United States of America: Revising its History and Exceptionalism

By Pravda.ru

Global Research, October 03, 2014

Pravda

Region: Russia and FSU, USA

Theme: Culture, Society & History, Global Economy

In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT

The United States of America is revising history textbooks, while abandoning the idea of exceptionalism of the American nation. At first, the White House caused a commotion among the Republicans, who then made ordinary Americans worry. The Republicans are unhappy with the criticism of American history, while ordinary Americans are concerned about the ban on free protests in the country.
As it turns out, the United States, like any other country, has something to be ashamed of, a new history textbook for high schools (Advanced Placement US history course) says. For example, the book criticizes the nuclear bombing of Japan.
A Republican candidate for presidential elections in 2016, Ben Carson, told Fox News that many of those, who will complete the new course on history, would be ready to join the Islamic State, which the United States is now bombing in Syria and Iraq.

“There’s only two paragraphs in there about George Washington. George Washington! Believe it or not. Little or nothing about Dr. Martin Luther King.” As examples of the negative bias, he mentioned “a whole section on slavery and how evil [Americans] are,” the killing of millions of Japanese with two atomic bombs in World War II, and other events. “We have got to stop crucifying ourselves,” he argued. “Have we made mistakes as a nation? Of course we have. Why? Because we’re people. And all people make mistakes.”
“I think most people when they finish that course, they’d be ready to go sign up for ISIS,” he said. “I mean, this is what we’re doing to the young people in our nation.”

Last month, the Republican National Committee of the United States passed a resolution, in which the textbook was described as “a radical revisionist look at American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our country’s history, omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” The Republicans urged the board that introduced the Advanced Placement (AP) history curriculum to postpone the introduction for one year, until the textbook is revised.
The AP is a federal program, but each State approves it with recommendations. The authorities of the State of Colorado sent the following recommendations to schools: “Materials should promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights. Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.” In response, nearly a thousand students in Jefferson County interrupted their classes and went on a protest holding banners saying: “There is nothing more patriotic than protest” or “Education without limitation.” The students used hashtag #JeffcoSchoolBoardHistory for organizing demonstrations. Students and their parents were protesting in the capital of Colorado, Denver, for five days, the Denver Post said.
America loves to pretend that it has nothing to hide in its history. From an American perspective, any atrocity can be justified from the point of view of the defense of American interests. This attitude fosters the so-called “American exceptionalism.” However, the “common and non-exceptional” world understands that this “exceptionalism” leads to wars and hundreds of thousands of deaths. The facts about the USA’s participation in the events in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Syria, Ukraine say that this is permissiveness, rather than exceptionalism.
Here is a curious fact. US President Obama, in his recent speech at the UN General Assembly, did not say a word about the exceptionalism of the American people, although he always emphasized that in his previous speeches. Noteworthy,  Advanced Placement history curriculum is used at more than 3,300 colleges and universities around the world, and its education results are used for admission to American universities. Thus, the revision of the AP history course involves influence on young people in foreign countries, who already openly mock the American “exceptionalism.”
We asked an opinion from American economist and economic observer Paul Craig Roberts, and here is what he had to say on the subject:

“The Republican Party today and a majority of Americans, who think of themselves as conservativesare, are not, in fact, traditional American conservatives.  They comprise a form of brownshirts who are intolerant of dissent want to impose social control.  They support government instead of the Constitution, and they frown on civil liberty as a form of legal permissiveness that coddles criminals and terrorists.
“These so-called conservatives attribute the US defeat in Vietnam to student protests and to journalists who disputed Washington’s lies. They regard protests as a threat to the status quo, and not as a way to express public dissent from government policies.  Conservatives are for democracy only as long as they control behavior in the democracy.
“In the 1940s and 1950s public school courses such as history and literature were largely up to the individual teacher. Consequently, there was a lot of diversity in what was taught. As time passed, especially after the 1964 Civil Rights Act and school integration, courses became increasingly standardized, partly in order to judge school performance with standardized state or national testing, and partly, according tosome, to ensure that minorities were not offended by course content.  The obvious consequence is that a form of national brainwashing was put in place that instilled in the young acceptable beliefs  about their country.
“For the so-called conservatives, any criticism of America is an unpatriotic act.  In the 21st century it has become increasingly difficult toprotest in the US.  The former Director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, declared that the new department had shifted its focus fromterrorists to “domestic extremists,” a group she defined as war protesters, environmentalists, and animal rights advocates.  Indeed, anational police force called Homeland Security itself indicates an increasing concern with protecting those in control from dissent.The increasing gratuitous violence of police against members of the public is also an indication that there has been a fundamental shift in the position of the government in relation to the people.  The purpose of government in the US is not to serve the will of the people, but toconform the behavior of the people to the will of the government.
“The same thing appears to be the case in Australia, Canada, the UK, and Europe.  For example, in the UK, 99% of the people are opposed to fracking, but the government has ignored the people and permits fracking to take place under the homes of people without their consent. In the West, I think that the idea of democracy is dead.  Democracy is no longer a respected value.  Elections serve as a cloak to mask the death of democracy.”

