On May 1st, 2008 the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) will stop-work for eight hours at all West Coast docks to protest the continued US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Transport and postal workers are joining in. A similar action last year in Australia led to violence. A 2003 antiwar dock worker protest in Long Beach met with unprecedented police brutality.
Found this recently: Genetically-Engineered Babies With HIV-Resistant Genes This kind of information is so completely vapid and devoid of information (or purposeful dis-information) it’s mind numbing. As long as WE, John and Jane Q. Public, don’t have a clue of what HIv really is, we’ll believe anything.
And… that viruses, like HPV and HVV and HSV etc… can and do cause cancer is another falsehood going around now. They can’t!! It’s impossible. Cancer and virus are two completely different entities and produce different symptoms and effects that are not related or compatible in any way!! Cancer is cell growth, Virus is cell destruction! Don’t get the HPV Gardasil vaccination! It’s bogus.
We are already resistant to virus and microbial infection! IT’S CALLED AN IMMUNE SYSTEM!!!!!!! If it’s healthy and not compromised by prolonged drug and alcohol use and malnutrition and unsanitary living conditions! OR, by taking the DNA chain terminating, bone marrow destroying antiretroviral AIDS drugs! New vaccinations and drugs and testing kits to detect or cure fake diseases that are being created, are huge money making opportunities for wall street and the pharmaceutical companies. HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEM IS KEY! (interferon response is immune system response.)
This new gene is a distraction. It is not needed regardless. And I wonder how these researchers were able to study HIv since it is so difficult to find in the body that it has to be co-cultured with growth stimulants in the lab. Luc Montagnier knew that and Robert Gallo knew that as well. Retroviruses as a class, are all weak and very difficult to isolate. And what is TRIM22? The lie that HIv keeps mutating is central to maintain the claim that it cannot be cured and must be fought with a never ending new line of drugs… that are worthless. Thus this articles calling for a new drug to mimic the action of this supposed gene.
HIv is a retrovirus, incapable of causing anything because it is non-cytocidal or non-cytotoxic. IT CANNOT DESTROY THE CELL IT INFECTS! It cannot spread to other cells. Abbot Labs grew HIv using T-cells to get the proteins to create the HIv Elisa test kits. They are also called “passenger” virus as the body destroys 1,000’s everyday and rids itself of them. If you test positive for the antibodies to HIv, (which has likely been a false positive as many diseases and even pregnancy react to the many proteins on the test strips, which are not all HIv proteins) you are PROTECTED!. That’s what antibodies represent. Protection and destruction of the virus/microbe.
Herpes is the exception as it has the ability to hide in the nervous system, but… it is a cytotoxic virus. It produces a specific sore always and within days or a week from infection. It is not a retrovirus. It can be isolated in the blood. HIv has never been isolated in blood or flesh by the required titer to prove causation of disease. Never! Why there isn’t a vaccination for Herpes is the question we should be asking.
“If you boycott China, when do they boycott America for what we’re doing in Iraq?” Good question, Will.i.am. Another good question by Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas is, Where Is The Love?
Yes, the Black Eyed Peas will perform at The Olympic games this year in China, as they have performed in multiple world venues through the years, including in China before. Good for them! Peas star rejects China boycott
It is about time that ‘Hollywood Stars’ and others begin to reject this racist, American founded anti-China campaign, instead of joining in with it. Certainly there are some real problems with the Chinese government but look in the mirror first, and see the real problems with the US, British, German, and French governments, too. They in no way are the banner holders for Civilization.
Quite the contrary, so don’t parallel government propaganda for war in the West with pretenses at being the greater liberal Saviour’s of humanity. US Tibet activists, you are mainly deluding yourselves that your campaign is ‘humanitarian’. You are nothing more than a section of a multiple front operation by your own government that is pushing a gigantic global war.
Cancer it is turning out, may not be gene mutation. Peter Duesberg, the man who was first to challenge that HIV, (the “probable” cause of AIDS as announced by U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary in April of 1984), was not capable of causing cell or immune destruction, is now challenging the established scientific theory that gene mutation is the cause of cancers. And he may be right. His proposition for chromosomal damage by cell aneuploidy, supports the suspicion that many of us have had and is being established more so in the mainstream …that cancer is caused by combination of poor diet, lethargy, non-nutritional, toxin ridden industrial food manufacturing, fast foods and man made environmental toxins and carcinogens of all sorts.
The doctor has declined to say whether depriving herself of her daily Dr Pepper supplement (corn syrup) has precipitated recent health difficulties.
After a doctor’s visit today, Pattie was urgently scooted to Penrose Hospital for more tests. She has a westward facing room on the tenth floor, room 1006. Pattie is scheduled for GI tests tomorrow and is expected to be incarcerated for three or four days. Visitors welcome.
“AIDS research has not failed because it never found a cure … AIDS research has failed because it never found a cause”
Twenty four years and no cure, no cause, no answers. But billions of tax dollars to an established AID$ industry who refuse to look at the facts. More money has been spent on AIDS research than any other disease in the history of medicine, all with no results! Giving a weakened or compromised immune system a name, “AIDS”, is trickery. Telling us it is caused by an old and harmless retrovirus is dishonest. But treating immunodeficiency, whatever is causing it, with toxic chemo ARV drugs, that destroy DNA and bone marrow, is criminal! It’s time to get mad and get the word out and demand a reappraisal. Or accountability for the terror, stress, damage and destruction to many lives.
FACTS:
1. HIv has never been isolated as a pure virus, direct from human blood or tissue nor have control groups been used who are HIv “positive” and HIv “negative”. One must understand that HIv is a harmless passenger retrovirus, not a disease causing virus like HPV or HSV. (see 3 and 8.)
2. Isolation experiments, as recommended by the Perth Group and others, in the Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel Report of 2000, have never been done on control groups both with or without HIv. This is especially important since it is well known that thousands who test positive for antibodies for HIv remain healthy and thousands who have “AIDS” (by CDC definition) are not infected with HIv.
