farms, the environment, economy and communities.

http://carbonpig.com/farmers-markets-directory  Thousands of farmers’ markets in a single interactive graphic. Plus tabs for ‘Sustainable Living’, ‘Sustainable Businesses’, ‘Sustainable Technology’, USA-wide

http://nercrd.psu.edu/Entrepreneurship/LocalFoodWebsites.pdf ‘Web Sites on Local Foods’

http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/ffc_directory ‘This Farming for Credit Directory lists hands-on and classroom-based’ opportunities for education in sustainable agriculture.’

http://findourcommonground.com/about-us Women to women. ‘Consumers aren’t getting the real story about American agriculture and all that goes into growing and raising their food…. Our program is called CommonGround and it’s all about starting a conversation between women who grow food, and the women who buy it.’

STATE-BY-STATE–check out who and what are active near you

ALABAMA http://www.growalabama.com/ ‘Welcome to Grow Alabama, a multi-farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program connecting Alabama residents to fresh, high- quality food grown directly from Alabama farms.’

ALASKA http://alaskarenewableenergy.org/take-action/at-home/eat-local/ ‘Renewable Energy Alaska Project … Are you hungry for more renewables? Good news! You can eat renewable too!’

ARIZONA http://www.foodconnect.org/farmers_markets/ ‘Community Food Connections … Working to alleviate hunger and creat food sufficiency for low-income households through community and economic development … For generations, the diverse geography of Arizona has allowed its farmers to cultivate an exciting variety of fruits and vegetables. Farmers’ markets all over the state bring the best of these crops directly to you.’

http://www.arizonafoodsdirect.com/ ‘Arizona’s Source for Organic / Greater Phoenix & Tucson Areas

ARKANSAS http://www.localharvest.org/all-arkansas-basket-a-month-cooperative- csa-M12273 ‘We are a year-round market with over 20 local farmers, ranchers and producers supplying our Mercantile at the Little Rock River Market.’

http://www.arkansas.com/dining/fresh-farms/Fresh Food Farms / Arkansas U-Pick Frams & Orchards’

CALIFORNIA http://www.cafoodbanks.org/Farm_to_Family.html ‘California Association of Food Banks…. California produces more than half of the nation’s fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Farm to Family connects the state’s growers and packers with food banks to deliver fresh, nutritious fruits and vegetables to families in need.’

http://www.farmtoschool.org/ca/farms.htm ‘With over 500 certified farmers’ markets in California, buying direct from a local farm is easy!’

COLORADO http://www.localsustainability.net/ ’Rocky Mounain Growers Directory’ ‘If You Want More Local Food, Stop Criminalizing Family Farmers’

CONNECTICUT http://www.ctnofa.org/Farms.php ‘Connecticut’s Organic Farms and Related Businesses’

DELAWARE http://www.fairfoodnetwork.org/list/delaware-farm-school-collaborative ‘Fair Food Network in Wilmington’

http://findourcommonground.com/your-community/delaware/ ’CommonGround is a national movement of farm women who want to share information about farming and the food they grow.

FLORIDA http://farmfreshdirect2u.com/ ’It should come as no surprise that we are in the midst of a food revolution.  The biggest move is going local.  What does that mean?  For one it means knowing your farmer, your farmer who has fresh raw milk , farm fresh eggs  and other goodies.’

http://smallfarms.ifas.ufl.edu/ ’Small Farms Conference’, July 27-29 in Kissimmee, FL

http://www.freshfromflorida.com/divisions/fnw/farm_to_school.html ’Florida’s pioneering and successful farm to school program was initiated by a group of innovative African-American farmers after they formed the New North Florida Cooperative Association Inc. (NNFC) in 1995.

GEORGIA http://www.georgiaorganics.org/home.aspx ’We connect organic food from Georgia farms to Georgia families.’

HAWAII http://www.hawaiiorganic.org/resources/hawaii  ‘Hawaiit Organic Farmers Assocation’ Site that connects to 20 other like-minded sites within Hawaii (Hawaii Farmers Union, Big Island Beekeepers Assocation, …)

http://maoorganicfarms.org/index.php?/mao_farms/programs ’MA‘O Organic Farms offer a variety of community and education programs for youth and adults primarily based on the waianae coast and/or on-site at the farm.’

IDAHO http://www.idahosbounty.org/shop/prdcr_list.php List of producers within Idaho (‘Various flavors of cheesecakes’, ‘Organic Goat cheeses’, ‘Alaska Wild Salmon’, ‘Beautiful Home grown Brown eggs’, …’)

ILLINOIS http://www.illinoiswherefreshis.com/ ’Where to Find Fresh Produce’

http://www.illinoisfarmdirect.org/ ’Farm Direct helps you find fresh, locally grown food by connecting you directly with Illinois farmers. We invite you to search our directory, or learn more about this project.’

