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Library of Professor Richard A. Macksey in Baltimore

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Saturday, March 24, 2012

UFOs - Strange Close Encounter in 1954 French UFO Wave

Thursday, March 22, 2012


Strange Close Encounter in 1954 French UFO Wave

 

  ΠΟΛΥ ΣΗΜΑΝΤΙΚΗ ΠΕΡΙΠΤΩΣΙΣ 

oct1954.jpg

On October 15, 1954 at about 18:50 am, two Toulon neighbors, said they saw the landing of an artifact in the form of disk in a location near Hyeres (France).


The witnesses, the owner of a coffee shop and mechanic Jean Rapellini and Marcel Ottoviani said they were traveling by motorcycle on a road between Toulon and Hyeres when they saw a flying saucer "fall" from heaven.

The artifact disgorged a man of medium height, wearing a "bright gray suit."

ufo1954.jpg

"Are you a Martian?" asked a nervous Rapellini.

“No, we are French, but where am I?" said the strange man.

“Between Toulon and Hyeres,” Rapellini replied.

The stranger went up again into the strange disk which took off vertically.

About 50 meters in the air, the object began to turn, issued an orange steam and disappeared into the distance, spinning at high speed toward Hyeres.

The two witnesses went to the police immediately. The testimony of both friends matched perfectly.

Some officials of the Aeronautical Information Services, very interested in the incident, rushed to the scene of the alleged landing and found a "sort of" scorched circular track on the ground with clear ash; it occupied a large tract of land.

A Brigadier General of Air Intelligence went to Toulon to interview the two witnesses, who drew a detailed sketch of the mysterious ship.

ufo22.jpg

The press speculated that the great interest of the authorities in the case of Ottoviani and Rapellini was caused by the possibility, perhaps, of a secret prototype (an airplane with vertical liftoff) that were being tested in the area.

But some reporters at the scene indicated that the landing zone was very difficult to reach and that trees impeded any freedom of movement for the hypothetical landing and takeoff of an experimental aircraft.

Some journalists, verified that the alleged landing area was visited by government agents from Paris.

The observatory of Mont Ventoux reported that the day after this encounter, about 7:30 in the morning, they saw an unknown artifact floating in the ski, heading towards Orange

The object was oval shaped with two overlapping cones joined by a kind of antenna.

UFOs - Encounter in Arroyos, Argentina

Friday, March 23, 2012

Encounter in Arroyos, Argentina

On October 31, 2007, Argentina was the scene of one of the most spectacular UFO events in recent years.

In the city of Tres Arroyos two policemen had a bizarre experience.

Everything occurred that Wednesday at about 1:30 a.m.

police23.jpg

Two officers patrolling the Oriente, near rural Irene, were astonished to see a strange unidentified flying object enhanced by a powerful white light.

One of the officers reported, using his cell phone, that he was seeing a small light, like a truck approaching but within moments the light got bigger.

At about ten meters he saw a moving figure and his first thought was that it was a dog. But it was a silhouette of a little man of about 80 centimeters in height, with a large head, prominent gray eyes and a greenish color.

Then trying to dial his partner’s phone he found that when he pressed buttons 1 and 5, his hand remained static.

He could see that from the vehicle or ship emerged three beings, two identical to the first and fourth that was a little more robust

men23.jpg

The policemen froze at the sight of the little men.

Bracamonte has no doubts about what he witnessed in the company of Lieutenant Osvaldo Orellana,

"My partner was seeing what I was seeing as I shouted 'what is happening?' Then the four little men boarded the ship and it left swiftly, making a noise like thunder, moving northward, scattering a white light which slowly died out, leaving a green halo and a strong smell of sulfur or gunpowder."

(Many UFO encounters report sulfur or gunpowder after a witnessed UFO takes-off.)

