Green Party Worldwide's topics - tribe.net

Green Party Networking (Post your links here)Greens unite(keep it simple just links & or short descriptions)

djsouljourn — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:10:25 GMT

Green Party Networking (Post your links here)Greens unite!(keep it simple just links & or short descriptions)

http://myspace.com/buncombegreens

My Green Party page: Journey of the Buncombe County Green Party on myspace.com

http://greenexus.ning.com

Green Networking site, great site, strictly Green networking

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Dreaming the NEW American Dream

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:41:48 GMT

California poets Ava Bird & Rex Butters, and....

Santa Cruz artist Russell Brutsche - Karen Kwiatkowski of Virginia

Protests to stop immigration raids ... and more.
____________________

http://www.newamericandream.net

The New American Dream

What's New?

* Karen Kwiatkowski column
* Ava Bird poetry
* Rex Butters poetry
* Gary Mennie poetry

Columns:
Sherwood Ross — why not shut down a few prisons in the United States as well?
Mickey Z — Americans are cowards, too comfortable, will never-ever-not-in-one-million-years revolt-or-even-bother-to-stand-up — no matter what the rich folks do to them.
Lydia Sems — It's The American Dream that is the problem.

and more from Jack Saunders ...

Resistance:
* Planned civil disobedience in Minnesota to stop raids against immigrants
* Protests at Creech AFB against U.S. drone terroristic activity
*100 days of protest against Guantanamo to culminate

All this, Northern Exposure, The Big Lebowski, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights ... a certificate for free toast ... and more.

Join us.

The New American Dream
Dude.
... because ... Sister Mary Anne told us, "There are no wrong questions, if you don't know the answers."

... from the Dream Team

http://www.newamericandream.net

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Green Change

marnie — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:44:34 GMT

Hi Global Greens.

Check out www.greenchange.org.

Green Change is a community of people with Green values: justice, grassroots democracy, sustainability and non-violence. We work together to share Green art, politics and culture.

Our website has news, actions, music, videos, photographs, how to guides, fact sheets, Green laws and much more. Soon we will launch a social network for people with Green values. On our network, you will be able to organize groups, events and actions. You will be able to write blogs, post photos, share videos, chat and more.

Please let me know what you think of the site. If you like it, send it to your friends, families and Green groups.

Peace,
Marnie Glickman
Green Change
marnie@greenchange.org
www.greenchange.org

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Belgian Greens

Shawn — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 05:46:52 GMT

I just heard that one of the members (Richard) of one of my favourite band, Front 242 is running for the Green Party in Belgium! And it sounds like Ireland just got greener too!

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Good Listening

will_feathers — Sun, 27 May 2007 05:10:07 GMT

www.zentertainment .org "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Greens in Florida

CassandraGemini — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 11:50:11 GMT

I live in northwest florida and from my research I'm one of the few. I don't want to sound ignorant, but is it just a Southern thing? Why is it that alot of people down here don't even know about Green politics? I used to wear a Green Party button on my jacket and you'd be surprised how many people had no idea what it was.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

The Greens are growing

Shawn — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:26:20 GMT

The city of Richmond, California just elected a Green Party Mayor and the Green Party of Ireland just elected another Green MP......keep it green :)

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 3 replies

The Meatrix

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 04:37:28 GMT

www.meatrix1.com/

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

Calling all Canadians!

Shawn — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 02:56:03 GMT

Now is the time to prepare for a possible spring federal election. Please go to: www.demanddemocraticdebates.ca, and sign the petition to allow the Green Party to participate in the nationally televised debates! Let's stop the corporate and political ill will preventing EVERY party that receives federal funding to join in the debates and show all Canadians what the Green Party is really about! Thank you :) Peace

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

What some people will do for a Buck.

will_feathers — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 11:42:41 GMT

http: /investigation.redirectme.net check it out! How low can ya go?

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 8 replies

A Great Green Party Web Site

Shawn — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 03:38:24 GMT

www.globalgreens.info............ The thing that my green friends and I do to keep the spirits up....we remember that this party is GLOBAL, and although it has never reached the Federal Level here in North America......I hope in the next year or so that it may do that. Once we appear and "represent" in any country..people see the difference and the Greens gather more public support and acceptance as a legitimate party. It would be cool if a senator , congress person, or MP was elected in this corner of the pond......it would make good ripples..Peace :)

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Federal Green Party of Canada is gaining ground

Shawn — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 03:56:04 GMT

I am soo glad that the new high profile Leader, Elizabeth May is starting to get a foothold in the hearts of the average canadian. She is also the darling of the press, which is godsend for a party typically snubbed by the mainstream North American media machine. There is a federal election looming as our goonish Conservative Party Prime Minister tries to call a snap election before he screws up even more. Elizabeth May placed second in the recent byelection in London (burb of Toronto) which is again, receiving a lot of press. Its time for the Green Party to break out in North America!

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

Come join in the World Orgasm Dec 22nd

Sunwolf_388 — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:20:40 GMT

Iona Miller wrote:
"In Magick, the so-called Masonic secret is sex magick - the thoght that occurs at the moment of orgasm HAPPENS.
Let's put it to the test Dec. 22 with what gets you off! ;)))) How HARD is that? !!!!!"

http://www.globalorgasm.org/demo.html

Sunwolf's response:
Ok, so we are all suppose to jack off or make love and at the moment of orgasm think of world peace, and we are suppose to do this at the same time, more or less. I'm game. Now this could make sex magick history!!!

In the Dreamspell, this will be White Resonant Mirror, Kin 98, Rhythmic Lizard Moon day 10.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

"Buckeye media stonewalls Green Party ballot victory"

singingnymph — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:55:35 GMT

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2006/1378
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2006/1398

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Please join ONE!!!

Wizard-Of-Air — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 18:32:59 GMT

The following was posted in my friend Lynne's blog. I believe that it deserves our full support.

What is ONE?

ONE is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans – ONE by ONE – to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE is students and ministers, punk rockers and NASCAR moms, Americans of all beliefs and every walk of life, united as ONE to help make poverty history. ONE believes that allocating an additional ONE percent of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world's poorest countries. ONE also calls for debt cancellation, trade reform and anti–corruption measures in a comprehensive package to help Africa and the poorest nations beat AIDS and extreme poverty.

What does ONE aim to do/change?

ONE aims to help Americans raise their voice as ONE against the emergency of AIDS and extreme poverty, so that decision makers will do more to save millions of lives in the poorest countries.

Who supports ONE?

ONE is a broad movement of Americans from every state and walk of life–more than 2 million people have lent their voices to ONE by visiting ONE.ORG and signing the ONE Declaration. More than three million Americans are also wearing white bands as a show of support for ending extreme poverty and global AIDS. ONE is Americans spreading the word in churches, coffee shops, on television, college campuses and the Internet.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Time for an Intervention

Wizard-Of-Air — Tue, 09 May 2006 17:05:32 GMT

When you have a friend who is a drunk and is incapable of helping himself; you gather all of his friends and family together and have an intervention. It doesn't always work, but failure to do so always fails. It's time to do this for our friends in the Corn Belt before its too late. If we don't the catastrophe will affect us all.

This is an article from Common Dreams that is worth sharing with all of our friends around the country. Please forward it to anyone you know who isn't here on tribe.net and send a link to it to all of your friends here on tribe.net.

Published on Wednesday, May 3, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
We Must Honor Earth's Limits
by Pete Letheby

If you check out an atlas of California, you’ll notice that Owens Lake is filled in with white, not blue. That’s because Los Angeles sucked it dry decades ago. Las Vegas is considering similar plunder of groundwater elsewhere in Nevada. And there are many other cities -- Denver, Phoenix, Houston, Tampa, to name a few -- that have chosen to push nature’s limits.

Closer to my Nebraska home, I watch the continuing plunder of the Great Plains’ Ogallala Aquifer, the largest underground reservoir in the United States and one of the largest on the planet. It once held as much water as Lake Huron. It is a treasure that took millennia to accumulate. Remarkably, it could cease to be a water source within another generation.

And for what? To provide water to irrigators who grow surplus, subsidized corn -- the thirstiest of grain crops. Much of this overproduction is in semiarid Nebraska west of the 98th meridian.

Nebraska’s Ogallala drawdowns aren’t yet as dramatic as elsewhere in the Plains -- as much as 200 feet in the Texas Panhandle, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But Nebraska is pumping hard to catch up. And it is important to remember, as a 2001 Kansas State University study points out, that only 15 percent of this vast underground ocean is physically and economically feasible to bring to the surface.

Other big losers in this heartland water grab are rivers and streams fed by the Ogallala. The Arkansas River, the United States’ fifth longest, once began its healthy flow near Leadville, Colo. Now a majority of the time there is no flow in the river at Dodge City, Kan., nearly 450 miles downstream. The river’s effective headwater is another 85 miles eastward, in Great Bend. The historic Platte River, which guided explorers and settlers westward in the 18th and 19th centuries, has effectively dried up in central Nebraska the past five summers.

I would object less if the groundwater-irrigated acres in my state produced valuable crops that can’t be grown elsewhere. But this country needs more corn like an alcoholic needs a happy hour. Our flawed federal farm policy is partially liable. The government’s price guarantee for corn encourages overproduction, which further drives down the crop’s price, which further increases subsidy payments.

Tragically, many of those who have been chugging so much water out of the ground for so long, and those who have sat idly by and watched it happen, seem most adept at blaming and justifying. The drought that has plagued much of the western, southern and central Plains since 2000 gets most of the blame. It’s easier to fault something beyond our control than those who actually use the water.

Nebraska’s featured solution is this: Drill 550 wells in the fragile Sandhills -- the nation’s largest dune grassland, almost as big as West Virginia -- siphon out 450,000 acre-feet of water a year, and send it by canal to corn growers.

Sounds like happy hour to me.

Proposed legislation introduced earlier this year in Nebraska would tax water consumption. Those who use the most would pay the most tax. More than 90 percent of the aquifer’s water is used for crop irrigation, according to the Geological Survey. The bill never made it out of committee.

There are other options toward some semblance of sustainability -- retiring cropland, prohibiting the drilling of new wells, purchasing groundwater rights, shifting federal subsidies from crop overproduction to environmental stewardship.

Whatever we do, it must be substantial. Once the Ogallala is drawn down beyond repair -- and we are nearing that point, some hydrologists and geologists say -- the exodus from America’s rural heartland shifts from second to third gear. Communities dependent on groundwater for consumption, development and recreation will wither and die.

We will be left with yet another illustration of an all-too-common American mindset: short on vision, mired in denial and unable to comprehend nature’s limits.

Pete Letheby is a newspaper editor and columnist in Grand Island, Neb. He wrote this comment for the Land Institute’s Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan.

© 2006 Prairie Writers Circle

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 3 replies

A progressive politics of meaning

Wizard-Of-Air — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:54:41 GMT

I have just read an article by the Publisher of Tikkun magazine; Rabbi Michael Lerner titled; "After the Fall: Why America Needs a Spiritual Left". Although I do not make a blanket endorsement of Rabbi Lerner or Tikkun Magazine I haven't read anything of this calibre in many years. Here are some excerpts from the article:

Most people want to live in a different world, but most are very skeptical that such a world is possible. They have been so deeply indoctrinated into a depressive belief that no one else will ever respond to the vision of the good to which they themselves resonate, they have become so deeply committed to the alleged truth that everyone else is either too stupid or too evil to ever transcend the materialism and selfishness that governs this society, that they effectively remain cheerleaders for the very cynical realism that they simultaneously despise. It is this duality in people, the desire for spiritual transcendence and the despair about its possibility in the case of “the Other,” that presents the central challenge for a Politics of Meaning. Undermining that depressive resignation will take incredible levels of creativity, psychological sensitivity, spiritual awareness, and political courage.

A progressive politics of meaning does not require that one believe in a Supreme Being, much less the specific God that has been taught in orthodox versions of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. But it does require a recognition that many people want more from their lives than an accumulation of comforts, pleasures, and material goodies. We want more than power, more than fame, more than sexual conquest'we actually want to connect our lives to something of transcendent importance the value of which will continue beyond our own individual life. Counter to the empiricist and scientific reductionism that sometimes gets confused with rational thought, the Politics of Meaning insists that not everything real or important can be quantified or verified through sense-data. The deepest human desires—the desires for loving connection, for transcendent meaning to life, and for justice and peace (not just for ourselves but for others)—are rooted in what we call a spiritual conception of the world.

a Global Marshall Plan in which the United States would lead all the advanced industrial societies in dedicating 5 percent of our GNP for each of the next twenty years to eliminate global poverty, hunger, inadequate education, and inadequate health care, and to rebuild the economic infrastructure of the entire globe in ways that would be both ecologically sustainable and socially just.

I would like to suggest as firmly as I can that you take the time to read the full text of this article which appears in the Journal of the Network of Spiritual Progressives. This article is at the following link:

http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/magazine/tik0501/050111a.html

I hope to hear your thoughts about and reactions to this article in the threads of this tribe.
Thank you

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Synthesis/Regeneration new issue

G/GPUSA Clearinghouse — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 05:22:01 GMT

S/R is published independently and available independtly or as a benefit to paid members fo the Greens/Green Party USA: http://www.greenparty.org/member.php..join

Synthesis/Regeneration
A Magazine of Green Social Thought
c/o WD Press, P.O. Box 300275, St. Louis MO 63130
314-727-8554 (evenings, weekends)
E-mail: fitzdon@aol.com

April, 2006

Dear Green or greenish friend,

We all know that the assault on democracy goes far
beyond Bush administration thugs dragging Cindy Sheehan out
of the State of the Union address. The Summer 2006
Synthesis/Regeneration (No. 40) on "Salvaging Democracy"
explores how the denial of democratic rights is limited to
neither party nor country. It includes long-standing
attempts to undermine efforts by Latin Americans to control
their own destiny. Sadly, the best hope for political
democracy - the Green Party - has its own internal problems
with proportional voting rights and betrayal of fundamental
principles.

Political democracy is ultimately rooted in economic
democracy. Thus, S/R 40 addresses dialectics, capitalism and
participatory socialism. This issue of S/R documents
critical biodevastation issues, including genetic
engineering, food, allergens, sea turtles, pesticides and
the car.

Rates for S/R 40 are:

1-4 copies, $3.95 each;
5-9 copies, $3.00 each;
10+ copies, $2.00 each.

Please make checks to "WD Press" and mail to P.O. Box
300275, St. Louis MO 63130. No postage charges if in US.
Non-US add 15% Canada, 25% other [surface mail] or 40%
Canada, 60% other [air mail]. Subscriptions to S/R (4
issues) are $15 (US). Non-US subscriptions are: $19
Canada, $26 other [surface mail] or $27 Canada, $35 other
[air mail].

In solidarity,

Don Fitz, Editor, Synthesis/Regeneration

SYNTHESIS/REGENERATION 40: SUMMER, 2006

Biodevastation

2 Interview on Genetic Engineering
Dr. Charles Benbrook tells Arty Mangan that
regulatory programs throughout the world are not
founded on precautionary science.

4 Food: A Little European Common Sense
John Feffer sees Americans' being oblivious to
intrusions of the pharmaceutical industry into their
kitchens.

7 Most Offspring Died When Mother Rats Ate GM
Soy
Jeffrey Smith notes that GM foods might lead to
hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases or
nutritional problems.

10 The Seri, Sea Turtles and Cleavage
Winona LaDuke suggests that the drive to "get it
up" helps decimate the turtle population.

11 Turf Wars
Stan Cox reports that 29 of the 30 most commonly
used lawn pesticides are toxic to birds, fish,
amphibians, and/or bees.

14 A Race Against the Car
Doctress Neutopia describes an Arcology Phoenix
infrastructure that would be based on the principle of
water conservation.

Salvaging Democracy

17 Campaign 2006 Strategy
Peter Camejo looks to educate the labor movement on
having a party that is independent from the corporate
rulers.

21 The Greens and the German Elections
Victor Grossman describes how power resulted in
abandoning environmental and social justice goals.

23 Some Critical Thoughts on the NDP
David Orton believes that the Canadian Party
minimizes individual responsibility for destructive
social and ecological actions.

26 What Really Happened
Cindy Sheehan recounts how she was denied her First
Amendment rights.

26 Cindy Sheehan's Message to the Democrats
Joshua Frank perceives a nod to a Green Party
candidate.

27 Venezuela and the Hackers' Revolution
David Sugar realizes that treating ideas as
tangible property results in the destruction of science
and education and the elimination of individual
freedoms.

ifc I Believe Only in the Power of the People
Evo Morales understands that Bolivia faces the task
of ending selfishness and creating forms of living
based mutual aid.

31 Why an Economic Boycott of Israel Is Justified
Norman Finkelstein proposes a way to oppose human
rights violations.

33 Abramoff and al-Arian
Juan Cole documents a dense network of illicit
finances and phony charities.

35 The Libby Affair and the Internal War
James Petras explains the intense internal struggle
over control of the US imperial state.

37 John Murphy Calls on Bush to Tell the Truth
A congressional candidate wants the American people
to hear what is really happening.

38 Women in Prison
Bonnie Kerness knows that there is no way to look
into the criminal justice system without being slapped
in the face with racism.

Thinking Economically

41 Why Dialectics? Why Now?
Bertell Ollman maintains that capitalism is so big
and omnipresent that few see the major effect it has on
everything inside of it.

45 Ecology, Value, and Marx
Frank Rotering observes that Marx did not ascribe
the source of wealth principally to human effort, but
to the equal contributions of humankind and nature.

47 Participatory Socialism
Richard Burke applauds the presentation of economic
tendencies rather than end points that he sees in Robin
Hahnel's writing.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

rise and fight the green scare

chilambalam2013 — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 22:11:49 GMT

dear friends ,kin and all the tribers in the USA
tho' I'm not in your continent
I just can't believe how far some criminals in high places dare to go
please read this and resist it as it would be horror
if this would happen ..

Gov. Rendell Meets With Anarchist Black Cross about HB213
***PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY***

Gov. Rendell Meets With Anarchist Black Cross

On Friday April 7th, about 25 people joined with organizers of the
Philadelphia Anarchist Black Cross in front of Governor Ed Rendell's
office to voice their opposition to HB213. This bill will label anyone a
"terrorist" who engages in civil disobedience against institutions that harm the earth or animals, and carry with it a 40 year jail sentence and/or $100,000 fine. It is designed to crush the environmental and animal rights movements, as similar tactics would not receive the same charge if waged against an abortion clinic.

After an hour of handbilling the Broad Street rush-hour traffic, two
spokespeople were invited to Governor Rendell's office to speak with him personally about the law. At the meeting, the Governor said that he had not heard of or read the bill he is scheduled to sign. When our people read it to him, he said he had strong reservations about it. He also said that if the Anarchist Black Cross drafted an analysis of HB213, he would consider it while making his decision on whether or not to sign the bill.

We are in the process of writing this analysis with lawyers, and will fax it to the Governor promptly.

We feel that this meeting is a very positive step in bringing down HB213, but we cannot ease up until the law has been totally defeated.

We are calling on all concerned citizens to CALL GOVERNOR RENDELL several times per day within the next week. Remind him that he hates this criminal move by the PA House and Senate as much as we do!

Here are the phone numbers for all of his offices:

Philadelphia: 215-560-2640
Scranton: 570-614-2090
Erie: 814-878-5719
Pittsburgh: 412-565-5700

The text of the bill is available online at:
www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI...3115.HTM

This law is part of a campaign being waged by all levels of government against the environmental and animal rights movements. The FBI has named this campaign Operation Backfire; those of us who know better are calling it the Green Scare, like the Red Scare which once targeted communists. To read more about the Green Scare, visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare

If you would like to receive updates on or help organize resistance to the Green Scare, please send an email to philly_abc@riseup.net. Be in Philly on June 9-11 for a whole Weekend of Resistance Against the Green Scare.

