Ralph Peters needs to buy a new dictionary

Ralph Peters (and apparently the folks at the Monticello library) need to buy better dictionaries:

We’ve all heard humorless America-haters promote themselves by announcing, As Thomas Jefferson said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

The first problem with that self-righteous bull is that Jefferson never said it. On the contrary, he warned of the dangers of political dissension carried to extremes.

The earliest traceable provenance of the slogan goes back to an obscure 1960s lefty who just made it up.

Dissent can be patriotic - it’s essential to have an ongoing public debate about the major issues confronting us. But that dissent must be based on facts, not sloppy emotions.

Instead, we get dissent worn as a fashion statement. And fanatic dissent (as Jefferson noted) is the enemy of a democratic system.

–Ralph Peters

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2008/07/saturday-night-swj-quote-of-th/

Of course, that would make sense if dissent meant exactly the same thing as dissension.

Checking the dictionary:
Definitions of dissent on the Web:

# (law) the difference of one judge’s opinion from that of the majority; “he expressed his dissent in a contrary opinion”
# withhold assent; “Several Republicans dissented”
# protest: express opposition through action or words; “dissent to the laws of the country”
# a difference of opinion
# disagree: be of different opinions; “I beg to differ!”; “She disagrees with her husband on many questions”
# protest: the act of protesting; a public (often organized) manifestation of dissent
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Definitions of dissension on the Web:

* discord: disagreement among those expected to cooperate
* disagreement: a conflict of people’s opinions or actions or characters
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Way to take Jefferson out of context, Ralph Peters! No thanks to you, Monticello Library!

Andrew Wallace is about ten years too late

If you want to continue the good life you must get off your rear and face down your congressional politicians in person. There will be no second chance because failure now will lead directly to the time when our dollar is worth zero, there are no benefits of any kind and we have brutal tyranny resulting in mass destruction and bloodshed. Older Americans will die homeless, hungry and in pain. And all of this because you would not get off your rear for a few hours to talk frankly with your congressional politicians

http://www.newswithviews.com/Wallace/andrew11.htm

People trying to lay patriotic guilt trips almost always say, “You have a chance if you act immediately, but if you lose this chance, the sky will fall!”

Some reformers ignore the chance to try for change within the system, other reformers grab it.

It makes no difference. Reformers have tried to clean up the system by every legal means for years. The traitors in office are willing to break many laws and spend a great deal of blood-money to stay in power. The reformers don’t stand a chance. I’ve been watching them fail for year after year.

Wallace says “There will be no second chance.”

There wasn’t a second chance eleven years ago, nor was there a second chance ten years ago, nor nine — because there was never a first chance.

Protest is just a form of theater that the puppeteers allow as a distraction. Every so often they might have to swap out a puppet. Nothing of import gets fixed.

Excessive Secrecy Keeps UFO reporters busy

Opening NASA’s X Files: The Kecksburg Incident

June 16th, 2008
Author Leonard David
Call it NASA’s X files if you must, but investigative reporter, Leslie Kean, is hot on the trail of what in the world (or out of it) took place in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in December 1965.

It took the winning of a lawsuit against NASA in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but now the investigator has her hands on a load of files that may — or may not — offer new clues about the Kecksburg incident.

For years, Kean has been seeking documents about the purported crash of an unknown object in that locale over forty years ago. Witnesses described seeing a fireball in the evening sky, some sort of a controlled landing, followed by a military recovery of a spacecraft-like object. As reported by local radio and newspapers, U.S. military personnel cordoned off the area, investigated the site, and left without ever providing a full report of the incident - other than to dismiss is as a meteor.

Since the settlement of the lawsuit in October, Kean has been following the steps laid out in the settlement agreement. Both sides needed extensions at various times due to the volume of work selecting which files to pull, and then for NASA to conduct the search, the investigative journalist explained to me.

Helping to open this case, Kean has been working with the Coalition for Freedom of Information.

In her on-going research campaign, Kean culled through 689 detailed pages of file-inventory lists.

The documents just arrived over last weekend, Kean told me, “so I haven’t yet had a chance to go through them…and don’t yet know what I’ll find.”

NASA searched 297 boxes of files, Kean said via email. A sampling of a few of the more interesting files from these boxes, which she requested — and which could shed light on one or more of the many facets of the Kecksburg event — gives a flavor of what the files contain.

The data haul includes files on Navy and NASA Recovery Operations - Trajectory and Orbits Panel; Russian Vehicle and Launch - 1962-1965; Department of Defense (DOD)-NASA relationships; Recovery Sites - NASA/DOD FY 65 Facilities; and a series of files on orbital debris and fragments.