Of course, the Obama administration has tried to improve its image a bit. After all, one and the same nation can never be right forever and ever always. However, for internal use, US officials sing different songs. They demand respect for authorities and discourage social protests. Yet, as we can see, American students want to have the right to civil disobedience. How could it be otherwise, if the government encourages all forms of popular protests in other countries, glorifying democracy? They will never teach American children, of course, that all talks of “democracy” hide a completely different principle, namely: divide and conquer.

“From my point of view, these problems speak of growing contradictions in the American society, – an expert on humanitarian issues at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Oksana Petrovskaya told Pravda.Ru. – For a very long time, the Americans have been propagating patriotism the American way, when America was always in the center. I would not say that with this curriculum they are moving far away from their American exceptionalism, but there is a turn being made. Now they need to take account of the interests of all social groups – blacks, women, and so on. Everyone should be represented in history, and there is no single heroic line. The line disappears and erodes. This is a trend of recent times: pay more attention to ordinary people and small social groups.”

The expert noted that after the racially motivated riots in Jefferson, it became clear that America has formed a police state with very strict orders. “I do not know what kind of waves of protests it may lead to, but the authorities are trying to root out every manifestation of protests, especially racial ones. In the USA, there is a very serious controversy based on racial grounds, and protests may happen. But the police have very extensive powers,” the expert said.
Yet, Oksana Petrovskaya believes that America will not face a large social explosion during Obama’s presidency. Well, if, let’s say, Hillary Clinton comes to power in the USA, we may well remember Obama as a good president.
Lyuba Lulko
Pravda.Ru 
Read the original in Russian 