NO MORE POLITICAL PRISONERS!! FREE EM ALL!!

Philadelphia Anarchist Black Cross

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 3 replies

GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work

Wizard-Of-Air — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:20:31 GMT

I have never participated in a chain letter. I know them to be scams designed to bilk the recipients out of their money. This posting I am putting up here came to me in my email yesterday and although it call for multi-level action and leveraged impact it doesn't cost you anything and the results just could work. So share it with your friends if you feel called to.

GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one
of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It ' s worth your
consideration.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon
by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?
We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered
this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day"
campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just
laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves
by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a
problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really
work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably thinking
gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently
$2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the
OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas
is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them
that BUYERS control the
marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each
day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the
price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not
purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How?
Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN
have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest
companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any
gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their
prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and
Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out at this
point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions
of people.

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at least ten
more (30 x 10 =3D 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x
10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group
of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three
million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 mill ion
people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed
it..... THREE
>>>>HUNDRED MILLION >>>>PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you
don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send
this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician.
But I am, so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten
more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you?

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please
pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY
LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON. Thank You

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

Lest we forget.

Wizard-Of-Air — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 17:57:05 GMT

I copied this from a friend in another tribe. You probably have seen it before, but it's good to remind ourselves of these truths especially when we forget that we are blessed with so much more than others.

The facts of the matter.......

Let us not be stopped by that which divides us but look for that which unites us
If we could reduce the worlds population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

60 Asians 12 Europeans 5 US Americans and Canadians 8 Latin Americans 14 Africans

49 would be female 51 would be male

82 would be non-white 18 white

89 heterosexual 11 homosexual

33 would be Christian 67 would be non-Christian

* 5 would control 32% of the entire world's wealth, and all of them would be US citizens

* 80 would live in substandard housing

* 24 would not have any electricity
* (And of the 76% that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)

* 67 would be unable to read

1 (only one) would have a college education.

* 50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation

* 33 would be without access to a safe water supply

· 1 would have HIV

· * 1 near death

* 2 would be near birth

* 7 people would have access to the Internet

If to take a look at the world from this condensed perspective,
the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes evident. Think of it! If you woke up this morning with more health than sickness,
you are luckier than the million that will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced a war,
a loneliness of an imprisonment,
an agony of tortures
or a famine
You are happier, than 500 million persons in this world. If you are able to go to church, mosque or synagogue without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death,
you are happier, than 3 billion persons in this world.

* If there is a meal in your refrigerator,

* if you are dressed and have got shoes,

* if you have a bed and a roof above your head,

you are better off, than 75% of people in this world.
If your parents are still alive and still married,
then you are a rarity.

* If you have a bank account,

* money in your purse

* and there is some trifle in your coin box,

you belong to 8% of well-provided people in this world.
If you read this text, you are blessed three times as much, because

1. Someone has thought of you;

1. You do not belong to those 2 billion people which cannot read

1. and... you have had your computer!

Someone has told once:

* Work like you don't need money,

* Love like you've never been hurt,

* Dance like nobody's watching,

* Sing like nobody's listening,

* Be surprised, like you were born yesterday,

* Tell the truth and you don't have to remember anything,

* Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

This is your World! And you are able to make changes! Hasten to do good works!
Think of it!

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 3 replies

Spare the Taxpayer, Spur the Economy, Save the Planet

Wizard-Of-Air — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 22:42:57 GMT

This was posted on Common Dreams; the best information resource that I possess. I share it here in the hope that we will all contact our elected officials and insist that we can institute a taxation/energy policy as enlightened as that of the nations described in this article.

Published on Friday, April 14, 2006 by One World
Spare the Taxpayer, Spur the Economy, Save the Planet
by Abid Aslam

WASHINGTON - As tax day looms, a prominent environmentalist is urging changes he says will spare the taxpayer, spur the economy, and save the planet.''As Americans are filing their income taxes, many of their counterparts in several European countries are benefiting from a steady decline in income taxes as governments lower taxes on income and raise taxes on environmentally destructive activities,'' said Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, a think tank here.''It's time for the entire world to lower income taxes and raise environmental taxes.''The practice of reducing income taxes while increasing levies for air, water, and soil pollution--has swept nations from Singapore to Sweden, said Brown, a pioneer in the merging of economics and ecology. He called it ''environmental tax shifting''; in many countries it also is referred to as environmental tax reform.Regardless of the label, the practice ''usually brings a double dividend,'' he added. ''In reducing taxes on income--in effect, taxes on labor--labor becomes less costly, creating additional jobs while protecting the environment.''That is what motivated Germany to shift taxes from income to energy, Brown said, adding that ''reducing the air pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes reduces the incidence of respiratory illnesses, such as asthma and emphysema, and thus overall health care costs.''The idea of using taxes to discourage environmental destruction is not new. Singapore introduced a levy on cars entering the central business district more than two decades ago. The bid to curb gasoline use, air pollution, and traffic congestion succeeded and a number of cities eventually followed suit, among them Oslo, Melbourne, and London.The idea of a broader, environmental overhaul of national tax codes began to catch on only a few years ago but is beginning to generate enthusiasm among public policy makers despite resistance from some businesses.Germany and Sweden lead Western Europe in environmental tax reform. By 2001, a four-year plan adopted by Germany in 1999 had lowered fuel use by five percent, said Brown. It also accelerated growth in the renewable energy sector, creating some 45,400 jobs by 2003 in the wind industry alone. Brown, citing industry figures, said he expected the figure to rise to 103,000 new jobs by 2010.In 2001, Sweden launched a 10-year environmental tax shift designed to convert some $3.9 billion of taxes from income to environmentally destructive activities. The average household has seen its income tax bill reduced by around $1,100.That burden has not disappeared. Rather, it has shifted to vehicle and fuel taxes--a central plank of Sweden's plan to be free of oil use by 2025.Other European countries embracing major tax changes of this sort include France, Italy, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom.Japan and China, Asia's leading economies, are weighing possible taxes on carbon emissions, mostly released when oil, gasoline, and coal are burned and blamed by scientists for global warming.Business opposition so far has stymied Japanese lawmakers' efforts to launch an environmental tax shift, Brown said.China, he added, is pressing ahead because policymakers there are convinced that taxation is more effective than government regulation in influencing consumers' buying habits in a market economy.Some 2,500 economists, including eight Nobel Prize winners, also have endorsed the concept of environmental tax shifts.Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw wrote in Fortune magazine: ''Cutting income taxes while increasing gasoline taxes would lead to more rapid economic growth, less traffic congestion, safer roads, and reduced risk of global warming--all without jeopardizing long-term fiscal solvency. This may be the closest thing to a free lunch that economics has to offer.''From Brown's vantage point, the purpose of all this tax shifting is to incorporate the environmental costs of products and services into their market prices or, in his words, ''to help the market tell the environmental truth.'' The result would be a system offering carrots to the environmentally responsible, whose income taxes fall and who can cut their environmental taxes by reducing the amount of garbage and pollution they generate. The system also would brandish a hefty stick at polluters in the form of higher fuel costs, however. Brown cited analysis by the International Center for Technology Assessment, a private research group that has said that the real cost of gasoline--including such indirect items as oil industry tax breaks, oil supply protection costs, oil industry subsidies, and health care costs of treating auto exhaust-related respiratory illnesses--amounts to about $9 per gallon. Adding these external costs to the average price of gasoline in the United States would push the national average retail price today to around $11.70 per gallon--assuming consumers were expected to foot the entire bill without any sacrifice of profit by industry. ''For Americans, this is shockingly high,'' Brown acknowledged but added that gasoline is much cheaper in the U.S. than overseas. British, French, German, and Italian drivers regularly pay around $6 per gallon for gasoline, he said. However horrifying the prospect of higher pump prices might be to many Americans, environmentalists--including industry veterans--shudder at the possible consequences of not embracing ''green accounting.'' For Brown, the threat is aptly summarized in a quote from Oystein Dahle, a former vice president of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea. ''Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth,'' Dahle said. ''Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.'

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Urgent!!! Please help

mentalfreedomne1 — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 03:41:34 GMT

Urgent!!! Please Help

I am posting this everywhere I possibly can, Please help us.
There are thousands of good people who could potentially lose their lives very soon.

Since the release of the information on the Sujiatun concentration camp in China, which is reported to do live organ harvesting on Falun Gong practicioners. More people have been stepping forward to reveal information. Recently, a veteran military doctor in the region of Shenyang said that the Sujiatun Concentration camp is just one of 36 such camps. Another camp in Jilin Province referred to as 672-S is said to hold over 120,000 people.

According to the Integrated Committee's announcement, transplant hospitals in China are now telling patients to "come in quickly" to get transplants. Patients are told that matching organs can be found at this time in as short as one or two days. The hospitals are also reported to say that, "it will be difficult after this batch of organs is used up."

We fear that there is going to be a mass execution to “hide the evidence” and get rid of witnesses. PLEASE HELP us, Falun Gong practitioners around the world are requesting an international investigation while there is still time.

This is the US petition, please sign it. It can save someone’s life.
http://www.fofg.org/act/act_petition.php?pid=1

you can also help by going here:
http://publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php
this is an easy, fill in the blank letter that with a click is automatically
sent to the senators and representatives of your choice
And it would also greatly help us if you would please pass this information on.

Thank you,
Joshua

You can learn more about this at:
The Epoch Times
http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html
Amnesty International
http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/chn-summary-eng
Falun Dafa Information Center
http://www.faluninfo.net/why/index.asp
or, you can ask me any questions you have by sending me a message.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Small Town's National Orinetation

Wizard-Of-Air — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 19:12:45 GMT

I copied this from an entry on the Common Dreams Website. It is a perfect example of Grass Roots activism interacting with the International scene. It is a behavior for us all to model.

Why Our Small Town Called for Bush to be Impeached
The worst failing of any nation is for its citizens no longer to scrutinize their government.

by Dan Dewalt

On March 7, the townspeople of Newfane, Vt., crowded the 19th-century Union Hall for their annual town meeting -- one of America's last expressions of direct democracy. As the wood stove warmed the old hall, the voters dealt with town matters, and then turned to a resolution of national importance. When the debate ended, the Newfane citizens overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush -- a vote also passed by four other Vermont towns that day.

Now as calls for impeachment begin to be heard across America, some, especially those in the elite media establishment, belittle our efforts, writing them off as merely political, spurious or at best premature. They ask, what right do small Vermont towns have to weigh in on a question of such magnitude? Who are we to cast our sights beyond the demands of our roads, bridges or annual school budget? As a Vermont citizen and a Newfane town selectman, I'd like to respond.

Vermonters are asking a different set of questions. We see boys and girls, men and women from across our state, falling one by one, to come home for somber burial or partial rehabilitation. We see that the torture of captives has become official administration policy, and as a result our nation is now reviled and despised across the globe. We see an administration that spies upon our Quaker pacifists in the name of fighting "terror." We see a crumbling national infrastructure, inept and underequipped to respond to natural disasters, and heavier financial burdens placed upon those who can least afford it, all because of the hundreds of billions of dollars being drained by this administration's failing effort to place its crusading imprint upon an unwilling people who had nothing to do with the terrorism that has been visited upon us.

A growing number of patriotic Americans from coast to coast have joined Vermonters in asking: If it's not a crime to lie to the nation about Iraq's ties to 9/11, and use those lies to instigate a war, contrary to international law, what is? If warrantless wiretapping of Americans, in direct violation of the FISA Act of 1978, is not a crime, what is? If breaking our treaty obligations with respect to the treatment of military and civilian prisoners -- obligations which, according to our Constitution, are to be the supreme law of the land -- is not a crime, what is?

We ask how any American loyal to the Constitution and the laws that make us a nation could not call for a complete congressional investigation into the alleged crimes of this administration. How can any American with a sense of morality, anyone who professes to adhere to religious principles, not insist that the deceit and the violence must cease?

Every day, our moral standing in the eyes of the world is further debased. Every day that we acquiesce to these actions of our government, we debase ourselves and make ourselves unfit to be called Americans.

The worst failing of any nation is for its citizens to no longer scrutinize their government. Today, whether because of apathy, distraction or exhaustion, we are not paying attention. It will be at our peril if our awakening comes only after the government has consolidated its hold on power, and we find that scrutiny is no longer an option.

Dan DeWalt is a woodworker and selectboard member in the town of Newfane, Vt. (pop. 1,680), and the author of a successful town resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush.

©2006 Star Tribune.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

A Sacrement to unify us all.

Wizard-Of-Air — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 15:44:26 GMT

I would like to offer this suggestion for a sacremental practice that we can all share regardless of our individual faiths and religious practices. I originally posted this in the Clergy of the ULC tribe and in the ULC Ministers tribe.

The Water Within Us

Sending peace and love to water changes its energy. Could this prayer also affect the water that circulates in each of us?
By Masaru Emoto

Excerpted from "The Secret Life of Water" (Atria/Simon & Schuster) with permission of the publisher.

We are well into the twenty-first century, and blood continues to be shed. Especially painful to watch is the conflict between Palestine and Israel. How much life will have to be destroyed by ethnic fighting and holy war? Without an end to this horrendous conflict, it is hard to imagine a peaceful future for any of us. But it appears as if the hatred and loathing has over centuries slowly entered the very DNA of the two sides.

I was once thinking about this when I suddenly realized the close relationship between DNA and water. DNA is structured by two chains in a spiral formed by a hydrogen bond. The consciousness of our ancestors is passed from one generation to the next through blood—the water that circulates throughout our bodies. And the water that flows through the bodies of the Jews and Palestinians comes mostly from the Jordan River. The Jordan River flows southward from northern Palestine and connects the Sea of Galilee with the Dead Sea, forming the eastern border of Palestine. Along its way, it provides much of the water necessary for sustaining life in the region.

The power of prayer has the ability to reach far distances of space and time. Through the photographs of water crystals, I have strived to help people from around the world understand the power and wonder of prayer, and I have encouraged people everywhere to pray for peace in the world. I decided that I would ask people to join together on a particular day to send hado (vibration) of love and peace to the Sea of Galilee, which flows into the Jordan River. The people who drink its water would receive this hado, and their bodies would be filled with beautiful energy. Can you just imagine the possibilities for peace?

Before I set the date, I discovered something quite surprising. Another name for the Sea of Galilee is Lake Kinneret, and kinneret, in Hebrew, is the word for harp—the shape of the Sea of Galilee. And it also happens that Lake Biwa is named after the biwa, a traditional harp-like instrument in Japan. Could the similarity be more than a coincidence?

I decided to set the day for the special prayer for July 25, 2003. This day is very important on the thirteen-month calendar used by the Mayans. It is called “the day out of time,” the one extra day on the Mayan calendar.

Even in this modern age, perhaps we have the spirit of this day buried within us. I intend to work toward making this an international day of prayer for expressing love and appreciation for water.

A year prior to the date I set for sending hado to the Sea of Galilee, I established what I call the Project of Love and Thanks to Water. This was a project aimed at unifying the souls of people from around the world and raising consciousness on July 25, 2003. My first efforts focused on expanding the circle of people willing to participate in the prayer.

I asked everyone I knew to do the following: On the 25th of each month, either at 7:25 in the morning or 7:25 in the evening, face a body of water and express your love and appreciation. You could do this anywhere, such as your kitchen or your bedroom. A glass of water would suffice. Gently say to the water, “I love you” and “Thank you.” As you do this, imagine the power of love and appreciation flowing through you into all of the water of the world.

All water, even the glass of water, is connected to all the rest of the water in the rest of the world. The hado of love and appreciation that you release will become streams of brilliant gold and silver light in the flowing water and reach out to the entire world, ultimately covering it in light. The result will be a testimony of the healing and harmonizing of our planet.

Water carries within it your thoughts and your prayers. And as you yourself are water, no matter where you are, your prayers will be carried to the rest of the world. So, pray. Pray for the victims of meaningless wars and landmines, for orphaned children, for the sick and the bedridden. There is much you can do from now on, and even a lot you can do at this very moment.

I recall that horrible recurring dream I saw as a small child. It wasn’t warning me about my fate to witness the gloom and doom of the human race. It was teaching me what I must do in life. But it wasn’t a lesson for me alone. It was for you and for everyone else who reads this book: Fill your soul with love and gratitude. Pray for the world. Share the message of love. And let us flow as long as we live.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

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

mentalfreedomne1 — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 03:04:01 GMT

Please help us to end this horrible persectuion. knowledge is our greatest weapon, so please share this information. together in peace we can make a difference.

Falun Dafa is a peaceful meditation practice that teaches putting others before yourself, kindness, always telling the truth and being tolerant of others. We are literally being killed for being good people. The national media has done very little to help us because of trade issues with China. It is up to us to let the world know. Please help us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: Please tell us what you knew about.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you can find out how you can help at www.fofg.org

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 3 replies

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

Wizard-Of-Air — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 05:03:55 GMT

The following is a link to a remarkable article posted in the Voices of earth/na leo o ka 'aina tribe; which is a tribe about Hawaiian Culture and peoples. I feel that it is both vital information and an outline for our development of sustainable resourses and practices in mission to revew the Earth and find the new paradigm. I HIGHLY reccomend that you both read the article (which is a little long because it is quite in depth) and take a look at this tribe and its posts on another group of native brothers and sisters who are striving to live in harmony with our Mother. Aho

voicesofearth.tribe.net/thread...e0d5c8b

After you read this article please join me in a discussion of the content.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

celebrating Green Times

chilambalam2013 — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 11:48:22 GMT

A New Generation of FamilyGathering is on its way. From June 16th - 21st 2006, Sunrise Summer Solstice Celebration will unfold on a 1000 acre estate in South Somerset. Complete with many familiar Green Field faces and a range of innovative and unique offerings, Sunrise promises 5 beautiful midsummer days of contemporary music and performing arts, permaculture and sustainable living. The festival blends healing arts and electronica, ancient vibrations and new-time culture, visionary art with green crafts - an alchemical synthesis of science, art, spirituality and culture.

We are seeking to pioneer a new concept in Festival design offering the highest quality of production and excellent value, combined with strong ecological and ethical standards. 13 autonomous areas complete with 6+ stages provide a wide range of great activities, entertainment, education, information and celebration.

Through these, we aim to facilitate personal and planetary transformation, inspiring creativity, imagination and the re-discovery of our sense of community and family.

Please feel free to browse through the sections of this site and examine the exciting aspects of this unique event. As the site has just gone live, some sections are still incomplete, but they'll be updated consistently over the coming days. More sections will also be added in time.

The Sunrise Celebration Team

Find out more about the 13 arenas and just where it's all exactly going to happen - WHAT'S ON

www.sunrisecelebration.com

Whether you are a trader, performer, healer, artist or want flyers to give to your friends and family, we are interested in knowing what you could bring to Sunrise 2006.

with love Samaya

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

Insurance and Global Warming

Wizard-Of-Air — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 05:14:23 GMT

The following was posted on Common Dreams. It is a harbinger of the severe vulnerability of the Insurance Industry and resultantly the entire financial sector of which the Insurance industry is a cornerstone. The vast liability has the potential to undercut the banks that are invested in the Insurance companies and could be the first domino to fall in the destruction of the US economy.

