Book Burning in the Digital Age

This article was written by J. Marselus Van Wagner, used by permission. Though it was written about a year ago, it is sadly only become more relevant as the governments of the Western world crack down on internet free-speech and alternative news sources.

The battle of the copyright is a long and sordid tale on the internet. Most folks are familiar with the old days of Napster, and the record companies suing the pants off of soccer-Moms because their kids had downloaded songs to the family computer. More recently as technology has continued to advance, we have seen movie companies also come into the fold along with the music companies, often suing to shut down websites that host torrent files of copyrighted material, as well as still going after the individual on occasion. At the end of the day though, most folks aren't overly concerned about those issues. Music and movies are creative expressions and public past-times for the most part, not exactly a priority in this day and age. It all sounds like a lot of hair-splitting over profits that no one really wants to be bothered with. Sure artists are entitled to make money from their work. But at the same time, when someone shells out $20 for a CD that has one good song on it, it's clearly a rip-off scheme by the recording industry too. A big ball of frustration and argument that is best left to the folks who have a vested interest in the fight. The whole debate has just soured many people to listening to music or watching movies at all. Easier just to flip on the radio or the TV and be done with it. Music and movies just aren't much fun as a hobby anymore, which is probably a bigger reason for any perceived loss of revenue for these big companies than anything else. Some folks have just decided to grow up faster than we would have liked to, wistfully leaving pop-culture behind to focus on more important issues. Like freedom of speech, perhaps.

Now anyone who has had contact with American society in the past fifteen years or so has heard all about these copyright lawsuits, and has probably heard the argument that it is all “really about freedom of speech.” Most of us never really bought into that though. It wasn't really about freedom of speech so much as buying a cable modem and ripping enough tracks to make a mix disc for the weekend, and to make it worth the money you were shelling out for the broadband connection. But as it turns out, these freedom-loving pirate pioneers might have had more insight than most of us ever gave them credit for. It's not just about ripping a free copy of some crappy pop jam anymore. The debates over sharing content over the internet are no longer the frontier of internet free-speech. The goalposts have been on the move it seems.

In 1993 there were about 50 corporations that controlled just about all of the media in the United States. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, the works. By 2004, we were down to only five corporations controlling it all. Since the collapse of United Press International, the Associated Press has been the one and only national news service in the United States. This means that just about all the news you see is filtered through this one single company. Even local news from your home town is partially owned by the AP, as part of their agreement with smaller news agencies that make up their network. If there is a big enough story in your hometown, it gets handed up to the AP and sent out across the wires to be picked up by every other news agency across the country, as an AP article, not usually even giving a mention of your local hometown newspaper or reporter that broke the story. But in return, these smaller news agencies get to print other AP news, which accounts for just about anything that is being reported on any given day. This gives the AP a huge amount of leverage over how news gets reported, even if it does not originate with them. No news agency would dare defy the AP, and risk losing their agreement to print just about anything that is being considered news. It would be business suicide. The mainstream media in America is a network dominated by the AP. Not exactly an ideal arrangement for the promise of free speech. There was a time that we as freedom-loving Americans saw a singular state-controlled media as the hallmark of an evil totalitarian Communist regime, but would it really be any better to have a single corporation reporting all of the news rather than the state? Hardly. That would simply make it the hallmark of a Fascist totalitarian state rather then a Communist one. You see, Communism is what you get when the government controls business. Fascism is what you get when business controls government. In a nutshell anyway.

Thanks to technology, we still have a bastion of free speech with the internet. Even while your average American is content to sit back and zone out to regurgitated tabloid news, for many of us, the internet is as enlightening as it can be frustrating and confusing, navigating the back corridors of truth. The news here is not pre-packaged and heated in the microwave. It is raw, and requires critical thinking, cleverness, memory. In short, here you have to stop and think. If the truth is handed to you on a silver platter, it just might not be the truth, just like that might not be beef in that fast food taco. It's a shame that more folks aren't interested to look a little deeper into things, and are content to take the half-truths of the mainstream media as a complete source of important information. But at least the rest of us have the internet, this beacon of liberty and free speech. Well, for the moment anyway. It seems that our days may be numbered, and dwindling fast now.

Back in the summer of 2008, the Associated Press, a monolithic news agency with a litigious history decided it was going to set the precedent for how their material was disseminated across the internet, by issuing Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices to bloggers and news aggregators they claimed were violating their copyright and additionally were accused of “hot news” misappropriation under New York State law. They had already slapped two companies with copyright lawsuits not long before, one in Florida. In essence, this was the beginning of the AP trying to force the entire U.S.-based internet to become another one of their subsidiaries under licensing agreement.

Now to really understand this, we need to have a look at what is called the “fair use” act. What it tells us first is that copyrighted material can be used without permission, for such purposes as “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.” Seems quite reasonable, but too bad it's not quite that simple. You see, there really are no set guidelines. Even from that list there can be any number of exceptions based on the nature of the copyright work, potential profits from someone who is citing the work, and so forth. It is all so completely ambiguous that they might just as well have said, “Use whatever you want at your own risk because it's all up to the judge anyway.” That's really no exaggeration. Rulings in one case will not necessarily be used as a precedent in the next, particularly in civil suits, though copyright violation can be a criminal matter as well. There are no set standards for selected content, length or proportions of quotations, or potential market impact. Nevertheless, it has still been used as a general guideline for everyone from internet bloggers to public school teachers. An example might be the playing of a movie in the auditorium of a public school for students. It may not be considered a violation of copyright because it is being used for educational purposes. But if that same movie were to be played in an auditorium full of families at the ice-cream social gathering where goodies were being sold to raise money for a field trip, that could very well indeed be ruled as a liability through public dissemination of copyrighted material. Many restaurants can no longer sing the “Happy Birthday” song to patrons on their special day because of the threat of copyright lawsuits.

Across the internet though, it has been generally understood by bloggers and members of discussion forums and so forth, that news reports are not treated with the same level of copyright scrutiny as other media such as movies and music. After all, news is a relatively public matter anyway. Granted, reporters work hard often risking life and limb to get their stories, other staff all do their jobs, the news agencies have their expenses and financial obligations to investors, but at the end of the day the events they are reporting on are public events that they are willfully sharing with the greater public. In print they share it with the public for pocket change, but on their own internet sites they even share the news for free, and quite often encourage viewers to share it on networking tools such as Twitter or an RSS feed. The profitability in news reporting is not in the news itself, but in advertising revenues from companies who know that people will see their ad when they come to find out the news of the day, whether it be in print, over the airwaves, or over the internet. So really, it is in the best interest of any news agency to get the news out there as far and wide as possible, so long as they are referenced in some way. Let's not forget the old adage “there's no such thing as bad press.”

Copying and pasting an entire article may be seen as not really acting in good faith on the part of the blogger, but so long as it is properly attributed, it really should not be of serious concern to a news company. It's not really going to cost them anything. No one is going to decide that they would rather see their mainstream search engine news in some backwater blog day after day where the articles may be missing pictures, related links, and be generally mutilated in a hack paste job. Most folks will want to go right to the source, and see a copy/paste job merely as reference for discussion. Adding a link to any pasted article is certain to drive traffic back to the original news site, with folks who might never have even bothered to check the day's news otherwise. When most internet users post these articles, they are not posting it to circumvent the original news services and are not claiming the articles as their own original material, they are posting for the purposes of discussion, not plagiarism. Whether it be to critique the report itself, the news source overall, or as a general discussion related to the news being reported, the news article itself still becomes secondary to our own expression of free-speech. In this way we see that even a fully copied article could be seen as fair use, as a reference in these discussions.