THE WORM HAS TURNED

• Posted on September 30, 2014
• by Wes
• in Articles

THE WORM HAS TURNED

There is an old saying that comes from Shakespeare that basically states that even the most docile of creatures when bothered will move or react. That saying is the worm has turned.
It mostly describes a reversal of attitude, or change of heart or quite possibly a change so drastic that we no longer recognize what we first knew.
When I was a teenager I once had a terrible dream about Mr. Rogers of Mr. Rogers’s neighborhood. I often wondered what it would take to get Mr. Rogers to yell at you, or what would cause a man so passive to become a killer or a person who could harm people?
Everyone has a breaking point and everyone has a moment when they change.
It was about year ago that President Barack Obama announced he would bomb the Syrian government, only to change his mind at the last minute.
Here we are now a year later and we are bombing Syria weeks after the president made his speech to the American people once again changing his mind and telling us that an even greater monster exists in the region that has to be annihilated.
When Obama announced his strategy to fight ISIS, he stealthily put in a plan to further invest in the Syrian rebels, whom politicians claimed would be used against ISIS. But these rebels are rebelling against the Syrian government, not ISIS. In fact some of them are now joining ISIS and are creating an even bigger problem for the United States.
During the speech he gave on the eve of September 11th, 2014 I remember there was something that was not right about how the President looked.
I glanced up and saw Barack Obama and to me it did not look like him. He could not of aged that much, and I noticed that his hair has been turning gray. This time he looked ghoulish and demonic, enough for me to comment.
I then received a message from a reliable source that told me that the President was not speaking at the Whitehouse. I was told that what was being seen was either a Hologram or a green screen effect.
When Obama entered the room there was a technical difficulty where the president for the moment was rendered invisible. There was also an image of Obama leaving the podium and as he leaves the light and shadows he cast seemed to be going in the wrong direction and just before he ducked out of the room it looked as if his ear had pixilated out of the image.
There are many people on the internet that believe that Obama’s speech about the bombing of Syria was made in another location and not at the Whitehouse.
After the speculation I was speaking to a friend about how just a week prior to his speech someone found an ISIS flag hanging at the Whitehouse, fueling my fear that perhaps President Obama is being targeted and yet no one is saying anything about the safety of the president.
There have been at least two Hollywood movies that have been released in theaters dealing with what can be called a decapitation exercise. Olympus has Fallen and Whitehouse down are two works of fiction that demonstrated what could happen if terrorists were to attempt to take over the Whitehouse.
Since the days of the Cold War, the United States has had a plan in place to continue the operation of the government following a catastrophic attack on the nation’s capital. Because of its sensitive nature, details from the classified “Continuity of Government Plan” have been kept secret.
Buried deep within the 98-page National Continuity Plan is the strategy for the mass evacuation and relocation of every federal government agency including The White House and the military in response to an exceptional catastrophic event within the National Capital Region. Each agency is required to have a detailed Continuity of Operations Plan in place.
The operational authority for the Continuity of Government was shifted from the civilian Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the White House Military Office in early 2009, giving the White House full control over this important national security program.
In the most recent news we have been hearing about security breaches with regard to President’s safety.
President Barack Obama rode in an elevator with an armed, convicted felon during a September 16th trip to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Three days later an intruder scaled a White House fence and made it into the mansion.
The media is calling these security breaches “embarrassments” for the secret service, but are they really embarrassments?
The elevator incident exposed a serious breakdown in the Secret Service’s safety protocols. In close quarters or small events, when the president is on the road, all of the people who could have access to him must be checked in advance for weapons and any criminal history.
Under a security program called the Arm’s Reach Program, Secret Service advance staff run potential staff, contractors, hotel employees, invited guests and volunteers through several databases, including a national criminal information registry, and records kept by the CIA, NSA and Department of Defense, among others. Anyone who is found to have a criminal history, mental illness, or other indications of risk is barred from entry.
We live in times where trauma events, provided by organized terrorists could cripple us in a way that could send the entire country into a worse panic than what we experienced during the 9/11 attacks.
We all know that The Constitution makes the Vice President the successor if the President dies or is incapacitated, but it establishes no order of succession beyond that. Federal law, most recently the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, establishes further details.
If the Vice President dies or cannot serve, then the speaker of the House of Representatives becomes President. After him in the line of succession come the president pro tempore of the Senate, typically the longest-serving member of the majority party and then the members of the Cabinet, in the order in which their posts were created—starting with the Secretary of State and moving to the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and so on.
The frightening scenario of a decapitation exercise is such a horrific thing for America that no one would know what to do. It most certainly would give officials a reason to declare martial law, but under whose authority and would the American people cooperate or would they rebel?
What if a dirty bomb was triggered somewhere near the White house and it killed both the President and the Vice President, and maybe the speaker of the House, too? Who would run the country if it was too hard to track down the next living person in line under the Succession Act?
What civilian leader could immediately give U.S. military commanders the orders to respond to an attack, and how would that leader communicate with the military?
I know that these scenarios are very hard to discuss, but there seems to be a lapse in security that I believe needs to be addressed with regard to the White house and the safety of our nation’s capital.
During the 9/11 attacks you may recall that Dick Cheney was able to participate , or take advantage of the extra-constitutional continuity-of-government exercises. Operating from the underground shelter beneath the White House, called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, Cheney told Bush to delay a planned flight back from Florida to Washington. It is also been debated as to who was giving orders to the military about how to handle Flight 93 as it was allegedly heading for the White house.
At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld instructed a reluctant Paul Wolfowitz to get out of town to the safety of one of the underground bunkers, which had been built to survive nuclear attack. Cheney also ordered House Speaker Dennis Hastert, other congressional leaders, and several Cabinet members evacuated to one of these secure facilities away from the capital.
Cheney has always insisted that he was and is still exempt from the presidential orders requiring government wide procedures to safeguard classified national security information. His logic being that when he served as Vice President, he was not an “entity within the executive branch.”
It is reported that Cheney along with several other men with former positions ion government still are part of the “Shadow Government” that is activated in case of a national emergency.
Back on January 29th, 2014 Ground zero reported that a nonspecific manufactured action by the government would trigger social unrest and a tension filled environment where many applications of police state activity would be imposed and used in the United States.
Battlefield scenarios were already laid out and destabilization processes were being tested outside of the United States. Many of these destabilization exercises could be seen as attempted Coups either in Europe or eventually in the United States to disrupt the ability for government to continue business as usual. These coups would be used to bring down various governments in order to have waiting in the wings another shadow government or a government that would guarantee continuity if there was a decapitation exercise.
It all sounds good on paper, however there is no guarantee that in case of a national emergency there wouldn’t be a power grab, or some other unplanned incident that would thwart the plan of continuity that would leave us vulnerable to our enemies.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 52, authorizing the mass detention of 400,000 people in the event of “civil unrest” protesting a U.S. invasion of Central America. It was part of a plot, code-named Rex-84 Alpha, created by the National Security Council under the direction of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. It called for suspending the Constitution, placing the nation under martial law and canceling the 1984 election.
Rex 84, is short for “Readiness Exercise 1984.” It was originally a classified plan by the United States federal government to accommodate the detention of large numbers of American citizens in case of massive civil unrest or national emergency.
FEMA, in association with 34 other federal civil departments and agencies, conducted civil readiness exercises in April of 1984. It was conducted in coordination and simultaneously with a Joint Chiefs exercise, Night Train 84, and Garden Plot a worldwide military command post exercise including Continental U.S. Forces or CONUS.
The drills and operations were based on multi-emergency scenarios operating both abroad and at home. In the combined exercise, Rex-84 Bravo, FEMA and DOD led the other federal agencies and departments, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, the Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Veterans Administration through a gaming exercise to test military assistance in civil defense.
The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations and strikes that would affect continuity of government and or resource mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was authorization for the military to implement government ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels, the arrest of certain unidentified segments of the population, and the overturning of the Posse Comitatus Act, an action which makes the military a police force.
For now, the secret service of course is being chastised for the recent breach of security at the Whitehouse. I must admit I do find it very suspicious that we have been seeing this much lack of security, especially after the incident where Miriam Carey a dental hygienist from Stamford, Connecticut, accidentally drove through a White House security checkpoint and in a panic tried to evade security was shot five times execution style while her baby daughter was in the car with her. The American people were told that the killing of the young mother was justified and yet the jumper Omar Gonzalez who broke into the Whitehouse compound and made it to the mansion did not meet the same fate. After he was arrested, he told a Secret Service agent that “he was concerned the atmosphere was collapsing and needed to get the information to the President of the United States so he could get the word out to the people.
He also was armed with a knife, Miriam Carey was unarmed.
The Secret Service has struggled in recent years to strike the appropriate balance between ensuring the first family’s security and preserving the public’s access to the White House grounds. Once open to vehicles, the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was confined to pedestrians after the Oklahoma City bombing, but officials have been reluctant to restrict access to the area further.
However the question remains, now that the worm has turned, is the President’s life in danger?
If anything that is the equivalent of a decapitation exercise where to happen, I really don’t think we could ever be completely prepared for the psychological impact it would have on the country.  ~ i think that the American Peoplewill SHOCK the World ...we've been waiting 4 a GOOD Fight !!!

