The U.S. is now a police state |
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Yesterday, Joseph Stack deliberately flew an airplane into a building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas, in order to advance the political grievances he outlined in a perfectly cogent suicide-manifesto. Stack’s worldview contained elements of the tea party’s anti-government anger along with substantial populist complaints generally associated with “the Left” (rage over bailouts, the suffering of America’s poor, and the pilfering of the middle class by a corrupt economic elite and their government-servants). All of that was accompanied by an argument as to why violence was justified (indeed necessary) to protest those injustices: I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual” . . . . Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. Despite all that, The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter documents the deep reluctance of cable news chatterers and government officials to label the incident an act of “terrorism,” even though — as Dave Neiwert ably documents – it perfectly fits, indeed is a classic illustration of, every official definition of that term. The issue isn’t whether Stack’s grievances are real or his responses just; it is that the act unquestionably comports with the official definition. But as NBC’s Pete Williams said of the official insistence that this was not an act of Terrorism: there are “a couple of reasons to say that . . . One is he’s an American citizen.” Fox News’ Megan Kelley asked Catherine Herridge about these denials: ”I take it that they mean terrorism in the larger sense that most of us are used to?,” to which Herridge replied: “they mean terrorism in that capital T way.” All of this underscores, yet again, that Terrorism is simultaneously the single most meaningless and most manipulated word in the American political lexicon. The term now has virtually nothing to do with the act itself and everything to do with the identity of the actor, especially his or her religious identity. It has really come to mean: ”a Muslim who fights against or even expresses hostility towards the United States, Israel and their allies.” That’s why all of this confusion and doubt arose yesterday over whether a person who perpetrated a classic act of Terrorism should, in fact, be called a Terrorist: he’s not a Muslim and isn’t acting on behalf of standard Muslim grievances against the U.S. or Israel, and thus does not fit the “definition.” One might concede that perhaps there’s some technical sense in which term might apply to Stack, but as Fox News emphasized: it’s not “terrorism in the larger sense that most of us are used to . . . terrorism in that capital T way.” We all know who commits terrorism in “that capital T way,” and it’s not people named Joseph Stack. Contrast t In sum: a Muslim who attacks military targets, including in war zones or even in their own countries that have been invaded by a foreign army, are Terrorists. A non-Muslim who flies an airplane into a government building in pursuit of a political agenda is not, or at least is not a Real Terrorist with a capital T — not the kind who should be tortured and thrown in a cage with no charges and assassinated with no due process. Nor are Christians who stand outside abortion clinics and murder doctors and clinic workers. Nor are acts undertaken by us or our favored allies designed to kill large numbers of civilians or which will recklessly cause such deaths as a means of terrorizing the population into desired behavioral change — the Glorious Shock and Awe campaign and the pummeling of Gaza. Except as a means for demonizing Muslims, the word is used so inconsistently and manipulatively that it is impoverished of any discernible meaning. All of this would be an interesting though not terribly important semantic matter if not for the fact that the term Terrorist plays a central role in our political debates. It is the all-justifying term for anything the U.S. Government does. Invasions, torture, due-process-free detentions, military commissions, drone attacks, warrantless surveillance, obsessive secrecy, and even assassinations of American citizens are all justified by the claim that it’s only being done to ”Terrorists,” who, by definition, have no rights. Even worse, one becomes a “Terrorist” not through any judicial adjudication or other formal process, but solely by virtue of the untested, unchecked say-so of the Executive Branch. The President decrees someone to be a Terrorist and that’s the end of that: uncritical followers of both political parties immediately justify anything done to the person on the ground that he’s a Terrorist (by which they actually mean: he’s been accused of being one, though that distinction — between presidential accusations and proof — is not one they recognize). If we’re really going to vest virtually unlimited power in the Government to do anything it wants to people they call ”Terrorists,” we ought at least to have a common understanding of what the term means. But there is none. It’s just become a malleable, all-justifying term to allow the U.S. Government carte blanche to do whatever it wants to Muslims it does not like or who do not like it (i.e., The Terrorists). It’s really more of a hypnotic mantra than an actual word: its mere utterance causes the nation blindly to cheer on whatever is done against the Muslims who are so labeled. UPDATE: I want to add one point: the immediate official and media reaction was to avoid, even deny, the term “terrorist” because the perpetrator of the violence wasn’t Muslim. But if Stack’s manifesto begins to attract serious attention, I think it’s likely the term Terrorist will be decisively applied to him in order to discredit what he wrote. His message is a sharply anti-establishment and populist grievance of the type that transcends ideological and partisan divisions — the complaints which Stack passionately voices are found as common threads in the tea party movement and among citizens on both the Left and on the Right — and thus tend to be the type which the establishment (which benefits from high levels of partisan distractions and divisions) finds most threatening and in need of demonization. Nothing is more effective at demonizing something than slapping the Terrorist label onto it. 