So understanding all of this, one really has to ask, what was really behind the aggression of the AP against bloggers and other websites? Especially when you have a look at some of the specific instances they had issued the DMCA notices for. Many did not even copy the same headline, all of them contained links back to the original AP source, and none of them were even full posts of the article. They were merely snippets of the article, with a link back to the original complete article. You would think that the AP would be thanking them, not trying to sue them. You can see that down in the corner here of the MSMReview we even have a host-provided widget installed that runs an AP headline ticker. Is that something that we can be sued for? Could we be sued if we posted those same headlines without the widget?

By the end of 2008 it appears that the AP decided to back off a bit, and admitted that they might have been being a bit heavy-handed in the protection of their media. But one really has to wonder what set them on in the first place to such an ill-conceived venture. The only potential loss of revenue might have come from the fact that many news outlets in their network will pull an article after a bit of time, and then charge a fee for retrieval from an archive. In this way, a blog or forum could be seen as archiving these stories and undermining a very minor potential source of revenue. How often do folks actually go ahead and pay for an article for which the link is no longer active for, and especially in comparison to the potential for referral traffic generated by articles posted outside of the original site? Moreover, do they charge your local library a fee for making old newspapers available to the public after the articles have been pulled from the website? Granted, the library already paid 50-cents for a copy of the paper, but if that token amount were really the issue, then why do they not charge to read the headlines on their own websites and the large search engine hosts?

It just doesn't make sense, there is something missing from this picture still. Now we come to more recent news. It seems that other news sources are now hiring outside companies to do their dirty work for them, having a go at the bloggers and forums this summer in a similar manner that the AP did back in 2008, but on a much wider scale, and even more aggressively this time. Are they really so desperate for quick profits that they are willing to cut off their noses just to spite their faces? Are they really willing to alienate readers, and in turn their advertising clients, to scrape a few bucks away from bloggers? Was the whole AP fiasco just a “testing of the water” to to gauge reaction to an assault on free speech?

Steve Gibson, CEO of Las Vegas-based Righthaven has been buying up newspaper copyrights for the sole purpose of scouring the web to find and then sue anyone who has posted material without permission. He is able to compel quick settlements based on the fact that even a single violation can be a penalty of $150,000. Righthaven already has hundreds of lawsuits in the works, but estimates that there may be billions of violations. That will not doubt put any nickel and dime blogs and web sites right out of business. Many blogs and forums that could be seen as a profit company because of ad placement through services such as AdSense, really are not actually profitable at all, and are generally operated for reasons other than profit, such as practicing free speech and engaging their fellow human beings in discussion on current events via the internet. But even for larger sites, the threat is potent, seeing how much they stand to lose for even a single violation if they fight it in court then lose. One large internet forum that generates about 5 million hits a month with their user-generated discussion forum on alternative topics has decided to fight the lawsuit on the grounds that the site itself did not actually post the material, but that a forum user did, and therefore rather than file a lawsuit Righthaven should have served the site with a DMCA takedown notice. So in this case, we see that this company operating on behalf of the Las Vegas Review-Journal has actually gone well beyond what the AP did two summers ago. They aren't even bothering with take-down notices, they are going straight for the lawsuit. It is also interesting to note that this representative of the media has gone after one of the largest alternative subject matter forums on the internet, where open-minded free-thinking is highly valued (even if critically scrutinized.)

In another case, one of the above-mentioned forum's primary competitors has also been the subject of an action by a company representing Reuters news service, the AP of the British-influenced world. Again coming under fire is a forum on alternative subject matter where open-minded free-thinking is courted (even if dreadfully manipulated.) That case is part of a campaign launched in March by California-based Attributor with their FairShare Guardian model. In one 30-day scan with this new model, they found 75,000 sites with copies of un-licensed articles. Rather than suing them in court, Attributor offers discussion on syndication, in which they can pretty much demand any price they want for the syndication rights from the alleged violator. If negotiations fail, they will contact ad agencies doing business with the site. In the case of the specific site mentioned here already, the ad agencies did indeed pull their ads, the site's primary revenue stream for covering operating costs. Attributor also notifies search engines and web hosts, who are obligated under the DMCA to take down material they know to be in violation. So in essence, these forums are forced to pay the licensing fee for what might otherwise be considered fair-use, or be shut down entirely.

Now we finally see a pattern emerging. First, the somewhat failed attempt by AP to shutter blogs and websites that they had zeroed in on for whatever reason. Now we see on one hand a venture to force settlements that will likely shut down many thousands of blogs and websites. And on the other hand, we see due-process completely circumvented by a company demanding what can be assumed to be exorbitant licensing fees, and also sure to shut down thousands, even hundreds of thousands of websites. But can all this really be seen as a measure to protect profits? Certainly not when you consider that these blogs and websites are what drive traffic to these news sources in the first place. So then, this really isn't about profits so much as consolidation. One doesn't need a hundred-thousand blogs directing traffic to a few news sites, if a huge chunk of the web is shut right down entirely, and traffic can be directed through a few select mainstream social networking sites. This is about control, not profits. Controlling what you see, how you see it, and even the discussions you have about it. Bloggers are being forced to report the news under the terms dictated by licensing agreements, and whatever fine print that might entail aside from kicking up a fee as if news reporting were some mafia cartel. That is not free speech. This is about controlling our collective memory by editing and pulling articles and by preventing accessibility to archived copies of original stories floating around on the web. And that folks, is the real heart of the matter. Digital book burning. Remove our collective memory, mold the present, and dictate the future.

Whoa now. Maybe that's a bit of a jump there. A few select very powerful media monopolies shutting down the internet piece by piece? Sounds like a bit of a stretch into conspiracy-theory land there, no? Surely the government would have something to say about this, would step in to defend liberty and the Constitution? We have been like Gunny Hartman in the movie Full Metal Jacket here, rummaging through the unlocked footlocker of internet dirty laundry to “just see if anything's missing here.” And suddenly we find the jelly donut. Or better yet, that something is indeed missing. Something big. Something along the lines of 73,000 blogs shut down in a single day, with the flip of a switch. Here we get a good look at the relationship between business and the government.


On July 9 of this year, Toronto-based Blogetry.com, an internet blogging platform and Wordpress host-provider with approximately 73,000 clients, went dark. Less than a week later, Ipbfree.com, a site used to create web message boards, suddenly went offline. The shutdowns came with no notice, no pending legal action, and no explanation at all for some considerable time. Since then, some information has come out about the shut-down of Blogetry.com, so we are going to focus on that, as the information surrounding the Ipbfree.com seems to be far more scattered and less reliable. It should be noted that no direct correlation between the two events has been confirmed at this point, but there were some interesting similarities between the two events. Both said they were shut down by outside influence and not coming back, that the user-generated content violated no copyright laws, and that those who ordered the closures were legally bound to non-disclosure.

Initial speculation was that the shutdowns were part of a sweep by movie or record companies cracking down on illegal downloads and hosting of related files, with the support of the Obama Administration who has vowed to support the entertainment companies. It was not an unreasonable conclusion to reach, as these shutdowns came right on the heels of a number of scattered seizures by the Department of Justice along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement of assets and websites related to alleged illegal file-sharing, as part of an ongoing initiative called “Operation: In Our Sights.” So there we are back to the beginning of this article, with the “menace of digital piracy” that we have all been hearing about for years. One sure-fire method for Federal agents to conduct a “witch-hunt” by going after alleged pirates.