BOSTON UPDATE: FBI War on Marathon Bombing Witnesses Continues

Posted By James Henry On October 2, 2014  In Domestic,Fresh Takes,National Security |

^[1]

The FBI’s apparent message to Tsarnaev’s defense team

The Boston Marathon bombing is much more important than has been acknowledged, principally because it is the major domestic national security event since 9-11 and has played a major role in expanding the power of the security state. For that reason, WhoWhatWhy is continuing to investigate troubling aspects of this story and the establishment media treatment of it. So even as it slips from the headlines, we will be exploring new elements of the story regularly as the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev approaches. 
***

Since the Boston Marathon bombing a year and a half ago, the FBI appears to be intimidating, harassing, and silencing friends and acquaintances of the Tsarnaev brothers. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers have noticed it too—they’re having trouble getting anyone to talk to them, recent court papers reveal.
In what WhoWhatWhy previously described as the FBI’s “war on witnesses” ^[2], the Bureau seems to be employing a scorched earth strategy of destroying anything that might be of use to the “enemy.”
On August 29, Tsarnaev’s lawyers filed a motion ^[3] requesting a continuance for more time to prepare their defense, noting the fact that they were given only half the median preparation time that federal courts have allowed over the past decade for defendants on trial for their lives. (The judge did grant a two-month delay ^[4] while refusing the defense request to move the trial out of Boston.)
The lawyers cited “outpaced requirements” in building a proper defense for their client: (1) the international nature of the investigation—including language and geographic barriers, (2) the large amount of evidence that has to be scrutinized, and most tellingly, (3) the climate of intimidation and fear created by the FBI’s investigative efforts since the bombing. They write:

Domestic defense mitigation investigation has been conducted amid a growing atmosphere of anxiety and agitation generated by highly-publicized arrests, indictments, prosecutions, deportations (and, in one instance, the FBI killing) of members of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s peer groups.

Most news reports brush over that last part ^[5]. As if shooting to death an unarmed man involved in this case—as an FBI agent did to Tamerlan’s friend Ibragim Todashev—is not relevant to the difficulties the defense team has had in getting witnesses to talk to them. But even less extreme events are enough to silence potential witnesses, such as the mysterious closing of their bank accounts. ^[6]

^[7]

The father of Ibragim Todashev displays end result of FBI interview.

Prosecutors resisted this and an earlier attempt to have the trial delayed. The victims have a right to see justice done—swiftly, the thinking goes.
The victims and their families certainly deserve justice for this horrible atrocity. True justice should include a full accounting—something a hurried, one-sided investigation is not likely to produce. And of course Boston and the American public deserve, and need, the truth, whatever it may be.
Yet a close read of the motion document reveals FBI activities that seem more of an effort to conceal than to illuminate.
The FBI’s March to the Sea
Tsarnaev’s defense team makes reference to the most troubling—and most anxiety-producing—action by the FBI since the bombing: the shooting to death of Tamerlan’s friend, Todashev. (See our earlier story on the head-scratching circumstances surrounding that shooting, including the questionable history ^[8] of the agent who pulled the trigger.)
Some of the FBI’s aggressive tactics described in the defense document look like outright intimidation. For instance, individuals “with lawful immigration status have been detained for hours and required to surrender their electronic devices upon re-entry to the United States.”
And take a look at this excerpt:

“The investigation has been further hampered by aggressive FBI follow-up tracking and questioning of potential witnesses, as well as by the unrelenting attention of the news media.”

It is one thing to be aggressively tracking and questioning individuals suspected of committing crimes, but to be doing this to presumably innocent witnesses reeks of intimidation. Witness intimidation is a tactic ordinarily associated with mafia or drug cartel defendants ^[9].
Notably, this “tracking” must have been brought to the attention of defense lawyers by witnesses themselves, indicating overt surveillance: “We’re watching you.”
Then, farther down in the document:

“These difficult circumstances are compounded by a continuing pattern of aggressive FBI re-interviewing of potential witnesses — on occasion within hours of an attempted contact by defense investigator [emphasis added].”

Within hours of an attempted contact by defense investigator? Is the defense team being watched too? (We reached out to Tsarnaev’s defense team hoping they could expand on that, but have not yet had a response.)
^[10]It wouldn’t be the first time the FBI was caught spying on defense lawyers in a high-profile terrorism case. Lawyers for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed allege that the FBI ^[11] has been surveilling  them.
Whether legal counsel are being watched directly or simply getting caught up in the surveillance of Tsarnaev’s acquaintances, the effect is the same: the feds know who is talking to whom, and when.
That’s a Nice Immigration Status You Got There…
Witnesses who are not U.S. citizens—which describes the majority of Tsarnaev’s friends, family, and many in the local Muslim community—are particularly vulnerable to law enforcement manipulation. The threat of deportation is a clear and present danger to these individuals, “regardless of whether criminal charges are ever brought or proven against them,” Tsarnaev’s lawyers wrote.
^[12]Indeed, a handful of people loosely connected to the Tsarnaevs have already been deported, or had deportation proceedings initiated against them, despite having nothing to do with the Boston Marathon bombing. These include:
-   Konstantin Morozov: friend of Tamerlan, arrested and jailed pending deportation reportedly after refusing to wear a wire ^[13] for the FBI as the Bureau sought information on one of Tamerlan’s Chechen friends.
-   Tatiana Gruzdeva: girlfriend of Ibragim Todashev, deported after speaking ^[2] with Boston Magazine about the circumstances surrounding her boyfriend’s death.