3. Kochs Postulates is and has been the widely accepted, time tested screen for determining whether an infectious germ or virus is causing disease. HIv fails all 4 (or 3 depending how you consider #4), of the postulates. A large effort must be undertaken to produce HIv in any quantities that are similar to disease causing virus. This is done by co-culturing HIv with leukemia cells in the lab (petri dish) or by adding growth stimulants. (See point 7 under “AIDS – Fact or Fraud”.)
4. HIv was first studied/discovered by Luc Montagnier as LAV around 1979. Montagnier admitted in 1990 that his LAV was probably benign. Robert Gallo stole Luc Montagniers work in approx. 1983 when Montagnier shared it with him. Gallo then claimed it as his own. He and the NIH were sued by the French government. Montagnier worked for the Pasteur Institute of Science. He also shared in the royalties. (see 13) Luc Montagniers LAV stood for Lymphademopathy Associated Virus. Part of the Pasteur Inst. charges in the initial lawsuit against Gallo were for Gallos claim that HIv was infectious. Regardless virus as causation of any kind of cancer, including lymphoma, is long proved false in the 70’s “Cancer Virus Program” through the Natl. Inst. of Cancer which is part of the NIH.
5. AIDS is nothing more than an acronym created by the CDC to create the categories of known diseases hypothesized as being “caused” by HIv. Suppression of the immune system however is not a disease and is caused by many things, which has led to much (purposeful?) confusion of the public. With a “positive” HIv antibodies test,(see 11,) or low T-cell count, or if in a risk group, and if showing symptoms of any one of 29 AIDS diseases as classified by CDC, any observation of those symptoms (see 19 for Africa) are now “AIDS-HIv” related and somehow deadly when most are not, all have other known causation and can be treated without antiretroviral drugs. All of this convoluted testing and categorizing adds to the numbers of HIv “positives” and then “AIDS” patient cases. Useful data for keeping the ARV drugs on the front line of treatment even though they are useless having been designed for cancer tumor therapy, and thus very harmful.
6. AZT, an ARV(antiretroviral), and other AIDS cocktails like HAART, are very toxic chemo CANCER drugs and destroy cells and terminate DNA chains. The initial trials of AZT based drugs showed wide evidence of harsh side affects, i.e. muscle wasting, organ failure, vomiting, diarrhea, destruction of bone marrow, yet FDA approved them on a fast track mandate in 1987. Many involved in the trials say these side effects were hidden. When AZT was created in 1964 it was deemed too toxic for use and was shelved. It is no “theory” that these drugs cause the very kinds of immune system destruction and breakdown that is deceitfully blamed on HIv. Admitted by the drug manufacturers themselves in their printed warnings. Why was this drug even thought to be useful for a “virus” when chemo therapy had never been used for virus treatment?
7. People who refuse AZT or the chemo drug cocktails after a “positive” HIv antibody test, remain healthy in most cases. (see risk groups #18) AIDS activists and counselors who are unaware of what HIv actually is, consistently fail to inform the “at risk” population that often call or visit them, that the HIv test is not a test for the virus. Or that the tests have disclaimers that say: “there is no recognized standard for establishing the presence or absence of antibodies to HIV-1 or HIV-2 in human blood”. And the viral load tests have the same disclaimers for what they are testing for. Besides, there is no proof of different specific HIv-1 or HIv-2 because HIv is a benign indistinguishable retrovirus.
8. The PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test is a desperate misleading attempt to detect DNA-RNA fragments of HIv retrovirus, in order to prove it is causing disease. Its inventor, Kary Mullis, rejects HIv as the cause of AIDS or anything else and says his test only amplifies and copies these fragments for study. No real disease causing cytotoxic virus needs this kind of help in it’s detection and purification.
9. HIv is non-cytotoxic.Therefore HIv cannot destroy the cells it infects. Nor can any retrovirus. In fact HIv is well known to virologists to be compatible with T-cells. Or most cells for that matter. This and transcriptease (the ability of retrovirus to insert themselves into cells RNA first, the reverse of cytotoxic virus) is the reason for their specific classification as retroviruses.
10. Real disease causing viruses can be vaccinated against in 95% of cases. But viruses are not always the cause of disease. As often in the case of scurvy, pellagra and weak immune system, it is a dietary and lack of proper exercise or nutrient problem/issue. The case of SMON in Japan was a similar search for a “virus” causation when finally the culprit was found to be a toxin. A toxin in the very drug that doctors were prescribing to SMON patients. This is what happens when “virus hunters” get carried away and take over research for professional recognition and monetary reasons. Or just plain stubbornness. Legionairres disease was a prime example of how the CDC/NIH missed a toxin causation completely and birthed a vaccine that did more harm than good. (Duesbergs “Inventing the AIDS Virus”)
11. The Western Blot HIv test is well known to give many false positives as many antibodies already in the body or other medical conditions (up to 70) can set off the non-specific protein strips in the test. All HIv diagnostic tests carry a disclaimer that the test is NOT to be used to determine the presence or absence of HIv antibodies. Regardless, presence of antibodies to HIv would mean the immune system has done it’s work and the body is protected. In reality based science anyway. In other words, it is impossible to be positive for HIv with these tests because a positive test really means you’re positive for the antibodies and negative for HIv! Thus the PCR tests and viral load(T-cell counts) became the new hope to detect fragments of HIv DNA/RNA or low immune response. (see 8, 16)
12. There are different standards of HIv positive in different states and countries! Why? If it’s a virus it’s a virus! One standard needed. But there is no “gold” standard test. Other than Kochs Postulates for virus and microbes which the CDC and NIH refuse to acknowledge or talk about or if they do they claim that Kochs method is outdated! That’s like saying the 2nd law of thermodynamics is useless.
13. Gallo/NIH received the patent on the HIv tests in the exact same week he announced the “probable” cause of AIDS in 1984. It made the NIH-CDC, Montagnier and Gallo, millions. He had no peer review and had not isolated pure HIv directly from any “infected” persons blood or tissue, at the time of announcement. He could only claim 40% of his “AIDS” patients had detectable HIv. Not anywhere close to claim HIv was infectious or the cause of AIDS by recognized science standards. But how did he determine his “AIDS” patients had HIv? By co-culturing HIv in the lab or with a growth additive. Why? Because retrovirus are weak non-cytotoxic passenger virus that do not multiply or destroy cells.