Other speculation was that perhaps there was child pornography involved. Another fantastic boogie man to get the people all riled up while being the perfect cover for officials to go right ahead and do just about anything they please. Now please understand, MSMR in no way is trying to make light of child pornography, or excuse the activities of deranged persons involved in that garbage in any way, but having to articulate that point goes to show just what a raw nerve there is there in society for the powers that be to poke at when they want to distract us. Even when they yell pedophile, we still have the right, nay, the obligation to question authority. But in cases of illegal file-sharing, and even in cases of illegal pornography, due process must still be applied. No agency has the right to arbitraliy march in and shut down a whole chunk of the internet. There is a lot of legal wrangling that can sometimes go on for years to get a specific website shutdown, much less an entire server of 73,000 clients. The DMCA protects internet service providers from liability of user content, as pointed out in the case mentioned earlier with Righthaven. Not to mention the fact that these sorts of takedowns are usually very public affairs, with publicity being exploited as a deterrent as much as possible.
In these cases, the cloak of secrecy is disturbing to say the least. As it turns out, the owner of Blogetry.com was just as confused as his clients, and tried repeatedly to contact his web-host BurstNet, before their first enigmatic reply. In a message to owner Alexander Yusupov they stated, “We are limited as to the details we can provide to you, but note that this was a critical matter and the only available option to us was to immediately deactivate the server.” In another message they went on to say, “Please note that this was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server. “ They refused to give him any more information though, and would not even disclose the law-enforcement agency involved. Nor did they disclose the agency to CNET news, when they were granted an interview with BurstNet VP, Benjamin Arcus. The VP did disclose however, that the service was terminated at the direction of a law-enforcement agency that he could not reveal, and that it was not a copyright issue. So this wasn't about digital pirates after all?

The latest news coming out now is that the secret agency was actually the FBI. BurstNet has also reversed themselves and is now stating that it was their own choice to terminate the server, and that the FBI had nothing to do with the decision. So apparently BurstNet was not in fact restricted to this “only available option” as they had stated, but freely and willingly chose to terminate the server of their own accord, and have tried to justify the unprecedented action by leveling an accusation against Blogetry that there was a history of abuses, though the FBI has not accused Alexander Yusupov of any wrong-doing. What is being reported now is that the bureau had merely requested “voluntary emergency disclosure of information" regarding links to bomb-making instructions and an al-Qaeda hit-list of Americans which appeared on as many as one Blogetry hosted blog. Ah-ha! And there we have another boogie man folks. The ubiquitous yet imaginary al-Qaeda. (You will remember in a previous article here at MSMR where we pointed out that al-Qaeda is actually a government generated fabrication.) Mention al-Qaeda, bomb, or terrorist, and the FBI can instantly shut down 73,000 free-speech platforms without any due-process or oversight whatsoever because of what may have been one single alleged offender. In the post 9/11 era there is nothing “voluntary” about what is expected during an “emergency.” BurstNet has stated that they cannot restore any Blogetry data, even with the offending material removed. All of those blogs are just gone, completely wiped out. Of course we are supposed to believe BurstNet's revised position now, that they did not cave in under pressure by the FBI in the face of some alleged terrorist threat, and that they wiped out 73,000 blogs because of two alleged previous violations of their policies by Blogetry.. It doesn't seem that it really makes much difference anyhow at this point. Either BurstNet threw themselves under the bus, doing irreparable damage to their credibility and the future of their business to cover for the FBI, or they were in fact the ones who decided to pull the plug as they are stating now, making themselves the bane of free-speech advocates around the globe.

When all is said and done, it is now abundantly clear that these companies and government agencies working in concert, have begun dismantling large swaths of the internet this summer, with a three-pronged assault on liberty, through lawsuits, through cutting financing, and through direct action by blocking and terminating access to the internet. Make no mistake about it folks, this is the burning of books in the digital age. The only question is if you are going to accept the excuses ever-ready at the hand despots the world over, and then bow down to the march of the jack-boot, while gleefully chanting the rhetoric that it is all for our safety, all for our children, all for our own good as we spiral down into the pit of totalitarianism. This is it, our last chance, the end game. There is nothing else left for them to take, but these last bastions of free expression and liberty, where the news can be pondered and debated without censorship, where we can collect our memories and look back to them to see what our tomorrow has come to. Do not forget what you have read here today. Remember the burning of the books.

“Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people”

~Heinrich Heine

Here's to hoping that no one gets sued over this, but here are links to related material and articles:
http://www.corporations.org/media/
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010877-261.html?tag=mncol;txt
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=964013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10692501
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/19/blogetery-owners-shut-down-bombs-al-qaeda/
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/22/the-curious-disappearance-of-blogetry/

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Arbitrary Arrests and the Rule of Law

This article has been around for several years, with a few updated revisions now. A must read for any American really, to understand what the rule of law is, what it was intended to be, and how the concepts today affect you and your family.

This article is displayed here for discussion purposes only. Please visit the source of this article at :  http://www.matrixbookstore.biz/rule_of_law.htm

Rule of Law or Shotgun Rule?


Arbitrary arrests and the precariousness of the rule of law in America
(5th edition - Dec 2010) by A.O. Kime


Engineered laws and violation triggers

While the ‘rule of law’ sounds like a great concept, in theory enabling everyone to know exactly where they legally stand at all times, in theory freeing one from worry about unwarranted and arbitrary prosecution, this idealistic concept is now facing a profusion of ‘engineered laws’ which prevents it from becoming a reality.

Although an ad hoc term, ‘engineered laws’ is intended to describe those laws which have a lot of creative legalese designed to cover a gamut of situations... as if using a shotgun approach. While once laws were simple instruments, clear-cut and precise as to what would constitute a violation, singularly, therefore narrow in scope, that isn’t the case anymore. Gone are the days of the Law of the Twelve Tables, the legal code of ancient Rome codified under Justinian... simple, yet clear.

Gone too is the golden age of the 18th century when men believed a single sentence could describe a law completely as demonstrated in the Bill of Rights. Today's shotgun approach to law enforcement, with laws designed to hit you with something, anything, threatens to make the rule of law no more than an unfulfilled idealistic dream.

The rule of law becomes meaningless when laws are engineered to be flexible… laws which can cite dozens of circumstances whereby an arrest can be made… let's call them ‘violation triggers'. It's like arming lawmen with shotguns.

With so much leeway given law enforcement officers, whereby one cannot turn around without being technically in violation in some manner, creates a judgment-call situation and that flexibility is reminiscent of the arbitrary justice from the Dark Ages… or a police state. When discretion enters the picture as to whether or not an arrest should be made, or charges filed, then the 'rule of law' evaporates.

While justice isn't determined in societies without involving judgment, right or wrong, the lion's share should belong to the courts. However, in the last 40-50 years an unhealthy amount of this responsibility has found its way back into the hands of law enforcement.

Threatening and intimidating or shotgun rule?

Under Arizona law, simply yelling at somebody without taking any other ‘hostile’ action, can be legally construed as ‘threatening and intimidating’ and opens the door whereupon an arrest can be made. Although a ridiculous condition, the ‘can be’ part is the point, where the main problem lies. Under Arizona law there exists nearly a dozen instances whereby one could be charged for threatening and intimidating. With the legalese used to describe these instances, it can cover almost everything imaginable… giving excessive latitude to the police officer’s discretionary powers.