• ^[14]

  Tatiana-Gruzdeva
  -   Ashurmamad Miraliev: friend of Ibragim Todashev, was reportedly denied a request for an attorney ^[2] while interrogated by FBI for over six hours, and transferred to an immigration detention center where deportation proceedings were initiated.
• ^[15]

  Ashurmamad Miraliev
  -   Khusen Taramov: friend of Ibragim Todashev, denied reentry to the United States ^[16] after visiting Chechnya, despite having a Green Card.
  
  ^[17]

  Khusen Taramov
  Why hasn’t Boston’s “liberal” media made more noise about this? Arguably, the most newsworthy portion of Tsarnaev’s motion for continuance—potential witness intimidation—has been glossed over or ignored in most mainstream media accounts.
  The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations reached out to the media and the public to expose the intimidation and harassment of Todashev’s friends and associates—and got a fair amount press coverage ^[18] by their local media. The same cannot be said for the Boston area press.
  Have they, albeit indirectly, been intimidated, too? The Boston media has historically had a close relationship with law enforcement, and when it ever so slightly challenged the police, found its usual (and needed) sources shut down.
  However, if ever there was a moment for the local press to do the right thing, this is surely it.

WhoWhatWhy plans to continue doing this kind of groundbreaking original reporting. You can count on us. Can we count on you? What we do is only possible with your support. Please click here ^[19] to donate; it’s tax deductible. And it packs a punch.

---

Article printed from WhoWhatWhy: http://whowhatwhy.com
URL to article: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/10/02/boston-update-fbi-war-on-marathon-bombing-witnesses-continues/
URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/The-FBI’s-apparent-message-to-Tsarnaev’s-defense-team.jpg

[2] “war on witnesses”: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/10/29/feds-accused-of-harassing-boston-bomber-friends-and-friends-of-friends/

[3] lawyers filed a motion: http://thebostonmarathonbombings.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/2/6/24264849/show_multidocs.pdf

[4] grant a two-month delay: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/trial-of-marathon-bombing-suspect-to-remain-in-boston-judge-rules.html?_r=0

[5] brush over that last part: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/boston-marathon-bombing-suspect-dzohkhar-tsarnaev-seeks-delay-trial-n192286

[6] closing of their bank accounts.: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/11/18/islamic-name-us-banks-may-not-want-your-business/

[7] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/The-father-of-Ibragim-Todashev-displays-end-result-of-FBI-interview..jpg

[8] questionable history: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/05/17/todashevs-killer-no-wonder-his-identify-was-secret/

[9] tactic ordinarily associated with mafia or drug cartel defendants: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-30/news/mn-2168_1_mafia-lawyers

[10] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/1.jpg

[11] allege that the FBI: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/06/27/fbi-hanky-panky-on-guantanamo-part-of-larger-911-mystery/

[12] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2.jpg

[13] refusing to wear a wire: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/21/tsarnaev-friend-accuses-federal-agents-unfairly-detaining-him-for-refusing-wear-wire/YUsS4HzQmQ2iFtzx8q3g0O/story.html

[14] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Tatiana-Gruzdeva.jpg

[15] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Ashurmamad-Miraliev.jpg

[16] denied reentry to the United States: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/02/25/waltham-murders-boston-marathon/

[17] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Khusen-Taramov.jpg

[18] press coverage: http://fl.cair.com/video/cairfl_claims_fbi_harassing_friends_of_muslim_shot_by_agency.html

[19] click here: http://www.whowhatwhy.com/donate

VENICE, MARCO POLO, AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA ~ ya still "think" what "they" r/have been telling US is what REALLY happen ....ah um nope !

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Joseph P. Farrell • Filed Under: News • http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/10/venice-marco-polo-discovery-america/

This fantastic article was shared by one of our regular readers here, Mr. K.L., and  have to share it. According to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, a map has been found, allegedly in the hand of Marco Polo’s daughter, detailing a hand-drawn map of the northern Pacific, including the east coast of Asia, Japan, and the northwestern coast of North America:
The incredible map that shows Marco Polo may have discovered America in the the 13th century – 200 years before Christopher Columbus
Here’s the relevant passages:

“The documents, reportedly written by Polo’s daughter Bellala recount how the Venetian explorer met a Syrian trader on the Kamchatka Peninsula on the far eastern edge of the Asian continent then sailed across the Bering Straight to North America.

“Before his voyage, the trader told Polo about a land far east – a 40 days voyage from Kamchatka,Smithsonian Magazine reports.

“It is believed that if Polo sailed to North America, he would have crossed the Bering Straight – a 51-mile stretch of waster that connects the easternmost point of Asia  to the westernmost point of Alaska.

