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The Long US Government War Against Americans

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The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States

by Ward Churchill* and Jim Vander Wall

South End Press (1990)

Free PDF: Cointelpro Papers

Book Review

As the authors describe, the FBI Cointelpro program first came to light in letters and memos seized when antiwar activists broke into an FBI field office in 1971 looking for draft cards. Using these and other documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the authors make it clear that the FBI has infiltrated and sabotaged every major citizens group since 1945.

The Cointelpro papers should be required reading for high school graduation. It’s essential to realize that government wire tapping, stalking, covert break-ins and infiltration of community groups didn’t start in 2002 when these activities first became “legal” under the Patriot Act. In fact, it’s extremely well documented (by University of Wisconsin professor Alfred McCoy – see Spying on Americans: the Ugly History) that it first began during the US occupation of the Philippines in 1898-1901.

This book had great personal importance in my life. There are a number of parallels between Jean Seberg’s case (see below) and the FBI harassment I began experiencing in 1987 related to my work with two former Black Panthers.** Along with four other African American activists, they had occupied an abandoned Seattle school in 1985 to transform it into a community-controlled African American Heritage Building and Cultural Center.

The section of Cointelpro Papers I found most illuminating describes the death squad activity that occurred on the Pine Ridge Sioux reservations during the 1970s – fifty-plus murders were never even investigated, much less prosecuted. Most Americans assume forced disappearances and extrajudicial assassinations only occur in Third World countries (thanks to the excellent CIA training their military officers receive at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia). Learning of scores of documented instances on US soil is extremely troubling.

The book also reproduces chilling FBI memos related to the coordinated FBI/police attack and murder of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and the attempted murder of Los Angeles Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt (who was subsequently imprisoned for 27 years on fictitious charges). The book goes on to recount to the brave refusal of Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman to consent to a similar FBI/police raid on the Black Panthers in Seattle (see The Mayor Who Said No to the Feds).

The saddest chapter describes the sadistic campaign of personal harassment Hoover undertook against actress Jean Seberg, a white actress who provided the Black Panthers with financial support. As a result of rumor campaigns and vicious gossip columns planted by the FBI, Seberg and her partner ultimately committed suicide.

*Ward Churchill is a well-known American Indian Movement (AIM) activist and former professor of ethnic studies at University of Colorado.

**Which I describe in my memoir The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee

EPA Hid Truth About Glyphosate and Roundup For Decades To Protect Monsanto’s Corporate Profits

RIELPOLITIK

Source  – naturalnews.com

– Did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency run cover for biotech behemoth Monsanto for years to hide the cancer-causing properties of one of the agri-giant’s most profitable chemicals? Absolutely, asserts Dr. Anthony Samsel, a research scientist and consultant who says he has EPA documents in his possession which allegedly show that Monsanto was aware of research tying glyphosate, the primary chemical in the company’s popular Roundup herbicide, to cancer since the 1970s.

In a recent interview, as reported by Health Impact News, Samsel – who has been studying the toxicity of glyphosate, the world’s most prolific herbicide, which is used in the cultivation of GMO crops – notes that, in the past, much of his research linking glyphosate to illness have been dismissed.

In conjunction with fellow researcher Dr. Stephanie Seneff, he has helped author the studies “Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases III: Manganese, neurological…

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Today, even US water is overly medicated—these scientists want to change that

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7 out of 10 Americans take prescription drugs. A growing body of research suggests all types of drugs, from illegal drugs to antibiotics to hormones, enter the environment through sewage and cesspool systems across the country.

Kopitiam Bot

(Source: arstechnica.com)

Sylvia Lee, PhD, is a scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Milbrook, New York. She has access to an unusual—yet essential—set of laboratory equipment: a whole greenhouse filled with white fiberglass bathtubs. There’s no mistaking these vessels with those you’d find in the average bathroom, however. While these bathtubs are about the same length, they’re shallower, narrower, and have a raised racetrack-like interior that water circulates around. And none of the lab members spend time inside them.