While it is unlikely charges would be filed against a person for simply yelling at someone, the point is… charges might, or might not, be filed. Arbitrary... no? As we all know, the option of whether or not an arrest should be made belongs to the police officer, except... where does ‘option’ fit in the rule of law? The term ‘rule of law’ certainly doesn't suggest 'flexibility'. If options and flexibility fit, then the concept (as a theory) isn’t sound.
In order for the rule of law to become an actuality, laws must (or should) be strictly enforced... of course, hopefully only occurring when laws are fair and reasonable. It's to know exactly where the lines in the sand are drawn in order to avoid arrest. That is exactly what the plebeian class of ancient Rome wanted... which the Law of the Twelve Tables provided. For criminal law, it would require simple laws without the verbiage which can broaden their scope. While generally the long-winded legalese in civil law is designed to clarify, clarification in criminal law, as it is now written, amounts to latitude.
The rule of law was envisioned to create a situation whereby 'law' can be enforced judiciously, but with the ability to put half the population behind bars... it's another animal. As things stand, it's going in that direction. In the 1970s, there were roughly 200,000 prisoners nationwide, today there are over 2,000,000. This 'latitude' is to blame.
It seems clear; legal instruments with discretionary latitude resemble 'guidelines', not laws. Laws should be specific and the less specific they are; the less they can be described as laws. They become guidelines and since guidelines are intentionally vague, they can cover a broad range of circumstances. In the end, it amounts to arbitrary justice. There is a great danger in having laws not narrowly specific. It’s a great danger to justice… perhaps the greatest danger.

The rule of law and democracy

When politicians go about espousing the rule of law to other countries as if it exists in America, it's only partially true. It only exists in business matters. Curiously, it is also insinuated that the rule of law can only exist within a democracy. It isn’t true. The dedication to the rule of law can occur in any type of government… even within a dictatorial regime. Any differences would be in a country’s dedication to the principle.
What, pray tell, is the difference between arrests without legal grounds (truly arbitrary, as in Mexico), and arrests with legal grounds when a violation can be found within almost any circumstance?

While Mexican police officers will often arrest anyone on a whim, whether they broke any law or not, being a completely arbitrary arrest, it really isn’t any different in America. From merely a personal dislike for someone, a police officer has within his arsenal all sorts of ammunition whereby an arrest can be legally made. While a tiny 'infraction' doesn't often led to an arrest, it can and does happen. One's respectful attitude towards the police officer often makes the difference, not necessarily how far one crossed the line. No matter how you slice it, it smacks of 'arbitrariness'.

But should respectfulness really be part of the process? Does it somehow separate guilt from innocence or deserving from undeserving? Seemingly in the opinion of most police officers, it does. Getting thrown in the slammer for merely sassing the police is clearly 'revenge'.

Dirty looks in a police state

In Arizona, if someone makes a pass at your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband or wife, don’t even give them a dirty look… it's also considered ‘threatening and intimidating’. You'd be subjecting yourself to possible arrest. Don’t keep visible your old psychedelic bong from Woodstock as a souvenir either, if it has any traces of marijuana, even from the 1960s, you could be possibly arrested for possessing drug paraphernalia. Or, if you admitted to a police office that you have smoked marijuana in the last 7 years, you could be arrested. While such arrests are only a possibility… that’s the point. The fact these laws are dumb is another matter.

If by chance an officer can find no reason to arrest you initially, then there are other ways the police can utilize the law. For example, if you are stopped because of a broken taillight and refuse the officer’s request to search your car, you will possibly be (probably be) arrested whereby an officer can search your car in order to ‘inventory’ your possessions. As a consequence of their 'inventory findings'… from a legal standpoint it’s the same as if found by a legal search (having a warrant). It’s just their little way of getting around having to obtain a search warrant… except that’s the rule of law of a police state.

The officer could also claim your grandmother in the back seat is a 'known prostitute' and you, therefore, a pimp. Even talking to a 'known prostitute' is considered a crime... certainly grounds to stop and question you further. But known to whom? Is it expected to be common knowledge?

Having once served on a county Grand Jury, it's all been seen. In America today, only the comatose can avoid the looming chance of a possible arrest.
So, in the event you are not arrested for yelling at someone… is it simply a matter of getting away with something? Should you be thankful? Or should ‘yelling’ be a condition at all? After all, to yell at someone is quite common and most often justifiable. It's also a healthy way to let off steam. Even grandmothers yell. At any rate, we shouldn’t have to rely on a policeman’s good judgment because when we do, then the rule of law does not exist.

A law simply stating "threaten not bodily harm" (or similar) is all that is needed. Anyone involved would know when it occurred. It can't, however, be pre-determined by legalese. If not supported by evidence or third party testimony, it is one of those cases "you'd have to have been there'' to fairly determine. The excessive conditions as set forth in today's laws merely offer 'excuses' for an arrest.

But the scope of 'threatening and intimidating' is like is more like a hand grenade. Even a departing-from-the-scene boisterous statement "we'll see about that!" can cause an arrest even if only threatening a lawsuit. It actually happened. So, was this considered a genuine threat... on a par with picking up a hammer? Or was it about intimidation because of the boisterousness... that one can't express anger? Or did he just look intimidating? But what is intimidating... size, facial expression, voice, stance, anger, beard? Whatever the officer wants... it's open season.

The rule of law a deterrent to the business of law enforcement

As arrests continue to skyrocket putting a serious strain on courts and prison systems, legislators should know excessive latitude is the cause. Eliminating it would not only serve justice, but it would greatly trim their budget deficits. With the vast number of prisons being constructed, one might easily suspect it is now America's biggest 'growth industry'.

While law enforcement does indeed play the role of 'protector', exactly as advertised, likewise the courts and prisons do exactly what is said of them, we rarely hear the rest of the story... what other things they do or don't do, what other things they are or aren't. The greatest thing going unsaid is that they are also 'businesses'... after all, their jobs depend entirely on 'customers' (crime). Since the extent of latitude afforded police officers would greatly affect the amount of business, thus every single job in the judicial system, their opinions on this matter would naturally be bias. It would be a great mistake for legislators not to take this into account.

Since earlier legislative sessions apparently weren't concerned about the ramifications from such 'liberalism', it would seem the whole matter needs to be re-examined... although to do so is to ignore history. Opinions on the rule of law can be found in a thousand places including Plato' Statesman and Laws, the Magna Carta and Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1776). However, there is little historical information on 'police discretion' since it really wasn't addressed in America until the 1950s, previously considered a taboo subject. Since the two cannot be disentangled, in some way it would be addressed.

While it's likely most opinions favor the need for police discretion, perhaps often seen as a 'necessary evil', there seems sufficient evidence the excessive latitude now afforded isn't working. Although there is no known study, an impossible task, the practices during the 1940s-1950s 'seems' to have worked best. A graph, if one existed, would likely show justice was at an all time high.

Such a graph would only tell us the effectiveness of police training up until the early 1960s however... about the time the structure of laws began to change. Having more flexibility (more 'violation triggers'), the current laws would have caused a change in police training which, it seems evident, caused the downturn in 'responsible discretion'. While for decades law enforcement was making admirable progress, it was legislative irresponsibility which caused the reversal. Behind the scenes, of course, were the lobbyists misguiding everyone.

Despite the arguments, there'd still be people who'd say it’s not possible to get away from the reality of the present situation... that it isn’t possible to create laws which are simple, without latitude, and still empower the police to enforce the intent. In those cases, they haven't yet considered police could exercise better judgment if left alone... out from under the umbrella of excessive legalese. After all, since the intent of any law is always simple, so too should be the approach. The likelihood the intent will be properly served is increased. As it is, it is lawyer legalese trying to make the calls based on presumptions. The variables in a field operation make detailed instructions impractical and thus a hindrance.