“This new land, the documents say, was called ‘the Peninsula of Seals’ and it was ‘twice as far from China’ as Kamchatka and Polo soon set sail in search of it.

“Polo arrived, according to the documents, and discovered a people who wore seal skins, ate only fish and lived in homes ‘under the earth,’ according to the Smithsonian.”

…
‘It would mean that an Italian got knowledge of the west coast of North America or he heard about it from Arabs or Chinese,’ historian Benjamin B. Olshin, a history professor at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, told Smithsonian.

This goes a long way to confirm a hypothesis I outlined in my most recent book, Thrice Great Hermetica and the Janus Age, namely, that Polo, whose account of his travels, may have “hitched a ride” aboard Chinese vessels and voyaged far beyond Japan to North America. What is missing in these recent assessments of the recently discovered map and documents is the willingness to speculate on Polo’s real connections, and motivations. Those connections are simply revealed by the fact that Polo was initially sent as a Venetian ambassador – along with papal documents – to the far east, and this after the Serenissima Republica had founded the notorious Council of Ten. The Council of Ten, to put it succinctly, was Venice’s version of the National Security Council, a central and highly elite body, acting in the name of the Grand Council and reporting directly to the Doge, coordinating all of Venice’s ambassadorial missions, its far-flung intelligence operations, conducting domestic surveillance and counter-intelligence, and finally, the ability to hear and secretly try bills of capital attainder against people “secretly denounced”. In short, the Council of Ten also fulfilled the very same role given to the NSC in the recent American NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act).
This implies the possibility that Polo was no “simple traveler” or “explorer”, but rather, a Venetian agent, and his mission may have in fact been to test the veracity of persistent rumors – first voiced in medieval Europe by the church father Isidore of Seville – of a land beyond the seas. As I pointed out in the book, the fact that Polo upon his return was subsequently captured and imprisoned by Venice long standing traditional rival, Genoa, also adds weight to the idea that he was a Venetian agent.
But in any case, the map itself is more testimony to the fact that someone in Europe knew of the New World prior to Columbus, and that this knowledge was suppressed and secretly held, and that Venice, for quite some time, knew all about it. And if one could get there from China, it was only natural that Venice might seek to test that knowledge more directly, to see if one could get there from Europe as well.

China Rejects U.S. Hay Exports Due to Genetically Modified Alfalfa Contamination

By Christina Sarich

Global Research, October 03, 2014

Natural Society

Region: Asia

Theme: Biotechnology and GMO

The Chinese used to be quite confident that their hay was GMO free, but all that is about to change. Hay exported to the country from the U.S. is currently in quarantine due to the detection of GMO traits, specifically of genetically modified alfalfa, according to a USDA spokesperson.
This isn’t a singular occurrence, either. Last year, a Washington State grower’s hay was rejected after it tested positive for GMO alfalfa. This doesn’t sit well with China, since all imported hay is supposed to be GMO-free. If the trend continues, they could boycott all US grown hay completely. They aren’t willing to feed their livestock hay grown with Round Up Ready traits – yet for some reason, many US farmers still are.
Chinese officials are already preparing to implement more stringent testing thresholds to keep the GM alfalfa out of their imports.
A USDA representative, who declined to be identified, said:

“We understand that China has recently increased the frequency of its GE (genetically engineered) testing and has a zero tolerance for unapproved biotech traits.”

According to the spokesperson, the USDA has been working with authorities and the U.S. alfalfa industry to find out why ‘certified’ alfalfa has GM traits and to come to an agreement.
However, many industry officials are frustrated by the lack of information and the slow progress related to changing GMO testing sensitivity in hay, says Harry Kreeft, plant pathologist and nematologist with Western Laboratories in Parma, ID who conducts GMO and other testing for the Ag industry:

“Right now, everybody is absolutely grabbing at the dark,” explains Kreeft, “We don’t get any information from the USDA. We don’t get any information from the Chinese side. Our customers have no clue what’s going on.”

The current threshold of acceptance is 5% GMO by Chinese importers, but this could be tightened to 0.2%, and growers would be hard pressed to meet these standards with unintended cross-pollination along with the shady practices of GM companies who often grow ‘test’ fields of GM crops without regulatory approval.
The Chinese need hay, but they may look to other sources if they can’t rely on the U.S. to provide exports that are GM-free. After all, we know China isn’t afraid to reject GMOs from the U.S. or even burn shipment of GMO crops - the country has done it on multiple occasions.

Everything You Need to Know (and Fear) About Facebook’s New Ad Network, Atlas

the nazi's wet dream ...u fill IN yer OWN "controller files" who'd fucking thunk it !  Oops   don't fer~geet 2 fill in yer "file" today boys & girls Lol

Alyssa BereznakTech ColumnistOct 1, 2014 //https://www.yahoo.com/tech/everything-you-need-to-know-and-fear-about-facebooks-98898902144.html

(AFP)

This week, Facebook announced the latest version of its advertising initiative, a network it has lovingly dubbed “Atlas.” Facebook has pitched it, on its own website, as a tool that “delivers people-based marketing” for clients.

That might automatically sound suspicious coming from a company known for its occasional disregard for individuals’ privacy.

So what does this fancy new money-making tool mean for us Facebookers? Below is a guide to everything you should know.