INDIANA http://www.goinglocal-info.com/my_weblog/indiana_food_guide.html ‘Indiana Local Food Guide … Find Indiana local good growers, producers, stores, and markets … Going Local Week September 2-8, 2012′

IOWA http://www.practicalfarmers.org/links.html ’Practical Farmers of Iowa / Healthy Foods • Diverse Farms • Vibrant Communities’ More than 20 links

http://www.iowafreshfood.com/ ’Northeast Iowa / Buy Fresh / Buy Local’

KANSAS http://www.kansasfarmersunion.org/Kansas-Grown-Food.html ‘UNITED TO GROW FAMILY AGRICULTURE …. Kansas Farmers Union believes in supporting local producers and business owners. So, we have comprised [sic] a list of websites that will help you find where you can buy locally grown food in your area.’

KENTUCKY http://communityfarmalliance.org/?page_id=64 ‘Kentucky’s ‘Community Farm Alliance /Real Change Comes From The Ground Up!’  Its ‘Resources’ page links to more than a dozen sites.

LOUISIANA http://www.gogreennola.org/farms/ ’With its year around growing season, Louisiana is the perfect place for farms. We’ve listed some farms we’ve found …’

http://www.noffn.org/ ’New Orleans Food & Farm Network / … New Seeds Available at the NOFFN Office

http://schoolatblairgrocery.blogspot.com/

MAINE http://www.mofga.org/ ’Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association … Find Local Organic Food …’

MARYLAND http://www.marylandorganic.org/’Maryland Organic Food & Farming Association’

MASSACHUSETTS http://theorganicfoodguide.com/farms/index.php

‘Your guide to certified organic and sustainably grown food and products in Massachusetts’

http://www.masslocalfood.org/ ‘We are a network of consumers, farmers, and artisans focused on providing fresh, local foods to those who seek them.’

MICHIGAN http://www.moffa.org/page/page/4202680.htm ’Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance … Organic Resources’

http://localdifference.org/ ’Know Your Farmer / Meet Your Local Growers’ in lower Michigan

http://foodandfarmingnetwork.org/Northwest Michigan

http://www.hrt.msu.edu/john-biernbaum/pg3 ‘Providing educational programs for small-scale organic farmers through the Michigan State University Student Organic Farm and SU Extension.

 

MINNESOTA http://www3.mda.state.mn.us/whlsale/ ’Find Minnesota Grown Wholesale Producers’

http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/foodfarm-main.html Minneapolis/St. Paul and and nearby

MISSISSIPPI http://msucares.com/crops/market/ From Mississippi State University: ‘Farmers Markets in Mississippi … There has been a tremendous growth in the number of farmers markets recently.’

MISSOURI http://agrimissouri.com/ ’Connecting producers to consumers to agriculture. Click a link for local food, farms, and fun!’

MONTANA http://www.missoulacfac.org/ ’Community Food Agriculture Coalition of Missoula County’

http://www.growmontana.ncat.org/resources.php Western and central Montana

http://www.farmtotablecoop.com/ Eastern Montana, western North Dakota: ‘We invite you to join us in building a sustainable local food system among the prairies and badlands of Eastern Montana and Western North Dakota.’

NEBRASKA http://www.nebsusag.org/food.shtml Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society …. Looking for local food from a Nebraska farmer?’ Many links.

http://www.nebraskafood.org/ ’Nebraska Food Cooperative / Nebraska’s year-round online farmers’ market and food distributions service.’

NEVADA http://nevadagrown.com/ ’Your resource for Nevada’s rich selection of locally-grown food’

NEW HAMPSHIRE http://www.nhfarms.com/ ’New Hampshire Virtual Farmers Market’

http://www.nofanh.org/foodmap ’The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire’

NEW JERSEY http://www.nofanj.org/FINAL%20VERSION%20FOR%20WEBSITE.pdf ’New Jersey Farm Food Guide …. A Guide to Your Local New Jersey Farms’

NEW MEXICO http://www.farmtotablenm.org/local-foods/ ’How do I get locally grown food?’

NEW YORK http://www.nyfb.org/resources/topic_detail.cfm?ID=480 ’Farm Bureau New York … NY FARMERS LEAD NATION IN FOOD DONATIONS’

http://www.buypurecatskills.com/organizations.html ’Farm & Food Organizations’

NORTH CAROLINA http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/ ‘Carolina Farm Stewardship Association Watch our ideo to learn more about how we help sustainable family farms to thrive / Find local food’

http://www.ncsu.edu/project/nc10percent/index.php ’10% Farm to Fork / Building North Carolina’s Local Food Economy /Pledge to spend 10 percent of your existing food dollars locally / Our Partners’

http://www.asapconnections.org/localfoodguide.html ’Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project / The Local Food Guide is a free print and online directory to family farms, … Over 90,000 copies of the Local Food Guide are distributed …’

NORTH DAKOTA http://www.ndfarmersmarkets.com/directory_4.html ‘North Dakota Farmers Market and Growers Association … Online Vendor Directory’

