THE OTHER “CROWN JEWELS”

The crown jewels that interest me are not the ones in England.  The crown jewels that interest me are the ones  that United States intelligence sources say they now believe that whistle-blower Edward Snowden was unable to access (Business Standard 7/23/13).

 The Business Standard reported (July 22, 2013)“As the Obama administration is analyzing what all classified data Snowden laid his hands on and what damage he may have caused, the damage assessment reveals that he did not gain access to the ‘extremely compartmentalized information’ (ECI), CNN reports”. And from the same article : “United States intelligence sources now believe that whistle-blower Edward Snowden was unable to access the ‘crown jewels’ NSA programs that secretly monitor telephone and on line conversations worldwide.”

I don’t believe it. I believe that Snowden did get into the crown jewels or else why would there even be talk of the existence of such a thing?  Edward Snowden has proven to be a very careful man and I think Snowden did find the “crown jewels”.  And he has not released them.  But Snowden has made known that the information he still holds that hasn’t been released so far, has been encrypted.  Furthermore, in the event that he should be murdered, Snowden has also made known that he has put copies of this unreleased material into the hands of others with the instructions to be released in the event that he is murdered. 

I believe Edward Snowden is a true patriot.  I believe him to be of the same nature as many other great Americans who have tried to steer the US away from the grip of total control by the US military, banks, and corporations and put their lives at risk in so doing.   I would place Edward Snowden in the same category as Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King in a heartbeat.   I think Snowden loves his country and does not want to destroy the US, that he still believes in the values of democracy, the equality of opportunity, the creativity and love of place that America used to be.  I know that place of which Snowden speaks.   I used to dwell there, in that longing to believe that what one was taught as a child could still be true.  But it isn’t.  I think Snowden came to this reality in front of his work computer gazing at the screen at the monster the US has become.

The reluctance to “harm the US” seems to be the main message coming from Snowden and from Vladimir Putin.  Putin along with Snowden’s lawyer both hem and haw about asylum for Assange on the grounds that he would have to stop releasing material that would “harm the US” should he be granted asylum.  Interesting. In other words, he would have to refrain from releasing any of the “Crown Jewels” he may have.

 As Snowden has already released a gigantic cluster bomb upon the world with the NSA global spying revelations, what other information could be in his possession that would “harm the US”?   It wouldn’t be the usual spying stuff on corporations or military fields.  China is also very good at information gathering of that sort. It has to be something more than what most countries already have.

 And as I understand it, as long as Assange doesn’t formally apply for permanent asylum in Russia the restrictions that he not release anything to harm the US do not apply.  Putin has indicated to the media that he finds Snowden troublesome for Russia. But  I believe that far from Russia wanting to be rid of Edward Snowden as the western press asserts, I think that Putin (as well as China) has some idea what these “crown jewels” of information consist of and consider this material, whatever it is,  to be of the utmost importance and interest to the world.

  Julian Assange seems to believe that as long as Snowden remains in Russia he will be safe.  I would definitely fear for Snowden’s life if he left Russia because  I think the American MNNJBCCC’s (My own acronym)  meaning a grab bag of American military, NSA, neo-cons, Jewish lobby, banks, corrupt politicians, Christian fundamentalists and CEO’s of corporations would tear him apart with their teeth if they could get their hands on him.

I think this bunch (MNNJBCCCs) fear what Edward Snowden may be holding as if it were death itself.  It would certainly be the death of their dreams of a rapid ascent to the absolute throne of world power.  If Snowden has information that links some of the people in the MNNJBCCC groups to beforehand knowledge of 9/11 he could ever so gently advise them to behave differently or else.  Wouldn’t that be the mother of all developments? Wouldn’t it just?

New posting on:   motherright.tumblr.com   Titled:  THE SEARCH FOR EVE

HOW 9/11 RAN INTO EDWARD SNODWEN

HOW 9/11 RAN INTO EDWARD SNOWDEN

Even before 9/11 the US already owned much of the world.  As the largest economy in the world, the most aggressive military with the most treacherous foreign policy to date, it was doing okay.   Yes, the US was the mightiest, most feared country in the world and perhaps in all of history.