After the encounter, one of the officers suffered some consequences:

"When I went to the van, Officer Bracamonte was silent, his hand immobilized for an unknown reason. For two hours this was an issue that made him cry "

During the same time-period, the guard post manager at Aparicio, Second Lieutenant Santiago Walter, told reporters, "We were going from Nicolas Descalzi toward Aparicio on a routine procedure when we saw a great white light that seemed to engulf us, Then we stopped the truck and tried to use the phone but had no signal. My partner Carabajal asked me to look up and I saw a bright light that seemed to be immobilized above on the truck but disappeared in a flash. "

(The close encounter of Tres Arroyos had also led to "electromagnetic interference" that prevented phone use.)

Several neighbors in Oriente, said they witnessed, at the time, strange gleams in the direction of Irene and Aparicio, and heard some mysterious explosions.

"We were asleep when a noise that seemed a tire blowing out which startled us, shakng the window panes for a while. While looking through the window, there was nothing unusual" said a woman who, at about 2:00 a.m., was frightened by the noise.

What Is Causing The Strange Noises In The Sky That Are Being Heard All Over The World?

What Is Causing The Strange Noises In The Sky That Are Being Heard All Over The World?

End of the American Dream – March 22, 2012

During the second half of 2011, a lot of people all over the planet started reporting hearing really strange noises coming from the sky.  In some instances the noises produced a loud rumbling such as a train, a thunderstorm or the slamming of a heavy door would make.  In other instances, the noises sounded more like “groaning”.  In yet other instances the noises sounded almost as if a trumpet was playing.  Dozens of videos went up on YouTube purporting to document this phenomenon, but the truth is that you can fake almost anything on a YouTube video and many dismissed these strange “strange sounds” as an Internet hoax.  However, now entire towns in the northern part of the United States are hearing strange noises in the sky and the mainstream media is reporting on it.  In fact, one U.S. town is planning to spend thousands of dollars to hire an engineering firm to investigate where these strange sounds are coming from.  At this point a lot of theories about these strange noises are being floated, but so far scientists have not been able to give us a definitive explanation for the source of these strange noises.  So exactly what in the world is going on?
This phenomenon made national news again this week because of what has been going on in Clintonville, Wisconsin.  Hundreds of residents of Clintonville reported hearing incredibly loud noises coming from the sky for several nights in a row.  Even CBS News is reporting on what is happening in Clintonville….
Since Sunday, the residents have been disturbed by “booming” noises loud enough to wake them from their sleep.
Last night, hundreds of people attended a public meeting to get to the bottom of booms. But they aren’t any closer to the truth.
One resident told CBS News, “The last few days we’ve been having (a) booming shaking noise.”
Another resident said, “(For) a lot of people the house is rattling, you can feel the ground rattling, and it’s booming all the time. It’s kind of like, what’s going on? You don’t know what’s happening.”
So what is causing these noises that are so loud that even the ground is shaking?
According to Fox News, the town has investigated every possible explanation that they can think of for these strange noises….
City officials say they have investigated every possible human cause. They checked water, sewer and gas lines, contacted the military about any exercises in the area, reviewed permits for mining explosives and inspected a dam next to City Hall. They even tested methane levels at the landfill in case the gas was spontaneously exploding.
So far no explanation has been found.  So Clintonville has decided to spend $7,000 to hire an engineering firm to investigate the cause of these strange noises.
According to geologists, the town does not sit on any fault lines and the ground beneath the town is very solid.  Some geologists are claiming that “micro-quakes” could have been responsible, but others find this explanation to be very unsatisfying.
For many town residents, solving the mystery is not as important as getting these strange noises to stop so that they can get some sleep.
The following comes from the recent Fox News article mentioned above….
“My husband thought it was cool, but I don’t think so. This is not a joke,” said Jolene Van Beek, who awoke early Sunday to a loud boom that shook her house. “I don’t know what it is, but I just want it to stop.”
But Clintonville is not the only town in Wisconsin where strange sounds are being reported.
Mysterious noises are also being reported in a town called Montello which is 80 miles away from Clintonville.
Posted below is a local news report that discusses the strange noises that are being reported in Clintonville and Montello….