Instead, researchers fill them with rocks and organisms obtained from local streams in upstate New York. And in place of bubble bath, they add to the water D-amphetamine, the same active substance found in several ADHD and narcolepsy medications. The water in the tubs is mixed with enough amphetamines to make the organisms think they’re sitting downstream from one of Baltimore’s water treatment plants. The goal of…

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Your Taxes Subsidize Dirty Oil Corporations By $5.3 TRILLION

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Source  – trueactivist.com

– “Governments Giving Fossil Fuel Companies $10 Million a Minute: IMF”:

A recent paper released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should shock all of us who believe in a green future based on renewable energy. Despite stark warnings from scientists, fossil fuel subsidies continue to grow: this year alone, it is estimated that dirty coal and energy corporations will receive a staggering $5.3 trillion from governments worldwide.

To put this into perspective, the sum is more than the healthcare budget of all the countries in the world combined. It works out at $600 million per hour, $10 million per minute, and $200,000 per second. Just imagine what we could do with that kind of money. We could eradicate poverty, invest in clean energy, boost health and education systems, start a food revolution, and create more jobs in these industries as a result. Instead of the logical option, our governments choose to spend our tax dollars on propping up the same corporations that are poisoning us and the planet (while making ridiculously huge profits at the same time).

If you’re a US taxpayer, you should be doubly pissed about this news. Whether you know it or not, you are helping the likes of ExxonMobil, Shell, and Marathon Petroleum- and not just when you fill up at the pump. In 2014 alone, US taxpayers subsidized fossil fuel exploration and production by $21 billion. Think that’s bad? This year the sum will be an estimated $700 billion.

In addition to all this lunacy, a separate investigation by the Guardian newspaper in London has highlighted the trail of dirty money connecting these enormous subsidies and political sponsorship. They report:

Shell made an annual profit of $26.8bn in 2012, and yet that very same year it won a deal to receive $1.6bn more in taxpayer’s money for its Pennsylvania refinery over the next few years.
ExxonMobil is set to receive $119m for its Baton Rouge plant according to a deal signed in 2011, even though the corporation made a staggering $41bn profit that year.
In 2011, Marathon Petroleum made $2.4bn, but still needed more to keep ticking along, so a jobs subsidy scheme in Ohio subsidized the corp by $78m.

“Big oil, gas, and coal have huge influence on politicians and governments and they get that influence the old fashioned way: they buy it,” Stephen Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, told the Guardian last month.

“Through campaign finance, lobbying, advertising and superpac spending, the industry has many ways to influence candidates and government officials seeking re-election.” Kretzmann added: “Every single well, pipeline, refinery, coal and gas plant in the country is heavily subsidized. Big Fossil’s lobbyists have done their jobs well for the last century.”

The IMF don’t say much about that, but the paper explains this blatant hijacking of public funds with some irrelevant technicalities: ‘The projected gains for 2015 are about $2.9 trillion (3.6 percent of global GDP). The revenue gain is quite a lot lower than the post-tax energy subsidy, as it accounts for the price-induced reduction in energy use and implicitly assumes tax rebates are used to promote adoption of emission control technologies for coal, which lowers net revenue.’

Clearly, fossil fuel energy prices are well below levels that reflect their true costs. Nicholas Stern, a climate economist at the London School of Economics, told the Guardian in May: “There is no justification for these enormous subsidies for fossil fuels, which distort markets and damages economies, particularly in poorer countries.” Stern also voiced concerns that the IMF estimate was actually much lower than the real figures, saying that it hadn’t accounted for “implicit”, or hidden, subsidies.

The $5.3 trillion figure given accounts for 6.5% of the global GDP; just over half the figure is the money governments are forced to spend treating the victims of air pollution and the income lost because of ill health and premature deaths caused by dirty energy. Coal is the dirtiest fuel in terms of both local air pollution and climate-warming carbon emissions and is therefore gets the most subsidies, with just over half the total amount. Oil, heavily used in transport, gets about a third of the subsidy, and gas the rest. Subsidies are also used to fund exploration for more oil- a great example of  humanity’s madness, greed, and disconnection with nature.