OHIO http://www.oeffa.org/ ’Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association / ‘A vibrant, local food system can provide Ohio’s family farmers with a secure income, while protecting our environment and meeting the growing consumer demand for fresh, safe, healthy food…. The OEFFA was formed in 1979 … 33rd Annual Conference: Sowing the Seeds of Our Food Sovereignty’

OKLAHOMA http://www.okfarmtoschool.com/growers/index.htm’Participating Growers … Farmers Resource Guide’

http://www.okfarmandfood.org/content/13104 ’Oklahoma Farm & Food Alliance / Find Local Food in Oklahoma’

OREGON http://www.ecotrust.org/foodfarms/ ’Ecotrust is working to build a robust regional food system that is environmentally sound, socially just, and economically viable.’

http://centraloregonfoodpolicy.org/buy-fresh-buy-local/food-farm-directory/ Central Oregon

http://www.lanefood.org/links.php Lane County–Willimamette Valley

http://www.gorgegrown.com/ Columbia River gorge, Oregon and Washington

http://oregonrural.org/northeast-oregon-food-and-farm-directory Northeast Oregon

PENNSYLVANIA http://www.pasafarming.org/resources ’Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture …. Find Local Food’

http://www.plainandfancyfarm.com/ Amish country

RHODE ISLAND http://www.farmfresh.org/?zip=01002 ’Local Food Guide’

SOUTH CAROLINA http://www.eatwild.com/products/socarolina.html ’Looking for a farm or ranch near you?’

http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/ ’Carolina Farm Stewardship Association’

SOUTH DAKOTA http://dakotarural.org/ ’Dakota Rural Action … Grassroots Organizing for the Future … Frank James honored by Willie Nelson …’

TEXAS http://www.farmerspal.com/organic-farms/region/texas/page/1/ ’Texas Organic and Sustainable Farms Directory’

http://farmandranchfreedom.org/conference-2011 ’Fram and Ranch Freedom Alliance … 5th Annual Farm & Food Leadership Conference … Join us for the first screnning in Texas of the new documentary Farmageddon: The Unseen War on America’s Family Farms!’

TENNESSEE  http://localtable.net/ ’Tennessee Organic Growers Association’

UTAH http://www.slowfoodutah.org/topics/view/8915/ ’Find Local Foods’ and resist supranational Corporations’ legislative tyranny.

VERMONT http://www.vermontfresh.net/ ’Vermont Fresh Network / Farm & Chef Partnership’

http://www.vsjf.org/project-details/5/farm-to-plate-initiative ’Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund’

http://www.vermontagriculture.com/buylocal/links/local.html ’Vermont Food and Farm Links  • Finding Local Foods’

VIRGINIA http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/vagrown/index.shtml ’Virginia Grown … Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) by Region’

WEST VIRGINIA http://www.wvhub.org/wvffc/resources ’West Virginia Food & Farm Coalition … Find Local Food in WV’

WASHINGTON http://wsffn.org/ ’The Washington Sustainable Food & Farming Network’

http://www.wafarmersmarkets.com/washingtonfarmersmarketdirectory.php ’Member Market Directory’

WISCONSIN http://www.csacoalition.org/ ‘The FairShare Community Supported Agriculture Coalition’, begun in 1992 in and nearby Madison, with list of  farms

http://www.farmfreshatlas.org/ ’Wisconsin’s Farm Fresh Atlases … These regional food guides include farms, farmers’ markets, restaurants, stores and other businesses that sell local food and use sustainable production and business practices.

WYOMING http://www.novativemedia.com/organic-food/wyoming-health-food-stores.php’Find Local Wyoming Organic Health Food Stores’

SOME REMINDERS OF A FEW’S OPPOSITION TO OUR SELF-SUSTAINING MAJORITY

Measures at levels of Federal, State and Municipal Government to take away the public’s abilities to feed, help, and otherwise defend ourselves have also increased in the post 9/11/01 21st century. That is, the war by a few self-styled ’elites’ against freedoms and plenty for the great majority of humanity continues with even greater trickery, scope and force. There’s no good reason imaginable that 30,000 airborne Drones and 450-million rounds of hollow-point bullets are on order for use or regulation by Government agencies in the U.S. over the next four to eight years (see 2012 below). The great majority of us can see what such magnitudes of surveillance and deadly force mean. We can see such evils clearly.

Two trains, or waves of human possibility, are running through our lifetimes.

One train or wave hastens toward freedoms and mutual growth through technologies. The other tendency seeks to use technologies for more repression, stratification, imprisonment and diminishment of everyday people.

One train welcomes everyone able to give. That wave is broad and composed of hope, respect, and even love. The other tendency is narrow and based in fear, false superiority, and belittlements akin to hate. One train or wave seeks to welcome the great majority of humankind aboard. The few who ride their old wave, the few who still scheme to rule for unjust profit, are isolated as castles amidst countryside. These old few gather at Conferences (Bilderburg and other); rattle their swords and jewelry (thank you again, John Lennon), and point to the Debt and Armed Forces they think they still command, while we, the many, hard-working people, hands to the land and eyes to the sky, more see through artificial divisions, make our own tools, create our own channels, and grow our own alternatives.

