-------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:03:04 -0500 To: •••@••.••• From: "Raging Grannie (Wanda B)" <> Subject: NPR on Chavez Got this from Liberty Underground.... This morning on NPR's Morning Edition the news reader again screamed that Hugo Chavez is "anti-American" and there will be "anti-American" demonstrations in Venezuela where Bush meets today. The corporate media logic is that if you are against Bush, you are against America, but that is not what the demonstrations are about (corporate media don't want you to know) http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=42&ItemID=9039 Hugo Chavez has offered to debate Bush about the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=6693 but Bush will not agree to it. If Bush agreed, corporate media would not cover it, because Americans are not allowed to get facts like those which would be aired in such a debate. The public might learn something about what the euphemistically-called "free trade" actually does to working class people and the environment and the whole scam would be exposed. Chavez is often smeared by his association with Fidel Castro, since most Americans know only extreme propaganda about Castro and Cuba. What most Americans do not know is that Castro has provided thousands of medical doctors to Venezuela to provide medical care, for the first time, to the Venezuelan masses, and Chavez is thankful. Every opportunity is taken by corporate media to twist facts about the Cuban people, since they overthrew the US puppet dictator Batista, who allowed American organized crime and corporations to do their will in Cuba. The crime of overthrowing the ruthless dictator will not be forgiven until Cuba is once again under the thumb of the transnational corporations, and its girls once again have no hope but to grow up to become prostitutes, its boys to chop sugar cane. Because its treasury is gone to Miami with the thugs who ruled before the revolution, Cuba is more impoverished than ever, but has managed to put together the best education system in the Western hemisphere, with the highest literacy rate and medical care for all, something the world's richest nation, the US, shamefully does not have for its own people. To undo all of the propaganda Americans know about Cuba, and only propaganda comes through our mass media concerning Cuba, would take a large book, so we will not go into the many raids on Cuba by the terrorists who train in Florida this morning, the history of attempts on Castro's life by US agents, or other terrorist acts committed by our government against the people of Cuba. We will try the microcosm approach this morning, describing only one incident horribly distorted by mass media, in Saul Landau's latest piece. What do you think the US government would do if foreign planes were flying over the country, dropping leaflets reading "Kill your leader" --Jack A Cuba Story: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id=935&lists=newslog -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 07:19:53 -0800 (PST) From: Diana Skipworth <> Subject: Re: Help: Student Faces Expulsion for Nov. 2 action To: •••@••.••• Dear Richard, I will fax the school first thing tomorrow when I get to the office. In Batavia, IL between 30 to 50 Batavia High School students walked out of the building on November 2 and the school called the Batavia police to assist in rounding up the truant students. 24 were cited by police and given $25 tickets (fine for being truant). The story was printed by the Daily Herald on November 3. <http://www.dailyherald.com/>www.dailyherald.com . Many of the students had their comments listed in the paper as well, mostly that it was worth the $25 to show their displeasure with President Bush. Some people wondered what this country was coming to, having the school telephone police to squash dissent. (However, being someone who has attempted protests at Congressman J. Dennis Hastert's Batavia, IL office, only to be prevented by the Batavia, IL police, I am not at all surprised.) In another matter, a citizen was writing in the newspaper 10/31/05 (Daily Herald) asking if this nation is the land of the free or land of the dictated-to regarding the oil companies and their record profits this last quarter. I responded (of course) but have not yet been printed. I mention this, because I found the exact quote from the book The Seven Sisters, The great oil companies and the World they shaped. Being a native of Los Angeles, the town sited in the quotation, I thought you may be interested. Diana Skipworth ------------ Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 06:37:41 -0800 (PST) From: "Diana Skipworth" Subject: My Reply to Chris Miller, of 10/31/05 To: "The Daily Herald Fencepost" <•••@••.