Wait, how is this different from the way Facebook has already been stalking me?Let’s review how Facebook’s advertising platform functioned before Atlas. In short, it collects data on its 1.3 billion users to sell targeted ads that appear on its website. It does this by combining what it knows about you as a Facebook surfer and what it learns from your activities outside of Facebook via cookies it installs in your browser that follow you around as you surf the Web.

You know the old story: You look up a pair of amazing shoes you want to buy that are clearly out of your price range. Then the shoes follow you around on your favorite social networks for the rest of the week, taunting you to purchase them.

Companies like Google do this, too, but because Facebook has an absurd amount of personal intel on you, this tactic has helped it become the second-biggest ad-slinger in the world.

How is Atlas different?Cookies don’t work as well on mobile apps, which presents a problem for advertisers, who are hungry to penetrate that increasingly popular digital space. Cookies also don’t tell advertisers what percentage of people bought something after seeing it in an online or mobile advertisement.

Atlas does both of those things.

Does that mean Atlas is hitting up brands and saying, “Yo, Alyssa bought your stuff after seeing your ad”?Not exactly. Facebook itself knows who you are and whether you’ve clicked through an ad on its site to buy something. But when it offers this information to its clients, it doesn’t single out individuals and say, “Alyssa Bereznak bought a new thing from Anthropologie;here’s her full name, relationship history, and area of residence.”

Rather, Anthropologie will hand Facebook a list of people who bought some of its gorgeous yet prohibitively expensive rugs. Facebook then compares that list with the number of people who saw Anthropologie ads and tells the company the percentage of targeted users who actually bought those rugs.

This helps Anthropologie know how successful its investment on the platform was. It doesn’t know that you, specifically, dropped lots of bills on a rug — just how many did, versus how many saw the ad.

Oh, so it’s not much different from other targeted ads online?Yeah, except Facebook knows you much better. So even if Google can see from your search history that you’re interested in new furniture, Facebook is probably much more in tune with what’s going on with you, based on the content of your posts (“Got a new apartment! Need to cover up some gross spots on the floor but I love it!” and other fun stuff like that).

Is there a way to opt out of Atlas?There is! You can stop Facebook from following you around the Web by following the instructions here.

Should I be afraid or upset?This depends on whether you’re one of those fatalistic people who has willingly surrendered a large part of her privacy in order to function in the modern digital world. I, for example, am mostly “meh” about the whole thing.

That being said, lots of smart, brand-fearing people are vigilant in their fight against advertising tactics like these. I salute you for it and wish you luck building an oasis of the Internet that’s not crawling with tracking tools. But, remember, even companies that loudly pledge to protect your data will eventually find ways to please advertisers.

Where can I find out more?Facebook has set up a special website to inform members about Atlas. You can visit and “take a tour” of the Atlas system there.

ASTEROID MINING: US CONGRESS CONSIDERS BILLS, AND SOME HIGH OCTANE SPECULATION

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Joseph P. Farrell • Filed Under: Cosmic War • http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/09/asteroid-mining-us-congress-considers-bills-high-octane-speculation/

Recently I had a fascinating conversation with former Assistant Secretary of HUD Catherine Austin Fitts, and the subject of our conversation was – as it often is – space, and global finance, and the links between the two. We’ll get back to that, but I wanted to mention it in connection to today’s article, which was shared by Mr. S.D.:
The companies vying to turn asteroids into filling stations
As noted, the 1966 UN Space Treaty ” already prohibits national appropriation of space resources. Basically, mining the moon is legally off limits,” but asteroids are that wonderful “gray area” that’s now being looked at for commercial exploitation. But really, folks, with the recent Chinese announcement about their willingness to mine the Moon, it would appear that the 1966 treaty is a dead letter, simply because financial exigencies and technological developments are once again proceeding faster than international jurisprudence can adapt.
Hence the need for “legislation” protecting investors, a necessary component to the minimization of risk in space commerce:

“As the commercial space industry grows, with billions of dollars already invested, entrepreneurs argue they should be able to own what they find. The costs are simply too great to risk having their discoveries taken from them by governments or competitors.
“Lewicki says the lack of legal certainty over ownership is already giving potential investors pause and hurting his company’s growth.
“Other private companies aren’t the only competition, either. Lewicki says China has launched unmanned exploratory missions to asteroids as well as the moon, and Nasa is working on a manned mission to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid in the 2020s.

“If the US wants its private space industry to jump into the fray, argues Lopez-Alegria, legislators must create a more “predictable environment” in which companies can “enjoy the rights of their extraction or to extract without interference” in space.”

In other words, like it or not, we are entering the age of space commercialization. Over the next 2-3 generations, this will dramatically transform the culture we live in. So how to minimize risk and protect investment?

There are basically two routes here, and here’s where Secretary Fitts’ insight comes in, and as we worked our way through the conversation and her charts and graphs, we both became rather speechless and breathless at what might be possibly going on. One way would be the way of international treaty and negotiation, a long and tiresome process, as the principal problem to be encountered is what standard of law would be the ultimate arbiter of such commercial ventures? The other way, would be the creation of a global government, brought about, perhaps, by a tender for the global population… which would be the “Chancellor Kohl” scheme for the reunification of Germany writ large, and on a global scale. You’ll recall that this scheme was both cunning and shrewd in its simplicity: as the former Democratic Republic of Germany, East Germany, began to fall apart, Chancellor Kohl allowed a one-for-one currency tender of East German marks for the much stronger West German D-Mark. As East Germans began to use the D-Mark, the economies elided together, and the Wiedervereinigung was all but a done deal.