But that was before Julian Assange of Wiki Leaks, Private Bradley Manning of the US Army and Aaron Swartz of MIT (Mass. Institute of Technology).  Most of us know who Julian Assange is, and Bradley Manning, who is only twenty-five, and how these young men are managing to alert us, in spite of great self-sacrifice , to the increasing lies and barbarities being committed abroad in the name of the people of the “free” world.    But Aaron Swartz, age 26 at the time of his recent death is somewhat less known because he checked out early; he committed suicide as he couldn’t face a possible forty year prison sentence for releasing many scientific papers for free download.  Swartz, like Assange and Manning, simply believed deeply, profoundly, in freedom of information, freedom of the press and the freedom to assess information.  Enter Edward Snowden.

Edward Snowden had, and evidentially has, in his possession jaw dropping, bone rattling information about how the US spying network is like a vast blanket of quicksand.  Snowden demonstrates how this network sucks up all electronic communications both at home and abroad and keeps them.  By his stunning releases of information on this, Snowden is demonstrating  that it is not only foreign countries and their peoples that are being watched by NSA (US spy agency) like a chicken hawk watches a country hen with chicks, but is watching the entire US population. And of course, Canada.  I think especially Canada. 

Okay, so what does the US even want with all this information?  In order to drone attack anywhere in the world if they deem something suspicious, even within their own country’s borders?   Perhaps.  Their new Fascist rules permit it. The new FISA court rules (the secret US court that gives out verdicts which are always yes to whatever the government wants) has ruled that American Security tops every agenda of civil rights, legal rights and human rights.  So what can this be called but a warm embrace of Fascism?

The sharp US turn toward Fascism began wobbling ever so slightly under Wiki Leaks and Bradley Manning’s whistle blowing (and there are others) but it was the sudden appearance of the information held by Edward Snowden that has dealt US Fascism a staggering blow.  The US is reeling under Snowden’s whistle blowing because this information reveals to all countries and their peoples, as well as US citizens, that the US government is intent on world domination in all spheres of economic, militaristic, cultural and financial life.  But what is the reason behind this insane US overreach?  And when did it start?

I think just about everybody will agree that it started in earnest with 9/11.  But the more this seems to be the case, the more 9/11 itself becomes so…well, problematic.  It is beginning to seem, at least to me, that 9/11 was such a perfect excuse to make a quantitative jump in both US domestic and foreign policies that demanded iron fisted control of people both at home and abroad, and of many other countries besides.  US foreign policy works on the principal that what can’t be bought or sold can be had through blackmail and/or extortion. The US economic and governmental screws, already positioned in that direction, began to turn with a vengeance. But this passion for complete control of just about everything suggests action from a fear driven position, right? But fear of what?

 I think it is primarily the fear of what the US thinks might happen when the sleazy banking world crashes and there is no more quantitative easing and few jobs.  The US, Canada, Mexico, Europe and other debt ridden countries might experience a people’s spring unlike any other. I think the US figures it’s best to be prepared and have the screws in place, so to speak.  Yes, our governments are afraid of us, of our anger and outrage at being mercilessly deceived when the truth is out, when the bankers and corporations have fled with the last of the worker’s savings and unpaid wages.  The entire country may be bankrupt, just like Detroit, with a small elite core living in gated enclaves on top of the garbage heap.  So 9/11 became the most perfect excuse to start setting up the enclaves and screwing down the people and any rights the people might think they still have.

So 9/11, one might say, came just in time for an excuse to start the screwing down process on people in earnest. Wasn’t that fortunate for the previously sluggish turn to Fascism?  Oh, yes.  But as this fortunate happening for fascism become more apparent with Snowden’s revelations, one begins to revisit 9/11 itself.  The official explanation for how 9/11 occurred never did sit right with me.  It wasn’t the third tower in the trade centre seeming to collapse on its on, or other disturbing inconsistences that seem to bother other people.  For me it was two things. The first is my own impression and could be dismissed out of hand as I don’t think it would hold up in court.  This was the expression on President Bush’s face when he was interrupted in reading a story to school children by the announcement that the trade centre had been attacked.

How to read that first expression on Bush’s face when the man with the message whispered the news into Bush’s ear?  I hope I’m wrong, but I found Bush’s expression both studied and fearful, and at the same time, guilty.  Like a little boy who has done something wrong. But we can’t hang Bush for his expression, can we?  No, but what was he doing there reading books with children at the exact time of the 9/11 attacks?  Did President Bush usually read books with children?  Was this a special event?  Could it have been a staged event?  One that screams the following message… “see, here is our good and blameless president, reading books with innocent children when these monstrous Al Qaeda terrorists are attacking us, and our children”. Okay, you can dismiss me on that one if you like as I know it wouldn’t stand up in court.  However, I think this next problem I have with 9/11 should bother everybody.