Clintonville Town Hall Meeting on the Strange Noises, Booms and Shaking - March 21, 2012 


*Update* Clintonville, Wisconsin: More Booms and Rumbling + Eyewitness - March 21st 2012 


Third Night of Mysterious Booms in Clintonville 


These strange sounds have made the mainstream news up in Canada as well.
Recently, strange noises caused such a violent shaking that they actually brought down a barn on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Geologists say that no earthquake occurred at the time that the barn collapsed.
So what caused the barn to collapse?
That is a very good question.
And this is not just a North American phenomenon.
If you go on to YouTube and you do a search for “strange sounds” or “strange noises” you will find dozens of videos from all over the world.  Yes, there are definitely a few videos that appear to be hoaxes, but is that true with all of them?
The evidence for this phenomenon is mounting and it is getting really hard to deny that there really are large numbers people all over the globe that swear that they are hearing really strange sounds coming from the sky.
So exactly what in the world is going on?
Well, there are a lot of theories floating around on the Internet.  The following are some of the most prominent theories about what is causing these strange noises: electromagnetic noise, earthquakes, “fracking”, rock bursts, venting of high-pressure gas that has been trapped underground, meteor showers, HAARP or directed energy weapons, and some believe that all of this is just a giant publicity stunt.
Perhaps the biggest reason why these strange noises have so many people alarmed is because humans generally have a great fear of the unknown.
If the cause of these strange noises is revealed, the hysteria will die down.
But if these strange noises continue (or even become more intense) and there continues to be no scientific explanation for them, then the hysteria may turn into full-blown panic.
What is clear is that our planet is becoming increasingly unstable.  As I have documented previously, earthquakes are becoming more frequent and more powerful.  The “Ring of Fire” is becoming a lot more active and we have been seeing a disturbing amount of volcanic activity lately.
So could earth changes have anything to do with these strange noises?
We just don’t know at this point.
Most of the time when I write an article I like to have some answers.  But I do not know what is causing these strange sounds.
So what do you think about these strange noises?
Do you believe that you know why they are happening?
Have you heard strange sounds coming from the sky where you live?

Surveillance, Spying and Security: Media Double Standards

Surveillance, Spying and Security: Media Double Standards

Special Report: Chinese firm helps Iran spy on citizens

Steve Stecklow – Reuters March 22, 2012

A Chinese telecommunications equipment company has sold Iran‘s largest telecom firm a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile and internet communications, interviews and contract documents show.
The system was part of a 98.6 million euro ($130.6 million) contract for networking equipment supplied by Shenzhen, China-based ZTE Corp to the Telecommunication Co of Iran (TCI), according to the documents. Government-controlled TCI has a near monopoly on Iran’s landline telephone services and much of Iran’s internet traffic is required to flow through its network.
The ZTE-TCI deal, signed in December 2010, illustrates how despite tightening global sanctions, Iran still manages to obtain sophisticated technology, including systems that can be used to crack down on dissidents.
Human rights groups say they have documented numerous cases in which the Iranian government tracked down and arrested critics by monitoring their telephone calls or internet activities. Iran this month set up a Supreme Council of Cyberspace, headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said it would protect "against internet evils," according to Iranian state television.
Mahmoud Tadjallimehr, a former telecommunications project manager in Iran who has worked for major European and Chinese equipment makers, said the ZTE system supplied to TCI was "country-wide" and was "far more capable of monitoring citizens than I have ever seen in other equipment" sold by other companies to Iran. He said its capabilities included being able "to locate users, intercept their voice, text messaging ... emails, chat conversations or web access."
The ZTE-TCI documents also disclose a backdoor way Iran apparently obtains U.S. technology despite a longtime American ban on non-humanitarian sales to Iran - by purchasing them through a Chinese company.
ZTE's 907-page "Packing List," dated July 24, 2011, includes hardware and software products from some of America's best-known tech companies, including Microsoft Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Oracle Corp, Cisco Systems Inc, Dell Inc, Juniper Networks Inc and Symantec Corp.
ZTE has partnerships with some of the U.S. firms. In interviews, all of the companies said they had no knowledge of the TCI deal. Several - including HP, Dell, Cisco and Juniper - said in statements they were launching internal investigations after learning about the contract from Reuters.
Li Erjian, a ZTE spokesman in China, said his company only sells "standard" equipment to Iran. "Our main focus for business in Iran is to provide standard communications and network solutions for commercial use to help operators upgrade their network. "We are a small scale telecommunication equipment supplier in the Iran market. We sell standard equipment in Iran as we do globally," he wrote in an email.
TCI officials in Tehran either didn't respond to requests for comment or could not be reached.
The United States, Europe and many Arab countries accuse Iran of attempting to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran denies. But Beijing, along with Moscow, has repeatedly vetoed attempts to strengthen sanctions against Tehran. China is Iran's largest trading partner with business between the countries surpassing $45 billion last year, up $16 billion from 2010, according to Iran's FARS news agency.
ZTE, China's second largest telecom equipment maker, is publicly traded but its largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned enterprise. The fast-growing firm, which says it sells equipment to more than 500 carriers in more than 160 countries, reported annual revenue of $10.6 billion in 2010.
TCI is owned by the Iranian government and a private consortium with reported ties to Iran's elite special-forces unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
In a recent interview Mahmoud Khosravi, managing director of Iran's government-controlled Telecommunications Infrastructure Co., boasted that sanctions have had no effect on Iran's telecom industry. "We have the latest technology in our networks," he said. Iran's cat-and-mouse game on sanctions:
link.reuters.com/daf66s