“Even if not specific to Kecksburg, they will very likely inform us about interesting aspects of NASA’s space program related to the retrieval of unidentified objects during this time period,” Kean said.

http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/leonarddavid/

The secrecy culture has gone mad. NASA is still keeping secrets from more than four decades ago. All such records could have been put in a public archive, for everyone to read.

Satanic Democrat Rape Scandal

Here are the accused:

They appeared to be standard New Age hippies, selling hand-made incense and the like, with newsletters like the following from the soon-to-be-expired Google cache:

Reconsidering Christmas
December 20, 2007 by dianapalmer
Even though most of us are aware that Jesus was not actually born on Dec. 25, it is still a day — or season — for considering Christ’s life and teachings. But instead of a search within ourselves for ways we can become more Christlike, many people try to outdo each other in how much money they can spend on gifts and decorations.

What if instead of spending outrageous amounts on those who already have enough material possessions that you instead donate more money to charity in the name of your intended recipient? Truly consider those who are the “least among us.” Volunteer at a shelter or food kitchen and serve meals to the homeless. Provide food to animal shelters. Visit nursing homes and befriend those who no longer have family around them. Be a mentor for at-risk youth in your community. Champion a cause that is important to you. Do these things not only at Christmas but all year long.

When a child starts thinking about what gifts he/she wants at Christmas, encourage that child to pick out a gift for an underprivileged child. Consider doing a yearly cleanout of all gently used toys and clothes and donating them to area shelters and other charitable services.

In the United States we live in a culture that promotes spending over spirituality. Challenge yourself to shun the stores and shopping malls and instead return to a true celebration of Christ’s life and teachings. Spend time at Christmas — and throughout the year — in quiet meditation, considering how you can live the life that Christ taught us to live.

Think of that baby in the manger as your soul waiting to grow, to be nourished and fed. Your best gift to Christ is to live your life’s true purpose and to truly love and nurture each other.

Tags: charity, Christ, Christmas, meditation, shelter, spirituality, volunteer

…

Welcome to Indigo Dawn, your resource for spiritual growth. We offer products
and services to promote enlightenment and to assist in the development of self-empowerment and divine potential.

Among our many products are made-to-order healing salves, herbal teas, oils and other natural healing ointments. Our services include intuitive guidance, past-life regression, spirit guide communication, and healing and cleansing.

We hope you feel welcome here to discover your true, divine self.

….
Indigo Dawn
was founded in honor of the Indigo children and the coming age of Aquarius or Age of Enlightenment. Our intent and purpose is to lead the way and help others rise to a higher level of existence, quality of life and increased spirituality in preparation for this coming age of enlightenment.

We recognize that the coming New Age will not only be a time of true enlightenment but also world peace and unity. The Earth cannot obtain its highest level of vibration nor can humanity obtain its potential when nations are at war. Therefore, Indigo Dawn Inc. seeks to create a method to achieve world peace to provide for a smooth path to ascension.

Indigo Dawn Inc. offers services and products to promote enlightenment and to assist others in developing their own level of self-empowerment and divine potential, surpassing the constraints that society has placed on us. It is also the hopes and dreams of Indigo Dawn to assist all members of the human race in learning their roles in the upcoming New Age and achieve their highest potentials. By doing so, Indigo Dawn is paving the way toward the age of true equality and enlightenment.

And then they were accused of raping people and holding hostages for occult purposes:

July 4, 2008 — Stefan Fobes
Durham Democratic Party Official accused in rituals
June 30, 2008

Anne Blythe / Raleigh News & Observer

Durham — Allegations that a local Democratic official and her husband were involved in satanic rituals that included shackling people to beds, caging them and depriving them of food and water have horrified county party leaders.

Joy Johnson, 30, a third vice-chairwoman of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice chairwoman of the Young Democrats, was charged Friday with two counts of aiding and abetting.

Her husband, Joseph Scott Craig, 25, was charged with second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for an incident in January and another in May.

The two made an appearance in court Monday morning after spending the weekend in the Durham County jail.

Mark McCullough, an assistant district attorney, urged Judge Nancy Gordon to increase Johnson’s bond to $500,000 from the $270,000 set by a magistrate. “Part of the allegations are that satanic worship is part of this case,” McCullough said.

Gordon kept Johnson’s bond at $270,000. Craig’s bond remained at $500,000. Each was ordered to stay away from the accusers. Craig has been charged with beating a man with a cane and a cable cord and assaulting a woman with a wooden cane and raping her.

McCullough would not release details of the allegations, but he added, “I don’t want to leave the impression this is a widespread thing.”

Jeremy Collins, president of the Durham Young Democrats, has known Johnson for several years. After following the Duke lacrosse case and seeing the phony gang-rape charges dismantled and dismissed, Collins said he would reserve judgment until the facts of this case were revealed.