We must be careful. We must be aware and alert. We must know our true past to see clearly the obvious choices for a better suture. Let’s look back on more than a decade of desperate, treacherous and yet ultimately futile moves by the would-be ruling few against freedom and mutual prosperity for we the many.

2001: PATRIOT Act after the biggest of Big Lies, ” ’9/11′ “, defines ‘domestic terrorism’ in Section 802 (a) (5) as ‘activities that appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population’. The PATRIOT Act coincides with the Angl0-American-led war on Afghanistan for oil, opium, and bases in Central Asia, the war known as ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’.

2002: Homeland Security Bill in Section 304 allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to declare than ‘an actual or potential public health emergency’ requires the forced vaccination of anyone within the United States.

2003: Anglo-American-led ‘Coaltion of the Willing’ uses Big Lies about WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) to start war, ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’, that produces unprecedented plunder and civil war in Iraq.

2004: The National Identity Card Act is passed by the U.S. Congress and Senate.

2006: Military Commissions Act allows the U.S. President (Bush, the second, the “decider”, George W.) to take dictatorial command of National Guard and all U.S. Military. (1)

2007: Presidential Directives 51 and 20 and subsequent Executive Orders more empower the U.S. President to solely command Military and Police during an ‘emergency’ declared by the President (the “decider”).

2008: September,  ”martial law” is threatened by Treasury Secretary (Paulson) to U.S. Congressmen before the TARP Bill bails-out U.S. and European Banks (2)                                                                                                                                                                    September-October, 4700 U.S. Military personnel (3rd Infantry Division) deploy for domestic duty at Fort Stewart, Georgia (3)
December,  the Washington Post expects that a total of 20,000 U.S. Military will be on domestic duty by 2011 (4)

2009: May, U.S. President (Obama) attacks George W. Bush Administration’s abrogations of the “rule of law” and then proposes to work with U.S. Congress for a “new legal regime’ that will enable and/or perpetuate the Unconstitutional “indefinite detention”, without charges, by U.S. Military, of anyone suspected to be a possible perpetrator or plotter of terrorist acts (5)

2010: April, U.S. President asserts right to assassinate anyone suspected of terrorism, including U. S. citizens, outside the United States, through the example of Anwar al-Awlaki, a ‘radical Muslim cleric’ residing in Yemen, according to the New York Times and military.com (6)

2011: September, two U.S. citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, are assassinated by a Hellfire missile from Predator drone in Yemen (7)

December 31,  New Year’s Eve, U.S. President signs National Defense Authorization Act (the NDAA), allowing indefinite detention, without specific charges, of anyone in the U.S. who is suspected of somehow aiding even the suggestion of terrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union writes: ‘The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.’ (8)

2012: January, per section 1097 of the NDAA, U.S. Army Directive 2012-02 orders implementation within six months of six bases for testing drones’ domestic use across the U.S. and for ‘directed mission support’. (9)

February, the U.S. Congress passes the Federal Aviation Agency Reauthorization Act. The FAA ‘projects that 30,000 drones could be in the nation’s skies by 2020.’  (10)

March, CIA Director David Petraeus speaks at the Agency’s conference for its ‘venture capital’ offshoot, In-Q-Tel, about the Internet’s increasing capacities for surveillance of citizens/consumers. Wired magazine writes about the CIA Director’s remarks: ‘More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.’ Petraeus is quoted: “Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said, “the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.” (11)

March, U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder speaks to students at Northwestern Law School, defends the extra-judicial killing of secretly designated terrorists (“Our legal authority is not limited to the battles of Afghanistan”), and then cancels a session of question-and-answer with students, according to the Los Angeles Times (12)

March, the Department of Homeland Security orders as many as 450 million rounds of .40 caliber, hollow-point bullets from manufacturer TDK, to be delivered between 2012 and 2016. The Wall Street Journal reports: ‘This contract features a base of 12 months, includes four option years, and will have a maximum volume of 450 million rounds.’ (13)

April, analyses by Mike Adams of Natural Health News and others note that hollow-point bullets are used to more explosively and effectively maim and kill, not for target-practice, and calculate that 450 million rounds are sufficient for a seven-year war against the U.S. public (population about 315 million) . Such a war’s use of the kill-specific .40 hollow-point bullets would closely compare with year-by-year expenditure of ammunition during  ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ by the ‘Coalition of the Willing’. (14)

May, columnist Glenn Greenwald reports on the FBI’s ongoing efforts to have Internet hardware and software universally allow Governments’ ’backdoor’ access to individuals’ personal communication. Greenwald then  recalls the galvanizing Operation Wall Street movement and the public’s and commercial websites’ successful tactics to block the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in January 2012.He writes” ‘It is possible for citizens to meaningfully oppose this relentless expansion of the Surveillance State.’ (15)

ALL THOSE FARMS AND MARKETS AND HAPPY, WORKING PEOPLE

As the hundreds of thousands of Farm to Food efforts show, the past decade of Governments’ measures to more repress freedom, to more invade privacy, and to more rob the public, are producing a resistance that’s active and cooperative, independent and yet inter-dependent, every day.