Published on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 by the Boston Globe
Insurance Industry Feels the Heat of Global Warming
by Derrick Z. Jackson

Neither Tim Wagner nor Mike Kreidler imagined how climate change would intrude into state insurance regulation. Wagner, the director of the Nebraska Department of Insurance, said the reality is literally pelting him.

''While you can't correlate it directly, in the Plains states we've had severe droughts," Wagner, 63, said over the telephone. ''We've had fires in Texas and Oklahoma. There's a terrible drought in Arizona right now. When we get rain, we seem to get more and more severe hail. I just drove to Kansas City. My nephew is in Iraq and we went to see his family. Our brand-new car got pummeled while it was parked in north Kansas City. We didn't lose any glass, but plastic parts of the car rack and a piece of the bumper was hanging off. I don't think I remember being in a hail storm like that in my lifetime."

Kreidler, 62, the Washington state insurance commissioner, has seen his Pacific Northwest weather go from a drought emergency last winter to floods this winter. ''Obviously a trigger for the threshold of getting our attention was Katrina and the number of hurricanes we've been having," Kreidler said in a phone interview. ''But even in Washington the vagaries in weather patterns make you suspicious."

The suspicions moved Kreidler, a former Democratic congressman, and Wagner, a registered Republican, to form a task force for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to assess the impact of climate change on the American insurance industry. They hope to join a discussion that has been going on for years in Europe, where insurers Swiss Re and Munich Re have warned of massive financial losses from storm patterns aggravated by global warming.

''When you couple changes in climate with changes in demographics where at this point 70 percent of our population resides within 50 miles of a coastline, and the fact that property values of those areas have increased significantly, it just seemed that we had to recognize the issue," Wagner said.

Munich Re calculated that last year was the most expensive on record for natural catastrophes, with losses of over $210 billion. Windstorm destruction in just the United States, the Caribbean, and Mexico cost $83 billion, most of it, of course, coming from Hurricane Katrina.

Swiss Re, in a joint report done with Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment and the United Nations Development Program, said, ''Many in the business community have begun to understand the risks that lie ahead. Insurers and reinsurers find themselves on the front lines of this challenge since the very viability of their industry rests on the proper appreciation of risk."

The insurance giant AIG, estimates that both Florida and New York have nearly $2 trillion each of insured coastal property exposure. Massachusetts is in fourth place in AIG's estimates at $662 billion. AIG said last October that six of the 10 most expensive hurricanes in US history occurred in just the prior 13 months.

''People are getting the idea that there is nowhere to hide on this issue," said Andrew Logan insurance program director for the Boston-based Ceres, which promotes corporate environmentalism and has been advising Wagner, Kreidler, and NAIC. Ceres says that insured losses due to weather have grown 10 times faster than premiums since 1971, and the percentage of total economic losses from catastrophic weather has grown from a ''negligible fraction in the 1950s to 25 percent in the past decade."

Wagner and Kreidler said they do not know yet what their task force will recommend. They do say that the time for Americans to hide from global warming is over. ''I don't want to have to get to the point where we have to ask, 'Do you pump water for vineyards, or run water for turbines, or save it for salmon in the Columbia?' " Kreidler said.

Wagner said, ''I don't know what, from a regulatory standpoint, we can do in terms of building codes being enforced and changes in land-use policy. We cannot change the weather. But it would be nice if the insurance industry played a role of some type."

He added, ''I'm a financial guy, not an activist. But we heard about storm models where it would not be unheard of to have a $120 billion storm . . . I don't know if we're prepared to be another Netherlands. But it does seem that we are too often in the position of cleaning up after the elephants run by."

Email to: jackson@globe.com.

© 2006 Boston Globe

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 8 replies

June 21 and the choice of Life or Death

Wizard-Of-Air — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:29:58 GMT

The following is posted in the Elders of the 7 New Tribes and I will be copying it and posting it all over tribe.net. I think that it is more important than anything else on Earth right now. It is about the survival of Humankind. This also represents a call to action on all our parts. I think that in addition to all the other things that we pray and meditate on we should all begin to seek Guidance on how we can connect on June 21 and begin to do the work to create a future that is about life rather than death. Please post any insights that you recieve after reading this and meditating on it. Thank you.

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM CHIEF ARVOL LOOKING HORSE, OF THE
LAKOTA, DAKOTA, & NAKOTA NATIONS

Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations),

I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota, Dakota and
Nakota Nations, would like to ask for this time for you to
understand an Indigenous perspective in reflection of what has
happened in America, what we call "Turtle Island."

For the past six years, my work has concentrated on an
effort on uniting the Global community, through a message from
our sacred ceremonies in recognizing a day of World Peace and
Prayer on June 21st as a time to unite spiritually, each in our
own ways of beliefs in the Creator.

We have been warned from the messages, passed down from
Ancient Prophecies of these times we live in today, but also a
very important message of a solution to turn these terrible
times around. To assist you in understanding the depth of this
message involves the recognition in the importance of Sacred
Sites.

It is important that you realize the whole
interconnectedness of what is happening today, in reflection of
the continued massacres that are occurring on other lands and
our own Americas.

I have been learning about these important issues of
Sacred Sites since the age of 12, upon receiving the Sacred
White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle and it's teachings.

Our people have strived to protect Sacred Sites from
the beginning of time. There needs to be an understanding in
the concern of the protection of Sacred Sites that goes deeper
than just the issue of Shrines built by humans.

Our people have built similar objects and Shrines to
identify and to remind the significance in the power of the
Sacred Site. We have also witnessed them being destroyed for
many decades, but we also realize it is what is underneath them
that is important.

These places have been violated for centuries and have
brought us to this predicament that we are in concerning the
unstable Global Level thus far. Look around you, our Mother
Earth is very ill from these violations and we are at a brink
of destroying a healthy and nurturing survival for generations
to come, our children's children.

Our ancestors have been trying to protect our Sacred
Site from the continued violations called the Sacred Black
Hills in SD, "Heart of Everything that is".

Our ancestors never seen this site from a Satellite
view, but now that those pictures are available with modern
technology, we see that it is in the shape of a heart and when
fast forwarded it looks like a heart pumping. The Dine have
been protecting Big Mountain, calling it the liver and now that
the coal is depleting, we are suffering and going to suffer
more from the extraction of the coal and poison processes used
in doing so.

The Aborigines has warned of the contaminating effects
on the Corral Reefs from Global Warming, which they see as
Mother Earth's blood purifier, our sacred water is being
polluted.

The Indigenous people of the Rain Forest relay that the
Rain Forest are the lungs and need protection and now we see
the Brazilian Government approved the depletion of 50% of this
Sacred Site.

The Gwich'in Nation has an issue of oil drilling in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, also known to
the Gwich'in as 'Where the life begins!' The coastal plain is
also the birthplace of many other life forms of Animal Nations.
The death of these Animal Nations will destroy Indigenous
Nations in this territory.

As these destructive developments continue all over the
world, we will witness many more extinct Animal, Plant and
Human Nations, because of the misuse of power that mankind has
made and their lack of understanding the "balance of life".

The Indigenous people warn that these destructive
developments will cause havoc globally. There are many, many
more Indigenous awareness's and knowledge of Mother Earth's
Sacred Sites, connections (Mother Earth's Charkas) to our
spirit that will surely affect our future generations.

These people are still suffering from this
contamination and their livelihood is being destroyed as I
write this to you.

There needs to be a fast move toward other forms of
energy that are safe for all Nations upon Mother Earth. We need
to understand the whole picture in the type of minds that are
continuing to destroy the spirit of our whole Global Community.

Unless we do this, the powers of destruction will
overwhelm us.

Our Ancestors foretold that water would someday be for
sale. Back then this was hard to believe, since the water was
so plentiful, so pure, and so full of energy, nutrition and
spirit. Today we have to buy pure water, and even then the
nutritional minerals have been taken out; it's just empty
liquid.

Someday water will be like gold, too expensive to
afford. Not everyone will have the right to drink safe water.

We fail to appreciate and honor our Sacred Sites,
ripping out the minerals and gifts that lay underneath them, as
if Mother Earth were simply a resource, instead of the Source
of Life itself.

Attacking Nations and having to utilize more resources
to carry out the destruction in the name of Peace and
elimination is not the answer!

We need to understand how all these decisions affects
the Global Nation, we will not be immune to it's repercussions.

To allow continual contamination of our food and land,
is now affecting the way we think.

A "disease of the mind" has set in World Leaders and
many members of our Global Community, with their understanding
that a solution of retaliation and destruction of peoples will
bring Peace.

In our Prophecies it is told that we are now at the
Crossroads, either unite Spiritually as a Global Nation, or be
faced with chaos, disasters, diseases and tears from our
relatives eyes.

In times of disasters it is sad to say, that it is the
only time that we unite spiritually, but we must not taint it
with anger and retaliation. We are the only species that is
destroying the Source of life, meaning Mother Earth, in the
name of power, mineral resources and ownership of land, using
methods of chemicals and warfare that is becoming irreversible,
as Mother Earth is becoming tired and can not sustain any more
impacts of war.

I ask you to join me on this endeavor.

Our vision is for the Peoples of all continents,
regardless of their beliefs in the Creator, to come together as
one at their Sacred Sites at that sacred moment of what is
known as the Summer Solstice of June 21st, to pray and meditate
and commune with one another, thus promoting an energy shift to
heal our Mother Earth and achieve a universal consciousness
toward attaining Peace.

As each day passes bringing us to this day of
concentration together, I ask the Global Nations to begin a
Global effort, in knowing that each and every one of us are
making a daily effort in waking to a gratitude of another day,
that is gifted to us and begin to remember to give thanks for
the Sacred Food that has been also gifted to us by our Mother
Earth, so the nutritional energy of medicine can be guided to
heal our minds and spirits.

This new millennium will usher in an age of harmony or
it will bring the end of life as we know it. Starvation, war
and toxic waste have been the hallmark of the Great Myth of
Progress and Development that ruled the last millennium.

To us, as caretakers of the heart of Mother Earth,
falls the responsibility of turning back the powers of destruction.

We have come to a time and place of great urgency.

The fate of future generations rests in our hands.

We must understand the two ways we are free to follow,
as we choose the positive way or the negative way.. the
spiritual way or the material way.

It's our own choice--each of ours and all of ours.

You yourself are the one who must decide.

You alone-and only you--can make this crucial choice.
Whatever you decide is what you'll be, to walk in honor
or to dishonor your relatives.

You can't escape the consequences of your own decision.
On your decision depends the fate of the entire World.
You must decide. You can't avoid it.

Each of us is put here in this time and this place to
personally decide the future of humankind.

Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary
people in a time of such terrible danger?

Know that you yourself are essential to this World.

Believe that!

Understand both the blessing and the burden of that.
You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this
World.

Did you think you were put here for something less? In
a Sacred Hoop of Life, where there is no beginning and no
ending!

Mitakuye Oyasin,
Chief Arvol Looking Horse1
19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

New Moderator time once again

Wizard-Of-Air — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 06:48:52 GMT

I apologize but when I took on the Moderator position for this tribe I made a commitment that recent changes in my family obligations no longer permit me to fulfill. Therefore I need to step down. So if anyone is interested in taking on this task please contact me and we'll work out the transition.

Love you all. It trully saddens me to have to step down.

Love and Light,

al

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 3 replies

Big Oil vs. Wind energy: a call to action

Wizard-Of-Air — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 06:58:39 GMT

The following was posted by Lorenzo in the Green Party tribe. I wanted to share it with any of us here who are not members of that tribe.

Re: Big Oil vs. Wind energyToday, 7:29 PM
Blowin' in the Wind?

YO - FRIENDS - - -

I'm rabid, compelled and here's the latest on US WIND POWER OPPOSITION:

\want to "make a difference?

As early as next week, a decision will be made in Washington DC that could kill the Cape Wind project - but there is still time for you to act to prevent this from happening.

At the urging of wind farm opponents, Congressman Don Young of Alaska is introducing an amendment that would kill Cape Wind to the Conference Committee working to finalize the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act, H.R. 889. (More details about this amendment and our response to it are provided below.)

There are four key Senators that can stop this amendment. It is extremely important to contact these Senators as soon as possible and make them realize how much public support there is for Cape Wind.

The best thing you can do is to CALL these Senators, and / or compose your own letter to FAX to them. If you can't do either of those things but could send an email instead, please do so.

Phone
Fax
Email Webform

Senate Subcommitte on Fisheries & the Coast Guard

Senator Olympia Snowe, Chair
(202) 224-5344
(202) 224-1946
snowe.senate.gov/contact.htm

Senator Maria Cantwell, Ranking Member
(202) 224-3441
(202) 228-0514
cantwell.senate.gov/contact/
Senate Commitee on Commerce, Science & Transportation

Senator Ted Stevens, Chair
(202) 224-1251
(202) 224-1259
stevens.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Senator Daniel Inouye, Co-Chair
(202) 224-0411
(202) 228-0303
inouye.senate.gov/webform.html

Senators from Massachusetts

Senator Edward Kennedy
(202) 224-4543
(202) 224-2417
kennedy.senate.gov/index_high.html

Senator John Kerry
(202) 224-2742
(202) 224-8525
kerry.senate.gov/v3/contact/email.cfm

What the Young Amendment would do to Cape Wind

The Young Amendment would ban offshore wind farms within 1 1/2 nautical miles from a shipping channel or ferry route and require the Coast Guard to come up with a lengthy new rulemaking process for offshore wind farms and navigation. The amendment would require the removal of so many wind turbines that Cape Wind would not be an economically viable project, the apparent goal.
Why this is Amendment is bad public policy (see below for explanations of each of these points)

The Young Amendment is unfair to wind power, it is unneeded, it is based upon a false justification, it ignores the successful experience in Denmark, and it is contrary to the pledges of Members of Congress to reform their practices in light of recent lobbying scandals.

Amendment is Unfair to Wind Power

While this Amendment would bar wind turbines from being 1 1/2 nautical miles from shipping channels, offshore oil and gas rigs are allowed to be located as close as 500 feet to shipping channels. The requirement of the Coast Guard to develop new rules for reviewing offshore wind would be a major delay and setback to the entire wind industry. This amendment is contrary to the goals of President Bush and members of Congress who have recently been calling for the greater development of wind power in the United States.

Amendment is not needed

Under existing law, the US Coast Guard already has the authority to review Cape Wind and any other offshore wind farm proposal for sea navigation safety. The Coast Guard has been reviewing Cape Wind since 2001 and their review of Cape Wind is ongoing. The Coast Guard opposes this amendment.
Amendment backers rely upon one justification, and it is false

The justification offered for this amendment is a recent British report that gives their Coast Guard a framework for how to review offshore wind farms and sea navigation issues and issues involving radar. Of great importance - the British report only calls for a 500 meter (approximately 1/3 nautical mile) buffer zone between offshore wind turbines and shipping lanes. Beyond that distance, the report calls upon the British Coast Guard to review each project on a case-by-case basis and avoided a "one size fits all" approach. In addition, the British report was mostly concerned with proximity of offshore wind turbines to major international shipping lanes, by comparison the amount of large vessel traffic in Nantucket Sound is very small. Congressman Young is invoking this British study for justifying his Amendment, but then he ignores the British study by more than quadrupling the size of the British buffer zone and by taking authority away from the experts in the Coast Guard to make these decisions on a case by case basis.
Amendment ignores successful experience in Denmark

Denmark has had several years of successful experience of wind farms located close to major international shipping lanes with no reports of accidents or negative impacts upon safe sea navigation. Offshore Copenhagen, the Middelgrunden wind farm is just 1/4 nautical mile from a shipping channel that has 25,000 ships pass by the wind turbines each year. The Nysted offshore wind farm is 1 nautical mile from the main shipping channel that connects the Baltic Sea with the North Sea with 60,000 ships passing by each year.
Amendment goes against pledges of Congressional leaders to reform their practices

Leaders of both parties and in both chambers of Congress have pledged to reform their practices to make the lawmaking process more transparent and to reduce the influence of special interests and lobbyists. Members of the Senate and Congress truly committed to this reform cannot support this Amendment. Congressman Young is offering this Amendment to the Conference Committee working to finalize the budget for the Coast Guard. The purpose of a Conference Committee is to "resolve differences" between legislation passed in the House and Senate. In this case, NEITHER the House or Senate had considered or passed this amendment. Trying to get it inserted into the Conference Bill at the 11th hour prevents close scrutiny, the opportunity for hearings, and removes most of the members of these Coast Guard Committees from being able to vote on it.
The only backers of this Amendment are people who oppose the Cape Wind project who happen to be well-funded, well-connected, and influential. The organization that formed to oppose Cape Wind, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, has spent one-million dollars to lobby Congress and two of their lobbying firms have field offices in Alaska.

The following organizations OPPOSE the Amendment: (partial list)

American Wind Energy Association, National Ocean Industries Association, Maritime Trades Council, Seafarers International Union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, Conservation Law Foundation, U.S. PIRG, Greenpeace, Woods Hole Research Center, Natural Resources Council of Maine, Environment Maine, Environmental League of Massachusetts, Friends of the Earth, American Lung Association's Maine and Massachusetts Chapters, Clean Power Now.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

How our governments use terrorism to control us

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 20:08:13 GMT

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/newspapers/Gladio_OnlineJournal_281105.pdf

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

WHAT THE PRICE OF GOLD MAY BE TELLING US - by Stephen Lendman

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:23:02 GMT

WHAT THE PRICE OF GOLD MAY BE TELLING US - by Stephen Lendman

Markets are often the best forecasters since their direction supposedly represents the collective wisdom of the smartest people moving them - the professionals, not the public that just goes along for the ride where they're taken. The way the dominant "players" view the future is how they decide where they want to place their financial bets. Now, however, the financial markets (stocks, bonds and other money instruments) are in a tug-of-war with the price of gold, which is typically seen as a safe haven in times of uncertainty and in the past has moved inversely with the price of equities. Since 2003, when the Iraq war began, world equity markets have soared and still are moving up strongly except in the US where since 2004 they've gone up modestly. All are stable or rising, however, seeming to be pointing to good economic times ahead. The global bond markets seem to concur as they've been surprisingly stable as well and in the face of 14 consecutive interest rate hikes by the US
GOLD'S AWAKENING FROM A 25 YEAR SLUMBER

If the equity and bond markets are right and the future is rosy, why then is gold also soaring after a 25 year slumber following its decline after peaking at $850 an ounce in 1980. Since early 2001 it's more than doubled in price from around $250 an ounce to around $550, and gold forecasting pundits fearlessly predict much higher valuations ahead. Amazingly the highest number I've seen is $5,000. Wow. Now that forecaster surely must also be predicting some kind of financial or other type Armageddon or worse.

I'm not an economist, Wall Street whiz or professional fearless forecaster. And I'll admit straight up I'm not sure what gold is telling us, but I have some ideas. Read on, and I'll play a mug's game laying out what I think, right or wrong. The best and brightest in the financial world do it every day, and even when they're wrong, often enough, clients pay dearly for their advice. I'll give it to you free of charge, and I may turn out to be smarter than they are, or maybe just luckier in making a good call. But, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

FACTORS AFFECTING GOLD PRICES

Ask a gold expert what factors affect gold prices and you'll get some pretty standard answers, usually right. Gold is a global thermometer that reflects monetary, political and economic stability as well as marketplace demand for the metal itself as jewelry, investors' (including central bankers') desire to hold it for any reason or a as hedge against the uncertain value of fiat money, which is just paper currency from a government printing press that can be produced in any amount.