Comment – March 23, 2012

Note that the above report doesn’t say that equipment sold is being used to spy on Iranians, simply that it could be used to spy. Equally it could also be used for counter-espionage, or any number of other uses some of which could be perfectly innocuous.
The implication is however, that those evil Iranians will use the technology to monitor Iranian dissidents. The article provides no evidence to substantiate this but then it doesn’t have to. It merely implies as much.
Meanwhile, new measures allowing the U.S. government more power in the surveillance of its own citizens and giving the National Counter-terrorism Center new privacy busting power are ignored. It’s left to the alternative media to report on that…

 Obama Installs New Guidelines To Aid Spying On Innocent Americans

Steve Watson – Prison Planet March 23, 2012

New guidelines put forth by the Obama administration will allow US spy agencies to keep records on innocent Americans without oversight for up to five years.
As the AP reports [2], previously the National Counterterrorism Center, was legally obliged to immediately destroy information that it gathered about American citizens if it found no clear links to terrorism.
Following the 2009 Christmas day underpants bomber debacle, US representatives immediately called for the NCTC’s authority to be expanded, saying that there was not enough communication between intelligence agencies.
“Following the failed terrorist attack in December 2009, representatives of the counter-terrorism community concluded it is vital for NCTC to be provided with a variety of data sets from various agencies that contain terrorism information,” National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. said in a statement late Thursday.
“The ability to search against these data sets for up to five years on a continuing basis as these updated guidelines permit will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively.”
The NCTC, made up of a combination of intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and has drawn criticism ever since for infringement on the Fourth Amendment and basic privacy rights.
“It is a vast expansion of the government’s surveillance authority,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center said of the new guidelines.
Noting that the new rules contravene the Federal Privacy Act, Rotenberg added “The fact that this data can be retained for five years on U.S. citizens for whom there’s no evidence of criminal conduct is very disturbing.”
An Obama administration official said that privacy will be safeguarded because there are strict measures in place to ensure that any intelligence gathered on American citizens “is likely to contain significant terrorism information.”
However, given that the Department of Homeland Security now considers banal bodily activities [3] such as yawning, staring and goose pumps as “suspicious activity” indicative of terrorism, those assurances are unlikely to appease concerned Americans.
—————————————————————-
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net [4], and Prisonplanet.com [1]. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Ali Abunimah and Gilad Atzmon at the OK Corral