“If it’s true then it’s extremely unfortunate and a shock to all of us,” Collins said.

During her time as a party official, Johnson was interested in trying to attract more young Democrats and get them involved in the political process, acquaintances say.

Floyd McKissick, a state senator and a Democrat from Durham, said Monday he had been told Johnson had resigned her posts with the party. He, too, reserved judgment.

“I was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted,” McKissick said. “You never would have suspected allegations that she would have had any participation in these rituals.”

Johnson and Craig, along with Diana Palmer, first vice chairwoman for the local Democrats, are partners in a company called Indigo Dawn.

Via:
http://warofillusions.wordpress.com/

The Graying of the Great Powers

Major Findings: The Geopolitical Implications
􀂃 The population and GDP of the developed world will steadily shrink as a share of the
world’s total. In tandem, the global influence of the developed world will likely decline.
􀂃 The population and GDP of the United States will steadily expand as a share of the
developed world’s total. In tandem, the influence of the United States in the developed
world will likely rise.
􀂃 Most nations in sub-Saharan Africa and some nations in the Arab world and non-
Arab Muslim Asia will possess large ongoing youth bulges that could render many of
them chronically unstable until at least the 2030s.
􀂃 Many nations in North Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia, and the
former Soviet bloc—including China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan—are now
experiencing a rapid or extreme demographic transition that could push them toward
civil collapse, or (in reaction) toward “neo-authoritarianism.”
􀂃 Ethnic and religious conflict will continue to be a growing security challenge both in the
developing and developed world.
􀂃 Throughout the world, the 2020s will likely emerge as a decade of maximum
geopolitical danger.
􀂃 The aging developed countries will face chronic shortages in young-adult manpower—
posing challenges both for their economies and their security forces.
􀂃 An aging developed world may lose its reputation for innovation and boldness—and
struggle to remain culturally attractive and politically relevant to younger societies.

link

Assault of the poor as commercial entertainment

And still others are coming up with more practical outlets to exploit China’s new cadre of unstable young bachelors. Two years ago in Nanjing, Jiangsu’s capital, businessman Wu Gang opened the Rising Sun Anger Release Bar in a cheap hotel near the bank of the Yangtze River. The bar featured staples of Chinese entertainment like big-screen karaoke and plates of sunflower seeds but also a central catwalk where, for 100 yuan ($15) per minute, customers paid to assault the waiters, single young migrants from poorer cities to the north. If a customer preferred, his victim would dress in drag. Men “are under too much pressure,” Wu explained to me one day, as the waiters high-kicked Pepsi bottles in the storeroom. “They need a way to release it.”

From the comments on the same page:

Back in 1998 when I was teaching in Shanghai at a key High School, I mentioned this disparity between boys and girls, saying in my slow and careful English that there were 110 boys for every 100 girls. I asked one boy student what he intended to do about it, hoping to elicit that he would work hard, study hard, and be a good man in order to attract a girl in the future. Instead he simply told me that he would kill 10 men. Honest to God true story.

http://www.tnr.com/story.html?id=06d65840-0997-482e-a84d-b09b61a7b0e5&p=2

Kevin Phillips offers six parallels between declining empires

From Wash Post

one can argue that imperial Spain, maritime Holland and industrial Britain shared a half-dozen vulnerabilities as they peaked and declined: a sense of things no longer being on the right track, intolerant or missionary religion, military or imperial overreach, economic polarization, the rise of finance (displacing industry) and excessive debt. So too for today’s United States.

Before we amplify the contemporary U.S. parallels, the skeptic can point out how doomsayers in each nation, while eventually correct, were also premature. In Britain, for example, doubters fretted about becoming another Holland as early as the 1860s, and apprehension surged again in the 1890s, based on the industrial muscle of such rivals as Germany and the United States. By the 1940s, those predictions had come true, but in practical terms, the critics of the 1860s and 1890s were too early.

Premature fears have also dogged the United States. The decades after the 1968 election were marked by waves of a new national apprehension: that U.S. post-World War II global hegemony was in danger. The first, in 1968-72, involved a toxic mix of global trade and currency crises and the breakdown of the U.S. foreign policy consensus over Southeast Asia. Books emerged with titles such as “Retreat From Empire?” and “The End of the American Era.” More national malaise followed Watergate and the fall of Saigon. Stage three came in the late 1980s, when a resurgent Japan seemed to be challenging U.S. preeminence in manufacturing and possibly even finance. In 1991, Democratic presidential aspirant Paul Tsongas observed that “the Cold War is over. . . . Germany and Japan won.” Well, not quite.