14. Gallo was involved in the Nixon “War on Cancer” program in the 70’s and helped the Natl. Inst. of Cancer to pressure Congress to fund the program with great promises of success to find retrovirus or any virus as the cause of cancer. But it failed. Luckily, the emerging AIDS “epidemic” helped to find NIH/CDC and the virus hunters a new program to keep and increase their funding and a disease for Gallos HTLV-3. At a time when Reagan needed a political solution, and as gay men were demanding an answer, HIv was acceptable because it erased blame from the gay community for the disease being a “lifestyle” or behavioral disease. But early in it’s announcements, the CDC claimed it was behavioral and called it GRID. Gay Related Immune Deficiency. This was a correct diagnosis as the first 5 cases were all same extreme sexual behavior, heavy drug use related causation. For the CDC, there was no money in a program for only gays. Thus heterosexuals had to be at risk as well. (see 18)
15. Testing people for HIv because they show “AIDS” related disease symptoms, with or without immune suppression, has become the standard line of reasoning though it is preposterous due to the falsity of the tests and absurdity of using other diseases as markers. (11) But the AIDS hysteria has swept through every corner of our medical professions, without a widely publicized critical analysis of testing procedures or reassessment allowed.
16. Low T-cell counts are misleading. A variety of illness, drug abuse, poor health/diet, colds, flu, disease are also responsible. Many athletic people have low T-cell counts and they can vary almost hourly. In people with detectable HIv (by PCR test), it has only been found to infect 1 in approx. 1000 T-cells, hardly enough to destroy immune response. Regardless monitoring the immune response is no way to detect specific disease. Laying in the sun will lower your T-cell count to under 200.
http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/viral_load_tcell/viral_load.html
17. Gallo claims his electron micrograph pictures are of an HIv virus, but nothing can be found by other virologists that resembles a true concentrated virus titer. It is now known that Gallo forged these pictures and was investigated for it by the NIH.
18. “AIDS” has stayed within it’s risk groups, Gay and straight male intravenous drug users, heavy drug abusers, popper users (which causes Karposis Sarcoma), hemophiliacs, and the poor malnourished living in unsanitary conditions…. instead of spreading widely across the population as we’re led to believe. It is not sexually transmittable as claimed by the CDC and NIH, but this edict spread the risk to heterosexuals. With this false claim, and Americans ignorance of virology or HIv testing, funding for research and the following prescriptions for ARV’s was increased 1000 fold. HIv is an old retro-virus that has likely been with us for 100’s of years. Farrs law for dating virus proves this as HIv models exactly to Farrs test. The body’s DNA-RNA discards many cells and retro-virus everyday. Repeat: HIv is not sexually transmittable. It is a parinatally transmitted retrovirus.
19. AIDS related disease in South Africa was and still is occurring markedly in the overcrowded poor populations where malnutrition, common persistent parasitical diseases long vanquished from western populations, lack of health care, std’s infections and unsanitary environments persist. And this is true for the new countries AIDS is supposedly invading. To make matters worse, give them toxic chemo drugs on top of their persistent diseases and already compromised immune systems, and they will die. Many die of the common regional diseases regardless due to lack of health care services, known curative drugs, and of malnutrition. For instance, researchers who have examined the supposed massive deaths reported in Tanzania, find no such evidence. (Questioning AIDs in South Africa) And the CDC has now allowed themselves to categorize many common diseases in these areas as AIDS related, WITHOUT HIv testing, due largely to the expense of the HIv tests. (see Duesberg paper below) Of course they know the the testing is a hoax regardless. As a result, AIDS cases increase lending to the deception of a pandemic. All numbers the CDC and UNAIDS uses for HIv infection and AIDS cases are false and/or completely made up estimations and projections.
20. In fact now the NIH and CDC have admitted that they do not know how HIv causes destruction to the immune system (it doesn’t but the ARV drugs, immune suppressive behaviors, poverty, malnutrition do), and they are now factoring in a co-virus as a way out of their deception. A vaccine was promised in 2 years after the announcement of the “probable” cause HIv in 1984. No cure has ever been produced because no cure is needed or possible for a retro-virus (or passenger virus) that cannot cause disease. No vaccine because HIv isn’t a real disease causing virus.
21. Scurvy (citric acid deficiency), Pellagra (niacin deficiency), Beriberi (thiamine deficiency) , SMON (toxin in drug treatment), Zantac,Tagamet-Ulcers (bacteria, Tagamet, Zantac useless), Clioquinol-Diarrhea (toxin in Clioquinol treatment), Influenza (virus) , DES – Synthetic hormone( caused cervical cancer and sterility)…………all cases that were misdiagnosed or causations ignored by the medical/scientific profession at their specific occurrences in history to the detriment of the public. And in the cases where a drug was given and was causation, it was always to the profit of the pharmaceutical industry. In some cases the misdiagnoses, sickness and death went on for years.
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From the website www.questionaids.com
Why isn’t an antibody test that’s verified by another antibody test good enough to say someone is infected with HIV?
The rationale for the use of antibody tests is that the immune system has the ability to detect foreign agents or viruses and to respond by producing antibodies that react with those agents or viruses. However, this rationale does not work in reverse. That is, the observation of an antibody reaction with a particular agent or virus does not prove that the antibody was produced in response to that particular agent or virus.
The problem with using antibodies alone to indicate infection with a particular agent or virus is twofold:
1. Antibodies can only be associated with a disease after it is shown that they are consistently generated after exposure to the pure virus. We are unaware that this has ever been accomplished with HIV.
2. Antibodies engage in indiscriminate relationships with a variety of agents or viruses. One could say that antibodies are “promiscuous,” that is, antibodies meant for one agent or virus may react with another agent or virus that is a perfect stranger. Or, to put it technically, there is ample evidence that antibody molecules, even the most pure (monoclonal antibodies) are not mono-specific, and that they cross-react with other, non-immunizing antigens.