Ali Abunimah and Gilad Atzmon at the OK Corral

Roger Tucker – One Democratic State March 2012

The recent open letter Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon, apparently written by Ali Abunimah, has come as a shock to many people, including yours truly. Not only have the Zionists colonized Palestine and subjected them to a permanent campaign of genocide, but as anyone who has been paying attention knows, they have colonized the Western democracies, turning them into obedient puppets. Now it appears that they have also colonized the Palestine Solidarity movement.
At the end of this essay are links to a number of responses supporting Atzmon and what he stands for. These cover the ground pretty well, but I’d like to add a critical look at the language used by Abunimah et al and some of the notions underlying such terminology. I’ll start with the title itself, which begins with the curious phrase “Granting No Quarter.” The phrase is familiar to anyone who has read books or seen films based on British naval warfare set in the 18th or early 19th centuries. – this is as extreme as it gets. This from a group of mostly Palestinian supporters of the Palestinian struggle against Israel in opposition to another such supporter. That is sufficiently mind-boggling in itself, but Ali Abunimah, and I would assume at least some of his fellow signatories, are also supporters of One Democratic State as the solution to the basic conflict in the Middle East, as is Atzmon. Some fundamental and portentous difference, beyond a mere dispute about strategy or tactics, must be responsible for such a total and uncompromising attack on a seemingly close ally. It allows for no debate, no compromise – no quarter offered or accepted.
Some observers have implied that Ali & Co. have actually gone over to the enemy, or may have been Zionist agents from day one, and that the Jewish members of these Solidarity groups are acting as their handlers. For the sake of argument, I’m going to assume that is not so, that they are perfectly sincere in considering themselves loyal to the Palestinian cause as they conceive it. Looking at the signatories of the Letter we find some successful academics, Abunimah and Massad being the most prominent. They have prospered as unofficially sanctioned spokesmen for the Palestinian cause in the US and have no incentive to rock the boat. If they presented any perceived danger to tribal Jewry, they would likely find themselves on the street, as has happened to a number of academics, many of them Jewish, who have dared to challenge the predominant Jewish narrative. This points to a simple motivation based on economic and professional self-interest, but I believe there’s more to it than that.

Racism

“Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by heritable phenotypic characteristics, geographic ancestry, physical appearance, and ethnicity.” So begins the Wikipedia page on the subject. Race is a broad brush that covers just about any typology that attempts to divide humanity into distinct groups according to such criteria. All such attempts have very fuzzy edges. “Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term “racism” is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature (i.e., which harms particular groups of people).” The accusation of racism has typically been a characteristic of leftist critiques of systems that practice discrimination against members of relatively powerless minorities. The accusation of racism against Zionist Jews is a curious exception. This particular group is far from being powerless. More to the point, there has been an obvious racist component within Jewish culture from the very beginning. Just take a look at the Old Testament, let alone the blatant contempt for the “goyim” (non-Jews) found in the Talmud. The dehumanization of “the Other” is a very old and characteristically Jewish pattern. For tribal Jews and their allies, the “shabbas goyim,” to bandy about the term “racism” is hypocrisy of the highest order. (“The term shabbos goy refers to a non-Jew who performs duties that Jewish law forbids a Jew from performing on the Sabbath.” – wikipedia) What I am getting at is that Ali Abunimah et al are arguably shabbas goyim, non-Jewish elements of the currently dominant political force in the Western world that James Petras refers to as the Zionist Power Configuration (JPC).

Antisemitism

This term is the most powerful weapon in the tribal Jewish verbal armory. To be labeled antisemitic is akin to having been labeled a heretic by the Holy Roman Inquisition. It might not invite torture and burning at the stake, but they will set about ruining your life. It is purportedly a special case of racism, whereby the Jewish people are cast as the eternal victims of racial prejudice. I defer to a Jewish thinker on this subject:
“If this hostility, even aversion, had only been shown towards the Jews at one period and in one country, it would be easy to unravel the limited causes of this anger, but this race has been on the contrary an object of hatred to all the peoples among whom it has established itself. It must be therefore, since the enemies of the Jews belonged to the most diverse races, since they lived in countries very distant from each other, since they were ruled by very different laws, governed by opposite principles, since they had neither the same morals, nor the same customs, since they were animated by unlike dispositions which did not permit them to judge of anything in the same way, it must be therefore that the general cause of anti-Semitism has always resided in Israel itself and not in those who have fought against Israel.” ~ Statement regarding the expulsions of Jews, by noted Jewish author Bernard Lazare in “L’antisémitisme, son histoire et ses causes,”published in 1894.
As a number of people have pointed out, there is another problem with the use of the word antisemitism. “Semite” is a linguistic term denoting peoples who speak semitic languages. Israelis are not semites in spite of the fact that they speak Hebrew ((it’s an adopted language of far too recent a vintage). The Zionists who created Israel and still run it are descended from the Khazars, linguistically a “Turko-finnic” people. The vast majority of semites speak Arabic as their native language, making tribal Jewry, particularly the Israelis, the only people in the world who are truly “antisemitic” – and they are virulently antisemitic.