By Dave Lindorff (about the author)
For OpEdNews: Dave Lindorff – Writer
By Dave Lindorff
The civilian death toll in the US media-hyped and much government-touted Battle of Marjah is now up to 21, about a third of them children. But that’s only part of this ugly story. While the slaughter goes on in this pointless display of Marine power, civilians have been dying at American hands elsewhere in Afghanistan. On Thursday a US airstrike allegedly targeting “insurgents” ended up hitting and killing seven Afghani policemen. And yesterday, another airstrike, this time on a “convoy” of three vehicles, killed an astonishing 27-33 civilians and injured at least 12 more–and given the vicious nature of American weaponry, it’s a fair bet that many of those who were injured will end up dying of their wounds too. Nice work Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Your newly professed “concern” about protecting civilians is working out nicely. True to form, Gen. McChrystal’s response to these murderous outrages has not been to call for investigations and courts martial of those responsible for the deaths, but rather to express his concern that “inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their [the Afghan people's] trust and confidence in our mission.” Ah, the “mission.” Oh yeah, this general who earned his rep running a huge death squad operation in Iraq, says he’s also “extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives.” What he didn’t say though, was that he is that he is extremely angry that American forces are continuing to shoot first and ask questions later, or that he plans to call some people on the carpet and strip some badges off them to ensure compliance with his orders to protect civilians. Why would this be? Because the professed “concern” about protecting civilians in this war is all talk and showmanship. It’s not about actually caring about and protecting civilians. America is not in Afghanistan because of any real concern about the welfare of the people of Afghanistan. It is in Afghanistan because America wants to control Afghanistan. This is a war about geopolitics, not about liberation. If America really cared about the ordinary people of Afghanistan, who have endured decades of war, it would forswear the use of antipersonnel weapons, which the UN has been trying to ban–over the opposition of the US and other benighted powers like China and Israel–weapons that leave unexploded bomblets littering the landscape to maim and kill innocent people, disproportionately small children. It would sign and obey the land mine ban. It would cease using pilotless drones, which have been killing far more innocent people than actual enemy fighters, and it would stop using airstrikes on “suspected” enemy targets when those targets are likely to have civilians in them. In fact, if the US really cared about the people of Afghanistan, it wouldn’t be fighting there at all. It would be organizing a regional peace conference, under the auspices of the United Nations and involving all the surrounding nations–Iran, China, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan–and reaching an agreement among all the forces within the country, including the Taliban, to establish a government of national reconciliation. The US would be relying not on war but on the carrot of aid to get such a government to actually work for the peaceful reconstruction of the country. And it would withdraw all of its forces promptly. But there is no talk of such an approach. Rather, in Washington all we hear is talk of “winning” and “completing the mission,” though nobody seems able to say just what “winning” or the “mission” in Afghanistan might be. That’s understandable since the government of Afghanistan is a corrupt narco-regime led by a family of gangsters, thugs and profiteers, and the military and police are a hopeless combination of inept and corrupt. According to a first-hand, on-the-scene report in the New York Times, which has been an editorial backer of this war, Afghan forces have played almost no role in the Marjah battle, which is supposed to be a test run of the new Obama war strategy. That might explain why only one Afghan soldier has died in the battle, compared to 12 US and other NATO soldiers. Happily, there is a light at the end of this blood-drenched tunnel. That light is th The war, never popular in Europe, Canada or Australia, has become increasingly less popular everywhere but in America. Now, like the famed story of the little boy who saved Holland by putting his finger in a leaking dike, only in reverse, this pulling out of a Dutch finger could lead to a flood of European nations ending their commitment of troops to the NATO participation in the War in Afghanistan, leaving just US and British forces alone there.