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FROM THE DVD “AIDS – FACT OR FRAUD?” Ten reasons why HIv cannot be the cause of AIDS:
“Classifying suppression or deficiency of the immune system, that long has had causation in many things, as a specific “syndrome” caused by a harmless retrovirus, is beyond comprehension and an insult to good medicine and science…unless you’re up to no good. But then treating an immune deficiency with poison chemo antiretroviral drugs, that destroy same immune system (bone marrow) and terminate DNA chains is criminal and insane! AIDS is an immune issue and should be treated as such. In fact, the acronym AIDS should be thrown away and banished from our vocabulary.”
1. HIv, like other viruses is harmless after antibody immunity. There is no known disease or virus that has re-emerged after a mature, healthy immune system created antibodies to it.(1) Testing positive for HIv means you have the antibodies and don’t have HIv. Unfortunately many different antigens are documented to set off the protein strips in the HIv tests which makes it difficult to lend any credibility to the tests. Thus the PCR test was invented.
2. HIv does not kill the T-cells it infects. In fact T-cells are compatible with HIv. Virologists know this for a fact. Abbot Labs used T-cells to grow HIv to make the protein strips for the Western Blot test.
3. HIv does not infect enough T-cells to cause AIDS. T-cells reproduce at the rate of 5% a day. HIv, after being destroyed mostly by antibodies produced, can only infect 1 in every 500 to one thousand T-cells. There is no virus in AIDS patients, only antibodies against virus. Gallo could never find any cytotoxic virus in T-cells.
4. HIv has no AIDS causing gene. HIv is no different in gene make up than other retrovirus. There are many retroviruses in the body all the time. If HIv can cause destruction of the immune system ( thus AIDS) then why don’t the other retrovirus? Or if the other retroviruses don’t cause AIDS, why does HIv? There is no genetic reason to explain why HIv causes AIDS.
5. There is no such thing as a slow virus. Gallo and Gajdusek gave HIv magical properties. Real virus cause specific disease and do so within days or a few weeks at most. (1) Herpes is not the exception as viremially it reproduces exponentially when active and passes Kochs Postulates. HIv does not. (Page 74 Duesbergs book IAV) And Herpes when first transmitted almost immediately shows its trademark sores. Gajdusek (NIH) had a history of claiming slow and dormant virus, but never in humans. Always in the lab. Also in his early work he gave retroviruses the ability to create more than one disease. All by correlation but never through proof. In fact he and Gallo and a few other retrovirologists seemed to always discover a retrovirus in the lab, then went looking for a disease.
6. HIv is not a new virus so HIv would not suddenly cause a new epidemic. New epidemics explode across populations. HIv has remained constant in populations and has been infecting every generation likely for centuries without causing AIDS. Farrs law is used for dating virus or microbe age and HIv models exactly to Farrs law. HIv then, is not sexually transmittable nor an epidemic. It is parinatally passed.
7. HIv fails all 4 Kochs postulates. A real disease causing virus or microbe must pass every one. The postulates are:1.) A virus or bacteria must be found in all cases of the disease, actively growing in large amounts call virus titer. HIv FAILS. 2.) Virus or germ must be isolated from the host and grown in pure culture. HIv FAILS HIv has only been grown substantially in the lab using a co-culture of leukemia cells and stimulated with chemicals, never directly from an HIv infected person in large quantities. 3.) The virus or bacteria must cause the same disease when injected into a new healthy host. HIv FAILS. 4.) The virus or bacteria must be isolated and found growing again in large amounts in the newly diseased host. HIv FAILS (failing 3 it cannot pass 4.)
8. AIDS has remained in its original risk groups for over 23 years. 97% AIDS patients made up of same risk groups. 3% risk group isn’t growing.
9. The CDC, WHO international profile of AIDS is inconsistent. U.S. and Europe = 90% male. Africa = 50/50 male female. U.S. and Europe fall 97% into risk groups. Africa = no risk groups.(the official UNAIDS line) The truth is the poor, malnourished living in crowded slums and shanty towns with no sanitation or clean water, or access to health care and continually fighting old parasitical diseases, are the most susceptible to immune deficiency disease, not HIv. They are the risk groups in poor overcrowded areas of developing countries. And CDC and UNAIDS have categorized all the old African diseases now as AIDS, whether HIv infection is present of not.
10. AIDS related disease occurs without HIv infection, and, most people with HIv antibodies, never develop AIDS related disease. What we see in this statement is evidence of no retrovirus in the first case or of a harmless retrovirus in the second case, that does nothing and has been cleared by immune response. Of course what is evident is that no one has HIv who has the antibodies present. If we can even verify that these antibodies are or have reacted to HIv proteins!!! And if it takes a polymerase chain reaction test to confirm that we can only find fragments of the DNA/RNA of HIv, not the HIv itself, then why is anyone worried about HIv??? Because we’ve been terribly misled by, as Duesberg calls them, the “virus hunters”.
Conclusion: HIv is not infectious nor sexually transmittable. With this information and finding of fact we should question any and all claims of disease that are supposedly caused by virus. Immediately what comes to mind are HPV, Hep B and HepC. These may be as harmless as HIv and treatment has been hyped to push people toward vaccinations that are untested and whose efficacy is not totally known.
This might sound bizarre, but I connected to this because Miss Johnnie was watching a Rockies’ baseball game.
The commentators were mentioning that George Bush had been loudly booed when he threw out the “first pitch” on Opening Day.
Seemed a little outraged by it.
The comments were on the order of “They booed the PRESIDENT!” and “Hello! He’s ONLY the Leader of the free world! Duh!”
Where to start? How about, he was never appointed Leader of the free world or even Leader of all Americans. He can only lead people who are weak-minded enough to follow him.
For instance, he’s not MY leader.
I have enough personal strength and dignity to refuse to follow, really anybody in general and a low-life Murdering, lying, cowardly thief in particular.
Some of the people who say we should obey him in everything he tells us, use the Name of God to justify it.
They point to a biblical passage “Honor God (and) (by the act of) Obey the King”.
Allow me to point out, once again, this was not God speaking. It was a scribe of either King David or King Solomon. Both of whose reigns began with revolutions.