•••> To the Editor: I would like to take this time to answer one of the questions raised by Chris Miller: "Is this the land of the free...or land of the dictated to?" Dear Chris, yes to both questions, but brevity permits only the second part of my answer. In his book, The Seven Sisters, The great Oil Companies & the World They Shaped, by Anthony Sampson, let me direct you to page 154, where he talks about 'rival transport': ..."In Los Angeles, for instance, the first sprawling suburbs had been built not round cars and freeways, but round an electric railroad system, whose relics can still be seen alongside the freeways; but in the late 'thirties General Motors collaborated with the local oil company, Socal (and also with Firestone), to buy up the railroad, and soon afterwards to close it down. They did similar deals with oil companies in other big American cities; ensuring that the inhabitants would be dependent on road-transport alone. The freeways cut further into the country and through the hearts of cities, while the railroad decayed." I hope this answers your question. Regards, Diana Skipworth -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 23:51:46 +0100 To: •••@••.••• From: Prospective Internationale <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: rkm : What are the French riots about? Great piece Richard! Georges Drouet -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Cal" <> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: What are the French riots about? Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 19:50:32 -0600 X-Priority: 3 Thank you Richard for once again providing some much needed perspective on the bigger picture. We get so caught up in individual events that we lose sight of their connection and larger significance. Some thoughts about your piece: I think people ARE, of necessity, beginning to fall back on their own resources more and more as the world seems to turn topsy turvey...where up is down and right is left. Of course many remain rudderless and fearful. It is nothing less than a societal polar shift. Who can hold their center during such times when all the usual points of direction and reference are lost? The media's propaganda is contributing to this too....we have to 'discover' the truth for ourselves amidst all the 'noise'. Even without the propaganda this would likely be the result of technological shifts that have exposed us to a massive proliferation of information. People like yourself who help to sort it out and interpret it are invaluable. Of course, we have to learn to trust ourselves more and the deep roots of universal law. We'll have to sharpen our instincts and develop non-linear intuitive guidance systems to maneuver. Those who don't have these tools will indeed get caught up in an abysmal undertow of hopelessness. The props which supported their illusions will fall like a house of cards. Very disorienting when you don't have your usual points of reference. So its understandable that some will continue to look for a White Knight, or have loyalty to a system or company even when it is not returned. Because without our contrived 'reality' we often don't initially know who we are or where we fit or even what to do. People can't give up their version of reality upon which everything in their life has been built, until they reach a tipping point. How many voluntarily accept such a death? Disillusionment is a bit different than hopelessness, although hopelessness can be the result of disillusionment if there is no light that emerges or lessons learned. I don't know if people or systems need a complete breakdown if they are provided with another model or choice that feels 'right' to them and that they can transition into, even if they aren't entirely cognizant of why or how. Maybe that is unrealistic and an avoidance of an inevitable cyclical death. Or is there something of value in the current system that can be a bridge? How can we identify which parts need to be discarded and what we can keep (if anything?). Well, the clearer we get about where we're heading, the easier those questions will be to answer. If people are left too long in the dark and all hope is lost then violence seems unavoidable. Is that ultimately constructive? Or is there another way? I think its important for people who have already been through this disillusionment phase, to begin working on new models and living it as much as possible. There are limits because we are still IN the old systems, but there are seeds that can be planted and visions to share and discussions to have that can manifest as the scaffolding of the 'new' structure even as the old disintegrates. Then it seems less likely that false prophets of economic globalism will step into the dark void, the vacuum of power, after the collapse with their self-serving blueprints (as the neocons did just after 9/11, and the developers did after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast). They are opportunistic and would happily shine a light to lead us out or our darkness into their reality. That is also what multinational corporations have done. They have stepped into the power void of globalization where there are no world regulatory bodies or laws established. They want to govern the world and offer up neoliberalism as the light. The new values being born will sculpt the new system like water on stone...gradually. You cannot impose a system on people for very long if it doesn't resonate with their deepest values. The resistance/pressure is too great. It's relatively easy to tear things down but quite a bit more challenging to know what to do from there. Easier to identify what's wrong with a system than to design a new one. ------- Hi Cal, You state the problem well. My book, which is now ready for publication, is my attempt to explore how we can together evolve a new system within the old. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 13:07:22 -0800 From: Jeff & Diana Jewell <> Subject: Co-Op Radio discussion To: •••@••.••• Hi, Richard; Jeff and I both listened to your interview/discussion with Don Nordin just now (Jeff is home on his bi-weekly flex day), and as usual, it was great to hear your views and voice again. The critique was superb as usual, but I was disappointed that you guys didn't get down to the "what to do" part which was promised in the introduction. At the end, saying that we are all brothers and sisters and should work together for common goals was good, but I hoped you would go beyond that. In fact, I tried to call in, as we're about to be thrown into another federal election, and I've promised John Bunzl I would become more active (and he's got another infusion of money), namely to send letters to all our members of parliament and as many candidates as possible telling them about Simultaneous Policy, and inviting them to adopt. I feel a renewed commitment to this very valuable tool for change, and it would have made a good contribution to getting the word out to Don's mainly Canadian audience. However, maybe in a month if you do it again, we can bring it out. I think Jeff connected with John through you and your Cyberjournal, and I'm not sure how we got to J.W. Smith, probably from the same source. We're still up to help you with your book tour. Cheers, Diana ------ Hi Diana, I too wanted to get 'beyond that'. Unfortunately, Don kept bringing us back to 'the problem'. Looking forward to seeing you on the tour. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Gerry Masuda" <> Cc: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Now is the time to develop new appoached to our political activism. But what? Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:34:56 -0800 Hi Gang. I have three quotes from an email from •••@••.••• sent 7 Nov 05, titled What are the French riots about? 1. "One of the reasons I continue to spend so much time publicizing 'how bad things are' is because I believe that the path to our salvation lies through hopelessness. Until we give up, entirely, on any hope of the system ever working, or responding to our demands and activism, we will not turn to ourselves, and to one another, for creating the social forms that can replace the toxic machine. " 2. "And the reason I try to unmask the Matrix is so that we can see that 'the system' is not merely dysfunctional, but is intentionally operated by intelligent people who have lots of power, who are flexible in using that power, and who want things to develop the way they are developing. They don't care what happens to the 'dregs' -- the rest of us. " 3. "Once we realize that our situation is hopeless, and then realize that everyone else is in the same situation, we can see that 'we are all in this together', and begin to see that by making all of us dregs, our leaders have turned us into a majority constituency -- if only we can overcome our Matrix-encouraged divisiveness." Another aspect to consider in our reappraisal of our current approach to political activism is the following un-referenced quote which supports Richard's quotes. "Economic, social and political structures have always been constructed for the benefit of those who stand to gain the most: those, who, ultimately, have control of the energy/wealth/power. People and ideas are controlled commodities, and freedom of thought is stifled." I think the time has come to give up on the current political/economic situation and start to constructively create our own 'social forms'. We are spending too much time and effort trying to reform or getting the system to change. It is time to develop our own system - whatever that means. Perhaps Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has a possible approach with his idea of developing parallel people's organizations when the current organizations do not work for us. Unfortunately we don't have a source of funding. However, we have to get our thinking straight first. Then we address the problem of funding. Any ideas? Gerry ------ Hi Gerry, Thanks for your message. I don't think funding is the issue. As regards getting our thinking straight, I think the most important thing to get straight is that we are all in this together, and that the system won't help us. We need to begin dialoging together, face-to-face, in our communities - not gathering only with those we agree with. Those are the ideas I try to develop in my book. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "John Bunzl" <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: rkm : What are the French riots about? Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 12:08:50 -0500 Hi Richard, <snip> rkm> And the reason I try to unmask the Matrix is so that we can see that 'the system' is not merely dysfunctional, but is intentionally operated by intelligent people who have lots of power, who are flexible in using that power, and who want things to develop the way they are developing. They don't care what happens to the 'dregs' -- the rest of us. Here we go again, Richard. I know we've discussed this many times before but I feel I must again suggest that the dynamic of destructive competition engendered by the free movement of capital and corporations is itself perfectly capable of explaining the phenomena you describe WITHOUT them needing to be explained by 'intelligent people with lots of power'. What is your evidence that these evil 'people with lots of power' are consciously driving the system in this direction? While I don't doubt that there are some evil people around acting independently to make a buck (like George Soros when he busted the £ out of the EMS) and that, according to competitive market forces they may APPEAR to be acting intentionally and in concert, is it not far more likely that it is essentially the dynamic of destructive competition itself which is driving this cancerous process rather than some 'evil and powerful group'? This assertion of yours, I'm afraid, does tend towards the conspiracy theory genre that others have complained of and I really wonder if it's truly helpful in getting people to understand how the system that is killing us all works. After all, lets suppose there IS an 'evil and powerful group' at work that pushes the system faster than it would otherwise go by itself. Even if they were got rid of, wouldn't the underlying dynamic of destructive competition still be in motion and still need to be dealt with, as the Simultaneous Policy (SP) is starting to do? all the best John -------- Hi John, There are theories, and there are facts. You ask, "What is your evidence?". I suggest you read Engdahl's, "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order". It's not the only book that gives the facts, but I think it's one of the best. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "William Engdahl" <> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: RE: rkm : What are the French riots about? Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 23:35:40 +0100 Richard I've been trying to get more a fix on the French events as the pattern suggests a professional destabilization of a key opponent of the Bush neo con agenda. What seems to be the case is that the neo-con friendly and politically ambitious Interior Minister Sarkozy is inciting this with calculated ugly racist remarks and there are likely false flag provocateurs inciting the youth mobs. Much like the Ukraine Orange Revolution only violent. Have a look at Thierry Meyssan 'The neocons new strategy for Europe.' www.voltairenet.org/article129038.html And 'Paris: The Hand that lights the Fire,' www.pej.org/html... Best, wm ------- Hi William, Thanks. I haven't had a chance to look at those sources yet. Let us know if you come up with any further insights. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 09:17:01 -0500 To: •••@••.••• From: Don Chisholm <> Subject: Re: Venezuela : intriguing initiatives Hi Richard It's nice to read about the courageous efforts of Chavez, and I sure wish him success. However, I hope that his educational initiatives include and stress knowledge about the dire need for negative population growth. Historically, when poor or disenfranchised people (or any species) experience improvement in general well-being, their population grows until the source of the improvement is swamped. I don't know what is the timing for peak oil in Venezuela, but if global peak oil is somewhere between now and a few years, the Venezuela peak would not likely be long after that. When the oil wells dry up, the party's over, and if these people, like most of the world, have not used this one time flow of black magic wealth to learn how to live without it, the whole effort will simply lead to greater peak population before collapse. Oh well. Don Chisholm ------- Hi Don, You seem to be caught up in social-Darwinist, Malthusian mythology. You might want to take a look at Lappé & Collins, "World Hunger: Twelve Myths". The problem of resource depletion is not due to third-world population levels but rather first-world consumption patterns. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "David Lewit" <> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: RE: Humor : We Survived ! Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 10:44:59 -0500 Richard--- What made you want to forward this? It's cute, but very Tom Sawyer middle class, leaving out the majority's childhood (and youth) experience in the cities of USA. With any one or more of the following: Guns, gangs, dumb videos, drunken parents or no parents, beatings, boredom, bad schools, stolen stuff and death. Is that all just propaganda? Maybe you could run this "We Survived" thing past some friend who grew up on the other side of the tracks, and send out his rebuttal. Or am I daft? Aloha----- Dave -------- Hi Dave, I liked the piece because it resonated with my own experience. No offense intended to those with other experiences. rkm -- -------------------------------------------------------- http://cyberjournal.org "Apocalypse Now and the Brave New World" http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/rkm/Apocalypse_and_NWO.html Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?date=01Jan2006&batch=25&lists=newslog Subscribe to low-traffic list: •••@••.••• ___________________________________________ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. 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