Colonialism

Abunimah invokes this term, specifically “settler-colonialism,” as characterizing the nature of the Zionist invasion of Palestine. They claim that Atzmon rejects this characterization. Actually, all he does is point out that settler-colonialism has traditionally referred to efforts of European powers to install a permanent presence of their nationals in countries they wish to control. In all such cases, except Israel, there is a mother country that the settlers can rely on to finance and support their efforts. This is different from the case of the Jewish State, in which that role has been played by world Jewry in the diaspora. It’s a non-issue, really, except that once again Abunimah is misusing language to make his argument.

Culture

Race, as we mentioned above, is a clumsy, inaccurate and misleading way of looking at the distinguishing characteristics of people that we attempt to lump together in identifiable groups. There’s a much better way of separating out what Atzmon calls “collectives.” This is by looking at characteristic ways of thinking, speaking and behaving, which together pretty much determine who we are. These distinctions are cultural. And this is where the already shaky limb that Ali is clinging to breaks and he tumbles into complete nonsense. Ali doesn’t mention culture in his letter, but take a look at this, Ali Abunimah attacking Gilad Atzmon at the Stuttgart One State conference (Dec 2010. “Jewish Culture.. doesn’t explain anything at all.” This remark is not only absurd – it would be like saying that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War, or that the playing of the pipes has nothing to do with their Celtic origin, or that the French drink wine merely as a matter of personal choice, etc. , etc. (one could make a parlor game out of this) – he is so intent on demonizing Atzmon that he abandons any shred of intellectual integrity. Perhaps he secretly believes in “Intelligent Design?”
The notion of race is based on genetic differences, which determine our physical being. Genetic evolution in the human race more or less ceased some 5,000 years ago. Culture, on the other hand, is memetic. Memes are patterns that we inherit from our environment, starting when we are children with our families and continuing as we get older to to the notions, norms and attitudes prevalent in our societies. Culture is far and away the most significant causal factor in how we manifest in the world. What makes memetic (cultural) evolution possible and far more rapid than through genetic mutations is that we have the ability to change our minds based on new information, or seeing things in a new way. To do so requires curiosity, an open mind and considerable humbleness. This is what the word “freedom” means in its fullest sense. Many people become rigid and inflexible in their views, including far too many academics. As Eric Hoffer, the great longshoreman philosopher put it in his book ‘The True Believer,’ “In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. “

Identity politics

This term, frequently used by Atzmon, is the crux of the matter. If you will indulge me, click on Us vs. Them: On the Meaning of Fascism. It is about identity politics and how this phenomenon tends to evolve into fascism. Atzmon is absolutely correct in making it central to his investigation. He stresses that it is intellectually dishonest to attempt to discuss Zionism and Israel without reference to “Jewishness.” Zionism was a specifically Jewish endeavor to create a Jewish state. What could be more obvious? If you leave out the “Jewish” part there isn’t much left, is there? The point is too obvious to belabor, but Abunimah attempts to do just that. Atzmon, in the grand tradition of intellectual inquiry, has committed himself to trying to understand the whole complex picture, which centers around the question of what “Jewish” and “Jewishness” mean. Abunimah cries foul and invokes the taboo that has been the mainstay of Zionist propaganda from day one. You can’t talk about “Jews.” You can’t talk about “Jewishness.” Otherwise you are “racist,” “antisemitic.” A circular, absurd argument. I guess it might upset somebody, most likely “The Wandering Guess Who.” (There is a very intriguing piece from an unlikely source, a recent issue of the New York Times. The author has some very intiguing things to say about tribal identities. Click on Forget the Money, Follow the Sacredness.)
I am Jewish, Atzmon is Jewish (whether he likes it or not – sorry, Gilad, but it’s a friendly dig), and so are many of his supporters. I don’t want anyone telling me that I can’t look at what that means. It is one of my fondest hopes that a great many Jews honestly consider the question “who am I?”. As long as the answer is “I’m a Jew, first and foremost” we are in for a lot more trouble. If the answer is “I’m first of all a human being and the rest is secondary” then there will be grounds for optimism. If enough Jews have the courage to look in the mirror and ask this fundamental question, we could easily solve the most pressing problem facing the world today, because, like it or not, tribal Jewry currently holds all the cards. Without at least the tacit support of most Jews they wouldn’t be able to play their game any longer.