How did unknown and unchartered planes get into the sacred air space that surrounds the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon?  This is just too crazy for words.  Are we to believe that the most militaristic and advanced military ready nation in the entire world doesn’t have protection at all times from intruder air planes around its most sacred of buildings, the buildings that govern the nation’s finance and the war machine?  Are we totally sappy that we swallow that? That we believe the US government’s unbelievable excuses that there was no protection of the air space around the World Trade Center and the pentagon just on that day because all the nation’s air planes that usually patrol the skies at that time were busy doing exercises concerning what to do in case an event occurred such as 9/11?   I, for one, do not believe it.  And I think people who do believe this story believe it primarily  because they can’t face the other explanation…that some part of the US government was in conjunction with Israel and either knew of the planned attack or actually had a hand in staging or enabling the 9/11 attack themselves.

I also believe that information behind the 9/11 attack is primarily behind the panic of the US government to get Snowden at any cost.  I think the Obama administration and agencies fear, along with Israel, that Snowden may have, and may actually release some information concerning the 9/11 attack that isn’t known.   How else to explain the odd remark by Vladimir Putin to the press concerning Snowden’s application for Russian asylum.  Putin remarked that Russia couldn’t give Snowden official asylum unless he promised not to do harm to the US.  Just after Putin made this remark he said he knew this sounded strange coming from him.  And he’s right.  It did sound strange.  It is strange.  I think it was a message to the Obama administration. Because how else could Snowden harm the US more than his releases have done so far, other that give out information that might implicate agencies that could have staged 9/11? Like some faction in the US government and Israel?

Whatever, so far Snowden has outsmarted the US by saying that he has encrypted the information he has yet to release and has given it to other parties to hold. If he is killed he has instructed the information to be released.  This may give the US pause.  For awhile.

                                                   ATTENTION!

See new posting on my Women’s History blog entitled IN SEARCH OF THE MISSING LINK  at:    motherright.tumblr.com

THE REVENGE OF GAIA

The Revenge of Gaia

This is the title of Dr. James Lovelock’s famous book (2007 Penguin Books) which I am sure many of you have read.  Dr. lovelock calls the earth by the ancient name of Gaia (Greek mythology meaning: The Great Mother of All).  Dr. Lovelock isn’t  saying in his book that there is an actual lust for revenge on Gaia’s part  for the way humans have treated her.  Lovelock is just pointing out that science demonstrates how the earth’s waters and atmosphere have been thrown out of equilibrium by corporate industry.  Gaia is now searching for a new equilibrium.

Unfortunately for humans, and most other species, this is very bad news.  It’s bad news because Gaia is setting the thermostat up a notch.  Or even a couple of notches in order to find a new equilibrium where she can escape the uncertain gyrations of carbon and now methane being pumped into the atmosphere as the permafrost melts up north.  It seems that once the earth’s temperature reaches a certain point it doubles back on itself…as the atmosphere warms, the earth warms, the arctic ice melts, methane escapes from the artic land permafrost combining with increased carbon which further warms the atmosphere, the earth itself becomes hotter which means more methane escaping…more floods, droughts, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides and paradoxically, desertification.  And there will be no end to the carnage until Gaia finds a new equilibrium.

He you noticed how the Canadian press, including the CBC, played down last week’s bizarre rain storm in Toronto?  It’s almost as if the media was saying, “Oh,poo…there’s nothing here in this city to look at…just a few people being pulling out of flooded submerged trains and the like.  Nothing unusual”.

President Obama has recently signed a bill that dictates that Monsanto can’t be sued for anything even if their genetically engineered foods prove to be lethal to humans.  Fancy that.  Monsanto has become part of the legal arm of the US government. Republican Senator Roy Blunt received over $64, 000 from Monsanto for tagging this bill onto the end of a US spending bill. The Republicans in the white house or even state governments can anonymously slip riders into other bills  which is how an anti-abortion rider got slipped into the North Carolina hearing of   a motorcycle safety bill.  And of course the anti-abortion tacked on  rider passed.