Governments, Wall Street and business around the world hate it when gold prices rise because it usually reflects an early warning of some kind of trouble ahead, nearly always financial. It may be signaling rising inflation or deflation as well as a general lack of confidence in fiat or paper currency. When the gold price rises sharply against a country's currency, as it has in the US, it points to trouble ahead for that country's economy and monetary policy. At least it's worked that way in the past. What's also worked is that when gold vies with an inflated paper currency (because too much of it has been printed), gold always wins. If investors lose faith in a paper currency or just have enough uncertainty about it, they usually turn to gold.

Just retired and now former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was very fond of the printing press. He must have been since he used it liberally. He doubled the money supply since 1991 and increased it over 40% since 2001. Of course, being above all else a consummate politician, he had to do it to please his constituents (Wall Street and the big banks) and especially to help George Bush and the Congress spend like drunken politicians to fund an expensive war with no end in Iraq and lots of others on the drawing board. You need big bucks for that, there's no end in sight, and the new Fed chairman will probably be just as friendly to the warmakers and make things even worse ultimately - that is, keep the printing press active enough to pay the war profiteers well and the economy moving ahead, for now at least.

Ben Bernacke, the new chairman, begins his tenure with a nickname he may live to regret - "Helicopter Ben." Now there's a dubious handle for a former distinguished academic at Princeton and now Fed chairman. He got it after his remark that he'd drop dollars from a helicopter if that was needed to stimulate the economy - meaning, of course, he'd keep the printing press running "full out" if that's what it took. Central bankers never run out of paper or ink.

ARE THE PUNDITS MISSING THE REAL MESSAGE FROM THE GOLD MARKET

I don't know, and they're a lot smarter than I am, but I'll stick my neck out. World stability changed direction after 9/11 when the Bush administration declared war on the world - at least all parts of it not subservient to US interests. The price of peace with the US is "knowing who's boss" and being respectful and obedient - just like organized crime family members are to "The Godfather." But just as mob bosses mete out punishment to disobedient underlings, so too will be the fate of any nation daring to go its own way, independent of US wishes. It'll likely see some hostile action against it - political, economic, military or all three.

The "fun and games" began for real against Afghanistan a month after 9/11 and went into overdrive against Iraq in March, 2003. Now the war drums are audible against Iran, at the head of the target country queue, with Venezuela and Syria likely next in line and other choices to be named later to follow. Despite the enormous cost (an economic boon at the outset and for a while), the Bush administration declared a "permanent state of war" and doesn't want to be accused of running out of targets. To keep the war economy going they'll always have another one at the ready.

Looking back, the price for good times that were too good or for reckless behavior that was too reckless has always been the same - the day comes when you "gotta pay the piper." That may not be this week or next month, but I'll speculate that the sharply rising gold price in the US is discounting more than the usual financial rebalancing its price action usually indicates. Ask any gold seer and they'll explain that while geopolitical events may affect the price of gold, they're never a major factor. I'll be contrarian and speculate that along with whatever other message the gold market is sending, it's also signaling concern about the geopolitical threat to peace and world stability, especially in the strategically important Middle East. High oil prices may be sending the same signal, although of late prices have stabilized and come off a bit.

My best guess is that the rising gold price may be the canary in the mine shaft warning of a growing and dangerous change in world stability reflected in investor sentiment. At times of growing economic or geopolitical tension, uncertainty or danger, gold is seen as a conservative asset or "safe haven" and a way to preserve wealth as it always has been for the past 6,000 years. That's a track record even the Dow Jones averages can't match.

There's a lot for investors to worry about now along with the new war drums beating I'll discuss below. There's the perceived threat of terrorist attacks, the continued loss of civil liberties in the West and especially in the US, the possible disruption of oil supplies, and at some point that "piper" waiting to be repaid for years of financial profligacy in the US to fund all the "adventuresomeness" and excess stimulus to keep the economy humming. And there's one other factor affecting the US dollar. Many currency experts believe the currency is in a long-term bear market that began in 2002, even though it rebounded well last year and is holding its own so far this year (a cyclical rally in a longer term secular bear market say the dollar bears). Some of the reasons given for this trend are the emergence of the euro as a competitor to the dollar in December, 2001 by the 12 European nations using it and the desire of other nations to diversify into other currencies (as well as go
ANOTHER MIDDLE EAST WAR MAY BE ONE TOO MANY

Now to those war drums and the speculation that's now rife that the Bush administration has chosen Iran as its next target. I read about it every day as well as hear the same kind of strong administration rhetoric hostile to Iran that we heard in the run-up to the Iraq war. The demonizing campaign moved ahead further in mid-February when Secretary of State Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the US would "actively confront" Iran and asked for an extra $75 million in funding for anti-Tehran propaganda and support for opposition groups inside and outside the country. It all points to one thing. The US may launch an attack against the Iranians and do it as early as March when Iran opens a new oil bourse and begins trading in euros. Saddam did the same thing in 2000, providing the US an added reason to attack him, and other oil producing countries including Venezuela, Russia, Indonesia, Libya and Malaysia have also agreed to sell oil in euros.

The sale of oil worldwide in dollars has been a key support for the dollar and its stability through the years. The US will do whatever it takes to preserve this. If enough countries begin selling their oil in euros or other currencies (the Japanese yen is the only other possibility), it would seriously undermine the dollar and have grave consequences for the US economy. The US, and especially the Bush administration, will surely go to war to prevent this.

MORE CLUES POINTING TO WAR WITH IRAN

If the gold market and those reading this need more evidence, consider these two jarring tidbits. Last year former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter said George Bush received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for last June. It didn't happen then, but former CIA officer Philip Giraldi also claims he has information that the Pentagon was ordered by Vice President Dick Cheney to draw up plans to attack Iran "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States... (and)... As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States......Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack" against them by the US.

Nervous anyone, especially those of us convinced our own government was behind or complicit in the first 9/11 attack. A number of US government officials and private "terrorism" experts are on record saying it's just a matter of when, not if, the US will be struck again. On June 6, 2003, the AP quoted a US government report saying "There is a 'high probability' that al-Qaida will attempt an attack with weapons of mass destruction in the next two years." Are we being set up to be duped again if there's a major strike against us? You know the drill by now - a major attack happens on US soil, the Bush administration and complicit corporate media hype what happened, scare the public and get them mad enough to demand retribution, they blame it on Iran claiming secret intelligence they can't reveal, and it's (nuclear) bombs away - and George Bush's approval rating skyrockets just like after 9/11, and the Republicans keep control of both houses of Congress in November.

HOLD ON TO YOUR BULLION (IF YOU HAVE ANY) -THINGS ARE WORSE THAN YOU THINK

As disturbing as another real or faked "terrorist" attack is plus a new war, consider this. Under the radar the US has been waging "nuclear war" against Iraq by using so-called depleted uranium weapons (DU) since the Gulf war in 1991. We also used them against Afghanistan in 2001 and later as well as against Serbia/Kosovo in 1999. These are radioactive and chemically toxic weapons that are banned under the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and any use of them in combat or for any purpose is a war crime.

The military loves these weapons and uses them because DU is a "dense metal" able to penetrate hard targets like tanks and structures and explode inside them. However, after exploding they also aerosolize into a fine spray of submicroscopic particles that contaminate the air, water and soil with toxic radiation. They're also swept by winds into the atmosphere and carried long distances, falling to earth along the way and contaminating vast areas far from the combat zone. The result in Iraq from the Gulf war, repeated bombings using these weapons all through the 1990s, and now with their intensive use for nearly the last 3 years, is that vast areas of the country are an irremediable, irradiated, toxic wasteland. The country is largely unsafe for human habitation forever (the radiation contamination has a half-life of 4.5 billion years) even with an end to hostilities, and there's no sign of that which only makes things even worse.

The Bush administration has now stated its intention to use so-called "mini-nukes" or "bunker-busters" as conventional weapons in any area of conflict. They're not "mini", but they sure are "nukes", about one third as powerful as a Hiroshima bomb or stronger as they can be made to any desired potency. Officially, these weapons are called "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrators", and they work the same as other DU weapons - penetrating a designated target before exploding including those underground for protection. But since these weapons are much stronger than the ones now being used, the destruction and fallout from them will be much greater. And should they be used, it's likely that world instability will increase and cause great reverberations including in the financial and gold markets.

If the US attacks Iran, even by a "shock and awe" strike from the air only with no invasion and with so-called "mini-nukes", the Middle East may boil over even more than it now has. But there's even speculation the US will make a targeted invasion into the area known as Khuzestan, the Iranian province bordering Basra in Southern Iraq, where most of the nation's oil is located (possibly as much as 90% by some estimates). Make no mistake, the situation in Iraq is hopeless, the war is lost and the US knows it and will find a way to exit eventually even though it's now spending billions on as many as 14 permanent bases in the country. With that quagmire to resolve and with the Arab street and entire Muslim world justifiably inflamed, it's hard to imagine the US would risk making things even worse by attacking Iran. But that's what many writers and Middle East analysts are now predicting. If they're right, the very risky and uncertain fallout from it is what the gold market may be si
IRAN IS IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH NPT - YOU'D NEVER KNOW IT FROM THE ONE-SIDED HOSTILE NEWS REPORTING

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT and is in full compliance with it. The core of NPT is in Article IV which gives signatories "an inalienable right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes" and acquire technology from other signatories to do so. That's exactly what Iran is doing as opposed to Israel which is not an NPT signatory and is known to have 200 or more nuclear bombs, a stated intent to use them if they choose, and no condemnation of this by the world community. Of course, Israel is a valued strategic ally while Iran is an "outlier", going its own way and refusing to bow to the dictates of the "Godfather" (a no-no), Israel or any other nation. It follows that launching an attack against them has nothing to do with its legal right to develop commercial nuclear power or even its right to defend itself against a hostile US and Israel by building any weapons it feels it needs. It's only about the long-ter
CONCLUSION

So where are we, and what's it all add up to - trouble likely, maybe big trouble down the road that may come sooner than most think. Will it, and is that what I'm predicting? I've always loved the answer Hollywood film mogul Louis B. Mayer once gave an interviewer when asked how well he thought his newest movie would do at the box office. He said he never liked making predictions, especially about the future. Louis was a lot smarter than I am, and I'll go along with him on that one. I don't know what the US, in fact, will do (or how gold and the financial markets will react) and neither does anyone else outside the power circles making these decisions. They may even be unsure themselves at this time. But my best judgment is that the gold market senses trouble and is sending an ominous message that all is not well in the world, and it's better to take cover in the traditional safest of all safe havens than risk potential big losses in the financial markets. As one market seer o

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at

lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also, visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

This was posted by "Indian in the machine"...I love it!!!!

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:08:54 GMT

Let's look at them - by Indian in the machine

Let's look at them
Let's look at the people running the world
Let's look at their plans
Let's see what they are up to and what they have in store for us
Let's look at their finances
Let's examine the PIGgybank of all the connected families all the way up to the top
Let's see how much gold, silver these worshippers of darkness hoard
Let's listen in on their orgies of business
Let's watch Bohemian Grove the same way we watch the Olympics
Let's see how much "royalties" the royal families of our planet earn with every nuclear bomb built, tested and dropped
Let's look at how they conduct themselves
Let's examine their value systems and see if they have placed themselves beyond our collective trust
Let's see how many crimes against humanity they commit before breakfast
Let's shine Light on their lives so that we can shine Light on our own lives
Let's look at the people running the world as Light beings in the dark
Let's look at their hand gestures and the pins they wear on their business suits
For your information the United Nations bank used to be called Lucifer Trust
Let's shine Light on these flailing human beings and show them their greedy murderous ways are simply unnecessary
The more we look at them the less powerful they become
The more we approach their evil deeds with understanding the quicker we can simply move beyond them to our 5th dimension destiny of Truth
The meek shall inherit the Earth
To be meek is to ascend to higher vibrations
To be meek is to control one's ego
To be meek is to exhibit powerful self-control when examining the greed of other beings some of them from a higher dimension
Let's look at them with self-control
Let's not even scold them like we were scolded as children
Let's look at them so we can understand in ourselves, why we continue to let greed reign in our crown jewel blue mother planet
Let's look at them so we can unplug those cell phone towers, AM/FM radio, tv transmissions, the HAARP towers in Arizona and the Ground Wave Emergency Network
All these things and more are causing mass depression and some people's plans to rule the world are based on mass depression
Some people's plans to rule the world are based on mass insecurities and depression
You have come to the planet knowing you would go through this endtime
You are a brave beautiful soul and your reward should you so choose, is the fifth dimension!
Send out Love everyday! Make it happen!
Love will stablize our earth's orbit
Human beings are grounding rods of love
Earthly empires will fall it is prophesized in the heavens
The sooner the fall....the end of taxes, bills, nuclear war, mass murder, cancer, chemtrails, vaccines, pesticides, herbicides, pope, Billary, table salt, tap water, fertilizers, cnn and the United Nations of London
Just so you know....they designed our economies to fail us...the simply chose not to tell us

To learn more about Bohemian Grove www.prisonplanet.com

Depopulation Objectives - by Indian in the machine

Some people have become so powerful on this planet
As a result of our fixed world financial system
They are worth trillions of dollars from backdoor deals, secret
societies, special hand gestures etc.
And now they feel very superior (actually, "very needy" is more like it) They are addicted to having everything There are people on this planet Who's published depopulation objectives are available on the Internet

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 8 replies

The words of Crazy Horse

WhiteWolf — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:52:12 GMT

This was passed on by Chief Joe Chasing Horse, a relative of Crazy Horse. He translated it from the words of a grandmother who was present when the words were spoken. This is a statement of Crazy Horse as he sat smoking the sacred pipe at Paha Sapa with Sitting Bull for the last time, 4 days before he was assassinated. Many of these words are often repeated. There is one line often left out, that of the "young white ones".

"Upon suffering beyond suffering; the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of seven generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. In that day there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things, and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be as one."
-- Crazy Horse

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 15 replies

Decentralization of America

Wizard-Of-Air — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 02:33:39 GMT

One of the topics that was discussed and then forgotten during the early days of the Cold War was the idea that if we were to reduce the size of our major cities and create new cities, we would achieve a strategic objective in the overall defense of America from Nuclear attack. The potential of a massive global nuclear conflagration is almost nil now. But is the concept of new cities invalid? Can we not create both new wealth and a new living paradigm by creating 21st century cities that take advantage of current technologies?
Please let us know what you think.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 11 replies

LIFE IN OCCUPIED PALESTINE - by Stephen Lendman

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 18:01:01 GMT

Try to imagine daily life under these conditions:

You live in limbo in a country occupied by a repressive foreign army and a system of institutionalized and codified racism. You have no recognized nation, no right of citizenship and no power over your own daily life. You live in a constant state of fear. The occupier imposes economic strangulation and collective punishment by restricting free movement; enclosing population centers; closing borders; barring most of your people from working inside "its country"; imposing regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences and separation walls and continues to build new settlements in your Occupied Territories (on your land in your country) violating the Geneva Conventions prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land.

The occupier denies your people their basic human rights including those under the Fourth Geneva Convention which governs the treatment of civilians in war and under occupation. There are 149 articles of this Convention. The occupier violates almost all of them and in so doing is committing war crimes according to international law. The UN Human Rights Commission determined it's also committing "crimes against humanity" against your people. This concept comes from the 1945 Nuremberg Charter drafted by the U.S. to try Nazi war criminals. The international notion of a "crime against humanity" was established to define what Hitler did to the Jews. The UNHRC ruled this is what the occupier is doing to your people, and that this act is the historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The occupier also sends its troops, tanks and heavy armor into neighborhoods at will to maraud and destroy. It also strikes at will from the air with sophisticated missle-firing attack helicopters and F-16s and deliberately inflicts eardrum shattering and terrifying sonic booms. And it gives its military/security forces the right to freely harass, arrest or kill extra-judicially any of your people - man, woman or child on any pretext with impunity. It bulldozes homes and the people in them if they don't escape in time (usually in middle of the night and without warning or notice) as punishment or for lacking a permit to build on their own land, in their own country or for any other reason. It steals land relentlessly hoping it will have it all one day or at least all the parts it wants. It detains, imprisons and tortures thousands of your people for the real or perceived crime of fighting for their freedom against an oppressive occupier.

To enact vengeance and to provide security for its illegal settlers in your Occupied Territories, it restricts or prevents access to essential and emergency health care, education, employment, the right to move goods and services from producer/suppliers to end users, and even enough food and water. It created a state of economic siege forcing up to nearly two-thirds of your people (according to the UN) below the poverty line of $2.20 a day (and half of those two-thirds on $1.60 a day or less) and over half the work force to be unemployed (the number varying with the intensity of the Israeli lockdown). It destroys your peoples' crops and orchards including more than 1 million olive trees. It imposes punitive taxes and provides few services or withholds them at will as collective punishment. You have no power to stop any of these abuses or receive any redress in the occupier's courts. How can you as a Muslim in a racist Jewish state.

DEMONIZATION OF MUSLIMS AND ISLAM IN A TIME OF MANUFACTURED FEAR AND ANXIETY

It's always been open season in Israel and the West to demonize Muslims and Islam with language like "fundamentalist extremists", "crazed Arabs", "Jihadists" and "terrorists." The late renown and redoubtable Palestinian - American scholar, humanist and activist Edward Said explained in his most influential book - Orientalism - that as early as the 14th century Muslims and Islam were demonized with pronounced vitriol in Dante's most famous work - The Divine Comedy - and that his characterizations of Islam were common in much English literature that followed.

9/11 just gave it added impetus to become practically de regueur. The "extreme right" in Israel and the West used a heightened and hyped climate of fear to use an old and easy scapegoat to advance their extremist imperial agenda behind the easy cover of patriotism
and protecting national security. It wasn't hard to portray Muslims and Islam as intolerant, inferior, violent and anti-western, especially Muslims of color or from Arab countries.

Former Israeli leaders were just as intolerant, referring to Palestinians in the most degrading terms, such as - Prime Ministers Menahim Begin calling them "cockroaches" and "beasts walking on two legs", Ehud Barak calling them "crocodiles", and Golda Maier saying "There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed." Even Israel's George Washington and first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, said after expelling the Palestinians from their homes and land by brute force in the 1948 war establishing the State of Israel: "We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return." He also said at that time: "We have come and we have stolen their country." He expressed the same sentiment a decade earlier in a letter to his son when he wrote: "We will expel the Arabs and take their places.....with the force at our disposal." He thought they'd get away with it and that Palestinians would never come back when he added: "The old will die and the young will forget."
MUSLIM WITCH-HUNTING IN ISRAEL AND THE WEST

The current war against Muslims and Islam is now raging in the West. Witness a Muslim cleric in London, Abu Hamza al Masri, being sentenced to 7 years in prison for daring to speak out against Muslim persecution and being convicted of inciting terrorism. The U.S. also seeks his extradiction. Witness Mounir el Motassadeq's conviction in Germany of supposedly belonging to the al Queda cell that plotted the 9/11 attack. He insisted he had no involvement even though he knew some of the hijackers - to no avail. What chance could he have for "due process" in a country whose new Chancellor compares Islam with the "rise of fascism." Witness the many Western countries that now have draconian immigration laws principally aimed at people of color and Muslims behind the facade of a fraudulent "war on terror" and supposed border protection. And witness the current furor and backlash from the "cartoons" published in Denmark and other countries portraying a blasphemous image of the Prophet Mo
These images in print are just another part of the propaganda war on Islam used to justify the real thing in Iraq and Afghanistan and maybe soon in Iran and Syria. Call this episode "cartoon war." It's a glaring example of how the Western corporate media promote their governments' racist campaign to degrade Muslims, portray them as inferior, label them terrorists, hope to stir up violence to prove it, give cover to Israeli oppression, and sell wars.