Political Correctness

We are now going to address what I believe to be the primary motivations behind Abunimah’s extraordinary attack on Atzmon. A number of political fashions arose out of postmodernism, such as multi-culturalism, radical feminism and gay and lesbian activism, for example. In all cases, these fashions endorse various flavors of identity politics, These particular ideas were actually pioneered within the 60’s counter-culture, but the postmodernist academics turned them upside down. Instead of being inspired by a sense of our common humanity, we were inundated by all sorts of identity politics, all with narratives that, under the new dispensation, couldn’t be challenged without confronting the enforcement arm of the new orthodoxy – political correctness. All of this grew out of the Marxist culture that had previously been the fashion on the Left, but needed a new intellectual basis after the reaction to the horrors of Stalinism and Maoism, and eventually the fall of the Soviet Union. Ergo, postmodernism and its progeny provided continuity and a new lease on life.
In keeping with the tradition of Marxism-Leninism, the neo-Marxists needed to instill monolithic party discipline. After all, there can be only one vanguard of the proletariat. The new ideology of identity politics developed the strategy of political correctness to enforce its monopoly over discourse. This is not confined to the groves of Academe – the ADL and similar Zionist institutions actively enforce the orthodoxy. And, just as an aside, Jews continued to make up a large proportion of both the party leadership and the party faithful, just as Bolshevism was largely a Jewish project. Although the thought police concern themselves with decrying any perceived denigration of a number of tribal groups, by other academics particularly, there is no question that the one and only Sacred Cow is the Jewish Tribe. Casting aspersions on black people, gays or women, for example, will get you a serious dressing down, but any reference to Jews or Jewishness that isn’t flattering might well cost you your livelihood, or worse.
To sum up, the attacks on Gilad Atzmon and Ken O’Keefe reveal an organized attempt to silence independent voices within the Palestinian support community. Many moons ago I was in the US Army. As it was peacetime, the only enemy in sight was the Army itself. We fought to a draw. There are many of us who don’t like to take orders, least of all from from the PC thought police. This an attempted political coup, actually, much like the successful efforts of the Bolsheviks (which means “majority,” although they were a small minority – quite Orwellian, actually) against the Mensheviks. But it isn’t going to work, because Atzmon and O’Keefe aren’t interested in power or being part of an organized movement. They are truly independent people taking a personal stand against a great evil, and they take their stand on behalf of all of suffering mankind, not just the Palestinians. Their efforts are prompted by the plight of the Palestinians, but like Gandhi, ML King and Mandela, they serve an even higher purpose, that of justice, wisdom, compassion and peace.
I would leave it there, but I want to make an appeal to Ali Abunimah et al to reconsider their views on this matter. When I got involved in One State advocacy more than ten years ago, I realized that we needed to operate under a big tent. After all, we are a small, relatively powerless group of people, up against the most powerful and ruthless fascist endeavor in history. At the very least, we need to accommodate one another even if some people have some views that rub us the wrong way. So I would like to invite Ali Abunimah, Joseph Massad, my friend Haidar Eid and all the others to check their guns at the door and rejoin the rest of us involved in the greatest struggle of our time.
Supporters of Atzmon have written a flurry of responses to Abunimah’s letter. Here are links to some of them:
Needless to say, Atzmon and O’Keefe have had something to say about it as well:
Gilad wrote to his list: “It seems as if in spite of a very well orchestrated Jewish campaign, truth and justice prevailed, a lot thanks to you out there. There is a simple basic fact my detractors fail to grasp. I am not a politician, I do not seek power. I am an artist, I search for beauty and justice. And as it happens both are out there available for us.”
It appears that the same people who are trying to excommunicate Atzmon are also after Ken O’Keefe, which is really disgusting. There aren’t that many real heroes in this world, but O’Keefe is certainly one of them.