Presumptuous instructions not only pressures good cops into making poor decisions but they provide the bad ones with excuses (for an arrest). Since decency (good cops) would repel such an atmosphere - to quit or never join the force - it increases the percentage of bad cops.

In criminal law, simplicity is the only way to make the rule of law a reality. The wider the scope of a particular law (shotgun effect), makes further away the reality. Conversely, the narrower the scope and more defined the target, the closer the reality.

Police discretion

Police discretion has other faces however and for some interesting points see police discretion. Within that website is a Wesleyan College article which states (in part):

LaFave (1965) and Davis (1969) list the following reasons for non-arrest:

Police believe the legislature did not desire full enforcement. Instead, they believed the politicians were making symbolic statements, expressing an ideal, or appearing to be tough on crime. Some (community standard) statutes are full of ambiguity, and some old statutes need to be taken off the books. Other laws may carry penalties that the police think are too severe.

Note: Apparently the above was attributed to Wayne R. Lafave and a UC Davis report.
While technically (theoretically) discretionary powers and the rule of law can't coexist, as a practical matter the police should (must) have at least some discretionary latitude. However, the overly-broad and ambiguous laws of late have greatly increased this latitude and the likelihood of arbitrary justice. Today, armed with discretionary powers effectively unlimited in scope, too much depends on the officer and his disposition. The dangers of unlimited discretionary powers were recognized centuries ago and the very reason the concept 'rule of law' was conceived. It was first introduced in the Magna Carta (A.D. 1215)... but lately with the dangers being brushed aside, as if not real, is evidence that history has been forgotten.

The act of considering whether justice can be better served (or not) through broad police powers is to re-invent the wheel. History has already spoken. While there is always the chance arbitrary justice will be administered even under the most perfect system, legislatures continue to increase that possibility. If, however, most legislators believe a police state is the most efficient way to administer a society, and the current laws suggest they do believe it, then they should at least admit it. Of course, no legislator would admit being un-American.

If a country reaches a point in jurisprudence, as America has, whereby there was no conceivable need to declare 'marshal law' anymore, that fully-enforcing the existing laws would suffice, then the afforded latitudes are too much. The clamor for 'efficiency' in law enforcement, which really amounts to 'expediency', is of a logic that history has habitually repelled.

A.O. Kime

Aliens Probably Not Friendly, Says Genius Physicist Stephen Hawking

Hawking made headlines with this story back in April 2010, concluding that aliens most likely do exist, but that we should not be trying to contact them.

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece

The 68-year-old scientist said a visit by extraterrestrials to Earth might well be like Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas, "which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36769422/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/hawking-aliens-may-pose-risks-earth/#.TkXr_YLyBWU

Here is one film-makers idea of what the leading thinker of our time might be talking about...

Fridge Without Electric Plug

The world's cheapest and easiest refrigerator to make, it uses minimal resources and runs completely without electricity. It's called a zeer pot, or the pot-in-pot and was rebirthed by Mohammed Bah Abba, who put the laws of thermodynamics to work for mankind.

The zeer pot, is just two simple pots, one pot smaller than the other.
The smaller pot is put inside the bigger pot, and we fill the space between with sand. We wet the sand twice a day and cover the top with a wet towell to keep warm air from entering the interior.

Things You'll Need:
Two clay (terracotta) pots, one larger than the other
Sand
Water
Cloth to cover the pots
Clay, cork or other material to plug holes in the pots

Bird Study Shows Abuse Victims Become Abusers When Grown

There has been a long standing debate as to whether or not those who abuse children are inherently "evil" or if it is something that is learned. People are not birds of course, but there might be something we can learn, something that should at least be considered, by observing the habits of other creatures. An interesting read here...

Abused baby boobies grow up to abuse other chicks

By Matt Walker Editor, BBC Nature

Chicks abused by older birds are more likely to grow up to become abusers themselves, scientists have found.

Researchers studying a colony of Nazca boobies, a colonial seabird, found the birds perpetuate a "cycle of violence".

Juvenile birds that are maltreated by older, non-relatives grow up to become more violent towards other chicks.

It is the first evidence from a wild animal that, as in humans, "child abuse" can be socially transmitted down the generations.

Details of the discovery are published in the journal The Auk by Martina Müller, David Anderson and colleagues from Wake Forest University, North Carolina, US.

Article continues at link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14418174

Retirement for dictators not what it used to be

Where Dictators Go to Die

Hosni Mubarak, Bashar al-Assad and other strongmen have fewer options for cushy exile now that so many countries work with the International Criminal Court. Dan Ephron reports.

Click here to view article

Interesting little read there. But there is a conclusion that can be drawn from this too. No one really likes dictators of course. Even though the United States has supported and/or installed a fair share of the mm over the years. But what's a bit unnerving about this article, is that it really is a big sign that we are really on the verge of a global dictatorship here. If there is not place where a supposed "bad guy" can go peacefully retire, that means that the planet is being dominated by one force, somewhere behind the scenes. Fall out of favor with the power-that-be, and you're doomed. Some call it the New World Order of course. But while the term seems to illicit the woo-woo response and rolling of the eyes, it really does seem to be more and more obvious all the time.

Filiberti Homicide Press Conference

Astoundingly, the Poughkeepsie Journal, the region's premiere news source, failed to carry this press conference live as promised. They are now providing this link however, to the aftermarket version...



EDITS:

Was the Sheriff drunk?

It also appears that at some point the DCSO took over as the lead agency on this case. Why? The suspect also live in Hyde Park? More importantly, why were we not told of this change in command? DCDA specifically stated that HPPD "assisted." Last thing we were told was that they were the lead agency. WHY were we not TOLD of the change in command???

Arrest is credited to DCSO, and NOT HPPD. Strange.

The Chief "accepts" criticism for stating that the community was safe while this killer was stil at large, but will not divulge why he "stands" by that statement "at this time."

Sound to me like they were watching him and using your daughters for bait.

PoJo reports strangulation, yet no such fact was reported in the press conference.

Mystery Mammal Roadkill

"Looks like a dog... because it is," child witness.

NY Public School Mandates Uniform Policy

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY - The city's public school district has now passed a uniform policy for its public school students entering classes this fall, for grades K-12. While some say it will instill school spirit and put more focus on academics rather than fashion, many parents and students alike challenge the Constitutionality of such a mandate, while complaining about the lack of timely notice, and asking who is supposed to pay for such clothing.

For the high school, mandatory dress will consist of school colors, khakis, navy blue, black, white, and gray.

More details on the uniform policy can be found in this PDF file:

http://www.poughkeepsieschools.org/wp-content/uploads/School-Uniform-Regulation-Final.pdf

You can find more details about the uniform policy at this link:

http://www.poughkeepsieschools.org/announcements/uniform-details-available-school-meetings-thursday-at-6-p-m/

Media coverage with video can be seen at these two links:

City of Poughkeepsie school board approves uniform plan

Parents learning more details about Poughkeepsie school uniform policy

Blaze Destroys FDR's Warm Springs Home

Very sad. I can understand what the director there means when he says it feels like a member of the family has died.