In April, the president of the World Bank called for the subsidies to be scrapped immediately as poorer nations were feeling “the boot of climate change on their neck”. Even the IMF itself appeared to be shocked over the latest estimates for 2015. They called the number “shocking”, acknowledging the estimate was accurate and “extremely robust”. The IMF has previously stated that ending subsidies for fossil fuels would cut global carbon emissions by 20%, so why haven’t world leaders committed to this yet?

“Climate science is clear that the vast majority of existing reserves will have to stay in the ground,” Kretzmann said. “Yet our government spends many tens of billions of our tax dollars – every year – making it more profitable for the fossil fuel industry to produce more.”

The authors of the paper claim that ending dirty energy subsidies, we would prevent 1.6 million (50%) of deaths by air pollution, reduce poverty and increase economic growth by investing in health and education and cutting taxes.However, the reforms they recommend involve increased energy taxation for regular people (and they also suggest that if these changes are pushed through now, we are less likely to make any noise about it):

‘Low international energy prices provide a window of opportunity for countries to eliminate pre-tax subsidies and raise energy taxes as the public opposition to reform is likely to be somewhat more muted.’

Maybe instead of hiking the prices at the pump, we could hike corporate taxes instead? Maybe we could choose to keep the oil in the ground (see the Guardian campaign), and divert energy subsidies from fossil fuels to wind, solar and tidal power. Sadly, global investment in green energy has been falling since 2011; in 2013, the figure for renewable energy was a relatively small $214 billion.

Senator Bernie Sanders announced in April he will be running in the next US presidential elections, and has proposed an End Polluter Welfare Act, which he says would cut $135bn of US subsidies for fossil fuel companies over the next decade.

Sanders spoke out against the corruption: “At a time when scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, it is absurd to provide massive taxpayer subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies’ already enormous profits.”

This article (Shock Report: Your Taxes Subsidize Dirty Oil Corporations By $5.3 TRILLION) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a  Creative Commons  license with attribution to the author and  TrueActivist.com .

Source: OILIGARGHY: Your Taxes Subsidize Dirty Oil Corporations By $5.3 TRILLION – Report

Moscow says Syria safe-zone deal bans US-led coalition aircraft

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Russia, Iran and Turkey have agreed to establish zones across the Syria that would be closed to Assad’s air force AND military aircraft from the US-led coalition.

The Ugly Truth

Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed to establish areas across the war-torn country where Assad’s air force would be barred from flying

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Your Total Gamma Radiation For the Week by City

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Based on EPA data:

11,044 CPM, ColoradoSprgs CO. –

10,425 CPM, Raleigh, NC. –

10,133 CPM, Little Rock, AR. –

9,870 CPM, Denver, CO. –

9,150 CPM, Casper, WY. –

8,848 CPM, Portland, ME. –

8,465 CPM, Tulsa, OK. –

8,329 CPM, Spokane, WA.

Ask About Fukushima Now

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TOTAL GAMMA RADIATION In Your Radiation This Week No 15 and 16

By Bob Nichols on May 6, 2017



Facing a Dying Nation

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/05/06/total-gamma-radiation-in-your-radiation-this-week-no-15-and-16/

Notice:  It is necessary for public health and because the many nuclear reactors are venting radioactive gases and steam at nights and on weekends that all residents must stay inside at nights and on weekends. Especially hard hit are the cities listed in YRTW ELE.   See the latest Your Radiation This Week for the most recent list of contaminated cities.   – Bob Nichols

Good Day!  This is “Your Radiation This Week ” for the past 2 weeks. These are the recorded Total Gamma Radiation in CPM and Sievert measured highs that affected people around the United States.

YRTW ELE is published every two weeks on Saturday. ELE is an acronym for “Extinction Level Event.” The amount of Rad in the air now Dooms Humanity to…

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The History of Medical Marijuana Research

A Life of Its Own: The Truth About Medical Marijuana

Helen Kapalos (2016)

Film Review

A Life of Its Own profiles the parents movement behind the 2016 Australian law allowing doctors to legally prescribe marijuana for their patients. The grassroots movement began with a policeman and his wife who obtained black market cannabis (on a doctor’s advice) to treat their son for severe side effects of cancer chemotherapy. It came to include dozens of other parents who had to break the law to treat children with intractable epilepsy and other severe disabilities.