Israel as well has a long history of demonizing Muslims. They likely wrote the modern book on it. And they use it to justify "removing" anyone considered a threat to their authority and dominance. Recent examples include regular targeted assassinations (and willingness to commit them in other countries including the U.S.) and the fraudulent conviction on trumped up charges of Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian leader who was imprisoned for life by the Israelis for the crime of being an influential freedom fighter. Barghouti, however, is still alive. Most often Israel prefers a sentence of elimination or targeted assassination. It's much simpler when they can say "case closed" forever. Israel does it all the time with impunity and no condemnation by the world community of nations for these continued cold-blooded murders.

Influential Muslims or even some of their key supporters or defenders seen as a threat to the West don't fare much better outside Israel. It's never been easy for them, but since 9/11 the gloves have come off and the persecution has become fearsome and relentless. In the U.S., the number of those harassed, detained, imprisoned or deported runs into the thousands. No one outside the government knows exactly how many have been affected.

Three recent headline-making cases in the U.S. illustrate what's so worrisome and disturbing. The most recent just concluded is the case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir, a Muslim American of Iraqi descent and practicing oncologist until his license was revoked. In a U.S. style "kangaroo court" type trial he was convicted of violating the Iraqi Sanctions Regulations (the IEEPA) because he used his own funds and what he was able to get from donors to bring desperately needed humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies, to Iraqi people unable to get them because of the U.S./UN imposed punitive sanctions. He did it through his Help the Needy charity. For his saintly work he was charged and unbelievably convicted of such claimed offenses as violating the sanctions, tax fraud, money laundering, and mail and wire fraud - a total of 60 counts and found guilty on 59 of them. The verdict - 22 years in prison. Everyone should visit Katherine Hughes' website - dhafirtrial.net - for her account
A second instance thankfully had a better outcome, at least for now. It's the terrorism conspiracy case brought against Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian in which a jury exonerated him on the 8 most serious of 17 total counts against him and deadlocked on the other 9. The Justice Department trumped up the charges alleging Professor Al-Arian's legitimate organizations that included the Islamic Committee for Palestine, World Islam Studies Enterprise, and Islamic Academy of Florida were fronts for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an organization on the U.S so-called "terrorist" list. The real intent of the trial was to silence an important voice supporting justice for the beleaguered and oppressed Palestinian people. It's not known whether the persecution of Professor Al-Arian has ended as the Justice Department witch-hunters don't quit easily. It's quite likely they'll return new charges and put an innocent man through more misery and expense until they find a way either to convict, bankrup
The third case is one I've followed since inception and have given my financial support to its victim. It's the case of Lynne Stewart, a New York City criminal defense attorney with a long career of defending "unpopular" clients because she believes, as we all should, that they, like anyone else charged, are entitled to the right of "due process" and "their day in court." Lynne was asked by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark to serve as a member of the court-appointed defense team for Sheik Abdel Rahman, convicted and now serving a life sentence in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Lynne was convicted in a gross miscarriage of justice for violating special administrative prison rules and providing material support to terrorists. In fact, she was convicted in the Justice Department's assault on the Bill of Rights. The baseless charges brought against her stemmed from communications she had with and about her client, which she had every right to do to cond
The lesson from these 3 cases is clear. Challenge state authority, in these cases in the U.S, even in the pursuit of bringing humanitarian aid to the desperately needy, speaking up publicly on their behalf, or aiding them in their pursuit of justice, and you risk being the victim of ruthless and relentless police state type persecution to put you in prison for a long time. Even if they fail to do it, they can break you financially and ruin your life. That's how the system works. Understand it and be prepared.

HOW THE ISRAELIS CONTROL THE PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PROCESS

Until the election of Hamas in January, 2006, Israel coopted the ruling corrupted Fatah party. It managed to control (rig) the electoral process (when they allowed it) to insure its preferred candidates won who then would serve their Israeli bosses as a quisling or proxy government to hold in check or even oppress their own people while ignoring their needs. It hid all this behind the facade of a democratic process that prevented any candidate from running for a leadership position who might put the needs of the Palestinian people ahead of those of Israelis. It's made daily life almost impossible and created overwhelming hardships and human misery. And it concealed it all with the help and complicity of the world community of nations (principally those in the so-called "Quartet" - the US, EU, UN and Russia) and the duplicitous facade of a sham "peace process" that never was and never will be as things now stand. After repeated failures, there's always a new incarnation - the curr
Instead of being given any rights and humane treatment, Palestinians are portrayed as terrorists, militants and gunmen preying on the Israeli people. What they are, in fact, are victims and freedom-fighters. And no amount of Israeli concocted myth and deceit will ever change that or justify the egregious and endless crimes they commit against a near-defenseless civilian population. It matches a powerful Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) equipped with the most sophisticated high tech weapons including nuclear ones against a lightly armed civilian population unable to defend itself. It unleashes that force at will brutally on the slightest pretext and has made life unbearable for a population some human rights observers call the most oppressed and longest suffering people on earth. There's no dispute that the Palestinians are the largest and longest suffering refugee population in the world with nearly 4 million of them registered as refugees by UNRWA - the UN Relief and Work Agency re
The web site If Americans Knew publishes and keeps current what it says "every American needs to know about Israel/Palestine." It calls the conflict "one of the world's major sources of instability" and one Americans are directly connected to and imperiled by. The current statistics on its site cover the period between September 29, 2000 and February 2, 2006. They're listed below:

--Number of Israeli children killed - 123
Number of Palestinian children killed - 707

--Total number of Israelis killed - 1084
Total number of Palestinians killed - 3790

--Number of Israelis injured - 7,633
Number of Palestinians injured - 29,395

--To the above totals add that in the 2 weeks up to
February 10, 2006, Israeli security forces killed 15 more
Palestinians and injured dozens more including 12
children. And more Palestinians are killed and injured
nearly every day, including women, children and the
elderly.

--Daily U.S. aid to Israel in dollars - $15,139,178
Daily U.S. aid to Palestinian NGOs in dollars - $232,290

--Number of UN resolutions targeting Israel - 65
Number of UN resolutions targeting the Palestinians - 0

--Number of Israelis held prisoner by the Palestinians - 0
Number of Palestinians held prisoner by the Israelis -
9,184

--Number of Israeli homes demolished by the
Palestinians - 0
Number of Palestinian homes demolished by the
Israelis - 4,170

--The current Israeli unemployment rate is - 8.9%
The current estimated Palestinian unemployment rate -
estimates vary and range up to 67% and at times even
higher.

--Number of new Israeli settlements (for Jews only) built
between March 2001 and July 11, 2003 on stolen
Palestinian land - 60+
No Palestinian settlement has ever been built on stolen
Israeli land (even though it's land Israel stole from the
Palestinians)

How did it get this way, and how can the Palestinians change it?

THE MYTH OF "WE WERE HERE FIRST" AND GOD PROMISED THE LAND (ISRAEL/PALESTINE) TO THE JEWS

Orwell explained that "those who control the present control the past, and those who control the past control the future." He meant they control the public mind by directing the flow of information including writing the history - the past as they want us to believe it. The notion Israelis want all Jews and everyone else to believe is that what is now the State of Israel was once a barren land first occupied only when the Jews arrived. Baloney. The truth is evinced by a wealth of historical and archeological evidence that civilization flourished on that land at least 1,000 years before the Jews arrived and maybe much longer. The one preceding the arrival of Jews was a Canaanite civilization that became completely Arabized after Arab invaders first came in the 7th century A.D. That transformed society became the ancestral heritage of the Palestinian people by the end of the 7th century, although the term Palestine originated with the Philistines and was used by the Roman Empire. F
The origin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back to the late 19th century and the founding of Zionism. The proximate cause for its founding was virulent anti-semitism, especially in czarist Russia, and the belief by some Jews that only in a Jewish state would Jews be safe from persecution. The early Zionists were willing to consider any location but finally agreed on Palestine because of its biblical connection. They early on created the myth of calling Palestine "a land without people for a people without a land", and they just came to reclaim their ancestral home. They ignored the fact that the so-called "empty land" had a flourishing population of Palestinian Arabs and few Jews. But their real plan was to completely dispossess the indigenous Arab population and create a wholly Jewish state for Jews alone - as racist a notion as the Nazis wanting a pure Aryan state along with its philosophy of a "Master Race." They were aided by the duplicitous British after WW I who
Once the Palestinian Arabs caught on to the Zionists real intentions, they understood the threat to their own existence and strongly opposed further Jewish immigration. Had it not been for the political and military support from the British colonial ruler, the Zionist goal for a Jewish state never would have been realized. With that support, immigration continued, the real threat of dispossession grew, and therein lay the root of the intractable conflict that continues to this day with no sign of resolution.

CREATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

On May 14, 1948 the State of Israel was born on the ruins of Palestine and its people, and on the day the British mandate over Palestine expired. Earlier on November 29, 1947 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish
state. It voted to partition Palestine into 2 independent states, one for Jews and the other for the majority Arab population. At that time the Jews comprised one third of the population and owned 6% of the land. But the partition plan gave them 55% of it and created added pressure that led to the 1948 war the Palestinian people didn't want.

War began on May 15 when the armies from 7 Arab countries (including Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon) crossed into Israel and began hostilities. Despite the Israeli myth that they were outgunned and outnumbered, in fact, they had a superior force in manpower and military strength for most of the war (but not the beginning). They also had a great tactical advantage especially against Arab armies that were uncoordinated, didn't use what they had effectively, and were not fully committed to fighting on territory outside of their own.

Hostilities ended in 1949 when Israel signed separate armistice agreements with its 4 major warring countries. The agreements allowed Israel to establish its own borders which included 78% of British mandatory Palestine, 50% more than the UN partition plan allotted. The cease-fire lines agreed to became known as the "Green Line." Gaza was occupied by Egypt, and the West Bank by Jordan. For the victorious Israelis, this was their moment of triumph in their War of Liberation, but for the defeated and forcibly displaced Palestinians, it became known as "al Nakba" - "The Catastrophe." An unknown number of Palestinians were killed in the war, but 700,000 became refugees. Many of them had fled during the fighting out of fear, but many others were attacked and "ethnically cleansed" (a term not yet in the vocabulary).

The Israeli belligerents committed documented atrocities during the fighting. One of the most extreme was at Deir Yassin (the symbolic beginning of nearly 6 decades of conflict), weeks before Israel became a state in 1948, where Zionist gangs (including the Irgun, headed by future Prime Minister Menachem Begin) massacred about 120 defenseless Palestinian civilians including women, children and the elderly. Sadly, it was just the beginning.

THE ISRAELIS TAKE IT ALL AND THE CREATION OF THE "OCCUPIED TERRITORIES"

In June, 1967 Israel launched a preemptive war of aggression against Egypt, Jordan and Syria (the so-called 6 day war) seizing the rest of Palestine not until then part of Israel - the West Bank including Arab East Jerusalem from Jordan, Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt and for good measure the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel falsely claimed they took defensive action, but it was clear the Arab states didn't want war. Israel took advantage of tensions at the time, that could have been resolved diplomatically, to achieve what they wanted since establishing the state of Israel in 1948 - to seize what they called "Judea" and "Summaria" (land west and southwest of the Jordan River) - the remaining part of biblical Israel/Palestine they didn't have but wanted. They took it and more.

Israel's dramatic victory in 1967 had a big impact on the Johnson administration that was mired in the growing quagmire of Vietnam at the time. It became clear how important a strategic ally Israel was and in the vital region of the Middle East. From that time until today, Israel along with Turkey (and Iran until 1979 when the Shah was deposed) became our "cops on the beat" to help guard and protect the vital resources of the region. It was at that time that U.S. aid to Israel began to increase dramatically as well as full U.S. support overall for even the most controversial Israeli policies. For many years now Israel has been the leading recipient of U.S. foreign aid and now receives about $3 billion annually as well as about $3 billion more in loan guarantees and grants, the latest U.S. military technology and weapons and additional help in various ways when Israeli leaders request it. In total since 1949, U.S. economic and military aid to Israel is approaching $150 billion. Th
The wall around Jerusalem alone will give Israel full control of that city and effectively strangle what's left of the West Bank economy. And the theft of thousands of dunums of Palestinian agricultural land and the Western Aquifer (50% of the West Bank's water supply) makes things that much worse. In addition, the so-called Gaza withdrawal was a hoax and shameless act with the small Israeli settler population there being resettled and the IDF just being redeployed to new positions but still in control of Palestinian life as it was before.

After the 1967 war, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 242 as its proposal to end the state of belligerency between the warring states. The Resolution stressed "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and called for the "withdrawal of the Israeli armed forces from territory occupied in the recent conflict" and the right of each country "to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries." It was an attempt to achieve "land for peace." But it failed as Israel interpreted the ruling its own way and never withdrew as was called for. And the Palestinians objected because it didn't acknowledge their right to self-determination.

Earlier in 1948 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 that affirmed the right of refugees to return to their homes as codified in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There it's stated that "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." It also states in Article 15 that "everyone has the right to a nationality." Various other Geneva Conventions also affirm this right in their articles and provisions, thus clearly establishing in international law the absolute and universal "right of return."

Resolution 194 specifically applied the right of return to the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war expelling them. In it, Paragraph 11 states "that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so.....and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property......" Israel is bound by this Resolution even though it's from the General Assembly, as its admittance to the UN as a member state, through Resolution 273, was conditioned on its acceptance and implementing of Resolution 194 - which to this day it's never done and refuses to do. Until this most fundamental of human rights issues is resolved, it's hard to imagine any settlement of the current and intractable conflict.

PALESTINIAN LEADERSHIP - FROM THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO) TO HAMAS

The PLO was founded in 1964, and Yasser Arafat became its leader in 1969. Early on it was militantly opposed to Israel's right to exist and that Palestine was the national state for the Palestinians alone. But by the mid-seventies the PLO's views softened to accept the international consensus favoring a 2 state solution. That new conciliatory position led in 1978 to the Camp David Accords and a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. It's U.S. broker wanted a more stable Middle East with its vitally important oil reserves, Israel wanted peace but on its terms, and Egypt was convinced to along with promises of considerable U.S. financial aid and the return of the Sinai. The Palestinians, one of the Camp David participants, were left out in the cold. The Accords did nothing, in fact, to help their just pursuit of an independent Palestinian state, and it implicitly renounced the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.

The predictable result was festering anger in the Occupied Territories that was fueled by extreme Israeli daily repression including the theft of Palestinian land for the building of large numbers of settlements for Jews only. It exploded in what became the first Intifada in 1987, the central demand of which was a free and independent Palestinian state. The term itself is the Arabic word for an uprising or rebellion and literally means "shaking off." It pitted young Palestinians armed mostly with rocks and their will not to take it any more against the Israeli IDF with its heavy weapons, its willingness to use them, and its history of extreme violence and brutality against all Arab foes. The result was predictable. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed until the uprising subsided in 1992, and things went back to square one.

CREATION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

The Middle East exploded again when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August, 1990 leading to the Gulf war in 1991. When it ended the U.S. and Soviet Union jointly sponsored the watershed Madrid peace conference at which Israel negotiated face-to-face with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians for the first time. The conference was the catalyst leading to the Oslo Accords and their so-called Declaration of Principles. From Oslo Israel got what it wanted - a fig leaf to hide their ongoing colonization of the Occupied Terrorities. The Palestinians were again betrayed - by their leaders they hoped would help them. Instead they were sold out and got nothing back for recognizing Israel's right to exist as well as renouncing armed struggle, especially what they wanted most - an independent Palestinian state and the right of their refugees to return to their homeland. Israel was able to establish a new Palestinian Authority (PA) to be their enforcers - to control a restive indigen
Oslo I led to Oslo II in 1995 that made things even worse by dividing the West Bank into 3 zones - Areas A, B, and C plus a fourth area of Israeli occupied East Jerusalem. A complicated system of control was established, and in Area C, under Israeli control, Israel built its settlements on the most valuable land with its water resources. It connected them with many special by-pass roads built on stolen Palestinian land and for use only by Israelis. By 2000, 59% of the West Bank was in Area C. In Gaza, a small Israeli settler population occupied about one third of the land and over 1 million Palestinians had the rest.

So-called "permanent status" talks began in July, 2000 at Camp David at which President Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. It resulted in one more betrayal of the Palestinian people, although at the time, the major western media portrayed Barak as having made a generous offer that Arafat turned down choosing conflict and violence instead. Barak insisted Arafat sign a "final agreement" and declare an "end of conflict" giving up any legal basis for demanding additional land in the West Bank and Gaza.

In fact, there never was an Israeli offer in writing (no documentation, no maps). All Barak offered the Palestinians was from a May, 2000 West Bank map dividing the area into 4 intolerable and isolated cantons or "Bantustans", with no direct links to each other or to Jordan and surrounded by expanding Israeli settlements and continued occupation. In addition, about 40 more Israeli settlements were inside these cantons with their surrounding roads for settler use only that further divided and isolated the Palestinians into smaller enclaves. As duplicitous as Arafat was, he could never accept this as a final settlement. To have done so would have given up any hope for a real Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capitol and the right of refugees to return to their homeland. Arafat had already sold out his people at Camp David in 1978 and in Oslo I and II but kept up the false hope that things could change. Had he ever agreed to Barak's demands (a one-sided deal giving the P
In a fair and just world, a man like Ariel Sharon would never have achieved public prominence, let alone become Prime Minister. This is a man who as a teenager became a militant Zionist and made a career out of extreme hostility and brutality against the Palestinians and other Arabs. He was a ruthless military commander who served as Israeli Defense Minister during the 1982 Lebanon war that killed nearly 18,000 mostly civilian Lebanese and less than 700 Israelis. During the conflict he was held "personally responsible" for what noted British journalist Robert Fisk called "one of the most shocking war crimes of the 20th century." Sharon was in command of the IDF that sent a proxy Lebanese Phalange militia into the Sabra and Shatila camps where they massacred as many as 3,000 or more men, women and children along with any PLO fighters that may have been there. The ICRC reported counting 2,750 bodies. Many Palestinians claim the number was as high as 3,500.