‘Al Qaeda’ Killer’s Extensive Links To French Authorities

‘Al Qaeda’ Killer’s Extensive Links To French Authorities

Brit Dee – Activist Post March 22, 2012

The man accused of killing seven people during recent gun attacks in Toulouse has been killed, following a 32-hour standoff with police – as more information has come to light about his extensive links to the French authorities. 
Mohammed Merah, a self-proclaimed Al Qaeda operative, was reportedly found dead on the ground after being shot in the head and falling from his apartment window, following a five-minute gun battle when police stormed the building.
Whilst French authorities claimed to want to end the standoff peacefully and take Merah alive, the siege’s fatal finale conveniently removes from the picture a suspect who appears to have had a great deal of contact with both the French intelligence services and the police – and even with the US military.
French interior minister Claude Guéant yesterday revealed that Merah had been on the radar of the DCRI – France’s domestic intelligence agency – “for years”.
That Merah’s explanation satisfied the intelligence service is inexplicable, considering their familiarity with his track record of suspicious activity. Merah had reportedly made two trips to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and whilst his attorney Christian Etelin has denied such rumors, some have claimed he even spent time in a Kandahar jail before escaping during a Taliban breakout. Whilst Merah’s reported time in an Afghan jail has yet to be established, other sources, including top French prosecutor Francois Mollins, have stated that he was arrested by Afghan police at a checkpoint and handed over to the US military, before being flown back to France. US military officials have claimed not to have any information regarding Merah’s alleged detention in Afghanistan. 
Today saw further revelations come to light about the French authorities’ knowledge of Merah’s violent tendencies. A report in French newspaper Le Télégramme details how the mother of a 15-year-old-boy claims she twice filed complaints with the police, after Merah showed her son violent Jihadist videos and extremist literature at his Toulouse apartment. The woman, identified by the pseudonym Aisha, said that:
‘I am appalled. It took all these people [to be] killed for Mohammed Merah [to be] finally stopped,’ she said. ‘The police knew all about the danger of this individual and his radicalism’.
Le Télégramme also reports how Merah allegedly went into the street outside the woman’s house wearing military fatigues, brandishing a sword, and shouting “I’m with Al-Qaida”. 
Mohammed Merah’s older brother Abdelkader was apparently also well known to the authorities. He was arrested on suspicion of belonging to the Knights of Pride – an extremist group against the banning of the burka in France. It was from Adbelkader’s computer that an unsecured email was allegedly sent to one of Mohammed’s victims, arranging to view a motorbike – an appointment at which the paratrooper was murdered. Merah was tracked down after the IP address and location were traced from the email.
The French authorities’ excuses for their inability to prevent Merah’s killings are highly questionable. As Merah very much fits the profile of a classic intelligence asset – young, disaffected, and with a history of petty criminality – serious questions should be asked about whether he really just “slipped through the net”, or if in reality the intelligence services deliberately failed to prevent the attack, or even actively provocateured it.
In this regard it is interesting to note that Nikolas Sarkozy, previously trailing in the polls in a French election year, is now the favorite to win the first round of the presidential election next month. Sarkozy has promised a shocked French nation that he will crack down on Islamic extremism should he be re-elected, as well as stating that he will introduce stricter monitoring of the Internet, and make it a crime to visit unspecified “hate” websites. 
This article first appeared at Resistance Radio
Brit Dee runs an independent online radio station called Resistance Radio, which broadcasts daily news, views and analysis challenging the lies of our corrupt political and financial leaders, and the controlled corporate media, at http://www.resistradio.com