Cannabis has been used to treat a variety of medical conditions for over 5,000 years. American doctors first used cannabis resin to treat children’s seizures in 1841. In the 1930s, shortly before the paper, plastics and petroleum industry conspired to have hemp (and cannabis) taxed out of existence (see The Politics of Hemp), US doctors wrote more than 3 million prescriptions for cannabis tincture for a variety of conditions.

There are few (roughly 100) randomized controlled trials of marijuana’s effectiveness as a medical treatment. This relates partly to strict laws in most countries prohibiting the cultivation of cannabis and partly to the unwillingness of the pharmaceutical industry to fund medical marijuana research.

I was very surprised to learn that most of this research occurs in Israel, funded by US foundations. The world pioneer of marijuana research is Raphael Mechoulom, professor of medicinal chemistry. Mechoulom, who first began studying the medical effects of cannabis in the 1960s, was the first to identify tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), its main therapeutic ingredients. In addition to identifying the presence of CBD1 receptors in the brain and CBD2 receptors in the immune system, he has also developed dozens of cannabis strains specific for different illnesses.

Israel has conducted the largest number of cannabis trials in the world, involving 20,000 patients at four hospitals. In addition to epilepsy, conditions studied include Parkinsonism, Tourette’s, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, PTSD and terminal cancer.

One-Third Of Americans Are On Government Healthcare

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The US is fourth in the world in terms of per capita government spending on health care, behind only Norway, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. So where does this money go? Interesting how much of it winds up in the pockets of private insurance companies.

peoples trust toronto

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

The US House of Representatives voted today to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. Unfortunately, those who use the phrase “repeal and replace” are greatly exaggerating the extent to which the Affordable Care Act is actually repealed.

While perhaps a tiny step in the right direction, the new legislation signals no departure whatsoever from the long-establishedtrend of expanding the role of government programs in subsidizing andregulating the healthcare industry.

Perhaps worst of all, since this is being called a “repeal,” many may be prompted to think that the US health care system is a “free market” system, or that government spending has only a very small role in the industry.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, the US is fourth in the world in terms of per capita government spending on health care, behind only Norway, Luxembourg, and the…

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House GOP Just Voted to Slash Medicaid — Which Pays for 60 Percent of People in Nursing Homes

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Ominous news for 60% of American nursing home residents – and the middle aged women who will be saddled with looking after them, in addition to working two jobs and looking after their kids. There’s no question in my mind capitalism would collapse without all the unpaid labor women provide.

Counter Information

By Jon Schwarz

May 04, 2017 “Information Clearing House” –   The American Health Care Act, which squeaked through the House of Representatives on Thursday, is terrible for many Americans in many ways. But what’s gotten almost no attention is the horrendous effect it could have on Americans in nursing homes.

Daniel Webster, a Republican representative from the 11th Congressional District in central Florida, acknowledged this when he announced he would vote for the AHCA.

“I have been very concerned about Florida’s Medicaid-funded nursing home beds,” Webster said. “These are critical to the access some of our senior population has to our nursing homes.”

Webster explained he was only willing to vote yes because President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and the House of Representatives’ GOP leadership promised that they would find some way to deal with the potential disaster created by the bill. It will now go to…

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Exploitative verses sharing economy

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Our struggle against the oil and gas industry in Taranaki continues. New Plymouth District Council has joined the Environmental Court case, seeking to thwart our efforts to enact basic international health and safety standards.

Climate Justice Taranaki

Photos: Explosion at a Colorado home on 1 May 2017 (photo 9News); Phosphate mining in Western Sahara (photo AFP); Sharing economy infographics

On 17th April, a home in Colorado was blasted to the ground, killing two people. The home was 178 feet (54 metres) from a recently restarted old gas well operated by Anadarko. The cause of the explosion: gas leak from a cut flow line off the gas well.

Such a loss is both terrible and preventable.  Many questions need to be answered: Why would a gas well be allowed to be drilled so close to a home, or why would a house be allowed to be built so close to a gas well, be it abandoned or active?  Who allowed Anadarko to activate the gas well, knowing how close it is to houses?

Here in New Zealand, Taranaki Energy Watch (TEW) is fighting hard to get the…

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