In 2008, we can mark another perilous decade: the tech mania of 1997-2000, morphing into a bubble and market crash; the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; imperial hubris and the Bush administration’s bungled 2003 invasion of Iraq. These were followed by OPEC’s abandoning its $22-$28 price range for oil, with the cost per barrel rising over five years to more than $100; the collapse of global respect for the United States over the Iraq war; the imploding U.S. housing market and debt bubble; and the almost 50 percent decline of the U.S. dollar against the euro since 2002. Small wonder a global financial crisis is in the air.

Here, then, is the unnerving possibility: that another, imminent global crisis could make the half-century between the 1970s and the 2020s the equivalent for the United States of what the half-century before 1950 was for Britain. This may well be the Big One: the multi-decade endgame of U.S. ascendancy. The chronology makes historical sense — four decades of premature jitters segueing into unhappy reality.

Let’s just highlight the six:

a sense of things no longer being on the right track,

intolerant or missionary religion,

military or imperial overreach,

economic polarization,

the rise of finance (displacing industry)

excessive debt.

It looks like an “Onion” headline, but it’s not: ‘DOD Contracts Out Contractor Oversight’

I really wish I was quoting “The Onion” here, but I’m not:

TRUTHOUT ORIGINAL

DOD Contracts Out Contractor Oversight
Wednesday 04 June 2008
by: Maya Schenwar, t r u t h o u t | Report

As private security contractors continue to play a large role in military operations in Iraq, the Pentagon has delegated the duty of overseeing them to a new crop of contractors.(Photo: AP)
The Department of Defense (DOD) now employs contractors to keep contractors in check in Iraq, under a new framework for war industry management solidified last month.

In April, the Pentagon split its largest military contract in Iraq - formerly belonging to the Houston-based corporation KBR, Inc. - among companies Fluor and DynCorp, in addition to KBR.
A fourth company, the British-American service provider Serco, is responsible for managing and overseeing the other three, according to its contract, signed last year and now in effect.

Based on the contract, Serco’s duties include planning activities, managerial work, performance reviews, training and budget recommendations. According to an Army Sustainment Command news release last year, Serco is responsible for “analyzing performance contractors’ costs,” “working with the Army to measure contractor performance” and “recommending process improvements.” The company also serves as a liaison between the other three contractors, and between the contractors and the government.

The Serco deal marks a new level of Defense Department privatization, according to Dina Rasor, the chief investigator of the Follow the Money Project, who founded the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight (POGO).

“It’s gotten to the point where we’re actually outsourcing the oversight,” Rasor told Truthout.

Linkity:

Norma Perez: don’t diagnose PTSD

from: Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Monday, May 19, 2008, at 11:31 AM ET

A recent RAND Corporation study reported that one in five returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan experiences post traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Sufferers of PTSD characteristically have “lived through a traumatic event that caused them to fear for their lives, see horrible things, and feel helpless.” PTSD patients are often suicidal, and a misdiagnosis can prevent appropriate care.

On March 20, Norma Perez, team leader and psychologist at the Temple, Texas, Olin E. Teague Veterans’ Center, sent an e-mail (below) to medical workers asking them to “refrain” from diagnosing veterans with PTSD. The facility PTSD program coordinator wrote that, due to the increase in “compensation-seeking veterans,” social workers and psychologists should consider ruling out PTSD and instead render a diagnosis of the less-serious “adjustment disorder.” Perez warned colleagues that “there have been some incidence [sic]” where veterans receiving non-PTSD-level compensation and pension appeal their cases “based on our assessment.” (According to the Veterans Benefit Administration, PTSD “qualifies as a disability” entitling a veteran to an “improved pension.”)

Perez’s “suggestion” was offered partly because “we really don’t … have time to do the extensive testing that should be done” in order to diagnose PTSD. After her e-mail was forwarded to VoteVets.org and released last week, Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake announced the e-mail was “inappropriate” and declared it “repudiated.” Perez, meantime, has been “counseled and is extremely apologetic.”

http://www.slate.com/id/2191688/entry/0/

Newsmax thinks Mexico is actually in a civil war

Drug Civil War Rages in Mexico

Sunday, May 11, 2008 7:10 PM

By: Phil Brennan Article Font Size

A full-scale civil war is raging in Mexico — and few are paying attention.

Drug cartels seeking to keep control over huge swathes of Mexico have been on a rampage. In the past two weeks alone, at least 10 police officials have been murdered -…
So far, estimates say more than 3,000 Mexicans have been killed, with almost 1,000 deaths this year alone in a brutal struggle by the civilian government to reassert authority.

Who exactly made those estimates?

Linkity:
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/drug_mexico_cartel/2008/05/11/95167.html