So far this resistance is comparatively quiet in the United States and Canada. One day soon, however, we the many will wake and rise and act with a unity and multiplicity that will make Carnavals and Feasts of Plenty look like prelude.

We’ll simply step away from enslavement. We’ll say good-by to the supranational Banks downtown. Good-by, wheedling abstraction. We’ll welcome the repudiation of false debts. We’ll welcome the money-traders as they come out from their useless temples. Those bearing arms will step away, too, and walk alongside. We’ll look out; pause for good, long whiles on what’s again our common ground; and see the riches that surround us, from the Acropolis to the Punjab to the Loire to the Serengetti to llanos to Prairies to San Joaquin.

We’ll take up tools that technologies afford us for freedom, not enslavement.

We’ll create a future from the riches that we now realize we share.

1. http://www.aclu.org/national-security/military-commissions-act-2006

2.  http://www.puppetgov.com/2011/11/22/freeing-ourselves-from-financiers-empire-2/ Part 3 ‘Taking Back America from the Supranational Banks’, linking Representative Brad Sherman’s speech on youtube

3. Ibid, linking to Army Times and ‘Why Is a U.S. Army Brigade Being Assigned to the “Homeland”?’ Glenn Greenwald in Salon, September 24, 2008.

4. ‘Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security’ at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217.html

5. Rachel Maddow on May 21, 2009 referenced at http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/omkara/2011/nov/30/obama-calls-unconstitutional-indefinite-detention-/

6. ‘US Authorizes Killing of American Cleric’, April 7, 2010, at http://www.military.com/news/article/us-authorizes-killing-of-american-cleric.html?ESRC=dod.nl

7. ‘Obama Asserts Right To Kill Citizens On His Own Order’, Bluegrass Bulletin, October 5, 2011, at http://www.bluegrassbulletin.com/2011/10/obama-asserts-right-to-kill-citizens-on-his-own-order.html

8. http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-law

9. ‘Army Foresees Expanded Use of Drones in U.S. Airspace’, quoting U.S. Army Directive 2012-02 of January 13, 2012 from Secretary of the Army John McHugh, at http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/01/army_drones.html

10. ‘Drones over U.S. get OK by Congress’, February 7, 2012, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/7/coming-to-a-sky-near-you/?page=all

11. ‘CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You through Your Dishwasher’, March 15, 2012, at  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/

12. ‘Eric Holder: U.S. can target citizens overseas in terror fight’, March 5, 2012, at http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/05/news/la-pn-eric-holder-terrorism-awlaki-20120305

13. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/atk-secures-40-caliber-ammunition-contract-with-department-of-homeland-security-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-dhs-ice-2012-03-12

14. ‘Department of Homeland Security buying up enough ammo to wage seven-year war against the American people’, April 22, 2012, at http://www.naturalnews.com/035649_DHS_ammunition_domestic_war.html

15. ‘Surveillance State democracy’, May 6, 2012, at http://www.salon.com/2012/05/06/surveillance_state_democracy/

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1. New audio tape sheds light on JFK assassination

As a federal court prepares to rule on a challenge to Sirhan Sirhan’s conviction in the Robert F. Kennedy assassination, a long overlooked witness to the murder is telling her story: She heard two guns firing during the 1968 shooting and authorities altered her account of the crime.

Nina Rhodes-Hughes wants the world to know that, despite what history says, Sirhan was not the only gunman firing shots when Kennedy was murdered a few feet away from her at a Los Angeles hotel.

“What has to come out is that there was another shooter to my right,” Rhodes-Hughes said in an exclusive interview with CNN. “The truth has got to be told. No more cover-ups.”

ARTICLE CONTINUES…

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Hello, supporters of the Wesley United Digital Arts and Training Center,

We face an emergency regarding our project to turn the building at 2517 Jackson Avenue in New Orleans into a Digital Arts and Training Center. Those on this list know that the Restore Wesley United group has had offers to purchase the building from the United Methodist Church on the table since December 2010. You supporters also know that we’ve been locked out of the building since January 11, 2011.

In the past two weeks we’ve confirmed that Pastor Martha Orphe of the First Street Peck Wesley United Methodist Church has been in discussion with Pastor Louis Jones of the St. John Institutional Missionary Baptist Church about sale of Wesley building at 2517 Jackson Avenue. Pastor Louis Jones entered into the discussion with frank disclosure that the St. John IMBC wanted the property for an expansion of the St. John IMBC parking-lot.