THE SECOND INTIFADA, ELECTION OF ARIEL SHARON, AND END OF THE ARAFAT ERA

Before Sharon even became Prime Minister, the conflict resumed. It was sparked by then member of the Israeli Knesset Sharon making a provocative visit to the holy Al Aqsa Mosque site in September, 2000 accompanied by a large security force. It ignited the second Intifada that had been building because of continued Israeli oppression with no sign of it ending. It just needed a spark to set it off, and Ariel Sharon was willing to oblige. As always before, the Israelis used brute and lethal force that included bombing, shelling and sniper killings against mostly young, rock-throwing Palestinians or any other Palestinian man, woman or child in a targeted area. There were also extra-judicial assassinations of targeted Hamas and other Palestinian leaders Israel wanted to eliminate. Israeli forces also attacked medical personel and ambulances, including those of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). By March, 2002 Amnesty International reported over 1000 Palestinians kil
Palestinians retaliated with suicide bombings, Arafat was blamed for not preventing them, and the result was the Israelis isolating him in his Ramallah compound and after another suicide bombing provocation attacking and destroying a large part of it. Israeli forces also invaded and attacked all the Palestinian West Bank cities causing great damage and an unknown number of civilian casualties and deaths. The most infamous assault was against Jenin in April, 2002 where the IDF invaded this city of 35,000 (including the Jenin refugee camp), cut it off from any outside help, destroyed hundreds of buildings (many with people inside buried under the rubble), cut off power and availability of food and water from the outside, refused to allow outside help to enter the city (including medical aid) and murdered an unknown number of Palestinian men, women and children. By any standard, the Jenin assault alone was a grevious war crime and crime against humanity, one that has gone unpunished
On November 11, 2004 an era ended when Yasser Afafat died in a French hospital. Before being allowed to leave his Ramallah compound for medical treatment in France, the Israelis had held him a virtual prisoner for 3 years. A new election was held in January, 2005 and Mahmoud Abbas was elected President succeeding Arafat. Abbas was Israel's preferred candidate. He had a proven record of deference to Israeli policy post-Oslo and, like Arafat until his fall from grace after September, 2000, was considered a Palestinian leader likely to knuckle under to Israeli authority and serve as its obedient proxy to keep the Palestinians in line, or at least try. The man Palestinians preferred to succeed Arafat and considered by many of them as the Nelson Mandela of Palestine, Marwan Barghouti, was not allowed to run. In June, 2004 he was convicted in a Tel Aviv kangaroo court as a "terrorist" and sentenced to 5 life terms plus 40 years. Barghouti was a longtime activist and freedom fighter
But it can be argued that any election held under occupation, with the occupying power controlling the process (who can and can't run, who can vote and who can't, who's allowed to run an effective campaign to reach the voters and who can't and more) is fraudulent on its face. The Palestinian people aren't free, they live in an occupied country under the oppressive heel of an Israeli occupier, and their daily lives are affected by what that occupying power will or won't let them do. Under these conditions, elections are just a smokescreen to divert public attention from the ongoing daily oppression trying to make them believe they have a democratic process which they don't - not as long as the Israelis hold all the trump cards and especially if the people they elect go along with them.

THE PALESTINIANS SPURN FATAH AND ELECT HAMAS - CALL IT THE THIRD INTIFADA (THROUGH THE BALLOT BOX)

On January 25, 2006, elections were held for seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). When it was over the earth had moved, and the consensus view had not prevailed. Fatah and its old PLO structure long headed by Yasser Arafat until his death, was out and Hamas was in and in big. Fed up with its leadership that had institutionalized corruption and surrendered to the Israelis at Camp David and in the Oslo agreements, the Palestinians shocked the Israelis and Washington by defeating the ruling Fatah party and its quisling leader Mahmoud Abbas (who is still President). Hamas won 76 seats to Fatah's 43 out of a total of 132 total representatives. While he was alive, the larger than life figure of Yasser Arafat allowed Fatah to hold on to its leadership. But with Arafat gone, Fatah was doomed. It was just a matter of when, and even Israel's iron control over the election process to reelect it and its U.S secret funding couldn't stop it.

Unlike Fatah that fielded a slate of unsavory and corrupted candidates, Hamas chose people untainted either by corruption or subservience to the Israelis. Hamas has always been in the wings since it was formed in the 1980s during the first Intifada to counter Israeli oppression. The Arabic word Hamas means courage and bravery. It's also an abbreviation of the Arabic words meaning Islamic Resistence Movement. Hamas had built an effective resistance and social movement against the Israeli occupation. They provided essential services the Israelis and Fatah did not or not enough of that included health care and education in the Occupied Territories. Its kindergartens and schools offered free meals for children, education centers for women, and youth and sports clubs. It ran medical clinics offering subsidized treatment for the sick, and extended financial and technical help to those whose homes had been destroyed and for refugees in the camps. Israel calls that "terrorism."

Hamas is a heterogeneous democratic movement with skilled and dedicated leaders, headed by Ismail Hania. It's an independent movement of Muslim and Christian Palestinians united against their oppressive Israeli occupiers. They have nothing to do with so-called terrorism or religious fundamentalism although Israeli and Western propaganda paint them with those labels. They're very moderate in their religious views, much more so than the religious zealot coaltion Likud partners in the Israeli Knesset or the extreme fundamentalist Christians that greatly influence Bush administration policy. Unlike Palestinian leadership under Hamas, both the U.S. and Israel are moving ever closer to becoming hard line religious fundamentalist states.

Hamas has always called for peace with Israel and is willing to negotiate a settlement now based on the principle of a "hudnah" or temporary truce. It's founder (who the Israelis murdered in cold blood), Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said: "If the Zionist entity completely evacuates....all the Jewish settlements and military bases....on the Gaza Strip, we can start a new phase of calmness in order to discuss the issues of Jerusalem, the West Bank, the prisoners and the refugees...Hamas was willing to stop its operations if the Zionists ended its occupation of Palestinian territories and stopped killing Palestinian women, children and innocent civilians." Israel ignored him, obviously preferring continued violence they mostly instigated.

Early signs from Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government so far show little change from that policy and clear signs they'll likely turn up the heat including an economic squeeze on an already desperate and impoverished population with help at least from the US, EU and UN. The Sharon/Olmert Kadima party openly shows its intentions by calling for "fixing the borders of Israel unilaterally" - meaning unilateral annexation of (the Occupied) territory. They also say they'll never negotiate with Hamas as their charter calls for the destruction of Israel. This is just a replay of the 70s and 80s when the PLO charter had the same language and Israeli leaders wouldn't talk to them. Eventually that changed and accords were struck, although only one-sided ones favoring Israel.

One other note on the Hamas victory and overall PLC election. Of the 132 Palestinians who won seats, 15 of them are in prisons - 14 held by the Israelis and 1 by the Palestinians; 11 are from Hamas, 3 with Fatah and 1 with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (the PFLP).

ISRAEL'S REAL INTENTIONS

All Israeli governments only made a pretense of wanting peace and being willing to negotiate with the Palestinians. Behind the facade of a fake "peace process" under various names and plans like the current "Road Map", Israeli governments have really wanted a continued state of conflict intending to wear down the Palestinians until they either accepted defeat or gave up and emigrated to other Arab countries. Israel also needs cover to absolve itself from its crimes of aggression, land theft and endless oppression. They've done it by portraying their Palestinian victims as transgressors and themselves as the aggrieved and up to now have gotten most of the community of nations to go along with them, especially the so-called "Quartet."

But how long can this sham go on, especially as below the surface the most extremist Zionists want all the land of "Eretz Israel", the biblical Jewish homeland many Jews believe God gave to the 12 tribes of Israel. It includes much more than present day Israel and the Occupied Territories - Lebanon, most of Syria, part of Egypt and a large portion on Jordan. The people and leaders of those countries might have other ideas which down the road may well set off another major conflict.

Unlike other countries, Israel has no fixed borders - deliberately. It's to give itself lots of wiggle room to establish them one day where they choose. And their intent is to include within them the ancient lands of "Judea" and "Summaria", the West Bank biblical parts of Israel the Palestinians claim as their homeland. Israel has kept up the pretence of being willing to allow the Palestinians an independent state. But by continued encroachment through expanding settlements and building new ones in the Occupied Territories and the construction of the "separation" wall, it's real plans are to seize at least all the most valuable Palestinian land there for its own use.

THE SETTLEMENTS AND "SEPARATION" OR "APARTHEID" WALL

Last August and September Israel evacuated its 8,500 settlers and 21 settlements from Gaza in its so-called Gaza Withdrawal Plan. It was touted as Ariel Sharon's show of good faith in his pursuit of peace. The plan also called for evacuating 4 small settlements on the West Bank. Despite all the hype and well-publicized anguish of the Gaza Jewish residents, the Sharon plan was just another Israeli subterfuge. The Gaza settlers were withdrawn, but only to be resettled elsewhere in Israel proper or on the West Bank, which is also Palestinian land. During the withdrawal period, the West Bank settler population grew by nearly another 16,000. Furthermore, the IDF did not withdraw. It was merely redeployed away from the settlements they were guarding to new positions on the border. Gaza continues to be sealed off, and the IDF is prepared to reenter it any time and on any pretext with as much control over Palestinian life as before.

Under these conditions it's no exaggeration to describe Gaza and it 1.4 million residents as living in the world's largest open air prison. In essence, nothing has changed except the Palestinians got more land in Gaza to use and an agreement was made with Egypt to allow Palestinians free entry and exit between Gaza and Egypt (as long as Israel and/or Egypt don't annul the agreement). Israel, however got rid of its Gaza headache - the expense and trouble of having to guard a small settler population in an area without valuable resources (except its access to the sea) and that has no historical places sacred to the Israelis. It also hoped to divert attention away from its continued settler expansion in the West Bank that goes on unabated.

Currently about 250,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank (and about the same number of Palestinians) on about 200 settlements and over 70 non-contiguous outposts. About another 200,000 live in Jerusalem. In addition, thousands of new settlers arrive each year. While 4 small West Bank settlements are scheduled to be evacuated, new larger ones are planned as construction for Israeli settlers continues unabated.

Central to the Israeli plan is its intent to annex and control all of Jerusalem including Arab East Jerusalem. It plans to do it by cutting the West Bank in half with its "separation" wall separating about 200,000 Arab Jerusalemites from the 100,000 remaining Arab population in Jerusalem on the other side of the wall or who live in satellite areas of the city. The idea is to force out of the city and surrounding areas as many Palestinians as possible (ethnically cleanse the area) to Judaize the city and prevent the eastern part from ever becoming the capitol of an independent Palestinian state. Once the wall is completed it will destroy the economic, social and political viability of Palestinian life in and around the city and negate any possibility of a two-state solution. But that's the whole idea, and so far Israel is getting away with it.

The "separation" or "apartheid" wall is key to Israel's plans. It's being built on the pretext of needed security protection from Palestinian "terrorist" attacks. But that's just another Israeli deception and ploy to add to all the others through the years. In fact, the intent of the wall is to achieve a "land grab" to facilitate settlement expansion, prevent the possibility of a two-state solution, help solve Israel's so-called "demographic problem" (as a faster growing Palestinian population is making them a majority in an otherwise "Jewish state"), and also destroy Palestinian society - its political, economic and social viability. There's an ugly word for that which takes in all other Israeli crimes over nearly 6 decades against the Palestinian people - it's called genocide. It's also called state terrorism which is far more destructive than a hoard of suicide bombers.

The wall is being built on Palestinian land, and its construction is destroying Palestinian villages, homes, orchards and crop land, and the lives of the people affected. Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the state has the "authority in principle" to erect the wall on occupied Palestinian land. But the World Court in the Hague disagrees. It ruled that its construction is "contrary to international law", in part because it "destroyed and confiscated" property, it greatly restricts Palestinian movement, and it "severely impedes the exercise by the Palestinian people of (the) right to self-determination."
The Court ruled 14 - 1 that construction must end at once, the existing portion already built must be taken down, and affected Palestinians must be compensated for their losses. The Court cited the binding international law codified in the Hague Regulations of 1907 (dealing with the laws of war and war crimes) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (that relates to the protection of civilians in time of war) in their ruling. They ruled that Israel was required to comply with the international humanitarian law in the Regulation and Article 49 of the Convention. The UN General Assembly also passed a resolution by 150 - 6 calling on Israel to adhere to the World Court decision. Only Israel, the US, Australia and 3 Pacific island states most people never heard of voted against the resolution. Israel ignored the World Court verdict and UN resolution. The world community of nations remained silent, especially the "Quartet."

THE ONE-SIDED WESTERN SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL AND GREAT COVER-UP OF ANY SERIOUS CRITICISM

No subject is more sensitive in the West, especially in the U.S., than criticism of Israel. It's the metaphorical "third rail." Touch it and pay dearly - severe denounciation, labeled an anti-semite or self-hating Jew, even ostracism. As mentioned earlier, the Israeli quick and decisive victory in their 1967 war convinced the U.S. of its value as a strategic partner. From that time forward, Israel got strong U.S. political and financial support and could do no wrong. It was aided by prominent Jews and Jewish supporters in government and business and its powerful AIPAC lobby.

Today AIPAC is part of an unholy alliance of itself, the equally powerful right wing Christian fundamentalists and dominant neoconservatives running the Republican party and the country. That triumvirate has a fourth unofficial member, the most powerful of all in that "fearsome foursome" - the dominant corporate media. It controls the message the public and world hears, and that message supports all things good for business and profits which includes full support for Israel. They help promote and maintain the manufactured myths, and you can read where they stand posted on their collective board room walls - "no criticism of Israel allowed." Any public official or independent voice daring to violate this binding rule will be metaphorically skinned (or eaten) alive. Those in Congress will face likely defeat at the polls, and those in the mainstream media can expect relentless and intense condemnation and possible job loss. Even most in the so-called progressive community and its m
Eminent Middle East scholar and expert Professor Norman Finkelstein is an exception. He's courageously stood apart from the mainstream one-sided and hypocritical view as a longtime critic of Israeli policy. In 2 of his important books (The Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpah) he explains how Israel and its influential supporters, underwriters and promoters (flacks) help build sympathy and support and deflect public criticism. He shows how they've done it by resurrecting the myth (at opportune times) of a virulent and pervasive "new anti-semitism" and by copyrighting Hitler's genocide against the Jews, rebranding it as "The Holocaust", claiming it was a unique event in history only affecting the Jews under the Nazis, and creating a supporting myth of "unique Jewish suffering." With no resonant message to counteract this propaganda, it's easy to understand why the public accepts it.

CAN JUSTICE FOR THE PALESTINIANS EVER BE ACHIEVED - OF COURSE, BUT IT WON'T BE EASY

It won't happen unless the world public knows the truth about Israeli imperialism, racism (religious, not racial) and criminality and forces its leaders (principally from the "Quartet") to combat it - no more baloney, halfway measures, or finessing; no more peace plans; no more scam of good Jews and bad Arabs; no more Muslim demonizing, anti-Muslim polemics or inflammatory Judeo-Christian superiority and Muslim inferiority, no more acceptance of the racist notion of the Jews as "the chosen people" and all Arabs as "untermenschen" (or subhumans). The only way forward to resolution is to destroy the myth of Israeli good intentions and Palestinian intransigence and militancy and demand the oversized and overused Israeli boot be removed from the Palestinian face.

Some feeble efforts toward establishing peace in the Middle East between Israel and its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians have been ongoing, on and off, at least since the 1970s. A key beginning was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's diplomacy after the 1973 Yom Kipper War. While other Arab states continued their state of war with Israel, Sadat made his unprecedented visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 to negotiate and address the Israeli Knesset. It led to the Camp David Accords in 1978. All the other efforts in the continued reincarnations of the so-called "peace process" followed that were discussed earlier - but to what end.

Israeli has peace, sometimes uneasy, with its Arab neighbors but none with the Palestinians. With them it's always back to "square one" because the Israelis don't want peace with their Arab denizens and never did. They want all the land of Israel including the Occupied Territories, ethnically cleansed, except for possibly a handful of isolated and surrounded cantons on tiny fractions of isolated, undesirable land Israel for now can do without - open air prisons locked down tight. Should this happen, the bottom line for the Palestinians will be no Palestinian state or any hope of ever getting one, no coherent territory, no capital in Jerusalem, no right of return, no economy, no real polity, no sovereignty - nothing but the right to continued Israeli oppression and serfdom if Israel chooses to use them as cheap labor.

If real justice is ever to be achieved, 6 decades of Israeli Zionist oppression must be fully exposed and condemned for what it's been and still is - crimes as grievous as everything the Nazis did to the Jews except for the mass production death camps. The Zionists have their own type death camps - slow motion genocide behind the false facade of conciliation. The fraud, abuse and manufactured myths must end along with the often reconfigured "peace process" with catchy new names and be replaced with forceful action - boycotts, sanctions with teeth, isolation and prosecution of Israelis guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Full Palestinian rights must be restored beginning with the return of their stolen land and the right of their refugee population to return to their homeland or be compensated for their loss if they choose not to. The Palestinian people and its leaders should accept nothing less. And the world community of nations, especially the "Quartet", must stan
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at

lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 2 replies

Please Check This Out

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 17:14:04 GMT

http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/Flash/Think_It_Over.swf

Please Check this out...I am sure you'll like it!
Peace, Blessings & Light...

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

To The People

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 19:14:59 GMT

To: All people of the world
Congress of the United States
Senate of the United States
President of the United States

We the undersigned come together before you to request that each of these governing bodies take all necessary action to bring about a Federal Holiday for Native American Elected Leaders, To include Congressional hearings on the racial exclusion of Native Americans in movies, television, sports advertising, music companies, etc.

With the special government to government relationship between the Indian Government of America and the Federal Government it is fitting for the Federal Government to enact this holiday, and conduct Congressional hearings.

Indian governments and the people they represent are requesting that the federal government bring about a National Holiday for Native Americans to be celebrated by all citizens of America and people around the world.

This holiday would pay tribute to Indian Tribal Leaders to include Alaskan Leaders and Hawaiian Leaders. This holiday would also pay tribute to those that endured the world's longest holocaust and most costly in human lives.

It is further stated that no Indian Government nor its people find reason to celebrate and pay for Columbus Day. Seventeen states do not recognize Columbus Day. The state of South Dakota has changed Columbus day to Native American Day.

Therefore be it resolved that the Federal Government should reevaluate Columbus Day by moving it back to its original day the second Wednesday of October and not be a tax paid holiday as is St. Patrick's Day and Octoberfest, and make the second Monday of October a Federal holiday for Native Americans.

The polls we conducted across the country show that the vast majority of Americans prefer changing Columbus Day as to creating a whole new holiday.

It is inappropriate for Indian children and children of America to celebrate Columbus discovering a nation of people and not having a holiday paying tribute to the people of those nations.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Mine is # 32086

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/indian/petition.html

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 5 replies

Beauty In Nature

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 16:03:58 GMT

The Leaf and the Tree

When will you learn, myself, to be
a dying leaf on a living tree?
Budding, swelling, growing strong,
Wearing green, but not for long,
Drawing sustenance from air,
That other leaves, and you not there,
May bud, and at the autumn's call
Wearing russet, ready to fall?
Has not this trunk a deed to do
Unguessed by small and tremulous you?
Shall not these branches in the end
To wisdom and the truth ascend?
And the great lightning plunging by
Look sidewise with a golden eye
To glimpse a tree so tall and proud
It sheds its leaves upon a cloud?

Here, I think, is the heart's grief:
The tree, no mightier than the leaf,
Makes firm its root and spreads it crown
And stands; but in the end comes down.
That airy top no boy could climb
Is trodden in a little time
By cattle on their way to drink.
The fluttering thoughts a leaf can think,
That hears the wind and waits its turn,
Have taught it all a tree can learn.
Time can make soft that iron wood.
The tallest trunk that ever stood,
In time, without a dream to keep,
Crawls in beside the root to sleep.

Edna St Vincent Millay

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Thursday Feb. 16 prayer for the Earth/Global Warming

Wizard-Of-Air — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 06:05:07 GMT

Our Sister and member of this tribe Krstni put this up in the topics threads of the Globally Synchronized Manifestation tribe. She will probably remember us and put it up here but the date rapidly approaches. I an therefore taking the liberty of copying her post and putting it up here.

As per Sue Silverstream and everyone else with concerns about our environment, thursdays prayer is for the Earth / Global Warming. This is a very loaded topic for me, as I am very very concerned about our planet. There is a very informative tribe:
massextinction.tribe.net/ Check it out to get informed about what's going on in the planet ecologically. Then take your knowlegde and spread it around. This is the one of the best ways to take back our planet. For me, I have been slowly becoming aware of my consumership. It is VERY important to know what you're buying; How it's being produced, who's funding it, how are the workers treated, are they ecologically responsibile etc. etc. What I have come up with is to buy as locally as possible and DO IT YOURSELF. Learn how to sew, learn how to garden, learn how to consume responsibly. You have to learn this yourself, as our culture is not trained in this hardly at all. Eventually, I want to be totally off the grid of destruction, both of myself and of the planet. We HAVE to get used to living like this, one day we will be forced to live like this. Get your head start now. I am not saying that there is going to be all gloom and doom. If you believe anything I say, believe that humanity is going to have to make very big adjustments to their lifestyles, especially in the "developed" world, in a short period of time. Live off the earth, love it, It needs us and we need it. We are it. Let us love ourselves.