David who was anointed King in a secret ceremony and fought a long rebellion against Saul, who was anointed in a PUBLIC ceremony. We know this because King David told us that Samuel had done so. He mentioned it long after Samuel, and his father Jesse and his 8 brothers who witnessed the Secret anointing were dead.
Solomon who was born of adultery. In a union that accurately reflected what Samuel had been instructed to tell the people before anointing Saul.
“do not fear to anoint this King for them, for they do not reject you, but rather they reject Me… but tell them first what manner of King will reign over them, he will take their sons to run before his chariots, and their daughters to be his bakers and his handmaids”.
The fact that neither David nor Solomon were ever accorded universal recognition of their “authority” during their lives is duly recorded.
So the question would be, wouldn’t it be to the advantage of a King who is under constant threat from rebellions to get the people to believe that God Himself had commanded them to obey him?
But neither David nor Solomon would ever take unfair advantage of such an attitude, now would they? And again, we know this because they, themselves, told us so.
Thus the Religious point of view.
For a more immediately practical point of view, America was founded as a nation by Rebels who overthrew the lawful government of the King.
And there were ministers of the Gospel preaching the Loyalist propaganda, again using the Honor God and Obey the King bullpoo-poo. Right here in America.
But the point of that is, for 232 years now we in America have not HAD a king.
Those who wish to say that we owe him obedience and that God said so, must have had one of those very conveniently Private anointments.
Much like George Bush saying that God told him to smite Iraq, and that God had told him that there are Weapons of Mass Destruction there.
If God told him that, then God must have LIED to him.
In which case, it probably, most likely, wasn’t actually God talking to him.
Surely God would have told him exactly where to look for those WMDs, yes?
King George III of England was suffering from the delusional dreams of the terminal stages of syphillis. He spent his last years talking to trees, and, apparently, they talked back to him.
No telling what manner of Dementia afflicts our current King George the Simple.
But we do know that he is demented. Here’s a really radical thought, what would happen if somebody who has his finger on the trigger to more of every type of Weapon of Mass Destruction than all the rest of the nations of the world combined…. is at a Prayer Breakfast and the potted plants start talking to him, and telling him to do something incredibly stupid like launching a nuclear attack on Iran or having the Army occupy a couple of Third World nations?
Do we really owe him our support in such insane pursuits?
On my walk today, I noticed something that looked like a tiny planetarium on a neighbor’s deck.
“Is that a planetarium on your deck?” I asked, half kidding.
“No,” he replied. “It’s a telescope.”
“Really? Like a Celestron?”
Smiling, he shook his head. “No, not like a Celestron.”
Check out what my neighbor does in his spare time.
The presidential elections will decide if The Empire continues to openly advocate and use torture against POWs or not. All the 3 candidates support continuing the occupations of Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan in one form or another, and they all agree on starting a future war against Iran and any of its allies still around.
None of our 3 pre-arranged choices has any compunctions about allowing Israel to tear up Lebanon yet once again, or allowing them to continue their slow moving genocide of the Palestinians, or allowing them to bomb away against Syria without condemnation or opposition. But the use of torture? That makes the US look kind of bad, doesn’t it? That’s where there is some slight disagreement between the 3. See Chris Floyd’s blog, Empire Burlesque, and read his commentary The Torture Election to see an interesting take on the meaning of the 2008 US elections.
But we kind of expected that, no?
For instance there was a United Nations mandate about Torture, and Shirley Temple Black was one of the signatories, which said Torture was not permissible under any circumstances.
Basically our solemn word as a Nation, and according to the Constitution, a Foreign Treaty ratified by Congress has as much weight in American jurisprudence as the Constitution itself does.
But alas, somebody in writing the law put in a few Weasel Words.
For instance, nobody is to be subjected to Severe pain either as punishment or to extract information. Nobody is to be subjected to unnecessarily cruel or harsh treatment.
So the Reaganite lawyers are now saying Ha ha ha, we lied to you and you can’t do a thing about it because we had some escape clauses in the treaty.
Now George Bush and Douche Lymphnode (Limbaugh) say “Who cares what the rest of the world thinks of us?”
Well, dumbasses, it’s like this… the only alternative to actually negotiating in good faith is to commit unjustifiable atrocities, like the Invasion of Iraq or perhaps the pending attack (using WMDs, no less) on the nation of Iran.
Not meaning what you say as a civilian, Joe Citizen type, means nobody will rent you a house without you paying all the rent in advance. People won’t give you credit.
Not meaning what you say as a representative of the people means you won’t be able to get anybody to agree to anything you ask for unless it’s under threat of absolute destruction.
To do that you would have to be at a level of International Bad-Ass which has never been reached.
You would have to be Untouchable.
The hijackers on 9/11 demonstrated for us that hell no, we ain’t untouchable.
But if we negotiate constantly in bad faith, our word as a nation means absolutely NOTHING, it would inevitably inspire people to negotiate with us at gunpoint… that is, THEM pointing the guns.
Or failing the ability to negotiate that way, simply saying “screw negotiating, we’re all going to die sooner or later anyway, why not just fuck these dudes up really really badly while we’re cashing out”…
And they throw airplanes at our buildings.
Way to GO! Ronnie and George and Rush, you and your socially retarded gang of thugs have already bought us a few nasty terrorist attacks.
Gosh, George and Rush, you must have felt a huge surge of pride when those towers fell, knowing you helped it to happen.
It started out truly messed up.
I had volunteered to be a live kidney donor for a friend in California. After months of tests on her and bureaucratic bull-poopoo on my end, lots of waiting and sweating, the hospital said that I was not acceptable as a donor, for a health problem I consider to be no more than a nuisance.
So, I was going around really really bummed.
I had volunteered because last summer, she posted on a forum I haunt frequently that she was about to go terminal, with a hereditary disorder called Polycystic Kidney Disease.
It’s actually treatable, but the FDA, under Our Glorious Leader, won’t approve it because it involves gene splicing. Meaning from Stem Cells.
That was the bad news, the Good News is, two others Who Are More Closely Matched, picked up the slack after I was rejected.
So my fundamental belief in the spirit of God being in all people, and most people actually trying to live up to it, was reinforced.
Most people won’t stand by and watch as somebody dies, if they can do anything at all to stop it.