The challenge now is for the somnolent and co-opted peace movement in the US to throw off its narcophilic embrace of the Democratic Party and of President Obama, to take heart from the Dutch people, and to demand that the US too end its war making, not just in Afghanistan, but around the globe. _________ 
By Jason Hamza van Boom (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Jason Hamza van Boom – Writer Original article here
Daniel Streich was a member of the Swiss People’s party (SVP), the political party that pushed the minaret ban initiative. Streich is a military instructor in the Swiss Army and a local politician in the commune of Bulle. Formerly a devout Christian, he converted to Islamand kept it a secret for two years. Streich has left the SVP, made his conversion to Islam public, and has denounced the SVP’s anti-Muslim campaign as a witch hunt. As far as I can tell, this story has not broken in the English language press. So, I translated a news article on Streich from German to English, published at the Swiss news site Twenty Minutes Online. Here it is: Daniel Streich, military instructor and, until recently, a Swiss People’s Party (SVP) politician in the city of Bulle, has left the party. The reason: He converted to Islam. For two years he kept this secret from his ex-party. Now, with the “witch hunt against Islam,” this situation has become unbearable for him. He was a true SVPer and Christian. He read the Bible and regularly went to church. Now Daniel Streich, military instructor and community council member, reads the Qur’an, prays five times a day and goes to a mosque. “Islam offers me logical answers to important life questions, which, in the end, I never found in Christianity,” says Streich. Because he could no longer stand the “SVP’s witch hunt against Islam” Streich left the part two weeks ago (around November 10, 2009) and has made his conversion to Islam become publicly known two years after his conversion. Now he’s participating in the building of the new Civil Conservative Democratic Party in the canton of Freiburg. The former churchgoer is vehemently against the minaret initiative: “If the initiative passes, it will be an absolute deep blow for me. I would have to ask myself, why I applied myself professionally and politically for over 30 years for this political system.” In contrast, Switzerland urgently needs more mosques. “It is not worthy of Switzerland to force Muslims to practice their faith in back alleys.” Reactions in the SVP were mixed. “Everyone can believe what he wants to,” says General Secretary Martin Baltisser. SVP-National Council member Alfred Heer had a less friendly reaction. Politcal scientist Georg Lutz: “The SVP and Islam stand closer to each other than people suppose. With all due respect, I disagree with Lutz’ position. Muslims tend to have political attitudes that are similar to the social teaching of the Catholic Church: “progressive” on economic, environmental, and foreign policy issues, while being “conservative” on sexual ethics. But, a more accurate approach would be to say that Catholics and Muslims frequently do not fit within the stereotypical left/right divide. If anything, I would say that both Catholicism and Islam are more to the Left. The Right emphasizes particularity (whether the micro-particularity of capitalist individualism or the macro-particularity of nationalism). The Left, on the other hand, tends to stress universality. A balanced political position will address both universality (we’re all members of the same species living on the same planet) and particularity (we are shaped and live in particular communities that have their own traditions, political needs, and strengths and weaknesses). How one falls on the left/right spectrum (assuming such a spectrum exists) would be a function of his or her relative stress on universality vs particularity. Since both Catholicism and Islam (along with other great world religions) say that what unites human beings is more important than what divides them, their fundamental tendency is somewhat to the Left (IMHO). Anyway, there’s a sidebar item about an SVP politician trying to frame Streich’s conversion as a national security risk, implying that all Muslims in Western militaries are like the lone nut gunman at Fort Hood. (Ironically, in doing so he confirms Streich’s allegation that the SVP’s minaret ban is a “witch hunt” against Muslims). Here’s the piece: Alfred Heer: Anxiety over the convert Daniel Streich? Because Daniel Streich converted to Islam when he was an active professional member of the armed forces leads certain politicians to think: “That could be a security risk for the country. We’ve just seen what happened in the USA,” says SVP-National Council member Alfred Heer, referring to the shooting spree of a Muslim military psychiatrist at Fort Hood. Army spokesperson Christopher Brunner responded, “That is an absurd accusation.” The Swiss military is neutral on religious affiliations. Brunner: “it is totally irrelevant which religions our personnel belong to.” Performance, not belief, is what matters. Whether Switzerland remains true to its democratic heritage, or follows the paranoia that feeds the extremism that devastated Europe in the 30′s and 40′s, depends on whether