The threat of the historic Wesley building’s demolition to make way for a parking-lot was exactly the horror that compelled Restore Wesley United’s National Coordinator, Sakura Kone’, to bring volunteers into the building almost five years ago.

A New Orleans Times-Picayune article by Lolis Eric Elie from August 2009 relates this history. http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/wesley_united_methodist_church.html

You supporters also know that during the 13 months in which the Restore Wesley United group had funding to proceed with substantial work on the building, more than $800,000 in improvements were accomplished. Your contributions were absolutely essential to that progress.

By December 2010 the building was more and more used by its surrounding community and we were moving steadily on roof, windows, walls, purlins, decking, … to make the building ready as an educational facility preliminary to its upper-story Sancutary’s development as a commercial Digital Arts Center. The ‘Pictures of Progress’ below show the lively, colorful, community-involving events that were happening at the Wesley just before our eviction. You can click on the PDF for full-size photos.

This article by Zoie Clift from the online Preservation magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, February of 2011, makes clear our group’s progress and imminent goals. Those goals and our progress were presented to City of New Orleans officials in two meetings of April 2011. http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/story-of-the-week/2011/new-orleans-mother-church.html

Now the Wesley building again faces a future of wrecking-ball and parking-lot.

Supporters in Michigan, Gail Wolkoff principal among them, have answered the threat of the Wesley’s demolition with an online petition. It’s gathering signatories by the hour. The signatories reasons for signing make for good reading. They speak to the care and hopes for the building that we all share.

Please read and sign Gail’s petition and add your voice to seeing that this building does become the Digital Arts and Training Center in Central City that we’ve all worked for it to be. Facebook is of course another means we can use to show support and raise awareness.

Also, please scroll through the ‘Pictures of Progress’. These photos are a bright record of what volunteers, donors, people-power in general, can do.

Cheers and all best,

Don
http://www.change.org/petitions/superintendent-of-the-umc-s-new-orleans-district-hadley-edwards-prevent-demolition-of-wesley-united-methodist-church-in-nola

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Sustainable gardening, simply put, is to garden with sensitivity toward the environment. It enables the garden to thrive naturally for years to come. Sustainable gardening practices include:

• Composting
• Mulching
• Adopting smart watering practices
• Using natural means of pest control

Often, sustainable gardens are organic gardens—gardens that grow food without the use of petrochemical pesticides, herbicides and inorganic fertilizers.

The Soil
To start sustainable gardening, take a look at your soil. Soil is the foundation of your garden because plants take root and gather important minerals and other nutrients from it. Here are several ways to enrich your garden’s soil.

Composting
There are several ways to compost at home. The most familiar method is to build a compost pile in your back yard consisting of garden and lawn trimmings, fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, and other garbage-bound items. With time, these items decompose into rich organic matter.

Another kind of composting is vermicomposting, or composting with worms. Worm composting can be done both indoors and out, making it a suitable method of composting year-round. To make compost, redworms are kept in a container with a moist bedding material. Food scraps are put into the container with the worms, and in time, the worm excrement creates a rich fertilizer. Read more about how to vermicompost.

Deep Digging
Small vegetable gardens can increase their production simply by deep digging the soil. Deep digging is a manner of preparing soil for gardening by loosening the soil two feet deep and incorporating organic matter like compost. This works well for compacted, heavy, or rocky soils, and soils whose structure has been degraded.

Mulch
Mulching your garden will help to retain moisture, reduce the amount of weeds, and will also protect the roots of the plant from temperature variations.Degradable mulch can also enrich the soil.

Good mulching materials include:

• Woodchips
• Straw
• Leaves
• Pebbles
• And many recycled plastic mulch products

Water

The next important step in your sustainable garden is conservative watering. The easiest way to conserve water is to group plants according to water needs-—thirsty plants with thirsty plants, and low-water plants with other similar plants. Once this is done, you’ll need to choose a watering system.

Rain Barrels
The most sustainable method of watering plants comes from the sky in the form of rain. You’ll greatly reduce rainwater run-off by purchasing a rain barrel system to put under your roof’s downspouts. The barrel will capture all of the rain that would normally run down the roof to the lawn, and then onto streets and into sewer grates. Once the water is captured, you can water your garden by hand when needed, or set up a drip system to irrigate.

Drip Irrigation
Drip irrigation is a controlled application of water where a system of hoses with tiny holes constantly seep small amounts of water into gardens and lawns. Because the water is being applied close to the soil where it can be immediately absorbed, little water is lost to evaporation or runoff. Additionally, the soil never dries out, and your plants receive the proper amount of water. Often these drip systems can be set up to use rainwater collected in barrels.

So, now you’ve got rich soil to grow well-watered plants. The next aspect of the sustainable garden is to protect your plants from harmful pests, but to do so in a manner that is safe for the environment.