Especially not a friend.
Of course, we do have our fair share of true and honest ButtMunch people in the world, but as long as there’s good, I at least will hope and build.
We will all miss Elizabeth. Despite the press, the city government , and The Gazette all dragging her name through the mud last year, me and my family will miss Elizabeth because she was a loving person who gave a lot of herself for, and to, others. This was the real Elizabeth, and not the fake ‘antiwar dissident’ that the killers amongst us wanted to be portrayed to the public.
The sad truth about Elizabeth’s last days amongst us, was that she ran a foul of our pathetic US Medical System, which quite frankly killed her with its negligent and defective ‘care’ as it does millions of other older people. Like Elizabeth, these elderly that this business kills, are our friends, neighbors, and family. It makes one weep that we have to endure such a destruction of life and spirit at this sad and reactionary moment in our country’s history.
Elizabeth knew what the world was about. She, earlier in life, had been a rather conservative though nominally liberal woman cruising through life. But somewhere, she began to question what she was seeing and living, and became a true American ‘dissident’.
She hated the racism she saw around her when she was a teacher and resident in Chicago. She hated the endless and stupid wars that our government pushes with a passion. She grew to despise the American Medical System’s uncaring and thoughtless approach to the sick and aging. She grew to want a fundamental change to the society that she had had to live with all her life, and she began to work with others constantly to see that things might begin to change.
Elizabeth was always welcome in our home, and she always welcomed us to hers. We knew her as one easily to anger, but one who was just as easy to forget and forgive. In fact, she was more likely to forgive others for their differences and bad habits than she was ever likely to bear an unnecessary grudge. That was the Elizabeth we knew and grew to love. We knew a loving and kind Elizabeth. We knew an Elizabeth who cared deeply about others.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for your gifts to my daughter, who began to think of you as her adopted grandmother. In fact, you were just exactly that. And thank you for making the peace dog welcome always. This dog loved you, too. Yeah, she did. Ruf, ruf.
I remember the time when we went up to Palmer Park and I was poo-pooing your concern for this highly trained (yeah, right!) dog who was leaning out the open window. I was paying your words no attention as I rambled on about some other esoteric and stupid political point. Then lo-and-behold, Ms. Beastley did jump out of the window of our moving car and rolled over entirely once or twice after hitting the ground, then looked up stupidly at us, and then promptly proceeded to run after the squirrel! I will remember that moment between us for a lifetime, Elizabeth. You always saw what others refused to see.
My daughter will remember you for the doll you gave her, the one that has a striking likeness to you. She cherishes that doll that you so kindly gave to her. My daughter cried with the news of your death, and we are so glad that we visited you at least one more last time before you passed away so suddenly. My daughter was ready to try to get you to play a game of Risk with her. She knew you would be a good one to try to keep her from taking over the world.
At that last visit, I tried to cheer you up by saying how good you looked upon just then having escaped from the hospitals that had held you. However, you had this way of looking through others superficial chit-chat and reading the real truth in their minds. I saw it in your eyes then. I saw the despair on your face about what had been done to you by the surgeon, but by the time I realized what had been seen in your face I was already in the car.
My only regret is that I did not return to inside your apartment and give you the big hug that you needed right then, even if it was to be a hug given right in front of your other 2 friends who were with you at the moment. I thought to myself, aw… you need the rest and less people around at this time, more than the hug. I was wrong once again.
Elizabeth, we will miss you. You were a good friend, and you talked the talk, and walked the walk. You were kind and had a heart of gold most of all. They tried to tear you down, but they never did, and that spirit is what we most will remember always about you. That, and the love you gave others. You made an impact on all our lives and without you around, we will find a big void.
If there is a heaven, I have no doubt that you have already spoken to Jesus and have begun to argue politics with him right as I write. Give him Hell, Elizabeth! Somebody needs to hold him and his dad accountable, and you are the one with the spirit to do it, too.
Our love…
Remember that hideous and sick official of the Cheney Adminstration, Donald Duck-The-Truth-About-Iraq Rumsfeld? You know, the guy who reminded one of Dr. StrangeLove and Dr. Moreau both. Where is he? He was one of the principle proponents and architects for the policies of torturing US held POWs and the US government occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Is he hiding from prosecution?
Do you have feelings one way or another about your friends in the media business? It’s easy, I realize, if you’re not particularly activated about the war, to have no opinion about what the media is or is not telling you. It’s easy to remain apolitical if the news you hear doesn’t resonate with any alarm. You ask: “Everyone is against the war, why belabor the point?”
Let me put it to you this way. Let’s say that over the hill, on the other side of the world, 700,000 Iraqi children were being murdered. You may or may not know that, I excuse you for not knowing, 700,000 is a rough estimate extrapolated from the Johns Hopkins calculation that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed since the US invasion. We know that over half of the population are children. I can forgive you not knowing, but I have a harder time forgiving those who do know, and don’t want to tell you.
You’d think the death of 700,000 children would be cause for alarm.
Do you think if you knew about 700,000 children being killed, and that your fellow citizens knew, that you might be able to raise an objection, collectively, and prevail against your elected representatives to have the killing stopped? Perhaps we disagree on whether you could make a difference or not, or would be moved to make that difference. But I’m pretty damned sure that seeing 700,000 kids burned, strafed, sniped, exploded, starved, poisoned or run over, would prompt a universal humanitarian outcry, your voice included, and eventually the perpetrators would have to relent. That’s a likely reason, I believe, why you and others are not being shown the killing.
They watch 700,000 Iraqi kids die so you don’t have to.
Now what do you think of the people in the position to know, atop the hill, with an overview and the best analysts to deduce the horror being masked by military spokesmen? What do you think about those news people deciding not to tell you about it? The only people with the power to spread the word, with the power to save the children by alerting the rest of the world to the continuing slaughter; what is your opinion of those people?
Now it’s true, they have bosses who are beholden to the corporations that earn a ton from selling the weapons used to kill the kids. There’s oil afoot, and huge contracts, and all sort of profit to reap, and hell, an anti-capitalism spiritual belief system to tamp down. The corporate media have their reasons, and the newscasters are but people like you and me trying to hang on to their jobs. But 700,000 children. Should you begrudge the bastards 700,000 Iraqi children?