You've been hearing about Global Warming in the news lately. I study Global Warming closely, and am interning for a production company that is making a documentary about it. Please inform yourself. Go here for honest talk about Global Warming, from a leading scientist, Ross Gelbspan. www.skidmore.edu/academics...lbspan.htm Think about investing in solar paneling and solar energy. Talk to your friends and family and co-workers. Fuck it, talk to people on the street and in everyday passing. I do. Elections are coming in November. Make Global Warming a key issue on your ballot. If it is not, contact your senators.
posted by:
Krstni
New York City
60 friends

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Part 3: "Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter" Hunter Shot by Cheney Has Heart Attack

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 19:28:15 GMT

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - The 78-year-old lawyer who was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident has some birdshot lodged in his heart and he had a "minor heart attack," a hospital official said Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060214/ap_on_re_us/cheney_whittington_4;_ylt=AqqMId.0V_hFDcRCRpF6EK5qP0AC;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

BUSH's and the OTHER REPUBLICONS ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Wizard-Of-Air — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 01:39:28 GMT

Not that I ever rant, but I think it is important to keep track of the activities of Ecoterrorists and of cours that includes the Bush Crime Family.

I read the following on a message board on aol. I was impressed by how many of the indictable offenses of the Bush Crime Family are included. I contacted the author who is not yet a member of tribe and asked his permission to copy it and share it here. I also invited him to join us. I hope he does so. So here it is

This list I laughingly call BUSH's and the OTHER REPUBLICONS ACCOMPLISHMENTS in the last five years (just some of them folks, haven't even mentioned condoning torture, jerry-rigged intel, wiretapping private citizens w.o a WARRANT, and carpet bombing and killing private citizens in an allied country)

I spent the huge US surplus and bankrupted the US treasury..currently America is in massive deficit spending with no end in sight.

Over 2000 American youth have died for erroneous reasons and over 25,000 more seriously wounded and the bodies pile up daily....................no end in sight

I have let the murderer of 3000 american civilians go free and enhanced his power through my ineptness, where Ossama and his supporters have GAINED support.

I took the world's respect and support for the US after 9/11, and in less than a year made the US the most hated and resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).

I totally blew the Katrina relief effort (the biggest natural disaster in US History and had political lackies in position of importance that they were incompetent to handle. Making it worse, I defended their actions regardless of the incompetence

I set an economic record for the most personal bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.

I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market.

I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record. (DUI's)
My friend and chief advisor, whom I affectionately call “Turdblossom” (Karl Rove), and other STAFF members probably committed treason and have created a culture of fear and treason in the White House and I refuse to dismiss any of them.

I am presiding over one of the biggest energy crisis in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed. (Hell, friends stick together, Lay ain’t goin’ down!) (and the rest of you just cut down on the gas use ---- I say as I take off again in Air Force one)

Just the other day I threatened to veto any economic tariffs issued against the Oil Companies for PRICE GOUGING americans.

Over 150,000 civilians have been killed on my orders, 60% of them women and children

I have insisted on promoting religious fascism and tried to call it freedom

After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history

I packed the Supreme Court so me and my friends won't ever be convicted as traitors.

I attacked and took over three countries, installed puppet governments and called it “democracy".

I shattered the record for the biggest annual deficit in history (not easy to beat old Ronny Ray-gun)

After only five years, I have taken more vacation time than any other president ever for eight years.

I set the record for most campaign raising trips by any president in US history.

In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs. I am the only president since Hoover not to create a single job in my first term in office.

In my first year in office I set the all-time record for the most days on vacation by any president in US history (tough to beat my dad's, but I did).

I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.

I set the all-time record for most real estate foreclosures in a 12-month period.

I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any other president in US history, (beating old Ronnie again.)

I set the record for fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV, and

I hired fake reporters to ask me preplanned easy questions to divert attention from real issues.

I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other US president in history.

I cut benefits for war veterans. (Gotta balance the budget somehow after givin’ all those tax breaks to my buddies)

I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (well over 15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any one person in the history of mankind. (Kinda makes me proud of the recognition. Won’t let them into my rallies and I do keep names!) I am now the worlds “most hated person.”

I dissolved more International Treaties than any president in US history. (We don’t need no stinkin’ treaties, we be the biggest and most powerful) (smirk, smirk)

I've made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.

Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history and the most closely invested in major war contractors than any previous Presidency

I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the union simultaneously struggle against bankruptcy.

I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world. (Enron and World Com)

I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the US.

I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than all other president in US combined (another record I broke, ain't I great?)

I am the first president in US history to compel the United Nations to remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.

I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.

I removed more checks and balances and have the least congressional oversight of any presidential administration in US history.

I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant to our policies.

I withdrew from the World Court Of Law.

I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.

I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations elections inspectors access during the 2002 elections.

I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for the most corporate campaign donations.

The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation)

I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.

I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1).

I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government, . (They’re all my father’s spook friends).

I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (75+%) view my presidency as the “biggest threat to world peace and stability.”

I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

I set the all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated US laws by not selling their huge investments in corporations that later made bids for gov. contracts.

I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. (American Patriot Act HAHAHAHA)

I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the Civil War.

I entered office with the strongest economy in US history (and the biggest SURPLUS in the history of the US-3 trillion spent it all too-not a dime left-Hee hee ) and in less than two years turned every single economic category straight down.

I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is “not available”).

I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during time of war. I refused to take a drug test or even answer any questions about cocaine use.

All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All records of any SEC investigation into my insider trading or bankrupted companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All minutes of meetings of any public corporations for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. Any records or minutes from meetings
I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

I invaded three countries!!! Iraq (never a threat to the US), Afghanistan (never a threat to the US), and Haiti (never a threat to the US) My father did Iraq, Somalia (we lost there), Panama, Haiti and Greneda.

Yet many think we AMERICANS will elect a party of rubber-stampers that were in collusion with Bush to topple America...........LOL....are they ALL taking that Oxycontin, like their idol Limbaugh?.........Cheers!

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 24 replies

Essie Parrish, a leader for our time

DeborahYostMotherBear — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 16:37:45 GMT

Dear Ones,

One of my spirit guides is Essie Parrish, along with her partner from her life, Mabel McKay. Here is her biography in brief, by way of introduction to any who she may be calling.
MotherBear

Essie Parrish
The last of four spiritual leaders believed sent to guide the Pomos, leaches acorns along the Gualala River in 1961, making traditional acorn meal for the annual Strawberry Festival.Essie Pinola was 6 years old when her people, the Kashaya Pomo who live at Stewart's Point in northwestern Sonoma County, acknowledged her as their ''dreamer.''
The term can best be translated to mean ''visionary'' but also includes ''doctor'' or ''healer,'' as well as ''priest'' and ''prophet.'' Essie was all of these -- and more.
She raised 13 children, managed an apple cannery, was an accomplished basket weaver and, for 70 years, provided spiritual focus for her people. She was the religious, political and cultural leader of her tribe.
Parrish -- her Indian name was Pewoya -- was born, in her own words, ''on the rancheria in an old shack between the redwood trees and the acorn trees.'' It was on Charlie Haupt's ranch on a wooded ridge north of Fort Ross, seven miles inland from the sea. Haupt's wife was Pomo and it was through her intervention that the Kashaya, who worked as farm laborers, made their home on the ranch.
The Pomos lived there until 1920, when the federal government bought the 42-acre Nobles Ranch, five miles west on Skaggs Springs Road, and established the Kashaya Reservation.
Throughout her life, Parrish used her powers to unify her people. She was the acknowledged center of the community, recognized as the last of four promised leaders sent by the spirits to guide the Kashaya Pomo.
After marrying Sidney Parrish, a Point Arena Pomo, she lived in Graton and Windsor, but always considered the Kashaya Reservation her home.
It became her mission to educate the Kashaya children in the Indian language, culture and laws. She not only taught in the reservation school, but compiled a Kashaya Pomo dictionary, working with Robert Oswalt, a Berkeley scholar well-known in the field of Indian linguistics.
Her spiritual gifts, particularly the ability to prophesy and interpret dreams, drew scholars to her. Parrish was ''discovered'' by the most noted anthropologists of the time, including the University of California's Alfred Kroeber and Samuel Barrett. She was a sophisticated observer of her society. As a subject for social scientists, Parrish made more than 20 films, including a documentary on her life that won a Cannes Film Festival award in 1969.
She was always in demand as a speaker, talking of her dream visions and the history of her people. She understood her power, but in her own terms. In 1972, in a talk to the American Language Association, she told the scholars, pointing to her head, ''That's what I have within me. I see it and I know it and I know it is true.''
During World War II, the reservation emptied as families moved into the valleys to find work in the orchards and hop fields. Essie and Sidney Parrish and their family moved to Sebastopol to the Barlow apple ranch, returning to Kashaya each weekend, as gas rationing allowed.
After the war, Parrish broke precedent by opening the tribe's ceremonial roundhouse to outsiders for the annual White Deer Dance and Strawberry Festival, bringing hundreds of visitors to the reservation.
She was there to greet the reservation's most important visitor, Robert Kennedy, when he came in 1968 on a fact-finding trip investigating conditions in Indian schools. Essie escorted him to the roundhouse and made him a gift of one of her treasured baskets.
The regal manner in which she met him, observers said, was ''like a head of state.''
She was a familiar figure in Sonoma County in her lifetime. With her friend Mabel McKay, she wove baskets at the Sonoma County Fair each year, patiently answering the questions of a curious public.
She took a lead role in persuading the federal government to grant a portion of the former CIA ''listening post'' near Forestville for an Indian education center, known as Ya Ka Ama, which means ''our land'' in Kashaya.
Parrish is buried at the Kashaya reservation -- where the ceremonial roundhouse was locked upon her death, to be reopened when another ''dreamer'' comes to take her place.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

Part 2: Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter (on purpose?)

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 03:05:01 GMT

Cheney Apparently Breaks Key Hunting Rule
AP - 1 hour, 20 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney apparently broke the No. 1 rule of hunting: Be sure of what you're shooting at. He also violated Texas game law by failing to buy a hunting stamp. Cheney wounded fellow hunter Harry Whittington in the face, neck and chest Saturday, apparently because he didn't see Whittington approaching as he fired on a covey of quail in Texas. Hunting safety experts interviewed Monday agreed it would have been a good idea for Whittington to announce himself -- something he apparently didn't do, according to a witness. But they stressed that the shooter is responsible for avoiding other people.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060214/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_hunting_accident_38;_ylt=AjVWZqTSIzlnDjeEvlt7solqP0AC;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 5 replies

I posted this elsewhere already but it's relevent HERE!

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 15:39:51 GMT

Mitakuye (my relative),
I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nation, ask you to understand an Indigenous perspective on what has happened in America, what we call "Turtle Island." My words seek to unite the global community through a message from our sacred ceremonies to unite spiritually, each in our own ways of beliefs in the Creator.
We have been warned from Ancient Prophecies of these times we live in today, but have also been given a very important message about a solution to turn these terrible times around.
To understand the depth of this message you must recognize the importance of Sacred Sites and realize the interconnectedness of what is happening today, in reflection of the continued massacres that are occurring on other lands and our own Americas.
I have been learning about these important issues since the age of 12, upon receiving the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle and its teachings. Our people have striven to protect Sacred Sites from the beginning of time. These places have been violated for centuries and have brought us to the predicament that we are in at the global level.
Look around you. Our Mother Earth is very ill from these violations, and we are on the brink of destroying the possibility of a healthy and nurturing survival for generations to come, our children's children.
Our ancestors have been trying to protect our Sacred Site called the Sacred Black Hills in South Dakota, "Heart of Everything That Is," from continued violations. Our ancestors never saw a satellite view of this site, but now that those pictures are available, we see that it is in the shape of a heart and, when fast-forwarded, it looks like a heart pumping.
The Dine have been protecting Big Mountain, calling it the liver, and we are suffering and going to suffer more from the extraction of the coal from there and the poison processes used in doing so.
The Aborigines have warned of the contaminating effects of global warming on the Coral Reefs, which they see as Mother Earth's blood purifier.
The Indigenous people of the rainforest relay that the rainforest are the lungs of the planet and need protection.
The Gwich'in Nation has had to face oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, also known to the Gwich'in as "Where life begins!"
The coastal plain is the birthplace of many life forms of the Animal Nations. The death of these Animal Nations will destroy Indigenous Nations in this territory.
As these destructive developments continue all over the world, we will witness many more extinct Animal, Plant, and Human Nations, because of mankind's misuse of power and their lack of understanding of the "balance of life."
The Indigenous people warn that these destructive developments will cause havoc globally. There are many, many more Indigenous awarenesses and knowledge about Mother Earth's Sacred Sites, her Chakras, connections to our spirit that will surely affect our future generations.
There needs to be a fast move toward other forms of energy that are safe for all Nations upon Mother Earth. We need to understand the types of minds that are continuing to destroy the spirit of our whole global community. Unless we do this, the powers of destruction will overwhelm us. Our Ancestors foretold that water would someday be for sale. Back then, this was hard to believe, since the water was so plentiful, so pure, and so full of energy, nutrition, and spirit.
Today we have to buy pure water, and even then the nutritional minerals have been taken out; it's just empty liquid. Someday water will be like gold, too expensive to afford.
Not everyone will have the right to drink safe water. We fail to appreciate and honor our Sacred Sites, ripping out the minerals and gifts that lay underneath them as if Mother Earth were simply a resource, instead of the Source of Life itself.
Attacking Nations and having to utilize more resources to carry out destruction in the name of peace is not the answer! We need to understand how all these decisions affect the Global Nation; we will not be immune to its repercussions. Allowing continual contamination of our food and land is affecting the way we think.
A "disease of the mind" has set in world leaders and many members of our global community, with their belief that a solution of retaliation and destruction of peoples will bring Peace.
In our Prophecies it is told that we are now at the crossroads: Either unite spiritually as a Global Nation, or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases, and tears from our relatives' eyes.
We are the only species that is destroying the Source of Life, meaning Mother Earth, in the name of power, mineral resources, and ownership of land, using chemicals and methods of warfare that are doing irreversible damage, as Mother Earth is becoming tired and cannot sustain any more impacts of war.
I ask you to join me on this endeavor. Our vision is for the Peoples of all continents, regardless of their beliefs in the Creator, to come together as one at their Sacred Sites to pray and meditate and commune with one another, thus promoting an energy shift to heal our Mother Earth and achieve a universal consciousness toward attaining Peace.
As each day passes, I ask all Nations to begin a global effort, and remember to give thanks for the Sacred Food that has been gifted to us by our Mother Earth, so the nutritional energy of medicine can be guided to heal our minds and spirits.
This new millennium will usher in an age of harmony or it will bring the end of life as we know it. Starvation, war, and toxic waste have been the hallmark of the Great Myth of Progress and Development that ruled the last millennium.
To us, as caretakers of the heart of Mother Earth, falls the responsibility of turning back the powers of destruction.You yourself are the one who must decide.
You alone - and only you - can make this crucial choice, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. On your decision depends the fate of the entire World.
Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind.
Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger?
Know that you yourself are essential to this World. Believe that! Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this World. Did you think you were put here for something less? In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending!

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Rebuild green

Mon, 26 Dec 2005 04:20:09 GMT

http://www.rebuildgreen.org/

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 3 replies

Creating a new society to save the World

Tony — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:16:02 GMT

We've known for 30 years or so that we are destroying the environment. We've also known for 30 years or so that we'll soon be running out of oil. But almost nothing has been done. We've also known for 40 years that the world can be destroyed by nuclear weapons, and have come extremely close on several occasions. There was an incident where the US was droping depth charges on a nuclear submarine, and 2 out of three of it's officers wanted to launch nukes, but it required a unanamous decision from all 3, so they didn't do it. There were other scary events as well.

What I'm saying is that our current society is not going to change. Our only hope is in creating a new society, and our only hope in doing so, is to start it as a small community, like a tiny seed, and if we get it right it'll grow and spread very quickly through out the world and out compete our current society and push it out of existance.

I'm explaining my plan in this thread, the how to do it:
http://intentionalcommunity.tribe.net/thread/9d5f8a72-8b04-4c0d-9986-d5a8b1720ed3

Also, you can check out my book, you can download it for free. The book explains why this type of society.
http://conceivia.com/store/books/society-of-conceivia/

I'm looking for some people who will help me push this thing, help find the funding we need to create a small community in a poor country, and find more people with various needed skills who will help the community get up and running. People like salesmen and stuff, who can help us get work to support the community while it gets off the ground.

Tony

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

The Place

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 14:37:02 GMT

The idea of dividing landscape into plots of individually owned land is a concept alien to Native Americans. That is why the Indians could not understand when the Pilgrims built fences to define property lines. How could anyone own the earth?
Non-Indians tend to think of themselves as separate from the earth; it is something to be mastered. They think in terms of owning land... of land as a commodity. Even the word "frontier" is based on the notion that a certain area lies undeveloped, awaiting settlement and civilization, which implies that land is not good until it is used for some purpose, a belief that is incomprehensible to Native Americans.

Author Unknown

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 11 replies

Help Save Our Environment to Protect our National Parks

Wizard-Of-Air — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 06:46:29 GMT

I just received the following from one of my "Co-conspirators" and I wanted to share it with you all. Please consider taking a moment to visit this site and send a message to the Govt. and the Bush Crime Family. Also take a moment and go the the home page of Save Our Environment and become a member. I just did and was WOWED by the collection of Organizations that are affiliated. I think you will be too.
Here's a link to them:

www.SaveOurEnvironment.org

Once again the Bush administration has quietly launched an
attack on America's most treasured places. This time political
appointees in the Department of Interior have devised a plan to
radically overhaul the way our National Parks are managed. The
plan could have a detrimental effect on air quality, visibility,
wildlife management, and more. The plan could also increase
commercialization in our parks.

We only have until February 18 to weigh in on this proposal -
click the link below to submit your comments now.
http://ga3.org/ct/u1Ardcs1qz57/

We're offering a brand new technology called BrightText(TM)
which allows you to personalize your letter instantly so that
you'll be more effective in stopping Bush's plans. Once you
click through to our advocacy page, simply hit the "instant
re-write" button or mouse over portions of the text to
personalize your letter!

Since their inception, our National Parks have been protected by
the strict standards designed to protect and conserve these
special places for generations to come. But now, without any
justification or explanation for changing the way our parks are
managed, the new proposal fundamentally weakens key protections
and dilutes the Park Service's core mission of conserving the
Parks for future generations.

Despite shifts in political climate, the core mission of the
National Park Service has remained unchanged for nearly a
century. We cannot let this administration be the first to
abandon the spirit of conservation that been the cornerstone of
the park service mission.

We still have a chance to protect our national parks, but only
if you act now. The deadline to submit comments on this proposal
is February 18, 2005, so please don't wait -click the link below
to submit your comments now!
http://ga3.org/ct/u1Ardcs1qz57/

Once you've submitted your comments, please help us spread the
word and save our National Parks by forwarding this email to ten
friends.

Thank you for your help.