Now… how might one go about doing this on a global basis?

Think Chancellor Kohl + smart phones, Apple pay, and other virtual currencies… global tender.

Voila.

The companies vying to turn asteroids into filling stations

By Debbie Siegelbaum BBC News, Washington

Continue reading the main story

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29334645

Private companies want to mine asteroids for fuel, and build filling stations in space. A bill now in front of the US Congress would help by allowing them to own what they discover - but it might, if passed, meet stiff international opposition.

Chris Lewicki is trying to get water from a stone. A really big stone thousands of miles from Earth.
The president of space mining firm Planetary Resources used to oversee robotic Mars missions at Nasa, but today he's betting big on asteroids.
The chunks of matter hurtling through the cosmos are rich in valuable minerals, he says, but finding water could be like striking liquid gold.
"We can tell from telescopes that look out from mountaintops here on Earth that certain types of asteroids can be relatively abundant in water and water-bearing minerals," he says.
But why is water, which covers much of our planet, so valuable in space?
According to Lewicki, it currently costs nearly $2bn (£1.2bn) per year to launch enough water - six tons per person - to sustain the six astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
But, in addition to providing drinking water, H20 can also be converted into breathable air, and into fuel - liquid hydrogen and oxygen form the most efficient rocket fuel known to man.

Currently, spacecraft must carry all the fuel they require, adding significant weight and driving up the cost of getting beyond Earth's gravity. Once in space, expensive equipment may be abandoned because it's too costly to take back to Earth.
But, says Lewicki, "Imagine being able to get into space and refuel your spaceship [there]."
Asteroids have little gravity, he adds, so landing on and taking off from them does not require too much energy. Their prevalence and proximity to Earth make them valuable potential way stations for refuelling on longer missions into space.
Michael Lopez-Alegria, former Nasa astronaut and current president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, says industry is definitely interested in the "very lucrative" idea of space mining, and not just on asteroids.
"There's an amazing amount of frozen water at the polar regions of the moon," Lopez-Alegria adds. "The moon is easier to get to than an asteroid, it's right next door and it's much easier to communicate with a robot or people [there]."
Unfortunately, strict legislation in the form of the 1966 United Nations' Outer Space Treaty already prohibits national appropriation of space resources. Basically, mining the moon is legally off limits.
But, experts say mining asteroids - particularly for resources which could remain in space - falls into a legal grey area unconceived of by legislators four decades ago.

A graphic shows Japan's planned launch of Hayabusa-2 to retrieve samples from asteroid 1999 JU3

As the commercial space industry grows, with billions of dollars already invested, entrepreneurs argue they should be able to own what they find. The costs are simply too great to risk having their discoveries taken from them by governments or competitors.
Lewicki says the lack of legal certainty over ownership is already giving potential investors pause and hurting his company's growth.
Other private companies aren't the only competition, either. Lewicki says China has launched unmanned exploratory missions to asteroids as well as the moon, and Nasa is working on a manned mission to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid in the 2020s.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Our job is not to do things, enact legislation, for particular business interests”

Congresswoman Donna Edwards House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space

If the US wants its private space industry to jump into the fray, argues Lopez-Alegria, legislators must create a more "predictable environment" in which companies can "enjoy the rights of their extraction or to extract without interference" in space.

Cue the American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act, introduced by Republican Congressman Bill Posey in July.
The slim five-page document proposes allowing US commercial entities ownership over "any resources obtained in outer space from an asteroid".
Lewicki gave Posey advice on the bill, and though some people say it is overly vague, he argues it provides a broad outline for a new and burgeoning industry.
Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards, the ranking member of the US House Subcommittee on Space, disagrees.
In her view, it's perilous to rush into such long-lasting and far-reaching legislation.
"Our job is not to do things, enact legislation, for particular business interests," she says. "Our job is to figure out a plan and a protocol for the United States space program and for the way that we interact internationally."
In a recent Congressional hearing on the matter, space law professor Joanne Gabrynowicz warned the Asteroids Act's potential political impact on international treaties "is likely to be sizeable".
"If made into law, it should be expected that there would be both legal and political challenges to its terms," she added.

The business view of asteroids

Edwards says international partners - including the European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency - as well as China and Russia, need to be involved from the beginning in conversations over space ownership rights.
"We have to [recognise] that we're not the only game in town," she says. "We have an obligation... to figure out what the lay of the land is going to look like and all of us then playing by the same rules."
Ultimately, Edwards adds, "we're not going to be mining asteroids tomorrow, so we have time to figure out what the framework should be".
But, Lewicki says Planetary Resources will be launching its first spacecraft by the beginning of next year and already has plans for several more.
"If Congress finds a way to... bring [space mining] into law, that allows us really to potentially accelerate our efforts and pursue this even more aggressively than we are today," he says.
It's "going to happen much sooner than I think a lot of people realise," Lewicki insists.
"We're not decades away... there's companies ready to do this now."