I’ve called them bastards, those with the means to cry out the alarm for the next 700,000 children who’ll die by the hands of our soldiers, our administrators, or our neglect. They won’t tell you about it, and you’ll profess your ignorance and meanwhile resent all attempts at intercession. I say those newsmen are bastards who would cover up for the crime of 700,000 murdered children. In what kind of regard do you hold them?
“While we acknowledge that Judge Walthers’ task may be unprecedented in Texas judicial history, we question whether the current proceedings adequately protect the fundamental rights of the mothers and children of the FLDS,” said Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, in a statement.
While the ACLU “deplores” crimes against children, Burke said that “constitutional rights that all Americans rely upon and cherish – that we are secure in our homes, that we may worship as we please and hold our places of worship sacred, and that we may be with our children absent evidence of imminent danger – have been threatened” by the state’s actions.
Lisa Graybill, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, said officials may have violated the U.S. Constitution and state laws in how they conducted the raid and the subsequent custody hearing.
“The government must ensure that each mother and each child in its custody receives due process of law in determining the placement of the children and other matters regarding the children’s care,” she said in the statement.
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And still there are no criminal charges brought against any of the parents for supposedly abusing their children as the press has alleged for almost 2 weeks now! Shame on the State of Texas and US Federal Government.
We Americans are innocent until proven guilty no more it certainly seems…
Sometimes the only thing standing between me and complete despondency is the mountain.
My fellow bloggers have endless energy to tackle important issues — homelessness, hunger, war, politics, environment, media, government, healthcare, torture, death. The list is depressing and endless. I admire them, but I am not made of steel like they are. I am more a fragile flower and, when buried under humanity’s toxic waste and cut off from nature’s largesse, I wither very quickly.
For me, the correlation between physical and mental energy is 1:1. So, rather than blog or read the Sunday paper today, I hiked Waldo Canyon!
A bit about the hike:
Heading west on Highway 24, you’ll find the trailhead on the right side just past the Manitou Springs exit. The Waldo Canyon loop is seven miles of easy trekking and amazing views. The scenery, especially the view of Pikes Peak, is the best reason to do this hike. In my opinion, seven miles of easy hiking is about four miles too many. I like to earn my relaxation with a couple miles of sheer hellish exertion.
I suppose if I were a runner — and there were quite a few of them beginning to train for the Pikes Peak Ascent — I might feel differently. Nonetheless, the cool weather, beautiful vistas, and proximity to the serious runner crowd made for an excellent Sunday morning!
Please don’t tell me what world news I’ve missed. Let me just enjoy my tired muscles and slightly sunburned shoulders until I’ve finished sorting my photos. The horrid world can wait for me today.
COLORADO SPRINGS- I attended a County Commission meeting Thursday morning and caught such a whiff of bureaucratic decay that I don’t have any faith that our local government works at all.
I came in as the County Treasurer was addressing a shortfall in income. According to her, the problem was owed to sales tax, particularly the use tax component, which the County simply wasn’t collecting, to the extent of the funds it was actually due. I’ve bored you already with an irrelevant over-simplification, but this woman was able to reiterate this non-specific summary for ten minutes. Use tax, blah blah, use tax blah blah. I thought it was a deliberate filibuster. She spoke in a kindly, completely perplexed tone, but she went on and on and on. She explained: you wouldn’t know it from the records, and I know the figures seem to indicate otherwise, and there’s no way of calculating exactly, but there it is, the use tax, etc, etc.
No sooner had she finished, and we couldn’t believe she had, believe me, but that the commissioner who next spoke, Sally Clark, had this response, I kid you not, and I paraphrase: “I just don’t understand how such a thing could be. Can you please explain this to me again?” Which prompted an interminable re-reiteration, as if the commissioner had ascertained the squirming of the audience and goaded the idiotic speaker for her further amusement. No really, someone, somewhere must have better things to do.
A memorial will be held for Wilma Joanne “Elizabeth” Fineron at Benet Hill Chapel, 2pm Monday April 28.
Steve Handon will officiate the ceremony. The music will be performed by First Strike Theater alumni. Benet Hill Monastery is at 2577 Chelton Rd. The chapel is located behind the school.
The Gazette wrote that Elizabeth walked her talk, the Indy featured a similar tribute. CSAction reprinted an email Elizabeth sent about her hospital ordeal.
Below we’ve collected some pictures of Elizabeth.
For a tribute and more pictures, click here.
For an amusing photo sequence, click here.
Elizabeth sent this email about her difficulties at the hospital:
I have had a very rough medical month and a half. I went into Memorial with Pneumonia the second week of March. While there they planned for me to return to have the right Corroded Artery done and in the meantime they sent me to Health South Rehab to work on balance. I stayed there a few days and returned home to wait two days to go back to Memorial for the surgery. I had the surgery and went home. At home I watched the hematoma on my neck get bigger and bigger and me get “dimmer and dimmer”. On Monday I saw Dr. Carlson and the next day (April 1st) I returned to Memorial for him to go in and heal the INFECTION. While in my neck he accidentally cut into the artery. In order to stop the bleeding he had to cut the main nerve to my tongue. A plastic surgeon (Dr. James) came and sewed up the tongue. Then Dr. Carlson put a patch on the Artery. Two days later he went back in to remove the patch and put a vein from the leg. While in something happened to my vocal cord. They kept me in Memorial a few more days and sent me back to Health Care South. I just got home yesterday and will have home medical care for a while. I feel very withdrawn from every thing so Paulette, if you want to call me or come visit me that would be terrific and I can get caught up. Love you both.
Elizabeth.
It’s hard being a puppet for foreign imperialists. Hamid Karzai almost paid for his crimes with his life Saturday, though the real target of this assassination attempt was the American occupation of Afghanistan. Afghan president survives assassination bid
Where did the Taliban learn these tactics of political assassination? Actually, they learned them from the Israeli and American governments, who operate in the same exact manner against their political opponents. These terrorists learned their tactics and strategy from other terrorists, terrorists much bigger and better organized than themselves!