its citizens, in the long run, will think like Brunner or Heer. As for myself, I hope that some day I can see the Swiss Alps again without being harassed for my Islamic faith. Man denkt, Gott lenkt. Follow-up article here: www.illumemagazine.us The recent passage of a ban on the construction of minarets in Switzerland has a very interesting side story. A member of the political party that pushed for the minaret ban announced that he had become a Muslim. Outside of Switzerland, the mainstream media has ignored this. Muslims around the world, however, have picked up on this story, circulating it on blogs and on Facebook. In the process, however, the story has become distorted into a fairly bizarre shape, and so creating some confusion. Meanwhile, at least one anti-Muslim blog has picked up on the story. Looking at the comments it appears that some opponents of Muslim immigration want to dismiss the fact of his conversion all together. Nevertheless, it is a verifiable fact that a Swiss elected official belonging to the Swiss People’s Party- the principal backer of the minaret ban- converted to Islam. Daniel Streich, who holds an elected local office and was a long time member of the Swiss People’s Party, announced his resignation from his party. He had been a devout, Bible-reading and church-going Christian. Two years ago, however, he converted to Islam. He kept his conversion under wraps. The Swiss People’s Party’s recent campaign against minarets, however, became too much for Streich. He made his conversion public, and denounced the campaign as a “witch hunt”. The story, based upon a report in the Swiss media, first appeared in the English language at Tikkun Daily on December 4, 2009, with an immediate cross-posting on OpEdNews. After the story broke, it started getting some circulation on Muslim blogs and news aggregation sites. On January 30, 2010, the Pakistani paper The Nation publicized it on its website–with a lot of embellishments. It depicted Streich as a very big, major Swiss politician who specialized in campaigning against Muslims and minarets! After allegedly spreading tons of anti-Muslim propaganda, he had a sudden conversion and now renounced his evil ways: “RENOWNED Swiss politician Daniel Streich, who rose to fame for his campaign against minarets of mosques, has embraced Islam. A member of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and a well-known politician, Daniel Streich was the first man who had launched a drive for imposition of ban on mosques minarets, and to lock the mosques in Switzerland. The proclamation of Streich’s conversion to Islam has created furore (sic) in Swiss politics, besides causing a tremor for those who supported ban on construction of mosques minarets. Streich propagated his anti-Islamic movement far and wide in the country, sowed seeds of indignation and scorn for Islam among the people, and paved way for public opinion against pulpits and minarets of mosques. But now Streich has become a soldier of Islam. His anti-Islam thoughts finally brought him so close to this religion that he embraced Islam. He is ashamed of his doings now and desires to construct the most beautiful mosque of Europe in Switzerland.” This is a complete fabrication. Streich happened to belong to a political party that had a wide-ranging political platform, dealing with much more than “minarets of mosques.” Streich did not “rise to fame” on the basis of Islamophobia. And there is no evidence that he’s planning Peeling away the distortions, what remains are three significant facts. First, although anti-Muslim sentiments are strongest on the political Right, conservatives can become opponents of Islamophobia. Second, Western converts to Islam seem come from all parts of the political spectrum, not just from the Left. Third, a politician took the bold move of leaving his political party, and putting much of his political and social support at risk, for the sake of his conscience. The notion that a conservative Christian politician could become a Muslim and denounce anti-Muslim campaigns naturally causes irritation for Islamophobes. For example, a forum on the anti-Muslim site FaithFreedom.org has begun discussing the story. Some of the commentators are dismissing it, since the idea that he was a crusader against minarets isn’t consistent with his converting to Islam two years ago. If anyone has any doubts, he or she can look at these sources from the Swiss media:  Many Muslim scientists like Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham, known in the West as Alhazen, and Mu?ammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (Algorithmi), made great contributions that shaped the modern world. In the 9th century, Muslim inventor Abbas ibn Firnas was the first to design and test a flying machine, hundreds of years before da Vinci drew plans of his own. Hospitals as we know them today believed to have come from 9th century Egypt.
 Photo: AFPA replica of the first person said to have flown with wings is displayed at the science museum in central London on January 21, 2010. The debt owed by European scholars to their Muslim counterparts on everything from water pumps and blood circulation to engineering and map-making was unveiled in a London exhibition on January 21.