Should we feel smug up here in Canada that our government doesn’t do such things?  In a pig’s eye.  Stephen Harper’s government recently  passed  the Omnibus Bill that sneakily and disastrously  took protections off just about everything in the Canadian environment…oceans, lakes and streams, rivers, animal habitat and lands. 

However, we are told not to worry and above all, we mustn’t begin to suspect that the entire human race has been blindsided by a sick, slick, treacherous  bunch of alpha males with illusions of some god directed grandeur or just plain money grabbing idiocy,  who are in charge of everything…banks, militaries, commerce, logging, mining, chemicals,  science for sale in service of corporations,  pharmaceuticals ,education, democracy, fascism, communism, religion, food and water distribution and the lives of all women and children and the majority of other men.  There is no gender balance anywhere and no justice to speak of.

Roughly, Dr. Lovelock’s thesis is that the earth is a complete system that acts as a mother. Gaia gives each species survival techniques plus the habitat and food each species needs to survive.  However, humans have allowed the world’s food supply and potable water to become so unevenly  distributed that wars with unimaginable vicious weapons have poisoned, and are  poisoning, large swaths of the earth.  Countries like Canada that has a relative secure food supply and no land mines underfoot or left behind US weapons that incorporated depleted uranium, still, we have no idea what much of that food supply consists of because our government won’t tell us.  And fracking continues to endanger the drinking water. Is it all hopeless?

Yes and no.  China is making vast investments in alternate energy and has just agreed to a deal with the US to cut back carbon emissions.  Can we believe them? Probably not.  Certainly if any cut back in carbon emissions harms corporate profits in the US the agreement will fall by the way side. 

But we can believe in each other.  I read many reports from online papers like the Tyee, Common Ground, International Clearing house, etc., and watch on line programs such as Democracy now.  There are glimmers of hope out there.  Such as Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan.

  Malala is the fifteen year old girl who was shot in the head last year by the Al Qaida for attending school.  She not only lived, but is back on her feet and has just addressed the UN General assembly.  It was her sixteenth birthday (7/12/2013, The Guardian). She spoke passionately on the right for all children to attend school.  Incredible!   And last April the European Commission voted to ban bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides for two years.  This means a continent-wide ban in Europe for two years for Monsanto’s Roundup.   This may give the bee population time to recover. Again, incredible!

 I think that if we actually look at the situation we are in environmentally, politically and financially without fear and/or self-deception that we can think of ways, good ways, to survive the challenges before us.  Gaia is not deliberately trying to punish us.  She is just telling us how it is. We should listen.  If we listen deeply we might hear some solutions that Gaia may be offering.

WAS "MOTHER RIGHT' WRONG?

WAS “MOTHER RIGHT” WRONG?

 Wrong about what, one may ask?  Actually the Mother Right I am referring to is the title of a book that was written by a guy. Stranger things have happened.  His name was  Johann Jakob Bachofen  (1815-1887) and he was one of a group of men called the ” Fathers of  Anthoropology.”  In the 1800’s this was a new science.  Bachofen based his belief that all societies began with Mother Right, that is, that the mothers (and of course grandmothers) in all early human groupings were vital to the survival of the groups.  Not only that, Bachofen, who was also a judge, a professor of law and a historian, claimed in his book that motherhood is and was, the source of all human society, including spirituality, morality and decorum.

I concur with Bachofen and postulate that his conclusions were, and still are,  inherently true.  However, while many countries (mostly western ones) give sickening accolades  to mothers on Mother’s day, the mess the world is actually in testifies to the fact that most countries have come to despise mothers.  They certainly don’t love them.   Erich Fromm (1900-1980) world famous sociologist pointed out in his books that the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference.  And mothers the world over get loads of this every single day.

 Of course I recognize that not all women are, or want to be, biological or even adoptive mothers.  And women have the inherent right to refuse motherhood when they choose.  This means women have the inherent right to control their own bodies and that the men of fundamentalist religions who seek to control women’s bodies as if this right belongs to them,  are enemies of women and girls,  and particularly mothers.  The facts are these…female children usually grow up to be women (notwithstanding the vagaries of nature) and most women usually will decide to have a child, or children, at some point.