It’s time to stop occupying other peoples’ countries. It’s time to end the occupation of Afghanistan. It’s time that the American ‘peace movement’ begin to oppose this war in an active manner.
America has followed Russia into occupying Afghanistan, and ultimately will end being pushed back out from that land., and it will be rightfully so, too. I cannot imagine a more stupid waste of our tax dollars than this madness of oppressing the poor people of Afghanistan.
John McCain isn’t just a maverick TM, he’s that unfavored horse in the Kentucky Derby!
They made a movie about him. America’s favorite underdog, a Heratio Alger story, T-Bone Pickens, poor boy makes good, Beverly Hillbillies, overcoming odds, Everyman, a dog’s life, Because of Wynn Dixie, Benjie, Fire House Dog, Rudy, boy struggling against disability, custodian math whiz, Pay it Forward, Sling Blade (didn’t see either), Bad News Bears, Rocky, mongrel saves world, Ugly Betty, what was that damn horse’s name? Old Stewball?
McCain kisses Bush 18% approval Ass, embraces Neocon war fiasco as his own, dons Yarmulke despite growing brazenness of Israeli crimes, and eclipses Keating Five savings and loan corruption infamy. Try as he might, McCain can’t paint himself dumber than good ol’ boy, how-bout-a-beer, George Dubya. But it makes him look pretty dumb, doesn’t it?
The maverick label was a whole cloth invention and Rockford should take it back for trademark infringement. McCain is no more a lone maverick than he is the poor-boy candidate on CNN’s income comparison. McCain’s wife beer-heiress Cindy is worth 100 million. What’s the income/ dividend/ interest on that kind of fortune, and why isn’t it included on this joint income survey? Oh my goodness. Are you getting any sense that our media is going to represent the election with any honesty? If John McCain mounts a mechanized Trojan horse at polling stations in predominantly Democratic districts, and personally tramples black voters, are we going to hear about it?
SIERRA MADRE, CALIFORNIA- My sister Lisa was evacuated last night from her home at the edge of the brush near Pasadena as a wildfire works its way down the canyon. You can check the latest status at the City’s website, and there’s a blogger undertaking communications at Penitent Rambling.
If Al Sharpton has his way, it’s the end of Obama.
The policemen in New York City were let off for pumping fifty bullets into an unarmed black man, a young bridegroom on the eve of his wedding. Racism is alive and well at the NYPD, and an angry protest by Americans of Color, calling for recognition of racism and reform of the New York police department, will amplify the issue further.
Meanwhile in Pleasantville USA, the suggestion had been ceremoniously posited to the American television audience, and spun without a ripple of discord, that in one eloquent moment last March, Barack Obama transcended the color barrier and dispatched racism to the circular file of American folklore. What a glorious feeling it was, to imagine our nation ready for a smart man in the presidency, regardless his color, but someone forgot to read the memo at the NYPD.
If the black community in NYC gets up in arms about the recent verdict, and does object to policemen, even black ones, being permitted to gun down innocents who fit suspicious profiles, ie. are black –if there is a indeed still a racial divide– what then happens to the colorblind society tapped to elect Obama in November?
If racial tensions build in NYC, Obama is not going to be half white enough.
I’ll vote for a black man, so will you, so will every Democrat on our horizon, but can you speak for the Hoosiers and hillbillies beyond? They have the vote too. Cops have the vote. NASCAR fans and Christian bigots and Rush viewers have the vote too. Lets also throw in Fox viewers, and the CNN misinformed, and everyone who is going to be barraged with the already uninterrupted glowing tributes of maverick, heroic, white man father-knows-best Hi-Ho-Silver McCain.
The worst thing the media could muster about McCain, as an equal time aside, while it was percolating the Obama mystique, was that McCain was too old. They joked about it dismissively, as if McCain had not a black man’s chance in Mayberry. McCain has gotten no younger, but the media will call it a comeback, and we can add that to their new-leaf effusive attaboy of McCain.
COLORADO SPRINGS- I watched yesterday as a group of homeless men disbanded beneath an underpass. I remarked how their yet unbent frames and close-shaved heads made them appear more menacing than usual. Then I noticed one had a graphite prosthetic calf, and I thought about our vets who disappear themselves into being vagabonds. Homelessness is elective you could say, like despondency or suicide. If one in four of America’s homeless are veterans, why not tell us what that fraction amounts to? They must know.
Americans were just leaked the number of suicides among our soldiers and veterans. It’s more even than have died in the Iraq war. We hear about the seemingly haphazard suicides, self-destructive acts and reckless endangerments, but who puts it together? Did you imagine the tally as a result of the war would be so high?
Probably the incidence of PTSD, they say now 30%, is equally under-documented. Who will contravene with the VA, the DoD and the State Department to give us the real totals?
Americans recently honored the 4,000th US casualty in Iraq. What was THAT milestone for? The American Friends Service Committee had been circulating a collection of army boots –Eyes Wide Open, before the number became unmanageable– to correspond to the official US losses. It didn’t occur to me how some military families might feel left out by that count. What about the non-combat deaths, or the wounded who expire stateside? What about the suicides, or the brain-dead? What about the broken bodies who would be over-represented by a pair of boots, who would need a single boot, or none at all?
What is the real figure so far, of US lives sacrificed to the war? What fraction of a Vietnam wall memorial are they setting aside for the true casualty count? Enough for ten thousand? Is our tally of wasted-lives several times that?
I want to know where are the yokels who make a big deal about supporting the troops? Where are they while homeless vets look for heat and food? Where is the support for young men haunted to the point of committing suicide? Is that yellow sticker on your car the furthest extent to which you support the troops? Do you hope your sticker remains obscured in the garage until the homeless vets pass?
I hope the yellow ribbon Support the Troops sticker comes to mean you’re good for a meal, a ride, a place to sleep, or spare change for a drink. I didn’t support the troops, what they did and still do, or the trouble they find themselves in now that their killing duty is served. You encouraged them, you’re still welcoming them home and cheering their continued deployment. You broke these young men, now support them.
Some pictures of Elizabeth Fineron in action.