Warm Springs first came to prominence in the 19th century as a spa town, due to its mineral springs which flow constantly at nearly 32°C (90°F). It is famous for the Little White House, where Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived while president, because of his paralytic illness. He died there, in his room in the Little White House, which is now a public museum. Roosevelt first came in the 1920s in hopes that the warm water would improve his paraplegia, at the time thought to be due to polio. He was a constant visitor for two decades and died there in 1945. The town is still home to the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation (Roosevelt's former polio hospital) which remains a world-renowned comprehensive rehabilitation center including a physical rehabilitation hospital and vocational rehabilitation unit. The springs are not available for public use as a bath/spa resort, but they are used by the Roosevelt Institute for therapeutic purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm_Springs,_Georgia

The blaze may have been caused by a lightning strike, as storms moved through the area at the time, but the cause is still under investigation.

Top Commander Claims Militants Who Shot Down SEAL Chopper Have Been Killed

General John Allen, the top US/NATO commander in the region made the claim during a briefing on the crash that killed 30 US service-members, including more than 20 elite Navy SEALs as well as another eight Afghan fighters allied with them. The alleged downing of the Chinook helicopter is the single most deadly attack of the war.

Allen defended the decision to send in the elite team, saying it was deemed necessary at the time to go after Taliban “elements that were escaping” from an ongoing operation to target an important Taliban leader.

“We committed a force to contain that element from getting out. And, of course, in the process of that, the aircraft was struck by an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] and crashed,” Allen told Pentagon reporters via video-conference from Kabul.

Allen said a subsequent air strike around midnight on Aug. 8 killed other Taliban insurgents believed to be behind the attack — an assertion the Taliban immediately challenged.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/08/10/air-strike-kills-taliban-leader-responsible-for-fatal-helicopter-crash-nato/

I'll bet they did. This whole saga sounds like a bunch of bullshit right from the start. A supposed raid killing that world's number one terrorist, allegedly. Then members of the same team who may or may not have come back alive from that raid, are killed in the deadliest attack of the war. Maybe the general public is buying all this crap, but some of us are not.

Let's forget about conspiracy theories for a moment here now too. Let's just apply a little common sense. In one raid, SEALs swoop in in a super-secret state-of-the-art stealth helicopter. In the next, members of the very same unit mind you, are lumbering in using an outdated, unstable platform known to have a history of wrecks and problems. Even if they used such a unit, would they really pack that many of the word's premiere warriors all into this one “basket” risking the very thing that is alleged to have happened? Is that the best we have, really?

Speaking of best of the best here too. Since when do Navy SEAL's play Monday-morning quarterback for the Army Rangers? These guys, both SEALs and Rangers are elite operators. They are not grunts who you call on for backup when your surgical mission goes FUBAR. That is simply not how these elements are utilized, nor should they be.

Which is of course, why NATO is now alleging that these insurgents were killed in an airstrike. Because that is what would have actually been done in the first place. No SEAL's would have been called in. If they wanted to “go after elements that were escaping,” the could have called in air-support, like Apache's, or this bad motherfucker...







The execution of SEAL Team Six

Arrest Made in Case of Slain Teen (BREAKING)

HYDE PARK - This afternoon the Dutchess County Sheriff's office made a brief announcement that an arrest has been made in the homicide investigation of Kathryn "Katie" Filiberti. The teen gymnast was found dead in a town park in March, and rumors have swirled as to who the culprit might be, as officials stayed mum about the case all along. More details are expected at a 9 a.m. news conference Thursday.

Arrested is Stephen Shand, 22, a substitute newspaper delivery-person for the Poughkeepsie Journal. A common element for newspaper carriers is to be about out and about in the very early morning hours, around the time that Katie left the party she was attending, on foot. Despite this alleged maniac being on the loose and lurking about the townspeople's houses in the dark hours of the early morning, the local police-chief had assured the community that they were safe and that there was no danger.

Join the commentary and stay tuned for updates.

EDITS and UPDATES to appear below:

YNN Report (includes video)

Stephen God-Afi Shand

You can search this database for some details on the suspect, including his mugshot, which is not available for copy.

https://www.vinelink.com/vinelink/siteInfoAction.do?siteId=33004


Filiberti slay suspect delivered Journal for independent contractor

LBJ behind plot to kill JFK? Down the Rabbit Hole...

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 is the subject of what is probably the single most talked about conspiracy-theory in American history. The official story still stands that he was murdered by lone-gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, but today even folks who will roll their eyes at most discussion of conspiracy-theory topics would probably admit that even they do not buy that story entirely. Although there are actually many varying and interlacing theories surrounding the death of the popular American President, one theory seems to have gained some real traction in the past decade or so, culminating now with this bombshell revelation...

Explosive Jackie O tapes 'reveal how she believed Lyndon B Johnson killed JFK and had affair with movie star'

• She will allegedly reveal affair with actor William Holden
• Believed Vice-President Johnson was behind husband's assassination

Jackie Onassis believed that Lyndon B Johnson and a cabal of Texas tycoons were involved in the assassination of her husband John F Kennedy, ‘explosive’ recordings are set to reveal.

The secret tapes will show that the former first lady felt that her husband’s successor was at the heart of the plot to murder him.

She became convinced that the then vice president, along with businessmen in the South, had orchestrated the Dallas shooting, with gunman Lee Harvey Oswald – long claimed to have been a lone assassin – merely part of a much larger conspiracy.

Texas-born Mr Johnson, who served as the state’s governor and senator, completed Mr Kennedy’s term and went on to be elected president in his own right.

The tapes were recorded with leading historian Arthur Schlesinger Jnr within months of the assassination on November 22, 1963, and had been sealed in a vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston.

Get the full article at this link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023418/Jackie-O-tapes-reveal-JFKs-affairs-believed-death.html

This is a general description of the theory that JFK's vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination, taken from a Wikipedia article on the subject:

In 2003, researcher Barr McClellan published the book, Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K..^[100] McClellan claims that Lyndon Johnson, motivated by the fear of being dropped from the Kennedy ticket in 1964 and the need to cover up various scandals, masterminded Kennedy's assassination with the help of his friend attorney Edwardo Clark. The book suggests that a smudged partial fingerprint from the sniper's nest likely belonged to Johnson's associate Malcolm "Mac" Wallace, and that Mac Wallace was therefore the assassin. The book further claims that the killing of Kennedy was paid for by oil magnates including Clint Murchison and H. L. Hunt. McClellan's book subsequently became the subject of an episode of Nigel Turner's ongoing documentary television series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. The episode, entitled "The Guilty Men", drew widespread condemnation from both the Johnson family and President Johnson's former aides following its airing on The History Channel, which subsequently agreed not to air the episode in the future.^[101]

Madeleine D. Brown, who was an alleged mistress of Johnson, has also implicated him in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. In 1997, Brown alleged that Johnson, along with H. L. Hunt, had begun planning Kennedy's demise as early as 1960. Brown claimed that by its fruition in 1963 the conspiracy involved dozens of persons including the leadership of the FBI and the Mafia as well as well-known politicians and journalists.^[102] In the documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Brown and a former employee of Clint Murchison both placed J. Edgar Hoover and Johnson at a dinner at Murchison's mansion shortly before the assassination. Brown claimed in the documentary that Johnson told her after the party that the Kennedys "will never embarrass me again".^{[citation needed]} Similar suspicions are voiced by a number of LBJ associates, including Brown, in their own words in the 2006 documentary Evidence of Revision.^{[citation needed]}

Johnson was also accused of complicity in the assassination by former CIA agent and Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt.^[103]

Another, more in-depth but incomplete article can be found at this link:

http://www.reformation.org/president-lyndon-johnson.html

Below here are a few videos with descriptions related to the theory that LBJ was behind the assassination:

The night before the Kennedy assassination, Lyndon Baines Johnson met with Dallas tycoons, FBI moguls and organized crime kingpins - emerging from the conference to tell his mistress Madeleine Duncan Brown that "those SOB's" would never embarrass him again. It's a jaw-dropping deposition and it's the biggest JFK smoking gun there is - despite the fact that it has received little media attention.