Pest Control
A sustainable garden is a garden free from harsh pesticides and herbicides. One of the best ways to control pests is to use a process called Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Integrated Pest Management includes strategies for pest management with no harsh chemicals or contaminants. Some IPM methods include:

• Growing plants that will attract “good” insects that prey on pest
• Using plants that are naturally pest resistant (for example, rabbits don’t like marigolds) like the ones mentioned here
• Using non-toxic ingredients such as borax, vinegar, hot pepper and ammonia to control bugs and weeds.

Harsh pesticides and herbicides are used as a last resort, if at all.

By implementing environmentally-friendly gardening practices such as organically enriching soil with compost and mulch, making the most of water resources, and by adopting non-toxic methods of pest-control, your garden can become a sustainable ecosystem that will thrive for generations to come.

More on organic gardening and composting

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2. Organic Hydroponic Gardens for Beginners
3. Five Ways to Use Eggshells in Your Garden

per·ma·cul·ture

[pur-muh-kuhl-cher] noun

VISIT: Earth Flow

Lawns into Gardens:

Lawns are Tragic, Gardens are Magic

SEE ALSO:

10 DIY Permaculture Ideas

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Spin: How the media lies to manipulate us

Flashback: McCain BBQ and Our Insipid Press Corps

Your Washington Press Corps, Ladies and Gentlemen

By Glenn Greenwald~Salon

David Ignatius, The Washington Post, December 26, 2010:

For a world that feared (and in some cases, cheered) the prospect of American decline, this holiday season has been bracing. It showed that despite U.S. political and economic difficulties, President Obama is still able to rally support at home and abroad for a strong foreign policy. . . . The White House cites eight specific foreign policy gains over the past two months. . . . What has been notable about the recent foreign policy moves is that they have allowed Obama to show some backbone . . . The foreign policy challenges of the past two months were also the first test of the new national security adviser, Tom Donilon. True to his reputation as a political “Mr. Fix-It,” . . . he ran a smooth and seamless policy process, without the competing voices that have sometimes been heard over the past two years.

Harvard Kennedy School, April 3, 2012, on David Ignatius’ speech:

President Obama is less comfortable with exercising power publicly than privately, said David Ignatius, associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post, at a Shorenstein Center event. “As covert Commander-in-Chief, [Obama] has been quite effective,” he continued. While he is “reticent, reluctant to use the public political tools of power, in private…he is quite decisive.” . . . Ignatius concluded that the president has “learned a lot,” and if reelected, will return to many of the same issues in his first term, but this time, “with more discipline and realism.”

David Ignatius, The Washington Post, March 16, 2012:

Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus. . . . The scheme is described in one of the documents taken from bin Laden’s compound by U.S. forces on May 2, the night he was killed. I was given an exclusive look at some of these remarkable documents by a senior administration official. 

Blake Hounshell, Foreign Policy, April 17, 2012:

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has been on a tear lately: breaking news on the files found in Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad safe house, revealing details of the backchannel negotiations between Erdogan and Ayatollah Khamenei, and now, channeling the Obama administration’s negotiating strategy toward Iran. . . . . Iggy has always been known for his top-notch sources, especially in the intelligence community, but his columns seem especially well-sourced of late -- it’s almost as if he has a weekly lunch with Tom Donilon or something. . . . All of which is a long-winded way of saying that if you want to know what the Obama administration is thinking, read David Ignatius.

Dylan Byers, Politico, April 19, 2012:

[Ignatius'] emergence as the administration’s go-to guy with those twin bombshells has cemented his standing as the nation’s preeminent writer on national security affairs and, at the same time, rekindled a debate over the value of White House-directed “access journalism” that can make cheerleading reporters (and columnists) seem more like uncritical spokesmen than truth-tellers. . . . “David is not only influential, he’s a serious journalist who is taken seriously,” an Obama administration official told POLITICO. . . . Melvin Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a former CIA analyst, once called Ignatius “the mainstream media’s chief apologist for CIA crimes.”

ARTICLE CONTINUES…

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Las Cruces, New Mexico is threatening to cut off water, gas and sewer service over unpaid red light and speed camera tickets.

~The Newspaper

With more and more vehicle owners simply deciding refuse to pay red light camera and speed camera tickets, private, for-profit companies and municipalities are growing increasingly desperate. America’s second-largest city shut down its photo ticketing program last year largely because residents who could not afford the $500 citations did not pay them. On Monday, Las Cruces, New Mexico announced it would shut off the utilities of city residents who refused to pay Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company that owns and operates the cameras.

“The city is notifying offenders by mail that they have until the due date stated in the letter to pay the fines or make satisfactory payment arrangements,” a Las Cruces press release warned. “Failure to comply will result in termination of utilities services.”

Las Cruces claims vehicle owners owe $2 million. To encourage payment of the $100 photo fines, the city says it will employ an ordinance the council adopted in 1988 giving itself the right to shut off utility service to residents declared delinquent for any reason.