Katelyn Sabochik
Online Campaign Manager
info@saveourenvironment.org

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 2 replies

Grassroots Activism

Wizard-Of-Air — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 02:26:14 GMT

I would like to hear from everyone their thoughts on what we can do in our localities to bring about a Grassroots raising of awareness of the environmental challenges; that will be taken seriously by the powers that be. What can we do that will not be dismissed as the actions of "tree huggers". How do we identify ourselves as a viable alternative to the current two party system. Please remember in shaping your answers we must educate as well as agitate.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Are we on the Right Path....???? I do not belief so....

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 00:38:34 GMT

This is what I am trying to stirr away from....in order for us to make a change in a positive direction ...we have to listen with the ears that are not attached to our heads...this is the second person today that said something in regards to how they felt about this tribe....I think we need to really start talking Green/ Planet instead of all the Politics and Whitehouse...Issues....naturally it is a political arena but our concentration should not be geared towards anything but spirit.....of this Planet....Just my take...this is from a Kind Spirit...Freewill has somewhat the same feel too....

Dear C.C,

~Thank you for thinking of me for this tribe. I hold Nature in my heart and spirit as ultimate sanctuary, solice and sanity and do what I can in my sphere. I went to the Green Party site and was a little nervous as they seem much more political and possibly militant than I am inclined to be. I'm more the Ghandi Path :). Please let me know if I might have misinterpreted this and I'll look again.

Blessed day!

> greenpartyworldwide.tribe.net
> I wish you would add to this pot of soup....lol

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 2 replies

Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter (on purpose?)

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 01:58:07 GMT

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Vice President
Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060213/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_hunting_accident

WHAT A DUMBASS!!!! im sure he won't be charged with anything.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 5 replies

A call for action by the members of this tribe.

Wizard-Of-Air — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 04:42:28 GMT

One of the things that drive people who don't have a strongly developed moral sense it the imperative of acquiring wealth. I would like to suggest that we send a message in our own words to our Elected Representatives and to the Democratic Party. In that message we should suggest a bit of legislation that will be a powerful incentive to vote against the current Government in the up coming Congressional and Senatoral elections. I would like to propose: the new "National Recovery Act". Unlike the NRA of the 30's under Roosevelt this wouldn't be a national employment program. This would instead be a way for the truth about what the Bush Crime Family has done to be brought out.

Here is how it would work. Anyone who works for a Corp. like Haliburton (or its subsidiaries) or companies whose names that we don't even know yet, who knows about that company stealing public funds (like the billions in Iraq) and comes forward with the information would be rewarded. The reward would be 10% of the funds recovered when that company and its executives are caught and prosecuted. This reward would be tax free. If you have seen the lines that form when people have a chance to win millions in the lottery you can imagine what the response will be from people who realize that they not only won't have to worry about retaliation from their bosses, they will be set for life from the proceeds of their whistle blowing.

Just think about it. If a secretary at Kellog Brown Rudman gets her hands on the secret papers that prove not only that the money has been stolen but where it is being hidden she gets 10% tax free of the Recovery. If a MIS officer in one of the divisions of Lockheed locates the information about intentional artificial cost overruns in a Defense contract he gets 10% tax free of the recovered funds. In case you don't feel like doing the math; let me point out to you that on each $1billion recovered, the reward would be $100million tax free.

I don't think that the Oligarchs that run our corporations can put up firewalls strong enough to prevent people on the inside of their companies from going after the millions of dollars that they could make.

Let me know how you feel about this. I think that it could not only put billions back into the US economy, but clean up some of our largest corps at the same time.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 9 replies

A Vital Information Resource

Wizard-Of-Air — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 05:34:44 GMT

One of the members of my network here on tribe.net has just made me aware of a remarkable information resource. It is a site that provides both International News and information as well as links to a wide collection of newspapers and organizations. I am very impressed with it and I think that you will be too. I have added it to my carousel on aol so that I can get to it in one click.

The site is named Common Dreams and here is a link to it:

http://www.commondreams.org/

I know that you will find it fascinating and informative.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

World Sound Healing Day Feb. 14, 2006

Wizard-Of-Air — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 06:01:27 GMT

I found this posted on another tribe. It's not as political as it is Revolutionary. I place it before you my friends because it is a call to a form of action for the betterment of the Earth.

The 4th Annual WORLD SOUND HEALING DAY FEB. 14, 2006
“The Sound Heard Around the World”
Sounding an “AH” for planetary peace!

WHAT:World Sound Healing Day- For five minutes, sound healers, meditators, peace activists and lovers of all humanity and sentient consciousness will send a Sonic Valentine to the Earth with the heart sound “AH” filled with the intention of Peace and Love! (visit:www.healingsounds.com to for more information on this event and to download an “AH” sound you can tone along with)

WHEN: February 14, 2006, at noon your local timethousands of people throughout the planet as they tone an "AH" together for five minutes, projecting the energy of Light & Love throughout the Planet. You will actually experience generating a field of transformational energy as this occurs. In addition, local toning groups will be occurring throughout the Earth at various times during that day with the intention of assisting planetary consciousness through sound.

WHY: To project peace throughout the planet. What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day then to project Peace and Love to Mother Earth and generate this energy throughout the planet with sound! Sound coupled with intention has the ability to heal and transform.

We will sound an “AH” sending a heart wave of Sound that will resonate throughout the planet. Now is the time for you to be part of the Celestial Choir and resonate together for World Sound Healing Day. We can create major positive shifts on our beloved planet. Through sounding together we will make a difference.

HOW: Sound the heart sound “AH” for 5 minutes We will simply sound an “AH” filled with the intention of Peace and Love for 5 minutes at your local noon time. The “AH” is a universal, non-denominational heart sound that when projected with focused energy is extremely powerful and effective.

AND: Pass this message on. If it’s appropriate, forward this announcement. Tell your friends and loved ones to join our Celestial Choir and help bring peace to the planet. There will be sound healing events throughout the world. Previous World Sound Healing Days were extraordinarily successful. We truly made a difference to the planet with our Sound, our Light and our Love.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 5 replies

This Isn't the Real America

Wizard-Of-Air — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 18:54:17 GMT

I copped this from a friend's blog (T-Bird) and thought that those of us who hadn't seen it would enjoy reading it. I think that of all the US President's I have experienced during my lifetime; Jimmy Carter is the best. His Carter Center for Peace and his work for Habitat for Humanity exemplify the highest qualities of leadership and stewardship. He is the most "Green" Democrat I have ever heard of. I loved his remarks at Mrs.C.S. King's funeral.

Published on Monday, November 14, 2005 by the Los
Angeles Times
This Isn't The Real America
by Jimmy Carter

In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned
by a host of radical government policies that now
threaten many basic principles espoused by all
previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to
peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties,
our environment and human rights.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to
providing citizens with truthful information, treating
dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and
local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

At the same time, our political leaders have declared
independence from the restraints of international
organizations and have disavowed long-standing global
agreements — including agreements on nuclear arms,
control of biological weapons and the international
system of justice.

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a
national priority unless our security is directly
threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive
war," an unabridged right to attack other nations
unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other
purposes. When there are serious differences with
other nations, we brand them as international pariahs
and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve
disputes.

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts
by top U.S. leaders to exert American imperial
dominance throughout the world.

These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by
those who believe that our nation's tremendous power
and influence should not be internationally
constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat
and America facing the threat of additional terrorist
attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or
against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances
based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests,
including the threat of terrorism.

Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during
other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict
is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men
and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the
quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been
asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been
made to conceal or minimize public awareness of
casualties.

Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion
of human rights, we now find civil liberties and
personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme
provisions of the Patriot Act.

Of even greater concern is that the U.S. has
repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of
torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and
secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the
so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is
embarrassing to see the president and vice president
insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate
"cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment"
on people in U.S. custody.

Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear
weapons and their further proliferation, we have
insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain
our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or
derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements
negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now
become a prime culprit in global nuclear
proliferation. America also has abandoned the
prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against
nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the
previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.

Protection of the environment has fallen by the
wayside because of government subservience to
political pressure from the oil industry and other
powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have
brought continued lowering of pollution standards at
home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's
global environmental policies.

Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by
unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting
America's working families. Members of Congress have
increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since
freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the
lowest among industrialized nations).

I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in
many houses of worship and in government, as church
and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways
previously thought unimaginable.

As the world's only superpower, America should be seen
as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human
rights. Our country should be the focal point around
which other nations can gather to combat threats to
international security and to enhance the quality of
our common environment. We should be in the forefront
of providing human assistance to people in need. It is
time for the deep and disturbing political divisions
within our country to be substantially healed, with
Americans united in a common commitment to revive and
nourish the historic political and moral values that
we have espoused during the last 230 years.

Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United
States. His newest book is "Our Endangered Values:
America's Moral Crisis," published this month by Simon
& Schuster.
What a guy!!!!!!!!!!!!

© 2005 Los Angeles Times

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 4 replies

Know your enemies

Wizard-Of-Air — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 00:09:52 GMT

In the battle to preserve our freedoms and safeguard our habitat, we face foes of incredible power and cunning. They will stop at nothing to pursue their agendas. We must recognize them and their works in order to oppose them. It is imperative that we become aware of who will oppose us and who holds the whip in hand that commands them.

The following links are to some of this information. The first set of links it to the Documentary "The Money Masters". Any of you who are members of the Information Warfare tribe may have seen these links posted in a thread about the Federal Reserve. These are the Bankers who dictate the conditions of our lives and own our government. Please take a moment to cut and paste these links and view the video at your leisure. The total video is 3 1/2 hours but it is well worth the investment of time. I learned a frightening truth from this and like most horrible truths; when you learn it you can't keep it to yourselves.

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/multimedia/Money_Masters_Tape1_Part1_all.wmv
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/multimedia/Money_Masters_Tape2_128KBps.wmv

This next link it to an information page about another Documentary film currently being shown in Manhattan. I have not seen the film yet but I intend to see it this weekend. I'll post a review (IMHO) after I do.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/main.html

I would like to suggest that we make this a continuing thread and please everybody post any information you come across about "Big Brother" and the enemies of our mission here.

Thank you,

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

Hello Everyone

Wizard-Of-Air — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 20:29:06 GMT

I just wanted to introduce myself to all of the members of this tribe that I haven't had the opportunity to communicate with before. I am in the place that is probably the least connected with the Earth of all of the cities in America; New York City. I don't mean that to say that we care the least about the Earth, only that there are fewer places that you can get into contact with the Earth. However, we have a populace that is politically sophisticated and ripe to be brought into the process of reclaiming our Human birthright of a viable world-home.

I look forward to establishing new and vital dialogues and processes that will empower the members of this tribe and attract new members to it.

At this time I would like to solicit your input. I would like to hear your thoughts on; bringing new members into this tribe, creating an agenda, people and places we can network with and recruit from, your feelings about the Green Party in the real world, and anything else you would care to talk about.

I will endeavor to create new threads regularly, but this isn't the Al tribe. I know how I feel and what I think. I will have no problem sharing my feelings and thoughts with you, but I want to get to know you and your feelings and thoughts.

Would anybody like to update the Mission Statement of this tribe? Would anyone like to create the first new thread of my tenure; all topics are open.

thank you all for your time and consideration,

al in Queens NYC

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 8 replies

Create an e-annoyance, go to jail

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 06:54:27 GMT

Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyance%2C+go+to+jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html?part=rss&tag=6022491&subj=news

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Book: CIA Ignored Info Iraq Had No WMD

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 02:16:44 GMT

WASHINGTON - A new book on the government's secret anti-terrorism operations describes how the
CIA recruited an Iraqi-American anesthesiologist in 2002 to obtain information from her brother, who was a figure in
Saddam Hussein's nuclear program.

More Here>>>>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060103/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_iraq

Like this should surprise any of us!

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

NY Transit workers fined $1million a day.

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 21:31:22 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/Business/Labor_and_Workplace

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Iran, Holocaust Is a 'Myth'

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 12:20:29 GMT

Iran President: Holocaust Is a 'Myth'

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer 21 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday the Holocaust is a "myth" that Europeans have used to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.
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"Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

The Iranian president previously expressed doubt that the Nazi destruction of six million European Jews during World War II had occurred. But Wednesday was the first time he publicly denied the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad provoked an international outcry in October when he called for
Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Touring southeast
Iran, Ahmadinejad said that if Europeans insist the Holocaust did happen, then they are responsible and should pay the price.

"If you committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?" Ahmadinejad asked rhetorically.

"This is our proposal: if you committed the crime, then give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them so that the Jews can establish their country," he said, developing a theme he raised in Saudi Arabia last week.

Germany and Israel condemned the remark, with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier calling it "shocking and unacceptable."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said: "The repeated outrageous remarks of the Iranian president show clearly the mind-set of the ruling clique in Tehran and indicate clearly the extremist policy goals of the regime.

"The combination of fanatical ideology, a warped sense of reality and nuclear weapons is a combination that no one in the international community can accept," Regev added, referring to allegations that Iran is developing nuclear bombs

In Berlin, Foreign Minister Steinmeier said his government had summoned the Iranian charge d'affaires to make "unmistakably clear" its displeasure.

"I cannot hide the fact that this weighs on bilateral relations and on the chances for the negotiation process, the so-called nuclear dossier," Steinmeier said, referring to European talks with Iran on its nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad said the West had harmed Muslims, invaded their countries and plundered their wealth.

"If your civilization consists of aggression, making oppressed people homeless, suffocating the voices of justice and bringing poverty to a majority of the world's people, we say loudly that we hate your hollow civilization," he said.

The president's views sharply conflict with those of his predecessor
Mohammad Khatami, a moderate who used to call for dialogue among civilizations and promoted a low-key understanding with the United States that stopped short of diplomatic relations.

Inside Iran, Ahmadinejad's remarks have been criticized by some of his conservative allies who fear he is hurting the country's image. Moderate Iranians have called on the ruling Islamic establishment to rein in the president.

But Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the ultimate say, has backed Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel's elimination.

Ahmadinejad criticized the United States for refusing to sell Iran spare parts for its civilian planes as part of its long standing embargo against the country.

Iran has suffered a series of plane accidents — most recently on Dec. 6 when an aging U.S.-made military transport plane crashed into a tall building in Tehran, killing 115 people. Iranian officials have blamed Washington for the crashes, saying they are partly caused by the difficulty in obtaining spare parts.

"No country is authorized to impose spare-part sanctions against another country. Nothing can justify this," Ahmadinejad said Wednesday.

Ahmadinejad said the denial of spare parts was a reason why Iran would not trust Western promises to give it nuclear fuel. The country is currently at loggerheads with the West over its insistence on enriching uranium to fuel its first nuclear reactor, which is due to start generating electricity next year.

The Europeans, with U.S. backing, do not trust Iran to have its own enrichment process, as highly enriched uranium can be used for nuclear warheads. Europe has offered to sell enriched uranium for the reactor, but Iran has rejected this.

Ahmadinejad said that if Iran gave in on the nuclear dispute, there was no guarantee the West might not refuse to sell nuclear fuel in the future.

"I assure you that we won't step back one inch from our nuclear rights," the president told the crowd, drawing chants of "Death to America!"

Later this month, Iran is due to resume negotiations on the nuclear issue with envoys from Britain, France and Germany.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051214/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_holocaust

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Is the Pentagon spying on Americans?

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 06:07:19 GMT

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Iraq Civilian deaths staged

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 20:21:32 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_civilian_deaths

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

Green Parties Worldwide

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 07:56:08 GMT

http://www.greens.org/

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Iraqis Probe 'Unusually High' Yes Tally

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 04:32:53 GMT

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20051018/D8DA6IHO2.html

Ok how can they know if its a "Unusually High" Yes Tally, when they havent had voting in many years? (yes i know its the 2nd time for a vote, but whos to say that more people didnt just decide to vote Yes?)

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

What is your local Green Party doing?

dbcsez — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 12:42:42 GMT

You tell me, and I'll tell you what's happening in Harris County, Texas.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

Gas Prices Drive Man to Commute by Horse

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 15:31:23 GMT

MINOT, N.D. - Jim Jundt was so determined to rein in his spending on gasoline that he got out of bed early and rode his 14-year-old quarterhorse mare to work.
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Jundt lives 15 miles south of Minot and works as a mechanic at Goodyear Tire & Auto Service in the city.

He said he and his co-workers had been talking about rising fuel prices, and he joked that he would ride his horse to work if gasoline ever hit $3 a gallon.

His co-workers laughed, but when the price at the pump soared to $3.20 last week, Jundt headed for the barn.

He said he was only five minutes late riding his mare, Patty, to work.

While he worked, Patty waited patiently, eating hay out of the back of a truck.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050905/ap_on_fe_st/horse_commute

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Thousands Remain To Be Evacuated

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 03:47:12 GMT

White House Shifts Blame to Local Officials

By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Spencer Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A01

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 -- Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management.

President Bush authorized the dispatch of 7,200 active-duty ground troops to the area -- the first major commitment of regular ground forces in the crisis -- and the Pentagon announced that an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be sent to Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total Guard contingent to about 40,000.

Authorities reported progress in restoring order and electricity and repairing levees, as a hospital ship arrived and cruise ships were sent to provide temporary housing for victims. As Louisiana officials expressed confidence that they had begun to get a handle on the crisis, a dozen National Guard troops broke into applause late Saturday as Isaac Kelly, 81, the last person to be evacuated from the Superdome, boarded a school bus.

But there remained an overwhelming display of human misery on the streets of New Orleans, where the last 1,500 people were being evacuated from the Convention Center amid an overpowering odor of human waste and rotting garbage. The evacuees, most of them black and poor, spoke of violence, anarchy and family members who died for lack of food, water and medical care.

About 42,000 people had been evacuated from the city by Saturday afternoon, with roughly the same number remaining, city officials said. Search-and-rescue efforts continued in flooded areas of the city, where an unknown number of people wait in their homes, on rooftops or in makeshift shelters. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the flooding -- 250,000 have been absorbed by Texas alone, and local radio reported that Baton Rouge will have doubled in population by Monday. Federal officials said they have begun to collect corpses but could not guess the total toll.

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for the delayed response to the disaster, used his weekly radio address to put responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government. The magnitude of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 1 reply

SaveTheCourt.org

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 19:07:28 GMT

http://www.savethecourt.org/site/c.mwK0JbNTJrF/b.999993/k.784B/Roberts_Opposition_Report.htm

Senators Should Not Confirm Roberts

People For the American Way Opposes This Nomination
reject robertsA review of John Roberts' record and the tens of thousands of pages of documents so far released by the Administration show that confirming John Roberts would endanger much of the progress made by the nation in civil rights over the past half-century.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Tell Elected Officials: Stop Playing Politics with Science!

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 17:32:17 GMT

Recently, we’ve been overwhelmed with news about political appointees manipulating, distorting, and suppressing the science on global warming – as well as on other issues such as mercury pollution and lead poisoning. Political interference in science has dangerous implications for our health, safety and environment.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/185579302?z00m=33945&z00m=33945&ltl=1124818217

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Emergency Declared at U.S. Southern Border

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:12:29 GMT

Following last week's declaration of states of emergency by the governors of New Mexico and Arizona, done in order to get federal funds to help handle an influx of illegal immigrants, one Arizona lawmaker has announced plans to introduce a bill in Congress that would boost enforcement of the porous border.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166241,00.html

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies

Hello

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 17:49:14 GMT

Hello,Howdy,Hi. My name is Christopher, and I am newly converted from the Republican (sorry for the dirty word) LOL, Party and my new path is now the Green Party!

Still waiting for my state voter registration for the Green party.

Please introduce yourself. Thanks C.

posted in Green Party Worldwide - 0 replies