 And even if particular women never have children, in a sense it doesn’t matter.  During their reproductive years most women have the potential to be mothers.  Women come into the world with this equipment.  Women have the brains and nervous and endocrine systems that specialize them as potential mothers.  This reproductive division of nature is what marks women off from men…women will usually, in any given situation concerning wars, guns, violence, food and water safety and destruction of the environment,  think like mothers.  Which means to seek to care for, and to try to nourish and protect children along with whatever else needs nourishing and protecting. 

 Not all women will act as mothers, of course, and yes, okay, I know this is coming as it always does on any discussion of gender… so let’s go ahead and look at Margaret Thatcher  “Maggie Thatcher the milk snatcher” as she became known.  And it isn’t only Margaret Thatcher, there are and have been other women in positions of power, both past and present, who act more like the men around them, than they do as women.  And of course let’s also not forget the legions of women who gladly fill out the right wing religious men’s groups, both Christian, Muslim and including other religions that believe the sexes aren’t equals and that men are superior.  These particular women are indoctrinated  to become  so male identified they are willing to see their daughters devalued  and their sons become cruel with monstrously bloated egos that allow them to think they must control women, to the point of having life and death control in many instances.

But it isn’t these male identified women who will move society forward.  History has condemned the entire concept of male superiority.  And so has Mother Nature. And Mother Nature’s condemnation may prove fatal for the entire human race if human mothers don’t get it together and recognize that…

          A.  We, as mothers, have the right to demand that the destruction of our planet immediately cease. This includes present and planned production of oil, oil sands, shale gas and minerals, along with other industrial pollutants that add to the carbon in our atmosphere.

    B. We, as mothers, have the right not to have our children die in sectarian wars or national wars.

       C.  We, as mothers, have the right to demand an equal distribution of food for children the world over. 
        D.  We, as mothers, have the right to demand that all children the world over be given clean water to drink and bathe in. 
        E. We, as mothers, have the right to demand that children the world over be protected from deliberate murder by religious extremists who consider any education other than their particular religious one a sin that must be eradicated by murdering the children.

         F. We, as mothers, have the right to demand that our children be educated without religious instruction or religious symbolism which breeds distrust for life, contempt for others and also breeds the conditions for war.

        G. We, as mothers, have the right to demand that the War on Drugs cease immediately as it destroys both the users and the sellers and corrupts entire government and countries.

         H. We, as mothers, have the right to demand to know what actually is in the food we are feeding our children by labeling all GMO food products.

          I.   We, as mothers, have the right to demand that our children who are in custody for   whatever reason are in safe places and are being treated with care and kindness.

            J.       We, as mothers, have the right to demand that the obscene amounts of money being spent of military weapons be immediately cut in half with the saved part going to rapid transit construction and operation so that mothers and children can travel to work and school cheaply and easily.
          K.    We, as mothers, have the right to demand that the obscene amounts of money spent on spectator spots be immediately cut in half with the saved part going to children’s non-contact sports and places to play without fear of child abduction or molestation.

           L  We, as mothers, have the right to demand that our children not be                 plunged into a life of debt as soon as they enter a university.   

           M.  We, as mothers, have a right to demand that pornography be severely restricted so that our children do not become the early users of phonography that can only cause boys to grow up with skewed ideas about love, lust, violence and contempt for women.

           N.  We, as mothers, have a right to demand that advertisers, clothing companies , and media stop sexualizing little girls which makes both girls and boys anxious and leave some grown men confused. Pedophilia is enough of a world problem without actively encouraging its spread.

           O.  We, as mothers, have a right to demand that no child, male or female, be trafficked, or encouraged, or forced into prostitution.

           P.  We, as mothers, demand that women be paid a living wage so that they are not coerced by pimps to become prostitutes in order to pay rent, feed children, finish college or feed a drug habit gone off the rails.  Prostitution made overtly legal is contempt for women and girls made overtly legal.

           Q.  We, as mothers, have a right to demand that our children not have to witness their mothers being beaten, ridiculed, or treated contemptuously by their mother’s male partners regardless of whether the male is the biological father of the children, step- father or boyfriend.  Violent scenes, especially blows and beatings to the children’s mother can result in children being beaten too, especially if they try to intervene; these common domestic events are the equivalent of terrorist attacks on mothers and children. 
             R.  We, as mothers, have a right to demand that our governments stop borrowing money from private banks which leave us in debt forever, and borrow from our own bank, The Bank of Canada, which was created to lend money to our government without interest.

   Betty Krawczyk for Mother Right.