ARTICLE CONTINUES…

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What do you and your family eat each week? You may be shocked to see the significant variation even between relatively ‘similar’ nations when it comes to diet. While many families within the United States and Mexico include fast food and soda into the core of their nutritional program, families from nations like Bhutan survive off of traditional base food items like vegetables and grains. It is easy to see why disease rates are skyrocketing in many developed countries, where nutritionis not held to a very high regard.

Amazingly, the United States also spends more on healthcare than any nation in the world. Despite spending $7,960 per capita, the United States has been ranked dead last when it comes to the quality of care. The fact of the matter is that when food intake is ignored — along with the subsequent toxic ingredients that go along with the processed food addiction — disease will arise. In the telling pictures below, taken from the book ‘Hungry Planet: What the World Eats’, you can see what the average family from each nation eats over the period of one week.

North Carolina, United States

This family from North Carolina eats a diet almost entirely of processed and pre-prepared foods with heavy amounts of junk and fast food. Consuming mostly sugar-laden ‘fruit’ drinks and mega-sized sodas from Burger King and McDonald’s, this average American diet will ultimately lead to chronic disease and rampant sickness. Some favorite foods include pizza and fast food.

Mexico

Families in mexico also tend to consume sugary sodas and processed foods, though their fruit and vegetable intake is higher than the United States families observed. The family lists their favorite food items as pizza, pasta, and chicken.

Canada

Enjoying some of the same processed items as families from Mexico and the United States, Canadian families do consume processed chips and meats, though you will notice a more prominent display of vegetables and fresh fish on the table. An increased amount of yogurt and cheese is also featured.

Italy

Italian families enjoy their bread, pasta, and assorted fruits. With grains a major part of the diet, along with other carbohydrate-rich foods, Italian families tend to forfeit some meal options high in protein for ‘traditional’ Italian dishes like pasta with ragu. While many of these items are fresh or even baked at home, Italian families still consume large amounts of sodas like Pepsi. You can see that this family drinks about 6 larger-sized bottles per week.

China

This Chinese family prefers fried shredded pork with sweet and sour sauce, listed as their favorite dishes. Eating processed food items mixed with packaged meats and fish, this Chinese family eats more fruits than vegetables, and their produce selection is one of the smallest besides the United States.

Chad

This family resides in the developing nation of Chad and spends only the equivalent of $1.23 per week on food to feed the entire family. Their favorite food is soup with fresh sheep meat.

Japan

It may surprise you, but this Japanese family consumes a diet high in processed junk and sugary treats. They list their favorite food items as cake, potato chips, and sashimi.

Germany

This German family has adopted an American-styled nutritional regiment, stating that their favorite foods are pizza, vanilla pudding, fried potatoes, and fried noodles. You may also notice the largely increased amount of beer and other alcoholic drinks over the other nations.

Great Britain

Spending over $250 per week on food, the average family in Great Britain is eating mostly processed meals and candy. This family’s preferred foods include chocolate fudge cake, mayonnaise sandwiches, and prawn cocktail.

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AMERICAN: The Bill Hicks Story

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FULL DOCUMENTARY

Dirigido por David Guggenheim, “It Might Get Loud” cuenta las historias de estos tres guitarristas y muestra cómo crearon su propio estilo. Por eso, cada guitarrista describe su propia rebelión musical: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) contra la sacarina pop de los años sesenta, The Edge (U2) contra los auto-indulgentes solos de los años setenta, Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs) contra el alma del bajo de los años ochenta. Subtítulos en español.

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I recently read this article in the East Bay Express about an organized food swap in the East Bay area, outside of San Francisco.  Local residents meet regularly to barter produce grown in their own gardens, eggs collected from their own backyard chickens, and prepared dishes cooked and baked in their own kitchens.  This is a wonderful practice for two reasons.

First, California is considering passing a cottage food law, which would allow food artisans to prepare non-hazardous products liked baked goods in their home kitchens and sell them to the public.  Many states already have such laws on the books.  As it is now, individuals trying to launch food businesses in California must rent commercial kitchen space – a cost that is often prohibitive for those just starting out.  This is detrimental to the local food movement and efforts to create food systems that provide healthier, more affordable, and more environmentally responsible alternatives to the corporate food system.  The success of organized food swaps demonstrates the fact that there is a demand for food grown and prepared in local communities and highlights the need for a cottage food law in California.  What is more, allowing individuals to launch food businesses from their own homes will provide many families with the opportunity to gain additional income, which is certainly important in the current economic climate.

Next, the food swaps are important because they demonstrate the salience of bartering. The media constantly tell us how young adults have it harder these days than their parents had it decades ago.  It is more difficult for Americans to achieve a comfortable lifestyle than it used to be, let alone financial security.  Many young adults are saddled with thousands – if not tens of thousands – of dollars of student loan debt.  In an economic climate that makes it more difficult to afford life’s basic comforts, it is important to remember that we do not always need to rely upon large corporations for our consumer goods.  Bartering and engaging in peer-to-peer transactions is a viable way to save money and circumvent the corporate system.

SEE ALSO:

How To Barter For Food

10 Ways to Barter for Food

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