You can see her full 82-minute interview here at this link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1929769365635576415

E. Howard Hunt, infamous "Watergate Plumber," provides his "deathbed confession" of his participation in the CIA and "Group 40" conspiracy, and names names!

More video of Mr. Hunt are also available there at YouTube.

Referring to Nixon`s escalation of the bombing campaign in the Vietnam War. Relates anecdote of George E Christian LBJ`s Press Secretary remark about LBJ`s involvement in the JFK assassination. Taken from the famous David Frost interview.

These revelations are certainly stunning, and chilling enough in their own right, but I don't think most of what is talked about above really goes far enough to explain the true depth of the conspiracy or the motivations behind it. There have always been men in government, covetous of power and fame, yet we are not plagued with assassinations of our political leaders here in the U.S. Certainly not so literally and brazenly anyhow. Nonetheless, what we have seen in most of the material above might lead us to conclude that an American President was murdered simply because he had a disgruntled troll for a vice-President.

This is really not much more than a dressed up "lone gunman" theory again though. Even though others did assist and conspire in the operation, it was all ultimately to serve the appetite of one power-hungry politician. There is too though, attached to the LBJ-theory, the possibility that he acted in cahoots with a cabal of Texas oil men who were pissed off that JFK planned to raise their taxes.

That would certainly make for a thicker plot, a more mutually beneficial conspiracy of dark forces. Yet my gut tells me this still really doesn't go far enough. Now granted, money can be a motivating factor for men of business, but again we don't see Presidents being assassinated regularly because of tax policy. Even if not just for the benefit of one usurper, it still seems unlikely that a small group of businessmen would conspire to launch a coup d'etat of the the United States government as a tax-evasion plot. Such an act has much more far-reaching implications than saving on your tax bill for a few years until another President gets into office.

This is not to say that they too, like Johnson were not also perhaps involved to some extent and acting in their own interests, but what could actually be so big and so powerful to be the driving force behind a plot to kill a sitting American President? Maybe JFK himself can give us some insight. Several versions of this video are available on YouTube, but this is a shorter version to cut right to the chase here...

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them." ~Patrick Henry

These secret societies that Kennedy spoke of are far more powerful, with plots far more sinister than tax evasion. These are the people who manage, or mismanage the destiny of nations from behind the scenes. These are the men who have the means and the will to assassinate an American President if he acts contrary to their designs.

"No matter who they vote for, they always vote for us." ~Illuminati Proverb

So we should then ask ourselves, okay, what secret society are we talking about here then? The CIA or an element within the CIA? Perhaps. The CIA certainly has blood on their hands from many plots and hold many secrets, and there are many who believe that elements within the Agency saw JFK as an actual threat to America through his hesitancy to act decisively against Castro. There was certainly a divergence of opinion between the Administration and the Agency on how to handle Cuba, but CIA are not quite a secret society either. They are a government agency, an instrument of policy, not the writers of it. Some see them as a government unto themselves, but that could be debated. It is more likely that if the CIA were involved in the assassination, as many believe, then it was probably a sort of "rogue" element within the agency, that may have fed on a general feeling of dissent in the agency toward a President who was weak on Communism. But could this rogue element have been operating all along on behalf of a more genuine secret society to whom they owed their true allegiance? Certainly possible even if we don't see it as probable at first glance.

So again, we are back to asking ourselves, what secret society? A remnant faction of Nazis left over from WWII perhaps? The popular dumbed-down version of history accepted by many folks today is the vastly oversimplified notion that the Nazis were vanquished and ceased to exist as an entity with the fall of Berlin. Of course, over the years there have been some Nazi war criminals hunted down in order to face justice for their atrocities against humanity during the war, but that is a far cry from any true enduring society and network of Nazi ideology. Scratch the surface a little deeper though, and you will learn that the only Nazis who were hunted down, were ones of little value or who failed to cultivate a relationship with either the Americans or the Soviets. So called "former" Nazis, even if still fascists in heart and mind, were quickly assimilated as valuable assets to American technological programs such as rocketry in the quest to reach outer-space, as well as intelligence operations to fight the Communists, ostensibly.

The most extreme theory traces the assassination to a group in the Defense Department that emerged around Werner von Braun and the Nazi rocket scientists the US military imported into the country illegally and against specific orders, and installed at Huntsville, Alabama at the end of WWII-the famous Operation Paperclip.

During the same period, the US government also absorbed a network of Nazi spies headed by Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen. "The Gehlen Org" (as it came to be called) worked within the US government to promote Nazi aims and to protect and resettle Nazis from Europe. In fact, the CIA was built around the Gehlen Org.

This theory postulates an incredible degree of fascist corruption within the US intelligence services. But one person who lends it plausibility is Clay Shaw, the New Orleans businessman District Attorney Jim Garrison tried for conspiracy in 1968 (and failed to convict). An exit poll of the Shaw jury indicated that Garrison lost his case because he was unable to prove that Shaw was connected to the CIA.

But the year Shaw died ( 1974), a book by a highly placed CIA defector, Victor Marchetti, revealed that the CIA helped Shaw in his legal struggle with Garrison. This may explain why the governors of three states refused to honor Garrison's subpoenas.

Shaw's New Orleans-based International Trade Mart was connected to the shadowy European firm, Permindex, which was kicked out of France in 1962 on suspicion of involvement in the attempted assassination of French president Charles de Gaulle. Permindex's board of directors included von Braun and many well-known European fascists. Some experts say Permindex was a front for the postwar international Nazi underground known as the Odessa.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5422594626052366128

Our sensibilities may reject the notion that the Nazis were still operating as a coherent entity and actually had anything at all to do with the JFK assassination, yet we do see their presence in our nation's most sensitive, most intimate operations. There is no reason to think that people bent on world domination and the destruction of America at one time, might not continue such an agenda with a plot to kill an American President. In the decades since then, an observant and objective student of American history might also discern the trend toward fascism in this country as well. Particularly in the last decade showing naked imperialistic aggression abroad, while locking down the "homeland" in a totalitarian police-state, making a mockery of the Constitution, the document which defines the true spirit of America.Without true respect for the principles of that document, we are the United States of America in name only.

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined... The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” ~Patrick Henry

Today we also see what may be the death-throes of a terminally flawed economic system. We are certainly suffering a great deal under it's yolk, more and more each year. There is much that Americans should, but do not know about the Federal Reserve System and our debt-based economy. In truth, it is a vampiric method by which to extract the wealth of the nation and to consolidate it within the hands of a few select elite families such as the Rothschilds, while enslaving the former owners of any natural wealth to shackles of perpetual debt. This is a matter of simple arithmetic actually, and the implementation of the method is a matter of documented history. This is not conspiracy-theory, this is fact, and it makes no difference if the government is controlled by Republicans or Democrats. The Federal Reserve is a private company whom we as a nation borrow our very own money from, at interest, since 1913. It's a plan that would piss off Jesus Christ himself, and did in fact, causing him to have his only documented violent outburst when he upset the tables of the money-changers at the Temple for the sin of usury.

How does this tie in with the assassination of JFK you ask? Actually, this is the basis of yet another established conspiracy theory behind why he was killed.  Five months before his fateful ride in Dallas, the President issued Executive Order 11110.

"...to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption..."