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Coffee, computers and piston engines – could we imagine a world without them? These are intricate parts of every day life for most of us and the knowledge that led to them was either invented by or passed down through the ancient Muslim world. That is the theme of an exhibit in London’s Science Museum and it’s a far cry from the view held by some that the Muslim and Western World represent a “clash of civilizations.” A simple cup of coffee has become an intricate part of so many cultures. It’s called “Kawha”- where it was first developed as a drink – in the Arabian Peninsula, in today’s Yemen. Professor Salim al-Hassani of the University of Manchester explains the coffee beans were actually brought to Yemen from the Horn of Africa, from Ethiopia. “Well of course, coffee was invented in the very early years of Islam – a guy called Khaled in Ethiopia, a young man looking after his sheep,” al-Hassani said. The sheep seemed to like the beans. So the young man took the beans to Yemen – the story goes – and the drink was developed and spread like wildfire. And there were many other inventions or innovations passed on by the early Muslim world from the 7th Century onward, says Hassani. “One of them is the invention of the university. This was done in the year 850 by a young lady called Fatima al-Fihri in the city of Fez in Morocco,” al-Hassani said. “The first university as we know it in the world, giving degrees and so on.” And that’s the theme of this exhibit at the London Science Museum. It’s called 1001 inventions: the Muslim Heritage, a bit like “1001 Arabian Nights,” the well known fairy tale. The exhibit in London focuses on scientific or technological inventions and advances that changed our world – from some of the earliest universities, to innovations in medicine, hygiene, pumps, and water wheels. Some says these important achievements have been forgotten amid the news often coming out of the Muslim world today that focuses so much on strife and terrorism. But, ask just about anyone on the streets of, say, Cairo or Damascus today and they haven’t forgotten - they’ll readily tell you about Islam’s glory days – not just its conquests but its cultural, scientific and technological innovations.” These advances came at the height of the Islamic empire’s glory when it spread from the Middle East, across North Africa to southern Spain and beyond. A time when Muslim scholars and inventors were at the forefront, says Hassani. “During that time, there were enormous contributions in science and technology that we have forgotten about and that comes to us from other civilizations,” al-Hassani said. “And, it came to use over a very important civilization and that is the Muslim civilization.”  London ExhibitA scale model of Al-Jazari’s 13th-century Scribe Clock Muslims absorbed knowledge – from India, China, the Greeks, the ancient Egyptians – and passed it on. One exhibit exemplifies that mixture – a giant clock featuring an Indian elephant and Chinese dragons and using ancient Greek water works. The one here is a replica of the original designed by the Muslim inventor, mathematician and engineer al-Jazari in the early 13th Century. Anne Marie Brennan teaches forensic biology at London’s South Bank University and is fascinated by these innovations. “Everybody has to love the elephant clock,” Brennan said. “The elephant clock is wonderful because it is like a United Nations clock. It has all the elements of different civilizations and I like it as a scientist because it shows that science doesn’t have to be boring and sterile and plain, but it can be decorative and it can also pay homage to the cultures that bring it forward.” And then there is mathematics and algebra. In general, our numbers are known as “Arabic numerals” today, but it wasn’t always so, says professor Hassani. “The numbers that we have today – 1,2,3,4 – they’re called Arabic numerals, but actually the Arabs at the time called them Indian numerals,” al-Hassani said. And, the number “0″ for example – “zephir” in Arabic – was used first by early Arab scholars as an integral part of mathematical equations. And that’s part of the all important formula of zeros and ones that was crucial to the development of computers and other new technology.  1) Brush twice a day!
2) Dress right for the weather.
3) Visit the dentist regularly.
4) Get plenty of rest.
5) Make sure your hair is dry before going outside.
6) Eat right.
7) Get outside in the sun every once in a while.
8) Always wear a seatbelt.
9) Stay away from alcoholic beverages.
10) Smile! It will make you feel better.
11) Don’t over indulge yourself.
12) Bathe regularly.
13) Read to exercise the brain.
14) Surround yourself with friends.
15) Stay away from too much caffeine.
16) Use the bathroom regularly.
17) Get plenty of exercise.
18) Have your eyes checked regularly.
19) Eat plenty of vegetables.
20) Believe that people will like you for who you are.
21) Forgive and forget.
22) Take plenty of vacations.
23) Celebrate all special occasions.
24) Pick up a hobby.
25) Love your neighbor as yourself.
Do all these things and you will be a happier, healthier person
The Magenn Power Air Rotor System (MARS) is a patented high altitude lighter-than-air tethered device that rotates about a horizontal axis in response to wind, efficiently generating clean renewable electrical energy at a lower cost than all competing systems. This electrical energy is transferred down the tether to a transformer at a ground station and then transferred to the electricity power grid. Helium (an inert non-reactive lighter than air gas) sustains the Air Rotor which ascends to an altitude for best winds and its rotation also causes the Magnus effect. This provides additional lift, keeps the device stabilized, keeps it positioned within a very controlled and restricted location, and causes it to pull up overhead rather than drift downwind on its tether. All competing conventional wind generators use bladed two-dimensional disk-like structures and rigid towers. The Magenn Power Air Rotor system is a closed three-dimensional structure (cylinder). It offers high torque, low starting speeds, and superior overall efficiency thanks to its ability to deploy higher. The closed structure allows Magenn Power to produce wind rotors from very small to very large sizes at a fraction of the cost of current wind generators. The distinct advantages of the Magenn Air Rotor System design are as follows:
These points are mutually inclusive. The advantages above combine to make Magenn the most cost-effective wind electrical generation system.  Misuse of Wakf properties: Who is Responsible for It? | TwoCircles.net Misuse of Wakf properties: Who is Responsible for It?  |
Mohamed Iqbal Pallipurath, director of IQSoft Software Consultants airs his views on all things under (and above) the sun..
Wakf land now sold to developer: Aurangabad