This was a direct assault on the monopoly of the private Federal Reserve Bank over the issuance of United States currency and their ability to maintain control over the nation through control of our debt. JFK planned to issue zero-interest currency of value, backed in a tangible commodity, rather than based on a system of debt and interest. The silver certificates virtually ensured that there would be no national debt and the bank would be cut out of enormous financial profits. The millions that the Texas oilmen stood to lose was a mere pittance compared to what the international banking cartel stood to lose not only monetarily, but also in form of raw political and military power as well. Through what is essentially blackmail, the banking cartel uses control of our debt in order to influence politics and to even use our military to do their bidding, whether it be to enforce their position in other countries where they already control central banks, or simply to expand their monetary empire with brute force. This was done in Iraq, and is being done now in Libya.

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws." ~Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Is there any proof that the Federal Reserve Bank had anything to do with the assassination? Of course not, and there probably never will be. Especially now that the public is being sold on the idea that it was LBJ and pretty much LBJ alone who plotted to kill JFK. He may be the man most directly responsible for putting the plot in motion, but there is little doubt that he, like every President since Kennedy, was beholden to the hidden elites. Take note too of LBJ's timely demise, as pointed out in one of the articles linked above. A man who knew too much. Also note too, that no President since the assassination has dared to move in any way to undermine the Fed and indeed today seem more bent than ever on driving our economy right into the ground.While the Johnson may have had the most to gain from Kennedy's death, it was certainly the Federal Reserve Bank stood to lose the most if that administration were not stopped dead in it's tracks.

“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men´s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” ~Woodrow Wilson

While we still may not have all the pieces to the puzzle, a clear picture begins now to emerge. We have an international banking cartel dominated by the Rothschild family, a dynasty begun in Germany of the mid-1700's. Within a few decades the Illuminati secret society, who some believe is the the most secretive and powerful secret society in the world, was also founded in Germany. Others maintain that the Illuminati was already extinguished by the time another now famous, yet highly secretive and mysterious secret society was founded at Yale University in the 1830's, amid a fervor of anti-Masonic/secret-society sentiment in the United States.

The The Order of Scull and Bones was established when one co-founder returned from studying in Germany. It was reputed to be a chapter of a corps in a German University when first established. This is supported by information gleaned after a break-in to the sinister "tomb," the society's meeting hall, in 1876. Today, the Skull and Bones counts many of the most powerful leaders in politics, finance, media and industry as having been initiated into their order. Again we see a Germanic influence in the affairs of the power-elite, but like we speculated about the Nazis above, Skull and Bones is also said to have a powerful influence over the U.S. intelligence community, particularly CIA. It is also interesting to note that Boneseman McGeorge Bundy served as national security adviser to both JFK and LBJ. According to the Wikipedia entry linked there, "He is known primarily for his role in escalating the involvement of the United States in Vietnam during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations." Which is of course was the big money, military-industrialist complex agenda that another former President tried to warn us about.



Perhaps it is coincidence too that elite secret society shares the same skull and bones symbology as that of pirate ships in days of old who flew the Jolly Roger, yet it would appear that in some ways they fancy themselves as pirates of sorts through their practice of  "crooking," or looting from graves the skulls of people such as Geronimo, Pancho Villa, and Martin Van Buren. Could they also be point-men in the plundering of the nation's wealth by the supremely powerful banking cartel? Another famous representation of the skull and bones symbology was that of Death's Head, having a tradition going back again to Prussia of the 1700's, then on up to become the prominent symbol of the dreaded Nazi SS, particularly the SS-Totenkopfverbände who were responsible for administrating the concentration camps of the Third Reich and "The Final Solution."

There is yet another curious piece to this puzzle, again one of Germanic influence. This time, bringing us back again to the Nazis. While Obama is incessantly questioned about where he was born, it appears that there was another President who may not have been born in the United States, but instead was born in Germany and then subsequently adopted into a prestigious American family just before the outbreak of WWII. A family convicted of wrongdoing under the Trading With the Enemy Act during the war. There is a photo allegedly of this President as a boy, taken in the company of Martin Bormann, Josef Mengele and Otto Skorzeny who's names are now ubiquitous with Germany's Nazi regime. Also in the picture, Reinhard Gehlen who we mentioned above for his ties to post-war intelligence agency establishment. The claim that an American President was actually what amounts to a Nazi sleeper agent, born in Germany with a different surname, comes from the deathbed confessions of Otto Skorzeny and is supported by the photograph. We will show you that photo in a moment, but first, let's tie it all up together here now in one nice, neat, little package.

This same alleged German who became President of the United States also went to college at Yale, is a Bonesman, worked for the CIA becoming director, and although he can't seem to remember where he was on the day JFK was assassinated, we have this picture to remind him...

This is a snippet of a document that shows Bush was in the employ of the CIA at the time of the assassination. He denies this, claiming that he only ever worked for the CIA when appointed director:

The full memo is included in an article on the subject found at this link:

http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/FbiMemoPhotoLinkBushJfk.htm

This memo proves that Bush was in Texas the day Kennedy was killed:

That memo can be found included in another article on the matter at this link:

http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/bush.htm

And, as promised, here is the picture of what is believed to be George H.W. Bush as a boy, the year before Hitler invaded Poland launching WWII, and when the future American President was still known as George H. Scherff:

Deathbed confessions, photos support claims that George H. Scherf(f), Jr., was the 41st U.S. president

The Revelations of Otto Skorzeny, Part 1

The Revelations of Otto Skorzeny, Part 2

We also know that the Bush family, whether they were actually his blood kin or not, were involved with the the financial architects of the Nazi Party, and that they continued to do business with them even after Pearl Harbor.

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Documents in National Archives Prove George W. Bush's Grandfather Traded with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor

Considering that the family played a key role in the financial architecture of one country, Nazi Germany, it is no stretch of the imagination to guess that they may also play a key role in the financial architecture of this country, which we have already shown to be little more than a plundering of the nation's wealth by a few powerful elite.

While we are at it, we might as well go ahead and point out too, that there are some serious coincidences that many believe show Bush was behind the attempted assassination of yet another President, this time while he himself was vice-President. Was he a conspirator in the JFK assassination, who then went on to try to do what LBJ had done, perhaps at the behest of the very same secret overlords? Was the attempt on his life enough to stop Reagan from making a challenge to the power of those hidden elites in some way?

"Bush Son Had Dinner Plans With Hinckley Brother Before Shooting" -Associated Press (March 31, 1981)

We know that Bush went on to become President anyway, followed then by Bush family friend Bill Clinton, and then later by Bush's son George W., who ushered in a new era of Nazi-esqe policy. Starting with the 9/11 attacks that have drawn comparisons to Hitler's staged Reichstag fire, to the trampling of liberty and freedom at home while practicing military imperialism abroad, to the use of terms like "homeland" and propagandized patriotism, the rapid and unprecedented expansion of domestic spying and national police agencies. Many of these programs continue to be expanded now too under President Obama, while the people are placated by rhetoric.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

Has America become fascist? The 14 defining characteristics of fascism

Is this the true legacy of the JFK assassination? Was this the actual agenda envisioned by the highest-level conspirators when they set a selfish and power-hungry vice-President on his task? Was the assassination indeed a coup d'etat which opened the door for all this to happen, letting in the wolves of fascism. the looting of our nation's wealth? Was all of this what Kennedy intended to prevent, with his undermining of the Fed? Was this what he warned about in his enigmatic speech about secret societies? And if they got away with this, for all this time, what chance do we have now of ever changing the consequences of that fateful day in Dealy Plaza?

"Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future." ~Adolf Hitler